August 2009

Blogosphere Drafting of Bush Torture Indictment

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I’ve drafted an indictment of Bush for torture and posted it here
http://afterdowningstreet.org/indictment

But I need your help before sending it to a prosecutor.

This is a joint effort to draft the best possible indictment of Bush for torture.

While we can and have drafted indictments and articles of impeachment for Bush for many crimes worse than torture, and while a torture conspiracy could include many people beyond Bush, this project is simply Bush and simply torture.

Will you help by posting read more

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Holder's Bad Applism and Our Own

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By David Swanson
(with image by Michael Parenti)

Attorney General Eric Holder is addressing a war crime without addressing the wars, and is focusing on the lowest ranking participants in that crime without addressing its status as official policy established by higher ups and openly confessed to by a former president and vice president. This is bad applism, the same approach that has held a handful of recruits responsible for Abu Ghraib, claiming to thereby remove bad apples from a good system. read more

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Bush Tortured

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By David Swanson

It seems almost trivial to accuse someone who launched an illegal war that has killed over a million people of torture. But if we are going to prosecute the lowest ranked torturers, it makes sense to look up the chain of command.

There is no doubt that George W. Bush conspired to commit torture, cruel and inhuman treatment, and murder. How do I know? He said so.

In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union, Bush said: “All told more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been read more

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What Happened When Single-Payer Was Uninvited

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I blogged earlier about astroturfing on the left and a healthcare rally at which AFSCME chose to uninvite anyone supporting single-payer. The result was a rally at which half the crowd had single-payer signs, and the local TV stations reported on a debate between single-payer and the public option, as if no other position (such as nuts screaming about death panels) existed. TV reporters just need two sides, they don’t care which two sides or whether they’re leaving out a third or read more

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Govt-Funded Reporter Urged Lynching of Black Congresswoman

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By David Swanson

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney sent an Email around on Sunday in which she wrote:

“[I]t has just now come to my attention that a ‘journalist’ who suggested that I be lynched was actually being paid by our own government to say that. Now, when I reported it to the FBI, how in the world was I to know that he was at that time on the FBI’s payroll?”

“Hate blogger” Hal Turner’s lawyer said last week, and prosecutors agreed, that Turner read more

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People Believe War Lies Because They Want the War to Have a Justification?

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Here’s a study that concludes that many Americans believed Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 because they wanted there to be a reason for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and that was the easiest one available that they’d heard somewhere. The article writes this up rather simplisticly. This does not actually change the fact that the president lied or the PIPA study finding that viewers of different media read more

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Astroturfing on the Left

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By David Swanson

We’ve grown accustomed to recognizing astroturfing on the right. A corporate lobbyist sends letters to congress members forging the signatures and letterhead of local grassroots groups. Oil corporations create front groups to generate town-hall presence against legislation that could slow climate change. Health insurance companies fund “grassroots” activists to speak for them. Fox News encourages and exaggerates support for whatever the Republican Party tells read more

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9 Months Later Obama's List of 200 Bush Orders to Be Reversed Still Unseen

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Remeber this on November 9th?

“Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone….”

Has anyone yet heard what more than a dozen of these could have been? What counts as swift around here?

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"Stop Criticizing Obama, He Might Get Assassinated!"

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That’s the message to progressives from this progressive website. The ignorance is staggering. It is where criticism is not permitted that people resort to violence, and the criticism from the left is criticism of bad and corrupted policies, not — like that from the right — accusations of being foreign, evil, and demonic. We should read more

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