So, the Supremes voted 5-4 against an accused Alaskan prisoner's request to PAY FOR HIS OWN DNA TESTING to prove innocence in a rape case.  You can guess who those 5 troglodytes were.

 

But why oh why did Obama's justice dept. have to sign on to this egregious decision?

 

As the NYT said today:

 

We are also puzzled and disturbed by the Obama administration's decision to side with Alaska in this case -- continuing the Bush administration's opposition to recognizing a right to access physical evidence for post-conviction DNA testing.

 

Moreover, as former FBI Director Williams S. Sessions wrote in Slate on Monday:

 

It's a generally laudatory goal for a new president to continue the DoJ polices of the previous one when he takes office. But a change in position may be warranted in some cases. Osborne is one of them. The Justice Department's decision is particularly perplexing because when President Obama was an Illinois state senator, he responded to that state's wrongful conviction problem by leading a bipartisan effort to help prevent convictions of the innocent, including laws allowing access to DNA evidence.

 

Only 4 states refuse to recognize prisoners' rights to DNA evidence, and many states don't even require that it be kept!

 

You'd think that in a democracy, lawmakers would find it essential to guard citizens from wrongful imprisonment and execution.  In the good old US of A, you'd be wrong, and this Supreme Court decision, aided and abetted by the Obama Justice dept., is another piece of evidence that the land of the free ain't so free . . .  

How irritating, ridiculous, and generally unhelpful are the lefties who insist that Obama is THE SAME AS BUSH because he hasn't released the Abu Ghraib pics, abolished tribunals, etc.?  Well, maybe not as irritating, ridiculous, and generally unhelpful as idiots on the right who insist that abortion = murder or that gun control = a violation of 2^nd amendment rights, but there is a similarity . . .

 

If we learned anything over the past decade, I would hope it would be the need for logical, nuanced, intelligent discussion of issues.  That's why I'm recommending  Philip Gourevitch's The Abu Ghraib We Cannot See.  You may not agree with everything he says, but perhaps this very thoughtful, reasonable piece can help clarify the vast complexity of the torture issues and the administration's need to proceed morally, but also very carefully.  You may not agree with all of Obama's responses to the Bush-created torture mess (I don't!), but is there really a need to equate him with Bush?  What next?  When he fails to act as you desire on some other issue, maybe start an Obama = Bin Ladin meme?  Oops--already been done.

 

Anyone remember the Gore = Bush meme?  The one that helped elect our Dear Leader in 2000?  Anyone regret that simplistic, false equivalency?  

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, ably aided by Stan Greenberg, made mincemeat of Karl Rove at George Stephanopoulos' roundtable this morning!

It was a beautiful thing to see Rove backed into a corner, unable to to effectively deploy his virulent bullshit. The Dems effectively demolished him and George Will sat back looking rather sourly at him..

Vanden Heuvel was at the top of her game--flawlessly prepped, tightly organized, careful and logical but not too slow.  She manged to fit devastating critiques of repub policy and hypocrisy into every response.

At one point, Rove suggested that she hadn't read De Mint and other radical repub's web site statement on the stimulus bill.  Big mistake--not only had she read them but she also had plenty of ammmo to demolish them! 

Rove, probably accustomed to mindless adulation at CPAC, was forced into the midst of a rational discourse--he did not look happy!

Is Obama dissing Clinton or just hiring?  Is this a good move or bad?  Inquiring minds want to know . . .

Also--5 reasons Clinton lost, 5 differences between Obama/McCain.  Short and snappy, hopefully with link this time . . .
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-clinch_charticlejun04,0,2494342.story

Also, 5 reasons Clinton lost, 5 differences between Obama/McCain.  Short and snappy!

When will it end?  The Guardian reports that according to human rights organization Reprieve,

The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.

When are Dems going to stand up and get tough?  Currently, they just let Repubs define the terms of discussion.  How wimpy are they to be afraid to talk about the war mess and how to get out when a majority of Americans would like to hear it?  Can Dems only speak out when a big strong Marine like Murtha provides cover?

Will’s column in today’s Washington Post refines his commentary on the Sunday talk show.  He’s not sitting with people who have just watched an interview with Brack Obama as he was on Sunday, so Will is now free to misrepresent the junior Senator from IL in service of a right-wing argument that “America's always fast-flowing river of race-obsessing has overflowed its banks.”  According to Will, Obama merely mouthed empty rhetoric about the prez’s lack of empathy, and claimed that the gov’s “’passive indifference’” is as bad as “’active malice’.”  Never mind that Obama didn’t really say this (he was responding to a question about why Kanye West and others were so angry): for Will, any racial anger or mistrust is clearly insane, because in the last 40 years, “the indifference that is as bad as active malice has been expressed in more than $6.6 trillion of anti-poverty spending” [italics his].  Gotcha! 
 
Will schools Obama in sociological reality, something he’d never do face-to-face since Obama’s response would annihilate him (for example, see Obama’s Dem Convention speech).  However, this column represents Will’s dream response to his nemesis, so he’ll floor the callow young man with these deep insights:
1)         Dems have thrown trillions (!) of dollars at the (so-called) race problem with no good results.
2)        There are “three not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: Graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you are married, don't marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey those rules, poverty is minimal.”  Simple, isn’t it?
3)        Liberals are hypocrites: JFK was rich and Harrington’s major study on poverty was reviewed in the New Yorker, which caters to the rich.
4)        Katrina victims are primarily unmarried women and fatherless children.  This immoral situation is the key to their tragedy, not a level-5 storm that even the president couldn’t forsee.
5)        Money spent on Katrina’s victims would just be wasted, as are all other liberal attempts to interfere with the inevitabilties of a market economy.
 
We’ll be hearing more and more of these reproaches to the poor, and various “solutions” to reform the storm’s victims and withold compensation.