There is simply no understanding the prevalence of gun violence in America - as evidenced by the recent attempted assassination of a congresswoman during a mass shooting - without discussing the nefarious role played by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
Once an organisation primarily concerned with the education and training of sportsmen, in a coup that came to be known as the Cincinnati Revolt in 1977, hardliners took over the leadership and believed that any gun regulation would take us down a slippery slope to Khmer Rougism.
In the years since, unlike the US in the wake of the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy - or for that matter Australia after the Port Arthur Massacre - the response to senseless gun violence has been to discuss everything from the rhetoric on our airwaves to the weather outside.
But any public conversations regarding restricting who has access to guns has been considered verboten (although, thankfully, this time some cracks are beginning to show).
This is largely because the NRA's duping its own members, which we'll discuss below, and coming to the realisation that the real money was in actually protecting the rights of gun manufacturers, which we'll discuss in Part II of this series.
If the NRA leadership is not radical, they certainly see the benefit in playing radicals on TV in order to enrich their financial benefactors who produce and sell the weaponry of death.
In the 1990s, in a climate of fear and paranoia that produced the Oklahoma City bombing, they were all too happy to refer to the government authority that tries to enforce gun laws, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms (ATF), as "jack-booted thugs". This led former president George H.W. Bush to resign his membership.
They then decided to up the ante by accusing former president Bill Clinton of murder and saying he "had blood on his hands" - all for the crime of supporting background checks at gun shows - which is among the many legislative proposals to reduce gun violence that they have repeatedly blocked.
Others include a ban on high-capacity magazines, banning sales to those on terrorist watch lists, and fully funding the aforementioned ATF (think about the latter when they say they want to "strengthen existing gun laws" after each new tragedy).
In fact, just a few days after the mass shooting in Tucson it was reported by Ryan Reilly from TPMMuckraker that a "jihadist" in America who was... "a moderator and contributor on Islamic extremist web forums, posted songs praising suicide bombers, discussed his jihad fantasies in the open..." was able to get an AK-47, no questions asked.
Emerson Begolly, the "jihadist" in question, responded when queried about this with laughter and facetiously exclaimed that "someone at the FBI showed up to work drunk". Perhaps, but if they were, it was only because the NRA forced them to do keg stands.
According to Robin Marty of Care2.org, today's young whippersnappers are snorting bath salts and plant food to get their kicks. I knew I was getting old when I had to check the media to find out about the latest youth drug menace.
But, before you go and blow your allowance at the Body Shop or the garden center, keep in mind that "bath salt" and "plant food" are just euphemisms that web-based head shops use to sell these amphetamine-like drugs , according to a 2010 report by the UK Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The active ingredients of this legal high are mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV).
Despite what the media would have you believe, these designer drugs are not ingredients in common household products. You cannot get high on actual bath salts or plant food. Sorry. Gardeners, if you bought exotic imported "plant food" online, and it arrived in an impossibly tiny packet, don't feed it to your plants.
Anti-choice black op linked to James O'Keefe
At least a dozen Planned Parenthood clinics across the country have recently been visited by a mysterious, self-proclaimed "sex trafficker" who was apparently part of a ruse to entrap clinic employees. Planned Parenthood reported these visits to the FBI.
In each case, the man reportedly asked to speak privately with a clinic worker, whereupon he asked for health advice regarding the underage, undocumented girls he was supposedly trying to traffic.
[Prominent anti-choice blogger] Jill Stanek and other anti-choice operatives, including Lila Rose of Live Action Films are effectively claiming responsibility for sending pseudo "sex traffickers" into [Planned Parenthood] clinics, and also warn of "explosive evidence," of which they of course present.....none. They appear to have no credible response to exposure of their efforts to perpetrate a hoax on Planned Parenthood.
As Jacobson points out, sex trafficking is a very real problem. And a sex trafficking hoax diverts time and resources that the authorities who could be hunting down real traffickers. She adds:
Victims of sex trafficking, after all, also need sexual health services because they are effectively being raped regularly and are more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections and experience unintended pregnancies. Does this help them get treatment?
Lila Rose of Live Action Films is a former associate of right wing hoaxster James O'Keefe, who orchestrated a sting operation against the social justice group ACORN. O'Keefe was sentenced last year to three years' probation for scamming his way into the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in January, 2010.
Sex, lies, and the classroom
To mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the National Radio Project presents a discussion of sex ed in American schools, federal funding for sex ed, and advocacy by interest groups and parents. Guests include Phyllida Burlingame of the ACLU and Gabriela Valle of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice.
Hot coffee!
Remember the woman who sued McDonald's after she spilled a hot cup of coffee in her lap? Corporate interests made Stella Liebeck into a national joke, even though she won her suit. Hot Coffee is a new documentary that tells the story behind the one-liners. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews Ms. Liebeck's daughter and son-in-law.
McDonald's corporate manuals dictated that coffee be served at 187 degrees, in flimsy styrofoam cups. A home coffee maker usually keeps the brew between 142 to 162 degrees, and most people pour their Joe into something sturdier than a styrofoam cup. If you spill that coffee on yourself, you have 25 seconds to get it off before you suffer a 3rd degree burn. Whereas if you spill 187-degree coffee on yourself, you've got between 2 and 7 seconds.
Companies are expected to produce products that are safe for their intended use. McDonald's was serving coffee to go, through drive-through windows, with cream and sugar in the bag. By implication, it should be safe to add cream and sugar to hot coffee in a car. In the pre-cup-holder era, millions of Americans were probably steadying their coffees between their legs to add cream and sugar every day. A responsible restaurant would not dispense superheated liquids in flimsy to-go cups. Indeed, McDonalds' own records showed that 700 people had been scalded this way.
In 1992, the plaintiff was a passenger in a parked car, attempting to add cream and sugar to her coffee while steadying the cup between her knees. When she opened the lid, the cup collapsed inward, dousing her with scalding coffee. The 79-year-old woman sustained 3rd degree burns over 16% of her body. She needed skin grafts to repair the damage. Initially she only sued to recoup part of the cost of the skin grafts. But the judge who heard the case was so outraged by McDonald's disregard for customer safety that he urged the jury to award punitive damages.
Another theme of Hot Coffee is how medical malpractice caps are forcing taxpayers to cover the medical costs of people who are injured by negligent health care providers.
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As the trial of a former Guantanamo detainee proceeded peacefully in a New York courtroom today, U.S. military prosecutors in Cuba were reportedly scrambling to get Omar Khadr, the alleged child soldier on trial for war crimes at Gitmo, to plead guilty to murder. Plea negotiations are reportedly ongoing and his trial, set to resume Monday, has been postponed for a week.
In New York, the government is finally presenting its evidence against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first former Gitmo prisoner to be transferred to the U.S. for trial.
On Thursday morning, an FBI agent testified about the exhaustive investigation done at the crime scene after the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania -- just the sort of complex investigation that FBI agents are trained to do. Having arrived in Tanzania within 24 hours of the bombing, FBI agents secured the crime scene and analyzed and preserved 661 pieces of evidence. Some of that led to the discovery of pieces of the white Nissan truck that had been turned into a bomb, and to its string of former owners.
Unfortunately for the government, though, a broker for the sale of the truck on Thursday afternoon proceeded to contradict everything he'd told the FBI 12 years ago.
Some of the problems in the Ghailani trial are predictable, given that the government imprisoned Ghailani for six years without trial after capturing him in Pakistan in 2004. Because he was interrogated using "enhanced interrogation techniques" and possibly torture in a CIA black site, none of the evidence obtained there is reliable or admissible. And because the government still didn't put him on trial for four years after transferring him to Guantanamo, witnesses may now have a hard time remembering what they told the FBI when it investigated the bombings more than a decade ago. The investigation led to the conviction of four other men in 2001. All are serving life in prison.
What will happen in Ghailani's case remains unclear. As I pointed out earlier, the defense isn't contesting many of the facts the government is now presenting. Yesterday, for example, we heard a whole day of testimony from victims of the bombing -- horrifying stories of being buried under the rubble and finding severed limbs of colleagues and loved ones. Ghailani's lawyers aren't disputing that any of that happened, and conducted hardly any witness cross-examination.
But when it comes to proving that the diminutive Ghailani (friends called him Foupi, meaning "the little one" in Swahili), actually intended to participate in the bombing plot, that's where the government may have a harder time. Though we've already heard testimony that Ghailani, who was around 22 at the time, was at least with one of the people who purchased the truck, the government has yet to present any direct evidence that Ghailani knew what it was being used for. The prosecution's case will likely depend on arguing that Ghailani should have known, based on the circumstances. Given that the trial is expected to last for up to four months, the government will have plenty of opportunity to present its evidence.
Meanwhile, back at Guantanamo Bay, Omar Khadr, the "child soldier" on trial for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier, is reportedly considering pleading guilty and serving one more year at Gitmo, then returning to Canada to serve more time there. Whether he'll agree to plead guilty to crimes that don't really exist remains to be seen. (As I've explained before, none of the crimes he's charged with are actually war crimes that belong in a military commission.)
In addition to the legal flaws in the government's case, there's the problem that the military appears to have no forensic evidence demonstrating that Khadr actually committed the crimes he's accused of. That's in part because, unlike the FBI, military investigators don't carefully gather and preserve evidence at a crime scene, making a subsequent prosecution much more difficult. For all these reasons -- in addition to Khadr's likely anger and bewilderment at having been imprisoned by the U.S. for a third of his life without trial -- the 24-year-old Canadian may now have less incentive to cooperate.
Even if Khadr does plead guilty, the legitimacy of that conviction, and of the entire military commissions process, will remain in doubt.
On Friday, the Obama FBI raided peace activists homes in Minneapolis and Chicago, under the rubric of a "terrorist" investigation. ("FBI raids homes of several Twin Cities war protesters") Under the theory apparently being used, Jimmy Carter could be arrested for supporting terrorism, because he has talked with people in groups accused of terrorist activity, in seeking to draw them into peaceful negotiations.
On Thursday, the Obama DOJ filed a brief appealing a District Court ruling that DADT is unconstitutional. ("DOJ to Judge: Keep Enforcing DADT") One argument it advanced would have limited Brown v. Board of Education to only desegregating the specific plaintiffs who went before the Supreme Court.
If you're starting to get the idea that the Obama Administration's views on civil liberties are to the right of most Republican Administrations of the past, you're not alone. At least one high-ranking former Bush official agrees with you, as Glenn Greenwald noted:
The government's increasing use of the state secrets doctrine to shield its actions from judicial review has been contentious. Some officials have argued that invoking it in the Awlaki matter, about which so much is already public, would risk a backlash. David Rivkin, a lawyer in the White House of President George H. W. Bush, echoed that concern.
"I'm a huge fan of executive power, but if someone came up to you and said the government wants to target you and you can't even talk about it in court to try to stop it, that's too harsh even for me," he said.
Having debated him before, I genuinely didn't think it was possible for any President to concoct an assertion of executive power and secrecy that would be excessive and alarming to David Rivkin, but Barack Obama managed to do that, too. Obama's now asserting a power so radical -- the right to kill American citizens and do so in total secrecy, beyond even the reach of the courts -- that it's "too harsh even for" one of the most far-right War on Terror cheerleading-lawyers in the nation.
Although we know little about the FBI raids on peace activists, we do know that it involves contacts with overseas groups, and we know that in July, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court had ruled that even free speech activities could be prosecuted as providing "material support" for designated "terrorist organizations", in a case where the purported crime was providing training in human rights advocacy and peacemaking to the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Turkey. At the time, attorney David Cole, who represented the Humanitarian Law Project with the Center For Constitutional Rights, wrote ("What Counts as Abetting Terrorists?"):
First, on Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a bill to stop the Obama administration from purchasing a new prison that could house detainees now at the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay under lock and key here in the United States.
Then on Friday, just as the Memorial Day weekend got underway, the House of Representatives voted to stop the president from transferring any of the Guantanamo detainees to the United States for any reason - including a trial.
But then on Saturday, the Washington Post reported that actually, only about 10 percent of the 240 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay when President Obama took office were "leaders, operatives and facilitators involved in plots against the United States." The majority were merely low-level fighters. About 5 percent of the prisoners couldn't be categorized as anything at all.
The report was based on the findings of the administration's Guantanamo Review Task Force, provided to the administration last January. Those findings were never released publicly, and only sent to select committees on Capitol Hill last week. The administration reportedly didn't share the information earlier because, in the wake of the failed Christmas-day bombing attempt, members of Congress had displayed little to no interest in closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Last week's events reveal that many members of Congress continue to show little interest in the real facts about Guantanamo and the detainees held there. How else to explain the stubborn refusal to allow any of them to touch United States soil, even to stand trial, regardless of whether there's any reason to believe that they're actually terrorists?
The Obama administration's task force that deemed most of them low-level foot soldiers was made up of more than 60 career professionals -- including intelligence analysts, law enforcement agents and prosecutors. They reviewed capture information, interview reports, CIA, FBI and NSA records, as well as files on the detainees' behavior since their imprisonment. Notably, the Bush administration hadn't even bothered to look at much of this evidence, the task force reported, so last year was the first time it had been systematically compiled and reviewed. Senior officials from six different agencies, including the defense department and Homeland Security, approved the task force's findings.
Still, that seems to be having little impact on the 282 lawmakers who voted to ban them all from coming to the U.S. for trial. Many persist in portraying all of the 180 remaining detainees as "the worst of the worst," as former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld called them.
"We can't stop every terrorist from coming to the United States but we can stop the ones that are coming from Guantanamo," said Rep. Randy J. Forbes, the Virginia Republican who offered the House amendment prohibiting the movement of detainees to the United States.
Meanwhile, a long list of retired military leaders have said that keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open threatens national security, rather than improving it.
While members of Congress blow hot air about threats they imagine from suspected terrorists confined in Supermax prisons on U.S. soil, they continue to ignore some very real national security dangers that they have the ability to do something about. As the New York Times pointed out over the weekend, Congress has failed to streamline its oversight of national intelligence and refused to prohibit or even adequately regulate companies' use of toxic gases that could easily be weaponized by terrorists for use in a future attack.
It's high time for lawmakers to stop posturing around imaginary threats, which prevents the federal government from bringing actual terrorists to justice and releasing those who don't deserve to be in prison. That - coupled with tackling tangible threats to homeland security that loom right here in our own country - would be the real way to enhance U.S. national security.
(I was going to write something about the NRA & gun madness this weekend. But then things got crowded. And then Cliff contacted me. This is the result. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
This week two fresh pieces of evidence came to light that prove once again that this country's guns nuts & the leadership of the NRA (one in the same?) are seriously out of touch with anything one might call reality.
Then there are the open carry nuts (see video #2 below), who think it makes sense to openly display their weapons while you're eating at a local diner or getting your coffee at Starbucks. Sadly for them, a new poll commissioned by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun violence dispels any myth that the public is with them on this one either.
As Paul Rosenberg has pointed out in this space before, The NRA represents nobody except the big gun manufacturers.
Full Disclosure: I am proud to consult for Mayors Against Illegal Guns & The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence
As lawmakers in Congress duke it out over whether the Times Square bombing suspect ought to have been read his Miranda rights, it's worth considering the real-life impact of reading a suspect his rights - and of withholding them. The consequences of not reading rights to terrorist suspects that we later want to prosecute are now on display at the military commissions in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And it's not looking good for the government.
The fallout from the assassination of women's healthcare provider Dr. George Tiller continues. As Zack Roth of Talking Points Memo reports, the Justice Department will investigate whether Tiller's shooter, an anti-choice zealot, violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act or any other federal statutes. But little has been said about investigating the killing as an act of terrorism, a federal crime. The Oklahoma City bombers were investigated by the FBI and tried under a 1994 federal anti-terrorism statute, and that was before the PATRIOT ACT, which presumably makes it even easier to prosecute terrorism as a federal crime today.
A few decades ago, rich people fire-bombed entire neighborhoods in the Bronx. But they weren't called terrorists -- they were called landlords. And nobody did a thing to stop them. My how things have changed in the Bronx.
It's being reported today that there was a "major" FBI sting in New York City, in the Bronx, arresting four men (al Queda in the Bronx?) who reportedly were planning to (1) blow up a Synagogue, and (2) shoot airplanes out of the sky. But they couldn't do anything until the FBI sent in some informant to infiltrate (or create) their "organization" (did they sit around a trash can and drink beers and talk shit every day?). Not only did the FBI "infiltrate" the "organization," but they also (1) offered to provide explosives to be used in blowing up a synagogue, and (2) offered to provide a weapon that could blow airplanes out of the sky. It took the FBI an entire year to get these four losers to participate at all (who knows how much money they were promised), and even at that the FBI had to actually drive the guys to the "scene of the crime," and stand there and instruct them what to do, so they could be arrested. And called "terrorists."
So let's see: we've got four probably losers who hang out together and talk trash. Then the FBI, working with some right-wing Republican in Congress decides to "infiltrate," and provide a plan for insurrection, plus provide the weapons. What's in it for the FBI? How actively are the Republicans and the state police (FBI, CIA) working together to re-terrorize (is that a word?) the American public, to justify torture and international war crimes, so there will be no hearings or prosecutions? Would they go so far as to invent evidence? Well.... yes, actually. They already invented evidence to use to invade Iraq. They're actually pretty good at it.
Read the story in the New York Times (link below) and get the details of this absurdity.
Given the well-documented history of the FBI in not just framing people and creating false evidence, but out-right murder, I would never assume anything they say or report is truthful. The fact that this entire "investigation" took a year to complete stinks to high heaven. If these men were such a danger to society, then why were they allowed to roam our streets for an entire year
My guess is that they are four loser-nobodys, low-IQs, just like those dudes from Florida who wanted to make a revolution, and whose demands were that they wanted new boots. People like this are used and manipulated by the state police forces to create a phony crisis. I'll bet anything that these four will be held under some terrorist statute that will prevent their attorneys from providing them with a basic defense to the charges. Or even presenting a defense. You know -- "National Security" and all that. Or maybe this will be a test of the new policy of "preventative detention" by which our government claims they can lock us up forever, without trial. You know. To "protect" us.
If somebody wanted to blow up a building, they could get gasoline and soda bottles. If they wanted to kill people, they could get a gun. This whole story stinks. It's like the FBI came up with some truly bizarre scenario to maximize the level to which the public could be terrorized. I'm betting we'll see three things at work in this phony story: Entrapment, Entrapment, and Entrapment. This will undoubtedly be used by the Republicans to justify their torture and international war crimes, and to support the further elimination of our basic constitutional rights. Will it be used by the Democrats to justify the planned war against Pakistan, and Obama's just-announced policy of preventative detention without trial?
What does the New York Times report in its article on May 22, 2009, titled "N.Y. Bomb Plot Suspects Acted Alone, Police Say"? Here are a few important points.
1. The four men who were arrested are described by local cops as "petty criminals."
2. They were acting alone, not with any terrorist organization. (Until the FBI got involved, anyway).
3. All four men had previously been in prison, for petty crimes.
4. The FBI found these four losers by sending informants into a Muslim mosque, and looking for -- poor people?
5. The "plot" consisted of the FBI informant wooing these men for a year, buying them meals, (did the FBI buy these men the SUV they drove to the "crime scene?") and promising them -- what? Millions of dollars? Even at that, the FBI informant, who told the four men he represented some foreign group, spent an entire year before he could get them to agree to do anything. Even then, the four men did nothing. The FBI gave them something which they said was a bomb, and drove them to a synagogue, then sat there and waited for the men to put the bomb out front. The FBI gave these four men something they said was a missile, and the FBI was supposedly going to drive the men to an airport where they would then shoot down airplanes. The four men did nothing. The FBI apparently planned the crime, got the "weapons," got together their "crew," maybe gave these men an SUV, maybe gave them money, maybe promised them millions. Whose the real criminal here? This is so weak that the case should be dismissed immediately.
6. The U.S. Attorneys' office describes the four as "extremely violent men." That's not what the local cops said -- the cops who know these guys. The local cops said these guys are petty criminals. Not based on their conduct. They didn't do anything except what the FBI informant told them to do. We already know the FBI is extremely violent. But these four men have no reported history of violence of any kind. So why would the U.S. Attorney's office come up with the description of "extremely" violent men? I'm guessing because they're going to be held forever, without a trial. Or maybe with some secret trial.
7. Three of the men are U.S.-born, one was born in Haiti. All four men are being reported by the FBI as being Muslim, although family relatives do not confirm that. For example, Wanda Cromitie is a sister of one of the four men arrested. She said: "she was shocked to learn of her brother's arrest while watching television this morning. She said she was unaware that her brother may have had extreme political views, and that she had last spoken to him about two years ago when she thought he was working at a Wal-Mart or Kmart store. " [Which could make anyone have extreme political views]. "'Right now, to me he's, like, the dumbest person I ever came in contact with in my life,' Ms. Cromitie said. She added that as far as she knew, he was not a Muslim, but said 'they do a little time in jail and they don't eat pork no more.'"
8. The FBI sent informants into a Muslim mosque in the hometown of these four men several years ago at least. "At the Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque in Newburgh where the men first met the F.B.I. informant, they were not considered devoted members, said an imam at the mosque, Salahuddin Mustafa. He also said that the man he believes was the informant showed up about two years ago and started inviting people to meals, where he would talk about jihad and violence.
9. An assistant imam (like a minister or pastor) at that mosque said that one of the four men appeared to be mentally ill. He "often talked in circles, showed signs of paranoia and kept bottles of urine in a messy apartment. 'He has some very serious psychological problems,'" (the assistant iman said.)
10. Therefore, according to the New York Times, the FBI sent an underground informant into a Muslim mosque, and that informant would invite poor ex-con members out to meals where he would talk to them about violence and jihad. Yes, that's called inciting violence. What exactly did the FBI promise these four men? Money?
11. Actually, these four men were given up by another guy who had been caught in criminal activity, and agreed to be an informant to the FBI in exchange for staying out of prison. This weasel told the FBI that these four losers wanted to attack the U.S. That's how this all began. Or so the FBI claims. Some weasley criminal turned these four guys in so he could stay out of prison. And even at that, it took the FBI an entire year to get these four guys to go along with this ridiculous "plot" to attack a synagogue.
It gets better. The FBI informant actually drove these four losers to the synagogue and watched (or instructed) one of them placing packages (supposedly with explosives) inside cars parked out front. The four bad guys and the FBI who directed the whole "plot" were inside a black SUV. Whose car was this? Did these four men even have a car? The newspaper calls the driver a "cooperator." Is that the same as FBI Informant? The FBI immediately moved in from all sides, including in armored vehicles, smashed in the windows of the SUV (why?) and made the big arrest. Of Al Queda in the Bronx.
The newspaper reports that none of the four resisted at all. Yet the place was swarming with FBI and cops: "'Other police officers, along with members of the Joint Terrorist Task Force, the F.B.I., and the state police, were also on hand, and moved in and took those individuals away.'"
Then to cap it off, we have a new term, "aspiration." The FBI is claiming that these four men "aspired" to be bad guys, but did not have the materials or abilities to do so. Good thing the FBI jumped in to direct, encourage, and pretend to arm them. Entrapment. And a waste of taxpayer money. "A federal law enforcement official described the plot as 'aspirational' - meaning that the suspects wanted to do something but had no weapons or explosives - and described the operation as a sting with a cooperator within the group." Aspirational. They aspire to commit crimes. A "cooperator" in the group: that's the FBI plant who came up with the plan, promised money to the others if they would go along with it, got the phony weapons, and was in charge of the entire bizarre incident. This is a new low.
Here's another good one: "The shadowy figure of the F.B.I. informant is, in many ways, a driving force of the plot laid out by prosecutors." Well yes, driving force. He invented the whole thing. He created it. Delete "in many ways."
So, what's really going on with these two-bit criminals being set up like big-time terrorists? Find some ex-cons including one who's crazy, probably poor and unable to find work. Tell them what to do, pretend to represent some wealthy foreign group, provide them with the pretend weapons, promise them what? Millions of dollars? All set up by the FBI.
Here's the proper role for law enforcement: (1) when there has been a crime committed, they investigate, find evidence, turn it over to a prosecuting attorney who decides whether to file charges; (2) if they hear of a planned crime, investigate that, gather evidence to be used to stop the crime. But it is not the proper role of law enforcement to manufacture crimes, to try to get other people to commit crimes so the law enforcement can act like big shots when they arrest the guys. Which is what appears to have happened in this case.
The government got four losers and set them up to take a fall as some big-time Al Queda in the Bronx. But for what? I'd say it is to (1) re-terrorize the public, make people fearful, (2) convince the public that torture and wars of aggression are necessary, so there should be no hearings or prosecution or punishment of those who committed those crimes, and (3) provide further support for the elimination of the constitutional rights of the citizens of this country.; and (4) maybe test out the new "preventative detention" theory being floated by our federal government, the idea that they can jerk us out of our homes at any time and throw us in prison, without trial, forever. You know -- to keep the country safe.
Never for a moment in my life have I been "in love." I do not believe in the notion. Fireworks have not filled my heart. Flames of a fiery passion do not burn within me. Indeed, my soul has not been ablaze. Thoughts of a hot-blooded devotion seem illogical to me. Such sentiments always have. Fondness too fertile is but torture for me. I admire many, and adore none. For me, the affection I feel for another is born out of sincere and profound appreciation. To like another means more to me than to love or be loved. Excitement, an emotional reaction to another, rises up within me when I experience an empathetic exchange with someone who has glorious gray matter.
Today, it happened. I felt an a twinge that startled me. I stood still as he entered the room. I expected nothing out of the ordinary, or at least nothing other than what has become his recently adopted, more avoidant, routine. Although long ago, I had become accustomed to his face, his voice, and his demeanor, for I have known the man for more than a few years. In the last few weeks, while essentially he is who he always was, some of his stances have changed. Possibly, Barry has felt a need to compromise his positions, but I wonder; what of his principles.
It looks like a lot of corrupt politicians are heading south with FBI investigations. I wonder whether this has anything to do with radical inequality, an unjust war, and a pathologically unethical political and media class.
WASHINGTON - A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.
The right is like a shark--once it smells blood it does not stop. The Democratic Party seems to keep thinking that if they capitulate, or triangulate the Republicans was cease to salivate. Not true. Congress gave Bush the Patriot Act. Then Iraq. Then funding for Iraq. Then FISA. All the while they expected them to be satisfied and leave the Dems alone.
It won't happen. They must be stopped. More on the expanded powers below.
By Michelle Richardson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office.
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the abuse of National Security Letters, the secret FBI requests for your financial, consumer and communication records. By simply asserting the request is relevant to a terrorism investigation, the government can dig into your personal information, keep it indefinitely, use it for really any purpose it sees fit. Of course, these requests come with an unconstitutional gag on the company or organization that turned over your information from ever telling you, the public, or Congress.
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