Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court struck down a law preventing same-sex marriages because it violated the state constitution. You can count me among those people who thought the California Supreme Court’s ruling would usher in a wave of similar court rulings or legislation across the country. California is, after all, the most populous [...]
BEFORE:
“I’d like to close Guantanamo.” - George W. Bush, June 2006
“The President has said, and I fully agree, we would like nothing better than to close Guantanamo.” - Condi Rice, October 2007
NOW:
“We’ve long said [Guantanamo] won’t be closed before the end of the president’s term.” - White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, October 2008
Apparently our Imperial [...]
Fortunately, after today we will no longer have to be bothered with hour upon hour of vacuous convention pomp, either from the Republicans or their willing enablers, the Democrats. But before this pseudo-democratic spectacle ends, we should examine the ramifications of what’s been going on outside the conventions, in the [...]
I’m going to be bold here and say we’re going to look back at this week as a milestone. It’ll be the week - drumroll please - Obama ended the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Pretty amazing for someone who isn’t even the president yet. But how did Obama do it? Let me explain…
This weekend Iraqi Prime [...]
A new book by Jane Mayer makes it abundantly clear the US government has been engaged in torture.
The book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” cites International Red Cross reports on the America’s treatment of prisoners.
Here are some excerpts from the NYTimes [...]
Yesterday the Senate approved the new FISA legislation which includes telecom immunity. Bush should happily sign this bill into law soon.
This law, fully embraced by most of the Democratic party (including Barack “I will filibuster any bill that includes immunity” Obama) codifies two major affronts to our former Constitutional republic:
1) The President can ignore the [...]
(Three Updates below)
In a scathing post yesterday, Glenn Greenwald accused MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann of carrying water for the Obama campaign. Greenwald says Olbermann abandoned his rhetoric on telecom immunity / warrantless domestic spying now that Obama supports it.
Here was Olbermann addressing Bush in January:
There is not a choice of protecting the telecoms from prosecution or [...]
The always emotional Arthur Sibler wants us to keep the impending FISA “compromise” law in perspective. He’s not saying we should support the Democrats and Obama despite their betrayal (or cowardice), because they are the lesser of two evils. What he is saying is that we ceded the right to privacy long ago:
I do not [...]
Updated Below
From page 5 of the The FISA Amendment Act of 2008:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a civil action may not lie or be maintained in a Federal or State court against any person for providing assistance to an element of the intelligence community, and shall be promptly dismissed, if the Attorney General certifies [...]
I noted Monday that Congressional Democrats were planning to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications corporations (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) who aided the Bush administration in illegally spying on us. (Read my explanation of the telecom immunity issue here and/or check out this scathing NY Times editorial)
The Hill and Dow Jones are reporting that this is indeed [...]