new jersey political consultant facing bribe charge is found dead

flashback: top nj god/govt leaders arrested in black market scandal
from nytimes: A veteran New Jersey political consultant who was among dozens arrested in a huge corruption sweep last week was found dead in his Jersey City apartment on Tuesday, the same day that one of three mayors charged in the case resigned. The circumstances surrounding the death of the consultant, Jack M. Shaw, are “suspicious,” said Edward J. DeFazio, the Hudson County prosecutor. He said it did not appear to be a homicide. “It could be natural, it could be accidental, it could be suicide,” he said, refusing to elaborate. An autopsy is set for Wednesday. His death, reported by a companion to the authorities at 5:17 p.m., came hours after Dennis Elwell, the mayor of Secaucus, stepped down, becoming the first elected official to quit after being charged in the sprawling political corruption case.

related: kidney brokers flourish when compensation is illegal
from wsj: Even by New Jersey standards, Thursday’s roundup of three mayors, five rabbis and 36 others on charges of money laundering and public corruption was big. But what put this FBI dragnet head and shoulders above the rest are the charges of trafficking in human body parts. According to a federal criminal complaint filed in district court in New Jersey, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn conspired to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant. The cost was $160,000 to the recipient of the transplant, of which the donor got $10,000. According to the complaint, Mr. Rosenbaum said he had brokered such sales many times over the past 10 years. “That it could happen in this country is so shocking,” said Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the Red Cross. No, it isn’t. When I needed a kidney several years ago and had no donor in sight, I would have considered doing business with someone like Mr. Rosenbaum. The current law — the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 — gave me little choice. I would be a felon if I compensated a donor who was willing to spare me years of life-draining dialysis and premature death.

(note: the author of the preceding article is dr sally satel, a resident scholar at the american enterprise institute & the editor of “when altruism isn’t enough: the case for compensating kidney donors”. satel got a kidney from a friend in '06.)

obamessiah: the jersey girls, kissinger & carter

apparently the 'jersey girls' have gone ga-ga for the obamessiah & forgotten all about the unanswered questions of 9/11...

9/11 families applaud obama at meeting on guantanamo
from washington post: President Obama assured relatives and victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the bombing of the USS Cole that he is keeping an open mind about how to handle the approximately 245 detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to participants in an hour-long meeting yesterday at the White House...

Lorie Van Auken, a leader of September 11th Advocates, a group headed by four New Jersey women who lost their husbands in the attacks, called the meeting "impressive," saying Obama gave detailed answers to their questions and allayed many of their concerns. She said the president did not rule out some form of military commissions in the future and acknowledged shortcomings in dealing with terrorism suspects in regular criminal courts. "He acknowledged this was quite a mess and it really needed to be looked at by his legal team and by him," said Van Auken, whose husband, Kenneth Van Auken, was killed in the World Trade Center and whose group supports closing Guantanamo Bay. "I think everybody recognized, no matter which side of the issue they're on, that this is a quagmire that will not be solved easily."

Mindy Kleinberg, another member of the group, said Obama also made clear that "nobody is just going to get freed by the closing of Guantanamo. I think the point was that you have to make sure they have a system in place that can actually work," said Kleinberg, whose husband, Alan Kleinberg, also died in the World Trade Center. "I think even the people who came to the meeting who wanted to keep it open could understand his point of view."

kissinger sent to russia to cut new world order deal
from kurt nimmo: It is yet another glaring example there is no difference between Bush, Obama, or anybody else anointed by the global elite to serve as presidential window dressing — the Daily Telegraph reports this morning that former Reichsminister of State and Rockefeller minion Henry Kissinger was dispatched by the Obama administration to talk with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev about reducing stockpiles of nuclear warheads. “The decision to send Mr. Kissinger to Moscow, taken by Mr Obama when he was still president-elect, is part of a plan to overcome probable Republican objections in Congress,” reports Adrian Blomfield, Moscow correspondent for the British newspaper. It is said the “secret negotiations” were conducted in December. Obama, of course, runs nothing and the reprehensible octogenarian war criminal Kissinger was dispatched on orders of the elite, not Obama. It is said Kissinger had a sit-down with former Russian boss Vladimir Putin at his country house outside of Moscow. “While the details of the ambitious initiative are yet to be revealed, the proposal to return to the negotiating table after eight years of reluctance in Washington has been welcomed in Britain and elsewhere,” reports the Daily Telegraph.

newt compares obama to carter
(well, they are both brzezinski puppets)
from politico: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich issued a sharp critique of President Barack Obama's speech before House Democrats in Williamsburg, Va. "It shrinks his presidency," said Gingrich Friday at the American Enterprise Institute. "I thought last night's speech in Williamsburg actually was a lot more like Carter and a long way from Reagan." Gingrich spoke as part of a panel debate titled "Rendezvous with Destiny," which examined the life and legacy of former President Ronald Reagan. Gingrich hosts a documentary film of the same name, produced by Citizens United, a conservative research organization.

police state usa: pandemic drills, cog, corruption & surveillance

'vigilant guard' managers put the kaboom in terrorism exercises
from national guard bureau: KaBOOM! Exercise managers for the Vigilant Guard homeland security exercise here added realism Sept. 16 by blowing up balloons filled with explosive gas. KaPOW! They tested the balloons today. Tomorrow the noisemakers will prompt police swat teams to move in on a suspected fake terrorist hideout at a hotel. Along with phony blown up cars, it’s all been fabricated by the National Guard’s civilian exercise managers. Vigilant Guard began here Sept. 12 with a regional tabletop exercise at the Guam Guard’s Joint Forces Headquarters. It continues through this week, culminating with a simulated terrorist attack on the island’s Tumon Beach, which is a popular tourist and vacation spot.

atf missing 418 laptops & 76 guns
from ap: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) lost 76 weapons and hundreds of laptops over five years, the Justice Department reported Wednesday (3.4mb PDF), blaming carelessness and sloppy record-keeping. Thirty-five of the missing handguns, rifles, Tasers and other weapons were stolen, as were 50 laptops, the internal audit found. Two of the stolen weapons were used in crimes. The audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found "inadequate" oversight of weapons and laptops resulted in "significant rates of losses" at the ATF.

oklahoma firefighters team up with wmd unit for drill
from kten: Wednesday in Ardmore, The National Guard's 63rd Weapons Of Mass Destruction Team out of Norman, paired up with local emergency responders to conduct a mock drill. The drill involved a chemical release in The Ardmore Convention Center with a large group of people inside. KTEN's Hailee Holliday reports.


burlington participates in pandemic experiment
from wcax: Burlington is one of nine test markets in the country taking part in a flu pandemic preparation exercise. The experiment will focus on prevention - like hand washing - and what to do in case of an outbreak. Health authorities say preparing is crucial because it's not a question of if we will have another major flu outbreak, but when.

drive-through clinic offers booster shots targeting hepatitis a
from buffalo news: There were no burgers or fries at this drive-through. This weekend, hepatitis A booster shots are being given out drive-through style at the Amherst Highway Garage. On Saturday, hundreds of people rolled down their windows and pulled up their sleeves to receive the booster shot in their arms — without leaving their cars. “We’ve had minivans with entire families pull up and single cars, too,” said Daniel Neaverth, Erie County deputy commissioner of emergency medical services. By 3 p. m., more than 300 people had participated... The idea was to administer the shots in the most efficient way possible. But it also served as an exercise in giving out mass doses of a vaccine in the event of a pandemic outbreak or a biological attack. Neaverth said Erie County is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “City Readiness Initiative.” Participants are encouraged to develop new ways to administer medicines to the masses.

military aircraft to conduct training exercises over washdc
from wtop: If you see and hear military aircraft overhead Wednesday and Thursday, it's just an exercise. The North American Aerospace Defense Command starts conducting a two-day exercise in the D.C. area Wednesday. The exercise, a series of training flights, is designed to hone NORAD's intercept and identification operations. Civil Air Patrol and Coast Guard helicopters will participate in the exercise. The training flights were occur during late night and early morning hours. In the event of inclement weather, NORAD will run the exercise on the next clear day until the exercise has been completed.

nation inadequately prepared for severe pandemic
from govtech: States are making significant progress toward safeguarding their citizens against an influenza pandemic, but the nation as a whole remains inadequately prepared for a severe pandemic outbreak according to a new report by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center). The report, Pandemic Preparedness in the States: An Assessment of Progress and Opportunity (412kb PDF), presents an overall appraisal of the current level of pandemic preparedness in the states and offers recommendations for improvement in five areas. "Even though this issue largely has fallen off the public's radar, states recognize that successfully managing a pandemic outbreak requires a sustained effort to combat the threat in all sectors of the economy and in society as a whole," said Chris Logan, program director of the NGA Center's Homeland Security and Technology Division. "The conclusions of this report serve a vital national service: they demonstrate both the extent of our readiness as well as the gaps in our current preparedness."

neocon think tank says US still lacks good continuity plan
from aei: Seven years is a long time, but the enormity and depravity of the acts are fresh. Nonetheless, one would think that seven years is enough time for even a slow-moving political system to create basic insurance to prevent the kind of chaos and injury to the American constitutional system that would come with another, more successful, attack on official Washington. Never mind. In one of the more shameworthy lapses in our dysfunctional government, especially in Congress, nothing constructive has been done to protect our elections, our legislative branch, our presidential succession process or our Supreme Court from the consequences of the kind of terrorist attack that every expert we have believes is quite likely to occur in the future... The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 has no relevance to the challenges and potential disasters of 2008 and beyond... We are approaching an inauguration that will be historic in many ways--and also the single most vulnerable day for our constitutional system. The plans to ensure that the worst-case scenario there will not turn into an even worse scenario for the country and its future? Zero. Happy seventh anniversary.

mass surveillance plan fast-tracked by the nypd
from antifascist calling: Last month Antifascist Calling reported on a scheme by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to encircle Manhattan with thousands of surveillance cameras and sensors that would photograph all vehicles entering the city. Information captured by this intrusive system would be stored in a huge database for an undisclosed period of time. That plan is now moving forward with a vengeance.

new york offers 'enhanced' rfid driver’s licenses
from times union: Starting Tuesday, New Yorkers will be able to buy new driver's licenses containing a radio chip that will let them travel between the U.S. and Canada or Mexico without a passport. The new Enhanced Drivers License, which will cost an additional $30 on top of the standard $50 license fee, also will allow those on boats or ships to travel to Bermuda and Caribbean nations without a passport. Starting in June, federal law will dictate that passports or other proof of citizenship - or an enhanced license - will be needed to visit neighboring countries, including Canada and Mexico. "This is an opportunity for individuals, at their option, to get through the borders more quickly," said Ken Brown, a spokesman for the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

mukasey's justice dept codifies cointelpro into fbi 'ground rules'
from 9/11 blogger: Every once in a while, the Washington Post actually prints something of note. Yesterday, they published this article, Rule Changes Would Give FBI Agents Extensive New Powers. Previously, the FBI was required to have a case before they started screwing around with you. Under Mukasey's "New Rules", we now have a situation ripe for abuse. The Justice Department is currently working out the wording for placing "undisclosed participants" in organizations... Just in time for the November elections.

lieberman wins: youtube bans videos that incite violence
from washington post: The video-sharing service YouTube is banning submissions that involve "inciting others to violence," following criticism from Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) that the site was too open to terrorist groups disseminating militant propaganda. The company earlier this year removed some of the videos that Lieberman targeted, many of which were marked with the logos of al-Qaeda and affiliated groups. But the company refused to take down most of the videos on the senator's list, saying they did not violate the Web site's guidelines against graphic violence or hate speech. Now that videos inciting others to violence are banned, more videos by the terrorist groups in question may be removed. "YouTube reviews its content guidelines a few times a year, and we take the community's input seriously," YouTube spokesman Ricardo Reyes said. "The senator made some good points."

military industrial complex 2.0
from information clearinghouse: Seven years into George W. Bush's Global War on Terror, the Pentagon is embroiled in two big wars, a potentially explosive war of words with Tehran, and numerous smaller conflicts – and it is leaning ever more heavily on private military contractors to get by. Once upon a time, soldiers did more than pick up a gun. They picked up trash. They cut hair and delivered mail. They fixed airplanes and inflated truck tires. Not anymore. All of those tasks are now the responsibility of private military corporations. In the service of the Pentagon, their employees also man computers, write software code, create integrating systems, train technicians, manufacture and service high-tech weapons, market munitions, and interpret satellite images. People in ties or heels, not berets or fatigues, today translate documents, collect intelligence, interpret for soldiers and interrogators, approve contracts, draft reports to Congress, and provide oversight for other private contractors. They also fill prescriptions, fit prosthetics, and arrange for physical therapy and psychiatric care. Top to bottom, the Pentagon's war machine is no longer just driven by, but staffed by, corporations.

photo ticket cameras to track drivers nationwide
from the newspaper: Private companies in the US are hoping to use red light cameras and speed cameras as the basis for a nationwide surveillance network similar to one that will be active next year in the UK. Redflex and American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the top two photo enforcement providers in the US, are quietly shopping new motorist tracking options to prospective state and local government clients. Redflex explained the company's latest developments in an August 7 meeting with Homestead, Florida officials.

smile for the cameras
from willamette week: Portland Public Schools is giving the bus company that schleps around students $18,000 to buy 20 digital cameras to monitor rider behavior on district buses. The school board OK’d the expenditure at its Sept. 15 meeting on top of the district’s $58 million contract with Laidlaw Transit, now doing business as First Student. Andy Leibenguth, of the district’s transportation office, says no incident precipitated the camera purchase. The district isn’t targeting a specific route; it plans to rotate the cameras, which will supplement the 15 cameras First Student already uses.

selling a war with iran

cheney orders media to sell attack on iran
from paul joseph watson: Dick Cheney has ordered top Neo-Con media outlets, including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, to unleash a PR blitz to sell a war with Iran from today, according to Barnett Rubin, the highly respected Afghanistan expert at New York University.

The New Yorker magazine reports that Rubin had a conversation with a member of a top neoconservative institution in Washington, who told him that "instructions" had been passed on from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day.

"It will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects, writes Rubin, "It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this—they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is 'plenty'.”

israel urged US to attack iran - not iraq
from gareth porter: Israeli officials warned the George W Bush administration that an invasion of Iraq would be destabilizing to the region and urged the United States instead to target Iran as the primary enemy, according to former Bush administration official Lawrence Wilkerson.

Wilkerson, then a member of the US State Department's policy planning staff and later chief of staff for secretary of state Colin Powell, recalled in an interview that the Israelis reacted immediately to indications that the Bush administration was thinking of war against Iraq. After the Israeli government picked up the first signs of that intention, said Wilkerson, "The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy - Iran is the enemy."

Wilkerson describes the Israeli message to the Bush administration in early 2002 as being, "If you are going to destabilize the balance of power, do it against the main enemy."

The warning against an invasion of Iraq was "pervasive" in Israeli communications with the US administration, Wilkerson recalled. It was conveyed to the administration by a wide range of Israeli sources, including political figures, intelligence, and private citizens.

Wilkerson noted that the main point of their communications was not that the US should immediately attack Iran, but that "it should not be distracted by Iraq and Saddam Hussein" from a focus on the threat from Iran.

aei: the root of bush’s right-wing ideology

from think progress: Today, President Bush delivered a speech on Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. AEI and the Bush administration are deeply entwined, something Bush admitted during his speech. “I admire AEI a lot,” Bush said. “After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people. More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration.”

Below are a few examples of the people and ideas that AEI has shared - or tried to share - with the Bush White House over recent years:

– Escalation. President Bush’s escalation plan is based on a report by AEI scholar Frederick Kagan. CNN reporter Suzanne Malveaux said of AEI’s influence on Iraq policy: “One conservative policy group that has the president’s ear and is influencing his thinking is the American Enterprise Institute.”

– The Cheneys. Dick Cheney served as AEI Senior Fellow from 1993-1995, and his wife Lynn currently serves as Senior Fellow studying education and children. “Both Lynne and I have a long history with the American Enterprise Institute, and we value the association,” Vice President Cheney said in 2005.

– Bomb Iran. “We must bomb Iran,” AEI Resident Scholar Joshua Muravchik wrote in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. Muravchik called for an “air campaign against Tehran’s nuclear facilities”

– Richard Perle. Perle has been at AEI since 1987, and currently serves as a Resident Fellow. A leading neoconservative, Perle was a fierce proponent of regime change in Iraq. He served as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board from 2001 to 2003.

– John Bolton. Served as Senior Vice President of AEI before coming to the Bush administration. Bolton currently serves as a Senior Fellow at AEI. “There is no such thing as the United Nations,” Bolton said. “If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

– Climate change inaction. AEI offered $10,000 to climate change deniers to speak out against the recent IPCC climate change study.

– Karl Zinsmeister. Worked for 12 years at the American Enterprise magazine. He became Bush’s top domestic policy adviser, but only after he admitted to padding his resume.

– Social Security privatization. AEI has long been a vocal supporter of Social Security privatization.

– Greg Mankiw. A visiting scholar at AEI, Mankiw served as Bush’s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005. In 2004, Mankiw said the outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas was “probably a plus for the economy in the long run.”

– John Yoo. Currently a visiting scholar for AEI, and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel of the Department of Justice. Yoo authored the infamous torture memo that argued interrogation techniques only constituted torture if they are “equivalent in intensity to… organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”