Article 3 Interpretation

Ken AshfordSupreme Court3 Comments

Eugene Volokh notices something in the Hamdan decision.  It appears that none of the justices –even the dissenters — take the position that Article 3 doesn’t apply to Gitmo detainees (although Scalia and Alito are silent).

Even Thomas, Volokh notes, seems to agree — although he disputes the particular interpretation to be applied to Article 3.  Volokh quotes Thomas at length:

The President’s interpretation of Common Article 3 is reasonable and should be sustained. The conflict with al Qaeda is international in character in the sense that it is occurring in various nations around the globe. Thus, it is also “occurring in the territory of” more than “one of the High Contracting Parties.” The Court does not dispute the President’s judgments respecting the nature of our conflict with al Qaeda, nor does it suggest that the President’s interpretation of Common Article 3 is implausible or foreclosed by the text of the treaty. Indeed, the Court concedes that Common Article 3 is principally concerned with “furnish[ing] minimal protection to rebels involved in. . . a civil war,” ante, at 68, precisely the type of conflict the President’s interpretation envisions to be subject to Common Article 3. Instead, the Court, without acknowledging its duty to defer to the President, adopts its own, admittedly plausible, reading of Common Article 3. But where, as here, an ambiguous treaty provision (“not of an international character”) is susceptible of two plausible, and reasonable, interpretations, our precedents require us to defer to the Executive’s interpretation.

I boldened the sentence that trips me up.

The Supreme Court has a "duty to defer to the President" on interpretations of international law?

What the fuck? !?

This is extremely troublesome, especially in light of how the President is keen on using signing statements to re-interpret domestic laws.

Justice Thomas, it is the job of the courts to interpret law — not merely to rubberstamp what the President thinks the law is.  Scary.

The “American Values” Agenda

Ken AshfordCongress, Republicans, Sex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

Here’s the "American Values" Agenda being pushed by the GOP (from the website of Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL)):

  • Pledge Protection Act (HR 2389; Akin)
    Summary: Protects the Pledge of Allegiance from attacks by activist federal judges seeking to rule it unconstitutional.
  • Freedom to Display the American Flag Act (HR 42; Bartlett)
    Summary: Ensures an individual has the right to display the U.S. flag on residential property.
  • The Public Expression of Religion Act (HR 2679; Hostettler)
    Summary: Ensures local officials and communities do not face financial ruin to defend their rights to free speech under the Constitution (provides that when state or local officials are sued over public expressions of religion, no monetary damages, costs, or attorney’s fees may be awarded).
  • Marriage Amendment (HJRes 88; Musgrave)
    Summary: Constitutional amendment declaring marriage to be between a man and a woman
  • Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act (HR 356; C. Smith)
    Summary: Requires that those performing late-term abortions inform the woman seeking an abortion of the medical evidence that the unborn child feels pain, and ensure that if she chooses to continue with the abortion procedure, she has the option of choosing anesthesia for the child, so that the unborn child’s pain is less severe.
  • Human Cloning Prohibition Act (HR 1357; D. Weldon)
    Summary: Bans human cloning and the importation of products derived from a cloned human embryo (e.g. stem cells).
  • BATFE Reform (HR 5092; Coble)
    Summary: Reforms the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (BATFE) to protect citizens’ rights.
  • Internet Gambling Prohibition (Leach/Goodlatte):
    Summary: Addresses the issue of illegal internet gambling by making gambling laws apply equally to the internet.
  • Permanent Tax Relief for Families
    Summary: Likely series of votes on the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, tax incentives for adoption, and other priorities for American citizens.
  • Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act (HR 5013; Jindal)
    Summary: Prohibits governments from using federal funds to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens during emergencies.

It’s off to a bad start.

Republicans failed to protect the words "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance — the first item on the list above — in a House Judiciary Committee vote.

Even though Republicans have a six person advantage on the Committee, seven Republicans skipped the vote and fourteen Democrats opposed the challenge to the courts, resulting in a 15-15 tie.

RELATED:  Speaking of "American values", get a load of Tom Delay joking with other Republicans congressmen about "beaver".  And social conservatives like these people?

The Myth Of Al Qaeda

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Michael Hirsch writes a convincing article on how, thanks to Bush’s wars, al Qaeda has emerged from a rag-tag group of (admittedly dangerous and occasionally successful) religious fanatics to a full-fleged global mainstream movement — all since 9/11.  He concludes:

But there was substantial evidence showing that, up to 9/11, Al Qaeda could barely hold its act together, that it was a failing group, hounded from every country it tried to roost in (except for the equally lunatic Taliban-run Afghanistan). That it didn’t represent the mainstream view even in the jihadi community, much less the rest of the Muslim world. This is the reality of the group that the Bush administration has said would engage us in a "long war" not unlike the cold war—the group that has led to the transformation of U.S. foreign policy and America’s image in the world. The intelligence community generally agrees that the number of true A-list Al Qaeda operatives out there around the time of 9/11 was no more than about 1,000, perhaps as few as 500, most in and around Afghanistan. It is also fairly well established that bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were engaged in a fierce pre-9/11 struggle with their own meager band of followers over whether it was wise to take on the "far enemy"—the United States—when many jihadis really wanted to engage the "near enemy," their national regimes, like Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The ultimate tragedy of the Iraq war was not only that it diverted the U.S. from the knockout blow against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan—the deaths of bin Laden and Zawahiri would likely have persuaded most jihadis it was wiser to focus on the near enemy—but that Iraq also altered the outcome of Al Qaeda’s internal debate, tipping it in bin Laden’s favor. "Iraq ended that debate because it fused the near and the far enemy," as Arquilla puts it succinctly. America ventured into the lands of jihad and willingly offered itself as a target in place of the local regimes. And as a new cause that revived the flagging Al Qaeda movement. It is, no doubt, bin Laden’s greatest victory.

More on Hamdan: Torture and the Geneva Conventions, AUMF and FISA

Ken AshfordSupreme Court, War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Marty Lederman has pinpointed the BIG news about Hamdan decision, which is this:

More importantly, the Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today’s ruling. The commissions are the least of it. This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely," and that "[t]o this end," certain specified acts "are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever"—including "cruel treatment and torture," and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." This standard, not limited to the restrictions of the due process clause, is much more restrictive than even the McCain Amendment. See my further discussion here.

This almost certainly means that the CIA’s interrogation regime is unlawful, and indeed, that many techniques the Administation has been using, such as waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act (because violations of Common Article 3 are deemed war crimes).

If I’m right about this, it’s enormously significant.

Now, I trust Marty, but my initial question is: is this actually a holding of the case, or was it dicta?

UPDATE:  Glenn Greenwald has a very good bottom-line summary of the case and what it means — readable to the average layman.

UPDATE:  I’ve perused the opinion that pertains to this (the entire Hamdan opinion is 185 pages long — good God!).

The Government argued that the conflict with al Qaeda is not a conflict covered by the 1949 Geneva Conventions.  They have a point — Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions states renders protections only in "cases of declared war or any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties".  Al Qaeda, obviously, was not a signatory ("contracting party") to the Geneva Convention accords.  Since Hamdan himself was detained not as a result of the War with the Taliban (Afghanistan is a signatory to the Geneva Convention), the Article 2 protections do not apply to him (so argues the U.S. government).

However, SCOTUS notes that Article <i>3</i> of the Geneva Conventions covers situations where one of the parties in the conflict is not a "contracting party".  Article 3 provides that in a "conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party shall be bound to apply, as a minimum" certain provisions protecting (among others) "members of armed forces who have alid down their arms and …those placed [in] detention."

In other words, since Hamdan was captured in Afghanistan (a signatory nation to the Geneva Convention), he is entited to certain protection under the Geneva Convention accords.

The government argued that the the War against al Qaeda is "of an international character", so Article 3 doesn’t apply.  SCOTUS thinks that is the wrong interpretation.  The conflict in which Hamdan was arrested/captured was a conflict between two nations — the U.S. and Afghanistan. 

That makes sense to me.  WWII was, at once, an internal fight against global Naziism, but it was also — let’s be real — a war between countries.

Therefore, certain protections of the Geneva Conventions apply.  Now, the Hamdan case isn’t about torture, but that’s one of the major implications: "enemy combatents" are subject to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, even if al Qaeda itself was not a signatory to those accords.\

SOME INITIAL THOUGHTS ABOUT THE DISSENTS:

Scalia was unusually unflowery.  He believed that SCOTUS did not have jurisdiction to hear the case in the first place (for reasons I won’t get into).  Therefore, he didn’t opine on whether substantive matters, i.e., whether or not the military tribunals were illegal under U.S. law or international law.

That task was left to Thomas.  Thomas’ dissent is long, but he on this issue, he basically argues that the President is Commander-in-Chief, and that Congress, by enacting the Military Code, empowered the Commander-in-Chief to do whatever he damn well pleases with respect to detainees.  (He also argues that the Geneva Conventions do not apply).

Thomas complains that the Hamdan decision would undermine Bush’s ability "to prevent future attacks" and  would "hamper the President’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy".

Well, that’s nice, but hardly the point.  The Supreme Court doesn’t set military policy.  Congress regulates the armed forces.  As Justice Breyer pointed out in his concurrence (clearly a response to Thomas) — if the President wants a "blank check" to run military commissions however he wants, then he can go to Congress and ask for the blank check.  But Congress hasn’t given it to him yet, and even then, Congress cannot supersede the agreements we made during the Geneva Conventions.

Here’s the key graf from Breyer’s response (jopined by Kennedy, take note) to Thomas:

Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation’s ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation’s ability to determine—through democratic means—how best to do so. The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means. Our Court today simply does the same.

MORE FROM THINK PROGRESS:  The Court’s decision impacts the wiretapping program….

The impact of today’s Supreme Court decision on military commissions goes well beyond Guantanamo. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force – issued by Congress in the days after 9/11 – is not a blank check for the administration. From the opinion:

Neither the AUMF [Authorization for the Use of Military Force] nor the DTA [Detainee Treatment Act] can be read to provide specific, overriding authorization for the commission convened to try Hamdan. Assuming the AUMF activated the President’s war powers, see Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U. S. 507, and that those powers include authority to convene military commissions in appropriate circumstances, see, e.g., id., at 518, there is nothing in the AUMF’s text or legislative history even hinting that Congress intended to expand or alter the authorization set forth in UCMJ Art. 21.

The point here is that the AUMF does not authorize activity that was not specifically contemplated in the text or legislative history. This is incredibly significant. The administration is relying on the AUMF to justify its warrantless wiretapping program. Here’s Alberto Gonzales on 12/19/05:

Our position is, is that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals intelligence.

ORIN KERR:

If you plan on working your way through the 185 pages of Hamdan opinions today, here’s what you have in front of you:

Justice Stevens wrote the main opinion — 73 pages long –  which is a 5-Justice majority opinion in part and a 4-Justice judgement of the Court in part.
Justice Breyer wrote a 1-page concurrence joined by Souter, Kennedy, and Ginsburg.

Justice Kennedy wrote a 20-page concurrence, parts of which were joined by Souter, Ginburg, and Breyer.

Justice Scalia wrote a 24-page dissent on the jurisdictional and abstention issues that was joined by Thomas and Alito.

Justice Thomas wrote a 49-page dissent on the merits, joined by Scalia and in part by Alito.

Justice Alito wrote a 10-page dissent on the merits, joined in part by Thomas and Scalia.

Breaking News: SCOTUS Rules Against Bush On Gitmo Detainees

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Just got the CNN email alert which says:

The Supreme Court rules President Bush overstepped his authority with military war crimes trials for foreigners held at Guantanamo Bay in a case involving a former driver for Osama bin Laden.

No full story yet.  Obviously, I’ll be updating this….

UPDATE: Marty Lederman on what the Hamdan case is about:

There is little or no question about the constitutionality of the military commissions. (Although there is an outside possibility the Court will rule that the alien defendants are protected by the Due Process Clause (see footnote 15 of Rasul) and that the commissions fail to provide due process.)

Nor, in my view, is there any real question that Congress has as a general matter authorized the use of military commissions to try crimes against the laws of war. That was essentially the holding of cases such as Quirin and Yamashita, and subsequently Congress re-enacted 10 USC 821, without calling into question those decisions.

The questions in Hamdan are, instead, whether Congress has authorized the types of commissions that the President has created — i.e., whether the commissions, as presidentially authorized and as implemented, conform to statutory authority — and whether and to what extent these commissions violate any restrictions that the statutes expressly or implicitly impose.

The most important restriction is likely to be that the commissions must themselves comply with the laws of armed conflict (LOAC). (Several Justices pressed the SG on this point at oral argument, suggesting that if Congress authorized the military to convene trials for violations of the laws of war, surely Congress would have insisted that those trials themselves comply with the laws of war.)

And then the key question becomes what, exactly, the laws of armed conflict require with respect to such commissions, and whether these commissions meet those specifications. And in determining that question, most of the attention will likely be on Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which might apply here as a matter of treaty obligation (a question on which the DC Circuit split 2-1), and which in any event likely reflects the customary LOAC to which the commissions must adhere. (More on the importance of Common Article 3 here and here.)

UPDATE:  SCOTUSBlog gives the bottom line:

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Congress did not take away the Court’s authority to rule on the military commissions’ validity, and then went ahead to rule that President Bush did not have authority to set up the tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and found the commissions illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention. The vote was 5-3, with the Chief Justice not taking part.

The Court expressly declared that it was not questioning the government’s power to hold Salim Ahmed Hamdan "for the duration of active hostilities" to prevent harm to innocent civilians. But, it said, "in undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction."

That quotation was from the main opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens. That opinion was supported in full by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote separately, in an opinion partly joined by Justices Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter. Kennedy’s opinion did not support all of Stevens’ discussion of the Geneva Convention, but he did find that the commissions were not authorized by military law or that Convention.

The decision was 5-3 with Alito, Scalia, and Thomas being the dissenters.  The Chief Justice took no part because he dealt with this case as a lower court judge (but even if he had, it would only be 5-4).

MORE FROM SCOTUSBLOG:

Justice Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, Kennedy and Souter, wrote separately to answer the dissenters’ complaint that the ruling would hamper the President’s ability to deal with a new and deadly enemy.

Allow me to interrupt at this point to say that the dissenters (Alito, Scalia and Thomas) are wankers.

The Court’s conclusion, Breyer said, "ultimately rests upon a single ground: Congress has not issued the Executive a ‘blank check.’…Indeed, Congress has denied the President the legislative auhority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress tgo seek the authority he believes necessary." The Breyer opinion included a mini-lecture on the virtue of presidential consultation with Congress, at least "where, as here, no emergency prevents" such consultation. "The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means. Our Court today simply does the same."

Tell it, Breyer.

Faux Outrage

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

The GOP/Bush outrage against the New York Times for supposedly spilling anti-terrorist operational secrets is bullshit.

Back in 2002, the United States Customs Office was openly talking about Operation Green Quest, a program to track the financial programs of would-be terrorists. 

In fact, the government published a pamphlet about it.

In fact, the pamphlet went into greater detail than the New York Times article. It gives a list of the kinds of financial transactions that are "red flag" indicators that terrorist money is moving around.

If the New York Times is committing treason for revealing these "secrets" in 2006, why was it okay for the government to publish those secrets in greater detail four years ago?

You can see the actual government pamphlet here (PDF format).  It’s still on the U.S. Treasury Department website.  Take note of the date it was published.

More at AmericaBlog.

SCOTUS Decides Texas Gerrymandering Case; Nobody Sure Who Won

Ken AshfordSupreme CourtLeave a Comment

There were six different opinions in this case.  Here’s the breakdown:

"KENNEDY, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts II–A and III, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, GINSBURG, AND BREYER, JJ., joined, an opinion with respect to Parts I and IV, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, J., joined, an opinion with respect to Parts II–B and II–C, and an opinion withrespect to Part II–D, in which SOUTER and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which BREYER, J., joined as to Parts I and II. SOUTER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which GINSBURG, J., joined. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. ROBERTS, C. J., filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part, in which ALITO, J., joined. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which THOMAS, J., joined, and in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, J., joined as to Part III."

Yeah,  I don’t know who won either, or what the Court actually, you know, decided.

Lyle Denniston wades into the deep grass, fortunately.

Apparently, it was mostly a victory for those who want to preserve their political power by gerrymandering congressional district lines.  Maybe.

Pickle-phobia

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

For no reason whatsover, I present this bizarre clip from The Maury Povich Show in which our Maury generously helps a terrified young girl overcome her debilitating fear of — wait for it — pickles.

I don’t know whether to laugh (probably not) or cry (no, not that either).

A Soldier’s Salute

Ken AshfordConstitutionLeave a Comment

Ben Shapiro, not surprisingly, thinks that anyone who burns a flag hates America, and publicly desecrates the soldiers who fought to preserve that flag blah blah blah, which is why there should be a No Flag Burning Amendment giving the government more power and taking away liberties from, you know, the people.

A soldier comments on Ben’s article:

As an American serving in the Army for over 20 years I wear the American Flag on the right shoulder of my uniform everyday. I fly a flag respectfully in front of my house. When I recently returned from a year long deployment to Iraq, the first thing I saw when I got off the plane was USO and Red Cross volunteers holding flags. The site brought tears to my eyes and the thought of that sends chills up my spine today six months after the fact. I will also never forget the flag draped coffin and the folded flag given to the widow of one of my best friends who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan last year. And I constantly look out over the field here on FT Stewart with over 200 trees and flags planted in memory of my fellow soldiers that died during our recent deployment. Of all the things I have been called unpatriotic is not one of them. I love the country that the flag is a symbol of and thought of desecrating that flag is about as repulsive an act of speech as I can imagine. It ranks right up there with the people protesting at military funerals or outside or veterans hospitals.

However, more important to me then the flag is the constitution. I have pledged my allegiance to the flag and to the Republic for which the flag stands, but it is the constitution that I swore to uphold and defend. The constitutional amendments that guarantee our right to protest are one of the freedoms that make our country a place worth sacrificing my life for. As repulsive as it is, flag burning is political "discourse" and it is a very bad precedent to offer amendments to something as good as our constitution that limit freedoms, especially ones that are so vital. The fact is in over 200 years since the ten amendments in the "bill of rights" were passed, less than another 20 amendments have been necessary. Again a document this good should not be tampered with lightly. While on most things I do not agree with the democrats or the liberal left, on this one they got it correct.

RELATED:  Speaking of soldiers, a marine who appeared in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 was killed in Iraq.

Viagraholics Anonymous

Ken AshfordRight Wing Punditry/Idiocy2 Comments

The organization sends an open letter to Rush Limbaugh (and it’s not a joke — they’re being sincere):

To Our Fellow Viagraholic:

We feel your pain. We’ve been there, and we too have suffered the humiliation and shame of having our lives torn apart by Viagra abuse.

Rush, it doesn’t have to be this way. We at Viagraholics Anonymous are here to offer you hope.

We faced our addiction and are now on the path of recovery. If we can do it, so can you. We’re your brothers, and we want to help you spare yourself any more suffering due to this insidious addiction.

We know all the games. Hiding the pills. Lying to doctors. Getting multiple prescriptions, or prescriptions in someone else’s name. We tried all the same tricks, and like you, eventually most of us got caught.

Rush, your experience at the Palm Beach airport was a wake-up call. Sometimes it takes a moment like this to shake you up and make you realize that you do, indeed, have a problem with Viagra. We call this "hitting bottom." Use this opportunity to turn your life back toward sanity.

You can make jokes about it all you want; it’s your job, after all, to entertain people. But we know how you’re hurting inside. You can kid others, but don’t kid yourself – this addiction will destroy your life, your career, your health, and your relationships.

The first step in recovery is to admit that you’re powerless over Viagra. Then, with support from other recovered Viagraholics, you can break the hold and reclaim your life and your dignity.

Help is out there, Rush. All you have to do is ask. We invite you to come to a Viagraholics Anonymous meeting and join us. The choice is yours – our door is open to you.

There is one A-list political blogger (I can’t remember who right now) who has been treating this Rush-Viagra thing without snark and snicker.  And so I am moved to point out the obvious: drug addiction is not funny; it is no laughing matter.

Except when it happens to Rush.

Barack Gets It Wrong

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

I’m a big fan of Barack Obama, and hope to see him in the Oval Office someday, but he’s just plain wrong here:

Sen. Barack Obama chastised fellow Democrats on Wednesday for failing to "acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people," and said the party must compete for the support of evangelicals and other churchgoing Americans.

"Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation. Context matters," the Illinois Democrat said in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference of Call to Renewal, a faith-based movement to overcome poverty…

At the same time, he said, "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square."

As a result, "I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people and join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy."

All he is doing is here is employing the fake Republican talking point that "Democrats" are godless and attacking religion.  It’s not like you see Democrats/liberals urging people to stop praying and then handing them a "Howard Dean for President" button.

And secularists don’t ask people to abandon their religious beliefs when they enter the public square.  They merely ask that people refrain from using the taxpayer-funded "public square" to propogate their religious beliefs on others.  Surely, Obama understands the difference.

Atrios agrees:

Dear Senator Obama,

If you think it’s important to court evangelicals, then court them. If, on the other hand, you think it’s important to confirm and embrace the false idea that Democrats are hostile to religion in order to set yourself apart, then continue doing what you’re doing. It won’t help the Democrats, and it probably won’t even help you, but whatever makes you happy.

Love and kisses,

Atrios

The thing is, the gap between the Democratic platform and Jesus Christ is much smaller than the GOP and Christ.  Democrats care about the poor.  So did Jesus.  Democrats care about the sick.  So did Jesus.  And so on. 

So yes, Democrats should do more to reach out to evangelicals and make them understand that if Jesus was a living politician in 2006, he would be advocating universal health care — not having the Ten Commandments in schoolrooms.

UPDATE:  Pam Spaulding has similar thoughts:

There is not a lack of acknowledgment of faith and the role it plays in American lives, it’s dismay at the buy-in by the Democratic establishment of the Republican spin that the faith community is only made up of those who are socially conservative.

This is partially a failure of the voices in the progressive religious community to make inroads in the debate, to effectively counter the fundamantalist fringe, and clearly the message is still not getting through when you have Barack Obama uttering this…

No, the issue is that politicians, beholden to the fringe religious movement, want to force, quite specifically, their view of the world, a set of religious standards on everyone — and to enact legislation that reflects the prejudices spurred by that perspective.

And make no mistake, these folks mean “Christianity” as the fundamentalists define it. The fundie movement has as its objective the demonization/recloseting of gays and the control of the sexuality and reproductive freedom of women. They want to merge church and state. These are the folks that the Dems want to court?

There is an anti-religion element on the left that has no patience for any of this, and they also have a hard time remembering that the people of faith are not all bible beating whack jobs. Many in the faith community can be courted — just not the fundamentalists, who cannot be reasoned with.

It really is incumbent on the progressive religious community to continue to speak out on this matter, to stop the spin being perpetrated by the Rovian right.

***

Obama’s position reflects a decision to ignore the political goals of the religious right, which is guided and cloaked by their perversion of faith.

Countries continue to fight wars over religion and our Framers knew that we needed to keep this sh*t separated.

This is why we are having to painfully, continuously work out the details over which issues are church/state separation matters when it comes to political institutions and power. It is messy by necessity.

Unfortunately the right has been able to frame the issues, and the sad, crappy truth is the Dems just buy in to the spin, rather than counter the argument.

Rapture Database

Ken AshfordGodstuff1 Comment

Um.  Whatever:

If you wish to do something now that will help your unbelieving friends and family after the rapture, you need to add those persons email address to our database. Their names will be stored indefinitely and a letter will be sent out to each of them on the first Friday after the rapture. Then they will receive another letter every friday after that.

This rapture letter service is FREE and will hopefully gain the person you send it to an eternity in heaven.

I wonder what the letter will say?

Dear Friend:

If you have received this letter, then you’ve probably noticed that those who have accepted Christ as their savoir are no longer walking the Earth, and our now at Jesus’ side.  You may have also noticed that you are standing in a sea of fire and vomit, while tiny weasel-devils slowly gnaw at your entrails.

May we take this opportunity to suggest that you accept Christ into your heart?

Seriously, if the RaptureTM comes, I’m not sure I’ll be checking my emails much.

Flag Amendment Fails

Ken AshfordConstitution, Right Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

Burn ’em if you got ’em.

Meanwhile, there’s delusions at the Corner.  John Podheretz to fellow Cornerite Jonah Goldberg:

Jonah, I also oppose the flag-burning amendment. But as a strictly Machiavellian matter, as a sheerly political stunt, you have to admit that it’s one of those peculiar gifts that keeps on giving. Republicans can bring it up every few years or so during an election year to torment Democrats and drive the New York Times and Jonathan Alter into a state of near-psychosis.

So, Republicans in Congress engage in a silly political stunt, trying to create an amendment that most people oppose — those Republicans then lose — and that is good for the GOP and bad for the Democrats?

What a wonderful happy bubble the Corner lives in.

Magic Fingers

Ken AshfordRandom Musings1 Comment

Breaking up is hard to do:

CORPUS CHRISTI — A woman received a severed human finger in the mail along with a threatening letter from her ex-boyfriend that said, "This is my last chance to touch you," police said.

Corpus Christi Police Capt. John Houston said police weren’t sure which finger was removed or how, but that it appeared to have been washed before it was mailed Friday.

"It was a clean cut," Houston said. "It wasn’t mangled."

The 32-year-old woman filed for an emergency protective order from her boyfriend last week.

Sending severed body parts to your ex-girlfriend.  I can’t imagine how that failed to win her back.