The meat industry is upset over new guidelines that promote healthier foods for school lunches, so they were happy to publicize an LA Times report that kids were throwing away some of the food. What they left out was why.

David S. Cloud has an amazing piece in today’s Los Angeles Times on the sobering reality and cold-hearted bloodlust of remote drone warfare. Cloud’s story tells, in gripping, fully fleshed from all angles, detail the story of an United States killer drone operation gone awry.

Thanks to the support and generosity of everyone who signs up to be a Founding Member of the Firedoglake Membership Program, we can continue to provide an independent space for the people who make FDL what it is on a daily basis — our community. From all of the staff here at FDL, we thank you sincerely for your generosity, and look forward to working with you in shaping our path toward the future.

The traditional media has finally taken note of the campaign by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to enlist private security firms in a plan to smear their political enemies using dirty tricks

This morning is the tale of two headlines — one from The New York Times and one from the Los Angeles Times — which are completely at odds with each other with regard to health care costs and the rationale for premium rate hikes. If health care spending has grown by only 4%, why does Blue Shield of California need to increase its rates by as much as 59%?

Neil Katz of CBS News notes that “Facebook’s position on the ads is ironic considering the content found on its site. One group called “Marihuana, Marijuana, Mariguana” has 369,000 active monthly users who post photos of bikini clad bong smokers and giant piles of weed. A popular game on Facebook called “Pot Farm” has 740,000 monthly users who enjoy trying grow their own virtual marijuana fields.”

[More coverage after the jump. You can see the ad Facebook banned, sign the Facebook petition and swap our your Facebook picture for the censored "Just Say Now" image here.]

The Long War is all kinds of crazy and absurd. Nobody wants a forever war with “unimaginable” costs, a collapse of the domestic political agenda, and untold thousands of dead. We don’t need to waste time legitimizing crazy ideas like the Long War doctrine, we need to have congressional hearings and media scrutiny on the actual events on the ground.

It would seem unnecessary to kill a guy for planning the Cole bombing if you knew you had the suspect who planned the Cole bombing in custody. But claiming a tie between him and the Cole bombing might provide the excuse to target a car carrying your real target: Derwish.