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thinkahol *

"Hot Coffee" Documentary Exposes Corporate Attacks on Consumer Rights, Features Expert ... - 0 views

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    What Really Happened? Stella Liebeck, 79-years-old, was sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson's car having purchased a cup of McDonald's coffee. After the car stopped, she tried to hold the cup securely between her knees while removing the lid. However, the cup tipped over, pouring scalding hot coffee onto her lap. She received third-degree burns over 16 percent of her body, necessitating hospitalization for eight days, whirlpool treatment for debridement of her wounds, skin grafting, scarring, and disability for more than two years. Despite these extensive injuries, she offered to settle with McDonald's for $20,000. However, McDonald's refused to settle for this small amount and, in fact, never offered more than $800. The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages - reduced to $160,000 because the jury found her 20 percent at fault - and $2.7 million in punitive damages for McDonald's callous conduct. (To put this in perspective, McDonald's revenue from coffee sales alone was in excess of $1.3 million a day.) The trial judge reduced the punitive damages to $480,000, but did state that McDonald's had engaged in "willful, wanton, and reckless" behavior. Mrs. Liebeck and McDonald's eventually settled for a confidential amount. The jury heard the following evidence in the case: McDonald's Operations Manual required the franchisee to hold its coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit; Coffee at that temperature, if spilled, causes third-degree burns (the worst kind of burn) in three to seven seconds; Third-degree burns do not heal without skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability of the victim for many months, and in some cases, years; The chairman of the department of mechanical engineering and bio-mechanical engineering at the University of Texas testified that this risk of harm is unacceptable, as did a wid
thinkahol *

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed military trial: Obama's cowardly, stupid, and wrong decision to ... - 0 views

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    Today, by ordering a military trial at Guantanamo for 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants, Attorney General Eric Holder finally put the Obama administration's stamp on the proposition that some criminals are "too dangerous to have fair trials."
thinkahol *

Naomi Wolf: 'Obama can lock any US citizen up without trial' - YouTube - 0 views

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    Barack Obamas indefinite detention claim, coupled with the enemy combatant right he inherited, enables him to lock up any US citizen forever without a trial, author and political consultant Naomi Wolf told RT.
thinkahol *

Iran needs stern lessons in freedom - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

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    A plan to put two Americans on trial for espionage sparks non-ironic outrage
thinkahol *

Chris Hedges: No Justice in Kafka's America - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig - 0 views

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    We no longer have freedom; there is only the appearance of freedom. We are consumed by an endless and vague war on terror in which the perfidiousness of our enemy, whose number, location and nature are never clearly defined, justifies the shredding of constitutional rights, torture, kidnapping, detentions without charges or trials and an occult-like battle against an absolute evil. And if you think the state intends to limit itself to the persecution of Muslims, especially once there is an increase in domestic unrest and instability, you know little about human history.
thinkahol *

‪An Act Of State - The Assassination Of Martin Luther King‬‏ - YouTube - 0 views

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    A clip from a lecture by William Pepper, attorney for the King family in the MLK conspiracy trial - which was won by the King family. He discusses the assassination of MLK as described in the book he wrote about it: "An Act Of State - The Assassination Of Martin Luther King".
thinkahol *

The Fall of the United States | Common Dreams - 0 views

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    We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling… the United States. --Clarence Darrow at the Scopes Monkey Trial. Welcome to the late great United States - a country in economic and moral free fall.  A country in thrall to a cult of greed, selfishness, and ignorance.
thinkahol *

Quantico Blocks Official Visits by UN, Amnesty, and Rep. Kucinich to Bradley Manning | ... - 0 views

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    Government officials and Quantico Marine base have blocked official visits to PFC. Bradley Manning by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Amnesty International, and the UN Special Rappateur on torture. According to Manning's attorney, Kucinich, Amnesty, and UN have been trying to get clearance for "official visits" to Manning at the Quantico Marine brig. An "official visit" is different from an "authorized visit" in that an "authorized visit" - one made by family or friends and approved by the brig and Manning - is subject to full surveillance by the brig. An official visit would be one conducted by those officials on government business, and would not be subject to monitoring by the brig. So essentially, the government and the brig are saying you can come visit Manning, but we're going to watch and record every thing you say, and those recordings could be used as evidence against Manning at his trial. Manning's attorney stated that Kucinich, Amnesty, and the UN are not allowed to have an official visit "because none of these individuals are conducting 'official government business.'" This is, of course, ludicrous. Rep. Kucinich is a sitting Member of Congress with a seat on the Oversight Committee, and he submitted official notices to the Department of Defense that he wanted to inspect the conditions of Manning's confinement. Additionally, the UN Special Rappateur on Torture has opened an investigation into Manning's detention and would be visiting in his official capacity. What is the government afraid that Manning will say to these officials when the Brig isn't able to record his every move? If Manning's torture is "meeting our basic standards," as President Obama says, what is there to hide?
thinkahol *

Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden's Death - 0 views

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    t's increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition - except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress "suspects." In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it "believed" that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn't know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence - which, as we soon learned, Washington didn't have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that "we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda." Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden's "confession," but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.
Felix Gryffeth

Cheney should face charges on use of torture - 0 views

  • dismiss the torture and murder of a human being is an unrepentant sociopath.
  • discussion of his fears, as if they somehow justify torture and murder.
  • inventing nightmare scenarios to come up with an excuse for torturing defenseless prisoners.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • The law anticipates this defense and rejects it in its entirety. It states that there are no “exceptional circumstances whatsoever ... that may be invoked as justification” for torture.
  • dismiss the torture and murder of a human being is an unrepentant sociopath.
  • to a discussion of his fears, as if they somehow justify torture and murder.
  • better display of our professed devotion to justice and human rights than anything afforded those who were condemned to torture without a trial.
  • What makes this argument so pathetic is that the people making it are often enthusiastic supporters of drone strikes.
  • excuse offered up by the conservative media is that the methods and tactics used didn’t meet the legal definition of torture. Unfortunately for them, that argument has already been tried and rejected in trials for war criminals.
  • law anticipates this defense and rejects it in its entirety. It states that there are no “exceptional circumstances whatsoever ... that may be invoked as justification” for torture. Cheney’s cowardice is simply not a legal defense for interrogation methods that included waterboarding, rectal rehydration and hypothermia
  • inventing nightmare scenarios to come up with an excuse for torturing defenseless prisoners.
thinkahol *

Chronicle of a death foretold - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

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    Guantanamo Bay prisoner Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif died without having ever been charged with a crime.
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