U.S. Supreme Court Decision on Hearing for Troy Davis Scheduled for Today

When the U.S. Supreme Court meets Monday to decide Troy Anthony Davis’ fate, its nine justices face a fairly straightforward question: Is there sufficient doubt about Davis’ guilt to warrant further scrutiny of his case?

Davis needs four justices to vote “yes.” Otherwise, his execution, halted by the high court less than two hours before it was to be carried out Tuesday evening, will be rescheduled. The court is expected to announce its decision by Oct. 6.

The high court’s granting the stay at such a late hour, while not unprecedented, indicates the case has the justices’ interest, court watchers said.

“The court can grant a stay and then refuse to hear a case, but they don’t issue the stay lightly,” said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who specializes in arguing cases before the high court. “They are thinking about it hard.”

The stay infuriated the family of slain Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail. They had traveled Tuesday to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson to witness the execution. But it sent Davis’ family and supporters, who arrived at the prison in a church bus to stage a protest, into a jubilant frenzy.

Davis sits on death row for the Aug. 19, 1989, murder of MacPhail, a 27-year-old officer shot dead after he responded to the wails of a homeless man being pistol whipped in a Burger King parking lot. The former Army Ranger and father of two, working off-duty as a security guard, did not have time to draw his gun before being shot three times.

Davis was convicted with scant physical evidence: no DNA, no fingerprints, no murder weapon.

Since the 1991 trial, seven of nine key witnesses who testified against Davis, 39, have recanted their testimony. These include trial witnesses who testified they saw what happened, as well as witnesses who testified Davis told them he killed MacPhail. More witnesses have come forw

The Noose Tightens

“Since 9/11, our Constitutional rights have been systematically dismantled:USA Patriot Act - A 342 page document presented to Congress one day before voting on it that allows the government access to your bank and email accounts, as well as your medical and phone records with no court order. They can also search your home anytime [...]

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U.S. Army Raiders Plan Permanent Presence on Americas Streets

As the burgeoning American police state continues to form, it appears that the U.S. military wants in on the action according to a recent Army Times article appearing below.The article indicates that the Army’s 3rd Infantry Divisions 1st Brigade Combat Team, also known as the ‘Raiders‘, has been assigned to U.S. Northern Command located at [...]

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[Source: War On You

Secret Kentucky Fried Chicken Recipe Moved Via High Security Motorcade

Colonel Harland Sanders' handwritten recipe of 11 herbs and spices was removed Tuesday from safekeeping at KFC's corporate offices for the first time in decades. The temporary relocation is allowing KFC to revamp security around a yellowing sheet of paper that contains one of the country's most famous corporate secrets.So important is the 68-year-old concoction that coats the chain's Original Recipe chicken that only two company executives at any time have access to it. The company refuses to release their names or titles, and it uses multiple suppliers who produce and blend the ingredients but know only a part of the entire contents.

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[Source: Disinfo.com

Mainstream Media Wakes Up To Salvia (How Long Before It's Outlawed Now?)

With a friend videotaping, 27-year-old Christopher Lenzini of Dallas took a hit of Salvia divinorum, regarded as the world’s most potent hallucinogenic herb, and soon began to imagine, he said, that he was in a boat with little green men. Mr. Lenzini quickly collapsed to the floor and dissolved into convulsive laughter.


When he posted the video on YouTube this summer, friends could not get enough. “It’s just funny to see a friend act like a total idiot,” he said, “so everybody loved it.”

Until a decade ago, the use of salvia was largely limited to those seeking revelation under the tutelage of Mazatec shamans in its native Oaxaca, Mexico.

Today, this mind-altering member of the mint family is broadly available for lawful sale online and in head shops across the United States.

Though older Americans typically have never heard of salvia, the psychoactive sage has become something of a phenomenon among this country’s thrill-seeking youth.

More than 5,000 YouTube videos — equal parts “Jackass” and “Up in Smoke” — document their journeys into rubber-legged incoherence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/us/09salvia.html

Marijuana Ingredient May Fight Bacteria

Researchers in Italy and Britain have found that the main active ingredient in marijuana — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — and related compounds show promise as antibacterial agents, particularly against microbial strains that are already resistant to several classes of drugs.

It has been known for decades that Cannabis sativa has antibacterial properties. Experiments in the 1950s tested various marijuana preparations against skin and other infections, but researchers at the time had little understanding of marijuana’s chemical makeup.

The current research, by Giovanni Appendino of the University of the Eastern Piedmont and colleagues and published in The Journal of Natural Products, looked at the antibacterial activity of the five most common cannabinoids. All were effective against several common multiresistant bacterial strains, although, perhaps understandably, the researchers suggested that the nonpsychotropic cannabinoids might prove more promising for eventual use.

The researchers say they do not know how the cannabinoids work or whether they would be effective, as systemic antibiotics would require much more research and trials. But the compounds may prove useful sooner as a topical agent against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, to prevent the microbes from colonizing on the skin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/science/09obdrug.html?_r=2&ref=science&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

What does a police state look like?

What does a police state look like? That is a good question. Maybe it looks something like this. Here is a photo of a small group of people trying to hold a demonstration in Denver at the Democratic Party convention. Notice the police overkill.But at least there is still freedom of the press! Right? Apparently [...]

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US: Halliburton Ex-OfficialPleads Guilty in Bribe Case

In a wide-ranging foreign-corruption investigation, fired former Halliburton Co. executive Albert J. "Jack" Stanley pleaded guilty to orchestrating more than $180 million in bribes to senior Nigerian government officials. The bribes were used to win a contract to build a liquefied-natural-gas plant in Nigeria.

Under a plea agreement entered Wednesday in a Houston federal court, Mr. Stanley faces seven years in prison and a $10.8 million restitution payment. His lawyer, Lee Kaplan, said, "We're hopeful the government finds his cooperation merits" a reduction in his prison sentence.

Mr. Stanley's agreement to cooperate could breathe new life into the five-year federal investigation, and additional charges of executives are possible. Various current and former executives of KBR, once a unit of Halliburton but now an independent company, have been subpoenaed, as have other companies involved in the construction.

The guilty plea exposes the corruption that sometimes goes hand in hand with enormous energy investments in Africa and other parts of the world. As energy companies search the world for oil and gas and related projects, they sometimes encounter foreign government officials whose approval is needed for investments but who seek bribes. Bribing such officials subjects companies and executives to possible prosecution under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

According to the plea, government prosecutors said bribes began in 1995, while Mr. Stanley worked for M.W. Kellogg, then part of a company called Dresser Industries Inc. Halliburton acquired Dresser in 1998 and merged M.W. Kellogg into an engineering and construction unit of Halliburton called Kellogg Brown & Root, or KBR.

Several of the bribes Mr. Stanley has said were paid occurred after that acquisition, during the time when Vice President Dick Cheney led Halliburton, and they continued after Mr. Cheney left. Though there was no evidence Mr. Cheney knew of the bribes, the future vice president promoted Mr. Stanley to run KBR in 1998. Mr. Stanley's guilty plea said the bribes continued until 2004, the year Halliburton fired him. Mr. Cheney's tenure as Halliburton chief executive ended in 2000.

The guilty plea thus could renew attention to Mr. Cheney's past ties to Halliburton. The oil-service company was the focus of intense scrutiny in Washington starting in late 2003 when evidence emerged of extensive overcharging for work in provisioning the U.S. war effort in Iraq. Pentagon auditors later found dozens of examples of shoddy billing and inadequate services, including evidence that a KBR subcontractor was supplying fuel to the Iraqi market at highly inflated prices.

Mr. Cheney was traveling in the Caucasus region Wednesday and couldn't be reached. His office in Washington said it wouldn't comment on "pending litigation."

Halliburton did not comment on the guilty plea, but it has said in financial filings that it has produced documents to investigators and made employees available for interviews. A spokeswoman for KBR Inc., which Halliburton spun off last year, said it hadn't reviewed the plea and couldn't comment, but that the company "does not in any way condone or tolerate illegal or unethical behavior."

Halliburton, despite no longer owning KBR, still faces investigations, including a federal criminal investigation and a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, governments in Switzerland, the U.K. and elsewhere are looking into the matter.

According to Mr. Stanley's plea, a construction consortium that included Kellogg and later KBR paid a combined $182 million, through two agents, to bribe Nigerian officials in a scheme to win a series of contracts. The work involved building a $6 billion facility to cool natural gas until it turns into a liquid and can be transported on thermoslike tankers. The facility was built on Bonny Island in the Nigerian River delta.

Mr. Stanley, 65 years old, said he and others met with Nigerian officials to ask how the illegal payment should be handled.

Mr. Stanley also pleaded guilty to taking $10.8 million in kickbacks from an agent of the construction firms. In 2004, Halliburton dismissed Mr. Stanley for taking "improper" payments from a British lawyer, Jeffrey Tesler. Mr. Tesler, who has denied wrongdoing in the past, is suspected by investigators of helping funnel money from the consortium to Nigerian officials.

The liquefied-natural-gas trade was beginning to boom in 1995, when what was then M.W. Kellogg first submitted a bid, along with three other companies. Mr. Stanley was Kellogg's representative on the consortium's steering committee and helped hire agents who would later bribe Nigerian officials to win engineering and construction contracts.

According to the federal filing in the case, the bribery scheme moved money through a series of banks, in Amsterdam, New York City, Japan and Switzerland, before it was paid to senior Nigerian government officials and a Nigerian political party. Mr. Tesler operated out of an office in a rundown north London immigrant neighborhood.

Allegations that bribes had been paid first surfaced in an unrelated case in France. A French magistrate began looking into the matter in October 2003, uncovering shell corporations in Gibraltar and bank accounts in Switzerland. U.S. investigators joined the hunt in January 2004, according to Halliburton SEC filings.

Over the years, the investigation has grown in scope. According to Halliburton's financial filings, the SEC has issued subpoenas looking into multiple construction projects initiated over the past two decades, both inside and outside Nigeria. The plea agreement Wednesday was the first time any executive had pleaded guilty in this investigation.

In the earlier focus on Halliburton over its supply work in Iraq, Democratic lawmakers accused Mr. Cheney of having helped steer work to Halliburton, and held hearings on the subject. The matter became an issue in the 2004 presidential election, during which Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry accused the Bush administration of being soft on Halliburton. The Stanley case, especially if it balloons to include still-more-senior Halliburton officials, could supply fresh ammunition for Democrats to attack the Bush administration and the Republican Party as being overly cozy with Big Oil.

--Neil King Jr. contributed to this article.

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Zodiac Killer's Identity And Weapon Uncovered?

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) " The Zodiac Killer attacked at least eight people, terrorizing the Bay Area and taunting police in the 60's and 70's. Thursday, the FBI confirmed to CBS13 they are now running laboratory tests on some items that may link a suspect to the killer. The evidence was given to the FBI by a Pollock Pines man who also claims he recently found the disguise worn by the Zodiac Killer during one of his attacks."The identity of the Zodiac Killer is Jack Tarrance. He's my stepfather," says Dennis Kaufman. Eight years of Dennis Kaufman's life has been consumed with attempting to prove the only father he's known since he was five-years-old is none other than the Zodiac Killer. "This a handwriting comparison I did," says Kaufman, showing handwriting samples claiming to be his father's and the Zodiac Killer's, which bear a striking similarity. Similarities Dennis says are no coincidence.Photo of Jack Tarrance (left) and a composite of the Zodiac Killer.

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Comcast to Limit Customers' Broadband Usage

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Comcast Corp, the largest U.S. cable operator, said on Thursday it will cap customers' Internet usage starting October 1, in a bid to ensure the best service for the vast majority of its subscribers. Comcast said it was setting a monthly data usage threshold of 250 gigabytes per account for all residential high-speed Internet customers, or the equivalent of 50 million e-mails or 124 standard-definition movies."If a customer exceeds more than 250 GB and is one of the heaviest data users who consume the most data on our high-speed Internet service, he or she may receive a call from Comcast's Customer Security Assurance (CSA) group to notify them of excessive use," according to the company's updated Frequently Asked Questions on Excessive Use. Customers who top 250 GB in a month twice in a six-month timeframe could have service terminated for a year.Comcast said up to 99 percent of its 14 million Internet subscribers would not be affected by the new threshold, which it said would help ensure the quality of Internet delivery is not degraded by a minority of heavy users. U.S. Internet subscribers are typically not aware of any limit on their Internet usage once they sign up to pay a flat monthly fee to their service provider.

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Red Cross Finds Military and Bush Administration Guilty of War Crimes!

In a secret report last year, the Red Cross found evidence of the CIA using torture on prisoners that would make the Bush administration guilty of war crimes, The New York Times reported Friday.The Red Cross determined the culpability of the Bush administration after interviewing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to the article.Prisoner Abu Zubaydahwho [...]

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[Source: Breaking News from WarOnYou.com - Posted by The King Of Videos; VIDZ KING]

U.S. Planned Nerve Gas Tests on Australian Soldiers

THE US military planned to test deadly nerve gas on Australian soldiers in far north Queensland during the Cold War, declassified documents reveal.

The Defence and Prime Minister's office files show that the US was strongly pushing then prime minister Harold Holt's government in the 1960s to allow tests of two of the deadliest chemical weapons ever developed -- VX and GB, better known as Sarin nerve gas.

The revelation airs this morning on the Nine Network's Sunday program.

It says the top secret plan involved allowing 200 mainly Australian combat troops to be aerially bombed and sprayed with the chemical weapons.

It's understood the Iron Range rainforest near Lockhart River in far north Queensland was the likely location for the tests.

Peter Bailey, a former senior official with Mr Holt, tells the program the request caused consternation in Canberra, and as far as he knows the tests never went ahead.

But he says planning was very advanced in the US, which wanted the operation to be kept secret because the weapons were illegal under international law..

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[Source: Breaking News from WarOnYou.com - Posted by Mint Dollar- The Federal Reserves Worst NightMare]

Federal judges decision renders Bush a felon

Last night on MSNBC’s Coundown, George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley noted that just this week, a federal judge rejected President Bush’s claim that his “constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped” the FISA wiretapping law. Judge Vaughn Walker explicitly stated that the President is bound by FISACongress appears clearly to have intended to [...]

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[Source: Breaking News from WarOnYou.com - Posted by Mint Dollar- The Federal Reserves Worst NightMare]

Kucinich to Present Impeachment Case to House Judiciary Committee

Democratic leaders have agreed to give Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich a day before the House Judiciary Committee to make his case that President Bush ought to be impeached for allegedly lying to Congress in order to get approval to invade Iraq.Kucinich, D-Ohio, has introduced three impeachment resolutions one against Bush (HRes 1258) and two [...]

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[Source: Breaking News from WarOnYou.com - Posted by Mint Dollar- The Federal Reserves Worst NightMare]

Ron Paul slams Federal Reserve as US money printing de-stabilize world

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has slammed the Federal Reserve for printing money to manipulate interest rates and undermining the salaries of workers and savings of older people.Paper money from pure fiat central banking, backed by nothing other than government debt - a process that was born after the gold standard was lifted by the United [...]

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[Source: War On You

CNBC: IRS Agent Joe Banister & Ron Paul

Former IRS CID Agent Joseph R Banister
and presidential candidate Ron Paul discuss the illegality of the income tax on a 2004 edition of CNBC's Special Report with Maria Bartiromo.

Watch Aaron Russo's AMERICA: Freedom To Fascism for free on Google Video to learn more about the illegality of the income tax.

Why Ron Paul still scares the GOP

Ron Paul won't quit the race, insisting that actual conservatives have a candidate to vote for at the Convention. He has been smeared as a racist by association, as now seems to be the main way to destroy or attempt to destroy any genuinely reformist politics in America. But his legacy will endure because, as Michael Grunwald points out, he actually represents something honorable:

When his fellow candidates denounced big government, Paul was there to remind them that President Bush and the G.O.P. Congress had shattered spending records and exploded the deficit. When they hailed freedom, Paul asked why they all supported the Patriot Act and other expansions of executive power. And when they called themselves conservatives, Paul asked what was so conservative about sending thousands of young Americans to try to transform the Middle East.

These questions have not and will not go away. At its very best, Iraq, it is now more than apparent, is a decades-long, bankrupting, utopian liberal attempt to build a democratic culture where no such culture has ever existed; and at worst, it is a corrupting, demoralizing cancer on America's reputation and power in the world. At home, the long term fiscal situation is at a crisis-level, with Republicans adding $32 trillion to future unfunded liabilities by the federal government in seven years, and with a commitment not to raise any more revenue for the indefinite future. Neither Obama nor Clinton has any plan to tackle this debt or to restrain entitlement spending in any serious way. Millions of private individuals have taken out idiotic mortgage loans on houses they cannot afford and should never have been reckless enough to buy. The dollar is headed into the toilet as much of the US economy is leveraged on the bona fides of a still-authoritarian regime that is currently brutally suppressing human rights in Tibet and across its territory.

For all his quirks, and for all his unseemly past associations, Ron Paul had some serious view about the gravity of the situation and a philosophy that was once called conservative and is now smeared as nuts. History will be far kinder to him that today's chattering classes.

Hillary's Economic Plan

Okay, stop the complaints about Democratic presidential candidates who won't face up to the financial crisis bearing down the country. Hillary Clinton stood up and shook her finger at it, kind of like her husband does. Her response seems a little goofy and maybe a sign the boys in her "war room" are losing their grip. On the other hand, what she said is exactly what you would expect her to say.

Speaking at the University of Pennsylvania Monday [AP story by Charles Babington] Senator Clinton proposed the government provide mortgage companies with protection against lawsuits by other investors. Say what? Isn't that the old Republican chestnut called "tort reform?" Shouldn't she have saved this nugget until after she wins the nomination and starts moving to the right for the fall campaign?

Her logic is strictly from financial. "Many mortgage companies are reluctant to help families restructure their mortgages because they are afraid of being sued by the investment banks, the private equity firms and others who actually own the mortgage papers," Clinton explained. Good thought. Maybe she could send along a few security guards. I hear mortgage lenders are afraid of being tarred and feathered by those families who were conned into buying the sure-to-fail mortgages.

It gets better. Senator Clinton further proposes (actually urges our defunct President to appoint) "an emergency working group on foreclosures" to come up with some answers She doesn't exactly call this a "blue-ribbon commission" but that's the idea. Clinton nominates for this prestigious group her own financial patron and economics guru Robert Rubin of Citigroup and former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, also the former-former Fed chairman Paul Volcker.

Volcker is long retired and might be available, but Rubin is standing deep in the muck and debris at Citigroup, bailing furiously so it doesn't go the way of Bear Stearns. Greenspan was traveling abroad the other day when the New York Times tried to ask him to explain why he failed to prevent the Wall Street meltdown by regulating these financial high fliers before it was too late. Come to think of it, why didn't the New York Times ask that question when Greenspan was still chairman? .
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U.S. Supreme Court Wont Hear Campaign Finance Case

On March 24, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 07-953. This is the case brought by people who wanted to make and advertise a film that would be shown in theaters and would try to make a profit. Yet the subject of the film would be to attack Hillary Clinton. The group wanted to be free of campaign finance reporting requirements.

Technically, the Court ruled that it doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear this case, because of procedural problems. This is slightly different than merely choosing not to hear the case.

Canada, U.S. agree to use each other's troops in civil emergencies

Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal.

Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas.

The U.S. military's Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.

The new agreement has been greeted with suspicion by the left wing in Canada and the right wing in the U.S.

The left-leaning Council of Canadians, which is campaigning against what it calls the increasing integration of the U.S. and Canadian militaries, is raising concerns about the deal.

"It's kind of a trend when it comes to issues of Canada-U.S. relations and contentious issues like military integration. We see that this government is reluctant to disclose information to Canadians that is readily available on American and Mexican websites," said Stuart Trew, a researcher with the Council of Canadians.

Trew said there is potential for the agreement to militarize civilian responses to emergency incidents. He noted that work is also underway for the two nations to put in place a joint plan to protect common infrastructure such as roadways and oil pipelines.

"Are we going to see (U.S.) troops on our soil for minor potential threats to a pipeline or a road?" he asked.

Trew also noted the U.S. military does not allow its soldiers to operate under foreign command so there are questions about who controls American forces if they are requested for service in Canada. "We don't know the answers because the government doesn't want to even announce the plan," he said.

But Canada Command spokesman Commander David Scanlon said it will be up to civilian authorities in both countries on whether military assistance is requested or even used.

He said the agreement is "benign" and simply sets the stage for military-to-military co-operation if the governments approve.

"But there's no agreement to allow troops to come in," he said. "It facilitates planning and co-ordination between the two militaries. The 'allow' piece is entirely up to the two governments."

If U.S. forces were to come into Canada they would be under tactical control of the Canadian Forces but still under the command of the U.S. military, Scanlon added.

News of the deal, and the allegation it was kept secret in Canada, is already making the rounds on left-wing blogs and Internet sites as an example of the dangers of the growing integration between the two militaries.

On right-wing blogs in the U.S. it is being used as evidence of a plan for a "North American union" where foreign troops, not bound by U.S. laws, could be used by the American federal government to override local authorities.

"Co-operative militaries on Home Soil!" notes one website. "The next time your town has a 'national emergency,' don't be surprised if Canadian soldiers respond. And remember - Canadian military aren't bound by posse comitatus."

Posse comitatus is a U.S. law that prohibits the use of federal troops from conducting law enforcement duties on domestic soil unless approved by Congress.

Scanlon said there was no intent to keep the agreement secret on the Canadian side of the border. He noted it will be reported on in the Canadian Forces newspaper next week and that publication will be put on the Internet.

Scanlon said the actual agreement hasn't been released to the public as that requires approval from both nations. That decision has not yet been taken, he added.