Posts filed under ‘Laws / Judiciary’
Law Enforcement Asked Google to “Remove Videos of Police Brutality”
Check out this Google “Transparency Report:”
We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.
Thanks to Google for not complying with the request but woohah, it’s pretty darn scary that a “law enforcement agency” would make a request directly in conflict with laws regarding freedom of speech. If they’re embarrassed about their acts of police brutality, maybe they shouldn’t beat people anymore, rather than attempt to delete evidence that they did.
Obama: Why I Might Not Vote For You In November / #17
Here’s yet another act on President Obama’s part that (don’t forget, he’s a “Constitutional lawyer”) is making me think twice about how I’ll vote in November:
Obama Makes It Official: Suspected Terrorists Can Be Indefinitely Detained Without a Trial
Despite having once threatened to veto the bill due to controversial language about the treatment of suspected terrorists, the president signed the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on Saturday. Barack Obama did not keep his lingering concerns about aspects of the bill law a secret, however. In justifying his decision to sign NDAA into law, Obama said in a statement, “I have signed the Act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed.” He continued, “The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”
Obama: If you have “serious reservations” about a bill, you veto it. Period.
And bear in mind — nut cases could become president who could abuse this new law to no end.
More on how you and I might land in indefinite detention as a result of this bill here and here.
Oh, and talk about Friday afternoon DC “document dumps.” This is even worse. It’s Saturday and it’s New Year’s Eve. The White House is clearly worried about this yet hey, they think we’re idiots and we won’t notice.
Happy New Year!
The SEC and Citigroup F**k a US District Court Judge and He’s Pissed
I’m making dinner (macaroni and cheeeeeeese!) so this is a quickie:
SEC Chided Again by Judge in Citigroup Fraud Case
(Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission got a fresh dressing-down from the judge who rejected its $285 million settlement with Citigroup Inc, as he said the regulator kept him out of the loop on its efforts to salvage the case.
In his latest sharply-worded order, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff chastised the SEC for not telling him it had filed an emergency request with an appeals court to put the case on hold, after making the same request to him.
So when Rakoff on Tuesday issued a ruling opposing any delay in the case, he was beaten to the punch; 78 seconds earlier, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had granted the SEC the temporary halt it sought.
He also accused the SEC and Citigroup of potentially “misleading” the court, saying they called him around 3:30 p.m. EST (2030 GMT) on Tuesday to discuss the case, without mentioning the filing with the 2nd Circuit.
Less than an hour later, the 2nd Circuit ruled, and so did Rakoff. That 2nd Circuit order negated the work Rakoff said he had done over the weekend to get a ruling to the SEC as quickly as he could.
Rakoff wrote that he “spent the intervening Christmas holiday considering the parties’ positions and drafting an opinion, so that (the court) could file it on December 27, i.e. the first business day after the Christmas holiday.”
To prevent a recurrence, Rakoff ordered the SEC and Citigroup to “promptly notify” him of any filings they make in the appeals court.
Regarding the text in bold, as a former paralegal, I can tell you that’s just dirty, low ball stuff on the SEC’s part. It’s also known as judge shopping.
And since when does a judge have to issue an order that parties to a case have to “promptly notify” him that they’ve filed a new case? That’s route and expected. No wonder he’s furious.
The arrogance of the SEC and Citigroup is indicative of a climate wherein the rich and powerful don’t think they have to follow the rules.
As for the rest of us? How about 12 years in prison for selling a $31 bag of pot.
Judge Orders Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Follow the Constitution
Back in the day when I monitored Fox for Outfoxed and the Newshounds, Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio was a frequent guest on Your World w/Neil Cavuto (what he had to do with “business news” is something I never figured out), and he was touted one tough, God-and-country kind of dude. Yes siree, he was a flag wavin’ Amerrrican:
The rule of law and how Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio runs his office are often mutually exclusive.
Arpaio, whose jurisdiction includes the sprawling Phoenix metropolitan area, has been labeled by supporters as “America’s toughest sheriff.” Unfortunately, he achieved that moniker by routinely violating the human rights of jail inmates and ignoring the constitutional protections of those he swore to protect.
[...]
Now, enough may finally be enough. Last Friday, the U.S. District Court in Phoenix issued an injunction to stop Arpaio’s office from detaining or arresting people based only on suspicion of being in the U.S. illegally without any evidence of criminal activity. The court also certified the four-year-old civil rights lawsuit, for which the ACLU is co-counsel, as a class action. This allows any Latino who has been stopped or detained by the sheriff’s office since 2007 (or anyone who might be in the future) to enforce the court order.
The suit seeks to change how Arpaio enforces immigration laws and does not ask for monetary damages.
“The district court ruled that the sheriff’s policy of detaining people merely based on a suspicion that they are in the U.S. unlawfully violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure,” said Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.
If you stop someone because you think they might be in the U.S. unlawfully, you’re a hero on Fox. The Constitution? That’s for sissies.
Seven Occupy Protesters in Texas Charged with a FELONY
Geez. The more I hear about Texas, the more I never want to go there:
Seven Occupy protesters were indicted on felony charges by a grand jury in Houston on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office says, in connection with their demonstration at the local port as part of a national day of action by the movement.
The decision comes nearly a week after a judge initially dismissed the charges, saying the protesters could not be charged with possessing or using a “criminal instrument” – a felony in Texas – for their use of PVC pipe.
The protesters — three from Austin, four from Houston — put their arms through the pipe and used latches on it to connect together, making their arrest more difficult but not preventing it, said one of their attorneys, Daphne Silverman, of the National Lawyer’s Guild in Houston. Donna Hawkins, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office, confirmed the indictment.
“They are feeling, ‘wow,’ is the word. … They’re in a lot of shock. They were very happy with the justice’s decision last week, they believed in her, they believed in the justice system,” Silverman said. “These people … are not criminals. These folks are out there attempting to make the country better for all of us.”
[...]
The protesters had joined with other Occupy outfits across the country that were conducting port shutdowns on Dec. 12 to economically disrupt what they called “Wall Street on the waterfront.”
Arrests on felony arrests were occurring in other cities, such as Denver and New York. Civil rights lawyers have suggested the use of felony charges was another form of crackdown on the movement.
The Houston Police Department has used the “criminal instrument” against protesters on previous occasions, according to Attorney Randall Kallinen, who is representing one of the seven protesters. The charge usually does not hold up in court in such cases, but because it is a felony charge it has a chilling effect on would-be activists, he said.
So they’re charging Occupy protesters with felonies for linking together with PVC pipe –it would be funny if it weren’t so serious — and now they face up to two years in prison. Last I looked, not one of the banksters who brought down the world’s economy have even been charged with so much as a misdemeanor. Gosh. Don’t you just love how “justice” is dispensed in the good ol’ US of A? And isn’t it interesting the way the judicial system seems to be working to intimidate the Occupy movement on behalf of the corporatocracy?
Martha Coakley Becomes First Sitting AG to Support Overturning Citizens United
I think it’s just astounding that it has taken until today — December 9, 2011 — for the first sitting Attorney General in the United States to come out in support of repealing Citizens United, a ruling that was handed down in January, 2010. I.e., we’ve had almost two years of silence from the top law lawyers in the country.
Really sad and so indicative of the hold the corporatocracy has on our elected officials.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has become the first sitting state attorney general in the United States to support a constitutional amendment to overturn the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC ruling issued in January 2010. The ruling swept away a century of precedent barring corporate expenditures in US elections and has unleashed a torrent of unlimited corporate money in the political process.
On Wednesday, December 7, 2011, Attorney General Coakley issued a letter to the chairs of the Massachusetts state senate and state house judiciary committees declaring support for a pending resolution that calls on Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment restoring free speech and fair elections to the people.
Rick Perry Unaware There are Nine Supreme Court Justices
I’ll say it again: Rick Perry reminds me of the quintessential, stereotypical “dumb blond,” someone who has coasted through life because of their good looks, while letting their brain turn to mush:
Rick Perry again stumbled on the presidential campaign trail today, referring to “eight” justices on the Supreme Court. There are nine justices on the Supreme Court, a fact every American child learns in grade school.
Perry’s comments came at a meeting with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board. Perry attacked the “eight unelected” justices on the Supreme Court for making decisions he disagreed with.
Pathetic.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Trashing the First Amendment
This is the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Scott Walker, the dictator governor of Wisconsin just spat on that amendment:
Gov. Scott Walker’s administration could hold demonstrators at the Capitol liable for the cost of extra police or cleanup and repairs after protests, under a new policy unveiled Thursday.
The rules, which several legal experts said raised serious free speech concerns, seemed likely to add to the controversy that has simmered all year over demonstrations in the state’s seat of government.
The policy, which also requires permits for events at the statehouse and other state buildings, took effect Thursday and will be phased in by Dec. 16. Walker administration officials contend the policy simply clarifies existing rules.
Love how he wears a flag pin on his lapel.
AG Eric Holder — Looking Out For the 1%
This is the latest from the United States Attorney General’s office:
The War on Terror seems so yesterday.
On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder urged Americans to fink on their neighbors and report intellectual-property offenses like popping or hawking unapproved pharmaceuticals and downloading music and movies illegally.
The announcement at the White House came as the Justice Department kicked off a public campaign against intellectual-property theft, which like all successful wars against societal scourges, will have public-service announcements on MTV.
“Fortunately, we can all be part of the solution. Anyone who suspects an IP crime can visit cybercrime.gov, fbi.gov, or iprcenter.gov to report suspected offenses,” Holder said. “The public’s proactive attention to these issues can help us to disrupt the sale of illegal goods; to prosecute the individuals, gangs, and international criminal organizations that profit from these activities; and to stop those who would exploit the ingenuity of others for monetary gain.”
So far there’s no word on what kind of reward you’ll get for reporting your teen sister for using an app to turn a Miley Cyrus YouTube video into an MP3, but surely you’ll get at least a Scouting badge for your loyalty to Big Content and the American Way.
I’m so glad Holder is putting his foot down on this crisis because now the oil executives whose companies are spilling oil all over the place and the banksters who look like they’re about to bring down the European economy can relax. Not to mention voter suppression and silly stuff like that.
Geezus.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
One can only imaging how long it will take for the use of drones to expand beyond the original, as-advertised intention (spotting “runaway criminals”):
The Qube fits in the trunk of a car and is controlled remotely by a tablet computer. (Gary Friedman, Los Angeles Times / October 20, 2011)
Idea of Civilians Using Drone Aircraft May Soon Fly with FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration plans to propose new rules for the use of small drones in January, a first step toward clearing the way for police departments, farmers and others to employ the technology.
Drone aircraft, best known for their role in hunting and destroying terrorist hide-outs in Afghanistan, may soon be coming to the skies near you.
Police agencies want drones for air support to spot runaway criminals. Utility companies believe they can help monitor oil, gas and water pipelines. Farmers think drones could aid in spraying their crops with pesticides.
“It’s going to happen,” said Dan Elwell, vice president of civil aviation at the Aerospace Industries Assn. “Now it’s about figuring out how to safely assimilate the technology into national airspace.”
That’s the job of the Federal Aviation Administration, which plans to propose new rules for the use of small drones in January, a first step toward integrating robotic aircraft into the nation’s skyways.
Imagine a drone looking in as it hovers outside your kitchen window. Would the police need a warrant for that? And man oh man, is the FAA in the pocket of the Aerospace Industries Association or what? Imagine the money (our tax dollars) to be made here.
Outrage Overload Links
There are many days when I come across articles or bits of info that I think are worth posting but I just don’t have the energy because of, well, pure and simple: outrage overload. So I guess my new thing is going to be, at the end of such a day, to put up a post and let you all decide what you think is important; what you want to take a look at.
So, here are my outrage overload links for today:
●●● Where governments get their surveillance technology (I’m thinking boycotts here).
●●● A slide show: Suppressing Nonviolent Dissent — An anthology of police brutality at encampments across America. Check out this tank used by police in Tampa:
What happened to “protect and serve?”
●●● Journalist Suspended from National Press Club for Aggressive Questioning of Saudi Royal. That should read: Journalist suspended for being a real journalist and for not kissing Saudi royal’s ass.
●●● Michelle Obama Booed at NASCAR Race. I’m waiting for every single Republican who said we should respect the office of the presidency “during times of war” to scream bloody murder about this. So far? Crickets.
●●● The never-to-be-missed Glenn Greenwald: The Roots of the UC-Davis Pepper Spraying. (Not the best title.) He talks about the right — on paper, as in the Constitution — of American to freedom of speech and a right to assembly but how that is rather quickly being quashed by our authoritarian government:
The genius of this approach is how insidious its effects are: because the rights continue to be offered on paper, the citizenry continues to believe it is free. They believe that they are free to do everything they choose to do, because they have been “persuaded” — through fear and intimidation — to passively accept the status quo. As Rosa Luxemburg so perfectly put it: “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” Someone who sits at home and never protests or effectively challenges power factions will not realize that their rights of speech and assembly have been effectively eroded because they never seek to exercise those rights; it’s only when we see steadfast, courageous resistance from the likes of these UC-Davis students is this erosion of rights manifest.
Pervasive police abuses and intimidation tactics applied to peaceful protesters — pepper-spray, assault rifles, tasers, tear gas and the rest — not only harm their victims but also the relationship of the citizenry to the government and the set of core political rights. Implanting fear of authorities in the heart of the citizenry is a far more effective means of tyranny than overtly denying rights.
●●● Quote of the day: From Greenwald’s piece, immediately above:
Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.
– Rosa Luxemburg.
Wow.
●●● Reminds me of Martin Luther King, Jr’s:
A riot is the language of the unheard.
Liberty and Justice for Some
The United States has completely lost its way:
Last week, a federal judge in Mississippi sentenced a mother of two named Anita McLemore to three years in federal prison for lying on a government application in order to obtain food stamps.
Apparently in this country you become ineligible to eat if you have a record of criminal drug offenses. States have the option of opting out of that federal ban, but Mississippi is not one of those states. Since McLemore had four drug convictions in her past, she was ineligible to receive food stamps, so she lied about her past in order to feed her two children.
The total “cost” of her fraud was $4,367. She has paid the money back. But paying the money back was not enough for federal Judge Henry Wingate.
Judge Wingate said this about McLemore:
“The defendant’s criminal record is simply abominable …. She has been the beneficiary of government generosity in state court.”
Like McLemore, fraud defendants like Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank have “been the beneficiary of government generosity.” Goldman got $12.9 billion just through the AIG bailout. Citigroup got $45 billion, plus hundreds of billions in government guarantees.All of these companies have been repeatedly dragged into court for fraud, and not one individual defendant has ever been forced to give back anything like a significant portion of his ill-gotten gains. The closest we’ve come is in a fraud case involving Citi, in which a pair of executives, Gary Crittenden and Arthur Tildesley, were fined the token amounts of $100,000 and $80,000, respectively, for lying to shareholders about the extent of Citi’s debt.
Neither man was forced to admit to intentional fraud. Both got to keep their jobs.
Can you hear me screaming now?
Occupy the Supreme Court: Scalia and Thomas Have Got to Go
I’m a former paralegal so I have some inside knowledge as to how the legal system should work but never mind that. It doesn’t take a former paralegal to smell the unethical rot, and the collusion amongst the 1% that’s going on here:
The day the Supreme Court gathered behind closed doors to consider the politically divisive question of whether it would hear a challenge to President Obama’s healthcare law, two of its justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, were feted at a dinner sponsored by the law firm that will argue the case before the high court.
The people of the United States must know and believe that their system of justice is fair. They must know and believe that all men (and women) are treated equally.
Tonight we learn that two of their premiere lawmakers are open to being bought and sold.
They have got to go.
Law Enforcement Asks Google to Censor YouTube
Get a load of this “Transparency Report” Google just posted:
We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.
That’s it. That’s all they wrote and we don’t know anything more but ah, I’m willing to bet the “local law enforcement agency” Google references is the government of Oakland, California. I mean, when you shoot a veteran in the head who has served two tours in Iraq it doesn’t look all that good. But beyond that, the United States is emulating China, for God’s sake. In China, searches containing the word “Occupy” have been blocked by by the government on a popular search engine called Sina Weibo.
So I’m waiting for wingers to have a fit. You know, because we don’t want to be like those commie “red” Chinese and censor our media do we? Hey? Hey?
Is anyone in a position of power (i.e., a 1%-er) going to denounce this?!
500 Americans Gassed by the Oakland Police Department
“opd” is the Oakland Police Department.
Follow JoshuaHol here.
NYPD Cop: “My Little Nightstick’s Gonna Get a Workout Tonight”
That cop needs a lesson in the wording of the United States Constitution. This is the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
(Video via: An NYPD officer is caught talking about how he’ll beat peaceful #OccupyWallStreet protesters.)
And who is this cop working for? We the People or J.P. Morgan? Did you hear that J.P. Morgan gave the NYPD $4.6 million on the eve of the OccupyWallStreet protests? Details here. The NYPD should never have accepted it. I don’t know if doing so was illegal (or legal) but the optics are atrocious.
Newt Gingrich’s Definition of Due Process
Newt Gingrich has a very interesting take on the definition of due process — you know, the right to a lawyer and a trial to determine one’s guilt or innocence:
Newt Gingrich – a 2012 Republican presidential candidate who is one of the most critical of President Obama – today defended orders that led to the death of Al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Wwlaki.
He called American citizens who engage in war against the United States traitors and said that the military strike that killed al-Awlaki is constitutionally justified.
“American citizens who engage in war against the United States are legitimate targets and I think it was an appropriate and correct thing to execute him,” Gingrich said.
He continued, answering a question about the right of due process, a term used to describe a legal principle that government must respect the legal rights of citizens.
“They got due process,” Gingrich said. “The president signed an order to kill them. That was due process.”
In other words, in the world the Newtster lives in, due process as we have known it in this country since the signing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, no longer exists. So, who’s a terrorist now?
Colorado Secretary of State Disenfranchises Our Troops
Colorado’s Republican Secretary of State, Scott Gessler, recently ordered that the clerks in both Denver and Pueblo counties (heavily Democratic districts) not send mail-in ballots to anyone who did not cast a vote in 2010 — declaring them “inactive voters.”
That said,
Pueblo County Clerk Gilbert Ortiz gave Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler until this morning to specifically and formally address another of the charged ramifications of his new interpretation of state election law. Gessler got in under the wire. Thursday evening, he sent Ortiz a letter ordering him not to send ballots to any of the county’s “inactive voters”– legally registered voters who failed to cast ballots in the previous even-year general election– including roughly 70 soldiers on the Pueblo County inactive voter rolls serving out-of-state. In Pueblo as elsewhere in the state, inactive voters are now meant to visit the clerk’s office or a polling place to retrieve ballots. With the election a month away, Gessler’s directive seems likely to effectively disenfranchise the soldiers.
Imagine you’re a soldier in Iraq, fighting for our freedom (which — hello — fundamentally includes the right to vote) and oops, you were ah, engaged in a war and golly gee, you just didn’t find the time to vote in 2010. Now — per this Republican a**hole, you can’t vote at all come November. How outrageous is that?! These are our men and women in uniform for God’s sake.
And you know why Republicans are so fixated on finding ways to make it harder for people to vote? Because their proposals and policies are so unpopular, the only way they can win is by rigging the system and keeping as many people from voting as possible. After all, the only voices they care to hear come from Wall Street and K Street.
Oh, and one last thing. Colorado state Democrats are hopping mad right? They’re jumping up and down, calling for a special session to deal with this, right? No. They seem to have Stockholm Syndrome. They are well, the only sound I hear are crickets.
Too bad we don’t have a two-party system in this country any fucking more.
About Them “Illegals”
I don’t care how much you hate “illegals,” we’re talking little kids here:
Many of the 223 Hispanic students at Foley Elementary [in Foley, Alabama] came to school Thursday crying and afraid, said Principal Bill Lawrence.
Nineteen of them withdrew, and another 39 were absent, Lawrence said, the day after a federal judge upheld much of Alabama’s strict new immigration law, which authorizes law enforcement to detain people suspected of not being U.S. citizens and requires schools to ask new enrollees for a copy of their birth certificate.
[...]
“It’s been a challenging day, an emotional day. My children have been in tears today. They’re afraid,” he said. “We have been in crisis-management mode, trying to help our children get over this.”
[...]
On Thursday, Lawrence said he wanted to get a message across to his students that they are safe at Foley Elementary.
Lawrence said that parents are afraid that they’ll get arrested and detained, and be cut off from their children.
What a horrible situation.
Nancy Grace Gets a Taste of Her Own Medicine
Nancy Grace, the host of the Nancy Grace show on HLN and a former commentator on CNN and Court TV, is denying today that she had a “wardrobe malfunction” during Monday night’s episode of Dancing With the Stars. In fact, she’s whining that she is being “judged guilty without a trial.”
I could care less about the wardrobe malfunction but I do find Grace’s wimpering about being “judged guilty without a trial” pretty darn delicious because Grace has a black belt in doing just that. As a matter of fact, in 2006, a 21-year-old woman committed suicide hours after being interviewed by Grace. Melinda Duckett’s son went missing and when Grace interviewed her about the child’s disappearance, Grace essentially accused Duckett of having killed the boy.
Two weeks after telling police that her son had been snatched from his crib, Melinda Duckett found herself reeling in an interview with CNN’s famously prosecutorial Nancy Grace. Before it was over, Grace was pounding her desk and loudly demanding to know: “Where were you? Why aren’t you telling us where you were that day?”
A day after the taping, Duckett, 21, shot herself to death, deepening the mystery of what happened to the boy.
Police have refused to say whether she left a suicide note and said nothing they have found so far in their investigation of her death has shed light on the whereabouts of her 2-year-old son, Trenton.
So Nancy Grace doesn’t get an ounce of sympathy from me.
American “Democracy” Circa 2011
This headline alone just about says it all in terms of where we are in this country. I.e., banksters and corporate CEOs walk away after wrecking the economy and/or killing people, but a guy who was sentenced to die under very, very dubious circumstances is executed.
Troy Davis Executed, While CEO Responsible for Deaths of 29 Miners Sails Free
Last night at 11:08, Troy Anthony Davis was executed in the State of Georgia for the 1989 murder of a police officer. Much doubt existed in the case as seven of the nine witnesses recanted their testimony (one even claimed that an eighth murder witness was guilty) and no DNA or other physical evidence linked Davis to the crime.
[...]
ast year on April 5, 29 miners died in a methane explosion caused by poor ventilation at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va. A report by the Mine Safety and Health Administration ruled that the event that caused the explosion could have easily been prevented by Massey Energy, which was well aware of a long history of safety problems in the mine. In the year leading up to the explosion, the Upper Big Branch Mine was cited 458 times for safety violations, with 50 of those violations being willful violations of the law—nearly five times the national average for citations of a single mine.
An investigation by the Mine Safety and Health Administration also revealed that Massey kept two sets of books—it recorded a clean safety record in one log book, which it provided to mine inspectors, while maintaining a private, internal log of known safety problems and the efforts made to fix them.
Despite this evidence of the willful violation of safety laws that could have prevented the miners’ deaths at Upper Big Branch, and despite evidence of widespread lying to federal investigators by Massey officials, CEO Don Blankenship is a free man allowed to enjoy the splendorous life of a multi-millionaire.
It’s hard to ponder this kind of thing because it’s so infuriating.
No wonder Don Blankenship is wearing a flag shirt and hat in this picture:
This country has been VERY GOOD to him. It looked the other way despite the fact that 29 men died on his watch.
Retired Prison Officials Urge Georgia Prison Staff to Refuse to Take Part in Troy Davis’ Murder
Wow. This is one powerful letter:
We write to you as former wardens and corrections officials who have had direct involvement in executions. Like few others in this country, we understand that you have a job to do in carrying out the lawful orders of the judiciary. We also understand, from our own personal experiences, the awful lifelong repercussions that come from participating in the execution of prisoners. While most of the prisoners whose executions we participated in accepted responsibility for the crimes for which they were punished, some of us have also executed prisoners who maintained their innocence until the end. It is those cases that are most haunting to an executioner.
[...]
Living with the nightmares is something that we know from experience. No one has the right to ask a public servant to take on a lifelong sentence of nagging doubt, and for some of us, shame and guilt. Should our justice system be causing so much harm to so many people when there is an alternative?
We urge you to ask the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider their decision. Should that fail, we urge you to unburden yourselves and your staff from the pain of participating in such a questionable execution to the extent possible by allowing any personnel so inclined to opt-out of activities related to the execution of Troy Anthony Davis. Further, we urge you to provide appropriate counseling to personnel who do choose to perform their job functions related to the execution. If we may be of assistance to you moving forward, please do not hesitate to call upon any of us.
Respectfully and collegially,
Allen Ault – Retired Warden, Georgia Diagnostic & Classifications Prison
Terry Collins – Retired Director, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
Ron McAndrew – Retired Warden, Florida State Prison
Dennis O’Neill – Retired Warden, Florida State Prison
Reginald Wilkinson – Retired Director, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
Jeanne Woodford – Retired Warden, San Quentin State Prison
Wow. Executions as viewed from the perspective of the executioner.
About America’s “High” Corporate Tax Rate
This would be our Tweet of the Day:
Here is the article Nouriel linked to:
It has become a bipartisan article of faith in some quarters that the income tax on U.S. corporations must be lowered.
But for many large U.S. companies, the burden of U.S. taxation pales in comparison with what they pay their chief executives, according to a study released Wednesday by the Institute of Policy Studies, a liberal think tank.
Of last year’s 100 highest-paid corporate executives in the United States, 25 earned more in pay than their company recorded as a tax expense in 2010.
Those 25 firms reported average global profits of $1.9 billion. Among the 25 were Verizon, Bank of New York Mellon, General Electric, Boeing and eBay.
“These individual CEOs are being rewarded for presiding over companies that dodge taxes,” said Chuck Collins, one of the study’s co-authors and a senior scholar at the Institute of Policy Studies.
[...]
For example, Bank of New York Mellon paid its chief executive Robert Kelly $19.4 million last year, while the company got $670 million in what amounted to a tax refund, according to the report.
The rich sure have gotten their money’s worth when it comes to their lobbyists. The system is rigged to give them every break imaginable. I mean, how in the world did We the People end up giving the Bank of New York Mellon $670 million?
And then there’s this:
Verizon, for instance, saw the equivalent of a $705 million refund in 2010 because it deferred paying taxes on the bulk of its income to future years. The company’s total tax bill from 2010 was about $2.5 billion. The delay in tax payments allowed the firm to make investments in the nation’s technology infrastructure, a company official said.
“Verizon fully complies with all tax laws and pays its fair share of taxes,” its spokesman, Robert A Varettoni, said.
But Scott Klinger, a co-author of the report, said the ability of corporations to push off tax bills is unfair. Ordinary Americans “don’t get to just defer our taxes until next year or 2030 or whenever they come due,” he said.
My point exactly, because D.C. doesn’t work for “ordinary Americans” anymore. The rich have curried such favor with Washington that they’re actually staying within the law (that their lobbyists wrote, no doubt) when they get these amazing breaks. That has got to change.
No to Corporate Personhood!
I am so proud of my town. I don’t care if I have to crawl on my hands and knees to get to the polling place this November because I can’t wait to vote against the fascist notion that corporations are people and money is speech:
Boulder voters will weigh in on corporate personhood
Boulder voters will get to voice their opinion this fall on whether the U.S. Constitution should be amended to make it clear that corporations are not people and that money is not speech.
Talk about judicial activism. There has never been such a blatant act of judicial activism as the corporate personhood ruling handed down by the corporatist Republicans who sit on our present day Supreme Court. (Thanks W.)
Congratulations to the Jurors in the Casey Anthony Trial
Casey Anthony
Casey Anthony / Reuters
has been acquitted of the 2008 murder of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee (but she was found “guilty of four counts of providing false evidence to a law enforcement officer”).
Congratulations to Ms. Anthony and congratulations to the jurors. They didn’t listen to the media, which tried and convicted her of murder way back in 2008. They listened to the evidence.
Bravo. What they did makes me proud to be an American.
What Gay Marriage Means to YOU
What will happen if gay marriage is legalized?
Horrible things. Aaaaaah!
Fox News: Slap Those Posts and Videos Up; Who Cares if They Go Together
This is the homepage headline over at Fox Nation right now:
If you click on the headline, you go to a video, summarized by text that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Clarence Thomas:
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but comedienne Jeanane Garofalo still has a low regard for the Tea Party movement and all just about all other things conservative.
On Current TV’s Thursday broadcast of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” during the “Web extra” segment, Garofalo admitted she wasn’t happy there were those that despised her for her 2009 remarks declaring the Tea Party “a bunch of teabagging rednecks,” but she stood by them.
I didn’t take the time to watch the video but if it contains a “radical ridicule” of Clarence Thomas, one would think the summary would say something about that. Then again, I suspect a lot of the readers over there don’t go much past the headlines so if they can bash a liberal (Garofalo) and play the role of victim, that’s the most important thing.
Oh, and here’s what the headline looked like before people started tweeting about it.
Obama: Change We Can’t Believe In
I have been agonizing for more than a year as to what I’m going to do come November, 2012. The question as I see it is (1) do I vote for Obama — giving him the benefit of the doubt — who has, in my opinion, gone against most of his prior pronouncements and campaign promises, or (2) do I sit the election out altogether because I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of voting for people who, once in office, seem to be brainwashed and captured by corporate and military interests.
This news makes me want to sit it out because this is not what I voted for and this is not, by far, the first time I’ve been disappointed in Obama.. Obama’s a Constitutional lawyer, yet he has has (1) utterly abandoned his principles or he (2) seems to be so weak that he’s being held hostage by his military advisers:
U.S. President Barack Obama has presided over a threefold increase in the number of detainees being held at the controversial military detention center at Bagram Air Base, the Afghan cousin of the notorious prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
There are currently more than 1,700 detainees at Bagram, up from over 600 at the end of the Bush administration.
The situation at Bagram, especially the legal process that determines whether detainees are released, is the subject of a new report by Human Rights First.
It finds that the current system of hearings for detainees “falls short of the requirements of international law” because they are not given “an adequate opportunity to defend themselves against charges that they are collaborating with insurgents and present a threat to U.S. forces”.
Human Rights First also argues that cases of unjustified imprisonment are damaging the broader war effort by undermining Afghans’ trust in the military.
(Image via.)
I’ll probably make up my mind on November 1, 2012 but man oh man, there are so many notches in my bedpost against voting for Obama.
Being Homeless in Orlando, Florida
Having just gotten home from a five-hour stint volunteering at my local food bank, this story made my jaw drop:
Members of Orlando Food Not Bombs were arrested Wednesday when police said they violated a city ordinance by feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park.
Jessica Cross, 24, Benjamin Markeson, 49, and Jonathan “Keith” McHenry, 54, were arrested at 6:10 p.m. on a charge of violating the ordinance restricting group feedings in public parks. McHenry is a co-founder of the international Food Not Bombs movement, which began in the early 1980s.
The group lost a court battle in April, clearing the way for the city to enforce the ordinance. It requires groups to obtain a permit and limits each group to two permits per year for each park within a 2-mile radius of City Hall.
Arrest papers state that Cross, Markeson and McHenry helped feed 40 people Wednesday night. The ordinance applies to feedings of more than 25 people.
“They intentionally violated the statute,” said Lt. Barbara Jones, an Orlando police spokeswoman.
Police waited until everyone was served to make the arrests, said Douglas Coleman, speaking for Orlando Food Not Bombs.
“They basically carted them off to jail for feeding hungry people,” said Coleman, who was not present. “For them to regulate a time and place for free speech and to share food, that is unacceptable.”
Orlando Food Not Bombs has been feeding the homeless breakfast on Mondays for several years and dinner on Wednesdays for five years.
Police had not enforced the ordinance while the court battle continued. The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled that city rules regulating how often large groups of people can be fed in a park do not violate the Constitution.
The law is the law and if there is a law banning feeding groups of 25-or-more people then the cops were right to enforce it, but that damn law has got to be changed.
How assbackward is it that a law banning feeding homeless people is enacted and enforced but what the banksters did to crash the economy goes without a single indictment and George W. Bush & Co. lie us into a war that kills hundreds of thousands of people (including 4,000+ of our kids) and everyone looks the other way?
What a country.
