Month: December 2014

ACLU proposes a preemptive pardon to the Bush-Cheney regime for illegal torture

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I have long made my position clear on the war crimes of the Bush-Cheney regime. The architects of illegal torture deserve to be prosecuted under the Nuremberg Principles for their war crimes, at least at a minimum, prosecuted under U.S. law and international conventions prohibiting torture.

America needs to demonstrate to the world that we are capable of holding our own accountable for their heinous crimes to restore our honor and moral standing in the world.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), proposes what I consider to be an unacceptable half-measure in a  New York Times op-ed today. Pardon Bush and Those Who Tortured:

BEFORE President George W. Bush left office, a group of conservatives lobbied the White House to grant pardons to the officials who had planned and authorized the United States torture program. My organization, the American Civil Liberties Union, found the proposal repugnant. Along with eight other human rights groups, we sent a letter to Mr. Bush arguing that granting pardons would undermine the rule of law and prevent Americans from learning what had been done in their names.

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But with the impending release of the report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I have come to think that President Obama should issue pardons, after all — because it may be the only way to establish, once and for all, that torture is illegal.

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Senate Intelligence Committee releases report on illegal torture

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Back in April I posted about the Senate Intelligence Committee Report: CIA lied about illegal torture.

After months of delays from the CIA, congressional intelligence committees and members of Congress, an unclassified summary of the 6,300 page Senate Intelligence Committee classified report was finally released today. The New York Times reports, Senate Torture Report Condemns C.I.A. Interrogation Program:

UnknownA scathing report (.pdf) released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday found that the Central Intelligence Agency routinely misled the White House and Congress about the information it obtained from the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects, and that its methods were more brutal than the C.I.A. acknowledged either to Bush administration officials or to the public.

(Image of Ali Shallal al-Qaisi being tortured at Abu Ghraib prison).

The long-delayed report, which took five years to produce and is based on more than six million internal agency documents, is a sweeping indictment of the C.I.A.’s operation and oversight of a program carried out by agency officials and contractors in secret prisons around the world in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It also provides a macabre accounting of some of the grisliest techniques that the C.I.A. used to torture and imprison terrorism suspects.

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Play at Playground Games

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Press release from the UA Confluencecenter for Creative Inquiry:

PLAYGROUND GAMES: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10

7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m.

Two research units at the University of Arizona are teaming up to play matchmaker. The Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry (CCI) and the Institute of the Environment (IE) are hosting a live game show-like event Playground Games—think  speed-dating meets Shark Tank, but with an academic spin—from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 10 on the roof of the Playground Bar & Lounge in downtown Tucson. The faculty contestants are divided into interdisciplinary teams that will speed-network, plan a project, and pitch their ideas to a panel of three judges and the audience. Two winning teams will be funded before the fast-paced night is over!

Drawing on IE’s Art and Environment initiative and CCI’s collaborative and interdisciplinary endeavors, the night will bring together faculty who didn’t necessarily know each other beforehand. The groups will be formed, randomly, on the spot. When you get brilliant people together on a roof, sparks can fly!

The judges will evaluate the project pitches and the audience will help make the final decision on which teams are funded. Audience participation space is limited, so RSVP here today!

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UA School of Theatre, Film & TV presents “What’s Up Docs?”

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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10 AT 7:00PM | FREE ADMISSION! Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd. Presented by the University of Arizona’s School of Theatre, Film and Television Come see your world as you’ve never seen it before! This year’s What’s Up, Docs? program features short documentaries from the UA School of Theatre, Film & Television about … Read more

(Update) Our lawless legislature asserts the ‘impossibility’ defense to inflation adjusted education appropriations

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Howard Fischer reported last week, State asks court to deny $1 billion owed to schools:

Attorneys for state lawmakers are urging a judge to reject a request by Arizona schools for more than $1 billion in inflation funding they were not given, saying it’s impossible and would wreck the budget.

The legal team headed by Bill Richards points out the state is already looking at a $1 billion deficit for the coming budget year, which includes an extra $336 million in funding Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper already ordered the state to start paying.

The order obligates the state for similar amounts every year from now on to restore school funding to where it should have been had lawmakers not illegally withheld inflation funds in the first place.

“The only conclusion that can be drawn from the current deficit situation is that the state does not have funds available to pay the retroactive amounts demanded by the plaintiffs,” the state legal filling says. “And such relief is legally and factually impossible.”

But Don Peters, who represents the schools, says that’s a lie. He said there are two clear options.

One is to further cut existing spending on other things to do this,” Peters said, adding quickly that the schools he represents are not specifically advocating that or any particular solution.

cryingteabagbaby“The other obvious way of getting the money is to increase revenues, meaning hiking taxes, he said.

Acknowledging that is not an option the Legislature is likely to favor, Peters said, “‘I don’t want to’ is not a legal defense.”

Mr. Peters is correct. When the promisor (legislature) caused contract performance to be impossible or if it were foreseeable, or predictable that contract performance would have become impossible, the promisor is not entitled to the defense of impossibility. Nor is it factually impossible. As Mr. Peters points out, the legislature can raise taxes — and is in fact constitutionally obligated to do so.

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