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  • 17:12 - 30.07.2010 News >> Latest

     Hamas Probe Leads to American FirmsAmerican investigators, cooperating in a probe of the assassination of a Palestinian leader in Dubai, have identified a handful of U.S.-based companies believed to have been used to transfer money to suspects in the case.Read Article    

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  • 16:55 - 30.07.2010 News >> Latest

     Al Gore will not be prosecuted over masseuse allegations Al Gore, the former Vice President, will not be prosecuted over allegations by a masseuse that he groped and assaulted her in his Oregon hotel room in 2006, the county prosecutor has confirmed. Read Article    

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  • 16:48 - 30.07.2010 News >> Latest

     Facebook rage of Wikileaks suspect Bradley Manning Exclusive: Prime suspect in Afghan war leaks rages against US Army.  Read Article     

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  • 11:04 - 29.07.2010 News >> Latest

     Arizona immigration law blocked by judge in temporary victory for Obama Ruling marks success for Obama administration to maintain federal control of immigration policy  Read Article    

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  • 10:52 - 29.07.2010 News >> Latest

     Britain to be the biggest country in Europe by 2050 Official forecast predicts that Britain's population will swell from 62.2 million to 77 million - an increase of 24 per cent - overtaking both France and Germany. Read Article    

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  • 04:46 - 29.07.2010 News >> Latest

     Drug Use, Poor Discipline Afflict Afghan ArmyThe U.S. strategy for leaving Afghanistan is heavily dependent on building capable Afghan military and police forces that can take over, but U.S. soldiers complain of a trigger-happy attitude, general carelessness and the use of drugs within those forces. Read Article    

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  • 04:28 - 29.07.2010 News >> Latest

      Taxes: A Defining IssueBarack Obama knows taxes define worldview. The GOP should offer voters an alternative.Read Opinion 

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  • 03:51 - 29.07.2010 News >> Latest

     Ruling Against Arizona Is a Warning for Other StatesBy JULIA PRESTON A federal judge in Arizona on Wednesday broadly vindicated the Obama administration’s high-stakes move to challenge that state’s tough immigration law and to assert the primary authority of the federal government over state lawmakers in immigration matters. The ruling by Judge Susan R. Bolton, in a lawsuit against Arizona brought on July 6 by the Justice Department, blocked central provisions of the law from taking effect while she finishes hearing the case. But in taking the forceful step of holding up a statute even before it was put into practice, Judge Bolton previewed her opinions on the case, indicating that the federal government was likely to win in the end on the main points. The decision by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to throw the federal government’s weight against Arizona, on an issue that has aroused passions among state residents, has irritated many state governors, and nine states filed papers supporting Arizona in the court case. But Judge Bolton found that the law was on the side of the Justice Department in its argument that many provisions of the Arizona statute would interfere with federal law and policy. Gov. Jan Brewer said the state would appeal the decision. Although Judge Bolton’s ruling is not final, it seems likely to halt, at least temporarily, an expanding movement by states to combat illegal immigration by making it a state crime to be an immigrant without legal documents and by imposing new requirements on state and local police officers to enforce immigration law. “This is a warning to any other jurisdiction” considering a…

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  • 20:05 - 28.07.2010 News >> Latest

     Al Gore questioned over sexual assault allegations Police question former vice-president over claims by masseuse. Read Article   

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  • 19:36 - 28.07.2010 News >> Latest

     Clooney's girlfriend named in sex and drugs scandal Elisabetta Canalis named in scandal involving high-class prostitutes Read Article    

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Syndicate
Another former NFL Great sent to slammer.

Carl Eller

 

Eller to serve time, leaving his mother sobbing

Carl Eller was found guilty of assaulting a Minneapolis police officer and failing to cooperate while police tried to give him a sobriety test last spring.

Last update: February 23, 2009 - 1:01 PM

 

Over the cries of his mother and the objections of his lawyer, Minnesota Vikings Hall of Famer Carl Eller left the Hennepin County District Courthouse today in handcuffs to begin serving 60 days in the workhouse.

District Court Judge Daniel Mabley refused a plea from defense lawyer Albert Goins that Eller be given 24 hours to get his affairs in order. "Let him preserve his dignity," Goins said.

The judge declined, saying Eller had called the court and police corrupt, racist and biased. "I have to send a message that I do not find credible what he has asserted," Mabley said. "The best way I can to that is to take him into custody."

The decision surprised most in the courtroom. Eller came to court, as he always has, in a nice suit. He was accompanied by his mother, Ernestine, who sobbed as he was led away. "Don't do this. I need him to go home with me. No, no, no," she said.

The two Minneapolis police officers most closely involved in the incident last April also were surprised at Mabley's decision, but said they were pleased.

"I think the actions of the court represent the severity of the crime," said Officer Gil Antaya, who ended up in the hospital briefly after the encounter with Eller.

Eller's clash with police last April started when officers on patrol saw Eller in a Mercedes G-Wagen speeding west on 8th Avenue N. and driving through a stop sign. Eller didn't stop and get out of his car until he pulled into his north Minneapolis garage, police say. Antaya testified about how he and Officer Seth Porras tried to arrest Eller but were manhandled by the 6-foot-6, 270-pound Hall of Fame lineman, who also threatened to kill them. Eller didn't relent until backup arrived.

Eller, who came to Minnesota in 1960 to play for the Gophers, initially faced four charges, including a felony. But two were dropped in an arrangement with prosecutors. He was found guilty by Mabley of two gross misdemeanors.

 

Today, Mabley sentenced Eller to at least two months in the workhouse out of his four-month sentence on a fourth-degree assault charge involving a police officer. He was also given a two-month sentence for refusal to submit to chemical testing. The sentences will run concurrently. Both are gross misdemeanors. The judge fined Eller $1,500 for each charge.

Eller was calm as he was led away by Hennepin County sheriff's deputies. His lawyers declined to comment as they left the courthouse.

The sentence exceeded even what Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Judith Hawley sought from the court. She asked for a 60-day sentence that could be served at home on electronic monitoring. "The goal of the state has not been to have Mr. Eller incarcerated," she said. "Our goal has been to keep Mr. Eller sober."

She said the case wasn't handled any differently because of Eller's high profile. "He has a serious problem with alcohol," she said. Hawley also requested that Eller be given classic "hands-on community service" as opposed to being allowed to work for a foundation.

Goins asked that Eller be sentenced to 30 days on home monitoring. "If Carl Eller goes to the Hennepin County workhouse, it's going to be a prescription for disaster," Goins said.

Lawyer Rick Petry cited Eller's reputation and history of serving the community "nobly and with honor." Both lawyers say Eller is sober.

In his only comments to the court, Eller said "this has been a difficult time for everyone" and said he was "saddened by the events that happened."

The incident caused him to evaluate his behavior and realize he was "on a path that was not healthy."

But Mabley said he was less concerned with the driving under the influence conviction than he was with the assault on a police officer. He also emphasized his displeasure with Eller's statements to the media. "Your main concern is the effect on your reputation," Mabley said.

After he is released, Eller will remain on probation for four years.

The two officers, each of whom weighs at least 225 poounds without gear, said the incident had been alarming and humiliating to them because they are the target of incessant jokes from colleagues. After the sentence, Porras said, "I hope this will be a turning point in his life. I hope we can get back to doing police work."

 

Both said they found his physical strength abnormal for someone who had been drinking.

In 2006, Eller pleaded guilty to fourth-degree drunken driving while refusing a chemical alcohol test. His two-year probation ended in March.

Eller also has filed a federal lawsuit alleging police intentionally hid or destroyed video evidence from the fight.

 

 

 
SD Union-Tribune: Marriage ruling gave gay people legal protection

 

Publisher's Note: If the State Supreme Court intended this, why was it hidden on page 100 of 124? What kind of message is that?

Also -  the San Diego Union-Tribune has interesting stories every day.....like this one!!

 

Marriage ruling gave gay people legal protection

Union-Tribune Staff Writer

2:00 a.m. February 23, 2009

Tucked deep within the state Supreme Court's sweeping decision in May that struck down same-sex-marriage bans for a time is a single sentence that will have a significant effect for years – regardless of any new turns in the same-sex-marriage debate.

On page 100 of the 124-page ruling, in dense legal prose, Chief Justice Ronald George ruled that a special constitutional protection applies to people based on their sexual orientation.

In essence, the court said discrimination against gays and lesbians was equivalent to racial, age or gender discrimination, giving same-sex-rights advocates a powerful legal weapon in the future.

Already the first echoes of that determination are being heard in some of the arguments that will be made in the upcoming challenge to Proposition 8, the voter-approved measure that rebuked the main aspect of the court's May ruling and declared that only marriages between men and women are valid.

The special protection the court gave in May – which Proposition 8 does not affect – means that any state law or policy that is alleged to discriminate against gays and lesbians now will be analyzed under the most stringent legal standard a court can apply. Few laws survive such a test, known as “strict scrutiny.”

No other state supreme court in the United States has gone so far in giving gays and lesbians such legal status.

Laws the Legislature has passed over the past several years already prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, health care and other areas. Julie Greenberg, a law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and an expert on sexual-orientation legal issues, said the court's finding strengthens those protections significantly.

It would be harder for judges to use sexual orientation as a reason to deny gays and lesbians certain rights, such as in child-custody cases and employment cases. And if in the future a new Legislature wanted to roll back some of the laws extending protections to gays and lesbians, it would be impossible, Greenberg said.

While the focus of attention on the contentious issue has been the court's main action striking down same-sex-marriage bans, legal experts have said that the decision to elevate sexual orientation to the same level of protection as race and other categories was nearly as important.

Shaun Martin, a law professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, said it “will make it easier for gays and lesbians to strike at non-marriage laws that may subtly or not so subtly discriminate against them.”

“You are going to have over the next 10 years lawsuits against government for doing things that have an adverse impact on gays and lesbians. And they will cite this case a lot,” Martin said.

The arguments that state Attorney General Jerry Brown makes against Proposition 8 are an example of how the decision is being used now.

Brown surprised many when he changed positions several weeks after voters approved the proposition in November, from initially saying his office would defend the measure to urging the court to overturn it.

In court papers, Brown said the California Constitution declares certain rights to be fundamental, such as liberty and equality. In its marriage decision in May, the court said the right to marry was part of that.

Where fundamental rights intersect with the heightened legal protections given to minorities and others, those rights can only be taken away if the state can show there is a “compelling interest” to do so, Brown said, and Proposition 8 lacks that compelling interest.

Opponents derided Brown's legal argument.

“The practical result of the Attorney General's theory is that the people can never amend the Constitution to overrule judicial interpretations of inalienable rights,” wrote Kenneth Starr, former U.S. solicitor general and the attorney for the Proposition 8 supporters.

Legal experts also doubt that Brown can persuade the court to accept his position.

“I strongly doubt the court will buy that certain rights are categorically inviolate even through the amendment process,” said Martin of USD.

Proposition 8's legal opponents have developed another line of attack to pursue in the March 5 oral arguments before the Supreme Court, one that Martin and others say is not as far-fetched. It holds that Proposition 8 amounted to a revision of the constitution, not an amendment. A revision to the constitution, which changes the basic structure of government, must be first passed by the Legislature and then put before voters.

But that argument also benefits from the heightened status gays and lesbians now have. Some Proposition 8 opponents contend that denying a fundamental right to a protected class of citizens amounts to a revision of the structure of the constitution, said Kenji Yoshino, a law professor at NYU School of Law who has written about the same-sex-marriage decision.

Such a “deeper change to the constitutional order” can't be done through an amendment, he said.

Attacking Proposition 8 in this way was somewhat easier because the court elevated the status of gays and lesbians, said Karl Manheim, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who filed a brief urging the court to overturn the measure. Manheim supported the argument that Proposition 8 is an illegal constitutional revision.

Without the designation of sexual orientation as a special legal class, attacking Proposition 8 as an overbroad revision “would be a much harder argument to make,” Manheim said.

If the court upholds Proposition 8, gays and lesbians will still have an important legal victory going forward with the heightened status the court granted them in May.

“Essentially, it is going to be very hard for the state in any way to make distinctions between gays and straight people,” Yoshino said. “And it's portable. It travels with gays and lesbians outside the context of marriage.”

Greg Moran: (619) 542-4586; This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text74607 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

 

 

 
San Diego Union Tribune Front Page
February   23
 
 
 
 
Gitmo detainee back in UK

Binyam Mohamed back in UK, claiming 'torturers' linked to British agents

Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed has arrived back in the UK, claiming that his "torturers" were receiving questions and material from British intelligence agents.

 
 London Telegraph/UK
Binyam Mohamed arrives back in Britain after 4 years in the US terror camp - where he says he was tortured. ; http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1488655367/bctid13930934001 http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=1139053637

Former detainee Mr Mohamed alleges that he was tortured into falsely confessing to terrorist activities and claims MI5 officers were complicit in his abuse.

In his statement, Mr Mohamed said: "I have to say, more in sadness than in anger, that many have been complicit in my own horrors over the past seven years.

"For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence."

Mr Mohamed, a British resident, aged 30, had been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than four years.

An aircraft carrying the 30-year-old landed at RAF Northolt in north west London just after 1pm on Monday.

Concerns had been expressed about Mr Mohamed's health after he recently went on hunger strike, but he was able to walk off the aircraft without needing support.

He was dressed in casual clothes and clutched what appeared to be a document holder as he made his way to the terminal building surrounded by officials.

Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed lived in London before his arrest in Pakistan in 2002.

He was held at the controversial US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba from September 2004.

The British Government requested his release, and a team of British officials went to Guantanamo Bay recently to check that he was well enough to travel back to the UK.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was pleased the former detainee had returned to the UK.

He said: "This is the direct result of our request for his release and return, and follows intensive negotiations with the US government.

"Mr Mohamed was accompanied by Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials, officers of the Metropolitan Police and the doctor who visited him at Guantanamo Bay last week.

"We have been in touch with Mr Mohamed's family and legal representatives to inform them of his return.

"The UK Government requested the release and return of all former legal UK residents detained at Guantanamo Bay in August 2007.

"In reaching this decision we have paid full consideration to the need to maintain national security and the Government's overriding responsibilities in this regard."

Mr Mohamed will spend the next few days with his family and legal team.

In his statement, he said: "I hope you will understand that, after everything I have been through, I am neither physically nor mentally capable of facing the media on the moment of my arrival back to Britain.

"I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares.

"Before this ordeal, torture was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim.

"It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways - all orchestrated by the United States government.

"While I want to recover, and put it all as far in the past as I can, I also know I have an obligation to the people who still remain in those torture chambers.

"My own despair was greatest when I thought that everyone had abandoned me. I have a duty to make sure that nobody else is forgotten."

Speaking about his period of torture in Morocco, Mr Mohamed said: "I have met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers."

He went on: "I am not asking for vengeance, only that the truth should be made known so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured."

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, called for an independent inquiry into Britain's role in secret detention and rendition programmes.

"We're pleased that we have Binyam back today but it has taken the British Government far too long to be arguing for these men," she said.

Mr Mohamed's UK lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said he was "absolutely" convinced of the former detainee's innocence.

"If anyone wants to put him on trial, in the immortal words of George Bush, bring them on," he said.

Gordon Brown declined to say whether Mr Mohamed will face any restrictions on his liberty when he returns to the UK.

Speaking in Southampton, where he is attending a Cabinet "awayday", the Prime Minister said: "What I can say is that at all times the security of the country will be protected.

"Of course, we have got to look at the details of the arrangements, but at all times the security of the British people comes first."

He added: "My first concern is the security of people in this country and we will do everything in our power to protect the security of people in our country and the Home Secretary will take whatever action is necessary."

Mr Mohamed was detained under Port and Border Controls, part of the Terrorism Act 2000, when he arrived in the UK, Scotland Yard said.

A spokesman said he was not arrested.

He added: "The man has been monitored by a forensic medical examiner during the flight to ensure that he is fit to be detained by police.

"He will have access to a solicitor, as is normal practice.

"Police are conducting investigations into his case. Their inquiries are being carried out, as they must be, strictly in accordance with UK law."

 

 

 
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