In a case that continues to be monitored very closely by the Kremlin, new evidence of CPS wrongdoing has surfaced and baby Sammy has undergone surgery since we last reported on this case of police state overreach in the People’s Democratic Republic of Kalifornication.
Baby Sammy after surgery.
CPS has come under great scrutiny by the California state legislature recently. The State Assembly asked CPS to supply their records on the case and at first CPS refused, saying they didn’t need to release records to state legislators. Well, apparently they do, and now it appears that CPS lied. In their possession was a doctor’s handwritten note from the physician rendering the second opinion that Sammy was in good hands and safe with his parents.
It turns out that the police officer dispatched by CPS to see if the parents had indeed obtained a second opinion had not only spoken to the parents and the doctor but had received a hand written note detailing the doctor’s belief that the child was safe. That note was turned over to CPS promptly.
We believe this to be a case of kidnapping and should be punished to the full extent of federal law. In some cases kidnapping is subject to the death penalty or life in prison should a legitimate federal or state court render such a sentence to put a stop to overzealous state officials, but we all know that won’t happen.
The State Assembly is looking into the following:
- Why did CPS lie about their supposed need to remove the child when there was clear evidence by medical professionals to the contrary?
- It is now apparent from the first hospital records that the staff refused to discharge the child at the parent’s request. That should end the discussion that the parents should have waited for the paperwork.
- On the grounds that the family’s constitutional rights may have been infringed, the State Assembly is investigating what recourse exists for innocent parents whose rights have been violated by CPS.
- A motion for a full audit of CPS records has been introduced into the state Assembly.
Frankly, we hope this family sues the already bankrupt state so unmercifully that Kalifornia officials will have to live and govern out of cardboard tent cities for the next 30 years. Few things drive up to anger like child endangerment and CPS appears to be guilty to the max.
The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, with over 900 large rooms, holds the largest art collection in the world. To manage all that are 70 furry employees, cats, who patrol the damp and dark basement areas to combat rodents. It is a very effective solution and the state employs a staff and a vet to care for the “guard cats.”
The Hermitage accepts strays from any source as in the past couple of years they’ve entered into an agreement to provide cats to the Russian National Library and several small museums around St P. In addition to the staff who groom and feed, the Hermitage employs a vet who is paid 6 hours daily each weekday to provide supervision and medical care to the Hermitage felines.
If you make friends with a Hermitage cat while on the grounds it is okay to take him/her home if you’ll provide a loving environment. Just let a member of the cat staff know of your intention and complete an application first.
FSB agents arrested an alleged CIA spy yesterday in Moscow as he traveled to meet with a person the CIA was attempting to recruit, according to Russian officials. Embassy diplomat Ryan Fogle was arrested and the FSB says that Fogle carried a large sum of money, technical devices and written instructions for the individual he was working to recruit.
Fogle’s Russian issued diplomatic pass.
Spy arrests are to be expected from time to time as even friendly countries spy on each other. In this particular case the cold war may be over but the state of relations between the United States and Russia is currently very chilly at best.
Fogle’s State Department Embassy ID.
We do marvel at the blatant stupidity of the USA in recent years and for the sake of argument we’ll call it the “Bush Obama era” as both the previous and current US presidents have been nothing more than amateurs when it comes to dealing with Russia. From former President George W. Bush gazing longingly into Vladimir Putin’s eyes, to President Obama’s nothing short of idiocy in replacing an Ambassador whom Russians loved (John Beyrle) with someone the Russians hate (Michael McFaul), the USA has no idea how to work constructively with Russia.
We hesitate to remind readers of new Ambassador McFaul’s claim that the Russians were hacking into his cell communications and bugging his office because they seemed to know his every move in advance. Only when it was pointed out to the Ambassador that the Russians were merely following his own Twitter “tweets” on his schedule, did he finally issue an official apology to the Kremlin. McFaul’s apology however came after the matter had been raised by the Russians not only to the State Department where Hillary “What difference does it make?” Clinton, despised at best in the Kremlin halls, seemed bewildered by it all. To make matters worse the Kremlin took it’s complaint even higher to the occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in Washington.
We should also remind readers that new Ambassador McFaul’s first official meetings after presenting his credentials to the Kremlin was to hold a series of meetings with the leaders of Mr. Putin’s opposition. It that really the work of a “reset” in Washington’s eyes?
The two countries are struggling to maintain relations.
So last week the tallest and most talkative new Secretary of State strode into Moscow. The same man who embarrassed himself during a presidential debate several years ago by claiming to have visited the famous KGB prison, Lyubanka while referring to it as Treblinka Square (Treblinka being the name of a concentration camp in Poland), came to seek Vladimir Putin’s cooperation on Syria.
Upon his arrival Mr. Putin kept him waiting, for 3 hours, then sat quietly with kind of a smirk on his face while fiddling with his ink pen to keep awake as Mr. Kerry, who loves to hear himself talk, did just that: he talked and talked and talked. Once the surely torturous session was over, Mr. Putin kept his press briefing comments about their meeting very brief, ten sentences to be exact. In response to Mr. Putin’s brief remarks, Mr. Kerry gave a speech of which there were ten sentences in just the first three paragraphs, that being just the introduction of his remarks.
Gushing that his visit to Moscow represented yet another “reset” for relations between Moscow and Washington, what did Secretary Kerry do on his second day in Moscow before returning to Washington? He held a series of meetings with leaders of Mr. Putin’s opposition and several non-government NGO’s under scrutiny by the Russians. Smart move, Mr. Kerry. The Kremlin was probably none the wiser.
So let’s go back to the spy arrests in June 2010 of FSB (formerly the KGB) agents, including Anna Chapman, in which the agents were quickly whisked back to Moscow in a quiet little agreement after ABC news learned that an unnamed official in the Obama administration may have been enticed by a certain very attractive and very sexy Russian agent.
Page one of the US government’s introduction of the plea agreement to send Anna Chapman back to Moscow within 72 hours of being arrested for spying.
Thus it was no surprise that the arrest of American diplomat Ryan Fogle, operating out of the US Embassy, resulted in his quick release and banishment back to Washington. The Russian foreign ministry declared Mr. Fogle to be “persona non grata” and ordered his immediate expulsion. Fogle was flown overnight back to the USA.
What is the good news in all this? The Kremlin could have locked up Mr. Fogle for decades, dragging his case slowly through televised public trials while embarrassing the USA every step of the way, but they didn’t. Not only was an exchange likely, but this signals Mr. Putin’s willingness to work with the USA on certain issues, perhaps even Syria up to a point.
Today Mr. Putin hosted visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Sochi, home of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Their meeting was cordial and Mr. Putin was wide awake this time, no smirks or ink pen fiddling, telling the Israelis that “our relationship with Israel is both friendly and mutually beneficial.“
Mr. Putin prepares to greet Mr. Netanyahu in Sochi.
When Mr. Kerry came to Moscow to talk about Syria, afterward Mr. Putin made no mention of Syria at all in his remarks. This time however with Mr.Netanyahu at his side he did speak to the Syria issue, telling the press that “The situation in Syria is a particular concern. My colleague and I agree that continuing the armed conflict in the country is fraught with disastrous consequences for both Syria and the region. Only by quickly ending the armed struggle and arriving at a political settlement can we prevent a very negative outcome.
Sochi, Russia: Israeli PM Netanyahu and Russian President Putin.
As part of his remarks Mr. Putin said, In this crucial period it is especially important to avoid actions that could destabilize the situation. Mr Prime Minister and I agreed to stay in contact: both in personal contact and via our organizations and special services.
Although their private meeting lasted for several hours, comments to the press were brief.
Obviously the timing of this arrest is of importance to the Russians. Mr. Putin has just concluded meetings with David Cameron Prime Minister of the UK and now Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu ahead of a planned Moscow summit with President Obama on the Syrian issue in September. The two will also have the chance to exchange views and ideas in June at the G8 Summit.
Mr. Putin’s message was not meant only for Mr. Netanyahu, but also directed toward Israel’s allies in Washington. “In this crucial period it is especially important to avoid actions that could destabilize the situation.“
TV Network дождь (“Rain“) is reporting that environment protesters and security troops have clashed outside a nickel mining operation in the Voronezh region. Cell phone video show that local police assisted with the beatings as protesters stood at the entrance to a mining operation and attempted to take photos of the gated area guarded by private security.
Video and photos revealed that protesters had been beaten with police batons, electric stun guns and bricks. The video above also shows that as the fighting continued, protesters tried to enter the mining area by scaling fences and rushing security guards.
(photo: Rain TV network)
Eyewitnesses reported that several activists suffered from fractured skulls and at least ten other people were taken to local hospitals with serious injuries. Environmentalists claim that the mining operations will damage the local environment, in particular harming wildlife and polluting the water supply.
(photo: Rain TV network)
Environmental activists have protested against the start of production of nickel deposit mining in Elan Novokhopersk area by camping at the entrance. The Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, developer of the field, says that nickel can be mined without threat to the environment and will lead to economic growth in the region.
Local leaders of the Novokhopersk district say that the mining operation will create jobs and help with the development of agriculture and tourism.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.
In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.
“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” Pruitt said.
The government would not say why it sought the records. Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.
In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP’s source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an “unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information.”
Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual.
In the letter notifying the AP, which was received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt’s letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups.
IRS employees in Cincinnati also told conservatives seeking the status of “social welfare” groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications, according to interviews with the activists.
Lois G. Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS, told reporters on Friday that the “absolutely inappropriate” actions were undertaken by “front-line people” working in Cincinnati to target groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names.
With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Thy departed servants, (names), where there is neither sickness nor sorrow nor sighing, but life everlasting. Amen.
Remember, O Lord, the souls of Thy departed servants (names) and of all my kins according to the flesh. Also remember all those of our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, who have fallen asleep in the hope of resurrection and of the life eternal, and render unto them eternal memory.
Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend the souls of Thy departed servants (names) and pray to Thee to grant them rest, O Lord, in the place of Thy rest, where all Thy blessed saints repose, where the light of Thy countenance shineth. Grant that our lives may be godly, sober and blameless, that we may be worthy to meet them again in Thy Heavenly Kingdom. For Thou art the Resurrection and the Life and the Repose of Thy departed servants, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Remember, O Lord, our parents and brethren who have fallen asleep in the hope of resurrection, and all those who have ended their lives in piety and faith. Forgive them all their transgressions, both voluntary and involuntary, committed by them in word or deed or in thought. Set them in bright places of light, in places of green pasture, in places of rest whence all pain, sorrow and sighing have fled away, and where the light of Thy countenance shineth and gladeneth forever all Thy saints. Grant unto them and unto us Thy Kingdom and participation in Thine ineffable and eternal blessings, and to delight in Thine unending and blessed life. For Thou art the Life, the Resurrection and the Repose of Thy servants who have fallen asleep, O Christ our God, and we render glory to Thee, with Thine Eternal Father, and with Thine All-holy, Gracious and Life-giving Spirit, now and forever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
