Lawyers for the theocrats

The Alliance Defense Fund. Scary:

Considering itself the antithesis of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Scottsdale-based organization has used money and moxie to become the leading player in a movement to tug the nation to the right by challenging decades of legal precedent. By stepping into the nation's most impassioned debates about religion in the public sphere, the group aims to bring law and society into alignment with conservative Christianity.

The group successfully challenged the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses in California and Oregon, and worked on statewide ballot initiatives prohibiting such unions. Its attorneys helped the Boy Scouts win approval of a policy barring gay Scout leaders.

The group has been battling embryonic stem cell research in Missouri and won a Supreme Court stay preventing the removal of California's 29-foot Mount Soledad cross. In Florida, where saving the life of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo became a crusade, the group supported efforts to nourish her.

What a coincidence. The Alliance Defense Fund has the same agenda as the GOP. Read More......

Open Thread

Big day for Italy...

Keep threading. Read More......

Bush didn't brief Congress about "major" intelligence program

We're slowly getting more details of why Republican House member Pete Hokestra (R-MI) wrote Bush and told him he may be breaking the law. This puts to rest the White House's worn-thin argument that they actually briefed Congress (i.e., Democrats) on all off their sketchy intelligence programs. Read More......

Why no one should vote Republican again

From Talking Points Memo (and sure, they were talking about Lieberman vs. Lamont, but this really applies to the Republicans too, starting with George Bush):

If you need help getting your car out of a ditch, would you turn to the guy who just drove it in there or to the stranger who stops to help?

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Civil liberties and the rule of law are for America-haters

Why can't his lot just accept that being thrown in prison without charges is what the new America is all about? We all know that our government wouldn't lie or distort the truth when they say that evidence found could in some way be connected to making bombs. Surely they wouldn't stretch the truth in any way because a filmmaker who was Iranian-American was in Iraq, would they? Just because the guy was a Navy SEAL doesn't make him immune to receiving an ass-kicking while being detained. Yes, in the GOP and Krauthammer's world, we'd just lock these potential-though-no-basis-for-trouble-people up and throw away the key. Oh to remove civil rights once again.

Cyrus Kar, 45, of Los Angeles seeks unspecified damages and sweeping changes in the government's detention policies overseas.

The suit was filed this week in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union of California. It is the first civil case challenging detention policies in Iraq, said Mark Rosenbaum, the organization's legal director.

But wait, the Pentagon has the goods.

When Kar was released, military officials said that he had been properly detained as "an imperative security threat" and that the matter had been handled and resolved appropriately.

"This case highlights the effectiveness of our detainee review process," spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston said following Kar's release.

Kar was taken into custody in May 2005 after he visited Iraq to make a documentary film about Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who wrote the world's first human rights charter. Potential bomb parts were found in a taxi in which Kar was riding.

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Four more US soldiers charged with rape and murder in Iraq

From E&P;:

A New York Times article today by Robert Worth looked at five current allegations of U.S. atrocities and concluded, "Some military officials and experts say the new crop of cases appears to arise from a confluence of two factors: an increasingly chaotic and violent war with no clear end in sight, and a newly vigilant attitude among American commanders about civilian deaths."

Some of the men charged had done multiple tours in Iraq. "They can become almost numb to the killing," Charles W. Gittins, a former marine and a lawyer who has represented marines in Iraq, told the Times. "The more you're in it, the more you want to live through it. You think more about preserving your own life than about what's the right thing to do."

This is yet another unfortunate example of what happens when you put men into a war that goes on and on and on with no plan for victory. Bush botched this war, and our troops, and the Iraqi public, are paying the price.

Here's the entire NYT story. Read More......

GOP Senator Orrin Hatch, possible Supreme Court nominee, gets drug smuggler off the hook

As a follow-up to what Chris wrote below, I just couldn't pass this one up.

This is what GOP family values have come to. We now have self-proclaimed religious conservative Senators (yes, I know he's a Mormon - and he still plays the religious conservative card just like the fundamentalists) using political pressure to get drug smugglers off the hook.

Oh, but it gets better. Hatch has a monetary interest in getting the guy off the hook, to the tune of $40,000 a year. So here are my questions:

1. Why would a religious conservative Republican, with aspirations to the Supreme Court, intervene to help get a drug smuggler off the hook?

2. Was this pay-back for Hatch's $40,000 pay off?

3. Was Hatch blackmailed - meaning, was the Senator's $40,000 pay off a backdoor contribution or some other illegal money deal, and was Hatch forced to help the drug smuggler lest his illegal contributions be revealed?

4. Where does the drug smuggler get off claiming that he had no idea he was breaking the law? He was bringing cocaine and Ecstasy into a foreign country. What part of possessing those drugs and then using an airplane to smuggle them into a foreign country didn't cross his mind as being illegal? And why would Hatch defend someone like this?

5. Is the guy Hatch got off going to face charges in the US? US authorities now know for a fact that the guy possessed illegal drugs in the United States (before getting on the plane). He seemingly intentionally transported those drugs through US customs, onto an airline, and through international air space. And none of that is a crime under US law? Or since this is Orrin Hatch's drug buddy, does that mean George Bush's Justice Department now won't investigate?

6. Would Orrin Hatch advocate we set all drug smugglers, who illegally transport drugs into the US, free provided they say they didn't mean to break the law?

And this guy wants to get on the US Supreme Court? Read More......

New York Times pans Mary Cheney's book, and Mary herself

Scathing review. And well-deserved. The lesbian daughter of the vice president has now sold a whopping 6,000 books. All that publicity, and 6,000 books. Guess there's not a very big audience for gays who betray themselves and their girlfriends, and the families who sell them out.

The review on the John Kerry debate incident:

She was angry, among other reasons, she writes, because "he had used the word 'lesbian,' instead of the more common and politically neutral term 'gay.' "

When exactly did the word "lesbian" become a scathing insult, alongside that other once-glorious, classically derived seven-letter L-word: liberal?

Then comes the best paragraph from the review:

Only in passing does Cheney — who has a longtime companion, Heather Poe — confront the inherent contradiction of working for a party whose attitude toward homosexuality runs the gamut from mild intolerance to out-and-out hostility. And considering he is in theory only two phone calls away, the private voice of President Bush — who enthusiastically endorsed a federal marriage amendment to the Constitution (since defeated) that would have effectively nullified same-sex unions — seems strangely absent from her narrative. Cheney acknowledges that the president's position on gay marriage gives her "a knot in the pit of my stomach," so what in the name of Rita Mae Brown stopped her from confronting him? Timidity? Deference? Or her avowed desire to "maintain a low profile" (which raises the question: why write this book at all)? Certainly it is not her God-given responsibility, as a Republican operative who happens to be gay, to be an advocate for gay and lesbian issues. But — with apologies to Dan Quayle and the United Negro College Fund — what a waste.

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The right wingers are gunning for Grover

Grover's wounded because of the dirty work he did for Abramoff. The right wing jackals, sensing his weakness, are circling:

But beneath the outward signs of normalcy, the infighting is taking a toll on Norquist's standing. Some social conservatives who have jousted with him over his more libertarian views on the regulation of television and its depictions of violence and depravity are exploiting his weakness to press their positions on Capitol Hill. Security-minded defense hawks who for years have questioned his ties to Muslim activists are resurrecting charges that Norquist has turned a blind eye to terrorist sympathizers.

Republican lawmakers who have chafed at his dogmatic position on taxes are also ready to shrug off his heavy hand. In recent interviews, a half-dozen conservative GOP lawmakers said they are consciously avoiding Norquist's meetings, and they have begun questioning the purity of an activist who has always portrayed himself as motivated by ideals, not money.

Love it when they eat their own. This should get really ugly. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Here's the line-up. Let's see if Congressman Hoekstra expounds on his letter that basically accused Bush of breaking the law. Also, the State Departmen's smug Nicholas Burns will tell us again that the Bush team can handle more than one crisis at a time (or as he put it on CNN Thursday night "we can walk and chew gum at the same time") which, clearly they can't.

Looks like North Korea dominates, which they must love in Pyongyang:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY ...: Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.); Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns ; former State Department counselor Wendy R. Sherman ; former CIA director R. James Woolsey ; and historian Mary Beth Corrigan .

THIS WEEK...: Sens. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and George Allen (R-Va.); James H. Webb Jr. , Allen's challenger in the Virginia U.S. Senate race; and NBA veteran Alonzo Mourning .

FACE THE NATION...: Burns ; and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.).

MEET THE PRESS [on early because of Wimbledon]....: Burns ; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D); former assistant secretary of defense Ashton B. Carter ; and Robert L. Gallucci , dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

LATE EDITION (CNN), 11 a.m.: Burns ; Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.); Iraqi Ambassador Sameer Shaker Sumaidaie ; author Peter Bergen ; Fouad Makhzoumi , chairman of the Future Pipe Group; former secretary of state Alexander M. Haig Jr. ; and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski .

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Sunnis being ID'd and shot on sight today in Baghdad - 40 dead

What happened to those 75,000 troops who were deployed in Baghdad as part of the White House PR campaign? We know that more troops aren't needed because they've told us so.

Gunmen are roaming a western Baghdad neighborhood Sunday and shooting unarmed Iraqis as soon as they have identified them as Sunnis, killing at least 40, Iraqi emergency police told CNN.

The gunmen are driving around the neighborhood of Hay al Jihad in several vehicles, checking Iraqis for their identification cards and shooting those who are Sunni, police said.

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Why is Senator Hatch helping someone dodge a drug conviction?

What a bizarre story and with the exception of campaign contributions (yes, call me cynical) I can't even imagine how or why Hatch intervened to help music producer Dallas Austin get out of his conviction for drug possession in the United Arab Emerites. Whether Austin chooses to take drugs like cocaine is his own business but anyone who travels to other countries is, or at least should be, aware of the laws of the country. Many countries make it abundantly clear when you arrive and put a skull and crossbones with bold font "death to drug traffickers" on the landing card and while I have never traveled in the Middle East outside of Israel, I would have guessed that possession would not be viewed lightly.

All of that said, why Orrin Hatch? It sounds like he is on good terms with the UAE leadership but why was he so willing to use his own influence for a drug convict? So are there now exceptions with law and order conservatives if big money is involved? What's the connection here? Read More......

Blair's Deputy PM to be investigated for corruption

Yep. Yet another similarity between the Bush and Blair team. Blair's troubled Deputy PM has been in trouble for some time and this latest scandal, where he had been meeting with American wingnut extremist Philip Anschutz, may be crossed the line. The Liberal MP who is investigating this possible anti-corruption violation has some familiarity with the Blair scandal as he is leading the investigation into the "cash-for-honours" scheme under Blair.

Senior anti-fraud lawyers believe that Mr Prescott may have breached the terms of the Act, which say that ministers should not accept hospitality from a person or organisation that has obtained or is trying to obtain an official contract. They suspect Mr Prescott may have been guilty of a conflict of interest by accepting an invitation to stay at Mr Anschutz's Colorado ranch last year. Mr Prescott was last night alleged also to have received gifts from Mr Anschutz during his stay. The Mail on Sunday claims he accepted a pair of tooled leather cowboy boots, a Stetson and a silver-buckled belt bearing the initials "JP".

Things aren't sounding very good for Prescott and Blair's rare loyalty during the previous scandal is bound to disappear.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, a Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said Mr Prescott had "clearly put himself and his civil servants in a position where there is a conflict of interest... The rules are very clear and his relationship with an American billionaire with a government contract makes his position as Deputy Prime Minister untenable," he said.

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Frank Rich on Bush and the Wall Street Journal trying to stifle free speech

It's another good one:

For all the airy talk about the First Amendment, civil liberties and Thomas Jefferson in the debate over the Swift story and the National Security Agency surveillance story before it, there's an urgent practical matter at stake, too. Now more than ever, after years of false reports of missions accomplished, the voters need to do what Congress has failed to do and hold those who mismanage America's ever-expanding war accountable for their performance in real time....

"We can believe that reporters, rather than terrorists, are the villains. We can debate whether traitorous editors should be sent to gas chambers or merely tarred and feathered.

"Or we can hope that the press will rise to the occasion and bring Americans more news we can use, not less, at a perilous time when every piece of information counts."

The entire story is behind the Times' pay firewall, including this:

...the last spectacle needed by a president with an approval rating in the 30's is the national firestorm that would greet a doomed Justice Department prosecution of The Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times.

The administration has a more insidious game plan instead: it has manufactured and milked this controversy to reboot its intimidation of the press, hoping journalists will pull punches in an election year. There are momentous stories far more worrisome to the White House than the less-than-shocking Swift program, whether in the chaos of Anbar Province or the ruins of New Orleans. If the press muzzles itself, its under-the-radar self-censorship will be far more valuable than a Nixonesque frontal assault that ends up as a 24/7 hurricane veering toward the Supreme Court...

As George Will wrote in March, all three members of the "axis of evil" — Iraq, Iran and North Korea — are "more dangerous than they were when that phrase was coined in 2002." So is Afghanistan, which is spiraling into Taliban-and-drug-lord anarchy, without nearly enough troops or other assistance to secure it. On the first anniversary of the London bombings, and on a surging wave of new bin Laden and al-Zawahiri videos, the two foremost Qaeda experts outside government, Peter Bergen and the former C.I.A. officer Michael Scheuer, both sounded alarms that contradict the insistent administration refrain that the terrorists are on the run.

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