All Charges Against Dr. Wecht Dropped

[Joseph Backes]

Charges against Cyril H. Wecht to be dismissed

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Bob Donaldson/Post-Gazette

U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced at a Tuesday morning press conference that her office is dropping prosectuion of former Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht.

U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan this morning filed a motion to dismiss all of the charges against former Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht.

In a news conference, the prosecutor said that a ruling by U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin last month suppressing crucial evidence in the case severely hampered any chance her office would have to move forward.

Though the charges filed against Dr. Wecht more than three years ago have been dismissed, Ms. Buchanan said she still believes that a crime was committed.

"However, in our society everyone is innocent until proven guilty," she said. "As we stand here today, he's still innocent.

"If I could have a do-over, I'd still bring the case."

Judge McLaughlin found in a 55-page opinion that search warrants filed in the case were too general. Specifically, the warrants related to boxes of private autopsy files that were found in Dr. Wecht's private offices, as well as a laptop computer used by his administrative assistant. Both were found to be deficient.

The judge wrote in his opinion that had a supporting affidavit of probable cause been attached to the warrant applications, the problem would have been resolved.

Ms. Buchanan admitted that a mistake was made by not attaching the paperwork, but she continued, it was left out so as not to reveal too much information about the ongoing investigation.

"This is something I doubt will ever happen again in the Western District of Pennsylvania."

Dr. Wecht was indicted in January 2006 on charges that he misused his public office for private gain. His trial ended in a hung jury last year.

Read more: http://www.postgazette.com/pg/09153/974440...0HJOGtWFt&B

[David Andrews]

As a Pittsburgher - may I have my tax dollars back? Why couldn't the validity of the warrant be determined soon after the case was openly brought?

Edited June 2, 2009 by David Andrews

[Christopher Hall]

This is great news.

It is a classic example of the Federal government running roughshod over a private citizen in a politically motivated attack which leaves the victim exhausted and penniless at the end of the day.

[Guest Tom Scully]

This is great news.

It is a classic example of the Federal government running roughshod over a private citizen in a politically motivated attack which leaves the victim exhausted and penniless at the end of the day.

Just more of the visible and obvious parts of the right wing coup that shot up JFK's head, neck, and torso in 1963.

I beg to differ, Christopher. It's a classic example of a "creature", US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, (R-Western PA), director of Wecht's prosecution, of the "pox on all of our houses", that is the federalist society's subversion today of so much of our "legal system". Here's some more:

The right wing, "boy toy", Obama, would surely, if he was "the extreme left" president he is accused of being, have purged this scum from the DOJ, five months into his presidency, but....he has not. He took the presidential oath to "preserve and protect the constitution, an oath perverted by Bush/Cheney and the media...warped into a new mandate to "protect the country....to keep us safe"....but that isnt' the oath, and the damage done to the DOJ via politicization of it's career staff, the extreme right wing bent of it's appointed US Attorneys, creates a constitutional emergency, lessened by removal ASAP of all 93 Bush/Cheney appointed US attorneys..... The presidential oath stipulated the duty, above all else. to protect the constitution, precisely to remove the excuse that the constitutional protections of the people that limit the power and authority of those they elected to office, must be diminished in circumstances such as a "time of war", in order to "keep us safe"!

The reason is that there is only one major political party in the US...."the property party", with two right wings, one "democrat", and one "republican"....

Cyril Wecht was prosecuted by an extremist right wing US Attorney/Federalist Society up and comer, Mary Beth Buchanan, and if you follow the money, this is where she gets her "juice"....her husband is THIS "Buchanan": (a principle in the 16th largest lobbying firm in our great nation!)

Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney has more than 500 attorneys and government relations professionals, with multiple offices in California, Florida, New Jersey, ......

http://www.bipc.com

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-sto...ad-enders/full/

Two U.S. attorneys appointed by Dubya are refusing to leave the Justice Department when Obama takes office. Their explanation: they've got too many corrupt Democrats to prosecute!

An internal report issued this week by the Justice Department brought attention to the Bush Administration’s efforts to “burrow” partisan ideologues deep in career civil service positions at the department. But even a few of Bush’s political appointees at Justice are giving the new Obama administration trouble. Though their lease may technically run out on January 20, U.S. Attorneys Mary Beth Buchanan of Pittsburgh and Alice Martin of Birmingham are resolved to stay in their posts. The Daily Beast has learned that both are arguing to the Obama transition team that their efforts to convict Democrats should guarantee them an extended stay into the Obama presidency.

In their scathing report, Justice Department investigators concluded that former Civil Rights Division acting head Bradley Schlozman attempted to purge the division of those suspected of liberal sentiments and to replace them with fellow neoconservative ideologues, whom he called “comrades.” ....

http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/pubid..../pub_detail.asp

Federalism in Law Enforcement

Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 1, Spring 1998

May 1, 1998

Edwin Meese III

.....When Congress decides that something is politically salient, it decides to pass a law whether it is necessary or not. As our moderator was reeling off the list of federal crimes, most of them if not all of them that he read are and have been handled by state law Church burning, for example, dates back to the common law brought over from England. Arson is one of the earliest common law crimes.

As a matter of fact, if anything, the balance was so far the other way that, as you remember, until just shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy, few believed there was a need to have a law against the killing of a president or federal officers in the federal criminal code. Indeed, had Lee Harvey Oswald lived and not been assassinated himself, he would have been tried under the laws of Texas. I think the whole country would have been satisfied that justice would have been done in that case.

Mary Beth Buchanan is a federalist society consigliere, assigned to politicize the DOJ and it's investigative and prosecutorial priorities beyond the pale of what a reasonable person would consider to be.....REASONABLE:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned...up+was+party+to

E-mail questions if conservative group was party to plan to fire U.S. attorneys

Jun 6, 2007

By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor, McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A leader of an influential conservative legal group recommended a replacement candidate for the U.S. attorney in San Diego just days after the sitting prosecutor's name was secretly placed on a Justice Department firing list, according to a document released Wednesday.

The recommendation by the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, came before anyone outside of a tight group in the White House and Justice Department knew about a nascent strategy that ultimately led to the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.

It could not be determined whether a short e-mail, sent on March 7, 2005, making the recommendation meant that Leo knew of the plan to fire Carol Lam or whether his message was unsolicited and coincidental.

The subject line of Leo's e-mail to Mary Beth Buchanan, then-director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, says, "USA San Diego," indicating the top prosecutor job for the Southern District of California. Lam was on the job at the time and had no plans to step down.

The text of the note reads, "You guys need a good candidate?" Leo goes on to say he would "strongly recommend" the Air Force's general counsel, Mary Walker.

Walker led a Pentagon working group in 2003, which critics said helped provide the administration with a rationale to circumvent the international Geneva Conventions banning torture in the interrogations of terrorism suspects.

Leo, the Justice Department and Walker could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. Lam declined comment.

The Justice Department turned over the e-mail to Congress as part of a probe into last year's firings of U.S. attorneys. .....

(Consider that she held the Western PA position as chief hatchet person against Wecht while she also "served" as DOJ's "RNC political Commisar" in DC.)

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07166/794305-84.stm

Buchanan to testify in attorney scandal today

Friday, June 15, 2007

By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, is meeting this morning with investigators in Washington to discuss what she knows about the firings of eight federal prosecutors across the nation last year.

Ms. Buchanan, who served as director of the U.S. Justice Department's Executive Office for United States Attorneys from June 2004 to June 2005, will be questioned by Republican and Democratic investigators from both the House and Senate.....

......Ms. Buchanan's name entered the controversy over the U.S. attorney firings in April, when D. Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff for U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, said she was among people who were consulted about which prosecutors should be asked to resign.

The scandal over the firings has continued for months, with critics alleging that the prosecutors were let go for purely political reasons.

In May, the Justice Department's former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, testified to the House committee that she improperly considered political background in vetting job candidates for career prosecutor positions within the department. Using such screening for non-political appointees would be illegal, and Ms. Goodling initially invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when she was summoned to testify. The House committee eventually voted to grant her immunity in return for her testimony.

During her questioning May 23, Ms. Goodling referred to Ms. Buchanan's role in the executive office. She told the committee that Ms. Buchanan had hired her, and that she knew that Mr. Sampson had spoken with Ms. Buchanan about the firings.

According to Justice's Web site, one of the major functions of the executive office is "evaluating the performance of the Offices of U.S. Attorneys, making appropriate reports and taking corrective action where necessary." In addition, the executive office also provides support to deputy attorneys general about U.S. attorney appointments.....

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6637861

Report Raps Bradley Schlozman, Former Justice Department Official, for Political Bias

Former Civil Rights Division Chief Schemed to Keep 'Lefties' Out of Key Jobs

By THERESA COOK

Jan. 13, 2009—

A former Justice Department official discriminated against liberal job applicants at the department and then made false statements to Congress on the matter, according to a Justice Department report released Tuesday.

The probe, conducted by two watchdog groups within the department, reviewed "allegations that political or ideological affiliations were considered in hiring, transferring and assigning cases to career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice," specifically under former DOJ official Bradley Schlozman, who held an interim post at the head of the division.

According to the report, Schlozman circumvented many of his colleagues and arranged the hiring of lesser-qualified applicants based on their conservative political ideology.

The jobs involved were not political appointments but career positions for which candidates, according to federal law and guidelines, are to be selected for their qualifications, not their political or ideological leanings.

In one Jan. 30, 2004, e-mail, Schlozman declined a lunch invitation from a colleague, citing a previous commitment to interview "some lefty who we'll never hire."

In a March 5, 2004, message, he referred to potential hires in another division of the department as "commies" and said that "as long as I'm here, adherents of Mao's little red book need not apply."

The report notes that Department of Justice officials interviewed as part of the investigation said Schlozman believed many career employees at the departments were holdovers from prior administrations and not, as Schlozman reportedly said, "on the team." He wanted to hire "real Americans," a term those interviewed said Schlozman used "when referring to political conservatives." ......

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/0...ttorney-firings

Bush's Shadow Justice Department: Did the Federalist Society Have a Hand in Attorney Firings?

...Leo's email, released yesterday as part of an ongoing congressional investigation into the prosecutor firings, marks the second time in as many days that his name has been raised in connection with the probe. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Bradley Schlozman—the controversial Justice Department official who replaced Todd Graves as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri—acknowledged seeking Leo's advice on candidates to fill career positions at the agency. Unlike his former colleague, Monica Goodling, who testified that she "crossed the line" in vetting the political bonafides of job applicants, Schlozman denied subjecting potential hires to a political litmus test.

His record would suggest otherwise. Schlozman is a member of the Federalist Society, and in May the Boston Globe reported that half of the career lawyers hired during his tenure were members of the society or the conservative Republican National Lawyers Association; among the eight hires during the previous two years, none had been....

.....The Federalist Society's advice has been sought not only on Justice Department hires: Leonard Leo is one of the Bush administration's go-to experts on the federal judiciary. When the time arrived for the president to fill two open Supreme Court slots, Leo took a temporary leave from the Society in order to advise the administration. The administration did end up selecting two Federalist Society members for the high court, bringing to four the number of Supreme Court justices (Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito) who claim membership in the organization.

Leo was less successful in selling Justice on his pick to replace Carol Lam. This owed, perhaps, to Mary Walker's controversial past. In addition to being accused of whitewashing an investigation of rampant sexual assault at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Walker also headed the group of Pentagon lawyers that produced a report arguing that the president was not bound by the Geneva Conventions. When Lam stepped down in February, she was replaced by one of her deputies, Karen Hewitt—also a member of the Society.

Edited June 4, 2009 by Tom Scully

[William Kelly]

Those who view the political assassinations of the 60s through the lens of a right-wing, left-wing, liberal-conservative, democratic-republican idelogs, can never understand the truth, and are forever duped by the perspective of simple minded idiots.

Bill Kelly

bkjfk3@yahoo.com

[Len Colby]

Those who argue that we should not look at things through a dichotomy between right-wing and left-wing, or liberal and conservative, or Democratic and Republican perspectives and ideologies are often purveyors of American "libertarianism," which is only a special kind of right-wing conservatism -- the kind that is often reactionary in the extreme, and would like to obscure itself by making people believe it's "new" and 'better" and "above" all previous ideologies hitherto known to mortals. Followers of Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul, for instance, and people very concerned about being able to keep their guns along with their weed.

I don't know if they support drug legalisation for their own use as much as to appear off beat and liberal or if it truly is an extension of their extreme Austrian school philosophy. The Paul/Rockwell camp also have an unfortunate history of associating with / pandering to racists.

[William Kelly]

Those who argue that we should not look at things through a dichotomy between right-wing and left-wing, or liberal and conservative, or Democratic and Republican perspectives and ideologies are often purveyors of American "libertarianism," which is only a special kind of right-wing conservatism -- the kind that is often reactionary in the extreme, and would like to obscure itself by making people believe it's "new" and 'better" and "above" all previous ideologies hitherto known to mortals. Followers of Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul, for instance, and people very concerned about being able to keep their guns along with their weed.

Hearken not unto those who argue that the political assassinations of the 60s had nothing to do with the Far Right and reactionary forces in American society.

Well, I'll take that as a backhanded slap DWD, and I do have libertarian leanings, and most certainly "Hearken not unto those...." not because I am trying to obscure myself as better or above, all previous ideologies, I don't have an ideology.

Because we are so close to nailing those individuals responsible for what happened at Dealey Plaza, BY NAME, and will find out soon enough whether they are left wing Castroites or right wing conservatives, MY POINT is that we will know soon enough to a much more precise certainty.

You want to point the finger at right wingers, go right ahead, Democrats killed JFK? Sure enough. Blame it on anybody you want, right wingers, left wingers, oil men, CIA, Castro, in the end we will know exactly how it went down, and we won't even need to have the with held records to do it.

Those who want to blame any generic ideology, party or agency for the assassination do not go far enough, as only individuals can be charged with such crimes, and not your generic right wing bigots, though I'm pretty sure they were of that persuasion.

In any case, here's a bi-partisan right-wing/left-wing analysis of Wecht's case:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cyril-Wec...090604-490.html

Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer

Mary Beth Buchanan, a Bush-appointed federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh, is to Pennsylvania what Alice Martin and Leura Canary are to Alabama. All three women appear to be right-wing fanatics who base their cases largely on politics rather than facts and law.

While Martin and Canary went after former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman on flimsy charges, Buchanan's most celebrated target was renowned forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, a frequent guest on television news shows.

After a new judge suppressed much of the evidence in the case, Buchanan was forced to dismiss the charges against Wecht. We took special delight in reading that Buchanan received a verbal beatdown after the Wecht case blew up in her face.

Buchanan started the verbal sparring by pointing out that Wecht's first trial resulted in a hung jury. "He wasn't acquitted of anything," she said. "It was a hung jury."

Wecht responded by calling Buchanan a "sore loser":

"Her record, her actions speak for themselves," he said. "She has no shame at all. Absolutely none. Evidently, whether it's biological, or genetic or an environmental, infectious contaminant of some kind, she is incapable of simply telling the truth, not to mention being a gracious loser."

Lord, could those words ever apply to a couple of prosecutors we know in Alabama?

Wecht couldn't resist taking a shot at the government's tactics:

Dr. Wecht criticized the government for filing an 84-count indictment and whittling it down to just 14 counts before dismissing the entire case.

"What does that say about professional decency and ethical responsibility?" he asked.

The Wecht case turned when an appellate panel forced trial judge Arthur J. Schwab to step down. The new judge, Sean J. McLaughlin, ruled that much of the government's evidence had been improperly obtained. End of case.

That caused us to wonder why a clearly biased trial judge, Mark Fuller, remains on the Siegelman case in Alabama.

A legal expert was quick to say that Buchanan's comments after the Wecht dismissal were classless and inappropriate:

University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris said the government had no choice but to dismiss the case and that Ms. Buchanan's personal feelings are irrelevant.

"To state her belief in Dr. Wecht's guilt at the same time she dismisses the charges against him shows confusion on her part about her proper role," he said.

Harris said a mouthful there. Buchanan, Martin, and Canary are just three of many Bush-appointed U.S. attorneys who seem to have confusion about the proper role of a prosecutor.

Wecht couldn't resist taking a jab at the Obama administration, wondering why it has allowed "public servants" like Buchanan to remain in office:

"With Iraq, Israel, Hamas, Fatah, the economy and healthcare plan, smugglers from Mexico, swine flu and pirates in Somalia, I can't understand how President Obama has considered all of those to be a greater priority than replacing Mary Beth Buchanan," Dr. Wecht said with a smile.

www.legalschnauzer.blogspot.com

I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and work in higher education. I became interested in justice-related issues after experiencing gross judicial corruption in Alabama state courts. This corruption has a strong political component. The corrupt judges are (more...)

http://www.opednews.com/author/author13717.html

[Guest Tom Scully]

Wake up, Bill! Consider that, if you are a "hammer", every challenge begins to resemble a nail. I remind you that you posted mention of Mark Fuller on this thread.

Aside from the very serious flaw in the following documentation, it appears that Dr. Cyril Wecht was stationed at Maxwell AFB in 1961, while Bowen Ballard's bio says he didn't join the ANG until four years later......the rest of what is posted should give even you, pause. Note the list and description of the speakers at AWAC over the past seven years and tell me these volk are not "blinded by the right".

Note that recent DCI Michael Hayden was standing next to Bowen Ballard in the short 1996 news piece. Be curious as to how a federal judge, and before that, a prosecutor in Alabama on the public payroll could simultaneously be the head of a multi million dollar enterprise like Doss Aviation...how did Doss become the prime training contractor, for 1700 USAF pilots, training in Doss's fleet of planes.

Mark Fuller ordered courtroom security, after he sentenced former Alabama governor Seigleman to jail, to remove immediately place Siegleman in shackles and leg irons, removing his belt and personal effects, and then to immediate incarceration, entirely unprecedented treatment of a convicted white collar defendent with no prior criminal record.

Here's MIC....nearly an entire US state dominated by radicalized, right wing militants, addicted to defense and intelligence dollars and prestige....in the name of perpetual DEFCON 3 alert state in the war againt the other.....currently labeled islamofascisits, successors to the red menace in the Kremlin, Havana, Hanoi, and Beijing......

http://ww1.huntingdon.edu/jlewis/WACA/AWACindex.htm

Alabama World Affairs Council (AWAC)

...The Alabama World Affairs Council (AWAC) presents nationally and internationally known speakers from both civilian and military life. The mission of AWAC is to promote public awareness and understanding of international affairs as they relate to United States interests in the context of the political, economic, cultural, and military issues involved. AWAC is a member of the World Affairs Councils of America and is one of some 88 councils nationwide. AWAC's individual membership fees are the lowest in the nation, while the quality of the programs is among the highest in the nation.

Meetings are held five or six times a year, usually at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in the Wynton Blount Cultural Park, and occasionally at the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base....

...Great Decisions Program

AWAC also has an active outreach program to reach students at local high schools, both public and private. The 2004 program was conducted at Huntingdon College by highly qualified instructors from the Air War College and involved over 20 volunteer students from students from seven different schools. The program ran for eight weeks, with 90-minute sessions every Monday late afternoon.

Description of AWAC

AWAC has a membership of some 400 families and individuals and is one of the largest organizations of its kind in the South. On any given night, the usual audience turnout is 180 to 240. AWAC enjoys the support of Auburn University Montgomery, Huntingdon College, Air University, and the local business community. The Alabama Humanities Foundation over the last few years has supported AWAC with generous grants from a steadily dwindling source of Federal funds.

...

The Board of Directors is made up of representatives from business, the academy, the military, state government, the press, and the education, legal, medical, and non-profit communities. The officers are:

President: Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland (USAF Ret).

Vice President: Maj. Gen. Bowen Ballard (USAF Ret)....

http://sutherlandsalute.blogspot.com/2008/...rove-leads.html

"THE MISSING LINK Insider-Magazine

The person who is probably the "missing link" in the Siegelman prosecution, is the person who links Bob Riley, Rob Riley, Karl Rove, the Bush White House, the US Justice Department and Mark Fuller--Retired Air Force General BOWEN BALLARD (retired CIA "spook").

BOWEN BALLARD was a CIA agent under George H.W. Bush when Bush was the CIA chief. Bowen Ballard remains heavily involved in "behind-the-scenes military/DOD contracts" and was probably the link for Fuller's company, DOSS Aviation, to recieve its huge Air Force contract from DOD. Bowen Ballard is perhaps responsible for EADS going to Alabama/Mobile as a "trade swap" to the Air Force. The Air Force wanted EADS and did not want Boeing. Bowen Ballard arranged for the Air Force to get EADS if the Air Force would "award Doss Aviation/Mark Fuller to prosecute Don Siegleman."

Bowen Ballard is a regular on Bob Riley's international efforts to recruit companies from other countries to re-locate to Alabama. While Ball Canary, Leura Canary, Alice Martin, Rob Riley, Bob Riley, etc., may have initiated the idea of having Karl Rove/Bush WH/Bush Justice Dept., etc, prosecute Don Siegelman, Bowen Ballard was the covert agent tasked to carry out the mission.

Also look for Bowen Ballard as the missing link in that state's US Attorney's prosecution of Dr. cyril Wecht. Dr. Wecht was stationed at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama many years ago at same time as then active-duty Air Force General Bowen Ballard.

Investigate Retired CIA/Air Force General Bowen Ballard and you will find the missing link for connecting the parties involved in the prosecution of Don Siegleman.

Read this description of the accomplishments of Dr. Wecht, Bill, and then post how apolitical and "normal" it is to investigate, indict, and to prosecute Wecht in his old age

on 84 dubious, petty, trumped up charges.....then lose due to a ruling related to investigative/prosecutorial misconduct, and then as US Attorney, publicly declare that you still think Wecht is guilty. What on earth, except driven by the delusion of rabid right wing indoctrination, would have motivated a US Attorney to pursue a man of Wecht's stature and accomplishment, with such fervor?

http://geradts.com/anil/ij/vol_005_no_002/...ew/cv_wecht.doc

CURRICULUM VITAE of Dr. Cyril Wecht

1961. Associate Pathologist, United States Air Force

Hospital, Maxwell Air Force Base,.

Montgomery, Alabama

ARMED FORCES:

1961. Captain, United States Air Force (Medical Corps)

1965. Captain, Inactive Reserve, United States

Air Force (Medical Corps)

Cyril H. Wecht: Up-close and personal with the candidates for ...Oct 24, 1999 ... Cyril Wecht: Illustration by Ted Crow, Post-Gazette staff artist. ..... associate pathologist at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. ...

http://www.post-gazette.com/magazine/19991024wecht1.asp

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archiv...ackval=GooglePM

AIR INTELLIGENCE AGENCY GETS NEW BOSS January 6, 1996 Page (59 Words) PHOTO BY ROBERT McLEROY San Antonio Express-News

Reviewing officer Maj. Gen. A. Bowen Ballard (left) accepts the command flag from outgoing Air Intelligence Agency commander Maj. Gen. John P. Casciano before presenting the flag to Brig. Gen. Michael V. Hayden (right) in a change-of-command ceremony Friday at Kelly AFB. Casciano is moving to the Pentagon to become the Air Force's assistant chief of staff for intelligence.

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:_PRGoU...=clnk&gl=us

MAJOR GENERAL A. BOWEN BALLARD

....From 1967 until 1974 he filled various intelligence positions with the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group. Upon joining the Air Force Reserve in 1974, he was assigned to the Air Force Intelligence Service at Fort Belvoir, Va. He played a key role in transitioning Air Force special operation forces from the Tactical Air Command to the Military Airlift Command and participated with SOF on an international basis. He has served at Headquarters U.S. Air Force as mobilization assistant to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, during which time he was recalled to active duty to manage the planning, directing and establishing of policies and procedures for all Air Force intelligence activities as the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence for five months. Prior to his current assignment, he was mobilization assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Central Security Services, Fort George G. Meade, Md.....

http://www.identityventures.com/OurManagem...64/Default.aspx

Almon Bowen Ballard, USAF Retired, Major General

A. Bowen Ballard, born March 1941, is the Chief Executive Officer of Ballard Companies, an entity founded in 1958 by the late Eugene W. Ballard.

Mr. Ballard has extensive experience in all aspects of the real estate industry, including development, construction, marketing, and finance. Prior to assuming the position of CEO in 1987, he was President of Ballard Companies from 1976.

Bowen (as he likes to be called) is retired Air Force, Major General. He and his family reside in Destin, Florida and Montgomery, Alabama where he is recognized as a leader in the business community.

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:_PRGoU...=clnk&gl=us

Retired April 1, 2003.

Maj. Gen. A. Bowen Ballard is

In his civilian occupation, he is chief executive officer of a real estate corporation and director of a commercial bank. The general maintains a civilian pilot's license with more than 6,000 flying hours.

http://www.insider-magazine.com/StanPeacockCSA.html

INSIDER-MAGAZINE EDITOR'S NOTE: "The Sons of Confederate Veterans membership rolls include "Joe Cassady" a Sr. Law partner to federal Judge Mark Fuller from Enterprise, Alabama. Fuller is part owner with Cassady in Doss Aviation a CIA funded flight school with offices worldwide which trained Middle East pilots in fixed and rotary wing aircraft. George Bush, Jr. fell in an alliance with these players when he worked on the Red Blount campaign for United States Senate in the 1970's when Bush was stationed at Montgomery, Alabama.

Fuller owns substantial stock in Oceaneering, a CIA funded business operating out of the port of Panama City, Florida. He was the appointed District Attorney in Alabama who guarded the Cocaine smuggling and arms trafficking by the Bush network which utilized Mason and Shriners as well a Klu Klux Klansmen to run drug operations throught the southeast and worldwide with United States Airforce officers who were given individual cuts in the criminal scheme.

USAF General Bowen Ballard from Montgomery, Alabama, a CIA officer assumed command of the renegades and placed them in offices of the United States Attorney for the Northern and Middle District of Alabama. Ballard also placed USAF pilots and Intel officers loyal to the criminal enterprise in offices of Alabama Attorney General Troy King. General Ballard is a partner with Billy Cotter and his family at Enterprise, Alabama and like Cotter and his partner Ronny Gilley and partner to Panama City businessman Charles L. Hilton, all are heavily invested in HUD section 8 apartments built and funded by the United States government to laundry proceeds of the criminal enterprise. Ballard alone reportedly owns and controls 5,000 apartments and complexes in Montgomery, Alabama. Ballard and his multi-level groups own and control Colonial Bank, Superior Bank ( Where the Outlaws Motorcycle Gang bank) and a slew of banks they acquired in 2006-2007-2008. Ballard also connects to and owns Identity Ventures (photo below) whose officers are from Texas and live in Destin, Florida. Identity Ventures is apparently egaged in espionage and or selling U.S. goverment military technology to Israel and others nations. (more to come on

....Former U.S. Army Intelleigence officer Canon a partner with Ballard at Destin, Florida.

Both are partners with Florida State Senator Charile Clary in Beach Community Bank of Destin, Florida.

Judge Fuller was a recess apointment to the federal judiciary by George Bush, Jr. he is the judge who sentenced Alabama Governor Don Siegelman to 7 years in federal prison in 2007. The highly controversial Siegelman case revolves around facts uncovered by John Caylor and others which show Karl Rove implemented a plan to seize control of the nation's state and federal judiciary. Starting in 1989 with help from the Sons of Confederate Veterans who have posts nationwide - a series of mailbomb attacks were launched at the federal judiciary and one bomb killed federal Judge Robert Vance the former chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party and a 70's law partner to Siegelman who later became governor and is now in federal prison compliments of Karl Rove and company. Rove and others from Enterprise devised a plan to overtake the Alabama Supreme Court in 1994.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kreig...r_b_201455.html

...Recent additional research by the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University found that Doss Aviation has been awarded more than $300 million in federal awards since Fuller began presiding over the Siegelman case in 2005. The scope of Doss Aviation's work is illustrated by the company's website, http://www.dossaviation.com /. Among other things, it displays a photo of Doss Aviation refueling the presidential plane Air Force One as part of its extensive refueling work for the Air Force. The website also describes the company's vital role in training Air Force pilots, and in manufacturing uniforms for federal military and civilian employees.

Fuller never should have been assigned to the Siegelman case, Weeks says:....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kreig...r_b_201455.html

...With the impeachment complaint by Weeks receiving no media coverage and known only by high-level government and legal insiders, Fuller was promoted to the position of chief judge for Alabama's middle district. In 2005, he became Siegelman's judge in one of the most controversial U.S. criminal cases of this decade. After Siegelman was convicted, Fuller sentenced Siegelman in 2007 to seven years in prison amid claims that the White House had pressured prosecutors to frame the Democratic former governor to remove him as a re-election threat. A Republican, Fuller also became wealthy via his reported 44 percent controlling ownership in Doss Aviation, whose work includes training U.S. Air Force flight candidates nationwide and refueling Air Force planes....

...Siegelman asked for a review by all judges of the appeals court, telling the Huffington Post last week, "If we get a rehearing then we have a few months to pursue options with the Department of Justice. If we don't, then I'm going to be re-sentenced to prison by the same judge and prosecutors, which I say, parenthetically with an exclamation point, is probably the most bizarre twist yet. I'd be still fighting the same right-wing, [Karl] Rove-anointed and Bush-appointed prosecutors even with [barack] Obama and [Eric] Holder in charge."

The unanimous appeals court decision in March vindicating the judge and prosecution failed to quiet escalating complaints about the case. Last month, the New York Times reported that 75 former state attorneys general urged the Justice Department to probe Siegelman's conviction.

Allegations of prosecutorial misconduct have prompted a nationwide letter-writing campaign this spring by Siegelman supporters to the Justice Department to drop all charges against Siegelman. Vacating charges would parallel Department actions in the prosecution last fall against then- U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican. The Obama Justice Department dropped charges against Stevens in April after the trial judge protested the unfairness of prosecutors.

Siegelman's supporters claim the same kind of misconduct against him. Last year, for example, congressional investigators demanded an explanation of why a whistleblower in the Justice Department said federal prosecutors communicated with Siegelman jurors during deliberations without notifying the defense. A CBS 60 Minutes exposé earlier in 2008 alerted a national television audience to many more questions about Siegelman's prosecution, including the prosecutors' coaching of the key witness against Siegelman in 70 practice sessions without providing interview notes to the defense before trial, as required...

....The May 5, 2009 decision by Senate Republicans to name Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as their top-ranking member on the Judiciary Committee also raises a question about his oversight in sponsoring Fuller for the federal bench. On Oct. 7, 2002, Sessions detailed for his Senate colleagues Fuller's experience, and strongly supported the nominee's qualifications. But Sessions failed to notify his colleagues that Fuller had been working from 1989 until mid-2002 as chairman and CEO of Doss Aviation. That overlapped since 1997 with the nominee's full-time job as an Alabama district attorney supervising work in two counties.

Sessions also failed to notify his colleagues of Fuller's involvement in a pension-related dispute in Alabama that would soon spark heavy criticism of Fuller in the Alabama press, and within months lead directly to impeachment effort by the Missouri attorney Paul Weeks.

In fact, not one senator from either party mentioned anything during Fuller's confirmation hearing about the nominee's military work or the pension controversy. And, according to Weeks, not a single senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee ever contacted him for a follow-up inquiry on the 180-pages of evidence that Weeks hand-delivered to each office in 2003 seeking Fuller's impeachment.

"U.S. Senators, including Senator Sessions, have insisted that Congress strictly enforce the Constitution's Good Behaviour Clause and impact and remove any federal judge whose conduct does not meet exacting standards," Weeks wrote in 2003, quoting a law review co-authored by Sessions on the topic. "The evidence strongly suggests that Judge Fuller has failed Senator Session's exacting standards of good conduct."

The public is, of course, the ultimate judge in the vital process of lifetime appointment for the judiciary, as well as the more specific controversies regarding the fairness of Fuller's continued oversight of Siegelman's fate. What follows is an overview of these matters, which extend back over a decade. Many are currently in dispute. The issues include a long-running battle by the House Judiciary Committee to compel responses by former White House advisor Karl Rove about his purported role in the Siegelman case and similar prosecutions across the United States. ....

http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/sananton...tml?jst=b_ln_hl

February 9, 2006

Randolph awards a $178 million flight-training contract

Randolph Air Force Base awarded a contract to a Colorado Springs defense contractor that has a potential value of $178 million over the next 10 years.

The Air Education and Training Command selected Doss Aviation Inc. to develop an Initial Flight Screening (IFS) program that will evaluate candidates hoping to enter the U.S. Air Force either as pilots or combat systems officers.

The IFS contract includes a 6-month period to establish a training facility in Pueblo, Colo., and then 10, one-year contract options, following an Air Force environmental assessment of the property.

"Doss Aviation will provide ground school and flight training, to include approximately 19 training flights, for students in preparation for undergraduate pilot training and undergraduate combat systems officer training," says Cindy Hall, a contracting official with the Air Education and Training Command.

The Air Education and Training Command oversees pilot and pilot-instructor training at 13 bases in the United States. Its command headquarters are at Randolph in San Antonio.

Under the terms of the contract, Doss will furnish all aircraft, aircraft maintenance, certified flight instructors, the flight training center, lodging and dining facilities, a physical fitness center and campus security.

Students are slated to begin training at Doss' training center on Oct. 1, 2006.

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=dos...&lnav=hist8

Doss Aviation's move here well-kept secret.

Free with registration - Pueblo Chieftain - AccessMyLibrary.com - Jun 16, 2006

By December, Doss Aviation hopes to have completed the renovations to the ... win the contract with the Air Force despite not being the lowest bidder. ...

Judge unseals Scrushy documents

Times Daily - May 5, 2007

... in a position to influence Air Force contracts to Fuller's company. ... Doss President Frank Hunter said Fuller ceased running Doss Aviation when he ...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000762

The Pork Barrel World of Judge Mark Fuller

Harper's

DEPARTMENT No Comment

BY Scott Horton

PUBLISHED August 6, 2007

For the last week, we’ve been examining the role played by Judge Mark Everett Fuller in the trial, conviction, and sentencing of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. Today, we examine a post-trial motion, filed in April 2007, asking Fuller to recuse himself based on his extensive private business interests, which turn very heavily on contracts with the United States Government, including the Department of Justice.

The recusal motion rested upon details about Fuller’s personal business interests. On February 22, 2007, defense attorneys obtained information that Judge Fuller held a controlling 43.75% interest in government contractor Doss Aviation, Inc. After investigating these claims for over a month, the attorneys filed a motion for Fuller’s recusal on April 18, 2007. The motion stated that Fuller’s total stake in Doss Aviation was worth between $1-5 million, and that Fuller’s income from his stock for 2004 was between $100,001 and $1 million dollars.

In other words, Judge Fuller likely made more from his business income, derived from U.S. Government contracts, than as a judge. Fuller is shown on one filing as President of the principal business, Doss Aviation, and his address is shown as One Church Street, Montgomery, Alabama, the address of the Frank M. Johnson Federal Courthouse, in which his chambers are located.

Doss Aviation, Inc. (motto: “Total Quality Service Isn’t Expensive, It’s Priceless”) and its subsidiary, Aureus International, hold contracts with a number of government agencies. Quoting from defense counsel’s motion for recusal (emphasis in the original):

Doss Aviation, Inc. has been awarded numerous federal military contracts from the United States government worth over $258,000,000, including but not limited to: An August 2002 contract with the Air Force for $30,474,875 for Helicopter Maintenance, a November 2003 contract with the Navy for $5,190,960 for aircraft refueling, a February 2006 contract with the Air Force for over $178,000,000 for training pilots and navigators, and a March 2006 contract with the Air Force for $4,990,541.28 for training at the United States Air Force Academy. The February 2006 contract with the Air Force for over $178,000,000 is for 10 ½ years, but is renewable from year to year . . .

An Enterprise Ledger article dated April 3, 2005, states that “FBI agents, military and civilian pilots and medical professionals all over the world wear (Aureus International) products which are cut, sewn, inspected, bagged and shipped from its home in Enterprise.”

Doss Aviation and its subsidiaries also held contracts with the FBI. This is problematic when one considers that FBI agents were present at Siegelman’s trial, and that Fuller took the extraordinary step of inviting them to sit at counsel’s table throughout trial. Moreover, while the case was pending, Doss Aviation received a $178 million contract from the federal government.

CONTINUED...

Edited June 6, 2009 by Tom Scully

[William Kelly]

I'm awake Tom,

I just fall asleep reading all your references, though thanks for highlighting the good parts.

You can lecture me,

Just don't pretend to lecture Bill Turner about right wing militants and Cyril Wecht about Sarah Scaife Mellon, unless you can get her to donate some money to COPA.

There's also a Dallas World Affairs Council, btw, and we can thank the fine patriots of the Alabama Air National Guard for dying for Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and putting up with G.W.'s antics.

And I didn't know Cyril served at Maxwell AFB?

Well thank you for being a veteran on this D-day anniversary Cyril,

Bill Kelly

[Guest Tom Scully]

I'm awake Tom,

I just fall asleep reading all your references, though thanks for highlighting the good parts.

You can lecture me,

Just don't pretend to lecture Bill Turner about right wing militants and Cyril Wecht about Sarah Scaife Mellon, unless you can get her to donate some money to COPA.

There's also a Dallas World Affairs Council, btw, and we can thank the fine patriots of the Alabama Air National Guard for dying for Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and putting up with G.W.'s antics.

And I didn't know Cyril served at Maxwell AFB?

Well thank you for being a veteran on this D-day anniversary Cyril,

Bill Kelly

Cyril Wecht's rabidly partisan chief prosecutor, Mary Beth Buchanan, is still US Attorney in the Western PA, district, despite the testimony two years ago that she was an architect of the Bush policy to politicize, and destroy the DOJ's career ranks, and specifically, the Civil Rights Enforcement Division:

I mean it, Bill...it's time to open your eyes wider, and if anyone is wondering, "Megan" is no relation....

...and it doesn't even require the funding of an "Op Mockingbird" style infiltration of the corporate owned media apparatus to muzzle the media into almost never describing "brutal" or "enhanced interrogation techniques" as what they really are;

t-o-r-t-u-r-e, because it's so much better when we do it, than when those adversaries who we demonize, do it. Good guys on "our side", like Rahm Emmanuel's daddy in Irgun , are described in reports as, "freedom fighters", while folks doing similiar "work" for political movements we don't like, are "the bad guys", the "terrorists".

I'm thinking Obama may turn out to be worse than Bush/Cheney, because he's such a likable saboteur of the Constitution, the FOIA, and thus the fawning, ignorant fans of his persona will actually, enthusiastically help him get it done. He'll only decide to detain the "bad people" indefinitely, with no hearing, no counsel, and no trial:

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?arti...;dcn=todaysnews

Democrats delay conference on supplemental

By Humberto Sanchez and Megan Scully CongressDaily June 4, 2009

....Democratic leaders are counting on convincing 18 of 51 self-described liberal or progressive Democrats who previously opposed the supplemental to now support it, enough Caucus members to ensure its passage. . . .

But liberal Democrats are threatening to withhold their support for the supplemental if it includes a provision in the Senate-passed bill that would allow Defense Secretary Robert Gates to withhold any "photograph relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States" if he certifies that the release of the photos could endanger citizens or the armed forces.

The provision, which is supported by President Obama, was offered as an amendment by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. -- who initially opposed the package and is now trying to help Democratic leaders raise support for it -- said he recently told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that liberal Democrats would not likely support the package if it includes the Lieberman amendment.

"I made it clear to the administration that I believe that we can get liberals like myself who are against the war [to] vote for it because the IMF is so important, but not if the [Freedom of Information Act] exception is in it," Frank said.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., previously supported the supplemental but said she would not vote for the bill if it includes the amendment.

"There is no reason in the world for us to vote to suspend" FOIA, Slaughter said.

....While House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., conceded "we got big problems" with trying to pass the supplemental, he asserted that it would clear Congress by July 1. The military has said it needs the funding by July to avoid a disruption in other accounts, which would have to be raided to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan....

Did the young American, British, and other allied troops who died in big numbers, beginning 65 years ago, today, sacrafice their lives for the elimination of nazism in favor of a corporatist-fascist socio-political domination?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/us/polit...agewanted=print

June 6, 2009

U.S. May Permit 9/11 Guilty Pleas in Capital Cases

By WILLIAM GLABERSON

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. .....

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...oryId=103987028

Weekend Edition Sunday, May 10, 2009 · The recent release of the so-called "torture memos" detailing some of the Bush administration's reasons for using harsh interrogation techniques has opened the floodgates.

Human rights organizations and some members of Congress have been asking many questions about who knew what when, who is responsible, and who — if anyone — should be punished.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez was in charge of the ground forces in Iraq when some of those techniques were used at the Abu Ghraib prison. He says the complex relationships between the Army, CIA and Special Forces blurred the boundaries of authorized interrogation techniques:

"We got a little bit of an insight into what they [CIA] were doing when they did drop off what came to be known as Iceman at Abu Ghraib in the fall of 2003....we clearly understood that they were using some very, very aggressive techniques, and in fact had wound up with this man dead in the course of an interrogation....he was brought to Abu Ghraib and handed off to my conventional forces there at the prison, and we eventually wound up repatriating him to his family to be taken care of and interred."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6988054/

updated 4:57 p.m. ET, Thurs., Feb. 17, 2005

SAN DIEGO - An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib died under CIA interrogation while in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture — suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back, according to reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

The death of the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, became known last year when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. The U.S. military said back then that it had been ruled a homicide. But the exact circumstances of the death were not disclosed at the time.

The prisoner died in a position known as “Palestinian hanging,” the documents reviewed by The AP show. It is unclear whether that position was approved by the Bush administration for use in CIA interrogations.....

....Al-Jamadi was one of the CIA’s “ghost” detainees at Abu Ghraib — prisoners being held secretly by the agency.

His death in November 2003 became public with the release of photos of Abu Ghraib guards giving a thumbs-up over his bruised and puffy-faced corpse, which had been packed in ice. One of those guards was Pvt. Charles Graner, who last month received 10 years in a military prison for abusing detainees.

Guards quoted in documents

Al-Jamadi died in a prison shower room during about a half-hour of questioning, before interrogators could extract any information, according to the documents, which consist of statements from Army prison guards to investigators with the military and the CIA’s Inspector General’s office.

(The body of an Iraqi who died while under interrogation lies in ice as Pvt. Charles Graner, a guard who has since been sentenced to prison, poses for a photo.)

One Army guard, Sgt. Jeffery Frost, said the prisoner’s arms were stretched behind him in a way he had never before seen. Frost told investigators he was surprised al-Jamadi’s arms “didn’t pop out of their sockets,” according to a summary of his interview.

GUARD POSES WITH CORPSE

Spc. Sabrina Harmon was among the guards who posed with the body of Manadel al-Jamadi.

Frost and other guards had been summoned to reposition al-Jamadi, who an interrogator said was not cooperating. As the guards released the shackles and lowered al-Jamadi, blood gushed from his mouth “as if a faucet had been turned on,” according to the interview summary.

The military pathologist who ruled the case a homicide found several broken ribs and concluded al-Jamadi died from pressure to the chest and difficulty breathing.....

...CIA stopped reportedly practice

The Washington Post reported last year that after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the CIA suspended the use of its “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including stress positions, because of fears that the agency could be accused of unsanctioned and illegal activity. The newspaper said the White House had approved the tactics.

Navy SEALs apprehended al-Jamadi as a suspect in the Oct. 27, 2003, bombing of Red Cross offices in Baghdad that killed 12 people. His alleged role in the bombing is unclear. According to court documents and testimony, the SEALs punched, kicked and struck al-Jamadi with their rifles before handing him over to the CIA early on Nov. 4. By 7 a.m., al-Jamadi was dead.

Navy prosecutors in San Diego have charged nine SEALs and one sailor with abusing al-Jamadi and others. All but two lieutenants have received nonjudicial punishment; one lieutenant is scheduled for court-martial in March, the other is awaiting a hearing before the Navy’s top SEAL.....

Q Okay. To follow up on the indefinite detention, does the President believe that the authorization of force in Afghanistan provides the legal authority for indefinite detention of those captured on the battlefield? Or does he believe he needs some separate, as you've implied, congressional buy-in on indefinite detention of those who fall into the fifth basket that Jill was discussing?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office...-Gibbs-5-22-09/

May 22, 2009

PRESS BRIEFING

BY

PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS

MR. GIBBS: Let me discuss specifically that with the Counsel's Office. I think --

Q Because there are many theorists who say the authorization of force does provide the President the legal authority.

MR. GIBBS: Right, right. No, I've heard that argument. I've heard -- but I think what's important is the President would want to work through this with Congress and ensure that whatever was done met the test of -- could obviously hold up legally.

Q And to the criticism from human rights groups that indefinite detention can never be justified you would say what?

MR. GIBBS: Well, the President takes very seriously the oath of office that he took to protect the American people. There may be cases, as the President said, where somebody received explosives training from al Qaeda, or commanded troops -- commanded Taliban troops. But these detainees are, based on any number of circumstances, unable to be tried but still pose an obvious threat to this country. And I would say that's a scenario by which we'd ensure that the safety and security of the American people is upheld....

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23202.html

By JOSH GERSTEIN | 6/1/09 7:04 PM EDT

...To the chagrin of many on the left, Obama had essentially adopted the Bush administration's position that prisoners at Bagram could not bring challenges in U.S. courts. On April 2, Judge John Bates, a Bush appointee, rejected the Bush-Obama stance, ruling that three prisoners flown into Bagram from other countries could pursue so-called habeas corpus cases seeking release.

However, Bates agreed Monday to allow the government to appeal his ruling immediately and to put the original ruling on hold while the appeal proceeds.

"These cases present extraordinary circumstances," Bates wrote. "Although this Court believes that its conclusions are correct, given the novelty of the issues courts could reasonably differ."

Bates wrote that he was persuaded that allowing the cases to proceed would have some negative impact on military operations at Bagram.....

Spec. Sabrina Harmon was tried and sentenced to six months in prison for photographing and posing with prisoners, while the elected officials who ordered torture, and the new US president who is working diligently to cover it up, are helped by the establishment media and the majority in congress to keep the real US practitioners of crimes against humanity from even being investigated.

The drafters of the US Constitution could have inserted a presidential oath of office making the "protection of the country", the president's most specific priority and duty. They presciently and quite correctly identified a higher priority:

Obama spoke it....he's breaking it....we the people, the DOJ, and congress give him a pass, or worse, openly encourage him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_offic...e_United_States

....The wording is specified in Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Edited June 6, 2009 by Tom Scully

[William Kelly]

Tom,

I don't know what you are trying to convince me of, but I don't like it.

What does the torture photos have to do with Wecht?

Why don't you start a new thread on Bashing Obama?

Or something, so then I don't have to read it.

You are starting to make me sick.

Bk

[William Kelly]

Those who argue that we should not look at things through a dichotomy between right-wing and left-wing, or liberal and conservative, or Democratic and Republican perspectives and ideologies are often purveyors of American "libertarianism," which is only a special kind of right-wing conservatism -- the kind that is often reactionary in the extreme, and would like to obscure itself by making people believe it's "new" and 'better" and "above" all previous ideologies hitherto known to mortals. Followers of Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul, for instance, and people very concerned about being able to keep their guns along with their weed.

Hearken not unto those who argue that the political assassinations of the 60s had nothing to do with the Far Right and reactionary forces in American society.

Well, I'll take that as a backhanded slap DWD, and I do have libertarian leanings, and most certainly "Hearken not unto those...." not because I am trying to obscure myself as better or above, all previous ideologies, I don't have an ideology.

Because we are so close to nailing those individuals responsible for what happened at Dealey Plaza, BY NAME, and will find out soon enough whether they are left wing Castroites or right wing conservatives, MY POINT is that we will know soon enough to a much more precise certainty.

You want to point the finger at right wingers, go right ahead, Democrats killed JFK? Sure enough. Blame it on anybody you want, right wingers, left wingers, oil men, CIA, Castro, in the end we will know exactly how it went down, and we won't even need to have the with held records to do it.

Those who want to blame any generic ideology, party or agency for the assassination do not go far enough, as only individuals can be charged with such crimes, and not your generic right wing bigots, though I'm pretty sure they were of that persuasion......

Sorry I missed this earlier DWD, but I'll answer you now.

That sounds very admirable and convincing, Mr. Kelly, and no need to take anything from me as a backhanded slap; I'm generally fairly blunt and straightforward.

Except you didn't mention me in the post, only intimidated that you were referring to me, so you're not being blunt and straightforward are you?

But of course the claim "I don't have an ideology" was kind of my point: the idea is to appear to stand above or to be beyond mere political ideologies -- that way one comes off as untainted and pure, even despite any expressed contempt for anything "liberal." Since everyone subscribes to some ideology or other, and since involvement in these forums is inherently political, I think the claim in a public forum that one doesn't have an ideology is largely a crock, meant for public consumption.

You sound a lot my like high school philosophy teacher, who said that everybody has a philosophy whether they know it or not.

I personally could not care less about your political leanings except to the extent that they impact this public forum, and since you seem to be both omnipresent and the man to see around here as far as what direction discussions should go,

Hey, my "omnipresent" persona only makes itself present on threads I happen to know something about - not the Zapruder film, or any photos, or any threads you want to argue with someone about something that we haven't already figured out - keeping people up to speed at least on items I happen to know something about - which, my last check, is not even 20% of the threads on this forum. As for directing discussions, I am strictly looking for new leads, new witnesses, and new information, and you can rehash and argue about anything else you want to without me interupting you. Carry on your debate.....

it seems only fair to point out (especially to our friends across the waters) that our American "libertarianism" has a lot more in common with, for instance, the John Birch Society way of looking at things than it does with, for instance, the libertarian ideas that a John Simkin believes in ....... but then I'm assuming that John doesn't want to own assault rifles and put a sign up in his yard that says "They Can't Tax Freedom." (Although I'm not moderator material myself, I believe in being fair.)

I don't know what libertarianism has anything to do with solving the JFK assassination, or political assassinations in general. Our founding fathers were libertarians who didn't anticipate the role of political assassination in our society today.

As for the rest of it, it sounds like a great day is dawning at last. I didn't know you guys were so close to nailing the case. Although I'm not top researcher material myself, it must be very heaven to be one in days such as these.

Well, like most people, you don't know the state-of-the-art of the research, and would rather mock those who are answering the outstanding questions related to the assassination, so be it.

I'd also like to say I'm a bit disappointed that David Healy failed to comment, since as I understand it he's something of a Bible man. I felt sure he'd catch my paraphrased theft from the prophet Jeremiah: "Hearken not unto the prophets that prophesy unto you; they speak a vision of their own hearts, and not out of the mouth of the LORD."

David knows better than that. At least he understands the situation.

As for my ideology, you tell me what I am.

I don't know who killed President Kennedy, but believe that crimes committed by men can be solved by men, and that we are closer now than ever before of figuring it out to a legal and moral certainty.

My goal is to obtain new, sworn interviews with living witnesses, which can be achieved through either Congressional briefings or hearings, grand jury or civil suit, and the release of the remaining withheld records now, rather than 2017, which can be achieved either through the Congressional Hearing process or through a Presidential NSAM or Executive Order.

Now you tell me what my ideology is? Am I a liberal or conservative? Democrat or Republican? Right wing or left wing? Fascist or Anarchist?

And now that I've told you what I am all about, will you do the same and tell us more about you?

Who are you and what is your ideology? Are you a Democrat or Republican? Right wing or left wing?

Who do you think killed JFK and what are you doing about it, if anything at all?

Bill Kelly

bkjfk3@yahoo.com

[Kathleen Collins]

What great news! And how sad that the 'good news' is that the bad news of yet more prosecutorial and judicial misconduct of Mary Beth Buchanan [Alberto Gonzales co-worker finding progressive U.S. Attorneys to fire] is over. The case never should have happened and Cyril, despite his vindication now, has suffered greatly and can never be made whole again. I say prosecute Buchanan! But nice for once to hear about something going well after this long nightmare. Is everyone aware that all of Dr. Wecht's JFK files were also confiscated - as were his files on other high-profile cases - not just the billing information on which they based their baseless persecution (not prosecution). We don't get much justice in America any more and when we do it is so late in coming and so hard fought for. At least this now is over. The crime was on Buchanan's part and whoever whispered in her ear to go after Dr. Wecht - most likely for his work on a few high-profile cases [JFK, Sabow, etc.] in which his forensic findings upset the powers that wanna-be.

On the advice of a prominent researcher, I wrote Dr. Wecht a brief letter about a month ago and included the autopsy of Karyn Kupcinet, newsclippings about her coroner, Dr. Wade, who was fired 3 years later after it was found he had a fetish regarding strangulation. Two women's bodies were exhumed and found not to have died of foul play, let alone strangulation. Dr. Wade drank a lot and joked once, "At least I didn't break the hyoid bone on that one." This was some time after K. Kupcinet's autopsy. When this was brought up in court he denied saying that. Anyway, that was sent to Dr. Wecht. He phoned me one morning and told me he couldn't call it. Her autopsy of course was compromised. They only found one drug in her which was in the therapeutic range. Because of the bad state of the body, other drugs could have decomposed. Did she commit suicide? Did she overdose? Was she murdered? We'll never know, said Dr. Wecht. (I thought if he could look at an autopsy photo of her neck, he might be able to determine if there was in fact an injury.)

I'm very glad they stopped persecuting him.

Kathy C

[Len Colby]

Mary Beth Buchanan [Alberto Gonzales co-worker finding progressive U.S. Attorneys to fire]

The worst part is that the fired U.S. Attorneys weren't even progressives they were all Bush apointed conservatives but they didn't follow the party line agenda closely enough. It has been fairly standard for a few decades for a president from a different party that his predecessor to change most of them during his 1st year. What was unusual and AFAIK unprecedented was a president replacing a group of ones he himself had appointed.

[Guest Tom Scully]

.... If investigations into his death are dominated and defined by people who are most like his enemies while he was alive, this would be the last nail in his coffin.

This post has been edited by Daniel Wayne Dunn: Today, 04:25 PM

Daniel Wayne Dunn,

I usually don't react favorably to people who seem smarter and or wiser than I am, but you make it easy to feel comfortable accepting that you have me at a disadvantage. I identify with your situation, living in Indiana with it's religiously flavored conservatism. I've spent a lot of time in the past year reading about the

"Middletown" (Muncie) community studies of the mid 1920's with the 1930's depression era revisit:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8050502738.html

Middletown, Teetering On the Divide

An Indiana City With an Average Past Anxiously Faces an Uncertain Future

By Libby Copeland

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, May 6, 2008; C01

MUNCIE, Ind.

In the 1920s, two amateur sociologists went searching for a city that was singularly unexceptional. They wound up here.....

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,761315,00.html

Monday, May. 15, 1939

....Muncie's spare, bald, 76-year-old George A. Ball was once again master of the 23,000 miles of right of way.

http://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/lynd.htm

Staughton Lynd Interview

Staughton Lynd is the son of Robert and Helen Lynd, the sociologists who wrote Middletown, and Middletown in Transition. Staughton Lynd is a labor activist by profession.

.....QUESTION: Was Rockefeller interested in religion as a way to address the social rift represented by the labor strikes so prevalent after World War One?

STAUGHTON LYND: I can only say that I believe that to be true, and that the cultivation of religion was of a piece with the cultivation of so-called welfare capitalism, bowling leagues and the like, and of company unionism. That is, these were all stratagems, ideas for defusing the very serious class conflict, which had shown itself, for example, in the steel strike of 1919.

QUESTION: How much of an activist outlook is coming through in Lynd's first book, Middletown as well as the second, Middletown in Transition?

STAUGHTON LYND: I don't want to present myself as an expert on Middletown, but I will add this fact to the stew. The most powerful employers in Muncie, Indiana at the town were the Ball family, who made glass jars for putting up preserves. And my father, in conducting the original Middletown study, kind of went everywhere and met everyone. He talked to the Rotary Club. He sang in church. He shot the breeze with the local socialists, or one of them. And he had a cordial relationship with the Ball family. And again the kitchen table story is that after the second book appeared the Ball family stopped sending Christmas cards. So there came a time when I suppose you would say my dad had to pick sides or at least was perceived by others as picking sides. And certainly his choice was with those who worked, who did manual work in Muncie rather than with the owning class.

QUESTION: Do you think that your father went through any kind of political transformation between the books?

STAUGHTON LYND: There's no doubt that my father had himself become more radical between the publication of the first Middletown book in 1929 and his second trip to Muncie in the mid-1930s. Of course, he wasn't unique in that. That was true of American academics, writers, professionals of all kinds. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he, in fact, were somewhat disappointed in Muncie's lack of, oh, willingness to criticize the foundations of the social system. .....

http://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/caplow.htm

New River Media Interview with: Theodore Caplow

Commonwealth Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia Co-Author, The First Measured Century

.. QUESTION: What kind of criteria were used to select Muncie?

THEODORE CAPLOW:....The Middletown one study does not really contain a critique of consumerism. It contains a critique of class stratification, and the fact that the business class as they saw it were not only exploiting the working class, but also attempting to control them ideologically....

http://books.google.com/books?id=SVKgrMlMA...1&ct=result

....The symbolic ceiling above Middletown has collapsed: there was no longer hope for everyone, but only a reality shaped by the will and actions of the power elite. Dreams themselves were reduced to contingencies and wonder had been exchanged for consumer object; or their range was restricted to the parameters of the possible, limited to the triviality of the objects within reach: in short, betrayed by themselves (Caillois 1990).

I spent my first 49 years living in southern New England, NY state within commuting distance from NYC, and finally, as a resident of Manhattan. I was not prepared for the experience of living in a southern state, these last seven years. My "new life" has put me on a course to answering the question, "how do you know what you know?"

I think this comes across in the themes of my posts on the forum. A lot of money and effort have been spent to shape the way people think in the U.S. Most seem fine with it..... I think it's similar to a disease like cancer....packaged with a heavy emphasis on the leading brands, "government is the problem, not the solution"/Ronald Reagan & "Jesus".

Edited June 13, 2009 by Tom Scully