Where is the US economy headed?

@Builder,

I know who Jonathon Turley is. I also know he presents no proof of a crime or evidence that can be used in court. He only argues that the administration fails to investigate it. That isn't evidence a court will accept.

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@parados,

parados wrote;

Quote:

Under the law you don't cite is ignorance of the law a defense?

Doublespeak is an offence. You've just committed it.

It offends the sensibilities of anyone reading it.

Torture to the point of death is murder. Do you agree?

http://jonathanturley.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/doc4d51bf13c3d938639887421.jpg

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@Builder,

By the way Builder, Turley's lawsuit for stopping the Libyan "war" was dismissed by the courts so arguing his credentials doesn't mean he is always right on the law or the facts.
Court ruling in dismissing suit over Libya and war powers act

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@Builder,

Someone died. There is allegation of torture. That is not proof that someone died of torture.

So to charge a crime first you need a specific law.
Then you need specific evidence.

Since you can't cite the specific law we can't even get to the evidence that hasn't been presented.

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@Builder,

By the way, your picture shows US military personnel which would have nothing to do with the charges that the CIA committed crimes. You don't get to present evidence of one thing and claim it proves something that it isn't even related to.

1 Reply

@parados,

The image is from Abu Ghraib.

There is no conjecture that multiple deaths and torture were happening there. This from wiki;

Beginning in 2004, human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture,[1][2][3] reports of rape,[1][2] sodomy,[3] and homicide[4] of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (also known as Baghdad Correctional Facility) came to public attention. These acts were committed by military police personnel of the United States Army together with additional US governmental agencies.[5]
Lynndie England holding a leash attached to a prisoner, known to the guards as "Gus", who is lying on the floor
This image of a prisoner being tortured has become famous internationally, eventually making it onto the cover of The Economist (see "Media" below).

Revealed in the Taguba Report, an initial criminal investigation by the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command had already been underway, where soldiers of the 320th Military Police Battalion had been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with prisoner abuse. In 2004, articles describing the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel appearing to abuse prisoners, came to public attention, when a 60 Minutes II news report (April 28) and an article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue) reported the story.[6]

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@Builder,

Yes? And.....

Quote:

The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and March 2006, eleven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

So, your argument that no one was charged with crimes in that case fails when we look at the actual facts.

While those acts were bad, none of them specifically rose to the level of torture.

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote;

Quote:

While those acts were bad, none of them specifically rose to the level of torture.

What would you call death resulting from maltreatment then?

Your admin has just admonished criminal action, and assured the alphabet soup groups that they won't be penalised for future deaths in custody as a result of torture.

Who is paying your wages, parados? Or are you another useful head nodder?

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

Quote:
I am at work so I don't have time to research but many have said that the tottal package, short term benefit and the bill that will need to be paid latter, in total is a negative. Some have gone so far as to say that it is the equivalent of using a loan shark, and many have said that loading our kids up with bills that we long ago used up the benefits of is immoral.

I look forward to seeing which highly regarded economists said that.

i am not interested in doing your research, but will give you this

Quote:

The pertinent question is not really whether the stimulus created jobs, but whether the benefits of the stimulus will end up exceeding its costs. This also happens to be the second question put to economists in the survey referenced above. And the results are less clear cut: 46% believe that the benefits will exceed the costs, 12% believe they will not, and 27% are uncertain.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/06/stimulus

Quote:

The panel members are all senior faculty at the most elite research universities in the United States. The panel includes Nobel Laureates, John Bates Clark Medalists, fellows of the Econometric society, past Presidents of both the American Economics Association and American Finance Association, past Democratic and Republican members of the President's Council of Economics, and past and current editors of the leading journals in the profession.

http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_cw5O9LNJL1oz4Xi

With this very distinguished panel we can not get a majority to say that they believe that the benefits of the original stimulus will out weight the costs.

but feel free to keep insinuating that the stimulus was a great idea as everyone who is not a stupid republican knows...I know you will anyway, as truth that does not conform to your preconceived ideas is always rejected by you.

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@hawkeye10,

The cost of not pouring money into the economic at that point is very likely getting into a time machine and ending up in 1929.

The problem is not that we pour money into the economic but that we should had, after saving the banks from themselves,pour more money and direct it more to the lower classes to had driven up demands for good and services.

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@Builder,

Quote:

What would you call death resulting from maltreatment then?

It's death. It's not torture. It's funny how you went on about how people misuse words and now you think death is the same thing as torture. My grandmother died. Does that mean she was tortured?

You claimed people were tortured and the US government has not followed up or prosecuted anyone. Yet the only incident you can bring up shows people were prosecuted for their acts and there is no actual evidence of torture.

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

You claimed people were tortured and the US government has not followed up or prosecuted anyone. Yet the only incident you can bring up shows people were prosecuted for their acts and there is no actual evidence of torture.

The Spanish Inquisition were quite happy to torture people, and they regarded waterboarding as torture.

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Huff Po asked what people thought of willard's 47% tirade:

I teach at a community college. The text book I am currently using costs $51.50 at the bookstore, which is not expensive for a college text. However, my students work at nursing homes, fast food restaurants and grocery stores. If they are paid $8.50/hour, that means they have to work 10 hours or up to three shifts in order to buy this book because state and federal taxes as well as social security and medicare are deducted from their checks.

In the meantime, they have to pay for their transportation, even if they bike. They need to buy food from time to time, even if they live with their parent(s). Most of them buy their own clothes which is why they wear jeans, sweatshirts and sneakers.

I once had a student who in the mid-semester began falling asleep during class. He came to me explain that he lived with his mother who had an industrial accident which left her with a broken shoulder. Her company said she was negligent. He had been working in a nursing home but he took a job at McDonald's to help support himself and his mother.

What do I think of willard's comments? I think he lives in an imaginary sphere of his construction which he is able to maintain due to his total lack of social skills.

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@izzythepush,

And Pol Pot was happy to torture people and your birthday comes once a year. While true, those things have nothing to do with proving anything about the topic at hand.

Fact - certain people were tried and some convicted for actions at Abu Ghraib.
Fact - that belies any argument that there were no investigations of actions at Abu Ghraib.
Fact - The Spanish Inquisition doesn't prove that torture was ignored at Abu Ghraib

1 Reply

@parados,

I think that the Bush/Cheney administration saying that waterboarding isn't torture, has to be weighed very heavily against the Spanish Inquisition saying it is torture.

As far as torture goes the Spanish Inquisition knew what they were talking about. Every single person who was waterboarded, was tortured. Fact.

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

I think that the Bush/Cheney administration saying that waterboarding isn't torture, has to be weighed very heavily against the Spanish Inquisition saying it is torture.

I think that you raise a very good point but I think that a good way to find the answer to this would be to water board Bush and Cheney and see what their answers would be.

I think that a few months of water boarding for them would help them to have a little more empathy for those who have been, what do you think?

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@reasoning logic,

In the end they'd say whatever you wanted them to say. If you're being tortured you tell the torturer what they want to hear, whether or not it's the truth doesn't really come into it.

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@izzythepush,

Dam you are faster than I was able to add more to what I had said. Wink

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

In the end they'd say whatever you wanted them to say. If you're being tortured you tell the torturer what they want to hear, whether or not it's the truth doesn't really come into it.

Are you suggesting that they may lie about water boarding being torture if they were to be water boarded?

1 Reply

@reasoning logic,

If you wanted them to lie.

1 Reply

Where is the US economy headed?

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