Category: Civil Rights

Refuting George Washington, Bush and His Evil Minions™ say, “Let There Be Kings”

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That’s what they are asking for in the Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a legal resident of the United States who was arrested on US soil.

They are claiming that the President can wave a wand, and call anyone an enemy combatant, and detain them without trial or access to counsel forever.

If the president has this right, than we have no rights.

They claim that he’s a major terrorist, but they are unwilling to try him.

It’s clear that the political fallout of a successful prosecution would be positive Bush and the Republicans, which implies very strongly that they have no case whatsoever.

Norman Finkelstein Refused Entry Into Israel

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Finkelstein, author of, The Holocaust Industry, which argues that the Jewish establishment has exploited the Holocaust for political gain, has been refused entry into Israel:

The Shin Bet said Finkelstein “is not permitted to enter Israel because of suspicions involving hostile elements in Lebanon,” and because he “did not give a full accounting to interrogators with regard to these suspicions.”

He did have contacts with Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon a few months ago , he published articles about that, so it’s inevitable that he would be questioned on entry.

As to whether he was forthcoming, we are in a he said/she said situation.

Texas Appeals Court Rules Revokes Texas Custody In Raid on Polygamy Compound

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I already noted that the original complaint call leading to the raid was a hoax, and now the appeals court has ruled unanimously that, “the the state did not establish proper grounds to remove the children from their families.”

The ruling — an unusual mandamus opinion granting relief in a case not yet decided — came on the application of 38 women who challenged state custody and another 54 who filed a second action. But lawyers said the burden was on the state to show why it should not apply to the rest of the children as well.

It sounds to me like someone was cowboying way too much on this.

Someone screwed up, big time.

The Government’s Secret Detention List

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I’m wondering if I am on that list.

My guess would be that if martial law were to be declared, it would be in mid to late November, following a Democratic victory,* because it would be to cover up their own wrongdoing.

Christopher Ketcham of Radar Magazine makes the case that the US government has a list of 8 million people that they will detain without process if martial law is declared. That’s just under 3% of the population.

He makes a convincing case that the entire scene with Ashcroft in the hospital being browbeaten to sign a document was in fact a surveillance program connected to a, “so-called Continuity of Government (COG) programs”, centered in FEMA‡, where it evades the oversight done on what is normally considered the state security apparatus (FBI, CIA, other TLAs, etc.).

I’m not sure which is more depressing to me, the fact that this might be the plan of Bush and His Evil Minions™, or the fact that I have so little faith in those career bureaucrats in the US state security apparatus to obey their vows to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

*And let’s be clear….At this point, that means Barack Obama. Even if all of FL and MI are seated. Unless he is caught with a live boy or a dead girl, he’s the nominee.†
†Not my preferred outcome, but I wanted Howard Dean in 2004 and Bill Bradley in 2000, so I’m used to it.
‡That’s right, the folks who f%$#ed up Katrina are responsible for the continued existence of a law based Democracy in the US.

Federal Court Rules US Paper Currency Violates the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

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Basically, there are no tactile differences between the bills, and U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that this is in violation of the law.

Among other things, they said that the government did not shot that fixing this would be an undue burden.

When you consider the stuff that they’ve done lately, putting a bit of texture on the bills has got to be cheaper than the holographic inks, etc. that they are using/

The case is American Council of the Blind v. Paulson.

Texas Attorney General Does Not Think that N***ers Should Vote

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Once again, we have a wingnut trying to prove massive vote fraud, and once again, despite his best effort he cannot find anything, this time in the wingnuttiest of states, Texas.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, a ‘Phant, entered office pledging to, ” root out what he called an epidemic of voter fraud in Texas”.

Net result: 26 prosecutions, almost all against blacks and Hispanics, because in Texas, it’s a crime for darkies to vote.

In 18 of the 26 cases, people were prosecuted for neglecting to put their name on the envelope when they carried it to the mailbox for someone else.

They did encounter some real vote fraud in the remaining cases, it appears to be about a dozen votes, no doubt Bigot Abbot will use as justification to aggressively pursue voting while dark prosecutions.

Von Spakovsky Out

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Bush’s voter suppression guru withdraws his nomination to FEC.

This means that the FEC board nominations will likely proceed, and that there will be a quorum for actions to be taken once again.

My guess is that they are increasingly worried that the (completely accurate) accusation that John McCain is in felony violation of the law that defines his “Maverick” status will hit the main stream, so they finally decided to cut him loose, so they can sign off on McCain’s “bungee move” that he used early in the primaries to get a loan for his campaign.

Additionally, it would mean that McCain could not sign up for public financing in the general, and the board would need to sign off that too.

FWIW, the story is starting to bubble up, and he’s not doing well in fund raising anyway, so I think that the Dems should “stand on politics principal” and insist on separate votes for the FEC board members anyway…or at least drag their feet a little bit.

They Are Spying on US, but They Aren’t Prosecuting Terrorists

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The LA Times is reporting that despite an enormous expansion in surveillance of Americans, there has been no increase in terror prosecutions.

Kevin Drum has a useful pictorial perspective:

He also has a perspective that is even more alarming:

If anything, the real situation is almost certainly even worse than this: ‘Warrants’ understates the vast increase in surveillance, which also includes things like national security letters and the warrantless programs run by the NSA, while ‘prosecutions’ overstates the number of genuine terrorists who have been taken to court. It would be nice if Congress actually took a serious look at this.

Needless to say, I’m not sanguine about the likelihood of a Congressional investigation, but I do have a theory as to why you would have an explosion in surveillance without any increase in anti-terror actions: surveillance of political enemies.

By expanding surveillance to unprecedented levels, it allows a few dozens of actions to be taken against political opponents. For people who are actually conducting the surveillance, typically non-poltical civil service appointees, it would be easy to miss the political surveillance among the hundreds discreet actions, but someone *cough* Karl Rove *cough* would have the clearance to get the data that they wanted.

Telco Immunity Update

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Well, first it appears that Bush and His Evil Minions™ are coordinating with the Telcos to lobby, and are trying to move heaven and earth to make it so.

I can only conclude that in addition to evidence of illegal wiretaps, that the telcos have information of something much worse, my guess would be that there was specific spying done on political opponents.

If they mutter terrorism to a jury, it is unlikely that a jury would convict them, or that a judge would give them anything more than a slap on the wrist, but if, and there are indications of this, that there is evidence of spying on their opponents, it becomes a whole new ballgame.

If it is discovered that Bush, Cheney, and Rove were spying on Democrats communications, we just might see that impeachment that is “not on the table”, or serious prosecutions starting in 2009.

There have always been rumors that they wiretapped Kerry’s senior adviser for national security affairs, James Rubin, by surveilling his wife CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour for “national security reasons”, and using the inevitable of intercepts of him for political purposes.

My guess is that these activities were far broader and deeper than just one reporter or one candidate.

The Democrats victory in 2006 may very well have been helped along by the NY Times finally breaking the story on the wiretapping, and the telcos getting skittish enough to stop asking “how high” when Bush asked them to jump.

It may all be moot however, as Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller appear to be doing their level best to create full immunity for the phone companies, which would prevent the real story from coming out. Ever.

I’m simply not clear on why Hoyer and Rockefeller are so gung ho about this, unless, of course they were in some way criminally complicit with the program.

What is interesting is that, for now at least, the Vichy Blue Dog Democrats have been remarkably uninterested in getting immunity passed.

As I’ve said before, I think that they headed home after it did not pass the house, and instead of the storm of criticism they expected, they got high fives from the voters, which gave them some backbone.

Iraq as Performance Art

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Well, it looks like Maliki is promising to disarm all militia forces, using the Iraqi and US armies if possible, in order to put an end to criminality and ethnic cleansing.

Maliki is a leader of a militia force that has been leinked to criminality and ethnic cleansing, and his closest ally, the ISCI, formerly SCIRI, is known to have performed the bulk of the ethnic cleansing.

Is it just me, or does this begin to sound like the role playing game “Paranoia”?

In any case, in response to Maliki’s challenge, someone murdered the nephew of Iraqi interior ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf’s, and hung his hang body from electric pole.

All things considered I never want to see the Iraqi version of the Ashton Kutcher’s MTV program Punk’d.

It appears however, that the residents of Sadr City would not be fans of an Iraqi Kutcher, as the death toll in April is near 1000.

Bush Court Confirms: Voting While Black is a Offense

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They voted 6-3 to uphold Indiana’s voter discrimination identification law.

It was actually 3 opinions each supported by 3 justices, and some legal analysts claim that there is hope, since one of the concurring opinions asked for evidence of voter disenfranchisement, but I see that as a vain hope.

While I see Stephens ruling against the law if there is evidence, it is telling that there is no evidence of the sort of vote fraud that the law was intended to prevent having ever occurred in Indiana, and I see Roberts and Kennedy simply moving a bit to the right each time that such a challenge occurs.

Well Hello Dalai Lama

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Well, China is now saying that it will hold talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama, and I just could not resist the pun.

The Dalai Lama has welcomed the opportunity to talk, though state run media seems to indicate that the Chinese are not quite as eager to talk as they are eager to be thought of as willing to talk, with the standard “running dog” screeds continuing.

My guess is that in the end, nothing meaningful happens, and that the Chinese claim that the Tibetans were unreasonable.

In the United States, Any Cop Can Shoot Any Black Man in the Line of Duty, and Get off Scott Free

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Let’s be clear about this a crime was committed when police pumped 50 bullets into Shawn Bell’s car.

At the very least, a refusal to test police for blood alcohol level, some of whom were on duty, and drinking, as part of their undercover work was obstruction of justice.

One of the pertinent quotes is, “Detective Michael Oliver, who fired 31 bullets the night of the shooting.” That means that he emptied a clip into the car, reloaded, rechambered a round, and emptied another magazine, assuming he started with one in the chamber, and a 15 round clip.

So, you have drunk vice cops on a sting looking for a few strippers who might go a little bit too far, and its open season on black folks, and an acquittal by a judge who knows that if he wants to go higher, he will need the support of the police department when considered for a promotion.

The depressing thing is that when all is said and done, the New York City PD is one of the best in the nation.

God Bless America.

FBI Wants to to Seize Control of the Backbone to See if You Gamble or Watch Pr0n

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Really, I’m serious on this, though this could come as no surprise. It is the organizational imperative for law enforcement to ask for permission to spy on everyone all the time without oversight, as FBI Chief Mueller states:

I think legislation has to be developed that balances on one hand, the privacy rights of the individual who are receiving the information, but on the other hand, given the technology, the necessity of having some omnibus search capability utilizing filters that would identify the illegal activity as it comes through and give us the ability to preempt that illegal activity where it comes through a choke point as opposed to the point where it is diffuse on the Internet

(Emphasis Ars Technica)

Obvious issue that the US does not own the internet, and it appears from his statements that he wants to be able to shut down the traffic with no judicial review, whether it be a BBS that they determine to be “terrorist”, or illegal betting in the form of an office “March Madness” pool, or fantasy baseball.

They will also be able to monitor what you buy at an online bookstore, and the content of your emails.

What’s more, in an increasingly politicized Justice Department, the possibilities for selective prosecution just boggle the mind.

In a Blow to Fans of Franz Kafka

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Magistrate Judge Schenkier of the Chicago Federal Court has ruled that the government must tell people if they are on the federal terrorism watch list.

The government argued that telling people that they were on the list would reveal state secrets.

Of course when people have petitioned the courts to be removed from the list, the government has argued that they have no standing, because they don’t know if they are on the watch list.

I think that the body cavity searches are a pretty good indicator though.

Telco Immunity Update

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First, it appears that Steny Hoyer is working a capitulation compromise on a FISA update, but interestingly enough, the Vichy Blue Dog Dems are not in the least bit interested in talking to Republicans about immunity.

What the Vichy Blue Dog Democrats realize, and what the Quisling Hoyer does not, is that their constituents have their back.

When the Vichy Blue Dog Dems went home, they were not inundated by angry phone calls, they were given high fives for standing up to the least popular president ever.

Not one step back.