Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 8:24 AM
Thu Dec 17
60 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder |
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield |
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate |
Media:
Hamilton Nolan |
Politics:
Alex Pareene |
Investigations:
John Cook |
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan |
Nights:
Adrian Chen |
Azaria Jagger |
Ravi Somaiya |
Weekends:
Foster Kamer |
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
10/11/09
New Mexico isn't really known for law enforcement, in fact a lot of the time the cops are the crooks and the Homeland Security checkpoints are really just a big rest area looking things and not hard to avoid.
What would scare me and from all of the security in the article, I'd say what scares them is a small army, coming to take it away.
(Oh, and NM was actually pretty cool about legalizing medicinal; Bill Richardson was in favor, the previous Governor favored total legalization and when the law passed without any licensed sources, the state said until things work out, patients could grow their own)
10/11/09
<img src="http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/funny-pictures-kitten-is-confused.jpg"
10/10/09
10/10/09
But hell, if you can just hop over the border in Hobbes or Clovis, they can come to you -- the Homeland Security check points are clustered around Las Cruces, so I'm sure Sketch McGee can make you a delivery, no problem.
10/11/09
10/11/09
08/28/09
Just for that, I'm not going to collect any more intelligence for you. So there!
08/28/09
DUH! Thats what the CIA is there for. Why is everyone such a bleeding heart liberal.
And for the record, closing Gitmo is a dumb fucking idea. Just another useless 'change'. And yes, i voted for Obama.
08/28/09
Sad that they've gotten to be so bad at the job.
As for 'Gitmo', I suspect there were people who thought that the government had gone too far the first couple of dozen times in recent history that someone set up a detention camp for prisoners they declared outside the bounds of normal laws. It's just that the last couple were so publicized that we really ought to know better than to go down the road.
08/28/09
I'm not losing sleep either way.
edit: just reread your post - it is SAD they have gotten so bad at their jobs..
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
Isn't there a "Rachael Zoe" liveblog missing you right now?
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
As far as domestic spying, come on. No one deserves to be disappeared for weeks or months at a time due to profiling because you have a 'funny sounding' name or a different skin color or anything like that. So where did you get the idea I thought that was alright?
08/28/09
shine on, you glorious libertine diamond! wield boldly thy contrarian blade, and swing wildly!
08/29/09
You are just a rabble-rouser, a villager holding a torch, following popular opinion. You make noises but say nothing.
08/29/09
neener neener neener.
08/29/09
08/30/09
(Quietly raises hand.) Uh, actually the CIA's prime objective is not to torture and kill people. It's mainly an intelligence-gathering organization. Spies and shit. And the previaling notion is that information derived from torture has to be cross-checked and vetted anyway, because people who are being beaten to death in clandestine holdings cells tend to say anything to stop being beaten to death. I know: very bleeding heart of me. I'm such an unpragmatic ignoramus! (Slowly lowers hand.)
08/30/09
08/30/09
Nice, asshole.
To all: Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am misinformed. I am always willing to get more info and reassess what I know. No reason to be FUCKING ASSHOLES ABOUT IT. Seriously. GO FUCK YOURSELVES.
08/30/09
08/30/09
08/28/09
Pareene: its, not it's.
08/28/09
08/28/09
It doesn't lessen the the moral and ethical burden on the CIA. Not one iota. But what sucks is that the CIA is going to get the brunt of this, even though it goes much, much farther up the food chain. In a perfect world, the CIA would be a peripheral investigation in a larger takedown of Bush and his cabinet, but it looks like the CIA are going to be the absolute scapegoats here. In the end, we are still going to have a system which mandates unlimited power for those in the highest positions of leadership, simply because they can never be the valid targets of investigation or prosecution. But if it was bad for the CIA to do this shit, wasn't it bad for the Bush administration to ratify it with justifications from legal counsel, and then directly order it?
08/28/09
08/30/09
Meanwhile, intelligence services (because it's not just the CIA) and probably private interrogators were actually torturing people . . . to death.
We don't have pictures of that, as Errol Morris pointed out in his documentary. At this point I think Lynnie England and the other should have their military statuses reinstated so they can be honorably discharged because the only thing they're guilty of (besides being dumb hillbillies) is following orders, which is what soldiers do. If even one person from intelligence actually goes to jail for murder, I'd be very surprised.
I'll consider feeling sorry for the CIA (and other intelligence services) when anyone in them actually gets in trouble for killing people during interrogations.
08/28/09
Very well written!
08/24/09
I understand that it is probably difficult to look a superior in the eye and say "no, I refuse to break the law in carrying out my duties", but hopefully investigating and prosecuting those that fail to do so will make it easier for others to stand up for what's right in the future. The penalty for not doing so should be greater than the penalty for doing so.
08/24/09
08/24/09
Justice in America works by targeting a few unprotected, unconnected saps at the lower ranks in a corrupted organization and throwing the book at them. "Punishing those responsible" is a phrase structured sequentially in descending order of importance.
08/24/09
08/24/09
08/24/09
05/21/09
A "truth commission" would most likely take a lot of high powered Dems down as well and be a general embarrasment to his own party.
As you see with the ongoing Pelosi scandal the shrill voices of the Democratic Party knew many things and did nothing.
I am not against some investigation. I am just telling you that
A) The people you think are guilty aren't the only ones
B) It isn't going to happen anyway.
05/21/09
Signed, a powerless Dem
05/21/09
Even when they do happen, they drag out for decades and rarely result in what you'd call "justice" (Pol Pot died before he could be brought to trail, ditto Slobodon Milosivic, and I think we'd all agree there was little "justice" in the trial of Saddam Hussein). It's kinda complicated, dudes.
05/21/09
Yes, that's always an excellent reason not to pursue investigations or even a semblance of justice like toothless truth commissions. It's complicated, so why bother? If the process doesn't yield instant gratification and immediate "closure" in that venerable American way, let's forget about it.
Also, mass murderers in other countries often aren't brought to full justice. If they can get away with it, why can't we?
By the way, thousands and thousands of citizens did die and disappear as a result of the Bush Administration's war crimes. But I guess because they're Iraqis, they don't count in your calculus.
(P.S. I love Jarvis Cocker, and I'm dead certain he couldn't disagree with your dubious "let's move on" argument more.)
05/21/09
05/21/09
05/22/09