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How to Investigate the IRS

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Cleta Mitchell - Jun. 08 (Opinion) - Cleta Mitchell, the attorney who helped expose the tax agency's abuses, has a road map for identifying the culprits. It doesn't stop in Cincinnati.

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Important Facts About the Trial of Bradley Manning

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Alex Kane - Jun. 03 (News Report) - Manning was a source for WikiLeaks, which some have argued functions as a news organization. Regardless of whether WikiLeaks is a legitimate media outlet, the whistleblowing website did fuel major media outlets’ coverage for months and months. And the Manning trial has important implications for how the press does its job.

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Supreme Court Says Police Can Take D.N.A. Samples

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Adam Liptak - Jun. 03 (News Report) - Supreme Court Says Police Can Take D.N.A. Samples

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America's Corrupt Justice System: Federal Private Prison Populations Grew by 784% in 10 Year Span

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By David Harris-Gershon - May. 26 (Special Report) - From 1999-2010, the total U.S. prison population rose 18 percent, an increase largely reflected by the "drug war" and stringent sentencing guidelines, such as three strikes laws and mandatory minimum sentences. However, total private prison populations exploded fivefold during this same time period, with federal private prison populations rising by 784 percent (as seen in the chart below complied by The Sentencing Project):

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How Did Major Hedge Fund Earn 30% Returns for 20 Years Straight? Lots of Cheating

Sat, 25 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Les Leopold - May. 25 (Special Report) - How is it possible to make such profitable investments again and again and again? The U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, believes he has the answer: SAC is cheating ... again and again and again. In fact, Bharara suggests that hedge funds that engage in insider trading may be rotten to the core:

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Ríos Montt Genocide Verdict Annulled, But Activists Ensure US-Backed Crimes Will Never Be Forgotten

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman - May. 23 (News Report) - As Guatemala's high court annuls former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt's genocide conviction, we're joined by two people who have worked tirelessly to bring perpetrators of war crimes in the country to justice. Helen Mack, one of Guatemala's most well-known human rights activists, fought for years to prosecute the government forces who assassinated her sister, anthropologist Myrna Mack on Sept. 11, 1990. A Right Livelihood Award Winner, today she heads the Myrna Mack Foundation, named after her sister. We also speak with Kate Doyle, a senior analyst of U.S. policy in Latin America and the director at the Guatemala Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, who is featured in the documentary, "Granito: How to Nail a Dictator." Both Mack and Doyle attended Ríos Montt's recent trial.

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Justice search warrant relied on "probable cause" of criminal conduct by Fox News journalist | Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

rcfp.org - By Rob Tricchinelli - May. 23 () - anonymous Justice Department spokesperson: Michael Clemente, Fox News’ executive vice president of news, in a statement Monday. “In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

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The Climate-Change Wars Begin This Summer

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Magazine - By Jonathan Chait - May. 22 (Special Report) - The biggest piece of President Obama’s second-term agenda is his widely expected plan for the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new carbon regulations for power plants, a move that could bring the United States in line with the greenhouse-gas-redu

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How the US Turned Three Pacifists Into 'Multiple Felony Saboteurs'

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Fran Quigley - May. 19 (News Report) - In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism. Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US.

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Allan Nairn: After Ríos Montt Verdict, Time for U.S. to Account for Its Role in Guatemalan Genocide

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 15 (News Analysis) - Following last week’s guilty verdict in Guatemala's historic genocide trial, reporter Allan Nairn says the United States should follow Guatemala's lead and indict the Reagan administration officials who supported the genocide under General Efraín Ríos Montt. "All of [these crimes] were crimes not just of General Ríos Montt, but also of the U.S. government," Nairn says. Former President Ronald Reagan once called Ríos Montt "a man of great personal integrity." After the verdict, Judge Yasmin Barrios ordered the attorney general to launch an immediate investigation of "all others" connected to the crimes.

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Ríos Montt Guilty of Genocide: Are Guatemalan President Pérez Molina, U.S. Officials Next?

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 13 (News Report) - In a historic verdict, former U.S.-backed Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt has been sentenced to 80 years in prison after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. Ríos Montt was convicted of overseeing the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after seizing power in 1982. The ruling marks the first time a former head of state had been found guilty of genocide in his own country. The judge in the case has instructed prosecutors to launch an immediate investigation of "all others" connected to the crimes

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"Over the Line": U.S. Agents Shooting Dead Innocent Mexicans Across the Border With Impunity

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 07 (Special Report) - A joint investigation by The Washington Monthly and The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute has found over the past five years U.S. border agents have shot across the border at least 10 times, killing a total of six Mexicans on Mexican soil. The killings have gone unpunished after a court ruled the Mexican victims have no standing to sue in U.S. courts since they died on their own soil. Investigative reporter John Carlos Frey writes: "The picture that emerges from this investigation is of an agency operating with thousands of poorly trained rookies and failing to provide the kind of transparency, accountability, and clear rules of engagement that Americans routinely expect of law enforcement agencies." Frey joins us to discuss the shootings, and why he fears that the current immigration consensus in Washington on "border security" could increase Mexico's civilian toll.

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Obama Embraces Plutocrats Again With His Billionaire Commerce Secretary Choice

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Steven Rosenfeld - May. 07 (News Analysis) - her record as a businesswoman shares similarities with Mitt Romney’s. Her massive wealth is kept in tax-avoiding offshore accounts. Her family’s best-known business, the Hyatt hotel empire, is known for bitter and ongoing disputes with labor unions. Her resume includes running a bank that pioneered high-interest subprime loans and then failed miserably, leaving uninsured depositors with losses averaging $6,000.

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Your Retirement for a Bottle of Champagne: How Wall Street Fraudsters Ripped You Off, Again

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Lynn Stuart Parramore - May. 07 (Special Report) - LIBOR was, in the opinion of many, the con of the century. But is it a crime without punishment? About a month ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that a federal court judge had let several banks off the hook, dismissing claims that 16 banks targeted by lawsuits had broken federal antitrust laws by rigging LIBOR. As Matt Taibbi explained in his must-read article on the banking scandal, the federal judge bought the banks’ ridiculous blame-the-victim story that if cities and towns and other investors lost money over LIBOR rigging, it was their own fault.

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16-Year-Old Girl Arrested and Charged With a Felony For Science Project Mistake

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - May. 02 (News) -

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The nudge unit – has it worked so far?

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - May. 02 (Opinion) - Since 2010 David Cameron's pet project has been tasked with finding ways to improve society's behaviour – and now the 'nudge unit' is going into business by itself. But have its initiatives really worked? When the day comes to write the obituary of this curious coalition, a day that many feel can't come too soon, it won't be "the big society" that it is remembered for creating. It seems unlikely to be "fairness" either. There may, however, be a large section on "the nudge unit", otherwise known as the cabinet office's behavioural insights team . Set up in the summer of 2010 shortly after this government came to office, and well known to be a pet project of David Cameron's, it is essentially a little band of academics looking for ways to run the country better. (There used to be nine of them, but there are now 13, mostly economists and psychologists.) In part, the unit owes its reputation to Cameron, and to its nickname, a reference to the 2008 book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, ...

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Feds Threaten Medical Pot Dispensaries with 40-Year Sentences

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Natasha Lennard - Apr. 30 (News Report) - The second term Obama administration was presented an aperture to push back against the ruinous war on drugs. The Department of Justice is choosing to continue to act against good reason and the general will.

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The Persecution of Lynne Stewart

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Chris Hedges - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - Lynne Stewart, in the vindictive and hysterical world of the war on terror, is one of its martyrs. A 73-year-old lawyer who spent her life defending the poor, the marginalized and the despised, including blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, she fell afoul of the state apparatus because she dared to demand justice rather than acquiesce to state sponsored witch hunts. And now, with stage 4 cancer that has metastasized, spreading to her lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs, creating a grave threat to her life, she sits in a prison cell at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is serving a 10-year sentence.

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Sixteen Years for Espionage; Life in Jail for Whistleblowing

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By Nathan Fuller - Apr. 20 (Special Report) - Millay “admitted to trying to pass on classified information to someone he believed was a Russian agent,” according to Reuters’ report. An FBI agent said, “Millay betrayed his nation’s trust by attempting to sell classified national defense information for profit to a foreign nation.” Contrast that motive with Bradley Manning’s. In chat logs with government informant Adrian Lamo, Manning hypothesized, “what if i were someone more malicious…i could’ve sold to russia or china, and made bank?”

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Senate confirms White to head SEC

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Globe - Apr. 08 (News) -

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Who Polices Prosecutors Who Abuse Their Authority? Usually Nobody

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Joaquin Sapien, Sergio Hernandez - Apr. 03 (Investigative Report) - Bennett, a two-time felon, was eventually captured, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But Bennett never served anywhere near that sentence. He has, in fact, been free since 2008 because Claude Stuart, the former Queens ass

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Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Shame of Three Strikes Laws

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Mar. 27 (Special Report) - Despite the passage in late 2012 of a new state ballot initiative that prevents California from ever again giving out life sentences to anyone whose "third strike" is not a serious crime, thousands of people – the overwhelming majority of them poor and nonwhite – remain imprisoned for a variety of offenses so absurd that any list of the unluckiest offenders reads like a macabre joke, a surrealistic comedy routine. Have you heard the one about the guy who got life for stealing a slice of pizza? Or the guy who went away forever for lifting a pair of baby shoes? Or the one who got 50 to life for helping himself to five children's videotapes from Kmart?

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Why invading Iraq was a terrible mistake

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Hans Blix - Mar. 19 (Opinion) - I headed the U.N. inspections in Iraq at the time of the war 10 years ago. Today, I look again at the reasons why this terrible mistake -- and violation of the U.N. charter -- took place and explore if any lessons be drawn. Here are my thoughts.

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Steubenville, Ohio, Football Players Convicted in Rape Trial

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

ABC News - By Christina Ng - Mar. 18 (News Report) - Two Steubenville, Ohio, high school football players accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl have been found delinquent by a judge -- the juvenile court equivalent of guilty.

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Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Southern Poverty Law Center - Feb. 27 (Special Report) - In the debate over comprehensive immigration reform, various policymakers and business groups have suggested that Congress create a new or expanded guestworker program to ensure a steady supply of foreign workers for industries that rely on an abundance of cheap labor. Congress should look before it leaps. The current H-2 program, which provides temporary farmworkers and non-farm laborers for a variety of U.S. industries, is rife with labor and human rights violations committed by employers who prey on a highly vulnerable workforce. It harms the interests of U.S. workers, as well, by undercutting wages and working conditions for those who labor at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. This program should not be expanded or used as a model for immigration reform.

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