Ignored in the ginned-up brouhaha over Planned Parenthood supporting important medical research by providing tissues from aborted fetuses to researchers, with their pregnant clients' consent, at cost with no monetary gain for PP which is a long-standing and legal practice, are the crimes committed against PP by the neo-fascists targeting it for destruction. These are at least two. (But every crime in the U.S., especially when the Federal government brings them, is multiplied several-fold. And they always add on "conspiracy" charges as separate crimes. Conspiracy would certainly apply in this case.)
After the release of doctored, "shocking" (not really) videos of a Planned Parenthood physician discussing selling fetal tissues to anti-abortion fanatics deceiving PP by masquerading as medical researchers, PP's website was taken down by hackers and was offline for several hours. This constitutes various felonies under Federal law. There isn't the slightest indication that the Obama regime is investigating this or will prosecute the perpetrators. [1]
Note the contrast with the cases of Jeremy Hammond, Barrett Brown, and Aaron Swartz, among others. [2]
The second crime, and this one is known to have been committed by the anti-abortion fraudsters, is identity theft. In the video, one of the con artists flashes an I.D., with the name of a high school classmate of the lead anti-abortion hatchet-man. The real woman knew nothing of this, and found herself locked out of various personal account. We're talking Federal felonies here. [3]
But nothing will happen. Remember when the reactionary operative James O'Keefe, who created doctored videos used to attack and destroy ACORN, infiltrated the office of U.S. Senator with phone tapping equipment and was caught red-handed? For the several felonies he was facing, he ended up with a misdemeanor and probation.
Or the deranged white racist rancher Cliven Bundy, who thinks he shouldn't have to pay nominal grazing fees to use Federal lands, and who rounded up a posse of armed reactionaries to take his seized cattle back by force? And NOTHING HAPPENED to him.
Because reactionaries have almost total impunity for their criminal acts. They can attack abortion clinics and personnel freely, until they murder someone. Only then is their any law enforcement.
When they are convicted, their convictions are either overturned on appeal (Tom DeLay, for example) or they get a wrist slap and then proclaim themselves victims of political persecution (the crackpot polemicist Dinesh D'Souza, who made straw man donations to politicians and got a fine- and continued to paint himself as a victim of injustice).
1] As of July 2016, I am still right in my prediction that the Obama regime will do nothing about the Federal interstate crimes committed by the anti-abortion fraudster and lead conspirator David R. Daleiden and his accomplices. Daleiden formed a fake organization, to which he cynically gave the Orwellian title Center for Medical Progress. Planned Parenthood suffered tremendous government harassment in the aftermath of Daleiden's smear job. The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress launched "investigations" of PP, putting it through a hostile wringer. And states controlled by the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) launched baseless criminal investigations of PP, including in Texas. These resulted in no indictments, since PP committed no crimes, but drained PP of money, time, and energy.
But in Texas the persecution of PP boomeranged on the anti-abortionists. The District Attorney of Harris County was directed by the Republican Lieutenant Governor to investigate PP. This he duly did, found no crime by PP, and then his Grand Jury handed down indictments in January 2016 against the criminal Daleiden and one of his accomplices, Sandra S. Merritt, for the felony of tampering with a government record, for forging a California driver's license which they used in the process of attempting to defraud PP in a meeting in Houston, Texas, and on a misdemeanor related to purchasing human organs.
"2 Abortion Foes Behind Planned Parenthood Videos Are Indicted," New York Times, January 25, 2016.
2] Hammond was imprisoned for almost a year "pre-trial" by a vindictive Federal Judge, Loretta A. Preska, the Chief District Judge of the Federal Circuit in which the case was brought, since she denied bail to Hammond, deeming him more dangerous than a terrorist or sex offender. Hammond's "crime" was hacking into the computers of a criminal "corporate security" firm, set up by former secret police officials, Stratfor, and exposing their attacks against protesters and dissidents, including computer crimes. He did this at the instigation of an FBI puppet, Hector Xavier Monsegur (who called himself "Sabu" online) who was threatened with 120 years in prison for his own computer hacking if he didn't work for them and he agreed in a matter of minutes.
At Hammond's bail hearing Preska vowed to send him to the slammer for 30 to 120 years after conviction. Since Federal trials result in convictions about 97% of the time, and trials in political cases are purely for show, with 100% conviction rates, Hammond was forced to accept a plea arrangement whereby the government prosecutors recommended a sentence of probation to 10 years. Preska gave him 10 years. [Preska is a Republican and an authoritarian bred at Catholic schools. Her husband was one of the people affected by the Stratfor caper. He's a corporate lawyer at a firm that caters to Fortune 500 corporations, and his wife worked there also before being turned into a judge. Bush the Younger considered putting her on the Supreme Court, then nominated her for a promotion to the Federal Appeals Court in July 2008, but the Senate didn't take up her nomination since Bush's turn as president had only 6 months to run.]
Hammond has a history of political activism and government persecution, with increasingly harsh punishments to force him to stop. See for example Wikipedia entry.
Barrett Brown is a journalist who was targeted for a tangential tie to the Stratfor expose. He too was denied bail. The FBI threatened his mother. Eventually he was sentenced to 5 years and 3 months in Federal prison.
Aaron Swartz was a brilliant computer expert and activist whose "crime" was sneaking a computer into a closet at M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a research university specializing in projects for the U.S. military and secret police) and using their subscription to a company database to download research articles (describing research paid for with taxpayer money) which the company sold access to. Swartz felt the public was entitled to see what their money paid for for free. The company ultimately made the articles available freely, but not before the FBI and U.S. attorney moved to imprison Swartz for decades. (A plea offer would have meant less time but a felony conviction, which in the U.S. has severe, lifelong consequences. For example, Swartz would never have been able to sit on a corporate board, which in the tech world could be a major handicap.) Ultimately Swartz committed suicide.
I have written about the Swartz case. See See "Obama Regime Creates Another Martyr," "The Most Dangerous Person in the U.S. Congress," and "Brace Yourselves For Unintended Ironies In Aaron Swartz Affair."
3] See "Exposed: The Faces and Fake Names of the People Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos," Democracy Now 7/31/15.
After the release of doctored, "shocking" (not really) videos of a Planned Parenthood physician discussing selling fetal tissues to anti-abortion fanatics deceiving PP by masquerading as medical researchers, PP's website was taken down by hackers and was offline for several hours. This constitutes various felonies under Federal law. There isn't the slightest indication that the Obama regime is investigating this or will prosecute the perpetrators. [1]
Note the contrast with the cases of Jeremy Hammond, Barrett Brown, and Aaron Swartz, among others. [2]
The second crime, and this one is known to have been committed by the anti-abortion fraudsters, is identity theft. In the video, one of the con artists flashes an I.D., with the name of a high school classmate of the lead anti-abortion hatchet-man. The real woman knew nothing of this, and found herself locked out of various personal account. We're talking Federal felonies here. [3]
But nothing will happen. Remember when the reactionary operative James O'Keefe, who created doctored videos used to attack and destroy ACORN, infiltrated the office of U.S. Senator with phone tapping equipment and was caught red-handed? For the several felonies he was facing, he ended up with a misdemeanor and probation.
Or the deranged white racist rancher Cliven Bundy, who thinks he shouldn't have to pay nominal grazing fees to use Federal lands, and who rounded up a posse of armed reactionaries to take his seized cattle back by force? And NOTHING HAPPENED to him.
Because reactionaries have almost total impunity for their criminal acts. They can attack abortion clinics and personnel freely, until they murder someone. Only then is their any law enforcement.
When they are convicted, their convictions are either overturned on appeal (Tom DeLay, for example) or they get a wrist slap and then proclaim themselves victims of political persecution (the crackpot polemicist Dinesh D'Souza, who made straw man donations to politicians and got a fine- and continued to paint himself as a victim of injustice).
1] As of July 2016, I am still right in my prediction that the Obama regime will do nothing about the Federal interstate crimes committed by the anti-abortion fraudster and lead conspirator David R. Daleiden and his accomplices. Daleiden formed a fake organization, to which he cynically gave the Orwellian title Center for Medical Progress. Planned Parenthood suffered tremendous government harassment in the aftermath of Daleiden's smear job. The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress launched "investigations" of PP, putting it through a hostile wringer. And states controlled by the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) launched baseless criminal investigations of PP, including in Texas. These resulted in no indictments, since PP committed no crimes, but drained PP of money, time, and energy.
But in Texas the persecution of PP boomeranged on the anti-abortionists. The District Attorney of Harris County was directed by the Republican Lieutenant Governor to investigate PP. This he duly did, found no crime by PP, and then his Grand Jury handed down indictments in January 2016 against the criminal Daleiden and one of his accomplices, Sandra S. Merritt, for the felony of tampering with a government record, for forging a California driver's license which they used in the process of attempting to defraud PP in a meeting in Houston, Texas, and on a misdemeanor related to purchasing human organs.
"2 Abortion Foes Behind Planned Parenthood Videos Are Indicted," New York Times, January 25, 2016.
2] Hammond was imprisoned for almost a year "pre-trial" by a vindictive Federal Judge, Loretta A. Preska, the Chief District Judge of the Federal Circuit in which the case was brought, since she denied bail to Hammond, deeming him more dangerous than a terrorist or sex offender. Hammond's "crime" was hacking into the computers of a criminal "corporate security" firm, set up by former secret police officials, Stratfor, and exposing their attacks against protesters and dissidents, including computer crimes. He did this at the instigation of an FBI puppet, Hector Xavier Monsegur (who called himself "Sabu" online) who was threatened with 120 years in prison for his own computer hacking if he didn't work for them and he agreed in a matter of minutes.
At Hammond's bail hearing Preska vowed to send him to the slammer for 30 to 120 years after conviction. Since Federal trials result in convictions about 97% of the time, and trials in political cases are purely for show, with 100% conviction rates, Hammond was forced to accept a plea arrangement whereby the government prosecutors recommended a sentence of probation to 10 years. Preska gave him 10 years. [Preska is a Republican and an authoritarian bred at Catholic schools. Her husband was one of the people affected by the Stratfor caper. He's a corporate lawyer at a firm that caters to Fortune 500 corporations, and his wife worked there also before being turned into a judge. Bush the Younger considered putting her on the Supreme Court, then nominated her for a promotion to the Federal Appeals Court in July 2008, but the Senate didn't take up her nomination since Bush's turn as president had only 6 months to run.]
Hammond has a history of political activism and government persecution, with increasingly harsh punishments to force him to stop. See for example Wikipedia entry.
Barrett Brown is a journalist who was targeted for a tangential tie to the Stratfor expose. He too was denied bail. The FBI threatened his mother. Eventually he was sentenced to 5 years and 3 months in Federal prison.
Aaron Swartz was a brilliant computer expert and activist whose "crime" was sneaking a computer into a closet at M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a research university specializing in projects for the U.S. military and secret police) and using their subscription to a company database to download research articles (describing research paid for with taxpayer money) which the company sold access to. Swartz felt the public was entitled to see what their money paid for for free. The company ultimately made the articles available freely, but not before the FBI and U.S. attorney moved to imprison Swartz for decades. (A plea offer would have meant less time but a felony conviction, which in the U.S. has severe, lifelong consequences. For example, Swartz would never have been able to sit on a corporate board, which in the tech world could be a major handicap.) Ultimately Swartz committed suicide.
I have written about the Swartz case. See See "Obama Regime Creates Another Martyr," "The Most Dangerous Person in the U.S. Congress," and "Brace Yourselves For Unintended Ironies In Aaron Swartz Affair."
3] See "Exposed: The Faces and Fake Names of the People Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos," Democracy Now 7/31/15.
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