Unfinished business

A couple of updates on crimes past before we lurch into a new year and new crimes:

That torture report
For the moment, a 6700 page report prepared by a Senate committee on the torture crimes of operatives under the direction of the GWBush administration still exists somewhere, though we the people are not allowed to see it. Will the Trump regime seek to do away with the report, to erase this memory? For fear of this, President Obama is squirreling the document away among his Presidential papers. Thinking the Presidential Records Act will prevent the Trump regime from seizing and deep-sixing the report may be wishful thinking. After all, torture enthusiasts like Trump, Bannon, or even pols passing for "mainstream" Republicans have no respect for either law or decency.

A federal judge has also ordered preservation of the report as potential evidence in one of the ongoing criminal cases brought against alleged perps acting for Al-Qaida. If the Trump team bothers, they might go judge shopping to overturn that one.

Our gulag at Guantanamo
President Obama has failed in his inauguration day promise to close this legal and human sinkhole. It looks like he'll get the population down to about 40 inmates before the Donald can "load it up with some bad dudes."

After all, a near majority of voters enjoys posturing as big, mean, and butch, all the while quaking with fear of a few dark terrorists and other phantoms. Irrational fear is a social infection which serves the interests of a strongman. This country was not always populated by such a bunch of nervous handwringers. But now it is. And the people in charge like it that way.