Category: 2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

  • Potency of the Moment

    “The potency of the moment is Obama’s to lose. … So historic is the shift, in fact, that all Obama really has to do now is let the astonishing details of the clandestine operation trickle down and word of his direct, daring involvement penetrate the collective consciousness, and not only will any current agenda items […]

  • Jeremy Scahill on Bin Laden

    “I found it quite disgusting to see people chanting, like it was some sort of sporting event, outside of the White House. I think it was idiotic. Let’s remember here, hundreds of thousands of people have died. Iraq was invaded, a country that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, nothing to do with Osama bin […]

  • Former CIA Clandestine Program Supervisor Duane Clarridge Defends the Empire

    Via Glenn Greenwald on Salon: ‘We’ll intervene whenever it is in our national security interests to intervene. And if you don’t like it, you can lump it. Get used to it world. We’re not going to put up with this nonsense.’ YouTube – Duane Clarridge Defends the Empire.

  • American Shame

    Comparing unemployment, income inequality, democracy, food supply, life expectancy, prison population and student performance. New York Times

  • Michael Ratner on Prosecuting Bush for Torture

    Michael Ratner from the Center for Constitutional Rights on the legal basis for investigating Bush for torture: Let’s correct one major misconception some have about the basis for this action and how it relates to the U.S. legal system at the outset. The Convention Against Torture, which mandates that Switzerland and 146 other countries including […]

  • Obama Administration Refuses to Cooperate with Poland CIA Secret Prison Inquiry

    DoJ won’t help: U.S. government has refused assistance to Polish prosecutors investigating whether the CIA maintained a secret prison in Poland. The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights posted a letter from prosecutors on its website saying the U.S. Justice Department in October refused to provide legal assistance requested by Polish investigators by citing a bilateral agreement […]

  • Maine GOP Forced To Apologize After Convention-Goers Vandalize An Eighth-Grade Classroom

    So friggging stupid: For seven years, Clifford has had “a collage-type poster depicting the history of the U.S. labor movement” on his classroom door. He uses it “to teach his students how to incorporate collages into their annual project on Norman Rockwell’s historic ‘Four Freedoms’ illustrations.” When Clifford returned to his classroom on Monday, after […]

  • Mainstream News Bias Test

    When something truly awful breaks it is always interesting to watch how it is covered inside the US and compare it to the outside world. We’ve got one of those this week. Watchdog site Wikileaks has released a classified video: WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen […]

  • General in Afghanistan: We've Killed Lots of Innocent People, Found No Bombs

    Freedom’s on the march: “We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.”The comments came during a virtual town hall with troops in Afghanistan after one asked McChrystal to comment on the “escalation of force” problem. The […]

  • McCain and Lieberman's Nightmarish Detention Bill

    This is fun: An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3( c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of […]