Atty. Gen. Holder joins bipartisan effort to restore voting rights to ex-felons

CNN: One of Washington’s oddities of late is Attorney General Eric Holder’s liberal social justice goals finding unity with the tea party movement’s curb-big-government proposals led by Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee.

On Tuesday, the alliance is on display as Holder, for the first time as attorney general, calls for states to automatically restore voting rights to prisoners who are disenfranchised upon conviction. Paul, who supports voter ID laws Holder has sought to block, has pushed to overturn disenfranchisement laws that he says affect too many black men.

Holder, Paul and Lee are pushing to overhaul the nation’s criminal justice system, seeking to discard mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent crimes and reduce costly prison spending. The three are appearing Tuesday at a Georgetown Law School forum sponsored by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“Eleven U.S. states restrict or completely deny voting rights to prisoners even after they’ve completed sentences, probation and parole,” the report goes on. “Florida, among the most restrictive, bars 10% of its population from voting as a result of such laws. About 5.8 million Americans are prohibited from voting because of current or previous felony convictions, Holder says.”

The laws hurt African-Americans disproportionately, since our criminal justice system is rife with institutional racism and sentences are grotesquely distorted by class privilege. According to report, this means that “nearly one in 13 black adults across the US” are denied their right to vote because of a past felony conviction.

It’s a bit of a mystery why Lee and Paul want to address this issue, since even acknowledging it knocks out a leg supporting the GOP’s War on Voting. Republicans have had a difficult time finding cases of voter fraud to support their push for voter ID. And a very large proportion of those they do find are a result of these laws. A guy is sentenced in Wisconsin, for instance, where voting rights are restored and later moves to Florida, where they’re stripped. He tries to vote and finds out he can’t — oops! That’s technically “voter fraud,” despite the fact that there was no intent to defraud anyone. If felons’ franchise are restored, a massive chunk of their already meager collection of “voter fraud” stories evaporates.

Still, give them credit for wanting to do the right thing. Stripping the right to vote from felons for life is meant to capitalize on the criminal justice system’s racist bent, in order to suppress minority voting. The sooner this tactic dies, the better for democracy.

[photo via U.S. Department of Agriculture]

Texas man questioned about gun-nut ricin letters

NPR: “Authorities, including the FBI, questioned a New Boston, Texas, man Thursday night in connection with an investigation of ricin-laced letters sent to government officials, including President Barack Obama,” KSLA-TV in Shreveport, La., reports.

According to ABC News, a source familiar with the case says investigators consider the man to be a person of interest at this time. The network writes that the source says the man’s wife “called authorities after she noticed strange material in her refrigerator, and noticed computer searches for ricin.”

This news from Texas relates to three letters that surfaced this week — one sent to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one sent to a gun control group the mayor supports and a third that was mailed to President Obama. Those letters, as NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston told us Thursday, were similar and were reportedly postmarked in Louisiana. New Boston is located near the point where Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana meet.

Whether this is the guy or not remains to be seen (there’s a reason why “person of interest” and “suspect” are two different terms), but the initial evidence is compelling. “The agents are questioning a man from New Boston, Texas, whose wife called authorities after she noticed strange material in her refrigerator, and noticed computer searches for ricin,” ABC reports. You have to assume that she added this up with the statements and/or actions of her husband in the past and that she reported him to authorities because she believed he had finally done more than just shoot his mouth off.

Again, I would very much like to see gun lobbyists and their defenders in DC get some extra media scrutiny for this. Does the argument that the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to kill “tyrants” give this particular citizen the right to attempt assassination? If not, why not? And if not, when does a citizen have the right to kill themselves a tyrant? How does this interpretation of the Second Amendment actually work? It’s awfully easy to talk about it in broad terms, but when you get down to the specifics, what we’re really talking about here is allowing the assassin’s veto. I would very much like to hear someone explain why one disgruntled citizen has the right to overturn an election and the votes of millions of other citizens. And I would very much like to hear what they’d plead to avoid prison — or even the death penalty — for the act. Not guilty by reason of tyranny? Who’s ever pleaded that?

When you start talking about it in these terms, it’s pretty clear that this most definitely was not what the founders intended, because there’s no legal mechanism to deal with exercising the “right” to murder someone you consider a tyrant. The text of the Second Amendment just doesn’t support this interpretation.

What the text of the Constitution does support is the establishment of a “well-regulated militia,” to reduce the need for a standing army and to be able to respond to local crises in an age before interstates, planes, and engines made it possible to move an army into an area quickly. It is an anachronism mostly, like the Third Amendment which allows people to refuse to quarter Federal troops. It’s the solution to a problem that no longer exists.

Why else would the gun lobby and their goons argue that an amendment that contains the term “well-regulated militia” keeps government from regulating guns? It’s a sham. It’s a sham to sell as many guns and as much ammo as possible to panicky cowards who think danger lurks around every corner and that life should be entirely risk-free. For them “freedom” means everyone holds a gun to everyone else’s head, because people are inherently evil and only the threat of imminent death keeps us from devolving into chaos and anarchy. The lie is that private gun ownership is the only thing that keeps us from being overrun by criminal and terrorists and Joseph Adolph Hitlerstalin. We’re a nation of laws, not gunmen.

If it were anything but a sham, the person responsible for these letters would be able to walk away after pleading tyranny. This wouldn’t be terrorism, it’d be heroism. And that’s just not going to happen. The law simply does not support that interpretation of the Constitution.

Nor should it.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Yes, gun control laws save lives

Raw Story:

Appearing on Wednesday’s episode of “The Young Turks,” Omar Samaha, brother to one of the victims in the Virginia Tech massacre, said that he believes President Barack Obama’s executive orders strengthening background check databases for gun buyers “definitely would have prevented” the shooting spree that left 32 dead.

Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, had a history of contacts with university mental health professionals who felt he was troubled, and at least once after being admitted to the psych ward when a student claimed he was suicidal.

“The gunman that killed my sister and 31 others at Virginia Tech actually fell through the cracks,” Samaha said. “He passed two background checks to buy the guns that he used on April 16, and he actually was a prohibited purchaser at the time. The reason he was able to pass is because his name wasn’t actually in the national database.”

Among Obama’s executive orders, five deal with strengthening the background check system — something the National Rifle Association says it accepts.

However, Obama cannot close the so-called “gun show loophole” without Congressional action, but his proposals on Wednesday indicated he’s willing to fight for legislation that would potentially seal the route taken by the shooters at Columbine High School to obtain three of the four weapons used that day in 1999.

“If someone tries to purchase a gun when they’re a prohibited purchaser and they fail, the state police and the local police where that gun was being purchased are notified,” he went on. “Last year, that led to over 850 people who were prohibited purchasers actually being arrested, and a few of them, a handful of them, were actually fugitives on a nationwide basis, and they were caught because of the background check system.”

But wait, that’s not possible. According to Republicans, nothing can be done to stop criminals from getting guns, because they’ll just break the law to get what they want. The only realistic thing to do — at least, if you take their argument to its logical extreme — is to embrace anarchy and accept that it’s Road Warrior time.

But it turns out that — as is so often the case — that Republicans are exactly wrong. Gun restrictions work, they save lives, and are necessary to a free and civil society. In other words, freakin’ common sense is right. Go figure.

An interpretation of the Second Amendment

I've been knocking around a not at all serious legal argument in my head for a couple of weeks now. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, I've been trying to think of a way to counter those who misunderstand the Second Amendment, while still playing by the conservative's rules. What I've come up with is an appeal to constitutional originalism; a legal theory -- most notably espoused by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia -- that dictates that we must determine exactly what the framers of the Constitution originally meant when they wrote an article or amendment. Once we've pulled off this feat of archaeological mindreading, we can then go ahead declare modern law constitutional or unconstitutional.

But in the case of the Second Amendment, no mindreading is necessary. We take the conservative interpretation of the amendment, mix in some history and logic, and we get exactly what the founders must've intended. All we have to do is define "arms" the way they did. Therefore, "the right to keep and bear arms" should mean -- as the signers of the Constitution undoubtedly intended -- the right to muzzleloading single shot firearms, bows, bayonets, and sabres. Have as many of these as you want. Knock yourself out.

And it's really not that far away from current reality. We already define what the Constitution means by "arms." I can't own nuclear arms or other WMD. If I did, Homeland Security would probably treat me to an all-expense-paid trip to beautiful, tropical Guantanamo Bay. The Constitution doesn't specifically ban these things, but they're illegal just the same and conservatives aren't clamoring for their "right" to own WMD to be recognized. So we see that "arms" means whatever the hell we want it to mean -- unless we take into account how the framers would've defined the word.

As solid as this logic is, it would never fly in Washington. Mainly, I had hoped to point out the absurdity of conservative thought and how one deeply-held wingnut belief often contradicts another deeply-held wingnut belief. Originalism does not back an unlimited right to own any firearm you want. Consistency in reasoning is not the Republican's friend.

Still, there's a rational argument in here: we've already defined "arms" the way we want to. Why can't we just keep doing that? What's wrong with applying logic in gun policy, just this once?

[image source]

News Roundup for 5/26/11

OK, done

-Headline of the day-
"Dane County judge strikes down collective bargaining law."

Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans are having a real rough week. First, they found out that polls aren't going their way. Now, the big piece of legislation that started the whole thing is dead in the water.

According to the report, "a Dane County judge has struck down Gov. Scott Walker's legislation repealing most collective bargaining for public employees." Why? Because they broke open meetings laws to jam the thing through and it turns out that breaking laws is illegal -- or some liberal, judicial activism crap like that.

Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi issued a 33 page decision (pdf) overturning the law. "The Legislature and its committees are bound to comply with the open meetings law by their own choice. Having made that choice, they cannot now shield themselves from the provisions that give the law force and effect," she wrote.

In other words, you guys wrote the law -- what the hell are you complaining about?

Anyhoo, off it goes through the appeals process. If it survives, it'll probably be just in time for Scott Walker's recall replacement to repeal it. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)


-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, did you hear about that scary Supreme Court ruling that says California has to let a bunch of people out of prison? No? Well, Uncle Mark will tell us all about it!


Click for animation

You know, if prison were the last resort for most offenders, instead of the first, then maybe they wouldn't have all these problems.

But then, what would the private prison industry do? (MarkFiore.com)


-Bonus HotD-
"House GOP Staffers Floated Using Taxpayer Money To Promote Paul Ryan's Budget."

Because it's all about protecting the taxpayers and reducing the deficit, right? (ThinkProgress)

On WikiLeaks, Lieberman Completely Disconnects From Reality

WikiLeaks has Joementum, with the help of a couple of enablers, writing legislation that is -- in a word -- insane.

The Hill:

Sens. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced a bill Thursday aimed at stopping WikiLeaks by making it illegal to publish the names of military or intelligence community informants.

Ensign accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his "cronies" of hindering America's war efforts and creating a "hit list" for U.S. enemies by outing intelligence sources.

[...]

The Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination Act (SHIELD) would give the government the flexibility to pursue Assange for allegedly outing confidential U.S. informants. Brown said the law would prevent anyone from compromising national security in a similar manner, while Lieberman said its passage was essential to restore the international diplomatic community's faith in the U.S.

So let me get this straight: they want to pass a law making it illegal for foreign nationals to do something in foreign countries? Have I got that right? I'm reminded of a Monty Python skit where a man on the street suggests taxing all foreigners living abroad. Maybe other nations should join in on the fun -- Iran could make it illegal to be a Mormon in Utah or China can make it illegal to sell Japanese goods at Wal-Marts in Iowa.

I know these guys believe in "American exceptionalism" (i.e., the newest version of "manifest destiny"), but this is just taking it to an absurd extreme. We haven't taken over the world yet, guys. You're going to have to hold off on writing laws for other countries.

Surprise! Judge Who Blocked Offshore Drilling Moratorium is Invested in Offshore Drilling

Associated Press has a bit of bad news for people who think that we ought to hold off on offshore drilling until we at least know the rigs aren't as screwed up as Deepwater Horizon.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects imposed after the massive Gulf oil spill.

The White House promised an immediate appeal. President Barack Obama's administration had halted approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling of 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.

[...]

Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore drilling rigs asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans to overturn the moratorium, arguing it was arbitrarily imposed.

Feldman agreed, saying in his ruling the Interior Department assumed that because one rig failed, all companies and rigs doing deepwater drilling pose an imminent danger.

"The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster," Feldman wrote in his decision. "What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all Gulf deepwater drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm." Despite all evidence that all deepwater drilling is as fucked up as Deepwater Horizon, it would be irresponsible to assume it to be true. The responsible reaction here is "Drill baby, drill!"

So who is Judge Martin Feldman? He's a Reagan appointee and great big fan of investing in the oil industry. "Feldman, 'a true blue outcome-oriented judicial activist who led the law where he wanted it to go' in Katrina litigation, definitely knows where he's going with the decision he will make in this case," reported local Louisiana Mississippi blog Slabbed. "Anyone doubting the outcome need only to look at his Financial Disclosure Report..."

And that financial report is a doozy. It's peppered with investments in energy, pipeline, and drilling companies -- including Transocean and Halliburton. And don't expect this to be an isolated incident:

ProPublica:

Since BP’s ruptured well began spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico, more than 150 lawsuits have been filed in federal courts seeking damages for the harm that the environmental disaster has dealt to the livelihood of coastal fishermen and business owners. But finding judges to hear these spill-related lawsuits against BP, Halliburton and Transocean may be a challenge. More than half of the “64 active or senior judges in key Gulf Coast districts in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida” have ties to industry, according to The Associated Press.

Some judges own stocks or bonds in the companies named in the lawsuits. Some are related to plaintiffs’ attorneys. Others even receive royalties from oil and gas companies. One judge, according to financial disclosure statements, is a member of Houston’s Petroleum Club,  an “exclusive, handsome club of, and for, men of the oil industry,” reported AP.

It appears that Judge Feldman is a member of that "exclusive, handsome club."

O'Keefe's "Bad Judgment"

Justin Elliott at Talking Points Memo reports that alleged senatorial phone tapper James O'Keefe has been grounded by a judge.

"[T]he judge in the case has now ordered that he reside with his parents until the next hearing," we're told. "Magistrate Judge Louis Moore made the order Tuesday as part of the conditions of release for O'Keefe, 25. (Read them here)"

But here's the part that caught my eye:

It's not clear where O'Keefe, who hasn't said much publicly since getting out jail, is right now. But his father, the elder James O'Keefe, told the AP "I'm confident this was poor judgment ... but not much more." James and Deborah O'Keefe live in New Jersey, the state where Moore ordered the younger O'Keefe to remain while out on bond.

I'm hearing this way too often. Yes, he committed a crime -- but it's just bad judgment... So, to be clear, we shouldn't be too hard on O'Keefe because he's not criminally insane. That there's what you call yer sound legal reasoning.

Would the people making this argument say the same about the ACORN workers O'Keefe taped? Because that's what a congressional report on the organization basically found.

In fact, this could be said of any crime committed by anyone who's not a psycho- or sociopath. "Yeah, he stole a car and caused a pile up on the interstate, but that's just bad judgment. Kids these days and their crazy stunts, huh?"

How bad was O'Keefe's judgment? Pretty bad. According to his bio, "O'Keefe attended UCLA Law School for one year before returning to his investigative journalism career full time." So he knew he was committing a crime and he did it anyway.

That's not "bad judgment," that's criminal intent. And anyone defending him now ought to either admit that or cut every first offender from now on and forever the same slack. The "throw the book at 'em" crowd doesn't get to plead for leniency just because, this time, the criminal is one of their own.

Griper Blade: The Mad Neocon

If you ask Dick Cheney, changes in counter-terrorism tactics by the Obama administration mean we're all going to die in a big terrorist attack. And that's what CNN's John King did this weekend; ask Dick Cheney. As always, he was less than convincing. I don't think Dick's capable of excitement and this makes him a pretty bad liar -- his warning of the inevitable destruction of the world's first modern democracy was delivered in the same tone of voice he might use to talk about a flat tire. The destruction of America's unfortunate, of course, but that's just the way things are. No use getting all riled up about it.

Maybe Dick's like Cassandra, who was able to predict the future, but cursed in that no one would believe her. Why knock yourself out with histrionics if no one's going to buy it?

Another possibility is that Dick's not especially worked up over our oncoming doom because he knows it's a bunch of crap. That'd put him in the same boat as most of us, who also aren't extremely concerned about Cheney's doomsaying either. Other than the wingnut right who'll believe anything, we're all pretty sure that Dick's a BS dispenser and we don't lose a lot of sleep over his warnings.

There's a third possibility; that Dick believes what he says because he's a dangerous lunatic prone to paranoia. Cheney's not especially animated at the thought of another 9/11 because he's used to living in a world where disaster is always right around the corner. His lack of excitement doesn't indicate a lack of earnestness, it's just the consequence of living in constant fear... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: Planet America

Things are looking good for former Bush administration officials. You wouldn't think this would be the case, looking at some of the news stories that have come out after they'd packed up their stuff and left the White House. But that'd be because you think rationally; that doesn't fly in DC anymore. Post-Bush, the nation's capital is still dominated by denial.

Sure, Bush was an abuser of the law and -- under the paranoiac Dick Cheney's guidance -- played a little fast and loose with legalities. But that doesn't mean he actually broke the law and, since we don't know for sure, we should probably forget the whole thing. When it comes to anti-Constitutional behavior, human rights abuses, and war crimes, it's probably best to ignore things -- no one wants to open up that whole can of worms. We used to say that no one was above the law, now we worry that upholding the law might be inconvenient or embarrassing. As it is now, some people are above the law -- but only if those people are members of the Bush administration.

Outside the US, people don't get this. They insist on bringing this stuff up over and over. Out in the big, wide world, they just don't get that the Bush administration gets a pass for anything and everything, because to do otherwise would be bad politics. Forgive and forget. Look forward, not backward. Let's move on. Some people don't get the simplicity of solving a problem by pretending it never happened.

Take David Crane, an international law professor at Syracuse University. As a former UN prosecutor, Crane is a citizen of that big, wide world and doesn't see things through the lens of political expediency and an insular American media. For Crane, the United States is not a separate planet in its own orbit and things that happen in one nation inform and set precedent for things that could -- and sometimes should -- happen in other nations.

In Crane's world -- which, admittedly, is that part of the world that isn't the US -- a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir means that other leaders could be held accountable for their crimes.

Crane says that the Bashir warrant "may even be extended to the former president George W. Bush, on the grounds that some officials in terms of his administration engaged in harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects which mostly amounted to torture." Turns out that when something's a war crime for one leader, it's a war crime for all leaders.

Crazy, huh?... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]


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Griper Blade: The Tyranny of a Short-Term Majority

A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.
-Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."

That reasoned argument against what de Tocqueville called "the tyranny of the majority" is a total crock. A bunch of hooey. Liberal claptrap from a French intellectual with no real understanding of democracy. Never mind that James Madison agreed in the Federalist Papers, warning of "the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority" -- Madison was just some loonie leftist. The majority is all-powerful. If you can get enough people to agree with you, you can do anything you want to anybody. There are no such thing as rights, only privileges that can be voted away at any time. Get enough people together and you can even take someone's First Amendment rights away -- if people don't like what you're saying, they can use the power of democracy to shut you the hell up.

So sayeth that great American patriot Kenneth Starr. Best known for an unsuccessful witch hunt against then-President Bill Clinton, Starr is the dean of Pepperdine law school -- which makes you wonder what kind of education Pepperdine law students get for their money.

At issue was California's Prop. 8 -- a ban of same sex marriage. The state Supreme Court had previously ruled that gays and lesbians had the right to marriage. Prop. 8, which passed as a referendum, would remove that right and retroactively undo the marriages that have occurred since the court's ruling.

But, since the court ruled that marriage was a right, not a privilege, Prop. 8 became a classic example of the "tyranny of the majority" -- with a simple majority vote, Californians took a right away from a minority group. The ballot measure is now in California's Supreme Court, where Ken Starr -- representing Prop. 8 supporters -- argued yesterday that there's really no such thing as "rights." At least, not if you're in the minority.

"Swallow the bitter pill and act with diligence if one is weak, enjoy all one's rights if powerful: that's my doctrine," wrote the Marquis de Sade. Starr apparently agrees... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: A Trickle When We Need a Flood

It's one of those good news/bad news things. Yesterday, the Justice Department released nine of the Bush administration's secret memos [all PDF] detailing legal opinions on the president's "War on Terror." What they reveal is a frightening disregard for American principles. Knowing that some of these memos would eventually come out, the Bush administration renounced the arguments put forward in them -- days before the new president took office.

McClatchy Newspapers:

In the waning days of the Bush administration, the Justice Department renounced some of its own sweeping legal justifications, which were enacted after the 9/11 attacks, for spying on Americans and for harsh interrogations of terror suspects.

In a memo written five days before President Barack Obama took office, Steven Bradbury, the then-principal deputy assistant attorney general, warned that a series of opinions issued secretly by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel "should not be treated as authoritative for any purpose."

Bradbury said he wrote the 11-page document to confirm that "certain propositions" in memos issued by the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003 "do not reflect the current views of this office."

They were just spitballin', throwing ideas at the wall to see which stuck, running them up the flag pole to see who saluted. Never mind that, from 2001 to 2003, those legal opinions remained unopposed by the Bush administration -- unused bullets in their arsenal of legal defense.

And, believe it or not, this is the good news part -- that these memos saw the light of day at all. The bad news is that the Obama administration is sitting on "dozens" more... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: What if Bush was the Peanut Guy?

The Peanut Corporation of America is responsible for hundreds of cases of salmonella in the United States. Investigators found "dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers" in its Plainview, Texas processing plant, prompting the Texas Department of State Health Services to recall every product ever made from peanuts shipped from the facility. In Blakely, Georgia, the story is the same -- Peanut Corporation of America ran an astonishingly unclean operation. All told, 600 people have suffered food poisoning. Nine have died. Calls to the company's telephone number "elicited a recording that said it was no longer in service." For all intents and purposes, Peanut Corporation of America no longer exists.

But the man ultimately responsible for his company's operations still exists. PCA owner Stewart Parnell was subpoenaed to testify to congress. He pleaded the fifth and refused to testify.

Clearly, congress has hit a dead end. Parnell can't possibly be prosecuted, his company is in no danger of ever returning to poison people, and it's time to let bygones be bygones. What we need to do is find out what happened, so we can avoid it ever happening again. And the best way to do that is to put together a blue ribbon panel and hold a third world style truth and reconciliation commission. No one will be charged, no one will go to jail, no one will pay any price, Parnell can get on with his life and we can get on with ours. But we'll get the truth and that's what really counts.

You might've noticed that my little synopsis veered off into crazy town around the third paragraph. Of course Stewart Parnell should be prosecuted -- along with those managers and executives who helped him sell garbage to unsuspecting families. So what if his company is shut down and will never sell poison again? So what if he won't testify? So what if all this has happened in the past?

Parnell lacks one quality that would apparently put him above or beyond the law -- he's not a former President of the United States. Stewart Parnell is just a former Poison Peanut King. When anyone else has committed a crime, they have to face the legal system. When a former President has committed a crime, we have to have a truth commission -- without prosecutions -- to get to the bottom of the crime and let the criminals walk away. There will be no jail time, there would only be embarrassment for the accused -- that is, if he weren't shameless. But the accused is shameless, so there wouldn't even be that. He would face the wagging finger of justice and retire to Dallas a rich, rich man. Maybe hire a ghost-writer and put out a memoir. And his example would do absolutely nothing to prevent future executives from committing similar crimes. After all, the crime without any real consequence might as well be legal -- without punishment, there is no crime... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Choosing Ignorance

One of my favorite openings for one of my posts was written in July, 2007. That post, titled "Monument to BS Works Out Pretty Much the Way You'd Expect," was a post about the opening of the Creation Museum.

Just outside of Cincinnati -- in Petersburg, Kentucky -- stands a 60,000 square foot, $27 million monument to gullibility, fanaticism, and the ability to believe the stupidest damned things despite all evidence to the contrary. Answers in Genesis's Creation Museum features exhibits showing humans co-existing with dinosaurs, offers 'proof' that there was once a global flood, and warns us not to judge Cain for marrying his sister.

Yeah, it's that nuts.

Why revisit a museum that has an exhibit of a triceratops wearing a saddle and tells people that dinosaurs were packed into a 450X75X45 ark? Because today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. The good news is that more people believe in evolution than this stuff, the bad news is that neither belief holds a majority. According to Gallup, fully 25% of Americans believe that creationism offers a better explanation of all the species that populate the planet than evolution. Put more simply, a quarter of Americans believe that it's all explained by magic, as opposed to a complex scientific system that actually works in the real world -- evolutionary biology is an applied science. It's like disbelieving in math, despite the fact that people use it constantly to come to working answers. If it works, if it generates results, it's obviously true... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: There's Only One Side to This Story

It's easy to look at a new Rasmussen poll and think that the United States is no longer a nation of laws. In that poll, 54% think war crimes weren't committed by the Bush administration. Worse, only 25% do. 70% believe "it would be bad for the United States if the former president and senior administration officials were brought to trial for war crimes," with even 54% of Democrats agreeing.

But these are the results of a population kept in ignorance. The media, with their stupid "two sides to every story" reporting, felt the need to pretend that no one really knows what torture actually is. Congress, spineless throughout the Bush's two terms -- even when his approvals were in the tank -- got the vapors and fell into a faint every time someone mentioned holding any Bushie accountable for anything. There were investigations into all sorts of crimes, complete with sacrificial lambs, but when it came right down to it, the investigations didn't accomplish anything, because there was no action taken on the findings. If the public thinks torture isn't a war crime, the press and Congress can be blamed for it. When it comes to this issue, both have failed miserably. The correct response to Rasmussen's question about war crimes should've been "how the hell should I know? No one tells me anything."

Those who study the issue closely and have some expertise in determining torture have done just that -- determined that the US, under orders from the Bush administration, has tortured. There isn't any gray area here; it's a crime like rape or theft -- either you did it or you didn't, you can't kind of do it a little, but not really... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: Gitmo's Closing, Everybody Panic!

Now that Barack Obama has signed an executive order to close the detention facility (read "prison camp") at Guantánamo Bay, one thing is becoming clear -- we're all going to freakin' die. Depending on which right wing nut you ask, the president will have no choice but to move at least one deadly terrorist into either your bedroom or your closet. We are doomed.

Writing for the Center for American Progress, blogger Matthew Yglesias helpfully lays out the arguments being advanced by talking heads in the media. Unfortunately for those same talking heads, he translates the arguments from BS into English:

-The fact that the Bush administration has let dangerous terrorists go free means Obama should keep innocent people detained.

-The fact that the Bush administration screwed up the paperwork on detainees shows that there was more wisdom to Bush’s policies than Obama acknowledged on the campaign trail.

-Obama’s promise of change was empty and hypocritical because it will take time to implement his executive orders.

-The “Guantánamo” issue is primarily about the physical location of the facility rather than the legal status or treatment of the detainees.

-Since many liberals live in San Francisco, anyone who thinks it would be ill-advised to transfer prisoners to a museum in the San Francisco Bay that hasn’t been a prison for decades is a hypocrite.

When you put it that way -- i.e., in plain English -- the arguments don't look so good. No fair using logic, because reality has a liberal bias... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: Not Prosecuting Torture is a Crime in Itself

George W. Bush wasn't going to be the president forever. That seems obvious to most people, but it almost seems to have caught Republicans in Washington by surprise. The president who brought his party to near irrelevance is gone now, but his actions linger on. Bush, having brought even more disaster to the Republican party than he did to the nation, leaves behind a legacy of crime and scandal. Having once hoped he would rebuild American government to match his vision, Bush left DC in worse shape than he found it -- the nation is impatient to see the vision undone.

Still, some Republicans seem to be completely unaware of these new realities, behaving as if nothing had changed, as if the Republican party were still wildly popular, and as if Bush's legacy is anything other than one of failure.

Politico:

Eric Holder’s confirmation vote before the Judiciary Committee will be delayed for up to a week as Republican senators continue to press him on his views about interrogation and other Bush administration intelligence methods.

The Judiciary Committee was originally scheduled to vote today on Holder’s nomination as attorney general, but Republicans have objected, and under committee rules they can delay the vote for up to a week. Holder was grilled last week by Republicans on his views about interrogations, Guantanamo Bay and his involvement in the 2001 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is seeking more information from Holder on whether the Department of Justice will pursue criminal prosecutions of "intelligence personnel" involved in detainee interrogations.

It was going to be the pardon of Marc Rich that was going to be the bump in the road to Holder's confirmation, but he went and told the senate in testimony that waterboarding is torture. Of course, it's their fault for asking him -- no one who's given it serious thought thinks it's not. "If you look at the history of the use of that technique, " Holder said, "we prosecuted our own soldiers for using it in Vietnam... Waterboarding is torture."... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: It's Torture. We Tortured. There was Torture.

Let's start out with a few quotes.

I think on the left wing of the Democratic Party there are some people who believe that we really tortured.
--Dick Cheney

It's torture. It's a means of extracting information that I didn't even believe these people probably had. It's a means of making their lives more miserable.
--Chris Arendt, formerly stationed at Guantanamo

We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case [for prosecution].
--Susan J. Crawford, convening authority of military commissions

Some on the left may think "we really tortured" Dick, but those in the know do too. We've gotten to the point where simple denial isn't going to be good enough. "We don't torture" doesn't wash when everyone knows we do. When cases are thrown out of court because the accused was tortured, then there was torture. When people who work in the prisons say they saw torture, then there was torture. When people coming out of those prisons say they were tortured, then there was torture.

At this point, denial isn't just useless, but it's insulting to everyone's intelligence -- the denier's included. There was torture... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: Racism in the Civil Rights Division

The inauguration of Barack Obama will demonstrate how far we've come -- if not how far we have yet to go -- in dealing with the issue of race in America. In less than a week, we'll watch the first African-American president take office. Phrases like "once unimaginable" and words like "tearful" and "jubilant" will probably get worn out in the media -- both new and old -- in reporting of the event and reactions to it. No matter which side of the aisle you come from, you've got to admit that this is an inauguration a bit more historically noteworthy than the average. Obama represents more than just Executive #44.

But what few will note is that Obama's turn at the wheel represents a drastic change from just a couple of years ago. A new Justice Department report details illegal hiring practices within the department, where employees where chosen for ideological purity rather than experience or merit. As a result, Justice was peppered with young conservative ideologues and Bush loyalists. 150 of these came from Pat Robertson's Regent University -- a third-tier law school that, not surprisingly, does a lot less educating than it does indoctrinating. Justice, under the the leadership of John Ashcroft and then Alberto Gonzales, became home to young, right wing Christian evangelicals and neocons. It was less of a service to the public than a way to build the resumes of the future Republican leadership.

One of these young ideologues, Monica Goodling, pleaded the Fifth in congressional testimony about this debacle. "She forced many very talented, career people out of main Justice so she could replace them with junior people that were either loyal to the administration or would score her some points," a former Justice official told the Washington Post in 2007. The Justice Department -- a law enforcement agency -- had been thoroughly politicized... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: The Unpunished Crime Might as Well be Legal

I usually hate these "two headlines" things, where two sources report the same event and come up with entirely different takes. Usually, this means that, of the two, one of them is BS. But not always. Sometimes the event is difficult to assess and the headlines they write depend as much on what the writers had for breakfast that morning as anything else. If your inclined to see bad news, you'll see bad news.

The event in question here is an appearance by Barack Obama on This Week with George Stephanopoulos Sunday. Raw Story reports "Obama not likely to prosecute torture." Meanwhile, USA Today's The Oval blog tells us "Obama: Time to look forward, but Bush aides aren't above the law."

Given the noncommittal nature of Obama's statements to Stephanopoulos, it's easy to see how this could happen. He really didn't give any definitive answer. Maybe there will be prosecutions for torture, maybe not... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]