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Friday, July 16, 2010
Graber's Plight
So Anthony Graber up in Maryland might get 15 years in jail because he posted a video of a cop online.
This was a video of Joseph Uhler waving a gun around over a traffic stop.
Well, Graber certainly seems to have a tough defense team.
I wonder how this will play out.
Seems a shame (and an irony) that the Land of the Free is breaking all records regarding incarceration rates.
From the court docket:
Doc No./Seq No.: 16/0
File Date: 07/01/2010Close Date:
Party Type: DefendantParty No.:1
Document Name: Request for Hearing on Motion
Doc No./Seq No.: 18/0
File Date: 07/01/2010Close Date:
Party Type: DefendantParty No.:1
Document Name: Motion to Dismiss Counts one, two, three and seven and Violative of the First
Amendment of the United States Constitution and Articles 2 and 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights and Motion to Dismiss
Counts four, five and six for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction
Doc No./Seq No.: 19/0
File Date: 07/01/2010Close Date:
Party Type: DefendantParty No.:1
Document Name: Motion to Dismiss Counts one, two and three for failing to provide sufficient
notice and request for hearing
Doc No./Seq No.: 20/0
File Date: 07/06/2010Close Date:
Party Type: DefendantParty No.:1
Document Name: Motion to Compel State to Furnish Particulars
Doc No./Seq No.: 20/1
File Date: 07/08/2010Close Date:
Party Type: PlaintiffParty No.:1
Document Name: State's Answer to the Defendant's Motion to Furnish Particulars
Doc No./Seq No.: 21/0
File Date: 07/06/2010Close Date:
Party Type: DefendantParty No.:1
Document Name: Letter of Susan Parker to the Court enclosing exhibit #4
10:22 am pdt
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
A Man Named "Lady"
A public prosecutor in Milan has completed a five-year investigation into the CIA and their Italian counterparts.
The case of the extraordinary renditions kidnapping of Egyptian suspected terrorist Abu Omar is also a test of judicial independence
in Italy. Twenty-six Americans are being tried in absentia in the case.
There are three desks in Armando Spataro's spacious office. The Milan state prosecutor sits at one of them while he works
his way through routine cases, the second one is used by his assistant, and for months now the third one has been reserved
for Spataro's biggest case -- his legal battle against the CIA, the Italian military intelligence agency SISMI and the government
of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
This desk is 7 meters (23 feet) long and piled high with stacks of
paper. Each stack has a number, and the top sheets bear the names of defendants and witnesses, written in red block letters.
There are names like Robert Seldon Lady, the CIA's former Milan bureau chief, and Nicolo Pollari, the former head of SISMI.
These powerful adversaries have obviously taken a keen interest in Spataro's work. Over the past few years, his phone has
been tapped, SISMI has placed him under surveillance and the agency has planted moles in his immediate surroundings. The Italian
intelligence agency has even asked journalists to sound out the details of his inquiries -- and a number of them have unfortunately
complied. He has even been investigated on suspicion of betraying state secrets.
Successive Italian governments have also done everything they could to restrain Spataro. At the instigation of Italian
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Constitutional Court ruled in March of this year that portions of the comprehensive
evidence gathered by Spataro are classified as state secrets, allegedly in the interest of national security. Much of Spataro's
evidence is now no longer admissible in court.
Clearly, no one is to find out how Italian agents helped their American colleagues snatch suspected terrorist Abu Omar
in broad daylight from a Milan street, haul him away to secret CIA prisons, and hold him there without charges or representation.
Moreover, no one is to ask before an Italian court whether, in the name of combating terror, a European democracy has to allow
its American allies to break every imaginable law with impunity.
A Marathon Runner
But all of his rivals have underestimated the state prosecutor. Spataro, 61, may be balding and have a gray mustache --
but he's a marathon runner. He ran the 42-kilometer (26-mile) course in Chicago in three hours and 13 minutes. A photo of
him crossing the finish line hangs in his office.
For five long years, Spataro patiently pieced together, bit by bit, the case of the abduction of the Egyptian-born cleric.
At the outset of the investigation, all he had was a list of over 10,000 different cell phone calls. Now 26 Americans have
been indicted.
At first, Spataro believed that only the CIA was involved in the operation, but now seven Italian military intelligence
officials are also facing charges in court. It has rarely been possible to reconstruct an undercover CIA operation in such
minute detail. The state prosecutor required seven hours to conclude the first part of his closing arguments -- and nine hours
for the second part.
This trial in Milan's historic Palace of Justice is about more than just the calculated abduction, without a judicial warrant,
of a suspected terrorist. "This case will also show," says Spataro, standing among the stacks of files in his office, "whether
political forces in Italy are now in a position to influence independent investigations -- and whether a state prosecutor
can still prosecute a criminal offense as such." In early November, a ruling is expected in this landmark trial, the first
in the world in which CIA operatives have been tried for their role in capturing prisoners abroad and illegally transferring
them to other countries after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- a controversial practice called "extraordinary renditions."
At first, Spataro only wanted to know who was behind the abduction of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, better known as Abu Omar,
who had already been under observation for quite some time by the Italian police on suspicions of terrorism. He wanted to
know who exactly had overpowered the Egyptian on the streets of Milan on Feb. 17 2003, pepper sprayed him, bundled him into
a white van, and driven him off to Aviano Air Base. And he wanted to know who had transported him to the Ramstein US Air Force
Base in Germany, and from there to Cairo. At the time, the state prosecutor had no idea of the ramifications that this case
would have.
The First Lead
He had been briefed on the initial details by Inspector Bruno Megale, the chief of Milan's counterterrorism police unit.
On April 20, 2004, 14 months after the abduction, Megale's staff intercepted a phone call that was traced back to Alexandria,
Egypt. Abu Omar, who had been briefly released one day earlier, was calling his wife in Milan. It was the first time since
his abduction that the couple had spoken to each other. Abu Omar told his wife how he had been kidnapped by men speaking English
and Italian and flown to the Middle East. In Egypt, he had been repeatedly tortured and had almost died, he said.
Megale informed Spataro. The call from Egypt confirmed the suspicions of both men that the CIA was involved in Abu Omar's
disappearance. Now Spataro was finally able to launch his inquiry.
He still had nothing concrete, no hard evidence. There was only Abu Omar's call and the statement of a witness, who said
she saw how the Egyptian had been stopped by an Italian officer. After the officer had placed a phone call, Western-looking
men in black had jumped out of a white van and forced Abu Omar inside, she said.
This phone call made by one of the abductors gave Spataro his first lead. He had all cell phone calls checked that were
made between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. around the scene of the crime in the Via Guerzoni on the day of the kidnapping. There
were a total of 10,718 calls made. In Megale's antiterror unit, the agents first filtered out all of the phone calls that
were made in the immediate vicinity of the scene of the crime, narrowing it down to 300. A number of these 300 calls were
made on particularly suspicious cell phones, which were used to make a large number of extremely short calls at the time of
the kidnapping. All SIM cards in these phones had been purchased just a few weeks earlier, and last used only two or, at most,
three days after the abduction.
Megale's team was able to present its first findings: 17 different mobile phone numbers. The investigators had no names
and no clues as to the real identities of the users, but they had 17 numbers, which they presumed belonged to the CIA operatives.
Movement Profiles
Using special software, that had ironically been given to Megale's antiterror unit by the CIA, the police were able to
create movement profiles for each mobile phone user. They discovered that four people had traveled to Aviano Air Base directly
after the kidnapping, and another five had joined them later on. They also established that, while still driving there, the
operatives had called the CIA bureau chief in Milan and the organization's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, not far from
the US capital. More pieces of the puzzle emerged. Over the weekend, a number of operatives had celebrated the successful
operation at Venice's luxurious Hotel Danieli where room prizes start at a rate of €800 per night.
Thanks to the movement profiles, Megale's investigators were able to pinpoint additional hotels where the intelligence
agents stayed. At the hotels, investigators retrieved passport photocopies, which allowed them to match names to the cell
phone numbers. These names led to airline and rental car reservations that were traced to credit card bills and highway tolls
connected with the CIA trips. During the summer of 2004, the puzzle was finally completed.
Megale said only two words when he entered the state prosecutor's office one morning in June of that year: "Che casino"
-- what a mess. "Now we have them," Megale said to Spataro and showed him the names, or rather the aliases, of 17 CIA operatives.
The police had documented enough suspicious telephone calls and dubious movements to make initial arrests.
'The Abduction Destroyed all Our Investigative Work'
One of the CIA agents, the highest-ranking one, was easily identified. He was a good friend of Inspector Megale: Robert
Lady, who had been the CIA bureau chief in Milan for a number of years. He had coordinated and directed this covert operation
on European soil, although he apparently disapproved of it from the start. A colonel in the Italian military intelligence
agency SISMI later made a statement in which he said that Lady had told him, even before the operation, that he thought it
was a dumb idea and that he opposed it because Abu Omar was already under observation.
At the time, CIA resident Lady's office was in the US Consulate in Milan, only 100 meters from Megale's police station
on the Via Fatebenefratelli. When Lady came to Italy in early 2000, the Italian antiterror expert and his American colleague
quickly became friends. The CIA agent had been in the FBI, and he was familiar with the world of police work. Megale and Lady
started to meet a number of times a week over an espresso. They were on a first-name basis, and they exchanged information
on the overall security situation following 9/11.
It was Lady who called Megale's attention to Abu Omar, to the Egyptian's close contacts to the terror organization al-Gama'a
al-Islamiyya and to militant groups in northern Iraq. From then on, Italian investigators had kept Abu Omar under surveillance,
wire tapping his phone and monitoring his laptop. The results confirmed their worst fears.
"Another two, perhaps three months, and we would have had him," Megale says today. "The abduction destroyed all our investigative
work. He could have been legally convicted here
10:24 am pst
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
DMV detectives
Hmmm, I wonder if Jeff Gannon could have been outed by these guys.
FBI delves into DMV photos in search for fugitives
By MIKE BAKER (AP) – 22 hours ago
RALEIGH, N.C. — In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists,
comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes.
The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals
and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people
who have done nothing wrong.
"Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license," said Christopher Calabrese,
an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Earlier this year, investigators learned that a double-homicide suspect named Rodolfo Corrales had moved to North Carolina.
The FBI took a 1991 booking photo from California and compared it with 30 million photos stored by the motor vehicle agency
in Raleigh.
In seconds, the search returned dozens of drivers who resembled Corrales, and an FBI analyst reviewed a gallery of images
before zeroing in on a man who called himself Jose Solis.
A week later, after corroborating Corrales' identity, agents arrested him in High Point, southwest of Greensboro, where
they believe he had built a new life under the assumed name. Corrales is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles
later this month.
"Running facial recognition is not very labor-intensive at all," analyst Michael Garcia said. "If I can probe a hundred
fugitives and get one or two, that's a home run."
Facial-recognition software is not entirely new, but the North Carolina project is the first major step for the FBI as
it considers expanding use of the technology to find fugitives nationwide.
So-called biometric information that is unique to each person also includes fingerprints and DNA. More distant possibilities
include iris patterns in the eye, voices, scent and even a person's gait.
FBI officials have organized a panel of authorities to study how best to increase use of the software. It will take at
least a year to establish standards for license photos, and there's no timetable to roll out the program nationally.
10:48 am pdt
Thursday, October 1, 2009
CIA Goons in Trouble
A leading Italian prosecutor on Wednesday demanded a 13-year prison term for former CIA station chief in Rome Jeff Castelli
for his role in the 2003 kidnapping of a terror suspect in a Milan street.
Armando Spataro is also seeking 13 years for Nicolo Pollari, the former head of Italian military intelligence who resigned
over the kidnapping, part of the CIA's so-called “extraordinary rendition”
programme under which suspects were sent to countries known to practise torture.
The former CIA sub-station chief in Milan, Robert Lady, should be sentenced to 12 years, as well as Sabrina De Sousa, Spataro
said, asking 11 years for the agents present in the street during the kidnapping of Egyptian imam Abu Omar on February 17,
2003.
They are among a total of 25 CIA agents and one US air force colonel who are being tried in absentia in the case.
Spataro, saying he had “unequivocal proof of responsibility” on the part of all the defendants, urged prison terms of 10
years for three other US agents: Victor Castellano, Eliana Castaldo and James Romano.
Abu Omar, whose real name is Osama Hassan Nasr, was abducted while walking to his mosque here in what was thought to be
among scores of covert kidnappings around the world since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The radical Islamist opposition figure, who enjoyed political asylum in Italy, was taken to the US air force base in Aviano,
northeastern Italy, then flown to the US base in Ramstein, Germany, and on to Cairo, Spataro said.
Interpol has issued international arrest warrants for all 26, but successive Italian governments have declined to seek
their extradition from the United States, while government lawyers sought to have the case thrown out as a threat to national
security.
The issue went before Italy's Constitutional Court, which agreed that part of the investigation had violated state secrecy
provisions but said the prosecution could use evidence obtained correctly.
9:10 am pdt
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
WakeMed
Regarding the right to an "independent test" after a DWI arrest in North Carolina...
I know someone who pursued the right to an independent blood test at WakeMed in Raleigh NC.
The hospital refused the blood test yet still charged him hundreds of dollars.
Does that sound right? And the VP of this hospital has stated under oath that
WakeMed contacted the Raleigh police 7 years ago telling them not to refer
people there anymore for blood tests.
He also stated that the blood test is not provided unless
Law Enforcement requests it.
Yet the police still refer people to WakeMed.
This "independent test" is just an empty promise! It's pure fantasy.
Does this sound like a due process violation? Medical Fraud.
I'd say it stinks to high heaven.
1:02 pm pdt
Friday, April 13, 2007
Free Speech?
"In February 2006, Greencastle Middle School Principal Shawn Gobert discovered a Web page on MySpace purportedly created
by him. A.B., who did not create the page, made derogatory postings on it concerning the school’s policy on body piercings.
"
So this girl was on probation for exercising her
free speech rights? This principal, Shawn Gobert,
sounds like a real dickhead. Shame on anyone who tries
to curtail people's rights. When do they
learn that it always flies back in their faces?
2:13 am pdt
Thursday, February 1, 2007
More CIA Spooks on the RUn from the Law
Travel Logs Aid Germans' Kidnap Probe
CIA Team's Movements Tracked With Spain's Help
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
BERLIN, Feb. 1 -- If not for the pit stops on a Mediterranean resort island, where they relaxed in four-star hotels and went
to the spa for a massage, the CIA operatives who now face arrest on kidnapping charges in Germany would have remained safely
in the shadows, according to German prosecutors.
German investigators said they received detailed records of the intelligence agents' stopovers on the Spanish island of Palma
de Mallorca from Spanish police last year. The documents, which included the operatives' passport numbers, hotel bills and
aviation records, enabled prosecutors to identify a CIA abduction crew that allegedly kidnapped Khaled el-Masri, a German
citizen, in a bungled counterterrorism operation in early 2004.
On Wednesday, prosecutors in Munich announced that a German court had issued arrest warrants for 13 people it named as CIA
operatives involved in the Masri kidnapping. While most of the people used aliases and their true identities remain unclear,
German authorities said the Spanish records provided a critical break and kept the investigation alive.
"It made it possible for us to identify specific individuals and to connect them with the kidnapping case," said
Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld, the chief Munich prosecutor, in a statement disclosing the warrants. "This information
as well as other investigative evidence now leads to the grounds of suspicion against these 13 distinctly identifiable individuals."
It's not the first time that CIA officers have left a long trail of clues during an undercover counterterrorism operation
in Europe. Italian prosecutors charged 25 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force officer with kidnapping a radical cleric in
Milan in 2003 after investigators traced their cellphone logs and frequent-flier records. They also found that the operatives
had racked up more than $150,000 in expenses while in Italy, including long stays at $500-a-night hotels.
Records of the other team's stopovers at Palma de Mallorca were gathered by the Guardia Civil, a Spanish police agency that
has investigated the CIA's use of the island as a staging ground for other counterterrorism operations in Europe and North
Africa. Some of the records were provided to The Washington Post by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group that
has investigated extralegal abductions by CIA counterterrorism squads.
A CIA spokesman at headquarters in Langley, Va., declined comment for this article.
Aviation records show that the CIA operatives arrived at Palma de Mallorca at 10 p.m. Jan. 22, 2004, from Algiers. They spent
the night at the Marriott Son Antem Golf Resort and Spa, paying $175 each for a room, including breakfast. One male member
of the team, who stayed in Room 216, was billed for $85 worth of massages and a $23 bar tab. He and the others paid with their
Visa cards.
The next day, the CIA crew departed in a privately chartered Boeing 737 for Skopje, Macedonia, where Masri had been detained
secretly for three weeks by Macedonian security agents on suspicion of involvement with a terrorist network, according to
German prosecutors. The plane stayed on the ground for less than six hours before departing with Masri on board, heading first
to Baghdad and then to Kabul.
Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, said he was kept in a secret CIA prison that was known as the Salt Pit and interrogated
about Islamic radicals in Germany before his captors realized they had the wrong man. He said he was flown back to the Balkans
five months later, released on a hillside in Albania and warned to keep his mouth shut.
After delivering him to Afghanistan, the CIA operatives flew back to Palma de Mallorca after a brief stopover in Romania,
aviation records show. The team spent three more nights on the Spanish island before returning to Washington. For the flight
home, they ordered a shrimp cocktail for the pilot and two bottles of Pesquera red wine, according to invoices from the ground
services crew at the Palma airport.
John Sifton, a senior researcher on counterterrorism for Human Rights Watch, said the operatives may have taken a carefree
approach because they assumed they were being protected by European intelligence partners. Masri, for instance, was handed
over to the CIA by Macedonian security agents. And in the Milan kidnapping case, top officials with the Italian military intelligence
agency known as Sismi have been charged with conspiring with the CIA.
"I suppose they never expected there would be a flap about all this or else they would have been more cautious,"
Sifton said. "When you think a local government is cooperating with you in your criminal activities, you're probably
less careful."
U.S. officials have never publicly admitted guilt or responsibility in the Masri case, and the U.S. Justice Department has
refused to cooperate with requests for information from German prosecutors.
Masri sued the CIA for damages in U.S. District Court in Virginia. His complaint was dismissed in May on grounds that the
lawsuit could generate revelations that would damage national security. Masri is appealing. His attorneys said the recent
revelations from Europe show that the secrecy concerns are moot.
"It renders even more far-fetched the argument that every single development in this case is a state secret," said
Ben Wizner, an ACLU lawyer who is representing Masri in his lawsuit.
Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
6:53 pm pst
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
CIA spooks on the run
Latest update on this shameful chapter in USA's post 911
antics
******************************
CIA practice of rendition a black eye for U.S.
America's tarnished inter national image is taking another beating as attention focuses on the U.S. practice of rendering
terrorist suspects into the less-than-welcoming arms of third-nation interrogators.
A judge in Milan is weighing whether Italian prosecutors have sufficient evidence to go to trial in a CIA-led abduction of
a Muslim cleric in 2003. The cleric was flown to an Egyptian prison, where he claims he was tortured, sexually abused and
kept for long periods in an underground cell.
The prosecutors have charged 25 CIA operatives, including the agency's chief of station in Rome, a U.S. Air Force officer,
along with five Italian intelligence agents. They are accused of grabbing Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a militant Egyptian-born
cleric known as Abu Omar, as he walked along a Milan street toward the local mosque. He was then taken in a van to the Aviano
Air Base, a joint U.S.-Italian installation, and flown to another air force base in Germany before being flown to Cairo.
European prosecutors take seriously their laws protecting national sovereignty and people's civil rights. The United States
may be about to pay a price in further loss of prestige should the judge decide to take the matter to trial and expose the
details of the CIA's reckless decision to operate in Italy as if it were just another banana republic.
The number of terrorist suspects subjected to rendition has been variously estimated from a few dozen to 3,000. CIA insiders
say the practice, which is in violation of international law, has inflicted more damage on the agency than it has delivered
valuable intelligence.
Abu Omar, who fled Egypt as a political dissident, has never been charged in Italy or the United States with any crimes. He
remains in an Egyptian prison.
The practice of rendition is a black eye for the United States and has inflicted great harm on this country's prestige. President
Bush should terminate the use of rendition once and for all.
He also needs to determine what to do with those subjected to rendition, who may or may not be guilty of something, but who
have never been charged, never been tried in a proper court and who continue to be held and mistreated in Third World prisons
at U.S. instigation.
1:49 am pst
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Diving for Pearls
Elvis Costello may have just written this gorgeous song about
Iraq. What a stupid war and waste of taxpayer money.
Go get him Pelosi. Sick 'em!
Shipbuilding
Is it worth it
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boys birthday
Its just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon well be shipbuilding
Well I ask you
The boy said dad theyre going to take me to task
But Ill be back by christmas
Its just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of this shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
Its just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture postcard
Within weeks theyll be re-opening the shipyards
And notifying the next of kin
Once again
Its all were skilled in
We will be shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
8:24 pm pst
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Another Weirdo Cop...
Cop arrested for prostitute strip search
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MANCHESTER, N.J. (AP) - A police officer who claimed he was conducting his own prostitution sting and strip search ended up
being the one arrested. Authorities arrested James Michael Jackson, a police officer with the state Department of Human Services,
and charged him with sexual assault and sexual misconduct for the so-called sting.
According to authorities, Jackson, 34, of Toms River, arranged through a service for a woman to meet him Wednesday at a local
hotel in Manchester.
When she arrived, Jackson, carrying a badge and gun, told her she was under arrest. He made her take off her clothes and consent
to a body cavity search before letting her go, said Ocean County Assistant Prosecutor Martin Anton.
The prosecutor said Jackson overstepped his bounds as a law enforcement official when he placed the female prostitute under
arrest and performed a strip search.
As a police officer, Jackson had authority to make arrests, but not through an undercover operation of his own, Anton said.
"And a male to strip-search a female is just not done," he added.
The woman reported the incident to authorities the next day, after she talked to law enforcement officers she knew who said
Jackson's behavior was illegal.
Jackson had been a police officer with Human Services for about six years. The department has about 75 officers working in
various institutions and psychiatric hospitals or, in Jackson's case, with children's services case officers.
Jackson was assigned to the Division of Youth and Family Services' Monmouth South office in Asbury Park.
Ed Rogan, a spokesman for the state Department of Human Services, expected that Jackson would be suspended by Monday, with
proceedings leading to his termination starting soon after.
Jackson, who is free on $50,000 bail, faces five to 10 years in prison if convicted.
6:03 pm pst
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Drug War Follies
Ending drug war
November 19, 2006
Re "Toll mounts in Mexico's drug war," Nov. 14
For the drug war, there is a simple and relatively easy solution to end the violence caused by it: legalization. The legalization
of now-illegal drugs would allow us to regulate, control and tax the in-demand products.
When is the last time you had a story about a liquor dealer shooting his liquor distributor? Probably about 1933, the year
that ended the disaster known as Prohibition. Our war on drugs is not winnable. Wars on poverty or drugs cannot be won. Who
is going to surrender and sign the peace treaty?
KIRK MUSE
Mesa, Ariz.
8:26 pm pst
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Jack (abram) Off Update
Jack Abramoff Reports to Md. Prison
By DAVID DISHNEAU and MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 15, 2006; 4:36 PM
CUMBERLAND, Md. -- Hours before entering federal prison Wednesday, lobbyist Jack Abramoff sent friends an e-mail lamenting
"this nightmare" political scandal and predicting things were about to get worse _ but still looking optimistically
to the future.
Abramoff, who parlayed campaign donations and expensive gifts into political influence from Congress to the White House, reported
to a Maryland prison where he will earn no more than 40 cents an hour for assigned jobs.
Jack Abramoff leaves Federal Court in Washington in this Jan. 3, 2006 file photo. Abramoff, convicted of federal charges after
using expensive gifts, campaign donations and exotic trips to win access to the powerful in Washington, went to prison Wednesday.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Jack Abramoff leaves Federal Court in Washington in this Jan. 3, 2006 file photo. Abramoff, convicted of federal charges after
using expensive gifts, campaign donations and exotic trips to win access to the powerful in Washington, went to prison Wednesday.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Gerald Herbert - AP)
Shortly before dawn, he sent an e-mail to friends thanking them for standing by him. He then set out for prison, leaving behind
a city shaken by his scandal. A congressman has admitted corruption, a Bush administration official was convicted of lying,
Republicans were driven from office and several aides have pleaded guilty.
9:11 pm pst
Friday, October 13, 2006
BLAST FROM THE PAST
by Wayne Curtis
(let's see if this guy can single-handedly bring
back a long-forgotten and tasty cocktail)
In the savage ecosystem of the cocktail lounge, newly invented mixed drinks generally appear from nowhere, compete fiercely
for a time, and then disappear. Some fine concoctions claw their way to the top and remain there exceedingly pleased with
themselves, like lions on the savannah. The whiskey old-fashioned, the Manhattan, and the mint-julep — all of which have been
around for more than a century — are among the best examples of this. Meanwhile, many execrable drinks are chased into the
swamps, where they die a slow and lingering death. This is as it should be. The world is not a lesser place because nobody
remembers how to make a Harvey Wallbanger.
In this chaotic and often brutal environment, however, many noble cocktails tragically and inexplicably disappear. Among them:
the Eighth Ward, the Bronx (and its variant, the Income Tax Cocktail), the Jack Rose. At times, a drink is lost because its
ingredients have gone extinct, such as forbidden fruit liqueur, an essential ingredient in, among others, the Pousse Cafe
Variation #5 and the Adam and Eve. Other drinks flare up like a sudden sunspot and then disappear for little reason, scarcely
leaving a shadow. Does anyone remember the "Atoms for Peace" cocktail of the mid-1950s, made of brandy, champagne,
and blue curacao? I didn't think so.
To my mind, the lost cocktail most worthy of lamentation and keening is El Presidente, a mix of rum, curacao, vermouth, and
grenadine, which had its heyday from the 1920s through the 1940s. It has more or less vanished without a twist. In only one
city is this not the case: the place where it was created, and where I first happened to sip it: Havana, Cuba.
Old Havana is rightly famous for its splendid historic architecture, but it's also an unheralded preserve for Prohibition-era
drinks. Havana, after all, was the Las Vegas of North America during the dry years of Prohibition (1920-1933). Great fleets
of ships and planes conveyed hordes of thirsty Americans south to Havana, and hundreds of bars and nightclubs strove to accommodate
them.
According to Esquire cocktail editor David Wondrich, El Presidente was created by Eddie Woelke, an American bartender at the
Jockey Club in Havana. He shrewdly named the drink in honor of President Gerardo Machado, who ruled Cuba throughout most of
the Prohibition years. Basil Woon, author of When It's Cocktail Time in Cuba, wrote in 1928 of El Presidente, "It is
the aristocrat of cocktails and is the one preferred by the better class of Cuban."
That same year the eponymous President Machado himself offered an "El Presidente cocktail" to U.S. President Calvin
Coolidge, who was attending a conference, inside Havana's opulently mirrored Hall of the Presidents. This was a moment of
unsurpassed presidentiality. It may also have been a moment of some awkwardness, what with Prohibition in the U.S. and all.
A reporter noted that Coolidge declined the drink.
After Repeal, El Presidente crossed the Florida Straits and headed north, where it was met with popular but not universal
acclaim. In the late 1930s some drinkers in New Orleans, resentful of the intrusion, "staged a revolution and invented
the El Dictador, because a dictator ... can kick the pants off a president," according to one newspaper columnist.
The coup failed. As late as 1949, Esquire's Handbook for Hosts noted, "The vanguard of Manhattan's cognoscenti has discovered
what regulars of El Chico in the Village have known for many a moon: the El Presidente cocktail is an elixir for jaded gullets."
2:19 am pdt
Thursday, September 21, 2006
12:39 am pdt
Thursday, August 24, 2006
My Crystal Ball
You know,
I always wondered where that dime-bag went to
went to after the cop finds it in someone's
car and seized it. Where does it end up?
Let me look into my crystal ball...
Here it is:
Teenagers testify in sex case against ex-officer
EATONTON, Ga. Two girls testified today that teenagers posed for sexually explicit photos and played with sex toys in the
home of a former Eatonton police officer last Labor Day weekend.
The teens testified about a party including a group of 13- and 14-year-olds at the home of Darrell Sanders and his 32-year-old
wife, Jennifer. They said they pair gave them alcohol and drugs, and she took a bubble bath with them before watching pornographic
movies. They also said they smoked marijuana that Sanders had confiscated during traffic stops.
The testimony came during the first day of the 45-year-old former officer's trial on charges of exploitation of children,
child molestation, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and distributing marijuana.
Defense attorney Rob Westin told jurors in opening statements that Sanders could not have been involved with the weekend activities
because did not have time to complete photos from the party and report for duty on the night in question.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
6:47 pm pdt
Sunday, August 20, 2006
CIA allegedly abducted Muslims in Austria
Austria - The CIA abducted at least two Muslims residents in Austria, including one with links to a former imam in Italy who
was similarly abducted, Profil magazine reported in its Monday edition.
According to Profil, US secret service agents grabbed Gamal Menshawi, an Egyptian doctor and an eminent member of a Muslim
community in the south-eastern town of Graz, when his flight stopped over in Amman, Jordan, in late 2002.
Menshawi was suspected of belonging to the Egyptian Islamist extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
He had links, Profil said, with Osama Mustafa Hassan, an Egyptian Muslim cleric also known as Abu Omar, who was allegedly
kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency in the northern Italian city of Milan in February 2003.
Both men were held in the same prison in Egypt, the weekly said.
Hassan's abduction sparked an investigation in Italy that revealed that members of Italy's SISMI secret service colluded in
the operation. Two top SISMI officials have been placed under house arrest and its director questioned.
Profil also recounted the experience of a Muslim computer technician, native to an east African country but resident in Vienna,
who claimed to have been snatched during a stopover in Jordan in January 2003.
"I was hit and deprived of sleep for several nights and interrogated by Jordanian and American experts," said the
man, whose identity was not revealed. He said he was held for three months and then released.
According to Profil, Austria's domestice intelligence service BVT worked closely with the CIA in the operations.
Austria's interior ministry has denied any knowledge of the affair.
Profil, a respected Austrian magazine, broke the story in 1986 of the Nazi past of former UN secretary general Kurt Waldheim
and his stint in the Wehrmacht.
The human rights group Amnesty International said last month that Jordan was a "central hub" in the secret and illegal
transfer of people believed by the CIA to have links to terrorism. - Sapa-AFP
6:19 pm pdt
Thursday, August 17, 2006
This is fun, outing PeeJ vigilantes :
Xavier Von Erck : John Phillip Eide
Del Harvey : Alizon Shea
Jay Alternative : Gregg Brainer
Jessica Rabbit : Nila Rae Clark
PJ Alias: Jingles
Role: PJ Follow up vigilante
Quote: "Too much hair dye"
Real Name: Suzy Graham
PJ Alias: Persephone
Role: PJ Follow up vigilante
Quote: "Hi, Kutzler my name. Steve Kutzler .. errrm Stacey"
Real Name: Stacey Kutzler
PJ Alias: The Director
Role: PJ Contributor
Quote: "Damn you found my whiny journal"
Real Name: Kevin Saint
PJ Alias: Philipw
Role: PJ Service Provider / "Webmaster"
Codename: Froghumper
Real Name: Philip Whittaker
PJ Alias: Phoebus Appollo
Role: PJ "Webmaster"
Codename: The Mole
Real Name: Nicholas Lee Wilkins
PJ Alias: Kashmir Goat
Role: PJ Follow Up vigilante
Quote: "When I let my hair grow I look like Hulk Hogan"
Possible Names: Greg Johnson - John Morris
12:41 am pdt
Sunday, August 6, 2006
CIA in Milan : more dirty dealings
Italy won’t release documents in CIA case
Military intelligence chief cites ‘state secrets’ for holding records
REUTERS
ROME - Italy’s government has acknowledged that there are secret documents it cannot declassify related to the alleged CIA
kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in Milan, a senior official in parliament said on Sunday.
The head of Italy’s Sismi military intelligence agency, Nicolo Pollari, has refused to cooperate fully with magistrates investigating
a possible Italian role in the incident, saying he was restricted by “state secrets,” his lawyer told Reuters.
At the same time, Pollari has denied any wrongdoing.
The head of parliament’s intelligence oversight committee, Claudio Scajola, said after a four-hour hearing with Pollari on
Sunday the new center-left government had declined to declassify documentation related to the case.
He did not offer specifics.
Italian media have reported materials were classified under the previous center-right government of Silvio Berlusconi, in
power in 2003 when radical Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr was allegedly abducted.
“I asked the prime minister for clarification on this issue and I received an answer that the conditions do not exist to declassify
this documentation,” Scajola told reporters.
Pollari again broadly defended Sismi before the committee on Sunday, saying it would never take part in “operations similar”
to Nasr’s alleged abduction.
Prosecutors believe a CIA-led team grabbed Nasr off a Milan street, bundled him into a van and flew him to Egypt.
Nasr says he was tortured there under questioning and 26 Americans, most believed to be CIA agents, face arrest warrants over
the case.
Probe under way
Two members of Pollari’s Sismi were briefly arrested last month and Pollari is also under investigation.
“The director of Sismi said he ruled out participation in similar operations by (agents), to have always given very clear
orders that no actions be taken that violated the law,” said Scajola, a member of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia political party.
Pollari will go before the committee again on Sept. 19. The committee also intends to hear from the prosecutor leading the
investigation.
Berlusconi has denied that he or Sismi knew about a plot to kidnap Nasr.
One senior Sismi official under investigation, Marco Mancini, has said via his lawyer that the CIA asked Italy to help kidnap
Nasr, but it refused because it would be illegal.
The Egyptian cleric, now held in a prison outside Cairo, faces an Italian arrest warrant for suspicion of terrorist activity
including recruiting militants for Iraq.
9:29 pm pdt
Friday, May 12, 2006
CIA Atrocities, continued
Judge to decide if German can sue CIA
Khaled al-Masri says he was detained in Afghanistan
Friday, May 12, 2006; Posted: 12:53 p.m. EDT (16:53 GMT)
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (AP) -- The government urged a federal judge on Friday to block a lawsuit filed by a German national
who says he was illegally held in a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan for four months and tortured.
U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Sher said government secrets could be exposed if Khaled al-Masri were allowed to proceed with his
lawsuit.
"Disclosure of information in the case would jeopardize national security," Sher said during a hearing in which
he asked the judge to dismiss the case.
Citing the harm he said public disclosure of any information regarding the case could do, Sher said, "We cannot and will
not confirm or deny the allegations or diplomatic contact with foreign governments."
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis said he will issue a ruling as soon as possible on whether the case will proceed.
The lawsuit was filed against former CIA Director George Tenet and 10 unidentified CIA employees. While the Central Intelligence
Agency was not named as a defendant, the agency intervened to uphold its state secret privilege.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the private civil rights organization representing al-Masri, rejected claims that secrets
would be exposed. Ben Wizner, an attorney for group, said the details of al-Masri's alleged capture and detention have already
been disclosed, and said the government's contention that pursuing the case could hurt relations with other countries is unsubstantiated.
"The government is moving to dismiss this case on the basis of a fiction," Wizner said in court.
A committee of the European Parliament has found that the CIA has been involved in clandestine operations that have included
the detention of individuals who were taken to Afghanistan and other countries, where torture has been used in the past.
Al-Masri said he was taken into custody after being mistaken for an associate of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers. He said Macedonian
authorities arrested him when he crossed the border on New Year's Eve 2003 and turned him over to the CIA after three weeks.
5:20 pm pdt
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Gestapo tactics
Professor Believes FBI Grilled Him for His Political Beliefs
News Report, Elena Shore,
New America Media, Mar 09, 2006
A Pomona College professor who is an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in Venezuela was questioned Tuesday by two agents from
the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in what he calls an act of intimidation.
The detectives visited Miguel Tinker-Salas during his office hours at about 2:40 or 2:45 pm Tuesday. They questioned him for
about 20 minutes in his office at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. The detectives identified themselves but their names
are being withheld at the request of the FBI.
According to Tinker-Salas, the agents told him they were interested in the Venezuelan community and concerned that it may
be involved in terrorism. They asked him if he had relationships with the Venezuelan embassy or consulate, and if anyone in
the Venezuelan government had asked him to speak out about Venezuela-related matters.
“They were fishing,” says Tinker-Salas, “to intimidate and silence those who have a critical analysis of U.S. foreign policy.”
After they left, several students outside Tinker-Salas’ office told him the detectives had asked them about his background,
his classes and his politics, and even took note of the cartoons on his door.
Tinker-Salas says the detectives told him this was part of a larger policy to interview people on various campuses. He does
not know if other professors have been questioned. He says the agents who visited him did not interview the other Venezuelan-born
professor at Pomona College.
The FBI declined to comment on the incident.
A Latin American and Chicano histories professor, Tinker-Salas believes he was targeted as a result of his outspoken politics
regarding the U.S. policy toward Venezuela and Latin America. Tinker-Salas was born in Venezuela and is a U.S. citizen, having
lived in the United States since high school. A noted historian and commentator on CNN en Español, he has been open about
his conditional support for the democratically elected government of President Hugo Chavez and critical of the U.S. attempt
to “undermine democracy” in Latin America.
According to the ACLU of Colorado, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which operates across the country, is violating First
Amendment rights by equating nonviolent protest with domestic terrorism.
“The FBI is unjustifiably treating nonviolent public protest as though it were domestic terrorism,” said Mark Silverstein,
Legal Director of the Colorado ACLU, following the release of new documents obtained from the FBI under the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) on Dec. 8, 2005.
“The FBI’s misplaced priorities threaten to deter legitimate criticism of government policy while wasting taxpayer resources
that should be directed to investigating real terrorists.”
3:21 am pst
Thursday, February 2, 2006
US official admits he smuggled $2m of aid meant for Iraq
In the first US corruption conviction relating to the occupation of Iraq, a former official pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing
more than $2m (£1.13m) of reconstruction funds and taking more than $1m worth of contract kickbacks under a deal with an American
businessman.
Robert Stein, 50, a contractor working for the now disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority, had a criminal record for fraud.
He acknowledged his role in the scam in a statement to a federal court in Washington.
He admitted guilt on five felony counts, of conspiracy, money-laundering, bribery and the illegal possession of a machine-gun
and a handgun.
The businessman, a US citizen identified as Philip Bloom, also faces federal conspiracy and money laundering charges. Mr Bloom
was not named in the indictment or in Mr Stein's statement, but is understood to be in custody here ahead of his own likely
trial. Five US Army reserve officers are also implicated, two of whom have been arrested.
The case paints an astonishing picture of incompetence and carelessness in the running of the CPA, which administered Iraq
between mid-2003 and June 2004. The misdeeds in question mostly took place in the al-Hillah region south of Baghdad, where
Mr Stein was in charge of administering $82m of reconstruction funds. Instead - his criminal past undiscovered by whatever
background checks were carried out - he became the central figure in an imbroglio of bid-rigging and kickbacks.
Mr Stein not only took money from Mr Bloom in return for steering some $9m of contracts in his direction. He also pilfered
$2m of earmarked aid for reconstruction, consisting of US taxpayers' money and funds confiscated from the former regime of
Saddam Hussein.
The ill-gotten gains financed a lavish spending spree. Mr Stein used them to buy - among other things - Lexus and Porsche
cars, a Cessna light aircraft, watches, jewels, guns and grenade launchers as well as two plots of land in his native North
Carolina. For his part, Mr Bloom is said to have provided his benefactors with money, first-class air tickets, and sexual
favours provided by women kept in a villa in Baghdad.
10:15 pm pst
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