Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Prostitution Sting Nabs Five In Manchester


Elna Marcano


Krystal Cardello

[Picture and Name, Snipped]



Monica Collins-Saatci


Terri Henderson

BY CHRISTINE DEMPSEY | Hartford Courant Staff Writer
11:40 AM EDT, September 29, 2008

MANCHESTER (Connecticut) - Five area women who advertised their availability for sex on the Internet were arrested on prostitution charges over the weekend.

The "john" they met at a local hotel turned out to be an undercover cop, police said.

Elna Marcano, 21, of Spruce Street in Manchester; Krystal Cardello, 20, of Burnbrook Road in East Hartford and [name snipped], [age snipped], of [street snipped]., Hartford each was charged prostitution during Friday's sting, Lt. Chris Davis said in a press release this morning.

Also arrested on prostitution charges was Monica Collins-Saatci, 23, of Mather Street in Hartford and Terri Henderson, 24, of Garden Street in Hartford.

The women advertised on Craig's List that they were offering their services in the Manchester area, Davis said. The undercover officer contacted the women individually and made arrangements to meet each one, separately, at a hotel in town, Davis said. Once each woman offered sexual services for a fee, police moved in to make the arrest, he said.

The women didn't know each other, he said.

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Madison, CT, 3rd shift police were too busy sleeping with prostitutes to answer calls. Taxpayers spend millions for protection and service. What are they really paying for? [story and video]

* * * *

[click here] for "Did NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer pay $2600 to get laid?"

[click here] for "Whore Master or New York Governor?"



Average people are hauled away in handcuffs if they are Johns or prostitutes. Spitzer made sure Johns and those in prostitution rings were maximally prosecuted. So, will he get Spitzer style prosecution for his "John" activities?

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Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Spitzer got together to go after companies for bid rigging and other alleged crimes. Blumenthal seems to have bid rigging skeletons in his closet giving former law partners millions in no-bid contracts. [story]


One of the alleged Connecticut Kingpins of the Judencia, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal

If the "pillow biting" and "mattress scratching" rumors are true about Blumenthal, you probably won't read about any prostitution scandals involving Blumenthal ... or maybe not any female ones ...

* * * *

Blogger's Fair Use Notice of Copyrighted Materials [click here]

This blogger's email: stevengerickson@yahoo.com
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Monday, September 29, 2008

Former Connecticut Congressman Rob Simmons



Rob Simmons is working under Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell as Connecticut's Business Advocate.

He recently started a Hartford Courant comment thread on the subject of "Standing up to the Judencia, The Attorney Mafia"

This blogger's email: stevengerickson@yahoo.com
To share this post, click on white envelope below

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Biggest Armored vehicle Junkyard in the world



Sorry, the soundtrack is not in English. I have no idea what is being sung.

Most Americans don't know that scenes like these are daily reality for too many in Iraq.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

What did Rell know, and when didn't she know it?


Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell (left) [my post on Moody's conduct], former Governor John G. Rowland (middle)

Rowland was up to shenanigan after shenanigan, taking bribe after bribe while LT. Governor M. Jodi Rell supposedly knew nothing, yeah right!

[click here] for the history of public corruption in Connecticut



M. LISA MOODY, the Governor's Chief of Staff, testifies before the Government Administration and Elections committee about her role in a controversial fundraiser to benefit the governor. (SHANA SURECK / May 16, 2006)

Chief Of Staff May Have Violated Rell’s Policy, Blumenthal Says
Report On Rell's Staff Chief Revives Ethics Issue

By JON LENDER | Courant Staff Writer
September 20, 2008


The attorney general has concluded that Gov. M. Jodi Rell's chief of staff, M. Lisa Moody, used "state time and equipment" to provide an official state address list to Rell's 2006 election campaign for use in fundraising activities.

Moody "may have violated the governor's internal policy that prohibits her employees from engaging in political activity using state time and resources," said the report, released Friday after a 13-month investigation.

But Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said that because of a loophole in state laws, Moody violated no statute, and Rell "has sole authority to determine whether internal policy was violated." The law applies to civil service state employees, not political appointees.

The findings ended a lengthy probe, but reignited a controversy over Moody's second significant episode involving questionable fundraising activities on behalf of Rell, who has made ethics in government a constant theme during her administration.

"The governor can talk all she wants about public trust, and restoring faith and honor, but clearly that's not what is happening in her office," Democratic state Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo said. "She's surrounded herself with people who have a total disregard for the higher standards that she's talked about."

Rell signaled no intent to discipline her powerful chief of staff, although she did say she would support closing the loophole the Blumenthal report mentions.

"The complaint that triggered this investigation was motivated solely by partisan politics," she said in a statement. "The mailing list is a public document, available to anyone — and the Attorney General's Office agreed. I determined long ago there was no violation of my office policy, and this report shows there was no violation of state law."

After the first episode, Moody was suspended for two weeks in December 2005 for calling state agency commissioners and other top Rell administration appointees to the governor's office and handing them bunches of tickets to a Rell campaign fundraising event at the Marco Polo Restaurant in East Hartford. She asked them to distribute them to subordinates at their state agencies.

In February of 2007, when the issue involving the address list became public, Rell's legal counsel and ethics adviser, Anna Ficeto, had initially said the governor's staff was unaware that the list — which contained the addresses of the leaders of nonprofit arts and tourism organizations — was used for any political fundraising.

But in May of last year, Rell's 2006 campaign manager, Kevin Deneen, presented with questions by Democratic legislative leaders, acknowledged that Moody provided him with a list from a computer disk containing the names of the arts leaders. Those leaders were sent fundraising solicitations on behalf of Rell, reminding them that the governor had only weeks earlier announced a new $10 million ``Cultural Treasures" program to support arts groups.

Critics called Rell's office's initial denial of knowledge an outright falsehood and referred to the political use of the addresses as a pressure tactic on state-dependent arts and tourism leaders.

Blumenthal's new report filled in details of how the governor's office used the address lists to raise money for Rell.

"Ms. Moody testified she performed work for the governor's election campaign as an unpaid volunteer, but only during non-state work hours and not in her state office," Blumenthal wrote. "She explained that she had a separate cellphone she used for campaign business, and when she engaged in campaign activities during the workday, she used vacation or other leave."

But Blumenthal said in his report that an aide in the governor's office e-mailed the names and mailing addresses of more than 5,000 people and organizations to Moody's state office e-mail account and that Moody or "someone at her direction" used state equipment to copy the addresses to a disk.

GOP State Chairman Chris Healy criticized Blumenthal's conclusions, saying, "Never has so much been wasted for so long for so little result. Dick Blumenthal's 13-month inquiry demonstrates why he has outlived his usefulness."

The controversy's roots go back to Aug. 16, 2006, when Rell announced the new $10 million arts program in a public event hurriedly arranged in an apparent attempt to beat Rell's Democratic gubernatorial opponent to the punch.

In the days afterward, a Rell aide asked the state's arts agency to provide him with its list of addresses of community arts leaders, saying the governor's office wanted to follow up with the agencies to build support for its arts programs.

But Blumenthal found that the list was used for campaign fundraising. Only in March 2007 — long after the election, and after questions were raised publicly about the possible campaign-related misuse of the addresses — did Rell's office use the list for nonpolitical purposes.

Contact Jon Lender at jlender@courant.com.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Race based scandal cover-ups?

Former Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland got a year in prison. An African American legislator, Ernie Newton, got way more jail time for doing far less. The whole system of government, all 3 branches, and all departments needs to be investigated in Connecticut and many other states.

The going after its own, seems to be race based. Whistle blowers get barbecued no matter their race.

-Steven G. Erickson
stevengerickson@yahoo.com

http://thegetjusticecoalition.blogspot.com/

* * * * *

Judicial Marshal And Wife Face Assault Charges

By JOSH KOVNER | Courant Staff Writer
September 16, 2008

WEST HARTFORD — - A judicial marshal and his wife, an office assistant at Bulkeley High School in Hartford, have been charged in connection with the assault of a woman outside the PriceRite supermarket on New Britain Avenue.

Angel Luis Mendez, 53, a court-security marshal for nine years, is accused of restraining the woman's daughter, while his wife, Nitza Rivera, 43, struck the woman repeatedly with her fists on Thursday, West Hartford police said. Mendez was off-duty at the time.

The couple drove away. Officers interviewed witnesses and obtained their names. The couple later turned themselves in, West Hartford police said.

Mendez, assigned to Hartford Community Court at 80 Washington St., and Rivera, who has worked for the Hartford public school system since 1994, were each charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree assault, a felony, as well as unlawful restraint, conspiracy to commit unlawful restraint and breach of peace.

Rivera also was charged with second-degree assault, a felony.

Both were free after posting $25,000 bail and are due at Superior Court in Hartford on Sept. 25.

Rivera had an ongoing dispute with the woman, according to West Hartford police. She located the woman and her daughter inside the store, then went outside and hid behind a column until they came out, according to the incident report.

The 49-year-old woman sustained minor injuries, said Lt. Donald Melanson. Her daughter, 31, was not injured.

Judicial branch spokeswoman Rhonda Stearley-Hebert said Monday that the agency is gathering information on the incident.

"At this point, no disciplinary action has been taken, but that doesn't preclude action down the road," Stearley-Hebert said.

She said that Mendez already was under investigation by the judicial branch for an unrelated on-duty matter. Mendez was not at work Monday and a home phone number was temporarily disconnected.

Mendez became a deputy sheriff in 1999. The following year, the legislature abolished the outmoded, patronage-ridden sheriff's system, and the deputies automatically became judicial marshals. The marshals are responsible for court security and prisoner transport. Recruits now attend a 13-week academy that is nationally accredited.

David Medina, a spokesman for the Hartford school system, said that the district was investigating the West Hartford incident. Medina said that Rivera had not been at work since last Tuesday.

Contact Josh Kovner at jkovner@courant.com.

The above is a copyrighted Hartford Court piece

Sunday, September 14, 2008

A diagram for current Public Corruption?

The Winter Hill Gang in Boston, the Massachusetts State Police, and Massachusetts division of FBI all seemed to be interwoven. Whether it is on the Federal, State, or city level, the current use of informants makes good law enforcement go bad. As bad as it was in Boston, the integration of the "mob" into law enforcement, the courts, State Government, and a State's FBI probably can't get any worse than Connecticut is right now.

Florida authorites allegedly threw out the Connecticut State Police investigators off the case of the below down in Florida. The Connecticut State Police were thought to be too corrupt, dirty, and involved to be part of an honest investigation in Florida. Their ethics are probably even worse now, than then.

The below should be enough of a diagram to understand the current problem.



Former World Jai-Alai President John B. Callahan. Oklahoma and Florida grand juries indicted two reputed Boston mobsters and an alleged triggerman March 14, 2001 in Callahan's murder. (AP Photo/Miami Herald)

The below [found here]

Case Of The Fatal Tip Goes To Trial

By EDMUND H. MAHONY | Courant Staff Writer
September 14, 2008

Three Connecticut investigators working the case of their careers were understandably nervous when they disembarked at Miami International Airport and stepped into a sultry south Florida morning a quarter-century ago.

Then everything fell apart.

The investigators almost stumbled over the body of the witness they had flown south to hunt. Someone had emptied a semiautomatic pistol into John B. Callahan, a financial adviser to one of New England's most dangerous criminal mobs, the Winter Hill Gang. A parking attendant found him leaking from the trunk of his low-mileage Cadillac in an airport garage.

The 1982 slaying was a blow to law enforcement, not only in Connecticut, but also in Massachusetts, Florida and Oklahoma. Detectives lost their best and, it seemed, last opportunity to unravel a string of murders that appeared to grow from a convergence of organized crime, corrupt federal lawmen and the sport of jai alai, then the centerpiece of Connecticut's new, legalized gambling industry.

But this week, in a Miami court, prosecutors are expected to tell a jury that after 26 years, they finally have the evidence to go to trial in the Callahan shooting, one of the country's most frustrating murder mysteries.

Depending on how the case unfolds, it could settle lingering questions about how violent criminals in Boston, supported by corrupt federal agents, tried to win a foothold in what was once a fast-growing segment of the U.S. parimutuel industry.

Prosecutors concede that theirs won't be an easy case to make.

The man on trial for murder and conspiracy is John J. Connolly, a decorated former FBI agent who was more than 1,000 miles away, in Boston, when Callahan died. The principal witnesses against Connolly will be gangsters who, collectively, have taken credit for about 30 murders.

But the trial could mark the end of a long fall for Connolly. He once was featured in an FBI film produced to teach agents how to recruit mob informants. But for more than a decade he has stood accused of crossing the line, taking nearly $250,000 in payoffs to protect the criminals he was supposed to be locking up.

In 2002, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted in federal court in Boston of racketeering. He faces life in prison if convicted of murder and conspiracy in state court in Florida.

Prosecutors will argue that Connolly tipped leaders of the Winter Hill Gang that investigators were searching for Callahan in an effort to press him to implicate the gang leaders in an earlier jai alai-related killing.

The tip ended Callahan's life, the prosecutors will argue. Rather than a recruiter of informants, they will say Connolly had become one — the Winter Hill Gang's man in the FBI.

A 'Prisoner Of War'
In letters to friends from his maximum-security prison cell, Connolly has portrayed himself as the victim of a cynical conspiracy by corrupt federal prosecutors, morally bankrupt detectives and gangsters trading perjured testimony for light sentences. Collectively, he says, they have made him a scapegoat for failures in the FBI's organized crime program in Boston.

"I'm a prisoner of war," he was quoted as saying in the September issue of Boston magazine.

Connolly's assertion notwithstanding, prosecutors say they can win their case even if their witness list includes a rogues' gallery of murderers and Connolly's disgraced former FBI supervisor, who himself admitted taking $7,000 in cash from Winter Hill members. Jury selection began last week. Opening statements are expected this week.

"I've tried lots of cases where jurors have not liked some witnesses personally," said Michael Von Zamft, the Florida prosecutor in Connolly's case. "But that does not make them not believable."

Besides making palatable an unsavory list of witnesses, prosecutors may have to make sense to jurors of a complicated narrative reaching back more than 30 years, some of which has been disclosed through previous legal hearings and trials.

By the 1970s, jai alai, a Basque sport exported to South Florida, had expanded to New England. It is a fast-paced game, a sort of extreme handball. Players use long wicker baskets to sling a hard ball against a towering wall. Gamblers bet on various outcomes of the games. By the 1980s, there were three jai alai frontons, or arenas, in Connecticut.

At roughly the same time jai alai was expanding, Connolly was making a name for himself in Boston as top mob buster.

But information disclosed through a variety of related legal proceedings suggests that he did so by entering into a sordid relationship with the bosses of the Winter Hill Gang, James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi.

Connolly is accused of using his considerable influence in New England law enforcement to protect Bulger and Flemmi from prosecution. The gangsters, in turn, gave Connolly the information he needed to build cases against the Italian mafia — the Winter Hill gang's chief underworld rivals and the FBI's highest-priority target. In internal FBI records, Connolly listed Bulger and Flemmi as informants.

As Connolly's reputation as a crack lawman and the Winter Hill Gang's reputation as untouchable were growing in Boston, the three Connecticut investigators — state police detective Daniel Goslicki and prosecutors Austin McGuigan and Kevin Kane — arrived in Miami in search of Callahan.

They had traveled south with instructions to clean up jai alai. Problem was, the gangsters seemed to have second sight; the mob was always a step ahead of the police in Connecticut and just about everywhere else.

Connecticut investigators had long known about Callahan. In the mid-1970s, he had used his position as a consulting accountant to insert himself as president of World Jai Alai, the company that owned Hartford Jai Alai and several venues in south Florida.

One of Callahan's first hires was H. Paul Rico, another Boston FBI agent. Much later, in 2003, Rico would be charged in a jai alai-related murder. He died in prison before he could be tried.

Years before his arrest, while Rico was employed as World Jai alai's security chief, a Connecticut state police detective described him as "so crooked you could screw him into the ground."

Such suspicions prompted Connecticut authorities to put a tail on Callahan, Rico's boss. In one month, a Connecticut state police detective learned that Callahan met Winter Hill members or their associates 10 times at Boston's Playboy Club.

The surveillance forced Callahan to resign from World Jai Alai. He quickly became a player in efforts to buy the company, but the owners decided to sell to Roger Wheeler Sr., an enormously wealthy Tulsa, Okla., Sunday school teacher with diverse business interests.

Immediately after acquiring the business in 1979, Wheeler began expressing concern to friends about his personal safety and his belief that gangsters from New England had targeted his business. He was shot to death outside his Tulsa country club on May 27, 1981.

Wheeler's death raised concern around the country about the integrity of jai alai.

Detectives in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Tulsa learned a year later, through back channel sources, that a disaffected Winter Hill thug named Edward Brian Halloran was talking to FBI agents in Boston about the Wheeler murder. Halloran was trying to beat a murder charge of his own, and he wanted to be admitted to the federal witness protection program.

Halloran told the FBI that Callahan, Bulger and Flemmi had tried to recruit him to murder Wheeler. Halloran said it was his impression that the three had a financial interest in World Jai Alai. The FBI did not share the information with other police agencies involved in jai alai-related cases, apparently to protect Connolly's ostensible informants, Bulger and Flemmi.

Halloran ultimately was denied entry to the witness program. Five months later, on May 12, 1982, he was cut down in a rifle attack on a South Boston street. Authorities say he was killed by Bulger and other Winter Hill members.

'He Was Murdered'
All of a sudden, Callahan was enormously important. Detectives with an interest in jai alai viewed him as the last best lead in the Wheeler murder. Other, more sanguine detectives were betting on when he would turn up dead. Connecticut investigators suspected that Callahan was laundering money and hoped to use the information to leverage him to talk about Wheeler's death. They were too late.

If Connolly is convicted following what could be a two-month trial in Miami, it will have been through the testimony of the criminals he is accused of protecting.

In 1995, having realized that the FBI's Boston office was full of leaks when it came to Bulger, Flemmi and the Winter Hill Gang, the Massachusetts State Police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration finally succeeded in obtaining an indictment without FBI involvement.

According to evidence presented previously in related cases, Connolly managed to learn in advance about the indictment. He tipped Bulger, who in turn tipped Flemmi. Bulger fled immediately and remains a fugitive. He is now on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. This month, the Department of Justice increased the reward for his capture to $2 million.

Flemmi dawdled, and was arrested. Facing as many as 10 murder charges, Flemmi decided that his best defense was to give up Connolly. Others in the Winter Hill gang did the same, among them John Martorano, who has admitted killing 20 people, including his former close friend Callahan.

Martorano has said he and a partner dumped Callahan in the airport garage and left his wallet in Little Havana in an effort to create a false trail for the police.

Flemmi is serving a life sentence. Martorano reached a cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors and is free after serving 12 years. Another gang member, Joseph McDonald, died before he could be charged.

Flemmi previewed his likely testimony against Connolly in a civil deposition in June 2006:

He said Connolly tipped Bulger in 1982 that authorities were zeroing in on Callahan. Connolly warned that Callahan was a weakling who would fold under pressure. When he did, Bulger, Flemmi and Martorano would go to prison. Martorano had been the triggerman in the Wheeler killing.

Bulger arranged a meeting with Flemmi and Martorano in New York. The purpose of the meeting, Flemmi said in the deposition, was to persuade Martorano that he had to kill his friend Callahan.

"We told him that the information came from John Connolly and to make Martorano aware that information came from John Connolly, that Callahan would be a weak link and would involve him, and he wouldn't be able to stand the pressure of going to prison for 20 years or life; and John Martorano also was under the cloud of going to prison for 20 years or life. He [Martorano] was a little reluctant because of his close relationship with John Callahan, but he was convinced he was a threat."

What happened next? Flemmi was asked.

"He was murdered," Flemmi said.

Contact Edmund H. Mahony at emahony@courant.com.

For more photos of John J. Connolly, visit www.courant.com/connolly

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* * * *

Are Connecticut legislators the main reason Public Corruption is allowed to prosper and flourish?
[more]

Friday, September 12, 2008

Fatherlessness USA



There is a Fatherlessness Commission meeting Sept. 17 at the LOB in Hartford Connecticut. The above video is about what I would like them to study. We all have our individual stories, all should be told for the betterment of all children.

If there are others who want to submit a 3 minute video to me, or maybe I will meet with you and shoot video of your story. We come from all walks of life. Children shouldn't have either parent pushed out of their lives due to bad official policis. Elected officials who aren't currently acting in our best interest, should be. We can demand that they do, together.

-Steven G. Erickson

stevengerickson@yahoo.com

Why would a government and police officers protect drug dealers, prostitutes, and other criminals above downtown home and small business owners? [Answer]

A post on asking why lying lawyers are liars. [here]

keywords: Connecticut DCF Department of Children and Families Jeffrey R. Yeaw M. Jodi Rell Governor John G. Rowland Connecticut State Police Commissioner Arthur L. Spada Colonel Thomas "The Duck" Davoren Troopers John Richard Donald Michael Langlois Amaral Mulcahey Court Rockville Veron Superior Court Judge Jonathan J. Kaplan Prosecutor Keith Courier Barbara S. Sattel State Senator Tony Guglielmo John A. Kissel Hartford Judiciary Committee Public Safety Committee Homeland Security Abduction rape sex abuse murder

Thursday, September 11, 2008

How small town police sell and make money off of drugs:

title of video:
POLICE INFORMANT THAT WORKED FOR BC DISTRICT ATTNY RON MOORE


I believe the above is alleged to have occurred in North Carolina

* * * *

Confidential Informants acting as Domestic Terrorists


Connecticut State Police State Registered Confidential Informant Todd Vashon sells drugs for cops, sets up citizens, took $10,000 to kill two citizens that lodged police misconduct complaints, and police don't require him to have a driver's license, insurance, an inspected vehicle, or valid license plates to drive on Connecticut roads and highways. [more information]

* * * *

Cops recruit teens and others to be part of their cop gangs


If you try to get out of the gangs, police will send other police informants from their police informant gang to maybe do a drive-by shooting on you. If you fight back maybe you can get 2 decades or more in prison, or end up dead, just for wanting out of the Cop taxpayer sponsored gang.

* * * *

Was I "Taught a Lesson" to shut up about the above when police rape, rob, assault, sell drugs, and even kill, have killed, or arrange to be killed, citizens that complain about Connecticut State Police misconduct.

* * * *

Masked Police Beat/Abduct Citizens


The above is an excerpt from Ritt Goldstein's VHS tape of the Dec. 1996 Legislative Judiciary Committee Special Hearing on Civilian Oversight of Police. Ritt Goldstein soon fled to Sweden seeking political asylum after making [this tape].


* * * *

Is the CIA the biggest worldwide drug smuggling, producing, transporting, money laundering, organized criminal syndicate in the world? [more]

Will politicians like Congressman Keith Ellison and Chris Shays do something about this? [more]

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Government Sponsored Citizen Harassment

The video below is a little "campy", but the general point of how to harass and terrorize citizens without drawing attention to the initiators is made.



Are the CIA, DEA, FBI, NSA, law enforcement, and the US Government all involved in helping smuggle heroin and cocaine into the USA? [post]

Activist Attic

post in progress ...

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

The Internet to be owned, and controlled, by one?

Google is the biggest search engine. If they merge with Yahoo, the Internet can basically be censored. We can get the government and corporate line on everything, worldwide.

Here I am blogging on my google account, posting videos on google accounts, and searching news through google.

If you have a problem with anything google what do you do? If google denies you or your IP access what do you do? News papers and news organizations are dying on the vine. What if there was a google "boss" who decided what is news, who deserves business, and who deserves access at a their asking price?

For some of us we might have to invest in a commercial copier and a typewriter ...

* * * *

Top Lawyer Is Selected
As U.S. Mulls Google Suit
By JOHN R. WILKE
September 9, 2008; Page B1


Washington -- The Justice Department has quietly hired one of the nation's best-known litigators, former Walt Disney Co. vice chairman Sanford Litvack, for a possible antitrust challenge to Google Inc.'s growing power in advertising.

Mr. Litvack's hiring is the strongest signal yet that the U.S. is preparing to take court action against Google and its search-advertising deal with Yahoo Inc. The two companies combined would account for more than 80% of U.S. online-search ads.

Google shares tumbled 5.5%, or $24.30, to $419.95 in 4 p.m. trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, while Yahoo shares were up 18 cents to $18.26.

For weeks, U.S. lawyers have been deposing witnesses and issuing subpoenas for documents to support a challenge to the deal, lawyers close to the review said. Such efforts don't always mean a case will be brought, however.

Mr. Litvack, who was the Justice Department antitrust chief under President Jimmy Carter, has been asked to examine the evidence gathered so far and to build a case if the decision is made to proceed, the lawyers close to the review said.

It isn't clear whether a U.S. challenge would target the Google-Yahoo deal alone or take on broader aspects of Google's conduct in the growing online-advertising business. The agreement with Yahoo, announced in June, gives Google, of Mountain View, Calif., the right to sell search and text ads on Yahoo sites, sharing revenue with Yahoo, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Display and search-based Web advertising, which are dominated by Google, have transformed the media industry. As a result, a federal antitrust case against Google could set new boundaries for Internet competition, much as the Justice Department suit against Microsoft Corp. a decade ago broke ground applying antitrust law to new technologies.

Google has said the Yahoo deal doesn't violate antitrust law. It has forcefully argued -- in public testimony before Congress and in private meetings with Justice Department lawyers -- that the deal is pro-competition. The companies say they voluntarily delayed closing the deal until early October, to allow the U.S. to complete its review.

"We voluntarily delayed implementation of this arrangement to give the Department of Justice time to understand it, and we continue to work cooperatively with them," Google said. "While there has been a lot of speculation about this agreement's potential impact on advertisers or ad prices, we think it would be premature for regulators to halt the agreement before we implement it and everyone can judge the actual impact."

In a statement late Monday, Yahoo said: "We have been informed that the Justice Department, as they sometimes do, is seeking advice from an outside consultant, but that we should read nothing into that fact. We remain confident that the deal is lawful."

It is relatively rare for the Justice Department to hire a special counsel from outside the department. David Boies was brought in as a special counsel to build the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft in 1998. Stephen Axinn, another well-known New York litigator, was hired to challenge WorldCom Inc.'s proposed buyout of Sprint Corp. The companies abandoned that transaction in 2000 after the department and Mr. Axinn challenged the deal.

Mr. Litvack, who couldn't be reached for comment, resigned last week from Hogan & Hartson LLP, where he was a partner in the Los Angeles and New York offices. A Justice Department spokeswoman also declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that a group of major advertisers complained to the department about the deal. The Association of National Advertisers, which represents major advertisers such as Procter & Gamble Co. and General Motors Corp., warned that the deal could lead to higher prices and limited opportunities for Web advertisers.

Microsoft also has objected to the deal, saying it would unfairly foreclose competition on the Web. In Senate hearings in July, Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, testified that "if search is the gateway to the Internet, and most people believe that it is, this deal will put Google in position to own that gateway and the information that flows through it."

Write to John R. Wilke at john.wilke@wsj.com

Live Free or Die?

Well if you want to live free, and if something isn't done, you may die against your will just for asking, that is after the complimentary detention, torture, and execution.

I'm contacting elected officials who I think might care and actually do something.



http://www.house.gov/shays/

To Chris Shays,

I know your Committee assignments. I would like to talk to you about being filmed in high definition about the subject below. Will you talk about judicial, police, and government agency accountability and needed oversight with me?

If the FBI is looking for less accountability and more money, and the CIA who has it, is using its torture detainee transport planes to smuggle heroin and cocaine into the US. Should the FBI be able to start their own domestic spying program, have covert torture and execution camps, funds to railroad citizens to be held as political prisoners, have their own drug smuggling business, and have enough money and power to use elected officials as puppets?

The CIA drug smuggling story, here:

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2008/09/plane-used-for-cia-renditions-also.html



* * * *

[click here] for "An African American Muslim Congressman makes sense", post on Keith Ellison of Minneapolis, Minnesota

[click here] for a post of mine on US Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont

Monday, September 08, 2008

The real value of the US Dollar?




How long will it be before the house of cards falls?


Excerpt:

MW:When politicians or members of the foreign policy establishment talk about "integrating" Russia or China into the "international system"; what exactly do they mean? Do they mean the dollar-dominated system which is governed by the Fed, the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO? Do countries compromise their national sovereignty when they participate in the US-led economic system?

Michael Hudson: By “integrating” they mean absorbing, something like a parasite integrating a host into its own control system. They mean that other countries will be prohibited under WTO and IMF rules from getting rich in the way that the United States got wealthy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Only the United States will be permitted to subsidize its agriculture, thanks to its unique right to grandfather in its price supports. Only the United States will be free from having to raise interest rates to stabilize its balance of payments, and only it can devote its monetary policy to promoting easy credit and asset-price inflation. And only the United States can run a military deficit, obliging foreign central banks in dollar-recipient countries to give it a free ride. In other words, there is no free lunch for other countries, only for the United States.

Other countries do indeed give up their national sovereignty. The United States never has adjusted its economy to create equilibrium with other countries. But to be fair, in this respect only the United States is acting fully in its own self-interest. The problem is largely that other countries are not “playing the game.” They are not acting as real governments. It takes two to tango when one party gets a free ride. Their governments have become “enablers” of U.S. economic aggression.

MW:What do you think the Bush administration's reaction would be if a smaller country, like Switzerland, had sold hundreds of billions of dollars of worthless mortgage-backed securities to investment banks, insurance companies and investors in the United States? Wouldn't there be litigation and a demand that the responsible parties be held accountable? So, how do you explain the fact that China and the EU nations, that were the victims of this gigantic swindle, haven't boycotted US financial products or called for reparations?
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Other reasons I might want to leave the country
[here]

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Liar, Liar


explanation of this video [found here]


The below from the Hartford Advocate in Connecticut [found here]


Liar, Liar
A state ethics lawyer lies and gets away with it. Where's the ethics in that?
Comments (3)
Thursday, September 04, 2008
By Andy Bromage


Admit you're a liar, keep your cushy state job.

That's the message the Rell administration is sending state employees following an investigation of Maureen Duggan, a state staff attorney who admitted forging a letter that was used in the firing of the state's top ethics official. A state human resources investigator decided last week that Duggan should not be punished for authoring the fraudulent letter, in part, because the State Ethics Commission that employed her had no specific rules prohibiting that type of behavior.

State investigator Stephen Caliendo found no "just cause" to discipline Duggan, a 23-year state employee who now earns $105,000 as a lawyer for the state Department of Children and Families. In 2004, she was a staff attorney at the State Ethics Commission, whose executive director, Alan Plofsky, was targeted by the administration of Gov. John Rowland for publicly stating that Rowland's acceptance of gifts broke state ethics law.

Duggan wrote a phony letter that appeared to be written by an anonymous parking lot attendant, detailing problems within the State Ethics Commission and filling it with misspellings like "anonimus" to make it seem authentic (because, obviously, all parking lot attendants are uneducated dingbats). Her then-husband mailed it to the chairman of the commission, a Rowland appointee, who in turn brought it to Duggan's attention. Duggan never acknowledged she had authored the letter; instead, she and two other staff attorneys passed it off as authentic to the Auditors of Public Accounts, and sought (and received) protection as whistleblowers.

Investigations ensued. Plofsky was practically put on trial. Ultimately he was fired, but a state panel later found the move improper and reinstated him, albeit in a different state agency. Plofsky sued the state in federal court and during a deposition of Duggan earlier this year, she admitted that she had written the parking lot letter.

To recap: A high-level state employee forges a letter accusing her boss of misdeeds, lies about it, later admits she lied about it, and receives no punishment for her deceit. Andy Sauer, the head of the good government group Connecticut Common Cause, is incredulous. "She forged a letter. Forgery is a crime. How much more just cause do you need?"



One could hardly imagine a more blatant misuse of state whistleblower protections than Duggan's charade. Duggan told Caliendo, the state investigator, she wrote the letter because she feared retaliation if her complaints became public. Caliendo concludes that what Duggan did may have been "wrong, improper and even deceitful," but it was motivated by genuine fear of Plofsky, not malice.

Using twisted logic, Caliendo exonerates Duggan because the Auditor of Public Accounts confirmed "many of the improprieties and transgressions" Duggan raised in the parking lot letter. Except that's not even true. Many of Duggan's anonymous accusations were not substantiated by the auditors. For instance:

Duggan's letter claimed that Ethics Commission employees "work strange hours." But the auditors reported they "could not confirm whether or not employees ... worked less than their required 40-hour work week."

In one of the more bizarre examples, Duggan's letter complained that "there are a lot of deliveries recently to Ethics, like two big desks and all kinds of computer stuff. Why do they get all this stuff?" The auditors found all the purchases "were done properly."

Auditors did find the commission failed to provide attendance and compensation records during regular reviews, and, more creepily, that Plofsky signed memos to staff members with little x's and o's.

That's not the point. Duggan could have made a whistleblower complaint like any other state employee and kept her name secret, a point made by a state judicial panel that's looking into whether Duggan should be disbarred. Duggan was "well aware" of the Whistle Blower Protection Act, the judicial panel said, and, indeed, invoked it when she turned over the parking lot letter.

By defrauding the ethics commission in using a phony identity, Duggan compromised the validity of her claims and damaged public trust in state government, or so one would think. Caliendo, the state investigator, apparently doesn't see it that way. In fact, Caliendo notes that one state employee, Office of Labor Relations attorney Sandra Fae Brown-Brewton, knew of Duggan's lie three years before it became public in the deposition and did nothing about it. Rather than serving to indict Brown-Brewton or Duggan, Caliendo used that cover-up to bolster his case for why Duggan can't be fired.

"The state was aware more than three years ago that Ms. Duggan authored the anonymous letter and no disciplinary or other action was instituted against her at that time," Caliendo wrote.

Plofsky's lawyer, Gregg Adler, says he expected Caliendo's report to be whitewashed. The state rules used to protect Duggan from discipline, Adler says, were ironically the same ones used to take down Plofsky.

Duggan didn't return a phone call and e-mail seeking comment. Nor did the governor's staff. Should we take their silence to mean shame from Duggan's exoneration, or tacit approval?¦

Send your comments to

editor@hartfordadvocate.com

What is the true nature of ANY government?

The below from the BBC [found here]

Belated apology for Apartheid casualty

In 1968 the BBC's Africa Editor Martin Plaut was one of 600 students at the University of Cape Town protesting because black lecturer Archie Mafeje had been denied a teaching post there. Returning to Cape Town 40 years later for a reunion of campus rebels, he discovered the real reason for the university's stance.

Archie Mafeje courtesy of the University of Cape Town
Apartheid legislation forced Archie Mafeje into exile

Sitting in the cool winter sunshine it seemed impossible to believe that four decades had somehow slipped away.

The giant steps on which much of the university's social life is conducted still cascaded down the mountainside, as the mist lifted gradually, revealing the town below. The view was, as ever, hauntingly beautiful.

In 1968 it had been easy to sit here and dream, with the music of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan floating out of the student union.

But the steps had seen more than idle revelry. For in that year Cape Town was a small outpost of student revolution.

Government pressure

It started when Archie Mafeje - who had graduated from Cape Town before African students had been excluded by law from attending the university - was about to finish his PhD at Cambridge and had been appointed to a senior lectureship in the department of social anthropology.

But this was at the height of apartheid. The University of Cape Town was officially designated a white university and Mafeje was black.

Under intense government pressure the university authorities struggled to find a way forward.

The law, extraordinary as it may seem, continued to allow the university the right to employ lecturers of any race, so it could hold its head high on the international stage as a "multi-racial" institution.

Map of Cape Town

But when it acted on this right, the government threatened to amend the law.

So the University of Cape Town withdrew the offer of employment to Archie Mafeje in order to maintain the theoretical right to offer him a job.

At a mass meeting we decided to act. One thousand students marched down the mountain, with 600 of us occupying the administration building, vowing not to leave until the university relented.

For 10 days we held out, sleeping on the floors. Food was cooked communally, even by the men who, at that time, were largely ignorant of the workings of the kitchen.

Alternative lectures were organised on the stairs and we got a newspaper up and running.

Student barricades

Messages of support flowed in from the barricades mounted by students in Paris and London.

At last we were not just some isolated racist outpost of empire, but part of an international movement. And the times, they really were a changing!

But the university stubbornly refused to concede to our demand to reappoint Mafeje and gradually our spirits flagged.

Students from the Afrikaans University of Stellenbosch were sent to try to beat us up. Shots were fired at the doors.

The government threatened to act, if the university would not. As support ebbed away we finally packed up and left.

The university had rejected one black appointee in order to safeguard the employment of an existing member of staff

A failure? Not really. It gave the lie to the government's claim that all whites supported its racist policies.

And in the debates new ideas came bubbling up. "What will I tell my children if I do nothing," one student argued to loud cheers, "especially if they are black!" Pure heresy in 1968 when all sex between races was forbidden by law.

The sit-in certainly changed those of us who had been there.

Many went on to play active parts in the trade unions that emerged in the 1970s and in the movements of the 1980s that finally led to the end of apartheid.

Strange twist

About 60 of us who were originally involved in the sit-in have just met up for the first reunion in 40 years, some flying in to Cape Town from homes overseas.

We discovered there was a twist to the tale, in why the university authorities had held out so strenuously to retain the right to appoint black lecturers all those years ago, even if it meant not appointing Mr Mafeje in the process.

It was because they actually already had, unbeknown to the government, managed to appoint a man classified as "coloured" to the university staff.

But since his name was Afrikaans he had slipped by the authorities, who had assumed he was white.

So the university had rejected one black appointee in order to safeguard the employment of an existing member of staff.

Another example of the strange and terrible consequences of apartheid.

'Shabby treatment'

The celebrations which surrounded our reunion the other day were tinged with bitterness. The university had never made its peace with Mafeje.

Whites only toilets in Cape Town 1985
During apartheid blacks in SA were stripped of their citizenship

He had gone on to live the life of a wandering scholar in exile in Tanzania, Egypt and Namibia. His family rightly felt he had been shabbily treated.

Yet an attempt at reconciliation had been made. After white rule ended he was offered a research post. But as a professor at the time he declined to accept it.

When he finally applied for a chair at the university, he was once more rejected as being unsuitable for the position.

Mafeje died in March last year, apparently a deeply embittered man. The University of Cape Town has now, belatedly, apologised for the way he was treated.

At a ceremony attended by some of us who had taken part in the original protest, his family formally accepted the apology and the university awarded Mafeje a posthumous honorary doctorate.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 6 September, 2008 at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.

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http://thegetjusticecoalition.blogspot.com/

Thursday, September 04, 2008

McCain's use of the "C" word?




Raw Story reported on it [here].

Well, yelling at people is one thing, beating them is another. I much rather a President yell and swear, than to lie, steal, and come off polite.

I like McCain. There are elements of Obama that I like.

As far as using the "C" word, it is all in how you use it.

If you say you're a cute little "C" in the right situation, one thing might lead to another. Some couples like to use that word just before they do their own version of "mud wrestling".

To each, their own, as I have heard said over and over.

The Connecticut Sheriff Scandal Cover-up

Click on page for larger view

If you look for discrepancies and know a little about the inside workings of a patronage system of government and of courts, you'll understand the below and clicking on and examining each of the below documents.











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Does Official Connecticut cover up its own public corruption by falsely arresting, imprisoning, and using conspiring doctors to medicate whistle blowers so they can be locked up in mental institutions? Well, the case of Anne Kristine Blake might prove that is the the unofficial policy. [click here for more]

A former Ms. Green told me 7-7-2007 that a "connected" family had there 24o lb, tall, and out of control violent daughter in a group home risking the lives and safety of staff and clients of the DMR. The client should have been in a more secure facility after assaulting other clients and staff. Ms. Green probably has a new last name because she married another DMR high ranking employee after they went to a physical holds and restraining class and teamed up with each other in the class to put holds on each other, and they seem to have liked it ...

So, according to former Ms. Green and her husband exposing abuses, taxpayer defrauding, retaliation, nepotism, the state of fear in the DMR (Connecticut Department of Mental Retardation), the falsifying of reports, and the blanket disregard for rules, procedure, and laws could mean being fired, losing one's pension, and even ending up under arrest and in prison. Ms. Green told me that is how all 3 branches and all official Connecticut departments operate.

Labels:

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Our US Future?

Corporations like Home Depot built large stores all over, offered goods at ridiculously low price, had liberal return policies, put smaller local Mom and Pop businesses out of business.

Then the mega corporations charged what they wanted, got stingy on return policies, and because they overbuilt they are leaving this:


The former Home Depot in Brattleboro, Vermont

Monday, September 01, 2008

Do women get adequately punished when they rob, rape, stalk, kidnap, assault, and kill?

Maybe we should keep an eye on the below case.



Woman to Virtual Ex: 'I Won't Be Ignored!'
By Julie Rivera, CNET News.com


This has to be the weirdest and saddest crime-of-virtual-passion story I've come across.

Kimberly Jernigan -- a 33-year-old woman from North Carolina -- was apparently distraught after her online relationship with a 52-year-old man from Claymont, Del., came to an end.

The pair apparently met through the online community Second Life and began a virtual relationship. The two finally met in reality several months ago, and the alleged victim ended the relationship, sending Jernigan into a downward spiral.

In early August, Jernigan allegedly drove to the victim's Pennsylvania workplace and attempted to kidnap him at gunpoint, according to local news station CBS3.com. When she was unsuccessful, according to the report, she returned two weeks later to track down the victim's Delaware address, and posed as a postal worker to do so. After four days of searching, authorities said she found the man's residence in the Whitney Presidential Towers on the 7100 block of Society Drive in Claymont.

On August 21, police said, Jernigan broke into the unnamed victim's apartment with a Taser, a pair of handcuffs, a BB gun, her dog, and a roll of duct tape. He wasn't there, so she waited. When the virtual ex arrived home he saw what looked like a laser beam projecting on his chest. He immediately fled the apartment and contacted the Newcastle County Police.

Police said that when they arrived, they found Jernigan's dog, Gogi, bound with duct tape in the victim's bathtub. Jernigan's reason for gagging her pooch -- "he was making too much noise." The dog was said to be uninjured, but the ASPCA is looking into possible charges of animal cruelty.

Approximately an hour after the incident, authorities in Maryland spotted Jernigan's vehicle at a rest stop on I-95. She was taken into custody after a brief struggle. Jernigan is currently facing charges of attempted kidnapping, burglary, and aggravated menacing, CBS3 said.

What's the lesson here, kiddies? Keep your virtual relationships virtual and don't bring it into the real world or some innocent animal may be harmed in the process ...

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