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You've got to admit that it's awfully precious that there was a huge controversy about "Zero Dark Thirty" because Kathryn Bigelow's film suggested that enhanced interrogation techniques helped intelligence officials find Osama bin Laden but no controversy about the final mission in the movie -- to kill, but not capture, the al-Qaida leader. Some of the film's defenders believe that the controversy robbed "Zero Dark Thirty," Bigelow, actress Jessica Chastain and screenwriter Mark Boal of well-deserved Oscars. Maybe so but maybe not; a number of fine films were up for best picture this year. But it cannot have helped that...

LOS ANGELES — It’s not over yet for “Zero Dark Thirty” — at least, not in the complaints department. As the Oscars approach on Sunday, the film, which is nominated for five awards, including best picture, has drawn new objections from the survivors of Betty Ann Ong, a flight attendant who died in the Sept. 11 attacks. The survivors contend that Ms. Ong’s voice, recorded on a call from American Airlines Flight 11 before it hit the World Trade Center, was improperly used in an opening sequence of “Zero Dark Thirty.” They are demanding an apology at the Academy Awards...

On the eve of Sunday's Academy Awards presentation, former George W. Bush CIA Director Michael Hayden has made a strong statement about the hunt for Osama bin Laden film "Zero Dark Thirty." In an interview to be aired on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday, Hayden said, "If you look at the movie, it was artistically true, not factually true. Artistically, it portrayed the CIA interrogation program, but factually it was overwrought and inaccurate" (video follows with transcript and commentary): Bush CIA Director: 'Zero Dark Thirty' Portrayal of Interrogations 'Not Factually True' FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: Did enhanced interrogation techniques, specifically waterboarding,...

I SAW “Argo” with Jerry Rafshoon, who was a top aide to President Carter during the Iranian hostage crisis, when six Americans escaped and were given sanctuary for three months by courageous Canadian diplomats. We were watching a scene where a C.I.A. guy can’t get through to Hamilton Jordan, Carter’s chief of staff, to sign off on plane tickets for the escaping hostages, so he pretends to be calling from the school where Jordan’s kids go. “Hamilton wasn’t married then and didn’t have any kids,” Jerry whispered, inflaming my pet peeve about filmmakers who make up facts in stories about...

The Navy SEAL who claims he shot and killed Osama bin Laden in the famous raid which captured America's most wanted terrorist has spoken for the first time about the moment he shot the al Qaeda three times in the head and watched him take his last breath. The Team Six member - who is referred to as 'The Shooter' for the safety of his family - described in unforgettable detail the days leading up to the kill, the moment he shot bin Laden three times and the fallout from the raid. Once they were given their mission, the woman...

"Zero Dark Thirty," the film about the hunt for and killing of Osama bin Laden, got a fresh infusion of buzz over the weekend when outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed again that enhanced interrogation techniques aided the effort to find bin Laden. "Some of it came from ... interrogation tactics that were used," he said. "But the fact is we put together most of that intelligence without having to resort to that. I think we could have gotten bin Laden without that." In other words, the movie exaggerates the role played by enhanced interrogation techniques -- torture to...

In "Zero Dark Thirty," the movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden, one of the first scenes shows a terrorist being waterboarded, where useful information gets extracted. The movie thus asserts the controversial practice leads to actionable intelligence. Not only was former President George W. Bush criticized for "authorizing torture," his critics argued that "torture doesn't work." During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama said: "Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. ... No more secret authorization of methods like simulated drowning. When I am President, America will once again be the country that stands...

Defense Secretary Panetta admits that CIA used the information from waterboarding to capture Osama Bin Laden • Controversial film Zero Dark Thirty has graphic waterboarding scene • Director Kathryn Bigelow says all information in the film was based on 'first hand accounts' of what happened but now Senator disputes theory Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that some of the information that was used to locate and kill Osama bin Laden was attained using torture. The admission comes after months of speculation about the role that waterboarding plays in CIA interrogations following its graphic depiction in the Oscar-nominated film Zero Dark...

Zero Dark Thirty is too important to be boycotted by anyone but activists. Zero Dark Thirty, screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow’s new film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is weathering a storm of criticism. Critics overwhelmingly give the film positive reviews, but activists claim that it approves of and even glorifies the use of torture against suspected al-Qaida terrorists held in secret CIA prisons and “black” sites. The accusation is ludicrous. Nothing in Zero Dark Thirty suggests that either Boal or Bigelow approves of torture. So many have accused Bigelow of torture advocacy that she took...

HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA.com) — The critics agree “Zero Dark Thirty” — a film depicting the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden — is gritty and moving. The movie is also filled with scenes of disturbing and graphic torture and has many people upset. But not about the images and what they depict — what the images suggest. The film has garnered five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. But it’s also beset with controversy and criticism. CBS2 and KCAL9 Political Reporter Dave Bryan went to a theater in Hollywood Friday evening and spoke to a group of people who say the movie...

The nominees for the 2013 Academy Awards have been revealed in Los Angeles. Find out who is in the running for the main prizes below. This page will be updated shortly with a full list of nominees. Best film Amour Argo Beasts Of The Southern Wild Django Unchained Les Miserables Lincoln Life Of Pi Silver Linings Playbook Zero Dark Thirty Best actress Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook Emmanuelle Riva - Amour Quvenzhane Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild Naomi Watts - The Impossible

The Left's battle against "Zero Dark Thirty" continues, but this time the Oscar-winning director of the film is being called far worse than an apologist for "torture." A trio of senators previously critiqued the minds behind the movie, detailing the hunt for Osama bin Laden, for daring to suggested enhanced interrogation tactics helped nab the terrorist leader. Now, progressive critic Naomi Wolf is comparing Bigelow to the Nazis' premier propagandist. In a time of darkness in America, you are being feted by Hollywood, and hailed by major media. But to me, the path your career has now taken reminds of...

It is an odd experience to enter a darkened room and, for more than two and a half hours, watch someone tell a story that you experienced intimately in your own life. But that is what happened recently as I sat in a movie theater near Times Square and watched “Zero Dark Thirty,” the new Hollywood blockbuster about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. When I was head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center from 2002 to 2004 and then director of the National Clandestine Service until late 2007, the campaign against al-Qaeda was my life and obsession. I must say,...

Life-giving substances shouldn’t be treated as pollutantsThe environmentalist movement has gone off the deep end. It’s bad enough that the courts have allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to declare carbon dioxide, one of the essential components of life on this planet, to be a pollutant. Now the same bureaucratic zealots are going after water itself. On Friday, Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II appeared in federal district court in Alexandria to contest the EPA’s use of the Clean Water Act to punish Virginia and Fairfax County for sending too much water into a watershed. “These regulations are expensive,...

Alaskan liberty goes up in smoke under new air regulationsNot-so-unintended consequences of overregulation are in the air. Newly adopted rules limiting airborne soot imposed by bureaucrats in Washington threaten to freeze the choices — and toes — of individuals living more than 4,000 miles away in subarctic Alaska. Thanks to authoritarian overreach, the freedom of America’s “last frontier” may not last much longer. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waited until after President Obama’s re-election to announce drastic new restrictions on soot produced by industry smokestacks, diesel trucks and even ordinary sources like wood-burning stoves. The new standard for the great...

EPA: ‘Nothing to fear’ on climate regs By Andrew Restuccia - 04/26/11 10:43 AM ET Environmental Protection Administrator Lisa Jackson said Tuesday that the public has no reason to fear the agency’s pending climate regulations. “I believe there is nothing to fear from common-sense use of the Clean Air Act to begin to put this country in the direction of moving towards addressing our greenhouse gas emissions,” Jackson said during remarks at an energy conference in Washington. The EPA has begun phasing in greenhouse gas standards for new and modified power plants and refineries. The regulations have come under attack...

See also: Obama Administration Combats Racist Air United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson testified before Congress in September of 2011 that small-particle (2.5 microns or less) air pollution is lethal. "Particulate matter causes premature death. It's directly causal to dying sooner than you should." At the hearing, Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA) asked, "How would you compare [the benefits of reducing airborne PM2.5] to the fight against cancer?" Ms. Jackson replied, "Yeah, I was briefed not long ago. If we could reduce particulate matter to healthy levels, it would have the same impact as finding a...

After experiments on humans were conducted that exposed them to airborne particulates considered to be lethal, a sound-science advocate has accused physician researchers working for the Environmental Protection Agency of misconduct and violations of the Hippocratic Oath. Steve Milloy , publisher of Junkscience.com and author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them , filed a complaint with the North Carolina Medical Board last week that accused three doctors in the state – two employed by EPA (Dr. Andrew Ghio and Dr. Wayne Cascio) and one by the University...

Hello All, I'm asking for a bit trying to track down something I seem to recall from 2007. In California, the EPA shut down a waterway, it claims, to protect a species of either bird or fish. The shutdown of the waterway killed many regional farms. Flashforward to the Obamacare vote - We were all watching with baited breath as one after the other, opposition fell. We saw opposition to the bill fall from bribes, threats, and promises to exclude. But I also recall that the water was turned back on (Mysteriously?) in return for a yes vote. I'm looking...

After accumulating evidence via the Freedom of Information Act that showed theEnvironmental Protection Agency conducted disturbing experiments that exposed humans to inhalable particulates the agency has said are deadly, sound science advocate Steven Milloy has sued the federal government. The trials, which were carried out at EPA’s Human Studies Facility at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, exposed subjects to fine particulate matter (called “PM2.5”) at extremely elevated levels for up to two hours at a time. EPA’s Web site on particulate matter and its 2009 “Summary of PM2.5 Risk Estimates,” stated, “an examination of cause-specific risk...

<p>The Obama administration's chief environmental watchdog, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, is stepping down after a nearly four-year tenure marked by high-profile brawls over global warming pollution, the Keystone XL oil pipeline, new controls on coal-fired plants and several other hot-button issues that affect the nation's economy and people's health.</p>

Lisa Jackson is an object lesson in the manifest dangers of Leviathanism. Ms. Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is resigning in the new year. She took the reputation of the long-thuggish EPA to new lows, foisting new, damaging and ideologically based regulations on the nation, often by dictatorial fiat, with little transparency (think of her secret email accounts) and with no basis in science. Jackson‘s mission never was to protect or to better the environment but to use environmental regulations to reorder...

From the Washington Times: A House committee has launched an investigation into whether EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson used an email alias to try to hide correspondence from open-government requests and her agency’s own internal watchdog — something that Republican lawmakers said could run afoul of the law.The science committee has asked Ms. Jackson to turn over all information related to an email account under the name of “Richard Windsor,” which is one of the aliases identified by a researcher looking into the EPA.The committee has also asked the White House’s lawyer and EPA’s inspector general to look into the matter...

The odd-year gubernatorial election of what now feels like a solidly purple Virginia (…dagger) could potentially serve as a bellwether of which way the national attitude is trending after almost a year into President Obama’s second term, and conservative Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will be facing former DNC chief Terry McAuliffe in what will likely be a pretty rough race.One of the items on which the Obama administration has already started moving “forward” in the more politically safe second-term-secured atmosphere is all of the regulations on which they were rather conspicuously holding back before the election, with the Environmental Protection...

The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says no law empowers any judge to stop it from conducting illegal scientific experiments on seniors, children and the sick. That astounding assertion will be tested Friday, when a federal district court in Alexandria decides whether it has jurisdiction to hear claims made by the American Tradition Institute that EPA researchers are exposing unwary and genetically susceptible senior citizens to air pollutants the agency says can cause a variety of serious cardiac and respiratory problems, including sudden death. Although the lawsuit only addresses ongoing, purportedly illegal experimentation being carried out at an EPA laboratory...

This doesn't quite qualify as breaking news for those who tracked the extraordinary labyrinth of intelligence that emerged in the days following the 2011 Abbottabad raid, but the subject of US interrogation policy is again generating controversy in advance of the release of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' a film that dramatizes the bin Laden mission.  Writing in today's Washington Post, a former top CIA counter-terrorism officer sets the record straight on what measures were, and were not, employed to help bring down the world's most infamous terrorist.  Jose Rodriguez -- who made headlines last year when his book exposed Nancy Pelosi's...

How accurate and realistic is the portrayal of CIA interrogation in the film? The movie, after all, opens with a statement saying “based on firsthand accounts of actual events"; then goes on to show the fictionalized brutal abuse and torture of a fictional high value terrorist, including waterboarding. Well, one "firsthand account" not utilized as an expert consultant to the movie is Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, author of Hard Measures, and unapologetic defender of the CIA's "torture" program.... When I reviewed Zero Dark Thirty, the focus of my review was on whether or not political...

I decided to go check out the movie for myself thanks to the ringing endorsement by Senators Feinstein, Levin, and McCain: “I thought it was terrible,” said Feinstein, one of a handful of lawmakers to see the film ahead of its limited release this week. “It is a combination of fact, fiction and Hollywood in a very dangerous combination.” Despite concerns on the right that the movie was serving as a political propaganda piece for Team Obama, in actuality, the movie is rather apolitical, playing it pretty much straight down the middle. The movie does its best to avoid political...

full title...CIA chief sends out extraordinary email to entire staff complaining about agency's portrayal in Zero Dark Thirty'I would not normally comment on a Hollywood film, but I think it's important to put Zero Dark Thirty which deals with one of the most significant achievements in our history, into some context,' Mike Morell began in his note to his staff on Friday.

President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists. “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday. -snip- Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo...

What if Hollywood made a high profile movie that carried an implicit message supporting George W. Bush's War on Terror policies and made Barack Obama look naïve? What if the movie were made by an acclaimed director, and was really, really good? Why, you'd have the amusing opportunity to read up on the critical reaction To Kathryn Bigelow's new blockbuster film, Zero Dark Thirty. I confess that when I learned that Hollywood was to enjoy very broad cooperation from the intelligence community for the production, I assumed that the Obama Administration would get a free pass, a semi-hagiographic treatment of...

Kathryn Bigelow’s kill–bin Laden epic Zero Dark Thirty is the most neutral-seeming “America, F**k Yeah!” picture ever made. In its narrative arc, it is barely distinct from a boneheaded right-wing revenge picture, but the vibe is cool, brisk, grown-up, packed with impressively real-sounding intel jargon. And the hero is no gun-toting macho man. She’s a CIA agent named Maya (Jessica Chastain), a woman in a world in which men call the shots, metaphorically and literally. Presented with the movie’s liberal-pleasing feminist overlay, you root for her to compel the men to do what men would do naturally if they weren’t...

Obama Movie Set to Be Released in October 2012 Helen Whalen Cohen Posted at 5:03 PM ET, 8/7/2011 We may be learning about a potential 'October Surprise' now-a forthcoming film about Obama's decision to deploy SEAL Team Six to assassinate Osama bin Laden. Note the release date, October 2012. Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow’s forthcoming Osama bin Laden assassination movie—which is rumored to star Dennis Farina as Vice President Joe Biden, Garry Shandling as British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Vin Diesel as Man with Gun No. 2—has just been assigned a release date of October 12, 2012. Not only is...

Rep. Peter King said Thursday that the Defense Department has launched an investigation into whether its personnel leaked information to producers for a film — to be directed by Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow — on the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. King, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, previously called for a probe to look into any sort of cooperation between federal agencies and producers for the movie, which at the time had been scheduled for an October release — a month before the elections. “The leaks that followed the successful bin Laden mission led to...

If anyone worried that Kathryn Bigelow’s movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden would be a political statement promoting Barack Obama they can relax. Bigelow and Mark Boal have made a very focused and harrowing thriller that centers on the real life female CIA agent who was obsessed with catching and killing bin Laden.

(Snip:) More guarded about their intentions are those behind “SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden,” a new film about the 2011 military raid that killed the terrorist mastermind, which is set to debut on the National Geographic Channel on Nov. 4, two days before the election. The following day, the movie will be available on Netflix. To judge from the action-packed, heart-thumping trailer, “SEAL Team Six” promises to be a well-produced movie intended to appeal to anyone who was gripped by the news stories about the intelligence officials who planned the raid and the elite soldiers who...

Now that the White House and State Department have made clear that they believe movies compel terrorists to terrorize, it's time for them to get ahead of this problem. And one thing the White House can do immediately is to pressure Sony to stop the release of director Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," which celebrates the killing of Osama bin Laden. I'm only saying this because, you know, the White House and the media told me movies inflame and cause terrorism. Think about it: if the poorly produced and laughably bad trailer for "The Innocence of Muslims" results in chaos,...

Now that the White House and State Department have made clear that they believe movies compel terrorists to terrorize, it's time for them to get ahead of this problem. And one thing the White House can do immediately is to pressure Sony to stop the release of director Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," which celebrates the killing of Osama bin Laden. I'm only saying this because, you know, the White House and the media told me movies inflame and cause terrorism. Think about it: if the poorly produced and laughably bad trailer for "The Innocence of Muslims" results in chaos,...

Zero Dark Thirty, the drama from the double Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker features a high-profile cast including Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Mark Duplass, Kyle Chandler and Mark Strong. It centres on the US Navy Seal unit that raided Bin Laden's compound in northern Pakistan on 2 May last year on the orders of US president Barack Obama, killing the al-Qaeda leader in a covert operation. Based on the anti-muslim sentiments of this movie, Embassies were looted and burned, US Citizens were dragged through the streets, and leftists once again blame a US pastor who had nothing to do...

The records – which should have been produced months ago pursuant to a court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on January 21, 2012 – include records from a “stack” of “overlooked” documents discovered by the CIA in July 2012. [...] “These new documents provide more backing to the serious charge that the Obama administration played fast and loose with national security information to help Hollywood filmmakers,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “No wonder we’ve had to fight one year of stonewalling from the administration. These new documents show there is no doubt that Obama...

Full title: Judicial Watch Obtains ‘4 to 5 inch Stack’ of ‘Overlooked’ CIA Records Detailing Meetings with bin Laden Filmmakers Obama Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications: Obama White House ‘trying to have visibility into the UBL (Usama bin Laden) projects.’ (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained records from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Department of Defense (DOD) regarding meetings and communications between government agencies and Kathryn Bigelow, the Academy Award-winning director of The Hurt Locker, and screenwriter Mark Boal in preparation for their film Zero Dark Thirty, which details the capture...