Pruning Shears

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Christy Hardin Smith had a nice example of how judges write when they are really peeved. It’s good to know that the judicial branch doesn’t seem to be as enthusiastic about rolling back the legal system to pre-Magna Carta days as the executive and legislative branches. Having someone familiar with how their language - and how laymen can interpret it - is helpful.

Ian Pannell reported on torture at Bagram. It isn’t just Guantánamo Bay or Abu Ghraib. It is systemic and the result of a policy created at the top. How much longer will we deny that?

Marcy Wheeler explains what the newspapers will not, adds context where needed, fact checks the claims of recalcitrant bureaucracies, and, oh yeah, keeps filling out her own investigations on the side. She’s dreamy.

Jane Harman is on the warpath against the National Applications Office:

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) had recently introduced legislation that would prevent Homeland Security from using space-based satellite imagery for domestic surveillance. Harman, chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s intelligence and terrorism risk assessment subcommittee, cited privacy issues.

“Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like if one of these satellites were directed on your neighborhood or home, a school or place of worship — and without an adequate legal framework or operating procedures in place for regulating their use,” she said in a statement when she introduced her bill. “I dare say the reaction might be that Big Brother has finally arrived, and the black helicopters can’t be far behind.”

Speaking of spying, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the Department of Justice “in an attempt to make public new FBI surveillance rules that allow the bureau to spy on Americans even without any suspicion of terrorist activities.” Note the Obama White House is not mentioned in the article.

Also from Raw Story it looks like the Spanish probe of the Bush Six is moving forward. In other words, delay may be an option in America but the rest of the world may not feel obliged to proceed at such a leisurely pace.

Kase Wickman has some suggestions for those (including me) who want to support the protestors in Iran. Point taken.

Avelino Maestas of the Sunlight Foundation provided the latest reason why “lawmakers should be required to post legislation online for 72 hours before voting. That would ensure everybody — from Senators and Representatives to bloggers, reporters and citizens — would have time to read the bill. I sure didn’t.” The lawmaking process doesn’t necessarily have to be public but the results ought to be public for a decent interval before a vote. If you think it might have some unpopular provisions or be objectionable in whole then get out there and make the case. That doesn’t mean slow walking it to death, but it seems there’s a happy medium between that and the way the cap and trade bill was treated.

Harold Koh finally got confirmed by the Senate. Now how about Dawn Johnsen?

Barack Obama continues to shit on the Constitution, giving his own distinctive interpretation of the phrase “news dump.”

I know I’m rising to the bait by even addressing this, but memo to Wall Street: The problem is not bad PR, it’s the massive destruction you created by your amoral, corrupt, callous and greedy behavior. And just so you know, when the public is getting into pitchforks and torches territory you might not want to mention that your grand design to pacify them has an “execution phase.” Speaking of which, this is as good a time as any to quote eventual Senator Al Franken, as recounted by anonymous commenter Quaker in a Basement:

The night before this story came out, Al Franken was talking to 650 Democratic donors at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. You may have seen it on C-SPAN. He said that when Democrats point out stuff like this – point out that 17.5% is less than the tax rate a factory worker pays – the Republicans cry, “class warfare.”

But that’s not class warfare, Al told the assembled. He had been reading Barbara Tuchman’s classic A Distant Mirror, about the calamitous Fourteenth Century, and he came upon the scene where these serfs, tired of being subservient, scale the walls of their knight’s castle, capture him, kill him, roast him on a spit, and then make his wife eat his flesh.

In front of her children.

Al – who is the author of the forthcoming, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right – took a long, deliberate pause, looked at us incredulously, and said … “Now that’s class warfare.”

UNPACKING JANE: On page 202 Mayer writes about Jim Clemente, a member of the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, going to Guantánamo:

Clemenete brought unusual credentials to the task, He had a law degree and had previously been a prosecutor in New York. Interestingly, given his attempt to stop mistreatment, his area of expertise prior to September 11 was child sexual abuse. Victimization of the powerless was something he had thought a lot about. He had other talents, too. He was the role model for Mandy Patinkin’s part on the television series Criminal Minds. And in 2007, after recovering from lymphoma, he collected a human rights award for an episode of the show that he wrote himself. It was about Guantánamo and featured the successful interrogation of a terrorist who was outsmarted by wit, not brawn. Clemente’s real-life star turn in Guantánamo didn’t go quite as smoothly.