Evidence Against Hamdan Barred at Guantanamo Trial

Tuesday 22 July 2008 A military judge says some statements by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden, were made in "highly coercive" settings. It could set a standard for other cases. Salim Hamdan's wife, Um Fatima, holding a family photo. (Photo: Brent Stirton / Getty Images)     Washington - The military judge overseeing the first war crimes trial against a terrorism suspect at Guantanamo Bay agreed Monday to bar some evidence against Osama bin Laden's former driver because it was obtained in "highly coercive environments and conditions."     On the trial's opening day, Navy Capt.. » read more

Mukasey To Congress - Defy The Rule Of Law

July 23, 2008 Along with other past and present administration officials, Attorney General Michael Mukasey supports lawlessness and police state justice. Weeks after the Supreme Court's landmark (June 12) Boumediene ruling, he addressed the conservative, pro-war American Enterprise Institute (on July 21) and asked Congress to overrule the High Court - for the third time. His proposal: -- subvert constitutional and international law; -- authorize indefinite detentions of Guantanamo and other "war on terror" prisoners (including US citizens designated "enemy combatants"); and -- deny them habeas rights, due process, and any hope for judicial fairness. Since June 2004, the (conservative) High Court made three landmark rulings. Twice Congress intervened, and Mukasey wants a third time.. » read more

War Crimes Paradox

July 18, 2008 I hope you will read not only the article by Paul Craig Roberts, below, but also the "cover letter" by John Whitbeck, which has some additional information of some significance. Best, TO: Distinguished Recipients FM: John Whitbeck In the COUNTERPUNCH article transmitted below, Paul Craig Roberts deals with the fundamental question posed by the war crimes charges formally launched against Omar al-Bashir rather more directly than Rami Khouri was able to in his article in the INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE. One very peculiar aspect of this affair has not, so far as I am aware, attracted=2 0the attention which it deserves. While the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court applied to the court for an arrest warrant against the President of Sudan this Monday, his intention to do so was publicly announced several days earlier ... » read more

Mortage Ruling Could Shock US. Banking INdustry

June 30, 2008 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin couple against their mortgage lender could have major implications for banks should a U.S. appeals court agree that borrowers can cancel their loans en masse when their lenders violate a federal lending disclosure law. A foreclosed home is seen in Stockton, California in this May 13, 2008 file photo. The case began like hundreds of others filed since the U.. » read more

Scalia Cites False Information in Habeas Corpus Dissent

Wednesday 25 June 2008 To bolster his argument that the Guantanamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo have returned to the battlefield." It turns out that statement is false. Marjorie Cohn says, "Scalia bolstered his hysterical claim that the Boumediene decision 'will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed' with stale information that was proven to be false a year ago." (Photo: AP)     According to a new report by Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, "The statistic was endorsed by a Senate Minority Report issued June 26, 2007, which cites a media outlet, CNN.. » read more

Report Sees Illegal Hiring Practices at Justice Department

Wednesday 25 June 2008  Washington - Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used "political or ideological" factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.     The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department's inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year's scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.     "Many qualified candidates" were rejected for the department's honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, "constituted misconduct and also violated the department's policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.. » read more

In a First, Court Overturns Guantanamo Hearing

Monday 23 June 2008 Washington - A federal appeals court for the first time has rejected the military's designation of a Guantanamo detainee as an enemy combatant.     A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned as "invalid" a military tribunal's conclusion that prisoner Huzaifa Parhat is an enemy combatant.     The court directed the Pentagon either to release or transfer Parhat or to hold a new tribunal hearing "consistent with the court's opinion.. » read more

The Crucifixion of Chief Justice John Glover Roberts

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Government Is Sued Over Seizure of Liberty Dollars

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Law School to Organize Bush War Crimes Trial

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:20 EDT A conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other high administration officials for war crimes will be held September 13-14 at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover. "This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred," said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. "It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth." "We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable in courts of justice," Velvel said. "And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s.. » read more

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