The Whole Delivery

It certainly sure does : A sharply divided federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit involving the Central Intelligence Agency’s practice of seizing terrorism suspects and transferring them to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation. The ruling handed a major victory to the Obama administration in its effort to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy power This case was based off the ACLU's successful win from a 3-judge ruling from the 9th Circuit against the Obama DOJ trying to preserve the power of the executive branch of government willingly bringing the law in the "all that is holy National Security", a move candidate Obama vehemently criticized the Bush Administration from doing. This disturbing reversal by that same circuit with a full judge lineup by the 6-5 margin continues our dangerous precedent at giving unlimited power to our President without facing the consequences of illegal and immoral practices. To fittingly sum it up, ...

As everyone was certainly more than distracted on their 4th of July weekend, taking a break from the intense 24/7 grind of wondering why our country can't enact just common sense policy for the good of the collective in this nation, we received yet another stunningly and sad reminder of how far our journalism has placed itself in a continuing abyss. It once again came at the hands of Bill Keller, the man responsible for turning the "Old Grey Lady" into the "Ov Vey Shady" with every chance his hack personality gets. And what he uttered this weekend was frankly, as Glenn Greenwald said this weekend , "one of the more demented and reprehensible statements I've seen from a high-level media executive in some time." I would say in all time . Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said the newspaper had written so much about the issue of waterboarding that “ I think this Kennedy School study — by focusing on whether we have embraced the po...

Photo from AP's Andres Leighton Because when you are the President of the United States and you know people are innocent, yet you decide to torture them, that is the only sufficient reward : George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times. The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration. Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary kn...

Photo from the AFP The arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar 10 days which broke last night thanks to the New York Times has strengthened the already strong handling of terrorism under the Obama Administration, to the dismay of ridiculous partisan critics. But the outstanding national security journalist that is Spencer Ackerman focuses on a crucial point that can't be hammered home enough. And it, for my mind, is more pertinent than even this arrest . 5. Will the Obama administration allow Baradar to be tortured? As I wrote on my personal blog, it’s crucial that the U.S. and the Pakistanis show that a high-level Taliban commander be treated respectfully if it hopes to induce more surrenders and impact the Taliban’s calculus on continuing to fight. Interrogations of Baradar are, reportedly, a joint Pakistani and U.S. venture . But the Pakistanis torture. Will the Obama administration, in its first big overseas capture, successfully convince the Pakistanis to treat Baradar hum...

Administrations of the future (and even this one if it happens) have every right now it seems to torture if protection for tortuous acts continue: The Court’s denial of review of Rasul, et al., v. Myers, et al. (09-227) leaves intact a federal appeals court ruling that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ten military officers are legally immune to claims of torture and religious bias against inmates who were at Guantanamo but have since been released. T he Obama Administration had urged the Court not to hear the case, saying that, whatever claims the four ex-detainees were now making, they had no legal basis for those challenges at the time they were at the U.S. military prison in Cuba — that is, between January 2002 and March 2004. The D.C. Circuit Court had ruled in favor of immunity, and in doing so avoided a repeat of its earlier decision — vacated by the Supreme Court — that Guantanamo prisoners had no constitutional rights. The Justices had ordered reconsideration of ...

The up and down nature of John McCain. This came after Dicky Dick said what he had to say to defend his disgraceful self. Well, at least his daughter wasn't a puppet for him this time like she always is.

The Onion reports. Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture? More to come on TWD Friday!

A lot on the right won't be happy when they see this Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they allegedly threatened terrorism suspects, according to two sources familiar with the move. I guess those Blackwater reports of lately from the Nation's Jeremy Scahill and just other things could have possibly pushed this, but maybe that's because I liked Scahill a heck of a lot as a great journalist. A special prosecutor indeed is a step, and this is a big development. But we shall see what happens here. And interesting that this news breaks on the day of vacation week starting for the President now. And notice in that article how Carrie Johnson, the writer of the linked article, continues to used "enhanced interrogation." Tisk, tisk, tisk. Most in the status quo media still won't call it the "T...

Conservative radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller may have seen the light after enduring this. And via Jed Lewison, the Chicago Sun Times has more videos of journalists exploring the joys of "TORTURE: waterboard style" as well: Never thought I would say this, but I guess Christopher Hitchens deserves some credit for starting a trend? Forget Sean Hannity, and focus on not only asking Dick Cheney this, but also, Liz Cheney if they would undergo this, as well.

Probably the only (half) soul on the Fixed Propaganda Network.

Photo from Brennan Linsley of Associated Press On the verge of fulfilling an important promise . The Obama administration will launch a review of the classified files of the approximately 250 detainees at Guantanamo Bay immediately after taking office, as part of an intensive effort to close the U.S. prison in Cuba, according to people who advised the campaign on detainee issues. There is still work to be done however: Although as a candidate Obama publicly expressed his desire to close the detention facility, his transition team stressed this week that the president-elect has not assembled his national security and legal team and that no decisions have been made "about where and how to try the detainees," Denis McDonough, an Obama foreign policy adviser, said in a statement issued Monday. Nevertheless, the ACLU and many others are happy about this: The Agenda's Pending Schedule will be in the comments section, as usual.