Gitmo Prosecutor quits in Pentagon Clash

Col. Davis

War-Crimes Prosecutor Quits in Pentagon Clash
In the latest disruption of the Bush administration’s plan to try detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for war crimes, the chief military prosecutor on the project stepped down yesterday after a dispute with a Pentagon official.
Colonel Morris D. Davis, a career military lawyer, had been in a bitter dispute with Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, who was appointed this summer to a top post in the Pentagon Office of Military Commissions, which supervises the war crimes trial system.
Col. Davis contended that the Military Commissions Act “bars outside interference in the ‘professional judgment’ of prosecution and defense lawyers,” and stated, in no uncertain terms, that “If someone above me tries to intimidate me in determining who we will charge, what we will charge, what evidence we will try to introduce, and how we will conduct a prosecution, then I will resign.”

General Hartmann, an Air Force reserve officer who worked as a corporate lawyer until recently, was appointed this summer as the legal adviser to Susan J. Crawford, a former military appeals judge who is the convening authority, a military official who has extensive powers under the military commission law passed by Congress in 2006.
Colonel Davis filed a complaint against General Hartmann with Pentagon officials this fall saying that the general had exceeded his authority and created a conflict of interest by asserting control over the prosecutor’s office. Colonel Davis said it would be improper for General Hartmann to assess the adequacy of cases filed by prosecutors if the general had been involved in the decision to file those cases.
In a statement last week, Colonel Davis said the issue posed a threat to the integrity of the war-crimes process. “For the greater good, Brigadier General Hartmann and I should both resign and walk away or higher authority should relieve us of our duties,” the statement said.
A military official said yesterday that Pentagon officials had sided with General Hartmann in the dispute.
Critics of the administration have argued that the effort to design a military commission system for foreign terror suspects is intended to circumvent the legal protections that detainees would receive if they were charged in civilian courts. Some of those critics said yesterday that the dispute underscored their concerns.
“This is further evidence that the military commission process is completely unraveling,” said J. Wells Dixon, a detainees’ lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. “That is endemic to any system that is made up as you go along.”




Judge blocks Watada court-martial

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle concluded his court had jurisdiction on the request for an emergency stay because Watada "has exhausted his available military court remedies with respect to his double jeopardy claim ..." Settle also decided that claim was "not frivolous."

2nd trial illegal, Watada argues

Watada's case is being appealed on grounds that a second court-martial violates his constitutional protections against double jeopardy because he was court-martialed earlier this year on those charges. But, over his objection, a mistrial was declared "without there being the requisite manifest necessity for such declaration," said court papers filed Wednesday. The military judge, Lt. Col. John Head, ordered a second trial.

WATADA CASE NOW PENDING IN FEDERAL COURT

Judge reverses Guantanamo ruling - Focus on Guantanamo

A judge Friday reversed his ruling that created new hurdles for some lawyers seeking to visit clients held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.
Attorneys for detainees asked the judge to reconsider the ruling and he did, while noting the Justice Department's move to limit access to the prisoners.
"This court expresses no small concern over the Department of Justice precipitously disrupting petitioners' access to their counsel," Urbina wrote.

Federal Prosecutor Accused In Sex Sting Commits Suicide
John D.R. Atchison, the federal prosecutor who was arrested in an Internet sex sting after he allegedly traveled to Michigan from Florida to have sex with a 5-year-old girl, hanged himself in a Michigan federal prison Friday morning.
Atchison was a married father of three and a respected figure who coached girls' softball and basketball in a park a few blocks from his home in this well-to-do beach community.

General Peter Pace, said Monday that opponents of the war in Iraq could not bring it to an end by voting.

In a statement remarkable for its blunt rejection of democracy, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, said Monday that opponents of the war in Iraq could not bring it to an end by voting.


Plain and Simple

Look, it's very simple, and we've been saying it for years: Bush and his minions are liars. They are proven liars, confirmed liars; they lie for pleasure and they lie for profit, they lie as a matter of course, as a matter of policy. So when they say they are not torturing people, when they say they are following U.S. law and international law and the restrictions of the courts and Congress, they are lying. They lied about it in 2004, they lied about it in 2005, and they are lying about it now.

Notice anything odd about Yale's Official Seal?

Byrd: Senate’s ‘Saber-Rattling’ Is ‘Sleep-Walking’ America To War With Iran

On the Senate floor today, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) decried the recent Kyl-Lieberman amendment on Iran that 72 of his colleagues voted for, calling it an exercise in “international verbal spitball.”
Byrd warned his colleagues against “sleep-walking” into another war, saying “I hope that we can stop this war of words before it becomes a war of bombs.”

Fears of violence in tug-of-war over Kosovo

Gunmen of a self-styled Albanian guerrilla army postured on Kosovo television, stoking fears of violence as Serbia on Thursday rejected a December deadline for talks to decide the fate of its breakaway province. Signs that the West is braced for possible violence over Kosovo were strengthened by a newspaper report that the Pentagon had asked Croatia if it was braced for a refugee crisis.
"The determination by the U.S and NATO, at all costs, to occupy Kosovo and virtually all of Yugoslavia, is spurred on by the enticement of abundant natural resources. Kosovo alone has the richest mineral resources in all of Europe west of Russia. The New York Times observed that "the sprawling state-owned Trepca mining complex, the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, is worth at least $5 billion." producing gold, silver, pure lead, zinc, cadmium, as well as tens of millions of dollars in profits annually. "Kosovo also possesses 17 billion tons of coal reserves and Kosovo (like Serbia and Albania) also has oil reserves."



Oppressive police action is on the rise

Cop Pepper Sprays, Punches, Nearly Breaks Girl's Arm During Curfew Arrest

Another shocking example of police brutality has been caught on camera showing a cop nearly breaking a girl's arm, punching her and then pepper spraying her in the face as she cries after being arrested for violating a city curfew.

Out Of Control School Security Guard Assaults Camerawoman

"If he's willing to do that to me for the world to see on camera, then what is he willing to do when no one is looking?" said Dunfee.

UK: Seized At Gunpoint For Looking At Cops

Two disabled men from Bournemouth, England were seized from a pub at gunpoint by police under the terrorism act, taken to the local police station and questioned for 45 minutes after one of them opened his mail and the other looked at a police officer. Mr Hamlen also made it clear that he has arthritis and brittle bone disease and has been registered disabled for five years, while Mr Burbidge has been paralysed all his life and relies on a wheelchair and crutches to get around. The two men hardly fit the description of hardcore Al Qaeda terror suspects, but then that does not matter because everyone is now a suspect under the 2000 terrorism act.

FBI offered me $4m: Lockerbie bomb witness

A WITNESS in the Lockerbie case has claimed he was offered $4 million (£2 million) by American investigators to lie to the trial judges. Edwin Bollier, head of the Swiss company MEBO that was said to have manufactured the timer used to detonate the Pan Am bomb, claims he was offered the money by the FBI at its Washington HQ in exchange for making a statement that supported the main line of inquiry - that Libya was responsible for the bombing.

Iraq Struggles With Cholera Outbreak

WHO has confirmed at least 3,315 cholera cases and registered more than 30,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea which could also prove to be cholera in its more common, milder form. The group has also warned that as the weather cools and temperatures become more favorable for transmission the bacteria could spread further.

Rice Issues New Rules for Blackwater USA

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered federal agents on Friday to ride with Blackwater USA escorts of U.S. diplomatic convoys in Baghdad to tighten oversight after a shooting in which private guards are accused of killing 13 Iraqi civilians. She also ordered video cameras installed in Blackwater vehicles.
The State Department has counted 56 shooting incidents involving Blackwater guards in Iraq this year. All were being reviewed as part of the comprehensive inquiry Rice ordered.
Guess we'll be seeing more like this one soon:

Trophy video - private security contractors shooting up Iraqi drivers - route irish, Baghdad




Snipers say they felt pressure to raise kill count in Iraq

"Interviews and court transcripts portray a 13-man sniper unit that felt under pressure to produce a high body count, a Vietnam-era measure that the Pentagon officially has disavowed in this war," writes Times reporter Ned Parker. "They describe a sniper unit whose margins of right and wrong were blurred: by Hensley, if you believe Army prosecutors; by the Army, if you believe the accused.


This is betrayal

Let's put ourselves in these shoes for a moment, if we can:
You've honorably served in the Army for seven years. You've won commendations. You re-enlisted after your first hitch. You're in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2004 when a rocket hits the building you're in and leaves you unconscious in rubble. Eventually doctors pull shrapnel from your neck and ear canals. You lose 75 percent of your hearing, suffer depression and nightmares. Eventually, the Army discharges you because you had a "pre-existing personality disorder" before you joined the service.
Why are the services doing this?
Money. The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs save money if they don't have to pay benefits.

Doctors: Only severely wounded Palestinians allowed into Israel

Israel is allowing entry to only the most severley wounded Palestinians, and not to those at risk of losing limbs or suffering other debilitating handicaps, according to Physicians for Human Rights. Out of 44 requests to transfer injured individuals for treatment in Israel, 16 were refused by authorities in Israel, PHR said. In some cases, this meant physicians in Gaza had to amputate limbs because treatment was delayed too long.

Congress approves $1.2 billion worth of US-funded Israeli arms purchases, including 50 huge GBU-28 guided bunker buster
This, while homeless vets sleep in our streets, and the Pentagon sends home one of the longest-serving military units (Minnesota Naiontal Guard Members) one day earlier than the day they'd qualify for their GI education benefits.

IOA demolishes historical fence in Jerusalem built 491 years ago

Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, the Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, strongly denounced the IOA for demolishing an Islamic archeological fence adjacent to the fountain of Sultan Suleiman al-Qanoni, outside Al-Khalil gate in occupied Jerusalem, which was constructed 491 years ago.
Sheikh Hussein confirmed that this assault on such antiquity comes within the framework of a scheme prepared by the IOA to judaize places of worship and Islamic antiquities, pointing out that the IOA put some Jewish stones in the area in an attempt to conceal Islamic monuments and antiquities as a prelude to erase the history of the holy city and its Islamic character.

Scandal Brewing at Oral Roberts U.

Colleagues fear for the reputation of the university and the future of the Roberts' ministry, which grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions of dollars in contributions a year. The university reported nearly $76 million in revenue in 2005, according to the IRS.
Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay. She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as "underage males."

Christianist Oral Roberts U. engulfed in scandal, with hundreds of texts from Roberts "first lady" to underage males

That’s the nature of the Christianist Project. But they shouldn’t try to kid themselves, or deceive us, that their enterprise is anything more than an power grab to impose their set of tribal so-called “values” on the rest of us. Their enterprise has nothing to do with religion. By definition, it can’t. Which is why Jesus warned against the Pharisees, of whom the Roberts family is but the latest incarnation.

Are U.S. troops being force-fed Christianity?

The Air Force set about reaffirming basic principles in religion guidelines, as a basis for widespread training, but a pushback by Evangelicals later led to Congress setting them aside until hearings could be held. The hearings have not taken place.

27% of Republicans Would Vote for Pro-Life Third Party Instead of Giuliani

If Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination and a third party campaign is backed by Christian conservative leaders, 27% of Republican voters say they’d vote for the third party option rather than Giuliani.





BUSH'S WAR ON AMERICAN CHILDREN

Children demand ‘Health care, not warfare’

"Hell, they only gotta be healthy enough to pull a damned trigger!"




Hawaiian Islands Contaminated With Ballistic Uranium
The Navy accidentally fired two DU rounds from Pearl Harbor in 1994. The rounds landed somewhere above Aiea and were never recovered.

Southern plutonium shipments could begin this week.

The U.S. Department of Energy plans to begin shipping plutonium to the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. as early as Friday -- but state and local authorities won't know any details about the shipments unless there's a serious accident, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports:
The routes that will be used to transport the strategic nuclear material across the country are hush-hush and won’t be shared in advance of the project.
The shipments are part of the government's effort to consolidate the nation's surplus supply of weapons-grade plutonium in South Carolina. The material will be coming from the Hanford Site in Washington, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. In all, the government plans to transport some 2,300 plutonium storage containers from Hanford and almost 700 from Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos.



Feds waited weeks to warn on tainted meat

Bush Administration officials whose job is to protect the nation's food supply waited an 18 days to warn consumers that millions of pounds of ground beef might be contaminated with E.coli bacteria. They admitted yesterday preliminary tests showed as early as Sept. 7 that frozen hamburger patties from the Elizabeth, N.J.-based Topps Meat Co. showed signs of being tainted.

22 Million pounds of dead cows. Maybe it's not such a good idea to process that much at once???? Or even to eat it at all? Would we eat meat if we had to kill those cows ourselves?

Kraft Recalls Baker's Premium White Chocolate
Kraft Foods Inc said on Wednesday it recalled Baker's Premium White Chocolate Baking Squares distributed throughout the United States due to possible salmonella contamination.
Premium, huh?

World War Two vegetable comes back as 'superfood'

A green that helped sustain the nation through the dark years of World War II is making a comeback as a fashionable superfood.
Kale. It's always been a superfood. It never went away... but now they have a new "hybrid" version that sautees in 2 minutes instead of 5. Buy the original.

DCA, the cancer drug that companies had no interest in testing: Ordinary people step up to fund the first trials

Even though the drug shrinks cancerous tumours, no pharmaceutical companies wanted to fund human trials because they couldn't make enough money selling it. And that's when Peace River stepped in.