And speaking of torture...

I no longer subscribe to the NY Times but this was gifted to me: 

"A Pentagon appeals panel on Thursday upheld a judge’s decision in the U.S.S. Cole bombing case to forbid the use of the defendant’s confession as derived from torture.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review was still under seal. But Allison F. Miller, the lawyer for the defendant, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, said the panel unanimously rejected a U.S. government request to reinstate use of the confession at his upcoming death penalty trial.

Mr. Nashiri is accused of orchestrating the Qaeda suicide bombing attack on the warship in October 2000 in Aden harbor in Yemen. Seventeen soldiers were killed and dozens more were wounded. The trial date is set for Oct. 6, one week shy of the 25th anniversary of that attack."

read the rest here (maybe it will be the gift that keeps giving).

The Torture Guys

 Seems they are working there way back into the trump administration after 4 years off. Steven Bradbury's name did not get the same attention as his counterpart John Yoo but his hands are at least as bloody as Yoo's - if not more so. Now he has landed in the transportation department- same place he worked under trumps first term. I am sure that makes everyone feel safer in the air and on the roads. read more here.

RIP Marianne

 

I thought it would happen

 But I am still surprised at how quickly.

Guantanamo is being readying to be used by the fascists to house immigrants. Not sure if it is just so called "illegal" immigrants as these guys don't seem to know the difference between those here legally and those without papers.

Read more here. 

The actual directive from the white house is here. It is about as vague as everything else they are doing.

The True Cost of Guantanamo

 Karen Greenberg has long written about Guantanamo with an understanding that has failed most journalists (and lawyers). This week she has written a post on TomDispatch which chronicles some of that history and brings us up to date with the hell hole now back in the hands of our corrupt and fascist leader and with no end in sight. 

"Today, that long, soul-crushing, legally abhorrent story stands, at a far greater cost than we might once have imagined, where it has always stood — as a mistake that never should have happened and that, once made, never found a leader able to muster the courage to end it."

Read the article appropriately titled "The Forever Charade" here.

(h/o to Walt for sending this to me!)

Musical interlude

 NEVER AGAIN???

Reflections From Roger Fitch

 Another Bonaparte takes the throne 

Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Justinian in Donald Trump, Roger Fitch Esq, US Presidential election, US politics

The Second Coming of Trump ... A circus of corruption and revenge ... Rewards for the "losers" ... Assembling the infrastruction of authoritarianism ... DoJ cases up for "negotiation" ... The knavery of Louis Napoleon ... Parallels aplenty ... Roger Fitch files from Washington 

"Trumpism is seeking to advance a revolutionary transvaluation of values by inverting the morality that undergirds both traditional conservatism and liberal institutionalism. In this inversion, norms and rules that counsel and enforce propriety, restraint, and deference to institutional authority become vices, while flouting them become virtues. The result is a radical form of political action that gives a central governing role to 'bad' men who enjoy provoking the outraged indignation of those incapable of their own similarly bold acts of defiance" - Damon Linker, Notes from the Middleground

"[A]s Trump mounts his next assault on good government and decency, there will be too many misdeeds to follow. There won't be enough journalists to cover all his villainy and its consequences - neither at the local nor national levels. The media industry has been decimated in the past two decades, with a sharp decline in news reporters on the beat. Having fewer watchdogs allows grifters, miscreants, and outright crooks to get away with wrongdoing" - David Corn, Mother Jones

"This nation ... has no right to expect that it will always have wise and humane rulers, sincerely attached to the principles of the Constitution. Wicked men, ambitious of power, with hatred of liberty and contempt of law, may fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln…" - Ex parte Milligan (1866).

READ THE REST  HERE