Presidents think they can get away with more and more

Oliver North Questioned - Rex 84 Exposed During Iran Contra



The "matter" of trying to suspend the US Constitution during the Reagan era to block prosecution of official during the Iran Contra scandal. Do you see any parallels today?

Text with video:
FEMA plans on suspension of the US constitution exposed during Iran contra hearings. Oliver North is questioned by Jack Brooks.

A comment under the YouTube.com video:
...
"If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us." -George H.W. Bush to journalist Sarah McClendon

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[click here] for full post of the below.

Iran-Contra Affair

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The Iran-Contra Affair was the largest political scandal in the United States during the 1980s, considered by some to be one of the largest political scandals in history.^[1] Large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan Administration officials.^[2] The affair is still shrouded with secrecy and it is very hard to discover the facts. It involved several members of the Reagan Administration who in 1986 helped sell arms to Iran, an avowed enemy, and used the proceeds to fund the Contras, an anti-communist guerrilla organization in Nicaragua. ^[3]

After the arms sales were revealed in November 1986, President Ronald Reagan appeared on national television and denied that they had occurred.^[4] However, a week later, on November 13, he returned to the airwaves to affirm that weapons were indeed transferred to Iran. He denied that they were part of an exchange for hostages. ^[5]

9/11 - NORAD - Dick Cheney was in charge on 911

If US Vice President Dick Cheney was in charge on NORAD on 9-11 that is suspicious. To have simulated attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Centers BEFORE it happened is suspicious giving what happened on 9-11. The military has "shoot down" capability regarding hijacked jets. On 9-11 that capability was blocked, why?

Ellsberg Iran Attack

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked secret Pentagon documents during the Vietnam war called on current Washington insiders to release any classified documents that could sway public opinion against an attack against Iran.

In a press conference on wednesday 6 of December in Stockholm, as reported by Associated Press, Ellsberg, who is one of four recipients of this year's Right Livelihood Award - often dubbed the "Alternative Nobels" - also urged U.S. allies to threaten to withdraw from the NATO alliance if nuclear weapons are used against Iran.

He warned that he believed the U.S. would attack Iran before 2008 and urged Washington insiders to make new disclosures to prevent a new war.

Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is a former American military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national uproar in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, the US military's account of activities during the Vietnam War, to The New York Times. The release awakened the American people to how much they had been deceived by their own government about the war.

"It is more likely than not, in the next two years, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney will direct an attack on Iran," Ellsberg said at the news conference for the Right Livelihood laureates. "Such an attack ... might escalate too, to the use of nuclear weapons against underground installations in Iran, with incalculable consequences."

But, the former U.S. State Department official added: "Of the various disastrous policies of their administration, this one is the most susceptible to being changed and averted by public pressure."

"Don't do what I did, don't wait until the war has started before you tell the truth with documents," said Ellsberg.
source: ReportIran [click here]


Part 2

Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex

RIP Bill of Rights and Habeas Corpus


Eminem - Public Enemy #1


The Secret Government


It aired on PBS in 1987 and is as good as anything on the tape (must see). Moyers is a very respected TV journalist who also worked for Lyndon B. Johnson and has a very professional approach. He interviews many different people involved with the CIA and other government agencies. His documentary gives quite an overview of what has actually happened in the last 50 years regarding the CIA and the cold war (including Iran, Guatamala, Cuba, Viet Nam and Chile). He features such people as Ralph McGeehee and Phil Retinger (both former CIA agents), Rear Admiral Gene La Rocque (Ret. U.S.N.), Theodore Bissell (active in the CIA at the time), Sen. Frank Church and many others. Moyers is so very credible. The full video "The Secret Government" is 90 minutes - this segment is edited by Frank Dorrel to 20 minutes.

Are People like Ants?

Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception

By Jim Lobe, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2003.

Many neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz are disciples of a philosopher who believed that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses.

What would you do if you wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, but your intelligence agencies couldn't find the evidence to justify a war?

A follower of Leo Strauss may just hire the "right" kind of men to get the job done – people with the intellect, acuity, and, if necessary, the political commitment, polemical skills, and, above all, the imagination to find the evidence that career intelligence officers could not detect.

The "right" man for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, suggests Seymour Hersh in his recent New Yorker article entitled 'Selective Intelligence,' was Abram Shulsky, director of the Office of Special Plans (OSP) – an agency created specifically to find the evidence of WMDs and/or links with Al Qaeda, piece it together, and clinch the case for the invasion of Iraq.

Like Wolfowitz, Shulsky is a student of an obscure German Jewish political philosopher named Leo Strauss who arrived in the United States in 1938. Strauss taught at several major universities, including Wolfowitz and Shulsky's alma mater, the University of Chicago, before his death in 1973.

Strauss is a popular figure among the neoconservatives. Adherents of his ideas include prominent figures both within and outside the administration. They include 'Weekly Standard' editor William Kristol; his father and indeed the godfather of the neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol; the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, a number of senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (home to former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and Lynne Cheney), and Gary Schmitt, the director of the influential Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which is chaired by Kristol the Younger.

Strauss' philosophy is hardly incidental to the strategy and mindset adopted by these men – as is obvious in Shulsky's 1999 essay titled "Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous)" (in Greek philosophy the term nous denotes the highest form of rationality). As Hersh notes in his article, Shulsky and his co-author Schmitt "criticize America's intelligence community for its failure to appreciate the duplicitous nature of the regimes it deals with, its susceptibility to social-science notions of proof, and its inability to cope with deliberate concealment." They argued that Strauss's idea of hidden meaning, "alerts one to the possibility that political life may be closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is the norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is the exception."

Rule One: Deception

It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."

This dichotomy requires "perpetual deception" between the rulers and the ruled, according to Drury. Robert Locke, another Strauss analyst says,"The people are told what they need to know and no more." While the elite few are capable of absorbing the absence of any moral truth, Strauss thought, the masses could not cope. If exposed to the absence of absolute truth, they would quickly fall into nihilism or anarchy, according to Drury, author of 'Leo Strauss and the American Right' (St. Martin's 1999).

Second Principle: Power of Religion

According to Drury, Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control.

At the same time, he stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were, since the truths proclaimed by religion were "a pious fraud." As Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine points out, "Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers."

"Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing,'' Drury says, because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely those traits that may promote dissent that in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with external threats. Bailey argues that it is this firm belief in the political utility of religion as an "opiate of the masses" that helps explain why secular Jews like Kristol in 'Commentary' magazine and other neoconservative journals have allied themselves with the Christian Right and even taken on Darwin's theory of evolution.

Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism

Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful nationalistic state. "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed," he once wrote. "Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united – and they can only be united against other people."

Not surprisingly, Strauss' attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly Machiavellian. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book. "Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured (emphases added)."

"Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in," says Drury. The idea easily translates into, in her words, an "aggressive, belligerent foreign policy," of the kind that has been advocated by neocon groups like PNAC and AEI scholars – not to mention Wolfowitz and other administration hawks who have called for a world order dominated by U.S. military power. Strauss' neoconservative students see foreign policy as a means to fulfill a "national destiny" – as Irving Kristol defined it already in 1983 – that goes far beyond the narrow confines of a " myopic national security."

As to what a Straussian world order might look like, the analogy was best captured by the philosopher himself in one of his – and student Allen Bloom's – many allusions to Gulliver's Travels. In Drury's words, "When Lilliput was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect."

The image encapsulates the neoconservative vision of the United States' relationship with the rest of the world – as well as the relationship between their relationship as a ruling elite with the masses. "They really have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they're conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy," Drury says.

Jim Lobe writes on foreign policy for Alternet. His work has also appeared on Foreign Policy In Focus and TomPaine.com.

Connecticut’s Police State

Should a man that possibly doesn’t believe that citizens should not have First Amendment Rights and that Police Liaisons should tell elected officials what they can and cannot propose for legislation regarding the courts and police be head of the Connecticut State Police?

Well, the Connecticut State Police “Enemies List” where citizens are targets for false arrests and imprisonment is nothing new. If you are critical of police in newspapers, at Town Hall, or propose laws such as Civilian Oversight of Police, the Connecticut State Police will ignore regular criminals and crime to go after citizens for political reasons.

Should Col. Davoren order Troopers to follow even my dates around to harass them, inappropriately search them, and threaten them out of dating me? Should police be out trying to get citizens fired from their jobs as part of political retaliation and revenge? Should citizens lose their families, homes, and everything they had ever worked for, never to own a home again, hold a decent job, to be railroaded to prison?

How does this help the economy, social problems, and increase the tax base and State business? How do these court and police policies in Connecticut foster faith in government?

Is that ok with you?

Col. Davoren is the head of the Connecticut State Police. I believe he ordered that I be followed around and be kept under surveillance at taxpayer expense because of what I wrote critical of police in the Journal Inquirer and for proposing Civilian Oversight of Police to Tony Guglielmo and former Rep. Mordasky.

Who is in charge, the people or the police. Are representatives mere puppets of Judges and the Police? Should practicing lawyers be elected officials when they are loyal to each other, the police, prosecutors, and judges, and usually the people don’t even rate?

Ritt Goldstein had the same ideas I do. He and others testified Dec. 1996 in front of the Judiciary Committee Legislators at the Hartford Capitol. Clips from that testimony here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB2jYaNpFrQ

Ritt Goldstein was so terrorized by police in Connecticut, he sought political asylum in Sweden. If that doesn't beg you legislators to actually do something for ALL the people, nothing does.

Should Col. Davoren, now head of the Connecticut State Police, be arrested and prosecuted for this:
http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com/2007/02/face-from-head-of-police-state.html

I will be posting this open email to you here:
http://thesrv.blogspot.com/

Thank you,

Steven G. Erickson

P.S. try doing a word search on me for my pictures and story. Are you willing to legislate to expunge records of those falsely prosecuted and compensate victims. The Police and Courts aren’t equipped or are the members interested in justice, fairness, morality. You need to pick up the ball for the people you represent.

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Emailed to:
Connecticut Public Safety Committee Legislators:

Stillman@senatedems.ct.gov, Stephen.Dargan@cga.ct.gov, Tom.Reynolds@cga.ct.gov, Daily@senatedems.ct.gov, Anthony.Guglielmo@cga.ct.gov, Raymond.Kalinowski@housegop.ct.gov, Penny.Bacchiochi@housegop.ct.gov, Betty.Boukus@cga.ct.gov,Charles.Clemons@cga.ct.gov, Christopher.Caruso@cga.ct.gov, Kevin.DelGobbo@housegop.ct.gov, Lou.Esposito@cga.ct.gov, Ruth.Fahrbach@housegop.ct.gov, Minnie.Gonzalez@cga.ct.gov, Len.Greene@housegop.ct.gov, Ernest.Hewett@cga.ct.gov, Karen.Jarmoc@cga.ct.gov, Shawn.Johnston@cga.ct.gov, Joan.Lewis@cga.ct.gov, Steve.Mikutel@cga.ct.gov, Linda.Orange@cga.ct.gov, Jim.Shapiro@cga.ct.gov, Kevin.Witkos@housegop.ct.gov

Connecticut Judiciary Committee Legislators:

Mcdonald@senatedems.ct.gov, mlawlor99@juno.com, Handley@senatedems.ct.gov, Gerald.Fox@cga.ct.gov, John.A.Kissel@cga.ct.gov, Arthur.ONeill@housegop.ct.gov, Al.Adinolfi@housegop.ct.gov, Bill.Aman@cga.ct.gov, Ryan.Barry@cga.ct.gov, Jeffrey.Berger@cga.ct.gov, Beth.Bye@cga.ct.gov, David.Cappiello@cga.ct.gov, Eric.Coleman@cga.ct.gov, Patricia.Dillon@cga.ct.gov, Mary.Fritz@cga.ct.gov, John.Geragosian@cga.ct.gov

Janice.Giegler@housegop.ct.gov, Bob.Godfrey@cga.ct.gov, Gomes@senatedems.ct.gov, Minnie.Gonzalez@cga.ct.gov, Kenneth.Green@cga.ct.gov, Gail.Hamm@cga.ct.gov, William.Hamzy@housegop.ct.gov, DebraLee.Hovey@housegop.ct.gov, Bryan.Hurlburt@cga.ct.gov, Themis.Klarides@housegop.ct.gov, David.Labriola@housegop.ct.gov, David.McCluskey@cga.ct.gov, Faith.McMahon@cga.ct.gov, Meyer@senatedems.ct.gov, Bruce.Morris@cga.ct.gov, Tim.Obrien@cga.ct.gov, Melissa.Olson@cga.ct.gov, Claudia.Powers@housegop.ct.gov, Andrew.Roraback@cga.ct.gov, TR.Rowe@housegop.ct.gov, Joseph.Serra@cga.ct.gov, James.Spallone@cga.ct.gov, cam9123@hotmail.com, Christopher.Stone@cga.ct.gov, William.Tong@cga.ct.gov, Toni.Walker@cga.ct.gov, Elissa.Wright@cga.ct.gov

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[click here] for Francis Knize State and Federal Legislative solution

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[click here] for:

Putting Polish on a Secret Police State

Added Jan. 31, 2007, 6:30 AM, Connecticut Public Safety Committee Legislators, please [click here]

A Nation under surveillance, complain and you'll be put on a Secret Police "Enemies List" for a take down, arrests, and confinement. Your life will never be the same. Your kids may never see or have respect for you again. It is modern reality in America.

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[click here] for:

What are the Social Costs of Domestic Spying?

Former Connecticut State Police Commissioner, Dr. Henry C. Lee


Former Connecticut State Police Commissioner Arthur L. Spada


Connecticut State Police Commissioner Leonard C. Boyle


Former Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland


Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell

The below emailed to: leonard.boyle@po.state.ct.us, governor.rell@po.state.ct.us

Dear Governor M. Jodi Rell and Connecticut State Police Commissioner Leonard C. Boyle, [more]

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Slavery in Connecticut?

CONNECTICUT NEWS
Workers Claim Forced Labor
Group Of Guatemalans Says Nursery Paid Low Wages And Mistreated Them

February 9, 2007
By KIM MARTINEAU And MARK SPENCER, Courant Staff Writers

Marvin Coto flew north on a work visa, to plant trees in North Carolina and send money home to Guatemala. Instead, he says, he wound up at a nursery in Granby where he worked long hours for low wages. His family had to wire him money so he could eat.

He is one of a dozen Guatemalan workers who claim their treatment by the nursery amounted to human trafficking. The Guatemalans filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against Imperial Nurseries and its corporate parent, Griffin Land & Nurseries, claiming they were lured to the U.S. on false pretenses, and mistreated once they got here. A group of Yale Law School students has taken up the immigrants' cause, seeking back wages and civil fines.

"There was no escape," said Coto, a stocky man with curly hair who spent most of the day sitting for interviews in a cluttered office at Yale. "We never let our guard down. We never relaxed. We just worked hard but no matter how hard we worked, we were never able to please them."

The U.S. Department of Labor looked into allegations of human trafficking last June but found the workers had not been held against their will, said Monte Lake, an attorney for Imperial Nurseries. He said Imperial paid the workers legal wages through its contractor, Pro Tree Forestry Services, but that Pro Tree had not passed on that money to its workers. Imperial fired Pro Tree after the Department of Labor's findings were issued, he added.

The lawsuit names Pro Tree and its owner, William Forero, who could not be reached for comment Thursday at his home in Tallahassee, Fla.

Last March, Coto, 33, left his wife and three children in Guatemala with the promise of a temporary job planting pine trees for $7.50 an hour, he said through a translator. He took out a loan to buy a plane ticket and work visa but when he landed in Greensboro, N.C., he and his coworkers were whisked away in a van. They rode for three days until Coto spotted a sign welcoming him to Hartford. There, they were shown to a filthy apartment, home to another group of young immigrants who were summarily evicted to make room for the new arrivals, said Coto. He knew something was wrong but, unable to speak English and with just a few dollars in his pocket, he didn't know where to turn.

For the next three months, Coto and his coworkers spent grueling days packing trees into pots in Granby, under constant surveillance of their bosses, threatened with arrest and deportation if they complained, he said. Their bosses confiscated their passports, paid them $3.75 an hour, then deducted rent and other expenses from their pay, he said, making it hard to scrape together enough money even for meals of rice and beans.

Coto eventually fell sick after days working in the rain, with chemicals and fertilizers, he said. When he asked for a doctor, he said, he was threatened with firing. With his debt mounting, he was terrified of losing his job.

One day, while visiting a laundromat, Coto heard about the Church of God Pentecost on Lawrence Street in Hartford's Frog Hollow section. Disillusioned, Coto told his story to the pastor, the Rev. Nelson Negron, and the church took up a collection for the Guatemalans.

"He said everything was different when they got here," Negron said Thursday, through a translator. "He would cry when he talked about it."

Through the church, Coto was referred to Yale and an immigrant-advocacy group, Junta for Progressive Action. Last June, Coto and his coworkers requested their passports, under the pretext of having money wired to them, as they had done previously. That night, Junta volunteers picked the men up and drove them to New Haven. Junta had collected nearly $7,000 in donations to rent the Guatemalans an apartment and buy them bedding and food.

Five of the workers still live in New Haven, while Coto has relocated to Hartford. With interest, his debt has ballooned to $6,000. The other six have either gone home to Guatemala or settled elsewhere in the U.S.

"These workers came here lawfully to earn a living and support their families," said Nicole Hallett, a Yale student working on the case. "Instead, they were defrauded and trapped into conditions of forced labor."

Few employees could be seen Thursday outside Imperial Nurseries in Granby, where a bitter wind whipped through dozens of plastic greenhouses that seemed to blend in with the snow on the frozen earth.

A sign at the entrance read, in English and Spanish: "We consistently provide superior in-demand plants in an environment that makes it easy to conduct business." An employee at the company's Salmon Brook Street office referred questions to Peter Hamilton, a public relations specialist in New York, who could not be reached late Thursday.

Human trafficking, for labor or sex, appears to be on the rise. Last year, the Connecticut legislature passed laws making trafficking punishable by criminal and civil penalties.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he has opened an investigation into the allegations, the first under the new laws, which he hopes to have finished in a few weeks.

"This case may very well become the poster child for vigorous enforcement of our new laws," he said.

U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor declined to say whether his office is also investigating.

Courant staff writer Matt Kauffman contributed to this story.



Contact Kim Martineau at kmartineau@courant.com.

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[Click Here] for

American Elitists' Smoking Gun

What "Free Society"?

Will the Connecticut Legislators do anything to help victims of police misconduct, legal abuse, and official corruption?

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An Email sent to Governor Rell of Connecticut:

Governor Rell,
I’ve read the Hartford Courant story about you offering $500,000 to a Mr. Tillman for having been wrongly convicted. What about doing something about the cause of wrongful convictions and compensate all victims, not just one?

The Connecticut State Police have or had their “100 Club” where they would falsely arrest those that were not actually drunk for DUIs to make the “100 Club”. False arrests do lead to false imprisonment. If these officers are capable of that, they are capable of manufacturing evidence, suppressing evidence, committing perjury, and in further retaliating against their victims.

The New York State Police Internal Affairs gave the Connecticut State Police straight F’s for quality and honesty. Please click here for my post on Col. Davoren that is the new head of the Connecticut State Police. I asked Davoren why it was ok with him that citizens that want Civilian Oversight of Police should be arrested and targeted by police for false arrests and prison.

Davoren told me in a phone conversation that his number one job is to “Protect the Integrity of the System”, nothing about fairness and actually protecting and serving the public. So, should an old guard of retaliating against whistle blowers and accountability of officials be the head of an organization that should be law enforcement, not an armed street gang of thugs? For ethics and economic reasons should the old style shenanigans of the Connecticut State Police be ended?

Joe Courtney was recently sworn in as Congressman in Rockville Court in Connecticut. Attorney General Blumenthal had Judge Jonathan J. Kaplan and made the remark that he did not trust either that Judge or Judges behind his back. That is for good reason Judge Jonathan J. Kaplan has gotten way out of hand as he feels he is invisible to do as he please and might take sick pleasure in retaliating against those that go against him and his big, huge, purple, and swollen, ego.

Ritt Goldstein proposed Civilian Oversight of Police and Courts that act in the public’s best interest. He was so abused by Connecticut Police he fled to Sweden to seek political asylum.

I advocated the same thing and I was followed around by police, threatened, and ended up falsely arrested and put in prison based on Connecticut State Police perjury and abuse. Judge Jonathan J. Kaplan abused his discretion in even sitting on my case as I had been approaching legislators and others in removing Kaplan based on his bias in Small Claims and Civil Cases.

Should judges and police be able to fraudulently spend taxpayers money for retaliation and citizen abuse that hurts Connecticut’s reputation, economy, children, and families?

There is supposed to be separation of powers, but if practicing lawyers that are elected officials will kiss the butts of judges for later favors, where is justice, where is the public being represented, and where is separation of powers.

The Tillman is the right first step, what about looking into remedying my case and others by expunging bogus criminal records and compensating victims, why not legislate or enact laws where there is a separate forum to expunge records and compensate victims, the courts run by Justices like William J. Sullivan are a free for all of abuse, pissing on the US Constitution, and in legislating and abusing from the bench.

I was current on 3 mortgages and had a small business that I built over 2 decades. I can’t even get a job or an apartment in my name. Should I suffer the rest of my life because the Connecticut Courts aren’t fair and the police in Connecticut can ruin citizens on their “Enemies List” for fun?

Please consider having Judge Jonathan J. Kaplan impeached and prosecuted and in prosecuting Col. Davoren.

Thank you,

Steven G. Erickson
c/o Francis C. P. Knize: 50 Sunset Pass, Wilton, Ct. 06897 203 544 9603