“Angel of Death” Psychologist Trains Cops to Shoot First, Question Later, Cashes in at Killer Police Trials
By Cassandra Fairbanks | PINAC | August 4, 2015
Dr. William J. Lewinski travels the country explaining to cops why they should not think twice before they shoot suspects – and then charges $1,000 an hour to speak at their trials to justify it when they take his advice.
The self taught “expert” has testified or consulted in over 200 trials to date.
As the leading figure who as a behavioral psychologist trains cops to shoot first and question later, courts seem to accept both his pseudoscientific theories of policing and unlimited list of excuses presented after the fact too.
Lewinski has provided “expert testimony” in some extremely high profile and outrageous cases, such as the case of Oscar Grant by California’s BART PD.
He’s also currently working with the defense of the killers of James Boyd – a homeless man shot to death by Albuquerque police who were harassing him for “illegal camping.”
Those cops said hours before shooting Boyd that they planned to shoot him in the penis, but somehow avoided 1st a degree murder rap and are on trial for 2nd degree murder for shooting him in the midsection.
No matter what the case, even if a suspect is unarmed or shot in the back, Lewinski can be there (provided you pay the fee!) to explain why it was justified.
Lewinski owns the Force Science Institute, which has trained tens of thousands of officers to shoot first, and deal with the blowback later.
Some of the dangerous ideas that this company pushes include shooting before you see a weapon, claiming that by the time you see one it could be too late.
His beliefs have been widely criticized, with the American Journal of Psychology calling his work (which is not peer-reviewed) “pseudoscience” and even the Department of Justice has stated that his work lacks in “foundation and reliability.”
In both 2011 and 2012 the Federal Department Of Justice (DOJ) asked Lisa Fournier, an editor at the American Journal of Psychology to review his work.
Her findings stated that Lewinski lacks basic elements of legitimate research and came to conclusions unsupported by the data.
She summarized the work of Lewinski and his “Institute” as invalid and unreliable.
Despite the DOJ knowing the guy is a crock, they still shockingly hired him months later anyways, paying him $55,000 to help defend a federal drug agent who killed an unarmed teenager in California.
Then DOJ endorsed sending him to Seattle to train officers there as part of an excessive force settlement.
He was later paid $15,000 to train the US Marshals too.
When it comes down to it, the DOJ knows that he is capable of manipulating a jury, and are willing to shell out the dough for his services, even after acknowledging that Lewinski’s work is unreliable and he is only an “expert” of his own pseudoscience.
“People die because of this stuff,” said John Burton, a California lawyer who specializes in police misconduct cases told the New York Times. “When they give these cops a pass, it just ripples through the system.”
It does not seem to matter even when there is obvious guilt and that an officer clearly lied.
“Jurors needed an explanation for how the officer could be so wrong and still be innocent,” Matt Apuzzo wrote in the New York Times.
Jurors, as we continuously see, need police to be the good guys, so that they can feel safe and protected in their little bubbles. Thankfully, it seems, those bubbles are beginning to burst.
Citizens should remain vigilant and tell their elected officials to black list the Force Science Institute and “Dr.” William J. Lewinski.
The “Angel of Death” won’t give up his meal ticket without a fight, and he might be training your police or testifying in a court near you.
How Humberside police, CPS & UK govt conspired to cover up racist killing of Christopher Alder
Christopher Alder / Wikipedia
By Dan Glazebrook | RT | August 2, 2015
Every obstacle will be put in the way of a successful outcome of this struggle, and those who seek justice are likely to find themselves subject to a vindictive campaign by the police. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than Janet Alder’s almost two-decade long campaign to establish what happened to her brother Christopher.
On April 1, 1998, Christopher Alder was on a night out in Hull. The 37-year-old was a former paratrooper who had served in the Falklands and Northern Ireland, and had been decorated for his service; he had two children, and was in training for a new career in computer programming. Later that night, however, outside the Waterfront nightclub, he got into a fight. After being punched in the face, Christopher was briefly knocked unconscious and lost a tooth. An ambulance was called, and Christopher was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary, accompanied by police officers. His injuries were not deemed life-threatening, and he was discharged, after which the police drove him to the police station.
Exactly what happened in that police van during the short one-mile journey remains shrouded in mystery; indeed it has never properly been investigated. What we do know is that by the time he arrived in the police station, he was unconscious again, had lost another tooth, and had received two additional injuries (a cut to the lip and a cut above the eye). He was then dragged into the custody suite with his trousers round his ankles and his belt missing, and left face down and handcuffed on the floor. No attempt was made to put him into the recovery position, and CCTV footage shows officers standing around chatting as he gasps for breath, still unconscious. Within 12 minutes he would be dead, with officers making racist comments and monkey noises over his corpse. It was a level of contempt that has characterized the state’s attitude towards Christopher and his family ever since.
Christopher’s sister Janet began campaigning for justice for her brother just three months after his death. Her tireless efforts have served to keep the case in the public eye, thwarting the police’s attempts to brush it under the carpet, and have resulted in some astounding revelations and admissions. Yet, to date, justice has still not been done; the police who caused his death have never been properly held to account or punished for their actions, whilst Janet has borne the brunt of a vindictive campaign against both her and her brother’s memory which continues to this day – but which began immediately after his death.
In the days following Christopher’s death, six officers raided his flat. The flat was then sealed off for two weeks whilst the police laboriously itemized and mapped out every item in the home. Needless to say this is not usual procedure for dealing with a possible murder victim; indeed, an official report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (the IPCC) later noted that it was “more in keeping with what might be expected if Mr Alder were a suspect rather than a victim.” What seems likely is that this raid, far from having anything to do with investigating Christopher’s death, was rather a desperate attempt to find something – anything – that could be used to smear his name. For this is usual procedure: one only has to recall the lies that were put out following the executions of Mark Duggan and Jean Charles de Menezes to realize that the smearing by police of their victims following a death in custody is standard practice.
The raid, however, turned up nothing.
So the next step, it seems, was to smear his family. An investigation by the IPCC in 2006 revealed that following Christopher’s death, Humberside Police had dredged up social service records dating back to the births of all the Alder children – Christopher, Richard, Emmanuel, Stephen, and Janet, who were brought up in care. The IPCC report noted that the records “did not seem to have any relevance” to the case; it did not speculate on what the real purpose of obtaining the records might have been.
So the police were certainly busy in the aftermath of Christopher’s death. What they were not busy doing, however, was investigating the actual circumstances of his death.
Given that Christopher died at the hands of Humberside police, the investigation into their role in his death was carried out by West Yorkshire police. However, they proved unable – or more likely unwilling – to follow even the most routine of procedures. Whether he had been assaulted by any of the officers he encountered that night was never investigated. Worse, all the evidence which would help to establish this was allowed to be destroyed. The police van was cleaned, blood samples and clothing – both Christopher’s and the officers’ – were destroyed without being tested, and CS gas canisters from the police van were disposed of. Christopher’s missing belt and tooth were never located.
Humberside police, meanwhile, were mounting a prosecution of their own. Jason Paul had been involved in the fight with Christopher that night; initially trying to break it up, he ended up punching Christopher after receiving blows himself. Yet despite the pathologist’s conclusion that this punch had played no role in Christopher’s death, when Jason went to the police station to assist with the inquiry the following day he was arrested on suspicion of murder. He was eventually charged with “GBH with intent.” It would not be until three months later that the spurious charges were finally dropped. Jason Paul eventually mounted a successful civil court case against the police, which found that he had been falsely imprisoned and the prosecution had been malicious. The jury unanimously agreed that it was “more likely than not that the police charged [Mr Paul] with causing GBH with intent to deflect potential criticism of the [actual] circumstances of Christopher Alder’s death.” … Full article
Prosecutor declines to bring charges against Cincinnati cops who lied to protect killer of Samuel DuBose
By Evan Blake | WSWS | August 1, 2015
The University of Cincinnati put police officers Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt on paid administrative leave Thursday for the course of an internal investigation into their reports of the July 19 killing of Samuel DuBose by officer Ray Tensing.
The family of DuBose has demanded that Kidd be charged for making false statements on a police incident report, claiming that he saw DuBose’s car dragging Tensing. This came after the release of the two officers’ body camera footage, in which they can be heard corroborating Tensing’s false claim that he only shot DuBose after being dragged by his car.
Tensing himself pleaded not guilty to murder and voluntary manslaughter and was released from jail Thursday after his father paid $100,085 bond. Tensing had pulled DuBose over for not having a front license plate, and soon sought to physically remove DuBose from his car, prompting DuBose to attempt to flee. Roughly a second after DuBose started his car, Tensing shot him once in the head, killing him.
Tensing claims that he became caught and dragged along, prompting him to shoot DuBose in the head. His body camera footage clearly refutes this story and in fact indicates that Tensing intended to kill DuBose, as he draws his weapon immediately after DuBose starts his car and fires at his head almost instantaneously.
On Friday, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced that a grand jury had heard testimony regarding Kidd and Lindenschmidt’s falsifications and declined to indict them for corroborating Tensing’s false story. Grand juries routinely operate under the direct advice of the prosecutor, meaning that Deters likely sought a nonindictment for Tensing’s two accomplices.
Kidd and Lindenschmidt’s body camera footage reveals that neither was in a position to see whether Tensing was caught in DuBose’s car. Lindenschmidt was sitting in his patrol car, parked directly behind Tensing’s patrol car, when the shooting took place. Kidd’s body camera is not turned on until he is chasing DuBose’s car with Tensing and Lindenschmidt. However, the footage from Lindenschmidt’s camera shows Kidd running on the sidewalk, also behind Tensing’s car, indicating that his view of the shooting was obstructed by both Tensing and DuBose’s car.
The Guardian revealed Friday that two of the officers who corroborated Tensing’s story—Eric Weibel, who wrote the initial police report, and Kidd—were also involved in the 2010 police killing of Kelly Brinson, an unarmed, mentally ill black man who had been hospitalized at Cincinnati’s University hospital.
After suffering a psychotic episode, Brinson was shocked with a Taser three times and then “rushed” by seven University of Cincinnati officers, including Weibel and Kidd. Surveillance video shows officers smothering Brinson, and at one point an officer grabs him by the neck, choking him. During this beating, Brinson suffered a respiratory cardiac arrest and died three days later.
Brinson’s family ultimately settled their civil suit against University of Cincinnati police and the hospital for $638,000, with the expectation that the officers would be removed from the force outright. The only disciplinary measure taken, however, was to remove them from patrolling duties at the psychiatric wards at the hospital.
Shocked at learning that Weibel and Kidd were involved in attempting to falsify Tensing’s murder of DuBose, Kelly Brinson’s brother, Derek, declared: “They should be held accountable for perjury and they should be accessories to the DuBose murder.”
Weibel wrote the police report so as to bolster Tensing’s false account of the shooting, writing, “I could see that the back of his pants and shirt looked as if it had been dragged over a rough surface.”
Kidd falsely claimed to have seen firsthand Tensing being dragged by DuBose’s car, repeatedly declaring, “Yeah, I saw that.”
Lindenschmidt also lied in an attempt to bolster Tensing’s story, telling another officer: “I just arrived to back him [Tensing] up, the guy took off. The officer was stuck in the vehicle. He fired one round.”
Commenting on the significance of the body camera footage, DuBose’s sister Terina DuBose Allen declared: “I think that if there had not been a body camera that Sam would have been left with the memory of everyone saying he was basically trying to kill a police officer. They would have turned a nonviolent man who was loved into a poster child for violence against police officers.”
Texas House County Affairs Committee Chairman said brutal arrest of Sandra Bland was the “catalyst” for her death
The Texas House County Affairs Committee began its legislative inquiry into the arrest and subsequent death of Sandra Bland Thursday. The meeting involved committee members questioning Steven McCraw, the director of the Department of Public Safety, the department for which state trooper Brian Encinia works.
At the inquiry, committee chairman Garnet Coleman, a Democrat from Houston, described the brutal arrest of Bland by Encinia as the “catalyst” that led to her death. Coleman sought to place responsibility for Bland’s death entirely on Encinia, saying, “What he did triggered the whole thing.”
Police claim to have found Bland hanging in her jail cell July 13. The official report states that she was found hanging from a plastic trash bag attached to a bathroom partition—which was roughly equal to her height—with her feet touching the ground.
Despite the protestations of her family, officials have continually sought to portray Bland as suicidal, with Waller County Prosecutor Warren Diepraam last week declaring that an official autopsy found her cause of death to be a suicide.
On Tuesday, officials in Waller County released hours of footage showing Sandra Bland alive in the Waller County jail, in a further attempt to silence those questioning what led to her death. The released videos, however, fail to document the crucial hour before her death, which was missing from the initially released footage taken from a hallway that does not even show her cell.
Vaccines and National Security
By Ulson Gunnar – New Eastern Outlook – 04.05.2015
One can easily see in the emerging information and cyber war that a nation having its own IT infrastructure, its own hardware, and its own versions of social media platforms is quickly becoming a matter of national security. Without control over these assets, a nation must depend on foreign suppliers for their computers, peripheries and software. Already, this dependence has opened nations up to now evident threats including malware embedded into hardware and software that is otherwise impossible to detect until the damage is already done.
Likewise, a nation’s food supply can and has throughout history, been a source of vulnerability in times of conflict. The inability to grow one’s own food invites blockades and their modern equivalent, sanctions, undermining a nation’s strength and stability and eventually setting the stage for its ultimate demise. Iraq is an example of this.
In the long-term, a nation’s food supply controlled by foreign corporations, particularly in the realm of genetically engineered organisms, can have disastrous effects. As a nation’s wealth is slowly drained from their shores and into the coffers of corporations like Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta, inferior, expensive and environmentally devastating crops wreak havoc on the very socioeconomic fabric of a nation. India is increasingly becoming an example of this.
And what of healthcare? Surely the same applies. But even as nations and communities are just now understanding the importance of protecting their food supplies from predatory multinational corporations and the hegemonic ambitions they represent, there seems to be some latency in understanding this likewise in regards to healthcare and in particular pharmaceuticals and vaccines.
The Danger of Big-Pharma’s Vaccines
Imagine a gang member knocking at your door with a syringe in one hand, demanding you roll up your sleeve and allow him to inject its contents into your bloodstream. Likely there would be no hesitation to call the police and barricade the door until they arrived. Allowing a criminal to inject a substance known or unknown into your body would be an unimaginable risk no sane person would accept.
Now imagine that gang member is wearing a suit, has a multi-million dollar marketing budget, doctors and researchers working for him (paid via an expansive bribery network) and instead of knocking at your door, he invited you to one of his doctors’ offices to receive the injection. What we’ve just done here is describe big-pharma.
Immense pharmaceutical corporations like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have been caught numerous times engaged in immense criminality.
In 2012, the London Guardian would report in its article GlaxoSmithKline fined $3bn after bribing doctors to increase drugs sales that:
The pharmaceutical group GlaxoSmithKline has been fined $3bn (£1.9bn) after admitting bribing doctors and encouraging the prescription of unsuitable antidepressants to children. Glaxo is also expected to admit failing to report safety problems with the diabetes drug Avandia in a district court in Boston on Thursday.
The company encouraged sales reps in the US to mis-sell three drugs to doctors and lavished hospitality and kickbacks on those who agreed to write extra prescriptions, including trips to resorts in Bermuda, Jamaica and California.
In early 2014, the London Telegraph would report in its article GlaxoSmithKline ‘bribed’ doctors to promote drugs in Europe, former worker claims that:
GlaxoSmithKline, Britain’s largest drug company, has been accused of bribing doctors to prescribe their medicines in Europe.
Doctors in Poland were allegedly paid to promote its asthma drug, Seretide, under the guise of funding for education programme, a former sales rep has claimed.
Medics were also said to have been paid for lectures in the country which did not take place.
Then in late 2014, the BBC would report in its article GlaxoSmithKline fined $490m by China for bribery that:
China has fined UK pharmaceuticals firm GlaxoSmithKline $490m (£297m) after a court found it guilty of bribery.
The record penalty follows allegations the drug giant paid out bribes to doctors and hospitals in order to have their products promoted.
The court gave GSK’s former head of Chinese operations, Mark Reilly, a suspended three-year prison sentence and he is set to be deported.
These three news stories establish without doubt that an immense pharmaceutical giant, still allowed to conduct business to this very day, has been engaged in systematic, global criminality. The first story regarding its criminal conduct in the United States should be of particular concern, where the pharmaceutical giant encouraged doctors to peddle harmful substances to children. How exactly is that any different than your local pusher?
And it should be alarming to know that GSK is one of several pharmaceutical giants promoting the use of vaccines. Who would trust vaccines produced and peddled by the same corporation convicted multiple times of immense fraud, corruption and the endangerment of children?
But corrupt corporations peddling poison for profits still isn’t the greatest danger. State sanctioned bioweapons masquerading as vaccines is.
South Africa’s Vaccines Against “Being Black”
The apartheid regime in South Africa infamously waged war on its black population. So intent was the regime on subduing and/or exterminating black communities, its biological warfare program began developing a bioweapon that would infect only blacks, and planned to administer it covertly under the cover of a vaccine program.
The United Nations in a report titled Project Coast: Apartheid’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme would admit:
One example of this interaction involved anti-fertility work. According to documents from RRL [Roodeplaat Research Laboratories], the facility had a number of registered projects aimed at developing an anti-fertility vaccine. This was a personal project of the first managing director of RRL, Dr Daniel Goosen. Goosen, who had done research into embryo transplants, told the TRC that he and Basson had discussed the possibility of developing an anti-fertility vaccine which could be selectively administered—without the knowledge of the recipient. The intention, he said, was to administer it to black South African women without their knowledge.
Unscrupulous corporations with global reach, married to unscrupulous ideologies seeking to covertly kill off entire segments of their population constitutes nightmare scenarios generally confined to the realm of science fiction. However, here are the ingredients, right before our very eyes.
Vaccines and National Security
It is very clear then, why communities and nations must take control of their healthcare systems entirely. Not a single aspect of it can depend on foreign suppliers any more than national IT infrastructure, the food supply, power production, or military hardware can.
No nation would “outsource” the protection of its head of state to foreigners. Why would they outsource the protection of their people’s health? Dependence on big-pharma has already put countless lives in danger with untold disease, disabilities and death following in the wake of their unhinged global criminality. It should be noted, that despite their rampant criminality, they are all still very much in business, a testament to the unwarranted power and influence their immense profits and the lobbying efforts they purchase has afforded them.
If vaccines are determined to be beneficial to a nation’s population, they should be developed by that nation and administered only by that nation. There should be no multinational pharmaceutical corporations, because no nation should leave their population’s health to the whims of foreign entities who have already demonstrated the well-being of their customers is the least of their concerns.
And while nations taking up this responsibility and pushing out foreign pharmaceutical corporations is a good start, one must still consider the case of South Africa, where a government sought to destroy entire communities within their borders under the guise of vaccination programs. Individual communities and individuals themselves would be wise to think twice before allowing anyone to inject something into their body.
If vaccinations are so important, then the information required to make them should be made open source and all invited to examine how and why they are made and how to make them in community laboratories located at local universities and hospitals. If that can’t be done, then they probably aren’t that important to begin with nor any more legitimate or necessary than the dangerous antidepressants GSK peddled to little children in America, and surely something society could do well without.
Judge Who Took Kids from Off-Grid Family, Same Judge who Killed his Own Son and Wasn’t Arrested
By Justin Gardner | The Free Thought Project | July 30, 2015
Hot Springs, Ark — On Monday, we reported on the tragic case of 18-month-old Thomas Naramore, who died after being left in a hot vehicle for four hours. The father, Wade Naramore, is a Garland County circuit court judge and has not been arrested despite the fact that he admitted to leaving his son in the car.
The lack of an arrest, coupled with the fact that other people have been immediately arrested in similar situations, raises suspicions that Naramore is being treated favorably because of his status as a judge.
In another twist to this story, Naramore is the same judge who presided over a child endangerment case in January that gained widespread attention. Seven children were taken from Hal and Michelle Stanley because the parents possessed a legal, popular health supplement called Miracle Mineral Solution. Judge Naramore ruled that the Department of Human Services should keep the kids in custody, based on other allegations of abuse and neglect.
This is hard to believe after hearing the positive comments from neighbors. It could be that the Stanleys’ “off the grid” lifestyle and independence from government has something to do with their persecution.
Apparently the allegations have not stuck, as the Stanley family has regained custody of their youngest children in May, while the older three are allowed home on a part-time basis. It’s difficult to know exactly why the courts do what they do, since child welfare proceedings are surrounded by strict confidentiality laws.
It is sad irony that the judge ruling in a dubious case of child endangerment would put his own child in a far more severe state of endangerment, leading to the worst possible outcome.
Far too often, the state shatters lives by taking children away from their parents for no valid reason, putting them in the hands of state social services that can result in a far worse situation for the kids. There have been numerous instances of abuse while under the “care” of Child Protective Services.
While the State does not hesitate to interfere in the personal lives of so many citizens, it will take their time investigating Thomas Naramore’s death, assuring us that they “search for the truth with the ultimate goal of determining the facts, regardless of who might be a suspect in a given case.”
The Hot Springs Police Department will “continue withholding investigative material… at the specific direction of Mr. Scott Ellington, the special prosecutor recently assigned the case.”
The case could drag on for weeks before any charges are made, as investigators await the results of toxicology tests. The state’s Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission will also delay its probe until the criminal investigation is complete.
New Jersey State Trooper Fires Gun at Teens for Mistakenly Knocking on his Door
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | July 30, 2015
Three teens mistakenly walked up to the home of a New Jersey state trooper at 2 a.m. last Sunday and began knocking on the door, thinking it was their friend’s home, who lives on the same block.
But when a man on the other side of the door began yelling and cursing at them, they realized they had the wrong home and began walking back to their car.
When the angry man stepped out of the home, they began running and hopped in their car.
And when they saw him aiming a gun with a laser pointer towards them, they stepped on the accelerator to make their escape down the street in front of the home.
But the off-duty trooper, whose name is Kissinger Barreau, stepped into the street and fired three shots, including one that struck the tire.
“We realize it’s a gun and we panic. I’m like ‘dude, dude, dude, accelerate,’” Jesse Barkhorn told NJ.com.
What they didn’t realize was that the man who shot at them was a cop, which meant that his buddies were going to do everything they could to justify firing a gun at three teens who were not even on his property anymore.
About a mile-and-half away from the trooper’s home, once they believed they were safe from the crazy gunman, they stopped the car and one of the teens called his mom to tell her what had happened. He then called police to tell them what had happened.
Minutes later, when the teens noticed police helicopter and police dogs conducting a search in the area, they figured the cops were looking for the trigger-happy gunman.
But then they found themselves surrounded by cops, who searched and handcuffed them before leaving them in the back of a patrol car for hours on accusations that they had attempted to burglarize his home.
They were then driven down to Sparta police headquarters where they were photographed and placed in different cells.
Then they were transported to State Police Barracks where they were handcuffed to a steel bench for five hours before they were interrogated.
During that interrogation, police kept trying to get the teens to say they drove the car towards the cops, which, of course, would have made him fear for his life and justify the shooting.
But the teens just wouldn’t take the bait.
“That’s the exact opposite of what we were trying to do. We were just scared and trying to get out of there with our lives,” Barkhorn told the local news site.
The teens were eventually released when the cops confirmed that they did have a friend living on the same block and realized they were not going to admit to something they did not do.
And that was unfortunate for them because it meant they had to investigate their fellow trooper and we know they don’t like doing that. At least not very thoroughly.
The investigation is now being conducted by the state attorney general’s office, who are predictably taking a very pro-cop stance.
According to NJ.com:
The state attorney general’s office says its preliminary investigation has found an off-duty state trooper fired three shots from his personal gun as three teens fled his street in a car early Sunday morning — an account that’s largely consistent with what one of the teens has told NJ Advance Media.
But not entirely consistent.
Both say the teens knocked on the trooper’s Whispering Woods Lane door late at night after mistaking his home for a friend’s. Both say the trooper came downstairs with a gun — the AG’s office says it was his personal handgun. What the AG’s office describes as a “verbal exchange through the door,” teen Jesse Barkhorn, 18, describes as yelling and cursing by the trooper.
And both say that as the teens got in their car and fled, the trooper entered the street with the gun.
Where they notably differ: According to the AG’s office, the trooper says he identified himself as a trooper and pursued the teens on foot as they fled. Barkhorn says the trooper never identified himself.
It’s going to be interesting to see how this pans out because it appears that the only way to justify the shooting would be to criminalize the teens, either accusing them of trying to run the cop over or fleeing the scene even after they were told he was a cop, which should not make a difference considering anybody can claim they are a cop when they are out of uniform.
UK Government urged to come clean on Pakistan executions funding
Reprieve | July 28, 2015
The Home Office is refusing to reveal the true extent of secret funding to Pakistan which risks implicating the UK in a wave of executions currently underway.
Human rights organization Reprieve has brought proceedings before the Information Rights Tribunal (IRT) challenging ministers’ refusal to reveal whether Government guidelines were followed when funneling at least £12 million into anti-drugs efforts in Pakistan, largely carried out by the Pakistani Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF). The ANF is responsible for sending more than a hundred alleged drug mules to Pakistan’s 8,500-strong death row, and lists these numbers on its website as ‘Prosecution Achievements.’ Several British citizens are understood to be among those facing execution on drugs charges.
Pakistan has executed some 180 people since resuming executions in December 2014, having widened its hanging campaign in early 2015 to cover all prisoners on the country’s death row – including drug offenders, others convicted of non-violent offences, juveniles, and mentally ill prisoners.
The UK’s Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) guidance requires ministers to consider the potential risk to human rights of government overseas assistance. However, the Government is refusing to reveal crucial details of its decision-making about the funding, despite the recent resumption of hangings. The Home Office is arguing that publishing the information would both damage its relations with Pakistan, and reveal information which could “relate to” the British security services.
At the Government’s request large portions of the hearings so far have been heard in secret, without the presence of Reprieve, its lawyers, or a Government-appointed security-cleared lawyer known as a ‘Special Advocate’. Reprieve is currently seeking permission to appeal the judge’s decision to refuse the presence of a special advocate.
Commenting, Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said:
“The British public deserves to know how much of its money is funding hangings in Pakistan, particularly as the country continues its aggressive execution spree. If the UK is contributing to putting vulnerable drug mules – including British nationals – on death row in countries like Pakistan, this is a matter of huge public interest. The Home Office should stop hiding behind spurious national security arguments in an effort to dodge taxpayer scrutiny, and instead come clean about the true extent of its aid for executions”.
Here comes the 21st Century Cures Act: Say Goodbye to Vaccine Safety
Science by Barbara Loe Fisher | July 22, 2015
A 2015 Pharma-driven bill blessed by the FDA seriously compromises the integrity of the vaccine licensing process and is sailing through the U.S. Congress. Act to protect vaccine safety and join http://www.NVICadvocacy.org and learn more at http://www.NVIC.org.
See also :
21st Century Cures Act Gets a Revision
By Randi Hernandez | PharmTech | July 7, 2015
The 21st Century Cures Act will see some revisions before the House votes on the bill later this week. On July 2, 2015, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce released a summary of major changes to the bill that reduce the funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Cures Innovation Fund to approximately $8.75 billion over the next five years instead of the $10 billion that was originally proposed. The funding amount was amended “to clarify the availability of a $9.3 billion advanced appropriation for FY2016–FY2020. $110 million is made available for FDA regulatory modernization activities annually from FY2016–FY2020.”
Other changes to the proposed bill include not requiring companies that receive NIH funding to report their data, and additional changes to how drugs are reimbursed, specifically, payment amounts for branded drugs and infused specialty drugs. … continue
See also :
Is The 21st Century Cures Act Good Or Bad For The Biopharmaceutical Industry?
Forbes | June 8, 2015
… “An underlying premise of the bill is the need to accelerate approval for new products, but this process is already quite efficient. A third of new drugs are currently approved on the basis of a single pivotal trial; the median size for all pivotal trials is just 760 patients. More than two-thirds of new drugs are approved on the basis of studies lasting 6 months or less – a potential problem for medications designed to be for a lifetime. Once the FDA starts its review, it approves new medications about as quickly as any regulatory agency in the world, evaluating nearly all drug applications within 6 to 10 months, an impressive turnaround for such complex assessments.” … Full article
The American Nightmare: The Tyranny of the Criminal Justice System
By John W. Whitehead | Rutherford Institute | July 21, 2015
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool’s hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.
—Bob Dylan, “Hurricane”
Justice in America is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Just ask Jeffrey Deskovic, who spent 16 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit. Despite the fact that Deskovic’s DNA did not match what was found at the murder scene, he was singled out by police as a suspect because he wept at the victim’s funeral (he was 16 years old at the time), then badgered over the course of two months into confessing his guilt. He was eventually paid $6.5 million in reparation.
James Bain spent 35 years in prison for the kidnapping and rape of a 9-year-old boy, but he too was innocent of the crime. Despite the fact that the prosecutor’s case was flimsy—it hinged on the similarity of Bain’s first name to the rapist’s, Bain’s ownership of a red motorcycle, and a misidentification of Bain in a lineup by a hysterical 9-year-old boy—Bain was sentenced to life in prison. He was finally freed after DNA testing proved his innocence, and was paid $1.7 million.
Mark Weiner got off relatively easy when you compare his experience to the thousands of individuals who are spending lifetimes behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Weiner was wrongfully arrested, convicted, and jailed for more than two years for a crime he too did not commit. In his case, a young woman claimed Weiner had abducted her, knocked her out and then sent taunting text messages to her boyfriend about his plans to rape her. Despite the fact that cell phone signals, eyewitness accounts and expert testimony indicated the young woman had fabricated the entire incident, the prosecutor and judge repeatedly rejected any evidence contradicting the woman’s far-fetched account, sentencing Weiner to eight more years in jail. Weiner was only released after his accuser was caught selling cocaine to undercover cops.
In the meantime, Weiner lost his job, his home, and his savings, and time with his wife and young son. As Slate reporter journalist Dahlia Lithwick warned, “If anyone suggests that the fact that Mark Weiner was released this week means ‘the system works,’ I fear that I will have to punch him in the neck. Because at every single turn, the system that should have worked to consider proof of Weiner’s innocence failed him.”
The system that should have worked didn’t, because the system is broken, almost beyond repair.
In courtroom thrillers like 12 Angry Men and To Kill a Mockingbird, justice is served in the end because someone—whether it’s Juror #8 or Atticus Finch—chooses to stand on principle and challenge wrongdoing, and truth wins.
Unfortunately, in the real world, justice is harder to come by, fairness is almost unheard of, and truth rarely wins.
On paper, you may be innocent until proven guilty, but in actuality, you’ve already been tried, found guilty and convicted by police officers, prosecutors and judges long before you ever appear in a courtroom. Chronic injustice has turned the American dream into a nightmare. At every step along the way, whether it’s encounters with the police, dealings with prosecutors, hearings in court before judges and juries, or jail terms in one of the nation’s many prisons, the system is riddled with corruption, abuse and an appalling disregard for the rights of the citizenry.
Due process rights afforded to a person accused of a crime—the right to remain silent, the right to be informed of the charges against you, the right to representation by counsel, the right to a fair trial, the right to a speedy trial, the right to prove your innocence with witnesses and evidence, the right to a reasonable bail, the right to not languish in jail before being tried, the right to confront your accusers, etc.—mean nothing when the government is allowed to sidestep those safeguards against abuse whenever convenient.
It’s telling that while President Obama said all the right things about the broken state of our criminal justice system—that we jail too many Americans for nonviolent crimes (we make up 5 percent of the world’s population, but our prison population constitutes nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners), that we spend more money on incarceration than any other nation ($80 billion a year), that we sentence people for longer jail terms than their crimes merit, that our criminal justice system is far from color-blind, that the nation’s school-to-prison pipeline is contributing to overcrowded jails, and that we need to focus on rehabilitation of criminals rather than retribution—he failed to own up to the government’s major role in contributing to this injustice in America.
Indeed, while Obama placed the responsibility for reform squarely in the hands of prosecutors, judges and police, he failed to acknowledge that they bear the burden of our failed justice system, along with the legislatures and corporations who have worked with them to create an environment that is hostile to the rights of the accused.
In such a climate, we are all the accused, the guilty and the suspect. As I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’re operating in a new paradigm where the citizenry are presumed guilty and treated as suspects, our movements tracked, our communications monitored, our property seized and searched, our bodily integrity disregarded, and our inalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” rendered insignificant when measured against the government’s priorities.
Every American is now in jeopardy of being targeted and punished for a crime he did not commit thanks to an overabundance of arcane laws. Making matters worse, by allowing government agents to operate above the law, immune from wrongdoing, we have created a situation in which the law is one-sided and top-down, used as a hammer to oppress the populace, while useless in protecting us against government abuse.
Add to the mix a profit-driven system of incarceration in which state and federal governments agree to keep the jails full in exchange for having private corporations run the prisons, and you will find the only word to describe such a state of abject corruption is “evil.”
How else do you explain a system that allows police officers to shoot first and ask questions later, without any real consequences for their misdeeds? Despite the initial outcry over the shootings of unarmed individuals in Ferguson and Baltimore, the pace of police shootings has yet to slow.
For those who survive an encounter with the police only to end up on the inside of a jail cell, waiting for a “fair and speedy trial,” it’s often a long wait. Consider that 60 percent of the people in the nation’s jails have yet to be convicted of a crime. There are 2.3 million people in jails or prisons in America. Those who can’t afford bail, “some of them innocent, most of them nonviolent and a vast majority of them impoverished,” will spend about four months in jail before they even get a trial.
Not even that promised “day in court” is a guarantee that justice will be served.
As Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals points out, there are an endless number of factors that can render an innocent man or woman a criminal and caged for life: unreliable eyewitnesses, fallible forensic evidence, flawed memories, coerced confessions, harsh interrogation tactics, uninformed jurors, prosecutorial misconduct, falsified evidence, and overly harsh sentences, to name just a few.
In early 2015, the Justice Department and FBI “formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period…. The admissions mark a watershed in one of the country’s largest forensic scandals, highlighting the failure of the nation’s courts for decades to keep bogus scientific information from juries, legal analysts said.”
“How do rogue forensic scientists and other bad cops thrive in our criminal justice system?” asks Judge Kozinski. “The simple answer is that some prosecutors turn a blind eye to such misconduct because they’re more interested in gaining a conviction than achieving a just result.”
The power of prosecutors is not to be underestimated. Increasingly, when we talk about innocent people being jailed for crimes they did not commit, the prosecutor plays a critical role in bringing about that injustice. As The Washington Post reports, “Prosecutors win 95 percent of their cases, 90 percent of them without ever having to go to trial…. Are American prosecutors that much better? No… it is because of the plea bargain, a system of bullying and intimidation by government lawyers for which they ‘would be disbarred in most other serious countries….’”
This phenomenon of innocent people pleading guilty makes a mockery of everything the criminal justice system is supposed to stand for: fairness, equality and justice. As Judge Jed S. Rakoff concludes, “our criminal justice system is almost exclusively a system of plea bargaining, negotiated behind closed doors and with no judicial oversight. The outcome is very largely determined by the prosecutor alone.”
It’s estimated that between 2 and 8 percent of convicted felons who have agreed to a prosecutor’s plea bargain (remember, there are 2.3 million prisoners in America) are in prison for crimes they did not commit.
Clearly, the Coalition for Public Safety was right when it concluded, “You don’t need to be a criminal to have your life destroyed by the U.S. criminal justice system.”
It wasn’t always this way. As Judge Rakoff recounts, the Founding Fathers envisioned a criminal justice system in which the critical element “was the jury trial, which served not only as a truth-seeking mechanism and a means of achieving fairness, but also as a shield against tyranny.”
That shield against tyranny has long since been shattered, leaving Americans vulnerable to the cruelties, vanities, errors, ambitions and greed of the government and its partners in crime.
There is not enough money in the world to make reparation to those whose lives have been disrupted by wrongful convictions.
Over the past quarter century, more than 1500 Americans have been released from prison after being cleared of crimes they did not commit. These are the fortunate ones. For every exonerated convict who is able to prove his innocence after 10, 20 or 30 years behind bars, Judge Kozinski estimates there may be dozens who are innocent but cannot prove it, lacking access to lawyers, evidence, money and avenues of appeal.
For those who have yet to fully experience the injustice of the American system of justice, it’s only a matter of time. America no longer operates under a system of justice characterized by due process, an assumption of innocence, probable cause, and clear prohibitions on government overreach and police abuse. Instead, our courts of justice have been transformed into courts of order, advocating for the government’s interests, rather than championing the rights of the citizenry, as enshrined in the Constitution.
Without courts willing to uphold the Constitution’s provisions when government officials disregard them, and a citizenry knowledgeable enough to be outraged when those provisions are undermined, the Constitution provides little protection against the police state.
These are the U.S. Representatives who voted to ban GMO labeling and deny your right to know what you’re eating
By Julie Wilson | Natural News | July 23, 2015
“We should not raise prices on consumers based on the wishes of a handful of activists,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), who just became consumer enemy number one after he decided to author a bill that destroys any chance Americans have of knowing what’s in their food, specifically whether or not they contain genetically modified ingredients, or GMOs.
What Pompeo isn’t telling you, and in fact is deliberately covering up, is that Americans overwhelmingly support GMO labeling (we’re talking in the 90th percentile); you can view proof of that support here, here and here.
Pompeo, who has likely been paid VERY well by Big Food lobbyists to spearhead this initiative, has made it his mission to make sure that you and your family continue eating foods made from crops that are genetically engineered to withstand high doses of Monsanto’s Roundup, which by the way, its primary ingredient, glyphosate, was labeled as being “probably” carcinogenic to humans by the World Health Organization last spring.
Scientists also concluded that glyphosate is “genotoxic,” meaning that it damages DNA and there’s actually no safe level of exposure.
But Pompeo doesn’t want you to know any of that. In fact, he’s worried that GMO labeling will only confuse you. Are you insulted? Well, you should be.
Named the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 by a bunch of politicians who know next to nothing about GMOs, and the DARK Act (Denying Americans the Right to Know) by passionate food activists and consumer groups who have practically dedicated their lives to bringing awareness about the dangers of GMOs, the legislation that was recently passed in the House Committee prevents all states from enacting their own GMO labeling laws, ever.
It also strips states like Vermont, which already passed GMO labeling, their right from doing so.
Below is a list of politicians actively working to keep you and your family in the dark regarding the dangers of GMOs. Click here for their contact information.
Alabama
Byrne, Bradley (R-AL)
Roby, Martha (R-AL)
Rogers, Mike (R-AL)
Aderholt, Robert (R-AL)
Brooks, Mo (R-AL)
Palmer, Gary (R-AL)
Sewell,Terri (D-AL)
Young, Don (R-AK)
Kirkpatrick, Ann (D-AZ)
McSally, Martha (R-AZ)
Gosar, Paul (R-AZ)
Salmon, Matt (R-AZ)
Schweikert, David (R-AZ)
Sinema, Kyrsten (D-AZ)
Arkansas
Crawford, Eric (R-AR)
Hill, French (R-AR)
Womack, Steve (R-AR)
Westerman, Bruce (R-AR)
California
LaMalfa, Doug (R-CA)
Garamendi, John (D-CA)
McClintock, Tom (R-CA)
Bera, Ami (D-CA)
Cook, Paul (R-CA)
Denham, Jeff (R-CA
Costa, Jim (D-CA)
Valadao, David (R-CA)
Nunes, Devin (R-CA)
McCarthy, Kevin (R-CA)
Knight, Steve (R-CA)
Royce, Ed (R-CA)
Calvert, Ken (R-CA)
Walters, Mimi (R-CA)
Rohrabacher, Dana (R-CA)
Issa, Darrell (R-CA)
Hunter, Duncan (R-CA)
Colorado
Buck, Ken (R-CO)
Tipton, Scott (R-CO)
Lamborn, Doug (R-CO)
Coffman, Mike (R-CO)
Delaware
Carney, John (R-DE)
Florida
Miller, Jeff (R-FL)
Graham, Gwen (D-FL)
Yoho, Ted (R-FL)
Crenshaw, Ander (R-FL)
Brown, Corrine (D-FL)
DeSantis, Ron (R-FL)
Mica, John (R-FL)
Webster, Daniel (R-FL)
Nugent, Richard (R-FL)
Bilirakis, Gus (R-FL)
Jolly, David (R-FL)
Castor, Kathy (D-FL)
Ross, Dennis (R-FL)
Rooney, Thomas (R-FL)
Hastings, Alcee (D-FL)
Diaz-Balart, Mario (R-FL)
Curbelo, Carlos (R-FL)
Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL)
Georgia
Carter, Buddy (R-GA)
Bishop, Sanford (D-GA)
Westmoreland, Lynn (R-GA)
Price, Tom (R-GA)
Woodall, Rob (R-GA)
Scott, Austin (R-GA)
Collins, Doug (R-GA)
Hice, Jody (R-GA)
Loudermilk, Barry (R-GA)
Allen, Rick (R-GA)
Scott, David (D-GA)
Graves, Tom (R-GA)
Idaho
Labrador, Raul (R-ID)
Simpson, Mike (R-ID)
Illinois
Kelly, Robin (D-IL)
Lipinski, Daniel (D-IL)
Roskam, Peter (R-IL)
Davis, Danny (D-IL)
Duckworth, Tammy (D-IL)
Dold, Bob (R-IL)
Foster, Bill (D-IL)
Bost, Mike (R-IL)
Davis, Rodney (R-IL)
Hultgren, Randy (R-IL)
Shimkus, John (R-IL)
Kinzinger, Adam (R-IL)
Bustos, Cheri (D-IL)
Indiana
Walorski, Jackie (R-IN)
Stutzman, Marlin (R-IN)
Rokita, Todd (R-IN)
Brooks, Susan (R-IN)
Messer, Luke (R-IN)
Bucshon, Larry (R-IN)
Young, Todd (R-IN)
Iowa
Blum, Rod (R-IA)
Loebsack, David (D-IA)
Young, David (R-IA)
King, Steve (R-IA)
Kansas
Huelskamp, Tim (R-KS)
Jenkins, Lynn (R-KS)
Yoder, Kevin (R-KS)
Pompeo, Mike (R-KS)
Kentucky
Whitfield, Ed (R-KY)
Guthrie, Brett (R-KY)
Rogers, Hal (R-KY)
Barr, Andy (R-KY)
Louisiana
Scalise, Steve (R-LA)
Richmond, Cedric (D-LA)
Boustany, Charles (R-LA)
Fleming, John (R-LA)
Abraham, Ralph (R-LA)
Graves, Garret (R-LA)
Maryland
Harris, Andy (R-MD)
Ruppersberger, A. Dutch (D-MD)
Michigan
Benishek, Dan (R-MI)
Huizenga, Bill (R-MI)
Moolenaar, John (R-MI)
Upton, Fred (R-MI)
Walberg, Tim (R-MI)
Bishop, Mike (R-MI)
Miller, Candice (R-MI)
Trott, Dave (R-MI)
Lawrence, Brenda (D-MI)
Minnesota
Walz, Timothy (D-MN)
Kline, John (R-MN)
Paulsen, Erik (R-MN)
McCollum, Betty (D-MN)
Emmer, Tom (R-MN)
Peterson, Collin (D-MN)
Mississippi
Kelly, Trent (R-MS)
Thompson, Bennie (D-MS)
Harper, Gregg (R-MS)
Palazzo, Steven (R- MS)
Missouri
Clay, Lacy (D-MO)
Wagner, Ann (R-MO)
Luetkemeyer, Blaine (R-MO)
Hartzler, Vicky (R-MO)
Cleaver, Emanuel (D-MO)
Graves, Sam (R-MO)
Long, Billy (R-MO)
Smith, Jason (R-MO)
Montana
Zinke, Ryan (R-MT)
Nebraska
Fortenberry, Jeff (R-NE)
Ashford, Brad (D-NE)
Smith, Adrian (R-NE)
Nevada
Amodei, Mark (R-NV)
Heck, Joseph (R-NV)
Hardy, Cresent (R-NV)
New Hampshire
Guinta, Frank (R-NH)
New Jersey
Norcross, Donald (D-NJ)
LoBiondo, Frank (R-NJ)
MacArthur, Tom (R-NJ)
Garrett, Scott (R-NJ)
Pascrell, Bill (D-NJ)
Frelinghuysen, Rodney (R-NJ)
New Mexico
Pearce, Steve (R-NM)
New York
King, Pete (R-NY)
Donovan, Daniel (R-NY)
Stefanik, Elise (R-NY)
Hanna, Richard (R-NY)
Reed, Tom (R-NY)
Katko, John (R-NY)
Collins, Chris (R-NY)
North Carolina
Butterfield, G.K. (D-NC)
Ellmers, Renee (R-NC)
Jones, Walter (R-NC)
Foxx, Virginia (R-NC)
Walker, Mark (R-NC)
Rouzer, David (R-NC)
Hudson, Richard (R-NC)
Pittenger, Robert (R-NC)
McHenry, Patrick (R-NC)
Meadows, Mark (R-NC)
Adams, Alma (D-NC)
Holding, George (R-NC)
North Dakota
Cramer, Kevin (R-ND)
Ohio
Chabot, Steve (R-OH)
Wenstrup, Brad (R-OH)
Jordan, Jim (R-OH)
Latta, Robert (R-OH)
Johnson, Bill (R-OH)
Gibbs, Bob (R-OH)
Turner, Michael (R-OH)
Fudge, Marcia (D-OH)
Tiberi, Pat (R-OH)
Joyce, David (R-OH)
Stivers, Steve (R-OH)
Renacci, James (R-OH)
Oklahoma
Bridenstine, Jim (R-OK)
Mullin, Markwayne (R-OK)
Lucas, Frank (R-OK)
Cole, Tom (R-OK)
Russell, Steve (R-OK)
Oregon
Walden, Greg (R-OR)
Schrader, Kurt (D-OR)
Pennsylvania
Kelly, Mike (R-PA)
Perry, Scott (R-PA)
Thompson, Glenn (R-PA)
Costello, Ryan (R-PA)
Meehan, Patrick (R-PA)
Fitzpatrick, Michael (R-PA)
Shuster, Bill (R-PA)
Marino, Tom (R-PA)
Barletta, Lou (R-PA)
Rothfus, Keith (R-PA)
Dent, Charles (R-PA)
Pitts, Joseph (R-PA)
Murphy, Tim (R-PA)
South Carolina
Wilson, Joe (R-SC)
Duncan, Jeff (R-SC)
Gowdy, Trey (R-SC)
Mulvaney, Mick (R-SC)
Clyburn, Jim (D-SC)
Rice, Tom (R-SC)
South Dakota
Noem, Kristi (R-SD)
Tennessee
Roe, Phil (R-TN)
Fleischmann, Chuck (R-TN)
DesJarlais, Scott (R-TN)
Cooper, Jim (D-TN)
Black, Diane (R-TN)
Blackburn, Marsha (R-TN)
Fincher, Stephen (R-TN)
Texas
Gohmert, Louie (R-TX)
Poe, Ted (R-TX)
Johnson, Sam (R-TX)
Ratcliffe, John (R-TX)
Hensarling, Jeb (R-TX)
Barton, Joe (R-TX)
Culberson, John (R-TX)
Brady, Kevin (R-TX)
Green, Al (D-TX)
McCaul, Michael (R-TX)
Conaway, Michael (R-TX)
Granger, Kay (R-TX)
Thornberry, Mac (R-TX)
Weber, Randy (R-TX)
Hinojosa, Ruben (D-TX)
Flores, Bill (R-TX)
Jackson Lee, Sheila (D-TX)
Neugebauer, Randy (R-TX)
Smith, Lamar (R-TX)
Olson, Pete (R-TX)
Hurd, Will (R-TX)
Marchant, Kenny (R-TX)
Williams, Roger (R-TX)
Burgess, Michael (R-TX)
Farenthold, Blake (R-TX)
Cuellar, Henry (D-TX)
Green, Gene (D-TX)
Johnson, Eddie (D-TX)
Sessions, Pete (R-TX)
Veasey, Marc (D-TX)
Babin, Brian (R-TX)
Utah
Stewart, Chris (R-UT)
Chaffetz, Jason (R-UT)
Love, Mia (R-UT)
Virginia
Wittman, Robert (R-VA)
Rigell, Scott (R-VA)
Forbes, Randy (R-VA)
Hurt, Robert (R-VA)
Goodlatte, Bob (R-VA)
Brat, Dave (R-VA)
Griffith, Morgan (R-VA)
Comstock, Barbara (R-VA)
Washington
Herrera Beutler, Jaime (R-WA)
Newhouse, Dan (R-WA)
McMorris Rodgers, Cathy (R-WA)
Reichert, David (R-WA)
West Virginia
McKinley, David (R-WV)
Mooney, Alex (R-WV)
Jenkins, Evan (R-WV)
Wisconsin
Ryan, Paul (R-WI)
Sensenbrenner, James (R-WI)
Grothman, Glenn (R-WI)
Duffy, Sean (R-WI)
Ribble, Reid (R-WI)
Wyoming
Lummis, Cynthia (R-WY)
FBI to train new ‘anti-corruption’ police unit in Ukraine’s Odessa – Gov. Saakashvili
RT | July 24, 2015
The FBI will train a small police unit in Odessa, which is set to become a beacon of hope in a “swamp” of corruption, announced Mikhail Saakashvili, a fugitive former president of Georgia and recently appointed governor of the coastal Ukrainian region.
Saakashvili said on Thursday that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation will train policemen in Odessa, TASS news agency reported.
“Two days ago we arranged with the FBI that we will create a separate [police] unit which will be small – maybe 50 people – and the FBI will be training them,” he said during the session of the National Reform Council (NRC).
“They [the new unit] will be separated from the others, so that they will become a kind of dry patch in the midst of a swamp,” Saakashvili said, adding that they will “work for people, not organized crime.”
The new body would assemble every two to three days, or at least every week, to “solve the problems which remain unsolved for months,” he added.
Earlier this week, Mikhail Saakashvili and US Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield signed a memorandum according to which the US would finance police reforms in Odessa as part of its broader law enforcement overhaul project in Ukraine.
At the ceremony, during which the new Odessa patrol police – trained by California Highway Patrol officers – was officially presented, Brownfield said that the US has already invested some $15 million in reforming the Ukrainian police force since the beginning of 2015, with reforms including new staff recruitment, training and equipment.
“A special anti-corruption group will be formed in the Odessa region, while the US State Department will render assistance to its work via one of its agencies,” said Saakashvili. The US embassy confirmed earlier in July that it would be launching a “new anti-corruption grants program” to support Saakashvili’s team of “Ukrainian and international” anti-corruption experts.
Mikhail Saakashvili was personally appointed as governor of Odessa by President Poroshenko on May, 2015, a day after he had gained Ukrainian citizenship. He is a former Georgian president notorious for initiating a war with South Ossetia in 2008, and attempting to present it as Russian aggression. He left Georgia in autumn 2013, days before his presidential term expired, and has been living abroad ever since.
In 2014 Saakashvili was charged with embezzlement and abuse of power by a Tbilisi court and put on the international wanted list. In February 2015, Tbilisi issued an extradition request for Saakashvili, but Kiev authorities rejected it.
Single Payer and the Revolving Door
By Russell Mokhiber | CounterPunch | July 22, 2015
Another benefit of a single payer national health insurance system is that it gets rid of the obscenity of the revolving door between the health insurance industry and the government payer.
There is no revolving door because there is no door.
There is no door because the health insurance companies are put out of their misery.
One public payer. Everybody in. Nobody out.
If we had single payer, we wouldn’t be witnessing the obscenity we witnessed this month.
Take the case of Marilyn Tavenner.
She’s the Obama official who was in charge of the rollout of Obamacare.
She stepped down from her job in February and will become president of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — the insurance industry lobbying group representing the likes of Aetna, Anthem, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and many Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies.
Taking her place at the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is former UnitedHealth executive Andy Slavitt.
Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP) says that Karen Ignagni, AHIP’s previous president and CEO, essentially had carte blanche in the White House as Obamacare was being crafted.
“She also was very influential in obtaining the concessions that protected the excess payments to the Medicare Advantage plans, measures which greatly benefit UnitedHealth Group and others,” McCanne says. “It seems more than a coincidence that UnitedHealth Group dropped out of AHIP shortly after the resignation of Karen Ignagni.”
“Without insider information, it is very difficult to determine the degree of control held by each of the players, but there is no question that HHS/CMS, AHIP, and UnitedHealth and the other insurers are all participating in advancing the privatization of Medicare by enhancing the private Medicare Advantage plans with our taxpayer dollars,” McCanne says. “It is particularly disconcerting that this agenda is supported by Congress and the Obama administration.”
“Imagine what those excess funds could do for our traditional Medicare program, especially in reducing out-of-pocket expenses for premiums, deductibles, coinsurance and catastrophic losses,” McCanne says.
“That would be far better than wasting them on the administrative excesses of the private insurers and on the dishonest activities they engage in to increase their profits by measures such as upcoding or gaming risk adjustment.”
Why is there no public outcry?
“It is simply because the Medicare Advantage plans are able to use about one-third of the extra funds to reduce deductibles and coinsurance, making them appear to be superior products, plus there is no need to purchase supplemental Medigap plans,” McCanne says. “Most of the beneficiaries who are satisfied with their private plans would not be inclined to support increased taxpayer funding of the traditional Medicare program since it doesn’t concern them anymore. And efforts to reduce Medicare Advantage funding to the same levels as traditional Medicare are met with loud protests orchestrated by AHIP. Those in the traditional Medicare program usually have supplemental retiree or Medigap plans with which they are satisfied, and thus they are not advocates for change either.”
“It is really difficult to explain to people that what is a good deal for them is a bad deal for all of us together since it perpetuates high costs and extraordinary administrative waste,” McCanne says. “If their programs seem to be working for them, they don’t want change.”
McCanne says that we need to improve the traditional Medicare program so that it is more comprehensive and provides greater value, and then use it to cover everyone.
“Our task is made much more difficult by the powerful forces that support corporate control of our healthcare system,” he says. “After all, they are the ones with the money. And Tavenner and Slavitt will be there as their agents, working inside and outside of the government. And most people won’t care.”
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Aaron Siri’s Book: Vaccines, Amen
By Maryanne DemasiMaryanne Demasi | Brownstone Institute | June 15, 2026
For decades, vaccines have been treated as the sacred cow of modern medicine. I was taught that they were the holy grail. To question them was heresy. To raise concerns about safety was to risk professional exile.
Aaron Siri makes it clear in Vaccines, Amen: The Religion of Vaccines that the story we’ve been told about vaccine science rests far more on belief than proof.
“No child should be sacrificed on the altar of the religion of vaccines,” Siri writes, as he turns his focus to America’s overcrowded childhood immunisation schedule.
I assumed little in this book would surprise me. I’ve spent years reporting on drug safety, regulatory capture, and the corruption of science. But Siri showed me how wrong I was.
Siri is not a doctor or a scientist. He is an attorney, and this, he says, is his advantage. In court, rhetoric won’t save you. Evidence does. As he puts it, he doesn’t get to say “trust me” the way many doctors do. “I need to prove claims with real data.”
And he does. … continue
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- US must cut military, intelligence assistance to Israel to protect Iran deal: Ex-Trump official
- The 12 Screenings That Manufacture the Patients They Claim to Find
- Iran deputy FM says MoU with US finalized, to be signed in Geneva on Friday
- With one strike, Netanyahu tries to kill two peace deals
- Iran warns ‘no point’ in deal with US if Israel remains unrestrained
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
- European “Expert Commission” Urges COVID-19-Like Global Climate State Of Energency!
- Real-World Observations Do Not Support The Position That Climate Change Is Human-Caused
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