Plea deals upheld updated

 The military court of appeals has upheld the plea deals reached in relation to the men being being tried by the military. The three men reached a deal of life sentences in return for not being executed. A sound deal until defense secretary Austin tried to stop it. I don't think there is enough time left for Biden to actually close the place but rumors abound.

stay tuned.

for the detail oriented here is the docket entry:

(26) 24-001 Moh., KSM - CMCR court denying the petition for a writ of mandamus and prohibition, finding the government (i) satisfied the first Cheney test, 542 U.S. at 380-81, because the military judge's vacatur of the Secretary of Defense's memorandum pertaining to future pretrial agreements was a clear abuse of discretion, but (ii) did not satisfy the second Cheney test because it had an adequate means to obtain desired relief through direct appeal, and therefore finding it (iii) unnecessary to consider the third Cheney test about appropriateness of writ under the circumstances.

Unfortunately the government decided to turn this over to the trump idiots and filed a motion with the Military Commission judge asking that the entry of pleas for Mr. Mohammad, Mr. bin 'Atash and Mr. al Hawsawi be postponed until Jan. 27th,  to allow time for the government to decide whether to pursue further action in the D.C. Circuit, and file pleadings there if they decide to do so. 

Tunisian released -more to come?

 This man has been held at Gitmo since day 1 and never charged. More details to follow but there are rumors more will be released by Biden. 

RIP Jimmy

 

THE LAND OF FREEDUMB

So, my friend The Talking Dog is back with a reflection on Guantanamo and our fucked up country.  

So here we are. What is really going on? I submit to you that Guantanamo ain’t just a ̶r̶i̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶E̶g̶y̶p̶t̶ bay in Cuba. The aftermath of September 11th was an extremely useful excuse to change paradigms, and once and for all, alter even the perception that the United States was some kind of “free country.” In conjunction with a suite of technologies made available as a result of the internet age, the same security and intelligence agencies that were widely [and rightly] blamed for the failures that led directly to the September 11th events were revitalized and reconstituted in various ways (“innovations” included the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence). There were, of course, massive increases in budgets of the Defense Department and the “intelligence community” agencies to “fight the global war on terror,” and of course, to spy on every aspect of our lives (often with the help of such useful technological developments as “social media” and the “smart phone,” serving as rocket fuel for Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and resulting in tech behemoths that, by market capitalization, are the largest business enterprises in the history of the universe.) As September 11th fades from memory over the years (and the rationale for GTMO with it), the surveillance state just gets more robust with each passing year, as do the technical means of maintaining control over us (as if employment at will and permanently precarious “health insurance” aren’t already doing the heavy lifting of suppression).

READ THE WHOLE THING HERE.

musical interlude