A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
President Kennedy - Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy isn't known for his judicial modesty. But for sheer willfulness, yesterday's 5-4 majority opinion in Boumediene v. Bush may earn him a historic place among the likes of Harry Blackmun. In a stroke, he and four other unelected Justices have declared their war-making supremacy over both Congress and the White House. (READ MORE)
The European Model (Really) - Critics of the Bush Administration's antiterror policies often cite the attitudes of our European allies as models of wisdom and effectiveness. And sometimes these critics are right, though not in the way they imagine. Only a day before the Supreme Court handed down yesterday's Boumediene decision (see here) – which gives alien detainees access to American courts and American rights that they had sought to destroy... (READ MORE)
Sunnis to Baghdad - You can tell security is improving fast in Iraq because even some neighboring Arab countries are deciding to send envoys back to Baghdad. The United Arab Emirates announced plans last week to appoint an ambassador, and Bahrain and Jordan have since said they plan to do the same. (READ MORE)
Earmark Spending Makes a Comeback - More than a year after Congress pledged to curb pork barrel funding known as earmarks, lawmakers are gearing up for another spending binge, directing billions toward organizations and companies in their home districts. (READ MORE)
U.S. Military Releases Video Footage of Airstrike in Pakistan - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 12 -- The U.S. military released video footage Thursday that appears to show men firing on Afghan troops from a mountain ridge near Afghanistan's disputed northeastern border with Pakistan. The clash prompted a U.S. airstrike that Pakistan has blamed for the deaths of 11 of... (READ MORE)
Opposition Official Arrested in Zimbabwe - HARARE, Zimbabwe, June 12 -- The Zimbabwean government's crackdown on political opponents took an ominous turn Thursday with the arrest of the opposition party's No. 2 official, who was charged with treason and could face the death penalty. (READ MORE)
Va. Mosque Reaches Out, Joining Immigrant Fabric - For years, the Dar al Hijrah mosque was an isolated, slightly mysterious presence in Falls Church -- a stark stone building hidden behind a row of trees, rarely visited by non-Muslims in the multi-ethnic Culmore neighborhood, and known mostly for traffic jams on Leesburg Pike as worshipers arrived for Friday prayers. (READ MORE)
Top GOP fundraiser signals fight for seats - The Senate Republicans' top fundraiser Thursday said he is telling colleagues this is a bad year for members of his party to be up for election. "I'm telling them if you have an 'R' in front of your name, you better run scared," said Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). (READ MORE)
McCain holds town hall without rival - Sen. Barack Obama hasn't yet accepted Sen. John McCain's invitation for 10 town hall meetings, so Thursday evening the presumed Republican presidential nominee went ahead without him. (READ MORE)
GOP hits another Obama adviser - Republicans, smelling the success of knocking out the head of Sen. Barack Obama's vice-presidential search committee Wednesday, renewed efforts to ensnare another top adviser to the Democratic presidential candidate with the exploits of his Washington-insider past. (READ MORE)
War position shapes lawmakers' view of ruling - Whether politicians considered Thursday's Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detainees a victory for terrorists or for the Constitution was largely determined by their substantive stance on the war in Iraq. (READ MORE)
State lets Islamic school operate - State Department officials said Thursday they have no plans to close a Saudi-financed Islamic school in Northern Virginia that has failed to eliminate violent and intolerant language in textbooks. (READ MORE)
Boy Scouts praised as heroes after twister kills 4 - When the howling winds finally died down, the Boy Scouts _ true to their motto, "Be Prepared" _ sprang into action. Putting their first-aid training to use, they applied tourniquets and gauze to the injured. Some began digging victims from the rubble of a collapsed chimney. And others broke into an equipment shed, seized chainsaws and other tools, and started clearing fallen trees from a road. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Peggy Noonan: Brave New World? - And so it begins, the campaign proper. You probably guessed that there would be no letup in this relentless year, no break between the primaries and the general election, that both candidates would stay on the screen. You were right. They will not leave, and go, and rest. They feel they can't, it's inch by inch, slow and steady wins the race. This robs them of the power of disappearance. You disappear and then come back and people say, "Hey, look at that guy." They listen anew after a break in the drone. Not this time. And maybe never again. For Barack Obama this week, a Beltway setback. He chose for a key position a D.C. insider who got fat working the system. This was a poor decision by the candidate of change. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." But Jim Johnson was removed with dispatch, and the country didn't notice. Beltway bottom line: Mr. Obama the cool customer had a problem, removed the problem, has no problem. (READ MORE)
Kimberly A. Strassel: The Lobbyist Wars - Enough with the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama. Let's talk about what they have in common. And let's start with their unique ability to create problems where none ought to exist. In this case, the Lobbyist Wars. Foreign policy, health care, taxes, who cares? What's any of that compared with the riveting question of who employs what lobbyist, in what capacity, and just how heinous was that lobbyist's crime? The nominees devoted their first full general-election week to trading accusations over who retained a worse breed of humanity. Mr. McCain's vice-presidential vetter is a former lobbyist! The co-chairman for the Democrats' presidential convention is a current lobbyist! The Arizonan senator's campaign manager is a lobbyist on leave! The Illinois senator's chief strategist is as good as a lobbyist! (READ MORE)
Gregg Easterbrook: Life Is Good, So Why Do We Feel So Bad? - The Democratic National Committee recently ran an ad blasting John McCain for saying the country is "better off" than in 2000. Yet, arguably, except as regards the Iraq war, Mr. McCain's statement is true. In turn, Mr. McCain is blasting Barack Obama for suggesting that international tensions are not as bad as they've been made to seem. Yet, arguably, Mr. Obama is right. Democratic attacks on Mr. McCain and Republican attacks on Mr. Obama both seek to punish impermissibly positive thoughts. At a time when there exists a sense of crisis over the economy, fuel prices and many other issues, this reinforces the odd, two realities of life in the United States today: The way we are, and the way we think we are. The way we are could use some work, but overall, is pretty good. The way we think we are is terrible, horrible, awful. Possibly worse. (READ MORE)
Ward Connerly: Obama Is No 'Post-Racial' Candidate - With all my heart – and for the betterment of my country – I desperately wanted to believe that Sen. Barack Obama was not one of the same tired voices who peddle arguments about "institutional racism." have heard him say that America is not about "black and white." I was inspired when his supporters chanted at his rally on the night of his victory in South Carolina that "race doesn't matter." I thought his March 18 speech about race had the potential to become a defining moment in our endless struggle to confront and conquer this issue. I was encouraged by his perceptive acknowledgment that affirmative action breeds resentment and hostility. As millions of whites cast their votes for him in predominantly white states, I held out hope that, perhaps, he truly was a transformative leader. But a June 10 article in USA Today by DeWayne Wickham dashed my hopes for Mr. Obama. (READ MORE)
Charles Krauthammer: Obama's Plan for Defeat - WASHINGTON -- In his St. Paul victory speech, Barack Obama pledged again to pull out of Iraq. Rather than "continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians. ... It's time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future." We know Obama hasn't been to Iraq in more than two years, but does he not read the papers? Does he not know anything about developments on the ground? Here is the "nothing" that Iraqis have been doing in the last few months: 1. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent the Iraqi army into Basra. It achieved in a few weeks what the British had failed to do in four years: take the city, drive out the Mahdi Army and seize the ports from Iranian-backed militias. 2. When Mahdi fighters rose up in support of their Basra brethren, the Iraqi army at Maliki's direction confronted them and prevailed in every town -- Najaf, Karbala, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah -- from Basra to Baghdad. (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: Tackling Five Modern Myths Created by Liberals - In recent years, liberals have mastered the art of lying. A lefty blog writes a story, then two dozen other blogs pick-up. Next thing you know, the libs in the mainstream media are echoing the charges that started in the blogosphere without mentioning that they're false. At that point, we're in a Catch-22 because liberals very seldom challenge lies about Republicans, no matter how obvious they may be, and when conservatives point out inaccuracies, it's treated as immaterial because we "must" be biased. Since the mainstream media works this way and is so heavily slanted to the left, it makes it very difficult for conservatives to get their side of the story out. Then, a few months later, after the lies have been repeated ad nauseum, even conservatives who are uninformed may start to mistake the untrue charges for the truth. That's why these modern liberal myths, like the ones you are about to read, need to be countered with the truth. (READ MORE)
Dick Morris & Eileen McGann: How to Pick a President - Bill Clinton's selection of Al Gore changed forever the calculus presidential candidates need to use in choosing their running mates. Previously, presidential candidates usually used their VP pick to help them to carry a pivotal state or region, as JFK did in choosing Lyndon Johnson in 1960. But the single state theory doesn't work anymore. Voters can tell the difference between the first and second place on the ticket and don't let the tail wag the dog in determining their votes. After all, John Kerry couldn't carry North Carolina even after putting Edwards on his 2004 ticket. Instead, presidential candidates should use their VP choice to make a statement about their own candidacy. The vice president is a candidate's first and most important appointment. Gore served Clinton well because his selection made the generational subtext of the race against Bush Sr. explicit — two babyboomers challenged the last of the G.I. Generation presidents. (READ MORE)
Hugh Hewitt: The United States Supreme Court Versus America: Awarding "The Privilege of Habeas Corpus To Terrorists" - Thursday's 5-4 decision awarding "unlawful combatants" at Gitmo --terrorists-- the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" has left millions of Americans stunned. What in the world is the majority of the Supreme Court thinking? Justice Scalia, writing in dissent, was blunt: America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: 241 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 19 at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, 224 at our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and 17 on the USS Cole in Yemen. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 60–61, 70, 190 (2004). On September 11, 2001, the enemy brought the battle to American soil, killing 2,749 at the Twin Towers in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., and 40 in Pennsylvania. See id., at 552, n. 9. (READ MORE)
Floyd & Mary Beth Brown: Six Ways Obama Wants to Change America - What word does Barack Obama and his supporters keep chanting? "Change!" Like a drumbeat, Obama's chant for change runs nonstop in an endless loop. But how does Obama want to change America if he becomes president? Here are six different areas he would like changed. For starters, Obama received a 100 percent rating from NARAL (a pro-abortion group) in 2005, 2006, and 2007. Why do they hold him in such high esteem? Because he supports every pro-abortion bill that comes along. He wants tax dollars for abortions, he voted against notifying parents of minors about abortions, he supports partial-birth abortion, and he would withhold life-saving measures from babies born after botched abortions. Obama wants no limits on abortion, ever, but he is completely out of step with the majority of Americans. For example, seven out of 10 are against partial-birth abortion... (READ MORE)
Jonah Goldberg: ANWR Not the Frosty Paradise It's Cracked Up To Be - Sen. John McCain said this week he would not drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the same reason he "would not drill in the Grand Canyon ... I believe this area should be kept pristine." Pristine means unspoiled, virginal, in an original state. One wonders how pristine the Grand Canyon can be if it has roughly 5 million visitors every year, rafting, hiking, picnicking and riding mules up one side and down the other. Campfires, RVs and motels that do not conjure the word "virginal" ring around large swaths of it. This isn't to say that the Grand Canyon isn't a beautiful place; it inspires awe among those who visit it. ANWR (pronounced "AN-wahr) inspires awe almost entirely in those who haven't been there. It is an environmental Brigadoon or Shangri-La, a fabled land almost no one will ever see. That is its appeal. People like the idea that there are still Edens "out there" even if they will never, ever see them. (READ MORE)
Richard H. Collins: Carter's Second Coming? - Barack Obama may be the political equivalent of a rock star with his huge crowds and his celebrity endorsements, but his economic policies are simply the warmed over liberalism of the sixties and seventies. Stale liberalism doesn’t have a history of success in America and doesn’t match his image of Hope and Change. This same old big government tax and spend liberalism is a far cry from a “New Politics.” So Obama has been forced into some creative marketing to sell his leftist ideology as post-partisan solutions to the country’s problems. If you can cut through the hype and the rhetoric, his worldview is clear. Look at the way he talks about money. Tax cuts are “giveaways” and “wasteful spending.” Forget for a moment whether specific tax cuts enhance revenue or stimulate the economy. Instead, remember that tax cuts are fundamentally different from government spending because the money isn’t the governments to begin with. (READ MORE)
Oliver North: Of Fathers and Flags - Just about everyone in America knows that Sunday, June 15, is Father's Day. The day for dads has been celebrated on the third Sunday of June since 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson decreed it to be so. Those who make and sell power tools and greeting cards have been grateful ever since. Somehow, it just isn't the same for June 14, which is Flag Day and, by no coincidence, the U.S. Army's anniversary. Father's Day traditionally is memorialized with gifts, cards and calls for dear old dad. Flag Day is all but forgotten. But this year, with the holidays as close as they ever get, there is good reason to celebrate both. As you read this column, tens of thousands of American dads are wearing our country's flag on their shoulders, helmets or flak jackets while serving far from home under some of the most difficult and dangerous conditions imaginable. Scores of books have been written about the diminished respect accorded to American fathers in our culture. (READ MORE)
Patrick J. Buchanan: The 'Good War' and the Terrible Peace - In attacking my book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War': How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World," Victor Davis Hanson, the court historian of the neoconservatives, charges me with "rewriting ... facts" and showing "ingratitude" to American and British soldiers who fought World Wars I and II. Both charges are false, and transparently so. Hanson cites not a single fact I got wrong and ignores the fact that the book is dedicated to my mother's four brothers who fought in World War II. Moreover, the book begins by celebrating the greatness of the British nation and heroism of its soldier-sons. Did Hanson even read it? The focus of "The Unnecessary War" is on the colossal blunders by British statesmen that reduced Britain from the greatest empire since Rome into an island dependency of the United States in three decades. It is a cautionary tale, written for America, which is treading the same path Britain trod in the early 20th century. (READ MORE)
Rich Lowry: John McCain: Let Them Eat Honor - The prce of everything, not just driving, is going up in the era of $130-a-barrel oil, but our presidential candidates have a hopelessly thumbless grasp of pocketbook politics. Their mutual slogan could be "Let them eat abstractions." Barack Obama famously couldn't connect with working-class voters in the primaries, offering them an airy diet of hope and change. John McCain rose on his personal honor, which is why on energy he's fumbling away the GOP's best domestic political opening in years. For a politician whose forte has never been domestic policy, McCain has a peculiar taste for complex, verging on unworkable, regulatory schemes -- from campaign-finance reform, to comprehensive immigration reform, to a cap-and-trade system limiting carbon emissions. The attraction for McCain of these plans isn't their intricacies, but their symbolism. Campaign-finance reform demonstrated his incorruptibility.. (READ MORE)
John McCaslin: Unity, By Golly - If it didn't sink in during Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's endorsement of his candidacy this past weekend, it surely must now that the elected officers of the Democratic National Committee - vice chairs Lottie Shackelford, Linda Chavez Thompson, Rep. Mike Honda, Susan W. Turnbull, secretary Alice Germond, treasurer Andrew Tobias and finance chair Philip Murphy - have together officially endorsed Sen. Barack Obama to be the next commander in chief. "Now that this historic primary season is over," reads a joint statement from the DNC officers, "we proudly offer our enthusiastic endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for president of the United States." As for Mrs. Clinton? "We also congratulate Senator Hillary Clinton on her extraordinary run for the presidency; the incredible amount of work she and her supporters poured into her campaign has left the Democratic Party stronger than ever." (READ MORE)
A Newt One: Defeat Equals Victory In Upside Down Land - For years now the Democrat Party has been heavily vested in defeat of their own country in the Global War On Terror whose components are Islamic Jihadi scum which believe in their heart of hearts that it is quite natural and justified by allah to murder, rape, enslave and lie in order to press forward their deep seated hatred and anger of anyone and anything not subservient to allah. I have often asked the question, "Can anybody tell me the difference between our terrorist enemies and the Democrat Party leadership?" The only answer I received...a viable one at that...is that the single difference is this; the Democrat Party leadership, so far, does not espouse the removal of ones' head - yet - of anyone disagreeing with them in the physical realm. The Democrat Party and quite a few within the Republican Party have in fact enabled and emboldened the enemies of which we face every day since exactly one week after the Day of Infamy on 91101. (READ MORE)
American Ranger: One Day the Iraqis Will Send Us Home - While I was in Baghdad in 2004, I asked an Iraqi civilian if he was glad that Saddam Hussein was gone from the scene and he said, “Oh, yes, thank you..” When I asked him if he was glad the American and Coalition forces were in his country, he said, “Oh, no…” Then he added, “But please don’t leave yet…” One of the biggest screw-ups in the beginning of the Iraq war was the failure of the Bush administration to look deeply into the history of the Arab world, the Shiite-Sunni conflicts and the long-held feelings of the Arab peoples that they didn’t want to be “occupied” by any western military forces. We must remember that the Crusades were not noble endeavors. The Crusaders waged brutal warfare, leaving a trail of blood and Arab bodies – including men, women and children – as they rampaged throughout the Middle East and they were “terrorists” in their own time. Arabs have a long memory and this one remains quite vivid. (READ MORE)
Donald Douglas: Multicultural Racist Ideology - In response to my morning post, "Arguing Freedom of Speech: American Enlightenment in Perspective," my ace commenter Tim took issue with the term "multi-culti" ideology. I suggested in reply that multiculturalism is actually a separatist ideology, used for bludgeoning by the radical left, and I left some resources from the Ayn Rand Institute. Following the links one finds, "Multiculturalism: The New Racism": “By embracing ‘diversity,’ multiculturalism claims to extinguish racism. Far from being a cure for racism, multiculturalism is racism in a new, self-righteous guise.... Multiculturalism holds that an individual’s identity and personal worth are determined by ethnic/racial membership—not by his own choices and actions. One cannot urge people to believe that their identity is determined by skin color and expect them to become colorblind. Observe, for instance, how college students have become racial separatists, choosing their friends based on ethnicity—and banding together to form self-segregated dormitories.” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Supreme Court Gitmo Case: Sen. Joe Biden Is Right! - (We pause a moment while readers locate their jaws, rolling around somewhere on the floor, before continuing...) Yes, I completely agree with Sen. Joe Biden's (D-DE, 75%) commentary on the Boumediene v. Bush Supreme Court decision released today... actually, with part of Biden's commentary. Well, to be perfectly blunt, I agree 100% with the last two sentences of Biden's statement: “As we look forward, we must take stock that this decision was five Justices to four. If one more Justice in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito is appointed to the Court, decisions such as this will likely come out the other way.” Yes sir. One more justice. Contrarywise, if one more justice in the mold of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Stephen Breyer is appointed to the Court, decisions such as this will likely become commonplace. (READ MORE)
Bear Creek Ledger: Power Grab - The SCOTUS decision yesterday was exactly that, a power grab. Ginsburg, Kennedy, Stevens, Souter and Breyer have sided with the enemy but then we all shouldn’t be too surprised by this since they’ve been grabbing power through judicial fiat for many years now. It is quite clear that our troops no longer should take any prisoners. Can you see it now if they did take prisoners? They will need to be Mirandized. First there’s the issue of having an interpreter available and then will our troops be pulled off the battle front to testify in court? How about exposing that troop to the terrorist networks? How safe will their family be? How much classified information will be revealed to our enemies because of this ruling so their shyster lawyers can “defend” their “clients”. Say good by to any intelligence to be gleaned from any high value prisoners. How much longer do you think those 200 or so GTMO prisoners will remain prisoners? (READ MORE)
Baldilocks: Drilling: The Right Thing to Do - Liberals, if your conscience pushes you to help the poor, urge your senators and congress members to allow domestic oil drilling. Otherwise, save the moral grandstanding, because as Victor Davis Hanson notices, most of us poor are spending a very large percentage of our income on gasoline and can't afford a new car just now, much less a hybrid. And then there's this: “Consider also how oil triggers a massive transfer of wealth abroad that's as illiberal as it's dangerous. Energy-strapped Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Chinese and Indians are working day and night to give the world critical material goods, ideas and services. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia and Iran aren't. At best, the transfer of wealth to most oil producers means a Chinese worker working longer for less money while artificial island resorts pop up in the Persian Gulf. At worst, that strapped Chinese is also working harder for another Iranian centrifuge, al Qaeda landmine or Saudi-funded madrassa.” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: The dark frontier - Pakistan claims 11 of its paramilitary forces were killed on its border with Pakistan by US forces. US forces thought they were fighting the Taliban. There is not necessarily a contradiction between the two statements. Bill Roggio writes, "The Pakistani government maintains the US military struck a paramilitary outpost in Mohmand. A Pakistani military spokesman "condemned this completely unprovoked and cowardly act on the post and regretted the loss of precious lives of our soldiers." A video clip describing the Pakistani outrage over the attack on what it considers to be its soldiery is shown below. However, the US military released a video which clearly shows a number of individuals firing upon coalition forces until they were all killed by four precision guided weapons. Any reasonable commander on the ground would assume the forces depicted in the video clip below were hostile. (READ MORE)
Walid Phares: How the Jihadi Propaganda Machine Will Win the Guantanamo Trials - Jihadism in the 21st century has plans for all types of situations, including Mujahada (Jihadi activity) in a courtroom when needed. This is now what the world will witness during the trials of the al Qaeda detainees in Guantanamo, Cuba. Both the inmates on the inside and the Jihadi-mates on the outside were waiting for this moment to strike, politically and psychologically, using the media as their weapon. To the well-trained and -indoctrinated five standing trial, the objective is not to gain as many rights and freedoms as possible under current U.S. and international law; rather it is to resume what they began before 9/11 which they deeply wish to fulfill - as they said in their own words - using the trial as a global media opportunity. (READ MORE)
Crazy Politico: The Court Gets It Wrong - Left leaning tree huggers, ACLU activists and peaceniks in general are all happy today. They've "preserved the rights" of folks trying to kill Americans overseas so they can get their day in US civil courts. Thank GOD these morons weren't around in WWI, WWII, Korea or Viet Nam. We'd have had the country sued out of existence by foreign nationals, trying to kill us on battlefields, then in our courts. As a reminder to Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg, Jones and Breyer, here is the preamble to our Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (READ MORE)
The Discerning Texan: Law Question about Black Thursday: Can individual Justices be found Civilly Negligent for damages resulting from Extra-Constitutional rulings? - For you attorneys out there: Could a personal injury suit or even a class action suit be filed by military families against the five Justices voting to override the Constitution yesterday? Or better put: would the case have standing? Or alternatively, could the defendant be the United States Government, period? Something along the lines of "Wrongful Death" or "Reckless Endangerment" or violation of one or more individuals' "Civil Rights"--let's say say the first time an American dies as a result of new SOP resulting from this decision? For example, if/when a soldier (or American civilian) is killed while "evidence gathering" after a live fire action abroad, which would not have happened had the court not "illegally" ruled Habeas applied to foreign combatants against the US, etc.? (READ MORE)
Democracy project: Victory of Lawfare - I just read the entire Supreme Court 5-4 majority and minority opinions in the Boumediene case, whether detainees in Guatanamo are entitled to, in effect, ordinary civilian habeas corpus rights to challenge the justification for being held in custody or charged. This decision may be studied for a generation for its apparent conterpoise of principle vs. practicality. That’s so, but superficial. Deeper, the majority decision writes a new expansion into the Constitution, both of habeas corpus and of the supremacy of the judicial over the congressional and executive branches. If there’s a principle involved, it is the victory of lawfare as widely believed in the legal community over the traditional and proven rules of warfare and national survival. The decision, all 134 pages, is available here, via the SCOTUS blog which offers a brief recap. The AP and NYTs offer their reports. National Review’s Corner offers its dissent, and raises an important question regarding McCain. (READ MORE)
Don Surber: The Drudge made me do it - Don’t blame the Drudge Report for people chasing after stories. I like the Drudge Report although I learned long ago not to trust he actual reporting. But the links are good and that’s all it really is. Links. It looks easy but his eyes is discerning. That’s his talent. He sets the agenda because, well, no one else does. And the envious are whining about him. Phil Singer, spokesbot for the Clinton campaign, said: “I think the significance of Drudge has less to do with right-wing versus left-wing. The significance of Drudge is that he does like to break news. In so doing, he creates a prisoner’s dilemma of sorts between news organizations. (READ MORE)
Flopping Aces: The Supremes: The road to today’s decision - I’ve been reading the 134 page SCOTUS opinion Boumediene vs Bush, and archiving previous related decisions. So I thought I’d post this to complement Curt’s post, The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done”, Here I’ve filled in some of the blanks that led to today’s close decision, and included some of the arguments from past referenced cases. First… disclaimer. I am not attorney. But I’ve written a few briefs for per se appearances, and read more than a few briefs in my time. I guess you could say I consider it an S&M hobby… But I’ll stay mostly generic, and use excerpts. Law, as we all know, has varying degrees of interpretations of absolutes… as our Supreme Court exhibits flawlessly. Justice may be “blind”, but it’s also in a constant state of conflict. This legal battleground has endured incoming since Coalition of Clergy, et al. v. Bush, et al in February 2002. (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey: The Long Arm of Iran - There has been a lot of discussion in the last few years about the part that Iran plays in instigating and maintaining the deadly conflict in Iraq between the Shia militias (and sometimes even the Sunnis) and the forces of United States military. There’s no real argument about whether Iran is involved; the questions revolve around how involved, and in what ways. The Bush administration seems to play down the Iranian aspect of events in Iraq, because public acknowledgement of Iran’s role would implicitly recognize a casus belli, and the United States does not want to discuss the casus when it is unwilling to contemplate the subsequent bellum. But Iran is definitely sowing trouble in Iraq. Right Side News writes today about Iran’s role in building and exporting Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) for use in Iraq, particularly for the purpose of killing members of the US military. (READ MORE)
GayPatriotWest: On Voting with Your Gut - Back in late January/early February, right after my Rudy exited the race for the Republican nomination, I found myself in the unusual position of being undecided in a political contest. Given my commitment to conservative ideas, it seemed I would end up supporting former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as I was closer to him on the issues than I am to his then-rival from Arizona. Not just that I didn’t think John McCain acquitted himself particularly well in the only debate held after Rudy’s withdrawal and before the California primary. As I put it in one post, his “persistence in claiming Romney favored a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq makes him look like a rank amateur as do his broadsides against Wall Street.“ And yet, when I voted, “my heart was telling me to vote McCain while my head said Romney. I guess our hearts are closer to our guts and I went with my gut.” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Irish dump Lisbon Treaty, EU stunned - Ireland’s referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, its latest attempt to pass a massive constitutional update, has produced a defeat. The rejection stops the EU from implementing its new constitution and forces the union to reconsider whether it can pass any expansion of the multinational government in a way that achieves unanimity: “Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern says substantial referendum returns show that Ireland has rejected the European Union reform treaty. Electoral officials expect to confirm the result later Friday.” France and the Netherlands rejected the previous proposed constitution on various grounds. With Lisbon, the Irish had objected to changes that they believed would affect their sovereignty, especially on social issues such as abortion. The rejection of a larger, more powerful EU appears to be the common thread through all of these popular votes over the last few years. (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: (Video) Megyn Kelly and Geraldo shout at each other over the Gitmo ruling - By popular demand, although I’m not sure why. Both sides are awful. True to form from the immigration debate, Spitty’s on his high horse moralizing for all he’s worth without a care in the world about the practical effect of the new policy. Kelly, meanwhile, is hung up on the jurisdictional argument of the detentions being located in Cuba, even though the jihadis are in U.S. custody on a U.S. base located on land leased in perpetuity (read: owned and occupied) to the U.S. Read Ed’s post and Mark Levin’s take for the substantive objections to the ruling. If unlawful combatants are entitled to this sort of protection, what are lawful combatants, i.e. prisoners of war, entitled to? And if the former, perversely, have more robust rights than the latter, what incentive does that create? (READ MORE)
Martin Kramer: The myth of linkage - Last September, when I arrived in Cambridge for my fall stay at Harvard, I opened the Boston Globe and saw this headline over an editorial: “The Other Middle East Conflict.” I immediately said to myself: well, I know what the Middle East conflict is—that’s the Israelis and the Palestinians. So what is the other Middle East conflict? But as I read through the first sentence, it became clear that I was totally wrong. The editorialist, or the headline writer, assumed that most readers would understand “the Middle East conflict” to be the war in Iraq. By the “other Middle East conflict,” it turned out, they meant the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, which was the subject of the editorial. I began to wonder whether typical students, in a classroom, would know what I was talking about if I started discussing “the Middle East conflict” without defining it. And if I defined it as Israel and the Palestinians, would I be showing my age? (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: Boumediene the day after - In one sense, the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in the Boumediene case granting foreign terrorists detained in Guantanamo access to the federal courts and the right of habeas corpus was predictable. It was predictable in the sense that the majority opinion extrapolates on the Court's war-on-terror jurisprudence. Stepping back a bit, however, the decision appears bizarre. I am not an expert in the applicable law and tentatively offer the following observations, subject to correction, without getting into the fine points of habeas doctrine debated in the Court's opinions in the case. 1. What Warren Court liberals did for the common American criminal, the Court's current liberals are in the process of doing for foreign terrorists captured or held by American forces around the world. 2. The extension of constitutional rights to detainees at Guantanamo is premised on the government's de facto sovereignty over the territory. (READ MORE)
Paul Mirengoff: A fully partisan, less than fully honest report, Part Four - I've written several times about the flawed report by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as to "whether public statements regarding Iraq by U.S. government officials were substantiated by intelligence." Regrettably, the same Committee has also issued a flawed (and bizarre) report on intelligence "relating to Iraq" conducted by a unit "within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy." That Undersecretary of Defense happens to have been Douglas Feith. Readers may recall that the Defense Department's Inspector General (IG) issued a report on the Department of Defense's effort, led by Feith, to provide its own analysis of intelligence reports, an analysis that caused DoD to challenge the CIA's dogmatic conviction that Saddam's "secular" Iraq could never cooperate with Islamic militants. The IG concluded that the DoD's efforts were neither illegal nor unauthorized, but somehow were "improper." (READ MORE)
McQ: The Supreme Court, Detainees, Habeas and Gitmo - I’ve read everything I can read on the 5-4 Supreme Court decision concerning the Gitmo detainees. I could regurgitate it all here but, frankly, that wouldn’t be particularly useful. I’m sure you too have read all you can if you’re interested in the case. Essentially it leaves me undecided and here’s why: I understand the argument that is being cited concerning habeas and when the privilege (and that is how it is defined) can or can’t be suspended. My question has to do with when the protection of the US Constitution was extended to foreign detainees? OTOH, the libertarian in me says "you can’t hold people without charges indefinitely". That’s simply a totalitarian trait I don’t want to see get a foothold in this country. (READ MORE)
The Redhunter: Missed Opportunities - In my last post I promised to review missed opportunities for peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Here it is, as promised. One: The Arabs could have accepted the 1948 UN plan which would have divided the area and created two countries; Palestine and Israel. But instead they invaded with 8 armies. Two: If it was so important for the Palestinians to have a homeland on what is termed the "West Bank", then Jordan could have given them this land at any time between 1948 and 1967, because they controlled it. But they didn't, and King Hussein's bad decisions during the Six Day War cost him this land. Three: After the 1967 Six Day War Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan famously said that he was "expecting a phone call"; from the Arab governments. He expected them to agree to peace treaties in return for getting their land back. He never got any calls. (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: Angry Boomerangs - A young male patient was referred to me because he was failing in college. He was terribly frustrated and angry. In fact, his primary affective state was anger which he tried to deal with by drinking too much and smoking marijuana. When he drank, he became disinhibited, as people tend to do when suffused with ethanol, and his anger would lead him to find provocations and irritations everywhere around him. Typically, the greatest irritation would be found emanating form the largest male at the bar. Often fighting ensued. Unfortunately for this unhappy young man, he was deficient in physical stature and strength and consistently emerged from the bar at a high rate of speed, liberally spouting blood from his many and varied lacerations. More unfortunately, this young man not only did not see his anger as a problem but he also did not connect his drinking and smoking to his travails in school. (READ MORE)
Melanie Phillips Blog: Princess Obama Derangement Syndrome - My oh my, what a firestorm I appear to have started with my remarks two days ago on Obama’s background! It was wholly expected, of course, but nevertheless the posters’ comments are so revealing. They graphically illustrate the way in which Obamania has quite obviously destroyed the capacity for reason. First, it is quite clear that any questioning at all of Obama’s background is entirely off-limits. Next, the posters fail totally to grasp that the real point isn’t what faith he professed or was brought up in as a child – it is the fact that he has not told the truth about his early background. Then, some even compare such questioning with the ‘truthers’ who allege that 9/11 was perpetrated by a conspiracy between America and Israel. They thus demonstrate that they cannot tell the difference between rationality and lunacy, evidence and fantasy, failing to grasp that the sole reason for the questions about Obama is the many discrepancies in the accounts of his early life... (READ MORE)
Warner Todd Huston: Chgo Sun-Times Claims Denial of Rev. Wright’s Honorary Degree an ‘Injustice’ - Leave it to Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun-Times to get her kufi in a twist over the decision by Northwestern University to withdraw the honorary degree they had intended to bestow upon Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s racist “spiritual mentor.” In the sort of backwards logic of a woeful Black victim mentality — Mitchell’s specialty — Mitchell is claiming that the decision to rescind the racist Rev’s honorary degree is an illegitimate one because the decision was made in March “before his image and words exploded on YouTube and became a headache for Barack Obama.” Mitchell acts as if Wright’s outrageous hate-speak was born fully-grown out of nowhere when he burst onto the national scene in March. But it was all rather well known in Illinois long before that. (READ MORE)
Steve Schippert: Anbar Iraqis Share Al-Qaeda Intelligence - CNN reporter Michael Ware stumbled onto a treasure trove of al-Qaeda in Iraq document and multimedia archives recently, supplied to him by the leaders of Sahwa al-Iraq (Iraq Awakening) who seized them from captured al-Qaeda terrorists in Anbar province. His full report is scheduled to air during the 10PM (EDT) hour on CNN, and this morning his report was teased by the cable network during its morning show. The relevant preview clip is provided below. The documents and digital footage reveal the true nature of al-Qaeda in Iraq, specifically its Anbar province manifestation, and Ware and CNN share the tip of the iceberg of what they were provided by our Iraqi anti-al-Qaeda allies. It is proof of what can be learned when journalists actually venture beyond the wire and leave the Green Zone and their hotels behind. Ware should be commended for that. (READ MORE)
Ilya Somin: Could Congress Suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the War on Terror? - In my last post on the Court's decision in Boumedienne, I suggested that Congress could, if it wanted to, revoke War on Terror detainees' rights to a hearing in federal court by suspending the writ of habeas corpus. In his own more recent post, Jonathan Adler raises some interesting questions about whether Congress really could suspend the writ. As Jonathan puts it: “The Suspension Clause provides that ‘[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.’ This language seems to impose two separate conditions on the use of the clause: 1) ‘Rebellion or Invasion’ and 2) ‘public Safety.’ Assuming, for the sake of argument, that these requirements are justiciable (an assumption I don't necessarily accept) what showing would the government have to make?” Before trying to address this issue, I should note that the meaning of these two requirements of the Suspension Clause have never been litigated in the Supreme Supreme Court, and that I am not a habeas expert. Therefore, I'm far from certain that I'm right about what I say below, and would welcome correction from specialists in the field. (READ MORE)
Information Dissemination: New Process For Detainees Begins Journey Towards Unknown Destination - I am not an attorney, and will never pretend to be. I did go to Law School though, because my wife did while we were married. If you were married when you or your spouse attended law school, you understand what that means. I spent this evening at a party with a crowd of attorneys, I was one of 4 people I met among a sea of suits who was not an attorney, and as you can imagine today's Supreme Court ruling was the topic at the bar... which is where you are guaranteed to find me at these events. Unless you avoid news, which I imagine most people who read this blog do not, you have probably heard about the Supreme Court decision today regarding the right to Habeas Corpus for individuals detained at Guantánamo Bay. This is the key point on the ruling. “The court declared unconstitutional a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that, at the administration’s behest, stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions from the detainees seeking to challenge their designation as enemy combatants.” (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity: The Supremes - ...decided to give our Guantanamo guests the right to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. Good guys: Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, bad guys: Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (source) Since the vote was split 5:4 there must be some controversy over hugely ambiguous language in the constitution or else some one never bothered to read it. How could 9 intelligent grown ups not agree on what was written long ago in Philadelphia? It seems to me that someone is making things up. It is true that the Supreme Court judicial power shall extend to all cases between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects. That phrase mentions foreign citizens, but not explicitly people waging war on the US with out the sponsorship of a foreign government. (READ MORE)
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