Gee, next thing you know, the House of Saud will stop funding terrorists and Jihadi schools.
Naaahhhh.
Category: Civil Rights
And From the Fascist Wing of the Catholic Church
St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke calling for Rick Majerus, the St. Louis University basketball coach, to be disciplined for making a campaign appearance for Hillary Clinton and expressing support for Roe v. Wade.
This is not a priest, this is not a professor in the divinity department, this is a freaking BASKETBALL COACH.
I understand that St. Louis University is a Catholic school, but demanding that employees who have absolutely nothing to do with the religious mission of the school have to toe their political is outrageous, particularly given this:
Last year, St. Louis U. celebrated a legal victory that affirmed it is not controlled by the Catholic church or by its Catholic beliefs.
The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with the school in handing down a decision that the city of St. Louis did not violate state and federal constitutions by granting the university $8 million in tax increment financing for its new arena.
Opponents of the $80 million arena sued the school in 2004, halting construction.
The Missouri Constitution prohibits public funding to support any “… college, university, or other institution of learning controlled by any religious creed, church or sectarian denomination whatever.”
The debate came down to two words: “control” and “creed.” Does the guiding mission of a Catholic university align with the specific system of religious faith espoused by the Catholic church? And if so, does that system of faith control the actions of the university?
In a 6-1 decision, the court said SLU “is not controlled by a religious creed.”
As I recall*, Rush Limbaugh’s cousin, Stephn N. Limbaugh, Jr. serves on this court, and had been nominated by Bush to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Hmmm….I guess that Rush is the smart one of his family…Scary thought.
*And by, “As I recall”, I mean checking the Wiki.
Telethon For Democrats Without Balls, FISA Edition
Really. I’m serious.
Here is Harry Reid, getting ready to completely capitulate on civil rights protection and telco immunity in the FISA update.
I should note that once again, Chris Dodd is excluded from my approbiation, as he is still threatening a filibuster on telco immunity.
Here we have a perfect expression of the most self-destructive Democratic disease which they seem unable to cure. More than anything, they fear looking ‘weak.’ To avoid this, they ‘cave’ and surrender and capitulate and stand for nothing. As a result, they are, as here, endlessly described in the media as ‘caving’ and surrendering. As a result, they look (and are) weak. It’s a self-destructive cycle that has no end.
I want my party back.
How about we try voodoo to raise Harry S Truman and Lyndon Baines Johnson from the grave, and send them to Congress to bitch slap Reid and Pelosi.
It’s like throwing away an impeachment investigation, even as just a technique to extract documents, because it trumps executive privilege.
NOT ON THE TABLE! NOT ON THE TABLE!
FISA Bill in Limbo
Harry Reidwants a one mongh extension to the disgraceful “Protect America Act”, so that they can have time to work on the bill.
Once again, the Republicans are going with an all or nothing approch, with Kit Bond and Mitch McConnell blocking the extension in an attempt to give Bush and His Evil Minions™ everything that they want.
Um….Guys, this is a clue….In 11½ months Hillary and Her Evil Minions™, or Barack and His Evil Minions™ may have the reins of the state security apparatus, and one of the things that I like about her is that, unlike Bill, she appears to have an inclination for vengeance.
You don’t want to go there.
FWIW, the case for the changes provided by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has proven to be completely fraudulent.
John Conyers Pushes Bill to Ban Voter Caging
Good for him. Bascially, voter caging is when (almost exclusively) the GOP sends out emails to groups who are unlikely to vote for them (Blacks and Hispanics) marked, “Do not forward”, and then they use this to challenge voter rights.
FWIW, the get lots of active duty military doing this.
Not sure how well it will work. Gop is already under a consent decree, as I noted a month ago.
Is a Password Protected by the 5th Amendment?
There is a general principal in US law, that one can be compelled to turn over physical evidence, but not the contents of one’s mind, as that is protected by the 5th amendment.
So, you can be compelled to turn over a key to a lock, but not a combination. There is a fairly long legal precedent.
This case asks what it means if the lock is unbreakable, or nearly so.
Case in brief: A Canadian, on crossing the US border, was told to show the contents of his hard drive, which he did, and some of the contents were deemed by the border guard to be likely child porn, though it’s unclear of this was simply random files in the cache, or Manga, or real kiddie porn.
The machine was confiscated, and subsequently turned off.
When it was restarted, its demanded a password, since the contents had been encrypted with PGP, and were inaccessible, and Magistrate Judge Jerome J. Niedermeier has ruled that compelling him to turn over his password violates the 5th amendment.
The prosecutors are appealing saying the standard stuff about terrorism, etc.
I’m with Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who has said, “The consequence of this decision being upheld is that the government would have to find other methods to get this information, but that’s as it should be. That’s what the Fifth Amendment is intended to protect.”
He’s right. If you hooked up this guy’s drive to a supercomputer, and ran it for a few months, and maybe less if you brought in some experts from the NSA, at the cost of a few million dollars, you’d probably crack the password, because even the best people don’t choose truly random passwords.
Inconvenient, yes, but inconvenience is not a basis for emasculating the Bill of Rights.
I generally oppose any granting any power to the government to either judge one based on the contents of one’s mind (hate crime laws), or to force revalation of the contents of one’s minds.
Training Our Children to be Good Germans
A kid wears a Playboy sweats, and a high-school senior 2 days detention.
We’re not talking nipples. We’re talking the word “Playboy”, and the bunny logo.
This is about making sure that children learn to obey arbitrary nonsensical authority without question.
It’s bad for civil rights, it’s bad for the leaders of the future.
Big Brother
Lovely, Mike McConnel, the man who says that waterboarding is torture for him, but not for other folks, because he has a deviated septum, is low looking for the power to, “read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse”.
Sir, I am more concerned about your abuse of this nation than I am of any sick man with Marfan syndrome hiding in the tribal regions of Pakistan.
OK, Mukasey Actually Appears to Be Doing His Job
Well, knock me over with a sledge hammer, it appears that Attorney General Mukasey is actually doing his job, at least in what has become the minority voting suppression division of the Justice Department under Bush and His Evil Minions™.
I’m pleasantly surprised, though Abu Gonzalez actually made me nostalgic for John Freaking Ashcroft, so it is a low bar.
First, John “Minorities will be Dead Soon” Tanner has resigned as head of the voting rights section, and is moving to the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices in December, and last friday, his replacement, Christopher Coates, who was promoted from within the section, demoted Tanner’s former deputy chiefs, Susana Lorenzo-Giguere (who drew a salary while living at her Cape Cod vacation home) and Yvette Rivera (who has been accused of discriminating against blacks on staff).
Of note is that Rivera is being replaced by Tim Mellett, who was one of the professional staff who issued a report, subsequently overruled by the political appointees , that Tom Delay’s Texas redistricting was illegal.
No Telco Immunity for a While
As a result of Dodd’s activism against Telco immunity, Harry Reid has decided not to attempt to pass such a provision while Bush is still in office. Instead, he’s looking at extending the last bill for another 18 months. (Note the article linked is a WSJ editorial, and so it is in many ways factually inaccurate where there are clear facts, and wrong in its analysis, read only if you have a strong stomach or an affection for dark humor)
Still, this is not good enough. The “Protect America Act” is an assault on the constitution and its principles. It should not be extended a day, much less 18 months.
Dodd is now out of the Presidential race, but in 2000, he lost to Daschle in a race for the Senate Democratic leader, and he should challenge Reid next time.
REAL ID Sucks
At least 17 are refusing to make their licenses comply with the REAL ID act.
It’s not surprising. Given the recent data breaches, the requirements for REAL ID are an invitation to identity theft.
The requirements actually make the people less secure in their identity, not more so.
DOJ Report: U.S. Civil Rights Commission Appointments Illegal
Bush and His Evil Minions™ wanted to stack the Civil Rights commission. The problem? The law forbade any more than 4 of the 8members being of one party.
Bush’s solution was to have two of the Republicansregister as independent, and then appoint two more Republicans.
Well, now the non-partisan Congressional Research Service has reviewed the 1957 Civil Rights Act that established the commission, along with the 1983 changes designed to forstall Ronald “What me, Racist” Reagan doing what Bush just did.
In sum, the situation that precipitated Congress’ 1983 revision of the Civil Rights Commission – the presidential firing of five of the then six sitting commissioners – is arguably indistinguishable from the changes in party registrations that has effectively allowed the President to establish a majority of his political in control of the Commission. The intent of the 1983 restructuring, as confirmed by the Wilson decision, was to preclude similar juggling of the of the Commission’s statutory appointments process. In light of that history, together with the recognition of the Wilson court of the central importance of independence of the central importance of independence to the accomplishment of the Commission’s mission, it is likely that a reviewing court would find the OLC opinion unpersuasive and the recent appointments violative of the political balance requirements of the statute.
In English, it’s pretty clear that they just ignored the law because they felt like it.
Kansas GOP Chairman Admits to Illegal Voter Suppression
So not shocked.
When Nixon decided to appeal to the southern racists, he eagerly embraced their Jim Crow voting strategies too.
However, I am a bit surprised that Kris Kobach would brag about it in public:
To date, the Kansas GOP has identified and caged more voters in the last 11 months than the previous two years!
There is a primer to this illegal, the RNC has been under a consent decree for some time, and quite frankly UnAmerican technique here.
I guarantee you, BTW, a lot of the voters “caged” are serving in the military overseas.
Even New Labour Sick of Anti-Terror Laws
It looks like Gordon Brown is looking at a revolt among his own party regarding his proposal to extend the period of detention without charge in terrorism cases from 28 days to 42 days.
It probably does not help that Sir Ken Macdonald QC, Head of the CPS and Director of Public Prosecutions, in addition to, “the former attorney general Lord Goldsmith and the former Lord chancellor Lord Falconer.”
What I don’t get about the current politics in Britain is how the other parties are not exploiting the current situation.
Brown is floundering, Blair was remarkably unpopular, and that was before his conversion to Catholicism, which from what I’ve read, both historical and current stories, is a very big negative to the British public.
Why the Tories or Lib-Dems are unable to pick up significant seats in these circumstances is completely beyond me.
Doddmania!!!!
His floor speech. I think that he sounds Kennedyesque:
Full version (37:48):
Short version (4:56):
H/T Group News Blog for looking up the Youtubes.
Judge: Hand Over Abramoff Visit Logs
So, a federal fudge, and a Reagan Appointee at that, has ruled that White House visitor logs are public records subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
Basically, the White House claim that maybe, if terrorists take this data, and some other data, and some pixie dust, they could use it for an attack, was dismissed.
The Bush Admin had transferred the records to the White House in an attempt to claim privilidge, but, “But U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled logs from the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence remain Secret Service documents and are subject to public records requests.”
BTW, one of the kickers is that there is a similar suit before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, who Bush appointed, but they decided to consolidate it before Lamberth, despite the fact that Collyer had the older suit, which normally would take precedence.
I think that the judges just told Bush to politely pound sand.
Thank You Christopher Dodd!
1000 words on Chris Dodd:
But it appears that he’s won, as Reid is delaying the bill until January.
There was simply too many amendments and too many discussions to get it done by the end of the session, and this is largely Dodd’s doing.
Show him some love, either go to my Act Blue Page, or to his campaign web site.
Mr. Dodd Goes To Washington
Dodd promised to filibuster teleco immunity, and he has kept his word.
Unfortunately, the Senate voted 76 to 10 to stop his filibuster.
As I predicted, Obama did not show up for the vote, and neither did Clinton or Biden.
Obama issued a statement to Firedog Lake:
“Senator Obama unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Senator Dodd’s efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill. Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect. Senator Obama supports a filibuster of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same. It’s not clear whether he can return for the vote, but under the Senate rules, the side trying to end a filibuster must produce 60 votes to cut off debate. Whether he is present for the vote for not, Senator Obama will not be among those voting to end the filibuster.”
I understand the basic mechanics of cloture, but I would like to see him a reason to bloody show up for work.
This applies to Biden and Clinton too.
Harry Reid Betrays the Constitution. Chris Dodd Calls in Markers to Try to Preserve It
Harry Reid has announced that he will put forward the FISA bill from the intelligence committee, the one with few protections and teleco immunity.
I don’t know why he is choosing George W. Bush over the constitution of the United States, though I think it may have something to do with the fact that he’s gotten a lot of campaign donations from them.
He is also refusing to recognize Chris Dodd’s hold on the bill, which means that Dodd will have to actually filibuster.
I’m not sure why. After all he allowed Neanderthal Tom Coburn to block an investigation of the brutal racist murder of Emmett Till and other unsolved racial crimes.
In any case, Chris Dodd is reminding Senators Clinton and Obama of their promise to support his filibuster.
A Letter from Dodd Campaign:
Dear Tim, Today, that FISA fight we’ve all been waiting for begins — and it’s time to separate the leaders from the capitulators.
In a few hours, Majority Leader Harry Reid will ask for something called a “motion to proceed” on FISA, effectively disregarding Chris Dodd’s “hold” on the bill.
It’s unfortunate that he chose to go this route, to introduce a bill including retroactive immunity when another route could have been chosen just as easily.
So … that means Chris Dodd will start by introducing an amendment to strip retroactive immunity out of the bill.
But if that doesn’t work, he will do all he can to stop this bill that threatens our security, and that may include a “filibuster.”
Remember when this all started playing out? A lot of people rushed to send out strongly worded press releases about how committed they were to “supporting a filibuster.”
They’ll have a chance to show they are true to their word.
Call or email the Senators that pledged their opposition to this bill to support the Dodd Amendment and a filibuster if necessary. And ask them to be there with Dodd when it counts.
http://chrisdodd.com/filibuster
You don’t demonstrate leadership in the footnotes of a press release, or parroting responses from focus groups.
Leadership is demonstrated through action.
Tim Tagaris
Chris Dodd for President
Hillary I expect to stick to her word, Obama, I expect him to miss the vote.
Bush Determines What Is Constitutional
Senator Whitehouse (D-RI)has read the Secret memos from Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counse, and he has concluded that they say the following, “The President’s Word Is Law. (Whitehouse’s full speech is here.)
Why these folks have not hat their law licenses revoked is beyond me.
We are a nation of laws, not men.