CIA Whistleblower, Missouri-born, In Prison

I hadn't heard this story but one CIA whistleblower, Jeffrey Sterling, "...an American lawyer and former CIA employee who was arrested, charged, and convicted of violating the Espionage Act for revealing details about Operation Merlin to journalist James Risen."  

Mr. Risen you may remember:

,,,is the author of the book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (January 2006). The book conducted important investigations into Central Intelligence Agency activities. It states that the CIA carried out an operation in 2000 (Operation Merlin) intended to delay Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program by feeding it flawed blueprints for key missing components—which backfired and may actually have aided Iran, as the flaw was likely detected and corrected by a former Soviet nuclear scientist the operation used to make the delivery. In early 2003, the New York Times refrained from publication of the story after an intervention by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice with the NYT Executive Editor Howell Raines.

So Mr. Sterling "blew the whistle" on the CIA over their own illegal activities and now he's in jail. 

He's originally from our own Cape Girardeau. He also got his Juris Doctor degree from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling was being investigated during the Bush administration. In 2010 he was indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917, one of the few people in US history whose alleged contact with a journalist was punished under espionage law.

In May 2015, Sterling was sentenced to 3½ years in prison.

So one more time, our government is found doing things illegal---against our own laws---as with Edward Snowden, it seems, someone blows the whistle, so to speak, and they end up in jail, no one else.

And check this out. According to the Wikipedia entry on Mr. Sterling:

Sterling was convicted of espionage charges on January 26, 2015. Sentencing was originally scheduled for April 24, but after learning of the sentence of no more than two years’ probation plus a fine given one day earlier to David Petraeus for the felony of providing classified information to an unauthorized person, Sterling's lawyers submitted a plea that Sterling "not receive a different form of justice" than Petraeus, asking for a similarly lenient sentence instead of the 19 to 24 years imprisonment sought by the federal prosecutors.

So the white General "provides classified information to an unauthorized person" and gets probation. 

The black guy in the CIA gets 3-1/2 years?

Really?

That's what passes for justice in America?

Link:  How Jeffrey Sterling Took on the CIA — and Lost Everything

Local attorney hits the big time

Breaking news tonight on Yahoo! News:

University of Utah orders investigation into coach's abuse; questions still to be answered

University of Utah president David Pershing has ordered an independent investigation on allegations of abuse during the tenure of suspended head swimming coach Greg Winslow.

In the wake of a Yahoo! Sports report detailing Winslow's alleged abuse, which ranges from forcing a student-athlete to swim with a long PVC pipe taped to his back to ordering another student-athlete to swim with a mesh bag over her head, Pershing has directed two lawyers – Michael Glazier of Kansas City and Alan Sullivan of Salt Lake City – to lead the investigation.

Link: 

Michael S. Glazier - Overland Park, KS Attorney 

The emergency of the shrinking middle class

No expletives here this time:

Quote of the day

“Some people think that you can’t let same-sex couples get married without changing the definition of the word 'marriage.' When we let openly gay people join the army, did we have to change the definition of the word 'Army'? Did Rosa Parks make us change the definition of the word 'bus'?It’s one thing to blame the Bible for your bigotry, but don’t blame the dictionary.” --Bill Smith, attorney, California

Missourians brow-beaten by Texas attorneys

A Texas law firm has been sending letters to churches, trying to say that "..."criminal penalties apply to the collection of signatures for an initiative petition. It also warned that religious organizations trying to influence legislation 'may lose their tax-exempt status.'" Why would this law firm do this? Why, because churches, statewide, have been organizing and collecting signatures to propose a vote on the regulation of payday loans in Missouri. You know, the people who charge upwards of 400% in interest rates for their loans? A little data: "A Missouri Division of Finance study conducted in 2007 found the average age of consumers taking out payday loans was 43 with an income of a little more than $24,000. The average interest rate for a payday loan in Missouri is 445 percent annually. The national average is 391 percent." As Rev. Richard Creason, pastor of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in St. Louis said, "It's an effort to intimidate and pretend that we have no First Amendment rights as citizens of this country." Personally, I'm all about churches staying out of elections of individuals but this is utterly different. This is about helping people on an issue about the poor. They shouldn't tell anyone for whom to vote in an election but this is about organizing for an issue. From the article (link at bottom: The IRS prohibits political campaign activity on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office by houses of worship that are tax-exempt through their status as a 501(c)(3) organization. But the IRS defines political activities and legislative activities — or lobbying — as different things. Religious organizations can engage in "a limited amount" of lobbying, including ballot measures, and can advocate for (or against) political issues. Hopefully this will blow up in the faces of the attorneys in Texas. Regardless, this initiative should go forward. Link to original post: http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/letters-warn-against-petitions-on-payday-loan-fee-issue/article_d7b08603-b0f4-5dda-a085-d66c4efb29ff.html

Joe Tacopina, stand-up comic

On KCUR-FM, 89.3 today, they reported that the New York attorney in the Lisa Irwin case said that fellow-attorney Cindy Short's news conference this morning was a "distraction." That's rich. He should give up his day job. Links: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/10/31/3240043/parents-former-attorney-talks.html; http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/wrong-lawyer-representing-baby-lisa-irwins-parents/

Just who is Bob Shaw?

I mean, besides being, apparently, an attorney. And why are all those signs about him along Barry Road? And for so long. And who, exactly, has the jones to be so angry about him? Go figure. Enjoy your Sunday, y'all.

The Chilean miners--up to now

One of the many terrific things that I've heard that developed out of the Chilean mine disaster, where the 33 miners have been trapped underground for 69 days is that they decided, while they were trapped down there, that, if they made it out and there was money to be made from their story, that they would split it evenly amongst all of them.  I understand they insisted that they were to have an attorney there, to draw up the papers.

How cool is that?

That's terrific.

And Dave Letterman just announced that all 33 of the miners will be on his show next Tuesday night.

Wow.

The world and their lives will never be the same, for sure.

More proof of why we need government, regulation and corporate oversight

In Monday's hearing before a joint panel from the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy (formerly the Minerals Management Service), Richard Godfrey, a lawyer for BP, testified that a September 2009 audit showed there was “overdue planned maintenance considered excessive—390 jobs amounting to 3,545 man hours.” Link to original post: http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/bp-attorney-rig-had-390-overdue-maintenance-items