Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld has quit as prosecutor, claiming that, potential exculpatory evidence has not been provided to the defense in the case of a teenager accused of throwing a grenade at US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Good for him, though the fact that he has refused to testify without immunity indicates that this is worse than just ignoring a bit of evidence.
When you look at the trial of Saddam Hussein, you have to start with one fact: He was as guilty as hell. He was so guilty of brutality, genocide, and other crimes against humanity, that it would have been impossible not to get him on something.
But still, the Western lawyers who attempted to create a fair trial say that the trial was neither free nor fair.
When someone is this guilty, why on earth does the Iraqi government feel the need to cheat….Why does the US sponsored Iraqi government feel the need to cheat….Why does the Bush and His Evil Minions&trade Iraqi government feel the need to cheat…And deliver a verdict just days before the 2006 mid terms elections.
Never mind, question answered.
Newly released documents make it clear that members of the Bush administration held specific discussion to specifically authorize torture by the CIA, and Condoleeza Rice has admitted to this in a written statement to the Senate.
I do not believe that we will be able to hold a fair trial in the US, so send them to the Hague, even though the death penalty is off the table there.
The punch line is the same as for the joke that starts, “What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?” (Answer at bottom of post)
The head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, Lalit Kishore Choudhary, was beaten to death by employees he had sacked.
I have said on a number of occasions that if you want to go postal, go after upper management first, and it seems that these employees were of a like mind.
The quotes regarding this, show just how callous people are:
A spokesman for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said: “Such a heinous act is bound to sully India’s image among overseas investors.”
That is an unbelievably cold statement. Some dude got beaten to death, and the only comment is, “It’s bad for business.”
Of course, being the Times of London, they are wringing their hands over this, and note the violence at the location selected by Tata for a factory to manufacture its ultra cheap Nano, but refuse to mention the fact that the land in question was stolen from the peasant farmers who had worked it for hundreds of years.
Meanwhile India’s Labor Minister has apologized for saying that the murder of Choudhary should, “serve as a warning” to managers to treat workers compassionately.”
He was right the first time.
If you want to read a more full throated, and more eloquent endorsement of actions that might make senior executives think twice, you need to go no further than Exiled Online
Live by heartless officialese, die by heartless officialese plus a hammer upside the skull. Nothing could be fairer than that. Proceed with the mob beatifications as soon as we get their names. And somebody find that f@#$-you-Mr.-Cheney guy’s name too while you’re at it. Something about the politeness of the “Mr.” right after the “f@#$ you” really enchants us. This is a guy who understands the importance of human dignity. No doubt, with a little encouragement, he could put together a nice mob.
Damn good writing, and you should read the rest right now.
In conclusion, the philosophical foundation driving our current system is that the “entrepreneurial class” should be able to operate without any external limits on their behavior, and that they should operate without conscience or empathy, and this is a psychotic world view.
As to the riddle at the beginning of the page? The answer, of course, is “A Good Start.”
The arrest of Leopoldo Fernández of Pando is likely tied to the unrest there recently, though the accusation is that he supervised the massacre of peasants, which is a not uncommon activity of political leaders in that part of the world.
In any case, it looks like Bolivia is not cooling down, and my guess is that Bush and His Evil Minions&trade are doing their best to make sure that it won’t cool down.
They have drafted a letter asking the Virgina Bar to investigate former DoJ lawyer Monica Goodling, which is about the only way that anything close to justice will happen, since Michael “Bush’s Bitch” Mukasey has refused to prosecute clear violations of the law.
Background here.
In a new twist of Troopergate, the McCain campaign is saying that Palin fired public safety commissioner Walt Monegan because he was “insubordinate” over budget issues:
On May 7 of this year, Randy Ruaro, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, complained in an e-mail to Rehfeld, the budget director, that Monegan’s department “is constantly going off the reservation.”
“The last straw” leading up to Monegan’s firing, Van Flein wrote, was Monegan’s planned trip to Washington, D.C., to seek funding for a new, multimillion-dollar sexual assault initiative the governor hadn’t yet approved.
So, not only did she sign off regarding charging rape victims for rape kits, she is now saying that fired her public security director because he was looking for money to help rape victims.
Remember, Alaska has the highest per capita rape rate in the nation, and it appears that Palin is determined to punish the victims.
This is repugnant.
In Arizona, Pima County Superior Court Judge Deborah Bernin has told breathalyzer manufacturer CMI to turn over the source code for their devices to the defendants.
This is more than just a legal ploy to get out of a drunk driving charge,* there actually appear to be some reliability issues with the device in question:
Allegedly inconsistent, odd or inexplicable results involving the Intoxilyzer 8000 have led to legal action in six states (Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Tennessee and New Jersey as well as Arizona). A Florida judge also ordered CMI to hand over the source code running the controversial devices but the firm has refused to comply, earning it $1.2m in fines as a result.
I support this ruling, even without the history of problems. Having a closed box that just says, “guilty” is not acceptable.
*Full disclosure, my mom was killed by a drunk driver when I was 14.
Because he just called Roe v. Wade an unsupportable decision. He does day that it should remain as precedent, underthe principle of stare decisis, but that the decision is not based, “in either the text of the Constitution or its own precedents.”
First, this analysis is just plain wrong, the precedents of Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird, which prohibited states banning contraception on the basis of privacy rights, and which he studiously, ignores is clearly on the path to Roe.
Second is that his embrace of stare decisis would invalidate rown v. Board of Education, the national minimum wage, and the National Labor Relations act.
For Barack Obama to continue to have him as an adviser, or to consider him as a member of the cabinet, or as senior Department of Justice appointment would be a betrayal of his supporters and the Democratic party.
H/T TalkLeft.
It looks like some states are making the restoration of voting rights for ex-convicts easier, though it would be nice if they were restored once no longer incarcerated.
One of the consequences of the “war on drugs” is that over 5 million people are denied the right to vote, but that’s a feature, Republicans don’t want n*gg*rs to vote.
Mr. Yglesias is a wise man:
Unlike the guy who runs Lehman Brothers, the guys who clean the bathrooms in the Lehman Brothers office have, as best one can tell, been doing an excellent job. And yet if the company going under results in everyone involved losing their jobs, the guy who runs Lehman will wind up being better off than the guys who clean the bathrooms. This is because in the United States of America, hard work is the way to get ahead.
Madame Guillotine is beginning to look remarkably attractive.
Seriously, she is the gift that keeps on giving.
We now have her signature on the budgets when the rape kits were deleted from the budget.
This is not a bug, this is a feature. Police investigations and evidence collection is only for rich people if you are a Republican.
Well, it turns out that while Mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin’s hand picked police chief, she had fired the predecessor for “insufficient loyalty”, instituted a policy of forcing rape victims to pay for their own rape kits.
It was the only town in Alaska to do so, and it so outraged the legislature that they passed a law against this.
Seriously, C-MI.
Because, seriously for Bush and His Evil Minions™ to try to spin the continued breathing of Osama bin Laden with this:
Q: But Osama bin Laden is the one that — you keep talking about his lieutenants, and, yes, they are very important, but Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11 —
MS. PERINO: No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11, and he’s sitting in jail right now.
I guess that bin Laden was some 6 foot 6 inch tall dude suffering from Marfan’s related kidney failure who occasionally attended meetings of the Ladies Sewing Circle & Terrorist Society, or some such.
Every time I think that I’ve grown too cynical to be shocked, they kick it up a notch.
The mendacity of these folks, even after 7 years, continues to stun me.
Not surprising, as he is guiltier than William “Money in the Freezer” Jefferson.
I’ve always felt that Kadima, Olmert’s party would finish 3rd in the next elections, because Ariel Sharon is auditioning for a part as the Israeli state vegetable, and now they have this around their neck.
I expect that, God help us all, Netanyahu will be the next Israeli PM.
Justice Lucy A. Billings of State Supreme Court in the Bronx has ruled that Governor Paterson’s executive order stands.
This is all going the way of Loving v, Virgina, and it appears to be moving quite a bit more quickly.
Cool.
So long as you pay by check.
That is what the Texas Third Court of Appeals voted on a straight party line.
A federal judge has denied a stay on the House Judiciary Committee’s subpoena to Harriet Miers.
I still say that they should send out the House sergeant at arms, and take her to the House basement prison cell in handcuffs, and let her sit there until she testifies.
Truth be told, there is a part of me that wouldn’t be averse to water boarding, temperature extremes, stress positions, and sleep deprivation either, but that would be wrong, that’s for sure.
Specifically Countrywide Financial, whose merry band of crooks have embroiled Bank of America in another action from a state attorney general, this time in Indiana, claiming, “deceptive and misleading practices in thousands of loans.”
What the hell were the management at BoA thinking when they paid for this open cesspool.
Nawaz Sharif has withdrawn his Pakistan Muslim League-N party from its coalition with the Pakistan People’s Party.
It’s not surprising. The one thing that Sharif demanded from the start was the restoration of all judges, and the refusal of PPP party head Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate all the judges, particularly Iftikar Muhammad Chaudhry.
They also agreed to reduce the power of the Presidency, and to have a non-partisan candidate for the office.
What this is really about in my mind is that Zardari is remarkably corrupt, even by the standards of Pakistani governance (as if that concept is not a mind f&%$), his nick name is “Mr. 10%”, and he is afraid that Chaudhry, who by all accounts is honest and non-partisan, will invalidate the grant of immunity for his corruption.
To be fair, it wasn’t just him who was corrupt. His late wife, Benazir Bhutto, was hip deep in all of this too, but since she went to Harvard, and spoke excellent English, she was labeled a democratic hope for Pakistan.