The Dog usually writes in the 3rd person, but this is too serious a topic for that. That bit will be back tomorrow.

Dear Mr. President;

I write you on Torture Accountability day to ask in the names of those whose voices have been silenced for justice. I write today in the names of the men in the CIA Inspector Generals report who died while in our custody and under interrogation. This report was prepared five years ago now, and in this report the IG forwarded eight cases for criminal investigation to the Department of Justice. Since that time no action has been taken on deaths of these men. Mr. President, this can not be allowed to continue.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

The Dog writes about law a lot, mostly because it fascinates him, the way it evolves and changes based on new information or new ways of viewing our basic Constitutional rights. One of the areas of particular concern is, of course, the torture of prisoners and the holding of them without charge or trial, whether they are designated as “enemy combatants” or not. On May 21st the President gave a policy address about the closing of Guantanamo Bay prison camp. In this speech he mentioned there were likely to be prisoners who, in his words could not be released but also could not be tried.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

There can be no doubt we face many problems and crises as a nation at this time. Most of these are the direct results of the misanthropic mismanagement of the Republican Party over the last eight years of so. This combined with a change in controlling party has put the Democrats and a the Political Left in general in a place where they are expected to clean up the mess and do it right now. This is a huge opportunity, but it will only happen if we can stay together as a coalition. This is the challenge the Dog would like to talk about today.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

Happy Monday and welcome all to the Dog’s ongoing letter writing campaign. The basic idea it to write to decision and opinion makers every Monday to keep the issue of accountability for torture through respect for the rule of law alive and in front of the busy people who run our country. For those who are stopping by for the first time, it works like this, the Dog writes a letter and provides the links. You can either cut and paste the letter or use it as inspiration for your own. The big deal is to get as many people as possible sending letters (or e-mails) on a consistent basis. To the Dog this provides a low level but constant reminder this issue is out important to the people of this nation.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

Happy Staturday and welcome to the Dog’s serialization of the novel Dark Soul. This is a work in progress, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions, don’t be shy about offering them up.

If you have just started reading this, you can find chapters one through three at the following links:

Dark Soul – Chapter One

Dark Soul – Chapter Two

Dark Soul – Chapter Three

This serializartion is only available here at Docudharma!  

Happy Friday and welcome to the 8th in the Dog’s First Amendment Friday series. This series is following the syllabus for the class called The First Amendment and taught at Yale Law School by Professor Jack M. Balkin. As with the Friday Constitutional series this is a layman’s look at the Law, specifically the Supreme Court opinions which have shaped the boundaries of our 1st Amendment Protections. If you are interested in the previous installments you can find them at the links below:

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

Today the Obama administration will attempt to make amends to the GLBT community by granting Federal Benefits to the partners of Federal Employees who are involved in same sex relationships. This, as far as it goes, is a good thing. The problem is it is a case of too little, too late. The mounting fervor in the GLBT community over what is, rightly, perceived as a lack of priority on this communities issues has been a bit of a wake up call for the Obama Administration. The problem is they are just rolling over and hitting the snooze button, instead of waking up.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net”

There is a book by Vernor Vinge called a Fire Upon the Deep. It is a great space opera read, but that is not what this post is about. In the book there are many alien civilizations that use an intra-galactic network to communicate with each other. It is obviously modeled on the early internet. In this book it is often called “The Net of a Thousand Lies” as there is no way to verify every piece of information posted on it by ever poster. This too is similar to the internet. Which leads to the Dog’s question today; how do you decide what to trust and what to ignore?

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

Happy Monday and welcome the Dog’s ongoing letter writing campaign. For those of you joining for the first time the idea is every Monday the Dog writes a to decision makers about accountability for the Bush Administration State Sponsored Torture program. This letter can be cut and by any reader or used as the jumping off point for your own letter. The point is to keep the pressure up on the decision makers to make those who apparently committed one of the worst possible crimes accountable for their actions. Today’s letter is to Sen. Patrick Leahy and the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

Happy Saturday and welcome the chapter three of “Dark Soul”. This is a serialization of a novel the Dog has written. There is a big difference between writing political commentary and writing fiction. Both have their own learning curve and the intent of posting this is to get some feed back, if anyone has any.

If you are coming to this series for the first time, you can find the previous chapters at these links:

Dark Soul – Chapter One

Dark Soul – Chapter Two

This novel is only being posted here at Docudharma.