Michele Bachmann and The Rise of Neo Nazi Candidates

Don't be confused by the header, there are in fact, two separate articles, but many, myself included, would argue that they belong on the same page.

This was something I stumbled upon at Alternet while preparing the previous post, a little cream to go with the peaches, as it were.

Yes, She's Serious: While You're Laughing, Michele Bachmann Is Gearing Up To Fight

There's no such thing as bad publicity for the GOP's most unpredictable candidate.

Michele Bachmann, the Republican presidential candidate, is having a very good week. What's that, you say?

You mean even after she mistook serial killer John Wayne Gacy for right-wing culture hero John Wayne?

Even after her laughable attempt to claim a 9-year-old John Quincy Adams as one of the founding fathers, in a vain effort to justify her earlier claim that that august patriarchal body "worked tirelessly to end slavery"?

Even after her supporters apparently tried to edit Wikipedia's entry on JQA to support her claim? (Many chuckles to be had by progressively following all the links related to this Wiki entry. Only in Ameriki folks. only in Ameriki.)

You mean even -- even -- after ThinkProgress revealed that her husband had declared, on a radio broadcast, that gay people are "barbarians" who need "to be disciplined"? (Have a wander around the blog of gay girl, Pam Spaulding, I'm sure you will find bits of interest on Bachmanns both. Pam's House Blend)

(Update: Between composing this post and its publishing, a new article has appeared at Pam's House Blend. The subject? Marcus Bachmann's 'ex-gay' practice.

Yes indeed. With all eyes upon her, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., chair of the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, had an excellent week. Because she doesn't care what you think. She doesn't need you. And that's why you must take her seriously.

In our bizarre presidential primary system, it's the early states that really matter -- states whose populations do not mirror the diversity of the nation at large. Eager for a story, the national media begins to assemble on the ground the better part of a year ahead these early contests, which consequently serve as the nation's introduction to the candidates. And it just so happens that the three most important early states have populations that, among those who vote in a Republican primary, skew far to the right on the GOP stage. So Bachmann will enjoy an advantage -- at least in Iowa and South Carolina, if not New Hampshire -- among the battalions of evangelical Christians who will vote in those primaries. In addition to her religious cred, Bachmann's got the hearts of Tea Party enthusiasts, whose movement has significant overlap with the religious right.

Many are the progressives and liberals, all too inclined to look to the next election as the means of political salvation, who may actually cheer the ascendance of Bachmann as an obvious display of the crazy that underlies today's Republican Party, thinking that reasonable people will never vote for her in a general election. And they may be right in that assumption. But each time a politician as far to the right as Bachmann is accrues power in the GOP, the worse it is for all of us. The long-term process, you see, pushes the party ever further to the right, but sooner or later, voters tire of the Democrats and vote in the Republicans in an anybody-but-you-guys tantrum. And if, at that time, the GOP is ruled by the David Koch wing of the party, we're all pretty well screwed.

The Victim Card

One of the things right-wing leaders have done so brilliantly is to convince their constituents that the mainstream media are hopelessly biased in favor of liberals and liberal policies -- so much so, that virtually nothing reported by mainstream outlets is believed to be reported as simple matters of fact. Whether it's the science of climate change or the gaffes of Michele Bachmann, right-wingers reject every iota of the mainstream media narrative, turning their gaze and their ears instead to the spin of the right-wing media machine. It's a perfectly closed system, impenetrable by any who dwell outside the tribe.

Each mainstream media report of Bachmann's mangled version of history, and every question she gets from a journalist, such as [PDF] CBS News' Bob Schieffer (who is hardly a liberal, by the way), about her revisions to the nation's story, are regarded as attacks born of bias. Add in the long history of sexist treatment of women candidates (which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future), and Bachmann's defenders can earnestly exclaim to her base that she is treated differently from her fellow candidates, all men, by the sexists of the allegedly liberal mainstream media. And Bachmann will, no doubt, be subjected to sexist punditry at some point during the race -- and it will likely play to her favor. Go to page two.

Before moving on to the rise of the Neo-Nazis, let us take a humorous look at the ''gay cure.''

Easy you might think, to dismiss Richard Cohen as just another harmless religious whackjob, until that is, they become politicly active. Let's hear what gay girl Rachel Maddow has to say to Cohen.



What really pisses me off about this lot is, there are, as we speak, people around the world, children even, being stoned to death and hung from cranes for their sexuality, and at the same time, sanctimonious Bible clutching twats with an unhealthy preoccupation with the sexuality of others, have the fucking arrogance to say homosexuality is a lifestyle choice.

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And this is happening all over the US, not just the flat earth states.

White Supremacist Stampede

A startling number of white-power candidates are seeking public office. Eve Conant reports on their under-the-radar strategy and David Duke’s White House flirtation.
July 4, 2011

Add to the growing list of candidates considering a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 America’s most famous white-power advocate: David Duke.

A former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and Republican executive-committee chairman in his district until 2000, Duke has a significant following online. His videos go viral. This month, he’s launching a tour of 25 states to explore how much support he can garner for a potential presidential bid. He hasn’t considered running for serious office since the early '90s, when he won nearly 40 percent of the vote in his bid for Louisiana governor. But like many “white civil rights advocates,” as he describes himself to The Daily Beast, 2012 is already shaping up to be a pivotal year.

Former (and current) Neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Confederates, and other representatives of the many wings of the “white nationalist” movement are starting to file paperwork and print campaign literature for offices large and small, pointing to rising unemployment, four years with an African-American president, and rampant illegal immigration as part of a growing mound of evidence that white people need to take a stand.

Most aren’t winning—not yet. But they’re drawing levels of support that surprise and alarm groups that keep tabs on the white-power movement (members prefer the terms “racial realist” or “white nationalist”). In May, the National Socialist Movement’s Jeff Hall hit national headlines in a bizarre tragedy: his murder, allegedly at the hands of his 10-year-old son. But before his death, he had campaigned for a low-level water board position in Riverside, California. The swastika-wearing plumber who patrolled the U.S. border paramilitary-style walked away with almost 30 percent of his community’s vote. “That’s a sizable amount of the vote for a person running openly as a Neo Nazi,” says Marilyn Mayo, co-director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. While Hall’s political future—and life—has been cut short, Mayo points out that we should expect more white supremacist hopefuls next year.

Mayo and others date the current spike to 2008, and the election of the country’s first African-American president (an historic marker accompanied by a surge in the percentage of U.S. children born to minorities in 2008—48 percent, compared to 37 percent in 1990). “The immediate reaction after Obama was elected was of rage. They feel if a black man can get elected to office, why can’t someone who represents white interests?” Just a few weeks after Obama’s election, Duke gathered followers in Memphis to expressly strategize what to do next. The solution? If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Disappointed with Ron and Rand Paul and other leaders who they feel are close, but not close enough, to their views—the A3P has fielded candidates like Harry Bertram, who ran for the West Virginia board of education last fall, pulling down 14 percent of the vote. He’s now angling for governor. “My platform is conservative like the Tea Party but more racialist inclined,” Bertram says. Another A3P candidate won 11 percent of the vote in a recent run for a seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Those numbers are small, but hardly laughable, especially for a new group explicitly running on a white-interest ticket. “We’re just beginning,” says board member Jamie Kelso, who says the group’s platform includes a complete moratorium on immigration. “But we’re filling a void.”

Some candidates for 2012 are already filling paperwork. “White people need to wake up to the fact that we’re becoming a minority in our country,” says John Abarr, a 41-year-old former organizer for the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, has filed to begin raising money for Montana’s lone U.S. House seat. He’s not worried that the Republican Party isn’t backing him: “I don’t think public opinion is all that much against us. Montanans are independent thinkers.” His key platform? Abolish the Fed, raise the military age to 21 to stop what he calls the “barbaric” practice of sending teenagers to war, end the death penalty, legalize marijuana (he doesn’t smoke or drink himself), establish a 5 percent flat tax, and help whites by fighting entitlements (like affirmative action and immigration) that he says favor minorities. He describes the Klan as a Christian, white civil-rights organization, and glosses over the brutality that has earned the group its bad name. “I can’t agree with lynching anybody for any reason, but that was a different time in our history.” He adds: “We already have a black president, and I’m not sure when we’ll have a white president elected again.” more

FBI: Workings of a Police State

In a case that says as much about the judicial system (and the judge) as it does about the workings of the FBI, the case of James Cromitie, and others, is quoted, deservedly, as one of the, 5 Outrageous Examples of FBI Intimidation and Entrapment Link.

When I first read about the case, probably at the time it was going to trial, it was a real sideways headshaker, ''This can't be for real, I don't believe what I'm reading,'' kind of a case.

In a nutshell, FBI Agent Provocateur, Shahed Hussain, recruited four nobodies, whose potential as terrorists was probably equal to that of my own. Recruited four nobodies, whose IQs, I think we can safely assume, were matched only by that of their bank balances, with the promise of cash cars and drugs, if they will follow Hussain's plan to commit dastardly deeds. Or as one defence lawyer put it: "the government designed, funded, supplied, engineered and directed every detail of an entirely fake terrorist plot."

You can read about the case, as one of the ''five outrageous examples'' at the link above, or as a longer stand alone article below. Both recommended.

Were the Newburgh 4 Really Out to Blow Up Synagogues? A Defendant Finally Speaks Out.

Was David Williams IV a terrorist? Or was he just out to make an easy score by scamming the government's informant? Link

I Didn't Fight For Your Freedom

Great article.

I Didn't Fight For Your Freedom

So it's Memorial Day, which means that the US is awash with mostly obligatory tributes to military personnel.

I hate this shit.

I didn't fight for your freedoms. In the six years I was in, I never once defended your right to vote, or to carry a gun, or to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure (that one doesn't really apply anymore, anyway), or any of the other things you enjoy as a citizen of this country. I just didn't. Neither did anyone who went to Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Vietnam. It's all bullshit. It's a fucking lie that we tell ourselves and each other so that we don't have to think about why we send young men and women to serve, suffer, and die for old men's vainglorious ideas and profit margins.

I passed through Burlington, WI on Saturday to visit their annual chocolate festival. Who could say no to that, right? Well, while there (this being Wisconsin), I got myself a beer. To do so, you had to put up with the shitty metal cover band in the beer tent. There's a 45-year-old lead singer acting a fool--pouring beer on his own goddamned head, making dumb-ass sexist remarks, saying stupid shit about his teen-aged daughter, etc. Since that wasn't reprehensible enough, he then proceeded to thank all the veterans in the crowd, specifically pointing out one man whose--well, I'll just quote this asshole.

I wanna thank all of our veterans for what they do for us. Every guy in the band, our fathers were all in the military. My dad was in Korea! This guy right here in front--his son is in Iraq right now. He's over there FIGHTIN' FOR OUR RIGHT TO PARTY!

I wanted to rush the stage and strangle that fuck with a microphone cord.

It's all bullshit, folks. We don't do anything for anyone's freedom. The military hasn't actually deployed en masse to defend your freedom in a long, long time. Unless you call rich people fucking over the world's poor and powerless a form of freedom. As you may have guessed, I don't. It's bullshit. And it needs to stop.

I don't mind honoring sacrifice, but the military doesn't have a monopoly on that, now does it? I also don't mind remembering military dead and wounded. But we do it all wrong. We just fetishize the suffering (like good Catholics, no?) without wondering why it ever happened in the first place. Remembrance and memorial, it would seem, also involve reflection and assessment. Just because someone died or was wounded doesn't automatically validate how he or she came to be in that state. We send our young people overseas to be bored, pull duty, sometimes get shot at, and occasionally get hit. Then we never ask why they're over there in the first fucking place, because doing so, apparently, does them a disservice. What kind of jack shit is that? more

Japan is Fucked Unequivocally Rest Of Us To Follow?

As someone said somewhere down the line in this ongoing clusterfuck, there is no such thing as someone else's nuclear accident.

Consequently, I think my use of a question mark in the header is more wishful thinking, than reflecting the true reality of the situation.

And I use of the term, fucked, in the header, because that's just what it is, and not only that, you would be amazed at the number of searches that include that very keyword.

Although this is not the front page of Alexander Higgins Blog, a blog you really should bookmark if you wish to be kept informed and up to date with the latest from Japan, it nevertheless makes for some very informative, if not very scary reading.

I have perhaps, been quite tardy myself recently, in reporting the current situation, and even the link I am about to offer, is to a page that is two weeks old itself. But that doesn't make it any the less important by any means, the situation in Japan, just like the isotopes in question, is timeless.

I have been keeping an eye open for updates from Fairewinds Associates, another bookmark must, but as Arnie Gunderson explains in this short clip, he himself has been very busy with appearances of late, but does promise some updates in the near future.

Might I ask you, having read the initial story on the page:

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen tells Al Jazeera that the Fukushima nuclear disaster is potentially worse than 20 Chernobyl disasters as a series of scientific experts join him in chorus saying the that disaster in Japan is far worse than governments around the world are revealing to the public.

Having read that story, scroll down to the George Washington story and take in the enormity of the amount of fuel that is stored, was in use, or has melted down at the site. I am aware we are talking about a quite dense material here, but the tonnage quoted is frightening.

The Amount of Radioactive Fuel at Fukushima DWARFS Chernobyl

Plenty of other links also to be found leading from the page in question.


There is plenty of other stuff to be found there, including this:

Sinister Cyber Surveillance Plot Revealed In Fascinating Glimpse Into World Of Fascist Black Ops

Power Corrupts But Absolute Power is Much More Fun: King Obama

Although it might be a little unfair to single out Bush lite as the villain of the piece, the Constitution and the mythical rights of man, have after all, been under assault for decades.

This story is I suppose of primary interest to Americans, but once I read the opening paragraph, it was destined to appear on these pages, if for no other reason than to drag out the ever topical, Eddie Izzard.










You can't have just one Eddie Izzard.

King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July!
by David Swanson
4 July 2011

The Declaration of Independence is best remembered as a declaration of war, a war declared on the grounds that we wanted our own flag. The sheer stupidity and anachronism of the idea serves to discourage any thoughts about why Canada didn't need a bloody war, whether the U.S. war benefitted people outside the new aristocracy to whom power was transferred, what bothered Frederick Douglas so much about a day celebrating "independence," or what the Declaration of Independence actually said.

When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power. And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain's rule over the 13 colonies.

Or perhaps I should say, a large portion of us take turns being happy or outraged depending on the political party with which the current president is identified.

"We have been sliding for 70 years to a situation where Congress has nothing to do with the decision about whether to go to war or not, and the president is becoming an absolute monarch." Thus spoke Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) on the floor of the House recently, some years after having refused to back the impeachment of President George W. Bush, thus facilitating the slide toward the current situation.

Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago, recently commented that President Nixon had finally won. Although Ellsberg was acquitted of criminal charges, the facts made public, and Nixon compelled to resign, all of the abuses of power Nixon faced possible impeachment and prosecution for have now been legalized (or made acceptable practice): warrantless spying, searches and seizures, baseless secrecy, assassination attempts, etc. By the same logic, King George III is as big a winner as Richard M. Nixon. A quick survey of the charges brought against King George III on July 4, 1776, is illuminating: more

While we are with Bill Maher, try this below, and then watch the moral indignation from Friends on Fox in reply. Seemingly, the three bobble heads majored in the same history course as Michele Bachmann, or is it just selective amnesia when it comes down to the nasty Nazi's major role in covering up the rampant paedophilia practised by the godly men of the Buggery Club.

Don't Upset The Huldufólk

For a bloke that doesn't do supernatural, I do love faerie stories.

Icelandic town hopes angry elves have been soothed by songs

It is hoped that elves and hidden people around the north-western Icelandic town of Bolungarvik will start to calm down again following their recent dangerous pranks and humans’ subsequent efforts to appease them.

Local residents sang songs and said prayers in honour of the peeved hidden folk and elves this week in an effort to smooth ruffled feathers. Dynamiting began again midweek following a nasty incident, reported here, where rocks and soil rained down on Bolungarvik.

Some people pointed the finger of blame on angry elves who had finally snapped. The dynamiting for the town’s new avalanche defence barrier comes less than a year after a new road tunnel through the Oshlid hill was completed — neither of which with the prior blessing of the hidden people.




Seers requested the Bolungarvik municipal government make a full apology to the hidden people and elves for the disturbance the avalanche barrier and tunnel have caused them. The council failed to see the potential quirky PR value and refused to co-operate — saying that there must be logical explanations for the recent spate of accidents and breakdowns. Some locals then took matters into their own hands; making up their own peace offering.

“I have now been asked by both elves and men to broker a compromise here, and I hope that this song will suffice,” said Bolungarvik musician Benedikt Sigurdsson. All heavy machinery at the site was stopped while the ceremony went ahead, and pre-school children and other interested residents gathered round to show their support. www.icenews

I've watched a few movies starring Iceland's most famous citizen. She'll do for me, she's a babe for all seasons.

Fred Reed: A Movie Review

Sort of.

White Trash and the American Experience
A People Seldom Seen
June 19, 2011

Tell you what: them as has interest in Americana would like this documentary. If you want an expedition into the bottom layers of the American social experiment, down where even catfish won't feed and everything you think is good isn't there, try The Wild Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia—Boone County to be exact. Here you have a well-done account of a dying breed, Appalachian white trash, at its finest. (In the title, “White” is a family name, like Reed, not a racial designation.)

It resonates with me somehow. I was born in Crumpler, an unincorporated coal camp up the holler from North Fork, in McDowell County, but McDowell and Boone are the same place, or were—ugly poor, crushed by ruthless coal companies that don't care about anybody or anything, awful schools, no future, black lung, men crushed by slate falls. It's better now than it was, though. Some better.

The life of the mines and mountains bred strange people, like Jesco White the Dancing Outlaw, Jesco being an Elvis look-alike and probable psychopath, and Deeray White and Sue Bob and Darky, people your mother wouldn't want you to play with because they play with guns and knives and Xanax, coke, and Oxycontin. Some sniff gasoline, which even in the Sixties would have been thought excessive.

White trash was a whole, grett big, motingator part of America, and still is more than most people imagine. Most people that read things on computers, anyway. The history books talk about the virtuous and largely imaginary Boy Scouts, the Kit Carsons and and Tom Jeffersons and a sea of rude but hardy and decent pioneers, courageous and independent saints who made this country from scratch. Sure, and I'm the Tooth Fairy. The people who believe this haven't been down the dirt roads to the thirty-year-old trailer with the broken washing machine in the yard and Bobby Ann, sixteen and pregnant, slouched on the steps in dirty shorts.

The truth was a bit different from what the high schools tell you. There were lots of mean, shiftless sonsofbitches, colorful God knows, who stayed drunk on busthead and beat each other into cripples or knifed or shot, and didn't think anything of it really. You don't know what trouble is till you've been in the wrong pool hall in some forlorn mountain town and the locals look for an excuse to beat you half to death with a pool stick. They don't need much excuse.

White trash made up a lot of the Confederate Army, collard-green poor from the pine barrens. You still see them, the crackers of Florida, the residual bad seed n Appalachia. They live on welfare, thievery, a little armed robbery. The women run to fat, the men often lean and savage. The gals will knife you as quick as the men. Don't ever lean on these folk, unless you've got serious insurance.

Those are the Whites of Boone County, exactly. They are hard people from hard lives and they have hard faces that would scare the bejesus out of decent people without having to say a thing. They don't fear the law because they are used to jail. You might call them pathetic from a distance, but you wouldn't do it to their faces. Not more than once.

Not too many of them are left, and that's a good thing.

In the film you have Jesco holding a knife to his wife's throat and telling her that if she don't stop cooking him those sloppy, slimy eggs he'll slit her. There's the women who slashed a man's hand in a dispute and then, thinking that he was a big sucker and it might not go well if he got hold of her, stabbed him for real. They are slow-talking, heavy on drugs, sometimes seeming brain-damaged, in and out of jail.

Yet they are not inhuman. There is an insidious appeal to these lying, fat, promiscuous, drug-befoggged outcasts, an attraction that few might admit to but—it exists. They are trapped, but their trap is different from those of most of us. If you go every live-long day to a meaningless job in a federal-wall green cubicle, if you are bored at home, afraid of the boss, a prisoner of the retirement plan, crushed by the mortgage on a house you don't really like, over-regulated—then you could feel a sneaking envy of these raffish pariahs who say “Screw you and your goddam regulations. Put'em where the sun don't shine. We're gonna party.”

You wouldn't want to be one of them. They live in shacks, don't read and maybe barely can, and ain't what most of us would want to be—at least, not reglar.

But...but...a big cooler full of cold ones in a bedraggled clearing, outside someone's old trailer, no cops, no laws, no rules, a couple of pickups gunning it and sliding around in the yard and everybody whooping and carrying on and you can tap a kidney against a tree because nobody gives a damn.... more

Update: Having watched the program, a little dancing apart, not one redeeming minute throughout. Ignorant redneck white trash from start to finish, one to miss.

High Schooler to Bachmann: Let's Debate History

Sounds to me like this kid should be the one seeking election. Never mind the Dumbo challenge, just read how the girl writes with dignity, as exhibited in the second paragraph.

Oh! and by the way, my dog could beat Michele Bachmann in a grey cells confrontation.

Ain't that so Gromit?

High Schooler to Bachmann: Let's Debate History
Teen calls her grasp of civics 'grossly distorted'
By Matt Cantor
May 13, 2011

Concerned that Michele Bachmann’s take on US civics is “factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted,” a New Jersey teen has challenged the Minnesota representative to a debate on US history and the Constitution, the Minnesota Independent reports. “The frequent inability you have shown to accurately and factually present even the most basic information about the United States” inspired the challenge, which pits “my public education against your advanced legal education,” writes high school sophomore Amy Myers in a letter to Bachmann.

Myers also thinks that Bachmann isn't much of a role model. “As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally,” she writes. “Though politically expedient, incorrect comments cast a shadow on your person and by unfortunate proxy, both your supporters and detractors alike often generalize this shadow to women as a whole.” Click to read about one of Bachmann's history mistakes. The Stir rounds up other iffy statements. The Newser

Strauss-Kahn Who was Pulling the Strings?

There probably isn't much in this article that you haven't already read elsewhere And I would go so far as to say the questions raised in the introduction are probably more interesting than the article per say. Other than perhaps, some of the alleged timings of certain events.

Do we I wonder, have three elements in all this? Influential dark forces, both European and American; an over zealous prosecutor with political ambitions, and a simple maid who is anything but? It is even being reported that she was hooking on the side, which might go a long way to explaining the alleged irrefutable ''evidence.''

Strauss-Kahn Affair: Unanswered Questions. Who was Pulling the Strings behind the Scenes
Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
June 2, 2011

Media focus has centered on the story of the alleged victim, the hotel housemaid, rather than on who was pulling the strings behind the scenes in what visibly appears to be a political frame-up.

Why now and not earlier?

Why was the substance of her false accusations not released at an earlier stage?

Who was protecting her?

Why did the media wait to reveal this information, which was known to prosecutors at an early stage of the investigation?

The timing of the release was based on political considerations. France's Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was confirmed as Managing Director of the IMF on June 26th. The report from the prosecutor was released to the media three days later, on June 29.

If this informaiton had been revealed a few days earlier, Lagarde's candidacy might have been questioned.

Regime change has been implemented at the IMF, not to mention preparations for the French presidential elections.

Sofar, the likely hypothesis of a frame-up directed against DSK is not being touched upon by the mainstream media.

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Jim Dwyer and Michael Wilson
NYT News Service
July 2, 2011

NEW YORK: Twenty-eight hours after a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York said she was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, she spoke by phone to a boyfriend in an immigration jail in Arizona.

Investigators with the Manhattan district attorney's office learned the call had been recorded and had it translated from a "unique dialect of Fulani," a language from the woman's native country, Guinea, according to a well-placed law enforcement official.

When the conversation was translated — a job completed only this Wednesday — investigators were alarmed: "She says words to the effect of, 'Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I'm doing,' " the official said. more

"Scandalous Collusion" Between UK Gov and Nuclear Industry ''Orwellian Spin''

Having already posted a brief article that called for the resignation of energy and climate change secretary, Chris Hume, over his collusion with the nuke industry to play down the global disaster at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi installation, I can expand on that with two further articles.

Revealed: British government's plan to play down Fukushima
by Rob Edwards
30 June 2011

Internal emails seen by Guardian show PR campaign was launched to protect UK nuclear plans after tsunami in Japan


British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.

Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.

"This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally," wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose name has been redacted. "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear."

Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power.

The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, who sits on the Commons environmental audit committee, condemned the extent of co-ordination between the government and nuclear companies that the emails appear to reveal.

"The government has no business doing PR for the industry and it would be appalling if its departments have played down the impact of Fukushima," he said.

Louise Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace, said the emails looked like "scandalous collusion". "This highlights the government's blind obsession with nuclear power and shows neither they, nor the industry, can be trusted when it comes to nuclear," she said.

The Fukushima accident, triggered by the Japan earthquake and tsunami on 11 March, has forced 80,000 people from their homes. Opinion polls suggest it has dented public support for nuclear power in Britain and around the world, with the governments of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Thailand and Malaysia cancelling planned nuclear power stations in the wake of the accident.

The business department emailed the nuclear firms and their representative body, the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), on 13 March, two days after the disaster knocked out nuclear plants and their backup safety systems at Fukushima. The department argued it was not as bad as the "dramatic" TV pictures made it look, even though the consequences of the accident were still unfolding and two major explosions at reactors on the site were yet to happen.

"Radiation released has been controlled – the reactor has been protected," said the BIS official, whose name has been blacked out. "It is all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation like this."

The official suggested that if companies sent in their comments, they could be incorporated into briefs to ministers and government statements. "We need to all be working from the same material to get the message through to the media and the public.

"Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works," the official told Areva. "We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl."

Japanese officials initially rated the Fukushima accident as level four on the international nuclear event scale, meaning it had "local consequences". But it was raised to level seven on 11 April, officially making it a major accident" and putting it on a par with Chernobyl in 1986.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has released more than 80 emails sent in the weeks after Fukushima in response to requests under freedom of information legislation. They also show: more Guardian

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Fukushima spin was Orwellian

Emails detailing how the UK government played down Fukushima show just how cosy it is with the nuclear industry
John Vidal
1 July 2011

t was an open secret that Britain's decision to back nuclear power in 2006 was pushed through government by a cosy group of industrialists and others close to Tony Blair, and that a full debate about the full costs, safety and potential impact on future generations was suppressed.

But the release of 80 emails showing that in the days after the Fukushima accident not one but two government departments were working with nuclear companies to spin one of the biggest industrial catastrophes of the last 50 years, even as people were dying and a vast area was being made uninhabitable, is shocking.

What the emails shows is a weak government, captured by a powerful industry colluding to at least misinform and very probably lie to the public and the media. When the emails were sent, no one, least of all the industry and its friends in and out of government, had any idea how serious the situation at Fukushima was or might become.

For the business department to then argue that "we really need to show the safety of nuclear" and that "it's not as bad as it looks", is shameless. But to argue that the radiation was being released deliberately and was "all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation" is Orwellian. An ignorant government that relies for its information on companies it is planning to reward with contracts for billions of pounds smacks of corruption.

These guys were not just cosy. They were naked, in bed and consenting. Their closeness now raises questions such as what influence could the industry have had on the chief nuclear inspector's report on Fukushima, and whether speeches by David Cameron, Chris Huhne and other ministers were informed or even written by the industry. Can we ever trust government to tell us the truth on nuclear power, or should we just accept that the industry and government are now as one.

Until now the players in this drama must have been reasonably happy with the way the debate in Britain has gone. While the public has marginally shifted its position against nuclear power, little serious pressure has been put on the coalition. Unlike in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and many other countries, where the debate has been furious and governments have clearly had to think again, here the industry and its friends have managed to narrow the debate down to one about the medical safety of radiation and the impossibility of Britain being hit by a tsunami. There has been no major debate on nuclear costs, the legacy or the waste – which is just how government and industry wants it. more Guardian

''We Are a Nation of Laws'' Corrupt Judges and the Prison Industrial Complex

Although this article from Truthout, July 1, 2011, deals with much concerning America's Prison Industrial Complex, and of that, more in a minute. It was this revelation, exposing the criminality of two Pennsylvania judges, Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, that made me sit up and take notice. Well it would wouldn't it?

Before moving to the Truthout article, perhaps this brief extract from a different source, puts it all in a nutshell.

"I've never encountered, and I don't think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids' lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money," said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre. link below.

The Corrupt Corporate Incarceration Complex
Truthout

Seventeen-year-old Hillary Transue did what lots of 17-year-olds do: Got into mischief. Hillary's mischief was composing a MySpace page poking fun at the assistant principal of the high school she attended in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Hillary was an honor student who'd never had any trouble with the law before. And her MySpace page stated clearly that the page was a joke. But despite all that, Hilary found herself charged with harassment. She stood before a judge and heard him sentence her to three months in a juvenile detention facility.

What she expected was perhaps a stern lecture. What she got was a perp walk - being led away in handcuffs as her stunned parents stood by helplessly. Hillary told The New York Times, "I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare. All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing."

It wasn't until two years later that she found out why. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, two judges pleaded guilty to operating a kickback scheme involving juvenile offenders. The judges, Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, took more than $2.6 million in kickbacks from a private prison company to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. Since 2003, Ciaverella had sentenced an estimated 5,000 juveniles. Conahan was accused of setting up the contracts. Many of the youngsters shipped off to the detention centers were first-time offenders.

PA Child Care is a juvenile detention center in Pittston Township, Pennsylvania. It was opened in February 2003. It has a sister company, Western PA Child Care, in Butler County, Pennsylvania. Treatment at both facilities is provided by Mid Atlantic Youth Services. Gregory Zappala took sole ownership of the company when he purchased co-owner Robert Powell's share in June 2008.

In July 2009, Powell pled guilty to failing to report a felony and being an accessory to tax evasion conspiracy in connection with $770,000 in kickbacks he paid to Ciavarella and Conahan in exchange for facilitating the development of his facilities.

The article then moves on to generalities, until that is, our attention is drawn to the draconian immigration laws recently passed in Arizona. Pay particular note of the last paragraph.

.....Lee Fang reports in ThinkProgress that, in December 2009, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - a powerful front group that helps corporate representatives craft template legislation for state lawmakers, funded partially by the private prison industry - hosted Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce (R) and began debate on legislation that would provide broad powers to local police to arrest anyone who might look like an immigrant. The ALEC then distributed the template legislation to its members. The January/February 2010 edition of ALEC's magazine highlights the draft version of SB1070 - the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act" - as model legislation.

It was Pearce who introduced ALEC's "template" as the infamous SB1070 law. Notably, the ALEC task force, which helped Pearce devise his racial profiling law, included Laurie Shanblum, a CCA lobbyist. CCA previously played an important role in privatizing many of Texas' prisons.

An investigation by Arizona's KPHO-TV found more ties between SB1070 and the private prison industry: Paul Senseman, Arizona's Gov. Janet Brewer's deputy chief of staff, was a former lobbyist for CCA (his wife is still a lobbyist for CCA), and Chuck Coughlin, Brewer's campaign chairman, runs the lobbying firm in Arizona that represents CCA. .....

Nice huh?

From there on down the article's content focusses on just how poorly these private prisons are run, and just how inadequate their facilities are for prisoner care. The basic message being, don't get sick because you will die. More Truthout.

But it is the case of two bent judges that caused me to look into this thing a little deeper, so here is a short read that encompasses the quote already employed above.

Pennsylvania Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan's Mischief Anything but Juvenile more FindLaw.

And a more in depth look at Ciavarella and Conahan, from the New York Times. Both recommended.

Despite Red Flags About Judges, a Kickback Scheme Flourished more NYT

There is this short report below from Russia Today. But somewhere in all this, there is mention of a youth being sentenced to a Boot Camp. If you want to see what happens in such typically, if not uniquely American institutions, you may wish to visit a previous post of mine that does include some rather harrowing footage of the death of a young (black) boy at the hands of, and I know I'm in danger of wearing the word out; these inadequates.

All White Jury Acquit Boot Camp Killers

Only in America: Rick the Pious Perry

Another, fuck me! I can't believe it moment.

Amy Goodman Julian Assange Gor Bleedin' Blimey

Not the discussion between Julian Assange and Slavoj Zizek, but rather something that was mentioned that I was previously unaware of.

Now there is nobody more aware than I that America is the land of hypocrisy, but to hear Judith Miller, Judith fucking Miller, Judith, I'm Scooter Libby's personal cocksucking hack, Miller, come out with the statement she did, well fuck me! I just don't know what to say.

Talking on Fox News Watch about Wikileaks and Julian Assange, she had this to say about “the new journalism.”

“Yes. It’s part of the new journalism and everybody has to get used to it. If you have that much information, much of which is overclassified — if the location of the wastebasket in an office is classified — someone’s going to leak it. Julian Assange may be a bad journalist, but he is a journalist.”

When asked why Assange was a bad journalist, she said, “because he didn’t care at all about attempting to verify the information that he was putting out, or determine whether or not it would hurt anyone.”

And just when you think it couldn't get any worse, listen to what Fox News hack, Jon Scott, has to say at the end of the clip. Fuck me! you couldn't make it up. Where's me razor blades and electric fire? I think I'll go for a bath.

''We are always on the lookout here for biassed reporting, you can help, if you find evidence of media bias, email us, News Watch at Fox News dot com.''

Short Judith Miller, Crooks and Liars.

Long Judith Miller, New York Books.

No Justice on Torture

And I'm proud to be an American.......
Continued below.

Torture crimes officially, permanently shielded
By Glenn Greenwald
July 1, 2011

In August, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder -- under continuous, aggressive prodding by the Obama White House -- announced that three categories of individuals responsible for Bush-era torture crimes would be fully immunized from any form of criminal investigation and prosecution: (1) Bush officials who ordered the torture (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld); (2) Bush lawyers who legally approved it (Yoo, Bybee, Levin), and (3) those in the CIA and the military who tortured within the confines of the permission slips they were given by those officials and lawyers (i.e., "good-faith" torturers). The one exception to this sweeping immunity was that low-level CIA agents and servicemembers who went so far beyond the torture permission slips as to basically commit brutal, unauthorized murder would be subject to a "preliminary review" to determine if a full investigation was warranted -- in other words, the Abu Ghraib model of justice was being applied, where only low-ranking scapegoats would be subject to possible punishment while high-level officials would be protected.

Yesterday, it was announced that this "preliminary review" by the prosecutor assigned to conduct it, U.S. Attorney John Durham, is now complete, and -- exactly as one would expect -- even this category of criminals has been almost entirely protected, meaning a total legal whitewash for the Bush torture regime:

The Justice Department has opened full criminal investigations of the deaths in CIA custody of two detainees, including one who perished at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The decision, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., means continued legal jeopardy for several CIA operatives but at the same time closes the book on inquiries that potentially threatened many others. A federal prosecutor reviewed 101 cases in which agency officers and contractors interrogated suspected terrorists during years of military action after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but found cause to pursue criminal cases in only two. . . .

The two token cases to be investigated involve the most grotesque brutality imaginable: they apparently are (1) a detainee who froze to death in an American secret prison in Afghanistan in 2002 after being ordered stripped and chained to a concrete floor, and (2) the 2003 death of a detainee at Abu Ghraib whose body was infamously photographed by guards giving a thumbs-up sign. All other crimes in the Bush torture era will be fully protected. Lest there be any doubt about what a profound victory this is for those responsible for the torture regime, consider the reaction of the CIA:

Full text with links. And it doesn't get any prettier, check out the 100 detainees died link for starters.

Taxi To The Dark Side, as mentioned in the 100 detainees died article, I covered in 2008.
America. Torture Inc. A Taxi To The Dark Side Includes full 78 minute documentary. (And Below)

God Bless The USA

If tomorrow all the things were gone,
I'd worked for all my life.
And I had to start again,
with just my children and my wife.

I'd thank my lucky stars,
to be livin here today.
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom,
and they can't take that away.

And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

From the lakes of Minnesota,
to the hills of Tennessee.
Across the plains of Texas,
From sea to shining sea.

From Detroit down to Houston,
and New York to L.A.
Well there's pride in every American heart,
and its time we stand and say.

That I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

And I'm proud to be and American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

And in the interest of impartiality.

Land of Hope and Glory

Solo
Dear Land of Hope, thy hope is crowned,
God make thee mightier yet !
On Sov'ran brows, beloved, renowned,
Once more thy crown is set.
Thine equal laws, by Freedom gained,
Have ruled thee well and long ;
By Freedom gained, by Truth maintained,
Thine Empire shall be strong.

Chorus
Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set;
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet,
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.

Solo
Thy fame is ancient as the days,
As Ocean large and wide :
A pride that dares, and heeds not praise,
A stern and silent pride ;
Not that false joy that dreams content
With what our sires have won ;
The blood a hero sire hath spent
Still nerves a hero son.

Chorus

Amy Goodman Julian Assange Live Stream Sat July 2 - 4pm

I could think of very few people appearing on the same ticket that would top Amy Goodman and Julian Assange.

This Saturday, July 2, 4pm Amy Goodman will moderate a conversation with WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and renowned Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek.

I can't say much about Slavoj Žižek, simply because I have never heard of the fellow. My apologies.

I must slip out and get the popcorn.

Watch it here, 4pm Democracy Now

Amy Goodman To Host Discussion With WikiLeaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange and Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Žižek; Event Will Be Broadcast Live From London July 2 at 11am EDT

Within the past year, whistleblower website WikiLeaks has released three of the most significant leaks of classified information in history: the Iraq War Logs, the Guantánamo Bay files and Cablegate. Since then the world has undoubtedly changed. Ambassadors have resigned amid scandals exposed by leaked cables; governments have ordered reviews of their computer security; and pro-democracy movements have swept across the Middle East and North Africa—in part fueled, some believe, by WikiLeaks revelations.

This Saturday, July 2, Amy Goodman will moderate a conversation with WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and renowned Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek. Sponsored by the Frontline Club, the event will be broadcast from The Troxy theater in London. Democracy Now will broadcast a live stream of the discussion starting at 11am EDT at www.DemocracyNow.org.

You can post your questions for the panelists ahead of time on the Democracy Now! Facebook page and submit them to the Frontline Club by emailing events@frontlineclub.com with the subject line "Question 2 July."

Focusing on the ethics and philosophy behind WikiLeaks’ work, the talk will provide a rare opportunity to hear two of the world’s most prominent thinkers discuss some of the most pressing issues of our time.

It will also mark the publication of the paperback edition of Žižek’s Living in the End Times, in which he argues that new ways of using and sharing information, in particular WikiLeaks, are one of a number of harbingers of the end of global capitalism as we know it.

For more information, visit FrontlineClub.com.

If you would like to host the live stream on your website, please contact Jessica Lee for more information (jessica at democracynow dot org).

Click here to see Democracy Now!’s extensive coverage of WikiLeaks, including several interviews with Julian Assange.

Click here to see Slavoj Žižek Interviews on Democracy Now!

ABOUT DEMOCRACY NOW!:
Democracy Now! is an independent, global, daily news hour broadcast in English and in Spanish on more than 900 public television and radio stations in 35 countries around the world.

ABOUT AMY GOODMAN:
Amy Goodman is an award-winning investigative journalist, syndicated columnist, author and the host of Democracy Now! Goodman is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize” for "developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the mainstream media." The Independent of London named Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! "an inspiration"; pulsemedia.org placed Goodman at the top of their 20 Top Global Media Figures. Goodman is the author of four New York Times bestsellers. Her latest book, Breaking the Sound Barrier, proves the power of independent journalism in the struggle for a better world. Democracy Now

UK Gov Complicit in Playing Down Fukushima Disaster

Whodathunkit? Let's see how this little bombshell plays out, will it get the coverage it deserves.

I still have no time for the UK media, including the Guardian that hosts this story. For anyone who has been following this story in any detail, it became apparent from the earliest of days just how complicit the UK media (western media) was in playing down this global disaster. Shame on the lot of you.

Call for Chris Huhne to resign over Fukushima emails

Former party chief executive in Scotland says Huhne must go over 'conspiracy' to protect nuclear industry
Rob Edwards
1 July 2011

A prominent Liberal Democrat has called for Chris Huhne to resign immediately as energy and climate change secretary after emails were released detailing his officials' efforts to co-ordinate a PR response to the Fukushima disaster with the nuclear industry. Civil servants in the energy and business departments were apparently trying to minimise the impact of the disaster on public support for nuclear power.

Andy Myles, the party's former chief executive in Scotland, said: "This deliberate and (sadly) very effective attempt to 'calm' the reporting of the true story of Fukushima is a terrible betrayal of liberal values. In my view it is not acceptable that a Liberal Democrat cabinet minister presides over a department deeply involved in a blatant conspiracy designed to manipulate the truth in order to protect corporate interests".

The leader of the Lib Dems in the European parliament, Fiona Hall, said nuclear plans should be put on hold.

"These emails corroborate my own impression that there has been a strange silence in the UK following the Fukushima disaster ... in the UK, new nuclear sites have been announced before the results of the Europe-wide review of nuclear safety has been completed. Today's news strengthens the case for the government to halt new nuclear plans until an independent and transparent review has been conducted." guardian

Read the rest of the emails here,PDF

Paul Craig Roberts: I Told You So

Prosecutors Back Off From Their ‘Iron-Clad’ Case Against Strauss-Kahn
By Paul Craig Roberts
July 02, 2011

The New York prosecutor has had to tell the judge that the police and prosecutors have lost confidence in their sexual assault case against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The judge has released DSK from house arrest and returned his bail and bond money.

The prosecutors say that the immigrant hotel maid lied to the police about the incident and about other things, and the police have revealed that the “victim” discussed with an imprisoned man the possibility of turning the case into extortion. According to the New York Times, the maid’s jailed confidant was among a number of people who had made multiple cash deposits totaling $100,000 to the maid’s bank account. The police now suspect that the maid has connections to illegal drugs and money laundering.

The prosecutor says that he will continue to investigate the case. What that means is that the prosecutor, a politically ambitious Cy Vance, is going for a misdemeanor plea from DSK to save the prosecutor’s face from injudiciously being drawn into an extortion/reputation-destroying plot against the man who French polls indicated was the public’s favorite in the upcoming French presidential election in which President Sarkozy, Washington’s puppet, is seeking reelection. The prosecutor is sending DSK’s legal team the message that the case is being kept open and could be reinstated unless DSK’s attorneys secure DSK’s permission to negotiate a deal on a minor charge, which essentially has no punishment, but saves the faces of the NY prosecutor and police.

We will probably never know whether the maid thought the scheme up on her own or whether it came from Sarkozy’s operatives and their US allies. One indication that DSK’s political enemies are implicated is the fact, made public by the French press, that Sarkozy’s political team in France knew about DSK’s arrest before the NY police announced it. This fact did not stop the NY prosecutor and police from painting DSK as guilty in numerous public statements and in unethical if not illegal leaks to reporters.

When police and prosecutors convict a suspect in the media before he is even charged, it typically means that there is no evidence against him and that demonization is serving as the substitute. Conviction is what is important to the system, not a determination of innocence or guilt.

On numerous Internet sites, I pointed out the problems with the case against DSK. For informing people of the obvious, I was denounced by the right-wing and the left-wing.

The right-wing gave me the finger for doubting the word and integrity of police and prosecutor. Didn’t I know that these are the honorable guardians who protect the public from crime? How dare I question anything the police and prosecutor did or do. What was I, some kind of pinko-liberal-commie?

The left-wing also gave me the finger and said that I had revealed my real self as nothing but an apologist for the rich and powerful and for men who seduce women. How much was I paid for my service to the rich and powerful and seducers of innocent women?

The feminist left denounced me as a misogynist. Only a woman-hater could take the side of a rapist against his victim.

It is all so tiresome to endure the stupidity of people. Little wonder they are losing their liberty, their jobs and incomes, and their country and self-respect.

With DSK’s reputation in tatters and DSK knocked out of the French presidential election and removed from the IMF, where he was beginning to raise questions about the establishment’s use of the IMF to bail out rich bankers on the backs of poor peasants, the “justice system” has done its work. It is now safer for the authorities to release him than to risk a trial. The shrill bleating of the maid’s legal team signifies their agony at having lost their share of the hoped-to-be extorted millions now that a monetary settlement would clearly indicate obstruction of justice and prison for them all.

Those few who actually care about justice, not only for DSK and everyman, but also for the Greek, Spanish, Irish, and Portuguese people, can find comfort in the fact that apparently DSK had come to New York in order to speak with Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz about a more humane and democratic way to resolve the sovereign debt crisis in Europe than the one imposed by the private creditor banks.

Obviously, anyone who would consult with Stiglitz is perceived by the rich and powerful as a threat to their interest.

However, this obvious fact has made no impression on the left-wing, which has issued its shrill cries that, once again, the money of the rich and powerful has prevailed over law and justice. ICH

Climate Chaos: Democracy Now

I first watched this Democracy Now report in the early hours of this morning. I have just watched the thing again to see if I was as still impressed with its content as I was in the wee hours. Yes suitably so.

Journalist and author of a new book, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, Christian Parenti, says much in this interview, and much, that prima facie, I would have never associated with climate change.

I'm closing up for the day, so I'm little inclined to parse it all. Give it a try, you may find it as informative as did I.

AMY GOODMAN: Award winning author, journalist Christian Parenti has just come out with a book that examines the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable populations in the world from Africa to Asia to Latin America. Christian Parenti joins us now in studio to talk about his new book, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence. Christian welcome to Democracy Now! Let’s start with the title, Tropic of Chaos.

CHRISTIAN PARENTI: Well, it refers to the space between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, the countries where you see the most extreme effects of climate change kicking in, but where you find vulnerable populations, people who live close to the land or the sea and have a minimal margin of error when bad weather strikes. But also these are countries and economies that have been ravaged by the Cold War and neoliberal economic restructuring.

From 1945 to 1990 the U.N. said there were 150 or so armed conflicts that killed 20 million people, displaced 15 million, 16 million were wounded. That all happened in the "global south" in this belt of states. And so now that’s where climate change is kicking in and that was also the same terrain where the last 30 years of IMF and World Bank-backed structural adjustment of privatization, deregulation of economies, cutting state support for farmers and fishermen — that program affected those states most intensely.

And now the weather associated with climate change, extreme weather such as the drought, punctuated by flooding in East Africa, is adding to this. And there’s this catastrophic convergence and climate change, the argument of the book is that climate change is very often, doesn’t just look like bad weather, it looks like ethnic violence or religious violence or banditry or civil war.

Part two, Nuclear Hubris, not part of the war and peace report, and a chapter of Parenti's book here.

Amy Goodman is reporting from London this weekend, and her schedule includes this:

This Saturday, July 2, Amy Goodman will moderate a conversation with WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and renowned Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek. Sponsored by the Frontline Club, the event will be broadcast from The Troxy theater in London. Democracy Now will broadcast a live stream of the discussion starting at 11am EDT at www.DemocracyNow.org.

Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

You may wish firstly to read the post below to fully appreciate this story.

Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops
By Alexis Madrigal
June 23 2011

Something like OpenWatch could help solve a major problem for investigative reporting in an age when newsrooms are shrinking

After the recent Vancouver riots, it became clear that the world is surveiling itself at an unprecedented scale. Angry citizens gave police one million photos and 1,000 hours of video footage to help them track down the rioters. If we aren't living in a surveillance state run by the government, we're certainly conducting a huge surveillance experiment on each other.

Which is what makes two new apps, CopRecorder and OpenWatch, and their Web component, OpenWatch.net, so interesting. They are the brainchildren of Rich Jones, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate who describes himself as "pretty much a hacker to the core." Flush with cash and time from a few successful forays into the app market, nine months ago Jones decided to devote some of his time to developing what he calls "a global participatory counter-surveillance project which uses cellular phones as a way of monitoring authority figures."

CopRecorder can record audio without indicating that it's doing so like the Voice Memos app does. It comes with a built-in uploader to OpenWatch, so that Jones can do "analysis" of the recording and scrub any personally identifying data before posting the audio. He said he receives between 50 and 100 submissions per day, with a really interesting encounter with an authority figure coming in about every day and a half.

To me, something like OpenWatch could help solve a major problem for investigative reporting in an age when newsrooms are shrinking. We've still got plenty of people who can bulldog an issue once it's been flagged, but there are fewer and fewer reporters with deep sourcing in a community, fewer and fewer reporters who have the time to look into a bunch of different things knowing that only one out of a hundred might turn into a big investigation. Perhaps providing better conduits for citizens to flag their own problems can drive down the cost of hard-hitting journalism and be part of the solution for keeping governments honest.

At first, the app did not have grand aspirations. Jones built it for some friends who'd gotten into some trouble with the law and who could have been aided by a recording of their interaction with law enforcement. But Jones' worldview began to seep into the project. Informed by Julian Assange's conception of "scientific journalism," Jones wanted to start collecting datapoints at the interface of citizens and authority figures.

"It's a new kind of journalism. When people think citizen media, right now they think amateur journalism ... I don't think that's revolutionary," Jones told me. "I don't think that's what the '90s cyberutopianists were dreaming of. I think the real value of citizen media will be collecting data."

Already, CopRecorder is in the hands of 50,000 users, who've just happened to stumble on the app one way or another. Jones hopes that they'll upload their encounters with authority figures so that he can start to build a database of what citizens' encounters are like in different places. Then, he figures, patterns will emerge and he'll be able to point out to the world exactly where the powerful are abusing their authority. More and real life demonstration audio/video

Cops Love Tasers: Not Half as Much as They Love Power

Although there is a Taser tag on this blog, I stopped reporting cases of Taser abuse years ago. The alternative, if one was to report Taser abuse properly, was to run the risk of ending up with a single issue blog.

Without even going to the trouble of searching a Google result, I know such dedicated blogs exist, But on this one occasion I shall run with this story, it being bad enough in its own right to warrant attention, but it is for another reason that I run with it.

Sat one above the other on an email alert for today, was the story in question, and another story that I really liked the look of. That I don't possess an iphone myself, my lifestyle these days hardly warranting one, is academic, nevertheless I did like the sound of this particular app. Read about it here, or as a dedicated post above.

To this day I regret not bookmarking the story, and no amount of subsequent searching has ever brought the story to light, although it spoke much about the misuse of Tasers, it spoke volumes about the quality of person to whom these deadly pieces of kit are issued, vis: those possessed of an authoritarian attitude combined with the intellect of a falling rock; the cops.

The story then, so little in its telling, but worthy of much reflection.

Man dies sitting in his car, cop comes along and Tasers him.

And I ask you please, just take a moment and run the scenario through your mind.

Cops Just Love Those Tasers
by Kevin Koeninger
June 30, 2011

Dayton police "mistook" a mentally handicapped teenager's speech impediment for "disrespect," so they Tasered, pepper-sprayed and beat him and called for backup from "upward of 20 police officers" after the boy rode his bicycle home to ask his mother for help, the boy's mom says.

Pamela Ford says her "mentally challenged/handicapped" son Jesse Kersey, 17, was riding his bike near his Dayton home when Officer Willie Hooper stopped him and tried to talk to him.

The mom says that "Prior to the incident described below, defendant Hooper knew Jesse and was aware that Jesse was mentally challenged/handicapped and a minor child."

Nonetheless, Ford says, Hooper "apparently took Jesse's speech impediment for disrespect ... [and] began yelling at Jesse and after Jesse attempted to communicate with him[.] Jesse, being a minor and mentally challenged/handicapped, turned and rode his bike back to his home in an attempt to ask his mother, Ford, to help him communicate with defendant Cooper," according to the complaint in Montgomery County Court. On the way, the mom says, "A neighbor attempted to communicate with Officer Hooper about Jesse's disabilities and was told to go back into his home, or he would be arrested."

As Ford opened her front door, she says, Hooper and co-defendant Officer John Howard, "fired their Tasers, striking Jesse in the back with both probes."

"Once inside the house, defendant Hooper and defendant Howard began to struggle with Jesse, who was standing against the back door with his hands up in front of his face, saying 'Please quit, please quit.' "On numerous occasions, Ford and a family friend, Christopher Peyton, informed Officer Hooper that Jesse was mentally challenged/handicapped, and that Jesse did not understand what was happening," the complaint states. But the mom says the cops continued their assault: "Officer Howard utilized his Cap-Stun pepper spray and sprayed Jesse ... [and] struck Jesse with a closed fist in the upper chest area.

"Officer Howard utilized his ASP and repeatedly struck Jesse in the upper left side of his left thigh.

"Back-up units were requested to Jesse's house, wherein upward of 20 police officers from different jurisdictions were present.

"At no point, even after being advised of Jesse's mental challenge/handicap by Jesse's family and numerous bystanders, did defendant Hooper, defendant Howard, or any other police officer present, attempt to communicate with Jesse or explain in terms he could understand as to why Jesse was being chased.

"Jesse was handcuffed and hogtied before being placed in the back of a police cruiser.

"Jesse was charged with assault on a peace officer, resisting arrest, and obstructing official business."

However, "Jesse was declared incompetent by the Montgomery County Juvenile Court and the charges against Jesse were dismissed."

Jesse and his mom seek damages from the city and the two lead officers, for false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, assault, battery, excessive use of force, infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy.

They are represented by Richard Boucher ICH

Pakistan: Yanky Go Home - Yanky: Feck Orf

There appears to be rather conflicting statements as to what's what at the US Shamsi air base in Pakistan.

Believe who wish in this little skirmish of words, you might even wish to believe this; if you are so inclined that is.

Brennan rejected suggestions that U.S. drone attacks had caused numerous civilian casualties, claiming that the U.S. had been "exceptionally precise and surgical" in its operations. "Not a single collateral death" had been caused by U.S. counter-terrorism operations over the last year, he said.

US Rejects Demands to Vacate Pakistan Drone Base
July 01, 2011

The United States is rejecting demands from Pakistani officials that American personnel abandon a military base used by the CIA to stage drone strikes against suspected militants, U.S. officials told Reuters.

U.S. personnel have not left the remote Pakistani military installation known as Shamsi Air Base and there is no plan for them to do so, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive material.

"That base is neither vacated nor being vacated," the official said. The information was confirmed by a second U.S. official.

The U.S. declaration that drone operations in Pakistan will continue unabated is the latest twist in a fraught relationship between security authorities in Washington and Islamabad, which has been under increasing strain for months.

Regarding the Shamsi base in particular, Pakistani officials have frequently suggested it is being shuttered, comments that may be aimed at quieting domestic opposition to U.S. military operations using Pakistani soil.

Earlier this week, Pakistani Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told the Financial Times that Pakistan had already stopped U.S. drone operations there.

On Thursday, Mukhtar told Reuters: "When they (U.S. forces) will not operate from there, no drone attacks will be carried out."

He said Islamabad had been pressuring the U.S. to vacate the base even before the May 2 commando raid in which U.S. Navy SEAL commandos killed Osama bin Laden. After the raid, Mukhtar said, "We told them again."

A senior Pakistani military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that when U.S. forces first launched counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan "provided Americans two bases in Jacobabad and Shamsi. Jacobabad base has been vacated for long time ago, but Shamsi is still with them."

"They are vacating it," the official insisted. "Shamsi base was for logistic purpose. They also used it for drones for some time but no drones have been flown from there."

DIFFERENT STORIES

The official said no base in Pakistan was presently used by the Americans for drone operations. But he did not give a precise date for when drones supposedly stopped operating from Shamsi.

The U.S. officials disputed that account. If anything, the Obama administration is moving to a counter-terrorism strategy based more on drone strikes and other covert operations than on deploying large numbers of troops.

On Wednesday, John Brennan, president Barack Obama's top counter-terrorism advisor, promised that in the tribal regions along the Afghan/Pakistan border, the U.S. would continue to "deliver precise and overwhelming force against al Qaeda."

"And when necessary, as the President has said repeatedly, if we have information about the whereabouts of al Qaeda, we will do what is required to protect the United States -- as we did with bin Laden," Brennan said in a speech.

Pakistani officials have faced fierce criticism for tacitly allowing the CIA to conduct drone operations on Pakistani soil. Allegations that civilian bystanders have been killed in drone attacks have only compounded the political problems facing Pakistani authorities.

Brennan rejected suggestions that U.S. drone attacks had caused numerous civilian casualties, claiming that the U.S. had been "exceptionally precise and surgical" in its operations. "Not a single collateral death" had been caused by U.S. counter-terrorism operations over the last year, he said.

U.S. officials have said that since the United States in July 2008 greatly increased the rate of drone-borne missile strikes against suspected militants along the Afghan/Pakistan border, the number of civilian deaths caused by such attacks has totaled under 40. Some Pakistani officials and human rights activists have claimed the death toll is much higher. Dawn.com

Strauss-Kahn Prosecution: Whoops!

Was it a Setup? Strauss-Kahn Case Seen as in Jeopardy: Hotel Maid Lied to Prosecutors

Strauss-Kahn Case Seen as in Jeopardy
by Jim Dwyer, William K. Rashbaum and John Eligon.

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials.

Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a French politician, and the woman, prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.

Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Senior prosecutors met with lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn on Thursday and provided details about their findings, and the parties are discussing whether to dismiss the felony charges. Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are issues involving the asylum application of the 32-year-old housekeeper, who is Guinean, and possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers will return to State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Friday morning, when Justice Michael J. Obus is expected to consider easing the extraordinary bail conditions that he imposed on Mr. Strauss-Kahn in the days after he was charged.

Indeed, Mr. Strauss-Kahn could be released on his own recognizance, and freed from house arrest, reflecting the likelihood that the serious charges against him will not be sustained. The district attorney’s office may try to require Mr. Strauss-Kahn to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, but his lawyers are likely to contest such a move.

The revelations are a stunning change of fortune for Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, who was considered a strong contender for the French presidency before being accused of sexually assaulting the woman who went to clean his luxury suite at the Sofitel New York.

Prosecutors from the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who initially were emphatic about the strength of the case and the account of the victim, plan to tell the judge on Friday that they “have problems with the case” based on what their investigators have discovered, and will disclose more of their findings to the defense. The woman still maintains that she was attacked, the officials said.

“It is a mess, a mess on both sides,” one official said.

According to the two officials, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.

That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman’s bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.

The investigators also learned that she was paying hundreds of dollars every month in phone charges to five companies. The woman had insisted she had only one phone and said she knew nothing about the deposits except that they were made by a man she described as her fiancé and his friends.

In addition, one of the officials said, she told investigators that her application for asylum included mention of a previous rape, but there was no such account in the application. She also told them that she had been subjected to genital mutilation, but her account to the investigators differed from what was contained in the asylum application.

A lawyer for the woman, Kenneth Thompson, could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday evening.

In recent weeks, Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers, Benjamin Brafman and William W. Taylor III, have made it clear that they would make the credibility of the woman a focus of their case. In a May 25 letter, they said they had uncovered information that would “gravely undermine the credibility” of the accuser.

Still, it was the prosecutor’s investigators who found the information about the woman.

The case involving Mr. Strauss-Kahn has made international headlines and renewed attention on accusations that he had behaved inappropriately toward women in the past, while, more broadly, prompting soul-searching among the French about the treatment of women.

The revelations about the investigators’ findings are likely to buttress the view of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s supporters, who complained that the American authorities had rushed to judgment in the case.

Some of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s allies even contended that he had been set up by his political rivals, an assertion that law enforcement authorities said there was no evidence to support.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn resigned from his post as managing director of the International Monetary Fund in the wake of the housekeeper’s accusations and was required to post $1 million bail and a $5 million bond.

He also agreed to remain under 24-hour home confinement while wearing an ankle monitor and providing a security team and an armed guard at the entrance and exit of the building where he was living. The conditions are costing Mr. Strauss-Kahn $250,000 a month.

Prosecutors had sought the restrictive conditions in part by arguing that the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn was a strong one, citing a number of factors, including the credibility of his accuser, with one prosecutor saying her story was “compelling and unwavering.”

In the weeks after making her accusations, the woman, who arrived in the United States from Guinea in 2002, was described by relatives and friends as an unassuming and hard-working immigrant with a teenage daughter. She had no criminal record, and had been a housekeeper at the Sofitel for a few years, they said.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn was such a pariah in the initial days after the arrest that neighbors of an Upper East Side apartment building objected when he and his wife tried to rent a unit there. He eventually rented a three-story town house on Franklin Street in TriBeCa.

Under the relaxed conditions of bail to be requested on Friday, the district attorney’s office would retain Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s passport but he would be permitted to travel within the United States.

The woman told the authorities that she had gone to Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s suite to clean it and that he emerged naked from the bathroom and attacked her. The formal charges accused him of ripping her pantyhose, trying to rape her and forcing her to perform oral sex; his lawyers say there is no evidence of force and have suggested that any sex was consensual.

After the indictment was filed, Mr. Vance spoke briefly on the courthouse steps addressing hundreds of local and foreign reporters who had been camped out in front of the imposing stone edifice. He characterized the charges as “extremely serious” and said the “evidence supports the commission of nonconsensual forced sexual acts.”

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers, Mr. Brafman and Mr. Taylor, declined to comment on Thursday evening.

The case was not scheduled to return to court until July 18. globalresearch

Now compare the same story from the unbiased BBC.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn: 'Doubts' on maid's credibility

The sex assault case against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn appears to be in trouble amid reported concerns over the alleged victim's credibility.

Law enforcement officials have told US media the accuser has repeatedly lied since the alleged attack on 14 May.

The Guinean-born maid also appeared to have lied about her asylum application, officials reportedly said.

Mr Strauss-Kahn is due in court on Friday. His lawyers are expected to ask for his bail conditions to be relaxed.

The 62-year-old French politician has been under house arrest in a New York apartment since posting a $6m (£3.7m) cash bail and bond in May. He has armed guards, electronic surveillance and wears an electronic ankle monitor.
'Extraordinary boost'

He is charged with seven counts including four felony charges - two of criminal sexual acts, one of attempted rape and one of sexual abuse - plus three misdemeanour offences, including unlawful imprisonment.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, who resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund to defend himself, vigorously denies the charges.

In earlier court hearings, prosecutors had spoken of the strength of their case. One attorney said the proof against him was "substantial".

But US media now report that prosecutors plan to outline their concerns about the 32-year-old maid's credibility to the judge in Friday's unscheduled court hearing.

Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr Strauss-Kahn and the woman, prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself, the The New York Times reports.

Law enforcement officials believe there are inconsistencies over claims the woman made in her application for asylum, particularly over an allegation that she had been raped in her native West African state of Guinea, US media reports.

The maid told the authorities that Mr Strauss-Kahn accosted her after she entered his room in New York's Sofitel hotel to clean it.

The defence team had been expected to argue that a sexual encounter occurred, but that it was consensual.

In recent weeks, they had claimed to have information that "gravely undermined" the credibility of the woman, but the New York Times says it was the prosecutors' own investigators who uncovered the current reported inconsistencies.

Until his arrest, Mr Strauss-Kahn was seen as a leading candidate to be the next centre-left French presidential candidate and challenger to conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

There are still two weeks left for socialist candidates to put their name forward for next year's presidential election, and one ally, Michele Sabban, has called for the process to be suspended to give Mr Strauss-Kahn the opportunity to be part of it.

Others in the party are being more cautious about his chances of standing, although many agree that if his name is cleared he could still be an asset in the campaign.

"His presence alongside us would be decisive for our success in the presidential election," said former minister Jack Lang, on BFMTV.

The BBC's Christian Fraser says it seems unthinkable that Mr Strauss-Kahn could still enter the race to be president.

In the days after his arrest, his reputation was further tarnished by a litany of stories about his reputation as a womaniser.

The issues sparked some soul searching in France about attitudes in general towards sexual harassment and abuse, and the treatment of women in the workplace, our correspondent says.

On Wednesday, France's former Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was officially named as Mr Strauss-Kahn's replacement at the IMF. BBC