Believing In Civil Liberties? That’s A Paddlin’

This is beyond depressing:

Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed face the incredible prospect of a six-month jail sentence in America after writing a letter to President Obama detailing their client’s allegations of torture by US agents…

Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal charity Reprieve, and his colleague Ahmed Ghappour have been summoned to appear before a Washington court on May 11 after a complaint was made by the privilege review team.

The privilege team argue that by releasing the redacted memo Reprieve has breached the rules that govern Guantánamo lawyers and have made a complaint to the court of “unprofessional conduct”.

Yes, you read that right — you can essentially go to jail for 6 months for writing a letter to the President about torture. Hear no evil, see no evil, right?

See Also: Torture And The Other, Getting Your Face Wet, What We Do And Don’t Know About US Medical Personnel and Interrogations, A Month of Crucial Decisions on Torture, Torture, It’s Strictly Confidential, Why is Obama Alienating His Base?, and Red Cross report details CIA war crimes.

[tags]torture, reprieve, legal charity, binyam mohamed, Guantanamo bay, torture, abuse, cia, prison abuse, president obama, barack obama[/tags]

We’re back!

Well, we’ve gone through 3 servers but we finally found a new, stable home, and now we’re the ones running the show. We are undergoing major under-the-hood changes first, then with some cosmetic changes that should make the PBH experience more enjoyable.

If you encounter any problems, please drop us a note!

-PBH Admin

You Gotta Protect The One’s You Serve

Comic from This Historic Times

Remember these promises during Barack Obama’s campaign?

Followed by some action during the bank bailouts… when populist pressure was mounting:

Pledging to take “the air out of golden parachutes,” President Obama announced Wednesday that executives of companies receiving federal bailout money will have their pay capped at $500,000 under a revised financial compensation plan.

But whaaaaaa, not so much when no one is looking:

“The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.

Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.”

Oh, and remember how he was opposed to Bush’s consolidation of powers in the executive branch and the NSA wiretapping program:

Turns out that once you get those powers, you aren’t so opposed to them, so now…:

The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration’s position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) warrantless wiretapping program, filing a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA late Friday.

This is in essence a tacit endorsement of Bush’s policies saying the judicial branch cannot shut down warrantless wiretapping, so better check your phone to make sure no one’s listening.

See Also: Obama Administration Seeks to Help Wall Street Circumvent the Executive Pay Restrictions that Obama Has Been Advocating in Public, Very, very bad from Obama Administration, Obama = Worse than Bush, No Comment, Obama invokes “State secrets” over wiretapping lawsuit, Decoding Obama Law, TARP May Cost $167 Billion More Than Estimated, Former S&L Regulator: Absolutely A Banking Bailout Coverup, Some Changes I Can’t Believe In, US watchdog calls for bank executives to be sacked, Once You’re TARPed There’s No Going Back, Bailout Protestors March Near Wall Street, Obama Looking to Launder Bailout Money to Avoid the Pay for Performance Plan?, and Resist or Become Serfs.

[tags]barack obama, obama administration, ceo caps, caps in ceo pay, compensation, bonuses, bank bonuses, nsa wiretapping program, bush wiretapping, warrantless wiretapping, executive powers, policy, position, hypocrisy, campaign promises[/tags]

Fuck! We missed April Fools Day!

Damnit all. We completely missed April Fool’s at ProseBeforeHos. I had the following ideas that didn’t get implemented:

1) Turn PBH into Pros Be For eHos — an online support forum and how-to-guide for professional athletes, by professional athletes. Articles would include:

Jason Kidds Guide To Beating Your Wife — Hi, my names Jason Kidd. You may know me best as the point guard for the Dallas Mavericks, world renowned for dishing out breathtaking passes. But I also love dishing out abuse to women who I feel intimate with. With my helpful guide, you’ll learn the ancient tricks of rug burns, throwing boiling water, and how to appropriately yell at your children as they helplessly watch you toss your loved ones around.

Kobe Bryants How-To Rape White Women

Travis Henry and Shawn Kemp team up to teach you, the over-paid and under-educated professional athlete, how to raw-dog as many females as possible to ensure your genetics are spread throughout the population like a dandelion in the breeze.

2) Turn PBH into an online site that celebrates battering your man.

3) Turn PBH into a full time Sarah Palin stalker site, complete with dreamed up expressions of love and seduction with the female governor.

Well, we fucked it up good this year, but we’ll be back next year. To forget it again. I promise.

PBH 2009 v2.1.5 (beta version 3)

We are in the midst of another handful of updates. If you haven’t noticed (judging by our traffic numbers, you haven’t — ROFL!), we are rededicating our beautiful lives to this beautiful blog.

Also, PBH2 is on its way to become it’s own high powered blog. We’ve had some painful experiences recently with hosting and our bandwidth. To rectify this, we are devising a system to offset our bandwidth problems by having a mirror at Blogger. On top of this, PBH2 will also have its own content.

Further, we are working to get DisgracefulAndSexy back online. WPP is now up and running as well. Until then, tell me about your PBH experience and if you have any problems with the site.

Love (when you read our site and click our ads),
-PBH Admins