The frightening thing is it was 5-4 with Bush appointees voting to uphold

"The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

- Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the majority opinion.

The Supreme Court today did what the Founders envisioned it should do: it protected our basic constitutional guarantees from erosion and assault by a corrupt majority within the political class. In so doing, the Court took a mild though important step in reversing some of the worst and most tyrannical excesses of the last seven years. Patrick Henry warned long ago of the unique dangers of allowing executive imprisonment without meaningful process:

Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings -- give us that precious jewel, and you may take everything else! . . . Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.

- full article in Salon

There is an enormous gulf between the substance and tone of the majority opinion, with its rich appreciation of the liberties that the founders wrote into the Constitution, and the what-is-all-the-fuss-about dissent. It is sobering to think that habeas hangs by a single vote in the Supreme Court of the United States — a reminder that the composition of the court could depend on the outcome of this year’s presidential election. The ruling is a major victory for civil liberties — but a timely reminder of how fragile they are.

- NY Times editorial

President Bush on Thursday strongly disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling that clears foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. Bush suggested new legislation may now be needed to keep the American people safe.

"We'll abide by the court's decision," Bush said during a news conference in Rome. "That doesn't mean I have to agree with it." The court's decision was sure to be popular in Europe, where many leaders have called for the closing of Guantanamo.

In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.

"It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented," Bush said. "And that dissent was based upon their serious concerns about U.S. national security."

Bush said his administration will study the ruling. "We'll do this with this in mind — to determine whether or not additional legislation might be appropriate so we can safely say to the American people, 'We're doing everything we can to protect you.'"

No, Mr. President, you and your henchmen are doing everything possible to scare and coerce the American Sheeple to die on their knees rather than live on their feet.

Restore America's place in leading the free world

"This is close to a miracle. I was certain that some things will not happen in my lifetime," said Sunila Patel, 62, a widow encountered on the streets of New Delhi. "A black president of the U.S. will mean that there will be more American tolerance for people around the world who are different."

"The primaries showed that the U.S. is actually the nation we had believed it to be, a place that is open-minded enough to have a woman or an African American as its president," said Minoru Morita, a Tokyo political analyst.

Sam Onyango, a water vendor in Kisumu, Kenya, said that "Obama's victory means I might one day get to America and share the dreams I have always heard about. He will open doors for us there in the spirit of African brotherhood."

For many, Obama's skin color is deeply symbolic. As the son of an African and a white woman from Kansas, Obama has the brownish "everyman" skin color shared by hundreds of millions of people. "He looks like Egyptians. You can walk in the streets and find people who really look like him," said Manar el-Shorbagi, a specialist in U.S. political affairs at the Cairo university.

Still, some Russians hope that a new American president will improve strained relations between Washington and Moscow. "Barack Obama looks like the candidate that can be expected to take the greatest strides towards Russia," Konstantin Kosachev, a member of parliament, wrote in the newspaper Kommersant. "Unlike McCain he's not infected with any Cold War phobias."

- Quoted in The Washington Post

The politics of this nation is steeped enough in blood, Senator Clinton

I clearly remember waking up on the morning of June 7, 1968 and asking my mother what had happened to the California Democratic Primary results overnight. She was bleary-eyed from staying up all night for the coverage. And she replied to me: "Bobby Kennedy was shot."

Keith Olbermann stands up for all of us who do not have the avenue on which to express the outrage we all felt:

Straight "doublespeak" Talk Express

“ You could beat McCain! I’ve never met anyone in America who has the slightest respect for him. He went to a private school and came bottom of his class. He smashed up his aeroplane and became a prisoner of war, which he is trying to parlay into ‘war hero’.”

In his view, McCain is “a goddamned fool. He was on television talking about mortgages, and it was quite clear he does not know what a mortgage is. His head rattles as he walks”.

However, in Vidal’s eyes, McCain is just a symptom of the real malaise affecting America today: the cynical subversion of the US constitution. “The Bush people”, he says, “have virtually got rid of Magna Carta and habeas corpus. In a normal republic I would probably have raised an army and overthrown them. It will take a hundred years to put it all back.”

By now he has worked himself up to a crisp fury: “Those neocons, lawyers, the big corporations – worse than that, extremists – want to get rid of the great power of oversight of the executive. See what they’ll try to do to Obama. They’re crooks. They’re just gangsters. They are the enemy of the United States. There’s no such thing as a war on terrorism. It’s idiotic. There are slogans. It’s advertising, which is the only art form we’ve invented and developed. It’s lies.”

- Gore Vidal
Sunday Times

Hillbilly white trash for Hillary

Unbelieveably funny Daily Show clip about disturbing pockets of ignorance and intolerance.

Gotta laugh or cry.



Clearly, however, Appalachia has no corner on ignorance in America since "Hey in L.A." talk radio also comes with fully equipped with racist bigotry (although in a prettier camera-package):

Third straight "Solid Red" Congressional seat falls in Mississippi

WASHINGTON - Stunning? Only if you haven’t been paying attention in recent weeks.

Sickening? Yes, if you are a Republican.

That about sums up Tuesday night in Mississippi’s First Congressional district.

In a special election, Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in a district which had long been a GOP stronghold and where only three years ago, George W. Bush had won 62 percent of the vote.

Republicans ran ads linking Childers to Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Obama gloated a bit on the campaign trail in Michigan Wednesday. “Look, they (the Republicans) just lost yesterday in the heart of Mississippi…. this is a hardcore Republican seat. And they lost it by eight points."

The Republicans, he said, "did everything they could, you know they ran ads with my face on it, and they said, 'look at this former liberal,' his former pastor said offensive things, I mean they were trying to do every trick in the book to try to scare folks in Mississippi. And it didn't work.

- MSNBC

* * * * *

Repub national threw lots of money -- 20% of their cash on hand -- at this contest, and wheeled out their big guns up to and including Cheney to campaign in the district. They ran their patented guilt-by-association TV campaign juxtaposing Childers and Obama in what the GOP regards as the minds of the rubes.

None of it worked anymore.

Along with the GOP suicide watch, the Dem superdelegates have got to be noticing that Obama is not poison on the ticket, despite a lot of noise to the contrary.

- Eddy Kilowatt, FARK

middleoftheday: Ever get the impression that McCain ended up where he did because nobody on the red side gives a shiat? It seems like the chances of a Republican being the next president would be pretty damn pretty low.

Yeah, he's the fall guy for the Republicans this year. They can say they gave the "maverick" a shot, even if it's in a year where Zombie Reagan would have a better chance than any other Repub.

- Jubeebee, FARK

Just a broke-down sailor looking for a place to drop anchor

Front page of the local Bugle (ok, it was below the fold, but still ...)

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

- Thomas Jefferson