Interesting info. about the new Homeland Security Dept. Head..............

[rocktop15]

http://www.oprah.com/tows/booksseen/tows_book_20011114_bkerik.jhtml


Today, Bernard Kerik was named head of the Homeland Security Department. Guy seems to have a very solid resume but I found one bit of information that stuck out in my mind.......it comes from a biography on him on Oprah's book of the month club.

"A jail warden with a thrid-degree black belt in tae kwon do and a background in anti-terrorism who worked for years in the Middle East for Saudi royalty, he took a substantial pay cut to become a beat cop in Times Square in 1986."

[JWP]

1. Read between the lines ....

"CIA operative"

Oh, yeh, Bush is really changing the intelligence community in response to 9/11. He's making it more of what was bad about the CIA: It's penchant for operating a shadow government to democracy.

Thus, even our elected senators and congressmembers can no longer get any information. They are there to rubber stamp the Bush-regime agenda. Period.

[blm]

2. Like Theresa Lapore took a paycut to count votes after working for Adnan

Khashoggi while he was doing arms deals for George Bush.

[starroute]

3. Mohammed Atta's passport and other tidbits

An awful lot comes up on this guy through Google Groups:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+arabia+%22Bernard+Kerik+%22&hl=en&lr=&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=2&as_maxm=8&as_maxy=2004&selm=akqrne%24diq%241%40pencil.math.missouri.edu&rnum=10
"Never mind Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik who was handed Atta's passport by someone not named yet, of which Kerik stated 'Apparently, it must have fallen into the air just as the crash occurred, surviving the almost 1000 degree heat of the fire, then came across a strong wind to blow it several blocks away.' "


http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+arabia+%22Bernard+Kerik+%22&hl=en&lr=&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=2&as_maxm=8&as_maxy=2004&selm=wBHn5.1941%24_B.25231%40news02.optonline.net&rnum=6
"A New Jersey native, Kerik joined Corrections after serving eight years as an NYPD cop, spending much of his career as a narcotics detective in Manhattan. He received 30 police citations, including the Medal of Valor.

He earned that award after surviving a 1991 shootout in Washington Heights, an incident that Giuliani recounted in his news conference.

Kerik worked on the New York Drug Enforcement Administration task force, helping direct an investigation that resulted in the convictions of more than 60 members of the infamous Cali drug cartel.

Before joining the NYPD, Kerik served as a military police officer in the U.S. Army and as warden of the Passaic County Jail. A martial arts expert, Kerik spent four years in various security assignments in Saudi Arabia."


http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+arabia+%22Bernard+Kerik+%22&hl=en&lr=&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=2&as_maxm=8&as_maxy=2004&selm=kMXPa.15014%24zE.9419%40fe1.columbus.rr.com&rnum=4
"Senior police advisers have told the UK government that the law enforcement operation in Iraq is at risk of disintegration unless US forces stop "kicking ass" and take a more conciliatory attitude towards civilians.

Some UK officials are appalled by the language and tactics used by Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner, dubbed the "Baghdad terminator" by local journalists because of his uncompromising style.

'The Americans need to learn that civil policing is not about "kicking ass", it is about democracy. There are going to be problems if we continue with our different philosophies and different approaches to law enforcement,' one UK official said."

[starroute]

4. More from Google Groups

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+arabia+%22Bernard+Kerik+%22&start=20&hl=en&lr=&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=2&as_maxm=8&as_maxy=2004&selm=ec0895b2.0405192053.5efb09ff%40posting.google.com&rnum=22

"The former police and fire chiefs who were lionised after the World Trade Center attack came under harsh criticism Tue from the Sept. 11 commission, with one member saying the depts' lack of cooperation was scandalous and 'not worthy of the Boy Scouts.' Commission members, in NY for an emotional 2-day hearing, focused on how leaders of the 2 depts failed to share info effectively in the early frantic moments after 2 hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center.

Former fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen and former police chief Bernard Kerik shot back with infuriated responses to commissioner John Lehman's questions, the strongest of a series of pointed statements from the panel.

'I couldn't disagree with you more strongly,' Von Essen replied. 'I think it's outrageous that you make a statement like that.' Outside the hearing, he called the questioning 'despicable.'

Families of Sept. 11 victims applauded the tough questioning and shook their heads sadly as the panel enumerated a litany of communication breakdowns between the depts. Family members sporadically mocked and booed Von Essen, Kerik and Richard Sheirer, former Office of Emergency Management commissioner, and they wept earlier in the day as they watched videotape of the buildings collapsing."

[starroute]

5. Kerik and Taser International

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/257867p-220869c.html

Washington insiders say Kerik has lobbied for the job while building a fortune working as a security consultant with Giuliani. Kerik recently sold his $5.8 million in shares of Taser International Inc., on which he serves as a director.

Some have speculated the move was made in anticipation of his getting the cabinet post.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/30/news/midcaps/taser.reut/

Stun gun manufacturer Taser International Inc. on Tuesday accused human rights group Amnesty International of ignoring independent reports that show the company's weapons to be safe and effective.

Amnesty International has called on U.S. law enforcement agencies to suspend use of Taser electric-shock weapons, demanding an independent inquiry into the devices.

<snip>

The human rights group is demanding an independent inquiry into the devices, which it says have contributed to more than 70 deaths.

<snip>

The hand-held stun guns were designed as an alternative to deadly force, but Amnesty claims police are using them routinely on unarmed suspects, where lethal force would never be justified.

[starroute]

6. And something from Jimmy Breslin

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0307-05.htm

Giuliani then showed appropriate behavior by walking in a parade on Fifth Avenue with his girl friend and all the while his children could sit and watch him on television.

How marvelous! It was appropriate to humiliate his children, and now it is appropriate to molest the dead.

Giuliani also had a flunkey, Bernard Kerik, rush on television and say, so earnestly, that the Bush commerical was appropriate. Kerik was a Giuliani campaign chauffeur who became police commissioner. How marvelous! At the world trade center, Kerik was in the back of his car dictating the last part of a book that was going to appear under his name. It had him writhing with delicious excitement. It was about his mother being a prostitute.

"That's what's going to make me all the money," he told a friend of mine.