US Session: Dollar Makes Early Gains On Fragile
Risk Sentiment But Reverses On US Data

G10 Advancers and Decliners vs USDJPY-0.04 GBP-0.19 EUR-0.95 CHF-1.01 The USD gained against most of its major counterparts in the European morning as equity markets traded heavy and a…

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Police called in to NY-23 polling stations
because of voter intimidation by teabaggers!

The teabaggers are turning to threats and intimidation out there in NY-23 land.

Elizabeth Benjamin writes in the NY Daily News:

It's getting ugly out there.

I just got off the phone with former state Democratic Chairwoman June O'Neill, who informed me the police had been called to at least two polling sites in St. Lawrence County due to overzealous electioneering (O'Neill called it "voter intimidation") by Doug Hoffman supporters.

"We've gotten reports that people are standing there, covered with Hoffman stickers and yelling anti-choice stuff at voters," said O'Neill, a St. Lawrence native who has been running the party's GOTV effort for Bill Owens in NY-23.

"Apparently, there's some woman claiming to be a commissioner," O'Neill continued. "Commissioner of what, I don't know. She's from Texas, I think, and she won't leave."

"This is not the way we roll in the North Country."'

O'Neill also said she had received anecdotal reports of problems at polling sites in Gouverneur, which is Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava's hometown. But she couldn't immediately confirm this.

I called over to the St. Lawrence Board of Elections and got GOP Elections Commissioner Debbie Pahler on the line. She confirmed that the police indeed had been called, but she downplayed the incident, saying it's "a routine procedure here in the county."

"We had electioneering within the 100-foot polling marker," Phaler said. "It's my understanding that they were asked to leave and wouldn't leave."

"If people are electioneering within the marker and don't stop when we ask them to, our inspectors are instructed to call law enforcement to assist them. I don't think anybody was arrested."

O'Neill also said she had received anecdotal reports of problems at polling sites in Gouverneur, which is Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava's hometown. But she couldn't immediately confirm this.

The Glenn Beck crowd are out there yelling anti-choice crap. They will bring the same anger and hatred they brought to the town halls that they disrupted. This is going to put a lot of stress on local police forces.

This is just the beginning. Gee, I wonder if Fox News will cover this voter intimidation and try to make a national story out of it. OK, I was joking. I hope the local media up in NY-23 get plenty of video of this. If any of our readers has video, please email us: crooksandliars-at-gmail.com

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http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/police-called-ny-23-polling-stations-be

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Teabaggers Eager To Burn Down The Republican Pup
Tent Rather Than See Mainstream Conservatives Win

NOTE: We're live-tweeting the election results tonight

With the taste of blood fresh in their mouths, teabaggers are already mapping out a game plan for challenging dozens of Establishment Republicans running for office-- incumbents and challengers alike. Yesterday when Rush Limbaugh launched into his bestiality diatribe about Dede Scozzafava, it was the cri de coeur for a contemporary movement of anti-American Know Nothings and misfits. Listen as Limbaugh tries asserting primacy not just over Michael Steele (dead meat), John Cornyn, John Boehner, and Miss McConnell, but, more to the point, over Glenn Beck, his arch rival:



Today's Politico painted a picture the Republican Inside-the-Beltway power structure is probably not ready for. But probably has no way to resist:

In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican Party officials, conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010.

Conservatives and tea party activists had already set their sights on some of the GOP?s top Senate recruits-- a list that includes Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Kirk in Illinois, among others.

But their success in Tuesday?s upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and helped Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman surge into the lead on the eve of Election Day, has generated more money and enthusiasm than organizers ever imagined.

Activists predict a wave that could roll from California to Kentucky to New Hampshire and that could leave even some GOP incumbents-- Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is one-- facing unexpectedly fierce challenges from their right flank.

?I would say it?s the tip of the spear,? said Dick Armey, the former GOP House majority leader who now serves as chairman of FreedomWorks, an organization that has been closely aligned with the tea party movement. ?We are the biggest source of energy in American politics today.?

?What you?re going to see,? said Armey, ?is moderates and conservatives across the country in primaries.?

These high-stakes primaries, pitting the activist wing of the party against the establishment wing, stand to have a profound impact on the 2010 election landscape since they will create significant problems for moderate candidates recruited by the national party precisely because they appear well-suited to win in places that are not easily-- or even plausibly-- won by conservative candidates.

And it goes beyond just draining off Republican dollars into costly primary battles with far right insurgents. The real worry is that the sense of teabagger entitlement, stoked by the Hate Talk radio and TV the GOP has so carefully nurtured-- how soon before they start asking Pelosi and Reid to revisit the Fairness Doctrine?-- will force mainstream candidates to start taking extremist positions that play well to the Know Nothings, Glenn Beck crowd, birthers, deathers and teababggers-- but that can't win in moderate suburban districts the Republicans need to win back in order to regain some degree of national relevance. Virginia Republican, Tom Davis, former chairman of the NRCC, has a warning for this party: "For me, what this says is, we need to take a deep breath and decide whether [moderates and conservatives] work together or not. And if we don?t, it can get very, very ugly.?

It already is very, very ugly down in Florida, where the once popular governor, Charlie Crist, considered a shoe-in for election to the Senate over a mediocre Democrat best known as a corrupt mama's boy with no principles or values beyond advancing his own career. Now Gov. Crist looks like he'll lose the Republican primary to Marco Rubio, darling of the national teabagger set, a charismatic extremist who is likely to scare off mainstream Florida voters in a general election. Rubio sees what happened in NY-23 as heralding in a new day for extreme right-wing fanatics like himself. "NY-23, on some scale, is the first battle of a larger internal Republican debate over how to define the party. They want us to vote for their candidates, but they don?t want us to run for office.?

One thing about the teabaggers is that they are unified around a theme that they would rather see the GOP lose than see mainstream Republicans win elections. One of the craziest of the kooks running for Congress is whacked-out wingnut Bradley Rees, a former Republican aspirant for the Virginia seat now held by Tom Periello. About a week ago, seeing all the attention Doug Hoffman was getting in NY-23, Rees dropped out of the Republican primary and declared he would run as a third party (teabagger) candidate. Rees seems eager to destroy the GOP. ?It," he remarks about his fledgling campaign, "may amount to only drawing enough votes from the Republican candidate to ensure Tom Perriello a second term. If so, so be it. Maybe then, the party will understand that we are trying to save the GOP from its worst enemy-- not the Democrats, but themselves."

The loon running the teabagger scene in Florida, Everett Wilkinson, one of the power brokers behind Rubio, basically parrots the same line: ?We would lose if Charlie Crist got elected or if another person who doesn?t support our policies got elected. Our members are actively going to get out there and create awareness of the governor?s actions.? And a teabagging big shot in Illinois, Evert Evertsen, is just as explicit about his movement's decision to wreck GOP candidate Mark Kirk's campaign: ?We?re going to work hard as hell to make sure Mark Kirk doesn?t win. Mark Kirk is about as liberal as Arlen Specter was."

Lunatic fringe Republicans like Evertsen, Wilkinson and Rees are good news for Democrats is what could have been a tough electoral environment. But with teabaggers and extremists forcing mainstream candidates off the ballot-- and replacing them with a bizarre assortment of radical right ideologues, it is Democrats who will stand to gain the most. It would be ironic if the teabaggers' biggest achievement is to elect Kendrick Meek, the weakest candidate the Democrats could have possibly put up in Florida, someone who stands for nothing and would have no chance whatsoever against Crist but who could actually wind up as a plausible bastion against the rise of a dangerous and ugly strain of American fascism.


The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cIndecision 2009 - Vote or Keep Going About Your Daywww.thedailyshow.comDaily Show
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Foxs Gretchen Carlson Helps Promote Her Former
Nannys Health Care Protest

In his Washington Post column late last month, George Will revealed that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was once Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson?s babysitter:

When [Bachmann] was a teenager in Anoka, Minn., she was a nanny for a young girl named Gretchen Carlson. Today, Carlson, a Stanford honors graduate who studied at Oxford, is a host of “Fox & Friends,” the morning show on — wouldn’t you know — Fox News Channel. See how far ahead the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy plans?

This morning, the pair reunited on-air as Carlson teed up a couple of softball questions, allowing her former nanny to talk at length about her upcoming corporate-sponsored health care protest this Thursday on Capitol Hill.

During the Fox infomercial “interview,” Bachmann employed her usual colorful, over-the-top commentary to decry health reform. The health care vote is the “Super Bowl of freedom,” she said, and voters must mobilize to defeat the Democrats’ “crown jewel of socialism.” Watch it:

video details and more

Bachmann urged ?real freedom-loving Americans come here to Washington? on Thursday, and ?look at the whites of their eyes of their members of Congress and say, ?don?t you remember? I told you don?t take away my health care.??

As Rachel Maddow observed last night, this is the ?rhetoric of revolutionary violence.? ?The ?whites of your eyes? reference is that you?re supposed to wait and see the whites of someone?s eyes before you shoot at them,? Maddow noted. ?That?s where we get that phrase from — from when to shoot at people.?

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/03/bachmann-gretchen-infomerical/

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Seven Minutes with Daniel Yergin

video details and more

Daniel Yergin has issued an updated version of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power.

When I asked why he chose to release an update of his earlier work, Yergin identified four key factors that have to be added to the energy policy picture. First, oil has become a financial instrument in and of itself; two, globalization has broadened demand significantly with the entry of India and China into the global economic network; third, the climate change agenda; and fourth, the explosion of technological innovation in the energy sector.

This book is a must read for those who want to delve into the oil and energy drivers of US foreign policy, and I really enjoyed this discussion with Yergin. I hope others find this seven minute exchange useful.

-- Steve Clemons

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http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/11/seven_minutes_w/

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Ongoing U.S. efforts to protect and coddle
Israel.

It's so interesting to read Gideon Levy's latest article in Ha'aretz entitled "America, Stop Sucking Up to Israel."

Levy argues, and it's a point which I have made many times, that the US's unbelievable deference to Israel is merely creating a rod for it's own back.

There is no other country in the world who could treat Obama with the disdain that he currently is being shown by Netanyahu and expect have Obama's government continue to send them one third of all the aid the US gives out worldwide. And certainly no other country would treat the US with such disrespect and yet feel sure that the US will continue to use it's veto at the UN to prevent it from feeling the anger that it's actions have caused throughout the Middle East.

Levy via Glenn Greenwald:

Before no other country on the planet does the United States kneel and plead like this. In other trouble spots, America takes a different tone. It bombs in Afghanistan, invades Iraq and threatens sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Did anyone in Washington consider begging Saddam Hussein to withdraw from occupied territory in Kuwait?

But Israel the occupier, the stubborn contrarian that continues to mock America and the world by building settlements and abusing the Palestinians, receives different treatment. Another massage to the national ego in one video, more embarrassing praise in another.

Now is the time to say to the United States: Enough flattery. If you don't change the tone, nothing will change. As long as Israel feels the United States is in its pocket, and that America's automatic veto will save it from condemnations and sanctions, that it will receive massive aid unconditionally, and that it can continue waging punitive, lethal campaigns without a word from Washington, killing, destroying and imprisoning without the world's policeman making a sound, it will continue in its ways.

Illegal acts like the occupation and settlement expansion, and offensives that may have involved war crimes, as in Gaza, deserve a different approach. If America and the world had issued condemnations after Operation Summer Rains in 2006 - which left 400 Palestinians dead and severe infrastructure damage in the first major operation in Gaza since the disengagement - then Operation Cast Lead never would have been launched.

It is true that unlike all the world's other troublemakers, Israel is viewed as a Western democracy, but Israel of 2009 is a country whose language is force. . . . When Clinton returns to Washington, she should advocate a sharp policy change toward Israel. Israeli hearts can no longer be won with hope, promises of a better future or sweet talk, for this is no longer Israel's language. For something to change, Israel must understand that perpetuating the status quo will exact a painful price.

Israel of 2009 is a spoiled country, arrogant and condescending, convinced that it deserves everything and that it has the power to make a fool of America and the world. The United States has engendered this situation, which endangers the entire Mideast and Israel itself. That is why there needs to be a turning point in the coming year - Washington needs to finally say no to Israel and the occupation. An unambiguous, presidential no.

Levy writes this at the very moment when Netanyahu is crowing about the US backing down after realising that, despite all the demands made over the summer, Obama is no longer insisting that Israel stop settlement building before negotiations can take place.

Now he simply desires it, but wants the Palestinians to enter negotiations anyway.

I've said this a thousand times, Obama needs to start using a large stick, as trying to cajole and persuade Netanyahu is an utter waste of bloody time.

And, even as I write this, the American Congress are preparing to condemn the Goldstone report and are going to demand that investigations into Israel and Gaza's war crimes be suppressed.

Greenwald again:

It's so obvious as to require no explanation that we cannot and will not be taken seriously in our campaigns against "terrorism" and "war crimes" when we are not only willing, but eager, to exempt ourselves and Israel from those sermons. But after some initial, impressive steps from Obama, we are continuing to do that as much as ever, probably to Israel's detriment and certainly to our own.

I hate to say it, but this isn't change. This is the same old bloody crap all over again. If Obama wants to bring about change he needs to stop being so obsequious to Israel and to enunciate and stick to his principles.

He was right when he made those demands. When they are ignored he should not backtrack, he should - as Levy states - make Netanyahu pay; by withdrawing US aid and by refusing to offer Israel an automatic veto at the UN. Only when Netanyahu believes that Obama would dare to do such a thing will he ever begin taking him seriously.

At this moment, he clearly does not.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Israel, Palestine, Levy, Obama, Netanyahu

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BuzzFlash Mailbag for November 3, 2009

BUZZFLASH MAILBAG

Want to join the conversation? Share your thoughts with other Mailbag readers by clicking here. You also may comment below; post articles yourself at BuzzFlash.net; or send urls for BuzzFlash to post to: www.buzzflash.com/contact/newstip.html.

Subject: What Happened

What happened to The United States? What happened to the entire world? What happened to right from wrong? What happened to common sense? What happened to love thy neighbor? What happened to do best for the most? What happened to statesmen? What happened to our leaders? What happened is corporations have more rights than people. What happened is greed and corruption. What WILL happen is frightening.

Bob Lambert
Northridge, CA

---

read more

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http://blog.buzzflash.com/mailbag/955

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NY-23: Hoffman Tells $1,761 Clean Energy Lie,
Completely Botches it

This guy is dangerously out of touch. . . .Super nervous, very creepy, super crazy. This was only two weeks ago. Here is the first 42 seconds:Cap and trade started out just like almost everything does, to have a good purpose. To save our environment. [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/12550

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Fox News ignores that vaccinating Gitmo
detainees benefits military personnel

The November 2 editions of Fox News' Special Report and Hannity both reported solely on criticism of reported plans to allow Guantánamo Bay detainees access to H1N1 vaccines, ignoring the benefit to military personnel. Neither report noted that military personnel will be vaccinated before detainees, that vaccinating detainees can help protect military personnel and their families, or that conservatives have repeatedly in the past touted the health care benefits given to detainees in order to defend the controversial detention center.

Special Report, Hannity reports focus on detainees access to vaccine, ignore military personnel

Special Report: "Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are very unhappy that detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility will get the H1N1 vaccine before many Americans." From the November 2 edition of Fox News'Special Report:

BRET BAIER (host): And now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are very unhappy that detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility will get the H1N1 vaccine before many Americans. Missouri Republican Congressman Roy Blunt says, quote, "It's outrageous that in Missouri, expectant mothers, children, and others vulnerable to the H1N1 flu virus do not have access to the vaccine, and our tax dollars are funding vaccines for accused terrorists detained at Gitmo."

Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak wrote to Army Secretary John McHugh, quote, "As long as Americans must wait to receive the vaccine, the detainees in Guantánamo Bay should not be given preferential treatment."

The military says the detainees are included in the priority group because prison populations are at higher risk of getting the flu.

Hannity: "[G]et in line" behind "Gitmo detainees" to get H1N1 vaccine. From the November 2 edition of Fox News' Hannity:

SEAN HANNITY (host): If you're hoping to get the H1N1 vaccine, well, you're gonna have to get in line, and you won't believe who gets it before you. 

[...]

HANNITY: All right, so you were hoping to get the H1N1 vaccine. Well, if the vaccine hasn't reached a doctor's office near you, that might be because it's on its way to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. That's right: A military spokesman announced Gitmo detainees will receive the vaccine sometime this month. That's well before it's expected to be available to the public at large. Seems the Obama administration has its priorities straight, doesn't it?

Military officials to be vaccinated before detainees

JTF Guantánamo Bay spokesperson: "[D]oses will be administered to active-duty personnel before being offered to detainees and others on the base." An October 30 CNN.com report quoted Maj. Diana R. Haynie, a spokeswoman for Joint Task Force Guantánamo Bay: "Detainees at JTF Guantanamo are considered to be at higher risk and therefore they will be offered the H1N1 vaccination. ... JTF Guantanamo conducts safe, humane, legal and transparent care and custody of detainees. As such, we must provide detainees the medical care necessary to maintain their health." Haynie also said that while it was unknown when the vaccines would arrive at Guantánamo Bay, "Once the vaccinations are received, doses will be administered to active-duty personnel before being offered to detainees and others on the base."

CNN: Pentagon and Guantánamo officials "say the base commander will make sure military personnel get the vaccine first." CNN's Brian Todd reported on November 2: "Officials at Guantanamo and the Pentagon tell us there are no cases of H1N1 at Guantanamo yet. The vaccine has not arrived and don't know when they'll get it. They say the base commander will make sure military personnel get the vaccine first and that it will be voluntary for detainees." [CNN's The Situation Room, 11/2/09]

Vaccinating detainees helps protect military personnel

Pentagon official reportedly argued that "to protect the military personnel at Guantanamo ... the detainees may have to have access to the shot." According to CNN's Todd, "One senior Pentagon official calls this a forced protection issue. He says they have to protect the military personnel at Guantanamo so the detainees may have to have access to the shot." [The Situation Room, 11/2/09]

Bioethics expert: "Prisons like Guantanamo" are "incubators for infection." Todd reported: "Professor Art Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania has a long-running project on the ethics of vaccines. He says prisons like Guantanamo are what he calls incubators for infection. Prisoners get it, then they give it to the guards, the guards could then come home and spread it to their families. So they say -- he says at least those are populations that are at risk for these viruses." [The Situation Room, 11/2/09]

CDC: "Correctional institutions pose special risks and considerations due to the nature of their unique environment." In its "Interim Guidance for Correctional and Detention Facilities on Novel Influenza A (H1N1) Virus," the Centers for Disease Control emphasizes the "special risks" correctional institutions pose. From CDC:

Correctional institutions pose special risks and considerations due to the nature of their unique environment. Inmates are in mandatory custody and options are limited for isolation and removal of ill persons from the environment. The workforce must be maintained and options are limited for work alternatives (e.g., work from home, reduced or alternate schedules, etc.). In addition, many inmates and workforce may have medical conditions that increase their risk of influenza-related complications.

Some detainees cleared for release still reside in Guantánamo prisons. According to an August 20 Washington Post report, "[A]pproximately 80 detainees [had been] cleared for release so far." At the time, the Post reported that there were "229 detainees" being held at Guantánamo Bay. On September 28, McClatchy reported that there were "223 detainees at Guantanamo, 75 now cleared to go." After six Uighur detainees were released to Palau, a November 3 Associated Press article noted that "seven others are still at Guantanamo. One of them did not receive an invitation to resettle in Palau over concerns about his mental health." The AP noted that the 22 Uighurs who were detained by the United States "were approved for release after a federal court ruled they were not enemy combatants." An earlier version of this AP article reported that "[b]efore this transfer of the Uighurs, about 221 prisoners remained at Guantanamo."

Republicans previously touted health care given to detainees

Cheney in 2005: Detainees "are well-treated. Their medical needs are attended to." On the June 13, 2005, broadcast of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, former Vice President Dick Cheney argued that Guantánamo detainees "are well-treated. Their medical needs are attended to. They're well-fed. They've got -- their religious requirements are catered to." From the June 13, 2005, edition of Hannity & Colmes (accessed via Nexis):

CHENEY: The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people. I mean, these are terrorists for the most part. These are people that were captured in the battlefield of Afghanistan or rounded up as part of the al Qaeda network. We've already screened the detainees there and released a number of them, sent them back to their home countries. But what's left is hard core.

HANNITY: About 550 people.

CHENEY: That's right. And they are well-treated. Their medical needs are attended to. They're well-fed. They've got -- their religious requirements are catered to. If they want the Koran, they've got the Koran. These people are very well treated for terrorists. If you put them out on the street now and if you were to take action to release them, then you'd find yourself in a situation where the -- you may well find them back trying to kill more Americans.

So we need a facility. If it's not Guantanamo, it's got to be something else. The function has to be performed.

Gingrich cited detainees' access to "medical care" to argue against closing Guantánamo Bay: From Newt Gingrich's May 29 Washington Examiner column, "Mr. President: Keep Gitmo open":

The case for keeping Guantanamo Bay open begins with the almost universal acknowledgement today that the facility itself is an orderly and humane place; a place where detainees receive better food, medical care and respect for their personal dignity than they would in prisons in the various countries they hail from.

Col. Robert Maginnis argued against closing Gitmo: "They get better medical care than most Americans." In a January 28 Human Events column, Maginnis, a former Fox News military analyst and participant in the Pentagon's controversial media military analyst program, argued that "President Obama insults our service members by suggesting that closing the center is partly to end torture there." He added:

They are treated better than any prisoners in the world. They get better medical care than most Americans and they are treated with kid gloves. Many detainees have access to recreation 12 hours a day; they all have intellectual opportunities, including DVDs, books, and magazines. Some of them even take classes in art, English, Arabic and gardening. To suggest that we need a review of our treatment policies at GITMO is a slap in the face to our troops who serve there and are not allowed to even look menacingly at a detainee.

Wall Street Journal's Pollock cited "state of the art" medical care while defending detention center. In a January 17, 2007, column, Robert L. Pollock defended the detention center at Guantánamo Bay after visiting the facility. Pollock specifically cited the "state of the art" medical care offered to detainees to argue that their treatment is humane. From Pollock's January 17, 2007, WSJ column:

When it comes to medical care, almost no expense is spared -- as I discovered after spotting an overweight man lounging in the rec yard of Camp Five. "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?" I inquired (he was some distance away). "No, that's Paracha," came the somewhat exasperated reply.

Saifullah Paracha is a Pakistani businessman and media owner who claims two meetings with Osama bin Laden were purely for journalistic interest. He is believed to be an important figure in the case against Majid Khan, one of the 14 "high value" detainees recently transferred to Gitmo from CIA custody. Last year Mr. Paracha's son Uzair was sentenced to 30 years in a U.S. prison for aiding an al Qaeda operative in a plot to bomb U.S. targets.

Maybe terrorism is stressful work. But whatever the reason, the elder Paracha also suffers from heart disease. So late last year -- at an expense of some $400,000 -- the U.S. government flew down doctors and equipment to perform cardiac catheterization. Mr. Paracha's response was to refuse treatment and file a petition in U.S. federal court for transfer to a hospital in the U.S. or Pakistan. At least his lawyers were frank about their cynical motives: "His death in U.S. captivity would be a blow to American prestige."

The medical care at Guantanamo seems state of the art. All detainees over 50 are offered colonoscopies; at least 16 have been performed. Gitmo's psychiatrist told me that fewer that 1% of detainees suffer from mood disorders, a rate lower than that of the general population. That would appear to undercut claims that indefinite detention is itself a form of "mental torture."

Sen. Bill Frist: "[I]f you look at the care that they get, the healthcare that they get, it's better than the healthcare that the typical American gets in the states." On the September 11, 2006, edition of Special Report (accessed via Nexis), correspondent Major Garrett reported that after a visit by three Republican senators to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, the senators "appeared satisfied." Garrett aired a clip of Frist saying: "The detainees, if you look at the care that they get, the healthcare that they get, it's better than the healthcare that the typical American gets in the states."

Rep. Duncan Hunter cited detainees' "access to top-notch medical facilities" as a reason to keep detention center open. In a June 29, 2005, report on Special Report (accessed via Nexis), correspondent Molly Henneberg reported that "Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told a hearing today that Guantanamo Bay is not a gulag and will stay open. He and 15 other lawmakers visited Gitmo on Saturday." Henneberg then aired a clip of Hunter saying: "We saw a world-class detention facility where detainees representing a threat to our national security are well-fed, given access to top-notch medical facilities, and provided an opportunity to obtain legal representation."

Sen. Jeff Sessions argued that detainees "are well taken care of medically" as a defense of "what is going on in Guantanamo." In an interview on the June 15, 2005, edition of Fox News' The Big Story (accessed via Nexis), Sessions stated: "We are not abusing prisoners at Guantanamo. They have an annual review to determine whether they should be released or not. Over 200 have been released. They have had full reviews by tribunals; 200 of the 500 that are there now have habeas corpus petitions pending in federal court. They are well taken care of medically. They're not being abused. Really, we can defend what is going on in Guantanamo and we should do so."

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.mediamatters.org/~r/mediamatters/latest/~3/MnYlD5EqfQM/200911030019

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Prediction: Wisconsin Overturns Gay Marriage Ban
in 2010

***Prediction?Four-to-three; Wisconsin's gay marriage ban overturned next year.?Aware of the problems of predicting the votes of judges on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, note Justice Prosser's skepticism as he pressed DoJ asst ag Lewis Beilin in a dialogue on interpreting, and formulating a method of interpreting the purpose?be it singular or multiple purposes?of a constitutional amendment.

Said Justice Prosser [begun at the 48-minute, 26-second mark], "How the heck do we figure out what the purpose of an amendment is? ... Again if I may, we get certified questions from the Court of Appeals all the time. We get questions posed and petitions for review all the time and we can rephrase those questions. There's considerable liberty in the Court in rephrasing the question to try to decide the case. Mr. McConkey is, for good or ill, is saying, 'here is a nice, clear-cut methodology, you look to the language and the relating clause of the [referendum] resolution and that will be your purpose.' You're saying, 'let's look at everything here, look at everything and then state the purpose.' I sort of agree with you in a sense, but it's so amorphous. Help."

Attorney Beilin's reply is less-than-specific, and certainly not convincing that the referendum's language is clear, of one purpose, and is a constitutional submission to the people of Wisconsin, much less a useful suggestion that establishes a rule of law in judicial policy in interpreting the "single subject" rule in Article XII, section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

Read The Full Article:
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2009/11/prediction-wisconsin-overturns-gay.html

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