Censure

By Linn Washington, Jr.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the target of demands for resignation due to his triggering yet another Trump Administration scandal related to lying under oath in the Senate about contacts with Russian officials, finds himself in an ‘Alabama Hurricane’ of his own making.

By Linn Washington, Jr.

When Donald Trump announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in June 2015 he unleashed a tirade against illegal immigrants from Mexico, libeling most of those immigrants as criminals and “rapists.”

By Linn Washington, Jr.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel made a bold yet belated move when he fired his embattled police superintendent in the wake of a national uproar surrounding the release of a chilling video that captured the police killing of a teen--a ward of the city of Chicago.

By Dave Lindorff

            Are the American corporate media largely propaganda organs, or news organizations?

By John Grant

A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk.
                                                             -- Pope Francis speaking to the US Congress

By Dave Lindorff

A kudo to President Obama. But just one.

If he manages to pull off an agreement with Iran on limiting that country's nuclear fuel enrichment program in the fact of determined resistance from Republicans, Neocons, the Israel Lobby and the warmongers in both the GOP and his own Democratic Party, he will have finally earned at least some small portion of the gold in his Nobel Peace medallion.

By Dave Lindorff

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), head of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, says that John Brennan, the director of the CIA who has finally admitted that he lied when he angrily and repeatedly insisted that the agency did not spy on staff members of the Senate committee charged with oversight US intelligence agencies, “has a lot of work to do,” before she can forgive him for lying to and spying on her committee.

By Linn Washington Jr.

Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Rufus Seth Williams, the first African-American in Pennsylvania to hold a powerful top prosecutor post, persistently projects himself as an expert on racism.

Commendably Williams has acknowledged the corrosive impact of racism within the criminal justice system.

By Dave Lindorff

The US Department of “Justice” has a distinctly nuanced concept of that term, taking a tough, no-holds-barred stance when it comes to individuals -- especially little people without much power or influence -- and trying at all costs to avoid prosecution when it comes to the powerful, and to big corporations -- especially big financial corporations. That schizoid approach to prosecution is personified in the recent actions--and inaction--of the DOJ’s man in Manhattan, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara.

By Linn Washington, Jr.

When Barack Obama, the first black president of America, delivered remarks during a South African memorial service for that country’s first black president, he muffed a historic opportunity to right a grave wrong done by the American government – one that helped send Nelson Mandela to prison for nearly 30-years.

Obama, during his remarks at a Johannesburg, SA memorial service for Mandela, who died on December 5 at age 95, recalled how that world-revered leader had endured “brutal imprisonment.”

By Linn Washington, Jr.

When Barack Obama, the first black president of America, delivered remarks during a South African memorial service for that country’s first black president, he muffed a historic opportunity to right a grave wrong done by the American government – one that helped send Nelson Mandela to prison for nearly 30-years.

Obama, during his remarks at a Johannesburg, SA memorial service for Mandela, who died on December 5 at age 95, recalled how that world-revered leader had endured “brutal imprisonment.”

Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog

By Dave Lindorff

There are two US presidents who have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now one of those Nobel laureate leaders is accusing the other, though without naming him, of actions that qualify as war crimes and impeachable crimes against the US Constitution.

What Were the 11 Missing Words? Enter the National Security Archive’s Reader Contest!

Washington, DC, September 16, 2011 - For the first time ever, all three major editions of the Pentagon Papers are being made available simultaneously online. The posting today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org), allows for a unique side-by-side comparison, showing readers exactly what the U.S. government tried to hide for 40 years by means of deletions from the original text.

By Linn Washington, Jr.

So, some black folks are bashing Princeton Professor Cornell West for his sharply phrased critiques of President Barack Obama’s failure to specifically address crisis- proportion problems in a long-suffering segment of American society: the black community.

Black supporters of the first African-American president echo the rationale advanced by Obama himself that he is the president of all Americans so addressing issues specific to African-American would be inappropriate.

However, that view side-steps the critical issue of the very American right to criticize a U.S. President.

Compounding the First Amendment criticism issue is the reality that Obama has addressed issues important to specific groups, including gays and women. He has even been addressing the issues of his political adversaries, the Republicans, like his embracing their demands for deficit reducing austerity by slashing services to the most needy.

By Dave Lindorff

Federal Judge Filipe Restrepo, a man with a solid history as a defender of civil liberties and civil rights, and a defense attorney by training and private practice experience, seems sadly to have gotten a bit thin-skinned after donning the robes of a federal judge.

As my colleague Linn Washington wrote earlier this week, the judge lost it when Hampton Coleman had the effrontery to write a 28-word letter to Restrepo questioning the judge’s integrity and his commitment to “blind justice,” and warning that “we the people” would be “watching and listening very carefully” to the judge.

Keep in mind that what this administration has been attempting to do hasn't been done previously, opening up our government information even more and to retrieve quicker. Will they succeed, doubt it, to many want a closed agenda of what is done in our names. makes no difference whether they are sincere or insincere they might or might not be, the country isn't controlled by us the people.

Also keep in mind what wasn't done in the previous administration and their congresses especially as we waged war on two countries, reasons for, building the coalitions.........., but even more as to foreign and domestic policies, regulations, closed energy meetings and on and on.

This is how we treat a lower rank soldier suspect, as the leaders walk free with no worries, apparently, as to accountability of what they did In Our Names!!

Lawyer for Assange’s Sex Accusers Helped In CIA Torture Rendition

Jan 13, 2011 - Best-selling spy thriller author Thomas Bodström ─ an attorney who represents the two Swedish women making the notorious sex charges against WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange ─ knows better than most people that truth is stranger than fiction.

By Linn Washington Jr.

Given the sensationalism in mainstream US news media coverage of alleged sexual impropriety charges filed against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Sweden, it’s no surprise that other significant news about America involving that Scandinavian nation is being left uncovered.

In early November, Sweden called on the US to end the death penalty and to improve conditions in maximum security prisons, as the United States went through its first-ever Universal Periodic Review by the United Nation’s Human Rights Council.

Sweden joined nearly two dozen countries in calling upon the US to end its pariah-like status as the only western industrialized nation to engage in executions. The US has over 3,200 people facing death sentences, a sharp rise from 1968, when America’s death row population numbered just 517, according to statistics compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center.

It's too bad all this didn't start during the previous administration, there are so many questions and just think of the added proof as to the War Crimes and much more we would have!! Though in this country we don't do Accountability and allow our extremely wealthy walk around free with the blood wealth they gained, and we don't even tax them nor their corporations!!

Sanction Congress, Not One Member - by Stephen Lendman

The Constitution's Article I, Section 5, clause 2 authorizes the House of Representatives to discipline or "punish" its members for "disorderly Behavior," as well as for criminal, civil liability, or other misconduct issues. Ostensibly it's to protect the institutional integrity and reputation of the body, an impossible challenge given its longstanding record, notably over the past three decades, deserving far more than censure.

Punishment may be by reprimand, censure, expulsion, and/or fines, monetary restitution, loss of seniority, and suspension or loss of certain privileges. In addition, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct may issue a formal Committee reproach by "Letter of Reproval" for misconduct not warranting full House action. It may also express disapproval by informal letters and/or direct communications with members.

Trying to hide our history by protecting elected or appointed government officials, and possibly even citizens, is not what a representative democracy should be. Doing so leads to being that which we condemn others for! History repeats if not learned and the rhetoric here lately, by certain groups, sounds like that from this same destructive time past!

Justice Department Censors Nazi-Hunting History

Archive FOIA request and lawsuit opens 45 redacted pages;
Breakdown of FOI system sparks leak of full 600-page report

Name of office head blanked out from text, also all "personal opinion" expressed;
Justice Department violates own Attorney General's directive on open government

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 331

Posted - November 13, 2010

By Victor Grossman

Berlin -- What do the USA, China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and North Korea have in common?

The answer may surprise you.

The European Parliament answered this question \on October 2nd with passage of a resolution singling out that seemingly disparate list for criticism.

The embarrassing common thread among these six countries: an obsession with putting lots of people to death. The US, its key oil ally Saudi Arabia, its major trading partner China, its targeted enemies of Iran and North Korea, and its puppet ally Iraq all endorse the barbaric state-sanctioned practice of the death penalty, and lead the world in applying that terrible and irreversable sanction.

In a long, detailed EU Parliament resolution, approved almost unanimously by 574 members (only 25 opposed and 39 abstained), the members from all over Europe named people languishing on death rows and threatened with execution in several countries.

This photo essay could have gone on and on, just on the so called religious ideologies some preach and demand others must follow, as to All the intolerance episodes that have plagued this Nation since Europeans came over and took from the Natives what was theirs for thousands of years prior!

With recent episode of inflaming hatreds we're playing right into the hands, we already have during the previous decade, of those that used extremist ideologies as many here have picked that up and respond just as those they condemn!

GRITtv with Laura Flanders

August 19th, 2010 - My father died two weeks ago. He was a devout Catholic and former Franciscan brother. The last week of his life he was really upset -- not about dying, but about that church in Gainesville that’s planning to burn Korans on 9/11.

My dad thought it wasn’t Christian, but an act of Christian supremacy. I said it would be cute if they used German accents.

These folks are by Far much more Faithful then the hypocritical so called christians speaking out in the extreme negative and showing just how Intolerant they are for many others. not just Muslims!!

Young Muslims Pray for Understanding - Video - TIME.com

20 August 2010 - Young students and professionals who pray at the Park51 mosque, two blocks from Ground Zero, defend the controversial site

AMEN to this, from a Not Phony Christian, those who only follow the teachings of that suit an individual lifestyle while discarding the rest and doing same for Countries Constitution! Nor am I of a cultist mentality!!

Nothing frightening about mosques in America

12 August 2010 - Islam, the religion of more than 1.2 billion people around the world, does not frighten me.

I also have no fear of Muslims, those followers of the teachings of the prophet Muhammad who call God "Allah."

The words imam, Quran, mosque or even jihad do not cause me to tremble or to run in search of a hiding place.

What does scare me in these perilous times are the bigots, many of them zealots wrapped in religion and flag, who find it easy to spew their venomous hatred toward any person or group that is different from them.

Translation: "We will not tolerate wrongdoing by small fry (just forget Bush/Cheney, etc., etc., etc.)."

Six more policemen charged in Katrina killings

5:14pm EDT
By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Six more New Orleans police officers have been indicted in connection with the shooting deaths of two people and the wounding of four others who were walking on a bridge after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.

U.S. prosecutors unsealed a 27-count indictment that charged three current officers and one former officer with the killing, and subsequent cover-up, of James Brissette, a 17-year-old city resident, and Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old man who suffered disabilities and was shot in the back.

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