As a formerly dumbed down Democrat, I start this blog to counter the division created by the left / right paradigm. There are the the Elite and then there are the rest of us. This left / right paradigm is used to divide and conquer. This technique is as old as time.
Military to use Burton as a training ground for a week
by Bryn Mickle The Flint Journal Wednesday May 13, 2009, 7:15 AM
Boeing Boeing MH-6 "Little Bird" helicopters may be seen over Burton in the coming days.
BURTON, Michigan -- The black helicopter crowd's worst fears of a New World Order are coming true.
The military is invading Burton.
But it promises to only stay a week.
The U.S. Special Operations Command is using Burton as a training ground for military exercises.
Sometime over the next day or two, a military spokesman said residents may see low-flying helicopters buzzing overhead.
People may even catch a glimpse of special operations forces, but the goal is to keep the exercise as low key as possible.
"Chances are that most people won't see them," said Naval Lt. Nathan C. Potter, a spokesman for the exercises.
Citing safety and security concerns, the military is being mum on details about the exercises, including the size of the force being trained.
There's also no word on where exactly the operations will take place, although Potter said soldiers could be working in neighborhoods and industrial sites.
"It will be very sporadic," he said.
The goal is to prepare troops for unfamiliar urban areas.
Once they are finished in Burton, Potter said the soldiers will be ready to be deployed overseas.
The military approached Burton officials with the request to train there about three months ago, said Burton police Lt. Tom Osterholzer.
Although officials are being cautious about the details, Osterholzer said they opted to notify the public to allay any fears once people start seeing helicopters.
Burton and Flint police will provide traffic control for some of the exercises and 911 operators at the Flint and Genesee County dispatch centers have been alerted in case of panicked calls.
"It's an honor to help these guys," said Osterholzer.
Not everyone is as enthusiastic.
"It scares me," said Jennie Moench of Swartz Creek.
Moench questioned whether the military is getting ready for action in a new theater outside of Iraq and Pakistan and wonders why it chose Burton.
"Would you see this happening in a wealthy city?" said Moench, a member of the area Peace Triangle group that has protested the U.S. presence in Iraq for about seven years.
But Burton resident Leroy Cronkright believes the city is providing an important service to the military.
"Nowadays, almost everything (soldiers do) is cities and towns," said Cronkright, a Navy veteran who served in the 1960s.
Sonia Flagg said she would have been caught offguard by the sight of helicopters over her yard, but likes the idea.
"Somebody's got to do it, so why not Burton," said Flagg.
"Young kids will love watching the helicopters fly around and everything."
Potter said the military appreciates the local help and said such training exercises are critical to the ability of soldiers to operate overseas.
Similar operations have been run in other cities around the nation.
"We're not trying to cause a disturbance," said Potter.
The Department of Homeland Security is training teenage scouts how to conduct armed raids on terrorists and drug dealers.
In a program which officials have described as “about being a true-blooded American”, boys and girls as young as fourteen are being put through their paces by DHS Border Patrol agents.
The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.
[...]
The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses.
Some youngsters have described the program as enjoyable due to the fact that they get to shoot guns and learn about discipline.
Eyebrows will be raised over the nature of the role play situation however, due to the fact that in at least one instance the “terrorist” to be neutralized was described as a “disgruntled Iraq war veteran”.
“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”
Given recent concerns over the DHS definition of “right wing extremists” and the agency’s penchant to affiliate veterans, gun owners, Ron Paul supporters and even those who question the mainstream media with terrorists, one wonders exactly who the boy scouts are being trained to target.
A chilling exposé of corporate corruption and government cover-ups, this account of a nationwide child-trafficking and pedophilia ring in the United States tells a sordid tale of corruption in high places. The scandal originally surfaced during an investigation into Omaha, Nebraska's failed Franklin Federal Credit Union and took the author beyond the Midwest and ultimately to Washington, DC. Implicating businessmen, senators, major media corporations, the CIA, and even the venerable Boys Town organization, this extensively researched report includes firsthand interviews with key witnesses and explores a controversy that has received scant media attention.
The FRANKLIN SCANDAL: A Story of Powerbrokers,, Child Abuse & Betrayal
The House version of the Ohio Sovereignty Resolution (HCR-11) will have a hearing before the State Government Committee on Wednesday, May 13 at 2:30pm. Testimony will be by the sponsors only at this time (no public testimony) but it is important to come down and show your support! The hearing will begin at 2:30pm sharp in Room 017. Please, no signs, but if you are interested, buttons will be available for those who wish to show their support. In the meantime, please contact the Democrat members of the State Government Committee and respectfully urge their support!
that Ashton Lundeby is not being held under the USA PATRIOT act. Since the case is under seal at present, the only source for the relevant details is Annette Lundeby; admittedly, she is not an objective observer, but the same would be true of the prosecution, as well.
In interviews I conducted with her both on May 5 and 6, Mrs. Lundeby has insisted that the PATRIOT act was invoked by the Feds in this case.
I reported her claims in good faith, buttressed by the assessment presented in the WRAL report from former U.S. Attorney Dan Boyce, as well as the fact — noted in the original essay below — that the PATRIOT act has been used in at least one other case involving a juvenile accused of a serious crime. Interestingly, the Feds have not denied that they’re applying the PATRIOT act in this case; there’s no reason not to issue such a denial if Mrs. Lundeby’s claim is untrue.
As indicated in the first update below, which was filed just hours after the original post, a source close to the prosecution (not directly involved in the prosecution, but with detailed, first-hand knowledge of it) insists that the case against Ashton is strong enough that the use of such extraordinary measures would not be necessary.
Title 18, Section 844 (e) of the US Code makes it a felony punishable by a prison term of up to 10 years to make a bomb threat, either real or bogus, using “the mail, telephone, telegraph, or other instrument of interstate commerce….” That provision would explain the involvement of the FBI in a suspected bomb threat made from North Carolina against Purdue University in Indiana. Whatever the wisdom of that statute, its existence would appear to make use of the PATRIOT act gratuituous. This doesn’t mean that the Feds didn’t take the easy route, as Mrs. Lundeby claims, of course. But it does mean that if Ashton was involved in making bomb threats, he bought himself more trouble than he expected.
Expect a follow-up on all of this today.
(For the other updates, please go to the bottom of the essay.)
It’s been said that a lie is a poor way to say “hello.” It is also the standard greeting one receives from government employees, particularly those who carry guns.
When she answered the doorbell, Annette was greeted with the sight of a State Highway Patrolman who introduced himself with a lie. Things went dramatically downhill from there.
“He told me that my son Ashton had committed a hit-and-run with somebody’s car,” Annette told Pro Libertate in a phone interview. “I said, `No, that’s not true — it was exactly the reverse; he was on the receiving end of a hit-and-run, and that was last January.’”
The State Trooper’s lie was a pretext to rouse the home-schooled teenager from bed and bring him to the doorstep. Once the falsehood shattered against Mrs. Lundeby’s polite resolve, however, the pretense was dropped and roughly a dozen armed men in body armor stormed into her home. One of them demanded that Annette go get her son; the others fanned out to search the house.
“They wouldn’t tell me who they were, or where they were from,” Annette recalled. “All I knew was that if I said the wrong thing I’d be dead on the floor, and there would be nobody here to protect my children.” So she went upstairs and woke up her son, as instructed. When she returned with Ashton she demanded to see a search warrant. She was shown the paperwork, but the intruders were still reluctant to explain why they had invaded her home.
At some point over the next three and a half hours, Annette and Ashton learned that the men who had barged into their home were from the FBI, and that the teenage boy, who had never been in trouble with the police, was suspected of making several bomb threats via the internet. The one that brought the FBI had been made against Purdue University in Indiana at 9:05 Central Time on February 15.
Ashton had an alibi so tight it could be used as a space capsule: On the evening in question he was at a meeting held in the Union Chapel Methodist Church in Kittrell, North Carolina until after 9:00 p.m. local time, a fact that could be confirmed by interviewing any of several dozen witnesses.
After helping his mother clean the chapel, Ashton accompanied her to a local grocery store to buy food and litter box filler for the family’s three cats. Once again, this element of Ashton’s alibi — for which his mother was an eyewitness — would be relatively simple to confirm.
The Union Chapel church is about 35 minutes away from the Lundeby family’s home. Annette recalls that the family got home shortly after 10:00 on February 15, which wouldn’t have given her son adequate time to log on to the Internet and make a bomb threat by 10:05 Eastern Time (which would have been 9:05 p.m. in Indiana). She also insists that her son “went straight to bed” without turning on his computer.
The FBI insists that the threat was made using Ashton’s IP address. Mrs. Lundeby insists that her son was the victim of identity theft, and that he was not the family’s only victim. Her late husband, a former employee of the federal Bureau of Prisons, also had his personal financial information stolen, and Annettee herself recalls that her bank account was hacked a couple of years ago.
They’re watching you: A PATRIOT (sic) Act notification from a Savings and Loan.
For the past several months, she explained to Pro Libertate, “our family has been receiving bizarre and threatening phone calls from people” because of the malicious activities of at least one hacker.
“We had the police call here claiming that someone had called 911 to report drugs in our home. I told them that there wasn’t anything going on here, but they were free to come and search the place to see for themselves.”
That’s an invitation she wouldn’t extend again under similar circumstances.
According to Annette, at least one of Ashton’s friends can identify, by screenname, the hacker who made life miserable for the Lundebys. Once again, there is no shortage of leads for an honest, competent, reasonably resourceful investigator to follow in establishing Ashton’s alibi. The unfortunate truth is that the FBI is, as far as I can tell, entirely devoid of people meeting that description.
Annette and her children were held hostage in their home until 1:30 in the morning. The 12-year-old daughter was dragged from her bed by an armed stranger — an act that left the girl traumatized (and one for which the assailant should be thrashed to within a centimeter of his tax-devouring existence). Annette insisted that Ashton not answer any questions without an attorney present, but she wasn’t permitted to call one.
The Feds confiscated Ashton’s computer and gaming equipment, and made off with a great deal of family paperwork. But they couldn’t find a particle of evidence anywhere to suggest that the teenager had built a bomb, or that possessed the necessary knowledge and intent. Nonetheless, they handcuffed Ashton and hauled him away to jail.
A hearing was scheduled for 10:00 a.m., which meant “that I couldn’t get an attorney — none of their offices was open,” Annette recalls. Her son was given a court-appointed attorney, an ineffective nebbish who — in the fashion of too many court-appointed “defense” lawyers everywhere — was entirely disinclined to contest the prosecution’s assertions.
At this point it’s appropriate to note that too many “court-appointed” defense lawyers perform exactly the same function as “jobbers” in professional wrestling: Their role is to lose every contest. And judges in federal cases generally serve the same purpose as referees in pro wrestling “matches”: They offer a pitiful pantomime of objectivity as they advance the pre-determined storyline. In this case, the script called for Ashton to be taken into federal custody under the terms of the Sovietesque PATRIOT (sic) Act.
“The standard that they used to arrest and detain my son was not `probable cause,’ as the Constitution requires, but rather `good faith,’ as specified in the PATRIOT [sic] Act,” Annette Lundeby observes. “This meant that they didn’t have to provide real evidence of a crime, because they didn’t have any. All they had to do was assert their `good faith’ reasons for arresting and holding Ashton, and the judge simply let it stand.”
Before and after the hearing, Ashton — a sixteen-year-old — was kept in detention with as many as thirty adult criminal suspects. He was then transferred to a federal detention center in South Bend, Indiana, where he has been for more than 60 days.
As of today (May 5), a criminal complaint in this case does exist, but Ashton has yet to be charged with a crime. Were we living in a country in which the habeas corpus guarantee was operational, Ashton would most likely be free, and a lawsuit against his persecutors would probably be in the works.
However, the late Bush administration, with the enthusiastic support of nearly every conservative commentator and activist of any consequence, quite thoughtfully disposed of the habeas corpus guarantee. And since Ashton is being held on terrorism-related charges, his status is analogous to that of an “enemy combatant” — which is to say, he can probably be held indefinitely, and even be subjected to the same “enhanced interrogation” methods that so enchant many of the pew-defilers in conservative “Christian” congregations.
Ashton hasn’t been mistreated yet, according to his mother. However, the 16-year-old — who is “in every sense still a child,” in his mother’s estimation — is in an environment defined by cruel, arbitrary regulations designed to break his will.
“I’ve been able to talk with him several times since he was taken into federal custody,” Annette told me, “but there was a period of about three weeks in which I didn’t hear from him, and nobody would let me talk to him. I was frantic, and my mother — she just turned 81 — had to be hospitalized for stress.”
When that long silence was finally broke, Ashton explained to his mother that “he was being punished for `moving his eyes in the lunchroom,’” Annette related in a voice heavy with incredulity. “He told me, `Mom, all I did was try to find out what we were eating. But I got written up for moving my eyes.’”
If the case goes to trial, Ashton would be prosecuted as an adult, and would face a 15-year prison sentence. The Feds, who at this point appear to have no case, are quite likely using the leverage offered by the PATRIOT (sic) Act and similar measures to terrorize Ashton and his family into a plea bargain that would preserve the State’s sense of infallibility and reinforce by precedent its ability to terrorize citizens at random.
Pioneering case: Brent Clark was a troubled and potentially violent 8th grader in Tempe when he was accused of “domestic terrorism” under the provisions of the PATRIOT (sic) Act.
Something of this sort took place last time a teenager was charged with terrorism under the PATRIOT (sic) Act — specifically, section 802, which makes practically any crime committed on “public” property an act of “terrorism.”
In Brent Clark’s case, there was an actual crime committed: He threatened a girl with a knife and tried, albeit not with much ardor, to take her hostage before permitting her to flee to her home. Brent’s parents apparently discovered evidence suggesting that the emotionally disturbed teenager harbored ambitions — how serious, we’ll never know — of carrying out Columbine-style violence.
None of that applies in the case of Ashton Lundeby. Apart from the use of Ashton’s ISP information — a fact for which he and his mother have provided a persuasive and easily inspected alibi — nothing connects the 16-year-old to a bomb threat anywhere. Under traditional Anglo-Saxon standards of evidence and due process there is no case against Ashton.
This is precisely why the Feds are apparently using the Stalinist PATRIOT (sic) Act to keep this youngster confined for as long as it takes to extort some kind of confession from him.
If they determine the situation requires such measures, the Feds can draw upon the precedent set in the case of Jose Padilla, the first U.S. citizen to be designated an “enemy combatant” and held indefinitely without criminal charges. In Padilla’s case, federal authorities conducted a prolonged campaign of psychological torture designed not only to break his will, but literally — in the words of a Bush administration official — “to destroy Mr. Padilla’s ordinary emotional and cognitive functioning in order to extract from him potentially self-incriminating information.”
Annette Lundeby once attended a police academy; her late husband, as noted previously, was an employee of the Bureau of Prisons. The family’s home in North Carolina is decorated with U.S. flags. The three of them are devout Christians who spend most of their free time in church-related activities. The loss of Annette’s husband was a severe blow, and the continued harassment they have suffered from hackers and identity thieves is the sort of thing one reads about in the Book of Job.
But the treatment of Ashton by the Regime is like something from modern dystopian literature; indeed, Franz Kafka might find the story nearly implausible.
“This isn’t America — not the America I knew, the one I grew up in,” Annette told Pro Libertate. “This is like something out of a Third World dictatorship where the people in power just do whatever they want to anybody they choose. I want my son back, and I’ll do anything I can to free him. But people need to know that if this isn’t stopped now, any of us at anytime can be treated the same way. The next time it will be your house they visit in the middle of the night, and your children they take away.”
***
***
Update, May 6: The Other Side of the case, a strengthened alibi
Owing to the federal gag order on the officials involved in the arrest and prospective prosecution of Ashton Lundeby, it’s not possible to get the official reaction to Annette Lundeby’s view of this case.
However, I received a message from a source close to the federal side of the story who insists that the case against Ashton is a “slam-dunk,” owing to information obtained from various documents and other sources. Without getting specific permission from that individual I can’t share the details he shared with me. I have described some of them, in broad outline, to Mrs. Lundeby in order to get her view of the matter.
Although the alleged crime here is inter-state in nature, the source in question agrees that the so-called PATRIOT Act (which this person opposes) shouldn’t have been used in this case. The alleged offense here is the cyberspace equivalent of maliciously pulling a fire alarm in school. Yes, it’s disruptive, obnoxious, and destructive of time, money, and whoever phoned in what the source describes as multiple bomb threats should be punished.
I’m convinced that the reliance on the enhanced powers under the PATRIOT Act wouldn’t be necessary if the case against Ashton is anywhere near as solid as that source insists.
On the matter of Ashton’s alibi:
An early contributor to the comment thread below points out that “if the time of the supposed threat (9:05 pm) and the place (Purdue University in West Lafayette) are correct, then the alibi is even stronger than you claim, since West Lafayette, IN, is on Eastern Time (as is the rest of Indiana with the exception of some counties in the southwest and northwest corners).”
Please allow me one final, personal note. Among the correspondence I received about this essay was a note from a reader who was deeply offended by the reference to “pew defilers” in conservative Christian churches.
That inelegantly phrased comment was perceived by this earnest and well-informed fellow as a gesture of anti-Christian hatred. It was intended as a slap at the hypocrisy of people who profess to be followers of Jesus and yet condone the torture of fellow human beings. It turns out, as the essay hyperlinked to that phrase documents, that self-described conservative Evangelical Christians are the sub-population most likely to endorse the use of torture.
In describing people who harbor such opinions, I suppose I could have used the expression “white sepulchers,” which is at least as offensive as the term I used.
Second Update, May 6: Corrections and Observations
In the interest of fairness to the small but stalwart population of genuinely heroic, principled lawyers who act as court-appointed defense attorneys an approach that role with a categorical commitment to protect the rights of their clients, I’ve moderated my original comments about court-appointed attorneys.
My views on that subject have been shaped by an unfortunate and consistent trend among court-designated defense lawyers to approach their task as if they were working in the Cardassian judicial system. Several writers have properly taken me to task for my overbroad characterization of court-appointed attorneys, which I’ve tried to correct above.
What if Ashton Lundeby had been involved in phoning in crank bomb threats? Obviously, this would be more than just a cruel prank, but a serious crime — particularly if it involved disrupting the lives of hundreds or thousands of people by leaving them convinced that their lives were in immediate danger.
It’s not difficult to imagine the victims of phony bomb threats fleeing their work areas in panic, making desperate cell phone calls to loved ones, and otherwise experiencing the visceral fear that comes from the thought that they confronted anonymous, arbitrary lethal violence.
We’ve seen an example of how this kind of thing works quite recently — a little more than a week ago, when the White House induced widespread panic in New York City by conducting a still-unexplained “photo op” involving a very low pass by one of its fleet of Air Force One 747s in more or less the same trajectory followed by the hijacked jetliners on 9-11.
A reader sent me the following description, provided by a relative who was on the scene, of the coronary-inducing panic that resulted from the White House’s bizarre, sadistic little exercise:
Our office is in the southern-most building in Manhattan. I mean literally the tip of the island. I didn’t see what was going on, but all of sudden almost the entire floor started sprinting for the stairs. That never happens.
These are people who pretend they are on the phone during fire drills, so they don’t even have to get out of their seats. I didn’t see the plane coming for the building, but when everyone runs for the stairs you run too. We are on the 50th floor, and let me tell you that is a long way to run. To make matters worse, there are people sobbing in the stairways, women falling down because of their high heels, ladders in the middle of the landings, and the floor is so slick that it makes it impossible to run down the steps in shoes with leather bottoms (no traction at all - guess we should amend the dress code for sneakers), which is of course what everyone is wearing.
Did I mention the pregnant women trying to run down the stairs?
The worst part was the noise. Thousands of people running down the stairs is deafening. So loud in fact, that people thought it was the plane about to crash into the building.
I thought I was going to die today. I don’t mean maybe, and I don’t mean for just a second. I mean the entire way from the 50th floor down. When I started down from 50, I thought to myself, please, God, just let me make it to 45. When I got to 45, I thought if I can just get to 40 before it hits I have a chance. I did this over and over again until I got to he 1st floor.
The scene outside was surreal. Thousands of people standing around with no idea what they should do. Some people were standing around crying, some were running uptown, some getting in cabs, some standing right under the building, but no one with any idea what to do.
It’s impossible for me to see the moral difference between what the White House and its cohorts did on April 27, and the actions of someone who maliciously phones in a phony bomb threat that sends people scattering from their offices and classrooms. The only substantive differences have to do with the magnitude of the offense, and the costs inflicted on taxpayers and businesses as a result.
So whoever is responsible for phony bomb threats against Purdue and other institutions should be prosecuted and punished, even though the use of the PATRIOT act was entirely unjustified — and if the guilty party ends up in prison, he should enjoy the company of Barack Obama and several dozen of his minions, who appear to be guilty of committing a much grander version of exactly the same offense.
House bypasses governor’s veto to claim Oklahoma’s sovereignty
BY MICHAEL MCNUTT Published: May 5, 2009 Modified: May 6, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Although Gov. Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty. Unlike House Joint Resolution 1003, House Concurrent Resolution 1028 does not need the governor’s approval.
The House passed the measure 73-22. It now goes to the Senate.
"We’re going to get it done one way or the other,” said the resolutions’ author, Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City.
"I think our governor is out of step.”
House Democrats objected, saying the issue already had been taken up and had been vetoed, but House Speaker Pro Tempore Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, ruled the veto is not final action.
Key said he expects HCR 1028 will pass in the Senate. HJR 1003 earlier passed the House 83-18 and won approval in the Senate 29-18.
Henry vetoed HJR 1003 because he said it suggested, among other things, that Oklahoma should return federal tax dollars.
Key said HCR 1028, which, if passed, would be sent to Democratic President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, would not jeopardize federal funds but would tell Congress to "get back into their proper constitutional role.” The resolution states the federal government should "cease and desist” mandates that are beyond the scope of its powers.
Key said many federal laws violate the 10th Amendment, which says powers not delegated to the U.S. government "are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution lists about 20 duties required of the U.S. government, he said.
Congress should not be providing bailouts to financial institutions and automakers, he said.
"We give all this money to all these different entities, including automakers, and now they’re talking about, ‘Well maybe it’s better to let them go bankrupt,’” Key said. "Well, maybe we should have let them go bankrupt before we gave them the money.”http://www.newsok.com
the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials. To be sure, this imponderable title masks a really nasty piece of work.
First of all, when the treaty purports to ban the "illicit" manufacture of firearms, what does that mean?
1. "Illicit manufacturing" of firearms is defined as "assembly of firearms [or] ammunition... without a license...."
Hence, reloading ammunition -- or putting together a lawful firearm from a kit -- is clearly "illicit manufacturing."
Modifying a firearm in any way would surely be "illicit manufacturing." And, while it would be a stretch, assembling a firearm after cleaning it could, in any plain reading of the words, come within the screwy definition of "illicit manufacturing."
2. "Firearm" has a similarly questionable definition.
"[A]ny other weapon" is a "firearm," according to the treaty -- and the term "weapon" is nowhere defined.
So, is a BB gun a "firearm"? Probably.
A toy gun? Possibly.
A pistol grip or firing pin? Probably. And who knows what else.
If these provisions (and others) become the law of the land, the Obama administration could have a heyday in enforcing them. Consider some of the other provisions in the treaty:
* Banning reloading. In Article IV of the treaty, countries commit to adopting "necessary legislative or other measures" to criminalize illicit manufacturing and trafficking in firearms.
Remember that "illicit manufacturing" includes reloading and modifying or assembling a firearm in any way. This would mean that the Obama administration could promulgate regulations banning reloading on the basis of this treaty -- just as it is currently circumventing Congress to write legislation taxing greenhouse gases.
* Banning gun clubs. Article IV goes on to state that the criminalized acts should include "association or conspiracy" in connection with said offenses -- which is arguably a term broad enough to allow, by regulation, the criminalization of entire pro-gun organizations or gun clubs, based on the facilities which they provide their membership.
* Extraditing US gun dealers. Article V requires each party to "adopt such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over the offenses it has established in accordance with this Convention" under a variety of circumstances.
We know that Mexico is blaming U.S. gun dealers for the fact that its streets are flowing with blood. And we know it is possible for Mexico to define offenses "committed in its territory" in a very broad way. And we know that we have an extradition obligation under Article XIX of the proposed treaty. So we know that Mexico could try to use the treaty to demand to extradition of American gun dealers.
Under Article XXIX, if Mexico demands the extradition of a lawful American gun dealer, the U.S. would be required to resolve the dispute through "other means of peaceful settlement."
Does anyone want to risk twenty years in a sweltering Mexican jail on the proposition that the Obama administration would apply this provision in a pro-gun manner?
* Microstamping. Article VI requires "appropriate markings" on firearms. And, it is not inconceivable that this provision could be used to require microstamping of firearms and/or ammunition -- a requirement which is clearly intended to impose specifications which are not technologically possible or which are possible only at a prohibitively expensive cost.
* Gun registration. Article XI requires the maintenance of any records, for a "reasonable time," that the government determines to be necessary to trace firearms. This provision would almost certainly repeal portions of McClure-Volkmer and could arguably be used to require a national registry or database.
'It's hard not to believe there was something deliberate about it'...
A few developments this week in the case of Mike Connell, the GOP IT guru who died in a single-engine plane craft last December, just after being forced to testify in a long-standing OH 2004 voting rights case, but before the case could come to trial. As The BRAD BLOG has long covered both the lawsuit, and Connell's central role, I wanted to make sure the new developments were noted here. Forgive my quick copy and paste, necessarily, given the circumstances of the week which still have me otherwise distracted in many ways. Background links on the entire Connell story are included at the end of this item...
The sisters of Michael Connell, a GOP IT consultant and former associate of Karl Rove who died in a plane crash last December, are now questioning the circumstances surrounding his death.
“Shannon Connell of Madison says her brother Michael rarely talked about work,” a local Wisconsin paper reported Thursday. “She knew he ran an Ohio company called New Media Communications that set up websites for Republicans including former President George H.W. Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. But it wasn’t until after he died last December, when the small plane he was piloting crashed, that she learned via the Internet of his tie to a voter fraud case and to allegations that presidential adviser Karl Rove had made threats against him.
“‘At first, it was really hard for me to believe Mike was dead because somebody wanted him dead,” the paper quoted Shannon as saying. “But as time goes on, it’s hard for me not to believe there was something deliberate about it.”
“A native of Illinois, Shannon moved to Madison in 2002,” the paper adds, “the same year as her sister, Mary Jo Walker. Walker, a former Dane County Humane Society employee, has similar concerns about their brother’s death: ‘It doesn’t seem right to me at all.’”
Karl Rove case witness killed in plane crash, sisters want answers Web guru was potential witness in Ohio voting fraud case ... Shannon and Mary Jo both say their brother, a devout Catholic, seemed upset in the weeks before his death. Mary Jo feels he was "stressed out and depressed" on his birthday last November; Shannon says he atypically did not respond to an email she'd sent. ... Shannon Connell, for her part, dismisses reports that her brother was warned not to fly, but still considers the crash that killed him "very suspicious." Michael was an experienced pilot, and his plane had recently been serviced. Plus there's the timing — "after the deposition and before the trial. It just seems very convenient."
Previous BRAD BLOG coverage since the death of Mike Connell...
An employee at the OSU Medical Center was diagnosed with probable swine flu yesterday, according to a statement from the OSU Medical Center. Officials are awaiting confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The patient contracted the virus outside of the workplace.
The administrator on duty at the hospital confirmed that the patient had been treated at OSU Medical Center and that the patient was discharged Wednesday evening. He said students should not be alarmed, and if they have concerns they should go to the Wilce Student Health Center.
The medical center has taken steps to notify and treat anyone who came in contact with the patient, according to the statement.
This case is one of a string of possible swine flu diagnoses in Ohio.
A Columbus woman tested positive for the swine flu virus, a Columbus health official said Wednesday.
"...For the year, we forecast sales of Tamiflu to reach ¥53.0 billion, up 531.0%, due to expected resumption of government stockpiling in FY2009 and the ongoing recovery of the prescription rate for seasonal influenza..."
The Department of Homeland Security has sent out an alert to health care providers outlining how BATF, FBI, and U.S. Marshals will be called upon to impose mandatory quarantines in the event of a widespread swine flu outbreak in the U.S.
Last week, when what is now called a “swine flu” was first reported to be infecting and killing some people in Mexico, health officials noted it was a strain of flu never before seen. In fact, it is technically incorrect to call this simply a “swine” flu.
Health authorities raced yesterday to unravel the many mysteries about the ominous new swine flu spreading around the world, including how widely the virus might cause the severe form of illness that so far has been restricted to the epicenter of the outbreak in Mexico.
The first swine flu death in the United States has been confirmed, but the victim is a Mexican toddler who caught the illness in Mexico before traveling to Texas. Serious questions must now be asked about why a virus that has spread across at least 10 countries and is suspected in many others has only killed hispanics, and whether a race-specific bio-weapon is being beta-tested.
The Department of Homeland Security has sent out an alert to health care providers outlining how BATF, FBI, and U.S. Marshals will be called upon to impose mandatory quarantines in the event of a widespread swine flu outbreak in the U.S.
Mexico on Tuesday revised downwards its confirmed death toll from a new strain of flu to seven from 20, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told reporters.
The first US death from swine flu has been confirmed amid increasing global anxiety over a health menace that authorities around the world are struggling to contain.
The Federal Government has increased its powers of surveillance, detention and disinfection to combat swine flu, as the number of possible Australian cases under investigation rises to 111.
‘Photo Mission’ Causes Panic, Evacuations and Fears of another 9/11
F-16s Seen Escorting A 747 Near Statue Of Liberty Affiliated With Department of Defense Photo Op
Some military aircraft flying over lower Manhattan, including a Boeing 747 from the Air Force One fleet, caused a brief scare for residents, workers, and pedestrians on Monday, but CBS station WCBS-TV in New York has learned the jets were part of a Department of Defense photo shoot and that there was no threat to the city.
According to many callers who flooded CBS 2 with their concerns, at about 10 a.m. the aircraft were seen flying at low altitudes over the Statue of Liberty and parts of lower Manhattan. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that two F-16s escorting a Boeing 747 -- which WCBS confirmed is also used as an Air Force One -- were part of the Department of Defense photo shoot.
Many residents and workers who saw the aircraft evacuated their buildings as a result, but officials say there is no reason for a panic.
Ellen in Bayonne, N.J. described what she saw to WCBSTV.com: "I saw the jet flying very very low over the Hudson river, it looked like it was going to fly through our office window. Then it banked sharply toward New Jersey. But our building was evacuated because it did this 3 times. A photo shoot should have been communicated to the building in the area. We haven't forgotten 9/11, people were in a panic, lots of rumors, not a good situation."
Most witnesses who called and wrote to WCBS were furious that local authorities hadn't notified anyone about the fly-over. The FAA, however, says they contacted the NYPD, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Office, New Jersey state police and other local authorities were told ahead of time about the shoot.
However, that they were instructed by the FAA not to publicize information regarding the incident, NYPD officials told WCBS.
Air Force officials say this was a photo mission for their crew. They were shooting from the Statue of Liberty to south of the Holland tunnel, as well as from the Newark Bay to north of the Staten Island Expressway.
Officials say the shoot was part of a normal training mission. They added that they do these mission quite often.
Scare in Manhattan
A low-flying airplane escorted by military jets sent worried workers fleeing offices in the New York City area. The FAA said it was a "photo op" conducted by a unit of the Air Force.
NYPD Says It Was Told Not to Disclose Flight Information
The Police Department is referring inquiries about the flight that invoked terror fears in New York this morning to the Federal Aviation Administration, claiming the federal agency directed local authorities not to disclose details about it.
"The flight of a VC-25 aircraft and F-16 fighters this morning was authorized by the FAA for the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it but to direct any inquiries to the FAA Air Traffic Security Coordinator," read a message sent to the media by the NYPD..
A low-flying plane, closely escorted by two fighter jets, was spotted over Staten Island's North Shore and New York Harbor just before 10 a.m. The plane, which resembled Air Force One, was a "pre-planned" military flight taking photos of the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Several buildings in Manhattan's Financial District were evacuated until it could be determined that there was no emergency. Some Staten Islanders were among those who evacuated.
The flight created near-panic conditions on Staten Island and in Manhattan. Many borough residents called the Advance asking if the plane -- which appeared to be a commercial jetliner -- was hijacked. The incident invoked memories of Sept. 11, 2001 when two hijacked commercial airliners flew into the World Trade Center towers.
"It is pre-planned, pre-coordinated with everyone involved," said FAA spokesman Jim Peters, pointing out that city and state officials were notified in advance. "It's a military flight over New York to take photos."
WHO is coordinating the global response to human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1).
27 April 2009 – With swine flu infections now confirmed in four different countries, the United Nations health agency said today that it may raise the international pandemic alert today, as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized that the world body is working rapidly to control the outbreak.
“The UN system is responding, quickly and effectively, with the Director General of the World Health Organization [WHO], Dr. Margaret Chan, taking the lead,” Mr. Ban told reporters today.
WHO said it might elevate the level to phase 4 or 5 – out of six – for the first time since the current warning system was introduced in 2005 in response to the avian influenza crisis.
A WHO emergency committee, set up to to advise on the recent outbreak of the deadly new strand of the flu virus, is currently meeting to determine the status of the pandemic alert level.
The agency reported that there are confirmed cases in Canada, Mexico, Spain and the United States, and that there are rumours of the infection spreading to others.
“We now have 40 reported cases in the United States and approximately 26 in Mexico, others in Canada and we now have a verified case in Spain,” a WHO spokesperson told reporters in Geneva.
Phase 5 of the WHO pandemic alert levels is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region.
“The declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short,” says the agency’s website.
The geographic spread and the increasing number of human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) has brought forward the second meeting of the WHO emergency committee to today.
“We are concerned that in Mexico most of those who died were young and healthy adults,” the Secretary-General told the media in New York. The elderly and infants are usually the most vulnerable to influenza.
“If we are indeed facing a pandemic, we need to demonstrate global solidarity,” he said. “The swine flu outbreak demonstrates yet again that in our inter-connected world, no nation can deal with threats of such dimensions on its own.”
Announcing that the World Bank and other UN development and humanitarian agencies will provide funding to countries needing additional resources to combat an epidemic, Mr. Ban said that the poorer nations must not be hit disproportionately hard by a potential health crisis.
“So far, our response has been an example of multilateral cooperation at its best. I am confident that it will continue to be so,” he added.
Boeing MH-6 "Little Bird" helicopters may be seen over Burton in the coming days.
A few developments this week in the case of Mike Connell, the GOP IT guru who 
…right as the swine flu is now accelerating towards pandemic proportions…
