Month: November 2014

When missing an arbitrary deadline is life and death

by digby

This is horrifying:

In 1992, Kenneth Rouse, an African American man with an IQ between 70 and 80 — “borderline intellectual functioning,” in the clinical parlance — prepared to stand trial in North Carolina on charges that he had robbed, murdered and attempted to rape a white, 63-year-old store clerk.

Rouse’s lawyers questioned the prospective jurors to try to expose any racial or other bias they might have against the defendant. But several years after the all-white jury convicted Rouse and recommended a death sentence, his defense team made a stunning discovery.

One of the jurors, Joseph S. Baynard, admitted that his mother had been robbed, murdered and possibly raped years before. Baynard had not disclosed this history, he said, so that he could sit in judgment of Rouse, whom he called “one step above a moron.” Baynard, who used a racial slur when referring to African Americans, added that he thought black men raped white women for bragging rights.

As claims of juror bias go, the evidence could hardly have been stronger. But Rouse’s final appeal was never heard. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Rouse’s lawyers had just one year after his initial state appeal to petition for a last-resort hearing in federal court.

They missed the deadline by a single day.

A federal appeals judge wrote that it was “unconscionable” for her court to reject Rouse’s case because of such a mistake by his court-appointed lawyers. But dozens of lawyers have made the same mistake, and most of their clients, like Rouse, have not been forgiven by the courts for missing the deadline.

An investigation by The Marshall Project shows that since President Bill Clinton signed the one-year statute of limitations into law — enacting a tough-on-crime provision that emerged in the Republicans’ Contract with America — the deadline has been missed at least 80 times in capital cases. Sixteen of those inmates have since been executed — the most recent was on Thursday, when Chadwick Banks was put to death in Florida.​

Keep in mind that this was done for the most cynical of reasons. The Republicans had been pimping “law and order” as a way to dogwhistle racism to their followers for a couple of decades and it had been quite successful. Signing laws like this were strategic moves with the purpose of making the Democrats more appealing to conservatives, especially Southerners whom the Democrats believed at the time were essential if they were to maintain a majority.

It was an ugly business, crystallized by then-Governor Bill Clinton’s ostentatious rush back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of a brain damaged man named Rickey Ray Rector during the presidential campaign. It was, in my view, the worst thing he ever did. The Democrats eagerly passed crime bills, put hundreds of thousands of cops on the street, escalated the drug war, passed mandatory sentences and welfare reform and enabled rampant gun proliferation all in a quixotic attempt to appeal to those conservative voters who had once been called Reagan Democrats and Boll Weavils.

It was not just an immoral choice. It was a stupid strategy. It didn’t work. Clinton eked out victories in two three-way elections but the Reagan Democrats never came home, the South is solidly Republican and the Democrats eventually put together a national coalition without them. Not that the Dems don’t have problems, but one thing should be clear by now: there’s no margin in adopting the rights racism based policies. You will not be rewarded. Oh, also too: people die.

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Another victim

by digby

“You know, I think people are getting tired of being abused by the situation, the way people are being. I myself am tired of it. I am victimized every time I turn around.” — Joseph Paul Leonard

That’s what this man told deputies after he chased down two back men in his car, ran over one and then got out of his car kicked him in the head with steel toed boots. The man died. This fellow is on trial for his murder.

Prosecutors say Harrison and Oliphant showed up in the parking lot of the fast-food eatery shortly afterward, “offering food to homeless people that they had obtained from a nearby hotel,” according to the trial brief filed by Deputy District Attorney Amy Holliday.

Defense attorney Danny Brace suggested in his questioning of witnesses that Harrison and Oliphant actually were panhandling and that they had stolen the food they were distributing from the morning breakfast offering for guests-only at a nearby Quality Inn.

Silva came out of the McDonald’s first and was approached by the two men. She told sheriff’s investigators that one of the two men “asked if she was hungry,” according to one deputy’s testimony. Oliphant testified at Leonard’s preliminary hearing in May that he also may have asked her for a cigarette. While he and Harrison were talking to her, Leonard emerged from the McDonald’s, “and she described that he went crazy and lost his temper,” sheriff’s Detective Pamela Linke testified at the hearing.

Linke said Silva told investigators that Leonard retrieved a chain from the back of his truck and “he was swinging it, trying to hit the boys.”

A videotape from the McDonald’s shows Harrison and Oliphant backing off while Leonard appears to be swinging the chain over his head, lasso style. He got back in his truck and drove out of view before he re-emerged in the picture, with the chain more clearly visible in his hand. He proceeded to stomp on a bicycle that had been ridden by Harrison.

Oliphant told detectives that Leonard used a racial epithet during his confrontation with the two black men.

During the fight, one of the two men threw a knife at Leonard and another threw another sharp object at him, possibly a broken bottle, the evidence showed. Pictures of Leonard taken after he was booked showed he suffered an abrasion to his midsection and a lacerated cheek that sent blood trickling down his face and onto his shirt.

A toxicology test on Harrison showed he had methamphetamine in his system. Investigators found a crank pipe in his backpack as well as shards of broken glass.

Harrison and Oliphant took off westbound on foot after the McDonald’s fight, and headed through the parking lots on the north side of Arden. Leonard, authorities said, gave chase in his truck before he tried to run over Oliphant and succeeded in ramming into Harrison in front of the Clutch Mart automotive repair shop a few businesses away from the McDonald’s.

The videotape also included Leonard’s version of events.

“This could have happened to your son if you had one out there,” Leonard told the deputy in the car. “This got too outta hand for me, man.”

Leonard, who is a mechanic by trade, said “I was in fear for my life. You see what they did to me? You make sure you include that in the report. … I beat them off me. … They cut me.”

At one point Leonard said, “Maybe I’m wrong.”

Yeah.

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Sunday funnies

by digby

Speaking of cat videos:

That’s how I feel today …

Pic ‘o the Week

by digby

This happened:

Why? Because this happened:

The [National] Cathedral welcomed representatives from five Muslim groups to pray in the Cathedral. The traditional Friday prayers, or Jumu’ah, were said in the north transept, an area of the Cathedral with arches and limited iconography that provide an ideal space—almost mosque-like—with the appropriate orientation for Muslim prayers. The sermon was offered by Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool from South Africa. The Rev. Canon Gina Gilland Campbell will offer the Cathedral’s welcome.

This historic service came out of Canon Campbell’s deep belief that powerful things come out of praying together. When people of faith come together in prayer, relationships and opportunities arise that are very different from political or academic collaboration.
Leaders believe offering Muslim prayers at the Christian cathedral shows more than hospitality. It demonstrates an appreciation of one another’s prayer traditions and is a powerful symbolic gesture toward a deeper relationship between the two Abrahamic traditions.

And then this happened:

Protestor escorted out of Washington National Cathedral as Muslim prayer service gets underway. pic.twitter.com/i8YMQMQNlc
— Suzanne Kennedy (@ABC7Suzanne) November 14, 2014

Why Gohmert used stills from The Greatest Story Ever Told to illustrate this remains a mystery.  It seems to have had something to do with this:

Gohmert claimed the day was the 100th anniversary of the last sitting Caliph of the Ottoman Empire’s call for jihad against non-believers, which Gohmert said was a “catalyst which led to religiously-fueled genocide against Christian Armenians and Assyrians.”

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Guess what really made ISIS change its communications methods?

by digby

NSA director Admiral Michael Rogers is very upset about media leaks.  He says that it’s made ISIS change it’s plans and now they are able to kill us all in our beds. Or something like that.

I’ll just let this guy’s comments speak for me:

Shorter NSA Director Rogers: Trust me, you don’t need a free press, or a democracy. We will keep you safe.
— James Risen (@JamesRisen) November 16, 2014

Stop and think about it: The US intelligence community now thinks they have a right to decide what is published by the American press.
— James Risen (@JamesRisen) November 16, 2014

Every dictatorship that cracks down on the press also claims national security. And they use their legal system.
— James Risen (@JamesRisen) November 16, 2014

The message is: Go ahead, Egypt, imprison reporters. Go ahead, Russia, destroy the opposition press.
— James Risen (@JamesRisen) November 16, 2014

Next time some tin pot dictator jails a dissident, read the official reason. Usually its because he is a “threat to state security.”
— James Risen (@JamesRisen) November 16, 2014

No, we only “send messages” with bombs, “red lines” and the like. What we actually do in practice is meaningless because everyone knows we’re exceptional and not subject to the same rules as everyone else.

It’s funny that Admiral Rogers says this though. Because according to this article, the reason ISIS has stopped using its normal modes of communications is because we’re bombing the hell out of them:

“The easiest day of the air campaign against ISIS was the first day,” said Christopher Harmer, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War. U.S. pilots knew the locations of ISIS command and control facilities and storage depots, and to an extent the group was taken at least partially by surprise, since it didn’t know the precise time the strikes would begin. “Past that first day or two of easy targets, ISIS predictably dispersed into the civilian population. They quit using high-power radios, satellite and cellphones, starting moving to a dispersed command and control model,” Harmer said.

By the logic of the intelligence community on the Snowden leaks and the treasonous media, bombing ISIS has made us less safe because they stopped using their usual methods of communication in reaction to it.  Infact, the Snowden leaks may have made us safer because it’s confused the terrorists to the point where they don’t know which side is up:

ISIS members may be harder to track, but on the flip side, persistent U.S. electronic surveillance, as well as overhead monitoring by drones, has constrained the group. “At the end of the day, an intelligence organization [conducting surveillance] forces two choices: Communicate and be at risk, or don’t communicate and fail to coordinate,” said the former U.S. official. “Should I encrypt my communications? Should I use onion routers? Should I use cut-outs?” Those would be the kind of questions this former official said he would ask if he were on the militants’ side.

Onion routers refers to the TOR network, a system that allows users to mask their location and communicate anonymously online. But the number of users connecting from Iraq is low, around 2,000, down from a high of more than 15,000 in June, according to the TOR Project, which helps with the ongoing development the system. Connections from Syria are also down, with only about 2,500 users are connecting from there, the group said. It’s unclear whether ISIS is using the routing system, which has also been used by Syrian rebel groups fighting to overthrow the regime of Bashar Al-Assad.

Some officials seem to understand that this sniveling from the intelligence community about the Snowden leaks and keeping the babies safe is about as convincing as the handwringing coming from Wall Street millionaires who whine about doing God’s Work:

Still, others said it was laughable that ISIS was oblivious to the fact that the U.S. tracks terrorists by monitoring their communications. “It’s wrong to say because of Snowden our fight with ISIS is harder,” said one U.S. defense official with extensive experience battling al Qaeda and other militant groups. For more than a decade, intelligence agencies have been using electronic surveillance to locate terrorists, a fact that obviously hasn’t eluded ISIS, he said. “I’m not in any way defending Snowden. But I think our intel agencies need to grow up.”

Even top lawmakers are skeptical that ISIS went to school on U.S. surveillance thanks to Snowden’s leaks.

“There’s certainly knowledge that they’ve changed almost everything they’re doing to avoid being seen, being heard,” Sen. Bob Corker, expected to soon be chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, told The Daily Beast. But as to whether there’s any connection to the Snowden leaks, “There’s been no indication,” Corker said. “I just think [even] people who aren’t particularly knowledgeable understand we have extreme capabilities in multiple areas.”

Indeed, researchers who track the militant group note that long before U.S. airstrikes began, the group was employing encryption to protect its communications. If anything, they say, the Snowden disclosures told ISIS not to start using encryption and other obfuscating tools, but to stop talking about the fact that they were.

Oddly, despite Admiral Rogers’ thundering about how these wily terrorists have been able to elude the Americans due to the media and Edward Snowden spilling the beans (about mass surveillance of civilians) these people seem to think they are actually going to more traditional methods because of other factors. Imagine that.

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Tearing the constitution up in little bitty pieces

by digby

From the looks of it, the conservatives are working themselves into Lewinsky level hysteria over the president’s plan to allow some Hispanic people to stay in the country. Apparently they don’t know or care that St Reagan and Poppy used exactly the same executive power in exactly the same way.

In 1986, Congress and Reagan enacted a sweeping overhaul that gave legal status to up to 3 million immigrants without authorization to be in the country, if they had come to the U.S. before 1982. Spouses and children who could not meet that test did not qualify, which incited protests that the new law was breaking up families.

Early efforts in Congress to amend the law to cover family members failed. In 1987, Reagan’s Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner announced that minor children of parents granted amnesty by the law would get protection from deportation.

Spouses and children of couples in which one parent qualified for amnesty but the other did not remained subject to deportation, leading to efforts to amend the 1986 law.

In a parallel to today, the Senate acted in 1989 to broaden legal status to families but the House never took up the bill. Through the INS, Bush advanced a new “family fairness” policy that put in place the Senate measure. Congress passed the policy into law by the end of the year as part of broader immigration legislation.

“It’s a striking parallel,” said Mark Noferi of the pro-immigration American Immigration Council. “Bush Sr. went big at the time. He protected about 40 percent of the unauthorized population. Back then that was up to 1.5 million. Today that would be about 5 million.”

But you see, when the Republicans did it it was on a Tuesday and Obama wants to do it on a Wednesday so it’s completely different:

But a lawyer who worked on the 1986 law and the 1990 follow-up as an aide to then-Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., said Bush’s action wasn’t controversial because it came after lawmakers had made it clear they were going to tackle the issue.

That’s not the case now.

“Bush Sr. took the action that he did but it wasn’t as if Congress was legislating anything to the contrary,” said Carl Hampe of Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy. “What’s different now is that there is no clear path to legislative relief for the class of beneficiaries for which the president’s order would provide relief.”

Sure there is. It’s the same path that existed then. The congress can pass a law that does what the president is doing with his order. Now it’s true that they will not do it because their racist base is having a fit over Mexicans and Central Americans “destroying our way of life” but that doesn’t mean that the same path the congress chose after Reagan and Bush took their executive actions is not available in exactly the same way today. It is. The GOP is just intent upon making sure that every Latino in America knows how much they are loathed and despised by Republicans.

And here’s a perfect example, from the same article, of a Republican getting so worked up he ends up speaking gibberish.

“There’s always some precedent for prosecutorial discretion,” said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz. “But this president would call tearing the Constitution into tiny little pieces in the White House prosecutorial discretion.”

Whatever you say Senator ….

Meanwhile John “Godfather” Boehner offers up a little bit of advice for the president:

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is stopping short of threatening to use Congress’ power of the purse to thwart any executive action by Obama. Boehner’s priority is to avoid a government shutdown. But he made it clear that Republicans will make Obama pay a price if he carries out his threat.

“Every administration needs this and needs that, needs all kinds of things,” Boehner said Thursday. “You know, if he wants to go off on his own, there are things that he’s just not going to get.”

Every president needs “this and that.” And now he’s not going to get it. I don’t know what he’s talking about but whatever it is Joe Biden ought to pull a Cheney and tell him to go fuck himself.

I think that one of the lesser understood stories of this election is that it marks the end of the Rush Limbaugh era. It’s now officially the Laura Ingraham era. She is the Joan of Arc of xenophobia and has led the charge on this issue. Viva Ingraham.

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A cold Civil War
by Tom Sullivan

In a sort-of chance encounter last night, we ended up having dinner in a small town with the pastor of a non denominational church.

He said he had decided it was not his job to change people. But he felt it was his duty to educate people that the world is changing around them and that it is their challenge to come to terms with it. One of the subtexts to the conversation was the political culture clash between conservative country dwellers and more left-leaning city dwellers. (Red America and Blue America, if you will.)

It seems his small town is becoming increasingly modern. It sits just on the edge of an area flush with tech jobs that sees 50,000 new residents each year. Another of those “21st century communities” is planned, bringing thousands of tech workers to the once sleepy, southern town. If projections are correct, the town will double in size. Rich developers will get richer and locals will make money. All well and good until prices skyrocket.

Conservative natives are restless.

In-migration sets up a kind of cold Civil War between newcomers and families with local roots. New growth tends to overwhelm the local culture and folkways. For conservatives already threatened by demographic changes and immigration, in-migration can be just as threatening. They’re all for development until the Ausländers they invited actually move in with their foreign ways and foreign politics.

Sure, we wanted their business. But we didn’t want them, you know, in our business.

We see the same dynamic where we live, only our in-migration is driven more by tourism and retirement. Newcomers arrive from the Midwest, the Northeast, and the Left Coast bringing their money and yankee political sensibilities with them. And their interest in local politics. The resentments are palpable enough that conservative politicians look for ways to exploit city-county animus. It’s their go-to political strategy.

This clip by comedian Hari Kondabolu has it just about right. Be careful what you ask for.

“I don’t get all the anti-immigrant sentiment in this country. Because this is a country that says this is the greatest country in the world. We’re the best. We’re number one. Then we get upset when people actually show up. But when you advertise something … sometimes people buy it. That’s how it works.” – Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu

Saturday Night at the Movies




Hawking tall

By Dennis Hartley

Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy: The Theory of Everything

“There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.” -Dr. Stephen W. Hawking

There’s a truly jaw-dropping moment in James Marsh’s new biopic about theoretical physicist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking, in which lead actor Eddie Redmayne (without the benefit of camera trickery or CGI) literally “unfolds” his paralyzed, crumpled body from the confines of his wheelchair, and walks offstage into the audience to gracefully kneel down and pick up a pencil. A lump formed in my throat, and I began to cry like I haven’t cried at a film since…I don’t know when (maybe Old Yeller, when I was 6?). I know what you’re thinking. I might as well write: “I saw this film today. There was this one incredible scene, where this guy gets up off the couch, and flips on a light switch. I wept.” But it’s all about context. In context of all the events leading up to that scene, it makes for an extraordinarily moving moment (as ‘they’ say…”You weren’t there, man!”).

Hawking’s back-story is fairly well-known; that he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease at age 21, and given 2 years to live. At the time, he was studying cosmology at Cambridge, and already formulating the patented type of eloquent equations that deign to explain Life, the Universe, and Everything…which would one day become his stock in trade, elevating him to rock star status within the realm of theoretical physics. Of course, being a young man in his 20s, he also had a healthy interest in, erm, “biology” whilst at university. He became smitten with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), who stood by him through thick and thin as his physical condition deteriorated, and eventually became his wife. Anthony McCarten’s screenplay mostly focuses on this personal aspect of Hawking’s life; not surprising when you consider he adapted from Jane Hawking’s 2007 autobiographical account, Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen

Depending on your expectations going in, this could be perceived as either the curse or the blessing of Marsh’s approach to Hawking’s story. If you have a geeky interest in getting a handle on exactly how Dr. Hawking derived his most lauded theories over the years, you’ll be disappointed at the notable lack of hard science in the film. However, if you’re not in the mood for a physics lecture, and instead looking for (yes, I’m going to say it) another inspirational biopic about the triumph of the human spirit in the face of insurmountable odds, this one is right in your wheelhouse. In that respect, the movie is somewhat formulaic, but so well executed and skillfully acted that only the clinically dead would fail to be moved. Marsh is an elegant filmmaker; he directed one of the most beautifully constructed documentaries of recent years, Man on Wire (I reviewed it here).

That being said, there is a certain amount of irony in the fact that, by all accounts, the “real” Stephen Hawking couldn’t care a whit as to whether the story of his physical travails inspires you, me, or the fencepost; he famously balks at any empathetic interest in that part of his life. For him, it’s all about the work, and the seemingly boundless inquisitiveness and capabilities of his mind which (thankfully) has remained largely unaffected by his hellish maladies. On the other hand, you get a sense from the film that Hawking would still not have been able to achieve everything that he has with that great mind without the stalwart devotion, encouragement and assistance of people in his life like Jane, or Elaine Mason (Maxine Peake) a personal nurse who became his second wife. Consequently, Marsh’s film is just as much their story as it Hawking’s (and rightfully so).

I suspect I will not be the only reviewer who feels compelled to draw parallels between Redmayne’s performance and Daniel Day-Lewis’ transformation in My Left Foot , Jim Sheridan’s 1989 biopic about cerebral palsy-afflicted artist and writer Christy Brown. And it’s not just about the obvious similarities in how both actors appear willing to (literally) suffer for their art, contorting their bodies into gruelingly uncomfortable positions for periods of time. It’s more about how each was able to express his character’s humanity, in a manner transcending gimmickry of performance. At least that’s my theory.

Saturday Night at the Movies review archives 

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The precedent is set

by digby

Here’s a nice little bland report from Newsweek about what happened last week when the US went to the UN for the first time to answer questions about torture since the Obama administration took over:

CAT signatories are required to submit reports on their adherence to the international treaty every four years. After reviewing these reports, the U.N. Committee Against Torture, a body of 10 independent experts, invites government officials from a country to expand on its report. On the first day of the review, the experts ask questions; on the second, the state’s representatives are able to respond.

The in-person review of U.S. practices, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday, marked the first since President Obama took office in 2009.

Obama issued an executive order banning the use of torture in 2009 shortly after taking office. The U.N. review investigated whether the Obama administration stuck to its promise to end the controversial Bush-era enhanced interrogation techniques and how well the administration has upheld the CAT’s terms since.

A day before the review began, the committee took testimony ranging from experts on the death penalty and activists against torture to a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and the parents of Michael Brown.

Representatives for the U.S. included U.S. Brigadier General Richard Gross, Principal Deputy Legal Adviser at the State Department Mary McLeod, and Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Bitkower, to name a few.

Here are some notable moments from the two days of review:

Where does the U.S. think it is restricted by its CAT obligations?

Alessio Bruni, one of the committee’s experts, asked the U.S. representatives to elaborate on whether the government believes the prohibition on torture applies to its officials “abroad without geographic limitation.” But in answering the question, the U.S. reiterated its vague position.

Representatives responded that the CIA no longer operates secret detention facilities and clarified that the U.S. understands the CAT obligations to only apply “where the U.S. acts as a governmental authority,” by which they meant on U.S. soil, in Cuba, and on ships and aircraft.

This answer, however, leaves a key concern of the panel unresolved: whether the Obama administration has fully abandoned the previous one’s interpretation of CAT to exclude U.S. officials’ actions abroad.

What parts of CAT does the U.S. adhere to abroad?

The experts cited instances in which the U.S. violated CAT abroad, and asked for clarification “as to whether the U.S. considers all aspects of the convention to be applicable.”

Bruni wondered how the U.S. was able to reconcile the force-feeding of Guantanamo prisoners with the terms of the treaty, and how it could claim it was not operating secret facilities when it fails to register detainees, calling registration “a first step to prevent torture since his or her identity and location are a sort of deterrent against any form of ill treatment, which needs secrecy to be carried out with total impunity.”

Representative for the U.S., Brigadier General Richard Gross, said that force-feeding, which U.S. officials exclusively referred to as “enteral feeding,” was only used as a last resort to address medical issues such as malnutrition and was evidence of the U.S. holding to its value of preserving life in a humane manner. He added that indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo is justified according to the laws of armed conflict. He said that since the U.S. is in conflict with armed groups like Al-Qaeda, the U.S. can legally hold detainees (without charge) until the end of hostilities.

Another U.S. representative told the committee that the U.S. does not have a unified policy regarding the registration of detainees, but “appropriate records” are kept and “comprehensive safeguards” are in place. The delegation made no mention of detainees of national security or intelligence agencies—the committee’s prime concern.

Has anyone been prosecuted for torture?

Since the U.S. last reported to the committee in 2006, more evidence of violations have been reported by the media or alleged by human rights groups. But the U.S. has done little to demonstrate that it is holding the top officials who gave the orders to torture accountable. Groups like the Advocates for U.S. Torture Prosecutions say that the United States is shielding those responsible, which is in direct violation of its CAT obligations.

“It’s is at the heart of everything,” Deborah Popowski, a clinical instructor at the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School and a member of Advocates for U.S. Torture Prosecutions said in an interview with Newsweek.

Referring to what she called the “legal framework the U.S. government built to shield itself from liability” (a mixture of legal opinions that distort laws governing torture and the use of the Military Commissions Act to retroactively redefine war crimes to impede prosecution), she added that by “choosing to immunize those responsible, [the U.S. government] legitimizes their actions and the legacy lives on, the precedent is set.”

Former Guantanamo detainee Murat Kurnaz added in an article for The Nation that failure to prosecute “has set a worldwide standard of condoning torture.”

Experts asked for evidence that the U.S. is investigating and prosecuting senior officials. Gross stated that the military is always required to investigate allegations of violations of the law and that there have been thousands of investigations into the mistreatment of detainees since 2001. He claimed that hundreds have been prosecuted for their misconduct—a number often repeated but never fully substantiated. Representative for the U.S. and Principal Deputy Legal Adviser at the State Department Mary McLeod said the U.S. “will prosecute where appropriate.”

Will any proof of torture be released?

“Is the government going to disclose [the force-feeding] videotapes or is the government’s view that security consideration to extinguish the right to complain about torture and ill treatment and to obtain redress?” Bruni asked.

One representative said that the U.S. was ordered on October 3 to publicly disclose the videos and has until December 2 to appeal the ruling. She asserted that U.S.’s reluctance to release the force-feeding video tapes is not an attempt to hide evidence confirming the allegation that the practice is akin to torture. Rather, she claimed, releasing the videos would reveal building design and procedures for detainee movement which should remain classified for purposes of national security.

The Obama administration cannot say to an international body that it is unequivocally not torturing people overseas. There have been no prosecutions. Everybody’s hiding behind phony legalisms. It’s a sham. The precedent was set and nobody’s going to unset it.

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Pee on a stick or no Pinot for you young lady


by digby

I have written before about the case of the young Mississippi woman who was accused of murder in the death of her fetus (who was stillborn with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck) due to what the quack coroner says was cocaine use during pregnancy. That charge was thrown out by the judge last spring but it remains an interesting case in light of all the “personhood” laws that the right keeps pushing.

This report from Pro Publica last spring about that case and the ongoing criminalization of pregnancy is enough to chill anyone’s blood.  That is if you believe that women are not primarily gestation vessels and are instead autonomous beings endowed with full human rights even when she is pregnant.