ITEM: A three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the right of the US govt to arrest abduct people and ship them off to Bagram (like Gitmo, but further away) with no habeas corpus rights of any kind, and thus no right to contest the legitimacy of their detention in a US federal court.

The reason: unlike Gitmo, where detainees do ( Read more... )

ITEM: The Obama administration is seeking a law allowing law enforcement to interrogate terrorism suspects without informing them of their Miranda rights.

Why? Well, if you ask General Eric Holder, it’s because “interrogators needed greater flexibility to question terrorism suspects”, because fighting The Terrrorz isn’t about who you are, but who ( Read more... )

Like most thinking Americans who also bowl, I’ve been waiting for bedsitter23 ’s post-mortem of the election. It’s here, and it’s good.

One point he raises that’s worth highlighting here is: whither the GOP?

Before the election, I was struck by both Chris Buckley’s reasons for supporting Obama, and also an editorial from Radley Balko at Reason, in which he ( Read more... )

In case you haven’t heard:


( Read more... )

Best election ad I’ve seen this whole campaign.


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ITEM [via isis_lives ]: John McCain and Sarah Palin are fighting.

Well, not exactly. But apparently Palin’s tendency to go off-message and say whatever she feels like is wearing thin at McCain HQ. Granted, this isn’t unusual even when yr winning. And it’s only to be expected in cases like this, when yr running mate was chosen explicitly because she has views ( Read more... )

ITEM [via drhoz  and dinopollard ]: Ashley Todd, a McCain-Palin campaign volunteer in Pittsburgh, tells police she was robbed at an ATM by a ”large black man” who began beating her after seeing a John McCain bumper sticker on her car. For good measure he carved a backwards letter "B" in her cheek. “B” for “Barack”, she said.

Turns out she made the entire thing up, ( Read more... )

If yr wondering why I haven’t blogged about Sarah Palin’s hypocritical “I’m an average working class hockey mom who spends more on clothes in two months than 90% of Americans make in a year”:

It’s because (1) lorilori  does it better, and  (2) I’ve been waiting for Jon Stewart to get around to it and put it on the Internets.


Oh, and while we’re here, could ( Read more... )

ITEM [via the ever-vigilant lorilori ]: You’ve probably seen this, but just in case you were out mowing the lawn or something when this came over the wire, this is worth repeating:

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann claimed on Friday that Barack Obama and his wife Michelle held anti-American views and couldn't be trusted in the White House. She even called ( Read more... )