Barack Obama Defies International Law

An interview with the United Nations Rapporteur for Torture, concerning President Obama’s amnesty for CIA agents, appears in the print edition of a Vienna Austria publication, Der Standard.  Jack M. Balkin has translated the interview into English. 

Standard: In other words, by making this announcement, Obama has violated international law?

Nowak: Correct. It is a violation of binding international treaty law in this case, because this is an international law convention – and it provides unequivocally that states are not merely obligated to make torture a crime, but also to prosecute any incidents of which credible evidence can be found.   Balkinization

Why is it that America’s leaders, regardless of their party affiliation, demand that other nations adhere to International Law and yet continue to flaunt their own distain for it?   Do these political representatives of ours care at all about international law?  I think not.  But I do think that they as leaders of our country are protecting their predecessors from criminal prosecution simply so that they themselves will be protected by their successors.

Yes, I think that they all initiate and encourage criminal acts if they believe it will benefit them during their term in office.  I fully suspect that Obama has already ordered or encouraged something of a criminal nature.  Oh, everyone thinks Obama is so much better than George “The Torturer” Bush in that area, but to my thinking the differences probably are only a few degrees of magnitude and not that Bush did and Obama doesn’t.  Otherwise he would be at the forefront to expose and appropriately punish those that were involved.

 

Previous posts about our country’s use of torture;

https://knotmyline.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/it-looks-like-history-is-repeating-itself/

https://knotmyline.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/bush-administration-pushes-for-control-of-promotions-of-military-lawyers/

https://knotmyline.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/us-cia-tapes-issue-not-for-courts/

https://knotmyline.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/the-evil-legal-mind-behind-the-torture/

https://knotmyline.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/another-sick-twisted-and-evil-legal-mind-in-support-of-torture/

https://knotmyline.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/no-charges-likely/ 

https://knotmyline.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/obama-has-joined-the-ranks-of-torture-advocates/

Obama Has Joined the Ranks of Torture Advocates

 

Seeking to move beyond what he calls a "a dark and painful chapter in our history," President Barack Obama said Thursday that CIA officials who used harsh interrogation tactics during the Bush administration will not be prosecuted.    Top News

Torture, if you are not against it then you clearly are for it. 

There is no grey area when it comes to torture and any other story is simply bullshit!  And the story he is pushing is the worse possible one, he wants to bury the story and not punish those responsible for their criminal acts of ordering, approving and legalizing torture.

So clearly Obama is for torture and thus opposes those who are against it.   This puts him in the same category as Dick “The Prick” Cheney and George “The Torturer” Bush. 

Fuck, fuck fuck! Fucking dirty murdering torturing bastards, political whores, slime, scum and miserable pricks – all of them.

How did Justice Scalia become a bigoted homophobe?

In this post Jack Balkin asks that question:

at what point in history did (or will) Justice Scalia become a homophobe? Balkinization

I think I have a piece of the answer.  I believe that Scalia’s bigotry came about in much the same manner as my own.  We were born at a time in America when bigotry was rampant in our nation.  The KKK was active in many parts of our country and it was an everyday thing for adults to spew their specific bigotry in public and private, with family, with friends, with children, with business associates, at social events, conventions and etc.  There were few places in America where one did not hear cruel bigoted comments on a daily basis.

In my part of the country, northern Wisconsin, we had few African Americans, but we had the local Native American Indians and they were generally treated like dirt. Anyone thought to be homosexual received equal treatment.  So I learned, and I suspect Justice Scalia did also learn, all of the wide array of profanity used by bigots.  How could we not, we heard them on a daily basis and as youngsters it was common for us to use these terms on just about any occasion.

Mother f**king, C**k s**king, ni**er loving, pig f**king wh*re is one I learned to say at a very early age.  Men said that when they dropped a tool while working or when they were discussing someone they disliked.  And they never thought twice about it unless there were ladies present and even then when someone would call them on it they would probably curse out that person as a c**k s**king, mother f**king, qu*er.   As a result, both Justice Scalia and I learned our bigotry from our elders and peers.

But I began to change in my mid teens.  I had made some friends that were Native American, I had spent summers in Chicago where I met a few African Americans.  In my early 20’s I worked side by side with gays and lesbians.  With many of these individuals I found nothing about them to dislike, things to admire and some things to envy.  I began to be very embarrassed by my behavior when the curse words I had learned still flowed from me.  It has been difficult, but gradually, over many years I have used those terms less and less.  But, when angry, even today I find myself saying them about someone I dislike.  When I do even alone at home by myself, I want to eat those words.  But sadly, it seems I may never completely disconnect those terms from my brain for I have been very well trained and I believe so has Justice Scalia.

Scalia seems to have learned, in his adult years, to publically couch his bigotry in a more politically acceptable terms.   But it appears quite evident to me that unlike myself Justice Scalia is not the least embarrassed by his training as a bigot and a homophobe and seems to embrace it.  His rulings on the bench would appear to demonstrate that he delights in his bigotry and has designs to spread that bigotry across our nation.

These are the people that we have hired to fight our wars

 

WASHINGTON – The Army said Wednesday that 7,000 family members of soldiers killed in the Iraq or Afghan wars mistakenly were sent letters addressing them as "John Doe." msnbc.com

I for one am not the least bit surprised at their incompetency. 

From the top down, our military services are being called upon, not to defend our homeland, but to play political games at the expense of many lives, their own and those of the peoples whose homelands we are invading.  Deep down everyone knows that and so they contribute their least.

Then who suffers the consequences? The poor unlucky solider in harms way and in this case their families. Their issues are largely ignored by the the vast unwieldy bureaucracy of the defense department and disinterest by our politicians. They are badly supported at every juncture and tossed away when they no longer serve their purpose.  

 

Related links:

Veterans for Peace

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Rick Warren to give inaugural invocation

 

President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony will feature big names like minister Rick Warren and legendary singer Aretha Franklin, the Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced Wednesday.

Warren, the prominent evangelical and founder of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, will deliver the ceremony’s invocation. The minister hosted a presidential forum at his church last summer that challenged both Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain on a host of faith-related issues. Warren did not endorse either presidential candidate.

His public support for California’s Proposition 8 — the measure that successfully passed and called for outlawing gay marriage in the state — sparked the ire of many gay rights proponents, who seized on a comment in an October newsletter to his congregation: "This is not a political issue — it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about."  CNN Political Ticker

 

I am not the least bit surprised at this.  Earlier this year I wrote of how easy it is for Warren to lie and how Obama’s religion is dangerous. 

Believe me, Obama is just as much of a gay hater and homophobe as Warren.  Why do I say that?  Because he is a jock.  I am a 74 year heterosexual male and all of my life I have listened to jocks use the most vile, degrading and hateful speech when referring to anyone they presume as being gay.  Locker room banter is comprised of three topics; the game, women, and hateful homosexual references. Obama’s basketball locker room probably also includes politics, but I have no doubt of the others.  Obama’s public persona has been to be politically polite to the LGBT community, after all they also contribute to his campaign, but he hardly has been considered a strong defender of them. I seriously doubt his administration will have a strong record of supporting the rights and liberties of LGBT Americans.

I guess I should be happy that McCain / Palin were not elected.  They would probably have chosen Fred Phelps pastor of Westboro Baptist Church and proprietor of the infamous "God Hates Fags" Web site.

Michael Leavitt, Secretary of HHS is an Evil Religious Bigot

He is evil because he has managed to spin his religious bigotry into a regulation that permits, allows, and actually encourages bigotry to be to become a part of the health services of our nation.

He calls it: “A new proposed regulation would increase awareness of, and compliance with, three separate laws protecting federally funded health care providers’ right of conscience.”

Actually what is does is encourage your health provider to impose their unique beliefs on their patients. Read the details here.

I will bet you any sum that he is very proud of this accomplishment and has received many congratulations from his fellow religious bigots. Further, I will bet that few if any religious bigots are not in support of his evil new regulation.

Evil scum sucker of the day and beyond, Michael Leavitt Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Immigration and the Statue of Liberty

Technorati tags: Citizenship, Immigration, Human Rights, America, The Statue of Liberty

I grew up in the small town of Wabeno, Wisconsin.  My earliest memories there are of wooden sidewalks and hitching posts.  We had a consolidated school district that drew from half of the county as well as parts of the county south of us.  Among other things we learned citizenship and U. S. History.  I remember learning this poem and what it meant to the vast majority of the people in this country.  My teachers emphasized that Americans were people from all other countries and the road they traveled to get to this country was littered with the bodies of those who were somehow prevented from getting here, often by the leaders of their original country.  It is a tragedy that today’s Americans are not taught the same respect for our immigrants.

A poem by Emma Lazarus is graven on a tablet within the pedestal on which the statue stands.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Apparently to many of today’s Americans this poem has no meaning at all.  

US: CIA tapes issue not for courts

Technorati tags: Fascism, Criminals, Evil, Bush "The Torturer", Human Rights, Opinion, Villians, Civil Liberties

The Justice Department on Friday urged the federal courts to stay out of the current controversy over the CIA’s public admission that it has destroyed videotapes of aggressive interrogations of terrorist suspects.

“In light of the current inquiries by the political branches into the destruction of the tapes…, it would not be appropriate to institute a judicial inquiry,” the Department told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy of Washington, D.C.  Such an inquiry is not “needed at all,” it said.      SCOTUSblog

Here is some more Fascism 101.  Bush “The Torturer” desperately wants he and his fascist minions to never have to answer for their criminal acts.  He and they know that they are well on they way to accomplishing this if they can keep it out of the U.S. Court system.  When are the decent people in the Republican and Democratic parties going to stop this evil criminal want-to-be dictator and his ilk?  Folks, don’t for a minute think that all this is going away when Bush “The Torturer” leaves office.  This struggle against he and his kind will continue, mainly because for the past many years too many Americans have been willing to look the other way.

Bush administration pushes for control of promotions of military lawyers

Technorati tags: Fascism, Criminals, Human Rights, Evil, Bush "the Torturer", Opinion, Villains

The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House’s policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.       The Boston Globe

The fascist approach to governing the American public remains the underlying philosophy of Bush “The Torturer” and his minions.  This is hardly the politics of the Republican party I grew up with.  Where the hell did these people learn to think like this?   Certainly they did not acquire this evil mind set in the liberal educational system that conservatives have been grousing about since I was a child. 

My suspicion is they learned it in their religious institutions.  Religious organizations are perfect examples of fascism at work.   They are a totally top down military hierarchy.  The people in charge actually control everything.  They will oust anyone within the organization that challenges their authority.  In the olden days the ousted person could easily end up dead.  The leaders are a bit more subtle than that these days, but the effect is largely the same.

It Looks like history is repeating itself.

Technorati tags: Fascism, Supreme Court, George W. Bush, torture, criminals, States Secrets Privlege, Fascist

 

Good News for American Fascists!!

U. S. Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal in CIA torture case

A German citizen who says he was kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured overseas by the CIA lost his appeal on Tuesday when the Supreme Court refused to review a decision dismissing the case because it would expose state secrets.     Reuters

Fascists all over the world and especially those here in the United States are celebrating the “decision” of the Bush packed neo-fascist Supreme Court to hear the appeal of Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent.   The cowardly members of the court unanimously agreed to allow Bush to continue with the degradation, murder, maiming and torture of whomever he and his minions choose to.

Beware folks, soon they will come for us.   Apparently, someone came for the Supreme Court because not a one of them spoke out against this.  I wonder why!   No, I don’t wonder.  But I can guess that they all were approached by Bush’s mafia and cautioned about the consequences of opposing the “State Secrets Privilege“. (More about State Secrets)

In my mind anyone with a secret is hiding something that will embarrass or more likely will indict them with a crime.  When the government does it, I immediately  know that a serious crime has been committed.  If I am to believe otherwise, then the government must prove otherwise.  Especially, this administration which has repeated invoked the use of the States Secrets Privilege.  If you do not believe that is fascism, then check out the official definition.