Tomorrow's paper on today's Supreme Court ruling

As an aside, the Post story below notes that Justice Stevens is 86 years old. If he doesn't survive through the end of Bush's term, it's all over (not to mention, we'd still need to win the White House in 2008). Even this landmark victory would have likely been lost. The Supreme Court is the last place we have any chance of holding the Bush administration accountable. I hope to God our liberal groups are planning on taking the next nomination seriously. Enough of the in-fighting, enough of the sitting back and holding your tongue when someone else is leading the battle and stinks at it. The next nomination is it. After that, we lose everything.

Washington Post

While the decision addressed only military commissions, legal analysts said its skeptical view of presidential power could be applied to other areas such as warrantless wiretapping, and that its invocation of the Geneva Conventions could pave the way for new legal claims by detainees held at the military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....

But the court's action was clearly a setback for the White House. At the high court, its approach to the war on terrorism has suffered the broadest in a series of defeats, and the administration has been sent back to the drawing board in dealing with hundreds of suspected members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda -- at a time when international pressure is mounting to shut down Guantanamo Bay....

Legal analysts said that the court's opinion could lead to a challenge to the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program, because wiretapping is already covered by a federal statute, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, just as military commissions were, in the court's view, covered by the UCMJ.

"The same reasoning would seem to apply to the NSA case, because the argument that the authorization to use military force enables them to ignore FISA goes down the drain," said Joseph P. Onek, senior counsel of the Constitution Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization that opposed the commissions.

NYT

"It appears to be about as broad a holding as you could imagine," said one administration lawyer, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the ruling. "It's very broad, it's very significant, and it's a slam."....

In his majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said that the United States was legally bound by Common Article 3, as the provision is known (it is common to all four Geneva Conventions). He said the article "affords some minimal protection" to detainees even when the forces they represent are not signatories to the conventions themselves.

Read the rest of this post...

Video of House Dems taking on the Republicans over bogus NYT-bashing resolution

Pelosi:



"Let's take this resolution for what it is: it is a campaign document...There's never been any oversight of the program. The fact is that because there has never been any oversight of the program, there isn't one person in this body, who will vote on this resolution, who can attest to this statement. They're asking us to vote on something that we absolutely cannot attest to. Not any one of you can attest to this as a fact."
(full speech)

Rep. Maloney (D-NY)
"The Republican party has become masters of cut and run, cutting from the issues so that they can run for re-election in November. This resolution is a diversion. If it was really about condemning leaks of classified information, it would also mention Valerie Plame, Karl Rove, and Scooter Libby. As the Member of Congress representing the district that suffered the greatest loss of life on 9/11, I believe that combating terrorism is a serious bipartisan issue, not a one-sided, last-minute, take it or leave it, Republican-only, political campaign stunt."

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY)
"They've called the disclosure of the swift anti-terrorist program a disgrace, they've accused a newspaper that first wrote it, the the New York Times, of forcing its "arrogant elitist left-wing agenda" on the rest of the country. If all of this is true, I have no choice but to conclude that our President, President Bush himself, is a disgraceful, arrogant left-wing elitist, because it was Mr. Bush who leaked the story."

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA)
"Let's be honest. We are here today because there hasn't been enough red meat thrown at the Republican base before the Fourth of July recess. That's why we are here. So just in the nick of time we have H.Res. 895."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
"Others have said yes, it's true that the terrorists learned from Bush Administration statements that we were tracking their financial activities. But apparently they didn't know that that involved banks. Did they think we were going through their pockets? I mean, how can you acknowledge that people knew that they were being tracked financially but no, it didn't involve bank records."

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
"Maybe it's the devil who makes them do this. We have flag burning, proposal for constitutional amendments, we have gay marriage, proposals for constitutional amendment, yet, when it comes to the basic freedom and liberty of this country, the press, we are presented with a resolution that condemns them, that's all it does, it doesn't sanction, it condemns them, it's our opportunity to vent and say little things about The New York Times."

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
"Well, there may be some motive that is political about the selective crying out about information. The swift story bears no resemblence to security breaches, disclosure of troop locations or anything that would compromise the security of individuals."

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)
"They tell us that they're protecting our civil liberties while they're tapping our phones and spying in our libraries and looking into our bank accounts. They tell us to trust us on everything. They tell us to trust us on -- trust them on everything because they're protecting their civil liberties. Well, I don't think I can trust this administration to protect my civil liberties and those of the people that I serve." Read the rest of this post...

CNN, come on, please report the real story here

I'm watching Wolf Blitzer interview Andrea Koppel, reporting from the US House where they've just passed a resolution condemning the media for reporting classified stories about the Bush administration's law-breaking and near law-breaking domestic spying programs. Listen to the way Andrea Koppel describes the vote:

This doesn't have the force of law but Republicans hope it sends a strong message not just to the media but to those who leak within the Bush administration.

Or, this was part of a much larger and ongoing Republican effort to:

1. Chill any criticism of the Bush administration;
2. Delegitimize Bush critics (e.g., the media) by labeling them as liberal and un-American in the eyes of the American public;
3. Help George Bush's sagging poll numbers by shifting the focus and blame for his incompetent handling of the war on terror to the "liberal media" and by changing the story from high gas prices and the failed war in Iraq;
4. Deflect the real story that Bush is yet again spying on American citizens in possible violation of the law without obtaining a court order; and
5. Force yet another vote on a do-nothing issue in order to divide Democrats and ultimately use this as an election issue rather than focusing on the real problems facing Americans.

But come on, reporting this as "real" news without mentioning the entirely political motivation behind the entire effort? You really think this resolution came up because Republicans hope to send a message? A message to the voters, sure. This is yet another political ploy to invoke the war on terror to shore up the Republican poll numbers. And not even mentioning that is neither fair nor accurate. Read the rest of this post...

Funny

Satire on Rush Limbaugh's recent woes:

Rush Limbaugh Announced as New Viagra Spokesman

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- NEW YORK – June 28, 2006 -- Pfizer Inc. today announced conservative talk radio commentator Rush Limbaugh has been signed as the new spokesman for the company's erectile dysfunction drug, Viagra (sildenafil citrate). Limbaugh went public with his use of the medication following a security incident June 26 at the Palm Beach International Airport....

Pfizer is hoping the Limbaugh "dittohead" following will give a boost to sales. "His listeners will buy into anything he says, so we're hoping that transfers into them buying our product. With a doctor's prescription, of course."

Previous Viagra spokesmen have included Senator Bob Dole and NASCAR driver Mark Martin. The addition of the controversial radio personality to the Pfizer stable seems to indicate the drug manufacturer intends to target an increasingly conservative demographic.

However, Pfizer's representative denied reports that ultra-right-wing commentator and author Ann Coulter was also being wooed to push the erection-enhancing medication. "We feel that would be antithetical. As clinically effective as Viagra has proven to be, it has its limits."

Read the rest of this post...

Glenn Greenwald on the significance of today's Supreme Court decision

I've read about half the decision, it's horrendously thick and complicated. Glenn is a lawyer too and always has a good thorough take on complicated legal issues, so I'm going to defer to him at this initial juncture. Check out his analysis of what today's decision means. One interesting point Glenn makes, he agrees with Judd at ThinkProgress, who is also a lawyer, that today's ruling has some serious implications for Bush's arguments in the domestic spying cases.

And, at the very least, the Court severely weakened, if not outright precluded, the administration's legal defenses with regard to its violations of FISA. Specifically, the Court:

(a) rejected the administration's argument [Sec. IV] that Congress, when it enacted the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force in Afghanistan and against Al Qaeda ("AUMF"), implicitly authorized military commissions in violation of the UCMJ. In other words, the Supreme Court held that because the AUMF was silent on the question as to whether the Administration was exempt from the pre-existing requirements of the UCMJ, there was no basis for concluding that the AUMF was intended to implicitly amend the UCMJ (by no longer requiring military commissions to comply with the law of war), since the AUMF was silent on that question.

This is a clearly fatal blow to one of the two primary arguments invoked by the administration to justify its violations of FISA. The administration has argued that this same AUMF "implicitly" authorized it to eavesdrop in violation of the mandates of FISA, even though the AUMF said absolutely nothing about FISA or eavesdropping. If -- as the Supreme Court today held -- the AUMF cannot be construed to have provided implicit authorization for the administration to create military commissions in violation of the UCMJ, then it is necessarily the case that it cannot be read to have provided implicit authorization for the administration to eavesdrop in violation of FISA.

Read the rest of this post...

Senator Grassley: corporate apologist, sex obsessed and American expat hater

Senator Grassley from the Hawkeye state is making news again because he wants to tax prostitutes and everyone associated with the sex industry. This is without a doubt a critical issue during times of war and the IRS is no doubt hot to jump on the issue of chasing down what is probably a large cash-based industry so you just know how easy it will be to follow through with his latest idea. Just another episode in the GOP obsession with sex.

The courageous Grassley loves cutting taxes for big corporations but just like he hates all things related to sex, he also hates Americans living overseas and he made sure to punish them in the latest tax bill. Forget that Americans abroad are in fact, living abroad so they are not using American resources but instead are generally helping American business and organizations abroad, Grassley just knows that Americans abroad are somehow getting a free ride. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation thinks that this double taxation is a bad idea, though they were kind enough to Senator Grassley to leave his name out of this article and avoided calling him a dumb ass but even though they blasted the expat double taxation. Hell, Americans abroad already have second class votes and politicians who won't respond to them because they don't care. (Actual issues don't mean much to the Dems Abroad either who are more focused on being an ego stroking social clique and overal boredom factory, at least that's the case in Paris.)

So is this the best the GOP can do? Slash more corporate taxes, throw red meat to wingnuts over sex and punish fuzzy foreigners who are actually American but he can't admit it? What a brave man the senator is. Aren't we lucky to have such leadership during this critical time in our history? Read the rest of this post...

Dear Abby,

Dear Abby,

Your longstanding support for equal rights for gay men and lesbians has been amazing. You are a consistent voice of tolerance that reaches Americans of every walk of life in every state. But in today's column, I think you flubbed.

You tell the story of a man about to be married and how this man's gay brother, who is also his best friend, refuses to be the best man at his brother's wedding (or even attend) because it would be a reminder that gays are not permitted to marry in America (outside of Massachusetts). You tell the man to respect his brother's decision.

Hogwash.

I support equal marriage rights for gay Americans, but I'm not going to ruin my brother's wedding over it. That strikes me as well-intentioned, but terribly wrong. Unless the guy's brother is a big homophobe, there is no reason to boycott his wedding. It's cruel and hurtful and selfish, and does nothing to help the civil rights of gay men and lesbians other than making us look rather petulant and mean.

Again, I don't want to knock gay brother for taking a stand - oh that more gays (and progressives) did - but gay bro needs to be slapped upside his head on this one. He has many enemies in America, but his loving brother isn't one of them. If the brother wants to make a point, he should be bring a date to the wedding - a male one.

JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Further news on the Supreme Court decision? Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: 5-3 decision, Supreme Court smacks down Bush over Gitmo detainees

UPDATE: Here's the entire decision.

UPDATE: Did the Supreme Court just gut Bush's illegal domestic wiretapping program?

UPDATE: ScotusBlog says this decision is huge, and about far more than the media realizes.

More importantly, the Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today's ruling. The commissions are the least of it. This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely," and that "[t]o this end," certain specified acts "are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever"—including "cruel treatment and torture," and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." This standard, not limited to the restrictions of the due process clause, is much more restrictive than even the McCain Amendment. See my further discussion here.

This almost certainly means that the CIA's interrogation regime is unlawful, and indeed, that many techniques the Administation has been using, such as waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act (because violations of Common Article 3 are deemed war crimes).

UPDATE: Washington Post:

The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions are unconstitutional.

Just coming in now.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.

Not so quaint after all, those Geneve Conventions.

This is apparently the Ahmed Hamdan case, the "driver" of Osama bin Laden. The court said Bush overstepped his authority in setting up military war crime tribunals to deal with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The government has to come up with new procedures to either repatriate the detainees at Gitmo, let them go, or try them. The Geneva Convention must be applied, and the US has not properly established the military commissions to try the detainees

More in a bit. But note one thing. The Supreme Court is now 7-2 Republican to Democrat. The court is even further to the right than it was when Bush took office since he replaced Sandra Day O'Connor with Alito, who is far to the right of her.

That means that even with the most conservative Supreme Court in decades, Bush still got slapped down for his handling of civil liberties under the war on terror. Enough of this "activist judges" bs. Even the Republican-run court slaps down Bush (and apparently the legislative branch gets slapped too).

And what a surprise:

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strongly worded dissent, saying the court's decision would "sorely hamper the president's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy."

The court's willingness, Thomas said, "to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous."

Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito also filed dissents.

Three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse would have given Bush a blank check, big surprise. And had Roberts been involved, he recused himself, it's not hard to imagine that he'd have supported Bush's power grab as well. One more vote folks, and there is no stopping this administration. The next Supreme Cour vacancy, if it's one of the reasonable judges, and there will be no more checks on this administration. Read the rest of this post...

Bush is on the warpath -- against Democrats and the media

Campaign 2006 will be all war all the time. Bush has nothing to run on, so he's running on the biggest failure of all -- Iraq. He can't vanquish the insurgents in Iraq and he can't capture Osama, but he's playing the tough guy against the Democrats and the press. And, like the Bush strategy for Iraq, the campaign strategy is based on lies and falsehoods:

With opposition to the war threatening to hurt the GOP in this fall's congressional elections, Bush gave an impassioned plea for voters to re-elect Republicans who have supported his national security policies. He repeatedly pointed his finger in the air to emphasize his points and at several points his voice rose to a shout.

"Make no mistake about it, there's a group in the opposition party who are willing to retreat before the mission is done," Bush said. "They're willing to wave the white flag of surrender. And if they succeed, the United States will be worse off and the world will be worse off."

As Think Progress noted, White House aide Dan Bartlett couldn't really name anyone who wants to wave the white flag. But we all know that doesn't stop Bush from saying it. He lies.

In the new campaign speech, Bush, whose staff outed an undercover CIA spy, had the audacity to say this:

"There can be no excuse for anyone entrusted with vital intelligence to leak it, and no excuse for any newspaper to print it," Bush said.

How can anyone take this line of attack seriously when the biggest offenders work for Bush? Read the rest of this post...

Hey Media: That's what the communists did

Last night, I watched Paula Zahn interview Susan Milligan, a reporter with the Boston Globe who also chairs the committee on credentials for House and Senate correspondents about the NY Times smear.

Paula was giddy because Congressman JD Hayworth wants to have the press credentials yanked from the Times.

Milligan gave the answer that every reporter needs to hear:

But the important thing here is the principle, is that we don't let Congress tell the press what they can and cannot publish. You know, I -- I lived in Eastern Europe for five years during the 1990s and reported there. And I know what happens in countries where the government tries to suppress or intimidate or censor the press, because that's what the communists did to my friends.

Yes, that's what communists did -- not what nations with freedom of the press do.

Paula Zahn seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she was doing an interview about the government of the United States bullying and censoring the press. She seemed oblivious to the fact that she is also a member of the media. Unfortunately, Zahn is acting like most of the press.

I also saw Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC actually say that this action by the Bush administration wasn't necessarily political. She really should know better.

Note to reporters: If the Bush administration can threaten the NY Times with espionage, they can do the same thing to you. You all reported on the Times story. Does that make you all accomplices to treason?

STOP treating this attack on the NY Times like it's some normal story where both sides deserve a fair hearing. It's not.

Has the media in America been so emasculated by the Bush administration that they are not willing to defend the First Amendment? Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Should be an interesting day. The U.S. Supreme Court will issue the Guantanamo decision -- the NY high court could issue their gay marriage decision -- and the GOP nitwits in the House are debating a useless resolution on "leaks." Andrea Koppel from CNN breathlessly showed the 7-page document this morning....not sure if it includes an actual authorization of war against the NY Times.

What else? Read the rest of this post...

Bush somehow discovers an extra $160M to throw around

We didn't have billions to fight global warming, but we somehow found billions for an unnecessary war in Iraq. Just the same, Bush and the GOP don't have any problem at all with millions of Americans having their personal data stolen and lost week after week after week after week but now that they feel pressure over the VA data loss, they take money away from food stamps and student loans to help with credit counseling for veterans who were impacted.

Now I sympathize with those vets but what the hell is wrong with having a plan for all Americans? I know flag burning is an issue that everyone in the country wants to talk about because it's happening on every doorstep of America, but can't Congress and the WH find a few minutes to put together a comprehensive data protection plan for everyone? I suppose when you are beholden to special interests that fund your political campaigns it's just a lot easier to spend taxpayer money instead of demanding a comprehensive program that might force those financial donors to spend money protecting data. It's just another knee jerk reaction by a rudderless team who are drifting. Read the rest of this post...

GOP smear campaign specialist convicted of child molestation charges

Oh the moral superiority within the GOP. Read the rest of this post...

NYT: Iraq War Ends Silently for One American Soldier

Read it. Read the rest of this post...

Fascinating story in the NYT about an (east) German soccer player

I loathe sports. And this article is fascinating. The reporter uses the fact that the captain of the German national soccer team is originally from East Germany to weave a larger tale about east and west and how Germany has changed for the better and not-so-better after re-unification. The article is just great, do read it.

It got me thinking about when the Wall fell. It was November of 1989. I was there during the week it fell. I was working on the Hill and we had a trip planned to Europe to attend the arms control talks, and we had a scheduled stop in Berlin and East Germany. We just so happened to arrive literally days after the Wall metaphorically came down. The wall was still there, and the East German guards were on top of it pointing machine guns at us as we Germans and Americans and every other foreigner in that town ran to the wall and chipped away at it as best we could (it was concrete, not very chip-able). It was amazing.

I remember it being 2AM and it was colder than hell out. I was walking the wall with a friend, and there were still tons of people. We were looking for any chink we could find in order to get even a small piece of it. I finally found a two-foot stretch of re-bar (basically, big long metal pole that goes inside of concrete to help be its frame, I guess), sticking halfway out of the wall. I twisted and pulled and pushed that thing for 20 minutes to try to get it to break off, and as I did so, pieces of the wall, only a few inches across, but with paint on them (!), started to come off. Finally, the re-bar, now hot as hell from the torquing back and forth, broke off. I was ecstatic. I had quite possibly one of the most unique souvenirs ever from the Berlin Wall. (Yes, I brought it on the plane, but such was the advantage of traveling with Congress, we had our own plane.)

The thing that really makes me melancholy about the entire thing is the overwhelming sense of history of the moment. The Berlin Wall was no more. Eastern Europe was imploding. Countries were becoming liberated that had been police states since before I was born. It was an amazing time to care about the world. There was such hope and excitement. History actually worked.

And now, look at how incredibly screwed up the world is yet again. A lot of it is our fault, and there are no more communists to blame. Read the rest of this post...