Supporters welcome paroled Puerto Rican activist

Supporters welcome paroled Puerto Rican activist Humboldt Park rally welcomes former Chicago resident who served 30 years in federal prison

Just hours after being paroled from federal prison Monday, Carlos Alberto Torres waded through a joyous homecoming awash with Puerto Rican flags in Humboldt Park.

Once on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list, Torres was released after serving 30 years of a 78-year sentence for seditious conspiracy for his role with a violent Puerto Rican nationalist movement known as the FALN.

In a rally to celebrate his freedom at a Humboldt Park community center, Torres gently danced to the thumping of plastic buckets and the chants of about 500 supporters. He wore a black guayabera shirt and a scarf adorned with the word "patriota."

Sotomayor's secret files: What don't the Democrats want us to see?

Washington Times ^ | Friday, July 10, 2009 | Editorial

Posted on Thursday, July 09, 2009 11:49:57 PM by JohnRLott

We wonder what Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has to hide. Her confirmation hearing starts Monday, but the White House refuses to turn over boxes of documents for review about her past. Republican senators requested board meeting minutes of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, where Ms. Sotomayor served on the board of directors from 1980 to 1992. White House Counsel Greg Craig contends that all documents deemed "responsive" already were sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Contrary to White House dodging, these board meetings may be important in evaluating Ms. Sotomayor's legal and policy reasoning because the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund was involved in a wide range of controversial legal cases. For instance, the fund fought to abolish the death penalty. It pushed discrimination cases very similar to the New Haven firefighter case in which Ms. Sotomayor's quota reasoning was unanimously quashed by the Supreme Court.

The organization publicly defended members of a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group, . . .

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2289447/posts

SIGNIFICANCE: The trial of 10 FALN members in Chicago was one of the most sensational government cases against Puerto Rican nationalist groups accused of violence. The 1999 release of some of those convicted sparked a confrontation between Congress and the White House over the issue of Presidential Executive Privilege.

Read more: FALN Terrorist Trial: 1981 - 11 Arrested In Evanston, Federal Charges And Trial, Clinton Grants Clemency, Suggestions For Further Reading http://law.jrank.org/pages/3334/FALN-Terrorist-Trial-1981.html#ixzz0uvVY6TxH

For those of us on the streets of Chicago back then, the obtuseness of the FBI and ATF was a joke. Some of the activists arrested were highly visible community organizers (some Alinsky style, some very anti-Alinsky). I was casual friends with Oscar Lopez and casual acquaintance with others.

At one point 2 from the ATF came to my place of employment where I supervised field investigators who predicted what would be arsoned and other losses for insurance companies. The ATF wanted me to tell them where Oscar Lopez was. Well he was openly pumping gas at the Texaco gas station owned by his brother in the heart of the Puerto Rican neighborhood.

What the ATF would not say directly but really wanted was for me to make up bogus stories about Oscar so they could accuse him of something more serious than being present at a meeting where they planned to throw a glass bottle of gasoline at a plate glass window of the offices of the Puerto Rican government in Chicago.

3 blocks from the gas station there was a conspiracy by the Dem machine (the Tom Keane machine who was #2 in power in the city) that fire bombed 97 occupied apartment buildings (including mine) and 1 arson death. I had collected massive amounts of evidence on each of the 97 buildings and 113 fires. I had notarized statements of witnesses who had been solicted to participate in the fire bombing including both those who had rejected the offer and those who had accepted the offer and had participated and been paid for it. I had been personally solicited and threatened by Tom Keane’s #1 solicitor to fire bomb, Isadore Ganza.

I suggested the ATF focus on this real criminal conspiracy that was much more serious than attendance at a meeting where it was discussed to bounce a glass bottle off a plate glass window at 3 am on a Sunday when nobody would be injured.

Of course the ATF would not touch the real crime. This terrorism was in Congressman Rostenkowski’s ward and he was ranking member and soon to be chair of the House committee that controlled the budget of the ATF. The ATF was way too political to touch that.

In addition to the criminal conspiracy of politicians to fire bomb 2 blocks in Wicker Park, I developed iron clad cases of conspiracies to fire bomb in the Uptown neighborhood, which conspiracies again included powerful politicians and their allies in banks, insurance agencies and real estate firms.

That story was put on 20/20 by Geraldo Rivera. Of course, his crew made it superficial infotainment rather than hard fact as a way to gain ratings in the typical Geraldo style.

In conclusion, the criminal conspiracies of Dem machine politicians in Chicago are far more serious than those of the anti-machine activists.

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