Tag: prison

Warden Admits Biden-Harris DOJ Has Illegally Imprisoned Steve Bannon Since October 19

The Tennessee Star on Monday obtained a letter sent by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to attorneys representing Steve Bannon, wherein the federal agency acknowledged it is holding the former White House chief strategist in violation of the First Step Act (FSA) of 2018, as Bannon accrued 10 days of good time credit toward an early release:

To date, Mr. Bannon has earned 10 First Step Act (“FSA”) time credits. These credits would typically be applied toward early transfer to supervision pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 3624 (g) (3). However, Mr. Bannon does not have a term of supervision following his term of imprisonment. Thus, his 10 FSA time credits can only be applied toward prerelease custody placement in a Residential Reentry Center or on home confinement.”

According to attorney R. Trent McCotter, who represents Bannon, “Those credits mean that Mr. Bannon could have been released to home confinement two days ago on October 19, 2024 (i.e., 10 days before the end of his sentence) – yet the BOP declined to do so, citing its view that there is ‘insufficient time’ remaining on Mr. Bannon’s sentence ‘to process’ the referral to home confinement.”

Bannon’s attorneys filed the letter as part of an effort to secure an earlier release but it was sent to Bannon’s lawyers by the Acting Warden at the Federal Correctional Institute (FCI) in Danbury, Connecticut, where Bannon is serving a four-month sentence after he was convicted in 2022 for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena from the House select committee that investigated January 6.

Acting Warden Darek Puzio said that “Mr. Bannon has earned 10 First Step Act (“FSA”) time credits,” which the warden additionally acknowledged “would typically be applied toward early transfer to supervision,” but noted that Bannon was not sentenced to any form of supervised release.

According to Puzio, this means Bannon can only use his credits, which the BOP typically calls good time credits, to secure a transfer to home confinement for the remainder of his sentence. However, the federal official claimed there is insufficient time left in Bannon’s sentence to arrange this and that the BOP department responsible for such arrangements “will not accept placements under 30 days.”

While confirming FCI Danbury and the BOP are willfully ignoring the good time credit accrued by Bannon, the warden nonetheless acknowledged the former Trump adviser “will be released on his full-term release date of October 29, 2024.”

In a legal filing containing the letter, Bannon’s attorneys argued that Puzio’s admission means the court should order Bannon “released immediately.”

This acknowledgment by Puzio and the BOP follows last week’s statement by Bannon that the Biden-Harris administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) was illegally holding him through its abandonment of the landmark civil justice reform signed into law by former President Donald Trump.

“The Harris Bureau of Prisons is illegally holding me past my legal release date–trying to eliminate one of President Trump’s strongest advocates–these criminals reek of desperation,” said Bannon in a statement last week to The National Pulse.

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These Texas Inmates Wrote a Book. Then the Prison System Banned It.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has banned yet another book in its prisons. Except this time, it was written by inmates themselves.

TEXAS LETTERS, an ongoing anthology of letters written by inmates detailing their experiences with solitary confinement, will no longer be accessible to those in custody. The publisher and editor, Damascus James, says he received a letter from the TDCJ in July apprising him of the decision.

James describes the project on his website as a work that “explores the loss of sanity, humanness, and, oftentimes, hope through the personal writings” of inmates who have spent months, years, and sometimes even decades in solitary confinement. Much of the collection features portrayals of violence from correction officers and grueling accounts of the living conditions within solitary confinement cells. 

Studies on the long-term effects of solitary confinement attest to the brutal nature described in many of the letters. Half of all suicides in prisons and jails occur in solitary confinement, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open, a medical journal. Even just experiencing solitary confinement at any time during incarceration increased the chances of dying within the first year of release by 24 percent.

The banning of TEXAS LETTERS was not a surprise for James. Not only does the Texas prison authority have a reputation for book banning but also for trying to evade the term solitary confinement altogether by instead using alternative phrases.

“They’ve euphemized torture, calling it ‘administrative segregation’ and ‘restrictive housing’ for years in an effort to conceal the harsh realities of torturous isolation for thousands of people,” James tells Reason. The ban “was clearly an attempt to silence the voices of those who have suffered the torture of solitary confinement.” 

More than 10,000 books are currently banned from Texas prisons. TEXAS LETTERS vol. 1 and vol. 2 join a long list of prohibited material, which includes the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Color Purple, Freakonomics, and even Where’s Waldo? Santa Spectacular. Notable omissions include books such as Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, as well as two books by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. 

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Harris Endorsed Transgender Operations For Prisoners In Bret Baier’s Fox News Interview

Vice President Kamala Harris told Fox News host Bret Baier she would “follow the law” when asked about her support for prisoner “sex change” surgeries. According to the law under the Biden-Harris administration, trans-identifying prisoners could be entitled to taxpayer dollars for the procedures.

On Wednesday, Baier presented Harris with an ad from former President Donald Trump’s campaign airing the then-California senator’s endorsement of trans surgeries for prison inmates. During a sit-down interview with the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in 2019, Harris spoke about her time as attorney general when she “made sure that they changed the policy in the state of California so that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desired and need,” including requested surgery.

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Israeli Torture Chambers Aren’t New. They Provoked October 7

For many years I lived just up the road from Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where new film of Israeli guards torturing Palestinians en masse has been published by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. I drove past Megiddo prison on hundreds of occasions. Over time I came to barely notice the squat grey buildings, surrounded by watch towers and razor wire.

There are several large prisons like Megiddo in Israel’s north. It is where Palestinians end up after they have been seized from their homes, often in the middle of the night. Israel, and the western media, say these Palestinians have been “arrested”, as though Israel is enforcing some kind of legitimate legal procedure over oppressed subjects – or rather objects – of its occupation. In truth, these Palestinians have been kidnapped.

The prisons are invariably located close to major roads in Israel, presumably because Israelis find it reassuring to know Palestinians are being locked up in such large numbers. (As an aside, I should mention that transferring prisoners out of occupied territory into the occupier’s territory is a war crime. But let that pass.)

Even before the mass round-ups of the past 11 months, the Palestinian Authority estimated that 800,000 Palestinians – or 40 per cent of the male population – had spent time in an Israeli prison. Many had never been charged with any crime and had never received a trial. Not that that would make any difference – the conviction rate of Palestinians in Israel’s military courts is near 100 per cent. There is no such thing as an innocent Palestinian, it seems.

Rather, imprisonment is a kind of terrifying rite of passage that has been endured by generations of Palestinians, one required of them by the bureaucracy managing Israel’s apartheid-occupation system.

Torture, even of children, has been routine in these prisons since the occupation began nearly 60 years ago, as Israeli human rights groups have been regularly documenting.

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Federal Judge Rules Inmate Death Records Can Remain Secret Because They Could Embarrass Prison Officials

In response to a public records lawsuit filed by the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason, a federal judge has ruled the U.S. government can hide findings about whether people who died in federal prison received adequate medical care, partly out of fear that those records could be used to criticize prison officials.

U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Christopher R. Cooper issued an opinion in August that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was largely not required to disclose redacted information from mortality reviews of in-custody deaths in two federal women’s prisons that have been the subject of numerous accusations of medical neglect.

In addition to finding that the mortality reviews were part of the BOP’s decision-making process, Cooper wrote that the BOP had successfully demonstrated that releasing the records would result in foreseeable harm to the agency. The judge wrote that a declaration from a BOP official credibly established that the mortality reviews could be used to “criticize” or “ridicule” the agency. 

“And, as described above, she notes that the members of the Mortality Review Committee would be ‘deter[red] . . . from acknowledging mistakes’ if they feared those mistakes would be publicized,” Cooper continued.

Reason Foundation, represented by the law office of Deborah Golden, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit last year against the BOP seeking mortality reviews of in-custody deaths at FCI Aliceville, a federal women’s prison in Alabama, and FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Texas that is the only medical center for incarcerated women in the BOP system.

Whenever a federal inmate dies, a committee reviews the circumstances and whether BOP policies were violated. The committee then gives recommendations on how care could have been improved. That information could reveal whether the BOP is aware of medical neglect within its walls and how bad the problem is.

Reason reported in 2020 on allegations of fatal medical neglect inside FCI Aliceville. Numerous current and former inmates, as well as their families, said in interviews, desperate letters, and lawsuits that women inside FCI Aliceville faced disastrous delays in health care. They described monthslong waits for doctor appointments and routine procedures, skepticism and retaliation from staff, and terrible pain and fear.

Seeking to learn more, Reason filed a FOIA request in May 2020 for inmate mortality reviews at FCI Aliceville, as well as FMC Carswell. 

When the BOP finally released mortality reviews from FMC Carswell three years later, it redacted any information that would indicate if there was substandard care, such as the review committee’s findings on the timeliness and appropriateness of care; problems encountered during the medical emergency; whether there was adequate documentation in the patient’s medical files; and whether the patient received appropriate care per the BOP’s policies.

The BOP withheld that information under exemption b(5) of the FOIA, which protects “predecisional” or deliberative communications between officials. The National Security Archive dubbed it the “withhold it because you want to” exemption.

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Trans prisoners to get wigs, prosthetic penises and breasts under Democrat bill

Trans prisoners in New York City will have access to ‘gender-affirming’ devices such as prosthetic penises and breasts under a new bill proposed by a Democratic lawmaker.

Councilwoman Crystal Hudson’s bill would also give guards at NYC prisons access to items like breast binders, wigs and tucking undergarments, as first reported by the New York Post. 

Hudson is expected to introduce the bill during Thursdays city council meeting.

The legislation is backed by fellow Democratic councilmembers Farah N. Louis, Chi A. Ossé.

‘This bill would establish a process for people in custody to obtain wigs, hair extensions, chest binders, tucking undergarments or gaffs, prosthetics, or other similar items or medical devices that are used by individuals to affirm their self-determined gender identity,’ according to the NYC Council website.

‘The bill also requires Department of Correction staff to have access to gender-affirming items or medical devices while at work.’

According to the bill, it would be up to the NYC Department of Correction to decide who foots the bill for the gender-affirming care. 

Prosthetic penises are sold on Amazon for about $130 while tucking undergarments go for about $15 and silicone breasts for $39. 

DailyMail.com has reached out to Hudson’s office for comment on the bill. 

According to her website, Hudson ‘was first elected in 2021 and made history as one of the first out gay Black women ever elected in New York City.’

The DOC confirmed to DailyMail.com that began quietly providing chest binders to detainees last year after apparently receiving them ‘as a donation.’

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Democrats Abandoned Their Anti-Death Penalty Stance. Those on Federal Death Row May Pay the Price.

When the Rev. Al Sharpton took the stage to introduce members of the Exonerated Five on the last night of the Democratic National Convention, it was, for the briefest moment, a nod toward a reality that the DNC had otherwise aggressively avoided: the myriad injustices of our criminal legal system.

“Thirty-five years ago my friends and I were in prison for crimes we didn’t commit,” Korey Wise said. As teenagers, Wise, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Antron McCray were wrongly arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned for the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park. Donald Trump notoriously spent tens of thousands of dollars on full-page ads in the New York Times calling to bring back the death penalty. “Our youth was stolen from us,” Wise said. “Every day as we walked into courtroom, people screamed at us, threatened us because of Donald Trump.”

“He wanted us dead,” Salaam, now a New York City Council member, said. Now in their late 40s and early 50s, the men once known as the Central Park Five stood as a living testament both to Trump’s cruelty and the futures he sought to crush.

The moment was powerful. But it also exposed a tension that had been present throughout the entire convention. All week, the criminal justice system — and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s role in it — had been cast as a force for good: a source of protection and justice for society’s vulnerable. Harris was praised by a parade of sheriffs, state attorneys general, and members of the U.S. security state as the leader who will keep Americans safe. “Crime will keep going down when we put a prosecutor in the White House instead of a convicted felon,” President Joe Biden said in his speech on Monday.

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UK government plans to release more prisoners early. Is this part of the strategy to impose a One World Government?

On Tuesday, The Telegraph reported that the number of spare prison places in male jails has fallen to just 100.

It is the closest the prison service has come to running out of space in male jails, although officials at the Ministry of Justice (“MoJ”) were hoping that they would not have to introduce further emergency measures.

 “The MoJ has already activated Operation Early Dawn, under which defendants are kept in police cells until prison spaces become available.  The problems have been worsened by a surge in arrests over the Bank Holiday weekend, including 330 at the Notting Hill Carnival in west London,” The Telegraph said.

Sources told The Telegraph that MoJ officials are confident they will be able to manage the situation without needing to implement further emergency measures, known as Operation Brinker.

Operation Brinker is a contingency plan that has never been used before. Under this plan, police forces would be required to hold suspects in their cells for a longer period than under the current Operation Early Dawn. This could potentially mean holding them overnight and even beyond 24 hours before they can be sent to court. It would involve operating a “one-in, one-out system,” which limits intake to the available space each day.

Further into The Telegraph’s article is the important part that has the most societal impact and possibly long-term harm: “Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, has introduced an early release scheme from 10 September that will see thousands freed 40 per cent of the way through their sentence, rather than halfway … It is expected to reduce the prison population by some 5,500.”

It is claimed that the early release programme will only apply to prisoners serving sentences for non-violent crimes.  However, this refers to offenders with longer sentences. It will exclude sexual offenders and violent offenders with sentences of 4 years or more. So, will violent and sex offenders sentenced to less than four years be eligible?

Some of these prisoners are being released early to make room for people who posted or reposted memes or comments on social media, people who shouldn’t be sent to jail in the first place.  Apart from perjury, bearing false witness under oath in a judicial proceeding, words and thoughts are not crimes.  Crimes are an act.  An act that causes damage to or loss of property, and harm to or loss of life.

However, the Labour government is using the law to persecute speech with which it doesn’t approve.

Take the case of Bernadette Spofforth (“Bernie”), a 55-year-old mother of three, who reposted that the suspect of the Southport murderous attack was a man called Ali Al-Shakati.  A man who was on an MI6 watchlist and had arrived in the UK by boat last year.  She prefixed this information with “if this is true” and deleted the tweet within hours, the minute she realised it was false information.  Nonetheless, she was arrested “on suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred” and “false communication.”

Perhaps not coincidentally, Bernie has been outspoken about the UK government’s false narratives on covid and other topics, and is often described as an “anti-lockdown campaigner.”

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UK to release criminals early from jail to accommodate ‘keyboard warriors,’ protesters arrested after riots over school girl murders

Britain’s prisons are set to release prisoners in order to make room for those locked up due to the recent riots that took place after three school girls were stabbed to death by the son of Rwandan immigrants. Many of those who are facing prison terms were convicted over social media posts. Some 460 people have been arrested due to the riots so far. 

“The UK is turning into a police state,” Elon Musk said. “Keyboard warriors” are facing specific scrutiny from the judiciary, with one man facing jail time for posts said to have “instigated” riots. A 53-year-old woman who posted “burn the mosque down” and is the only caretaker for her disabled husband was sentenced to 15 months in prison. 12-year-old boys are also among those convicted.

The prisoner release plan, called Operation Early Dawn, was “triggered for a week in March,” The Times reports, and it requires police to release suspects on bail if confinement space is lacking. In this case, the plan will be enacted in the North East and Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire, and Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire regions.

The riots are being blamed for the expansion of these measures and it’s believed, per a senior government source cited by The Times, that “the large numbers of people imprisoned for their role in the riots will probably lead to emergency early release measures staying in place for longer than expected.” 567 new prison cells have been opened ahead of schedule to cope with the demand.

“From September 10, thousands of prisoners will start being released 40 percent of the way through their sentence as part of the emergency measures announced last month,” The Times reports.

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Newly Released Footage Proves That Gershkovich & Whelan Were Indeed American Spies

This debunks the fake news alleging that they were “innocent Americans taken hostage by Russia”.

The US Government (USG) insisted throughout the entire time of Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan’s imprisonment in Russia on espionage charges that these two were “wrongfully detained”, but newly released footage from the FSB proves that they were indeed American spies. Folks can view the footage of Gershkovich here and Whelan here, both of which have a brief video analysis from RT’s Murad Gazdiev embedded at the bottom that’s also worth watching to place everything into context.

Gershkovich’s includes audio which proves that he knew that he was soliciting classified defense secrets on behalf of the Wall Street Journal and then planned to mislead their readers by claiming that they only spoke to an “anonymous source” without mentioning that they also obtained documents about this. He also tried hiding the flash drive that he obtained during his meeting with his source in a Yekaterinburg restaurant when he was arrested, which the video specifically highlights to draw attention to.

As for Whelan, there’s no audio in his video but it shows him receiving a flash drive in a hotel bathroom from a friend who he claimed during his interrogation was allegedly giving him pictures of churches. RT’s brief analytical video amusingly mocks his story as absurd. After all, Gazdiev reminded everyone that friends share pictures over email or text, not via flash drives in hotel bathrooms. Just like Gershkovich, he also obviously knew that he was illegally soliciting classified secrets, in this case about FSB officers.

Nevertheless, CNN promptly spun this newly released footage as alleged evidence of “entrapment”, completely ignoring the fact that both men knowingly accepted flash drives from their Russian sources that they were told contained classified information about their host country’s national security. It’s altogether a very shoddy information product that reeks of desperation to distract from the visual evidence that those two were literally caught red-handed receiving Russian state secrets.

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