[cia-drugs] Death by Police Taser
Death by Police Taser By Revolution 03-15-2009 Millions of people were stunned and outraged by the videos that showed Oakland BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop Johannes Mehserle draw his gun and kill Oscar Grant. Mehserle quit his job 7 days after the killing to avoid giving any statement about what happened or why he did it. Now Mehserle’s lawyers are working hard to offer a plausible explanation to exonerate the cop for the killing. They say that contrary to what people might think, Mehserle had “no criminal intent” when he fired his gun into Grant’s back at point-blank range. They back up this outrageous statement by explaining their theory that this cop “may have mistakenly deployed his pistol rather than his taser” and did not mean to kill Oscar. He just meant to tase him. Meanwhile, a little more than a month after Oscar Grant was killed in Oakland, another young man was killed by police taser, 40 miles away in San Jose. His name was Richard Lua, and police killed him in front of his own garage, during a “routine patrol.” Police murder has become so “routine” that many times an explanation is offered only as an afterthought. Like Oscar Grant, Richard Lua leaves behind a young daughter and a grieving, outraged family. Taser use is so routine in San Jose that Lua’s is the 6th death by police taser there just since 2005. Death by police taser is on the increase, and in California these deaths are not even counted as part of the state attorney general’s official tally of “police involved homicides,” which numbers over 100 every year. Neither are deaths from police chokeholds or from asphyxiation through being maced or hog-tied. All of these weapons and methods are part of an ugly panorama of police brutality that is entrenched and endemic and an indispensable part of the function of police in this society. Amnesty International reported in 2004 that the organization was “concerned by the growing number of fatalities involving police tasers. Since 2001, more than 70 people are reported to have died in the USA and Canada after being struck by M26 or X26 tasers, with the numbers rising each year.” In 2005, the ACLU issued a report saying that “Since 1999, at least 148 people in the United States and Canada have died after encounters with police who shocked them with Tasers.” A website put up by family and friends of Richard Bagnell, a Canadian man who died after being tasered, now lists 397 people killed in North America. And at least 8 people have been killed by tasers in only the first two months of 2009. Ev’ry time I hear the crack of the whip My blood runs cold I remember on the slave ship How they brutalized our very souls —Bob Marley, “Slave Driver” Tasers have replaced the slave driver’s whip and the prison guard’s cattle prod as one of the high-tech control device used by more than 12,000 police departments and in prisons worldwide. Taser International claims that its products are a less lethal weapon than guns or even batons, and that tasers are changing the world and saving lives everyday. But the new tasers deliver a staggering 50,000 volts of electricity. These electro-shock weapons can be used in “stun mode” or with darts. When in “dart” mode, the shocks cause total “momentary neuro-muscular incapacitation” (source: University of California, San Francisco press release), while the stun mode inflicts intense localized pain. Tasers are used extensively around the world, including in Iraq, most notoriously by the same U.S. military brigade accused of sadistic, blatant and wanton abuse in Abu Ghraib. Along with guns, sticks, pepper spray and the choke-hold, tasers are part of an arsenal of weapons employed against the people to inflict terror and pain and even death. And, unlike firing his gun, in most places a cop needs only the slightest excuse to justify using his taser. In the U.S., far from being used only on supposedly “violent suspects” the Amnesty International study says that tasers are often used against passive resisters—people who refuse to comply with police commands but do not interfere with an officer and pose no physical threat. Police use tasers on people who “mouth off,” or people who are distressed or mentally ill and who are not suspected of a crime. Amnesty reported that “at least 1,000 U.S. jails and prisons have adopted the new generation M26 or X26 Tasers, where they are deployed in both dart projectile and stun mode.” Amnesty documents cases of pregnant women having miscarriages after being tasered. Children In 2006 millions of people reacted with shock at a brutal taser attack on a student in the UCLA library, but a less-known outrage is that there are hundreds of reported cases where cops have used taser guns on children. In Arizona a 13 year old was tased for throwing a book in a public library. In another Arizona case, a 9-year-old runaway girl who was sitting in the back of a
[cia-drugs] Fwd: [PEPIS] PEPIS#104 CBS News scrutinises Obama cabinet/Bilderberg links
Begin forwarded message: From: Tony Gosling t...@tlio.org.uk Date: March 16, 2009 12:17:06 PM PDT To: PEPIS pe...@googlegroups.com Subject: [PEPIS] PEPIS#104 CBS News scrutinises Obama cabinet/ Bilderberg links Reply-To: pe...@googlegroups.com 1. New York We Are Change voxpopping about Bilderberg in Times Square. 2. CBS News scrutinises Obama cabinet's Bilderberg links 3. My post about preventing violence and Agents Provocateurs at the forthcoming G20 summit demo 1. New York We Are Change voxpopping about Bilderberg in Times Square. New York We Are Change voxpopping about Bilderberg in Times Square. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSIcOdmCvuk This video was premiered on our new live video show http://www.mogulus.com/wearechangelive its rebroadcasting right now Tune in every Sunday 3pm Eastern US time to get the latest CHANGE news from Robert Wanik and Luke Rudkowski live. WeAreChange hits the streets to talk to people in Time Square about the current states of America. keep spreading this video - people need to see it and realize how dumbed down society is and how to educate people.! Rate it, Email it, Favorite it, Message it, and Share it. don't be silent get the word out! http://www.wearechange.org http://www.nwoalert.com http://www.infowars.com WeAreChange would like to acknowledge that we do not support or endorse Spotlight' magazine.The views described by the people being interviewed represent themselves and not the wearechange organization part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnLmWHKK4TY 2. CBS News scrutinises Obama cabinet's Bilderberg links Politico: Many Of The President's Nominees Are Part Of A Secret Elite International Group Known As Bilderbergers 'It turns out that Sebelius - like top administration economists Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker, as well as leading Obama diplomats Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross - is a Bilderberger. That is, she is someone who has participated in the annual invitation- only conference held by an elite international organization known as the Bilderberg group. The group, which takes its name from the Dutch hotel where it held its first meeting in 1954, exists solely to bring together between 100 and 150 titans of politics, finance, military, industry, academia and media from North America and Western Europe once a year to discuss world affairs. It doesn’t issue policy statements or resolutions, nor does it hold any events other than an annual meeting.' Conspiracy Theorists Scrutinize Obama Ties Politico: Many Of The President's Nominees Are Part Of A Secret Elite International Group Known As Bilderbergers WASHINGTON March 15, 2009 (The Politico) This story was written by Kenneth P. Vogel. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/15/politics/politico/main4866504.shtml The highest levels of the Obama administration are infested with members of a shadowy, elitist cabal intent on installing a one-world government that subverts the will of the American people. It sounds crazy, but that’s what a group of very persistent conspiracy theorists insists, and they point to President Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, as the latest piece of evidence supporting their claims. It turns out that Sebelius - like top administration economists Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker, as well as leading Obama diplomats Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross - is a Bilderberger. That is, she is someone who has participated in the annual invitation- only conference held by an elite international organization known as the Bilderberg group. The group, which takes its name from the Dutch hotel where it held its first meeting in 1954, exists solely to bring together between 100 and 150 titans of politics, finance, military, industry, academia and media from North America and Western Europe once a year to discuss world affairs. It doesn’t issue policy statements or resolutions, nor does it hold any events other than an annual meeting. Past participants have included Margaret Thatcher, who attended the 1975 meeting at Turkey’s Golden Dolphin Hotel, former media mogul Conrad Black, who has been to more than a dozen conferences, and Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, King Juan Carlos of Spain and top officials of BP, IBM, Barclays and the Bank of England. It is precisely that exclusive roster of globally influential figures that has captured the interest of an international network of conspiracists, who for decades have viewed the Bilderberg conference as a devious corporate-globalist scheme. The fulminating is aggravated by Obama's preference for surrounding himself with well-credentialed, well-connected, and well-traveled elites. His personnel choices have touched a populist, even paranoid nerve among those who are convinced powerful elites and secret societies are moving the planet toward a new world order. Their worldview,
[cia-drugs] Fewer than 10% of sexual assault victims reported crime to police
Fewer than 10% of sexual assault victims reported crime to police Describes crimes Sex assaults go unreported - Many women feel shame, have fear or mistrust authorities By Danielle Bell, The Daily News 3/15/09 The latest statistics available suggest that sexual assaults can go unreported because victims remain silent out of shame, fear of reprisal or a reluctance to get involved in the legal systemVictimization studies suggest many women never come forward. It's a troubling trend that advocacy groups believe heightens awareness to ensure that adequate support services are in place. Fewer than 10% of sexual assault victims reported the crime to police in 2004, suggested by the latest figures from Statistics Canada in Measuring Women Against Violence: Statistical Trends 2006. Of spousal violence victims, 36% of women reported those crimes to police. Women that were younger, less-educated and living in lower-income households were more likely to report such crimes. _http://www.timescolonist.com/news/victoria/assaults+unreported/1394360/story.html_ (http://www.timescolonist.com/news/victoria/assaults+unreported/1394360/story.html)
[cia-drugs] Fwd: A Look Back at When How AIG Arranged for Its Biggest Crooks to Get Fat Bonuses
Begin forwarded message: From: dasg...@aol.com Date: March 16, 2009 3:00:09 PM PDT To: ramille...@aol.com Cc: ema...@aol.com, j...@aol.com, jim6...@cwnet.com, l...@legitgov.org, countd...@msnbc.com Subject: A Look Back at When How AIG Arranged for Its Biggest Crooks to Get Fat Bonuses After Bailout, AIG Executives Head to Resort October 7, 2008 http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-watch/2008/10/after_bailout_aig_executives_h.html Less than a week after the federal government offered an $85 billion bailout to insurance giant AIG, the company held a week-long retreat for its executives at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., running up a tab of $440,000, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said today at the the opening of a House committee hearing about the near-failure of the insurance giant. Showing a photograph of the resort, Waxman said the executives spent $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for the spa. Less than a week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation, Waxman said. We will ask whether any of this makes sense. The committee will ask the company's executives about their multimillion-dollar pay packages -- some of which they continue to receive -- as well as who bears responsibility for the company's high- risk investment portfolio, which led to its near collapse just weeks ago. They were getting their manicures, their pedicures, massages, their facials while the American people were paying their bills, thundered Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), of the executive retreat at the Monarch Resort. The House committee, which took on executive compensation at bankrupt Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers yesterday, has received tens of thousands of pages of documents from AIG, Waxman said. Those documents show that as the company's risky investments began to implode, the company altered its generous executive pay plan to pay out regardless of such losses. AIG lost over $5 billion in the last quarter of 2007 due its risky financial products division, Waxman said. Yet in March 2008, when the company's compensation committee met to award bonuses, Chief Executive Martin Sullivan urged the committee to ignore those losses, which should have slashed bonuses. The board agreed to ignore the losses from the financial products division and gave Sullivan a cash bonus of over $5 million. The board also approved a new compensation contract for Sullivan that gave him a golden parachute of $15 million, Waxman said. Joseph Cassano, the executive in charge of the company's troubled financial products division, received more than $280 million over the last eight years, Waxman said. Even after [Sullivan] was terminated in February as his investments turned sour, the company allowed him to keep up to $34 million in unvested bonuses and put him on a $1 million- a-month retainer. He continues to receive $1 million a month, Waxman said. Waxman also looked skeptically at the executives' defense that the troubles in the business had to do with larger economic forces and not their own bad decisions. When former AIG auditor, Joseph St. Denis, expressed concerns, Cassano told him I have deliberately excluded you ... because I was concerned that you would pollute the process, according to Waxman. St. Denis resigned in protest. PricewaterhouseCoopers, AIG's auditor, told the company in March 2008 that the root cause of AIG's problems was that people assessing risk did not have enough access to the financial products division, where the risky investments originated. Waxman further suggested that Sullivan had deliberately misled investors. On Dec. 5, 2007, Sullivan expressed confidence to investors. But a week before, PricewaterhouseCoopers warned Sullivan that the company could have a material weakness relating to these area, committee members said. Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner for $10 or less.
