June, 2008 archive
PSA 0
Over here, at Brendan’s place (warning: language).
S(pl)urge ™ 0
Oh, it’s so much better over there:
The blast struck a crowded bus terminal near a market in Huriya, a northwest Baghdad district that once had a large population of Sunnis but after the American-led invasion saw horrific ethnic cleansing by Shiite militias and death squads, who killed or drove thousands of Sunnis out.
Truth in Labelling: Straight Talk Dept. 0
But now from Candidate McCain. Josh Marshall parses when social security privatization privatizes with without being privatization.
A Newt Is a Type of Salamander 0
Glenn Greenwald on Gingrich (follow the link for the full article):
From The New York Sun, November 29, 2006, here’s Gingrich arguing that we also need to give up First Amendment rights:
A former House speaker, Newt Gingrich, is causing a stir by proposing that free speech may have to be curtailed in order to fight terrorism. . . .
“We need to get ahead of the curve rather than wait until we actually literally lose a city, which I think could literally happen in the next decade if we’re unfortunate,” Mr. Gingrich said Monday night during a speech in New Hampshire. . . . “Either before we lose a city or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people.”
By the time the Republicans Fear Mongers finish destroying American liberty, there will be nothing left of America worth fighting for.
Support the Troops, Bushie Style 4
(Aside: By the way, my father was a POW in WWII. No one called him a hero and he was ashamed of having been captured until the last couple of decades of his life, even though his unit had been completely overrun in the dead of night, despite reports from Military Intelligence that there were no enemy troops in the area. He was captured by the Germans and was not mistreated–he told me that, even when he wasn’t getting much food at the end of the war, the American POWs were no more deprived than their German guards. Shame that the persons we the Bushies have captured can’t make similar statements.)
From Michael D. at Balloon Juice; I think his comments are unduly harsh, but not out of the ball park–my thoughts below:
(Michael D. quotes the news):
McCain has repeatedly voted against amendments in the Senate that would have…covered such important services as improving care at veterans’ hospitals, providing mental health services to soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse problems. [2006 Senate Vote #7, 2/2/2006]
In 2006, McCain voted against the Kerry amendment that would eliminate increased fees and co-payments for veterans in the TRICARE health care program by raising the discretionary spending limit by approximately $10 billion. The provisions would have been fully offset by eliminating creating corporate tax breaks. [2006 Senate Vote #67, 3/16/2006]
McCain was one of only 13 Republicans to vote against an amendment that added over $400 million for inpatient and outpatient care for veterans. [2006 Senate Vote #98, 4/26/2006]
(Michael D. comments) . . . Even though I am now becoming more left leaning than I have ever been, I still had the impression that the media supports Democrats (or gives them a fairer hearing anyway). More and more, I am seeing that this is nowhere near the case. McCain gets a pass because is supposedly “a hero.†I’ve never been sure why he is a hero. He graduated 4th or 5th from the bottom of his class. He wrecked three of his own aircraft (if I remember correctly) and he was captured in Viet Nam. Unless I missed the part where he jumped on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow servicemen, I don’t know where the hero part comes in. But I digress.
Candidate McCain has done no more than hundreds of thousands of others.
Surviving does not make one a hero (though Candidate McCain’s refusal to take the easy way out warrants respect; this would appear to be the only hook on which to hang “hero”), except perhaps in some metaphysical sense that makes all of us who get on with life “heroes.”
And now his idea of supporting the troops is to deny them medical and educational benefits.
Drinking Liberally 0
Tomorrow, Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, 6 p.
No one in this house is in the hospital or on restricted duty this week, so I might actually make it.
Brendan Makes a Phone Call 0
It’s positively stenning stunning.
How Well Do You Know Fox “News”? 0
Take the quiz.
“The Worst of the Not-So-Bad” 0
The McClatchy report lives up to its billing.
The cynical among us might argue that one of the reasons the Current Federal Administration has been so adamant about denying any rights to the folks at Gitmo is that doing so would provide even more confirmation of its failure to get anything right.
Harry Shearer today observed that he thought that, in the United States, persons had rights which the government had to observe; that rights were not something granted on a whim by the king (whoops, my word, not his government.
From McClatchy:
McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials — primarily in Afghanistan — and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.
This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.
The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.
Prisoner mistreatment became a regular feature in cellblocks and interrogation rooms at Bagram and Kandahar air bases, the two main way stations in Afghanistan en route to Guantanamo.
Why Do Republicans Hate the Constitution? 1
You don’t think so?
Not to mention this.
And everything these people have done in the last seven and a half years.
The Constitution is in their way. That’s why they hate it. Because they think they should always get their way.
Because, well, because . . . they just should! Okay!
This might help answer the question in the title.
No More No-Man’s Zone 0
The Guardian:
In one sense, the decision in Boumediene v Bush is a limited one. It does not order the release of a single prisoner – indeed, no prisoner has been released by court order in the six years that men have been held at Guantanamo. Nor does it address the scope of the President’s authority to hold individuals as “enemy combatants,” what procedural protections they are owed, or how they should be treated. It simply opens the courthouse door. Six years after Guantanamo opened, detainees will finally get their day in court.
But in every other sense, Thursday’s decision was groundbreaking. For the first time in its history, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a federal law enacted by Congress and signed by the President on an issue of military policy in a time of armed conflict. The Supreme Court has historically deferred to the President during times of conflict, especially when the President has acted with Congressional assent. For the first time, the court extended constitutional protections to noncitizens held outside US territory during wartime. And for only the third time in its history, the court declared unconstitutional a federal law restricting its own jurisdiction. (The court has typically sought to avoid such confrontations, because in some measure political control of the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction is seen as conferring democratic legitimacy on an unelected institution).
Give Me a Break (Updated) 3
Update: Bill points out that this took place in Easton, Md., not Easton, Pa. I have been to Easton, Md.
He’s a guy, for heaven’s sake.
A 1974 town ordinance forbids anyone from going topless in public buildings or on public streets and sidewalks with penalties of fines up to $100 and up to 10 days in jail.
I’ve never visited Easton, though it’s not all that far from here.
And I never will. I’ll take my tourist dollars somewhere else, thank you. Maybe Bensalem.
