Militarizing US Police, what did Bill Clinton have to do with it? Racism???

Militarizing US Police
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/the-secret-government/militarizing-us-police.html

American Militarized Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hOLq9Fp1C0&feature=related

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-01-10/news/17943437_1_hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-game-change
Excerpt:

Bill Clinton told Ted Kennedy that Obama 'would be getting us coffee' a few years ago: 'Game Change'

BY HELEN KENNEDY

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Bill Clinton helped sink his wife's chances for an endorsement from Ted Kennedy by belittling Barack Obama as nothing but a race-based candidate.
"A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee," the former president told the liberal lion from Massachusetts, according to the gossipy new campaign book, "Game Change."
The book says Kennedy was deeply offended and recounted the conversation to friends with fury.
After Kennedy sided with Obama, Clinton reportedly griped, "the only reason you are endorsing him is because he's black. Let's just be clear."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Change
Excerpt:
Harry Reid was heavily criticized for comments he previously made about Barack Obama, which had not been made public until they were published in Game Change. According to the book, Reid said he believed Obama could become the country's first black president because he was "light-skinned" and had "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one". Reid acknowledged and apologized for the comments, and his apology was accepted by Barack Obama. The disclosure came at a time Reid was facing a difficult reelection campaign in his home state of Nevada.^[8][9][10] National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair John Cornyn, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Jon Kyl called on Reid to step down as majority leader for his remarks.^[11]
Also reported for the first time was a comment Bill Clinton supposedly made in trying to convince Ted Kennedy not to back Obama's candidacy but rather that of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Clinton reportedly said to Kennedy that a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee; the belittling of Obama's candidacy helped lead to Kennedy's endorsement of Obama shortly thereafter.^[12] Reverend Al Sharpton condemned Clinton's remark, saying, "I think that's far more disturbing [than Senator Reid's comments] because this is someone seeking to stop Mr. Obama's campaign... If someone said that he would have been getting us coffee like that in the context they said he said it, that would be very offensive to me, and I would definitely take Mr. Clinton on".^[12]

http://swans.com/library/art16/barker62.html
Excerpt:
Bill Clinton's Philanthropic Propaganda  

by Michael Barker

"Through their donations and work for voluntary organizations, the charitable rich exert enormous influence in society. As philanthropists, they acquire status within and outside of their class. Although private wealth is the basis of the hegemony of this group, philanthropy is essential to the maintenance and perpetuation of the upper class in the United States. In this sense, nonprofit activities are the nexus of a modern power elite."
—Teresa Odendahl, 1990. (1)

(Swans - August 9, 2010)   Philanthropic propaganda provides a powerful rhetorical discourse that is used to maximum effect to shield leading members of the ruling class from critical scrutiny. Through consuming such propaganda we find out that the people who organize Empire against the interests of the majority of humanity are just like the rest of us, except, that is, that they want to help make the world a safer place for capital, not humans. This murderous prioritization is however glossed over by unrelenting public relations campaigns that maintain just the opposite. Bill Clinton is a master of such propaganda and just a few years ago he published his own opus on this subject, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World (Knopf, 2007). Clinton is "convinced... that almost everyone -- regardless of income, available time, age, and skills -- can do something useful for others and, in the process, strengthen the fabric of our shared humanity." (2) Yet while he may be correct in stating that almost everyone can lend a hand, arguably the only people who should be excluded from intervening in this process are members of the power elite, like Clinton.

http://news.yahoo.com/school-police-union-slammed-edgy-t-shirts-185602644.html
Excerpt:

NORTH HIGHLANDS, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California school police officers union has angered a town after it sold T-shirts with a picture of a child behind bars and the slogan: "U raise 'em, we cage 'em."

Town leaders said the fundraising shirts are highly offensive and fuel mistrust of the Twin Rivers Police Department in North Highlands, the Sacramento Bee (http://bit.ly/sDbEnl ) reported Tuesday.

http://hoboken411.com/archives/8862
Excerpt:
5/2/2011 HOBOKEN411 EXCLUSIVE:

$2 Million settlement proposed in Hoboken SWAT case,

Dawn Zimmer protects Andriani and Roberts while taxpayers pay

The lawsuit that brought national attention to the Hoboken SWAT Team​ is about to be settled. Hoboken411 has learned Mayor Dawn Zimmer is asking the City Council to approve a $2 million dollar payout to five police officers who sued the city over treatment by former Lieutenant Angelo Andriani.

The rub? Zimmer’s settlement will relieve Andriani and former Mayor David Roberts of any burden they faced in the lawsuits related to the SWAT case. The $2 million would be split among the five Hispanic officers who brought the case.

How this all started, and the SWAT scandal that followed

Back in October 2007 (see original reporting on the case after the jump), Sgt. Edwin Pantoja, Det. Cesar Olavarria, Det. James Perez, Det. George Fonseca and Det. Mario Novo filed suit against the city charging Angelo Andriani was a white supremacist who discriminated against them because of their ethnicity.

After the suit was filed, Hoboken411 showed the world the pictures of the post-Hurricane Katrina​ exploits of Andriani and his SWAT team. As a City Council member, Dawn Zimmer voted (along with Peter Cunningham) to allow former Police Chief Carmen LaBruno to retire with a $525,000 cash payout and full pension of $148,000 a year (plus full benefits for life) rather than face an investigation for his management of Andriani and the department.

Zimmer and Cunningham allowed LaBruno to leave with a golden parachute rather than shine light on the problems of the department. Now, Zimmer is again looking to settle a case without further exposure to the people who may have been most culpable.

http://hoboken411.com/archives/36448
Excerpt:

http://usaintelreport.blogspot.com/2011/01/militarized-police-after-giffords.html
Excerpt:

Bill Clinton gave a commencement speech at Michigan State University and during that speech he urged the House and the Senate to pass his anti-terror legislation in response to Oklahoma City. In this extremely controversial proposal, the Department of Defense would've been assigned an increased role in domestic terrorism incidents. Civil liberties experts warned that it would violate the tenants of "civil supremacy over the military". Rush Limbaugh on his television show expressed dismay for Clinton wanting using the military in domestic police action. After the recent shooting, there's no telling what legislation could be coming in the name of protecting government officials. I'd say it's unlikely that Obama would pass such extreme legislation such as this. Obama does not seem to be anxious for power as Clinton and Bush were.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/06/us/terror-in-oklahoma-excerpts-from-clinton-s-commencement-speech.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm
Excerpt:
If you appropriate our sacred symbols for paranoid purposes and compare yourselves to colonial militias who fought for the democracy you now rail against, you are wrong. How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on earth live in tyranny? How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes?
I say to you, all of you, the members of the class of 1995, there is nothing patriotic about hating your country or pretending that you can love your country but despise your Government. There is nothing heroic about turning your back on America or ignoring your own responsibilities. If you want to preserve your own freedom, you must stand up for the freedom of others with whom you disagree, but you also must stand up for the rule of law. You cannot have one without the other.

Clinton How Dare You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr0dvW9jmtY

http://www.chomsky.info/books/roguestates08.htm
Excerpt:

Plan Colombia Noam Chomsky Excerpted from Rogue States, 2000

In 1999, Colombia became the leading recipient of US military and police assistance, replacing Turkey (Israel and Egypt are in a separate category). Colombia receives more US military aid than the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean combined. The total for 1999 reached about $300 million, along with $60 million in arms sales, approximately a threefold increase from 1998. The figure is scheduled to increase still more sharply with the anticipated passage of some version of Clinton’s Colombia Plan, submitted to Congress in April 2000, which called for a $1.6 billion “emergency aid” package for two years. Through the 1990s, Colombia has been by far the leading recipient of US military aid in Latin America, and has also compiled by far the worst human rights record, in conformity with a well-established and long-standing correlation.1 In theory, “Plan Colombia” is a two-year Colombian government program of $7.5 billion, with the US providing the military muscle and token funds for other purposes, and some $6 billion from the Colombian government, Europe, the IMF, and the World Bank for social and economic programs that Colombia is to prepare. According to non-US diplomats, the draft of “Plan Colombia” was written in English, not Spanish. The military program (arms, training, intelligence infrastructure) was in place in late 1999, but “the Colombian govern-ment has yet to present a coherent social investment program” as of mid-2000, and few governments are “willing to climb aboard what is widely perceived as an American project to clean up its backyard,” by means that are familiar to those who do not choose what has been called “intentional ignorance.”2

http://www.rense.com/general16/coop.htm
Excerpt:
William Cooper Killed In SWAT Raid

SierraTimes.com

11-6-1

"...God bless my family. I love my wife & children more than life itself. Everything I do is for the future of all my children. They may not understand why I have sacrificed so much, why I am so dedicated to this work; but someday they will. I want them to know they are the most important People in my life, and how very, very much I love them..." - William Cooper

 

EAGER, AZ - William Cooper has been killed and an Apache County sheriff's deputy wounded in a shootout, authorities said.

http://www.davekopel.com/cj/chap/afterprohibition.htm
Excerpts:
1) One of the most significant trends of law enforcement in the last twenty fifteen years has been militarization. That militarization is the direct result of the drug war, and it is the direct cause of the deaths of Enrique Hernandez, Donald Scott, and other innocents—and of assaults on the persons and property of many more innocents.

2) More significant than the semantic change is the fact that the JTFs often pay no attention to their legal constraints. For example, the JTF responsible for the Canadian border area provided “counterdrug” sniper training at Camp Perry, Ohio. Among the trainees were state prison guards; while prison guards perform important jobs, the notion that training prison guards how to kill people at long distances with military-style sniper rifles has something to do with “counterdrug” activity is ludicrous.

The military’s lawyers are members of the JAG Corps (“Judge Advocates General”). Like all government lawyers, their duties are to the People, and they are required to ensure that their government clients stay within legal boundaries. But in practice, when JAG lawyers object to particular JTF missions which appear to violate the law, military liaison officers for  the JAG Corps usually inform the lawyers that objections are “not career enhancing.”

An example of what happens to people who don’t use drugs as a result of the absence of strong checks of use of the military in the drug war can be seen in the tragedy at Waco, Texas.

As part of the planning for the Waco raid, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms went to the Joint Task Force Six, which covers Texas, and asked for training, medical, communications, and other support. The JTF-6 staff explained that they could only be involved if the case were a drug case.[xv] If the case were not a drug case, BATF could obtain assistance from other parts of the military; JTF units could only be used for drug enforcement. And while military training and equipment were available from other units, BATF would have to pay for military help, if the Waco raid were not drug-related.

Immediately thereafter, BATF began asserting phony claims that the Waco case was a drug investigation; Branch Davidian prophet David Koresh was supposedly running a methamphetamine laboratory.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/29/110005.shtml
Excerpt:
In November 2005 the Associated Press reported that Senate Minority Leader Reid had accepted tens of thousands of dollars from an Abramoff client, the Coushatta Indian tribe, after interceding with Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton over a casino dispute with a rival tribe.
Reid "sent a letter to Norton on March 5, 2002," the AP said. "The next day, the Coushattas issued a $5,000 check to Reid's tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. A second tribe represented by Abramoff sent an additional $5,000 to Reid's group. Reid ultimately received more than $66,000 in Abramoff-related donations between 2001 and 2004."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1896042/posts
Excerpt:
Posted on Thursday, September 13, 2007 12:59:08 PM by Fedora
Caught in the Searchlight: Hsu, Reid, and the Searchlight Leadership Fund
Harry Reid’s Mob Money, Part 5
By Fedora

Fugitive fundraiser Norman Hsu’s donations to Hillary Clinton have understandably grabbed the limelight, but there is another story lurking in the shadows of the affair. Federal Election Commission documents record that on May 17, 2007, Hsu donated $1,000 to the Searchlight Leadership Fund, a political action committee associated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. On the same day, Searchlight received a $1,000 contribution from Winkle Paw, described by Hsu’s lawyer as a business associate of Hsu. Also donating $1,000 to Searchlight that day was Paul Su of Dilini Management Group, a company Hsu listed on a form while making a political contribution to Senator Dianne Feinstein.
These donations to Searchlight expose a funding conduit reaching to the heart of Harry Reid’s political machine. The financial trail stretches back to Reid’s hometown, his longtime business associate Jay Brown, and his Nevada gambling industry patrons; and it connects the Hsu affair to scandal-ridden lobbyists William Oldaker and Jack Abramoff, Reid’s financial consigliere Claude Zobell, and a political action committee targeting freshmen Congressmen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_influence_of_Jack_Abramoff
Excerpt:
Reid also intervened on government matters in ways that Abramoff's tribal clients might have deemed helpful, once opposing legislation on the Senate floor and four times sending letters pressing the Bush administration on tribal issues. Reid collected donations around the time of each action. Reid's office said none of the senator's actions were affected by donations or done for Abramoff.
Reid sent a letter they wrote on March 5, 2002, to Interior Secretary Gale Norton asking her to reject an application from the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, which was seeking to open a casino outside its Louisiana reservation. An Abramoff client fighting the Jena casino, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, donated $5,000 to Reid's political action committee, the Searchlight Leadership Fund, the next day, at Abramoff's request. While Abramoff never donated directly to Reid, the lobbyist did instruct the tribe to send $5,000 to the fund. The Washington Post reported that Abramoff sent a list to the tribe titled "Coushatta Requests" recommending donations to campaigns or groups for 50 lawmakers. Alongside Reid's name, Abramoff wrote, "5,000 (Searchlight Leadership Fund) Senate Majority Whip." Reid was Democratic whip at the time.