More stuff to make you say WTF

[tombogan03884]

Note: The Tate / LaBianca murders occurred 40 years ago this week.

Manson follower 'Squeaky' Fromme out of prison
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090814/ap_on_re_us/us_manson_follower_ford

FORT WORTH, Texas – The Charles Manson follower convicted of trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford was released Friday from a Texas prison hospital after more than three decades behind bars, a prison official said.

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was just 26 years old when she pointed a semiautomatic .45- caliber pistol at Ford in September 1975 in Sacramento, Calif. Secret Service agents grabbed her and Ford was unhurt.

Fromme, now 60, left the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth at about 8 a.m. Friday, spokeswoman Dr. Maria Douglas said in a statement.

Fromme, who got a life term, became the first person sentenced under a special federal law covering assaults on U.S. presidents, a statute enacted after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Ford was walking to the California State Capitol from his hotel when Fromme pushed through the crowd, drew the pistol from a holster on her thigh and pointed it at the president as he shook hands with well-wishers. She was restrained by Secret Service agents who wrested the gun away from her and led the president to safety.

Fromme was granted parole in July 2008 and released "via good conduct time" after completing a 15-month sentence for unlawful escape from a federal correctional institution, according to the statement. That sentence was being served consecutively after a life sentence for threats against the president.

She escaped from a female prison in Alderson, W.Va., on Dec. 23, 1987, and was recaptured about two miles away on Christmas Day after a massive search. She was sentenced to an additional 15 months in prison for the escape. Fromme had said she escaped from prison to be closer to Manson.

It was unclear why Fromme was at Carswell, a facility that specializes in providing medical and mental health services to female offenders. A spokeswoman for the bureau of prisons did not immediately return a phone call Wednesday seeking comment.

"I knew someday she would be released," said John Virga, the Sacramento attorney who handled her trial.

Fromme served time in at least two other facilities before Carswell.

Manson is serving a life term in Corcoran State Prison in California for the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and eight others. Fromme, one of his "family" of followers, was not implicated in those attacks.

[fightingquaker13]

Ok, I can understand the young and brainwashed thing to a small degree, and 30 years is a long time. But does anyone think releasing a nut job who wanted to be closer to Manson is a good idea? I'm with Tom here. WTF?
FQ13

[tt11758]

Ok, I can understand the young and brainwashed thing to a small degree, and 30 years is a long time. But does anyone think releasing a nut job who wanted to be closer to Manson is a good idea? I'm with Tom here. WTF?
FQ13

Jesus, FQ, you're scaring the shit out of me!!  This is twice in one day that we're on the same page!!  Who the hell are you, and what have you done with FQ?!?   

[Pathfinder]

Jesus, FQ, you're scaring the shit out of me!!  This is twice in one day that we're on the same page!!  Who the hell are you, and what have you done with FQ?!?   

Even a broken clock is right twice a day! 

[Kid Shelleen]

Tom, FQ and TT,

Count me as a fourth.

I strongly agree with you all and add my equally dismayed........... WTF?

[Sponsor]

[Rob10ring]

Shouldn't a life term mean that no matter how bad your health gets, you end your life in prison?

[cookie62]

Shouldn't a life term mean that no matter how bad your health gets, you end your life in prison?

I thought that was the whole idea behind a "life sentence"

[tombogan03884]

 If she left up right her health isn't bad enough.

[tt11758]

If she left up right her health isn't bad enough.

Precisely.  "Life" should mean LIFE.  None of this time off for good behavior, early release for overcrowding, she's too sick to stay in jail bullshit.  It SHOULD mean nothing but striped sunshine until it's time for her to do business with m58 or one of his colleagues.

[tombogan03884]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090913/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_afghanistan_detainee_rights

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is preparing new rules that would give hundreds of prisoners being held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan the right to challenge their detentions, according to published reports.

The guidelines would for the first time allow about 600 prisoners held at an American-run prison at the Bagram Air Base to call witnesses and submit evidence in their defense, The Washington Post and New York Times reported in stories Saturday on the Web.

The guidelines came to light as the Obama administration is reviewing Bush-era detention policies and determining where to make changes.

Under the rules, expected to be implemented soon, prisoners would have military-assigned representatives charged with gathering evidence and calling witnesses on their behalf. That process is similar to the one used for detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Unlike those prisoners, the Bagram detainees have had no means to challenge their detentions — some of which have stretched for years — or to hear allegations against them.

Prisoners at Bagram have been refusing privileges like recreation time and family visits arranged by the International Committee of the Red Cross to protest their lack of legal rights since July, according to U.S. military and humanitarian officials.

Human rights campaigners have argued that the prisoners should be given the same rights as those at Guantanamo, but the U.S. military argues that Bagram detainees should be treated differently because they are being held in an active theater of war.

Their status is the subject of lawsuits in the United States. A federal judge ruled in April that the Bagram detainees have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts, and the Obama administration has asked a federal appeals court to overturn the decision.

Efforts to get responses from administration and military officials were unsuccessful late Saturday.