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In March, 2002, American citizen Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago and publicly accused by then-Attorney-General John Ashcroft of being "The Dirty Bomber."  Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to a military brig in South Carolina, where he was held for almost two years completely incommunicado (charged with no crime and denied all access to the outside world, including even a lawyer) and was brutally tortured, both physically and psychologically.  All of this -- including the torture -- was carried out pursuant to orders from President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials.  Just as the Supreme Court was about to hear Padilla's plea to be charged or released -- and thus finally decide if the President has the power to imprison American citizens on U.S. soil with no charges of any kind -- the Government indicted him in a federal court on charges far less serious than Ashcroft had touted years earlier, causing the Supreme Court to dismiss Padilla's arguments as "moot"; Padilla was then convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Why Impeachment? The Constitution, Article II, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. It has become clear that the federal government has lost legitimacy. Mass scale impeachments (and/or Egypt style calls for resignation via mass strikes) should be pushed for immediately. Let's detail why the first to go should be the president of the United States.

The U.S. Army yesterday announced that it has filed 22 additional charges against Bradley Manning, the Private accused of being the source for hundreds of thousands of documents (as well as this still-striking video) published over the last year by WikiLeaks. Most of the charges add little to the ones already filed, but the most serious new charge is for "aiding the enemy," a capital offense under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Although military prosecutors stated that they intend to seek life imprisonment rather than the death penalty for this alleged crime, the military tribunal is still empowered to sentence Manning to death if convicted.

Spurred by memories of the World War II-era roundup and internment of 110,000 of their own people, Japanese Americans, especially on the West Coast, have been among the most vocal and passionate supporters of embattled Muslims. They've rallied public support against hate crimes at mosques, signed on to legal briefs opposing the indefinite detention of Muslims by the government, organized cross-cultural trips to the Manzanar internment camp memorial in California and held "Bridging Communities" workshops in Islamic schools and on college campuses.

In states across the country, women are being arrested for the crime of ending their own pregnancies-though they have a constitutional right to do so in a doctor's office. Michelle Goldberg on a worrisome new trend.

To make drug policies more humane and more effective, the U.S. should rehabilitate non-violent, casual drug users, and undermine the power of organized crime.

By executive order on Aug. 4, President Barack Obama refused entry to the United States of war criminals and human-rights violators (jurist.org, Aug. 4). He ignored, as he often does, the deeply documented factual evidence of war crimes committed by the Bush-Cheney administration along with grim proof that the Obama administration also violates our anti-torture laws and the U.N. Convention Against Torture we signed. Take, for example, right now under Obama, "The CIA Secret Sites in Somalia" (the nation.com, July 12).

In a disturbing scene from today's "Occupy Wall Street" protests, a group of peaceful female protesters were rounded up in an orange-colored mesh pen by police and subsequently sprayed with mace without any provocation. In spite of multiple reported incidents of possible police violence, major media outlets seem to be content to let the protests go by completely unreported, following the same "who-cares" attitude they have taken toward recent revelations that the NYPD has violated the Constitutional rights of American citizens by spying on them as possible terrorists and enemies of the state despite a complete absence of evidence of any crimes.

Torture Accountability is a coalition comprised of different Human Rights and activist groups seeking justice for those who were tortured and for the war crimes committed in violation of the laws of the United States, the Geneva Convention and all treaties to which the United States is a signatory.

The investigation reported is one of those connected to Burges. Do you notice ... 1. That the authorites are just looking into the members of Burge's crowd, as if they were the only problem on the CPD. Please. Dealing with these thugs is a nice start, but it's only a start. One is left wondering, though, if this is where it will end. 2. That this wasn't exactly late breaking news or unknown in Chicago - the Reader did a series of articles on these fun, fun people back in the 90s, and word had hit the street long before then. Why wasn't anybody looking into this, then? That last question being rhetorical, of course, for reasons I'll get to, in a second. 3. That the human rights abuses mentioned took place during the 1980s, meaning that prosecution has been stalled for so long that, even if caught, most of the offenders will escape justice. 4. When, some years back, I and a few other demonstrators were on the street in Chicago, trying to raise a little consciousness about the issues surrounding the death penalty in Illinois, mentioning this very case, there's a reaction to which we became accustomed. The man on the street seeing absolutely nothing wrong with torturing confessions out of those accused of crimes. This is why, below, you see me suggesting that I was not surprised to see popular acceptance of the Bush administration's lavish use of torture. As a society, we had been there before, and hadn't seemed to be in any great hurry to get anywhere better.

See previous bookmark on my profile. Jon Burges, who has been found to have "solved crimes" by having suspects tortured into confessing, tripped across the law against perjuring oneself on the stand. What a shame. :)

Without being charged with a crime, the American-born cleric has drone missiles shot at him in Yemen

Consider Paul Allen, 55, a former mortgage CEO who defrauded lenders of over $3 billion. This week, prosecutors celebrated the fact they got him a 40-month prison sentence. Consider Roy Brown, 54, a hungry homeless man who robbed a Louisiana bank of $100 - the teller gave him more but he handed the rest back. He felt bad the next day and surrendered to police. He got 15 years. Justice in America has a ways to go.

I'm genuinely excited today to announce the release of my new book, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. As of this morning, it is available in bookstores as well as for shipping online. The book focuses on what I began realizing several years ago is the crucial theme tying together most of the topics I write about: America's two-tiered justice system - specifically, the way political and financial elites are now vested with virtually absolute immunity from the rule of law even when they are caught committing egregious crimes, while ordinary Americans are subjected to the world's largest and one of its harshest and most merciless penal states even for trivial offenses. As a result, law has been completely perverted from what it was intended to be - the guarantor of an equal playing field which would legitimize outcome inequalities - into its precise antithesis: a weapon used by the most powerful to protect their ill-gotten gains, strengthen their unearned prerogatives, and ensure ever-expanding opportunity inequality. This is how I described that development in the book:

Listen to and SUPPORT those American Veterans that are now AWAKE and MAD AS HELL!! Original maker of this video is http://www.youtube.com/user/StopTheRobbery2 http://www.ivaw.org/about/why-we-are-against-wars http://www.ivaw.org/ I don't think everyone should just comment. I think everyone should re post this video over and over until 1 Billion on the internet have watched this video. End the war by re posting this video. God bless the World and its people with peace and humanity.

This article just says that Obama has a template for speaking to the victim-communities of Newtown, CT, Tucson, Arizona, Boston Marathon Bombing, &c.

Las Vegas Shooting - A Man In A Pig Mask Opens Fire At Bellagio Hotel Shooter wearing a pig mask open fire and sends people running for their lives at Las Vegas in a popular US tourist hotspot. http://bit.ly/2n2uxMZ

http://bit.ly/2mC8ba6 Leeds Army Barracks On Lockdown As Bomb Squad Rush In The home to the Parachute Regiment at Leeds army barracks is on lockdown as police probe a bomb ...Read More The post Leeds Army Barracks On Lockdown As Bomb Squad Rush I… Leeds Army Barracks On Lockdown As Bomb Squad Rush In The home to the Parachute Regiment at Leeds army barracks is on lockdown as police probe a bomb ...Read More The post Leeds Army Barracks On Lockdown As Bomb Squad Rush Into… http://bit.ly/2mC8ba6