Beyonce - Halo

post from Where's the Outrage? on 13 March 2009 11:35:05 PM. © Where's the Outrage?

Artist: BeyonceSong: HaloMaybe it is just me. I like the video but the song seems a little[...]

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Open Thread

post from Crooks and Liars on 13 March 2009 11:30:47 PM. © Crooks and Liars

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JFK on the campaign trail, pushing back on bipartisanship. Open thread below...

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'We Surround Them' CRITICAL URGENT EMERGENCY
UPDATE

post from Daily Kos on 13 March 2009 11:25:04 PM. © Daily Kos

[Throughout the day we have been bringing you breaking coverage of today's 'We Surround Them' event, newsperson Glenn Beck's effort to demonstrate the power of the ultraconservative movement via... um... well, we're not quite sure. It seems to be based on surrounding the rest of us by meeting at Chili's?]

CRITICAL EMERGENCY UPDATE -- DAILY KOS EXCLUSIVE: Home again now. Home not surrounded. Neighbors seem placid, no surrounding seems imminent. Possible conservative flanking maneuver on 2nd street turned out to be loose dog.

Pictured: The conservative stages of grief. Hat tip Pluto.

[This has been a 'We Surround Them' update.]

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obama's poll numbers are falling, if you don't
count obama's poll numbers

post from They gave us a republic... - Front Page on 13 March 2009 11:01:15 PM. © They gave us a republic... - Front Page

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

the hardly-ever-right wing's favorite pollster, scottie "weighted for republicans" rasmussen writes in today's wsj that obama's poll nubmbers are "falling to earth":

it is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on president barack obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. the american people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the obama administration has advanced.
polling data show that mr. obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where george w. bush was in an analogous period in 2001. rasmussen reports data shows that mr. obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.

but, as no more mister nice blog points out, it is simply wrong for rasmussen (w/douglas schoen) to read half the poll and interpret that as obama's steep decline in popularity (after the jump):

i don't have time to pick the whole thing apart, but i'll just comment on a couple of bits of rasmussen and schoen's evidence:
when gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more.
i believe that would be this question, from a usa today/gallup survey conducted february 20-22...:
yes, nearly three times as many people said it would have been better to spend less than more -- but almost exactly as many people said the right amount was spent as said too much was spent! and if you add the people who said the dollar amount was "about right" to those who said "better to spend more," you get a majority. rasmussen and schoen's interpretation is preposterous...
so we have huge majorities in favor of "funding new government programs to help create jobs," "giving aid to state governments in serious financial trouble," and "giving aid to homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure" -- but (in gallup's own words) "regardless of whether [respondents] favor or oppose the steps the government has taken in recent months to address economic problems," they have worries about the items rasmussen and schoen listed. (r&s get their numbers by adding the "very worried" and "somewhat worried" numbers in response to the second question group.)
you know what? if i have a life-threatening illness and i need surgery, i'm going to be at least "somewhat worried" about dying on the operating table; depending on the nature of the surgery, i might be "very worried." that doesn't mean i'm anti-surgery. that doesn't mean i've suddenly developed doubts that surgery can often prevent death. it just means i recognize risks.

so, once again, the hardly-ever-right must spin the facts to obtain the result they want...which is, in this case, nobody likes obama.

nobody, except everybody except them, that is.

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Tedisco (NY-20) - Man of Steele

post from Firedoglake on 13 March 2009 11:00:58 PM. © Firedoglake

Mr. Tedisco, the Republican who's trying to get Sen. Gillibrand's old seat, has a small problem. Not only is he polling way behind the Republican registration advantage in his district, it's starting to look as if national Republicans want him to lose.[...]

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C&L's Late Nite Music Club with The Cure

post from Crooks and Liars on 13 March 2009 11:00:00 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Title: Friday I'm in LoveArtist: The Cure
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Happy Friday, everyone.

Friday, while much better than Monday on principle, is getting beat down by Monday in the song wars. Monday has Manic Monday, I Don't Like Mondays, Monday, Monday, and Blue Monday. Friday has
Black Friday, Friday on My Mind, and this... what else?

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No More "Enemy Combatants"

post from Daily Kos on 13 March 2009 10:50:05 PM. © Daily Kos

In a court filing in a case in which detainees are challenging their detention under last year's Boumediene decision, the Obama Department of Justice has submitted a new standard for the government's authority to hold Guantanamo detainees.

The Obama administration said Friday that it is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant The Justice Department said in legal filings that it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

But that's [sic] won't change much for the detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba — Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold them. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president's own wartime power as Bush had argued.

Essentially, the Obama administration is arguing that the authority to hold the detainees based on the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. From the e-mailed brief:

The President has the authority to detain persons that the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks.

The President also has the authority to detain persons who were part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or al-Qaida forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act, or has directly supported hostilities, in aid of such enemy armed forces.

It comes down to what "substantially supported" means in the eyes of the Obama Justice Department, and that wasn't clearly defined in the brief. As of yet, according to the AP article, civil rights activists are skeptical.

In their lawsuits, detainees have argued that only those who directly participated in hostilities should be held.

"The argument should be rejected," the Justice Department said in its filing. "Law-of-war principles do not limit the United States' detention authority to this limited category of individuals. A contrary conclusion would improperly reward an enemy that violates the laws of war by operating as a loose network and camouflaging its forces as civilians."

Retired Army Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, a former Guantanamo official who has since become critical of the legal process, said it's a change in nothing but semantics.

"There's absolutely no change in the definition," Abraham said in a telephone interview. "To say this is a kinder more benevolent sense of justice is absolutely false. ... I think the only thing they've done is try to separate themselves from the energy of the debate" by eliminating Bush's phrasing.

The ACLU's Jonathan Hafetz adds:

While it is positive that the new administration has re-considered and narrowed the definition of an “enemy combatant,” the new definition is way too broad and, in critical respects, reflects a continuation of the prior administration’s wrongheaded and illegal detention policy. In particular, it continues to treat terror suspects as a military, rather than criminal justice matter, and to claim the authority to seize and detain individuals captured beyond the battlefield indefinitely and without charges.

The substance of this change will be proven by how the administration moves forward in resolving the cases of the Guantanamo detainees. From an e-mailed press release from the administration:

In its filing today, the government bases its authority to hold detainees at Guantanamo on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which Congress passed in September 2001, and which authorized the use of force against nations, organizations, or persons the president determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the September 11 attacks, or harbored such organizations or persons. The government’s new standard relies on the international laws of war to inform the scope of the president’s authority under this statute, and makes clear that the government does not claim authority to hold persons based on insignificant or insubstantial support of al Qaeda or the Taliban.

There are numerous detainees held based on "insignificant or insubstantial support" of terrorism, so this new definition should argue for their immediate release. It should provide even more impetus for the administration to step up the process of closing Guantanamo and providing a clear, legal process for dealing with the detainees.

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Brushing Back the Dollar

If you remember, not long after President Bush became president, we had that incident with the US spy plane hugging Chinese airspace, which was bumped by a Chinese jet intercepter and forced to make an emergency landing on Chinese territory. Then just[...]

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_not_long.php

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The Papal Encyclicals and Economic Justice

Thomas Bokenkotter wrote in his book Church and Revolution: Catholics in the Struggle for Democracy[...]

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Fox News illustrates segments on serious issue
of crime in Mexico with footage of bikini-clad women

Since the State Department issued a February 20 travel alert regarding the increase of drug cartel-related violence in Mexico, Fox News has run several segments questioning whether Cancun and other Mexican resort cities are safe destinations for college students on spring break. Segments on Hannity, On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, and The O'Reilly Factor featured gratuitous video footage of young women in bikinis, continuing a pattern on Fox News of exploiting any opportunity to show[...]

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http://mediamatters.org/items/200903130033

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