Dozens of countries hit by hacks using stolen NSA tools.

Courtesy of the New York Times: 

Hackers exploiting malicious software stolen from the National Security Agency executed damaging cyberattacks on Friday that hit dozens of countries worldwide, forcing Britain’s public health system to send patients away, freezing computers at Russia’s Interior Ministry and wreaking havoc on tens of thousands of computers elsewhere. 

The attacks amounted to an audacious global blackmail attempt spread by the internet and underscored the vulnerabilities of the digital age. 

Transmitted via email, the malicious software locked British hospitals out of their computer systems and demanded ransom before users could be let back in — with a threat that data would be destroyed if the demands were not met. 

By late Friday the attacks had spread to more than 74 countries, according to security firms tracking the spread. Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity firm, said Russia was the worst-hit, followed by Ukraine, India and Taiwan. Reports of attacks also came from Latin America and Africa. 

The attacks appeared to be the largest ransomware assault on record, but the scope of the damage was hard to measure. It was not clear if victims were paying the ransom, which began at about $300 to unlock individual computers, or even if those who did pay would regain access to their data. 

Finally this hack was stopped by a British blogger who triggered a "kill switch" and essentially turned it off.

Of course Edward Snowden was quick to jump in and blame the whole thing on the NSA.

If @NSAGov had privately disclosed the flaw used to attack hospitals when they *found* it, not when they lost it, this may not have happened https://t.co/lhApAqB5j3

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) May 12, 2017

However let me point out once again that many of these hacks are directly related to the NSA tools that Snowden smuggled out of the country and which ended up in the hands of the Russians.

I know that there are still some Snowden apologists who refuse to believe he is not a hero, but the evidence of his crimes are all around us.

Snowden took sensitive data from the intelligence agency designed to protect America, and let it fall into the hands of those who want to cause harm to America, and other countries as well. 

And Hollywood even made a fucking movie about him.

President Obama is going to prison. Before you conservatives get all excited you should know he is just visiting.

Photo courtesy of Politico

Courtesy of The Christian Science Monitor:  

On Thursday, President Obama will become the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. 

Mr. Obama will travel to Oklahoma's El Reno Correctional Institution, home to Jason Hernandez – a prisoner convicted on drug charges who had his life sentence commuted by Obama in 2013, reports Vice News. 

The trip, which will be recorded for a Vice documentary airing on HBO this fall, comes amidst the Obama administration’s broader efforts towards creating what it sees as a fairer US criminal justice system, mostly in response to tougher drug laws that disproportionately imprisoned minorities. 

The New York Times reports that in the coming weeks, Obama is expected to issue orders freeing dozens of federal prisoners locked up on nonviolent drug offenses, possibly taking the total number of commutations under his presidency to more than 80. 

This will mean he will probably commute more sentences at one time than any president has in nearly half a century. 

Good for President Obama. 

We may in fact have just about the least fair justice system on the planet, and minorities often get longer sentences than whites, and are locked up for increasingly minor offenses.

If President Obama could actually have a significant impact on our correctional system that alone would lock down his legacy. Not that the man who ended two wars, saved the economy, and brought health care to millions necessarily needs another feather in his cap.

The politicians of Wasilla, Alaska, making people around the world happy they don't have to live there.

I found this quote the other day from an Alaska state senator who hails from Wasilla, over at Crooks and Liars who posted it under the headline "What In The Hell Is In Wasilla Water, Anyway?"

Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, offered what he called a “completely seat of the pants” observation at a Senate State Affairs Committee meeting during the introduction of a criminal justice reform bill. 

“With some degree of confidence, I think that by the time particularly young men, but maybe young men and women, are in middle school, we can already predict the ones we need to get their DNA samples,” Huggins told a room that included the state’s corrections commissioner, Ron Taylor. “Because they’re going to go see Mr. Taylor in a few years. That’s unfortunate but it’s all too true.” 

It appeared that he thought DNA samples from the suspect middle school students should be taken so that they can be compared later with samples taken at crime scenes or from crime victims.

Yeah nothing like rounding up a bunch of Middle School kids and taking a sample of their DNA, without permission from their parents, and stomping all over their constitution rights in order to save a little legwork if they someday become a suspect in a crime, right?

Of course this is not at all surprising for those of us familiar with the people of Wasilla. After all Sarah Palin is certainly not the only moron to emerge from that batshit crazy environment.

I particalry like the title of this article as it reminds of something that Dennis Zaki used to say when he lived with his son out in that area.

Dennis was convinced that there was something in the water that was making people stupid and decided to uproot his family and leave before his son, who tests at the genius level, became too dumbed down to tie his own shoes.

Looks like he might have been on to something. 

German human rights group files criminal complaint against Bush Administration in wake of torture report.

Courtesy of Democracy Now:  

A human rights group in Berlin, Germany, has filed a criminal complaint against the architects of the George W. Bush administration’s torture program. The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights has accused former Bush administration officials, including CIA Director George Tenet and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, of war crimes, and called for an immediate investigation by a German prosecutor. The move follows the release of a Senate report on CIA torture which includes the case of a German citizen, Khalid El-Masri, who was captured by CIA agents in 2004 due to mistaken identity and tortured at a secret prison in Afghanistan. So far, no one involved in the CIA torture program has been charged with a crime — except the whistleblower John Kiriakou, who exposed it. We speak to Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and chairman of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, and longtime defense attorney Martin Garbus.

So here's my question.

Are we going to allow ourselves to be shown up by the Germans? 

After all we have several human rights groups here in America, so what in the hell is the holdup?

Highest ranking Vatican official ever investigated for sex abuse found to have tens of thousands of child porn videos and pictures on his computer.

Courtesy of the International Business Times: 

A former Vatican archbishop accused of paedophilia stored tens of thousands of child porn videos and photos on a computer in his office at the Holy See diplomatic compound in the Dominican Republic, it has emerged. 

Details of Jozef Wesolowski's massive child porn stash have been revealed after the 66-year-old was arrested at the Vatican earlier this week. 

He is the highest-ranking Vatican official ever to be investigated for sex abuse, and the first top papal representative to receive a defrocking sentence. He has been charged with sexually abusing minors and child porn possession and might face up to seven years in the Vatican's tiny jail. 

Vatican detectives analysed the PC Wesolowski used in his office in Santo Domingo, where he served as Holy See envoy from 2008 to 2012 as part of an investigation into the alleged sexual abuse of underage boys. 

The probe reportedly revealed a collection of horrors. The Polish native held more than 100,000 sexually-explicit files, Il Corriere della Sera newspaper reported. 

Some 160 videos showing teenage boys forced to perform sexual acts on themselves and on adults and more than 86,000 pornographic photos were meticulously archived in several category-based folders, the paper said. 

Investigators said that at least another 45,000 pictures were deleted, while a second stash of material was found on a laptop Wesolowski used during his trips abroad.

You know I think we are WAY past the time when we can simply chalk all of these Catholic priest sex crimes to a mere coincidence that so many pedophiles decided on their own to enter the priesthood simply as a way to keep themselves away from temptation or to fight their "sinful" urges through prayer, and to entertain the possibility that some of them either entered the priesthood well aware that they could satisfy their urges behind the protection of the church, or that they were in fact recruited by other pedophile priests in order to develop a brotherhood who would watch each others backs.

There is a database of publicly accused priests in the United States alone. And if you visit it you are immediately overwhelmed by the vast number of priests who have been accused of sexually abusing minors in this country. And of course that does not take into account the even larger number of accused or convicted priests from all around the world.

At this point it just seems to me that this was an organization that not only accepted a certain deviant lifestyle, but may in fact have welcomed it or, dare I say, promoted it.

Just for a moment ask yourself whether or not if this same scandal had befallen a Fortune 500 company, famous sports team, or political party, would any of those have manged to survived intact?

In my opinion, no.

And the fact that the Catholic church still stands, and continues to reveal that it is infested with this type of individual, I think speaks to the fact that the church leaders have really done nothing to rid themselves of any potential predators and have instead simply closed ranks and hidden behind the cloak of religious authority which has protected them for centuries.

And if something does not change there are undoubtedly more children who will suffer at the hands of an unrepentant organization that cares more for its access to power and reputation as a religious juggernaut than it does for those it claims to want to protect and steer toward a sinless life.

Tea Party leader upset that criminals, especially black criminals, "are given the benefit of the doubt." Bonus: He's is also black.

Courtesy Raw Story:  

In video captured by Right Wing Watch, Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) and the South Central L.A. Tea Party, described both Brown and Martin as “thugs,” and said that criminals in America, “especially black criminals,” are let off too easily. 

“I’ve said from day one that Michael Brown is a thug,” Peterson explained before asserting that he must be a criminal by nothing “the fact that he was running from the cops, period, because good folks do not run from police officers, they follow their instructions.” 

He added, “I just think that it’s a shame that, in America today, that criminals are given the benefit of the doubt – especially black criminals because white criminals are not – but black criminals are given the benefit of the doubt and the police officers are the suspects. I don’t know what has happened to my country."

Peterson introduced Trayvon Martin –shot and killed by George Zimmerman in 2012– into the conversation, stating, “This guys was a thug, he grew up without both parents in the home. When you look at his Facebook page, he has a gun in his hand, smoking marijuana, has tattoos, had been thrown out of school. The guy’s a thug. Why are we protecting thugs?” 

 I will assume that this idiot does not understand the idea of innocent until proven guilty.

And how is it that a black man in America does not understand why fellow minorities might run from the police even if not guilty?

But then I guess of you were to be a Tea Party leader a prerequisite would have to be an incredible lack of knowledge concerning just about everything.

In just one month?

I first have to explain that this graphic, which somebody posted on Reddit, is not entirely accurate.

According to this source, two of the pastors were charged with sexual battery, one embezzled funds to pay for his prostitution habit, two were simply a peeping toms, and one hired a couple to burn down his house with his wife trapped inside.

So that means that out of twenty five, six are not pedophiles, but still incredibly creepy, abusive, and in one case homicidal.

The other nineteen are indeed nasty men who raped or sexually assaulted underage children.

You know yesterday I sort of tongue in cheek suggested that if you wanted to connect a certain demographic to pedophilia, that it would be more appropriate to avoid any homosexual connection, and instead focus on the stronger one between fundamentalist Christians and child rapists.

Today my tongue is not even touching my cheek.

Outgoing White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has just about the best response possible to criticism from Dick Cheney on Obama's handling of Iraq.

Courtesy of Mediaite:

During his final briefing on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney got in a jab at Dick Cheney after the former vice president wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many” with regards to Iraq and Middle East policy. 

“Which president was he talking about?” Carney zinged as ABC reporter Jon Karl read off the quote, prompting laughter from the packed room. “I believe he was talking about President Obama,” Karl joked back. 

 Carney ultimately settled with this response: “He’s entitled to his opinion.”

The idea that anybody should seriously listen to anything Cheney has to say about Iraq is being universally dismissed. 

From the New York Times: 

This, from the man who helped lead us into this trumped-up war, searching for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, a war in which some 4,500 members of the American military were killed, many thousands more injured, and that is running a tab of trillions of dollars.

To the Washington Post:  

When it comes to being wrong about Iraq, Dick Cheney has been in a class by himself. It was Cheney who said, “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” 

It was Cheney who said: “it’s been pretty well confirmed” that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta “did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service.” 

It was Cheney who said: “we do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon” 

It was Cheney who said in 2005: “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” 

All those things, and many more, were false. There is not a single person in America — not Bill Kristol, not Paul Wolfowitz, not Don Rumsfeld, no pundit, not even President Bush himself — who has been more wrong and more shamelessly dishonest on the topic of Iraq than Dick Cheney.

And even, believe it or not, over at Fox News:

 “In your op-ed [in the Wall Street Journal], you write as follows: ‘Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,” Kelly said on her show “The Kelly File.” “But time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well sir.” 

And while all of that is good, it is really not good enough. 

Good enough would be seeing Dick Cheney giving interviews from behind bars.

Good enough would be seeing the entire Bush Administration prosecuted for war crimes.

Good enough would be the Republican party admitting publicly that they helped lie a nation into war and lose their standing as a political party of worth in this country.

It would not bring back the thousands of dead American soldiers, nor the hundreds of thousands dead Iraqis, but at least it might do something to keep such a travesty from ever happening again.

Christian colleges often advertise themselves as bastions of morality where crimes like rape could not occur. The truth is that they do, and they are even worse.

Courtesy of Reality Check:  

President Obama recently announced an initiative to curb rape on campuses across the United States. It is a well-known problem that rapes and sexual assaults that happen on campus are often handled in-house, without police interference. Often, there is little to no punishment for the rapists, and their victims are made to feel shame and guilt for reporting at all. 

Fundamentalist and evangelical Christians often hold up these kinds of stories as examples of how “the world” is corrupt. Christian colleges bank on the idea that they are safer because they are a faith-based environment—the sexual sins of rape supposedly don’t happen on their campuses. 

A number of recent revelations have proven this assertion wrong. From Bob Jones University to Pensacola to Cedarville to Patrick Henry to Hyles-Anderson College, Christian colleges are plagued by accusations at once familiar and strange: College counselors asking rape victims leading questions about their potential guilt, a lack of reporting to authorities, and failure to punish the rapist are all problems known to those who study incidences of rape at colleges and universities. 

But in the Christian environment, the fundamentalist theology surrounding sexual activity and purity creates another layer of shame and guilt. A theology that positions the colleges as better and safer than their secular counterparts also creates an environment in which a person coming forward about rape risks being seen as “impure” and “broken.” 

For example, (Samantha) Field recently reported that in 2003 another Pensacola Christian College student was attacked by her then-boyfriend, bound and gagged, and left in a construction site on campus after being raped. The student sought the help of a school counselor, but instead of receiving needed help and victim services, she was expelled for being a “fornicator.” She left campus while her injuries from the rape—a bruised face and a broken arm—were still healing. (The school’s president said in a recent statement that the school “has upheld the law, will continue to uphold the law, reports criminal acts when we are made knowledgeable of them, and fully cooperates with any investigation.” In response, Field wrote that she had heard directly from “a PCC staffer who was expressly forbidden—by three people in the administration—from reporting a child sexual assault to the police and [was] informed [by those three individuals] … that they would not make a report.” She says this “was confirmed by other staffers.” She acknowledges that it was not illegal, in 2011, for the school not to report the assault.) 

The student’s expulsion and treatment by the college is directly tied to the perceived sin of having sex outside of marriage. It was apparently considered worse that she was now “impure” than that she had been raped. To her knowledge, her rapist was never confronted or punished, and went on to graduate.

Rape is nothing new on college campuses and in fact that was what first inspired me to teach a women's self defense class while attending college in Hawaii back in the early 80's.

However in this day and age one would think that rape would be handled with much more delicacy, and that women (or men) who had been victimized could expect their school to seek to bring their assailant to justice and take great pains to make sure there would be no more sexual assaults.

Of course for that to happen they would first have to understand the nature of rape, and recognize that it was not a sexual act, but rather a criminal act based on power, not desire.

And of course for Christian schools, they need to stop thinking of their female students as the sinful descendants of Eve, and think of them instead as actual human beings deserving of at least as much respect and protection as their male counterparts.

Or perhaps more. 

The American arms race, sponsored by our old friends the NRA.

Courtesy of Versus News:  

The NRA and its gun-absolutist cohorts have set up a domestic arms race: They promote laws that make it easy for criminals to get guns and then use the threat of armed criminals to persuade law-abiding citizens into buying guns for self-defense—to complete the cycle, these groups then use law-abiding citizens’ fear of not being able to defend themselves in order to convince them to support the very deregulation which made the problem in the first place. 

This constantly escalating domestic arms race leads to huge profits for the people who make the guns but results in the USA being flooded with dangerous weapons. The gun manufacturers make money regardless of whether the person buying a gun is an offense-minded criminal or a defense-minded law-abiding citizen. In fact, the economic interests of gun manufacturers lie with both types of people purchasing their product and adding to their profits. 

By creating increased demand for their goods on both sides of the law and blocking any attempts to prevent criminals from buying weapons—the NRA even fights to let accused terrorists buy guns—the gun industry ensures that there is always somebody looking to buy a gun. 

If one is to disregard morality and simple human decency in pursuit of profits, this business strategy is extremely effective and well-designed—they have maximized the number of people who are buying guns without having to admit to the fact that they are promoting the problem which people are all afraid of. 

This situation is analogous to an arms manufacturer selling weapons to both a peaceful democracy and an autocracy with a history of aggression (ex. South and North Korea, respectively). In order to increase their business, this arms manufacturer could sell weapons to the autocracy under the table, then go to the democracy and point out that their violent neighbor is getting enough weapons to be a threat. Because of this threat, the democracy would be compelled to buy weapons in order to balance the threat of their law-less neighbor.

This is precisely what the NRA is doing. Precisely!

They absolutely LOVE IT when there is a mass shooting. It scares people, and the NRA is right there to tell them that in order to feel safe all they need is a warm gun. (The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun, is a good guy with bigger gun.)

This of course encourages MORE gun purchases, and eventually more guns in the hands of criminals and crazy people. So of course it is not long before another horrific shooting takes place, and the cycle continues.

I am not sure if we are going to see any movement on the gun control front any time soon. But I still hold out hope that as the country moves further and further away from the conservative mindset that the support for the NRA will also dry up, and perhaps then we can do something permanent about reducing the number of guns on the street and the ease with which people who have no business owning one gain access to them.

Blogger files Freedom of Information Act request to finally determine how many Atheists are in the prison system. Answer will blow your mind.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist: 

Earlier this month, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Bureau of Prisons asking them about the religious makeup of prisoners. Over the weekend, to my surprise, I received a response. 

Not only did they have the information, they gave me a faith-by-faith breakdown. 

So… what do we learn from that information? 

Of the prisoners willing to give their religious affiliations (and that’s an important caveat), atheists make up 0.07% of the prison population. 

Not 1%. 

Not even the 0.2% we’ve been using for so long. 

Atheists constitute an even smaller percentage of the prison population than we ever imagined. (That includes prisoners whose affiliations were unknown. If I used Golumbaski’s method, the number would be 0.09%.) 

In addition to that, Protestants make up 28.7% of the prison population; Catholics, 24%; Muslims, 5.5%; American Indians, 3.1%. 

Okay now of course we all know that there is such a thing as prison conversion, so some of the people identified as one religion or another  may have come in unaffiliated or without muhc religious instruction to speak of.

However I will go on record as saying that I don't believe that too many of those converted started out as Atheists, for the simple fact that being an Atheist usually requires a great deal of research and self evaluation.

It is not something that a person would casually identify themselves as, esepcially in America.

So while I am not willing to say that it never happens that an Atheist is converted to religion in prison, I am fairly confident that it is not the most common of conversions to occur.

Having said that I would simply add that with the number of Atheists being so incredibly low it would seem to indicate that either there are fewer Atheists breaking the law than those who claim to be religious, regardless of which religion, or that there are just as many Atheists breaking the law, but they are too intelligent to get caught.

I tend to think that it is the first.

And remember these are people who do the right thing, NOT for fear of punishment of eternal damnation, but because doing the right thing, is the right thing to do.

Immoral minority my ass!

Upton Sinclair had the Republican party's number decades ago.

Not an honest or ethical man among them.

Like a who's who of "WTF?"

Rand Paul pulls a 180 on drone strikes directed at American citizens: "If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and $50 in cash, I don’t care if a Drone kills him or a policeman kills him." Wait, what?

"Shh, don't wake it, it's sleeping."

Courtesy of The Hill:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he would have supported police using drones in last week's hunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombing. 

"If there is a killer on the loose in a neighborhood, I’m not against drones being used to search them," Paul told Fox Business Network. 

Last month, Paul conducted a nearly 13-hour filibuster on the Senate floor after the Obama Administration said in a letter that it was theoretically possible for President Obama to authorize a lethal drone strike on an American citizen under "extraordinary circumstances." The administration subsequently clarified that they did not believe the president had the authority to "use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat." 

Paul said that the question of an "imminent threat" was the pivotal one when considering drone policy. 

“Here’s the distinction — I have never argued against any technology being used against having an imminent threat an act of crime going on," Paul said. "If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and $50 in cash, I don’t care if a Drone kills him or a policeman kills him, but it’s different if they want to come fly over your hot tub, or your yard just because they want to do surveillance on everyone, and they want to watch your activities." 

Okay that "imminent threat" excuse does not hold any water in my opinion. What really seems to be the case is that Paul is perfectly fine with killing people, he just doesn't want anybody to spy on him while he is soaking his tiny Libertarian member in the hot tub.

Paul got ALL kinds of positive praise for holding in his urine for 13 hours to complain about the use of drone strikes,  which culminated with libertarians, college kids, and desperate pro-war Republicans throwing confetti all over his hairpiece.

But as far as I am concerned this statement the other day COMPLETELY undermines his argument, and provides ready made political advertisements for his future opponents.

And Paul, seeming to realize this, attempted to walk back his comments:

“My comments last night left the mistaken impression that my position on drones had changed. 

“Let me be clear: it has not. Armed drones should not be used in normal crime situations. They only may only be considered in extraordinary, lethal situations where there is an ongoing, imminent threat. I described that scenario previously during my Senate filibuster. 

“Additionally, surveillance drones should only be used with warrants and specific targets. 

“Fighting terrorism and capturing terrorists must be done while preserving our constitutional protections. This was demonstrated last week in Boston. As we all seek to prevent future tragedies, we must continue to bear this in mind.”

 No his comments did not "leave the impression" that his "opinions had changed." They stated it outright!  Or, to play devil's advocate, they demonstrated an example of blatant hypocrisy.

In other words it is NOT okay for the President to use drones, but totally cool for local law enforcement to use them to gun down a guy with a bottle of stolen Jack Daniels in one hand and a fifty dollar bill in the other. How's THAT work?

Look I am not a fan of the use of drones either, though to be fair I much prefer them over having our soldiers coming home in body bags. And I appreciate the fact that this conversation about the appropriate use of drones has started. (You can see Alex Wagner's report on yesterday's Senate hearings on drone strikes here.)

However if Rand Paul thinks that he is still the "go to guy" on the appropriate use of this new technology he is fooling himself

As for the drones being used on American soil, unlike Rand Paul I am MUCH more at ease with the idea of them flying over my hot tub than having them open fire on American citizens. Somehow the idea of the government sneaking a peek at my trouser snake is much preferable to the idea that they might instead shoot it off.

But hey, that's just me.

Nonpartisan group finds that, without a doubt, the Bush administration is guilty of torture. Somebody organize a jury while I get some rope.

"Yeah, so we broke the law and used torture, What are ya gonna do about it?" 

Courtesy of Raw Story:

A nonpartisan group led by a former top Bush administration official concluded a two-year review on Tuesday that finds the former president and his top advisers knowingly ordered interrogation techniques that U.S. officials have previously referred to as torture. 

“After conducting our own two-year investigation, weighing the credibility of all sources and studying the current public record, we have come to the regrettable, but unavoidable, conclusion that the United States did indeed engage in conduct that is clearly torture,” former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), who served as undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, said in an advisory. 

The 577-page review, put together by the advocacy group The Constitution Project, includes interviews with dozens of people who have first-hand knowledge of the discussions about interrogation techniques and their implementation. Although Bush administration loyalists said at the time that “enhanced interrogation tactics” like stress positions, waterboarding, mock executions, sensory deprivation and prolonged diapering were not torture, this report aims to specifically and finally emphasize that these activities meet the clinical definition of “torture.” 

“As long as the debate continues, so too does the possibility that the United States could again engage in torture,” the report says, according to The New York Times, which received an advance copy. 

“What sets the United States apart as a world leader, in addition to our military might, are our values and respect for the rule of law. All the available evidence led us to conclude that, for many of these detainees, the U.S. violated both international law and treaties and our own laws, greatly diminishing America’s ability to forge important alliances around the world,” former Rep. James R. Jones (D-OK) added in the group’s advisory. 

The report also notes dozens of instances in which U.S. officials and U.S courts treated similar tactics as torture when applied to U.S. persons, and urges the Obama administration to declassify a 6,000-page Senate report on the extent of torture’s use during the Bush years. 

“This has not been an easy inquiry for me, because I know many of the players,” Hutchinson told The New York Times. “But I just think we learn from history. It’s incredibly important to have an accurate account not just of what happened but of how decisions were made.” 

Okay so now that this report is finished and it leaves NO doubt that the Bush administration engaged in criminal activities. let's have the whole slimy bunch of them arrested for treason.

All criminal investigations into the Bush torture program have been called off by the Obama administration.

Fuck!

So nothing. These bastards destroy our reputation, lie us into two unnecessary wars, spy on our citizens, and damn near near bankrupt the country, and nothing happens to them?

No of course not. But just let President Obama fail to leave a tip after eating lunch and the impeachment hearings will commence posthaste.

Fucking Republicans!

Introducing armed guards into school will not make them safer, but it will increase racial discrimination and put more students into the school-to-prison pipeline.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

The article, by Erik Eckholm, surveyed the rise of “school resource officers” (policemen or non-police armed guards) in American school districts since the late 1990s. Eckholm found little to suggest that officers had made schools safer; he quotes University of Maryland school crime expert Denise C. Gottfredson as saying “There is no evidence that placing officers in the schools improves safety.” She concludes, moreover, that “it increases the number of minor behavior problems that are referred to the police, pushing kids into the criminal system.” 

Eckholm assembles ample evidence to support this conclusion: 

Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of students are arrested or given criminal citations at schools each year. A large share are sent to court for relatively minor offenses, with black and Hispanic students and those with disabilities disproportionately affected, according to recent reports from civil rights groups, including the Advancement Project, in Washington, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in New York. 

Such criminal charges may be most prevalent in Texas, where police officers based in schools write more than 100,000 misdemeanor tickets each yearaid Deborah Fowler, the deputy director of Texas Appleseed, a legal advocacy center in Austin. The students seldom get legal aid, she noted, and they may face hundreds of dollars in fines, community service and, in some cases, a lasting record that could affect applications for jobs or the military….Black students in the school district in Bryan, [Texas,] [activists] noted, receive criminal misdemeanor citations at four times the rate of white students. 

Strict policies surrounding juvenile crime and delinquency have created what some call a “school-to-prison pipeline,” wherein punishment of students, particularly those of black and Hispanic origin, pushes them out of schools via suspension/expulsion or legal action, making a life of crime more attractive. Criminal sanction is a particularly brutal funnel, as the “collateral consequences” of a youth criminal record can render young people unemployable for years, severely limiting their opportunities to make money legally. 

Perhaps THIS is the real agenda driving this push to put armed guards into our nations schools, after all the conservatives LOVE new prisons, ESPECIALLY when they are privatized.

You know I worked in a school for troubled kids.

At first they just had a lot of unarmed security staff, and the calls to police were occasional. 

But the year they put police officers in the school there was a kid getting hauled away in cuffs at least three times a week.

It is not the officers fault they are trained to deal with conflicts by locking people in cages.

On the other hand teachers are trained to educate children and help them to make choices that will keep them from ever having to lose their freedom.

See the difference?

For profit prisons churning out waves of angry, violent white supremacists.

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

The nation’s “for-profit” prisons have been incubating thousands of Aryan Brotherhood gang members and, as their sentences expire, they are prepared to flood the nation. This wave of white supremacist gang members will emerge from the nation’s prisons and engage in a terrorist campaign of targeted revenge which will soon evolve into indiscriminant mayhem and racial violence. At least, this is the warning of an anonymous former prisoner writing for The Daily Beast. 

“Law enforcement may have a real problem on its hands,” writes a former prisoner who declined to share his name in a piece recently published in The Daily Beast. “They’re being tight-lipped about it, but it’s something they should have been aware of for decades. They had to see it coming.” 

“Four people have been killed since the beginning of the year in a series of shootings that appear to be connected to the homegrown jihadists of the Aryan Brotherhood,” Anonymous asserts. He cites the murders of Kaufman County, Texas District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, his predecessor Mark Hass, and Colorado prison chief Tom Clements as examples of bloodshed committed by the Aryan Brotherhood. Reports have linked the assassination of McLelland to his targeting by Aryan Brotherhood members. 

“Many of the first men locked up when our nation embarked on a policy of for-profit mass incarceration near the end of the last century are now returning into society,” the former prisoner writes. “And, as predicted by numerous professionals, they are sicker and more dangerous than when they went behind bars.”

In other words what is happening in Texas may spread across the country as more of these angry racist bastards get out onto the streets.

You know I have been reading a lot about the school-to-prison pipeline that has emerged in various communities around the country, including Texas, Mississippi, Florida, and many other places in mostly red states.  It is often identified as largely impacting the black community, but it certainly shuffles through its fair share of youthful white "offenders" as well.

The state allows these private prisons to crop up and then feeds them a steady stream of young people. A large number of who were expelled from their schools, due to their "zero tolerance policies," for small infractions like drug possession, or fighting, or even skipping class, and then pushed out into a community where they are destined to get into trouble and are eventually locked in cages.

In those cages, abandoned by society, by their schools, and often by their parents, they learn how to survive by following the rules put in place, and reinforced, by criminals. A set of guidelines that rather than turn them into functioning members of society, instead turn them into feral creatures who learn to fight for what they want, and to ONLY trust their fellow gang members. Gangs, by the way, often identified by ethnicity.

Then after the prison can no longer milk the state for funds to incarcerate them, they are released into the communities that abandoned them in the first place.

It is only a matter of time before many of them re-offend and go back into the only place they have ever felt welcome. But NOT before they put in to practice on the streets the "skills" they learned in prison.

As long as private prisons remain so profitable there will be no real attempt at reform. So while the communities embrace this false sense of security, in reality the very prison system that they trust to keep them safe may be breeding the kind of lifelong criminals that will one day return to victimize them again, and again, and again.

Murders of two district attorneys in Texas may be linked to white supremacist movement.

Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia.

Courtesy of The Week: 

On Jan. 31, gunmen shot and killed Mark Hasse, an assistant district attorney in Texas' largely rural Kaufman County, in broad daylight as he was walking from his car to the Dallas-area courthouse. District Attorney Mike McLelland quickly vowed to pull the "scum" who shot his deputy "out of whatever hole you're in" and prosecute them "to the fullest extent of the law." Hasse's murder was still unsolved on Saturday, when police found the bodies of McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, in their home, also shot dead. 

Hasse had begun carrying a gun to work and varying his routine because he feared for his life, friends say. And after Hasse's death, McLelland started carrying a gun, too. "The people in my line of work are going to have to get better at it, because they're going to need it more in the future," he told The Associated Press less that two weeks ago. "I'm ahead of everybody else because, basically, I'm a soldier," he added, referring to his 23 years in the Army. Police officials say Cynthia McLelland was found near the front door of their house, and her husband was found near the back, still in his pajamas. 

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said Sunday that there was no evidence that the Hasse and McLelland murders were related, but "the killings of two prosecutors in a county of 106,000 people in less than eight weeks appeared to many officials to be more than a coincidence," notes The New York Times. Law enforcement sources, speaking off the record, say the the sheriff's office, the FBI, the Texas Rangers, and other agencies working on the cases assume there's a strong connection. Local officials are making that case openly, and security is being beefed up for employees of the D.A.'s office. 

The lead suspect in the killings is a white supremacist prison gang called the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. McLelland had said he believed the gang could have been responsible for Hasse's murder, noting that the group has a lot of members in the area and that his office has "put some real dents in the Aryan Brotherhood around here in the past year."

As  we all know since the election of Barack Obama these white supremacist organizations have seen a real influx of  new members, and after being fired up by the words of a certain VP candidate who shall remain nameless, have been emboldened to come out of he shadows and let their presence be known.

There has not been a more welcoming environment for these groups in the last 30 years than the one provided today. With veiled racist remarks flooding certain conservative cable networks and internet outlets, and constant talk of an armed insurgence against the government, some of these groups must feel that finally America is ready to embrace their radical ideas and tactics.

In this article it does not identify the weapon used though it does say that "The house was reportedly littered with shells from a .233 caliber rifle." However when I first heard of this shooting the CNN reporter identified the weapon as a Bushmaster AR-15, similar to the one used in the Sandy Hook massacre. Which I found somewhat chilling.

Dropping a little truth on you this Sunday morning.

This has been my philosophy for many, many years now, and is, of course, the reason that this blog exists.

I would go even further in saying that those who do not carefully vet the candidates they vote for are in many ways culpable for their crimes while in office. And this absolutely pertains to those that voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 election.

Steubenville high school football players convicted for sexual assault of intoxicated teen. A verdict that would probably have not been possible without the involvement of Anonymous. Update!

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Courtesy of ABC News:  

Two Steubenville, Ohio, high school football players accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl have been found delinquent by a judge -- the juvenile court equivalent of guilty. 

The teens could serve prison time until they turn 21. 

The verdict comes after a four-day trial that included tearful testimony from the accuser who said she was "embarrassed and scared" after hearing about the night she was allegedly sexually assualted while intoxicated. 

"I honestly did not know what to think because I didn't remember anything," she testified. The teen pieced together the night's events from Twitter, Instagram photos, a YouTube video, text messages and witnesses.

This is an absolutely horrendous case, as any of you have been following it already know, but the thing about it that is so disturbing, and ultimately amazing, is the part that social media played in the humiliation of this young girl and then ensured that justice was done on her behalf.

The troubling fact is that THIS kind of scenario plays out all over the country, in towns and cities both rural and  urban. It happens to young women, at the hands of young men, almost daily.

Most of the time we live in blissful ignorance of that fact.

But THIS time the perpetrators traded pictures of their deeds, and video of them bragging about it, with others, and that led to one lone blogger taking it upon herself to try and bring some justice.

That attracted the attention of the hacker group Anonymous, who hacked into the phones and social networks of the town and the teens involved and spread what they found all over the internet.

If that had NOT happened it is very unlikely that these teens would have seen any jail time.

However don't believe that this has really resulted in justice, according to what Anonymous uncovered this may in fact simply be the tip of a very disgusting iceberg:

Anonymous also claimed to have uncovered additional information suggesting a coverup. While the county prosecutor and the judge in the case recused themselves because of their ties to the football team, the hackers say there are more attackers, as well as more victims. Moreover, they claim the alleged rape occured at prosecutor Jane Hanlin’s home, and that her son may have been involved. They also point to ties between Steubenville law enforcement and the football team.

Like I said not necessarily complete justice, but still a hell of a lot more than would have happened without the "interference" of a group that has made a name for themselves by sticking their noses in places they are not welcome, but where often their attention may be desperately needed.

However it really falls the parents of these, and other, teenagers to educate their children that "No, means no!" and drinking until you are unable to make good judgement does NOT indicate that you are more grown up.

It indicates that you need more grown up supervision.

Update: If you can stomach it, you can read for yourself some of the horrific tweets blaming the victim of this incident here. And here.

And people wonder why victims of this kind of attack don't come forward more often.

Study suggests that religion helps criminals justify their crimes.

Courtesy of Slate:  

In 1996, noted criminologist Jewel asked a question that has long haunted those hoodlums prone to pondering the existential consequences of their actions: “Who will save your souls after those lies that you told, boy?” For generations of American crooks, the answer has been “religious do-gooders.” As a 2006 Federal Bureau of Prisons report put it, “faith groups have become involved in offering formal programs within prison to bring about not only the spiritual salvation of the inmates but their rehabilitation in the profane world as well.” The idea is that spiritual rebirth may help tame the criminal impulse, and set wild hearts on the straight and narrow. 

Maybe not. A new study in the academic journal Theoretical Criminology suggests that, far from causing offenders to repent of their sins, religious instruction might actually encourage crime. The authors surveyed 48 “hardcore street offenders” in and around Atlanta, in hopes of determining what effect, if any, religion has on their behavior. While the vast majority of those surveyed (45 out of 48 people) claimed to be religious, the authors found that the interviewees “seemed to go out of their way to reconcile their belief in God with their serious predatory offending. They frequently employed elaborate and creative rationalizations in the process and actively exploit religious doctrine to justify their crimes.” 

In the end, the authors found, “there is reason to believe that these rationalizations and justifications may play a criminogenic role in their decision making.”

I think this is one of those things that most of us probably realize deep down, but not something which gets much discussion simply because it is an uncomfortable reality of life.

One of the topics always up for discussion when I was in my "searching for meaning" phase during my twenties was "How could religion possibly have an influence on criminal behaviors if all you have to do as a Catholic is go to confession, or accept Jesus as your personal savior, to be absolved of all of your past sins?" To me it always seemed that you could do just about anything without fear of eternal damnation, so long as you were willing to kiss God's ass with your dying breath.

That is why I was never impressed with the argument that religion is necessary to provide a moral framework for human beings. I actually thought quite the opposite and believed the "Get out of Hell Free" card encouraged anti-social and criminal behaviors by making these individuals feel they answered to a higher authority than our human laws, and it was an authority who could essentially be bribed at the last minute to forgo any punishment. 

However those of us who are directed by internal, rather than external, controls make our choices based, not out of fear of punishment, but from a feeling of connection to those around us and a fundamental sense of right and wrong.

Which might help to explain why non-believers make up only 1% of the prison population in this country.