What’s Pissing Me Off Today?
At a time when I, like a lot of the country, was starting to suffer from outrage fatigue, it seems that today brought a higher-than-usual number of news stories in the “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” department.
One of Erik Prince’s companies (no, not Blackwater; another one) invokes Shari’a law when it’s convenient:
RALEIGH – To defend itself against a lawsuit by the widows of three American soldiers who died on one of its planes in Afghanistan, a sister company of the private military firm Blackwater has asked a federal court to decide the case using Islamic law, known as Shari’a.
Last year, they tried arguing that the airline was a government contractor, and individuals can’t sue the government, but judges didn’t buy that. So now they’re arguing that since the crash was in Afghanistan, the case is subject to Afghan law, which is basically Shari’a.
Remember when questions like “Is it okay to torture people as a matter of government policy?” were no-brainers?
Ah, those were simpler days. Yesterday, John Yoo, the guy who came up with the legal rationalization for Gitmo and torture, in testimony before Congress wouldn’t say whether the president has the right to order that someone be buried alive.
In a blast from the past, Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington regales us with last year’s hit single, “The Vice President Isn’t In the Executive Branch“.