War on Terrorism
Timing
I take it that Tom Ridge made this announcement:
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Thursday that there is “credible” information indicating that al-Qaida is moving ahead with plans for a “large-scale attack” in the U.S. aimed at disrupting the November elections.to assist in bush’s effort to squash a House attempt to remove some of the more onerous pieces of the patriot act:
The Republican-led House bowed to a White House veto threat Thursday and stood by the USA Patriot Act, defeating an effort to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that helps the government investigate people’s reading habitsNah, they wouldn’t do anything like that….
Hat tips to Norbizness and Talkleft.
Supremes Sing for bush?
Arthur Silber isn’t very happy with the rulings in Hamdi, Padilla and Rasul:
…as Turley notes, the fact that these questions arose in this form in the first place — questions that lie at the very foundation of what was our original system of government — is a very ominous sign, a sign whose significance a great many people appear not to appreciate fully, if at all.Now I’m not as happy with these rulings as I was two days ago.
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MORE CONFIRMATION: Of my view — if the Wall Street Journal is pleased about the Supreme Court’s rulings, you can be pretty damned sure that they’re bad news for the defenders of individual rights:
Iraq Occupation Ended
Reaffirming what Modulator reported a month ago the bush administration has already taken up the pre-election drumbeat that the occupation has ended. Paul Bremer tells us:
…the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist on June 28th, at which point the occupation will end and the Iraqi interim government will assume and exercise full sovereign authority on behalf of the Iraqi people.Has anyone seen any sign of troops being pulled out? Nope. This is pure semantic BS on the part of the administration.
Judicial Nomination Hindsight
I wonder if Jay Bybee would have been confirmed if the Senate had known that he authored this.
Michael Froomkin’s analysis of Torture Memo 2 is a good place to get an overview before going on to read the full document.
Links via The Gamer’s Nook and the Washington Monthly.