Posts

In part 1, I laid out the facts surrounding the detention and illegal transfer of Hiwa Abdul Rahman Rashul. In this post, I want to demonstrate why this case matters. There is a pattern to the Bush/Cheney Administration's illegal usurpation of executive power. Because the pattern broke down in this case, the strategy behind that power grab is laid bare. The struggle within the administration over the disposition of Rashul and the way it was resolved helps to illuminate the true nature of the current regime. Perhaps it leaves an opening to unravel the authoritarian infrastructure that has been built within our country in the last eight years.

Judge Royce Lamberth has had the guts and determined conviction to to make tough, fair and necessary rulings that question authority and stand up to big government and behind the common citizen. Today, he does it again by calling the Bush Administration out for their bad faith delay and obstruction actions in dealing with the Habeas Corpus applications of the Guantanamo detainees filed pursuant to the Boumediene decision recently issued by the Supreme Court. In other news, the Bush Administration has shown once again why they are the polar opposite of Lamberth by enacting yet more police state surveillance modalities.

As several of you have noted, there has been a rather significant event at the Gitmo Show Trials. Lt. Colonel Diane M. Zierhoffer, a US Army psychologist who ordered the illegal torture of a juvenile, Mohammad Jawad, invoked her right not to incriminate herself and refused to testify in the case of Mohammad Jawad.

First off, a mea culpa. I thought Judge Bates would mostly refuse to get involved in the contempt issue at this point, which he easily could have done. I was wrong. That said, the dark hats of Miers, Bolten and Bushco predictably want to delay until the next of never on the appeal. But the white hats of Conyers' House Judiciary Committee have a response to that. And there is another facet to this equation that has been bugging me. Despite how good Bates' decision is, why did it not address the refusal by the DOJ to prosecute a duly constituted and valid on it's face contempt citation referred by the United States Congress?

John McCain is an angry, mercurial, petulant and self serving man that believes that John McCain is entitled to say, do or take whatever John McCain wants and John McCain needs. That doesn't sit real well with Jackson Browne, who is suing McCain for stealing his music. When McCain gets furious, veins start bulging in his neck and he turns red with anger. He won't ever be Jackson's friend, but lets hope that Browne causes another patented redneck explosion.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has decided to rehear Maher Arar's lawsuit against the government for sending him to Syria to be tortured.

The White House has started to panic over a July 9 meeting between Condi Rice and Mikheil Saakashvili, desperate to suggest they didn't encourage Georgia's crack-down in South Ossetia. Given that panic, I wonder whether Karl Rove had any similar chats with Saakashvili when they were in Yalta together just days later?

That the Appeals Court threw out the Wilsons' suit is not surprising. That the logic in Sentelle's opinion is so crappy and ignorant is. It basically argues that because Valerie Wilson has no recourse to the Privacy Act wrt Cheney and Libby and Rove, those thugs can violated Joe Wilson's First and Fifth Amendment rights too!

The Bush Administration has known well how to avoid punishment for Hatch Act violations: simply to have those who commit those violations to quit. Therefore, it should be no surprise that Mukasey has announced Goodling and her friends will avoid any charges for their violations.

For the third time this campaign season, McCain has gotten caught stealing his campaign materials. This time, though, the source was particularly pathetic: McCain stole content for his speech on Georgia from Wikipedia.