Update 2: See my follow-up article "DoD Deletes 'Protest = Terrorism,' Problems Remain." 

Update appended at the end:

The Department of Defense is training all of its personnel in its current Antiterrorism and Force Protection Annual Refresher Training Course that political protes… Read full post »

David Swanson's newest article is up at World Can't Wait. It's entitled: "US Government Threatens to Prosecute Waterboarding."

An exciting development for those of us who have been waiting anxiously for precisely that headline.

Except that the waterboarding that our government is threatening to… Read full post »

Update: I have posted much further documentation for the following post in a new post "Follow-up on Sources for Gitmo Prisoners Aren't 'Persons.'"

I recommend that you read "Tugging on the Torture Thread" also if you haven't already done so in addition to what follows:

If you ask most peopl… Read full post »

(Additional material at the end) 

In CQ:  

Nancy Pelosi, in stating that she's known for years about the wiretap on Rep. Jane Harman (a story that now has legs and threatens precious Harman's career and that of Pelosi, poor dears), unintentionally revealed yesterday why Congress h… Read full post »

CNN reported yesterday: 

"The Senate late Thursday easily passed a $91 billion spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After stripping it of funds to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and placing restrictions on the transfer of its detainees, the bill wa… Read full post »

 
Chris Floyd writes at Empire Burlesque “The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project:”
 
“You cannot disentangle the torture program from the war of aggression in Iraq – nor from the illegal wiretapping program, the corrupt war profiteering, an… Read full post »

In response to the ACLU’s June 10, 2009 letter demanding that the DoD pull a question from its DoD training exam that equated protest with “low-level terrorism,” which I wrote about at Open Salon on June 14 (“DoD Training Manual: Protests are ‘Low-Level Terrorism’&/… Read full post »

This is a follow-up on my last posting. Today's NY Times reports that the Obama administration is experiencing growing pressure to investigate and prosecute the torturers of the Bush years:

"In the end, aides said, Mr. Obama opted to disclose the memos because his lawyers worried that they… Read full post »

Stephanie Smith, Photo by Ben Garvin, NY Times 

Mad Cow Disease isn’t the only problem.

In the Sunday October 4, 2009 New York Times, a horror story about hazardous hamburger is told by Michael Moss in “Trail of E. Coli Shows Flaws in Inspection of Ground Beef.&… Read full post »

(The photo above is from a collection of photos turned over to Dr. Philip Zimbardo (chief investigator of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment). It is among the photos from Abu Ghraib that have not been released to the public.)

This post is in response to a criticism of my last… Read full post »

On June 12, 2009, Obama’s DOJ filed court papers seeking to overturn a landmark case that permitted the victims of torture to sue the Boeing subsidiary, Jeppensen Data Plan, for its role in “extraordinary rendition” and torture.

The case, Mohamed, et al v. Jeppesen Data Plan, et al/… Read full post »

On Wednesday the Justice Department announced Obama's plans for continuing indefinite detentions of individuals deemed “dangerous” by the government. Note that this is a designation rather than an adjudicated fact because those who are being indefinitely detained in this way are… Read full post »

 New material added 5/16/09 1:20 am EST

These are two of the sixty photographs given to the Australian press previously that the Sydney Morning Herald is publishing now. They may be among the photographs that Obama is now refusing to release. 

Notice that t… Read full post »

Added material at the end - 5/15/09

Obama: "the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further… Read full post »

Rachel Maddow on MSNBC last night interviewed Jane Mayer, New Yorker columnist and author of The Dark Side, a book about Bush and Cheney’s torture policies. Maddow asked Mayer how we can prevent any other presidents from suspending Constitutional rights by simply declaring, on his or her say so… Read full post »

Orlando's problem: No answer to LeBron James.

Cleveland's problem: No answer to Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis. 

While it's almost guaranteed to go seven games, and one never knows beforehand for sure, the edge has to go to Orlando.

LBJ had a franchise playoff record 49 points y… Read full post »

“Our aim is to put you in hell so you will tell the truth. These are the orders we have from our superiors, to turn your lives into hell.”

  — US soldier to Abu Ghraib detainee[i]

Coming out of the woodwork … as if from the woodcut of… Read full post »

The New York Times on March 8, 2009 featured an article entitled “Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of Taliban.” As far as I can tell, the reactions to this story have focused on Obama’s attempts to work with some parts of the Taliban. The bigger story here, how/… Read full post »

The King of Pop is dead. What killed him?

The first answer is that his pop killed him. Joe Jackson's to blame. He's at fault for the perversely abnormal childhood that Michael lived through and that led him to spend the rest of his life trying to have a childhood… Read full post »

UPDATE: Added material at the end 6/3/09 1:10 am EST

Comes now a Defense Department spokesperson, anonymously speaking to Salon’s Mark Benjamin in today’s article entitled “Suppressed images don't show rape, official says: The Pentagon says no sexual abuse, no Abu Ghraib pho… Read full post »

A debate has broken out at my blog around the question of whether or not the chief problem we face in this country can be laid upon the shoulders of individuals (among the public) and their actions or inactions. I thought it best to try to address… Read full post »

Contrary to his public pronouncements about taking the "moral high ground," "restoring due process," ending torture, and that "no one is above the law," the Obama administration yesterday declared that the hundreds of prisoners in Bagram, Afghanistan being held by US forces, and subjected t… Read full post »

[This is a slightly edited version of a talk I gave at a Fundraiser for Iraqi Orphans held on October 17, 2009 in Costa Mesa.]

I want to thank the organizers of this important event. [Sound of plane rumbling overhead]. When I fly out of and back into LA, I… Read full post »

Update: I have added a powerful essay by Rosemary Candelario at the end of Debra's piece. 

By Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait (posted at World Can't Wait and at Counterpunch).

A hero who wore a button saying “Trust Women,” was shot down and killed today, in a d… Read full post »