911review/law

High Cost of Prisons Not Paying Off, Report Finds
The U.S. spends more than any other nation -- $60 billion a year -- to house inmates, but sees little good as a result, a bipartisan panel says.
by Jenifer Warren

SACRAMENTO -- Americans spend $60 billion a year to imprison 2.2 million people -- exceeding any other nation -- but receive a dismal return on the investment, according to a report to be released today by a commission urging greater public scrutiny of what goes on behind bars.

The report, "Confronting Confinement," by the National Prison Commission, says legislators have passed get-tough laws that have packed the nation's jails and prisons to overflowing with convicts, most of them poor and uneducated. However, politicians have done little to help inmates emerge as better citizens upon release.

The consequences of that failure include financial strain on states, public health threats from parolees with communicable diseases, and a cycle of crime and victimization driven by a recidivism rate of more than 60%, the report says.

"If these were public schools or publicly traded corporations, we'd shut them down," said Alexander Busansky, executive director of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, established by a private think tank in New York. Rather, the commission said, Americans view prisons with detachment or futility, growing interested when a riot makes the news and then looking away, "hoping the troubles inside the walls will not affect us."

With 20 members representing diverse perspectives, the bipartisan panel urges Americans to ignore the costs of incarceration no longer. Launched in early 2005 amid what panelists called "accumulating doubts about the effectiveness and morality of our country's approach to confinement," the commission will deliver its findings to a Senate subcommittee in Washington today.

From the page: "Mysterious Florida Deaths Involve GOP Consultant, God Knows What Else"
GOP Consultant and Rep. Tom Feeney friend Ralph Gonzalez was found dead in an Orange County, Florida home, yesterday, alongside two other bodies, all of whom had been there since possibly Tuesday. Authorities gave next to no details whatsoever as to what the hell was going on, except that it looked like a "murder-suicide."

You can read Gonzalez's impressive bio on the still-active website of his oddly spelled consulting firm:

Prior to founding the Strategum Group, Ralph served at the Republican Party of Florida's House Campaign Division, as Executive Director of the Georgia Republican Party, and is a veteran of dozens of campaigns across Florida, from Mayoral Races to Congressional. He also has international political experience, helping to manage a campaign on the Island of St. Maarten.

In a poll at nola.com about %80 of people think the portrait should stay up.

First: i am not big on polls.
Second : This isnt very fair to the other %20 (me included)
Third: The law isnt created by polls.

The founders of this country wanted to make sure that religion was not part of politics. They made that pretty clear
Another misconception is that this country was founded by Christians,
it wasnt.
Jefferson Thomas Paine and many others were DESITS.
Many say Washington was as well
Deists believe in God but not religion (to simplify)

To me
Common sense would dictate that you cant put a symbol of ALL religions in that courthouse.
Fairness would dictate that if you dont then that portrait MUST come down.

I have a feeling there will be many more cases like this across this country
At least i hope so.
911review.org/news/ACLU_Portrait.html [911review.org/news/ACLU_Portrait.html]
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Judge: Portrait of Jesus staying on wall ACLU, however, says past ruling is clear

Sunday, July 01, 2007

By Jeff Muskus


Flanked by Slidell's mayor and local clergy, City Court Judge Jim
Lamz said Saturday he has decided not to remove a portrait of Jesus
from the Slidell court's lobby, potentially setting the stage for a
legal battle with the American Civil Liberties Union.


With the portrait hanging above him, Lamz told a news conference he
disagrees with the ACLU's assertion that displaying the portrait
violates the First Amendment's guarantee of separation of church
and state.


Lamz said the court will await further action from the ACLU, which
had set a Monday deadline for action on the issue after an initial
letter sent to Slidell Court Clerk Susan Ordoyne on June 20.

Gonzales Implicated In Cover-Up Of New Pedophile Scandal
Letter from Sutton's office legitimized raping of boys in minor's facility

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, March 26, 2007


Journalist Jerome Corsi appeared on the Alex Jones Show today to discuss in depth his astounding new investigation that implicates both Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton in the cover-up of a pedophilia scandal involving the Texas Youth Commission.

"Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, both already under siege for other matters, are now being accused of failing to prosecute officers of the Texas Youth Commission after a Texas Ranger investigation documented that guards and administrators were sexually abusing the institution's minor boy inmates," writes Corsi in a report for World Net Daily.

"Among the charges in the Texas Ranger report were that administrators would rouse boys from their sleep for the purpose of conducting all-night sex parties."

From the page: "WASHINGTON (AP) - Without notifying the public, federal agents for the past four years have assigned millions of international travelers, including Americans, computer-generated scores rating the risk they pose of being terrorists or criminals.

The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.

The scores are assigned to people entering and leaving the United States after computers assess their travel records, including where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.

The program's existence was quietly disclosed earlier in November when the government put an announcement detailing the Automated Targeting System, or ATS, for the first time in the Federal Register, a fine-print compendium of federal rules. Privacy and civil liberties lawyers, congressional aides and even law enforcement officers said they thought this system had been applied only to cargo."

The government notice says ATS data may be shared with state, local and foreign governments for use in hiring decisions and in granting licenses, security clearances, contracts or other benefits. In some cases, the data may be shared with courts, Congress and even private contractors.

From the page: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in Open Court. %u2014U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 3 .

There is not only a battle against Terrorism, but there is a battle here to protect this country%u2019s rule of law. %u2014Military lawyer Charles Swift, forced to retire by the Pentagon after defeating Bush in the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a decision now overturned by Congress in the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

George W. Bush likes to call himself %u201Cthe Decider,%u201D and on signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006 - presented him by the Republican-controlled Congress%u2014he has far more power to reinterpret the rule of law, including the definition of treason and the Constitution, than any president in American history.

For one of many exam"