Minority Rules LiberalOasis

Perhaps the most stunning part of the intel reform debacle is that the Speaker of the House admitted he had the votes to pass it.

Just not enough GOP votes to avoid making the Dems look good.

From the NY Times:

[Speaker Dennis] Hastert did not want to split his caucus and did not want the bill to pass with less than "a majority of the majority," said his spokesman, John Feehery.

"What good is it to pass something," Mr. Feehery said, "where most of our members don't like it?"

Well, there is a little thing called "the public good."

But that requires putting governing ahead of politics.

And that's not how the GOP got to where it is, so why start now?

Of course, saying the bill doesn't have support of the "majority of the majority" is a fancy, self-serving way to say a loud minority is opposed.

And that when a loud minority is opposed, it's important to wait -- as Senate Majority Leader Frist said -- until we "get it right".

Hmm. Does Frist apply the same logic to, say, judicial nominations?

Not exactly. As he said on CBS' Face The Nation this Sunday:

...let's take a nominee from the president, who has majority support in the Senate, and let's deny senators the opportunity to vote. It's wrong.

Any attempt to claim simple majority rule is a consistent principle of the GOP is now shot to hell.

So when the GOP tries to use it later, it should be quickly shoved down their throat.

We all know the Framers wanted the minority to have rights, to prevent a tyranny of the majority.

The question for the public to judge, both with today's intelligence reform and tomorrow's judges, is not if the minority has a right to object. Of course they do.

Instead the question is, what is the quality of the minority's objections?

Is the Pentagon's loss of turf, and lack of unrelated provisions on undocumented immigrant workers enough to warrant delay on the intelligence reform the 9/11 Commission says is "essential"?

And should the Senate roll over for activist right-wing judges who want to turn the clock back on equal rights, labor protections and environmental protections?

Dan Froomkin has a great post up about the newly released torture memos and he knows this is only the beginning.

The full extent of what was done in our name remains unclear, and there are still big gaps in our understanding of how it all came to pass. Just how many people were detained by the U.S. government in the so-called “war on terror”? How many of them should never have been held in the first place? How many of them were mistreated, and how badly? Did torture and abuse produce valuable information? How much did it embolden our enemies? How many people knew what was going on? Where in the chain of command does the responsibility lie? Why didn’t more people object? How direct was the link between what happened in the offices of the president and vice president and the cells of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib? How willful was the administration’s corruption of the law?

And it’s not just torture and detention. When it comes to warrantless surveillance, for instance, what little we know about the program as it still exists today is still considerably more than we know about the program as it operated before the revolt in Bush’s own Justice Department. What were we doing from 2001 to 2004 such that even John Ashcroft couldn’t bring himself to approve it any longer? How many people have been wiretapped without a warrant? What happened to all the data?

The public overwhelmingly wants some sort of official inquiry. According to a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll, nearly two thirds of Americans support an investigation into the treatment of terror suspects during the Bush administration – although they are split on whether it should be conducted by an independent panel or by federal prosecutors.

Journalists have a special role here. Not only can we keep chipping away at the truth – but we can and should remind members of the public, over and over again, about all the facts that remain hidden from them, including information about acts committed in their name that had -- and continue to have -- profound moral and legal implications. We should also remind Americans that our moral stature on the globe has been -- and will remain -- seriously damaged until or unless there is some sort of process of reckoning and accountability. And while there’s no need for journalists to get involved in partisan battles, when the question at hand is whether the nation will avert its eyes or face up to the truth, it’s entirely appropriate for journalists to take a stand.

NiemanWatchDog is having a series devoted to these questions. Journalists, please do your jobs.

I know they're making it harder for vets to get disability, but this is outrageous:

The VA rejected an Afghanistan veteran's disability claim for PTSD last month, citing his membership in VoteVets.org as a reason for the denial.

Staff Sergeant Will King retired from the Army in late 2003, after serving in both the first Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan. As one of the first troops into the Afghan theater after 9/11, Will had been awarded a Bronze Star after participating in fierce fighting in the Shah-e-Kot Valley in March 2002. I know, because I was there with him.

As the months turned to years after his retirement, however, Will started having problems as the Iraq War dragged on. Depressed and unable to sleep, he thought it might be PTSD. Because, as those who study PTSD know, this is perfectly normal: The symptoms of PTSD frequently have a delayed onset that can take months or years to fully materialize. That's why, in April 2007, Will filed a claim with the VA for combat-related PTSD. The VA eventually agreed with Will and diagnosed him with mild PTSD. But Will felt like his condition was worse than that. And to boot, he thought it was getting worse. So Will appealed, and filed another disability claim with the VA in November 2007: He felt his symptoms were serious enough to warrant an increase in his disability rating from "mild" to "moderate."*

Unfortunately for Will, the VA denied his claim six months later, in May 2008. And while I won't challenge the VA's ultimate decision (I'm not a doctor), I find it repulsive that they cited Will's membership in VoteVets.org as a reason to deny his claim.

This is what the VA told Will in his denial letter:

The examiner states your PTSD symptoms are still present but you do not report symptoms at a degree or level which appears to suggest more severity. The examiner concurred with the previous diagnosis and assigned Global Assessment of Functioning Score of 52, stating you have occasional suicidal ideation but are able to cope with these symptoms and continue to function. The treatment reports from Memphis show you are currently involved with VoteVets.org, an advocacy group for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. You indicated involvement with this advocacy group makes you feel coping with your symptoms is worthwhile. The treatment note of March 10, 2008, indicates no homicidal or suicidal ideation and no thought disorder.

TPMMuckraker:

For days, Bruce Barclay's political career hung in the balance. The Republican commissioner of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, had been accused of rape -- by a man, no less -- and the police were bearing down. Barclay's lawyer issued a strong denial ("This accusation of rape is ludicrous It will be defended forever and is wrong."). But it was clear things were looking pretty dicey. Until... vindication! Well, sort of.

On March 31st, police, investigating the allegation of rape by the 20-year old Marshall McCurdy, obtained a warrant to search Barclay's home. They didn't find evidence of rape. But they did find videotapes of hundreds of sexual encounters with men that Barclay had filmed on high-tech surveillance cameras. The cameras were hidden inside AM/FM radios, motion detectors and intercom speaker systems, among other places. There was also one at his business office. [..]

On April 10th, the rape charges were dropped. One of the videos found during the search showed Barclay and McCurdy engaging in apparently consensual sex. [..]

Sadly, his vindication was his undoing. Barclay was forced to resign.

Of course, Barclay may be out of the frying pan, but he definitely landed in the fire. He faces charges of privacy violations, among others. McCurdy, on the other hand, is facing charges of making false reports to law enforcement and faces up to 3 years in prison.

I can't say that justice has been served for anyone involved.

NY Times (reg. req'd)

Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al-Qaida to blow up a radioactive ''dirty bomb,'' was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don't mention those initial allegations.

The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke marks another step in the extraordinary personal and legal odyssey for the 37-year-old Muslim convert, a U.S. citizen who was held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant after his 2002 arrest amid the ''dirty bomb'' allegations.

Prosecutors had sought life in prison, but Cook said she arrived at the 17-year sentence after taking into consideration the ''harsh conditions'' during Padilla's lengthy military detention at a Navy brig in South Carolina.

''I do find that the conditions were so harsh for Mr. Padilla ... they warrant consideration in the sentencing in this case,'' the judge said.

Cooke also imposed prison terms on two other men of Middle Eastern origin who were convicted of conspiracy and material support charges along with Padilla in August. The three were part of a North American support cell for al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists around the world, prosecutors said.

The jury in his trial was told that Padilla was recruited by Islamic extremists in the U.S. and filled out an application to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan.

Cooke said that as serious as the conspiracy was, there was no evidence linking the men to specific acts of terrorism anywhere.

And yet it merits 17 more years after four years of torture and mental debilitation? Lewis Koch looks at Citizen Padilla

Forbes:

The federal government has agreed to pay an Oregon lawyer $2 million to settle part of a lawsuit he filed after the FBI misidentified a fingerprint and wrongly arrested him in the 2004 Madrid terrorist bombings.

"The pain and torture and humiliation that this (case) has caused my family is hard to put into words," Brandon Mayfield said after the settlement was announced Wednesday.

Mayfield was arrested in May 2004 on the basis of a fingerprint found on a bag of detonators in Madrid that was mistakenly matched to him after the March 11, 2004, train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. Mayfield was jailed on a material witness warrant but was released after the FBI acknowledged the fingerprint was not his.

Mayfield, who was detained for two weeks, and his wife, Mona, maintained that he was arrested because of his Muslim faith.

"We are Muslims. We are American. We are patriotic," Mona Mayfield said. "We are unhappy with the current administration stripping away our rights." Read on...

Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy: Thank you Bob Woodward, and the rest of the media cheerleaders who helped smooth the way for BU$HCOS disastrous war of whim.

Donkephant: The Baker report is just more lip service while BU$HCO stalls for time...

CorrenteWire: Trent Lott, sex machine

Hullabaloo: Faith-based Boy Genius

Grist: What's the real cost of climate change, and where do all those numbers come from?

Informed Comment; Arrest Warrant For Harith al-Dhari of AMS; Higher education abductees tortured; Militias capture 14 Western security guards

Late Night Open Thread

Paul Krugman completes the triangle.

A crook is a crook is a crook:

"Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), the target of a 14-month public corruption probe, was videotaped accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from a Northern Virginia investor who was wearing an FBI wire, according to a search warrant affidavit released yesterday."

"A majority of Americans want the Bush administration to get court approval before eavesdropping on people inside the United States, even if those calls might involve suspected terrorists, an AP-Ipsos poll shows--- 56 percent of respondents in an AP-Ipsos poll said the government should be required to first get a court warrant to eavesdrop on the overseas calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when those communications are believed to be tied to terrorism ...read on"

Funny things happen when you ask the right question in a poll.