The Supreme Court Sides With The Constitution Against Bush

Today the Supreme Court ruled that detainees being held by the US at Guantanamo Bay(better known as Gitmo) have civil rights under the Constitution. This is the third-time that they have rebuked Bush over indefinite detention and torture so in all likelihood very little will change. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the 5-4 majority saying that while we face terrorist threats:

“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

Justice Antonin Scalia sided with Bush in defending indefinite detainment and torture saying that obeying the Constitution:

“will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas joined Scalia in his opposition. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens joined with Justice Kennedy in defense of the Constitution and the rule of law. The Center for Constitutional Rights commended the court’s decision:

“The Supreme Court has finally brought an end to one of our nation’s most egregious injustices, by granting the writ of habeas corpus, the Supreme Court recognizes a rule of law established hundreds of years ago and essential to American jurisprudence since our nation’s founding.”

The specific provision which was struck down by the Court was the provision in the 2006 Military Commissions Act which denies prisoners at Gitmo Habeas Corpus. Both candidates also hold the correct position on the issue and favor the closing of Guantanamo Bay.

Obama Strikes Back

It’s a political year and that means it’s time for smears and slander. Obama has been the main target of GOP lies since the primary began and now his campaign has decided not to repeat Kerry’s mistake and fight back. They put up a site called Fight The Smears where they correct the lies by providing proof of the truth. It probably would have been better for the Obama campaign to release this site earlier so that the easily influenced who have already fallen under the spell of a right-wing deceiver would be more open to the truth because they would have had less time for their belief in the lie to solidify. I’m sure that some people will come to see the truth and that it will set them free from the lies of conservative charlatans, but not as many as may have earlier in the campaign.

Now, I’m sure some people will respond “But that’s an Obama-run site, they’re in on it.” However, the Obama campaign uses independent sources to prove all of their claims. Snopes also addresses many of the lies which have been circulated about Obama and Snopes’ conclusion matches with the truth being released by the Obama campaign on every subject that they address.

The First Post-Primary Polls

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal and NBC News released a poll which was taken soon after Senator Clinton suspended her campaign(meaning that the Democratic divide would still have been sharper then than it is now.) Overall, Senator Obama leads Senator McCain 47% to 41% which is beyond the poll’s margin of error. If you delve into that number you find some interesting statistics such as that not only has Obama maintained his lead with African-Americans(83%-7%) but he also leads McCain in groups that all of the pundits thought he would be weak with such as Hispanics(62%-28%), women(55% – 33%), Catholics(47%-40%), independents(41%-36%),  blue collar workers(47%-42%), and voters who supported Sen. Clinton in the primaries(61%-19%.)

However, it isn’t all good news for Obama. McCain leads him among white men 55% to 35% and among suburban white women 44% to 38%(though Obama leads with white women in general 46%-38%.)

What I take away from the poll is that Americans want change so badly that they’re willing to bridge some old divides if that’s what it takes to make it happen and that they simply don’t think that John McCain represents change due to his support for the war and the fact that he voted with Bush 95% of the time in 2007.

“That’s Not Too Important”

Yesterday in an interview with Matt Lauer, John McCain said that bringing American troops home from Iraq was “not too important.” He goes on to explain that what is important is the number of American casualties and that we need to get our troops out of harm’s way. McCain is right on that last point. We do need to get our troops out of harm’s way because they shouldn’t die for a lie. The best way to do this is of course to hand the burden of Iraqi security over to the Iraqi government and leave.

When asked whether or not the Surge’s success(which is still debated) has made it so McCain now has an idea of when American troops could come home, McCain said he didn’t. This is of course a lie because he has previously proposed a time line for when the troops would come home. It was in his look ahead to the ideal end of his first term when he says most of our troops will have come home by 2013. It was clearly an empty promise even while McCain was saying it(given that you can’t fully predict what will happen in your term and thus can’t predict its end) but, the fact that McCain has yet again contradicted himself is further evidence that as Ross Perot said:

“McCain is the classic opportunist.”

and as Ted Sampley said:

“He has no character. He is a fake.”

Video of him saying “That’s not too important.”

Video of him saying that most troops will come back by 2013.

Bush Nominates Limbaugh To Be A Federal Judge. The Senate Confirms.

It’s not Rush Limbaugh, but his cousin Stephen Limbaugh Jr. Most coverage of the appointment simply mentions that he is the cousin of one of the nation’s most influential conservative zealots as an afterthought at the end of the article. It raises the uncomfortable idea that the White House appointed Stephen Limbaugh to reward Rush Limbaugh for slandering liberals when the White House should oppose slandering anyone no matter their political party. It would be just as wrong if a Democratic administration rewarded a radio host who slandered the right on a daily basis. The reason that it would be wrong for the government to reward slanderers like Limbaugh has nothing to do with politics but rather with the simple fact that the government shouldn’t reward lies and extremist ideology(though given that Bush holds some extreme views I shouldn’t be surprised.)

Of course, it may have nothing to with Rush as Stephen Limbaugh Jr. has a long legal history of his own stretching back to 1977 according to his own site. However, it seems like quite a strange coincidence if that is in fact the case.