The international Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has announced that it will seek the arrest Muammar Gaddafi for crimes linked to the brutal suppression of demonstrations against his 42-year rule. I do not question the violations committed by Gaddafi. However, I remain uneasy about the criteria used to determine which dictators are prosecuted. The world is crowded with such leaders accused of crimes against humanity. In nearby Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is accused of killing hundreds of protesters and, in Iran, thousands of protesters have been arrested — some executed and others raped or tortured. Even in the United States, we have officials who are accused of war crimes in the use of torture. The point is not to suggest an equality or comparable likeness in the alleged crimes of Libya and the United States. Rather, there remains a concern over selective enforcement in ICC actions.
Continue reading “International Criminal Court Moves To Arrest Gaddafi For Decades of Abuse”
Category: Politics
IMF President Dominique Strauss-Kahn last week was widely viewed as heading to the French Presidency. He is now viewed this week as more likely to head to an American jail. In an extraordinary criminal complaint, Strauss-Kahn is described as a sexual predator who spontaneously assaulted a hotel maid. And we thought former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz was an embarrassment.
Continue reading “IMF President Strauss-Kahn Arrested For Assault of New York Hotel Maid”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
I wonder how many people are aware that there is a special day that has been set aside by Congress to commemorate the signing of the Constitution each year.
From the Library of Congress:
Constitution Day and Citizenship Day is observed each year on September 17 to commemorate the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787, and “recognize all who, by coming of age or by naturalization, have become citizens.”
This commemoration had its origin in 1940, when Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing and requesting the President to issue annually a proclamation setting aside the third Sunday in May for the public recognition of all who had attained the status of American citizenship. The designation for this day was “I Am An American Day.”
This weekend, Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who ordered the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, received the ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism in New York. My roughly two-hour interview with Garzón before his receiving the award proved quite newsworthy with Garzón discussing subjects ranging from the charges that he is facing in Spain to current issues of human rights violations by the United States to the threats to assassinate him. Most notably, Garzón criticized the Obama Administration for rolling back on the Nuremberg principles and violating international obligations to prosecute individuals for torture and war crimes.
Continue reading “Baltasar Garzón Receives Human Rights Award and Criticizes Obama Administration For Violations of International Law”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
While Republicans have been trying to leech the credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, President Obama has upstaged them by laying out his immigration reform plan. This is a signature political issue that the Republicans have tried to make their own. However, the E-Verify program will test whether they really want to solve the problem or whether, like bin Laden, they’re more interested in maintaining the issue for its political usefulness.
Continue reading “An Effective Solution to Illegal Immigration”
The trustees of City University of New York have finally approved an honorary degree for the playwright Tony Kushner after a controversial trustee blocked the degree over his personal disagreement with Mr. Kushner’s views on Israel. Many are now calling for the resignation of trustee Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld (left) who has suggested that Palestinians are not human and said that a “teach in” about the 9/11 attacks at the school was an act of “sedition.”
Continue reading “CUNY Trustee Under Fire After Nixing Honorary Degree For Tony Kushner”
There is a revolving door theme in today’s posts. We saw yesterday how Communications Commissioner Meredith Baker was made senior vice president of Comcast-NBC, Phillip A. Hamilton, a former Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates, has been convicted of leveraging his office to secure a paying position with Old Dominion University. He now will be sentenced for federal program bribery and extortion under color of official right.
Continue reading “Former Virginia Legislator Convicted In Scheme With Old Dominion University”
Critics are charging this week that Federal Communications Commissioner Meredith Baker has given this swamp-based city another glaring example of how to turn public service into personal gain. Just four months after voting to allow the merger between Comcast and NBC Universal, she has been given a high-paid job as senior vice president of governmental affairs by . . . you guessed it . . . Comcast-NBC.
Continue reading “Revolving Door: FCC Commissioner Votes For Comcast/NBC Merger And, Four Months Later, Given Position As Senior Vice President in Comcast-NBC”
In Wisconsin, there is now record of the West Bend School Board ever rejecting an application for a student club at a high school . . . until now. You guessed it, students wanted to form the Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at East and West high schools but were denied approval by a 3-3 vote of the board. Board President Randy Marquardt opposed approval of the club.
Continue reading “Try The 4-H Club Instead: Wisconsin Board Refuses To Approve School-Sponsored Club for Gay Students”
A Gallop poll shows that fifty-two percent of Americans want a third party — a continuing majority from earlier polls showing as much as 58% who oppose the monopoly of power by the two leading parties. The question is how we can call ourselves a democracy when the two parties are able, through ballot barriers and other means, to prevent a major third party from emerging in the United States. I previously wrote about these barriers and the need for a third party.
Continue reading “Majority of Americans Still Want Third Major Party”
We previously saw how police charged atheist activist Ellen Beth Wachs, 48, with unauthorized practice of law after she confronted local politicians over prayer at public meetings. Now, Wachs (the legal coordinator for the Atheists of Florida) has been arrested with a sexual performance in the presence of a child. The police, however, admit that no one saw any sexual act. Rather, she is accused of making sexual noises.
Continue reading “I’ll Have What She’s Having: Leading Atheist Arrested For Making Sexual Noises”
In a little noticed action, the Virginia bar has reprimanded Monica Marie Goodling, the attorney at the center of the allegations of politicization of the Bush Justice Department. Many are complaining that the reprimand shows that the bar has little teeth in enforcing such ethical rules. On the other hand, the reprimand is still more punishment that John Yoo, Jay Bybee and others received for their support of alleged war crimes over the torture program. (Actually, Bybee was not just spared punishment by the Obama Justice Department but he was previously given a lifetime appointment as a federal judge).
Continue reading “Monica Goodling Reprimanded By Virginia State Bar”
Bingu wa Mutharika, the president of Malawi, sure showed his critics. After a cable was leaked showing that British High Commissioner Fergus Cochrane-Dyet was concerned about Mutharika’s intolerance of criticism, Mutharika responded by ordering the High Commissioner of Malawi to leave the country for the first time in history. That will show him for saying Mutherika cannot handle criticism.
Continue reading “Malawi President Responds To Claim That He Is Intolerant of Critics By Expelling Critical British High Commissioner”
For civil libertarians, there are few heroes who can match Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who ordered the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 and later worked to identify human rights violations committed during the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship. He will be the first recipient of ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism. I will have the honor of serving as the interviewer of Judge Garzón at the award luncheon on Saturday, May 14th, and to explore his views of contemporary civil liberties issues as well as his famous career.
Continue reading “Baltasar Garzón To Receive Human Rights Award and Speak in New York”
Two Muslim religious leaders were tossed off a Delta flight in Memphis after a pilot refused to take off with the men on board. Imam Masudur Rahman and Imam Mohamed Zaghloul, of the Islamic Association of Greater Memphis were told that they could not reboard the flight after it returned to the gate. It is the latest example of discrimination against Muslims due to their appearance.
Continue reading “Flying While Muslim: Two Imams Thrown Off Flight To Conference To Discuss Islamophobia”