Friday, September 29, 2006

Bush could end up being more dangerous than Hitler

What does a Government Spook/Bagman look like?

McSweegan is allegedly busy all day trolling the Internet.

Those that actually get compensation from Big Pharma for dangerous drugs on the market, sign gag orders. Google and other news groups are monitored for the truth getting out to the general public. Please do a word search on Lisa Masterson and Kathleen Dickson with and without Lyme Disease in the combination.



The Man With No Work


WASHINGTON, June 27, 2003
'Edward McSweegan (CBS)


Edward McSweegan (CBS)

Quote

"To come rattling a tin cup asking for more money when the NIH is paying for full-time novelists has got to stop."
Sen. Charles Grassley


(CBS) "There's nothing to do. There's nothing to pretend to do," laments Dr. Edward McSweegan.

McSweegan once managed a large portfolio of research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), but his work days have been pretty much empty since March 1996.

It's not that he doesn't want to work. He says they won't let him. Meantime, taxpayers are covering his generous paycheck, reports CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.

McSweegan, who earns about $100,000 a year, believes he's being punished for using his personal time to discredit a charity that had influence over his bosses at NIH.

Back in 1995, McSweegan and other scientists felt the charity was putting out unscientific and incorrect information about Lyme Disease, and he used his personal time to discredit the charity.

In 1997, the NIH suspended McSweegan for two weeks, partly because he had referred to the charity as "whacko" on his personal Web site. But documents show that NIH's own lawyers agreed there were no grounds to fire him. The charity later sued McSweegan for slander, but lost. McSweegan won his counter-suit against them.

Before the feud, McSweegan received the highest rating possible in his annual job reviews and was awarded annual cash bonuses for his good job performance. His personnel file is full of commendation letters from his bosses. Even after the feud--including his most recent job review--McSweegan's bosses have continued to give him good job performance scores.

CBS News wanted to talk to McSweegan's bosses, but NIH denied a request. A spokesman did say that allegations that some employees don't have enough work to do are "to be expected" in any giant agency. NIH employs 18,000 people. The spokesman also suggested that the same might be true at CBS. This correspondent pointed out that taxpayers don't pay CBS salaries.

So what does McSweegan do all day?

"I've managed to publish a couple of books, some short story fiction, a little bit of non-fiction writing," he said.

Yes, with all that free time, and with taxpayers footing the bill, he's become a successful mystery writer. And more: "I wound up joining a health club near the office, just to sort of to break up the day," he said

Oddly enough, McSweegan has been getting good job reviews.

"I guess I'm good at doing nothing," he said.

On July 1, NIH issued the following statement: "Dr. McSweegan has always been assigned duties appropriate to his position and pay level. The claim that he is being compensated for doing nothing is completely inaccurate."

CBS News showed McSweegan's interview to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, whose Finance Committee played a role in doubling NIH's budget over the last five years to a whopping $27 billion.

And now Grassley wants action. He has fired off a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson demanding that McSweegan be put back to work.

After making it clear that the CBS News investigation raised questions about NIH's use of taxpayer money, Grassley said: "Dr. McSweegan wants to work - I expect HHS/NIH to find him appropriate work that makes good use of his experience and talents."

His letter included this rebuke: "The fault for this lies in great part with NIH management. I request that NIH take immediate steps to ensure that all NIH employees are fully employed and are helping to achieve the goals of the organization. To come rattling a tin cup asking for more money when the NIH is paying for full-time novelists has got to stop."

Some might call Edward McSweegan lucky. But McSweegan said he just wants to expose the kind of waste that gives federal bureaucracy a bad name. Even if -- after all these years of doing nothing -- he gets fired for telling about it.

Talking about this in public is sort of like playing Russian roulette, McSweegan said. "You pull the trigger and see what happens."

He might title his own incredible story "Under Worked and Overpaid." For now, he's waiting for someone else to write the last chapter.

©MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.


INSIDE CBS Evening News
Woodward: Laura Wanted Rumsfeld Out
Tells 60 Minutes Mrs. Bush, And Ex-Chief Of Staff Called For Resignation
For Iraqi Reporters, Danger Never Ends
Football Legend Stars Off The Field
The Week That Was On The Web
More

TOP STORIES
Woodward: Laura Wanted Rumsfeld Out
Tells 60 Minutes Mrs. Bush, And Ex-Chief Of Staff Called For Resignation
Brazilian Jet With 140 Aboard Missing
Congressman Quits Over E-Mails To Teen
FDA Lifts Ban On Nearly All Spinach
Mor


The above found here on the web

* * * *

With Bush’s new terrorism legislation passed, the McSweegans will be out of work. Anyone that complains about government, abusive corporations, or about George W. Bush in America can be arrested, thrown in jail, there are no hearing or release dates, and why not add in a little or a lot of torture?

This post accepts anonymous comments. Share this post with a friend, click on white envelope below.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

George W. Bush wants permission to be a complete asshole


Chief of Staff Andrew Card whispers in Bush's ear 9-11-01, Sarasota, Florida. Was the whisper, "The Country has no idea, we did it, good job pookie"?

George W. Bush wants permission to be a complete asshole

If the President of the United States can have someone, anyone, including Americans, secretly arrested, secretly held, and secretly tortured they will. The stuff this “American” President is demanding for himself is very scary.

Before 9-11 I owned 3 properties and had a contracting business for over 20 years and was looking at early retirement, putting my daughter through college, and living a comfortable life.

The Connecticut Sheriffs were being arrested and tormented by the Connecticut State Police because there was a rivalry for funds and power. The Connecticut newspapers and other media expounded the party line. I later found out that editors are contacted and reporters can lose their jobs or worse for reporting the truth.

I didn’t want heroin and crack cocaine being sold near or on my front lawn. I didn’t want teens drinking all hours, smashing my windows. Connecticut State Police refused to do anything and police seemed to have a “business” relationship with the teen hookers, drug dealers, and common criminal parasites. Kids were unnecessarily dying and racism is unofficial policy keeping American Apartheid alive.

I wrote my opinions in newspapers and I went to elected officials to seek remedy. I proposed that the courts be accessible and fair for everyone and that police have Civilian Oversight, not just collect revenue for the state, but to act in the Public’s best interest.

Connecticut State Police Officers threatened me with arrest if I did not shut my mouth and leave the State. I was then falsely arrested and a rigged trial orchestrated by a judge I had been trying to remove for bias in Small Claims cases and a prosecutor, “That doesn’t serve landlords”, held a kangaroo trial.

Both Presidents, Bush, referred to the former Governor of Connecticut as “Johnny”.

“Johnny” and his friends had dreams of Pediatric Prisons dancing their heads to go national with their Kiddie Max Prisons, Jails for Kids, nightmare.

I was arrested after an attempted mugging of myself on my darkened property. The felon was given immunity after stalking me, threatening my life, and trying to rob me for my having defended myself with pepper spray. I went to prison, losing everything.

With Bush’s resolution passed, W’s corrupt buddies like John G. Rowland, could be immune from prosecution, and now if I would be just whisked away and never heard from again if Bush gets his way.

Bush has got his way.

It is not pretty.

-Steven G. Erickson a.k.a. blogger Vikingas

http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com/

http://www.freespeech.com/

http://thesrv.blogspot.com/

A Jonny has questions for Bush

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Mongers of Hate





In the US, it started against the working class, minorities, homosexuals, and those that might educate the general public with new and good ideas.

The unofficial policies have been so effective, look at the divide now between the rich and the poor. Where is the middle ground? There isn’t any.

Exclusion, abuse, and corruption are all bad for the economy.

Who you know, means getting or not getting a good job, a fat contract, or getting into an Ivy League School.

It is not about experience and deserving, it is about the Good Ole Boy Network.

Those in the network can do what they want, when they want.

If fruit and other food stuff become out of hand expensive and crops rot in the field, it would say the immigration and guest worker program is severely flawed. If energy prices are out of hand, it has to do with saber rattling and the world not trusting and fearing a now grown up maniac kid that probably got his jollies out of breaking things and watching people around him suffer emotionally.

Does President George W. Bush foster faith in government?


-Steven G. Erickson a.k.a. blogger Vikingas


Should the Statue of Liberty be facing the other direction?

Stalker Gangs





Are there unnamed factions in the US, similar to the KKK?



The Real Kathleen Dickson Story, click here

Lisa Masterson of the UK, Victim of Connecticut Spy Goons

No Niggers or Spics AllowedAug. 29, 2006 Fax to Governor M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut about Connecticut corruption and racism



Doing the Math

If you know statistics and could actually plug in the numbers, what would they say?
Eavesdropping is so sophisticated and automatic, there is no way I believe those in authority didn’t know the World Trade Centers were going to be hit.

There has been no real threats since. Nothing has happened. Are we supposed to believe that somehow major clowns that couldn’t have pulled off a bank job, pulled off the hits on the WTC?

Bush’s growing, obvious, sociopath type behavior tells me that he and his buddies probably would have stopped at nothing to get what they wanted and how they wanted it.

Bush has all the earmarks of a very spoiled child. Wanting to eliminate non-white and those that aren’t rich from any type of power or quality of life, says volumes.
The US Constitution and the human condition mean nothing to Bush. Enriching himself and his friends seems to be the only motivation.


US intelligence faces shake-up
My post telling American President George W. Bush to go Fuck himself, click here


Exposing Collusion and Illegal Acts of the Official Connecticut Mafia


Is the American Justice System a Sleazy Whorehouse?


Hell, USA 47 comments so far. Comment anonymously


Open Letter to Chief Justice William J. Sullivan of Connecticut


Fucking and Sucking out of being Prosecuted?

Kristine D. Regaglia


Ms. Ragaglia is the former head of Connecticut Department of Children and Families. She got the same bribes and freebies that former Governor John G. Rowland went to Federal Prison for. After being caught being a fraud, she was made the head of Connecticut’s Fraud Investigating Unit. What!!!???


Who is she Fucking and Sucking not to be prosecuted? Maybe key FBI agents in Connecticut, someone in the Connecticut US Attorney's Office in Connecticut, and/or Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s Office could be asked. Why were undercover investigators told they would be thrown in Gitmo and be detained under the Patriot Act with no hearing after their cameras and Regaglia evidence was illegally confiscated by the Connecticut FBI and/or Connecticut State Police?


DCF and Connecticut's Official Whore House



This post allows anonymous comments. To share this post, click on the white envelope below.

This blogger's email: stevengerickson@yahoo.com

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Are Minority Officers held to different standards than Whites?

All Police Misconduct is bad. All officers should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a fair court of law.

Officer accused of firing Taser at stepson steps down

I am not making any statement about the above story of an officer with an ethnic last name, but in Connecticut officers that are white can either get away with or almost get away with murder, rape, robbery, and beating suspects. Threatening those that lodge complaints against police officers do so at their own risk. There are no checks and balances, it is a myth.

Can cops rape, rob, beat, and murder with immunity?





Police in the USA concentrate on Revenue Collection Areas, not Crime Areas



Whoever has the most political connections wins no matter the evidence or the type of case, over and over and over.
Connecticut State Police Officer kills ex-wife and self at courthouse.

A Questionable Police Force regarding Ethics Investigating Ehtics

Abolish the Connecticut State Police

A Connecticut State Police/Gov. Rell Scam?

Connecticut State Police involved Murder/Suicides

Should State Courts face certification inorder to decide Death Penalty Cases?



Are U.S. Courts still racist, but now just a little more slick about it?
Are there Black and White sections in prison?

Does it matter what race you are, what you do for a living, or where you live, on whether or not you are arrested, or even how severely you are punished, if at all?

Well, when I was serving time in a Connecticut Prison for overreacting to being beaten from behind during a robbery attempt on my property, I met Mathew Barron, Connecticut Inmate # 300850, formerly of Danbury, CT. If his claims are true, Connecticut State Courts need a serious looking into, if not so, nationally to see that citizens are treated fairly and Constitutionally. click for more



A pattern of abuse




Heather Specyalski

The History of Abuse of Citizens arbitrarily caught up in the legal system
A governor, a State Police investigation outcome for sale to highest bidder, a blowjob, and a rigged court. Yes, I'm talking about Connecticut.

Face the Statue of Liberty Facing the Other Direction

,
,


.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

America, not the beacon of Freedom, but the Enslaving Master?

For me the Statue of Liberty might as well be facing the other direction.

All the way up I was taught how fair and good the American system of government and justice is. So where is the beef now, or was there ever any?

Communism was bad, Hitler and Stalin were bad, and we were the saviors of the world, at least that is the crap they taught me as a kid in school, I am now 42.

Monopolies, Dictators, and having your door kicked in for your opinions was bad. It is now American reality. Corporate America is the real drug dealer.

I was in Lithuania and other former USSR Countries where all the cemetery stones of Jews were removed and the road to Russia that Napoleon took, the modern version, had markers every couple of kilometers. One I stopped at random at, had a stone marking the deaths of all the women and children of a village they were made to dig and when they were done, all were machine gunned and bulldozed into a pit. The men were all burned alive in a barn.

I was at the Hill of Crosses in Panevzys, Lithuania. The Germans had killed at least a quarter of the population, those that were Jewish. Stalin made sure that any rich land owners, doctor, lawyer, business owners, and anyone from royalty or the ruling class were all sent to Siberia or killed locally. The remaining half of the population mourned their lost friends and family at the Hill of Crosses, football fields of crosses in a beach like sand. I have seen nothing like it, ever.

But, in the mid 1990’s I observed in the Baltic States, there were few or no fast food chains, no Mega Marts. I heard no Rap and there was no mass Jerry Springer mentality. The Internet has since spread some of the madness to these areas that were booming like the good American Small Business surge of the 1930’s.

In America, the family farmer is no more. Mom and Pop are no more. Monopolies and an Out of Control Blue Blood ruling elite now operate America as if they are operating on a stealthier, and more world encompassing plan using the Hitler/Stalin handbook with a twist.

American Corporations are out to rule the world. Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and others started out with the lowest prices and best return policies. As local small businesses fell by the wayside, prices rose and the return policies changed.

When there is no cash money in the US and when the fence is finished being built in the US, I want to be on the free side, I want to be the outside, where I can be FREE AND AMERICAN.
-Steven G. Erickson a.k.a. blogger Vikingas

The Corporate Thieves Bush CIA Spook Fund Terrorism Bank

http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com/

http://www.freespeech.com/

Pre Patriot Act Hysteria

THE GROUND ZERO MEMORIAL NIGHTMARE THAT ALMOST WAS

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Americans Seeking Political Asylum Outside the US?

20 September 2006
To whom it may concern at Cuban Embassy in Guyana:

[click here, for embassy website]

The writing is on the wall when American President, George W. Bush advocates torture for non-white prisoners of illegal US wars, calling those that oppose him, terrorists. Lies were told to the the American people for the wars to be fought illegally. The world should know that maybe two thirds of Americans in America disagree with President George W. Bush, his wars, and his foreign policy.

Any leader that proposes torture and detaining and sentencing prisoners without trial or hearing dates is just plain, an asshole, there is no better word.

There is a policy of collecting undeclared taxes from US. Elderly American citizens that have just driven through Connecticut and have found themselves in a Connecticut hospital, a lawyer is then appointed for them to act in their best interest, they are drugged up, put in a mental hospital, not allowed to see their adult children, and the State of Connecticut and the lawyers split the money, property, and assets they rip off of those just driving through the State that aren't rich, official criminals, and/or politically connected.

Connecticut and Yale University is Bush Country. The former Governor John G. Rowland of Connecticut was known as "Johnny" to both Presidents Bush. Well "Johnny" wanted to build a national chain of "Kiddie Max" prisons so his friends could get rich and "Johnny" could get huge bribes. Birds of a feather fly together.

Bush seems to want to take everyone's rights, cash, freedom, and even Americans can fear torture and being confined based on lies in America.

The courts are rigged to abuse and for the abusers to get rich. Not all corporations are bad, but the ones that are aligned to rip off average Americans and the World, are bad. Police, Dept. of Children and Families, teachers, Mental Health workers, and Prison Guards all have unions. The unions influence politicians into hiring too many workers and not making sure they act honestly and in the public's best interest.

The system has run amuck.

Kids are being taken away from good families to defraud Federal Taxpayers. Honest citizens are being arrested and thrown in prisons for being non-white, mouthy, or just for defrauding taxpayers.

Property can be stolen from average citizens by the Official US Criminal Elite, kids kidnapped, political prisoners held in US prisons, and US police officers can even hire hit men to kill those that complain about US police or police have acted as hit men for officials.

Retirement can be stolen from honest citizens.

There needs to be a country outside of the US that US and other citizens can seek Political Asylum from the abuse of US Corporations and an out of hand Judicial and Executive Branches of Federal and State Goverments in the United States of America.

Please contact other embassies and governments in regards to this letter. At least two thirds of Americans don't believe in torture and many have started to think of Bush and some other officials as War Criminals.

Please consider offering asylum to Americans and others abused by the Bush regime. We need to protect our families, ourselves, our freedom, our financial well being, and our lives.

Please help us.

Steven G. Erickson, formerly US held Political Prisoner for having gotten mouthy in newspapers regarding official corruption and police misconduct.

stevengerickson@yahoo.com

http://thesrv.blogspot.com/

P.S. I haven't yet decided to leave America or in even denouncing my citizenship, but I would like to know that there is a safety net for likeminded Americans and others. I don't believe in Socialism, nor do I believe in Communism, but when corporations and corrupt officials have run amuck who is to say which is worse? Being able to have basic human rights, a business, raise a family, receive benefit from hard work, and to live in peace and safety is becoming less and less possible in the US. US citizens should not fear for their safety for what are American Foreign Policy nor should they fear for not agreeing with it. Try putting "Steven G. Erickson" in a search engine.

Bush and the Price of Heroin

The US was or still is at war with the biggest supplier of heroin to the world.

After the US occupied this country, why would heroin then be more plentiful and cheaper?

This does not pass the smell test.

Everything is suspect about the Bush regime. I voted for the guy the first time and voted for his father. We all make mistakes.

The Pretend Drug War is about keeping the non-whites down out and from reproducing. Putting as many people in prison as possible pays huge dollars to the corporate frauds and the politicians they have in their pockets.

Racism is alive and well in the US, just look at Connecticut.

The Corporate Thieves Bush CIA Spook Fund Terrorism Bank

Monday, September 18, 2006

America, Out to Jail the World?

NATION/WORLD
U.S. War Prisons Legal Vacuum for 14,000
8:40 PM EDT, September 17, 2006 By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer, Hartford Courant

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.

"It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release -- without charge -- last month.

"I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."

Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq. Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken.

Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross. Defenders of the system, which has only grown since soldiers' photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib shocked the world, say it's an unfortunate necessity in the battles to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and to keep suspected terrorists out of action.

Every U.S. detainee in Iraq "is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for U.S.-led military detainee operations in Iraq. But dozens of ex-detainees, government ministers, lawmakers, human rights activists, lawyers and scholars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States said the detention system often is unjust and hurts the war on terror by inflaming anti-Americanism in Iraq and elsewhere.

Building for the Long Term Reports of extreme physical and mental abuse, symbolized by the notorious Abu Ghraib prison photos of 2004, have abated as the Pentagon has rejected torture-like treatment of the inmates. Most recently, on Sept. 6, the Pentagon issued a new interrogation manual banning forced nakedness, hooding, stress positions and other abusive techniques.

The same day, President Bush said the CIA's secret outposts in the prison network had been emptied, and 14 terror suspects from them sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face trial in military tribunals. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the tribunal system, however, and the White House and Congress are now wrestling over the legal structure of such trials.

Living conditions for detainees may be improving as well. The U.S. military cites the toilets of Bagram, Afghanistan: In a cavernous old building at that air base, hundreds of detainees in their communal cages now have indoor plumbing and privacy screens, instead of exposed chamber pots.

Whatever the progress, small or significant, grim realities persist. Human rights groups count dozens of detainee deaths for which no one has been punished or that were never explained. The secret prisons -- unknown in number and location -- remain available for future detainees. The new manual banning torture doesn't cover CIA interrogators.

And thousands of people still languish in a limbo, deprived of one of common law's oldest rights, habeas corpus, the right to know why you are imprisoned.

"If you, God forbid, are an innocent Afghan who gets sold down the river by some warlord rival, you can end up at Bagram and you have absolutely no way of clearing your name," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in New York.

"You can't have a lawyer present evidence, or do anything organized to get yourself out of there."

The U.S. government has contended it can hold detainees until the "war on terror" ends -- as it determines.

"I don't think we've gotten to the question of how long," said retired admiral John D. Hutson, former top lawyer for the U.S. Navy.

"When we get up to 'forever,' I think it will be tested" in court, he said.

The Navy is planning long-term at Guantanamo. This fall it expects to open a new, $30-million maximum-security wing at its prison complex there, a concrete-and-steel structure replacing more temporary camps.

In Iraq, Army jailers are a step ahead. Last month they opened a $60-million, state-of-the-art detention center at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad's airport. The Army oversees about 13,000 prisoners in Iraq at Cropper, Camp Bucca in the southern desert, and Fort Suse in the Kurdish north.

Neither prisoners of war nor criminal defendants, they are just "security detainees" held "for imperative reasons of security," spokesman Curry said, using language from an annex to a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the U.S. presence here.

Questions of Law, Sovereignty President Bush laid out the U.S. position in a speech Sept. 6.

"These are enemy combatants who are waging war on our nation," he said.

"We have a right under the laws of war, and we have an obligation to the American people, to detain these enemies and stop them from rejoining the battle."

But others say there's no need to hold these thousands outside of the rules for prisoners of war established by the Geneva Conventions. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared last March that the extent of arbitrary detention here is "not consistent with provisions of international law governing internment on imperative reasons of security."

Meanwhile, officials of Nouri al-Maliki's 4-month-old Iraqi government say the U.S. detention system violates Iraq's national rights.

"As long as sovereignty has transferred to Iraqi hands, the Americans have no right to detain any Iraqi person," said Fadhil al-Sharaa, an aide to the prime minister.

"The detention should be conducted only with the permission of the Iraqi judiciary." At the Justice Ministry, Deputy Minister Busho Ibrahim told AP it has been "a daily request" that the detainees be brought under Iraqi authority. There's no guarantee the Americans' 13,000 detainees would fare better under control of the Iraqi government, which U.N. officials say holds 15,000 prisoners.

But little has changed because of these requests. When the Americans formally turned over Abu Ghraib prison to Iraqi control on Sept. 2, it was empty but its 3,000 prisoners remained in U.S. custody, shifted to Camp Cropper.

Life in Custody The cases of U.S.-detained Iraqis are reviewed by a committee of U.S. military and Iraqi government officials. The panel recommends criminal charges against some, release for others.

As of Sept. 9, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq had put 1,445 on trial, convicting 1,252. In the last week of August, for example, 38 were sentenced on charges ranging from illegal weapons possession to murder, for the shooting of a U.S. Marine. Almost 18,700 have been released since June 2004, the U.S. command says, not including many more who were held and then freed by local military units and never shipped to major prisons.

Some who were released, no longer considered a threat, later joined or rejoined the insurgency. The review process is too slow, say U.N. officials. Until they are released, often families don't know where their men are -- the prisoners are usually men -- or even whether they're in American hands.

Ex-detainee Mouayad Yasin Hassan, 31, seized in April 2004 as a suspected Sunni Muslim insurgent, said he wasn't allowed to obtain a lawyer or contact his family during 13 months at Abu Ghraib and Bucca, where he was interrogated incessantly.

When he asked why he was in prison, he said, the answer was, "We keep you for security reasons."

Another released prisoner, Waleed Abdul Karim, 26, recounted how his guards would wield their absolute authority.

"Tell us about the ones who attack Americans in your neighborhood," he quoted an interrogator as saying, "or I will keep you in prison for another 50 years."

As with others, Karim's confinement may simply have strengthened support for the anti-U.S. resistance.

"I will hate Americans for the rest of my life," he said.

As bleak and hidden as the Iraq lockups are, the Afghan situation is even less known. Accounts of abuse and deaths emerged in 2002-2004, but if Abu Ghraib-like photos from Bagram exist, none have leaked out. The U.S. military is believed holding about 500 detainees -- most Afghans, but also apparently Arabs, Pakistanis and Central Asians.

The United States plans to cede control of its Afghan detainees by early next year, five years after invading Afghanistan to eliminate al-Qaida's base and bring down the Taliban government. Meanwhile, the prisoners of Bagram exist in a legal vacuum like that elsewhere in the U.S. detention network.

"There's been a silence about Bagram, and much less political discussion about it," said Richard Bennett, chief U.N. human rights officer in Afghanistan.

Freed detainees tell how in cages of 16 inmates they are forbidden to speak to each other. They wear the same orange jumpsuits and shaven heads as the terrorist suspects at Guantanamo, but lack even the scant legal rights granted inmates at that Cuba base. In some cases, they have been held without charge for three to four years, rights workers say.

Guantanamo received its first prisoners from Afghanistan -- chained, wearing blacked-out goggles -- in January 2002. A total of 770 detainees were sent there.

Its population today of Afghans, Arabs and others, stands at 455. Described as the most dangerous of America's "war on terror" prisoners, only 10 of the Guantanamo inmates have been charged with crimes.

Charges are expected against 14 other al-Qaida suspects flown in to Guantanamo from secret prisons on Sept. 4.

Plans for their trials are on hold, however, because of a Supreme Court ruling in June against the Bush administration's plan for military tribunals. The court held the tribunals were not authorized by the U.S.

Congress and violated the Geneva Conventions by abrogating prisoners' rights. In a sometimes contentious debate, the White House and Congress are trying to agree on a new, acceptable trial plan. Since the court decision, and after four years of confusing claims that terrorist suspects were so-called "unlawful combatants" unprotected by international law, the Bush administration has taken steps recognizing that the Geneva Conventions' legal and human rights do extend to imprisoned al-Qaida militants.

At the same time, however, the new White House proposal on tribunals retains such controversial features as denying defendants access to some evidence against them. In his Sept. 6 speech, Bush acknowledged for the first time the existence of the CIA's secret prisons, believed established at military bases or safehouses in such places as Egypt, Indonesia and eastern Europe. That network, uncovered by journalists, had been condemned by U.N. authorities and investigated by the Council of Europe.

The clandestine jails are now empty, Bush announced, but will remain a future option for CIA detentions and interrogation. Louise Arbour, U.N. human rights chief, is urging Bush to abolish the CIA prisons altogether, as ripe for "abusive conduct."

The CIA's techniques for extracting information from prisoners still remain secret, she noted. Meanwhile, the U.S. government's willingness to resort to "extraordinary rendition," transferring suspects to other nations where they might be tortured, appears unchanged.

Prosecutions and Memories

The exposure of sadistic abuse, torture and death at Abu Ghraib two years ago touched off a flood of courts-martial of mostly lower-ranking U.S. soldiers. Overall, about 800 investigations of alleged detainee mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to action against more than 250 service personnel, including 89 convicted at courts-martial, U.S. diplomats told the United Nations in May.

Critics protest that penalties have been too soft and too little has been done, particularly in tracing inhumane interrogation methods from the far-flung islands of the overseas prison system back to policies set by high-ranking officials.

In only 14 of 34 cases has anyone been punished for the confirmed or suspected killings of detainees, the New York-based Human Rights First reports. The stiffest sentence in a torture-related death has been five months in jail.

The group reported last February that in almost half of 98 detainee deaths, the cause was either never announced or reported as undetermined. Looking back, the United States overreacted in its treatment of detainees after Sept. 11, said Anne-Marie Slaughter, a noted American scholar of international law. It was understandable, the Princeton University dean said, but now "we have to restore a balance between security and rights that is consistent with who we are and consistent with our security needs."

Otherwise, she said, "history will look back and say that we took a dangerous and deeply wrong turn."

Back here in Baghdad, at the Alawi bus station, a gritty, noisy hub far from the meeting rooms of Washington and Geneva, women gather with fading hopes whenever a new prisoner release is announced. As she watched one recent day for a bus from distant Camp Bucca, one mother wept and told her story.

"The Americans arrested my son, my brother and his friend," said Zahraa Alyat, 42.

"The Americans arrested them October 16, 2005. They left together and I don't know anything about them."

The bus pulled up. A few dozen men stepped off, some blindfolded, some bound, none with any luggage, none with familiar faces. As the distraught women straggled away once more, one ex-prisoner, 18-year-old Bilal Kadhim Muhssin, spotted U.S. troops nearby.

"Americans," he muttered in fear.

"Oh, my God, don't say that name," and he bolted for a city bus, and freedom.

* __ EDITOR'S NOTE -- The Associated Press staff in Baghdad and AP writers Andrew Selsky in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Matthew Pennington in Kabul, Afghanistan; Anne Plummer Flaherty in Washington, and Charles J. Hanley in New York contributed to this report.

Click for post telling President George W. Bush, 4Q, and about those that silence outspoken Americans, the Secret Police and "Stalker Gangs"

Saturday, September 16, 2006

"Stalker Gangs"

Basic human nature has always existed. Cavemen lived in clans and there were those that allied with each other.

“Stalker Gangs” exist to put fear into whistleblowers within and outside the system. Cops can be stalked by other cops and civilians. Judges can be targets. A mayor of a city that gets mouthy about the corruption around him or her can become a target of juvenile harassment by the police.

Stalkers are hired and have immunity from prosecution. You aren’t safe online, at your job, in your home, and your family unity can even be in jeopardy.

If you own a business and somebody more important doesn’t want you as competition, guess what?

If someone else more important (in their own mind), wants you out of the way so they can pursue your significant other or even your offspring, for sex, then again, guess what?

I can name names, give examples, but most of you either know cause you do it, have it done to you, or you just haven’t experienced it yet.

Our Forefathers were a sort of Stalker Gang.

-Steven G. Erickson a.k.a. blogger Vikingas

http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com/

* * * *
* * * *

added Sept. 18, 2006, 8 PM EST:

The below found here on the net.


Gang Stalking, An Overview
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/gangstalkingoverview15sep06.shtml
Posted Sep. 15, 2006
http://www.gangstalking.ca/
OVERVIEW
Gang stalking involves the use of multiple individuals to stalk, harass and taunt a victim, as well as to vandalize personal property. This can take place for many years, particularly since law enforcement and legislation have yet to catch up with the reality of organized stalking by groups.

Techniques of psychological warfare are used against the target in a methodical and well orchestrated attack that often leaves the target a victim of ridicule among his friends and family because this occurrence is so hard to believe. However, the number of targets are increasing to the point that they can network with one another and find out that the same tactics are used everywhere. These tactics are intended to weaken the target to the point of physical and psychological collapse.

The reasons why a person is initially targeted can vary. Sometimes the person may be a political activist. Others may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Corporations apparently have even been known to hire these stalking groups to silence people who were once in their employ. These stalking gangs may be lied to about the target, thinking that perhaps the person is a deviant who needs to be driven out of town. The reasons are only limited to the imagination. In some cases, according to David Lawson, author of Terrorist Stalking in America, the person has done nothing wrong but is simply used as a practice target or as an example to others in the group to show what can happen to them if they anger the group in some way. This serves to keep the members of these stalking groups tied to the group through intense fear of becoming a target. It is such a terrifying prospect because the gang members are intimately aware that the lives of the targets are utterly destroyed.

(See FAQ for more information).
Many people ask, "Why would anyone engage in this kind of activity?". In order to answer that question, it's important to realize that the person who has decided to target an individual is not the person (or persons in this case) doing the stalking. This is known as "stalking by proxy". Those who have called "the hit" (so-to-speak) may be doing it for any number of reasons, including revenge, jealousy, or a desire to keep someone silent. It may be that physically harming a person is considered too extreme or too risky by the perpetrators.

In fact, this kind of psychological attack can be a far more effective way to harm someone. It can completely destroy a person's life while leaving little or no evidence to incriminate the perpetrators.
Additionally, there are the reasons that the stalkers themselves engage in the activity, which have little or nothing to do with why the person may have been targeted in the first place. It is conceivable that the participants in the harassment don't even know why the person has been targeted, nor would most of these individuals have any personal stake in harassing the victim. But certain things are clear - this is an both an addictive behavior as well as a form of entertainment for the stalkers. From the expressions on the faces of some of the perpetrators who come face-to-face with their targets, there is a vicious kind of pleasure that they derive from bullying their victim. Clearly they like the feeling of being "in control".

Like our society's current obsession with "reality TV", this activity must inevitably gain popularity as the ultimate experience of "reality" entertainment. Such is the nature of the bottomless pit within the stalkers that thirsts, evermore, for greater and greater thrills. To the perpetrators, their targets are merely their prey, in a game that never ends. But make no mistake, whatever the reasoning behind it, this is a vicious and calculated hate crime.

DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES
The types of activities which take place are often subtle, and sometimes cannot be distinguished from normal everyday things that go wrong, but they typically occur much more frequently than they would normally.

David Lawson points out in his book, Terrorist Stalking in America, that the victim is intentionally "sensitized" to the presence of the stalkers, so he or she will know that the occurences are orchestrated. This causes intense psychological strain due to the isolation and ridicule that results when the target tries to share these experiences with others. It is a psychological reign of terror intended to make a victim look crazy and intended to keep him or her in a constant state of anxiety and stress as to "what will happen next" (also known as "hyper-vigilance").

There was a 1944 movie called "Gaslight" about a husband trying to drive his wife crazy, from which the term "gaslighting" was derived.

According to Slang City, "to gaslight someone is to drive them crazy by intentionally confusing them.

It comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight, in which sweet heiress Ingrid Bergman marries creepy Charles Boyer, who hopes to get her inheritance by driving her insane. He convinces her she's seeing and hearing things that don't exist, including the gaslights (what they had before light bulbs) going on and off when he isn't home." The subtle techniques used to make the wife doubt her own sanity are similar to the techniques used by gang stalkers to unnerve a target. To see a summary by Eleanor White on the topic, click here.

For example, the perpetrators (who appear to frequently have access to their targets' homes) may sometimes come into the house while the target is out and move things around a little bit, or spread some dirt on the floor or on furniture, or move an item from the house to the car. But usually they won't cause enough damage to involve the Police. This shows that this activity is a psychological game of cat and mouse, and has little to do with any overt kind of damage that may be caused, such as burning someone's house down or stealing valuables.

In some cases, the target doesn't know s/he is being targeted. It just looks as though the world is full of very rude people, and everything s/he owns breaks constantly ("bad luck"). According to Lawson, the perpetrators don't need the target to know s/he is targeted in order to fill the need within themselves that they are in control.

See Terrorist Stalking in America for more information. ( http://www.gangstalking.ca/terstalk_2.htm )
Related
Group Stalking, a Growing Menace (Aug. 25, 2006)

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/groupstalking17aug05.shtml


This post accepts anonymous comments. To share this post click on white envelope below.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The Corporate Thieves Bush CIA Spook Fund Terrorism Bank



Jonathan Bush
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Jonathan Bush (born 1931) is an American banker who is an uncle of U.S. President George W. Bush and brother of former President George H. W. Bush.

He is a graduate of Hotchkiss School and Yale University. Like his brother and nephew, he is a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and Skull and Bones.

Career
He founded J. Bush & Co. which provided discreet banking services for the Washington D.C. embassies of foreign governments for many years. In 1997, Riggs Bank bought J. Bush & Co. and made Bush CEO & President of Riggs Investment, a firm based in New Haven, Connecticut.

In the early 1980s, Jonathan Bush helped organize investors for George W. Bush's first oil venture, Arbusto, later called Bush Explorations.

During the 2000 Presidential Campaign, Jonathan Bush was a major contributor and fundraiser to his nephew's election and was named a "Bush Pioneer" for raising more than $100,000 for the campaign. [1]

Controversy
On Saturday, May 20, 2004, onThe Washington Post, published an item about Jonathan Bush which states: "President Bush's uncle, Jonathan J. Bush, is a top executive at Riggs Bank, which this week agreed to pay a record $25 million in civil fines for violations of law intended to thwart money laundering."page E02 The accounts in question were Saudi.

In 1991, Bush was fined $30,000 in Massachusetts and several thousand in Connecticut for violating registration laws governing securities sales. He was barred from securities brokerage with the general public in Massachusetts for one year.

Family
Bush is the father of NBC entertainment reporter Billy Bush and healthcare CEO Jonathan S. Bush, and resides in New Haven, Connecticut and North Haven, Maine, with his wife Josephine Bush.

The above found here



* * * *

I call President George W. Bush a lying shit bag and post the fax text sent today to the current Governor of Corruptikut, M. Jodi Rell, telling her to eat S--- and go F--- herself, click here

* * * *


press box: Media criticism.

The CIA and Riggs Bank

A Wall Street Journal story that the press gang should chase.
By Jack ShaferPosted Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, at 4:10 PM ET

"Follow the money" could be Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn R. Simpson's motto. His sophisticated dispatches from the banking/terrorism/money-laundering/organized crime nexus routinely advance well-covered subjects.

On the last day of 2004, Simpson published a Journal story about the Justice Department's investigation of purported money-laundering at Riggs Bank, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Previous news reports had connected Riggs to the dubious financial machinations of Saudi diplomats and despots from Africa and South America, including Chile's former maximum leader, Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Banking regulators fined Riggs $25 million last year for its violations, the institution put itself up for sale, and a Justice Department investigation was started.

Simpson's Dec. 31 piece—inexplicably appearing on Page A-4 instead of A-1—locates what may be the common denominator shared by Riggs, the Saudis, the Africans, and the South Americans: the Central Intelligence Agency.

Citing unnamed U.S. government officials and people familiar with Riggs operations, Simpson reports that the bank has enjoyed a "relationship" with the CIA for some time. "That relationship, which included top current and former Riggs executives receiving U.S. government security clearances, could complicate any prosecution of the bank's officials, according to private lawyers and former prosecutors," he writes. By "complicate" one can safely assume that Simpson means "make impossible."

He writes:
The relationship with the CIA could prove problematic because it could cast a different light on the bank's dealings with two U.S. foreign-policy allies, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Given the intelligence connections to Riggs, prosecutors could be faced with proving that the bank's failure to disclose financial activity by the foreign officials wasn't implicitly authorized by parts of the U.S. government.
Bandar briefed Treasury Secretary John Snow in early 2003 about the work he'd done for the CIA, Simpson notes. The parapolitical credits on the prince's resume include funding the Contras at the behest of the White House, supporting the Afghan rebels against the Soviet Union, and serving as a go-between in the mending of the Libya-U.S. relationship. The CIA worked with Pinochet through his secret police chief, Manuel Contreras, Simpson reports, adding that Contreras banked at Riggs as recently as 1979.

"That wasn't money-laundering, detective, I was just serving national security," would be an excellent defense in a criminal prosecution. Another reason the government might want to shut down the criminal probe that Simpson doesn't mention is that where there are one or two CIA-related bank accounts, there are probably more. Better to cover up the extent of Riggs' "full-service" banking.

Simpson's story is a damn fine one, made all the more unique by the fact that nobody followed it except to cite the Journal. On Wednesday (Jan. 5), Washington's hometown newspaper, the Washington Post, ignored the CIA angle in a business story about the Justice Department's settlement talks with Riggs concerning criminal liability. Riggs' merger suitor, PNC Financial Services Group Inc., wants that liability off-loaded before consummating the deal, the Post reported.

Where is the rest of the press on the Riggs-CIA connection? Spooks, sheiks, dictators, millions in laundered money, and a $766 million merger in the balance! What does it take to entice an assignment editor these days, a tsunami or something?

Simpson doesn't name the source of his scoop, which invites me to speculate. He attributes his CIA information to U.S. government officials, which isn't much help. But "people familiar with Riggs operations" does illuminate. It's a safe bet that Riggs officials aren't ratting themselves out to a Journal reporter, which leaves us with the green eyeshades at PNC Financial, who probably know all of the spooky secrets about Riggs bank by now.

Why would PNC leak? There is an April 30 deadline for the merger, and the removal of corporate criminal liability would help seal the deal. Confirmation of my thesis was provided by the stock market. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PNC's hometown newspaper, "The purported link between Riggs and the CIA sent Riggs shares up 7 percent on Friday [Dec. 31]."

******
Interest declared: Simpson is a friend; a decade ago I edited a couple of his freelance features. Also, the Washington Post Co., which owns Washington's hometown newspaper, will complete its purchase of Slate from the Microsoft Corp. a week from today. I don't think the CIA played a role in the sale, but if it did, I want Glenn Simpson to get to the bottom of it.

The above found here on the net

* * * *



Fair Finance Watch / Inner City Press

Click here for Inner City Press' weekday news reports, from the United Nations and elsewhere. Click here for Inner City Press' front page Human Rights Report

September 11, 2006


The U.S. Treasury Department announced on September 8 it has cut off Iran's Bank Saderat from access to the U.S. financial system to block terrorist funding, and is sending its officials worldwide to seek similar actions.

Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorist and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey said they will "consult with government and private-sector leaders on measures we should all be taking to protect ourselves from Iran's use of the international financial system to advance its dangerous policies.

The United Nations is one avenue for imposing pressure on the Iranian regime -- an avenue we continue to aggressively pursue -- but like-minded states and even the global private sector may well decide to take additional measures outside of that context," Levey said.

"We have some important success with North Korea," he added, referring to financial sanctions against North Korean companies for proliferating WMDs and a Macao-based bank for allegedly distributing counterfeit U.S dollars and laundering money for the North.


That cut off preceded the test firing of missiles... In an approval order the Fed recited in footnote 13 that ICP Fair Finance Watch


"cited various news and congressional reports from 2003 through 2005 regarding allegations that ES Bank concealed assets and money laundering in connection with accounts held for the benefit of certain international individuals, including former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet."


What a generous description, "international individuals." Until next report, for or with more information, contact us


September 4, 2006 In the shadows and interstices of UN Security Council resolutions, the U.S. is at work. 'There is sort of a voluntary coalition of financial institutions saying that they don't want to handle this business anymore and that is causing financial isolation for the government of North Korea,' Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told AP last week. 'They don't want to be the banker for someone who's engaged in crime, as the North Korean government is,' he said. Banks in Singapore, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong and Mongolia are opting not to do business with North Korea, Levey said. We'll see.

August 28, 2006


Who's in bed with whom? LAT: Wells Fargo's supposed safeguards for detecting illicit banking activities by terrorists, drug smugglers and other criminals were so weak that federal regulators should have publicly reprimanded the San Francisco-based bank, according to a Treasury Department report released last week. Instead, senior banking regulators met with Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich, then overruled their own staff by letting Wells off with an informal enforcement action -- sparing Wells the scrutiny and embarrassment suffered by other banks that have been forced to disclose that regulators faulted their oversight systems.


"We believe that [the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] should have acted more quickly and forcefully to require Wells to strengthen its compliance and that OCC's failure to take formal enforcement action against Wells sent the wrong message to the banking industry about OCC's resolve to ensure that banks comply" with the Bank Secrecy Act, the inspector general's report said.

The OCC staff recommended Feb. 4, 2005, that a formal cease-and-desist order be issued to Wells Fargo. Dick Kovacevich met five days later with top OCC officials, including Acting Comptroller of the Currency Julie Williams, who was then running the agency.

After that meeting, the OCC pulled the recommended action from consideration by its top supervisory review committee, according to the report. On April 12, 2005, a new memo was issued recommending that the agency take informal action. Who's put at risk by these cozy relationships?

August 14, 2006


The Bank of England on August 11 froze the assets of 19 suspects allegedly involved in the failed plot to blow up U.S.-bound planes. MW: "The Bank of England said financial institutions should check whether they operate bank accounts for the men or hold assets on their behalf in other ways. If so, those accounts and assets should be frozen and all information reported to the bank." The suspects' lawyers say they've barely gotten to see them, and they can be held for up to 25 more days without being charged. Developing.

More of the above, click here



This post accepts anonymous comments. To share this post, click on white envelope below.

The Truth about Lying Lawyers



Attorneys can’t be held entirely responsible for the deterioration of America and the absolute farce the American Justice System is. But, with the way lawyers can and do operate in America, no one is safe from official abuse, persecution, false arrests, and false imprisonment.

In Connecticut as is probably the case in all the US States, lawyers know they can drive drunk, have mistresses, not serve their clients, not follow rules or laws, and just be genuine, complete sleazebags.

If a lawyer actually serves a client against the wishes of the Black Robed Mafia, their prosecutor buddies, and the Cop Mafia, the lawyer will not have a good day again and can be disbarred, arrested, labeling mentally incompetent, and even imprisoned.

So, what incentive does a lawyer have to actually serve a client?

If a judge can tell a lawyer to not defend a client, where is justice? Well in America it may not exist at all. There is no one to report the criminal activity of officials to. A citizen can be threatened with being arrested for trespassing at a public building and officials can refuse to take evidence, take complaints, or even do their jobs.

Without justice the US is a sinking ship.

Is Our Legal System just a farce?
my open letter to Attorney Michael H. Agranoff, Dec. 3, 2003

Is a lame attorney angry with me for what I posted about him?
Weasel Cartoon Figure at top of post

Documents regarding trying to punish Attorney Michael H. Agranoff for not doing his job here



What if a doctor could amputate the wrong leg and there was no criminal or civil action that can be taken? There would be no quality in medicine, would there be?

Well, the legal system in the US amputates the wrong leg in every state, everyday. For the most part judges aren’t elected, so the Executive and Legislative branches basically kiss the ass of the Judicial Branch. So where is the freedom, protection, checks and balances, or anything at all that our Forefathers intended? More

Is the State of Connecticut Defrauding the I.R.S.?

30 years in prison for pissing off a judge?



Getting Involved in the Legislative Process and/or Complaining about Officials can be detrimental to your quality of life, credit, retirement, your family, and in extreme cases may cost you your life, even in America. More



Complaining about Crack Cocaine and Heroin being sold off my front yard and near my Stafford Springs, Connecticut, rental properties caused me to lose these fine pets and much more: post with pictures of my lost pets



Testing the First Amendment in the US is Dangerous
post contains the Connecticut rental houses I fixed up from a boarded up condition and my 1978 Chevrolet Corvette



Does CT Gov. M. Jodi Rell care about undoing the Gov. Rowland Corruption Damage?

The outrage

My email to CT Gov. Rell Sept. 7, 2006



QQQQ Connecticut Republican Congresswoman Nancy Johnson and ALL Republicans regarding wiretapping and abusing ALL American citizens

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

American Flag and US Constitution Toilet Paper?





The elect Nancy Johnson website




I know people that have 24 hour surveillance, their phones are tapped, their Internet activity monitored, their websites attacked, and there are online and other types of officially sanctioned stalkers. There is no one to complain to when officials and their lackeys break the law. An average citizen has no rights. Republican Nancy Johnson is really beyond a big liar even for the new Republican Party, Chief Jackass, Bush.

What happened to human rights IN America?

Who is going to watch the watchers? Is anybody actually buying Johnson’s and the Republican’s stance on we the people can’t be trusted and need every word and action taped for use and further abuse?

Terrorists aren’t really a threat to the US and Freedom, Bush and Company is.


What's up in Connecticut?

Connecticut’s Constitution BBQ

An Email sent to the Connecticut Governor



POLITICS

5th District Ad: A Wiretap Test
Johnson Scorns Murphy Stance
September 13, 2006
By JEFFREY B. COHEN, Hartford Courant Staff Writer The ad strikes an ominous tone worthy of the trailer for a movie thriller.

It begins with a view of Earth from space, cutting closer to supposed computer images of traced phone calls. Then comes the voice:

"A call is placed from New York to a known terrorist in Pakistan. A terrorist plot may be unfolding," the announcer says. U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson says tap that call. "Liberal Chris Murphy says `no' - apply for a court warrant even if valuable time is lost."

Johnson's latest ad, released Tuesday, brings the national debate over the president's warrantless wiretap program to the 5th Congressional District. In response, Murphy, a Democrat, says Johnson, a Republican, is misrepresenting both his position and the law, and is manipulating the memory of the attacks of Sept. 11 for her own political gain.

...





"Nancy Johnson's decision to run an ad on September 12 politicizing the 9/11 attacks is disgusting," Murphy said in a news release. "Her ad is intended to scare people into thinking that we are safer if the Bush Administration is allowed to break our laws, and she should be ashamed."

Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to monitor overseas communications of Americans suspected of terrorist activity.

Murphy said current laws that govern eavesdropping allow the federal government to intercept phone calls at any time for security reasons, provided that it gets an emergency warrant from a secret court within 72 hours. The administration's effort to circumvent the law is wrong, Murphy said, and so are Johnson and her colleagues "who have abandoned their responsibility to oversee this Administration."

Johnson's campaign fired back that Murphy's criticism was both "breathless and panicked," and her spokesman said Murphy was "ignorant" when it comes to the law. While the law provides for warrantless wiretapping provided the government seeks a warrant after the fact, the U.S. Justice Department asks for those warrants only when they are certain they will get the warrant - a process Johnson's campaign said takes too much time and puts the country at risk.

"Nancy's top priority is protecting our country against terrorist attacks," Johnson campaign spokesman Brian Schubert said. "Chris Murphy is a Ned Lamont liberal who blindly follows the left-wing of his party."

Contact Jeffrey B. Cohen at jcohen@courant.com.









The Nancy Johnson Official Website

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Connecticut’s Constitution BBQ

POLITICS
Who Will Judge Sullivan Ruling? Jurists Backing Away From Battle Over Legislative Subpoena Of The Ex-Chief Justice
September 9, 2006 By LYNNE TUOHY, HARTFORD COURANT STAFF WRITER

The controversy swirling around former Chief Justice William J. Sullivan has many ramifications, not least of which is the challenge of finding judges to hear an appeal to resurrect the subpoena for his testimony issued by the co-chairmen of the legislature's judiciary committee.

The entire Supreme Court Friday disqualified itself from hearing an appeal filed earlier this week by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, on behalf of judiciary committee co-chairmen Sen. Andrew McDonald and Rep. Michael Lawlor. Blumenthal is appealing the quashing of the subpoena for Sullivan's testimony.

In an order Friday, the high court relegated the case to the Appellate Court, and specifically Chief Judge Joseph Flynn and the two senior-most judges of that court-Barry R. Schaller and Thomas A. Bishop.

But by day's end, both Flynn and Schaller had disqualified themselves, leaving Bishop as chief judge in charge of the matter with the next two senior judges - Alexandra DiPentima and C. Ian McLachlan - to hear the case if Bishop grants Blumenthal permission to appeal.

Superior Court Judge Dennis Eveleigh in June quashed the subpoena for Sullivan's testimony on separation of powers grounds, saying the legislators could not subpoena the testimony of a judge absent impeachment proceedings or a nomination hearing.

Eveleigh said the legislature's power would be "limitless" and the judiciary would "be at serious risk of losing its identity as an independent branch of government" if lawmakers could subpoena judges at will.

Blumenthal filed a motion asking Eveleigh to reconsider; the motion was denied late last month.Acting Chief Justice David M. Borden intervened in support of Sullivan's motion to quash, in furtherance of the separation of powers principal. Therefore, when Blumenthal's petition seeking permission to appeal Eveleigh's ruling landed on his desk, Borden immediately disqualified himself from deciding the matter, an action he made clear during the first day of Sullivan's disciplinary hearing Wednesday.

So it fell to the next senior justice, Flemming L. Norcott Jr., to issue Friday's order.Sullivan has been charged with five counts of violating the Judicial Code of Conduct for secretly withholding release of a controversial ruling to further the chances that his close colleague, Justice Peter Zarella, would succeed him as chief justice. Sullivan resigned as head of the judicial branch effective April 15, and assumed senior justice status. Zarella asked Gov. M. Jodi Rell to withdraw his nomination when Sullivan's alleged misconduct was revealed on April 24.

In the course of his defense against the code violations, Sullivan has subpoenaed all six of his colleagues on the high court to testify, which is presumably why the court feels obligated to disqualify itself. Those six justices also voted April 20 on whether the court as an institution should refer Sullivan to the Judicial Review Council, and were divided 3-3, presenting another potential conflict of interest.

Judges do not have to state why they are disqualifying, or recusing, themselves from cases, and Flynn and Schaller offered no reasons Friday for doing so.

However, Flynn is very close to Sullivan, who appointed him chief judge.

Schaller, sources have said, has cleared background checks to be Rell's nominee to fill the next vacancy on the high court, and may have removed himself for that reason.

Bishop could unilaterally deny Blumenthal's request for permission to appeal. And if he permits the appeal, he could create a larger panel of judges than the three that typically hear Appellate Court casesBlumenthal said he was not surprised by the turn of events.

"Certainly after the former chief justice subpoenaed every member of the court, this development was much more likely, if not inevitable," Blumenthal said.

"On the other hand, it is completely unprecedented and extraordinary and, indeed, historic, for the entire Supreme Court to disqualify itself from hearing a lawful appeal. It says something about the significance and sensitivity of these issues."

Lawlor agreed.

"Who's ultimately going to decide this is still up in the air," he said.

"Obviously the more judges participating, the more credibility and significance the decision will have. This particular case presents a fundamental separation of powers issue. It is, as far as we know, unprecedented in the nation. There has never been a case of legislators subpoenaing a judge, other than in a formal impeachment proceeding," Lawlor said.

Contact Lynne Tuohy at ltuohy@courant.com.

* * * *

My Smoking Gun Text in Connecticut

What's up in Connecticut?

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Taliban Productions Presents

.
.


.
.
.
.
.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

A Message from Most of the World to America "Fuck you and stay away"

.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
What we have learned since 9/11
POSTED: 3:26 a.m. EDT, September 3, 2006
By Nancy Gibbs, Time

Editor's note: The following is a summary of this week's Time magazine cover story.
(Time.com) -- An American businessman, traveling in India when the planes struck the towers, made his way back to the U.S. the following week as quickly as he could. That meant hopscotching across the Middle East, stopping in Athens, Greece, overnight to change planes.

He spent the evening taking supper in a local taverna. No one in the restaurant spoke English, but when the owner realized he had an American in the house just two nights after 9/11, he asked his guest to stand up, face the other diners and listen to a toast.

And indeed, the entire room stood up, raised their glasses and said, as one, "Shoulder to shoulder, until justice is done."

Five years later, after an invasion of Afghanistan and an occupation of Iraq, and amid talk of war with Iran, it is fair to ask: Would they say it again tonight? Would we say it to each other?

This has become the loss with no grave, no chance for mourning, because we still live it every day: the loss of that transcendent unity, global goodwill, common purpose born of righteous anger that wrapped us like a bandage those first months after the attacks: a president with a 90 percent approval rating, a congress working as one, expressions of sympathy and offers of help from every corner of the planet.

We are all Americans, said Le Monde.

That unity was never going to last. The world more easily loves a superpower when it's wounded and weakened than when it rises and growls. But we have not merely returned to the messy family arguments of September 10. We are broken, divided at home, dreaded abroad, in need of a hard conversation about America's vital interests and abiding values -- but too bitter and suspicious to have it.

All wars, even the noblest, bring a reckoning of means and ends. The war on terrorism has long since lost its crisp moral lines. Who foresaw that the battle would require a national seminar about when it's OK for Americans to torture prisoners and whether near-drowning counts? Or a debate over which clauses of the Constitution might be expendable? We may agree that terrorism is wicked, but we're still unsure about how to answer it.

Presidents make their hard decisions and then abide forever with their mistakes and regrets.

"I guess not many presidents have been understood in their own time," Lyndon Johnson said, reflecting on all the good he'd tried to do for people, who despised him nonetheless.

George W. Bush swats away the judgments that anniversaries invite. "There's no such thing as short-term history, as far as I'm concerned," he said last week.

We can't know how the story ends; but we know that there was a time five years ago when every day was Memorial Day, when we never would have imagined that we'd care what Brad and Angelina's baby looked like or dread air travel more for its inconvenience than its dangers.

Is that good news, a return to normalcy, a mark of resilience?

Or does it too mark a kind of loss?

In the weeks after 9/11, out of the pain and the fear there arose also grace and gratitude, eruptions of intense kindness that occurred everywhere, a sharp resolve to just be better, bigger, to shed the nonsense, to rise to the occasion. And yet five years later, more than two-thirds of Americans say they are unhappy with how things are going -- exactly the opposite of the weeks after the attacks, when people were crushed but hopeful.

We saw back then what we were capable of at our best, and now find ourselves just moving on, willing to listen to our leaders but not necessarily believe them, supporting the troops but disputing their mission, waiting, more resigned than resolved, for the next twist in the plot.

No, we don't know how the story ends. The idea that history is written by the victors has been wrongly credited to Winston Churchill, but he did say that, "If you are going through hell, keep going."

But you wonder whether years from now -- five? 10? 50? -- there will come a day when the victors actually know that they've won, that the battle is over and they can set about the writing. And whether even then, they will be sure that they have got the story right.

Click here for the entire cover story on Time.

Copyright © 2006 Time Inc.

The above from CNN found here on the web

* * * *
* * * *

Click here for my loss after 9-11. Freedom lost and America wrecked, we were all silent as what America stands for was taken away without a fight. We let an out of control American Government wreck freedom and piss off the world.

www.freespeech.com

http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com/

Hell, USA

- Blogger Vikingas, Steven G. Erickson, email: stevengerickson@yahoo.com

The case that best describes Connecticut, click here

My letter to Bush that says it all, click here


This post accepts anonymous comments. To share this post with a friend, click on white envelope.


Hit Counter