Bruce Lisker, who was accused of killing his mother in 1985, should be sent back to prison because the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in another case that inmates should not be allowed to file late petitions for release even if they can prove they are innocent, according to the attorney...
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Government
California asks judge to send innocent man back to prison
Afghanistan president fires graft-fighting prosecutor
By Dexter Filkins and Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) One of the country’s most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Mr. Karzai’s government. Western officials confirm reports that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and...
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Clemens prosecution is another swing and a miss for Congress
First of all, does anyone know why the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform even held a hearing about steroid usage among baseball players? Was there a dry spell and the Committee couldn't find anything in the government that needed to be reformed? This is the Congress that in 1994 didn't ask for...
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Computer system can’t cut payroll to suit Schwartznegger
By Cathy Bussewitz (AP) For the second time in two years, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered most state workers’ pay cut to the federal minimum wage because lawmakers missed their deadline to fix the state’s $19 billion budget deficit. The Legislature’s failure to act has left the state without a spending plan as...
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Christian indoctrination prisons proposed with born-again staff
Americans United for Separation of Church and State today warned corrections officials in three states not to use public funds to send inmates to a proposed “Christians-only” prison in Oklahoma. Corrections Concepts, Inc., has proposed building a private prison in Wakita, Okla., that will indoctrinate prisoners in fundamentalist Christianity and will be staffed solely...
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Detainees accused of possessing popular Casio F91W watches
Due to its claimed use in terrorism, possession of the Casio F91W watch was listed in Combatant Status Review Tribunal reports and other government documents as a reason for these detainees’ continued detention. The watch was popular all over the Moslem world because it had great prayer alert features. Among those listed: Abdullah Kamel...
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Castro: Spill proves governments can’t control big corporations
(AP) Fidel Castro says the spreading oil slick fouling the Gulf of Mexico is proof that the world’s most powerful governments cannot control large corporations that now dictate the public’s destiny. It still is unclear whether some of the 3 million gallons of spilled crude could eventually reach Cuba’s shores — though government scientists...
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Federal off-shore drilling agency had wild drug, sex scandals
The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, the federal agency responsible for regulating off-shore drilling, had a series of big scandals tied to rampant drug use, orgies, lax or non-existent auditing and oversight during the Bush administration. Read the rest Oil Rigs, Orgies and Stoners | Talking Points Memo.
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With 10 kids on Medicaid, she complains about ‘handouts’
By David Abel (Boston Globe) Early yesterday morning, Valerie and Rob Shirk corralled their 10 home-schooled children into their van for the 2 1/2-hour drive from their home in Connecticut to Boston, arriving just in time to hear Sarah Palin denounce government-run health care at the tea party movement rally on Boston Common. They thought...
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More than 53% of your tax dollars go to the military
By Dave Lindorff (Common Dreams) The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out military footing. Military spending in all its myriad forms works out to...
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