Toxins Infect The Department of Just Us

This is the story about how the toxins of power, in Alice in Wonderland fashion, converted or morphed the concept of "torture" into the concept of "holy enhanced interrogations".

We can thank Representative Conyers, who has posted various DOJ documents on a website, for not swallowing that tea flavoured kool-aid.

The release of those documents precede his scheduled congressional hearings to oversee the DOJ meme complex.

He wants to get at the bottom of this white-wash of war crimes.

The original investigation by the DOJ meme complex, during the Bush II regime, produced a report that was strongly critical of John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and Steve Bradbury.

As an example, here is a quote from the original report section that focused on Bybee:

Commentators, law professors and other members of the legal community were highly critical of the Bybee Memo. The Dean of Yale Law School characterized its authors as "blatantly wrong" and added that "[i]t's just erroneous legal analysis." Edward Alden, US Interrogation Debate, Financial Times, June 10, 2004 (2004 WLNR9744181). A past chairman of the international human rights committee of the New York Bar Association stated that "the government lawyers involved in preparing the documents could and should face professional sanctions." Id. A law professor at the University of Chicago said: "It's egregiously bad. It's very low level, it's very weak, embarrassingly weak, just short of reckless." Adam Liptak, Legal Scholars Criticize Memos on Torture, New York Times, June 25, 2004 at A14. In the same article, an expert in international human rights law at Fordham University commented, "The scholarship is very clever and original but also extreme, one-sided and poorly supported by the legal authority relied on." Id.

(Original Draft, page 2). Nevertheless, Bybee was rewarded handsomely for his poor scholarship with a lifelong federal judgeship, as millions of Americans who do not agree with Bybee lost their jobs, homes, health, and respect for DOJ.

Bybee was one of the original three stooges for the Cheney torture pig-circus who wrote memos of sophistry to try to morph the obvious into the oblivion of double-speak.

When it was clear where the original DOJ report was going, Dick Cheney came online in the main stream media doing disinfomercials promoting torture.

His delusion is that torture, in the form of waterboarding, is the only way to public safety.

Recently the apex of that delusion was reached when he admitted, on national TV, to promoting and advocating waterboarding until it was being done "regularly" (is 83 times a month on one individual regular?) during the Bush II regime's reign of madness.

That onslaught, mixed with the timidity of the Obama administration, Senate mindlessness, along with the spoon-fed deceit of the media, put pressure on the DOJ.

Finally the DOJ decided to waterboard the original report until it was watered down into a McJustice version scolding the bad boys for "misjudgement".

No biggie that hundreds were tortured with waterboarding, as a result of their memos, it was just poor judgment; and never mind that the DOJ during Ronald Reagan's presidency prosecuted republican Texas Sherrifs for waterboarding.

The premise that toxins of power spread within a meme-complex more readily than in the general populace seems to be vindicated by this DOJ narcissism.

Toxic Minds Produce A Toxic World

Joe Slack of The Billy Eli Band looses his grip on sanity, lets himself be pushed over his edge, and then into his own abyss of violence against IRS.

Like Slack, we all have our own edge, our own abyss, and we have a common edge, the common abyss of our species.

The difference is that most folks are able to put up a good fight against madness, even though our government is not doing that very well these daze, and has gone over the edge itself.

Way over the edge

This blog is all about resisting the toxins of power that seep into government, then come upon us through government madness, but doing it with free speech and petitions to the government.

Resisting the toxins, not giving in to them, is the way of healing.

It is our patriotic duty to say ouch when we do not like government action, to protest, to try to vote the madness out of office; thus, to try to heal the government when it gets sick, so that citizens like Joe Slack do not loose the struggle and go off into madness as a result.

Joe Slack stopped treating the infected government as if it were a disease, and in his mind began to treat it as an evil personal attack by other fellow citizens upon him personally.

That is not real.

The IRS employees he could have killed are doing their jobs, following regulations, and following statutes.

When they don't, the remedy is the court system, appeals, and complaints to government:

The right to sue and defend in the courts is the alternative of force. In an organized society it is the right conservative of all other rights, and lies at the foundation of orderly government. It is one of the highest and most essential privileges of citizenship, and must be allowed by each state to the citizens of all other states to the precise extent that it is allowed to its own citizens. Equality of treatment in this respect is not left to depend upon comity between the states, but is granted and protected by the Federal Constitution.

(Chambers v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 207 U.S. 142, 148, emphasis added). We have an obligation to heal one another with our laws and with reason; we all must be doctors and nurses in that sense.

Stay in the sense, avoid the toxins, and avoid the nonsense, as we try to fix our broken government.

Scalia Disses Perry & A Few Tea Baggers

A guy was writing a screen play.

His brother was a lawyer.

The screenplay was about Maine seceding from the United States.

His brother, in an attempt to help the play, wrote all of the justices of the Supreme Court to ask them what their thoughts were on the subject.

Only one justice replied. Justice Scalia wrote back:

I am afraid I cannot be of much help with your problem, principally because I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, “one Nation, indivisible.”) Secondly, I find it difficult to envision who the parties to this lawsuit might be. Is the State suing the United States for a declaratory judgment? But the United States cannot be sued without its consent, and it has not consented to this sort of suit.

I am sure that poetic license can overcome all that — but you do not need legal advice for that. Good luck with your screenplay.

(WSJ Law Blog). It is clear from this that those who refuse to learn from history, who refuse to absorb Civics 101, can still make it to governor of large states (e.g. Rick Perry R-TX).

States that already took a sh*t kicking for thinking that way long before cars came into existence.

I am telling you people, stupid is contagious. Immunize yourselves, move out of stupid states and stop drinking kool-aid tea!

In My Dreams - Iraq Troop Levels Down?

I have read several reports of troop levels below 100,000 and at the same time above 100,000:

The number of American soldiers in Iraq has dropped below 100,000 for the first time since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion in a clear signal the U.S. is wrapping up its nearly seven-year war to meet a deadline for leaving the country, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

(Seattle Times, emphasis added). Yet the British newspapers are saying the numbers are still above 100,000:

The row has been a major concern for the US, which is preparing to withdraw large numbers of forces by the middle of this year.

There are still more than 100,000 American troops in Iraq.

The US fears that if the election lacks credibility among Sunni voters, Iraq could slide back into sectarian violence.

The election has been pushed back by nearly two months because of the row.

(BBC News, emphasis added). Wow, I was so close to becoming joyful, close to waking up one morning knowing that another stupid war was fading into the dust, close to waking up feeling like sanity was making a 9th inning comeback.

Maybe tomorrow ...

The States of War Budgets

Almost every one of the United States faces budget deficits:

The worst recession since the 1930s has caused the steepest decline in state tax receipts on record. As a result, even after making very deep cuts, states continue to face large budget gaps. New shortfalls have opened up in the budgets of at least 41 states for the current fiscal year (FY 2010, which began July 1 in most states). In addition, initial indications are that states will face shortfalls as big as or bigger than they faced this year in the upcoming 2011 fiscal year. States will continue to struggle to find the revenue needed to support critical public services for a number of years.

(Recession Continues, emphasis added). It appears that 46 of the 50 states qualify for Chapter 9 Bankruptcy, but it is only available to municipalities.

When we hear about the problems of California or New York, what we do not hear is the effect that the stupid wars and military budget are having on the states.

The reality of these wars is a story of the shame of the warmongers among us:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

(President & General Eisenhower, emphasis added). MOMCOM has sold herself via the main stream media as the saviour, yet she is actually the crucifier.

Other presidents have a different point of view:

I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind.

(Bush II). He was also the High Priest In Chief who based his wars on his interpretation of The Book of Revelation.

How many homes in other nations have been destroyed by the warmongers, how many in their own country, when will they have enough?

The Gyres, The America's Cup & Medals

Not since 1995 has the venerable America's Cup been won by the United States.

That changed Sunday when a software mogul who runs Oracle did the deed and won the cup for the U.S.A.

We are also winning, so far, the most medals in the winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Awesome!

A side story, unfortunately, is that our America's Cup competitors had to sail through one of The Five Garbage Gyres, those floating continents of garbage now contaminating the oceans of the earth.

We had reported on the first and second gyres, but now we find that there are five of these garbage continents floating out there.

Add to that the Italian Mafia's dumping of large quantities of nuclear poison into the oceans, and it seems like we sail over the oceans as we bring them down.

Are we dangerously fooling around while our Home World dies?

Open Thread

Ever think of the good earth after the stupid empires have faded into infamy?

Like Italian and French countrysides once ravaged by the Roman Empire!

Ravaged during its obsessive fantasy of control that drove its troops across that countryside oblivious to its beauty, tranquillity, and comfort.

Now that countryside is filled with villages, children, and a better way of life.

And lots of graves of the power mad troops.

Dept. of Justice Conspiracy Theories

The main stream media (MSM) has been used unwittingly to distort the term "conspiracy theory" from the real meaning it has, and should have.

It has been perverted into an unreal, frivolous meaning they use in place of investigative journalism.

Can you imagine a U.S. Department of Justice attorney general going into a courtroom saying the defendant is charged with a "conspiracy theory", causing the court to snicker or giggle like an MSM journalist does when that term is mentioned?

Do you think that ever happens in court? No, because conspiracy theories are as serious as a heart attack to any professional DOJ attorney:

The concept of criminal conspiracy has its earliest roots in fourteenth century English common law. At that time, it saw limited use as a legal theory. It became more broadly applied in the United States in the nineteenth century, though still the scope of prosecutions was not wide. Today, however, conspiracy is a far-reaching legal principle, embracing antitrust actions, an enormous number of more traditional criminal cases, and even tort lawsuits. It is the basis of prosecutions dealing with, among other crimes, drug violations, securities fraud, murder for hire, bank robbery, and extortion.

... Conspiracy is an agreement by two or more people to commit a crime.

(Conspiracy Theory, Law). Congress passed a statute long ago that is used frequently in the federal courts:

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor.

(18 U.S.C. § 371, emphasis added). Conspiracy theories are a joke only to the jokers in the MSM propaganda organs.

Conspiracy theories are what an attorney general comes up with when s/he wants to put someone in prison because that person conspired with others to commit a crime.

It is not fantasy, it is real, and it happens each and every day.

The MSM la la land is where the fantasy comes from.

If the establishment obsession with banning conspiracy theories becomes real, in the form of censure or worse, will they ban the conspiracy theory portion of our federal law?

The conspiracy theory law that has been around for centuries to make society safer?

The next post in this series is here.