Author's posts

Sen. Leahy Bails on Truth Commission?! The Senator responds…

* Note: Cross posted at GOS and Antemedius

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Senator Leahy has posted a statement on his website, which states, in part, that he is still actively pursuing the “Truth Commission” idea.

So, I guess somebody is listening?

For those here who have been active in pressuring the Obama administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush administration War Crimes, (or if you’re even passingly interested in seeing some accountability at all for the grave misdeeds of Bush, Cheney, Feith, Addington, Yoo, et al), there’s some very bad news that seems to have flitted under the collective radar.

~more after the fold~  

Whistleblower Protection provisions quietly removed from Stim Bill

(Cross posted at the GOS)

When, in the coming days, weeks and months, the right wingnut noise machine (predictably) starts cranking up the squeeze box and running around with their hair on fire, screaming that taxpayer’s money from the “stimulus” bill is being wasted on the Democrat’s long delayed pet projects,  it will behoove progressives to remind them that: the key measure in said bill designed to help expose that waste was quietly removed from the bill late last night — and, by one of their own, a senator who touts herself as a proponent of fiscal responsibility.

Can you say “frog march”?

Congressman John Conyers has upped the ante, issuing a fresh, brand spankin’ new subpoena for KKKarl Rove, requiring his appearance “to testify regarding his role in the Bush Administration’s politicization of the Department of Justice, including the US Attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.”

Poor Karl, no friendly occupant in the White House to shelter him now. With negligible legal standing, it’s looking as though he may actually have to show up and defend himself against charges of organized politicization of hirings and firings in the Justice Department.

“I am 9 years old!” juveniles held in Iraq by US.

Crossposted at Dailykos.

What can one say, when confronted with acts that defy our understanding of what it is to be American? Or, for that matter, simply a human being?  

Can you bear to hear yet one more story, one more offense against the rule of law, against respect for human rights, against all that we hold true and precious?

Court Rules: Bush can detain ANYONE indefinetely

President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.

Link to New York Times story HERE.

UPDATED Canadian teen’s gitmo interrogation film released

Graphic photo at end depicts the wounds Khadr was denied treatment for while he was being interrogated.

Mandated by a high court ruling, the defense lawyers representing Omar Khadr have been given and will release 7 1/2 hours of videotaped interrogation tomorrow. Khadr was arrested at 15 and held in Gitmo, where he remains today.

While Khadr’s supporters have claimed for years he was tortured in custody, his lawyers say the latest revelations have finally caught the attention of a Canadian public that’s growing less willing to sacrifice human rights in the name of national security.

It seems that Canadians are sick of their government participating in America’s illegal torture/detention practices, and their courts agree.

Sen. Chambliss on the record; torture is fine! Let’s put them ALL on record.

(Cross posted from DailyKos)

There has been a flurry of torture items on the Recommended Diary list this week (If you missed them, incredible outpourings in Troutfishing’s series, here, here, here, and here,  and clammyc’s piece, as well) We are all sickened and outraged (see OPOL’s great diary) and left feeling shame and horror, and maybe overwhelming helplessness, too.

Here is a chance to do something to shame those who have known about it, allowed it, and still do not stop it. If enough of us care, and raise our voices in outrage, we can make them feel pressured to do something to stop Bush and Cheney from torturing in our names.

“It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American.”

“Waterboarding is torture – I did it myself”

So declared advisor to Dept of Homeland Security Malcom Nance, publicly repudiating the practice reborn from the middle ages in new and improved form by the Bush Administration. Although the Pentagon has been “banned” from using waterboarding by Congress, the same technique described below has NOT been banned from being used by the CIA.

Bush science advisor on global warming: WTF?

In an article in today’s WaPo, Bush science advisor John H. Marburger III:

The president’s top science adviser said yesterday there is no solid scientific evidence that the widely cited goal of limiting future global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is necessary to avert dangerous climate change, an assertion that runs counter to that of many scientists as well as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said at a news conference that the target of preventing Earth from warming more than two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, “is going to be a very difficult one to achieve and is not actually linked to regional events that affect people’s lives.”

OK, so far, understandable. Especially since Bush’s top science guru, quoted in a 2001 interview by Chemical and Engineering News,  had this to say: 

…the Administration received a lot of criticism for how it presented its position on the Kyoto protocol–which was a deeply flawed protocol and one that most people agree would have very serious negative economic consequences for the U.S….

The Bush administration firmly believes that following the Kyoto protocals would have damaged the US Economy. (Which is why our economy is so strong now….???)

Nothing to see here, no earth shaking news. Kool-aid drinkers abound within the White House sphere of influence, and anything that might possibly hurt industry is BAD, I tell you! BAD!!!

Tear it Down !

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Amnesty International has a new, graphic campaign to gather together the many voices who demand that the United States  tear down Gitmo.

Call off the guns!

This is a follow up on a diary I did back in July on DK. The NRDC is urgently asking that public comments be submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, opposing its plan to allow the killing of wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and donations to help air this ad~

Load more