Graham and McCain Exploit Boston Tragedy

After the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in connection with the Boston bomb attacks, the nation's top unrepentant neocons --  John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- are currently engaged in a high-profile demonstration of grandstanding. The purpose of this posturing seems to be to showcase how Very Important and Serious they are, why you should have them on Meet the Press, and why you should vote for Graham instead of whatever random Tea Party nutjob the far right base will try to primary him with.

Graham and McCain would very much like Tsarnaev to be charged as an enemy combatant. Slate's Emily Bazelon spells out exactly why this is all pretense -- Graham knows this can't happen because "he helped write the 2009 law [pdf] that says Tsarnaev may not be tried as an enemy combatant and thus points away from holding him as one. But that’s not stopping Graham and the others from trying to score terror points—and, of course, trying to make the president appear weak. This isn’t about actually fighting terrorists. It’s about running for election."

So far, the rightwing blogosphere is following along like a brainless puppy. Mostly because they too are more interested in embarrassing Obama than rights or justice. After all, it was just weeks ago that half of them where defending the right of suspects like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to due process in the case of drone attacks on American citizens. But that was because the Obama administration held the opposite view, not because they gave a damn. Now that an American citizen is not in the sights of a drone hitman, they're all wondering why anyone would be at all concerned about due process for terrorists. As always, consistency is not their strong point.

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Can Gun Laws and Gun Ownership Coexist? Yes, and I Can Prove It

Wisconsin is a gun-owning state. All you need to do to prove that to yourself is show up around November. The woods are crawling with guys in orange snowsuits and hats, in search of whitetail deer. Or ask about wild turkeys when you stop in a roadside tavern. It's like asking about the Packers -- everyone's an expert. It's not at all unusual for people to be extremely familiar and comfortable around firearms and stories about hunting trips are part of many family get-togethers. In fact, we're number twelve in the top twenty gun-owning states. In the latest available figures from 2007, our percentage of gun owners was 44.4%. That means we beat out rootin'-tootin' shootin' Texas -- by a country mile. The Lone Star state's percentage of gun ownership was a measly 35.9%. We also beat out other southern states -- i.e., those supposedly immersed in "gun culture" -- such as Georgia (40%), North Carolina (41.3%), South Carolina (42.3%), Arizona (31.1%), and Florida (24.5%). Don't talk to us about your "gun culture" -- we've got a culture. You've got a hobby.

Now take a look at this map from a study on state gun deaths. In 2010 we were one of the states with the fewest gun deaths per capita. How can this be? Simple. All it takes is common sense gun laws.

Reuters:

States that have more laws restricting gun ownership have lower rates of death from shootings, both suicides and homicides, a study by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard University found.

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An Assault Weapons Ban, Piece By Piece

Let's get one thing clear immediately, the "assault weapon" classification is not some BS term meant to scare people away from certain guns. When someone tells you that the only differences between an assault rifle and a regular rifle are cosmetic, they're lying. The adaptations and customizations made to an assault weapon serve a purpose and that purpose is to make it easier to fire a lot of bullets in a short amount of time. To say there's no difference between a hunting rifle and an AR-15 is the same as saying there's no difference between a car off the dealer's lot and a street rod -- they look different because they are different.

There's a longer explanation here. But the shortest explanation is just as convincing: a "tricked out" AR-15 costs $1,000 at WalMart. Meanwhile, a regular deer rifle will cost you about 500 to 600 bucks. An example is here. It's very similar to a gun I used to use when I hunted deer. Out of 24 reviews at the site, 20 give this 500 dollar rifle five stars. It's not some cheap piece of junk. It's a perfectly good sportsman's rifle, used by hunters around the world.

Now, who in their right mind would spend twice as much for something that they know is different only in appearance? A gun is a tool. And anyone who pays that much more for a tool because they like the way it looks is a chump. There is obviously a difference and the people who love these weapons know it. When they say they "just look scary," they lie. And one person who knows this is Newton Police Chief Michael Kehoe.

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Liberals Need to Take Court Races as Seriously as Corporations Do

The Wisconsin Supreme Court race stretched out through the night and into the early morning. By the time I finally hung it up at about two, it was already clear that a recount was in the cards. As it stands as of this writing, JoAnne Kloppenburg leads incumbent David Prosser -- 739,574 to 739,350. In other words, by next to nothing. Associated Press reports that three precincts are still out -- two in Kloppenburg dominated Milwaukee County and one in Prosser-heavy Jefferson County. So, right now, it seems that Kloppenburg will keep her slim lead and, perhaps, expand on it. Or not. Who even knows?

But it pays to remember that Prosser originally dominated this race with 55% of the primary vote. That means he's gone from shoe-in to losing, if only by a handful of votes. Prosser was going to win this in a walk, then everything got turned on its head. Republican over-reach comes with a price for conservatives.

Despite Prosser's complaints that he was attacked by special interests, Kloppenburg backers were outspent, making this the most costly Supreme Court race in Wisconsin history. Outspent and against a candidate who looked like a sure winner, Kloppenburg was able to close the gap and -- if barely -- overcome it.

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Illinois Set to End Human Sacrifice

It's hard for me to think of a policy I support less than the death penalty. The short take is that it's expensive, it doesn't work, and -- for me, the clincher -- it cannot be reversed. An innocent person put to death is a mistake that can't be rectified and this alone renders illogical the argument that killing people makes us safer. If your government can kill you, despite the fact that you've done nothing wrong, then you're most definitely not safer for it. The death penalty should be viewed the way we view other forms of human sacrifice -- a brutal and ineffective attempt to manipulate reality, founded only in a bloodthirsty superstition.

One state is poised to abandon this savage mumbo-jumbo; the Illinois legislature has sent a bill repealing that state's death penalty to Gov. Pat Quinn's desk. There's some question as to whether Quinn will sign it into law or not. There shouldn't be.

CBS News:

"We cannot afford to continue to have a death penalty in Illinois with the track record we have," Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, the main Senate sponsor, said Tuesday. "I believe only the state of Florida has had more people sent to death row for crimes that they did not commit. We ought to be embarrassed by that."

Illinois has removed 20 wrongly condemned people from death row since 1987. There's no evidence Illinois has executed an innocent person.

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Republicans Worship a Constitution They Don't Understand

Imagine a group of self-proclaimed "Shakespeare experts" who claim to know everything that's not in the play The Tempest. They go on at length, explaining how this isn't in it and that isn't in it, giving everyone the impression that their knowledge of things not in the play in all-encompassing and complete. Logic would dictate that, since they know everything that is not in The Tempest, they would know everything that is. Even if only by the process of elimination, they should be able to recognize the text.

Now imagine these scholars set up a big exposition where they would read Shakespeare's work so that everyone would be clear on what is and isn't in there -- apparently, there's been some confusion about this recently and it's important to clear it up. Further, imagine they read the whole thing, but accidentally skip Act II, scene II. And imagine that none of this panel of experts notices the omission. They roll right on, completely unaware that the audience is wondering who the hell this Caliban guy is and where he came from.

Might you conclude that maybe, just maybe, these "experts" weren't quite so expert as advertised? Welcome to the 112th Congress in the House of Representatives.

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Wikileaks and Kiddie Porn Barbie -- If Something is Possible, You Should Be Afraid of It

Beware this Christmas! Your children could be at risk! If kindly old Grampa Jimmy gives little Suzie a certain Barbie doll, then kindly old Grampa Jimmy could possibly be a child molester! So sayeth the imaginative, paranoid minds at the FBI.

Associated Press:

The FBI has issued a "cybercrime alert" on a new Barbie doll that comes with a hidden video camera.

[...]

The FBI's Sacramento office issued a report last month with the warning on Mattel's Barbie Video Girl. The doll has a video camera lens built into its necklace that can record up to 30 minutes of footage to be downloaded on a computer.

FBI spokesman Steve Dupre says the alert was inadvertently sent to the media but only was meant to be given to law enforcement agencies advising them not to overlook the doll during any searches.

"Officials warn that it could possibly be used to produce child pornography," the report tells us, "but say they don't have any reported crimes." It could be used to create child pornography, but it hasn't been. That's probably a better record of kiddie porn non-production than any other camera in the world.

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Newt Gingrich: America's Premier Bigot

Liberty
(n) liberty (immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence)
(n) liberty (freedom of choice) "liberty of opinion"; "liberty of worship"; "liberty--perfect liberty--to think or feel or do just as one pleases"; "at liberty to choose whatever occupation one wishes" -- Princeton Wordnet

I start out with a definition of liberty because a lot of the people who use it most seem to have no idea what the hell it means. The people who call themselves "defenders of liberty" were actually handed a couple of setbacks this week, with a city board approving a Muslim community center in Manhattan and a judge in California striking down a ban on same-sex marriage. In both cases, liberty prevailed. And, in both cases, those "defenders of liberty" expressed their outrage.

Among the most shameful voices about the community center -- to be named Cordoba House -- has been disgraced former house speaker Newt Gingrich. And his reasoning was as idiotic as we've come to expect. "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia," he said in a statement. "The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over."

Shorter Newt Gingrich; "If Saudi Arabia isn't going to practice religious freedom, we should become just as oppressive -- that'll show 'em! First Amendment be damned." You wonder when Newt will get around to calling for a moratorium on Catholic churches. After all, you're not going to find a lot of mosques in Vatican City. But that would require consistency in reasoning and that's not what we've come to expect from Gingrich -- or anyone else on the right, for that matter. And, of course, banning mosques would verify about 90% of Islamic terrorist propaganda. This doesn't strike me as being all that constructive.





"Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for 'religious toleration' are arrogantly dishonest," he went on. "They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City." Apparently, there's an unwritten limit to religious freedom, with one house of worship allowed for every X adherents. Anything more than that and you're just abusing the privilege.

But it's not a privilege, it's a right. For people like Gingrich, rights are things that can be ignored or suspended arbitrarily, with the rights afforded one group depending on the bigoted whims of another. Newt -- and the people who applaud him -- get to shut up about how they're patriots who defend the Constitution from now on. They aren't and they don't. Liberty won, you guys lost. Let that sink in while you're enjoying your frosty mug of STFU.

And it's those bigoted whims of a group that were struck down in court in California. In his ruling, Judge John Walker found:

Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs' objective as "the right to same-sex marriage" would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy -- namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages.

Simple, rational, and just. No one is losing anything here, while liberty is expanded. Not surprisingly, Newt doesn't see it that way:

Judge Walker's ruling overturning Prop 8 is an outrageous disrespect for our Constitution and for the majority of people of the United States who believe marriage is the union of husband and wife. In every state of the union from California to Maine to Georgia, where the people have had a chance to vote they've affirmed that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Congress now has the responsibility to act immediately to reaffirm marriage as a union of one man and one woman as our national policy. Today’s notorious decision also underscores the importance of the Senate vote tomorrow on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court because judges who oppose the American people are a growing threat to our society.

Yeah, a judge overturned an unconstitutional law in California and that's why we have to keep Elena Kagan -- who isn't that judge -- off the Supreme Court. Not extremely surprisingly, Newt's not very smart about running his blog and has an open comment system -- where he's getting his sorry ass handed to him. Not only has Newt Gingrich lost the argument in New York and California, but he's losing the argument at Newt.org.

Another win for liberty. Make sure you let him know that.

-Wisco


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Torture, Murder, and Other Crimes

I've got something important for you to take a look at. Clear just 11:43 minutes from your schedule to watch something that is really no fun at all.

That video (courtesy of Crooks and Liars) is from an interview by Ralph Nader of Judge Andrew Napolitano, a former federal judge and frequent FOX News legal analyst, about Napolitano's book Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History. C&L also provides a partial transcript:

Nader: What about the more serious violations of habeas corpus. You know after 9-11 Bush rounded up thousands of them, Americans, many of them Muslim Americans or Arabic Americans and they were thrown in jail without charges, they didn't have lawyers, some of them were pretty mistreated in New York City. You know they were all released eventually.

Napolitano: Correct.

Nader: Is that what you mean also about throwing people in jail without charges violating habeas corpus?

Napolitano: Well that is so obviously a violation of the natural law, the natural right to be brought before a neutral arbiter within moments of the government taking your freedom away from you. And the Constitution itself, as the Supreme Court in the Boumediene case pretty much said, wherever the government goes, the Constitution goes with it and wherever the Constitution goes are the rights of the Constitution as a guarantee and habeas corpus cannot be suspended by the president ever. It can only be suspended by the Congress in times of rebellion which in read Milligan says meaning rebellion of such magnitude that judges can't get into their court houses. That has not happened in American history.

So what President Bush did with the suspension of habeas corpus, with the whole concept of Guantanamo Bay, with the whole idea that he could avoid and evade federal laws, treaties, federal judges and the Constitution was blatantly unconstitutional and is some cases criminal.

Nader: What's the sanction for President Bush and Vice President Cheney?

Napolitano: There's been no sanction except what history will say about them.

Nader: What should be the sanctions?

Napolitano: They should have been indicted. They absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrants. I'd like to say they should be indicted for lying but believe it or not, unless you're under oath, lying is not a crime. At least not an indictable crime. It's a moral crime.

Unfortunately, the statute of limitations has probably run out on most of Bush's crimes. But Napolitano does mention former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. There is no statute of limitation for murder.

Of course, none of this means that anyone is ever going to do anything about Bush's crimes. One of the things I was prepared for when Barack Obama won was disappointment. I knew he wasn't going to be everything I'd hoped for, because -- as I always say -- the only way you're going to elect someone who agrees with you on everything is to run yourself. So, given the (not so) unhappy fact that I'll never be elected to the Oval Office in a billion years, I resigned myself to reality -- I would be disappointed.

But one of the points where I'd hoped I'd avoid disappointment was on the issue of torture and investigating Bush administration crimes. I can't overstate just how much damage this one issue has done to the nation. Before Bush showed up, we as a nation would've jeered someone who seriously advocated torture. Now, a significant percentage of us either don't care about torture at all or have allowed the Bush administration to define it so narrowly that it only describes something that never really happens.

And this puts us in danger. Terrorists don't even have to lie about us anymore -- all they have to do is say, "Look, they torture. Americans are evil!" Every idiot talking head who defends Bush administration crimes of torture is a victory for al Qaeda. We now confuse revenge with justice, safety with freedom, fear with justification. In eight short years, George W. Bush took us from a nation based on the concept of law to a nation of cowards, ready to throw any right away, eager to destroy our own freedoms, for a complete and total lie -- that it's possible to be entirely safe from terrorism.

One of the things that left me some reasonable belief that Barack Obama would investigate Bush's crimes was that he was legally obligated to. He may be able to ignore other abuses of law, but torture has to be investigated. To do anything else is to commit an additional crime. The Convention Against Torture, signed by Reagan, states "Each State Party [i.e., signatory nation] shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law," and that, if torture is committed, the nation must "submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution." There is no way around it. Not investigating torture is being complicit in the crime. Like George W. Bush before him, Barack Obama has decided to ignore the law.

-Wisco


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Logic? Who Needs It? We're Talking About Money Here

Earlier this week, I wrote briefly about the decision by US District Court Judge Martin Feldman to strike down the Obama administraton's six month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling. Heavily invested [PDF] in oil and energy companies, Feldman's ruling seems more than a little... Well, let's say, "off."

See, it's not the investments themselves that throw doubt on the ruling. After all, it's entirely possible for a ruling to be good for investors and just at the same time. It's that his logic seems to be a real stretch. In his decision, Feldman wrote, "The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster. 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." So despite the the failure of a offshore platform anyone at BP, Transocean, or Halliburton would've told you was safe, we can't assume that other platforms are dangerous. Let me put this to you another way. The fact that there weren't enough lifeboats on the Titanic is no reason to start putting lifeboats on other ships. There's no proof that other ships might sink. So let's not get crazy.

Of course, there is reason to believe that other rigs are just as screwed up as Deepwater Horizon. For one, the overseeing agency -- the Minerals Management Service -- has been completely dysfunctional since 2002 at least. In 2008, an Interior Department's Inspector General for a deeply corrupt agency, with regulators doing cocaine and meth -- meth -- with lobbyists, open bribery, and a "culture of marketing," where the focus wasn't on extracting safely, but just extracting more. What Feldman is saying is, "The meth-head says the rigs are fine -- who are we to question that? Twitchy McFrybrain here is, after all, the expert."





And, if further evidence is needed, you can point to the fact that all the response plans for all the oil rigs are all wrong in exactly the same way. In reviewing the plans, Rep. Ed Markey was struck by the fact that the only real differences between different company's plans were the logos on the covers. "What we found was that Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell and BP have response plans that are virtually identical," he wrote. "The plans cite identical response capabilities and tout identical ineffective equipment. In some cases, they use the exact same words and made the exact same assurances... The covers of the five response plans are different colors, but the content is ninety percent identical."

In case of emergency, the plans call on an expert to be called -- complete with contact information -- who's dead. Responders are warned to be careful not to disturb walrus habitats, in the Gulf of Mexico. The Associated Press described the response plans as a "slapdash effort to follow environmental rules." To look at all this -- the drug use, the corruption, the dead experts and non-existent walruses -- and think, "Yup. Looks like these fellas have got it together," is a failure of logic that I don't have words to adequately describe. This isn't just a bad ruling, this may stand for quite some time as the worst-case example of a bad ruling.

For their part, the Obama administration has a remedy to Feldman's incompetence:

Businessweek:

The Obama administration may let certain deepwater drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico resume during a six-month halt, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.

Rules to be issued "will include the criteria under which it is appropriate to take a look at the lifting of the moratoria," Salazar said today in Washington at a hearing of a Senate Appropriations Committee panel.

A six-month halt to deepwater exploration, imposed last month by President Barack Obama in response to the BP Plc spill, was overturned yesterday by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans. The administration said it will appeal the decision, and Salazar announced he will reformulate the rules. Republicans and Gulf Coast Democrats have said the ban is too broad and jeopardizes tens of thousands of jobs.

I never said it was a good remedy. If it were me, I'd issue a new moratorium on drilling over 501 feet (the ban struck down was on 500 feet or more), then 502, 503, until the six months had passed. Sure, a lot of people are out of work while the moratorium is in place, but what about all the people put out of work by the spill? You've got charter boats, fishing boats, shrimpers, oyster fishermen, tourism industry people, etc. Why are they less important than people working in the oil industry? If there's another blowout, they're even more screwed. And who was the idiot who promised oil companies they'd be able to keep people working forever anyway? What entitlement do they have?

If Judge Martin Feldman's ruling proves anything, it's that once money becomes involved, people get stupid. If simple common sense can't prevail, if the freakin' obvious isn't proof enough, where can we go from here but down?

-Wisco


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Cracks Showing in American Support for Israel

This is what the "debate" over the blockade of Gaza looks like in Israel. It's not pretty. A day after the Israeli Defense Force attacked a relief ship in the Mediterranean, Israelis gathered in the port city of Ashdod to express their support for the IDF. Spoiler alert; they aren't very nice people.

Israel should be a warning to us. This is what happens when the farthest rightwing "patriots" are dominant in your government and in your society. The right is always about authoritarianism in the end, with all the talk of liberty and freedom meaning the liberty and freedom to do what you're allowed to do, to say what you're allowed to say, to believe what you're allowed to believe. It's impossible to disagree with the right's position, it's only possible to commit treasonous political heresy -- I am right, you are wrong, automatically and without question. It should surprise no one that many of the political tactics of the Israeli right -- the "us versus them" moral absolutism, the questioning of people's patriotism, the institutional paranoia --  found their way into Bush-era neoconservatism. For rightwing Israelis, all Palestinians are terrorists and no terrorist is a human being. Therefore, no Palestinian is human. They're a disease to be quarantined.

In American politics, Israel has traditionally enjoyed unquestioning support. No matter how bad things get, it's never the Israelis' fault. Even as the international community condemns the raid on the aid flotilla, American politicians seem to be in some sort of competition to see who can support Israel more. The debate in American politics is nearly as one-sided as what we'll laughingly call "the discussion" represented by the video above. If you're pro-Israel, good for you. If you're critical, you get to shut up about it -- if you know what's good for you.





But cracks in the kneejerk "yay for Israel!" mindset are appearing the the American media. NBC News recently ran a segment calling the Gaza Strip a "120 square mile prison," where an entire population is held responsible for the actions of a few. And McClatchy Newspapers is reporting that Israeli arguments of a self-defensive blockade of Gaza are false.

As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas , which rules the Palestinian territory.

Israel imposed severe restrictions on Gaza in June 2007 , after Hamas won elections and took control of the coastal enclave after winning elections there the previous year, and the government has long said that the aim of the blockade is to stem the flow of weapons to militants in Gaza .

...in response to a lawsuit by Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, the Israeli government explained the blockade as an exercise of the right of economic warfare.

"A country has the right to decide that it chooses not to engage in economic relations or to give economic assistance to the other party to the conflict, or that it wishes to operate using 'economic warfare,'" the Israeli government said.

But do they?

In another instance of Israel's weakening grip on American media, the Christian Science Monitor asked whether the blockade was legal. The answer was complex, but probably not what Israel-backers wanted to hear.

"There is a clear link between conditions in Gaza and international law that is relevant this week," Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association in London, told CSM. "At the heart of humanitarian law, the laws of war, and human rights law is a need to ensure that civilians are protected and do not disproportionately suffer from the actions of a state... Right now, every objective assessment is that Gazans are suffering. The elephant in the room in flotilla-attack legal debates is the blockade. The real need is a focus on the legality of the conditions of people in Gaza."

As things are now, Gazans are entirely dependent on secret tunnels to meet their needs. Voice of America reports that Gazan have a "tunnel economy for basic supplies and income," according to a report by the International Labor Organization. Israel argues that the tunnels exist almost solely to smuggle in weapons, but the facts show that they're used mostly to smuggle in necessities. According to the ILO, "75 percent of the population is food dependant and 70 percent of the population lives under the poverty line of $1 a day."

Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the prime minister Ehud Olmert, explained the real reason for the blockade in 2006. "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger," he said. The blockade exists to use hunger as a weapon, to get Palestinians to turn against Hamas. The legality of this is extremely questionable, especially in light of Israel's claim of being in a state of war.

"Hamas is not a state," Marcelo Kohen, a law professor at Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International Studies, told Christian Science Monitor. "There is also at present a cease-fire on Gaza." Given these conditions, it's hard to see what wouldn't qualify as "war."

"Under [Israel's] logic one could maintain a maritime blockade unendingly," Kohen said. "It only requires one party to consider itself as being in a 'state of war.'"

So when are American politicians going to catch up with reality? You've got me. For his part, President Barack Obama has called the humanitarian situation in Gaza "unsustainable" and has pledged $400 million in aid. But with the other hand, his 2011 budget calls for $3 billion in military aid to Israel. Four million steps forward, three billion steps back.

The kneejerk pro-Israel mindset is starting to weaken in America. We're getting there, slowly but surely. But you wonder how long the people of Gaza can wait.

-Wisco


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Criminal Charges Coming for BP?

BP's efforts to control their gusher in the Gulf of Mexico has hit another little snag. Undersea robots with diamond saws are cutting through the pipe, in order to fit it with what even they concede would be a leaky cap. In the process of doing this, one of the saws is currently stuck. OK, I understand that the pressures five miles beneath the sea are pretty intense, but isn't the pipe they're cutting spewing oil? Oil that has well-known lubricating qualities? How could it be stuck? "If at first you don't succeed, try again. Fail better," is starting to look like BP's motto.

The ongoing crisis would be a comedy of errors, if the consequences weren't so deadly serious. The way of life everyone knew in the Gulf of Mexico may very well be over for at least a generation, if not more, and irreplaceable wetlands and species could be wiped out. Given what's at stake here, one thing is becoming clearer and clearer -- at least to me -- we shouldn't have been doing this deepwater drilling in the first place. A lot of attention has been given to the concept of prevention, but humans being what humans are, we can't make disaster impossible. We can make it less likely, but that's what we thought we did. Turns out we didn't. Corners were cut, laws were likely broken, safety measures were ignored. And, even if every precaution had been taken, if all the laws had been obeyed -- in fact, if BP had gone beyond the requirements and put extra safeguards in place -- no one would honestly be able to say that a disaster like this had been made completely impossible. And we never will. Machines break down, people screw up, the earth itself does unpredictable things. Preventing petroleum contaminations like this are extremely important, but it's only 50% of what should be our concern and the focus of our research. The other 50% should be mitigation and we haven't done a damned thing in that area. The unthinkable has happened and we have no idea what to do. Turns out we got way ahead of ourselves on this one. We're just poking around in the dark.

But there are consequences other than the wetlands and the species and the livelihoods and the public health. There is the law. For their part, the Obama administration is moving to see to it that those consequences come through.

McClatchy Newspapers:

Responding to criticism that it hasn't been forceful enough in its response to the largest oil spill in U.S. history, the Obama administration on Tuesday announced a criminal investigation into the deadly explosion and installed a no-nonsense Coast Guard admiral as the public face of the response, instead of BP.

The effect of the April 20 spill, including "oil for miles and miles" in the Gulf of Mexico, is "heartbreaking to see," Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday afternoon during a visit to New Orleans. He also pledged not to forget the 11 lives lost in the explosion.

The nation has an obligation to "investigate what went wrong and to determine what reforms are needed so that we never have to experience a crisis like this again," President Barack Obama said after meeting at the White House with the two men he'd appointed to head an inquiry into the blast.

"If our laws were broken, leading to this death and destruction, my solemn pledge is that we will bring those responsible to justice on behalf of the victims of this catastrophe and the people of the Gulf region," the president said.

If you're picturing BP execs behind bars -- or even in court -- you'll probably be disappointed. "It's highly unlikely that senior managers of the company were sufficiently personally involved in this to be charged," said David Uhlmann, a University of Michigan professor and former prosecutor specializing in environmental crimes told Politico's Josh Gerstein.

"It doesn't mean BP executives are going to be wearing stripes," agreed David Pettit, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "If corporations are criminally prosecuted, it's usually resolved in some lawyers' offices."

But the move opens other doors. Right now, BP is under a $75 million liability cap -- which is an insanely small amount of money when compared to the billions this incident is likely to cost. Congress has resisted raising the cap, because they worry that it'd dissuade companies from doing this stupid, stupid, stupid deepsea drilling and this would somehow be bad. I'm not extremely clear on how, but congress has never needed a decent argument before. If BP is guilty of crimes, that all changes.

Writing for Business Insider last month, Gus Lubin reported, "Criminal charges would put an axe through a $75 million cap on civil charges for oil pollution." This is why, after the criminal investigation was announced, BP's stock dropped. In fact, since the Deepwater Horizon wreck, the company has already lost $75 billion in market value.

If this puts off other companies from investing in deepwater drilling, as some in congress fear, then what does that say about the safety of such ventures? Corporations won't want to drill, because the monetary consequences of a screw up would be too great. Isn't this an admission that they see another deepsea disaster as a real -- and prohibitively likely -- possibility? Put a lot of money on the line and suddenly it becomes a bad bet.

If the criminal probe keeps corporations out of the deep water, then it's hard to see this as an argument against it. If corporations don't think their money is safe with these wells, why should we believe these wells are safe at all?

-Wisco


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BP, Fried Brains, and the Three Little Pigs

We've got half a dam out there in the Gulf of Mexico right now. And, as anyone with any familiarity with logic will be able to tell you, a half a dam is not actually a dam. While BP's "top kill" effort is showing some signs of success, it's way too soon to break out the champagne.

Associated Press:

The Coast Guard says BP is having some success slowing the Gulf of Mexico oil leak by injecting mud but the fix isn't done yet.

Coast Guard Lt. Commander Tony Russell said reports today that Admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the operation, had called the procedure a success were incorrect. He said Allen said that the flow of mud was stopping some of the oil and gas but had a ways to go before it proved successful.

BP spokesman Tom Mueller said the effort that started Wednesday to plug the blown-out with mud, called a top kill, was continuing.

Overlooked by most of the media is an internal BP memo comparing workers to the three little pigs and setting the value of their lives at $1,000. In determining the cost/benefit of protecting workers from explosions, BP decided that blast-resistant housing was way too expensive to protect piggies who were only worth a grand a pop. So they went with regular old trailers. Sure, it's evil. But golly, it's cute.


Click for fullsized image

Blast-resistant housing is just ten bucks per worker over the cost-to-benefit equation. Sorry piggies. For their part, the oil behemoth says they've "fundamentally changed the culture of BP" since the last disaster they've been involved with -- a Texas oil refinery explosion five years ago. Apparently, not enough to save 11 workers on Deepwater Horizon.

And not enough to have avoided this:

Get what that marine toxicologist said? The chemical dispersants literally fry the brain. And BP's hiring people they've put out of work, people who feel they have no choice, to go out -- without protection -- and work with these chemicals. Makes you wonder what those piggies are worth to BP. Less than the cost of a respirator, maybe. The Coast Guard finally had to step in and make BP stop sending these people out.

The next time some grinning idiot tells you that corporations are your friends, remember all this. Among international corporations -- and even most large nationals -- BP is not an exception. What's happening here amounts to a random corporation getting the sort of scrutiny they should've gotten all along and that scrutiny is telling us who they really are. Let me emphasize the word "random" there -- nearly any corporation, exposed to this level of attention, would fare as badly. BP's just in the spotlight right now.

And allow me to repeat what I think is very good advice in dealing with regulatory oversight and big corporations; assume they're trying to get away with something, because they are. Always. You may believe that they're a necessary evil, but don't ever forget that they're an evil. We should trust BP, Transocean, Halliburton, or Consolidated Weiner-on-a-Stick no more than they can absolutely prove they can be trusted.

To do anything else is to enter into a one-sided suicide pact, where you agree to take the bullet and the corporations agree to sell it to you.

-Wisco


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If This is a Christian Nation, We're Doing a Crappy Job of It

It seems lately that everything's going to hell. We've got a gusher of oil spilling out into the Gulf of Mexico, We've got major flooding in Nashville, and the state of Arizona has lost its mind. If there was ever a need for divine intervention, now would be an excellent time. Luckily, we had a National Day of Prayer yesterday, which cleared everything all up. We're good now.

Nah, just kidding. While the devout prayed for grace from on high, some clown crashed the stock market by trying to type with xylophone mallets. Turns out our economic well-being rests in the ability of some Wall Street wizard to type an "m" instead of a "b." Yay for the power of prayer.

I know I'm going to lose some of you here, but I've always said the only difference between praying and doing nothing is intention. If yesterday was an example of what a people can accomplish when they all get together and pray, then my advice is to knock it off -- you aren't helping. Want to get something done? Get up off your knees and do something.





Still, if there's one thing that religion teaches us, it's to believe in something despite all evidence to the contrary. This is why praying is a good thing, while not praying is a bad thing. It has nothing to do with effectiveness, that's just the way things are... because religion says so, that's why. And, since not praying is a bad thing, a ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional is the worst thing ever. Hands down. So, despite the fact that this particular National Day of Prayer was an exceptionally bad day, it must be defended. And who better than those two luminaries of religious and political thought, Sarah Palin and Bill O'Reilly:



Yeah Bill, you walk into the Supreme Court and you see the Ten Commandments, so that means we're supposed to be all Judeo-Christian. But you also see the Prophet Mohammad, so I guess that means the founders wanted Sharia law too. And the image isn't exactly of the Ten Commandments, it's of Moses carrying the tablets -- you can only see Commandments six through ten [PDF]. So I guess breaking the first five was cool with the Founding Fathers. Finally, the frieze was created in the twentieth century, so pointing to it as evidence of what the framers of the Constitution wanted is complete BS. You can shut up now, Bill.

But let's pretend that the Horsecrap Twins here have a valid argument, that all evidence points to the Ten Commandments being the basis of our law, thus making us the most Christian nation this side of Vatican City. How good a job are we doing in this Christian nation business? How many of God's laws -- the Ten Commandments -- are our laws?

Let's look, shall we?

There are actually fourteen or fifteen commandments, but they were boiled down into a handy decalogue because the first one is just a statement ("I am the Lord your God") and a couple of the rest are redundant. Different religions break them up the redundant ones in different ways, but the main idea of all of them is the same.

First up, "You shall have no other gods before me/You shall not make for yourself an idol." I don't claim to be an expert, but I don't think that either of those is a violation of federal law. In using the Ten Commandments as the basis of our law, we fail here.

Next, "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God." Again, seems pretty God damned legal to me. So far, no good.

"Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." I seem to have noticed people working on Sundays without the cops arresting them. Totally legal. We're really starting to suck at this Christian nation stuff.

"Honor your father and mother." Please... there are TV sitcoms that revolve around breaking this one. Ray Romano remains at large.

"You shall not kill." OK, now we're getting someplace. Murder is totally illegal. War and capital punishment however...

"You shall not commit adultery." This one will get you in a court of law, for sure. But is it a violation of federal statute? It is not.

"You shall not steal." OK, I'll give you that one. Some would argue that there are forms of legalized theft, but that's another story. By legal definition, theft is a crime. Score one for God.

"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Perjury? Totally illegal. Lying in other circumstances? Usually not.

"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife." There's an entire industry devoted to coveting women. Hell, you're on a porn delivery machine right now. Set Google image search to unfiltered and type in "ass." You're not going to see a lot of donkeys. Thinking your neighbor's wife is hot? Totally legal.

"You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor." Not just legal, but actively encouraged. It's called "consumerism."

All told, if we're using the Ten Commandments as a basis for our law, we're doing a pretty crappy job of it. Only one is always illegal and most are always legal. Now how do you think Bill and Sarah would react to a piece of legislation outlawing covetousness or war? And if lying became illegal, they'd both need to find new lines of work.

So, can we get by without a National Day of Prayer? It doesn't seem to be working and it can't get any worse. Right now, the only purpose it seems to serve is to allow Christians like O'Reilly and Palin to pretend we're a Christian nation. Otherwise, it doesn't actually seem to accomplish anything at all. This Christian nation can't even manage to put together a system of Christian laws, what makes you think we'd have any better luck with prayers?

-Wisco


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Lieberman Tries, Fails to Save McCain from Himself

53 hours after Faisal Shahzad tried to set off a bomb in Times Square, he found himself in custody. This was on May third. On May fourth, The Hill ran the headline, "McCain: 'Serious mistake' if car bombing suspect was Mirandized." Neither the arrest nor the over-the-top reaction from the right took very long. At this point, it's pretty clear that -- no matter how successful an investigation into terrorism is -- some rightwinger is going to have a problem with it, because President Obama can't do anything right. The president could've sent a team back in time to take out Shahzad before he committed his crime and John McCain would complain that he was allowed to be born. The Republican Party's strategy has been to oppose everything and anything this president does and none have taken this strategy more to heart than John Sidney McCain. A man of irrational temper, McCain holds a grudge the way Gollum held his Precious. So, if Obama does anything, it's automatically the wrong thing. And it's John McCain who knows what's the right thing.

Except, as is so often the case, McCain's idea of "the right thing" is stupid beyond words. "Obviously that would be a serious mistake... at least until we find out as much information we have," McCain told Don Imus of Mirandizing Shahzad. "Don't give this guy his Miranda rights until we find out what it's all about."

See, here's the problem: being read your rights doesn't actually give you any rights you don't already have. Reciting the Miranda text -- "You have the right to remain silent..." -- merely informs you of your rights. So McCain's argument about "giving this guy his Miranda rights" is just plain dumb. Or is McCain arguing that there's no way for Shahzad to know his rights without being informed of them by the arresting officer? Because that would require us to believe that an American citizen never watched TV. Everyone knows their Miranda rights. Except, apparently, John McCain. Withholding the Miranda text would accomplish exactly nothing... Well, other than make sure that any confessions Shahzad gave would be inadmissible in court. I'm pretty sure that's a bad thing.





So, if McCain -- in the middle of a tough reelection fight -- said something dumb, that would be bad. McCain has a tightrope to walk here; he has to be just crazy enough and seem just ignorant enough to win the wingnut purity test of the Arizona Republican primary, but not so crazy or ignorant that he winds up spending most of his time in the general distancing himself from it all. Even in Arizona, the voters in the general election aren't as goofy as the voters in the primary.

To the rescue rides McCain's best campaign buddy, Joe Lieberman. John McCain makes a valid point, Joe says, people have way too many rights. The Supreme Court ruled in the Miranda case that not informing people of their rights was akin to denying them. And, since the Fifth Amendment protects you against having to incriminate yourself, clearly this is the problem. Maybe we ought to take away terrorist suspects' citizenship -- then they wouldn't have all these rights.


Which, of course, is wrong. Here's the text of the Fifth:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

So, unless you want to argue that only American citizens (and corporations) are "persons," Lieberman's idea solves absolutely none of the problems Joe and John want fixed. And never mind that, Mirandized or not, Shahzad's been singing like a bird, a problem doesn't have to actually exist in order to be fixed.

That fix comes in the form of legislation that would allow the US government to strip citizens of their citizenship. This way, they won't get those pesky rights -- which they have regardless -- and we don't have to worry about trying them in court -- which we would still have do. According to Greg Sargent, "You would still have the right to contest this in court. And if you did, the burden of proof would be on State -- not on you -- to persuade the court that your involvement with a terror organization is sufficient to justify taking away your citizen status."

"Bottom line: Lieberman's law can't keep you out of court against your will if you want to contest efforts to strip your citizenship," Sargent continues. "And chances are that if you were already facing other charges -- plotting or executing a terrorist act -- you would be simultaneously tried for that in civilian court, too, even as State continued to try to revoke your citizen status."

So there's your solution, a big pile of nuthin'. It wouldn't take away any rights, it wouldn't keep anyone out of court, it wouldn't even solve the made-up problems identified by Lieberman and McCain. The only problem it solves it solves by putting a fig leaf over McCain's kneejerk idiocy. But at least the wingnuts in the Republican primary will be mollified.

Or not. Lieberman's legislation gives the power to the State Department to do all this citizenship-stripping; i.e., the executive branch. John McCain and Joe Lieberman will be giving Obama -- who the Republican base thinks is a  Communist/Fascist Kenyan/Indonesian Pretender to the Throne intent on destroying America and is maybe even the Antichrist -- the power to strip people of their citizenship because someone says they're a terrorist. The teabaggers have convinced themselves that Obama thinks they're all terrorists, so you can imagine all the lunacy this would unleash. This doesn't seem to have occurred to the teabaggers yet, but they're slow on the uptake. Give them a minute. It'll come to them eventually. Someone like Sarah Palin won't catch it, but someone like Michelle Malkin will.

And how will this play in the Arizona Republican primary? You don't have to be a genius to figure that one out. You just have to be smarter than Joe Lieberman and John McCain.

-Wisco


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On AZ Immigration Law, FOX News Deliberately Misunderstands the Issue

FOX News seems to believe they've discovered some lefty hypocrisy in our concern over Arizona's immigration law. Turns out that people who are all up in arms about protecting illegal immigrants don't seem to be all that interested in protecting illegal immigrants. They're boycotting Arizona, but they aren't sending out engraved invitations to undocumented people.

They may call themselves "sanctuary cities," but very few of them are offering sanctuary to the illegal immigrants in Arizona who now face possible arrest and deportation.

As San Francisco and other "sanctuary cities" declare war on Arizona over its new law cracking down on illegal immigrants, most state and local governments that provide a safe haven to undocumented workers refused to publicly roll out a welcome mat for the estimated 440,000 illegals in the Grand Canyon state.

It's been said that even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while. Unfortunately for the visually impaired squirrels at FOX, this isn't one of those once-in-a-whiles.





First off -- and probably least important -- is that the term "sanctuary city" is probably misleading. A sanctuary city is one that won't assist federal immigration authorities without a warrant and won't enforce immigration laws on its own. According to a 2008 press release from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's office, "The Sanctuary Ordinance helps to maintain the stability of San Francisco communities. It keeps communities safe by making sure all residents feel comfortable calling the Police and Fire Departments during emergencies. It keeps families and workforce healthy by providing safe access to schools, clinics and other City services."

"As a Sanctuary City, San Francisco has and will continue to provide compassionate services to all immigrants, regardless of status," the release quotes city supervisor Tom Ammiano as saying. "When certain people are targeted and denied access to vital social services, the health and safety of the entire city is compromised."

So contagious people get treatment, fires get put out, crime gets reported -- all because people aren't afraid to call 911. Those screwy San Francisco hippies and their concern for their own city's welfare. What'll they come up with next?

But second and more importantly, the outrage of civil libertarians over Arizona's new law isn't about "protecting illegal aliens," as FOX's story seems to be suggesting. It's about the civil liberties of American citizens. Arizona has justice bass-ackward here; if police suspect you're committing a crime, you have to prove you're not. This just isn't the way America works. And, while supporters of the law argue that it isn't about racial profiling, I have my doubts that blond-haired, blue-eyed Bobby Whitebread is going to be asked to produce his birth certificate any time soon.

"SB 1070 does nothing short of making all of Arizona's Latino residents, and other presumed immigrants, potential criminal suspects in the eyes of the law," reports Vivek Malhotra for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It authorizes police officers to stop and ask people for their immigration papers based only on some undefined 'reasonable suspicion' that they are in the country illegally. Given that Latinos comprise an estimated 30 percent of Arizona's population, the law presents a pretty big target."

Vivek describes Arizona as a soon-to-be "police state" and he's not exaggerating. Even before Arizona passed this bill, law enforcement in that state were violating the civil rights of American citizens.

American Civil Liberties Union [PDF]:

On the morning of February 11, 2009, Julian Mora was driving to his place of work in southern Phoenix, accompanied by his teenaged son, Julio Mora. Julian Mora was taking his usual route and obeying all laws when a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office ("MCSO") vehicle suddenly cut in front of him, forcing him to stop abruptly. Without any legal justification, MCSO deputies ordered Julian and Julio Mora out of their pickup truck, frisked them, and handcuffed them. The deputies then transported the Moras to Julian Mora's workplace where MCSO was in the process of conducting an immigration related raid. Over the course of the next three hours, MCSO deputies detained the Moras, forbade them from any contact with the outside world, and subjected them to painful and humiliating mistreatment resulting in emotional distress and injury. The Moras were effectively taken prisoner by armed MCSO personnel without any explanation for their arrest.

The Moras are American citizens who were picked up because they were Hispanics in the vicinity of an immigration raid. If that's not racial profiling, I'd like to know what is. New flash for FOX and other right wing idiots: I'm not mad because police were mean to illegal immigrants, I'm mad because police violated the civil rights of American citizens.

Now, if San Francisco and other sanctuary cities don't want to roll out the red carpet for illegal aliens, who can blame them? It's not what being a sanctuary city is about anyway. And the fact that San Francisco is boycotting Arizona doesn't mean that the city is trying to protect undocumented people -- it means they're trying to protect Americans.

Any random set on FOX News looks like Uncle Sam threw up all over it after going on a stars and stripes bender. They wear what they like to call their "patriotism" on their sleeve. But the fact that they don't care about American citizens in Arizona -- and further, go out of their way to ridicule those of us who do -- shows that this "patriotism" of theirs is as phony as the hypocrisy they want you to believe they've found at the Golden Gate.

-Wisco


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National Day of Prayer Ruled Unconstitutional - Time for the Religious Right to Get Stupid

Sometimes, I wonder about the legal expertise of so-called "legal experts." Last Thursday, US District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional. It seems that a law calling on Americans to engage in a religious activity is a promotion of religion and, as such, is a violation of the First Amendment. In a saner world, you'd have to agree with her. But we don't live in a saner world. We live in a world where any excuse to freak out is a good excuse to freak out -- and, in this Great Freaking Out, to make incredibly stupid statements.

Take this reporting from Christian News Service:

"If the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, then the Constitution itself if unconstitutional," Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg, Va., told CNSNews.com.

"The National Day of Prayer – or prayer itself – is older than the Constitution," Staver said. "There is no question (this ruling) will be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court."

This Supreme Court? He's probably right, if it gets that far. The current majority is hardly unbiased. But "older than the Constution?" The National Day of Prayer was established as law in 1952. There have been other calls to prayer, but not as a recurring legal holiday. The president can ask people to pray -- he has First Amendment rights too -- but the Constitution clearly states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." It's the very first clause of the very first amendment listed in the bill of rights. There doesn't seem to be a lot of ambiguity there.





And even if the Day of Prayer were older than the Constitution, so what? So's the British Monarchy. By Staver's argument, we're legally required to undo the revolution and rejoin the British Empire. I don't think that's going to happen.

Joining Staver in promoting stupid is the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins. He says that Crabb should be impeached, as if every ruling someone doesn't like is an impeachable offense.

"Contrary to her opinion, this ruling does not promote freedom, it crushes it," Perkins said in a statement. "Americans pray voluntarily. And exercising that right together, as a willing nation, is exactly what the Founding Fathers intended."

OK, so it crushes freedom by... doing what, exactly? She didn't say no one could pray. And it's "what the Founding Fathers intended?" Which ones? The ones that lived until 1952? His argument that we're all in this prayer thing together as a "willing nation" is belied by the fact that the Freedom From Religion Foundation brought the suit in the first place. They don't seem very willing to me.

"We call on Congress to start the impeachment proceedings for Barbara Crabb, as she violated her sacred oath of 'administering justice... under the Constitution and laws of the United States,'" Perkins continues. "What she has done to repress, we will use to revive. When the great men and women of our past bent their knees to God on behalf of the 'sacred fire of liberty,' it was often during the nation's darkest days. My friends, it is time we join them."

Repress? Seriously, who is repressing you? You can pray all you want. Perkins' take on this whole thing is just blatantly dishonest. If Crabb's decision holds up, the president will stop issuing an annual proclamation calling on Americans to pray -- he won't issue a proclamation saying you can't pray. If Perkins isn't being dishonest, then he's just being stupid.

Of course, there's plenty more dishonesty and/or stupidity where that came from. As always, the reaction from the religious right is entirely disproportionate to the perceived offense. Here's a series of enlightening questions: What did you do the last time the president declared a National Day of Prayer? Do you remember anything about that day at all? If it hadn't happened, what would have changed in your life? There's no polling on those questions, but if I had to guess, I'd say that "I don't know," "No," and "Probably nothing" would score in the mid- to high nineties.

Then again, none of this is about prayer. Like the mythical ban on prayer in schools -- you can pray all you want, but school staff can't be paid to do it -- it's about scaring the bejeezis out of people who don't do a lot of independent thinking. That's the reason for all the hyperbole about repression and religion under attack. It gets people to open their wallets and it gets them to vote for the candidates who mimic this inanity.

If the decision holds up and the ruling goes into effect next year, I can guarantee that these same people who argue that prayer is being banned will make a big PR stunt of praying on the date on which the proclamation had previously been issued. And, in doing so, they'll prove their own rhetoric wrong. No one will stop them. No one will even try to stop them. They'll be just as free as they were the year before and, even while they exercise this freedom, they'll argue that it's been taken away from them.

-Wisco


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If You Really Want to Destroy Yourself, Crack is Faster

He's a big-time American patriot. You know that, because he appears in a video for the American Patriot Foundation. Of course, since Timothy McVeigh and the "Super Patriot" movement, the word has lost a lot of its value. As a general rule of thumb, people who take the label "patriot" and slap it on themselves tend to be the least patriotic of Americans. They owe their fealty to an America that doesn't exist and want to "return it" to values it never had. This America, the one we live in and the one that reflects historical accuracy, they don't have a lot of use for. They don't love this country, they love a country that exists only in their imaginations.

So Army doctor Lt. Col. Terry Lakin is a patriot in his own mind and the minds of those fellow wingnuts who only worry about the Constitution when a Democrat's in the White House. And for standing by what, for lack of a better word, we're going to have to call "principles," Lakin has been accused of a crime against the nation he claims to love just so damned much.

MSNBC's First Read:

U.S. military officials tell NBC News that the U.S. Army will court martial a lieutenant colonel who refuses to deploy to Afghanistan because he considers orders from President Obama to be "illegal."

Army doctor Lt. Col. Terry Lakin believes Obama does not meet the constitutional requirements to be president and commander-in-chief, because he believes (incorrectly) that Obama wasn't born in the United States.

Lakin refused this week to report to Fort Campbell, KY for deployment to Afghanistan, but instead showed up at the Pentagon, where he was confronted by his brigade Commander Col. Gordon Roberts, a Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient.

"A website called SafeguardOurConstitution.com has set up a legal defense fund for Lakin," WorldNetDaily reports, "and has posted a long list of the doctor's awards, including the Army Flight Surgeon's Badge, Combat Medical Badge, the Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Army Achievement Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Service Star, the Armed Forced Expedition Medal, the Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the Overseas Service Ribbon and the NATO service medal."

Good for him. Unfortunately, a fine record of military service doesn't change the facts that he's both a lunatic and provably wrong.

And it's here that Lakin's big plan is likely to backfire on him. See, all the evidence suggests that Lakin wanted to be court martialed. All the lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility have been thrown out, mostly because they all share one trait -- a total lack of any evidence. Since no court will hear these ridiculous nuisance lawsuits, Lakin and his birther compadres believe they've discovered a backdoor to the legal system. Lakin will present evidence in his defense that Barack Obama is really a secret Kenyan Muslim terr'ist, he'll get off, and "President" Obama will be led out of the White House in handcuffs (he's an illegal alien, you see).

TheBirthers.org:

...Once Lt. Col. Lakin is charged, he will be afforded a defense, which under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) Article 46, Lt. Col. Lakin will have the opportunity to obtain witnesses and other evidence. This is why we called Lt. Col. Lakin's action a game changer.


What witnesses can he obtain and evidence can he call into the record? Everyone from Grandma Sarah to the custodian of records for any hospital Obama chooses to name, he can demand a full release of Hawaii's vital records from the time in question (to prove there are not forgeries,) to every application Obama made. In short his witness list and evidence inventory can include every thing that could possibly prove BHOJr is a fraud and an imposter acting as CIC.

In other words, he'll try to rehash all the "evidence" that's been shot down time and time again. That ought to work out well for him.

As anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows, I'm fascinated by people who believe whatever it is they want to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary. Creationists fall into this camp, as do global warming deniers, holocaust deniers, flatearthers who believe the lunar landings were faked, most of Glenn Beck's audience, and of course the birthers. Here's a guy who's so sure that President Obama isn't really the president that he's willing to stake his career, his military record, and his freedom on it. Further, he's taking all that risk in spite of the fact that he literally has all the evidence that exists in the world that he's wrong.

And so, of course, his defense will fail. I don't think there's any question of that. It's one thing when believing what you want to believe just makes you eccentric, it's another when this belief starts destroying people's lives. Lakin is being destroyed by a lunatic belief system, just as surely as he would be if he were taking crystal meth. He's willing to throw everything away for a fevered, paranoid fantasy while other, more cowardly, delusionals are cheering him on in this hopeless kamikaze run at the Obama presidency.

And they all call themselves "patriots." Apparently, that word has come to mean a pigheaded fantasist who's mistaken beliefs cannot be corrected -- ever. When Lakin's defense is laughed out of the court martial, they won't take "you're insane and here's why" for an answer. They'll go on with their closedminded certainty that the United States is under the thumb of a foreign usurper and that Lt. Col. Terry Lakin is a righteous political prisoner on the par of Nelson Mandela.

Lt. Col. Lakin is on the path to self-destruction. My only complaint about it is that his fellow birther nutjobs don't have the courage to destroy themselves in a similar fashion.

-Wisco


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Barack Obama's Radical (But Unnamed) SCOTUS Nominee

President Obama hasn't even come up with a name for a nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and already the rightwing blogosphere is freaking out over how much of a radical commie that nominee is. In their defense, you've got to know by now that no matter who he nominates, they're going to get stupid about it, so why wait for a name? This is much more efficient.

As they did with the Sonia Sotomayor nomination, Republicans are telling their base that they're gearing up for a big fight, while telling the press that there isn't really going to be a big fight. Two Republicans -- John Kyle and Jeff Sessions -- have brought up the filibuster, but few believe they'd actually carry it out. An expert on this sort of thing explains:

The two Republicans' comments are likely to have little influence on Obama as he ponders his selection, said Trevor Parry-Giles, a communications professor at the University of Maryland and author of a book on the Supreme Court confirmation process.

"I don't think they're going to give him an easy time of it, no matter who he picks," Parry-Giles said.

Choosing a Supreme Court justice "has become a ritualized process" in which early statements by opposition leaders like Kyl and Sessions are meant to galvanize their political base rather than advise the president, Parry-Giles said.

"What they stated was sort of the obvious," he said. "You could have written the script before they said it."

I don't have much doubt that they did write the script beforehand. Like the rightwing blogosphere, they don't seem to feel the need to have an actual nominee to criticize. No matter who gets nominated, they'll attack a straw man version anyway, so what's the point of waiting? It wouldn't surprise me if they had this whole process written out beforehand, like a wire service obit of a celebrity.

And what better way to start this Kabuki than to warn the president about nominating a certain type of "radical" judge, then later slapping that label on whoever the nominee happens to be? "We warned you that there'd be trouble if you did this," they'll say. "You only have yourself to blame."

Then some histrionics, some talk radio blowhards whipping up hatred and fear, a couple of poorly chosen (and probably racist and/or sexist) comments, and finally -- like the Sotomayor nomination -- an easy confirmation by a comfortable majority. Meanwhile, Republicans rake in the cash from the reliably fearful and gullible base.

Republicans' filibuster threat -- empty though it is -- hinges on one qualification. They say the nominee must be "mainstream." And therein lies a problem; what Republicans consider mainstream everyone else considers insane. While you'd be hardpressed to find a Republican who believes the new healthcare reform law is constitutional, the University of Washington was hardpressed to find a constitutional law expert who'd argue it isn't. For a debate on the issue, they couldn't find anyone who'd take the Republican side. In the legal realm, Republicans have no business talking about the "mainstream."

Take the GOP's ideal Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia. Among the "mainstream" decisions he's signed onto were Bush v. Gore and the idea that the state has every right to execute someone who can prove they're innocent.

Scalia's dissent in In re Davis [PDF]:

The Georgia Supreme Court rejected petitioner’s “actual-innocence” claim on the merits, denying his extraordinary motion for a new trial. Davis can obtain relief only if that determination was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, “clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” It most assuredly was not. This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged “actual innocence” is constitutionally cognizable.

Scalia was joined in his dissent only by his handpuppet Clarence Thomas. "[I]f the attorney for Troy Anthony Davis can establish his innocence, he should be freed not put to death. Makes sense, right?" asked Mark Karlin for Buzzflash. "Not for Mr. Scalia (or Mr. Thomas)."

I ask you, do you think that advocating for the execution of innocent people is a mainstream position -- or would you call that radical? Scalia speaks (and Thomas parrots) often of his love for "original intent." Do you really believe that the framers of the Constitution intended that innocent people be put to death? Scalia apparently does.

Given the sort of judge Republicans would like to see on the Supreme Court, I think they get to shut up about who is or isn't a "radical." But proportion is a concept beyond them -- you're either a good judge or a Communist, either a fine legal mind or a wild-eyed crazy. No matter who Obama nominates, they'll attack that nominee as some radical to be terrified of -- if only to rake in the money thrown at them by their cowardly base.

But you can't get more radical, more insane, more poorly suited to the highest court than Antonin Scalia (Thomas isn't as bad, because he doesn't have his own mind). It won't be the President's eventual nominee who'll be outside the legal mainstream, it'll be that nominee's Republican critics.

-Wisco


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