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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
As evidenced by lastnamechosen him-or-herself, I believe that is already the case for many people---if not most. The media, naturally, do not represent what people actually think or even think about.
from Democrats.com
Pardon Em or Don't Pardon Em?Submitted by davidswanson on November 22, 2008 - 4:38am.
* Bush Pardons
Video: Debate on War Crimes and Torture: Should High Government Officials Be Investigated and Prosecuted?
Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights and Author, "The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book"
Stuart Taylor, Columnist, National Journal and Contributing Editor, Newsweek
MODERATOR: David Vladeck, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center
Ratner's new book, "The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld," lays out the evidence that high-level officials of the Bush administration ordered, authorized, implemented and permitted war crimes, in particular the crimes of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Ratner and Taylor will make their respective cases for and against Rumsfeld and other officials in the Bush administration.
This event is sponsored by the Georgetown Law Supreme Court Institute.
I'm only a few minutes into the debate (which can be viewed by clicking my signature), but it is quite interesting already.
By the way, I have been nothing but disappointed by Obama since his FISA reversal in July. What I don't understand is why there was such a fierce contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama... in the end, we're just getting another Clinton administration.
AP Nov 22nd, 2008 | WASHINGTON (see sig) -- The Supreme Court could hand President-elect Barack Obama a delicate problem in the coming days: What to do with a suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent who is the only person detained in this country as an enemy combatant?
Ali al-Marri has been held in virtual isolation in a Navy brig near Charleston, S.C., for nearly 5 1/2 years. He is challenging President George W. Bush's authority to subject a legal resident of the United States to indefinite military detention without being charged or tried.
The justices are expected to consider al-Marri's case when they meet in private on Tuesday. If they agree to hear arguments, over the Bush administration's opposition, they could say so the same day.
Bush's legal team has claimed authority for such detentions and has argued aggressively for it in court papers.
But the case would not be scheduled for argument until sometime in the late winter or early spring, during Obama's first months in office.
Al-Marri's fate will wind up in Obama's hands in any event, but a decision by the court to hear his challenge would force the new president to confront the issue quickly.
In the event the dispute makes it as far as a court hearing, the new administration's lawyers would have to argue the same basic position urged by Bush's team, despite Obama's repeated criticism during the presidential campaign that Bush was too aggressive in asserting executive authority.
Or Obama's lawyers could reverse course in the middle of a complex legal dispute that would essentially have the new president arguing for limits on his powers.
Either way, "it will be a very tough position for the new administration," said Sharon Bradford Reynolds, senior counsel at The Constitution Project, a bipartisan legal think tank that wants the court to hear the case and rule for al-Marri.
But Obama would have other, potentially more palatable, options that would almost certainly head off a hearing in the Supreme Court.
MORE...
http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2008/11/22/D94K23K00_obama_enemy_combatant/index.html
here we are -
Group of serious worshiper and growing by the minute and you have to understand how it
grows just by contrast - You read a lot - you write a lot - and you check out the dudetts
and the dudes and a lot of them are just not the brightes and then - once in a while a dude
(or a dudett) shows up who is so far far... (you know what) that you just can't resist you have
to engage in worship (hey and it makes sense too)
if you are stupid enough to believe in all kind of conspiracy theories - the messiah will be able to help you too!
Can you point me to a concrete example in which American security forces (military or otherwise) have engaged in sustained conflict with a group of people that call themselves "al-Qaida?"
Part of your problem is that you think that al-Qaida exists.
Yes, it is circumstantial: after all the Obama administration is yet to have taken office. For that reason I can still harbor a little hope; but not much.
OT: Say, I thought lwm was banished from here by Glenn.
Counter-god-damn-productive!
How about war crimes that are offenses against humanity?
I answered a question he had.
I though we had an agreement that you would never address me again and I would not comment on how fucking stupid you are.
the messiah can help u-too!
In the event the dispute makes it as far as a court hearing, the new administration's lawyers would have to argue the same basic position urged by Bush's team, despite Obama's repeated criticism during the presidential campaign that Bush was too aggressive in asserting executive authority.
Or Obama's lawyers could reverse course in the middle of a complex legal dispute that would essentially have the new president arguing for limits on his powers.
Should Solomon cut the baby in two, because he said he would (thus asserting the absolute royal rights over the lives of his tiniest subjects), or should he give the baby to the woman who is obviously its mother, thus potentially weakening the assertion of his absolute royal power over the lives of his subjects?
Oh, this one is a three-beer one, for sure.
thanks for that Nation link. I was particularly pleased he wrote of the need to end the prison industrial complex. Who was it that said (paraphrasing) you'll know a people by their prison system?
Obama Considering Commission On Bush Admin Torture (see sig)
"Despite the hopes of many human-rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration," Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reports. "But one idea that has currency among some top Obama advisers is setting up a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible."
"At a minimum, the American people have to be able to see and judge what happened," said one senior adviser, who asked not to be identified talking about policy matters. The commission would be empowered to order the U.S. intelligence agencies to open their files for review and question senior officials who approved "waterboarding" and other controversial practices.
Obama aides are wary of taking any steps that would smack of political retribution. That's one reason they are reluctant to see high-profile investigations by the Democratic-controlled Congress or to greenlight a broad Justice inquiry (absent specific new evidence of wrongdoing). "If there was any effort to have war-crimes prosecutions of the Bush administration, you'd instantly destroy whatever hopes you have of bipartisanship," said Robert Litt, a former Justice criminal division chief during the Clinton administration. A new commission, on the other hand, could emulate the bipartisan tone set by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton in investigating the 9/11 attacks. The 9/11 panel was created by Congress. An alternative model, floated by human-rights lawyer Scott Horton, would be a presidential commission similar to the one appointed by Gerald Ford in 1975 and headed by Nelson Rockefeller that investigated cold-war abuses by the CIA.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/22/obama-considering-commiss_n_145729.html
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
