independent investigation of deaths in custody. Hon. Members will know of the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the inquest procedure, but we have also decided to put the prisons and probation ombudsman on a statutory footing. The ombudsman has investigated all deaths in prisons, young offender institutions and immigration detention centres since 2004. Since last year, he has investigated those in secure training centres. He and his office have a detailed knowledge of custodial practice and policies. It has been the Governments intention to put the appointment on a statutory footing since 2003. Again, that is a recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

Legislation will place a formal duty on the ombudsman to examine all deaths under his remit. It will allow him to decide the scopeBy Yasha Levine, AlterNetThis article was originally posted by AlterNet.

The Tea Party movement’s dirty little secret is that its chief financial backers owe their family fortune to the granddaddy of all their hatred: Stalin’s godless empire of the USSR. The secretive oil billionaires of the Koch family, the main supporters of the right-wing groups that orchestrated the Tea Party movement, would not have the means to bankroll their favorite causes had it not been for the pile of money the family made working for the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s and early 1930s, building refineries, training Communist engineers and laying down the foundation of Soviet oil infrastructure.

The comrades were good to the Kochs. Today Koch Industries has grown into the second-largest private company in America. With an annual