Month: June 2008

Putting The Dogs Outside

by digby

I was doing an interview the other day about groups like Blue America PAC supporting progressive primary challengers and was asked whether this wasn’t a useless tilting at windmills kind of activity and couldn’t resources couldn’t be deployed more effectively to people who have a real shot at winning? It’s a good question. I’ll try to explain, (for myself only) why I support such things and you can draw your own conclusions.

First, elections are the legitimate, institutional means by which citizens make their voices heard. If you don’t like your representative and what he or she stands for, then you should run against him or her yourself or support someone closer to your beliefs. That’s not to say that there aren’t good strategic reasons for voting for someone who doesn’t hew as closely to your beliefs as you would like, particularly when his or her opposition is far worse (like voting third party when the result is to elect a far right reactionary.) But on the whole, the system is designed so that people vote in primaries for those who best represent their views and vote in the general between the lesser of two evils between the parties. It’s a small, but important distinction, even if strategic considerations come into play at different points in the process.

The fact is that while it would be great if we could find willing progressive challengers in every Blue Dog district and support them with enough cash and enthusiasm that they will all win and we will live in liberal nirvana, that’s not likely to happen. Conservatism, incumbency and institutional support are extremely powerful forces. We will be able to replace a bad Democrat with a better one only once in a great while.

But what we can do effectively is keep hope alive and spread the good word so that when the possibility arises, we will have prepared the ground for victory. We can ask you, our committed liberal activist readers, to help progressives in conservative districts have enough money to run some ads or take some polls or hire some staff so they can get the progressive message out in places where it isn’t heard very often. People are far more open to hearing things from their neighbors than from some smart ass from out of town (and certainly the vapid, sophomoric gasbags who pass for progressives on television.) You need people in the communities who are willing to step up and make the case for what we believe in, if you want to change people’s minds over time.

I wrote this after the 2006 election:

Howie Klein of Down With Tyranny has posted this letter from the campaign manager of an Oregon candidate named Carol Voisin that really does my heart good and shows how valuable these kinds of projects are to the grassroots of the Democratic party:

I’m Carol Voisin’s campaign manager, and as we get to the end of the campaign I wanted to thank you again for all that you and the Hadenough/BlueAmerica team have done for us and the other candidates. As you and Rick Brown wrote in the Voisin DownWithTyranny writeup, this is one of those campaigns that has such structural disadvantages (Dems lose by 45%+), that it typically never gets off the ground, with a downward spiral of no belief and no money. This year has been different because Carol is a great candidate and she came together with some highly motivated volunteers, several of us from the netroots. Our weakness was also a strength, as the lack of professionals and insiders has allowed us all to keep the campaign in line with our ideals– we’ve made things up as we went along while running an honest and positive campaign that has shined a big spotlight on Greg Walden’s record.

Without Hadenough we wouldn’t be running any commercials. As soon as we saw it on fdl we put it on Carol’s website (with Walden’s numbers next to an explanation about how Coleen Rowley was running against rubberstamper John Kline). Just asking you all if it could get adapted for us seemed like a big deal, yet the answer was always yes, all the interactions were always easy and fast, and soon we were running our own 60 second spot in our only two “metro” areas of Medford and Bend. Since we didn’t have much money the ads, played sparsely, were sort of symbolic, but most everything about this campaign has been sort of symbolic, and it felt good.

And then a couple of days ago the Democratic Party of Oregon sprung $10,000 for us to run the ad the last week of the campaign. This is enough so that it will really get seen, and really will bring in some votes. The fact that the DPO wanted to spend money on these ads when the Oregon House is in play signifies that they know that it is helping both Carol and all the down ballot races. People see it and they immediately understand and remember the song and the images, and it pushes them across the action-inaction line. I know I’ll never get it out of my head. Our grateful thanks to everyone who gave their time and talent to make this happen, and all the FDL and C&L and other people who make Blue America possible…[there’s more.]

This is how you create a majority party, my friends. You make people believe in the party and support them even when they are not immediately “winners” by creating a feeling of solidarity. You make it feel good to be a Democrat.

It’s true that this was a general election race, but the same holds true for progressives who would like to run against a Blue Dog in a primary race. They may not win, but it builds progressive solidarity and helps educate the public about progressive ideas. Demographics change, people and communities evolve and someday what seems like a ridiculous impossibility today will be a realistic chance — and we will have helped nurture that along over time.

And contrary to what all the naysayers insist, having a liberal run against a Blue Dog in a primary doesn’t hurt the Blue Dog electorally. If it is to be believed that the district really prefers conservatism then having a more liberal challenger makes it more possible for him or her to run as one. But it does make the Blue Dog have to think just a little bit about the people who voted against him in the primary and recognize that he has concerns beyond how far right he can go. It’s a tough position to be in, but then a Democrat running in a conservative district should always be weighing his or alleged principles against electoral concerns or there’s no reason to be a Democrat. A primary challenge is a good reminder when these people get too comfortable in their conservative enabling role.

Nobody’s asking the Village elders to step up. This is a challenge to their authority in picking which candidates to support and we understand that. (Not that we also don’t support many candidates who are also sanctioned by the Party — we do, enthusiastically.) But the Party as an institution isn’t interested in putting its focus on electing progressives. They want to win, however they can. We do too, but we want to win in the long term by making the party and the country more progressive. Our goals are not mutually exclusive but they aren’t exactly the same.

There is nothing nefarious about what we are doing. We are using legitimate, democratic means to try to affect our politics. It’s possible that from time to time a challenger will get the nomination and will lose to a Republican. But it’s unlikely. If an incumbent (with all that institutional money and support) is that weak then there are structural problems that made him weak against the Republicans too. And anyway, you have to risk the status quo for hope and change and all that good stuff.

As that great American Don Rumsfeld said about democracy: “it’s untidy.” If people want to go around mucking up the nice orderly incumbent protection racket, there’s really not much anyone can do about it. The internet is not just a cash machine for institutional politics where people blindly order up the latest boy band’s new CD. We can raise money for all kinds of things. The party’s just going to have to get used to the idea that their power is being dispersed a little bit and learn to deal with it.

And by the way, we are going to make mistakes in picking candidates and our approach to influencing politics and we will learn some harsh lessons along the way. We already are. But at least we’re trying…

Update: And then, as Stoller points out, there’s this.

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Block That Kick

by dday

Senator Reid just informed his colleagues on the Senate floor that, because of all the other bills in the queue (like the housing bill, and the Iraq supplemental), FISA may not get a vote until after the July 4 holiday recess.

This is honestly the best we can hope for right now. Sens. Dodd, Wyden and Feingold are ready to filibuster and gamely trying to get colleagues to do the same (Sen. Dodd’s speech tonight was a bravura performance), but realistically the numbers to stop cloture aren’t there. However, that could change if the delay continues. And getting this to the recess means being able to get in a lot of Senators’ faces on their trips back home. In addition, there’s going to be a very short window in August where a ton of must-pass bills have to get through Congress, and throwing FISA in with that mess means that anything can happen.

Now, after that bleak bit of hopefulness: I’m sad to report that it’s only because the Senate REALLY REALLY wants to pump billions into endless war in Iraq that we have a shot to delay the deletion of the Fourth Amendment. Quite a Hobson’s choice. This is more an acknowledgment from Sen. Reid that he finds the housing bill and the Iraq supplemental (which includes unemployment benefits extension and the GI Bill) to be more important than FISA, and so he’s going to prioritize. I don’t think it means anything more than that. Overall, the fix is still in. All we can do is keep trying to delay.

But let’s be honest: the truth is that the federal government, on a bipartisan basis, is largely indifferent to their constituents’ privacy. Since 9-11 the situation has gotten far worse, but the surveillance state has been building for decades.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

* No right to privacy in constitution, though search and seizure protections exist in 4th Amendment; case law on government searches has considered new technology
* No comprehensive privacy law, many sectoral laws; though tort of privacy
* FTC continues to give inadequate attention to privacy issues, though issued self-regulating privacy guidelines on advertising in 2007
* State-level data breach legislation has proven to be useful in identifying faults in security
* REAL-ID and biometric identification programs continue to spread without adequate oversight, research, and funding structures
* Extensive data-sharing programs across federal government and with private sector
* Spreading use of CCTV
* Congress approved presidential program of spying on foreign communications over U.S. networks, e.g. Gmail, Hotmail, etc.; and now considering immunity for telephone companies, while government claims secrecy, thus barring any legal action
* No data retention law as yet, but equally no data protection law
* World leading in border surveillance, mandating trans-border data flows
* Weak protections of financial and medical privacy; plans spread for ‘rings of steel’ around cities to monitor movements of individuals
* Democratic safeguards tend to be strong but new Congress and political dynamics show that immigration and terrorism continue to leave politicians scared and without principle
* Lack of action on data breach legislation on the federal level while REAL-ID is still compelled upon states has shown that states can make informed decisions
* Recent news regarding FBI biometric database raises particular concerns as this could lead to the largest database of biometrics around the world that is not protected by strong privacy law

So go ahead and make calls to your Senators, and they’ll be tracked (by more people than you think), but we have a ruling class that has invaded your privacy more and more over the years. All for your protection, of course. The daddies in Washington want you to know they have an eye on the bad guys for you. Problem is, they think you are the bad guy.

This isn’t likely to be stopped until those of us committed to civil liberties can make our political power manifest. Here’s a way to work on that:

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Fraud-ian Slips

by dday

I actually thought that John McCain’s “X Prize” for a superior car battery was small-bore, but a decent enough idea, but upon closer inspection it’s actually quite silly:

I should be able to avoid saying anything as dumb as McCain’s battery-prize proposal. Not that I don’t like batteries, mind you! But if someone were to invent a better one they’d already be poised to make a huge amount of money through its commercialization. Offering prizes for innovation isn’t always a terrible idea — for pharmaceuticals with a limited market of potential users it can make sense due to the huge costs associated with developing and testing a new drug. But everyone in the developed world needs better energy storage technology, and they need it right now. And while it’s important to make sure your new batteries are safe and robust (e.g. they don’t explode too much), that’s still much easier and cheaper to do than it is to conduct a set of double-blind human trials. So sweetening the pot is unnecessary. Anyone who has a good idea about how to build a better battery is already working on the problem.

It also is a pretty miniscule prize considering the billions to be made off the idea, and as I did say, putting it toward building a better BATTERY, which keeps us in a dominant car culture and on the currently high-polluting energy grid is counter-productive. Of course, most of McCain’s ideas are counter-productive, and interestingly enough, he’ll admit that to you.

At a town hall in Fresno, CA, McCain admitted that the offshore drilling proposal he unveiled last week would probably have mostly “psychological” benefits, NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy notes. “Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial.” Uh oh.

(UPDATE: Video, via Jed🙂

This is not the first time that McCain has offered a “psychological benefit” to consumers struggling with high food and energy prices. It’s one thing to offer a quick-fix Big Con solution to every problem, it’s quite another to TELL everyone it’s a con. The three-card monte practitioner doesn’t usually whisper in your ear “I actually threw your card to the left when you weren’t looking.”

Maybe McCain knows he can’t peddle this nonsense. The handpicked panelists for his own rallies are scoffing at the offshore drilling idea.

Feeney also took issue with McCain’s controversial proposal to lift the moratorium on offshore oil exploration: “It makes me nervous to think about those who are proposing to drain America’s offshore oil and gas reserves as quickly as possible in the hopes of driving down the price of gasoline, because I think when you look at the good sources of information, were we to open up the California coast or the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, it would be 12, 15, maybe 20 years before those resources came online and got to full productions.”

Adding that some research shows that drilling in ANWR would only “reduce our dependence on foreign oil from 70% to 67%,” Feeney added, “I’m not sure most Americans would think that’s really worth the price of admission.”

On the other hand, McCain is aware of all Internet traditions, so that’s… something.

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Cheap Backscratchers

by digby

I’ve written many times that I don’t think money alone explains why the telcom corporations are so adamant about getting retroactive immunity for their illegal deeds. (At least if it has to do with the cases we know about …) But there is little doubt that some politicians are willing to sell out the constitution for absolute chump change:

House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last week’s FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision, according to an analysis by MAPLight.org.

In March, the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity. But last week, 94 Democrats who supported the March amendment voted to support the compromise FISA legislation, which includes a provision that could let telecom companies that cooperated with the government’s warrantless electronic surveillance off the hook.

[…]

The members who voted yes on June 20 received, on average, $9,659 from the big three phone companies while those who opposed the bill received an average of $4,810, MAPLight found.

The article duly notes that money isn’t the only reason legislators vote the way they do, but it really doesn’t get any more stark than this. Those who voted for it were, at least in some respect, either bribed or rewarded for voting to give their benefactors immunity for their possible crimes after the fact. There is no national security issue here. No overriding principle. It’s purely to shield corporations from liability for knowingly violating the constitution.

The next time an administration wants to engage industry in lawbreaking for their own purposes — or reward their good friends, for that matter — all they will have to do is issue a “ruling” saying that the government is requesting they do it and these corporations will have a precedent, written into law, to use as an argument for why they shouldn’t be held liable. What an awesome racket that will be for everyone. Except the people, of course, who will pay the price in loss of civil liberties, defective products and unsafe infrastructure.

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Survey Says

by digby

Can anyone tell me how this is done?

Child-exploitation investigators found something unsettling when they recently took a 30-day snapshot of files being shared through computers in Missouri.

More than 7,000 computers were trading known images of child pornography. The Kansas City area accounted for more than 700 of those computers, which used peer-to-peer software similar to that used to trade music.

“These are really horrific things,” said Capt. Paul Carrill of the Platte County Sheriff’s Department. “It’s commonly referred to as ‘kiddie porn,’ like they’re children in bathing suits. But in law enforcement, they’re called ‘child rape images.’ “

The Western Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force conducted the survey in March after a year of preparation. Investigators searched for people who traded images of children whom the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had identified as known victims of child pornographers.

Carrill, who leads the task force, said his investigators were sorting through the leads, preparing subpoenas and search warrants and assigning priorities to high-volume offenders.

I don’t know what criteria they used for this survey, but it appears that they did the survey first and are getting subpoenas later. How does that work?

To all appearances this appears to be a sort of crude data-mining operation, similar to what the federal government insists it needs to use to catch terrorists. And, who can object to it? I’m sure many people believe that child pornographers, like terrorists, are the worst of the worst and allowing the authorities to “survey” online activity and phone calls is a small price to pay to rid the world of their evil.

But what are the rules here? Can they do “surveys” looking for other information? Can they use other information they find in these “surveys?” What happens to the “survey” information? Is it stored for future reference? Who are the people who are doing these “surveys?”

I realize that if you’re innocent you’ve got nothing to worry about and all that, but there is a long history, including in the US in my lifetime, of the authorities using private information for personal, political or criminal reasons. Nothing is fool proof, but being forced to show a judge the basis for some specific suspicion is at least something.

I hate slippery slope arguments, but this is one case where vigilance is necessary. As Kevin Drum pointed out in this post yesterday, this technology is far too complicated for mere lawmakers and judges to adequately understand. The potential for abuse is enormous. As much as we all loathe terrorists and child molesters, we simply must hang on to the principle that the government has to have a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing before invading your privacy. If we don’t, we’re going to turn around one day and realize that our liberating modern technology actually restricts our freedom more than it enhances it.

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A Host Of Landmines

by dday

I’ve been saying for some time that the Bush legacy will long outlast January 20, 2009, because there will be midlevel officials, executive orders and the like littered all throughout the government, ready to undermine the efforts of a potential incoming Democratic President. We’re starting to learn about that with respect to the Justice Department.

High-ranking political appointees at the Justice Department labored to stock a prestigious hiring program with young conservatives in a five-year-long attempt to reshape the department’s ranks, according to an inspector general’s report to be released today.

The report will trace the effort to 2002, early in the Bush administration, when key advisers to then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft moved to exert more control over the program to hire rookie lawyers and summer interns, according to two people familiar with the probe.

The honors program, which each year places about 150 law school graduates with top credentials in a rotation of Justice jobs, historically had operated under the control of senior career officials. Shifting control of the program to Ashcroft’s advisers prompted charges of partisanship from law professors and former government lawyers who had worked under Democratic administrations.

Here’s the full report. This was a Monica Goodling special. She directed the candidate selection process and handed it over to Mike Elston, Chief of Staff to Deputy AG Mike McNulty. All of these folks have resigned now, but their legacy remains. And their subordinates, the hands-on people involved in the hiring of these career attorneys, filtered out candidates with any trace of Democratic or liberal politics in their background, and subsequently DESTROYED their applications. Some examples (McDonald refers to Esther McDonald, one of the hiring managers):

[A]n OARM employee … recalled that one of the [deselected] candidates she raised to DeFalaise’s attention was first in his law school class at Georgetown University, had clerked for a federal district court judge, and was currently clerking for a Second Circuit judge. [footnote 41: This candidate also had worked as a law clerk for Senator Russell Feingold, a Democrat, and for Human Rights Watch, but the OARM employee does not recall pointing out the candidate’s political or ideological affiliations to DeFalaise at this time.] (59-60)

Elston also told Mercer that he had already scheduled the December 5 meeting to gauge what people’s concerns were [with the selection process]. Elston said he intended to explain the process the Committee had followed so the components would have “a clear understanding of what we did, and what we learned, and what the basis for the strikes were.” Mercer told us that he later learned from Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis, a senior career Department official, that the December 5 meeting had not gone well and that a lot of people had left the meeting “disturbed” and “not satisfied.” (64)

The Committee used paper copies of the applications on which Fridman and McDonald made handwritten notations about the applicants, but those documents were destroyed prior to the initiation of our investigation. (68,69)

McDonald declined to be interviewed during our investigation. When we first contacted her in September 2007 for an interview, she was a Counsel to the Associate Attorney General. She initially agreed to a tentative date for her interview, but she later asked us to postpone the interview while she retained counsel. We agreed. After McDonald retained an attorney, and after allowing time for the attorney to familiarize himself with the matter, a new date for the interview was set, October 25, 2007. However, at 5:15 p.m. on October 24, McDonald’s attorney e-mailed our investigators to advise them that his client was canceling the interview. The attorney added that McDonald was no longer employed by the Department. We learned that McDonald had resigned from the Department, effective October 24. On the evening of October 23, she had told her supervisor, Acting Associate Attorney General Katsas, that the next day would be her last day at the Department. Katsas said that her resignation came as a surprise to him. (75)

Elston confirmed that Fridman raised with him early in the review process Fridman’s concerns that McDonald was deselecting candidates based on “membership in liberal organizations, or those kind of things,” revealed in the candidate’s application or from Internet searches she conducted. Elston said he reviewed the applications Fridman noted and saw that McDonald had either circled or written comments about liberal affiliations on the applications and then voted to deselect those candidates. (81)

Elston said he thought he recalled McDonald indicating it was a negative factor if a candidate had worked for a Democrat. (82)

Elston said he did not want to accuse McDonald of doing something inappropriate because he speculated that Goodling may have told McDonald to do what she was doing. (83)

These are, as is known, violations of federal law. Nothing will be done about it because most of those responsible are already out of government and accountability isn’t part of the culture of Washington these days. The real impact will be felt when laws from a Democratic President are not implemented, or a staffer leaks information incriminating the executive or his staff, or any of a thousand options that hardcore right-wing DoJ staffers have to damage the opposition party.

When you fail to engage in the most basic oversight and offer even the threat of punishment, a rogue President and his allies can really do just about anything. You can pass laws and they simply don’t get followed. You can consider subpoenas for officials who fail to comply with oversight investigations, and the officials just decline. You can take them to court, but the judge doesn’t want to get involved and informs the Congress that they could have solved this on their own anyway:

Congress was trying to be diplomatic when it brought an unprecedented lawsuit to settle its subpoena fight against the White House, a lawyer told a federal judge Monday. After all, lawmakers could’ve just arrested the president’s former lawyer for refusing to testify.

The judge’s response?

Maybe they should have.

Congress has the authority to hold someone in contempt, U.S. District Judge John Bates said. Did it really need to go to court?

Congress insists on taking most of their bullets out of the chamber and then begging the executive branch to be reasonable, after they have shown no interest in ever doing so. This is how you get the DoJ hiring far-right conservatives and breaking the law with impunity. And getting caught doesn’t seem to be an obstacle.

The next four to eight years, should Sen. Obama win, will be littered with “exclusive” stories from inside the DoJ of corruption and politicization and all sorts of malfeasance. These “honor” students are who those charges will be coming from. It’ll be a total reversal and somebody had better recognize it.

UPDATE: The more you read this DoJ report, the crazier it gets. They actually denied someone a job because he liked wolves.

Mercer responded by e-mail that he was inquiring with a reference the candidate listed whom Mercer knew to find out “the scoop on intellect, personality, etc.” Mercer added:

My initial reaction is that the guy is probably quite liberal. He is clerking for a very activist, ATLA-oriented justice. His law review article appears to favor reintroduction of wolves on federal lands, a very controversial issue here which pits environmentalists against lots of other interests, including virtually all conservative and moderate thinkers. I know of better candidates through our internship and clerkship programs who have applied to the honors program.

There are copious charts and graphs showing the “deselection” process and how liberals (or maybe conservatives who liked wolves, who knows?) were filtered out. The Attorney General says he’s accepted all the recommendations in the IG report. Of course he will NOW, the landmines have already been set.

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They Like Him, They Really Like Him

by digby

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the Constitutional Sell-out of the year award (brought to you by The Politico and the good people from Depends):

The Maryland Democrat shepherded a set of FISA amendments through the House last week — winning praise from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and even some in his party to who opposed the deal — but now finds himself subjected to a barrage of criticism from his party’s left.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) called the House bill a “capitulation.” Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald called Hoyer an “evil, craven enabler of the Bush administration.” Firedoglake.com blogger Jane Hamsher — delivering the lowest possible blow from the liberal blogosphere — declared Hoyer “the new Joe Lieberman.”

Hoyer knew it was coming, and he persevered anyway. That he did so speaks volumes about who he is: a master of cloakroom politics who can use his friendships across the aisle to strike deals, even if others demand that his party hew closer to the positions that put it in power in 2006

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What a guy. Clearly, those who demand that the party should hew closer to the positions that put it in power should be happy to have such a “masterful” leader who will sell out their most cherished principles in order to make a deal with people who would like to turn the US into a police state.

Do read the whole Politico article, which doesn’t bother to spend even one paragraph describing why people were opposed to the bill. For that matter it doesn’t bother to tell us why the other side was so adamant that it get passed either. The fact that it wasn’t some typical congressional agenda item which might naturally be “horse traded” but rather a matter of fundamental constitutional principle isn’t worth mentioning. Even the fact that the whole thing stinks to high heaven of financial corruption gets no mention.

What we have instead is the portrait of a Village hero, the ultimate master of the only game that matters — ostentatiously capitulating to conservatism. It’s the biggest accolade a Democrat ever gets, like winning a congressional Oscar, and the preening Hoyer is happy to make his acceptance speech in the pages of the Drudge Daily. This one is sweeter than most because he managed to capitulate to the congressional minority and the most unpopular president in history on an issue of fundamental constitutional principle which contained little political risk to uphold. A truly bravura performance. In fact, it’s worthy of a lifetime achievement award.

Donate here to Blue America’s FISA Accountability fund so that we can continue to assure that Steny’s constituents are aware of his great triumph.

Update: Greenwald makes an important observation. All the gasbags are hailing this as a triumph of bipartisanship and deal making. But the only people who are complaining are liberals and couple of cranky libertarians. Why is that? Wouldn’t you think there would be a few disappointed conservative ideologues somewhere if this were really a “compromise?” They aren’t exactly known for their flexibility. Conservatives love the thing, across the board.

The only people who are unhappy about it are DFHs (and Bob Barr.)The Village is harmoniously in sync once more.

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Joseph K At Gitmo

by digby

Heck, it’s only been six years of his life. What’s the rush?

A federal appeals court on Monday overturned a U.S. military tribunal’s enemy combatant designation for a Chinese Muslim at the Guantanamo Bay prison, its first ruling that gives a detainee a chance for release.

It ordered the U.S government to release or transfer Huzaifa Parhat, a member of the Uighur ethnic group, or to “expeditiously” hold a new military tribunal for him.

Parhat, who was captured in Afghanistan and who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for six years, is one of several Uighurs still at the prison. The United States has struggled to find a country willing to accept the Uighurs…

In 2006, the United States allowed five Chinese Muslims released from Guantanamo to seek asylum in Albania. The U.S. government has said it cannot return the Uighurs to China because they would face persecution there.

This is not joke and it’s not a metaphor. The US Government has actually been holding people prisoner on that basis. Apparently, on some level, they think they’re doing this guy a favor.

The ruling by the three-judge panel was under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 that gave the prisoners a limited review before the appeals court of their designation as an enemy combatant.

The court also said Parhat can seek his immediate release before a U.S. District judge under the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling this month that the detainees have the legal right to challenge their years-long confinement.

A key issue in the Parhat case was whether he had been involved in any activity that would justify designating him as an enemy combatant.

The government argued that Parhat was trained by a group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and that it has links to al Qaeda. That was enough to hold him, it said.

Parhat’s lawyers said he considered China, not the United States, the enemy, and that there was no evidence that he ever joined the group.

Right. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement is a mortal enemy of the United States and all Chinese nationals who might, sort of, could be, maybe associated with it should be locked up and we should just throw away the key. Or maybe they can go to Albania.

This is the kind of thing that makes my head swim (and my gorge rise.) Imagine if it were you stuck in that stateless, Kafkaesque nightmare. Of course, he’s a foreigner so he doesn’t have any of those finer feelings about freedom and liberty like we do, so it’s probably no biggie to him. Still, even a lesser human like this probably deserves a human right or two. If only for show.

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Putting It Out There

by dday

If anyone thinks Charlie Black is sorry for saying this, they’re nuts. This is completely calculated.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.” As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black.

He’s backtracked on it now, and McCain strenuously disagreed, but the target for that comment were media types. The only reason it is conventionally assumed that a terrorist attack is good for Republicans is that Republicans keep saying it, and when they say it, the media listens. They’re perfectly willing to risk sounding ghoulish in the short-term so that they’re prepared for every talking head explaining in the wake of a terrorist attack how the Republicans have been enhanced. I’d call it mind control but it’s not nearly so difficult; more like that scene where Crocodile Dundee raises two fingers in front of the bull and makes him go to sleep.

Does this mean Republicans welcome terror attacks? More like it means they like to be ready for the eventuality. And they know there will be no time for reasoned discourse in such a moment. So they’re hitting the hammer under the knee to make sure it’ll jerk when circumstances demand it.

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Seven Dirty Wordsmith

by digby

I’m sure there are many great obituaries being written about George Carlin and I won’t bother to try to compete. Suffice to say that he was one of the original DFH’s and proud of it. I used to run into him at the local Starbucks from time. Very natty dresser, low key, fun to chat with.

He was a politically incorrect iconoclast, though, no kumbaaya, “can’t we call get along” peace and love stuff. He was a fighter from the beginning. For instance, he was a hardcore, upfront atheist who made no bones about his beliefs (or lack thereof.) And it led to some great bits in recent years, my favorite being when he said that if he went into a hospital and they asked him to sign one of those living wills, he would scream “Hell no! I want you to hook me up to every last machine, every last drug, I want it all!” Funny, but poignant, considering this sad news today.

Carlin was also a First Amendment hero:

Carlin constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the “Seven Words” — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV to this day.

When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.

When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government’s authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.

George Carlin was a brave, honest, hilarious social observer and there are never enough of those types around. I’ll miss him.

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