Top Stories

The Michigan Messenger going forward

By Staff Report | 11.16.11

I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]

Colorado-based abstinence program provided false and misleading information to Michigan students

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.16.11

An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.

Class action lawsuit filed against MERS over unpaid taxes

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.15.11

Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.

Schuette fights important mercury regulations

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By Eartha Jane Melzer | 11.14.11

Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.

New report documents abuse by American personnel

By Ed Brayton | 07.08.08 | 12:14 am

Evidence mounts for war crimes prosecution of senior-level military and Bush officials

A new report put out by Physicians for Human Rights, an international organization that shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, documents torture and abuse of detainees by American personnel. The report — Broken Laws, Broken Lives — details the experiences of eleven detainees held in American custody at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and prisons at military bases around the world.

Here is an example of the treatment of detainees detailed in this report:

Kamal is in his late forties. He served in the Iraqi Army during the 1980s and later became a businessman and Imam of a local mosque. In September 2003 he was arrested by US forces. At the time of his arrest, he was beaten to the point of losing consciousness. After being brought to Abu Ghraib prison, he was kept naked and isolated in a cold dark room for three weeks, where both during and in between interrogations he was frequently beaten, including being hit on the head and in the jaw with a rifle and stabbed in the cheek with a screwdriver.

He was then placed in isolation in a urine-soaked room for two months. When Kamal was allowed to wear clothes, they were sometimes soaked in water to keep him cold. On approximately ten occasions he was suspended in a stress position, causing numbness that lasted for a month. He was made to believe that his family members were also in prison and that they were being raped and tortured. He recounted,

Comments

  • Tony Collings

    Shameful As a nation we should be ashamed. But who will bring the war crimes charges? The Department of Injustice?

    • http://www.ezinsurancequotes.com/term-life-insurance/term-life-quote/compare-term-quotes.html Quotes

      That's truly very shameful, I am unable to digest it!

  • Todd Spencer

    Top Dems complicit? Lots of observers believe that top Dems like Pelosi were notified about the torture policies and made complicit in them by signing off on them.

    You have to admit, that *is* a perfectly logical explanation why Democratic leadership has taken impeachment off the table and why there has been no or little traction for war crimes hearings, because it’s asking the getaway drivers to turn in the gunmen who robbed the bank. They don’t want to get implicated in the ensuing trial.

    That was Rove and Cheney’s insurance policy: showing key Dems enough of what was going on behind the curtain to get their cooperation later if word got out about human rights violations and other unconstitutional activities by this administration.

    The evidence is there. And mounting. Where is the special prosecutor?

  • Tony Collings

    Shameful As a nation we should be ashamed. But who will bring the war crimes charges? The Department of Injustice?

  • LoRayne Apo-Joynt

    It won't be this DOJ Not under this administration, since the DOJ has been complicit in the systematic violations of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture.

    We have to hope that the Hague begins work on prosecution as disclosures are made, to keep the guilty parties from seeking refuge abroad.

    We also have to hope that Congress finds its spine and takes its lumps and considers an independent truth commission into torture as well as a return to the independent prosecutors' law.

    But again, we could be relying on another potentially complicit organization to do the policing.  Which members of Congress, particularly those among the Gang of Eight were provided details regarding the interrogations of detainees?  Are these same members of Congress potential war criminals, too?  Is this why they struggle with finding their spines?

  • Todd Spencer

    Top Dems complicit? Lots of observers believe that top Dems like Pelosi were notified about the torture policies and made complicit in them by signing off on them.

    You have to admit, that *is* a perfectly logical explanation why Democratic leadership has taken impeachment off the table and why there has been no or little traction for war crimes hearings, because it's asking the getaway drivers to turn in the gunmen who robbed the bank. They don't want to get implicated in the ensuing trial.

    That was Rove and Cheney's insurance policy: showing key Dems enough of what was going on behind the curtain to get their cooperation later if word got out about human rights violations and other unconstitutional activities by this administration.

    The evidence is there. And mounting. Where is the special prosecutor?

  • LoRayne Apo-Joynt

    It won’t be this DOJ Not under this administration, since the DOJ has been complicit in the systematic violations of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture.

    We have to hope that the Hague begins work on prosecution as disclosures are made, to keep the guilty parties from seeking refuge abroad.

    We also have to hope that Congress finds its spine and takes its lumps and considers an independent truth commission into torture as well as a return to the independent prosecutors’ law.

    But again, we could be relying on another potentially complicit organization to do the policing.  Which members of Congress, particularly those among the Gang of Eight were provided details regarding the interrogations of detainees?  Are these same members of Congress potential war criminals, too?  Is this why they struggle with finding their spines?