[snip] “I did not hear Mr. Gonzales repudiate two and a half years of official U.S. policy, which has defined torture so narrowly that only [practices leading to] organ failure and death would qualify,” said Senator Barack Obama on the Senate floor February 3, explaining why he voted against confirming the nominee for attorney general. “If the entire world accepted the definition contained in the Department of Justice memos, we can only imagine what atrocities might befall our American POWs. . . . How, if we are willing to rationalize torture through legalisms and semantics, can we claim . . . that America is different, and represents a higher moral standard?”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
[snip] By the numbers. Of the 205 men returning to Chicago from prison interviewed for a recent Urban Institute study, 48 percent said they had no close friends. Of those who did have close friends, almost half had one or more who’d been in prison and almost a quarter had a friend who was selling drugs.
