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The Daily Muck
The Washington Post's four-part series on sub-standard health care provided for illegal immigrants with fewer rights than convicted felons, detained in Gitmo-like prisons, continues today with a look into the perils of mental health treatment at detention centers. (Washington Post)
Alaa "Alex" Mohammad Ali, dual Iraqi and Candadian citizen and Army translator working in Iraq, has been court-martialed by the U.S. military for stabbing another contract worker on Feb. 23. This is the first such prosecution of a civilian military contractor working for the U.S. since the Vietnam War. (US News)
Esquire takes a careful look at John Yoo, former Justice Dept. lawyer and author of what are now called the torture memos, and the steps he took when contemplating the rationales for torture during a war with a unique foes. (Esquire)
Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) is asking a federal court to force depositions from former Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Abubakar's wife and a Nigerian businessman all connected to the case. This use of international criminal law would further delay the trial that's set to begin in January. (Roll Call sub. req.)
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is set to testify in front of the "Select Committee to Investigate the Voting Irregularities of August 2, 2007" today as part of an inquiry by Republicans claiming Hoyer killed voting on a crucial measure much too early, calling to mind Tom DeLay-era finagling. (Washington Post)
Around 5,000 international students living in the U.S. applying for ID cards are at least initially being turned away by the government, which has deemed them security threats. (New York Times)
Closing arguments finally wrapped weeks of testimony in the case of Antonin Rezko, Chicago businessman and political fund-raiser accused of soliciting kickbacks. (New York Times)
Josh
Zachary
re: Esquire interview with Yoo
In reading the article the phrase "the banality of evil" kept coming to mind. Yoo just sounds so reasonable, so normal, so banal.
John Yoo is evil.
Only a man steeped in evil without a shred of humanity could have written what he did, knowing what he knew, and knowing what would happen due to his writings.
Those who continue to enable him to put forth his evil share in his evil. Christopher Edley, Jr., in his refusal to dismiss Yoo from the Berkeley faculty, endorses Yoo's evil. Edley joins in the festering banality.
John Yoo besmirches the profession of law, the profession of the academy, and of all humanity.
That he is not under criminal investigation is criminal in itself. That Little Georgie will undoubtedly pardon him, proactively or retroactively, is just as criminal. Even more disgusting than that is that Little Georgie knew of, and appproved, the torture that Yoo's memos purportedly authorized. It's not just disgusting, it's criminal. Can we impeach that bastard yet?
ITMFA
May 13, 2008 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
A-friggin-men Jim the cynic.
It seems grotesque, doesn't it? To sit in a comfortable classroom as the future lawyers of America clack away on their laptops, parsing definitions with the man whose legal mind turned America into a torturing nation?--Ya think?
May 13, 2008 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
re: Yoo article
Does anyone else see the brainwashing tactics in his teaching style?
Yoo is preparing his students to be his future war crimes lawyers.
Civilized society should always hold it's civilians to the highest standard regarding torture and mete out the harshest punishments for torturers, their overseers and enablers.
If the prospective torturers (this includes the torturer, his overseers and enablers [lawyers, etc]) believe they can avert immediate calamity only by torturing an individual for information, they should be prepared to afterwards succumb to any punishment seen appropriate by the courts for that action -including the harshest. In effect, the torturers must be prepared to sacrifice themselves for the good of the whole as much as they are sacrificing the torturee.
I believe this is the only compromise possible for a civilized society given the "ticking time bomb" scenario.
For millennia human society has looked upon torture as deeply immoral -the results of our society sanctioning torture would be that ours will become a deeply immoral society in the very real sense.
Further, I believe we will learn that most of the torture committed by our representatives is not for the purpose of gathering information but for the procurement of confessions.
May 13, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is not a day that goes by that I can't stop wondering WTF is wrong with the dems in congress. I do not get it...I do not get it...I do not get it.
It HAS to be that the telecom thing caught them all up in something. If the administration isn't blackmailing them...what gives?
Christ on a crutch. DO SOMETHING!
o/t: Did you know that many in the Bush Administration have been charged with war crimes? Read it now!
May 13, 2008 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink