Rethuglicans

Wow:

Court gives detainees habeas rights

In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.

And here's a Reuters story:

Top court allows Guantanamo prisoners' appeals

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Guantanamo Bay prisoners have the right to go before U.S. federal judges to challenge their years-long detention, handing a stinging setback to the Bush administration.

Gotta love it. The folks over at Feministing get the usual kind of misogynist hate mail you would expect, but sometimes things turn out a little bit differently from what the sender intended:

Anti-feminist mailbag (the missing 5% edition)

We receive a lot of hate email here at Feministing, and this one was too good not to share.

Men are better than women look at the comparison in IQ men are scientifically proven to have a higher IQ by roughly 5 points, or 5% you cannot dispute science sorry and if you want a much better website than your shitty one you might want to go to [redacted]. I think you would gain a lot more knowledge from that website and you might learn about the truth that way you would not be so stupid and ignorant you stupid cunts.

DENVER - Carrying a family Bible, a state representative-elect (Douglas Bruce) kicked a photographer who took a picture of him during a statehouse prayer — then was sworn into office.

***

When Rocky Mountain News photographer Javier Manzano took his photo during the traditional morning prayer, Bruce, who was standing, brought the sole of his shoe down hard on the photographer's bent knee.

Don't do that again," Bruce told him.

Later, Bruce refused to apologize.

"I think that's the most offensive thing I've seen a photographer do in 21 years," he said. "If people are going to cause a disruption during a public prayer, they should be called for it. He owes an apology to the House and the public."

Oy. Hey, Representative Bruce, you know that there is more than one part to the US Constitution's First Amendment, right? Just in case you've happened to forget, here's the full text:

Amendment I

Do you wanna know just how valued democracy is on the far Right? Here's a clue:

If Republicans end up with a divided convention between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, I say we pick Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf has declared emergency rule in Pakistan, shut down the media and sent Supreme Court justices home. What's not to like about a guy who orders policemen to beat up lawyers? I bet he has a good plan on illegal immigration, too.

Need a bit more?

You wouldn't know it to read the headlines, but Musharraf has not staged a military coup. In fact, he was re-elected -- in a landslide -- just weeks ago under Pakistan's own parliamentary system.

But the Pakistani Supreme Court, like our own Supreme Court, believes it is above the president and refused to acknowledge Musharraf's election on the grounds that he is disqualified because he is still wearing a military uniform. That's when Musharraf sent them home.

Giving Landover Baptist a run for their money! Baptists For Brownback 2008!

[link] Today, in an America filled with adulterers and baby-killers, an even worse sinner casts a shadow over them all—the atheist. Yet atheists are difficult to spot. They hide their sinister cult behind masks of smiles, science and soft, pleasant voices. Your next door neighbor might be an atheist. You just can’t tell.

Imagine if it was simple to identify atheists and their tainted works. Would it not be grand? Think how much easier it would be to protect your children’s eyes, ears and souls from atheists’ influences if their websites, books, movies and yes, even their very clothes, were clearly labeled with a bright scarlet “A”.

Curses! Those godly folks have somehow conspired to place one of those scarlet "A"s on UTI as well! Now if I can only keep UTI from being listed on their Hellbound list... **shakes fist**

Matt Sanchez. So, he's a 36-year-old Marine Corporal in the reserves, a Columbia University student, and a Republican. He has been interviewed on Hannity & Colmes because of his allegations of abuse by "anti-military" lefty radicals at Columbia, posed for a picture with Ann Coulter...

...and he's a gay porn star who uses the name Rod Majors (among others) as his stage name.

I honestly don't see what the big deal is about this. He never lied about it, like Gannon and Haggard, and by all accounts seems like a decent, smart guy (except for the Republican part, I suppose.)

Of course, the right wing media machine is going to implode spectacularly. That'll be fun to watch.

(Tip of the ballcap to Hank Fox. Thanks Hank!)

(I think it's big enough a story to warrant posting it here)

An anti-Mormon bigot heckled Romney at an event in Florida, calling him a "Pretender"; Romney responded, "We need a person of faith lead the country." In other words, Romney believes, as Pat Robertson does, that atheists are unfit to lead.

Or, at least, that's what he says to Evangelical crowds in Florida. To the mainstream media, he adopts a more moderate image, touting the importance of separation of church and state. On the one hand, he says, "Well, we have a separation of church and state in this country, and we should and it's served us well." On the other, like Obama, he opposes separation of church and state in practice. For example, on faith-based initiatives, he says,

Well, we don't fund faith-based institutions, other than when they're performing a non-faith role.

So right now we have faith-based initiatives in our state. Ann happens to lead that effort. And some of the faith-based institutions, particularly in the inner city, are doing a lot better job helping the poor, helping kids, helping families get on their feet than some government social service agencies.

So helping them in their secular role is, of course, fine.

There are several errors and sins of omission in that statement. Most importantly, there's a huge problem of enforcement of laws against proselytizing on the state's dime. In principle, religious organizations can get charity funding if a) they fund their charity activities from a separate, non-fungible account, b) the charity organization obeys all anti-discrimination laws, and c) the charity activities do not include any proselytization. In practice, none of the three conditions is seriously enforced.

Riddle me this. How do you divide people? Stick religion in where it doesn't belong.

Did you know that Texas has a pledge much like the national Pledge of Allegiance? Neither did I, and, I'm guessing anyone who didn't go through the Texas public school system. Apparently it is much like the national pledge. It's something school children routinely recite robotically but is otherwise mostly forgotten about. That is, until one day in the Texas state legislature state when someone decided it didn't have enough religion in it.

[link][Republican Texas state representative Debbie] Riddle filed a bill to take the Texas pledge and add, "one state under God."

The current Texas pledge:

[link]Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one and indivisible.

Reprentative Riddle's amended pledge from her bill. Now with 21% more added religion!

[link]Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God and indivisible.

Indivisible? Not for long it looks like.

First, I thank everyone who stood up and made their voice heard on Tuesday, regardless of who you voted for.

I am sure that all of you share my glee over the election results. It has renewed my faith that our system can actually work sometimes. We all know that this is no miracle cure or that is going to make everything better, but at the bare minimum the American people were able to voice their opinion loud and clear, despite the best efforts of the Republican spin machine.

Of course, we all know that Bush and the remaining Republicans must publicly attempt to work with the Democrats, and Rumsfeld's resignation and Bush's breakfast with Nancy Pelosi bear that out. However, I do not believe that the Republican Party is going to take this is the wake-up call that they need to change the way they do business. Rather, I think that that is going to be a signal to them that they need to redouble their efforts to slander Democrats, force partisanship, and make sure they win back control in 2008 so they can continue their work of making this a Christian nation.

I heard him say it again. It was in the last couple of days, but when he said it doesn't matter. In fact, exactly what he said doesn't matter. He once again equated the war in Iraq with the "War on Terror". If, by some odd chance, you don't recognize who I'm talking about...it's Bush.

Here's my main beef: Why does the public continue to allow Bush to equate the "War on Terror" with the war in Iraq? It's madness. It's more than clear now that the terrorists did not arrive in Iraq until after our attack. No no...let me stop you there. I'm not saying that removing Sadaam wasn't a good thing. But let's call a fish a fish. Removing Sadaam has no bearing on the "War on Terror".

The "War on Terror" started as a response to an atrocity. 9/11 was a tragic, terrible event. The initial response was appropriate. But by allowing the Bush administration to add Iraq to the tally they've been given a free pass. The Taliban is experiencing a resurgence in Afghanistan. If we'd not stopped paying as much attention to our initial objective (The Taliban), who were clearly involved in harboring terrorists, instead of redirecting our efforts towards Iraq, who only had the potential of maybe helping terrorists along the way (and turned out not to have to much to do, if anything, with the attack against the US), perhaps we could have "won" on that front.

The point is that the correlation between Iraq and terrorism is clearly dishonest and should be readily ignored. What should not be ignored is that the Bush administration should not be allowed to make this assertion unchallenged. We've wasted too many resources and lives chasing the phantom of terrorism in Iraq and the waste should be stopped.

We must be honest with ourselves. The "War on Terror" is a nebulous war and one that can never be won. All we can do is work to minimize the threat. Unfortunately, the current American response doesn't come close to mitigating the possible damage. A change in leadership is in order, if only to stifle the damage that could still be done.

Reality no longer means anything to these clowns.

What am I talking about? This news report from the AP stating that Vice President Dick Cheney didn't say what the White House's own website quotes him as saying. The relevant passage is this:

WDAY reporter Scott Hennen: And I've had people call and say, please, let the Vice President know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives. Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I do agree. And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high value detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided us with enormously valuable information about how many there are, about how they plan, what their training processes are and so forth, we've learned a lot. We need to be able to continue that.

The Congress recently voted on this question of military commissions and our authority to continue the interrogation program. It passed both Houses, fortunately. The President signed it into law, but the fact is 177 Democrats in the House -- or excuse me, 162 Democrats in the House voted against it, and 32 out of 44 senators -- Democratic senators voted against it. We wouldn't have that authority today if they were in charge. That's a very important issue in this campaign.

I had some fun writing this earlier today. Need to do one with a 'religious' theme when I have the time. Thought I'd share. Feel free to lift it and send to friends or Republicans you want to annoy.

Jim Downey

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Date sent: Wed, 25 Oct. 2006 15:57:13 +0000 (GMT)
From: k.mehlman@rnc.gov
Subject: Government Proposal
To: Mr. N.D. Voter

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Sir,

PROPOSAL FOR URGENT GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE

With due respect, I take the liberty to contact you for an urgent business transaction which will be of immense benefit to our party. I am MR. Kenny Mehlman, the Chairman of the Government Business Proposals of the Republican Nationals Committee (RNC).

My committee has the responsibility for the recommendation and award of contracts and supplies for the RNC, in order to keep the civilian government in GOP control. In the course of our assignment, my colleagues Denny Hastert and Billy Frist and I, at the request of MR. Rick Chainey, our Supervisor, over-inflated the budget to make people think things are going well, to the tune of USD $254.8 B (Two-hundred and Fifty-Four billion, Eight hundred million Dollars). This sum is presently in a suspense account held by Halliburton and Associates, Known only to myself, my colleagues on the board and our contacts in the Congress. The K-Street contractors who executed the jobs have all been fully paid off. My colleagues and I require your kind assistance to transfer this sum of USD $254.8B to our business accounts by electing enough Republicans to maintain control of the Congress, however possible. We shall compensate you with 100% of this sum, in the form of debt for your children, after the election has been concluded. My colleagues and I will share all proseeds and some monies have been set aside to repay any incidental expenses that may be incurred by our party in the course of effecting this Election.

Submitted without comment: Ron Brynaert at Why Are We Back In Iraq? has a long post providing some evidence that Jerome Armstrong is the same person as a Freeper named Vis Numar.

[Link] What are the odds that a frequent poster at Free Republic shares the same strange made-up nickname as a well-known Democratic blogger almost certainly appears to use? (for the reasons why I write "almost certainly" see near the bottom of this post)

(...)

What are the odds that a frequent Free Republic poster would gloat about how well two politicians, including Dean, have made use of meet-ups which a well-known Democratic blogger pretty much pioneered:

(...)

2. The following comment left at a posting on this page: "Sally, did you see Jerome Armstrong on C-Span yesterday morning? He was representing MYDD, of course, and I couldn't help but think I was looking at Vis Numar. But what do I know? hay hay - He was very impressive!!"

These and the other pieces of evidence offered are not really slam dunks, but I think they're worth investigating. My operative assumption about the liberal/Democratic divide is that the Democrats are interested primarily with Democratic victories as the only way to advance the liberal agenda. But Ron's post suggests that at least for Armstrong, what matters is power and victory, rather than an agenda or even partisanship.

La Mancha (EAP): The federal government announced today that popular literary hero Don Quixote has been arrested in connection with a joint terrorism investigation by the FBI, ATF, CIA, NSA, NRA, RNC and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

In a hastily organized press conference, Attorney General Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzales announced: "Through our vigilance in the war on terror, a grave threat has been foiled and our nation's windmills are safer."

Yeah, we all felt good when the sharks at Enron — Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling — were convicted. After having screwed their employees out of their retirement funds, California electricity customers out of billions, and Americans out of a shitload of trust, we thought, okay, the bad guys really DO get caught and punished in the end.

But ... I'll make a $20 bet with any ONE person:

Ken Lay, facing up to 165 years for his various crimes, will never serve a day in prison. He will be out on bail and his cases will be in appeals for at least the next two and a half years.

At which time, shortly before he leaves office, Bush will grant Lay a full presidential pardon.

Bet?

It seems that not only Scooter Libby but also his (ex-)boss is in trouble. Cheney may be called to testify in Fitzgerald's ongoing investigation of the Plame leak. Now obviously it's not an indictment, but given the link between Cheney and the leak, it will probably lead to an indictment. Libby quoted Cheney as saying "Let's get everything out," so count on an indictment in 2006.

Libby also told the grand jury that Cheney raised as an issue that the former ambassador's wife worked at the CIA and that she allegedly played a role in sending him to investigate the Iraqi government's interest in acquiring nuclear weapons materials. That issue formed the basis of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's published critique.

In the court filing that included the formerly secret testimony, Fitzgerald did not assert that Cheney instructed Libby to tell reporters the name and role of Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife. But he said Cheney's interactions with Libby on that topic were a key part of the reason Libby allegedly made false statements to the FBI about his conversations with reporters around the time her name was disclosed in news accounts.

Fitzmas was just the prelude. The indictment of Libby eroded Bush's support a bit, but Libby was a nameless figure who nobody had heard of before. An indictment of Rove would be much more damaging; an indictment of Cheney would send Bush's approval rate below Nixon's trough. Bush's insistence on rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg will cost him dearly in 2006, and his party in 2008.

If Telus were the only company to ban websites it didn't like, then the situation wouldn't be that bad. But now in the US, the House of Representatives is on the verge of passing a law legalizing this sort of behavior, and far worse abuses. TPM Cafe and Majikthise are on it: what it entails is allowing AT&T and other giants to charge people premium rates for "preferred lanes" (most likely the same quality of service everyone gets today, as opposed to a basic version, which will have people pining for 1998), and to charge websites money for being allowed on the lanes.

The current doctrine of net neutrality forbids corporations to do that. Just like big telecom can't disconnect a unionist's phone service or charge him extra, or lower the quality of calls to competitors and their allies, so can't big cable charge you extra for reading blogs, or create two tiers of net service. Now the House is about to change this, and allow monopolization of the Internet. A hundred years ago, American railway tycoons gouged prices so much that it was cheaper to send goods from New York to San Francisco via London than directly. Today, the Internet is global enough that London won't be an option.

The free Internet's about to become as free as the German Democratic Republic was democratic. You can forget about Skype, or for that matter about lower-quality, paid services operated by your ISP's competitors. You can forget about any sort of competition, since ISPs are usually monopolies or oligopolies. You can forget about surfing at more than 5 KB/s without going broke. You can forget about reading dissident websites. You can forget about Wikipedia, which is already overwhelmed by traffic and can't pay for privileged treatment.

Save the Internet - because a monopoly isn't a free market.

Politburo Diktat has a dystopian teaser into 2034, when Kos rules the US and is busy persecuting Republicans, and retroactively aborting the children of enemies of the state. Now, I think the Commissar's writing style is horrible, and the story seems more like a hack job than an honest warning of a bleak future. But what's telling is his take on the left-wing blogosphere.

Every fanatic considers The Enemy to be monolithic, ruthless, and out to destroy everything. Mark Rosenfelder has an article bashing this tendency and a host of other pathologies common to the extreme right and the extreme left. In the Commissar's world, the liberal blogosphere is united in radical liberalism; hence it makes sense that the person who's in charge of retroactive abortions is Amanda.

Of course in the real world, Amanda hates Kos's guts, and with good reason. To her, he's the prime example of a moderate sellout, who'll sacrifice the entire liberal agenda on the altar of power. In the developing division of the American liberal blogosphere, she's perhaps the largest anti-Kos liberal blogger, although it's unlikely that if it becomes a full-scale schism, she'll end up the leader of the liberal wing (whereas Kos leads the Democratic wing).

In the interest of fairness, I should ask all of our conservative readers to explain whether they consider the right-wing blogosphere to be monolithic, or whether there's an ongoing schism there, too - for example, between the libertarians and the social conservatives.

TUCSON, Ariz, 4/7/2110 (EAP): An early Christian manuscript has been carbon-dated by scientists at the University of Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory. The controversial document is likely to causes upheaval in the accepted story of the Son of Bush.

Ihlin’s post today at Daily Kos While you were bitching about the Democratic Party... got me wondering. Can we progressives agree on anything?

Ihlin is right, lots and lots of attention was paid to Alito and domestic spying while the double-speak titled Budget Reconciliation Bill squeaked through the house and “saved” the government a mere $39 billion (against a deficit of $400 billion, a whopping 10%).

Where are our priorities? Who is out there setting them? Why can’t we be consistent? Yes, yes, I know these questions have been asked many times before. But I bet they still have not been answered?

If we use dKos as an indicator of priorities, it would appear that Cindy Sheehan and what she wears to congress is number one, Jack Abramoff is number two, and until recently, Alito was number three. I’m sorry, but Cindy, Jack, and Anthony are not our agenda. In fact, two of the top three items are republican in nature.

Face it, until we progressives can agree on anything, we will always come in second in race with only two runners. Quick, who lost the Super Bowl last year? You get my point?