Bloodstar

Whatever you want to call this, this is pretty screwed up

Imagine you come home from work one day to a notice on your front door that you have 45 days to demolish your house, or the city will do it for you. Oh, and you’re paying for it.

This is happening right now in Montgomery, Ala., and here is how it works: The city decides it doesn’t like your property for one reason or another, so it declares it a “public nuisance.” It mails you a notice that you have 45 days to demolish your property, at your expense, or the city will do it for you (and, of course, bill you).

Of course the whole idea is to get around the laws passed to prevent eminent domain in Alabama, so now the Government declares a property to be a nuisance or a blight and then takes control of the property. Of course, unlike eminent domain, the government doesn’t have to pay you, and in fact can bill you for the cost of leveling your property. Then they can sell it to the businesses that want to build on the property. It’s a creative use of the laws, it’s totally evil also.

We’ll see how long it lasts, after all, it’s primarily being used against really poor black people. So chances are most people aren’t even going to care.

Tags: Evil, Law, bloodstar by bloodstar
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I mean, if you’re going to vilify the person who has tried his best to work to demonstrate a willingness for to talk, to work as a true moderate of his faith, then the reality is, aren’t listening to what he’s saying:

We are here to assert the Islamic conviction of the moral equivalency of our Abrahamic
faiths. If to be a Jew means to say with all one’s heart, mind and soul Shma` Yisrael, Adonai
Elohenu Adonai Ahad; hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am
a Jew, I have always been one, Mr. Pearl.

If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to
love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I
have always been one Mr. Pearl.

And I am here to inform you, with the full authority of the Quranic texts and the practice of
the Prophet Muhammad, that to say La ilaha illallah Muhammadun rasulullah is no different.
It expresses the same theological and ethical principles and values

In fact, I suspect that quite a few of the people who want to have an enemy, who doesn’t want Islam to moderate, who want to radicalize Christianity and make it a hateful, narrow, bigoted belief system. They’re not looking to do anything more than demonstrate their superiority by destroying anything like like them. They’re evil.

Tags: Evil, Religion, bloodstar by bloodstar
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It’s insanity like this

State agencies are investigating whether any of their employees leaked Social Security numbers and other personal information after a list of 1,300 people who an anonymous group claims are illegal immigrants was circulated around Utah.

The anonymous group mailed the list to several media outlets, law enforcement agencies and others this week, frightening the state’s Hispanic community. A letter accompanying the list demanded that those on it be deported immediately.

The list also contains highly detailed personal information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, workplaces, addresses and phone numbers. Names of children are included, along with due dates of pregnant women on the list.

One of the most disheartening things about this is seeing the comment thread on the yahoo article. I’m beginning to lose faith that the majority of Americans are good people. People are too easily swayed by fear and xenophobia, and a bad economy will cause people to overlook the xenophobia and racism that has poisoned the Republican party.

I’d call this a stunt, and dismiss it, but when you read studies that show that too many people are willing to ignore accurate information if it doesn’t fit their worldview, you realize that it doesn’t matter if something is a stunt, it helps solidify the worldview, and in this case the worldview is that there are too many nasty dirty illegals downloading babies and stealing from America. Just because the facts on the ground don’t support this worldview does not matter, because facts no longer matter and America is a weaker country because of the continued use of fear which weakens reason and the resolve in America to do the right and reasonable things instead of reacting like scared children.

Where’s the America I love?

Tags: Criminal, Evil, Immigration, bloodstar by bloodstar
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Sometimes things just seem to go backwards

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has signed a number of new bills into law regarding abortion regulation, including mandating ultrasounds before the procedure, denying doctors who perform abortions malpractice insurance, and banning public insurance coverage.

To add insult to injury, there is no exception for rape or incest. and all ultrasounds require using the probe internally, as in into the woman’s vagina in order to make the ultra sound more accurate.

The added fun of denying malpractice insurance is simply designed to find more ways to cease all abortions in the state. So no one can afford abortions, well, except the people who are rich.

For the SoCons, women really are nothing more than chattel.

Tags: Evil, Health, Law, Political, bloodstar by bloodstar
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Maybe this is part of the reason:

“We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy. We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such. We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases,” – the platform of the Republican Party of Texas

Why I’m surprised they even bothered to use such a nice term as Homosexuality. The spread of dangerous communicable diseases? What the hell? I mean, I know almost all the Republican Party platforms support creationism and the criminalization of Abortion. But usually they don’t dog-whistle quite that loudly.

(HT: Sullivan)

Tags: Evil, Political, Republican Death Spiral, bloodstar by bloodstar
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Don’t use your dead daughter and sister to raise money for yourself. Dear god this is disgusting. What happened to Terry Schiavo was awful, and there wasn’t an easy answer or solution, but this makes me wonder about the real motives of her parents and family

In most recent IRS report that the Foundation filed for 2008, it shows the foundation took in $91,568 and paid Terri’s dad Robert Schindler Sr., her brother Robert Jr. and her sister Suzanne Vitadamo $59,275, or 64% of the money they raised.

Charity Navigator a respected Charity Rating organization says any charity spending more than 30 percent on salaries gets a zero rating. The foundation doesn’t come close.

In the meantime, since the report was filed, the salaries have increased to $80,000 a year, but the Foundation says one salary is in arrears causing some family members to work without pay. Also since the IRS report was filed and Terri Schiavo’s father died.

Where the hell?

Tags: Evil, bloodstar by bloodstar
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After all, people will deny that innocent people were rounded up and held for years down in Guantanamo Bay. But when it’s obvious that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush all knew that there were innocents, but felt that holding hundreds of innocent people was worth it, if it meant that a few hard core terrorists were held.

Obama continues his approval of the previous administration’s policies, by obfuscating and wanting to put it behind us. And in the end most peopl don’t care, because the people being screwed over aren’t enough like us.

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 knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.

General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration.

Freedom for me, not for thee.

Tags: Criminal, Evil, Political, Teh 'war' on (of) Terror (ism), bloodstar by bloodstar
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I would like to ask McCain and Lieberman to respectfully stop being scared little fuckers who want to tear more holes in the constitution in their evident fear that a few big scary evil terrorists are some how so dangerous that we need to rip up the constitution so they can sleep better at night:

A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity.

McCain and Lieberman you don’t deserve respect for being such scared little children. So please, retire and quit trying to solve everything with a horrible bill designed to play on the fear of people. There is no way this can pass constitutional muster, but since people won’t be able to bring a suit, (as they’ll be held outside the legal system), nothing will be around to challenge the law.

I dunno, maybe someone can challenge on their behalf, but that’s going to be difficult to gain standing, particularly if the person isn’t permitted contact with the rest of the world.

Indefinite detention without trial for US citizens is a awful horrible nasty idea no matter what they may be accused of doing. So, Yeah, McCain and Lieberman, for proposing this bill, please just fuck off.

Tags: Criminal, Evil, Political, bloodstar by bloodstar
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How is the rot and corrosion in our souls feeling now? How does it feel to know that people were tortured… to death to make you feel safer? some of the people wanted to hurt us and some of them were just sheep herders who were turned in for the money. How does it feel to know that we tortured and killed people who had nothing to do with terror? To make you feel safer? How does it feel to know that we waterboarded people for so long, that they simply gave up and quit fighting, accepting death rather than struggling to live? Some of the people were bad people, and some of these people were innocent. Does it make you feel better knowing that innocent people died to make you feel like America was “doing something”?

The CIA’s waterboarding regimen was so excruciating, the memos show, that agency officials found themselves grappling with an unexpected development: detainees simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown. “In our limited experience, extensive sustained use of the waterboard can introduce new risks,” the CIA’s Office of Medical Services wrote in its 2003 memo. “Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness.”

Do you look in the mirror in the morning? Do you accept the responsibility for what we did as a country?

the memos also reveal that the Bush-era Justice Department authorized the CIA to use it in combination with other forms of torture. Specifically, a detainee could be kept awake for more than seven days straight by shackling his hands in a standing position to a bolt in the ceiling so he could never sit down. The agency diapered and hand-fed its detainees during this period before putting them on the waterboard.

Was waterboarding just a little bit of water? meant to scare the victim? Do you still believe that trope?

One of the more interesting revelations in the documents is the use of a saline solution in waterboarding. Why? Because the CIA forced such massive quantities of water into the mouths and noses of detainees, prisoners inevitably swallowed huge amounts of liquid – enough to conceivably kill them from hyponatremia, a rare but deadly condition in which ingesting enormous quantities of water results in a dangerously low concentration of sodium in the blood.

…

Therefore, “based on advice of medical personnel,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury wrote in a May 10, 2005, memo authorizing continued use of waterboarding, “the CIA requires that saline solution be used instead of plain water to reduce the possibility of hyponatremia.”

The agency used so much water there was also another risk: pneumonia resulting from detainees inhaling the fluid forced into their mouths and noses. Saline, the CIA argued, might reduce the risk of pneumonia when this occurred.

“The detainee might aspirate some of the water, and the resulting water in the lungs might lead to pneumonia,” Bradbury noted in the same memo. “To mitigate this risk, a potable saline solution is used in the procedure.”

And rather than confront the reality of what America has done, rather than understand what we permitted to happen, we respond with a yawn or a ‘they had it coming cause we know that all arabs are terrorists, even the sheep herders.’ or a shrug and bury our head in the sand, and proclaim how much better America is than anyone else, we wave our flags and show into the air about how we would never do these things, because we’re America, and even if we did do these things, well that’s ok, we’re America after all, and if we do it, it must be right.

So try to bury it, try to ignore it, try to put the stain on the very Soul of America out of your mind. if you’ll sleep better at night, then that’s your choice.

But I choose to look into the dark places of America’s heart, and I choose to fight to ensure that those dark places are illuminated. I believe in an America that *is* better than other countries, both in spirit and deed. And maybe people won’t be punished for torturing and murdering, but the more light we shine on what we let happen, then perhaps the next time someone considers adding more stains to America’s soul, they’ll choose the right path, the right choice, and not step into the darkness.

Tags: Criminal, Evil, Torture, bloodstar by bloodstar
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Because he explains just how fucked up things are now

George Bush and Dick Cheney ended up as two of the most despised American political leaders of the last 100 years, so our establishment had to pretend that they, too, found their policies to be distasteful and extreme. But that was clearly a pretense. In those very rare instances where Obama and his Attorney General try to deviate, they’re accused (including by leading members of their own party) of accommodating “the Far Left” and being “Soft on Terror.” The undeniable truth is that our establishment craves Bush/Cheney policies because it is as radical as they are. That one is automatically accused of being too Leftist merely by literally reciting Reagan administration policy on Terrorists (in words if not deeds) — and that one can be “centrist” only by standing with the due-process-denying practices of Libya and Saudi Arabia — reflects just how far the American spectrum has regressed.

Tags: Criminal, Evil, Law, Political, bloodstar by bloodstar
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Sometimes the truth comes out despite their best efforts:

“What I told Brian Ross in late 2007 was wrong on a couple counts,” he writes. “I suggested that Abu Zubaydah had lasted only thirty or thirty-five seconds during his waterboarding before he begged his interrogators to stop; after that, I said he opened up and gave the agency actionable intelligence.”

But never mind, he says now.

“I wasn’t there when the interrogation took place; instead, I relied on what I’d heard and read inside the agency at the time.”

“Now we know,” Kiriakou goes on, “that Zubaydah was waterboarded eighty-three times in a single month, raising questions about how much useful information he actually supplied.”

Indeed. But after his one-paragraph confession, Kiriakou adds that he didn’t have any first hand knowledge of anything relating to CIA torture routines, and still doesn’t. And he claims that the disinformation he helped spread was a CIA dirty trick: “In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own.”

So, which do you believe, that Zubaydah gave all his actionable information before being tortured, and then was tortured repeatedly when they thought he was holding out, or that he held out on them until they tortured him for a month, and that the idea that Zubaydah only lasted a few seconds was put out there to minimize the perception of how evil things were and that really, torture isn’t so bad, as it only took a few seconds anyway. making it easier for the public to turn a blind eye?

The sad part? most people are going to turn a blind eye to everything because they don’t want to understand what evil people performed. And they want to think that it was necessary; that the ends justify the means. And it’s a heck of a lot easier to feel that way when you don’t have to confront the things that were done or confront the idea that maybe the evil that was done… had no effect. That the torture and rape and murder of people in captivity; and sure some of whom were evil people themselves, but some of whom were innocent of the accusations, made no material effect on the safety of the United States.

Has living in fear of the evil terrorists made America that willing to compromise their morals? And even worse, compromise it without any benefit?

Tags: Criminal, Evil, Torture, bloodstar by bloodstar
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It’s looking more and more likely the worst is true:

Three people were tortured and murdered in Gitmo in 2006, apparently by members of the US Military and then covered up. Two of which had been cleared by a tribunal and were scheduled to be released. The story to cover up their murder? They all decided to commit suicide around the same time by:

There is no explanation of how each of the detainees, much less all three, could have done the following: braided a noose by tearing up his sheets and/or clothing, made a mannequin of himself so it would appear to the guards he was asleep in his cell, hung sheets to block vision into the cell—a violation of Standard Operating Procedures, tied his feet together, tied his hands together, hung the noose from the metal mesh of ii the cell wall and/or ceiling, climbed up on to the sink, put the noose around his neck and released his weight to result in death by strangulation, hanged until dead and hung for at least two hours completely unnoticed by guards.

In a cell block with 28 prisoners, 24/7 guards and camera coverage.

Mind you, the rag stuffed down their throats as well is another source of confusion, let alone the bodies were returned to their families with their neck removed.

I’ve not written about this yet, because, honestly I was hoping to see some information that somehow there was something else going on. But the more I see on the story, the more I realize that something awful had happened, and continued to happen in Gitmo. But will enough people care? or is it too uncomfortable to contemplate that maybe there was some evil shit going on. Or worse yet, there may be a group of people who are ok with evil shit going on. That’s what scares me the most.

Tags: Criminal, Evil, Torture, bloodstar by bloodstar
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Lifted from comments in Balloon-Juice and all I can say is WTF?

A man stabbed and bludgeoned his sister and her husband to death in El Cerrito in 2006 because he thought the couple were too liberal, were raising their children wrong and because they hadn’t invited him over for Christmas, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

Just… what the hell is wrong with these people?

Tags: Criminal, Evil, bloodstar by bloodstar
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I’d figure they’d manage to destroy all the evidence by now…

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) learned today of the existence of video and audio tapes of the abusive interrogations of client Mohammed al Qahtani, the victim of the “First Special Interrogation Plan” personally overseen by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

“After the intense scrutiny of the government’s torture and interrogation of Mr. al Qahtani, it is shocking that the government has hidden the existence of these tapes from the public for so many years,” said CCR Attorney Gitanjali S. Gutierrez. “The government’s interrogation of him has been the topic of multiple military, Justice Department and congressional investigations. These tapes should have been acknowledged long ago.”

Until recently, the Government had adamantly denied that any U.S. personnel engaged in acts of torture during Mr. al Qahtani’s interrogation, but on January 14, 2009, Military Commission Convening Authority Susan Crawford conceded that by subjecting Mr. al Qahtani to systematic 20-hour interrogations, prolonged sleep deprivation, 160 days of severe isolation, forced nudity, sexual and religious humiliation, and other aggressive interrogation tactics, the government had engaged in acts of torture. Much of this information appeared in interrogation logs leaked to the press as early as 2006

HT balloon-juice

Tags: Criminal, Evil, Torture, bloodstar by bloodstar
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I do:

Despite ruling out all of the government’s supposed eyewitnesses, and noting that the government had withdrawn “most of its reliance on these witnesses” by the time of the Merits Hearing, Judge Kollar-Kotelly added that “it is very significant that al-Rabiah’s interrogators apparently believed these allegations at the time they were made, and therefore sought to have al-Rabiah confess to them” — despite the well-chronicled unreliability of the first two supposed witnesses, the withdrawing of the statement made by the third, and the fact, easily perceived by the judge, that the fourth made his statement only after being subjected to sleep deprivation that exceeded established guidelines and that was, therefore, not only unreliable, but also abusive.

So, first we get people to lie about what someone has done, then we torture that person until they confess to the details the other people have lied about. Then, threaten that person with more torture if they try to tell the truth. You still don’t care?

al-Rabiah “did not know what to admit” when his interrogators explained that his “full confession did not incorporate a description concerning a suitcase full of money that he allegedly gave bin Laden”; they “began to question the truthfulness of his confessions almost immediately”; they “began ‘grilling’ al-Rabiah concerning [redacted]“; al-Rabiah “was interrogated [redacted] during which he made a full confession regarding his activities at Tora Bora”; interrogators “pressed for additional details concerning Tora Bora”; they “became increasingly convinced that his confessions [redacted]“; they “concluded in one interrogation report [redacted]“; “One week later, his interrogator concluded [redacted]“; “After several additional interrogation sessions, al-Rabiah’s interrogators concluded simply [redacted].”

Still not worried?

She then moved on to al-Rabiah’s own explanations of how he came to make false confessions, noting that he had stated that, shortly after his arrival at Guantánamo, “a senior [redacted] interrogator came to me and said, ‘There is nothing against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent.”

You should be

Tags: Criminal, Evil, Torture, bloodstar by bloodstar
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