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POPSMurder-Suicide in Families (DoJ Report) Previous history of abuse is by far the most dominant risk factor. In one study, 82 percent of the men who killed their intimate partners were known to the authorities — treatment professionals, the military or the criminal justice system, for example . In most cases, the man exhibits possessive, obsessive and jealous behavior. There is a gradual build-up of tensions and conflicts after which an event leads the man to act. The triggering event is often the woman’s announcement that she is leaving. The time immediately after a woman leaves an abusive partner is the most dangerous . Read an article from the NIJ Journal about a tool to help assess a woman’s risk of being a victim of murder suicide (pdf, 6 pages).
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POPSTop U.S. Scientist Arrested in FBI Sting Attempting to Sell Nuclear Secrets to Israel
The conduct alleged in this complaint is serious and should serve as a warning to anyone who would consider compromising our nation’s secrets for profit,” said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security. … “From 1989 through 2006, Nozette held security clearances as high as top secret and had regular, frequent access to classified information and documents related to the US national defense,” the Justice Department said. … “In addition, Nozette allegedly offered to reveal additional classified information that directly concerned nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, and other major weapons systems,” DOJ said. In addition to allegations against a network of moles said to be based at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, Edmonds has also fingered current and former members of Congress, such as Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO),Stephen Solarz (D-NY) and Tom Lantos (D-CA, deceased), as well as high-ranking Pentagon and State Dept.
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POPSLamar Smith Sent a Letter to Attorney General Eric Holder: Investigate Allegations of Criminal Conduct Against ACORN
“Because the President’s political ties to ACORN may discourage senior Justice Department officials from authorizing an investigation, I have called on the Attorney General to appoint a special counsel who is independent of the administration and free from any undue political influence. “Political favoritism has no place at the Justice Department. We’ve already seen this administration dismiss one case against a political ally"the New Black Panther Party"for no apparent reason. I remain concerned that politicization at the Justice Department once again may result in the administration’s political friends getting a free pass. Only an independent investigation can ensure that justice is served in this case.” Last month, Ranking Member Smith sent letters to Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine and FBI Director Robert Mueller calling for investigations into ACORN’s use of federal funds and possible criminal violations.
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POPSUPDATE: Obama Blog Propaganda is Government-Wide of the Department of Justice, Holder and President Obama. One conservative editor recently told the Muffled Oar that they have noticed a significant increase in the number and aggressiveness of comments to stories critical of the Holder Justice Department. “There is clearly a designed effort to rebut stories that are exposing the Holder Justice Department as more political than the last. We’ve seen a change in the pattern of anonymous emails we receive and comments posted at our paper’s webpage.” One shivers at the thought of a team of Department of Justice Bloggers anonymously trolling the web to spin the message of a President. It is particularly terrifying when those same anonymous government employees at the Department attack media outlets and newspapers anonymously. How much longer before the Blog Squad operates in the open to intimidate political opponents and critics? Posted by Isaac Muzzey
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POPSDoJ Official Blows Cover Off PATRIOT Act more @ source. Only three of the 763 "sneak-and-peek" requests in fiscal year 2008 involved terrorism cases, according to a July 2009 report from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Sixty-five percent were drug cases.
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POPS DoJ Official Blows Cover Off PATRIOT Act Only three of the 763 "sneak-and-peek" requests in fiscal year 2008 involved terrorism cases, according to a July 2009 report from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Sixty-five percent were drug cases.
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POPSBagram: The sham of closing Guantanamo
Yesterday, the Obama DOJ -- as expected -- filed a legal brief (.pdf) which adopted the arguments originally made by the Bush DOJ to insist that detainees whom they abduct from around the world and then ship to Bagram (rather than Guantanamo) lack any constitutional rights whatsoever, including habeas review. The Obama administration is appealing from a decision (.pdf) by Bush-43-appointed District Court Judge John Bates which, applying Boumediene, held that detainees at Bagram who are originally detained outside of Afghanistan have the right to habeas review (Afghan citizens detained in Afghanistan have none, he found). In other words, after Obama praised Boumediene as "defending the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy," he's now attempting to make a complete mockery of that decision by insisting that it is inapplicable as long as he decides to ship detainees from, say, Thailand to Bagram rather than Guantanamo. Obama apparently sees "our core values" as nothing more th
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POPSMajor ruling against Ashcroft highlights evils of preventive detention The principal legal issue strictly resolved by the court here is somewhat narrow and legalistic. A political official has absolute immunity from lawsuits based on decisions made in a prosecutorial capacity (e.g., whether to indict or prosecute someone), but not for law enforcement decisions (e.g., whether to arrest or detain someone). You can't ever sue a prosecutor for deciding to prosecute you, but you can sue someone who arrests you if they acted illegally and in clear violation of your legal rights. The Ninth Circuit ruled that where, as here, there is credible evidence that the real reason an official ordered someone detained as a material witness (normally a prosecutorial act) was to arrest them, that is a law enforcement act, not a prosecutorial one, and he is therefore not entitled to absolute immunity from lawsuits if he violated the law when doing so. Hence, this lawsuit against Ashcroft personally -- alleging that he ordered Muslims detained in clear violation of their l
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POPSJustice Dept. to Recharge Enforcement of Civil Rights To bolster a unit that has been battered by heavy turnover and a scandal over politically tinged hiring under the Bush administration, the Obama White House has also proposed a hiring spree that would swell the ranks of several hundred civil rights lawyers with more than 50 additional lawyers, a significant increase for a relatively small but powerful division of the government.
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POPSCheney Attacks Obama, Torture Investigations
A whole generation grew up thinking the principle repeated over and over again at the war crime trials after WWII were true: That saying you "were only obeying orders," was not a defense. But former VP Cheney says it is, that "legal memos," given to the CIA said it was okay. Cheney also says torture is okay because "it helped save American lives." Obama is doing great damage to our country, making us less safe, Cheney contends, because 1) These methods are needed to keep us safe and 2) He is sapping the morale of our CIA by allowing the newly announced investigations of the torture program by the Dept. of Justice. Besides being "offended," Cheney also announced that he hasn't decided if he will cooperate with the DOJ investigation. Of course there are lots of holes in the argument. If Hitler had his Justice Dept. write him a memo saying it was okay to murder 6 million Poles and 5.5 million Jews and millions of union organizers and anti-war activist, would that make it o
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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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POPSRelease the Terrorist, Investigate the CIA by Andy McCarthy Excerpt from Wall Street Journals Editorial "The Real CIA News" The most revealing portion of the IG report documents the program's results. The CIA's "detention and interrogation of terrorists has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world." That included the identification of Jose Padilla and Binyam Muhammed, who planned to detonate a dirty bomb, and the arrest of previously unknown members of an al Qaeda cell in Karachi, Pakistan, designated to pilot an aircraft attack in the U.S. The information also made the CIA aware of plots to attack the U.S. consulate in Karachi, hijack aircraft to fly into Heathrow, loosen track spikes to derail a U.S. train, blow up U.S. gas stations, fly an airplane into a California building, and cut the lines of suspension bridges in New York.
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POPSCIA threatened to kill children; rape mother Ah! There's nothing like the truth starting to show through the fading veneer. These were the techniques the Bush and Cheney authorized and then successfully hid from exposure, claiming we can't let the terrorist know our tactics. Note: the steps towards official Dept. of Justice (the Obama DOJ, not the DOJ of the Bush nightmare years)...an official prosecution took another big step. 8AM today it was announced this was recommended. 10AM today Obama appointed Attorney General, Eric Holder, has asked a federal prosecutor John Durham to investigate. So...the Bush Administration ignored clearly stated warnings and had the biggest domestic attack on US soil in our history (Um...not counting the British and our own Civil War). Then they turned to Nazi-like tactics of torture, secret prisons, kidnapping, holding people without trail...even, btw, murder of POW's (we haven't got much coverage of that - yet.). Then, starting a war based on deliberately fabricate lies. Just
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POPSIs This Why Eric Holder Isn't Going After Bush Officials? The tip I got was that the firm had a very important client. His name was George W Bush. And they represented a very important organization . . . called the Republican National Committee. I was in shock when I checked it--and it was true. My favorite research item I ran across is when they were protecting the RNC from having to turn over Karl Rove's e-mails that were run on the RNC servers. It shocked me. Plus I found it mighty interesting that AG Eric Holder never enlightened anyone about his conflicts of coming from a big Washington, D.C., law firm that represented the National Republic Committee and George W. Bush in the 2000 election contest. Simpson notes that Holder's favorable treatment of Republicans hardly stops with the Stevens case. She lists the Tobin phone-jamming case in New Hampshire, the Kott case in Alaska, and the Abramoff/Feeney case in Florida as examples of the Holder DOJ killing GOPers with kindness. What does Simpson make of it? It has long b
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POPSTo Share the Company of Other Man-Caused Disaster Enthusiasts Not only did he get past the French with his C4-packed sneakers, and do his damndest to blow that plane out of the sky, he’s been a real headache for the feds, staging hunger strikes and nuisance lawsuits. Here’s my Boston Herald story from December 2001: The passengers on American Airlines Flight 63 had finished a quiet lunch and were settling in for the long Atlantic flight faced with nothing more exciting than a movie when a flight attendant cried out for help yesterday. French TV journalist Thierry Dugeon, 36, was 10 rows behind the fracas in coach. “Suddenly, I heard a female voice, `I need some help! I need some help!’ ” Dugeon said. Instinctively, he ran up the narrow aisle to join the group of passengers in a desperate struggle with a man believed to have a bomb. “It’s three months after September 11th. Of course the first thing you think is something like terrorism,” Dugeon said. Dugeon described the melee that lasted long minutes.
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POPSLatest Cheney & CIA Crime Exposed? Step-by-step the noose has been tightening around the neck of former U.S. VP Dick Cheney. Tens of thousands of citizens have kept up the pressure for accountability and like water pressure behind a large dam, the cracks are finally showing. In this clip, even conservative Republican Senator John McCain (who is against a torture investigation) now says - today on major TV Sunday news show -- that Cheney has to answer questions about this....that's the start. Karl Rove is finally, last week, being officially deposed by DOJ lawyers. This giving testimony, answering questions under oath, is also a start. Now, also reported, new AG Eric Holder is considering an investigation into the torture issue. A real investigation by the Justice Dept, with real potential legal consequences.(i.e. jail). I think the pressure had to keep on pushing and build up like this. Rome wasn't built in a day. Cleaning up a house flooded by crime doesn't happen overnight.
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POPSBush personally ordered visit to Ashcroft's Hospital Bed Continued: However, at 6:45 p.m., Card and the President called the hospital and, according to the agent’s notes, “insisted on speaking .” According to the agent’s notes, Mrs. Ashcroft took the call from Card and the President and was informed that Gonzales and Card were coming to the hospital to see Ashcroft regarding a matter involving national security. Jack Goldsmith remembers that after a seriously-ill Ashcroft told Gonzales and Card to follow Comey’s legal advice, Goldsmith seriously thought Ashcroft might actually die right then and there. Ashcroft earns himself a place in the patriot’s pantheon just for that. I truly can’t wait to see how Bush’s presidential library treats this incident.
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