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CINDY WALSH FOR MAYOR OF BALTIMORE----SOCIAL DEMOCRAT
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August 14th, 2014

8/14/2014

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WE CAN REVERSE ALL OF THESE POLICIES EASY PEASY BY SIMPLY VOTING FOR POLS THAT SHOUT OUT AGAINST GLOBAL CORPORATIONS DRIVING MARYLAND'S ECONOMY AND FOR REBUILDING RULE OF LAW


I have been speaking with and handing my research to Baltimore police officers for a few months now making sure they understand that Johns Hopkins has told City Hall and the Chief of Police Batts to move towards privatization of Baltimore police and fire departments.  Since the economic collapse Baltimore has seen an explosion of fraud and corruption that is taking a billion dollars a year from city coffers and we cannot afford to support public sector employees as middle-class when all the money is being sent to corporate fraud and subsidy.  The public union-busting by neo-liberals and neo-cons in Baltimore and Maryland-----those neo-liberals O'Malley/Brown and the Maryland Assembly with the neo-cons Rawlings-Blake and the Baltimore City Hall are now getting rid of our public police and fire.  Remember, Clinton, Bush, Obama have almost finished privatizing the US military.....the manufactured sequestration cuts for the military were all about getting rid of public military and their benefits so now these global corporate pols are doing the same at the state and local level.  When you are bringing a formerly first world nation to third world status you must have all security working for corporations and not loyal to the public as public sector employees say Johns Hopkins.


Baltimore Chief of Police Batts was brought to Baltimore to do just that.  The Hopkins-owed SAIC surveillance and security systems Batts installed in Oakland, California are now being installed in Baltimore.  Batts is paid a salary that looks like the corporate executive he is.  The Baltimore Police have been battered with wage and benefit cuts and changes in shifts and hours that have Baltimore police one of the worst work environments and pay in the state and that doesn't even include the crime and violence and chronic intra-departmental problems.  If one didn't know better it almost seems like they are trying to get Baltimore police officers with tenure and pensions to leave the city!  Talking with officers that is indeed what is happening.  Police officers with ten years invested in pensions are leaving because of the hostile environment brought by Hopkins and their pols at City Hall.  The more stress on the police the more stress on the job.  Baltimore City is a tinderbox as citizens are tired of crime and violence and the police ignoring civil rights and liberties in the communities.  All of this is caused by the public policy written at Johns Hopkins and played out in City Hall.  Deliberately high unemployment and a stagnant economy is impoverishing people and the police department is headed by a chief known for abuse inside and outside of the department.  Remember, injustice necessitates chaos and that is what neo-liberals and neo-cons are allowing to happen under the guise of budget cuts and small government.

The Baltimore Police Department has sent representatives to Europe to contract with an International Security Corporation to send private security workers to Baltimore to replace existing public forces.  The fire department will go next.  The citizens already have trouble with police acting outside of the Constitution and when International security forces come----they will be working under Trans Pacific Trade Pact-----which replaces the US Constitution say the neo-liberals and neo-cons. 

ONLY THE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT IS ILLEGAL AND A COUP AGAINST THE US CONSTITUTION SO ANY ATTEMPTS TO INSTALL TPP CAN BE REVERSED AS ILLEGAL.



What does life under International Security forces look like?  Well-----third world.


State Police, or Police State? --Nathan

Eleven facts about police militarization:
1. It harms, and sometimes kills, innocent people.
2. Children are impacted.
3. The use of SWAT teams is often unnecessary.
4. The “war on terror” is fueling militarization.
5. It’s a boon to contractor profits.
6. Border militarization and police militarization go hand in hand.
7. Police are cracking down on dissent.
8. Asset forfeitures are funding police militarization.
9. Dubious informants are used for raids.
10. There’s been little debate or oversight.
11. Communities of color bear the brunt.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/08/13/not-just-ferguson-11-eye-opening-facts-about-americas-militarized-police-forces/


_____________________________________________

A police representative going to Europe to talk International Security contracting for the Baltimore City Police force would no doubt find an organization like the one below.  This is a US global corporation that does much of its work overseas but we see these operations moving into Western nations under the guise of 'terrorism'.  The threat of 'terrorism' falls squarely with dissent and protest---crime and violence by American citizens.  As 70% of Americans fall into poverty from the massive corporate frauds and the deliberate global corporate stagnation of our domestic economy-----and with that 70% growing to 80% and more----this third world society will see people WAKING UP and this is the structure O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly and Rawlings-Blake and Baltimore City Hall are building.  It is of course coming to your neck of the woods as well!

As important as a militarized government structure is we need to think as well how much taxpayer money is being spent on all of this Stalin-like security buildup.  The article below states that so much taxpayer money was funneled
to SAIC to create this Hopkins corporation that much of what all taxpayers paid in taxes for years went into building this surveillance structure unrolling in cities like Oakland, Calif, NYC, and Baltimore, Maryland.


You can see the job categories to see this organization will take over all public security duties as a global corporation.  Our Bank of America in Charles Village Baltimore already has contracted International Security outside their bank branch.

ISIO - INTERNATIONAL SECURITY INDUSTRY ORGANIZATION
Security Case S
tudies and
Applications


Belong to the most formidable International NETWORK for Security Professionals

ISIO Demographics

Reach
increases world-wide. Security Directors, Managers, General Managers, Trainers, Staff in all sectors, namely, Military and Defence, Buildings, Mall and Security, Law Enforcement, Prisons, Investigators, Assessors, Consultants and Advisors for Ports and Cargo, Hotel and Casino Security landside and on ships. Location (289071)United States, (89152)United Kingdom, (38194)India (34709)Canada, (31546)South Africa


The Focused Security Professional, is able to identify companies that have experience in providing security solutions for [Their] region of interest.

* Bank Security

* Border Security

* Building Security

* Business and Commercial Security

* Cargo Security

* City Security

* Control Station Security

* Event Security

* Homeland Security

* Hospital Security

* Hotel, Casino & Landmark Security

* Military and Defense Security

* Industrial Security

* Law Enforcement Security

* Oil and Refinery Security

* Port Security

* Prison Security

* Rail/Tunnel and Subway Security

* Retail and Store Security

* School Security


PROVIDING INTERNATIONAL SOLUTIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES. ISIO Global is a boutique, international solutions provider headquartered in the U.S. with operations in North and South America, Africa and Asia. The ISIO Global team of Principals and associates is comprised of a unique and diverse set of professionals with backgrounds in government security, intelligence, logistics, political strategy, energy, finance, international trade, risk management, and the military.

ISIO Global provides comprehensive custom-tailored solutions to meet our clients’ needs. Our client list includes countries, presidents and other high ranking officials from both the private sector and the military, high net worth individuals, and Fortune 100 companies. Through our vast international experience and contacts, ISIO Global is uniquely positioned to quickly and efficiently design and implement comprehensive solutions for the most pressing problems and exciting opportunities around the globe.

______________________________________________
You can see how neo-con SAIC and Hopkins is with this connection to Bush/Cheney and Halliburton----the biggest fraudsters in the world.  The reason I speak now about what most people who study this knows is that this is what will be brought to Baltimore -----and has been in the works for a while-----and it is completely ineffective, corrupt, and will work with no transparency or with any regard to Rule of Law.  If you think Baltimore Police Department is lacking transparency or attention to Constitutional policing wait until this ISIO/SAIC consortium comes our way.

THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL AND NEO-CON FOR YOU----THIRD WORLD SOCIETY
. 

STOP VOTING FOR THEM.  REMEMBER, IN MARYLAND WE HAVE LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERS BACKING THESE NEO-LIBERALS EVERY ELECTION.  VOTE FOR BROWN OR GANSLER SAY BALTIMORE MINISTERS AND MARYLAND LABOR UNION LEADERS----WELL, THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE PUSHING ON THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND.



This is an attempt to make a blog in which I comment on scientific issues.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Who or what is SAIC? Vanity Fair has a quite interesting article about SAIC, a company I had never heard about before.

Washington's $8 Billion Shadow
Mega-contractors such as Halliburton and Bechtel supply the government with brawn. But the biggest, most powerful of the "body shops"—SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war.
The article goes on to describe SAIC, and their less than stellar record. The article also touches on why such companies exist.
It is a simple fact of life these days that, owing to a deliberate decision to downsize government, Washington can operate only by paying private companies to perform a wide range of functions. To get some idea of the scale: contractors absorb the taxes paid by everyone in America with incomes under $100,000. In other words, more than 90 percent of all taxpayers might as well remit everything they owe directly to SAIC or some other contractor rather than to the IRS.
This is hardly a new trend. In his 1980 book, Fat City, Donald Lambro describes much the same going on. It goes without saying that this is not a cost effective way of running things, and that it creates problems with oversight and conflict of interest, as the article also explains.
In Washington these companies go by the generic name "body shops"—they supply flesh-and-blood human beings to do the specialized work that government agencies no longer can. Often they do this work outside the public eye, and with little official oversight—even if it involves the most sensitive matters of national security.

[....]

SAIC's relative anonymity has allowed large numbers of its executives to circulate freely between the company and the dozen or so government agencies it cares about. William B. Black Jr., who retired from the N.S.A. in 1997 after a 38-year career to become a vice president at SAIC, returned to the N.S.A. in 2000. Two years later the agency awarded the Trailblazer contract to SAIC.
I highly recommend the article - go read it, and see what the US taxpayers' money is really used on.


__________________________________________

SAIC is Johns Hopkins and represents billions of taxpayer dollars sent to Hopkins in development funding and as you see below-----it operates world-wide just as Baltimore Board of Estimates operates here in Baltimore.  The corruption in cost overruns and bid-rigging is breath-taking and you see the same ethics permeates all of what these Ivy League Universities are involved. 

SAIC is the spying network behind the NSA that Snowden exposed to the world and it is in the consortium of security and surveillance groups that operate as ISIO above.  ISIO would be an example of what the police privatization in Baltimore would look like.  For decades SAIC and ISIO have operated in developing worlds but they are now moving into Western countries to control dissent of Americans et al to being taken third world.


Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin have worked hard to send Federal funds to build these kinds of systems through Hopkins.  HOW TOTALITARIAN OF THEM!


The article states that despite the known corruption in SAIC that Bloomberg of NYC handed a multi-million contract to the same and the reporter wonders why give business to a known criminal element-----WELL, HOPKINS IS BLOOMBERG.

'SO INEFFECTIVE'-----DOESN'T THAT SOUND LIKE GOVERNMENT IN MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE???


Just How Corrupt is SAIC?

Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 7:23PM
David Callahan The latest revelation in the CityTime corruption case offers yet more evidence that the Science Applications International Corp., or SAIC, may have an unethical organizational culture. SAIC is one of the largest and most well-connected government contracting firms in the country, with 45,000 employees worldwide. It's incompetence in handling the CityTime contract, with hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns, appears to be part of a pattern -- with other clients, like the FBI, reporting similar experiences.

But now comes evidence of something darker. According to a files unearthed by New York City Controller John Liu, SAIC tried to exert improper influence over the top city official monitoring its work. Juan Gonzalez, the New York Daily News reporter who has been on top of this story all along describes the new revelations about SAIC:

On Jan. 28, 2002, Richard Valcich, then the director of the Office of Payroll Administration, wrote a one-page note to William Russell, a senior vice president for Virginia-based Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC).

"I appreciated meeting with you to discuss SAIC issues that are pending with the Office of Payroll Administration," Valcich wrote. He then apologized to Russell "if I seemed rude and abruptly shortened your discussion on a future post city-employment position with SAIC."

"[I]t is inappropriate to discuss any post employment with a company that I do business," Valcich warned him.

Valcich went on to say that he was "flattered you would consider me for such a position with SAIC but there are restrictions due to the city's conflicts of interest rules."

Such restrictions include a lifetime ban against working on the same "matter" that a city employee handled while in government. 

Wow. Of course, those familiar with how big contractors and lobbyists corrupt government officials will not find any of this surprising. There is a long history of companies using offers of lucrative jobs to exert improper influence. These deals are simple and often hard to scrutinize: Do our bidding now, companies say, and we'll give you a job paying a million dollars a year (or whatever) down the road. A big focus of ethics reform in recent decades has been to crack down on "revolving door" enticements.

SAIC's tactic in this episode raises questions about its corrupt dealing around other contracts. Stay tuned for more on that topic. 

Gonzalez's latest article on the subject of SAIC includes a kicker near the end: 

Amazingly, despite years of red flags on the CityTime project, the Bloomberg administration confirmed yesterday it recently awarded a new $40 million contract to SAIC.

So what is it about Michael Bloomberg and SAIC?
Why is a mayor so famously focused on efficiency so forgiving to a contractor that is so ineffective? That is a question that deserves closer attention. 

 
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April 28th, 2014

4/28/2014

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ALL CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND EXCEPT CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR WILL MOVE THESE KINDS OF POLICIES FORWARD.  HAVE YOU HEARD THEM SHOUT AGAINST ALL OF THIS?


Neo-cons and neo-liberals are working hard to privatize the US military.  Clinton started it and now Obama and Hillary have this on steroids.  Last count it appears that over 70% of US military is private military contractors.  The Defense Department was given the green light by neo-liberals in Congress and Obama to recruit troops overseas who are not citizens but will work as a US military contractor employee in nations around the world.

Remember, a public military is sworn to protect WE THE PEOPLE AND OUR NATION.  A private military contractor employee simply works for that global corporation and falls under no US Rule of Law.  This means that these troops will not look at US citizens as those to be protected but will act in defense of corporations and their profits.

THIS IS WHAT TOTALITARIANISM LOOKS LIKE FOLKS!


An extension of this is the fact that these private military employees are now coming back to the US to work as police and special forces in states across America.   People living in Baltimore know that BAltimore police have gotten brutal in their approach to people they encounter.  People are dying from simple infractions and are jailed as 'resisting arrest' when people pull away from what we know are illegal acts by police.  Cities across the US have as a goal of privatizing police and fire departments as an extension of these military contracting corporations.  We already see in Charles Village ---Baltimore----Bank of America guarded by a global security force.

THIS IS WHAT TOTALITARIANISM LOOKS LIKE FOLKS!!!


Remember, the US has a Constitution that provides Equal Protection under law and that provides a Bill of Rights that protects our civil rights and liberties.  When a rogue government comes in and suspends Rule of Law they are acting illegally.  The Supreme Court is impeachable for rulings that seek to take away the rights of US citizens.  So, all of these policies and rulings CAN BE REVERSED. 

STOP ALLOWING A NEO-LIBERAL DNC CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES----RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL PRIMARIES.



Below is my blog on the privatization of military and police:



Regarding VoteVets.org as a political PAC for 21st Century Patriots:

Raise your hand if you understand that dismantling the entire public structure of the Veterans Administration and handing it to corporate private non-profits to make veterans beg for charity rather than receive the promised support being a member of the US military awards!!!!!! EVERYONE.

WE NOW HAVE TV COMMERCIALS ASKING AMERICANS TO DONATE TO VETERANS NON-PROFITS BECAUSE THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION IS BEING DISMANTLED.
At the same time we are hearing vets tell us they are getting no help from this private non-profit structure and the public VA has been gutted of staff.

Below you see how far neo-liberals have gone into third world politics. Today, the Maryland people had to listen to what should be public media------but is corporate and captured media-----go so far as to pretend that the group below actually works for veterans. This is an example of a private non-profit pretending to be progressive that is a great big neo-liberal private military contractor group. When you hear the words 21st Century Patriots you know you are listening to the private military complex and no doubt there are veterans of private military corporations. The US military is over 70% mercenary thanks to Bush, Obama, and Hillary. So, do corporate veterans care about the US military public troops? WELL, IT LOOKS NOT!

What this PAC represents is the killing of public sector unions or in this case public sector military and its benefits. Blackwater retirees would be the 21st Century Patriots for example.

Knowing this------it would be understandable that VOTEVETS would be backing Anthony Brown because O'Malley/Brown has been 100% behind privatization of the Veterans Administration in Maryland. See how it sounds different when you know what a private non-profit group is about? Indeed, this PAC is backing the most privatizing of Wall Street candidates because it is heavily invested in this private military complex. The absurdity of Maryland campaign of Brown, Gansler, and Mizeur is that they are all neo-liberals who will work to privatize the VA as well. So, Gansler bashing Brown is like Bush bashing Cheney.

PLEASE KNOW WHAT THESE CAMPAIGN PACs REPRESENT----THEY WILL ALL PRETEND TO BE PROGRESSIVE!

If a PAC supports the most Wall Street global corporation in the race for Governor of Maryland------it is a private mercenary patriot group.


O'MALLEY/BROWN HAS PLACED PRIVATIZATION OF VETERANS ADMINISTRATION ON STEROIDS IN MARYLAND SO WHY WOULD A VET GROUP SUPPORT BROWN?  GANSLER WOULD BE JUST AS BAD.

VOTEVETS DEMANDS APOLOGY FROM GANSLER FOR SLUR AGAINST VETERANS

By VoteVets.org | Press Release
PUBLISHED: April 21, 2014

Annapolis, MD – The largest progressive group of veterans in America, with over 400,000 supporters, VoteVets.org PAC, is demanding an apology from Attorney General Doug Gansler for saying that those troops who served in Iraq didn’t have “real jobs.”

At a forum this morning, Gansler said, “You know I’m running against somebody [Iraq War Veteran, Lt. Gov Anthony Brown] who has never managed anybody, never run anything, you know his ads are about how he was a lawyer in Iraq, and that’s all fine and good but this is a real job.”

In response, Jon Soltz, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org said, “Doug Gansler needs to stop smearing those of us who served in Iraq as not having had a ‘real job.’ It’s a horrible insult to all those men and women who put their lives on the line, and especially those who died, in service to this country. Additionally, Mr. Gansler, if he chooses to attack an Iraq War Veteran, ought to at least admit that the person he is attacking has been serving as Maryland’s Lieutenant Governor. This kind of slime ball politics is what turns people off to our democratic process, so Mr. Gansler is doing no favors for Maryland or our democratic electoral system by playing in the gutter like this.”

VoteVets.org PAC endorsed Brown’s campaign.

Founded in 2006, the mission of VoteVets.org Political Action Committee is to elect Veterans to public office, with a focus on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, and hold public officials accountable for their words and actions that impact America's 21st century troops and veterans. Though VoteVets.org PAC is non-partisan, candidates it backs must support VoteVets.org's core mission and beliefs.

____________________________________________
Maryland is ground zero for surveillance industries.  This is no doubt why our election process is captured because you need to be selective as to who would support this road to totalitarianism.

Johns Hopkins built their own surveillance corporations all from taxpayer money funneled to them by Mikulski, Cardin, and Cummings.  SAIC is one such corporation headquartered in VA and MD now building surveillance systems in cities across America.  Believe me-----this is not about keeping people in poor communities safe or keeping the middle-class safe from crimes of poverty.....it will be used as a tool against citizens living in a first world taken to a second world and now moving to a third world society.  THEY KNOW WE THE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE ANGRY.




Combatting the Surveillance Industrial Complex

August 9, 2004

THE PRIVATIZATION OF SURVEILLANCE
The U.S. security establishment is rapidly increasing its ability to monitor average Americans by hiring or compelling private-sector corporations to provide billions of customer records. The explosive growth in surveillance by government and business is creating a "Surveillance-Industrial Complex" (PDF) that threatens all of our privacy.
 

Make a Difference Your support helps the ACLU stand up for human rights and defend civil liberties.

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ABOUT THE REPORT
This report makes the case that, across a broad variety of areas, the same dynamic of the "privatization of surveillance" is underway. Different dimensions of this trend are examined in depth in four separate sections of the report:


"Recruiting Individuals."
Documents how individuals are being recruited to serve as "eyes and ears" for the authorities even after Congress rejected the infamous TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program that would have recruited workers like cable repairmen to spy on their customers.

"Recruiting Companies." Examines how companies are pressured to voluntarily provide consumer information to the government; the many ways security agencies can force companies to turn over sensitive information under federal laws such as the Patriot Act; how the government is forcing companies to participate in watchlist programs and in systems for the automatic scrutiny of individuals' financial transactions.

"Mass Data Use, Public and Private." Focuses on the government's use of private data on a mass scale, either through data mining programs like the MATRIX state information-sharing program, or the purchase of information from private-sector data aggregators.

"Pro-Surveillance Lobbying." Looks at the flip side of the issue: how some companies are pushing the government to adopt surveillance technologies and programs based on private-sector data.


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Keep in mind that Egypt has a state structure with the military as the most powerful branch of government and that there are large numbers of 'generals' in Egypt that are billionaires everyone knows are simply extensions of Wall Street.  It is this military structure that is being built in the US now and we must stop it.

Do not sit and allow police brutality to occur in your city or community because it is the canary in the cage.  Baltimore has over 20 citizens killed unjustly with no accountability in just a few years.  This is unheard of in a democracy.  Placing City Hall and police and fire departments with separate benefit plans and wages from other public sector employees is a sign of creating a tiered class surrounding corporate governance.  You see with the dictators toppled this decade it is always this small group of administrative class that fights for the dictator.

These are the things we need to watch for and stop in their tracks.  It is happening in small increments so do not allow it to expand!


A Capitalist System Gone Awry

The Military Industrial Complex has solidified its ties and deeply inserted his long horns into the arteries of the American taxpayers.

By Rev. Richard Skaff

December 10, 2012 "Information Clearing House" -  Creating wars to feed the blood-thirsty and greedy beast of the military industry complex has been a common practice in an allegedly democratic nation. Taxpayers’ have flipped this bill for decades under the guise of self-preservation and protection. As always government has used fear to fashion people’s consent and obedience. Meanwhile, corruption is prevalent, our national debt is skyrocketing, and our parasitic superpower is broke. Parasitic it is, because you can’t become super-rich or super-powerful unless you suck the blood and the life out of someone else. In this case, it is the taxpayers (the proles).

Under the guise of the Private-Public Partnership (PPP) phenomenon, the Military Industrial Complex has solidified its ties and deeply inserted his long horns into the arteries of the American taxpayers. Citizens for responsibility and ethics in Washington (CREW) has recently issued a scathing and disturbing report exposing this unethical and frightening phenomenon where high-ranking generals and admirals earn their stars, their stripes, and then, they earn their the big cash.

The CREW report found that 70 percent (or 76) of the 108 three-and-four star generals and Admirals who retired between 2009 and 2011 took jobs with defense contractors or consultants. In at least a few cases, the retirees have continued to advise the Department of Defense while on the payroll of defense contractors, suggesting the Pentagon may not always be receiving unbiased counsel.

The retired generals and admirals moving into the private sector in general do not appear to be breaking any rules. Nonetheless, their heavily traveled path through the military-industrial complex continues to raise important questions about the intersection of national security and the interests of private companies that stand to make billions of dollars. [1].

A 2010 Boston Globe investigation revealed that the number of retired three-and-four star Generals and admirals moving into lucrative defense industry jobs rose from less than 50 percent between 1994 and 1998 to a stratospheric 80 percent between 2004 and 2008, findings that brought new scrutiny to this unethical revolving door. [2], [1]

CREW’s research shows the number of high-level retirees taking those jobs has since ticked down, though the vast majority of retiring generals and admirals continue to sign on with defense contractors vying for their services.

Every year, the Pentagon awards hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts to the
defense industry. [3], [1] Retired generals, with their strong relationships, robust contact lists, and insider knowledge, are valuable assets in the competition for contracts and can easily make more than their base pay – currently $164,221 per year for a three-star general and $179,700 for a four-star general – by serving on a single corporate board. [4], [1]

A recent study found that when a defense company announced the hiring of a former defense department political appointee, on average, the company’s stock price increased. [5], [1] The relationship was statistically weak but positive, suggesting investors believe such hires bring benefits. [5], [1]

In 2011 alone, the Department of Defense committed to spending nearly $100 billion
with the five largest defense contractors – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. [3], [1] At least nine of the top-level generals and admirals who retired between 2009 and 2011 took positions with those five companies. In addition, 12 generals who retired during that period have gone on to work for Burdeshaw Associates, a “renta-general” consulting firm specializing in helping companies obtain defense contracts. [2], [1]

Burdeshaw’s clients have included Northrop Grumman. [2], [1]

Further, CREW found some retired generals and admirals work for defense contractors
while they continue to advise the Pentagon. Per example, both Gen. James Cartwright, who retired from the U. S. Marine Corps on September 1, 2011 after serving as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Gary Roughead, who retired from the Navy in 20119 after serving as the chief of naval operations, were appointed to the Defense Policy Board on October 4, 2011. [6]. [1] The board’s charter mandates that it provide the secretary of defense “with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning major matters of defense policy.” [7], [1]

Gen. Cartwright, shortly after his retirement, was elected to the Raytheon Co. board of
directors. [8], [1]

Raytheon, a public company that reports director compensation, disclosed paying
each of its non-employee directors an $85,000 annual cash retainer in 2011, as well as a $1,500 meeting fee for each board or committee meeting attended in person or by teleconference.[9], [1]

In addition, directors received $120,000 worth of restricted stock grants in 2011. [9], [1] Gen. Cartwright is also on the board of advisors of TASC, Inc., [10], [1] a former subsidiary of Northrop Grumman that advises military agencies, [11], [1] and a member of the U.S. federal advisory board of Accenture Federal Services.[12], [1].

Less than four months after his retirement, Adm. Roughead joined Northrop Grumman’s
board, for which he is paid $115,000 per year. [13], [1] Northrop Grumman, a public company that reports director compensation, will also pay him an additional $10,000 per year for serving on the board’s audit committee, and he receives an annual grant of $130,000 in deferred stock.[13], [1] Adm. Roughead also sits on the strategic advisory council of The SI Organization, [14], [1] a systems engineering and integration company previously owned by Lockheed Martin. [15], [1].

In some cases the revolving door spun quickly, with senior military officers retiring and
almost immediately taking industry jobs related to their military work. The examples are numerous (see CREW report for more details about our generals). In addition, the revolving door doesn’t stop at the generals’ doors but expands its horns to the lobbyists.

CREW’s research shows defense companies also covet lobbyists with backgrounds in appropriations and strong connections on the Hill. CREW analyzed the employment history of in-house lobbyists registered on behalf of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics as of the first quarter of 2012 and found at least 68 percent had prior public sector experience. Nearly half of the 84 lobbyists had worked for Congress. In addition, 21 percent, or 18 lobbyists had worked for a federal agency. Of those lobbyists with experience on the Hill, roughly a third – 14 lobbyists – had worked for either the House or Senate Appropriations Committees, the powerful panels responsible for directing billions of dollars in government spending. There were also other connections to the appropriations committees: of the 16 lobbyists who worked directly for members of Congress, seven had worked for members of the appropriations committees. [1]

The five companies spend millions of dollars on federal lobbying every year, and receive
billions of dollars in federal contracts. Lobbying records show their collective spending on lobbying increased by nearly 40 percent between 2007 and 2011, skyrocketing from $44.6 million to $62.3 million. Over the same period, the total amount of dollars committed to them in federal contracts increased by roughly 13 percent, growing from $100.61 billion in fiscal year 2007 to $113.28 billion in fiscal year 2011.[48]

The five companies spent roughly $33 million lobbying during the first half of this year,
indicating a likely overall increase for 2012 as well. As defense contractors step up the fight against planned budget cuts, well-connected lobbyists and senior military personnel are likely to become even more valuable. [1]

Boeing

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter 2012: 25

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 21

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $86.93 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $7.58 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle:

  • Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)

  • Total dollars obligated to Boeing for Defense Department contracts in 2011: $20.49 billion. [1]

General Dynamics

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter of 2012: 10

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 2

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $53.08 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $4.79 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle: Rep.

  • Buck McKeon (R-CA), Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI)

  • Total dollars obligated to General Dynamics for Defense Department contracts in 2011:

  • $17.98 billion. [1]

Lockheed Martin

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter 2012: 26

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 18

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $74.23 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $ 8.03 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle: Rep.

  • Buck McKeon (R-CA), Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL)

  • Total dollars obligated to Lockheed Martin for Defense Department contracts in 2011:

  • $35.76 billion. [1]

Northrop Grumman

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter 2012: 10

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 7

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $83.85 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $6.19 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle: Rep.

  • Buck McKeon (R-CA), Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD)

  • Total dollars obligated to Northrop Grumman for Defense Department contracts in 2011:

  • $11.88 billion. [1]

Raytheon

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter 2012: 13

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 9

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $36.84 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $5.85 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle: Sen.

  • Scott Brown (R-MA), Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI)

  • Total dollars obligated to Raytheon for Defense Department contracts in 2011: $13.57

  • Billion. [1]

Conclusion
Finally, The CREW report titled “Strategic maneuvers, the Revolving Door from the Pentagon to the Private Sector” is a stunning report of immense importance because it clearly exposes a capitalist system that has gone awry. The Defense Industry as well as other global corporations have co-opted and owned everyone in the Federal government under the guise of Public-Private Partnership. All of the watchdogs have been transformed into lap-dogs and sacrificed their integrity and country for few dollars and for ephemeral power. Meanwhile, the public continues its unconscious path by empowering the ten horned beast that has devoured everyone in its path.

The final solution would be to kill this beast by ceasing the cash nexus that perpetuates its strength, and to dethrone the harlot (our public leaders and elected officials) who is riding him and driving the American people and the nation into the abyss.


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Monday, May 25, 2009

Privatizing the Police: A Developing Model in the U.S.A.

By Jody Ray Bennett

Three months after 9/11, The New York Times ran a quiet story that highlighted a developing trend concerning a sudden increase in the number of police officers retiring from their jobs for careers with private security companies (PSCs). “The heightened hunger for private protection in the aftermath of history's worst terrorist attacks is fueling the potentially destabilizing exodus,” the story claimed.

The daily suspected that police officers were being lured by the lucrative salaries and benefits offered by the private sector, finding that within the New York Police Department, a “supervisor who plays matchmaker between retired officers and security firms [was] asked to provide hundreds of names to industry executives.”

Indeed, the article identified what at the time was thought of as a marginal development, but is now almost commonplace:

“In the Sept. 11 disaster that never seems to stop exacting its toll, one of the subtler but more serious losses is a consequence of the booming private security industry, which is draining the [NYPD] of some of its most desirable workers: the serious, smart and experienced senior officers the city needs most in a crisis.”

Fast forward nine years later and one finds a young industry built almost entirely on the backs of former military and police personnel who have provided everything from diplomatic, convoy, embassy, weapon storage and energy infrastructural security to gathering intelligence, conducting interrogations, patrolling borders on land, fighting pirates at sea and transporting goods and personnel by air. It would seem there is nothing these forces cannot do.

On private patrol

Policing some of the most dangerous US cities has quickly become the newest line of business for many of these companies, which have already replaced police officers in cities from Portland to Baltimore.

The phenomenon runs deeper than the normal shopping center or bank security guard. While in many cases private security personnel act more as city cleanup, organization or local ambassadors, some cities are pushing for armed private security personnel to patrol the streets, perform arrests and transport civilians. This is somewhat of a cause for concern, especially because of the more controversial issues surrounding the role of private military and security companies abroad in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cities are turning to the private sector for a variety of reasons. Some local and state governments are under pressure from budget deficits and are often convinced that privatized industries are more cost-effective than state agencies and bureaucracies. Other cities have an already overstretched force that cannot respond to increases in crime, so private contractors are seen as a quick fix and an easy force multiplier.
 
From Oakland to New Orleans

Oakland, California is the latest city looking to hire private companies to patrol some of its rougher neighborhoods in the wake of record municipal budget deficits. Last April, according to the Wall Street Journal, the city successfully voted to outsource part of its police patrol to International Services Inc, but later retracted after “two of its vice presidents were accused […] by the Los Angeles District Attorney's office of defrauding the state of California out of more thanUS$9 million in workers compensation.”

According to the daily Portland Mercury newspaper, Portland, Oregon’s downtown area is patrolled by armed personnel with arrest powers that are supplied by Portland Patrol, Inc, a company which, according to local media, has repeatedly evaded requests to appear before the city’s oversight committee.

Over 2,000 miles away, Chicago has turned to a company that currently operates in police-like automobiles marked “special patrol,” according to CBS News, and are expected to have their powers expanded as the city combats increased crime rates with an overstretched police force.

Down south in New Orleans, Louisiana, armed private guards patrol wealthy neighborhoods and private schools. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, “Some areas of New Orleans have used armed private patrols since 1997, when residents in an east New Orleans community petitioned Louisiana's legislature to create a tax on property owners to pay for a private force. About 20 residential tax districts have been established, employing an estimated 100 private guards. This month, seven more neighborhoods voted to create such districts.”

During the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was patrolled by approximately 150 heavily armed Blackwater personnel alongside several other big contractor companies like Dyncorp, Wackenhut and most interestingly, ISI, an Israeli company that flew in former Israeli Special Forces commandos.

Most notably of all of these companies is Capital Special Police, which not only supplies guards and corporate escorts, but also offers “real police officers [that] arrest for felonies and misdemeanors; issue citations for infractions; and enforce local ordinances.”

In January 2007, the Washington Post reported that the company was “one of dozens of private security companies given police powers by the state of North Carolina.”

“The more than 1 million contract security officers, and an equal number of guards estimated to work directly for U.S. corporations, dwarf the nearly 700,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States,” the daily wrote.


A 2000 report from American University in Washington, DC, concluded that “The great contemporary challenge confronting public safety in the United States is not primarily about whether privatization and civilianization are good things. It is about how best to serve the public’s need for protection against crime generally and, in particular, how to shape and coordinate our resources and energies to secure the safety of those quarters of society that are least able to afford effective security, public or private.”

Beginning of the boom

To this end, American cities might soon find a large surplus of job-seeking private security personnel when and if President Barack Obama pulls troops and contractors out of Iraq. Indeed, several US cities have already created public-private police associations in an attempt to bridge cooperation between the two forces. Suffice to say, the private policing boom is only just beginning.

The phenomenon transcends the public-private goods debate and indicates a new shift in how security is allocated by the state. Where the monopoly of force once consisted of exclusively state-owned functions, these have now been outsourced, in part or whole, to private entities.

In a post-Cold War age that heralds neoliberalism as a part of an “End of History,” privatization of police and military force should not come as a terribly big surprise. On the other hand, the transfer of security to private power (or the penetration of private power into a state’s monopoly of force) should hold serious implications over how the provision of security is conceptualized, as well as for the forces that create state power.

—————————--

Jody Ray Bennett is a freelance writer and academic researcher.  His areas of analysis include the private military and security industries, the materialization of non-state forces, and the transformation of modern warfare.

This article was originally published at ISN Security Watch (05/18/09).  The International Relations and Security Network (ISN) is a free public service that provides a wide range of high-quality and comprehensive products and resources to encourage the exchange of information among international relations and security professionals worldwide.





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This is the best assessment of the state of affairs regarding the world banking cartel and the capture of world governments.  It also shows the intent of private military buildup in the Western nations and it is indeed what is happening as local governments 'reform' police departments.  You can see once public union leaders being selected to move this privatization forward and the pay structures have the heads of public agencies paid as corporate executives-----because that is what they are intended to be.

The time is now to stop and reverse this process.  IT IS NOT A DONE DEAL WE SIMPLY HAVE TO ENGAGE AS CITIZENS IN POLITICS AND TAKE BACK OUR GOVERNMENT.  IF YOU ARE SILENT AND APATHETIC YOU WILL BE LIVING IN A THIRD WORLD IN A FEW DECADES.



The Road to World War III – The Global Banking Cartel Has One Card Left to Play
September 23rd, 2010 |

Editor’s Note: The following is Part I to David DeGraw’s new book, “The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III.” This is the second installment to a new seven-part series that we will be posting throughout the next few weeks. You can read the introduction to the book here. To be notified via email of new postings from this series, subscribe here.


Part One I: Economic Imperial Operations
II: Violence on the Horizon
III: The IMF Riot, Step 3.5
IV: Bang the Drums of War
V: The Chinese Scapegoat: Trade &
—-Currency Wars

VI: Moves Upon the Grand Chessboard
VII: Resource Wars
VIII: Private Military Complex
IX: History Repeats Itself




I: Economic Imperial Operations

When we analyze our current crisis, focusing on the past few years of economic activity blinds us to the history and context that are vital to understanding the root cause. What we have been experiencing is not the result of an unforeseen economic crash that appeared out of the blue with the collapse of the housing market. It was certainly not brought on by people who bought homes they couldn’t afford. To frame this crisis around a debate on economic theory misses the point entirely. To even blame it on greedy bankers, while essentially accurate, also misses the most vital point.

This crisis is the direct result of a strategic economic attack on the existence of a middle class and democracy worldwide. The stock market and economy have become weapons of mass oppression manipulated by an imperial banking cartel to impose order and exploit the masses. This crisis boldly represents the manifest evolution of the fascist spirit reasserting itself as the dominant ideology.

Any fairytale notions of the United States being a democratic republic built on the rule of law have been utterly dispelled. As a nation we have been bred and conditioned to be dangerously naïve to the darker forces which operate beyond the spotlight of the mainstream media. We have been blinded to what has been developing throughout the world.

The economic imperialism that has now blown-back to the United States and Europe has been evolving for decades and can be directly traced back to the end of World War II, to the birth of the CIA, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

For those of us who have been paying attention to economic imperial operations that have been carried out against countries throughout the world, this looks all too familiar. The IMF and global bankers have conquered the second and third world, and they have now moved on to countries within the first world. Western European and American working classes are in the cross-hairs now.

Economic and societal indicators, along with recent G-20 policy decisions, clearly demonstrate that they are carrying out and escalating systemic economic attacks throughout Europe and the US.

To put it in technical terms, the United States government has been taken over by a financial terrorism network. They have bought off leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties, and have established a dominant role in all three branches of government and throughout the mainstream media. They have complete control of the economy, stock market, US Treasury, Federal Reserve, World Bank, IMF and global banking system. Free market capitalism has collapsed; it’s now a rigged global market. This is an organized criminal operation, an imperial fascist movement that is determined to destroy our very way of life.

A war has already been launched against us.

In just the past three years we have lost an unprecedented amount of national wealth, trillions upon trillions of our tax dollars have been looted by Wall Street, endless wars, enormous subsidies for the most profitable global corporations and tax cuts for the richest one percent of the population. Never before, in the history of civilization, has a nation been so thoroughly and systematically fleeced.

This is all the result of a coordinated economic attack by a global banking cartel against 99 percent of the US population.

Until we can become politically intelligent enough to see this as the reality and root cause of our current crisis, we will not be able to overcome it, our living standards will continue to decline and we will all be sentenced to a slow death in a neo-feudal system built on debt slavery.

The average American is horribly naïve to just how depraved, corrupt and addicted to power this banking cartel is. Through their control and domination of the mass media, they have kept their crimes against humanity out of public consciousness. We have been shielded from the global devastation and death toll that they have already wrought. The result is an unsuspecting population of confused and passive people having their future ripped out from under them, right before their eyes, without any organized defense or resistance.

II: Violence on the Horizon

As the entrenched global banking cartel continues to control domestic political policy, the next phase of this crisis will inevitably feature an escalation into mass violence. As the Army War College stated, the Pentagon is preparing for “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States” and “widespread civil violence” due to “purposeful domestic resistance.”

In clear signs of what is to come, rioting and violence as a result of economic turmoil has already been experienced in many countries throughout the world. However, civil unrest has not yet occurred within the United States. There are many theories as to why there has been so little resistance from the US population thus far, and several factors play into it. The most significant factor is that social safety net programs have been vital in preventing people from resorting to extreme measures. Currently, a stunning number of Americans, 52 million, are receiving life-sustaining assistance from government “anti-poverty” programs, such as food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and Medicare. This has already stretched a social safety net system that is designed to handle significantly less people to its limit. This safety net system has now been drained of all reserve resources over the past two years, and is obviously not sustainable under current economic and political conditions.

As social safety net programs have been drained of reserves, many US citizens have also been burning through their personal savings. Over the past few years the percentage of Americans living paycheck to paycheck has dramatically increased. In 2007, 43 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck. In 2008, the percentage increased to 49 percent. In 2009, the number skyrocketed up to 61 percent. The most recent number for 2010 has exploded to a shocking 77 percent. This means in our nation of 310 million citizens, 239 million Americans are one setback away from economic ruin and millions more are in danger of having to rely on government assistance for survival.

So as this prolonged economic crisis continues, these safety nets, that are already overwhelmed, will have to support more and more people and will inevitably break down. As we have just begun to see, budget cuts to vital social programs on the state and federal levels will become increasingly severe right at the point when many more Americans will need them. As the 52 million Americans currently surviving in “anti-poverty” programs are gradually cutoff from life-sustaining government assistance – and as the 239 million people now living paycheck to paycheck, buried in debt, stressing out and working their asses off just to make ends meet realize that things are not going to be getting any better — and are only going to get worse — social unrest and outbursts of violence will eventually start to bubble up to the surface and the ruling elite will no longer be able to maintain power by simply deceiving the masses via mainstream media propaganda.

When an overwhelming majority of the population directly feels negative effects upon their own living standards, the propaganda system collapses. The illusion comes crashing down and people will finally start to get wise to the horrific scam that is being played on them. When they wake from their media-induced American dream state and realize that they are now living in a nightmare, as crazy as it may sound, people will actually stop voting against their own interests. The apathetic majority, that doesn’t vote, will become active in the interests of self-preservation as their survival instincts kick in.

The handwriting is on the wall and the ruling class has to realize that by the time 2012 rolls around, their puppet politicians will be voted out of office, or their heads will roll, quite literally.

Looking at this from a purely technocratic sociological viewpoint, avoiding mass riots and violence while this many desperate people lose life-sustaining programs appears to be an impossible task, and given our current economic and political environment this seems inevitable.

In an article titled “A Planet at the Brink: Will Economic Brushfires Prove Too Virulent to Contain?” Michael T. Klare explained:

“As people lose confidence in the ability of markets and governments to solve the global crisis, they are likely to erupt into violent protests or to assault others they deem responsible for their plight, including government officials, plant managers, landlords, immigrants, and ethnic minorities. (The list could, in the future, prove long and unnerving.) If the present economic disaster turns into what President Obama has referred to as a ‘lost decade,’ the result could be a global landscape filled with economically-fueled upheavals.”

Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski expressed his fears:

“I was worrying about it because we’re going to have millions and millions of unemployed, people really facing dire straits. And we’re going to be having that for some period of time before things hopefully improve. And at the same time there is public awareness of this extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals at levels without historical precedent in America….

And you sort of say to yourself: what’s going to happen in this society when these people are without jobs, when their families hurt, when they lose their homes, and so forth?”

Outbreaks of civil unrest are something that the US government and Pentagon have been expecting, and preparing for. Former US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee stating that the greatest threat facing the US is not terrorism, it’s the current economic crisis:

“The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications. The crisis has been ongoing…. Of course, all of us recall the dramatic political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, the instability, and high levels of violent extremism.”

Intelligence Committee Vice-Chair Christopher Bond said the economic crisis is now “the primary focus of the intelligence community.” As the Army War College has warned, the response to this coming phase of the economic crisis “might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD [the Department of Defense] would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance.”

Journalist Chris Hedges summed up this report:

“The specter of social unrest was raised at the US Army War College in November in a monograph titled ‘Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development.’ …

The ‘widespread civil violence,’ the document said, ‘would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.’

‘An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home,’ it went on….

In plain English, something bureaucrats and the military seem incapable of employing, this translates into the imposition of martial law and a de facto government being run out of the Department of Defense. They are considering it. So should you.”

III: The IMF Riot, Step 3.5

The International Monetary Fund is predicting a “social explosion” due to this crisis. The IMF and World Bank have a long history of creating social upheaval. Leaked documents from within the World Bank refer to the next phase of the crisis as the “IMF riot.”

Journalist Greg Palast obtained classified planning documents, which shed light on the covert economic imperial operations, Structural Adjustment Programs, that the IMF, World Bank and US Treasury have used in the past as a playbook for destabilizing and conquering foreign nations. In the UK newspaper The Observer, Palast interviewed Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who was a former World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, turned whistleblower. They revealed the four-step IMF plan. Though the strategy is slightly modified based on the nation being attacked, here in the United States we are currently about to enter a variation of step-three, which is currently being phased in throughout Europe. This step inevitably leads to a significant portion of the population losing the ability to obtain basic necessities essential for survival. Once this happens, riots inevitably occur, or as they put it: step 3.5 is executed.

Here is how Palast and Stiglitz summed it up:

“At this point, according to Stiglitz, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three: market-based pricing – a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and… gas.

This leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls ‘the IMF riot’.

The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, ‘down and out, [the IMF] squeezes the last drop of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up,’…

What Stiglitz did not know is that Newsnight obtained several documents from inside the World Bank. In one, last year’s Interim Country Assistance Strategy for Ecuador, the Bank several times suggests – with cold accuracy – that the plans could be expected to spark ‘social unrest’.”

To sum up, the interlocked IMF and World Bank set the conditions for ‘social unrest’ and then once it occurs they move to step-four, which is the ultimate in disaster capitalism – they profit off the misery and the civilian population is then buried in a neo-feudal system of severe debt and poverty.

So what is the IMF saying right now about our situation in Europe and the US? A recent Telegraph report reads:

“IMF fears ‘social explosion’ from world jobs crisis

America and Europe face the worst jobs crisis since the 1930s and risk ‘an explosion of social unrest’ unless they tread carefully, the International Monetary Fund has warned….

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, said the percentage of workers laid off for long stints has been rising with each downturn for decades but the figures have surged this time. ‘Long-term unemployment is alarmingly high: in the US, half the unemployed have been out of work for over six months, something we have not seen since the Great Depression,” he said….

The IMF said there may be a link between rising inequality within Western economies and deflating demand. Historians say the last time that the wealth gap reached such skewed extremes was in 1928-1929…”

To show you how insidious the IMF is, they have recently launched a propaganda campaign to publicly decry deficit budget cuts and austerity measures. However, behind the scenes they have been forcing implementation of them and making their usual demands for cuts in vital social services and public spending, once those cuts are in place, the riots obviously follow.

A recent Washington Post report states:

“IMF issues broad call for US financial prudence
Cut Social Security. Ditch the deduction for interest on home mortgages. Tax gasoline.
The United States recently opened itself to the most intense scrutiny yet by the International Monetary Fund, and on Thursday was offered a bitter pill when the agency criticized some well-defended aspects of American culture — cheap fuel, subsidized housing, and a government retirement check…. “

Economist Dean Baker writes:

“The central bankers and their accomplices at the IMF are dictating policies to democratically elected governments. Their agenda seems to be the same everywhere, cut back retirement benefits, reduce public support for health care, weaken unions and make ordinary workers take pay cuts.”

In another report Baker adds:

“The IMF program calls for cutbacks in government support for healthcare, pensions, and a wide range of other public services. It also calls for weakening labor market regulations that provide workers with job security.

These recommendations are being given in a context where the world economy is suffering from a massive shortfall of demand. In other words, tens of millions of people are unemployed right now because there is not enough spending to keep them employed. The IMF’s program is almost certain to reduce spending further leading to even larger shortfalls in demand and more unemployment….

The IMF’s track record gives us reason not only to question the institution’s competence but also its motivations…. It is possible to see a similar pattern in the IMF’s latest set of policy recommendations to deal with the economic crisis.”

In an article entitled, “The Attack of the Real Black Helicopter Gang: The IMF Is Coming for Your Social Security,” Baker continues:

“Last week, the IMF told the United States that it needs to start getting its budget deficit down. It put cutting Social Security at the top of the steps that the country should take to achieve deficit reduction. This one is more than a bit outrageous for two reasons…

While the IMF has no problem warning about retired workers getting too much in Social Security benefits, it apparently could not find its voice when the issue was the junk securities from Goldman Sachs or Citigroup that helped to fuel the housing bubble.

The collapse of this bubble has not only sank the world economy, it also destroyed most of the savings of the near retirees for whom the IMF wants to cut Social Security. The vast majority of middle-income retirees have most of their wealth in their home equity. This home equity largely disappeared when the bubble burst.”

So the IMF and global banking cartel are setting the conditions for social unrest and pushing for policies that will provoke it, and the Pentagon is preparing for a military response. As scary and unbelievable as all this may sound, we are on a fast track to this scenario.

To Sum Up

The American and global economy have already been looted and destroyed beyond repair. Most serious economists will admit that governments have already exhausted their capital by bailing out the banks and taking on unprecedented amounts of debt. The bailouts and recent return to high profits were just the final phase of the looting and a further consolidation of wealth on an unprecedented scale. There are still tens of trillions of dollars in debt hidden off-the-books and hundreds of trillions of dollars in dark pools of derivative liability. As the downturn continues, there is nothing left to revive the economy, the reserves and safety nets have already been stretched to their limits.

We have a political and economic system that has been overrun by organized corruption and theft. Along with a mass media system that does not inform the populace and has effectively marginalized and isolated the majority of the population. Meanwhile, bubbling just under the surface is a very heavily armed population with a militia movement that has doubled in size over the past year, and their memberships continue to rapidly grow. Without the necessary general political intelligence or infrastructure to organize an effective mass non-violent movement, we are steamrolling toward spontaneous riots and outbursts of armed insurrection.

In other words, as this economic downturn continues, what is now a passive and confused population will eventually devolve into an explosion of violence. Without a coherent non-violent movement to provide a viable alternative, without an outlet for severe and legitimate grievances that provides any chance for urgently affecting necessary political change, people will resort to violence as a last desperate act of vengeance and frustration. As time passes, these forgotten and isolated people, tens of millions of them, are quickly running out of options, and they will act out just as exploited people throughout the world always have.

A man who sparked a revolution against the same banking cartel that has caused our crisis described the general attitude among a population that successfully rebelled through armed insurrection:

“The people are weary of being oppressed, persecuted, exploited to the maximum. They are weary of the wretched selling of their labor-power day after day — faced with the fear of joining the enormous mass of unemployed — so that the greatest profit can be wrung from each human body, profit later squandered in the orgies of the masters of capital….

The feeling of revolt will grow stronger every day among the peoples subjected to various degrees of exploitation, and they will take up arms to gain by force the rights which reason alone has not won them.”

Whatever your preconceptions of the man who said this may be, the voice of Che Guevara can now be clearly understood and related to by the overwhelming majority of people throughout the United States.

Already, despite intensive propaganda, a stunning 80 percent of the US population believes that the government has failed them. The health care and financial reform bills have proven that our politicians are much more concerned about the short-sighted necessity to please the Economic Elite and raise campaign funds, than they are to understand the consequences of millions of Americans being forced into situations where their very survival is threatened. In a system where most elected officials are millionaires, this lack of perspective and understanding is ultimately what will lead to violence. Whether it is by arrogance or ignorance, perhaps both, it appears that our ruling class has suicidal tendencies. Unless they quickly recognize the growing threat posed by the dispossessed masses, our puppet politicians will themselves be in harm’s way.

To show you how incredibly out of touch our current elected officials are, and to give you a clear indication of the prevailing attitude on Capitol Hill, a recent report from the Washington Post summed up their response to the recent news that a record number of Americans are now living in poverty:

“The reluctance of political leaders on both sides of the aisle to directly confront the fact that growing numbers of Americans are slipping into poverty reflects a stubborn reality about the poor: They are not much of a political constituency.

‘We talk to many people on Capitol Hill who do believe poverty is important and is a blight on our nation, but we are also up against a general recognition that poor people don’t vote in great numbers. And they certainly aren’t going to be making campaign contributions. That definitely puts them behind many other people and interests when decisions are being made around here.’”

And that sums up our current crisis, doesn’t it? The “poor people don’t vote” and they don’t make “campaign contributions.”

As the Rage Against the Machine song goes, “The riot be the rhyme of the unheard.”

IV: Bang the Drums of War

How will this imperial fascist banking cartel respond to revolt? How will they maintain their power over an increasingly radicalized and hostile US population?

In an attempt to stave off organized rebellion, they are already escalating their propaganda efforts in attempts to divide and distract the population. The tactics of their divide and conquer strategy are already on full display. Their mainstream media outlets have drastically increased coverage and focused attention on the rhetoric of division – using divisive issues like immigration, racism, religious bigotry, the “lazy unemployed,” “entitlement welfare” and gay marriage to divide and distract the population and prevent the masses from organizing against their true oppressors.

This propaganda effort is only a temporary measure and will not suffice over the long-term. As the economy continues to collapse, the banking elite risk being overthrown as a result of their own greed. So they will then turn to physical, military-based violence to suppress populations that can no longer be controlled through propaganda and economic coercion.

To paraphrase policy analyst Anatol Lieven, the classic strategy of an endangered oligarchy is to divert discontent among the population into nationalistic militarism. It is time, once again, to bang the drums of war and “whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor.” The source of the following quote is unknown, but the evident wisdom of it is something that we have already experienced firsthand in the recent past:

“Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.”

An increased external threat will lead to an increased internal crackdown, which creates the pretext and conditions for a police state. As we have already seen in the first phase of the crackdown on civil liberties since the “War on Terror” began, when rioting and outbursts of armed insurrection begin within the US, external threats, real or imagined, will again be presented to justify extreme measures to suppress American citizens, and to further repress and divert internal dissent. Without an external enemy to rally the population against, the population will rally against the pre-existing internal powers.

To put a slight twist on what Guy DeBord insightfully said back in 1988: the banking cartel “constructs its own inconceivable foe, terrorism. Its wish is to be judged by its enemies rather than by its results. The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive. But they must always know enough to convince them that, compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.”

V:The Chinese Scapegoat: Trade & Currency Wars

As millions of Americans and the majority of the global population look for vengeance on those responsible for severely declining living standards, the global banking cartel are not going to blame themselves, so they will deflect blame to China, a most convenient target.

As a result of the crisis, national currencies are reeling, and the dollar, although currently one of the strongest paper currencies, is losing power as the crisis escalates. The IMF is working to replace the dollar as the world reserve currency and have begun discussing the possibility of making their Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) the new world reserve currency. A plummeting dollar will obviously put the American population in a severely desperate situation and the US-based banking cartel needs an excuse to divert political backlash. In China, the nation poised to replace the US as the preeminent global superpower, they have the perfect scapegoat.

US-based global corporations have been shifting their business to China and off-shoring millions of jobs to the region due to their extremely low worker wages. So the American population is already pre-disposed to blaming China, as opposed to the companies who are exploiting the cheap labor. US politicians have been conveniently shifting blame for unemployment from themselves to China. Meanwhile, China also owns a significant portion of US national debt. US Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has recently declared that the national debt is the number one security threat. As Mullen stated, “Tax payers will be paying around $600 billion in interest on the national debt by 2012.” A significant portion of this interest will be going to China.

As national governments attempt to survive in an increasingly hostile global economy, trade and currency wars will flare up and escalate. China is in perhaps the strongest position to win these conflicts. China and Japan have just engaged in a fierce currency battle. This currency battle is not to be underestimated. We are talking about the world’s second and third largest economies, after the United States. China has just overtaken Japan for the number two position. The militant rhetoric between these two nations is escalating. US politicians were quick to jump on the situation with calls to classify China as a “currency manipulator” and impose trade tariffs and penalties against them.

International economic reporter Barry Grey recently summed up the situation in an article entitled, “Economic crisis threatens to unleash global currency wars:”

“The eruption of currency exchange conflicts is bound up with mounting signs that the global economic crisis is systemic, rather than merely conjunctural, and growing fears that a genuine recovery is not in the offing. The European sovereign debt crisis and the weakening of US economic growth have led governments around the world to seek to secure a greater share of export markets. Under conditions of slowing growth and stagnant markets, this inevitably heightens trade conflicts between competing capitalist nations.

In particular, the US and the European Union, spearheaded by the export power Germany, have aggressively pursued a cheap currency policy in order to gain a trade advantage against their rivals. Of the major economic powers, Japan has suffered the greatest damage from these policies, as investors and speculators have shifted from dollar- and euro-denominated investments to the yen, driving up the currency’s exchange rate.

This has embittered relations between Japan and both the US and the EU. Japan has also denounced China for artificially keeping its currency low while bidding up the yen by increasing its purchases of Japanese government securities.”

The global banking cartel’s leading puppets on Capitol Hill, Senators Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer and Richard Shelby were all quick to attack China. Barry Grey continued:

“In opening the Senate Banking Committee hearing, Chairman Christopher Dodd declared China a currency manipulator and said its ‘economic and trade policies’ present ‘roadblocks to our recovery.’ He went on to accuse China of stealing intellectual property, violating international trade agreements and dumping goods. He also denounced China for acquiring national resources in developing countries and building up its military.

In his opening statement, the ranking Republican on the committee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, declared, ‘There is no question that China manipulates its currency in order to subsidize Chinese exports. The only question is: Why is the administration protecting China by refusing to designate it as a currency manipulator?’

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said, ‘China’s currency manipulation is like a boot on the throat of our recovery and this administration refuses to try to get China to remove that boot.’”

On top of all this, China has now overtaken the US as the world’s top energy consumer. Michael T. Klare reports on China’s new position of power:

“The main point: by becoming the world’s leading energy consumer, China will also become an ever more dominant international actor and so set the pace in shaping our global future.

Because energy is tied to so many aspects of the global economy, and because doubts are growing about the future availability of oil and other vital fuels, the decisions China makes regarding its energy portfolio will have far-reaching consequences. As the leading player in the global energy market, China will significantly determine not only the prices we will be paying for critical fuels but also the type of energy systems we will come to rely on. More importantly, China’s decisions on energy preferences will largely determine whether China and the United States can avoid becoming embroiled in a global struggle over imported oil and whether the world will escape catastrophic climate change.”

China’s rise in power, mixed with the decline of western economies and the need for an external scapegoat sets up a global collision and inevitable confrontation between vying superpowers. Currency and trade wars will likely be a prelude to military confrontation.

VI: Moves Upon the Grand Chessboard

Based on early maneuvering it is evident that the masters of war have already drawn up sides. You may have missed it, but the US, Israel and the NATO Alliance have already put Iran, Lebanon, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Russia and China on notice. And the “withdrawals” from Iraq and the Af-Pak region are over-hyped. The occupation of these countries continues with no end in sight. In fact, they aren’t withdrawing as much as they are repositioning and shifting their forces, preparing for an escalation. In many ways the wars in Iraq and Af-Pak have only been the initial phase of a global attack, positioning forces and building massive military bases in pivotal geo-strategic locations. The operations in this region have essentially been a warm-up for much wider-ranging attacks against much stronger countries. While most of the US population is playing checkers, seeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as one-off battles, the global banking cartel is playing chess, using these wars as only initial geo-strategic moves in a grand strategy toward total world domination.

The intensity of military maneuvering presently occurring is alarming. Read through these recent news reports pulled from the AmpedStatus database, all from just the past few weeks, and let me know if you think I’m being extreme in foreseeing World War III:

- See more at: http://ampedstatus.com/the-road-to-world-war-iii-the-global-banking-cartel-has-one-card-left-to-play/#sthash.U9ibA1cf.dpuf

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January 24th, 2014

1/24/2014

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CONTINUING TALK ONE MORE DAY ON TOTALITARIAN POLICY LET'S REVIEW YESTERDAY'S POINTS......CAPTURED ELECTIONS TAKING THE DEMOCRACY OUT OF DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS.......BUILD-UP OF MILITARISTIC POLICING WITH SUSPENDED RULE OF LAW ALLOWING NO PUBLIC JUSTICE AND HOLDING NO ONE ACCOUNTABLE FOR CRIMES BY CORPORATIONS AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION.  YOUR MONEY BECOMES THEIR MONEY.  I'VE SPOKEN ENOUGH FOR NOW ON TPP AND THE RE-WRITING OF THE US CONSTITUTION AND SHOWED HOW IT WILL ALLOW ENSLAVEMENT TO OPERATE RIGHT HERE IN MARYLAND FOR EXAMPLE. 

No matter how many times they say all this loss of privacy and freedom is Constitutional-----IT IS NOT!

LET'S REVIEW THE SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY SYSTEM THAT IS HOMELAND SECURITY:

Remember, the reason the US suddenly has all these people wanting death to America is that US policy went with global corporations with Reagan and Clinton and since then the IMF has attempted to capture developing world governments and economies just as they are doing now in the US.  All we have to do is run and vote for labor and justice and reinstate Rule of Law to downsize these global corporations----EASY PEASY.


ARE YOU MAD AT CORPORATIONS AND WALL STREET?  UNDERSTAND WHY OTHERS WOULD WANT TO FLY A PLANE INTO WALL STREET?


Baltimore is home of Johns Hopkins which is NSA and drone extraordinaire so the first to build militarized policing would be Baltimore and NYC.  Bloomberg is tied to Hopkins so all policy is shared.  Baltimore has a population of around 650,000 people most of which are poor and working class and Hopkins through a development corporation has been forcing huge numbers of poor and working class out of city center just as with NYC with many more wanted to go.  This brings social unrest and with it all kinds of security build-up.  We just had another spy plane fly over testing for radiation (dirty bombs).  The other problem will be the really bad policy of making Baltimore a world-class Port for international shipping.  It will kill our bay and Port but that does not matter.  With international shipping comes cargo containers that may have dirty bombs.

For those living in Baltimore and Maryland we know there is a common denominator in drones, NSA surveillance, and Smart Meters of which I speak below.....JOHNS HOPKINS AND BROOKINGS INSTITUTION.  Hopkins owns VEOLA ENVIRONMENTAL that will be overseeing Smart Meters for waste and energy and profiting from recycling and tiered energy pricing.....not to mention all of that personal data heading to the super computer on the Hopkins campus.


Why is a Gigantic War-Blimp About to Fly Above the Skies of Suburban Baltimore?

Posted on January 23, 2014

One of the most disturbing and relentless trends over the past several years has been the redirection of war technology and equipment from the battlefield abroad toward domestic use in the USA. This has resulted in a militarization of police across the nation and has encouraged small towns to use Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grants to purchase ridiculous items such as tanks.

Sadly, it appears this trend is only accelerating. With billions of dollars already spent, and failed wars abroad, the military-industrial complex needs to continue to generate cash flow. May as well just use it against the American people.

We find out from the Washington Post that:

They will look like two giant white blimps floating high above I-95 in Maryland, perhaps en route to a football game somewhere along the bustling Eastern Seaboard. But their mission will have nothing to do with sports and everything to do with war.

The aerostats — that is the term for lighter-than-air craft that are tethered to the ground — are to be set aloft on Army-owned land about 45 miles northeast of Washington, near Aberdeen Proving Ground, for a three-year test slated to start in October. From a vantage of 10,000 feet, they will cast a vast radar net from Raleigh, N.C., to Boston and out to Lake Erie, with the goal of detecting cruise missiles or enemy aircraft so they could be intercepted before reaching the capital.

Interesting, I didn’t realize we were at war. When was the last time cruise missiles were shot into the United States?

Aerostats deployed by the military at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan typically carried powerful surveillance cameras as well, to track the movements of suspected insurgents and even U.S. soldiers.

Defense contractor Raytheon last year touted an exercise in which it outfitted the aerostats planned for deployment in suburban Baltimore with one of the company’s most powerful high-altitude surveillance systems, capable of spotting individual people and vehicles from a distance of many miles.


The Army said it has “no current plans” to mount such cameras or infrared sensors on the aerostats or to share information with federal, state or local law enforcement, but it declined to rule out either possibility. The radar system that is planned for the aerostats will be capable of monitoring the movement of trains, boats and cars, the Army said.

“No Current plans.” What a bunch of assholes. You know they can’t wait to attach an ARGUS surveillance system to these puppies.

“That’s the kind of massive persistent surveillance we’ve always been concerned about with drones,” said Jay Stanley, a privacy expert for the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s part of this trend we’ve seen since 9/11, which is the turning inward of all of these surveillance technologies.”

The Army played down such concerns in written responses to questions posed by The Washington Post, saying its goal is to test the ability of the aerostats to bolster the region’s missile-defense capability, especially against low-flying cruise missiles that can be hard for ground-based systems to detect in time to intercept them.

The Army determined it did not need to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment, required for some government programs, because it was not going to collect any personally identifiable information, officials said in their written responses to The Post.

Did the FISA court rubber stamp this assessment?

Technologies developed for battlefields — weapons, vehicles, communications systems — long have flowed homeward as overseas conflicts have ended. The battles that followed the Sept. 11 attacks have produced major advances in surveillance equipment whose manufacturers increasingly are looking to expand their use within the United States.

Aerostats — basically big balloons on strings — grew popular in Iraq and Afghanistan and also are used by Israel to monitor the Gaza Strip and by the United States to eye movement along southern border areas. Even a rifle shot through an aerostat will not bring it down, because the pressure of the helium inside nearly matches the pressure of the air outside, preventing rapid deflation.

So equipment used to control people in war zones are coming to America and there’s nothing to be concerned about?

The Defense Department spent nearly $7 billion on 15 different lighter-than-air systems between 2007 and 2012, with several suffering from technical problems, delays and unexpectedly high costs, the Government Accountability Office found in an October 2012 report.


“They are bringing this to the East Coast, close to Washington, to get the Pentagon guys and Congress to say, ‘Whoa, we could really use this,’ ” said Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute, a military think tank with ties to the defense industry. “This is re-purposing. You’ve already spent the money.”

Have fun Baltimore.

_______________________________________________
U of M College Park is no longer a public university----it is now a lean, mean corporate machine with all the course work it takes to keep US global corporations safe around the world.  All this is important for job creation you know!

Hitler took over a nation's industry and used it for his war of expansion, taking the public's wealth to do it.  He had the largest Secret Police and surveillance service making everyone fearful that someone else was a spy.  If you cannot see that happening with these NSA scandals and the expanded roll of policing and drone/surveillance technology in Maryland-----WAKE UP!!!!!

MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD OF TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND PUBLIC MONEY USED FOR EXPANSIONS OF GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND BUILDING SECURITY/SURVEILLANCE APPARATUS!!!!  REALLY?????


University Of Md. Among Schools Developing Drone Concepts For Civilian Use

January 2, 2014 5:08 PM

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (WJZ) — Maryland airspace may not be involved, but the state’s brain power definitely is.

Alex DeMetrick reports the FAA will include research at the University of Maryland into the job of integrating drone aircraft into civilian airspace.

At the University of Maryland, they’re trying to do more than pilot drones by hand. Researchers are trying to figure out how insects navigate through the air without big brains or GPS.

Figure that out, and:

“We can leverage that to navigate and also possibly for sense and avoid technology in the national airspace,” said Dr. Darryll Pines, Dean, University of Maryland School of Engineering.

Right now, that airspace takes humans to fly in. But the FAA has selected Virginia and five other states to develop and test drone technology in unrestricted airspace–research the University of Maryland will also join in.

MEANWHILE-------


There is absolutely no way this technology will not be abused as they pretend they can simply allow these drones to fill the airways.  Do we really need drones to do the work of our Department of Natural Resources employees?  This is yet another step of taking the public out of all loops in knowing what is happening in the state and being accountable to the public. 

YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANY EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY ONCE YOU WALK OUT THE DOOR THEY TELL US-----OH REALLY????????  THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU.

Please check out this group and get involved!!!!


No Drones Maryland

Tuesday, April 2, 2013


April Days of Action Against Drones in MARYLAND Advanced Physics Laboratory, home of drones research at JHU. Maryland has been an important site of protest activity against drones, particularly protests against drones research at Johns Hopkins University.

Numerous Maryland events are planned as part of the nationwide April Days of Action Against Drones.

UPCOMING MARYLAND EVENTS

TOWSON - Friday, April 5, through Sunday, April 7, 2013 - The Politics of Drone Warfare and the University - Topics in this important 3-day conference will include:
  • "Distancing Acts: Imperial War from Counterinsurgency to Drones"
  • "The Politics of Drone Warfare and the University"
  • "Teaching the War on Terror"
Speakers will include:
  • Rashid Khalidi - Columbia University
  • Nick Turse - TomDispatch.com
  • Phyllis Bennis - Institute for Policy Studies
  • Ray McGovern - Ex-CIA White House briefer
  • Irene Gendizer - Boston University
  • Judith Le Blanc - Peace Action
  • David Swanson - War is a Crime.org
  • Jerry Lembcke - College of the Holy Cross
  • Vinay Lal - UCLA
  • Paul Joseph - Tufts University
  • Carolyn Eisenberg - Hofstra University
  • John Prados - National Security Archive
Friday Keynote Session: Friday evening, April 5, St. John's Methodist Church, 2640 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD. Keynote speakers: Col. Ann Wright, former Army officer and State Department diplomat; Alfred McCoy, University of Wisconsin.

All Saturday, April 6 and Sunday April 7 sessions will be held at the College of Liberal Arts Building, Towson University, 8000 York Road, Towson, MD 21252

For additional details see: Historians Against the War

BALTIMORE - Friday, April 12, through Sunday, April 14, 2013 - Exhibit: Drone Warfare Exhibit and Luminous Light Intervention . . . Tuesday, April 16, 2013 - Exhibit: Workshop on the Legal, Political, and Ethical Implications of Militarized Drones . . . Tuesday, April 16, 2013 - Exhibit: "DRONECOMING" - Mobile drone warfare exhibition at Johns Hopkins University homecoming events.

(Add additional Illinois events to the master list of national April Days of Action actions.)


What about YOU? Become part of the No Drones movement!
Read about ALL the ways YOU can be involved  in the April Days of Action Against Drones!


____________________________________________

Do you think a government willing to allow massive fracking and exporting raw energy and global agriculture that drain and contaminate all of our fresh water is really concerned with energy conservation?  What a LOL thought!

This would have once been thought a conspiracy theory but we now see this article as mainstream as people across the country now believe that these Smart Meters are only meant to ration and restrict the public as needed.  I've spoken of the intent to end subsidy and tie product to what can be afforded.  As this article indicates, it goes further than that.  Wall Street and corporations will be allowed access to your energy consumption data for bill collection purposes----are you at home when not at work?  Will I hire someone who can only afford to keep energy running part of the day or will that make someone easily exploited?

This is not hyperbole.....it is in fact what a totalitarian society would do.  Control of every aspect of your life.

THIS IS WHY SNOWDEN OUTED THE NSA-------AS HE SAID -----YOU WILL NOT HAVE AN AVENUE OF PRIVACY AT ALL IF THIS IS LEFT UNCHECKED!


I included an article from the UK because it needs to be seen as a global effort.  There is no shortage of natural gas or electricity.....so the reasons are a ploy.



Smart meters could be 'spy in the home'

Smart meters could become a 'spy in the home' by allowing social workers and health authorities to monitor households, adding to concern at Britain's surveillance society. Smart meters will eliminate the need to take readings from traditional electricity and gas meters.

10:30AM BST 11 Oct 2009 UK Telegraph



The devices, which the government plans to install in every home by 2020, will also tell energy firms what sort of appliances are being used, allowing companies to target customers who do not reduce their energy consumption.

Privacy campaigners have expressed horror at the proposals, which come as two million homes have 'spy' devices fitted to their rubbish bins by councils who record how much residents are recycling.

The government wants every home in Britain to have smart meters, which give users information on how to save energy and send real-time data direct to utility companies, eliminating the need for customers to stay at home for meter readings or to receive estimated bills.

The devices also pave the way for a national 'smart grid', backed by David Cameron's Conservatives, which would use the data to manage national demand more efficiently and advise households when it is cheapest to switch on appliances.

In its impact assessment, however, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) says there "is theoretically scope... for using the smart metering communications infrastructure to enable a variety of other services, such as monitoring of vulnerable householders by health authorities or social services departments."

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It adds: "Information from smart meters could also make it possible for a supplier to determine when electricity or gas was being used in a property and, to a degree, the types of technology that were being used within the property. This could be used to target energy efficiency advice and offers of measures, social programmes etc to householders."

Doretta Cocks, founder of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said: "This is Orwellian. We're already under surveillance for what we put outside the home in bins and now we could be watched for what we're doing inside as well.

"Most of us are happy to reduce our energy consumption or reduce waste but these measures always seem to come at the expense of our privacy. If I want advice on energy efficiency I will ask for it."

Guy Herbert, general secretary of NO2ID, said: "Information from smart meters might be useful to energy providers and perhaps even their customers, but there's no reason for any public authority to have access to it – unless they've a warrant to do so.

"This document is a prime example of government efforts to shoehorn data sharing and feature creep into every new policy. For example, it suggests that NHS or social services could use the system to monitor 'vulnerable

householders', or that companies could use the system to spam customers with adverts for their services – having paid the government for the privilege, no doubt."

The DECC document adds households could even have their power to some appliances turned off remotely to help the national grid if there is too much demand. It says: "In terms of potentially intrusive non-physical behaviour unrelated to data, smart metering potentially offers scope for remote intervention such as dynamic demand management, which is designed to assist management of the network and thus security of supply. This could involve direct supplier or distribution company interface with equipment, such as refrigerators, within a property, overriding the control of the householder."

It also says potential extra uses for smart meters would need to be checked to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act.

The Information Commissioner's Office said it had already discussed the issue of smart meters with some suppliers, including Eon, Scottish Power and British Gas. A spokesman said the ICO would "continue to maintain a close dialogue to ensure that their introduction does not compromise customers' privacy".

He added: "Important issues include what information is stored on the meters themselves, in particular whether information identifying the householder will be held. In any event energy companies will clearly need to hold records linking meters with householders and all the information must be held in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act."

A spokeswoman for the DECC said: "The accurate, informative data that smart meters provide will be of great value to consumers. Rules and safeguards governing access to, and the use of, the data from smart meters will be reviewed as part of the Government's work in preparing for the start of the mass smart meter roll-out."

Consumer Focus, the watchdog, has also expressed concern about the privacy implications of the meters, saying consumers are "at risk of unfair, excessive, inequitable and inefficient charging" because energy companies could use the new data to introduce more complex tariffs to maximise profits at peak times.

The government has yet to decide who will pay for replacing Britain's 47 million meters, which could cost up to £8bn over the next 20 years. Its preferred option is for the cost to be met by energy firms, who stand to gain the most from meters as they remove the need to employ meter readers or calculate estimated bills.

More than two million households in Britain have microchips in their council bin. Sensors and weighing equipment fitted to the back of each rubbish lorry allow the council to collect data as each bin is raised. Information collected from outside each household is downloaded to a database that allows officials to monitor how much waste each household is producing for waste and for recycling. Officials then use the data to target errant streets and households in a bid to increase recycling rates from 43 per cent to 60 per cent.


I want to be clear, when we are made to use our energy a particular way.....forced to recycle because to is now a corporate profit factor......charged more to use energy at prime time......and having all our data sold to corporations for their marketing/research needs we have lost all of our freedoms.

Keep in mind that when there is a water shortage or an electrical shortage the government simply has local news tell people not to water lawns or wash cars or not to use air conditioners at peak hours AND THAT WORKS JUST FINE!  So, this is NOT about conservation.....it is about control and surveillance.

The complaint about detecting marijuana growers is mute......the problem is far greater than that.

Smart Meters: Surveillance Devices

Smart Meters Are Surveillance Devices That Monitor The Behavior In Your Home Every Single Minute Of Every Single Day  

Today's Date:  Friday, January 24th, 2014 Decrypted Matrix

Have you heard about the new “smart meters” that are being installed in homes all across America?  Under the guise of “reducing greenhouse gas emissions” and “reducing energy bills”, utility companies all over the United States are forcing tens of millions of American families to accept sophisticated surveillance devices in their homes.  Currently, approximately 9 percent of all electric meters in the U.S. have been converted over to smart meters.  It is being projected that by 2012, the number of smart meters in use will rise to 52 million, and the federal government is spending a lot of money to help get these installed everywhere.  Eventually the goal is to have these smart meters in all of our homes and if that ever happened there would essentially be no more privacy.  Once installed, a smart meter monitors your home every single minute of every single day and it transmits very sophisticated data about your personal behavior back to the utility company.



So can’t we just tell the utility companies that we don’t want these stupid things?

Unfortunately, in many areas of the country you can’t.  For example, one outraged resident of California contacted the utility company and was told that if he did not consent to taking a smart meter he would receive no service.

So unless you want to live “off the grid”, what are you going to do?  Can any of us really survive without electricity these days?

The sad truth is that these things are being forced upon us.

It is happening in Europe too.  The European Parliament has set a goal of having smart meters in the homes of 80 percent of all electricity consumers by the year 2020.

Sadly, as these smart meters have gone in there have been reports all over the country of electricity bills increasing dramatically.  There have been mountains of complaints about these things and yet their use keeps spreading.

But of course the biggest issue with smart meters is how they will strip us of our privacy.

The concern is that the incredibly detailed data that these surveillance devices collect will be given or sold to a vast array of third parties.

For example, smart meters are already being used by police to bust marijuana growers.

It is also feared that insurance companies, credit agencies, lawyers, marketing firms and even criminals will be able to get their hands on this data as well.

A recent article posted on the website of the Electronic Frontier Foundation summarized some of the concerns….

“Without strong protections, this information can and will be repurposed by interested parties. It’s not hard to imagine a divorce lawyer subpoenaing this information, an insurance company interpreting the data in a way that allows it to penalize customers, or criminals intercepting the information to plan a burglary. Marketing companies will also desperately want to access this data”

For law enforcement officials, these surveillance devices are a dream come true. According to the Columbus Dispatch, police in central Ohio have been filing at least 60 subpoenas every single month for the energy-use records of those that they suspect are growing pot in their homes.

Well, it turns out that sometimes police are raiding homes that are using a lot of energy and they don’t find any marijuana at all.  Instead, sometimes these raids reveal others kinds of activities….

Sometimes, high electricity use doesn’t lead investigators to drugs. A federal investigation in the Powell area turned into a surprise for detectives.

“We thought it was a major grow operation … but this guy had some kind of business involving computers,” Marotta said. “I don’t know how many computer servers we found in his home.”

So do you want police raiding your home if you start using a little bit too much electricity?

Jerry Day, an electronics and media expert from Burbank California, recently detailed many of the ways that smart meters act as surveillance devices when they are installed in our homes….

1. They individually identify electrical devices inside the home and record when they are operated causing invasion of privacy.

2. They monitor household activity and occupancy in violation of rights and domestic security.

3. They transmit wireless signals which may be intercepted by unauthorized and unknown parties. Those signals can be used to monitor behavior and occupancy and they can be used by criminals to aid criminal activity against the occupants.

4. Data about occupant’s daily habits and activities are collected, recorded and stored in permanent databases which are accessed by parties not authorized or invited to know and share that private data.

5. Those with access to the smart meter databases can review a permanent history of household activities complete with calendar and time-of-day metrics to gain a highly invasive and detailed view of the lives of the occupants.

6. Those databases may be shared with, or fall into the hands of criminals, blackmailers, law enforcement, private hackers of wireless transmissions, power company employees, and other unidentified parties who may act against the interests of the occupants under metered surveillance.

7. “Smart Meters” are, by definition, surveillance devices which violate Federal and State wiretapping laws by recording and storing databases of private and personal activities and behaviors without the consent or knowledge of those people who are monitored.

8. It is possible for example, with analysis of certain “Smart Meter” data, for unauthorized and distant parties to determine medical conditions, sexual activities, physical locations of persons within the home, vacancy patterns and personal information and habits of the occupants.

Jerry Day has also produced a terrific YouTube video in which he explains many of these points more fully.  If you live in an area where these insidious smart meters are going in, then please share this video with as many people living near you as you can….

The time to object to these smart meters is before they go in.  Once they are in all of our homes it is going to be too late.

This is all part of the radical green agenda that is being forced down the throats of people all over the world.

Everything that we do has to be watched, monitored and tightly controlled for the “good of the environment”.

To the control freaks running things, that also means that the liberties and freedoms that we cherish so much must be greatly restricted.

If you don’t know about “Agenda 21“, you should learn about it.  The UN has a plan for the future of this planet, and once you find out about this plan you probably are not going to like it very much.  The entire globe is rapidly becoming one big prison grid as the elite implement their vision of the future.

If you want to get a really good idea of what they are planning, just watch this video.

If the control freaks get their way, there will eventually be no more privacy for any of us.

Unless we speak out now, the surveillance devices are just going to become more and more sophisticated.  At some point, none of us is even going to be able to sneeze without someone knowing about it.

So what do all of you think about these smart meters?  Does anyone out there have a smart meter horror story?  Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below….
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Those of us in Baltimore already know the debacle that is speed cameras and we know as well that it took constant media shaming and huge public outrage to stop what all knew were faulty tickets actually stealing money from citizens.  Between Smart Meters that are already showing skewed pricing for utilities and these ticketing schemes all of which record our movement by car.......the WAR BLIMP will follow us by train or bus!

Who are these people preparing all kinds of escape from whom our Homeland Security pretend to protect WE THE PEOPLE?  Probably the world's citizens coming to recover their tens of trillions of dollars stolen with massive corporate fraud!


Cordon multi-target photo-radar system leaves no car untagged

(video) BY Amar Toor October 31st, 2011 at 8:37AM ET

engadget


Go easy on the gas, Speed Racer, because Cordon is on its way. Developed by Simicon, this new speed sensor promises to take highway surveillance to new heights of precision. Unlike most photo radar systems, which track only one violator at a time, Simicon's device can simultaneously identify and follow up to 32 vehicles across four lanes. Whenever a car enters its range, the Cordon will automatically generate two images: one from wide-angle view and one closeup shot of the vehicle's license plate. It's also capable of instantly measuring a car's speed and mapping its position, and can easily be synced with other databases via WiFi, 3G or WiMAX. Plus, this device is compact and durable enough to be mounted upon a tripod or atop a road sign, making it even harder for drivers to spot. Fortunately, though, you still have time to change your dragster ways, as distributor Peak Gain Systems won't be bringing the Cordon to North America until the first quarter of 2012. Cruise past the break to see some footage of a field trial that's currently underway -- cars tagged with a green dot are traveling below the speed limit, those with a yellow marking are chugging along within an acceptable range above the limit, while vehicles with a red tab are just asking for trouble.

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0 Comments

October 25th, 2013

10/25/2013

0 Comments

 
We are living in dangerous times as we are dealing with government that thinks it can suspend Rule of Law, allow looting of the US Treasury with massive corporate fraud, rewrite the US Constitution, all while building a Stalin-style surveillance system.  All of this from Clinton and Obama and Congressional neo-liberals running as democrats!

Below you see the changes just this year in how your government sees you, the public, as the enemy and truth as a weapon.  These are people you have re-elected for decades and it is this handing off of politics to incumbents that has created this environment of entitlement and impunity.  One thing for sure----when 300 million people WAKE UP!----and they will, we will return to a first world democracy.

Please do not allow all of the flurry of laws aimed at fear and retaliation to dissent dissuade you from shouting out and organizing.  We are growing in numbers and will be coming out strong against the status quo.  We see restrictions on where we can gather in protest, where we can voice our dissent, who can be allowed to be a citizen journalist, and when truth will be considered a crime.

We know these global politicians think bringing a first world country to third world values will happen with neo-liberals in control of the democratic party but I have my doubts.  It is much harder to bring civilized people down then to bring developing worlds up.  There are tons of actions in Washington and your neck of the woods.  Please get out, get organized, and build a network of communication in your communities that does not involve corporate media----


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Feinstein has been shown to have been enriched by Insider Trading and represents the area known as ground zero for the subprime mortgage fraud and for-profit education frauds. She is on committees involved with the NSA-----THIS IS ONE BAD CHICK. NEO-LIBERAL ANYONE?


Sen. Feinstein’s Proposed Bill Would Incriminate Anyone Speaking Against NSA’s Spying and Courts
By Admin on October 22, 2013 5 by Ali Papademetriou

California lawmaker and member of the United States Senate committee, Diane Feinstein has let it be known that she strongly supports the National Security Agency and its surveillance programs. The agency has caught much heat from the American people after whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked documents showing that the NSA spies on millions of citizens through their phone data.

Last weekend, she published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, claiming that the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented had the NSA surveillance programs been alive beforehand. “We would have detected the impending attack that killed 3,000 Americans,” she wrote.

Then on Monday, she stated that the NSA’s bulk compilation of phone records is actually “not surveillance” and is rather just a necessary device by means of fighting terrorism. Her statement was made in an op-ed, which was published by USA Today.

She also asserted that the agency’s actions have been “effective in helping to prevent terrorist plots against the US and our allies.”

Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, both of whom are also members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote a letter to NSA director Keith Alexander, criticizing him by detailing, “Saying that ‘these programs’ have ‘disrupted dozens of potential terrorist plots’ is misleading if the bulk phone records collection program is actually providing little or no value.” They also detailed how the NSA has only stopped a few pieces of terror plots over the years – contradictory to Senator Feinstein’s assertions.

It was also reported by the Guardian that Senator Feinstein is anticipating introducing legislation, which would criminally punish those who make critical statements about the NSA and its secret courts.

Feinstein’s bill comes just in time in the agency’s favor, considering both the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have active lawsuits against the NSA for its unconstitutional surveillance of US citizens.

Update 6:06PM: Guardian hyperlink fixed to Feinstein’s upcoming introduction of new bill.

Image Reference

AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez


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You know if neo-liberals think they can throw us out of public meetings for trying to comment they will go crazy over just 'who is a journalist' and how that will limit speech.  Remember, the problem is that government at all levels is committing crimes and is systemically corrupt.  The solution is outing the problems and getting rid of the politicians who are creating this suspension of Rule of Law

VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!


Memo To Dick Durbin: All Americans Are Journalists


 Posted 07/09/2013 07:18 PM ET
First Amendment: Is our constitutional right to publish something going to be decided by the likes of Sen. Dick Durbin? If so, our republic and the liberty it guarantees are in trouble.

Late last month, Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, wrote a column for the Chicago Sun Times in which he conceded that "Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech."

But that doesn't mean Durbin accepts that there is an absolute freedom of expression.

"When it comes to freedom of the press," he continued, "I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive."

And who is to define who is and isn't a journalist? Durbin and his colleagues, of course.

Congress, when controlled by Democrats, already has the mainstream media under its thumb. So it's not ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post that Durbin is worried about. It's the bloggers, tweeters and Facebook users that he wants to control.

Durbin suggests this is all about laws that protect journalists from being "compelled to disclose sources or documents unless a judge determines there is an extraordinary circumstance or compelling public interest."

But, as he says, 49 states already have laws that do this.

With the mainstream press in their pockets, what Durbin and others truly fear are citizen journalists and the free and open dissemination of ideas that threaten the political class' agenda.

They don't want bloggers rabble-rousing against ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. They hate the idea of Twitter being alight with criticisms of the left's efforts to have government "do good things."

They resent citizens using message boards to condemn the White House's attempts to redistribute wealth, its imperial tendencies, its miserably failed foreign policy and its growing list of scandals.

And they certainly want to chill discussions of how the political left has abandoned — after once being a reliable defender of it — the First Amendment.

With cellphones, pads and laptops in every home and car, we are all journalists ready to document, report, record and discuss.

Washington hasn't the moral authority to say who is and who isn't a journalist. The First Amendment was written to stop the government from doing exactly that.


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HERE YOU GO......JOURNALISTS AND WHISTLE BLOWERS TO GOVERNMENT CRIME ARE MORE AND MORE BEING LABELLED 'TERRORISTS' AND 'TRAITORS' WITH LARGE SENTENCES ATTACHED TO ORDINARY ACTIONS OF REPORTING CRIME!




NSA Chief: Reporters Must Be Stopped

Accuses Media of Creating 'Dramatic, Convenient Lie'

by Jason Ditz, October 24, 2013

NSA Chief Gen. Keith Alexander gave a long interview today with the Pentagon’s “Armed With Science” blog, calling on the world to find some way to stop international media outlets from reporting about his agency’s surveillance programs based on leaked documents.

“We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don’t know how to do that,” Alexander insisted, saying that the ability of media outlets to report on the NSA “just doesn’t make sense” to him.

The focus of Alexander’s comments to the military blog was insisting that all media reports on the NSA were a “dramatic, convenient lie,” followed by an admonition for troops not to “give into the hype” and to trust the NSA unconditionally.

Alexander’s comments during the NSA scandal have mostly been blanket denials, and even after some of those denials have been proven flat out untrue he has stuck to that story. He seems to still be holding out hope that after months of confirmed reports based on official documents, everyone will somehow be convinced to forget about everything and just trust him.



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As it becomes easier to be sent to jail for ordinary protest we see that indefinite detention is now legal....OR SO THEY SAY.  We are already seeing people sent to jail for little reason then made to sit in jail for months before trial.  Funding for public defense was cut in Maryland just for this reason.  It is all done to make protest and dissent onerous-----too hard for most people to do.  THIS IS AUTOCRATIC LAW.

YET, WE ARE SEEING THE SAME INCUMBENTS RUNNING WITH NO LABOR AND JUSTICE CHALLENGE!



Obama signs NDAA 2013 without objecting to indefinite detention of Americans

Published time: January 03, 2013 17:01
Edited time: May 15, 2013 14:24 Get short URL US President Barack Obama (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowsky)

  President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 on Wednesday, giving his stamp of approval to a Pentagon spending bill that will keep Guantanamo Bay open and make indefinite detention for US citizens as likely as ever.

The president inked his name to the 2013 NDAA on Wednesday evening to little fanfare, and accompanied his signature with a statement condemning a fair number of provisions contained in a bill that he nevertheless endorsed.

The NDAA, an otherwise mundane annual bill that lays out the use of funds for the Department of Defense, has come under attack during the Obama administration for the introduction of a provision last year that allows the military to detain United States citizens indefinitely without charge or trial for mere suspicions of ties to terrorism. Under the 2012 NDAA’s Sec. 1021, Pres. Obama agreed to give the military the power to arrest and hold Americans without the writ of habeas corpus, although he promised with that year’s signing statement that his administration would not abuse that privilege.

In response to the controversial indefinite detention provision from last year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) introduced an amendment in December 2012 that would have forbid the government from using military force to indefinitely detain Americans without trial under the 2013 NDAA. Although that provision, dubbed the “Feinstein Amendment,” passed the Senate unanimously, a select panel of lawmakers led by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Michigan) stripped it from the final version of the NDAA two week later before it could clear Congress. In exchange, Congress added a provision, Sec. 1029, that claims to ensure that “any person inside the United States” is allowed their constitutional rights, including habeas corpus, but supporters of the Feinstein Amendment say that the swapped wording does nothing to erase the indefinite detention provision from the previous year.

“Saying that new language somehow ensures the right to habeas corpus – the right to be presented before a judge – is both questionable and not enough. Citizens must not only be formally charged but also receive jury trials and the other protections our Constitution guarantees. Habeas corpus is simply the beginning of due process. It is by no means the whole,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said after the Feinstein Amendment was removed.

“Our Bill of Rights is not something that can be cherry-picked at legislators’ convenience. When I entered the United States Senate, I took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. It is for this reason that I will strongly oppose passage of the McCain conference report that strips the guarantee to a trial by jury,” Sen. Paul added.

Although the Pres. Obama rejected the indefinite detention clause when signing the 2012 NDAA, a statement issued late Wednesday from the White House failed to touch on the military’s detainment abilities. On the other hand, Pres. Obama did voice his opposition to a number of provisions included in the latest bill, particularly ones that will essentially render his promise of closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison impossible.

Despite repeated pleas that Gitmo will be closed on his watch, Pres. Obama failed to do as much during his first term in the White House. Thanks to a provision in the 2013 NDAA, the Pentagon will be unable to use funds to transfer detainees out of that facility and to other sights, ensuring they will remain at the top-secret military prison for the time being.

“Even though I support the vast majority of the provisions contained in this Act, which is comprised of hundreds of sections spanning more than 680 pages of text, I do not agree with them all. Our Constitution does not afford the president the opportunity to approve or reject statutory sections one by one,” Pres. Obama writes.

Congress, claims the president, designed sections of the new defense bill “in order to foreclose my ability to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.”

“I continue to believe that operating the facility weakens our national security by wasting resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and strengthening our enemies,” he says.

Elsewhere, the president claims that certain provisions in the act threaten to interview with his “constitutional duty to supervise the executive branch” of the United States.

Before the 2013 NDAA was finalized, it was reported by the White House that Pres. Obama would veto the legislation over the provisions involving Guantanamo Bay. Similarly, the White House originally said the president would veto the 2012 NDAA over the indefinite detention provisions, although he signed it regardless “with reservations” on December 31 of that year.

Since authorizing the 2012 NDAA, the president has been challenged in federal court by a team of plaintiffs who say that the indefinite detention clause is unconstitutional. US District Judge Katherine Forrest agreed that Sec. 1021 of the 2012 NDAA violated the US Constitution and granted a permanent injunction on the Obama administration from using that provision, but the White House successfully fought to appeal that decision.

Commenting on the latest signing, American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero says, "President Obama has utterly failed the first test of his second term, even before inauguration day.”

“His signature means indefinite detention without charge or trial, as well as the illegal military commissions, will be extended,” adds Romero. "He also has jeopardized his ability to close Guantanamo during his presidency. Scores of men who have already been held for nearly 11 years without being charged with a crime--including more than 80 who have been cleared for transfer--may very well be imprisoned unfairly for yet another year. The president should use whatever discretion he has in the law to order many of the detainees transferred home, and finally step up next year to close Guantanamo and bring a definite end to indefinite detention."


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We all need to be aware of the extent of these anti-protesting laws! As we see people are being carted out by security and jailed for simply interrupting a public meeting. This is big in Maryland as the public not only cannot participate in policy-writing but we are being silenced in public meetings.

This article does a good job highlighting details of the bill you may not know. It is why police demand you leave a protest in many normally safe areas.


Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - Washington Times

"Anti-Occupy" law ends American's right to protest

Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - Leading Edge Legal Advice for Everyday Matters by Paul Samakow



WASHINGTON, D.C., August 1, 2012 — I was stunned upon hearing a news report about a protest going on in China. Teachers, parents with their young, school-age children and pro-democracy activitists (one estimate was 90,000 people) marched in Hong Kong to government headquarters last Sunday to publicly protest a new required “Patriotism” class, to be taught in the school system starting in 2015. The protestors think that the effort of the Chinese government here is to brainwash their kids in favor of communism. 

What stunned me was that this protest, in China, against the government’s upcoming policy, at the government headquarters, would not now be tolerated here in the United States of America.

Thanks to almost zero media coverage, few of us know about a law passed this past March, severely limiting our right to protest. The silence may have been due to the lack of controversy in bringing the bill to law: Only three of our federal elected officials voted against the bill’s passage. Yes, Republicans and Democrats agreed on something almost 100%. 

We have lived through a number of protests, large and small, and if we are like most, we shrug because the protestors or their message is either irrelevant or objectionable to us, and does not affect us. This non-interest is the case even when some of the protestors and some of their messages are highly objectionable.

Recent example Number One are the military funeral protests by the Westboro Baptist Church. This very small, anti-gay group from Topeka, Kansas says that God is punishing the United States for accepting gay rights by killing US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They protested at the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, because she supported gay rights. Our Supreme Court upheld the rights of these bigots to continue their protests. We hated the opinion while we recognized its correctness.

The First Amendment to our Constitution guarantees us the rights of free speech and assembly. A fundamental purpose of our free speech guarantee is to invite dispute. Protests can and have been the catalyst for positive change. Thus while we despise that protestors can burn our flag as protected political speech, and we hate that Neo-Nazis can march down our streets, we recognize the rights of these groups to do what they do and we send our troops across the world to fight for these rights. 

Last year’s “occupy movement” scared the government. On March 8, President Obama signed a law that makes protesting more difficult and more criminal. The law is titled the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act, and it passed unanimously in the Senate and with only three “no” votes in the House. It was called the “Trepass Bill” by Congress and the “anti-Occupy law” by everyone else who commented.

The law “improves” public grounds by forcing people - protestors - elsewhere. It amends an older law that made it a federal crime to “willfully and knowingly” enter a restricted space. Now you will be found guilty of this offense if you simply “knowingly” enter a restricted area, even if you did not know it was illegal to do so. The Department of Homeland Security can designate an event as one of “national significance,” making protests or demonstrations near the event illegal.

The law makes it punishable by up to ten years in jail to protest anywhere the Secret Service “is or will be temporarily visiting,” or anywhere they might be guarding someone.  Does the name Secret tell you anything about your chances of knowing where they are?  The law allows for conviction if you are “disorderly or disruptive,” or if you “impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”  You can no longer heckle or “boo” at a political candidate’s speech, as that would be disruptive.

After you swallow all of this and correctly conclude that it is now very easy to be prosecuted for virtually any public protest, you should brace yourself and appreciate that it is even worse. Today, any event that is officially defined as a National Special Security Event has Secret Service protection. This can include sporting events and concerts. 

The timing of the law was not coincidental. The bill was presented to the Senate, after House passage, on November 17, 2011, during an intense nationwide effort to stop the Occupy Wall Street protests. Two days before, hundreds of New York police conducted a raid on the demonstrators’ encampment in Zucotti Park, shutting it down and placing barricades.

This law chips away our First Amendment rights. Its motivation is 100 percent politically based, as it was designed to silence those who would protest around politicians giving speeches. Both Republicans and Democrats agreed they did not want hecklers at their rallies. If you want to protest a politician speaking to a crowd now, you can do so maybe a half mile or so away.

We used to have a right of access to streets, sidewalks, and public parks to  engage in political discussion and protest. The government should be able to impose reasonable limits to ensure public order, but that power must have a limit; it must never be used to quell unpopular opinion or to discriminate against disfavored speakers.  Protestors must be allowed to be in the same place at the same time as the speaker they oppose. The presence of a Secret Service Agent (remember, how do we know they are there?) should not prevent us from lawfully, non-violently organizing and demonstrating against a cause or a speaker we disfavor. 

Write to Congress. Protest this anti-protest law.

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Rather than litigate we need to send these neo-liberals packing.  Anyone running as a democrat voting to end US citizen's ability to protest IS NOT A DEMOCRAT-----GET RID OF THEM BY RUNNING AND VOTING FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!



Occupy and the Right to Protest Could litigation over the Occupy movement strengthen First Amendment rights for protesters?

Laura Bolt April 13, 2012   The Nation

On the morning of November 17, UC Davis students participating in a peaceful protest of rising tuition costs, in solidarity with the Occupy movement, were informed that they were to remove their tents from the quad on which they had been camping. The protesters had spent only one night there, but the university said the encampment was a health and safety violation. The students’ first instinct was to engage in a dialogue with the university; students requested that the administration cite the standards they were violating, but by that afternoon no details had been provided to them, so the students decided to continue to “occupy the quad.”

About the Author Laura Bolt Laura Bolt is an editorial intern at The Nation. A native of Washington, DC, she has written also for Washington City... That occupation, however, did not last long. At around 3 pm, police in riot gear arrived on campus, threatening to “shoot” students who refused to leave. As students were pulled up from the ground at random, their hands violently tied behind them, twenty-five students remained peacefully seated in the center of the quad. A crowd of onlookers began to accumulate. In a scene that would go viral, thanks to cell phone videos, officers stepped within a few feet of the seated protesters, shook cans of pepper spray—“like cans of aerosol paint,” according to the students’ complaint—and doused the protesters. UC Davis student David Buscho described the experience as “absurdly painful…we were in a state of collective shock.”

Now that the shock has worn off, nineteen of these students, supported by the ACLU of Northern California, are fighting back with a lawsuit filed against UC Davis administration and officials that alleges that its actions violated the students’ First Amendment rights. An attorney for the plaintiffs, Mark Merin, believes that the police had no right to get involved in the protest, asserting that the “right of general assembly is enshrined in the constitution and should not be interfered with by police.”

While the nineteen plaintiffs in this case are seeking compensatory and putative damages, the suit also asks for a statement from the court that the First Amendment rights of the protesters were violated, and that there be a serious effort to reform the campus practices that led to that violation. Merin believes campus policies should be revised to grant students an opportunity to appeal the decision if the university moves to quash protest.

Cases like this are not without precedence. In 1972, in the case of Jeanette Rankin Brigade v. Capitol Police, the Center for Constitutional Rights represented several Vietnam War protesters who had been arrested while demonstrating on Capitol grounds. CCR asserted that the federal statute under which they had been arrested, which prohibited congregating in a group in Capitol property, was unconstitutional. A district court, in a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, ruled the statute unconstitutional, stating that “it would be difficult to imagine a law that more plainly violates the principle that First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to exist.” In 2008, in the case of Kunstler v. City of New York, the New York Police Department awarded anti-war protesters $2 million after they filed suit for unlawful arrest and excessive detention, violating their First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Merin acknowledges that these are good precedents for the UC Davis case, signaling that free speech in general, and protests in particular-should be protected under the law.

The UC Davis case is just one in a series of recent lawsuits brought about by Occupy movement protesters asserting that their rights have been violated. Last October, protesters who where arrested while on the Brooklyn Bridge filed a civil rights complaint against the city, Mayor Bloomberg, and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, alleging that they were lured onto the bridge in order to be arrested. Two women who were pepper sprayed in a now-infamous episode involving NYPD officer Anthony Bolgona sued Bologna, the city and the NYPD in February. Just last week, two protesters who were arrested during an action against Merrill Lynch offices in Washington, DC, sued its Metropolitan Police Department for violating their First Amendment rights and accused them of false arrest. All of these cases are pending.

The stakes of this case go beyond the UC Davis campus. As the winter freeze on Occupy Wall Street begins to thaw, a victory for the UC students could have a major impact on upcoming protest opportunities, including the NATO Summit in Chicago, the Republican National Convention in Tampa and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, all happening the coming months. As the OWS movement continues to inspire protests and strengthening of protest rights, these cities have already began enacting draconian anti-protest statutes. Unrealistic permits and insurance requirements, restrictions on banners and handheld items and the creation of specific “free speech zones” are all components of the anti-protest backlash these cities are experimenting with in anticipation of the demonstrations that will certainly be coming over the summer. While any decision the court makes in the UC Davis case would be unlikely to directly alter the anti-protest statutes that have already been passed, the implication for the climate of free speech and First Amendment laws in this country could be significant.

Michael Risher of the ACLU says that victories in these kinds of cases not only strengthen First Amendment rights, but also serve to assure people interested in demonstrating that their voice will be heard in a safe and respectful manner. He hopes the UC Davis suit will help to serve as a counterweight against the scenes of violence from protests around the country, which may frighten people away from protesting, as “self-censorship threatens the First Amendment.” Risher believes the UC Davis case will not only be an affirmative change how things work on the UC Davis campus but will also be a defensive move against “aggressors of the First Amendment” and make police think twice before employing violence.

Buscho, a senior at UC Davis, hopes that the case will achieve a “paradigm shift,” in which “society can see protesters and free speech as important to civil society.” He sees this moment as an opportunity to change public discourse about protests and solidify the notion that people engaging in peaceful protest should not be subject to police intervention and brutality. A recent Rasmussen report showed that 51 percent of likely voters view protesters as a “public nuisance,” a number that could perhaps fall if free speech rights were strengthened, thereby allowing protests to take place in a more civil manner.

Beyond a shift in public perception of protests, Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, hopes that cases like this will also effect change on an institutional level. He notes that there is an increasing level of police interaction with peaceful protesters in a more and more militaristic way. “There is a momentum to that kind of aggressive response,” he says, “unless litigation challenges that.” While it is not a perfect solution, Azmy notes that cases like the one at UC Davis, not only cost the aggressors money, but also generate publicity that could facilitate a deeper institutional change, in which police departments may alter how they train their officers.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has been part of this kind of change before, when they represented Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and two of her producers in suing the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments, as well as the US Secret Service, based on their aggressive conduct during the 2008 Republican National Convention. The case, which was settled in October 2011, included not only $100,000 in compensation but also an agreement from the cities to train their police on First Amendment rights.

With these cases accumulating and publicity growing, Azmy believes that this kind of reform could even reach the police departments of Chicago, Tampa and Charlotte, before future lawsuits cost them time, money, and damaged reputations.

As protesters across the country stand (or sit) for what they believe in over the next few months, the UC Davis case could affect what kind of conditions they are met with. Right now, in Merin’s words, “when law enforcement gets involved you have no options—submit or be arrested.” If suits like this are successful and seep into public consciousness and police training, spaces where everyone has a voice would be more likely. 


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October 18th, 2013

10/18/2013

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THIS IS WHAT PRIVATIZING UNIVERSITIES LEADS TO....TRILLIONS OF TAXPAYER MONEY WENT TO DEVELOP WHAT IS NOW A CORPORATION CONNECTED TO A PRIVATE UNIVERSITY!!:


REgarding Maryland business development:

Don't you love all that public financing of corporate R and D!  Public universities as arms of corporations providing free research and development in exchange for professors with salaries equal to CEOs and a direct line into jobs created by these partnerships of students chosen to work with these professors!  WHAT A WAY TO MAXIMIZE PROFIT!

It is this same corporate subsidy that gave us all these new surveillance and big brother businesses that make up most of the new job creation in Maryland.  Remember, your Social Security and Medicare Trusts sent to the Treasury paid for all these NSA business spinoffs!

As you see on all advertizing on TV and on billboards.....UMUC (University of Maryland University College) the state has actually created public financing for these businesses.....it is the job training arm of the security industry.  You see these adds primarily on free TV watched by largely working class/poor and in those neighbors as well.  You never hear of University of Maryland College Park advertized that way ( their advertizing is overseas to wealthy foreign students).  Remember that Snowden of NSA whistle blower fame came from Maryland and followed this track.  With no college education he was paid $200,000 a year and the hedge funds were SHOCKED that this young man with little prospects would not have his silence bought!  THAT'S MARYLAND FOR YOU!

If you look below you will see how Hopkins took a billion dollars a year of taxpayer money to develop these corporations and their structure.  Look how happy Oakland, California is having SAIC piloted in their city-----OH WAIT----CHIEF OF POLICE BATTS IN BALTIMORE WAS CHIEF AT OAKLAND, CALIF---- what a small high-security world it is.  This must be why he was sent to Harvard for training before he came to Baltimore!

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SAIC is of course Johns Hopkins and is what they do at the Applied Physics Lab on campus. You notice that with massive corporate fraud and movement of tens of trillions of dollars of public wealth to the people building this surveillance....none of the surveillance is about catching corporations stealing from the public....it is all geared to suppress the people being made increasingly impoverished by this move towards third world autocracy.

This is what is unrolling in Baltimore and throughout Maryland and as you see below Maryland is exporting this surveillance across the country. It incorporates in Virginia....

SAIC is one of the largest science and technology companies in Maryland with over 6,500 employees providing mission critical support to government and non-government ...



This is where your Social Security and Medicare Trusts have gone these few decades......building these security businesses.



Securing The Future For Generations to Come in Maryland

SAIC is one of the largest science and technology companies in Maryland with more than 6,500 of its approximately 38,000 employees providing mission-critical support to government and non-government customers in the state.


A Focus on Maryland Growth

Maryland plays a significant role in our nation's defense and economic growth, and The Baltimore Business Journal ranks SAIC as the third largest defense and federal contractor in the state.

Over the next several years, Maryland will take on even greater responsibilities in securing our future. To better serve the dynamic changes taking place along the Maryland/I-95 corridor, SAIC launched an SAIC MD/I-95 corridor initiative.

Aligned with Maryland's five-year strategic plan, this initiative demonstrates SAIC's commitment to helping Maryland achieve economic growth through:

Investing in state-of-the-art facilities and capabilities to help sustain state growth
Funding local investments in innovation, community programs and scholarships that help build a better equipped workforce
Leveraging SAIC thought leaders to spearhead committees, key projects and events that accelerate regional growth

A Collaborator in Local Community and Education Outreach Programs


Here are some of the local community and education outreach programs where we are actively engaged:

SAIC chairs, co-chairs, sponsors and volunteers with vital associations and committees throughout the state, such as: Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association (AFCEA) Central Maryland and Aberdeen, Fort Meade Alliance, Tech Council of Maryland, Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, Army Alliance, and the Northeastern Tech Council of Maryland.
SAIC contributes thought leadership in the Maryland chambers of commerce as well as numerous county chambers of commerce across the region.
SAIC sponsors important outreach programs such as FIRST® and Project Lead the Way®.
SAIC regularly teams with local leaders to hold valuable small business conferences to drive teaming within Maryland.
SAIC is committed to educating our work force and our children through programs like:
University of Maryland's Cybersecurity Center (MC2), which promotes education, research, and technology development in cybersecurity
University of Maryland, Baltimore County's College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS) Active Science Teaching and Learning Environment (CASTLE) facility which aims to increase the number of students majoring in science, technology, engineering and mathematics
SAIC is actively engaged in spearheading numerous science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) activities within the elementary schools across Maryland as well. We are proud to be a founding member of Maryland's Maryland Cyber Challenge and Competition (MDC3) competition, powered by CyberNEXS, which includes high school, collegiate and professionals from both the industry and government.


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We heard that Chief Batts only stayed in Oakland for a few years and the timing of this Domain Awareness Center fits with his tenure.  Before coming to Baltimore Batts went to Harvard for debriefing.

Oakland surveillance center threatens more than just privacy

Thursday, October 17, 2013 at 10:00 am by Matthew Kellegrew

Outrage came to the city of Oakland at the news of the city’s intention to open the Domain Awareness Center. The facility is an integrated data and information collection, aggregation and processing facility that draws from a network of hundreds of cameras and sources placed throughout Alameda County.

The original design called for over 700 CCTV cameras to be placed in Oakland public schools, but this was dropped after a challenge from the ACLU. The primary data collection components have remained intact though.

From the NY Times:

“The new system, scheduled to begin next summer, is the latest example of how cities are compiling and processing large amounts of information, known as big data, for routine law enforcement. And the system underscores how technology has enabled the tracking of people in many aspects of life.

The police can monitor a fire hose of social media posts to look for evidence of criminal activities; transportation agencies can track commuters’ toll payments when drivers use an electronic pass; and the National Security Agency, as news reports this summer revealed, scooped up telephone records of millions of cellphone customers in the United States.”

Public outcry around the program doesn’t end with a concern for the preservation of privacy rights. Also at issue is the lack of corporate responsibility in the selection of city business partners. The companies hired to perform the surveillance are viewing Oakland, already financially troubled, as a potential cash resource. More disturbing is the extent to which these firms have demonstrated a total lack of accountability:

“For the companies that make big data tools, projects like Oakland’s are a big business opportunity. Microsoft built the technology for the New York City program. I.B.M. has sold data-mining tools for Las Vegas and Memphis.

Oakland has a contract with the Science Applications International Corporation, or SAIC, to build its system. That company has earned the bulk of its $12 billion in annual revenue from military contracts. As the federal military budget has fallen, though, SAIC has diversified to other government agency projects, though not without problems.


The company’s contract to help modernize the New York City payroll system, using new technology like biometric readers, resulted in reports of kickbacks. Last year, the company paid the city $500 million to avoid a federal prosecution. The amount was believed to be the largest ever paid to settle accusations of government contract fraud. SAIC declined to comment.”

In July when the city counsel first accepted the federal grant to fund the center, the proceedings were disrupted with protest:

“The decision to accept a $2.2 million federal grant to help pay for the surveillance center infuriated protesters who crowded into the council’s chambers for an hours-long meeting. Chants of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” rattled the chambers for nearly two minutes after the vote.”

Since approval of the center by the counsel, details regarding the scope of the planned data collection have been either obscured or outright omitted from public review.

The true danger of facilities like the Domain Awareness Center is the ability to deploy a massive, integrated state-to-federal data-sharing program against anyone, for any reason. As the city of Oakland has already shown, it is willing to go to extreme lengths to repress political activity. Not only has the trustworthiness of the City of Oakland itself been called into question before, but the very police force this sensitive information will be provided to have been placed under federal receivership for mismanagement.

The Oakland Domain Awareness Center is a triangle of danger for privacy rights and responsible government. The City, the Federal Government and the police are all the worst possible parties to be conducting this level of surveillance and given access to this level of sensitive information.

The residents of Oakland have only themselves to rely on for support in opposing this assault on their civil liberties. The lack of responsiveness at the political level locally is nothing new for the city however, and the struggle will undoubtedly continue against state repression in the same place it has historically: in the streets.


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We are seeing not only the connection with consolidation of surveillance data in a city like Oakland and we can imagine Baltimore/Maryland is next or already there.....we have illegal actions by drone warfare included in this classified data collection.  Drones are here in America and we know that we are now being watched all the time.  We are told that once you leave your home you can expect no privacy.  With heat detection instruments they can track you inside your home as well.

These are not benevolent dictators.....Hopkins has captured all that is public and does not allow for public comment.  It sees itself as knowing better and has no qualm with mis-information.  Fraud and corruption is rampant in Baltimore and it is reflected by a win at all cost motto at Hopkins.


WE NEED TO BE AWARE THAT A CORPORATION WITH LITTLE RESPECT FOR THE INDIVIDUAL IS AMASSING A LOT OF AUTOCRATIC POWER.



Panel explores APL, combat drones connection
By IAN YU
Published: May 3rd, 2012


Is the use of drones in warfare ethical, and should the Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) be involved in such kinds of weapons research? These and other questions were the focus of a panel presentation and discussion held last Friday in Mergenthaler Hall by the Hopkins Human Rights Working Group and the Graduate Student Organization.

Addressing an audience of approximately 60 graduate students and members of the general public were retired Colonel Ann Wright and political science graduate student Derek Denem. Wright served in the U.S. Military and as a diplomat, resigning in 2003 in protest of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and has since been giving lectures and speaking engagements as an anti-war activist.

As the first of the two to speak, Wright framed the larger picture and controversy of aerial combat drones for bombardment of targets singled out by the military and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

“Right now we have nearly seven thousand drones that are in the U.S. military and CIA network, drones that are used by our military and CIA for surveillance purposes and combat areas and noncombat areas,” she said. While the U.S. military uses combat drones in its operations, the CIA’s use has been far more trouble according to Wright.

“Then there’s the CIA, an un-uniformed government agency conducting military operations, offensive operations in Pakistan,” she said. “If we were talking about any other group that’s doing stuff in another country, we would call them unlawful combatants.”

Wright went on to describe how the drone program had shed a negative light on the U.S., especially as civilians have often been killed when the CIA went after targets in the Pakistani countryside. According to Wright, these attacks had, in part, motivated Faisal Shazad in his attempt to detonate a car bomb in Times Square.

“In the interrogation of this young man… he said ‘I’m outraged, I’m outraged about the United States killing people in Pakistan using drones,’” she said.

She closed by reiterating her disagreement with President Obama’s current policy on the expanded use of aerial drones to dispatch targets.


“It is harming our national security rather than helping it,” she said.

Denem’s portion of the discussion focused on the history of the APL and its involvement in the development of drone technology. According to Denem, many of the research contracts awarded to APL are classified, requiring a security clearance for access and oversight. Very little information about the projects is available to the public. Denem added that, due to President Daniel’s lack of security clearance, the university and APL had to make special arrangements to continue conducting sensitive research.

“Classified research at APL was reorganized into a limited liability corporation, and is now run by the director of the lab and is overseen by members of the Hopkins board of trustees,” he explained.

“Furthermore the culture of classified civilian research has left a distinct imprint on a contemporary national security state in which military research at universities remains restricted, in opposition to the ideal image of the university as a place of open knowledge,” he said.

Hopkins’ involvement with drones goes back to the early development of automated robots, continuing on to a 1972 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract to work on aerial drones with automated stability. Since then, Hopkins has decided to shift its primary efforts towards developing smaller drones that can be carried in the backpacks of ground soldiers.

Despite this change, Denam explained that APL still has involvement in the creation of larger combat drones. “The predator and reaper drones, used in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere, are designed and built by General Atomics, which has its main facilities in San Diego, but APL has contributed key systems to these drones,” he said.

During the lengthy question and answer session, a member of the audience raised the possibility of other countries gaining drone technology and asked if efforts are better geared towards changing America’s foreign policy. Wright explained that a policy shift imposed by the Carter administration on the CIA had scaled back state-directed assassinations through the decades that led up until 2002, when the CIA once again stepped up assassinations.

“If you don’t think we need to do that to raise foreign policy, then you need to raise your voice,” she said.

Other questions addressed issues including the emotional disconnect of drone operators who are not aware of their targets and the use of public pressure to bring about policy changes at research institutions. During the event a petition was circulated calling on the university leadership to examine more closely and reconsider Hopkins’ involvement in drone research.

In a follow-up after the session, Denem reiterated that the lack of a complete picture of APL’s work stems from a need for greater openness.

“The first step to figuring out exactly what is going on with research at APL is for it to be open like university knowledge production and exchange is,” he said. “That’s sort of the prerequisite for it.”


__________________________________________

We are hearing that the APL wants to move from its location just off-campus into offices on the main campus and establish networks with other departments.  We already have a brand new building housing a huge super-computer we know will be receiving all of this personal data that SAIC is collecting here and around the country.

What this article shows is that the level of discomfort at APL's intrusion into academics at the campus is palpable.  This is a Hopkins business that works with the NSA in what may be considered the very programs outed by Snowden.  Hedge funds running these programs that will have access to data and selling it to data-mining corporations is expected not matter the denial of Maryland officials!


NSA controversy sparks dialogue at open forum

By NICOLE ZIEGLER
Published: October 10th, 2013


Last Thursday, the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) at Hopkins led an open forum to discuss the ethics of classified research in response to the recent NSA-related blog controversy involving Matthew Green, an assistant research professor in the computer science department.

Green, an expert on cryptographic engineering, recently wrote a blog post revealing previously encrypted information that originated at the National Security Agency (NSA).

After hearing about the linked information from the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering Andrew Douglas forced Green to remove his post. Douglas later realized that all of the information Green referenced had actually been previously published online and issued an apology for his actions.

The open forum hosted both undergraduate and graduate students from multiple University campuses. The forum also included Hopkins professors from several different fields. The discussion was led by graduate student William Miller.

The fact that spurred Douglas to action was the amount of classified research conducted at Hopkins. This, in turn, was the a main topic of discussion at the forum.


“The HRWG simply wanted to follow-up on the Matthew Green incident,” Miller wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “We wanted to know how others feel about it and what others think we should do next. Given the strong turnout and the evident excitement of those present, I think the event was a success. But it was just a start.”

Dissatisfaction with the response to the Matthew Green controversy defined the tone of the forum. Professors and students alike expressed concerns about the incident at APL.

“I think the Matt Green incident shows what Pentagon and NSA contracts — especially for classified research — can do to a university,” Professor Joel Andreas wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “They can put a chill on free speech and open inquiry and discussion. Why did Dean Andrews jump when the School of Engineering got a call from someone at APL about Matt Green’s blog that was critical of the NSA? Because Hopkins and APL get over a billion dollars a year in contracts from the Pentagon and the NSA.”

Furthermore, Andreas expressed worries about what this incident might mean for the Homewood Campus.

“I imagine the environment at APL is extremely intolerant of the kind of criticism of NSA spying that was in Matt Green’s blog,” Andreas wrote. “I’m worried — now that APL is moving part of its operations to the new Malone Hall on the Homewood campus, with the express purpose of collaborating more closely with the School of Engineering and other Hopkins units to win military contracts, can we expect that our campus will go in this direction?”

Another key point that the open forum highlighted was the general lack of awareness of the Matthew Green incident on the Homewood Campus. What was clear was that students on campus are generally uninformed about how important APL is to Hopkins as an institution, how the United States Navy is a key sponsor of APL and how APL is known for its role in drone research. Much of the government-related research at APL is kept classified.

“It is important that someone in power address concerns raised by this incident. It’s one thing to say that it was a mistake — it clearly was that. But it was a telling mistake, and one worth probing,” Miller said.



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September 13th, 2013

9/13/2013

0 Comments

 
THIS ELECTION SEASON WILL HAVE NEO-LIBERALS DRESSING CANDIDATES AS WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR AS NE-LIBERALS WORK TO KILL WAR ON POVERTY AND NEW DEAL PROGRAMS.  DO NOT VOTE FOR A CANDIDATE BECAUSE THEY ARE OF COLOR OR A WOMAN FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

We are seeing Elizabeth Warren marketed like nothing else yet she has openly stated she is a neo-liberal....she supports global markets.  Now, you will not tame global corporations and be rid of corporate rule with global markets so Warren looks to be an Obama in woman's clothing.

The worst thing that Bill and Hillary did was to end Welfare just as they planned to build global corporations taking jobs from the US and leaving high unemployment and low wages!  THEY ARE THE TWO MOST RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAS BEEN THE DISMANTLING OF ALL GAINS FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN POVERTY!



As Marketplace/NPR stated loudly and strongly....this recovery for mainstreet has over 70% of jobs coming back as part time and almost all in hotel, restaurant, low-end health care.....all poverty jobs.  They also acknowledged that it is women who are taking most of these jobs and people of color still largely unemployed.  The War on Poverty and New Deal were responsible for bringing just these demographics into the middle-class as well as working class white men.  When neo-liberals starting with Bill and Hillary Clinton ended Welfare and broke Glass Steagall they did it knowing we would have global corporations and corporate rule that would seek to end New Deal and War on Poverty----which is what is happening.  Obama is a neo-liberal moving that goal forward.

STOP ALLOWING A NEO-LIBERAL DNC CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES!  IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE CANDIDATE IS BLACK, BROWN, OR A WOMAN....THEY NEED TO BE LABOR AND JUSTICE!



Why are all the job growth industries low-wage?  The NEW ECONOMY means global corporations sending workers as immigrant labor all over the world.  We will all be traveling somewhere to work and staying in hotels and eating at restaurants while doing it.  THIS IS WHAT DISCONNECTS FAMILIES, WORKPLACE, AND POWER FOR CITIZENS AND THESE 1% KNOW THAT.  This is why labor and justice must FIGHT THE TPP and entrenchment of global policy.  They should not be trying to 'get along' because we will lose!

 5 Industries with the Fastest Job Growth

by Lexie Forman-Ortiz

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 195,000 jobs were added to the workforce in June 2013. Jobseekers can increase their chances of getting a job by looking in the industries with the most job growth. These 5 industries have created the most over the past month:


5. The financial services industry added 17,000 jobs last month.

Insurance agencies are looking for remarkable talent while banks and financial istitutions are adding more and more jobs everyday in a variety of positions like relationship management or loan officers.



4. Health care added 20,000 jobs to workforce in June.

This field is not limited to doctors and nurses but also ambulatory care, pharmacists, anyone promoting good health among the people.



3. The retail trade industry added 37,000 jobs last month. The wholesale trade industry continued with upward growth adding over 11,000 jobs, while most other new positions fell in the auto and building-goods sectors.

This is an indication people are shopping and someone needs to be providing the goods. Join the auto industry or look into exciting retail opportunities.



2. Employment in professional and business services rose by 53,000 in June. Over the past year this field has added over 600,000 jobs!

This industry has jobs that range far and wide from management positions, ranging from technical services to computer systems and everything in between.



1. The leisure and hospitality industry added 75,000 jobs in June and monthly job growth in this industry has averaged 55,000 so far in 2013 doubling last year’s growth.

If you’re a people person maybe you have a future in this line of work? Think jobs like front-desk supervisor at great hotel or maybe you’ve always had a passion for food and becoming a chef has always been something on your radar.



The American labor market performed strongly in June 2013.  While ADP reports numbers slightly different numbers than the BLS (188,000 jobs added in the month of June and a 39% increase since May) both sources show positive workforce trends. In addition to which industries are creating the most jobs, also check out the cities with the most job growth. Knowing what is in demand is half the battle.


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When you hear neo-liberals pretending to be all about families and the middle-class baby boomers know they are ignoring the fact that we have been there and done that.  New Deal and War on Poverty programs did just that,.,..lifted women, children, and people of color out of poverty and into the middle-class.  Neo-liberals starting with Bill and Hillary Clinton declared war on the War on Poverty and New Deal and ended all the progress made.  The Clintons ended Welfare at the same time they broke Glass Steagall and deregulated banks and entered free trade agreements to make global corporations and wealth inequity.  THIS IS WHAT KILLED ALL OF NEW DEAL AND WAR ON POVERTY GAINS!  So, when Obama or Hillary ....O'Malley or Rawlings-Blake use the mantra of families and jobs....

THEY ARE PEDDLING POVERTY AND EXPLOITATION AS WORKER AND JUSTICE PROTECTIONS ARE DISMANTLED!

The Straight Facts on Women in Poverty
SOURCE: AP/Charles Rex Arbogast

Michelle Ramirez picks her children up from day care; the single mother of two is struggling to make ends meet on her receptionists salary as day care and medical costs rise.

By Alexandra Cawthorne | October 8, 2008

Download the brief (pdf)

Women in America are more likely to be poor than men. Over half of the 37 million Americans living in poverty today are women. And women in America are further behind than women in other countries—the gap in poverty rates between men and women is wider in America than anywhere else in the Western world. Consider the following facts:

Poverty rates are higher for women than men. In 2007,13.8 percent of females were poor compared to 11.1 percent of men.

Women are poorer than men in all racial and ethnic groups. Recent data shows that 26.5 percent of African American women are poor compared to 22.3 percent of African American men; 23.6 percent of Hispanic women are poor compared to 19.6 percent of Hispanic men; 10.7 percent of Asian women are poor compared to 9.7 percent of Asian men; and 11.6 percent of white women are poor compared to 9.4 percent of white men.



Black and Latina women face particularly high rates of poverty. Over a quarter of black women and nearly a quarter of Latina women are poor. Black and Latina women are at least twice as likely as white women to be living in poverty.

Only a quarter of all adult women (age 18 and older) with incomes below the poverty line are single mothers. Over half of all poor adult women--54 percent—are single with no dependent children.



Elderly women are far more likely to be poor than elderly men. Thirteen percent of women over 75 years old are poor compared to 6 percent of men.

Poverty rates for males and females are the same throughout childhood, but increase for women during their childbearing years and again in old age. The poverty gap between women and men widens significantly between ages 18 and 24--20.6 percent of women are poor at that age, compared to 14.0 percent of men. The gap narrows, but never closes, throughout adult life, and it more than doubles during the elderly years.




Why Are More Women Living in Poverty? Women face a much greater risk of poverty for a number of inter-related reasons, including:

Women are paid less than men, even when they have the same qualifications and work the same hours. Women who work full time earn only 77 percent of what men make—a 22 percent gap in average annual wages. Discrimination, not lack of training or education, is largely the cause of the wage gap. Even with the same qualifications, women earn less than men. In 2007, full time, year round female workers aged 25 to 32 with a bachelor’s degree were paid 14 percent less than men.


A woman works as a waitress at a diner. Women are often tracked into “pink-collar” jobs that typically pay less than jobs in industries that are male-dominated.

Women are segregated into low paying occupations, and occupations dominated by women are low paid. Women are tracked into “pink-collar” jobs such as teaching, child care, nursing, cleaning, and waitressing, which typically pay less than jobs in industries that are male-dominated. In 2007, nearly half—43 percent—of the 29.6 million employed women in the United States were clustered in just 20 occupational categories, of which the average annual median earnings were $27,383.[1]

Women spend more time providing unpaid caregiving than men. Women are more likely than men to care for children and elderly or disabled family members. One study found that 69 percent of unpaid caregivers to older adults in the home are women. Because combining unpaid caregiving with paid work can be challenging, women are more likely to work part time or take time out of the workforce to care for family. Twenty-three percent of mothers are out of the workforce compared to just 1 percent of fathers.

Women are more likely to bear the costs of raising children. When parents are not living together, women are more likely to take on the economic costs of raising children. Eight in ten custodial parents are women, and custodial mothers are twice as likely to be poor as custodial fathers.

Pregnancy affects women’s work and educational opportunities more than men’s. The economic costs associated with pregnancy are more significant for women than for men. Unplanned and mistimed pregnancies in particular can result in the termination of education and keep women from getting and sustaining solid employment.

Domestic and sexual violence can push women into a cycle of poverty. Experiencing domestic or sexual violence can lead to job loss, poor health, and homelessness. It is estimated that victims of intimate partner violence collectively lose almost 8 million days of paid work each year because of the violence perpetrated against them by current or former husbands, boyfriends, or dates. Half of the cities surveyed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors identified domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness.

What can we do? The poverty gap between men and women is not inevitable. The gender wage gap has narrowed over the past 30 years as women have gained greater access to education, the labor market, and better paid jobs. Ending women’s poverty and providing better economic opportunities for all women will require specific policy actions to ensure that:

  • Women receive the pay they deserve and equal work conditions
  • Women have access to higher-paying jobs
  • Women in the workforce have affordable child and elder care, as well as access to quality flexible work and paid family leave
  • Women receive the support they need through expanded tax credits to help meet the costs of raising their families
  • Women receive the contraceptive services they need so that they can plan their families
  • Women receive the support and protection they need to leave violent situations while maintaining job and housing stability
Conclusion The best policy solutions to address women’s poverty must combine a range of decent employment opportunities with a network of social services that support healthy families, such as quality health care, child care, and housing support. Policy objectives must also recognize the multiple barriers to economic security women face based on their race, ethnicity, immigration status, sexuality, physical ability, and health status. These approaches must promote the equal social and economic status of all women by expanding their opportunities to balance work and family life.
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As people know one of the brutal facts about poverty is the abuse that comes with desperation. We know that across the US it was found that police departments ignored DNA testing for rape for decades and we know that women today are facing ever increasing violence and abuse as social safety nets are being dismantled. This is happening because neo-liberals have control of the democratic party and are working as hard as republicans to end War on Poverty and New Deal programs. When you ignore massive corporate fraud and cut spending that primarily hits these programs....those pols are knowingly placing women and children at the greatest risk.

STOP ALLOWING A NEO-LIBERAL DNC CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES...RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!

DISMANTLING SOCIAL SAFETY NETS TO PROTECT MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE!

Rape of WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN America

F A C T S * A B O U T * V I O L E N C E
U.S. Statistics / Global / Links to Statistics
U.S. STATISTICS

Fact #1: 17.6 % of women in the United States have survived a completed or attempted rape. Of these, 21.6% were younger than age 12 when they were first raped, and 32.4% were between the ages of 12 and 17. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November, 2000)

Fact #2: 64% of women who reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked since age 18 were victimized by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, boyfriend, or date. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November, 2000)

Fact #3: Only about half of domestic violence incidents are reported to police. African-American women are more likely than others to report their victimization to police Lawrence A. Greenfeld et al. (1998). (Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends. Bureau of Justice Statistics Factbook. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice. NCJ #167237. Available from National Criminal Justice Reference Service.)

Fact #4: The FBI estimates that only 37% of all rapes are reported to the police. U.S. Justice Department statistics are even lower, with only 26% of all rapes or attempted rapes being reported to law enforcement officials.

Fact #5: In the National Violence Against Women Survey, approximately 25% of women and 8% of men said they were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date in their lifetimes. The survey estimates that more than 300,000 intimate partner rapes occur each year against women 18 and older. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November, 2000)

Fact #6: The National College Women Sexual Victimization Study estimated that between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 college women experience completed or attempted rape during their college years (Fisher 2000).

Fact #7: Men perpetrate the majority of violent acts against women (DeLahunta 1997).

Fact #8: Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) calculation based on 2000 National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice)

Fact #9: One out of every six American women have been the victims of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. (Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women Survey, National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1998)

Fact #10: Factoring in unreported rapes, about 5% - one out of twenty - of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. 19 out of 20 will walk free. (Probability statistics based on US Department of Justice Statistics)

Fact #11: Fewer than half (48%) of all rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police (DOJ 2001).

Fact #12: Sexual violence is associated with a host of short- and long-term problems, including physical injury and illness, psychological symptoms, economic costs, and death (National Research Council 1996).

Fact #13: Rape victims often experience anxiety, guilt, nervousness, phobias, substance abuse, sleep disturbances, depression, alienation, sexual dysfunction, and aggression. They often distrust others and replay the assault in their minds, and they are at increased risk of future victimization (DeLahunta 1997).

Fact #14: According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, more than 260,000 rapes or sexual assaults occurred in 2000; 246,180 of them occurred among females and 14,770, among males (Department of Justice 2001).

Fact #15: Sexual violence victims exhibit a variety of psychological symptoms that are similar to those of victims of other types of trauma, such as war and natural disaster (National Research Council 1996). A number of long-lasting symptoms and illnesses have been associated with sexual victimization including chronic pelvic pain; premenstrual syndrome; gastrointestinal disorders; and a variety of chronic pain disorders, including headache, back pain, and facial pain (Koss 1992).Between 4% and 30% of rape victims contract sexually transmitted diseases as a result of the victimization (Resnick 1997).

Fact #16: More than half of all rapes of women occur before age 18; 22% occur before age 12. (Full Report of the Prevalance, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November, 2000)

Fact #17: In 2000, nearly 88,000 children in the United States experienced sexual abuse (ACF 2002).

Fact #18: About 81% of rape victims are white; 18% are black; 1% are of other races. (Violence Against Women, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994.)

Fact #19: About half of all rape victims are in the lowest third of income distribution; half are in the upper two-thirds. (Violence against Women, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994.)

Fact #20: According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (YRBSS), a national survey of high school students, 7.7% of students had been forced to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to. Female students (10%) were significantly more likely than male students (5%) to have been forced to have sexual intercourse. Overall, black students (10%) were significantly more likely than white students (7%) to have been forced to have sexual intercourse (CDC 2002).

Fact #21: Females ages 12 to 24 are at the greatest risk for experiencing a rape or sexual assault (DOJ 2001).

Fact #22: Almost two-thirds of all rapes are committed by someone who is known to the victim. 73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger (— 38% of perpetrators were a friend or acquaintance of the victim, 28% were an intimate and 7% were another relative.) (National Crime Victimization Survey, 2005)

Fact #23: The costs of intimate partner violence against women exceed an estimated $5.8 billion. These costs include nearly $4.1 billion in the direct costs of medical care and mental health care and nearly $1.8 billion in the indirect costs of lost productivity and present value of lifetime earnings. (Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Atlanta, Georgia, March 2003).

Fact #24: Domestic violence occurs in approximately 25-33% of same-sex relationships. (NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, October 1996.)

Fact #25: Boys who witness their fathers' violence are 10 times more likely to engage in spouse abuse in later adulthood than boys from non-violent homes. (Family Violence Interventions for the Justice System, 1993)

Fact #26: An estimated 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States annually for sexual exploitation or forced labor. (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 2000)

Fact #27: Somewhere in America a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner, every 15 seconds. (UN Study On The Status of Women, Year 2000)

Fact #28: A University of Pennsylvania research study found that domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to low-income, inner-city Philadelphia women between the ages of 15 to 44 - more common than automobile accidents, mugging and rapes combined. In this study domestic violence included injuries caused by street crime.

Fact #29: Following the Supreme Court's decision in 2000 to strike down the civil-rights provision of the Federal Violence Against Women Act (ruling that only states could enact such legislation), only two states in the country (Illinois and California) have defined gender-based violence, such as rape and domestic violence, as sex discrimination, and created specific laws that survivors can use to sue their perpetrators in civil court. (Kaethe Morris Hoffer, 2004).

Fact #30: A study reported in the New York Times suggests that one in five adolescent girls become the victims of physical or sexual violence, or both, in a dating relationship.


(New York Times, 8/01/01)
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Child and Women Sex Trafficking Fastest Growing Crime - In America
By Derek Armstrong

In any month several news stories appear announcing yet another sentence in sex trafficking of a child. Not so often reported are the thousands of "unsolved" cases involving the fastest growing crime in America--human trafficking. Tasks forces such as Operation Guardian Angel, a unique undercover law enforcement investigation targeting the demand for child prostitutes, helps bring many to justice.

Too Many Cases

Some all-too common examples of recent stories:

  • A young women was smuggled from Mexico to New York only to become a sex slave and prisoner, forced to into prostitution with up to fifteen clients per day. When her own child died because her captors refused to seek treatment, the victim was forced to hide her child's remains by her abusers. Charged were Domingo Salazar and his wife Norma Mendez.
  • Antoinette Davis, charged with human trafficking and felony child abuse of her own child after surveillance film captured her accused accomplice Andrette McNeill, carrying Antoinette's own five-year-old daughter into a Sanford hotel, shortly before her body was found.

Staggering Numbers of VictimsThe numbers are staggering, even if they are hard to come by, given the "underground" nature of the crime. UNESCO's Trafficking Statistics Project described the issue: "When it comes to statistics, trafficking of girls and women is one of several highly emotive issues which seem to overwhelm critical faculties. Numbers take on a life of their own, gaining acceptance through repetition, often with little inquiry into their derivations."

UNICEF estimated the worldwide victims in women and children at 1.75 million, while the FBI is more modest in a 2001 estimate of 700,000 victims. Most widely quoted in various media reports is 1.2 million women and children, which is somewhere between these two extremes.

14,500 to 17,500 Trafficked Into USA Each Year

While the most often quoted number of "human trafficking victims" is 300,000 total in the USA, what is known more certainly is that the number of victims trafficked into the United States each year is 14,500 to 17,500 according to US State Department statistics (2005).

The average age of human trafficking exploitation in America is pegged at 12 to 14 for girls and 11 to 13 for boys. Internationally, the crime trends younger, with 12 year old child prostitutes considered "too old" in countries like Cambodia.

Abroad the issue might be appear to be worse-in Thailand, for example, at least 60% of child prostitutes were found to have HIV-yet of the 1.2 million estimated victims around the world, a disproportionate percentage are assumed to be American-based crimes.

Revenues generated from this horrifying crime is estimated at $9.5 billion dollars. The costs of doing "business" is ruined lives, children abused, and long-term damage done to the millions of victims. According to the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), "A study of 207 women trafficked into prostitution in Europe found that the vast majority (95 percent) suffered physical and sexual abuse..." (Zimmerman et al 2006).

Human Trafficking in the USA

US Department of Justice estimated 200,000 American children were "at risk for trafficking into the sex industry" according to Attorney General John Ashcroftt in 2003. Most of these victims come from East Asia, estimated at about 7,000 victims by the Department of Justice, with up to 5,500 victims coming from by Europe and Latin America. Unlike many countries, the USA is proactive in combating the second fastest growing crime, hampered by the difficulty of prosecution.

Difficult to Prosecute

Human trafficking is often difficult to prosecute. According to Dorchen Leidholdt, Director for Families Center for Bettered Women's Legal Services, "Sex trafficking victims are often put into situations in which their very survival is contingent on their outward compliance with their traffickers' demands. Victims not infrequently have to pose smilingly for pornographic pictures, dance with customers, sign prostitution contracts, and even marry their traffickers, all of which is later used by defense counsel to prove that the victims were "willing prostitutes," not trafficking victims. If all that was required was to show proof of sex trafficking itself, not force, fraud, or coercion, such evidence would either be stricken as irrelevant or deemed probative of sex trafficking." Prosecutors are forced to prove coercion or force, often difficult with unwilling victims who are frightened they might themselves be charged.

Definition

The most common "definition" of human trafficking is less sensational than the crimes they actually attempt to depict. The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA) of 2000 describes the crime: "is the recruitment, smuggling,transporting, harboring, buying or selling of a human through force, threats, fraud, deception, or coercion for the purposes of exploitation i.e., prostitution, pornography, migrant work, sweat shops, domestic servitude, forced labor, bondage, peonage, or involuntary servitude."

Derek Armstrong is a journalist contributor to several TV news shows, magazines and newspapers. He has appeared as a reporter on HNN's Nancy Grace, the Larry King Show, MSNBC News, FOX News, Inside Edition, NBC's Dateline and the Dr. Phil Show. Armstrong is currently chief crime correspondent for Crime Report USA, and contributes to Films & Books Magazine, Advance Magazine, Canadian Money Magazine, Secure Net News, LINK World News Magazine, and EDI Weekly. Derek Armstrong is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ).



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We are seeing an explosion in sex trafficing of women in America.  First and foremost it is cause by the suspension of Rule of Law and dismantling of public justice systems....the same thing that has allowed tens of trillions of dollars to be sucked from our economy by corporate fraud.  THAT MONEY WOULD BE SUPPORTING ALL PUBLIC JUSTICE/SOCIAL JUSTICE AGENCIES AND PROGRAMS!  Neo-liberals like Obama and O'Malley are doing this!  The next factor is the ever increasing immigrant population that creates a sub-culture with no rights.  When your neo-liberal welcomes immigrants to the state and then offers them no protection from exploitation....they are working for wealth and profit.  What has happened is natural...men brought to America for work need female companionship.  This is what created the massive movement by gangs and cartels of women to America through these sex trafficing networks.  As that was happening, the poor in America looking for a way to survive now see drugs sales expanding to prostitution, and then of course sex trafficing.  When Bill and Hillary Clinton ended Welfare at the same time they created the 'moving jobs overseas' policies....free trade agreements with no protections for people...America now looks like Eastern Europe with depravity brought from extreme poverty.



Child and Women Sex Trafficking Fastest Growing Crime - In America
By Derek Armstrong

In any month several news stories appear announcing yet another sentence in sex trafficking of a child. Not so often reported are the thousands of "unsolved" cases involving the fastest growing crime in America--human trafficking. Tasks forces such as Operation Guardian Angel, a unique undercover law enforcement investigation targeting the demand for child prostitutes, helps bring many to justice.

Too Many Cases

Some all-too common examples of recent stories:

  • A young women was smuggled from Mexico to New York only to become a sex slave and prisoner, forced to into prostitution with up to fifteen clients per day. When her own child died because her captors refused to seek treatment, the victim was forced to hide her child's remains by her abusers. Charged were Domingo Salazar and his wife Norma Mendez.
  • Antoinette Davis, charged with human trafficking and felony child abuse of her own child after surveillance film captured her accused accomplice Andrette McNeill, carrying Antoinette's own five-year-old daughter into a Sanford hotel, shortly before her body was found.

Staggering Numbers of VictimsThe numbers are staggering, even if they are hard to come by, given the "underground" nature of the crime. UNESCO's Trafficking Statistics Project described the issue: "When it comes to statistics, trafficking of girls and women is one of several highly emotive issues which seem to overwhelm critical faculties. Numbers take on a life of their own, gaining acceptance through repetition, often with little inquiry into their derivations."

UNICEF estimated the worldwide victims in women and children at 1.75 million, while the FBI is more modest in a 2001 estimate of 700,000 victims. Most widely quoted in various media reports is 1.2 million women and children, which is somewhere between these two extremes.

14,500 to 17,500 Trafficked Into USA Each Year

While the most often quoted number of "human trafficking victims" is 300,000 total in the USA, what is known more certainly is that the number of victims trafficked into the United States each year is 14,500 to 17,500 according to US State Department statistics (2005).

The average age of human trafficking exploitation in America is pegged at 12 to 14 for girls and 11 to 13 for boys. Internationally, the crime trends younger, with 12 year old child prostitutes considered "too old" in countries like Cambodia.

Abroad the issue might be appear to be worse-in Thailand, for example, at least 60% of child prostitutes were found to have HIV-yet of the 1.2 million estimated victims around the world, a disproportionate percentage are assumed to be American-based crimes.

Revenues generated from this horrifying crime is estimated at $9.5 billion dollars. The costs of doing "business" is ruined lives, children abused, and long-term damage done to the millions of victims. According to the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), "A study of 207 women trafficked into prostitution in Europe found that the vast majority (95 percent) suffered physical and sexual abuse..." (Zimmerman et al 2006).

Human Trafficking in the USA

US Department of Justice estimated 200,000 American children were "at risk for trafficking into the sex industry" according to Attorney General John Ashcroftt in 2003. Most of these victims come from East Asia, estimated at about 7,000 victims by the Department of Justice, with up to 5,500 victims coming from by Europe and Latin America. Unlike many countries, the USA is proactive in combating the second fastest growing crime, hampered by the difficulty of prosecution.

Difficult to Prosecute

Human trafficking is often difficult to prosecute. According to Dorchen Leidholdt, Director for Families Center for Bettered Women's Legal Services, "Sex trafficking victims are often put into situations in which their very survival is contingent on their outward compliance with their traffickers' demands. Victims not infrequently have to pose smilingly for pornographic pictures, dance with customers, sign prostitution contracts, and even marry their traffickers, all of which is later used by defense counsel to prove that the victims were "willing prostitutes," not trafficking victims. If all that was required was to show proof of sex trafficking itself, not force, fraud, or coercion, such evidence would either be stricken as irrelevant or deemed probative of sex trafficking." Prosecutors are forced to prove coercion or force, often difficult with unwilling victims who are frightened they might themselves be charged.

Definition

The most common "definition" of human trafficking is less sensational than the crimes they actually attempt to depict. The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA) of 2000 describes the crime: "is the recruitment, smuggling,transporting, harboring, buying or selling of a human through force, threats, fraud, deception, or coercion for the purposes of exploitation i.e., prostitution, pornography, migrant work, sweat shops, domestic servitude, forced labor, bondage, peonage, or involuntary servitude."

Derek Armstrong is a journalist contributor to several TV news shows, magazines and newspapers. He has appeared as a reporter on HNN's Nancy Grace, the Larry King Show, MSNBC News, FOX News, Inside Edition, NBC's Dateline and the Dr. Phil Show. Armstrong is currently chief crime correspondent for Crime Report USA, and contributes to Films & Books Magazine, Advance Magazine, Canadian Money Magazine, Secure Net News, LINK World News Magazine, and EDI Weekly. Derek Armstrong is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ).


0 Comments

August 05th, 2013

8/5/2013

0 Comments

 
HI E VERYONE! 

I WANT TO TAKE TODAY TO LOOK AT THE NEWS AT ALL LEVELS AND SHOUT OUT TO GET OUT AND FIGHT THIS TAKEOVER OF THE PEOPLE'S ABILITY TO CONTROL PUBLIC POLICY AND HOLD CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE.





Undocumented workers in Maryland and Baltimore work under some of the most repressive conditions of wage theft and workplace abuse.....all labor laws unenforced and fear of being reported as undocumented if they shout out too loudly about what is happening to them every day in Maryland and especially in Baltimore.  This is a neo-liberal state doing this to the poor and disenfranchised.  Obama and O'Malley are neo-liberals and this Immigration Bill is market-based....meaning it is completely about how to maximize corporate profits on the backs of labor.

The convoluted path to citizenship that is immerging will not be attainable by most immigrants...only those coming in on high-end VISAs will be able to reach this citizenship goal for the most part.  Meanwhile people from developing worlds will flood an economy with 25% unemployment and domestic grads from STEM among the unemployed.

Why are they doing this?  Global markets need foreign workers to work as Americans overseas.  Third world workers are used to working for sweat shop wages and having no Rule of Law protecting them....that is the reason for this Immigration Bill.  EXPLOITATION OF LABOR.

Why would anyone encourage the President to circumvent the 3 branch check on Executive power to inact this law?  Well, TPP basically ends the Constitution and these democratic institutions so why not get started say these people!



President holds trump card on immigration Obama can expand Deferred Action without congressional approval — and should do so if Congress fails to act

By Nelson Peacock 6:00 a.m. EDT, August 5, 2013  Baltimore Sun

President Barack Obama is tantalizingly close to passing comprehensive immigration reform, a legacy achievement. The Senate has provided a bipartisan bill, and the House is working on reform. The key issues are border security and a legal pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million who are here illegally.

The political reasons for the House to negotiate a deal are many. A recent Gallup poll showed that 87 percent of Americans support comprehensive reform that includes a pathway to citizenship. Moreover, growing numbers of Latino voters in key states turned out in historic numbers for Mr. Obama in last year's election, which strongly suggests that, in the long run, Republicans need to address this constituency or continue to lose votes.

However, Speaker John A. Boehner, the Republicans' point man in the House, doesn't have the luxury of operating in the long term. The conservative bloc of House Republicans is digging in against reform that includes a pathway to citizenship, and with what promises to be a bloody spending fight with Democrats looming, the speaker needs to strengthen his position with his conference.

It's no wonder the speaker has instructed his committee chairmen to send up smaller, incremental bills for consideration, with a final decision on the path forward to come this fall.

Regardless of what Mr. Boehner and the committee chairmen come up with, most of the millions of unauthorized immigrants here now will almost surely stay, because it is expensive and time-consuming to deport them. The immigration enforcement system is currently funded to deport roughly 400,000 immigrants a year, funding that's unlikely to increase in difficult budgetary times, and it can take years to get many cases in front of immigration judges.

In part for those reasons, the Department of Homeland Security does not treat all deportations equally. In recent years, the agency has expanded its use of prosecutorial discretion in immigration enforcement, focusing on recent border crossings and public safety threats. Today, deportations of immigrants with strong connections to the U.S. are unlikely.

Indeed, prosecutorial discretion is a guiding principle of this administration's immigration enforcement policy. With it, the administration has moved immigration enforcement from an ad hoc system in which individuals are removed indiscriminately to one that prioritizes criminals, recent border crossers and fugitives. In 2012, 96 percent of all removals were based on these priorities. Opponents of the policy call it amnesty, but with limited resources, it's obvious why an agency charged with protecting the homeland is focusing its deportation efforts on national security and public safety.

For Mr. Obama, expanding prosecutorial discretion in deportations has been good policy and politics. It might just be the trump card he needs to bring House Republicans to the negotiating table.

Last summer, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which established the first program in which a subset of those here illegally could come forward and register with the government. If you were brought here as a child, are currently in school or the military and have no criminal record, you can get protection from deportation and you can petition for work authorization.

This program, aimed at so-called Dreamers, triggered a wave of enthusiasm in the Latino community, and many political analysts believe it helped the president weather 50 percent disapproval ratings last summer and win a historic 75 percent of the Latino vote in November. Nearly 520,000 people have received relief under this program since it was announced.

Now the president should turn again to this playbook and expand the program to other sympathetic categories of immigrants, such as those with a longtime presence in the United States or those with U.S.-citizen family members. The legal parameters and operational protocols have been established, and because this program, like the original Deferred Action program, would be funded from immigrants' fees, it would not require a congressional appropriation. An expanded Deferred Action program could be up and running within weeks.

Of course, those committed to defeating reform would trot out the tired criticism that the president doesn't enforce the laws on the books. They conveniently forget that both parties share the blame for the current system, and they ignore the record-low estimates of border crossing attempts and the record-high number of deportations. (A recent Pew Hispanic Center analysis found net migration from Mexico has fallen to zero in recent years.) Nothing the administration does would change their minds.

It is a near-certainty that expansion of prosecutorial discretion will occur if the House defeats all reform efforts or the House and Senate can't reach an agreement. Perhaps the president can force negotiations by reminding critics that, in the absence of real reform, a president — any party's president — still has to govern. For Mr. Boehner and the House GOP, the alternative to negotiating would be expanding "amnesty" without any of the security and business enhancements that the Republicans want and the nation desperately needs.

If the president acts boldly, he might be able to wrest a bill from Congress that could establish his legacy and, more important, secure the real immigration policy changes this country needs.

Nelson Peacock is a vice president with Cornerstone Government Affairs in Washington and the former assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.


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Do you know that one of the biggest issues for student loan holders is that the Department of Education is now run by credit collection agencies..Wall Street on steroids .. as they work to force people to get out of default and then manipulate the fees so as to send people back into default.  Each time you are brought out of default these Wall Street credit collection agencies tack as much as $3,000 to these student loans making these bills skyrocket.  It is worst than pay day loans.  THIS IS THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FOLKS!

We all know that the unemployment caused by massive corporate fraud has sent many student loan holders into this situation.  So paying higher interest is just the tip of the iceberg.  Neo-liberals like Clinton and Obama..and all Congressional leaders have allowed Rule of Law be suspended and the public is being preyed upon from all sectors. That is the problem.

The solution is to first stop outsourcing public agencies.  Rebuild white collar criminal agencies and bring back all of the for-profit education fraud..at a trillion dollars and climbing if these student loan frauds are added.  Then, pour all that fraud recovered back into public education and financial aid that is low interest and awarded for sound reasons as was the policies before the Dept of Education was privatized..just like Freddie and the FHA.  Good public agencies ruined by privatizing!



Congress reaches student loan deal that lowers rates for borrowers But new formula can bring higher rates later

By Eileen Ambrose, The Baltimore Sun 10:37 p.m. EDT, August 2, 2013

With the start of classes just weeks away, Maryland financial aid directors sighed with relief that Congress has finally reached an agreement on student loan interest rates that will lower costs for borrowers this academic year.

"We have been getting calls from students," said Zhanna Goltser, director of financial aid at Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore. "It's great that it will save money for students who are borrowing now."

"Now" is the key word. Under a new formula created by lawmakers, the rate on certain federal loans could go up significantly in a few years.

A gridlocked Congress failed to meet a July 1 deadline on expiring rates, resulting in the interest on new subsidized Stafford loans doubling to 6.8 percent. Subsidized means that Uncle Sam pays the interest on the loan while the borrower is in college.

But under bipartisan legislation that passed its final congressional hurdle last week, the rate for all Stafford loans as well as PLUS loans used by parents and graduate students will be tied to the market. Given today's low interest rates, students and parents will enjoy reduced interest rates for the time being.

"It's an interest rate increase masqueraded as a decrease," warned Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Edvisors.com, a network of websites on college admissions and financial aid.

As the economy continues to improve and interest rates rise, families in a few years could be paying substantially more to borrow from the government, he said.

Under the legislation, the interest rate on Stafford and PLUS loans will be a combination of the yield on a 10-year Treasury note and a flat rate, depending on the type of loan. Congress also added caps to limit how high rates can go.

The rate on Stafford loans for undergraduates will be the yield on the 10-year Treasury plus 2.05 percent, not to exceed 8.25 percent. Interest on Stafford loans for graduate students will be the Treasury yield plus 3.6 percent, but no more than 9.5 percent. The PLUS loan rate will be the Treasury yield plus 4.6 percent, with a cap of 10.5 percent.

Each year, the rate for new loans will go up and down with the Treasury yield. But once a loan is taken out, the interest rate is fixed for the entire term.

The president is expected to sign the bill. The legislation is retroactive, so the formula will be in effect for loans made since July. The new rates for this year will be 3.86 percent for undergraduate Stafford loans, 5.41 percent for graduate Stafford loans and 6.41 percent for PLUS loans, aid officials said.

That is significantly less than borrowers would be paying if a deal hadn't been brokered. Without the legislation, the rate would have been 6.8 percent on all Stafford loans and 7.9 percent for PLUS loans.

"Families will be happier with this tied to the market just like any other [loan] they would have taken out," said Dana Kennedy, director of financial aid at St. John's College in Annapolis. And this way, students and parents will know each year what the interest rate will be, rather than waiting for an act of Congress, she added.

Some parents recently advised their children not to sign loan papers until Congress decided on a rate, Kennedy added. They feared that borrowers could be locked into a higher rate by signing early, though lawmakers were expected to make the rates retroactive to July 1.

"We're pleased that students are going to see some relief this current school year," said Tom McDermott, director of student financial services at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Still, the caps are on the "high side," said McDermott, who hopes Congress will revisit the issue.

McDermott said he's concerned that if federal loan rates climb significantly, students and families might switch to private loans that do not offer the same protections and benefits as the government. And some aid experts predict that higher rates are ahead.

"We don't see it as a cause for celebration," said Lauren Asher, president of The Institute for College Access & Success in California. "The cost to families over the 10 years would be more than if Congress did nothing."

The legislation is projected to generate $715 million in added revenue for the government over the next decade as rates rise, Asher said. And that's on top of the $184 billion profit the loan program was already expected to see over that time, she said.

Asher predicts that parents will be paying more than the current 7.9 percent on PLUS loans by 2016, and undergraduates will borrow at a rate higher than today's 6.8 percent on Stafford loans by 2017.


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This commenter is absolutely right but at the same time he does not identify the problem with this troop drawndown; we have more private military contractors then civilian troops and it is only civilian troops coming home!  Obama states he is bringing the troops home; he is not telling us that during his term he and Hillary have placed the privatization of the US military on steroids and that 'bringing the troops home' means primarily those civilian troops.  Who needs them when you are going with drone attacks/special forces assaults in undeclared war all over the world!

Think that is going to send jihadists into overdrive?  You betcha.  The threat to embassies and US citizens all around the world is just the beginning as the fight against naked capitalism taking over Muslim societies heats up.

Jihadists aren't the only ones against these policies.  EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE US AND EUROPE ARE AGAINST THEM AS WELL! Maybe not the few thousand of the world's 1% promoting these policies.  Why do Americans not shout loudly as they are in Europe and around the world against this criminal, corrupt, and crippling foreign policy?  We have Greenspan/Clinton/Bush people filling all media outlets with propaganda that makes N Korea's Great Leader and his media look downright democratic.  Food filling the grocery stores of North Korea/drones not killing innocent people...same thing!



Bring the troops home from Afghanistan — and everywhere else


With the recent commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, isn't it about time to think about a troop withdrawal plan? And by the way, VE Day was 68 years ago, so why do we still have troops in Europe?

Let's leave Europe to the Europeans, Korea to the Koreans, Iraq to the Iraqis and Afghanistan to the Afghans.

Dave Reich, Perry Hall

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Below you see a private non-profit called CREDO.  It is a business who sets itself up as a public interest company B-Corp/501-C4 so it gets tax breaks.  I join their petition signing protests myself as they ask for your name, address, and email in exchange for petitioning an issue.....WE ARE THE PROGRESSIVE CORPORATION HELPING CITIZENS AGAINST CORPORATE OVERREACH.  I have shouted that most of these 'progressive' organizations are simply getting your personal information to use for marketing and now we see they are using the money to support political candidates who are neo-liberal and corrupt......not labor and justice candidates.  Whether MoveOn or Credo......many of these pundits/organizations are neo-liberals in liberal disguise.

LIBERALS LIKE MCGOVERN WORKED TO HOLD CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE AND ADVANCE WORKERS/PEOPLE'S RIGHTS.  NEO-LIBERALS DO THE OPPOSITE...THEY WORK FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT AGAINST LABOR AND JUSTICE.

We may need to use these groups because they currently have the power of voice....but do not believe all that they tell you!


Comment on the article below:

IF MUDCAT IS WORKING FOR A GREAT BIG FAT CRIMINAL OF A CORPORATE POL LIKE GANSLER IN MARYLAND ......CREDO IS A NEO-LIBERAL, NOT A LIBERAL ORGANIZATION!



Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler has hired a new campaign manager, about a month before he plans to formally announce his campaign for governor. Matthew "Mudcat" Arnold said in an interview Friday he got the job this week. (Source:NBC.com) Here is why this is a good thing. "Mudcat" sounds like he knows how to play my game. Trash me all you want but I got criminal charges against politicians
.



Liberal super PAC: Calling Republicans racist more effective than criticizing policy

1:08 AM 09/14/2012 inShare1 3 Alex PappasPolitical Reporter

A top official at a liberal super PAC with the goal of eradicating tea partiers from Congress is telling activists that it’s more effective to label Republicans as racists than criticize their policies.

According to an audio recording obtained by The Daily Caller, Matthew “Mudcat” Arnold, the national campaign manager of the liberal CREDO super PAC, told a gathering of supporters in Aurora, Colo., on Sept. 8 that they’ve realized “policy did not move voters.”

He used Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King as an example.

“When we said that Steve King … is pro-life and believes in cutting Social Security and voted for the Ryan budget, no one cared,” Arnold said. “When we said Steve King’s a racist, Steve King believes that immigrants ought to be put in electric fences, people moved.”

“When you talk about the substance of a man’s character, people respond,” Arnold continued. “Believe it or not, that is not something politicians knew.”

CREDO super PAC, which did not immediately return a request for comment from The Daily Caller on Thursday, bills itself as a “political committee working to defeat ten of the most odious tea party members of Congress.”

Arnold made the comments while discussing the organization’s campaign against Colorado Republican Rep. Mike Coffman. The event at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse was billed as a gathering for “CREDO members and local activists to discuss our campaign to defeat Mike Coffman.”

Democratic candidate Joe Miklosi is challenging Coffman. Republicans reacted to Arnold’s comments by pouncing on Miklosi.


“The irony of this is that Miklosi repeatedly tries to paint Coffman as a radical, but he’s got a far, far left-wing group of crazies supporting him and helping his campaign,” said a Republican strategist familiar with the campaign. “Miklosi is masquerading as a moderate, but you can tell a lot about somebody by the company they keep.”

The super PAC’s strategy of trying to smear Republicans is evident with the nicknames they’ve given to the 10 members they are targeting this year: Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is “Queen of Crazy,” Florida Rep. Allen West is “Beyond Crazy,” Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh is “America’s Most Offensive Congressman,” and Iowa Rep. Steve King is “Paranoid Bigot.”

“We want to stop people who have hijacked our community, who have hijacked the national platform and who are advocating policies and saying things in public that embarrass us,” Arnold said.




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Judicial watch is a conservative group but the concerns as regards the suspension of Rule of Law and dismantling of our democratic system of checks and balances is real.  All of these manipulated showdowns in Congress that lead to concessions killing all Americans is deliberate.  Remember, the democrats had all 3 branches of government and a supermajority and failed to address all policy that now sits in gridlock doing nothing

“Obama’s unilateral actions are undermining our constitutional republic in ways that we have not seen, at least in recent American history,” Fitton said.



Opinion Judicial Watch head: Obama likes to play ‘catch me if you can’

By Ginni Thomas 9:23 PM 08/04/2013 inShare1 1


Tom Fitton’s organization Judicial Watch is a useful ally of citizens who want a conservative government watchdog monitoring an out-of-control government. Judicial Watch, incorporated in 1994, is a non-profit group that presses Republicans and Democrats alike on transparency, accountability and integrity in government.

Fitton and company worked with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on ethics reform legislation and have filed over 100 lawsuits against the Obama administration to battle the stonewalling and corruption they find rampant in big government.

“Obama’s unilateral actions are undermining our constitutional republic in ways that we have not seen, at least in recent American history,” Fitton said. “We still have a Congress. We still have a judiciary that has the ability to reign in the government when it chooses, assuming the law allows, but Obama has taken on unilateral actions that have not been checked.”

Fitton says the Obama “way” is “catch me if you can.”

In this interview, Fitton discusses the scandals President Obama is now calling “phony” — Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS targeting, Solyndra and NSA surveillance. Fitton is not buying the dodge. He seeks facts, documents and proof.

Critical of congressional oversight that is not consistent or thorough, Fitton instead encourages citizen activism. He believes citizens often do not understand the tools available for them to hold local, state and federal officials accountable.

Fitton’s book, “The Corruption Chronicles,” details the scandals of Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama. The organization has also produced a movie, “The District of Corruption,” on AXS TV and this fall on HDNet Movies.


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Do you know that all of what tax revenue generated from these Enterprise Zones are fenced into those communities...they do not help greater Baltimore. Tax base from Greater Baltimore is used to not only subsidize these Enterprise Zones now, but revenue is frozen into the future...ergo....paying Rain taxes, privatizing trash collection, crumbling schools and parks. It is not better to build on toxic land than allow it to simply be a green space....that is the Sustainable policy solution. Building a huge complex on toxic land when we know that global warming will raise the sea level as much as 10 inches in just a few decades means the public will be called to build sea walls to protect this complex and compromise the toxic containment, All for more poverty jobs that we all know are filled with wage theft and workplace abuse.

The development plan for a city filled with working class people would have been the real Enterprise Zone....one that builds small businesses with regional business owners so the grassroots would grow and create health communities. What we have is a handing off .....many will say a looting of our public assets in order to enrich a few and create more wealth inequity-style development. Please do not allow these 1% decide that the global corporations will control all business and consumption because this is what these policies move forward!



Baltimore Brew Stirring up News and Views in Baltimore Maryland
Monday, August, 5th, 2013 5


First it was a faint murmur of unease. Now it’s become a clamor for answers.

The $107 million tax increment subsidy proposed for Harbor Point is stirring up a normally somolent citizenry, which has been socked with rising water bills and cutbacks in fire protection and youth rec centers.

The latest evidence comes from a special meeting called for this Tuesday by the Fell’s Point Residents Association to revisit its endorsement of the luxury waterfront development and proposed regional headquarters of Exelon Corp.

The group had previously voted “not to oppose” the conceptual plan for Harbor Point, “but that was before many specific issues that need significant further discussion came to light,” Arthur Perschetz, association president, told The Brew in an interview today.

Too Much Public Subsidy

“The biggest concern by residents is that the city is dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars for a project that is basically a private development,” Perschetz said.

“Yes, it will produce some jobs,” he continued, “but it isn’t going to start paying anything back to the city [in the form of property taxes] until 2025. That’s what people are feeling – there’s too much subsidy for a site that the city itself says is one of the best locations on the East Coast.”

The group has invited Marco Greenberg, vice president for developer Michael Beatty, and Ronald Kreitner, director of Westside Renaissance, to “explain their viewpoints and answer our questions,” according to Perschetz.

Kreitner, a former director of the Maryland Office of Planning, is associated with Baltimore Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos, who has signaled his opposition to the Harbor Point plan.

Greenberg has been a senior executive at both Struever Bros, Eccles & Rouse and John Paterakis’ H&S Properties Development, who jointly held a ground lease at Harbor Point before they were reportedly bought out by the Beatty group.

“Gold-Plated” Parks?

The use of $59.1 million to finance parks at the site – and an additional $21.6 million for a waterfront promenade – has stuck in the craw of association members, Perschetz said, especially when the city spends so little to improve existing public spaces and its major parks are in disrepair.

The group’s membership will take a fresh vote on Harbor Point on Tuesday – and a rejection could have a direct impact on the evolving political calculus of the project.

Considered a “shoo-in” when proposed two months ago by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the $107 million TIF subsidy has been vigorously questioned by Carl Stokes, chairman of the City Council’s Taxation, Finance and Economic Development Committee.

Record crowds attended two hearings before Stokes committee last month.

They included members of the Campaign for Fair Development, associated with the United Workers union, and residents from Perkins Homes, who accused the city of using their low-income demographics to secure a state “EZ” (Enterprise Zone) designation for Harbor Point that give the developer $88 million in tax breaks.

Earlier this week, a petition drive opposing the subsidies began circulating on the Internet.

Perkins Homes residents question tax subsidies to Harbor Point at a July 10 City Hall hearing. (Photo by Mark Reutter)

Councilman James B. Kraft, whose 1st District includes Fells Point and Harbor Point, says his support of the TIF subsidy – on top of the “EZ” tax break – is based on neighborhood support of the project. He publicly promised last month to vote on the project’s financing package according to the wishes of the community.

That vote may come as early as August 12.

Mayor Rawlings-Blake and City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young want to get the financing bill out of Stokes committee this week (a working session of the committee is set for 5 p.m. Wednesday in the City Council chambers).

TIF Needed ASAP

The Beatty group is under enormous pressure to secure the TIF package before the end of September, when his group is set to purchase the capped portion of the 27-acre site from Honeywell International, the present owner.

The Allied Chemical works was closed in 1985 in part because of its extensive pollution of the Inner Harbor. (Photo by John Horn)

The Harbor Point site was used as a chromium-ore reduction factory for more than a century.

It was closed by Allied Chemical in 1985 after environmental regulators determined that 62 pounds of cancer-causing chromium waste were being dumped into the harbor every day.

The site underwent a decade-long remediation to contain the chemical wastes buried under the factory. Allied first constructed a stone embankment around the three sides of the site that bordered on the harbor.

A three-foot-wide soil-bentonite hydraulic barrier was then extended more than 70 feet deep between the land and water, and a plastic-and-clay cap laid on top of the ground to seal off the contaminants.

Without TIF funds to finance the “public” portion of the development – which will be elevated on fill above the cap –  the $1 billion project cannot move forward, according to Beatty.

Will Exelon Walk?

Exelon Corp. is the only announced tenant for the complex, projected to take 12 years to finish and create more than 3 million square feet of new office, retail and residential space.

There is growing worry in the developer’s camp that Exelon might back out of its commitment to the site if the City Council does not approve the TIF legislation in the very near future.

If that did happen, the company wouldn’t walk far.

Under a February 2012 agreement with the Maryland Public Service Commission that permitted its acquisition of Constellation Energy, Exelon pledged to build a new headquarters building in downtown Baltimore.










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July 23rd, 2013

7/23/2013

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KEEP IN MIND THAT JUST AS HAPPENED WITH PRIVATE SECTOR PENSIONS, BENEFITS, AND WORKPLACE RIGHTS WE ARE NOW SEEING PUBLIC SECTOR PROTECTIONS AND PERSONAL ASSETS DISMANTLED.  THIS IS NOT ONLY BY REPUBLICANS....IT IS BEING DONE WITH FORCE BY NEO-LIBERALS.

WHEN WE LOSE QUALITY IN SERVICES AND WORKER MORALE DROPS.....WE WILL SEE FIRST WORLD QUALITY OF LIFE DEVOLVE TO THIRD WORLD....THAT IS WHAT NEO-LIBERALS HAVE GIVEN AMERICAN PEOPLE!


Regarding deaths in Baltimore that should and could have been prevented:

Baltimore just had another citizen beaten and kicked to death by police after this person, no doubt trying to escape from a chase got out of the car and was soaked with pepper spray by a group of 4-5 police officers. Pepper spray burns the skin so the natural reaction is to run. Once these police officers get the citizen to run they then justify beating them with batons to get the person to the ground where they then kick them to death. This happened just a few months ago to a citizen named Anderson and it is an operational policy meant to intimidate and scare people from an area. Chief Batts comes from southern California where his department was famous for brutality like this and for the internal police cover up and code of silence about these abuses. We saw just a few weeks ago a police spokesman tell us that the police department would be acting Constitutionally and since then we have watched as citizens have been abused and police chases end in crashes that endanger innocent citizens....all illegal. JUST AS WITH DRONES OVERSEAS, THIS IS CALLED COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN GETTING RID OF PEOPLE WHO THREATEN PEOPLE IN POWER.

At the same time Baltimore City Hall has cut the Fire Department budget so much as to downsize and close fire houses and staffing creating an environment of inability to serve and protect. Wages and benefits gutted and work increased giving low morale. Baltimore has now had 13 fire deaths when for decades it went with nearly no deaths because we had a stellar fire department. These cuts happen because Baltimore and Maryland have allowed billions of dollars each year be stolen in corporate fraud and have allowed for massive amounts of corporate tax breaks that have emptied government coffers.

Defunding of poor communities and taking public assets and programs to help the poor along with a policy of not hiring local residents leaves people unable to support themselves and forces them to crime and violence.....and it always hits the middle-class. They are not robbing JP Morgan or Exelon executives, they are forced to come into middle-class communities for crime of theft.

THE POLITICIANS WHO YOU VOTE INTO OFFICE EACH YEAR ARE LITERALLY KILLING US.

This is the problem. The solution is getting rid of corporate neo-liberal politicians who have captured the democratic party. Do not vote republican because they will do the same thing....all of these policies are republican. If your labor and justice organizations are not working to run candidates against these neo-liberals at all levels of government....they are not working for you and me. The Governor/City Executive appoints the people who then work for either the people or corporations and controls funding so these are key positions for labor and justice to run strong candidates, but the entire City Hall and Maryland Assembly must go as do the Federal pols for life we have in Maryland. DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN! VOTE TO REBUILD THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!

I want to look at the people who serve our communities and how injustice for one becomes injustice for all.  Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Gov O'Malley are moving to make the fire and police privately contracted and are setting the stage for this transfer.  They are union-busting and pension/wage busting just as republicans are.  How does this effect the communities?  Lack of resources always lead to poor quality and workers frustrated by an inability to do their best.  WE KNOW THE POLICE DEPARTMENT NOW HAS AN AGGRESSIVE STANCE TOWARDS THE PUBLIC.....THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IS NOW BEING PUSHED IN THAT DIRECTION.

Below you see that until last year Baltimore was gaining on fire deaths and had good relations with the communities.  In 2013 we see fire deaths already reaching last year's numbers and we are only half through the year.  Also, we are seeing more fires being set in protest and violence then ever before.  People are angry and these incidences will increase.  THIS IS WHAT A THIRD WORLD SOCIETY LOOKS LIKE......


WE WANT TO RETURN TO WHAT FIRST WORLD DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!

  Baltimore Fire Deaths have reached record lows


5:29 PM, Jan 15, 2012  Associated Press

BALTIMORE (AP) - Baltimore fire officials say fire deaths in the city have dropped to the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1938. However, the city still ranks among the highest nationwide on a per capita basis.

The city recorded 17 fire deaths last year, down from the record high of 88 deaths set in 1984. Washington, meanwhile, lost six lives to fire last year, down from 11 the year before and 19 in 2009.

Baltimore recorded 2.69 deaths per 100,000 residents last year, compared to 2.13 for Philadelphia. Boston, New York and Los Angeles were all under 1 death per 100,000. Detroit had the highest rate at 5.1 per 100,000.

Fire Chief James S. Clack told The Baltimore Sun he was pleased, but the 17 deaths are still a tragedy. (http://bsun.md/A88GcN)


Remember, police and firefighters do not pay into Social Security and are particularly vulnerable to losses of pensions and benefits.  These people have the most dangerous and high-risk of injury jobs and they were supposed to be compensated by these pensions/health benefits.  We know these cuts being made by neo-liberals are only happening because tens of trillions of dollars have been stolen from and corporate tax breaks have emptied government coffers.

PUBLIC EMPLOYEES MUST STOP BACKING NEO-LIBERALS IN MARYLAND AND NATIONALLY AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL COMING ELECTIONS!

City leaves disabled firefighters, police with nothing


November 03, 2011  Baltimore Sun

All the politicians in this city get wonderful pensions, but the people who risk their lives and health to protect their fellow citizens get nothing.

I have been retired from the Baltimore City Fire Department for 14 years. I have a medical disability pension because of being hurt on the job. Because of the condition of my knees, I have been unable to work a full-time job.

In the 14 years I have been pensioned, my health insurance contribution has gone from $450 a year to $7,300 a year. Because of only receiving two raises during those 14 years ( 4.25 percent and 1.5 percent) this has been a terrible financial burden on my family.

I have depleted my entire life savings to put my oldest son through high school and college. I still have a younger son who was two when I retired and who will be going to college in two years.

You would think the mayor or Baltimore City would set up some kind of scholarship fund to help pay the cost of college for children of police and fireman who are on disability pensions, or at least give us a break on our health insurance premiums.

Firefighters and policemen put their life on the line, every day they go to work. I spent 25 years in one of the busiest firehouses in Baltimore City, and this is the thanks I get for my dedication. I'm sure there are a lot of other retired fireman and policemen who are in the same financial dilemma that I am in.

Did I mention how much money the city stole from the firefighters and police retirement fund? If not for that, the fund would be in great financial shape.

If it's any wonder why Baltimore is one of the worst cities to live in, look no further than the people who run it.

Michael Schuchman


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The kinds of cuts being made by City Hall in the name of budget deficits is horrendous.  It tears at public confidence and in employee moral.  This is not first world value....OUR POLITICIANS OPENLY LIE AND THE MEDIA NEVER CALLS THEM TO TASK.

Baltimore:
Fire Death Hypocrisy

Jan 7, 2013 Baltimore Fire Union

At a press conference on January 2, Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Fire Chief James Clack praised Baltimore firefighters and emergency personnel for helping to reduce city fire deaths last year to an all-time low. They pledged, “We will continue to strive for a safer city when it comes to fire deaths....”

Yet on the very same day, Assistant Fire Chief Jeffery Segal ordered Advanced Life Support (ALS) equipment used by firefighter paramedics to be removed from city fire trucks!

The next day, after word of Segal’s order had spread among firefighters – and at least one local newspaper inquired about it – his order was reversed.

So much for the mayor and her fire chief continuing “to strive for a safer city!” In a city that has one of the highest fire death rates of any – three times the national average – it took some firefighters to raise a stink to get the order reversed.


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Regarding Detroit's trip to bankruptcy court:

As my last post pointed to, most of the Federal, state, and local debt is due to corporate fraud and so a city like Detroit, very similar to Baltimore, probably has the same level of crime and corruption as Baltimore. I have shouted often as to the deliberate malfeasance with public pensions, whether it was in 2007 when they were thrown into a crashing stock market out of the safety of then bond markets with the pols knowing the pensions would lose much of their value.....or whether it is today as these same pols load the state and local government with municipal bond debt knowing that the bond market it going to crash....again losing the public and public pensions huge amounts of money. So, Detroit no doubt has a harder road back to solvency, but recovering the money deliberately stolen from the taxpayers....subprime mortgage fraud no doubt was rampant as in Baltimore for instance as was Entitlement fraud of the poor and seniors. All of this fraud recovery will make these urban areas healthy and able to recover and protect the citizens from promised and earned retirements and benefits. So, whether it is a republican like Snyder or a neo-liberal like Rawlings-Blake, both working to protect the wealth and profits over the people, one positive is happening across America.....the unions are growing and gaining strength as people see they have no one seeking public justice for them any more.

We see this as well in the Marketplace Money report that has a business hiring an unemployed person who they make sound glad to get to work even as she works 12 hour days for almost nothing per hour. That company is so glad to have her slave labor that they will bring social services into the workplace to see she keeps coming. Now, if that business paid taxes and did not defraud the government, the government would be able to prepare that person for the workplace with strong schools, advanced education, child care and community support. But no, businesses do not want to do that...they want to exploit the workers and only invest in that person working for them. In walk unions to tell these workers that it is unionization that gave the 8 hour work day and 40 hour work week with pay that allowed people to support a family. This allows two people to get a job instead of the one displaced by large overtime hours. So again corporate public media is promoting the kind of programming that works against public interest and not for public interest.

We are seeing unions fighting with people against foreclosures, against civil rights violations, against unfair development......WE SEE UNIONS BECOMING THE VOICE OF THE COMMUNITIES!


Governor Snyder Steals Pensions Out from Under Pensioners
posted by Ed Staff | Thursday, July 18, 2013 Filed Under: labor union detroit bankruptcy penions


High drama played out in Detroit-area courtrooms today -- drama which culminated in attorney;s for Governor Rick Snyder stealing the pensions right out from under current and former city workers for Detroit.

The drama played out as an attorney for the city's pensioners prepared to file a temporary injunction to prevent the city from filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, a move which would have preserved pension benefits for city workers.  But, as the Detroit Free Press reports, attorneys for the city requested a five minute delay.  Ronald King, attorney for the retirement system, agreed to the delay, and during the five minute respite, city attorneys filed for bankruptcy protection in another court, thereby thwarting the attempt to preserve pension benefits.

Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina later told King "It was my intention to grant your request," referring to the injunction which would have stopped the bankruptcy filing.


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Please make clear that we had a supermajority of democrats and all 3 branches of government and could not get universal health care because the party's leadership and majority are neo-liberals not labor and justice.  If unions and the democratic base do not vote neo-liberals out by running and voting for labor and justice candidates.....we will not turn this around!

Unions are now working for Universal care because they know neo-liberals are planning to take all health benefits from people!  Think Entitlements will survive in neo-liberal private health systems?  They will be thrown into these private systems just as Rawlings-Blake is doing with public sector pensions making them 401Ks

New York City Labor Council Endorses HR 676 July 22, 2013 by Healthcare-NOW!  
Filed under Single-Payer News

By Kay Tillow, UnionsForSinglePayer.org –

The Executive Board of the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, unanimously approved a resolution supporting HR 676, national single payer health care legislation, sponsored by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).

NYC CLC President Vincent Alvarez calls this resolution “Labor’s way of standing up for the health and well-being of working men and women and their families,” noting “The national legislation is a true means of controlling ever-increasing healthcare costs, while ensuring that Americans get the medical care they so desperately need.”

In the resolution, the Council notes that almost every union is forced to battle and sacrifice to sustain healthcare benefits for members. The Council also notes that while the United States spends twice as much of our GDP on healthcare as other developed nations, we remain the only industrialized country without universal healthcare coverage.

Robert Score, Recording-Corresponding Secretary of IATSE (Theatrical & Stage Employees) Local One, said “As we all know, nobody in the United States should have to choose between healthcare and keeping a roof over their heads, food on their table or clothing on their children. HR 676 will prevent such calamities. I am thankful to President Alvarez for guiding the NYC CLC to endorse HR 676.” IATSE Local One submitted the resolution that was passed.

The NYC CLC, the 146th CLC to endorse HR 676, represents 300 local unions with a total membership of 1.3 million.

In other news also, on July 19th Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of California’s 46th district became the 44th co-sponsor of HR 676.


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We are seeing the US and UK following similar paths and the UK is always the harbinger of what is next in the US......

Keep in mind that Labor was taken by Blair....a neo-liberal just as the democratic party was taken by Clinton....a neo-liberal.  So, as with the democratic party in the US, the UK's Labor Party is still trying to shake the bugs out of the rug!


A Defining Moment For Trade Unionism

Posted on July 14, 2013 by admin

By Professor Keith Ewing, Vice President of the Campaign For Trade Union Freedom

Trade union leaders are now under great pressure.  They and they alone have the opportunity to stop Miliband’s breath-taking changes from happening, and the opportunity to defend the principle of collective affiliation. 

It is true that Miliband’s proposals will not need legislation in order to be implemented.  But they will require a change to the Labour Party’s rules, UNLESS every union agrees voluntarily to accept any new arrangements about to be proposed by Lord Collins of Highbury.

Without an agreement, each union will be free to continue to affiliate to the Party on its own terms, as at present.   But because not every union leader will be able or will want to deliver an agreement of this kind, rule change at some stage is inevitable.

So far as the unions themselves are concerned, Miliband’s proposals as a minimum will require every union to adopt the UNISON model – an Affiliated Political Fund (APF) and a General Political Fund (GPF) – a model born of an amalgamation of two political cultures in one organization.

Good news for UNISON, who will come through this trauma largely unscathed.   But not such good news for all the other unions, who will be required to change their rules if they are to retain the right to affiliate to the Labour Party.

No doubt Lord Collins will be able to help here, by drafting model rules which may have to be adopted by all affiliates, these likely to require all affiliated unions to establish two political funds, one for those members who choose to affiliate to Labour, and one for those who do not.

These rules will then have to be approved by the regular rules revision procedures of each of the affiliated trade unions individually.   It is presumably being taken for granted that trade unionists can be taken for granted to go along with this, and nod it through.

With two funds, trade unions will be able to use (i) the affiliated fund to pay affiliation fees to the Labour Party and (ii) the general political fund to pay for various campaigns, which include campaigns in support of Labour or Labour candidates at elections (as at present).

The latter funds (the general political funds) are likely to become very significant, if the UNISON Model is any guide, as many members will choose to support their union’s political activities without supporting the Labour party.

The problem, however, is that these anticipated general political funds are about to become redundant.  On 4 June 2013, Cameron announced proposals for new controls on trade union spending in elections, proposals which not enough people are taking seriously enough.

If these plans are implemented (and why would they not be?) any election expenditure by a trade union affiliated to the Labour party (including presumably from a union’s general political fund) will count as Labour Party expenditure.

Being treated as Labour Party expenditure, it will count towards the Party’s spending limit for the purposes of election law.   According to the BBC, the same will apply in relation to union expenditure in support of candidates at constituency level.

For anyone harbouring the delusion that the Miliband proposals will release money for election campaigning, forget it.   If Cameron’s plans are implemented, trade unions will only be able to spend money at election time with the consent of the Party or its candidates.

 There is no reason why the Party would authorise trade unions to speak on its behalf in this way.  And if the party’s fortunes revive with the anticipated influx of private donations as a result of the Miliband reforms, it would not be able legally to do so.

This is a defining moment for the political voice of trade unionism, which it is the misfortune of the current generation of general secretaries to have to defend.   Having been marginalised industrially, trade unions are in the process of being marginalized politically.

As matters stand, this will be seen as a great victory for Progress, with trade unions being trussed up like Christmas turkeys.

While all unions will not be equally affected by the changes required, all unions will be diminished if the collective trade union voice grows ever more faint.

__________________________________________________

Regarding NPR's attempt at pushing aristocracy:

If you read international journalism you will see confusion by people in the UK for all of US media attention to the Royal birth. No one here cares says most people in the UK.....it is just US media hype. So why does NPR seem intent to make Royal watching public interest? BECAUSE THEY ARE STATE MEDIA WORKING FOR A PLUTOCRACY THINKING ITSELF ELITE!

Here is what is really happening in Europe.....

The scale and breadth of recent protests is unprecedented: people, in many cases suppressed for many years, are awakening demanding participation and social justice. The young lead the charge, seeing clearly the need for a new way of living, one that observes human rights and allows, indeed encourages freedom of expression and new inclusive political systems free from the ideological constraints of the past

‘The people have awakened’


This article does a good job at showing there is revolutionary movements in Europe and the UK just as there are here in America. We will see an uprising soon against a criminal and corrupt system and a move back to democracy and first world quality of life as soon as we shake the bugs from the rug!

WorldWide Social Activism

Demanding change


Change is afoot. Confronted with state corruption and corporate greed, abuse of human rights, environmental chaos and extreme levels of economic and social injustice, the people, overwhelmingly the young are taking to the streets demanding change, and a new political/economic system, that is inclusive and just.
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July 16th, 2013

7/16/2013

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WHEN YOU HAVE PUBLIC AGENCIES THAT FEEL THEY CAN OPENLY LIE TO THE PUBLIC WITH NO REPERCUSSION.....YOU DO NOT HAVE A FIRST WORLD, RULE OF LAW COUNTRY.....YOU HAVE AN AUTOCRACY.



Regarding the rally and march in downtown Baltimore yesterday:

I attended the march yesterday and was able to talk to every news outlet on site.....WJZ, WBAL, WBFF, the AP, and Real News.  I spoke with each one about the history of news coverage that had Zimmerman with no injuries at the time of the killing and every one of them acknowledged knowing that ABC news feed showing the Sanford police department video.  I had some verbally say.....'she knows'.  Almost all of the people with whom I spoke at the rally remember that news feed except our Police Chief Batts.  Amazingly when I told him that as the representative for Justice in Baltimore it was his duty to shout out to US Attorney General Eric Holder to call for a mistrial because of judicial/prosecutoral negligence, his comment was 'I didn't see the video'.  For a police chief in a city with high racial profiling and harassment of people of color not to be familiar with this video is like a defensive football coach not reviewing another team's play action.  We can safely assume this intelligent police chief saw the video.  I directed him to my website just in case.

While at the City Hall rally we noticed undercover police pretending to be part of the crowd taking pictures of those at the rally.  There was no mistaking these two as undercover as they were built like special ops personnel and had a knife holster wrapped at the ankle.  I stood by them and watched as they snapped pictures all around them with their cell phones.  I then informed them that it is illegal for the police to take pictures of people protesting to put in a file.  After all, what are police doing with those photos if not putting them in a file?  We know that Governor Ehrlich was chastised for having the state police do the same thing...... because it is illegal.  The article below explains this law that the Baltimore police choose to ignore:

 Denver Police Keeps "Spy Files" on Peaceful Protesters

June 20, 2003  ACLU
Denver Police Keeps "Spy Files" on Peaceful Protesters


So, I basically shouted to all around these officers that these police were acting illegally and headed towards police positioned around the entire periphery of City Hall.  I told one officer that I needed him to write a report on the undercover police officers breaking the law by photographing peaceful protesters with the intent of including them into a file.  That officer blew me off by saying an officer can photograph and told me to get a lawyer if it bothered me.  I reported a crime and the officer refused to investigate.

My encounter for those few hours from Police Chief, to undercover police, to street police all involved negligence in acknowledging Rule of Law was being openly broken.  The good thing that is coming from all these rallies and protests is the city is becoming aware of the crime and corruption at the City Hall and throughout public agencies and are sick and tired.  As the megaphone directed time and again.....vote all those incumbents out of office.....and we will!



Denver Police Keeps "Spy Files" on Peaceful Protesters


June 20, 2003 Denver Police Keeps "Spy Files" on Peaceful Protesters  ACLU

Glen Morris, a Native American activist, learned in early February of 2003 that a rival faction of the American Indian Movement had once staged a plot to kill him.  He learned this after reading a secret file the Denver Police Department had kept on him for 16 years. The Denver Police knew about the plot but never bothered contacting him. 


His file was only the tip of an iceberg. 

On February 7, 2003, the Denver Police made public 1,500 pages of the so-called ""Spy File". More than 300 people jammed police headquarters, wondering whether they were the focus of police intelligence. Representatives of 70 groups also showed up. The document was the product of nearly five decades of intelligence-gathering and contained more than 3,200 people and 208 organizations. 

Many of those people did nothing more than attending peaceful protests and conferences. Some of them did more activist work, such as volunteering with Amnesty International and the American Friends Service Committee (both of which are recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize).

"These kind of practices have the potential to harm people's ability or willingness to freely express criticism of government policies, chilling free speech." - Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of the ACLU of Colorado

The ACLU filed a class action in state court to challenge the Denver Police Department's custom and practice of spying on peaceful protesters, maintaining the "Spy Files" and disseminating information from the files to third parties. 

Another released document showed that Denver intelligence officers spied on the participants of a conference by collecting the license plate numbers of their vehicles in the parking lot, and then listed their corresponding names and home addresses in the Spy Files.

At yet another instance, the Colorado Springs Police Department supplied the information of 80 participants of a peaceful demonstration, along with the license plate numbers of 30 of them, to the Denver intelligence Bureau. James Wattles, a Denver Intelligence officer subsequently produced a document that listed the corresponding names and addresses of the 30 participants.

The ACLU of Colorado also obtained documents that indicate that the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF) has been gathering information and creating files on the activities of peaceful protesters who have no connection to terrorism or any other criminal activity.

The terms of agreement ACLU reached with the Denver Police to resolve the Spy Files lawsuit became effective on May 7, 2003 with Judge Nottingham's signed order:

""Denver has agreed to put an end to its decades-long practice of monitoring and keeping files on peaceful critics of government policy who have no connection to criminal activity,"" said Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of the ACLU of Colorado. ""The end of this political spying enhances the professionalism of the police department and is a victory for the First Amendment and for the civil liberties of all people in Denver. 

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This is why agencies like the police and justice department no longer pay attention to the public.....they no longer see themselves working for you and me....they work for the executive (corporate CEO)....when this happens and elections are no longer free and fair because incumbent political machines control all politics in a state.....you have autocracy, not democracy!  This is how the Chinese Politburo works.


Why the U.S. Executive Branch Is a Clear and Present Danger to Our Democracy Congress, judiciary and the mass media no longer provide constitutionally mandated checks and balances; they are largely extensions of Executive power.

July 16, 2013  |           Editor's Note: The following is the latest in a series on the Executive Branch of the United States.  

Edward Snowden's revelations have illuminated the most critical political issue facing America today: how an authoritarian U.S. Executive Branch which has focused on war abroad for the last 50 years now devotes increasing resources to surveillance, information management, and population control at home, posing a far greater threat to Americans' liberties than any conceivable foreign foe.

Snowden's view of the basic issue  is that "I don't want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship,is recorded. That's not something I'm willing to live under."

Whether millions of other Americans accept the new surveillance status quo will determine the future not only of privacy but democracy in this nation. For even the critical issue of U.S. government of surveillance is only a part of a far larger pattern of undemocratic and unaccountable Executive Branch behavior, at home and abroad. The problem is not only that the Executive Branch operates in antidemocratic secrecy, with an “ Insider Threat Program” that even requires its employees to inform on each other or risk losing their jobs. It has also subverted the Congress, judiciary and mass media, so that they no longer provide constitutionally mandated checks and balances, and are instead largely today extensions of Executive power.

How do you feel about the fact that as you read these words the U.S. Executive Branch is storing information about your phone calls and Internet messages which, even years from now, could be used to embarrass, control and/or harass you, defeat you in an election, cause you to lose a job, break up your marriage, or even threaten you with imprisonment? Many say “I have nothing to worry about, I’m not a Muslim terrorist.” But this displays a naïve complacency about the massive pools of data the Executive is collecting that have nothing to do with protecting us from a relative handful of Muslim terrorists, and could easily be misused by secret and unaccountable government agencies in the future.

Even centrists like  Tom Friedman and Bob Woodward have warned that America could turn into a "police-state" should another 9/11 occur. And the Executive Branch has created more of an  infrastructure for such a state than ever in our history under a Democratic president who professes a belief in civil liberties. Should a Republican become president in 2016, with a Cheney-like mindset using  “unitary Executive theory” to grab even more power, democracy could become little more than a pleasant daydream.

What is most troubling about America's political class today, who have mostly castigated Snowden but not even dared criticize a Dianne Feinstein for keeping U.S. Executive surveillance secret from the American people she theoretically represents, is not only that they are "willing to live under" a Surveillance State. It is that they don't even want to know.

They shoot the messenger rather than dare face his message, displaying precisely the kind of complacency that causes democracy to die.

Even decent pundits who oppose excessive wiretapping have buried their heads in the sand about Executive threats to democracy. N.Y. Magazine's  Jonathan Chait has  put it in the category of just another "non-scandal" like Benghazi or the IRS, writing "but when the president is carrying out duly passed laws and acting at every stage with judicial approval, then the issue is the laws themselves, not misconduct." This is seconded by Paul Krugman: "as Chait says, NSA stuff is a policy dispute, not the kind of scandal the right wing wants."


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No one in Baltimore will forget just last year when Mr Anderson was horribly kicked to death by police and all evidence pointed to the police lying about the incident and the City Attorney refused to bring charges even as the the City Examiner declared his death a homicide. 

Below you see we have been dealing with this for far too long and as we see today....it is getting worse, not better.  When the City Council and Mayor bring to Baltimore a Police Chief that has a decades long record for corrupt administrations and police brutality you see the problem.....CITY HALL!


November 24, 2009
Police integrity stings -- another failure

Baltimore prosecutors today dropped criminal charges against a Baltimore police officer who was caught in an undercover integrity sting. It's another in a string of failures over the years in police attempts to target corruption this way.

Like other cases in years past, the one against Officer Michael Sylvester appeared to be clear-cut. As Sun crime reporter Justin Fenton writes:

According to charging documents, the Police Department's Integrity Testing Unit placed a call to a police dispatcher about 9:45 p.m. Sept. 2, reporting a suspicious person -- in reality an undercover officer -- who was "acting strange" at the intersection of Carlisle Avenue and Mt. Holly Street. Sylvester was dispatched to the call with a police officer trainee and quizzed the undercover detective. He ordered him to empty his pockets and sit on the curb while Sylvester searched his vehicle.

The undercover officer had been given $259 in marked departmental money, which he put in his pants pocket, and $135 that had been placed in the armrest of his vehicle. After Sylvester let the undercover officer go, the undercover detective determined that $50 was missing from his pocket and $20 was missing from the vehicle.

Officers wrote in charging documents that the entire incident was recorded on video and audio with multiple officers listening in, and officers conducted surveillance on Sylvester throughout his shift. On Sept. 3, officers executed a search warrant, finding the $70 in marked funds and another $90 in Sylvester's possession. In his locker, police said they found a zip-lock-type bag containing a rock substance suspected to be cocaine.

So why did city prosecutors in the State's Attorney's Office drop the case? We don't know and no one is saying. The officer's defense attorney said he hadn't gotten discovery so he doesn't know any details. Prosecutors would only say there were "inconsistencies" in the case compiled by police. And police declined to comment (the officer still has to face administrative charges).

Hundreds of integrity tests are done, some at random, others targeted at officers for whom complaints have been lodged. I've looked back through our newspaper clips and can find only one case, in 2003, in which an officer pleaded guilty -- to administrative charges of misconduct.

That same year, 2003, an officer was acquitted in court of planting drugs on an innocent man. That case too appeared clearcut. The officer wrote under oath that she saw the suspect plant drugs behind a bush when in fact an undercover detective had put the drugs there and then called 911 to report drug activity. But the officer's lawyer said police complicated their case by broadcasting a fake description that gave the officer probable cause to stop and question somebody.

In 2000, police charged Agent Brian L. Sewell in a similar case, planting fake drugs on a park bench which the officer later used to plant on a burglary suspect. But that case too got compromised by a series of blunders and prosecutors quickly dismissed the charges.

The history of these stings is problematic:

A succession of Baltimore police commissioners have argued that these stings are important to keeping cops honest, and that they've done hundreds without uncovering corruption means they are effective in preventing abuse. Police union officials and some former commanders have argued the stings, especially random ones, are useless and a waste of time.

In some cases, undercover officers plant money and see if officers take it. In other cases, they plant fake drugs and see if the cops use those drugs to charge someone else. But even if this is an effective way of preventing or combating corruption, the department's track record on convictions is dismal.

And the refusal of anyone to talk about why cases, such as this latest one today, are failing even before they get to court raises serious questions about the department's internal affairs operation. There obviously is something they're not doing to help prosecutors win cases, and the public and the cops deserve to know more details about what's being done.

Cops and the public deserve good police but if the department feels these stings are necessary and effective, they at least need to assure both the public and the police that they're being carried out fairly and competently. That prosecutors are simply dropping the cases is unfair to the cop, who is now tainted by what appears to have been a badly investigated case, and unfair to the public that can't be assured its police force is being properly monitored.




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July 15th, 2013

7/15/2013

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IF WE CONTINUE TO ALLOW ELECTED OFFICIALS AND AGENCY HEADS TO OPENLY LIE TO THE PUBLIC WE HAVE LOST OUR PLACE AS CITIZENS AND OUR COUNTRY BEING FIRST WORLD AND DEMOCRATIC.....IT IS A BIG DEAL!


We heard yesterday about the acquittal of Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin.  I wanted to look today at how media and public access to public information is being dismantled each time we privatize part of the public sector.  Make no mistake,....the intention is to privatize the police and fire departments across the country with these same private contractor military police corporations.....just as they are giving our public transportation to the French corporation VEOLA.  Each time this happens the public loses its voice in how these public projects work and we lose oversight and accountability as well.

I reminded people that when the Trayvon Martin killing first happened the major news networks had a few days of showing videotape of Zimmerman arriving at Sanford police headquarters right after the shooting.  This is ABC/NBC news who obtained police department camera feed and they made it public on the nightly news.  The video clearly shows Zimmerman with no injuries to his head or face.  The link below shows this ABC footage.  Before you do conspiracy theory about the video.....I DID SEE IT ON NATIONAL NEWS STATIONS...IT IS NOT MANUFACTURED.

This is one of the best videos....no injuries folks!


George Zimmerman Shows No Sign of Injury in Video Taken After Killing
newsfeed.time.com ABC News showed this as well.....

George Zimmerman told police he shot Trayvon Martin after a vicious, bloody attack. But a police video of him being taken in for questioning.....

After this initial showing on national news a few days later Zimmerman appeared again at police headquarters and this time he had the head and face injuries and I remember the comments from reporters then was that he had taken those few days and had friends rough him up to make it look like he was attacked.  WE ALL FELT SURE THAT ZIMMERMAN WAS THE AGGRESSOR.   Then NBC received news it was to be sued for a segment that was edited in what Zimmerman's team said showed bias and that was the end of media coverage.

What happened to that video footage during the trial?  We heard EMTs testify that Zimmerman had those injuries when they took him to the hospital.  My point here is that we are seeing police department activity censored from public view in this case and cases across America.  The police and fire are public agencies and there should be no need to hide behind lack of transparency. 


Below you see how in Baltimore the media is trying to report the facts and then the police are openly changing the details to hide misconduct.  We have police chases in downtown Baltimore that have the the person pursued plowing through traffic lights hitting other cars and pedestrians all the time and it is illegal for police to be in pursuit in the city.  THERE IS NEVER ANY PUBLIC COMMENT BY THE POLICE OR THE CITY ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE ABOUT THE POLICE OPENLY FLAUNTING LAWS AND EVERY ATTEMPT TO KEEP IT OUT OF THE MEDIA.  This appears to be just what was happening in this case i n Florida.  We don't know, but it feels as though the Sanford police department told these news media that they were not allowed to show this footage.

I want to emphasize that this is not Rule of Law and it is not first world.....this kind of behavior with police disregarding law and hiding it is second and third world and illegal.  In Baltimore, we have public justice people who run for office that ignore all of what is government corruption and corporate crime. 

IF YOU DO NOT SHOUT LOUDLY AND STRONGLY FOR THESE INCREMENTAL LOSES OF RULE OF LAW REGARDING PUBLIC RIGHTS AND JUSTICE WE WILL LOSE ALL OUR RIGHTS AS CITIZENS AND THAT IS TO WHERE THEY ARE GOING!

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE.....IF YOUR POL WAS SHOUTING AND BEING VERY PUBLIC AGAINST THIS THE BEHAVIOR WOULD STOP.


Driver of car in fatal City Hall crash charged with manslaughter Eyewitness says trooper following Acura "was going foot-on-the-floor fast."


Fern Shen April 15, 2013 at 7:42 pm   Baltimore Brew

Stephen Hersl outside Baltimore City Hall at the spot where a car struck and killed his brother.

Nearly one week after a speeding car careened off Interstate 83, striking and killing a city worker in front of City Hall, police have arrested the 43-year-old Baltimore man who was driving the car.

Johnny Johnson, of the 2400 block of Francis Street, was charged with “manslaughter by automobile, homicide by motor vehicle while impaired by drugs, driving under the influence of drugs, driving under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of heroin, possession of cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia and numerous traffic violations,” according to an emailed press release from the Maryland State Police (MSP).

Immediately following the April 9 crash that killed longtime city employee Matthew Hersl, the State Police said the driver of the Acura that struck him had been released, his name withheld pending investigation.

The subsequent decision on how to charge Johnson was made after the MSP consulted with the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, according to the release.

“The warrant was served on Johnson today by members of the Maryland State Apprehension Team with the assistance of the Baltimore Warrant Fugitive Task Force,” the MSP release says, noting that  Johnson is being processed at Central Booking.

Investigators from the MSP’s CRASH Team, under the guidance of the Baltimore City States Attorney’s Office, applied for and obtained an arrest warrant today and apprehended Johnson shortly after 1:00 p.m. “while walking to his residence,” the release said.

It noted that “evidence has been obtained which indicated that Johnson had drugs in his system at the time of the fatal crash.”

Eyewitness Saw Trooper Flooring It

Still murky is the involvement of a Maryland State trooper in the incident.

A trooper, who first encountered the Acura on I-83, had followed it off the highway and into city streets. State Police spokesman Marc Black said at the time that the 2000 Acura TL had been traveling at speeds that may have exceeded 100 miles-per-hour.


But the trooper following him, Black had said, was approaching from a distance and his conduct did not amount to a high-speed chase.


But a man who saw the state police car as it passed the 200 block of Holliday Street, just moments before the crash, told The Brew today that the trooper was clearly in pursuit.

“I had my hand on the doorknob to go out. . . and I heard this screech-of-tires sound of a car as it’s slowing down abruptly and then taking off,” said Paul Jay, CEO and senior editor of the Real News Network’s Baltimore Bureau, which is located at the corner of Holliday and Saratoga streets.

Jay said he opened the blinds on his door, looked out and saw – no more than seven to 10 seconds after the screeching sound – a state trooper’s car barreling down Holliday Street.

“What flies by is a trooper and he’s going foot-on-the-floor fast. He’s just whipping by,” said Jay, who said he could not remember if the trooper had his lights and siren on. Jay said he thought it likely the driver saw the trooper but added that he couldn’t rule out the possibility that he just took off on his own. Jay noted that the whole incident may well have been captured by a city security camera at that intersection.


Black said he could not comment, beyond his earlier statements, on what the trooper had been doing that day, adding that the matter is still under investigation. (Anyone with information regarding this crash is still asked to contact the Maryland State Police, Golden Ring Barrack at 410-780-2700.)

Black was asked if the state police, when in crowded city streets,  follow Baltimore City Police protocol prohibiting officers from conducting high-speed chases unless “the driver or passengers are believed to have committed a violent crime or pose a risk to public safety.”

(That’s how city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi described the policy to the Baltimore Sun in a 2010 story about an officer suspended after a high-speed chase that led to a motorcyclist’s death.)

No, Black said, “we follow our own policy.” He said in general, troopers “are responsible for whatever actions are taken” and drive “in a manner that’s as safe as possible.”

“Re-Living his Death”

Hours before the arrest was announced, Matthew Hersl’s brother Stephen Hersl  stood in front of City Hall, holding a bag of personal items from his brother’s office at the Department of Finance that he had just retrieved.

“I keep thinking of him standing right here, with his head turned and a car coming so fast from right there,” Stephen Hersl said, pointing up Holliday Street. “It’s why I haven’t been able to sleep, I haven’t been able to eat.”

Hersl said he hadn’t been able to focus on the question of charges against the driver, the high-speed chase or any of those details.

“We’re aware of all that.  We hear the rumblings. But I’m just hoping the process will take care of itself,” he said, holding the bobble head dolls and other items from his brother’s desk as workers behind him labored to replace the utility pole knocked down by the hurtling Acura.

“I’m still re-living his death,” Hersl said, explaining that at the time of the crash, his brother had been talking on his cell phone with another community leader about a meeting scheduled that night .

“He would have been standing here, his head would have been turned,” he said, retracing his brother’s last steps. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”


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Here we have an article about the Fairfax County police and you can see here what is happening all across the country and especially in Baltimore and whereas you  can read all kinds of academic studies that show a widespread decline in police accountability when you read a story of it in the news....it is brief and rare.  I read lots of stories of police brutality and lack of transparency for Baltimore's new police Chief Batts from Long Beach, Calif.....but all the media praised him and all warts on his record were hidden.  Now we have police officers killing citizens, breaking laws, and more and more public accountability is disappearing.  When citizens recently complained about this the police spokesperson came on the news and said WE ARE RUNNING A CONSTITUTIONAL POLICE DEPARTMENT.

OH REALLY?



"There's No Transparency, and I Find that Inexcusable" Meet the 82-year-old ex-cop, World War II vet, and private eye who's challenging one of the largest police departments in the country. Radley Balko | June 14, 2010

At a stoplight just a few miles from his home, Nicholas Beltrante, 82, puts on his flashers, opens the driver's side door to his car, gets out, and approaches my car. I roll down my window.

"You see that little memorial over there?" he asks. I nod. "That's where a Fairfax County Police officer killed Ashley McIntosh." He starts to offer more detail, then realizes the middle of an intersection probably isn't the best place to fill me in. "I'll tell you more about it when we get to Ruby Tuesdays," he says.

Beltrante asked me to lunch (disclosure: his treat) last month after seeing a column I wrote on the striking lack of transparency among Northern Virginia's three largest police departments. He wanted to discuss his new organization, the Virginia Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability (VCCPA), which he says he started in order to fight what he calls the "decades of corruption and secrecy at the police department here in Fairfax County."

In addition to passion, Beltrante brings some gravitas to the project. He points to his "World War II Veteran" license plate. Beltrante served as a Navy medic. "People still come up and thank me," he says, referring to the license plate. "Always makes my day." Beltrante worked for the D.C. Metro police department for 14 years, retiring with the rank of sergeant detective. He then opened a private detective agency, which he ran for 30 years. The Democratic National Committee hired his agency to sweep their office for bugs after the Watergrate break-in. (Beltrante met his wife Patricia—to whom he's been married for 35 years—when she came to the agency with suspicions that her then-husband was cheating. He was.)

Ashley McIntosh was killed in February 2008 when Fairfax County Police Officer Amanda Perry, responding to a petty theft at a convenience store, sped through an intersection without sounding her siren, striking McIntosh's car. Perry was charged with reckless driving, the first time in decades an on-duty Fairfax County cop was charged with a crime. A judge later dismissed the charge, though Perry was ultimately discharged from the force for falsifying time sheets.

"They finally settled with the family in February," Beltrante says. "$1.5 million. That's $1.5 million taxpayers have to pay because Fairfax can't keep its police officers accountable."

Beltrante emphasizes that it isn't the mistakes but the lack of accountability that got him agitated enough to start his organization.
"You have this David Masters who was killed last year," he says, referring to another incident in which a Fairfax officer shot an unarmed man along the same highway. "They won't even release the police officer's name. They won't even release the report. We're just supposed to trust them when they say that shooting was justified. I've worked in government. You don't keep the government accountable by shielding the people who work for it. There's this perception in some departments that officers are above the law."

Beltrante recently received some assistance to get his website up and running. But for the first several months of its existence, he ran the VCCPA from a typewriter, fax machine, and telephone in his home. "The phone rings all the time," he says. "There are more than enough complaints to keep me busy."

He then rattles off stories. There's the NAACP complaint about Randall Leroy Rollins, a black man killed by Fairfax police in 2007 during a drug sting. Police say Rollins reached for a gun. Witness accounts differ from police accounts. More disturbing, Rollins' family says when his body was delivered to them, his testicles had been removed. (Rollins was with a white woman at the time of the sting.)

There's Sal Culosi, the Fairfax optometrist killed during a 2006 botched SWAT raid on his home. Culosi was suspected of wagering on college football games with friends. Then there's Ian Smith, a mentally-ill man shot by Fairfax police just this year after a tactical team entered his home and he brandished a plastic BB pistol.

Beltrante acknowledges that the actions of the police may have been justified in some of these incidents. "The problem is that they refuse to share any information. Not with the press, not with the victims' families. Their transparency policy is that there's no transparency. And I find that inexcusable."

Beltrante eventually wants to start chapters of his organization in Richmond, Hampton Roads, and other cities across Virginia. First, however, he wants Fairfax to establish a formal civilian review board to oversee the police department. It's one of the largest police departments in the country without a citizen oversight board. Beltrante also wants to challenge Virginia's open records law, or at least the way the police departments in Alexandria, Fairfax County, and Arlington have interpreted it, which is that it gives them carte blanche to turn down any and all information requests.

"I've already filed the open records request for the report and the name of the police officer who shot David Masters," Beltrante says. "They turned me down, as I expected they would. We hope to work with the ACLU to either challenge the law in court, or get the legislature to change it. Think about that. An officer shoots and kills an unarmed man and we're not permitted to even know the officer's name. I find that offensive as a former police officer, as a veteran, and just as someone who happens to live in Fairfax County."

Radley Balko is a senior editor at Reason magazine.

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If you do not believe Rule of Law has disappeared in the US you see that at a time when corporate fraud hits tens of trillions Obama has less action in investigation and prosecution than did Bush.  Bush based his entire Presidency on letting corporations get away with anything and we elected Obama to reverse this....rather, he doubled-down on this fraud free-for-all. 



Thursday, November 17, 2011

Criminal Prosecutions for Financial Fraud FALLING Under Obama

In the latest example of the Same-Old-Shit We Shouldn't Believe In, it was reported on Tuesday that prosecutions of financial institution fraud under the Obama administration are far LOWER than they were under President George Bush the Lesser (though in fairness, as you can see in the chart above, the annual total dropped throughout Bush's presidency and would have no doubt continued to do so had he stayed in office).
Federal prosecutions for financial institution fraud have continued their downward slide despite the financial troubles reported in this sector. The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during the first eleven months of FY 2011 the government reported 1,251 new prosecutions were filed. If this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of prosecutions will be 1,365 for this fiscal year, down 28.6 percent from their numbers of just five years ago and less than half the level prevalent a decade ago. See Table 1.

The comparisons of the number of defendants charged with financial institution fraud offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys.What more evidence do you need that Obama has merely been running Bush's third term? After the financial crash of 2008, the federal government should have put at LEAST as much effort in combating financial fraud as it does on terrorism. The numbers on that chart should have quickly doubled or more from Bush's last year in office, and yet exactly the opposite has occurred.

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    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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