More Evidence U.S. Police Brutality Is Out Of Control (VIDEO)
April 15, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
April 16, 2012
CBS News
“If anyone needs more evidence of how the cops are out of control, here you go.” –KTRN
Man Stabs 3 Invaders To Protect Family, May Face Life For Murder
April 10, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
April 11, 2012
RT
By RT
“So apparently you can’t protect yourself anymore without committing murder. This makes sense. Granted, this took place in Russia.” –KTRN
Russian businessman killed three home-invaders with a kitchen knife after they attacked his family and held his seven-month-old grandson at gunpoint. He now faces a life sentence for what may be qualified as a triple murder.
On Saturday, four armed men broke into the house of Gegham Sargsyan, 52, in Russia’s Tula Region, some 240 kilometers south of Moscow. All his family – wife, daughter, daughter-in-law and four related children – gathered in the living room to watch a TV show.
“They just pounced on us and began to beat the baby. A seven-month baby! They held a pistol to his temple. They started beating up a seven-year-old girl and two three-year-old boys too. It was just…horrific!” recalls Sargsyan’s daughter-in-law, as reported by Channel One.
The intruders threatened to kill everyone in the household and demanded money and valuables to be handed over immediately. One of the men had his face partially concealed by a scarf, while others did not bother to hide their identities. Russian media speculates this could indicate the assailants’ intent not to leave any witnesses alive.
The attack lasted for some 30 minutes, during which robbers tore off gold jewelry from the women and routinely beat all members of the family. According to Life News tabloid, the assailants were armed with pistols and a baseball bat. After turning over all valuables and money, Sargsyan said he had nothing more to give, but the robbers would not take “no” for an answer.
“They demanded [more money]. They had a knife and a gun… They stuck a gun in my mouth,” Sargsyan said. However, the man allegedly managed to break free from their hold and dashed to the kitchen, where he grabbed a kitchen knife.
“One of the attackers chased me, he did not see me straight away,” Sargsyan recalled. “I stabbed him in the stomach.” He stabbed the second one in the head, but the most important thing, he says, was “to knock down the one that held the gun. The rest was easy.”
Sargsyan says knife fighting is a skill he acquired while serving in the army, as well as during the many years he has hunted.
Three of the home-invaders died before the ambulance could make it to the house. The fourth was injured, but managed to flee the scene. All of them have been identified by police, and all four have previous criminal records.
Click here for the full report.
U.S. Prison Business: Privatize Profits, Socialize Losses
February 16, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 16, 2012
Activist Post
By Joe Wright
“There is big money to be made in prisons. Why do you think more people are incarcerated in the US than any other country? It’s always all about the money.” –KTRN
A new report from Chris Kirkham for Huffington Post, reinforces my treatment of his previous article which covered news that Florida would privatize 20% of their prisons, following the trend taken by other states. This is supposedly due to state budget shortfalls that need assistance from the private sector. As Kirkham continues to demonstrate, this particular argument is the weakest of all, given the documented facts. Nevertheless, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has forged ahead even further by recently submitting letters to 48 states offering to buy prisons: “In exchange … for a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Huffington Post.” View Kirkham’s latest must-read article here.
The article below provides some of the background to this latest maneuvering by CCA.
Well, it’s nice work if you can get it. Florida is set to privatize all of its prisons south of Orlando — 20% of its total — according to a report issued by Chris Kirkham for Huffington Post.
The for-profit prison scheme is a case study in crony capitalism, as it involves private prison corporations donating to the politicians best in position to grant them lucrative contracts. Cenk Uygur, in the video below, breaks down this “cherry picking” strategy that sets up FL taxpayers to carry the burden of failure, while corporate/government interests land another windfall; in this case, the largest procurement contract in the industry’s history:
Beyond this single blatant example of lobbying by private interests in the state of Florida, the trend of privatizing prisons has been ongoing since the first business was established in 1984*, and is slated to rise in coming years. Furthermore, the implications of what it means that private companies are taking over captive populations should also be examined.
The U.S. prison population continues to explode, as America plunges headlong into becoming a bona fide police state. The federal policies of criminalizing just about everything, offer a built-in growth sector for any corporation that can capture it. No wonder, then, that companies like GE have gotten in on the action, while the nation’s largest private contractors, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO (formerly Wackenhut), have combined revenues well into the billion of dollars per year. And they are international in scope. (Source)
Click here for the full report.
Why Are So Many Americans In Prison?
February 14, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 14, 2012
Al Jazeera
By Al Jazeera
“If the US is truly the land of the free, why are there so many people in prison here?” –KTRN
The US has the highest prison population in the world – some of whom have been subjected to lengthy sentences for relatively minor crimes. And that population has surged over the past three decades.
Although there has been a slight reduction in the past year, more than two million people are either incarcerated in prison or in jail awaiting trial.
The US has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world, with 743 people incarcerated for every 100,000 Americans. No other nation even comes close to these figures.
One explanation for the boom in the prison population is the mandatory sentencing imposed for drug offences and the “tough on crime” attitude that has prevailed since the 1980s.
But it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes US prison policy. Some prisoners are locked up for life – literally – and many receive harsh sentences for non-violent crime.
These long sentences are leading to an ageing prison population – with eight per cent of prisoners now over the age of 55. This, in turn, is increasing the burden of providing healthcare and geriatric services.
Click here for the full report.
Marine Gets Three Months In Jail For Massacring Two Dozen Civilians
January 25, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
January 25, 2012
RT
By RT
“Apparently, when you’re a Marine it’s perfectly acceptable to massacre civilians.” –KTRN
More than six years after Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich led a squad of Marines into two Haditha, Iraq homes and massacred two dozen civilians, the American serviceman in charge has reached a plea deal.
For nine counts of manslaughter, Wuterich will get three months of confinement.
Wuterich is the last of eight men tied to the November 2005 killing that left 24 Iraqis dead, including women, children and the elderly. It was announced on Monday this week that he had reached a plea with prosecutors during his military tribunal and is now expected to be sentenced as early as Tuesday. According to the Associated Press, Wuterich will face a maximum of three months of confinement, the forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay and a rank demotion.
Of the other seven Marines charged with the now-notorious massacre, one was acquitted and six had their charges dismissed. Wuterich’s attorneys have been confident throughout the ordeal that he would see a similar outcome. “He’s going to be glad to have it over because he knows that he’ll be exonerated,” lawyer Neal Puckett told National Public Radio earlier this month.
Click here for the full report.
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 12-17-11
Have you ever realized just how corrupt all these drug companies are? Kevin explores why some drug companies are too big to nail! Plus, the author of Undateable, Anne Coyle, stops by to reveal the secret list of over 311 things that perfectly eligible guys manage to wear, say, or do to make themselves completely undateable. Click here to learn more about Anne Coyle and her hilarious, but overly educational book!
Health:
Monsanto GM Seed Ban Overturned By US Supreme Court
Radiation Causes Breast Cancer
Pain Relievers Can Raise Heart Risks
10 Foods You Should Never Eat
Eating Disorder Label Leaves Many Untreated
Trans Fats and Partially Hydrogenated poison
People Are Finally Waking Up And Looking To Alternative Medicine
Once Scarce, H1N1 Vaccines Now Trashed
Government:
Obama’s Aunt Wins Asylum, Stays In US
Fake Pilot Flew Passenger Jets For 13 Years
Too Many Judges Want Authority Beyond Their Constitutional Role
NWO:
Feds Find Pfizer Too Big to Nail
Wealth:
Spirit Airlines To Charge $45 For Carry-Ons
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
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Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
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The Shocking Ways the Corporate Prison Industry Games the System
December 2, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
December 2, 2011
Alter Net
By Rania Khalek
“The US holds 25% of the world’s prisoners. Land of the free? Doesn’t sound quite right does it?” –KTRN
The United States, with just 5 percent of the world’s population, currently holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, and for the last 30 years America’s business entrepreneurs have found a lucrative way to cash in on the incarceration surplus: private for-profit prisons.
While the implications of an industry that locks human beings in cages for profit is an old story, there is an important part of the history of private prisons that often goes untold.
Just a decade ago, private prisons were a dying industry awash in corruption and mired in lawsuits, particularly Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison operator. Today, these companies are booming once again, yet the lawsuits and scandals continue to pile up. Meanwhile, more and more evidence shows that compared to publicly run prisons, private jails are filthier, more violent, less accountable, and contrary to what privatization advocates peddle as truth, do not save money. In fact, more recent findings suggest that private prisons could be more costly.
So why are they still in business?
In a recently published report, “Banking on Bondage: Mass Incarceration and Private Prisons,” the American Civil Liberties Union examines the history of prison privatization and finds that private prison companies owe their continued and prosperous existence to skyrocketing immigration detention post September 11 as well as the firm hold they have gained over elected and appointed officials.
The Rise of Private Prisons
David Shapiro, the primary author of the ACLU report, told AlterNet that prior to the early 1980s, private prisons were “virtually nonexistent.” That quickly changed as the War on Drugs ‘tough on crime’ mentality swept the nation with institution of draconian sentencing and release laws for nonviolent offenders, causing an explosion in US incarceration rate. State and federal governments increasingly struggled with overcrowded prisons and the rising costs of housing the rapidly growing pool of inmates.
Click here for the full report.
Judges Gone Wild: 9,000+ Juveniles Processed Yearly Into Adult Jails, 2/3 For Nonviolent Crimes
November 29, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
November 29, 2011
Scripps News
By Issac Wolf
“The only people who should be in jail are those convicted of murder, rape, robbery, assault, massive theft, and anything that physically harms another person. Being caught with heroin doesn’t hurt anyone – except for the user. How bout a fine instead? Or treatment? Nah, let’s just send them to jail with rapists – they deserve it.” –KTRN
Nine thousand times a year, U.S. judges move the cases of juvenile suspects into criminal court, opening the door to a stay in adult jail.
While judges say these transfers are meant for youths suspected of the most dangerous offenses, only two out of five transferred youths stand accused of a violent crime against another person, the Scripps Howard News Service found in analyzing data from almost a quarter-million cases. Most youngsters moved to adult court are charged with crimes involving drugs, weapons or property.
A case transfer flags a suspect 17 or younger as an adult. Forty-seven states allow these “certified” juveniles to be held in adult jail, the U.S. Justice Department says; 14 of them sometimes require it.
Most transferred juveniles face charges for crimes other than murder, rape, robbery or assault, National Center for Juvenile Justice data show. The Pittsburgh-based nonprofit publishes records covering 228,771 cases moved from youth court to the adult criminal justice system from 1985 to 2008.
Transfers to the adult system can negatively affect young suspects, reducing their access to social services, lengthening the time needed to resolve a case and increasing the chances that the youths will reoffend, some researchers and youth advocates say.
Judges transfer far too many juveniles, suggested Kevin Burke, president of the American Judges Association.
“There are a fair number of not-very-serious offenders who end up getting certified. I don’t quite understand that, to be honest with you,” Burke said, responding to the Scripps findings. The Minneapolis-area district court judge has served 27 years on the bench.
Even a very young age doesn’t exempt defendants from transfer. The database shows some 1,528 suspects 12 or younger were transferred, including 623 charged with violent crimes. More — 651 — faced charges of property crimes.
Those data may not reflect the scope of the crimes, Burke said, explaining that some juveniles who committed more serious crimes pled to lesser charges.
Burke said he would encourage his organization’s 3,000 members to reduce judicial transfers.
The volume of transferred youths somewhat mirrors teen crime rates. A national teen crime wave in the early 1990s increased the number of transfers, which crested at 13,710 in 1994, then declined and leveled off at about 9,000 a year by 2000.
Click her for the full report.
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 9-24-11
Today, find out who Kevin calls the biggest drug pushers in America, and what the solution is to fix all the problems in this country!
Plus, the author of Undateable, Anne Coyle, stops by to reveal the secret list of over 311 things that perfectly eligible guys manage to wear, say, or do to make themselves completely undateable. Click here to learn more about Anne Coyle and her hilarious, but overly educational book!
Health:
Monsanto GM Seed Ban Overturned By US Supreme Court
Radiation Causes Breast Cancer
Pain Relievers Can Raise Heart Risks
10 Foods You Should Never Eat
Eating Disorder Label Leaves Many Untreated
Trans Fats and Partially Hydrogenated poison
People Are Finally Waking Up And Looking To Alternative Medicine
Once Scarce, H1N1 Vaccines Now Trashed
Government:
Obama’s Aunt Wins Asylum, Stays In US
Fake Pilot Flew Passenger Jets For 13 Years
Too Many Judges Want Authority Beyond Their Constitutional Role
NWO:
Feds Find Pfizer Too Big to Nail
Wealth:
Spirit Airlines To Charge $45 For Carry-Ons
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click Below to Watch the Kevin Trudeau Show LIVE!
Why Was Gibson Guitars Raided By Authorities?
September 1, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
September 1st, 2011
The Wall Street Journal
By: James R. Hagerty and Kris Maher
Gibson Guitar Corp., a big user of ebony and other scarce woods, for years has allied itself with Greenpeace and other environmental groups to show it was serious about preserving forests.
That didn’t stop the Nashville-based company, whose guitars are used by such musicians as B.B. King and Angus Young of AC/DC, from running afoul of U.S. authorities over allegedly illegal imports of wood. Though no charges have been filed, Gibson factories have been raided twice, most recently last week, by federal agents who say ebony exported from India to Gibson was “fraudulently” labeled to conceal a contravention of Indian export law.
Henry Juszkiewicz, chief executive officer of the closely held company, said in an interview that a broker probably made a mistake in labeling the goods but that the sale was legal and approved by Indian authorities.
Gibson’s predicament, which raises concerns for musical instrument makers and other importers of wood, illustrates the pitfalls of complying with U.S. law while dealing with middlemen in faraway countries whose legal systems can be murky.
The law ensnaring Gibson is the Lacey Act of 1900, originally passed to regulate trade in bird feathers used for hats and amended in 2008 to cover wood and other plant products. It requires companies to make detailed disclosures about wood imports and bars the purchase of goods exported in violation of a foreign country’s laws.
Leonard Krause, a consultant in Eugene, Ore., who advises companies on complying with the Lacey Act, is telling clients they should hire lawyers in countries where they obtain products. “How many people know the statutes in India?” Mr. Krause said. “The net effect is that it raises everybody’s cost of doing business.”
Federal agents first raided Gibson factories in November 2009 and were back again Aug. 24, seizing guitars, wood and electronic records. Gene Nix, a wood product engineer at Gibson, was questioned by agents after the first raid and told he could face five years in jail.
“Can you imagine a federal agent saying, ‘You’re going to jail for five years’ and what you do is sort wood in the factory?” said Mr. Juszkiewicz, recounting the incident. “I think that’s way over the top.” Gibson employees, he said, are being “treated like drug criminals.”
Mr. Nix hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing. He couldn’t be reached for comment.
A Justice Department spokesman declined comment. While Justice Department officials pursue what they say is a possible criminal case against Gibson, they and the company are battling in federal district court in Nashville over whether materials seized in the 2009 raid should be returned to Gibson. That civil fight provides indications of the case the government is trying to make against Gibson.
Mr. Nix went to Madagascar in June 2008 on a trip organized by environmental groups to talk to local officials about selling responsibly harvested wood to makers of musical instruments. Afterward, in emails later seized by the government, he referred to “widespread corruption and theft of valuable woods” and the possibility of buying ebony and rosewood from Madagascar on “the grey market.”
In a June 4 court filing, Jerry Martin, U.S. Attorney for central Tennessee, quoted the emails, and said “Nix knew that the grey market meant purchasing contraband.”
Gibson has denied the allegation and said Mr. Nix’s emails were quoted out of context.
The government has focused on a March 2009 shipment of ebony from Madagascar intended for guitar fingerboards. Madagascar law bars the export of certain unfinished wood products, according to both Gibson and the government. Gibson says the ebony had been cut into pieces and that local officials approved the export as a legal sale of finished goods.
U.S. officials described the wood as “sawn timber” and said Madagascar officials were “defrauded” by a local exporter about the nature of the product.
Gibson says the government is trying to “second guess” the Madagascar government. “The U.S. government’s startling position smacks of something from an Orwell novel,” Gibson said in a July 15 court filing in federal district court in Nashville.
After the 2009 raid, Gibson stopped buying wood from Madagascar. Gibson continued to use suppliers in India for ebony and rosewood.
As for last week’s raid, the government said it had evidence that Indian ebony was “fraudulently” labeled in an attempt to evade an Indian ban on exports of unfinished wood.
“It is very possible that a broker made the mistake in filling out a form,” Mr. Juszkiewicz said. Gibson says the ebony was partially finished for use as fingerboards and that Indian officials have endorsed such exports as legal. A spokesman for India’s commerce ministry had no immediate comment.
After the 2009 raid, Mr. Juszkiewicz resigned from the board of the Rainforest Alliance, which seeks to preserve tropical forests. He said he didn’t want to tar the nonprofit with bad publicity. A Rainforest Alliance spokeswoman said he wasn’t pressured to step down, and the group continues to praise Gibson’s efforts to promote responsible harvesting of wood.
Scott Paul, a Greenpeace official in New York responsible for forestry issues, said Gibson for years has done “great work” to promote better forestry practices. The question, he said, is whether Gibson did everything possible to avoid buying wood from dubious sources. “We have no idea,” he said.
