I'm still busy at work so here's an open thread. There's also some good diaries this weekend:

• November 19, 2006 - Cheney Says Dems Can't Stop Bush's War With Iran
• November 17, 2006 - Keisler must be blocked.
• November 17, 2006 - New Report Finds Bush Banned Rights Before Military Tribunal Law Enacted By Congress
• November 16, 2006 What Do Hunger & Torture Have In Common? No Pain Equals No Existence.

Expecting the executive branch to obey the law and respect civil rights is "shortsighted," according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "Overreaching" is a good description of the president's asserted power to wiretap the conversations of American citizens on American soil without a warrant, but Gonzales accused a court of "overrreaching" when it declared the administration's warrantless surveillance program unconstitutional.

Gonzales and Cheney's attacks on the court order came as the administration was urging the lame-duck Congress to approve legislation authorizing the warrantless surveillance. The bill's chances are in doubt, however, because of Democratic opposition in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to end debate and vote.

Gonzales wouldn't "speculate" about the administration's response if Congress doesn't give the president the power he craves. Of course he wouldn't. He knows that the administration will continue the surveillance program with or without congressional approval -- and will probably ignore "overreaching" court decisions that attempt to stifle the president's lust for power.

The president's father claimed to see "a thousand points of light" in the charitable organizations "that are spread like stars throughout the Nation." The current administration praises private efforts to help the unfortunate while it harasses Muslim charities. One victim of the administration's double standard is Dr. Rafil Dhafir, whose arrest TalkLeft discussed here.

In direct response to the humanitarian catastrophe created by brutal sanctions on Iraq, Dhafir, a man of Iraqi descent and Muslim faith, and an American citizen for almost thirty years, started the charity Help the Needy (HTN). ... When the deaths of children over the age of five and adults are added, the number killed as a direct result of the sanctions rises to between 1.5 and 2 million dead civilians. ...

For the crime of breaking the U.S. and U.K. sponsored UN sanctions on Iraq and sending humanitarian aid to sick and starving civilians, Dhafir was held without bail for thirty-one months and then sentenced to twenty-two years in prison.

The linked article recaps the case against Dr. Dhafir, a case that ran on twin tracks: a fraud prosecution for activities that, according to its prosecutors, had no link to terrorism; and contradictory claims by federal authorities that Dr. Dhafir's charitable activities assisted terrorism.

Law Prof Mark Denbeaux and team have completed their report on the review hearings (pdf) undertaken at Guantanamo:

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that the United States Government must provide adequate procedures to assess the appropriateness of continued detention of individuals held by the Government at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Department of Defense established the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (“CSRT”) to perform this mission.

Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader-elect, says:

Forty-nine is not a bad number of Senators to have, in a chamber that requires sixty to control. And I can assure you that our Democratic friends will give President Bush's judicial nominees a floor vote - if they want to get anything done, in a chamber that requires 60 to control.

Three detainees at Guantanamo have been released and sent to Albania. It was determined they were no longer enemy combatants. Were they ever?

Jim Webb wrote:

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. . . . The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes. ... [T]he true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.

I propose the following tax plan to address in a small way the problem Jim Webb identifies.

TalkLeft asked this question last year: "Are federal prosecutors worried that they can't convict Osama Awadallah if he has a fair trial?" If the prosecutors were indeed worried that a fair trial might produce an acquittal, they were right.

Awadallah was charged with committing perjury while testifying before a grand jury that was investigating the 9/11 attacks. His first trial ended with a hung jury. At the conclusion of a second trial, it took the jury only an hour to conclude that Awadallah is not guilty.

Voters sent an unambiguous message that it's time to begin reducing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. This is the White House response:

The Pentagon announced Friday that 57,000 U.S. troops, including five combat brigades, have been told to deploy to Iraq early next year -- a move that will maintain current force levels there.

A/k/a, stay the course.

TalkLeft predicted here that the president's poor choices to fill judicial vacancies would not be confirmed during the current lame duck Senate session. This editorial reminds us why the nominees don't deserve confirmation:

The four most controversial nominees that President Bush resubmitted are ideological in the extreme. William Myers III, a longtime lobbyist for mining and timber interests, would no doubt use his position on the San Francisco-based United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to gut environmental laws. William Haynes II, who helped develop the administration’s torture and “enemy combatant” policies as the top lawyer for the Pentagon, could be counted on to undermine both civil liberties and reasonable limits on executive power.

I am no fan of David Ignatius, and take the point raised by Left bloggers that Ignatius' slam of Pelosi is absurd, but there is an interesting and insightful aspect to his column today:

The Democrats' challenge is to fuse populist anger with the party's other dynamic movement -- the call for fiscal reforms made by former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin and other members of the Hamilton Project, which seeks budget-balancing changes in entitlement spending. The goal should be to articulate policies that are at once pro-equality and pro-growth. That's a tall order, especially at a time when the U.S. economy appears to be slowing.

I agree but I think that is the challenge of those Democrats like me who believe that. Ignatius states it is the Democrats' challenge and so it is - but it is my wing of the Party, the pro-free trade, pro-market wing of the Party, that must produce the goods here.

William Powers explains your Liberal Media:

The hive is buzzing because a Democratic Congress is better for journalism. What!?? you say. Journalists really prefer Democrats? Yes, but not for the reasons you've heard -- covert pinkoism and so on. . . . Tough love. Journalists are more aggressive under Democratic rule. This doesn't jibe with the stereotype of reporters as liberals, but it's the stereotype that winds up undermining itself. When Democrats are in power, there's a huge incentive for reporters not to appear too sympathetic and thereby confirm the old liberal-bias charge. Thus, despite the friendly coverage we're seeing in this honeymoon period, the Democratic restoration will eventually produce tougher coverage than we saw of the GOP Congress, as media outlets strive to prove that they aren't soft on the Democrats.

Case in point, Mark Halperin.