Showing posts with label Links. Show all posts

This Week's Links: Torture Memos, Prosecution, and Impeachment

20 April 2009

Apologies for the long absence. Things have been pretty busy over here. In the meantime, there is plenty for you to read:

The International Red Cross Report on detainee abuse has been made public. It includes, among other things, "Beatings by use of a collar held around a detainees neck and used to forcefully bang the head and body against the wall." [ICRC Report]
The ACLU lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act has finally resulted in the release of the OLC memos authorizing torture techniques and abuse against detainees. [OLC Memos]
It appears, however, that Obama does not want to prosecute the OLC memo's authors, either. [AP]
The Spanish, however, are still seeking prosecution. [The Public Record]
Prof. Manfred Nowak, U.N. Rapporteur for Torture, says that refusal to prosecute is a violation of the Convention Against Torture (which compels investigation and prosecution of those accused ot torture). [Der Standard]
UPDATE: Now it's not even clear whether or not Obama wants to prosecute those who created the torture policies, walking back Rahm Emanuel's comments from the other day ("[A]dministration officials said Monday that Mr. Emanuel had meant the officials who ordered the policies carried out, not the lawyers who provided the legal rationale."). [The New York Times]
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said that it's "certainly possible that an impeachment inquiry is warranted" into torture memo author Bybee (currently a federal judge in the Ninth Circuit). I doubt that Whitehouse will step up to the plate, though. [Rachel Madow]
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) says that "grounds for impeachment can be made" against Bybee based on the OLC memos. [Russ Feingold]
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) says that "I would support impeachment hearings for Judge Bybee." [Center For American Progress]

This Week's Links: Torture, Civil Liberties, and Voting Rights

16 March 2009

Mark Danner has written a must-read account of detention and interrogation techniques over the past few years, based on the Red Cross report on torture. [New York Review of Books] [The New York Times]
Letting go of the phrase "enemy combatants" isn't really that big of a deal. [The Los Angeles Times]
The Washington Post editorial page calls for election reforms. [The Washington Post]
Andy Worthington compiles a list of all the Guantanamo Bay inmates ever held, and their ultimate status. This is a great resource. [Anti-War.com]
Jane Mayer wrote a great article on the use of Black Sites back in 2007. [The New Yorker]

This Week's Links

05 February 2009

On Monday, major First Amendment figure Irving Feiner passed away. [The New York Times]
Leon Panetta's Senate hearings are posted on the C-SPAN website, for those who care. [C-SPAN]
Barack Obama writes an op-ed for the Washington Post about the stimulus bill. It looks like he's going to be taking a more active role in the debate from now on. [The Washington Post]
The Department of Justice is changing. [The New York Times]
The ACLU debunks a few myths about Guantanamo. [ACLU]. Their website on the topic is worth a read, too. [ACLU].
According to Reuters, "Two senior British judges accused the United States on Wednesday of threatening to end intelligence cooperation with Britain if they published evidence about the alleged torture of a Guantanamo detainee." [Reuters]
Guantanamo detainee Benyam Mohammad alleges abuse in Moroccan prison. [The Guardian]
Debunking some more myths about the effectiveness of torture. [Vanity Fair]
Scott Horton discusses the British judges linked above. [Harper's]
Don't mess with Obama's French Fries. [Boston Phoenix]

This Week's Links: Advice to a Future President

12 January 2009

Jameel Jaffer and Ben Wizner counsel Obama: "Don't replace the old Guantánamo with a new one." [Salon]
Paul Krugman offers some economic advice. [The New York Times]
Glenn Greenwald suggests that Obama re-read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. [Salon]

This Week's Links: Intelligence Appointments, Minnesota Recounts and the New Deal

08 January 2009

The Wall Street Journal wrote yet another hyperventilating op-ed about the Minnesota Senate recount. Once again, they have filled it with baseless innuendo and allegations of voter fraud. In this link, Nate Silver goes through the editorial "paragraph by paragraph" and tears it to pieces. [FiveThirtyEight]
Recount Judge Edward Cleary calls out the Wall Street Journal on its "groundless attack," and highlights the recount board's bipartisan, unanimous votes. A highly entertaining read. [Minnesota Post]
Scott Horton and others discuss legal accountability and oversight for the United States torture program. I highly recommend giving it a listen, if you're interested in what happens next. [NPR]
Glenn Greenwald discusses Obama's selection of Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel. This link has plenty of extended quotes from Johnsen herself, and plenty of comparisons to former OLC member John Yoo (the guy who wrote the infamous torture memo). [Salon]
Hilzoy points out that "despite all the brouhaha after the election, it turns out that African-Americans' level of support for Prop 8 was not as high as reported, and is moreover almost entirely explained by their levels of church attendance." [The Washington Monthly]
Paul Krugman debunks some conservative myths about F.D.R. and the New Deal (as you may have noticed, "there’s a whole intellectual industry, mainly operating out of right-wing think tanks, devoted to propagating the idea that F.D.R. actually made the Depression worse."). [The New York Times]
David Sirota piles on, and also debunks some of the conservative myths about Roosevelt and the New Deal. [The Seattle Times] [The Huffington Post I] [The Huffington Post II]
Not surprising anyone, FOX News and Neil Cavuto present some bizarre rants about how "everybody agrees ... that the New Deal failed" because Roosevelt "waged ... a jihad against private enterprise." You can't make this stuff up. [Media Matters for America]

This Week's Links: Torture and Community Reinvestment

19 December 2008

Former senior interrogator Matthew Alexander recounts how United States officials engaged in conduct that "often resulted in torture and abuse." Alexander, who "refused to participate in such practices," details his own successful methods. It's a good read. [The Washington Post]
I know that many people have written much on the topic, but this is still one of the most under-covered stories of the past decade: "A bipartisan Senate report released today says that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials are directly responsible for abuses of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and charges that decisions by those officials led to serious offenses against prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere." [The Washington Post]
Paul Krugman debunks some of the myths and falsehoods about Fannie and Freddie (back in July) [The New York Times]
Joseph Stiglitz doesn't care for Alan Greenspan. [Vanity Fair]
ABC News exaggerates the wages of United States auto workers. [F.A.I.R.]
Howard Kurtz is not a very good media critic. [Media Matters for America]
Have your conservative friends and family members been holding up the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 as the root of all our current economic problems? If so, you might want to give this one a read. [Media Matters for America]
Media Matters debunks some of the common myths about the Community Reinvestment Act. [Media Matters for America]
Eric Boehlert debunks the $70/hour autoworker myth. [Media Matters for America]
The New York Times debunks the $70/hour autoworker myth. [The New York Times]
Bob Somerby suggests a better headline for the previous New York Times article. [The Daily Howler]
Michelle Malkin is still a reflexive partisan hack. [ThinkProgress]
Barry Ritholtz debunks the "intellectually silly argument" that the Community Reinvestment Act is the root of all our economic problems. [The Big Picture]
Slate thinks that it is "not merely offensive, but entirely wrong" to blame our current economic woes on the Community Reinvestment Act. [Slate]
The Westboro Baptist Church now wants to take advantage of Olympia's open forum to put up a religious display of their own, saying "Santa Claus Will Take You To Hell." [Seattle Post Intelligencer]
Newsweek writes up the whistleblower who revealed the warrantless wiretap program. [Newsweek]

Religious Displays

06 December 2008

I'm not going to write a detailed post about it (since I've been pretty busy here lately), but I just want to say that the religious display controversy playing out in Washington right now is hilarious.

This Week's Links

05 December 2008

"[L]egions of anti-Obama bloggers are so convinced he was born in Kenya that they’ve filed more than a dozen lawsuits nationwide." There is an interesting legal question involved here (through what procedure would one bring a challenge based on the Constitution's "natural born citizen" clause?), but let's not forget that the people filing this lawsuit are insane conspiracy theorists. [McClatchy D.C.]
"The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide the most fundamental question yet concerning executive power in the age of terror: Can the president order the indefinite military detention of people living in the United States?" Let's see if Justice Kennedy (a Ronald Reagan appointee) does the right thing here. [The New York Times]
Roger Lowenstein believes that the ratings agencies deserve a good measure of blame for our recent economic troubles. [The New York Times]
Even Michelle Malkin believes that the "Kenyan birth" conspiracy theorists are insane. [Michelle Malkin]
Open Congress (a great website) puts up video highlights of the Big Three bailout hearings. [Open Congress]
Charles Rangel writes in to the New York Times to complain about their coverage of him. The New York Times responds. [The New York Times]
Now is not a good time to be working in Legal Aid. [The New York Times]
Tom Daschle (D-SD), the next Secretary of Health and Human Services (who happens to wear weird red glasses), says that health care reform will be a "top priority" for the next administration's economic recovery plan. [Bloomberg]
Did I mention that the "Kenyan birth" conspiracy theorists are insane? [Mother Jones]
Yogurt and Cucumber do not seem like appealing soda flavors. [The Onion]
If you have a Netflix account, I recommend that you watch Street Fight and Lake of Fire. Two very good documentaries. [Netflix]
Bill O'Reilly is giving up his radio show. However, he will keep appearing on television and will presumably keep comparing everyone to Nazis. [Daily News]