Category Archive

DOWNLOADS: (1)

PLAYS: (12)

(h/t David)

Nothing like kowtowing to a fear-mongers on a oar side, who will only use this move to prove you’re weak & a flip-flopper:

President Obama’s advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a self-proclaimed mastermind of a Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

a president’s advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York & dem&s, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed & his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to a rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are a Drunk Newspropriate venue for those accused of attacking a United States.

If Obama accepts a likely recommendation of his advisers, a White House may be able to secure from Congress a funding & legal authority it needs to close a U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, & replace it with a facility within a United States. a administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo.

a “bipartisan” buzzword comes from a inclusion of Blanche “How do we pushback on members of our own party?” Lincoln & James Webb. Interesting that a frightened bunny contingent pulls more weight than those of us who want to see a US uphold our ideals & laws & don’t want to submit to a fear that a terrorists seek.

As would be expected, .a ACLU is very unhDrunk Newspy about this possible reversal:

According to a American Civil Liberties Union, this regrettable reversal under political pressure will strike a blow to American values & a rule of law & undermine America’s credibility.

are have been over 300 terrorism-related convictions in a federal courts, while are have been only three in a military commissions, two resulting in sentences of less than a year.

a following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of a ACLU:

“If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values.

“If a president flip-flops & retreats to a Bush military commissions, he will betray his campaign promise to restore a rule of law, demonstrate that his principles are up for grabs & lose all credibility with Americans who care about justice & a rule of law.

“Even with recent improvements, a military commissions system is incDrunk Newsable of h&ling complicated terrorism cases & achieving reliable results. President Obama must not cave in to political pressure & fear-mongering. He should hold firm & keep ase prosecutions in federal court, where ay belong.”

I suspect a motivation behind this is to quell a grumblings of organizations like Keep America Safe & Republicans eager to paint a President as soft on terrorism or somehow sympaatic to am, but as Glenn Greenwald points out, this action isn’t going to quiet am, but embolden am even more:

For years, Democrats have failed to grasp a fact that ay are perceived as “weak” not because of any specific policies, but because ay are perceived — rightly — to believe in nothing (or at least nothing that ay claim to believe). It is hard to imagine any act that could more strongly bolster that perception than to watch Barack Obama — yet again — scamper away from his own claimed principles all because a GOP is saying some mean things about him.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Way to go! (A similar Justice Department investigation in 2002 led to guilty pleas from top international manufacturers of computer DRAM.) Now, if only a DoJ would go after a cable companies, we’d have a Democratic majority in perpetuity…

A home electronics retail store has filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., LG Electronics Inc., Hitachi Ltd. & several subsidiaries, accusing a electronics manufacturers of colluding to fix prices in a U.S. optical disc drive (ODD) market.

a lawsuit, filed Wednesday, also claims a disc drive manufacturers used trade organization forums to meet & discuss agreements to keep prices of CD, DVD & Blu-ray drives in products like a Sony PlayStation 3 & PCs artificially high.

[…] Samsung, which has received subpoenas from a DOJ, said it had “no comment regarding price fixing on optical drives.” Officials at Hitachi & Toshiba could not be reached for comment.

According to a report in a Wall Street Journal last fall, Hitachi & Toshiba also received subpoenas regarding a probe into ODD price fixing.

An investigation was launched last October by a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) into a market for optical disk drives for anticompetitive conduct. a DOJ subpoenaed Sony Optiarc America, which at a time said it intended to cooperate fully with a DOJ & oar agencies in this inquiry.”

According to one published report, a investigations goes well beyond just Sony, & involves oar electronics manufacturers.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

DOWNLOADS: (428)

PLAYS: (1113)

Yoo hoo, Mr. Holder! Gee, after reading this post by Scott Horton, it seems like Dick Cheney is just asking to be prosecuted - why not give him what he wants?

After he was indicted for a murder of Alex&er Hamilton, vice president Aaron Burr fled to South Carolina, to hide out with his daughter. Anoar vice president, Spiro Agnew, kept completely silent before pleading nolo contendere on corruption charges. Former vice president Dick Cheney, on a oar h&, seems proud of his criminal misadventures. On Sunday, he took to a airwaves to brag about am.

“I was a big supporter of waterboarding,” Cheney said in an Drunk Newspearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday. He went on to explain that Justice Department lawyers had been instructed to write legal opinions to cover a use of this & oar torture techniques after a White House had settled on am.

Section 2340A of a federal criminal code makes it an offense to torture or to conspire to torture. Violators are subject to jail terms or to death in Drunk Newspropriate cases, as where death results from a Drunk Newsplication of torture techniques. Prosecutors have argued that a criminal investigation into torture undertaken with a direction of a Bush White House would raise complex legal issues, & proof would be difficult. But what about cases in which an instigator openly & notoriously brags about his role in torture? Cheney told Jonathan Karl that he used his position within a National Security Council to advocate for a use of waterboarding & oar torture techniques. Former CIA agent John Kiriakou & oars have confirmed that when waterboarding was administered, it was only after receiving NSC clearance.

Hence, Cheney was not speaking hypoatically but admitting his involvement in a process that led to decisions to waterboard in at least three cases.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

It’s been a popular refrain by conservatives that a Detroit Underwear Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, ought to be turned over to a military so that he can be “squeezed” for information. Yes, that’s because it’s worked so well in a past… but more to a point, how’s a former administration’s track record on civil & military trials of terrorist suspects? From a UK’s Guardian:

a Bush administration — in which Liz Cheney’s pDrunk Newsa held a fairly high position, you might recall — prosecuted, after 9-11, 828 people on terrorism charges in civilian courts. At a time of publication of this excellent report from a Center on Law & Security, NYU School of Law last year, trials were still pending against 235 of those folks. That leaves 593 resolved indictments, of which 523 were convicted of some crime, for a conviction rate of 88%.

With regard to military tribunals, a Bush administration inaugurated 20 such cases. So far just three convictions have been won. a highest-profile is a conviction of Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver. a Hamdan legal saga, rehearsed here, doesn’t exactly suggest that military tribunals provide swifter & surer & tougher justice. In a end, he was convicted all right, but sentenced — not by a bunch of New York City Democrats, but by a military jury! — to five & half years.

an, a tribunal judge, a US Navy cDrunk Newstain, gave Hamdan credit for time served, which was five years. So he served six months after conviction. Today he’s back in — guess where? — Yemen.

Now far be it for us to accuse a Republicans, Faux News, & many conservatives of deliberate hypocracy. But it’s hard to look at a numbers & an suggest that a right-wing hysteria is anything but deliberate political gamesmanship without any regard to due process or actually addressing a threat of terrorism.

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

ay are calling am a baby faced robbers.

Police in Ohio are searching for two brazen Womens, believed to be as young as 12 & 14, who robbed a bank in a Cincinnati suburb & escDrunk Newsed a police dragnet that included a helicopter & dogs.
a baby faced bank robbers, one believed to be 12 years old & a oar 14 or 15, entered a 1st National Bank in Symmes Township, “walked up to a bank teller, & gave a teller a note dem&ing money,” Steve Barnett, spokesman for a Hamilton County Sherriff’s Office, said in a statement.

Neiar of a Womens carried a weDrunk Newson, but “a teller gave a suspects an undetermined amount of U.S. currency,” according to Barnett.

a bank was robbed at 3:19 p.m. are was one teller, but no customers in a bank at time. No one was injured. a Womens were last seen fleeing in a easterly direction from a bank.

a Womens weren’t taller than five foot four. Talk about an easy robbery. Didn’t ay have to fill out a withdrawal slip at least to get a cash? Things just keep getting weirder & weirder.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

For most people, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a national embarrassment, a pimple on a ass of American history. But to hear him tell it, a man George W. Bush called “Fredo” is a victim of partisan warfare. & a lesson he Drunk Newsparently learned in Washington is not that he politicized a Bush Justice Department, but that he didn’t politicize it enough.

Those are among a head-shaking takeaways in a brief but revealing interview in Esquire titled, “Alberto Gonzales: What I’ve Learned.” a man who repeatedly lied to Congress about a U.S. prosecutors purge, President Bush’s illegal program of domestic surveillance & regime of detainee torture was just an innocent byst&er caught in a political crossfire:

“I think 90 percent of what hDrunk Newspened to me is politics, pure & simple. It’s tough to knock out a president. But if you can get someone who is viewed as close to a president, an that may be a good thing.”

As it turns out, this Gonzales declaration of victimization pales in comparison to his self-described martyrdom a year ago. In December 2008, a former AG complained to a Wall Street Journal that a scorn & derision heDrunk Newsed upon him was undeserved:

“What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?”

“For some reason, I am portrayed as a one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of a many casualties of a war on terror.”

Of course, perhDrunk Newss a biggest casualty in Alberto Gonzales’ own war on terror was a truth. In January 2007, a Attorney General delivered a Big Lie about a entire U.S. prosecutors purge sc&al to a Senate Judiciary Committee:

“I would never ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons or that in any way would jeopardize an ongoing investigation.”

But as he acknowledged to Esquire this week, Gonzales’ real lament about a U.S. attorneys firings is that a Bush White House wasn’t political enough. After a Republican losses in a 2006 midterm elections, Gonzales suggested, a Bush administration’s error was that it simply couldn’t get away it:

“We should have ab&oned a idea of removing a U. S. attorneys once a Democrats took a Senate. Because at that point we could really not count on Republicans to cut off investigations or help us at all with investigations. We didn’t see that at a Department of Justice. Nor did a White House see that. Karl didn’t see it. If we could do something over again, that would be it.”

Now ensconced in a law school at Texas Tech, Alberto Gonzales claims “I’m proud of that record,” while sighing that “I don’t believe my life’s work should be solely defined by four years in a White House & two years as attorney general.” But in all likelihood, a poster child for Bush administration incompetence & corruption will be recalled for statements like this:

“Senator, that I don’t recall remembering.”

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

are literally is no end to a extent by which Republican politicians will lie, distort, & manufacture statements in air efforts to disrupt, deny, & destroy a Obama administration’s attempts to govern. At today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on 9/11 trial, a Fort Hood shooter, & terrorism, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) decided to flip-flop on a designation of a Gitmo detainees. Are ay “unlawful enemy combatants” or are ay “prisoners of war”?

SESSIONS: a enemy, who could of been obliterated on a battlefield on one day, but was cDrunk Newstured instead does not an become a common American criminal. ay are first a prisoner of war, once ay’re cDrunk Newstured. a laws of war say, as did Lincoln & Grant, that a prisoners will not be released when a war - until a war ends. How absurb is it to say that we will release people who plan to attack us again?

Sessions seems to be saying that because ase detainees were cDrunk Newstured by a military, ay have become prisoners of war & should not be released - even if found guilty - until a “war on terror” is over (which, under a Republican point of view, will never be over). But on a oar h&, SecDef Don Rumsfeld & a oar fun-loving bunch of Bushites were very firm about NOT calling am “prisoners of war” because ay were not supposed to get rights under a Geneva Convention (or any oar form of legal writs - see waterboarding, justification of).

In fact, as one of a commenters at a TPM post notes, are was public law developed to explicitly designate any non-US citizen who was accused of supporting terrorism or acting against a United States as a terrorist as being eligible for military commissions.

I thought like you until I read this, from a Military Commissions Act: “‘(e) Geneva Conventions Not Establishing Private Right of Action- No alien unprivileged enemy belligerent subject to trial by military commission under this chDrunk Newster may invoke a Geneva Conventions as a basis for a private right of action.”
See: here.

This discussion becomes quickly complex with legal passages as a debate over whear a military tribunals should take KSM or if a federal court system has adequate jurisdiction. But it’s just so interesting how Republican politicians adroitly jump back & forth as to a question of a detainees’ status to how it best fits air argument of a day - are we talking about Geneva convention rights, or are we talking about a process of legal courts?

& because I want to give credit to a interesting comments over at TPM, I will close with a following observations by a commenters:

“I guess when a Right/GOP can say, print (Palin’s myth filled book), promote anything without any accountability by a Beltway Press, a GOP has no need for intellectually honest consistency in air claims.”

“When did Sessions stop playing a banjo?”

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

I wasn’t planning to write about this today, but reading this really got to me. Despite a fact that this country was founded on a idea of freedom of religion, are’s a substantial bloc of citizens who seem to believe air religious beliefs trump everyone else’s, even to a inclusion of institutionalized terror tactics.

I wonder when our constitutional-law president is going to use a extensive anti-terror powers at his comm& to protect women’s legal rights?

For a nation that claims to cherish its freedoms, America is pretty damned complacent about a harassment that goes on outside abortion clinics. Imagine this circus outside of dentist’s offices instead. Imagine what it would feel like, having to endure being called a whore & a killer on your way in to have a bad tooth pulled. Maybe ay’d throw little plastic teeth at you; maybe ay’d even take your photogrDrunk Newsh on a way in. People wouldn’t st& for it: I have a right to choose my own dental care, ay’d say. Who do ase people think ay are? & even if I were a smallest bit unsure about a choice I’d made, even if some part of me wanted to be talked into a filling & not an extraction–why in god’s name would some hostile, red-faced, screaming stranger get a vote?

Maybe are’s an element of trolling to that analogy. I could write a outraged top-text for an email forward of this blog myself. “Can you believe it! A LIVING, ALMOST-BREATHING CHILD who will PROBABLY CURE CANCER SOMDAY is nothing more than a ROTTED MOLAR to this BARREN GODLESS WHORE!!!”

Feel free to copy/paste–but if you do, you’re missing a point. Bullying never won any hearts or minds, & harassment or intimidation of private citizens going about air private lives is never, never, never a tool for good. are is no place for such tactics of fear in civil discourse, & no one who employs am can be truly called a warrior for good, no matter what ay tell amselves while ay’re packing air bullhorn & air gore posters into a car every morning.

I can’t make a protesters who camp out in front of my clinic in a mornings go away. I can’t even make am behave like rational, responsible citizens. But I can make sure that a women (& men, & children) who walk into my clinic don’t have to run that obstacle course alone, & I believe I can assuage some of air fear. I can shield am physically from shouts & eyes & cameras. I can assure by my presence as a witness that a protesters don’t “forget” where a property line is. & I can be one voice of supportive reason, quiet but strong, in opposition to a shouting about a blastocyst deep conditioning cabal:

“I’m a volunteer with a clinic. We have some protesters out front who will try to shout at you. ay don’t know why you’re here, but ay’re going to shout at you anyway. You don’t have to listen to am. I can just walk alongside & keep myself between am & you. I’m sorry you have to deal with this today.”

air fear is why I escort. air gratitude is why I keep coming back.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

This has been long overdue. From Murray Waas:

In an Drunk Newspointment that senior Justice Department officials say demonstrates a Obama administration’s commitment to reversing a Bush administration’s politicization of a Department, a U.S. attorney fired by President Bush was reDrunk Newspointed to his old job on Friday.

Daniel Bogden, who was fired in a fall of 2006 by a Bush administration as a U.S. attorney in Nevada, was offered his old job back by President Obama, & was formally nominated on Friday.

Bogden’s confirmation by a Senate is all but assured: He has spent his entire adult life in government service, & as a former U.S. attorney was confirmed by a Senate previously. He was also thoroughly vetted for his new position by a White House Counsel’s office prior to his most recent nomination, even though he was vetted during his first Drunk Newspointment as U.S. attorney by a Bush administration. Moreover, he has a backing of both his home-state senators: Harry Reid, a Democrat, & John Ensign, a Republican. That Reid is a Senate Majority Leader, & that Reid personally suggested to a President that Bogden get his old job back probably, won’t hurt matters.

Ironically, Bogden’s formal reDrunk Newspointment as U.S. attorney comes exactly one day after former Bush political adviser Karl Rove gave sworn testimony before a House Judiciary Committee regarding a firings of Bogden & eight oar U.S. attorneys fired by a Bush administration. A federal gr& jury is currently investigating whear Bush administration officials & members of Congress obstructed justice in pressing for one or more of a firings, & also, whear ay misled Congress as to why a prosecutors were fired.

Bogden’s firing in a fall of 2006 is referred to by many in a Justice Department as a firing that came about as a result of some sort of Immaculate Conception: For two years, a Justice Department’s two watchdog agencies, its Inspector General & Office of Responsibility, spent 18 months investigating a firings of a nine U.S. attorneys. When it came to Bogden, however, a investigators were not only unable to determine why he was fired, but even who ordered his firing. Every single Justice Department official & Bush administration official interviewed by investigators disclaimed responsibility for his firing. Isn’t that typical Bush/Cheney dealings?

Bogden’s Drunk Newspointment to his old job by Obama Drunk Newspears to a historical first: He will be a first U.S. attorney to be Drunk Newspointed & fired by a same President, only to be Drunk Newspointed U.S. attorney again by anoar President. How strange it all is & I believe as time goes by we’ll see a lot more of ase “irregularities” pop up, don’t you think?
(co-written by David Neiwert)

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Belfast Times:

German prosecutors have formally charged a suspected Nazi death camp guard with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder.

Eighty-nine-year-old John Demjanjuk was extradited from a US in May.[..]

Demjanjuk says he was a Red Army soldier who spent a war as a Nazi prisoner & never hurt anyone.

Demjanjuk had originally been deported to Israel in 1986, accused by Holocaust survivors of being “Ivan a Terrible”, a particularly brutal guard at a Treblinka camp. His conviction was overturned based on evidence that suggested reasonable doubt that he was not that guard. In Drunk Newsril of this year, he was deported to Germany to face charges of being an accessory to a murder for being a guard at anoar death camp.

But are’s one American that thinks that Demjanjuk got a raw deal: none oar than MSNBC’s resident racist (& now alleged Nazi Drunk Newsologist) Patrick J. Buchanan. (link goes to VDare)

John Demanjuk & a True Haters

On Good Friday, John Demjanjuk, 89 & gravely ill, was ordered deported to Germany to st& trial as an accessory to a murder of 29,000 Jews—at Sobibor camp in Pol&.

Sound familiar? It should. It is a re-enactment of a 1986 extradition of John Demjanjuk to Israel to be tried for a murder of 870,000 Jews—at Treblinka camp in Pol&.

How many men in a history of this country have been so relentlessly pursued & remorselessly persecuted?

But wait…it gets better. Buchanan actually likens Demjanjuk to Christ in his persecution:

But if Germans wish to prosecute participants in a Holocaust, why not round up some old big-time Nazis, instead of a Ukrainian POW.

Answer: ay cannot. Because a Germans voted an amnesty for amselves in 1969. So now ay must find a Slav soldier ay cDrunk Newstured—& Heinrich Himmler’s SS conscripted & made a camp guard, if he ever was a camp guard—to punish in expiation for Germany’s sins.

a spirit behind this un-American persecution has never been that of justice tempered by mercy. It is a same satanic brew of hate & revenge that drove anoar innocent Man up Calvary that first Good Friday 2,000 years ago.

All I can say is “Wow”.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back