Tag: Recommended

Feb 13 2009

Scott Horton: Yes, They Hid Torture Evidence from Obama

Scott Horton has followed up on the UK Guardian story, which I also wrote on last night, describing how Reprieve attorney Clive Stafford Smith, whose organization is helping defend Guantanamo detainee and British resident Binyam Mohamed, had information he was sending to President Obama on Mohamed’s torture censored by the U.S. Department of Defense.

At Daily Kos, a number of readers were incredulous at the claims I, and by implication, Stafford Smith was making about Obama being kept out of the information loop, suggesting that I was prone to conspiracy theories, or a dupe for grandstanding by Mohamed’s attorneys. Some suggested either the Guardian or myself or both had completely misunderstood the situation.

But Horton, who has been following this story carefully, and is known to have excellent sources, reported on the Guardian article much as I had, and added this:

Feb 12 2009

Breaking: Pentagon Hiding Torture Evidence from Obama

In a shocking revelation just posted at UK Guardian, Binyam Mohamed’s attorney Clive Stafford Smith, who is also director of the legal charity Reprieve, reports that “substantial parts” of a memo, attached to a letter to Barack Obama, documenting evidence of Mohamed’s torture at the hands of CIA agents and their extraordinary rendition proxies, were blanked out so the president could not read them. Who did that?

US defence officials are preventing Barack Obama from seeing evidence that a former British resident held in Guantánamo Bay has been tortured, the prisoner’s lawyer said last night, as campaigners and the Foreign Office prepared for the man’s release in as little as a week….

Stafford Smith tells Obama he should be aware of the “bizarre reality” of the situation. “You, as commander in chief, are being denied access to material that would help prove that crimes have been committed by US personnel. This decision is being made by the very people who you command.”

Smith’s letter to Obama can be read here (PDF).

Feb 03 2009

Time for a Little Class Warfare (music & pix)

This is a followup to my diary on Post Office Murals in the New Deal.  

Lewis Hine was a great photographer, and also an intrepid social activist.  Amongst his most famous works are pictures of child laborers in the early part of the 20th century, for the National Child Labor Committee.  The black and white slides with this music are mostly all by Hine.

Cross-posted from Daily Kos

Dec 15 2008

Damn those welfare queens..

Cross posted at dkos

Am I talking about moms in mink coats driving Cadilacs and having babies for money?  Nope.  I’m talking about corporate welfare.  Here is a close up look at the handouts that have been going on in broad daylight; and most of the numbers are from the Clinton boom years, when there wasn’t even a pretense of an excuse.

Good Jobs First‘s list of these case studies include:


Biotechnology: This industry is regarded by many economic development officials as the key to local prosperity, and thus they are willing to shower subsidies on new projects.

Private prisons: Operators of for-profit correctional institutions not only receive lucrative operating contracts from government agencies, but they also get financial help to build new facilities.

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