ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

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Border Agent Arrested for mistreating a Drug Dealer (Whatever Happen! To Common Sense)

By Jerry Seper

The Washington Times

 

A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been sentenced to two years in prison for improperly lifting the arms of a 15-year-old drug smuggling suspect while handcuffed — in what the Justice Department called a deprivation of the teenager’s constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force.

Agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. was named in a November 2009 federal grand jury indictment with deprivation of rights under color of law during an October 2008 arrest near the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, in response to a report that illegal immigrants had crossed the river with bundles of drugs.

In a prosecution sought by the Mexican government and obtained after the suspected smuggler was given immunity to testify against the agent, Diaz was sentenced last week by U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum in San Antonio. The Mexican consulate inEagle Pass had filed a formal written complaint just hours after the arrest, alleging that the teenager had been beaten.

Defense attorneys argued that there were no injuries or bruises on the suspected smuggler’s lower arms where the handcuffs had been placed nor any bruising resulting from an alleged knee on his back. Photos showed the only marks on his body came from the straps of the pack he carried containing the suspected drugs, they said.

Border Patrol agents found more than 150 pounds of marijuana at the arrest site.

**FILE** An unidentified man in Mexico walks near a footbridge across the Rio Grande connecting the United States and Mexico near Acala, Texas, on Aug. 4, 2010. The bridge is one of two structures at opposite ends of a towering $2.4 billion westTexasstretch of steel border fence designed to block illegal entry. Though the International Boundary and Water Commission owns the bridges, which it calls grade control structures, both are unguarded paths into theUnited StatesfromMexico. (Associated Press)

The defense claimed that the smuggling suspect was handcuffed because he was uncooperative and resisted arrest, and that the agent had lifted his arms to force him to the ground — a near-universal police technique — while the other agents looked for the drugs.

The allegations against Diaz, 31, a seven-year veteran of the Border Patrol, initially were investigated by Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which cleared the agent of any wrongdoing.

But the Internal Affairs Division at U.S. Customs and Border Protection ruled differently nearly a year later and, ultimately, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas brought charges.

The Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council said the government’s case was “based on false testimony that is contradicted by the facts.”

In a statement, the council said that because the arrest took place at about 2 a.m., darkness would have made it impossible for the government’s witnesses to have seen whether any mistreatment took place. It said Marcos Ramos, the Border Patrol agent who stood next to Diaz, testified that he did not see any mistreatment of the smuggling suspect.

The council said other witnesses made contradictory claims and some later admitted to having perjured themselves. Such admissions, the council said, were ignored by the court and the government. It also said that probationary agents who claimed to have witnessed the assault raised no objections during the incident and failed to notify an on-duty supervisor until hours later.

“Instead, they went off-duty to a local ‘Whataburger’ restaurant, got their stories straight and reported it hours later to an off-duty supervisor at his home,” the council said. “Then the ‘witnesses’ went back to the station and reported their allegations.”

The council also noted that the teenager claimed no injuries in court other than sore shoulders, which the council attributed to “the weight of the drug load, approximately 75 pounds, he carried across the border.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, which brought the charges, is the same office that in February 2006 — under U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton — prosecuted Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean after they shot a drug-smuggling suspect, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, in the buttocks as he tried to flee back into Mexico after abandoning a van filled with 800 pounds of marijuana. Aldrete-Davila also was given immunity in the case and testified against the agents.

President George W. Bush commuted the sentences in 2009 after they had served two years.

The same prosecutors also charged Edwards County Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez in 2005 with violating the civil rights of a Mexican criminal alien after he shot out the tires of a van filled with illegals as it tried to run him over. One of the illegal immigrants in the van was hit with bullet fragments.

© Copyright 2011 TheWashingtonTimes,

http://whateverhappentocommonsense.com/

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Your Tax Dollars buy $70,000 worth of Obama books (Don’t you feel great about this)

This is Just To Easy

The State Department has bought more than $70,000 worth of books authored by President Obama, sending out copies as Christmas gratuities and stocking “key libraries” around the world with “Dreams from My Father” more than a decade after its release.

The U.S. Embassy in Egypt, for instance, spent $28,636 in August 2009 for copies of Mr. Obama’s best-selling 1995 memoir. Six weeks earlier, the embassy had placed another order for the same book for more than $9,000, federal purchasing records show.

About the same time, halfway around the world, the U.S. Embassy in South Korea had the same idea and spent more than $6,000 for copies of “Dreams from My Father.”

One month later, the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, spent more than $3,800 for hardcover copies of the Indonesian version of Mr. Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” records show.

A review of the expenditures in a federal database did not reveal any examples of State Department purchases of books by former Presidents George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. The purchases of Mr. Obama’s literary work mostly, but not always, took place in the months after Mr. Obama captured the White House.

Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group, said if the federal government is looking to cut costs, eliminating purchases of Mr. Obama’s books is a good place to start.

“It’s inappropriate forU.S.taxpayer dollars to be spent on this,” she said. “This sounds like propaganda.”

But State Department spokesman Noel Clay said the book purchases followed regular government procurement rules. He said diplomats have long used books as a way to help broker talks on important foreign-policy matters.

“The structure and the presidency of the United Statesis an integral component of representing the United Statesoverseas,” Mr. Clay said. “We often use books to engage key audiences in discussions of foreign policy.”

He also said books are purchased to stock the State Department’s “information resource centers,” which he said are located around the world and provide books aboutU.S. coverage of issues such as culture, history and values.

“We also provide key library collections with books about theUnited States,” he said.

Pete Sepp, vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, said there could be value in distributing books about American politics and the people who make up political institutions.

“Compared to big-ticket items like embassy construction, buying books may not show up as a huge warning on taxpayers’ radar screens, but there is always room for improvement and making sure programs like this are serving a good, intended purpose,” he said.

There’s no indication the White House knew about the purchases, which overall represent just a fraction of the nearly quarter-million dollars Mr. Obama donated to charities last year and his more than $1.7 million in overall income. Mr. Clay said book orders are normally made directly by embassies based on “their experience and knowledge on the ground of the intended audience.”

The records show a mix of English and foreign language purchases of Mr. Obama’s books.

The U.S. Embassy inIndonesiaspent more than $4,800 in September 2009 for copies of “Dreams from My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope,” though the title of the latter book is spelled “Authority of Hope” in the federal spending database. The embassy spent $3,885 for additional Indonesian copies of “The Audacity of Hope,” records show.

The U.S. Embassy in Turkeyspent more than $3,700 in December 2009 for what purchasing records describe as “Copies of Barack Obama’s book in Turkish.”

In March, the U.S. Embassy in Parisspent more than $8,300 for French language copies of “Dreams from My Father.” The embassy also spent more than $11,600 for French language copies of Mr. Obama’s children’s book, “Of Thee I Sing,” though any royalties he receives for purchases of that children’s book will be donated to charity, according to Mr. Obama’s financial disclosure forms.

Mr. Obama has earned far more writing books than he has earned holding government office. He reported from $1 million to $5 million in royalties in 2010 for “Dreams from My Father,” and between $100,001 and $1 million in royalties for “The Audacity of Hope.”

If he earned 10 percent royalties on roughly $60,000 in purchases of his books by the State Department, excluding the children’s book, he could expect to pocket $6,000. It’s a tiny slice of Mr. Obama’s overall earnings, though still a sizable chunk to most Americans, whose median household income in 2009 was just over $50,000.

According to financial-disclosure forms, Mr. Obama earns royalties of 15 percent of theU.S. price for hardcover sales for “The Audacity of Hope” and 7.5 percent for trade paperback book sales. He reported between $100,001 and $1 million in royalties for “The Audacity of Hope.”

Mr. Obama’s and first lady Michelle Obama’s joint 2010 tax return showed overall income of just under $1.8 million, with more than $240,000 donated to charity. The Obamas reported about $1.5 million from book-related income. Overall, they donated about 14 percent of their income to charity.

Royalties for Mr. Obama’s children’s book, “Of Thee I Sing” are being donated to the Fisher House Foundation for a scholarship fund for children of fallen and disabled soldiers, disclosure forms show.

Mr. Obama also has a deal to write another book after his presidency.

Copyright 2011 TheWashingtonTimes, LLC

 

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The Folly and Hypocrisy of Occupy Wall Street Crowd

By: Elmer Williams

Occupy Wall Street Crowd is just pathetic at best and dangerous at worst. First they say that they are upset with the Millionaires, and they are on “a Millionaire March”. They are passing by the homes of New York’s wealthiest residents, because they are upset about the 2 percent “millionaires’ tax” that is expiring. This is according to a story on Fox News website. What I don’t understand is that if they are so upset with Wall Street and all the rich people. Why are they being so selective in their picketing? Nancy Pelosi and the “Chosen One” Barack Hussein Obama just recently gave another $737 million dollars to Tonopah Solar Energy. The dirty little secret is the Nancy Pelosi’s brother Ronald Pelosi is second in command at PCG Clean Energy & Amp; Technology Fund (East). You may ask what does that have to do with Tonopah. I’m glad you asked. Tonopah is a subsidiary of Solar Reserve which gets it’s financial backing from PCG Clean Energy & Amp; Technology Fund (East). All this happen after the Solyndra fiasco. Why don’t Occupy Wall Street march against Nancy and her brother Ronald. Why don’t they protest Timothy Geithner and Henry Paulson who said all the bailouts would help the economy? Also protest George Bush and Barack Obama for signing off on the taxpayer’s money on these bailouts. How about protesting George Soros who himself intentionally makes attempt to destroy Countries. Why not protest against Bill Gates and Larry Page who admitted to hiding millions of dollars over seas. No these bunch of hypocrites pick and choose what millionaires they will protest. Michelle Malkin had an article entitled “Costs of the Occupiers” were she out lines the cost that these people are costing the taxpayer. She writes “In Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter told the press that demonstrators outside city hall have incurred $164,000 in overtime public employee costs and $237,000 in regular time. How is this type of action beneficial to their cause and how does this punish the Wall Street folks they are attempting to punish. Maybe they should rethink their strategy on making a point against the establishment. In Boston and Seattle they are becoming rowdy which will be the next thing that kills all of their efforts to make a valid point. I just am some what perplexed at why they are not upset at the Obama Administration. Unemployment is at 9.2 percent. The only solution that Mr. Obama is offering is we should spend more money. Mr. President has taken over company after company and the results are only more failure to the economy. My question is to the media whose job I thought was just simply to report the news. Why did the Common Sense Media cover the Tea Party with the same type of love and admiration? Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6628899

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Obama Posturing for Re-election- Promises Withdrawal from Iraq

By Dave Boyer
Associated Press

Saturday, October 22, 2011

It took President Obama’s reelection campaign a little more than 24 hours to try to capitalize on the president’s announcement that he is withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year.
In an email to supporters Saturday afternoon, Obama for America policy director James Kvaal said, “we accomplished one major change” with the president’s announcement on Friday.
“The war in Iraq was a divisive, defining issue in our country for nearly nine years, and was the catalyst for many Americans to get involved in politics for the first time,” Mr. Kvaal said. “Now, thanks to the actions of this President, we can say that conflict is coming to a close.”
Mr. Obama announced all U.S. troops would come home by Dec. 31, after negotiations with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malikifailed to produce an agreement on the question of immunity for American soldiers in that country. The administration originally had planned to keep several thousand troops in Iraq into 2012 to help with training of Iraqi forces.
The decision brings to a conclusion a war that has lasted nearly nine years, claimed the lives of more than 4,400 U.S. soldiers and cost more than $800 billion. Mr. Obama campaigned in 2008 on the promise to end the war in Iraq, which he once referred to as “stupid.”
Mr. Kvaal reminded supporters that the president is also bringing troops home from Afghanistan, and that the week “also marked the definitive end” of Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in Libya. Rebel forces killed Col. Gadhafi as he fled in a convoy from his hometown.
“These outcomes are an example of what happens when a leader sets a plan and sees it through,” Mr. Kvaal said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/22/obama-policy-director-we-accomplished-one-major-ch/

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Why don’t Occupy Wall Street Protest GE

G.E. Profits Are in Line With Analysts’ Outlook

By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: October 21, 2011

General Electric, the nation’s largest industrial company, said on Friday that it had higher net earnings for the third quarter, but price pressures in its energy business squeezed profit margins in an economic environment that the company’s chief executive described as “volatile.”

The company reported net income of $3.2 billion in the July-September period, up 57 percent compared with the same period in 2010. A large part of that leap, however, resulted from a significant one-time charge last year related to G.E.’s discontinued consumer finance unit in Japan.
The company said it had operating earnings per share of 31 cents in the third quarter, up 11 percent from 2010 and exactly in line with expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
That excluded the 8-cents-per-share impact of its payback of Berkshire Hathaway’s investment, made in October 2008 when G.E. was being battered by the financial crisis. The cash infusion was repaid this month for $3.3 billion. But the company said it expected that the payback would improve annualized earnings per share by 3 cents a share in future quarters. Revenue for the period was $35.4 billion, which the company described as flat compared with the third quarter of 2010. Analysts had forecast $34.93 billion in revenue, according to a survey compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Jeffrey R. Immelt, G.E.’s chief executive, said the company was pleased with the results, the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in operating earnings, in what he called a “volatile macro environment.”
“We ended the quarter with a record high order backlog of $191 billion and we remain confident in our full-year 2011 operating framework,” he said in a statement.
In a conference call with analysts, Mr. Immelt said G.E. expected “solid” double-digit operating earnings for the year, with improved margins in the company’s energy business.
Profits fell 9 percent in the third quarter in the energy unit, to $1.5 billion, with the wind turbine business driving margins down, mostly because of competition and weakness in new orders.
“It was the largest driver of the margin pressure,” said Keith S. Sherin, G.E.’s chief financial officer, in an interview.
Richard Tortoriello, an analyst at S&P Capital IQ, said he thought the company reported a good quarter “given the kind of ups and downs that we see in the economic news.”
“The hit there was the lower-priced wind turbine shipments,” he said. “Prices reflect when orders are booked, and it takes a while for prices to improve.”
But Jeffrey T. Sprague, an analyst with Vertical Research Partners, called the results disappointing.
“The company is reporting very good order growth but you are seeing very intense competition for orders,” Mr. Sprague said. “You have got poorly priced products in the backlog that, when you begin delivering, it pressures the margins.”
G.E. had been expecting its business for power generation equipment to improve this year. Industrial orders grew in the third quarter, but the rate slowed to 16 percent.
Mr. Sherin said the data on long cycle equipment business could be “lumpy” and that orders for the first three quarters of the year were “very strong.” He said the company expected a strong fourth quarter in the energy business that would continue in 2012.
The earnings report provided a glimpse into the company’s progress in overhauling its diverse range of businesses. With its global reach, it also gives a snapshot into how business is faring in the United States and around the world.
The strongest industrial growth for large American manufacturers has recently come from abroad, but in the past month the debt crisis in Europe has caused concern about economic prospects. Mr. Sherin said in the call that G.E. was monitoring the situation in Europe closely.
Other industrial companies also have announced results. Honeywell International reported Friday that earnings rose 45 percent, to $1.10 a share, and it raised its 2011 outlook.
“Despite signals of slower economic growth, we expect positive organic growth to continue the rest of this year and into 2012,” said David M. Cote, the chairman and chief executive of Honeywell.
United Technologies reported this week that its earnings per share for the third quarter were $1.47, up 13 percent compared with the same quarter in 2010. The company also raised its full-year outlook.
Industrials rose nearly 2 percent on Wall Street. General Electric closed down nearly 2 percent at $16.31. Honeywell rose more than 5 percent to $51.28.
G.E., based in Fairfield, Conn., said that in the third quarter, its industrial segments had $23.4 billion in revenue, up 19 percent. International revenue was up by 25 percent, driven by growth in Brazil, Russia, China, India, Canada, Mexico and the Middle East.
But it has been gradually paring back its finance business, GE Capital, as part of a long-term strategy to rely more on its core industrial units. In the third quarter, GE Capital showed a 1 percent rise in revenue to $12 billion.
GE Capital earned about $1.5 billion in the third quarter, up 79 percent compared with the same quarter in 2010, because of lower credit costs and improved margins, the company said. Mr. Sherin said commercial real estate pared its losses to $82 million.
After the financial crisis, G.E. cut its dividend in 2009, the first time it did so since the Great Depression. Since then, it has raised its dividend three times, to 60 cents a share.
“When we get into the second or third year of the recovery, the longer cycle business will start to produce good returns,” said Mr. Tortoriello, the S&P Capital analyst. “That is why we are going to see significant earnings growth in G.E. in 2012 which we may not see from industrial companies in general because of the slowing growth in the economy.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/business/ge-profit-up-despite-volatile-economy.html?_r=1

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A former al-Qaida Leader could come forward as new Leader of Libya

Thursday, 20 Oct 2011 07:43 PM

By Martin Gould and Ashley Martella

The death of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi could create a vacuum that a whole new slew of Islamic terrorists and would-be despots seek to fill, says award-winning journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave in an exclusive Newsmax.TV interview.

There is a grave risk that the fractious nation divided along tribal lines could fracture or further weaken, creating a new breeding ground for terrorists, says de Borchgrave, who is on the board of LIGNET.com, a new Washington, DC-based intelligence analysis and forecasting service.

Already, there is tension from the Islamist fighters of the Tripoli Military Council, and also of the militias of the city of Misrata who played a key military role in toppling Gaddafi and killing him. Islamists, led by several charismatic clerics, are better organizing that many other groups.

”One very disturbing element is the fact that a former al-Qaida terrorist by the name of Abdul Hakim Belhadj, who the CIA renditioned into Thailand where he was tortured, is now back in his original stomping ground.

“Libya is where he was head of al-Qaida underground. Now he’s above ground and commander of the Tripoli garrison.”

Belhadj is the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). As an engineering student in Tripoli he was opposed to the Gadhafi regime and was attracted to political Islam.

In the 1980s, he left Libya for Afghanistan where he fought as a mujahideen against Soviet forces. There, with other Libyans, he formed the LIFG to confront the Gadhafi regime and, according to some experts, formed links to al-Qaida.

In an exclusive interview, de Borchgrave, a founding board member of Newsmax.com, also says that:
• Gadhafi’s death will do little to help world oil prices in the short term as the country has to rebuild its infrastructure before it can restart pumping at full capacity.
• The search is on for the millions – possibly billions – of dollars that Gadhafi expropriated from his oil-rich nation.
• Syria is unlikely to follow Libya soon because of that country’s well-organized military and intelligence services.
• The recently uncovered Iranian plot to kill a Saudi ambassador “has an aroma of rotten fish, because it is not quite the way it’s been made out to be.”
De Borchgrave thinks Libya is facing a very momentous reconstruction effort that will slow the flow of oil.

“We are talking about half a year or a full year before everything gets repaired and in working order,” he told Newsmax.

De Borchgrave, who spent 30 years with Newsweek, was the first journalist to interview Gadhafi after he overthrew King Idris in 1969. He went on to interview him five more times.

“He was very engaging,” said de Borchgrave, now senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, editor at large at United Press International and The Washington Times, and a Newsmax correspondent.

“I have had many private, off-the-record conversations with him. One was actually reading a message to Jim Woolsey when he was director of the CIA back in 1993 because at that point he was very concerned about Islamist extremism growing in the eastern part of their country.

“He wanted to make sure that he and the CIA were on the same wavelength about Islamist extremism. He demonstrated this by cooperating with the agency on some of those problems that were attendant to extremism.”

But despite that cooperation, de Borchgrave describes Gadhafi’s death as “a major plus for Libya.”

“Gadhafi’s been a big thorn in the side of the entire globe. He has used subversion and lavishly funded extremism underground – what I’ve called disinformation – to destabilize regimes that he was trying to overthrow, to help those who were in the business of replacing them.

“He’s been a big nuisance all over the world and I think everybody’s delighted to see him go.”

De Borchgrave said now the search is on for the millions – possibly billions – of dollars that Gadhafi expropriated from his oil-rich nation.

“I have no idea who will wind up with it because what he has underground, I think it’s about $70 million, has to be found first. As to what he has around the world in various deposits, I would imagine that will take a long time to adjudicate,” he said.

Looking to the future, de Borchgrave said he does not believe that Gadhafi’s downfall will mean that the regime in Syria will follow.
“Syria has a very strong secret police intelligence apparatus that controls the country that has killed about 33,500 people so far in putting down the countrywide rebellion.

“It also controls the country through its 14 intelligence services a lot better than Gadhafi controlled Libya.” He said Syria’s “mild-mannered” leader Bashar al-Assad is not the real power in that country. “It’s a younger brother who is very tough and a chip off the old block.”

De Borchgrave also said there are many questions to be asked about the alleged Iranian plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador to Washington. He agreed with conservative commentator Pat Buchanan who told Newsmax on Wednesday that the plot smelled fishy.

“I’d say it has an aroma of rotten fish, because it is not quite the way it’s been made out to be,” said de Borchgrave. “In fact there are indications today that the famous operative that was allegedly working for Iran’s Quds force – that’s the branch of the military that deals with spreading terrorism abroad and helping terrorist movements abroad – could very well have been from a totally different organization that has very little to do with Tehran.”

And he said neither the U.S nor Saudi Arabia has an incentive to attack Iran even if the plot were real. “Everybody’s being very careful not to take Iran to the edge of a military showdown,” he said.

“The three former CENTCOM commanders that I know and have spoken publicly about this, Gen. (Anthony) Zinni, Gen (John) Abizaid and Adm. (William) Fallon, all three have said we should learn to live with an Iranian nuclear bomb.

“By that they mean that Iran is surrounded by four of the world’s eight nuclear powers, they’re an ancient civilization and they also have formidable asymmetrical retaliatory capabilities up and down the entire Persian Gulf. They can close the Straits of Hormuz, obviously not for long, but just the very fact that it was closed, even for a short period, would treble oil prices around the world.”

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/gadaffi-obama-libya-video/2011/10/20/id/415255/

Newsmax.com: De Borchgrave: Former al-Qaida Leader Emerging as Strongman in Libya