The NYTimes writes

While Mr. Obama opposes requiring religious tests for recipients of aid or use of federal money to proselytize, The Associated Press reported that he supports letting religious institutions -- in the non-federally funded parts of their activities -- hire and fire based on faith, according to a senior adviser to the campaign who the news agency said spoke on condition of anonymity.

While that notion appeared controversial, it seems to find support in a 2000 case involving the Boy Scouts of America. The Supreme Court ruled that the group, as a private organization, had a First Amendment right to set its membership rules.

(Emphasis supplied.) The bolded portion of the excerpt is simply incorrect. The Boy Scouts case (the Dale case) is not relevant to federal funding of organizations. As Chief Justice John Roberts explained in his decision in Rumsfeld v. Forum For Academic And Institutional Rights, Inc., which I discussed in this post, Dale is inapposite to cases involving the Spending Power:

This is an outrage. Ronnie White, arrested for running down a police officer in a parking lot, was arrested and put in isolation. Only guards and supervisors had access to him.

Twelve hours later he was found dead in his cell, strangled with two broken bones in his neck. The Medical Examiner has ruled it a homicide.

Vigilante justice is no justice at all.

The Justice Department, FBI and Maryland state authorities are now investigating.

Wes Clark will be interviewed by Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC in the next minutes. If I can, I'll provide some highlights.

Glenn Greenwald thinks that Obama is going to allow religious discrimination in hiring by faith based groups. I am trying to get the best info I can on this.

Quick update - Clark stands by his statements and Andrea Mitchell says sure all that is true, but Obama does not have executive experience either. Clark gets off a great line on Mitchell I was asked a direct question and I answered it directly, I know that does not happen much in politics but it is what I do.

Clark is too good for these people. Andrea Mitchell is outraged on behalf of McCain and calls him "an extraordinary person." Andrea Mitchell is entitled to her opinion, but not when she is pretending to be a journalist.

This is an Open Thread.

Last week, TalkLeft called attention to an appellate decision that found insufficient evidence to justify the government's detention (for six years) of Huzaifa Parhat as an enemy combatant. The unclassified version of the court's decision (pdf) has been released. It reveals the court's impatience with the administration's arguments.

With some derision for the Bush administration’s arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents. The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a character in the Lewis Carroll poem “The Hunting of the Snark”: “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

“This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true,” said the panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Isn't that exactly what the Bush administration has been saying ever since 9/11?

Via TPM:

Here's what Orson Swindle, a fellow POW of McCain's, said on the call, in a reference to generals, admirals, and other officers who back the Arizona Senator:

"General Clark probably wouldn't get that much praise from this group. I can't speak for them, but we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar."

BTW, this is not new, and in my view, not a dirty trick - both Republicans and Democrats attacked Clark's military record when he ran for President. It is and was fair game for debate. I think Clark's record was stellar and am prepared to debate it. Is McCain prepared to debate his own military record?

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed four lawsuits against military contractors on behalf of four detainees who were subjected to torture at Abu Ghraib.

The defendants are CACI International Inc. (NYSE: CAI) and CACI Premier Technology, Inc., of Arlington, Va.; L-3 Services Inc., an Alexandria, Va.-based division of L-3 Communications Corp. (NYSE: LLL), of New York; and three individual contractors, Adel Nakhla, of Montgomery Village, Md., Timothy Dugan, of Pataskala, Ohio, and Daniel E. Johnson, of Seattle, Wash.

The allegations:

The lawsuits allege that the defendants committed multiple violations of U.S. law, including torture, war crimes, and civil conspiracy. CACI, which provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib, and L-3, which provided translators at the prison, were linked to abuses there in military court martial proceedings which resulted in convictions for U.S. military personnel but no civil or criminal penalties for contractors implicated in abuses. According to the lawsuits, the individual contractor defendants allegedly “tortured, and conspired with others to torture.”

The lawsuits were filed in the federal district courts where the contractor defendants reside: Maryland, Ohio, Michigan, and Washington state.

Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar has been denied relief by the U.S. District Court in his lawsuit against the U.S. arising from his seizure at JFK airport and transfer to Syria where he was tortured for a year.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has the details.

Today, a federal Court of Appeals ruled against Center for Constitutional Rights client Maher Arar’s case against U.S. officials for their role in sending him to Syria to be tortured and interrogated for a year under the extraordinary rendition program.

Maher Arar is not available to comment in person, but is issuing the following statement: “The Court’s 2-1 ruling is outrageous. It basically legitimizes what was done to me, and permits the government to use immigration law as a disguise to send people to torture without regard for due process.”

All of our Maher Arar coverage (47 posts)is accessible here.

This to me is a stunning development if true. But the Media is not very good at reporting so I will wait to hear Obama's own words. But the AP is reporting that:

Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.

. . . Obama . . . supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxypayer funded portions of their activities, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy.

If religious institutions have such policies then they should not be eligible for tax payer funds period. This is an outrageous, indefensible and contemptible position. It is support for religious discrimination. If it truly is Obama's position, I would have to question whether I could continue supporting him for President.

IMPORTANT UPDATE - David Mizner points to this statement from the Obama campaign:

So I am watching MSNBC and they run a tape of McCain stating his campaign's theme of the day - Obama is a liar. After yesterday's contretemps, I find this incredibly amusing.

It seems McCain is the one bringing a gun to a knife fight. See how nice Obama was to McCain yesterday? And see how "nice" McCain is being to Obama today? I really have to laugh - this is the game every time and Dems always fall for it.

Thank Gawd George Bush has ruined the GOP brand because otherwise the Democratic Party would be capable of blowing even this election.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

So now we learn that 37 years ago, the FBI illegally wiretapped phone phreak Joe Engressia because J. Edgar Hoover deemed him a threat to national security (because only the FBI should be entrusted to do illegal things with telephones). What do you suppose we'll be learning about 37 years from now?

What happened to Ronnie White? He was booked into the Prince George's County Correctional Center in Mayland after he ran over and killed a police officer. The next day he was found dead in his jail cell. The Maryland Medical Examiner ruled today that he died from asphyxiation and strangulation. The death was ruled a homicide.

[Prince George's County Executive Jack] Johnson said that he believes the death was "unrelated to any act by the Prince George's County Police Department."

So let's count the suspects.

Officials said seven guards had access to White at the time of his death, as did an unspecified number of supervisors.

There are reasons to lack confidence in the ability of the jail administration to control its employees: [more ...]

My fanboy video for General Clark:

This is an Open Thread