Mills joined director Laura Poitras, producer Dirk Wilutzky and journalist Glenn Greenwald onstage.

Poitras’ film documents her initial meeting in Hong Kong with Snowden.

Snowden was charged under the federal Espionage Act and is currently living in asylum in Russia. Because of the sensitive nature of the footage, Poitras made "Citizenfour" under intense secrecy and edited it in Germany.

"Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage, and for the many other whistleblowers, and I share this with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists who are exposing truth," Poitras said when accepting the award.

"Citizenfour" won Best Documentary at the Oscars on Sunday night. Director Laura Poitras accepted the award with Glenn Greenwald by her side.

"The disclosures that Edward Snowden reveals don't only expose a threat to privacy but to democracy itself," she said "Thank you to Edward Snowden and to the many other whistleblowers."

But Giuliani?? The man allowed one of the biggest attacks on this country to happen, because of his ARROGANCE.

He refused to take the advice of veteran Terror Experts who had warned him for years, that NYC would likely be a target AGAIN.

After the attack on the WTC in 1993 it was generally expected that it would happen again.

But GIULIANI was CONFIDENT that 'NYC is the SAFEST City in the World'!

On that tragic day he was running to hide in his bunker.

The bunker he was TOLD not to place in a likely 'target area'.

But once again, Giuliani refused to listen. HE knew best.

So we saw him wandering the streets of NYC after the attack, dazed and confused, because he had nowhere to go!

There was no Command Center from which to organize due to this man's failure to listen.

He wasn't about to cancel a lucrative contract that paid for the faulty equipment that FAILED on the day it was most needed.

Fire Fighters across the country blame him for the deaths of hundreds of Fire Fighters that day.

A. PRIOR TO 9/11

1. IGNORING THE FBI - When the WTC was attacked in 1993 and we had a President who actually captured and killed EVERY person responsible for those attacks, the FBI released a series of recommendations to NYC to follow in the mid 1990s. But Giuliani, by that point replacing a competent Bill Bratton with an incompetent Howard Safir (and later third grade detective and door holder Bernie Kerik) put his ego (Giuliani is an incompetent leader and only feels secure around people even more incompetent) ahead of security and snubbed his nose at the FBI. Had these recommendations been implemented, more American lives in NYC would have been saved on 9/11.

2. FIREFIGHTER EQUIPMENT - Part of those recommendations were to give the firefighters radio equipment to communicate from ground to air. Those on the ground knew that the WTC would collapse 15-20 minutes down the road. IF the firefighters had the proper radio equipment, they would have been told to get out. Instead, they climbed to their death.

3. The COMMAND CENTER IN THE SKY - Only an idiot builds a command center 23 stories in the sky next to a major target of terrorists AFTER being told by the FBI NOT TO. Had there been an operational command center on 9/11, more lives would have been saved.

4. COORDINATION OF DEPARTMENTS - Again Giuliani the incompetent ignored the FBI recommendations to coordinate police with fire and EMT. Instead, we had a bunch of people running around not knowing what to do. This indecisiveness and confusion cost lives on 9/11.

B. GIULIANI ON 9/11

1. INTRODUCTION - Of the 3 categories, Giuliani will get his highest marks here by default. What Giuliani does best is speak to the camera and he did that well. But giving press conferences as opposed to taking meaningful actions are two different things. And keep in mind that with Bush reading My Pet Goat, ANYBODY would have looked good compared to Bush.

2. RUNNING AROUND, DOING NOTHING - From 8:46 am to 10:00 am was the time for Giuliani to be a leader. And Giuliani failed. He spent the time wandering the streets of lower Manhattan aimlessly not knowing what to do. He was lost and clueless. (The press conferences came later.)

3. SCREWING THE FIREFIGHTERS - Giuliani and his brass had the opportunity to save lives but didn't. Instead they got word that the WTC might collapse. Instead of captains taking 2 extra minutes to help their sailors, Giuliani decided to jump ship without the thought of trying to send word to the firefighter to get out of the buildings.

C. AFTER 9/11

1. EPA CORRUPTION - Giuliani and the Bush administration concealed environmental hazards and air conditions at 9/11 basically sending rescue workers to their deaths down the road. This is shameful.

2. LAWSUITS - Instead of helping the victims of 9/11 recover, Giuliani and Bush have been preventing these plaintiffs from getting what they are entitled to. Hero my ass.

3. PROFITTING OFF 9/11 - It's been well documented how Giuliani has exploited this tragedy for personal profit. The thing is Giuliani didn't do anything.

4. STEALING 9/11 VICTIM FUND MONEY - This is the one that should destroy Giuliani. To have the chutzpah to take money meant for the widows of 9/11 and redirecting it to his cronies is unforgivable.

5. TRIED SUSPENDING DEMOCRACY - If the terrorists hate us for our freedom, they sure must love Giuliani for Rudy tried to extend his term as mayor for 3 extra months.

6. IGNORING BIN LADEN, PRAISING BUSH During the 2004 convention, Giuliani said "Thank God George W Bush is our president." (I'd love for Democrats to make a commercial out of that in 2008 if Giuliani did get the nomination.) But what pissed New Yorkers off most is how Giuliani didn't give a flying __ about capturing Bin Laden and instead being a cheerleader for unrelated policies. New Yorkers want Bin Laden dead and Giuliani gave us a big middle finger.

CONCLUSION

The record as a whole shows Giuliani to be a miserable failure on 9/11 and his status as some kind of hero is completely mythological and driven by the corporate media. Somewhere in a safe house in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden was probably saying to himself, "Thank Allah George W Bush is President, Thank Allah Rudy Giuliani is Mayor of New York City. The death toll would never have been as high without them."

The nomination quickly unraveled as numerous disturbing facts about Kerik began to surface. A few days of digging by news organizations revealed that Bush had planned to entrust one of the most sensitive jobs in his cabinet to a man who had failed to report lavish gifts he received as a New York City official, had declared personal bankruptcy and was the subject of an arrest warrant in a civil case involving unpaid condominium fees. A cover story was quickly concocted about taxes not being paid for a nanny who allegedly worked for Kerik and citing this issue, Kerik promptly withdrew his nomination. The nanny story, too, soon unraveled as it became apparent that there was no nanny working for Kerik. A New York Times story ran with the headline “Not even those who lived nearby can shed light on nanny's identity.” It was becoming clear that Kerik’s unsuitability was premised upon wrongdoing much more serious than merely hiring undocumented household help.

It was reported that Kerik’s overseer, Rudy Giuliani, vouched for Kerik and convinced the Bush White House that the normal vetting process for a cabinet nominee was not required. It is likely that Giuliani was well aware of what would have been revealed but in his zeal to install a loyal underling who could have greatly aided Giuliani’s consulting business, personal assurances were given and Bush’s people were at least temporarily satisfied.



9/11 self-aggrandizer, Rudy Giuliani, vouched for Kerik’s trustworthiness, allowing him to at least initially escape the normal vetting process for a cabinet nominee

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) today blamed a Ukrainian delegation for the photos supposedly depicting Russian atrocities in Ukraine, which he provided to a DC news site and subsequently discovered were outdated.

According to BuzzFeed, Inhofe’s office told them that the photos, eventually published by the Washington Free Beacon, had come from a “delegation” including two first-year members of parliament, some academics, and some military officers.

“We felt confident to release these photos because the images match the reporting of what is going on in the region,” Inhofe said in a statement to BuzzFeed. “I was furious to learn one of the photos provided now appears to be falsified from an AP photo taken in 2008.

Last night, the Free Beacon updated its story with the headline “Updated: Provenance of Photos Showing Atrocities Questioned,” and added the reporting from BuzzFeed in their final update. “The Washington Free Beacon regrets the error,” they added.

Video of Sen. James Inhofe presenting photographs to the Senate on Feb. 11 of what he said were Russian tanks in Ukraine last year. Two of the three images were in fact taken in 2008 during Russia's war with Georgia; the third shows Russian-backed separatists.

In his prepared remarks, Mr. Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, said the images of “Russian troops in T-72 tanks, B.T.R. armored personnel carriers, and B.M.P. infantry fighting vehicles entering eastern Ukraine” constituted evidence of “an invasion of the Ukraine by Russia.”

While none of his colleagues saw anything amiss with the presentation, The Washington Free Beacon, a friendly conservative news outlet Mr. Inhofe’s staff provided the same images to, acknowledged on Thursday that “serious questions have been raised about the authenticity of some of the photographs” by bloggers with access to Google Image search.

Clearly, Powell's loyalty to George Bush extended to being willing to deceive the world: the United Nations, Americans, and the coalition troops about to be sent to kill and die in Iraq. He's never been held accountable for his actions, and it's extremely unlikely he ever will be.

In a Q&A at the Brookings Institution, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said that he would skip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to a joint session of Congress. Last week, Vice President Joe Biden's office had announced a scheduling conflict that would keep him away from the speech. Sanders had no such conflict: He was insulted by the end-run Republicans had done around the White House.

"I'm not thinking about it," said Sanders. "I'm not going. I may watch it on TV."

Sanders is the first U.S. senator, and the first potential Democratic presidential candidate, to stake a position against the Netanyahu speech. He's definitely the first Netanyahu-boycotter to have spent time working on a kibbutz in Israel. Sanders, who has defended the Jewish state in the past, was making a move that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.

......

Tellingly, the question did not come from the assembled press. It came from an audience member, after Sanders snarked about how many media questions were focusing on whether Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren would also run for president.

"This is kind of what media does," said Sanders, rebuffing a question about some recent progressive endorsements for Warren. "It likes to speculate. If you'll forgive me, I'm not into speculation."

At Brookings, as he'd done at primary state speeches, Sanders talked openly about a 2016 presidential bid and what it would cost. "If you had 2 million people putting in $100, that's $200 million," he suggested. "Is that enough? I don't know. Maybe the game is over."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who is flirting with a 2016 presidential bid, today became the first U.S. senator to officially announce he will skip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress next month.

Sanders, the longest-serving Independent in Congress, said it was wrong that the president wasn't consulted about the prime minister's visit. His statement came during a Q&A session after a speech at the Brookings Institution.

Three House Democrats have said they will boycott Netanyahu's speech, according to the Associated Press, and some Senate Democrats said they are considering it, including the number two Democrat in the Senate Dick Durbin, R-Illinois. Vice President Joe Biden also will not attend the speech because he will be traveling abroad.

Hollande's anger at Netanyahu was evident during the ceremony held Sunday evening following the march at the Grand Synagogue in Paris, an event attended by hundreds of members of the local Jewish community.

Hollande sat through most of the ceremony, but when Netanyahu's turn at the podium arrived, the French president got up from his seat and made an early exit.

"Hollande sat through most of the ceremony, but when Netanyahu's turn at the podium arrived, the French president got up from his seat and made an early exit."
.....


"Before Netanyahu began his speech, President Hollande left with his entourage... The impressive delegation of leaders from the Muslim community who attended the ceremony also chose to leave. They all, apparently, had prior commitments."

Netanyahu's conduct was widely criticised by Israeli commentators.

"It was embarrassing, not to say disgraceful, to see Israel's prime minister yesterday trying to push his way onto a bus that he was not supposed to board, making his way determinedly from the second row (where he was placed) to the row of leaders walking in front (which he took over), behaving in a mourning parade as in an election rally," Ben Caspit wrote in the rightwing Maariv newspaper.

"The reprisal was not late in coming. President Francois Hollande fell on Abu Mazen’s (Abbas's) shoulders in a close embrace but greeted Netanyahu with a frozen hand."

On March 3, 1991 the California Highway Patrol pulled over Rodney King for speeding after a brief chase. He was subsequently Tased and beaten by four L.A.P.D. officers, while another 10 or so stood by and watched. He was unarmed.

......

On March 8, 1991, only five days after the incident, the district attorney in Los Angeles impaneled a grand jury, asking for indictments for assault and excessive force by a police officer against four officers. On March 14, the grand jury returned indictments for all four officers—11 days after the incident.

The day after the verdicts, President George H.W. Bush ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate possible federal charges against the officers. William Barr was attorney general. Bush said when he watched the video of Rodney King he “felt anger, [he] felt pain,” and he wondered, “How am I going to explain this to my grandchildren?” Los Angeles Chief of Police Daryl Gates said after watching the video, “It was a very, very extreme use of force--extreme for any police department in America. But for the L.A.P.D., considered by many to be the finest, most professional police department in the world, it was more than extreme. It was impossible.”

On August 4, 1992 a federal grand jury returned indictments against all four officers. A trial was held and two officers were found guilty. They were sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. The U.S. Department of Justice appealed the officers’ sentences to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that they were overly lenient.

Twenty-three years later, the nation’s attention is captured by a series of brutal attacks on black men by police officers. This time, the attacks are deadlier, the use of force against the black men has escalated from a brutal beating to shooting and choking to death. Even Sergeant Stacey Koon, the supervisor on scene who oversaw the beating of King and instructed his officers to continue beyond any reasonable point of submission, testified at trial that he had instructed the original responding C.H.P. officers to holster their firearms because he wanted to avoid using deadly force if he could. He later went to federal prison. It’s a terribly uncomfortable twist of fate that we can now look to Sergeant Stacey Koon’s actions as an example of police restraint.