Torture: They Report It Because The US Media Is Pimping For The White House

The UK-based Guardian, has presented a several part primer on understanding the breadth, depth and scope of US torture.  Yes, make sure you pay attention to the referencing that it is US policy affirming and using torture.  What George and Dick do, they do in all our names.  Until we remove them from office, repudiate [...]

The D.C. Madam Has Nothing On Pimp Extraordinaire Rumsfeld

David Barstow has just let loose on the New York Times with another scandal.  Donald Rumsfeld ran the Pentagon as a prostitution ring. 
Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs seems to have been the stupid lead prostitute - not fully aware of what he was doing or what was being done to him, although [...]

Daily Constitutional: Torture and Torturous

Military.com reports about the Pentagon’s detailed evidence of abuse of Afghan prisoners.
The LA Times addresses the horrendous state of prison health care.  And yet, no mention is made of the widespread criminalization of people with mental illness.  over 50% of all inpatient psychiatric care is delivered in prisons.  The answer isn’t in adding to the prison [...]

The Nürnberg defence

A while back, the administration and the U.S. military announced that six ‘high-level’ detainees at Guantánamo Bay would be brought to trial under military commissions (authorized by the execrable Military Commissions Act of 2006 [MCA]).  They even had the chutzpah to claim that the defendants would be afforded “an extraordinary set of rights”, better than [...]

Admission of Illegality of Waterboarding

February 14 Recollections From Testimony at the Nuremberg Trials

The transcripts are provided courtesy of The Avalon Project at Yale Law School.  The excerpt screams about the banality of evil. Small, incremental steps - just as the Bush administration is emulating. The normalcy of abnormality. (emphasis added)
Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Volume 4
TWENTY- SEVENTH DAY
Friday, 4 January 1946
Morning Session

416
4 Jan. 46
The portion here in question, Document [...]

State Secrets

There is a critical op-ed  in today’s LA Times written by Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.  I’ve copied and pasted it here for my own edification and as a warning to what the US has allowed itself to become under the unchecked fascism of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. [...]

“So torture always comes home.”

Scott Horton conducts a defining interview  with Darius Rejali about torture. What does it mean for us?  How will we live with it?  What happens to the torturers? What happens to us?  What happens to our country?
The excerpts are provided to whet your appetite and read the full interview and Dr. Rejali’s book, Torture and [...]

As Though That’s Going to Happen

Senators Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse write a letter. Want to take bets on the response it receives?

The Rule of Law or the Rule of Men?

Christopher Dodd’s Senate floor remarks on February 11, 2008 included this key warning:

“This is our defining question, the question that confronts every generation: The rule of law, or the rule of men? How many times must we get the wrong answer?

A Brief Concerning Impeachment Implications of Bush Administration’s Admission of Torture

note: Annie invited me to post the following, which is modified from the original version I faxed to my representative. The content is a synthesis of work by a variety of authors. Readers are encouraged to use in any manner - no permission required.
This brief is an attempt to concisely present a new angle by [...]

Mukasey’s Testimony Before the House Judiciary Committee: Tyranny

h/t HouseJudiciary

Framing The Admission of Torturing as a Debate: The “Free” Press Propaganda Campaign

[UPDATE:  Scott Horton presents a critical essay which frames debate in an authentic way.]
From Greg Miller at the LA Times front page story:
The surprise assertion from the Bush administration reopened a debatethat many in Washington had considered closed. Two laws passed by Congress in recent years — as well as a Supreme Court ruling on [...]

It’s Official: We torture, and we’re proud of it

[UPDATE: Tony Fratto gloats about the White House's aknowledgement and santion of Hayden's torture admission testimony.  Dan Froomkin has the most comprehensive media coverage round-up.]

Bush personally authorized Hayden’s testimony, White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto said.
“There’s been a lot written out there - newspaper, magazine articles, some of it misinformation,” Fratto said. “And so the [...]