Did you know about the 9 Chinese detainees at Guantanamo? They are Uighurs, Muslims from western China, who are now in their 5th year of imprisonment. The Bush Administration acknowledged in 2004 they had been imprisoned by mistake and should be released since they are not enemy combatants. But they are still there. And Bush won't let them go.

They can't go back to China because they would be persecuted there. No other country will take them. Even though other Uighurs have been granted asylum in the U.S., Bush won't allow them to stay here. And so, they must stay at Guantanamo indefinitely, perhaps for life.

At a Martin Luther King gathering Monday, Hillary Clinton unleashed on President Bush.

Sen. Hillary Clinton on Monday blasted the Bush administration as "one of the worst" in U.S. history and compared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to a plantation where dissenting voices are squelched.

.... Clinton also offered an apology to a group of Hurricane Katrina survivors "on behalf of a government that left you behind, that turned its back on you." Her remarks were met with thunderous applause by a mostly black audience at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem.

The House "has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," said Clinton, D-N.Y. "It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard."

"We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence," she said. "I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."

Go, Hillary. We need more of this.

Rep. Bob Ney is trying to talk the feds out of indicting him.

Mr. Ney is working intensely to convince Justice Department prosecutors that he was tricked by Mr. Abramoff into doing favors for the lobbyist's clients. He and his lawyers are presenting evidence they hope will counter allegations by Mr. Abramoff, who agreed to testify in the corruption case in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Mr. Ney has shown credit card receipts to prosecutors to demonstrate that he paid for his own meals at Signatures, the restaurant that Mr. Abramoff once owned, participants in the case have said. His lawyers have gone through thousands of Mr. Ney's e-mail messages in an effort to determine that he did not put his involvement in any bribery scheme, if there was any, into writing.

That's very nice that he paid for some meals at Signatures. But that's the least of his problems.

The New York Times has another first on the warrantless NSA electronic surveillance program Bush used after 9/11. Turns out, it was a flop.

In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.

FBI agents complained:

Politics will have to wait for a few hours. The Golden Globes begin now. You can live blog in the comments if you wish -- feel free to disagree with my snarky comments.

I like the Globes better than the Oscars because they include both movies and television.

The nominees and winners in real time are here. I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, but I saw The Constant Gardener on dvd last night and thought it was excellent.

The gowns are a huge part of the event. They are always fabulous or terrible. Tonight: Sarah Jessica Parker looks great in her tight black gown. Ditto Nicolette Sheridan in a simple but beautiful blue-- and she's with Michael Bolton, I thought they broke up years ago.

To be continued below the fold.

Arianna calls upon President Bush to denounce those who are swift-boating Rep. Jack Murtha.

Read Bob Cesca at HuffPo as well.

60 Minutes has the video of Murtha's appearance last night.

The New York Times today explores Bush's now infamous "signing statement" on the anti-Torture Amendment. It wasn't his first:

Mr. Bush has issued more than 100 of them, which scholars believe might be more than any other president. (Signing statements have been around since at least the administration of Andrew Jackson.) More significant, scholars say, Mr. Bush has greatly expanded the scope and character of the signing statement, even from the time of the Reagan administration.

Al Gore rose to the occasion today and blasted Bush's warrantless NSA surveillance program as illegal. From the New York Times:

The speech in Washington was organized by the Liberty Coalition, a civil liberties advocacy group, and the American Constitution Society for Law and Public Policy, a liberal legal group.

"It is this same disrespect for America's Constitution which has now brought our republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of the Constitution," Mr. Gore said. "And the disrespect embodied in these apparent mass violations of the law is part of a larger pattern of seeming indifference to the Constitution that is deeply troubling to millions of Americans in both political parties."

Raw Story has the text of Al Gore's speech. Crooks and Liars has the link to the video highlights. Peter Daou notes that the cable news stations didn't cover it, opting instead to feature an overturned tanker. Peter has more over at Huffpo. Firedoglake weighs in on the speech.

For years, conspiracy was considered the "darling of the prosecutor's nursery." Then it was RICO, the organized crime statute. Today, it's "providing material support to terrorists."

The Washington Post today revisits the improbable conviction of translator Mohammed Yousry, who was appointed by the Court to translate for attorney Lynn Stewart and her client, Omar Abdel Rahman.

Yousry now awaits sentencing in March, when he could face 20 years in prison for translating a letter from imprisoned Muslim cleric Omar Abdel Rahman to Rahman's lawyer in Egypt.

Yousry is not Muslim and had been critical of Rahman in the past. He is a U.S. citizen, married to an Evangelical Christian. Legal experts say the trial transcript show little or no evidence that he committed a crime.

Clarence Ray Allen, 76, blind, crippled and riddled with diabetes and heart disease, is set to be executed at San Quentin tomorrow. Yesterday, the 9th Circuit denied his appeal in a 35 page opinion (pdf). [Update: the Supreme Court has declined to intervene.] Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied Allen's request last week that he be granted clemency so he could die of natural causes in jail. He's been on death row for 23 years. (Background here.)

I'm reminded once again of the words of Martin Luther King, (and Gandhi before him)

That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

Perhaps the Supreme Court will listen and stop the execution. It's doubtful. Next year, with Judge Sam Alito on the bench, when another one of our graying, feeble prisoners on death row is carried to the gurney, there will be even less reason to hope for a reprieve.

The Los Angeles Times opines Allen's execution is about us, not about him, and calls for a moratorium on the death penalty.

I hope everyone will re-aquaint themselves today with the extraordinary words of wisdom, vision and passion of Martin Luther King, Jr. It takes only a minute to watch this video. It features excerpts from Dr. King's 1967 Vietnam War speech, and ends with an appeal to take part in a Global Day of Protest on the one-year anniversary of the Iraq War.

Alternet has an excellent compilation of some of Dr. King's most memorable quotes. Here are the links to the full text of just a few of his speeches.

• I Have a Dream speech

• Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam
  

• Letter from the Birmingham Jail

The ACLU today took out a full page ad in the Washington Post (viewable here) calling on Americans to tell the White House to stop illegal spying.

"It has never been acceptable for the government to spy on Americans without having to go to court and present evidence as to why the individual is under suspicion. It was unacceptable when they spied on Martin Luther King and it is unacceptable today," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "This fundamental tenet of American democracy has been blatantly violated by President Bush and he must be held accountable. No one, most importantly our elected leader, is above the law.”