Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Baja Real Estate Blog: FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Petition Confirmation Page |...
Baja Real Estate Blog: FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Petition Confirmation Page |...: FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Petition Confirmation Page | Gold Standard 2013! : Petition Confirmation Page | Gold Standard 2013!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Friday, December 14, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: 2013 Revolution Obama World War 3 | Trends Forecas...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: 2013 Revolution Obama World War 3 | Trends Forecas...: 2013 Revolution Obama World War 3 | Trends Forecasts and Prophecies Blog : 2013 Revolution Obama World War 3 A Lot of analysts admit that A...
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Major Stock Market Crash in December 2012 accordin...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Major Stock Market Crash in December 2012 accordin...: Major Stock Market Crash in December 2012 according to Roubini & The Prophecy of Edgar Cayce | Trends Forecasts and Prophecies Blog : Accord...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Bradley Manning: a tale of liberty lost in America...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Bradley Manning: a tale of liberty lost in America...: Bradley Manning: a tale of liberty lost in America | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | The Guardian : Over the past two and a half years, ...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: BBC News - UN internet regulation treaty talks beg...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: BBC News - UN internet regulation treaty talks beg...: BBC News - UN internet regulation treaty talks begin in Dubai A UN agency is trying to calm fears that the internet could be damaged by a c...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Lock Your Doors And Prepare To Defend Your Family
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Lock Your Doors And Prepare To Defend Your Family: Lock Your Doors And Prepare To Defend Your Family Lock Your Doors And Prepare To Defend Your Family By Michael, on December 2nd, 2012 ...
Sunday, December 2, 2012
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: ChrisInMaryville's Blog » Is Fedzilla About to Pul...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: ChrisInMaryville's Blog » Is Fedzilla About to Pul...: ChrisInMaryville's Blog » Is Fedzilla About to Pull Off a $3.5 Trillion Private Pension Heist? : A new effort by the Obama administratio...
Saturday, December 1, 2012
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FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Sorry Monsanto: Govt Admits GM Bt Cotton Crops Fai...: Sorry Monsanto: Govt Admits GM Bt Cotton Crops Fail 40% : The government of Maharashtra, a state in western India, has acknowledged for the ...
Obama "Compromise": More Spending, Higher Taxes, Unlimited Debt
Obama "Compromise": More Spending, Higher Taxes, Unlimited Debt
President Obama has hardened his views on “fiscal cliff” negotiations with congressional Republicans, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner telling a closed-door session of congressional leaders that Obama is now demanding $50 billion in more “stimulus” spending, $1.6 trillion in higher taxes over 10 years, and presidential control over the national debt limit. Any other deal, Geithner counseled, would be vetoed and make inevitable the fiscal cliff's automatic tax increases and spending cuts on January 1.
The neoconservative magazine the Weekly Standard reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) laughed out loud when Geithner announced the White House's demands. After the meeting, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that negotiators had made “no substantive progress” in the negotiations. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m disappointed in where we are and what has happened in the last couple of weeks,” Boehner told reporters. “I came here the day after the election and made it clear Republicans would put revenue on the table.... But revenue is only on the table if there are serious spending cuts as part of this agreement. It’s the spending that is out of control.”
Boehner is correct that the White House has proposed no spending cuts to close the $1.1 trillion per year spending gap in the federal budget. Obama would apply none of the tax increases to deficit reduction. Even columnists for the leftist Los Angeles Times have acknowledged that “letting the Bush-era cuts expire for the top 2% would save only about $52 billion a year, which is well short of the $4 trillion in savings over 10 years needed to stabilize the debt.” And that $52 billion is just about the same amount of new “stimulus” spending Obama has demanded in the negotiations.
President Obama has hardened his views on “fiscal cliff” negotiations with congressional Republicans, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner telling a closed-door session of congressional leaders that Obama is now demanding $50 billion in more “stimulus” spending, $1.6 trillion in higher taxes over 10 years, and presidential control over the national debt limit. Any other deal, Geithner counseled, would be vetoed and make inevitable the fiscal cliff's automatic tax increases and spending cuts on January 1.
The neoconservative magazine the Weekly Standard reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) laughed out loud when Geithner announced the White House's demands. After the meeting, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that negotiators had made “no substantive progress” in the negotiations. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m disappointed in where we are and what has happened in the last couple of weeks,” Boehner told reporters. “I came here the day after the election and made it clear Republicans would put revenue on the table.... But revenue is only on the table if there are serious spending cuts as part of this agreement. It’s the spending that is out of control.”
Boehner is correct that the White House has proposed no spending cuts to close the $1.1 trillion per year spending gap in the federal budget. Obama would apply none of the tax increases to deficit reduction. Even columnists for the leftist Los Angeles Times have acknowledged that “letting the Bush-era cuts expire for the top 2% would save only about $52 billion a year, which is well short of the $4 trillion in savings over 10 years needed to stabilize the debt.” And that $52 billion is just about the same amount of new “stimulus” spending Obama has demanded in the negotiations.
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Feinstein-Lee NDAA Amendment Passes, But Is It Eno...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Feinstein-Lee NDAA Amendment Passes, But Is It Eno...: Feinstein-Lee NDAA Amendment Passes, But Is It Enough? Naive. That's the word used by the Wall Street Journal to describe attempts by a h...
The Government Can Still Black Bag Any American « LewRockwell.com Blog
The Government Can Still Black Bag Any American « LewRockwell.com Blog
November 30, 2012
The Government Can Still Black Bag Any American
The Senate passed the much ballyhooed Feinstein-Lee amendment last night, which supposedly partially nullifies the provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) allowing for Americans to be kidnapped by the government and disappeared without any charge or due process. Senator Rand Paul put out a press release declaring victory. But as Congressman Justin Amash points out, the wording of the amendment effectively codifies tyranny:
(h/t Robert Wenzel)
The heart of the Feinstein amendment:I have some questions. Why are Americans who are traveling, working, living abroad left out of this legislation? Does one only have his rights when he's within the sanctified borders of the U.S.? Why is it not being argued that ALL PEOPLE have the right to due process? Why are there libertarians celebrating this passage when rather than making us more free it really only further enshrines the idea that the State grants (and denies) us our rights?
"An authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, UNLESS AN ACT OF CONGRESS EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZES SUCH DETENTION."Well, that Act of Congress is the 2012 NDAA, which renders the rest of the Feinstein amendment meaningless.
(h/t Robert Wenzel)
Manning Testifies About His Torture; Was it Aimed at Turning Him on Assange?
Manning Testifies About His Torture; Was it Aimed at Turning Him on Assange?
Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. He is currently a legal adviser to Wikileaks and Julian Assange. He and CCR brought the first case challenging the Guantanamo detentions and continue in their efforts to close Guantanamo. He taught at Yale Law School, and Columbia Law School, and was President of the National Lawyers Guild. His current books include "Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in the Twenty-First Century America," and “ Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder.” NOTE: Mr. Ratner speaks on his own behalf and not for any organization with which he is affiliated.
MICHAEL RATNER, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: And what I am also , Paul (thank you for having me) is the lawyer for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. And that's what's important about what we're going to talk about today, which is the trial of Bradley Manning. JAY: So go ahead.RATNER: Bradley Manning, as I imagine your listeners know by this time, but is the young private first class from the Army who allegedly uploaded some 5 million documents, or some huge number, maybe not 5 million, but 3 million, to WikiLeaks that included the Iraq War logs, the "Collateral Murder" video, the State Department cables. And we're actually at the two-year anniversary of the release of the State Department cables. And they also included the Afghan War logs. He's been indicted—or, really, charged by the military court of aiding the enemy and a variety of computer charges. And we're now, over the last few months, going through pretrial proceedings regarding his treatment and other issues before the court martial begins in February. For two and a half years, he has been in custody, some 900-and-some days. He's now at Fort Meade in Maryland, close by The Real News, or at least fairly close to The Real News. And the trial I was at yesterday was the first time that Bradley Manning actually took the witness stand and testified. So it was quite a dramatic afternoon, really dramatic, because to see Bradley Manning there in his uniform get on the stand and actually testify was incredibly moving.JAY: And what was this proceeding about?RATNER: Right. The subject of this proceeding was the government or United States and military's treatment of Bradley Manning during the two and a half years he's been in custody. And it was particularly over the first year of his custody to year and a half when the allegations are that he was tortured in custody, or at least treated with cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. There's been a lot of substantiation of that treatment. The rapporteur for the United Nations, Mendez, basically said he was treated contrary to the Convention against Torture. And this was a trial in which that conduct was going to be talked about.So there I am, sitting in this courtroom, small courtroom, a dozen of military guys all in those dress blue uniforms. And we didn't know when Bradley was going to testify, because they'd had a lot of psychiatrists testify first. The main burden of the psychiatrists' testimony—this was by the defense—was that they did not recommend that Bradley Manning should be put on suicide risk or on preventive injury risk, that he should be treated like the regular population. But, in fact, for this year, he was treated as if he was a suicide risk. And because of that, he was treated very badly, and probably even worse than people put on that are treated. Normally, those treatments are for four to seven days. The psychiatrists uniformly recommended that Bradley Manning should be treated as normal in the regular population. That was disregarded both—that was disregarded at Quantico in Virginia, where he was ultimately sent for about nine months.So you're sitting there in this courtroom, and all of a sudden, unexpected, the lawyer for Bradley Manning, David Coombs, says, Bradley Manning, will you come to the witness stand? And you see Bradley Manning in his dress blue uniform, a tie, a white shirt, sit in the witness stand. Of course, he's short, 5'2" or 5'3", he's slim, but he actually looked very good. And what we expected was not what we got. What you expected about Bradley Manning, particularly after all the negative press about all his problems, all his issues, about his sexuality and the military, etc., what you got was somebody very different. He opens his mouth, and you had this confident, bright, intelligent, articulate person who could really describe what happened to him, not nervous, straightforward. And what happened to him was really outrageous. It was an essential effort to break him down as a human being. And I'll just summarize it quickly. The first two months, roughly, he was held at a military camp in Kuwait. And here's how he was held. He said he went into a tent, and there were two cages like they keep animals, each about 8-foot cubes. He was put into one of the cages. The other cage was empty. And he was essentially kept there almost the entire two months. Most of the time had to eat in those cages. And then his day was as follows. He would be awakened at 11 at night. Eleven at night to 1 p.m. in the afternoon was the time he was up, when he sat in the cage and there was some light on, or he was taken out maybe for a brief time, 20 minutes, to get some air or something. And then he was fed in the cage. That went for almost two months. He almost collapsed, had a nervous breakdown, really, almost, during that period, saw therapists, or at least—I don't know if they were therapists—saw some military people who came to attend him. But he said his entire world closed in on him. He said, I'm someone who's interested in the world; I was interested in what was happening, for example, with the oil leak by BP; I read people like Richard Dawkins. This is a 24-year-old young man, 21 or 22 at the time of these incidents, talking to us like that, but saying, my whole world collapsed and I was just a complete mess after that kind of treatment. So he's in there for almost two months. Finally, he's flown out to Quantico in Virginia, a Marine military base. When he gets on the plane, he says, I have no idea where I'm being sent; I thought it might even be Guantanamo. This all happens to give our people a timeframe. From about end of May 2010 he's in Kuwait till the end of July 2010, then goes to Quantico till probably April or so of 2011. He gets to Quantico, he's put on suicide watch, as well as on possibility of injury, as well as supermax and all this, and the conditions are terrible. And you see what happens next in the courtroom. The lawyer asks for Bradley Manning to step off the witness stand. He steps off the witness stand. And on the floor they draw out the cell with a ruler, six by eight. This is the one at Quantico, Virginia. And they show where the rack is, or a metal thing for the bed. They show the toilet and where the sink is. Then they show that there's this screen in front of it, a mesh screen that you can see out of, but all you see is a man sitting in a chair on the other side and the observation booth where he's looked at 24 hours a day. There's a bright light on him the entire 24 hours. He can't really sleep, except facing the light, because if he doesn't face the light where they can see his face across the booth, they come in and they wake him up and they turn him around. So his sleep is interrupted all the time. When he wakes up in this booth—and this went on for nine months—when he wakes up in this booth, he's not allowed to lean against a wall or lay in bed. Once he's up for "Reveille", which is 5 a.m. (at least it's during the day), he's up. Once he's up, they say he can only stand or he can sit on the bunk with his feet on the ground and cannot put his back against the wall. And he's in this for nine months.JAY: And so if he puts his back against the wall, they rush in and they force him to sit up?RATNER: Exactly right. So this, if you look at this, Paul, in a certain way, it's reminiscent of the stress positions and the other—what we call the Rumsfeld techniques that they used on Guantanamo people—you know, 24-hour light, the stress positions of standing, no communication except with his guards 'cause there's nobody near him, he's watched all the time, his meals are in the cell. And then, of course, what was really dramatic was the moment they talked about what happened when he was forced to get naked. There was a point they said, well, we're going to make him get naked, they claim because of a suicide risk. But the doctors throughout this period are saying he was normal, there was no suicide risk when he was in that prison, he was no more able to hurt himself or commit suicide than any other prisoner, and they kept telling the administrator of prison he should not be in these conditions, he should not be. If he has a problem, they're going to make it worse. JAY: Now, we've talked about this before. I mean, to what extent do you think this was carried out because they want him to turn on Assange? Otherwise, what is it they're trying to get out of him with this kind of techniques?RATNER: Yeah. I think that's what it was, because they don't have an excuse for this treatment, because you had psychiatrist after psychiatrist testifying in the last two days that he was not a suicide risk, and that you also had testimony, interestingly, from some people saying that their opinions as psychiatrists had never been disavowed or disobeyed by the head of the brig. Even though the brig commander is in command and could say, I'm not going to listen to you, this was the only time in their memory, many years of being therapists and psychiatrists, that the brig commander said, we're not going to agree with you, we have other reasons, and we're going to keep him in these conditions. So that gives, really, a lot of substance to the fact that these orders were not coming from the brig commander but were coming from somewhere on high, and that it was done for a reason, as we have said on this show, to try and break Bradley Manning. So to the extent he knows anything—which I don't think he does, but to the extent the government thinks he does—about his relationship to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, that he will be broken and testify or give information about Julian Assange and how these documents that Bradley Manning allegedly hacked—or not hacked; he wasn't hacked—that he allegedly gave to WikiLeaks, what WikiLeaks' involvement in that was.JAY: And was—Manning's testimony was all about the conditions of being held. It didn't relate to any of the other issues of the case.RATNER: No, doesn't relate, didn't relate at all.JAY: So what does the defense hope to achieve? So if the judges decide that this in fact was cruel and inhuman punishment, then what?RATNER: You know, that's a very good question, because what the lawyer asked for is under Article 13 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which says you can't be subjected to punishment before trial. And this was obviously a form of punishment. It came out as that.And so the lawyer's asked for two things. He's asked for a dismissal of the entire case. Now, this is—look it, this is an aiding-the-enemy case, this is a case that carries a potential death penalty, certainly life imprisonment. Is the judge going to do that? You know, it's speculation, but this is obviously not the most readily accessible remedy for this violation. On the other hand, it has been done on occasion very rare that the government misconduct is so bad and that it has such dirty hands, the government, that a judge'll say, that's it, goodbye. So that's what he's ultimately asking for.But he has a second remedy, because he understands that this first remedy might be difficult for the judge. He's saying, look it, this guy may get sentenced at some point. And, in fact, there was part of a guilty plea discussed at this court hearing yesterday. And whatever sentence he gets, I want it reduced by the amount of time he spent in pretrial detention, which would be normal, but I want it reduced by ten to one. So for every day he spent in these cruel and degrading, inhumane conditions, I want ten days off his sentence. So the lawyer came up with the number 293 days, almost a year, and he says, therefore I want the sentence reduced 2,930 days, which would be, what, eight or nine years.JAY: And there's precedent for that?RATNER: I don't know. I don't know.JAY: And what happened about the guilty plea and the attempt to have some kind of negotiation?RATNER: Yeah, that's important to bring up. A few weeks ago, they offered to plead guilty to certain of the charges or reduce charges, lesser included offenses.JAY: They being Manning and his lawyer.RATNER: Yeah, Manning and his lawyer. Manning didn't say anything. It's all an offer from his lawyer, because my guess is if it's not accepted, they withdraw the offer and it's off the record and there's no admission by Manning, etc. So Manning didn't say anything. But the lawyer said, we're offering to plead guilty to these, these, these, these. And then there's been a lot of colloquy about it—is this a legitimate plea, are these lesser included?But the real point here are really two things, one, that the judge doesn't have to accept the plea, although she seemed to indicate yesterday she would consider accepting the plea, and the government doesn't have to accept the plea. If the government doesn't have to accept it, the judge can still accept the plea. The problem is the government can then still go ahead and prove its more serious case, the aiding the enemy case. So here you would have Manning pleading to, you know, passing on documents he shouldn't have passed on, but not pleading guilty to aiding the enemy or computer misuse, which are more serious, and the government's saying, well, you can plead to that, you'll get sentenced for that, but we're still going to go ahead and try and prove a bigger case. We don't know what's going on here. What the judge said is, look it, I might be willing to accept this plea. The maximum sentence I could give him for this plea, which is seven counts of various unauthorized passing on of documents, would be 14 years. So if that was the end of the case and the government said, okay, we'll take it, Manning would be subjected to 14 years in prison. That would be, I think, from the defense's point of view—I won't say ideal, 'cause there's no such thing as that. I think, you know, the ideal case would be that Manning should be acquitted in this case and the government should be tried, but that's another story. But 14 years or less than that, the judge—the maximum is 14—would be, I think, from the defense's point of view, in a case that offers life imprisonment for millions of documents that were classified, the defense may well see that as a positive development.On the other hand, they could be then pleading guilty to something, and then the government, it doesn't have to prove that initial thing anymore; it just has to prove this more difficult, serious case, in which case he could get a much longer sentence. It may also, though—it's not a jury trial. They've chosen to be tried before the judge. Manning was shown as a substantial, well-thought human being in front of that judge yesterday, articulate, smart. It may be that that's helpful, and it may also be that he's willing to plead guilty to a core part of this [incompr.] helpful and perhaps make the judge more sympathetic.JAY: Alright. Thanks for joining us, Michael. And we'll obviously—RATNER: Thank you for having me, Paul.JAY: —we'll continue following this in weekly reports. Thanks for joining us on The Real News. Don't forget we're in our year-end fundraising campaign. Every dollar you donate gets matched till we reach $100,000. The Donate button's over there somewhere. So if you click on that, we can keep doing this.
Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. He is currently a legal adviser to Wikileaks and Julian Assange. He and CCR brought the first case challenging the Guantanamo detentions and continue in their efforts to close Guantanamo. He taught at Yale Law School, and Columbia Law School, and was President of the National Lawyers Guild. His current books include "Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in the Twenty-First Century America," and “ Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder.” NOTE: Mr. Ratner speaks on his own behalf and not for any organization with which he is affiliated.
Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to this week's version of The Ratner Report with Michael Ratner, who joins us from New York. He's the president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and he's the chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. And he's also a board member of The Real News. Thanks for joining us.MICHAEL RATNER, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: And what I am also , Paul (thank you for having me) is the lawyer for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. And that's what's important about what we're going to talk about today, which is the trial of Bradley Manning. JAY: So go ahead.RATNER: Bradley Manning, as I imagine your listeners know by this time, but is the young private first class from the Army who allegedly uploaded some 5 million documents, or some huge number, maybe not 5 million, but 3 million, to WikiLeaks that included the Iraq War logs, the "Collateral Murder" video, the State Department cables. And we're actually at the two-year anniversary of the release of the State Department cables. And they also included the Afghan War logs. He's been indicted—or, really, charged by the military court of aiding the enemy and a variety of computer charges. And we're now, over the last few months, going through pretrial proceedings regarding his treatment and other issues before the court martial begins in February. For two and a half years, he has been in custody, some 900-and-some days. He's now at Fort Meade in Maryland, close by The Real News, or at least fairly close to The Real News. And the trial I was at yesterday was the first time that Bradley Manning actually took the witness stand and testified. So it was quite a dramatic afternoon, really dramatic, because to see Bradley Manning there in his uniform get on the stand and actually testify was incredibly moving.JAY: And what was this proceeding about?RATNER: Right. The subject of this proceeding was the government or United States and military's treatment of Bradley Manning during the two and a half years he's been in custody. And it was particularly over the first year of his custody to year and a half when the allegations are that he was tortured in custody, or at least treated with cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. There's been a lot of substantiation of that treatment. The rapporteur for the United Nations, Mendez, basically said he was treated contrary to the Convention against Torture. And this was a trial in which that conduct was going to be talked about.So there I am, sitting in this courtroom, small courtroom, a dozen of military guys all in those dress blue uniforms. And we didn't know when Bradley was going to testify, because they'd had a lot of psychiatrists testify first. The main burden of the psychiatrists' testimony—this was by the defense—was that they did not recommend that Bradley Manning should be put on suicide risk or on preventive injury risk, that he should be treated like the regular population. But, in fact, for this year, he was treated as if he was a suicide risk. And because of that, he was treated very badly, and probably even worse than people put on that are treated. Normally, those treatments are for four to seven days. The psychiatrists uniformly recommended that Bradley Manning should be treated as normal in the regular population. That was disregarded both—that was disregarded at Quantico in Virginia, where he was ultimately sent for about nine months.So you're sitting there in this courtroom, and all of a sudden, unexpected, the lawyer for Bradley Manning, David Coombs, says, Bradley Manning, will you come to the witness stand? And you see Bradley Manning in his dress blue uniform, a tie, a white shirt, sit in the witness stand. Of course, he's short, 5'2" or 5'3", he's slim, but he actually looked very good. And what we expected was not what we got. What you expected about Bradley Manning, particularly after all the negative press about all his problems, all his issues, about his sexuality and the military, etc., what you got was somebody very different. He opens his mouth, and you had this confident, bright, intelligent, articulate person who could really describe what happened to him, not nervous, straightforward. And what happened to him was really outrageous. It was an essential effort to break him down as a human being. And I'll just summarize it quickly. The first two months, roughly, he was held at a military camp in Kuwait. And here's how he was held. He said he went into a tent, and there were two cages like they keep animals, each about 8-foot cubes. He was put into one of the cages. The other cage was empty. And he was essentially kept there almost the entire two months. Most of the time had to eat in those cages. And then his day was as follows. He would be awakened at 11 at night. Eleven at night to 1 p.m. in the afternoon was the time he was up, when he sat in the cage and there was some light on, or he was taken out maybe for a brief time, 20 minutes, to get some air or something. And then he was fed in the cage. That went for almost two months. He almost collapsed, had a nervous breakdown, really, almost, during that period, saw therapists, or at least—I don't know if they were therapists—saw some military people who came to attend him. But he said his entire world closed in on him. He said, I'm someone who's interested in the world; I was interested in what was happening, for example, with the oil leak by BP; I read people like Richard Dawkins. This is a 24-year-old young man, 21 or 22 at the time of these incidents, talking to us like that, but saying, my whole world collapsed and I was just a complete mess after that kind of treatment. So he's in there for almost two months. Finally, he's flown out to Quantico in Virginia, a Marine military base. When he gets on the plane, he says, I have no idea where I'm being sent; I thought it might even be Guantanamo. This all happens to give our people a timeframe. From about end of May 2010 he's in Kuwait till the end of July 2010, then goes to Quantico till probably April or so of 2011. He gets to Quantico, he's put on suicide watch, as well as on possibility of injury, as well as supermax and all this, and the conditions are terrible. And you see what happens next in the courtroom. The lawyer asks for Bradley Manning to step off the witness stand. He steps off the witness stand. And on the floor they draw out the cell with a ruler, six by eight. This is the one at Quantico, Virginia. And they show where the rack is, or a metal thing for the bed. They show the toilet and where the sink is. Then they show that there's this screen in front of it, a mesh screen that you can see out of, but all you see is a man sitting in a chair on the other side and the observation booth where he's looked at 24 hours a day. There's a bright light on him the entire 24 hours. He can't really sleep, except facing the light, because if he doesn't face the light where they can see his face across the booth, they come in and they wake him up and they turn him around. So his sleep is interrupted all the time. When he wakes up in this booth—and this went on for nine months—when he wakes up in this booth, he's not allowed to lean against a wall or lay in bed. Once he's up for "Reveille", which is 5 a.m. (at least it's during the day), he's up. Once he's up, they say he can only stand or he can sit on the bunk with his feet on the ground and cannot put his back against the wall. And he's in this for nine months.JAY: And so if he puts his back against the wall, they rush in and they force him to sit up?RATNER: Exactly right. So this, if you look at this, Paul, in a certain way, it's reminiscent of the stress positions and the other—what we call the Rumsfeld techniques that they used on Guantanamo people—you know, 24-hour light, the stress positions of standing, no communication except with his guards 'cause there's nobody near him, he's watched all the time, his meals are in the cell. And then, of course, what was really dramatic was the moment they talked about what happened when he was forced to get naked. There was a point they said, well, we're going to make him get naked, they claim because of a suicide risk. But the doctors throughout this period are saying he was normal, there was no suicide risk when he was in that prison, he was no more able to hurt himself or commit suicide than any other prisoner, and they kept telling the administrator of prison he should not be in these conditions, he should not be. If he has a problem, they're going to make it worse. JAY: Now, we've talked about this before. I mean, to what extent do you think this was carried out because they want him to turn on Assange? Otherwise, what is it they're trying to get out of him with this kind of techniques?RATNER: Yeah. I think that's what it was, because they don't have an excuse for this treatment, because you had psychiatrist after psychiatrist testifying in the last two days that he was not a suicide risk, and that you also had testimony, interestingly, from some people saying that their opinions as psychiatrists had never been disavowed or disobeyed by the head of the brig. Even though the brig commander is in command and could say, I'm not going to listen to you, this was the only time in their memory, many years of being therapists and psychiatrists, that the brig commander said, we're not going to agree with you, we have other reasons, and we're going to keep him in these conditions. So that gives, really, a lot of substance to the fact that these orders were not coming from the brig commander but were coming from somewhere on high, and that it was done for a reason, as we have said on this show, to try and break Bradley Manning. So to the extent he knows anything—which I don't think he does, but to the extent the government thinks he does—about his relationship to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, that he will be broken and testify or give information about Julian Assange and how these documents that Bradley Manning allegedly hacked—or not hacked; he wasn't hacked—that he allegedly gave to WikiLeaks, what WikiLeaks' involvement in that was.JAY: And was—Manning's testimony was all about the conditions of being held. It didn't relate to any of the other issues of the case.RATNER: No, doesn't relate, didn't relate at all.JAY: So what does the defense hope to achieve? So if the judges decide that this in fact was cruel and inhuman punishment, then what?RATNER: You know, that's a very good question, because what the lawyer asked for is under Article 13 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which says you can't be subjected to punishment before trial. And this was obviously a form of punishment. It came out as that.And so the lawyer's asked for two things. He's asked for a dismissal of the entire case. Now, this is—look it, this is an aiding-the-enemy case, this is a case that carries a potential death penalty, certainly life imprisonment. Is the judge going to do that? You know, it's speculation, but this is obviously not the most readily accessible remedy for this violation. On the other hand, it has been done on occasion very rare that the government misconduct is so bad and that it has such dirty hands, the government, that a judge'll say, that's it, goodbye. So that's what he's ultimately asking for.But he has a second remedy, because he understands that this first remedy might be difficult for the judge. He's saying, look it, this guy may get sentenced at some point. And, in fact, there was part of a guilty plea discussed at this court hearing yesterday. And whatever sentence he gets, I want it reduced by the amount of time he spent in pretrial detention, which would be normal, but I want it reduced by ten to one. So for every day he spent in these cruel and degrading, inhumane conditions, I want ten days off his sentence. So the lawyer came up with the number 293 days, almost a year, and he says, therefore I want the sentence reduced 2,930 days, which would be, what, eight or nine years.JAY: And there's precedent for that?RATNER: I don't know. I don't know.JAY: And what happened about the guilty plea and the attempt to have some kind of negotiation?RATNER: Yeah, that's important to bring up. A few weeks ago, they offered to plead guilty to certain of the charges or reduce charges, lesser included offenses.JAY: They being Manning and his lawyer.RATNER: Yeah, Manning and his lawyer. Manning didn't say anything. It's all an offer from his lawyer, because my guess is if it's not accepted, they withdraw the offer and it's off the record and there's no admission by Manning, etc. So Manning didn't say anything. But the lawyer said, we're offering to plead guilty to these, these, these, these. And then there's been a lot of colloquy about it—is this a legitimate plea, are these lesser included?But the real point here are really two things, one, that the judge doesn't have to accept the plea, although she seemed to indicate yesterday she would consider accepting the plea, and the government doesn't have to accept the plea. If the government doesn't have to accept it, the judge can still accept the plea. The problem is the government can then still go ahead and prove its more serious case, the aiding the enemy case. So here you would have Manning pleading to, you know, passing on documents he shouldn't have passed on, but not pleading guilty to aiding the enemy or computer misuse, which are more serious, and the government's saying, well, you can plead to that, you'll get sentenced for that, but we're still going to go ahead and try and prove a bigger case. We don't know what's going on here. What the judge said is, look it, I might be willing to accept this plea. The maximum sentence I could give him for this plea, which is seven counts of various unauthorized passing on of documents, would be 14 years. So if that was the end of the case and the government said, okay, we'll take it, Manning would be subjected to 14 years in prison. That would be, I think, from the defense's point of view—I won't say ideal, 'cause there's no such thing as that. I think, you know, the ideal case would be that Manning should be acquitted in this case and the government should be tried, but that's another story. But 14 years or less than that, the judge—the maximum is 14—would be, I think, from the defense's point of view, in a case that offers life imprisonment for millions of documents that were classified, the defense may well see that as a positive development.On the other hand, they could be then pleading guilty to something, and then the government, it doesn't have to prove that initial thing anymore; it just has to prove this more difficult, serious case, in which case he could get a much longer sentence. It may also, though—it's not a jury trial. They've chosen to be tried before the judge. Manning was shown as a substantial, well-thought human being in front of that judge yesterday, articulate, smart. It may be that that's helpful, and it may also be that he's willing to plead guilty to a core part of this [incompr.] helpful and perhaps make the judge more sympathetic.JAY: Alright. Thanks for joining us, Michael. And we'll obviously—RATNER: Thank you for having me, Paul.JAY: —we'll continue following this in weekly reports. Thanks for joining us on The Real News. Don't forget we're in our year-end fundraising campaign. Every dollar you donate gets matched till we reach $100,000. The Donate button's over there somewhere. So if you click on that, we can keep doing this.
End
DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Manning Testifies About His Torture; Was it Aimed ...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Manning Testifies About His Torture; Was it Aimed ...: Manning Testifies About His Torture; Was it Aimed at Turning Him on Assange?
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: The Yes Men Are Revolting by The Yes Men — Kicksta...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: The Yes Men Are Revolting by The Yes Men — Kicksta...: The Yes Men Are Revolting by The Yes Men — Kickstarter : Thanks to you, our campaign has been successful! You can still help make this movie...
Friday, November 30, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Baja Real Estate Blog: December Is a Magical MonthAt the Rosarito Beach H...
Baja Real Estate Blog: December Is a Magical MonthAt the Rosarito Beach H...: December Is a Magical Month At the Rosarito Beach Hotel ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO---For people wanting a wonderful t...
Friday, November 23, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: 'U.S. Per Person Debt Now 35 Percent Higher than t...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: 'U.S. Per Person Debt Now 35 Percent Higher than t...: 'U.S. Per Person Debt Now 35 Percent Higher than that of Greece' 11-06-2012 • ...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Gun Stocks Surge After Obama Re-Election
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Gun Stocks Surge After Obama Re-Election: Gun Stocks Surge After Obama Re-Election Libertarian-leaning Republican Congressman Ron Paul lost his bid for the Republican presidential ...
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Baja Real Estate Blog: Baja Online Realty Blog Serving the Baja Californi...
Baja Real Estate Blog: Baja Online Realty Blog Serving the Baja Californi...: Baja Online Realty Blog Serving the Baja California Real Estate Community : November at the Rosarito Beach Hotel: Special Events, Packages &...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Gold Can Save Us From Disaster - Forbes
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Gold Can Save Us From Disaster - Forbes: Gold Can Save Us From Disaster - Forbes Gold Can Save Us From Disaster This story appears in the October 22, 2012 issue of Forbes. ...
Thursday, October 11, 2012
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: The United Nations: On the Brink of Becoming a Wor...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: The United Nations: On the Brink of Becoming a Wor...: The United Nations: On the Brink of Becoming a World Government On October 14, 2009, Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to ...
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: To President Obama: The 2nd Amendment Is About Fig...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: To President Obama: The 2nd Amendment Is About Fig...: To President Obama: The 2nd Amendment Is About Fighting Tyranny, Not Hunting Deer by Michael Hersch Soon after the Denver sh...
Recession 2013 Is On the Way; Here's What Jim Rogers Is Doing
Recession 2013 Is On the Way; Here's What Jim Rogers Is Doingf legendary investor Jim Rogers is right, not only is Recession 2013 unavoidable, it's going to be a doozy.
In recent interviews, Rogers has been predicting a 2013 recession, bowled over by a potential blowout in Europe and unsustainable spending by the U.S. government.
"Be very worried about 2013 and be very worried about 2014, because that's when the next slowdown comes," Rogers told Reuters.
And while Rogers sees no true safe havens out there, a few investments can provide some comfort – specifically, commodities in the form of agriculture, gold, and silver.
Rogers' statements usually get lots of attention, mainly because he has an uncanny tendency to be right.
Together with George Soros, he founded the Quantum Fund in the 1970s and posted returns of 4,200% over 10 years. Rogers retired in 1980 at the age of 37, but remains active as a private investor.
Back in 1999, Rogers recommended gold when it was trading at $252 and silver at $4.
We all know what happened after that.
Here's the Jim Rogers take on the economy and how to survive Recession 2013.
Elections Will End Good Times
Rogers sees the coming elections as the end of a joy ride for both Europe and the United States.
"President Obama wants to get reelected. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to get reelected," Rogers said. That means they'll both be spending lots of public money to keep voters happy until the elections are over.
The ECB's controversial decision to purchase unlimited quantities of bonds from struggling Eurozone members indicates Merkel is ready to pull out all the stops to save the euro – and her job.
In fact, Merkel has made a sharp about face and now wants to stop Athens from leaving the Eurozone at all costs.
In recent interviews, Rogers has been predicting a 2013 recession, bowled over by a potential blowout in Europe and unsustainable spending by the U.S. government.
"Be very worried about 2013 and be very worried about 2014, because that's when the next slowdown comes," Rogers told Reuters.
And while Rogers sees no true safe havens out there, a few investments can provide some comfort – specifically, commodities in the form of agriculture, gold, and silver.
Rogers' statements usually get lots of attention, mainly because he has an uncanny tendency to be right.
Together with George Soros, he founded the Quantum Fund in the 1970s and posted returns of 4,200% over 10 years. Rogers retired in 1980 at the age of 37, but remains active as a private investor.
Back in 1999, Rogers recommended gold when it was trading at $252 and silver at $4.
We all know what happened after that.
| |
Elections Will End Good Times
Rogers sees the coming elections as the end of a joy ride for both Europe and the United States.
"President Obama wants to get reelected. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to get reelected," Rogers said. That means they'll both be spending lots of public money to keep voters happy until the elections are over.
The ECB's controversial decision to purchase unlimited quantities of bonds from struggling Eurozone members indicates Merkel is ready to pull out all the stops to save the euro – and her job.
In fact, Merkel has made a sharp about face and now wants to stop Athens from leaving the Eurozone at all costs.
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: An Interview With Jimmy Israel (Producer Involved ...
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FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Get Ready for an Epic Fiat Currency Avalanche by B...
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Sunday, September 16, 2012
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Spinning Bad Financial News Into Good by Paul Crai...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Spinning Bad Financial News Into Good by Paul Crai...: Spinning Bad Financial News Into Good by Paul Craig Roberts Friday’s payroll jobs report says that 96,000 new jobs were crea...
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Vote, If... by Michael S. Rozeff
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: Vote, If... by Michael S. Rozeff: ote in the upcoming U.S. elections if you want to endorse, approve of, and support a power beyond your control...
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Nicolas Sarkozy Offered £200,000 Per Hour Job with Morgan Stanley - International Business Times UK
Nicolas Sarkozy Offered £200,000 Per Hour Job with Morgan Stanley - International Business Times UK: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been offered the chance to earn £200,000 for just a single hour of work with Morgan Stanley.
If Sarkozy takes the bank's offer, revealed in French investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaine, he will receive the bumper sum for giving a 45-minute speech and posing for pictures for a further 15 minutes.
The scale of the payment reveals the lucrative avenues open to former world leaders after they leave office.
Should Sarkozy accept the job, he will be following a path well trod by former prime minister Tony Blair, who makes £2.5m a year from his role as an adviser to investment bank JP Morgan.
Sarkozy was president of France for five years, bringing in a monthly salary of £17,000, before he was defeated by socialist Francois Hollande.
French management agent Nicolas Teil of Confanim said: "[The fee] is very expensive compared to the rest of the market, but we shouldn't forget that he once directed the fifth biggest power in the world.
If Sarkozy takes the bank's offer, revealed in French investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaine, he will receive the bumper sum for giving a 45-minute speech and posing for pictures for a further 15 minutes.
The scale of the payment reveals the lucrative avenues open to former world leaders after they leave office.
Should Sarkozy accept the job, he will be following a path well trod by former prime minister Tony Blair, who makes £2.5m a year from his role as an adviser to investment bank JP Morgan.
Sarkozy was president of France for five years, bringing in a monthly salary of £17,000, before he was defeated by socialist Francois Hollande.
French management agent Nicolas Teil of Confanim said: "[The fee] is very expensive compared to the rest of the market, but we shouldn't forget that he once directed the fifth biggest power in the world.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: After the Storm by Jeff Thomas
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: After the Storm by Jeff Thomas: After the Storm by Jeff Thomas International Man Recently by Jeff Thomas: Ign...
chunkee-munkee: Everyday Preps by Eric Peters
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Whose Interests Will the Fed Always Protect? by Gary North
Whose Interests Will the Fed Always Protect? by Gary North
Some predictions are easy. Here is mine: "The government of the United States will default on the vast bulk of its debts, which are mainly debts of Medicare, and to a far lesser extent, Social Security and the federal pension system."
This prediction is easy to make when you have Professor Lawrence Kotlikoff of Boston University doing your research for you . . . free of charge.
He and long-term financial columnist Scott Burns recently wrote an article on the unfunded liabilities of the United States government. The article is based on the figures produced by the Congressional Budget Office. Here is their assessment. Over the past year, the debt of the United States government increased from $211 trillion to $222 trillion. This is the fiscal gap.
The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones.
This led to their policy analysis.
Closing the gap using taxes requires an immediate and permanent 64 percent increase in all federal taxes. Alternatively, the U.S. needs to cut, immediately and permanently, all federal purchases and transfer payments, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, by 40 percent.
This sounds good, but neither one will work. I think they know this.
Some predictions are easy. Here is mine: "The government of the United States will default on the vast bulk of its debts, which are mainly debts of Medicare, and to a far lesser extent, Social Security and the federal pension system."
This prediction is easy to make when you have Professor Lawrence Kotlikoff of Boston University doing your research for you . . . free of charge.
He and long-term financial columnist Scott Burns recently wrote an article on the unfunded liabilities of the United States government. The article is based on the figures produced by the Congressional Budget Office. Here is their assessment. Over the past year, the debt of the United States government increased from $211 trillion to $222 trillion. This is the fiscal gap.
The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones.
This led to their policy analysis.
Closing the gap using taxes requires an immediate and permanent 64 percent increase in all federal taxes. Alternatively, the U.S. needs to cut, immediately and permanently, all federal purchases and transfer payments, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, by 40 percent.
This sounds good, but neither one will work. I think they know this.
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: After the Storm by Jeff Thomas
FORTIFIED FORTRESSES: After the Storm by Jeff Thomas: After the Storm by Jeff Thomas : ith all the study and thought that are required to make sense out of how the Great Unraveling will play out...
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