A headline reads: "Faisal Shahzad confesses to Times Square terror plot; admits he trained for 5 months in Pakistan

Memo to Attorney General Eric Holder:
Re: U.S. v. Faisal Shahzad
From : TalkLeft.com

Dear Mr. Holder:

You and law enforcement agents investigating the Times Square failed car bomb attempt have released information about the content of post-arrest incriminating statements Mr.Faisal Shahzad made to authorities. Your statements are improper extrajudicial comments that fail to comport with both the mandatory ethical rules professional conduct and the suggested ABA Standards on Prosecution Functions and Criminal Justice.

Example 1:

Shahzad, 30, confessed to the Saturday night plot to ignite a fireball in crowded Times Square after he was arrested late Monday at JFK Airport, said Attorney General Eric Holder.

Example II: [More...]

Waziristan seems to be the current hub for training would-be terrorists. The Times Square suspect reportedly said he trained there, as did Najibullah Zazi. Why Waziristan?

Supposedly, Pakistan was having success rooting the Taliban out of Waziristan and a few weeks ago, suggested they'd be done in a few months.

Is Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud a big factor? Reportedly, he survived a recent drone attack. Are U.S. drone attacks the problem? Juan Cole has more. [More..]

Open Thread.

Holy Joe:

Joe Lieberman has a creative solution: Take away their citizenship. "If you've joined an enemy of the United States in attacking the United States and trying to kill Americans, I think you should sacrifice your rights of citizenship," Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, told reporters Tuesday.

[. . .] Lieberman said that the revocation of citizenship would not be automatic and there would be a right to go to court and to appeal the decision.

More fodder for George Will, Phoenix Suns owner denounces SB 1070:

Suns Managing Partner Robert Sarver made a bold statement Tuesday denouncing the controversial new immigration bill that recently was signed into law.

In announcing that the Suns would wear their "Los Suns" jerseys in recognition of playing Game 2 against San Antonio on Cinco de Mayo on Wednesday, Sarver also addressed the immigration bill that has been a divisive national topic since Gov. Jan Brewer enacted it into law April 23. "The frustration with the federal government's failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed state law," Sarver said in a statement released by the Suns on Tuesday morning. "However intended, the result of passing this law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question, and Arizona's already struggling economy will suffer even further setbacks at a time when the state can ill-afford them."

(Emphasis supplied.) Yes, Arizona's new law is a resounding success.

Speaking for me only

What's going on?

Open Thread.

NYTimes:

A majority of the people polled, 57 percent, said the federal government should determine the laws addressing illegal immigration. But 51 percent said the Arizona law was “about right” in its approach to the problem. Thirty-six percent said it went too far and 9 percent said it did not go far enough.

Many people, Republicans and Dems alike, seize on that 51% as meaning the measure is popular and therefore good politics. It is not meaningful and is bad politics.

The reason is simple, the measure's politics must be considered from the point of view of persuadables and how they react to this law. 80% of the 51% are almost certainly rock solid GOP voters who will never vote Democrat. Most of the rest probably will not decide their vote one way or the other because of the thinking behind this legislation. But a significant amount of persuadables, most of these Latino, will turn away from the GOP permanently because of this (see Prop 187.) Conservative Michael Gerson gets it:

Via dougj, I looked at this David Brooks column and was struck by this:

It is very hard for policy makers to use money to directly alter these viewpoints. In her book, “What Money Can’t Buy,” Susan E. Mayer of the University of Chicago calculated what would happen if you could double the income of the poorest Americans. The results would be disappointingly small. Doubling parental income would barely reduce dropout rates of the children. It would have a small effect on reducing teen pregnancy. It would barely improve child outcomes overall.

(Emphasis supplied.) Not having read the book, I am curious as to how these "calculations" were done. Obviously the scientific method of observation was not employed - we haven't doubled the income of poorest Americans. So how exactly were these "calculations" done?

Speaking for me only

Paul Starr writes:

[T]here are good reasons why Obama cannot and should not indulge in a full-bore populism that, in practice, would yield nothing but deadlock and disaster. The Democrats are the party of responsible government, and America needs at least one of those. Rather than play to the crowds and have their programs go down in flames, Democrats need to make progress on the central problems facing the country, and the only way to do that is to make difficult choices that upset some of their own supporters.

This is ahistorical and illogical. Obama has gotten no cooperation whatsoever from Republicans, has faced demagogic attacks from the Right for everything he does and the Dems now face a bleak November, with control of the Congress in jeopardy. And the price of this "non-populism" has been sub-optimal policy.

The strange thing is the Democratic Party has been a populist party in terms of politics throughout its history (sometimes for the worse.) Where does Starr come up with this stuff? Anyway, back in 2006, I argued the inverse of Starr's prescriptions:

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

**********

An audio recording of the shootings 40 years ago at Kent State University includes the voices of Ohio National Guard leaders ordering troops to fire into a crowd of students, according to a man wounded in the shootings, who obtained a copy of the recording.

[More...]

Police have arrested a Pakistani Man in connection with the Times Square Failed Car bomb. Shahzad Faisal, of Connecticut, was arrested in Long Island within the last hour.

The last registered owner of the Nissan Pathfinder told authorities he recently sold the car on Craigslist for $1,300 in cash to a “Middle Eastern” or “Hispanic” looking man, CBS News reported. The buyer reportedly paid in cash, with $100 bills.

So, no paper, they were strangers, buying and selling a car on Craig's list. How did the cops find out he was Pakistani? Did they get the IP addresses of the messages from Craig's list?

New York Governor David Paterson today announced that he would accelerate the pardon process so as to grant more pardons to legal immigrants convicted of old, minor crimes and prevent them from being deported.

Some of our immigration laws, particularly with respect to deportation, are embarrassingly and wrongly inflexible,” Mr. Paterson said in a speech on Monday at an annual gathering of the state’s top judges. “In New York we believe in renewal,” he added. “In New York, we believe in rehabilitation.”

In other good news, Sheriff Joe Arpaio won't run for Governor. Now if he'd only leave law enforcement. David Newert at Crooks and Liars has more on Arapio's possible motives. And here's the Pulitzer winning five part Tribune series on Arpaio's performance in office, which leaves much to be desired, to say the least.