Please support Torture Awareness Day

Simulposted at Daily Kos

Medical reports corroborated the detainee’s account, stating that the detainee had a broken nose, fractured leg, and scars on his stomach. In addition, soldiers confirmed that Task Force 20 interrogators wearing civilian clothing had interrogated the detainee. However, after initially reporting the abuse, the detainee said that he was forced by an American soldier to sign a statement denouncing the claims or else be kept in detention indefinitely. He agreed.

    An investigator who reviewed the signed statement concluded that “[t]his statement, alone, is a prima facie indication of threats.” However, despite the medical report and testimony from other soldiers, the criminal file was ultimately closed on the grounds that the investigation had “failed to prove or disprove” the offenses.

ACLU.org

    Does anything stand against the American concept of the rule of law more than this?

Call it Personal Disaster Capitalism

   If Reform Costs X and Fighting it costs Y – choose the lesser of the two everytime.

    Executives of three of the nation’s largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive.

crooksandliars.com

    Why? Why would they do this?

    Because it is profitable, of course.

    The line between taking a profit and making a killing is where ethics ends and Super Profits begin. There are thousands of examples we can find in our economy today where taking a profit is not good enough, and thus making a killing is what we do.

    It seems as though once the line between making a profit ethically is crossed there is no going back. Once the people who profit by stepping over the line and making a killing have gone there, the damage is already done and it is too late. What good is it to us if we fine a polluter some millions they can afford after they have made the Super Profit and ripped the resources out of the bare earth, or by denying someone Health Care they paid the Insurance for, or by ginning up a war fro their contractor buddies. The war still happens, people die of preventable disease and no one can put the environment back together again.

   This is how our economy works. Whoever can fuck over the most people the best win. You can be too big to fail but if there is any competition to worry about, don’t worry, the Government will take care of it for you, but if average Joe Sixpacks demand the same thing that is socialism, and that is bad.

    So what is a person to do?

    The first step to fighting the Class War is to know your enemy.

    An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

    It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.

crooksandliars.com

    You see, if they actually provided the health care insurance policy holders are paying for, they would not make such a big profit. It is as simple as that. $300,000,000 over 5 years is hard for a Board of Directors to turn down.

    The Murder By Spreadsheet Industry is not alone here. Many industries and big businesses claim they can not survive without there special little exceptions around basic decency and common sense.

    Some examples are

    Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining

    You can call this Environmental Disaster Capitalism

    First off, these companies will NEVER invest in Green Technology and Green energy, because that costs money and any initial investment towards progress will hurt their profits, and that makes Executives cry.

    Never mind the fact that there are other, less destructive ways to mine for coal, but that costs money, and is less profitable than the Super – Profits that can be made by wrecking the place. Never mind the fact that coal is toxic, toxic to the air, the rivers, everything around it. That is not important, making money, now that is what is important.

    Labor Unions

    If companies do not have the ability to bust unions, how will they make their Super Profits? Can large employers like WalMart get by when their employees can demand better wages and benefits? Of course.

    Will they admit that? Hell no!

    What costs more, making TV ads or actually paying employees more? Do the long term benefits to society and our economy outweigh the initial costs? Of course not, that would get in the way of making a killing. What are you, some kind of socialist?

    Well, yes, if by socialist you mean something other than an unfettered free market capitalist. If that is what you mean by socialist I am guilty as charged.

    Wall St

    This one is so big I will not get into it too much, suffice it too say that they are certainly making a killing on Wall St. I have yet to hear when the Wall St Bailout will be paid back

    No matter how bad the risk, the people who take those risks never feel the pain of their failure. They are Too Big To Fail. You are not.

    Socialism for the rich is fine, just don’t go getting socialist on the rest of the proletariat. If you feed them once you will never get rid of them.

    War and The Military Industrial Complex

    This is true Disaster Capitalism at work, and the heart of all class warfare. War is class warfare.

    If we do not have wars to fight how will we ever justify spending a quarter of our federal budget on our military, plus supplemental spending and all the other goodies we hand out to the MIC year to year?

    And if there are no actual wars to fight, we can just invent them with a little help from the Corporate controlled media

     We miss you buddy!

    We know you made some people mad recently, but I forgive you. I know your heart is in a good place and there are a lot of people who just don’t get it, but we miss you and we want you to come home.

    We need more people to knock some fucking heads around out there. Too many people are happy with next to nothing, and they look at us like we are weird when we go back up to the man and ask for “More Please”

    Well, I don’t want more, I want the whole damn thing!

    So come on home, Ek. We miss you.

    I’ll leave a light on on the porch for you, buddy.

    Hopefully we’ll see you soon.

Crossposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

    I was recently told that an effective way of contacting my Congress Critter is to write a hand written letter and then send it off to them. Apparently, the effort that goes into writing an actual letter is a clear signal that I mean business, much more so than a phone call that never reaches my Congressperson or an e-mail that can be easily deleted.

    Therefore, I propose that we all get some “Get Well Cards” and send them off to our Representatives in Congress. That way, they will know we really, really care.

    We know the votes are there. Are the vertebrae there is the question.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Choosing the right card is important. It can be funny or angry, home made or store bought, and you should definitely personalize the message on the inside.

    The message should be as clear as daylight. We want health care reform with a real and robust public option. You want to get re-elected. We should work together in order to accomplish our goals.

    Send one to both your Senators and your Congressional Representative, as well as your local State Representatives. Let them know that the American public will not tolerate bullshit on this issue, or any other issue where the status quo and Big Business stands in the way of real reform and progress.

    Mailing addresses for your Representative in the House can be found here at writerep.house.gov

    And your Senators mailing address can be found here at www.senate.gov

Crosspsoted at daily kos

Top 5 Lobbyists for the First Quarter of 2009

1. Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A.: $9,996,000

2. Exxon Mobil: $9,320,000

3. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America: $6,910,000

4. Chevron U.S.A. Inc: $6,800,000

5. Lockheed Martin Corporation: $6,380,000

    No wonder there are so many alternatives to real reform and real change. If the buck stops in Washington the buck started in a lobbyists briefcase.

    Simply put, if they can afford to lobby, they can afford to change.

    This goes for every Special Interest and every Big Business. While they fight change and kick and scream we here in Real America are fucking dying. We are dying while fighting your wars, we are dying waiting for health care reform, we are going broke waiting for Wall St to clean up it’s act, to make a long point short, Americans know you have the money, and now it is time to ante up.

Article 129

The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.

Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case.

Each High Contracting Party shall take measures necessary for the suppression of all acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention other than the grave breaches defined in the following Article.

In all circumstances, the accused persons shall benefit by safeguards of proper trial and defence, which shall not be less favourable than those provided by Article 105 and those following of the present Convention.

Article 130

Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, compelling a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of the hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a prisoner of war of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in this Convention.

Article 131

No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu…

     I interpret this as meaning that nobody gets to pick and choose which articles they will or will not follow. There is either the rule of law applied equally to all, or there is lawlessness.

    This goes for EVERYONE, including the Obama Administration.

    After the Geneva Convention was ratified by the United States of America it became American law. An American Law that the Bush/Cheney Administration broke. An American law that the Obama Administration has not broken yet, but that day is quickly approaching.

    There are 1311 days until the next inauguration ceremony in 2012. President Obama has until the day before then to bring Bush/Cheney to justice. If he gets re-elected the clock gets set back and he will have until 2017 to do so. Each day that passes by is another day closer to complicity.

    Is it really worth protecting the Bush Administration for Obama?

    Better yet, should the new phrase be It Doesn’t Count When Obama Does It?

    I did not vote for more War Crimes or more violations of the Geneva Convention, among other things.

    On this one I will not give up on President Obama or his Administration. Still, my patience has limits. Right now, there are 1311 days of my patience left.

    How much more patience should I have?

Simulposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

    Of all the people to criticize President Obama, or any President for that matter, this is by far and away the dumbest and most criminal of them all.

    Ex President and future War Criminal Geogre W Bush had some words to share with Uhmerica yesterday at an event in Erie, PA

   “There are a lot of ways to remedy the situation without nationalizing health care,” Mr. Bush said. “I worry about encouraging the government to replace the private sector when it comes to providing insurance for health care.”

   Asked by the evening emcee at the 104th annual Manufacturer and Business Association meeting if he finds the new president’s policies “socialist,” Mr. Bush started then stopped.

   “I hear a lot of those words, but it depends on…,” he said, breaking off. He later offered a more diplomatic assessment: “We’ll see.”

thinkprogress.org

    Let your Congress critter know that if they stand against a public option on health care reform, they stand with George W Bush.

Crossposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

“If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of The United States

Robert H. Jackson

    Justice Jackson was asked by President Truman to represent The United States in establishing the process for trying German war criminals after Germany’s surrender in World War II. The above quote was made by him in 1945 during the negotiations of The London Charter of The International Military Tribunal (IMT) which established the legal justifications and basis for the trials. He later acted as the Chief Prosecutor for the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (IMT) of the major war criminals.

blavier.newsvine.com

    Sorry if I got your hopes up, but the point I want to make is the fact that we did this before, in worse times, and we must do it again. We must bring War Criminals to Justice. Just because the War Criminals hide behind our own flag does not make things any different.

    To shrink from condemning and punishing atrocity is, however tacitly, to condone evil.

   At the time, President Harry Truman faced many issues that required much of his attention. Fresh from his appointment to the Presidency after the tragic passing of President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman still faced issues outside of a nation’s involvement in war crimes. There was insurgent violence in the still occupied Germany, where remnants of a minority within the region continue to attack American occupying forces on a daily basis for a while.

    There was also the issue of Nuclear Proliferation. As the sole nuclear power America faced an entire world that sought their own Weapons of Mass Destruction.

    In 1945 the economy was still a big issue. After having just climbed out of the first Great Depression the economy was very much a priority back then, as it still is right now.

   There were many important issues at stake during 1945 that could have taken precedent over the investigation and prosecution of War Crimes. None of those issues stopped us from doing the right thing then, and we should do the right thing now.

Crossposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

    Representative Barney Frank has introduced H.R. 2835, a bill which is intended to reschedule marijuana for medical use and end federal interference in state laws.

    To provide for the medical use of marijuana in accordance with the laws of the various States.

govtrack.us

   Moving the Overton window happens one step at a time. We need to take bigger steps. This bill does not address the problems inherit in the drug war or the marijuana prohibition issue. If you want a national drug policy that makes sense, this bill does not address the problem, and right now our national drug policy is a big part of THE problem.

    The bill, which was co-sponsored by 13 bipartisan Members of Congress at the time of introduction, would change federal policy on medical marijuana in a number of ways. Specifically, the Act would change marijuana from a Schedule I drug, classified as having no medical value, to a Schedule II drug, which would recognize marijuana’s medical efficacy and create a regulatory framework for the FDA to begin a drug approval process for marijuana. The act would also prevent interference by the federal government in any local or state run medical marijuana program.

commondreams.org

    What seems like a valiant effort to protect medical marijuana users is not quite the problem. Of course I want medical marijuana users to be able to get the medicine they are prescribed, but that is not the Problem.