Since 2007, some of my best tips came from people of good will, which I never met and may never meet...
It is Saturday, so I got a couple of days to rest and get myself grounded, but Monday I got to start working... Came here to seek protection against retaliation by the Israeli and US governments, following my reports of large-scale fraud in the computer systems of courts and prisons of both nations...
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Joseph Zernik, PhD
Occupy Tel Aviv Encampment
Human Rights Alert (NGO)
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* The Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations was incorporated into the 2010 Periodic Review Report regarding Human Rights in the United States, with the note: "corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California".
* The Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations was incorporated into the 2013 Periodic Review Report regarding Human Rights in Israel, with the note: "lack of integrity of the electronic records of the Supreme Court, the district courts and the detainees courts in Israel."
Friday, August 23, 2013
13-08-23 Hello Berlin!
Alexander Platz from Orianienburger Strasse
A short stop in Pargue, and then a small aircraft (2 propellers) flight to Berlin...
I was surprised how at home I felt as soon as I got here. A lot of new construction since last time I was here (2010). Takes a few hours, and I start speaking German, and begin to recall the S and U Bahn stations...
Full of young tourists, cool city, no doubt!
13-08-23 Misc News of the Abuse: Arizona - Repeatedly Tasered, Man Dies After Being Taken into Police Custody
Occupy America
Posted: 22 Aug 2013 05:51 PM PDT
[Caution: This video is very graphic and may be difficult for some to watch.]
No one seems to know why 44-year-old Michael Ruiz was on the roof of his apartment building on July 28th, but when Phoenix police arrived to help him down, that day took a horrific turn for the worse.
As I noted above, the video is hard to watch. It shows Ruiz on the roof of his apartment complex, and after he jumps down, police officers converge and repeatedly Taser him, put him in a choke hold for at least three minutes, then finally his hands and feet were handcuffed, and he is dragged -- face down -- down a flight of concrete stairs. Some witnesses say they saw police use a stun gun on Michael several times while he was still on the roof.
"Many of Michael's neighbors witnessed everything and recorded it all on their phones.Gary Carthen was good friends with Michael, and witnessed it all."This was bad, very bad. Because he didn't deserve that to happen, not like that," he said.Carthen and his neighbors want answers. Verna Young says you could hear his head banging on the stairs as police dragged him down."I started crying 'cause that's not right, to hurt nobody like that," she said. "He didn't deserve that. He was a nice person, very nice."'
Richard Erickson, Michael's father and retired LAPD detective told reporters that his son had some drug issues, but was never violent and respected police.
"I just felt sick to my stomach," he said, referring to the video. "I'd never seen anything like this before, even when I was with the police department."
Michael Ruiz had to be resuscitated at the scene, and when his family arrived at the hospital he was on life support. The doctors said that he was brain-dead. Family members removed him from life-support on August 2nd.
Erickson has hired an attorney and wants the officers involved fired.
"I don't want to see anyone else's son killed like this," he said.
READ MORE:
13-08-23 War crimes litigation in the US against Bush II et al...
And we get the news via Russia Today... jz
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DOJ Wants Bush, Senior Cabinet Members Exempt From Iraq War Trial
By RT
August 22, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "rt" - The United States Department of Justice has requested that former President George W. Bush and the highest figures in his administration receive full exemption from being tried for the Iraq War, which the DoJ says was in line with international law.
By RT
August 22, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "rt" - The United States Department of Justice has requested that former President George W. Bush and the highest figures in his administration receive full exemption from being tried for the Iraq War, which the DoJ says was in line with international law.
Apart from Bush, the names listed in the paper the DoJ filed on Tuesday are former Vice President Richard Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, retired four-star General Colin Powell, former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice and former Deputy Secretary of Defense and President of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz.
Sundus Saleh, an Iraqi single mother of three who became a refugee, filed a complaint in March in the San Francisco federal court, claiming that the war in her country can be judged as a ‘crime of aggression’, according to the same legal standards that the Nuremberg Tribunal used for convicting Nazi war criminals of World War II.
Saleh is the lead plaintiff in this class action lawsuit.
The reason for the decision is connected with the ‘Westfall Act’ certification. The 1988 law gives the Attorney General the power to personally decide whether the United States is actually a defendant in the case. This in turn allows the granting of absolute immunity to politicians for actions carried out while in the government’s employ.
Inder Comar of Comar Law has agreed to take the case. The San-Francisco-based firm normally specializes in support to private companies, particularly those in the tech industry. Comar met with Saleh at her home in Jordan to discuss the case.
Chief counsel Comar wrote on the War Is a Crime website explaining that, "The DoJ claims that in planning and waging the Iraq War, ex-President Bush and key members of his Administration were acting within the legitimate scope of their employment and are thus immune from suit.”
The lawsuit filed by Saleh says that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz orchestrated the Iraq War in 1998 as part of their involvement with the ‘Project for the New American Century’, a Washington DC-based non-profit organization that pushed for the overthrow of Iraq’s former leader, Saddam Hussein.
In this U.S. Marine handout picture, which was released on November 23, 2004, Iraqi Special Forces and U.S. Marines from the 2nd Squad, 3rd Platoon, L Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division, conduct a security patrol towards the palm grove and clear buildings along the way in the war-torn city of Falluja. (Reuters/HO/USM/Lance Corporal James J. Vooris HH/JV)
Salleh then alleges that the tragedy of September 11, 2001, was pitched to other members of the Bush cabinet as the perfect excuse to scare the American public into supporting the war in Iraq. The lawsuit also claims that the United States failed to obtain United Nations approval for the invasion, making it an illegal and aggressive act of war.
According to Corey Hill, who is a member and outreach coordinator for Global Exchange, an international human rights organization, Comar Law is invoking something called the Alien Tort Statute, which is a 1789 law that permits a foreign national to sue the US federal court for injuries “committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Hill explained this in his article for YES! Magazine, for which he also writes.
All the defendants in the case have been summoned to appear in accordance with the usual legal proceedings. The trial is expected to start in early 2014.
There are, however, several problems that could arise with the allegations. As Paul Stephen, who teaches law at the University of Virginia and is former international law consultant for the Department of State told YES! Magazine, that it would be difficult to sue a government employee for acting “under the scope of employment” in this case, because of the modified nature of the Westfall Act, giving officials more scope for action.
The second problem may arise from the fact that their actions did not take place on US soil, making it difficult to validate the accusation.
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (Mark Wilson/Getty Images/AFP)
And lastly, “courts aren’t open to ruling on matters of a political nature”, Hill said in reference to a doctrine in US Constitutional Law that separates clear-cut court cases with those better left to the legislative and executive branches of the government. This doctrine then means that the invasion of Iraq is a political case – not a legal one.
“If the expectation is that a federal court will declare that the invasion, although duly authorized by Congress, violated international law and thus violates U.S. law, I would respond that we walked up and down that hill with respect to Vietnam... No federal court ever has recognized such a claim,” Hill explained.
But Comar is optimistic in so far that in order for the Westfall Act to work in this case, the US government would have to prove that the act of preparing the invasion through a non-profit organization took place within office. But since that was not the case, the law cannot be invoked here. He further explained to Hill that separating a political matter from a purely legal one will also not be easy for the US government, as it may often be a very blurry line. Comar expanded on this position to the ‘War Is a Crime’ website.
“The good news is that while we were disappointed with the certification, we were prepared for it,” he said. “We do not see how a Westfall Act certification is appropriate given that Ms. Saleh alleges that the conduct at issue began prior to these defendants even entering into office. I think the Nuremberg prosecutors, particularly American Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson, would be surprised to learn that planning a war of aggression at a private non-profit, misleading a fearful public, and foregoing proper legal authorization somehow constitute lawful employment duties for the American president and his or her cabinet.”
13-08-23 Cheney v Manning - a cute reminder...
And Cheney's conduct, to begin with, was retaliation against the whistle-blowing action of Plame's husband, the former US ambassador... jz
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If a nuclear device is ever smuggled into the US, we might have Dick Cheney to thank for it.
13-08-23 Conspiracy and paranoia are becoming ever more popular... The banking cartel!
Anybody with brains knew it all along.... Clinton was the one who sold us all off,,,, Because it's best to let the banking industry regulate itself... jz
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The Confidential Memo at the Heart of the Global Financial CrisisBy Greg Palast (about the author) Permalink (Related Topic(s): Deregulation; Deregu
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Reprinted from vice.com
When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.
The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak's fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.
The Treasury official playing the bankers' secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama's leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world's central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn't be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.
The memo is authentic.
I had to fly to Geneva to get confirmation and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy. Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalisation, told me,
"The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people... We don't have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating."
Then I showed him the memo.
It begins with Larry Summers' flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the Bank bigshots to order their lobbyist armies to march:
"As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs""
To avoid Summers having to call his office to get the phone numbers (which, under US law, would have to appear on public logs), Geithner listed the private lines of what were then the five most powerful CEOs on the planet. And here they are:
Goldman Sachs: John Corzine (212)902-8281
Merrill Lynch: David Kamanski (212)449-6868
Bank of America: David Coulter (415)622-2255
Citibank: John Reed (212)559-2732
Chase Manhattan: Walter Shipley (212)270-1380
Lamy was right: They don't smoke cigars. Go ahead and dial them. I did, and sure enough, got a cheery personal hello from Reed -- cheery until I revealed I wasn't Larry Summers. (Note: The other numbers were swiftly disconnected. And Corzine can't be reached while he faces criminal charges.)
It's not the little cabal of confabs held by Summers and the banksters that's so troubling. The horror is in the purpose of the "end game" itself.
Let me explain:
The year was 1997. US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks. That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks. It was like replacing bank vaults with roulette wheels.
Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game: "derivatives trading". JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as "assets".
Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers (soon to replace Rubin as Secretary) body-blocked any attempt to control derivatives.
But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?
The answer conceived by the Big Bank Five: eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet -- in one single move. It was as brilliant as it was insanely dangerous.
How could they pull off this mad caper? The bankers' and Summers' game was to use the Financial Services Agreement (or FSA), an abstruse and benign addendum to the international trade agreements policed by the World Trade Organisation.
Until the bankers began their play, the WTO agreements dealt simply with trade in goods -- that is, my cars for your bananas. The new rules devised by Summers and the banks would force all nations to accept trade in "bads" -- toxic assets like financial derivatives.
Until the bankers' re-draft of the FSA, each nation controlled and chartered the banks within their own borders. The new rules of the game would force every nation to open their markets to Citibank, JP Morgan and their derivatives "products".
And all 156 nations in the WTO would have to smash down their own Glass-Steagall divisions between commercial savings banks and the investment banks that gamble with derivatives.
The job of turning the FSA into the bankers' battering ram was given to Geithner, who was named Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation.
Bankers Go Bananas
Why in the world would any nation agree to let its banking system be boarded and seized by financial pirates like JP Morgan?
The answer, in the case of Ecuador, was bananas. Ecuador was truly a banana republic. The yellow fruit was that nation's life-and-death source of hard currency. If it refused to sign the new FSA, Ecuador could feed its bananas to the monkeys and go back into bankruptcy. Ecuador signed.
And so on -- with every single nation bullied into signing .
Every nation but one, I should say. Brazil's new President, Inacio Lula da Silva, refused. In retaliation, Brazil was threatened with a virtual embargo of its products by the European Union's Trade Commissioner, one Peter Mandelson, according to another confidential memo I got my hands on. But Lula's refusenik stance paid off for Brazil which, alone among Western nations, survived and thrived during the 2007-9 bank crisis.
China signed -- but got its pound of flesh in return. It opened its banking sector a crack in return for access and control of the US auto parts and other markets. (Swiftly, two million US jobs shifted to China.)
The new FSA pulled the lid off the Pandora's box of worldwide derivatives trade. Among the notorious transactions legalised: Goldman Sachs (where Treasury Secretary Rubin had been co-chairman) worked a secret euro-derivatives swap with Greece which, ultimately, destroyed that nation. Ecuador, its own banking sector de-regulated and demolished, exploded into riots. Argentina had to sell off its oil companies (to the Spanish) and water systems (to Enron) while its teachers hunted for food in garbage cans. Then, Bankers Gone Wild in the Eurozone dove head-first into derivatives pools without knowing how to swim -- and the continent is now being sold off in tiny, cheap pieces to Germany.
Of course, it was not just threats that sold the FSA, but temptation as well. After all, every evil starts with one bite of an apple offered by a snake. The apple: the gleaming piles of lucre hidden in the FSA for local elites. The snake was named Larry.
Does all this evil and pain flow from a single memo? Of course not: the evil was The Game itself, as played by the banker clique. The memo only revealed their game-plan for checkmate.
And the memo reveals a lot about Summers and Obama.
While billions of sorry souls are still hurting from worldwide banker-made disaster, Rubin and Summers didn't do too badly. Rubin's deregulation of banks had permitted the creation of a financial monstrosity called "Citigroup". Within weeks of leaving office, Rubin was named director, then Chairman of Citigroup -- which went bankrupt while managing to pay Rubin a total of $126 million.
Then Rubin took on another post: as key campaign benefactor to a young State Senator, Barack Obama. Only days after his election as President, Obama, at Rubin's insistence, gave Summers the odd post of US "Economics Tsar" and made Geithner his Tsarina (that is, Secretary of Treasury). In 2010, Summers gave up his royalist robes to return to "consulting" for Citibank and other creatures of bank deregulation whose payments have raised Summers' net worth by $31 million since the "end-game" memo.
That Obama would, at Robert Rubin's demand, now choose Summers to run the Federal Reserve Board means that, unfortunately, we are far from the end of the game.
Special thanks to expert Mary Bottari of Bankster USA http://www.BanksterUSA.org
The film of my meeting with WTO chief Lamy was originally created for Ring of Fire, hosted by Mike Papantonio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Further discussion of the documents I laid before Lamy can be found in "The Generalissimo of Globalization," Chapter 12 of Vultures' Picnic by Greg Palast (Constable Robinson 2012).
Follow Greg on Twitter: @Greg_Palast
13-08-23 Bradley Manning and the Gangster State
Either you stay as a slave on the plantation, or you suffer the consequences... jz
Wednesday's sentencing marks one of the most important watersheds in U.S. history. It marks the day when the state formally declared that all who name and expose its crimes will become political prisoners or be forced, like Edward Snowden, and perhaps Glenn Greenwald, to spend the rest of their lives in exile. Our nation has become a vast penal colony.
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