Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Russian attorney - Sergei Magnitsky
Sergei L. Magnitsky (approx. 1972 — 11/16/2009) was a Russian attorney whose death in police custody generated international media attention and launched an investigation into allegations of abuse. Magnitsky, who had alleged wide-scale tax fraud sanctioned by officials before being himself arrested, died days before the one year limit that he could be held without trial would expire.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Esoteric Agenda: Capitus Diminutio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinaDRdh4vc&feature=fvw#t=9m01s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitus_Diminutio
Capitis Deminutio, a term used in Roman trials, referred to the extinguishing, either in whole or in part, of a person's former legal capacity. There were three changes of state or condition attended with different consequences, Maxima, Media and Minima. The greatest, Capitis Deminutio Maxima, involved the loss of liberty, citizenship, and family (e.g. being made a slave or prisoner of war). The next change of state, Capitis Deminutio Media, consisted of a loss of citizenship and family without any forfeiture of personal liberty. The least change of state, Capitis Deminutio Minima, consisted of a person ceasing to belong to a particular family, without loss of liberty or citizenship.
Etomology:
From Latin: Latin to English Translation:
Capitis = "You Take"
Diminutio, dessecio = "Decrease", withdrawal
Maxima, Maximus = Large, The Biggest, "Important"
"Capitis Diminutio Maxima" =
"You Take and Decrease the Important."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitus_Diminutio
Capitis Deminutio, a term used in Roman trials, referred to the extinguishing, either in whole or in part, of a person's former legal capacity. There were three changes of state or condition attended with different consequences, Maxima, Media and Minima. The greatest, Capitis Deminutio Maxima, involved the loss of liberty, citizenship, and family (e.g. being made a slave or prisoner of war). The next change of state, Capitis Deminutio Media, consisted of a loss of citizenship and family without any forfeiture of personal liberty. The least change of state, Capitis Deminutio Minima, consisted of a person ceasing to belong to a particular family, without loss of liberty or citizenship.
Etomology:
From Latin: Latin to English Translation:
Capitis = "You Take"
Diminutio, dessecio = "Decrease", withdrawal
Maxima, Maximus = Large, The Biggest, "Important"
"Capitis Diminutio Maxima" =
"You Take and Decrease the Important."
AFP: MI5 faces probe over 7/7
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g_Owb0tN9KsJ1YMD-LsgC9jR6daQ
LONDON — Inquests into the deaths of 56 people in London's July 2005 suicide bombings will probe alleged failings by police and MI5 intelligence before the attacks, the coroner conducting the hearings said Friday.
Judge Heather Hallett also ruled that inquests into four suicide bombers will be held separately from those of the 52 victims, a relief to families who had protested plans to hold the inquests together.
The suicide bombers set off near-simultaneous explosions on three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus on the morning of July 7, 2005, in what has become known as 7/7, nearly four years after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
Hallett, giving details of arrangements for the inquests due to start in October, said they would probe what police and MI5 officers knew ahead of the shock attacks.
"The scope of the inquest into the 52 deaths will include the alleged intelligence failings and the immediate aftermath of the bombings," she said.
"To my mind it is not too remote to investigate what was known in the year or two before the alleged bombings. Plots of this kind are not developed overnight," she added.
Janine Mitchell, whose husband Paul survived the King's Cross explosion, welcomed the decision to probe MI5's role.
"We have been very concerned that there were serious failings and it seems that this is the case... We are relieved that someone independent of Government is going to examine what happened.
"We put all our faith in the coroner to do that, so if anything did go wrong it can be fixed."
Hallett also announced that the inquests will not be held with a jury, and that the hundreds of people injured in the attacks will not be designated "interested person" status -- granting the right to cross-examine witnesses.
Survivors of the bombings voiced disappointment. "Once again we have been shunted aside by officialdom and those questions may or may not be answered," said Jacqui Putnam, who survived the Edgware Road blast.
The 7/7 attacks struck during the rush hour on a Thursday morning, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair was meeting with Group of Eight (G8) counterparts for a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.
Three bombs exploded shortly after 8:50 am: Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, blew himself up at Edgware Road station, 22-year-old Shehzad Tanweer at Aldgate, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19 between King's Cross and Russell Square.
Hasib Hussain, 18, detonated his device on board a number 30 bus at Tavistock Square at 9.47 am. As well as the dead, some 700 people were injured in the blasts.
It later emerged that intelligence services had followed the bombers' ringleader, Khan, in early 2004 during an investigation into extremists planning a fertiliser bomb plot.
As well as interrupting the G8 meeting in Scotland, the bombings also shattered a sense of euphoria in London from a decision the previous day to stage the 2012 Olympic Games in the British capital.
Two weeks after July 7 there was an apparent attempt at a copycat simultaneous attack, but the devices involved failed to go off. In the rush to find the plotters police mistakenly shot and killed an innocent Brazilian man.
LONDON — Inquests into the deaths of 56 people in London's July 2005 suicide bombings will probe alleged failings by police and MI5 intelligence before the attacks, the coroner conducting the hearings said Friday.
Judge Heather Hallett also ruled that inquests into four suicide bombers will be held separately from those of the 52 victims, a relief to families who had protested plans to hold the inquests together.
The suicide bombers set off near-simultaneous explosions on three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus on the morning of July 7, 2005, in what has become known as 7/7, nearly four years after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
Hallett, giving details of arrangements for the inquests due to start in October, said they would probe what police and MI5 officers knew ahead of the shock attacks.
"The scope of the inquest into the 52 deaths will include the alleged intelligence failings and the immediate aftermath of the bombings," she said.
"To my mind it is not too remote to investigate what was known in the year or two before the alleged bombings. Plots of this kind are not developed overnight," she added.
Janine Mitchell, whose husband Paul survived the King's Cross explosion, welcomed the decision to probe MI5's role.
"We have been very concerned that there were serious failings and it seems that this is the case... We are relieved that someone independent of Government is going to examine what happened.
"We put all our faith in the coroner to do that, so if anything did go wrong it can be fixed."
Hallett also announced that the inquests will not be held with a jury, and that the hundreds of people injured in the attacks will not be designated "interested person" status -- granting the right to cross-examine witnesses.
Survivors of the bombings voiced disappointment. "Once again we have been shunted aside by officialdom and those questions may or may not be answered," said Jacqui Putnam, who survived the Edgware Road blast.
The 7/7 attacks struck during the rush hour on a Thursday morning, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair was meeting with Group of Eight (G8) counterparts for a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.
Three bombs exploded shortly after 8:50 am: Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, blew himself up at Edgware Road station, 22-year-old Shehzad Tanweer at Aldgate, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19 between King's Cross and Russell Square.
Hasib Hussain, 18, detonated his device on board a number 30 bus at Tavistock Square at 9.47 am. As well as the dead, some 700 people were injured in the blasts.
It later emerged that intelligence services had followed the bombers' ringleader, Khan, in early 2004 during an investigation into extremists planning a fertiliser bomb plot.
As well as interrupting the G8 meeting in Scotland, the bombings also shattered a sense of euphoria in London from a decision the previous day to stage the 2012 Olympic Games in the British capital.
Two weeks after July 7 there was an apparent attempt at a copycat simultaneous attack, but the devices involved failed to go off. In the rush to find the plotters police mistakenly shot and killed an innocent Brazilian man.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Rand Paul: Obama BP criticism 'un-American'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37273085/ns/politics-decision_2010/
Rand Paul To George Stephanopoulos: Criticizing BP Is Un-American
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAGS73bmnkM&feature=related
Rand Paul To George Stephanopoulos: Criticizing BP Is Un-American
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAGS73bmnkM&feature=related
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Intelligence director Dennis Blair to resign
Chief's tenure was marked by turf battles with CIA
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37262599/ns/politics/
By EILEEN SULLIVAN
WASHINGTON - A government official says Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair is resigning.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not been made public.
President Barack Obama and Blair spoke on Thursday in the Oval Office and Blair offered to resign, according to ABC News, which first reported the story. His resignation could come as soon as Friday.
A retired Navy admiral, Blair is the third director of national intelligence, a position created in response to the 9/11 attacks.
Blair's tenure as the overseer of the nation's intelligence agencies was marked by turf battles with CIA Director Leon Panetta and controversial public comments in the wake of the Christmas Day airliner bombing attempt.
Blair's resignation comes in the wake of a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report regarding intelligence failures and the Christmas Day bombing attempt. That report was highly critical of the DNI's National Counterrorism Center.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37262599/ns/politics/
By EILEEN SULLIVAN
WASHINGTON - A government official says Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair is resigning.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not been made public.
President Barack Obama and Blair spoke on Thursday in the Oval Office and Blair offered to resign, according to ABC News, which first reported the story. His resignation could come as soon as Friday.
A retired Navy admiral, Blair is the third director of national intelligence, a position created in response to the 9/11 attacks.
Blair's tenure as the overseer of the nation's intelligence agencies was marked by turf battles with CIA Director Leon Panetta and controversial public comments in the wake of the Christmas Day airliner bombing attempt.
Blair's resignation comes in the wake of a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report regarding intelligence failures and the Christmas Day bombing attempt. That report was highly critical of the DNI's National Counterrorism Center.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
What is “Dead Peasant” Insurance?
http://deadpeasantinsurance.com/
Dead Peasant Insurance is sometimes used as a shorthand reference for life insurance policies that insure a company’s rank-and-file employees and name the company as the beneficiary. This means that the company receives the life insurance benefits when the covered employees die. This insurance may also be called “janitor insurance,”…
Dead Peasant Insurance is sometimes used as a shorthand reference for life insurance policies that insure a company’s rank-and-file employees and name the company as the beneficiary. This means that the company receives the life insurance benefits when the covered employees die. This insurance may also be called “janitor insurance,”…
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Pa. Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html
At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.
Instead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.
She was handcuffed and taken away as her stunned parents stood by.
“I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare,” said Hillary, 17, who was sentenced in 2007. “All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”
The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003. Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.
The case has shocked Luzerne County, an area in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been battered by a loss of industrial jobs and the closing of most of its anthracite coal mines.
And it raised concerns about whether juveniles should be required to have counsel either before or during their appearances in court and whether juvenile courts should be open to the public or child advocates.
If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar. They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months. Lawyers for both men declined to comment.
Since state law forbids retirement benefits to judges convicted of a felony while in office, the judges would also lose their pensions.
With Judge Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said.
They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, the authorities said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers.
Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.
Though he pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday, Judge Ciavarella has denied sentencing juveniles who did not deserve it or sending them to the detention centers in a quid pro quo with the centers.
But Assistant United States Attorney Gordon A. Zubrod said after the hearing that the government continues to charge a quid pro quo.
“We’re not negotiating that, no,” Mr. Zubrod said. “We’re not backing off.”
No charges have been filed against executives of the detention centers. Prosecutors said the investigation into the case was continuing.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Judge Ciavarella was unusually harsh. He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10. He also routinely ignored requests for leniency made by prosecutors and probation officers.
“The juvenile system, by design, is intended to be a less punitive system than the adult system, and yet here were scores of children with very minor infractions having their lives ruined,” said Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center.
“There was a culture of intimidation surrounding this judge and no one was willing to speak up about the sentences he was handing down.”
Last year, the Juvenile Law Center, which had raised concerns about Judge Ciavarella in the past, filed a motion to the State Supreme Court about more than 500 juveniles who had appeared before the judge without representation. The court originally rejected the petition, but recently reversed that decision.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that children have a constitutional right to counsel. But in Pennsylvania, as in at least 20 other states, children can waive counsel, and about half of the children that Judge Ciavarella sentenced had chosen to do so. Only Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina require juveniles to have representation when they appear before judges.
Clay Yeager, the former director of the Office of Juvenile Justice in Pennsylvania, said typical juvenile proceedings are kept closed to the public to protect the privacy of children.
“But they are kept open to probation officers, district attorneys, and public defenders, all of whom are sworn to protect the interests of children,” he said. “It’s pretty clear those people didn’t do their jobs.”
On Thursday in Federal District Court in Scranton, more than 80 people packed every available seat in the courtroom. At one point, as Assistant United States Attorney William S. Houser explained to Judge Edwin M. Kosik that the government was willing to reach a plea agreement with the men because the case involved “complex charges that could have resulted in years of litigation,” one man sitting in the audience said “bull” loud enough to be heard in the courtroom.
One of the parents at the hearing was Susan Mishanski of Hanover Township.
Her son, Kevin, now 18, was sentenced to 90 days in a detention facility last year in a simple assault case that everyone had told her would result in probation, since Kevin had never been in trouble and the boy he hit had only a black eye.
“It’s horrible to have your child taken away in shackles right in front of you when you think you’re going home with him,” she said. “It was nice to see them sitting on the other side of the bench.”
At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.
Instead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.
She was handcuffed and taken away as her stunned parents stood by.
“I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare,” said Hillary, 17, who was sentenced in 2007. “All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”
The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003. Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.
The case has shocked Luzerne County, an area in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been battered by a loss of industrial jobs and the closing of most of its anthracite coal mines.
And it raised concerns about whether juveniles should be required to have counsel either before or during their appearances in court and whether juvenile courts should be open to the public or child advocates.
If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar. They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months. Lawyers for both men declined to comment.
Since state law forbids retirement benefits to judges convicted of a felony while in office, the judges would also lose their pensions.
With Judge Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said.
They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, the authorities said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers.
Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.
Though he pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday, Judge Ciavarella has denied sentencing juveniles who did not deserve it or sending them to the detention centers in a quid pro quo with the centers.
But Assistant United States Attorney Gordon A. Zubrod said after the hearing that the government continues to charge a quid pro quo.
“We’re not negotiating that, no,” Mr. Zubrod said. “We’re not backing off.”
No charges have been filed against executives of the detention centers. Prosecutors said the investigation into the case was continuing.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Judge Ciavarella was unusually harsh. He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10. He also routinely ignored requests for leniency made by prosecutors and probation officers.
“The juvenile system, by design, is intended to be a less punitive system than the adult system, and yet here were scores of children with very minor infractions having their lives ruined,” said Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center.
“There was a culture of intimidation surrounding this judge and no one was willing to speak up about the sentences he was handing down.”
Last year, the Juvenile Law Center, which had raised concerns about Judge Ciavarella in the past, filed a motion to the State Supreme Court about more than 500 juveniles who had appeared before the judge without representation. The court originally rejected the petition, but recently reversed that decision.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that children have a constitutional right to counsel. But in Pennsylvania, as in at least 20 other states, children can waive counsel, and about half of the children that Judge Ciavarella sentenced had chosen to do so. Only Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina require juveniles to have representation when they appear before judges.
Clay Yeager, the former director of the Office of Juvenile Justice in Pennsylvania, said typical juvenile proceedings are kept closed to the public to protect the privacy of children.
“But they are kept open to probation officers, district attorneys, and public defenders, all of whom are sworn to protect the interests of children,” he said. “It’s pretty clear those people didn’t do their jobs.”
On Thursday in Federal District Court in Scranton, more than 80 people packed every available seat in the courtroom. At one point, as Assistant United States Attorney William S. Houser explained to Judge Edwin M. Kosik that the government was willing to reach a plea agreement with the men because the case involved “complex charges that could have resulted in years of litigation,” one man sitting in the audience said “bull” loud enough to be heard in the courtroom.
One of the parents at the hearing was Susan Mishanski of Hanover Township.
Her son, Kevin, now 18, was sentenced to 90 days in a detention facility last year in a simple assault case that everyone had told her would result in probation, since Kevin had never been in trouble and the boy he hit had only a black eye.
“It’s horrible to have your child taken away in shackles right in front of you when you think you’re going home with him,” she said. “It was nice to see them sitting on the other side of the bench.”
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