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Remember Howdy Jindal's abysmal response to President Obama? Well, he's back with more hackery.

You thought Bobby Jindal would have given the ACORN bashing a little more thought, but you see, he's a Stepford Republican, so they all are programmed to give similar responses to conservative stimuli.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is trying to shore up his anti-ACORN bona fides. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports today that Jindal issued an executive order barring state funds from going to the community organizing group. However, there’s one small kink in Jindal’s plan:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal issued an executive order to keep any state money from going to the controversy-wracked Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has its national headquarters in New Orleans.

According to the state’s Division of Administration, no state agencies have existing contracts with ACORN.

Wonkette: Bobby Jindal Also Cuts Off Non-Existent Funding To Those ACORN Blacks

Right wing websites respond in kind. Bobby Jindal Halts Funding Of ACORN

UPDATE: Chad Bower of WWLTV.com contacted me earlier and said that two contracts were just discovered that allegedly would pay state funds to ACORN:

The Department of Social Services has identified two contracts that would allegedly have given ACORN federal and state funds under a tax assistance program, and the Governor's Office has told the department to halt that funding.
{}
The two contracts – one for Southeast Louisiana, lead by Total Community Action, Inc., and the other for Southwest Louisiana, lead by the United Way of Southwest Louisiana – included ACORN as a part of the two groups proposals for the 2009 – 2010 tax season, said Frank Collins, a spokesman with the Governo's Office.

Collins said the proposals included ACORN in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program, and the group would have received federal funds under the program. Because the contract states that state funds would match the federal funds under the program, the program was in violation of Jindal’s recent executive order.

Collins said the DSS will contact the two coalitions Tuesday and tell them that funding would have to be severed to ACORN because of Jindal’s recent executive order.

I want to thank Chad for emailing me so I could update the story. My post was based on the information that was available at the time and since new news has surfaced I've updated the post. He's still not a bright bulb.

Maybe this sinking feeling in my gut would go away if anyone in the Obama administration bothered to explain the specifics of why they believe indefinite detention is necessary. How can you be so sure someone is too dangerous to release, and yet not have enough evidence to prosecute them?

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, is drafting an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

After months of internal debate over how to close the facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the facility by the president's January deadline.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House was already trying to build support.

"Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order," the official said. Such an order could be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should be prosecuted or released.

Big Tent Democrat and Glenn Greenwald reactions here.

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(Sen. Al Gore with Rep. John Moss - Next time you're digging around the National Archives, thank the guy on the right.)

On March 30, 1965, California Representative John Moss introduced legislation in Congress that would give the public access to the inner workings of the government. It was met with a lot of resistance. LBJ swore to veto it if it arrived on his desk. The idea that a government that was transparent, that actually would be accountable, where the press would actually have access to documents seemed very abstract to some.

And it wasn't until 1966, when LBJ had a change of heart (or a change of some provisions in the bill) that The Freedom of Information Act was finally signed into law.

A lot of attempts have been made to stymie the law, including a Bush Executive Order which rendered it null for the better part of 8 years. Still, the bill came from someplace and it was someone's idea that the people were entitled to know the truth.

So here is a report by Fred Morrison from March 30, 1965, outlining the reactions on Capitol Hill to the newly introduced bill.

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Gen. Petraeus joined FOX News and Martha MacCallum today and gave a blockbuster interview, but probably not the one Fox expected. Once again, he called for the responsible closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. He also said that mistakes were made after 9/11 and that the Army Field Manual is all that we need to use to interrogate prisoners. In addition, he said that we have to have faith in our judicial system and we should try the Khalid Sheikh Muhammads in a court of law.

Martha tried to give him the ticking time bomb scenario to justify torture and he really didn't bite. He did say maybe an Executive Order could be appropriate, but that it really wasn't necessary. Petraeus repudiated pretty much most of what Limbaugh Republicans and the Rove/Newt/Cheney Party have been saying.
(rush transcript)

MacCallum: Where do you think those people should go?

Gen. Petraeus: Well, it's not for a soldier to say. What I do support is what has been termed the responsible closure of Gitmo. Gitmo has caused us problems, there's no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11 and again Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard.

MacCallum: What about the concern that a Khalid Sheikh Muhammad or anybody of that ilk might be tried here in a US court and the possibility that some of the treatments that were used on them that they could go free.

Gen. Petraeus: Well, first of all, I don't think we should be afraid of our values we're fighting for, what we stand for. And so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we're doing on the battlefield and everywhere else. So one has to have some faith, I think, in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.

MacCallum: So you're confident that they will never go free.

Gen. Petraeus: I hope that's the case.

MacCallum: (Ticking time bomb scenario)

Gen. Petraeus: ....T here might be an exception and that would require extraordinary but very rapid approval to deal with, but for the vast majority of the cases, our experience downrange if you will, is that the techniques that are in the Army Field Manual that lays out how we treat detainees, how we interrogate them -- those techniques work, that's our experience in this business.

MacCallum: So is sending this signal that we're not going to use these kind of techniques anymore, what kind of impact does this have on people who do us harm in the field that you operate in?

Gen. Petraeus: Well, actually what I would ask is, does that not take away from our enemies a tool which again have beaten us around the head and shoulders in the court of public opinion? When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those.

Wow, there was a lot in that interview. I couldn't transcribe it all. He admits that we violated the Geneva Convention. Is he saying that the Bush/Cheney administration failed our "value system" in their leadership in the two wars and how America responded to the 9/11 attacks?

He obviously is against torture. He is also saying to let the chips fall where they may in prosecuting these detainees and use our legal system to try terror suspects. Martha didn't go into the military commissions, but if they come here, just let them stand trial. All the conservatives and Republicans anointed Gen. Petraeus as the true leader of the wars when George Bush decided he didn't want to take the heat on the war any longer.

Remember when to question him was sacrilegious? Will they now disavow what he is telling them today?

After the interview, the other Fox host predictably tried to intimate that Petraeus was working for Obama now so, ya know, he's in the tank for him. Whatever happened to listening to the generals on the ground being critical to our "victory" in Iraq? He said that our values as a country do change in a time of war -- a scary notion -- so Bush is just all right. Don't they ever give up with their Bush-hero worshiping?

How long will it take Rush Limbaugh to lash out at the General? What about Newt and Rove?

January 22, 2009 MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show