Fables of the reconstruction

John Yoo: A One-Man Crime Wave

Publius:

As I noted earlier, John Yoo played a starring role in the new IG report (pdf) on the Bush administration’s surveillance program (PSP).  And it wasn’t a flattering one.

Yoo’s actions were dishonest and inappropriate on so many different levels that I’m going to try to break them up into three categories:  (1) procedural abuses; (2) legal inaccuracies; and (3) factual inaccuracies.

The details are summarized pretty quickly and convincingly. John Yoo conspired with other top malefactors in the Bush Administration to violate all Americans' civil liberties and then lied to cover it up. He should be standing trial.

Yet that same John Yoo is a professor at a respected law school and is paid to write occasional columns for my once-great local newspaper.

Sexual Orientation Discrimination Outlawed in Delaware

The first state, coming in near the back of the pack:

Anyone who loses a job, a housing opportunity, an insurance policy, a public contract or a spot in a public facility because of sexual orientation now has legal remedy. For the first time, that kind of discrimination is no longer legal in Delaware.

Finally. What took you so long? Next: marriage and other privileges granted other people.

Via Fred Clark.

Saddam Said He Bluffed on WMD to Deter Iran

Given that he must have known he was going to be executed, I think he had no reason to lie about this:

Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as "a zealot" and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.

Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from "fanatic" leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a "security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region."

Bush, knowing all this or at least having good reason to believe it, boxed Hussein into a corner by demanding Iraq prove it had no WMD, which would have weakened Hussein against the Iranians. Instead, by deposing him, all we've done is strengthened Iran's influence in the region immeasurably, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of American dollars.

QOTD: Block That Image!

Alex Pareene at Gawker:

If K-Lo's boyfriend Mitt Romney was caught on video nailing an underaged Thai sex slave she'd probably find a way to make it Keith Olbermann's fault.

(Via Silver.)

QOTD: No True Scotsman

Without comment:

"The responsible white separatist community condemns this," he said. "It makes us look bad."

The First Black President Nominates the First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice

And the first black President hands the Republican Party a dilemma: Further alienate the country's fastest-growing minority group or abandon their "Party of No" resistance strategy at the first test?

It's like the Civil War wreath-laying thing for Memorial Day. Yes, Obama continued the practice of honoring the dead traitors. It's an expression of his avowed Lincolnism - malice for none, charity toward all.  But he also began the practice of sending a wreath to the memorial to African-American Union soliders - the ones that the Confederates would routinely murder or enslave if they managed to capture them. The contrast is nice and instructive.

It's so nice we elected not just the smart one, but the shrewd one.

Poor, Oppressed White Men

Mark Halperin reveals the big problem with Obama replacing Souter with a woman:
I love that the "white man" depicted is from a stock photo site. It doesn't matter to Halperin which white man gets the job, so long as one gets the job.

Treason!

Shorter Porter Goss:

Liberals stabbed America in the back! The CIA needs to be able to torture in secret for freedom to survive.

I'm Torn: Jindal or Palin in '12?

I have been saying that if the economy starts to improve sufficiently that we do okay in the '10 midterms and Obama's popularity stays relatively high, that I would contribute to Sarah Palin's 2012 election effort. I would love to see her run for the GOP presidential nomination with her wingnutty message, which I don't think is going to improve with a few more years in Alaska. But if oil prices continue to tank, she might not even get re-elected next year, so I guess I need a backup. And that backup, based on his morose performance last night, is Gov. Bobby Jindal.

An extreme right-wing Catholic and a man with negative charisma, Jindal once claimed to have participated in an exorcism that not only "cast out the supernatural spirit that had possessed his friend, [but] Jindal wrote that he believes that their ritual may well have cured her cancer."

But don't take my word for it, listen to right-wing genius David Brooks on Jindal's response to Obama's speech last night:

It's also remarkable that Jindal, like Bush, looks like Alfred P. Newman:

The Thing Is, It Makes Us Less Secure

David Axe at War is Boring:

I had just returned from Chad. I had drinks with Jimbo and Blackfive boss Matt Burden. While Matt sat quietly, Jimbo told me how he was frustrated with professional reporters who only report facts, and don’t help use those facts to promote U.S. national security. He said he envisioned building a privately run intelligence network that would use freelance reporters, operating under Blackfive’s auspices and sponsored by corporations, to gather information for transmission to intel analysts in the U.S. He asked if I would be interested in joining up.

I said no, in no uncertain terms. In fact, I recall cursing and yelling.

Jimbo - Jim Hanson - is dumb as a box of rocks, but this takes things to a new level. Axe is pissed off because such a plan would get journalists killed. Personally, I'm pissed off not because Hanson wants journalists to feed information to the intelligence types, but because Hanson is talking about propaganda, not just spying. If you wanted to set up a spy network using journalists, you only need one thing: Cash. But passing along gossip is one thing, shaping stories to fit a certain ideological end is another. If people did sign up for that, they've actually harmed the national security of the United States of America, because they're depriving people of the truth as best as they can discover it.

(Via Robert Farley.)

Mold Spores, Commies and Crazy Libs

A reminder of what the mainstream of the Republican party is like:

"My tentative plans are to gerrymander all of those crazy libs right out of the section," [Bradley Schlozman] said in an e-mail in 2003. "I too get to work with mold spores, but here in Civil Rights, we call them Voting Section attorneys," he confided to another friend.

He hoped to get rid of the "Democrats" and "liberals" because they were "disloyal" and replace them with "real Americans" and "right-thinking Americans."

He appears to have succeeded by his standards, according to an inspector general's report released Tuesday. Among the newly hired lawyers whose political or ideological views could be discerned, 63 of 65 lawyers hired under Schlozman had Republican or conservative credentials, the report said.

Conservatives like to hype the threat of the ideological bent of liberals, but the fact is, it's projection. Mold spores? You know what? I look forward to running over your fucking asses with a bulldozer for at least 2, maybe 4 years. Fuck you.

Quote of the Day: Rx for Rs

John Cole:

The key to electoral success for the GOP is not an elite strike force of blithering idiots spamming everyone’s email with bullshit about Obama’s birth certificate. The nation doesn’t need a trillion twitters about William Ayers, they need a Republican party that isn’t batshit insane. Spending all this time pretending the only problem is insufficient text message spam is going to get you nowhere, because the reason we elected a bunch of Democrats the last couple of years is because the Republicans and their ideas suck.

Before I read this last night, I was wondering about the etymology of the term "batshit insane". Does it derive from "going batty"?

Wingnut Welfare

Wow, the Heritage Foundation's blog, The Foundry, is a parade of far-right wild-eyed fears and hates. One of the recent posts is "The Real Danger of World Government":

[T]he greatest danger of a left-leaning Obama administration may be the danger of capitulation to a new world government.

Damn, it seems like the danger has been the same ever since the movie Red Dawn came out. Before.

In the past, “One World Government” has been seen as a rallying cry of a fringe group, not something that many in the mainstream would either fear or desire. But, suddenly today it is on the lips of world leaders.

The proof? A single quote from an advisor to the President of France. Q.E. fucking D, as they say.

[T]he financial crisis was not caused by a lack of international regulation. Financial crises in the past have tended to occur more due to intervention than due to lack of regulation, and each of the banks that failed in this crisis was regulated by at least one country. ...

Yes, this proves regulation is bad, not that the regulation was badly done. Of course.

These leaders want not only to abandon capitalism as we know it, but they want to force these ideas upon all countries by regulating companies at the international level. This kind of anti-market world governance would not make peace more likely, nor would it make free trade more possible or financial crises less frequent.

It's the end of capitalism as we know it! And I feel fine.

Man, it must be nice to a right-wing nutcase and know if you play your cards right someone, somewhere will give you a job spewing your insane theories.

Republican Economic Arguments

My long-time low-IQ buddy Pejman Yousefzadeh, in a post titled "Poseurs", thinks he's found a nut:

[A] number of left-of-center pundits are now arguing that to oppose Keynesian policies is to be (a) stupid, (b) malevolent or (c) all of the above.

Jon Henke rips these pundits apart in his inimitable manner. In doing so, he points out that even Paul Krugman–no right-winger, he!–has stated that monetary policy, not Keynesian spending sprees, will be the tool with which the economy can best get out of its slump.

Oooh, burn! As Thers implies, rightwingers have to be desperate to make an argument from authority based on Krugman. Not only are they implicitly buying into whatever other positions on economics Krugman takes, but you just know they had to quote-mine dishonestly to make it appear Krugman is against using fiscal policy right now.

At the Henke link, the leadoff quote from Krugman is:

Decades of experience shows that this is a bad idea, that when governments try to fight garden-variety recessions by cutting taxes or increasing spending they almost always get it wrong.

We're not in a "garden-variety recession", are we? And the quote is from 2000.

How about this one from 2001:

The conventional wisdom among economic analysts is that fiscal policy is not necessary to deal with most recessions, that interest-rate policy is enough.

Is this recession like "most recessions"? The capper is a 2003 quote that says, essentially, fiscal stimulus is what you turn to when monetary policy isn't working to stimulate growth. Which is a great point, since monetary policy isn't working to stimulate growth right now.

Can we find a more recent quote from Nobel Prize laureate and all-seeing oracle Paul Krugman on Keynesian stimulus? Yes we can! From November 14th of this very year:

We are already, however, well into the realm of what I call depression economics. By that I mean a state of affairs like that of the 1930s in which the usual tools of economic policy — above all, the Federal Reserve’s ability to pump up the economy by cutting interest rates — have lost all traction. When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly. ...

[T]he effective federal funds rate (as opposed to the official target, which for technical reasons has become meaningless) has averaged less than 0.3 percent in recent days. Basically, there’s nothing left to cut.

And with no possibility of further interest rate cuts, there’s nothing to stop the economy’s downward momentum. Rising unemployment will lead to further cuts in consumer spending, which Best Buy warned this week has already suffered a “seismic” decline. Weak consumer spending will lead to cutbacks in business investment plans. And the weakening economy will lead to more job cuts, provoking a further cycle of contraction.

To pull us out of this downward spiral, the federal government will have to provide economic stimulus in the form of higher spending and greater aid to those in distress — and the stimulus plan won’t come soon enough or be strong enough unless politicians and economic officials are able to transcend several conventional prejudices.

Prejudices which Henke and Pejman ably demonstrate.

Hey Pej, the answer is (c). But you are right that someone is a poseur.

My Advice to the "Next Right": Ideology -> Strategy -> Message

[A front pager at The Next Right asked a leading question, "What comes first - the ideas or the message?", and I left the following as a comment.]

I'm a liberal, so take my input for what you think it's worth:

You all are focusing on the wrong dichotomy of ideas v. message. The progression has to be ideas (or more accurately, ideology, which is not a dirty word), followed by designing a strategy to vindicate that ideology, which then leads you to craft a message to execute that strategy.

Movement conservatism did this very well until recently. Here's my rundown of that history with my "harsh lefty tilt": You had disparate groups of people who regarded themselves as conservatives milling about with no direction in the 60s. These included racists who were appalled at the federal government protecting the civil rights of African-Americans, cold warriors with Maoist-like beliefs that constant conflict and perhaps even nuclear war with Communist Russia was inevitable and even desirable, religious fundamentalists enraged and baffled at the sexual revolution and the liberation of gays and women from traditional norms, and the wealthy who were convinced that the New Deal and the Great Society would bankrupt the country (and them).

The ideology of conservatism is based on the idea that people are basically evil, and that a successful society creates traditional norms and institutions in spite of and in order to control that evil. In this view, good people were obligated to use power in order to keep everyone else in line and prevent social changes that almost certainly would lead to bad results. The strategy that developed was to sell this idea to the various conservative factions on the theme of virtuous strength v. degenerate weakness.

To the racists, conservatism could say, "You're right. You are the noble white people who built Western Civilization and the United States, the greatest country on Earth. Now these darkies want to take it all away." To the fanatical anti-communists, conservatism could say, "You're right. Capitalism is the highest form of human virtue because it requires people to compete for resources and demonstrate their skill and intelligence in a true meritocracy. Anything that hinders that competition is evil, and Communism is the quintessence of evil - it is an international conspiracy solely meant to destroy capitalism." To the religious wackos, conservatism could say, "You're right. God the Father preordained the natural state of things that should be reflected in human society, but Satan is leading these sluts and sodomites astray. You are the good people who are doing God's work in fighting their evil ways." To the rich, conservatism could say, "You're right. The mob of poor have discovered that they can vote themselves funds from the public treasury, from your pocket, and if they succeed they'll never work again and society will collapse. We have to stop them."

From there, you could cross-market. The obvious thing would be to unite the messages aimed at the anti-communists and the rich, inspiring the anti-communists to venerate wealth (even if they weren't wealthy themselves) and the rich to provide funding for the cold war infrastructure (even if they thought the Pentagon and CIA examples of bloated, big-spending government). It was also easy to get the religious and the anti-communists together over the subject of atheism both at home and abroad. For another example, you could sell the idea to both the racists and the religious that the worst sexual degenerates were blacks.

But the real genius was discovering a focal point for all these positions. Uniting all of these ideas was that the evil people used government to effect the changes that each conservative group was trying to oppose. Thus, the party of small government was born. Even an anti-communism in the form of a large military was a doctrine of small government - if you think of International Communism as the ultimate form of big government.

Armed with an ideological strategy that could appeal to various groups, movement conservatism then turned to crafting an electoral strategy. The key, of course, was the South. That had the largest concentration of votes in each of the racist, religious and anti-communist blocs. (The rich are there for their money, not their votes, since there aren't enough of them.) The putrid heart of this regional strategy was racism and the regional paranoia that remained from the Civil War. Southern conservatives viewed themselves as a separate, more noble society under constant attack from the outside. This feeling of being under siege solidified the South for the GOP for decades. From this base of North-South conflict, conservatism then aimed at pitting the suburbs (the rich and the anticommunists) and the rural areas (racists and the religious) against the cities (blacks, the poor, homosexuals, and feminists).

The rest is uncontroversial. The right used the money of the rich and the troops provided by the churches to create what liberals called "the Mighty Wurlitzer", which is:

a propaganda machine that can hone a fact or a lie, broadcast it, and have it echoed and recycled in Fox News commentary, in Washington Times news stories, in Wall Street Journal editorials, by myriad right-wing pundits, by Heritage seminars and briefing papers, and in congressional hearings and speeches. Privatization of Social Security, vouchers for school, Vince Foster's supposed murder, Hillary's secret sex life, you name it -- the right's mighty Wurlitzer can ensure that a message is broadcast across the county, echoed in national and local news, and reverberated in the speeches of respectable academics as well as rabid politicians.

This propelled Reagan to power, but the plan began to fall apart in the 90s when Gingrich and the Congressional Republicans overreached and shut down the government. Like the Beer Hall Putsch, like the Tet Offensive, the revolutionaries thought their bold act would result in a glorious uprising of the people! And it turned out, the people hated it. Oops. Anti-government conservatives running government is like the dog who chases cars but when he finally catches one, he doesn't know what to do with it.

People, it turned out, wanted efficient but effective government, and while they bought into the strength v. weakness rhetoric, weakness was to them always exemplified by the government program someone else liked, not the one they liked. The capstone was Bush's hands-off approach, which resulted in nightmares like Katrina and now the financial crisis.

It gets worse: The demographics are against you. The hardcore racists, religious bigots and anti-communists are all old now. (See the exit polls for any of the successful anti-gay marriage referenda - the young people hated them.)  Old people like big government programs like Medicare and Social Security, so what's left to cut? The former communists are our buddies now, and the Muslims aren't scary enough to take their place, it turns out. Finally, the South is no longer Solid. Yankees are moving in. Blacks got their act together and are in political control across large swaths of the region.

The linkage between conservative thought, an ideological strategy aimed at various unaffiliated and disaffected groups, and an electoral strategy aimed at a winning number of states and Congressional districts, is broken. You need to forge a new one. The important step is to identify the current or emerging unaffiliated and disaffected groups, and determine if by uniting them you could seize power again. If so, then craft the message that will unite them. Who those groups are, I really don't know. I think you're just going to have to effectively hang out for a decade or two and see what develops that you can run on.

If I could help you, I wouldn't, of course. You're all pretty evil in both your purpose and in effect. Movement conservatism is a theology of hate that has perpetuated some of the worst aspects of the American character. I've been as honest in this post as I can be, but maybe the fact that I think you're bad people colored my analysis and made it seem more hopeless for you in the short run than it really is. Perhaps you can get the old gang back together by, say, convincing religious blacks and Hispanics that gays and sluts are the real menace. I don't think it will work, but please - go ahead and try.

Second Verse, Same as the First: Another Judge Orders Gitmo Prisoners Released

At least it's the semblance of legal process:

In the first hearing on the government’s evidence for holding detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp for nearly seven years, a federal judge ruled on Thursday that five prisoners were being held an unlawfully [sic] and ordered their release. ...

Ruling from the bench, Judge Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court in Washington said that the information gathered on the men had been sufficient to hold them for intelligence purposes, but was not strong enough in court.

I think the decision will be stayed pending appeal, just as the order to release the Uighurs was. While the odds are a little better than before the election, on balance I find it unlikely that anyone will be released until Obama takes office, no matter what the evidence is.

Please note that these prisoners were not detained in a war zone, much less captured on a battlefield. They were detained - note the passive voice - in Bosnia in 2001 and never got a hearing until now. Seven years.

"I’d Consider Myself Extremely Well-Informed."

Any interview that ends this way is just fine by me:

NS: Thank you, have a good day.
JZ: Go fuck yourself.

The rest of it is pretty good, too.

Possible Dirty Tricks Operation in Pennsylvania

DocJess at DemConWatch:

The big problem we had yesterday was the number of callers who reported that this was the second or third call that they'd gotten TODAY. The standard, correct, and TRUE answer is that we were calling from the National Campaign, but there were other groups with access to the same lists who could have called. Namely, Women for Obama, Jews for Obama, Hispanics for Obama, Catholics for Obama, etc., etc., PLUS Move-On, SEIU, the state Democratic Party....but there was something to the information we were getting from respondents that was a little off.

It took a few hours to figure out, but it turns out that SOMEONE - and I do not know who (although I certainly have my suspicions) is calling our people and saying the following: Hi, I'm so-and-so for the Obama campaign, reminding you that Election Day is Tuesday, and your polling place is (this location).Problem is, that "polling place" is incorrect. The ramifications of which are obvious.

So we're all over this, but for all of you that think PA is won - how do the opinion and tracking polls pick up that people may be sent to the wrong location, stand in line for an hour, and then get told that no, this is not your polling place? Will the voters be willing to go to another place? Wait in line again?

The "wrong calls" are targetted to younger and lapsed voters, also to new-to-the-area voters, and they very well might not know where their polling place is.

The other obnoxious thing we found out is that some older voters are receiving calls which offer to send cars for them. And when we ask WHO is coming for them, they realize that there was no name left, no contact phone number. Another set of problems.

I will alert my phonebankers today to this problem. I will also ask permission from the campaign to have our people affirmatively warning voters of this tactic.

Three Deuces

What the hell's wrong with Tennessee?

Stevens Jury Circus Continues

Cue the calliope:

A federal judge on Sunday dismissed one of the jurors in the trial of Senator Ted Stevens after losing contact with her after her father’s death.

Wow. She just took off. I understand, her dad died, but someone from the family could make a phone call. No? Okay.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Federal District Court plans to seat an alternate juror on Monday morning and to order the jury to start their deliberations from the beginning.

Apparently, the prior problems with Juror No. 9 have calmed down, after Judge Sullivan gave the whole panel a sermonette on "civility and mutual respect".

I would have imagined this is good news for Stevens, but apparently not:

The move was a setback to Mr. Stevens, Republican of Alaska, who is trying to hold onto his seat and wanted a verdict before Election Day.

I wouldn't mind a conviction on Friday. Otherwise, take your time, guys.

Republicans Are So Weird

 

Hiding Behind Subordinates

Start with this:

John McCain's Pennsylvania communications director [Peter Feldman] told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established -- and even told reporters outright that the "B" carved into the victim's cheek stood for "Barack," according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

People are strangely eager to exonerate McCain's national campaign:

TPM's Greg Sargent wrote this afternoon that McCain Pennsylvania spokesperson Peter Feldman pushed local television outlets to cover Todd. So far there's been nothing to link McCain headquarters to the debunked attack.

But Peter Feldman is also the person who uttered these words:

“The fact is that once Governor Palin was elected and had an opportunity to look closely at the [Bridge to Nowhere] project, she killed it. She fought for Congress to kill the provision, but they sent the funds anyway. Palin fired the kill shot by not using a dime of that money on the bridge. ”

(Palin campaigned as a champion of the bridge when she was running for governor. The project was killed a year before she took office. )

And this:

Peter Feldman, a spokesman for Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, called [New York governor David] Paterson’s remarks “disappointing.” He said that Mr. Paterson was “playing the race card” by suggesting that Ms. Palin’s comments about Mr. Obama’s career as a community organizer were a kind of coded racial appeal.

Feldman has also commented on the two campaigns' joint 9/11 statement, McCain's New Jersey Latino outreach, and on the first debate to New York media. He's elsewhere described as "regional communications director" or "McCain campaign spokesman in New York and New Jersey."

The point: He's not some single-state flack, he's a high-level campaign official who is authorized to speak on behalf of McCain on a variety of issues. He simply served as cut-out for this particular op.

Then consider this:

A new e-mail making the rounds among Jewish voters in Pennsylvania this week falsely alleged that Mr. Obama “taught members of Acorn to commit voter registration fraud,’’ and equated a vote for Senator Barack Obama with the “tragic mistake” of their Jewish ancestors, who “ignored the warning signs in the 1930’s and 1940’s.”

The email was sent by the Pennsylvania Republican Party and was signed by top Pennsylvania Republican fundraisers, including a former state supreme court judge.

[A] statement in the letter [made the claim] that Mr. Obama was “associated with a known terrorist, William Ayers, who thought the terrorists didn’t do enough on 9/11.”

Mr. Ayers was quoted in the Sept. 11, 2001 edition of The New York Times, printed before the attacks, saying he believed that his group, The Weather Underground, “didn’t do enough.” The Weather Underground had bombed several government buildings in the 1970’s that resulted in several deaths — including those of three police officers. He was not referring to Al Qaeda or the Sept. 11 attacks.

And, working off of a common refrain of Mr. McCain that Mr. Obama had once described Mr. Ayers as “just a guy in the neighborhood,’’ the letter goes on to ask, “If a known terrorist lived in your neighborhood, would he just be a guy in your neighborhood, or would you be calling the FBI to have him removed?”

While that would seem to imply to uninformed voters that Mr. Ayers was on the lam, Mr. Ayers is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois, and worked with Mr. Obama on two charitable boards with mainstream, civic support in Chicago. Charges against him were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance.

The campaign says the email "had been released without their authorization and that they had fired the strategist who helped draft it, Bryan Rudnick." Mr. Rudnick claims it was authorized. I believe him.

To sum up, the McCain campaign and the Republican party in Pennsylvania have implied that a vote for Obama is a vote for Hitler, and that black Obama supporters will beat, sexually assault, and mutilate McCain supporters. They have done it in a way that leaves all the heat on local operatives, and insulates the national campaign.

The best part: I predict McCain will drop 5 points in the polls here over the weekend.

"A Big Scary Black Man Carved a 'B' in my Face Because I Like McCain"

So, as you undoubtedly will not be surprised to learn, that story cratered:

Police say a campaign volunteer confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker; now she's facing charges. ...

"She indicated that she has prior mental problems and that she does not remember how the backward letter B got on her face," Pittsburgh Police Spokeswoman Diane Richard told reporters today.

Referring to my volunteering experience this year is already old, but I am going to do it again: Of all the social subgroups I encountered while doing voter registration, thugs were perhaps the least interested in politics. Street criminals don't give a rat's ass about the presidential election, not least because they're stone-stupid. You want me to believe that a mugger is so inspired by Sen. Obama's message of hope and change that he's willing to carve someone up for supporting McCain? You might as well tell me three little old ladies left the house on a cold morning in order to stand in line to vote and didn't wear coats.

Oh, I know: It's not really a story about a criminal who is so attracted to a politician's message of social unity that he's ready to cut anyone who gets in the way. It's really a race-war story. You can expect to hear the same thing before and after the election, in slightly more sophisticated form, from the slightly-less-crazy members of the Republican party. For example, the voter registration fraud thing? Black people breaking the law. Obama raising crazy campaign money? Foreign and fraudulent donations, probably from swarthy types. Tax cuts for the working class? Welfare for lazy minorities. 

As for Ashley Todd specifically, I don't blame McCain or the Republicans for her particular mental problems. Every campaign attracts the loons, and the Obama campaign is no exception, believe me.

Credo

I read in today's paper what a woman wrote explaining why she's a Democrat. Let me tell you why I'm not. I'm a Republican because:

I believe in a sovereign God who sometimes gives us what we deserve.

I believe Muslims are our enemies.

I believe in life. A baby is not just a fetus, but a living being no matter where it resides.

I believe there is a good reason for the death penalty.

I believe in fiscal responsibility, for the government and for us.

I believe the government is way too big and rife with greed and corruption.

I believe in the truth. People believe lies because it's much easier than finding the truth.

I believe in personal responsibility. That includes spanking your children.

I believe American women should raise their own children and American men should be men enough to pay for children they've produced.

I believe a man and woman make marriage. Period.

I believe in America first and foremost and we ought to take care of our own people, our own land, and illegal aliens should go home.

I believe in guns and knowing how to use them properly.

I believe war is a fact of life and we should always win.

I believe in lower taxes. I know how to spend money better than Congress any day of the week.

I believe in voter ID.

I believe there is a moderate and a socialist in this election. I agree with a two-party system, but Obama isn't a messiah or a democrat.

He's a Muslim socialist.

Marcia Stirman, Alamogordo

What a good Christian she is. More on the party of Lincoln:

The head of a New Mexico Republican women's group is being pressured to resign after calling Barack Obama a "Muslim socialist" and claiming that "Muslims are our enemies."

Marcia Stirman is the head of the Republican Women of Otero County. 

She included her criticism of Obama in a letter published Tuesday in the Alamogordo Daily News. In a separate interview with The Associated Press, Stirman said she didn't trust Muslims because "they are our enemies." She added, "Why we're trying to elect one is beyond me." 

Obama, who is Christian, has been forced to deny rumors that he is a Muslim throughout his campaign.

The head of New Mexico's Republican Party said that Stirman's comments do not reflect the party's values and beliefs.

Of course her comments represent the party's values and beliefs. The Republican base are ignorant bigots.

New RNC Mailer Associates Obama and 9/11 Hijackers

The outside of the mailer depicts the view from inside a building, with people looking out at the view, and what do they see? The front of an airliner. My first reaction when seeing the image was that it depicted tourists on a skyscraper observation level seeing a plane about to crash into the  building. Upon closer examination, it appears to be a scene from an airport, with a plane parked at a gate and the people inside with luggage.

That's the plausible deniability part: It's just an airport. But the emotional reaction they were going for is the one I had. It reminds you of the horrifying scene that many people must have imagined happened on 9/11, with people inside the World Trade Center helplessly looking out as the hijacked jet hurtled toward them.

The caption - in ransom-note letters - to the image on the outside says "Terrorists Don't Care Who They Hurt."

And when you open the mailer, the page facing you says, "Barack Obama. Not Who You Think He Is."

This mailer has gone out to voters in Virginia. It is a clear attempt to associate Obama with the hijackers of 9/11. He's "not who you think he is" - he's a secret Muslim terrorist in league with al Qaeda. If politics is TV with the sound off, then it's also the imagery and large print portions of mail pieces like this, where people don't bother reading the small type, just as they don't follow what people on TV are saying.

If you want to fight this stuff, donate your money or donate your time. Do something.

Twelve days left.

Missourians: Who Is This Man?

Because he needs to get locked up:

A Missouri Democratic Party employee who videotapes Republican gubernatorial candidate Kenny Hulshof on the campaign trail was assaulted by an unknown man at an event Tuesday in West Plains.

Vinay Vaz, known on the campaign trail as Hulshof’s “tracker,” was pushed and accosted by a man in a suit at a public park.

Vaz videotaped the incident and it was posted on YouTube this morning.

YouTube? Whoops!

Update: West Plains, Missouri, is also the place where someone put up this billboard:

 

Real America.

Best Keep an Eye on Those Dangerous Obamaniacs

Lovely:

A dead bear was found dumped this morning on the Western Carolina University campus, draped with a pair of Obama campaign signs, university police said.

A black bear, that is.

Maintenance workers reported about 7:45 a.m. finding a 75-pound bear cub dumped at the roundabout near the Catamount statute at the entrance to campus, said Tom Johnson, chief of university police.

“It looked like it had been shot in the head as best we can tell. A couple of Obama campaign signs had been stapled together and stuck over its head,” Johnson said.

There sure are some strange people out there in the "pro-America" parts of the country.

(Via Ray.)

Car Tires Slashed Outside Obama Rally

Fayetteville, North Carolina:

Someone slashed the tires of at least 30 vehicles parked outside the Crown Coliseum on Sunday during a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, authorities said.

Sheriff’s deputies are investigating. The tires were cut while people were inside the Crown Coliseum listening to speeches, said Maj. E. Wright of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Many of the damaged vehicles were parked on Wilkes Road. Representatives from Obama and Sen. John McCain’s campaigns said they were unaware of the acts.

Susan Lagana, the North Carolina communications director for Obama, said it was extremely disappointing and unfortunate that “people would have to experience something like that.”

Mario Diaz, communications director for McCain, did not respond to a call late Sunday. ...

Of course.

Lynne Steenstra said she thought that the slashings were scare tactics designed to keep her and others from supporting Obama.

Even though it cost her roughly $120 to get her Dodge Caravan towed and fixed, Steenstra said the act would not intimidate her from voting.

“It hasn’t deterred us one bit,” Steenstra said. “It has only encouraged us more.”

Feb 12 1987 - Aug 12 2007

Rich Nigger v. Poor White - Whose Side Are You On?

As a counterpoint to my post below, the crude reason McCain picked "Joe the Plumber" to talk about and campaign with is that McCain wasn't connecting with white, working class voters, so he picked a white, working-class, wingnut champion to go do battle with Obama. At best, people would like what Joe had to say. And if they didn't, McCain could pull this one out:

But under the glare of the ensuing media spotlight, reporters found that Mr. Wurzelbacher did not actually have a plumbing license, and that he actually owed some back taxes. Mr. McCain leapt to his defense here Friday in a rally at Florida International University — and made another leap by suggesting that the Obama campaign was somehow maligning the plumber whose vote Mr. Obama has sought at a campaign stop in Ohio.

This is race-baiting politics, it's fucking despicable, and it should be condemned by all decent people.

The Chain-Email Party

Obama as Welfare King:

The October newsletter by the [San Bernadino County, California-based] Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."

The group's president, Diane Fedele, says she had absolutely no idea that fried chicken and watermelon had some kind of racist overtone.

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

I see. If Obama hadn't brought it up, no one would have noticed he was black. But since he did, clearly his face belongs on food stamps. But Ms. Fedele had no idea of the racist belief that black people are all on government assistance.

That's a logical explanation.

She said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

That proves it, then. She's not racist, she's just insane.

Nineteen days left.

Compare, Contrast, Reflect

Zenpundit, a conservative blogger who I read regularly on all things small-war:

I’m getting the vibe that the Obamaniacs, who already see “political opposition= racism”, will, if victorious, be all too willing to use the hand of government to pressure critics into silence.

The charge that political opposition is being equated to racism is patently ridiculous, but it's the rest of the sentence that I want to focus on. Consider my friend Ray, not an Obamaniac but certainly an Obama supporter:

[After] this recent outrage-du-jour - John McCain telling campaign advisors that he's going to "whip his you-know-what" (Obama) in the next debate, the cries of racist, racist comment, racist subtext, etc went to red in some areas of the liberal blogosphere.

Sorry, folks, I just don't see it. And feel free to make your argument in the comments or send me a strongly worded email but it's not really open to discussion as far as I'm concerned so don't expect a reply.

A conclusion that I completely agree with.  I guess most people would consider me an Obamaniac, because I've been volunteering for the man since March 15th. But I don't consider myself one, and as evidence I offer this, this, this and this.

In fact, I don't think I know anyone  who volunteers for the campaign on a regular basis who I would classify as an Obamaniac, meaning, a hero-worshipper.  That's a portrait created by the media and Obama's political opponents, largely. (They also think we Obama volunteers are all teens and twenty-somethings, which is really funny.) The people I have been working with for seven months really, really admire his oratory and his campaign skills. He's a very inspiring speaker. After he stops talking, though, we do continue thinking.

So, among us not-quite-Obamaniacs, is there a "vibe" that we'd "be all too willing to use the hand of government to pressure critics into silence"? Are you fucking crazy? First of all, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU, have been my entire adult life. When I shook Obama's hand the other night, I had two items attached to my lapel: This button, and my ACLU pin. This was in a room full of lawyers, people who, despite what you may otherwise have heard, believe in the rule of law. The vibe was not of a mob ready to suppress dissent.

Speaking of suppressing dissent: I am amazed that anyone could read what liberals have been writing about for the past eight years and come to the conclusion that, in order to clean up the mess left by a gang of venal, incompetent ideologues who labeled opposition to war as treason - people who really and truly did use the hand of government to pressure critics into silence, including outing one of our own intelligence officers - we might come into power and return the favor. Yes! That's what we've wanted all along! We don't mind the abuse of power, we just wanted the power in our own hands. You've uncovered our secret plan. Jesus fucking Christ.

To put it less sarcastically, we're the people who want to defend the Bill of Rights. That's part of why we're doing this: We see it imperiled, and fear we're already too late to restore what's been damaged. We don't intend to do any more damage ourselves, and believe me, we've paid enough attention  throughout the Bush years to know what self-deluded defenders of the nation sound like when they're talking themselves into taking a little extra-constitutional authority. A President Obama had better think long and hard about accepting the advice of career intelligence types who try to mau-mau him into continuing warrantless wiretapping, for example, because as soon as it leaks he'll see his erstwhile Obamaniacal support fly right out the fucking window.

Zenpundit's a pretty smart guy, but even someone at the open-minded end of the conservative spectrum has no sense of political proportion. I'm not even mad at him; I can't feel insulted when someone has such a thoroughgoing misunderstanding of what liberals are all about. But if a guy like him spouts such claptrap, it's no wonder the average right-winger believes that Obama is a secret Muslim terrorist traitor. Whatever McCain and Palin do or don't do in the next three weeks is irrelevant. The storyline making the next Democratic President out to be an authoritarian is the same one we had about the last Democratic President. It didn't start with McCain and Palin; they're simply trying to ride it, and it won't end with them. If Obama wins, there will be a hard core of lunatics who will never, ever accept the legitimacy of his Presidency. Fortunately for us all, they will never again be able to do the damage they did during the impeachment in the 90s, when they controlled Congress. Plus, Obama doesn't seem to be the kind of guy to give them an opening by getting sucked off by a young tart in the Oval Office.

So, I am dismayed by all this nonsense, but remain hopeful. Maybe Obama is on to something with his kumbayah shtick. He might be able to make people realize McCain is right that a President Obama is nothing to fear. He's a moderately liberal Senator with a track record of cautious consensus-building that has apparently served him well. He's a technocrat, it seems to this not-quite-Obamaniac, someone who dispassionately masters what he works at, from the jump shot to law review to public speaking to winning the Presidency. His very lack of strong liberal orthodoxy almost cost him the nomination, in fact. If he carries that approach into the White House, marginalizes the lunatics in the far Right and discredits the crazy storyline, the GOP might have to abandon it as a means to power. Clearly, the Republicans are not responsible enough to discredit the lunatics on their own. Who knows?  It could work. Anyway, nothing else has.

Queer and Curious

Worked the OutFest today for about 4 hours signing up more volunteers. It wasn't difficult at all. They had about 500 new volunteers signed up when I left. The crowd was just too much for me, after being on my feet at the rallies yesterday.

Interesting to watch the tourists come through the Gayborhood. Maybe it's an urban zoo to them, maybe they're allies. Events like OutFest could be useful to show society that gay people are just like everyone else, except that some of them like house music, which is an abomination. The sodomy, that's fine. But the fucking drum machines, please.

Then for something completely different:

Some dude at a Palin rally in Johnstown, PA on Saturday, carrying a monkey doll with an Obama sticker on its head. He calls it "Little Hussein" in the video:

Justice Delayed Indefinitely

As I predicted, my friends:

A federal appeals court last night temporarily blocked a judge's order that the government must release 17 Chinese Muslims held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into the United States.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the "administrative stay" at the request of the Justice Department.

That stay will turn into a successful appeal, and at some point Cully Stimson will trot out to call Judge Urbina a terrorist sympathizer.

More on Racist Republicans Blaming Minorities for the Financial Crisis

Daniel Gross in Newsweek:

The thesis is laid out almost daily on The Wall Street Journal editorial page and in the National Review. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer provides an excellent example, writing that "much of this crisis was brought upon us by the good intentions of good people." He continues: "For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—which in turn pressured banks and other lenders—to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity." The subtext: if only Congress didn't force banks to lend money to poor minorities, the Dow would be well on its way to 36,000. Or, as Fox Business Channel's Neil Cavuto put it: "I don't remember a clarion call that said: Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster."

Let me get this straight. Investment banks and insurance companies run by centimillionaires blow up, and it's the fault of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and poor minorities?

These arguments are generally made by people who read the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, and ignore the rest of the paper—economic know-nothings whose opinions are informed mostly by ideology and, occasionally, by prejudice. Let's be honest. Fannie and Freddie, which didn't make subprime loans but did buy subprime loans made by others, were part of the problem. Poor congressional oversight was part of the problem. Banks that sought to meet CRA requirements by indiscriminately doling out loans to minorities may have been part of the problem. But none of these issues is the cause of the problem. Not by a long shot. From the beginning, subprime has been a symptom, not a cause. And the notion that the Community Reinvestment Act is somehow responsible for poor lending decisions is absurd.

He then sets forth the evidence of why it is absurd.

Blaming poor blacks and Hispanics for the financial crisis has a direct parallel to Jews being blamed for Weimar Germany's hyperinflation and the deprivations caused by draconian economic punishments enforced by the French and British under the Treaty of Versailles. Many Germans, even sophisticated ones, could not wrap their minds around the abstract explanations of economic phenomenon. The Right readily supplies the answer to such anxiety and confusion by blaming it all on the Other within society which must accordingly be controlled, suppressed, punished - along with their political allies. This serves to sharpen public anger and support for the Right as a purifying force - and distract the public from the fact that the leaders of the Right are largely the ones in fact to blame.  It is a watered-down version of the Big Lie, one that the GOP has been pushing since Reagan. Of course, many Republicans personally don't blame minorities for the economic problems the country is experiencing, but they are content to use such beliefs as a means to political power, which is morally worse.

(Via p6.)

Ownership Society

Wife, mother-in-law, three sons, self:

In a letter addressed to police, [Karthik] Rajaram blamed his actions on economic hardships. A second letter, labeled "personal and confidential," was addressed to family friends; the third contained a last will and testament, Moore said.

The letter to police voiced two options: taking his own life, or killing himself and his entire family. "He talked himself into the second strategy," Moore said. "That that would be the honorable thing to do."

Authorities believe Rajaram killed his family and himself after seeing his finances wiped out by the stock market collapse, according to a source familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Clearly, more tax cuts for rich people, as well as banning abortion and gay marriage,  would have prevented this.

I'm Jesus Christ, and I Endorse This Message

Compare:

The purpose of the Alliance Defense Fund's Pulpit Initiative is to restore the right of pastors to speak freely from the pulpit without fear of punishment by the government for doing what churches do: speak on any number of cultural and societal issues from a biblical perspective. The purpose of the Pulpit Initiative is not - as some have said to confuse the issue - about whether pastors should or should not "endorse" candidates.

(Emphasis added.)

Contrast:

Defying a federal tax law they consider unjust, 33 ministers across the country will take to their pulpits this Sunday and publicly endorse a candidate for president.

This is great news for John McCain! No, seriously, if public reaction breaks the way I think it will, I am sending bouquets to all 33 of these guys and the ADF.

On the merits of the legal question, you know what I think.

Q(s)OTD

Frank at From Pineview Farm:

A common Republican theme has been that the government should be run like a business.

They have now shown what they mean by this.

Update: Digby:

[W]hen I heard Paulson say this bail out was actually going to make money for the government, I couldn't help but remember Paul Wolfowitz assuring us that the Iraq war would pay for itself.

1965's Muslim

The saddest thing is, I would be ashamed if my candidate were benefiting from a rumor that John McCain, say, were a Manchurian candidate brainwashed by the Vietnamese. But people who otherwise seem intelligent and decent have no problems with the fact that a significant portion of McCain's support comes from people who think Obama is secretly a Muslim or a socialist. Only one of two conclusions is possible: I am mistaken about their decency, or I am mistaken about their intelligence.

(Via.)

Oh Yeah, Women Voters are Gonna Just Love Palin, You Said

Mayor Palin's police department billed rape victims for the cost of collecting evidence.

She wants to ban all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, wants to teach creationism and abstinence-only in the schools, and says God wanted us to invade Iraq. Now this.

John McCain certainly showed us what kind of judgment he'd bring to the White House by picking Sarah Palin as Vice President.

They Do Have the Right of Free Speech; They Just Don't Have a Right to a Tax Exemption

Typical right-wingers, wanting the benefits without any of the responsibilities:

Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.

The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

Disclaimer: I haven't read their legal theory, maybe they have something substantive, blah blah. But it sounds to me like they have their heads up their asses, in that particular self-righteously ignorant way that fundamentalists do.

Congress created a privilege for religious institutions by granting a tax exemption. But in exchange, the religious organization couldn't use the tax-free money to do politics. Here's the basic principle, people:  Like any benefit given by the government, you have no constitutional right to receive a tax exemption. If you want the benefit, you have to play by the rule Congress set. This is a well-settled principle of constitutional law. I predict this effort is not just doomed to fail to overturn this principle, but the churches involved are looking at catastrophe.  Not that I mind one bit.

Operation Hide Sarah: Day 9

It's been 9 days since the McCain campaign nominated Sarah Palin to be the next Vice President of the United States, and she has yet to give a press conference or submit to questions by the national news media. She's disappeared from public view except for carefully controlled campaign events. I wonder if there is a reason for that.

Walter Reed Whatever

What incompetent boobs:

But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this [Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California] instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility.

Imagine if Obama's team had made this mistake.

(Via upyernoz.)

Right-Wing Smear Flowchart

From Media Matters, a cool interactive chart:

McCain Continues to Lie

If I were a Republican, I would be deeply embarrassed by my candidate. Then again, if I were still a Republican at this point, I probably would have to be incapable of shame.

(Via Ray and John.)

Bigots' Last Stand

Good:

Nearly five years after the [Massachusetts] Supreme Court ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, the vitriolic battle that brought international attention and apocalyptic fears to Massachusetts is all but dead. Since the first marriages on May 17, 2004, more than 11,000 couples have tied the knot. They're busy mowing lawns and hauling kids to soccer practice, and the sky has not fallen.

Polls have shown consistent public support for gay couples. And with overwhelming support for gay marriage in the state legislature — the last effort to put it on the ballot failed 151-45 — the opposition has, for the most part, packed its bags and gone home.

Challenge:

While same-sex marriage is firmly entrenched in Massachusetts, gay activists in the Bay State say the future of the movement nationally could depend on what happens in California. In May, the California Supreme Court made the state the second to legalize gay marriage. But voters will get the final say in November, when they decide whether to back Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex marriage. A Field Poll released last month showed that 51 percent of likely voters would oppose the initiative, while 42 percent would support it. ...

Thirty-nine states have passed laws defining marriage as an act between a man and a woman. As a result, gays and lesbians don't have the same rights that heterosexual couples are afforded in those states, such as visiting a spouse in a hospital or making health-care decisions.

In addition, Congress has passed a Defense of Marriage law, which forbids federal agencies from recognizing same-sex marriages. While gay state employees in Massachusetts can put their spouses on their health insurance plans, gay federal employees who live in the state cannot.

Roundup

John Lloyd at Drexel Dems collects the data on off-shore drilling:

Long story short, if they started today, five years from now we would be pumping 1% of our current daily consumption, and that would rise to a maximum of 5% by 2020-2030. This would be a trivial amount of new supply on the global markets, which are sure to be much larger 20 years from now.

But expect the wingers to push this demagoguery right through the election.

Zoe Strauss links to this NYTimes article about Army censors who tried to block publication of a medical textbook. Why? It was a textbook on the treatment of the kind of injuries sustained in Iraq, and it showed pictures of ... actual injured people:

“I’m ashamed to say that there were folks even in the medical department who said, Over my dead body will American civilians see this,” said Dr. David E. Lounsbury, one of the book’s three authors.

Gib offers a tip on what not to do when a cop catches you and, uh, a good friend nekkid in an outdoor pool.

Muslims Are Going to Kill Us

McCain surrogate sez:

One of John McCain's fellow POW's in Vietnam defended the war in Iraq, saying, "The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us.''

In a phone call with reporters arranged by Republican Party of Florida, Colonel Bud Day added: "I don't intend to kneel and I don't advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn't advocate to anybody that we kneel.''

I wonder sometimes about otherwise normal people who vote Republican. They themselves may have no animosity towards particular groups of people, they aren't themselves corrupt or immoral, but they associate themselves with evil, incompetent, venal bigots.

Why?

(Via Oliver Willis.)

A Nice Coda for James Yee

You may remember Capt. James Yee, the Muslim Army chaplain at Gitmo. Yee was arrested, held in solitary confinement for 76 days, falsely accused of espionage and threatened with the death penalty for treason, before the case fell apart and it became clear that he was entirely innocent.

What's he doing now?

Thurston County[, Washington] is sending an unusually large number of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August, including well-known former Army chaplain James Yee, who is pledged to Sen. Barack Obama. ...

Yee is a Muslim who was jailed amid suspicions he was acting as a spy at the U.S.-run detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003. An investigation cleared him of all charges, and he won an honorable discharge, although he said he's still trying to get back all of the materials taken from him during his arrest. ...

Yee was elected Saturday at the 9th District convention at North Thurston High School, one of nine congressional caucuses Democrats had throughout the state.

"I came out and basically reiterated that Sen. Obama is really the only candidate that consistently campaigns on rejecting torture without exception, on closing Guantanamo Bay, restoring habeas (corpus) and adhering to the Geneva Conventions," Yee said Monday.

He added that he sees himself as "living proof that civil liberties have been eroded since 9/11" because of what he calls "fear-mongering politics" led by conservatives.

I hope they feature Yee's compelling story at the convention and allow him to be the one to cast Washington's votes (assuming that's possible - I don't know how the rules work with regard to state delegations).

Update 5/22/08: Field negro says the Republicans will try to make a Rev. Wright-style scandal over Yee. I must still be naive, because I didn't even imagine they would be such scum as to try again to slime a man who was falsely arrested once.

QOTD: "The Party of Sadistic and Vicious Assholes"

Brad at Sadly, No!, addressing Michelle Malkin's plaint that the GOP's problem is a lack of principle:

Michelle, let me break this down for you.

The biggest problem with the Republican Party is that they’ve spent far too much time associating themselves with sociopaths such as yourself. ...

What it boils down to, Michelle, is that you’re a rotten human being. And I don’t mean that in a general, “Oh-you-disagree-with-me-on-policy-issues-so-I-don’t-like-you” sort of way: I mean that you go out of your way to hurt people on a very personal level, and you seem to get a big kick out of doing it. No political party, no matter how crazy they are, wants to be seen as the party of sadistic and vicious assholes. The fact that you have no one to vote for in this upcoming election is a major victory for the forces of decency and sanity in this country. May every election henceforth follow the same pattern.