Link: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/05/23/groups-concerned-over-arming-of-domestic-drones/

With the use of domestic drones increasing, concern has not just come up over privacy issues, but also over the potential use of lethal force by the unmanned aircraft. Drones have been used overseas to target and kill high-level terror leaders and are also being used along the U.S.-Mexico border in the battle against illegal immigration. But now, these drones are starting to be used domestically at an increasing rate.

Link: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/05/23/media-blackout-obama-appoints-assassination-czar-137181/

Corporate news blackout as Obama appoints John Brennan as the sole person in charge of designating people to be assassinated. John Brennan, Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor was a name that you did not see on the Mainstream media today as they continue to run stories that serve to distract the masses from stories that matter. Video- http://youtu.be/AFs0lV42U7s

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2012/05/23/new-stage-of-resistance-in-greece

New elections have been set for June 17 in Greece, and the far-left SYRIZA alliance is currently favored in opinion polls to take first place. If that happens, it would be a stunning blow to the austerity agenda that the bankers, bosses and political elite of Europe have imposed on Greece, in the form of the so-called “Memorandum.”

Link: http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/23/dea-backed-honduran-commandos-put-gun-to

Apparently, the United States’ Central American law enforcement partners didn't get the memo about Obama ending the “war on drugs," because after killing two pregnant women from a helicopter in which DEA agents were riding shotgun, the Honduran military (and, allegedly, several American contractors) then raided a small village:

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/05/only-bombing-iran-into-submission-will.html

Iran and six world powers are meeting today for nuclear talks in Baghdad - and Israel is unsurprisingly unhappy about such diplomacy.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/may2012/morg-m23.shtml

The more the crisis from derivatives losses at America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase, expands the more the debacle exposes the criminality of the capitalist financial system and the corruption of its political facilitators. Less than two weeks after JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon stated in a hastily assembled conference call that his bank had lost $2 billion in trades on credit default swaps by its London-based Chief Investment Office, financial analysts are warning that the total loss could rise to $7 billion.

Link: http://www.upiasia.com/Top-News/2012/05/23/Concerns-focus-on-Fukushima-unit-stability/UPI-67051337797686/

Whether a pool where spent fuel is stored at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant could withstand another strong earthquake has become a source of growing concern. The concerns among activists, experts and politicians focus on Unit 4, which contains most of the plant's spent fuel not stored in dry, hardened storage casks, Stars and Stripes reported. After the 9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, an investigative report by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, an independent think tank started to investigate the causes of the plant disaster, cited among risks a loss of cooling water in Unit 4. If left exposed, the spent fuel could heat and melt, releasing a huge amount of radiation.

Link: http://enenews.com/caldicott-corium-hasnt-finished-will-never-finish-means-japan-financially-video

Helen Caldicott: The Medical Implications of Fukushima, Nuclear Power and Nuclear Proliferation. Dr. Helen Caldicott: They don’t know how to clean it up. It’s not in cold shutdown. The corium — the mass, hundred tons of melted uranium lava — is laying on the floor of the containment vessels. It hasn’t finished and will never finish. I think it means the end of Japan financially. Is the corium inside the containment vessels? Top Japan official: Very strong possibility there is nuclear fuel outside containment vessel: VIDEO

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107894

ATLANTA, Georgia - A coalition of advocacy groups is targeting corporate support for the right-wing Heartland Institute after the organization took out a controversial billboard in Chicago comparing people who believe in global warming to a serial killer and mass murderer.

Link: http://piazzadcara.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/market-crash-alert-by-mike-whitney/

As you might have noticed, the stock market is falling like a stone. As of 9 AM PST, the Dow Jones has dropped 172 points while all the other indices are down sharply. German 2-year debt (bund) has dipped below 0% this morning at auction, signalling an acceleration in the bank run taking place in southern Europe. Depositors in Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, etc would rather take a loss on their investment, then risk not getting their money back at all. The European Central Bank (ECB) does not guarantee deposits, so people are withdrawing their money en masse and getting out of Dodge pronto. What we’re seeing is a real-time panic.

Link: http://lewrockwell.com/orig11/sullivan-c10.1.html

In 1972 a wonderful little book was published. It arrived with little fanfare yet somehow it has managed to survive for 25 years. Most people have never read it. These are the same people who today are asking questions about what went wrong with America. These are the same people who today find that their plans for the future, no matter how hard they have worked to make those plans a reality, have vanished into thin air. These are the same people who are working 3 jobs to keep what one job secured for them 20 years ago.......These people are you and I, the working middle class, the "We the People."

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-gibson/nato-protests_b_1537472.html

Remember when police beat Tea Party activists with batons, raided homes without warrants, unjustly arrested and strip-searched Tea Party protesters, or attacked and intimidated journalists covering Tea Party rallies? Me neither. But then again, the Tea Party took to the streets in favor of higher profits and less regulations for the richest 1 percent, whose ranks they hope to but will never join. The media is more than happy to inflate their crowd estimates, and police are more than happy to let pro-status quo protests take to the streets undisturbed. The Tea Party has since phased out street protests to take over a major political party and make it bend to their every radical whim.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/23-5

Marchers defy Bill 78; Neighborhoods fill with sound of banging pots and pans. That's how yesterday's Montreal protest is being described today. Hundreds of thousands red-shirted demonstrators defied Quebec's new "anti-protest" law and marched through the streets of downtown Montreal filling the city with "rivers of red."

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/23-10

The original debt deal required a bipartisan “supercommittee” to find $4 trillion in deficit savings, or “sequestration” would automatically be triggered — an across-the-board cut of $1.2 trillion in each party’s priority: domestic programs and defense. Even under that self-imposed sword of Damocles, Congress failed to do its job, setting the cuts in motion. But House Republicans argued that the requisite cuts to defense funding would harm national security. Take the money from food stamps and health care for the poor, they cried, as they cradled the defense industry in their arms.