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Worthless Justice

The latest news in the Hamdi saga should get you all hopping mad, if you take seriously at all the ideals of freedom and justice in this country:

Until late last year, the Pentagon insisted that Hamdi was a threat and refused to allow him to meet with lawyers. But after the Supreme Court agreed to hear Hamdi's case, Defense Department officials allowed Dunham to meet with his client under tightly monitored conditions.

At that time, the Pentagon said it had determined Hamdi no longer had any intelligence value to U.S. authorities.

Huh. I guess "intelligence value" must be something like "radioactivity," with a calculable half-life.

In any event, now that the Justice Department has (once again) tipped its empty hand, I hope Hamdi's trial judge, Judge Doumar (who has proven himself to be plenty independent and feisty in the past) tells the prosecutors they can shove their "settlement proposal" where the sun don't shine -- that, given the Government's outrageous behavior, he won't accept any plea bargain of the case that requires Hamdi either to renounce his US citizenship, or forego his right to sue the Government for his mistreatment. I hope Hamdi himself refuses to accept such an offer (although, given the way he's been treated, who could blame him if he decided his US citizenship wasn't worth keeping -- I mean, honestly, other than his -- apparently-phyrric -- Supreme Court victory, what good has it done him? The Justice Department hasn't treated him with the respect and dignity I'd grant a stray dog).

It's too bad, too, that no enterprising reporter isn't asking Justice Clarence Thomas ("our youngest, cruelest justice" as the NYTimes deftly pegged him a dozen years ago) the equivalent of Kerry's "Iraq war" question -- that is, given what we now know, would he still have voted as he did in Hamdi's case? (Remember, Thomas is the ONLY justice to buy into the Bush administration's breathtakingly totalitarian argument that the President has the authority, unilaterally, to cast a US citizen into perpetual gulag, and -- not only is this permitted under the Constitution -- but US courts are powerless to even review such an action.)

Go ahead, ask Clarence if he thinks jailing Hamdi for three years on nothing but Emperor Tipsy Dixit's word, when it turns out (once again) that his word wasn't worth shit, was justified.

Let's hear what the constitutional subgenius has to say for himself . . .

posted by Michael 10:40 PM

News not fit to print…

When the “McGreevey affair” broke Golan "the victim" Cipel was described as a poet and sailor. A latter day Leonard Cohen. We've heard about the poetry readings and the brie and Chablis parties, the homeland security gig, a fund raising job courtesy of a Zionist fatcat and the PR work. Now it turns out that Golan wasn’t tooling around in Hobie Cats, but that he was an officer in the Israeli navy. However, today’s pieces in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times no longer mention his tour as a press officer at the high profile Israeli consulate in New York. Wonder if Pinch got a call from the boys over in Herzliya to spike it?

posted by Groom 5:02 PM

USA TODAY part of Bush "image tilt"

If you believe pictures are worth a thousand words you better check out page 4A of the weekend print edition of USA TODAY. There's Bu$h at the top under a headline "Bush's job-approval rating climbs back above 50%"; he's in an open shirt, sleeves rolled up wearing a hardhat with some union carpenters (carpenters aren't part of the AFL-CIO mind you). Below him is John Kerry, pale, brittle and tired, hair almost white under the auditorium lights with a headiline "...Bush has 'no new ideas' for economy". To the right of Kerry, staring him down, is Dick Cheney. The visual ambush continues. Didn't they just change editors...

posted by Groom 7:29 AM

Are The Wars a Distraction to Hide the Real Agenda?

A new attack on Najaf? Another Terror Alert? We think it's not just about Kerry. How about keeping consumers distracted from product safety information?

While attention is focused on war, terror, and now the elections, the Bush Administration quietly goes about its fundamental agenda. That, at least, is what I take from Joel Brinkley's story in the New York Times. Here is a wee sample, the lead,

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 - April 21 was an unusually violent day in Iraq; 68 people died in a car bombing in Basra, among them 23 children. As the news went from bad to worse, President Bush took a tough line, vowing to a group of journalists, "We're not going to cut and run while I'm in the Oval Office."

On the same day, deep within the turgid pages of the Federal Register, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a regulation that would forbid the public release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles, saying that publicizing the information would cause "substantial competitive harm" to manufacturers.

As soon as the rule was published, consumer groups yelped in complaint, while the government responded that it was trying to balance the interests of consumers with the competitive needs of business. But hardly anyone else noticed, and that was hardly an isolated case.

"Let them fear terrorists. Let them forget 'buyer beware.'" That seems to be the way this administration handles government. Come to think of it, exactly the same way they are handling the campaign. Talk about one-trick ponies.

posted by John 7:00 AM

Jingo diplomacy is back

Pappy Powell learned all he needed to know about Buddhism when he was over in Viet Nam helping cover-up the My Lai massacre. Now in the desperate hours of failed Bu$h diplomacy, he’s leaning on Japan to change its pacifist constitution. Private GOP polls might indicate that most under-35 voters think that Watergate was a bad movie by Kevin Kostner. But does Pappy really believe the Japanese, with their large Buddhist population, have forgotten that we nuked the shit out of them at the end of World War II? Or maybe sonny boy Mikey Powell forgot… he was the one who was pimping the same idea a decade ago when he was deputy director of the Japan desk at the Pentagon.

The most blunderous part of Powell's statement is that it provides hawks in China with an excuse to plow those profits from selling cheap goods at Wal-Mart and K-Mart into defense spending and weapons development in order to offset the "Japanese threat." This can only cause more jitters in a region where political tensions are mounting over access to oil. Imagine what would happen if Japan’s Foreign Minister got up at a state dinner in Washington and suggested that the United States remove the Second Amendment from its constitution because he thought America was too “bellicose.”

posted by Groom 6:50 AM

Coming Home

Plus ça change . . .

posted by Michael 1:57 AM

American Taliban Redux

Lawyers for John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban," have raised an interesting question with the Justice Department--If the U.S. is now negotiating to free Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen captured fighting for the Taliban, why is Lindh doing hard time for being an American citizen captured fighting for the Taliban?

The answer, of course, is that Lindh provided an easy foil for an administration determined to show how tough it was in the early days following 9/11. The sentence to which Lindh agreed was always excessive and but there was little chance that he could have gotten a fair trial in the atmosphere that prevailed when he was captured. Given all the highly prejudicial publicity, the Abu Graib-level of abuse by the Army after his capture, and clear prosecutorial misconduct by John Ashcroft, 20 years with little possibility of parole is way over the top. Lindh was young and silly and misguided but he is not dangerous. This is one of the Bush administration's many injustices waiting to fixed.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:16 AM

Friday, August 13, 2004

Hurricane Kerry

Good news from the St. Petersburg Times:

An Aug. 5-10 Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday showed that 47 percent of Florida voters backed Kerry, 41 percent Bush and 4 percent independent candidate Ralph Nader. The same poll had Bush and Kerry tied in Florida six weeks ago. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Other Quinnipiac findings suggest potentially more problems for Bush: 54 percent of voters disapproved of the president's job performance; only one in three independent voters backed Bush; among women, Kerry led by 14 percentage points; among men Bush led by 2 percentage points.

In the virtually tied Florida election of 2000, exit polls showed Bush enjoyed a 26 point advantage over Al Gore among male voters; they essentially tied among independent voters.

posted by Jerry Bowles 7:18 PM

"McGreevey Affair"... sources and methods

The New Jersey State Police provide protection to the governor and other state officials. They pride themselves on using techniques developed by Col. Norman Schwarzkopf. Remember all the state police hanky panky that went on with the "troopergate" in Arkansas during "Whitewater." In case you're wondering, the old man is the father of "Stormin' Norman" the man who somehow lost the diskettes containing incrimating information about how thousands of US "Desert Storm" troops were poisoned by our own weapons of mass destuction. It runs in the family. The Lindbergh cover-up... the diskettes... and now the bodyguards didn't protect the body.

posted by Groom 5:53 PM

Thought for the weekend... tell but don't ask

Considering what Jerry posted below about office romance, when you surf the TV news today you might wonder how many of the anchors and reporters working the "McGreevey Affair" happen to be gay and are keeping their feelings about this blackmail inside.

posted by Groom 11:15 AM

And the Rest are Lying

Forty-one percent of employed Americans ages 25-40 have admitted to having engaged in an office romance.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:51 AM

Another Chicken Drags Its Weary Ass Back to the Roost

It's official--George Bush robs from the poor and gives to the rich. Reports the NY Times:

Fully one-third of President Bush's tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income, who have earned an average of $1.2 million annually, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be published Friday.

The report calculated that households with incomes in that top 1 percent were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while households in the middle 20 percent of earnings - averaging about $57,000 a year - were getting an average cut of only $1,090.

The new estimates confirm what independent tax analysts have long said: that Mr. Bush's tax cuts have been heavily skewed to the very wealthiest taxpayers.

posted by Jerry Bowles 7:25 AM

McGreevy Affair… fodder for GOP homophobes, Likudniks too

The $5 million blackmail threat made by former New Jersey homeland security adviser Golan Cipel on his ex-boss Gov. James E. McGreevey suggests an unstable mind. But this guy was also spokesman for the Consulate of Israel in New York, a job you don’t get without the requisite political- and intelligence community- connections. One wonders if the noble self-outing and resignation by McGreevey shifts the focus away from whether or not Cipel was acting alone? Dealing with homeland security issues, one would expect Cipel was vetted by the FBI or other federal agencies. This kind of information- particularly the psychological profiling and the proclivities stuff- is easy pickings for White House political operators, among others, Karl Rove, who never knew a moonlighting FBI agent he didn’t like. Then there’s Deputy Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, who as a Washington lawyer used to front points for Israel and has excellent ties with some of Cipel’s former employers. It’s election season. Will the Dems ever learn to play hardball?

posted by Groom 6:36 AM

The "De-Processing" Of Due Process

I've been mulling over the California Supreme Court's decision today, particularly the part invalidating those same-sex marriages already performed. I have to say I've got a newfound respect for Justice Werdegar (an appointee of Governor Pete Wilson, believe it or not), who wrote this in dissent:

I do not join in the majority’s decision to address the validity of the marriages already performed and to declare them void. My concern here is not for the future of same-sex marriage. That question is not before us and, like the majority, I intimate no view on it. My concern, rather, is for basic fairness in judicial process. The superior court is presently considering whether the state statutes that limit marriage to "a man and a woman" (e.g., Fam. Code, § 300) violate the state and federal Constitutions. The same-sex couples challenging those statutes claim the state has, without sufficient justification, denied the fundamental right to marry (e.g., Zablocki v. Redhail (1978) 434 U.S. 374, 383; Loving v. Virginia (1967) 388 U.S. 1, 12; Perez v. Sharp (1948) 32 Cal.2d 711, 714-715) to a class of persons defined by gender or sexual orientation. Should the relevant statutes be held unconstitutional, the relief to which the purportedly married couples would be entitled would normally include recognition of their marriages. By analogy, interracial marriages that were void under antimiscegeny statutes at the time they were solemnized were nevertheless recognized as valid after the high court rejected those laws in Loving v. Virginia. (E.g., Dick v. Reaves (Okla. 1967) 434 P.2d 295, 298.) By postponing a ruling on this issue, we could preserve the status quo pending the outcome of the constitutional litigation. Instead, by declaring the marriages "void and of no legal effect from their inception" (maj. opn., ante, at p. 70), the majority permanently deprives future courts of the ability to award full relief in the event the existing statutes are held unconstitutional. This premature decision can in no sense be thought to represent fair judicial process.

The majority asserts that "it would not be prudent or wise to leave the validity of these marriages in limbo for what might be a substantial period of time given the potential confusion (for third parties, such as employers, insurers, or other governmental entities, as well as for the affected couples) that such an uncertain status inevitably would entail." (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 75-76.) Nowhere in the opinion, however, does the majority note that any same-sex couple has filed a lawsuit seeking the legal benefits of their purported marriage. Nor is the absence of such lawsuits surprising, since any reasonable court would stay such actions pending the outcome of the ongoing constitutional litigation.

The majority’s decision to declare the existing marriages void is unfair for the additional reason that the affected couples have not been joined as parties or given notice and an opportunity to appear. On March 12, 2004, we denied all petitions to intervene filed by affected couples. That ruling made sense at the time it was announced because our prior order of March 11, 2004, which specified the issues to be briefed and argued, did not identify the validity of the existing marriages as an issue. Only on April 14, 2004, after having denied the petitions to intervene, did the court identify and solicit briefing on the issue of the marriages’ validity. To declare marriages void after denying requests by the purported spouses to appear in court as parties and be heard on the matter is hard to justify, to say the least.

The majority counters that "the legal arguments of such couples with regard to the question of the validity of the existing same-sex marriages have been heard and fully considered." (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 74.) But this is a claim a court may not in good conscience make unless it has given, to the persons whose rights it is purporting to adjudicate, notice and the opportunity to appear. This is the irreducible minimum of due process, even in cases involving numerous parties. (See Mullane v. Central Hannover Tr. Co. (1950) 339 U.S. 306, 314-315.) Amicus curiae briefs, which any member of the public may ask to file and which the court has no obligation to read, cannot seriously be thought to satisfy these requirements. The majority writes that "requiring each of the thousands of same-sex couples to be named and served as parties in the present action, would add nothing of substance to this proceeding." (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 73.) Of course, the same argument can be made in many class actions with respect to the absent members of the class, but due process still gives each class member the right to notice and the opportunity to appear. (Mullane v. Central Hannover Tr. Co., supra, 339 U.S. at pp. 314-315.) Here, notice has been given to none of the 4,000 affected couples; and even the 11 same-sex couples who affirmatively sought to intervene were denied the opportunity to appear. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 74.) What the majority has done, in effect, is to give petitioners the benefit of an action against a defendant class of same-sex couples free of the burden of procedural due process. If the majority truly desired to hear the views of the same-sex couples whose rights it is adjudicating, it would not proceed in absentia.

Aware of this problem, the majority offers a specious imitation of due process by ordering the city to notify the same-sex couples that this court has decided their marriages are void, and to "provide these couples an opportunity to demonstrate that their marriages are not same-sex marriages" before canceling their marriage records. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 80, 81; see also id., at p. 74.) This procedure may prevent the city from mistakenly deleting the records of heterosexual marriages, but it cannot benefit any same-sex couple. Notice after the fact that one’s rights have been adjudicated is not due process.

What I learned in law school was that "due process" requires, at a minimum, "notice, and an opportunity to be heard." Married gay and lesbian couples in California didn't get that today.

posted by Michael 1:15 AM

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Is the Kerry campaigned doomed? Naaaa....

All sorts of people, from the NY Times' David Sanger to our own Jerry Bowles are acting as if the Bush twist on the Kerry vote to authorize the use of force against Saddam and Kerry's muddled rebuttal were hugely damaging blows to the Kerry campaign. Personally, I doubt it. I was recently involved in the following exchange on the Democrats Abroad Japan Yahoo Group.

On 2004/08/13, at 9:43, Aaron Isgar wrote:

My understanding is that Kerry said he would have still voted to authorize the president's ability to enter a war, but he would not have exercised that power without getting world allies on board and obtaining better evidence.

Aaron,

You have nailed it. Kerry voted to authorize the use of force if necessary, a step seen as necessary to compel Saddam to accept the return of the UN inspectors. It was Bush who went off half-cocked, launching a pre-emptive war in the absence of clear and present danger, ignoring military advice about the number of troops required to secure the country, sending the troops into harms way inadequately equipped and having no plan for the peace whatsoever.

As far as I can make out, he and his PNAC planners went way out on a limb with an idiot's version of market fundamentalism--remove tyrannical government and the perfect market's heaven on earth will appear spontaneously, along with choreographed rejoicing a la Republican pep rally.

Personally, I thought Kerry's vote was ingenuous--plenty of us knew where the Warp Resident was headed and the mess he was likely to make. But when Bush claims that Kerry voted for war (instead of a credible threat against a dictator seemingly impervious to any argument except the threat of force), Bush is lying. No big surprise there.

As evidence this is not much. Two Democrats chatting, one of them me. But it illustrates the point I want to make. I was a fervently anti-war, pro-Howard Dean Democrat who thought Kerry blundered when he voted as he did. But that's all been discounted already. Kerry's our candidate and Bush is so appalling that going away, hiding our heads in the sand, and not voting for Kerry is simply not an option.

There is at the end of the day a real and significant difference between one dumb move and just plain dumb, pigheaded, immoral, and criminal to boot.

posted by John 9:19 PM

Married, With Children

New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey has resigned, citing an extramarital homosexual affair. Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a society where who someone sleeps with was considered irrelevant to their ability to serve in public office. McGreevey is a Democrat but there are obviously many politicians--Republicans and Democrats--who are forced to live the same deception that McGreevey has borne.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:58 PM

Cal Supremes To Married Gays: Re-Cork The Champagne

As expected, the California Supreme Court today ruled (unanimously) that SF Mayor Gavin Newsom exceeded his authority under the law to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians last year. What was not so expected (particularly after they declined to let any of those 4,000+ same-sex spouses intervene in the case, to argue the constitutionality of their own marriages) was the Court's ruling, 5-2, that those same-sex marriages were a legal nullity, and void from the outset.

Having slogged through their 114-page set of opinions (mostly superfluous blather about "a government of laws, not of men"), I must say I'm not optimistic that there will be a majority of four votes there (next year, it's estimated) to validate same-sex marriages in California. The knee-jerk test seems to be this: If, the day before the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967, a interracial couple had a wedding ceremony before a preacher, would it be valid under the Constitution? Or null and void? The Cal Supremes seem to say the latter, by a vote of 5 to 2.

posted by Michael 4:52 PM

Remake... it's what's for dinner

Read this and substitute Kerry for Gore, Bush for Clinton. Undecided voters jonzein for substance are twisting in the wind as the Dems and their great pontificator let the Bu$h clique name a partisan CIA director, a partisan "intelligence Czar" and put a "kindler gentler" spin on the "war of lies" in Iraq. That leaves John Kerry with little else but Hamlet's skull to hold as he positions himself as the vaunted "national security" president. If the Dems want to win, they've got to retool the campaign and hit the ground after the GOP "heimlandsicherheitsfest" since Labor Day has become Rove Day.

posted by Groom 3:51 PM

The GOP Takes the High Road

A white-millionaire-funded group calling itself People of Color United has begun running radio ads on black radio stations in about a dozen cities, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy."

As opposed to what? "Rich, white and dangerously incompetent?" Do Republicans really believe black folks are that dumb?

posted by Jerry Bowles 2:49 PM

Wanted: Political Party With Balls

The Dems are about to do their famous bend-over-and-take-it act on the Goss nomination. You'd think their butts would be sore by now. The first thing we need to do on November 3, no matter who wins, is retake the Democrat (or Republican) party.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:36 AM

Why the squeaky wheel doesn’t get the oil

John Kerry got mugged on Iraq because he was afraid to say “it’s about the politics of oil, not about nation building or the war on terror and I’ve got a real plan to stop the madness.” If you would conduct a poll of registered voters who plan to vote today and asked them who is the world’s largest oil producer most would say Saudi Arabia or Iraq. But the United States is the big enchilada, coming in at 7.9 million barrels/day and we’re not maxed out the way our friends the Saudis and their OPEC buddies say they are. With West Texas crude over $45/barrel… that’s $2.5 billion of weekly lunch money for a bunch of right wingers who think its cool to organize stuff like “swift boat veterans against John Kerry” These folks buy politicians, not votes and they’ve bought this election.

posted by Groom 9:33 AM

Kerry's Folly

Would John Kerry really have sent American soldiers off to die in a senseless war in Iraq had he known for sure there were no weapons of mass destruction or that Saddam had no collaborative relationship with al Queda? I don't believe for a second that he would have. So, why did he take the bait from Karl Rove's dummy and say that he would? It is a stupid spineless blunder that allows Shrub to now claim that even Kerry agrees that invading Iraq was a good idea.

If Kerry really thinks that, it puts him at odds with the overwhelming majority of the members of his own party. Maybe he doesn't want to cede tough guy points to Bush but his response violates two of the cardinal rules of survival--never answer a hypothetical question and when cornered, tell the truth. It's always the easiest way out. Imagine if Mark Fuhrman has simply said "Of course, I've said that word. I'm not proud of it and I try not to. But, sometimes it slips out."

All Kerry had to say is that based on the information that he, and the president, had at the time, he believed that authorizing the use of force was the right thing to do. Knowing what he--and everybody else--knows now, he would, of course, have voted against the use of force. Only a lunatic would invade another country knowing that it posed no threat to the American people. It's neat, consistent, and has the enormous appeal of being true rather than expedient and defensive.

posted by Jerry Bowles 7:02 AM

Will the next Katherine Harris please stand up…

Before he betrayed his party Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was a Clinton Democrat. Blackwell flipped to the GOP and hangs with Bu$h Ranger Weldon O’Dell, the Diebold honcho who’s never seen a paperless voting machine he didn’t like. Small wonder that Diebold received a mega-contract to supply the state of Ohio with voting machines that provide no receipts or paper back-up. Now, after Diebold machines got bad report cards after two rounds of testing by “independent organizations” Blackwell has turned tail, blocking Ohio counties from using his GOP pal’s machines until the problems are fixed. Those “fixes” should be complete next year, when Blackwell will be campaigning to become Ohio’s first black governor…one step away from a 2008 GOP vice presidential nomination. Meanwhile most of Ohio will be voting on punch card ballots, the kind that enabled the GOP to jack the Florida election.

posted by Groom 5:51 AM

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Help Me Check This Story

The paper edition of this morning's Japan Times carried a front-page story asserting that in testimony before Congress, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was urging Congress to pass a bill to provide US$300 million to fund "friendly militias" to go after terrorists. I have just checked and, for whatever reason, this story is not available (or I simply can't find it) on the Japan Times website. (Never mind, here's a link to the Sydney paper.)

If true, we are seeing the continuing spiraling out of control of a policy of hiring "private" armies to do the dirty work that the US military is restrained from doing by the Geneva Convention and other US and international law. It is as if, having discovered that legal means of violence are insufficient, the administration is resorting to that old, "Let's find some godfathers who aren't tied down by legal considerations and can do stuff off the radar--plausibly deniable, too."

Besides the fact that this move portends a return to the worst excesses of state-sponsored terror, we've been there, done that. Can't these guys spell "blowback" or "Osama Bin Laden"?

Anyway. If anyone here can find sources to confirm this story, please get them to me yesterday. This is real bad stuff and needs to be stopped now.

posted by John 10:46 PM

New Headline Over At Yahoo News:

"Poll finds Israeli Jews want Bush over Kerry"

You watch -- this afternoon, he'll start "Operation Texodus" to airlift 'em over here, and grant 'em instant citizenship, so they can vote . . .

posted by Michael 5:12 PM

Shrub is Toast

Such is the level of desperation in the land that a handsome collection of fine, young healthy Americans have agreed to make the ultimate sacrifice to get Shrub and his goons out of the White House. Yes sir, friends, I'm talking about getting jiggy, doing the nasty, making whoopee, whatever you call it at your house. At last count, there were 177 brave souls who have agreed to have sex with Republicans who sign a pledge not to vote for Bush in November. I'm not making this up. Check it out.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:24 PM

Salaam Doodie: Won't Get Fooled Again

The new Bush-Cheney TV ad — "Solemn Duty" — is available for viewing today, on their website.

In it, George and Laura sit side by side, in what appears to be a home office, wearing pained expressions on their faces, like they just got his latest polling numbers.

George speaks:

"My most solemn duty is to lead our nation, to protect ourselves.

(. . . and by "ourselves," I mean, of course, Laura 'n' me. And the girls. Oh, and I guess Unka Dick, too -- but that's it.)

"I can't imagine the great agony of a mom or a dad having to make the decision about which child to pick up first on September the 11th.

(I "can't imagine" it because I've got all kinda Secret Service people to handle them things now. At taxpayer expense. Honestly, how do all you poor folks manage?)

"We cannot hesitate,

(Well, not more'n seven minutes anyway . . .)

"we cannot yield, we must do everything in our power to bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again."

('cept for a couple side wars Unka Dick and Wolfie say we gotta get handled in Iraq and Iran first.)

Translation: Give us another chance. This time, we won't get caught flatfooted, with our thumbs up our asses, like before. Honest!

Do I see the glisten of flopsweat on his brow? Do I detect that acrid smell of desperation?

Well, as those unintentional comedians on FauxNews constantly like to say,

We Report. You Decide.

posted by Michael 4:05 PM

Ashcroft's Streak Continues

Looks like the Bushies may finally be blinking in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, the accidental American who was captured in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 and held as an enemy combatant without legal rights. The Supreme Court ruled on June 28 that the Bush administration could not indefinitely detain Hamdi and now his lawyers are negotiating his possible release. Can Jose Padillo, the "dirty bomber," be far behind.

posted by Jerry Bowles 3:44 PM