No need to worry about double jeopardy: the Obama administration doesn't want to let you out even if you are acquitted!!??

Top Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson informed the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the Obama Administration might decide to continue imprisoning detainees indefinitely, even if they were charged with a crime, tried and acquitted.

The new assertion of presidential authority is staggering. Previously the Bush Administration had held the detainees for years without trial, and claimed the right to hold them basically forever, which the Obama Administration endorsed. But trials were avoided for lack of evidence. President Obama had previously defended the release of detainees ordered to be let go by the courts by insisting there was nothing he could do after the court ruled.

Not so now, it seems, and the lack of evidence is no obstacle because even if the trial fails, the president can simply overrule the court and keep the innocent detainee anyhow. Johnson said the detainees held despite being found not guilty in court would be permitted “some form of periodic review,” though it was unclear how this would even theoretically work.

While the Bush Administration often struggled with their system of extralegal detention, the Obama Administration seems perfectly willing to make bizarre assertions as to their hopes for a future legal system. Last month they were openly talking about executing detainees to avoid messy trials. Now the trials themselves will be next to meaningless.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D – NY) expressed concern about the plan, saying “What bothers me is that they seem to be saying, ‘Some people we have good enough evidence against, so we’ll give them a fair trial. Some people the evidence is not so good, so we’ll give them a less fair trial. We’ll give them just enough due process to ensure a conviction because we know they’re guilty. That’s not a fair trial, that’s a show trial.”

Explain to me again why (A) there is a significant difference between Bushco and the Obama administration on civil liberties; and (B) why most of my liberal/progressive friends seem to be far more interested in GOP infighting than the ripping sounds around the US Constitution now that their man is in power....

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here: chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.” The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point: Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo: Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1. Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...

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