February 1, 2014

EVERY Extradition Treaty Means The Same Thing: We Trust Your System, and You Trust Ours.

Otherwise why bother with them?
________________

RONALD REAGAN.

LETTER OF SUBMITTAL

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, April 10, 1984.

The PRESIDENT,

The White House.

THE PRESIDENT: I have the honor to submit to you the Treaty on Extradition between the
United States of America and Italy, signed at Rome on October 13, 1983. I recommend that
the Treaty be transmitted to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification.

The Treaty follows generally the form and content of extradition treaties recently concluded
by this Government.

Article 1 obligates each State to extradite to the other, in accordance with the terms of the
Treaty, any persons charged with or convicted of an extraditable offense by the requesting
State. (Extradition [*3] shall also be granted, Article 2 explains, for attempts to commit,
participation in the commission of, and conspiracy to commit extraditable offenses.)

Article 2 permits extradition for any offense punishable under the laws of both States by
imprisonment for more than one year. Instead of listing each offense for which extradition
may be granted, as was United States practice until recently, this Treaty adopts the modern
practice of permitting extradition for any crime punishable under the laws of both contracting
Parties for a minimum period. This obviates the need to renegotiate or supplement the Treaty
should both States pass laws covering new types of criminal activity, such as computer-
related crimes.

Article 2 also follows the practice of recent United States extradition treaties in indicating
that the dual criminality standard should be interpreted liberally in order to effectuate the
intent of the Parties that fugitives be brought to justice.

February 1, 2014

Right Wing Media Propagandist Frank Luntz Hired To Tackle Washington Redskins Racist Moniker Problem

Can guest appearances on Fox News be far behind for Luntz and the rest of the Redskins and NFL brass defending the indefensible?

Redskins Paying Team Of Republican Advisers For Advice On Name Controversy

http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/01/31/3236911/redskins-paying-team-republican-advisers-advice-controversy/

February 1, 2014

Hannity Selectively Edits Daily Show Segment to Make Himself Look Good: Fellow Foxies Applaud!

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/hannity-selectively-edits-daily-show

"How much disdain do you have to have for your own audience to do something like this? It looks like Jon Stewart's segment making a mockery of Hannity for his threats to leave New York left a mark. As our friend Ellen over at NewsHounds noted, it seems Hannity's ego got the better of him, since he played excerpts from The Daily Show segment, but with the criticisms of him edited out. Imagine that."

More at the very fine Newshounds site:

http://www.newshounds.us/hannity_selectively_edits_daily_show_video_to_make_himself_look_better_01302014

January 31, 2014

There is no Double Jeopardy when you are Convicted at your first trial. Amanda Knox is going to be

extradited according to law and the Italian/American extradition treaty of 1937, and only State Department intervention can stop it.

Because that is the law.

I doubt that double jeopardy has technically attached because this still the same case. In the US, a person can be retried if the conviction is overturned and the double jeopardy rule will not apply. Professor Dershowitz also thinks that double jeopardy does not apply http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/30/22507219-amanda-knox-convicted-of-murder-in-italian-retrial

Some observers have questioned whether the American protection against double jeopardy — being retried and convicted of a crime after being acquitted — would give the U.S. an excuse to balk at extradition.

But Dershowitz doubts that would apply in the Knox case because she was intially found guilty and her acquittal took place at an intermediate appeals level.

"If that happened in the U.S., it wouldn't be double jeopardy," he said
_______________

More on the original verdict of conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher, and the 400 page legal analysis of Judge Massei:

Summary of the Massei report
Version 1.5: June 4, 2011

This summary may be freely copied or otherwise reproduced and transmitted in the unedited pdf format provided that the document or excerpt therefrom is accompanied by the following attribution: “From the summary prepared by unpaid volunteers from http://www.perugiamurderfile.org to promote a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding the death of Meredith Kercher and the case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in the English-speaking world”.

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C378/

January 31, 2014

Amanda Knox should surrender to Italian authorities, The EVIDENCE Is Clear Enough- SHE DID IT.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/The_Evidence

Her ex bf was picked up byauthorities today, and released with just confiscation of his passport and drivers license.....why the American media is all so very upset with the Italian justice system and in favor of this twice convicted murderess is beyond me. And I notice that the there is ZERO American outrage over the co-accused Raffaele Sollecito who has gone exactly the same route through the Italian justice system.
______________________

"The family's lawyer (of the murder victim), Francesca Maresca, said: "I hope this is justice for Meredith and for her family."


Raffaele Sollecito Picked Up Near Italian Border After Guilty Verdict, Forced To Surrender Passport

Raffaele Sollecito, convicted with former lover Amanda Knox of the grisly murder of a British student, has been picked up by police near the Italian border and has surrendered his passport.

Police tracked him to a hotel in Venzone, a town in northeast Italy near the Austrian and Slovenian borders, just hours after an appeal court in Florence sentenced him to 25 years in prison, a source at the police station in the nearby city of Udine told AFP.

"Police went to find him in his hotel and he followed them willingly" back to the police station, the source said.

"He is still there now. He is not under arrest. He has to hand over his passport, which can be a lengthy process," he added.

"The Florence verdict is the latest development in more than six years of legal battles which have seen the former lovers convicted in 2009, then acquitted on appeal in 2011 and then, last year, refused a definitive acquittal by the Court of Cassation, which ordered a second appeal, accusing the Perugia appeals court which had annulled the convictions of "numerous deficiencies, contradictions and manifest lack of logic".

There was no "second trial" or "double jeopardy".

"The Florence court began hearing the second appeal in late September. There, prosecutors argued that Knox and Sollecito carried out the murder alongside Rudy Guede, a young man from Ivory Coast who was convicted of the killing and is serving a 16-year sentence following a fast-track trial."

As is standard practice in Italy, the Florence court gave no explanation for its verdict and now has up to 90 days to publish its reasoning.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/31/raffaele-sollecito-passport_n_4701453.html?utm_hp_ref=canada&ir=Canada





"The family's lawyer (of the murder victim), Francesca Maresca, said: "I hope this is justice for Meredith and for her family."

The body of Kercher, a 21-year-old Leeds University student from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found in the bedroom of her shared flat in Perugia on the morning of 2 November 2007. She had been in the first weeks of an Erasmus year in the Umbrian hilltop town.

After the verdict, Knox – whose original sentence was for 26 years – issued a fiercely critical statement, attacking the Italian justice system and saying she had "expected better".

THIS is Knox's teary explanation in 2011: "I did not kill Meredith Kercher, I’m so sorry she’s dead, I’m so sad for her family, I was with Raf all night and I am angry as heck with Rudy Guede who killed her. She should have had some honest indignation about that, if she believes Guede is the real killer who has caused Meredith’s death but also Amanda’s own four year ordeal. Wouldn’t you blame the person who had thrown you in prison for a crime you hadn’t committed? Instead, she chalks it up to the police and their betrayal of her kind help.

If she were innocent, she would rage against Guede. It’s the feelings Amanda doesn’t have that speak the loudest. Same with Raffaele."


___________________

Harken To The EVIDENCE, and the admissible EVIDENCE only, shall we?:

The Evidence of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's Involvement in the Murder of Meredith Kercher


* More Than One Person Attacked the murder victim Meredith Kercher. From the time of Rudy Guede's final sentencing,[1] the Court has accepted that more than one person attacked Meredith Kercher, with an unusually strong report that pointed towards Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito as the other attackers. Meredith was dressed, awake, and standing for the attack, yet did not defend herself. Unusually, she had no defensive wounds but for three tiny (0.24 inch or 6 mm) cuts on her hand[2], indicating an inability to express normal reflexes, flinch from the small cuts to her neck, or attempt to block the incoming blows with her hands or forearms. Indeed, in addition to wounds which fit two different knife profiles[3], she suffered numerous compression or restraint bruises to her elbows, wrists, and face. At the trial, consultants for Knox and Sollecito each proposed a single-attacker scenario but could not agree whether this lone wolf had attacked from the front (Torre, Amanda's consultant) or from behind (Introna, Raffaele's consultant).[4] At the appeal, under Judge Hellmann, Sollecito's defense team introduced two witnesses to testify first, that Guede had acted with two people other than Knox and Sollecito, and second, that two people excluding Guede had carried out the attack after mistakenly entering the home. The Supreme Court faulted Judge Hellmann for ignoring their sentence of Guede and supporting the single-wolf theory, which they found unsupported by the facts. They direct the new Appeals Court in Florence to see what evidence ties Rudy Guede together with Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in the cottage at the same time.


* Someone RETURNED To Move Meredith. As is detailed by Judge Micheli (who convicted Guede for his part and committed Knox and Sollecito to trial to answer for the evidence of theirs) Meredith's body was discovered in a position and location different from that in which she died, judging by the lividity reported by the medical examiner and an indentation in her shoulder of a bra strap (with a corresponding impression on the floor). She had died and rested on her shoulder to the right of the room, wearing her bra, and was moved to center of the room and her bra discarded at her feet, soaked through but nowhere near any blood. He notes that the blood droplets on the cups show she was wearing the bra while still breathing, but her chest, which the bra had been covering, remained clean, indicating no breaths were being drawn when or after the bra was removed.


* The bra clasp, cut or torn off from the bra the victim was wearing and originally hidden under the victim, had Raffaele's DNA on the hooks. No plausible argument for contamination was successfully made. Stefano Conti, the independent reviewer who testified to this point, could only suppose that "anything is possible." The Supreme Court strongly rejected that finding, and Judge Hellmann's acceptance of it, stating that the contamination must be proven likely, and not merely presented as a hypothetical possibility.


*** The knife recovered at Sollecito's apartment contained the victim and Amanda Knox's DNA.* In her court testimony Carla Vecchiotti, one of the pair of independent experts who reviewed the DNA evidence at the first appeal, as well as forensic scientists from the Scientific Police, ruled out contamination in the laboratory with respect to the knife, owing to the six-day interval since testing items related to the Kercher case. When confronted with the knife DNA result in 2007, Raffaele responded with a fabricated story about accidentally pricking Meredith's hand while they were cooking together. Meredith had never been to his flat, and they had never cooked together.[5] The Supreme Court ruled the Scientific Police's findings must stand, absent any new proof. Another trace containing human DNA was found on the blade of the knife [6] by the independent reviewers, Stefano Conti and Carla Vecchiotti, who argued the trace was too minute too test, even though renowned forensic expert Professor Novelli argued that newer, more sensitive tests would be quite able to successfully test the sample. This test was performed in October 2013 and found to be Knox's DNA.


* A bare footprint made in the victim's blood was discovered on the mat in the bathroom. Rudy's bloody shoe prints lead from Meredith's room directly down the hall and out the front door. The bathroom print, which could not have been made by Rudy Guede, is highly compatible with Raffaele Sollecito's right foot. His defense expert presented a crudely altered footprint diagram in the Massei court, to try to prove it couldn't be his client's, but the judge ruled it was more compatible with Raffaele, and completely ruled out that it could have been Rudy's.


*** Knox's DNA was found mixed with the victim's blood in the room where the burglary was staged, and in the bathroom they shared; some of this blood was Amanda's. Amanda testified that the bathroom was clean the day before the murder.


* Footprints compatible with Knox and Sollecito's, and made in the victim's blood, were discovered when the forensic investigators tested the crime scene with luminol.

*** The burglary was staged, and there is no one other than Knox and Sollecito who would have any motivation to alter the crime scene that way. Broken glass had fallen on top of the scattered objects, meaning the window was broken after the ransacking, and Luminol revealed the presence of two traces of the victim's blood on the floor, showing conclusively that whomever had tracked it in had done so after the girl was dead. Raffaele knew nothing had been stolen in the course of this supposed burglary, assuring the 112 (911) operator of this fact well before the occupant of the room had come home and verified it for herself.[7][8]


***** Amanda Knox INTENTIONALLY and REPEATEDLY lied to Italian police to discourage them from considering Meredith's locked door suspicious. In her email home Amanda relates a scene of rising panic as she and Raffaele shout for Meredith, climb the balcony to try to see in her window, and Raffaele attempts to force the door open, but only splinters the frame. She says it was then they decided to call the cops. Despite all this concern, they did not mention the door, or their worries about Meredith, to the communications police who arrived unexpectedly to return Meredith's discarded cellphones. Filomena and her friends arrived shortly thereafter, and it was Filomena who said that it was not Meredith's habit to lock her door. Amanda falsely offered that this was not true: Meredith had locked it before, even to take a shower. The Supreme Court rules this is in itself proof of an attempt to prevent the discovery of the body, with all the implications that has for her guilt.


* Knox and Sollecito's alibis are contradicted by each other, by physical evidence and by witness testimony. While this does not directly implicate them in the murder, they have clearly lied about what they did on the night of the murder and the following morning. It is inconceivable that they would risk lying about their activities if they were not involved in Meredith's murder. It is one thing to claim they cannot remember due to the influence of drugs. It is another to knowingly lie. The recent ruling confirms that they lied repeatedly.


* Raffaele withdrew support for Knox's alibi, claiming that he lied at her request. He elected to not testify, and he refused to confirm that Knox was with him the night of the murder, for the entire trial. Confronted with the news that Raffaele had ceased to support her alibi, Knox quickly changed her story, placing herself at the cottage and falsely accusing an innocent man of committing the deed.


* Amanda Knox's false accusation of her boss Patrick Lumumba. The appeals court has been directed by the Supreme Court to seriously consider this as yet more evidence of her guilt.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/The_Evidence
____________

Enough to convict? PLENTY.

January 31, 2014

Both the GOP alternatives to the ACA and the Senate passed immigration bill are FRAUDS

intended for the consumption of the "all sides and all arguments are equal" corporate mass media to fawn over and hold up as more evidence it is all Obama's fault.

The trick is getting old, fellas.

January 30, 2014

I am WITH Georg. Governor Deal: "No interview, CNN, after the way you treated the Mayor of Atlanta"

Absolutely the media is going to get its feelings all hurt and become pouty, but the total screeching disrespect and idiocy shown by the CNN Anchorperson to the Mayor yesterday deserved exactly that response.

CNN, YOU apologize first, it seems to be all the craze lately now anyway.

January 30, 2014

"THE State reward for dead Indians has been increased to $200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory."

"The above notice in a newspaper in Winona, Minnesota used the word "redskin" as part of a bounty notice published in its evening edition on September 24, 1863. The notice, provided by the National Congress of American Indians, which claims it has been independently verified."

_________________

But the Washington whiteskins are out to keep the Washington Redskins a beloved brand name in America:

The Epic Battle To Save The Most Offensive Team Name In Professional Sports



http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/01/30/3205071/redskins/

January 30, 2014

Why The Rich Feel Besieged: A CheckList For The 99%

"1 Over the past few decades, the rich have been accustomed to being lionized: splashed on the covers of magazines as the movers and shakers of the economy and feted in ballrooms for their philanthropy. That's largely a thing of the past. You don't have to feel sorry for them to understand that once you get used to something like that, it's unnerving when it goes away.
2 Even worse, the rich have come in for a lot of abuse since the financial crash. Fairly or not, they feel increasingly socially ostracized, and few things promote a feeling of indignation and persecution more than that.
3 Most of them have a feeling that they personally have done nothing wrong. Even within the financial industry, 98 percent of the players can argue that the bad actors were limited to the mortgage side and the derivatives brokers. The rest of them have clean hands. They were just playing by the rules, and they happen to have gotten rich fair and square.1
4 They have a belief that the protestors against the 1 percent are mostly just unreconstructed lefties who want to demonize the business class and shake them down for a handout. It's the sixties all over again.
5 They've been made to feel guilty for their success. Hell, even the pope is lecturing them. Again, fairly or not, nobody likes feeling guilty. It almost universally provokes defensiveness and defiance against the guilt-mongers.
6 Some of them have a genuine belief that the government is trying to intimidate them from speaking out. This is what's behind their
mania for keeping political contributions secret."



http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/01/why-rich-feel-besieged-checklist

To which I would add:

7. They have a sense of divine entitlement, as if THEY have been deemed worthy by a Higher Power to their success, and nothing of their success is owed to the OTHERS.