tagged w/ Government Corruption
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I fully support Obama's decision and position on Gitmo, but I would take it a step further and do the entirely unconventional; I would embrace the terrorist.
Sounds crazy and if you are smart you ask why in the world would I do that??
First; we need to move beyond the concept of adversarial positions and seek to understand why they sought to do what they did.
Let's take a lesson from Israel's brain dead and immature policies (please forgive me, I mean no disrespect nor to defame immature people by lumping together the Israeli governments collective brain power and actions with immature people in general here), killing people does nothing to change an adversarial sentiment / feeling / belief / position, it actually strengthens it creating or evoking the opposite response desired or a person's claimed desire, witness the never ending battles between Israel and it's neighbors. In Israel's case, I think they know what they are doing and it's the land of their neighbors they covet.
Second; the Busheney administration let some "detainees" out and since we've found 1 in 7 returned to terrorism. Convenient for the Busheney cranial void to keep the threat of terrorism alive for their personal political ambitions and gain, but convenient because they could then use it in an attempt to "justify" the existence and ongoing use of Gitmo.
At the very least, it showed the vacuous Busheney cranial cavity was either negligent, incompetent or complicit to some degree in the perpetration of ongoing terrorist acts in the world. After all, they had complete control of every aspect of Gitmo and the "detainees" held there.
Third; assuming the impossible, that the Busheney "frain buck" (enjoy sorting that one out) wasn't attempting to manipulate American's perception by letting the terrorists out, the fact 1 in 7 "detainees" returned to "terrorism" is testimony to the reality the United States judicial system, the popularly held ideas and beliefs about it and it's effectiveness, it's purpose and relevance to society and humanity alike... IS WASHED UP, MISTAKEN, BROKEN and illustrates a profound misunderstanding and IGNORANCE of people, of self, of psychology, of constructive purpose, of direction, of usefulness, etc., etc., etc.
Fourth; it would behoove us to find out why they feel the way they do, why? and WHY? Our broken down system does little to ask that question because WHY?
Chenerific and friends were more interested in covering their own ASS (using what was known to produce false confessions linking Al Queda to Iraq) than seeking out the reasons WHY? If we asked why and learned something maybe, just maybe we'd realize we caused it and then could change our own actions to alleviate the threat. Maybe, we could learn something and have some understanding and then we could go to the middle east (or where ever) and be proactive at addressing the problems to make America and the world safer.
Maybe, maybe, our ambitions were the villain and that villain did not want to admit it's crimes. Maybe that villain feeling justified and intoxicated by it's own power to destroy didn't care about the consequences their actions had on other people or countries. Maybe, the manner in which the Busheney gang went about things REFLECTS the fact they were the perpetrators of terror under the guise of "defending America", and that every action was an attempt to justify or hide their intentions and aggression. It isn't hard to see.
Wasn't it largely about Iraq's OIL!?
As for Cheney carrying on, he can't give up the battling position he's grown accused to over the previous eight years. Someone tell him to go home.I fully support Obama's decision and position on Gitmo, but I would take it a... more
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Texas, Bush's state, is a lawless gang wonderland where Governor Rick Perry oversees mafia / street gang style extortion on the part of law enforcement officials according to CNN's investigation.
Is it too much to ask that those who make their living to protect and represent Americans to actually do their jobs and that they be held accountable?
Makes one wonder about the sanity and morality of those judges, district attorneys, the Attorney General of Texas, assembly members, Representatives and Senators of the state of Texas who have turned a blind eye to what's going on.
The Texas two step? The city's District Attorney, Mayor and it's policemen should all be prosecuted.
An excerpt from the article:
"The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car.
But Daniels couldn't go to the police to report the incident.
The men who stopped him were the police.
Daniels was stopped on U.S. Highway 59 outside Tenaha, near the Louisiana state line. Police said he was driving 37 mph in a 35 mph zone. They hauled him off to jail and threatened him with money-laundering charges -- but offered to release him if he signed papers forfeiting his property.
"I actually thought this was a joke," Daniels told CNN."
More at link: http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=104245.0Texas, Bush's state, is a lawless gang wonderland where Governor Rick Perry... more
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Obama's DoJ picks have their mouths tightly slurping on RIAA & MPAA bigwigs' peckers, but their claim of "national security" reasons to deny Freedom of Information Act requests about their intentions regarding copyright law changes and the new "multinational treaty" they intend to ratify really could choke a two-dollar whoreObama's DoJ picks have their mouths tightly slurping on RIAA & MPAA... more
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I have proposed the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate abuses during the Bush-Cheney Administration -- so they never happen again. These abuses may include the use of torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws.
Please sign this online petition, urging Congress to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's abuses.I have proposed the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate... more
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Reporting from Berners Bay, Alaska -- Sitting like a turquoise gem in a bowl of hemlock, Sitka spruce and ice, Berners Bay has long been a jewel of Alaska's Tongass National Forest.
In the spring, swarms of tiny eulachon rush in to spawn, and the bay floods with hundreds of killer whales, humpback whales and sea lions in hot pursuit, along with eagles and seabirds by the thousands. Fishermen flock to its herring, salmon and Dungeness crab. Its chilly, tranquil waters are a favorite destination for kayakers.Reporting from Berners Bay, Alaska -- Sitting like a turquoise gem in a bowl of... more
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror interrogations, far more than has previously been acknowledged.
The revelation Monday comes as a criminal prosecutor is wrapping up his investigation in the matter.
The acknowledgment of dozens of destroyed tapes came in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York, where the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking more details of terror interrogation programs.WASHINGTON (AP) -- New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror... more
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In a Feb. 23 memo to the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, officials in the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration said inaccurate inventory records at the lab's plutonium research, development and processing facility raised doubts about the lab's ability to "deter and detect theft and diversion of special nuclear material."
The memo was in response to the findings of a special review team's assessment of an "incident of security concern" involving amounts of nuclear material "that exceeded alarm limits with no suspicion of theft or diversion" earlier this month.In a Feb. 23 memo to the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, officials in... more
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The acting Pentagon inspector general Thursday detailed for the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee billions of dollars of waste from excessive prices, unjustified expenses and fraud and criminal activity in military contracts, largely due to an understaffed, poorly trained contracting work force coping with an explosive growth in spending.
The examples provided by Gordon Heddell ranged from Marine Corps officials failing to determine what were "fair and reasonable" prices for armored vehicles rushed to Iraq in a $9.1 billion program to a firm that fraudulently charged $24 million for shipping thousands of dollars of small parts to the war zone.
The owners' final act before being caught was charging $998,798 to ship two flat washers worth 19 cents each, Heddell said.The acting Pentagon inspector general Thursday detailed for the House Defense... more
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He compares the current mistaken focus on bailouts � from Wall Street to the auto industry � to the early mistakes of another president faced with economic disaster: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose initial rejection of the revolutionary concepts of John Maynard Keynes helped prolong the worldwide economic misery of the late 1920s and 1930s.
It may take another heretic to pull America out of its current downhill slide this time around.
�Ravi is a phenomenon � the best predictive record of any economist, past or present � and he does it all by reference to recorded, empirical facts, not paradigm [or] ideology,� said Prof. Rajani Kannepalli Kanth, a visiting scholar at Harvard University who specializes in political economy and social anthropology.
His supporters think Batra should long ago have won a Nobel Prize and that President-elect Barack Obama ought to be calling him with offers of cabinet posts or at least asking for his advice.
But instead, despite his sterling record and best-selling books, Batra remains somewhat isolated in the economics field, the result of one bad call and, more to the point, an economic theory that flies in the face of today�s accepted wisdom � in the face, that is, of the theories and practices that got us in the horrendous spot we�re in today.
�We are on the verge of a social revolution � it�s already started [with Obama�s election]. The second part, where the theories are discarded and new ideas take over and new reforms take over � that part has yet to occur, and that will take a few years,� he predicted. �After that occurs, the age of acquisitors will be over, and there will be a new age with a totally different attitude toward taxation and the economic system.�
The revolution, which he believes could happen in a couple of years or sometime soon after that, should bring in a new chapter of greater economic equality and less poverty and suffering � first in the U.S., then rippling out to the rest of the world, he thinks.
�The U.S. has never been in any other age other than the age of acquisitors. So this will be a new experience for the U.S.,� he said.He compares the current mistaken focus on bailouts � from Wall Street to the auto... more
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For a lot of people, it is already too late. People have moved back in with their parents, started living out of RVs, moved into trailer parks that are mushrooming around cities such as Las Vegas the way developments with real houses used to. Even pricey Santa Barbara, Calif., recently made several gated parking lots available to people living in their cars.
Last week, General Motors announced 10,000 job cuts, Wal-Mart 800, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told an interviewer that in some ways, the current crisis is worse than the Great Depression. But this time around, we appear to have a class of individuals who think that they should not have to suffer with the rest.
It is this type of behavior, rather than economics, that the working poor don't understand. I earned $3.35 an hour at my first job washing dishes in 1981, and today, 28 years later, the minimum wage has barely doubled. Congress voted not to raise it for nearly 10 years, while members awarded themselves pay raises on a nearly annual basis. And during the years that the minimum wage was stalled, the pay of a CEO swelled to hundreds of times the wage of an average worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
They have a right to be cynical. It turns out, the people who understand money the best are the ones who don't have it.
Iain Levison is the author of the memoir "A Working Stiff's Manifesto" and the forthcoming novel "How to Rob an Armored Car."For a lot of people, it is already too late. People have moved back in with their... more
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense contractor KBR Inc., which is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq, has been awarded a $35 million contract by the Pentagon to build an electrical distribution center and other projects there.
The announcement of the new KBR contract comes just months after the Pentagon, in strongly worded correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, rejected the company's explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and its proposed improvements. A senior Pentagon official, David J. Graff, cited the company's "continuing quality deficiencies" and said KBR executives were "not sufficiently in touch with the urgency or realities of what was actually occurring on the ground."WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense contractor KBR Inc., which is under criminal investigation... more
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A Tibetan youth detained for his role in a nonviolent protest has been beaten to death by police, Tibetan sources say.
Pema Tsepak, 24, a resident of Punda town in the Dzogang county of Tibet’s Chamdo prefecture, had been held in police custody for his role in a demonstration against Chinese rule in Tsawa Dzogang since Jan. 20.
“Chinese officials said he jumped off a building, but we believe he was beaten to death and then thrown off the building,”
Namgyal Tsering, a Tibetan living in Delhi, India, said in an interview that Pema Tsepak had been hospitalized following mistreatment at the hands of his captors.
“He was so severely beaten that his kidneys and intestines were badly damaged. He was initially taken to Dzogang [county] hospital, but they could not treat him, and they took him to Chamdo hospital instead,” Tsering said.A Tibetan youth detained for his role in a nonviolent protest has been beaten to death... more
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The signs of newly assertive Chinese workers have jolted foreign and Chinese factory owners, who for the last two decades have churned out everything from Nikes to baby dolls with unbeatably low production costs.
Some have concluded that the raw era in which rootless Chinese villagers would accept whatever job they could get may be drawing to a close, raising questions about China's long-term future as world headquarters for low-paid outsourcing.The signs of newly assertive Chinese workers have jolted foreign and Chinese factory... more
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At least one strike involving more than 1,000 workers occurs every day in China's manufacturing hub in the Pearl River Delta area, where about one-third of Chinese exports were manufactured and where, according to a published study, workers lose or break about 40,000 fingers on the job every year.
Han was a railway electrician when he organized China's first independent labor union in 1989, during the brutally-suppressed Tiananmen democracy movement.
He was imprisoned for two years, during which time he contracted tuberculosis. In 1992, after intense lobbying by members of the US Congress and the AFL-CIO umbrella trade union group, Han was given medical parole and sent to the United States for treatment, where a lung was removed.
A year later, Han tried to return to China but was turned back at the border of Hong Kong, a specially administered Chinese territory.
The Chinese government wants to consolidate control gradually over all signs of organized labor activity under the ACFTU umbrella, the only legally permitted workers' representative in the world's most populous nation, western rights groups say.At least one strike involving more than 1,000 workers occurs every day in China's... more
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We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty in the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people.We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks... more
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Here it is, this is why congress doesn't work and how to fix it.
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Israelis planned this attack while the last cease-fire was being negotiated.
What more needs to be said? Israelis will lose all sympathy in the world. They have lost mine.
What I see now is that saddly, israeli babies have to hide in nice clean bomb shelters with food and hope and future, while Palistinian babies die in their homes and their shelters because they are targeted by the Israeli military and there is nowhere to hide.
The Israelis are bombing families in refugee camps and community shelters.
Damn them.Israelis planned this attack while the last cease-fire was being negotiated.
What... more
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Over and over throughout history, the oppressed peoples rise up and crush their oppressors. Greece is experiencing a popular uprising according to 60% of Greeks, not a small group causing trouble.
People the world over are really sick of being robbed by the rich.Over and over throughout history, the oppressed peoples rise up and crush their... more
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An AFAudio.text- written by Bill Collier, narrated by Paul Collier- Obama called the Constution "fundamentall flawed". Can he uphold a Constitution he doesn't believe in?An AFAudio.text- written by Bill Collier, narrated by Paul Collier- Obama called the... more
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Look at this video, a 2008 ad run by the mccain camp...seems more relevent and believable now.Look at this video, a 2008 ad run by the mccain camp...seems more relevent and... more
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