When I first heard about Lugar's "groundbreaking" speech on Iraq, I wrote:

I suspect that come September, Lugar will join the August group of Warner, Hagel and Smith and speak about change but go along with Bush.

I was wrong. It didn't take until September. Via Yglesias, Lugar has ALREADY said he is not changing his vote on Iraq:

However, [Lugar spokesman Andy] Fisher said the speech does not mean Lugar would switch his vote on the war or embrace Democratic measures setting a deadline for troop withdrawals.

What a joke.

Tomorrow at 2:00 pm ET, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Oversight will hold a hearing on Habeas Corpus and Detentions at Guantanamo Bay.

Morris D. Davis is the chief prosecutor in the Defense Department’s Office of Military Commissions. In the New York Times today, he provides what he believes to be a vigorous defense of the commission procedures.

Let's take a look at his arguments, which in my view, by their omissions, amount to misreprsentations:

Many critics disapprove of the potential admissibility of evidence obtained by coercion and hearsay. Any statement by a person whose freedom is restrained by someone in a position of authority can be viewed as the product of some degree of coercion. Deciding how far is too far is the challenge. I make the final decision on the evidence the prosecution will introduce. The defense may challenge this evidence and the military judge decides whether it is admitted. If it is admitted, both sides can argue how much weight, if any, the evidence deserves. If a conviction results, the accused has the assistance of counsel in four stages of post-trial appellate review. These are clearly robust safeguards.

After arguing in favor of the hearsay standard used at the tribunals, he concludes:

More....

Last month, I wrote about Sen. Tom Harkin's bill to close Guantanamo within 120 days of passage. The ACLU has more on the bill, the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility Closure Act - S. 1469.

I will be interviewing Sen. Harkin today by telephone at 4:45 ET. (Update: Sen. Harkin has to reschedule for later this week due to negotiations on the immigration bill.) If you have some questions or thoughts about the bill, please put them in the comments.

It may take me a day or two to write up the interview, so please check back.

The text of the bill is here.

As to the bill's specifics:

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In a much vaunted speech, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relation Committee, has broken ranks with the Bush Iraq policy. However, I see a fundamental flaw in what Lugar says that leaves us pretty much where we were. Lugar said:

The current debate on Iraq in Washington has not been conducive to a thoughtful revision of our Iraq policy. Our debate is being driven by partisan political calculations and understandable fatigue with bad news — including deaths and injuries to Americans. We have been debating and voting on whether to fund American troops in Iraq and whether to place conditions on such funding. We have contemplated in great detail whether Iraqi success in achieving certain benchmarks should determine whether funding is approved or whether a withdrawal should commence. I would observe that none of this debate addresses our vital interests any more than they are addressed by an unquestioned devotion to an ill-defined strategy of “staying the course” in Iraq.

President Bush will not countenance any straying from staying his course. There is a reason why NOT funding the Iraq Debacle is our only hope. Because President Bush will not budge. I have heard many pretty speeches from Republicans, including the much lauded John Warner, on how we must change course. But each and every one of these Republicans has failed to confront Bush and demand binding timelines for troop withdrawal. I suspect that come September, Lugar will join the August group of Warner, Hagel and Smith and speak about change but go along with Bush. I for one, will not be fooled again. Democrats must insist on a truly binding withdrawal date from Iraq - by not funding the Debacle after a date certain.

One of the "issues," and what a sad commentary on our political discourse, has been what is the right kind of "wealthy" for a Presidential candidate. Michael Bloomberg set the hearts of the Broderists aflutter and one of his main claims to fame is being, well, a billionaire. This is not seen as a problem for Bloomberg. Indeed, absent being a billionaire, Blooomberg would not even be discussed.

John Edwards, on the other hand, is by comparison, only modestly rich, with his net worth estimated at somewhere between 35 and 50 million dollars. What is the difference? I wonder how much of it is revealed in this Matt Yglesias post about Edwards' supposedly "tacky" mansion in North Carolina (I've never seen an image of the house so I have no opinion on its "tackiness" Update [2007-6-25 22:55:34 by Big Tent Democrat]: Alien Abductee brought us this link to images of the Edwards "compound":

I read Jay Cost's argument that John Edwards is an amateurish politician. It turns out to focus heavily on criticizing him for building such an enormous house. I know there's a pretty widespread sentiment that this huge house will be politically damaging, but that seems like a mistake to me. The basic reality is that Edwards is a rich man, and there's no hiding that -- big house or small house. Edwards' giant house, however, is not just expensive -- it's tacky. Its tackiness, however, perfectly reflects Edwards' working class roots and his whole "son of a millworker" narrative. I would never in a million years build a house like that no matter how much money I had, but that's because I'm a snob and nobody would ever vote for me.

This reminds me of no one so much as Bill Clinton circa 1992 and during his Presidency. The Washington Establishment never liked the Clintons because, as far as I could see, they were nouveau powerful and, in the minds of the Beltway, tacky. Sort of like they feel about the blogs. More.

Tomorrow is a big day in Washington, courtesy of the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International (USA), the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. More information is available here.

Thousands of Americans are storming Capitol Hill to participate in a 'Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice' to rally and then call on Congress to restore habeas corpus, fix the Military Commissions Act, end torture and rendition and restore our constitutional rights. Activists from all fifty states will gather at Upper Senate Park on June 26, 2007 and deliver over 170,000 signatures to Congress, urging the restoration of our rights.

The point:

For nearly seven years, the Bush administration has torn down our fundamental rights and freedoms - from the suspension of habeas corpus and due process, to acts of torture, CIA kidnappings and secret prison programs. And on June 26, the American people will stand up in Washington, and demand those rights and freedoms be restored.

The rally is from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM, at Upper Senate Park (Constitution Ave. between New Jersey and Delaware Avenues, NE), Washington, DC.

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People For the American Way reminds us what not stopping the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Court has done so far:

Understanding the Alito Effect PFAW Experts Ready to Discuss the Supreme Court’s Dangerous Lurch to the Far Right

Since George W. Bush’s two nominees to the Supreme Court have taken their places on the bench, the Court has veered sharply to the right, with a series of crucial cases being decided by identical 5-4 majorities. These cases reveal a troubling future for Americans’ rights and liberties. For example, just this term:

· In Carhart v. Gonzales, the Court upheld a federal law banning an abortion procedure without any exception to protect a woman’s health,

· In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., the Court severely limited the ability of victims of pay discrimination under Title VII to obtain compensation for the discrimination, ruling that employers couldn’t be held accountable for discrimination that occurred outside the 180-day charging period.

· In Bowles v. Russell the Court held that a person who trusted and relied on an order from a federal district court judge giving him 17 days to file a legal appeal was nonetheless prohibited from appealing because the judge had given him the wrong deadline -- overturning prior rulings under which it could have allowed the person to appeal because of the "unique circumstances" of the case.

· In Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation, the Court held that taxpayers cannot bring a lawsuit challenging Executive Branch spending as an unconstitutional promotion of religion when the expenditures have been made out of general appropriations to the Executive Branch.

And consider what further damage is to come.

Or so says Chief Justice Roberts in Morse v. Frederick. Justice Stevens' dissent is wonderfully mocking:

It is also perfectly clear that “promoting illegal drug use,” ante, at 14, comes nowhere close to proscribable “incitement to imminent lawless action.” Brandenburg, 395 U. S., at 447. . . . No one seriously maintains that drug advocacy (much less Frederick’s ridiculous sign) comes within the vanishingly small category of speech that can be prohibited because of its feared consequences. Such advocacy, to borrow from Justice Holmes, “ha[s] no chance of starting a present conflagration.” Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 673 (1925) (dissenting opinion). . . .

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Emily Yoffe wants to be infantilized:

Usually we want to protect our children from awful events, adjusting the message to suit their age. Certainly we tried to do that after Sept. 11. But an essential part of the global warming awareness movement is the belief that scaring us to death is the best way to spur massive change.

Duck and cover Emily! Anyway, hopefully the adults in the country won't shy away from dealing with reality.

The Supreme Court has handed down its decision in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, ruling that Flast taxpayer standing for Establishment Clause violations does not extend beyond a challenge to specific Congressional appropriations to discretionary Executive expenditures.

The opinions are very interesting at first blush. Justice Alito, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy, opine that Flast was directed very specifcally at Congressional action and that allowing challenges to discretionary Executive expenditures was too attenuated to provide standing. Justice Scalia and Thomas, in concurrence, argue that Flast is bad law and should be overruled. Interestingly, they argue that there is no basis for distinguishing taxpayer challenges to Executive expenditures from taxpayer challenges to Congressional appropriations as the harm is the same to the taxpayer. Nonetheless, even though Flast remains good law after Hein, the result in the case is the same.

The dissenters, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer, believe Flast is good law, and like Scalia and Thomas, believe that Hein can not be distinguished from Flast. They also point to Bowen v. Kendrick, as the case controlling the result in Hein. I'll add to this post later as I get a chance to read the opinions more closely.

It is this mutation of American Exceptionalism that we all deplore. Roger Cohen was rightly concerned about this:

The manifold blunders of America in Iraq have made it unfashionable to recall such truths. Fashion is a poor compass. The next time a car bomb goes off, remember Saddon al-Saiedi, a 36-year-old Shiite army colonel, father of two, abducted by Saddam's goons on May 2, 1993, and never seen again. As he went, so went numberless others, without a bang. Totalitarian hell - malign stability - holds no hope. Violent instability is unacceptable but not hopeless. Baghdad is closer to Sarajevo than we have allowed.

Where is Cohen's concern about this?

In the most comprehensive accounting to date, six leading human rights organizations today published the names and details of 39 people who are believed to have been held in secret US custody and whose current whereabouts remain unknown. The briefing paper also names relatives of suspects who were themselves detained in secret prisons, including children as young as seven.

Dick Cheney's Washington, DC is closer to Saddam's Baghdad than he has allowed. When will Cohen write about his concern about the behavior of the Bush Administration?

Author Gore Vidal is said to be extremely upset and considering a lawsuit against a play that portrays him as coming on to Timothy McVeigh.

Edmund White's "Terre Haute," which recently finished a successful run in Britain, involves the relationship between a thinly veiled, Vidal-like writer named James and a McVeigh-like killer, Harrison. In one sexually charged scene, James comes on to Harrison during a prison visit, gushing: "If I thought you'd never know, I'd unzip that orange jumpsuit just a bit so I could see your chest. Touch it." The McVeigh character opens his shirt to show off his torso as a "gift" to the Vidal character.

Anything to make a buck off a dead person, I guess. I have no knowledge of Gore Vidal's sexual orientation, but I can assure you that had the real Timothy McVeigh ever heard a male say that to him, his response would have been quite different. In other words, McVeigh was straight with a capital "S."