Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.
Diesel Civil Trust
Investigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions — involving banks, land deals, loan payments, casinos and even plastic surgery — made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion program.
March 5 (Bloomberg) — The former mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for taking $241,000 in bribes in exchange for giving $7.2 million in sewer-bond and derivatives business to a friend who was an investment banker.
Three days of hell
Part 1: At the start of the Iranian election/post-election
Part 2: As the protests continued…
Part 3: The unimaginable torture…
Part 4: When things got more violent…
Part 5: June 24th - “The Day of the Axes”There was going to be a gathering at a cemetery in Tehran to commemorate the deaths of the people that have been killed in the protests. It was going to be a peaceful gathering, and wasn’t supposed to turn into a protest. Mousavi was going to seek an OK from the government for the gathering. The Interior Ministry refused to issue a permit for the gatherings. Everyone I knew that was going wasn’t surprised and was all going to show up anyway, especially myself and other people who lost someone in the protests. The gatherings were still planned anyway. I heard that day that even Mousavi and some of the other reformist leaders were going to visit the graves of the protests to also pay their respects to those people. I went to it anyway and was arrested, along with a lot of other people that day.
The only thing that could be described after that when I was arrested and was detained was going to be my three days of feeling like I was in hell. I thought the torture from the first time was bad enough, but it seemed a lot less severe than the torture that was going to happen during those three days in the prison that I was in. Most people had been taken to places like Evin prison or Kahrizak detention center. There was one that most people didn’t even know existed until after the protests — Level Minus Four detention center, an underground detention center that’s part of the Intelligence Ministry. The torture there seemed to be some of the worst, probably worse than that of the other prisons.
On the first day there, when they got us tehre, they staff started to search for severely injured people and gave them a little bit of aid. Some of the injured people had already passed out and a taxi driver that was there looked like he was already dead by that time. All types of government agents came and went. They were moving people. They were forcing people to just walk or to just stand for a really long time to prevent people from sitting down. I had no energy and could barely stand up. I leaned against a wall at one point to try to regain a bit of strength but when I did I was beaten. It looked like they had no idea what they were going to do with all the people that were there.
I noticed there were probably around 100 people that were in each room at first and there wasn’t enough space to sit on the ground. The officers were randomly beating up people in there. They were hitting people in the head and in there faces. They were trying to hit people as hard as they could. I was hit in the face really hard and I felt jaw my break after the fourth strike to my face. The beatings were brutal because they were using all their force and just wouldn’t stop hitting people. They weren’t giving people any food or any water.
The beatings were horrible and were with not only batons/electric batons, but with whatever else they could find. They were beating people mostly with electric batons, and sometimes regular batons. I was hit a few times with an electric baton and it was the worse feeling to have that shock go through my body. After that, they were starting to use cords to lash people with right in the back. I was hit several times with a cord and it was the worst pain that I had ever felt at the time the different times that cord was hitting my back. I had been hung up by my wrists again, and the lashings were so hard but I felt too weak to scream out in pain and my jaw was in pain that I couldn’t even open up my mouth for anything. It hadn’t even been that much time in there and already I was starting to lose all hope of being released and thought this was really going to be the moment that meant death for me.
After what seemed like hours of being hung up by my wirsts with chains, they finally let me out of the chains. I wasn’t thinking about what was going to happen next. The beatings had still continued for everyone that was there. Someone asked me if I knew where we were and I responded to him with just one simple word “Hell.” They were breaking people’s fingers, every other bone that they could break, and these other forms of beatings and of torture. They seemed to only just want to inflict as much pain as possible as they could on everyone they. Anything they knew was going to inflict a lot of pain — they did it. This continued all day. Even through the night, they were depriving people of getting any sleep.
On the second day, it looked like they were getting a little more organized and they started searching for any special cases with the people that were detained. After that, they moved me and some other people to a harsher environment. The beatings continued. I was hung up by my wrists again and was continually beaten and even lashed with a cord. It seemed like it only got a lot worse from the first day in there. I was just hanging there for a while. I was starting to want to death to come to me because I just had this feeling inside that I was not going to be released and I didn’t want to spend years in this kind of place. I was beaten on every part of my body and blacked out a few times. I could feel blood dripped down my back from the lashings and from my head again. My entire body was more than sore. It was like this for hours that day. I was nearly covered in my own blood from the beatings and the lashes.
In the early afternoon a man came in and said that we were going to be released that day. An hour later another person came in and told us that we were going to be in prison for 5 years. They continued to use things like electric cables to beat people with. They were breaking people’s fingers, people’s hands again. I saw some people lose consciousness from the pain and once they regained consciousness the beatings continued again. I lost consciousness a few times in that same time. One of the officers that was there refused to beat any of the detainees, and he looked like he was feeling bad for what was going on, and they arrested him right there and started beating him also. The beatings on everyone continued. I lost consciousness once during that time and woke up and felt blood dripping down my face and down the back of my head, felt a lot of blood dripping down my back. I saw one person that was in the same room that I was die from the severe beatings.
That same day some plainclothes officers came in with papers forcing people to sign them. The papers were all pre-written confessions all in different handwritings saying that the signer is a member of an organization by Mousavi. Some people signed the papers and some others would just fake their names. I didn’t know if I should sign my own name or sign a fake name. I almost didn’t see the point in signing a fake name because they already knew who I was and I thought that if I did that it would only make the situation even worse than it already was. There weren’t enough confession papers for everyone there. They were giving empty promises to people of freedom to people that signed them, but after most people signed them, they were never were released like they were told that they would be.
That entire night is one that plays over in my head sometimes and it is something that I wish that I could forget more than anything else. After a horrifying day of beatings and torture, I was taken to some solitary confinement room and I was sure it was where I was going to be stuck for those 5 years that I was told I was going to be in prison. I couldn’t even talk because my jaw was sore. I thought maybe this was going to be a time I could sleep a little bit at least and rest my eyes and regained just a little bit of strength. I was given some water by a guard but it was a mistake. The only thing I remembered not long after that was losing consciousness and then waking up, I don’t know how much longer after that, and my entire body felt strange. I felt strange. I couldn’t explain it then and I still can’t explain it now. I found out later what had happened then, that like others there that I had been drugged and raped by a guard. I heard claims of rape happening to men and women in prisons but didn’t think it was going to happen to me. I felt so much shame and more than violated. I had also been beaten while it happened. I felt more beaten up than I had before, I had more bruises all over me, welts on my arms and couldn’t move and could feel welts on my back. Even to this day, I still don’t feel the same because of it.
On the morning of the third day, a man came in and introduced himself as an Intelligence officer. He said that he was going record our confession with a camera. The other people and I that were told this were reluctant as to why this is what they were going to do that. He promised that if one of us confessed in front of the camera that they would free us all and that they would blur our face, that we would have nothing to worry about it. I didn’t believe it when I was told that, because of all the lies the government has said before about being released. It didn’t happen — there was no confession to a camera. There wasn’t any releases of people that were promised that. After that, I didn’t think I was ever going to be released after empty promises twice already and it not happening. The only thing I hoped at that point that was at least my family would know that I love them and would somehow seek to find out the truth about what happened.
Throughout the day, the beatings continued. There were times where I would go over an hour and nothing would happen and I was hoping the beatings were going to continue. When they did, it only added to the extreme pain that I was already in and felt like it made things worse. I almost felt like death was close and in my mind I was hoping that it was. Everything was too much for me to handle and was too much for my body to handle to go through this any much longer. I wanted death at that pointed, it seemed like the only way it was all going to end.
Close to 11P.M. that night, everything stopped for me. They released me and I was just taken to this hospital to be treated for my injuries — injuries on my body and the minor internal injuries, along with some internal bleeding I had. The doctors at the hospital were forced by the government to not ask any questions to patients but to just treat them and not say anything else. They would just treat people and once they were treated, they were out of the hospitals and I wasn’t given any time to recover in the hospital. I was outside of Tehran at the hospital that I was at and knew where I was and stayed at a friend’s house for a couple of days to get some rest.
I will still never know why suddenly they just released me and a few of the other inmates that I was with during those three days. I never want to question it because I felt lucky that I was when I felt like it was never going to happen. The fat of a few people that I knew, I never knew after that and didn’t know if they were still alive after that point. I only hoped that if they were in the same place or in another prison that they were going to be released. I later found out that one of them died in prison from similar forms of torture they were going through. I never felt more lucky to be alive then I did when I was released even though I was badly injured and had a broken jaw and needed to have my mouth wired shut.
Three police officers were acquitted on all counts Monday morning in a Brooklyn police-brutality trial. The jury declared that Officer Richard Kern was not guilty of assaulting Michael Mineo in a Brooklyn subway station, therefore making the charges that two other officers helped him cover up the abuse irrelevant.
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico—A few weeks ago, Army Captain Ramón Velásquez got his introduction to Ciudad Juárez, ground zero in Mexico’s war against violent drug cartels.
![abbyjean:
After spending 35 years in prison for a rape that he didn’t commit, James Bain was finally released Thursday morning. Bain made five requests for DNA testing before a judge granted his motion. The testing eventually cleared him of the crime. Obviously, the state of Florida owes Bain a debt that can never be repaid.
[When exiting prison,] Bain shed his button-down plaid shirt for a black T-shirt that read “Not Guilty” before walking outside to address the crowd. Someone handed him a cell phone — the first time he has ever used one, he said. (via PostBourgie)](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kuu0ol8VhM1qz8tzlo1_250.jpg)
After spending 35 years in prison for a rape that he didn’t commit, James Bain was finally released Thursday morning. Bain made five requests for DNA testing before a judge granted his motion. The testing eventually cleared him of the crime. Obviously, the state of Florida owes Bain a debt that can never be repaid.
[When exiting prison,] Bain shed his button-down plaid shirt for a black T-shirt that read “Not Guilty” before walking outside to address the crowd. Someone handed him a cell phone — the first time he has ever used one, he said. (via PostBourgie)
During the turbulent days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, New Orleans police shot 10 civilians, at least four of whom died, according to interviews and internal police documents.
In New Orleans, Chaos in the Streets, and in Police Ranks Too - ProPublica (via abbyjean)
what do crime statistics tell us
via ezra One answer is very, very dangerous:
Baltimore is, statistically, the second-deadliest city in the USA; only in Detroit are you more likely to be murdered. Last year there were 234 homicides in the city, which has a population of 650,000. It was a 20-year-low, but still meant that one in every 2,700 people was murdered. In Britain, that figure is about one in 85,000.The other answer is that it depends on who you are:
One columnist at the Baltimore Sun recently described Baltimore as a city of two worlds. It is in the “other world”, the one populated by drug dealers and gangsters, that most murders occur. Those not involved in the drug trade are apparently as unlikely to be murdered in Baltimore as they are in any other civilised city in the world.
Figures seem to suggest that is true. Of the 234 murders last year, 194 of the victims (82 per cent) had criminal records and 163 (70 per cent) had a history of being arrested for drug offences.
I study racial disparities in criminal justice, but this still completely blew me away. I started clicking around and have ended up collecting links to a large number of quite amazing videos of racial interactions that would be great discussion-starters in class. The two segments that just make my jaw drop were broadcast last February on ABC 20-20’s “What Would You Do?” series last February. They are a little over six minutes each after a 15 second commercial*. The setup is a parking lot in a public park in a White suburb. In part 1, for several hours three White boys overtly vandalize a car. Dozens of White people walk by, looking but doing nothing. Only one ever calls the police; a few say something to the boys. It’s quite amazing to see. In part 2, three Black boys do the same thing: lots of people call the police, many more people intervene. On balance, a clear demonstration that failure to sanction overt White crime is part of a racial disparity pattern, not just response to Black crime. But the real shocker: while the White kids are vandalizing the car, the police DO get TWO 911 calls from the same parking lot. What they call about is Black people SLEEPING in a nearby car: they phone it in as “possible robbery!
scatterplot (via azspot)
From a professor who just testified in Congress, to a White House adviser appearing before a Jewish group and a former Marine driving home from work, Muslims across the country were shocked, angry and afraid that the attack would erode efforts to erase anti-Islamic stereotypes. Many Islamic leaders said the Fort Hood tragedy that left 13 dead and 30 wounded including the alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, could likely post the sternest test for U.S. Muslims since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “A lot of us work very hard for this country, to make America a better place,” said Muqtedar Khan, a progressive Muslim scholar who has just given Congressional testimony on U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan before Thursday’s attack. “And this one nut like Maj. Hasan comes along and in one crazy episode of a few seconds he undermines these years and years of hard work we are doing to make American Muslims part of the mainstream in the community.
The Associated Press: Another attack leaves US Muslims fearing backlash (via retropolitics) (via coitusandcopouts)
and the runner up is:
In which video games are blamed for a gang rape
Essentially, the current generation of violent video games are military-grade training/conditioning systems. They train players to commit the most obscene acts and even crimes without consequence. What many people fail to remember is that play, especially among children, is a rehearsal for real-life. As people play, so will they act in the real-world. If a young man is inclined to violence anyways – and most are – and has played Grand Theft Auto for several years, he will be more likely to accept real auto theft as an acceptable act. It’s not a certainty, very few things involving humans are, but it raises the likelyhood considerably.
Emphasis mine. Though I could emphasize the whole thing for sheer ignorance.
![abbyjean:
The Georgia Republican Party is sending out a political mailer disguised to look like an official U.S. Census survey. [A] news station learned of the scam when a voter called the station saying she was “upset” that Georgia Republicans would send out such a mailer, given that many Georgians, especially senior citizens, will not realize that it’s a political ploy and not an actual Census survey. The survey letter is titled the “2009 Congressional District Census. The outside of the envelope is stamped “Do Not Destroy, Official Document”. The survey lists a specific congressional district and includes an individual “Census Tracking Code”, with the request, “Please Respond by: November 16, 2009″. (think progress)
this sucks for two reasons: fradulent GOPs, and messing with the census!](http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ks3memterv1qz8tzlo1_400.jpg)
The Georgia Republican Party is sending out a political mailer disguised to look like an official U.S. Census survey. [A] news station learned of the scam when a voter called the station saying she was “upset” that Georgia Republicans would send out such a mailer, given that many Georgians, especially senior citizens, will not realize that it’s a political ploy and not an actual Census survey. The survey letter is titled the “2009 Congressional District Census. The outside of the envelope is stamped “Do Not Destroy, Official Document”. The survey lists a specific congressional district and includes an individual “Census Tracking Code”, with the request, “Please Respond by: November 16, 2009″. (think progress)
this sucks for two reasons: fradulent GOPs, and messing with the census!
Since 2001, perceptions of crime have become far worse even as the actual crime rate has remained stable. For 1991-2001, perceptions line up nicely with reality. But in 2002-2008, a larger percentage of Americans perceived an increase in crime than one would expect, given the actual crime rate. It appears that 2009 will only continue this trend. (monkey cage)
The Associated Press has done a study that concludes the rate of stop-and-frisks in the United States is increasing, not decreasing, with the lower crime rate. It shouldn’t be a surprise that black and Latino men are disproportionately targeted:
Police in major U.S. cities stop and question more than a million people each year — a sharply higher number than just a few years ago. Most are black and Hispanic men. Many are frisked, and nearly all are innocent of any crime, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press. And the numbers are rising at the same time crime rates are dropping.
Excessive stop-and-frisks contribute to the poisonous climate between law enforcement and the communities most hurt by crime. It’s counterproductive, and in the long run it probably makes crimes harder to solve because people in the community see the police as antagonists rather than protectors.
One of the more inane points made after Barack Obama’s election was the suggestion that his presidency would have some sort of magical effect on the isolated black urban poor, and reduce crime in those neighborhoods. That hasn’t happened, but the flipside is that he hasn’t fundamentally changed the way people think about race and crime.
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