Afghanistan Deaths: August Is Deadliest Month Ever For U.S. Troops

KABUL, Afghanistan -- August has become the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the nearly 10-year-old war in Afghanistan, where international forces have started to go home and let Afghan forces take charge of securing their country.

A record 66 U.S. troops have died so far this month, eclipsing the 65 killed in July 2010, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

This month's death toll soared when 30 Americans - most of them elite Navy SEALs - were killed in a helicopter crash Aug. 6. They were aboard a Chinook shot down as it was flying in to help Army Rangers who had come under fire in Wardak province. It was the single deadliest incident of war being waged by Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces and insurgents.

On Tuesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai used the start of a three-day Muslim holiday to plead with insurgents to lay down their arms and help rebuild the nation. Karzai wants Afghan security forces to take the lead in defending and protecting the nation by the end of 2014.

Citi Executive: 'Corporate Sector Cannot Continue To Simply Cut Costs'

High corporate profits have been one of the few bright spots for the global recovery. One high-level financial executive isn't so sure that success can be sustained.

Richard Cookson, global chief investment officer at Citi, told CNBC's Squawk Box on Tuesday that corporation's reliance on cost-cutting to increase growth may soon run out of steam. Many corporations have posted strong profits during the recovery, largely due to cost-cutting and increased productivity from the consequently diminished workforce. That model is simply not sustainable, says Cookson.

"In aggregate, the corporate sector cannot continue to just simply slash costs rather than have top-line growth," he told CNBC. "It just doesn't work."

Corporate profits hit an all-time high of $1.68 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2010, subsequently maintaining solid growth. Three out of four companies on the S&P 500 saw larger profits than expected in the second quarter of this year, according to Bloomberg. But Cookson contends diminishing margins make that a temporary fix at most.

William Koch, Billionaire Brother Of Charles And David Koch, Buys Old West Town Of Buckskin Joe

In a move that makes this Koch brother look more and more like the Monopoly board game mascot, Rich Uncle Pennybags, billionaire William Koch has purchased the entire Buckskin Joe old mining town -- and is moving the town to his ranch near Gunnison, according to Westword.

In Sept. 2010, Buckskin Joe and the Royal Gorge Scenic Railroad was sold for $3.1 million to Koch, who then wished to remain anonymous, the Pueblo Chieftain reported.

According to The Gazette, Buckskin Joe's buildings are already being dismantled, presumably so they can be shipped to Koch's ranch and reassembled. Buckskin Joe was originally an 1860s mining boom town located near Alma, Colo. But the name and the one surviving building were relocated in 1957 to Canon City to serve as a tourist attraction and movie set for Hollywood westerns like 1972's "The Cowboys."

William Koch, who is apparently an Old West aficionado, purchased what is believed to be the last surviving authentic portrait of Billy the Kid for $2.3 million back in June, The Huffington Post reported.

While William collects pieces of the Old West, his two brothers, Charles and David, host private fundraisers for the world’s wealthiest businessmen and poltiticians and donate millions to conservative groups.

Origin
Source: Huffington 

Hurricane Irene Exposes Creaky American Infrastructure

In the winter of 1992, a nor'easter sent a storm surge over the floodwall guarding the southern tip of Manhattan. Seawater quickly overwhelmed major roadways and New York City's subway system, shutting down the entire subway for nearly 10 days.

"If Hurricane Irene had hit an hour differently or 10 percent stronger or moved 10 percent slower, it would have caused a repeat of that event," Jeff Masters, a meteorologist with the leading forecasting service Weather Underground, told The Huffington Post.

Masters and other experts warn that the city may not be as lucky next time. As the warming climate brings higher rainfall and raises the sea level, they say, ever more pressure will fall on America's aging infrastructure.

Kenneth Melson Resigns As ATF Chief Over 'Fast And Furious' Gun Trafficking Operation

Kenneth Melson is out as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

Melson has been under fire from Republicans over the scandal surrounding the gun trafficking program Operation Fast and Furious. The Justice Department announced that Melson will be moving to the Office of Legal Policy.

Melson has been under pressure to step aside since earlier this summer, after a House Oversight Committee hearing revealed controversial aspects of the program. ATF agents charged with monitoring the illegal sale and transfer of guns from the U.S. To Mexican drug cartels told lawmakers that, instead of arresting small-time buyers, they were ordered to stand by and let the guns go through, in the hopes of tracing them to larger arms dealers.

Books by Rumsfeld and Cheney are symbols of lies that led to invasion of Iraq

"When one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it," wrote Joseph Goebbels, Germany's Reich minister of propaganda, in 1941. Former Vice President Dick Cheney seems to have taken the famous Nazi's advice in his new book, In My Time. Cheney remains staunch in his convictions on issues from the invasion of Iraq to the use of torture. Telling NBC News in an interview that "there are gonna be heads exploding all over Washington" as a result of the revelations in the book, Cheney's memoir follows one by his colleague and friend Donald Rumsfeld. As each promotes his own version of history, there are people challenging and confronting them.

Rumsfeld's book title, Known and Unknown, is drawn from a notorious response he gave in one of his Pentagon press briefings as secretary of defense. On Feb. 12, 2002, attempting to explain the lack of evidence linking Iraq to weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld said: "[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Are Virginia's New Abortion Rules the Worst Yet?

On Friday evening, Virginia's Department of Health issued a strict new set of rules for abortion clinics—and women's health advocates fear that facilities that can't comply could be shuttered.

The regulations require Virginia's 22 clinics to meet strict new physical standards; pre-op rooms, for example, must measure at least 80 square feet, and operating rooms must measure 250 square feet. Hallways must be at least five feet wide. The requirements are based on the state's 2010 guidelines for new outpatient surgical facilities.

Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, told Mother Jones on Monday that the new rules may actually be the most strict regulations in the United States. "It would be challenging for the majority of our facilities to continue offering first-trimester care," Keene said. "These are designed to really cease first-trimester abortion services in the Commonwealth of Virginia."

Attack of the Monsanto Superinsects

Over the past decade and a half, as Monsanto built up its globe-spanning, multi-billion-dollar genetically modified seed empire, it made two major pitches to farmers.

The first involved weeds. Leave the weed management to us, Monsanto insisted. We've engineered plants that can survive our very own herbicide. Just pay up for our patented, premium-priced seeds, spray your fields with our Roundup herbicide whenever the fancy strikes, and—voilà!—no more weeds.

The second involved crop-eating insects. We've isolated the toxic gene of a commonly used bacterial pesticide called Bt, Monsanto announced, and spliced it directly into crops. Along with corn and soy, you will literally be growing the pesticide that protects them. Plant our seeds, and watch your crops thrive while their pests shrivel and die.

A Privately Owned Nuclear Weapons Plant in…Kansas City?

In Kansas City, Missouri, a local zoning fight is going nuclear, literally: A Monday-morning courtroom showdown between activists and politicians could determine whether the city becomes host to the world's first privately owned nuclear weapons plant.

The proposed plant, a 1.5 million-square-foot, $673 million behemoth, would replace an aging facility, also in KC, where 85 percent (PDF) of the components for nation's nuclear arms are produced. The new plant would be run by the same government contractor as the old one—Honeywell—and proponents say the only major change will be more jobs and city infrastructure. But there will be another big difference: The federal government will sublease the property from a private developer, who in turn will lease it from the city for 20 years…after which the developer will own it outright.

Cheney Book: Photoshopping Plamegate

Here we go again, more Plamegate revisionism. But the latest practitioner is no surprise: Dick Cheney.

In his new memoir, In My Time, the former vice president (with an assist from coauthor/daughter Liz Cheney) serves up a self-serving and selective account of the episode that rocked the White House (his office, in particular) and that nearly sent one of his closest aides to the hoosegow.

The controversy centered on 16 words President George W. Bush spoke during his January 28, 2003, State of the Union speech: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This was one of the key arguments the White House was then presenting in public to bolster its case that Saddam Hussein was neck-deep in weapons of mass destruction and an invasion of Iraq was damn-well necessary. But for months, the CIA and State Department analysts had investigated reports of Saddam's supposed uranium-shopping in Niger—which were based in part on suspect documents—and had found no compelling evidence to back up the allegation. Some intelligence analysts had concluded that such a deal not only had not happened but also could not have occurred. The CIA had made certain to remove references to the Niger charge from earlier Bush speeches, but the White House kept trying to squeeze this claim in—and eventually succeeded.