"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
Yup, that’s right. So much for fanatical bloggers bringing you the finest in political entertainment, huh? (looking around quickly) Here: it’s the latest Dave Barry article about Edwards and bowling. Why did I pick this? Umm… it was on the Post-It note… lemme read…. right, because of this: As the crowd dispersed, I overheard this … Read more
I just caught Howard Dean on The Daily Show. Jon Stewart had his “Sister Souljah” moment. Unfortunately, Dean was cast in the role of the good Sister. (Where is Sister Souljah, anyway? For that matter, where’s MC Ren? How ’bout Slash?) Good luck up in the wilds of New Hampshire, Katherine. That you’re supporting Dean, … Read more
So I’m up to NH tomorrow to drive people to the polls and do assorted other scut work. Probably to Portsmouth headquarters, followed by a massive gathering in Manchester to celebrate or mourn–more likely the latter–as the results come in. The weather forecast is a balmy twenty degrees and overcast, but no snow. (This is … Read more
The Supreme Court has reaffirmed Miranda (via Glenn Reynolds) with a nine-to-zero vote.
There’s no word about concurrences,* but I’m frankly surprised that at least one conservative justice didn’t peel away from the pack. Although the Miranda warnings have infiltrated US popular culture, they’re really not part of the Constitution. Indeed, the Miranda Court itself suggested that communities might be able to opt-out of the Miranda warnings, so long as they replaced those warnings with other, equivalent measures. (What form those measures could take, it didn’t say.)
UPDATE: A federal District Judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated international terrorist organizations.
The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds’ campaign for self-determination in Turkey.
The judge’s ruling said the law, as written, does not differentiate between impermissible advice on violence and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals.
The decision on the Patriot Act seems about right to me. (As for the Supreme Court’s decision, well, I’ve never been particularly fond of Miranda . . . .)
Last year, David Kay (search) had confidently predicted weapons would be found. But after nine months of searching, he said Sunday: “I don’t think they exist.” . . . . . . Asked whether President Bush (search) owed the nation an explanation for the discrepancies between his warnings and Kay’s findings, Kay said: “I actually … Read more
1. Juliet O’Neill says that “sources are drying up” in the case after the search on her house. 2. There is increasing political pressure on Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin to order a public investigation. 3. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned the fact that “Arar and his family are on welfare. He is charged … Read more
In reading this article, and studying for my exam tomorrow, I think I’ve finally come up with a concise, non-emotionally loaded explanation of the fundamental strategic problem I see with the Iraq war and the Bush doctrine. A nuclear Wal-Mart does not necessarily sell only to rogue nations. It might also sell directly to terrorist … Read more
Thanks to A Small Victory we have another political poll: President Match from AOL/Time. I’m sure that it will surprise none of you that Bush came in first and Lieberman in second… (static) Whaddya mean, it’s biased towards Democratic centrists? Shenanigans! I call shenanigans! (Matthew noted this one first) UPDATE: Well, that was a disturbing … Read more
The Independent and Reuters both wrote articles about a recent David Kay interview. Guest poster Trickster over at Tacitus mostly contents himself with quoting the relevant sections of the Independent article (the discussion thread isn’t too bad, all things considered): the Marxists over at Socialism in a Time of Waiting are considerably more willing to … Read more
In a bit of a shock to those of us who normally visualize Davos to just be that thing full of genial Lefties and Bill Clinton that Jay Nordlinger goes to every year, it’s been revealed that the event’s apparently somewhat of an abomination to the anti-globalization crowd. Go figure: CHUR, Switzerland – Around 2,000 … Read more
So, according to this Newsweek poll (via Tac) he’s not only far ahead of the Democratic pack, but polling ahead of Bush*… and according to Zogby (via Kos) Dean’s coming back, fast, in New Hampshire. Newsweek has Edwards coming in second; from Zogby’s point of view, he’s drifting. And, of course, the NH results are … Read more
One of the things that bothered me most about David Brooks’ ridiculous assertions about “neocon” being a code word for “Jew” is that it makes it harder to point out true code words. And if you don’t believe they exist, read this passage from a recent National Review article.
For years, the far Left has had its own rhetoric, in which certain words carry special meanings to those “in the know.” Now, conservatives have their own way of conveying messages that have unique significance for them. In the State of the Union address, Christians heard special messages that were conveyed with skillfully placed words. For believers, the “sanctity” of marriage is rooted in those biblical principles that sustain marriage; defining marriage through its “moral tradition” carries specific ramifications in terms of Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.
Two comments:
1. Of course, pretending that code words used to be the sole province of the far Left-with-a-capital-L is absurd. “States rights” and “our Southern way of life” are the two examples that immediately come to my mind.*
2. “Judeo-Christian values and beliefs”, huh? I appreciate it that Judaism has made it to the in-club of religions. But considering that most of the Boston-area Jewish community recently “voted overwhelmingly to endorse same-sex marriage,” and that
Reform Judaism (the largest Jewish denomination in the U.S.) “determined in 2000 that gay unions were ‘worthy of affirmation through appropriate Jewish ritual.'”….I wish that Ms. Crouse and her pals would leave “Judeo” out of it.
(And while we’re on this topic, isn’t Concerned Women for America itself due for a name change?)
The Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk is excellent, so far. (Moe, can you put them on my blog roll?) I hope they can keep it up in the general election, where it’s harder to steer between the two pitfalls of: 1) favoring the party you want to win 2) criticizing Democrats and Republicans (or in … Read more
… because as a general rule of thumb I’m somewhat leery of political advice where the bullet points all alliterate. Four E’s, indeed: I’m surprised that the Wall Street Journal neglected to mention that this is all a rehash of concepts from Welch’s management book (a genre that somehow manages to annoy me even more … Read more
Katherine’s Maher Arar posts are being linked to by the Christian Science Monitor’s Terrorism & Security daily update. (pause) I’m sorry if this is actually prosaic or something, but I’m new at this, so I at least am going to continue to think that it’s really, really cool that this happened. Katherine rules…
These are my predictions for the Tuesday primary. Please bear in mind that I frankly am incredibly bad at this sort of thing, which should provide some amusement later. Wesley Clark: Either him or Edwards makes the cut; if him, distant third. Advances to next round either way. Howard Dean: Makes the cut; no lower … Read more
Reading this transcript/press-kebob made me grin, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Call it simplistic, call it arrogant, heck, call it insane if you like – I won’t agree with you, but people have a right to their opinions. And I’ll say it again – people underestimate the political skills of this President at … Read more
There were rumors floating around* today to the effect that Osama bin Laden had been captured: think that it might have been based on this story?
Captured Insurgent Said Linked to al-Qaida
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military WriterWASHINGTON – U.S. forces in Iraq (news – web sites) captured a leader of the insurgency who is believed to be a close associate of Abu Musab Zarqawi, described by some as a key link between the al-Qaida terrorist network and toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news – web sites), a senior American official said Friday.
U.S. troops captured Husam al-Yemeni last Thursday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He is described by U.S. officials as the leader of an insurgency cell in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.
The official said al-Yemeni is the highest-level member of Ansar al-Islam captured so far. That is a group comprising mainly ethnic Kurds from northern Iraq with alleged al-Qaida ties.
Alas, there’s no confirmation, and I just tossed off a mini-lecture in comments about not taking seriously anonymous sources, so take the elements of this particular story with heavy grains of salt – but even if false you can see how this might have morphed further into a OBL capture rumor, so there you go.
Moe
This is the legal complaint, in PDF form, in the lawsuit Arar just filed against Ashcroft et. al. If anyone familiar with this area of law can guess whether it has any chance of success, or at least not to be dismissed before discovery, please let me know. New information/allegations: 1. In addition to the … Read more
. . . . But I’m gonna just talk off the top of my head, here. (It’s a blog, ain’t it?) 1. I’m pretty freakin’ dissatisfied with President Bush. I don’t like his social conservatism (I’m pretty liberal, socially), I don’t like his fiscal liberalism (I’m a bit of a deficit hawk), I don’t like … Read more
Another very, very, important investigative story by the Globe and Mail–they obtained a copy of the I.N.S. document which determined that Arar was a member of Al Qaeda: According to U.S. documents obtained by The Globe and Mail, an Immigration and Naturalization Service’s regional director concluded that Mr. Arar was a member of al-Qaeda because … Read more
From today’s Washington Post, a mixed bag: Commanders are heartened by a sharp reduction in the number of attacks on U.S. forces and say that an overhaul of intelligence operations has produced a series of successes that have weakened the anti-occupation insurgency. . . . That’s the good news. Then, five paragraphs in, a buried … Read more
Outside The Beltway has provided a link to the Beta version of Technorati, which I for one was happy to see because it allows me to track down a couple more blogs for the Backscratch list. Remember, we link to those who link to us, and we have a special category* for the blogs of … Read more
… and stolen lifeforce forcibly ripped from the bloody chest of the Howard Dean campaign, the vicious predator of the news magazine world known as Tee’N-Ahrrr stalks its next victim: Senator John Kerry. (pause) Sorry: had to pump that story up somehow: it’s apparently now subscriber-only (which reminds me: how is dKos’ crusade against TNR … Read more
I suppose that I should feel mild shame that I found this hysterical, but as a multileveled putdown of its target it’s just too good.
Something to keep an eye out for: if by the time of the Democratic convention the delegate situation is such that no one candidate has quite enough to win – or one does, but he’s on the razor’s edge – and you see a report that calls into question the delegate selection methods of any … Read more
I guess it was the iambic pentameter comment earlier that set this off: ObWi does have a definite poetical flavor to it. Or maybe doggerel – not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. Hear me, o Muse. No, wait, a problem there That weighs upon our blogs with leaden strain; For in that … Read more
Lots of developments today: 1. Lo and behold, some U.S. press coverage. 60 minutes II did a pretty thorough story on this case last night; you can read the summary here. It’s not half bad, especially by the standards of TV news. The most interesting parts: a) They spoke to that Syrian diplomat, Imad Moustapha. … Read more
Wow. This could be big, though it may get overshadowed with so much else going on: Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe. From the spring of 2002 until … Read more
People have been asking in the wake of Iowa whether Dean’s support, even among his hard core fans, will simply evaporate. Garance Franke-Ruta seems to think it will. (S/he also seems to think that “one of the interesting things about the rise of the blogs is that you can plug directly into the collective mind … Read more
Thank God. I’ve had my fill of exciting ones, and I suspect so have most of the rest of y’all. Here’s to many more dull, boring days. Moe PS: Call this an open thread, not that you guys ever needed an excuse to tangent. Neither do I, now that I think about it.
1. I cannot top what has already been said about “weapons of mass destruction related program activities,” but I can compile it in one convenient location. 2. The first presidential campaign I really followed was 1992. The first moment of the campaign I remember was watching the State of the Union with my dad, as … Read more
No doubt it’d be “someone who accesses Brad DeLong’s website to find the link to this: Flame Warriors.” I mean, it wasn’t even from one of his posts (a somewhat interesting one, mind, all about comments and trolls and deleting and so forth): it was just another comment in the thread. Alas. Alack. There is … Read more