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Who's A Rat > Topics > One way to shut down the FBI is if communities police themselves
 
 


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joeb

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Posted Reply with quote  #251 



see link for part 2



http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2015/11/orange_county_snitch_scandal_district_attorney_vo_duong_tran_yu_sung_park.php



FBI Hid $500,000 Deal With Informant In Wild OC Home Invasion Robbery Case
Wed., Nov. 18 2015 at 2:07 PM

During 23 months of the ongoing Orange County snitch scandal that today won a national call for a U.S. Department of Justice probe, we've learned how certain courthouse prosecution teams cheat, how law-enforcement officials concoct clever explanations about how they accidentally rigged cases against dozens of defendants, and how judges--the people obligated to ensure honestly won convictions--are tolerating, if not outright encouraging, a pro-government warping of the criminal-justice system.

Our reporting has focused on a myriad of state court abuses that have captured national attention. But there's also cause for concern inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana. One sensational, pending appellate case underscores how defendants can be robbed of key evidence while FBI agents, assistant United States attorneys and judges shrug their shoulders.

Vo Duong Tran of Louisiana and Yu Sung Park of Illinois are serving 30-year sentences for 2009 convictions stemming from a bizarre home-invasion robbery plot in Orange County. Bizarre not just because the conspiracy involved a machine gun, silencers, bulletproof vests, the threat of wiping out any early arriving cops, and the expected plundering of cash and cocaine from inside a Fountain Valley residence near Mile Square Park--but also because Tran and Park are former lawmen.

Through hundreds of hours of surreptitious recordings and various other surveillance tactics, prosecutors compiled evidence of guilt. And a jury has also spoken. But the case is notable because of a post-conviction discovery. Prosecutors hid from jurors the FBI's sweetheart--eyebrow-raising, really--deal with a Southern California underworld figure used to nab the duo. That omission wasn't inconsequential, according to the defense. The concealment struck at the heart of their claim that the agency conducted an unseemly vendetta against Tran.

Once an 11-year-old South Vietnam boat refugee fleeing communism with his family in 1978, Tran grew up in Connecticut. By 1992, he worked as an FBI special agent in Chicago. Nearly a decade later, his tenure fell into turmoil. Agency management revoked his top-secret security clearance and, believing he was a criminal, terminated him on April Fool's Day 2003. Tran believes the FBI acts constituted discrimination.

There is proof fellow agents loathed him. According to court records, they raided Tran's home without a warrant to search for compromising records; and then saw a budding criminal case against him collapse. In February 2006, federal Judge Linda T. Walker declared the raid illegal and, thus, banned the fruit of the search from court. Walker also blasted two FBI agents for telling "inconsistencies" about their pursuit of Tran, whom she found "more credible."

The fired agent moved to New Orleans and became the accomplished owner of multiple Verizon Wireless stores. Tran's earnings topped $800,000 in 2007, according to his
income-tax return. With his girlfriend, he became a family man with two young kids.

But the FBI remained determined to bring him down. For more than a year, they conducted wiretaps and monitored his activities without success. Then, with the help of the Fountain Valley Police Department, special agents in Orange County found an informant identified in court records as Trung "Alex" Dao. A financial adviser by day and Vietnamese gangster/con artist by night, Dao worked as an around-the-clock government snitch deeply tied to Asian gangs.

With the encouragement of the FBI, Dao attempted to involve Tran in criminal enterprises, including identity theft, extortion and narcotics sales. The scheming failed before agents found the scam that finally landed their suspect in handcuffs: the home-invasion robbery plan.
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joeb

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Posted Reply with quote  #252 

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/63379/


9/11 Whistleblower Coleen Rowley
Saturday, December 05, 2015
TIME magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002

Washington DC - infoZine - Coleen Rowley, a former FBI special agent and division counsel whose May 2002 memo to the FBI Director exposed some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures -- was named one of TIME magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. Rowley wrote to the FBI Director again in February 2003 with some hard questions about the reliability of the evidence being adduced to “justify” the impending invasion of Iraq. She now warns of terror attacks being used as pretexts for official agendas. She also warns that bulk collection of personal data by government, like military interventions, is not only counter to liberty, but counterproductive to the alleged goal of stopping attacks.

Coleen Rowley
Coleen Rowley. Photo courtesy of accuracy.org
She just wrote the piece "Visa Waiver Program Has Same Weak Links; Mass Surveillance and Terrorist Watchlisting Don't Work," which states: "Politicians are scoring points with a frightened U.S. population by hyping the supposed danger of letting in up to 10,000 Syrian refugees, but a much greater or actual risk exists in the current gaps in a visa-waiver program. Yesterday's massacre in San Bernardino again underscores the ineffectiveness of relying upon bulk data collection and intelligence agencies' watch-listing processes to 'keep us safe from terrorism.'

She wrote a piece for the Star Tribune, "Coleen Rowley: Ten years after Iraq," which in 2013 gave an overview of major issues: "Ten years ago, I made the ultimately futile effort of writing to FBI Director Robert Mueller warning that he needed to tell the truth about the Bush administration’s unjustified decision to preemptively invade Iraq and the likelihood it would prove counterproductive. ...

"My letter compared Bush-Cheney’s rush to war with the impatience and bravado that had led to the FBI’s disastrous 1993 assault at Waco, where 'the children [the FBI] sought to liberate all died when [David] Koresh and his followers set fires.' On a much more tragic scale, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed and millions more were wounded or displaced. Iraq’s infrastructure was destroyed. Severe problems remain with lack of clean drinking water, electricity and a lack of professionals in Iraq to help rebuild.

"Even worse, the flames of sectarian hatred were ignited, based on religious and ethnic differences, leading to violent civil
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joeb

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Posted Reply with quote  #253 




http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/12/10/shrimp-boy-lawyer-calls-witness-a-sociopath.htm


Thursday, December 10, 2015Last Update: 10:06 AM PT
       
Shrimp Boy Lawyer Calls Witness a Sociopath


SAN FRANCISCO - A member of Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow's Chinatown gang on Wednesday described for the jury how Chow asked him to "take care of Jimmy," a rival gangster who was shot to death.
It was Andy Li's second day on the witness stand in Chow's racketeering trial. Chow could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of conspiracy to murder. He also is charged with trafficking in guns, drugs and stolen property.
"Jimmy," Jim Tat Kong, a member of Chow's Hop Sing Tong gang, was shot dead in 2013, two years after he and Chow had a public spat at a Tong meeting. Chow was worried Kong was trying to take over the gang.
Li, 42, said he had been living in Los Angeles, having fled San Francisco after he testified alongside Chow in the trial of Peter Chong, former leader of the Hong Kong-based triad Wo Hop To. Li said Chow visited him and asked how it was going with Kong.
Chow, whose testimony was instrumental in putting Chong away in 2002, told him he thought Kong was working for Chong, Li said. "He thought Jimmy was with Chong's group trying to put a hit on him," Li told the jury. "He asked me if I could find someone to take care of Jimmy."
Li said that meant Chow wanted Kong dead. He said he told Chow he had someone in mind for the job, a "Southsider from L.A.," but wanted to wait until he moved back to the Bay Area. To hire someone from Los Angeles while he was living there would look suspicious to police, he told the jury. Li told Chow he would pretend to have a public fight with him, then get close to Kong.
At a nightclub in 2012, Li told an undercover FBI agent that he was coming up to "squash the bugs." But when he asked Chow what his next move should be, Li testified, Chow replied: "Don't worry, it's been taken care of."
Li's relationship with Chow deteriorated in 2013, culminating in a nightclub brawl that ended with Chow bleeding on the floor and Li afraid for his life.
It started when Li harangued Chow about his cocaine habit. He said Chow, who was shopping an autobiography, told him he wouldn't stop until his book deal was settled.
Then Chow was irritated that Li didn't want to kill another gang member they called "Skinny Ray," who had fallen out of favor with Chow.
Li testified that he didn't want to do it himself because he was too well known, but would hire someone. Chow wasn't happy about that. "He said, 'You never do anything for me anymore,'" Li testified. "I was furious. I'd done a lot for him and he denies everything."
Li, a hulking man with a crew-cut and burn scars on the left side of his face, reminded Chow of an arson he'd committed on Chow's orders, for which Li had never been paid.
Chow slapped him. "I told him I'm not 16 years old anymore and we can take it across the street," Li said.
Li said he didn't remember who hit first, but he landed three blows before Chow hit the floor.
Another cooperating witness, Joe Chanthavong, took Chow home. "I felt bad after I hit him, but after he left I was worried," Li said. "I just beat down my leader, and most of the people he got into arguments or fights with are dead."
Li said Chow would lose respect if word got out and Chow did not retaliate for the beating. "You don't go and beat down a high
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joeb

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Posted Reply with quote  #254 
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/195/243/2485436/


Justia › U.S. Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › District Courts › Massachusetts › District of Massachusetts › 2001 › United States v. Flemmi
United States v. Flemmi, 195 F. Supp. 2d 243 (D. Mass. 2001)
U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts - 195 F. Supp. 2d 243 (D. Mass. 2001)
August 30, 2001

195 F. Supp. 2d 243 (2001)

UNITED STATES of America
v.
Stephen FLEMMI

No. CR 94-10287-MLW.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

August 30, 2001.

Kenneth J. Fishman, Fishman, Ankner & Horstman, LLP, Boston, MA, Kimberly Homan, Boston, MA, for Stephen J. Flemmi.

Martin G. Weinberg, Oteri, Weinberg & Lawson, Boston, MA, for John V. Martorano.

A. Hugh Scott, Choate, Hall & Stewart, Boston, MA, for James A. Ring.

*244 Jonathan M. Albano, Thomas J. Hennessey, Bingham, Dana & Gould, Boston, MA, for Globe Newspaper Co., Shelley Murphy, Kevin Cullen.

Paul W. Hodes, William E. Christie, Shaheen & Gordon, PA, Concord, NH, for John L. McIntyre.

John Cavicchi, Boston, MA, pro se.

John M. Thompson, Thompson & Thompson, P.C., Springfield, MA, Michael A. Fitzpatrick, Bridgeport, CT, for Louis Pugliano.

Joel J. Berner, Dept. of Correction Legal Dept., Boston, MA, for Michael T. Maloney.

Richard E. Briansky, Bernkopf, Goodman & Baseman, LLP, Boston, MA, for Homecomings Financia.

Michael W. Carroll, Schectman & Halperin, Providence, RI, for Household Finance Co.

Charles A. Perkins, Perkins & Associates, P.C., N. Chelmsford, MA, for Wellington Condominium Trust.

James M. Hughes, Devin & Drohan, Hingham, MA, for South Shore Savings Bank, Inc.

Fred M. Wyshak, Jr., Brian T. Kelly, James D. Herbert, John Durham, Richard L. Hoffman, U.S. Attorney's office, Boston, MA, for U.S.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

WOLF, District Judge.

The following is an edited version of the transcript of the decisions and remarks made by the court at the August 21, 2001 sentencing of Stephen Flemmi. Citations have been added.

* * * * * *

For the reasons I will explain, I hereby accept the parties' Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(e) (1) (C) binding plea agreement.[1]

The plea agreement involves the dismissal of certain charges, including the RICO and RICO conspiracy charges in the Fourth Superseding Indictment that allege defendant Stephen Flemmi committed numerous racketeering acts, including murder. The plea agreement requires that the court impose a particular sentence. When dismissal of charges and a resulting lower sentence are involved, the court may reject the plea agreement if it is not reasonable and necessary to secure a legitimate and important prosecutorial interest or to serve another compelling interest.[2] Generally, the court must decide if the agreed sentence is in the public interest.[3]

The agreement in this case is the result of arms' length negotiation between experienced counsel.[4] I find that it is necessary to serve an important prosecutorial interest. It clears the way for Flemmi to be prosecuted on the RICO murder charges pending before Judge Richard Stearns.[5] That prosecution could have *245 been delayed a very long time if this case, the case before Judge Joseph Tauro, and the case before Judge Robert Keeton had to be tried first and perhaps appealed.[6] The government has also explained that it is contemplated that Judge Stearns' case will be resolved before trials proceed in Oklahoma and Florida on murder charges against Flemmi.[7]

Moreover, as I wrote in 1999, the RICO and RICO conspiracy charges in the Fourth Superseding Indictment which will be dismissed are fundamentally flawed. They are premised on the theory that Flemmi and James "Whitey" Bulger were conspiring with members of La Cosa Nostra (the "LCN" or "Mafia") during a long period when they were Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") Top Echelon informants against the Mafia. Despite repeated requests, the FBI refused to inform the United States Attorney whether Bulger or Flemmi was an informant until the day before the original indictment was returned.[8] Then the United States Attorney, Donald Stern, did not tell the prosecutors in this case that they were informants for six months.[9]

The original RICO and conspiracy charges would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to prove. Flemmi has substantial defenses relating to whether he was authorized to engage in the conduct alleged to be criminal in the case before me.[10] For example, before the charges were brought, an FBI review conducted by John Michael Callahan concluded that Flemmi was "at least tacitly authorized" to participate in "LCN policy-making."[11]

There are also substantial related questions regarding whether the conspiracies and RICO enterprise alleged existed.[12] If the RICO enterprise were not proven, the racketeering acts, including those involving murders in the 1960s, would not be federal offenses.[13] As I wrote in 1999:


All of these issues [] present serious impediments to the successful prosecution of this case. If the United States Attorney and other officials of the Department of Justice had been properly informed before the proposed indictment *246 of Bulger and Flemmi was presented to the grand jury, perhaps Bulger and Flemmi would not have been charged at all, or different, more narrow charges might have been fashioned in an effort to reduce the risk that their indictment would prove to be fatally flawed. It is inconceivable to this court, however, that the case against Flemmi and Bulger as indicted in January, 1995 would have been brought by any reasonable prosecutor who was properly informed of their relationship with the FBI.[14]

The plea agreement allows the government to salvage something from this long and costly case, which involved arduous efforts by the Massachusetts State Police, the Internal Revenue Service, and others, including the prosecutors.

There are six extortion and one money laundering conspiracy counts in the Superceding Information. The charges to which Flemmi has pled guilty include the simplest charges against him that were in the original indictment in this case, the individual extortions. They are the charges on which the government would have had the best chance of prevailing at trial, although success on those charges was not certain in view of Flemmi's meaningful authorization defense.

The government represented at the change of plea colloquy[15] and reiterated today that there is no relevant conduct to be included in calculating the Guideline range for Flemmi's sentence. Therefore, the agreed sentence for the charges in the Superseding Information is within the Guideline range. Accordingly, it is reasonable for the remaining charges. Moreover, if I erred in giving Flemmi a three-point reduction for acceptance of responsibility and his Offense Level is 32 and not 31, the sentence that has been agreed upon to is only a one-month departure. That would be reasonable in the circumstances of this case.

As a result of the plea agreement, members of Flemmi's family will have the government's claims against certain property released. The problems with proving the case before me evidently would have created complications concerning the money laundering conspiracy charges in Judge Keeton's case and the forfeiture counts in this case as well. This plea agreement assures that the government recovers about $2,000,000. In the totality of the circumstances, the approximately $1,500,000 that is released to Flemmi's family does not render the plea agreement unreasonable. Among other things, private litigants with claims against Flemmi are already making claims concerning those funds.

Therefore, I accept the binding plea agreement and impose the agreed-upon sentence as follows. In connection with the seven counts to which he pled guilty, I hereby sentence Stephen Flemmi to serve 120 months in the custody of the Attorney General of the United States, concurrent on each count. I am not imposing a fine because the parties have agreed, in effect, that Flemmi cannot pay a fine, even in installments. There is a $400 special assessment. In addition, I am ordering as part of Flemmi's sentence forfeiture as ordered in the Preliminary Order of Forfeiture.

I am not imposing any term of supervised release because none is provided for in the binding plea agreement. To the extent that is a departure, it is a reasonable departure. Supervised release is included in the plea agreement in the case before Judge Tauro. There is also the *247 prospect, because of the pending charges, that Flemmi will be detained for a long time.

In view of the acceptance of the binding plea agreement, I am dismissing the Fourth Superseding Indictment with prejudice. I do retain jurisdiction regarding forfeiture and enforcement of Orders that I have entered previously.

It is customary at this point for the court to address the defendant. There is a great deal that I could, and ordinarily would, say to and about Flemmi. However, that is not going to be the focus of my remarks.

Flemmi thanked me. I think it is odd to thank someone for just doing his job. That is all I have done in this case.

There are murder charges pending against Flemmi. Therefore, I choose not to comment on his conduct. However, by not talking about Flemmi, I do not mean to excuse or minimize the seriousness of any of the crimes to which he pled guilty or any of the crimes that he may have committed.

Future trials will determine if Flemmi is proven to be a murderer. However, I will say this today, to some extent reiterating and amplifying what I have written before.

If Flemmi has committed any of the crimes with which he remains charged, he was able to do so largely because of the protection of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[16] It is clear to me that by the early 1970s Flemmi would have either been killed or in prison like Frank Salemme if FBI Special Agent Paul Rico had not, in 1969, tipped Flemmi off and encouraged him to flee just before he was indicted for the bombing of John Fitzgerald and the murder of Walter Bennett.[17]

All of the murders with which Flemmi is charged in the pending cases against him occurred after he was told by Rico in 1974 to return to Boston and, as promised, the charges against him were dismissed.[18] The first of the murders Flemmi is alleged to have committed in the case before Judge Stearns occurred in October, 1974, just months after Flemmi returned.[19]

As I wrote in my September, 1999 decision, if Flemmi had been prosecuted in 1969 for the Fitzgerald bombing or the William Bennett murder, his role as an FBI informant might have been disclosed and examined more than 30 years ago.[20] Rico prevented that from happening.

As I also wrote in 1999, Rico's partner, Dennis Condon, was the main mentor for both FBI Special Agents John Morris and John Connolly.[21] It was Connolly, assisted by Condon, who forged the partnership between Bulger and Flemmi that has been the focus of this case for many years.[22]

The evidence in this and other reported cases indicates that the FBI's relationship with Bulger and Flemmi was not an isolated, aberrant occurrence attributable to Bulger and Connolly's shared South Boston roots. Rather, while hopefully extreme in degree, it may have been typical *248 of the relationship that the FBI had with a number of its Top Echelon informants.

As I found based on convincing evidence in this case, Sonny Mercurio received similar protection from the FBI and was allowed to flee his indictment in 1989.[23] As described in footnote 6 of my decision, I also received convincing evidence that another FBI informant, not handled by any of the agents who testified in this case, was told by his FBI handler about investigations concerning him, including wiretaps on his telephone.[24] I provided that information to Attorney General Reno.[25] I do not know what, if anything, was done with it. Similarly, in 1997, United States District Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York found that an FBI supervisor had improperly provided law enforcement information to a Top Echelon informant in the midst of an LCN war for control of the Colombo family.[26]

I doubt that Judge Weinstein and I have discovered the only instances of such abuse. Rather, I expect much more misconduct has been masked by the secrecy in which the FBI has operated its confidential informants and the deference it has demanded and almost always received from the Department of Justice.[27]

I also do not view this case as a problem of what the prosecutors have at times referred *249 to as a few "bad apples." The evidence in this case has persuaded me, as I wrote in my 1999 decision, that more than a dozen officials of the FBI in Boston and in Washington engaged in various forms of misconduct to protect Flemmi and Bulger.[28] Those officials included Larry Potts, who later became the Acting Deputy Director of the FBI.[29] As I understand it, Mr. Potts ultimately resigned because of controversy concerning misconduct involving the FBI's investigation of the events at Ruby Ridge that cost Marshal Bill Degan of Boston his life.[30]

The reported comments of two United States Senators at the confirmation hearings of Robert Mueller, the new Director of the FBI, had particular resonance for me. Senator Arlen Specter said, "I believe there is a culture of concealment in the FBI."[31] Senator Charles Grassley said, "The FBI is suffering from a management culture so arrogant that ignoring the rules and covering up is the order of the day."[32]

I do not know the context of those remarks, or the particular events that the Senators had in mind. However, I would say that this case tends to validate those general views.

The evidence in this case has demonstrated a long pattern of the FBI: ignoring the government's Constitutional and statutory duties to be candid with the courts in seeking warrants for electronic surveillance, among other things;[33] refusing to be candid with prosecutors, like Gary Crossen and Diane Kottmyer, who had to represent the government in discharging those duties;[34] and ignoring directions from the Attorney General of the United States by refusing to obey the Guidelines concerning confidential informants issued by Attorneys General Edward Levi and Benjamin Civelletti, among other things.[35]

Contrary to the suggestions of some, the evidence in this case indicates that this culture is enduring and exists today. Once again, as I wrote in my September, 1999 decision, beginning in 1997, I issued general orders that had the effect of requiring the production of FBI documents memorializing Brian Halloran's claim that Bulger and Flemmi were responsible for the murder of Roger Wheeler.[36] When found by *250 Special Agent Stanley Moody, those documents were given to Barry Mawn, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Boston, to review because, Moody said in an affidavit, they contained information that "was obviously highly singular and sensitive."[37] They were not, however, produced in discovery in this case in time for the key witnesses, Rico and Morris, to be questioned about them.[38] Rather, they were belatedly disclosed after repeated inquiries by the court.[39] Similarly, important FBI documents concerning John McIntyre were also improperly withheld by agents of the Boston FBI until it was too late to question relevant witnesses concerning them.[40]

However, despite my published judicial findings of misconduct, Mawn has been promoted to Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[41] This contributes to my sharing the concerns expressed by Senators Grassley and Specter, and to sensing that this case is a symptom of a culture in the FBI which has a long history and which endures.

*251 This case has taken a long time, more than six years. It undoubtedly would have gone faster if the prosecutors had persuaded me in eight hearings conducted during two months in 1997 not to order the disclosure that Bulger was a confidential informant.[42] It also would have gone faster if the prosecutors' repeated efforts to persuade me not to grant evidentiary hearings had succeeded.[43]

After this long time, it is natural to wonder whether anything has been accomplished by the arduous effort that this case represents. I have thought about this question a great deal.

I think some things of value have been achieved. I understand that it has been important for Mrs. Emily McIntyre to find out more, although not everything, about what happened to her son John. As it was explained to me at a hearing in June, 2000, Mrs. McIntyre lived in Nazi Germany during World War II. At the end of the war, she worked for the Justices at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials. She married an American citizen, and moved to the United States so her son could grow up in a democracy.[44] Now, fifteen years after he disappeared, she at least knows that her son is no longer alive.[45]

Similarly, reportedly largely as a result of this case, Joseph Salvati and others have been vindicated in their claim that they were not fairly convicted and sentenced to death for murdering Teddy Deegan because agents of the FBI covered up evidence indicating that their informants had killed Deegan and had testified falsely about the murder.[46] I give a great deal of credit for this to an attorney I have never encountered personally, John Cavicchi, who began writing to me persistently in June, 2000, about my findings concerning the Deegan murder. I also give credit to another man I have not met, Victor Garo, who represented Mr. Salvati for many years.

I believe these discoveries are real accomplishments. I am, however, skeptical about whether anything of institutional importance has been achieved by this case.

I know that Attorney General Reno issued new informant Guidelines to address virtually all of the problems presented by this case.[47] However, that effort reportedly began after Bulger was revealed to be an informant in 1997.[48] The new Guidelines were not issued until just before the Attorney General left office in January, 2001. I do not know if there is now a serious effort to implement those Guidelines *252 by the current administration of the Department of Justice.[49] I also do not know whether implementing the Guidelines will only cause FBI agents dealing with Top Echelon-type informants not to document their work. This case demonstrated that much relating to Flemmi was not documented by the FBI for many years, and he was operated as an informant even when he was closed on the books of the FBI.[50]

Moreover, I am not aware of any Congressional Committee examining whether the Guidelines are being implemented.[51]

What I do know is that the Attorney General for whom I worked, Edward Levi, issued his informant Guidelines in December, 1976, one month before he left office.[52] Mr. Stern and Assistant United States Attorney James Herbert at various times have acknowledged that, if obeyed, those Guidelines would have prevented the abuses revealed in this case.[53] However, as I found, there was overwhelming evidence that they were routinely disregarded with respect to Flemmi, Bulger, and other Top Echelon informants.[54]

Moreover, I know that Attorney General Levi was an assistant to Attorney General Francis Biddle, who tried to curb misconduct by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI in the 1940s.[55] Yet that did not spare Attorney General Levi from having to contend with widespread abuses by the FBI that had recurred in the 1960s and 1970s.[56]

I have long recognized that, as Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote, "Sunshine is said to be the best of disinfectants."[57] However, I doubt that in this case that alone is enough.

Nevertheless, I do believe there is intrinsic value in the struggle to give integrity to the ideal of justice under law. Many people have contributed significantly to that effort in this case.

*253 I would like to thank the Court Security Officers, who have been with me, for their support and encouragement. I would like to thank the Marshals for their professionalism and sensitivity to issues that have arisen.

I would also like to commend my staff. I wrote every word of the 661 page decision I issued in 1999. However, my secretary, Margaret Priestley, typed every word, often many times. My heroic court reporter, Judith Twomey, has performed under pressure to produce a prodigious number of important transcripts.

I have also had a succession of law clerks. They only stay for one year. None of them could have a panoramic view of this case. I am reluctant to single out any one of them because they have all contributed significantly. However, Dan Weintraub, who was here during the hearings in 1998, has come back today. He had many assignments concerning this case. Among other things, every day he made a list of what I had ordered the parties to do, including a list of what I had ordered the government to produce. Day after day, month after month, at the bottom of the list, unaddressed, were the issues of the Brian Halloran documents and then the John McIntyre documents. But for Dan's meticulous attention to detail at a tumultuous time, perhaps those Halloran documents would still be in Mawn's desk.

I would also like to commend Kenneth Fishman for his highly professional representation of Flemmi. He took Flemmi as a paying client in 1995. Since 1997, he has continued to represent Flemmi as Criminal Justice Act counsel at sharply reduced rates of remuneration.[58] This consuming case has undoubtedly injured his practice and had an adverse financial effect on his family. Yet his dedication to his client and to the adversary system of justice has not wavered.

In representing Flemmi, Mr. Fishman has extended a great tradition in this country. In 1770, a young patriot trying to develop a fledgling law practice took a case that no other attorney would accept. John Adams agreed to represent the English soldiers accused of murder in what came to be known as the Boston Massacre. He knew it would be unpopular.[59] However, as he said in opening his successful defense of almost all of his clients: "I am for the prisoners at the bar and shall apologize for it only in the words of the Marquis Beccaria. `If by supporting the rights of mankind, and of invincible truth, I shall contribute to save from the agonies of death one unfortunate victim of tyranny, or ignorance, equally fatal, his blessing and years of transport shall be sufficient consolation to me for the contempt of all mankind.'"[60]

The difficulty that this United States District Court had for about nine months in finding another attorney to represent Flemmi in the case before Judge Stearns demonstrates that we cannot take the tradition represented by John Adams and Mr. Fishman for granted.[61] I am encouraged, *254 however, to have recently received from Mr. Fishman an application to join our Criminal Justice Act panel in order to take regular CJA appointments in the future. Apparently, this case has strengthened rather than diminished his commitment to the adversary system of justice.

Finally, I would like to commend the people of this community who have taken an interest in this case. My sense is that they naturally recognize what this case is most fundamentally about. They have a deep concern and admirable common sense about what is truly significant rather than merely sensational.

As I have written before, when Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone established the FBI in 1924, he warned that, "There is always the possibility that a secret police may become a menace to free government and free institutions because it carries with it the possibility of abuses of power which are not quickly apprehended or understood."[62] That risk is greatly magnified if people are indifferent to abuses of power or, indeed, hostile to the exposure of those abuses.

In 1949, Judith Coplon, an employee of the Internal Security Section of the Department of Justice, was convicted in New York of providing stolen documents to the Soviet Union. She was arrested by the FBI while delivering some of those documents to a Soviet spy. There was no question about her guilt. However, she had been arrested without a judicial warrant. In addition, on grounds of national security, she had been denied access to documents that may have demonstrated that all of the evidence against her was derived from illegal wiretaps.[63]

Despite the pervasive popular fear of the Soviet Union, a unanimous Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed Coplon's conviction, primarily because the trial court had not required the FBI to disclose how it had obtained the evidence against her. In explaining that decision, one of the most distinguished judges in our nation's history, Learned Hand, wrote that, "A society which has come to wince at [the] exposure of the methods by which it seeks to impose its will upon its members has already lost the feel of freedom ..."[64]

I believe, and am impressed, that the people of this community have not lost their feel of freedom. Rather, they understand the wisdom of Justice Felix Frankfurter's observation that, "It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people."[65]

I have found many things about this case to be profoundly disturbing and dispiriting. However, the reaction of the people of this community gives me hope.

My role in this case has essentially ended. I trust, however, that the dedication of the public to demanding law enforcement that is fair as well as effective, even when dealing with the most dangerous crimes and criminals, will endure.
NOTES

[1] Pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(e) (1) (C) the court must either accept the plea agreement and impose the sentence on which the parties have agreed or reject the plea agreement and give the defendant the opportunity to withdraw his plea. See, Fed. R.Crim.P. 11(e) (3) and (4); U.S.S.G. § 6B1.3.

[2] See, United States v. Escobar Noble, 653 F.2d 34, 36 (1st Cir. 1981).

[3] See, United States v. Carrigan, 778 F.2d 1454, 1461-64 (10th Cir.1985); United States v. Miller, 722 F.2d 562, 563 (9th Cir.1983); see also, United States v. Carrozza, 807 F. Supp. 156, 158 (D.Mass.1992).

[4] See, United States v. C.R. Bard, 848 F. Supp. 287, 288 (D.Mass.1994).

[5] United States v. Stephen Flemmi, Cr. No. 99-10371-RGS.

[6] The binding plea agreement provides for a guilty plea by Flemmi in the case before Judge Tauro (Cr. No. 99-10428-JLT), the imposition by Judge Tauro of a sentence of 41 months incarceration to be served concurrently with the 120 months to be imposed in this case, and the dismissal of the case before Judge Keeton (Cr. No. 97-10060-REK).

[7] The investigations of the 1982 murders of Roger Wheeler and John Callahan were impeded by some members of the FBI in an effort to protect Bulger and Flemmi. See, United States v. Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d 141, 154, 208-13 (D.Mass.1999) rev'd in part on other grounds, sub. nom. United States v. Flemmi, 225 F.3d 78 (1st Cir.2000). Flemmi and Bulger's former co-defendant in this case, John Martorano, is now cooperating with the government and has admitted committing those murders. J. Weaver, "3 named in 1982 mob hit," The Miami Herald, Mar. 15, 2001, at 1; B. Braun, N. Marshall, "Wheeler murder charges are filed," Tulsa World, Mar. 15, 2001, at 1. Flemmi and Bulger have now been charged with those crimes as well. Id.

[8] See, Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 158-160, 294-95, 298-301.

[9] Id. at 301.

[10] Id. at 159-60, 316-17; see also, United States v. Salemme, 978 F. Supp. 343, 346-47, 353-54 (D.Mass.1997).

[11] Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 159, 298-300.

[12] Id. at 159-60, 316-17.

[13] Murder in aid of racketeering did not become a federal crime until the enactment of 18 U.S.C. § 1959 in 1984. The federal RICO statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq., under which murder may be prosecuted as a racketeering act, was enacted in 1970.

[14] Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 160.

[15] May 16, 2001 Tr. at 6.

[16] Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 151, 163, 177, 187, 242-43, 321.

[17] Id. at 151, 182, 184.

[18] Id. at 151, 185.

[19] See United States v. Stephen Flemmi, et al., Cr. No. 99-10371-RGS, Count 1, Racketeering Act 6.

[20] Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 182.

[21] Id. at 184-85.

[22] Id. at 186-88.

[23] Id. at 156 n. 6, 263-64, 268-69, 288-93.

[24] Id. at 156 n. 6.

[25] Id.

[26] As I wrote in 1999:

[T]here are striking similarities between the relationship Flemmi and Bulger had with their FBI handlers and the relationship that Top Echelon informant Gregory Scarpa, Sr. had with his FBI handler, Supervisory Special Agent R. Lindley Delvecchio, which is depicted in Orena v. United States, 956 F. Supp. 1071, 1085-90, 1101-04 (E.D.N.Y. 1997). In Orena, it was found to be "likely" that "Delvecchio ... `paid' Scarpa by passing along information, creating a two-way street for communications that was dangerous and unauthorized." Id. at 1087, 1090. For example, the evidence indicated that Delvecchio protected Scarpa by alerting him to investigations, advising him of electronic surveillance, identifying individuals cooperating with law enforcement, and warning him of imminent arrests. Id. at 1071, 1085-90, 1101-04.

Id.

[27] The institutionalized ethos of deference to the FBI concerning the confidentiality of its informants was exemplified by the evidence in this case concerning the 1984-85 electronic surveillance targeting Bulger and Flemmi in which judges were falsely told that the FBI was investigating possible violations of Title 18 of the United States Code by Bulger and Flemmi. Id. at 177-70, 220-42, 351-81. James Greenleaf, the Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Office initially declined a request from United States Attorney William F. Weld to participate in the investigation of Bulger and Flemmi being led by the Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA"). Id. at 223-25.

Weld told [DEA Special Agent in Charge Robert] Stutman of Greenleaf's response. Weld May 26, 1998 Tr. at 46. They discussed the possibility that Bulger and Flemmi were FBI sources. Stutman Apr. 14, 1998 Tr. at 71-72. Neither Weld nor Stutman, however, ever asked Greenleaf if either or both were informants, and Greenleaf did not tell them. Stutman Apr. 14, 1998 Tr. at 73; Weld May 26, 1998 Tr. at 133; Greenleaf Jan. 8, 1998 Tr. at 195. Rather, Weld and Stutman simply accepted the fact that the FBI would not identify its informants, even to trusted colleagues in the Department of Justice with a legitimate need to know. Stutman did not ask Greenleaf if Bulger and Flemmi were FBI informants because Stutman knew that, "it would have required [Greenleaf] either lying about it or saying `I can't tell you."' Stutman Apr. 14, 1998 Tr. at 73. Similarly, Weld never asked the FBI to identify an informant because, if he did, he "would have expected [the FBI] to tell [him] to go pound sand." Weld May 26, 1998 Tr. at 133.

Id. at 225.

[28] Id. at 156-58 and referenced sections of that Memorandum and Order describing improper actions to protect Flemmi and Bulger by Special Agents in Charge of the Boston Office of the FBI, Assistant Special Agents in Charge, Special Agents, and a Chief of the Organized Crime Section at FBI headquarters.

[29] Id. at 157, 251-252.

[30] May 21, 1998 Tr. at 10; P. Nealon, "Ex FBI official tells of keeping Bulger on," The Boston Globe, May 22, 1998, at B5; R. Ostrow and R. Jackson, "FBI Officials Avoid Charges in Ruby Ridge Case," Los Angeles Times, Aug. 16, 1997, at A1.

[31] W. Washington, "Mueller blames poor oversight for FBI woes," The Boston Globe, July 31, 2001, at A4.

[32] Id.

[33] Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 150-51 and n. 1, 167-72, 220-42, 269-89, 351-53, 369-80.

[34] Id. at 150 n. 1, 221-22, 233-36, 270, 274-86, 351-53, 372-74.

[35] Id. at 174, 196-97. As I have also written previously, however, "Neither the government nor the FBI is a monolith." Salemme, 978 F. Supp. at 351 n. 2. The evidence in this case demonstrated that "agents of the FBI in Boston were not uniform in their conduct concerning Bulger and Flemmi." Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 158 n. 8 and referenced sections of that Memorandum and Order identifying FBI agents in Boston whose efforts to investigate Flemmi and Bulger were frustrated by their colleagues.

[36] Id. at 154 n. 3, 212-13.

[37] Id.

[38] Id.

[39] Id. As I wrote in 1999:

[I]n 1982 and 1983, FBI reports containing allegations against an individual were to be indexed by that individual's name and placed in an investigative file. See Moody Aff., Apr. 29, 1998, ¶ 5. With one exception, however, the many reports containing Halloran's charges against Bulger and Flemmi were not properly indexed with a reference to their names. Id. at ¶ 5-6; Apr. 17, 1998 Tr. at 8, Apr. 24, 1998 Tr. at 20-21, Apr. 30, 1998 Tr. at 4-10. Thus, these documents were not found or considered by the Department of Justice officials who were assigned, in July 1997, as a result of this case to review allegations that had been made by informants and witnesses against Bulger and Flemmi. See Chase Aff., Apr. 29, 1998. Nor, when found by the Boston office of the FBI, were the documents promptly produced to the defendants as required by this Court's June 26, 1997 Order and other rulings. June 26, 1997 Order, ¶ 4(c); Moody Aff., Apr. 29, 1998; May 5, 1998 Tr. at 2-12 (Lobby, Under Seal). If the documents had been produced in a timely manner, Rico and Morris could have been questioned about them. None of the documents, however, were provided to the defendants at the time Rico testified in January 1998. In addition, some documents relating to Halloran's charges against Flemmi and Bulger that should have been produced in connection with Morris' appearance were not disclosed until his lengthy testimony was complete. However, Special Agent Moody, who had found the Halloran documents, had provided them long before to Boston ASAC Mike Wolf and SAC Barry Mawn to review because the information that they contained "was obviously highly singular and sensitive." ("Moody Aff., Apr. 29, 1998, ¶ 7, Aff. of Special Agent Stanley Moody, May 5, 1998 ("Moody Aff., May 5, 1998"), ¶ 2; May 1, 1998 Tr. at 3-8.

Both Flemmi and the government had reasons to hope that Halloran's allegations against Flemmi and Bulger would not be fully exposed or resolved in this case. From Flemmi's perspective, a thorough exploration of the Halloran charges might prove that he participated in murder. From the FBI's perspective, exposure of its agents' conduct had the foreseeable potential to reveal an extraordinary effort to protect Bulger and Flemmi that involved serious impropriety, if not illegality. In any event, neither Morris nor Rico was recalled as a witness.

As a result of the delayed disclosure of the Halloran documents by the government and of the failure of the adversary system to operate fully and effectively on this issue, questions remain regarding the role, if any, played by Flemmi and Bulger in the Wheeler, Halloran, and Callahan murders, and the full degree to which the FBI in Boston has, from 1981 until recently, attempted to keep any such role from being discerned and demonstrated.

Id. at 212-13.

[40] Id. at 154 n. 3, 213-14.

[41] J. Rakowsky, "Boston FBI Chief Tapped to Head N.Y. Office," The Boston Globe, Apr. 1, 2000, at B7.

[42] Salemme, 978 F. Supp. at 345.

[43] Id. at 344-64; United States v. Salemme, 1997 WL 810057, at *1-3 (D.Mass. Dec. 29, 1997).

[44] June 28, 2000 Tr. at 24-25.

[45] In January, 2000, Kevin Weeks, a codefendant of Flemmi and Bulger's in the case before Judge Stearns who is now cooperating with the government, reportedly led investigators to a mass grave containing three bodies; one was John McIntrye. See S. Murphy, "Victims Kin Sue Gangsters, Agents Press Investigators on Bulger Search," The Boston Globe, Mar. 9, 2001, at B8.

[46] See, Commonwealth v. Peter Limone, 420 Mass. 499, 650 N.E.2d 782 (1995); C. Goldberg, "An Innocent Man Goes Free 33 Years After Conviction," The New York Times, Feb. 2, 2001, at A12; see also Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 180.

[47] See, Department of Justice Guidelines Regarding the Use of Confidential Informants (2001), http://www.usdoj.gov:80/ag/readingroom/ciguidelines.htm; see also S. Murphy and R. Ranalli, "US tightens rules on informants," The Boston Globe, Jan. 9, 2001 at 1.

[48] M. Zuckoff, "Bulger case sparks probe in U.S. House," The Boston Globe, Jul. 24, 1998, at Al.

[49] For example, § I.I of Attorney General Reno's Guidelines require that within 120 days of January 8, 2001 the FBI and other Department of Justice investigative agencies "develop agency-specific guidelines that comply with these Guidelines, and submit such agency-specific to the [Assistant Attorney General] for the Criminal Division for review." The court is not aware of any published report or other information indicating that the FBI has complied with this directive.

[50] Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 154 n. 3, 199, 211, 218.

[51] The House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform is investigating the FBI's conduct in securing the convictions of Mr. Salvati and others for the Deegan murder. See, e.q., J.M. Lawrence, "Salvati ready to tell Congress about frame-up," Boston Herald, May 2, 2001, at 2; S. Murphy, "No apology from agent in Salvati case," The Boston Globe, May 4, 2001, at A1.

[52] Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 190.

[53] Id. at 174, 197.

[54] Id. at 174, 196, 210, 219, 226, 252, 268-69.

[55] See, e.g., Francis Biddle, In Brief Authority, 166-67, 297 (1962). In balance, Attorney General Biddle's public appraisal of Hoover in 1962 was positive. Id. at 261. However, he then wrote:

A more disturbing question is the future use of this great machine of detection [the FBI] with its ten million personal files, its reputation grown sacrosancthuman agencies should court criticism rather than wear halos its obvious possibilities of misusing the trust it has won. When Hoover resigns or retires or dies, what will happencan the same freedom be given to another man, the virtual freedom from control? I do not believe it can.

Id.

[56] Salemme, 91 F.Supp.2d at 188-90; see also, John Elliff, The Reform of FBI Intelligence Operations, (1979).

[57] Louis D. Brandeis, Other People's Money 92 (1914).

[58] See United States v. Salemme, 985 F. Supp. 197 (D.Mass.1997); Nov. 14, 1997 Order.

[59] David McCullough, John Adams, 65-68 (2001).

[60] Id. at 67; see also Marvin Wolfgang, "Introduction" to Cesare Beccaria, Of Crimes and Punishments, ii (Marsilo Publishers 1996).

[61] J.M. Lawrence, "No BulletsTop legal guns balk at representing `Rifleman'," Boston Herald, Apr. 18, 2001, at 1; J.M. Lawrence, "`Rifleman' Flemmi's defenders ask for money," Boston Herald, Jun. 8, 2001, at 5; "Attorney Appointed for Jailed Flemmi," The Boston Globe, Jul. 12, 2001.

[62] Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 173, 189; Alpheus Thomas Mason, Harlan Fiske Stone: Pillar of the Law, 153 (1956) (quoting N.Y. Times, May 10, 1924).

[63] See, United States v. Coplon, 185 F.2d 629 (2d Cir.1950); see also Gerald Gunther, Learned Hand 592-98 (1994).

[64] Coplon, 185 F.2d at 638.

[65] United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69, 70 S. Ct. 430, 94 L. Ed. 653 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).
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Posted Reply with quote  #255 
http://thetrialofwhiteybulger.com/a-christmas-story-a-good-cop-dying-young-murdered-by-the-fbi-top-echelon-informant-program-1-of-3-15031/



A Christmas Story: A Good Cop Dying Young: Murdered by the FBI Top Echelon Informant Program – 1 of 3
December 21, 2015Uncategorized        

() NaimovichJames Ring was a supervisor in the FBI’s Boston office. He was supervised the organized crime squad called C – 1. Ring involved the State Police in an investigation of Massachusetts State Trooper John Naimovich, shown in this post, a man with 23 years on the job. He was considered the top State Police organized crime investigator. He was a man I found beyond reproach. The FBI would go after him to put him out of business. Was it he came too close to the people it was protecting?

Tom Foley who brags about his pursuit of Whitey Bulger was a main participant in it. As a young trooper he worked for the FBI against Naimovich. He did this even after he knew he was set up by the FBI.
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http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/ann-wright

My name is Ann Wright, and I’m a retired Army Colonel and diplomat who resigned after 16 years in the State Department in opposition to President Bush’s illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. I’m also a proud member of CODEPINK, an organization that makes incredible waves with just a few on staff and lots of dedicated volunteers like me.

This holiday season, please consider making a gift to CODEPINK. Your support helps us hold elected officials accountable, support brave whistleblowers, lead international peace delegations, and so much more.

Working with a powerful peace coalition and 100 prominent American women, we ensured the passage of the Iran nuclear deal. This helped us avoid another unnecessary war, showing the world that peace is possible through diplomacy.


Also this year, CODEPINK brought over 300 peace ambassadors to Cuba to learn how diplomacy can work. In November, we traveled to Guantanamo for an international summit to abolish foreign military bases. We're thrilled that in 2015, Cuba was taken off the US state terrorist list and embassies were opened in both Havana and Washington DC. In the new year, we are dedicated to shutting down the US prison in Guantanamo and returning the naval base to the Cuban people, lifting the travel ban, and ending the embargo. In February and in May we’ll be going back to Cuba to expand our Local Peace Economy campaign . It’s not too late to sign up for one of our trips today!

In May, CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans and I joined WomenCrossDMZ, the first-ever international women’s peace walk from North Korea through the demilitarized zone into South Korea. Now we are part of a new national coalition for peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula. We visited Jeju Island (pictured above!) to meet with activists resisting the US military presence on the island. Just last week I returned from a delegation to Okinawa, Japan to oppose the destructive expansion of the US base there. Next year, join me for a CODEPINK delegation to Okinawa. Stay tuned for how you can apply to join!

But our work for peace is only possible with your support.

Please consider making a donation today to help us continue our work for a more peaceful world in 2016.

Thank you.

For a peaceful new year,
Ret. Colonel Ann Wright

PS: Feeling down about 2015? Lift your spirits and check out Medea's latest, 10 Good Things About the Not-So-Good Year 2015. <>




CODEPINK ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2015

To celebrate diplomacy and the normalization of relations with CUBA, we brought over 200 peace delegates to Cuba. Our trip was a defiant demonstration against the American embargo—an unjust policy we are committed to ending. After celebrating the release of Shaker Aamer in November, we also brought 60 people to GUANTANAMO and called for the U.S. naval base and prison to be closed, and the land to be returned to the Cubans.

Calling for reunification and peace in KOREA, we travelled across the demilitarized zone from North Korea to South Korea with 30 prominent international women. Alongside thousands of Korean women, we joined their moving call to end heavily militarized borders.

In honor of those who sacrifice their lives to tell the truth and inform the public, we continued supporting our whistleblower shero, CHELSEA MANNING. You helped us raise $45,000 for her legal fees to defend her against trumped-up charges and keep her out of solitary confinement. We also helped whistleblower JOHN KIRIAKOU during his transition out of prison.

We held WAR CRIMINALS accountable and spoke truth to power, from attempting an epic citizen’s arrest of Henry Kissinger (which made John McCain go berserk!) to a bold disruption of Dick Cheney when he was hawking for war with Iran.


Dedicated to ending US support for repressive regimes, we have worked all year to end U.S. military aid to EGYPT. After our tireless advocacy on his behalf, pro-democracy Egyptian American political prisoner Mohamed Soltan was freed and returned to his family.

Horrified by the destruction wrought by ISIS, which came to power because of the U.S. war on Iraq, you helped us raise $14,000 to fund a trauma and rape healing center for women and girls in IRAQ. Over a decade later, we still haven’t forgotten the crimes of the Bush administration in Iraq. We’re supporting Iraqi mother Sundus Saleh Shaker and her lawyer, Inder Comar in their lawsuit against Bush and his cronies.

After 14 years of a failed, horrifically destructive war on AFGHANISTAN, the situation is worse for women in the country. We exposed this truth with a shocking report published on the anniversary of the war. We are also pushing for an independent investigation into the U.S. bombing of a hospital in Kunduz.

When the media is looking for an opposing voice to killer DRONES, they come to us as one of the leading organizations pushing this issue. All year long, our Bay Area chapter hosted monthly protests at Beale Air Force Base in California and two annual protests at the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

We launched a new campaign this year to grow the LOCAL PEACE ECONOMY as a personal act against the economy that drives war. The relational, ...
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Posted Reply with quote  #257 



Two stories


One with FBI spin


FBI agent Arturo Fontes cannot find El Chapo after 28 years.

Sean Penn finds El Chapo in less than 6 months




1.

Sean Penn Met With 'El Chapo' for Interview in His Hide-Out - The ...
http://www.nytimes.com/.../el-chapo-mexican-drug-lord-interview-with-sean-pen...
1 day ago - Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, started out in business not long after t


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/world/americas/el-chapo-mexican-drug-lord-interview-with-sean-penn.html?_r=0



2.


Drug lord's extradition to the USA might be compromised, says former FBI agent

Date
January 11, 2016 - 12:06PM

http://www.3aw.com.au/news/drug-lords-extradition-to-the-usa-might-be-compromised-says-former-fbi-agent-20160111-gm362i.html

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been re-apprehended.

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been re-apprehended.

The world's most wanted drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, has been recaptured by Mexican security forces.

El Chapo, founder of the cartel that is responsible for at least 50% of the world's drugs, escaped from Mexican jail in July through an elaborate tunnel network.

Arturo Fontes, who spent much of his 28 years in the FBI chasing El Chapo, told Tony Jones since Osama Bin Laden's death, El Chapo
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Posted Reply with quote  #258 


A couple of years ago I made a trip to
Concord Mass to visit the gravesites
of Emerson and Thoreau .
Their gravesites lay near each other
in the town cemetery.

I had the area to myself as there was no other pilgrims
paying homage to these great thinkers.
I could see offerings laid at their gravesites
in the forms of money,personal notes and
other personal items.

for photos google
photos emerson gravesite thoreau gravesite



The Beat of a Different Drum
http://www.drwaynedyer.com/blog/the-beat-of-a-different-drum/


Henry David Thoreau said, “If a man loses pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to
the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.” Not only is
this great advice for dealing gently with what other people want to
do, say, or think, but these words are also about our own
self-reliance. Be sure you’re stepping to the music you hear—no matter
what other people think. My understanding of the13th verse of the Tao
Te Ching is this: it’s crucial to remain independent of both the
positive and negative opinions of other people. If you gain their
approval, you’ll become a slave to outside words of praise. If you
gain disfavor, you’ll spend your life trying to change other people’s
minds about you. Either way, you lose your selfhood. If you want to
follow your passion, be independent of the good opinion of others.
Give yourself permission to two-step, march, waltz, or boogie to your
own beat




1.

DEA Employees Seek to Prevent Release of Videos of Lap Dances at Trial


DEA employees charged with lying during national security background
checks are trying to avoid the embarrassing release of lap dances
during their trial.

Civilian employees and a former officials of the DEA are accused of
lying about their ownership of a trip club in South Hackensack, N.J.

Now defense attorneys are trying to prevent the government from
introducing the lap dance video into evidence, the New York Times
reports.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/nyregion/dea-employees-facing-trial-seek-to-bar-lap-dance-video.html

“The prejudicial effect of the videos would be colossal if they are
introduced as evidence at trial,” defense lawyers argued in court
papers filed on Monday.

Prosecutors want to provide evidence that the defendants used largely
illegal immigrants as dancers.

The government wants to show the jury sexually graphic footage of four
lap dances rec




2.




Color of Surveillance
What the FBI actually learned from spying on Martin Luther King, Jr.
4/12/16 11:06 AM


http://fusion.net/story/289903/james-baker-fbi-color-of-surveillance/

On Friday, Georgetown University’s law school hosted ‘The Color of
Surveillance,’ a conference about government monitoring of black
Americans. Two of the most anticipated speakers were James A. Baker,
the FBI’s general counsel, and David Garrow, an MLK biographer who has
documented the FBI’s unlawful surveillance of Martin Luther King, Jr.
and other black Americans. The conversation, and the room, were
somewhat tense: Baker was cautious and Garrow sharp-tongued, though
the latter emphasized that the FBI of the 60s was the primary focus of
his ire.

In the 1960s, the FBI used wiretaps, bugs, and informants to dig
deeply into King’s personal life, because the United States government
felt that his peaceful activism for civil liberties was threatening.
Garrow said that much of the information gleaned from that government
spying on King remains unavailable, including the informants used.
Garrow said he had even been threatened with violating the Espionage
Act in the early 1980s (when he first started researching the FBI’s
surveillance of MLK) “because of the informant identities [he] had
managed to discover.”


Garrow said that the FBI at that time had “an organizational culture
of surveillance and of political control,” and that it wasn’t limited
to the FBI’s founding director J. Edgar Hoover, who remained its head
until his death in 1972 and is notorious for his abuses of power.
There were attempts at blackmail and encouragement of suicide. “There
is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is,” wrote an
FBI agent in a letter to King that detailed knowledge of his
extramarital sexual activity. The FBI also leaked the gossip to the
press, but it declined to report it.

Baker, who has been the FBI’s general counsel for a little over two
years, didn’t defend the agency’s actions in the 60s. He agreed with
Garrow and everyone else that spying on King as it was done was a
mistake, saying, “There were insufficient constraints on the
government’s authority to engage in national security surveillance.”
He repeated a story that FBI director James Comey told The Guardian
last year, about the director keeping attorney general Robert
Kennedy’s approval of the wiretap order for King on his desk as a
reminder of the agency’s mistakes.

So what the FBI really learned from spying on MLK is that it is
capable of making terrible mistakes and going too far when it comes to
surveillance. Baker, who teaches law school courses, said that the MLK
example is one he has used for the last decade as an example of the
agency’s overreach.

“You can’t understand the statutory framework in which [the FBI]
operates today…if you don’t understand the King case,” he said. He
referred specifically to Congressional oversight committees and the
1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA] and the courts set
up under it to govern domestic surveillance, which were a response to
the Church Committee’s findings on the surveillance of King and
others.

“There is much more significant accountability and oversight
constraints with regards to the FBI’s surveillance activities than
there were in the past,” said Baker.

But it would seem that the U.S. government as a whole hasn’t taken the
King case to heart. Last year, The Intercept revealed that the
Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring Black Lives Matter
activists, sometimes at “gatherings that seem benign and even
mundane.”

The FBI’s current most high-profile attempt to more easily investigate
threats and peer into the lives of Americans is its legal wrangling
with Apple over the San Bernardino shooter’s encrypted iPhone in
California and a drug dealer’s phone in New York. After Apple refused
to build a backdoor into the iPhone, the FBI managed to hack its way
into the phone, though it’s still fighting the New York case in court.

The recent legal fight was on Baker’s mind Friday. “We love
encryption. It helps us in so many ways as a society,” he said. “But
it has a cost. We need to think about it as a society: how will we
deal with that cost?”

Sadly, the panel did not address the times that the constraints which
grew out of King’s surveillance have been abused, bypassed, or
ignored. After 9/11, FISA courts were heavily abused by the NSA. The
FBI has used tools like national security letters to circumvent FISA
court decisions which go against them, which is incredibly rare in the
first place. There’ve been calls for change, but a FISA reform bill
introduced in 2015 was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee,
where it languished. (That bill’s co-sponsor, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
is currently behind draft legislation that would effectively outlaw
encryption.)

Baker also held up the legal standard of “probable cause,” which FISA
court applications must meet, as a bulwark against abuse of
surveillance. But as The Intercept and others have reported, it’s
impossible to tell how the courts interpret that standard because
“only the Justice Department and the FBI are permitted to attend its
proceedings on domestic surveillance.”

As a lawyer for the Justice Department in the mid-2000s who reportedly
“shared…reservations and aided the judges” concerned about NSA spying
and its legality, Baker is certainly aware of the possibility for
abuse. But now he’s more concerned with information the FBI doesn’t
have, saying electronic surveillance is becoming less effective
because of data being guarded by strong encry




2.

Muslim-American Talks About Being Surveilled By Feds, Coming To
Vermont


April 12 2016

http://nhpr.org/post/muslim-american-talks-about-being-surveilled-feds-coming-vermont

Faisal Gill worked for the Department of Homeland Security, but
ultimately resigned after being unable to shake suspicions raised by
the media largely based on his religion.
Faisal Gill worked for the Department of Homeland Security, but
ultimately resigned after being unable to shake suspicions raised by
the media largely based on his religion.
Kathleen Masterson / VPR

Originally published on April 12, 2016 12:17 pm
Listen
Listening...

It's come up repeatedly in recent political debates: the idea of
monitoring U.S. residents based solely on their religion.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas defended his idea of having law enforcement
patrol Muslim neighborhoods in the wake of the terrorist attacks in
Brussels. And candidate Donald Trump, on the Republican side also, has
called for surveillance of certain mosques in the United States. But
according to a report by a journalist working with former CIA employee
turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden, the United States government
already has monitored prominent Muslim-Americans – by probing their
e-mails.

That alleged surveillance has up-ended the lives of some of the
targeted U.S. citizens, casting suspicion on them and dogging their
personal, political and professional lives.

Faisal Gill knows about this firsthand. Despite being cleared of any
wrongdoing or suspicious activity, he was ultimately compelled to
resign from government service in Washington, D.C. All of this, he
says, happened before he decided to move to Vermont, making his new
home in Winooski, where he now lives. VPR visited him there recently
to hear his story.

Gill says it wasn’t until 2014 that he learned the federal government
had allegedly been screening his emails. He was contacted by Glenn
Greenwald, the news reporter to whom Edward Snowden gave all the
documents that he took from the National Security Agency (NSA).

“So I went to New York to meet with Glenn Greenwald. And that's where
he told me that, 'Hey, I'm sorry to tell you this, but between the
years of 2006 and 2008 the NSA was monitoring your e-mails.

Gill says one of the many frustrations was that he never had any
indication why covert surveillance by NSA and FBI took place. He says
permission to surveil his email was likely granted by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act court, which operates in secret.

“If you look at the statute, there are four or five categories for why
they do surveil people. And they're all fairly, you know, ominous
sounding: If you have connections with a foreign government; if you
are an agent a foreign government; if you are suspected of terrorist
activities. Categories like that, and you know, I had nothing like
that.”

Gill says because the court meets in secret, there’s no way to know
what it counts as reasonable suspicion.

“The prosecutors and the FBI agents go down [to court] and they issue
out an affidavit and say we suspect this person. And then we don't
know what happens. What we do know is, 98 percent or 99 percent of all
the warrants are approved. And if you go down to Chittenden County
Superior Court here and you ask how many ones are approved, I doubt
it's that many.”

On being profiled as a Muslim

Gill believes without question that the only reason he was surveilled
is because he is a Muslim-American.

“I was born in Pakistan and, you know, and I hate to say this, but I
don't know what else to say, is that I'm active. You know,
politically, and I'm out there as a Muslim-American and I think that
was probably one of the reasons that I was surveilled.”
On the wall in his Winooski apartment, Gill has photos of his three
children, and of himself with President Obama, Vice President Joe
Biden and other government officials.
Credit Kathleen Masterson / VPR

Gills says during the years his emailed was being screened, in 2006
and 2008, he was running as a Republican candidate for the Virginia
House of Delegates.

"And I was pretty, always involved in local community, always involved
in Muslim advocacy groups. And if you look at all the folks who are
involved in Muslim advocacy groups, the list that of the [people] that
were surveilled, they're all folks who are fairly active in the Muslim
advocacy community. So I think that that kind of had something to do
with it.

On profiling affecting his personal and professional life

"From a personal level, when my kids go somewhere, I mean everybody
these days Googles you, right? … When they Google me, all this stuff
comes up and they don't know what to make of it. So it's affected my
kids … I've had you know school officials say, 'Yeah, we Googled you,
and it was kind of interesting.'

Professionally, Gill says once he left Depar


3.


http://whowhatwhy.org/2014/04/09/media-conned-public-loving-fbi-book-review/

Media Fail
April 9, 2014 | Steve Weinberg
How the Media Conned the Public into Loving the FBI: Book Review

1A review of “Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate: The Campaign to Control the Press and the Bureau’s Image” by Matthew Cecil, University Press of Kansas, 355 pages, $34.95

Matthew Cecil, a communications professor at Wichita State University, has resolved a conundrum that’s bedeviled me since 1970, when I was a fledgling investigative reporter.

I had just completed my first interaction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the supposedly crackerjack national law enforcement agency. But the crackerjack part escaped me. My initial experience suggested an agency that produced inaccurate information inefficiently, failed to respect the constitutional liberties of U.S. citizens, and often resorted to intimidation and lies to get their way. Yet many of my journalistic “betters” told me I was misguided.

Smart people who think they are well informed about a subject—say, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s role as the nation’s elite law enforcement agency—usually “know” what they think they know based on exposure to mass media—television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books. But when mass media have been corrupted, the reliability of the “knowledge” becomes suspect. That’s the case with the FBI.

As “Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate: The Campaign to Control the Press and the Bureau’s Image” shows, the performance of supposedly first-rate FBI agents has been dismal time and again when the citizens of the United States needed them most, including perhaps most notably the run-up to the events of September 11, 2001.

1Readers of WhoWhatWhy will be familiar with our frequent reports of problems with FBI operations (see for example this, this and this). And may be asking themselves: why don’t I see this in the media? The answer is in this book.

What the FBI excelled at, especially under its long-time chief J. Edgar Hoover, was a non-stop public relations campaign that portrayed the agency as a heroic band of G-men who skillfully tracked and felled dangerous criminals.

“Tales of the FBI’s infallible laboratory and army of honest and professional agents became part of popular culture,” Cecil writes. Thanks to mass media, “the FBI was widely considered to be an indispensable government agency.”

In fact, in all too many cases, dangerous criminals were eluding capture, while that “infallible” forensic laboratory wrongly analyzed evidence again and again, leading to the pursuit and convictions of innocent individuals.

J. Edgar’s 48-Year Reign

The publicity juggernaut to gild the FBI’s image began during the directorship of J. Edgar Hoover. He died in 1972, after 48 years at the helm. But the campaign he initiated was so pervasive, and the propaganda he peddled so appealing, that the image of incorruptible, invincible agent-heroes lives on in perpetuity.

Only gradually, since Hoover’s death, has the true story of the FBI begun to emerge. As Cecil explains, the course of events and countless investigations have exposed “a lawless and uncontrolled Bureau that expended enormous amounts of time and resources policing political thought rather than investigating violations of federal law… Hoover had ultimately transformed the Bureau into an American secret police force, even as he convinced the public and many in the news media that he was a trustworthy defender of civil liberties.”

Cecil says he wanted his book to reveal “how, in a nation so proud of its watchdog press, a high-profile federal agency managed to hide the reality of its activities for so long. The answer is as complex as the FBI’s decades-long deception, but it surely includes failings entrenched in the ideology of journalism and in readers’ and viewers’ often uncritical acceptance of news as truth.”

The reference to the “watchdog press” is central here. Yes, starting in the first decade of the twentieth century, what today we call “investigative reporting” began to take root in the U.S. media. But no more than a handful of media organizations ever practiced serious investigative journalism. The vast majority of journalists were too untrained or lazy or gullible or corrupt to seek the truth behind the FBI’s public-relations façade.

Unfortunately, as Cecil points out, many, probably most, consumers of news cannot or will not distinguish the excellent journalists from the untrained, lazy, gullible and corrupt ones and therefore have no idea whom to believe about the FBI. Through wise choice of media outlets and via pure luck, some consumers of mass media inevitably learned the ugly truth about the FBI—while most never did.

In the book’s Introduction, Cecil renders the abridged history of the FBI public relations campaign:

“After a few tentative steps into the realm of publicity during the late 1920s, the Bureau became a key element of FDR’s New Deal war on crime in the mid-1930s. Two journalists, independent author Courtney Ryley Cooper and Neil (Rex) Collier, collaborated with Hoover and his top lieutenants to create a template for FBI news stories emphasizing responsibility and science and featuring Hoover as America’s always careful and reliable top law enforcement officer. With the creation of the public relations-oriented Crime Records Section in 1935 and the establishment of clear lines of public communication authority, Hoover had both a public relations message and a management team to amplify and enforce it.”

During the mid-1930s, Collier, a Washington Star reporter, oversaw a comic strip called “War on Crime” that ran for two years in 80 newspapers across the United States.

Cecil summarizes the first six weeks of the strip: “Week one of ‘War on Crime’ focused on Hoover, who, Collier wrote in the comic strip’s text, ‘had the vision of a man twice his age.’ Hoover had cleaned up the Bureau, and ‘now he had men of unassailable integrity’ in the field.”

After touting the agents’ grueling training regimen and the cutting-edge science of the FBI’s crime-fighting laboratory, the strip focused on the Agency’s success in capturing criminals: “In the morgue of the Fingerprint Division are the cancelled records of criminals removed from circulation such as Dillinger, Floyd, and Nelson.”
J. Edgar Hoover (left) with Sumner Blossom, Editor of The American Magazine, and journalist Courtney Ryley Cooper

J. Edgar Hoover (left) with Sumner Blossom, Editor of The American Magazine, and journalist Courtney Ryley Cooper

Cooper had worked as a publicist for a circus before turning to newspaper feature writing. He met Hoover in 1933, while rewriting a profile of the FBI chief for American Magazine. After completing the rewrite, Cooper suggested a more permanent arrangement to Hoover. Soon, articles ghost-written by Cooper about the FBI began appearing in magazines and newspapers under Hoover’s byline. Other pieces appeared under Cooper’s name after FBI staff had carefully vetted them. Among the influential periodicals that published such public relations material as “news” were the respectable magazines Cosmopolitan and Saturday Evening Post.

Cecil notes:

“At a time when Americans were desperate for government to do something right, the FBI’s pursuit and elimination of John Dillinger and the other ‘Robin Hood’ outlaws of the Midwest provided a compelling hook on which to hang the Bureau’s reputation. Hoover built on that narrative, erecting an FBI built not only on real law enforcement innovation but also on a manufactured public relations foundation that hid mistakes and excesses from public view for nearly 40 years.”

Accused bank robber Bennie Dickson, for example, died on a St. Louis street during 1939 after he supposedly threatened to unload his weapon in the direction of four FBI agents. Cecil, relying in part on previously undisclosed FBI reports, shows that Dickson was actually trying to flee the scene when a trigger-happy agent shot him in the back.

The evidence appears overwhelming that in the aftermath of Dickson’s death, FBI agents coordinated their accounts, offered perjured testimony and threatened a key witness into silence after she had told the truth.

Cecil says that holes first began to appear in the FBI’s holier-than-thou image around 1940. Media accounts of agents falsifying testimony, conducting illegal wiretaps and raiding homes of Americans involved in the Spanish Civil War brought the agency unwanted attention.

Hoover found ways to fight back. His staff maintained lists of hundreds of journalists, and categorized each as friend or foe. Foes were denied access to FBI information, while friends, like famed columnist Walter Winchell, got “insider” tips they could use, often unattributed, to spin coverage of specific investigations and to burnish the FBI’s overall reputation.

While most major media outlets willingly joined the pro-FBI chorus, low-circulation intellectual magazines like The Nation and The New Republic probed deeper.

Fred Cook’s critical reporting about the FBI filled the entire 58 pages of The Nation magazine for October 18, 1958. Cook questioned the American public’s “worship” of an agency that was “part heroic fact” to be sure, but also “part heroic myth.” Cook would expand the magazine tour de force into a 1964 book, “The FBI Nobody Knows.”

While trying without success to refute Cook’s facts, Hoover and his supporters accused him, and other critics, of being un-American—a charge that bore considerable weight during the Communist-hunting hysteria of the 1950s.

***

But even Fred Cook’s hard-hitting expose could not come close to neutralizing the Bureau-friendly “journalism” of Don Whitehead.

Whitehead had established his credentials as a newspaper reporter and war correspondent by the time he completed an “authorized” history of the FBI in 1956. “The FBI Story: A Report to the People” became a big seller. Whitehead had no qualms about FBI censors vetting his manuscript. In discussing the agency’s propensity for tapping telephones and bugging private homes and offices, Whitehead compared these actions to a potential employer examining “every possible source for information as to the honesty and reliability of a prospective employee.”

As Cecil sees it, “Whitehead sold out his own journalistic credibility to the heroic history of the FBI. Hoover counted on the public’s logical conclusion that a famed, objective journalist had reviewed the evidence and verified the Bureau’s history as it had always been told.”

1In 1959, Whitehead’s book “became the basis for a popular motion picture, also titled ‘The FBI Story,’ starring Jimmy Stewart. And when Hoover moved th


4.

FBI Agents Speak on Making Local Connections

Posted: Wed 6:57 PM, Apr 13, 2016
http://www.wtok.com/home/headlines/FBI-Agents-Speak-on-Making-Local-Connections-375628791.html


Two FBI agents out of Jackson stopped by the WTOK-TV station to talk a
little more about their work in this area.

Meridian, Miss. Two FBI agents out of Jackson stopped by the WTOK-TV
station to talk a little more about their work in this area.

They explained how making connections is a critical part of their
day-to-day job. Agent Donald Alway says he recently spoke with
Meridian's police chief about the problems officers see and
also see


FBI agent Lee drops by

http://www.therotundaonline.com/features/fbi-agent-lee-drops-by/article_049a7332-0150-11e6-94b8-7fa5cdef3f32.html

Posted: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 8:00 am | Updated: 11:39 am, Wed Apr
13, 2016.



While initially, it may seem unconventional to have a federal
government agent give a talk to a student in an English class, it may
not be when considering the issue of social media.

This semester, the theme of English 400 courses is discussing the pros
and cons of a social media presence. To give more of a professional
outlook on the topic, Professor Elise Green of the English and Modern
Language department brought FBI Special Agent in Charge Adam Lee to
her English classes and others to talk about the consequences of being
active in social media. In addition, he also held recruitment info
session, where he discussed his life and work within the bureau.

After spending several years as a legislative attorney in California,
Lee became an FBI agent in 1996 and underwent training at Quantico
(which he joked was a lot less sexier than the TV show). He worked for
several years in their national cyber security program during his
early stages. In addition, he also managed the public corruption and
civil rights programs within the bureau during the Trayvon Martin
incident, the IRS/Tea Party case and the trial of former Virginia
Governor Bob McDonald. Currently, Lee works in the Richmond division
where he runs all the FBI operations in Virginia, excluding the
Norfolk and D.C. areas.

During his talk he explained the concept of the FBI and what they do.
The bureau is essentially three agencies in one: national security,
criminal investigation and intelligence. The FBI’s first priority is
“to prevent the next terrorist attack in the United States.” Their
second priority is to prevent other countries from spying and gaining
intelligence on the U.S, followed by national cyber security,
investigating the corruption of elected officials (public corruption)
and the violations of civil rights.

“I liked the way he connected social media and how they used it to
hire people. Everyone knows the bad it can do, but not the good. Like
you can make a virtual resume by posting everything you’re involved
in,” said Alex Reuschling, one of the students in the English 400
class, “Another thing I liked was the way he explained how the FBI was
nothing like I expected.”

Lee emphasized that the FBI is not a law enforcement agency but often
helps local law enforcement agencies with their cases, such as the
Richmond branch helped with the Hannah Graham case.

When it comes to numbers, the bureau is one quarter the size of the
New York Police Department, as they want to remain effectively small
and not be a large Gestapo. Lee stated that one big common
misconception among the public is that the FBI is “Big Brother”
watching everyone.

“We are threat-focused and threat-driven and to the extent we expend
one once of effort on something that is not a credible threat we are
wasting



4.

Businessman at Center of NYPD Investigation Served As Chaplain of
County Police Department



http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/w-chester-gave-bizman-chaplain-gig-article-1.2597220




A Brooklyn businessman who is a target in the widening federal
investigation of the NYPD also served as a chaplain for the
Westchester County police, the New York Daily News reports.

But the discovery that he was at the center of the investigation
prompted the police department to suspend Jeremy Reichberg from his
nonpaying chaplain job.

Reichberg, 42, is suspected of giving gifts to city cops in exchange
for a host of favors.

Just three months after county Executive Rob Astorino received a
$25,000 donation from Reichberg’s friend, Jona Rechnitz, he
0
joeb

Registered:
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Posted Reply with quote  #259 


Link du jour



http://farsight.org


http://tpcp-canada.blogspot.ca/

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/06/21/dirty-coal.htm



Heat is Online

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/2426/article/p2p-87628035/?related=true


122 degrees: Palm Springs breaks record — and it could get hotter

Coping with the heat wave in Southern California

June 20, 2016, 6:46 p.m.
Every so often someone walks into the Palm Springs Visitors Center raring to burn through hiking trails like they're British adventurer and TV personality Bear Grylls.

For those people, Ceej Juarez, who provides information about hiking trails in the Agua Caliente Indian reservation, has to be a voice of reason.  And that is never as important a job as it was on Monday, when a torrid heat wave sent temperatures to 122 degrees in the resor


Bonus Read



http://m.democracynow.org/stories/16326



WED JUN 22, 2016
Meet the FBI Informant Who Organized Neo-Nazi Gathering Attended by Jo Cox Murder Suspect in 2000



We turn now to look at Thomas Mair, the British man who killed British parliamentarian Jo Cox last week. Mair reportedly yelled out "Britain First" during the attack—a reference to the far-right, anti-immigrant political party of the same name which is pushing for Britain to leave the EU in tomorrow’s Brexit referendum. In court on Friday, Mair gave his name as "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain." Cox was a vocal advocate for Britain to remain in the European Union. More information is coming to light about Mair’s ties to neo-Nazi groups in the United States and Britain. Meanwhile, a former paid FBI informant named Todd Blodgett has revealed he met Thomas Mair at a neo-Nazi gathering that the informant set up in London in 2000. Joining us now is Todd Blodgett, who once worked with several leaders of the far right, including Willis Carto, who founded the Liberty Lobby, and William Pierce, leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance.

AMY GOODMAN: We move on to our next segment now, the story of the assassination of a British Labour leader. Juan?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we turn now to Britain, which is continuing to mourn last week’s murder of parliamentarian Jo Cox. She was stabbed and shot last week in her district after meeting with constituents. Her murderer, Thomas Mair, reportedly yelled out "Britain First" during the attack—a reference to the far-right, anti-immigrant political party of the same name which is pushing for Britain to leave the EU in tomorrow’s Brexit referendum. Cox was a vocal advocate for Britain to remain in the European Union.

More information is coming to light about Mair’s ties to neo-Nazi groups in the United States and Britain. The Southern Poverty Law Center here in the U.S. has revealed Mair is a longtime supporter of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Documents released by the center show Mair has spent over $500 buying periodicals and other items from the group, including a manual that contained information on how to build a pistol. In addition, The Daily Telegraph is reporting Mair subscribed to S.A. Patriot, a South African magazine published by White Rhino Club, a pro-apartheid group.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, a former paid FBI informant named Todd Blodgett has revealed he met Thomas Mair at a neo-Nazi gathering that the informant set up in London in 2000. Beginning in the mid-'90s, Blodgett worked with several leaders of the far right, including Willis Carto, who founded the Liberty Lobby, and William Pierce, leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Blodgett was also a co-owner of Resistance Records, the world's largest neo-Nazi music label. Todd Blodgett is joining us now from his home in Iowa.

Todd Blodgett, welcome to Democracy Now! Tell us what you know about this man, Thomas Mair, who killed Jo Cox.

TODD BLODGETT: Yes, thank you. I met Tommy—he was known as Tommy when I met him in about May of 2000. I had just begun working as a paid FBI informant in March of that year. William Pierce, who was the main guy with Resistance Records, but also my co-owner, wanted to convene a meeting in London, because there was a Leeds chapter and another chapter of the National Alliance. And the purpose of the meeting was to promote Resistance Records, let people know that William Pierce was the—was the new owner of it—he bought it from Willis Carto—and also to gain readerdom, gain more customers and get distributors for Resistance Records. And Mair was one of the people invited to the meeting. There were about maybe 17 or 18 people at that meeting. And it took place just off of the Strand in London in the spring of 2000. And as I said, he attended the meeting along with Stevie Cartwright, Richard Barnbrook, Nick Griffin, who was sort of like the David Duke of England at that time, and several other people who were either members of the National Alliance or supporters of the NA.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, why were you at that meeting representing Mr. Pierce?

TODD BLODGETT: Well, of course, Pierce did not know that I had agreed to work for the bureau at that point. And he wanted to go over to England—

AMY GOODMAN: For the FBI.

TODD BLODGETT: For—yeah, for the FBI, that’s correct. He, himself, wanted to go, but he was precluded by law from being able to go there, due to the fact that he couldn’t get in. I mean, his views kept him out of—out of England, so he sent me in his stead, because he and I were the co-owners of Resistance Records at that time. And when I began with the FBI, I told them about what Pierce wanted to do. And right away, they said, "Well, we’re going to accompany you." So, the day before I arrived in London, two FBI agents, an IRS agent and a JTTF agent—that would be the Joint Terrorism Task Force—flew in ahead of me, and they had me meet with the two people, two guys, from the MI5. They gave me a cellphone to use when I was there and that kind of thing. So, that’s how it all worked out.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did you decide to work for the FBI? I mean, were you a neo-Nazi true believer?

TODD BLODGETT: I was never a true believer. I was never a Holocaust denier. I’m not a bigot or a racist or anything. I was basically—I guess the best way to say it is I was—I was greedy. I was an opportunistic profiteer. I didn’t look at the consequences to myself or to others of what I was doing. And I never wanted to be a Resistance Records shareholder, but Willis Carto of Liberty Lobby owed me money. And when he went bankrupt, he—when Liberty Lobby went bankrupt, they gave me stock in Resistance Records in lieu of that, and that’s how I became a co-owner.

What had happened with regard to Pierce was, is that after the deal was signed with Pierce and he gave me a consulting contract he insisted I take as part of my stock sale—he wouldn’t buy the shares without it—we went to a place called the University Club of D.C. The Washington Post got a hold of the article, and it caused a big uproar there, and I was expelled from the club. I was given the option to resign or be expelled. I was expelled. And basically, that’s when the FBI caught notice of this, and the agents came to my office in downtown D.C., and they said, "Look, we’re not after you, but we know you’ve worked with all these people—Willis Carto, Pierce, David Duke—all the head honchos among the racist right, as a profiteer. Will you help us?" And that’s when I agreed to—I agreed to go on as a paid informant.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, this meeting that occurred in 2000 in—I think it was in Leeds in England, these were some of the top neo-Nazi or white supremacist leaders in England. What kind of interaction did you have with Thomas Mair? And what impression did you take away from him at that meeting?

TODD BLODGETT: Well, first of all, the meeting was actually in downtown London, not Leeds, but there were several people from the Leeds chapter at this meeting. And I—as far as Thomas Mair, I would say that most people describe him—he was kind of like a working-class guy, but very well read. I mean, he was discussing a book or two that he had read by David Irving, the Holocaust-denying pseudohistorian, who I also monitored. He would probably—I guess the best way to describe him is just nondescript, well mannered. When you go to a meeting like this, any kind of gathering, the guys—they’re always all guys—there’s a lot of bravado, a lot of macho, a lot of braggadocio going on. People talk about who they beat up last week and how they took on six guys and kicked their butt. They brag about their womanizing. Mair was none of those. He didn’t do any of that. He got—he came by himself. He actually left by himself. As he got there, he was respected by the people that were there. He knew some. They knew him by name. He was not an outgoing guy. If you were to ask me at the end of that meeting, say, a wall of guys there, who would have been the least likely to even start a fistfight, I would have said Tommy Mair.

AMY GOODMAN: According to British media reports, Thomas Mair, or Tommy Mair, as you call him, was a subscriber to the pro-apartheid magazine, South African Patriot in Exile.

TODD BLODGETT: I read that.

AMY GOODMAN: This week, the Southern Poverty Law Center published two letters that Mair wrote to editors of the magazine. In 1999, Thomas Mair wrote, quote, "I was glad you strongly condemned 'collaborators' in the White South African population. In my opinion the greatest enemy of the old Apartheid system was not the African National Congress and the Black masses but White liberals and traitors." And then, in a 1991 letter to the publication, Mair wrote, quote, "The nationalist movement in the U.K. also continues to fight on against the odds. ... Despite everything I still have faith that the White Race will prevail, both in Britain and in South Africa, but I fear that it’s going to be a very long and very bloody struggle." Those the words of Thomas Mair. Todd Blodgett, what was your reaction when you heard who was the man who murdered the Labour MP, Jo Cox?

TODD BLODGETT: When I first saw his picture, and I recognized him right off, when I first heard his name, I remembered it, you know, my first reaction was, gosh, I mean, this is—aside from the fact it’s a horrible thing, I thought, you know, this wasn’t the kind of guy I would have picked out to do that. I would have thought someone like Stevie Cartwright or someone would be more likely to do that. They were the more—you know, the more brutal types. But then I realized a lot of people that I monitored, which included a guy named Wade Page, who did a similar thing—he went into a—I think it was a Hindu temple in Wisconsin, and killed a bunch of people about three years ago—sometimes it’s those very kind of guys that are the most lethal, which is why Tommy Mair and people like him represent such a huge challenge to MI5 and the FBI and other law enforcement, because they can be dormant for many years. They can be on the radar, then they go off the radar. They’re the kind that—you know, they’re not the kind that—Tommy Mair was not the kind of guy you’d pick out to start a fight in a bar. He was not like a tough kind of guy. He didn’t pose as a tough guy. He just basically was a nondescript kind of guy. And I thought, you know, obviously he is not—his hatred has not changed. He just found an outlet for it, and he finally decided to try to go out in a blaze of glory. And that’s—that was my reaction.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Todd Blodgett, you did this undercover work for the FBI, but yet you’ve also been public since then about your activities. Are there any concerns on your part of your own personal safety as a result of the work you did to uncover the activities of some of thes white supremacist groups?

TODD BLODGETT: There are—I do have some concerns. I live in Texas, as well as in Iowa. And I’ve had strangers walk up to me in bars in Texas and call me—I won’t say this name, these words, on the air, but, you know, they’ll use the N-word, they’ll use derogatory names for Jewish people, and they’ll say I’m a blankety-blank lover or a race traitor, that kind of thing. So there’s always that concern. But I will say this—I want to get this out: I have a concealed-carry permit that’s good in 37 states, and I can legally—I am legally armed. I’m armed right now. And so, if they want to try to make a fight with me, they might take me out, but I’m going to take them with me.

AMY GOODMAN: The presidential election right now, the support that Donald Trump has gotten from, for example, David Duke—right?—the former Klan leader—

TODD BLODGETT: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: —white supremacist, your thoughts on white supremacists in this country, Klan support of Donald Trump?

TODD BLODGETT: I think it’s very tragic. I mean, anyone has a right to support who they want to. But I worked for Reagan for many years, and when Reagan was endorsed by the KKK in the fall of 1980, his response was a great response. He said, "Look, just because they like my philosophy doesn’t mean I buy theirs." Trump kind of stumbled over that thing. I don’t think Donald Trump is a white supremacist, but I’m very disturbed by the fact that he’s got support from them, and I’m also disturbed by the comment he made about the judge. I can’t think of—Judge Curiel, I think his name is. But he made a—he made a stupid reference to the fact that he’s of Hispanic descent, which is totally irrelevant to the case. I worked with David Duke. I monitored him for the FBI. I’ve done—you know, I monitored all these people. They’re, without exception, a bunch of sociopaths. They’re just bad people. And most of their supporters tend to be bad people, too. So I don’t want to see that kind of thing being any part of the Republican Party. I’m still a Republican. I was for Jeb Bush for the nomination; before that, for Dr. Carson. But I don’t want to see that part—I want this flushed out of the party.

AMY GOODMAN: What is it about Donald Trump, you think, that attracts white supremacists, neo-Nazis?

TODD BLODGETT: I think it is because they recognize, in their world, to their way of thinking, demographics are destiny. That was one thing that William P




1.


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-members-arrested-federal-corruption-investigation-article-1.2680294

Three high-ranking officers in the NYPD acted as “cops on call” for two deep-pocketed de Blasio donors — as long as their “elves” plied them with gifts and bankrolled a highflying lifestyle that included hookers, free hotels and expensive meals.

Deputy Chief Michael Harrington, Deputy Inspector James Grant an



2.


Monday, June 20, 2016Last Update: 2:19 PM PT
Chicago Cop Rightly Fired After Woman's Suicide



http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/06/20/chicago-cop-rightly-fired-after-womans-suicide.htm


A Chicago police officer was properly fired for spending time with a domestic-violence victim who later picked up his gun and killed herself, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled.
     Sgt. Steven Lesner responded to a domestic violence call from Catherine Weiland and her boyfriend at North Side restaurant in February 2009.
     Two other officers responded to the call and removed the boyfriend. Lesner then offered Weiland a ride home in his police car.
     On the way back to her apartment, Weiland asked Lesner to stop and buy her a bottle of wine. He agreed.
     Lesner stayed at Weiland's apartment for 40 minutes, talking to her brother and father, who lived in separate units in the same building.
     He agreed to drive them back to the restaurant to retrieve Weiland's car. Lesner also gave Weiland a card with his personal cell-phone number.
     She used it to call Lesner and invite him back to her apartment for a drink after his shift. Lesner put his duty firearm in his locker and strapped his auxiliary firearm to his ankle.
     Lesner bought beer for himself and more wine for Weiland before returning to her apartment. While they were watching television, Lesner had his feet on a table and took off the gun when he thought Weiland was not looking, because "it looks kind of stupid."
     When Lesner went to use the restroom, Weiland picked up his gun and shot herself in the head.
     An investigation revealed



3.

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/06/federal_prosecutors_object_to.html


Federal prosecutors object to providing Oregon standoff defendants details on law enforcement response



4.


http://www.wnd.com/2016/06/twa-800-if-you-saw-something-say-something/
TWA 800: IF YOU SAW SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING
Exclusive: Jack Cashill seeks more testimony about downing of plane over Long Island

JACK CASHILL

This July marks the 20th anniversary of the shoot down of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island. As such, it may well represent the last opportunity for those with inside information to come forward.

In the last week or two, as I have started to promote my new book on this subject, “TWA 800: The Crash, the Cover-Up, and the Conspiracy,” I have heard from a number of people with stories to tell. If you know something or know someone who does, please email me at jcashill@aol.com.



Although most have given me permission to use their names, some have preferred that I not. To equalize things, I will refer to each of my correspondents only by a first name pseudonym.

Sam, the air safety chairman for the Airline Pilot’s Association, arrived at the crash scene on the first day. “From the get-go the FBI was all over us, no notebooks, no cameras, no nothing,” said Sam.

This was unprecedented. Sam worked through the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB was supposed to be in charge of the investigation. Under orders from the Clinton Justice Department, the FBI seized control on Day 1.

Sam soon identified a part of the plane that showed obvious damage from an external explosion. He had it tested it for explosive residue on site. It tested positive.

The next day he asked what happened to the p


5.


http://lakeexpo.com/news/top_stories/after-complaints-missouri-sheriff-removes-disparaging-photos-of-obama-clinton/article_c7116a2a-38b8-11e6-beb3-f391e6d4c945.html?mode=jqm

After complaints, Missouri sheriff removes disparaging photos of Obama, Clinton from office wall


When Scott Bringhurst went to the Gasconade County, Mo., sheriff's office last week



6.
http://www.mo4ch.com/creating-terrorists-the-fbis-dark-history-of-provoking-violent-attacks/

Creating terrorists: The FBI's dark history of provoking violent attacks

The FBI's conduct with Orlando massacre shooter Omar Mateen is under fire, .... This was even stated by the FBI in 2010, when an agent told Ferdaus' father ...


7.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/john-guandolo-black-lives-matter-working-conjunction-jihadis
John Guandolo: Black Lives Matter Working 'In Conjunction' With 'Jihadis'
SUBMITTED BY Nabi Dressler on Wednesday, 6/22/2016 9:48 am





0
joeb

Registered:
Posts: 8,382
Posted Reply with quote  #260 





Blink Tank

http://www.indiewire.com/2016/07/abramorama-acquires-documentary-narrated-by-robert-redford-dying-to-know-1201699368/

Link du jour

http://apps.pinetreewatchdog.org/maine-legislature/


http://stevehochstadt.blogspot.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/metro-nashville-police-officers-fired-facebook-posts-article-1.2707572


https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/senate-still-considering-giving-fbi-more-power-spy-browser-history


http://www.humankindness.org/newsletters/


1.

Today: No #BrowserSpying Day of Action
Jul 11, 2016, 6:02 AM
From sue@bordc.org
Details


No #BrowserSpying Day of Action
The FBI wants to be able to get your browser history without a warrant. And that’s not all. They also want to be able to use National Security Letters to find out who you are communicating with over email, chats or text messages.
National Security Letters (NSLs) sound pretty official, but they aren’t. An FBI agent merely has to claim the records they want are “relevant” to an investigation, and the phone or internet company has to turn them over.
Take Action: Don’t Let the FBI get our electronic communication records without a warrant
Handing the FBI innocent peoples' web browsing history and other electronic records without court oversight sacrifices our privacy and doesn’t make us safer.
This alert might sound familiar. And it is. Last month the Senate considered a similar measure. We asked you to take action and it was narrowly defeated. But they will vote again, likely this week. Our victory is not assured. 
So, we've joined with other privacy and civil liberties groups on a National Day of Action to protect our electronic communications from FBI snooping without a warrant.
Please join this national Day of Action to say no to #BrowserSpying by the FBI.
The issue is a bit confusing, so Senators Wyden and Heinrich will be answering your questions today, July 11, live on social media:
Twitter: 4:15 pm ET on Sen. Wyden’s Twitter: @RonWyden
Facebook: 4:45 pm ET on Sen. Heinrich’s Facebook
We encourage you to join the conversation, ask questions, and engage your own Senators on social media also.
Stay Loud, Stay Strong,

Additional information:
Senate Rejects Expansion of FBI Surveillance Powers by a Narrow Margin, Sarah Nelson, Dissent Newswire
Seven Myths Busted: FBI Surveillance and the NSL Expansion vote in the Senate, Robyn Greene, JustSecurity
Bill of Rights Defense Committee and Defending Dissent Foundation
1100 G St NW Suite 500, Washington, DC 20005
202.529.4225 · info@bordc.org








LOCAL
FBI-Issued Guns Stolen From Car in DC


http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/FBI-Issued-Guns-Stolen-From-Car-in-DC-386383481.html
Someone stole two FBI-issued guns from a car in northeast Washington, D.C., over the weekend, according to the FBI Washington Field Office.
Early Sunday morning, someone broke into an agent’s vehicle and took a handgun and a long



2.

http://moneymorning.com/2016/07/11/stop-what-youre-doing-unless-youre-okay-with-the-fbi-knowing-every-detail/

Stop What You're Doing Unless You're Okay with the FBI Knowing ...
Money Morning-
the FBI On June 22, the Senate fell one vote short of attaching a rider to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies spending bill that would ...



3.



Man who saw Alton Sterling death says cops stole video (GRAPHIC)
July 11, 2016, 5:24 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/man-alton-sterling-death-sues-cops-stole-video-article-1.2707524
New video surfaces of Alton Sterling shooting
NY Daily News

New video surfaces of Alton Sterling shooting
NY Daily News


00:00 / 00:42
The convenience store owner who captured Alton Sterling’s death on video said police stole the surveillance video from his store, took his cellphone and locked him in a car for four hours.

Abdullah Muflahi


4.

http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/fbi-agent-melted-cellphones-found-in-former-cop-s-home/article_def8df56-48a3-11e6-b2cf-6f227c8efc9f.html
McALLEN — When federal agents raided a former Mission police officer’s home last July they discovered, among other items, a large cooking pot in the backyard that was still smoldering when they found it, which contained multiple burned cellphones and government documents.

FBI agent Scott Atwood, who was assigned to the take photos of former Mission officer Hector “Jojo” Mendez’s home in San Juan during that search, testified they also retrieved several identification cards, a Mexican passport, firearms, memory cards and multiple old police reports.

Atwood was assigned to the FBI’s public corruption task force and was at Mendez’s home as part of the investigation into seized cocaine in July of 2012.

During the fifth day of testimony in Mendez’s trial the government finally introduced several pieces of evidence that implicated at the very least that Mendez was attempting to get rid of items that may incriminate him somehow.

Also called to testify was DEA group supervisor Richard Clough, who was Mendez’s supervisor after former group supervisor Richard Champion moved to the Washington, D.C., office.

Clough testified about the months leading up to and the actual arrest of Mendez last summer.

Specifically, Clough testified about an observation he made on Feb. 12, 2015, inside the U.S. Attorney’s office lobby, when Reynol Chapa-Garcia and Mendez crossed paths.

“He was shocked to see Mr. Chapa,” Clough said. “He stared at him as he and (Roque) Vela left the U.S. Attorney’s office.”

Chapa, who was an informant for the government but also a confidential source of Mendez’s, met with federal agents and government prosecutors in connection with the July 28, 2012, seizure, of which Chapa was involved.

On July 28, 2012, Mission police K-9 officer Charles Lopez seized 15 kilos of cocaine from the trunk of a 1998 Ford Taurus in the parking lot of a Mission bakery.

Chapa, who testified last week that he changed his story of the events of that week multiple times, said the cocaine provided for that seizure had been dropped off at his home three days earlier. Mendez, who allegedly conspired with Chapa to steal the cocaine, picked up the drugs from Chapa’s home, cut it, and then staged the seizure with Officer Lopez.

Clough testified his agency went on the information originally provided by Chapa and Mendez’s report of the seizure, which stated it took place on July 29, 2012, and not the day before.

But after reviewing call logs and transcribed documents of conversations between Chapa and the man he stole from, drug trafficker Salvador Gonzalez,



5.


http://nypost.com/2016/07/12/fbi-agents-signed-nda-for-matters-involving-hillarys-emails/

FBI agents signed NDA for matters involving Hillary's emails
New York Post-


In an unusual move, FBI agents working the Hillary Clinton e-mail case had to sign a special form reminding them not to blab about the probe to ...


6.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2016/07/12/lynch-hearing-tuesday-morning-n2191245
Lynch Refuses to Answer Questions About FBI's Failure to Bring ...
Town Hall-



7.

Former FBI Agent to Speak on Cybercrime at LockPath Ready Summit
Yahoo Finance-
"With his experience as an FBI agent, Jeff Lanza brings important insights and valuable intelligence to the LockPath Ready Summit. We are ...



8.

http://sputniknews.com/society/20160713/1042863536/fbi-informants-muslims-arrests.html
FBI Uses 15000 Informants to 'Radicalize' Young Muslims Before ...
Sputnik International-
The Daesh member provided Jalloh with a mobile messaging application and instructions to send $500 to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Daesh ...



9.

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/many-pulse-questions-remain-unanswered
ORLANDO, Fla. - One month after the FBI launched what it described to News 6 as a "major terrorism investigation" into the Pulse nightclub massacre, the agency is withholding many details about the attack that left 49 people dead and 53 wounded.

Among the unanswered questions: Why did gunman Omar Mateen choose to carry out his attack at that particular gay nightclub, 120 miles from his home in Fort Pierce?  Did anyone else know about Mateen's plot prior to June 12? How did the attack unfold?  And exactly how did law enforcement respond?



10.


http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2016/07/13/cops-blacks-and-crime-n2191832
Cops, Blacks and Crime
Town Hall-
... even including those five deaths, it is still safer to be a cop today than in years past. According to FBI records, 2015 was one of the safest years ever recorded.


11.



NYC Crime Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Education Obituaries Weather
NYPD cop pleads guilty to boy sex abuse on Skype


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/nypd-pleads-guilty-boy-sex-abuse-skype-article-1.2709001

July 12, 2016, 9:32 PM

NYPD Sergeant Alberto Randazzo is facing 24 to 30 years in prison for sexually exploiting young boys via Skype. (ANTHONY DELMUNDO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
An NYPD sergeant pleaded guilty Tuesday to sexually exploiting young boys via Skype — as his new gal pal looked on in the courtroom and blew him a kiss.

Alberto Randazzo is facing 24 to 30 years in prison

.12.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/canadian-black-man-reported-police-reading-car-article-1.2708763

A Canadian man was pulled over and questioned by police for “reading while black” for a couple of hours at a seaside wharf, he said.

Louizandre Dauphin, a small New Brunswick’s city’s director of parks, recreation and tourism, wrote on Instagram Thursday that an officer told him a few people in Janeville had reported “a suspicious black man in a white car.” The Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer did not arrest Dauphin or ask any more questions but stopped him long enough to verify his identification, he said.

“So, a black male, sitting in his car, reading a book is suspicious activity,



13.


NYC Crime Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Education Obituaries Weather
Grope suit against alleged NYPD perv detective can proceed:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/grope-suit-alleged-nypd-perv-detective-proceed-judge-article-1.2708670

Tuesday, July 12, 2016, 3:56

Det. Lukasz Skorzewski is accused of groping a woman in Washington.
The civil lawsuit against an NYPD officer accused of groping a rape victim after a bawdy pub crawl can continue, a Manhattan federal judge decided Tuesday.

Officer Lukasz Skorzewski and former Lt. Adam Lamboy, who worked in the Manhattan Special Victims Division, traveled to Seattle in early July 2013 to investigate a woman's claims that



14.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-detective-race-not-botched-drug-test-led-firing-article-1.2708769
An African-American detective was fired after 30 years with the NYPD because the department falsely claimed he failed a drug test — and that the decision to terminate him was largely based on his race, a new lawsuit alleges.

After Cecil Waithe was promoted to detective first grade in January 2014, he took a drug test on March 18, 2014, which was a requirement of his promotion.

"During the March 18th drug screening the Drug Screening Unit examiner committed a number of errors and when the test results were obtained CW had tested positive for marijuana," the lawsuit, filed Monday in Manhattan federal court, alleges.


A subsequent departmental drug test on March 28, 2014, was negative — but "that second sample was destroyed by police personnel in the Drug Testing Unit," the suit charges.

Internal Affairs took Waithe's badge and gun on March 30, 2014, so he went to an independent drug testing service on April 1 and April 4, 2014 — which twice yielded negative results from urine, blood, and hair samples.

After a departmental hearing on March 24 2015, the Deputy Commissioner of Trials ruled against him — ignoring the samples that tested negative.

A witness for the NYPD did testify in that hearing that he was a routine pot user, again despite the negative tests.

Commissioner Bill Bratton signed off on Waithe's termination on Oct. 9, he claims.

Waithe, 57, maintains the department has "a long history of discriminating against its African-American male police officers. And that he has witnessed white officers retain their employment even after arrest for serious criminal offenses and/or other infractions."

"[Waithe] alleges that defendant City through its agents have a long history of performing flawed and unfair investigations whenever African-American male police officers complain about false allegations
0
joeb

Registered:
Posts: 8,382
Posted Reply with quote  #261 


Link du jour
https://books.google.com/books?id=jIMdAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=fbi+agents+sexting+cnn+report&source=bl&ots=EIXrrYydle&sig=aZ18gYsa5tyNwIQiivUxaT2t6oI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjPy-j99pTOAhXo44MKHZOxDlM4KBDoAQhzMB4

https://www.intelligenceonline.com/corporate-intelligence/consultants/2016/07/27/slattery-snaps-up-staff-for-brg,108176244-ART


1.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/resigns-sex-100-times-duty-article-1.2727437

Cop resigns after having sex nearly 100 times while on duty
Tuesday, July 26, 2016, 9:32 PM

An internal investigation found a Wisconsin cop was regularly having sex while on the clock. — A Wisconsin police officer resigned after an internal investigation found he had sex nearly 100 times on duty.

Hudson Police Chief Marty Jensen confirmed Tuesday that Officer John Worden stepped down in May, after first being placed on administrative leave.

The Hudson Star-Observer newspaper first reported on Worden's resignation, citing documents obtained from police through a public records request. Jensen and a city attorney declined to provide the documents to The Associated Press



2.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/new-york-police-officer-not-charged-death-4-month-old-son-article-1.2727091
New York police officer not charged in death of 4-month-old son
Tuesday, July 26, 2016, 5:03 PM


Rome police officer Mark Fanfarillo will not be charged in the death of his son Michael after leaving him in a hot car on June 6, 2016. (WKTV)
A New York police officer whose infant son died after the cop left him in a car all day will not be criminally charged for the accident, the Oneida County District Attorney’s office announced Tuesday.

On July 6, Mark Fanfarillo forgot to drop his 4-month-old son off at day care, leaving him unattended in his car “for


3.



Cop wanted to testify for Sandra Bland, faced threats: ex-judge
Tuesday, July 26, 2016, 9:49 PM


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/wanted-testify-sandra-bland-faced-threats-ex-judge-article-1.2727431


Recording: Prairie View officer says DA wouldn't let him testify about Sandra Bland traffic stop
Houston Chronicle


00:00 / 01:08
Sandra Bland’s family could have seen justice if a Texas officer who witnessed the arrest wasn’t threatened into silence, a former judge claimed — with a recording to prove it.

Community activist and former county judge DeWayne Charleston said he recorded a phone conversation with officer Michael Kelley, who wanted to testify on Bland’s behalf, the Houston Chronicle reported.

“This is what happens when you try to cross the thin blue line,” Charleston said on Tuesday.



In this July 10, 2015, frame from dashcam video provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety, trooper Brian Encinia arrests Sandra Bland after she became combative during a routine traffic stop in Waller County. (TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY/AP)
Bland was found dead in a Waller County jail cell after a July 10, 2015.

King: Sandra Bland case just more cause for frustration
Medical examiners ruled her suspicious death a suicide, but outraged protesters believe she was murdered.


Medical examiners ruled Sandra Bland’s jailed death a suicide, but her family is calling foul on the officers. (AP)
Dashcam footage showed Bland being roughly arrested and mistreated by the officers who stopped her.

Charleston told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Houston that Kelley wanted to help Bland’s case, but was threatened into silence from the district attorney’s office.


4.


IRS DOESN'T NEED CRIMINAL INTENT TO PROSECUTE

 
http://newswithviews.com/Ewart/ron261.htm

July 27, 2016


It is a well-known fact that nothing happens in Washington DC by accident. There are no coincidences. It was not a coincidence that former president Bill Clinton suddenly appeared on the tarmac when U. S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s plane landed in Phoenix. It was no coincidence that he entered her plane and talked with her for 39 minutes without witnesses. It was no coincidence that the attending FBI agents wanted no pictures taken of the “chance” encounter. It was no coincidence that the FBI interviewed Hillary Clinton the following day. It was no coincidence that a few days later that FBI Director James Comey gave a fifteen minute statement absolving Hillary Clinton of any crime, because he said, there was no “criminal intent” even though she was carelessly negligent and the statutes didn’t require criminal intent. It was no coincidence that U. S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said she would accept the FBI’s recommendation, without her own review of the investigation. They call that a rubberstamp. When, in the history of our great Republic, did the FBI Director become defense counsel, judge and jury?

Was Comey bought off? We don’t know. But ladies and gentlemen it smells so bad as to remove all doubt that a “deal” was made at the highest level of government to save Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. That is tyranny and corruption by any definition. Whatever respect we had for James Comey was dashed by his obviously political decision. He sacrificed honor for political expediency.

We ask you to view a nine-minute video in an under-oath exchange between U. S. Representative Jason Chaffetz and FBI Director James Comey about Hillary Clinton’s actions as Secretary of State with regard to her treatment of classified material. It will give


5.

two Bernazini reads
he was never prosecuted under Hatch Act violations

1.

Ousted FBI chief apologizes to his staff


http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/ousted_fbi_chief_apologizes_to.html

on April 30, 2008 at 9:15 AM, updated October 21, 2009 at 10:56
Jim Bernazzani, the former special agent in charge of the FBI's Louisiana operations, apologized to his staff Monday for the public flirtation with political office that brought his ouster and told them he would spend

2.

http://m.fox8live.com/wvuefox8/db_354681/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=0iTThgdl
"It is an aspect of the explosion of social media," Former FBI Special Agent-in-Charge for New Orleans Jim Bernazzani said. 








6.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dozens-of-lawyers-across-the-us-fight-the-fbis-mass-hacking-campaign-playpen

Dozens of Lawyers Across the US Fight the FBI's Mass Hacking ...
Motherboard
The US Department of Justice has a battle on its hands, as dozens of lawyers question evidence the FBI obtained using hacking techniques across a string of ...

7.


FBI OCTOPUS


http://www.recorder.com/edit-chiefs-promise-3434483



Tuesday, July 26, 2016

In Athol, Russell T. Kleber took over the Police Department recently, following six years as an FBI supervisory special agent.
Kleber has 29 years of experience in law enforcement, serving as a police officer in Charlton from 1987 to 1992, when he switched



8.

http://touch.orlandosentinel.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-87970758/
Senator: FBI investigations into Pulse gunman need review
Orlando Sentinel-
The chairman of a Senate homeland security committee on Tuesday called for an independent review of how the FBI handled its 2013 and 2014 investigations 



9.


http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/Chicago-Woman-Says-FBI-Raided-Her-House-By-Mistake-Didnt-Show-Warrant-388477732.html

Chicago Woman Says FBI Raided Her House By Mistake, Didn't ...
NBC Chicago-
A Chicago woman says the FBI erroneously raided her house and left with no explanation after they didn't




10.


http://www.ammoland.com/2016/07/gary-ramey-from-honor-defense-elected-to-fbi-atlanta-citizens-board-of-directors/

Atlanta, GA -(AmmoLand.com)- Gary Ramey, President of handgun manufacturer Honor Defense, located in Gainesville, Georgia, was recently elected to the FBI Atlanta Citizens Academy Board of Directors.


11.


FBI leader thanked Janklow in Peltier matter
http://www.argusleader.com/story/blogs/jonathanellis/2016/07/27/fbi-leader-thanked-janklow-peltier-matter/87626144/

Clinton Museum
Gov. Bill Janklow meets with President Bill Clinton on Dec. 7, 2000. Janklow flew to Washington to lobby Clinton not to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

Last week we told the story about how former Gov. Bill Janklow made a secret op to visit Bill Clinton at the White House. Janklow was there to lobby Clinton to not release Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement activist who was accused in 1977 of murdering two FBI agents.

Janklow used a close personal relationship with Clinton -- and his own experiences with the incident -- to persuade Clinton that Peltier should not be released. Still, when he left Washington on Dec. 7, 2000, Janklow wasn't sure what Clinton would do.
The FBI had also been lobbying Clinton not to release Peltier. Two days before Janklow's visit, FBI Director Louis Freeh had written Clinton asking him to turn down Peltier's clemency petition.
"There is no


12.


http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2016/07/27/state-seeking-grant-process-untested-rape-kits/87628790/

NEWS
State seeking grant to process untested rape kits

MISSOULA — Montana is applying for a federal grant to pay to process untested rape kits that had been stored by local law enforcement agencies.

Members of the Montana Sexual Assault Evidence Task Force met Friday in Missoula and said the FBI will test 300 of the unprocessed kits with funding from the National Institute of Justice. Assistant Attorney General Jon Bennion says 10 law enforcement agencies representing some of the largest population areas in Montana can each submit 30 of their unprocessed kits to the FBI for testing,.
The task force in April applied for a


13.


two stories

1.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fbi-idUSBRE91M01J20130223

| Fri Feb 22, 2013 8:00pm EST
Sexting and bugging revealed at the FBI: CNN
One FBI employee was fired for sleeping with a drug dealer and lying about it under oath, while another got the boot for bugging the boss's office.

The FBI suspended for 10 days still another employee for emailing a nude photograph of herself to her ex-boyfriend's wife - the bureau showed compassion for the woman after she sought help for depression.



⚑ http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/fbi-agents-caught-sexting-dating-drug-dealers-shoplifting-possessing-child-pornography-and-beating-up-mistresses



FBI agents caught sexting, dating drug dealers, shoplifting, possessing child pornography, and beating up mistresses...
February 23, 2013



Disciplinary files from the Bureau's Office of Professional Responsibility record an extraordinary range of transgressions that reveal the chaotic personal lives of some of America's top law enforcers.

One male agent was sacked after police were called to his mistress's house following reports of domestic incident. When officers arrived they found the agent "drunk and uncooperative" and eventually had to physically subdue him and wrestle away his loaded gun.

A woman e-mailed a "nude photograph of herself to her ex-boyfriend's wife" and then continued to harass the couple despite two warnings from senior officials. The Bureau concluded she was suffering from depression related to the break-up and allowed her to return to work after 10 days.

But the sexually explicit picture was only one of what FBI assistant director Candice Will described to CNN as a "rash of sexting cases". The network was the first to obtain the logs.

Two other employees, whose genders were not specified, sent sexually explicit messages to fellow members of the Bureau, one a work Blackberry during office hours.

The second employee included a nude photograph which "created office gossip and negatively impacted office operations".

"When you are given an FBI BlackBerry, it's for official use," Ms Will said. "It's not to text the woman in another office who you found attractive or to send a picture of yourself in a state of undress."

During another incident, an employee snapped during an argument with their spouse and went on to snap an e-reader in half. As the situation deteriorated they pointed an "unloaded gun at dog's head while dog was sitting in spouse's lap". The agent was suspended for 45 days.

The logs, which contain incidents from July 2012 to January, also describe how a woman "engaged in a romantic relationship with former boyfriend (now husband) knowing he was a drug user/dealer". She was sacked after lying about the relationship.

Other firing offences included shoplifting, possession of child pornography and hiding a recording device in a supervisor's office during an employment dispute.

The incidents, and many others, were included in quarterly emails sent to all FBI employees to help them in "steering clear of ethical pitfalls and other violations".



3.

misconduct reveals sex, lies and videotape


http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/27/siu.fbi.internal.documents/

By Scott Zamost and Kyra Phillips, CNN Special Investigations Unit
January 27, 2011 10:07 a.m. EST


FBI misconduct revealed
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Internal documents obtained by CNN show misconduct by agents, supervisors
One document says one employee shared information with his news reporter girlfriend
More than 300 FBI employees out of 34,000 are disciplined each year, the bureau says
For more on this story, watch"The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer" tonight at 5 p.m. ET
Editor's note: Some content in this report may be offensive to readers. For more on this CNN exclusive story, watch Kyra Phillips' full report on "The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer" tonight starting at 6 p.m. ET.
Washington (CNN) -- An FBI employee shared confidential information with his girlfriend, who was a news reporter, then later threatened to release a sex tape the two had made.
A supervisor watched pornographic videos in his office during work hours while "satisfying himself."
And an employee in a "leadership position" misused a government database to check on two friends who were exotic dancers
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Link du jour

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article94657777.html




Bonus read



https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/11/the-weeknd-black-lives-matter-beyonce-jay-z-drake

Thursday 11 August 2016 04.09 EDT Last modified on Thursday 11 August 2016 06.59 EDT


R&B star the Weeknd has donated $250,000 (£193,000) to the Black Lives Matter network. The Fader reported the donation, which was later confirmed by his representatives, according to other US reports.

The Weeknd – 26-year-old Abel Tesfaye – had previously Tweeted his support for the movement. Last month he told his followers: “Enough is enough. It’s time to stand up for this. We can either sit and watch, or do something about it. The time is now.”


Earlier this month the musician, whose parents emigrated to Canada from Ethiopia, had donated $50,000 to the University of Toronto to establish an Ethiopic studies course.

The focus on US police violence against people of colour and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has become an increasingly important topic for some of US music’s biggest stars over the past year. Kendrick Lamar’s album To Pimp a Butterfly and Beyoncé’s Lemonade both addressed, with varying levels of directness, issues of black identity. Beyoncé also put the topic front and centre before the US’s biggest TV audience in February, when she performed her single Formation at the Super Bowl half-time show with dancers paying tribute to the Black Panthers.

Play Video
Beyoncé steals the show: Super Bowl half-time highlights
Last month, both Beyoncé and her husband Jay Z responded to the shootings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota. Jay Z released a song called Spiritual, along with a quote from the 19th-century abolitionist Frederick Douglass: “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organised conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

1.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/10/filmmakers-citizen-journalists-justice-department-investigation
Movies
Film-makers demand inquiry into 'targeting' of people who record police
Group of more than 30 documentarians, including eight Oscar winners, has called on the justice department to investigate ‘harassment’ of citizen journalists
People who film police violence are citizen journalists. We stand with them

The undersigned filmmakers include Citizenfour director Laura Poitras, Going Clear director Alex Gibney, Cartel Land director Matt Heineman and The House I Live In director Eugene Jarecki.
Wednesday 10 August 2016 13.52 ED


2.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/10/filming-police-violence-citizen-journalists-first-amendment

People who film police violence are citizen journalists. We stand with them

Trevor Timm
The harassment of men and women who record violent incidents involving police is an appalling abuse of first amendment rights

‘After Philando Castile’s fiance, Diamond Reynolds, filmed his dying moments on Facebook Live, she was cuffed, locked in a police car, separated from her child and held in police custody for eight hours.’
@trevortimm
Wednesday 10 August 2016 13.52 EDT Last modified
As the filming of police killing unarmed African Americans has led to a wave of protests and



Florida



3.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/10/woman-accidentally-shot-dead-during-florida-police-academy-exercise

Woman accidentally shot dead during Florida police academy exercise
Mary Knowlton, 73, killed after being struck by live round as part of exercise meant to give guidance on how police approach real-world confrontations

Mary Knowlton was a student on a course for civilians at the Punta Gorda police academy.
Wednesday 10 August 2016 08.46 EDT

4.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/10/st-louis-civil-rights-lawsuit-debtors-prisons-african-americans
Missouri
St Louis-area municipalities sued over alleged discriminatory 'debtors' prisons'
Class-action civil rights suit accuses local officials of unconstitutionally jailing people to raise state funds in a system that unfairly affects poor people of color


5.


LATEST NEWS
Aug. 10, 2016 78°

LAPD officer charged in assault quietly avoids jail time under plea deal with prosecutors


http://touch.latimes.com/#section/2426/article/p2p-88066373/




Clinton Alford Jr., second from left, addresses journalists with his attorney Caree Harper, third from left, and his family last year when prosecutors charged LAPD Officer Richard Garcia with assaulting him.
BY KATE MATHER
August 10, 2016, 6:00 a.m.
The videotaped assault was so alarming, one Los Angeles police official called it “horrific.” The victim later said he was afraid he was going to die.

The LAPD and the civilian Police Commission came down hard on Officer Richard Garcia, saying he violated department policies when he kicked and punched Clinton Alford Jr. during an October 2014 arrest in South Los Angeles. The district attorney came down even harder, taking the rare step of filing a felony assault charge against an on-duty officer. 

Garcia faced up to three years in jail if convicted.

Then the case quietly came to an end.

Under a plea agreement reached with prosecutors this spring, Garcia pleaded no contest to the felony charge as part of a deal with prosecutors that will see him avoid jail time if he completes community service and donates $500 to a charity by late May 2017. Under the agreement, Garcia would then be allowed to enter a new plea to a misdemeanor charge that would replace the felony and would be placed on two years of probation, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office said.

Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, whose office never publicly announced the plea, defended her office’s decision to settle the case without


6.

Did a U.S. think tank sponsor a military coup? Turkey thinks so.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/2426/article/p2p-88056925/
People chant slogans as they gather at a pro-government rally in central Istanbul's Taksim square, Turkey in July.
BY TRACY WILKINSON AND LAURA KING
August 10, 2016, 6:00 a.m.
Bespectacled and slightly balding, Washington academic Henri J. Barkey hardly appears the type to mastermind political revolt and foreign intrigue.

But as Turkey’s government seeks to cast blame for a recent failed military coup, Barkey — and the prominent Washington think



7.


Report: Justice Department declined FBI request to investigate ...
Washington Examiner (blog)

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2599032

Justice Department officials decided against an investigation into the Clinton Foundation after the FBI requested the agency open a case into allegations of ...


8.

http://www.wnd.com/2016/08/ex-government-hack-attacks-new-twa-800-book/

EX-GOVERNMENT HACK ATTACKS NEW TWA 800 BOOK
Exclusive: Jack Cashill counters NTSB bureaucrat name-calling on Amazon

JACK CASHILL

In checking the Amazon reviews of my new book, “TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover-Up, The Conspiracy,” I came across a one-star review by Peter Goelz, managing director of the NTSB during the TWA 800 investigation.

Goelz’s opening line perfectly captures the tone not only of the review, but also of his tenure at the National Transportation Safety Board.



Writes Goelz: “‘Have you no sense of decency’ was the memorable quote that helped take down Cashill’s old hero, Sen. Joe McCarthy. It could be as easily directed to Jack based on this latest offering.”

Let us see. Here is a fellow who has used the power of government to harass ordinary citizens like me, and I am Joe McCarthy. In the Orwellian world of contemporary Washington, reporting the truth has apparently become an indecency.

Once Goelz gets beyond the ad hominems – he compares me to Daffy Duck as well as Joe McCarthy – he gets to the heart of his argument.

Goelz does not trust the accounts of the 258 FBI witnesses who saw what appeared to be a missile attacking the 747. They were “deceived” by both sight and sound.

Goelz focuses on the sound. “Sound travels at 1,126 feet per second,” he tells us smugly. “It’s the law.” He argues that no one saw the initiating event.

“Almost all witnesses described either hearing the explosion then almost immediately seeing the fireball of the falling aircraft or vice versa.”

I have no idea what Goelz means by “vice versa,” but the sound propagation theory was first advanced by the CIA in 1997. Goelz rolled this theory back out in July 2013 to discredit an excellent documentary on the crash titled “TWA Flight 800.”

FBI honcho Jim Kallstrom tag-teamed with Goelz to smear documentary producers Tom Stalcup and Kristina Borjesson. The very nearly identical riffs by Goelz and Kallstrom on national TV strongly suggest one unseen hand prodding them both.

When CNN’s Jake Tapper raised the issue of the eyewitness testimony, Goelz said, “Almos

9.

http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/kristina-borjesson



/Americans Who Tell The Truth
Kristina Borjesson
Journalist: b. 1954
"As a journalist you have to always remember that you are a public servant. If you back down, if you don't try to find the truth, then you aren't doing your job. It's a huge responsibility. "


Biography

Kristina Borjesson spent most of her childhood in Haiti in the 1950s and ‘60s during the rule of the brutal dictator, “Papa Doc” Duvalier.  Her father, a U.S. military attaché posted to the island, fell in love with a woman whose family formed part of the country’s privileged, business elite.  As a young child in what is often described as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, Borjesson’s early sensitivity to the vast divide between Haiti’s elite and its poor came from the illiterate household staff who loved and cared for her. Those servants helped shaped her value system, teaching her that honesty, striving for excellence, and service to others were the keys to a meaningful life.

As an adult, Borjesson’s core identity became that of a public servant. An investigative reporter by training, she believes that journalists are public servants no matter who employs them and that by adhering to the highest standards and practices of reporting, they play a critical role in the function of democracy and civil society.  Since receiving her journalism degree from Columbia University in 1982, Borjesson has spent much of her time examining censorship and corruption in American journalism. Unfortunately, her tireless pursuit of these stories would cost her a mainstream television career.  

Early success came to Borjesson as she built her career. She employed her investigative skills and fluency in Haitian Creole to field produce the PBS Frontline’s documentary, “Showdown in Haiti,” which was Emmy-nominated.  She won an Emmy for her investigative reporting on CBS’s “Legacy of Shame,” a piece that updated Edward R. Murrow’s film “Harvest of Shame” about migrant farmworkers. Another Emmy nomination followed for a biographical film about Cuba’s Fidel Castro titled “The Last Revolutionary.”  

Then, in 1996, Borjesson “walked into a buzz saw,” as she describes it, when Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 exploded in mid-air shortly after taking off from JFK Airport. For a short, but terrifying time, she thought that her ten-year-old son had died in the crash. The despair she felt in that moment would, once she began investigating the explosion, help her empathize with the victims and their families, who, she believed, deserved to know the truth about what had caused the tragedy.

As she tracked down the cause of the explosion, what had happened became very clear: The physical evidence as well as hundreds of eyewitness accounts indicated that the plane had been struck by a missile.  Members of several U.S. government agencies, Borjesson decided, orchestrated a cover-up while unquestioning journalists reported as fact the untenable official claims that a mechanical failure in Flight 800’s center wing fuel tank had caused the crash.  The evidence of what she identifies as “high level, multi-agency collusion” led her to a startling revelation: “It was just as in Orwell’s 1984, an immediate rewriting of history occurred.  I realized how terrifyingly easy it is to do.”  

Powerful forces including the Pentagon, the CIA, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), as well as other journalists aligned themselves against Borjesson.  Despite this, she has spent the better part of two decades digging for the truth about TWA Flight 800 and speaking out against corruption in journalism.  

Back in 1996, Borjesson’s boss at CBS Network assigned her to cover the crash. However, shortly after Borjesson received a piece of physical evidence from inside the official crash investigation, the FBI demanded it back, inaccurately claiming it had been stolen. CBS returned the evidence and terminated Borjesson. Then Borjesson was hired to produce a segment about problems within the official crash investigation for a series pilot commissioned by ABC. Mainstream press reports claiming Borjesson's segment would  examine whether or not a missile had downed flight 800 appeared suddenly, prompting ABC to cancel the entire series. 

Borjesson responded by publishing her first book, Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press (2004), a landmark anthology of essays written by experienced reporters (including Borjesson) detailing experiences with censorship while covering major stories.  The book, which won both the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism and the Independent Book Publisher’s Gold Medal Award, established Borjesson as an important whistleblower in the journalism community.  

In 2005, Borjesson further cemented her status as a whistleblowing journalist with her book, Feet to the Fire: The Media After 9 11 -- Top Journalists Speak Out. An anthology of interviews with news executives and journalists (some of them household names), this book explains why these media professionals and most of the U.S. press missed the fact that Pentagon and White House officials had fabricated their justification for invading Iraq when they claimed, falsely, that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.  Feet to the Fire won Borjesson a second Independent Book Publisher’s Gold Medal Award.

In her work, Borjesson says that not only institutions should be held accountable for their wrongdoings, but so should the individuals within those institutions who are directly responsible for betrayals of the public trust.  Particularly troubling to Borjesson is the fact that so many people are capable of putting aside the ethical values of honesty and integrity when they go to work.

In 2013, seventeen years after TWA Flight 800 blew up in the air, Borjesson released the documentary TWA Flight 800. The film features six whistleblowers -- all members of the original crash investigation -- who review the physical evidence they personally handled, interview eyewitnesses, and explain what really happened to the airplane.  The film reveals how several U.S. Government agencies, particularly the FBI, CIA and NTSB, colluded to undermine the official investigation. Borjesson and Dr. Tom Stalcup (the co-producer and senior science advisor for the documentary) display persistence and tenacity in their quest to understand the relevant science and make it comprehensible for the public.

While Borjesson wrote, produced, and directed the documentary, the work is a team effort, underscoring her appreciation for teams of experts, first-hand sources and journalists “holding hands and working together” on complicated, controversial stories.

Borjesson has joined other whistleblowers and advocates at the Government Accountability Project (GAP) to speak publicly about the importance of unfettered, professional and honest journalists who reject official source reporting as insufficient. Borjesson exhorts journalists to verify the statements of official sources no matter how powerful they are, even if it means, as happened with her, paying a price.


10.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/08/10/oops-microsoft-leaks-its-golden-key-unlocking-windows-secure-boot-and-exposing-the-danger-of-backdoors

Oops: Microsoft leaks its Golden Key, unlocking Windows Secure Boot and exposing the danger of backdoors
By Daniel Eran Dilger        
Wednesday, August 10, 2016, 01:30 pm PT (04:30 pm ET)

Microsoft has demonstrated why the FBI's desire for "Golden Key" backdoors allowing "good guys" to bypass security is such a bad idea: it

11.

http://newamericamedia.org/2016/08/scientists-not-spies-panel-on-asian-american-immigrants-brings-historic-perspective-on-racial-profil.php

Scientists Not Spies: Panel on Asian American Immigrants Brings Historic Perspective on Racial Profiling


, Posted: Aug 10, 2016
 
On Tuesday evening at the City College of San Francisco, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus teamed up with various Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) and social justice groups to host a panel about the portrayal and treatment of Asian immigrants and citizens as national security threats throughout American history.

“From Xiaoxing Xi to Japanese American Internment Targeting Immigrant Communities as National Security Threats” brought together perspectives on the history of racial profiling committ


12.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/officer-shot-73-year-old-civilian-academy-identified-article-1.2746324


The officer who killed a Florida librarian during a citizen police academy was the subject of an excessive force lawsuit.




http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/black-youngster-killer-lied-neighborhood-watch-post-article-1.2746025
Black youngster's kille

13.

he lied about ‘neighborhood watch’ post


Wednesday, August 10, 2016, 1:45 PM


‘Neighborhood watchman’ who killed black N.C. youngster was not part of local patrol group — such a thing doesn’t even exist, neighbors say
NY Daily News



The neighborhood watch was all in his head.

The white North Carolina homeowner who shot an unarmed black partygoer to death was not part of any local patrol group, neighbors said.

Chad Copley called 911 early Sunday morning and told cops he was "locked and loaded" before firing "a warning shot" from his garage that struck and killed Kouren-Rodney Bernard Thomas, who had gone to a party several doors away.


"I'm on neighborhood watch," Copley told a dispatcher during the call. "I'm going to have the neighbors with me. There's hoodlums out here racing up and down the street. It's 1:00 in the morning, um, there's some vandalism. They have firearms, and we're going to secure our neighborhood."


14.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ex-nypd-charged-pimping-hookers-arrested-article-1.2746002
NYPD cop who pimped
hookers locked up again
BY JOHN MARZULLI
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, August 10, 2016, 1:30 PM
0
joeb

Registered:
Posts: 8,382
Posted Reply with quote  #263 

Bonus Read



http://boydownthelane.com/2016/08/28/awakened-to-responsibility/


Awakened to Responsibility
2016/08/28 Uncategorized
Awakened to Responsibility

Someone, having been told that I’d suffered a stroke, asked me “What has the stroke done to you?”

My immediate reaction was that he’d asked the wrong question.

He should have asked “What did having the stroke do for you?”

The first approach implies damage, deficit, having been left in an unfortunate




------------------------------------------------------------
http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=84a2c6cbe080c5515da932a5d&id=6286cb66b6&e=91763ac879
9/11 and Other Deep State Crimes Teleconference


** wtc7   pentagon
------------------------------------------------------------


** Draft Agenda for 8/31/16 Teleconference Corrected version
------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings all,

My apologies for the extra email this month, but the previous version of the draft agenda had muchas problemas.
The new and improved version below includes:
* A corrected URL for Wayne Coste's powerpoint presentation
* A much cleaner and more readable pdf version of Pablo Novi's 9/11 Truth Unity manifesto
* Inclusion of Cheryl Curtiss' item on Brand New Congress (see below), somehow overlooked in the previous draft (mea culpa)

Thus, we have a jam-packed agenda, so please be sure to call in punctually, as we will need all the time we have for this full slate.

Also, it appears that Pablo may be facing technical challenges to participating in this call, so if anyone with the technical savvy who has the ability to call Mexico without untoward expense would like to volunteer to call him Wednesday night and rope him in to the teleconference through your phone, please let me know, and we'll make arrangements.

Peace,
Ken Freeland

8pm (ET)/5pm (PT)   Teleconference # 1-218-895-6835    Access code: 9112001#

Greetings all,

Thanks to some good footwork by our new co-facilitator, Cheryl Curtiss, this Wednesday's teleconference will feature veteran investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, who'll be on hand to give us an overview of his isis latest book Unmasking Isis: The Shocking Truth.  Here's a teaser from the book's blurb: "ISIS is the latest offensive in a very long-term Anglo-Zionist 'Divide and Conquer' project to balkanize and subjugate the Middle East, by fostering narrow sectarianism and infighting among its peoples."  A timelier topic is hard to imagine! As always we'll reserve time for your questions and comments -- be sure to bring yours!

As we breathlessly await the deliberations in New York on Sunday, Sept. 11, by the Lawyers for 9/11 Inquiry panel in their search for a legal strategy to pursue 9/11 justice, David Cole will update us a brief update on the progress of their preparations, and perhaps of some his related research efforts.

As a follow-up to a contended point in a previous debate, Wayne Coste will give a short power-point presentation (click here (http://houston911truth.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=84a2c6cbe080c5515da932a5d&id=37e3c0d408&e=91763ac879) to view or download) on the size of the hole in Pentagon wall.  He makes the following request: "If anybody has any photos showing an intact wall on the first floor between Columns 8 and 18 between the time of the initiating event and the wall collapse (e.g. between 9:32:30 [per Barbara Honegger] and about 10:10 AM on 9/11), please send then to wcoste@911TruthOutreach.org so he can include them in the PowerPoint used for discussion."

James Fetzer and Mike Palecek have also published a new book, the latest  in their series:  America Nuked on 9/11.  Either Jim himself, or Dennis Cimino, standing in for him, will be with us to provide a brief overview and answer questions.

With congressional approval ratings at an all time low, Cheryl Curtiss will introduce us to an innovative political campaign to completely revamp Congress in the 2018 elections.  You can take an advance peek  at the website of Brand New Congress here (http://houston911truth.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=84a2c6cbe080c5515da932a5d&id=02b112bea9&e=91763ac879) .

Last but not least, Pablo Novi will elaborate his idea for a 9/11 Truth unity manifesto, a draft of which may be viewed or downloaded here (http://houston911truth.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=84a2c6cbe080c5515da932a5d&id=77c07d5c68&e=91763ac879) for reference.

Finally, as always, your announcements.

We hope you'll join us Wednesday evening for these latest currents from the Truth movement!

Peace,
Ken Freeland
Cheryl Curtiss

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DRAFT AGENDA for Wednesday 31 August Teleconference

I Roll Call, minutes approval, agenda approval, scheduling next book discussion (see above) (5 min)

II Unmasking Isis: The Shocking Truth with author Wayne Madsen [Cheryl Curtiss] (20-25 min, including Q & A)

III  Update on Lawyers for 9/11 Inquiry Justice in Focus panel discussion [David Cole] (10-15 min, including Q & A)

IV Size of hole in Pentagon wall [Wayne Coste, PE] (10 min + 10 min discussion)

V America Nuked on 9/11 [James Fetzer, PhD and/or Dennis Cimino] (5 min + 5 min Q & A)

VI Brand New Congress [Cheryl Curtiss] (10 min, including Q & A)

VII 9/11 Truth Unity Manifesto [Pablo Novi] (10-15 minutes, including discussion)

VIII Announcements

IX Any available updates on issues of identified ongoing concern (if any remaining ...



1.
http://www.kesq.com/news/former-riversidebased-fbi-agent-who-stole-drug-money-to-be-sentenced/41417834

Riverside-based FBI agent who stole over $100,000.000 gets slap on hand.
The defendant in the fall of 2014 became the focus of an investigation that culminated in a grand jury indictment

Aug 29, 2016 






2.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Man-Fatally-Shot-by-FBI-Agent-in-Compton-391482901.html

Family Demanding Justice, Answers After Man Fatally Shot by FBI Agent in Compton

A family is demanding answers after a man was fatally shot by an FBI agent in Compton. Beverly White reports for the NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 26, 2016. (Published Saturday, Aug 27, 2016)
A family is seeking answers and justice after a 32-year-old man was fatally shot by an FBI agent Thursday night at his mother's home in Compton.
Agents with the FBI's SWAT team in Los Angeles were serving a warrant at the home located on South White Avenue, when an agent fired at a man after an altercation, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said in a statement.
Man in Zorro Costume Detained Ahead of LAX Chaos
The man was pronounced dead at a hospital after an FBI medic and fire officials tried to treat him at the scene, Eimiller said.
But the family of David Coborubio, who left behind a 9-year-old daughter, said he was moved outdoors to the street, where he died.

Southern California Images in the News
Anna Reyes, his sister, said she asked to see a warrant before the FBI stormed into their house, but an agent told her it was "irrelevant."
"One of the FBI agents was like, 'that's irrelevant, you don't need to see one,'" she said. "'That's irrelevant. You don't have to see one. We'll show you one later. That's irrelevant.' For me, I'm like, you're coming into my home, I heard shots fired? I knew it was my brother who was hit."
Fans Mourn Mexican Singer Juan Gabriel
The warrant named another man, identified as 39-year-old Paul White, who was wanted for fleeing parole and possessing a firearm. He was arrested at the residence and is in custody, according to the FBI.
"I want to know why they killed my son," said Mona Martinez. "I want to know what the hell they were doing here."

The family said they haven't seen or located Coborubio's body

Update on
Man fatally shot by FBI agent serving search warrants in Compton


http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-88772514/

August 27, 2016, 3:50 p.m.
An FBI agent fatally shot a man while serving warrants at a Compton residence this week, an agency spokeswoman said Saturday.

An FBI SWAT team arrived at the residence in the 14600 block of South White Street about 9:30 p.m. Thursday to serve the warrants, spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said  An agent fired his weapon after a confrontation with the man, Eimiller said.

An FBI medic and members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department rendered aid to the man at the scene, Eimiller said, but he was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. 

The FBI did not identify the man or confirm whether he was the subject of the warrants, who was identified in a statement as a parolee-at-large wanted for absconding from parole and possession of a firearm, though Eimiller said the parolee had been arrested at the home and was in custody.




3.
Boston


http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/08/25/no-charges-for-officer-fbi-agent-who-killed-man-believed-to-be-targeting-police.html

POLICE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
No charges for officer, FBI agent who killed man believed to be targeting police
Published August 25, 2016




4.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/s-man-pummeled-nypd-asthma-attack-files-6m-suit-article-1.2770264

S.I. man pummeled by NYPD cop during asthma attack files $6M suit
Monday, August 29, 2016, 3:44 PM





5.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/harlem-man-dies-police-custody-article-1.2770461

Harlem man dies in police custody, may have suffered stroke

Monday, August 29, 2016, 4:49 PM






FBI Octopus

5 things to know about the American Bar Association's 3rd Medical ...
Becker's Orthopedic & Spine-
Special Agent Klatt will speak on cybersecurity as it relates to the medical ... The FBI also presented at last year's conference, which Mr. Brewster says was one ...



http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-iphone-spyware-20160825-snap-story.html

Apple boosts iPhone security after powerful spyware targets an activist





http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/turn-lsd-pioneer-ram-dass-recalls-pal-timothy-leary-article-1.2767100


Turn on! LSD pioneer Ram Dass recalls pal Timothy Leary
BY RAM DASS
DAILY NEWS CONTRIBUTOR Friday, August 26, 2016, 12:58 PM


MAUI — Twenty summers ago my friend Timothy Leary passed. Not one to look back, I live in the present moment, and at the moment I think of a loving friend, a wonderful, creative scientist, a radical and activist.

He taught me the art of escape, how to think for myself, outside the system. So he and I are old buddies. I didn't lose him when he dropped his body. I feel his presence in my heart now as clearly as I did then.

Though I got fired from Harvard, I was never thrown in jail, while poor Timothy got the brunt of it. He handled it differently. He was the revolutionary, I was the evolutionary. I didn't completely understand: as the clinician I turned inward, as the social scientist he looked outward.


We were complementary. Then our work with psychedelics got caught up in the social upheaval of the ’60s. The research ended.

Today psychedelics are helping, in safe settings and under the care of clinicians, patients suffering from PTSD, addiction and end-of-life issues. These new applications are like our grandchildren: we are connected.

Today's researchers are more sophisticated. They understand "set & setting" and know that psychedelics are not for everyone. They are strong tools. I can't advocate caution enough.


Ram Dass in a still from the new documentary "Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary." (Courtesy of Abramorama)
I am 85. Psychedelics don't play a direct role now, but doctors give me plant medicine for pain, avoiding opiates. Death is nothing to worry about. Some days all I want to do is get there as fast as I can!

People should get comfy with where the death of their body will lead them, but the whole idea of death and rebirth as a transformative process is still new to our culture. My life remains emotionally and spiritually rewarding. Here on Maui, I practice unconditional love every day and endeavor to share it with a culture so thirsty for it
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Bonus read




Major Physics Magazine, Europhysics News, Publishes 9/11 Article by Steven Jones, Robert Korol, Tony Szamboti, and Ted Walter
kawika fri, 08/26/2016 - 6:22am

Major Physics Magazine, Europhysics News, Publishes 9/11 Article by Steven Jones, Robert Korol, Tony Szamboti, and Ted Walter
Read It Now! >> http://www.europhysicsnews.org/
Earlier this week, the magazine of the European Physical Society, Europhysics News, published a 3,000-word feature article by Dr. Steven Jones, Dr. Robert Korol, Tony Szamboti, and Ted Walter, entitled 15 years later: on the physics of high-rise building collapses.
Europhysics News bills itself as the magazine of the European physics community. That sounds about right — given their circulation of around 25,000 copies per issue!
It is with great enthusiasm that we invite you to read the online version of the article, which can be accessed for free at EurophysicsNews.org. The hard copy will be distributed to the magazine’s 25,000 subscribers in mid-September.
60,000 and Counting!
That brings to a staggering 60,000 the number of engineers and scientists who will be exposed to our literature in the coming weeks — 35,000 who will receive a copy of World Trade Center Physics and 25,000 who will receive the current issue of Europhysics News.
You can help grow that number by purchasing copies of World Trade Center Physics in bulk — virtually at cost — and distributing them on your own, either by popping them in the mail or by handing them out.
Nearly 2,500 copies have been sold since World Trade Center Physics went on sale two days ago. We’ve got 7,500 left in stock waiting to be distributed around the 15th anniversary of 9/11.
Place your bulk order by Monday, August 29,  http://www.shop.ae911truth.org/WTC-Physics-Mailer_c25.htm   and you’ll receive the package by Saturday, September 10 (this applies to U.S. residents only).
See PDF page 21
http://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/2016/04/epn2016-47-4.pdf
15 YEARS LATER:
ON THE PHYSICS OF HIGH-RISE BUILDING COLLAPSES
---Steven Jones, Robert Korol, Anthony Szamboti and Ted Walter
http://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/2016/04/epn2016474p21.pdf


1.


http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/09/fbis_302_report_proves_complicity_in_clinton_email_scandal.html


FBI's 302 Report Proves Complicity in Clinton Email Scandal
American Thinker
FBI's 302 Report Proves Complicity in Clinton Email Scandal .... That is, there is no indication that in the course of the interview, FBI agents once asked the ...

By Jonathan F. Keiler

The biggest and most damning takeaway from Hillary Clinton's July interview with the FBI, at least as it concerns the FBI itself and by extension the rectitude of our government, is, to borrow from Arthur Conan Doyle, the dog that didn't bark.  That is, there is no indication that in the course of the interview, FBI agents once asked the former secretary of state about emails to and from Clinton aides regarding Clinton Foundation business.
Clinton's lawyers deliberately withheld these emails from the public and forced the FBI to recover them.  They clearly demonstrate Clinton's motive in setting up the server, thereby intentionally endangering the classified material that she and her cohorts knew would inevitably be sent through it.  This motive and intent is further demonstrated by Clinton's obfuscations, lies, and destruction of evidence that followed in the course of over a year. 
FBI agents never inquired about any of it during the interview.  Since they are presumably well trained and experienced investigators (including a section chief), the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that they were deliberately tasked with not pursuing this obvious line of inquiry, as it would have undermined the narrative that Director James Comey intended to deliver to the nation a few days later – that Hillary should not be prosecuted due to insufficient evidence of intent. 
The FBI's investigatory reports covering Hillary Clinton's July interview (cynically released just before Labor Day) confirm suppositions of FBI critics that the interview was






2.


http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/09/cop_fired_for_corruption_strik.html

Cop fired for corruption strikes tentative deal to plead guilty to federal charges

The U.S. Courthouse in Harrisburg (Matt Miller, PennLive)


September 04, 2016 at 9:09 AM


A fired Fairview Township police officer accused of stealing money during drug investigations has struck a tentative agreement to plead guilty to federal theft charges.



3.

http://whosarat.websitetoolbox.com/post/feds-informants-finger-u-s-government-as-drug-trafficker-163286




http://www.scribd.com/doc/117078597/The-Pariah-by-Charles-Bowden

[Esquire magazine, September 1998]



VETERAN DRUG AGENTS BACKED WEBB STORY

Contributor's profile:

Two weeks after Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" series appeared in





around the corner
September 3, 2016 Uncategorized ADHD, central banks, CIA in Istanbul, Fentanyl, global shipping bankruptcy, Hagopian and Barrett talk false flags, Hanjin, Hillary, Hillary’s RAM, Obama, Saudi 9/11 more?, TPP
around the corner




http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.com/2016/09/03/around-the-corner/


“… Viktor Shvets, a strategist at Macquarie in Hong Kong, has a big note out on declining productivity. In it, he discussed a common Wall Street metric usually applied to capital or equity to humans.

His argument, in short, is that the “return on humans” is declining.
He said:

“Long-term structural decline in rate of “return on humans” due to deep structural changes in relationships between humans; humans & machines; humans, machines & society. The pressure has been intensifying over the last three decades with the peak of ‘crescendo’ just around the corner.” ….”

https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/declining-human-value/

** ## **





** ## **

The Central Banks Are Now Ready To Launch Their ‘Brave New World’

Posted: September 2, 2016 at OathKeepers

This article comes from Alt-Market.com by Brandon Smith The latest Federal Reserve meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is over and

** ## **

CIA’s clandestine meeting in Istanbul on coup night

Posted on September 2, 2016 by

https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/80482/

** ## **

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/09/cia-abuses-journalist-cover-to-spy-on-al-qaeda-media-acquiesce-endanger-real-journos.html

* * ## **

DHS’S NEW ELECTION CYBERSECURITY COMMITTEE HAS NO CYBERSECURITY EXPERTS

The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) [yes, there’s an association for everything] has just announced its selections to head up a DHS “working group” tackling “election infrastructure cybersecurity.” Like any committee formed in response to a hot-button topic, the appointees are better known for their years of tenure in government positions than their technical acumen, as the ACLU’s Chris Soghoian points out. About the only thing the appointees have going for them is that they fit the description: all four are state-level secretaries of state. Beyond that, there’s very little to indicate they’re qualified to take on cybersecurity issues.

** ## **


The Election Has Been Hacked

By John W. Whitehead

** ## **

From https://solari.com/blog/:

Civil Rights Coalition files FCC Complaint Against Baltimore Police Department for
Illegally Using Stingrays to Disrupt Cellular Communications

EFF | 25 August 2016

Pernicious surveillance…

Game of Drones: Inside the Killer Robot ‘Arms Race’ Where the World’s Five Leading Superpowers are Secretly Preparing for an All-out Futuristic War

The Sun | 25 August 2016

Less than…

Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars: An Introduction Programming Manual

Lawful Path | 02 September 2016

Operations Research Technical Manual – TW-SW7905.1

Survivors of Aurora Shooting Ordered to Pay Theater’s $700,000 Legal Bill

Guns America | 01 September 2016

Ordering the plaintiffs to pay Cinemark’s…

10 Mind-blowing Facts about the CERN Large Collider You Need to Know

RT | 01 September 2016

Science – and religion – sounding the…

French Coca-Cola Workers Discover $56Mn Worth of Cocaine in Shipment

RT | 01 September 2016

Produces concentrates for…




4.

Locals get close look at evidence recovery in FBI's Citizen's Academy
Wyoming Tribune-
Arlen Scholl, the FBI's supervisory senior resident agent in Cheyenne, said the goal of the course is to show the public and community leaders what the FBI ...


5.


mazon plan new show based on Whitey Bulger crime drama “The ...
IrishCentral-
FBI agent John Connolly was the basis of Matt Damon's character, Colin Sullivan. While Scorcese's film was based in Boston, the new Amazon show will be set ...

6.

FBI Octopus



InfoSec is people
CSO Australia-
... Timothy Wallach, the Supervisory Special Agent Cyber Taskforce at the FBI, and Dhanya Thakkar, Vice President of Trend Micro. The first three speakers then ...



7.


Clinton's Excuses Fall Outside the Realm of Plausible Deniability
Hawaii Reporter-
In an unbelievable explanation covered by the Washington Examiner, Hillary Clinton testified under sworn deposition to FBI agents that she believed the ...


8.


FBI: Clinton staff destroyed devices with hammers
WKYT-
CNNs Evan Perez confirms Trump campaign senior adviser Boris Epshteyns claim that Hillary Clinton staffers destroyed her previous mobile devices using ...




9.


CBS Misleadingly Suggests Clinton Emails Marked 'C' Not Actually ...
NewsBusters (blog)
On CBS This Morning on Monday, at the end of a report recalling the notes the FBI released which document that Hillary Clinton claimed not to know that "(C)" ...

10.


One of Hillary Clinton's Laptops Got 'Lost' in The Mail
Townhall-
New revelations from a Friday FBI document dump show a Clinton Foundation laptop containing Hillary Clinton's personal email server archive was "lost" in the ...


11.


FBI Never Got Hillary's 8 State Dept. BlackBerrys
Newsmax
The FBI released the summary to provide context on its recommendation that the Justice Department shouldn't prosecute Clinton or her aides for using the ...




12.

How to investigate the Cheryl Mills claim of attorney-client privilege ...
American Thinker (blog)-
Cheryl Mills sat in on Hillary Clinton's FBI interrogation – a highly irregular procedure, given her status as a material witness and possible suspect.




Hillary Clinton is Shameless
CounterPunch-
Brazen out FBI findings of duplicity, criminality (though the Agency demurs from the charge), inadvertence in destroying evidence, a bottomless well of rotten ...


SEPTEMBER 5, 2016
Hillary Clinton is Shameless
by NORMAN POLLACK

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/05/hillary-clinton-is-shameless/


Never has a candidate for President been so solicitous—and transparent about it—of major wealth, what the New York Times (stepping out of character) admits is her appeal to the Ultrarich. In Chozick and Martin’s, “Where Has Hillary Clinton Been? Ask the Ultrarich,” Sept. 3, we find the most lopsided appeal to wealth—at the expense of normal campaigning—in US electoral history: estate after estate, party after party, closed doors, the pampered and selfish, coming out of the woodwork, to bask in the love of one who gravitates to them like moths to a light.

Hillary Clinton has no shame. Forget press conferences. Brazen out FBI findings of duplicity, criminality (though the Agency demurs from the charge), inadvertence in destroying evidence, a bottomless well of rotten practice—and this the darling of liberals and so-called progressives. Weighed in the scales of decency and social justice, how is she better than Donald Trump? Both are fascistically-inclined, both have contempt for working people and minorities, both have chauvinistic militarism in their blood. How can there be a choice of the lesser of two evils when each vies for the pinnacle of Evil-ness?

Whore? For $125,000, you get dinner and a meet-the-candidate (some as high as a quarter $M)—and if under 16 years old at the gathering, for $10,000 you can ask the candidate a question. Auction-block politics, except that it is the American people on the slave-block. In this hothouse atmosphere, the host ensures Clinton will not be embarrassed. Why should she be, they’re all bosom buddies, all see eye-to-eye, gatherings of the self-righteous that make a Mafia summit look like a children’s tea party.

What is to be done? Trump is hardly an alternative. The plebeian billionaire is capable of anything. Clinton has disqualified and perjured herself as unworthy of any office. She and her husband, the Bonnie & Clyde of Mammon worship (even Trump, hard to believe, seems to have more character). As for the decisive area of foreign policy, there is little to choose: the sophistication of liberal think-take, national-security genocidal adventurism on one hand, gut-authoritarians, simple-minded zealots on the other. Of the two, the former may well be the more dangerous.

Is the Third Party a valid alternative? To many, yes, but here we still do not have a clean break from the Cold War mentality. (And Bernie Sanders wins a medal as outstanding disappointment with his ersatz Revolution funneled into the Clinton camp.) America is a declining Empire, desperately grasping for straws. Anything to stand on top, its strategic focus on counterrevolution, its political focus on structural-ideological hierarchy to keep the poor at bay and in their place. At some point, the malaise of fascist boredom will possibly solve our problems for us, with the mushroom cloud. There is nothing to indicate a spirit of freedom in the works, except possibly on cultural issues which—everything else the same—do not and cannot translate into authentic democratic feeling.

I may overstate the gloom-and-doom scenario, in which case CounterPunchers might find incentive in promoting fruitful ways of radicalizing America. Thinking small will not do it, whether the commune or political capture of a single town. Power has been centralized at the bayonet-point of perfection, easily able to absorb when not crushing societal dissidence. But the very least one can ask of any human being is not to support either major-party candidate. Militarism is in the air—the stench, overpowering. Ditto, plutocracy. The two go together, and any alternative must tackle them both, shrink and ultimately destroy the cancer metastasizing in the American body politic.

Join the debate on Facebook
Norman Pollack Ph.D. Harvard, Guggenheim Fellow, early writings on American Populism as a radical movement, prof., activist.. His interests are social theory and the structural analysis of capitalism and fascism. He can be reached at pollackn@msu.edu.

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joeb

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Posts: 8,382
Posted Reply with quote  #265 





Bonus Read


2 connected reads- read 1st story in its entirety



1.
http://www.thesullenbell.com/2016/09/27/obama-and-jasta/

Obama JASTA
September 27, 2016 Uncategorized 28 pages, 9/11, JASTA, national security, Obama, Sovereign Immunity, spurious lawsuits
Obama JASTA

Monday, September 26, 2016

Why Obama Had To Veto JASTA

This mirrors what is regarded by a number of 9/11 activists as an oustanding piece of analysis by James.

http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2016/09/why-obama-had-to-veto-jasta.html

As you probably know, late last Friday afternoon President Obama vetoed a bill which had passed both houses of Congress unanimously, and Congress is now trying to work out whether it has enough clout to override the veto.

I don’t think it does. Behind Obama’s veto lie very powerful reasons, and behind those reasons stand very powerful people.

JASTA, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, would have allowed families of 9/11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for alleged complicity in the terrorist



2.

http://nypost.com/2016/09/28/senate-votes-to-allow-911-families-to-sue-saudis-overriding-obama-veto/

Senate votes to override Obama’s veto of 9/11 lawsuit bill
By Daniel Halper and Bob Fredericks September 28, 2016 | 12:40pm



Obama vetoes bill that would let 9/11 families sue Saudi Arabia
Congress dealt President Obama a humiliating foreign-policy blow Wednesday — voting to overturn his veto of a bill that would let families of 9/11 victims sue Saudi Arabia for that country’s alleged role in the terror attacks.

The Senate voted 97 to 1 to override the veto, and hours later the House did the same by a 348 to 77 vote.

The bipartisan measure, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn of Texas, would create an exception in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to allow victims of terrorism on US soil to sue foreign sponsors.

“This rare moment of bipartisanship is a testament to the strength of the 9/11 families an





Link du jour



http://nypost.com/2016/09/28/playboy-features-woman-wearing-hijab-for-first-time/

http://www.pressherald.com/2016/09/28/whats-it-like-to-travel-the-world-with-anthony-bourdain/

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2016/09/heres-map-car-thefts-happen-los-angeles.php



http://gizmodo.com/border-patrol-agent-caught-watching-porn-at-work-blame-1787099672

Border Patrol Agent Caught Watching Porn at Work, Blames Internet Filter For Not Stopping Him


Filed to: DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND IMPURITY

Working for the US Department of Homeland Security can be stressful. But no matter how difficult your job is, looking at porn is usually frowned upon during work hours. So when a US border patrol agent was recently



http://www.wcpo.com/news/state/state-kentucky/creepy-clowns-threaten-kentucky-schools

Shrriff consulting FBI
Homeland Security on NKY creepy clowns case
Attendance cut in half after threat

T.J. Parker, WCPO Staff
1:31 AM, Sep 27, 2016



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/body-camera-footage-shows-police-shooting-killed-6-year-old-article-1.2810805

_
Footage shows police shooting that killed 6-year-old (GRAPHIC)
BY CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, September 28, 2016, 10:45 PM


RAW: First part of body cam footage from deadly Marksville shooting01:35


00:00 / 01:35
CC
WAFB 9 News Baton Rouge, Louisiana News, Weather, Sports
Body camera footage released by a Louisiana court shows the moments police opened fire and killed a 6-year-old autistic boy.

Jeremy Mardis was shot five times by Marksville deputy marshals last November while riding in an SUV with his father Christopher

Prosecutors say the newly released footage, which appears to show Few’s car stationary, shows the driver’s hands raised before he and his son in the passenger’s seat are shot.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/police-officer-fired-writing-racial-slur-uniformed-selfie-article-1.2810211


A police officer in Pennsylvania lost her job after posting a Snapchat selfie showing herself in uniform — and using a racial slur.

The pic showed Melissa Adamson, a part-time cop in McKeesport, wearing a uniform and sunglasses in a car, under the caption, “I’m the law today n---a.”

It’s unclear how the photo









KING: Alfred Olango needed treatment, but cops fatally shot him
Wednesday, September 28, 2016, 12:48 PM



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-alfred-olango-needed-treatment-cops-fatally-shot-article-1.2810200

Something painfully familiar happened on Tuesday in El Cajon, California, a city about 15 miles outside of San Diego.

Police shot and killed someone.

He was unarmed.


He was black.

KING: If docs treat mentally ill & don't shoot them, so can cops
He was mentally ill.
His name was Alfred Olango.

I could cut and paste all of those indicators and literally apply them to hundreds of other stories all across this country. It's a full-blown crisis.

No unarmed person should ever be shot and killed by our police. No unarmed person suffering a medical emergency





http://nypost.com/2016/09/28/the-fbis-hillary-email-probe-is-looking-even-more-like-a-coverup/

The FBI’s Hillary email probe is looking even more like a coverup
By Paul Sperry September 28, 2016

It’s bad enough that FBI Director James Comey agreed to pass out immunity deals like candy to material witnesses and potential targets of his investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illegal private e-mail server.

But now we learn that some of them were immunized despite lying to Comey’s investigators.

In the latest bombshell from Congress’ probe into what’s looking more and more like an FBI whitewash (or coverup) of criminal behavior by the Democratic nominee and her aides, the Denver-based tech who destroyed subpoenaed e-mails from Clinton’s server allegedly lied to FBI agents after he got an immunity deal.

That’s normally a felony. As a federal prosecutor, Comey tossed Martha Stewart in jail for it and helped convict Scooter Libby for it as well. Yet the key Clinton witness still maintained his protection from criminal prosecution.

With Comey’s blessing, Obama prosecutors cut the deal with the e-mail administr
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Link du jour

http://governmentattic.org/


http://www.wfmz.com/news/national/historys-famous-leakerswhistleblowers/157298427

https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi&num=40&biw=602&bih=963&tbs=qdr[biggrin],sbd:1&tbm=nws&ei=XIMqWKixLujGjwS3gJC4DA&start=40&sa=N&dpr=1.33


https://www.scribd.com/mobile/document/331056051/German-Consulate-List-1945



Bonus Read

http://stevehochstadt.blogspot.com/2016/11/this-election-makes-difference.html

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

This Election Makes A Difference


Most people know about Chobani yogurt. Few know that it represents a remarkable story of immigrant success in America. Hamdi Ulukaya is a Turkish immigrant with Kurdish heritage, who arrived in upstate New York in the 1990s. He used a family recipe to make feta cheese. With a $800,000 loan from the Small Business Administration, he bought a local yogurt factory and started selling Chobani yogurt 9 years ago. He opened the world’s largest yogurt manufacturing plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, in 2012.

Chobani is now the number one selling yogurt in the US. Ulukaya offers his 2000 employees 6 weeks of fully-paid family leave for new parents and recently gave them shares in the company, which could make some of them millionaires. He sponsors the US Olympic team.

But Ulukaya and the Chobani brand are a new target of a right-wing campaign of disinformation, led by Breitbart News, home of Donald Trump’s campaign CEO Stephen Bannon. Ulukaya employs more than 300 Iraqi, Afghan and Turkish refugees in his factories. He has created a foundation to assist refugees, gaining direct support from IBM and other giant corporations. Breitbart began publishing stories which falsely linked his company with tuberculosis cases in Idaho and a sexual assault case in Twin Falls. This spawned online calls to boycott Chobani and online death threats to the Twin Falls mayor and his wife. Many of these threats come from Trump supporters. Helping refugees become productive citizens in America is a crime in the eyes of those who love Trump.

Certainly this election will make a difference in government and laws. Here’s a big example – the health of our planet. If Trump is elected, we can expect no action to slow global heating. His repeated insistence that climate change is a hoax might mean that his policies, backed by a Republican Congress, would make temperature rise faster. We would lose four crucial years in the race to save our planet for the next generations.

How our laws are interpreted by the Supreme Court would also be starkly different, depending on who wins. Trump promises to appoint very conservative justices, which could mean an end to legal abortion and to our progress toward equal treatment for gay Americans.

But the difference this election makes will not only be in concrete actions of government. If Trump wins, then women who are sexually harassed will have a harder time gaining justice. A Trump victory would be victory for “locker room talk” and worse, sexual assault. Bragging about sexual predation and getting away with it would be confirmed as winning male behavior.

A Trump victory would be a victory for discrimination against Muslims, not only foreign Muslims, but American Muslims, too. Even if he couldn’t pass the discriminatory laws he promises, a hater of Islam in the White House would mean encouragement for haters of Islam all over America.

A Trump victory would be a victory for white racism. About half of Trump supporters hold racist views of American blacks and Hispanics. They attack “political correctness”, because it prevents them from openly espousing their racist ideas. The “great” America they seek is a white America.

A Trump victory would be a victory for the politics of insults and lies. Having the Insulter-in-Chief leading our country would encourage every jerk in America to unleash his nastiness, to spew hatred, to try to win in life by making everyone else small. We see that happen at his rallies, where verbal attacks on reporters are now common.

The people who concoct the wildest stories about evil refugees, terrorist Muslims, lazy blacks and whining women will be able to look at President Trump as their role model. A country in which the President’s closest advisor tells racist lies about a good man, a good employer, and a good yogurt maker is not a great country.

Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, November 8, 2016


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/w-v-mayor-friend-joke-michelle-obama-ape-heels-article-1.2873128

Politics
W.V. mayor, friend say that Michelle Obama is 'ape in heels'
BY SUAD PATTON-BEY CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Monday, November 14, 2016, 6:36 PM



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/chili-manager-takes-vet-free-meal-veterans-day-article-1.2872524
Politics
Chili's manager takes away Black vet's free meal on Veterans Day
Monday, November 14, 2016, 11:09 AM








http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2016/11/10/federal-audit-confidential-sources-received-millions-in-forfeiture-funds-for-helping-dea-seize-cash/#6371b6af364a



NOV 10, 2016 @ 10:30 AM

Federal Audit: Confidential Sources Received Millions In Forfeiture Funds For Helping DEA Seize Cash







A federal audit raised “significant concerns” about the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s “long-term and lucrative relationships” with its confidential sources. Over 9,500 sources received $237 million in payments from the DEA, the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Justice found.

If an informant’s tip leads to a successful civil or criminal forfeiture, the source can receive up to $500,000 or 25% of the seized cash, whichever is less, according to the DEA Special Agents Manual. The audit even found that DEA agents “strive to keep [sources] active through monetary incentives” and “may pay sources for ‘tips’ even if they do not result in arrests or seizures.”


The Department of Justice is shown on November 3, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Incredibly, “some of the highest paid DEA confidential sources” had “the least amount of supervision and oversight.” Known as “Limited Use” sources, these informants are supposed to provide their information independently of the DEA, are not required to testify and do not have criminal ties. Instead, the DEA recruited its Limited Use sources from private companies in the airline and postal industries, as well as from Amtrak and the Transportation Security Administration. (In July, the DEA formally ceased using Amtrak and government employees as confidential sources.) In five years, the DEA paid 477 Limited Use sources $26.8 million for their services, enriching each source by $56,000 on average.

Hefty financial rewards can warp law enforcement priorities, incentivizing agents to seize cash rather than drugs. For instance, the Inspector General’s audit scrutinized commercial airline employees who worked as DEA Limited Use confidential sources. Those sources contributed tips that led to the DEA seizing more than $14.3 million in 381 cases. Yet only two cases actually involved seizing drugs or other illegal substances.

Tellingly, Special Agents reported that “some confidential sources increase their search activity to provide more ‘tips



https://robertscribbler.com/2016/11/14/for-the-arctic-ocean-above-80-north-its-still-summer-in-november/




For The Arctic Ocean Above 80 North, It’s Still Summer in November
It’s going to be the hottest year on record — by a long shot. Just ask Gavin Schmidt at a NASA that the climate change denying Trump Administration has now imperiled. But in one region — the Arctic — the rate of heat accumulation has been outrageously extreme. And it is there that this new record warmth could inflict some of the worst damage to an increasingly fragile Earth System.

Summer Heat During Fall Above 80 North

For in the Arctic Ocean above the 80 degree north latitude line which encircles the crest of our world, temperatures today are around 17 degrees Celsius above average. These are the warmest temperatures for this region ever recorded. And they include numerous locations in which temperatures spike to well above 20 C (36 F) warmer than average.



(Temperatures above the 80 degree north latitude line during mid November are about equal to what you would typically expect for late summer. This record warmth in the Arctic is notably severe and could produce serious near term climate and weather impacts. Image source: DMI.)

Taken in total, this region — one that includes the North Pole — is currently experiencing temperatures that it would typically see from September 15 through 21. In other words, it’s about as wa







https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/14/confederate-flag-police-officer-trump-protest
Michigan
Police officer suspended for Confederate flag display near anti-Trump protest





https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/14/2016-will-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-un-says

Climate change
2016 will be the hottest year on record, UN says
World Meteorological Organisation figures show global temperature is 1.2C above pre-industrial levels and will set a new high for the third year running


http://www.metronews.ca/news/world/2016/11/14/witnesses-ex-cop-s-initial-account-contradicted-by-video.html



Jury hears
cop's account contradicted by video



Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson listens to Judge Clifton Newman in Charleston, S.C., on Monday, Nov. 14, 2016, as the trial of Michael Slager, a white police officer accused in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist, enters its third week. (Grace Beahm/The Post And Courier via AP, Pool)

By: Bruce Smith The Associated Press Published on Mon Nov 14 2016
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Jurors in the murder trial of a former South Carolina police officer heard testimony Monday that the white officer's initial account of the shooting of an unarmed black motorist contradicted what a cellphone video of the shooting shows. They also saw enhanced video of the incident.
The trial of Michael Slager, who was fired from the North Charleston police department and charged with murder in the death of 50-year-old Walter Scott, entered its third week Monday.
Slager faces 30 years to life if convicted of murder in the shooting death of Scott as Scott ran from an April 2015 traffic stop. Cellphone video of the shooting recorded by a bystander shows Scott being shot five times in the back. It stunned the nation and was seen around the world on the internet.
Eleven white and one black juror are hearing the case of the 35-year-old Slager.
Over the weekend, another predominantly white jury deadlocked in another case involving a police shooting after a traffic stop. Prosecutors will decide within the next two weeks whether to retry former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing in the July 2015 shooting 43-year-old Sam DuBose.
Before court adjourned for the day Monday, Anthony Imel, an FBI image




https://threatpost.com/crysis-ransomware-master-decryption-keys-released/121942/


RYSIS RANSOMWARE MASTER DECRYPTION KEYS RELEASED by Michael Mimoso November 14, 2016 , 2:20 pm The threat posed by a ransomware family known as CrySis was diminished considerably on Sunday when the master decryption keys were released to the public. Researchers at Kaspersky Lab said they have already folded the keys into the company’s Rakhni decryptor and victims of CrySis versions 2 and 3 now have a means of recovering their lost files. Related Posts Locky Targets OPM Breach Victims November 9, 2016 , 4:53 pm Google to Red Flag ‘Repeat Offender’ Websites November 9, 2016 , 1:05 pm TrickBot Banking Trojan Adds New Browser Manipulation Tools November 8, 2016 , 5:16 pm The key was posted at 1 a.m. Eastern time to the BleepingComputer.com forums by a user known only as crss7777, said founder Lawrence Abrams. Abrams speculates that it could have been the ransomware developer who posted the key on the site’s CrySis support forum page; the post included a Pastebin link to a header file written in C that contains the master decryption keys and instructions on how to use them. “Though the i

See more at: CrySis Ransomware Master Decryption Keys Released https://wp.me/p3AjUX-vIO







http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20161115_CIA__NSA_ordered_to_reveal_to_judge_whether_they_were_involved_in_Occupy_Philly_surveillance.html?mobi=true

News — Local
CIA, NSA ordered to reveal to judge whether they were involved in Occupy Philly surveillance
Updated: NOVEMBER 14, 2016 — 4:20 PM /




https://technewsinc.com/google-pixel-hacked-60-seconds-5093/

Google Pixel Hacked and Breached in under 60 seconds at PwnFest
Tech News Inc-
When it comes to security, we all know that iPhones are the best, which was clearly understood when FBI had difficulty in breaching the security of the phone.






http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-nazis-kept-a-list-of-powerful-american-friends-in-l-1788947979


The Nazis Kept a List of Powerful American Friends in Los Angeles, Including the Co-Founder of UCLA


Nazi rally of German-Americans held at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939, including a sign that reads “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans”
In 1945, the FBI raided a warehouse in Los Angeles that was used for storage by the German Consulate. Among the files, they found a collection of 3x5-inch cards kept
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joeb

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http://www.thesullenbell.com/tag/going-commando/







On April 10, 1953, just 3 days before he approved MK-ULTRA, Allen Dulles made a major policy speech in Hot Springs, Virginia to the National Alumni Conference of Princeton University … Dulles focused exclusively on what he termed “Brain Warfare”,” or the “battle for men’s minds” provoked by “the international tensions” called the Cold War. Said Dulles… :

“ The human mind is the most delicate of all instruments. It is so finely adjusted, so susceptible to the impact of outside influences, that it is proving a valuable tool in the hands of the sinister men. The Soviets are now using brain perversion techniques as one of their main weapons in prosecuting the Cold War. Some of these techniques are so subtle and so a bar and to our way of life that we have recoiled from facing up to them.”

Dulles went on and politically recited a long litany of evil Soviet practices, including the domination of huge landmasses and populations, using “powerful jamming equipment” to “eliminate the reception of foreign radio messages,” a “government approved” media, persecution of and mass purges of racial minority groups, religious intolerance, and a concentrated program of “brain-conditioning” directed at turning human beings “into humble confessors of crimes they never committed or [to] make them the mouthpiece for Soviet propaganda.” Dulles seemed most concerned with “brain-conditioning” and Soviet efforts to develop “new techniques” that employed Russian “science and ingenuity” in the “study of mental reactions and in the nefarious art of breaking down the human mind.”

Most alarming, Bellows declared, was that the Communists were now applying brainwashing techniques “to American prisoners in Korea.” It “was not beyond the range of possibility,” he warned, “that considerable numbers of our own boys there might be so indoctrinated as to be induced, temporarily at least, to renounce country and family.” The United States would do all possible to combat communist oppression, Dulles said, but it was “handicapped” in doing so because there were “few survivors” of Soviet brainwashing, and “we have no human guinea pigs ourselves on which to try out these extraordinary techniques.”

One can only imagine how uncomfortable it might have been from Dulles to be questioned about having “no guinea pigs” in light of the fact that CIA programs he had approved 2 months earlier were aggressively experimenting on human beings with an array of mind control and behavior modification techniques far surpassing anything the Soviets were accused of.” [Pages 136-137]

****

“By early summer 1951, Project BLUEBIRD administrators had further refined their interrogation research to focus exclusively on “special interrogation and hypnotism techniques” applied to “war and specific agency problems.” The problems were listed with startling specificity:

Can we ‘condition’, by posthypnotic suggestion, Agency employees (or persons of interest to this Agency) to prevent them from giving information to any unauthorized source or for committing any act on behalf of a foreign or domestic enemy?

Can we, in the matter of an hour, 2 hours, one day, etc., induce a hypnotized condition in the unwilling subject to such an extent that he will perform an act for our benefit?

Could we seize a subject and in the space of an hour to by posthypnotic control have him crash an airplane, record train, etc.?

Can we [long and short range] through posthypnotic control induces a subject to commit violence against another individual, or induces subject to murder another individual or group of individuals?

Can we through posthypnotic control create a condition whereby a subject would forget any such induced act after the subject is brought out of his “conditioned” state? [Pages 223-224, A Terrible Mistake, H. P. Albarelli, Trine-Day, 2009.]

[Ed.: Who, in the context of the year 2016, post-Patriot Act, post-NDAA, four years after the publication of the Presidential Memorandum on Insider Threat Policy ( http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/21/presidential-memorandum-national-insider-threat-policy-and-minimum-stand ) in light of extensive evidence for foreign infiltration or or interference with domestic political control and in view of alleged treason/intraparty squabble/military insurrection, controls the definition of foreign or domestic enemy?]

****

“Surviving minutes from nearly a dozen ARTICHOKE committee meetings so that the committees work mostly focused on ARTICHOKE team recruitment and project enhancement, and that the committee functioned in a routine in congenial fashion. However, not everything was always peachy keen with the group. A handwritten note by one CIA official on the committee reveals what might have been strong dissent among committee members. That dissent could just as easily have been expressed again some of today’s “war on terror” practices. The note reads:

“What in God’s name are we proposing here? Does it not strike anyone but a few that these projects may be immoral and unethical, and that they may fly in the face of international laws? What really are we attempting to accomplish? Where does respect for life and human dignity come into play?”

The unidentified rider was reacting to a proposal concerning “the possibilities of inducing subjects to go against their will and personal beliefs and commits acts such as murder.” Another note, scribbled by someone with the initials “JG” on a proposal drafted months later, reads: “Where does this stuff end? The sheer madness of some of these ideas is getting difficult to swallow.”

ARTICHOKE conference meetings regularly delved into consideration of immoral practices. At one of its earlier meetings, in December 1951, the six-member group discussed at length how to use a “standard electric shock machine” to produce “normal shock effects” including convulsions and eventually amnesia, “following a series of shock treatments.” An unnamed college professor, who was also identified as a psychiatrist, appeared before the conference and explained that through the use of Reiter electric-shock machines he “could guarantee amnesia for certain periods of time and particularly he could guarantee amnesia from any knowledge of use of the convulsive shock.” According to conference minutes, the professor explained that electric shock machines set up producing “lower current type of shock” would have the “effective making a man talk.” [Pages 230-231]

****

“… It is suspected that Goodenow may have consulted with the CIA and Mulholland to help devise a special pinprick type device to be used to covertly induced diseases in targeted individuals.” [Page 258]



http://www.campx.ca/CampXCanadianEdition.jpg

“White was sent to Camp X not only to be trained, but also to become a trainer himself, which he did when he was assigned in 1942 as branch chief of schools and training for the OSS counterespionage division in Washington DC. Subsequently, he became deputy chief of counterespionage, or X2, as it was commonly called. In his trainer role, White rotated among several secret sites, including area B3, a 9,000 acre center hidden away in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountain Park, a few miles from today’s Camp David presidential retreat. Another secret training site was known as area A2, a 5,000 acre wooded site near Quantico Virginia. “The Farm,” located 40 miles from Washington DC, was a 3rd site. White’s own training continued, as well. In May 1942, together with Garland Williams and Philip Strong, White took a brief break from his trainers position to attend a six-week advance commando and parachute school in Virginia.

Among White’ first OSS students were several novice officers who would later become top CIA officials: Richard Helms, Frank Wisner Jr, James Jesus Angleton, Lyman B Kirkpatrick Junior, Thomas Karmessines, and William Colby. Several other notable students were anthropologists Carleton S Coon and Gregory Bateson, psychologist Dr. James A. Hamilton, future Federal Narcotics agent Howard Chappell, and Alfred M. Hubbard, an elusive and fascinating figure who arrived at OSS’s Area B fresh from a stint in prison. Hubbard, as readers already know, would later become “the Johnny Appleseed of LSD.” Michael Burke, who would also become a CIA employee and then a high-profile executive who ran the New York Yankees in Madison Square Garden, was another of White’s trainees in Maryland…..”
synthetic esoterica
November 30, 2016 Uncategorized biological research, esoterica, fast-track drugs, going commando, hypnotic induction, medical research, organized crime, pharmaceuticals, secret human testing, secret societies, social control, synthesized influence
synthetic esoterica

Congress Poised To Pass Sweeping Law Covering FDA And NIH

NPR 1700 hours GMT-5 11/29/16

Legislation to bolster medical research and revamp the way new drugs and medical devices are approved is on the fast track through a Congress that has had little success to celebrate this year.



source of featured image:

http://www.theopenscroll.com/pharmakeia.htm







http://www.ifpma.org/resource-centre/research-based-pharmaceutical-industry-launches-do-you-mind-campaign/













[ Ed.: great graphics here, plus a lot of info]

http://www.unique-design.net/library/drugs.html





CIA MKULTRA: drugs to ruin the nation

by Jon Rappoport

November 29, 2016

Drugs to transform individuals…and even, by implication, society.

Drug research going far beyond the usual brief descriptions of MKULTRA.

The intention is there, in the record:

A CIA document was included in the transcript of the 1977 US Senate Hearings on MKULTRA, the CIA’s mind-control program.

The document is found in Appendix C, starting on page 166. It’s simply labeled “Draft,” dated 5 May 1955 (note: scroll down to #123-125 in the document).

It states: “A portion of the Research and Development Program of [CIA’s] TSS/Chemical Division is devoted to the discovery of the following materials and methods:”

What followed was a list of hoped-for drugs and their uses.

First, a bit of background: MKULTRA did not end in 1962, as advertised. It was shifted over to the Agency’s Office of Research and Development.

John Marks is the author of the groundbreaking book, Search for the Manchurian Candidate, which exposed MKULTRA. Marks told me a CIA representative informed him that the continuation of MKULTRA, after 1962, was carried out with a greater degree of secrecy, and he, Marks, would never see a scrap of paper about it.

I’m printing below, the list of the 1955 intentions of the CIA regarding their own drug research. The range of those intentions is stunning.

Some of my comments gleaned from studying the list:

The CIA wanted to find substances which would “promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness.” Serious consideration should be given to the idea that psychiatric medications, food additives, herbicides, and industrial chemicals (like fluorides) would eventually satisfy that requirement.

The CIA wanted to find chemicals that “would produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way.” This suggests many possibilities—among them the use of drugs to fabricate diseases and thereby give the false impression of germ-caused epidemics.

The CIA wanted to find drugs that would “produce amnesia.” Ideal for discrediting whistleblowers, dissidents, certain political candidates, and other investigators. (Scopolamine, for example.)

The CIA wanted to discover drugs which would produce “paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.” A way to make people decline in health as if from diseases.

The CIA wanted to develop drugs that would “alter personality structure” and thus induce a person’s dependence on another person. How about dependence in general? For instance, dependence on institutions, governments?

The CIA wanted to discover chemicals that would “lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men.” Sounds like a general description of the devolution of society.

As you read the list yourself, you’ll see more implications/possibilities.

Here, from 1955, are the types of drugs the MKULTRA men at the CIA were looking for. The following statements are direct CIA quotes:

A portion of the Research and Development Program of TSS/Chemical Division is devoted to the discovery of the following materials and methods:

1. Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.

2. Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.

3. Materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol.

4. Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.

5. Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering, etc.

6. Materials which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness.

7. Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so-called “brain-washing”.

8. Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.

9. Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.

10. Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.

11. Substances which will produce “pure” euphoria with no subsequent let-down.

12. Substances which alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.

13. A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type that the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning.

14. Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.

15. Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.

16. A knockout pill which can surreptitiously be administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis.

17. A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a man to perform any physical activity whatsoever.

At the end of this 1955 CIA document, the author [unnamed] makes these remarks: “In practice, it has been possible to use outside cleared contractors for the preliminary phases of this [research] work. However, that part which involves human testing at effective dose levels presents security problems which cannot be handled by the ordinary contactors.

“The proposed [human testing] facility [deletion] offers a unique opportunity for the secure handling of such clinical testing in addition to the many advantages outlined in the project proposal. The security problems mentioned above are eliminated by the fact that the responsibility for the testing will rest completely upon the physician and the hospital. [one line deleted] will allow [CIA] TSS/CD personnel to supervise the work very closely to make sure that all tests are conducted according to the recognized practices and embody adequate safeguards.”

In other words, this was to be ultra-secret. No outside contractors at universities for the core of the experiments, which by the way could be carried forward for decades.

A secret in-house facility.

Over the years, more facilities could be created.

If you examine the full range of psychiatric drugs developed since 1955, you’ll see that a number of them fit the CIA’s agenda. Speed-type chemicals to addle the brain over the long term, to treat so-called ADHD. Anti-psychotic drugs, AKA “major tranquilizers,” to render patients more and more dependent on others (and government) as they sink into profound disability and incur motor brain damage. And of course, the SSRI antidepressants, like Prozac and Paxil and Zoloft, which produce extreme and debilitating highs and lows—and also push people over the edge into committing violence.

These drugs drag the whole society down into lower and lower levels of consciousness and action.

If that’s the goal of a very powerful and clandestine government agency…it’s succeeding.

Jon Rappoport

https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016/11/29/cia-mkultra-drugs-to-take-down-the-nation/



http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NTAwWDUwMA==/z/JfoAAOSw3xJVYFI9/$_35.JPG

In a long footnote to Book Two, Chapter Four of A Terrible Mistake, H. P. Albarelli, Trine-Day, 2009, which is found on pages 792-793, Albarelli notes:

“Readers familiar with Freemasonry will recognize that many of these esoteric subjects are related to that secret society. Some readers may also know that many of the CIA’s subcontractors under MKUKTRA and ARTICHOKE, as well as other programs, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, were Masons, some of the 33rd degree. For decades there have been rampant speculations about Freemasonry and MKULTRA. Nowhere is this best witnessed them on the Internet. Some of the speculation is been fueled by the documented activities of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry as related to behavior modification programs. The possible connections are intriguing but not a primary subject for this book. When this book was close to completion, in yet another another of numerous coincidences that occurred over the course of his writing, author Peter Levenda had just completed a book on Freemasons and America. I asked Peter about the CIA’s pursuits of such matters, and he said: “CIA’s interest in matters esoteric was prompted by several concerns. In the 1st place, esoteric organizations–secret societies, cults, etc.–run parallel to intelligence agencies in terms of the culture of secrecy and deception. A secret society operates below the radar of social and governmental oversight and control; their membership lists are secret; their members use pseudonyms; and they believe that they have secret power to control the outcome of world events. Members of secret societies are often intelligent, are familiar with foreign languages and cultures, and travel incognito across national borders. Thus, purely as a security matter, CIA would be interested in those groups and would be tempted to infiltrate them, or otherwise keep an eye on them. The SS and Gestapo did the same in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, when it was understood that secret societies–like the Masons, but also the Golden Dawn and other groups–provided a covert network of potential anti-government operatives that had to be suppressed. In the 2nd place, the very arcane pursuits of the secret societies hinted at avenues of knowledge, power and control there were not available to the government. CIA would have wanted to know is how cults were so successful in “brainwashing” their members, convincing them of the truth of the most unbelievable ideas and concepts. Was the Korean War era method of brainwashing captured American soldiers equivalent to the approach used by cults and occult groups on their own members? What was the effect of these methods on memory, perception, volition? Did the cults know something about the functioning of the human brain that the government scientist did not?

Thirdly, the interest of CIA in such matters paralleled that of the Nazis and their SS-Ahneherbe. Himmler’s desire to find ancient artifacts–including the holy Grail, the Ark of the covenant, etc.–was motivated not by a sincere religious sentiment but by the naked pursuit of the power they represent. This is an astonishing development, for it indicates that somewhere within the CIA’s labyrinthine bureaucracy there were (and are) individuals who were able to get funding to search the world for these artifacts. For instance, Robert K Temple in the new preface to his much acclaimed The Sirius Mystery tells of how CIA approached him as he was researching the religion of the African Dogon tribe. What possible reason could CIA have for keeping tabs on such an arcane, academic study involving ancient astronomy? If we realize that such practices as remote viewing, hallucinogenic drug research, and the investigation of cults, ESP, if hypnosis and other factors were taking place all at the same time within America’s intelligence establishment–involving not only the CIA but also the Army and the Navy–then we are forced to consider that CIA had a reason for all of this that transcends mere curiosity. It was the era of the weaponization of esoterica, something that had not been seen in the Western world since the Middle Ages.”

***

“Major Abramson, assisted by 1st Lt. Frank Olson and several other Edgewood scientists, began his search for the proper aerosol using a solution of sodium hypochlorite. Also assisting was in Dr. Vernon Bryson of the Long Island Biological Association. Still operational today, the Association is a private research group founded by 1924 by number of wealthy entrepreneurs, including J.P. Morgan and William K Vanderbilt. The group has organizational ties to the controversial eugenics research conducted by Charles Davenport’s Cold Spring Harbor Department of Eugenics. During World War II, Vannevar Bush, head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, strongly supported the association’s work.” [Page 40]

“In response [to Pres. Roosevelt’s increasing concern over mounting intelligence reports about the Axis powers stockpiling poison gas], the War Department created a War Research Service (WRS), and installed George Wilhelm Merck as its director. Merck was a natural for the job, as he was already a high-ranking consultant of the war Department on biological warfare. He was also head of Merck and Company, one of the oldest and largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The firm had its beginnings in the late 1600s in Germany as the E. Merck chemical factory. In 1891, George Merck, George Wilhelm’s father, left Germany to establish Merck and Company in New York City. His son, George Wilhelm Merck, born in West Orange, New Jersey and a Harvard graduate, assumed control had assumed control of the company in 1925. The younger Merck dynamically guided the company to become the largest full-line producer and distributor of pharmaceuticals in the world. Merck and Company has since been responsible for countless innovations in the drug industry, including many in the controversial areas of enthnogenic products and shamanic inebriants.

In 1914, Merck’s German operation was the first company worldwide to synthesize and patent methylene dioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. As readers shall see, MDMA, a semisynthetic psychoactive drug properly known today as Ecstasy, was tested in the early 1950s under the codename EA–1475 at the Army’s Edgewood Arsenal….” [Page 42]

“George W Merck, however, was no neophyte in biological warfare. Previously, he had served as a high-ranking consultant to a top-secret group called the WBC committee. The WBC committee had been formed in the fall of 1941, two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, when Secretary of War Henry L Stimson asked Frank B Jewett [whose dad was a Mason and is a cousin from the other branch ten generations removed], president of the National Academy of Sciences, to appoint a working group to make a complete survey of the biological warfare capacities of other nations. Wrote Stimson to Jewett, “because of the danger that might confront this country from potential enemies employing what may be broadly described as biological weapons, it seems advisable that investigations be initiated to survey the present situation and the future possibilities.”

Julie turned to his good friend Dr. Edwin B Fred at the University of Wisconsin to identify who would be best for the group. Fred picked Merck; Dr. Ira Baldwin; Thomas Bourne Turner, chair of the department bacteriology at Johns Hopkins University; Thomas Rivers, director of the Rockefeller Hospital in New York; William Hay Taliaferro at the University of Chicago; and Louis O Kunkel of the Rockefeller Institute. Merck chaired the group, which was named the War Bureau of Consultants, or, as it was commonly referred to, the WBC committee. Acting as military liaison to the committee were major Arvo Thompson and Lieut. Col. James A. Defendorf from Edgewood Arsenal.

Starkly illustrating the enemy dangers that preoccupied the Secretary of War were series of incidents that had occurred 2 years earlier in New York. The 1st incident occurred on February 3, 1939. Dr. Ryoichi Naito, an assistant to Dr. Shiro Ishii–head of Japan’s secret germ warfare program–visited the Manhattan offices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and asked for samples of the yellow fever virus strain stored there for use in vaccinations. The Institute refused the request, but Dr. Knight told repeatedly returned, harassing Rockefeller Institute scientists with questions about the virus.

During one of Naito’s uninvited visits, scientists were stunned to hear him brag that he had recently spent 18 months at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. At the time, the Koch Institute, a renowned research facility, was a hub for Nazi biological research.” [Page













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Bonus Read


http://stevehochstadt.blogspot.com

Taking Back Our Lives

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Trump’s Billionaire Cabinet


Donald Trump won election as our next President partly by appealing to Americans who are unhappy with the way the economy has left them behind, while benefitting only the wealthy.

Nearly all Americans told pollsters just before the election that they think the American economy is rigged in favor of the powerful. Almost 90% said the economy is rigged to benefit the rich generally, banks and bank executives in particular, and corporations.

Trump told these angry voters that they were right: middle-class Americans can't get ahead, because big political donors, big businesses and big bureaucrats are keeping wages down and hogging all the gains of the growing economy for themselves. Only he could fix this broken system. “The economy is rigged. The banking system is rigged. There’s a lot of things that are rigged in this world of ours, and that’s why a lot of you haven’t had an effective wage increase in 20 years, folks. And we’re going to change it.”

Trump specifically pointed the finger at Wall St. He told an audience in Ottumwa, Iowa, “I know the people on Wall Street. I'm not going to let Wall Street get away with murder. Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. I don’t care about the Wall Street guys. I’m not taking any of their money.” He stressed the unfairness of the tax system. “The hedge fund guys are getting away with murder. They're paying nothing, and it's ridiculous.”

Now that he has won election with those arguments, Trump has been assembling his team to run the government. His cabinet choices are not yet complete, and none of them have been confirmed by the Senate. But his selections so far give us some idea of what he plans to do.

Trump’s cabinet will be the richest group in American history, dominated by the very people he criticized on the campaign trail. For Secretary of Commerce, Trump is nominating Wilbur L. Ross Jr., a billionaire Wall St. speculator. He owned Sago Mine, a West Virginia coal mine where a dozen miners lost their lives in a 2006 explosion. His company settled a lawsuit for negligence in their deaths. A few months ago, Ross’s company paid a $2.3 million fine for charging his investors excess management fees.

Just under Ross, Trump is nominating Todd Ricketts as Deputy Commerce Secretary. His father founded the online broker Ameritrade. Ricketts is even richer than Ross, and is co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and CEO of Ending Spending, an organization “dedicated to educating and engaging American taxpayers about wasteful and excessive government spending,” according to its site.

As head of the Small Business Administration, Trump selected another billionaire, Linda McMahon, former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, and one of Trump’s biggest donors. The Treasury Department will be headed by Steven Mnuchin, another big donor and a former Goldman Sachs executive, now CEO of a hedge fund. He is worth only about $665 million.

Much further down the list of richest Americans, Trump’s Secretary of Labor will be Andrew F. Puzder, chief executive of CKE Restaurants, which owns fast-food outlets Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. Puzder opposes increasing the minimum wage, because his restaurants would have to pay more to their workers, meaning less income for shareholders.

Another billionaire with input into Trump’s economic policies will be Carl Icahn, a Special Adviser on Regulatory Reform. Icahn began as a stockbroker and now is one of the richest Americans, buying and selling companies and a business partner with Trump.

Another cabinet secretary who is worth billions will be Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, whose family started the multilevel marketing company Amway. Amway has been successfully sued in the US, Canada and the United Kingdom for fraud, and has paid millions in fines.

Rex W. Tillerson will head Trump’s State Dept. He was president and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, and will get a severance package worth $180 million for leaving his job. Some other billionaires have been appointed by Trump to serve on his economic advisory committee or inaugural committee.

The Republican-dominated Senate appears to be rushing the process of confirming these nominations. They have scheduled six hearings for this Wednesday, apparently hoping to minimize media scrutiny. Several of Trump’s picks have not completed the usual vetting process, which includes tax returns and ethics clearances, which might be complicated for some of the billionaires with vast financial holdings. The head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter M. Shaub Jr., has said that the Senate has never before held hearings before his office completed its review.

We don’t know yet exactly what policies Trump will direct his cabinet to implement, or even if they all will be confirmed. This is what we do know: none of them have shown the slightest interest in the economic plight of the voters who backed Trump. They are precisely the people who have profited the most from the financial system that Trump said was rigged against most Americans.

Trump not only took plenty of money from the Wall St. Guys. Now he is hiring them to run the government.

Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, January 10, 2017




http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-california-s-rep-rohrabacher-pulls-1484085607-htmlstory.html

JAN. 10, 2017, 3:04 P.M.
REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON
California's Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is latest lawmaker to pull down painting in Capitol depicting police as pigs


Hours after members of the Congressional Black Caucus rehung the controversial painting depicting police officers as pigs that Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) pulled down Friday, it's been pulled down twice more by Republican House members.

The painting depicts a clash between police and protesters on a street. In it, gun-w





http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/russia-compromising-information-trump-report-article-1.2943045

Donald Trump engaged in 'perverted sexual acts,' report says

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Tuesday, January 10, 2017, 7:23 PM

An unconfirmed report says that Donald Trump engaged in "perverted sexual acts" while at a Moscow hotel in 2013.
Russian intelligence monitored Donald Trump engaging in "perverted sexual acts" during his stay in a luxury Moscow hotel, according to an unconfirmed report about compromising material on the President-elect.

A document published in full by BuzzFeed News on Tuesday said that during a 2013 trip to the Russian capital, Trump made Russian prostitutes defile a bed where President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama had stayed on a previous occasion.

The accusations are unconfirmed, tho






http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/women-group-big-rips-nypd-insensitive-rape-remarks-article-1.2943015

Every victim. Every time.

That was the message from dozens of women who gathered Tuesday outside Brooklyn’s 94th Precinct to protest an NYPD commander’s dismissive comments about rape.

Days after Capt. Peter Rose landed in hot water for suggesting at a community council meeting last week that some rapes aren’t as bad as others, he was lambasted by representatives of one of the nation’s largest women’s groups.






https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/jan/10/george-wackenhut-fbi/




January 10, 2017


From FBI reject to private warlord: the rise of George Wackenhut
File on GEO Group founder illustrates Bureau’s reluctantly close ties to for-profit security

In early February 1945, a 26-year-old man from Upper Darby, Pennsylvania submitted his application for employment to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Like many of his generation, he had just finished his time in the U.S. Army, first in Hawaii and then in Virginia, where he was a Physical Reconditioning Officer and learned to be a fine marksman. Now he wanted a job with the feds, preferably in a position as a physical education instructor and a starting annual salary of $3500.

At the time, the Bureau could offer him no such position; he could take another job at half his asking price. The young man respectfully declined, and the agency felt no great loss. After all, as his files noted, they weren’t too keen on the cut of his jib anyway.



It would not be the last time Hoover’s agency would hear from him. In the decades to come, his relationship to the Bureau would vacillate between one of mutual respect to skepticism and sycophancy. He would, not so long later, get his job with the men in black, and from there he would soon turn his employment into leverage in the private sector, as he would go on to help create - then lead - one of the largest private security firms in the country, an organization that would branch out into corrections and evolve into today’s biggest global name in private imprisonment, GEO Group.

But, at the end of World War II, this man, clocking in at just under 6-feet tall and 190 pounds, was just known as George R. Wackenhut.



Despite ultimate FBI employment of about four years, Wackenhut’s FBI file is hundreds of pages long, a collection of his applicationd assessments, clippings kept by a Hoover concerned by the use of his Bureau’s name to promote profit, and Wackenhut’s letters to its directors - first Hoover and then each other - offering support and help with each transition and public criticism.



By the time George attempted FBI employment again five years after his first attempt, the observing agent had upgraded his impression of the applicant.



This time, it seems, the well-kept man who had spent the intervening years as Chairman of the Physical Education Department at John Hopkins University looked to be a better match for the Agency.



His neighbors and former employers offered positive reviews during the FBI’s background check, though maybe his wife talked too much - not necessarily more than many other ladies but enough to count her as the talkative sort.

On January 27, 1951, J. Edgar Hoover sent Wackenhut his appointment letter. He would make $5000 a year and join the other agents who, at the time, were working six days a week. He would undergo training at Quantico, Virginia, where he made a good impression, and then he was assigned to Atlanta, Georgia, primarily working on check fraud.



His tenure with the Bureau only lasted until 1954, when he submitted his resignation letter, requesting in the process a signed photograph of Mr. Hoover; the man himself obliged.



After three years, a transfer to Indiana, commendations and censures, Wackenhut would join three others to begin their own private security and investigative firm: Fidelifax.



From the outset, it seems, Hoover’s Bureau was concerned about the possibility of their crossing over into the FBI’s jurisdiction, banking on their federal connections and obstructing their own inquiries into the Communist menace.



Nonetheless, Wackenhut kept up friendly relations with his connections at the Bureau, even as the name - Security Services Corporation - and personnel changed.

In 1961, Wackenhut officially introduced Hoover, by way of letter, to the evolution of the security company: The Wackenhut Corporation.



From its inception, the legality of the private security and investigative force has been under question, which nonetheless did little to prevent it from growing quickly.



Meanwhile, the Bureau remained interested in Wackenhut’s personal life, for record-keeping purposes. A rumor regarding the infidelity of both Wackenhut and his wife found its way into the files.



http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.764248

Wall Street Journal
Jewish Insider's Daily Kickoff - January 10, 2017
Haaretz-
Why? An F.B.I. agent based in Paris, Eugene Casey, had learned about Mr. Ramírez's letter to me. In a magazine called The Journal of Counterterrorism and ...


FBI Octopus

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/business/dealbook/former-top-justice-dept-lawyer-to-join-morrison-foerster.html

DealBook|Former Top Justice Dept. Lawyer to Join Morrison ...
New York Times-
His prior experience includes serving as chief of staff and senior counsel to Robert S. Mueller III, a former director of the F.B.I. Mr. Carlin was later named to the ...



http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fbis-use-best-buy-geek-squad-informants-exposed-long-running-child-porn-probe-1600279

Best Buy 'Geek Squad' technicians outed as paid FBI informants in ...
International Business Times UK-
The case, brought forward in a Californian district court, suggests the FBI placed a ... On 5 January 2012, the filings show, Meade emailed FBI agent Tracey Riley ...


http://motherboard.vice.com/read/314-action-drafting-scientists-to-run-for-office-to-oppose-trump

This Group Wants Scientists to Run America
Motherboard-
Shaughnessy ran for Congress in Pennsylvania again in 2016, but lost to Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent. She says she can use the experience from her ...





http://www.militaryaerospace.com/press-releases/2017/01/10/advantest-opens-registration-for-voice-2017-developer-conference.html

Advantest Opens Registration for VOICE 2017 Developer Conference
Military & Aerospace Electronics
The VOICE 2017 general session in Palm Springs will also feature a keynote on Cyber Security, by former FBI special agent Chris Tarbell, one of the most




http://fox17.com/news/nation-world/car-egged-anti-semitic-note-left-after-maryland-couple-hung-black-lives-matter-banner

Did police egg car leave anti-Semitic note left after Md. couple hung Black Lives Matter banner?
Monday, January 9th 2017





http://www.wfmj.com/story/34220902/da-says-woman-arrested-in-sex-fantasy-hoax-was-really-victim

DA says woman arrested in sex fantasy hoax was really victim
WFMJ-Jan 9, 2017
... his commitment to jihad, unaware his words were secretly being recorded by the FBI? .... The man that links the two women is Ian Diaz, an agent with the U.S. ...





https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/10/fbi-chief-given-dossier-by-john-mccain-alleging-secret-trump-russia-contacts

FBI chief given dossier by John McCain alleging secret Trump ...
The Guardian-
Senator John McCain passed documents to the FBI director, James Comey, last month alleging secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow and ...






http://www.wzzm13.com/news/crime/hearing-set-for-fbi-agent-accused-of-shooting-at-grand-rapids-police/384866627

Hearing set for FBI agent accused of shooting at Grand Rapids police
WZZM13.
Hernandez, an eight-year veteran of the FBI with a spotless record, was arraigned last month on two assault charges, including assault with intent to commit ...




http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-top-ten-misreported-and-underreported-stories-of-2016/

The Top Ten Misreported and Underreported Stories of 2016
Accuracy In Media
Now that Clinton has lost, postmortems of the election abound: media pundits blame fake news, FBI Director James Comey's FBI investigation, WikiLeaks, and ...







http://deadline.com/2017/01/boston-bombing-book-abc-news-producer-maximum-harm-documentary-series-glass-entertainment-1201882410/

Boston Bombing Book 'Maximum Harm' From ABC News Producer ...
Deadline-
... investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing and the accused brothers which uncovered evidence of one of the brothers' pre-existing relationship to the FBI



http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-lawyers-are-freaking-out-about-jeff-sessions-as-ag-w460272

Why Lawyers Are Freaking Out About Jeff Sessions as Attorney ...
RollingStone.com
That would make Sessions the top law enforcement officer of the United States, in charge of everything from protecting civil rights to overseeing the FBI.




http://www.local10.com/news/crime/bso-deputy-suspended-after-tape-leaked-of-fort-lauderdale-airport-shooting
CRIME
BSO deputy suspended after tape leaked of Fort Lauderdale airport shooting
Cameraman recording video seen in reflection, mayor says

By Terrell Forney - Reporter , Amanda Batchelor - Senior Digital Editor
Posted: 12:18 PM, January 10, 2017
Updated: 9:40 PM, January 10, 2017






http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/01/nebraska-bill-would-restrict-alpr-data-help-block-national-license-plate-tracking-program/

Nebraska Bill Would Restrict ALPR Data, Help Block National ...
Tenth Amendment Center (blog)
With the FBI rolling out facial a nationwide recognition program, and the federal government building biometric databases, the fact that the feds can potentially ...



http://www.dailyfreeman.com/general-news/20170110/kingston-activist-shabazz-asks-to-withdraw-guilty-plea-in-weapons-case

Kingston activist Shabazz asks to withdraw guilty plea in weapons ...
The Daily Freeman-
If Shabazz, 61, is allowed to wirthdraw his plea, he would stand trial on the 16-count indictment against him for allegedly selling weapons to undercover FBI ...
p


https://www.indianagazette.com/news/indiana-news/magistrate-in-indiana-running-for-third-term,25680265/

Magistrate in Indiana running for third term
Indiana Gazette
He is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State Police Municipal Police Academy, The FBI National Academy and Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he ...








https://www.romper.com/p/jeff-sessions-conflicts-of-interest-are-reportedly-missing-from-ethics-paperwork-29257

Jeff Sessions' Conflicts of Interest Are Reportedly Missing From ...
Romper-
Each Cabinet appointee is required to submit to an FBI background check, a financial disclosure, and a letter clearly stating any conflicts of interest, which is







http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2017/01/11_jersey_city_cops_placed_on_restricted_duty_amid.html

Police qre reportedly investigating the Jersey City Police Department's off-duty private security program.
on January 10, 2017 at 10:27 AM, updated January 10, 2017 at 3:30
UPDATE: 12 OFFICERS IDENTIFIED

In the midst of a federal probe of off-duty work performed by Jersey City police officers, the city has stripped 12 cops of their guns and placed them on non-enforcement duty.

The city confirmed the move this morning in a statement from city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill. Morrill did not reveal the names of the 12 officers.

The news comes as the police department braces for arrests that sources with knowledge of the federal probe say are expected this month. The officers are being investigated possibly for taking improper payments in relation to the off-duty work program, according to law-enforcement sources.







https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/fbi-genetics-expert-claire-fraser-liggett-this-is-not-an-airtight-case-by-any-means/

« * Tara O’Toole, the undersecretary for biosecurity at Homeland Security Department, says that the FBI did not establish that the anthrax came from USAMRIID but that it was merely the FBI’s “working hypothesis” and a “supposition”; she mentioned other active hypotheses.* GAO: Why did the FBI redact this 302 interview statement in which its expert collecting samples explained that some of her material resembled the mailed anthrax? Who was responsible for the redaction and what was justification? »
* FBI genetics expert Claire Fraser-Liggett … I think that the (FBI’s use of the) evidence on science probably was misleading … I have no way to know whether or not Bruce Ivins was really the perpetrator
0
joeb

Registered:
Posts: 8,382
Posted Reply with quote  #269 

 

 

http://ticklethewire.com/2017/02/21/la-times-ag-sessions-must-recuse-probes-trump-ties-russia/

 

LA Times: AG Sessions Must Recuse Himself from Probes of Trump Ties to Russia

 

AG Jeff Sessions at his confirmation hearing.

By Editorial Board

Los Angeles Times

If Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with efforts by Russia to help him defeat Hillary Clinton — a nightmare scenario for which no evidence has been produced so far — it would be first and foremost a political and constitutional crisis. But it also likely would involve violations of federal law. And even if such collusion  didn’t take place, there could be other matters involving Russia and Trump associates that would require decisions by the Department of Justice.

That department is now headed by Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, who as a senator from Alabama was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s candidacy. And President Trump, as he made clear at his stream-of-consciousness news conference last Thursday, rejects concerns about improper relationships between his campaign and Russia as a “ruse” and “fake news” fabricated  “to try and make up for the loss of the Democrats.”

 

 

 

 

http://journaltimes.com/news/local/fbi-comes-to-gilmore-to-help/article_870a5a4e-9108-5a8f-bc6f-47ad450f32a0.html

 

FBI comes to Gilmore to help

Journal Times-

An FBI agent speaks to students at Gilmore Middle School about cybercrime. The FBI has chosen Gilmore as their “adopt-a-school,” a program which helps ...

 

 

 

News Orgs. Demand FBI Discloseh Was Paid For San Bernardino iPhone Hack

©https://sputniknews.com/us/201702211050922251-news-organizations-fbi-iphone-hack/https://sputniknews.com/us/201702211050922251-news-organizations-fbi-iphone-hhttps://sputniknews.com/us/201702211050922251-news-organizations-fbi-iphone-hack/ack/ REhttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjiy-qfjKLSAhXG64MKHfIGAa8QqQIIGigAMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsputniknews.com%2Fus%2F201702211050922251-news-organizations-fbi-iphone-hack%2F&usg=AFQjCNFMPj2BR2c9RbAD1Zeh6QlxeMeiPA&bvm=bv.147448319,d.amcUTERS/

https://sputniknews.com/us/201702211050922251-news-organizations-fbi-iphone-hack/

 

 

Several media outlets, including the Associated Press, filed a brief with a federal court on Monday to require that the FBI make public certain evidence regarding the San Bernardino investigation, including information on the cost of the software tool the FBI used to hack an iPhone and the identity of the person or persons who sold it to the FBI.

The AP, Vice, and Gannet, the news conglomerate that owns USA Today, filed a suit in September 2016 demanding information about a mysterious transaction that allowed the FBI to bypass Apple’s assistance in unlocking an iPhone belonging to the employer of Syed Rizwan Farook, who, along with his wife,Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in the San Bernardino shooting attack. 

 

 

http://wjla.com/news/nation-world/intelligence-leaks-against-trump-suggest-a-political-motivation

 

 

Intelligence leaks against Trump suggest a political motivation

WJLA-20 hours ago

Colleen Rowley is a retired FBI special agent and a whistleblower who brought to light major lapses in intelligence prior to 9/11. Rowley sees officials within the ...

 

 

 

 

http://www.hudsonreporter.com/pages/business_details/?id=49187943

 

 

Art Now: Hasan Elahi - Tracking Transience - an Artist Talk

The Hudson Reporter-

Although initially created for his FBI agent, the public can also monitor the artist's communication records, banking transactions, and transportation logs along ...

 

 

http://canadafreepress.com/article/judicial-discretion-and-tyranny

 

 

“Judicial Discretion” and Tyranny

Canada Free Press-

In those articles, I exposed FBI informants associated with the occupation of .... not to be out done, they filed an Affidavit of FBI Special Agent Ronnie Walker in ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/21/disclosures-suggest-deep-state-surveillance-extends-well-beyond-michael-flynn/

 

 

 

 

Disclosures Suggest Deep State Surveillance Extends Well Beyond ...

The Federalist-8 hours ago

An investigation would be the responsibility of FBI Director James Comey, who in ... black-hooded, Palestinian-styled agent provocateurs roaming the streets, ...

 

https://www.propublica.org/article/did-jury-in-etan-patz-murder-case-receive-improper-information

 

 

Did Jury in Etan Patz Murder Case Receive Improper Information?

 

 

 

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/02/21/inside-the-disappearance-of-jimmy-hoffa/#427c5bf41aae

 

 

 

FBI informant involved in James Hoffa murder

 

 

In his younger years, Sheldon Yellen helped run the Southfield Athletic Club, which played a pivotal part in one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century. On July 30, 1975, one of the regulars at the club--Anthony Giacalone, known as "Mr. G" to Yellen--was scheduled to meet with ex-Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa at the Machus Red Fox restaurant at 2 p.m., according to federal officials. At 2:15 p.m., Hoffa called his wife, apparently concerned that Giacalone hadn't showed.

It was the last time she ever heard from him. Authorities declared Hoffa dead in 1982, even though they never found his body. Giacalone, who was indicted on RICO charges in 1996 but died before the case went to trial, was a prime suspect in Hoffa's disappearance but was never charged. He had an airtight alibi, having spent July 30 at his favorite hangout, the Southfield Athletic Club. When asked about Hoffa, Giacalone allegedly said, "Maybe he took a little trip."

Investigators spent years chasing down people who might know something, including Yellen's mentor, Leonard Schultz, who authorities say was a Mafia associate, friend of Giacalone, head of the Southfield Athletic Club and FBI informant. Schultz, who was eventually convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in 1987, took any secrets he may have had to the grave in 2013. "I always thought Lenny knew more about the Hoffa disappearance than he ever told us about," says retired FBI agent John Insogna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/21/world/melbourne-plane-crash/

Melbourne plane crash: CEO, lawyer, ex-FBI agent among Americans killed
0
joeb

Registered:
Posts: 8,382
Posted Reply with quote  #270 
http://www.thesullenbell.com/2017/02/26/whats-at-stake/


What’s At Stake
February 26, 2017 Uncategorized blackmail, Clinton, criminal cabal, dead journalists, diabolical agenda, Epstein, global child sex trafficking, Hagopian, Pedogate, pedophilia, Pizzagate, Steele, Trump
What’s At Stake

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Pizzagate Turned PedoGate Leads to Momentum Surge in Busting Global Child Sex Trafficking Rings

 

source of featured image: http://dianedimond.net/whats-your-definition-of-a-pimp/

music:



 

 

This article will examine the current status of the so called “Pizzagate” scandal. But from here on out this presentation will refer to it as PedoGate for several reasons. Pedogate involves global child sex trafficking networks that have been operating over a lengthy period of time, far beyond the WikiLeaks release of the John Podesta emails and his obsession over “pizza,” and incriminating contents found on disgraced former New York congress
man Anthony Weiner’s laptop leading up to last November’s election. PedoGate also extends far beyond the so called Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor in Northwest DC that was last year’s epicenter of alleged child sex crime activity resulting from an intensive online investigation linking Comet to the Podesta brothers, the Clintons, Obama and George Soros. And though virtually every business on that entire DC block located so close to the White House may well be [or have been] involved in a major Washington child trafficking sex ring based on substantive circumstantial evidence uncovered, PedoGate addresses the growing global epidemic of children being abducted from their hometowns and moved across both state and international borders for the purpose of sexual exploitation as victims of pedophilia , pornography, Satanic ritual abuse and even sacrificial murder.

With the internet age, 76% of pedophile sex with underage girls starts out as online contact. Of the estimated up to 800,000 victims of human trafficking each year, 76% are women and girls and 27% are children. When internally trafficked victims are included, the numbers jump to 2-4 million annually raped, beaten and tortured. Half of the worldwide trafficked humans within a country are children. In the global commercial sex trade, 2 million children are being exploited. Worldwide human trafficking has skyrocketed since 2012 with over 20.9 million victims.

At $32 billion a year, profit from human trafficking has even surpassed the total global illegal arms sales. Up to 300,000 US children are lured annually into the commercial sex trade. Of those exploited children, 14,500 to 17,500 are trafficked into America from other countries. The average age is 11-14 and the average lifespan of child trafficking is only 7 years with death caused by attack, abuse, overdose, HIV/STD’s, malnutrition and suicide. Clearly, sexually exploited children have reached the global crisis stage.

Just prior to the election last year psychiatrist and longtime intelligence operative within the state department Steve Pieczenik has stated publicly that both Bill and Hillary Clinton are pedophiles having made multiple trips on their buddy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express to his Caribbean sex slave island.

Epstein is the most infamous case in recent years that links the Clintons, Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife Huma Abedin, Hillary’s longtime aide. Multi-billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was investigated in 2005 in Florida, arrested in 2006 and convicted in 2008 of pedophilia, having to register as a sex offender after being convicted of having sex with underage girls. His mansion on his private Caribbean island, Little St. James in the Virgin Islands, has been the Lolita Express getaway destination for a number of high profile pedophiles who “partied,” engaging in sex with child slaves. One victim said the mansion was wired with secret cameras in a number of rooms where recorded orgies and sex with minors are filmed for blackmailing purposes of powerful invited guests. In addition to the Clintons and Weiners, retired Harvard law professor and attorney Alan Dershowitz who represented Epstein and got him off with a sweetheart deal along with English royalty Prince Andrew and Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey are all known to have traveled on Epstein’s private Boeing 727.

Veteran CIA case officer and US Marine Corps intelligence officer Robert David Steele maintains that Epstein has been a Mossad agent who was set up as a “made” financier to work on behalf of Israel to entice numerous high profile politicians both from America and abroad to his island, equipped with electronic monitoring in order to get the dirt on the world’s major power players for potential blackmail and subsequent control. Department store tycoon and ultra-Zionist Leslie Wexler took a young Epstein under his wing as his mentor, and suddenly Jeffrey Epstein went from prep school math teacher and college dropout to owning Wexler’s Manhattan East Side mansion and managing billionaire hedge funds. Epstein also employed media mogul-Mossad spy Robert Maxwell’s daughter Ghislaine Maxwell as his longtime girlfriend and closest assistant. As a Mossad agent Epstein was nearly overnight transformed mysteriously into a billionaire owning massive amounts of real estate properties in Palm Beach, NYC, his “Virgin” Island, New Mexico and a Paris apartment.

By capturing on video file the world’s political elite in compromising positions as pedophiles, such pro-Israel senators as John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer are forever controllable and beholding to the Greater Israel Project, committed haters of Russia and Trump, and traitors of America. That way Congress and presidents are easily bought, sold and completely owned by the powers-that-shouldn’t-be.

Additionally, an anonymous Homeland Security Department insider explained that Israel, Mossad, the CIA and UK’s MI6 are working together to manipulate their blackmailed puppets like the three aforementioned politicians to so vehemently oppose Putin and Trump’s desire to forge a partnership to “eradicate ISIS off the face of the earth.” It’s in the interests of the globalists, US deep state, DC neocons, Israel and Saudi Arabia to keep ISIS alive in order keep their “endless war on terror” going, and continue provoking Russia, China and Iran as designated cold war enemies to trigger World War III. The destruction of the United States and the entire Western civilization is an integral part of their diabolical agenda to foist a one world crime cabal tyranny on every human inhabiting the earth. To this sinister end, blackmailing and controlling power puppets in the worldwide halls of government is an effective means to bringing their perversely demonic nightmare to full fruition.

Both the DHS source and Steele maintain that a large number of major players in Washington are pedophiles who have become tools for deep state and the puppet masters to own and control. The DHS operative claims that about one third of the Congress members in the two major parties are pedophiles and Steele estimates that the over 500 internal enemies operating within the US government are bona fide US traitors actively conspiring to overthrow Trump.

President Trump’s first choice for Labor Secretary, fast food mogul Andy Puzder, after realizing his confirmation was highly unlikely based on the prehearing backlash, decided to withdraw his nomination. Chief amongst a number of personal issues is his ex-wife disclosing on Oprah Winfrey years ago how her husband abused her. So Trump’s next choice to fill the post announced last week also comes with a load of controversial past baggage. Alexander Acosta happened to be the southern Florida district US attorney from 2005 to 2009 who oversaw and agreed to the sweetheart deal given to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. And in so doing, Acosta violated the Crimes Victims Act, never bothering to inform Epstein’s victims about letting the billionaire off so easy. Epstein pleaded guilty to one felony count of soliciting prostitution and another felony for procuring sex with a minor, serving 13 months of an 18 month sentence. Sex with teenage girls under 18 is a federal crime that normally carries a minimum sentence of ten up to fifteen years in prison. But once again, if you’re an elitist 1%-er, you either get off completely or receive a mere slap on the hand issued with a standard get-out-of-jail card.

Subsequently when the then two underage minors learned of Epstein’s ridiculously light sentence many months later, they took Epstein to federal court charging that their rights had been violated under the Crimes Victims Act requiring prosecutors to inform victims of the convicted perpetrator’s plea bargained sentence. Undoubtedly had they lawfully been looped in, they never would have agreed to Epstein’s sweetheart deal. The pedo-billionaire was allowed a private wing at the West Palm Beach jail that permitted him to be a free man all day long six days a week for “work” purposes and only report back to confinement to sleep overnight. To not have to serve time in state or federal prison for those felony sex charges but at a local jailhouse is equally unheard of. Signing off on such a sweet arrangement for a convicted pedophile, then reacting to the flak once word got out, attorney Alexander Acosta defensively wrote in a 2011 letter:

Our judgment in this case, based on the evidence known at the time, was that it was better to have a billionaire serve time in jail, register as a sex offender and pay his victims restitution than risk a trial with a reduced likelihood of success.

So rather than risk Epstein walking after a potential yet unlikely not guilty verdict in a federal court, Acosta opted to accept the plea bargain deal at the state court level that was personally authored by Epstein’s famous lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Aside from coming up with the details in a joke of a sentence, the Epstein defense team led by Dershowitz also told Acosta to break the law by not notifying the victimized plaintiffs about their secret deal, so a compromised Acosta went along with his instruction from the criminal’s “dream team” and it was months afterwards that the two girls finally did learn of the gross travesty of justice. Acosta himself described the many months of negotiations prior to the September 2007 non-prosecution agreement as “a year-long assault” “more aggressive” than he and his prosecutors ever encountered by the pit-bullish Dershowitz team that included Kenneth Starr (investigator of Clinton-Lewinsky fame), hotshot Florida trial lawyer Roy Black and star attorney Gerald Lefcourt.

Another underage accuser filing suit against Epstein, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, later also accused Dershowitz of having sex with her on board Epstein’s plane as well as on Epstein’s sex slave island among the sex offender’s other stateside owned estates. With his wife, Dershowitz admittedly has vacationed at Epstein’s Florida mansion and Dershowitz’s name did also appear numerous times on the infamous air flight log of the Lolita Express to the Virgin Island mansion. In recent years the famous 78-year old powerhouse attorney has scrambled to defend both his reputation and legacy despite a defamation suit against him being dropped last year. But his accuser and her lawyer dispute Dershowitz’s repeated denials, so a cloud of controversial doubt still hangs over the lawyer famous for his aggressive courtroom tactics.

Uncovering letters between Acosta’s office and Epstein’s legal defense team, the victims’ lawyers contend that a conspiracy to conceal vital information not to prosecute took place between the government and Epstein attorneys. And the two victims’ subsequent civil suit that awards no financial damages to them nor reopens the case for meting out any further punishment, filed way back in 2008 has ever since been stalled in federal court, remarkably still pending after all these years. At a hearing last summer a federal district court judge ruled that Epstein would be required to testify and answer questions under oath from his victims’ attorneys. Additionally last month a new civil case was filed against Epstein and his fellow child sex traffickers scheduled for a pretrial conference on March 9th, 2017. Court records show that Epstein has had sex with at least 30 or more girls under age 18 and has been allowed to simply pay dozens of them off with confidential financial out-of-court settlements. Estimates including Epstein’s teenage victims who chose to avoid legal action number in the hundreds. But the insular systemic protection that Epstein and his high powered friends like the Clintons have enjoyed for decades may just be coming to an end now.

As the world recognizes pedophilia as an out of control, heinous act of the worst kind, perhaps some form of legal justice may prevail in holding the monsters accountable… though the injustice perpetrated on the millions of child victims worldwide may never be resolved. Having worked as a therapist with sexually abused youth and adolescents for many years, the emotional scars and damage can be permanent, depending on the age and severity of abuse. What’s even more disturbing is the fact that child protective services (CPS) in America are a growing part of the problem. From 2008-12 the number of referrals for child protective services have spiked by 8.3% while overall rates of actual child abuse have dropped by 3.3%. This statistic indicates that CPS is overstepping its bounds, too often intervening when it’s not warranted.

The one government agency designed from the outset to protect children seems to be increasingly guilty of literally snatching children from their biological families where no abuse is occurring and criminally funneling and selling children for profit to a highly organized, well-funded black market of worldwide child sex trafficking rings. An extremely brave Georgia state legislator Nancy Schaefer and her husband were likely murdered in 2010 because she was exposing this diabolical system. These worldwide networks abducting and trafficking kids are covertly financed, supported and protected by national governments and their court systems, European royalty, various deep pocketed non-government organizations and very prominent pedophiles lurking and embedded at the highest echelons of global power and control.

As one example, UK entertainer Jimmy Savile got away with raping and pimping small children for a half century, protected by the likes of the BBC, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the royal family. Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath was also a pedophile.

Over the near decade since Epstein’s conviction, the truth has slowly trickled out, exposing a dark, twisted and perverse sex slave trafficking network that Epstein and his bevy of co-conspirators, allegedly recruiting child victims as sex slaves from poorer Florida neighborhoods. Incredibly, his trio of female procurers were all granted immunity as the victims’ handlers trafficking them as directed by Epstein to the sex slave island and his other residential locations serving the pedophilia crowd from the billionaire’s black book containing names of many high powered CEO’s, entertainers, presidents, prime ministers, royalty, judges as well as politicians, for blackmailing purposes so that US deep state and Israel can continue unchallenged controlling the global geopolitics chessboard.

Even President Trump apparently was a longtime close friend of Jeffrey Epstein. In a 2002 New York Magazine issue, Trump gave this glowing report on his pedo-pal:

I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy… he’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.

From this brief but rather revealing account, it sounds as though the Donald knew back in 2002 that his longtime bud was in fact a pedophile three whole years before he got caught.

Another bizarre twist hit Trump last April and June when yet another alleged underage victim who went by the pseudonym Katie Johnson first filed an April lawsuit in California that was thrown out. But then she filed another suit a few months later in New York against both Epstein and then presidential candidate Trump. Johnson accused Trump of raping her repeatedly when she was only 13. One of Epstein’s recruiters of underage girls calling herself Tiffany Doe apparently claimed that there exists corroborating evidence that Tiffany not only furnished Katie Johnson as a barely teen aspiring model-Oklahoma runaway fetched fresh from Port Authority to an Epstein party where Katie allegedly was raped in violent sex roleplays by Trump at several of Epstein’s New York sex parties in 1994. Of course when this latest bombshell surfaced last summer, Trump denied raping any girl and claimed that he barely knew Jeffrey Epstein. Then just four days before Election Day, Johnson’s sex suit was suddenly dropped, allegedly because she had made up the story. Among the doubters of course were Hillary supporters who immediately suspected that Johnson had been secretly paid off or that her life was threatened. At this point we may never know the real truth.

But what we do know from both media and police records, Epstein’s infamous black book contains 14 personal phone numbers belonging to Donald Trump, including his ex-wife Ivana and daughter Ivanka as well as his then future wife Malania. Also records demonstrate that Trump has made phone calls to Epstein, dined and partied at the pedophile’s Florida and Manhattan mansions, that Epstein has been a visitor at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and that Trump has flown on Epstein’s infamous plane (though unlike Bill and Hillary, Trump’s name has not surfaced yet on any known flight logs).

Trump promised at the second presidential debate that when president, he’d put Hillary Clinton behind bars, receiving high marks from millions of debate scorekeepers. On another occasion, Trump alluded to “a lot of legal problems coming up” for Bill Clinton over his past Epstein liaisons. Yet once winning the election, the president Trump has backed off considerably, claiming that Hillary “has been through enough” to not bother going after her.

There can be no dispute that Donald Trump and the Clintons were both in tight socially with the same convicted pedophile friend, and clearly ran with the same highbrow New York crowd. Trump is also on record having financially donated to the Clinton cause as well as taken a series of photos together, one on a boys club golf outing with Bill Clinton that included former “Big Apple” mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, as well as other family album pics with the Trumps and Bill Clinton arm and arm and the Donald yukking it up with the Clintons looking like they’re best of friends together. So if President Trump suddenly becomes overwhelmed with compassion and pity towards Hillary that “prevents” him from further investigating the Clintons’ shady, murderously treasonous, pedophile past, of course that only will raise more suspicions that “birds of a feather flock together.” Also perhaps his most popular and appealing campaign promise, to “drain the swamp,” will be completely shot to pieces if he lets the Clinton crime cabal off the hook, becoming more than convincing evidence that he too is cut from the same criminal cabal cloth. Trump loyalists will be hard put to defend their president if he fails to hold the Clintons accountable.

And now in a very much related matter, Trump is apparently rewarding the former US attorney who let the Clintons’ and Trump’s longtime pedo-friend off the hook as Trump’s latest choice for US Labor Secretary. This move certainly will not help Trump’s cause, at either draining the swamp or distancing himself from that same global pedophile sex ring cabal.

Always insightful investigative journalist Wayne Madsen offers a great idea on how Trump can begin draining that swamp:

Trump should start his anti-trafficking campaign by seizing Jeffrey Epstein’s planes and Little St James Island. But then, Jeff may release the pics, audio & video of the Wexner mansion from 1994.

The following fact speaks volumes: just hours after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s forced resignation, a gloating Hillary tweeted a Happy Valentine’s Day message revealing that Flynn got canned for getting too close to the Pizzagate “fake news” scandal. It was her coup d’état on Trump for his apparently feeble attempt to normalize relations with Putin as Trump that same day waved his white flag also on Twitter demanding that Putin get out of Crimea. Does this mean Trump’s vow to drain the Clinton-owned swamp and avoid World War III against nuclear powered Russia were mere empty word campaign promises simply to get himself elected? Similar to Obama’s false promise to be the most open and transparent president in US history? Only time will tell.

Then when added to this mix the highly credible, former CIA source Robert David Steele’s recent disclosure that Flynn had acquired an FBI pedophile list of top DC politicians, immediately Flynn’s firing makes much more sense. Steele maintains that one of the names on that pedo-list happens to be Vice President Mike Pence’s “best friend.” It was falsely reported in fake-stream press that Flynn withheld information from Pence about Russian sanctions, but instead he withheld info about PedoGate and an FBI list Flynn had in his possession targeting high profile offenders from both the Republican and Democratic parties that includes Pence’s best friend. Deep state CIA/NSA sources sympathetic to Clinton and Obama had illegally recorded and leaked Flynn’s late December ambassador conversation(s) to the Washington Post. But Pence grew upset when he found out that Flynn had failed to mention to him that the security advisor had shared with the Russian diplomat his and the FBI’s plan to take down top name Capitol Hill pedophiles.

Robert David Steele also revealed that in certain select restaurants in Washington DC and Saudi Arabia that a member of the elite pedophile club “can order children off the menu,” implicating a high powered international child sex trafficking ring operating between major players in both the US and Saudi governments. Movement of trafficked children from the US and around the globe suddenly become child victims in a system where the US State Department is complicit in a steady flow of abducted children bought and flown in to be used as sex slaves by powerful sick high-end rollers that are oil-rich sheiks and princes. Saudi princes are the worst culprits due to the wide acceptance of sex with young children as their privileged right. Under diplomatic immunity many foreign based trafficking rings operating in the US remain off limits to both parents and law enforcement.

Hundreds if not thousands of innocent American kids in recent years have been lured abroad by modeling or acting opportunities. Most children are snatched up by stateside child trafficking procurers, often drugged and rapidly transported and forced into a life of sexual slavery inside terrorist supporting Gulf State monarchies that not only include the House of Saud but also United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, all having direct links to the Clintons. Hillary accepted Clinton Foundation money from them knowing the Gulf States were the chief financiers of ISIS that she and Obama created. In fact, 20% of Hillary’s pay-to-buy-her presidency was supplied by Saudi Arabian money alone. Her notorious pay-to-play arms trade deals while Obama’s Secretary of State are well documented. So are international drug trafficking and money laundering by the Bush-Clinton crime cartel.

But the Bush and Clintons’ lesser known illicit enterprises continue to be human trafficking of children as sex slaves. Recall George senior’s tainted White House with “midnight tours” for young boys from Nebraska’s Boys Town in the horrific Franklin scandal of the late 1980’s, excellently documented in the film “Conspiracy of Silence” that was suddenly pulled from viewing on the Discovery Channel. It’s also important to mention in recent years that the US has supported ISIS in both its human sex trafficking, arms trafficking as well as human organ trafficking with prime suspect Israel as the controlling hub.

Though Middle Eastern Gulf States may be a primary perpetrator destination for the child sex trafficking trade, the guilty parties amongst Gulf State royalty and wealthy families are still a relative minority. It’s also important to note that they are not alone in the heinous human trafficking industry. For example, the Eastern European nation Romania made up 40% of the exported human trafficking victims in Europe tracked by Europol from 2009 to 2013. Additionally, the US led NATO-UN peacekeeping forces deployed during the balkanizing aftermath of war in the former Yugoslavian Republic, overnight created organized crime that profited from trafficking women and underage girls for the commercial sex trade. In 2015 the UK saw a 40% increase in human trafficking from the year prior with nearly 20% coming from Albania.

Also the tiny oil-rich Asian nation of Brunei (5th richest in the world) is also infamous for importing enslaved female child sex victims from the United States. The younger brother of a Brunei sultan, Prince Jefri Bolkiah, has made it his harem habit plucking up young beauties from America and Europe. Former Miss USA Shannon Marketic was fortunate enough to escape from her Brunei prince’s enslavement comprised mostly of underage girls, but lost her $10 million lawsuit to diplomatic immunity.

Again, sex trafficking is a global problem with the most active movement of abducted victims from poor and violent Third World countries to more affluent Western destinations. For example, war torn Syria and Yemen possess large preyed upon source populations. Algeria and Libya are slave transit countries and Sub Saharan Africa are also exploited for slaves. Thailand is among the worst nations for human trafficking as a sex trade source, destination and transit location. The Marshall Islands are a source for sex slaves servicing the fishing trade. The poor “hermit” nation North Korea also acts as a source for human trafficking, some sold to China and Siberia by their own government. As geographic gateways to Western Europe, sex trafficking in Moldova and Ukraine are source nations and Belarus and Russia are prone to serving as both source and transit nations. Per capita, Europe has the dubious distinction of having the highest level of sexual slavery in the world, although in pure numbers Asia does.

Perpetrators and accomplices including both US federal government agencies as well as their US private contractors are both notorious for their criminal involvement, with DynCorp and Halliburton amongst the worst contractor offenders operating overseas. Protected by management, DynCorp employees in Bosnia bought and sold underage girls as sex slaves. Raping of underage victims with impunity by both US military as well as US civilian personnel in foreign nations is commonplace. With equal impunity, UN peacekeeping forces also regularly engage in sexual misconduct with young girls, in 21 different nations in 2015 alone. Even Wall Street’s largest bank Goldman Sachs was caught investing in a media company running a sex trafficking forum.

Since Pizzagate broke late last fall, a couple of the more noteworthy developments involving individuals connected to PedoGate are the recent search warrants issued for New Hampshire Democrat Alderman and State Representative Thomas Katsiontonis’ home and two of his pizza businesses. Not surprisingly Katsiontonis has ties to both Hillary and Obama. Also infamous pedophile and former Penn State Coach Jerry Sandusky’s adopted and no doubt sexually abused son was arrested on pedo-charges. Currently America’s law enforcement is deploying a strategy of arresting the little fish that feed at the swampy bottom of the predator pond acting as recruiters of child victims supplied to the bigger fish predators at the top of the food chain like the Clintons. As the little fish squeal the beans for lighter sentences, the bigger fish will fry. Ultimately the best means of most rapidly arriving at the full truth is through setting up truth and reconciliation commissions.

Perhaps rounding up the little fish explains multiple international police actions recently making an unprecedented number of busts of large trafficking rings just since Pizzagate broke late last year. A recent ZeroHedge article details the chronology of major arrests involving various sex trafficking networks across America just since Trump took office, which already has doubled the total for the entire year in 2014. With the Epstein case a rare exception, until just recently police officers who’ve devoted their entire careers investigating and cracking pedophile cases have consistently been stopped short of making arrests beyond the lowest levels before their higher-ups in metropolitan, state and federal law enforcement agencies prohibited further pursuit of predators at the top rungs of the pedophile power pyramid.

So far those who are part of the elite that have engaged regularly in pedophilia for literally centuries have been protected by police, high courts and governments, immune from prosecution with very few exceptions. Aside from Epstein, another rare exception is the longest running GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert who to this day is still friends with the Podesta brothers. Though due to expired statute of limitations, since April last year Hastert is doing 15 months in prison for violating banking laws, withdrawing $1.7 million as attempted hush money to pay off a pedophile victim and then lying to the FBI. Since then a number of Hastert’s victims have come forth. Fortunately for humanity, it appears that the age-old protection of sexual predators acting out their evil pathology at the very top levels of power may finally be coming to a close we hope.

Three weeks ago an alleged FBI insider implicated such household names as Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Tim Kaine, Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi as suspected pedophiles soon to be arrested after Attorney General Jeff Sessions signed their arrest warrants. 30 highly known politicians and 40 other suspects involved in the Washington-Virginia-New York City areas that are part of the child trafficking pedo ring will allegedly be arrested.

As public awareness of the growing pedophilia networks increases as an international epidemic, movement by the mainstream media, deranged head shrinks and its controllers have quietly been pushing to acclimate, normalize and ultimately legalize pedophilia. An example is a New York Times article that makes the twisted argument that pedophilia is a mere illness and not a crime. Mass media through the entertainment and mass advertising industries satanically handled by infested Hollywood pedophiles in high places, have sought to brainwash the global population into accepting pedophilia as a mere life choice or sexual orientation. This demented push in mainstream mass media is a well-organized, well-funded, insidiously unfolding propaganda scheme to destroy our values and morality as well as an overt assault on families, religions and national sovereignty, the same centuries held objectives of powerful evil secret societies like the Illuminati and Freemasons.

Yet another disturbing facet of the PedoGate story and its related scandals is the horrific fate of journalists and whistleblowers who have boldly attempted to expose the sinister truth. A long list of these courageous heroes have paid the ultimate price in America and around the world for simply telling the truth. The “suicided” murder of journalist Gary Webb for uncovering the Iran Contra affair that pumped tons of cocaine into America’s ghettos and barrios in the 1980’s was run by VP daddy Bush using his CIA foot soldiers in their war on drugs and minorities for black ops profit. To further decimate the African American community, his successor Bill Clinton and his 1994 Crime Bill needlessly filled up prisons with nonviolent drug offending persons of color, and allocating near $10 billion for private prison construction and keeping the feds’ drug war flourishing. After all as governor, the Clintons had profiteered generously and politically from running HW’s operations out of the Mena airport as the US cocaine distributor during the 1980’s.

Investigative reporter Danny Casolaro stumbled upon the Clintons Mena drug connection under the first Bush regime and while writing a book exposing the Bush-Clinton crime cartel, he was suddenly found dead in a West Virginia hotel room in August 1991 with both his wrists deeply slashed. The evidence he’d compiled in his writing was missing from the crime scene and the fatal cuts made it impossible for his second wrist to be self-inflicted. As two truth telling journalists Webb and Casolaro lost their lives from efforts to expose the Bush-Clinton cabal that with CIA involvement controlled illegal drug and arms running that in turn contributed to the enormous covert black ops budget. Since the Vietnam War the CIA has remained as much or more in control over our planet’s drug smuggling operations than so called organized crime cartels.

Thirty-three year old journalist Michael Hastings died in June 2012 after his late model Mercedes Benz was more than likely electronically remote controlled to speed up to 100 MPH in the streets of Los Angeles prior to it exploding, its engine thrown 100 feet away from where the charred blackened vehicle remains ended up having nothing to do with impact collision with any object or tree. That same day Hastings had told friends his car was behaving strangely and he felt he was being investigated by the FBI, which was true on both accounts. The Rolling Stone reporter had written articles that boldly exposed and ruined one general’s career in Stanley McChrystal and slammed another in a David Petraeus critique of his failed Afghanistan surge. Hastings was very likely targeted by CIA director John Brennan who according to the intel site Stratfor had an axe to grind against journalists, especially ones like Michael Hastings who was working on an expose to uncover deep state’s rampant criminality operating with total impunity around the world.

Less than a year after Hastings’ death, Andrew Breitbart, founder of his own news agency, was most likely murdered after calling John Podesta a pedophile and exposing the Clinton child trafficking ring. Then last year while in Warsaw to speak at a conspiracy theory conference, 39-year old British Ufologist Max Spiers died mysteriously after vomiting two liters of black fluid. Several days earlier, from Poland he texted his mother saying, “If anything happens to me, investigate.” After searching for answers, his mother suspects he was murdered by a satanic cult that had pumped lethal drugs into him.

Within a few days after Hillary lost her election, young journalist Monica Petersen was mysteriously found dead in Haiti. Monica had been working on unraveling the Clinton Foundation’s raping of Haiti for billions of dollars’ worth, focusing on the goldmining operation given to Hillary’s brother and its nexus with Haitian child trafficking. The journalist’s family and friends in the US were kept completely in the dark regarding the bizarre circumstances and cause of her death. What immediately comes to mind is the long trail of fallen corpses over the past many decades left in the wake of the Clintons’ rise and fall. Another fatality was Democratic Party insider Seth Rich who was murdered last June for likely leaking DNC emails to WikiLeaks. Less than a month after lead attorney Shawn Lucas served notice to the DNC for fraud on behalf of Bernie Sanders supporters, he wound up mysteriously dead in early August last year.

On January 17th television news journalist Ben Swann had the balls to run a 7-minute segment featuring the Pizzagate story on his Atlanta CBS affiliate station succinctly capsulizing the strange circumstantial evidence. At the end Swann asks other than internet media why isn’t there a thorough, much needed police investigation as a follow-up. As the first and likely only mainstream media news anchor to date to at least seriously cover Pizzagate without the typical fake news condescension, Swann then disappeared from his CBS job along with his suddenly closed Twitter and Facebook accounts (that had near a half million followers) with only his cryptic message “going dark” on February 1st as his last post. With even his Truth in Media website down, Swann is raising speculation that deep state is silencing yet another media truth teller.

Award winning author and journalist Liz Crokin has resorted to posting a YouTube video to let the world know she is not suicidal in case something foul comes her way after being bruised and roughed up for likely writing a story about how Hillary Clinton swindled thousands from some of her poorest donors by continually charging them for funds they never authorized. As an advocate for sexual assault victims and a victim herself, she is among the few journalists with the courage to take on PedoGate having recently connected with two government whistleblowers.

Clearly heavy risks abound in exposing the dark truth about the planetary controllers. Those of us who seek the truth that will help bring down the evildoers in charge have welcomed Donald Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp.” Now that he occupies a turbulent White House being attacked from all sides by formidable opposition forces bent on destroying his presidency, it remains to be seen if he will survive much less follow through on his campaign promise to purge the scourge that’s long been embedded in the Washington machine. Though we have only just begun to see the earliest results of what appears to be a concerted worldwide law enforcement effort to rid the global child sex trafficking rings that have reached epidemic proportions, humanity’s best chance of saving our children is to clean house by bringing to justice the elite’s grip that’s controlled the pedophile networks for so long. Spreading awareness of what’s at stake here is a must if we are ever to remove the powers-that-shouldn’t-be from destroying our world, beginning with eradicating pedophilia off the face of the earth.

Joachim Hagopian @ http://empireexposed.blogspot.co.id/2017/02/pizzagate-turned-pedogate.html

After his graduation from West Point and service as a US Army officer, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In recent years he has focused on his writing, becoming an alternative media journalist.
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JFK Diary Regarding Hitler's "Suicide"

Thursday, March 30, 2017 6:04 PM
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https://wearechange.org/jfk-diary-shows-he-questioned-whether-or-not-hitler-committed-suicide/

[https://wearechange.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/JFK-532x315.png]<https://wearechange.org/jfk-diary-shows-he-questioned-whether-or-not-hitler-committed-suicide/>

JFK Diary Shows He Questioned Whether Or Not Hitler Committed
Suicide<https://wearechange.org/jfk-diary-shows-he-questioned-whether-or-not-hitler-committed-suicide/>
wearechange.org
A diary written by JFK, shows that both he and Russian officials
questioned the official story surrounding Adolf Hitler's death.









http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/326658-trump-defends-flynns-request-for-immunity

Trump Defends Michael Flynn After He Offered to Testify Against the President
 
Former National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn
President Trump is defending former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s offer to testify in ongoing probes of Russian hacking of the 2016 election in exchange for legal immunity.
Trump wrote on Twitter early Friday morning that investigation had become “a witch hunt,” echoing language used by his former campaign adviser’s attorney.




http://pilotsfor911truth.org/
FBI Releases New Batch of 9/11 Photos from Pentagon Attack
 
One of a recently released batch of photos of the 9/11. Photo via Wiki.
The FBI has released previously unseen photos of the aftermath of the 9/11 attack against the Pentagon.
The 27 photos were posted on the bureau’s website “FBI’s Records: The Vault.”
The American Airlines flight crashed after Al Qaeda terrorists gained control of the plane.
The new photos show interior damage, aerial perspectives and footage from the ground.









https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/mar/30/local-fbi-leader-agency-mission-protecting-us-not/
Local FBI leader says agency’s mission is protecting Americans, not playing politics
 
Mikayla Whitmore
FBI Las Vegas Division Director Aaron Rouse speaks to the media at the local FBI Headquarters, Friday, Nov. 4, 2016.
By Ricardo Torres-Cortez (contact)
Thursday, March 30, 2017 | 2 a.m.
The election of President Donald Trump hasn’t changed how the FBI operates, as the federal agency steers clear of politics despite what “a lot of people would want to have (it be),” said Special Agent Aaron Rouse, the director of the FBI’s Las Vegas division.
"We’re not a political organization; we’re not affected by the politics,” Rouse emphasized to reporters Wednesday from the FBI's Las Vegas headquarters, where he and other special agents spoke.
The “Getting to Know the FBI” meeting with reporters was an effort from Rouse, who was appointed to his position in September, to “bring down the barriers” between the FBI and the public so it understands that investigation methodologies don't quite develop the way they're portrayed in Hollywood.


http://www.deseretnews.com/article/660197443/Nichols-says-bombing-was-FBI-op.html



Nichols says bombing was FBI op
Detailed confession filed in S.L. about Oklahoma City plot
By Geoffrey Fattah
Published: Feb. 21, 2007 12:00 a.m.

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The only surviving convicted criminal in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is saying his co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh, told him he was taking orders from a top FBI official in orchestrating the bombing.
A declaration from Terry Lynn Nichols, filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, has proven to be one of the most detailed confessions by Nichols to date about his involvement in the bombing as well as the involvement of others. However, one congressman who has investigated the bombings remains skeptical of Nichols' claims.
The declaration was filed as part of Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue's pending wrongful death suit against the government for the death of his brother in a federal corrections facility in Oklahoma City. Trentadue claims his brother was killed during an interrogation by FBI agents when agents mistook his brother for a suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing investigation.
The most shocking allegation in the 19-page signed declaration is Nichols' assertion that the whole bombing plot was an FBI operation and that McVeigh let slip during a bout of anger that he was taking instruction from former FBI official Larry Potts.
Potts was no stranger to anti-government confrontations, having been the lead FBI agent at Ruby Ridge in 1992, which led to the shooting death of Vicki Weaver, the wife of separatist Randy Weaver. Potts also was reportedly involved in the 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993, which resulted in a fire that killed 81 Branch Davidian followers.
Potts retired from the FBI under intense pressure and criticism for the cover-up of an order to allow agents to shoot anyone seen leaving the Weaver cabin at Ruby Ridge.
When contacted, the FBI's main office in Washington, D.C., said it could not provide immediate comment on Nichols' claims Tuesday.
Nichols claims that, in December 1992, McVeigh told him that "wh





https://article25news.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/privacy-died-long-ago/


Privacy Died Long Ago
In Uncategorized on 06/03/2013 at 9:12 pm
 
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart of Cincinnati swears in George H. W. Bush as director of the CIA as President Gerald Ford watches. REUTERS/George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
The great forgotten Cincinnati wiretap scandal
By Gregory Flannery
Americans no longer assume their communications are free from government spying. Many believe widespread monitoring is a recent change, a response to terrorism.  They are wrong. Fair warning came in 1988 in Cincinnati, Ohio, when evidence showed that wiretapping was already both common and easy.
Twenty-five years ago state and federal courtrooms in Cincinnati were abuzz with allegations of illegal wiretaps on federal judges, members of Cincinnati City Council, local congressional representatives, political dissidents and business leaders.
Two federal judges in Cincinnati told 60 Minutes they believed there was strong evidence that they had been wiretapped. Retired Cincinnati Police officers, including a former chief, admitted to illegal wiretapping.
Even some of the most outrageous claims – for example, that the president of the United States was wiretapped while staying in a Cincinnati hotel – were supported by independent witnesses.
National media coverage of the lawsuits, grand jury hearings and investigations by city council and the FBI attracted the attention of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and the late U.S. Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.).
As Americans wonder about the extent to which their e-mails, cell-phones and text messages are being monitored, they would do well to look back at a time before any of those existed. Judging by what was revealed in Cincinnati, privacy died long before anyone had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or al Q’aeda.
Turbulence
In 1988 Leonard Gates, a former installer for Cincinnati Bell, told the Mount Washington Press, a small independent weekly, that he had performed illegal wiretaps for the Cincinnati Police Department, the FBI and the phone company itself.
A week after the paper published his allegations, a federal grand jury began hearing testimony.
Gates claimed to have performed an estimated 1,200 wiretaps, which he believed illegal. His list of targets included former Mayor Jerry Springer, the late tycoon Carl Lindner Jr., U.S. District Judge Carl Rubin, U.S. Magistrate J. Vincent Aug, the late U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), the Students for a Democratic Society (an anti-war group during the Vietnam War), then-U.S. Rep. Tom Luken (D-Cincinnati) and then-President Gerald Ford.
A second former Cincinnati Bell installer, Robert Draise, joined Gates, saying he, too had performed illegal wiretaps for the police. His alleged targets included the Black Muslim mosque in Finneytown and the General Electric plant in Evendale. Draise’s portfolio was much smaller than Gates’s, an estimated 100 taps, because he was caught freelancing – performing an illegal wiretap for a friend.
Charged by the FBI, Draise claimed he had gone to his “controller” at Cincinnati Bell, the person who directed his wiretaps, and asked for help. If he didn’t get it, he said, he’d tell all. When the case went to federal court, Draise didn’t bother to hire an attorney. He didn’t need one. In a plea deal, federal prosecutors dropped the charge to a misdemeanor. Found guilty of illegal wiretapping, his sentence was a $200 fine. The judge? Magistrate J. Vincent Aug.
If Gates and Draise had been the only people to come forward, they could easily be dismissed as cranks – disgruntled former employees, as Cincinnati Bell claimed. But some police office officers named by Gates and Draise confirmed parts of their allegations, insisting, however, that there were only 12 illegal wiretaps. Other officers not known to Gates and Draise also admitted to illegal wiretaps. Some of the officers received immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony. Others invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves.
“Due to the turbulent nature of the late ’60s and early ’70s, wiretaps were conducted to gather information,” said a press release signed by six retired officers. “This use began in approximately 1968 and ended completely during the Watergate investigation.”
The press release, whose signers included former Police Chief Myron Leistler, listed 12 wiretaps, among them “a black militant in the Bond Hill area” and a house on either Ravine or Strait streets rented by “the SDS or some other radical group.”
The retired cops’ lawyer said there were actually three Cincinnati Bell installers doing illegal wiretaps, but declined to identify the third.
The retired officers denied knowledge of “any wiretaps involving judges, local politicians, prominent citizens and fellow law enforcement officers or city employees.”
Getting rid of Aug
Others had that knowledge, however.
Howard Lucas, former security chief at the Stouffer Hotel downtown, said he caught Gates and three cops trying to break into a telephone switching room shortly before President Gerald Ford stayed at the hotel.
“I said, ‘Do you have a court order?’ and they all laughed,” Lucas told the Mount Washington Press.
The four men left. But they returned.
“A couple days later, in the back of the room, I found a setup, a reel-to-reel recorder concealed under some boxes,” Lucas said.
Ford stayed at the Stouffer Hotel in July 1975 and June 1976 – two years after the Watergate scandal, when Cincinnati Police officers claimed the bugging ended.
Then there was the matter of a former guard at the U.S. Courthouse downtown. He said he had found wiretap equipment there in 1986 and 1987, just a year before the wiretap scandal broke.
“I heard conversations you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “I heard a conversation one time. they were talking about getting rid of U.S. Magistrate Aug.”
The wiretapping started with drug dealers and expanded to political and business figures, according to Gates. In 1979, he testified, he was ordered to wiretap the Hamilton County Regional Computer Center, which handled vote tabulations. His handler at the phone company allegedly told Gates the wiretap was intended to manipulate election results.
“They had the ability to actually alter what was being done with the votes. … He was very upset through some of the elections with a gentleman named Blackwell,” Gates testified.
J. Kenneth Blackwell is a former member of Cincinnati Council, and 1979 was an election year for council.
Something went wrong on Election Night, Gates testified. His handler at the phone company called him.
“He was panicking,” Gates testified. “He said we had done something to screw up the voting processor down there, or the voting computer.”
News reports at the time noted an unexpected delay in counting votes for city council because of a computer malfunction.
Cincinnati Bell denied any involvement in illegal wiretapping by police or its own personnel. Yet police officers, like Gates, testified the police received equipment – even a truck – and information necessary to effectuate the wiretaps. The owners of a greenhouse in Westwood even came forward, saying the police stored the Cincinnati Bell truck on their property.
‘Say it louder’
Gates claimed that his handler at Cincinnati Bell repeatedly told him the wiretaps were at the behest of the FBI. He named an FBI agent who, he said, let him into the federal courthouse to wiretap federal judges.
Investigations followed – a federal grand jury, which indicted no one; a special investigator hired by city council, the former head of the Cincinnati FBI office; the U.S. Justice Department, sort of.
U.S. Sen. Paul Simon asked then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh to look into the Cincinnati wiretap scandal. Federal judges, members of Congress and even the president of the United States had allegedly been wiretapped. Simon’s effort went nowhere. His press secretary told the Mount Washington Press that it took three months for the Attorney General to respond.
“The senator’s not pleased with the response,” Simon’s press secretary said. “It didn’t have the attorney general’s personal attention, and it said Justice (Department) was aware of the situation, but isn’t going to do anything.”
The city of Cincinnati settled a class-action lawsuit accusing it of illegal wiretapping, paying $85,000 to 17 defendants. It paid $12,000 to settle a second lawsuit by former staffers of The Independent Eye, an underground newspaper allegedly wiretapped and torched by Cincinnati Police officers in 1970.
Cincinnati Bell sued Leonard Gates and Robert Draise, accusing them of defamation. The two men had no attorneys and represented themselves at trial. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Fred Cartolano refused to let the jury hear testimony by former police officers who had admitted using Gates and Draise and Cincinnati Bell equipment. In a 4-2 vote, the jury ruled in the phone company’s favor, officially adjudging the two whistleblowers liars.
During one of the many hearings associated with the wiretap scandal, an FBI agent was asked what the agency would do if someone accused the phone company of placing illegal wiretaps. He testified the FBI would be powerless; it needed the phone company to check for a wiretap.
“It would go back to Bell,” the agent testified. “We would have no way of determining if there was any illegal wiretapping going on.”
The FBI agent was the person Gates had accused of opening the federal courthouse at night so he could wiretap federal judges.
One police sergeant offered no excuses for the illegal wiretapping. Asked why he didn’t bother with the legal niceties, such as getting a warrant, as required then by federal law, he said, “I didn’t deem it was necessary. We wanted the information, and went out and got it.”
At one point, covering the scandal for the Mount Washington Press, I received a phone call from a sergeant in the Cincinnati Police Department. He invited me to the station at Mount Airy Forest, where he proceeded to wiretap a fellow police officer’s phone call. I listened as the other officer talked to his wife.
“Say hello,” the sergeant told me.
I did. There was no response.
“Say it louder,” the sergeant said.
I did. No response.
“You can hear them, but they can’t hear you,” the sergeant said. “Any idiot can do a wiretap. You know that’s true because you just saw a policeman do it.”
Privacy is dead. Its corpse has long been moldering in the grave.





http://www.salon.com/2017/03/29/former-rep-aaron-schock-was-brought-down-by-an-fbi-informant-staffer/


Wednesday, Mar 29, 2017 07:22 PM EDT
Former Rep. Aaron Schock was brought down by an FBI informant staffer
Schock was indicted last year on 24 counts related to alleged misuse of government and campaign funds
Taylor Link Follow Skip to Comments

Topics: Aaron Schock, campaign funds, Congress, Corruption, FBI, House of Representatives, Illinois, Informant, Politics News, News
 Former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock (Credit: AP Photo/Seth Perlman)
Indicted on a slate of corruption charges, Rep. Aaron Schock claims one of his aides illegally gathered evidence against him on behalf of the FBI, a defense motion argued Tuesday. Schock’s attorneys allege that the FBI informant stole thousands of emails from his official House account, in addition to “physical Congressional Office records that were Mr. Schock’s personal property.” Moreover, the motion asserted that the aide tried to “covertly record private conversations with and between Mr. Schock and his staff, including conversations where attorney-client privileged communications were discussed.”
In March 2015, the then-33-year-old Schock resigned as the U.S. Representative for Illinois’ 18th Congressional District after Politico raised questions about tens of thousands of dollars in mileage reimbursements he received for his personal vehicle. During his time in Congress, Schoch was most notable for changing the decor of his office to match “Downton Abbey.”
Months after Schock’s resignation, while the House sergeant-at-arms was overseeing his vacated office, the defense motion alleges that the FBI informant went through the desk of Dayne LaHood, then chief of staff, at the direction of an FBI supervisor and removed fuel receipts, which included Schock’s American Express card information.
According to the defense motion, on the same day, “the CI searched for and seized more than 10,000 emails over several years for himself and another staffer, Shea Ledford, from their government ‘house.gov’ email accounts.”








http://www.startribune.com/media-press-fbi-for-price-it-paid-for-tool-to-unlock-iphone/417221963/




Media press FBI for price it paid for tool to unlock iPhone

March 27, 2017 — — FBI Director James Comey has made public enough details about the bureau buying a tool to unlock an iPhone as part of a terrorism investigation that the agency should also release how much it cost, The Associated Press and two other news organizations said in court papers Monday.
The media companies said Comey has spoken "at length and in detail" about the FBI's purchase last year of a tool that enabled it to break into the work phone of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two shooters in the December 2015 San Bernardino, California, attack.

They told a judge that now that Comey has publicly offered a ballpark price that the FBI paid, and has spoken generally about the limitations of the tool, the bureau should be forced to provide the news organizations with the information they sought.
The AP, Vice Media LLC and Gannett, the parent company of USA Today, sued the FBI in September under the Freedom of Information Act, requesting details on how much the FBI paid, as well as the identity of the vendor.
"While the FBI may have preferred that Comey not seek to justify the agency's purchase so publicly, by doing so he rendered the price subject to disclosure," lawyers for the media organizations said in the latest filing in the case.
The Justice Department in January provided some heavily redacted records from the transaction, but withheld critical details that the AP was seeking. The government argued that the information it withheld, if released, could be seized upon by "hostile entities" that could develop their own countermeasures and interfere with the FBI's intelligence gathering.
It also said in the court filing that disclosure "would result in severe damage to the FBI's efforts to detect and apprehe



http://www.wikikeywordtool.org/agents-125234153-k.html

agents - FBI Agents Association for active duty FBI agents and former ...
http://www.wikikeywordtool.org/agents-125234153-k.html
2 hours ago - agents - FBI Agents Association for active duty FBI agents and former agents "Agent-based Computing from Multi-agent Systems to Agent-Based Models: A ...







Former FBI Agent Clint Watts: Trump used Russian propaganda to go after his opponent







https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/27/23-people-ask-the-justice-department-to-launch-a-criminal-inquiry-into-its-chief-jeff-sessions/?utm_term=.c935efd19131


23 people ask the Justice Department to launch a criminal inquiry into its chief, Jeff Sessions
By Kristine Phillips March 27
 
Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Alex Brandon/AP)
Nearly two dozen people from five states are accusing Attorney General Jeff Sessions of lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his communications with the Russian government and subsequently trying to cover up that lie, according to a complaint sent to the Department of Justice.
The complaint, which names 23 residents, states that Sessions gave false and misleading testimony during his confirmation hearing in January when he told the Senate committee that he “did not have communications with the Russians.” It further accuses the attorney general of covering up the alleged perjury by directing a spokeswoman to make a public statement saying he did not mislead the committee.
“We feel there is probable cause to charge him with a crime,” J. Whitfield Larrabee, a Massachusetts lawyer who represents the 23 residents, told The Washington Post. “We want indictments in the case. We want Attorney General Sessions to be treated just the same as anyone else. We don’t think that just because he’s the attorney general, that there should be a higher standard to bring charges against him.”
[ACLU files ethics complaint against Sessions over communications with Russian ambassador]
Larrabee said the complaint was sent Monday to three Justice Department divisions that investigate alleged crimes and misconduct by agency employees and public officials.
How the agency will handle a complaint against its leader is unclear. Larrabee said the department should appoint a special prosecutor to handle the investigation and prosecution.
A spokesman for one of the divisions, the Office of Inspector General, declined to comment on the allegations. Other Justice Department spokespeople haven’t responded to a request for comment.
The group of complainants, which includes three doctors and a pastor, are from California, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Vermont.
Earlier this month, The Post revealed that Sessions met with Russia’s ambassador to the United States twice last year and did not disclose those communications when asked during his confirmation hearing. The report intensified calls for a congressional investigation i




https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/29/inspector-general-faults-dea-for-seizing-money-without-any-connection-to-a-larger-criminal-investigation/?utm_term=.d43548c78e7f

Inspector General: DEA Seizes Money without Ties to Criminal Investigations
 
Drugs and cash seized in Portland.
By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The DEA is seizing massive amounts of cash from people who are not connected to a criminal investigation, according to a scathing report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
In the 74-page report released Wednesday, the inspector general cautioned that the DEA may be violating the civil liberties of people whose is seized, the Washington Post reports.
The inspector general concluded the DEA was unable to demonstrate how asset forfeiture practices benefit criminal investigations.
The Post cites one example:
The DEA took more than $70,000 from a piece of checked luggage without doing any more investigation or attempting to question the owner at the airport — instead simply putting a receipt in the bag and sending it on to its final destination.
“Even accepting that the circumstances surrounding the discovery of this large volume of concealed currency justified law enforcement suspicion and seizure, we find it troubling that the DEA would make an administrative forfeiture without attempting to advance an investigation, especially considering that the DEA had opportunities to contact the potential owners of the currency instead of simply providing written notice of the seizure,” the inspector general wrote.





FBI OCTOPUS

New FBI Richmond Outreach Initiative - NBC29 WVIR Charlottesville ...
http://www.nbc29.com/story/35040334/new-fbi-richmond-outreach-initiative
6 hours ago - The FBI Richmond Youth Academy will kick off during the summer of 2017, in a ... Thomas M. Chadwick, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Richmond ...




https://muskegonpundit.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-very-strange-story-fbi-agent-didnt.html

MuskegonPundit: A very strange story-----FBI agent “didn't try to stop Garland Terrorist
https://muskegonpundit.blogspot.com/2017/.../a-very-strange-story-fbi-agent-didnt.ht...
7 hours ago - FBI agent “didn't try to stop” Garland jihad attackers — did FBI want Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer dead?: "Although we were co-organizers of the event, ...


http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message3489357/pg1

That Time an Undercover FBI Agent Told One of the 'Draw Mohammed ...
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message3489357/pg1

"Not only had the FBI been monitoring [one of the gunmen] for years," 60 Minutes recounts, but "there was an undercover agent right behind him when the first ...

 




http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/garner-chokehold-discipline-record-sealed-leak-article-1.3013830



The disciplinary record of the NYPD cop who killed Eric Garner using a
chokehold should remain officially hidden from the public – though the
documents leaked just last week, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

The Appellate Division First Department in Manhattan unanimously
reversed a lower court ruling ordering the city to disclose a summary
of Daniel Pantaleo’s disciplinary record.

The unanimous decision by the five judge panel found that Pantaleo’s
record was precisely the type of “personnel records” relevant civil
service laws were designed to keep under wraps.

“In light of the widespread notoriety of Mr. Garner’s death and
Officer Pantaleo’s role therein, and the fact that hostility and
threats against Officer Pantaleo have been significant enough to cause
NYPD’s Threat Assessment Unit to order around-the-clock police
protection for him and his family, and notwithstanding the uncertainty
of further harassment, we find that the gravity of the threats to
Officer Pantaleo’s safety nonetheless demonstrate that disclosure
carries a ‘substantial and realistic potential’ for harm, particularly
in the form of ‘harassment and reprisals,’ and that nondisclosure of
the requested records under Civil Rights Law is warranted,” Justice
John Sweeny Jr. wrote.

CCRB worker forced to quit for info leak on cop who killed Garner
The Legal Aid Society had sued for a summary of Pantaleo’s
disciplinary record under the state’s Freedom of Information Law,
arguing that the summary did not constitute the cop’s “personnel
file.”


Daniel Pantaleo’s NYPD disciplinary record will remain obscured from
public view — but the mandate is only a formality, as a rogue CCRB
employee leaked them last week. (JEFF BACHNER)
The judges rejected that argument.

“There is no question that the summary sought involves one officer and
are part and parcel of his personnel file,” Sweeny wrote.

The decision represents a significant precedent for police reform
advocates seeking to hold police officers accountable. They can still
appeal to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals.

Two cops testify in Eric Garner case at Brooklyn Federal court
But Pantaleo’s record has already been released.


Pantaleo killed Eric Garner with an NYPD-banned chokehold in 2014.
(ACQUIRED BY: TOMAS E. GASTON)
Last week, the website Think Progress posted the record, which was
provided by a former Civilian Complaint Review Board employee.

The leak showed that Pantaleo had had four civilian complaints
substantiated against him, but was only docked two vacation days as
punishment, prior to killing Garner on Staten Island in 2014.

In all, seven CCRB complaints — including 14 allegations — were made
against Pantaleo before the



http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ccrb-worker-forced-quit-info-leak-killed-garner-article-1.3007427

The Civilian Complaint Review Board employee who leaked information
about the cop who put Eric Garner in a deadly chokehold has been
forced to resign, officials said Thursday.

Faced with the prospect of termination for divulging reports on NYPD
Officer Daniel Pantaleo, the worker chose to pack it in, sources with
knowledge of the case said.

The employee, who was hired as an investigator, was considered a
“junior staff person” who worked for the CCRB for less than a year and
did not work on any complaints against Pantaleo, sources said.

The CCRB confirmed Thursday that the leaked information was authentic.

Eric Garner's mom meets Omarosa at White House for probe update
“After a swift and thorough internal investigation, the Civilian
Complaint Review Board identified the employee who was the source of
the leak,” Jerika Richardson, senior adviser and secretary to the
board said in a statement. “As of today, that individual no longer
works at CCRB.

Heat is Online

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/29/dead-sea-evidence-unprecedented-drought-future-warning-climate-change




 
Dead Sea evidence of unprecedented drought is warning for future
A 30-metre layer of salt discovered beneath Dead Sea reveals drought
worse than any in human history – and it could happen again

Tim Radford for Climate News Network, part of the Guardian Environment
Network
Wednesday 29 March 2017 07.48 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 29 March
2017 09.45 EDT

Far below the Dead Sea, between Israel, Jordan and Palestinian
territories, researchers have found evidence of a drought that has no
precedent in human experience.

From depths of 300 metres below the landlocked basin, drillers brought
to the surface a core that contained 30 metres of thick, crystalline
salt: evidence that 120,000 years ago, and again about 10,000 years
ago, rainfall had been only about one fifth of modern levels.

The cause in each case would have been entirely natural. But in the
region where human civilisation began, already in the grip of its
worst drought for 900 years, it is a reminder of how bad things could
get and a guide to how much worse human-induced climate change could
become.

Syria’s drought 'has likely been its worst in 900 years'
 Read more
“All the observations show this region is one of those most affected
by modern climate change and it’s predicted to get dryer. What we
showed is



Link du jour
http://www.thesullenbell.com/2017/03/21/no-other-choice/

http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.com/2017/03/28/decapitation/


http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-alex-tizon-20170328-story.html



http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-wrongful-conviction-20170328-story.html


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/dodges-jail-time-pleading-guilty-attack-nyc-woman-article-1.3012033

Cop dodges jail time after pleading guilty to attack of NYC woman



NYPD cop was sleepwalking, not drunk, when he hit woman
BY BEN KOCHMAN  ROCCO PARASCANDOLA  RICH SCHAPIRO
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, March 30, 2016, 2:45 PM
 
A doctor has diagnosed Eugene Donnelly with post-traumatic stress
disorder and various sleep disorders dating to the May 2012 shooting.
(MICHAEL SCHWARTZ /FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
Keep dreaming, pal.

A hero-to-zero Bronx cop charged with breaking into a woman’s
apartment and drunkenly assaulting her was actually sleepwalking, his
lawyer claimed Tuesday.

"Our report shows that it wasn't an alcoholic blackout. It was
sleepwalking," lawyer Michael Marinaccio said after Officer Eugene
Donnelly appeared in Bronx Supreme Court, where he faces misdemeanor
assault and burglary charges.

Prosecutors say a drunken Donnelly, 27, roughed up his victim after
barging into her Woodlawn apartment in June 2014 wearing only his
underwear.

The alleged attack took place hou



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/tenn-deputy-celebrating-birthday-killed-police-shooting-article-1.3013067

Tenn. deputy celebrating 26th birthday killed in police shooting


 March 29, 2017, 3:39 PM
 

UPDATE: Chattanooga police fatally shoot Hamilton County Sheriff's
Office deputy04:20

UPDATE: Chattanooga police fatally shoot Hamilton County Sheriff's
Office deputy
WRCBtv.com | Chattanooga News, Weather & Sports
Police officers fatally shot an off-duty Tennessee sheriff's deputy
who was celebrating his birthday with friends after he refused to drop
his weapon, officials said.

Daniel Hendrix, a corrections officer with the Hamilton County
Sheriff's Office, was celebrating his 26th birthday with two female
off-duty Chattanooga police officers when the incident occurred at a
Shawnee Trail home at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation said.

Hendrix suddenly became agitated and was carrying his personal gun
when he lashed out at the female officers. The women managed to flee
the home and one of them called 911, the TBI said.


Deputy Daniel Hendrix was fatally shot in Chattanooga, Tenn., while
celebrating his birthday. (FACEBOOK)
Two on-duty Chattanooga police officers responded to the home and
found Hendrix armed in the backyard, investigators said. The officers
commanded Hendrix to drop his weapon, but he didn’t comply — prompting
one officer to fire at him at least four times, witnesses and
officials said.

Baltimore police show bodycam video of SWAT fatally shooting man
Hendrix was taken to a hospital, where he died.


The scene where Deputy Daniel Hendrix was fatally shot Wednesday. (AP)
In a statement, Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond offered
condolences and prayers to Hendrix’s family. He called the shooting an
“unfortunate incident.”

The corrections officer worked with the Hamilton department since
2013. He was charged with assaulting a female inmate at Silverdale
Detention Center in 2015, but was cleared of all charges and
eventually returned to his duties, according





http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/md-teen-fatally-shot-cops-day-making-bond-graphic-article-1.2969047



Md. teen fatally shot by cop one day after making bond (GRAPHIC)


Friday, February 10, 2017, 7:56 AM

 
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/de-blasio-defends-killed-ramarley-graham-quit-article-1.3013258

Mayor de Blasio defended the process that allowed the cop who killed
Ramarley Graham to resign before he was fired — and said he’d only
meet with the victim’s mom under certain conditions.

Officer Richard Haste quit Sunday night, after an NYPD department
trial found him guilty of exercising poor judgement and “intent to
cause physical injury” in the February 2012 shooting death of Graham,
18, who was unarmed.

Graham’s mother, Constan






http://touch.latimes.com/#section/2426/article/p2p-92925292/

March 30, 2017
Mexican state attorney general arrested at U.S. border in San Diego on
drug trafficking charges



 Federal agents in San Diego have arrested the attorney general for
the Mexican state of Nayarit on charges that he conspired to smuggle
heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine into the U.S.

Edgar Veytia, 46, was detained Monday at the U.S. border in San Diego
on an indictment handed down by a grand jury in New York, Ralph DeSio



http://resistancereport.com/resistance/crowdfunding-lawmakers-internet/



Republicans in Congress just voted to allow Americans’ browser history
to be bought and sold. A genius crowdfunding campaign wants to use
that against them.

The website searchinternethistory.com is attempting to raise $1
million in order to put in bids to purchase the internet history of
leading Republicans and Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
members. The first histories the site aims to buy are those of Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), House Speaker Paul Ryan
(R-Wisconsin), Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), and FCC
Chairman Ajit Pai.

“If it takes a million dollars to get real change, I am sure a million
people are willing to donate $1 to help ensure their private data
stays private,” wrote Adam McElhaney, who launched a GoFundMe campaign
for the endeavor.

McElhaney clarified on the GoFundMe campaign’s site that while he
understands the privacy risks of using social media, the privacy rules
Congress just eliminated goes far beyond what he feels is acceptable.

“I understand that what I put on the Internet is out there and not
private. Those are the risks you assume. I’m not ashamed of what I put
out on the Internet,” he wrote. “However, I don’t think that what I
lookup on the Internet, what sites I visit, my browsing habits, should
be bought and sold to whoever. Without my consent.”

McElhaney, who describes himself as “a privacy activist & net
neutrality Advocate,” argues that since both houses of Congress have
passed bills allowing anyone’s browser history to be sold and
purchased by major telecom giants like Verizon, that the American
people should be able to buy the browser records for their elected
officials. If successful, the site aims to publish a searchable
database of browser history for every member of Congress who voted to
gut former President Barack Obama’s regulations prohibiting
corporations from viewing Americans’ browser histories.

“Everything from their medical, pornographic, to their financial and
infidelity. Anything they have looked at, searched for, or visited on
the Internet will now be available for everyone to comb through,” the
site promises, next to a survey of which public official’s browser
history should be published first. “Since we didn’t get an opportunity
to vote on whether our private and personal browsing history should be
bought and sold, I wanted to show our legislators what a democracy is
like. So, I’m giving you the opportunity to vote on whose history gets
bought first.”

“Help me raise money to buy the histories of those who took away your
right to privacy,” McElhaney adds.

Those who don’t have the means to donate money to the campaign are
being asked to donate any legal skills they may have, so the site’s
administrators can navigate around the tricky legal battlefield of
purchasing and publishing the internet history of some of the most
powerful people in the United States.

As of this writing, the campaign has raised nearly $100,000.
0
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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/brooklyn-prosecutor-sexually-assaulted-woman-car-police-article-1.3133922

 

 

 

Brooklyn Sex Crimes  prosecutor sexually assaulted woman in car, police say

  • Chrismy Sagaille, who was busted for drunk driving and now for sexual assault, is walked out of the NYPD SVU stationhouse Wednesday.

 

Updated: Wednesday, May 3, 2017, 2:34 PM

A Brooklyn sex crimes prosecutor busted last year for DWI surrendered Wednesday to cops for the alleged sexual assault of a woman inside her car, sources said.

Troubled lawyer Chrismy Sagaille, 31, turned himself at the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit in Harlem over the Sunday night attack that began after the accuser gave the lawyer a ride home, sources told the Daily News.

The two were headed home around 11 p.m. from a party with mutual friends when Sagaille asked the victim for a lift.

He will face charges of sex abuse, forcible compulsion and forcible touching linked to a pair of incidents inside the car.

Sagaille initially grabbed the victim’s face and stuck his tongue into her mouth, with the woman fighting him off, source

 

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/protester-trial-laughing-jeff-sessions-hearing-article-1.3133598

Three activists convicted for protesting Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing, face one year in prison

 

Updated: Wednesday, May 3, 2017, 3:29 PM

Three activists could face one year in prison for protesting — or simply laughing — at a confirmation hearing for Jeff Sessions.

Members of the Code Pink activist group were convicted Wednesday of federal charges for disrupting the January hearing for the man who is now U.S. Attorney General.

One of the convicts, Desiree Fairooz, was arrested after laughing at the hearing.

In a statement, Code Pink called the convictions "an affront to justice and contrary to the kind of peaceful tolerant world we all deserve to live in."

Sessions decries murderers, rapists and thugs of MS-13 on L.I.

Fairooz and two fellow members, Tighe Barry and Lenny Bianchi, were charged with "disorderly and disruptive conduct"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/jordan-edwards-accused-shooter-served-iraq-article-1.3133449

 

Fired Texas cop accused of fatally shooting black honor student Jordan Edwards joined police force in 2011, served in Iraq 

 

 

 

 



https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/25938-digital-privacy-group-challenges-hacking-warrant-in-child-porn-case

Digital Privacy Group Challenges "Hacking" Warrant in Child Porn ...

The New American-

The FBI's reasoning (if it can rightly be called that) was that federal agents had the ability to inject malware into the server that would work its way back to the ...

 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will argue in court today that the warrant used by the FBI in the now infamous “Playpen” child pornography case was unconstitutional. EFF — an organization dedicated to preserving digital liberty — is concerned about the precedent this case will set if the warrant is allowed to stand.

As The New American reported in a previous article, the case stems from a two-week period in 2015 when the FBI operated a child pornography website and used the traffic to that website to inject malware to the computers of visitors to the site:

The case goes back to 2015 when the FBI operated a child pornography website for two weeks. Yes, you read that right. From February 20 to March 4, 2015, the FBI ran a website with more than 23,000 actual pictures and videos of children being sexually abused, including more than 9,000 of which could be downloaded by visitors to the site. According to court records, some of those children were almost too young to be in kindergarten.

It began when the FBI discovered the location of the server for the so-called Playpen website, which was accessible only via the Tor network. The FBI raided the location, arrested the operator, and made the decision to leave the website up and running and allow visitors to the site to continue downloading images and videos. The FBI’s reasoning (if it can rightly be called that) was that federal agents had the ability to inject malware into the server that would work its way back to the users’ computers, defeating Tor’s anonymity all along the way. The FBI tracked the site’s visitors and later made more than 135 arrests including “a pediatrician, a math teacher, a professor, a public school administrator, a preschool teacher, a former bank executive and a federal drug enforcement agent,” according to a report from deepdotweb.com. Somehow, in the darkened mind of the FBI, the arrests justified spending two weeks peddling child pornography. And this is at least the third time the FBI has done this type of thing.

But then, this is the same FBI that helped the NSA give us Fast and Furious.

In the two years since the FBI made the arrests in the “Playpen” case, those cases have been making their way through the courts. There have been a variety of legal challenges, but now EFF will argue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts, today that the FBI’s decision to use “a single, general warrant to authorize its massive hacking operation” amounts to “violating the Fourth Amendment,” according to a press release by the Internet privacy group.

 

Of course, it is easy to misinterpret the actions of groups such as EFF in a case such as this one. But lest it appear that EFF is defending child pornographers, that is not the only (or even the main) issue he

 

http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.com/2017/05/03/pungency/

 

 

 

 

pungency

“… As a new type of propaganda war on free speech emerges in the political landscape of America and Europe, it is critical to note that viewpoints which oppose the profitability of major companies who invest in advertising will not be tolerated. This leaves us with the need to create evermore avenues of journalistic expression where genuine truth can be published and access by a body politic clearly hungry for truth.

Friday’s remarks on this incident serve as a warning to future generations of Americans:

“That’s okay, hopefully my children and my grandchildren will see that this last cartoon published by Farm News out of Fort Dodge, Iowa, will shine light on how fragile our rights to free speech and free press really are in the county.” [Source]

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/05/01/long-time-iowa-cartoonist-fired-daring-speak-truth-monsanto-profits/#new_tab 

 

 

 


http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/FBI-Has-Open-Case-File-on-Dallas-Shooter-Who-Killed-Roommate-Injured-2-Others-421051803.html

 

Dallas Gunman Was Under FBI Investigation Before Shooting 3 People

 

The FBI was investigating a Dallas man before he fatally shot his roommate and critically wounded a neighbor and paramedic on Monday.

Derick Lamont Brown, 36, was the subject of an active, open FBI investigation, NBCDFW.com reports. 

Eric Jackson, special agent in charge of the Dallas FBI, confirmed the investigation Tuesday and said his office was reviewing the case file on Brown, who has ties to two black nationalist groups.

 

http://www.wthr.com/article/comey-mildly-nauseous-to-think-fbi-affected-election-outcome

Comey 'mildly nauseous' to think FBI affected election outcome

WTHR-

FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 3, 2017, before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: "Oversight of the ...

 

 

 

http://www.kcra.com/article/can-police-force-someone-to-give-up-their-phone-passcode/9597344

 

Can police force someone to give up their phone passcode?

KCRA Sacramento-

Legal rights regarding cell phone passwords have become a prominent legal issue in recent years, notably highlighted by Apple's refusal to allow the FBI into ...

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nsa-spying-phone-records_us_590983dae4b0bb2d08732a48

 

 

NSA Reportedly Collected Americans' Phone Records Even After ...

Huffington Post-11 hours ago

The report said that on one occasion in 2016, the FBI obtained information about an American in response to a search of Section 702 data intended to produce ...

The U.S. National Security Agency collected more than 151 million records of Americans’ phone calls last year, even after Congress limited its ability to collect bulk phone records, according to an annual report issued on Tuesday by the top U.S. intelligence officer.

 

 

 

http://nation.foxnews.com/2017/05/03/fbi-black-lives-matter-inspired-cop-killings-new-norm

 

FBI: Black Lives Matter-inspired Cop Killings 'The New Norm'

Fox News-

An internal FBI investigation into the spike of attacks on law enforcement has determined that revenge, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, the media's ...

 

 

 

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-secret-service-spent-on-jared-kushner-and-ivanka-trumps-whistler-trip/

 

May 2, 2017, 6:17 PM

What Secret Service spent on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's Whistler trip

Last Updated May 2, 2017 11:37 PM EDT

When Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner took their family to a ski resort in Whistler, Canada during Passover last month, U.S. Secret Service went, too, and the cost of their portion of the trip was over $65,000.

CBS News' Laura Stricker confirms, based on a review of federal purchase orders, that the U.S. Secret Service spent the following on Jared Kushner's and Ivanka Trump's family trip:

  • $6,884.03 for "multi-day ski passes for USSS personnel"
  • $59,654.39 for "hotel accommodations for USSS personnel"

The purchase orders to do not appear to show the travel costs incurred for Secret Service on the trip.

http://qctimes.com/news/local/government-and-politics/grassley-casts-doubt-on-fbi-credibility-in-political-inquiries/article_22a9d008-50ab-5212-a4cb-b51a85a43cad.html

 

Grassley casts doubt on FBI credibility in political inquiries

Quad City Times-34 minutes ago

Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., confer Wednesday as FBI Director James Comey ... of doubt" hanging over the FBI's investigation into issues surrounding the 2016 .

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/watch-comey-admits-fbi-investigating-leaks-to-giuliani-and-trump-team/

 

WATCH: Comey admits FBI investigating leaks to Giuliani and Trump Team

Raw Story-

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, FBI Director James Comey told senators that he is “very, very interested” in the possibility that ...

 

 

 

 

 

 
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https://rightsanddissent.org/news/five-reasons-fired-comey-concerned-nonetheless/



Five Reasons Why We Would Have Fired Comey And Why We Are Concerned Nonetheless

May 10, 2017 by Chip Gibbons

FBI Director James Comey
FBI Director James Comey. Photo by Brookings Institution /CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Sometime yesterday afternoon James Comey, under the impression that he was still director of the FBI, was giving a speech when he glanced at a TV and saw a report that he had been fired. Comey proceeded to compliment his audience on having pulled off such an amusing prank. While it is best to avoid speculation, it is likely that Comey’s amusement dissipated when several FBI employees stopped him mid-speech and he learned that there was in fact no prank.

Comey’s firing is troubling. Trump’s firing of the man overseeing an investigation concerning himself and his associates oozes Nixonian vibes. Trump will now get to pick Comey’s replacement. Given Trump’s disregard for civil liberties, we can only brace ourselves for the worse. And if Trump’s pick is particularly deferential, Trump could potentially consolidate control over the FBI and have the agency’s spying apparatus at his disposal to pursue his own political–and even petty personal–grievances.

Trump in control of the FBI is frightening.

In spite of the objectively terrifying nature of these facts, Comey should not be lionized. Under Comey’s command the FBI engaged in a whole of host of outrages against the Bill of Rights, primarily directed at dissidents and minority communities. not suspected of any wrongdoing.

These abuses are not unique to Comey and have been the norm throughout the FBI’s history. The FBI’s disregard for civil liberties is bigger than any individual personality, but as director, Comey should have been held to account for them.

In light of the termination of Comey’s tenure as FBI director, we offer a list of five of the more shocking moments from a civil libertarian perspective. Under any meaningful system of oversight that respected civil liberties, any one of these would have led to Comey being called to account and serious efforts to reform and overhaul the FBI to be initiated. This does not justify Trump’s dismissal of Comey nor does it nullify our concerns about it. Trump’s actions were almost certainly self-serving and corrosive to a system in which no single person is above the law. Yet, having struggled to reform the FBI for decades, we feel that any discussion about the FBI must acknowledge the very real and urgent need to reform the agency.

1. Targeting of the Muslim community with infiltrators and provocateurs

Much to the horror of many across party lines, Trump called for the surveillance of mosques during his campaign. Yet, the FBI routinely deploys undercover agents and paid confidential informants into the Muslim community, including into mosques. These informants not only gather data about American Muslims, but they propose phony, non existent terrorist schemes and attempt to entice people to participate. Individuals are then arrested for agreeing to participate in plots imagined by the FBI and its informants that never actually existed.

Sometimes these people are already on the FBI’s radar, but in many cases they come into contact with the FBI by complete chance. The latter type of instance raises the question of why. If there is no suspicion of a crime, why are informants and infiltrators combing through American mosques collecting information and manufacturing crimes. The only conclusion is that the FBI views American Muslims as inherently suspicious.

This state-sponsored Islamophobia helps to foment more Islamophobia. In his second Muslim Ban executive order, Trump cited as justification two of these FBI-manufactured terror plots.

This did not start with Comey, but it continued to occur with alarming regularity under his tenure. He therefore bears some responsibility.

2. Touting the non-existent Ferguson Effect

Comey lent credence to the bogus “Ferguson effect.” According to this discredited thesis, individuals who used their First Amendment rights to protest a pattern of abuses they have been subjected to by law enforcement or call for law enforcement to follow the Constitution are responsible for an uptick in crime because police are afraid to enforce the law. Comey’s willingness to validate this theory without any evidence was clearly political, and served to demonize the Movement for Black Lives.

3. Overseeing Continued Spying on Political Activists

The FBI habit of spying on political activists is as old as J. Edgar Hoover. Much like the targeting of the Muslim community we can’t lay the blame for initiating this policy on Comey, but we can hold him responsible for continuing it..

We know for a fact during Comey’s directorship that agents with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force paid visits to activists at their homes. These include Black Lives Matter protesters, who were advised not to protest at the Republican National Convention and most recently, Standing Rock Water Protectors. Additionally, during Comey’s tenure at least a dozen anti-Keystone Xl Pipeline activists received visits from FBI agents. Agents told the activists they were not suspected of crime, but that the agents wanted to learn more about their movement. A Houston based FBI investigation into anti-Keystone Xl Pipeline investigators was found to have violated the FBI’s own internal policies for safeguarding the First Amendment, an amazing feat given how loose they are.

In the run up to the election, FBI agents also paid visits to a number of Muslims-Americans of Afghani and Pakistani national origin in eight states days asking vague questions about an election-day related terror plot. Many viewed this move as an act of voter intimidation against Muslim-Americans.

4. Trying to get a backdoor into your private communications.

Comey has consistently fought to get a backdoor for the FBI into all of our private devices. He claimed that, because of encryption the FBI was in danger of “going dark,” unable to get information it needed due to encryption. Comey frequently claimed this was making it difficult to combat terrorist like ISIS.

Here’s the problem, when Defending Rights and Dissent provided public comment to the Information Security and Privacy Board (ISPB) about encryption the FBI also testified during the same session. The FBI, when talking to a board that included technology experts, freely admitted that the encryption genie was out of the bottle, and even if they got a backdoor into commercial US manufactured goods, there would always be foreign-produced encryption devices. FBI representatives stated that groups like ISIS would probably not use these devices, but there were domestic criminals, such as drug dealers, who would use them.

Given points 1 and 3, there is good reason why individuals would want to use encryption. Comey’s misleading politicization of encryption in order to accumulate power for the FBI at the expense of everyone’s civil liberties was unacceptable.

5. Pretending with a straight face the FBI is not political.

Alright, this isn’t actually a fireable offense and would be unreasonable to expect any FBI director not to defend the FBI. However, given the FBI’s long history of spying on First Amendment activities and Comey’s blatant politicization of a reported crime uptick or encryption, it was hard to listen to him pretend that the FBI wasn’t already politicized.

What Next

Trump’s firing of Comey raises serious questions. They cannot and should not be ignored. No one is above the law and for the President to fire someone tasked with investigating his administration should send chills down everyone’s spine.

Those questions can be pursued while also using this moment to enact pivotal reforms of the FBI. Trump will nominate a new director. The Senate Judiciary Committee must ask this individual probing questions about the FBI’s spying on the First Amendment. Any individual who does not pledge to safeguard civil liberties must not be confirmed.

And if people are concerned with Trump using the FBI, Congress can make statutory reforms that place checks on this. This should have been done long ago, but with widespread panic about Trump, hopefully Congress will finally act.

We are, to be honest, deeply frightened about what comes next. If Trump creates a situation where no one can hold him accountable, we are in a deep crisis. We are also disturbed about who Trump will nominate and Trump consolidating his grip on the FBI to escalate its worst tendencies.

Now is not the time to despair. Members of Congress and the general public are waking up to the very real problems posed by the growth of an unaccountable intelligence/law enforcement agency. We need to use this moment to not only to check Trump, but to finally create real mechanisms for oversight and accountability of the FBI.

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Link du jour


https://act.credoaction.com/sign/warriors?t=3&akid=23853.7997446.AD7lkf


https://www.theguardian.com/global/shortcuts/2017/jul/02/dark-stock-photos-twitter-account

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/01/national-rifle-association-liberal-enemies-dana-loesch

http://www.uen.org/artconnection/pastepisodes.php



http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/340444-sanders-my-wife-is-perhaps-the-most-honest-person-i-know

Sanders: 'My wife is perhaps the most honest person I know'


BY OLIVIA BEAVERS - 07/02/17 01:11 PM EDT




https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/jun/30/cia-us-and-soviet-propaganda/

Read the CIA’s 1951 list comparing U.S and Soviet Propaganda
by Alec Shea
June 30, 2017
In 1951, as the Cold War was intensifying, the CIA decided to see how Voice of America radio broadcasts into Eastern Europe compared with Soviet efforts. In a remarkably candid document, the Agency critically assessed the similarities and differences between U.S. and Soviet propaganda, which they noted had a lot more in common than most Americans would think.





http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-impeachment-march-20170702-story.html


Thousands expected at march to impeach President Trump in downtown Los Angeles







https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/jun/29/minnesota-prison-phones/

Minnesota records give detailed look at commission charges in State prisons
Music, games, email, and other tablet-friendly services are a growing slice of a literally captive market
Written by Beryl Lipton
Edited by JPat Brown
As part of MuckRock’s inquiry into the costs and commissions of prison communications, the Minnesota Department of Corrections recently released materials detailing their monthly numbers for tangential communication services provided by JPay, a collection of fees that amounted to roughly $260,000 in commissions in the twelve months from May 2016 through April of this year.
Numbers related specifically to the use of telephones or telephone account balances, which are handled by another company, GTL, were not provided.
However, the materials that were sent - divided by month, service type, and facility - offer insight into a growing trend among in-prison entertainment and communications, where the captive consumer population provides a clear opportunity for an Inmate Calling Services provider like JPay.
The company already has a well-established relationship with jails and prisons nationally and pre-existing equipment in many of them. Beyond the phone call, they offer a range of other services, including videos, music, games, and email, all of which provide additional chances for service fees and commission cuts.

In Minnesota and elsewhere, music purchases comprise a significant portion of inmate spending and, thus, a larger cut of facility commissions, thanks in part to tablet technology that can provide video, email, music, and games all in one piece of equipment.

Despite having one of the lowest prison populations in the country, Minnesota, nonetheless, feels the strain of an overcrowded system.
MuckRock will continue to investigate the role of commissions and private companies in the American prison system.







https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/engaged

Learning through engaged citizenship.

engagEd is a resource for educators who wish to teach the tools of engaged citizenship and involve students in solving the world’s problems.

To create this collection of resources, AWTT invited the portrait subjects and the organizations that represent them, their ideas, and legacies, to produce lesson and activity plans that could be used in middle or high school classes to build bridges between the classroom and the most important issues affecting student’s lives.

These lessons are created by changemakers with strong opinions. AWTT’s staff has edited and curated these activities and lessons to offer educators and their students a window into the thought processes, lives, and dedication of activists who work for economic, social, and environmental justice. Each activity offers a particular point of view that we believe is worth understanding and exploring. It will be up to each teacher to ask questions or present materials that help students see other points of view. One way to do this is to always ask, “What is the other side of this issue?”

Above you will find two ways to sort the lessons. With the first, you can sort lessons into three broad discipline areas: Arts, Humanities, and Math, Science and Technology. With the second, you can find out which activities other teachers are using most, or the newest lessons we recommend you try. For teachers participating in the Samantha Smith Challenge, these activities offer a great starting point for introducing your students to the idea that they can be part of the solution to the problems they see around them.

Teach your students to think like activists. Show them how to be citizens in a democratic society. Engage them in finding solutions for real world problems. With these tools and the confidence to use them, they will discover their own voices as citizens.




Learning To Think Differently About Difference: A Lesson Plan by Alice Rothchild

When we learn about people who are different from us or conflicts and wars in other parts of the world, we see these people, conflicts, and wars through the lens of our own societies with our own assumptions, preconceptions, and language. Often our media reinforces these assumptions through language and point of view and fails to challenge us to think “out of the box” which is the first step in imagining creative solutions and actions that can lead to greater understanding and resolutions of controversial issues.
For example, discussions around Israel/Palestinian often trigger heated emotions that come from the legacy of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, the treatment of the indigenous Palestinians, and the narrative that major powers and mainstream media use to read more...
Are Human Beings Naturally Violent or Naturally Peaceful?: A Lesson Plan by Paul K. Chappell

Are Human Beings Naturally Violent or Naturally Peaceful?
If human beings are naturally violent, then we will continue to have wars. If human beings are naturally peaceful, then world peace has a chance. Let's explore the possibilities. read more...
Free Schools for Free People: A Lesson Plan by William Ayers

How can we make free schools for free people?
Schools are mirror and window into society—that is, schools always reflect and reveal their host communities: schools in a theocracy teach reverence; schools in an ancient agrarian community teach cultivation and animal husbandry; schools in an read more...
How To Know if Your Water Is Safe: A Lesson Plan by Diane Wilson

Is your drinking water and the water you swim and fish in safe?
In 1972 Congress passed the "first" Clean Water Act. It stated that the US waterways would have 'zero emissions' by 1984.That goal was not met. read more...
How War Can Be Abolished: A Lesson Plan by David Swanson

The Abolition of War
In a December, 2015, U.S. presidential debate, a moderator asked a candidate whether he could serve as Commander in Chief and defined that as being willing to kill innocent children by the thousands. In 1996 the U.S. read more...
Connecting through Portrait Drawing: A Lesson Plan by Tilly Woodward

Connecting With The World and Its People Through Portrait Drawing
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joeb

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Posted Reply with quote  #275 
http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2017/08/17/92972/

SHELL’S TOP SPOOKS AT WAR WITH EACH OTHER
Aug 17th, 2017 by John Donovan.



By John Donovan

Earlier this year we published an article about a spectacular falling out of ‘Security Professionals’ at the top of Shell.

Readers may recall the Mooch like comments attributed to Shell’s US boss Bruce Culpepper about Shell’s Business Integrity Department. He said that they “could not investigate their way out of a wet paper bag;” “they cannot investigate worth a shit;” and that he “did not want those fuckers involved…” If Bruce Culpepper denies that he made these memorable comments, then he is free to sue me for defamation.

Former FBI Special Agent Crockett Oaks III joined Shell in 2003 and until recently was paid over $325,000 per year as head of Shell Security in the Americas. He fell out with his bitchy boss, the British spook James W.D. Hall, Vice President of Corporate Security, located at Royal Dutch Shell plc’s Global Headquarters in the Netherlands.

The falling out was over the hiring of another recruit to Shell’s corporate security Mike Oliveri, another guy with a senior military/security affairs background.

Shell picked on the wrong guys to upset, Crockett Oaks III and Mike Oliveri.

Crockett Oaks III sued Shell for a “systemic pattern and practice of intended discrimination at Shell and its parent company, Royal Dutch Shell plc”.  Basically, discrimination and retaliation.

He had the goods on Shell, which quickly settled for big bucks. The secret details, juicy quotes and revealing Shell internal emails were sealed into a confidentiality agreement. Fortunately, I have an excellent US source.





False news? Is Pundit working for the FBI?


http://www.blacklistednews.com/FBI_Admits_Federal_Informants_Linked_to_Deadly_Charlottesville_Riots%3B_Unlikely_To_Face_Charges/60366/0/38/38/Y/M.html



FBI ADMITS FEDERAL INFORMANTS LINKED TO DEADLY CHARLOTTESVILLE RIOTS; UNLIKELY TO FACE CHARGES
Published: August 16, 2017


 


FBI insiders said it is unlikely leaders of the radical groups that clashed in demonstrations turned deadly in Charlottesville, VA will face prosecution.

Why?

FBI said they have already identified several federal informants who participated in the mob-like riots over the weekend in Virginia. The FBI is also now working those sources to piece together the events from Charlottesville, sources said.

But FBI agents have deemed the newly-minted investigation dicey, having to navigate separate agreements with embedded intelligence assets while trying to pinpoint responsibility for the violence.

Late Saturday, the Justice Department announced the federal probe. The investigation, spearheaded by the Richmond, VA FBI field office, was launched after an Ohio man drove his car through a crowd of demonstrators killing one woman and injuring dozens.

The FBI has Intel assets implanted in several white supremacy sects, as well as the radical ANTIFA group, according to federal law enforcement sources who spoke to True Pundit.

The FBI sources said it is unlikely an asset would be charged for stoking violence in Virginia if for instance that asset had or was providing valuable information on another domestic terrorism case.




Real News.Gives names of sources of information.

https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/08/16/really-happened-durham-nc-nasty-thought/

AUGUST 16, 2017 | MILICENT CRANOR
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN DURHAM, NC? A NASTY THOUGHT


Protesters, Durham, Confederate statue
Protesters prepare to pull down a Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina. Photo credit: CBS North Carolina / YouTube (screenshot).



On August 14, in Durham NC, something strange happened that does not make sense to me.

A protester climbed up on the statue of a Confederate soldier, tied a rope around his neck, gave a signal, and her fellow activists pulled until the statue came crashing down. Then several others converged on the statue, viciously, exuberantly, kicking it again and again.

This was done under the watchful eyes of law enforcement — who were filming every moment of the incident. As Fox News reported, “At no time did officers with the Durham Police Department or deputies with the Durham County Sheriff’s Office intervene… according to multiple media reports.”



At first I thought, how nice. The police are allowing the crowd to let off steam.  After what happened in Charlottesville, the participants needed a catharsis, and this one seemed harmless enough, especially since such statues will probably be brought down anyway. So the police seemed to be indulging them.

And yesterday morning, Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews seemed to confirm this impression. He said “Collectively, we decided that restraint and public safety would be our priority.”

When police are said to have used restraint, it suggests they restrained themselves from using excessive force. But in this case, it seems the police weren’t using any force at all.

Could the crowd have assumed this non-reaction amounted to tacit permission?   

The Durham Police Department said later that they monitored the protests, but made no arrests because it is the county Sheriff’s Office that has jurisdiction over county landmarks. Then the sheriff went on to say something I found chilling:

“With the help of video captured at the scene, my investigators are working to identify those responsible for the removal and vandalism of the statue.”

But had the police called to the woman as she began her climb up the statue and ordered her to get down, the whole incident could likely have been prevented.   

Now I wondered whether this was a trap. Encourage them to misbehave, get it on film, then make arrests.

But what would be the motive? Hatred on the part of southern white police officers for those they perceive as lefties? Not impossible. After all, North Carolina is ranked 11th in the nation in number of hate groups.  

Then a nasty idea crawled into my mind. It’s probably nonsense, but it won’t go away: Is it possible that a few good ‘ol boys in key law enforcement positions have been quietly instructed to give Donald Trump a hand — and gather visual evidence suggesting such demonstrators are as violent as he claims? (The beat cops on stand-by would not necessarily be told why.)

Trump has been saying that films prove both sides are to blame for the tragedy in Charlottesville, but he’s been having a hard time selling that idea. Could this be what’s behind the “restraint?”   

Perhaps not. One can think of a range of explanations, some more benign.

But we live in dangerous times —  and a little proactive consideration of worst-case scenarios seems advisable. To see a few such examples, please go here, here, here, here, and here.



https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ544189

ERIC - A Quantitative Description of FBI Public Relations., Public Relations Review, 1997
ED.gov › eric › ...
by DC Gibson - ‎1997 - ‎Cited by 12 - ‎Related articles
A Quantitative Description of FBI Public Relations. Gibson, Dirk C. Public Relations Review , v23 n1 p11-30 Spr 1997. States that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had the most successful media relations ...






https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-charlottesville-nazis-confederate-monument/537195/


How the President, the Police, and the Media Embolden the Far-Right
The Atlantic-
When former FBI agent Michael German heard President Trump characterize the deadly violence that unfolded in Charlottesville, Virginia, after white nationalists ...



http://shellnews.net/blog/DonovanvRoyalDutchShell.htm

JOHN DONOVAN -v- ROYAL DUTCH SHELL

EDITED VERSION OF INFORMATION SUPPLIED TO A THIRD PARTY

PART 1

I have provided information with links to cited documents, letters, emails, and articles, all of which are posted online. This means there is no document bundle. Instead you can easily view the items, printing off hard copies if you deem appropriate. There are some links that you probably won't feel it necessary to open e.g. media articles. Such background information is provided just for confirmation purposes.

The evidence comes from various sources including discovery in previous litigation with Shell, correspondence with Shell, leaked information, and information obtained from Shell in response to our annual Subject Access Requests made under the UK Data Protection Act.

The events set out will hopefully explain the sense of deep injustice that has driven my activities for the last decade.

My late father Alfred Donovan and I have campaigned for many years, mainly via the Internet, for Shell to operate according to the pledges set forth in its own statement of Business Principles.

1. Bouts of investigative activity directed against me by Shell stretching back 18 years.

As will become apparent, Shell resorted to using so-called enquiry agents to gather information about me since 1994.

In 1998 it involved undercover activity. A “Mr Christopher Phillips” presented fake credentials when visiting our offices. He obtained information about my father and me under false pretences. The activities of Mr Philips have been admitted in writing by Shell. It was made clear in a letter we received from Shell's lawyers that Mr Phillips was not the only “enquiry agent” being used by Shell. This was presumably meant to intimidate me. Shell refused to reveal the brief given to the "enquiry agents."

The excuse given of making “routine credit enquiries” does not stand up. Routine credit enquires can be made instantaneously using modern technology. The questions he asked staff about us had nothing to do with credit enquiries. He was clearly engaged in gathering information about my family and me, asking for example what the purpose was of our visits to the USA.

2. Without my knowledge:
a) In November 1998, Shell published an article about me in a Shell internal magazine. Authored by then Shell UK Legal Director Richard Wiseman, it accused me of being dishonorable and of smearing a Shell employee.
b) Shell issued press releases containing libellous comments about me.
c) Shell put posters on public display at The Shell Centre in London publishing a statement claiming that allegations I had made were without foundation. In other words, I was not telling the truth.

3. In June 1999, at the climax of my cross-examination during a High Court trial, an entrapment attempt was made by Shell lawyers.
Shell lawyers conveyed to me in an unorthodox fashion - partly in stage whispers loud enough for the judge and me to hear - the supposed news that evidence was on its way to the court by motorbike messenger that would prove I was a forger. If true, this would of course have been a serious criminal offense. It would also mean that I had committed perjury. If fact, there was no motorbike, no messenger and no evidence. It was all an outright deception. As a result of the totally false accusation, my home was searched by a team acting for the court. All documents/records in my possession were removed, some of which were never returned. No evidence was found because none existed. As you will see, we later complained to the UK Lord Chancellor. That proved to be a complete waste of time.

4. From 2006 onwards Shell kept and updated “Focal Point” information about me (and my father and our activities).
We only became aware of this secret activity after we filed a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act in 2007. Some of the information in the reports is inaccurate. We have copies of reports updated in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. One example supplied from each year.

The "Focal Point" seems to be a person rather than the title of the document. I believe the person was Mr Richard Wiseman, a name already mentioned that you will see many times herein. It is plain from the reports that there is an anxiety at Shell about the possibility that we would ask a question at the AGM. A list of possible questions and rehearsals of responses are listed in the Focal Point reports. The same possibility is also the subject of discussion in Shell internal email correspondence.  Surprising bearing in mind that the last time we asked a question at a Shell AGM was in 1995. My fathers exchange with the then Shell Transport chairman, Mr John Jennings, self-evidently made a long-lasting impact!

5. In June 2007 Shell secretly contacted and threatened our website hosting companies in Canada and the USA.
Shell briefly succeeded in a behind the scenes attempt to close our website down (Shell subsequently confirmed in writing that it had intervened).

6. In March 2007 Shell secretly set up a counter-measure team in response to our campaigning activities.
Shell internal communication dated 9 March 2007 15.28

7. Later the same month, probably as part of the counter-measures operation, Shell implemented a worldwide spying operation.
Its objectives included trying to trace my inside sources at Shell by “monitoring internal emails from Shell servers globally to Donovan” and identify “internal” traffic to our website.
A Shell internal email dated 31 August 2007 said that Shell employees had been instructed not to visit our website.

8. Shell internal communications contained personal information about me and/or relating to me.
In one email dated 11 March 2007, someone at Shell expressed the hope that “with AD getting older, his interest might wane… but it looks as though JD is just as determined.”

9. In 2007 (& 2010) - Shell secretly considered putting pressure on national newspapers concerning my activities
In July 2007, Shell stated an intention in an internal email in February 2007 to put pressure on The Sunday Times to "kill" an article about our intervention in the Sakhalin 2 project (which according to The Sunday Times article cost Shell £11 BILLION). The entire content of the article was read out to me on a Saturday morning by Steven Swinford, the Sunday Times journalist and the paper was due to go to press later that day. The article included an interview with a Russian Government minister Oleg Mitvol to whom I had supplied leaked Shell internal communications. Mr Mitvol made damaging comments about Shell management. By coincidence or otherwise, the article was killed. Shortly thereafter, by coincidence or otherwise, The Sunday Times published a colour Shell/Ferrari advertorial.

On 27 July 2010, Shell discussed the possibility of applying pressure to the Financial Times  concerning me and the website.

10. In breach of the terms of the 1999 compromise settlement with us, Shell maliciously offered two years later, in 2001, to give information to a third party company that was bound to reflect badly on my reputation.

As a consequence, I served notice on Shell that it had repudiated the agreement. Shell denied this and threatened legal action, but never took the issue to court.

11. In September 2010 Shell engaged in correspondence with an unknown party about my activities and accused my father and me of blackmailing Shell.
I believe, but do not know for certain, that the person who made the allegation was Mr XXXXXX XXXXXXXX, a very senior official of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. We knew nothing about the correspondence until we obtained it from Shell after making a SAR application. The blackmail allegation is totally without foundation. We have never sought any payment from Shell since the High Court litigation ended in 1999. All of our website actively has always been entirely non commercial.
With regards to Mr XXXXXXX, he accidentally sent us a copy of an email about my father that he had intended to send only to the then RDS CEO Jeroen van der Veer and the then No2 at RDS, Malcolm Brinded. Consequently, we knew that the top executive directors had been kept informed about our activities. It was also apparent from the email that Shell "PX" kept a standard response about us ready to use as needed. An item we have never seen.

12. It is evident from the SAR generated information that Shell transmitted information about me across national boarders.

Employees of Shell Oil Company in the USA sought and obtained information about me and my father from Royal Dutch Shell Plc in Europe. They thought we were brothers.

13. In an email dated 3 March 2011 Mr Michiel Brandjes, the Company Secretary & General Counsel Corporate of Royal Dutch Shell Plc threatened legal action against me.

The threat was meant to put me off from publishing the evidence I have accumulated of Shell's close association with Hitler and the Nazis in the years leading up to World War 2. Some of the evidence comes from Volumes 1 & 2 of "A History of Royal Dutch Shell." Archive evidence gathered from newspapers and other publications in several countries confirms that Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis.

MY BACKGROUND

My father owned a small chain of garages in Essex. Shell was one of his suppliers from around 1957. I joined the family business immediately after leaving school.
I served as a stand in petrol station manager for an oil company (Petrofina) when I was 17 and subsequently took a tenancy on a Fina petrol station in Colchester. I took over day-to-day management of my fathers garage businesses in 1967.

We found that we had a genuine flair for devising petrol sales promotions. In 1979, we co-founded a sales promotion company, Don Marketing. I ran the company.

LEADING THE WORLD IN PROMOTIONAL GAMES

The above claim, made in many whole page advertisements in trade magazines was legitimate. To the best of my knowledge, no company before or since has devised such a wide range of innovative promotional games.

We had many clients across the retail spectrum and business dealings with US TV networks, including NBC. (Agreement signed by Ray Timothy, the then President of NBC and me).

We also created and supplied on-pack promotions e.g. Cinzano Instant Roulette.
Petrol promotions were a speciality. Our promotions ran on the forecourts of most major brands in the UK and we acted as consultants to BP.
I also authored articles about promotional games for magazines such as Marketing Week and have acted as an expert witness in court cases relating to promotional games.

SHELL

In May 1981, we began a relationship with Shell UK. We entered into a written joint agreement in respect of a Shell Make Money game we had devised to overcome a legal obstacle that had blighted an earlier promotional game with the same name run by Shell in 1967.

In 1983, Shell launched our Make Money game in the UK. Because it was an award winning spectacular success, we also run it for Shell in overseas markets . We subsequently devised and supplied a series of major promotions for Shell in the UK and overseas, often with a £4.5 million budget per promotion. We enjoyed a mutually beneficial, trusting relationship.

Our last promotion for Shell was in 1991. This was a Star Trek themed “Every Card Can Win” scratch-card game involving a distribution of 100 million game cards. A front page lead story with coverage stretching over several pages in “Promotions & Incentives” magazine, provided an account of how I set up a licensing deal in principle with Paramount Films (via their Senior VP Jonathan Zilli) before I had even put the idea to Shell. When I did so, Shell immediately abandoned the promotion it had intended to run, and switched to the Star Trek game.

Will Shell's intergalactic experiment pay off?

PART 2

ANDREW LAZENBY

In 1992, we presented in strictest confidence, a series of ideas to a newly appointed Shell UK National Promotions Manager, Andrew Lazenby. After giving us a very positive response to our proposals, including encouraging email messages, he secretly funnelled our ideas to an agency with whom he had a special relationship.

It was evident from his diary obtained during discovery years later, that he was a disgruntled employee who had recorded his intent to set up a personal business while at Shell and exit the company at the age of 35, presumably on the basis of building up sufficient funds in the meantime. He had an offshore bank account into which funds were paid. We also found out from discovery documents, that Lazenby was prepared to engage in an illegal act on behalf of Shell.

One after another, our ideas were adopted for national promotions launched by Shell all through the same agency, Xxxxxx Xxx, linked with Lazenby. He was a personal friend of the directors. They visited his house for dinner parties. He went to the theatre with them. He arranged for them to be awarded a SMART contract that had been put out to tender, even though they never took part in the tender. I found irrefutable evidence in discovery that he had masterminded the rigging of the tender process. I still have all of the evidence. The conspiracy involved other Shell staff including his line manager.

LITIGATION BETWEEN 1994 AND 1996

The first three breach of confidence High Court actions brought by our then company Don Marketing (in 1994) were in respect of short-term promotions. A rerun of Shell "Make Money" (that we had proposed to Mr Lazenby), a Nintendo themed instant win game, and a "Now Showing" movie themed promotion.

From the outset of our litigation with Shell, we faced a barrage of threats including a threat in a letter dated 27 April 1994 to make the litigation "drawn put and difficult." The obvious intent was to drain our financial resources.

We therefore decided to counter the stonewalling and threats by mounting a campaign against Shell alongside the litigation (and followed that same strategy during the SMART litigation).

A Press Release issued by Shell UK in March 1995 provides some idea of the wide scope of our campaigning activities. We issued libel proceedings in respect of the “false claims” allegation made in the press release.

While the litigation was in progress we received a substantial financial package in the form of a unique Funding Deed.  This was partly in return for agreeing to file a notice of discontinuance in respect of the libel action. The terms of the Funding Deed provide a further indication of the scope of our activities.
The first three actions were all settled by Shell out of court.

THE SHELL SMART LITIGATION 1997 to 1999

In 1997, I confronted Shell about their launch in the UK of the SHELL SMART multi-brand loyalty card. This was long before the advent of the similar NECTOR scheme. Shell SMART is still being run in many markets around the world. I devised the concept and had disclosed the idea to Shell (via Mr Lazenby) in strictest confidence. Being in respect of a long-term promotion, which could be introduced into many countries, the Shell SMART case was by far the most important High Court action in terms of potential damages.
I also issued libel proceedings against Shell in respect of press releases by Shell relating to the SMART litigation.

Shell Legal Director Richard Wiseman “personally” kept senior Shell directors informed of progress in the SMART case. This included then Group Chairman, Mr Cor Herkstroter and two titled Shell Transport directors. Sir William Purves and Sir Peter Holmes (a former Group Chairman of the Royal Dutch Shell Group). The significance of the two latter names will become apparent.

Shell’s machinations during the run-up to the SMART trial, completely undermined the concept of a fair litigation process.

POSTERS ON DISPLAY AT SHELL HQ

On 23 September 1998, Shell put posters on public display at the Shell London HQ building, the Shell Centre, specifically about my father and me. We were the sole topic. I have never heard of a multinational corporation doing anything like this before or since.

ANOTHER LIBELOUS SHELL PRESS RELEASE

A press release issued by Shell in November 1998 contained the same allegations as were published in the aforementioned internal magazine article, accusing me of being dishonourable and of smearing a Shell employee. I only found out several years after the trial as a result of a SAR application.

SHELL TORPEDOED MY LEGAL AID

Shell completely undermined my financial situation by sending a letter (from Mr Wiseman) to the legal aid board making an allegation based on reasonable speculation. It happened to be completely untrue. My legal aid was revoked and the SMART trial date arrived in June 1999, before the judicial review on the matter could be heard. It meant that if I lost the case, I would be responsible for all legal costs and would have to declare bankruptcy, with a vengeful Shell as my major creditor. The same thing happened to my fathers legal aid - granted then revoked on entirely inappropriate grounds, namely that he had nothing to lose. This was despite the fact that he had put every penny he had into funding the litigation. Again the trial arrived before the judicial review of his application.

SHELL CORRUPTED THE DISCOVERY PROCESS

Shell buried evidence in a mountain of mainly irrelevant documentation and due to incompetence or design, delayed until days before the trial, the supply of vitally important handwritten discovery material. Other relevant items only came to light years later, when I made an application to Shell under the UK Data Protection Act. For example, the article by Richard Wiseman published in a Shell internal magazine.

SINISTER EVENTS

A series of sinister events took place in the period leading up to the SMART trial in June 1999, the only case that went to court.

It is my opinion that the incidents frightened my key witnesses, Roger Sotherton (a former director of Don Marketing), John Chambers (another former director of the company) and Paul King, the retired National Promotions Manager Of Shell UK. One incident was admitted by Shell, but only after we had cornered Shell and its external solicitors, D J Freeman.

Shell and DJ Freeman admitted in writing the activities of a Mr Christopher Phillips, but denied knowledge of all other events and related individuals.

The self-explanatory letters below provide an accurate contemporary account of what happened.

John Donovan letter to The European: 9 June 1998
Letter from the editor of The European: 11 June 1998
Letter to Dr Chris Fay, Chairman & CEO, Shell UK Limited: 15 June 1998
(Note the mention of “an investigative specialist” used by Shell in the earlier litigation, commenced in 1994, which I had brought against the company:
“Shell did retain an investigative specialist in connection with the previous litigation. They made investigations about me going back over a decade.”)
Reply letter from DJ Freeman on behalf of Dr Fay: 16 June 1998
Letter from John Donovan of Don Marketing to The European newspaper: 16 June 1998
Royds letter to DJ Freeman (with enclosures): 18 June 1998
Royds letter to John Donovan of Don Marketing: 18 June 1998
John Donovan letter to DJ Freeman: 18 June 1998
Correspondence between DJ Freeman (acting for Shell) and Royds Solicitors (acting for John Donovan: 19/23 June 1998
Letter from John Donovan of Don Marketing to Shell Chairman Mark Moody-Stuart: 23 June 1998
Letter from John Donovan of Don Marketing to Shell UK Legal Director Richard Wiseman: 23 June 1998
(Includes my question asking if Phillips had engaged in surveillance or phone tapping activities against me.)
DJ Freeman letter to Royds Treadwell:24 June 1998
Letter from Shell UK Legal Director Richard Wiseman to John Donovan: 24 June 1998
(Mr Wiseman confirms Phillips was instructed by Shell/DJ Freeman but ignored my question about whether the instructions included authorisation of surveillance or phone tapping activities against me.)
Royds letter to DJ Freeman 25 June:1998
(Extract: Mr Phillips enquiries at the business centre involved a straightforward deception of the receptionist.)
Letter from Richard Wiseman to John Donovan:1 July 1998
(Extract: “So far as, I have been able to discover, nobody in any Shell company has any knowledge of Mr Hoots.” Note letter copied to Mark Moody-Stuart, the Group Chairman and Dr Chris Fay, the CEO and Chairman of Shell UK Limited.)
Letter from DJ Freeman to John Donovan: 3 July 1998
(Extract: “If, nevertheless, the police wish to obtain any further information from my clients or from anyone involved in enquiries on their behalf, including Mr Phillips, then, as has been said on several previous occasions, the fullest of co-operation will be given.”)
Letter from Shell UK Legal Director Richard Wiseman to John Donovan, Don Marketing:9 July 1998
(Extracts: “Both Mr Joseph and I have denied any Shell involvement in any of the intimidation you allege. The activities of Mr Phillips have, of course, been admitted.“: “Neither you, your family, nor any potential witness, has any cause for physical fear as a result of your prosecuting this case with all the vigour we have come to expect.“
DJ Freeman letter to Don Marketing 7 August 1998
Letter to John Donovan from Shell solicitors DJ Freeman: 11 August 1998
(Confirms internal investigation by Shell)
Letter to John Donovan from Shell solicitors DJ Freeman: 26 October 1998
(Further confirmation of an internal investigation by Shell)

There is more correspondence, but it is repetitive.

A UK national newspaper, The Guardian, investigated Mr Hoots (the person mentioned in some of the above correspondence. )A senior person at the paper told me that Charles Hoots had not written any articles for some considerable time and that in their opinion he was probably a “spook” (their term) working under the cover of being a journalist.

The Guardian also investigated a threatening anonymous call I received relating to the litigation that I reported to the Police. The Guardian managed with the help of a special unit at the telephone company to track down the telephone box in London from which the call was made. They obtained and examined closed circuit TV videotapes from a local bank. Unfortunately they were unable to identify the caller.  

When the journalist working on the planned Guardian article (Mr Simon Rines) had a subsequent meeting at Shell-Mex House with Mr Wiseman, Mr Joseph and someone representing Shell’s media department, to discuss these matters, both sides taped the interview. A letter my father sent to Colin Joseph on 23 November 1998 makes reference to the meeting and what was discussed. It said that I accepted denials made by Wiseman and Colin Joseph. I suspect, but cannot prove, that additional activity was arranged at a much higher level.

PART 3

HAKLUYT & COMPANY

In 2001, The Sunday Time published an article about a spy firm Hakluyt retained by Shell and BP to target campaigners, using a serving German secret service agent on an undercover freelance basis.

Sunday Times: MI6 'firm' spied on green groups: 17 June 2001

I obtained documentary evidence from Companies House that titled Shell directors to whom we had written about the litigation, were also major shareholders/directors and the ultimate spymasters of Hakluyt. Sir Peter Holmes (now deceased), as previously indicated, a former Group Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, was President of the Hakluyt Foundation, which provided an oversight function, and Sir William Purves was Chairman of Hakluyt & Co Ltd. Both of these gentlemen were listed as being in attendance at the AGM in 1995 during my fathers exchange with John Jennings.

I have evidence (available on request) that Hakluyt uses journalists for intelligence gathering activities - a perfect cover.

Despite all that happened, Shell did not disclose to the Police, or to me, its close association with Hakluyt, an organisation skilled in the intelligence gathering tactics that had been directed against us, which were, as indicated, used against other parties also perceived to be enemies of Shell.

We received a denial from Hakluyt of any involvement, but the bizarre circumstances of our dealings with the then Hakluyt MD, a former senior MI6 officer, and the carefully couched content of the letter we received from him, drafted by a titled lawyer, Sir Anthony Hammond KCB QC - only added to the intrigue.

To summarise, Mr Hoots came to the UK specifically to gather information about my case against Shell and incurred substantial costs. He never approached Shell to find out their side of the story, only my solicitor, my witnesses and me. He never published an article. He used false pretences when speaking to all of us and gained access to an array of documents.

The initial underhand activity soon turned into something even more sinister.

My main witness, Mr Roger Sotherton, returned home one evening to discover that his house had been burgled and that someone had examined his files on the case. When I reported this astonishing development to my solicitor Mr Richard Woodman, he shocked me by revealing that his home in South London had also been burgled.

A short time later, my house was also broken into. Files were tampered with and someone obtained sight of a privileged document that Shell had failed to obtain despite making an application to the court. Although I lived in Suffolk and Roger Sotherton lived in Norfolk, the police sent the same forensic team that had attended at his house.

The police investigated the whole series of events including the anonymous telephone call. They interviewed staff at Shell-Mex House including Andrew Lazenby. The police discussed setting a trap at a further address (the home of Paul King - see below) that they thought was also likely to be targeted, but this was not done as far as I know. The Police eventually advised me off the record that despite the fact that they had concluded there had been a criminal conspiracy against us, it was unlikely that it could ever be proved to the satisfaction of a Court.

The burglary activity did have an impact on the trial. Roger Sotherton, whose evidence was crucial to my case, was not his normal self and although he confirmed the main facts, his evidence was given in a faltering manner that did not inspire confidence. His memory was called into question because he could not recall something that had happened a few days earlier during the trial. When pressed at one point in his cross-examination, he testified under oath that Shell papers in his possession were tampered with during the burglary at his house. He also referred to the burglaries at the homes of other people involved in the litigation. He was clearly frightened by the series of sinister events.

Another key witness, Mr John Chambers, backtracked on evidence he had planned to give after he became aware that he had also been the victim of an interview under false pretences by Mr Hoots. Mr Chambers gave evidence in court but omitted the most vital aspect relating to Mr Paul King, who took early retirement on medical grounds from his long-serving position as Shell National Promotions Manager. Mr King, who had expressed reservations about the ethics of Mr Lazenby and Shell, became too frightened to give evidence.

Thus the evidence of all of my potential key witnesses was undermined and/or neutralised by the sinister events, with one, Paul King, refusing to give evidence on behalf of Shell or me.

BIASED JUDGE

Unfortunately it became increasingly evident during the SMART trial that the Judge, Mr Justice Laddie, was not impartial. I later discovered that he had undisclosed connections with Shell.

The Judge expressed not the slightest interest in the burglaries, or the admitted uncover activity, although being aware of both matters. He actually quoted from a letter from me published by Marketing Week magazine in which the undercover activity was mentioned. See “Judges Comments” below.

In 1999, D J Freeman represented the Harrods boss, Mohamed Fayed, in a libel action brought against him by Neil Hamilton, a former UK MP. Hamilton lost the case and then (unsuccessfully) appealed the decision after it was discovered that documents had been stolen from his premises prior to the case coming to Court. The documents had been passed to Mohamed Fayed who used them to his advantage during the trial.

In 2001, a third party company to whom I was providing advice approached Shell to confirm that Shell would not object to the launch on the Internet of a paperless Make Money type game.

Mr Wiseman took the opportunity to offer information to the third party company that could only be construed as being damaging to my reputation. I had hoped that the project would restart my career, but Wisemans malicious intervention torpedoed that prospect. Since this was in breach of a peace treaty concluded as part of the compromise settlement of the SMART litigation, I served notice on Shell that it had repudiated the agreement. All of the correspondence is available.

The information Wiseman offered to supply to the company was known as “Judges Comments”. Comments made by Mr Justice Laddie when he was supposedly just going to rubber stamp a compromise settlement agreed between the parties. I was told that it was not necessary to attend court since it was just a formality.

In his “Judges Comments”, Mr Justice Laddie said he was considering calling in the Director of Public Prosecutions because he thought that the allegations of Shell’s QC that I had committed forgery, perjury and perverted the course of justice, had more than passing strength to them. As can be seen from the transcript, there was a heated exchange between the Judge and my lead barrister, Geoffrey Cox, who happened to be a criminal law specialist. Relatives and friends who have read the transcript say that it is plain from the exchange that the Judge was biased against me. I agree. (In 2002, an appeal was unsuccessfully brought against a Laddie judgment accusing the judge of having "an appearance of bias".)

AMBUSH & ENTRAPMENT

The lawyers acting for Shell sprung an ambush in court, using outright deception in an attempt to entrap me at the climax of my cross-examination. Partly in stage whispers loud enough for the Judge and me to hear (but not picked up in entirety by the transcriber) the Shell lawyers discussed with the lead Shell barrister, Geoffrey Hobbs QC., the pending arrival at The Royal Courts of Justice of a motorbike messenger on his way from J Sainsburys, the supermarket group, with evidence, which by implication, would prove that I had forged the J Sainsburys related documents in question. The motorbike would not arrive until 2pm at the earliest. In reality there was no such messenger and no such evidence. It was a complete deception, a theatrical performance. The Judge was fascinated and gave encouragement to what was going on (as this extract from the trial transcript of 18 June 1999 confirms) presumably unaware of the deception.

This is what Mr Justice Laddie said to Geoffrey Hobbs QC, the lead barrister acting for Shell:

Yes. Would you like me to rise for five minutes? I have very acute hearing. I am deliberately not listening, but I am also immensely inquisitive and I am find it hard. Would you prefer me to rise?

Mr Hobbs may also of been unaware that he was being used in a deception perpetrated by the instructing solicitors, DJ Freeman.

In a subsequent related exchange between the judge and Geoffrey Cox on 22 June, Cox pointed out that Shell had previously admitted receiving the documents in question. Despite this admittance, a Shell lawyer at the trial apparently came up with the theory that the documents did not exist at the time of my dealings with Lazenby and that I had created/forged them at a later date. Cox complained about what he correctly described as an ambush. The Judge earlier described the trial as being dreadful and the accusations about the documents as being a load of old tosh.

The trial was suspended after my barrister strongly objected to what was going on and a team of lawyers, mostly from my solicitors but acting for the court, travelled overnight to my home in Bury St Edmunds, arriving early in the morning and carried out an extensive search lasting all day. This was of course extremely upsetting to my family. All of my files stretching back decades were removed and no doubt inspected. Not all were were returned.  An original handwritten letter to me from Mr King in which he expressed reservations about Shell was missing. No evidence of any wrongdoing was found because none existed.

The documents in question were subjected to forensic examination. The expert, Dr Audrey Giles, found no evidence of forgery. Dr Giles could not make any firm determination because the documents were not first generation copies and the originals had been destroyed by Sainsbury’s.

In his cross-examination on 1 July, Lazenby said in relation to the documents in question that seeing them in the months before the trial "seems to jog memories"... He then described this as "only a dim recollection", before reverting to his early denials. If he had told the truth, the forgery allegations would have been shot down.

I would have thought that attempted entrapment would not be allowed even in a criminal trial. As far as I know, no sanctions were applied by the court. Shell and DJ Freeman have declined to comment.

By the time of making Judges Comments, Mr Justice Laddie had apparently decided that the accusations were not all tosh.

According to Mr Cox, the row over the Judges Comments continued in the Judges chambers. The Judge had been unaware of the terms of settlement. A document had been deliberately withheld by Shell. The judge thought I had caved in when in fact ALL of my legal costs were paid by Shell and I received a token payment. I would not agree to settle without a payment.

I agreed to an unsatisfactory outcome, including a so-called joint press statement announcing a stalemate outcome, purely because of the immense pressure put on me as a result of Shell’s machinations, with the dire possibility of Shell ending up as my main creditor. It was the second or third settlement offer made by Shell at the time of the trial and came when the cross-examination of Mr Lazenby was in progress and about to reach a climax.

Email from Richard Wiseman confirming that settlement terms had been withheld from the Judge: 17 June 2008
We later discovered that the Judge had an undisclosed connection with the son of the Royal Dutch Shell Group Chairman, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart and that the Judges long time friend, Mr Tony Willoughby, was the founder was an IP consultancy, which had Shell as a client.  The Judge knew that the Moody-Stuart family had become involved in the litigation because an extraordinary handwritten letter we received from the wife of Sir Mark was handed to the Judge at an early stage in the trial.

In 2002 we wrote to the Judge via his Clerk, Mr Peter Smith, concerning a possible conflict of interest in respect of his connection with Mr Tom Moody-Stuart, but the judge refused to enter into correspondence.

My father wrote a letter to the Lord Chancellor in May 2004 outlining events and requesting an investigation. We published the letter and a related sworn affidavit on the Internet. Thus Mr Justice Laddie was no doubt well aware of our views and was placed in a difficult position, with his credibility and reputation being publicly called into question.

By coincidence or otherwise, several months after we received a reply from the Lord Chancellors office saying they could not comment on individual judicial cases and suggesting that we should seek legal advice, the Judge resigned in controversial circumstances (June 2005) and joined the consultancy firm of his friend Tony Willoughby, which had Shell as a client. Shortly thereafter Professor Sir Hugh Laddie was a speaker at a seminar organised by Richard Wiseman.

Doubts were raised about the reason the judge gave for his resignation (boredom), which caused a sensation in legal circles. Mr Justice Laddie was the first High Court Judge to resign for 35 years. He certainly seemed to have something on his mind. Tragically he passed away in 2008 as a result of cancer. It was clear from tributes made at the time that he was a much liked and widely respected Judge. My concern was of unconscious bias, not anything dishonorable.

I would never have agreed to him hearing the case if I had known of his Shell connections.

PART 4

MORE RECENT ACTIVITY DIRECTED AGAINST ME BY SHELL

In 2002, the year after serving notice on Shell that it had repudiated the peace treaty, we launched a website focused on Shell, initially under the main domain name shellnews.net.
The most recent proceedings were launched against my father in 2005 by Shell via the World Intellectual Property Organisation. I managed to beat Shell to the registration of the top-level domain name for the unified company; Royal Dutch Shell Plc. I registered royaldutchshellplc.com in my fathers’ name and launched a new website under that domain name. Shell lost the case.

Despite disclaimers and other indicators that it is not the official Royal Dutch Shell Plc website, we still receive job applications, business proposals and even terrorist threats meant for Shell. I have written permission from the RDS Plc Company Secretary Mr Michiel Brandjes to check the mail meant for Shell, removing junk mail and passing on what I judge they should see. I have always been the person operating the websites and associated matters on a day-to-day basis.
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US scientists find heart attack survivors given canakinumab injections have fewer future heart attacks and lowered cancer risk by half


Sunday 27 August 2017 23.25 EDT First published on Sunday 27 August 2017 05.00 EDT

Anti-inflammatory injections could lower the risk of heart attacks and may slow the progression of cancer, a study has found, in what researchers say is the biggest breakthrough since the discovery of statins.

Heart attack survivors given injections of a targeted anti-inflammatory drug called canakinumab had fewer attacks in the future, scientists found. Cancer deaths were also halved in those treated with the drug, which is normally used only for rare inflammatory conditions.

 The controversy over statins has revealed something: the nocebo effect is real

Statins are the mainstay drugs for heart attack prevention and work primarily by lowering cholesterol levels. But a quarter of people who have one heart attack will suffer another within five years despite taking statins regularly. It is believed this is because of unchecked inflammation within the heart’s arteries.

The research team, led from Brigham and Women’s Hhospital in Boston, tested whether targeting the inflammation with a potent anti-inflammatory agent would provide an extra benefit over statin treatment.

The researchers enrolled more than 10,000 patients who had had a heart attack and had a positive blood test for inflammation into the trial, known as the Cantos study. All patients received high doses of statins as well as either canakinumab or a placebo, both administered by injection every three months. The trial lasted for four years.

For patients who received the canakinumab injections the team reported a 15% reduction in the risk of a cardiovascular event, including fatal and non-fatal heart attacks and strokes. Also, the need for expensive interventional procedures, such as bypass surgery and inserting stents, was cut by more than 30%. There was no overall difference in death rates between patients on canakinumab and those given placebo injections, and the drug did not change cholesterol levels.


Dr Paul Ridker, who led the research team, said the study “usher in a new era of therapeutics”.

“For the first time, we’ve been able to definitively show that lowering inflammation independent of cholesterol reduces cardiovascular risk,” he said.

“This has far-reaching implications. It tells us that by leveraging an entirely new way to treat patients – targeting inflammation – we may be able to significantly improve outcomes for certain very high-risk populations.”

The hospital said the reductions in risk were “above and beyond” those seen in patients who only took statins.

Ridker said the study showed that the use of anti-inflammatories was the next big breakthrough following the linkage of lifestyle issues and then statins


“In my lifetime, I’ve gotten to see three broad eras of preventative cardiology,” he said. “In the first, we recognised the importance of diet, exercise and smoking cessation. In the second, we saw the tremendous value of lipid-lowering drugs such as statins. Now, we’re cracking the door open on the third era. This is very exciting.”

But there were some downsides to the treatment. The researchers reported an increase in the chances of dying from a severe infection of about one for every 1,000 people treated, although this was offset by an unexpected halving of cancer deaths across all cancer types. In particular, the odds of succumbing to lung cancer were cut by over 75%, for reasons the team do not yet understand. The researchers are planning further trials to investigate canakinumab’s potentially protective effect against cancer.

Dr Paul Ridker, who led the study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, said it had far-reaching implications.



http://www.richmond.com/news/ap/man-accused-of-firing-gun-at-charlottesville-rally-among-three/article_1721e810-dde3-5caf-8962-613ae07a81c0.html

FBI Informants identified in Charlottsville Violence?


Man accused of firing gun at Charlottesville rally among three charged with violence
By ALLISON WRABEL The Daily Progress  


CHARLOTTESVILLE — A Maryland man accused of firing a gun during the white nationalist Unite the Right rally this month has been charged with discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school in an incident that may have been caught on video.

Richard Wilson Preston, 52, was arrested Saturday and is currently in the custody of the Baltimore County Detention Center in Towson, Md. Charlottesville police said in a news release Saturday that Preston fired the gun Aug. 12 in the 100 block of West Market Street, which is a corner of Emancipation Park, where the rally was held.

In addition to Preston’s arrest, Daniel Patrick Borden, 18, has been charged with malicious wounding related to an aggravated assault that day near the Market Street Parking Garage. He was arrested Friday and is currently in the custody of the Hamilton County Criminal Justice Center in Cincinnati.

Related to that same assault, Alex Michael Ramos, 33, also has been charged with malicious wounding. Ramos is currently wanted by the Charlottesville police and has a last known address in Marietta, Ga.








http://www.workers.org/2017/08/27/dick-gregory-returns-to-his-ancestors/

Dick Gregory returns to his ancestors



August 27 2017

His name was Richard Claxton Gregory, born Oct. 12, 1932, in St. Louis, Mo. But the world knew him as Dick Gregory, comedian, human rights activist, social critic and presidential candidate.

As a young man, he won an athletic scholarship as a runner, which took him to college.

But he really hit his mark as a comedian who told side splitting jokes about U.S. segregation and racism. He once joined Malcolm X at his 1964 speech at the Audubon Ballroom, a meeting of the Organization of African-American Unity in New York.

Gregory did what he always did: he told jokes. One of his most famous ones came after Malcolm introduced him as a “revolutionary” and “freedom fighter.”

Gregory: “If the FBI ever taps your phone (like they tap mine) … See, they didn’t know … FBI wasn’t used to tapping no colored folk’s phone. Yeah, they come in with $10,000 worth of equipment, so they could tap my phone, and 2 days after they set all that equipment up, my phone got cut off!”

The ballroom erupted in hearty laughter. Most of his bit was about J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.

It is chilling to note that the FBI regarded him as a “militant black nationalist,” and his file was collected under the “Black nationalist hate group” section.

Gregory, fearlessly outspoken on a variety of social issues, once called the Mafia “the filthiest snakes that ever existed on this earth.”

What did the FBI do? They sent his statement to the Mafia! Truly. Imagine that.

Gregory was a friend to both Malcolm X and Martin L. King Jr.

He sacrificed a multimillion dollar comedy career to take the front lines of the Black Freedom struggle, where he suffered arrest, police beatings and became a target of FBI discontent.

He lived through 84 U.S. winters and, in a 1968 presidential race, he garnered 47,712 votes.

Dick Gregory returns to his Ancestors.
 




http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article169426597.html



This suspected drug lord says the feds destroyed evidence proving he was an informant

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article169426597.html#storylink=cpy

AUGUST 27, 2017 5:36 PM

A highly prized Colombian defendant has accused U.S. law enforcement agencies of destroying Blackberry messages and withholding emails that he claims would show he was working for them as a confidential informant in the federal government’s battles against South America’s underworld.

Henry De Jesus Lopez Londoño, who was extradited to Miami on a cocaine-trafficking conspiracy charge last year, says the missing text messages and emails would reveal that federal agents authorized him to infiltrate dangerous criminal organizations with specific assignments — and that he wasn’t committing crimes on his own.

His lawyers claim he was an “undercover asset” for three federal investigative agencies from the fall of 2008 until the end of 2011, before his arrest the following year in Argentina. Prosecutors counter that the agents’ text messages to and from the informant were lost because their Blackberry phones were replaced and cannot be found. They






http://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/as-violence-persists-cpd-murder-clearance-rate-continues-to-slide/

As violence persists, CPD murder 'clearance rate' continues to slide
Chicago Sun-Times-
The FBI counts the number of murders solved in a given year — even if the murder took place years earlier — against the number of slayings in the calendar ...

Chicago Police detectives have solved fewer than one in five murders committed this year, the lowest rate of closing murder cases since at least 2006 — and likely a historic low, police statistics show.

Seven months into 2017, the city’s police department had “cleared” fewer than 20 percent of murder investigations involving homicides that had taken place since Jan. 1, adding to a recent dip amid a decades-long trend of unsolved homicides in the city, according to the police data studied by crime analyst Jeff Asher.



Last year, the city tallied 781 murders and only 204 arrests, a 25 percent clearance rate by Asher’s calculations

A homicide is considered cleared when an offender is arrested, charges are filed, or when the suspect is dead or has fled the country. Asher’s figures are based on cases closed in the same calendar year in which they occurred.

The Chicago Police Department says its murder “clearance rate” stands at 34 percent — a 5-percent improvement over last year — but CPD’s calculations are based on different parameters used by the FBI. The FBI counts the number of murders solved in a given year — even if the murder took place years earlier — against the number of slayings in the calendar year. So far this year, CPD has closed 142 murder cases, including 42 from previous years.


http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sd-el-cajon-officer-20170826-story.html

Judge denies El Cajon officer's attempt to dismiss lawsuit against him in fatal shooting




http://www.wspynews.com/news/local/will-there-be-a-settlement-announced-monday-in-james-doe/article_0b8f2778-8b51-11e7-9054-67a8534c5146.html

Will There Be a Settlement Announced Monday in James Doe's Lawsuit Against Pedophile and Former Speaker of the U.S. House Dennis Hastert?
  Aug 27, 2017


Hastert did not appear in court on August 11th in a second lawsuit that was filed by another former Yorkville School District student, who is called Richard Doe in court documents.

Richard Doe claims Hastert assaulted Doe in the bathroom at the old Game Farm property in Yorkville when Doe was a fourth grade student in 1973 or 1974.



https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/aug/23/harvard-scientists-took-exxons-challenge-found-it-using-the-tobacco-playbook

Harvard scientists took Exxon’s challenge; found it using the tobacco playbook
A new study finds a stark contrast between Exxon’s research and what the company told the public

Wednesday 23 August 2017 06.00 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 23 August 2017 06.02 EDT

Read all of these documents and make up your own mind.

That was the challenge ExxonMobil issued when investigative journalism by Inside Climate News revealed that while it was at the forefront of climate science research in the 1970s and 1980s, Exxon engaged in a campaign to misinform the public.

Harvard scientists Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes decided to take up Exxon’s challenge, and have just published their results in the journal Environmental Research Letters. They used a method known as content analysis to analyze 187 public and internal Exxon documents. The results are striking:

In Exxon’s peer-reviewed papers and internal communications, about 80% of the documents acknowledged that climate change is real and human-caused.
In Exxon’s paid, editorial-style advertisements (“advertorials”) published in the New York Times, about 80% expressed doubt that climate change is real and human-caused.





https://robertscribbler.com/2017/08/27/harveys-flooding-is-already-catastrophic-and-another-2-3-feet-of-rainfall-is-on-the-way/
    

Harvey’s Flooding is Already Catastrophic and Another 2-3 Feet of Rainfall is on the Way
by robertscribbler
For Houston, a city that hosts a massive oil industry, it's the climate change related flood version of the Fort McMurray fire. And we may well be witnessing, at this time, a tragedy that we could have at least in part prevented, but didn't.

August 27, 2017

*****

Last week at this time, meteorologists were tracking a tropical cyclone moving across the Caribbean. 5-7 day models indicated that the system would enter the Gulf of Mexico by late week. This Gulf was hotter than normal. And for the past three months it had been dumping an over-abundance of moisture into an unusually deep summer trough over the Eastern U.S. This interaction between two features related to human-forced climate change was already producing very severe thunderstorms that generated record rainfall over cities like Kansas City, Missouri.

Harvey was already very moisture rich. It had issued from a tropical convergence zone and monsoon cycle that had already hit unusually high intensity due at least in part to abnormally warm ocean surface waters injecting much higher than normal moisture loads into the tropical atmosphere. And early last week there was some serious concern that intense tropical moisture in the form of Harvey could combine with a Gulf and Eastern U.S. weather and climate pattern that had already produced unprecedented rains to generate ultimately catastrophic and unprecedented results.

These fears have now been realized.

View of downtown Houston right now, from Instagram https://t.co/7wSWxM1z9s pic.twitter.com/ffkDkSdOK1

— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) August 27, 2017

As of this morning, Houston and Southeast Texas had received upwards of 30 inches of rainfall -- with up to 26 inches falling in just one 24-hour-period. In many places, the most rain ever to fall over a one day timeframe was breached.

As we have seen so often around the world from globally increasing instances of record rainfall, roads flooded, cars were abandoned, and people were forced to climb onto their rooftops for safety from the rising waters. In a Houston that is increasingly looking like post-Katrina New Orleans, more than 1,000 emergency calls for water rescues had been received by this morning. And with rivers hitting never-before-seen heights in a flood-prone city that is also facing the effect of rising sea levels, the rains were showing little sign of abating.

In total, as much as 1-3 feet of additional rain is still expected from the storm. In the worst case, this would bring ultimate rainfall totals to between 50 and 60 inches. In a litany that we are hearing everywhere now -- this would be the worst rainfall event Texas has ever seen in our records. It might, ultimately, be the worst flood from rainfall the U.S. has ever seen.



(September 1 GFS model shows remnants of Harvey interacting with a tropical cyclone south of Baja to continue to pull rains over Texas and Louisiana. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Moreover, weather models now indicate that Harvey may slowly track back toward the Gulf of Mexico. If this happens, a storm that is already pulling severe volumes of moisture in from the Gulf could be somewhat re-invigorated. Such a result would bring a second pulse of intense rains to parts of Southeast Texas and possibly Louisiana. Even more concerning is the fact that later this week Harvey shows a possible interaction with another stationary tropical cyclone forming near the southern tip of Baja in the Pacific. The two storms appear to interact to draw still more moisture from the abnormally warm Gulf over Southeast Texas later this week. Of course, this forecast potential is still a longer range uncertainty. But the models do appear to continue to indicate a persistent heavy rainfall potential for an already flooded region over an unprecedented long time frame.

(UPDATES TO FOLLOW)



http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-houston-harvey-911-20170827-story.html


NATION
In Houston, pleas for help go out over social media: 'Please send help. 911 is not responding'



When the rainfall turned torrential late Saturday night, and water began pouring into his living room, KeRon Hooey sloshed down the block to the highest ground in the neighborhood: his neighbor’s two-story house.

He and 10 others, including two elderly neighbors, spent the night on the second floor, watching the waters rising out of the nearby Buffalo Bayou and spreading across their quiet subdivision, Wood Shadows II.


All night, Hooey dialed emergency numbers – 911, 311, the Coast Guard, local police stations – only to find wait times of more than two hours, or lines so busy that his calls were dropped. So he turned to Twitter.

“Entire Wood Shadows II neighborhood is under water,” Hooey wrote in a Tweet posted at 4:23 a.m. Then he shared his address.



http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-paris-agreement-rex-tillerson-us-diplomats-dodge-questions-global-warming-us-a7884076.html

Tillerson brings Exxon's denial to the State Department
Climate change: Rex Tillerson tells US diplomats to dodge questions on Paris Agreement

Secretary of State tells envoys told to be deliberately vague if asked about the international accord by foreign countries
 
The Independent (U.K.), Aug. 10, 2017
 
US diplomats should sidestep questions from foreign governments on what it would take for the Trump administration to re-engage in the global Paris climate agreement, according to a diplomatic cable seen by Reuters.

The cable, sent by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to embassies, also said diplomats should make clear the United States wants to help other countries use fossil fuels.

In the wake of President Donald Trump's announcement in June that the United States would withdraw from the accord, the cable tells diplomats to expect foreign government representatives to ask questions like "Does the United States have a climate change policy?" and "Is the administration advocating the use of fossil fuels over renewable energy?"

If asked, for example, "What is the process for consideration of re-engagement in the Paris Agreement?", the answer should be vague. "We are considering a number of factors. I do not have any information to share on the nature or timing of the process," the cable advises.

A US State Department official declined to comment on the cable.

Mr Trump, a Republican, had campaigned on a promise to "cancel" the Paris deal, saying he believed it would cost the US economy trillions of dollars while leaving developing nations such as China unfettered. In sharp contrast to the previous administration of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, Mr Trump has several times called climate change a hoax.

In June, Mr Trump left the door open to re-engagement with the Paris Agreement if the terms improved. The United States will "start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair," he said.

The State Department guidance clarifies that right now, "there are no plans to seek to re-negotiate or amend the text of the Paris Agreement".

But it adds: "The President is sincere in his commitment to look for a path to re-engage that takes into account his concerns for US economic growth and energy security."

The Paris accord, agreed by nearly 200 countries in 2015, seeks to limit planetary warming by curbing global emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists believe drive global warming. The United States, under the Obama administration, had promised to cut emissions as much as 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2025.

Separate from the diplomatic cable, the Trump administration is reviewing a draft report written by scientists across 13 federal government agencies that shows the effects of climate change pose dire, near-term threats to the United States.

The Environmental Protection Agency declined to comment on the draft, which The New York Times published on Monday.
The report puts the White House in the awkward position of either clearing the report's findings or editing them.

The diplomatic guidance makes clear that the United States intends to attend global climate summits during the prolonged process of withdrawing from the Paris deal to protect US interests. The next summit is in November.

A US official said a major priority in these talks would be to beat back attempts to have separate standards in the guidance on emissions cuts for rich and poor nations - long a sticking point in negotiations.

"There's certainly nothing in the policies of this administration that would make us think that we should be acting differently," the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal memo.

The cable also anticipates questions over why the United States has changed its policy to make it easier for global development banks such as the World Bank to finance coal-fired power projects. In 2013 the Obama administration said the United States would oppose most coal projects, guidance since altered by the Trump administration.

"The new principles will allow the (United States) the flexibility to approve, as appropriate, a broad range of power projects, including the generation of power using clean and efficient fossil fuels and renewable energy," the cable said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-paris-agreement-rex-tillerson-us-diplomats-dodge-questions-global-warming-us-a7884076.html









see
https://www.vera.org/publications/price-of-prisons-2015-state-spending-trends




also see
Children have no one to defend them before politicians.

We know child abuse produces post traumatic stress syndrome in children.

http://www.acesconnection.com/g/aces-in-criminal-justice/blog/pipeline-to-prison-may-start-with-childhood-trauma


Pipeline to Prison May Start with Childhood Trauma | ACEs in the Criminal Justice System | ACEsConnection
ACEs Connection › blog › pipeline-to-pr...
Aug 29, 2016 - The likelihood of criminal behavior in adulthood increased by 28 percent and violent crime by 30 percent, ... Yet the consequences of behavioral problems for children of color, especially those who live in ...


We know PTSD produces criminal behaviour in children.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662280/


Adverse childhood experiences and adult criminality: how long must we live before we possess our own lives? - NCBI
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pubmed
by JA Reavis - ‎2013 - ‎Cited by 65 - ‎Related articles
Groups (nonsexual child abusers, domestic violence offenders, sexual offenders, and stalkers) were compared ... CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of a review of the literature and current findings, criminal behavior can ...







We have a chance to cut crime by cutting child abuse

http://www.vachss.com/updates_page.html

In my 40+ years on the front lines, I've been interviewed countless times, in endless venues. But I've yet to be asked this question: "What do you consider the most important issue in American child protection today?" My answer would be: Closing the (deliberately inserted) loophole in the Federal Child Prevention and Treatment Act which permits states to allow "representation" of children in abuse/neglect cases by lay volunteers [such as "CASA" or non-lawyer "Guardian ad Litem"]. That's right: those accused of abuse are guaranteed lawyers; those alleged to be victims of abuse are not. That is fundamentally and foundationally wrong. Morally and ethically unacceptable. Devoid of logic. Guaranteed to produce the worst results. And the LAW in (far too) many states. Changing that law is the current task of the Legislative Drafting Institute for Child Protection. And I don't know of more important work. Before you decide to support us (or not) look at the facts:

The difference between representation by attorneys and "representation" by lay volunteers.

The damage that results.

Where I stand on this issue.

Where do you stand?



http://www.vachss.com/graffiti_wall/when_people_tell.jpg
0
joeb

Registered:
Posts: 8,382
Posted Reply with quote  #277 
http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.com/2017/09/17/materially-impossible/



materially impossible

“President Donald Trump has forbidden members of his cabinet from making any reference whatsoever to the alleged “Islamist” conspirators, during the commemorations of the 9/11 terrorist attacks… On the evening of September 11, 2001, the real estate developer Donald Trump appeared on the TV channel New York 9, and revealed that the official narrative was physically untenable: it is materially impossible for two planes to manage to bring down the twin towers, much less a third tower. ….” More (with video):

http://www.voltairenet.org/article197886.html

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music:



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“… While it is impossible to predict the outcome, when taken together, the US actions seem to indicate their intent to attack the DPRK, overtly or covertly, or through proxies, though the risks are catastrophic. Only the dangerous possibility of China’s involvement could deter this intent. North Korea is now being crushed economically and subjected to intolerable provocations. Although the “status quo” may appear to be in the interest of all parties, recalcitrant and irrational aggressive forces are being unleashed within US-NATO, with or without UN authorization. If US-NATO military power is permitted to obliterate North Korea, their resultant intoxication with military force, combined with their economic weakness makes it inevitable that China and Russia are their next quarry. It is imperative that Russia and China take this seriously, as they surely do. The time is long overdue for Russia and China to use their veto power. Their appeasement of US/NATO interests is short-sighted and enabling a war of possibly incalculable proportions. It is preferable to live with a nuclear armed North Korea than to die in a nuclear holocaust….”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/un-security-council-resolution-2375-on-north-korea-preparation-for-war/5609257

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https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/tropical-storm-hurricane-maria-lesser-antilles

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/15/warning-letter-to-harvey-and-irma-survivors-from-katrina-survivor/

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Ed.: Recently, I was challenged by a naysayer on the HAARP/hurricane issue to put up confirmation that HAARP was real, operational, etc.; here are six links found on the first search:

http://vlf.stanford.edu/research/experiments-haarp-ionospheric-heater

https://www.nap.edu/read/18620/chapter/2#10

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_climatechange73.htm

https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2009/07/haarp_1990.pdf

http://ireap.umd.edu/sites/default/files/documents/muri2014/Publications/Karakkad-IVEC.pdf

http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1266&context=physics_facpub

[##]

[Ed.: The history of the military-industrial complex, from its early evolution since the final phases of World War Two as carefully nudged and nurtured by people whose membership in a secret society arguably bound them to a state other than the USofA, has been replete with the use of sword vs. shield Hegelian justification for “the other side has it and is going to use it against us so we must go beyond normal morality and humanitarian restraint”, as well as the taking of covert steps to ensure that the other side had the technology too.  

This has been combined with the active seeding of espionage agents from the other side into technology programs, a constant race for perfection of technique, their use on human guinea pigs, the demonstration projects, and a “wink, wink” attitude toward mass destruction by any and all means possible in intermittent steps.

Operation Paperclip could be seen as a pivot around which this turned and, indeed, early research into Tesla technologies, as well as what we call mind control, may have been done covertly while Paperclip people were still detained or incarcerated in Germany immediately post-surrender.]

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https://www.mojahedin.org/images/2016/2016126215551187736031_Russian-air-strikes-in-Syria.jpg

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Moscow, SANA – The Russian warplanes destroyed workshops for making booby-trapped vehicles of ISIS terrorists in the countryside of Hama, Homs and Deir Ezzor provinces.

Lt. Gen. Alexander Lapin, chief of staff of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria said in a statement Saturday that the Russian fighter jets destroyed three workshops for making booby-trapped vehicles of ISIS where they were discovered by unmanned planes in the vicinity of Uqeirbat town in Hama countryside and in the countryside of Deir Ezzor and in al-Sukhnah city in Homs province.

Lapin pointed out that the terrorists fill the old military vehicles with explosives and use them for suicidal operations, adding that the destruction capability of these vehicles cover a circle with a diameter of 300 meters and cause huge destruction once they blow up.

http://sana.sy/en/?p=113926

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https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/obamastrumps-boys-allegedly-struck-by-russiansyrian-airstrike/

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http://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.com/2017/09/did-syrian-or-russian-airstrikes-kill.html

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Russian forces fire on US-backed rebel group in Syria

CNN 2h ago

RELATED COVERAGE

Russian airstrikes intentionally hit Kurdish, Western forces in east Deir Ezzor: Coalition

Local Source AMN Al-Masdar News (registration) 6h ago

Jets strike US-backed forces in eastern Syria

Reuters 15h ago

Pentagon claims Syrian opposition troops wounded in Russian air strike

International TASS 35m ago

Syria’s Deir el-Zour Coming Back to Life After 3-year Siege

In Depth Voice of America 12h ago

View full coverage

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/15/the-whorehouse-on-the-charles/

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http://greencrowasthecrowflies.blogspot.com/2017/09/canadian-politics-no-one-to-vote-for.html

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D’accord, accord

WH: US staying out of climate accord

CNN 2h ago

RELATED COVERAGE

Sarah Sanders on Twitter: “Our position on the Paris agreement has not changed. @POTUS has been clear, US …

Most Referenced Twitter 1h ago

Paris climate deal: US denies it will stay in accord

BBC News 58m ago

Trump Administration Seeks to Avoid Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord, International Climate Officials Say

Highly Cited Wall Street Journal (subscription) 5h ago

View full coverage

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http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/16/news/charging-bull-statue-vandalism/index.html

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2017

Cracks in the foundations

“Are the Shadow Brokers identical with the Second Source?”

“Shadow Brokers And The “Second Source””.  emptywheel has been unconvincing lately, another victim of Putin/Trump Derangement Syndrome, now apparent due to The Clarification.

The careful Electrospaces conclusion is that Shadow Brokers is probably the Second Source (second to Snowden), and is probably an NSA insider based out of the NSA facility in San Antonio.  All of these ‘hacks’ are actually leaks, and leaks pose a deep psychological problem for Imperialists (leaks drive them bat-shit insane; see also Angleton’s insane and destructive/self-destructive search for the supposed CIA mole back in the 60s).  A hack is evidence of a technical problem which can be fixed, while a leak is a much deeper and darker problem, one involving dissent from the ideological foundations of Empire, and one that cannot ever truly be fixed, even by apprehending the leaker.

AT 9/16/2017 10:28:00 AM

[Ed.: Angleton was the mole.  The simplest cover for that fact is his deep engagement over time in turning everything upside down to search for the mole. Read deeply about the fellow, his background, his history and his time in Italy.]

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The Barcelona Agreement



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https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-akZEAlbV13k/WbxlQAEv7KI/AAAAAAACmjs/HCJdi9IKnKI2mw2rooQjeLeVvk06-VJnACLcBGAs/s640/HILLARYc%2B%25284%2529.jpg

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The Democrats Have Become Socialists | RealClearPolicy

Posted by Michele Kearney at 9:34 AM

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http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/09/brreaking-imran-awan-downloaded-terabits-info-dropbox-may-sold-dnc-emails/

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http://snippits-and-slappits.blogspot.com/2017/09/saturday-alternative-cartoons-september_15.html

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Cops Say Suing Them for Killing Man with Down Syndrome Over a Movie Ticket Sets ‘Bad Precedent’

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-down-syndrome-precedent/

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Here are the nine reports of police misconduct tracked for Wednesday, July 12, 2017:

https://www.policemisconduct.net/national-police-misconduct-newsfeed-daily-recap-71217/

National Police Misconduct Newsfeed Daily Recap 7/12/17

Author Jonathan Blanks  Posted on July 13, 2017

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DOJ rolls back program intended to identify problems in police departments

The Department of Justice announced Friday that it’s rolling back an Obama-era program created to help improve trust between police agencies and the communities they serve.

The department said it’s making significant changes to an office that investigated and issued public reports about problems it found in individual police departments.

DOJ said the changes to the program “will return control to the public safety personnel sworn to protect their communities and focus on providing real-time technical assistance to best address the identified needs of requesting agencies to reduce violent crime.”

The move falls in line with Sessions’ tough-on-crime policies and President Trump’s pro-police administration.

Read the full story here

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https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2017/09/16/st-louis-police-assault-an-elderly-woman-for-protesting-the-st-louis-police/

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[Ed.: Quite apart from other issues and nonsense and the commercials which denote or make fun of the phenomenon, I detect a hidden poison operating inside the US today (and perhaps in other parts of the world, but I don’t travel), and that is the disappearance and degradation of interpersonal face-to-face communication.  People don’t talk to one another, everyone is or acts estranged, there is an uptick of anomie and a downturn in the ability of people to connect.  This is, of course, flying in the face of social media, Facebook, smart phones et alia which are in theory an attempt to enable connection but seem to be having the opposite effect.]

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http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/09/httpswwwtheatlanticcommagazinearchive201709has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation534198.html

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https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ePR4teBzI0M/WbxiVb4SoOI/AAAAAAACmao/D6rSvB2UjWwEVlcuQXYXcjjCujmfK2m3gCLcBGAs/s640/%2521%2BCOMMUNISM%2B%25281A%2529%2B%25281%2529.GIF

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http://greencrowasthecrowflies.blogspot.com/2017/09/us-threatens-to-cut-china-off-from.html

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/15/the-whorehouse-on-the-charles/

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Judge blocks Trump from denying funds to sanctuary cities

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s rules requiring so-called sanctuary cities to help enforce federal immigration laws in order to receive funding.

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced new rules governing DOJ law enforcement grants.

Read the full story here

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McCain backs bill to block transgender troops ban

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) is backing a bipartisan bill that would block President Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military.

“When less than one percent of Americans are volunteering to join the military, we should welcome all those who are willing and able to serve our country,” McCain said in a statement.

Read the full story here

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https://sputniknews.com/news/201709161057441987-fire-breaks-out-camp-odessa/

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2 years for officer in child-porn case

Alan C. Vigiard, a 46 year old Sergeant with the Adams Police Department in Massachusetts who served as a child exploitation officer, was charged, October 2009, and pleaded guilty to 10 counts of child pornography. Vigiard was sentenced, 22 June 2011, to two years in jail, serving only one year, and five years supervised release. He was free pending sentencing. The Police Department allowed him to resign. On 1 November 2016, Vigiard was arrested for a second time on child pornography charges. He was held without bail pending sentencing and was sentenced, December 2016, to 10–12 years in jail. Vigiard was originally caught viewing child sexual abuse at work; spending, on average, one to six hours per shift viewing pornography, including child pornography, and was caught masturbating in the evidence room.

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/stories/2-years-for-ex-officer-in-child-porn-case,442007

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http://thefreethoughtproject.com/media-royalty-admits-practicing-occult-killing-people/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Quinn

[Ed.: This woman, who has an interesting father, is a spoiled, elite, entitled sensationalist who should have been hired to co-write Hillary’s recent exercise in angst.]
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https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/10/06/navy-doctor-bullet-found-jfks-limousine-never-reported/


CATEGORIES: DEEP POLITICS
OCTOBER 6, 2017 | MILICENT CRANOR
Navy Doctor: Bullet Found in JFK’s Limousine, and Never Reported
This is the story of a bullet — a spent, misshapen, but otherwise intact, bullet — that a Navy doctor said was found late at night, on the floor, in the back of John Kennedy’s limousine. No one seems to want to acknowledge it.

Today, a majority of Americans assume the government lied about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New evidence seems to prove they are right.

This is the story of a bullet — a spent, misshapen, but otherwise intact, bullet — that James Young, a Navy doctor, said was found late at night, on the floor, in the back of Kennedy’s limousine. He inspected it himself.

The bullet was found by two chief petty officers who, during the autopsy, were sent to retrieve any skull fragments they could find in the limousine. They came back with three pieces of bone, and the bullet. The skull fragments were reported — but not the bullet.

Years later, when reviewing a memoir he wrote in 1963, Young thought about that bullet, and tried to find some mention of it in the Warren Commission Hearings. To his dismay, he found nothing. In 2000, he wrote to President Gerald Ford to ask him about it. After all, Ford had been on the Warren Commission. But Ford said he knew nothing about it either. In 2001, two Navy historians interviewed Young who gave them a highly detailed account of the events of November 22, 1963, some of which he witnessed personally. And he mentioned the bullet.

Recently, Dr. Randy Robertson, a board member of the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC) came upon Young’s papers at a Navy website. This was an exciting discovery.

To understand the significance of this discovery, readers need to know that — according to the official record — only one whole bullet was recovered, the “magic bullet” found on Governor John Connally’s stretcher. And, agents found inside the limousine what is presumed to be two parts of one broken bullet. Numerous very small lead fragments were also found in the limousine, Connally’s wrist, and Kennedy’s brain. If close inspection of the bullet allegedly found in the back of the limousine were to show that it was not fired from Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle, this would prove to be a threat to the official narrative of a lone assassin. (Please go here for an essay on neutron activation analysis, another test the bullet would have been subjected to.)

Here, Robertson describes in an email to WhoWhatWhy how he came upon this apparently suppressed evidence:

“I was surfing the internet and somehow stumbled upon the Navy Live website. I found the What Price A Rose piece [the memoir] and found it intriguing because although I had heard of Young I never knew he attended the autopsy…”

Robertson is referring to excerpts of the memoir — none of which included the part about the bullet. But he delved further:

“After that I found the earlier piece Navy Medicine and the Kennedy Assassination which contained the dynamite about the bullet…

“After that it was detective work. I FOIA’ed the transcripts and received them and found out the actions Young had taken to find out what had happened to the bullet he had seen and corroborate what he had told the Navy interviewers. That led me to the Ford Library and the wonderful letter.”

Robertson remains cautious about this discovery since only one witness corroborates Young’s claims — the petty officer who found the bullet.

Below you will find links to Young’s letter to Ford and Ford’s bewildering response, as well as a link to Young’s entire memoir which includes a brief history of other unsuccessful attempts to find out what happened to the bullet.

For the convenience of the reader, I have retyped vital parts of Young’s letter to Ford, and Ford’s response.

Letter From James Young to Gerald Ford (Excerpted)
.
Dear President Ford,

I was active-duty Navy and assigned to the White House as White House Physician in 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated…

Knowing that you were on the Warren Commission at that time, I am writing to you confidentially, to see if you have any knowledge about an issue which has puzzled me for years…

My particular problem is a description of what occurred at the autopsy. During the autopsy examination, Dr. Jim Humes, then the Chief of Pathology at Bethesda Naval Hospital, and two other pathologists stated that some pieces of President Kennedy’s skull bones were missing. In order to reconstruct the President’s head for burial, Dr. Humes wanted to find those pieces which were missing. Dr. Burkley and I requested two of our corpsmen who were assigned to our White House medical unit, to go to the Executive Office Building where the Secret Service had placed the “Queen Mary,” the open convertible in which President Kennedy had been shot, for bone fragments.

Two of the corpsmen left and returned sometime later with three varying sized pieces of President Kennedy’s skull bones. In addition, they brought back in an envelope a spent misshapen bullet which they had found on the back floor of the “Queen Mary” where they had found the pieces of skull bones. The bullet and pieces of skull were given to Dr. Jim Humes.

I have never seen anything written about that spent bullet in the Warren Report or elsewhere. Do you recall any testimony or comments which would clarify my concerns?

Letter From Gerald Ford to James Young
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Dear Dr. Young,

I appreciate your most interesting letter of December 27th involving the assassination of President Kennedy.

As a member of the Warren Commission I was very conscientious about my participation in the hearings. However, I have no recollection of “the spent bullet” you refer to.

Enclosed [is] a document I sent out to individuals who ask me my current views on the conclusions of the Warren Commission.

There are several excellent books on the assassination which might be helpful.

1.) Nov. 22, 1963: You Are The Jury, by David Belin.

2.) Case Closed, by Gerald Posner.

Both of these books should be in any major public library.

Best regards,

Regarding Young’s memoir and interview, please bear in mind that, although Young describes what he saw with his own eyes, he also includes a great deal of history which he necessarily learned from other sources.





Link du jour

http://www.vermontcf.org/DonorsFundholders/WhoWorksWithUs/AccidentalPhilanthropists.aspx


http://www.climbingschool.com/Introduction.html


http://nypost.com/2017/10/06/women-are-going-to-crazy-lengths-to-stop-earlobe-sag/


http://bangordailynews.com/2017/10/06/news/suv-crashes-into-horse-drawn-buggy-on-maine-road/




https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/06/climate-change-in-the-caribbean-learning-lessons-from-irma-and-maria


Climate change in the Caribbean – learning lessons from Irma and Maria
Increasingly unfamiliar and unpredictable weather events mean that business as usual is not an option for these islands to survive


Friday 6 October 2017 06.43 EDT

As a Caribbean climate scientist, I am often asked to speak about how climate change affects small islands. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, one of two category five storms to batter the eastern Caribbean in just a week, three words resonate in my mind.

The first word is “unfamiliar”. Scientific analysis shows that the climate of the Caribbean region is already changing in ways that seem to signal the emergence of a new climate regime. Irma and Maria fit this pattern all too well. At no point in the historical records dating back to the late 1800s have two category five storms made landfall in the small Caribbean island chain of the eastern Antilles in a single year.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/charges-dropped-california-oakland-police-sex-scan-article-1.3545559

Charges dropped against California cop in Oakland police sex scandal
BY JAMES QUEALLY
LOS ANGELES TIMES Friday, October 6, 2017, 11:55 AM

Prosecutors Thursday dropped charges against an Oakland police officer accused with several co-workers in a sprawling sex scandal that drew national attention last year, marking the fourth case in which charges against law enforcement officers implicated in the controversy have collapsed.

Alameda County Asst. Dist. Atty. Teresa Drenick said Thursday that her office will not pursue sex crime charges against Giovani LoVerde, who had been accused of felony oral copulation with a minor.

The charges against LoVerde and six other law enforcement officers stemmed from a sex scandal that rocked several East Bay departments last year, resulting in the firing of Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent.

In June 2016, a teenage Richmond, Calif., woman alleged she had sex with more than a dozen Oakland police officers, some of the encounters occurring when she was underage.

The woman, now 20, contended she also had sex or other inappropriate contact with officers from other police agencies. The Times generally does not name people who report being victims of sexual abuse.

But in recent weeks, a judge found there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges against Ricardo Perez, a former Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department employee, and Oakland police officer Brian Bunton.

Citing those rulings, prosecutors decided to drop charges against LoVerde, though they plan to appeal the ruling in Perez’s case, according to Drenick.

 Why You May Not Give Your Child Enough Credit When It Comes to Eating PAID CONTENT BY SARA BURNETT, DIRECTOR OF WELLNESS AND FOOD POLICY AT PANERA
Why You May Not Give Your Child Enough Credit When It Comes to Eating
“There exists a conflict in the law interpreting the criminal statutes that govern the crimes charged, and we have determined that we will seek an appellate remedy,” Drenick said via email. “We are always mindful of how difficult it has been for the victim in these matters to testify in open court about her exploitation, and we made today’s decision in close consultation with her.”

"Jasmine," 19, who went by the street name Celeste Guap, reached a nearly $1 million settlement against the Oakland Police Department. She said she had sex with multiple officers from the Oakland Police, some when she was underage.
"Jasmine," 19, who went by the street name Celeste Guap, reached a nearly $1 million settlement against the Oakland Police Department. She said she had sex with multiple officers from the Oakland Police, some when she was underage. (NBC)
Prosecutors last year dropped charges against Oakland police officer Warit Utappa because of insufficient evidence.

Earlier this year, retired Oakland police officer LeRoy Johnson pleaded no contest to charges that he failed to report the sexual abuse of the woman. Retired Livermore officer Dan Black pleaded no contest to one count of lewd conduct in public, but the charges will be dismissed after a year under the terms of his plea deal, provided he commits no other crimes, according to attorney Michael Cardozo, who represented both Black and LoVerde in their criminal cases.

The only pending case involves ex-Oakland police officer Tyrell Smith, who was charged with improperly searching a law enforcement database. Smith is expected to stand trial in 2018, Drenick said. Smith resigned from the Oakland Police Department last year.

Utappa and LoVerde are still employed by the Oakland Police Department, according to a department spokesman. LoVerde is currently on administrative leave, Cardozo said. Bunton is no longer employed by the department, according to a police spokesman.





https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/10/06/fbi-mounts-billboard-campaign-las-vegas-seeking-tip-mass-shooting/741119001/


'Say something': FBI mounts billboard campaign in wake of Vegas ...
USA TODAY
The billboards will feature the slogan "If you know something, say something" followed by an FBI contact number, FBI special agent in charge Aaron Rouse told ...


 



https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/12/11/fbi-agent-arrested-for-driving-without-pants-and-allegedly-trying-to-seduce-a-truck-driver/

FBI Agent Arrested For Driving Without Pants and Allegedly Trying to Seduce a Truck Driver
by JASON LEWIS

DECEMBER 11, 2012






http://tucson.com/news/local/crime/fbi-agent-gets-days-in-jail-probation-in-exposure-case/article_6fa32e2b-9aa6-5e10-ac20-b482a20c81c9.html

FBI agent gets 5 days in jail, probation in indecent exposure case
Jan 18, 2008







http://fox13now.com/2015/05/11/utah-judge-halts-oklahoma-city-bombing-evidence-case-to-investigate-if-fbi-threatened-witness/

Utah judge halts Oklahoma City bombing evidence case to investigate if FBI threatened witness | fox13now.com
Fox 13 Now › 2015/05/11 › utah-judge-...
May 11, 2015 - ... an FBI agent instructed a witness in the case not to appear in court in Jesse Trentadue's lawsuit against the agency over documents and evidence from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.





http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fbi-chief-exposed-as-a-secret-transvestite-peter-pringle-reports-from-new-york-on-new-allegations-1471376.html


FBI chief exposed as a secret transvestite: Peter Pringle reports from New York on new allegations that J Edgar Hoover attended orgies, wearing a fluffy black dress to one, and was blackmailed into protecting the Mafia






http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire


Report: August FBI Memo Called ‘Black Identity Extremists’ New Terror Threat
 


 OCTOBER 6, 2017 4:00 PM
In August, the FBI’s counterterrorism division published a report warning law enforcement across the country of a new threat. It called the threat “Black Identity Extremism.”

In reality, there is no “Black Identity Extremist” movement, at least not one that goes by that name. It appears to be an invented label, Foreign Policy reported. The publication revealed the existence of the counterterrorism memo Friday and briefly posted the actual document on its website before removing it.

According to the FBI, “it is very likely some BIEs are influenced by a mix of anti-authoritarian, Moorish sovereign citizen ideology, and BIE ideology.”

The report found it “very likely” that the police killing of Ferguson, Missouri teenager Michael Brown — and the subsequent decision by a grand jury not to indict the officer responsible for his death — “spurred an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement and will very likely serve as justification for such violence.”

“[I]ncidents of alleged police abuse against African Americans since then have continued to feed the resurgence in ideologically motivated, violent criminal activity within the BIE movement,” the report said, referring to Michael Brown’s death.

Running 12 pages — including end notes and citations — the report included six examples of premeditated violence against police officers by black people judged to have been motivated by identity extremism.

“In all six targeted attacks since 2014,” the report said, “the FBI assesses it is very likely the BIE suspects acted in retaliation for perceived past police brutality.”

It noted: “Even though five of these attacks occurred following controversial police shooting of African Americans by white police officers, BIE targeting of officers was not, in every incident, based on their specific race.”

One individual profiled was Micah Johnson, who killed five police officers in a rampage in Dallas in July 2016, firing his first shots during a Black Lives Matter march. “[B]ased on Johnson’s journal writings and statements to police, he appeared to have been influenced by BIE ideology,” the report said.

The term “black identity extremists” doesn’t appear to have been used by counterterrorism officials before the FBI’s August report. The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services appears to have been one of the first organizations to employ the new term, in a course description flagged by Foreign Policy for the upcoming training event “Introduction to Domestic Extremism and Hate Groups.”

“Domestic extremist movements covered will include white supremacists/white nationalists, black identity extremists, anarchists, animal rights and eco-terrorists, anti-government and other radical separatists groups,” the course description read.

Counterterrorism and homeland security experts interviewed by Foreign Policy expressed skepticism at the new label.

Michael German, a former FBI agent turned Brennan Center fellow, said: “Basically, it’s black people who scare them.”



also see

https://nworeport.me/2017/01/17/mlk-day-the-plot-to-kill-martin-luther-king-survived-shooting-was-murdered-in-hospital/

FBI agents spit on Martin Luther King's body before smothering him to death with pillow


January 17, 2017



Martin Luther King was murdered in a conspiracy that was instigated by then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Review of William Pepper’s Book



Truth and Shadows

Our thoughts are with MLK Jr. Martin Luther King Day, January 15, 2016. This article was first published by  GR on September 5, 2016

For one bright moment back in the late 1960s, we actually believed that we could change our country. We had identified the enemy. We saw it up close, we had its measure, and we were very hopeful that we would prevail. The enemy was hollow where we had substance. All of that substance was destroyed by an assassin’s bullet. – William Pepper (page 15, The Plot to Kill King)

The revelations are stunning. The media indifference is predictable.

Thanks to the nearly four-decade investigation by human rights lawyer William Pepper, it is now clear once and for all that Martin Luther King was murdered in a conspiracy that was instigated by then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and that also involved the U.S. military, the Memphis Police Department, and “Dixie Mafia” crime figures in Memphis, Tennessee. These and many more incredible details of the King assassination are contained in a trilogy of volumes by Pepper culminating with his latest and final book on the subject, The Plot to Kill King. He previously wrote Orders to Kill (1995) and An Act of State (2003).

MLK 2

With virtually no help from the mainstream media and very little from the justice system, Pepper was able to piece together what really happened on April 4, 1968 in Memphis right down to who gave the order and supplied the money, how the patsy was chosen, and who actually pulled the trigger.




Instead, we know that Ray took the fall for a murder he did not commit. We know that a member of the Memphis Police Department fired the fatal shot and that two military sniper teams that were part of the 902ndMilitary Intelligence Group were sent to Memphis as back-ups should the primary shooter fail. We have access to the fascinating account of how Pepper came to meet Colonel John Downie, the man in charge of the military part of the plot and Lyndon Johnson’s former Vietnam briefer. We also learn that as part of the operation, photographs were actually taken of the shooting and that Pepper came very close to getting his hands on those photographs.

plot to kill king

Unfortunately, the mainstream media has ignored all of these revelations and continues to label Ray as King’s lone assassin. In fact, Pepper chronicles in detail how a disinformation campaign has featured the collaboration of many mainstream journalists over almost half a century. He says he suspects that those orchestrating the cover-up, which continues to this day, are no longer concerned with what he writes about the subject.

“I’m really basically harmless, I think, to the power structure,” Pepper said in an interview.

“I don’t think I threaten them, really. The control of the media is so consolidated now they can keep someone like me under wraps, under cover, forever. This book will probably never be reviewed seriously by mainstream, the story will not be aired in mainstream – they control the media. It was bad in the ’60s but nowhere near as bad as now.”

And the most stunning revelation in The Plot to Kill King – which some may question because the account is second hand – is that King was still alive when he arrived at St. Joseph’s Hospital and that he was killed by a doctor who was supposed to be trying to save his life.

“That is probably the most shocking aspect of the book, that final revelation of how this great man was taken from us,” Pepper says. (By the way, when I quote Pepper as having “said” something I mean in our interview. If I’m quoting from the book, I’ll indicate that.)

The hospital story was told to Pepper by a man named Johnton Shelby, whose mother, Lula Mae Shelby, had been a surgical aide at St. Joseph’s that night. Shelby told Pepper the story of how his mother came home the morning after the shooting (she hadn’t been allowed to go home the night before) and gathered the family together. He remembers her saying to them, “I can’t believe they took his life.”

She described chief of surgery Dr. Breen Bland entering the emergency room with two men in suits. Seeing doctors working on King, Bland commanded, “Stop working on the nigger and let him die! Now, all of you get out of here, right now. Everybody get out.”

Johnton Shelby says his mother described hearing the sound of the three men sucking up saliva into their mouths and then spitting. Lula Mae described to her family that she looked over her shoulder as she was leaving the room and saw that the breathing tube had been removed from King and that Bland was holding a pillow over his head. (The book contains the entire deposition given by Johnton Shelby to Pepper, so readers can judge for themselves whether they think Shelby is credible – as Pepper believes he is.)

Pepper and King.
William Pepper with his friend Martin Luther King.
In fact, a second invaluable source was Ron Adkins, whose father, Russell Adkins Sr., was a local Dixie Mafia gangster and conspirator in the planning of the assassination even though he died a year before it took place. Ron told Pepper he had overheard Bland, who was his family’s doctor, tell his father that if King did survive the shooting he had to be taken to St. Joseph’s and nowhere else. As Pepper describes it:

He remembers Breen Bland saying to his father, ‘If he’s not killed by the shot, just make sure he gets to St. Joseph Hospital, and we’ll make sure that he doesn’t leave.’

Ron, who was just 16 when the shooting took place, was apparently taken everywhere by his father in those days, and he was able to recount many details of what happened as the assassination was planned and carried out.

“I definitely found him credible,” Pepper says. “I found him troubled, I found him disturbed in a lot of ways by things that went on earlier in his life.”

His deposition is also contained in the book, which Pepper explains was important so that readers could judge the statements for themselves.

“What I wanted to do was to make sure that the entire deposition of these critical moments and this critical information was there, so that one could go and read the depositions and see that I was being accurate,” Pepper says.

Besides describing what he heard Bland tell his father, Ron Adkins described the many visits made to Russell Sr. by Clyde Tolson, J. Edgar Hoover’s right hand man. Known to Ron as “Uncle Clyde,” the high-level FBI official often delivered cash to the elder Adkins for jobs he and his associates would carry out on behalf of Hoover. Among those the younger Adkins said were paid to supply information about the activities of Martin Luther King were the reverends Samuel “Billy”  Kyles and Jesse Jackson.

The basics of the official story

If you seek out any information from a mainstream source about James Earl Ray, you’ll find him described as the killer of Martin Luther King, just as Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan are labelled “assassins” in the murders of John and Robert Kennedy.

But once you read any or all of Pepper’s three books on the King slaying, you see very clearly that Ray is not a killer at all. Instead, he was a petty criminal who was a perfect “follower.” Like Oswald and Sirhan, Ray was set up to take the fall for an assassination that originated within the American deep state. In fact, Pepper says he’s convinced that knowledge of the plot went all the way to the top.

“The whole thing would have been part of Lyndon Johnson’s playbook,” Pepper says. “I think Johnson knew about this.”

As the official story of the shooting goes, at 5:50 p.m. on April 4, Kyles knocked on the door of room 306 of the Lorraine Motel to let King and the rest of his party know that they were running late for a planned dinner at Kyles’s home. Kyles then walked about 60 feet down the balcony where he remained even after King came out of the room at about 6 p.m. (Although Kyles has maintained ever since that he spent the last half hour in the room, Pepper has proven otherwise.)

Andrew Young and others on balcony of Lorraine motel pointing to where the shot originated while King lies at their feet. (Joseph Louw photo)

Andrew Young (left) and others on balcony of the Lorraine pointing to where the shot originated while King lies at their feet. (Joseph Louw photo)

Members of a militant black organizing group the Invaders, who were also staying in the motel because of King’s visit, were told shortly before the shooting by a member of the motel staff that their rooms would no longer being paid for by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and that they had to leave immediately. When they asked who had given this order, they were told it was Jesse Jackson. At the time of the shooting, Jackson was waiting down by the swimming pool. Ron Adkins also identified Jackson as the person who called the owners of the Lorraine Motel and demanded that King be moved from a more secure inner courtyard room to an exposed room on the second floor facing the street.

The Memphis Police Department usually formed a detail of black officers to protect King when he was in town, but did not this time. Emergency TACT support units were pulled back from the Lorraine to the fire station, which overlooked the motel. Pepper also learned that the only two black members of the Memphis Fire Department had been told the day before the shooting not to report for work the next day at the fire station. And black detective Ed Redditt was told an hour before the shooting to stay home because a threat had been made on his life.

Just about a minute after King exited his room, a single shot was fired and the bullet ripped through King’s jaw and spinal cord, dropping him immediately. The shot appeared to come from across Mulberry Street. King was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead just after 7 p.m.

According to the official story, the shot was fired by Ray from the bathroom of a rooming house above a bar called Jim’s Grill, which backed on to Mulberry and faced onto South Main Street. But, as Pepper’s investigation proves, the shot actually came from the bushes located in between the rooming house and the street.  In fact, the only “witness” who placed Ray at the scene was a falling-down-drunk named Charles Stephens, who later did not recognize Ray in a photograph and who cab driver James McCraw had refused to transport a short time before because he was too intoxicated.

The bushes that concealed the shooter were conveniently trimmed the day after the shooting, giving a false impression that a shooter could not have been concealed there. Several witnesses, including journalist Earl Caldwell and King’s Memphis driver, Solomon Jones, described seeing the shot come from the bushes and not from the bathroom of the rooming house as the official story states.

Another casualty of the King murder was cab driver Buddy Butler who reported that he saw a man running from the scene right after the shot, going south on Mulberry St., and jumping into a police car (this would turn out to be MPD Lieutenant Earl Clark). Butler reported this to his dispatcher and later to fellow cab driver Louie Ward. Butler was interviewed at the Yellow Cab Company later that evening by police. Ward was told the next day that Butler had either fallen, or was pushed, to his death from a speeding car on the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge.

The owner of Jim’ Grill, Loyd Jowers, would later admit to being part of the conspiracy to kill King, and he would be found responsible – along with various government agencies – for the killing in a 1999 civil lawsuit by the King family, which was represented by Pepper.

“The King family got enormous comfort out of the results of that trial and the evidence that came forward from that,” Pepper says.

Betty Spates, a waitress at Jim’s Grill and girlfriend of Jowers, says she saw him rush into the back of the Grill through the back door seconds after the shot, white as a ghost and holding a rifle, which he then wrapped in a tablecloth and hid on a shelf under the counter. He turned to her and said, “Betty, you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, would you?” She responded, “Of course not, Loyd.” Spates, who didn’t come forward until the 1990s, also recounted that Jowers had been delivered a large sum of money right before the assassination.

James McCraw stated that Jowers had shown him a rifle the day after the shooting and told him it was the one used to kill King.

“We confronted Loyd,” Peppers explains. “We told him he was likely to be indicted if he didn’t help us, if he didn’t give more information. Jowers didn’t know there was no way the grand jury was going to indict him. All he knew was what he did, what he participated in, how much money he got for it – he got quite a large sum of money, built a taxi cab company with it, had his gambling debt with [local Mafia figure Frank] Liberto forgiven.”

Liberto, an associate of Louisiana crime boss Carlos Marcello, turned out to be involved in the assassination also. He owned a produce warehouse and one of his regular customers, John McFerren, was making his weekly shopping trip there when he overheard Liberto shout into the phone an hour before the shooting: “Shoot the son of a bitch on the balcony.” Nathan Whitlock and his mother, LaVada Addison Whitlock, who owned a restaurant frequented by Liberto, stated that Liberto had told them he was responsible for the King murder.

Setting up the patsy

One thing that many don’t know is that Ray was in prison in 1967, the year before the assassination, serving a 20-year sentence for a grocery store robbery in 1959. After a couple of unsuccessful escape attempts, Ray succeeded in breaking out of prison on April 23, 1967. Unknown to Ray was the fact that the escape had been orchestrated, because he had already been chosen as the patsy in the planned assassination of King, which was still a year away.

The warden of Missouri State Penitentiary was paid $25,000 by Russell Adkins Sr. to allow the escape (as confirmed by Ron Adkins). The money was delivered to Adkins by Tolson, and it was this same connection that would later be used to finance the assassination of King.

After his escape from prison, Ray went to Chicago for a few weeks where he got a job. But, worried about getting caught, he went to Canada, specifically Montreal, and took the name Eric S. Galt. His intention was to get a passport under a false name and to travel to a country from which he could not be extradited.

james earl ray

James Earl Ray spent the last 30 years of his life in prison for a murder he did not commit.

At the Neptune Bar in the Montreal dock area in August 1967, Ray met a mysterious figure who identified himself as “Raul.” Raul asked Ray to help him with a smuggling scheme, and Ray agreed. In the months ahead, Ray would do a number of jobs, including gun running, for Raul for which he was paid and given a car. Always, Ray had to wait to be contacted by Raul, who Ray said co-ordinated his activities right up until the day of the assassination.

At one point Ray was instructed to purchase a deer rifle with a scope (although Raul was not satisfied with the one he bought and made him exchange it for another). Ray was instructed to go to Memphis (he arrived April 3, 1968) and upon meeting with Raul in his motel was given the name of Jim’s Grill, where the two were to meet at 3 p.m. the next day.  He also handed the rifle over to Raul and always maintained that he never saw it again.

Ray rented a room at the rooming house above Jim’s Grill (the two met the day of the assassination as planned). About an hour before the shooting, he was given money to go to the movies, but first he tried to have a tire repaired because Raul had said he wanted to use the car. But when Ray heard the sirens that followed the shooting, he got scared and left the area.

Fearing he had been set up, Ray left the country and ended up in England where he was captured on June 8, 1968 at London’s Heathrow Airport as he was trying to leave the UK. Once charged with the crime, Ray was pressured by his second lawyer, Percy Foreman, to plead guilty on the grounds that the evidence was too strong against him and Foreman was not in good health and couldn’t offer a strong defence.

“Foreman was sent in with the purpose of replacing the original lawyers,” Pepper says.

Foreman offered Ray $500 to get another lawyer if he pleaded guilty and even put this in writing. Ray would regret accepting this offer for the rest of his life. He tried unsuccessfully to rescind the guilty plea and get a trial for the next 30 years, finally dying in prison of cancer in 1998.

Pepper becomes convinced of Ray’s innocence

It was 10 years after the assassination before Pepper would even consider meeting with Ray. He had taken for granted at first that Ray was the assassin, but he was encouraged to meet him by Rev. Ralph Abernathy, who had succeeded King as President of the SCLC. Abernathy had remained unsatisfied with the official account of the shooting.

In the book, Pepper describes his first meeting with Ray in 1978 and how he quickly came to believe that Ray had not been the shooter and that the case was essentially still unsolved. It wasn’t until 1988 before Pepper became certain that Ray had not played any knowing part in the conspiracy, and at that point he agreed to represent him, which he did until his death.

Purveyors of the official story of the assassination have always claimed that Raul was an invention of Ray’s, and mainstream media accounts refer to this question as still unanswered even though Pepper not only found witnesses who described their connections to Raul, he actually found Raul himself with the help of witness Glenda Grabow (Pepper learned that his last name was Coelho). She identified Raul as someone she had known in Houston in 1963 and who around 1974, in a fit of rage, had implicated himself in the King assassination right before raping her. Grabow also identified Jack Ruby as someone who she had seen with Raul in 1963. This fascinating story is recounted both in An Act of State and The Plot to Kill King.

One of the most intriguing things to come out of both of these books is the account of a young FBI agent named Don Wilson who after the assassination was sent to check out a white Mustang with Alabama plates (Ray drove a white Mustang) that had been abandoned and that was thought to be connected to the assassination. Wilson opened the car door and some papers fell out. He examined them later and found a torn-out piece of a 1963 Dallas, Texas telephone directory. Written on the page was the name “Raul” and the initial “J” and a phone number, which turned out to be that of a Las Vegas night club run by Jack Ruby, the man who had shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas police station. A second piece of paper had a list of names with amounts of money beside each. Wilson decided to hold on to this evidence, fearing it would disappear forever if he turned it in. He held on to it for 29 years before making it available to Pepper and the King family.

The shooter revealed

Another incredible revelation in The Plot to Kill King is the identity of the man who appears to have fired the fatal shot. Pepper learned his identity from Lenny B. Curtis, who was a custodian at the Memphis Police Department rifle range. Curtis told Pepper this in 2003, and Pepper recorded a deposition with him but kept it confidential out of fear for Curtis’s life. Only after his death in 2013 did Pepper reveal what Curtis had said – that the shooter was Memphis police officer Frank Strausser.

“We had to be very careful about [Curtis’s safety],” Pepper says.

Curtis said to Pepper in his deposition that he heard Strausser say about King four or five months before the assassination that somebody was going to “. . . blow his motherfucking brains out.” He also described that Strausser had practised in the rifle range with a particular rifle that had been brought in four or five days earlier by a member of the fire department. That fireman had shown the rifle to Curtis and asked, “How would you like that scoundrel, that baby there?” When Curtis said it look like any other rifle, he replied, “No, this is a special one; that baby is special.” Lenny remembered that on the day of the assassination, Strausser spent the whole day practicing with it. (Strausser has given several conflicting accounts of where he was and what he was doing that day.)

After the assassination, Curtis says he was followed and intimidated by Strausser. Pepper writes:

Lenny said that he subsequently became aware that strange things were happening around him. His gas was strangely turned on once when he was about to enter his house. He had lit a cigarette, but as he opened the door he smelled gas and quickly put out the cigarette. A strange Lincoln was occasionally parked across the street from his apartment house. He was frightened. One morning when the car was there, he got into his own car and quickly drove off, and the strange car pulled out and followed him. He managed to see the driver. It was Strausser.

In the book, Pepper describes how he came to meet with Strausser, who he describes as a committed and devoted racist.

“He had no respect for black people at all,” Pepper says. “He wasn’t explicit about his racism. But he was not at all sympathetic to what Martin King was all about.”

In the hope of prompting an admission, Pepper lied and told him that he had been implicated in the killing by Loyd Jowers – but Strausser didn’t take the bait. Pepper also told Strausser that the footprints found in the bushes after the shooting were from size 13 shoes (which they were). Then he asked him about the size of his feet:

“He had a bit of a grin on his face, and he said ‘13 large,’” Pepper says.

Pepper also arranged to have cab driver Nathan Whitlock, who Strausser knew, tell him that there was a good possibility that he (Strausser) would be indicted for the shooting. He responded: “What are they going to indict me for, something I did 30 years ago?” Then he caught himself and added, “Or something I knew about 30 years ago?”

A threat to the powers that be

As Pepper explains, King was not only hated by the establishment as he rose to prominence in the 1960s, he was feared. Not only did he have the ability to move large numbers of people with his message of peace and tolerance, but he had designs on a political career. According to Pepper, King was planning to run for president on a third-party ticket with fellow anti-war activist Dr. Benjamin Spock. He was also causing panic in powerful circles because he intended to bring hundreds of thousands of poor people to an encampment in Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1968 to bring attention to the plight of the poor.

“They were terrified that the anger level when [the demonstrators] were not going to get what they wanted was going to rise to such a point where Martin was going to lose control of that group and the more radical among them would take it over and they’d have a revolution,” Pepper explains. “And they didn’t have the troops to put it down. That was a real fear that the Army had. And I think it was a justifiable fear.”

King would also have posed an increasing threat to the political establishment because he intended to become much more vocal in his opposition to the Vietnam War. He had been influenced by an article and photos by Pepper called, “The Children of Vietnam,” which was published in Ramparts Magazine in January 1967 and later reprinted in Look magazine. (The man who published the piece in Look, Bill Atwood, actually told Pepper he received a visit from former New York governor and ambassador to the Soviet Union Averill Harriman who passed on a message from President Johnson that he would appreciate it if Atwood never published anything by Pepper.)

Beyond King’s importance as a powerful force for justice, peace, and equality, he was also Pepper’s friend. And the lawyer/journalist had to deal with that loss as he sought the truth about who really killed King and fought for justice for the man falsely accused of his murder. He writes:

For me, this is a story rife with sadness, replete with massive accounts of personal and public deception and betrayal. Its revelations and experiences have produced in the writer a depression stemming from an unavoidable confrontation with the depths to which human beings, even those subject to professional codes of ethics, have fallen. In addition, there is an element of personal despair that has resulted from this long effort, which has made me even question the wisdom of undertaking this task. (page xiv, The Plot to Kill King)




http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tulsa-police-union-deletes-facebook-post-criticizing-nfl-players-article-1.3545445

Tulsa police union deletes Facebook post that uses Las Vegas massacre to take shot at NFL player protests
BY BRETT BODNER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, October 6, 2017, 11:28 AM
 



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-access-hollywood-tape-playing-loop-national-mall-article-1.3545682

Trump’s Lewd Access Hollywood tape is playing on a loop on the National Mall in D.C.
BY NICOLE BITETTE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, October 6, 2017, 1:16 PM
 


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/session-weakens-protections-lgbt-people-new-directive-article-1.3545586

AG Jeff Sessions weakens anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people with religious liberty directive
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Friday, October 6, 2017, 12:25 PM
 






http://bangordailynews.com/2017/10/06/news/bangor/september-was-hotter-and-drier-than-usual-in-maine/

September was hotter and drier than usual in Maine



Scot Gardner of St. Francis does a back flip into the deep pool below "Jacuzzi Falls" on the Fish River in Fort Kent as temperatures soared well above 80 degrees Fahrenheit in late September.
‌
CARIBOU, Maine — The lack of rainfall that has plagued much of the state this summer continued last month, with Mainers experiencing mostly drier than normal weather coupled with above average temperatures.

Mark Bloomer, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Caribou, said Wednesday that at most of the climate sites across the region, September averaged between five and six degrees above average.


It was the third warmest September on record in northern and central Maine and the second warmest September in




https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-wont-pay-for-the-worlds-best-climate-science/


08.11.1708:00 AM
THE US WON'T PAY FOR THE WORLD'S BEST CLIMATE SCIENCE



THE MOST FORMAL manifestation of the scientific consensus on climate change is an organization called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Headquartered in Geneva, under the aegis of the United Nations, it coordinates the volunteer efforts of several thousand scientists, industry experts, nonprofit researchers, and government representatives into reports issued every five to seven years. These reports underpin virtually every climate-based decision on Earth, from the US military’s threat assessments to the Paris climate agreement itself.
So it’s maybe surprising that the IPCC is a shoestring operation, running on just over $4.3 million a year. It gets that money from about 25 different countries, plus a few UN groups. Historically, the biggest chunk of that money comes from the US. Or rather, it used to.

Congress and the Trump administration effectively zeroed out America’s nearly $2 million contribution for 2017, and the 2018 budget explicitly bars the State Department from giving the IPCC money. Congress, remember, has the power of the purse. But the budget starts and ends with Trump: first as a proposal, and finally as a bill he signs into law. Removing the IPCC from the budget doesn’t necessarily put the organization in an immediate bind; it has savings. But it could leave US scientists out of many important scientific discussions—and leave the US underprepared as climate change progresses.
The UN established the IPCC as an independent research organization in 1988, because member nations were worried about the rising chorus of alarming climate science. They wanted a group to review the research and deliver actionable recommendations to the UN. The IPCC’s fifth assessment came out in 2014, and the sixth is due in 2022.

Every country that wants to participate can do so, and the IPCC’s executive committee selects delegates based on the needs of the working groups—not just scientists, but industry representatives, nonprofit experts, and other climate-interested professions. “The US people that work in these groups are generally selected by the DOE or by the EPA," says Daniel Kammen, a UC Berkeley energy physicist who has been working with the IPCC since 1999. "They get a letter saying you are requested, and the US will cover your travel with the understanding that all the work you do is volunteer.”

Those volunteers don’t conduct any new research. Rather, they review the existing literature in order to present a consensus on climate change, its impacts, and how the world can prepare for the worst of them. Numerous subgroups investigate the nuances in renewable energy, agriculture, sea level rise, and so on. Most of that work happens remotely. The only thing the IPCC pays for is flying the delegates to working group meetings once or twice a year—flights that eat up the bulk of the organization’s budget.
The working group meetups are the meat and potatoes of the IPCC. They decide the focus of the big reports. Which is why the US pulling out its funds could bite back. “The topics we are mostly concerned about, like climate change and drying soils, and the impacts of that on US farmers, will get less attention,” says Kammen. The US only accounts for 2 percent of the Earth’s surface, so it makes a big difference when US scientists are present to stand up for domestic interests.

Despite the IPCC’s relative low cost and undeniably outsized scientific importance, Republican lawmakers have been trying to zero out the US’s contribution for years. It's a familiar dance: Early every year, the State Department sends a budget request to the appropriations committees in both the Senate and House of Representatives. And every year, the respective committees write back, detailing their thoughts on which programs do and don't deserve money. For most of Barack Obama’s presidency, the notes from the House of Representatives have trashed environmental programs, including the payouts to the IPCC. But then the bill would make its way to the Senate, and some politician or aide would work these programs back into the budget. And because the amount was so small ($2 million is less than a percent of a percent of the total US budget), the quibble apparently wasn't worth expending political capital over.
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jamcc725

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Posted Reply with quote  #279 
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http://ticklethewire.com/2017/11/16/professor-admitted-fbi-burglary-philadelphia-dies/

Professor Who Admitted to FBI Burglary in Philadelphia Dies

A Washington Post story on what the stolen documents revealed.


One of the seven conspirators who revealed a dirty campaign of intimidation by the FBI in March 1971 by stealing a cache of documents in burglary of an bureau office in suburban Philadelphia died on Nov. 12 at his home in Philadelphia.

John C. Raines, a Temple University religion professor, was 84, the Washington Post reports.

During the burglary, the seven conspirators stole documents that showed a campaign of intimidation by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover against civil rights and antiwar activists, communists and other dissenters.

One of the documents revealed an that agents were directed to increasingly interview perceived dissenters “to get the point across there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox.”

The burglars, who called themselves the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, disseminated the stolen documents to newspapers.

The leaked reports lead to the formation of the Senate Church Committee, which revealed widespread abuses among intelligence agencies.

Raines kept the explosive secret for 43 years before revealing his identity to a Washington Post journalist, Betty Medsger, who wrote a book-length account of the break-in, “The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI.”



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sheriff-deputy-uproar-blackface-halloween-costume-article-1.3638181


Sheriff’s deputy causes uproar over blackface Halloween costume
BY BLAKE ALSUP
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, November 16, 2017, 4:04 PM





http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/macomb/2017/11/16/dino-bucci-federal-bureau-of-investigation/868078001/

Ex-Macomb Twp. official says he complained about Dino Bucci years ago to FBI
Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press Published 5:00 p.m. ET Nov. 16, 2017





http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/keystone-pipeline-leaks-210-000-gallons-oil-south-dakota-article-1.3638440

Keystone pipeline shut down after leaking 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Thursday, November 16, 2017, 6:15 PM





https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/16/working-four-day-week-hours-labour

We should all be working a four-day week. Here’s why

Ending life-sapping excessive hours was a pioneering demand for the labour movement. For the sake of our health and the economy we need to revisit it



https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/16/political-watershed-as-19-countries-pledge-to-phase-out-coal

'Political watershed' as 19 countries pledge to phase out coal
New alliance launched at Bonn climate talks hopes to signal the end of the dirtiest fossil fuel that kills 800,000 people a year with air pollution



https://www.courthousenews.com/california-trashes-thousands-mail-ballots-aclu-says/

California Trashes Thousands of Mail-In Ballots, ACLU Says
November 15, 2017 DAVE TARTRE





Link du jour


https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2017/11/16/alleged-hacker-back-slammer-says-judgejailed-criticizing-fbi





http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/trump-organization-drops-37-places-list-largest-private-nyc-article-1.3637492



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sheriff-photo-billy-kid-killer-experts-article-1.3633687


http://www.publiceye.org/portal/top-civlib-page.php


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mother-dies-cleaning-son-suspected-overdose-article-1.3636340


http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires/news/business/federal-extreme-vetting-plan-castigated-tech-experts-article-1.3637188



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/baby-boy-marijuana-overdose-death-doctors-claim-article-1.3637939

Baby boy is first marijuana overdose death, doctors claim
BY MINYVONNE BURKE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, November 16, 2017, 2:33 PM




http://centerformediajustice.org/2017/10/18/aclu-cmj-demand-fbi-records-surveillance-black-activists/

October 18, 2017
ACLU AND CMJ DEMAND FBI RECORDS ON SURVEILLANCE OF BLACK ACTIVISTS
by CMJ
FRESH CONCERNS PROMPTED BY LEAKED FBI DOCUMENT FOCUSING ON NEWLY CREATED CATEGORY CALLED ‘BLACK IDENTITY EXTREMISTS’
October 18, 2017
NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Media Justice filed a Freedom of Information Act request today asking the FBI to turn over documents related to surveillance of Black people on the basis of a purported shared ideology or “extremism.”

The request was prompted by an FBI document leaked to Foreign Policy magazine. The document is an “Intelligence Assessment” dated August 3 and titled “Black Identity Extremists Likely Motivated to Target Law Enforcement Officers.”

“The FBI’s report is a red flag that the bureau is once again profiling Black activists because of their beliefs and race,” said Nusrat J. Choudhury, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. “The public deserves to know whether the labeling of so-called ‘Black Identity Extremists’ is the latest flawed example in the FBI’s history of using threats — real or perceived — as an excuse to surveil Black people.”

The Constitution prohibits the government from targeting people because of their racial identity or because they take part in First Amendment-protected activities, which include protesting racism and injustice.

“As a member of the Black Lives Matter Network, I am deeply concerned that Jeff Sessions’ FBI and the Trump administration are escalating the use of high-tech tools to profile, police, and punish democratically protected activities of Black protestors despite volumes of evidence of a surge in white nationalist violence,” said Malkia A. Cyril, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Media Justice.

Although most individuals who shoot and kill officers are white, and government reports show that white supremacists were responsible for nearly 75 percent of deadly extremist attacks between 2001 and 2016, the FBI appears to be allocating investigative resources to surveil Black people based on a purportedly shared ideology linked to “Black identity” on the basis of six separate incidents.

Today’s FOIA request is here:
https://www.aclu.org/other/foia-request-fbi-surveillance-black-activists

Want to learn more? Read “Is the FBI Setting the Stage for Increased Surveillance of Black Activists?” co-authored by Malkia Cyril, Executive Director, Center for Media Justice, Thaddeus Talbot, and Hugh Handeyside, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project.



http://www.theroot.com/3rd-ohio-pastor-charged-with-sex-trafficking-underage-g-1820501584


3rd Ohio Pastor Charged with Sex Trafficking Underage Girls


The Root-
Jenkins and Haynes were arrested by FBI agents earlier this year and were initially accused of knowingly recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing ...







https://ordinaryevil.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/four-sisters-who-confronted-their-father-and-their-pain/


Four Sisters Who Confronted Their Father and Their Pain
Posted on September 10, 2015

My father, was a Los Angeles Police Officer. He was a child sexual abuser, and child rapist. He used weapons on me to silence me. Edward Rodgers was a former state and federal law enforcement official. His daughter’s story is below:

By Patricia Brennan, March 20 1994

“At times, “Ultimate Betrayal” (a made for TV movie that was broadcast in the 1990’s) is not an easy movie to watch. Based on a true story of incest and physical abuse, it follows four adult sisters as they share their memories and decide to sue their father in civil court.

Their precedent-setting 1990 lawsuit in a Denver court has repercussions on Capitol Hill. If Rep. Patricia Shroeder (D-Colo.) gets her legislation passed, the Child Abuse Accountability Act will establish procedures to allow child abuse victims to claim court-ordered financial restitution by garnisheeing the federal (but not military) pensions of their abusers even years after the abuse occurred. Currently, federal pensions can be garnisheed for alimony and child support.

In the film, Marlo Thomas plays Sharon Rodgers Simone, eldest of seven children in a Colorado Springs, Colo., family. Now a middle-aged wife and mother, she is a fearful person on the edge of a nervous breakdown, a woman who sleeps in her car at night, returning at dawn to help get the children off to school. Her husband is keeping the family together.

When Sharon’s youngest sister, Mary Rodgers LaRocque (Ally Sheedy), calls to ask if she’ll join in a lawsuit against their father, Sharon learns that her three sisters also are leading dysfunctional lives. All four have sought psychological help; three have attempted suicide.

But unlike Sharon, who has no explanation for her undefined fears, the other sisters know why: As children, they say, they were sexually abused by their father. Sharon hears her sisters’ stories but denies that such horrors occurred — certainly, she believes, not to her. As Thomas put it, “Only Sharon had trouble connecting the dots.”

Filled with shame, the sisters — Mary, Susan (Mel Harris) and Beth Medlicott (Kathryn Dowling) — had never confided in one another.

“One of the things that Sue says on the stand is, ‘All my life, I thought this was my shame,’ ” said Thomas. “All of us carry little secrets that have tremendous power because they’re secrets. A secret tears you apart; it stops you. But if you let it out, it has no power. It doesn’t have to be a secret as big as theirs. The secret can be that you just weren’t loved, just the fact that your parents didn’t have time for you.”

But Mary’s secret was a big one, one she had never told. Sheedy, in one of the most touching and unsettling scenes in the movie, recounts to her older sisters the repeated sexual abuse, including a rape that occurred when she was very young and was the only child left at home.

Edward J. Rodgers Jr. said that never happened. Rodgers had been an FBI agent for 27 years when he retired from that career in 1967 and became a child-abuse investigator for the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office (El Paso County) in Colorado Springs. He also served on the board of a group that supports the rights of abused children.

The same year he retired from the FBI, he separated from the mother of his seven children. Two years later, he married a woman with a son and two daughters.

In 1990, long after the Rodgers children were grown, Susan Rodgers Hammond and Sharon Rodgers Simone sued their father, not only to gain money to pay for their therapy, but also hoping for a public accounting and to hear their father acknowledge what happened.

That he would not do. Edward Rogers failed to appear in court, and in a written deposition, he denied that the sexual abuse ever occurred, although he admitted that he had been a physically rough disciplinarian with a quick temper.

Nor would his sons Edward, Steve and John, who are seen in the film being beaten as children, participate in the lawsuit. They are seen in the film berating their sisters in the courtroom at the close of the trial. Sharon’s therapist (played by Eileen Brennan), did testify, as did Sharon’s husband, Patrick Simone.

Without the defendant present, and with no defense counsel, a six-woman Denver jury heard the testimony, considered the evidence for 90 minutes, and awarded them $2.3 million, the largest settlement (at that time) in a case of this nature.

Thus far, said Thomas, Rodgers has never paid a penny of that sum. Schroeder’s bill, introduced in November of 1993, would tap into Rodgers’s FBI pension. Currently, a federal employee’s pension can be garnisheed only for court-ordered child support or alimony.

Thomas pointed out that unlike other cases that have caught public attention recently, “This isn’t a case of false memory or repressed memory,” said Thomas. “The other sisters said, ‘I’ve known this all my life,’ but Sharon wouldn’t allow herself to admit that.”

They related all of this to producer/director Donald Wrye, writer Gregory Goodall and a therapist in an emotional two-day session before the movie went into production. Simone reviewed at least 10 drafts of Goodall’s script. Then the actors were cast.

“The abuse psychologist we spoke to said everybody plays a different role in the family,” said Thomas. “Sue was the one who fought back and got beaten the most. Sharon was the one who tried to make her father calm down and feel loved, met him at the door, brought him a beer. She thought she was helping by helping her father feel loved. But underneath, there was the guilt of the collaborator.

“To me, what was very touching was that she {Sharon} didn’t want to lose her father. Every girl needs her daddy. Sharon told me, ‘There’s a part of me that still loves my father.’ Her fantasy was that they would have this trial, the father would be found guilty, and then they would all go around and help other families. She said, ‘I thought maybe we’d make all this bad become good for somebody.’ ”

Thomas said Sharon eventually came to understand that her vision of family healing was an unlikely scenario. Instead, helping make the movie and working for the Child Abuse Accountability Act have become her way of making “bad become good for somebody.”

Thomas said after she read the script, she gave the movie a lot of thought.

“I’ve never done an ‘abuse movie’ before,” she said. “I put {the script} down and I thought, there’s something very special here. It took a lot of courage for these women to stand up to their father. There’s something basic about having your pain acknowledged, having your reality acknowledged.

“The father had every opportunity to acknowledge his daughters. They asked him to talk, they asked him for money for their therapy, and as a last resort, they sued him to get money for their therapy. But that doesn’t seem to be the real issue. The real issue is, if Dad won’t acknowledge what happened, maybe the jury will. That was the triumph for them.”

_____________

THE DENVER POST – Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire
May 17, 1990
Sisters win sex lawsuit vs. dad $2.3 million given for years of abuse
By Howard Prankratz
Denver Post Legal Affairs Writer

Two daughters of former state and federal law enforcement official Edward Rodgers were awarded $2.319,400 yesterday, after a Denver judge and jury found that the women suffered years of abuse at the hands of their father.

The award to Sharon Simone, 45, and Susan Hammond, 44, followed testimony of Rodgers’ four daughters in person or through depositions, describing repeated physical abuse and sexual assaults by their father from 1944 through 1965.

Rodgers, 72, who became a child abuse expert after retiring from the FBI and joining the colorado Springs DA’s office, failed to appear for the trial. But in a deposition taken in March, Rodgers denied ever hitting or sexually abusing his children.

He admitted that he thought of himself as a “domineering s.o.b. who demanded strict responses from my children, strict obedience.” But it never approached child abuse, Rodgers said. “Did I make mistakes? Damn right I did, just like any other father or mother…”

Thomas Gresham, Rodger’s former attorney, withdrew from the case recently after being unable to locate his client. Rodgers recently contacted one of his sons from a Texas town along the Mexican border. Gresham said his last contact with Rodgers was on April 24.

The sisters reacted quietly to the verdict, and with relief that their stories of abuse had finally been told.

“I feel really good that I’ve gone public with this,”Hammond said. “I am a victim, the shame isn’t mine, the horror happened to me. I’m not bad.
“My father did shameful and horrible things to me and my brothers and sisters. I don’t believe he is a shameful and horrible man, but he has to be held accountable,” Hammond added.

The lawsuit deeply divided the Rodgers family, with Rodgers’ three sons questioning their sister’s motives.

Immediately after the verdict, son Steve Rodgers, 37, reacted angrily, yelling at his sisters in the courtroom.

Later, Rodgers said he loves his father and stands by him. He said his sisters had told him their father had to be exposed the way Nazi war criminals have been exposed.

“In a way I’m angry with my father for not being here. But I’m sympathetic because he would have walked into a gross crucifixion,” Rodgers said.

Steve Rodgers never denied that he and his siblings were physically abused, but disputed that his father molested his sisters.
Before the jury’s award, Denver District Judge William Meyer found that Rodger’s conduct toward Simone and Hammond was negligent and “outrageous.”

Despite the length of time since the abuse, the jury determined the sisters could legally bring the suit. The statute of limitations for a civil suit is two years, but jurors determined that the sisters became aware of he nature and extent of their injury only within the last two years, during therapy.

The jury then determined the damages, finding $1,240,000 for Simone and 1,079,000 for Hammond.

The sisters had alleged in their suit filed last July that Rodgers subjected his seven children to a “pattern of emotional, physical, sexual and incestual abuse.”

As a result of the abuse, the women claimed their emotional lives had been left in a shambles, requiring extensive therapy for both and repeated hospitalizations of Hammond, who was acutely suicidal. Simone developed obsessive behavior and became so unable to function she resigned a position with a Boston-based college.

Despite the judgment yesterday, Rodgers cannot be criminally charged. the statue of limitations in Colorado for sexual assault on children is 10 years.
Rodgers, who worked for the FBI for 27 years, much of it in Denver, became chief investigator for the district attorney’s office in Colorado Sp;rings. during his employment at the DA’s office from 1967 until 1983, he became a well-known figure in Colorado Springs, and lectured and wrote about child abuse both locally and nationwide.

He wrote a manual called ” A Compendium — Child Abuse by the National College of District Attorney’s,” and helped put together manuals on child abuse for the New York state police and a national child abuse center.

__________________________________________________________

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/tv/1994/03/20/four-sisters-confront-dad-and-the-past/d312385d-584d-45be-bf91-1dbc96036432/

http://www.headwatersproductions.com/press/article5.html








https://networks.h-net.org/node/5299/reviews/338496/schorman-cecil-branding-hoovers-fbi-how-bosss-pr-men-sold-bureau


Schorman on Cecil, 'Branding Hoover's FBI: How the Boss's PR Men Sold the Bureau to America'

Author:
Matthew Cecil
Reviewer:
Rob Schorman

Matthew Cecil. Branding Hoover's FBI: How the Boss's PR Men Sold the Bureau to America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2016. 344 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7006-2305-1.

Reviewed by Rob Schorman (Miami University of Ohio Regionals)
Published on H-FedHist (October, 2017)
Commissioned by Caryn E. Neumann

Matthew Cecil, in Branding Hoover's FBI: How the Boss's PR Men Sold the Bureau to America, lays out a case that the prestige and public trust enjoyed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during most of J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure resulted not so much from the agency’s investigative prowess as from a finely tuned public relations apparatus that began operation only a few years after the term “public relations” was coined. As Cecil puts it: “The bureau practiced, at an early stage in the development of the field, sophisticated public relations techniques on a nationwide scale” (p. 15). Cecil sees the success of this effort as the achievement of specific, talented individuals. He suggests that had they not been on the scene, the agency would have fared much differently in the public estimation from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, and that had they not departed, the agency might have avoided its precipitous fall from grace in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In-depth coverage is given to the careers of both Louis Nichols and Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, the two most prominent overseers of the agency’s PR efforts, the former from 1935 to 1957 and the latter from 1959 to 1970. Nichols established the template for agency policies, and the book details the manner in which he led efforts to control its image in popular radio shows, fought to head off critical findings from a presidential commission, strategically leaked information on alleged Communist sympathizers to force them from public office, and recruited liberal “moles” to offer intelligence about such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union. DeLoach followed the template but with a different style. Whereas Nichols was a sometimes subtle manipulator of a vast network of media contacts—both friend and foe—DeLoach focused his attention on “managing upward” and influencing decision makers in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Justice Department, and White House (p. 263).

Nichols and DeLoach are well-known figures, although their methods have never been examined with such care. Perhaps even more valuable, the book provides an equally detailed appraisal of the contributions of agency staff members who are never more than bit players in standard FBI histories. These include Milton Jones, who for almost thirty years was personally responsible for maintaining the content standards for thousands of letters, memos, speeches, articles, and reports the agency produced, and Fern Stukenbroeker, who among other things was the chief ghostwriter for publications that appeared under Hoover’s name, ranging from law journal articles to the best-selling book Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It (1958), which sold more than two million copies. The book includes readable character sketches of these people and many others with whom they interacted, along with analysis of their activities.

Cecil’s work has an impressive research base, most notably an extensive review of the FBI’s own files of correspondence, memos, and handwritten notes. At its peak, the FBI department responsible for public relations employed almost two hundred people and in a single year responded to about seven thousand letters a month, placed dozens of articles in national magazines, wrote hundreds of speeches and official statements for bureau employees, and performed thousands of “name checks” for the White House. For the network television series The FBI (1965-74), it rewrote scripts, vetted cast and crew members (blackballing “subversives”), and had two agents permanently assigned to the set while filming occurred. Censure, probation, demotion, and reassignment were penalties imposed on agency personnel for offenses as small as a typographical error on a letter that went out on the agency’s letterhead.

The book also covers the tsunami of criticism that led to a decline in the FBI’s reputation at the end of Hoover’s tenure. By that time, the health and vigor of Hoover and his top aide, Clyde Tolson, were in decline, and Nichols and DeLoach had moved on. Cecil states: “It seems likely that the Bureau could have weathered the kinds of public relations challenges it faced in the late 1960s and early 1970s had its leadership team been at full strength” (p. 252). I suppose that’s possible—certainly he provides examples of inept and inadequate response by the agency during this period. He also notes, however, that by the late 1960s the “FBI represented mainstream 1950s values in a counterculture America” (p. 214), and one wonders if any PR effort could have countered the rising suspicion and scrutiny of public institutions that were fueled by civil rights and Vietnam protests, the culture of scandal and investigative reporting that began to permeate Washington media, and the collapse of the Cold War consensus that had dominated public perception and discourse since World War II.

Branding Hoover’s FBI is well done in every respect. The book is well written and organized, its use of both primary and secondary sources is excellent, and overall its argument is convincing. It is a valuable addition to our understanding of the internal workings of the FBI.








Special Needs Adults Get VIP Treatment At Philly's FBI Field Office
CBS Philly-
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — For FBI agents, suiting up for the task at hand is an everyday experience. For the rest of us, it's something special. “It's my first time ...




http://www.cannoncourier.com/fbi-agent-gives-advice-to-mtsu-criminal-justice-students-cms-17029

FBI agent gives advice to MTSU criminal justice students

November 16, 2017

Keith A. Johnson, security specialist for the Security Division of the FBI, addresses MTSU criminal justice majors at a Nov. 14 combined class.
MURFREESBORO -- "Take yourself out of your comfort zone. That's the only way you grow."

That was the message Keith A. Johnson conveyed to eager MTSU criminal justice majors in a combined class Nov. 14 in the College of Education Building. It was a message borne of experience.

In more than 20 years of service with the FBI, Johnson's assignments included gangs and organized crime, cybercrime, security for the bureau's 56 field offices and forensic digital media investigations. Those assignments took him to 46 of the 50 states.

"Your mind is your only limitation when you're working for us," said Johnson, referring to the FBI.

Johnson's work as director of the bureau's Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory in Chicago led to the impeachment, arrest and conviction of former Illinois Gov. Rob Blagojevich. Gleaning information from computers was critical to the case.

"We've had criminals try to hide information on PlayStations," said Johnson. "We found it. We look at everything, and we have software that can pull (deleted information) back. There's no way to fool the system. You think you deleted it because you put it in the trash bin. You've emptied it. It's recycled. You think it's gone. I can get it back."

Blagojevich, who tried to obtain bribes in exchange for political appointments, including an appointment to Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat, was removed from office in 2009. He is serving a 14-year term in a federal prison.

While the FBI does not hire new employees directly out of college, Johnson did offer what he called "pearls of wisdom" for prospective new agents. He rattled off a litany of anecdotes about applicants who sabotaged their interviews with their poor command of the English language.

"We want to understand how well you can write because, when you go to court, you have to testify about what you've put on paper," said Johnson. "And all the defense attorney needs to do is cause reasonable doubt."

Jace Gallagher, a law enforcement major from Hermitage, Tennessee, said he learned a great deal from Johnson's presentation.

"This lecture was very informative," said Gallagher. "It made me think about my days back in the Navy." Gallagher said he served in the U.S. Navy from 2012 to 2015.

Natalia Hammond, a global studies major and homeland security minor from Spring Hill, Tennessee, said she appreciated the encouraging nature of Johnson's lecture.

"Sometimes if you're in a college environment, you really have to tell yourself you can do this and to not give up," Hammond said.

Professor Lynda Williams' Introduction to Criminal Justice class and assistant professor Elizabeth Quinn's Introduction to Emergency and Disaster Management class combined for Johnson's lecture, but all criminal justice students were welcome to attend.








https://altgov2.org/fbi-media-guide/


FBI / FOIA
[exclusive] FBI Media Relations Guide
BY RUSS KICK · PUBLISHED JULY 12, 2017 · UPDATED SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

Media Relations at FBIHQ and in Field Offices: Policy Guide [PDF / 42 pages]

Released via my FOIA request, this is the FBI’s guide to dealing with the media. Its focus is the news media, although it also gets into the entertainment media, press releases, social media, and related topics.

AltGov2 is a one-person operation opening
the lid on official secrecy. Please donate.

Related FBI documents:

Social Media and Other Electronic Information Sharing Technologies [AltGov2]

Community Outreach in Field Offices [Brennan Center]




https://altgov2.org/fbi-media-guide/


http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/media/fbi-media-alternative.html


The FBI, COINTELPRO, and the Alternative Press

by Chip Berlet


The FBI in the 1960s and 1970s carried out a large-scale campaign of intelligence gathering and disruption specifically aimed at crippling the alternative and underground press. The FBI targeted what they called “New Left” publications along with old-line Communist periodicals and underground newspapers as part of its COINTELPRO program. These publica­tions were seen by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover as a threat to democracy, so he ordered his agents to violate the First Amendment rights of alternative journalists to suppress their newspapers.

Surveillance of the Underground Press Syndicate was documented through a lawsuit filed by former UPS kingpin the late Tom Forcade, whose files show that the UPS was subjected to mail openings, physical office stakeouts, staff surveillance, and the obtaining and copying of bank records, credit card records, postage meter records, car rental records, telephone call records, traffic ticket records, income tax records, and more. Some of the UPS files which resurfaced in the FBI files include documents that appear to have been obtained through illegal black‑bag jobs.

The Yipster Times file shows the FBI obtained its mailing list and harassed subscribers through interviews and heavy‑handed investigations. At one point certain Times staffers were considered such a threat to national security that their names were added to the FBI’s ADEX (Administrative Index) list of activists slated to be rounded up in case of insurrection. The publisher and a staff member of the L.A. Free Press were also ADEX’d.

Disruption

Using anonymous letters to increase factionalism among leftist groups was a popular COINTELPRO tactic and the alternative press was no exception. In 1968, Liberation News Service experienced a staff split and Hoover used the occasion to suggest an operation against the news service. “Recent issues of the under­ground press have carried articles relating to the split which has developed within the Liberation News Service (LNS),” wrote Hoover in a memo to the New York office. “It would seem this is an excellent opportunity to take advantage of the split to further disrupt the underground press and to attack the New Left.”

The New York FBI office promptly invented a letter titled “And Who Got the Cookie Jar?” which ridiculed the situation and criticized the LNS staffers who left the New York office for a farm in Massachusetts. “The letter is written in the jargon of the New Left, necessitating the use of a certain amount of profanity,” admitted the New York FBI office apologetically.

The letter, signed “a former staffer,” was circulat­ed among various progressive groups and alternative newspapers in an attempt to win support for the New York faction. At the time both factions were publishing under the name LNS. “A real kindergarten performance by all concerned,” said the letter, which called one of LNS’s founders, who had moved to Massachusetts, “a bit of a nut.” The letter went on to charge the farm-bound crowd with leaving the “scene of the action in exchange for assorted ducks and sheep,” and turning LNS “from an efficient movement news service into a complete mess.”

When LNS-New York survived the split and continued publishing, the FBI contacted the Internal Revenue Service, which obligingly began auditing LNS for possible tax law violations. The FBI used at least two other federal agencies in its vendetta against the alternative press.

Progressive radio station WBAI in New York came under FBI scrutiny after broadcasting portions of a Communist convention. The FBI began monitoring its bank account and contacted the Federal Communications Commission. The San Diego FBI office requested that postal inspectors be used to harass the San Diego Door and the Teaspoon, along with a newsletter published by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at San Diego State College.

Reports submitted to a Senate committee investi­gating intelligence abuse have indicated that FBI funds were used to finance paramilitary operations by two right‑wing groups in San Diego. These groups physical­ly attacked the Street Journal, destroying during one assault over $5,000 worth of typesetting and production equipment. After they forced the Journal out of business, the San Diego Door became a target, with equipment vandalized and cars firebombed.

The San Antonio FBI office took credit for coercing a printer into refusing to continue publishing the Rag, in Austin, Texas. Printer cancellations were a constant headache for underground papers, and now it appears they were induced in part by visits from friendly feds.

The New York office tried a more subtle approach to disruption by contacting the shipper who transported bulk copies of the Black Panther Party newspaper into the city. After the contact, the firm raised its rates to the highest legal fee. “This will amount to an increase of around $300 weekly in shipments to New York City alone,” gloated an FBI memo, which accurately noted, “This counterintelligence endeavor ... will definitely have an adverse effect on the amount of incendiary propaganda being published by the BPP…. The group suffers from a constant shortage of funds.”

Most alternative publications were operated on a shoestring budget in the 1960s and early 1970s, and there is little doubt that the added expense caused by FBI‑inspired tax audits, postal hassles, price hikes, evictions, and arrests forced many publications into insolvency. Distribution hassles were frequent among underground newspapers and the FBI played its part by encouraging local authorities to enforce vague and usually unconstitutional ordinances concerning pornog­raphy, obscenity, and hawking without a license. Details of this type of FBI role are incomplete but one incident in Milwaukee shows how the FBI succeeded in tipping the scales against two undergrounds.

“On 12/6/68, a copy of Kaleidoscope and a copy of The Open Door were anonymously mailed to Miss Lauren Dixon, Principal of Homestead High School, with certain objectionable state­ments and pictures indicat­ed in red pencil,” reports an FBI memo. A few weeks later Homestead High instituted a new dress code which forbade pupils from distributing “newspapers, maga­zines and pamphlets without permission from the administration,” according to a news story that quoted the principal saying both underground publica­tions could possibly have a bad effect on students.

One suggestion for disruption that was apparent­ly turned down by Hoover was to spray alternative newspapers with a chemical stench. “A very small amount of this chemical disburses a most offensive odor,” wrote the Newark FBI office, “and its potency is such that a large amount of papers could be treated in a matter of seconds. It could be prepared by the FBI laboratory for use in an aerosol‑type dispenser.”

If You Can’t Beat Them ...

On several occasions the FBI used alternative publications for counterintelligence operations by placing advertisements or submitting ersatz letters to the editor. In Los Angeles, for instance, the local FBI office concocted a byzantine plan to use the Los Angeles Free Press in an attempt to cause friction within the Commu­nist Party USA. This escapade characterizes the zany and sopho­moric side of COINTELPRO.

In 1966, the chairperson of the southern California branch of the Communist Party, Dorothy Healey, prepared a report that was “critical of CPUSA leader­ship,” according to FBI documents. The “Healey Report” was allegedly suppressed by CPUSA officials and the FBI decided to print up copies of the supposed­ly secret report and distribute them. By circulating the report, the FBI hoped to embarrass the CPUSA leadership and cause dissension in the ranks.

The Los Angeles bureau was authorized to place the following advertisement in the personal classified section of the L.A. Free Press:

Banned by the Communist Party National Secre­tariat. Get your copy of Dorothy Healey’s contro­versial report. Send $.15 in stamps to cover mailing costs to Ivanova care of Free Press.

The FBI chose the Free Press to reach its target audience of leftists because it was ultra-liberal and its classifieds already contained unusual notices. As the FBI observed in a memo: “A good portion of the paper is devoted to a ‘personal’ section of classified advertise­ments. The wording of these ‘personals’ is quite uninhibited and ranges from invitations to sex orgies and LSD parties to guitar lessons.”

The dubious contention was that such ads were read by Communists and others who would be interest­ed in the Healey report. There was more, however, to the operation than just distribution.

The ad was signed “Ivanova” because the FBI wanted Communist officials to believe that the report was being circulated by “disgruntled comrades.” To enhance this aspect of the operation the ad was placed by a “Russian speaking agent and an experienced, older female clerk with a heavy Russian accent” who were instructed to converse in Russian while placing the ad. Free Press ad takers were supposed to immediately assume the ad placers were dissident members of the CPUSA.

The FBI figured that Communist Party officials would contact the Free Press and ask who placed the ad. The Free Press would then tell them about the Russian‑speaking duo. The Communist officials would suspect unhappy party members, and this would “cause consternation among local comrades ... cause further internal dissension within the Party and possibly have internal ramifications,” predicted an FBI memo.

Now, you have to be pretty dumb to think Ameri­can Communists speak with a “heavy Russian accent,” or that the Freep staff would care who placed a particular advertisement, especially when the weirdest casualties of the hip scene frequently flowed into the Freep offices to place improbable sex ads. Nonetheless, J. Edgar Hoover was delighted with the plan, saying, “This suggestion by Los Angeles appears most imagina­tive and should have disruptive results.”

The ads appeared in the 2/17/67 and 2/24/67 issues of the Free Press. There is no indication whether or not “Ivanova” got any requests for the suppressed report from disgruntled Communists, fellow travelers, or sex-cult fetishists who misunderstood the ad.

Signed: A Friend

The FBI sent phony letters to the editor to com­mercial and college newspapers, as well as underground publications. The letters generally revealed embarrass­ing information or made false charges against progressives. The letters were usually signed with aliases or phrases such as “A True Progressive.”

When Angela Davis was arrested with Panther David Poindexter in New York in 1970, the FBI sent letters to the Village Voice and Ebony magazine. The FBI revealed a certain lack of cool by identifying both as “published by and primarily for Negroes, but in any case the letters painted Black Panther Party leader Huey P. Newton as an informer who was paid to rat on Angela by the feds. The letter to the Voice reads

Sister Angela is in jail. Poindexter is free. Huey Newton is free. David P. [Hilliard, a Panther leader] is a dumb‑head and a hop‑head. Forget him. But Huey is smart. Gets along well with the MAN. The question is: Did this cat bank five big bills lately ... a gift from the federal pigs?

The letter is signed “Concerned Brother.” Hoover instructed the agents sending the letters to “Take the usual precautions to insure that action taken cannot be traced to the Bureau.”

Wanna Buy a Paper?

In Charlotte, North Carolina, the FBI published a newsletter distributed in Winston-Salem called the Black Community News Service. The “newssheet” was aimed at disrupting the Black Panther Party and winning readers away from the Panther newspaper. The ostensible publisher of the newsletter was a fictitious FBI front called the “Southern Vanguard Revolutionary Party,” which the FBI hoped would be seen as “a black group at Winston‑Salem of a slightly higher calling than” the Black Panther Party.

New York Press Service, a photo agency that sent photographers to demonstrations and then offered the photos to alternative publications, also sent pictures to the FBI. The photo agency was subsidized by the FBI with $10,000 between 1967 and 1969 before the owner surfaced at the Chicago conspiracy trial as a govern­ment witness. Even the staff photographers had not been aware of the FBI connection.

Ever alert for an opportunity, the FBI seized the revelations about New York Press Service that appeared in the New York Post, and used them in a plan to discredit Liberation News Service. An FBI-authored letter signed “Howie” was sent to the Student Mobiliza­tion Com­mit­tee. The letter asked, “How has the Liberation News Service survived these many years?” and supplied the answer: “federal bread constitutes its main support.” The letter pointed out that “LNS is in an ideal position to infiltrate the movement at every level” and ended with a P.S.: “LNS represen­tatives all carry police press cards too.”

The FBI apparently produced bogus editions of Liberation News Service in the FBI laboratory by matching the paper, ink, and format and thus creating releases that contained counterintelligence misinfor­ma­tion in rewritten stories. One such release was used to discredit a leader of the Revolutionary Union in San Francisco. In another incident, the Cincinnati office proposed sending LNS a phony message from the Weather Underground containing retouched photo­graphs showing an activist supposedly passing informa­tion to a police agent. The note charged the activist with being a police spy. It is not clear from the FBI files if the plan was carried out.

The San Francisco office proposed printing “bogus copies of the Revolutionary Union (RU) pamphlet, ‘The Red Papers,’ to discredit the organization by changing the content and distributing the new version “to Marxists, Black militants, SDS, left publications, etc. throughout the country.” The Chicago office called the idea “outstanding” and suggested the alterations “distort the political line of the RU and, in fact, turn it into a revisionist line in a subtle manner.”

Avid Readers with Avaricious Appetites

The bureau found the alternative press to be a valuable source of information about progressive activities and subscribed through aliases to many newspapers and news services. It learned about a growing feud between SDS and the Black Panther Party through the Guardian, which it read avidly, and alerted its agents to encourage the split. The San Francisco bureau began its campaign against the Revolutionary Union after reading advertisements placed by RU in TheBlack Panther and the Movement.

A letter to the St. Louis bureau suggests the agent in charge instruct an informant to “review a number of locally available publications of New leftists, Negro militants, underground-type organizations, and other extremists in an effort to develop targets of intelligence interest with whom he may initiate correspondence.”

The FBI maintained a clip file of underground publications and sent clips to commercial newspaper reporters for background, and to parents and school officials to encourage them to take action against activists. Clippings and entire publica­tions were also distributed to various political groups to cause factional­ism. When the RU published “The Red Papers” the FBI had its San Francisco office send copies to the political groups whose ideology was criticized in the pamphlet. “San Francisco, for addition­al disruption, should anonymously forward copies of ‘The Red Papers’ pamphlet to one or several of the addresses listed in PLP (Progressive Labor Party) publica­tion, Progressive Labor. Appropriate sarcastic or warning notes should be included seeking to aggravate as well as alert PLP to the RU attack,” said the memo.






http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/page/ct-perspec-page-fbi-black-identity-extremists-sessions-1117-20171115-story.html


FBI needs to explain its war on 'black identity extremists'
Chicago Tribune
A Black Lives Matter protest, held in response to the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, both fatally shot by police officers, takes ...






http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-director-louis-freeh-russia-prevezon-money-laundering-2017-11



Former FBI director represented Russian firm at center of major money-laundering probe



Business Insider-


The Russian-owned real-estate firm Prevezon earlier this year hired former FBI Director Louis Freeh to help settle a major money-laundering ...



https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fbis-explanation-for-why-it-released-less-crime-data-doesnt-add-up/

The FBI’s Explanation For Why It Released Less Crime Data Doesn’t Add Up
By Clare Malone and Jeff Asher

Filed under The Trump Administration







http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/11/16/judge-andrew-napolitano-incredible-new-chapter-in-hillary-clinton-chronicles.html

Judge Andrew Napolitano: The incredible new chapter in the Hillary Clinton chronicles


The Department of Justice will soon commence an investigation to determine whether there should be an investigation (you read that nonsense correctly) of a scandal involving the Clinton Foundation and a company called Uranium One. It appears that FBI decisions made during the time that Hillary Clinton was being investigated for espionage will also be investigated to see whether there should be an investigation to determine whether she was properly investigated. (Again, you read that nonsense correctly.)

Only the government can relate nonsense with a straight face. Here is the back story.

When President Donald Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey last spring, the attorney general’s stated purpose for recommending the firing was Comey’s dropping the ball in the investigation of Clinton's email when she was secretary of state. After a year of investigating her use of her own computer servers to transmit and store classified materials instead of using a government server to do so -- and notwithstanding a mountain of evidence of her grossly negligent exposure of secret and top-secret materials, which constitutes the crime of espionage -- the FBI director decided that because no reasonable prosecutor would take the case, it should be dropped. Weeks later, the DOJ ratified Comey’s decision.


At the same time that Clinton was failing to safeguard state secrets, she was granting official State Department favors to donors to her family’s charitable foundation. There are dozens of examples of this so-called “pay to play,” the most egregious of which is the Uranium One case. This involved a Canadian businessman and friend of former President Bill Clinton's, Frank Giustra, who bundled donations from various sources that totaled $148 million, all of which Giustra gave to the Clinton Foundation.






http://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/army-acknowledges-failures-to-report-crime-data-to-fbi

Congress will not hold FBI accountable for allowing Army to stop reporting crime data
Army acknowledges failures to report crime data to FBI
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army’s top general says his service failed in a “significant” number of cases to report soldiers’ criminal history to the FBI.
Gen. Mark Milley told reporters that the Army is still reviewing the extent of the problem. Last week the Air Force acknowledged that it had not submitted to the FBI — as was required — the 2012 assault conviction of the former airman who killed 26 people in a Texas church on Nov. 5.






http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-pol-essential-washington-updates-ranking-democrat-wants-information-from-1510849048-htmlstory.html

Senior Democrat wants information from FBI on security clearance ...
Los Angeles Times-
Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) wants the FBI to turn over information to Congress on any security clearance application filed by Michael Flynn Jr., the son of President ...




http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/36866217/fbi-charges-former-maui-police-officer-with-civil-rights-violations

A former Maui police officer was escorted to Oahu on Thursday to face charges of civil rights violations and tampering with a witness.

The charges against Anthony Maldonado come after a years-long investigation, and stem from a September 2015 traffic stop.

During the stop, state court documents say, he stole $1,800 from the driver.

The next day, the driver apparently notified Maui police, triggering an investigation.





http://www.cleveland.com/lakewood/index.ssf/2017/11/lakewood_police_chiefs_death-n.html


Lakewood Police Chief's death-notification app idea attracts FBI's attention

Updated 8:19 AM; Posted 8:15 AM




https://www.thenation.com/article/it-is-time-to-impeach-the-president/



It Is Time to Impeach the President
Five articles of impeachment have been proposed by members of Congress who say there are sufficient grounds to act.
By John Nichols





http://www.11alive.com/article/news/nation-now/men-who-allege-they-were-framed-by-crooked-chicago-cop-get-mass-exoneration/465-5ecc4914-fbdf-4868-b951-06c3b1b587bc




Men who allege they were framed by crooked Chicago cop get mass exoneration
Judge exonerates 15 men arrested by corrupt Chicago cop

Published: 3:30 PM EST November 16, 2017


CHICAGO — A judge on Thursday threw out convictions against 15 men who allege they were framed by a corrupt former Chicago Police sergeant and his underlings who demanded protection payoffs from residents and drug dealers in a city housing project.

Judge LeRoy Martin Jr. agreed to dismiss the charges after Cook County prosecutors confirmed at a brief hearing that they no longer had faith in the credibility of convictions brought against the men who were arrested on various drug charges from 2003 to 2008 by the rogue cop Ronald Watts and officers under his charge.


“In good conscience we could not see these convictions stand,” said Mark Rotert, who heads the Cook County State's Attorney's conviction integrity unit.

The mass exoneration is the latest mark on the Chicago Police Department, which has come under fire in the city’s black and Latino communities for unnecessarily using deadly force, police brutality and mistreatment of minorities.

The U.S. Justice Department issued a scathing report in the final days of the Obama administration about the Chicago Police Department finding that the city’s police force is beset by widespread racial bias, poor training and feckless oversight of officers accused of misconduct.

Following the dismissal of charges against the 15 men on Thursday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said in a joint statement that they had “zero tolerance for abuse, misconduct or any unlawful actions” by law enforcement. More convictions could potentially be overturned as the integrity unit says it will review any credible complaints brought by people convicted of crimes that were investigated by Watts.

“The actions of Ronald Watts must be condemned by all of us, and we will continue our work to ensure the abuses of the past are never repeated in the future,” Emanuel and Johnson said in the statement.

The dismissals come two months after lawyers for the 15 men filed a petition on their behalf asking that their drug convictions be overturned because they had been framed by Watts.


Watts and another officer, Kallat Mohammed, pleaded guilty on federal charges in 2013 for stealing money from a drug courier who'd been working as an FBI informant. Watts received a 22-month sentence and Mohammed was sentenced to 18-months in federal prison for the shakedowns.

But the petitioners said Watts and his officers had terrorized residents of the Ida B. Wells public housing complex, a massive complex on the city’s South Side that is now shuttered, for years before they were caught by federal agents.

The petitioners also allege that several other officers, beyond Mohammed, took part in the scheme to plant drugs on innocent residents and drug dealers who refused to pay protection money.

Rotert said after reviewing the cases prosecutors concluded that the police officers were “not being truthful” and lost confidence in the arresting officers’ reports and testimony.

Rotert declined to speak about specific evidence that led State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to move to ask the courts to drop the charges. But he noted that his unit saw a troubling trend of defendants complaining early during their prosecution that drugs had been planted on them by Watts and his officers.

The 15 men, who had 18 convictions connected to Watts and his officers, join five others whose drug-related convictions connected to the officers that were previously overthrown. All the men were African-American and received sentences ranging from probation to nine years in prison.

Joshua Tepfer, the lead attorney representing the 15 men in the case, said police ignored complaints by residents about Watts and his officers.

One petitioner who had has conviction overturned, Leonard Gipson, 36, alleged that it was common knowledge in Ida B. Wells housing complex that Watts demanded payments from drug dealers and would plant drugs on men in the project — some who say they were not dealers — if they refused to pay him bribes.

He filed a complaint with the police department after he was arrested in 2003 and says Watts planted drugs on him. Four months later with charges still pending in the first arrest, he said Watts arrested him and planted drugs on him once again.


“Everybody knew if you’re not going to pay Watts, you were going to jail,” Gipson said.

In fact, Watts had been on the FBI’s radar for several years before he was finally arrested along with a junior officer Kallat Mohammed in 2012 after they were caught shaking down an FBI informant.

A September 2004 FBI report included portions of an interview by federal agents with an individual who alleged “Watts gets IBW (Ida B. Wells) drug dealers to pay him ‘to work’ (sell drugs) in the housing project. If the payments are made to Watts, he will in turn allow the drug dealers to continue to sell drugs.” The interview surfaced as a result of 2014 federal lawsuit filed by a man who alleged he had been framed by Watts, according to court filings.

Tepfer says Watts and his crew made about 500 arrests from 2003 to 2008 that led to convictions. He said that he and his team are currently vetting as many as two dozen additional convictions of people who said they had drugs planted on them by Watts or his officers for refusing to pay them off.

“These convictions stick with you,” Tepfer said. “The time that you served you can’t get back. It affects your ability to get jobs, housing, to get public aid…
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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/council-passes-police-reform-bills-changing-cops-searches-article-1.3709884

NY City Council passes police reform bills that will change how NYPD cops conduct searches



Tuesday, December 19, 2017, 8:07 PM

A pair of fiercely fought police reform bills that will slap new restrictions on how cops do stops and searches passed the City Council on Tuesday.

After bottling it up for more than three years, pols approved the Right to Know Act in a close vote at their last meeting before a new Council takes over in January.

A last-minute deal to change the legislation got the support of the NYPD and Mayor de Blasio — but it alienated advocates, who urged Council members to vote down one bill.

One measure requires cops to tell people they have a right to refuse to be searched when there’s no legal basis to force a search, and to get proof of their consent. The other forces officers to identify themselves with a business card when they do many kinds of stops, and to state the reason.

The Right to Know Act will improve police-community relations
“I grew up in the projects. I grew up in the Bronx. I’m not from an ivory tower. And I’m convinced ... from my own lived experience that this bill will have a real impact in improving the day-to-day interactions between police and civilians,” said Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx), the sponsor of the identification bill, who gave an impassioned defense of his deal after being hit with a torrent of criticism.

“I believe what I’m doing is right. And I will defend what I’m doing, even if it means I stand alone,” he said.

The identification bill passed 27-20, with three abstentions. The consent-to-search mandate passed 37-13.


In the deal with the NYPD, low-level stops were excluded from Torres’ bill, which will now apply only to stops based on the suspicion of criminal activity, as well as searches. Traffic stops were excluded

City Council committee passes controversial police reform bills
“That means if an officer stops me, asks me for my ID, asks me why I’m here, asks me a bunch of questions, that officer does not have to give me a card. That doesn’t make sense,” said Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), who voted against the revised bill.

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito had blocked votes on the two bills — previously making a deal with the NYPD to instead make internal policy changes — but moved them forward after last week’s compromise.

The votes came amid a marathon session, the last in Mark-Viverito’s term as speaker, where the body voted on 38 bills.

Both the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and police reform advocates ended up lobbying pols to vote against the identification bill. The union slammed the whole package as an unneeded burden on cops.

One measure requires cops to tell people they have a right to refuse to be searched when there’s no legal basis to force a search, and to get proof of their consent. The other forces officers to identify themselves with a business card when they do many kinds of stops, and to state the reason.
One measure requires cops to tell people they have a right to refuse to be searched when there’s no legal basis to force a search, and to get proof of their consent. The other forces officers to identify themselves with a business card when they do many kinds of stops, and to state the reason. (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
“Today the City Council chose politics over public safety by passing two pieces of harmful legislation. As we’ve said from the beginning, the 'Right to Know’ bills will discourage police officers from proactively addressing the threat of crime and terrorism — a threat that is no doubt growing based on recent events,” said PBA president Pat Lynch.

He charged the Council has “continuously piled on new burdens and second-guessing for our police officers, presenting a dangerous distraction that will place New Yorkers in harm’s way.”

A police reform coalition that had pushed the Right to Know Act backed only the consent to search measure, rejecting the ID requirement it said was too watered down.

“We have the right to know who the officers are that are stopping us,” said L. Joy Williams, head of the Brooklyn chapter of the NAACP. “We’re not accepting a piece of the pie. I want the whole damn thing.”

But Torres, who is running for Council speaker, rejected the criticisms, saying advocates had “no business asserting veto power” and denying he was motivated by politics.

“There is no political calculation under which I’m making a remotely rational decision. The bill I’m advancing has no organized support. It faces hysterical opposition,” he said.

He said he opted not “to go to political war with the NYPD and risk a revolt,” like the one that happened among rank and file cops in 2014






https://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-face/police-misconduct/


What is Police Misconduct?
Police misconduct encompasses illegal or unethical actions or the violation of individuals’ constitutional rights by police officers in the conduct of their duties. Examples of police misconduct include police brutality, dishonesty, fraud, coercion, torture to force confessions, abuse of authority, and sexual assault, including the demand for sexual favors in exchange for leniency. Any of these actions can increase the likelihood of a wrongful conviction.
Police misconduct statistics gathered by the Cato Institute’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project confirm that around 1% of all police officers commit misconduct in a given year and that the consequences of such misconduct are grim. Keith Findley from the Wisconsin Innocence Project conducted a study and found that police misconduct was a factor in as many as 50% of wrongful convictions involving DNA evidence.
At times, police misconduct is systematic. In one such case, Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge was arrested on federal obstruction of justice and perjury charges for allegedly lying about whether he and other officers under his command participated in torture and physical abuse of suspects in police custody dating back to the 1980s. On more than one occasion, Burge participated in the torture and physical abuse of persons in police custody in order to obtain confessions and Burge was aware that detectives he supervised engaged in torture and physical abuse of people in police custody. On one specific occasion, in order to coerce a confession, the police officers placed a plastic bag over the suspect’s head until he lost consciousness. He was fired from the police department in 1993 and was later convicted in federal court for perjury connected to a civil lawsuit flied against the city.
Four of Burge’s victims of torture, who were on death row because of their coerced confessions, were granted innocence pardons by the governor after Burge’s police misconduct was brought to light. In all, there were 14 documented cases where death sentences were based on confessions involving allegations of torture.
In most misconduct cases, the misconduct is more subtle than torture. Often times police simply push the envelope in order to obtain a witness statement. In the case of Timothy Atkins, Atkins was convicted after a witness, Denise Powell, testified that Atkins had confessed to the crime. After Atkins was incarcerated for more than two decades, the California Innocence Project presented evidence that Powell was pressured by police to testify. When reversing Atkins’ conviction, the judge held that the officers who interviewed Powell threatened her with jail if she did not provide information about the case.
Like prosecutors, police officers are tasked with making our society safe. Sometimes their zeal leads them to cross the line and use the power of their badges to make a case that otherwise would not be triable. Especially when a brutal and senseless crime occurs, the zeal to see justice done can actually lead to great injustice. Other officers are often reluctant to report misconduct because of the loyalty they feel for their fellow officers. The proliferation of cell phone cameras have allowed citizens to record and report police misconduct. Although, in the past, most misconduct stories were assumed to be false, now, a quick search on Youtube.com results in hundreds of videos exposing incidents of police misconduct. One example of a compilation of news and amateur video about the problems inherent in this system is BrasscheckTV’s Youtube page.
Even now, however, actually making a report of police misconduct can be a challenge for the average citizen, largely because when reporting police misconduct a person has to make the report to the agency being complained about. In many cities, a citizen’s review board will review complaints against police officers. Reforms and close monitoring are required to ensure that police misconduct is discovered quickly and that innocent persons are not falsely accused.
police misconduct







http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/sugarland/news/article/Richmond-Citizen-s-Police-Academy-accepts-12442106.php


The Richmond Police Department is accepting applications for Class #25 of the Richmond Citizen's Police Academy (RCPA).
The purpose of the Citizen's Police Academy is to provide residents with a better understanding of the operations of the Richmond Police Department.
The classes will begin on Thursday, Feb. 1, at the Richmond Police Department, 600 Preston St. in Richmond. Class hours are from 6:30 until 9:30 p.m. Classes will be held every Thursday for 10 sessions. The only cost for this opportunity is a resident's time and dedication.
During the academy, citizens will be exposed to many areas of law enforcement including but not limited to:
Meeting the staff and officers of the Richmond Police Department.
Touring the Richmond Police Department and Fort Bend County Jail.
Riding along with Richmond Police Officers during their shifts, if citizens choose.
Participating in the "TASER training." (Full participation optional)
Participating in the "Shoot, Don't Shoot" Firearms Training Scenarios
Join the more than 600 involved citizens who have graduated from the Richmond Citizen's Police Academy by completing an online application at the Richmond Police Department website. Visit http://www.richmondtx.gov/departments/police-department/citizens-police-academy. Completed applications may be mailed, emailed or faxed to the Richmond Police Department, Attn: Lt. Lowell D. Neinast, 600 Preston St., Richmond, Texas 77469; Fax 281- 232-0004; call 281-342-2849 or email LNeinast@richmondtx.gov for more information.







https://whowhatwhy.org/2014/04/09/media-conned-public-loving-fbi-book-review/


APRIL 9, 2014 | STEVE WEINBERG
HOW THE MEDIA CONNED THE PUBLIC INTO LOVING THE POLICE: BOOK REVIEW






http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/sd-me-nehad-ruling-20171219-story.html


Judge rules San Diego deadly shooting was justified


SAN DIEGO

A federal judge has ruled that a San Diego police officer acted reasonably when he killed an unarmed man he thought was holding a knife.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a judge ruled Monday in a civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of 42-year-old Fridoon Nehad.

Police were called in 2015 after reports that Nehad was threatening people with a knife. Officer Neal Browder said he found the man in an alley and shot him as Nehad walked toward him with something in his hand. It turned out to be a pen.



https://apnews.com/a0ea55cd044048fbb015f60334e5e8c0/Lawsuit-filed-over-man's-death-in-struggle-with-Phoenix-cops

Lawsuit filed over man’s death in struggle with Phoenix cops



PHOENIX

A lawsuit alleging excessive force has been filed against the city of Phoenix in the death of a homeless man during a struggle with police officers nearly a year ago outside a community center.

Muhammad Abdul Muhaymin, 43, died shortly after officers took him into custody for having an outstanding criminal warrant. Police were called to the Maryvale Community Center after a dispute arose there over whether Muhaymin, who suffered from mental disabilities, could bring his service dog into a public bathroom with him.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this month by Muhaymin’s sister, seeks $10 million from the city. It alleges excessive force and wrongful death, saying officers caused the death by using unjustified force in restraining Muhaymin, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia and acute claustrophobia.

The Phoenix Police Department on Tuesday declined to comment on the lawsuit. The agency also declined to specify the charge that Muhaymin faced in the outstanding warrant or say whether any officers were disciplined as a result of the encounter.





https://apnews.com/94fa683eb382443b9765ad7f0ebd9fb5/Ex-Texas-officer-found-guilty-in-shooting-death-of-teenager


Texas officer found guilty in shooting death of teenager

DALLAS


A jury in Dallas has found a former police officer guilty of murder in the shooting death of a 16-year-old teenager who had burglarized the cop 's SUV.

Former Farmers Branch officer Ken Johnson was found guilty Tuesday of murder and also of aggravated assault.

His sentencing was postponed until next month.

Prosecutors previously told jurors that Johnson was off-duty in March 2016 when he chased Jose Cruz and another teen.

Surveillance video shows that Johnson chased the teens with his SUV, rammed their car and then repeatedly fired into their stopped vehicle.

Cruz died in the shooting in the Dallas suburb of Addison and the other teen was seriously injured.






http://www.rrstar.com/news/20171218/settlement-allows-oda-poole-to-retire-from-rockford-police-department


Settlement allows Rockford officer to retire in good standing
ROCKFORD, Ill.


A settlement agreement has been reached that will allow a Rockford police officer who was involved in the 2009 police shooting death of an unarmed black man to retire in good standing.




http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/congress-secretly-settled-discrimination-claims-tax-dollars-article-1.3709641


Congress secretly settled sexual harassment, discrimination claims with over $342G in taxpayer funds
BY CHRIS SOMMERFELDT
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Tuesday, December 19, 2017, 5:30 PM




https://apnews.com/a55c8cb571334c0aaf0a711937d714f1/Lawyer-raises-new-questions-about-slain-Baltimore-detective

BALTIMORE

A lawyer for two men whose federal convictions were recently overturned is raising fresh questions about an April 2010 incident that led to their convictions on bogus drug charges and involved a Baltimore detective fatally gunned down last month just as he was set to testify before a grand jury investigating indicted police colleagues.

Attorney Steven Silverman represents a pair whose federal convictions were vacated Monday by a U.S. judge after they spent years in prison based on 2010 police work done by a group of allegedly corrupt officers.

He asserts that Detective Sean Suiter, then an officer, was driving an unmarked vehicle that intentionally rear-ended a car of one of his client’s. Suiter was among a group of officers dressed in black, wearing face masks, and showing no visible badges during the April 2010 incident, Silverman alleged.

A high-speed chase ensued, ending with the fatality of an 87-year-old man when client Umar Burley’s car slammed into another vehicle. A state court convicted him of manslaughter in the death.

Burley said he thought the masked figures were criminals trying to rob him. “I felt like I was in imminent danger and I took off,” he said in a Tuesday phone call.






Link du jour

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mom-birth-baby-girl-frozen-embryo-24-years-article-1.3709648


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/connecticut-parents-pull-kids-school-ivanka-trump-visits-article-1.3709675


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/lawyer-charged-filming-porn-female-inmates-jail-article-1.3709299




http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-lifts-ban-funding-risky-virus-research-article-1.3709571

U.S. lifts ban on funding risky virus research
BY MEGAN CERULLO
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, December 19, 2017, 4:24 PM

The National Institutes of Health announced Tuesday that it would allow the federal government to resume funding controversial research that makes viruses more contagious and deadly—despite scientists’ concern that the risks of such experiments outweigh potential advantages.

The federal government will lift a three-year pause, instituted in October, 2014, on funding the research projects.

The so-called “gain-of-function” experiments involve genetically altering viruses including bird flu, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) to make them more transmissible and pathogenic, in order to study the kinds of genetic changes that can make a disease more transmissible from person to person.

But scientists are leery of the testing — suggesting that there might be less risky ways to draw conclusions.

The moratorium was imposed after government employees mishandled anthrax and avian flu, suggesting that labs’ biosafety and security standards were inadequate.





http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/volkswagen-2800-new-level-2-charging-stations-17-cities-june-2019-article-1.3709136


Electric power to the people: Volkswagen plans 2,800 new EV charging stations in 17 U.S. cities
BY AMANDA SILVESTRI
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, December 19, 2017, 12:44 PM







https://apnews.com/0866a3e2d09b45b88ef9c13ae32055a9/Mother-sues-San-Francisco-police-for-fatally-shooting-son




Mother sues San Francisco police for fatally shooting son


SAN FRANCISCO


A Northern California mother filed a civil rights lawsuit Tuesday alleging a San Francisco police rookie wrongfully shot and killed her unarmed son as he fled from a stolen van he was driving earlier this month.



The lawsuit alleges that poor police training led to O’Neil’s death. The officer who shot O’Neil graduated from the police academy four days earlier and was a passenger in a patrol car driven by a training officer.


Body-worn cameras captured officer Christopher Samayoa firing through the closed passenger-side window of the police car he was riding in, the bullet shattering glass before it hit O’Neil in the head.



“At the time of the fatal shot, Mr. O’Neil was unarmed and did not present an immediate threat to the officers or anyone else,”

San Francisco police did not immediately return phone and email inquiries Tuesday. The San Francisco Police Officers Association Union also did not return a telephone message seeking comment.

Police have not released the name of the training officer. Samayoa was placed on paid administrative leave after the shooting while it was investigated.




http://www.startribune.com/sources-police-shooting-victim-was-stabbing-himself-before-officers-opened-fire/465218753/?c=n&clmob=y




A knife-wielding man shot by Minneapolis police during a tense confrontation in an interview room clung to life Tuesday, while union officials said officers followed proper procedures when handling an armed suspect believed to be a danger to himself or others.

Officers fired several shots at the teen on Monday afternoon after the 18-year-old, identified as Marcus Terrell Fischer of Minneapolis, produced a knife and began repeatedly stabbing himself in the chest and neck, ignoring repeated commands to throw the weapon down, according to multiple sources.

Fischer was later hospitalized with critical injuries; department sources said it was uncertain whether he would survive.

He had been brought in for questioning about a Dec. 13 robbery in northeast Minneapolis, in which a 21-year-old man was shot during a gun deal gone awry, police records showed.

Fischer was arrested about 2:25 Monday afternoon by members of the department's Violent Criminal Apprehension Team and turned over to the detective handling the shooting case. Fischer also has an open weapons possession case.

He was brought to police headquarters downtown and taken into an interview room in Room 108, which houses specialized units like Homicide and Robbery.


Suspects are seldom handcuffed during interviews, sources say, and that it isn't unusual for detectives to leave the room periodically.

At some point, investigators left the room, leaving Fischer unattended. When they returned, he was holding a knife and had stabbed himself at least 11 times in the neck and the chest and was trying to slash his own throat. By then, more officers came running over to the room, drawn by the commotion, according to a source familiar with the case.






http://www.newburyportnews.com/news/local_news/newburyport-woman-receives-jail-time-for-harassing-fbi-neighbor/article_e1117aac-d6a0-5069-bbbe-7961bc50df6c.html


Newburyport woman receives jail time for placing branch across driveway of FBI neighbor
By Dave Rogers Staff Writer Dec 19, 2017 Updated









http://www.nhregister.com/metro/article/Mayor-East-Haven-PD-has-rebuilt-public-trust-and-12440294.php

Mayor: East Haven PD has rebuilt public trust and restored accountability after exhibiting racist behaviour
By Clare Dignan Published 10:07 pm, Monday, December 18, 2017


The consent decree between the town and DOJ came after a two-year investigation that concluded in 2011 found the EHPD engaged in patterns of biased policing against Latinos, intentionally targeting them. It was sparked by incidents in 2009 that brought to light that East Haven officers were targeting Latinos. The DOJ found that the EHPD engaged in “systematically discriminating against Latinos,” according to the investigation’s report.





https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/12/14/memo-cbs-george-w-bush-dan-rather-got-mostly-right/

DECEMBER 14, 2017 | RUSS BAKER
MEMO TO CBS ON GEORGE W. BUSH: DAN RATHER GOT IT (MOSTLY) RIGHT


Anyone who has worked at a television network has loads of stories about pieces that were spiked or totally suppressed because the corporation went into damage-control mode. One recent example: 60 Minutes.

On December 3, during a congenial retrospective presentation — “Fifty Years of 60 Minutes” — the iconic news program re-lived some of the show’s biggest moments: trophy interviews, scoops and revelations, and, commendably, a few jumbo mistakes.

But in the course of serving up confessions, such as Mike Wallace’s spiked interview with a tobacco company whistleblower, to which they devoted only a few seconds, they also mentioned how they were led astray on a key incident in the career of George W. Bush. And they blamed it on the sloppy reporting of Dan Rather and his producers.

By doing so, the network perpetuated a serious fiction about the 2004 election, in a way that only underlined its cowardice in dealing with an embarrassing scandal.

The real problem with Rather was not — as CBS would have us believe — that he failed to properly vet a fake document during an investigation into whether George W. Bush pulled strings to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

In fact, the documentation for Bush’s self-serving actions is clear and compelling.

The core issue is what CBS left unsaid. Rather’s producers were poking into an authentic story that powerful political forces had long been trying to suppress: how the then-President of the United States, who had taken the country into war in Iraq under false pretenses, resulting in untold unnecessary deaths, himself had gone AWOL from military service years earlier — and covered it up.

That’s a big deal. And a news organization worth its salt doesn’t run from the truth.

Another mainstream outlet, the Los Angeles Times, mocked Rather by putting the word “Truth” in quotation marks in the title of a story published in 2015 — “Dan Rather is sticking to the ‘Truth’ of his story about George W. Bush.” But at least that newspaper gave him a chance to defend himself. In his response, Rather made clear that he regrets the use of documentation that was not properly vetted. But he went on to strongly refute any inference that this invalidates the thrust of the original report:

“It’s not a matter of opinion whether the central facts of the story were true or not; it’s true,” he says of the 2004 report. “One: That through the influence of his politically powerful father, George W. Bush got into a so-called champagne unit of the Air National Guard as a way of assuring he wouldn’t have to go to Vietnam. And two: After he got in… he disappeared for more than a year.”

We agree. To find out why, and for all the sordid details, have a look at this story, previously published by WhoWhatWhy.

(Original publishing date October 15, 2015)

George W. Bush sent thousands of Americans to their deaths in wars that could have been avoided — while he himself dodged the draft as a young man. Dan Rather’s reporting on how Bush allegedly got away with it led to the famed television news anchorman’s spectacular downfall.

A new film, Truth, starring Robert Redford as Rather, and Cate Blanchett as his producer Mary Mapes, claims to show what really happened. The film is about to open, and we haven’t seen it yet. But we thought you’d be interested in WhoWhatWhy editor Russ Baker’s own discoveries on the tricks behind the scenes to rewrite history — including indications that a trap was laid for Rather and Mapes, with the goal of scaring all media off the investigative trail. Here, from his best-seller Family of Secrets, are related excerpts. (This is the first of a two-part series.)

1


The Skeleton in W.’s Closet
Even before George W. Bush attained his first public office, his handlers were aware of a skeleton rattling noisily in his closet. It was one that undercut the legend of principle and duty — the story of a man’s man and patriot. It would have to be disposed of.

At a televised debate in 1994 between incumbent Texas governor Ann Richards and challenger George W., Austin television reporter Jim Moore asked Bush to explain how he had gotten so quickly and easily into National Guard pilot training as an alternative to serving in Vietnam.

Candidate Bush simply asserted that favoritism had played no role and that he had honorably served. End of discussion. There were no follow-up questions.

But the moment the debate was over, Bush’s communications director, Karen Hughes, came at the journalist. “Karen just makes a beeline for me and gets in my face and tries to separate me from the crowd,” Moore said. “Then she starts a rant.

‘What kind of question is that? Why did you ask that question? Who do you think you are? That’s just not relevant to being governor of Texas. He’s not trying to run the federal government. He’s going to run the state of Texas. What does his service in the National Guard have to do with anything? He doesn’t have an army to run here in Texas. Why would you ask such a question, Jim?’”

Karen Hughes Photo credit: Bill Rice / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Karen Hughes Photo credit: Bill Rice / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

In response to Hughes, Moore said, “It’s about character, Karen. It’s about his generation and mine coming of age, and how we dealt with what we all viewed as a bad war.”

As the reporter was turning to go file his story, Bush’s chief strategist, Karl Rove, came at him next. “‘What was that question, Moore?’ And I said, ‘Well, you know what it was, Karl.’ I said it’s a fair question. And he said, ‘It wasn’t fair. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything.’”

Bush’s handlers thought they could get reporters off a story by intimidating them. Often they turned out to be right. It sometimes seems that the entire story of George W. Bush’s life has been rewritten by hired hands.

Allbaugh told James that Karen Hughes and Bartlett would be coming out to Camp Mabry, which was on the outskirts of Austin, to comb through the records in preparation for a book on Bush, and he instructed the general to have the records prescreened. According to Burkett, Allbaugh said, “Just get rid of the embarrassments.”
Just one of hundreds of such examples: During his unsuccessful Midland congressional bid in 1978, W.’s campaign literature described his wartime service as “Air Force” — a claim also made for him in Poppy’s autobiography. Presumably both men knew the difference between the National Guard and the Air Force. Nevertheless, that claim remained in W.’s official biography until the 2000 presidential campaign, at which point the correction was quietly made.

After Bush’s election as governor in 1994, his political team worked to inoculate their man against further inquiries into his Guard service. Dan Bartlett, an eager staff aide then in his twenties, and with no military service of his own, was named as liaison between the governor and the National Guard. And Bush replaced Texas’s adjutant general Sam Turk, the administrative head of the Guard, who had been appointed by Governor Richards, with General Daniel James.

3
Lt. Gen. Daniel James III, Director, Air National Guard Photo credit: Master Sgt. Jim Varhegyi / US Air Force

Cleaning up the Texas Guard records became a lot easier once W. was the titular commander in chief of the state’s National Guard units. The effort got under way just months after Bush’s inauguration. On May 16, 1995, Joe Allbaugh, by then Bush’s chief of staff, met with Guard officials and asked to see Bush’s personnel records. Three days later, they were sent over to the governor’s office from the office of the outgoing adjutant general. “I am enclosing copies of the Texas Air National Guard personnel records for Mr. Daniel O. Shelley and Governor George W. Bush,” wrote Turk.

It is not clear why Shelley’s records were also requested, except that he was about to be named Bush’s legislative director. In any case, asking for two records rather than one likely was a form of cover — comparable to what happened in 1972 when George W. Bush failed to take his mandatory National Guard physical and was joined in this violation by his friend Jim Bath. In each instance, the special treatment accorded W. was made to seem more “routine” by the fact that at least one other person was included.

That the people around the governor were concerned was evident when Dan Bartlett traveled to Denver to personally review the microfiche copy of Bush’s records on file at the Air Reserve Personnel Center.

Enter Bill Burkett
.
In 1996, the new adjutant general, Daniel James, hired Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett, a former Guardsman and tough cattle rancher who doubled as a private management consultant, to lead a task force assessing the state of the organization. Burkett returned several months later with a devastating report, documenting how outmoded, inefficient, unprepared, and even corrupt the service was.

What Burkett and his team discovered went way beyond unjustified promotions of politically connected officers. They also uncovered that the Texas Guard rolls were full of “ghost soldiers,” military personnel kept on the books after they had left the unit to justify the continued flow of money allocated for their pay. Equally important, the ghost numbers made units appear to be at authorized troop levels when reviewed by state and federal authorities.

Burkett and his team believed their findings were so important and so sensitive that they had to take them straight to the top. Not knowing who was responsible for the fraud, “we decided we had to go to the boss,” Burkett recalled. But James, the man governor Bush had handpicked to run the Guard, seemed far more upset about the breach of military procedure in reporting the news of corruption and malfeasance than in the news itself. According to Burkett, James responded: “Now guys, I want to know what I’m supposed to tell the chief of staff, Colonel Goodwin, when he wants to have your heads ’cause you violated the chain of command and came in here over his head.”

When Burkett asked for — and received — a promise of funding from the Clinton-Gore administration to begin repairing holes in the Guard, Governor Bush angrily declined the help. According to Burkett, Bush’s chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, informed General James that henceforth his primary function was to ensure that Bill Burkett be kept as far as possible from the media.

“Just get rid of the embarrassments.”
.
Meanwhile, according to Burkett, there was discussion of Bush’s impending presidential bid and how it would become a priority for state officials. One day in 1997, Burkett said, he was in the vicinity of General James’s office when a call came in. James took it on the speakerphone. It was Joe Allbaugh, with Bush’s Guard liaison Dan Bartlett on the line. According to Burkett, Allbaugh told James that Karen Hughes and Bartlett would be coming out to Camp Mabry, which was on the outskirts of Austin, to comb through the records in preparation for a book on Bush, and he instructed the general to have the records prescreened. According to Burkett, Allbaugh said, “Just get rid of the embarrassments.”

About ten days after Allbaugh’s call, Burkett claims, he came upon Guard officials going through Bush’s records and observed a trash can nearby that included between twenty and forty pages of Bush’s military documents. Burkett had a few moments to see what they contained.

Another Guard officer and friend of Burkett’s, George Conn, would later corroborate much of this story, but then withdraw confirmation while steadfastly maintaining that Burkett was an honorable and truthful man. Clearly, Conn was in a difficult position, working for the military on a civilian contract, while his wife served as head of the secretarial pool for a large law firm that was a leading bundler of campaign contributions to the Bush campaigns.

“I was there. I know what I saw in the trash. I know what actions I saw taking place,” Burkett told me during one of several lengthy conversations. One of the documents that has been missing from the released files, Burkett claims, is a “counseling statement” from a senior officer to Bush, explaining why he was grounded and the changes to his assignment, slot, and pay rate. Burkett told me he glimpsed Bush’s counseling statement at the top of the discard stack, but did not have time to read it through.

“In a perfect world, I guess I should have just stepped up and grabbed the files and made a federal case of it all right there,” he said. “Looking back, I probably would have. It would have been simpler to have confronted the whole mess right then and there.”

Burkett, whose claims would surface publicly on a Web site for a Texas veterans’s group in 2000 and were subsequently detailed in Jim Moore’s 2004 book, Bush’s War for Reelection, first made his allegations within Guard circles in 1997. The next year he laid them out in letters to state legislators and in eight missives to Bush himself, addressing broad problems with the Guard, as well as in sworn public testimony.

“Dan Bartlett knew about it,” Burkett said.

“I called Dan in May or June 1998. I told him it’s gotten to the point where you need a new [National Guard] adjutant general.”

Getting Even
.
Burkett was pulled away to other projects, and then in 1998 abruptly and unexpectedly dispatched on federal orders to Panama. On his trip home, he fell seriously ill. It was when he had trouble receiving proper medical care under his benefits package that he tried to use his knowledge of the destruction of Bush’s military record as leverage.

Even efforts by Texas congressman Charles Stenholm and the surgeon general to arrange hospital care for Burkett were rebuffed by Guard headquarters. Two close friends of Burkett’s within the Guard who tried to get him help for emergency medical bills — George Conn and Harvey Gough — would themselves be fired from the Guard.

To this day, it remains unclear whether the treatment of Burkett was retribution for embarrassing the Guard with claims of corruption and of the destruction of documents concerning George W. Bush’s service.

The undeniable fact is that essential paperwork one would expect to find in W.’s file somehow was missing. This included records of how the military handled Bush’s transfer to Alabama, documentation of additional service after May 1972 or an explanation of why no such evidence existed, and a report from the panel that typically convened when a pilot stopped flying prematurely. However it happened, it certainly would appear that someone purged parts of the governor’s National Guard file.

“Accident” at National Records Center
.
Circa 1997, the same year as the trash-can incident, microfilm containing military pay records for hundreds of Guardsmen, including Bush, was irreversibly damaged at a national records center. When the government finally acknowledged the incident seven years later, it was described as an accident during a routine “restoration” effort.

Until May 23, 2000, the efforts of Bush’s team to keep their man’s military record from public view seemed to be succeeding. Then, with Bush closing in on the GOP presidential nomination, The Boston Globe ran a story headlined, 1-YEAR GAP IN BUSH’S GUARD DUTY: NO RECORD OF AIRMAN AT DRILLS IN 1972 — Reporter Walter Robinson had obtained and reviewed 160 pages of military documents. It was Robinson who first interviewed Bush’s former commanders, only to discover that none could recall Bush performing service during that period.

The Globe’s revelations gave rise to a veritable cottage industry of bloggers, with citizen journalists launching their own inquiries, complete with their own Freedom of Information requests. Together they provided sophisticated, rigorous analysis of the fine points of military procedure and record keeping.

Evidence of Service: a Torn Scrap of Paper?
.
The Bush camp swung into damage-control mode. Bartlett called in the retired Guard personnel director, General Albert Lloyd, and asked him to review W.’s record to look for any proof of his service. Armed with a request letter from Bush for access to his files, and, as he confirmed to me, left alone in the records room at Camp Mabry, Lloyd found a torn piece of paper with Bush’s social security number and a series of numbers. Though no one explained why the paper had come to be torn, or established the authenticity or validity of the document, it would be turned over to news organizations and the visible partial-date information extrapolated upon as evidence of service.

4
Texas Air National Guard 1st Lt. George W. Bush with the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, Ellington Air Force Base, TX. Photo credit: US Air Force / Wikimedia (Public Domain)

Bush carried into the White House with him an official biography that by now reflected an already thoroughly discredited scenario:

“George W. Bush was commissioned as second lieutenant and spent two years on active duty, flying F-102 fighter interceptors. For almost four years after that, he was on a part- time status, flying occasional missions to help the Air National Guard keep two of its F-102s on round-the-clock service.”

Yet, in actuality, after he went on part-time status, Bush did not fly for four more years, but rather just one year and nine months.

Since that time, the White House has, without acknowledging or explaining the changes, repeatedly revised the script. Ultimately, the latter period of Bush’s Guard service would be presented this way: after April 1972 the high-flying and highly visible pilot suddenly becomes a ground-hugging reservist reading manuals in back offices both in Alabama and in Texas, unobserved by his former flight mates, and therefore unremembered.

The personable Bush, once nicknamed “the Lip” and “the Bombastic Bushkin,” had disappeared into a cubbyhole. In spite of this, when he became governor, his F-102 was symbolically refurbished like new, and a ceremony honoring his service was held, featuring Bush-supplied promotional materials containing the misleading biographical information.

Meanwhile, the original justification for Bush’s staff to review his Guard records — that they were seeking information to include in his “autobiography” — proved suspect. When the book, A Charge to Keep, finally appeared, all mentions of his Guard duty were couched in the vaguest possible language.

“It was exciting the first time I flew and it was exciting the last time … I continued flying with my unit for the next several years … My fellow pilots were interesting people … We were different, but we worked well together …”

From the moment journalists started to look into Bush’s military records, it was clear that some essential documents were missing. But after initial Freedom of Information requests had elicited the “complete record,” other documents — such as laudatory press releases — were mysteriously supplied in response to later rounds of FOIA requests. There was no adequate explanation of where these new documents came from.

Bush Accused: The Lottery Gambit





https://robertscribbler.com/2017/12/19/the-national-security-threat-that-inflicted-400-billion-in-damages-this-year/

The National Security Threat that Inflicted 400 Billion in Damages This Year
Back in the 1990s, the U.S. Navy asked Congress to address the issue of rising sea levels at the Norfolk Naval Base. The Navy wanted to raise the piers, which were becoming vulnerable to flooding due to rising waters. For various reasons, including climate change denial, Congress has delayed funding for elevating the base’s 12 piers beyond the present and near term projected reach of ongoing sea level rise. Only four so far have been lifted.

According to former Norfolk Naval Base Commander Joe Bouchard, “Washington went bonkers” when it failed to recognize and address an obvious problem — sea level rise.

Up and down the U.S. coastline, the story is much the same. But it’s not just a case of Navy Base piers. It’s a case that every coastal city in the U.S. now faces rising seas threatening homes, real estate, infrastructure. And at the same time that seas are rising, the strongest storms are growing stronger and fire seasons that once ran through a few months of the year in places like California are now a year-round affair.



(A ribbon-thin rise of land separates the Norfolk Naval Base from flooding due to climate change driven sea level rise. Flooded bases not a national security threat? See related article by Vox. Image source: Wikipedia.)

This is the very definition of climate change as a threat to the security, not just to the world’s largest naval base, but to most if not all of the United States.

So how bonkers is Donald Trump and the climate change denying GOP now? How nuts is it that Trump yesterday made the anti-factual determination, in bald defiance of a plethora of U.S. military leaders, that “climate change is not a national security threat?”

Increasingly Destructive Hurricanes are Putting a Growing Number of People and Structures at Risk

This year, the U.S. has experienced not one, not two, not three, not four, but at least five major weather disasters that were made much worse by human-caused climate change. Three of them — hurricanes Maria, Irma, and Harvey all roared out of a warming ocean. They all formed in a hotter atmosphere loaded up with a higher level of moisture. These factors gave them more fuel to feed on. They unarguably increased their peak potential intensity. Scientific studies have found that Harvey alone was three times more likely to form due to human-caused climate change. That its rainfall was considerably enhanced in a warmer atmosphere.


The storms ran in to land on a higher ramp. Seas, like those at the Naval Base and in so many other places, have risen by a foot or more from the Gulf Coast to New England and on into the Caribbean because the Earth has, indeed, warmed. And this made storm surge impacts worse.

You could go on and on with the list of climate change related factors that compounded this year’s disasters. About the climate zones moving north. About hot blobs in the ocean and bigger blocks in the atmosphere. About enhanced convection and ice cliff instability. About ridiculously resilient ridges and persistent troughs. But it’s just a simple fact that the storms were worse than they would have been. That climate change made them more likely (in some cases far more likely) to occur in the first place. In total, and in large part due to the nefarious influence of fossil fuel burning on the world’s weather, these three storms alone have inflicted 368 billion dollars in damages.

That’s billion with a capital B. A level of harm often attributed to warfare but one that can instead be put at the feet of weather indiscriminately weaponized by fossil fuel burning. For the Atlantic Hurricane season this year, at a time when global temperatures are 1.1 to 1.2 C hotter than 1880s averages, was the most destructive ever recorded. These climate change enhanced storms left whole island nations and entire regions in ruins. In many cases it will take months, years, or even a decade or more to fully recover.

Wildfires are Increasing and Wildfire Season is Getting Longer in the Western U.S.

But in the grim tally of climate change related damages during 2017, we don’t stop at just hurricanes. For California, during 2017 experienced its worst fire season on record. One in which 11,306 structures have so far been damaged or destroyed. We say so far because what is likely to become the largest fire in California history — the Thomas Fire — is still burning.

11,306 structures would be enough to make a decent sized city. All gone due to a fire season that is now year round. Due to western heating, drying and temperature extremes that are increasingly forced to well outside the normal range. Total damages this year for California are presently estimated at more than 13 billion dollars. That’s nothing to shake a stick at. But this damage total is likely to continue to climb as the tally of losses is counted.



(Abnormally above average temperatures and below average precipitation contributed to fire danger in California during December. This odd heat and drought was driven, in no small part, by climate change. Image source: NOAA.)

As with hurricanes, the presently more intense fires are linked in numerous ways to a warming climate. Warmer temperatures increase the rate of evaporation and the intensity of precipitation in the most extreme events. Such variance increases the rate at which vegetation grows during wet season and the rate at which it dries during times when the rains depart. This adds more ready fuels for fires. In addition, northward movement of the Arctic sea ice contributes to an overall warmer and drier pattern for the U.S. West. This pattern, helps to produce stronger high pressure systems that, in turn, strengthen the fire-fanning Santa Ana winds.

This year, December, which is typically a wet month for the U.S. West, especially during La Nina (which we are presently experiencing) has been incredibly dry. This dryness helped to fuel the Thomas Fire. But the dryness didn’t happen in a vacuum. It was associated with a major climate change related influx of heat into the Arctic linked to climate change driven polar amplification.

Failure to Recognize Climate Change Leaves U.S. Citizens Vulnerable to Harm

Anyone following the increasingly clear evidence of how Trump campaign officials coordinated with Russia to disrupt the 2016 elections and how ardently Trump is attempting to cover the whole thing up could draw the reasonable conclusion that Trump cares more about his own personal advancement than the safety and security of the American people. Trump’s, and by extension, the GOP’s climate change denial, can be seen through the same morally relativistic lens. Wealthy fossil fuel donors have for a long time now held an unreasonable influence over persons in higher office. The denial of climate change for both the Republican Congress and the Presidency is, in other words, well-funded.



(GOP funding by fossil fuel donors just keeps going up and up in lockstep with GOP climate change denial and anti-environmental policy. Image source: InsideClimate News.)

Such denial may line the pocketbooks of republican politicians and wealthy oil, gas, and ailing coal companies. But it places the American people, their homes, their livelihoods, beneath the blade of a falling ax. So when Trump says climate change is a hoax, forces government websites to shut down, scrubs words related to climate change from government communications, opposes alternative clean energy, and tells the Department of Defense not to treat climate change as a national security threat, he is culpable and a contributor to a very clear, present, and growing danger.
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http://atlantablackstar.com/2018/02/16/last-two-years-alone-fbi-missed-warning-signs-several-mass-shooters-including-orlando-nightclub-gunman/

 

 

 

In the Last Two Years Alone the FBI Missed Warning Signs About Several Mass Shooters, Including the Orlando Nightclub

 

 

February 16, 2018

 

 

 

 

http://ticklethewire.com/2018/02/16/thirteen-russians-charged-interfering-election-help-trump-win/

 

 

Thirteen Russians Charged with Interfering in Election to Help Trump Win

 

 

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/15/teenager-charged-florida-school-shooting-trained-white-supremacist/

 

Florida shooting: Nikolas Cruz, teenager charged with 17 murders, was trained by white supremacist group

 

 

 

 

 

http://abc7chicago.com/politics/cartoon-of-jb-pritzker-stirs-controversy/3090621/

 

Cartoon of JB Pritzker stirs controversy

WLS-TV-22

In the corner an FBI agent appears to be listing in on the call. "That's the equivalent of putting gasoline on a fire, someone's doing that intentionally to stir up race," said Ald. Roderick Sawyer, Chairman of the Black Caucus. Ald. Sawyer said Thursday that he supports J.B. Pritzker. This issue is the first under new editor Mark ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/feb/16/all-recordings-found-in-woods-corruptio/

 

Feds admit reason for computer wipe in Woods kickback case not credible

By Doug Thompson

Posted: February 16, 2018 at 1:30 a.m.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://ticklethewire.com/2018/02/16/fbi-admits-ignored-warning-school-shooters-desire-kill/

 

FBI Admits It Ignored Warning about School Shooter’s Desire to Kill

 

 

 

 

http://ticklethewire.com/2018/02/16/fbi-reviewing-handled-tip-months-ago-florida-school-shooter/

 

 

 

FBI Reviewing How It Handled Tip Months Ago about Florida School Shooter

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/politics/don-mcgahn-rob-porter-fbi-photo/index.html

 

Ex-wife's photos raise questions about McGahn's role in Porter scandal

FBI Obtained Photos of Alleged Abuse by Rob Porter More Than a Year Ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/15/vermont-man-finally-admits-to-spraying-border-patrol-agents-car-with-manure.html

 

Vermont man finally admits to spraying Border Patrol agent's car with manure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ice-protest-20180215-story.html

Immigrant rights activists block Homeland Security van from accessing Metropolitan Detention Center

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.stjohns.edu/about/news/2018-02-14/university-announces-new-doctor-professional-studies-homeland-security

University Announces New Doctor of Professional Studies in Homeland Security

 

 

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Responding to the growing need for a new generation of leaders in the field of homeland security—and the professionals who will educate them—St. John’s University’s College of Professional Studies has launched a Doctor of Professional Studies in Homeland Security program, to begin in the Fall 2018 semester.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/660197443/Nichols-says-bombing-was-FBI-op.html

 

 

 

 

 

Nichols says bombing was FBI op

Detailed confession filed in S.L. about Oklahoma City plot

Published: February 21, 2007 12:00 am

Updated: Feb. 22, 2007 1:02 p.m.

 

The only surviving convicted criminal in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is saying his co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh, told him he was taking orders from a top FBI official in orchestrating the bombing.

A declaration from Terry Lynn Nichols, filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, has proven to be one of the most detailed confessions by Nichols to date about his involvement in the bombing as well as the involvement of others. However, one congressman who has investigated the bombings remains skeptical of Nichols' claims.

The declaration was filed as part of Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue's pending wrongful death suit against the government for the death of his brother in a federal corrections facility in Oklahoma City. Trentadue claims his brother was killed during an interrogation by FBI agents when agents mistook his brother for a suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing investigation.

The most shocking allegation in the 19-page signed declaration is Nichols' assertion that the whole bombing plot was an FBI operation and that McVeigh let slip during a bout of anger that he was taking instruction from former FBI official Larry Potts.

Potts was no stranger to anti-government confrontations, having been the lead FBI agent at Ruby Ridge in 1992, which led to the shooting death of Vicki Weaver, the wife of separatist Randy Weaver. Potts also was reportedly involved in the 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993, which resulted in a fire that killed 81 Branch Davidian followers.

Potts retired from the FBI under intense pressure and criticism for the cover-up of an order to allow agents to shoot anyone seen leaving the Weaver cabin at Ruby Ridge.

When contacted, the FBI's main office in Washington, D.C., said it could not provide immediate comment on Nichols' claims Tuesday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.wnd.com/2007/02/40355/

 

 

 

 

'Multiple accomplices' ID'd by Terry Nichols - WND.com

http://www.wnd.com/2007/02/40355/

Feb 26, 2007 - Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue secured Nichols' signed and sealed declaration as part of his ongoing legal battle to wrangle the truth out of the FBI in regard to the Oklahoma City bombing ... As Nichols recounts his conversation with McVeigh, “Potts had something to do with the change in targets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://ticklethewire.com/2018/02/15/fbi-alerted-months-ago-school-shooting-threat-youtuber-named-nikolas-cruz/

 

 

 

FBI Alerted Months Ago about School Shooting Threat by YouTuber Named Nikolas Cruz

Ticklethewire.com

The FBI was alerted to an alarming comment on YouTube from a user named Nikolas Cruz, who posted months ago that he planned to become a “professional school shooter,” according to a Mississippi man.

Ben Bennight, a bail bondsman, said he flagged the comment on YouTube last fall and emailed a screenshot to the FBI, who paid him a visit and asked whether he knew the commenter.

“They came to my office the next morning and asked me if I knew anything about the person,” Bennight told BuzzFeed News. “I didn’t. They took a copy of the screenshot and that was the last I heard from them.”

Cruz opened fire with an AR-15 Wednesday at a Florida high school, killing at least 17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://time.com/5159992/fbi-agent-cnn-wolf-blitzer-florida-school-shooting/

 

'I Can't Do It, Wolf.' Veteran FBI Agent Breaks Down on CNN Over Florida School Shooting

 

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/fbi-florida-massacre-warning-signs-1.4538502

 

FBI director's resignation demanded after agency admits it got tip ...

 

Had agents been able to confirm Cruz was the same person as the YouTube poster, they would have found dozens of photos of rifles, ammunition, targets filled with bullet holes, which likely would have led to a face-to-face interview. The FBI did not notify police in Florida about the post before the mass shooting.

 

 

 

http://fox59.com/2018/02/16/deputies-were-called-to-home-of-florida-high-school-shooter-39-times-since-2010-records-show/

 

 

 

Deputies were called to home of Florida high school shooter 39 ...

Fox 59

A video blogger said he warned the FBI in September about a possible school shooting threat from a YouTube user with the same name as Cruz. An FBI agent confirmed that a field officer in Jackson, Mississippi, received the tip and interviewed the person who shared it. But no additional information was found to help ...

 

https://www.policemisconduct.net/the-waco-incident-20-years-later/

 

The Waco Incident – 20 Years Later

April 19, 2013

 

Since this web site is all about police misconduct, we cannot let the twentieth anniversary of the Waco incident pass without comment.

April 19, 1993 marks the worst police action in modern American history.   Here are the main things to know:

  • 76 people, including 27 children, died that day.  That loss of life is a sufficient explanation as to why this incident is important and worth remembering.
  • The federal police operation did not involve a handful of “rogue” agents.  The incident is disturbing because it supposedly involved the best units of the ATF and the FBI.  And much of the decision-making was done by the top people at headquarters facilities in Washington, DC.
  • Make no mistake, crimes were committed by federal agents at Waco.  And those crimes were covered-up.
  • If the feds can successfully cover-up the worst police action in modern American history–an event that was highly publicized and that eventually brought extensive congressional hearings and the appointment of a special prosecutor– it is frightening to consider what police agencies would be able to get away in instances where there is no media scrutiny or legislative oversight.

For those interested in the details, read this paper that we published in 2001 (I also recommend the documentary film, Waco: The Rules of Engagement, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1997).  For today, let me just highlight some facts for all the people who do not have the time or inclination to study the details.

  • When the Branch Davidian residence burned to the ground and it became apparent that the FBI tank assault on April 19 backfired–resulting in almost everyone losing their lives, Attorney General Janet Reno told the media that the reason she ordered the assault was because “babies were being beaten” —  so the feds had no choice–they just had to move in.  About a week later, Reno testified before Congress.  Under oath, she admitted she had no evidence that babies were being beaten!  What!?
  • The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team kept saying they were there to save lives and that they were especially concerned about the safety of the children in the residence.   But their tanks drove into the side of buildings even as the agents admitted they did not know the whereabouts of the children.
  • Some of the Branch Davidians survived the inferno of April 19.  They were arrested and charged with “murdering ATF agents.”  In a stinging rebuke to the federal prosectors, the jury acquitted the Davidians of those very serious charges.
  • One of the primary reasons the cover-up was successful was that government officials kept deflecting attention away from their actions to the Branch Davidian leader, David Koresh.  And, later, the feds would deflect attention by pointing out the crimes of the Oklahoma City bombers.   The feds seemed to taunt everyone with the question, “Who are you going to side with? Koresh?  McVeigh and Nicols?”  That was always a false choice.  One can, for example, condemn excessive force against a shoplifter without “siding with” shoplifting.
  • There are, to be sure, some wild conspiracy theories out there about the feds and Waco.  But the existence of a conspiracy theorist(s) does not make all government conduct lawful and ethical, at least in logic.

What’s the takeaway from all this?  First, recognize that this awful incident really did happen.  Crimes were committed and then the government tried to deceive everyone about what actually happened there.  Second, when it comes to government power, especially police power and the use of deadly force, be impartial, ask questions, and follow the evidence.  We must remember that, in a free society, police agents may not use the “color of their office” to commit crimes.

 

 

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/fanning-flames-waco

 

Fanning the Flames of Waco

By David B. Kopel and Paul H. Blackman

September 8, 1999

On April 19, 1993, 26 children were killed at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Six years and one day later, 12 children were killed at Columbine High School. The Columbine murderers are dead, and the man who illegally supplied them a gun is facing a lengthy prison sentence. But those responsible for the deaths of the children at Waco remain at large.

If, as President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno claim, the federal government bears no responsibility for the deaths of the children at Waco, why has the federal government worked so hard, and with so much success until recently, to falsify the facts about what happened there?

The lies about how the fire started commenced while the building was still in flames. A Justice Department spokesman in Washington claimed that an FBI sniper using a rifle scope had seen a male Branch Davidian, wearing black Ninja-style clothes and a black hood, pour liquid on the floor behind a piano and then ignite it. The day after the fire, Jeffrey Jamar, the FBI’s special agent in charge at Waco, asserted that the agent saw a person “get down with cupped hands and then there was a flash of fire.”

At the criminal trial of the Branch Davidians in 1994, that story fell apart. FBI Special Agent Jack Morrison said that he could see, through a hole created by a tank, somebody bent or kneeling by an overturned piano. The man appeared to be washing his hands, although the sniper admitted on cross-examination that he could not see the man’s hands. The fire did not erupt while the man was in the sniper’s sight, though the sniper did see a fire shortly thereafter. However, pictures of the progress of the fire show that the area near the overturned piano (the front door) was not a starting point for any fire. No fire appears there until several minutes after the sniper’s observation. Photographs show no fire in that area while much of the rest of the building was in flames.

Attorney General Reno earned a congratulatory phone call from President Clinton the day after the fire because of her highly publicized acceptance of responsibility. She put the FBI in charge of investigating its own conduct at Waco. The resulting report was a sham and a cover-up. Although seven independent reviewers were appointed to examine the FBI report, the FBI withheld evidence from them, such as Branch Davidian leader David Koresh’s April 14 offer to surrender as soon as he completed his written interpretation of the Seven Seals from the Book of Revelation.

Today, Reno claims to be angry that the FBI has been caught lying about Waco for the last six years. This brings to mind Claude Rains’s line from Casablanca, “I’m shocked … shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.”

The FBI lied to Janet Reno right from the start: they told her that CS chemical warfare agent is a mild irritant, even though much smaller doses than were used at Waco have killed children. On the day of the assault, the FBI flagrantly ignored her prior order to back off if there was any danger to the children. When she had initially rejected the FBI’s plan for a tank and chemical warfare assault on the Branch Davidians, the FBI told her that “Koresh was beating the babies.” In fact, FBI listening devices revealed no such thing.

Now Attorney General Reno’s response to new revelations about FBI lies is to order another FBI investigation of the FBI.

It is undisputed that while the FBI tanks were conducting the chemical warfare assault, the Branch Davidians spread kerosene in the building, intending to light it if the tanks entered the building. Starting a massive conflagration would have been consistent with Koresh’s apocalyptic interpretation of the Bible.

However, if federal agents bear no responsibility for the start of the fire and for the deaths of 76 people, why has the FBI covered up so much evidence for so long?

Recent revelations show that the FBI did fire pyrotechnic grenades — fully capable of starting a fire — during the attack on the Branch Davidian home. The FBI now claims that those grenades were launched six hours before the fire began. Yet if this “innocent” explanation is true, why did the FBI not tell the truth from the beginning?

Even if one takes the current FBI explanation at face value, it shows the federal government’s horrible disregard for the children. Although CS chemical warfare agent is banned from international warfare by a treaty that the United States has signed, the FBI used it against children and babies, knowing that those innocents would be unprotected by gas masks, since their faces were too small to fit them.

After the fire, the FBI bemoaned the failure of the Branch Davidians to take refuge in the underground tornado shelter, where the air remained cool and fresh. Yet the FBI now admits that the pyrotechnic grenades were launched at the very beginning of the assault as part of a systematic plan to keep anyone from fleeing to the shelter.

The federal Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of the military for civilian law enforcement. Yet the Dallas Morning News reports that the U.S. Army’s Delta Force was “present, up front and close” on April 19, 1993. That revelation undermines earlier claims that only three Delta Force soldiers were at Waco in an “advisory” capacity.

The government claims that the FBI never fired a single shot at Waco, yet an FBI aerial film appears to show the distinctive pattern of machine gun fire coming from government posts at the rear of the Branch Davidian compound — on the one side of the building that television cameras could not see. Could it be that Delta Force, and not the FBI, was doing the shooting — making claims that the FBI did not fire a single shot literally true?

Congressional leaders are beginning new hearings on Waco. However, the 1995 Waco hearings were a disaster, with Republicans looking for administration appointees to blame and paying little attention to the malfeasance of career federal agents. Meanwhile, Democrats such as then-Rep. Charles Schumer succeeded in diverting attention away from crimes committed by government employees and toward the statutory rapes that David Koresh had perpetrated earlier. To his credit, Schumer, now a senator, was the first major Democrat to call for a new review of Waco.

If another round of hearings is to have any chance for success, it will be essential to have a small committee, to allow congressional staff to question witnesses, and not to impose time limits on how long a given witness may be questioned.

Even now, it is unclear who killed the children of Waco. More than ever, though, the recent unveiling of more FBI lies underscores the fact that the children died because of willful and knowing actions by our federal law enforcement professionals. Although the president shed crocodile tears over the 12 children at Columbine High School and now seeks partisan advantage by pushing for federal laws that could not possibly have prevented Columbine, he and his administration remain coldly indifferent to the 26 children at Waco. The day after the Waco fire, Clinton said, “I do not think the United States government is responsible for the fact that a bunch of religious fanatics decided to kill themselves.” But the children didn’t kill themselves. If the president and his attorney general really care about those 26 children, they will appoint outside investigators — not the FBI — to bring out the truth about what really happened on April 19, 1993.

  • David B. Kopel and Paul H. Blackman are the authors of No More Wacos: What’s Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix It.

 

 

 
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https://www.deseretnews.com/article/705314507/Court-denies-attorney-chance-to-interview-Terry-Nichols.html

Court denies attorney chance to interview Terry Nichols

S.L. lawyer cannot take depositions in regards to his brother's death

 

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a judge's ruling that allowed a Salt Lake attorney to take depositions of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols and a death-row inmate.

The ruling, issued Thursday, states attorney Jesse Trentadue cannot take video depositions of Nichols and convicted killer David Paul Hammer about the death of Trentadue's brother and an underlying conspiracy regarding the bombing itself.

Jesse Trentadue believes his brother, Kenny Trentadue, was tortured and killed by federal officials while in custody after being mistaken for an associate of bombing conspirator Timothy McVeigh. Kenny Trentadue, a convicted bank robber, was in custody for a parole violation at the time.

According to a previous statement given by Nichols, Nichols claims a high-ranking FBI official was in contact with McVeigh and may have directed the bombing plot as a way to draw other anti-government people out. Hammer has claimed that after being housed together in prison, McVeigh told him that he had acted as an undercover military operative.

In its ruling, the 10th Circuit stated that it appeared neither Nichols, nor Hammer, had any direct information relevant to Jesse Trentadue's Freedom of Information Act request.

Thursday's ruling reverses an order by U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball, who found Trentadue could conduct new depositions of the inmates.

 

 

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Vast-Majority-of-Northern-California-Law-Enforcement-Agencies-Are-Not-Members-of-Federal-Joint-Terrorism-Task-Force-474906073.html

 

Vast Majority of Northern California Law Enforcement Agencies Are ...

NBC Bay Area-

A controversial public debate has been raging since last year when the San Francisco Police Department pulled out of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), pitting those who say the department's withdrawal puts the city at risk against those who say local officers shouldn't be embedded with federal agents until civil ...

 

 

FBI OCTOPUS

 

 

http://www.limaohio.com/news/287025/fbi-agent-talks-cybersecurity-at-chamber-event


FBI agent talks cybersecurity at chamber event

Lima Ohio

Special Agent Scott Halibur presents cybersecurity information in front of members of the Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce. Josh Ellerbrock | The Lima News. LIMA — As businesses steadily rely more heavily on digital systems, cyber criminals have evolved their approach to better take ...

 

 

 

 

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/aha-cybersecurity-john-riggi


AHA appoints former FBI agent to new cybersecurity role

FierceHealthcare-

John Riggi, who served in various roles at the FBI over a 28-year career, will join AHA as a senior advisor for cybersecurity and risk, the association announced. During his time at the Cyber Division of the FBI, Riggi led a national program to foster industry partnerships and helped investigate cyberattacks against healthcare ...

 

 

 

https://insiderlouisville.com/metro/local/lmpd-and-fbi-form-new-joint-task-force-to-investigate-public-corruption-and-civil-rights-violations/

 

LMPD and FBI form new joint task force to investigate public corruption and civil rights violations

February 22, 2018 4:52 pm

The Louisville Metro Police Department and FBI announced on Thursday that the agencies had formed a new joint task force that would investigate public corruption and civil rights violations.

In a news release, the agencies stated that the Louisville Public Corruption Civil Rights Task Force “formalizes a relationship started some time ago,” as its members will identify, investigate and pursue prosecution of public officials or public entities violating federal or state criminal statutes.

Last year, the local FBI office and LMPD also created a violent crime task force focused on the intersection of gangs and the illegal drug trade, as Louisville was coming of a record-high total of criminal homicides in 20

 


Former FBI employee in Charlotte charged with a crime against the agency

February 22, 2018 05:42 PM

Gus Lee Moore worked for the FBI in Charlotte. Now, a federal indictment handed down Thursday says he stole from the agency, too.

Moore, a former staff member in the FBI’s Charlotte office, was indicted on one felony count of theft of government property.

The indictment, signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dana Washington, says Moore took “money and other things of value” in excess of $1,000. NOW

 

A federal indictment on Thursday accuses former FBI employee Gus Lee Moore of embezzling from the FBI in Mecklenburg County.

 

 

 

http://mugshots.com/US-Counties/South-Carolina/York-County-SC/Gus-Lee-Moore.156076498.html

Public records indicate Moore also was arrested last July on three counts of shoplifting in York County, S.C. Moore appears to live in Clover, S.C.

 

 

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-tip-line-caller-said-nikolas-cruz-is-going-to-explode-1519415442

 

FBI Tip-Line Caller Said Nikolas Cruz 'Is Going to Explode'

Wall Street Journal-The FBI last week acknowledged receiving such a call, which it said was from a person close to Mr. Cruz. But the transcript, and the stark nature of the caller's precise warnings about Mr. Cruz's disturbing actions and volatile temperament, previously hasn't been made public. The calle began by saying Mr.

 

 

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywqqkw/military-fbi-and-ice-are-customers-of-controversial-stalkerware

 


Military, FBI, and ICE Are Customers of Controversial 'Stalkerware'

Motherboard

Contained in the Mobistealth data are customer accounts linked to email addresses from the FBI, DHS, TSA, ICE, and several different branches of the military. It's not clear whether the individuals paid for the malware themselves or through their respective organizations. But at least 40 of the Mobistealth ..

 

 

https://nypost.com/2018/02/22/fbi-aims-to-rebuild-trust-after-florida-shooter-failure/

 

 

FBI aims to rebuild trust after Florida shooting failure

New York Post-

WASHINGTON — A senior FBI official acknowledged Thursday that the nation's top law enforcement agency has lost public trust after the revelation that it failed to investigate a potentially life-saving tip before the Florida school shooting, a mistake he suggested was the result of bad judgment.

 

 

https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/02/21/fbi-hidden-hacking-groups-revealed/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/

Revealed: Two Secret Cogs In The FBI National Surveillance Machine

Forbes-Feb 21, 2018

The FBI has built a secretive and guarded intelligence operation, the tentacles of which stretch beyond its core task of domestic law enforcement and into the construction of the great American panopticon. Despite the almost complete lack of transparency surrounding that effort, Forbes has uncovered two ...

 

 
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https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2018/03/articles/government-whistleblowers/nwc-joins-scotus-amicus-brief-with-fbi-whistleblowers/

 

Home > Government Whistleblowers > NWC Joins SCOTUS Amicus Brief with FBI Whistleblowers

NWC Joins SCOTUS Amicus Brief with FBI Whistleblowers

By Aaron Jordan on March 9, 2018 Posted in FBI Whistleblowers, Federal Employee Whistleblowers, Government Whistleblowers, Intelligence Community Whistleblowers, News

Earlier today, the National Whistleblower Center (NWC) joined a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Supreme Court in support of FBI whistleblower John Parkinson’s petition for certiorari, seeking review of the Federal Circuit’s decision denying veterans’ preference-eligible FBI employees the right to raise whistleblowing as an affirmative defense in an appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).

The amicus brief, filed on behalf FBI whistleblowers Michael German, Robert Kobus, Jane Turner, and Frederic Whitehurst, as well as the NWC and the Project on Government Oversight, details why the Department of Justice’s procedures for FBI whistleblowers are not an adequate substitute for a veterans’ preference-eligible FBI employee raising a whistleblower claim in an MSPB case.

Lt. Col. Parkinson was dismissed from the FBI and sought to raise whistleblower reprisal as an affirmative defense at his MSPB hearing. He was denied the opportunity by the MSPB, won an appeal of that denial before a Federal Circuit panel, but then lost on rehearing en banc. The Federal Circuit overturned, in part, a panel decision and determined that FBI whistleblowers may not raise whistleblower reprisal as an affirmative defense before the MSPB.

The amicus brief chronicles the long-winded paths to justice of four former FBI whistleblowers, including former FBI crime lab expert Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, who bravely blew the whistle on flawed forensic science at the FBI lab; former FBI agent Michael German, who reported the FBI’s illegal recording of conversations in violation of Title III wiretap regulations during a counterterrorism investigation; former FBI agent Jane Turner, who reported to the DOJ Inspector General that colleagues had stolen items from Ground Zero after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; and retired FBI employee Robert Kobus, who worked at the FBI’s New York Field Office for 35 years and made a protected disclosure regarding some of his colleagues’ abuses of the FBI’s leave policy. Both Whitehurst and Turner hold leadership positions at the NWC.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Federal Circuit has issued a decision denying whistleblowers the rights intended by Congress. The Supreme Court should agree to hear this important case in order to correct the Federal Circuit’s dubious decision and to ensure that veterans who work at our foremost law enforcement agencies are fully protected when they blow the whistle.

Gregory Dubinsky, of Holwell, Shuster & Goldberg, who co-wrote the amicus brief, emphasized that “veterans make incredible sacrifices for our country, and we owe it to them to deliver on the promises Congress made in federal law to protect their rights when they face retaliation for blowing the whistle.”

Joshua Geltzer, of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) at Georgetown University Law Center, and co-author of the amicus brief, remarked the Federal Circuit’s “decision to strip veterans now working at the FBI of protections they’d enjoy elsewhere in government flies in the face of Congress’s persistent efforts to protect such whistleblowers, and the Supreme Court should step in to correct it.”

David Colapinto, NWC General Counsel and partner in the law firm of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, who represented Whitehurst, Turner, and Kobus in their FBI whistleblower cases, said that the NWC is “very grateful that Holwell, Shuster & Goldberg and ICAP agreed to file the amicus brief” on behalf of NWC and the other amici.

Read the complete amicus brief here.

 

 

 

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2018/03/2_plead_guilty_in_beating_of_o.html

2 plead guilty in beating of off-duty FBI agent at Hersheypark

PennLive.com-Two Philadelphia men pleaded guilty Friday morning to charges tied to the beating of an off-duty FBI agent who was on a family outing at Hersheypark. The victim of the April 2017 attack suffered neck injuries that forced his reassignment from a unit that rescues hostages overseas, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jack .

 

 

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/teacher-suspended-10-days-n-word-calling-students-dumb-article-1.3864995

 

Teacher suspended 10 days for using N-word, telling kids they should not be dating 'African-American boys'

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/030918_swartz_trial/jury-will-hear-evidence-that-mexican-teen-may-have-climbed-fence-before-being-killed-by-bp-agent/

 

Jury will hear evidence that Mexican teen may have climbed fence ...

TucsonSentinel.com-

The defense team had moved to require retired FBI Agent Allen Fuller to testify because Fuller, an audio video and image examiner, synchronized the video from two Border Patrol cameras that captured the shooting, along with audio from Nogales Police radios. During his work, he reportedly wrote in a memo to FBI Special ...

 
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Newly Released Documents Show FBI Used Stakeouts And Informants To Follow Black Lives Matter Activists

COINTELPRO comes to the 21st century.

 
 
 
 
 
Former FBI Director Comey Shown That Patriot Act Section 215 Warrantless Metadata Collection Ineffective As CI Tool

Former FBI Director Comey Shown That Patriot Act Section 215 Warrantless Metadata Collection Ineffective As CI Tool

 Rodney Graves  March 19, 2018  

Retired Special Agent Bassem Youssef, the chief of the FBI’s Communications Analysis Unit, charged with running and monitoring the Bureau’s Metadata Collection and exploitation under Section 215 of the Patriot Act showed Former FBI Director James Comey audit information which clearly showed that nine years of data collection had resulted in only one successful disruption of a terrorist plot.

FBI SUPERVISOR WARNED COMEY IN 2014 THAT WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM WAS INEFFECTIVE

By John Solomon and Alison Spann, the Hill

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Questions Still Surround Robert Mueller’s Boston Past

Mueller's involvement in one of the FBI's most embarrassing cases 

 Sara Carter    March 19, 2018
 51,208
 
 

Schoen is surprised that lawmakers have lauded Mueller as a stellar and well-respected former FBI director but have little knowledge about the former bureau director’s past from the criticism during his years in Boston, challenges with the 911 Commission findings when he was first appointed to the FBI and handling of the Anthrax case to name a few, he said.

Mueller In Boston

In the early 1980s, before Mueller became the second longest serving FBI director, he was a criminal prosecutor in the Boston office of the Justice Department and then became the Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston from 1986 through 1987.

It was Mueller’s actions during that time that raised questions about his role in one of the FBI’s most controversial cases involving the FBI’s use of a confidential informant that led to the convictions of four innocent men, who were sentenced to death for murders they did not commit.

Local law enforcement officials, the media, and some colleagues criticized Mueller and the FBI for what they believed was the bureau’s role in covering up for the FBI’s longtime dealings with mobster and informant James “Whitey” Bulger.

Bulger was a kingpin and a confidential informant for the FBI from the 1970s in the bureau’s efforts to take down the Italian mafia in Boston. But Bulger’s relationship with his FBI handler Special Agent John Connolly became toxic. It was later discovered that Connolly went out of his way to protect Bulger and aided the crime boss against investigations being conducted by the Boston PD and the Massachusetts State Police. According to reports at the time, Connolly would inform Bulger of wiretaps and surveillance being conducted by law enforcement.

Journalist Kevin Cullen wrote extensively about the FBI’s involvement with Bulger and raised concerns about the old case in a 2011 article in Boston.com after Obama asked Congress to make an exception to allow Mueller to stay on two-extra years beyond the mandated 10 year limit as FBI director.

Cullen said in his story that Mueller who was first an assistant US attorney, “then as the acting US attorney in Boston” had written “letters to the parole and pardons board throughout the 1980s opposing clemency for the four men framed by FBI lies. Of course, Mueller was also in that position while Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset.”

In 2001, those four men, who were convicted in 1965 of Teddy Deegan’s murder were exonerated by the courts. It was discovered that the FBI withheld evidence from the court to protect their informant that would have cleared the men, according to reports.  At the time, the bureau buried the truth to protect Vincent “Jimmy’’ Flemmi, their informant, who was the brother of Stevie Flemmi, a partner of Bulger.

Coleen Rowley is an American former FBI special agent and whistleblower and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s 2nd congressional district

Coleen Rowley, a former FBI special agent and former Minneapolis Division legal counsel of the FBI, wrote a Op-Ed in the Huffington Post last year No, Robert Mueller and James Comey Aren’t Heroes stated that when the truth about Bulger “was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI operated) Bulger gang.”

But according to Cullen, Mueller never was asked by Congress, “what did you know about Whitey Bulger, and when did you know it?”

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston said the bureau helped convict the four men of a crime they did not commit, and the three of them had been sentenced to die in the electric chair.

“This case goes beyond mistakes, beyond the unavoidable errors of a fallible system,” Gertner wrote in a 228-page decision, which called the FBI’s defense — that Massachusetts was to blame for an inadequate investigation — “absurd,” according to Cullen’s article.

Schoen noted for these reasons alone there should be concern about Mueller’s special counsel.

“As I have mentioned before, under Mueller’s watch in Boston, the second most corrupt relationship between an FBI agent (John Connolly, now in prison for murder-related charges) and his information (Whitey Bulger) unfolded,” said Schoen. “Mueller was neck deep in it and has never answered the questions that the media asked rhetorically, but that should have been asked by a grand jury of Congressional Committee. Even such dubious sources as the NY Times, Boston Globe, and Huffington Post have demanded answers.  Many have suggested he should never have been FBI Director.”

“Central tenet of the criminal justice system..to challenge the integrity of the investigation”

Attorney David Schoen

Over the weekend, Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee was one of those members.

“If you have an innocent client, Mr. Dowd, act like it,” Gowdy told “Fox News Sunday,” who added Mueller’s probe should continue.

Like Gowdy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also stressed that there should be a second special counsel, telling this reporter, “the system is working, we should let it work. Firing Mueller would be a grave mistake.”

But Schoen disagrees with Gowdy and Graham saying, “it is a central tenet of the criminal justice system that one may always challenge the integrity of the investigation/prosecution and it is reckless for a member of Congress to suggest otherwise,” said Schoen.

Schoen and the former FBI official disagree with Graham. The former FBI official, who worked on counterintelligence cases, said if the foundation of the investigation isn’t based on credible solid evidence “then Mueller’s investigation is one in search of a crime and that is not what you want and that’s not how it should be done.”

 
 
 
 

Some in Brooklyn Against Naming Intersection After Slain Black FBI ...

TheGrio (blog)-Mar 18, 2018
Some Bedford-Stuyvesant residents have decided they don't want an intersection named after the first Black FBI agent killed in the line of duty. According to the New York Post, the Brooklyn Board 3 voted to name the intersection at Claver Place and Jefferson Street after Special Agent Edwin R. Woodriffe.
 
 
 
 
 

http://www.wftv.com/news/local/fbi-agent-i-didnt-want-my-in-laws-to-hate-me-salman-says-of-attack-plan-secrecy/718076615

 
 
 

Pulse shooting trial: Attorneys press FBI agent who wrote down Salman's statements

By: Jason Kelly , Kelly Healey

Updated: Mar 20, 2018 - 2:07 AM
 
 
 
 

 

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2018/03/17/detroit-teens-police-build-bridges-forum/33036183/

Detroit teens, police build bridges during forum

 
Detroit – About 75 youths spent Saturday morning at a community forum talking about how to build trust between African-American teens and law enforcement.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Former Byrnes Mill police chief's guilty plea says $7,000 went missing after raid

  •  
  •  
    •  
  • Mar 16, 2018
 
 
 
 
 
 

police chief pleads guilty to receiving nude teen photos

A former northeast Ohio village police chief has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of receiving nude photos of a 16-year-old girl he’d met on the job.

Thirty-six-year-old Andrew Soloman entered the plea Friday in U.S. District Court in Akron. Prosecutors are expected to seek the dismissal of a child pornography charge during Soloman’s sentencing in June.

 
 

2 former Pierce County deputies allege cover-up, retaliation

 
 
 
 

Watchdog blasts Denver sheriff’s response to inmate’s death

DENVER — The Denver Sheriff’s Department mishandled an investigation into the 2015 death of a man restrained by deputies at the jail and must change its disciplinary and investigative process, a law enforcement watchdog agency said in a blistering report Monday that focused new attention on a case that has already resulted in a $4.6 million settlement.

The report made public by Denver’s independent police monitor, a civilian oversight agency for Denver’s police and sheriff departments, recommends that a civilian be put in charge of the Internal Affairs Bureau of the sheriff’s department that investigates allegations of officer misconduct.
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Newly Released Documents Show FBI Used Stakeouts And Informants To Follow Black Lives Matter Activists

COINTELPRO comes to the 21st century.

 
 
 
 
 
Former FBI Director Comey Shown That Patriot Act Section 215 Warrantless Metadata Collection Ineffective As CI Tool

Former FBI Director Comey Shown That Patriot Act Section 215 Warrantless Metadata Collection Ineffective As CI Tool

 Rodney Graves  March 19, 2018  

Retired Special Agent Bassem Youssef, the chief of the FBI’s Communications Analysis Unit, charged with running and monitoring the Bureau’s Metadata Collection and exploitation under Section 215 of the Patriot Act showed Former FBI Director James Comey audit information which clearly showed that nine years of data collection had resulted in only one successful disruption of a terrorist plot.

FBI SUPERVISOR WARNED COMEY IN 2014 THAT WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM WAS INEFFECTIVE

By John Solomon and Alison Spann, the Hill

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Questions Still Surround Robert Mueller’s Boston Past

Mueller's involvement in one of the FBI's most embarrassing cases 

 Sara Carter    March 19, 2018
 51,208
 
 

Schoen is surprised that lawmakers have lauded Mueller as a stellar and well-respected former FBI director but have little knowledge about the former bureau director’s past from the criticism during his years in Boston, challenges with the 911 Commission findings when he was first appointed to the FBI and handling of the Anthrax case to name a few, he said.

Mueller In Boston

In the early 1980s, before Mueller became the second longest serving FBI director, he was a criminal prosecutor in the Boston office of the Justice Department and then became the Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston from 1986 through 1987.

It was Mueller’s actions during that time that raised questions about his role in one of the FBI’s most controversial cases involving the FBI’s use of a confidential informant that led to the convictions of four innocent men, who were sentenced to death for murders they did not commit.

Local law enforcement officials, the media, and some colleagues criticized Mueller and the FBI for what they believed was the bureau’s role in covering up for the FBI’s longtime dealings with mobster and informant James “Whitey” Bulger.

Bulger was a kingpin and a confidential informant for the FBI from the 1970s in the bureau’s efforts to take down the Italian mafia in Boston. But Bulger’s relationship with his FBI handler Special Agent John Connolly became toxic. It was later discovered that Connolly went out of his way to protect Bulger and aided the crime boss against investigations being conducted by the Boston PD and the Massachusetts State Police. According to reports at the time, Connolly would inform Bulger of wiretaps and surveillance being conducted by law enforcement.

Journalist Kevin Cullen wrote extensively about the FBI’s involvement with Bulger and raised concerns about the old case in a 2011 article in Boston.com after Obama asked Congress to make an exception to allow Mueller to stay on two-extra years beyond the mandated 10 year limit as FBI director.

Cullen said in his story that Mueller who was first an assistant US attorney, “then as the acting US attorney in Boston” had written “letters to the parole and pardons board throughout the 1980s opposing clemency for the four men framed by FBI lies. Of course, Mueller was also in that position while Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset.”

In 2001, those four men, who were convicted in 1965 of Teddy Deegan’s murder were exonerated by the courts. It was discovered that the FBI withheld evidence from the court to protect their informant that would have cleared the men, according to reports.  At the time, the bureau buried the truth to protect Vincent “Jimmy’’ Flemmi, their informant, who was the brother of Stevie Flemmi, a partner of Bulger.

Coleen Rowley is an American former FBI special agent and whistleblower and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s 2nd congressional district

Coleen Rowley, a former FBI special agent and former Minneapolis Division legal counsel of the FBI, wrote a Op-Ed in the Huffington Post last year No, Robert Mueller and James Comey Aren’t Heroes stated that when the truth about Bulger “was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI operated) Bulger gang.”

But according to Cullen, Mueller never was asked by Congress, “what did you know about Whitey Bulger, and when did you know it?”

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston said the bureau helped convict the four men of a crime they did not commit, and the three of them had been sentenced to die in the electric chair.

“This case goes beyond mistakes, beyond the unavoidable errors of a fallible system,” Gertner wrote in a 228-page decision, which called the FBI’s defense — that Massachusetts was to blame for an inadequate investigation — “absurd,” according to Cullen’s article.

Schoen noted for these reasons alone there should be concern about Mueller’s special counsel.

“As I have mentioned before, under Mueller’s watch in Boston, the second most corrupt relationship between an FBI agent (John Connolly, now in prison for murder-related charges) and his information (Whitey Bulger) unfolded,” said Schoen. “Mueller was neck deep in it and has never answered the questions that the media asked rhetorically, but that should have been asked by a grand jury of Congressional Committee. Even such dubious sources as the NY Times, Boston Globe, and Huffington Post have demanded answers.  Many have suggested he should never have been FBI Director.”

“Central tenet of the criminal justice system..to challenge the integrity of the investigation”

Attorney David Schoen

Over the weekend, Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee was one of those members.

“If you have an innocent client, Mr. Dowd, act like it,” Gowdy told “Fox News Sunday,” who added Mueller’s probe should continue.

Like Gowdy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also stressed that there should be a second special counsel, telling this reporter, “the system is working, we should let it work. Firing Mueller would be a grave mistake.”

But Schoen disagrees with Gowdy and Graham saying, “it is a central tenet of the criminal justice system that one may always challenge the integrity of the investigation/prosecution and it is reckless for a member of Congress to suggest otherwise,” said Schoen.

Schoen and the former FBI official disagree with Graham. The former FBI official, who worked on counterintelligence cases, said if the foundation of the investigation isn’t based on credible solid evidence “then Mueller’s investigation is one in search of a crime and that is not what you want and that’s not how it should be done.”

 
 
 
 

Some in Brooklyn Against Naming Intersection After Slain Black FBI ...

TheGrio (blog)-Mar 18, 2018
Some Bedford-Stuyvesant residents have decided they don't want an intersection named after the first Black FBI agent killed in the line of duty. According to the New York Post, the Brooklyn Board 3 voted to name the intersection at Claver Place and Jefferson Street after Special Agent Edwin R. Woodriffe.
 
 
 
 
 

http://www.wftv.com/news/local/fbi-agent-i-didnt-want-my-in-laws-to-hate-me-salman-says-of-attack-plan-secrecy/718076615

 
 
 

Pulse shooting trial: Attorneys press FBI agent who wrote down Salman's statements

By: Jason Kelly , Kelly Healey

Updated: Mar 20, 2018 - 2:07 AM
 
 
 
 

 

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2018/03/17/detroit-teens-police-build-bridges-forum/33036183/

Detroit teens, police build bridges during forum

 
Detroit – About 75 youths spent Saturday morning at a community forum talking about how to build trust between African-American teens and law enforcement.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Former Byrnes Mill police chief's guilty plea says $7,000 went missing after raid

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  • Mar 16, 2018
 
 
 
 
 
 

police chief pleads guilty to receiving nude teen photos

A former northeast Ohio village police chief has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of receiving nude photos of a 16-year-old girl he’d met on the job.

Thirty-six-year-old Andrew Soloman entered the plea Friday in U.S. District Court in Akron. Prosecutors are expected to seek the dismissal of a child pornography charge during Soloman’s sentencing in June.

 
 

2 former Pierce County deputies allege cover-up, retaliation

 
 
 
 

Watchdog blasts Denver sheriff’s response to inmate’s death

DENVER — The Denver Sheriff’s Department mishandled an investigation into the 2015 death of a man restrained by deputies at the jail and must change its disciplinary and investigative process, a law enforcement watchdog agency said in a blistering report Monday that focused new attention on a case that has already resulted in a $4.6 million settlement.

The report made public by Denver’s independent police monitor, a civilian oversight agency for Denver’s police and sheriff departments, recommends that a civilian be put in charge of the Internal Affairs Bureau of the sheriff’s department that investigates allegations of officer misconduct.
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