Spintested: 12/13/11

Joe Lieberman On Newt Gingrich 'Invented' Comment: Palestinian Peoplehood Now A Reality (VIDEO)

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Forget the rhetoric, the reality is that if the US wanted to recognize the Palestinians and get a solution and peace, it would have happened.

What Lieberman is criticizing Gingrich for is putting into words what the elites and the military industrial complex actually believe. Let's not forget that while Gingrich wasn't in any elected office since leaving the Congress, he's been in deep inside the Pentagon and US foreign policy-making.

Gingrich was a member of PNAC and was on the Defense Policy Board at the Pentagon where, in the days after September 11, 2001, Gingrich and his colleagues met for 19 hours to discuss what to do about the attack. As the New York Times reported, the members of that meeting agreed to attack Iraq as soon as the initial phase of the war with Afghanistan was over. Gingrich said in an interview at the time, ”If we don’t use this as the moment to replace Saddam after we replace the Taliban, we are setting the stage for disaster.”

In a speech around the same time, Gingrich told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute, “We have to talk about replacement, not about punishment” of Hussein.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Newt Gingrich A Hypocrite For Supporting Death Penalty For Marijuana Smugglers, Gary Johnson Says

There go the Ron Paul supporters.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Indefinite Military Detention: Revised Defense Bill Still Gives President Authority To Lock Up Citizens

I'm listening to AM radio right now. One 'progressive' talk show host is talking about Jerry Sandusky and the rightwing host (Mark Levin) is talking about the House having passed the bill to extend the payroll tax holiday (of course Republicans would go for this -- It brings Social Security and Medicare all that much closer to ending) which also puts Keystone XL pipeline on a fast track.
About Video
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Indefinite Military Detention: Revised Defense Bill Still Gives President Authority To Lock Up Citizens

With the exception of Bernie Sanders, none of the senators that voted against this are up for reelection.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Indefinite Military Detention: Revised Defense Bill Still Gives President Authority To Lock Up Citizens

The only reason those senators opposed the bill is because with the exception of Bernie Sanders, none of them are up for reelection in 2012.
About Video
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama 2012 Gaining Support From Democrats

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/13/indefinite-military-detention-defense-bill-citizens_n_1146181.html

Wake up.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Indefinite Military Detention: Revised Defense Bill Still Gives President Authority To Lock Up Citizens

If you go back and listen to Candidate Obama's speeches, and interviews and debates, there is really little that he's done that contradicts what he said. It was all 'lawyer-speak', similar to Bush-speak, words and phrases that leave wiggle room or have alternative meanings that the listener presumes means something else.

What Bush needed a team of speechwriters for, Obama is able to do on his feet, but even then his 'talent' is limited. He hasn't faced a press conference in months and he takes no questions when he makes speeches.

Go watch his campaign clips on YouTube with your now 'experienced' ears -- His 'Reagan interview' is a good one to see how devious and deceitful he is.

Just when I thought no president could be less accessible and less accountable and more devious than BushCheney, Obama happens.
About Video
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Indefinite Military Detention: Revised Defense Bill Still Gives President Authority To Lock Up Citizens

Why haven't we heard anything for the "TeaParty"!!!!! Oh my GOD.
I guess they haven't been told yet that they should FEAR this.

==============================

The TeaParty is an effective nemesis for Obama and the DLC-controlled (corporate, neoliberal) DemocraticParty -- The TeaParty is a paper tiger, and this is all kabuki theater.

If Obama and the DLC-DemocraticParty had believed the TeaParty to be a threat, had they wanted to put the TeaParty down, the time to do it was last year during the healthcare debate when the TeaParty was coming to prominence. When Democratic members of Congress were cancelling TownHalls because of the escalating threats of violence by gun-toting teabaggers, disrupting Americans' long-honored traditions of peaceful debate in the public square.

Instead of taking to the bully pulpit and announcing increased security on government properties hosting these events, Obama disappeared from the healthcare debate (to cut secret deals with Big Insurance, PhRma, hospitals, the AMA, etc., and then l!e about it) as the TeaParty grew and bullied at TownHalls.

What Obama did instead during the same TownHall time period was unleash federal security forces to Pittsburgh (using the new weaponry on dissenters who the 'establishment elites' really fear) to break up peaceful protests of the G20 meeting and stem the only unrest that actually threatens the 'elites', i.e., the American people taking back their government.

Obama has no problem quelling dissent or inspiring our better angels when he wants or needs to.

The Tea Party has served the Establishment Elite's purposes very very well.
About Video
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Congress Authorizing Govt to Abduct and Imprison Citizens on US Soil

The military detention provisions of the NDAA, if passed, would overturn once and for all a central principle of the relationship between the American population and its government that has persisted since 1791: the Fifth Amendment, which states, “No person … shall be deprived of … liberty … without due process of law …”

Translated in to plain English, this means that the US military can unilaterally cause any person to “disappear,” imprisoning him or her indefinitely—without trial, without a warrant, without the involvement of an attorney or a judge, without respect for international law, and without giving any reasons.

[...]

The provisions of the NDAA are unmistakably expansive and vague. What does “associated forces” mean? What does it mean to have “supported such hostilities?” What does it mean to give “aid” to “enemy forces?

[...]

Quoting Sen. Lindsey Graham:
“If you’re an American citizen and you betray your country, you’re not going to be given a lawyer . . . I believe our military should be deeply involved in fighting these guys at home or abroad.” As Graham made chillingly clear, one key effect of the provision is that the U.S. military — rather than domestic law enforcement agencies — will be used to apprehend and imprison accused Terrorists on American soil, including U.S. citizens.

[i]f a person were abducted by the military and held incommunicado, does it make a difference whether or not the prisoner “supported” any “enemies,” if the prisoner never would have the opportunity to go before a judge and argue at the provisions of the NDAA do not apply to him?

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Alabama Sheriffs Pocket Meal Payments

The privatization of prison and jail food services began in Alabama. Over 70 years ago, Alabama passed a law that provided county sheriffs with $1.75 a day per jail prisoner to cover the cost of their meals. While the law went into effect in 1939, it is still in use today. Under that system, Alabama sheriffs are personally responsible for paying for prisoners’ food, but are allowed to keep any excess funds if they can feed prisoners for less than the payments they receive from the state.

Not surprisingly, this creates an incentive for sheriffs to skimp on the quality and quantity of meals served to prisoners. “Most of it is like powdered food and the portions are minimal in county jails,” said Rev. Kenneth Glasglow, who visits Alabama jails to register prisoners to vote. The practice has also led to legal problems.

Morgan County, Alabama Sheriff Greg Bartlett was jailed by federal authorities on January 8, 2009, after he admitted to pocketing over $200,000 allocated for meals for prisoners in the county jail. A federal judge found Bartlett had failed to provide the prisoners with “a nutritionally adequate diet.”
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Appalling Prison and Jail Food Leaves Prisoners Hungry for Justice

Prison food. The very words conjure images of unidentifiable mystery meat, chili-mac, watery oatmeal and creamed chipped beef – the latter being commonly, though not very appetizingly, known as “$h!t on a shingle” in jailhouse parlance.

Before someone goes to prison or jail, what they eat is usually taken for granted. But behind bars, food becomes a serious issue. With the trend towards privatizing prison food services, plus economic pressures on state and local governments, there are growing concerns as to whether prisoners are receiving nutritionally adequate diets.

When confronted with jail or prison cuisine, prisoners have only three options: eating what is served or buying overpriced food items from the institutional canteen or commissary, assuming they have sufficient funds, or stealing prison food and preparing it themselves. Most prisons and jails use a rotating menu for their meals, with the same foods being served on a regular cycle. Others plan meals according to whatever foodstuffs can be purchased at the lowest price.

Over the past decade, prison and jail officials have been turning to private for-profit companies to cut the cost of feeding prisoners. Leading the way in contracted food services is Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services. Other prison food service firms include A’Viands Food & Services Management, ABL Management, and U.K.-based Compass Group’s Canteen Correctional Services and Trinity Services Group.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

As the weak economy continues to hit cash-strapped city and state governments, some are passing the costs on to prisoners. More than 20,000 Texas prisoners have been eating two meals a day on weekends since April, in a bid by the prison system to cut food-service costs, The New York Times reports.

The Department of Criminal Justice cuts are part of an overall plan to slash spending in Texas. Legislators passed a budget that reduced state spending by more than $15 billion and cut 5,700 jobs in the state, the Star-Telegram reported.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Nashville City Paper

A Brentwood prison health company’s announcement that it will restate earnings because of internal problems in its pharmacy subsidiary has spawned a shareholders’ lawsuit by a union pension fund. The Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 51 Pension Fund filed the suit last week in U.S. District Court in Nashville against America Service Group, which provides health care services to prisons. The complaint stems from the company’s March 15 disclosure of an internal investigation that uncovered several problems with its Secure Pharmacy Plus (SPP) subsidiary, which contracts with governments to distribute medications to inmates. The announcement “shocked the market,” the suit states. The company’s stock price fell nearly 29 percent, or $5.65 per share, to close at $13.95. The pension fund claims that America Service Group, through its public statements and filings, knowingly misled shareholders about the company’s financial health, which artificially inflated ASG’s common stock. The pension fund’s law firms — Barrett, Johnston & Parsley of Nashville and Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins of New York — are seeking class-action status on behalf of shareholders of common stock between Sept. 24, 2003, and March 16, 2006. The suit asks for unspecified damages.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Who Wants To Keep The War On Drugs Going And Put You In Debtors' Prison?

Earlier this year, a Pennsylvania judge was convicted of racketeering, of taking bribes from parties of interest in his cases. It was a fairly routine case of bribery, with one significant exception. The party making the payoffs was a builder and operator of youth prisons, and the judge was rewarding him by sending lots of kids to his prisons.

Welcome to the for-profit prison industry. It’s an industry that wants people in jail, because jail's their product. And they have shareholder expectations to meet.

Privatized prisons are marketed to international investors as “social infrastructure”, and they are part of a wave of privatization washing over the globe. Multi-billion dollar prison companies are upgraded by analysts with antiseptic words like “prospects for global prison growth”, and these companies have built a revolving door and patronage machine characteristic of any government contractor. Only, in this case, the business they're in is putting people into steel cages (or “filling beds” as they put it), and they don’t care how, why, or whether the people in those beds should be there. They don’t care if you’re in prison for smoking pot, stealing cars, or being in debt. They just want people in jail.

Here’s the 2010 10k of the Corrections Corporation of America (PDF), the largest operator of private prisons in the country. It’s a pretty simple business model – more prisoners, more money. Or, as the company writes, “Historically, we have been successful in substantially filling our inventory of available beds and the beds that we have constructed. Filling these available beds would provide substantial growth in revenues, cash flow, and earnings per share.”

CCA offers an assessment of risks to the company, which include ending the war on drugs or curbing the incarceration of undocumented immigrants:

The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Welcome to Debtors' Prison, 2011 Edition

More than a third of all U.S. states allow borrowers who can't or won't pay to be jailed. Judges have signed off on more than 5,000 such warrants since the start of 2010 in nine counties with a total population of 13.6 million people, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal of filings in those counties. Nationwide figures aren't known because many courts don't keep track of warrants by alleged offense. In interviews, 20 judges across the nation said the number of borrowers threatened with arrest in their courtrooms has surged since the financial crisis began.

The backlash is a reaction to sloppy, incomplete or even false documentation that can result in borrowers having no idea before being locked up that they were sued to collect an outstanding debt.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

The Prison Industrial Complex: Biased, Predatory and Growing

The fastest growing form of incarceration in the United States is immigration detention. And the biggest benefactor of this increased enforcement of border and immigration laws is the very profitable and politically connected private-prison industry.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

In Pennsylvania, prison still a growth industry

Pennsylvania is so invested in the prison business - the Land of Oz - that we export inmates to Michigan and Virginia facilities. Says civil rights and criminal defense lawyer David Rudovsky, "Instead of shipping produce and other products of economic benefit, we're shipping prisoners."

And all of this costs noxious amounts of money; the state allocation is due to grow 8.5 percent, to almost $1.8 billion. That's nearly a third of what Pennsylvania spends on education.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Private Prisons: A Reliable American Growth Industry

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

America's Newest Growth Industry:

With Incarceration Rates Soaring, It Was Only Matter of Time Before Entrepreneurs Sniffed Out New Business Opportunity

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

The Prison-Industrial Complex

Correctional officials see danger in prison overcrowding. Others see opportunity. The nearly two million Americans behind bars—the majority of them nonviolent offenders—mean jobs for depressed regions and windfalls for profiteers

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

© Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP