Saturday April 19, 2025

 It was the 250th anniversary of the start of the revolution that started this country of mine. Millions took to the streets to protest the trump administration but there was little media coverage. In chicago there was a rally and march 5 or 6 blocks long. The Chicago Tribuen didn't even mention it. It did make the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Not sure if either of my democratic senators noticed. which brings me to the song-

The times cannot change fast enough---don't stand in the hallway don't block up the hall.

Torture confession thrown out by the military.

 [SORRY I AM STILL HAVING FORMATTING ISSUES!]

Military Judge Throws Out Sept. 11 Case Confession as Obtained Through Torture

The critical question of whether the prisoner’s 2007 interrogations could be used at his capital trial has shadowed the case for years.

This article was gifted to me:

Ammar al-Baluchi at Guantánamo Bay in 2024 in an image provided by his lawyers. He is accused of sending money and providing other support to some of the hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

By Carol Rosenberg

Carol Rosenberg has been reporting from Guantánamo Bay since the prison opened in 2002.

April 11, 2025A military judge on Friday threw out the confession that a man accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks made to federal agents in 2007 at Guantánamo Bay, ruling the statements were the product of a campaign of torture and isolation carried out by the C.I.A.The ruling by Col. Matthew N. McCall was the latest setback to prosecutors in their long-running quest to bring the death-penalty case to trial, despite the years the five defendants had spent in secret C.I.A. prisons.  Ammar al-Baluchi, 47, was so thoroughly psychologically conditioned through abuse and threats during his time at the agency’s overseas prisons, or black sites, from 2003 to 2006 that he involuntarily incriminated himself in 2007, the judge wrote in a 111-page decision.YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO READ THE WHOLE THING HERE.

musical interlude

 Sorry Phil- but it is just beginning.

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian....

 

Chaos fascism

Saturday, April 5, 2025
Justinian in Chaos, Donald Trump, Roger Fitch Esq, US politics

 

Mobster rule ... Threats and blackmail ... Civil society on the edge ... Tariffs and crashing markets are one thing ... There are also attacks on the media, lawyers, universities, foreign students, and so-called "enemy aliens" ... Roger Fitch files from a traumatised Washington 

"Trump himself has always been an anti-liberal revolutionary, an American Lenin for the rich and entitled. Trump doesn't believe in democracy, just in winning at all costs. He doesn't believe in limited government, but in the triumph of his will ... He is an authoritarian, lawless plutocrat who admires similar characters at home and abroad. And he views government as a machine for massive personal, family and clan advancement" - UK Prospect 

"Their goal is to dismantle the central pillars of the United States of America - government, law, business, education, culture, and so on - because they believe the very shape of those institutions serves what they call 'the Left' [which] includes all Americans ... who believe the government has a role to play in regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, and protecting civil rights and who support the institutional structures Americans have built since World War II" - Heather Cox Richardson

"Across human history, fascism has been imposed upon democracy mostly in one of two ways. First, by brute force ... Second, a bit more stealthily, and legally - through legislation, executive decrees, and court decisions that hand more power to the leader. Donald Trump is inventing a new way ... chaos fascism. Destroy the institutions of democracy until they're so disfigured or dysfunctional that a majority no longer cares about them" - New Republic 

"With tariffs, Trump can exercise a kind of corruption that the country hasn't experienced in some 150 years" - Mother Jones 

READ THE REST HERE.

From Guantanamo to El Salvador

Our second worst president ever, GW Bush, had the idea of sending men (many whom were purchased by the U.S. through a bounty program) to Guantanamo for indefinite detention, and torture. The thinking was that this was a piece of land out of reach by the U.S. Courts.  They were wrong, it was not.

Our worst president ever, Trump, came up with a different idea. Pay another country to take, torture and hold men (in this case El Salvador but other countries might also step in). The thought being that sending the men to a whole other country can keep these men outside the reach of U.S. Courts. I do not think this will work either. 

It took just over two years for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and allow lawyers to visit with the men at Guantanamo and to represent them in lawsuits. With our current Supreme Court the question is a little trickier but I don't believe that these men will lose their right to pursue legal action against the U.S.. I do not believe our courts here in the U.S. will rubber stamp our illegal transfer of these men, but time will tell.

There are also other resources that can be put to pressure nations like El Salvador. El Salvador is a signatory of the Hague Convention and the International Criminal Court. El Salvador is also a member of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Central American Parliament and the central American Integration System. Right now the El Salvadorian president does not understand the quandary he has stepped into by accepting money for the men that the U.S. has sent to him. However, the fact that he was not willing to accept men from other Central American countries confirms that he has given a tiny bit of thought to the issue. I think he will be learning a lot more in the weeks to come. 

Again, time will tell.