Bloody Lawyers – Page 10

Things To Read And Look At

Published on September 25, 2007

Oh my lord. Pink guns for girls. What’s next, the Barbie AK47?

“Females want to shoot guns, but they want them to look pretty, too,” he said. “Guys could give a rat’s butt what their gun looks like.”

Experimental baking:

Sweet Corn, Maple, and Bacon Cupcakes and Doughnuts and Coffee cupcakes.

Alternet: The Federal War on Medical Marijuana Becomes a War on Children

Automatic weapons. Check. Helicopters. Check. Dogs. Check. Bulletproof vests. Check.

You may not buy the government’s characterization of its campaign against medical marijuana patients as a “war on drugs,” but increasingly violent, militaristic tactics in recent months offer a troubling glimpse into the federal law enforcement community’s mentality: To them, this is war.

Not that they’re obsessed or anything. A World of Warcraft wedding cake:

Science Daily: Racism’s Cognitive Toll: Subtle Discrimination Is More Taxing On The Brain

John Dean: The Impact of Authoritarian Conservatism On American Government: Part Three in a Three-Part Series

Under Speaker Gingrich as well as Speaker Hastert, who followed him, extreme centralization of the legislative processes of the House occurred. Regularly, GOP leaders wrote the laws themselves – often relying on lobbyists to do the grunt work of drafting – rather than abiding by the regular procedures of the committees, which hold hearings and have professional staff to draft legislation. When not actually writing the laws, the House leaders often drastically changed proposed legislation themselves, typically late in the evening when no one was around to contest their actions.

Justice for war crimes is possible.

Is it a cake or a baked potato?

Well, don’t send bacteria them into space then:

Microbes that cause salmonella came back from spaceflight even more virulent and dangerous in an experiment aboard the US space shuttle Atlantis, according to a study published on Monday.

Awww, poor little loves. Who’d want to shoot kittens from a cannon? Me! Kitten Cannon flash game:

Alisher Usmanov: crook

Published on September 23, 20071 Comment

A rule of thumb I always use is that people who are quick to threaten with legal action, especially libel action, do this because they do have something to hide. This goes especially when the person in question is a dubious “businessman” from one of the less democratic ex-soviet states. Yes, I’m talking about Alisher Usmanov, the billionaire from Uzbekistan who now owns Arsenal and who has gotten former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray’s website taken down because of the article Murray wrote on it below.

As Lenny said, such crude censorship attempts should not succeed, so here’s the offending article.

Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist

I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you. You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the media because he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers, including the latter:

“Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record.”

Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke “Gorbachev”, a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue.

Usmanov’s pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socilist Republic and from 1991 President of Uzbekistan. Karimov ordered the “Pardon” because of his alliance with Usmanov’s mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on Gorbachev’s side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin standing on the
tanks outside the White House.

Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the World’s most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into the “privatisation” process at a time when gangster muscle was used to secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian Mafia and Russian security services was being formed.

Usmanov has two key alliances. He is very close indeed to President Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the country’s natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprominvestholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to secure this. This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand.

Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through Putin’s long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski. Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college. Gazprominvestholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests outside Russia, Usmanov’s role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom’s bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states.

Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has bought out – with the owners having no choice – the only independent national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish this through Gazprom. The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death from a window.

All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist’s death, is set out in great detail here

Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and the victim and others in the know disappeared. The sad thing is that this is not particularly remarkable. Rape by the powerful is an everyday hazard in Uzbekistan, again as outlined in Murder in Samarkand page 120. If anyone has more detail on the specific case involving Usmanov please add a comment.

I reported back in 2002 or 2003 in an Ambassadorial top secret telegram to the Foreign Office that Usmanov was the most likely favoured successor of President Karimov as totalitarian leader of Uzbekistan. I also outlined the Gazprom deal (before it happened) and the present by Usmanov to Putin (though in Jastrzebski’s name) of half of Mapobank, a Russian commercial bank owned by Usmanov. I will never forget the priceless reply from our Embassy in Moscow. They said that they had never even heard of Alisher Usmanov, and that Jastrzebski was a jolly nice friend of the Ambassador who would never do anything crooked.

Sadly, I expect the football authorities will be as purblind. Football now is about nothing but money, and even Arsenal supporters – as tight-knit and homespun a football community as any – can be heard saying they don’t care where the money comes from as long as they can compete with Chelsea.

I fear that is very wrong. Letting as diseased a figure as Alisher Usmanov into your club can only do harm in the long term.

Of Reichs and Men

Published on September 17, 2007

UPDATE: Sorry, no InstaDean for UC Irvine. An agreement has been reached, But the point made below stands.

=====

The University of California prides itself on being at the educational cutting edge; and it is, if by ‘curring edge’ what you mean is ‘in the vanguard of the new conservative reich’.

Not content with resting on its laurels after producing such horrors as UC Berkeley’s Boalt Professor of Law John “Torture Memo” Yoo, now via Lawyers, Guns and Money comes the story of the university’s politically-motivated dismissal of eminent legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky:

IRVINE, Calif. — In a showdown over academic freedom, a prominent legal scholar said Wednesday that the University of California, Irvine’s chancellor had succumbed to conservative political pressure in rescinding his contract to head the university’s new law school, a charge the chancellor vehemently denied.

Erwin Chemerinsky, a well-known liberal expert on constitutional law, said he had signed a contract Sept. 4, only to be told Tuesday by Chancellor Michael V. Drake that he was voiding their deal because Chemerinsky was too liberal and the university had underestimated “conservatives out to get me.”

Later Wednesday, however, Drake said there had been no outside pressure and that he had decided to reject Chemerinsky, now of Duke University and formerly of the University of Southern California, because he felt the law professor’s commentaries were “polarizing” and would not serve the interests of California’s first new public law school in 40 years.

Oh, give me a break. No outside pressure? My ass. This kind of political censorship and pressure is not new to the university; it has quite a history of political repression and coercion.

“Is It Because They Is White?” Part Umpty-something.

Published on July 31, 2007

I don’t know about you, but i would really like to know why this man wasn’t charged and tried with terrorist offences’ let alone banged up indefinitely or put under a Control Order, as so many others have been:

Former BNP candidate is jailed

A former British National Party candidate who amassed a stash of explosive chemicals in anticipation of a future civil war has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Robert Cottage, 49, was cleared after two trials of conspiracy to cause explosions but earlier pleaded guilty to possession of the chemicals.

Police discovered a huge stockpile of chemicals and food at his home in Colne, Lancashire last September.

Officers mounted the operation after Cottage’s wife told a social worker she was concerned about the substances and her husband’s belief that immigrants were swamping Britain.

He feared the country was on the brink of civil war.

He appeared at Manchester’s Crown Square Court to be sentenced in relation to the charge of possession.

Cottage’s barrister Alistair Webster QC said his client accepted he had bought the potassium nitrate and sulphur planning to manufacture gunpowder, but said this would only be used to create “thunder flash” style bangers to scare off intruders.

Sentencing Cottage, Mrs Justice Swift said Cottage’s actions had been “criminal and potentially dangerous”.

She added a pre-sentence report said Cottage held “over valued ideas” but said there was a low risk of him committing further offences.

She said: “It is important to understand that Cottage’s intention was that if he ever had to use the thunder flashes it was only for the purpose of deterrents. I am satisfied it was Cottage’s views on how he put it, ‘the evils of uncontrolled immigration’, would lead to civil war which would be imminent and inevitable.”

Oh well that’s all right then, since he was paranoid. Every paranoid should be able to stockpile explosive, if it makes them feel more secure. He’s a low risk, they say, only a danger to non-whites; so what’s our problem?

Apparently it’s OK to be a virulent racist and plan explosions, but innocently pass on a sim card with some credit on it to a relative and you get banged up and then deported, your life and career ruined for ever.

What Lies Beneath

Published on July 27, 2007

No this isn’t about the horrible floods, except as they’re being used by the Brown government to bury things they really don’t want us to notice.

How very convenient that the papers’re full of strong-jawed resolute Gordon overseeing natural disaster and that the usual attack-dogs, Paxman, Humphreys et al, are all off in Tuscany or Cornwall or fly-fishing in Iceland till the end of August.

Take the Guardian, for example, which couldn’t be giving Brown an easier ride; here’s Jonathan Freedland:

It’s been an intense initiation, but people are listening to Labour again

Brown’s first month, and his carefully signalled priorities, look like a success, despite the unexpectedly tough start

More…

Gordon is sitting pretty with the media right now, which means the Brown regime can get away with being equally as politically corrupt as Blair ever was, but with hardly anyone noticing.

Item one: Brown took a leaf out of the Karl Rove playbook this week and did an info dump the day before Parliament recessed; quite a lot of important announcements were made all at once, not least the least interesting of which is that the chair of the Guardian media group has been appointed to his fourth government post. (Why don’t they just rename it the Brown Guardian and have done?)

None of these announcements can be questioned in parliament because it’s not sitting and as mentioned the parliamentary reporters are away on holiday so by the time parliament returns events will have overtaken any questions anyway.

Nod, nod, wink wink, say no more.

Item two: Leader of the House and Secretary of State Harriet Harman also tried the same trick in the Commons, waiting until the very last moment to try and ourageously push through the appointment of the odious Keith Vaz as chair of the Home Affairs Select committee, the supposedly independent, cross-party parliamentary body which oversees all executive actvity in prisons, terrorism, policing, community cohesion and so on.

It’s hard to overestimate the potential power that the Chair of a truly independent Home Affairs select committe could have to hold a rampant executive to account – so of course Brown seeks to decapitate it by disregarding the constitution and getting one cabinet puppet to interfere in another branch of government and appoint another puppet as committee chair. Simon Carr in the Independent:

{…]

…may we express some post-honeymoon scepticism about the PM’s assertions on the value of an independent Commons as well. He doesn’t believe anything of the sort.

As a result, Harriet Harman had great lumps torn out of her on the floor of the House. There was that, at least.

She had suspended Standing Orders in order to appoint Keith Vaz as the new member of the Home Affairs Select Committee (and, under the whips’ instructions, to be the next chair of it).

It’s fairly clear Harriet knew Vaz was the replacement last Monday, when the appointments committee was due to sit. But as Sir George Young said, and as its chair, Rosemary McKenna, confirmed “there was no government business to conduct so the meeting was cancelled”.

Harriet then springs her surprise motion the day before the House rises for the recess.

Richard Shepherd: “To the casual viewer, this looks like the Government choosing who shall be chairman of the Home Affairs Committee… This looks like executive control over the choices of the Chamber and bypassing the very function of the Committee of Selection. It is outrageous!”

Also, “great discredit” (Simon Hughes), “withdraw the motion” (George Young), “I suppose we have to accept [it] at face value” (Nicholas Winterton), “Will the Leader of the House give way?” (Douglas Hogg, George Young, Richard Shepherd, John Bercow.) “I’m an idiot” (Harriet Harman).

Yes, all right, you’re so pernickety. It’s true that one of those quotations has been fabricated

It was just a matter of timing, she said. She wasn’t in a position to put forward his name on Monday, she said.

She’s not a real QC, you know.

Under Vaz’s leadership, we can speculate that the committee will now come out in favour of 58-day detention without charge and that the body of the acting chairman, David Winnick, will be found swinging under Blackfriars Bridge. This is for the future.

More…

Not only Gordon Brown is trying to put the government in charge of oversight of itself he’s rubbing salt in the wound by appointing the sleazy Keith Vaz, a man with several alleged stains on his character.

In February 2000 the Parliamentary standards watchdog Elizabeth Filkin was requested to investigate allegations of undisclosed payments to Vaz from businessmen in his constituency.[1] The following year, 2001, members of the opposition began to question what role Vaz may have played in helping the billionaire Indian Hinduja brothers – linked with a corruption probe in India – to secure UK passports.

In March 2001, the Filkin report cleared Vaz of nine of the 18 allegations of various financial wrongdoings, but Elizabeth Filkin accused Mr Vaz of blocking her investigation into eight of the allegations. He was also censured for one allegation – that he failed to register two payments worth £450 in total from Sarosh Zaiwalla, a solicitor whom he recommended for an honour several years later.

Mrs Filkin announced in the same month a new inquiry which would focus on whether or not a company connected to Vaz received a donation from a charitable foundation run by the Hinduja brothers. The results of the inquiry were published in 2002 and it was concluded that Vaz had “committed serious breaches of the Code of Conduct and a contempt of the House” and it was recommended that he be suspended from the House of Commons for one month[2].

Keith Vaz was also a director of the company General Mediterranean Holdings’ owned by the Anglo-Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, who had in the past hired British politicians Lord David Steel and Lord Norman Lamont as directors. Vaz resigned his post as director when he became Minister for Europe, but it was later discovered that he had remained in contact with Auchi and had made enquiries on his behalf over a French extradition warrant, Auchi even calling Vaz at home to ask the minister for advice.

And this is the man who should have parliamentary oversight of policing?

What lies beneath the superficial veneer of Brown’s strong-jawed manly Scottish probity is the same old corrupt New Labour. He can reverse the gambling bill, take his conspicuously low-key and self-denying holidays in an eco-friendly country cottages in Scotland, he can push his ‘son of the manse’, prudence and probity schtick as much as he likes, but that’s all it is, a veneer; underneath nothing has changed. It’s just another face on the same old Labour sleaze.

UPDATE: To further reinforce my point, I jjust came across this:

NI minimum wage ‘may be reduced’

Mr Brown is believed to be considering reducing the minimum wage in NI
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is considering plans which could see the minimum wage reduced in Northern Ireland, it is believed.

The minimum wage is set at £5.35 across the UK, however, if the plans go ahead it will be reduced in NI, Scotland, Wales and the north east of England.

[My emphasis]

That’s only 10,272 pounds annually for a 50 week, 40 hour week year- before tax. the national average after tax is 22,202.

For comparison’s sake, MP’s salaries are over 60,000 pounds annually (and are about to rise by another 2%, at least) plus allowances of around 85,000 pounds, plus special responsibility allowances and perks for ministers.