Links for October 6th

New York Times: Herman Cain is a Candidate Writing His Own Campaign RulesRunning for president? Nah. Herman Cain has decided he'd rather go on a book tour. Much like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, Cain appears to view running for the Republican nomination as a cheap method of getting national press. MSNBC: Secret panel can …

Links for May 8th

NPR: Florida Bill Could Muzzle Doctors On Gun SafetyAn NRA-written bill has passed the Florida legislature, and is likely to be signed by the governor, that will make it illegal for doctors to advise patients on gun safety. (Pediatricians frequently advise new parents on how to store firearms safely, and doctors concerned about teenagers' mental …

Links for May 2nd

New York Times: A Tipping Point for Gay Marriage?With the government unable to muster a legally defensible argument against gay marriage, it's amazing that the House of Representatives went ahead and hired their own private law firm to carry on the right. But it's more amazing still that the law firm dropped the case, finding …

Links for April 26th

Letters of Note: On bureaucratese and gobbledygookThis is a delightful memo sent by Civil Aeronautics Board chairman Alfred E. Kahn to the organization's top staff in 1977, begging them to please stop writing in "bureaucratese," and to instead use "straightforward, quasi-conversational, humane prose." He provides some specific examples that still apply nicely today. Wikipedia: List …

Catching up with Abu Zubaida.

You’ll remember the name Abu Zubaida. That’s the guy President Bush bragged about capturing back in 2002, describing him as “al-Qaeda’s chief of operations.” Zubaida denied it, saying that he had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. So we held him at a CIA black operations site and tortured him in order to get him to …

Eleven-year-old “terrorist” released from Guantanamo.

A 21-year-old was just released from Guantanamo after being arrested at the age of fourteen for allegedly associating with al-Qaeda at the age of eleven. There was zero evidence of any such thing, hence his release. So we wrongly imprisoned a child for seven years, raised him in a prison, and set him free in …

Study: American prisoners more likely to reoffend than Guantanamo detainees.

Prisoners released from Guantanamo have a recidivism rate five times lower than American prisoners. That’s based on comparing the Defense Department’s 14% rate with the DOJ’s general recidivism stats. Those 14% are merely suspected of planning crimes, so I’ve compared them to the 67.5% of released American prisoners who are arrested. So either these suspected …

McDonnell opposes establishing a prison for Guantanamo prisoners in Virginia.

Bob McDonnell says he opposes transferring Guantanamo Bay prisoners into any Virginia facilities. For the record, I’d be perfectly happy to have them in Virginia. Hell, I’d be happy to have them right here in Albemarle County, in any place that’s appropriate for a prison facility of that size. McDonnell describes these guys as “some …

White House can’t meet its own terrorist prosecution standards.

The Bush administration has admitted that they can’t prosecute “the 20th hijacker” because they tortured him. Why can’t they torture him? Because that’s outside of their own claimed standards. It’s amazing—Bush set up his own special courts, his own prosecutors, his own prisons, his own legal system just for convicting supposed terrorists—the whole damned system …