Let's see what the taxpayer funded in our neighborhood boys and girls

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » September 15th, 2016, 7:28 pm

1.

http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/Bl ... 71781.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Black Rifles Matter' Sign Offends Tourists in Boothbay Harbor, Maine

By Danielle Waugh

2.

FBI agents caught committing voter fraud
Senator Shaheen now wants FBI agents to
investigate Russia tampering with US elections

see FBI committing voter fraud

http://www.unz.org/Pub/InTheseTimes-1989mar22-00012" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.unz.org/Pub/InTheseTimes-198 ... 7?View=PDF" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://origin-nyi.thehill.com/policy/na ... terference" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
September 15, 2016 - 12:17 PM EDT
Dem pushes panel to investigate for Russian election interference

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on Thursday pressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hold a hearing on reported efforts by Russia to interfere

3.

http://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2 ... ree-police" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Audit reveals thousands of dollars, pieces of drug evidence missing from Braintree police

September 15,2016
An audit of the Braintree Police Department’s evidence room revealed thousands of pieces of drug evidence, over $400,00 in seized money, and at least 60 firearms disappeared from police custody, The Boston Globe reports.

Town officials said Wednesday evening the audit found that the heat-sealed bags containing drugs were torn open or cut and bags containing cash were sliced at the bottom, according to the Globe.

“I find the auditor’s report of unaccounted for items and poor record keeping practices by the Police Department to be deeply troubling a

4.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/eli ... 1a6e05dc53" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

POLITICS
Elizabeth Warren To FBI: I Can Think Of Some Other Investigations You Should Release
If the FBI is suddenly releasing information about investigations, Warren says, why not those investigations into the 2008 financial crisis?
09/15/2016 05:19 pm ET

Elizabeth Warren has some suggestions for what investigations the FBI should release next.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wants to know why the FBI will publish records related to an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, but not records related to the FBI’s investigation of bank executives during the 2008 financial crisis.

“The DOJ’s inability to obtain meaningful convictions or settlements in the vast majority of these [Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission] referrals ― let alone in any other cases involving senior Wall Street executives ― suggests that the Department failed to hold the individuals and companies most responsible for the financial crisis and the Great Recession accountable,” Warren wrote in her letter to the FBI on Thursday.

Warren noted that the FCIC referred 11 cases to the DOJ in which the commission found “serious indication of violation” of federal banking laws, implicating nine individuals in those violations. “Not one of these nine has gone to prison or been prosecuted for a criminal offense,” Warren said.

Those named by the FCIC include top executives of some of the largest banks in the country and some of the most politically connected men on Wall Street, including Robert Rubin, former Bill Clinton treasury secretary and Citigroup chairman.

Warren’s staff also found 14 corporations the FCIC referred to the DOJ that were never criminally prosecuted.

Warren said the FBI’s recent decision to release details of its Clinton probe gives the agency “clear precedent” for providing more information about the financial crisis ― noting that, typically, the FBI doesn’t release details of investigations when it doesn’t recommend prosecution.

But with FBI Director James Comey deciding to make previously undisclosed information available “in the interest of tra

5.

FBI OCTOPUS

Do you play bridge? These people want you
The Harvell gazette-
Jay White, a retired FBI agent and former member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, leads the discussion. He is an adjunct faculty member at several area ...

6.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/ghos ... rees-20701" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

‘Ghost Forests’ Appear As Rising Seas Kill Trees
Published: September 15th, 2016
By John Upton

OCEAN COUNTY, N.J. — Jennifer Walker stepped off her kayak into a wall of riverside grass. She steadied herself and stooped to scoop soil into a jar, then disappeared into the thicket for more. Analysis of amoeba fossils

7.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gal ... s-pictures" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

From Black Panthers to Black Lives Matter – in pictures

8.

6/09/14/the-supranational-suspects-behind-911/ [mirror]

https://isgp-studies.com/911-supranatio ... ts#update2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; [original source]

https://isgp-studies.com/911-supranatio ... s#appendix" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/ISGP" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; [Who is ISGP? WikiSpooks?]

** ## **

9.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/fbi-ag ... e-says-doj" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FBI Agent Who Posed As News Editor Didn't Break Policy, Inspector ...

An undercover FBI agent who impersonated a journalist to find out who was making bomb threats to a high school near Seattle did not violate ...

10.

https://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/opin ... bi-hiding/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
What is the FBI Hiding?
People's Pundit Daily-
In the House, it was apparently necessary to serve a subpoena on an FBI agent to obtain what members of Congress want to see; and in the Senate, the ...

11.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/j ... ias-228174" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FBI's Comey: Twitter fuels 'monster of a bias'
By LOUIS NELSON 09/14/16 05:11 PM EDT
FBI Director James Comey lamented on Wednesday the loss of public trust in government institutions like the one he runs and blamed “echo chambers” like Twitter for making his job more difficult.

“My children, again, discipline me not to go on Twitter because apparently people say bad things about me on Twitter. But things like Twitter offer us the opportunity only to encounter views consistent with our own, 24 hours a day,” Comey explained at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event Wednesday. “There’s an opportunity to feed that monster of a bias, that confirmation bias, all the time. So it accelerates that fractionalizing of our society, and it makes it much harder for people like me, like you, like the people in here, to speak reason to folks about our institution

12.

Researcher Shows Simple iPhone Hack FBI Said Couldn't Be Done
Fortune-
Earlier this year, the FBI sparked a major controversy by seeking to force Apple to develop hacking tools for breaking into iPhones. Ultimately, the bureau backed .

13.

Orlando Releases More 911 Calls From Pulse Shooting
KnightNews.com-
This is the second public release of phone calls by Orlando after the FBI said that the calls “no longer need to be protected as part of the active criminal ...

14.

http://foxreno.com/news/connect-to-cong ... s-outraged" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

GOP questions about Clinton email server go unanswered at hearing
FoxReno.com-
The FBI closed its investigation of Clinton's handling of classified information in July. Director James Comey said Clinton and her aides were “extremely ...

15.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... tyree-king" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ohio
Columbus police shoot dead 13-year-old boy carrying BB gun
Tyre King shot multiple

16.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/er ... 81f0d78585" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

AP: Justice Department report ‘effectively condone’ FBI impersonation incident
By Erik Wemple September 15 at 6:04 PM

17.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/crime/ ... 225828.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Judge: FBI agent raised 'legitimate' ethics concerns in case

Thursday, September 15, 2016

BATON ROUGE, La.
An FBI agent in New Orleans raised legitimate concerns that the Justice Department is either "unable or unwilling" to self-police ethical lapses within its ranks, a federal judge said in a ruling Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt refused to order the release of a 31-page letter that FBI Special Agent Michael Zummer wrote about his investigation of a former Louisiana district attorney accused of trading sex for leniency.
But the judge wrote that he shares Zummer's concerns about the Justice Department and found the agent's correspondence to be "particularly interesting (and troubling, to say the least)."
Last month, Engelhardt sentenced former St. Charles Parish District Attorney Harry Morel to three years in prison for obstructing

18.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news ... 3b965.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Former Atlantic City police sergeant receives five years probation for lying
VINCENT JACKSON Staff Writer

20.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2793156" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

black motorist Sandra Bland's Family Reaches Settlement, Wins Commitments to ...

... questions for us,” she said. A judge ordered the FBI to release a report of the Texas Rangers' investigation into Bland's death to the family earlier this year.

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » September 22nd, 2016, 1:22 pm

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/201 ... -marijuana" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Travel guru Rick Steves is coming to Massachusetts to campaign for legal marijuana

Heat is Online

Environmental Concerns - And Anger - Grow in Month After Thousand Year Flood in Louisiana
http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/17/en ... -louisiana" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Earth's unprecedented warm streak continues as more records fall: NOAA
http://mashable.com/2016/09/20/august-1 ... S3jbQ928qu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

When it Rains it Pours, and Sewage Hits the Fan

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/heav ... lows-20718" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.wfmj.com/story/33152998/vega ... -ohio-case" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Vegas lawyer's 'Black Lives' protest resembles Ohio case

Posted: Sep 21, 2016 7:15 PM EDT
Updated: Sep 21, 2016 8:24 PM EDT

A deputy public defender in Las Vegas who defied a judge's request that she not wear a "Black Lives Matter" pin in court has become the latest voice of protest in a national debate over police brutality and race relations.

Erika Ballou's protest comes two months after a black defense attorney in Ohio was arrested on a contempt of court charge for wearing a similar pin in a municipal courtroom

http://arstechnica.com/information-tech ... n-e-mails/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Conspiracy! The Reddit rundown on the man who deleted Clinton e ...
Ars Technica
PST mailbox file in preparation for the investigation, according to FBI interviews (PDF) with Mills and a redacted Platte River Networks employee—Combetta.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/for-s ... le/2602511" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For some, a crisis in confidence with the FBI
Washington Examiner (blog)-
New revelations about the security of Hillary Clinton's private emails are undermining congressional confidence in FBI Director James Comey's testimony from

http://www.wfmj.com/story/33153015/inma ... n-solitary" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Black inmate 'very happy' about order ending 36 years in solitary
WFMJ-
(Pennsylvania Department of Corrections via AP). The Aug. 15, 2016, photo provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections shows Arthur Johnson.

http://www.waaytv.com/appnews/fbi-takes ... 9e5e4.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
FBI takes over Hazardous Devices School on Redstone
WAAY-
Since 1971, the Army has been responsible for the training, and recently, the FBI has funded it. But on Wednesday, the FBI took over all responsibility for the ...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3123071/ ... acked.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sep 21, 2016 2:51 PM
A U.S. lawmaker has introduced two bills to protect voting systems from hacking, amid fears that Russian cyber spies may be interfering with this year's presidential election.
Representative Hank Johnson, a Democrat serving Georgia, is proposing a moratorium on state purchases of electronic voting machines that don't produce a paper trail. His Election Integrity Act, introduced Wednesday, would also prohibit voting systems from being connected to the internet as a way to prevent online tampering.

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » September 24th, 2016, 11:56 pm

Bonus Read

draft agenda for Wednesday 28 September Teleconference
Sep 24, 2016, 7:29 PM
From 9/11 and Other Deep State Crimes Teleconference
Details

9/11 and Other Deep State Crimes Teleconference

Draft Agenda for 9/28/16 Teleconference


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

Greetings all,

We are honored to announce that the "Dean of the 9/11 Truth movement," yes, David Ray Griffin himself, will be joining us for the first part of Wednesday's teleconference. This prodigious author has yet another book in publication -- he'll give us his first-hand account of it and answer our questions. Don't be late for this one!

Last month's teleconference featured an appeal by veteran 9/11 Truth activist Fran Shure on how to support Colorado 9/11 Truth's Colorado Public Television fund drive, featuring the video Demolition of Truth :Psychologists Examine 9/11 , by veteran Hollywood filmmaker Charles Ewing Smith. "Chuck" will join us on Wednesday to give a short report on the making of this outstanding 9/11 truth documentary, and to answer any questions.

Wayne Coste is at it again, this time with a presentation challenging the "9/11 mini-nuke" hypothesis (as presented by Jim Fetzer on last month's call). Wayne's accompanying PowerPoint presentation, replete with graphics, can be viewed or downloaded here.

Postponed from last month is Pablo Novi's request for the Teleconference's endorsement of his 9/11 Truth Unity Manifesto, which can be viewed here.

Nita Renfrew will bring us up to date on the harassment (by the usual suspects) experienced during the recent Christopher Bollyn speaking tour on the East Coast.

And Cheryl Curtiss offers a special rule for our consideration that would require only those present for an issue's discussion to vote on decisions regarding it (see below for details).

As always, a final opportunity for your announcements of importance.

Please join us Wednesday for this very special Teleconference!

Peace,
Ken Freeland
Cheryl Curtiss

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

DRAFT AGENDA for Wednesday 28 September Teleconference

I Roll Call, minutes approval, agenda (5 min)

II Motion to expel David Slesinger from the Teleconference [Craig McKee, Cheryl Curtiss, Barbara Honegger] (5 min)
"On our August teleconference, David Slesinger accused Kelly David, the COO of AE911Truth, of being a police agent. He was offered the opportunity on our list serve to substantiate this allegation and he could not. He also has made it clear that he will not retract his remarks. In fact, he has created a web site to smear Kelly’s name.
Subsequent to this, David issued a series of threats against the teleconference (in addition to calling us all sycophants and cowards with no integrity). He threatened to cause problems for us as he had done to three other business entities. Worse than that, he said he would begin helping the adversaries of the 9/11 Truth Movement if we expel him from the call or if we don’t allow him to continue his attack on AE911Truth on the September teleconference.
"We move that David Slesinger be expelled from the teleconference, effective immediately."

III Bush and Cheney: How they ruined America and the World [David Ray Griffin] (15 min plus Q & A)

IV The Demolition of Truth: Psychologists Examine 9/11 [Charles Ewing Smith] (5-10 min + Q & A)

V Challenging the mini-nuke theory [Wayne Coste, PE] (15 min, including discussion)

VI Proposal for 9/11 and Other Deep State Crimes Teleconference endorsement of 9/11 Truth Unity Manifesto [Pablo Novi] (10-15 min) { Postponed from previous teleconference}

VII Update on Chris Bollyn tour [Nita Renfrew] (5-10 min, including discussion)

VIII Special rule proposal [Cheryl Curtiss] (5 min)
"On any decision made by the teleconference, only those present from the commencement of its discussion are eligible to vote."

IX Announcements

X  Any available updates on issues of identified ongoing concern (if any remaining time -- highly unlikely):

28 pages campaign
New articles, books, and films
The 9/11 Crash Test
Cass Sunstein and cognitive infiltration, official statements on “conspiracy theorists”
The MSM treatment of 9/11 Truth
The 9/11 Consensus Panel
William Pepper’s efforts with AE911Truth against NIST and the Dept. of Commerce
Deep State crimes in the news
9/11 Truth political candidates
XI Adjournment (by 9:30 p Eastern if possible)


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

Heat is online

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... d-research" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Marine life
Baby lobsters in hot water as ocean temperatures rise
A new study by scientists in Maine found that if global warming trends continue, lobsters will struggle to survive by the year 2100

Link du jour

http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.c ... struction/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

uncle ed tatro just sent this in.

http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/ ... allace.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Mac Wallace and the finger of guilt (Winter 2014) - Lobster
http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Mac Wallace and the finger of guilt Garrick Alder This essay concerns disputes over the identification by latent fingerprint

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2802077" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

KING: It's time for nationwide boycotts to end police injustice in U.S.
Thursday, September 22, 2016, 2:32 PM

FBI OCTOPUS ...making tentacles visible

http://jamaica-star.com/article/news/20 ... -terrorism" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FBI to help Jamaica tackle terrorism
Jamaica Star Online-
The United States Embassy in Jamaica has established a local FBI office in ... Crime Investigation Branch has already been put in touch with the new FBI agent.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/201 ... -wish-list" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In a Facebook post announcing his decision to endorse Trump, a man he’d once called a “pathological liar” and “utterly amoral,” Cruz called control of the court the most important issue at stake in the election.

Did FBI agents tweet before assassinating
Martin Luther King?

2 stories

1.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/2426/ ... -91548837/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
September 23, 2016, 8:05 p.m.
Can police prevent hate crimes by monitoring racist banter on social media?

Researchers will be testing this concept over the next three years in Los Angeles, marking a new frontier in efforts by law enforcement to predict and prevent crimes.

During a three-year experiment, British researchers working with the Santa Monica-based Rand Corp. will be monitoring millions of tweets related to the L.A. area in an effort to identify patterns and markers that prejudice-motivated violence is about to occur in real time.

2.

http://www.ctka.net/2016/book-review-pe ... -king.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., By William F. Pepper

Reviewed by Martin Hay
Posted August 1, 2016

The dust jacket for The Plot to Kill King quotes former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark as stating that “No one has done more than Dr. William F. Pepper to keep alive the quest for truth concerning the violent death of Martin Luther King.” This is unassailably true. Dr. King's murder has never received anything approaching the level of attention and scrutiny that has been afforded the assassination of President Kennedy but, for nearly three decades, Pepper has worked tirelessly to uncover the truth and bring it to the attention of the American public. As he chronicles in his latest book, Pepper was the last attorney for accused assassin James Earl Ray before his death, and tried every avenue available to him to gain his client the trial he had been denied in 1969 when the state of Tennessee and his own lawyer, Percy Foreman, broke Ray down and coerced him into entering a guilty plea.1 Pepper and his investigators spent many, many hours locating overlooked witnesses, uncovering leads, and assembling a case. Then in 1993 he took part in a televised mock trial that resulted in a “not guilty” verdict for Ray.2 After Ray died in 1998, and any and all possibility of a real criminal trial went with him, Pepper worked with the King family in filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Loyd Jowers and “other unknown co-conspirators” so that the information he had uncovered could still be put before a jury. After 14 days of testimony from over 70 witnesses, the jury found that Jowers and others, “including governmental agencies”, were responsible for the death of Martin Luther King.3

William Pepper
Yet Pepper is and always has been a controversial figure, even among those who share his disbelief in the official story. For example, Harold Weisberg – who worked as an investigator for Ray's defense team in the early 1970s and wrote the classic MLK assassination book, Frame Up – referred derisively to Pepper as “a would-be Perry Mason” and described his work as “worse than worthless.”4 On the other hand, the late, great Philip Melanson once described Pepper's research and investigation as “groundbreaking” when it came to “establishing the presence of Army Intelligence and Army Intelligence snipers” in Memphis on the day of the murder.5 Over the years, this reviewer has adopted something of an agnostic position when it comes to areas of Pepper's work. Whilst there is undoubtedly great value in what he has uncovered and accomplished, it nonetheless remains true that there a number of legitimate reasons for doubting important elements of Pepper's research.

Loyd Jowers
Take for example the man at the very centre of Pepper's conspiracy narrative, Loyd Jowers. In 1968, Jowers was the proprietor of Jim's Grill, a restaurant located underneath the rooming house from which the state alleges Ray fired the fatal shot. For many years the only thing Jowers had to say that was of any interest to investigators was that a white Ford Mustang had been parked directly in front of the grill on the afternoon of the assassination; corroborating Ray's claim of where he had parked his car and helping establish the presence of two white Mustangs on Main Street. But in 1993, Jowers appeared on ABC's Prime Time Live claiming that Memphis-based produce dealer and alleged Mafia figure, Frank Liberto, had contacted him shortly before the assassination and paid him $100,000 to hire someone to assassinate Dr. King. He was then visited by a man named Raul who handed him a “rifle in a box” and asked him to hold onto it until “we made arrangements, one or the other of us, for the killing.”6
On the face of it, Jowers' story seems plausible enough. There is no doubt that he was at the scene of the crime and in a position to assist in carrying out the assassination. Additionally, parts of his account were corroborated by two other witnesses: former Jim's Grill waitress, Betty Spates, and local Memphis cab driver, Jim McCraw. Also, Jowers' claim that Frank Liberto brought him into the plot recalls the statement of civil rights leader John McFerren that, sometime in the afternoon shortly before Dr. King was shot, he overheard Liberto telling someone on the telephone to “Shoot the son of a &!@$# when he comes on the balcony.”7 And yet Jowers was, by any definition, a most unreliable witness. By Pepper's own admission there were numerous different versions of his story. In fact, he contradicted himself on virtually every important detail.

Jim's Grill
He initially named black produce-truck unloader Frank Holt as the gunman he had hired but changed his mind after Holt was found alive and well and passed a polygraph test, denying any involvement.8 Jowers then hinted that deceased Memphis Police Lieutenant Earl Clark was the real gunman only to tell Dr. King's son, Dexter, that he “couldn't swear” that he was because “All I got was a glance of him.”9 To Dexter, Jowers said that the gunman handed him the still smoking rifle, yet at an earlier time he had claimed to have picked it up after it had been placed on the ground.10 Around this time he also changed his mind about ever having been asked to hire the gunman, saying instead that he had simply been told to be out in the bushes behind Jim's Grill at 6:00 PM and that he didn't even know Dr. King was going to be killed.11 In this scenario, Jowers merely held onto the $100,000 until it was collected by a co-conspirator.
Perhaps even more troubling than these inconsistencies – of which there are more – is the fact that Jowers and his friend Willie Akins are known to have contacted Betty Spates in January 1994 saying that they were interested in doing a book or a movie and they needed her to change her story. If she would say that she saw a black man handing the rifle to Jowers immediately after the shooting, they could all make $300,000.12 And if that wasn't bad enough, in an April 1997 tape-recorded conversation with Shelby County district attorney general's office investigator, Mark Glankler, Jowers basically disavowed his confession by stating that Ray's rifle was the real murder weapon and that “there was no second rifle.”13
It may also be seen as significant that Jowers never did repeat his conspiracy allegations under oath. He was not actually present for the King v. Jowers civil trial, apparently owing to ill health. The only time he gave a legal deposition after his appearance on Prime Time Live was during the 1994 Ray v. Jowers lawsuit, at which time he reverted to his 1968 story and insisted that he was in the bar serving drinks when the shot was fired. Jowers had agreed that the transcript of his Prime Time Live appearance could be entered into evidence but, through his attorney Lewis Garrison, stipulated “that the questions were asked and Mr. Jowers gave these answers”.14 Thus he did not swear to the accuracy of his alleged confession, he merely agreed that he had given it.
In The Plot to Kill King, Pepper attributes Jowers' many contradictory assertions to his fear of being prosecuted and an understandable desire to minimize his own role when talking to members of the King family. Pepper also argues, in spite of Jowers' attempt to encourage Spates to lie for her share of $300,000, that it is “arrant nonsense” to suggest that he fabricated his story “in anticipation of a book or movie deal.” In fact, he says, “Jowers lost everything. Even his wife left him. There was no book or movie deal, and he was, for the most part, telling the truth.”15 Yet none of these arguments preclude the possibility that Jowers' confession was invented as part of a money-making scheme that backfired.
That being said, it should be borne in mind that Jowers' initial Prime Time story did not come completely out of the blue. Suspicion had already been cast on him by statements that Spates and McCraw had given to Pepper, after which Jowers', through Garrison, had contacted the Shelby County district attorney general offering to tell everything he knew in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Needless to say his proffer went completely ignored without anyone even attempting to speak with him. Assistant district attorney general, John Campbell, would later attempt to justify this total lack of interest by stating that the story looked “bogus” and that if they had given Jowers immunity “it would imply we thought there was some validity to his story, and that would increase the value of what he could sell it for.”16 Precisely how they were able to deduce immediately and without even talking to Jowers that his story was “bogus” is anyone's guess.
In the end, it will be up to each individual researcher to decide which, if any, of Jowers' varying accounts to believe. Whilst it is true that the jury in King v. Jowers did find him partly responsible for the assassination, it is also true that his assertions were not thoroughly tested at the trial because neither Pepper nor Garrison were looking to undermine Jowers' credibility. Legendary attorney, author, and activist, Mark Lane, was critical of the trial for that very reason, telling this reviewer that in his opinion, “It was not a real trial ... both sides offered the same position and I have reason to doubt that the position they offered was sound. The jury, having seen no evidence to the contrary, had no choice. In my view, the court system should not be utilized in that fashion.”17

Mark Lane with James Earl Ray
Lane's assessment is, in my view, somewhat off the mark in that it suggests a type of collusion between Pepper and Garrison that was likely not the case. In truth, Garrison was in an extremely awkward position. He could not simply deny the existence of a conspiracy without calling his own client a liar, so his strategy was to attempt to minimize Jowers' role and convince the jury that, as he stated in his closing argument, “Mr. Jowers played a very, very insignificant and minor role in this if he played anything at all. It was much bigger than Mr. Jowers, who owned a little greasy-spoon restaurant there and happened to be at the location he was.”18 In that regard, it worked to Garrison's advantage to allow Pepper to put on a case for a wide-ranging conspiracy without offering a rigorous challenge. Nevertheless, the result of this strategy, as Lane suggested, was that the jury essentially heard one story from both sides and for that reason the verdict was far from surprising.
By noting these circumstances, it is not meant in any way to suggest that the civil trial or the jury's verdict were entirely without merit. On the contrary, as Pepper details in The Plot to Kill King, numerous witnesses gave significant and often startling testimony under oath – many for the first time – and put important evidence on the record. For example, a succession of witnesses provided evidence establishing the manner in which Dr. King was, seemingly intentionally, stripped of all reasonable security, and left entirely vulnerable to a sniper's bullet. Of particular note is the testimony of Memphis Police Department homicide detective Captain Jerry Williams who had been in charge of organizing a unit of black officers that had previously provided protection for Dr. King on his visits to Memphis. Williams said that he was not asked to form his unit on Dr. King's final, fatal visit, and was later falsely informed that Dr. King's organization, the SCLC, had said Dr. King did not want protection.19 Additionally, as University of Massachusetts Professor Philip Melanson testified, MPD Inspector Sam Evans had ordered the emergency services' TACT 10 unit removed from the vicinity of the Lorraine Motel, claiming this too was done at the request of someone in the SCLC. As Pepper writes, “When pressed as to who actually made the request, he said that it was Reverend [Samuel] Kyles. The fact that Kyles had nothing to do with the SCLC, and no authority to request any such thing, seemed to have eluded Evans.”20
Not only had Dr. King been stripped of protection but a last-minute switching of his motel room had made the assassin's job all the easier. Former New York City police detective Leon Cohen testified that Lorraine Motel manager Walter Bailey told him on the morning after the assassination that Dr. King had originally been allocated a more secur

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... called-911" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Black Baltimore man who called 911 for help dies after being punched by police
According to an incident report, Tawon Boyd attempted to enter two police cars, ran to a neighbor’s house and shouted: ‘Help! Call the police’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng- ... s-database" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Number of people killed by police in 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... udi-arabia" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
September 11 2001
Obama's veto of 9/11 bill aimed at Saudi Arabia sets up standoff with Congress
The bill, which would have allowed families to sue, sailed through both chambers of Congress and lawmakers are expected to override president’s move

Obama, in a statement accompanying his veto message, said he had ‘deep sympathy’ for the 9/11 families, but the bill would be ‘detrimental to USnational interests’.

Friday 23 September 2016 17.14 EDT Last modified on Friday 23 September 2016 17.25 EDT

Setting up a potential override by Congress, Barack Obama vetoed a bill Friday that would have allowed the families of 9/11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... dit-trolls" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Who is Palmer Luckey, and why is he funding pro-Trump trolls?
Under the name NimbleRichMan, Oculus founder secretly funded Reddit users dedicated to electing Trump by flooding threads with negative Clinton memes

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bro ... -1.2805096" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A Brooklyn rally intended to bring awareness to black-on-black violence following two murders at the J’Ouvert celebration nearly three weeks ago morphed into a larger protest about the recent police killings of African-American men across the country.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2804972" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

God bless America. We need it.

Two black men were shot down in a matter of days like rabid dogs by police officers in Tulsa and Charlotte because cops just assumed the men had guns. Perhaps that’s because the cops just assume that most black men are armed, even though white males make up 61% of gun owners according to Pew Research.

While blacks are much more likely than whites to be victims of homicide, African-Americans are only half as likely to have a firearm in their home. Yet blacks have a 2.7% higher chance of being shot by

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/que ... -1.2805022" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
To hell with the cell.

A group of activists who want to slam the cell door on Rikers Island for good held a rally Saturday calling for the closure of the scandal-plagued jail complex.

Hundreds of protesters, including celebrities, politicians and former inmates, made their way through the streets of Astoria en route to the rally.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/tru ... y_20160924" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Truthdigger of the Week: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, in Prison and Fighting for His Life

Posted on Sep 24, 2016

By Natasha Hakimi

Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling leaves the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., with his wife, Holly, after being convicted in 2015 on nine counts of leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter. (Kevin Wolf / AP)

Every week the Truthdig editorial staff selects a Truthdigger of the Week, a group or person worthy of recognition for speaking truth to power, breaking the story or blowing the whistle. It is not a lifetime achievement award. Rather, we’re looking for newsmakers whose actions in a given week are worth celebrating.

When Jeffrey Sterling was in his last year of law school, he was drawn to a newspaper ad that announced the promise of travel while serving the country as an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency. Part of a family of military service members, Sterling dreamed that the CIA would allow him to give back to the United States. Little did he know that his employment at the agency, which began in 1993 and ended in 2001, would turn into a nightmare of racial discrimination and persecution that would last decades.

Early in his career at the CIA, Sterling began to sense that he was treated differently because of his skin tone, a fact highlighted to him when he was pulled from an assignment in Germany with the explanation that “a black man speaking Farsi” would seem conspicuous. Sterling says this is just one example of the many ways his spy agency career was held back because of his race. Years of mistreatment led him to become the first African-American to file a racial discrimination suit against the CIA, an act of bravery the U.S. government would make him pay dearly for.

When, after the 9/11 attacks, Sterling felt inspired to help the agency tackle terrorism, he offered to drop his suit. Instead of enthusiasm for his dedication, he was met with a dismissal. As one of his colleagues put it, quoting a song by the late Jim Croce, he had “tugged on Superman’s cape.” The Intercept’s Peter Maass explains the ways in which Sterling’s heroism got under the CIA’s skin in a thorough piece about the whistleblower’s ordeal, “How Jeffrey Sterling Took On the CIA—and Lost Everything.”

In 2001, as he was leaving the agency, he filed a federal lawsuit that said the CIA retaliated against him for making an internal discrimination complaint, and that he had indeed faced a pattern of discrimination there. The suit was dismissed by a judge after the CIA successfully argued in pre-trial motions that a trial would expose state secrets by disclosing sources and methods of intelligence-gathering. An appeals court upheld that ruling, though it noted that the dismissal “places, on behalf of the entire country, a burden on Sterling that he alone must bear” by being deprived of his right to a trial. The dismissal spared Sterling’s supervisors from testifying about their interactions with him. The government has not provided specific responses, in court or to the media, about his accusations of racial discrimination, other than to generally state that he faced none.

He tugged on the CIA’s cape in other ways. He wrote a memoir, tentatively titled Spook: An American Journey Through Black and White, and submitted chapters for pre-publication review. According to a lawsuit Sterling filed in 2003, the CIA determined that his manuscript contained classified information that should not be published, and demanded that he add information that, his suit said, was “blatantly false.” Facing a tough legal battle with a presiding judge who seemed sympathetic to the CIA, Sterling eventually agreed to drop the suit. His manuscript has not been published.

Also in 2003, Sterling met staffers from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to let them know his concerns about the mismanagement of a classified program he worked on at the agency. Merlin, as the program was called, involved the CIA giving Iran faulty nuclear blueprints. If the blueprints were used, Iran’s nuclear program would be delayed.

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » September 28th, 2016, 9:58 am

I have recently talked by phone with Harry Cooper author of Hitler in
Argentina.
His book details how the US Government allowed the German/Corporate
government to continue and grow in Argentina at the end of WW2.

see

http://wakeup-world.com/2016/09/26/big- ... ty-agenda/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
“The Nuremberg War Criminal Tribunal convicted 24 of the I.G. Farben executives for mass murder, slavery and other crimes against humanity; however, in less than 7 years, every single murderer was released, and began consulting American corporations. From 1950 to 1980, Bayer, BASF, and Hoechst filled their highest position, Chairman of the Board, with convicted mass murderers. Fritz ter Meer, convicted of mass murder, served just 5 prison years, then “conveniently” became the chairman of Bayer’s supervisory board. Kurt Blome, who admitted to killing Jews with “gruesome experiments,” was hired in 1951 by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to work on chemical warfare. Today, these companies send lobbyists to Washington D.C. with millions (if not billions) of dollars to influence regulatory decisions made by the FDA and the CDC. These companies today are more powerful in and of themselves than I.G. Farben ever was during WWII.”

Heat is Online

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/09/27/ ... big-boost/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

From Maryland to the Caribbean to Asia, Record-Hot Ocean Waters Give Extreme Weather Potentials a Big Boost
The forecasts began coming in this morning: Heavy rainfall expected over the next two days. Possible flash flooding. Turn around, don’t drown.

These advisories buzzed up from local news media for the DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia metro areas as a crazy, wavy Jet Stream spawned an upper-level low that’s predicted to gorge on an insane amount of moisture spewing up off the record-hot Atlantic Ocean.

Forecast GFS model guidance shows an upper-level low-pressure system situated over the Great Lakes region in association with a big trough dipping down from the Arctic. Over the next 24 to 48 hours, the low is expected to shift south and east. Becoming cut off from the upper-level flow, the low is then predicted to set up a persistent rainfall pattern over DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia.

(NOAA’s precipitation forecast model shows extreme rainfall predicted for the DC area over the next seven days. Note that record global heat and, in particular, excessively hot sea-surface temperature anomalies off the U.S. east coast are providing an unprecedented amount of fuel for storms. Should such storms fire off, they could produce rainfall totals in excess of those currently predicted. Image source: NOAA.)

Easterly winds are expected to be drawn into the low from a record-hot Atlantic Ocean. These winds will bear upon them an extraordinary burden of atmospheric moisture which has been continuously evaporating up from a very warm Gulf Stream. Such moisture is fuel for powerful rainstorms. Given the destabilizing kick provided by the upper-level low, it is expected to deliver some pretty intense downpours on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

NOAA model guidance shows rainfall amounts of 3 to 6 inches over the area for the next five days. However, given the high atmospheric moisture content and the record atmospheric and ocean heat that’s spiking storm energy potentials, there is a possibility for locally higher amounts.

Extreme Ocean Heat Contributes to Severe Weather

As the DC area prepares for what could be another record or near-record rainfall event, various other regions over the Atlantic and on the other side of the world are also facing the possibility of intense weather.

Link du jour

http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda ... light-800/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2016/09/28 ... e-friends/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.zmescience.com/reviews/books ... ok-review/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.wsj.com/articles/james-comey ... 1475017121" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FBI Director James Comey appears Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee, where he’ll get another chance to explain his agency’s double standard regarding Hillary Clinton. His probe of the former Secretary of State’s private email server is looking more like a kid-glove exercise with each new revelation.

House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz on Friday disclosed that the FBI granted immunity to Mrs. Clinton’s top aides as part of its probe into whether Mrs. Clinton mishandled classified information. According to Mr. Chaffetz, this “limited” immunity was extended to former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and senior adviser Heather Samuelson, in order to get them to surrender their laptops, which they’d used to sort through Mrs. Clinton’s work-versus-personal emails.

Why the courtesy? “If the FBI wanted any other Americans’ laptops, they would just go get them—they wouldn’t get an immunity deal,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan told Politico. He’s right. The FBI merely had to seek a subpoena or search warrant. By offering immunity, the FBI exempted the laptops and their emails as potential evidence in a criminal case.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents ... emp-2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The ATF is Discriminating on
the Basis of Race’ During Stings

The ATF singled out black people and Latinos while conducting controversial stings in Chicago, according to a report released by the Justice Department.

The report found “strong, consistent and statistically significant evidence” of racial profiling.

Of the 94 people arrested during undercover stings in Chicago, 91% were black or hispanic.

The chances that agents didn’t racially profile was 0.1%, according to a Columbia Law School professor Jeffrey Fagan, who prepared the report.

The investigation concluded that “the ATF

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cop ... -1.2807620" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cops keep hounding man who recorded Eric Garner video
BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, September 26, 2016, 11:04 PM

http://ticklethewire.com/2016/09/26/cia ... mid-1970s/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CIA Director: I Was a Supporter of Communist Party in Mid-1970s

CIA Director John Brennan

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

CIA Director John Brennan revealed that he was once a communist sympathizer in the mid-1970s because he was disgusted by Watergate and the political landscape that helped produce it.

Brennan was in college at the time and voted for Communist Party nominee Gus Hall, New York Magazine reports.

By 1980, Brennan said he was no longer a Communist sympathizer and realized that capitalism was a far better system.

Brennan said he “froze” when he was taking a polygraph test when entering the CIA.

“This was back in 1980, and I thought back to a previous election where I voted, and I voted for the Communist Party candidate.”

Brennan added, “I said I was neither Democratic or Republican, but it was my way, as I was go

2 stories

1.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/che ... -c-attack/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CIA found ‘convincing evidence’ Chilean dictator was behind 1976 D.C. attack
By Missy Ryan September 23 2016

2.

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/21/g ... terrorism/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Independent Investigative Journalism Since 1995
George H.W. Bush, the CIA and a Case of State Terrorism
September 21, 2016

From the Archive: Forty years ago, a car-bomb exploded in Washington killing Chile’s ex-Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier, an act of state terrorism that the CIA and its director George H.W. Bush tried to cover up, Robert Parry reported in 2000.

By Robert Parry (Originally published on Sept. 23, 2000)

In early fall of 1976, after a Chilean government assassin had killed a Chilean dissident and an American woman with a car bomb in Washington, D.C., George H.W. Bush’s CIA leaked a false report clearing Chile’s military dictatorship and pointing the FBI in the wrong direction.

The bogus CIA assessment, spread through Newsweek magazine and other U.S. media outlets, was planted despite CIA’s now admitted awareness at the time that Chile was participating in Operation Condor, a cross-border campaign targeting political dissidents, and the CIA’s own suspicions that the Chilean junta was behind the terrorist bombing in Washington.

Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in a meeting at the White House on Feb. 12, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan Library)
In a 21-page report to Congress on Sept. 18, 2000, the CIA officially acknowledged for the first time that the mastermind of the terrorist attack, Chilean intelligence chief Manuel Contreras, was a paid asset of the CIA.

The CIA report was issued almost 24 years to the day after the murders of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and American co-worker Ronni Moffitt, who died on Sept. 21, 1976, when a remote-controlled bomb ripped apart Letelier’s car as they drove down Massachusetts Avenue, a stately section of Washington known as Embassy Row.

In the report, the CIA also acknowledged publicly for the first time that it consulted Contreras in October 1976 about the Letelier assassination. The report added that the CIA was aware of the alleged Chilean government role in the murders and included that suspicion in an internal cable the same month.

“CIA’s first intelligence report containing this allegation was dated 6 October 1976,” a little more than two weeks after the bombing, the CIA disclosed.

Nevertheless, the CIA – then under CIA Director George H.W. Bush – leaked for public consumption an assessment clearing the Chilean government’s feared intelligence service, DINA, which was then run by Contreras.

Relying on the word of Bush’s CIA, Newsweek reported that “the Chilean secret police were not involved” in the Letelier assassination. “The [Central Intelligence] agency reached its decision because the bomb was too crude to be the work of experts and because the murder, coming while Chile’s rulers were wooing U.S. support, could only damage the Santiago regime.” [Newsweek, Oct. 11, 1976]

Bush, who later became the 41st president of the United States (and is the father of the 43rd president), has never explained his role in putting out the false cover story that diverted attention away from the real terrorists. Nor has Bush explained what he knew about the Chilean intelligence operation in the weeks before Letelier and Moffitt were killed.

Dodging Disclosure

As a Newsweek correspondent in 1988, a dozen years after the Letelier bombing, when the elder Bush was running for president, I prepared a detailed story about Bush’s handling of the Letelier case.

The draft story included the first account from U.S. intelligence sources that Contreras was a CIA asset in the mid-1970s. I also learned that the CIA had consulted Contreras about the Letelier assassination, information that the CIA then would not confirm.

The sources told me that the CIA sent its Santiago station chief, Wiley Gilstrap, to talk with Contreras after the bombing. Gilstrap then cabled back to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Contreras’s assurances that the Chilean government was not involved. Contreras told Gilstrap that the most likely killers were communists who wanted to make a martyr out of Letelier.

Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, who was murdered along with co-worker Ronni Moffitt, when right-wing terrorists blew up his car in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 21, 1976.
My story draft also described how Bush’s CIA had been forewarned in 1976 about DINA’s secret plans to send agents, including the assassin Michael Townley, into the United States on false passports.

Upon learning of this strange mission, the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, George Landau, cabled Bush

http://www.12news.com/news/local/arizon ... /326821818" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Border Patrol agent dead after exchange of gunfire with Maricopa police

Maricopa neighbor gives account of terrifying night living next to a domestic dispute that turned into a fatal police stand-off.

William Pitts and Nico Santos, KPNX 6:46 PM. MST September 27, 2016

MARICOPA, Ariz. - A U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol agent is dead after exchanging gunfire with officers, according to the Maricopa Police Department.

Police were called to the El Dorado Lakes neighborhood Monday night for a domestic violence incident, they said. The couple's 10-year-old daughter made the 911 phone call.

When police arrived, a man

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » October 6th, 2016, 10:34 am

https://act.credoaction.com/sign/warren_fbi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Credo Action
Stand with Sen. Warren: Tell the FBI to explain failure to prosecute bankers

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/06/ ... emonizing/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

OCTOBER 6, 2016
What’s Behind Time Magazine’s Putin Demonizing?

“Russia Wants to Undermine Faith in the U.S. Election. Don’t Fall For It.” Thus reads the cover ofTime magazine with a photo of Vladimir Putin on the cover staring at me from shelves as I sit in an airport. Genuinely curious, I check out Massimo Calabresi’s article online.

Of course, U.S. elections are almost completely unverifiable and do not even pretend to meet international standards. Jimmy Carter doesn’t even try to monitor them because there’s no way to do it. Much voting is done on machines that simply must be trusted on faith. Whether they accurately count the votes entered is simply unknowable, and reason to wonder is fueled by the machines’ frequently changing a vote visibly just as it’s cast, and by the ease with which people have been able to hack the machines. Never mind all the problems with registration, intimidation, inconvenience, discrimination, etc.

We should undermine our own faith in the U.S. election system. I’d include in that the financial corruption, gerrymandering, etc., but here I’m just referring to the counting of votes. Then we should repair it! Is Russia helpfully pointing out the problem to us? Not that I’ve seen. But the Russia-did-it stories that were used to bury the DNC-rigged-its-primary stories rather shockingly blurted out in major corporate U.S. media what I’ve just been saying. For a while it seemed acceptable to be aware that U.S. elections are faith-based as long as it helps build up hostility with Russia. Now, however, we’re being told of our duty to remain firm in our faith. Time says:

“The leaders of the U.S. government, including the President and his top national-security advisers, face an unprecedented dilemma. Since the spring, U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies have seen mounting evidence of an active Russian influence operation targeting the 2016 presidential election.”

Why the “top national-security advisers”? That’s a euphemism for war counselors. How do they come into this? And where is the evidence, mounting or otherwise?

“It is very unlikely the Russians could sway the actual vote count, because our election infrastructure is decentralized and voting machines are not accessible from the Internet.”

Of the 50 states into which the vote counting is “decentralized” there are only a handful the U.S. media will pay much attention to. Those “swing states” are the ones a hacker would hack. And here’s an interesting Washington Post article I recommend to the editors of Time: “More than 30 states offer online voting, but experts warn it isn’t secure.”

“But they can sow disruption and instability up to, and on, Election Day, more than a dozen senior U.S. officials tell TIME, undermining faith in the result and in democracy itself.”

Democracy itself? Egad! Those commies must be against democracy. Perhaps they even hate capitalism! How many of those senior officials have names? Is “senior” in this case a polite way of saying “extremely elderly”? Come on! Nobody has faith in U.S. democracy. That’s undermined every day by the U.S. government, as Time’s own pollsters are perfectly aware. Most U.S. residents believe their government is broken, and they’re perfectly right. Russia’s government could use a lot of improvements too. But only one of the two is building missile bases and engaging in military “exercises” on the other one’s border.

“The question, debated at multiple meetings at the White House, is how aggressively to respond to the Russian operation. Publicly naming and shaming the Russians and describing what the intelligence community knows about their activities would help Americans understand and respond prudently to any disruptions that might take place between now and the close of the polls.”

Gee, there’s an idea. If only there were a journalist in the building!

“Senior Justice Department officials have argued in favor of calling out the Russians, and that position has been echoed forcefully outside of government by lawmakers and former top national-security officials from both political parties.”

Wait, don’t tell me, are these the same guys who sincerely wanted to tell us where the Weapons of Mass Destruction were in Iraq?

“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The President and several of his closest national-security advisers are concerned about the danger of a confrontation in the new and ungoverned world of cyberspace, and they argue that while the U.S. has powerful offensive and defensive capabilities there, an escalating confrontation carries significant risks.”

That’s right! Hey, they know best. Accusing Russia without any evidence shouldn’t offend anybody. The Russian government should be grateful. But presenting evidence and seeking to uphold the law, truth, an

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1130/ ... -91636681/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Prosecutors who withhold or tamper with evidence now face felony charges

The office of Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas was removed from one of its most high-profile cases: the prosecution of mass murderer Scott Dekraai. The judge said prosecutors repeatedly violated Dekraai’s rights by failing to turn over evidence.

October 3, 2016, 10:00 p.m.
Amid an ongoing controversy in the Orange County courthouse involving accusations of prosecutorial misconduct, a new law will r

http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/signal-s ... gag-order/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Encryption App Signal Wins Fight Against FBI Subpoena And Gag ...
The Daily Dot-Oct 4, 2016
Signal, widely considered the gold standard of encrypted messaging apps, was put to the test earlier this year when a FBI subpoena and gag ...

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christophe ... n-n2227879" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ed Klein Reveals Bombshell Facts About Hillary FBI Investigation
Christopher N. Malagisi |Posted: Oct 05, 2016 7:30 A

In our “Part One” bombshell interview with author Ed Klein, he reveals stunning secrets about what really happened in the Hillary FBI email investigation case, and what role FBI Director James Comey really played in all of it. These shocking revelations are all detailed in his new book, Guilty As Sin, published by Regnery Publishing, and is featured as the Conservative Book Club’s Editor’s Pick of the Week.

Learn the truth about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, what health issues she’s really facing, and what Bill Clinton did to try and intimidate the Justice Department to not prosecute Hillary. You won’t believe what Ed Klein discovered in his in-depth research.

Ed Klein is the former editor of The New York Times Magazine, and is currently an editor with Vanity Fair. He’s written numerous books about Hillary and Bill Clinton and releases his new book, Guilty as Sin, right before the consequential November elections!

Listen to our Part One exclusive author interview with Ed Klein be

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... t-nsa-fisa" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yahoo email surveillance: who approved the secret scanning ...
The Guardian-
By what legal authority do the National Security Agency and the FBI ask Yahoo ... It also appears very similar to programs the FBI uses to pursue child abusers.

https://www.amazon.com/Systemic-Evil-MA ... 1503052613" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ex-FBI agent took on FBI to fight for equality - The Santa Fe New Mexican: ...
The Santa Fe New Mexican › news › ex-f...
Jan 4, 2014 - Bernardo 'Mat' Perez, 74, former FBI agent who sued the agency in 1987 in a landmark discrimination case, is now retired from the bureau and ...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10 ... ptops.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

REPUBLICANS
Republicans blast FBI for 'astonishing' agreement to destroy Clinton aides' laptops
Published October 05, 2016
FBI destroyed laptops of Clinton aides after reviewing
Top-ranking Republicans on Wednesday escalated their inquiry into a controversial FBI agreement to destroy the laptops of two Hillary Clinton aides questioned in the email scandal investigation, pressing Attorney General Loretta Lynch for answers and suggesting the deal obstructed congressional investigators.

The agreement to destroy the computers, the lawmakers wrote Wednesday in a letter to Lynch, “is simply astonishing given the likelihood that evidence on the laptops would be of interest

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/05/fbi ... he-border/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Revealed: The FBI's Secret Methods for Recruiting Informants at the ...
The Intercept-
The FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection work closely together to turn these vulnerabilities into opportunities for gathering intelligence, ..

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireSt ... k-42577482" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

New FBI Head in San Francisco Was Key Figure in iPhone Hack
ABC News-Oct 4, 2016
In this photo taken Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, FBI Special Agent Jack Bennett answers a question while posing in one of the bureau's ...

http://fox2now.com/2016/10/06/fbi-recru ... graduates/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FBI recruiting over 700 college students and recent graduates

William Woods, the special agent in Charge of the FBI St. Louis Division, joins us this morning to tell us about the FBI`s new collegiate hiring ...

http://www.abc15.com/news/region-centra ... department" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Did Sheriff spend money allocated for crime
fighting misuse funds?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2 ... ail-affair" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FBI Releases One Final Data Dump About Hillary Clinton's Email Affair
Mother Jones-Oct 3, 2016
A few weeks ago the FBI released its final report on Hillary Clinton's private email server. I commented on it here. But it turns out there's more.

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » October 11th, 2016, 1:04 am

Bonus Read

http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/10/10/fbi-ve ... -familiar/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

OCTOBER 10, 2016 | JAMES HENRY
FBI VERSION OF NY/NJ BOMBING STORY SOUNDS VERY FAMILIAR

Photo credit: Adopted by WhoWhatWhy from background (Jim Larrison / Flickr - CC BY 2.0), wolf statue (William Garrett / Flickr - CC BY 2.0) and J Edgar Hoover building (Cliff / Flickr - CC BY 2.0)

There are some striking similarities between the recent New York/New Jersey bombings and the Boston Marathon bombing, including the use of pressure cooker bombs. But the similarity that really should be ringing everyone’s alarm bells — yet apparently has not — is the revelation that the FBI had prior connections with both bombing suspects.

A number of contradictions and discrepancies in the FBI’s account of those contacts prompts troubling questions about whether the FBI is coming clean about its interest in Ahmad Khan Rahami.

And just as the Bureau did with the purported Marathon bombing mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev (and Orlando mass murderer Omar Matteen — another person with whom the FBI was familiar prior to the act), the FBI is painting a minimalist picture of its prior contacts with Rahami, the accused Manhattan and Jersey shore bomber.

For one, the FBI and Rahami’s father are at odds about what he told investigators about his son’s drift toward extremism — the reason the FBI investigated him to begin with. “Keep an eye on him,” the father says he told investigators. The FBI disputes this.

Another reason for concern is the contradiction between the FBI’s “hands off” approach to investigating Rahami (and Tsarnaev) and the well documented and usually very aggressive tactics used against most people with even the thinnest of terrorist connections.

Blame the Messenger
.
Rahami’s father, Mohammad Rahami, claims he first alerted the FBI about his son’s radical tendencies after his son assaulted family members. “He warned federal agents explicitly about his son’s interest in terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and his fascination with jihadist music, poetry and videos,” according to The New York Times.

The FBI denies that Rahami senior told agents who interviewed him anything about “radicalization” or “links to Al Qaeda, the Taliban or their propaganda.” By definition, if he had, then the FBI botched the investigation. Or is something else going on?

Based on what they were told, the FBI says it conducted an “assessment,” the lowest level of investigation also used to check on Tsarnaev, which included an interview with the father, a review of Bureau databases and public records, and checks with other agencies. The FBI claims the assessment did not turn up anything that warranted further inquiry.

“If he had been communicating directly with the terrorist organization and the father said ‘Look here’s the email, here’s the phone call, here’s the communication,’ that would be something different that would allow the FBI to get an investigation,” ex-FBI special agent and counterterror expert Tim Clemente, said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”

The implication is clear: Had Rahami senior given investigative agents more specific information about his son’s activities, the Bureau would have dug deeper. But is it really up to the tipster to provide the FBI with iron-

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/10/sub ... formation/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Subpoena to Encrypted App Provider Highlights Overbroad FBI ...
The Intercept-
A recently revealed grand jury subpoena shows that the FBI is likely continuing to ask companies for more information than the law allows,

http://anzavalleyoutlook.com/opinion/ry ... on-guards/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Ryan Bundy beat by prison guards
Anza Valley Outlook-
26, eight months prior, by FBI agents while he was approaching their roadblock in the Oregon arrest. The driver having been fired upon left his truck with hands

..

http://m.fightbacknews.org/2016/10/10/a ... iddle-east" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Anti-war march in Ft Lauderdale demands 'US out of the Middle East!”
Fight Back! Newspaper-8 hours ago
“At the same time, the wars abroad are used to justify political repression of activists here, including the group of activists raided and subpoenaed by the FBI ...

http://www.kshb.com/news/breast-cancer- ... i-fugitive" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

POST FALLS, Idaho - A Post Falls, Idaho breast cancer patient says she was handcuffed and questioned at a Walmart after law enforcement officials mistook her for a wanted teen.

FBI Octopus

US Chamber of Commerce endorses Fitzpatrick
The Intelligencer-
... Great Lakes region, said Fitzpatrick's experience as a certified public accountant and a former FBI agent made the Republican nominee an ideal candidate.

Meet the candidates for Fulton County Sheriff
MDJOnline.com-
He served in several leadership positions including deputy assistant director of the criminal investigative division and special agent in charge of the FBI's Atlanta ...

What's Going On: Oct. 11, 2016
Terre Haute Tribune Star-
Indiana State University alumnus and retired FBI agent Bob Casey discusses his time at State, work in FBI and other topics, 11 a.m. in Dede I of HMSU; ...

North Shore News in Brief
The Salem News-
Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and former FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers will headline the latest installment of the Salem ...

http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/arti ... 22992.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Police Chief Stewart and his girlfriend, Rettie D. Morris, were indicted in June on charges of conspiring to sell cocaine, crack cocaine, methamphetamine and Suboxone from February 2014 to April 2016.
In that instance, Stewart gave Morris the keys to his police cruiser to go and pick up the cocaine from another location, according to a court record.
The same informant bought drugs from Stewart two other times, and saw Stewart snort cocaine while he was in uniform, Cox testified a

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity ... encryption" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FBI, Apple eye new fight over encryption
The Hill-
The FBI and Apple could be heading for a new fight over access to a dead ... and the data it may contain," FBI special agent Rich Thornton told reporters Friday.

http://www.vice.com/read/a-close-look-a ... oia-v23n07" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A Close Look at the FBI's File on Wu-Tang Clan
VICE-Oct 9, 2016
But the FBI's investigation of black artists—particularly rap groups—stands out. .... Moreover, the FBI file says a special agent who assigned it the "267C" ...

https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/10/10/h ... -security/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The NSHRC’s goals included:
Closing Guantanamo Bay, eliminating torture and methods such as the extraordinary rendition of prisoners, and ending the use of secret prisons;
Ending warrantless and “unchecked” surveillance;
Ensuring that anti-terrorism laws and law enforcement activities do not target freedom of speech, association or religious expression;
Reducing ethnic and religious profiling of people of Muslim, Arab or South Asian extraction;
Decreasing secrecy and increasing oversight of executive actions, and expos[ing] U.S. government or private individuals who abuse or violate the law.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/11102016-c ... rump-oped/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
CIA, NSA Meddling In US Elections Trying To Stop Trump – OpEd
Eurasia Review
That in turn begs a host of questions: has the FBI been shown the “evidence” upon which US intelligence expresses its opinion and has made the statement?

http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/rew ... ffs-deputy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

OLATHE, Kan. - The Johnson County Sheriff's Department is asking for help and offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the two men who kidnapped and sexually assaulted one of their deputies.

http://westlife.northcoastnow.com/2016/ ... g-getaway/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Suspect in CVS robbery dies following confrontation with police during getaway
Written by Kevin Kelley on October 10, 2016 —

https://www.news.virginia.edu/content/u ... fessionals" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

UVA to Launch Public Safety Master's Program for Police ...
University of Virginia
It has partnered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the design and delivery of the FBI's National Academy since 1971, and, beginning in 2005, the school ...

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » October 18th, 2016, 12:22 pm

Suffering is not good for the soul, unless it teaches you how to stop suffering. That is its purpose.”
― Jane Roberts, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul

We’re all just walking each other home.
It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.
The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

Bonus Read

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/2426/ ... -91722019/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Head of nation's largest police chief group issues formal apology for 'historical mistreatment' of racial minorities

October 17, 2016, 10:20 p.m.
The president of the country’s largest police chief organization formally apologized Monday for the “historical mistreatment” of racial minorities — one of the strongest statements a national police figure has made to date on race.

Law enforcement officers have been the “face of oppression for far too many of our fellow citizens,” Terrence Cunningham, president of the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, told thousands of police chiefs from across the country at the group’s annual conference in San Diego. He said that police have had “darker periods” in their history, and that mistrust between police and minorities is the “fundamental issue” facing police today.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -halloween" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Arizona
Clown sightings: hysteria in the US reaches a fever pitch
Police are pleading for end to evil clowns, a Clown Lives Matter march was called off, and schools are banning clown costumes while some stores are sold out

Link du jour

http://understandingdeeppolitics.org/barrie-zwicker/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://boydownthelane.com/2016/10/14/presence/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://faggotz.org/wp/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.PrisonEducation.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://prisology.org/staff" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/10/12/p ... l-war-era/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Black Lives Matter activist in Maine equates current racial climate to Civil War era

Civil rights activist Shaun King, the senior political justice writer for The New York Daily News, told a Bates College audience on Tuesday that the country is on the brink of a modern civil rights movement similar to those that led to the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Posted Oct. 12, 2016, at 3:11 p.m.
LEWISTON, Maine — Journalist and civil rights activist Shaun King, a leader in the Black Lives Matter movement, traveled to Bates College on Tuesday to deliver a message to students and community members, who he acknowledged are already aware and working for social change.
“Yo, Bates!” King called to applause and shouts. “Bates is kinda woke a little bit! What’s up?”
The senior political justice writer for The New York Daily News, King said the country is on the brink of a modern civil rights movement similar to those that led to the Civil War and civil rights movement of the 1960s.
King spoke for an hour to the crowd packed into the college’s Peter J. Gomes Chapel — named for the 1965 graduate, a noted African American author and preacher — acknowledging that Bates has historically “embraced” social change. King noted that he taught earlier Tuesday in Professor Yannick Marshall’s “Black Lives Matter” course.
Story continues below advertisement.

http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/ ... -91705553/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Black Panthers' and the social gospel
Baltimore Sun-
After L.A. Panther leader Bunchy Carter was murdered on the UCLA campus (in a secret memo, local FBI agent Richard Held took credit for provoking the killing) ...

https://electronicintifada.net/content/ ... eley/17936" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Palestine course at UC Berkeley
Nora Barrows-Friedman and Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada
16 September 2016

http://www.dailycal.org/2016/09/25/u-s- ... e-lawsuit/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

3 years after Kayla Moore’s in-custody death, protesters gather for vigil, march
Man arrested in Berkeley charged with murder of 17-year-old girl
District Attorney’s office does not automatically investigate all in-custody deaths
SAN FRANCISCO — A U.S. District Court judge did not grant the city of Berkeley’s dismissal for a wrongful death lawsuit, alleging that police misconduct led to the in-custody death of Kayla Moore, at the dismissal hearing Friday.

At the Friday hearing, U.S. Senior District Judge Charles Breyer said he did not dismiss the case because he wanted to verify with the evidence whether the involved officers used excessive force or engaged in false arrest. Breyer will review evidence surrounding Moore’s death in greater depth next month. Moore was a 347-pound transgender Black woman diagnosed with schizophrenia who died in February 2013 while in Berkeley Police Department custody.

Breyer tried to determine how the officers who arrested Moore addressed the situation, and whether their actions were appropriate, during the hearing.

“The question is while they may have been wrong in the particular conduct they (acted), was it known to them that they were acting in an improper way in a manner of law?” Breyer said during the hearing. “If they were wrong, are they still (protected)?”

On Feb. 12, 2013, Moore’s roommate called BPD to help Moore, who, according to police reports, was acting erratically and aggressively. Officers later arrested Moore using a warrant for “Xavier Moore” — Kayla Moore’s legal name — despite the warrant being for an individual about 20 years older than Moore.

A coroner’s report initially ruled Moore’s cause of death as a toxic combination of codeine and methamphetamine, with concurrent issues of obesity and cardiovascular disease. Leaked documents from the Berkeley Police Review Commission later revealed that at least one BPD officer, officer Gwendolyn Brown, exercised inappropriate police behavior by placing Moore, who was restrained with two handcuffs and a leg wrap, in a partially face-down position for extended periods of time without monitoring her vital signs.

Adante Pointer, attorney for Moore’s father, who filed the wrongful death lawsuit in February 2014, alleged during the hearing that the involved police officers unlawfully seized, restrained, arrested and battered Moore. Pointer provided statements from forensic pathologist Werner Spitz, who gave independent commentary separate from the coroner’s report.

“(Spitz) says that officers compressed Kayla to a point where (she) had difficulty breathing (due to) oxygen deprivation,” Pointer said. “The officers, in a comp

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ied-adults" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

US prisons
Nearly 90% of New Jersey children tried as adults since 2011 were black or Latino
Mostly black minors requested to be prosecuted as adults, a WNYC analysis found when comparing the US juvenile detention system with that in Germany

http://www.opb.org/news/article/ron-wyd ... rsecurity/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oregon Senator Wants To Block Efforts To Weaken Encryption
OPB News-
The FBI wants easier access to information seized from suspects, an issue that gained national attention following a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/geeks-gui ... -franklin/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ruth Franklin on the Red Scare:

“The investigation was triggered because one of the cartons of books fell off this moving truck, and the mover happened to notice that it was filled with communist material, and reported it to the local FBI office. Part of the reason the FBI became interested in Stanley as a target was because the neighbors reported that he had so many books. There were so many books in the house that the FBI thought it might be a storehouse of communist material. Of course it wasn’t, it was simply the library of two incredibly well-read and intellectually curious people. … I think it’s so ironic to learn that the author of ‘The Lottery’ in fact was spied on by her neighbors, who reported her activity to the FBI.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi ... 1?section=&" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

POLITICS
The FBI Insists It Doesn’t Fire People Over Polygraphs. This Man Says It Happened To Him.
The story of a former FBI intelligence analyst and his two-year battle to get his job back.
10/17/2016 10:00 pm ET

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryla ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maryland's use of facial recognition software questioned by ...
Baltimore Sun-
Maryland is one of at least five states that has provided access to driver's licenses, local police mug shots and other corrections records to the FBI, according to ...

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1130/ ... -91721053/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

NCIS agent gets 12 years in prison in 'Fat Leonard' Navy fraud scheme

http://www.civilbeat.org/2016/10/new-lo ... -cravalho/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

With the help of freshly declassified documents from the FBI and U.S. Army obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, as well as other available sources, the piece reveals the “achievements and controversies – both of which were plentiful in his life.”

Here’s one excerpt, taken from a confidential 1959 Army intelligence summary on Cravalho:

“In December 1958, CRAVALHO was one of the so-called [Jack] “Burns/ILWU” faction of the Democratic Party of Hawaii who bolted the party caucus,” states the report. “CRAVALHO, together with 14 colleagues, rebelled when it became apparent

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/10/1 ... igence.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Friday, October 14, 2016Last
FBI Challenged for Iraq War Intelligence

     WASHINGTON — Challenging the preposterous claim that U.S. intelligence preceding the war in Iraq is not a matter of public interest, an academic has brought a federal complaint to gather FBI records.
     David Austin Lindsey, of Painsboro, New Jersey, filed the suit with regard to a Lebanese-American businessman who attempted to impress upon U.S. officials that Saddam Hussein wanted to avoid the protracted war.
     Citing reports by the New York Times and Newsweek, the Oct. 12 complaint filed in Washington, D.C., says Imad Hage "was involved as an unofficial envoy of the Iraqi government during the period leading up to the U.S. military action in Iraq."
     A Times article on Hage describes the man as a Beirut refugee who moved back to Lebanon in the late 1990s. In January 2003, a Lebanese-American friend of Hage's who worked at the Pentagon soon arranged for the man to begin relaying messages between the United States and Iraq.
     As Lindsey's lawsuit notes, based on the times report, Hage had one blemish on his record: a January 2003 arrest at Dulles Airport for carrying a handgun in his checked luggage.
     Lindsey says Hage was "charged with a weapons crime in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia."
     The Times published its article on the envoy in November 2003, saying Hage met with an adviser to Pentagon officials that March in London. There, Hage laid out Iraq's position that it did not have weapons of mass destruction and that it would consent to an investigation and search by U.S. troops. Hage said the Iraqis were also willing to hand over a Baghdad captive accused of involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and to hold elections.
     Of the varied diplomatic efforts to avert a war in Iraq, both public and discreet, the Times reported, "Mr. Hage's back channel appears to have been a final attempt by Mr. Hussein's government to reach American officials."
     Hage told the Times that ''the Iraqis were finally taking [U.S. invasion] seriously and they wanted to talk, and they offered things they never would have offered if the build-up hadn't occurred.''
     The United States wound up invading Iraq on March 20, 2003.
     Lindsey, a Princeton University researcher, says he has emailed a request for the government's records on Hage this past May, but that the FBI responded in the negative a month later.
     "Plaintiff, in the view of the FBI, failed to 'demonstrate sufficient public interest' to entitle Plaintiff to nonexempt responsive records," the complain

FBI Octopus

Veteran FBI agent to lecture at Westfield State University
MassLive.com-
WESTFIELD - Westfield State University will host veteran FBI agent Julia Cowley for a lecture Tuesday from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Garden Level Conference Room in ...

PCC to host crime author
Pueblo Chieftain-
Pueblo Community College's Criminal Justice Department and Criminal Justice Club will host Dale Lovin, an author and former FBI agent, scheduled for 3:30 ...

FBI special agent sought info on call centre scam from Thane cops
Daily News & Analysis-
Suhel Daud, the FBI special agent visited Commissioner of Police, Thane, to discuss details of the scam which was being operated from Mira Road and Gujarat.

Great Falls hosting Montana Human Rights Film Fest
KTVH-
... an FBI agent that serves Browning, a Domestic Violence agency advocate from Fort Belknap and Browning, and the head counselor at the Great Falls YWCA.

Public safety forum in Kennett Square puts spotlight on law ...
Daily Local News-
... retired district justice; Kennett Square Police Lt. William T. Holdsworth; Kennett Township Police Chief Lydell E. Nolt; and FBI special agent Charles Dayoub.

Op-ed: Fitzpatrick: Economic opportunity for all
The Midweek Wire-
When I announced I was running for Congress, I did it as an FBI Supervisory Special Agent and former federal prosecutor – as well as a CPA who helped ...

11/7: Case Studies in Terrorism
NRVN News
He was the supervisory senior resident agent for Southwest Virginia prior to joining the university. After retiring from the FBI in 2011, he joined the Virginia Tech ...

Safety a main concern at this year's Ark. State Fair
THV11.com-
Colleen Nick, the founder of the Morgan Nick Foundation along with the FBI will join THV11 to help give out information on ways to protect your children.

The FBI served Google with a secret subpoena
Engadge
Tucked into Google's latest bi-annual transparency report, the search behemoth quietly revealed that it received a secret subpoena from the FBI sometime

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ex- ... -1.2832004" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Joseph Esposito, a retired cop at the heart of a lucrative large-scale disability racket that led to 106 arrests in 2014, once became a fake minister to get out of paying taxes, the Daily News has learned.

Esposito, 66, reluctantly made the stunning disclosure as he testified as part of his cooperation plea deal against fellow ex-cop Kevin Hurley in Manhattan Supreme Court in May.

http://spectator.org/former-u-s-attorne ... dirty-cop/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Special Report
Former U.S. Attorney: Agents See FBI Chief Comey as a ‘Dirty Cop’

October 13, 2016, 3:07 pm

The FBI in open revolt against a deceitful director.
James Comey presides over an FBI in revolt over his leadership, a former U.S. attorney tells The American Spectator, and pursues “paranoid, delusional, and vindictive” measures to prevent negative information leaking out to the public.

“I know that inside the FBI there is a revolt,” Joseph diGenova tells The American Spectator. “There is a revolt against the director. The people inside the bureau believe the director is a dirty cop. They believe that he threw the [Hillary Clinton email] case. They do not know what he was promised in return. But the people inside the bureau who were involved in the case and who knew about the case are talking to former FBI people expressing their disgust at the conduct of the director.”

The loss of faith in the bureau chief stems in part from a dishonest rendering of the decision not to indict Mrs. Clinton as unanimous rather than unilateral and in part from the bureau’s decision to destroy evidence in the case and grant blanket immunity to Clinton underlings for no possible prosecutorial purpose.

“There is a consensus among the employees that the director has lost all credibility and that he cannot lead the bureau,” diGenova explains. “They are comparing him to L. Patrick Gray, the disgraced former FBI director who threw Watergate papers into the Potomac River. The resistance to the director has made the agency incapable of action. It has been described to me as a depression within the agency unlike anything that anyone has ever seen within the bureau

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/m ... /89339672/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Use of undercover informants in Muslim communities sparks concern
Detroit Free Press-
In metro Detroit, two other cases involving undercover FBI agents or informants have played out in courtrooms this year: a Dearborn man, Mohammad Hamdan, ...

http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/ ... 067aa.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

U.S. Justice Department expands DEA misconduct probe; 2 more federal agents on desk duty
OCT 15, 2016 - 6:30 PM (3)

Federal authorities have intensified their investigation into misconduct within the New Orleans office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, seeking to root out rogue agents and enlisting a team of special prosecutors from Texas to sift through a growing list of potentially tainted cases.

The secretive inquiry sent new reverberations through the beleaguered field office last week, as DEA brass took away the guns and badges of James "Skip" Sewell, a high-ranking supervisor, and Justin Moran, an agent who served on a task force some of whose members are suspected of mishandling evidence and stealing drugs and cash.

Both lawmen were placed on limited duty, a status that excludes them from participating in investigations, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Both have retained well-known defense attorneys.

Sewell’s attorney, former federal prosecutor Walter Becker, said Sewell has been assured he is not a target of the probe. He said Sewell has offered to cooperate fully.

Eddie Castaing, who represents Moran, said Moran "has always cooperated with the government."

Both lawyers declined further comment.

The personnel action comes months after a federal grand jury secretly indicted one longtime member of the Group 10 task force and after another former member pleaded guilty to state drug conspiracy charges.

Earlier this year, the DEA replaced the head of its New Orleans office and suspended Chad

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/10/15 ... fy-emails/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Clinton Aide Discussed 'Quid Pro Quo' Deal with FBI to Reclassify ...
PJ Media
Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard has seen some FBI documents that have potential bombshell information. Senior Clinton aide Patrick Kennedy ...

Senior Clinton aide Patrick Kennedy apparently tried to make a deal with the FBI to reclassify emails that were marked "classified" in exchange for approving overseas posts for FBI agents.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-denies- ... ification/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
FBI denies collusion over Hillary Clinton email classification
CBS News-
The FBI denied Sunday that the agency ever engaged in a “quid pro quo” arrangement with Hillary Clinton's State Department over the classification

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » November 13th, 2016, 10:06 pm

Link du jour

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://registremblay.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://vfpmaine.org/events/bangortrial.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

NOT GUILTY!!!

Left to right: Doug Rawlings, Henry Braun, Jim Freeman, Dud Hendrick, Rob Shetterly and Jon Kreps. (Photo used with permission. © V. Kelly Bellis)

Six members of Maine's Civil Disobedience and Occupation Project went on trial at 9:00, Tuesday, April 29, 2008, at Penobscot Superior Court on Hammond Avenue in Bangor, Maine. The six people were charged with "criminal trespass" for refusing to leave the office of U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building on Harlow Street, in Bangor, on March 7, 2007, four years after the U.S. led invasion of Iraq.

FBI Octopus

Mental Health and Safe Schools
Education Week (subscription) (blog)-
Those doing the analysis included Michigan State University psychiatrist Dr. Frank Ochberg and Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Fuselier, the FBI's lead ...

Local briefs
Lewiston Morning Tribune
Robinson joined Kootenai Health in September 2015 after a 23-year career as a supervisory special agent in the FBI. Free legal aid clinic for veterans set in ...

Brian Fitzpatrick rides Trump wave to Washington
Bucks County Courier Times-
Former FBI agent Brian Fitzpatrick, 42, had barely finished unpacking his bags in January before he announced his candidacy for the 8th Congressional District ..

Trump's transition team signals return to GOP establishment
The Japan Times
The former Michigan congressman chaired the House intelligence committee. Rogers is a former U.S. Army officer and FBI special agent. He is a board member ...

Trump hasn't decided future of FBI's Comey
KBZK Bozeman News-
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President-elect Donald Trump says he's still deciding whether to ask FBI Director James Comey for his resignation. In an interview with ...

http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/11/e-pluribus-unum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A note on the contours of the US elite
by T.P. Wilkinson / November 13th, 2016

We have heard and read for what could be mistaken for an eternity that the United States of America (may the god– no sane person would worship– bless her) is exceptional and the “greatest nation on Earth” (something even the Soviet Union could never bring itself to proclaim).

Since the unofficial victory of Donald Trump in the general election for the office of President of that “exceptional” country, the “losing” side has enhanced its exceptionally curious behaviour.

Before we attempt to think any further, let’s return to another curious election to that same office. Sixteen years ago the Democratic Vice President of the United States was declared the loser in a presidential election rife with fraud– especially in Cuban-American Miami. Bill Clinton’s supposed heir-apparent was dismissed by the Supreme Court (which has no constitutional authority in the elections whatsoever) and there was not a whimper from either the penile or vaginal Clinton. Now we find Hillary’s army rallying the retilin Republic to petition against the very anti-majoritarian institution the slave-holding Founding Fathers created to prevent the ordinary people from winning elections. That is a constitutional curiosity worthy of note.

There are two fundamental problems with the electoral (in terms of the US Constitution’s oligarchic principles) victory for Trump. One ought to be obvious but since the Outer Party and the media that controls it ideologically (NYT, Washington Post and its overseas mockingbirds1 and that is that no matter what one would like to believe, real estate mogul Mr Trump is on record challenging both the 9-11 lies, the Saudi Arabian manipulations, and the export of US capital (and hence jobs) to low/no wage countries. These are issues which the entire Establishment has successfully suppressed (with the help of the CIA-owned AFL-CIO) and its five world class propaganda monopolists (aka corporate media + PBS). No matter what one may think of Trump — son of a typical NYC corrupt real estate family — he has restored the language of the assassinated Franklin D Roosevelt rival Huey P. Long. Long of Louisiana was a national “socialist”. For those who are historically challenged, national “socialism” was the integration of socialist ideas of economic and social equality with an absolute animosity to internationalism of any kind.

The 1930s were not only a conflict between communism and fascism but between international socialism and national socialism. Ideologically and politically it is quite difficult to distinguish the various movements that emerged a century ago after the West collapsed.

I mention this here because a century after the Armistice — “celebrated” last week — the collapse of the West has continued, despite the reactionary efforts of the Anglo-American empire.

I think it is safe to say — for those who like astronomical or astrophysical metaphors — that the US has been a “black hole” (especially if one is, in fact, black) and now has become a “white dwarf”.

With the collapse of Europe and the pretense of the US to world (white) supremacy, ejaculated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — in 1918, the first national security (political) police was established in the form of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. One must recall that “investigation” is a bureaucratic euphemism for persecution. Prohibition (the Volstead Act), ostensibly an act against alcohol abuse — was actually a political war by the WASP elite against European immigrants, especially those from Southern Europe who were then subjected to more intense entry regulations too. (This is the real meaning of the remark in di Niro’s The Good Shepherd by Matt Damon to Joe Pesci.) The FBI and its brothers in the Treasury were the SA of the nativist white elite — the “America First” folks.

When white shoe lawyer and investment banker William Donovan persuaded Franklin Roosevelt to authorise the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, another euphemism) and the forerunner of the CIA, he was representing the non-nativist and internationalist faction in the US elite. The conflict that emerged between the FBI and this new state police/terror apparatus led to an agreement that the OSS was only allowed to work outside the Western hemisphere. Spying and terrorism in the Western hemisphere was declared the exclusive province of the FBI.2

When the CIA was formed after WWII the FBI was apparently at its weakest. Latin America was disciplined but it was the OSS which was about to control police/terror markets from the Ural to the Yangtzee. The first time this conflict became violent, however, was when the OSS/ CIA seized control over Chinese and Southeast Asian opium in the course of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The enormous financial and political capital gained by the “internationalist faction” threatened to occlude FBI power entirely. Then John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The deck was being reshuffled. Allen Dulles did his best to cut the cards in favour of the Company. In some ways the Warren Commission succeeded — not in explaining Kennedy’s murder but in discrediting the FBI and concealing the CIA.

Fast forward:
The foregoing should just insinuate. The reader should do the thinking — after all that ought to be the purpose of writing.

Julian Assange said in a recent interview with John Pilger that he believes the FBI was proving a point (about its power) when it intervened with investigations of one aspect of Hillary Clinton’s generally criminal behavior. He argued that the FBI wanted to prove (punish) Clinton for flagrant disrespect of the Bureau.

In the greater historical bureaucratic context we should be wary of personalization. Translated this means that the FBI — representative of the elite faction that secretly supports Trump — wanted to show the Clinton — representative of the elite faction that manages through Langley — that US political power cannot be monopolised by the “international fascists” but also has to be duly shared with the “national fascists” as well.

Ronald Reagan was not just the poster boy for neo-conservatism/liberalism (having been nominally both). He was canonised as the patron saint of post-war US fascism; as such he has had to serve both the national and international fascists. The Bush dynasty, the CIA faction, has employed the Clinton/Obama troops as mercenaries to defend their oil and opium-soaked swampland. It remains to be seen whether the national fascists in the FBI with Trump as their champion will prevail against the international fascists led by Clinton.

On 30 June 1934, the international (corporate) fascists deployed Hitler’s SS to murder the national (populist) fascists under Röhm’s SA.

Maybe the internationalists will consider the value of flames (literally or metaphorically) before the Electoral College convenes. In any case, the war has just begun.

Operation Mockingbird et al.) was the CIA program by which foreign media were spiked with news and other articles for publication to be echoed in the US media as if they had, in fact, foreign origins. Before CIA director William Colby retired both professionally and mortally he testified that the CIA had significant assets throughout the Media — without elaborating. This writer could see that throughout Europe the Press was pro-Clinton or at best anti-Trump. No doubt foreign press assets sought to promote Ms Clinton’s position in a Mockingbird way in addition to garnering support for her as the successor to Mr Obama. Not surprisingly this writer was told by a Portuguese observer that Ms Clinton was responsible for Europe’s refugee problem because she murdered Qaddafi. Perhaps that is also a testimony to the failures of her faction’s campaign with people who have a sense of history. []
The author is indebted here to Douglas Valentine’s extensive research into FBI-CIA rivalry. See The Strength of the Wolf, The Strength of the Pack, The Phoenix Program and his coming book on the CIA. []
Dr T.P. Wilkinson writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket in Heinrich Heine's birthplace, Düsseldorf. He is also the author of Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa (Maisonneuve Press, 2003). Read other articles by T.P..

Demand clemency for Leonard Peltier
Liberation-
Peltier has been imprisoned for 41 years, related to an unjust conviction for killing two FBI agents during a firefight at Pine Ridge Reservation. Learn more about

Michael Moore Wants 'Special Prosecutor' Over Comey, FBI Letter
Newsmax-
A special prosecutor should be appointed to examine the actions of FBI Director James Comey in the weeks leading up to the general election, documentary ..

UWI vice chancellor urges US president to exonerate Marcus Garvey
Jamaica Observer-
... trumped up charges orchestrated by the late J Edgar Hoover, the famously anti-black director of the US's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),” said Sir Hilary .

http://www.globalresearch.ca/janet-reno ... al/5556679" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Janet Reno: Bill Clinton's Attorney General
Center for Research on Globalization-
In 1999, it surfaced that the FBI had made good its part in starting the conflagration ... Her response was to send marshals to FBI headquarters to seize a tape ...

“Outspoken, outrageous and absolutely indifferent to others’ opinions, Janet Reno was truly one of a kind.” Paul Anderson

She was the first woman to hold the job of US Attorney General, and on getting that position, held it for the duration of the Clinton administration, the longest tenure than any in the previous 150 years. Unfortunately for her, Janet Reno will be remembered for much that was wrong with that same administration.

It began with her being President Bill Clinton’s third choice, a very typical state of affairs. Both corporate lawyer Zoë Baird and federal judge Kimba Wood had been found wanting using undocumented immigrants as nannies.

Reno’s two terms in office provided a foretaste of what would happen with the US National Security State in the twenty-first century. The World Trade Centre received attention in 1993 in a terrorist attack, supplying law enforcement officials with an ominous warning. In 1995, with the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, the divisions in Clinton’s America, with its violence, its post-Cold War illnesses, came to the fore.

What Reno will most be remembered for will be less her anti-trust suit against Microsoft, or using the federal law to safeguard clinics providing abortion services, and protecting women seeking those services. More in point, the dark, bloody episode of the assault on the Branch Dravidian complex in Waco, Texas in 1993 will remain a marked stain in institutional hysteria, cruelty and massacre.

The spectacle did much to bring in collision, with lethal consequences, the world of centralised law enforcement, and another America, one wishing to be left quirkily if bizarrely alone. The assault on the compound gave the sect of Vernon Howell, better known as David Koresh, a sense that Satan had made a cruel decision and had arrived to stake a claim.

The siege initially began on February 28, 1993 with agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. On April 19, the FBI got involved. There were a dozen tanks, accompanying 900 military and law-enforcement officials. Eighty-nine people, including Koresh and several federal agents, had perished by the end of this gruesome affair. A third of the fatalities were children.

In the course of the Waco siege, and subsequent raid, Renopresided over a shoddy enterprise that saw the use of CS gas, psychological warfare, mendacity on the part of the FBI on the presence of fragmentation grenades at the scene, and the trigger happy antics of the BATF.

The line Reno took was that children had been endangered in the Waco compound, though to be fair, it was a point insisted upon by the FBI. They had been sexually abused. The women of the compound were shared with Koresh in accordance with a reading of Biblical scripture. In short, the Koresh experiment had to be eliminated. It was with little surprise that subsequent, government backed investigations found the BATF and FBI faultless.

In 1999, it surfaced that the FBI had made good its part in starting the conflagration that ultimately took so many lives at Waco. Her response was to send marshals to FBI headquarters to seize a tape featuring the communications that took place on the day of the assault.

Reno found herself with hot water again over the 2000 custody battle of Elián González. Having been the sole survivor of an effort on the part of his mother and 10 others to cross to Floridafrom Cuba, the six-year old became a bone of contention for Cuban exiles in the state. Never should González be yielded and returned to Castro’s Cuba, where he could be united with his father.

It was not to be, and in signature fashion, an incident that might have been handled with kid-glove minimal fuss became scandalously forceful. Agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in bursting into the Miami home of the child’s relatives, were captured in terrifying spectacle. Again, the federal government appeared as supreme, meddlesome bullyboy.

A persistent nightmare during Reno’s time in office was the rather lax, and even sociopathic approach Clinton had towards the law, a point she struggled to negotiate with. Claiming a trust in her legal instinct, she tended to refer matters of suggested impropriety on the President’s part to special counsel, though even there, she dithered.

Clinton’s supporters thought her too hasty in wading into investigating Clinton’s relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In permitting an independent inquiry into the Arkansas failed land deal that came to be called the Whitewater investigation to expand, its tentacles moving into the notorious Lewinsky affair, Reno made few friends in the inner circle.

Nor was she always consistent on that score. At stages she provided insulation to Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, shielding them from the eye of an independent counsel in investigating suggestions of fund-raising irregularities that had potentially been broken in 1996. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah were vocal in questioning her independence; FBI director Louis J. Freeh had also favoured a special counsel.

Having now passed into history, Reno’s period in office is a reminder about Clinton’s torn America, with its at times deadly contradictions, seedy establishment behaviour and riddling corruption. He oversaw a country at war with itself, where groups were demonised as fringe worthy devotees of a lunatic world and Washington grandees could misbehave. Now it is time for those nutty devotees to have a say in the White House.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at SelwynCollege, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » November 16th, 2016, 6:12 pm

Titanpointe
The NSA’s Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain Sight

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the ... ain-sight/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » December 3rd, 2016, 2:53 pm

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/an- ... hirtyEight" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Politics
An FBI Error Opens A Window Into Government Demands For Private Info

Dec 3, 2016 at 1:14 PM
An FBI Error Opens A Window Into Government Demands For Private Info

The Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization that has built a digital library and maintains an archive of web pages on the internet, revealed on Thursday that it had received a National Security Letter from the FBI demanding information about the services the library provided to a possible user. National Security Letters such as this one have been criticized by civil liberties groups in part because they can include a nondisclosure requirement or “gag order” that prevents recipients from revealing anything about the letters — including the fact that they received them.
This letter was particularly troublesome to privacy advocates because it contained misinformation about the rights of a letter recipient to challenge the nondisclosure requirement. The letter stated that the Internet Archive could “make an annual challenge to the nondisclosure requirement.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy organization that is legally representing the Internet Archive, pointed out in a press release that the passage of the USA Freedom Act in June of 2015 changed the law to allow letter recipients to challenge the National Security Letter at any time, not just once annually. In response to the EFF’s claim, the FBI withdrew its National Security Letter, allowed the Internet Archive to publish a redacted version of the letter containing the error and promised to correct the mistake by informing everyone else who got the same erroneous language.

http://www.collective-evolution.com/201 ... -involved/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FBI Chief Exposes MK Ultra Programs That Murder, Use, & Traffic ...
Collective Evolution-7 hours ago
FBI Chief Exposes MK Ultra Programs That Murder, Use, & Traffic Children – High .... Ted Gunderson, former FBI special agent and head of their L.A. office, ...

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/enter- ... oes-to-die" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Enter 'The Glass Room,' Where Privacy Goes To Die
Motherboard-5 hours ago
... Congress failed to block a procedural rule change that gives the FBI the legal authority to hack millions of computers around the globe under a single warrant.

http://ticklethewire.com/2016/12/02/bor ... thorities/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Border Patrol Agent Headed to Trial for Allegedly Lying to Federal Authorities
By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The Border Patrol agent accused of lying to federal agents about a drug conspiracy case is headed to trial in early January.
Eduardo Bazan Jr. pleaded not guilty Thursday in federal court, the Monitor reports.
Bazan, 48, of Edinburg, was arrested on Nov. 3 and has been on administrative leave since.
Authorities allege he lied to Homeland Security investigators during an Oct. 31 interview.
“Bazan admitted he had lied to agents Oct. 31, 2016, and that Bazan had in fact received information from an individual that led to a seizure of 66 kilograms of cocaine; seized on Feb. 18, 2007,” the criminal complaint reads.

T

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » January 11th, 2017, 10:05 pm

Heat is Online

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/01/11/ ... y-of-2017/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hudson Bay to Experience Periods of Above Freezing Temperatures, Possible Rainfall During January of 2017
Earlier this morning, warm winds rushing in from the south ahead of an extensive frontal system draped across central and eastern North America pulled 32 + degree Fahrenheit (0 + C) temperatures into the southern coastal area of Hudson Bay. These temperatures were around 30 to 35 degrees (F) above normal. An odd event to say the least. One that would have been far less likely to happen without the added kick provided by global warming in the range of 1.2 C above 1880s averages.

(Temperatures rose to above freezing at around 4 AM EST along the southern shores of Hudson Bay on January 11, 2017 according to this GFS model summary. Middle and long range forecasts indicate that at least two more such warming events will occur over this typically frigid region during January. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Such a kick has been pushing climate zones northward — sparking numerous instances of unseasonable weather. Meanwhile, some researchers have indicated that the Jet Stream has also tended to produce higher amplitude ridges and troughs as the Northern Hemisphere polar zone has warmed faster than the rest of the world. In these more extensive ridge zones, this climate change related alteration to atmospheric circulation provides big avenues for warm air to enter typically frozen regions during winter (please see Arctic Melt ‘Already Affecting Weather Patterns Where You Live Right Now’).

Today’s warming event was driven by a northward extending bulge in the Jet Stream running up over Alberta and on into the North Atlantic near Greenland. Similar ridging in the Jet Stream is expected to occur over Central Canada five to six days from now on Monday and Tuesday of January 16-17, again over extreme southern Hudson Bay on Wednesday, January 18, and once more over the southern half of Hudson Bay on Monday, January 23rd.

Warming during the 16th and 17th is expected to range from 30 to 38 Fahrenheit (17 to 21 C) above average. Meanwhile, the longer range forecast may see temperatures hit near 40 F (22 C) above average for some regions if the model guidance ends up being correct.

(Numerous instances of above-freezing temperatures are predicted for Hudson Bay during mid-to-late January. The most intense warming is showing up in the long range forecast for January 23rd. Image source: Tropical Tidbits.)

It’s worth noting that the five day forecast is rather uncertain and the longer range forecast at this time is highly uncertain. That said, the models do indicate a particularly strong tendency for Jet Stream ridging and associated anomalous warming for this region.

Today’s warming occurred in association with strong frontal storm system anchored by a 976 mb low. This coming Monday’s warming is expected to come in conjunction with a much less stormy warm front. The long range model for January 23rd shows an odd event where another strong frontal storm pulls a curtain of rainfall over much of southern Hudson Bay (which typically receives only frozen precipitation at this time of year).

(Light to moderate rain could fall over a large portion of Hudson Bay during late January as a very extensive frontal system is predicted to pull moisture and warmth from the Gulf of Mexico. An odd winter climate/weather event to say the least. Image source: Tropical Tidbits.)

Over the past two years, large ridges have tended to drive warm air into the Arctic over the Bering Sea, through Alaska and Northwest Canada, and up through the North Atlantic and the Barents. But during early 2017, ridging appears to be setting up for Central and Northern North America — which is providing the warmer middle latitude air mass with an invasion route toward Hudson Bay. And such periods of anomalous warmth will tend to have a weakening effect on sea ice cover in this vulnerable near-Arctic region.

Links:

Earth Nullschool

Tropical Tidbits

Arctic Melt ‘Already Affecting Weather Patterns Where You Live Right Now’

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FBI Political Octopus

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US Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick assigned to foreign affairs, homeland ...
The Intelligencer-
Fitzpatrick worked for nearly 15 years as a special agent with the FBI and assisted with interrogations overseas during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He retired at the ...

FBI: Hollywooding us softly with their screenplays

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First CHiPs Movie Footage Has Insane Action and Big Laughs
MovieWeb-
Ponch is actually an FBI agent who goes undercover as a CHP officer to find a group of crooked cops. Baker doesn't have a traditional backstory either, a retired

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Study: Racial disparities found in police traffic stops
Wisconsin Gazette-
A study of statewide police traffic stops in Vermont, the second-whitest state in the country, has ... and black drivers were twice as likely as white drivers to be arrested after stops, the study said. ... One of the reasons some police officers use to explain the higher rate of searches of ... Only Maine, at 94.9 percent

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Donora police officer accused of stealing heroin confiscated during search
Updated: Jan 11, 2017 - 7:31 PM

WASHINGTON, Pa. - Charges have been filed against a part-time Donora police officer accused of stealing evidence, the Washington County district attorney’s office announced Wednesday

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NEW: Did FBI do all it could to stop airport gunman? Ex-agent says no
Share 3
John Pacenti Jorge Milian Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
2:39 p.m Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017 Local News

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The top doc, the FBI, the Geek Squad informant – and the child porn ...
The Register-
On Wednesday this week, after years of legal wrangling over the case, FBI agent Tracey Riley told district court judge Cormac Carney that the image found by ...

http://bangordailynews.com/2017/01/04/n ... seling-aa/?" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Jan. 04, 2017, at 2:47 p.m.
WEST BATH, Maine — A charge of aggravated operating under the influence filed against the correctional administrator for Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset will be dismissed, and he will plead to a lesser charge if he abides by conditions set by a judge on Tuesday.

Mark Westrum, 56, of Bath must provide proof by May 1 that he has completed counseling and must continue regular attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to the satisfaction of the district attorney’s office, according to a deferred disposition signed by Westrum, his attorney, former Lincoln County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wright, and Androscoggin County Assistant District Attorney Nathan Walsh.

If Westrum abides by the special conditions, as well as standard conditions that include refraining from further criminal conduct, no use or possession of drugs or alcohol, not being present in any business that serves alcohol and submitting to a search of his home or vehicle upon request of law enforcement, a complaint of aggravated operating under the influence with a blood-alcohol level of greater than 0.15 percent will be dismissed, and Westrum will plead guilty to the lesser charge of operating under the influence, according to court documents.

In that case, he will be sentenced to the mandatory minimum $500 fine and 150-day loss of license.

Westrum has been administrator of the jail, which serves Sagadahoc and Lincoln counties, for more than eight years, and he served as sheriff in Sagadahoc County from 1993 to 2008.

Westrum was arrested the night of Oct. 8, 2016, on Front Street after Bath police Officer Mike Lever spotted his vehicle operating without lights, according to police records.

Police declined to provide specifics of the arrest and did not take a mugshot

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Brunswick police officer sentenced for sending obscene material to girl
Garrett Brosnan was sentenced to a year and a day in prison after an Arizona girl's parents filed a complaint.

Garrett Brosnan, a Brunswick police officer who pleaded guilty to sending obscene material to a minor girl was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Brosnan, 25, was arrested in June after an investigation that began in October 2015, when the parents of a 13-year-old girl in Arizona complained that someone had engaged in online conversations that were sexual in nature with their daughter. According to the allegations, a Department of Homeland Security agent, posing as a 14-year-old girl, then began having conversations via computers with Brosnan, who, they said, sent pictures of his genitals in June.

Prosecutors had sought at least 15 months for Brosnan and submitted a sentencing memo that included screen shots of the conversations between Brosnan and the person he thought was a 14-year-old girl, in which he pushes repeatedly to see pictures of the girl topless or nude, accusing her of being a “tease” when she hesitates. Brosnan also allegedly sent short videos in which he winks and blows kisses.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Wolff said the exchanges clearly show that Brosnan thought the girl was 14 in their online conversations. At one point, the agent referred to the “girl” having an upcoming 8th-grade graduation ceremony. He also said that Brosnan pressured the girl for nude pictures, saying he loved her or would cut off the conversations if she didn’t send the pictures.

Brosnan’s attorney, Michael A. Cunniff, told District Judge Jon Levy that his client had taken responsibility for what he he had done by pleading guilty in June, getting counseling and resigning his position as a police officer.

In a brief statement to the court, Brosnan apologized for his conduct and said he was grateful to have gotten caught because it gave him an opportunity to turn his life around.

“The guilt will be with me until the day I die,” he said.

Cuniff also told the judge that Brosnan would be “vulnerable” in jail as a former police officer and he asked for a sentence of probation or a short jail term followed by home confinement.

Levy said he was unpersuaded by that argument, saying that Brosnan’s law enforcement background actually made his behavior “more inexcusable,” although Brosnan apparently did not mention to the undercover agent that he was a police officer or use that in trying to convince the “girl” he was conversing with to send nude photos.

Levy said federal sentencing guidelines, which take into account things like a prior criminal record, whether someone has taken responsibility for a crime and if there was a guilty plea instead of a trial, called for a term of 12 to 18 months in prison. But he said he lowered the severity level because it included the fact that the crime was committed using a computer. Levy said that the prevalence of computers in society, along with their frequent use for personal commmunications, made that provision calling for a longer sentence out-of-date.

But Levy said he wanted to send a message that the crime Brosnan committed was serious and would be taken seriously by the court, although he said that was mitigated somewhat because he thought that Brosnan had a good chance for rehabilitation. He a

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PINAC NEWSJANUARY 10, 2017

South Florida Cop Stripped of Badge and Gun Six Months After Kidnapping Woman for Sex

Miami Gardens Police Sergeant Javier Romaguera was transporting a mentally ill woman to a home she had lived in last July when he checked her into a hotel and tried to have sex with her.

Miami Gardens Police Sergeant Javier Romaguera was transporting a mentally ill woman to a home she had lived in last July when he checked her into a hotel and tried to have sex with her.

Romaguera fondled her breasts and tried to kiss her, but the 23-year-old woman declined his advances, so he left the room.

However, he filed a report saying he had dropped her off at a home where she had previously lived, which turned out to be a lie

Meanwhile, a friend of the woman, Jensen Mondesir, who had been trying to track her down, even notifying the Miami Gardens Police Department who told him they dropped her off at her prior residence, eventually received a call from her.

After the woman told Mondesir what had happened, he filed an internal affairs complaint against Romaguera.

They hired an attorney, who obtained a receipt from the Stadium Hotel, which confirmed that Romaguera booked a room that night under his name, listing the address of the police department as his address.

However, it was not until Local 10 investigative reporter Bob Norman began asking questions that the department suspended him. And even that took four months.

The incident began on July 11, 2016 when Romaguera was responding to a call of a woman running in traffic.

“I’m giving a transport to a black female,” Romaguera can be heard saying to dispatch according to a recording obtained by Local 10.

Mondesir filed his internal affairs complaint on July 15, 2016, but nothing happened until Norman began investigating the complaint in October, which resulted in the cop being placed on desk duty the following month.

According to Norman’s article dated November 12, 2016:

“She explained that the officer told her that she was beautiful, that he liked her, and that he was getting them a room at ‘his’ hotel,” Mondesir wrote in the complaint, filed July 15. “She told me that he came [onto] her, wanting to kiss her, and said she would not leave the room until they finished.”

Mondesir also wrote that she “blanks out from there.” Her attorney, Lopez, has taken a sworn statement from the alleged victim and sent a letter notifying the police department of his intent to file a lawsuit. Lopez believes Romaguera violated her Constitutional rights and much more.

“He committed armed kidnapping and he committed attempted sexual assault,” Lopez said. Romaguera “was armed. She didn’t run. She didn’t call police, because he was the police.”

Lopez said the case was made more egregious, because of the extreme vulnerability of his client.

“She comes into this country, she’s suffering from mental illness, this person is destitute, this person is alone,” Lopez said. “And Javier Romaguera knew that and that is why he preyed on her.”

Lopez said he expects Romaguera to try to use his client’s mental health issues against her.

“He’s hoping that he can just point the finger and say, ‘She’s crazy, she’s making it up,'” said Lopez, adding that the evidence overwhelms any such argument. “The evidence will support that he had no rhyme or reason to take any of the actions he took that night.”

But after two months of desk duty, Romaguera was stripped of his badge and gun, according to an article published by Norman on Monday, January 9, 2017.

He has also been barred from entering the Miami Gardens Police Department as the “investigation” continues, which sources told Local 10 is being conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Speaking of which, another Miami Gardens cop was fired in May 2016 after it was discovered he used his badge to coerce a woman to have sex with him.

But as of today, Deandre Morris has not been charged, even though the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has been investigating him for alleged sexual battery since March of last year.

Romaguera is one of a multitude of Miami Gardens police officers named in a lawsuit filed by Earl Sampson, who made national news in 2013 when it was discovered he had been arrested 56 times for trespassing in the convenience store in which he worked.

In 2015, Miami Gardens Police Chief Stephen Edward Johnson – who had been hired the previous year to repair the department’s negative image from the Sampson story – was arrested and fired for attempting to hire a prostitute through backpage.com, a site that announced this week it was shutting down its adult section after pressure from the government.

Unlike Romaguera and Morris, the chief did not try to use his badge and gun to coerce sex from the women, nor was he in uniform or on the clock at the time.

He merely wanted to pay $100 to have sex with two women, who turned out to be undercover cops, as you can see in the video below.

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/an-intro ... /385318146" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
An introduction to FBI Knoxville's first female leader
WBIR.com-
Renae McDermott is the first woman to ever earn the title of Special Agent in Charge of the Knoxville FBI division. She took over the position late last year.

http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2015/ ... r-verdict/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

High-Ranking FBI Agent Convicted of Assault on Teen Nearly Faints in Court After Verdict
Proving to be unstable, combative and petty, an FBI agent interjected himself in a family custodial dispute on behalf of his girlfriend and her estranged husband, who was two hours late in dropping off their baby.

But FBI Agent Gerald Rogero’s intrusive attempts at heroism led to him assaulting and threatening to shoot the 15-year-old son of the estranged husband’s girlfriend.

He then threatened the teen’s mother with arrest when she tried to intervene.

The incident took place in Chevy Chas

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JANUARY 11, 2017
North Carolina Cop Charged After Toddler Son Shoots Mom with his Gun

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JANUARY 11, 2017

Federal Marshals Seize Florida Deputy’s Personal Assets After Sheriff Refuses to Pay Settlement for Man Left Paralyzed in Wrongful Shooting

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Cop Admits Taking Bribes
BY KRISTINA DAVIS ON JAN 11, 2017
SOURCE: THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer pleaded guilty on Jan. 17 to accepting bribes of cash and sexual favors in exchange for waving through carloads of immigrants crossing illegally at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the busiest land border cr

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INVESTIGATIONS
Florida Deputy Accused of Stealing Identities
PAULA MCMAHON ON JAN 6, 2017
SOURCE: SUN SENTINEL

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Lawsuit: Border Patrol Destroyed Surveillance of Conditions at Detention Facilities

A overcrowded, cold detention facility in Tucson.

Border Patrol officials are accused in a lawsuit of destroying surveillance footage of poor conditions inside detention facilities in Arizona.

The National Immigration Law Center filed a motion Monday that alleged Border Patrol knowingly recorded over videos and handed over unwatchable footage, BuzzFeed reports.

“This is yet another example of an agency going out of its way to keep the horrible conditions in these facilities out of the public eye,” Karen Tumlin, managing attorney for NILC, told BuzzFeed News.

Border Patrol officials declined to comment

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Searching for Integrity in Trumplandia

It's about time America has a president who will stand up to those greed-headed corporate executives who keep hauling our middle-class jobs out of country. Bring those jobs back home, Donald Trump bellowed, or I'll slap you with a huuuge tariff when you try to sell your foreign-made products here.

Great stuff, Donnie. And to prove you mean business, I know just the CEO you should target first: Her name is Ivanka. Yes, your daughter!

Ivanka's multimillion-dollar line of clothing and accessories are sold through major national retailers, ranging from Macy's to Amazon, and she pitches her Ivanka Trump-branded dresses, handbags, boots, blouses, etc. to America's working women. Yet, practically all of her products are made on the cheap in factories anywhere but America, with most coming from the low-wage bastions of China, Indonesia and Vietnam. Imagine the message it would send to runaway corporations and the integrity it would establish for The Donald if he slapped his first tariffs on Ivanka's goods!

But neither Daddy Trump nor his daughter wants to discuss the embarrassing conflict between his political bluster and her ethic of runaway capitalism. Instead, she's tried to dodge the issue by saying it doesn't matter, since she'll "separate" herself from the business if she becomes a White House advisor.

Nice try, Ivanka, but the stench of hypocrisy will only grow nastier if you're at your father's side while he castigates and punishes other corporations that have absconded from America. The only way to salvage even an iota of moral virtue is to repatriate the manufacturing of your brand-name apparel. And bringing those middle-class jobs home to the good ol' US of A would also make a powerful political statement.

But no, showing that money trumps both political savvy and the morality of simply doing what's right, Ivanka says her corporate brand will stay offshore. As a spokeswoman put it: "We want to make responsible business decisions."

Really? How does that "Make America Great Again?"

But take heed, for I have good news, folks : our new president says he's planning a tax holiday for you!

Well... not directly for you. Trump's trillion-dollar whopper of a tax break will go to only a handful of multinational corporations, such as Apple, GE, Johnson & Johnson and Microsoft. However, Trump and Congress will push for cuts in your name, insisting that the trickle-down effect will be to create thousands of new jobs for America's hard-hit working stiffs.

Here's the deal: The giants of Big Pharma, Silicon Valley and other global industries have dodged paying the taxes they owe to our country by stashing about $2-trillion worth of their profits in offshore bank accounts. Now they want to bring this pile of loot back here to their homeland — yet they want to be rewarded for doing so by having the taxes they owe to us slashed. Enter The Donald, who has delighted those scofflaws by offering a better deal than even they'd proposed: an income tax rate of only 10 percent, versus the 30 percent you and I pay for America's upkeep. Trust me, exclaims The Donald. They'll expand their business here and generate jobs for you!

I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. We've been suckered with this tax holiday scam before. In 2004, George W. Bush pulled it on us — and instead of creating jobs, the corporate tax-dodgers eliminated thousands more of our jobs!

Why'd that happen? Because they put their "repatriated" profits not into expanding business, but by buying back their corporation's stock, which jacks up the payout to top executives and the richest shareholders, and by shrinking the number of businesses by buying up competitors and firing duplicate workforces.

The way to know whether or not Trump's tax holiday will benefit workers is to see if it requires that corporations actually create the thousands of good jobs promised before they ge

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » January 27th, 2017, 11:10 pm

Link du jour

http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.c ... tegorized/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://boydownthelane.com/2017/01/19/cultural-design/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Blink Tank

Banned film made in Mass Prison/Hospital

http://putlocker.plus/titicut-follies-1 ... hare9.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/13/us/an ... wanted=all" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An F.B.I. Inquiry Fed by Informer Emerges in Analysis of Documents

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's sweeping inquiry into a group opposed to United States policy in Central America was largely fueled by an undercover informer who has said he invented much of his information.

The informer, Frank Varelli, a former evangelist from El Salvador, told a Congressional subcommittee last year that the investigation of supposed terrorist links had simply been an excuse for the F.B.I. to intimidate opponents of American foreign policy.

Although his credibility was questioned at the time and the hearings were quickly

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2957336" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Emmett Till accuser admits she fabricated trial testimony
BY RICH SCHAPIRO
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Friday, January 27, 2017, 2:27 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2957828" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

KING: Woman who lied about Emmett Till should be prosecuted

SHAUN KING
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, January 27, 2017,

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc ... -1.2957759" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

City to pay out $8M after drunken off-duty cop shoots at two men

: Friday, January 27, 2017, 7:04 PM

Two men who claim that a boozed up, off-duty cop shot at them for no reason will receive more than $8 million in settlement money from the city, officials confirmed.

Hockey teammates Joseph Felice and Robert Borrelli were heading home from a game in Pelham in Westchester County in April 2014 when disgraced ex-NYPD Officer Brendan Cronin blasted 14 rounds at their car.

Felice — who was hit six times — nearly died.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bro ... -1.2956091" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Brooklyn gun broker secretly recorded corrupt NYPD cops

BY VICTORIA BEKIEMPIS GRAHAM RAYMAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, January 26, 2017, 9:46 AM

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-r ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » March 18th, 2017, 10:43 am

Blink Tank

The Rise of Trump

Chris Hedges

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Na_jAtxpmiI

Heat Is Online

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/03/17/ ... s-in-peru/

Signals of Climate Change Visible as Record Fires Give Way to Massive Floods in Peru
“We’ve rarely seen this kind of rapid and quick change in climatic conditions.” — Juber Ruiz, of Peru’s Civil Defense Institute

*****

During September through November, wildfires tore across parts of drought-stricken Peru.

Peru’s Amazon was then experiencing its worst dry period in 20 years. And, at the time, over 100,000 acres of rainforest and farmland was consumed by flash fires. Rainforest species, ill-adapted to fires, were caught unawares. And a tragic tale of charred remains of protected species littering a once-lush, but now smoldering, wood spread in the wake of the odd blazes.

(Last November, wildfires burned through the Amazon rainforest in Peru as a record drought left the region bone-dry. From Drought Now Spans the Globe. Image source: LANCE-MODIS.)

At the time, scientists noted that the after-effects of El Nino had combined with a warmer world to help spur the drought and the fires. And they warned Peru to prepare for more extreme weather in the future as Earth continued to heat up.

Fast forward to 2017 and we find that the moisture regime has taken a hard turn in Peru as the droughts and fires of 2016 gave way to torrential rains. Since January, more than 62 souls have been lost and about 12,000 homes destroyed as flash floods ripped through Peru. Over the past three days, the rains have been particularly intense — turning streets into roaring rivers and causing streams to over-top — devouring roads, bridges and buildings. As of yesterday, 176 districts within the country have declared a state of emergency due to flooding.

(Flooding in Peru leaves tens of thousands homeless. Video source: TRT News.)

The rains come as coastal waters off Peru have seen sky-rocketing temperatures. Sea surface readings over recent months have climbed from an average of 24 degrees Celsius to 29 degrees Celsius. These extremely warm waters are pumping a huge plume of moisture into the local atmosphere. And it’s this extraordinarily heavy moisture loading that is spurring the massive rainstorms now plaguing the state.

Scientists call this phenomena a coastal El Nino. And the last time Peru experienced one was in 1925. Though the coastal El Nino probably helped to spur the extreme rains now plaguing Peru, the peak sea surface temperatures of the very warm waters off Peru have also been increased by the larger human-forced warming of the world (primarily through fossil fuel burning). So many scientists are also now saying that the severe rainfall events now occurring in Peru were likely contributed to by climate change.

(Sea surface temperature anomaly map shows that ocean surfaces are more than 5 C above average off coastal Peru. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

New Peru movement leader Verónika Mendoza noted earlier this week:

“We know the ‘coastal El Niño’ comes from time to time. We know we are a country that is extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We should have prepared ourselves better.”

The climate extremes Peru has experienced — flipping from flash drought and wildfires to flash flood in just 5-6 months is exactly the kind wrenched weather we can expect more and more from climate change. For as the Earth warms, the amount of moisture evaporated from lands, oceans, lakes and rivers increases. As a result, the hydrological cycle gets kicked into higher gear. And what this means it that droughts and fires will tend to become more intense even as rains, when they do fall, will tend to be heavier.

Links:

Deadly Flooding in Peru Sparks Criticism over Climate Change Preparedness

Wildfires Tear Across Drought-Stricken Peru

With Temperatures Hitting 1.2 C Hotter than Pre-Industrial, Drought Now Spans the Globe

LANCE-MODIS

Earth Nullschool

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Phill ... ?mobi=true

Philly FBI sex-discrimination trial airs dirty laundry
Updated: MARCH 16, 2017 —

In a case that promises to air dirty laundry at the FBI’s Philadelphia office, a woman who once headed the office's computer unit charged Thursday that she was a victim of sexual discrimination when she was demoted and replaced with a male employee.

The civil trial before U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner focused on why computer specialist Megan Lampinski was moved out of her job as a supervisor of the information technology division in 2008.

Lampinski’s civil rights lawsuit charges that FBI officials repeatedly violated the bureau’s policies, first in removing her and then in an effort to cover up the initial policy violations

http://www.jfk.org/event/case-conspirac ... ril-wecht/

[http://www.jfk.org/wp-content/uploads/8 ... -Wecht.jpg]<http://www.jfk.org/event/case-conspirac ... ril-wecht/>

A Case for Conspiracy with Dr. Cyril Wecht - The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza<http://www.jfk.org/event/case-conspirac ... ril-wecht/>
www.jfk.org
Recognizing continued global interest in the Kennedy assassination, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza is pleased to explore a wide variety of personal perspectives and present ongoing research and scholarship in an open forum for conversation and engagement. On April 11, join us for an engaging program “A Case for Conspiracy” featuring …

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

L.A. County probation supervisor accused of ordering beating of teen inmate

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

Former L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca found guilty on obstruction of justice and other charges

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

Judge throws out murder conviction and orders man released after 32 years behind bars

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2995182

An Alabama cop has been cleared of wrongdoing for shooting a man brandishing a wallet — which he mistook for a gun — as video of the nighttime incident has been released.

A federal appeals court held up a lower court’s decision that Opelika, Ala., police officer Phillip Hancock acted reasonably when he shot Air Force veteran Michael Davidson in

http://www.latimes.com/visuals/framewor ... t02a-11li3

Work by women photographers in Santa Monica exhibit bound by dedication to social justice

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/c ... -1.2995900

Calif. cop seen brutally beating man in video being investigated

Sunday, March 12, 2017, 2:50 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc ... -1.2996704

An NYPD sergeant who raped and sexually abused a 13-year-old girl scored a soft sentence Monday of only three years in prison — one year for each attack.

Vladimir Krull, a 12-year veteran of the department assigned to the Midtown North precinct, first kissed the teen on the mouth in September 2013, prosecutors said.

The victim was the daughter of Krull’s then-girlfriend.

Following a four-week trial in January a Bronx jury found Krull, 39, guilty of having sex with the victim twice — in her home and in his car.

NYPD sergeant guilty of rape, sexual abuse of 13-year-old girl
He was also convicted of making the victim perform a sex act on him in his car in June 2014 after a father-daughter breakfast for her 8th grade

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... -1.2996708

A Texas state representative proposed a satirical anti-choice bill mimicking a 2011 law that ordered women to receive a sonogram while hearing “a detailed description of the fetus before getting an abortion," according to the Dallas News.

Hoping to shed light on the sensitive topic, Jessica Farrar (D-Houston) suggested men be required to pay fines for "unregulated masturbatory emissions.”

If the legislation passes, men would also be subject to a rectal examination in order to be prescribed Viagra or undergo vasectomy and colonoscopy procedures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arV7N2A3sEY

Alex Reveals FBI Agent Discovered at Center of Hutaree Militia Set Up ...
▶ 15:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arV7N2A3sEY
Uploaded by lavon dewitt
As Predicted, FBI Agent Discovered at Center of Alleged Hutaree Conspiracy Kurt Nimmo March 31, 2010 On ...

https://wonkette.com/614192/just-one-mo ... bi-guy-28k

Just One More Thing: Why Did Michael Flynn Pay This Ex-FBI Guy $28 ...
https://wonkette.com/.../just-one-more- ... s-ex-fbi-g...
Excuse me, I know I've taken up a lot of your time with all the details about Michael Flynn retroactively registering as a foreign agent because he was a lobbyist ...

http://smeltis.com/good-riddance-james- ... ing-trump/

GOOD RIDDANCE: James Comey Just Got The BOOT After ...
smeltis.com › News
- FBI director Commy has some explaining to do after a secret deal has come to light. The FBI made a secret agreement with alleged MI6 agent Christopher ...

Terror plots foiled by the FBI turn out to be planned, funded and ...
fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/terror-plots-foiled-fbi-turn-planned...fbi/184577
Check out the partial reprint below, which describes how FBI agents troll Facebook, looking for Islamic terror-sounding people, then they recruit them into
Terror plots foiled by the FBI turn out to be planned, funded and weaponized by the FBI itself
Posted on March 13, 2017 by US Marine Fighting Tyranny
Natural News – by Mike Adams
We’ve covered this story before, revealing how a seemingly rogue wing of the FBI appears to be involved in little more than foiling its own terror plots, then claiming credit for “stopping terrorists” in the USA.
As much as we appreciate the FBI efforts that are focused on halting actual criminal activity across the United States, the agency seems to have completely lost its marbles when it comes to pursuing domestic terrorism “plots.” See these related stories on Natural News for previous coverage:
From 2011: FBI ‘entrapment’ tactics questioned in web of phony terror plots and paid informants
From 2012: FBI nabs five mastermind geniuses after teaching them how to blow up a bridge in Cleveland

https://sofrep.com/
SOFREP: Special Forces News | Military Intelligence | Spec Ops
https://sofrep.com/
News Roundup: Should we care if the FBI is entrapping potential jihadis?

https://sofrep.com/

http://washingtonfeed.com/trey-gowdy-dr ... to-be.html
Trey Gowdy Drops James Comey Stunner That Has People Talking ...
washingtonfeed.com/trey-gowdy-drops-james-comey-stunner-that-has-people-talking...
- C., said FBI Director James Comey will not receive special treatment. ... He continued, “I have never heard a Federal law enforcement agent give, with that ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trey_Gowdy

Congressman Trey Gowdy workwd for the DOJ the parent Corporatiob of the FBI

FBI Octopus

http://presentationmaster.digitalmedian ... ed-4859203

Advantest VOICE 2017 U.S. and China Keynote Speakers Announced
presentationmaster.digitalmedianet.com/.../Advantest-VOICE-2017-US-and-China-Ke...
5 hours ago - Lineup Includes Dynamic Keynotes from Advantests Hans-Juergen Wagner, Former FBI Agent and Cyber Security Maven Chris Tarbell, and Dr. Peter Chen of ...

http://www.abc6.com/story/34756381/ted- ... g-director

Ted Theisen Joins Ankura Consulting as Senior Managing Director ...
www.abc6.com/story/.../ted-theisen-join ... ng-directo...
5 hours ago - Prior to his private sector work, he served as a special agent for the FBI where he investigated cyber-related matters, including computer intrusions, cyber ...

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/ ... /99006208/

Editorial: ATF tobacco investigation scheme needs scrutiny
The Register's Editorial 4:32 p.m. CT March 12, 2017

It’s getting harder and harder to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
First there was the scandal involving federal agents who helped route guns to Mexican drug cartels. Then it was revealed that law enforcement officials nationwide have routinely abused forfeiture laws to seize the property of law-abiding citizens.
Now there are signs that agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives used highly questionable — arguably illegal – cigarette sales in order to fund a secret bank account used to pay informants.
And we’re not talking about a handful of rogue agents raising a few thousand dollars. The evidence points to tens of millions of dollars being raised by law enforcement officials through the same schemes used by the criminals they were supposed to be apprehending.
The operation, detailed in a recent report from the New York Times, wasn’t authorized by the Justice Department, the agency under which the ATF operates, and that appears to have been by design. It gave agents access to a bank account that, because it was off the books, wasn’t subject to the usual level of oversight.
The scheme itself was built on a complex series of transactions, some of which involved the sale and shipment of water and snacks disguised as cigarettes.
According to court records, one deal involved a pair of ATF informants, both of whom were supposedly working for the tobacco farmers’ cooperative, secretly buying cigarettes at $15 a carton and then selling them to the cooperative at the inflated price of $17.50 per carton, generating $519,000 in profit. That money was routed to the secret ATF bank account which was used to pay for tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of iPads, flat-screen televisions and other gifts doled out to potential targets of ATF investigations.
One of the most alarming aspects of this scheme is that it wasn’t disclosed by whistleblowers at the ATF or by the Justice Department’s internal watchdogs. It surfaced only because a collective of tobacco farmers became suspicious and filed a lawsuit alleging they had been cheated out of at least $24 million.
In fact, when the tobacco farmers first realized what was up, they didn’t just file a lawsuit, they reported their findings to the Justice Department, which chose not to file any charges.

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » April 3rd, 2017, 7:39 pm

http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2017 ... -fake.html

Friday, March 31, 2017
US government spent over $500m on fake Al-Qaeda propaganda videos that tracked location of viewers/The Independent
The US government spent half a $Billion (yes, with a B) on a UK public relations firm to make fake videos that were supposedly made by al Qaeda (and, I read elsewhere, ISIS.)
A former contractor for a UK-based public relations firm says that the Pentagon paid more than half a billion dollars for the production and dissemination of fake Al-Qaeda videos that portrayed the insurgent group in a negative light...
And from Zero Hedge we get some more detail:
According to a Bell Pottinger insider, propaganda films were categorized into three categories with “White" being accurately attributed, “Grey" being unattributed, and "Black" being falsely attributed material. The media firm created various types ofcontent ranging from TV commercials to news items and "fake Al Qaeda propaganda films..."
Bell Pottinger’s output was signed off by the commander of coalition forces in Iraq. Wells recalled: “We’d get the two colonels in to look at the things we’d done that day, they’d be fine with it, it would then go to General Petraeus.”

Some of the projects went even higher up the chain of command. “If [Petraeus] couldn’t sign off on it, it would go on up the line to the White House, and it was signed off up there, and the answer would come back down the line.”
Seems that reality is even more interesting than any fiction that Hollywood can conjure up.

Posted by Meryl Nass, M.D. at 3:26 PM 0 comments

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » May 5th, 2017, 1:44 pm

http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires/ne ... -1.3139712

Senator says FBI paid $900K for iPhone hacking tool

— Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees the FBI, said publicly this week that the government paid $900,000 to break into the locked iPhone of a gunman in the San Bernardino, California, shootings.
The FBI considers the figure to be classified information. It also has protected the identity of the vendor it paid to do the work. Both pieces of information are the subject of a federal lawsuit by The Associated Press and other news organizations that have sued to force the FBI to reveal them.
An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment Friday.
Feinstein cited the amount while questioning FBI Director James Comey at a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing Wednesday.
"I was so struck when San Bernardino happened and you made overtures to allow that device to be opened, and then the FBI had to spend $900,000 t

http://fortune.com/2017/05/04/fbi-comey-wikileaks/

Here’s What’s Disturbing About the FBI Director’s Comments on WikiLeaks

May 04, 2017

react-text: 226 As the Justice Department considers espionage charges against WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange for leaking classified documents, the director of the FBI has made it clear in a Senate hearing that he doesn't believe that what the group does should qualify as "legitimate" journalism. /react-text
react-text: 228 A number of First Amendment activists and media experts have said that charging Assange for his role in distributing leaked documents /react-text react-text: 230 would threaten /react-text react-text: 231 journalism. The fact that WikiLeaks receives classified information from anonymous sources and publishes it is no different than what the /react-text New York Times react-text: 233 does, they argue. /react-text

react-text: 236 FBI director James Comey, however, said in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday /react-text react-text: 238 that he believes /react-text react-text: 239 there are critical differences in what WikiLeaks does and what "legitimate" journalists do in the pursuit of such information. /react-text
Follow

Nicole Perlroth
✔
‪@nicoleperlroth
Comey: "‪@WikiLeaks is an important part of our investigation...There's nothing that even smells "journalist" about this kind of conduct."
11:43 AM - 3 May 2017
4 4 Retweets 4 4 likes
react-text: 244 And what are those differences? For one thing, Comey said that American journalists who receive or obtain classified intelligence usually call the government before publishing it, in order to ensure that people named in the documents aren't put in danger. "This activity I'm talking about with WikiLeaks involves no such considerations whatsoever," he said. /react-text
react-text: 246 Julian Assange, however, responded to this charge on Twitter, /react-text react-text: 248 saying the FBI director /react-text react-text: 249 was not telling the truth. "James Comey just mislead the Senate while under oath when he said Wikileaks ‘doesn't call us’," Assange wrote. "We did over #Vault7 and I know he knows it."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3137561

Here are preexisting conditions you could be charged more for under Trumpcare
BY CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Thursday, May 4, 2017, 5:11 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc ... -1.3136901

NYPD cop gets a year and three months in prison for running multimillion-dollar prostitution ring

Thursday, May 4, 2017, 12:49 PM

It was a happy ending of sorts for an ex-NYPD officer busted by the feds for running an upscale escort service.

Michael Rizzi got a year and three-month sentence in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday — but prosecutors had been pushing for a harsher sentence of of up to four years.

Rizzi told Judge Carol Bagley Amon that his business, Manhattan Stakes and Entertainment, was "the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life."

The Staten Island resident had pleaded guilty in October 2016 to money laundering conspiracy for an operation that raked in more than $2 million in credit card transactions alone between October 2012 and May 2016.

In court papers, Rizzi said he started out in 2012 trying to launch a less-than-steamy, totally legitimate business that offered mere companionship to customers. But business was good, said the filing, and Rizzi "turned a blind eye" to what was going on.

On Thursday, Rizzi admitted his wrongs.

“I want to put what I did in the past,” he said.

Rizzi, who also owns a Staten Island porn shop, said he wanted to put his business skills to good use. He's going from the oldest profession to something a little more cutting edge: Rizzi told the judge he's been working on a mobile food delivery app with his son.

http://whowhatwhy.org/2017/05/04/horsem ... tillerson/

Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Part 1: Rex Tillerson
First part of an excerpt from Horsemen of the Apocalypse: The Men Who are Destroying Life on Earth and What It Means for Our Children (with an Introduction by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.).

http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2017 ... es-by.html

Thursday, May 4, 2017
US Medicine is a Racket: 10 Examples by Elisabeth Rosenthal, MD

Former NY Times journalist and non-practicing physician Elisabeth Rosenthal's new book, An American Sickness, lists 10 economic "rules" of US medicine that are guaranteed to make money, but not to improve outcomes:
More treatment is always better. Default to the most expensive option.
A lifetime of treatment is better than a cure.
Amenities and marketing matter more than good care.
As technologies age, prices can rise rather than fall.
There is no free choice. Patients are stuck. And they're stuck buying American.
More competitors vying for business doesn't mean better prices; it can drive prices up, not down.
Economies of scale don't translate to lower prices. With their market power, big providers can simply demand more.
There is no such thing as a fixed price for a procedure or test. And the uninsured pay the highest prices of all.
There are no standards for billing. There's money to be made in billing for anything and everything.
Prices will rise to whatever the market will bear.
Here is a review of her book. I am thrilled this book is getting the attention it deserves: for without understanding what our health care system has become, there is no way to make the changes needed for it to work for the People, and their medical providers.

Posted by Meryl Nass, M.D. at 11:53 PM 0 comments

https://rightsanddissent.org

Activists Rally As Prosecutors Bring More Felony Charges Against J20 Protesters 
May 3, 2017 – ““They came here on inauguration day expecting to be able to express their free speech right, and instead, they were kettled, their civil rights were violated, and now, they are facing years, some even decades, in prison.”
This is Not a Drill Oakland! 
May 3, 2017 – Oakland is on the verge of passing a strong regulatory framework that will make sure that no unconstitutional or unwarranted surveillance is taking place in Oakland. We need your help to make sure it becomes law.
These Bills Go Exactly the Wrong Way on Criminal Justice Reform 
May 1, 2017 – Tell your Representative to oppose three bills that will increase police militarization, invade privacy, and expand the federal death penalty.

https://www.librarything.com/work/457637

The Nature of the Psyche (A Seth Book): Its Human Expression
By Jane Roberts

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3139797

Protester in iconic Ferguson photo found dead from self-inflicted gunshot wound

Link du jour

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3139967

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/l ... -1.3139871

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... hoto-death

http://whosarat.websitetoolbox.com/post ... es-6183732

http://www.vachss.com/downloads.html

http://www.space4peace.org/contact.htm

https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.or ... uce-gagnon

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 091740.htm

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3139454

State Department under fire for promoting Ivanka Trump’s new book

http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/ ... 50435.html

Miami-Dade cop sentenced for bogus stops of female drivers

A Miami-Dade police officer who stopped women drivers so he could have sexually suggestive conversations — including asking to see the scars on a bartender’s surgically enhanced breasts — was sentenced Thursday to 2-1/2 years in federal prison.

Prabhainjana Dwivedi would let the women go without issuing any citations.

Dwivedi, a seven-year veteran who once worked the overnight shift patrolling an area from Key Biscayne to Jackson Memorial Hospital, was assigned to desk duty after he came under suspicion for questionable traffic stops during May and June of 2011.

In February of this year, Dwivedi, 34, was convicted of six misdemeanor counts of depriving a half-dozen victims of their civil rights. Now fired, he was found not guilty on the seventh count involving a female undercover police officer.

“Our victims were so traumatized that one of them could not come to court [as a witness] because she was physically ill,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Gilbert said, before asking U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez to imprison the defendant for three years.

“He abused these women; he took advantage of them.”

Dwivedi’s defense attorney, Douglas Hartman, tried to depict the defendant in a more sympathetic light, saying psychological evaluations showed that the Indian immigrant possessed the reading level of a fourth-grader. Dwivedi, who received a high school diploma a decade ago, also served in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Hartman said his misconduct as a police officer was “aberrant,” and that generally over the course of his career Dwivedi had an “outstanding” record.

The judge said he felt “sorry” for Dwivedi, wondering aloud how he could have qualified to become a Miami-Dade police officer with his limited intellectual ability. “That’s real scary,” Martinez said.

But the judge concluded that he would stack the penalties for Dwivedi’s six misdemeanor offenses because his crime “tears at the very fiber... of our community.”

Both FBI and Miami-Dade Police officials said Dwivedi undermined the public’s trust in law enforcement. “The officer’s actions have tarnished the badges of all sworn to uphold the law,” Police Director J.D. Patterson said in a statement. “We support this conviction and remain resolute in policing our own.”

According to a criminal complaint and other court records, Dwivedi was a rogue patrol officer who detained female drivers for “unreasonable” lengths of time “without probable cause, reasonable suspicion or other lawful authority to conduct a stop.”

Dwivedi stopped a 19-year-old woman at 2:20 a.m. on May 27, 2011, as she was leaving a Miami-Dade nightclub with two friends. The woman, identified in court records as A.R., said the officer stopped her because she did not turn on her headlights. Dwivedi also claimed she was intoxicated, which she disputed.

Dwivedi asked the driver to get out of her car and sit in the back seat of his marked cruiser, then “instructed A.R. to lower the zipper on the front of her dress down past her breasts to her mid-stomach,” the complaint said. “A.R. stated that, by following Dwivedi’s instructions, she somewhat exposed her breasts.”

She was detained for one hour and 20 minutes before the officer left without issuing a citation. According to Miami-Dade police, Dwivedi did not list the traffic stop on his daily activity report, nor did he advise a dispatcher of the stop. He also did not conduct a driver’s license check of A.R. or her two passengers.

The criminal complaint also showed that on the same date, at 5:30 a.m., Dwivedi stopped a 24-year-old woman bartender traveling from Miami Beach to her home in Broward County. He pulled her over in the area of the Golden Glades interchange, where he accused her of driving under the influence.

The woman, identified as M.F., asked the officer to perform a roadside sobriety test on her, but he refused, the complaint says.

Dwivedi asked her if she was the mother of a young child because she had a child safety seat in the rear passenger area. He told the woman that if he arrested her for DUI, she would lose custody of her child.

Then, he shifted the conversation to the woman’s breast-enhancement surgery, asking her “if she had any photographs of her breasts.”

“M.F. provided Dwivedi with her cellular telephone so that he could view the photographs,” the complaint said. “After viewing the photos, Dwivedi asked M.F. if she had any scars or incisions from the surgery.”

She replied that she did, and he asked to see them.

“M.F. then lifted her shirt and showed Dwivedi the scar,” according to the complaint written by FBI special agent Susan Funk. “M.F. stated that Dwivedi did not touch her breast.”

Afterward, the officer told her that she appeared sober and could drive home. He also said that he would follow her to ensure she arrived safely.

At her residence, Dwivedi said he was thirsty, asking for a drink. The woman said the officer spent more than one hour at her home talking about his personal life.

As in the previous incident, Dwivedi did not list the stop on his daily activity report or inform a dispatcher of the stop. He did not conduct a check of her driver’s license, either.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/ ... rylink=cpy

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... retiremen/

May 3, 2017
J. Edgar Hoover’s gambit to force his enemies into retirement came close to ending his career
Nixon administration mulled on what to do about mounting pressure to oust the aging Director
Written by Michael Best
Edited by JPat Brown
When J. Edgar Hoover forced William “Bill” Sullivan, the Bureau’s domestic intelligence chief, into retirement he set into motion a chain reaction which nearly forced him into retirement as well. While Hoover was no stranger to attempts to push him into retirement, his handling of Bill Sullivan appears to have been a bridge too far for the Bureau.
Memos, found in CIA’s archive, were passed through the White House, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) and the offices of General Haig, Henry Kissinger and John Ehrlichman’s office detail concerns about Hoover’s dismissal of Sullivan was going to be handled in the press.

Sullivan’s dismissal by Hoover had hardly been cordial, or even what most would term as professional. Rather than be fired or asked to retire, Sullivan had come into the office seven days before the PFIAB memo was written to find that he was locked out of his office on Hoover’s orders. With the locks changed and his nameplate removed from his office door, Sullivan had no choice but to retire from the Bureau. At the time, Sullivan was the head of FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division and the third highest ranking person in the Bureau.
The move was controversial at the time, both within and without the Bureau - not only was Sullivan well respected (despite his participation in illegal activities including COINTELPRO and the FBI letter urging Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide), but his forced departure was seen as a political move. Sullivan had been increasingly critical of J. Edgar Hoover and some of the FBI’s policies and activities, and had “a reputation as the only liberal Democrat ever to break into the top ranks of the bureau.”
PFIAB saw the coverage of the matter as a partisan issue - “liberal democrats”, the PFIAB warned, might seek to “discredit Mr. Hoover and embarrass the administration.” If so, this would “provoke a reaction” from Hoover’s right wing friends within both political parties. Despite concern that the effort was a result of the pressure from the New York Times editorial board, the outrage went well beyond that and brought “a variety of sources” to the Times, with the result being that they were very well informed. So despite PFIAB’s attempts to frame it as one, it wasn’t a partisan issue or a case of the media trying to undermine the Bureau - merely to report on it accurately.

The net result was a “hot potato” which the President needed to be made aware of. The political ramifications of the problem were such that no action was recommended or taken at the time, though the matter remain of considerable concern to the PFIAB and the National Security Council.

A month later, the matter was still on their mind and the concerns were shared throughout the White House.

Attempts to force Hoover into retirement ultimately proved fruitless, and his death a few months later rendered the issue moot. Had Hoover survived, it’s almost certain that he would’ve been forced into retirement soon after by the scandals of his time as FBI Director, his handling of Sullivan and the imminent Watergate scandal which would begin making headlines six weeks after Hoover’s death. A copy of the memo is embedded below.
DOCUMENT
PAGES
TEXT

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3025269

Proposed Texas bill to fine unregulated masturbation moves ahead
BY TERENCE CULLEN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Thursday, April 6, 2017, 1:46 PM

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... rd-murrow/

Dissent and Disloyalty: The FBI’s obsessive inquiry into Edward R. Murrow
by Grace Raih
May 03, 2017
In the white heat of the Red Scare, journalists were often at the center of the unceasing national probe over patriotism. Over 700 pages of files on Edward R. Murrow detail the FBI’s intricate special inquiry into the mythical American newsman.
Read More

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/p ... -1.3136589

Tony Alamo, former preacher convicted of sexually abusing young girls he considered his wives, dies in prison

Thursday, May 4, 2017, 11:02 AM

. - Tony Alamo, a one-time street preacher whose apocalyptic ministry grew into a multimillion-dollar network of businesses and property before he was convicted in Arkansas of sexually abusing young girls he considered his wives, has died in prison. He was 82.

Once known for designing elaborately decorated jackets for celebrities including Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, Alamo died on Tuesday at a federal prison hospital in Butner, North Carolina, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

The disgraced preacher was convicted in 2009 on charges that he took underage girls across state lines for sex, including a 9-year-old. The judge who sentenced him to the maximum 175 years in prison told him: "One day you will face a higher and a greater judge than me. May he have mercy on your soul."

"Consent is puberty," Alamo once said.
"Consent is puberty," Alamo once said. (DANNY JOHNSTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Alamo started preaching along the California streets in the 1960s, advocating a mixture of virulent anti-Catholicism and apocalyptic rhetoric. He claimed God authorized polygamy, professed that gays were the tools of Satan, and believed girls were fit for marriage even at a young age.

Jurors convict Ark. evangelist on 10 sex-abuse counts
"Consent is puberty," Alamo told The Associated Press in September 2008, during the same weekend state and federal agents raided the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries in the tiny southwest Arkansas town of Fouke to investigate possible child abuse and pornography.

Witnesses in the ensuing trial said Alamo made all key decisions in the compound: who got married, what children were taught in school, who received clothes, who was allowed to eat. They said he began taking multiple wives in the early 1990s, including a 15-year-old girl in 1994, followed by increasingly younger girls.

Alamo was convicted after five women testified they were "married" to him in secret ceremonies at his compound when they were minors — including one when she was only 8 years old — and later taken to places outside Arkansas for sex.

"There's no telling how many little girls' lives he destroyed," Fouke Mayor Terry Purvis told the AP on Wednesday. "I wouldn't want to be in his shoes right now."

FBI: Evangelist Tony Alamo arrested in child sex case
Former followers said Alamo grew increasingly unhinged after his wife, Susan, died from cancer in 1982. Devotees prayed for months for her resurrection, and her body was eventually placed in a crypt on the ministry's 300-acre compound in Dyer. Her body remained there until Alamo ordered his followers to flee in 1991, before federal marshals seized the property to settle a court judgment. Alamo returned his wife's remains to her family seven years later, after being threatened with jail.

Initially, Tony Alamo Christian Ministries attracted hippies and youngsters alienated from their parents when it started in the streets of Los Angeles in the 1960s. The self-proclaimed "Jesus Freaks" preached a wrathful version of Pentecostalism known for spirited worship and a belief in modern-day miracles.

In the 1970s and '80s, the ministry sold elaborately designed denim jackets to celebrities including Presley, Jackson and several country music stars. The iconic black leather jacket on Jackson's "Bad" album was an Alamo original later sold at auction to settle $7.9 million in federal tax claims.

At its height, Alamo's ministry claimed thousands of members nationwide and was perhaps most known for leaving fliers on car windshields with screeds against the Vatican, homosexuality and a perceived one-world government.

John Wesley Hall, a lawyer who had represented Alamo, said Wednesday that the ministry still produces the fliers.

"My staff still gets them in the mail," Hall said, noting that Alamo "denied that he ever did anything (wrong)."

In a 2008 interview with the AP, Alamo claimed to be unique among Christian preachers because he was born a Jew and had a "supernatural experience" through which he became a born-again Christian.

From his initial compound in northwest Arkansas, Alamo presided over several businesses — including gas stations, a hog farm, a grocery store and a restaurant — that funded his ministry. He was convicted of tax evasion and served four years in prison despite claiming he had no tax liability because he received no salary.

Alamo also was accused in 1991 of child abuse after an 11-year-old boy told police he was paddled 140 times by four men on orders from Alamo in 1988 at the church's compound in Saugus, California. Prosecutors eventually dropped the charges, saying too much time had passed. The same year he was charged with threatening to kidnap a federal judge in Arkansas. He was acquitted by a jury.

It was after he left prison in the 1990s that he started the compound in Fouke in southwestern Arkansas with about 100 followers.

Tony Alamo was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman on Sept. 20, 1934, to a Jewish family in Joplin, Missouri. He arrived in Los Angeles in the 1960s, claiming he was a music promoter with clients including the Beatles. He and his wife legally changed their names to Tony and Susan Alamo after they married in Las Vegas in 1966.

https://thecrimereport.org/2017/05/02/7 ... bout-ms13/

7 Things the Trump Administration Gets Wrong about MS13
| May 2, 2017

One of Latin America’s most violent gangs has become a centerpiece of the Trump administration’s campaign to go after the criminal activities it says are committed by undocumented migrants—but the facts it is relying upon are open to question.

Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions traveled to New York to warn members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13, that “we are coming after you” in the aftermath of a series of deaths in Long Island tied to the gang.

But the verbal offensive by both the attorney general and President Trump, which ratcheted up earlier last month, as well as their statements on the origins and evolution of the gang, are for the most part false or misleading.

On April 18, Trump tweeted that the “weak illegal immigration policies of the Obama administration” allowed the MS13 to develop in several US cities. The current president also said that his administration has been expelling gang members at rates never seen before.

In addition, speaking to Fox News, the President stated that the gangs are made up of “illegal immigrants that were here that caused tremendous crime. That have murdered people, raped people — horrible things have happened. They’re getting the hell out or they’re going to prison.”

On the same day that Trump made these comments, Sessions expressed similar thoughts in a separate TV interview and in a speech he gave to an elite group of federal officials, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF).

Like Trump, Attorney General Sessions also blamed so-called “sanctuary cities,” which forbid local police forces from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, for facilitating the MS13‘s expansion.

As he had promised during his presidential campaign, upon assuming office Trump began threatening to cut federal funds to these cities if they refused to cooperate with ICE. Only a few of the more than 100 sanctuary cities have given up their sanctuary status. Others that are home to large migrant communities, such as San Francisco; Hyattsville, Maryland; Houston; and Los Angeles have defied Trump.

In addition, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly spoke about the MS13 at a public event held by George Washington University, in Washington, DC.

“They are utterly without laws, conscience, or respect for human life. They take the form of drug cartels, or international gangs like MS13, who share their business dealings and violent practices. Their sophisticated networks move anything and everything across our borders, including human beings,” Kelly said.

Each of these comments comes with its flaws, and at the very least distorts the reality and obscurs the strategies that should be followed to tackle the MS13 threat. In an effort to shed more light on this complex issue, InSight Crime has listed seven aspects of these statements in which the Trump administration is plainly mistaken.

1. Barack Obama’s immigration policies allowed the MS13 to expand across the United States

Trump blames former President Obama, but he may have been more correct if he had pointed the finger at Ronald Reagan. The MS13 and Barrio 18 street gangs were established in the 1980s in Los Angeles. At the beginning, they were made up of young undocumented migrants that came to California escaping the civil war in El Salvador. They were tuned in to rock music and took part in small-scale drug dealing. Some of them had received military or guerrilla-style training.

As Salvadoran news outlet El Faro wrote about the origins of the MS13, very soon the gang began to articulate a violent ideology based by and large on opposition to rival gangs, most notably the Barrio 18.

The gangs migrated to the US East Coast towards the end of the 1990s, as part of the migration waves that saw Latino communities looking for jobs elsewhere in the country. By the beginning of the 2000s, the MS13 began to catch the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Even the fact sheet the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released on April 18 to support Sessions’s statements clearly says that the MS13 was born and began to expand before 2009. “The MS13 has been functioning since at least the 1980s,” the report states.

In 2004, under the George W. Bush administration, the FBI created a special unit targeting the MS13, after members of the gang committed some atrocious homicides.

In 2006, Brian Tuchon, then-head of the FBI’s special unit, told Salvadoran news outlet La Prensa Gráfica that the gang had settled in 42 US states, and had begun to participate in drug trafficking, chiefly as local distributors. Since that time, the FBI and the US State Department have maintained that gangs like the MS13 do not play an important role in the international drug trafficking chain.

The MS13‘s expansion is directly related to the evolution and migration of Central American communities into the United States, and also with the large-scale deportation campaigns that began towards the end of the Bill Clinton administration and intensified during George W. Bush’s two terms in office.

2. US law enforcement has done nothing against the MS13

“It is a serious problem and we never did anything about it, and now we’re doing something about it,” President Trump told Fox News during the April 18 interview.

This is false. In addition to several FBI operations, local police forces and attorneys from counties across the states of Maryland, Virginia, New York, New Jersey and California carried out several law enforcement actions against MS13 members during the previous decade.

To give a few examples, federal cases brought by attorneys under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) law in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Arlington, Virginia led to blows that decimated the MS13 cells on the US East Coast for a decade.

In 2007, Greenbelt’s federal court sentenced some 20 members of gangs based in Maryland, DC and Virginia to several years in prison as part of an organized crime case that included charges of homicide, drug possession, illegal use of weapons and rape, among others. Among the defendants was Saúl Hernández Turcios, alias “El Trece,” one of the MS13 leaders in El Salvador.

Again, the DOJ report on the MS13 appears to contradict the president’s words. The fact sheet states: “Through the combined efforts of federal, state, and local law enforcement, great progress was made diminishing or severely disrupted the gang within certain targeted areas of the US by 2009 and 2010.” That is, during the Obama administration.

3. More gang members are being deported from the United States than ever before

In his tweet, Trump said that “we are removing [gang members] fast.” Yet there is no data to support this claim. The ICE deportation figures available to the public do not show data from the first three months of 2017, when Trump has been in office. Up until the end of 2016, the percentage of gang members compared to the total deported population was minimal: 0.8 percent, that is, 2,057 individuals “with confirmed or suspected connections to gangs” out of a total of 240,255 deported people that year.

Ever since 2011, when the Obama administration announced that it would prioritize deportations for undocumented migrants with criminal records or ties to illegal groups, Washington has been juggling two distinct figures: the number of people accused or convicted of a crime, and the number of people whose only crime has been violating migration laws by illegally entering the United States. This, according to many pro-immigrant organizations, has only further criminalized migrant communities.

There is no data showing that deportations carried out during the Trump administration have targeted more gang members, and Central American police sources have told InSight Crime that this is not the case.

4. The MS13 is recruiting more in the United States in an attempt to revive defunct ‘clicas,’ and to commit more violent acts

Sessions told OCDETF that “Because of an open border and years of lax immigration enforcement, MS13 has been sending both recruiters and members to regenerate gangs that previously had been decimated, and smuggling members across the border as unaccompanied minors.”

This is, in part, correct. As InSight Crime recently reported, between 2014 and 2016 the FBI and local authorities detected an increase in homicides attributable to the MS13 in Virginia; Boston; and Long Island, New York.

Testimony from a RICO case opened in Boston in 2015 against various MS13 “clicas,” or cells, indicates that orders from the gang’s jailed leadership in El Salvador may have been behind some of these homicides. The court documents also mention a meeting between clica leaders in Richmond, Virginia, in which a spokesperson known as “Ricky” relayed the order to expand the MS13‘s East Coast program.

Federal investigations revealed that some of the Boston homicides could be linked to this order. It is also true that the recent homicides were brutally executed, which is characteristic of the MS13 in Central America.

But Sessions’ statement also distorts the truth. Once again, there is no information that allows the attorney general or Trump’s administration to affirm that these murders are attributable to the arrival of undocumented minors, who began coming to the United States in larger numbers in 2014. In fact, there is no study by federal agencies or academic institutions that proves that there is a significant number of gang members among these minors. On the contrary, a large portion of these undocumented youths who come seeking asylum claim that they are fleeing gangs in the Northern Triangle.

Moreover, there is no evidence that the migratory patterns of gang members are different than those of any other group of migrants, or that they are moving in accordance with a grand plan forged by the MS13‘s Salvadoran leadership to revitalize the organization.

It is nonetheless true that in 2007 the MS13 started to resume recruitment activities and indiscriminate use of violence in some US cities, according to FBI officials who have studied the gang for at least two decades. But these efforts are not directly related to Obama’s migration policies. David LeValley, who until last November was chief of the FBI’s criminal investigations unit in Washington, explains that there have been attempts by the MS13 to regain strength following the RICO prosecutions between 2006 and 2010. This has been occurring “since 2007, after real successes and after the leadership had been decimated,” the FBI agent told InSight Crime in an interview last year.

In more recent years, the MS13 has largely been following the organization’s dynamics in Central America. This includes the gang truce between the MS13, Barrio 18 and the Salvadoran government during the presidency of Mauricio Funes (2009-2014), and the subsequent declaration of war by current President Salvador Sánchez Cerén.

5. Sanctuary cities are more hospitable to the MS13, and the gang can operate freely in them

Sessions told OCDETF that sanctuary cities “dangerously undermine [the process of fighting gangs]. Harboring criminal aliens only helps violent gangs like MS13. Sanctuary cities are aiding these cartels to refill their ranks and putting innocent life — including the lives of countless law-abiding immigrants — in danger.”

This is false. There is no evidence that the “sanctuary” status of certain cities — those that refuse to allow local police to assist ICE in locating and deporting undocumented migrants — has any effect on their crime rates. Evidence indicates that, as in much of the United States, crime rates in sanctuary cities have been decreasing for years. In fact, some studies suggest that crime indicators are actually lower in migrant communities.

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... et-police/

Congress’ secret police
by Caitlin Russell
May 04, 2017
After the arrest and conviction of a woman for laughing during Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing, one might be curious to see the incident report filed by the police. Unfortunately, the arresting agency, the United States Capitol Police, is a “legislative branch entity,” and therefore not subject to FOIA.
Read More

http://ticklethewire.com/2017/05/04/ste ... stigation/

Late night comedian Stephen Colbert had harsh words for FBI Director James Comey following controversial testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Colbert played clips of Wednesday’s committee hearing in which Comey defended his decision to notify Congress that the Hillary Clinton investigation had reopened.

Colbert also ribbed Comey for saying he was “mildly nauseous” for potentially upending the election.

“Maybe it’s morning sickness — after all, you did screw the whole country,” Colbert said.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientolog ... in/2322624

Documents detail FBI investigation of Scientology that never resulted in charges
Thomas C. TobinThomas C. Tobin, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 3, 2017 5:26pm

Guccifer 2.0 - DCLeaks - APT 28

By Adam Carter --- April 17th, 2017

The DCLeaks - APT 28 Attribution

DCLeaks was a site established last year, at the beginning of June (with the domain initially registered on April 19th). Initially, it began publishing leaks covering emails from members of the US government and military.

APT28 (also known as: Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, Sofacy, Sednit and STRONTIUM) is a name given to an "Active Persistent Threat" group discovered in October of 2014 and thought to have been operational for anything up to a decade prior to this. - The "APT28" designation is effectively a collective term for the group and all of the Internet infrastructure they make use of. APT28 is considered by various cyber-security firms to be linked to the Russian military intelligence agency GRU.

In the first quarter of 2016, a breach at the DNC was reported by CrowdStrike (a cyber-security firm hired by the DNC). In that report, CrowdStrike essentially blamed APT28 for the hack.

In August of 2016, ThreatConnect reported that, following their own investigations, It appeared that the DCLeaks.com domain was initially handled by a nameserver that only had 14 other domain names resolving to it and was a nameserver for a domain suspected as being a part of APT28 (service-yandex.ru), as well as phishing/scam domains set up by others not deemed part of APT28).

Other examples cited included things like DCLeaks using a free webmail service to initially register their domain (via the "@europe.com" domain, operated by 1&1) and it is noted that "@europe.com" was the same free webmail provider that was used by whoever registered a dodgy 'misdepartment' domain (which was attributed to a phishing attack considered to originate from APT28).

So it seemed there was at least some overlap on service providers and name servers historically (if the assumptions/suspicions of various domains being part of APT28 are correct).

Certainly the overlaps are noteworthy, it does seem to hint that there could easily be an association between them, but... even if domains suspected of being a part of APT28 have used the same service providers or name servers that DCLeaks started using at a later date - it's not proof of a direct link between them and relies to a degree on guilt-by-assocation.

However, whether you are or aren't convinced by the DCLeaks-APT28 attributions, there is another association in the chain that needs scrutiny.

http://g-2.space/dcl/

The DCLeaks 'Leadership' - Guccifer 2.0 Attribution

On 27 June, 12 days after its initial appearance, Guccifer2.0 shared a password with the press that gave access to an area on DCLeaks listing leaks (mundane emails from Sarah Hamilton, apparently from a phishing attack she fell victim to).

As The Smoking Gun (TSG) concedes in their reporting, it's clear the password given them by Guccifer 2.0 gave limited access to the site. However, when TSG later inquired about leaks in a different (and 'protected' section of the site). DCLeaks, independently, seemed quite happy to release a password to TSG on the condition they'd write a story about the leaks.

Examples of links to the leadership given by ThreatConnect follow:

Guccifer 2.0 has not publicly mentioned or promoted DCLeaks. Only in private communications with TSG does Guccifer 2.0 reveal prior knowledge of DCLeaks.
If you're communicating apparent controversy with a well known publisher AND know that you're going to be revealed as a "Russian hacker" due to fabricated evidence you've planted there is no reason to expect it to remain a "private communication" for long. Instead, it becomes an attribution that would be expected to become public knowledge sooner or later.

Guccifer 2.0 is the first known entity to have prior knowledge of and privileged access to exclusive content (Sarah Hamilton Emails) on the DCLeaks webpage before it was publicly available.

If Guccifer 2.0 was also the uploader of the content - that would make perfect sense and if Guccifer 2.0 is a covert effort to poison-the-well of whistle blowers and leak sites (an extension of its apparent purpose to discredit Wikileaks as its actions on June 15th reveal it to be) - it would explain how the emails could have been sourced (internally) for the sake of forging a perceived attribution with DCLeaks.

Guccifer 2.0 claimed that DCLeaks is a Wikileaks subproject where there is no public evidence of any formal or informal relationships between DCLeaks and Wikileaks.

This of course adds credence to what I suggest above: that this was an extension of the effort to discredit Wikileaks and create false attribution in an effort to discredit leakers and whistle-blowers, tainting everything with an association to its faux-"Russian hacker" persona.

So... we've got a password for a section of the site that Guccifer 2.0 could have been provided and could have been the source of the content for.

While this certainly shows he communicated with DCLeaks before his email on 27th of June and had a password to access a portion of the site - what was there that specifically could link him to the administration or leadership of the DCLeaks site to a greater degree than a leak contributor?

To really see how tenuous the link between Guccifer2 and DCLeaks is we have to take a detour through a separate hacking incident in Florida and this is where things start to get strange...

BadWolf/Badvolf, DCLeaks & Guccifer 2.0

If you haven't heard of BadWolf/BadVolf you won't know that BadWolf was someone linked to a site critical of Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office under Ric Bradshaw on the domain "PBSOTalk.com" (a site originally founded by Mark Dougan, Ric Bradshaw's former deputy).

Following a raid on Mark Dougan and covering BadWolf's involvement, Gawker, reported the following in March 2016:

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msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » May 30th, 2017, 3:23 pm

http://pppfocus.com/2017/05/28/fbi-decl ... -commitee/

FBI Declines to Provide Docs to House Commitee

Internal FBI memos, particularly those authored by Comey, became the subject of intense interest by congressional investigators last week amid reports that ...

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/ ... or-academy

FBI head Mueller to give commencement address at Tabor

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller III is slated to give the commencement address at a private school in Massachusetts, less than two weeks after his appointment as special counsel to oversee an investigation into possible connections between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

Mueller will speak Monday to the graduating class at Tabor Academy, a private college preparatory school in Marion with annual tuition of $43,000 for day students and $59,000 for boarding students.

School officials say Mueller will not have any press availability and will not take

see link for full story

http://www.madcowprod.com/2017/05/25/me ... more-14197

U.S. Catches Russian Hackers Napping on Vacation
Meet the Russian Hackers Behind Russia-Gate
Posted on May 25, 2017
A Russia-Gate bombshell per day. Watergate burglars Gordon Liddy & E. Howard Hunt were already famous by now. So why aren’t the Russian hackers?

Things change. Don’t they?

Russia-Gate is so much like Watergate that it feels like a half-remembered dream in an old Fellini movie.

nixon-trump2020President Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey drew immediate comparison to Richard Nixon’s famous Saturday Night Massacre for good reason.

They’re eerily similar. It is beyond uncanny. It’s Deja vu all over again.

FLASHBACK: The special prosecutor issues a subpoena for White House tapes. Nixon has him fired. Nixon says ‘I am not a crook.’ No one believes him.

In a televised Senate hearing, Senators press Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield on how he took such precise notes during Nixon’s meetings with John Dean.

Butterfield pauses.

A Nixon Aide Does the Right Thing

He stares straight ahead for three full beats. If he looks down, he knows he’ll see a chasm opening up.

When he speaks, his voice shakes. He reveals Nixon has a taping system in his office. Secret White House recordings, once they’re secret no more, will bring the President down.

CUT TO:

trump-nixonTrump says, “Lay off my buddy Flynn.”

A chair scrapes. Somebody coughs. Trump fires Comey. To get him to keep his mouth shut, Trump insinuates he has tapes of their meetings.

It was the most breathtakingly-stupid move by an American President since George W Bush invaded Iraq.

Trump is his own Butterfield. Trump is impeaching himself. Trump is a human Hindenburg Zeppelin. The world watches, mouths agape.

This is real shock and awe.

Just mechanics, like the Cuban Watergate burglars

It began with a break-in barely noticed, because news of Russian hackers penetrating computers at the Democratic National Committee followed hard on the heels of a violent national tragedy.

An American-born man pledging allegiance to ISIS has just gunned down 49 people at an Orlando nightclub. It is the nation’s worst terror attack since 9/11.

Any impact news of the DNC break-in might have had on the closely-contested U.S. Presidential election is blunted by the grisly details dribbling out of Central Florida.

Omar Mateen—an Islamic “fundamentalist” who hung out in gay chat rooms and gay niteclubs—was laughing as he fires under a bathroom stall where he knew people were hiding. “It was bloodcurdling,” says a survivor.

Poor Orldisney_lagoon2ando. How could things get any worse?

They could, and they do, just two nights later. A 7-foot-long alligator attacks a 2-year-old boy wading at the water’s edge of a lagoon at Disney World, and drags him underwater.

His remains resurface several days later.

Hunt & Liddy were the first Russian Hackers

liddy-hunt

If it had been anything but a slow news day, the Russian hackers would be famous already, like Gordon Liddy and E Howard Hunt. But right now they remain faceless.

As the scandal heats up, they will step out of the shadows and into the light. The Russian hackers aren’t faceless automatons, or emanations from the evil mind of Emperor Ming.

They have names, biographies, work history’s, girlfriends, wives, squads of bodyguards, armored limousines, mansions, and multi-million dollar car collections.

hackerAnd something else: Links to corrupt criminal networks in the U.S.

At least two of the Russians accused by the FBI of hacking during the U.S. election have longtime American partners who today remain nameless. Their identities will almost certainly lead to even higher-level players.

With the Watergate burglars the big question was whether they would dummy up or cut deals and spill the beans, telling who they’d been working for in the break-in.

The intrigue swirling around the Trump-Russia investigation is over much the same thing. Will the Russian hackers’ links to American criminal networks be revealed?

Nobody’s talking about this yet.

Pavel “Red-Eye” Vrublevsky: Russian Hackers Original ‘G’

pv1Four of the most important Russian hackers— Pavel Vrublevsky, Peter Levashov, Roman Seleznev, and Jevgenij Nikulin— have recently been in the news. But Pavel Vrublevsky is the most prominent.

All have a few things in common. Still in their 20’s and 30’s, they were all already pulling down NBA star LeBron James’ kind of money. They all drove “statement” cars. And all three were busted while they were on vacation.

But not Vrublevsky. He’s sitting tight in Moscow.

In the Russian hacker fraternity, Pavel Vrublevsky is the Original ‘G.’ Just a decade ago he was known as “Red Eye.”

Mafiya, Mob, Trump, & Putin: The New Combination?

house-of-horrorsBack then Pavel Vrublevsky was the first Russian hacker known to have worked inside the U.S. In 2003 Vrublevsky begins living and working in a house in John Gotti’s old neighborhood in Howard Beach, Queens.

The house was owned by a currently-incarcerated Mobster from Tampa named Mike Muzio.

fVrublevsky was running backend servers and credit card operations for thousands of sleazy Mafia porn site. Like Muzio’s VoyeurDorm.com.

Later, Muzio and Vrublevsky will both move upmarket.

Pablo Vrublevsky becomes the first Russian hacker accused by the FBI of election interference, in the hacking of election databases in Arizona and Illinois. And Muzio?

Mike Muzio and Andy Badolato

muzio-mikeMike Muzio’s next partner isn’t Russian, or a Mobster. Muzio partners with a longtime business partner of Donald Trump’s chief advisor, Steve Bannon, named Andy Badolato.

From his beach-house in Sarasota Florida—where Bannon took refuge when the press hounded him mercilessly during the campaign for being registered to vote at the address of a vacant house in Miami—Andy Badolato helped Mike Muzio run a highly-lucrative penny stock fraud.

muzio (2)For crimes committed while he was partners with Badolato, Muzio is currently doing a stretch in the pen, incarcerated for a hacker-assisted penny stock fraud in which he made millions of dollars. Along with Muzio, a handful of other company officials go down.

Babadolato3ut not Andy Badolato. Even though he was the company’s Senior Vice President for Finance. He has never charged with any crime in the fraud.

Was this because of Badolato’s other gig, as the business partner of infamous Trump advisor Steve Bannon?

Badolato’s seeming immunity in the scam is especially curious, because this was by no means Andy Badolato’s first rodeo.

“Working off a beef” in Moscow

p-rub21After Vrublevsky moved back to Moscow from Queens, he was convicted for hacking and sent to prison in Russia.

Then something happened. He was sprung out of jail through the good offices of what used to be known as the KGB.

Afterwards, he became known as a respected “Russian businessman” and “cyber-expert” working for the Kremlin. But he was was no longer a free agent.

El-Vor

In the colorful language criminal Russian “vors” in Siberia share with our own ‘made” guys from Jersey, Vrublevsky was “working off a beef,” often the only escape from doing serious time.

Two years ago he accused two Russian FSB agents—one of whom was hooded and then frog marched out of his office in front of curious onlookers—of working for the Americans. The charges so far appear to be sticking.

Roman Seleznev

sA number of Russian hackers have made headlines in the past month; none more interesting than 32-year old Roman Seleznev, one of the world’s most prolific traffickers in stolen credit cards.

His signature crime was stealing credit-card numbers from restaurant point-of-sale systems, then selling them on in underground internet forums.

Before his capture, Seleznev was living a typically-lavish Russian hacker lifestyle, roaring around on the streets of Moscow in his imported Dodge Chargers and Dodge Challengers, his favorite cars, even taking photos in Red Square.

For more than a decade Roman Seleznev was hunted by federal agents. Their problem: Russian hackers only get arrested when they go abroad these days. Despite being named in three separate federal hacking-related indictments, the U.S. couldn’t catch Seleznev.

The FBI concedes it may never catch another Russian hacker that isn’t willing to risk arrest to feel the sun on his skin in a clime less gloomy than Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Getting cabin fever in Moscow

malWhen he got tired of seeing snow, Seleznev took exotic vacations to destinations like Bali in Indonesia, where he owned two luxury apartments.

U.S. Agents met with Indonesian authorities, who declined—for fear of upsetting the Russians—to help capture Seleznev on their turf.

Then, in July 2014, he finally made a mistake.

maldivesWith a girlfriend he left Russia to vacation at a luxurious five-star resort in The Maldives Islands, a popular holiday destination for Europeans in the Indian Ocean.

He felt safe there; his research showed the Maldives had no extradition treaty with the U.S. And he was right., as far as it goes…

But despite the lack of a treaty, as soon as federal agents knew where he was, they sprung into action. An official at the State Department with a relationship with Maldivian police made some calls.

A Secret Service agent flew in from Thailand, another from Hawaii.

“The Russo-American Extradition Wars”

Just as he boarded his flight back to Russia, Maldivian police took Seleznev into custody.

FBI agents placed him under arrest and ushered him directly onto a chartered plane which took off on a 5000-mile-long flight to Guam, where he was immediately taken before a U.S. District judge.

Federal prosecutors accused Seleznev of hacking into businesses around the world, stealing the credit-card information of tens of millions of consumers and selling it for millions of dollars on the black market.

valery-sSeleznev is the son of a powerful Russian politician who is a close friend and ally of President Vladimir Putin.

His father angrily accused Washington of engaging in the kind of extraordinary rendition the CIA used to nab terrorism suspects in foreign countries and drop off at secret detention facilities. “For all I know, they may be demanding a ransom tomorrow,” Valery Seleznev told Russia Today television about his son’s detention.

What Dad didn’t mention: when he was arrested, Roman Seleznev had 1.7 million stolen credit card numbers on his laptop computer.

According to court documents, while in custody, cooling his heels in the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in SeaTac awaiting trial, Seleznev and his father plotted to tamper with witnesses.

They also discussed escape.

It’s always the little guy that gets hurt

His criminal pursuits were far from being victimless crimes.

A stereotypical Russian homophobe, he focused on stealing credit card info from gay restaurants and bars like The Broadway Grill, a shamelessly proud anchor for Seattle’s gay culture.

The Broadway Grille was an exotic place with “a glass chandelier that looked like Carmen Miranda’s headgear on steroids,” and a clientele that “looks like Miranda’s backup dancers on Social Security.”

grillVisionsOfLovelinessUsing hacked data from just this one restaurant, Seleznev ultimately stole the personal identification and credit card numbers of 32,000 people.

The crime devastated the owners of the restaurant, and the ancillary bad publicity destroyed their business. When the once popular bistro closed, the owners blamed the credit card fraud for its demise.

Hacking, drug trafficking, & financial fraud

Remember Pavel Vrublevsky’s first American partner, Mike Muzio? The Tampa Mobster who was also in business with Donald Trump’s advisor Steve Bannon’s longtime partner Andy Badolato?

Mike Muzio was a name I already knew… well before I’d ever heard of Pavel Vrublevsky, or could tell a Russian hacker from a hawk, or a handsaw. I knew about Muzio back in 2004.

“Testimony in an extortion trial in Tampa, Florida, the MadCowMorningNews learned exclusively, fingered Michael Muzio, President of Genesis subsidiary www.opendoormusic.com as the intended victim of a Mafia hit ordered by a business associate, Joseph Forlizzo of Queens.

“Genesis” is short for GenesisIntermedia, a California company owned by Saudi fixer Adnan Khashoggi, being used in 2004 to perpetrate massive financial fraud—the STOCKGATE scandal, which netted billions, and led to a large Minneapolis securities firm going bankrupt—and drug trafficking, using a pair of DC-9’s painted to be indistinguishable from planes from the Department of Homeland Security.

“Being connected means never having to say you’re sorry.”

That’s supposedly a no-no; not for these guys, an ecumenical drug trafficking organization pooling the skills of Israelis and Saudis, professional Canadian stock fraudsters, and Americans with a variety of former iU.S. intelligence agency backgrounds.

Muzio was engaged in COKELUGGAGE a continuing criminal conspiracy in St. Petersburg Florida—a story I’ve been covering for a decade— that was first exposed when an American-registered DC-9 was busted in Mexico’s Yucatan on April 10, 2006.

The plane was carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine.

Three business partners of Trump buddy Badolato and Russian hacker-hiring Muzio were involved in the drug move.

Maybe this Russia-Trump scandal is about more than “just” collusion in fixing an American election; but about the brazen incursion into the still-shaky American economy of the malevolent forces of transnational organized crime.

Drug trafficking, laundering dirty money, subverting elections. The usual.

Tomorrow: profiles of two more Russian hackers busted recently by U.S. agents while they were on vacation: Peter Levashov and

http://www.nationalmemo.com/timeline-tr ... sia-probe/

Timeline Traces Coverage Of Trump And Russia Probe
The National Memo (blog)-
The Washington Post: FBI monitored communications of Trump's campaign ... to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia.”.

https://rightsanddissent.org/

House Members Stand Up for Protester Rights and Condemn Violence Against US Protesters. There Has To Be A Catch

impressive large white mansion, home of turkish ambassador
May 25, 2017 – Members of Congress are incensed that the right to peaceful protest has been infringed upon in our Nation’s Capital. They are “Condemning the violence against peaceful protesters” insisting that the “the perpetrators to be brought to justice and measur… [Read More]

Berkeley Copwatch Demands Release of Racial Profiling Report

Berkeley Police
May 24, 2017 – Berkeley Police Chief Andy Greenwood has told the Police Review Commission that, although a report on racial profiling has finally been provided to him by the Center for Equity Policing (CPE) he doesn’t want to release it yet. While the chief would lik… [Read More]

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/05/28/ne ... hborhoods/

Love thy neighbor? Too often, we barely know them — but Nextdoor app tries to change the dynamic
Can Nextdoor platform restore neighborly discourse among Coloradans?

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/con ... -1.3196404

Ex-Wash. corrections boss who quit after 3,000 inmates were mistakenly released in talks to helm NYC jail system

BY REUVEN BLAU
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, May 25, 2017, 5:24 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires/ne ... -1.3196420

4 protesters arrested at Senate hearing on energy nominees

Thursday, May 25, 2017, 4:23 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/que ... -1.3198116

Off-duty NYPD cop, his girlfriend nabbed after selling drugs to undercover officers in Queens: police

BY ADAM SHRIER CATHERINA GIOINO THOMAS TRACY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Friday, May 26, 2017, 10:50 PM

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

After criticism, civilian oversight panel calls for improved transparency by the L.A. sheriff

Renewing a call for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to be more open about use of force, deputy discipline, complaints and other information, the agency’s civilian oversight commission adopted a formal resolution Thursday to push the department to post the data — which could include video of incidents — on the department’s website and report on its progress in 60 days.

The resolution came a month after the agency’s primary watchdog accused the department of dragging its feet in carrying out recommendations made more than two years ago intended to make the department more transparent. Inspector Gen. Max Huntsman told the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission last month that he felt he was “getting slow-walked” by department officials who’d failed to post data on how many deputies were being punished and how many people were logging complaints against deputies, among other types of information.

'How many people are being shot?' L.A. sheriff's watchdog decries lack of transparency
The resolution, approved by all nine members of the commission, signaled a swift reaction by the 5-month-old body, whose members are still figuring out how to operate, which issues to focus on and how often to meet. Another resolution adopted in March to support Sheriff Jim McDonnell’s effort to notify prosecutors about problem deputies passed 5 to 2, with two members absent.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cor ... -1.3195836

Three correction officers charged for sexually abusing female inmates; one made light of issue on Facebook

BY ANDREW KESHNER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Thursday, May 25, 2017, 9:11 PM

http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/0 ... t=20170512

Death By A Thousand Clicks: Leading Boston Doctors Decry Electronic Medical Records

May 12, 2017By Drs. John Levinson, Bruce H. Price and Vikas Saini

courtesy of Meryl Nass

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3196868

Texas beauty queen claims police chief called her ‘black b---h’ following road-rage incident

BY ELIZABETH ELIZALDE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, May 25, 2017, 9:15 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3201051

New York woman running for office says she should be able to use ‘n-word’ whenever she wants

BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, May 27, 2017, 3:51 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3201872

House Speaker Dennis Hastert faces another sex assault accuser ahead of prison release
BY NICOLE HENSLEY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Sunday, May 28, 2017, 1:41 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires/ne ... -1.3195970

3 federal prison guards charged with sex abuse of inmates
The Associated Press
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Thursday, May 25, 2017, 7:45 PM

http://stevehochstadt.blogspot.com/2017 ... lting.html

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Antarctica is Melting

The news is all Trump. His ill-considered words and constantly shifting explanations for impulsive actions dominate our public consciousness.

In the midst of all that Trump, it is hard to think clearly about the faraway future, beyond our lifetimes. When the future does intrude, it’s in the form of space ships and aliens, imaginary futures in faraway galaxies. But we need to think about the future here and now, because Antarctica is melting.

Actually, it’s more complicated than that. Great swaths of sea ice are breaking off from Antarctica, but that won’t cause the sea level to rise. That ice is already floating on the sea, so when it melts, the level doesn’t change. Try this yourself: fill a glass with water and ice, and watch what happens when the ice melts. The water does not overflow. Sea-level rise is caused when ice on land melts, adding to the volume of sea water. Right now, all over the world, glaciers are melting.

A group of American scientists flew over Antarctica last fall to get more accurate measurements of changes in the massive ice pack at the bottom of the world. If much of the sea ice melts, that could allow continental ice to loosen, flow into the ocean, and raise sea levels. That would be dangerous.

The global sea level has been rising an average of one-tenth of an inch every year. That doesn’t seem like much. That rise has been getting faster at about one-thirtieth of an inch per year, an even smaller number. Who cares about such tiny numbers?

Over the long term, those numbers are scary. The oceans rose less than 3 inches from 1900 to 1950, 3.5 inches 1950-2000, and 2 inches in the last 15 years. If the acceleration continues, by 2050 the rise would be one inch every year, a foot per decade.

Three-quarters of the world’s largest cities are located on sea coasts. Between 100 million and 200 million people live in places that likely will be underwater or subject to frequent flooding by the year 2100. Some estimates put that number at 650 million, nearly 10% of the world’s population. Mathew Hauer of the University of Georgia estimated that 13 million Americans might be displaced by 2100, mostly in southeastern states.

Rising sea levels will do more damage than flooding coastal cities. Saltwater will contaminate our drinking water and interfere with farming.

There are many kinds of uncertainty in predicting sea-level rise. Not all geographic areas will experience the same rise. Some, like the East Coast of the US, will experience a much greater rise than the global average.

Can anything be done against the rising seas? After Hurricane Sandy, New York expanded its efforts to protect against the next flood. Based on careful geological analysis of the land, the city plans to reinforce beaches and breakwaters, build storm walls and levees, and protect sand dunes that act as natural barriers. That will cost money.

Another way to deal with unpleasant reality is to forbid it from happening, as the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un did last year when he forbade his population to use sarcasm. After the Science Panel of the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commissioner said it was possible that the sea level could rise more than a yard over the next 100 years, the Republican-dominated legislature in 2012 forbade coastal community managers from considering scientific projections of sea level rise, when they think about roads, bridges, hospitals and other infrastructure. In 2015, the legislature accepted a new report that looked ahead only 30 years, thus with much less dire predictions.

State legislators in Virginia were surveyed about their knowledge of sea level rise. Republican legislators viewed scientists as less credible than Democrats did, and environmental groups not credible at all. Republicans estimated dangerous long-term effects of sea level rise as less likely, and thought that federal and state government should play a lesser role in dealing with them.

Donald Trump’s budget proposal embodies the Republican solution to rising seas: it would eliminate funding for climate research by NASA, the EPA, and the State Department. Mick Mulvaney of the Office of Management and Budget said about funding for climate research: “We're not spending money on that any more. We consider that to be a waste of your money.” That response is cheaper now, and the future is uncertain, so why worry?

Predictions, projections, estimates – these words display uncertainty. Nearly everything about climate change and its consequences contains uncertainty, especially when trying to forecast the future. That is why scientific models include ranges of possibility. One major question mark is how fast Antarctic ice is melting due to the warming of deep ocean currents far underneath the ice pack.

But this is certain – if we don’t get beyond the conservative refusal to think about the consequences of climate change, our grandchildren could face social and economic catastrophe. My daughter is pregnant. Her child might still be alive in 2100, living in a society trying to deal with an unprecedented disaster, the flooding of American coastal cities.

Political decisions, or their absence, will determine how ready America is for that future.

Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, May 23, 2017
Posted by Steve Hochstadt at 9:36 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/rik ... -1.3114005

EXCLUSIVE: Rikers correction officer already accused of raping two inmates impregnated another woman behind bars, suit claims
BY VICTORIA BEKIEMPIS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, April 29, 2017, 4:00 AM

Link du jour

http://farsight.org/FarsightPress/Area_ ... _page.html

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » June 23rd, 2017, 2:23 pm

http://www.courthousenews.com/fbi-hamme ... rds-trump/

FBI Hammered in Court for Pre-Election Records on Trump

June 20, 2017
WASHINGTON (CN) – Bashing the FBI for equivocating on whether it has pre-election records on President Donald Trump, a government-transparency group brought a federal complaint to spur action.

Ryan Shapiro filed the June 18 lawsuit in Washington with his group, Property of the People Inc., and with investigative reporter Jason Leopold.

The men say they faxed the FBI on March 16, 2017, a request under the Freedom of Information Act for any records dating back to June 14, 1946 — the day of Trump’s birth — to June 15, 2015.

With the FBI refusing to confirm or deny the existence of such records, Shapiro and Leopold appealed to the Office of Public Information. They say the OIP missed the 20-day window to respond, so a federal judge should intervene.

Calling the FBI’s silence improper, Shapiro and Leopold argue that Trump’s privacy interest is minimal, both as the president and his prior status as a celebrity real estate mogul.

“Additionally, Mr. Trump has further diminished his privacy interest by speaking publicly about contacts he has had with the FBI,” the complaint states. “For example, in an article describing his connections with organized crime, Mr. Trump told The Washington Post that he met with FBI agents in April 1981.”

Shapiro and Leopold also call the public interest in such records enormous, saying it “clearly outweighs any embarrassment [Trump] might suffer from his name being associated with FBI investigation.”

“The FBI has a statutory duty to investigate criminal conduct, and the existence or nonexistence of records about Mr. Trump prior to the election would indicate whether or not the FBI was as diligent in investigating Mr. Trump as it was of less prominent citizens,” the complaint states. “The FBI’s substantive law enforcement policy is also a matter of great public concern.”

More to the point, the men claim, the FBI has previously released responsive records in answer to previous requests, and some of those records even contained Trump’s name unredacted.

“The FBI has not only unreasonably withheld the responsive records, but has unreasonably refused to even confirm the existence of responsive records,” the complaint states.

In addition to the general request for records on Trump, Shapiro and Leopold also identified five FBI case numbers and asked for the associated files.

The FBI missed the deadline to respond to requests about three of those case numbers, while it issued what is known as a Glomar response for the other two, refusing to confirm or deny the existence of these records. When put to a simple Google search, however, those two file numbers produce an FBI memorandum about Trump dated 1981.

How the 5-page document became public is unclear. Leopold and Shapiro’s attorney Jeffrey Light said in a phone interview that his clients want to see the full files in case they contain more information about Trump.

A press release about the lawsuit from Operation 45, which is dedicated to the transparency and accountability of the Trump administration, claims the lawsuit will “shed new light on already known investigations linking Trump to organized crime and will provide new information about Trump’s engagements with the bureau.”

Shapiro, a historian who is working for his doctoral degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a member of Operation 45, as is Light.

The attorney said access to the documents will also shed light on the FBI’s role and function.

“The goal is to find out over the years what the relationship with the FBI has been like, as well as to find out what the FBI’s priorities have been,” Light said.

A representative for the Justice Department declined to comment on pending litigation.

Attorney Light said the bureau’s Glomar response is inappropriate. “That’s why we’re suing,” Light said.

Related
Reporter Sues for Records on FBI’s ‘Pivotal’ Role in Election
December 14, 2016
In "Government"
Reporter Sues FBI & CIA for Info on Russian Hacking
December 28, 2016
In "Government"
Records Lawsuit Targets AG Nominee Sessions
January 26, 2017
In "Government"

We brought Scott Camil to speak at Bates College in 1994

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Smk1ULeKNSY

Watermelon Slim in the news

http://www.bluesweb.com/p_disque.php3?id_article=2307

some of you know I am using some music from Watermelon Slim
in my documentary about Robert Shetterly the artist behind the
portraits in https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/
The music is off his CD https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wzHxZmC9o4s

audio check

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-yNmoHmf8RE

Link du jour

http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.c ... per-tiger/

http://brewsterchamberlin.com/

http://farsight.org/WhatIsRemoteViewing.html

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... rous-foia/

The CIA’s six most dangerous FOIA topics
by Emma Best
June 21, 2017
In a 1978 memo urging the curbing of the newly-empowered Freedom of Information Act, the CIA compiled a list of six FOIA request topics considered to be the most potentially dangerous to the Agency’s reputation.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... estruction

Norway issues $1bn threat to Brazil over rising Amazon destruction
Deforestation in the Amazon is increasing amid cuts to protection, putting Norway’s financial aid in jeopardy, says minister

http://www.courthousenews.com/booze-dea ... es-nevada/

Booze Dealers Retain Exclusive Rights to Pot Distribution in Nevada

June 21, 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... al-illness

Police killings: the price of being disabled and black in America
Normal police procedures often force people with disabilities to stay closeted, even to themselves. How can there be justice without addressing the stigma of disability and race?
by David Perry in Chicago, Illinois

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... safe-zones

Hawaii's largest homeless camp: rock bottom or a model refuge?
Long America’s vacation paradise, Hawaii is in a state of emergency as it battles a homelessness crisis. Could Pu’uhonua safe zones help alleviate the problem?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... ode-nantes

Overheated French male bus drivers don skirts in defiance of dress code
Nantes crew respond to ban on shorts by turning up in skirts in protest against ‘unacceptable working conditions’

http://www.courthousenews.com/w-va-cour ... -molester/

W. Va. Court Revives Claims Mormon Church Protected Child Molester

June 16, 201

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... stin-welby

Justin Welby asks George Carey to quit over church abuse report
Archbishop of Canterbury asks predecessor to step down from honorary position after report on church collusion with Peter Ball

DOJ Accused of Hiding Policy on Spying Notice

http://www.courthousenews.com/doj-accus ... ng-notice/

June 21, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – The federal government is concealing a policy on when it must notify criminal defendants that evidence used against them was obtained through a secret government spying program, the American Civil Liberties Union claimed in court Wednesday.

The ACLU lawsuit seeks records on the Department of Justice’s policy regarding when it must tell individuals that their emails, phone calls and other data were seized and searched without a warrant.

“DOJ has a track record of failing to inform individuals about the surveillance of their communications even when notice is expressly required by law,” the ACLU says in its 35-page complaint. “Accordingly, the public interest in the release of the DOJ policy documents at issue is substantial.”

The ACLU says the Justice Department has withheld records it asked for in a Freedom of Information Act request filed on Feb. 6 this year. The request sought records on a DOJ policy memorandum titled, “Determining Whether Evidence Is ‘Derived From’ Surveillance Under Title III or FISA.”

That memo reportedly outlines the department’s position on when it must inform surveillance targets about how information about them was collected under Title III of the Wiretap Act and Section 7 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Those statutes authorize “hundreds of thousands of secret wiretaps and other searches” each year, according to the ACLU.

“The government’s searches under FISA and Title III are generally invisible to the individuals whose privacy they impact,” the ACLU says in its complaint. “Unlike traditional searches of a person’s home, electronic searches rarely leave any sign, and thus individuals whose privacy has been invaded are entirely dependent on the government’s provision of notice.”

For five years, the Department of Justice had a policy of not notifying criminal defendants when evidence used against them was obtained through secret government surveillance, according to a New York Times report published in October 2013 and cited in the complaint.

The Justice Department changed its policy after former Solicitor General Don Verrilli Jr. found in 2013 that there was no legal justification for refusing to disclose such information.

However, the Justice Department’s new policy has remained shrouded in secrecy, making it impossible to determine if prosecutors actually adhere to that directive, the ACLU says.

As few as 10 criminal defendants have received notice that they were the subject of surveillance under Section 702 of FISA, the ACLU says in its complaint. That means there is good reason to suspect “that DOJ is still failing to give individuals notice” as the law requires, especially since the government collects hundreds of millions of communications under Section 702 of FISA each year, the ACLU says.

“FBI agents around the country routinely search these Section 702 databases for information about Americans in criminal investigations, as well as in virtually every national security-related investigation,” the complaint states.

The ACLU says such disclosures are necessary to fully inform the public about when the government will notify them that their private information was seized without a warrant. The records are also critical to inform the ongoing public debate about the reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA, which is set to expire in December 2017.

“This information bears on whether the government’s controversial surveillance powers should be reformed, whether individuals have an opportunity to seek judicial review of this surveillance in the public courts, and whether Congress should act to strengthen existing notice requirements,” the ACLU declares in its lawsuit.

The civil liberties group seeks a court order directing the Justice Department to immediately disclose the requested records.

The ACLU is represented by Linda Lye and Matthew Cagle of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California.

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.

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MGM's[/quote]

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » June 28th, 2017, 1:20 am

Link du jour

http://www.overgrownpath.co

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/b ... -1.3282594

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ar ... story.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3282282

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/c ... =1.3281766

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/o ... -1.3281535

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

http://theinformer.life/lawyer-demands- ... ce-report/

Lawyer demands new trial for client convicted in fatal 1998 shooting after he finds hidden police report

Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 5:13 PM

Prosecutors allegedly withheld a key police report from a man who says he was wrongly convicted of murder nearly 20 years ago — and his supporters hope it's the key to his freedom.

Robert Gottlieb, attorney for 41-year-old Jon-Adrian Velazquez, said Tuesday the Manhattan district attorney deliberately kept from his client’s trial counsel a document that reveals an interview with a witness who saw the real killer shortly before the attack.

Velazquez had been charged together in the Jan. 27, 1998, fatal shooting of Albert Ward, a retired police officer who ran an illegal gambling parlor in Harlem.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3282377

KING: America needs fewer cops, fewer laws and drastically fewer arrests and convictions

Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 3:34 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc ... -1.3280884

Black man who spent five months at Rikers not knowing his bail was only $1 suing city, Legal Aid lawyers

Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 7:58 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3281017

SEE IT: Florida black man ticketed for crossing street without ID, threatened with jail time

BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 9:34 AM

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-day-white-n ... B0006P0YIM

Blue by day, white by night: Organized white supremacist groups in law enforcement agencies

by Michael Novick (Author)

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/off ... -1.3281606

Jail officials probe how detainee received oral sex from visitor at Rikers Island

BY STEPHEN REX BROWN REUVEN BLAU
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 11:58 AM

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... iana-EMAC/

Read St. Anthony Police Department’s Use of Force Policy
by JPat Brown
June 27, 2017
As part of our collaboration with Campaign Zero, MuckRock requested use of force policies from the 100 largest police departments in the country, including St. Anthony PD. In the wake of the recent release of the dash cam video of the shooting of Philando Castile, we wanted to give you a chance to read the policy yourself.
Read More

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/wom ... -1.3280455

Black Long Island woman got 30 days in jail on vandalism charge despite having perfect alibi

BY CHRISTINA CARREGA
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 4:00 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3282506

Florida man spends 90 days in jail after cops mistake drywall for cocaine

Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 4:12 PM

http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.html

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and three other advocacy groups have gone to court to back Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell’s attempt to send prosecutors the names of deputies found to have committed serious misconduct on the job.

The move is the latest turn in the fight over a secret list of 300 problematic deputies whose history of misconduct could damage their credibility if they are ever called to testify in criminal cases.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3282239

Three officers charged with conspiracy in Laquan McDonald shooting
BY CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 2:59 PM

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... 0s-part-1/

CIA’s 60 year war with the Government Accountability Office: the ‘40s to the ‘60s Part 1
by Emma Best
June 27, 2017
For nearly sixty years, the CIA has resisted the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) efforts to perform a full audit of the Agency, even going so far as to not only render themselves exempt, but to spread this exemption throughout the rest of the Intelligence Community. When the GAO got fed up and quit, the CIA tried to have the letters detailing their frustrations classified.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bro ... -1.3282998

Pregnant Bronx teen who was zapped by cop’s Taser wants court to release sergeant’s name
BY JOHN ANNESE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 8:55 PM

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... e-drinking

EPA seeks to scrap rule protecting drinking water for third of Americans
Environmental Protection Agency and army propose ending clean water rule to hold ‘substantive re-evaluation’ of which bodies of water should be protected

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/06/27/ ... t-quarter/

Wind and Solar Accounted For 57 Percent of New U.S. Generating Capacity Additions in First Quarter
Policy sure makes one heck of a difference. Thanks to legislation and investments by China, the U.S., Europe and numerous other countries around the world, solar energy has reached price parity or better with natural gas and coal over a growing subset of the globe. In the United States, fully 36 states in 2017 are seeing solar at parity with fossil fuel based generation. And costs for this new, clean energy source are expected to keep falling over at least the next five years as production lines continue to expand and technology and efficiency improves.

Wind, already competitive with natural gas and coal in many areas by the mid 2000s, is also seeing continued price declines as turbine sizes increase and industrial efficiency gains ground. As a result, the two mainstream energy sources most capable of combating human-caused climate change are taking larger and larger shares of the global power generation markets.

(Solar and wind continue to gain a larger share of new capacity additions than competing fossil fuel based generation. Image source: SEIA.)

This trend continued through Q1 of 2017 as about 4 gigawatts of new generation capacity or 57 percent of all new generation came from wind and solar in the U.S. Solar added about 2.044 GW, which was a slight drop from Q1 of 2016. Wind, however, surged to 2 GW — representing the strongest first quarter since 2009. In total, U.S. renewable generating capacity including wind, solar, hydro, biomass, geothermal and others is now at 19.51 percent of the national total. Expected to hit above 20 percent by year-end, renewables have now far outpaced nuclear (at 9.1 percent) and are swiftly closing on coal (at 24.25 percent).

Globally, 24 percent of electrical power generation was produced by renewables by the end of 2016. This share will again jump as 85 gigawatts of new solar capacity and 68 gigawatts of new wind are expected to be added during 2017. As a result, total renewable generation is now set to outpace global coal generation in relatively short order.

Such rapid adds in renewable capacity are being fed in part by expanding solar production around the world and, particularly, in China. During late 2016, solar manufacturing capacity in China had expanded to 77.4 GW per year — with more on the way. And even as production capacity continues to grow in China and across Southeast Asia, places like the U.S. (with Tesla’s Buffalo Gigafactory 2 alone expected to eventually pump out 10 GW of new solar cells each year), Canada, Turkey, Korea, and Mexico are also rapidly expanding the production pipeline. Meanwhile, the global wind production pipeline continues to make significant gains.

(By 2020, global wind and solar generating capacity is expected to roughly double. Rapid growth in renewable energy is a necessary mitigation for harms resulting from human-forced climate change. Image source. FIPowerWeb.)

The rapid additions to renewable energy capacity provide hope that the world will soon start to see falling carbon emissions overall. Such an event is key to reducing harm already coming down the pipe due to human-forced climate change as global temperatures begin to challenge the 1.5 C threshold during the next two decades and as CO2e (including CO2 and all other greenhouse gasses) levels threaten to cross the critical 550 ppm demarcation line.

The strong progress of renewables does not come without a number of concerning difficulties and challenges. These challenges are primarily political — with Trump’s backing away from Paris threatening to upset the emissions reductions apple cart and Suniva’s recent ITC challenge injecting uncertainty into the U.S. solar energy market. Meanwhile, fossil fuel based industry backers continue various attempts to sand-bag or, worse, reverse renewable energy growth.

Despite these various difficulties, renewables like wind and solar will likely continue to gain ground as markets expand, technology and efficiency continue to improve, and as states, nations and industries jockey to claim their own share of the growing renewable energy market windfall. The big question that should concern pretty much everyone, however, is will this expansion in renewables proceed fast enough to afford the world a much-needed chance to slake an extraordinary amount of climate change related damage that’s now moving rapidly down the pipe in our direction.

Links:

SEIA

AWEA

2016 Was the Year Solar Panels Became Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels

FIPowerWeb

Trump Will Withdraw From Paris Climate Agreement

Global PV Manufacturing Expansion Rebounds in Q1 2017

Solar Power in China

Global Wind Capacity Nears 500 GW in 2016

GTM Forecasting More than 85 GW of PV to Be Installed in 2017

Could a Trade Dispute with China End the U.S. Solar Boom?

Spectacular Drop in Renewable Energy Costs Lead to Global Boost

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » July 22nd, 2017, 9:06 am

Link du jour
https://animalliberationpressoffice.org ... n-the-u-s/

http://copwatch505.blogspot.com

http://sharkhunters.com/NEWS.htm

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/s ... -1.3345978

https://animalliberationpressoffice.org/NAALPO/archive/

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... i-spam-jam

https://books.google.com/books?id=-EsTD ... bi&f=false

http://morrisyachts.com

video just released today
I have been trying to contact Greer for over 1 year

this man is the real deal

US government dealing heroin and cocaine
is about 1/4 of the way in 25 minutes or so

google title if link is changed

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PeITXfEh5bQ

title

steven greer ufo truth forbidden knowledge july 21 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... d-shooting

'Never been about race': black activists on how Minneapolis reacted to Damond shooting
Some questioned whether activists had protested less over the death of a White Australian woman. Friday night’s anger at mayor Betsy Hodges and the departure of the city’s police chief answered that

http://www.sbsun.com/general-news/20170 ... e-lawsuits

San Bernardino County settles for $2.75 million in 3 jail abuse lawsuits

POSTED: 07/21/17, 7:40 PM PDT
On July 11, the county settled for $2.5 million with 32 plaintiffs represented by Victorville attorneys Jim Terrell, Sharon Brunner and Stanley Hodge and Woodland Hills attorney Dale Galipo.

On June 27, the county settled with plaintiff Eric Smith, one of the first inmates to report the alleged abuse, for $175,000.

And on June 21, the county settled with plaintiff Armando Marquez for $70,000.

Among the allegations, inmates claimed they were subject to Taser gun torture and brutal pat-down searches their attorneys characterized as sodomy.

The allegations prompted the terminations of seven sheriff’s deputies and sweeping reforms and security upgrades at the jail, one of four in the county operated by the Sheriff’s Department.

“Back in March of 2014, Sheriff John McMahon went public and made it clear that he was not going to tolerate any misconduct by department personnel when this incident broke out,” sheriff’s Lt. Sarkis Ohannessian said in a statement. “The department and the FBI fully cooperated to ensure a comprehensive investigation was completed.”

Within a month of the investigation, rookie deputies Brock Teyechea, Andrew Cruz and Nicholas Oakley were no longer employed by the department. As the investigation continued into October 2014, deputies Robert Escamilla, Russell Kopasz, Robert Morris and Eric Smale were placed on paid administrative leave. They are no longer with the department, Ohannessian said.

“The clients were glad that the major people involved are no longer in law enforcement,” said Terrell, who along with Brunner and Hodge were among the first to file lawsuits after the allegations surfaced.

Terrell said the criminal backgrounds of his clients posed challenges with putting the case in front of a jury. He said the settlement moved forward quickly when his team brought on board Galipo, a veteran trial attorney specializing in police excessive-force cases.

Galipo said in a telephone interview his clients could have possibly received a bigger jury award at trial, but it would have been a gamble.

“Hopefully this is a wake-up call for the detention center that has had a host of inmate abuse problems in the past,” Galipo said. “I can tell you, if it continues to go on, it’s going to be hard for them to say, ‘Gee, we didn’t know this was going on.’ It’s going to be more difficult for them to defend themselves.”

Sheriff’s officials maintain the abuse by deputies was an isolated incident and not suggestive of an institutional problem. The department attributed the problems to prison realignment, which was implemented in 2011 and shifted many inmates serving longer sentences into county jails instead of state prison. Sheriff’s officials said it led to sharp increases in both inmate-on-inmate violence and confrontations between inmates and deputies.

“Today, our deputies in our corrections bureau continue to receive training in the proper procedures for dealing with inmates who have a higher criminal sophistication today than ever before due to the state prison realignment,” Ohanessian said.

Since 2014, more than 350 security cameras have been installed at the jail, which Ohanessian said will hold deputies and inmates more accountable for their actions. Additionally, he said the jail has added more medical staff and sergeants to provide better care and supervision.

Brunner, one of the defense attorneys, also said the process for inmates filing grievances at the jail has improved.

She said in a telephone interview she hopes that the substantial number of inmates who sued sends a message to the county and its Sheriff’s Department that such abuses cannot, and will not, be tolerated.

“We hold out hope and faith that the FBI will come back and there will be some indictments and charges against these deputies,” Brunner said.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said its more than three-year investigation, which prompted the impaneling of a federal grand jury, continues.

Attorneys for Eric Smith and Armando Marquez, the other two inmates whose lawsuits were settled, did not return telephone calls and emails seeking comment.

Meanwhile, other lawsuits are ongoing or pending.

Riverside attorney Robert McKernan is representing four inmates: Daniel Vargas, Anthony Gomez, Mario Villa and Keith Courtney.

McKernan said all four plaintiffs have agreed to a settlement offer by the county, and the paperwork is being forwarded to County Counsel for execution.

The case of inmate Cesar Vasquez, whose lawsuit was filed in August 2014 and was amended July 7, is currently scheduled for trial on July 10, 2018, his attorney, Scott Eadie, said in a telephone interview Friday.

Vasquez, a former food server at the jail, was among a bevy of inmates who alleged deputies engaged in a hazing ritual of Taser gun torture with “chow servers,” who received special privileges at the jail including more food and the ability to move more freely through their cell blocks.

Among Vazquez’s allegations is that fired Deputy Oakley had inmate Lamar Graves use his phone to shoot video of Oakley stunning Vazquez with his Taser in a utility closet, away from view of security cameras.

Eadie said he has subpoenaed the FBI for the video.

https://www.desmogblog.com

Saturday, July 22, 2017 - 07:36 • BEN JERVEY
Koch Front Group, Fueling US Forward, Bashes Electric Car Tax Credits in Latest Misleading Video
screenshot of electric car in Fueling US Forward video
Hot on the heels of its deceptive “Dirty Secrets of Electric Cars” video (which we debunked thoroughly, and others did too), the Koch-funded front group Fueling U.S. Forward has released a new video criticizing electric vehicle (EV) tax credits as a “massive wealth transfer from poor to rich.” It's time for another debunking!
READ MORE

Thursday, July 20, 2017 - 08:11 • MAT HOPE
New Lobby Group Tied to Brexit Climate Science Deniers and Koch Industries Pushes for Deregulation in Europe
Eu flag in front of statues
A new lobby group has appeared in Europe claiming to represent ‘consumers’. But a closer look reveals it is actually backed by some familiar groups known for their efforts to weaken climate and environmental regulations.

The Consumer Choice Centre (CCC) was set up in March 2017 and was promoted as “a grassroots-led movement” that “empowers consumers across the globe”.

But an investigation by Brussels think tank Corporate Europe Observatory suggests the CCC is actually working as a lobby group for a network pushing deregulation, while working closely with high-profile organisations including London-based think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) and US oil billionaire Charles Koch.

READ MORE

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/opinio ... -is-no-act

Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan: For actor Cromwell, the fight against fossil fuels is no act
POSTED: 07/21/17, 3:43 PM PDT | UPDATED:
By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Democracy Now

Actor James Cromwell was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the hit movie “Babe,” and throughout his career for numerous Emmys. But on a cold December day in 2015, the drama he participated in was no act. Cromwell and five others were arrested in upstate Wawayanda, New York, protesting against the construction of a 650-megawatt fracked gas power plant. He and two others refused to pay their fines and were sentenced to a week behind bars. On Friday, July 14, the 77-year-old actor, along with Pramilla Malick and Madeline Shaw, a grandmother, surrendered themselves to the Orange County jail.

Cromwell is no stranger to protest. He was inspired by Southern civil-rights activists, and joined the anti-Vietnam War movement. He provided direct support for Black Panther activists targeted by the FBI’s illegal COINTELPRO program in the 1960s. A vegan, he has been arrested protesting the mistreatment of animals. This latest action and subsequent jailing, however, mark an escalation in his commitment to bring about revolutionary change.

“We are, all of us, engaged in a struggle, not to protect a way of life, but to protect life itself,” Cromwell told us on the “Democracy Now!” news hour the day before he was to report to jail. “Our institutions are bankrupt. Our leaders are complicit. And the public is basically disillusioned and disenchanted with the entire process.”

The Wawayanda gas-fueled power plant is owned by Competitive Power Ventures (CPV), which touts itself as a leader in “clean energy.” CPV is, in turn, owned by the multinational Global Infrastructure Partners, which has fossil-fuel projects around the globe. The Wawayanda plant is not complete yet, and Cromwell and others want to make sure it never is.

“We chained ourselves together with bicycle locks, and we blocked the entrance to the plant for — according to the prosecution, about 27 minutes. The judge and the prosecution seemed to imply that it made absolutely no difference. ... But it does make a difference,” Cromwell told us. “We’re trying to get out the message that this is one instance, but it is happening all around this country and all around the world.” The image of their arrest is chilling, with Cromwell surrounded by New York state troopers, one of whom is applying a massive bolt cutter to the lock around Cromwell’s neck.

“There is a direct link between that plant and the Middle East,” Cromwell said. “We’re at war not only with Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan and Yemen. We’re at war with Dimock, Pennsylvania, where the gas comes from, with Wawayanda, that uses the gas, with Seneca Lake, where it was to be stored, and with Standing Rock.” Cromwell explained why he risked arrest that day: “Most people can’t put their finger on the cause of it, but everybody perceives the threat. Capitalism is a cancer. And the only way to defeat this cancer is to completely, radically transform our way of living and our way of thinking about ourselves. And I call that radical transformation revolutionary. So this is the revolution.”

If the revolution Cromwell describes comes, it will erupt, in part, from the work of the countless local grass-roots groups that are springing up around the globe to address the growing catastrophe of climate change. Protect Orange County, founded by Pramilla Malick, is one of those groups, and is the organizing hub against the CPV plant.

Malick joined Cromwell in our studio, and described their strategy: “We actually can stop this. There’s one permit left. ... We are calling on everybody to demand of our governor, Governor Cuomo, to be a real climate leader and reject the permit for that last pipeline, the lateral pipeline, and to pull the plug on this plant.”

The protesters were released from jail on Monday, after three days of their seven-day sentence. “Going to jail is a statement about how we have to lift our game. It’s no more good enough just to picket and to petition, because nobody is listening. The way people get the message out is you do an act of civil disobedience,” Cromwell told us. “We have to change our relationship both to the planet and to the people who live on this planet, including the people who are opposing us.” James Cromwell has a commanding presence on the big screen, and will certainly continue practicing his craft. But the primary stage for this towering actor will be the streets, in what will likely be his life’s most demanding role.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc ... -1.3346390

Off-duty NYPD cop arrested after plowing into car, leaving scene of accident six months ago in Midtown
BY SHAYNA JACOBS THOMAS TRACY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, July 21, 2017, 11:12 PM

https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/ ... nd/534555/

Postcards From Fantasyland

6:19 PM / July 21, 2017

Listening Closely to the Conspiracy-Theorist-in-Chief

The big hard-news takeaways of President Trump's interview with The New York Times this week were his trashing of his attorney general for being insufficiently corrupt, and the threats he made in the direction of the special counsel investigating him and his circle.

But I'm more interested in examining his mental tics, parsing how he thinks out loud, lying and fantasizing. In September I'm publishing Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History—which concludes with an explanation of how Trump is the ultimate embodiment of several deep strains in America’s national character. So my reading of his conversation with the Times reporters focuses on his specifically Fantasyland traits—the insistence on blamelessness and imaginary conspiracies, the insecurity and braggadocio and narcissism, the ignorance and incoherence, how he's bedazzled by spectacle and show.

The core of his elaborate excuse for failing to pass health-care legislation, for instance, was that it had been impossible for the Clintons a quarter-century ago and hard for Obama in 2010. "Hillary Clinton was in there eight years and they never got Hillarycare, whatever they called it at the time. I am not in here six months, and they’ll say, 'Trump hasn’t fulfilled his agenda.'" In fact, the Clinton administration gave up on health care after a year and a half. "I say to myself, wait a minute, I’m only here a very short period of time compared to Obama. How long did it take to get Obamacare?" Fourteen months, he was informed. "So he was there for more than a year."

Embedded in the health-care apologia was a perfectly incoherent Trumpian digression: "Obama worked so hard," he said. "I mean, ended up giving away the state of Nebraska. They owned the state of Nebraska. Right. Gave it away. Their best senator did one of the greatest deals in the history of politics. What happened to him?" Apparently somebody informed the president that in 2009, Nebraska's Democratic Senator Ben Nelson made a pork-barrel deal to vote yes on an Obamacare procedural vote. But Trump's retelling of the story is both entirely incoherent and wrong: In no sense have Democrats "owned" Nebraska, Nelson's deal was rescinded, and he had scant influence or seniority and decided left the Senate three years later.

Again and again in the conversation Trump defaulted to conspiracy theories. When he was asked about Donald Trump Jr.'s email exchange setting up the June 2016 meeting with the four or five well-connected Russians, Trump replied with a tale that Fox News had sluiced into the right-wing media stream just the day before. "Well, Hillary did the reset. Somebody was saying today, and then I read, where Hillary Clinton was dying to get back with Russia. Her husband made a speech, got half a million bucks while she was secretary of state. She did the uranium deal, which is a horrible thing, while she was secretary of state, and got a lot of money. She was opposing sanctions. She was totally opposed to any sanctions for Russia … I just saw it. I just saw it. She was opposed to sanctions, strongly opposed to sanctions on Russia."

After the takeover of Crimea in 2014, Clinton supported and the Obama administration enacted sanctions on Russia. "This is post-Crimea?" one of the reporters asked. In reply, Trump simply babbled.

"I don’t really know. … But in that time. And don’t forget, Crimea was given away during Obama. Not during Trump. In fact, I was on one of the shows, I said they’re exactly right, they didn’t have it as it exactly. But he was—this—Crimea was gone during the Obama administration."

When one of the interviewers returned to Trump Jr.’s email exchange about Russian election help, the president alluded to a different conspiracy theory.

"Well, I thought originally it might have had to do something with the payment by Russia of the D.N.C. Somewhere I heard that. Like, it was an illegal act done by the D.N.C., or the Democrats. That’s what I had heard. Now, I don’t know where I heard it, but I had heard that it had to do something with illegal acts with respect to the D.N.C. Now, you know, when you look at the kind of stuff that came out, that was, that was some pretty horrific things came out of that. But that’s what I had heard. But I don’t know what it means."

And right after that, when he brought up the intelligence "dossier" about Trump and Russia, the president introduced yet another paranoid theory, this time about why the FBI director briefed him about the dossier before it became public. "I think he shared it so that I would—because the other three people left, and he showed it to me … in my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there." As leverage? "Yeah, I think so."

Concerning James Comey he also illustrated how his astounding narcissism untethers him from the simplest empirical realities.

"You know," Trump said, out of the blue, "when he wrote me the letter, he said, 'You have every right to fire me,' blah blah blah. Right? … I said, that’s a very strange—you know, over the years, I’ve hired a lot of people, I’ve fired a lot of people. Nobody has ever written me a letter back that you have every right to fire me."

In fact, the letter, in which Comey wrote that he'd "long believed that a President can fire an FBI Director for any reason," was his exit memo to FBI colleagues.

When the Times reporters softly corrected the president, he resisted—"I thought it was to me, right?"—and never fully accepted the reality: "It might have been [to his staff]—It might have been. It was just a very strange letter to say that. What was the purpose in repeating that? Do you understand what I mean? Why would somebody say, 'He has every right to fire me,' bah bah bah. Why wouldn’t you just say, “Hey, I’ve retired …” In other words: Why would he refer to some principle that cut against his self-interest? And why wouldn't he just lie?

In Fantasyland I write about how America invented and dominated show business and mixed it into everything else, including presidential politics—even before we elected a president who was a WWE character and played himself for 15 years on reality TV. His minute-long reverie to the Times about this year's Bastille Day parade in Paris was telling in this regard.

"t was one of the most beautiful parades I have ever seen … the Bastille Day parade was—now that was a super-duper—O.K. I mean, that was very much more than normal. They must have had 200 planes over our heads. Normally you have the planes and that’s it, like the Super Bowl parade. And everyone goes crazy, and that’s it. That happened for—

http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/4- ... 0e0ecf7f51

4 Puerto Rico police officers indicted in corruption case

July 21, 2017
5:51 PM
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Four former or current Puerto Rico police officers have been indicted on allegations they stole more than five kilograms of cocaine from a man and then sold the drugs for profit.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Friday that the suspects brandished their weapons and told the man they had a search warrant as they arrived at his house in an official vehicle and an unmarked one. Authorities said the man’s family witnessed the 2013 incident.

Three of the suspects are former officers and one of them was still working for the police department’s drug and narcotics division. Th

https://www.courthousenews.com/fbi-orde ... s-request/

FBI Ordered to Work Faster on Filmmaker’s Records Request

July 21, 2017
WASHINGTON (CN) – A federal judge hastened completion of a documentary decades in the making about the FBI’s role in the Vietnam anti-war movement Thursday by ordering the agency to churn out nearly 3,000 pages of documents a month.

According to an internal policy, the FBI was only releasing requested records in chunks of 500 at a time to Nina Gilden Seavey, a filmmaker and professor at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs.

At that rate, it would have taken nearly 17 years for the agency to hand over all 102,385 documents it says it found in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act requests she started filing in 2013.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler’s ruling issued Thursday called the FBI’s policy “untenable.”

For Seavey, the prospect of waiting nearly two decades for the information needed to complete her film was daunting.

“I’m 60 years old,” Seavey said in a phone interview. “I mean, let’s be real,” she added, trailing off with laughter.

Seavey had asked the FBI for information on “individuals, organizations, events, publications, and file numbers” relating to the agency’s involvement in the anti-war movement, looking particularly at St. Louis in the 1960s and 1970s.

She will use the records to complete “My Fugitive,” a film she’s already been working on for decades.

The FBI had argued that its policy is ideal, fair and necessary to meet the growing demands of FOIA requests, which are increasing in number, size and complexity.

It also said its 500-page-per-month policy prevented large requests from monopolizing its limited resources, which the agency said would hamper its ability to process smaller ones.

But these arguments failed to persuade Judge Kessler, who said they lacked merit.

“In the name of reducing its own administrative headaches, the FBI’s 500-page policy ensures that larger requests are subject to an interminable delay in being completed,” she wrote in a 12-page ruling. “Under the 500-page policy, requestors must wait 1 year for every 6,000 potentially responsive documents, and those who request tens of thousands of documents may wait decades.”

Based on the number of documents the FBI said it could process, Kessler found that the agency failed to show that handling large requests more expediently would prevent it from fulfilling smaller ones.

“If the FBI truly has the capacity to process 17,000,000 pages per year, it is hard to understand how a request for 100,000 pages (or even several such requests) could monopolize its workload,” the opinion states. “If that is the case, then the FBI’ s steadfast determination to make Professor Seavey wait decades for documents to which she is statutorily entitled is simply incomprehensible.” (Parentheses in original.)

Kessler ordered the FBI to start processing Seavey’s request at a rate of at least 2,850 pages per month.

Seavey said she believes Kessler’s willingness to tackle the FBI’s 500-page-per-month processing policy head-on will benefit other FOIA requesters.

“Yesterday’s ruling is precedent for all of these future cases,” Seavey said.

In a prior ruling in May, Kessler had granted Seavey’s request for a fee waiver. Without that, she would have been on the hook for thousands of dollars to get the documents.

“I kind of thought that was our big win,” Seavey said. “Where would I get thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to pay the government for documents that should be readily available to the American public.”

Seavey said that she is thrilled with the latest ruling, which will enable her to get her hands on all of the documents in three years instead of 17.

“It was literally the shot of adrenaline that the film needed,” Seavey said. “This is the hastening that a filmmaker needs. If we had continued with the 500 pages a month, it literally would have brought production to a halt.”

On a daily basis, Seavey said she pours over the documents the FBI has already given her.

“Literally every day I am finding things that are gobsmacking about the government’s activities,” she said, adding that some of what she’s found relates to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. However, she declined to give specifics.

The FBI declined to comment on

http://deadline.com/2017/07/bellum-ente ... 202133386/

Crime Experts On Bellum Entertainment Shows Halt Work Until Back ...
Deadline
Former FBI special agent Tim Clemente and his associates at XG Productions have worked on more than 100 true-crime shows for Bellum Entertainment, ...

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/brandi ... kid=3x2782

Branding Hoover's FBI: How the Boss's PR Men Sold the Bureau to America
by Matthew Cecil

"Branding Hoover’s FBI is a path-breaking assessment of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s public relations initiatives. Cecil’s brilliantly researched study documents Hoover’s success in transforming the image of the FBI from a minor and suspect to a powerful and autonomous agency, in the process reshaping American politics in the twentieth century. His thoughtful monograph has particular contemporary relevance highlighting how control over information undermined a constitutional system based on accountability and transparency." —Athan Theoharis, author of The FBI and American Democracy: A Brief Critical History

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/t ... -1.3347128

Texas deputy charged with murder along with her husband in strangulation death has been fired: officials

Saturday, July 22, 2017, 8:52 AM

HOUSTON - A Texas sheriff's deputy who was indicted along with her husband on murder charges in the death of a man they confronted outside a restaurant has been fired, authorities announced Friday.

Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Chauna Thompson's firing came after the conclusion of an internal affairs probe which followed complaints by the victim's family that the investigation into the man's death was mishandled.

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/21/91 ... hs-police/

Minnesota police shooting isn’t only death of 911 caller

Hundreds march from the site of ...
Aaron Lavinsky, Star Tribune via AP Hundreds march from the site of Justine Damond’s shooting to Beard’s Plaissance Park during a march in honor of Damond Thursday, July 20, 2017, in Minneapolis. Damond, of Australia, was shot and killed by a Minneapolis police officer on Saturday, July 15 after calling 911 to report what she believed was a possible assault.

July 21, 2017 at 11:51 pm
WASHINGTON — The fatal shooting of an unarmed Australian woman in Minnesota isn’t by any means the first-time police in the U.S. have mistakenly killed someone who called them for help or to report a crime.

Officers around the nation have mistakenly slain or wounded people in other cases, including a pregnant Seattle mother shot to death earlier this year after reporting a break-in and a Georgia man who in 2014 reported that his girlfriend had been stabbed and was fatally shot by the responding officer.

The death of Justine Damond, who was white, comes after several years of public debate about police use of force following the video-recorded deaths of black men at the hands of officers.

“Mainstream America is now looking at this and saying, ‘Wow, we’ve got a problem,’ and yet it’s been going on over and over,” said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/u ... -1.3346848

U.S. friendly-fire bombing kills 12 Afghan police

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » July 31st, 2017, 8:52 pm

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen ... story.html

You can predict how many blacks are killed by police by measuring the racism of whites, research finds

Some of the stereotypes that prevail in a given geographic area go unrecognized by the people who hold them, and even more often, they’re not acknowledged. But psychologists know that such bias is widespread.

New research finds that when more white people in a community hold African Americans in greater suspicion, that prevailing view may influence police behavior in ways that drive the outsize use of lethal force against African Americans by cops.

It’s a finding likely to stir controversy and spark new interest in the phenomenon of implicit bias — the beliefs and prejudices we hold beneath our level of awareness.

Studied and measured by psychologists since the early 1990s, these unconscious views, which sometimes conflict with the opinions we explicitly embrace, are thought to shape our behavior every day. That influence may be subtle, psychologists say. But it’s never more powerful than when we are under extreme stress or time pressure, as police officers often are.

In a study published Thursday, a trio of psychologists built a map of the racial bias and stereotypes that prevail among whites across the United States. They gathered individuals’ answers to a pair of online tests that measure implicit bias and stereotypes about black and white people. The, they arranged them in geographical clusters according to the recorded location of the test-taker.

When the researchers overlaid those maps with their hot spots of white racial bias and presumption of violent intent against African Americans, they discerned a strong correlation with a very different map: one showing where, in the first nine months of 2015, African Americans were killed by police in disproportionate numbers.

The study, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, was conducted by psychologists Eric Hehman and Jessica K. Flake of Ryerson and York universities, respectively, in Toronto, and by UC Davis social psychologist Jimmy Calanchini.

Link du jour

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GUK7c1phhnQ

https://www.courthousenews.com/environm ... -plant/aqq

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la ... story.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1567978

http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.c ... time-soon/

http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-cal ... story.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3371580

Two border patrol agents’ dangerous method of checking for drugs killed a teen, lawsuit say

Cruz Velazquez Acevedo began convulsing shortly after he drank the liquid methamphetamine he'd brought with him from Tijuana, Mexico.

The 16-year-old had just crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to San Diego and was going through the San Ysidro Port of Entry. He was carrying two bottles of liquid that he claimed was apple juice. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers told him to drink it to prove he wasn't lying, court records say.

A surveillance video published by ABC Friday, about 3 1/2 years after Acevedo's death, shows the teen taking a sip of the liquid after one of the two officers, Valerie Baird, motioned for him to drink. He took another sip after the other officer, Adrian Perallon, made a gesture with his hand, appearing to tell him to drink more.

The teen took four sips.

Then, he began sweating profusely. He screamed and clenched his fists.

In a matter of minutes, his temperature soared to 105 degrees, his family's attorney said. His pulse reached an alarming rate of 220 beats per minute - more than twice the normal rate for adults.

"Mi corazón! Mi corazón!" Acevedo screamed, according to court records - "My heart! My heart!"

He was dead about two hours later.

The United States has since agreed to pay Acevedo's family $1 million in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought against two border officers and the U.S. government.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/latest-news/a ... rylink=cpy

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-cia ... story.html

Suit against 2 psychologists over torture used in CIA interrogations appears headed for trial

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... -election/

CIA’s Guide To Other Country’s Elections: Why Jamaican “National Hero” Michael Manley worried the Agency

July 31, 2017
Michael Manley, who served as Prime Minister of Jamaica for a total of 11 years, is considered by nearly half of Jamaicans as the best Prime Minister the country ever had. 68% say that he should considered a national hero. However, as a 1980 Agency memo in the middle of a tough re-election battle shows, the CIA had a much more negative view of Manley, fearing he would resort to illegal means to stay in power.
Read More

http://wiat.com/2017/07/31/birmingham-f ... dquarters/

Alabama's News Leader-
Birmingham Fire & Rescue personnel investigate a package discovered to have a suspicious substance at the FBI Headquarters in downtown Birmingham, July ...

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... oia-karao/

How to host your own FOIA Karaoke

July 28, 2017
FOIA and public records are vital to holding our government accountable - but that doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun with the results, too. Here’s how you can host your own FOIA Karaoke - and if you do, let us know how it goes!

https://www.courthousenews.com/study-fi ... ate-heats/

Study Finds Aardvarks Suffering as African Climate heats up

July 31, 2017

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Little is known about Africa’s elusive aardvarks, but new research says they are vulnerable to climate change like many other species.

Hotter temperatures are taking their toll on the aardvark, whose diet of ants and termites is becoming scarcer in some areas because of reduced rainfall, according to a study released Monday.

Drought in the Kalahari desert killed five out of six aardvarks that were being monitored for a year, as well as 11 others in the area, said researchers at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

The aardvarks’ body temperatures plummeted during the night because they were not getting enough energy from diminished food sources, said physiology professor Andrea Fuller. She said they tried to conserve energy by looking for insects during the warmer daytime, but their efforts to adapt could not save them.

The body temperatures of the ones that died had dropped to as low as 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), compared to a normal temperature of a little below 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit).

Researchers, who monitored the aardvarks with tiny sensors attached to implanted computer chips, said some birds, reptiles and other animals use aardvark burrows to escape extreme temperatures, reproduce and hide from predators. They could have fewer refuges available if aardvark populations shrink because of rising temperatures, they said.

The aardvark, which lives in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, is identified as an animal of “least concern” on an international “red list” of threatened species. The list, compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said

https://www.courthousenews.com/eu-launc ... er-plants/

EU Regulator Launches Probe
of Fuel-Burning Power Plants

The European Commission said Monday that it will review operating permits of the EU’s 3,500 large combustion plants by 2021, with an eye to moving the continent to low-emissions energy production and compliance with the international Paris climate agreement.

https://www.courthousenews.com/agricult ... lf-mexico/

Agriculture-Caused ‘Dead Zone’ Threatening Gulf of Mexico
July 31, 2017

Ocean life and our supply of clean drinking water will decrease unless more is done to limit farmland runoff of nitrogen-based fertilizer and livestock waste, according to a study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The nitrogen that washes into rivers and eventually out to sea is necessary for the growth of plant life, but excessive amounts found in the Gulf of Mexico and other places create areas known as dead zones. Excess nitrogen leads to exponential algae growth, which in turn causes an increase of bacteria that decomposes the algae and exhausts all the nearby oxygen. These dead zones choke off all other oceanic life and form algae blooms that are toxic to humans.

Scientists and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been working on ways to cut down on nitrogen runoff, but Monday’s study suggests such actions aren’t enough. The Gulf of Mexico is expected to form a dead zone this summer the size of New Jersey, about 8,000 square miles, according to NOAA. An intergovernmental panel wants to reduce it to the size of Delaware, about 1,950 square miles, by 2035.

Researchers estimate nitrogen runoff into the Gulf of Mexico needs to be reduced by 59 percent.

“The bottom line is that we will never reach the action plan’s goal of 1,950 square miles until more serious actions are taken to reduce the loss of Midwest fertilizers into the Mississippi River system,” University of Michigan aquatic ecologist Don Scavia said.

The study reveals that hardly any progress has been made to reduce the amount of nitrogen runoff. Concentrations of the nitrogen compound nitrate found in rivers are the same today as in the 1980s. Despite more than $28 billion in government spending to reduce nitrogen runoff, there has been no significant reduction in the amount of nitrate washing away to the Gulf of Mexico.

“Clearly something more or something different is needed,” Scavia wrote in the study. “It matters little if the load-reduction target is 30 percent, 45 percent or 59 percent if insufficient resources are in place to make even modest reductions.”

Researchers suggest that the agriculture sector needs to make significant changes in order to protect ocean life, including the pursuit of alternatives to corn-base biofuels since corn requires a lot of nitrogen and other soil nutrients.

“It is time to ask what is preventing more extensive implementation of some or all of these strategies,” the researchers said.

https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-ni ... rls-trial/

Judge Nixes Alabama Law Putting Pregnant Girls Through Trial

July 31, 2017

MONTGOMERY, Ala.A federal judge has struck down Alabama’s one-of-a-kind law that enabled judges to put minors seeking abortions through a trial-like proceeding in which the fetus could get a lawyer and prosecutors could object to the pregnant girl’s wishes.

Alabama legislators in 2014 changed the state’s process for girls who can’t or won’t get their parents’ permission for an abortion to obtain permission from a court instead. The new law empowered the judge to appoint a guardian ad litem “for the interests of the unborn child” and invited the local district attorney to call witnesses and question the girl to determine whether she’s mature enough to decide.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Russ Walker sided Friday with the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama , writing that the law unconstitutionally and impermissibly imposes “an undue burden on a minor in Alabama who seeks an abortion through a judicial bypass,” and violates the girl’s privacy rights by enabling a prosecutor to call witnesses against her will.

Both the judge and the ACLU said they were aware of no other state with such a law.

Every state requiring parental consent for abortions involving minors must also have a “judicial bypass” procedure so that girls can get a judge’s approval in a way that is effective, confidential, and expeditious, the ACLU said.

The state had argued that the law was intended to allow a “meaningful” inquiry into the minor’s maturity and the process was still a “confidential, and expeditious option for a teenager who seeks an abortion without parental consent.”

The civil rights organization said it had the opposite effect, by enabling lawyers for the state or the fetus to subpoena the minor’s teacher, neighbor, relative or boyfriend to testify she’s too immature to choose an abortion, or that continuing the pregnancy would be in her best interest.

It is unclear how many such proceedings have happened since the law was enacted. Walker noted that a district attorney this summer opposed the abortion request of a 12-year-old girl who had been impregnated by a relative.

The girl was 13 weeks pregnant and had just completed fifth grade when she went before a family court judge, according to a court record. The judge approved the abortion on June 27, and the district attorney appealed the same day, arguing that the girl was too immature to make an informed decision. The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals on July 12 ruled in favor of the girl.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in federal court in Montgomery on behalf of Reproductive Health Services, a Montgomery

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3371912

Ex-Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio found guilty in criminal contempt case
BY ELIZABETH ELIZALDE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Monday, July 31, 2017, 9:37 PM

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... e-identity

'Young white guys are hopping mad': confidence grows at far-right gathering
‘Race realism’ and call for a white ‘ethnostate’ among themes at the American Renaissance conference in Tennessee

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » August 25th, 2017, 10:27 am

https://nebraskaradionetwork.com/2017/0 ... rosecutor/

AG Peterson rejects senators’ request for NSP special prosecutor
AUGUST 24, 2017

Attorney General Doug Peterson rejects the suggestion from 17 state senators that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Nebraska State Patrol.

Peterson has written the senators, responding to their letter requesting that he ask the courts to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the patrol for any violations of state law.

The request comes in light of Gov. Pete Ricketts ordering an investigation of the patrol by Chief Human Resources Officer Jason Jackson June 23rd after allegations surfaced that Col. Brad Rice exerted inappropriate influence over four internal affairs investigations.

Ricketts fired Rice June 30th after receiving the preliminary report from Jackson.

Five others have been suspended over allegations of dishonesty and dereliction of duty in two investigations into whether troopers used excessive force.

Jackson delivered his full report to the governor at the beginning of this month.

The investigation states how the NSP chain of commanded handled two allegations troopers used excessive force raises suspicions of dishonesty and dereliction of duty. In one case, a trooper used a tactical maneuver during a pursuit, resulting in a wreck in which the suspect died. The second case involved allegations a trooper hit a drunk suspect in the head with a rifle butt.

Jackson also states NSP failed to forward 12 cases of misconduct onto the Crime Commission as required by law. His investigation also faults the patrol’s sexual harassment and workplace harassment policies and accuses the patrol of failing to address charges of misconduct.

In his letter

http://www.standardrepublic.com/2017/08 ... /28615.htm

Court orders company to turn over metadata from anti-Trump website

A District of Columbia judge sided Thursday with the Justice Department in ordering web-hosting service DreamHost to turn over certain metadata from an anti-Trump website.

The site, disruptj20.org, helped organize political protests against the Trump administration including one on Inauguration Day which resulted in property damage and scores of arrests. The government’s subsequent push for information from the hosting service has touched off a constitutional battle between the federal government and the company.

Chief Judge Robert Morin, of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, acknowledged Thursday in court that he was struggling to balance First Amendment rights with the valid concerns of law enforcement enforcing a search warrant based on probable cause. While the DOJ has backed off its initial, controversial request for IP addresses, the government still wants other personal information included in the metadata from DreamHost – a request Morin granted.

But the challenge is to focus on pertinent emails from people organizing violent protests without violating the privacy of ordinary website visitors. Morin tried to include safeguards to protect First Amendment rights, by forcing the government to separate records of innocent users from those that fall within the guidelines of the search warrant and to seal all those records.

Defense attorneys, though, warned of the “chilling effect” of even turning over the records, much less letting government investigators “rummage” through the emails.

“The individuals who are visiting, and becoming members of an advocacy group will still know that at some point, someday, there is going to be an FBI agent sitting there and looking at this information,” DreamHost defense attorney Raymond Aghaian said. “At the time this information is in the government’s possession and at the time that the FBI agent is reviewing that email … that, in DreamHost’s view, has itself a chilling effect on the exercise of political expression and the right to association under the First Amendment.”

Defense attorneys added that,

Link du jour

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bro ... -1.3439533

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3439260

It shows the officer punching Hubbard more than a dozen times and hitting his head on the pavement repeatedly. Euclid police initially contended Hubbard refused to follow orders, but Hubbard’s attorney said dashcam video clearly shows that Amiott didn’t give his client an opportunity to comply.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bro ... -1.3439119

NYPD detective saddled with suits after Pedro Hernandez arrest claims Bronx lawyers are out to get him
BY LARRY MCSHANE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, August 24, 2017, 11:48 AM

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... rape-kits/

Five of the best - and five of the worst - sexual assault response policies across the country
by Vanessa Nason
August 24, 2017
The care rape victims receive is entirely dependent on where the crime occurred. Good sexual assault response policies are comprised of a number of initiatives, including (but not limited to) specific officer training, a victim-centered approach, access to victim advocates, guidelines for submitting kits to labs, and victim notification. Based on what we’ve seen in our reporting so far, we’ve rounded up a list of the five best - and the five worst - sexual assault response policies across the country.
Read More

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bro ... -1.3439770

Family of Bronx man shot to death a decade ago by NYPD cop wins $2M from city
BY CHRISTINA CARREGA
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, August 24, 2017, 4:03 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3440888

Politics
Pence’s security detail removed after bringing women back to hotel: report
BY JESSICA CHIA
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, August 25, 2017, 12:28 AM

http://www.wisconsingazette.com/news/fb ... 909f4.html

FBI: Marines won’t be charged with hate crime
SAVANNAH, Ga. Two U.S. Marines accused of knocking a gay Savannah man unconscious will face only misdemeanor charges in the attack after the Justice Department declined to prosecute them for hate crimes, authorities said Wednesday. Savannah-Chatham County police arrested the Marines on June 12 after finding 27-year-old Kieran Daly unconscious on a downtown sidewalk. Witnesses said the Marines got upset because they thought Daly winked at them and attacked him as he tried to walk away.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/sol ... -1.3440336

City agrees to pay $5M to 470 former inmates who sued over solitary confinement
BY CHRISTINA CARREGA ANDREW KESHNER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, August 25, 2017, 4:00 AM

http://www.thedailybeast.com/report-pom ... y-to-trump

Report: Pompeo Has CIA Unit on Edge Over Loyalty to Trump
Daily Beast-
Officials in a CIA counterintelligence unit that has played a vital role in the FBI's Russia probe say they have to “watch” CIA Director Mike Pompeo over fears he ...

http://www.standardrepublic.com/2017/08 ... /28885.htm

CIA's secret spy tool helps agency steal data from NSA & FBI ...
Standard Republic
Details of an alleged CIA project that allows the agency to secretly extract biometric data from liaison services such as the NSA, the DHS and the FBI have been ...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/n ... -1.3441791

New Jersey priest claims he uploaded child porn to get back at God for making him loose at poker

Friday, August 25, 2017, 9:29 AM

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/bombs ... dered-ove/

BOMBSHELL – DID NAJIB PAY OFF TRUMP WITH STOLEN ...
Malaysia Chronicle
That any person under investigation by the FBI and the DOJ for what has been described as the biggest case of money laundering ever would be invited ...

http://www.tsln.com/news/two-fully-acqu ... -standoff/

Two fully acquitted, two partly acquitted from Bundy standoff

After being given alcohol before the interview, Burleson told an undercover FBI agent posing as a documentary film maker that he "was hell bent on killing ...

Sekulow: The FBI Lied and More to Come on Indicted Computer Whiz
CBN News-
The FBI lied to the American Center for Law and Justice, says ACLJ's Jordan Sekulow, about having documents and relevant material regarding a meeting last ...

http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/24/chris ... neo-nazis/

Christian Group Sues For Defamation After Being Equated With KKK ...
The Daily Caller
A Christian TV ministry announced Wednesday that it is suing the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for labeling it a hate group, like the Ku Klux Klan.

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/crim ... fce39.html

UPDATE: Sheriff John Buncich guilty; U.S. Attorney keeps perfect record on public corruption cases

FBI Octopus

International art theft topic of forum
Corvallis Gazette Times
The former manager of the FBI's art theft program will share stories from the fight against the international trade in stolen artwork at the next Corvallis Chamber of ...

https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/art ... 4-20170824

History Premieres Limited Documentary Series ROAD TO 9/11, 9/4
Broadway World-
FBI agents and analysts - Lewis Schiliro, FBI Assistant Director, New York; Special Agent Mark Rossini; Special Agent Ali Soufan; Matthew Besheer, Detective, ...

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pul ... story.html

Pulse nightclub shooting: FDLE releases review of agency's response, recommends changes

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/crime ... 70824.html

Philly narcotics cop swapped drugs for sex, his lawyer says
Philly.com-
FILE PHOTO – Stanley Davis, a 21-year veteran of the Philadelphia police force and a former member of an FBI narcotics squad, is scheduled to plead guilty ...

https://patch.com/pennsylvania/roxborou ... -info-feds

Police Sergeant Took Bribes From Tow Truck Drivers For Crash Info ...
Patch.com-
Brian Smith was charged by indictment with two counts of bribery and two counts of making material false statements to the FBI, Lappen's office said.

https://www.thenation.com/article/growi ... g-brother/

Best advice is to click on link and read entire story detailing
evidence for the CIA dealing heroin in our cities

Growing Up With Big Brother
A historian tracks half a century of evolving state surveillance.
By Alfred McCoy

August 24 2017

In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington pursued its elusive enemies across the landscapes of Asia and Africa, thanks in part to a massive expansion of its intelligence infrastructure, particularly of the emerging technologies for digital surveillance, agile drones, and biometric identification. In 2010, almost a decade into this secret war with its voracious appetite for information, The Washington Post reported that the national-security state had swelled into a “fourth branch” of the federal government—with 854,000 vetted officials, 263 security organizations, and over 3,000 intelligence units, issuing 50,000 special reports every year.

Though stunning, these statistics only skimmed the visible surface of what had become history’s largest and most lethal clandestine apparatus. According to classified documents that Edward Snowden leaked in 2013, the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies alone had 107,035 employees and a combined “black budget” of $52.6 billion, the equivalent of 10 percent of the vast defense budget.

By sweeping the skies and probing the World Wide Web’s undersea cables, the National Security Agency (NSA) could surgically penetrate the confidential communications of just about any leader on the planet, while simultaneously sweeping up billions of ordinary messages. For its classified missions, the CIA had access to the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command, with 69,000 elite troops (Rangers, SEALs, Air Commandos) and their agile arsenal. In addition to this formidable paramilitary capacity, the CIA operated 30 Predator and Reaper drones responsible for more than 3,000 deaths in Pakistan and Yemen.

While Americans practiced a collective form of duck-and-cover as the Department of Homeland Security’s colored alerts pulsed nervously from yellow to red, few paused to ask the hard question: Was all this security really directed solely at enemies beyond our borders? After half a century of domestic security abuses—from the “red scare” of the 1920s through the FBI’s illegal harassment of anti-war protesters in the 1960s and ’70s—could we really be confident that there wasn’t a hidden cost to all these secret measures right here at home? Maybe, just maybe, all this security wasn’t really so benign, when it came to us.

From my own personal experience over the past half-century, and my family’s history over three generations, I’ve found out in the most personal way possible that there’s a real cost to entrusting our civil liberties to the discretion of secret agencies. Let me share just a few of my own “war” stories to explain how I’ve been forced to keep learning and relearning this uncomfortable lesson the hard way.

ON THE HEROIN TRAIL
After finishing college in the late 1960s, I decided to pursue a PhD in Japanese history and was pleasantly surprised when Yale Graduate School admitted me with a full fellowship. But the Ivy League in those days was no ivory tower. During my first year at Yale, the Justice Department indicted Black Panther leader Bobby Seale for a local murder and the May Day protests that filled the New Haven green also shut the campus for a week. Almost simultaneously, President Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia and student protests closed hundreds of campuses across America for the rest of the semester.

In the midst of all this tumult, the focus of my studies shifted from Japan to Southeast Asia, and from the past to the war in Vietnam. Yes, that war. So what did I do about the draft? During my first semester at Yale, on December 1, 1969, to be precise, the Selective Service cut up the calendar for a lottery. The first 100 birthdays picked were certain to be drafted, but any dates above 200 were likely exempt. My birthday, June 8, was the very last date drawn, not number 365 but 366 (don’t forget leap year)—the only lottery I have ever won, except a high-school raffle for a Sunbeam electric frying pan. Through a convoluted moral calculus typical of the 1960s, I decided that my draft exemption, although acquired by sheer luck, demanded that I devote myself, above all else, to thinking about, writing about, and working to end the Vietnam War.

During those campus protests over Cambodia in the spring of 1970, our small group of graduate students in Southeast Asian history at Yale realized that the US strategic predicament in Indochina would soon require an invasion of Laos to cut the flow of enemy supplies into South Vietnam. So, while protests over Cambodia swept campuses nationwide, we were huddled inside the library, preparing for the next invasion by editing a book of essays on Laos for the publisher Harper & Row. A few months after that book appeared, one of the company’s junior editors, Elizabeth Jakab, intrigued by an account we had included about that country’s opium crop, telephoned from New York to ask if I could research and write a “quickie” paperback about the history behind the heroin epidemic then infecting the US Army in Vietnam.

I promptly started the research at my student carrel in the Gothic tower that is Yale’s Sterling Library, tracking old colonial reports about the Southeast Asian opium trade that ended suddenly in the 1950s, just as the story got interesting. So, quite tentatively at first, I stepped outside the library to do a few interviews and soon found myself following an investigative trail that circled the globe. First, I traveled across America for meetings with retired CIA operatives. Then I crossed the Pacific to Hong Kong to study drug syndicates, courtesy of that colony’s police drug squad. Next, I went south to Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam, to investigate the heroin traffic that was targeting the GIs, and on into the mountains of Laos to observe CIA alliances with opium warlords and the hill-tribe militias that grew the opium poppy. Finally, I flew from Singapore to Paris for interviews with retired French intelligence officers about their opium trafficking during the first Indochina War of the 1950s.

The drug traffic that supplied heroin for the US troops fighting in South Vietnam was not, I discovered, exclusively the work of criminals. Once the opium left tribal poppy fields in Laos, the traffic required official complicity at every level. The helicopters of Air America, the airline the CIA then ran, carried raw opium out of the villages of its hill-tribe allies. The commander of the Royal Lao Army, a close American collaborator, operated the world’s largest heroin lab and was so oblivious to the implications of the traffic that he opened his opium ledgers for my inspection. Several of Saigon’s top generals were complicit in the drug’s distribution to US soldiers. By 1971, this web of collusion ensured that heroin, according to a later White House survey of a thousand veterans, would be “commonly used” by 34 percent of American troops in South Vietnam.

None of this had been covered in my college history seminars. I had no models for researching an uncharted netherworld of crime and covert operations. After stepping off the plane in Saigon, body slammed by the tropical heat, I found myself in a sprawling foreign city of 4 million, lost in a swarm of snarling motorcycles and a maze of nameless streets, without contacts or a clue about how to probe these secrets. Every day on the heroin trail confronted me with new challenges—where to look, what to look for, and, above all, how to ask hard questions.

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Reading all that history had, however, taught me something I didn’t know I knew. Instead of confronting my sources with questions about sensitive current events, I started with the French colonial past when the opium trade was still legal, gradually uncovering the underlying, unchanging logistics of drug production. As I followed this historical trail into the present, when the traffic became illegal and dangerously controversial, I began to use pieces from this past to assemble the present puzzle, until the names of contemporary dealers fell into place. In short, I had crafted a historical method that would prove, over the next 40 years of my career, surprisingly useful in analyzing a diverse array of foreign-policy controversies—CIA alliances with drug lords, the agency’s propagation of psychological torture, and our spreading state surveillance.

THE CIA MAKES ITS ENTRANCE IN MY LIFE
Those months on the road, meeting gangsters and warlords in isolated places, offered only one bit of real danger. While hiking in the mountains of Laos, interviewing Hmong farmers about their opium shipments on CIA helicopters, I was descending a steep slope when a burst of bullets ripped the ground at my feet. I had walked into an ambush by agency mercenaries.

While the five Hmong militia escorts whom the local village headman had prudently provided laid down a covering fire, my Australian photographer John Everingham and I flattened ourselves in the elephant grass and crawled through the mud to safety. Without those armed escorts, my research would have been at an end and so would I. After that ambush failed, a CIA paramilitary officer summoned me to a mountaintop meeting where he threatened to murder my Lao interpreter unless I ended my research. After winning assurances from the US embassy that my interpreter would not be harmed, I decided to ignore that warning and keep going.

Six months and 30,000 miles later, I returned to New Haven. My investigation of CIA alliances with drug lords had taught me more than I could have imagined about the covert aspects of US global power. Settling into my attic apartment for an academic year of writing, I was confident that I knew more than enough for a book on this unconventional topic. But my education, it turned out, was just beginning.

Within weeks, a massive, middle-aged guy in a suit interrupted my scholarly isolation. He appeared at my front door and identified himself as Tom Tripodi, senior agent for the Bureau of Narcotics, which later became the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). His agency, he confessed during a second visit, was worried about my writing and he had been sent to investigate. He needed something to tell his superiors. Tom was a guy you could trust. So I showed him a few draft pages of my book. He disappeared into the living room for a while and came back saying, “Pretty good stuff. You got your ducks in a row.” But there were some things, he added, that weren’t quite right, some things he could help me fix.

Tom was my first reader. Later, I would hand him whole chapters and he would sit in a rocking chair, shirt sleeves rolled up, revolver in his shoulder holster, sipping coffee, scribbling corrections in the margins, and telling fabulous stories—like the time Jersey Mafia boss “Bayonne Joe” Zicarelli tried to buy a thousand rifles from a local gun store to overthrow Fidel Castro. Or when some CIA covert warrior came home for a vacation and had to be escorted everywhere so he didn’t kill somebody in a supermarket aisle.

Best of all, there was the one about how the Bureau of Narcotics caught French intelligence protecting the Corsican syndicates smuggling heroin into New York City. Some of his stories, usually unacknowledged, would appear in my book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. These conversations with an undercover operative, who had trained Cuban exiles for the CIA in Florida and later investigated Mafia heroin syndicates for the DEA in Sicily, were akin to an advanced seminar, a master class in covert operations.

In the summer of 1972, with the book at press, I went to Washington to testify before Congress. As I was making the rounds of congressional offices on Capitol Hill, my editor rang unexpectedly and summoned me to New York for a meeting with the president and vice president of Harper & Row, my book’s publisher. Ushered into a plush suite of offices overlooking the spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I listened to those executives tell me that Cord Meyer Jr., the CIA’s deputy director for covert operations, had called on their company’s president emeritus, Cass Canfield Sr. The visit was no accident, for Canfield, according to an authoritative history, “enjoyed prolific links to the world of intelligence, both as a former psychological warfare officer and as a close personal friend of Allen Dulles,” the ex-head of the CIA. Meyer denounced my book as a threat to national security. He asked Canfield, also an old friend, to quietly suppress it.

I was in serious trouble. Not only was Meyer a senior CIA official, but he also had impeccable social connections and covert assets in every corner of American intellectual life. After graduating from Yale in 1942, he served with the marines in the Pacific, writing eloquent war dispatches published in The Atlantic Monthly. He later worked with the US delegation drafting the UN charter. Personally recruited by spymaster Allen Dulles, Meyer joined the CIA in 1951 and was soon running its International Organizations Division, which, in the words of that same history, “constituted the greatest single concentration of covert political and propaganda activities of the by now octopus-like CIA,” including “Operation Mockingbird,” which planted disinformation in major US newspapers meant to aid agency operations. Informed sources told me that the CIA still had assets inside every major New York publisher and it already had every page of my manuscript.

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As the child of a wealthy New York family, Cord Meyer moved in elite social circles, meeting and marrying Mary Pinchot, the niece of Gifford Pinchot, founder of the US Forestry Service and a former governor of Pennsylvania. Pinchot was a breathtaking beauty who later became President Kennedy’s mistress, making dozens of secret visits to the White House. When she was found shot dead along the banks of a canal in Washington in 1964, the head of CIA counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, another Yale alumnus, broke into her home in an unsuccessful attempt to secure her diary. Mary’s sister Toni and her husband, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, later found the diary and gave it to Angleton for destruction by the agency. To this day, her unsolved murder remains a subject of mystery and controversy.

Cord Meyer was also in the Social Register of New York’s fine families along with my publisher, Cass Canfield, which added a dash of social cachet to the pressure to suppress my book. By the time he walked into Harper & Row’s office in that summer of 1972, two decades of CIA service had changed Meyer (according to that same authoritative history) from a liberal idealist into “a relentless, implacable advocate for his own ideas,” driven by “a paranoiac distrust of everyone who didn’t agree with him” and a manner that was “histrionic and even bellicose.” An unpublished 26-year-old graduate student versus the master of CIA media manipulation. It was hardly a fair fight. I began to fear my book would never appear.

To his credit, Canfield refused Meyer’s request to suppress the book. But he did allow the agency a chance to review the manuscript prior to publication. Instead of waiting quietly for the CIA’s critique, I contacted Seymour Hersh, then an investigative reporter for The New York Times. The same day the CIA courier arrived from Langley to collect my manuscript, Hersh swept through Harper & Row’s offices like a tropical storm, pelting hapless executives with incessant, unsettling questions. The next day, his exposé of the CIA’s attempt at censorship appeared on the paper’s front page. Other national media organizations followed his lead. Faced with a barrage of negative coverage, the CIA gave Harper & Row a critique full of unconvincing denials. The book was published unaltered.

MY LIFE AS AN OPEN BOOK FOR THE AGENCY
I had learned another important lesson: The Constitution’s protection of press freedom could check even the world’s most powerful espionage agency. Cord Meyer reportedly learned the same lesson. According to his obituary in The Washington Post, “It was assumed that Mr. Meyer would eventually advance” to head CIA covert operations, “but the public disclosure about the book deal…apparently dampened his prospects.” He was instead exiled to London and eased into early retirement.

Meyer and his colleagues were not, however, used to losing. Defeated in the public arena, the CIA retreated to the shadows and retaliated by tugging at every thread in the threadbare life of a graduate student. Over the next few months, federal officials from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare turned up at Yale to investigate my graduate fellowship. The Internal Revenue Service audited my poverty-level income. The FBI tapped my New Haven telephone (something I learned years later from a class-action lawsuit).

In August 1972, at the height of the controversy over the book, FBI agents told the bureau’s director that they had “conducted [an] investigation concerning McCoy,” searching the files they had compiled on me for the past two years and interviewing numerous “sources whose identities are concealed [who] have furnished reliable information in the past”—thereby producing an 11-page report detailing my birth, education, and campus anti-war activities.

A college classmate I hadn’t seen in four years, who served in military intelligence, magically appeared at my side in the book section of the Yale Co-op, seemingly eager to resume our relationship. The same week that a laudatory review of my book appeared on the front page of the Sunday New York Times Book Review section, an extraordinary achievement for any historian, Yale’s History Department placed me on academic probation. Unless I could somehow do a year’s worth of overdue work in a single semester, I faced dismissal.

In those days, the ties between the CIA and Yale were wide and deep. The campus residential colleges screened students, including future CIA Director Porter Goss, for possible careers in espionage. Alumni like Cord Meyer and James Angleton held senior slots at the agency. Had I not had a faculty adviser visiting from Germany, the distinguished scholar Bernhard Dahm who was a stranger to this covert nexus, that probation would likely have become expulsion, ending my academic career and destroying my credibility.

During those difficult days, New York Congressman Ogden Reid, a ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, telephoned to say that he was sending staff investigators to Laos to look into the opium situation. Amid this controversy, a CIA helicopter landed near the village where I had escaped that ambush and flew the Hmong headman who had helped my research to an agency airstrip. There, a CIA interrogator made it clear that he had better deny what he had said to me about the opium. Fearing, as he later told my photographer, that “they will send a helicopter to arrest me, or…soldiers to shoot me,” the Hmong headman did just that.

At a personal level, I was discovering just how deep the country’s intelligence agencies could reach, even in a democracy, leaving no part of my life untouched: my publisher, my university, my sources, my taxes, my phone, and even my friends.

Although I had won the first battle of this war with a media blitz, the CIA was winning the longer bureaucratic struggle. By silencing my sources and denying any culpability, its officials convinced Congress that it was innocent of any direct complicity in the Indochina drug trade. During Senate hearings into CIA assassinations by the famed Church Committee three years later, Congress accepted the agency’s assurance that none of its operatives had been directly involved in heroin trafficking (an allegation I had never actually made). The committee’s report did confirm the core of my critique, however, finding that “the CIA is particularly vulnerable to criticism” over indigenous assets in Laos “of considerable importance to the Agency,” including “people who either were known to be, or were suspected of being, involved in narcotics trafficking.” But the senators did not press the CIA for any resolution or reform of what its own inspector general had called the “particular dilemma” posed by those alliances with drug lords—the key aspect, in my view, of its complicity in the traffic.

During the mid-1970s, as the flow of drugs into the United States slowed and the number of addicts declined, the heroin problem receded into the inner cities and the media moved on to new sensations. Unfortunately, Congress had forfeited an opportunity to check the CIA and correct its way of waging covert wars. In less than 10 years, the problem of the CIA’s tactical alliances with drug traffickers to support its far-flung covert wars was back with a vengeance.

During the 1980s, as the crack-cocaine epidemic swept America’s cities, the agency, as its own inspector general later reported, allied itself with the largest drug smuggler in the Caribbean, using his port facilities to ship arms to the Contra guerrillas fighting in Nicaragua and protecting him from any prosecution for five years. Simultaneously on the other side of the planet in Afghanistan, mujahedeen guerrillas imposed an opium tax on farmers to fund their fight against the Soviet occupation and, with the CIA’s tacit consent, operated heroin labs along the Pakistani border to supply international markets. By the mid-1980s, Afghanistan’s opium harvest had grown tenfold and was providing 60 percent of the heroin for America’s addicts and as much as 90 percent in New York City.

Almost by accident, I had launched my academic career by doing something a bit different. Embedded within that study of drug trafficking was an analytical approach that would take me, almost unwittingly, on a lifelong exploration of US global hegemony in its many manifestations, including diplomatic alliances, CIA interventions, developing military technology, recourse to torture, and global surveillance. Step by step, topic by topic, decade after decade, I would slowly accumulate sufficient understanding of the parts to try to assemble the whole. In writing my new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power, I drew on this research to assess the overall character of US global power and the forces that might contribute to its perpetuation or decline.

In the process, I slowly came to see a striking continuity and coherence in Washington’s century-long rise to global dominion. CIA torture techniques emerged at the start of the Cold War in the 1950s; much of its futuristic robotic aerospace technology had its first trial in the Vietnam War of the 1960s; and, above all, Washington’s reliance on surveillance first appeared in the colonial Philippines around 1900 and soon became an essential though essentially illegal tool for the FBI’s repression of domestic dissent that continued through the 1970s.

SURVEILLANCE TODAY
In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, I dusted off that historical method, and used it to explore the origins and character of domestic surveillance inside the United States.

After occupying the Philippines in 1898, the US Army, facing a difficult pacification campaign in a restive land, discovered the power of systematic surveillance to crush the resistance of the country’s political elite. Then, during World War I, the Army’s “father of military intelligence,” the dour General Ralph Van Deman, who had learned his trade in the Philippines, drew upon his years pacifying those islands to mobilize a legion of 1,700 soldiers and 350,000 citizen-vigilantes for an intense surveillance program against suspected enemy spies among German-Americans, including my own grandfather. In studying Military Intelligence files at the National Archives, I found “suspicious” letters purloined from my grandfather’s army locker. In fact, his mother had been writing him in her native German about such subversive subjects as knitting him socks for guard duty.

In the 1950s, Hoover’s FBI agents tapped thousands of phones without warrants and kept suspected subversives under close surveillance, including my mother’s cousin Gerard Piel, an anti-nuclear activist and the publisher of Scientific American magazine. During the Vietnam War, the bureau expanded its activities with an amazing array of spiteful, often illegal, intrigues in a bid to cripple the anti-war movement with pervasive surveillance of the sort seen in my own FBI file.

Memory of the FBI’s illegal surveillance programs was largely washed away after the Vietnam War thanks to Congressional reforms that required judicial warrants for all government wiretaps. The terror attacks of September 2001, however, gave the National Security Agency the leeway to launch renewed surveillance on a previously unimaginable scale. Writing for TomDispatch in 2009, I observed that coercive methods first tested in the Middle East were being repatriated and might lay the groundwork for “a domestic surveillance state.” Sophisticated biometric and cyber techniques forged in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq had made a “digital surveillance state a reality” and so were fundamentally changing the character of American democracy.

Four years later, Edward Snowden’s leak of secret NSA documents revealed that, after a century-long gestation period, a US digital surveillance state had finally arrived. In the age of the Internet, the NSA could monitor tens of millions of private lives worldwide, including American ones, via a few hundred computerized probes into the global grid of fiber-optic cables.

And then, as if to remind me in the most personal way possible of our new reality, four years ago, I found myself the target yet again of an IRS audit, of TSA body searches at national airports, and—as I discovered when the line went dead—a tap on my office telephone at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Why? Maybe it was my current writing on sensitive topics like CIA torture and NSA surveillance, or maybe my name popped up from some old database of suspected subversives left over from the 1970s. Whatever the explanation, it was a reasonable reminder that, if my own family’s experience across three generations is in any way representative, state surveillance has been an integral part of American political life far longer than we might imagine.

At the cost of personal privacy, Washington’s worldwide web of surveillance has now become a weapon of exceptional power in a bid to extend US global hegemony deeper into the 21st century. Yet it’s worth remembering that sooner or later what we do overseas always seems to come home to haunt us, just as the CIA and crew have haunted me this last half-century. When we learn to love Big Brother, the world becomes a more, not less, dangerous place.

This piece has been adapted and expanded from the introduction to Alfred W. McCoy’s new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power.

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » August 31st, 2017, 2:32 pm

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ack-people

'We only shoot black people': Georgia officer faces investigation for comment
Lt Greg Abbott of Cobb County caught on dashcam footage making remark to white woman during traffic stop in July 2016

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3457822

Black Pregnant Seattle mother killed by Seattle cops was shot seven times, had no drugs or alcohol in system

BY DAVID BOROFF
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, August 31, 2017, 11:42 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/n ... -1.3457360

NYPD officer kills dog, accidentally shoots U.S. marshal in foot while searching for fugitive in Jersey City
BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA THOMAS TRACY

http://stevehochstadt.blogspot.com/2017 ... -dead.html

The Character Test is Dead

In 2016, Donald Trump confounded every informed opinion about his campaign’s chances for success. The same question kept returning: why didn’t this particular outrageous display of personal character sink his ship? Trump was confident that his personal morality would make little difference: “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” That was in January 2016.

A report on new poll results says “only 73% of Republicans” approve his performance. Why “only”? The great majority approve of what he has done, and presumably are looking forward to more of the same.

This keeps surprising the media. In February, CNN tried to explain what puzzled them: “Why Trump’s supporters still love him.” In April, the Huffington Post asked, “At 100 Days, Why Do Most Of Trump’s Voters Still Love Him?” Now it’s August and little has changed. Trump bet that character doesn’t matter, and he keeps winning.

A sea change has swept over the public consciousness of our country since the 1950s. In the America that Trump’s supporters believe was great, character mattered. You might be a jerk in business, in academia, in politics and get ahead. You might be a jerk in town, and still get elected to important local positions. You might be jerk at home and abuse your family, but still parade as a family man.

But being a jerk didn’t help. Those who got caught cooking the books or cheating their customers or beating weaker people up could lose everything. Failing the character test in a public way meant disaster.

Passing the character test depended a lot on what the media were willing to make public. Dwight Eisenhower’s affair with Kay Summersby and JFK’s liaisons with many women were known, but treated gingerly by the press. Searching for the personal scandals of powerful men was considered sleazy.

Nixon’s enormous character failure, and the long-running national scandal that dominated the media in 1972-1974, changed the character test. Journalists and publishers grew more attuned to the use of character flaws as news. But adultery was not yet enough to sink an important politician. Arkansas Congressman Wilbur Mills was caught with a stripper, Fanne Fox, in 1974, but was reelected the next month. As the media embraced a new sexual ethic of visual exploitation in the 1970s and 1980s, it also embraced the virtues of sensationalized print. Gary Hart’s extramarital affair while he was running for President in 1988 showed that adultery had become a major element in the character test.

Other questions on the character test assumed conservative ideology was moral character. That has long been true. In the postwar decades, made-up accusations of “Communism” were sufficient to attribute severe moral failings to crusaders for labor and civil rights. 1950s gender rules were clearly represented in the character test: gay was sick, dominance was manly, ambition was unwomanly. Blackness was itself considered as a moral failing. The character test often functioned to weed out liberals by turning emotion into a flaw. Ed Muskie failed the character test in 1972 by tearing up in a New Hampshire snowstorm as he defended his wife against scurrilous lies planted by the Nixon White House.

These politicized claims about character have lost their persuasiveness. People, a lot of whom suffered personally from these ideas about character, have changed the test by challenging its premises. Race may always be a failing of our union, but the certainty that black skin is a character flaw is gone. Homosexuality no longer needs to be hidden from view for political success.

I have no statistics, but I believe that Republicans have adopted better to a media hungry for sensationalized scandal and contributed much to its triumph. Republicans tried during Bill Clinton’s entire presidency to make his sex life the key test of character. They impeached him for lying, an almost amusing idea in the Trump era. The character assassination of John Kerry in 2004 became the birther controversy for Obama.

That brings us back to Trump, who demonstrates that the character test is dead. His abuse of women, his cheating of people he hired, his personal nastiness, his lying and bragging, seem to have contributed to rather than hurt his appeal. Trump fails every test of character, but it makes no difference.

Even as personal behavior has become important in the careers of NFL players and TV personalities, it seems to have lost its relevance in politics. The careers of Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice were damaged by evidence of domestic violence, but Mark Sanford could have an affair, lie about it, use public funds to finance his adultery, and then get elected to Congress.

In fact, the character test may have been turned on its head. Trump appeals to a surprisingly large segment of Americans who like nastiness, who applaud insults, who cheer bloodshed, and who hate liberals and liberal ideas. When he grabs women and laughs about it, when he tells lies about good people, when he calls journalists “sick”, when he mocks the handicapped, and when he winks at white supremacists, his supporters are happy. Criticize what look like his character flaws and you’ll get nowhere with them.

But do it anyway. The character test is dead only if we let it die.

Steve Hochstadt
Springbrook WI

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/clim ... nds-21715a

Here’s How Climate Change is a ‘Death Sentence’ in Afghanistan’s Highlands

Published: August 29th, 2017
By Sune Engel Rasmussen, The Guardian

The central highlands of Afghanistan are a world away from the congested chaos of the country’s cities. Hills roll across colossal, uninhabited spaces fringed by snow-flecked mountains, set against blistering blue skies.

In this spectacular, harsh landscape, one can pinpoint more or less where human settlement becomes impossible: at an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,840 feet).

This is where Aziza’s family lives, in the village of Borghason. In a good year, they just about survive by cultivating wheat and potatoes for food and a small income. However, when the rains fail, as they increasingly do, the family is plunged into debt, unable to reimburse merchants for that year’s seeds. “Last year, we had to borrow money from the bazaar,” Aziza says.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/fem ... -1.3455945

Female guards sexually assaulted young male detainees at Horizon juvenile center: lawsuit
BY VICTORIA BEKIEMPIS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, August 30, 2017, 11:05 PM

FBI Birmingham
Public Affairs Specialist Paul E. Daymond
(205) 279-1457
Share on Twitter Twitter Share on Facebook Facebook Email Email

August 29, 2017
Hate Crimes: A Conference on Law Enforcement and Civil Rights September 17 and 18

BIRMINGHAM—Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will be the keynote speaker for the opening session of the 2017 annual Conference on Civil Rights and Law Enforcement sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Birmingham Division, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

The two-day conference will focus on hate crimes. The program begins at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, September 17, at the historic 16th Street Baptist Church, with Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein delivering his address at 4 p.m.

The conference continues on Monday, September 18, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will include a case study on the 2015 hate-crime massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, from a federal prosecutor and investigators who worked the case. The gunman, a 21-year-old white supremacist, killed nine people during a Bible study at the church. The speakers will include Nathan Williams, who prosecuted the case, Brian Womble, supervisory FBI special agent, and Gregory Mullen, the recently retired Charleston chief of police. Each will speak about the role he played in the tragic event.

The conference is free, but registration for each day is required at www.bcri.org.

“Hate crimes have devastating effects beyond the harm inflicted on any one victim,” stated Andrea L. Taylor, BCRI President and CEO. “They reverberate through families, communities, and the entire nation.”

“Hate crimes are the highest priority of the FBI’s civil rights program and the objective of this conference is to create open, honest dialogue between law enforcement officials and the community, promote cooperation, and share with the community what a federal hate crime is and how to report it,” said FBI Birmingham Division Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp Jr.

Monday’s session will begin with Dr. Andrew Baer, assistant professor, Department of History, University of Alabama at Birmingham, who will speak about the history of hate. Dr. John Gampher, UAB Department of Psychology, will follow with his presentation, “Inside the Mind of Hate.”

Dr. Shay DeGolier, Outreach and Organizing Specialist with the Southern Poverty Law Center, will deliver Monday’s luncheon address.

Monday’s program also will include a panel discussion addressing what hate looks like from the perspective of various minority communities within the Greater Birmingham metro area. Dr. G. Christine Taylor, Vice President and Associate Provost, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, at the University of Alabama, will moderate the panel.

FBI Special Agent Gerome Lorrain, Jackson Division, will conclude Monday’s session with a case study on the 2015 death of Mercedes Williamson, which resulted in the first conviction on federal hate crime charges arising from the murder of a transgender woman.

For more information on the conference, contact Paul Daymond, at [email protected] or (205) 279-1457, or Charles Woods III, at [email protected] or 205-328-9696 x246.

Link du jour

I once applied for a teaching job here

http://www.tribalcollegejournal.org/edu ... tt-passes/

http://www.sintegleska.edu

trac.syr.edu

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/goog ... ange-21012

Google Earth Shows 30 Years of Climate Change

Satellites have revolutionized the way we see the world. Since the first satellite image of earth was taken in 1959, they’ve captured a world reshaped by humans.

Cities have risen, lakes have dried out, ice shelves have disappeared and the future of energy has begun popping up in deserts and fields around the world. Human ingenuity put the satellites into orbit hundreds of miles above the earth to chronicle these changes. And now human ingenuity has strung together decades of images to crystalize what those changes look like in every corner of the globe.

Google has been collecting a database of imagery from the Landsat and Sentinel satellite systems that spans 1984 until the present. It’s part of a petabyte-scale database from our eyes in the sky (for reference, you’d need 31,250 iPhone 7s — the basic 32 gigabyte version — to store a single petabyte of data). Using their Earth Engine system, anyone with an internet connection can see those changes. Here are some of the starkest and most hopeful timelapses of our planet.

The Larsen ice shelf disintegrates in Antarctica

FBI Octopus

http://jewishexponent.com/2017/08/30/co ... eaves-awe/

Former FBI agent Fitzpatrick
Congressman’s Trip to Israel Leaves Him ‘In Awe’

August 30, 20170

U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-District 8) traveled to Israel a few weeks ago with high expectations.

The trip, which included visits with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Palestinian Authority counterpart, Rami Hamdallah, as well as meetings with military personnel, from generals of the Israel Defense Forces to rank-and-file soldiers, exceeded those expectations.

“It was the most educational trip I’ve ever been on,” said Fitzpatrick, who took office in January. “You learn on every trip you’re on, but I learned more on this trip about foreign affairs, about Israel in particular, about coalition government, about national security threats, about border security and about history. When you think of Israel and particularly Jerusalem, it’s ground zero for humanity. I was just in awe being there.”

The annual trip for congressmen, which ran from Aug. 6 to 14, was sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation. According to Fitzpatrick, whose district encompasses all of Bucks County and a section of upper Montgomery County, about 35 people made the journey, including House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Mayor promised to increase public’s trust with police. He now has a new police auditor

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/art ... rylink=cpy

AUGUST 30, 2017 12:25 PM

Fresno Mayor Lee Brand took a step toward fulfilling one of his campaign pledges from last year, naming his appointees Wednesday to a new Citizens Public Safety Advisory Board and announcing the hiring of a new independent police auditor to work on building greater trust between the public and the city’s police force.

John Gliatta, a crime analyst with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office and 27-year veteran of the FBI in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., will take the job in the Office of Independent Review. He will fill the role on a full-time basis and reside in Fresno. Previous auditors have worked part-time and most recently lived out of state, reviewing complaints lodged by residents against police by way of a paper trail and after-the-fact interviews.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/art ... rylink=cpy

NECA, PTSA applaud difference makers
Natchez Democrat
The guest presenter is Juan Cloy, a former FBI agent. The theme is 'Keepin It 100' which will focus on helping youth understand their true identity. For more ...

https://www.city-journal.org/html/what- ... 15328.html

FROM THE MAGAZINE
What Criminologists Don’t Say, and Why
Monopolized by the Left, academic research on crime gets almost everything wrong.
John Paul Wright Matt DeLisi
Summer 2017 Public safety

https://www.skepticalscience.com

Study: Katharine Hayhoe is successfully convincing doubtful evangelicals about climate change
Posted on 28 August 2017 by dana1981

Approximately one-quarter of Americans identify as evangelical Christians, and that group also tends to be more resistant to the reality of human-caused global warming. As a new paper by Brian Webb and Doug Hayhoe notes:

a 2008 study found that just 44% of evangelicals believed global warming to be caused mostly by human activities, compared to 64% of nonevangelicals (Smith and Leiserowitz, 2013) while, a 2011 survey found that only 27% of white evangelicals believed there to be a scientific consensus on climate change, compared to 40% of the American public (Public Religion Research Institute, 2011).

These findings appear to stem from two primary factors. First, evangelicals tend to be socially and politically conservative, and climate change is among the many issues that have become politically polarized in America. Second, there is sometimes a perceived conflict between science and religion, as Christians distrust what they perceive as scientists’ “moral agenda” on issues like evolution, stem cell research, and climate change. As Webb and Hayhoe describe it:

theological conservatism, scientific skepticism, political affiliation, and sociocultural influences have reinforced one another to instill climate skepticism into the evangelical tribe mentality, thus creating a formidable barrier to climate education efforts.

The front and back stages of carceral expansion marketing in Canada
This study was produced as part of the Carceral Cultures research initiative (www.carceralcultures.ca), which aims to generate knowledge about Canada’s culture of punishment that informs and gives meaning to related penal policies and practices.

View all notes

Download citation http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10282580.2016.1262769
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Abstract
This article examines how provincial and territorial government agencies and prison authorities in Canada promote new penal infrastructure initiatives. Through an analysis of press releases, websites, opening ceremonies and open houses to promote jail and prison construction projects, our analysis reveals discourses that are legitimating carceral expansion in the Canadian context including: the pursuit of public safety and institutional security; providing opportunities for rehabilitation and healing; addressing the legacies of colonization through the ‘indigenizing’ of imprisonment; generating economic stimulus through prison-related employment and other financial contributions; and the establishment of ‘environmentally-friendly’ prisons. Drawing from government records obtained using Access to Information and Freedom of Information requests, we also provide examples of how front stage messages communicated to the public are assembled by bureaucrats and marketing firms in the back stage of these punishment campaigns.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3457708

Everything Ivanka Trump’s done for working females since her father became President (hint: not much)
BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, August 31, 2017, 12:04 PM

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/air-for ... ahMM9EpChB

Air Force veteran in leak case wants FBI admission suppressed

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/08/30/ ... on-people/

Half a World Away From Harvey, Global Warming Fueled Deluges Now Impact 42 Million People
Rising sea surface temperatures in South Asia led to more moisture in the atmosphere, providing this year’s monsoon with its ammunition for torrential rainfall. — The Pacific Standard

While flooding is common in the region, climate change has spurred dramatic weather patterns, greatly exacerbating the damage. As sea temperatures warm, moisture increases, a dynamic also at play in the record-setting rainfall in Texas. — Think Progress

******

With Harvey delivering its own hammer blow of worst-ever-seen rainfall to Texas, 42 million people are now impacted by record flooding half a world away. The one thing that links these two disparate disasters? Climate Change.

A Worsening Flood Disaster in South Asia

As Harvey was setting its sights on the Texas Coast this time last week, another major rainfall disaster was already ongoing. Thousands of miles away, South Asia was experiencing historic flooding that seven days ago had impacted 24 million people.

At the time, two tropical weather systems were developing over a very warm Pacific. They were angling in toward a considerably pumped up monsoonal moisture flow. And they appeared bound and determined to unleash yet more misery on an already suffering region.

As of Monday, the remnants of tropical cyclone Hato had entered the monsoonal flow and was unleashing its heavy rains upon Nepal. The most recent in a long chain of systems that just keeps looping more storms in over the region to disgorge they water loads on submerged lands.

By Wednesday, the number of people suffering from flooding in India, Bangladesh and Nepal had jumped by 18 million in just one week to more than 42 million. With 32 million impacted in India, 8.6 million in Bangladesh, and 1.7 million in Nepal. More tragically, 1,200 people have perished due to both landslides and floods as thousands of square miles have been submerged and whole regions have been crippled with roads, bridges, and airports washing out. Adding to this harsh toll are an estimated 3.5 million homes that have been damaged or destroyed in Bangladesh alone.

Worst impacts are likely to focus on Bangladesh which is down-stream of flooded regions in Nepal and India. As of last week, 1/3 of this low-lying country had been submerged by rising water. With intense rains persisting during recent days, this coverage is likely to have expanded.

Hundreds of thousands of people have now funneled into the country’s growing disaster shelters. A massive international aid effort is underway as food and water supplies are cut off and fears of disease are growing. The international Red Cross and Red Crescent and other relief agencies have deployed over 2,000 medical teams to the region. Meanwhile, calls for increased assistance are growing.

Warmer Oceans Fuel Tropical Climate Extremes

As with Harvey, this year’s South Asia floods have been fueled by much warmer than normal ocean surface temperatures. These warmer than normal ocean surfaces are evaporating copious amounts of moisture into the tropical atmosphere. This moisture, in turn, is intensifying the monsoonal rains.

(Very warm ocean surface temperatures related to global warming are contributing to catastrophic South Asian flooding in which 42 million people are now impacted. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

In the Bay of Bengal, ocean surfaces have recently hit about 3 C above the three decade average. But ocean waters have been warming now for more than a Century following the initiation of widespread fossil fuel burning. So even the present baseline is above 20th Century temperature norms. At this point, such high levels of ocean heat are clearly having an impact on tropical weather.

In an interview with CNN, Reaz Ahmed, the director-general of Bangladesh’s Department of Disaster Management noted last week that:

“This is not normal. Floods this year were bigger and more intense than the previous years.”

Further exacerbating the situation is that fact that glaciers are melting and temperatures are rising in the Himalayas. This increases water flow into rivers during monsoon season even as glacial melt flow into rivers is reduced during the dry season. It’s kind of a flood-drought whammy in which the dry season is growing hotter and drier for places like India, but the wet season is conversely getting pushed toward worsening flood extremes.

Links:

The Pacific Standard

Think Progress

Earth Nullschool

Nepal, India, Bangladesh Floods Impact Millions

NASA Worldview

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... -collapses

South Asia floods: Mumbai building collapses as monsoon rains wreak havoc
Flooding across India, Nepal and Bangladesh leaves parts of cities underwater as storm moves on to Pakistan

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » September 20th, 2017, 4:01 pm

https://gizmodo.com/fbi-severely-underr ... 1818517490

FBI Severly Underreported the Number of Times It Allowed Informants To Engage in Criminal Activity

This year, the FBI appears to for the first time have overlooked a reporting obligation established by the US Attorney General’s office, and in doing so, the bureau appears to have greatly lowballed the total number of times it authorized confidential informants to engage in criminal activity last year.

As a consequence, the bureau did something else that’s new: It revealed the number of times it gave informants permission to engage in serious criminal activity. And lacking an official explanation so far, our running theory is that a clerical error could be to blame.

Each year, the FBI Directorate of Intelligence compiles a report on what the US Justice Department calls “otherwise illegal activity” (OIA)—activity FBI informants are involved in that would otherwise be illegal, had the FBI not given them permission to do it.

There are some crimes the FBI is forbidden from authorizing. Those include: acts of violence and obstruction of justice (i.e., witness tampering, entrapment, fabrication of evidence). Its informants are also prohibited from “initiating or instigating” a plan to commit a crime. Otherwise, authorized informants may engage in criminal activity to maintain cover and provide the bureau with intelligence on other, presumably worse criminals, so long as certain protocols are observed.

These protocols are explained in a document known as The Attorney General’s Guidelines Regarding the Use of Confidential Informants. Since at least 2006, this document has included a number of record keeping requirements. One is that the FBI must submit an annual report to the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and National Security Division describing “the total number of times each FBI Field Office authorized a Confidential Human Source to engage in Otherwise Illegal Activity (OIA), and the overall nationwide totals.”

These OIA reports are traditionally drafted between January and March each year. The yearly average of otherwise illegal activities reported between 2011 and 2015 is around 5,600. In 2012, the number peaked at 5,939. The lowest number was in 2015, when the FBI only reported only 5,261 authorizations for criminal activity, according to new records obtained by Gizmodo under the Freedom of Information Act.

The authorizations for OIA must be renewed every three months, so technically it’s possible each individual authorization covers a multitude of criminal acts. In other words, the figures don’t actually represent crimes, but 90-day windows in which informants are allowed to break the law.

The 2016 report, which was compiled by the assistant director of the FBI Intelligence Directorate, appears wildly inaccurate at first blush. The number of authorizations for criminal activity reported to the Justice Department this March was only 381.

Here’s what that looks like compared to the previous five years:

What?

Either the FBI has dramatically curtailed how often it allows informants to break the law, or something’s not right here. Here’s a closer look at the actual numbers, side by side:

2011: 5,658 (USA Today)
2012: 5,939 (Huffington Post)
2013: 5,649 (The Daily Dot)
2014: 5,577 (The Daily Dot)
2015: 5,261 (Gizmodo)
2016: 381 (Gizmodo)
If you picked “something’s not right here,” then you are correct. It turns out the FBI actually failed to report any entire tier’s worth of criminal activity, thereby significantly reducing the overall number of authorized crimes it reported. That’s about a 93 percent drop in the OIA total.

Authorized crimes by informants are divided into what the FBI calls “tiers.” Tier 1 activities are more serious types of crimes, importing huge amounts of heroin for instance; whereas Tier 2 includes basically everything else, down to shoplifting.

Here’s an incomplete list of what’s considered Tier 1 activity:

The commission, or the significant risk of the commission, of any act of violence by a person or persons other than the Confidential Human Source;
Corrupt conduct, or the significant risk of corrupt conduct, by an elected public official or a public official in a high-level decision-making or sensitive position in federal, state, or local government;
Manufacturing, importing, exporting, possession, or trafficking of controlled substances in a quantity equal to or exceeding those quantities specified in United States Sentencing Guidelines § 2D1.1(c)(1) (90 kilos of heroin, 450 kilos of cocaine, 90,000 kilos of marijuana, etc.);
Financial loss, or the significant risk of financial loss, in an amount equal to or exceeding those amounts specified in United States Sentencing Guidelines § 2B1.1(b)(1)(I) ($1.5 million.)
Conversely, Tier 2 activity is simply defined as: “any other activity that would constitute a misdemeanor or felony under federal, state, or local law if engaged in by a person acting without authorization.”

Most of the time, we can’t tell the difference between the two. For reporting purposes, Tier 1 and 2 criminal activity is usually bundled into a single total. And that means that in 2015 the FBI may have authorized its informants to commit 5,261 misdemeanors for all we know.

But this year, something different happened. Tier 2 wasn’t included. And now we know that in 2016, at least 381 times, the FBI authorized its informants to engage in some really serious criminal activity. Whether that was commissioning an act of violence by another person or manufacturing a truckload of cocaine, we can’t be sure.

So, how did this happen exactly? Was it a clerical error or did the FBI do this on purpose? Did the Attorney General’s office issue new guidelines? We’re not entirely sure. The Justice Department declined to comment, even though it sets the rules and, by all appearances, its National Security Division was robbed of an important statistic. The FBI told Gizmodo on Monday that it was working on an answer. We’ll update if we get one.

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/09/20/ ... ea-levels/

As the Worst Storms Grow More Frequent, San Francisco and Oakland Sue Fossil Fuel Companies over Rising Sea Levels
Faced with ramping damages and increased infrastructure costs from rising seas, both San Francisco and Oakland are suing major fossil fuel companies for their considerable contributions to the problem.

According to a report from SF Gate today, the claim is asking coal, oil and gas companies like Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP to pay billions of dollars in damages for not only producing the heat-trapping gases that drove sea-level rise but for knowingly doing so.

Fossil Fuel Companies Sued For Role in Rising Seas, Attempts at Cover-up

The suits join those already filed by San Mateo and Marin counties as well as the community of Imperial Beach. San Francisco and Oakland, however, are the first large cities to engage in the suit –with these two cities combined representing a total population of 1.3 million people.

(Melt in the vulnerable regions of West Antarctica produces proportionately high rates of sea level rise for the U.S. West Coast. Sea levels could rise by as much as ten feet, according to recent scientific reports, resulting in tens of billions of dollars in damages and mass displacement of west coast populations. Video Source: California Sea Levels Could Rise 10 Feet by 2100.)

San Francisco notes that seas may rise by as much as 10 feet by the end of this Century. Consequently, the city expects to invest 5 billion dollars or more in improved flood defenses over the long haul. The suit argues that fossil fuel burning is the primary contributor to this problem and that fossil fuel companies have known since at least the 1980s that burning their products would result in these risks and damages. The suit also notes that these corporations falsely attempted to convince the public that they weren’t the primary cause — standing in defiance of basic scientific facts and public safety alike.

The text of the suit reads:

“Defendants stole a page from the Big Tobacco playbook and sponsored public relations campaigns, either directly or through the American Petroleum Institute or other groups, to deny and discredit the mainstream scientific consensus on global warming, downplay the risks of global warming and even to launch unfounded attacks on the integrity of leading climate scientists.

“This case is, fundamentally, about shifting the costs of abating sea level rise harm — one of global warming’s gravest harms — back onto the companies. After all, it is defendants who have profited and will continue to profit by knowingly contributing to global warming.”

San Francisco and Oakland are just two of thousands of coastal communities that now face rising sea levels and worsening ocean storms that were in great majority caused or worsened by fossil fuel burning.

Rising Seas, Worsening Storms Due to Fossil Fuel Burning

While it is less easy to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a single storm was caused by climate change, it is obvious that they are overall growing worse in a warming world.

As an example, the number of the absolute worst cyclones in the Atlantic basin has considerably risen since the 19th Century — from zero Category 5 storms during the 50 year period from 1851 to 1900 to 13 during the 27 year period of 1991 to today. Where two such most powerful storms formed in the 30 year period from 1901 to 1930, the same number have formed during just the single year that is 2017. The climate dice, in this instance, have, indeed, been terribly loaded. And as we have seen throughout the Atlantic, Caribbean, and along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts, these more frequent, more intense, most powerful, storms represent a dire threat to those inhabiting the cities, states, and island nations in their path.

Moreover, the link between human-caused climate change through fossil fuel burning and sea level rise is irrefutable. As sea level rise through glacial melt and thermal expansion is a direct and obvious result of the warming that comes from rising global temperatures due to increased levels of heat trapping gasses in the atmosphere.

Links:

San Francisco and Oakland Sue Major Oil Companies Over Rising Seas

California Sea Levels Could Rise 10 Feet by 2100

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3508462

Missouri trooper charged with drowning death of handcuffed suspect gets 10 days in jail for lesser offense
BY TERENCE CULLEN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, September 20, 2017, 9:41 AM

Link du jour
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... university

http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.c ... gn-agents/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... tage-trump

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3508458

Cornell University closes fraternity in wake of possible hate crime
BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, September 20, 2017, 9:25 AM

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... who-suffer

Bail disparities across the US reflect inequality: 'It is the poor people who suffer'
An antiquated, haphazard system allowing counties to set bail for misdemeanors often caters to conservative values and targets the poorest people
by Matt Krupnick

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nor ... -1.3507396

Prison Union Boss NYC Crime Norman Seabrook claims $20G found in his safe was casino prize money, not bribes
BY VICTORIA BEKIEMPIS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, September 19, 2017, 9:50 PM

Norman Seabrook is seen leaving federal court on Aug. 10 in New York. The former correction union boss allegedly took kickbacks in exchange for investing his union's money in Platinum Partners fund.
Norman Seabrook is seen leaving federal court on Aug. 10 in New York. The former correction union boss allegedly took kickbacks in exchange for investing his union's money in Platinum Partners fund. (ALEC TABAK/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
Former correction union boss Norman Seabrook has a perfectly good explanation for having some $20,000 in his home safe — he won it at a casino, a new court filing suggests.

Seabrook faces charges for allegedly accepting a $60,000 cash bribe so he would push $20 million in union pension money to a sketchy hedge fund named Platinum Partners. Murray Huberfeld, who had helmed Platinum Partners, also faces charges in the alleged kickback scheme.

When the feds raided Seabrook’s Bronx home on June 8, 2016 — the same day as his arrest — they seized $28,700 in cash, Manhattan Federal Court papers state.

Most of the money — $22,350 — was collected from a safe in Seabrook’s bedroom, according to his lawyer, Paul Shechtman.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bri ... -1.3509435

Account of Bridge and Tunnel cop’s rough sex assault of his correction officer ex-girlfriend made public
BY REUVEN BLAU

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3509255

Former Chicago police sergeant arrested after nearly 15 years on the run

BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, September 20, 2017, 3:20 PM

Expert witness in James Blake faces criticism, judge temporarily clears courtroom
BY THOMAS TRACY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, September 20, 2017, 4:29 PM

It was Officer James Frascatore’s disciplinary hearing — but it was an expert witness testifying on his behalf who wound up on the hot seat Wednesday.

The judge overseeing Frascatore’s case suddenly cleared the courtroom after a prosecutor tripped Section 50-a of the state Civil Rights Law, which prevents the public disclosure of personnel records of uniformed officers.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado at first refused to allow Civilian Complaint Review Board prosecutor Jonathan Fogel to ask retired NYPD Lt. Daniel Modell about his disciplinary record while on the job.

Modell had been called to testify for the defense about Frascatore’s takedown of retired tennis star James Blake.

NYPD cop who tackled James Blake now wants to stand trial
Modell had admitted to being disciplined for playing a bit part in the 2013 NYPD ticket-fixing scandal before Maldonado stopped Fogel’s line of questioning, citing the 50-a law.

After Fogel strenuously objected to Maldonado’s decision, she reversed her opinion. But she also had the courtroom cleared so that Modell’s disciplinary record would be placed on the record — but behind closed doors.

During the portion of Modell’s testimony that was public, he said that Frascatore did nothing wrong when he pulled the tennis pro to the ground outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel on E. 42nd St. on Sept. 9, 2015.

“It is entirely in keeping with his training,” Modell said. “(Cops) are trained to take control of the situation as quickly as possible.”

Cop accused of attacking James Blake may settle before trial
Modell also said that the move caught on video — which the retired lieutenant referred to as a “cross armbar” — is designed to not inflict pain on the subject “unless they resist.”

On the day he tackled Blake, Frascatore was working in plain clothes on a case involving an identiy theft ring making massive purchases on a concierge website GoButler.com.

Frascatore rushed Blake after a courier identified him — mistakenly, as it turned out — as a player in that ring.

The identity thieves, his superiors said, were armed with knives.

Twenty years later, pain of NYPD's Abner Louima attack remains
Surveillance videos shows Frascatore twisting Blake’s left arm, grabbing him by the back of his neck and pulling him down to the sidewalk.

Cops running the operation released Blake once police realized they had the wrong guy.

But the confrontation made headlines and was viewed by many through the lens of race and as example of how minority men are treated by police.

Frascatore is white. Blake is biracial.

Garner's mom calls on officials to push chokehold cop punishment
Then-Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor de Blasio apologized to Blake, once the No. 4 ranked tennis player

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3508948

SEE IT: Police officer detains boy with autism after mistaking him for druggie
BY CASSIDY GROM
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, September 20, 2017, 1:48 PM

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » October 7th, 2017, 7:34 pm

http://www.texasgopvote.com/security/se ... le-0010168

Security Guard Wounded - FBI Culpable

by Phil Vasile on October 6, 2017 at 10:59 AM
During the reign of Obama, there were several incidents which indicated his allegiance to Islam, but in 2015 he may have outdone himself. There is apparently evidence indicating that the FBI was complicit in the Garland, Texas jihad attack at a free speech event co-organized by Pamela Geller. The following are excerpts from the Washington Examiner.

The security guard wounded in a 2015 ISIS-inspired terrorist attack at the “Draw Muhammad” event in Garland, Texas, is suing the FBI, and argues the bureau is liable for his damages because an agent “solicited, encouraged, directed and aided members of ISIS in planning and carrying out the May 3 attack,” according to court documents filed Monday.

If the plaintiff, Bruce Joiner, doesn’t settle with the bureau, the case could shake loose hundreds of documents from both local and federal officials about what happened that day, and could answer the question of why an FBI agent was in a car directly behind the attackers and did nothing as the events unfolded.

In May of 2015, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi drove from their home in Phoenix to the Curtis Culwell center in Garland where the “Draw Muhammad” contest was being held, in a car loaded with three rifles, three handguns, and about 1,500 rounds of ammunition.

The two never made it inside, as guards, including Joiner, stopped them outside at a perimeter checkpoint, at which time Simpson and Soofi opened fire. Because the event was heavily guarded, the two were quickly shot and killed and barely made past the checkpoint where they opened fire.

Joiner was the only victim that day. He took a bullet to the left leg, and ISIS would later claim credit for orchestrating the attack, making it the first ISIS-backed terror event on U.S. soil.

Joiner’s lawsuit is seeking just over $8 million in damages, and argues that the FBI essentially allowed the attack to happen.

“The FBI helped the terrorists obtain a weapon that was used in the attack by lifting a hold during a background check, incited the terrorist to attack the Garland event, and even sent an agent to accompany the terrorists as they carried out the attack,” the court filing said.

The filing also alleged that former FBI Director Jim Comey lied in a “post-attack cover-up” about the bureau’s knowledge of how the attack unfolded and what Comey and the bureau knew about what was likely to transpire.

“In the aftermath of the attack, former FBI Director James Comey lied to the American people by claiming that Simpson was a needle in a haystack’ that was ‘invisible to us,'” the filing alleged. “Even after it had come to light that an undercover FBI agent had been communicating extensively with the terrorists during the week prior to the event and had accompanied them as they carried out the attack, the FBI continued to assert that “[t]here was no advance knowledge of a plot to attack the cartoon drawing contest.”

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

Since the attack, a separate court case and a “60 Minutes” report in March revealed that an undercover FBI agent was in the car directly behind Simpson and Soofi when they opened fire, and was even taking pictures of the car about 30 seconds before the first shots were fired. That case even revealed that the agent had texted Simpson just weeks before with the message, “Tear up Texas.”

Shortly after the first shots were fired, the agent fled, and was briefly detained by Garland Police, as seen in a video still from WFAA TV in Dallas.

Because of a separate court case tangentially related to Simpson and Soofi, it’s known that the FBI had been monitoring Simpson for years, and that the FBI agent was undercover in the Phoenix ISIS cell had direct contact with them routinely in the months leading up to the attack.

Joiner’s attorney, Trenton Roberts told the Washington Examinerthis year that he now believes the FBI might have been willing to let the attack unfold to even greater lengths.

“It seems like it had to have been one or the other,” Roberts told the Washington Examiner in April. “Just a complete botched operation where they [the FBI] don’t want the attack to actually take place, or, it’s something where they need the attack to take place in order for this guy [the agent] to advance in the world of ISIS.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -fbi-agent

New York terrorist plots thwarted by undercover FBI agent
US court hears three alleged Isis supporters planned to target Times Square, concert venues and subway stations in 2016

https://www.amazon.com/Terror-Factory-I ... 1935439618

The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism Hardcover – January 15, 2013
by Trevor Aaronson (Author)
A groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism exposes how the FBI has, under the guise of engaging in counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than 15,000 informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the Bureau can then claim it is winning the war on terror.

An outgrowth of Trevor Aaronson's work as an investigative reporting fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, which culminated in an award-winning cover story in Mother Jones magazine, The Terror Factory reveals shocking information about the criminals, con men, and liars the FBI uses as paid informants--including the story of an accused murderer who has become one of the Bureau's most prolific terrorism snitches--as well as documenting the extreme methods the FBI uses to ensnare Muslims in terrorist plots, which are in reality conceived and financed by the FBI.
The book also offers unprecedented detail into how the FBI has transformed from a reactive law enforcement agency to a proactive counterterrorism organization that traps hapless individuals in manufactured terrorist plots in order to justify the $3 billion it spends every year fighting terrorism.

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/17/don ... under-him/

DON’T LIONIZE JAMES COMEY. THE FBI DID SOME TERRIBLE THINGS UNDER HIM.
Trevor Aaronson
May 17 2017, 5:12 p.m.

WHEN DONALD TRUMP asked FBI Director James Comey in February to drop the investigation of former National Security Adviser (and then-unregistered foreign agent) Michael Flynn, the president apparently didn’t realize that Comey would behave like one of his more than 13,000 special agents.

As the New York Times reported from a source close to Comey, the FBI director went back to his office and wrote down from memory a summary of his conversation with Trump.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump told Comey, according to a memo the FBI director wrote. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

About three months after Trump allegedly said this, the president fired Comey.

Had this been a normal criminal investigation, and had Comey been a special agent in the field, the memo he would have written would have been known, in the FBI’s parlance, as an FD-302. The FBI does not record conversations with subjects related to criminal investigations. Instead, FBI agents, using their memory and sometimes handwritten notes, draft memos that summarize the conversations and include purportedly verbatim quotes. Federal judges and juries have consistently viewed these memos as indisputable fact. For this reason, Comey’s memo is no normal government memo. It could do lasting damage to Trump’s presidency, if not contribute to costing him the nation’s highest office altogether.

While Comey is now positioned for history to remember him as the cop who took down Trump, or tried to at great professional expense, there should be wariness about lionizing Comey in the way the news media have in recent days. Under Comey, the FBI pushed investigative and surveillance powers to new and controversial limits and employed tactics that were morally and ethically bankrupt.

In short, Comey’s FBI did some terrible things.

Trevor Aaronson’s conversation with Jeremy Scahill on the FBI can be heard on the latest episode of the Intercepted podcast:

In an effort to stop terrorist attacks before they happen, Comey expanded the practice instituted by his predecessor, Robert Mueller, to use undercover agents and informants to catch would-be attackers in sting operations. These stings never caught terrorists on the eve of their attack. Notably, the FBI twice investigated Omar Mateen, the Orlando nightclub shooter who killed 49 people and wounded 53 others while claiming allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call, but did not deem him a threat. At the same time, Comey’s FBI agents aided in the prosecution of Sami Osmakac, a Florida man caught in a sting operation, despite having called him in private conversations a “retarded fool.” They also busted penniless, mentally ill homeless men who claimed to be associating with ISIS. In one of those cases, an informant even gave a homeless man $40 so he could purchase the machete and knives he needed for his supposed plot. To catch a lonely Michigan man, the FBI used two female informants to set up a honeypot, in which the FBI informants claimed to be in love with the target so as to manipulate him. The target, in turn, claimed to have an AK-47 and to have attempted to travel to Syria. But it turned out he was just saying all that to impress the ladies.

When the FBI busted the dark web child-porn site Playpen, agents did not shut down the enterprise, going against previous FBI policy. In investigations of child pornography under Mueller, the FBI shut down child-porn websites immediately, believing that allowing distribution of the images and videos would further victimize the children who had been exploited. Comey’s FBI continued to operate Playpen for nearly two weeks in an effort to surreptitiously install tracking software on the computers of its users; child pornography was available from FBI servers during this period of time.

Just days before his firing, Comey testified before Congress that one-half of all smartphone and computer devices analyzed by the FBI can’t be examined “with any technique” due to encryption. During his tenure, Comey worked aggressively to give the FBI access to encrypted devices. Notably, Comey battled in court with Apple over the tech company’s unwillingness to help unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. The FBI later paid a hacker somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million to help unlock the phone. At the time, Comey told a House committee: “There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America.”

Despite being portrayed as flawless by movies and television shows, the FBI Laboratory turned out to be a vehicle for bad science and injustice. In 2015, the FBI acknowledged that examiners in its microscopic hair comparison unit had given flawed testimony, including in 32 cases in which defendants were sentenced to death.

Comey endorsed the practice of FBI undercover agents posing as members of the news media, though he called the practice “rare.” Of known cases in which FBI agents pretended to be journalists, they emailed a bomb-threat suspect near Seattle by posing as Associated Press employees, claimed to be a documentary film crew to investigate Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters, and purported to be an investigator working with a journalist to conduct an undercover inquiry in Colorado.

Other examples of problems under Comey’s watch include the following:

An FBI translator, Daniela Green, traveled to Syria in 2014 and married Denis Cuspert, an ISIS operative and former German hip-hop artist. The FBI employee wasn’t undercover when this happened. She was in love. When she returned to the United States, Green received favorable treatment by becoming a cooperating witness — just two years in prison for making false statements — despite dozens of FBI cases in which ISIS sympathizers do far less and receive significantly harsher sentences.
More than a year after two men attacked a convention center near Dallas where Pamela Geller had organized the “First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest,” the FBI admitted in a court filing that it had an undercover agent embedded close to the two attackers, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi. After one of the attackers posted a link to the “Draw Muhammad” event, the undercover agent wrote: “Tear Up Texas.” The undercover agent was on site during the attack but fled when the shooting started. In April, after CBS’s “60 Minutes” covered the story, Sen. Charles Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Comey asking, among other questions: “Did the FBI suspect that Simpson and Soofi planned an attack at the drawing contest? Did the FBI have any formal or informal operational plan to intervene to stop Simpson and Soofi from carrying out an attack?”
The FBI expanded its authority to investigate people in the United States even when they are not suspected of being involved in criminal activity. This is commonly done in the service of recruiting informants, of which the FBI has more than 15,000. According to a classified FBI manual on the handling of informants that was updated under Comey, FBI agents are encouraged to build files on possible informants, may use undercover identities to recruit informants, and with proper clearances may recruit minors as well as journalists, clergy, and lawyers. The FBI under Comey also codified a policy of using immigration as leverage to recruit informants and the threat of removal to keep coerced informants productive.
Top photo: FBI Director James Comey during his testimony at a House Appropriations hearing on “World Wide Threats” on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2016.

https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable- ... 760XGJRWV5

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters Paperback – October 19, 2010
by James W. Douglass (Author)

http://www.vachss.com/graffiti_wall/the_real_danger.jpg

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/06/p ... -officers/

Wild video: Carjacker chased, then fatally shot as he bobbed in river
The Mercury News-
It began around 7 a.m. when FBI agents and Miami-Dade police officers went to the man's home north of the city to serve a warrant linked to the Sept. 29 robbery ...

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/powerf ... stigation/

Powerful senator trying to make infamous ‘pee tape’ dossier disappear from the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2017 ... ps_an.html

Bike building program partners cops with kids (PHOTOS)

Updated on October 6, 2017 at 7:37 AM Posted on October 6, 2017 at 7:30 AM

http://www.thv11.com/news/arizona-compa ... /481343686

Arizona company makes bullet-resistant products

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... k-shelley/

October 5, 2017
J. Edgar Hoover’s “subversive” pal, Jack Shelley
FBI files show the congressman’s cordial relationship with the director - despite his being labeled a security threat
Written by JPat Brown
Edited by Michael Morisy
Labor organizer, Californian congressman, and mayor of San Francisco John Francis “Jack” Shelley is typically cited among the most prominent figures on J. Edgar Hoover’s “Emergency Detention” list of “subversives” that were to be arrested if war with the Soviet Union became “inevitable.” However, as Shelley’s FBI file shows, being marked as a potential threat to the country didn’t stop Hoover and Shelly from enjoying a cordial, if not down downright friendly, relationship during the latter’s time on the Hill.

Even leaving aside the “secret detention order” thing for a moment, the relationship between the two didn’t exactly have a promising start. Shelley first shows up in the Bureau’s files as part of a perjury investigation into a Justice Department informant who had fingered both Shelley and fellow California congressman Franck R. Havenner as card-carrying communists.

Havenner and Shelley both vehemently denied those charges, and understandably, the exchange got heated. At one point, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation rather testily reminded the two that while they might not be members of the party themselves, they had enough association with them to warrant suspicion as fellow travelers.

Then, a few months into the investigation, Shelley’s mother died. Hoover, a noted mother-lover himself, wrote a personal note to Shelley (which the file notes the Bureau had had “limited cordial correspondence with prior) expressing his sympathies.

In response, Shelley wrote to thank Hoover …

and that, as they say, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Between those two letters, the Bureau had received a request for a background check on Shelley from the Army, ahead of Shelley’s visit to the Far East Command in Japan.

Although the Bureau noted that Shelley had rubbed elbows with a few commies back in his labor days, they ultimately gave him a generally clean bill of health. Shelley was no Red.

So what had happened to change the Hoover’s view of Shelley from the enemy within to a bonafide American? Was it really so simple as a Batman v Superman-esque reminder that they both had mothers?

Not exactly. For starters, earlier that year, Shelley had approached the Bureau about potentially informing on communist infiltration of the labor movement.

That, combined with the findings of the perjury investigation, had led to the Bureau’s conclusion that Shelley was a “political opportunity.”

And while Hoover could never conscience a communist, a political opportunist is another thing entirely. Hoover could work with a political opportunist.

Following Shelley’s reelection, their relationship continued to improve, with Hoover a frequent guest speaker at the youth organizations that Shelley was involved in.

Their personal relationship was a factor when Shelley received a letter from a constituent urging him, as a fellow union man, to put an end to the Bureau’s “witch-hunt” in the labor movement …

which Shelley immediately forwarded on to Hoover himself.

The Bureau checked its files, determined that the man who wrote the letter was a deviant with an “inadequate personality,” and Hoover wrote back to Shelley, assuring him that the whole thing was being blown out of proportion.

The closest thing to a snag between the two was a brief run-in with the mid-century equivalent of #fakenews. During Queen Elizabeth’s visit to the U.S. in 1957, Shelley was unable to visit his son at a hospital Her Royal Highness was visiting. The tabloids reported Shelley railing against the “FBI, Secret Service, Scotland Yard, and the State Department” …

which Shelley insisted had been a misquote. He had just been mad about the State Department.

Other than that minor blip, it was a non-stop lovefest from here on out, with the Bureau noting approvingly that Shelley was a potential challenger to Jimmy Hoffa …

and Shelley bragging about how cool everyone thinks he is because he had the director on speed dial.

That last part wasn’t exactly an exaggeration. Shelley, who at this point had “grown up” and abandoned his earlier delusions about communism, was given not one, but two direct lines to the Bureau if he could be of assistance with their investigation into the labor movement.

While none of that information made it in the file, it does include Shelley passing on a constituents’ suggestion to use 24/7 radar surveillance to stop all crime.

To which Hoover responded, “we’re working on it.”

Their last exchange came after Shelley had left Congress to become San Francisco’s first Democratic mayor since 1910. An agent had sent Shelley a copy of Hoover’s latest article about the Soviet threat, and Shelley had written back a letter of appreciation.

The agent forwarded the letter to Hoover, telling him to check the note at the bottom …

which if you’re having trouble deciphering, was helpfully transcribed by the Bureau.

Who says subversives can’t be sweethearts? Read the full file embedded below, or on the request page

DOCUMENT
PAGES
Zoom

Link du jour

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10 ... hire-home/

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/10/07 ... s-Research

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/st ... 637c431df7

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/w ... -1.3498413

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 125028.htm

12,000 years ago, Florida hurricanes heated up despite chilly seas
New research from The Geological Society of America's Journal Geology
Date:
October 5, 2017
Source:
Geological Society of America
Summary:
Category 5 hurricanes may have slammed Florida repeatedly during the chilly Younger Dryas, 12,000 years ago. The cause? Hurricane-suppressing effects of cooler sea surface were out-weighed by side effects of slowed ocean circulation.

http://statesatrisk.org

ABOUT STATES AT RISK
Across the country, many of us are experiencing changes in weather — winters are colder, summers are hotter, storms are hitting harder, and wildfires are burning longer. When these events strike, they have a profound and detrimental impact on our economy and daily lives. And changes likes these are expected to continue and get worse over time.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 202008.htm

Too much sugar? Even 'healthy people' are at risk of developing heart disease
Date:
October 4, 2017
Source:
University of Surrey
Summary:
Healthy people who consume high levels of sugar are at an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/g ... all-season

Warming Football Season
Download high resolution versions.

Warming Football Season

Published: September 27th, 2017
By Climate Central

Football season is in full swing, but it’s just not as cold as it used to be. Just this past Sunday, Green Bay was 89°F at kickoff, the hottest home kickoff the Packers have had at Lambeau Field. Swaths of other football towns across the Northeast and Midwest had similarly sweltering conditions.

This Sunday’s heat is a single data point, but our analysis reveals widespread warming in NFL cities. We examined the average temperature for each of the 30 NFL cities for September through December since 1970 and found that all of them are trending warmer.

Football season temperature trends in these NFL cities
Some of the cities in colder climates, such as Detroit, Green Bay, and Minneapolis have seen football season heat up more than 3°F since 1970. Minneapolis is the fastest-warming NFL city with temperatures 4.8°F warmer than in 1970. These results are in line with larger trends which indicate that colder climates are generally warming faster than warmer climates, particularly during the winter and fall.

But global warming isn’t just roughing the climate in northern cities. Football season in Houston, New Orleans, and Phoenix is also more than 3°F warmer than in 1970. While the mild weather may make for more pleasant December tailgates outside of enclosed stadiums, it could feel like football season is off to a false start for September games. Outdoor tailgates are hotter, and practices can take a greater toll on players.

For the teams going full throttle in outdoor stadiums, the increasing heat raises the risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Relentless heat can also tire players out, raising the risk of injury. The heat is only likely to get more intense as the world warms, pointing to the reality that we can’t punt on addressing climate change.

METHODOLOGY: We computed the average temperature for the four month period September through December using the daily average temperature in each of the 30 NFL cities. The analysis goes back to 1970 because data is only complete for all cities through that time. We used temperature data from the largest city within each team’s coverage area in the

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 102741.htm

'Squirtable' elastic surgical glue seals wounds in 60 seconds
Emergency treatments could be transformed, saving lives
Date:
October 5, 2017
Source:
University of Sydney
Summary:
A highly elastic and adhesive surgical glue that quickly seals wounds without the need for common staples or sutures could transform how surgeries are performed.

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/10/06/ho ... oing-next/

In 2007, students building a house in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon hung a touchscreen monitor on the wall and connected it to the internet through a desktop computer. They developed software so people could touch the screen to turn the lights on or off, monitor energy use and control the security system.

“That was before the iPad existed,” said Joe Simon, competition manager for this year’s Solar Decathlon, which runs in Denver through Oct. 15. “Two years later, schools had better-looking programming. They had the iPad integrated. Two years after that, a team had modified the Microsoft Kinect (game controller) so that everything in the house could be controlled by hand movements. Two years after that, those students founded a company for energy management, which is now being used by Southern California Edison and has venture funding.”

https://www.boston.com/sports/new-engla ... r-gay-bowl

Patriots become first NFL team to sponsor ‘Gay Bowl’

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/ ... oming-king

Trans Maine teen kicked out of old school voted homecoming king

NORTH BERWICK, Maine A transgender Maine teen who said he was kicked out of his former high school for his gender identity has been named homecoming king at his new school.

The announcement of Stiles Zuschlag as king was made Friday evening at halftime of Noble High School’s homecoming football game.

He tells

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/nation ... rial_in_nh

Former trooper testifies at excessive force trial in NH

October 07, 2017

NASHUA, N.H. — A former New Hampshire trooper says he was wrong to punch a motorist after a pursuit that had dragged on for more than an hour last year.

Andrew Monaco testified Friday during the trial of Massachusetts State Trooper Joseph Flynn that he no longer works in law enforcement after pleading guilty to assault in the May 2016 altercation captured by a TV news helicopter. Monaco acknowledged throwing the first punches before Flynn joined in.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3547809

Oregon officers investigated for staging nude photo shoot in courthouse
BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, October 7, 2017, 3:42 PM

A nude photo shoot allegedly staged by a group of Oregon deputies at the county courthouse sparked an internal investigation and has resulted in at least one top officer being put on administrative leave.

Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts and local news outlets received an anonymous letter alleging the officers were taking pictures at the courthouse for a calendar they gave to a retiring colleague.

A source close to the sheriff’s office told KPTV more than a dozen deputies, at least one sergeant and a captain within the civil division were at the courthouse when the raunchy photo shoot occurred on Sept. 23.

The calendar allegedly contains photos that include nude deputies with objects like a gun belt or a hat hiding their genitals, Oregon Live reported. Another image supposedly sees a deputy naked on a desk with his backside facing the camera while another shows a different officer posing shirtless in a flower bed on courthouse’s second floor, according to the anonymous letter.

http://www.kptv.com/story/36541967/clac ... courthouse
An internal investigation at the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office in Oregon City is underway after several deputies and supervisors did a nude photoshoot inside the Clackamas County Courthouse (seen here) on September 23, 2017. (KPTV)
The note continued on to suggest that the photo shoot was intended to mock gay men and while its writer did not identify himself, he did say his wife — a state worker — told him a courthouse deputy was “laughing and bragging to her” about it last week, according to the news site.

“I take this complaint very seriously and can assure the public that we will investigate this quickly and thoroughly,” Roberts said in a statement. “If we find that employees have violated any law or policy they will be held accountable.

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“Behavior like this, if true, is unacceptable and extremely troubling.”

After the investigation was launched on Thursday, officials found reason to place Captain Dave O’Shaghnessy on paid leave.

The 24-year department veteran is in charge with supervising the courthouse deputies, among others.

A spokesman for the sheriff’s office told KPTV they “are working diligently to secure any and all information related to his matter,” including surveillance cameras in use outside the courthouse.

msfreeh · Post by **msfreeh** » October 19th, 2017, 10:34 pm

The FBI is trying to attract high school students to STEM, cyber jobs
EdScoop News (press release) (blog
Hoping to nudge bright students toward degrees and eventual careers in cybersecurity, the FBI has deployed a pilot program in high schools nationwide, said ...

Help Us Identify a Child Predator
Federal Bureau of Investigation (press release) (blog)-Oct 11, 2017
The video was obtained during an FBI investigation and forwarded to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), ...

https://medium.com/@LoriHandrahan2/law- ... e48164430f

Law Enforcement Arrested for Trading in Child Rape

The following summary of 103 law enforcement officers (LEOs) arrested for trading in child rape updates earlier research. In November 2014, I profiled seventy local and state police officers arrested on child pornography related charges — Police Trading in Child Rape & Torture. My research was out of date almost as soon as I hit publish. A year later I posted When Law Enforcement is the Perpetrator reviewing one month, November 2015, when more than two LEOs per week were in the news for trafficking in child sex abuse. This research is not comprehensive but rather a small sample of LEOs arrested and does not include federal law enforcement. Without institutional support, conducting a complete study of all local, state and federal law enforcement has not been possible.
As for the weak argument someone always seems to make, “there is a certain number of pedophiles in the population and the number within law enforcement is perfectly normal” — let me respond. No pedophile should ever wear a badge, carry a gun and swear an oath to serve and protect. Not one person trading in child rape should ever be employed in law enforcement. Ever. Period. If we cannot keep pedophiles out of law enforcement, what kind of country have we become? If law enforcement cannot keep child rapists out of their ranks — what kind of “protection” are we paying for with our tax money?
Imagine, as you read these arrests, you are a parent reporting to police your child has been raped, or is missing or trafficked. How do you think the police here might have handled your complaint? How well do you think your children are being protected? These are real children being raped and tortured in the videos and images. American children. Every time an image/video is shared that child is trafficked again. Far too many police are involved in the trafficking.
For further information, please see the National Police Misconduct Reporting Project (NPMRP) at Cato Institute and the Associated Press (AP) year long investigation, 2015, into police misconduct.
Local and State Law Enforcement
Michael Harding, a Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce Officer in Florida, was

Michael Harding
arrested, 22 September 2015, on child pornography charges. He pleaded guilty, 22 February 2016, and was sentenced, 23 May 2016, to life in prison. Harding was caught in a Kik chatroom called #toddlerfuck. He was trading in child rape while on duty and possessed hundreds of videos/images of child rape and torture.

Michael Harding’s Criminal Complaint
Harding also raped his two stepdaughters, age 5 and 9, and produced child pornography of that abuse. He also “attempted to set times to swap his stepdaughter for another pedophile’s child.”
In 2011, Harding had been named Officer of the Year. Harding is a registered sex offender.
William Allan Jacobs, 50 year old retired Police Chief of Minneapolis Park
William Jacobs
Minnesota, was arrested, 2010, on child pornography and child sex abuse charges and pleaded guilty, March 2012. He was sentenced, April 2012, to 18 years in jail.
After “five decades of unfettered access to children,” Jacobs was finally caught when a young boy reported being sexually abused over a three year period. Seventeen other men came forward claiming sexual abuse by Jacobs between 1962 and 1980 when he was a police officer and a camp counselor. There may be up to 20 to 30 other victims. Jacobs admitted he had been molesting boys since he was 19 years old. The local paper headlined “William Jacobs: The Minneapolis pedophile no one stopped.” Upon his arrest, investigators found some 150,000 child rape images/videos in Jacobs’ home.
Miguel Angel Martinez, a sergeant with Detroit Police Department (DPD),
Miguel Angel Martinez
Miguel Angel Martinez’s Criminal Complaint
was arrested, 22 February 2017, and charged with child pornography possession, distribution and receipt. Martinez was trading in pre-teen hard core (PTHC) which is the brutal rape and torture of very small children. He was caught by an undercover cop in Reno, Nevada Sheriff’s Office.
The Detroit Free Press reports Martinez has been suspended with pay pending trial.
Jonathan Gamson, a 53 year old Sergeant with
___________________________________________________________________
Lori Handrahan, Ph.D. can be contacted on her website www.LoriHandrahan.com

Massachusetts police officer faces DUI charge

https://apnews.com/96080622fef64415a94a58e254a37a7a

LYNN, Mass.

A Lynn police lieutenant is facing a drunken driving charge following a weekend accident.

Lt. James Shinnick was released on personal recognizance following his arraignment Thursday in Peabody District Court.

He’s

http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Liv ... 291698.php

BRIDGEPORT — A decision last year by the mayor and police chief to allow a national television company to show live footage of the city’s police officers at work might end up costing the city.
Local lawyer Robert Berke on Thursday filed his second federal brutality lawsuit against city police officers over an incident involving a client who was shown on A&E’s show “Live PD.”
In September 2016, Mayor Joe Ganim and Chief Armando Perez signed an agreement with a local A&E producer to allow cameras to follow officers as they investigated cases and made arrests. Bridgeport police activity was shown live during the program, along with footage from about a half-dozen police departments around the country.
But recently, Bridgeport Police Sgt. Stacey Lyons received a written reprimand for an incident last November when she was charged with breaking into her former boyfriend’s Trumbull home just hours after she was featured on “Live PD” warning of the dangers of domestic violence.
In May, Burke filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against several city police officers on behalf of a man who claims police shot up his car and beat him up over less than an ounce of marijuana. Part of the incident was featured on “Live PD.”

http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Ret ... 291401.php

BRIDGEPORT - A retired city police officer has been charged with sexually assaulting an employee in the Trumbull mall.
Garfield Burns, 62, was charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and second-degree breach of peace.
During his arraignment hearing Thursday afternoon, Superior Court Judge William Holden ordered Burns to stay out of the Westfield Mall.
Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Tatiana Messina told the judge that this is the second time Burns, a police officer for 20 years until he retired in 2005, has been accused of sexually assaulting female store employees.
Burns’ lawyer, Noah Kores, urged the judge to set his client free because of his service as a police officer.
“All incidents of sexual misconduct are disturbing,” Holden said. He then ordered Burns held in lieu of $10,000 bond.
Trumbull police said on Sept. 12, Burns approached a female employee in the Brookstone store at the mall and identified himself as a former police officer. During a subsequent conversation with the 26-year-old woman, police said Burns told her, “You have such large breasts,” and then suddenly leaned over and kissed the employee’s chest.
When the woman became upset, police said Burns, who is married, then got down on one knee and offered to give her a ring.
Police said the store’s surveillance video confirmed the woman’s account.
In November, 2011, Burns was arrested after police said he sexually assaulted a female Walmart employee in Stratford.
Another store employee told police that Burns had told him at some point he wanted to drink the female employee's bathwater.

Idaho settles lawsuit involving allegations of coerced sex

https://apnews.com/43724e1e0ccb4bc899b61c1dbc200fc8

BOISE, Idaho

Idaho officials have paid $24,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by an eastern Idaho woman who said an Idaho State Police detective investigating her as part of a federal drug case coerced her into having sex.

The Idaho Statesman reports (http://bit.ly/2ytT2wv) that the Idaho Office of Risk Management settled the case on Monday.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office dismissed drug charges against the woman and four other defendants following the allegations against former ISP detective Ryan Blackhawk.

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