Million dollars not enough for brutal police slaying of Kelly Thomas, says family
By Rady Ananda
Warning: Graphic images
The surviving family members of Kelly Thomas, who was brutally murdered by Fullerton Police (Orange County, California) in July, rejected an offer of $900,000 not to pursue civil action.
[Image: said to be Kelly Thomas when alive.]
On July 5, 2011, closed circuit TV caught six Fullerton cops brutally murdering a homeless, mentally ill man. Kelly Thomas, age 37, died after being taken off life-support five days later.
A whistleblower who viewed the unreleased city-owned video of the event says an officer crushed Thomas' windpipe by "drop-kneeing" him twice.
His last words are heard on this CCTV video where he’s screaming, “Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!”
PermalinkNew Facts Call Into Question DOJ Investigations Past and Present
By Andrew Kreig posted by Michael Collins
Four days before Connecticut's Nora Dannehy was appointed to investigate the Bush administration's U.S. attorney firing scandal, a team of lawyers she led was found to have illegally suppressed evidence in a major political corruption case.
This previously unreported fact from Dannehy's past calls into question her entire national investigation. The revelation similarly compromises the pending investigation by her Connecticut colleague, John Durham, who since 2008 has been the nation's special prosecutor for DOJ and CIA decision-making involving torture.
Here's the story, which the Justice Integrity Project I lead just broke in Nieman Watchdog:
In September 2008, the Bush Justice Department appointed Connecticut career federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate allegations that Bush officials in 2006 illegally fired nine U.S. attorneys who wouldn't politicize official corruption investigations.
Court Vacates Siegelman Charges, As Kagan and DOJ Team Lose
By Andrew Kreig
Huffington Post, June 29
Posted by Michael Collins
"As a start in redressing the nation's most notorious political prosecution, the Supreme Court today released its decision vacating federal corruption convictions of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and co-defendant businessman Richard Scrushy
"The court remanded their Alabama convictions to the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta despite arguments last November by Solicitor General Elena Kagan that their convictions should stand."
Elena Kagan - Willing Accomplice
Should Elena Kagan be approved as a justice to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States?
As it turns out there's a supremely simple method of testing her suitability. Once applied, citizens of any political persuasion will see that her nomination should be rejected outright.
As Solicitor General of the United States, Kagan argued against an appeal to the Supreme Court by former Alabama Governor, Don Siegelman in November, 2009. The Siegelman prosecution is viewed by many as one of the gravest injustices of the modern era, a purely political prosecution initiated by the Gonzales Justice Department.
Forty four former state attorneys general were so concerned that they issued a public petition on Siegelman's behalf in 2007. The petition to the United States House of Representatives urged prompt investigation of the many shady dealings in the Siegelman case, before, during and after his trial. They framed their petition in this simple sentence: "The U.S. justice system should be above reproach." It wasn't.
Numerian: The Goldman Sachs Credo - So What if We Lie? It's Nothing Personal, It's Just Business
by Numerian posted by Michael Collins
Reading the SEC allegations against Goldman Sachs and Co., you get the impression the agency would prefer a simple world where you could charge a company with lying and be done with it. Lying to one’s clients is at the core of the suit against Goldman Sachs. Unfortunately there is apparently no law against lying in phone conversations and meetings, but there are laws against fraudulent written representations, and this is the legal foundation on which the SEC is basing its suit.
The meaty stuff in the SEC complaint is to be found in the behavior of Goldman Sachs and its employee who structured the transaction known as ABACUS 2007-AC1. Fabrice Tourre, now age 31, was a vice president on the structured product correlation trading desk. He put together the ABACUS deals and is said in the complaint to have left out pertinent information, or lied altogether, to the firm that helped set up the ABACUS deal and make it sellable to investors. No other Goldman Sachs employee is identified in the suit, and the management on the trading desk or in his department are described only in shadowy terms.
Goldman’s response this week to the suit says that they will defend themselves vigorously (and no doubt with many millions of dollars of legal expense), so they are not throwing Mr. Tourre to the wolves as some rogue trader. This would have been the logical thing to do since the allegations against Mr. Tourre are especially damaging. By embracing and defending him so readily, we therefore have to assume Mr. Tourre’s behavior is emblematic of the Goldman Sachs culture, and how he comported himself is how many others behaved at the firm. This in itself is very revealing about Goldman Sachs and its management.
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