Discussing Rand Paul, Ross Douthat writes:

This was all that Rand Paul needed to admit, after his victory in Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary, when NPR and Rachel Maddow asked about his views of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “As a principled critic of federal power,” he could have said, “I oppose efforts to impose Washington’s will on states and private institutions. As a student of the history of segregation and slavery, however, I would have made an exception for the Civil Rights Act.”

[. . .] it shouldn’t come as a shock that [Rand Paul] found himself publicly undone, in what should have been his moment of triumph, because he was too proud to acknowledge the limits of ideology, and to admit that a principle can be pushed too far.

(Emphasis supplied.) Douthat is disingenuous here. The questions to be asked are obvious - what other "exceptions" should conservatives concede? Does Deep Water prove an "exception" is necessary for government regulation of commercial activities that affect the environment? Does the 2008 meltdown prove that an"exception" for government regulation of financial markets is in order? The "exceptions" swallow Douthat's conservative principles. Republicans and conservatives like Douthat have long expressed a desire to relitigate the New Deal. In describing the New Deal, Prof. Bruce Ackerman wrote:

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today the U.S. is actively seeking cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is on a U.S. "capture or kill" list.

This weekend, a video interview of al-Awlaki, an excerpt of which was released in April, was posted in full on radical Islamic websites.

"Oh, America, if you transgress against us, we will transgress against you, and you keep killing our people, we will kill your people," Anwar al-Awlaki says in the video. "This is the image that we need to present. These American soldiers heading to Afghanistan and Iraq will be killed. We will kill them if we can, there in Fort Hood, or we will kill them in Afghanistan and Iraq."

He praised the actions of Maj. Nidal Hasan, charged in the Fort Hood, Texas killings, and according to CNN, urged others to follow in Hasan's footsteps: [More...]

Final episode of Lost tonight.

Also, Go Suns!

Update (TL): And the finale of Celebrity Apprentice is tonight. Go Bret Michaels! He's out of the hospital and on a plane to New York, subarachnoid hemorrhage, warning stroke, hole in the heart and all. (The plane had to stop in Nashville when he didn't feel well, but he got back on and is expected to make the finale.) Added: He made it to New York and left the hotel for the studio a little while ago. There will be a doctor in the house. (No spoilers as to who wins in comments, please.)

Open Thread.

Sarah Palin was in Denver last night, speaking to her usual fringe following. Political scientist Larry Sabato seems to be drinking the kool-aid:

"She's avant-garde. She's a feminist. She cuts a dashing figure...Whether you love her or you hate her, you don't go to sleep when Sarah Palin comes on."

No, those of us with brains change the channel or turn off the TV. And just how is a reactionary like Palin considered "avant-garde?" And a Feminist? No, how about just crassly opportunistic.

Now back to regular programming.

The Guardian reports that an increased number detainees released from prisons like Camp Bucca and Camp Cropper in Iraq are re-joining al Qaeda..

Iraqi security officials blame the U.S.-run prisons, saying they have caused a revitalised Sunni insurgency.

Major General Ahmed Obeidi al-Saedi, who leads the sixth division of the Iraqi army in south and west Baghdad, claims as many as 80% of detainees have either aligned, or realigned with militant groups, mostly to al-Qaida in Iraq, or its affiliates. He said 86 former inmates of the US prisons, known as Camp Cropper and Camp Bucca, have been rearrested since 10 March.

...."We ask them, did they finish their time in prison rehabilitated psychologically and they say 'no, it was the perfect environment to reorganise al-Qaida'."

[More...]

When Mexico's President, Felipe Calderon, came to Washington this week, he urged the U.S. to be more helpful in the war on drugs. He asked that Congress reinstate the assault weapons ban (for which Republicans like Sen. John Cornyn took him to task, saying "Moreover, the Second Amendment is not a subject open for diplomatic negotiation, with Mexico or any other nation.") Calederon also criticized Arizona's immigration law. And he said the U.S. has a moral obligation to help Mexico fight the cartels.

In 2007, former President Bush got Congress to approve the Merida initiative, designed to to combat drug trafficking and organized crime, with a whopping $1.3 billion budgeted for Mexico from 2008-2010, ten times the amount budgeted in prior years.

Merida is set to expire in September, 2010, and Obama is now asking to extend it a year and provide an additional $310 million for FY 2011.

So where did the money go? Mostly, it turns out, nowhere. [More...]

Bill O'Reilly at Fox News has been peddling his immgrant crime wave bunk. There is no immigrant crime wave.

I've been pointing this out with statistics since 2007.

Crime is down in Arizona and even in border towns like El Paso.

I'm not sure who still listens to O'Reilly, but it's worth nipping this one in the bud.

What's going on in your world this weekend?

Update: If you are planning a trip to Jamaica soon, you might want to reschedule.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

At the Republican Colorado Assembly today, delegates picked a tea partier named Dan Maes over conservative former Congressman Scott McInniss, who has been running for the job for what seems like years.

Maes says he is the more conservative of the two. I didn't know you could be more conservative than McInniss. As McInniss told the crowd today:

“On Day One I will reverse the executive order that unionized all state agencies,” McInnis promised. “I will stand by the governor of Arizona. I will stand by Tom Tancredo to protect our borders.”

So what does Maes stand for that McInniss doesn't? [More...]

I'm in Boston (ack!) for the next few days. So are the Celtics and Magic. Boo Celtics!

The UEFA Champions League final starts in an hour or so. Bayern v. Inter. No clue from me on this one.

The Giro d'Italia continues. Nice wrapup at PdC of Liquigas nice move today for Nibali. Zoncolan tomorrow though. A must see stage.

Meanwhile in Cali, Lance Armstrong is not racing in the ToC anymore, but remains the center of conversation, thanks to Floyd Landis' allegations of systematic doping by US Postal during Lance TdF reign. In the racing, there is a time trial today in LA which should decide the GC.

Open Thread.

U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein is on a mission. It's not his first. He frequently fights what he calls "the unnecessary cruelty of the law.”

Judge Weinstein was in the news today for his latest crusade which has lasted three years, finding ways to avoid imposing a five year mandatory minimum sentence for a defendant convicted of receiving child p*rn on his computer.

Judge Weinstein, who sits in the United States District Court in Brooklyn, has twice thrown out convictions that would have ensured that the man spend at least five years behind bars. He has pledged to break protocol and inform the next jury about the mandatory prison sentence that the charges carry. And he recently declared that the man, who is awaiting a new trial, did not need an electronic ankle bracelet because he posed “no risk to society.”

[More...]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today reversed a trial court decision by Judge John Bates, a Bush appointee, and ruled that three detainees who have been held at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan without charges since 2002-2003, are not allowed to bring a habeas corpus action seeking release in U.S. courts. The opinion is here.

Judge Bates ruled in April, 2009 that there was no difference between those held at Bagram and those held at Guantanamo. His decision applied only to about a dozen detainees who were non-Afghans captured outside Afghanistan.

The three men in the case are a Tunisian man who says he was captured in Pakistan in 2002, and two from Yemen. One says he was captured in Thailand in 2002, and the other says he was detained in 2003 also outside Afghanistan.

The Appeals court based its ruling on the fact that "Bagram was on the sovereign territory of another government" and “pragmatic obstacles” of giving hearings to detainees “in an active theater of war.” [More....]