The Opperman Report'

"In the fight against bigotry, we stand together, and we must. In the fight against injustice, we stand together, and we must. In the fight against intimidation, we stand together, and we must. After all, a government that launches wars to steal another person's birthright will do anything to all of us."

Cynthia McKinney has made a career of speaking her mind and challenging authority. She began on day one of her political life and hasn’t looked back. With her opinions, actions, and even her sense of style, McKinney has inspired both admiration and controversy.

During her second term, her district was re-drawn and re-numbered the 4th district. McKinney protested the new boundaries, but was still reelected to the seat. She was a supporter of a Palestinian State in Israel-occupied territory, and sparked controversy by criticizing American policy in the Middle East. After 9/11, McKinney suggested the President had received warnings. The criticism she received as a result, combined with being targeted by the pro-Israel lobby, contributed to her defeat in the 2002 election; however, she ran for the seat again and was re-elected in 2004.

McKinney was a vocal critic of the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. When Nancy Pelosi encouraged a boycott of a Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate Hurricane Katrina, Cynthia chose instead to participate and submitted her own report to the Congressional Record. She continued her criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the matter and its failure to secure a way back home for Katrina survivors. Cynthia pressed for government transparency and accountability and introduced legislation to release the documents related to the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tupac Shakur. She was the first Member of Congress to file articles of
impeachment against George Bush and she voted against every war funding bill put before her. Cynthia was forced out of Congress once more in 2007 when she was targeted for defeat, again, by donations from pro-Israel contributors that flooded into her opponent's campaign coffers.

Cynthia McKinney has never been afraid to speak her mind, and stand up for what she believes in. Late in 2007, she left the Democratic Party to take her energy and ideas to the whole country by becoming a Green Party Presidential Candidate. Cynthia won the Green Party nomination for U.S. President and in 2008 ran for President.

In December 2008, Cynthia made international headlines when the Free Gaza boat she was aboard was rammed by the Israeli military as she was attempting to deliver medical supplies to the people of Gaza during Israel's Operation Cast Lead. Cynthia and her fellow humanitarian activists, rescued by Lebanon, never made it to Gaza. In 2009, Cynthia attempted to reach Gaza again, this time armed with crayons, coloring books, and school supplies for the children. She and her fellow human rights workers became the Free Gaza 21 after their boat was overtaken in international waters by the Israeli military and they were kidnapped to Israel. Cynthia spent seven days in an Israeli prison. And again, Cynthia did not make it into Gaza. Finally, Cynthia entered Gaza by land in July 2009 with George Galloway's 250-volunteer-strong Viva Palestina, USA.

And as a rider and a member of the support team, Cynthia recently completed a cross-country bicycle ride with five other Bike4Peace 2010 cyclists who started in California and ended in Washington, D.C., speaking to the American people about the possibility of more peaceful U.S. policies if enough of us are willing to participate in our own positive, personal transformations.

Cynthia had not been on a bicycle in twenty years and faced many personal obstacles along the way. However, she met this challenge with her usual good humor and determination and by the last day of the ride was able to complete over 60 miles on her bicycle. In...

Vito Colucci, Jr. is the owner of Colucci Investigations LLC. Vito is a former member of the Stamford, Connecticut Police Department where he worked as Narcotic's Detective and Undercover Organized Crime Investigator. One of the main investigations Vito spearheaded during that time was uncovering the organized crime ties within his own police department. Working along with the FBI, he wore a wire for this assignment and infiltrated two crime families.
Vito was one of the youngest members ever to receive the Combat Cross for a shoot-out he was in. During his time on the police department he also received Valor Citations. Vito graduated from the Arnold Markle Search and Seizure School.
Vito has been a private investigator for the past 22 years, working many high profile cases; Michael Skakel/Martha Moxley case, Jayson William's case, honeymooner George Smith case, Charla Nash chimp case and the Andrew Kissell murder case. Vito has also worked on some of the biggest high profile cases in CT involving murders, rapes and a corrupt priest.
Vito is a regular commentator on various news programs including: Fox News, MSNBC, Catherine Crier/Court TV, Star Jones, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Larry King, CNN Headline News, and The Bill O'Reilly Show. Vito was a featured speaker at the first World Investigator's Conference in Las Vegas in 2005.
Vito has a staff of investigators with various criminal justice backgrounds.

http://coluccipi.com/

Vito is also the author of the newly released book "Inside the Private Eyes of a PI." Vito is a member in good standing of CALPI (Connecticut Association of Licensed Private Investigators.
Crime Time with Vito Colucci, P.I.
The show features anything crime related. Current high profile cases or trials are discussed in detail with commentary from law enforcement experts and lawyers. Guests like Henry Hill, the former mobster and Lucchese crime family associate, and subsequent FBI informant whose life was immortalized in the Goodfellas movie also will be featured. What it's like to be a P.I., the latest technology and crime detection resources as well as forensics methods are also discussed on Crime Time. In addition, listener calls will be answered(i.e. How do I know if my spouse is cheating?). Each program includes a segment entitled "WHAT WERE THEY THINKIN'?!" This centers on bizarre crime related news, possible new laws across the country, i.e. police in NY state told to shoot to wound in a confrontation with a criminal instead of shooting to kill; convicted criminals in 8 states having access to citizens social security numbers as part of their inmate work programs, etc. Vito comments on these subjects and listeners can also call in to give their opinion or perhaps their own examples.

Guest: Bill Deane, Investigative Journalist, speaker, and best selling author of "Smooth Criminal, a One Man American Crime Wave."

Bill's best-selling book exposes the consequences of our government freeing prisoners to carry out dangerous assignments.

His expertise includes criminal behaviors, law enforcement (CIA, FBI, police, Justice Department), and the consequences of extreme secrecy (innocent American citizens's lives ruined).
Bill is a professional on-air broadcaster, capable of telling a vital story in an info-tainment manner. A former major market anchor, news director, and network news assignment editor, Bill is an excellent radio guest.

He is currently speaking on broadcast news history. You are also invited to check Bill's blog: www.OurMissingNews.com
for daily updates that go beyond the What/Where to get into the How/Why.

Bill Deane, Investigative Reporter Expert Will discuss.......
•The CIA and its relationship with other law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, local police, and the Justice Department
•The invisible government
•Why we aren't getting the real news
•Ten ways to identify a con artist
•Ten ways to avoid theft and robbery.

Bill Deane Credentials
•Investigative journalist, IRE
•30 years as a network news assignment editor
•major market news anchor and news director
•demographic researcher
•public speaker, national narrations and voiceovers
•top 40 DJ
•speech teacher
•radio and TV producer of 7-hour 600 slide, 40 movie presentation
•writer, author of one of this year's best sellers, Smooth Criminal, a One Man American Crime Wave.

Guest: Steve Hodel, author of the "Black Dahlia Avenger" series.

Steve Hodel is a New York Times and International bestselling author. His book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America as a "Best Fact" true-crime book.

Steve Hodel was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He served four years as a medic in the U.S. Navy, and then joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1963. After six years in uniform patrol, he transferred to Hollywood Division Detectives where he worked all of the “tables”: Burglary, Robbery, Auto-Theft, Juvenile, Crimes against Persons and was then permanently assigned to the Homicide Detail.

During his career at Hollywood Homicide, Steve promoted to Detective II and in 1983 was the senior field homicide detective. During his years of service he received more than 75 commendations and handled over 300 separate murder investigations and had one of the departments highest “solve rates. “ Steve promoted to Detective III (the highest attainable rank in detectives) and retired from LAPD in 1986.

HODEL INVESTIGATIONS was established in 1986. Steve has been a licensed California Private Investigator, conducting mainly criminal defense investigations, for the past 23-years. He worked over six-years as lead investigator on a high-profile international murder case which resulted in an innocent man (Yoshikuni Okubo) being released from prison in Tokyo, Japan and reunited with his family, after five years of detention.

Steve’s first book, Steve Hodel: A Genius for Murder published in 2003 with new updated investigative chapters added to the HarperCollins paperback edition in 2004 and 2006. Black Dahlia Avenger is a New York Times Bestseller, a NYT Most Notable Book and was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for an Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category.

Steve’s sequel, MOST EVIL: The Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel, is scheduled to be published by DUTTON – PENGUIN GROUP on September 21, 2009.
Steve resides in his hometown of Los Angeles.

http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Hodel/e/B...

Scott Michaels : Six Degrees of Helter Skelter

Dearly Departed Tours’ founder Scott Michaels is the authority on the Dark Side of Hollywood. Dearly Departed Tours is a multimedia Hollywood bus tour like no other. Cases like Manson, Janis, Whitney and Michael, and lesser-known celebrities with even more spectacular exits. Peppered with crime scene photographs and audio clips (including 911 calls), the tour has earned it’s consistent 5-star ratings. We’ve been featured on the E! Show Hollywood Death Trip, Anthony Bourdain’s The Layover and dozens more, and the FX's American Horror Story even paid tribute to the tour. Scott Michaels’ one-of-a-kind collection of celebrity death memorabilia on display in the Gallery includes the pink suitcase Jayne Mansfield packed the night she died and Rock Hudson’s deathbed.

"The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter" walks in the footsteps of the Manson Family, visiting over 40 locations related to the infamous Tate/LaBianca murders, and tying together the dozens of odd connections between Charles Manson and the Hollywood elite. Entertainingly led by famous Hollywood historian Scott Michaels (E!'s 20 Most Horrifying Hollywood Murders, Dearly Departed: Vol. 1, FindADeath.com), this epic documentary employs never-before-seen autopsy reports (analyzed with the help of the Los Angeles Department of the Coroner), dozens of rare photographs, original Manson Family music recordings, and modern-day visits to the locations where the action went down, in the most complete retelling of the Manson Murders ever put on film. "You absolutely must by this DVD. (They) get the story right with witty commentary and tons of great footage of places you may have never seen." -- CharlieManson.com "Scott Michaels knows where the bodies are buried." -- The Los Angeles Times "Scott Michaels takes you on a journey in this feature-length DVD documentary... an entertaining and hauntingly unique retelling of the notorious Manson Family Murders!" -- MansonFamilyToday.info Featured on IGN and FilmStew.com. Visit the official website for the film at: HelterSkelterFilm.com

"A hair-raising trip to the dark side of Hollywood, better than any movie...Nothing helter skelter about it. It cuts to the facts and gives you nightmares!" - Rex Reed.

MOVE or the MOVE Organization is a Philadelphia-based black liberation group founded by John Africa. MOVE was described by CNN as "a loose-knit, mostly black group whose members all adopted the surname Africa, advocated a peaceful but revolutionary 'back-to-nature' lifestyle.

The group lived peacefully communally and frequently engaged in public demonstrations related to issues of social and economic justice.

Since their founding in 1972, MOVE has been targeted by the Philadelphia Police Department. A major incident occurred in 1978, when the police unlawfully raided their Powelton Village home. This raid resulted in the imprisonment of nine group members, now known as the "MOVE 9." After this, the group relocated further west to a house at 6221 Osage Avenue.

In 1985 the group made national news when police dropped a bomb on the Osage house from a helicopter. The explosion and ensuing fire killed 11 innocent people, including five children and the group's leader, John Africa. Only two occupants survived—Ramona, an adult and Birdie, a child. In addition, approximately 60 other (non MOVE-affiliated) homes were destroyed as the entire block burned.

Police and firefighters standing by watching innocent people burn to death and an entire neighborhood destroyed.

Guest: Mark Rudd

From 1965 t0 1968, I was a student activist and organizer in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) chapter at Columbia University. I was one of the leaders of the Spring 1968 occupation of five buildings and the subsequent strike against the university's complicity with the war and its racism. At the time I was identified by the press as the symbol of student radicals.

After being kicked out of Columbia, I became a full-time organizer for SDS, where I helped found the militant Weatherman faction. I was elected National Secretary of SDS in June, 1969, then helped found the "revolutionary" Weather Underground, which had as its goal "the violent overthrow of the government of the US in solidarity with the struggles of the people of the world."

Wanted on federal charges of bombing and conspiracy, I was a fugitive from 1970 to 1977. All of the charges were dropped because of government illegalities. From 1980 to 2006 I was a math instructor at a community college in Albuquerque, NM, and a perennial organizer and nonviolent activist locally on issues of native American land rights, nuclear, US military interventions, Palestine solidarity, unionization, environmental justice, and war and militarization.

I retired from teaching in 2007 and have been devoting myself since then to organizing and also writing and speaking on the history which I was involved in. In March, 2009, my book Underground was published.

Kelly Banaski is a true crime writer, blogger and inmate liaison. She works to better the rate of recidivism by mentoring lifers and death row inmates. Her work has left her with strange friendships with some of the country’s most reviled inmates.

She wrote a chapter in this anthology:
2015 Serial Killers True Crime Anthology: Volume 2
selling as #3 bestseller in Amazon Kindle.
She is currently writing a book about a school friend, Greg Scott Hale, who killed and ate a woman last year in June.

Kelly Banaski
www.thewomancondemned.com
www.kellybanaski.com

This meticulously researched book explores the concept of fame in all its fleeting glory and confounding inconsistency. Why do so many entertainers do so much better financially than peers who have comparable resumes? Author Donald Jeffries also examines a subject he is quite familiar with; the myriad of unnatural deaths which have plagued the entertainment industry since the dawn of Hollywood. The deaths of John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, and many others are scrutinized in exacting detail. Jeffries communicated with many older entertainers during the course of researching the book, and their perspectives are included here. On Borrowed Fame will be of great interest to fans, celebrities, and anyone with even a cursory affinity for the world of show business.


If you’re anything like me, and have a hard time not looking at the car crash as you drive by: You will love this book. I’m dyslexic and have difficulty reading but found it even more difficult stopping. The book showed me how very lucky I’ve been, pursuing my passions; Acting, Class A Speedway Racing and Inventing.
- Billy Gray, Father Knows Best, The Day the Earth Stood Still

Donald Jeffries’ On Borrowed Fame is indeed a revelatory and painful experience. It paints the big picture of the price of Fame in Hollywood. One that mercilessly illustrates through fact and story the real price paid by many of my colleagues and myself. Fame is not a blessing, it’s a curse. This book is a witness to the carnage and horrible truth of the matter. Fame is not what it appears to be on the outside. Fame is a glamorous car wreck. Fame sucks. This is an important book that tells us all as fellow human beings that attention must be paid.
I congratulate Mr. Jeffries for having had the courage to write it.
- Nick Mancuso, Paris 2020

“It’s possible to be a musician in the biggest band imaginable, and within a few years be forced to work a regular job.” That ominous statement is echoed throughout Donald Jeffries’ whirlwind of woe in the world of entertainment, On Borrowed Time. Those household name actors in your favourite TV shows you assumed were well paid and would surely always have a firm foothold in show business? Not so much it turns out, as stated here: “A regular on a television series is at least as likely to have their acting career end when their show does.” The arbitrary payment structures that seem to have been made up on the spot, the blatant rip offs and the sheer number of early and often suspicious Hollywood deaths that were rarely investigated would make anyone think twice about being an actor. What an eye opener this book is!
- Graham Parker, singer-songwriter

If you’ve ever dreamed of being famous--and who hasn’t--then Donald Jeffries offers a shocking literary vaccine--so you might avoid those pitfalls. Just maybe! “On Borrowed Fame,” his juicy and richly detailed fast moving dossier, catalogues the long and winding and perilous road trod by some of the most famous names in showbiz. Those talented celebs had one thing in common: They inevitably discovered that fame does not guarantee fortune-- but is often a prescription for bankruptcy and early death. I have reported on Hollywood for nearly half a century but can attest that Jeffries has entertainingly laid out the most detailed compendium of horror stories experienced by some of tinsel town’s biggest names. No one is spared--from Stan Laurel to Marlon Brando to Michael Jackson. And so, so many more. His research is formidable. This is the most fascinating chronicle of show business malfeasance, mayhem and misery I have ever read. The Beatles sang “Can’t Buy Me Love,” They should have added “happiness” as well!
- Ivor Davis