Mike and I are doing the same items from Democracy Now! so be sure to check his site.
Justice Department to Investigation Ojeda Rios Killing (Democracy Now!)The Justice Department confirmed on Monday that it will investigate the FBI killing of Puerto Rican independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios. The killing has sparked widespread outrage in Puerto Rico. On Sept. 23, over 100 FBI agents surrounded the house of the 72-year-old Ojeda Rios. After he was shot, the FBI let him lie wounded in his house for nearly a day during which time he bled to death. The FBI claimed Ojeda Rios fired first, but his wife said this is not true. Ojeda Rios had been on the FBI's most wanted list for his role in a $7 million bank heist but he was a legendary figure in Puerto Rico for his lifelong resistance to U.S. colonialism. Tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans attended his funeral services last week.
At The Third Estate Sunday Review this weekend, Ava did a report on this:
Ava: C.I., in Brazil a judge has been sentenced to fifteen years for the murder of a security guard. While a portion of detainees held in Guantanamo enter the second month of their fast, the U.S. military tells the BBC that it's simply a bid for media attention.Last week saw the assassination, in Puerto Rico, of Filiberto Ojeda Rios. Little reported on the corporate media, but noted in Pacifica's WBAI extensive coverage, the assassination included shutting down the power to the area. As the FBI surrounded the home of Ojeda Rios, wanted for a 1983 bankrobbery, he asked that his wife be spared. The FBI was kind enough to tape her eyes shut as they then placed her under arrest for 24 hours. Ojeda Rios is said to have fired ten times, hundreds of times is said to be the FBI's record. It's being called a "shoot out." Though the FBI now says, in the face of growing outrage, that they'll attempt to determine whom fired first. They'll also attempt to determine why Ojeda Rios was allowed to bleed to death for twenty-four hours from a wound to his shoulder. Puerto Rico was seized by the U.S. in 1898 and has long sought its independence. In March of 2005, U.S. prosecuters attempted to seek the death penalty but the verdict was life imprisonment instead. Puerto Rico's 1952 constitution bans the death penalty but a U.S. federal court ruled in 2001 that federal law trumps the Puerot Rican constitution. These events and the continued use of Puerto Rico for military testing add to the tensions and the cries for the right to autonomy that some say the assassination of Ojeda Rios will only further inflame. In addition to WBAI, more news on this can be found at Democracy Now! and at Puerto Rico Indymedia, in both Spanish and English.
This is reminding me of the way Fred Hampton was murdered. I think a full investigation is needed, an open investigation.
Senate Panel Oks Allowing Pentagon Spies to Operate in U.S. (Democracy Now!)
The Senate Intelligence Committee has approved new legislation that would allow Pentagon intelligence operatives to collect information from U.S. citizens without revealing their status as government spies. According to the Los Angeles Times, the bill would end a long-standing requirement that military intelligence officers disclose their government ties when approaching any U.S. citizen in the United States.
The Senate did that. The Intelligence Committee did that because they think they know better than us. They think they're so damn smart. But they can't get anything on Sibel Edmonds testimony. They're stonewalled there. They can't get any information on anything. And when they do, they can't share it. Bob Graham left the Senate wanting the Congressional report on 9/11 released and it's still not released.
We don't military intelligence. We've had it before.
It's as though we haven't learned a damn thing. That may not be fair. It might be more accurate to say the "smart" senators serving on the Intelligence Committee haven't learned a damn thing.
Pat Roberts, Kansas Chairman
John D. Rockefeller IV West Virginia, Vice Chairman
Orrin G. Hatch, Utah
Carl Levin, Michigan
Mike Dewine, Ohio
Dianne Feinstein, California
Christopher S. Bond, Missouri
Ron Wyden, Oregon
Trent Lott, Mississippi
Evan Bayh, Indiana
Olympia J. Snowe, Maine
Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland
Chuck Hagel, Nebraska
Jon S. Corzine, New Jersey
Saxby Chambliss, Georgia
Those are the losers who are destroying this country. Republican, Democrat, I don't care, they're destroying the country.
Hagel knows about Sibel Edmonds testimony. Hasn't done a bit of good. He'll say she's believable and her story checks out but America still can't know her story. He should be ashamed.
War monger Diane Feinstein needs to be ashamed to. What's URS Corp? People should know about it since Diane's so damn gung ho on the war.
Richard Blum serves on the board of URS Corp and controls 24% of the stock.
Blum's Feinstein's husband.
And while people are dying in Iraq, Blum's company got a 600 million dollar contract:
to help with troop mobilization, weapons systems training and anti-terrorism efforts is the latest in a string of plum defense jobs snared by URS. In February, the firm won an army engineering and logistics contract that could bring in $3.1 billion during the next eight years.
Why's Diane such a war monger? Does it have to do with the fact that her husband's company profits in the millions and billions from the war?
Halliburton is disgusting, no question. But it's past time Diane Feinstein got called on her own shit.
There's this idea that she did something brave by voting against Roberts. She didn't do anything brave. She blew off the questioning. And she knows she'll lose campaign donations if she votes for Roberts. So she did the weakest thing she could, she voted against him but she gave him a pass in the hearings.
Someone needs to consider mounting a primary challenge to Feinstein because she's quickly become very hated in the state of California. She's lucky because so few people know about her husband's company.
Unlike Diane, the state of California isn't "conflicted" over the war. They know where they stand and Feinstein knows it too.
And here's a question why is the woman on "the Appropriations Committee, where she is the Ranking member of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee" married to a man winning contracts? Anyone else bothered by that conflict of interest?
"Peace Quotes" (Peace Center)
Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash, your picture in the paper nor money in the bank, neither. Just refuse to bear them.
William Faulkner
the third estate sunday review
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diane feinstein
