Former National Security Agency analyst, Russell Tice, appeared on Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show to talk about widespread government spying on American people.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Lexus or Justice?
A necklace or f-r-e-e-d-o-m?
Dead Prez– artistically– lies in the revolutionary realm of the hip-hop movement and has been a prominent critic of the police state and government-sponsored terror, amongst many other issues.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Family Ties
COUSINS BY DOZENS
FRUITFUL SEARCH THROUGH FAMILY TREES
By GINGER ADAMS OTIS
New York Post
Maybe Brad Pitt should play Sen. Barack Obama in the movies - after all, they're ninth cousins.
Their mutual eighth great-grandfather, Edwin Hickman, 1690-1769, is responsible for starting the family line that begat Pitt and Obama - born just two years apart nearly 200 years later.
"If it's true, I consider it great company," Pitt told The Post after being informed of his new relation.
"Kevin Bacon's got nothing on [Obama] in the 'Six Degrees of Separation' department," says Megan Smolenyak, chief family historian of Ancestry.com, a genealogy Web site that turned up loads of connections for The Post.
Obama is related to Vice President Dick Cheney through a 17th-century descendant, as well as President Bush, who has his own share of fascinating family connections.
In addition to John Kerry, Marilyn Monroe and Princess Di and half a dozen ex-presidents, Bush is related to Pocahontas' living relatives.
Read more
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Another Erosion of the Fourth Amendment
Anthony Gregory
After Downing Street
The Supreme Court has recently watered down the exclusionary rule in a decision that has affirmed a conviction even where there was a bad warrant and faulty arrest. Now evidence obtained through negligence will be admissable, meaning that police have less reason to be careful in their investigations, searches and arrests.
The exclusionary rule is not included explicitly in the Fourth Amendment, but it is one of the few ways the amendment has any teeth. If there are no consequences for prosecution when police trample on our rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, police can be expected to face less pressure from district attorneys to obey Constitutional limits on their searches.
It might offend our sense of justice to see criminals get away, despite clear proof of their guilt, simply because of a police error. But this is true not only of negligent searches but ones where the police break down doors knowing full well they have no legal right to. The exclusionary rule is an important check on the abuse of state power, and although it lets the occasional guilty party off, it has given the innocent a deal of protection from arbitrary violations of their privacy. Ideally, guilt or innocence would be all that matters, but in the real world, we need checks and balances in the criminal justice system just as we do in the relations among the different branches of government.
Furthermore, many if not most criminal justice activity is conducted over victimless crimes such as drug offenses. Programs like the drug war, where there are no victims to complain and testify about the crime, are very difficult to implement when full constitutional civil liberties are honored. Thus, those who want to erect a police state and carry out such crusades against such offenses need to favor erosions of the Bill of Rights just to see their program work anywhere nearly as well as laws against murder, theft, rape and real crimes against person and property, which are easier to enforce than victimless crime laws in a free society.
For all these reasons, any envervation of the exclusionary rule should be seen in the same light as measures that compromise the other traditional safeguards enjoyed by the defense, such as the trial by jury, freedom from self-incrimination, the right to confront the accuser and so forth. In any of these cases, we might lament that the guilty gets an advantage, but such advantages are necessary to preserve a free society and to protect the rights of the innocent.
This is an unsettling Court decision. While Obama represents an executive, legislative and judicial philosophy quite at odds with liberty, one silver lining of his administration might be new judges who, at least on these issues, are effectively more protective of freedom and civil society than are their conservative counterparts. On the other hand, Eric Holder, while rhetorically better on some important issues like torture than Republicans like Ashcroft, Gonzales and Mukasey, has shown himself to be no friend of the rights of accused as well as of other constitutional rights like the 2nd Amendment, as David Theroux notes below.
After Downing Street
The Supreme Court has recently watered down the exclusionary rule in a decision that has affirmed a conviction even where there was a bad warrant and faulty arrest. Now evidence obtained through negligence will be admissable, meaning that police have less reason to be careful in their investigations, searches and arrests.
The exclusionary rule is not included explicitly in the Fourth Amendment, but it is one of the few ways the amendment has any teeth. If there are no consequences for prosecution when police trample on our rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, police can be expected to face less pressure from district attorneys to obey Constitutional limits on their searches.
It might offend our sense of justice to see criminals get away, despite clear proof of their guilt, simply because of a police error. But this is true not only of negligent searches but ones where the police break down doors knowing full well they have no legal right to. The exclusionary rule is an important check on the abuse of state power, and although it lets the occasional guilty party off, it has given the innocent a deal of protection from arbitrary violations of their privacy. Ideally, guilt or innocence would be all that matters, but in the real world, we need checks and balances in the criminal justice system just as we do in the relations among the different branches of government.
Furthermore, many if not most criminal justice activity is conducted over victimless crimes such as drug offenses. Programs like the drug war, where there are no victims to complain and testify about the crime, are very difficult to implement when full constitutional civil liberties are honored. Thus, those who want to erect a police state and carry out such crusades against such offenses need to favor erosions of the Bill of Rights just to see their program work anywhere nearly as well as laws against murder, theft, rape and real crimes against person and property, which are easier to enforce than victimless crime laws in a free society.
For all these reasons, any envervation of the exclusionary rule should be seen in the same light as measures that compromise the other traditional safeguards enjoyed by the defense, such as the trial by jury, freedom from self-incrimination, the right to confront the accuser and so forth. In any of these cases, we might lament that the guilty gets an advantage, but such advantages are necessary to preserve a free society and to protect the rights of the innocent.
This is an unsettling Court decision. While Obama represents an executive, legislative and judicial philosophy quite at odds with liberty, one silver lining of his administration might be new judges who, at least on these issues, are effectively more protective of freedom and civil society than are their conservative counterparts. On the other hand, Eric Holder, while rhetorically better on some important issues like torture than Republicans like Ashcroft, Gonzales and Mukasey, has shown himself to be no friend of the rights of accused as well as of other constitutional rights like the 2nd Amendment, as David Theroux notes below.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Did you KNOW United States is a Corporation?
For years the American people have been deceived into thinking that United States is a country. Well, it is not.
28 U.S.C. § 3002 Definitions
(15)"United States" means -
(A) a Federal corporation;
(B) an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States; or
(C) an instrumentality of the United States.
"My people are destroyed because of their lack of knowledge..." Hosea 4:6
28 U.S.C. § 3002 Definitions
(15)"United States" means -
(A) a Federal corporation;
(B) an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States; or
(C) an instrumentality of the United States.
"My people are destroyed because of their lack of knowledge..." Hosea 4:6
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Why are there Flashes on the WTC Buildings?
Why are there flashes on the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings on 911?
Because they were demolished!
Larry Silverstein, who owned the leased on the WTC buildings gives the order to PULL WTC 7.
Because they were demolished!
Larry Silverstein, who owned the leased on the WTC buildings gives the order to PULL WTC 7.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Army Suicides Rise as Time Spent in Combat Increases
By Gregg Zoroya
USA TODAY
FORT LEWIS, Wash. — Josh Barber, former combat soldier, parked outside the Army hospital here one morning last August armed for war.
A cook at the dining facility, Barber sat in his truck wearing battle fatigues, earplugs and a camouflage hood on his head. He had an arsenal: seven loaded guns, nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition, knives in his pockets. On the front seat, an AK-47 had a bullet in the chamber.
The "smell of death" he experienced in Iraq continued to haunt him, his wife says. He was embittered about the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that crippled him, the Army's failure to treat it, and the strains the disorder put on his marriage.
Despite the firepower he brought with him, Barber, 31, took only one life that day. He killed himself with a shot to the head.
"He went to Fort Lewis to kill himself to prove a point," Kelly Barber says. " 'Here I am. I was a soldier. You guys didn't help me.' "
For two days, a surveillance camera recorded the truck sitting in the Madigan Army Medical Center parking lot. Inside the truck, the body lay undisturbed.
If Josh Barber wanted his suicide to make a statement, no one seemed to notice.
Barber's suicide is part of a larger story — the record number of soldiers, Marines and combat veterans who have killed themselves in recent years, at a time when the Pentagon has stretched deployments for combat troops to meet President Bush's security plans in Iraq. The Marine Corps reported 41 actual or suspected suicides in 2008, a 20% increase over 33 in 2007. In 2007, the Army counted 115 suicides, the most since tracking began in 1980. By October 2008, that record had been surpassed with 117 soldier suicides. Final numbers for 2008 have not been released.
Suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans doubled from 52 in 2004 to 110 in 2006, the latest statistics available, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
And the suicide rate among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is outpacing the rate among civilians, a disturbing trend because the military screens troops for mental health issues and servicemembers typically are healthier than civilians, says Han Kang, a VA epidemiologist.
Read More
Friday, January 16, 2009
Cynthia McKinney Speaks About Free Gaza Movement
Cynthia McKinney speaks about Free Gaza Movement and how we the people can send a message to Congress to stop the support of Israel.
"If the members of Congress can't represent us, then we will become Members of Congress."
"If the members of Congress can't represent us, then we will become Members of Congress."
Israel bombs U.N. Gaza Headquarters with White Phosphorus
David Edwards and Diane Sweet
Raw Story
January 15, 2009
CNN’s John Roberts talked with John Ging who is the director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza. Ging believes that Israeli shells that recently struck the U.N. complex contained white phosphorus. “It looks and smells like phosphorus and it’s burning like phosphorus. That’s all I can say. That’s why I’m calling it phosphorus,” said Ging.
The complex under fire is the U.N. central distribution facility in Gaza. “We’re trying to deal with our whole transport compound. It’s on fire and now have some danger spreading into the warehouse, where all of the food and thousands of tons of food and medicine. This is a hub of the whole operation, the whole United Nations operation in Gaza, this is the hub, where it all comes to, gets distributed from,” he said.
Three people have been reported as injured in the attack.
The Associated Press also reports that a hospital, several high-rises, and media building was hit by Israeli shelling and wounded several journalists.
A building housing the Associated Press offices was hit by bullets, with no reports of injuries at that location.
Raw Story
January 15, 2009
CNN’s John Roberts talked with John Ging who is the director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza. Ging believes that Israeli shells that recently struck the U.N. complex contained white phosphorus. “It looks and smells like phosphorus and it’s burning like phosphorus. That’s all I can say. That’s why I’m calling it phosphorus,” said Ging.
The complex under fire is the U.N. central distribution facility in Gaza. “We’re trying to deal with our whole transport compound. It’s on fire and now have some danger spreading into the warehouse, where all of the food and thousands of tons of food and medicine. This is a hub of the whole operation, the whole United Nations operation in Gaza, this is the hub, where it all comes to, gets distributed from,” he said.
Three people have been reported as injured in the attack.
The Associated Press also reports that a hospital, several high-rises, and media building was hit by Israeli shelling and wounded several journalists.
A building housing the Associated Press offices was hit by bullets, with no reports of injuries at that location.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
BART Cop Arrested in Oscar Grant Case
Former BART Officer, Johannes Mehserle, 27, who fatally shot an unarmed Oscar Grant, 22, on New Year’s Day, has been arrested in Nevada on suspicion of murder.
BART officials said no one told them about the arrest and were surprised when they found out about it.
BART officials said no one told them about the arrest and were surprised when they found out about it.
Expert calling it a U.S. Depression
UPI.com
COLLEGE PARK, Md., Jan. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. economy is in a depression, a University of Maryland economics professor contends.
Professor Peter Morici, a former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission, said the American economy is in a worse condition than a recession, Kiplinger reported in its January issue.
Among other factors, Morici noted 2.6 million payroll jobs have been lost since December 2007, the dollar is falling value and the nation has a big trade deficit with China.
"The economy contracted at about a 5 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter. This looks worse than a recession to me," he said.
Morici said President-elect Barack Obama has clear economic challenges before him when he takes office this month.
"The economy will not recover without fundamental changes in banking and trade policy. A large stimulus package, though necessary, will only give the economy a temporary lift," he said. "The economy is in a depression, not a recession."
Among the other issues facing the former Illinois senator is energy production, he said.
"Politically correct promises to create millions of new jobs producing alternative fuels makes effective presidential campaign slogans, but realistic policies for governing require aggressive development of more conventional oil and gas, as well as non-conventional energy sources." he said.
COLLEGE PARK, Md., Jan. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. economy is in a depression, a University of Maryland economics professor contends.
Professor Peter Morici, a former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission, said the American economy is in a worse condition than a recession, Kiplinger reported in its January issue.
Among other factors, Morici noted 2.6 million payroll jobs have been lost since December 2007, the dollar is falling value and the nation has a big trade deficit with China.
"The economy contracted at about a 5 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter. This looks worse than a recession to me," he said.
Morici said President-elect Barack Obama has clear economic challenges before him when he takes office this month.
"The economy will not recover without fundamental changes in banking and trade policy. A large stimulus package, though necessary, will only give the economy a temporary lift," he said. "The economy is in a depression, not a recession."
Among the other issues facing the former Illinois senator is energy production, he said.
"Politically correct promises to create millions of new jobs producing alternative fuels makes effective presidential campaign slogans, but realistic policies for governing require aggressive development of more conventional oil and gas, as well as non-conventional energy sources." he said.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Leading Economist Fears Decade of Misery, Unemployment
Suzy Jagger
Times Online
One of the world’s leading economists has given warning that the United States is facing a decade of financial misery, with the number of unemployed Americans set to continue to rise for years.
Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, who predicted the end of the internet bubble seven years ago, said: “We could have many years of a very weak economy. Big recessions are followed by years of weakness and typically unemployment keeps rising.
“To say that this will last years is not a dramatic statement. What is happening now is much worse than 1990. We could be facing a decade of real weakness.
“This is no ordinary recession. There are signs that people see this as a different story. People are talking about a depression, something that we haven’t seen previously.”
Professor Shiller’s comments come as the unemployment rate in America is rising astonishingly fast.
Last week official figures showed that the US lost 524,000 jobs in December, with the overall unemployment rate rising to 7.2 per cent — the highest level for 16 years.
Read More
Times Online
One of the world’s leading economists has given warning that the United States is facing a decade of financial misery, with the number of unemployed Americans set to continue to rise for years.
Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, who predicted the end of the internet bubble seven years ago, said: “We could have many years of a very weak economy. Big recessions are followed by years of weakness and typically unemployment keeps rising.
“To say that this will last years is not a dramatic statement. What is happening now is much worse than 1990. We could be facing a decade of real weakness.
“This is no ordinary recession. There are signs that people see this as a different story. People are talking about a depression, something that we haven’t seen previously.”
Professor Shiller’s comments come as the unemployment rate in America is rising astonishingly fast.
Last week official figures showed that the US lost 524,000 jobs in December, with the overall unemployment rate rising to 7.2 per cent — the highest level for 16 years.
Read More
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