Seventh Justice Department official quits
In what has become a new Friday tradition, another top official at the Department of Justice announced her resignation. This time it's Rachel Brand:
An assistant attorney general at the Justice Department announced her resignation on Friday, becoming the seventh official to quit the department since the Democratic-led Congress launched an investigation in March into the firing of nine federal prosecutors.
Register **Security
I couldn't have said it more eloquently myself. The name of the game with this administration from the start has been fear and intimidation. And it is absolutely correct that the monster must be fed regularly lest the populus forget. While fear is a great motivator, it must be said that the problem is that it must be constantly re-inforced. I know the reality is that this has never been a "safe" world, nor will it ever be. That's just not the way it works. If only the public could be educated to that simple concept. Maybe then we would have something resembling a democracy. As it is what we actually have is a consentual government at best. And it has never been closer to a dictatorship than it is today. Sad truth!
the Dept. of Homeland Security
Would never have been without 9-11. Now they have to keep spooking the nation with false security alerts, terror fantasies etc., so that they can justify and enlarge themselves.
Divide the number of terrorists the DHS has caught into the billions they have spent and see how many billions spent per wahabi caught.
It is the aftermath of Sept. 11 that damaged this country.
Steward for the people.
Congress and the White House should be held accountable for the Tax payers business period! If they cant get the job done, the people should have the power to petition for the discharge of that elected official. Much like the ex Govenor of California. For example health care and Imigration. If I didn't do my job every day I most likely would be fired within a week or two! It seems like they just dont care! Why should they? They already have health care and money! And more money and more money and more money!!!!!!
Jun 28, 2:27 PM (ET) By
Jun 28, 2:27 PM (ET)
By ANDREW BRIDGES
WASHINGTON (AP) - Imports of five species of farmed Chinese seafood will be detained until they can be shown free of potentially dangerous antibiotics, federal health officials said Thursday.
The Food and Drug Administration said it would detain the catfish, basa, shrimp, dace and eel after repeated testing has turned up contamination with drugs unapproved in the United States for use in farmed seafood.
The announcement was only the latest in an expanding series of problems with imported Chinese products that seemingly permeate U.S. society, from its playrooms to its prisons.
Beyond the fish, federal regulators have warned consumers in recent weeks about lead paint in toy trains, defective tires and toothpaste made with diethylene glycol, a toxic ingredient more commonly found in antifreeze. All the products were imported from China.
melamine also from China
The toxin melamine that poisoned the pets came from China, where it was added to ingredients used in making pet, livestock and poultry feeds. This was done in order to falsify nutritive values and so fetch a higher price. These ingredients were then shipped to the US and put into feed products. Pets were poisoned and millions of chickens had to be destroyed. Hog and cattle feeds were also affected.
There is in place a system of inspections, safeguards, etc. that are supposed to prevent such occurences but seem to have broken down,at least with regard to China. Has Chinese style corruption been imported to our political system?
Port of San Francisco
What proportion of these defective and toxic imports from China have entered through the Port of San Francisco? One of the safeguard failures seems to be in the inspections at ports of entry.
July 2, 2007 Labels Lack
July 2, 2007
Labels Lack Food’s Origin Despite Law
By ANDREW MARTIN NYT
In every American supermarket, labels tell shoppers where their seafood came from. But there are no such labels for meat, produce or nuts.
Behind the contradiction is a lesson in political power in Washington, where lobbyists and members of Congress have managed to hold off the enforcement of a five-year-old law that required country-of-origin labeling on meat and produce as well as fish.
Now, with Democrats in control of Congress and mounting questions about the safety of food imported from China, proponents of the labeling law say they believe that they finally have momentum on their side.
After all, they say, at a time when consumers are ever more concerned about where their food is coming from, why not just tell them on the package?
“No. 1, there’s a basic consumer right to know,” said Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union, an advocacy group that publishes Consumer Reports magazine and supports the labeling law. “People are more and more concerned about the food they eat.”
But the labeling law has formidable foes, including the meat lobby, which so far has outmaneuvered its opponents on Capitol Hill. In the years since the labeling law was enacted as part of the 2002 Farm Bill, its opponents have successfully blocked all but seafood labeling from taking effect...
The meat lobby has historically been a powerful and efficient operation in Washington, with deep ties to Capitol Hill and the Department of Agriculture. Along with the grocery industry, the meat lobby has waged an effective campaign to stymie efforts to carry out the law.
The law required country-of-origin labeling on beef, pork, lamb, fresh fruits and vegetables, seafood and peanuts. To date, the debate has mainly been driven by the meat industry, with the produce and peanut industries playing a much quieter role...
Legislation for origin labeling floundered until the 2002 Farm Bill was coming together, in part because of a strong push by Thomas A. Daschle, then the Senate majority leader, where support for the labeling law is strong. As a compromise, origin labeling was made voluntary for the first two years before becoming mandatory in 2004.
But those efforts were quickly undone by the meat lobby.
Just after the law was passed, the secretary of agriculture at the time, Ann M. Veneman, called it “unfortunate” and suggested that origin labeling could violate trade agreements, drawing a strong rebuke from the law’s advocates in Congress.
During Ms. Veneman’s tenure, the top ranks of the Department of Agriculture included executives with ties to the meatpacking industry. For instance, her chief of staff, Dale Moore, was the former head of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The same trade group employed her director of communications, Alisa Harrison, and the deputy under secretary, Charles Lambert, who would have overseen the origin labeling program.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents both ranchers and meatpackers, opposes origin labeling.
The Department of Agriculture estimated that the cost of paperwork to manage the program in its first year would be $1.9 billion, a figure the Government Accountability Office said was questionable and not supported by the agency’s records.
But the real undoing of origin labeling occurred in Congress.
In 2003, a year before the labeling was supposed to go into effect, Mr. Bonilla pushed through a delay of mandatory origin labeling for another two years.
Two years later, again largely because of Mr. Bonilla’s efforts, the House passed an appropriations bill that prohibited the Department of Agriculture from spending money to put into effect origin labeling until September 2007.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign spending, Mr. Bonilla received $158,328 in campaign funds in 2006 from the livestock industry, making him the top recipient in Congress. He was also the top recipient of campaign funds from the livestock industry in 2004, with $132,900, and ranked second in 2002, with $78,350.
Mr. Bonilla, who was defeated in 2006 by Ciro Rodriguez, said it was common for committee chairmen to receive contributions from the industries that they oversee. Besides, he said his Congressional district was a huge cattle ranching and agricultural region.
Labels Lack
OMG talk about the fox watching the hen house. What a corrupt system! The years mentioned also tell me loud and clear this was a GOP controlled congress. I am quite concerned about the origin of any and all food that I consume. I shudder to think what damage has already been done to consumers in this country by imports from China and elsewhere. The majority of salmon available in this country, for instance, is "farmed" from China or South America. I know this because I have really had to search diligently in order to find the fresh wild caught product. This is a shame particularly in light of the fact that VP Chaney is reported to have been involved in activities which resulted in the demise of millions of fresh salmon in the region of the Klamath River. What a tragedy for the American public.
Los Angeles Times Published
Los Angeles Times
Published June 29, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Moshe Katsav was expected to step down as Israel's president after agreeing Thursday to plead guilty to sexual harassment to avoid more serious charges that he raped female staffers.
Under the plea agreement announced by Atty. Gen. Menachem Mazuz, the 61-year-old Katsav will avoid jail time, raising an outcry among women's rights activists who saw the case as an important test of Israel's commitment to stamping out sexual harassment in the workplace.
The presidency in Israel is largely a ceremonial position; political power rests with the prime minister.
Katsav faced possible indictment on charges that he raped and sexually harassed female subordinates while serving as president and earlier as tourism minister. In January, Mazuz warned Katsav that authorities had enough evidence to indict on allegations involving four women, but the attorney general had yet to issue formal charges.
Katsav agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges, including sexual harassment, indecent acts and harassment of a witness, Mazuz said Thursday. Katsav will pay damages, but prison time was suspended under the deal, which requires court approval of his plea. The court is expected to act next week.
Syndicate this content
The Register » Security
The Register » Security »
By Thomas C Greene in Dublin
Published Friday 29th June 2007 17:51 GMT
Police and securocrats know that there aren't enough real terrorists in the world, which is why they have to keep manufacturing them. This is because citizens tire of being watched by cameras, frisked and x-rayed, having their belongings searched, giving fingerprints to so-called friendly nations on entry, contemplating the myriad government databases where their details and activities are preserved, and wondering if some dour little bureaucrat is reading their email or listening to them on the phone.
Citizens tire also of reading the rolls of the war dead fraudulently sacrificed in the name of counterterrorist "victory", and of seeing hundreds of billions spent on surveillance and private security, ridiculous wars, and security-related gimmicks and gizmos, when it could be so much better spent on, oh, needs like housing, medicine and pensions, and mitigating actual mass threats to life via such non-sexy routes as traffic safety, fire safety, vaccinations, buildings and infrastructure inspection, water treatment, and food safety.
But the guys with the guns and cameras and listening devices have been on a roll since 9/11, embarrassing their clip-board-toting rivals in the race for public money, even though, collectively, they've taken or made meaner far more lives than they can ever hope to protect with their strategy of violence in the name of peace, and fascism in the name of liberty.
To keep the billions rolling in, they've got to produce a terrorist every now and then. Only real terrorists are hard to come by, so clowns and stooges with harebrained schemes end up doing bin Laden's perp walk periodically.
Today we have news from London, where a "big [explosive] device" was discovered inside a parked car near Piccadilly Circus. The device consisted of petrol, propane gas cylinders, and nails. The car containing it had been abandoned after its driver was observed piloting it erratically, crashing it, then running off, like a true professional. Ambulance workers called to assist nearby noticed what they initially thought was smoke inside the car, but which likely was petrol vapour, and contacted police.
Bomb disposal specialists made it safe, and police officials and politicians began slyly invoking the terrorist bogeyman. Heaven forbid the public should be starved of their regular fear rations.
"As the police and security services have said on so many occasions, we face a serious and continuous threat to our country", day-old PM Gordon Brown said. "But this incident does recall the need for us to be vigilant at all times and the public to be alert at any potential incidents."
And what an incident. "It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or loss of life", Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke intoned gravely.
Ah, if it had detonated. Yes, it could have been a real horror. Only, the device could not have detonated. Not under any circumstances. You see, the terrorist wannabe clown who built it left out a crucial element: an oxidiser. The device was pure pre-teen boy fantasy.
"We'll heat up these propane cylinders with burning petrol, and they'll go off like bombs", boys the world over have remarked with glee. They don't realise that air is a poor oxidiser, and the only "explosion" they will get is when gas pressure inside the cylinders is great enough to burst them. Then the propane will ignite, and a nice fireball will blossom. A fireball, not an explosion.
Oh, the Piccadilly fireball would have blown the car's windows out, and popped its doors open, and sent various bits like mirrors and so forth into the air at velocities possibly fatal to people nearby. It would have looked really cool, that's for sure. But an explosive event...a detonation? Not in a million years. Sorry lads: you failed car bombing 101; you did not attend a single lecture; you did not even open the textbook.
Some stupid people did a stupid thing. Yes, they might have injured or killed one or two passers-by, but any body count would have come in spite of them, not as a product of their efforts. You and I are more likely to have been killed accidentally by the lousy driver than intentionally by his Beavis and Butthead car bomb.
This should have been dismissed for what it is: an event on the level of some teenagers getting a tremendously foolish notion, and being drunk enough for it to appeal to them. But we're hearing whispers of terrorism instead - much as we heard from the Americans when they foiled a "terrorist plot" to blow up fuel storage tanks at Kennedy International. It would have been devastating, prosecutors told us. Only that "plot" had the same hole in it: air makes a lousy oxidiser. If it had been carried out, it would certainly have made a bigger fireball than the one in London would have made. But that's about it.
So why is this such big news? Because clowns have got to be passed off as terrorists. Because a vast industry depends on terrorists, real and imagined, to justify its existence. We live now in the grip of the security-industrial complex, and that hungry beast demands to be fed. We feed it money hand over fist, and in return, it feeds us fear biscuits, which we are expected to accept with gratitude.