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POPSVictoria Riskin Information Prior to her work as a human rights activist, Victoria Riskin enjoyed a career as both as a psychologist in private practice and as a television writer and producer often in partnership with her husband, David W. Rintels, Emmy award-winning writer/producer. Her first film, The Last Best Year, was written about her relationship with a dying patient and starred Mary Tyler Moore. Her other award-winning television movies included My Antonia, an adaptation of the classic Willa Cather novel, and World War II; When Lions Roared, The Member of the Wedding and a Town Torn Apart.
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POPSAnother FALSE FLAG, Perhaps? Got it? Write a book critical of the CIA -- you cannot fly. Carry explosives (allegedly from Yemen) on board when the US is trolling for an excuse to invade and occupy Yemen for its oil -- yes you can!
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POPSConstitutional rights may not apply. Within 100 miles of the U.S. border...and I mean all around the country, the safeguards against search and seizure may not apply. In fact, should you be deemed a terrorist threat you may never see a lawyer or the light of day.!
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POPSTeenage Gitmo Detainee Goes Free After 7 Years The Young Afghani may have been only 12 years old at time of capture. More below: "While in U.S. custody, Jawad was held in solitary confinement and subjected to Guantánamo’s infamous "frequent flyer" sleep deprivation program. He attempted suicide in December 2003 by repeatedly slamming his head against his cell wall. Two judges -- first his military commission judge, then a federal court judge -- ruled that evidence gleaned through Jawad’s torture and coercion was inadmissible. Despite all this, there’s hope for Jawad’s future, as his habeas co-counsel, Air Force Maj. David Frakt, told us in May
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POPSMove to National ID Cards Delayed according to the American Civil Liberties Union. About half the states oppose the mandate, or have said they would never comply. Beginning Jan.1, the law was supposed to have blocked anybody from boarding a plane using their driver’s license as ID if their resident state did not comport with the Real ID program. But the Department of Homeland Security is set to extend, for at least a year, the deadline of the Real ID program that has raised the ire of privacy advocates. Homeland Security officials point to the 9/11 hijackers’ ability to get driver’s licenses in Virginia using false information as justification for the proposed $24 billion program. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation suggest the plan is misguided, and might pave the way for requiring such IDs to vote or purchase prescription drugs. “Our biggest concern is that it is a national ID card. It changes the relationship between the citizen and the state,”
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POPSC'mon, ACLU, go all in - fight Christmas Thanks to the ACLU, the whole world now knows what “torture” means in the United States: Sleep deprivation “insult slaps” water dousing “walling” (slamming a detainee’s head against a wall) Apparently, American-style torture consists of attending one of my college frat parties from 1993.
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POPS 'O Brother Jihadi, Where Art Thou?' Obama Will Live to Regret Sending Gitmo Detainees to Illinois by Debra Burlingame Who would have believed after 9/11 that our own president, the commander-in-chief who recently announced that he was sending another 30,000 troops to risk their lives in Aghanistan, would order that the enemy combatants captured on the battlefield must be brought into the United States. We will live to regret this. Barack Obama continues to cast the closing of Guantanamo and the importation of Al Qaeda terrorists into the American heartland as a moral victory. But this is nothing more than moral vanity and rank political theater aimed at satisfying his liberal soulmates at the ACLU and Human Rights First. In truth, the security nightmare he is about to visit on this country will only be surpassed by the legal morass which will accompany the transfer of foreign terrorists to American soil.
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POPSObama declares war on Christmas and Hanukkah! Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C., wasn't about to take this lying down. "I believe that sending a Christmas card without referencing a holiday and its purpose limits the Christmas celebration in favor of a more 'politically correct' holiday," Brown told Fox News Radio. So he's fighting back -- he's introduced a resolution "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected for use by those who celebrate Christmas." Under the resolution -- which, even if passed, would be without any legal force whatsoever -- the House would also "strongly disapprov of attempts to ban references to Christmas."
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POPSCensorship Alive And Well In Miami-Dade County, Florida I have a new blog entitled "Civil Rights & Wrongs," which I hope you will all visit. It still has a few bugs in how I envision it, but so far it seems to be off to a pretty good start. Here is the latest post, which discusses the U.S. Supreme Court's decision yesterday not to take up the "Vamos a Cuba" case, a case involving the removal of a children's book from the school library because the school board determined it painted an inaccurate picture of life in Cuba. My goal with this blog is to cover a wide array of civil rights issues, so if you are interested in any particular civil rights issues, court cases that may not be getting as much attention as they should, etc., please let me know.
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POPSCrazy Sheriff Joe Arpaio facing FBI investigation for abusing his power by arresting his critics We described Arpaio's incredible thuggery late last year in his dealings with the public, especially those who dare criticize him. An anti-Arpaio group called Maricopa Citizens for Safety Accountability, which formed last year in response to investigative reports and studies demonstrating that Arpaio's insane obsession with illegal immigrants was destroying his office's ability to actually deal with real law enforcement work, began showing up at county board meetings and asking to speak. Arpaio actually sent out his deputies in force to patrol these meetings, and they arrested people for merely applauding Arpaio's critics. If that sounds fascist to you, that's about right -- after all, some of the local neo-Nazis are Arpaio's biggest fans -- and he's been known to return the love.
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POPSOlbermanic Stuck In The Jaws of Coulter The Bush campaign commercial about Dukakis' furlough program never showed a picture of Horton. In fact, the actors playing "criminals" passing through a revolving door in the ad were all white. -- Voters considered it relevant that a candidate for president was so beholden to the ACLU that he backed an idiotic furlough program that released first-degree murderers. And yet in Keith Olbermann's discussion of Bush's allegedly vile, racist use of Willie Horton, he used a phony version of the ad, doctored to include a photo of Horton. in fairness to Keith, he's never been a "content guy." He was a communications major. (The agriculture school Keith attended offered a degree in this field.) He lifts the material for his show from liberal blogs, overwrites it, and throws in his trademark smirking and snorts. But that's all he does because, again, he was a communications major.
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POPSInterracial couple denied marriage license in Louisiana More: If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said. "I try to treat everyone equally," he said. Bardwell estimates that he has refused to marry about four couples during his career, all in the past 2 1/2 years.… "It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009," said American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana attorney Katie Schwartzmann. "The Supreme Court ruled as far back as 1963 that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry." The ACLU sent a letter to the Louisiana Judiciary Committee, which oversees the state justices of the peace, asking them to investigate Bardwell and recommending "the most severe sanctions available, because such blatant bigotry poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the administration of justice." "He knew he was breaking the law, but continued to do it," Schwartzmann said.
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POPSWill Dog Fighting Videos be Protected by Freedom of Speech? If the Supreme Court rules to uphold the conviction of Stevens, the law will be reinstated and animals will once again be protected from people who make money from their suffering. It seems like it should be an easy decision for the Supreme Court, but since the concept of free speech has come into question everyone from book publishers to movie producers, photographers, artists and journalists have gotten involved. They have taken animal cruelty out of the equation and replaced it with their own interests that they believe will be damaged if Stevens loses. Even the ACLU has gotten involved. The New York Times went as far as filing a “brief” in support of Stevens. They said, “The 1999 law imperils the media’s ability to report on issues related to animals.” Media publications cite that they are concerned that hunting and fishing magazines will be censored and general reporting on animal issues will be limited.
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POPSFox News Has Hired A Supporter of Convicted Cop-Killer As An"Analyst" and "Contributor" and "started a literacy project that uses hip-hop culture to increase school engagement and reading skills among high school students." It also says that he works with the ACLU Drug Reform Project, "focusing on drug informant policy." The ACLU favors legalization of all drugs. James Pera, a retired San Francisco Police Sergeant who saw first-hand the violence of the BLA and the Weather Underground, asked, "Why does O'Reilly pander to this tool of the left? I don't know. If they can bash the Obama Administration for not vetting left-wing radical Van Jones, shouldn’t they explain how Marc Lamont Hill was hired and who hired him?
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POPSEnough is Enough!!! Free the Scott Sisters! I've personally taken the time to look into this case. I've read through the court transcripts.... the whole thing makes me sick! I'll gladly share more links for anyone who reads this, and finds it disturbing enough to investigate on their own.
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POPS'John Adams Project' Exposes CIA Agents to Terrorist Suspects
The John Adams Project is a joint effort by the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to locate, stalk, and photograph covert CIA agents and to show those photographs to terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The Justice Department is investigating the John Adams Project. It is a violation of federal law to identify covert CIA agents. An ACLU spokesperson justified the outing of covert CIA agents by claiming that they had been involved in the "torture" of Guantanamo terrorist detainees that ACLU lawyers are representing. The John Adams Project was featured on Tuesday night's O'Reilly Factor when an O'Reilly producer chased down one of the three lawyers involved in the John Adams Project and demanded answers about an operation that would seem, on the face of it, place the lives of covert CIA operatives at jeopardy. The lawyer in question was very defiant and angry at being questioned by a Fox News producer with the camera rolling.
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POPSThe Valerie Jarrett Show the leftist group Jones helped to found, and which launched the advertiser boycott against Fox News host Glenn Beck. The counsel's office places part of the blame on the Office for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, which is overseen by Obama Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President Valerie Jarrett. "This wasn't simply Valerie Jarrett rubberstamping her guy," says a White House source. But Jarrett did view Jones as a critical member of the administration for her outreach efforts, in part, because he was so well known and respected in the radical-left world Playing to those types is another reason Jarrett's office approved the invitation of Jameel Jaffer, who runs the ACLU's "national security project," to the White House Ramadan dinner last week. Jaffer, a Canadian citizen, attended the dinner, which President Obama said was being held for American Muslims. Jaffer is a cause célèbre to the far left for his career of litigating against
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POPSIN man denied ‘No Gods’ license plates though state offers ‘In God We Trust’ plates
As I understand it, the separation of church and state sprang from the concept that the state cannot impose its belief on the individual. The federal government has been doing exactly this since 1864 when the first coin was stamped with “In God We Trust”. In 1956 it became the national motto (http://candst.tripod.com/motto.htm), and it is supported by nearly 90% of Americans, which led the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the motto because, according to them, it has "lost through rote repetition any significant religious content”. Several years ago, the appearance of "In God We Trust" on our money was challenged in the federal courts. The challenge was rejected by the lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the case. Since this message appears on U.S. currency, several states flags and seals, and license plates, many people falsely believe that the U.S. is, and was founded as, a Christian nation. I doubt you will convince them otherwise.
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POPSHow Our Interrogations Got KSM to Talk Thanks to the ACLU, the whole world now knows what “torture” means in the United States. Here’s a partial list: Sleep deprivation “insult slaps” water dousing “walling” (slamming a detainee’s head against a wall) Apparently, American-style torture consists of attending a frat party.
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POPS The Fall Guy True, the president showed up at the CIA a few days later to reassure Mr. Panetta's demoralized troops. Don't "be discouraged" that you've "made mistakes," the president said, smiling, as Mr. Panetta stood grimly by. "That's how we learn." Mr. Obama vowed to be "vigorous in protecting" the organization. Later, at the White House, he announced plans to release photos showing detainee abuse"at the demand of the ACLU. Then came House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's full-frontal assault, claiming the agency had lied to her about waterboarding. This would have been an excellent time for some "vigorous" protection of the CIA, since agency documents flatly contradict the speaker. But with his domestic agenda in the hands of Congress, the White House was mum. It showed equal interest in defending Mr. Panetta against the threat of congressional investigations. This week the White House visited on the CIA director what ranking Senate Intelligence Committee member Kit Bond declared a "hat trick"
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POPSNew CIA Docs Detail Brutal "Extraordinary Rendition" Process
All of these practices are carefully engineered to facilitate the interrogation process. Nudity, sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation are used as standard preparatory steps. It then details the standard "corrective techniques:" these are a series of physical assaults labeled with innocuous titles like insult slap, abdominal slap, facial hold and attention grasp. "Coercive techniques" used include: walling (slamming a prisoner's head against the wall, with some protective measures to avoid severe injuries), water dousing, the use of the stress position (known to the inquisition as the strapado, to the Germans in World War II as Pfahlbinden), wall standing (referred to by the NKVD and KGB as stoika) and cramped confinement. Because of substantial redactions, it seems unlikely that this list is complete. None of this information is surprising. In fact it all tallies perfectly with the description of the renditions program that can be derived from the report prepared by the Intern
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POPSDem Potpourri: Obamacare, Kennedy and Bush-Era Torture August 25, 2009 Shifting The Conversation To Thicker Ice Obama rallies his base by trying to shift the national conversation to Bush-era torture. Glenn Greenwald, a sometime consultant to the ACLU, reminds us of the depth of his commitment to civil liberties as he discusses the newly-released CIA Inspector General report on enhanced interrogation: What every American should be made to learn about the IG Torture Report ...Before saying anything about the implications of this Report, I want to post some excerpts of what CIA interrogators did. Every American should be forced to read and learn this in order to know what was done in their names . . . "Forced" to learn this stuff? I will defend to the death the right of every American to grill hotdogs and watch a ball game while tuning this news out. In another incident a guard racked a handgun and spun up a power drill near a hooded detainee. Geez, are we holding hardened terrorists or . .
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POPSWrist-slap and Tackle: Obama Goes Mild on CIA Torture http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/artic Holder has announced a tepid probe into some of the possible "excesses" committed by a few CIA interrogators, while letting the true architects and perpetrators of an elaborate, deliberate, inherent system of torture get off scot-free. Glenn Greenwald has many of the details here and here, among them the telling – and damning – fact that Obama and Holder have apparently decided that the "torture memos" prepared at the White House's order should be considered "settled law;" that is, only those agents whose tortures might have gone a bit beyond the already heinous tortures "allowed" by the White House memos are to be investigated for possible prosecution. As long as you stayed within the gruesome "guidelines" of the White House torture memos, then your atrocities are now to be considered "legal." This is yet another open reinforcement of the long-established covert practice of what we might call Nixon's Law: "If the president orders it, it cannot be illegal."
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POPSSuit filed over mass arrest during DNC protest. "Denver police have said they were trying to control the crowd moving from Civic Center. The officers testified in court that they had intelligence that anarchists planned to gather in the park, then move toward the 16th Street Mall to wreak havoc at delegate hotels and other businesses. The activists had posted that plan on a publicly available website."
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