Bump: Happy Valentine's Day everyone.
Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.
]]>The holdup in the decision was that the FBI alleged a $2.5 million discrepancy in his income. Prosecutors said Ortmann earned $14.5 million from MegaUpload between 2005 and 2010, and $2.5 million in 2011. But his accounts show $20.5 million income instead of $17.5 million. The Judge wanted an accounting of the $2.5 million. His lawyer said it came from trading profits.
]]>Majid Kahn, one of two lawful U.S. residents at Guantanamo, graduated from high school in Baltimore, MD. The Herald reports:
[Kahn] allegedly recorded a martyr’s message and donned an explosive vest in a 2002 attempt to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at a mosque. The attack failed because Musharraf never arrived. Pakistani authorities arrested Khan the next year and turned him over to the United States.
Kahn was held in secret overseas prisons and interrogated until 2006 when the Bush administration sent him to Guantanamo. His lawyers filed suit alleging he was tortured.
[More...]
One of those who provided information against Khan, Iyman Farris, the Ohio truck driver convicted of terrorism for a plot against the Brooklyn Bridge, later claimed his statements about Khan were lies and the product of coercion and deceit.
Majid Kahn's father also disavowed statements to the FBI. He submitted a letter to the War Crimes Tribunal that said:
"Anything we may have said about Majid Khan was simply out of shock because we only knew that Majid had disappeared and was pure speculation based on what FBI agents in the United States told us and pressured us to say."
As to another detainee who reportedly gave information against Kahn, Saifullah Paracha, see this article by Andy Worthington.
Writing from Guantánamo, Saifullah Paracha also refuted the claims against Majid Khan (and, by extension, against both himself and his son Uzair), confirming that he did not know that either Khan (or Ammar al-Baluchi, who introduced Khan to him in Pakistan) were members of al-Qaeda.
The Washington Post wrote this long profile on Majid Kahn in 2006 after his transfer to Gitmo.
Imprisoned since age 23, and now 31, the Government is seeking a life sentence for Khan. He's charged with conspiracy, murder and attempted murder in violation of the law of war, providing material support for terrorism, and spying. The charges are here. (Scroll to his name and then click on the docket. There is no direct link.) The transcript of his 2007 Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing is here.
Another facet of the case: Back in 2006, the Bush Administration asked the federal court to ban Majid Kahn from meeting with this lawyers on the grounds that he might reveal to them details of his incarceration and interrogation in overseas prisons. It claimed that information was classified. The Government's pleading is here.
9. ....Prior to his current DoD custody, Majid Khan was held in the custody of the CIA in that agency’s high-value terrorist detainee program. See Dorn Decl. ¶¶ 7...
10. Further, because of Khan’s involvement in the high-value terrorist detainee program, it is likely he will possess, and may be able to transmit to counsel, information that would be classified at the TOP SECRET//SCI level, such as detention locations and other operational details, or information that would warrant equivalent treatment or other special handling while Khan remains in United States’ custody.
The documents in Khan's habeas lawsuit and lawsuit over his alleged torture are here.
]]> Bump: Happy Valentine's Day everyone.
Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.
]]>As the ACLU says:
If lawmakers want to save money in our prison system, they should reform mandatory minimum sentencing, invest in re-entry programs and re-visit parole policies that feed the addiction to incarceration and throw people into the revolving door that is our prison system. Privatization schemes, often coupled with inflated claims of cost savings, distract policymakers from an inescapable truth: The best way to reduce prison spending is to reduce the number of people we imprison.
The profit motive is a huge part of the problem.
[More...]
Julie Ebenstein, Policy & Advocacy Counsel at the ACLU of Florida, adds:
]]>[P]rivate prisons aren’t reform – they deform the process by linking corporate profit to incarceration. The bottom line is that private prisons make money by keeping people in prison when we should be looking for ways to keep them out in the first place.”
According to the Coroner's office, there were fewer pills in her hotel room than in the average person's medicine cabinet -- his included.
Earlier Monday, the L.A. coroner’s office confirmed prescription pill bottles were found in Houston’s hotel room. But the amount was "less than my medicine cabinet," L.A. County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said.
No one knows how she died. Drugs and alcohol may have played no role whatsoever. Her past addiction may have played no role. Her family and friends say she hadn't used illegal drugs in 3 years and no illegal drugs were found in the room. Multiple people were in and out of the room, from security guards to family members to personal assistants. Any of those people could have ordered or brought alcohol to the room for their own use.
Regardless of how Whitney Houston died, there is no just cause for a ramped-up war on prescription medications or illegal drugs. According to the Global Commission on Drug Policy, as reported by Reuters at the time,
There are 250 million users of illicit drugs worldwide, with less than a 10th of them classified as dependent... according to U.N. estimates quoted in the report.
The report also found that"decriminalization initiatives do not result in significant increases in drug use."
To use one celebrity's death, which may or may not have been drug and alcohol related, to instill fear of legitimate medications that help millions of others with anxiety or pain, is irresponsible.
Even if there was alcohol in her system (and especially if it was residual from the night before), and even if she took Xanax to reduce her anxiety about attending a party that night, the most that is appropriate is to warn people about following the instructions on their medication inserts and pill bottles. Don't use it as a soapbox to claim people are taking too many pills or in danger of dying.
Until the toxicology reports are in, there is no cautionary tale in Whitney Houston's death. There is only the tragedy of a woman whose life ended too soon.
What's next? Will some member of Congress introduce the Whitney Houston Prescription Drug Limitation Act telling doctors how many pills they can prescribe and how often, regardless of their judgment as to an individual patient's needs?
On a related note: The media Hall of Shame award today (so far) goes to the site that published photos of "the death tub." What's next? The toilet in the room?
]]>
Simsbury High School in Hartford, CT is joining a troubling growing trend: Employing cops with drug dogs to routinely patrol the halls, conducting random searches for drugs. What other schools have recently added random drug dog searches? To name just a few: [More...]
A federal judge in Missouri last month upheld drug dog searches at Springfield schools.
Some parents in Sag Harbor (Long Island) are protesting.
Do we want our middle and high school building to mimic a prison?” parent Marianna Levine asked school board members at a regularly scheduled meeting on Monday....She argues that bringing in a police K-9 unit would essentially create a dynamic similar to a “totalitarian state” where students are stripped of their rights.
Why aren't all parents protesting? No wonder people think education is going to the dogs.
Drug dogs have been increasingly shown to be fallible. What happens when a search following an "alert" on a locker turns up nothing? Police can say there must have been drugs in the locker at one time, and that's what the dogs are smelling. But if sniffing dogs can't tell the difference between the odor of drugs presently in a locker and the odor of drugs that were once in a locker, how does an "alert" make it probable that drugs are presently in the locker? Or maybe they just say, "Bad dog!"
The police should spend their time (and our tax money) investigating real crimes, not ambiguous odors.
]]>
Here is President Obama's 2013 proposed budget for the Department of Punishment Justice. The total comes to $36.5 billion. Among the lowlights.
Amounts for non-incarcerative purposes:
The budget includes:
America. Prison Nation.
]]>Is the Megaupload extradition on shaky ground? The issue was raised by the Judge at Kim DotCom's bail hearing. The prosecutor acknowledged the extradition treaty doesn't refer to copyright offenses, but said the U.S. could bootstrap through the 2000 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and New Zealand's Extradition Act. [More...]
[Under] section 101b of the Extradition Act any offence which was punishable by a prison sentence of more than four years was deemed to be extraditable, and under the New Zealand Copyright Act the distribution of an infringing work could be punished by up to five years in prison.
[Crown Prosecutor] Sinclair cited the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (TOC), which was passed by a UN general assembly resolution in 2000, as the basis of invoking the organised crime provisions of the Extradition Act.
More auditions on The Voice tonight, followed by the second episode of Smash.
This is an open thread, all topics welcome.
]]>
Could the media get any more intrusive? CNN is actually running a live feed outside the funeral home where Whitney Houston's body is expected to arrive "later tonight."
CNN Live sent out a tweet saying:
View stake-out camera at funeral home where #WhitneyHouston body is expected to arrive in New Jersey. Watch live: http://on.cnn.com/cnndcl4
#ShameOnCNN (no that's not a real hashtag, I just made it up -- but it should be.)
]]>Open Thread.
]]>I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
[. . .] I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.
[. . ..] And in fact,this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died, when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches; when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom[. . . .]
More . . .
[. . .] Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.
[. . .] I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition, to judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress, on my declared stands against [. . .] unconstitutional aid to parochial schools [. . .] — [consider] the statement of the American Bishops in 1948, which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.
Today's Republicans and religious leaders have launched a culture war, and people like E.J. Dionne are applauding that war. Shame on them.
Speaking for me only
]]>Some conservative Catholics still insist that the relief from regulation that Obama offered is not enough. I hope they reconsider, especially since the Catholic service providers most affected by the revised rule welcomed it. What bothers liberal Catholics about the arguments advanced by some of our conservative friends is that the Catholic right seems so eager to focus the church’s witness to the world on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research and, now, perhaps, contraception that they would effectively, if not necessarily intentionally, relegate the church’s social justice work and teaching to second-class status.
That may be what bothers liberal Catholics, but what should bother progressives is the idea that religious doctrines are being used to attempt to limit women's rights and good public policy. Since the beginning of this controversy, Dionne has been willing to sacrifice women's rights and the progressive value of a government engaged in good policy in order to placate religious demands on a secular government.
If Dionne could find it in himself to say 'yes, accommodate religious concerns about public policy if you can, but if you can't, religion cannot dictate secular public policy,' then he can articulate a coherent progressive position. But he seems unable to say this. Dionne writes:
[W]e’d ask our non-Catholic liberal friends to think about this, too. Many of us agreed that broad contraception coverage was, as a general matter, a good thing, and we shared their concern for women’s rights. But we were troubled that some with whom we usually agree seemed to relish a fight with the church and defined any effort to accommodate its anxieties as “selling out.”
What a load of nonsense. I can not imagine anyone relishing a fight with anyone over rights for women that many believed settled by Griswold v. Connecticut. It is amazing that Dionne is so willing to sacrifice these principles, fundamental progressive principles, and to chastise those willing to stand up for them.
Dionne is willing to break faith with progressive principles when it comes to women's health issues and berates those unwilling to do the same. He writes:
As a young politician put it in 2006, “There are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word ‘Christian’ describes one’s political opponents, not people of faith.” Barack Obama, who spoke those words, finally figured out that a sensible compromise on contraception was far better than a running cultural and religious war. The administration would do well not to lose track of that guy again.
(Emphasis supplied.) It is amazing that in the face of the escalation of this battle by the Roman Catholic Church and Republicans in their championing of the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which would:
Amend[] the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to permit a health plan to decline coverage of specific items and services that are contrary to the religious beliefs of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan or the purchaser or beneficiary (in the case of individual coverage) without penalty. Declares that such plans are still considered to: (1) be providing the essential health benefits package or preventive health services, (2) be a qualified health plan, and (3) have fulfilled other requirements under PPACA.
Dionne saves his harshest criticism for progressives fighting to maintain progressive values that have been enshrined in our country for 50 years. Yes, the progressives are the bad guys here says Dionne - picking a culture war by insisting that women have rights, and good public policy requires contraceptive care.
Excuse me, but Dionne's words on this matter are truly ridiculous. One hopes Dionne sits out this culture war instigated by religious leaders. He's certainly not helping progressives.
Speaking for me only
]]>
The Grammys are live on the East Coast but don't begin here until 7:00 pm, 20 minutes to go. The West Coast doesn't air until an hour after that. I'd say no spoilers, except everything is broadcast all over the internet and Twitter, and being watched on live feeds, so spoilers are fine. If you don't want to know, don't read the comments.
Bruce Springsteen opens with "We Take Care of Our Own." Jennifer Hudson will do a tribute to Whitney Houston. Most of the awards were given out before the show, only 10 awards will be live during tonight's show. Here's the list of nominees with live up-dating of winners. Adele and Taylor Swift and the Foo Fighters were winners this afternoon.
As for the red carpet, the fashion is never as good as it is for the movie awards shows, and always a little bizarre. Here's some that stood out to me below (Photo links will come down at the end of the show, so look now): [More...]
Another odd photo: Cyndi Lauper.
Here's Steven Van Zandt and Bob Seger.
Now onto the show.
Update 7:10 pm: LL Cool J is the best host I've seen on one of these shows in ages. He had a tough job and he sailed right through it with just the right combination of respect and "the show must go on." Really good choice.
Springsteen was fun to watch. I missed Clarence, his absence really stood out to me. And by the way, check out Steven Van Zandt's new original series Lillyhammer, available on Netflix streaming. It's about a New York mobster who goes into the witness protection program after testifying against a Mafia bigwig, and chooses Lillyhammer, Norway as the place he wants to live. There are 8 one hour segments, and instead of making you wait a week to see the next one, you can watch them all at one time if you want. I've already seen 5, and it's really good.
Update 7:23pm: Lady Gaga skipped the red carpet but here she is sitting in the audience with a black netted veil covering her face.
Update 8:20 pm: Here's one of the better and faster red carpet photo galleries.
Is there a show Ryan Seacrest doesn't have a part in hosting? Do the Beach Boys look old or what? What a shocker. I didn't find anything happy in that performance. I just felt bad for them.
Interesting contrast with Paul McCartney, who has to be the same age as the Beach Boys, and while he looks his age, seems much younger. His voice was realy good tonight. He seemed filled with life.
Update 8:45 pm: Taylor Swift's face looks prettier than usual tonight. I think it's because it has some color. Great makeup artist. Her hair color looks more natural too. She also has a lot more self- confidence which is good. She used to be so fragile looking. But I wish all her songs didn't sound the same.
Update 9:00pm: Katy Perry mesmerized me. I can see why she earned $44 million last year. The pretend technical glitch was really convincing. But it was the angry lyrics to her new song "Part of Me" and the negative emotion with which she belted them out that had me transfixed. Russell Brand must be cringing. I know nothing about their marriage or split, and I've never seen his appeal, but this was like burning him at the stake without a trial.
The star of the night is definitely Adele. I'm not quite getting all the adulation. It's a good song, she sings it well and she's back after having surgery on her vocal cords which I'm glad for her went well. She just doesn't have personal magnetism or that "star quality" to me.
Update 9:21pm: Glenn Campbell, 75, singing Rhinestone Cowboy, simply amazing considering his Alzheimer's. What a trooper. Check out this Daily Mail article about his farewell tour. And this interview with CNN this week.
I could have done without the pitch for copyright protection from the Recording Academy official. At least there were no cheers. On another business note, the cost of a Grammy ad this year: $800,000.
Here's Jennifer Hudson's great performance of "I Will Always Love You" in her tribute to Whitney Houston:
]]>
Check out Big Tent Democrat's post at Daily Kos, E.J. Dionne Breaks Faith With Progressive Values.
This is an open thread, all topics welcome.
]]>"The recordings tendered thus far make it eminently clear that the group's objectives, even in their darkest light, included (1) exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech ... and (2) training to survive and defend themselves and their families in the event of chaos or an invasion by anti-American forces."
[More...]
One former terrorism prosecutor says:
“How often do American citizens get charged with sedition or inciting discontent and resistance against big government? Heck, most citizens are discontented with the government,” said Lloyd Meyer, a Chicago lawyer and former terrorism prosecutor. “In this case, no one pulled a trigger and no one got hurt. ... A jury could believe that the feds went after this group with a meat cleaver instead of a scalpel.”
Among the prospective jurors who so far have made it through: A man who thinks undercover work is an invasion of privacy and unfair;
[A] former assistant manager for a logistics company who lost his job two years ago and now spends most of his time caring for a school-aged daughter recovering from a kidney transplant. He said he believes spying on people is an invasion of privacy.
“You’re basically paying someone to lie and deceive people. I don’t think that’s right,” said the potential juror.
He was allowed to stay over a prosecution challenge because he said he could be fair when viewing the evidence. For sure, the prosecutors will use a challenge on him.
Also making the cut: A woman who burned down her ex-husband's house after he allegedly tried to sell their daughter for $60,000. She told the court:
"I'm not a bad person. I was beaten all the time. I just overreacted," she said of the arson.
Also making the cut: two women who suffer from attention deficit disorder.
Among those dismissed: A former bedbug exterminator who uses medical marijuana. I wonder what the reason was for his cut.
]]>
