Author's posts
Jun 29 2009
CIA Crucified Prisoner In Abu Ghraib
from Sherwood Ross, June 28, 2009
The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.
“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given.
“No criminal charges have ever been brought against any C.I.A. officer involved in the torture program, despite the fact that at least three prisoners interrogated by agency personnel died as a result of mistreatment,” Mayer notes.
An earlier report, by John Hendren in The Los Angeles Times indicted other torture killings. And Human Rights First says nearly 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Jun 28 2009
Dear Mr. President…
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Jun 26 2009
R.I.P. Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson dead at 50 after being rushed to hospital
by Express-Times staff and wire
Thursday June 25, 2009, 6:30 PM
Michael Jackson, one of the world’s most popular entertainers, has died. He was 50.
Jackson apparently suffered from cardiac arrest and was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital this afternoon. Paramedics performed CPR on Jackson in the ambulance but were unable to revive him, according to TMZ.com.
The emergency entrance at the UCLA Medical Center, which is near Jackson’s rented home, was roped off Thursday with police tape.
News trucks were gathered, helicopters flew overhead, and orange cones were laid out to redirect traffic.
Jun 25 2009
Twitter Creator On Iran: ‘I Never Intended For Twitter To Be Useful’
Creator Jack Dorsey was shocked and saddened this week after learning that his social networking device, Twitter, was being used to disseminate pertinent and timely information during the recent civil unrest in Iran.
“Twitter was intended to be a way for vacant, self-absorbed egotists to share their most banal and idiotic thoughts with anyone pathetic enough to read them,” said a visibly confused Dorsey, claiming that Twitter is at its most powerful when it makes an already attention-starved populace even more needy for constant affirmation.
“When I heard how Iranians were using my beloved creation for their own means-such as organizing a political movement and informing the outside world of the actions of a repressive regime-I couldn’t believe they’d ruined something so beautiful, simple, and absolutely pointless.”
Dorsey said he is already working on a new website that will be so mind-numbingly useless that Iranians will not even be able to figure out how to operate it.
From here.
Jun 25 2009
Joan Baez – To The People Of Iran
To the People of Iran: In you the world sees the power of nonviolence. We hear it in the roar of your silence and see it in your eyes as you sit down peacefully in the face of terror. We are moved by your courage and inspired by your sacrifices.
I am fortunate to be alive to witness this movement. I send you my prayers, love, and support.
Jun 24 2009
UPDATED w/video: Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Plame’s Lawsuit Against Cheney, Rove
Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Plame’s Lawsuit Against Cheney, Rove
by Jason Leopold, June 23, 2009
The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a civil lawsuit filed by Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, against Bush administration officials who were responsible for leaking her covert CIA status to the media and attacking her husband for accusing the White House of twisting prewar Iraq intelligence.
The Supreme Court’s rejection effectively brings the three-year-old case to a close. The Wilson’s had sued Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Cheney’s ex-chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage for violating their civil rights. Libby was convicted on four of five counts and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. President George W. Bush later commuted the sentence, sparing Libby jail time.
“The Wilsons and their counsel are disappointed by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case, but more significantly, this is a setback for our democracy,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics [CREW] in Washington, an attorney representing the Wilsons. “This decision means that government officials can abuse their power for political purposes without fear of repercussion. Private citizens like the Wilsons, who see their careers destroyed and their lives placed in jeopardy by administration officials seeking to score political points and silence opposition, have no recourse.”
Jun 22 2009
US Political Idiocy About Iran
Just poking my head out for a quick survey of the Monday morning landscape.
“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”
— Hunter S. Thompson
A couple of short ‘quote’ for discussion items from an AFP article via RawStory this morning about Iran and US Politicians ‘suggestions’:
The showdown in Tehran was the top topic on weekend television talk shows in the United States, with Republicans criticizing Obama for timidity in the face of the most serious upheaval in Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said officials responsible for US clandestine operations had given assurances this week that they had not interfered in the Iranian elections or the ensuing protests.
“I don’t think our intelligence candidly is that good,” she said in an interview with CNN.
“I think it’s a very difficult country in which to collect intelligence right now. So I think our ability to get in there and change the course of human events is very low, to be very candid with you,” Feinstein said.
Iranian leaders blamed meddling by the United States and Britain for a week of post-election unrest that has put its country’s clerical leadership to an unprecedented test.
Feinsteins thinking is that the measure of having good intelligence capability is the ability to “get in there and change the course of human events“?
What’s wrong with this picture?
Jun 21 2009
Bill Maher: ‘Democrats are the new Republicans’
Bill Maher’s ‘New Rules’ June 19, Via RawStory:
In his weekly monologue, New Rules, Bill Maher weighs in on everything from Iran to Twitter, but his primary target Friday night was the Democratic party, which he says has become the new GOP.
Each time President Obama tries to take on a progressive cause, Maher charged that there was “a major political party standing in his way: the Democrats.
But the solution is not a third political party, according to the self-described libertarian pundit: “We don’t need a third party. We have a center right party, and a crazy party. Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital.”
Maher scoffs at the notion that Obama is a socialist: “He’s not even a liberal.”
Hammering in his point, Maher asks, “Shouldn’t there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting military spending? Straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal healthcare, legalizing pot, and steep, direct taxing of polluters?”
“These aren’t radical ideas,” Maher stresses, “The majority of Americans are either already for them, or would be if they were properly argued and defended; and what we need is an actual progressive party to represent the millions of Americans who aren’t being served by the Democrats.”
“Because bottom line,” he concludes “Democrats are the new Republicans.”