Five New Freaks

The Nation provides the details about five new GOP Senators. Here's a condensed version:

Tom Coburn has proposed the death penalty for abortion doctors.

Jim DeMint has said gays shouldn't be able to teach or adopt.

Mel Martinez fears "homosexual extremists."

John Thune illegally intimidated American Indian voters.

David Vitter is a "polite David Duke."

Spencer was at a Senate hearing and this is very disturbing.

Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective. Asked by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) the politically difficult but entirely fair question about whether terrorism detainees acquitted in courts could be released in the United States, Johnson said that “as a matter of legal authority,” the administration’s powers to detain someone under the law of war don’t expire for a detainee after he’s acquitted in court. “If you have authority under the law of war to detain someone” under the Supreme Court’s Hamdi ruling, “that is true irrespective of what happens on the prosecution side.”

Martinez looked surprised. “So the prosecution is moot?” he asked.

“No, no, not in my judgment,” Johnson said. But the scenario he outlined strongly suggested it is. If an administration review panel “determines this person is a security threat” and “for some reason is not convicted of a lengthy prison sentence, I think we have the authority to continue to detain someone” under “law of war authority” as granted by the September 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, Johnson said. And beyond that source of authority “we have the authority in the first place.” I’m no lawyer, but that sounds a lot like Johnson is claiming inherent presidential authority from the Constitution to detain someone after he’s been acquitted in court if the president believes that person to be a security threat. [Update: I think I'm wrong about that. Johnson is claiming authority from the law-of-war construct for such detentions, and that doesn't stem from any constitutional interpretation of inherent power. Apologies.]

Oh, and Johnson also suggested that the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay might remain open after January 2010, since “you can’t prosecute some significant subset of 220 people before January.” He said the administration will continue to detain some of those Guantanamo detainees, “whether at Guantanamo or somewhere else.”

Glenn Greenwald has much more about the "Unjustice system."

Nothing, it would seem, pleases the Republican mind more than regurgitating demonstrably false and shockingly mean-spirited talking points. So Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign must been ecstatic to score a twofer last week. In a single sentence, Ensign not only faithfully reproduced the GOP's "Club Gitmo" talking point, but resuscitated the old Republican claim that there is no health care crisis.

Ensign's back-handed jab at the American health care system came even as he was insisting the Guantanamo Bay detention center needed to remain open. Following hot on the heels of his Senate colleague Jeff Sessions' (R-AL) comment that terror suspects "wouldn't be treated any better in the United States, and they wouldn't have the tropical breezes blowing through," Ensign claimed Gitmo was to-die for:

Ensign said the facilities at Gitmo are nicer than prisons in the United States, and said the food detainees were served was better than what he and the traveling lawmakers ate.

"They get better health care than the average American citizen does," Ensign said.

That Ensign praised the Club Med atmosphere at Gitmo comes as no surprise. John Boehner (R-OH), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Mel Martinez (R-FL), Mike Huckabee (R-AR) and Dick Cheney are just a few of the legion of Republicans who lauded Guantanamo as "more like a Boy Scout camp than it is a prison camp" and "if anything, it's too nice."

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With Obama taking the lead in Florida via the newest polling data on the battle ground states, ON ABC's THIS WEEK, Republican Senator Mel Martinez actually said that the economy is no big deal. The people of Florida will get past it and McCain will win the state! How insensitive can a man be?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Martinez, let me begin with you. Florida has one of the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in the country right now. And four Florida polls since the financial crisis hit all show Barack Obama ahead. So as the Obama campaign charges, is your campaign desperate to

change the subject?

SEN. MEL MARTINEZ (R), FLORIDA: Well, look, for sure, the

economy hurt the McCain campaign in Florida. Florida has been very

hard-hit, as you just stated. The fact of the matter is that there is

much to be done yet. The fact of the matter is that Florida is far from being over. Florida is going to be close all the way to the end.

McCain was well ahead in Florida before the economic crisis hit. I believe once this campaign gets beyond that immediate crisis that Florida is going to come back to the McCain camp.

How do the people of Florida get past an economic crisis of this proportion in thirty days? Or ever?

This week, high-profile Republicans, many of whom had opposed coastal drilling, enthusiastically reversed course and began demanding that coastal drilling begin immediately. This was especially jarring in Florida, where Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. Mel Martinez — both Republicans who had opposed offshore drilling as recently as last week — came out in support of the Bush/McCain policy.

It appears that the GOP is just following the political winds. Drilling, all of a sudden, is enjoying broader public support.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey — conducted before McCain announced his intentions on the issue — finds that 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states. Only 18% disagree and 15% are undecided. Conservative and moderate voters strongly support this approach, while liberals are more evenly divided (46% of liberals favor drilling, 37% oppose).

Sixty-four percent (64%) of voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that gas prices will go down if offshore oil drilling is allowed, although 27% don’t believe it. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of conservatives say offshore drilling is at least somewhat likely to drive prices down. That view is shared by 57% of moderates and 50% of liberal voters.

The Rasmussen poll comes around the same time as a Gallup poll that found a similar result: “Fifty-seven percent of Americans favor allowing oil drilling in coastal and wilderness areas that are currently off-limits. Forty-one percent of Americans oppose allowing drilling in those areas, and 2 percent have no opinion.”

So, is this a political problem for opponents of coastal and ANWR drilling? Perhaps, but it seems easy enough to move the needle in the other direction.

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Ruh roh

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:

CREW filed an Federal Elections Commission (FEC) complaint today against Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) alleging multiple egregious violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and FEC regulations.. The complaint and the accompanying materials can be found here.

The complaint is based primarily upon the Commission's recent audit on April 17, 2007 of Martinez for Senate, which revealed that the campaign committee failed to comply with the most basic disclosure provisions of FECA and FEC regulations. During the course of the ten-month campaign, Martinez for Senate received no fewer than three written warnings from the Commission.

The FEC's Audit Division found that Martinez for Senate violated several statues by failing to disclose occupation and/or employer information for an astonishing forty-six percent (46%) of the individuals who contributed to the campaign, and by failing to provide any contributor identification information at all for approximately $320,000 in contributions.

The Audit Division also found that Martinez for Senate accepted $313,325 in excessive contributions. Virtually all of those illegal funds were spent by Martinez for Senate in order to win the 2004 general election when, in fact, they should not have been available for use. Additionally, in the twenty days before the 2004 general election, Martinez for Senate received, but failed to disclose, $140,514 in contributions.

Amanda Schweitzer of Florida resigned from the office of U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Florida), the senator's spokesman announced yesterday.

Why you ask? Click here.

.-AUDIO

It's time to go over the lying liars who made a mockery out of the Terri Schiavo case. As E.J. Dionne says: Where's The Apology?

Rush attacked every talking head and Democrat that mentioned the memo.

Here's the Audio-MP3-(Podcast also)

He continually states that it was the Democrats that made up the memo and planted it on the Republicans. Of course we all know that a Mel Martinez Staffer wrote the memo. Where's your apology Rush? It is time to be held accountable.

John at AmericaBlog says:Where's the GOP apology? The GOP wants to keep the pressure on Senator During for an apology for simply stating the truth about Gitmo. Great. Then let's talk apologies. Come Monday, I think we need Apology Week here at AMERICAblog. I'll be posting phone numbers and names of various Senators, and contacts for local letters to the editor and media, for you to go to town on.

via America Blog: From AP via Raw Story:

A one-page unsigned memo that became part of the debate preceding Congress' vote ordering a federal court review of the Terri Schiavo case originated in Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez' office, Martinez said Wednesday. Martinez told the AP's Matt Yancey and other news organizations in a written statement "he discovered Wednesday that the memo had been written by an aide in his office."

All that work Powerline did on that memo.: Answer Yes. I mean when you have this as a defense: "All 55 Republican senators say they have never seen the Terri Schiavo political talking-points memo that Democrats say was circulated among Republicans during the floor debate over whether the federal government should intervene to prolong her life. " Who wouldn't doubt the memo as a fake? I'm sure Hindrocket willl blame Daily Kos and Atrios for being evil and somehow infecting his brain. Hugh Hewitt will write another book about "Blogging, Honesty, and the RIGHT." Michelle Malkin will deny that Martinez ever admitted anything. "Let's look at the source," she'll say. It's the AP.

(Update): John has all the Wingnuts and their quotes about the GOP Talking points memo.

The man that passed around the Schiavo memo in Congress is now retiring.

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez (R) has decided against seeking a second term, a decision he will formalize shortly in the Sunshine State, according to an informed party source.Martinez's decision was based on a desire for more free time and a less scheduled life, said the source.

The first term senator also was an almost certain Democratic target in two years time although those familiar with Martinez's political prospects insisted his strengths in South Florida, coupled with his political base along the I-4 corridor, made his path to reelection possible.

Will this lead to a Jeb Bush comeback?