When the president acts in the best interest of vets, how is it aceptable that some asshole that thinks hookers that obviously have better ideas about social justice and family values take a back seat to Senator Vitter? Where’s his moral justification for putting holds on Preaidwbtial nominations? He comported with hookers. It’s not like an allegation, it’s a fact. And this sleazeball is holding up a Presidential appointment of somebody unquestionably qualified?

Look you morons. Scalia only believes in the Constitution he made up in his own twisted mind. Perps are guilty, and absolute proof of innocence doesn’t mean we can’t fry somebody. That is what this guy said. I say that makes him a psychopath. Explain to me how I’m wrong. And how W wasn’t a happy idiot, and how he wasn’t a whole lot worse when he thought it was funny doing his little imitation. He thought it was just as funny blowing up innocent Iraqis and missing Sadam by miles, and not caring, because a dead Iraqi is like a dead Indian.

Neocons are like a post-industrial joke now. Palin is the anit-neo neocon. Those people thought they were intellectuals. They were bumrushed by idiots. The future for Republicans is crystallized in a single phrase: Keep your government hands off my Medicare. And there is probably no way to deal with stupidity that entrenched.

I’m an absolute believer in the stupidiy of Ameericans. Lf Ameericans want to believe the Health Insurance and Drug Company people havtheir best interests at heart, you folks are looney tunes. When Bush was president, he made a deal with Phaarma where they could charge whatever they wanted to and the government would have to just eat it. So that make sense to anybody but a Bush toady? Mope

There’s a President trying to fix an inordinate mess. Gay rights? Gay marriage? Are we kidding? There are a lot of things more important to a lot of people. I am so sick of backbiting on single issues.

What I really mean, somebody’s sexual preference isn’t particularly important to me. What this has to do with Patrick McGoohan, I haven’t a clue. Not even remotely.

http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-091113.html

…In each case, my decision as to whether to proceed in federal courts or military commissions was based on a protocol that the Departments of Justice and Defense developed and that was announced in July. Because many cases could be prosecuted in either federal courts or military commissions, that protocol sets forth a number of factors – including the nature of the offense, the location in which the offense occurred, the identity of the victims, and the manner in which the case was investigated – that must be considered. In consultation with the Secretary of Defense, I looked at all the relevant factors and made case by case decisions for each detainee.

It is important that we be able to use every forum possible to hold terrorists accountable for their actions. Just as a sustained campaign against terrorism requires a combination of intelligence, law enforcement and military operations, so must our legal efforts to bring terrorists to justice involve both federal courts and reformed military commissions. I want to thank the members of Congress, including Senators Lindsay Graham, Carl Levin and John McCain who worked so hard to strengthen our national security by helping us pass legislation to reform the military commission system.

It is just a great book, and it has about it the ring of truth; the FBI’s investigative team picked up leads and so on there, and began expending shoe leather matching things up with the earlier attacks on the US embassies at Dar es Salaam and other East African cities…and had a glimmer of a chance of following the thread all the way to the 9/11 attackers, except that the CIA didn’t share what they knew with the FBI – since the FBI was all about prosecutions and public trials and so on….

which raises the one infinitely complex point that hangs over public trials in our civil courts for these multinational criminals. The CIA (and other ‘black’ intelligence agencies) simply do not operate with a view toward public trials and the exposure of ways and means and sources.

But indeed – that is simply a challenge we must shoulder. Will future nihilists learn what things to avoid? Maybe they will – but “the good guys” aren’t standing still; their sources and ways and means are always changing, too.

But indeed – the point that the critics of a public trial could make – but haven’t really coherently made (at least that I’ve seen or heard) is the same old problem we had in the late ’90′s, and in the run-up to September 11, 2001 – which is so well detailed in Wright’s book; institutional coordination and cooperation within the United States’ far-flung intelligence gathering and law enforcement-criminal investigative operations.

Hopefully our looming trial bespeaks some behind-the-scenes arrangements and accomodations amongst (for example) the CIA and FBI, going forward.

I’m also with the USS Cole bombers. They were part of no national army so their arrest did not make them prisoners of war (also there is no war – anywhere!) They were arrested by the FBI, I believe, and should be tried in civil court.

As a point of interest, the Cole was attacked in the last days of Clinton’s administration and was left to Bush to prosecute. That we are now in the Obama administration, eight years later and only now talking about trying these bombers is an embarrassment.

“Enemy Combatant” is a term and concept that did not exist before Bush the Younger wanted some means to avoid giving habeas corpus to pepople he was torturing. Since the term has no legal existent the easiest and best way to treat it is to declare – once again – that it doesn’t exist. Sadly, Obama has been seduced by the power to arrest any one for no crime and hold them indefinitely without redress.

I’ve long thought that the best way to deal with Gitmo was to just open it up to on-demand inspections by the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Amnesty International, etc. If the issue is that Gitmo is kind of not part of America then act to make it 100% American.

This case is relevant to the war vs. law enforcement issue as it was forward thinking by the Indian intelligence services that made it possible to capture those conversations. Of course, it’d be still better if they’d had the intelligence to stop the attack, but, presumably, they are continuing this work–perhaps w/ better results to come. It can’t have been encouraging to the Pakistani bad guys to get such clear evidence that their operations had been, to some extent, compromised.

The WaPo food bloggers had a recent piece on soups to go w/ holiday dinners. There were several that sounded very good, including Sherried Pumpkin Apple Soup, Butternut Squash Soup w/ Walnut Whiskey Butter, and Apple and Cheddar Soup w/ Roasted Apple Garnish, and more.

And, of course, there’s the fabulous Spicy Fall Stew Baked in a Pumpkin that I wrote about last year. (Brief version: Delicious, ours was prettier than this picture, makes a great side dish or main dish w/ other sides for vegetarians/vegans, can use corn rather than hominy.) Another side dish that I’ve bookmarked but haven’t tried yet is Mark Bittman’s Roasted Sweet Potato Salad w/ Black Beans and Chili Dressing. Looks fabulous. I thought there was a video of him making it, but it doesn’t seem to be linked here.

We like sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving, brown sugar and butter sauce (some allspice & cloves) in lieu of mini-marshmallows.

Saw last twelve minutes of Palin on Oprah . . . now THAT’S suckitude. Sorry i spent the time, especially with seven minutes of commercial for about ten minutes of show, two for upcoming promos. Can’t see Sarah doing a talk show, TV or radio. But her and Nicole Wallace playing Horse, that i’d watch.

Grim news for Michigan re their California cousins: http://downloads.pewcenteronthestates.org/Beyond_California_Appendix.pdf