Psst, Judge! Waterboarding is torture.

Illustration taken from Wikipedia. A drawing of torture in Cambodia.

Get a clue, Judge. Waterboarding is torture.

The Geneva Conventions say waterboarding is torture.

Our immoral vice president may not care, but waterboarding is torture.

If you cannot admit that pouring water over a captive's gagged mouth and covered face until he is convinced his death is imminent is torture, you are either too stupid or too evil to be Attorney General of the United States. Waterboarding is torture.

Olympia Snowe knows. John McCain knows. John Warner Knows. Lindsey Graham knows. I know. You, Judge Michael Mukasey, know. Waterboarding is torture.

Say it or do not become Attorney General. Waterboarding is torture.

This was America. We will make it America again. We will not allow the hoodlums in this administration any more leeway to tear down America. Waterboarding is torture, you incredible jerk. Waterboarding is torture.

America does not approve torture. Waterboarding is torture.

It is not about who they are. It is about who we are. Waterboarding is torture.

Midweek Classic - 2/06: Why I am a Democrat

This is my first Midweek Classic Post. Mid-week is a tough time to come up with a post -- and keep my job. And I'd like to have a chance to repost a few of my early posts that got even less readership than current posts. So how about a rerun.

This was first posted on St. Valentine's Day in 2006.
It still applies.

Still Democratic After All These Years

My party is held in a big tent with no burly security guards at the flap. I am a Democrat because my party looks like America. It is not crowded with one race, ethnic group, religion, etc. You don't need an expensive ticket to get in. Everyone's invited. There are some there I won't ask to dance. There are some who are a little too wild for my tastes. There are some who dance with Democrats but, you can tell, are really just slumming: they'll sip champagne with the fat cats next week. There are some who begin as the life of the party but end up hogging the hors d'oeuvres or even robbing the cloakroom... er, the table in the corner piled with coats and purses. But I find the revelers here, in general, more congenial to my beliefs and inclinations than those corvorting at the country clubs. And ours are much better dancers.

Admittedly, I have some negative reasons for my party choice. I am a Democrat because I believe there are, among the other guys, more politicians who are rotten guys. McCarthy, Atwater, Schlafly, Limbaugh, Nixon, Agnew, Bush, Cheney, Starr, Rove, Ashcroft, Coulter, Robertson, Chambliss, Delay, Falwell. Those who look to the worst in human nature. Those who are greedy and arrogant. Those who see themselves as intellectually superior and therefore more deserving. Those who think that those worse off than themselves are deservedly so. Those who are dismissive of, unconcerned for, arrogant toward people of lesser wealth, lesser ability, lesser intelligence. Those who have little or no respect for honest laborers. Those who trust the free enterprise system to cure all ills. Those who demand self-sufficiency from the poor but welcome government perks themselves. There are, of course, many at the other party who do not fit those negative stereotypes.

My choice is primarily a positive one, though. I am a Democrat because I believe my party has, over the the years, most closely supported my political ideals: civil rights and equality of rights, collective stewardship of the environment, strong public schools, separation of church and state, a role for the government in promoting the general welfare of all its citizens, a strong, sensible, diplomatic foreign policy.

I am a Democrat because, as I review my life, I find that my votes have proven right much more often than not. My party adopted the civil rights movement that is accepted as the correct position by almost everyone now, even some who fought it tooth and nail 40 years ago. It was primarily members of my party who led opposition to the Vietnam war and virtually all Americans eventually came to see that war as the mistake that it was. Democrats saw Richard Nixon for the fraud he was when he was the darling of the Republicans. My party opposed Ronald Reagan’s economic policies and those policies nearly bankrupted our nation. Many in my party told America that George W. Bush was the blustering little bully he has turned out to be. They told America his policies would divide us, derail our economy, lose us our allies, and make the world a more dangerous place. They were right.

I am a Democrat because I revere so many of our party leaders of the past and present: Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J.Q. Adams, Jackson (blemished though he was), Cleveland, Wilson (warts and all), FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Truman, Stevenson, Marshall,
Humphrey, JFK, LBJ, (despite Vietnam)

Russell (warts and all),

Ellis Arnall,

Charles Weltner, Fulbright, Scoop Jackson, Robert Byrd, John Lewis, RFK,
McGovern, Nunn, Carter,
Andrew Young, Christopher, Mondale,
Wyche Fowler, Kerry,
Al Gore, Bill Clinton (warts and all),
Hillary Clinton, Allbright,
John Edwards,
Obama, Warner,
Bayh, Bo Ginn
(despite the mistakes of his last years),
Rockefeller, Cleland,

Buddy Childers,
Mildred Greear...

Not that our Democratic heroes don’t have faults. We have our share of charlatans and lechers. But in general I prefer our flaws to those of the opposition. I recognized Bill Clinton as the blemished genius he is. I was not surprised that he disappointed us in his personal life (he is a member of the sexually undisciplined baby boom), but his public decisions and appointments were right on target. It seems that, in our history, those who make the most show of public piety often turn out to be rats, while those who acknowledge their sinful natures often have the most saintly public records. I’ll take Cleveland over Blaine. And I’ll take the lustful Clinton over the surface piety of Bush any day.

It seems to me that our forefathers understood that it is perfectly legitimate for us to covenant together as a society to do things for the common welfare. My party understands that. These days it is in our interest as a nation for all our citizens have good opportunities for education and good medical care. We need to have opera, art, folk music, storytelling, serious and civilized radio and TV discussion: none of which will survive a “free-market” that prefers sentimental, or sexy, or “reality”, or flamboyant programming. It is important to have a reasonably intact passenger rail capability, even if the market won’t support it in the short term. It is in our national interest that big business be regulated; that laborers receive a fair wage; that the difference between the rich and the poor not be so extreme that it foments hatred and revolution. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet deserve to make good profits from their hard work, and smart investments and should not be so severely taxed that they do not want to keep building the economy; but no one “deserves” the money those guys make as long as poverty exists in the world. A progressive tax is NOT unfair to those of us in the top twenty percent of the household income scale. We are incredibly fortunate to have been born with the brains, energy, health, sanity, emotional stability, connections, and luck to have climbed over more than 80% of the population.

I chose my party carefully and I have never been sorry for the choice. The choice has never been clearer. It is the right one for me. I am clearly, proudly, plainly, undeniably, comfortably, to my yellow-dog marrow, a Democrat.

Postscript:
I would argue that most, if not all, the views I have expressed are majority opinions in the United States. On the Liberal Quotient scale, I couldn't be more than one standard deviation above the norm. Maybe a 115 L.Q. or so. (I realize that there are those among my readers who would prefer to express this as 85 C.Q.) Therefore I will continue to lay claim to the label of moderate. I have liberal friends whom I admire, and there is no disgrace in that label, but I don’t think I qualify for it. But I’ll save that discussion for another post. By the way, here is the thesaurus's take on "liberal". So if liberal is the label you, dear reader, want me to don, I'll wear it with pride.

The Innocent Man

Grisham's latest - click on the pic to visit his website.

Every juror, judge, sworn witness, prosecutor, policeman, warden, prison guard, and defense lawyer in America should be required to read John Grisham's latest book before assuming their duties. The Innocent Man lays out in no uncertain terms the miscarriage of justice that can happen when police and prosecutors let their opinions and zeal for retribution, instead of evidence and rigorous attention to a full legal procedures, guide their investigations and prosecution.

I am routinely struck from juries. I have never served. I know too many proscecutors, lawyers, and have taught too many family members of defendants. But should lawyers decide one day that I am less disreputable than all but eleven other potential jurors, they can know that the defendant in the case will be innocent in my mind until the prosecution can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is the guy that actually committed the crime.

I am convinced, beyond reasonable doubt, that O.J. Simpson, for example, killed Nicole and Ron. But I will grimly bear to see an occasional lowlife like OJ slinking around the links and gabbing with the tabloids if that is the price we have to pay to see that our American system of impartial justice for every person accused of a crime is vigorously upheld.

Every accused person should be allowed, with the prosecution, equal access to expert examination of the evidence, always, regardless of mental, financial, or other disability. We all want crime punished, but too often the punishment is misplaced. Because of his wealth and fame, Simpson had immediate access to the best defense lawyers and a squad of experts on every kind of forensics. Ron Williamson had none of that. He was seriously disturbed. He had a history of scaring people with his strange behavior. He, at times, looked like everyone's idea of an alcohol and drug crazed killer. It is easy to see why the police and the prosecutor suspected him.

If Grisham is right, many of the authorities in Oklahoma forgot that, in America, suspicion should not be enough.

PBS Story about Ron

PBS Story about Dennis Fritz

Ward and Fontenot

The Innocence Project

A Different Opinion by Joshua Marquis, the district attorney in Astoria, Ore., and vice president of the National District Attorneys Association.

No religious test...

(One reader seemed to misunderstand part of this post so I have edited it slightly to be better understood. By the way, my outgoing e-mail is still not working, dang it! I know it's just some little setting that's different on this machine.)

From the Constitution of the United States:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, under the United States.

That text is very clear and absolute. Any Congressman who tries to institute a religious test for a Member of Congress has broken his oath: He is NOT defending, protecting, supporting the Constitution.

Congressman Keith Ellison, our first Muslim Member of Congress
I congratulate him and wish him well.

My Median Sib, today, a remarkable woman; a loving wife, daughter, mother, and grandmother; and an honored teacher, and a person I respect and love and welcome to rebut what I write here, has, it seems to me in my anything-but-humble opinion, leapt off a cliff, gone off the deep end, climbed out of the pot and into the fire, [fill in your own cliche for "failed to wisely agree with her loving older and wiser brother"]. In reaction to the election of our first Muslim Member of Congress, she has written:

"Muslims worldwide have declared jihad on the United States and ANYONE who is not Muslim. I think it was a mistake to elect an “enemy” to Congress."

I cannot express how saddened I am by that unfortunate statement. And I cannot let it pass without comment.

My Sib's post seems to consider Congressman Keith Ellison an “enemy” simply because he is Muslim. If so, that is an affront to many wonderful loyal Americans, including some of my favorite students and their fine parents and one of the finest co-workers I have (an Iraqi-American Kurd whose brother was murdered by Saddam and who fled Iraq with her husband and children to escape some of the same terrorists that my Sib seems to be lumping her with). It would certainly be an affront to our Muslim-American soldiers past and present.

Would we force a member to be sworn on the Bible when that is not his Book of Faith? Wouldn’t that require him to be hypocritical? Isn't that a "religious test"? Does the Constitution preclude non-Christians from serving in Congress? Should we take away citizenship from those of other faiths?

I am not a Muslim. I am sure there is much to admire in their faith, but I happen to think it contains a lot of hogwash. I also think some elements of Catholicism are largely hogwash. (The saint "worship", the ridiculous veneration of a bit of bone or cloth as a holy relic, pilgrimages to venerate a cookie that vaguely resembles somebody’s idea of what Mary looked like.) And Mormonism, Lord have mercy! Shoot, I’m a Methodist, and I know there are some radical and ridiculous Methodists, too.

Still, I find much to admire in some Mormons, Catholics, and Muslims. Democratic Senator Harry Reid and Republican Senator Orrin Hatch are Mormons -- Do they really believe in Joseph Smith’s golden tablets? And does that strange belief preclude them from office? If Hatch or Reid want to use the Book of Mormon (I know they also claim the Bible) as the Book of Faith that they use for their swearing-in ceremonies, that’s fine with me.

I just want them to mean it when they say:

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.”

Until the Civil War, when Yankee Congressmen were concerned about domestic rebels, the original oath was used:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”

That’s simple and to the point, though I like the addition of “defend”: the first duty of a member of Congress is to support and defend the Constitution.

You will note that Madison, et al, neglected to add “so help me God” to the Presidential oath written into the Constitution. They were determined that ours was to be a secular government, as they later specifically pointed out to the Muslim Barbary pirates. The following is part of the treaty read and approved unanimously in the Senate on June 7, 1797. President John Adams, a devout Christian, signed it and proclaimed it to the Nation.

"Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Islamic] nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

The recounting of the evils of the Islamic governments elsewhere in the world, of course, begs the question and has no legitimate relevance to how we should interpret our Constitution.

I will stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone to oppose any Muslim who tries to restrict any American's freedom of religion or speech or any other Constitutional right. But I will also stand with Congressman Ellison, or my co-worker, or my students, against anyone who tries to limit their religious rights.

I know this question sounds harsh, -- no one should take it as a personal shot -- I mean it as beginning point for an honest dialogue: How can we restrict religious speech or non-violent religious practice [that is, disallow the use of the Koran for a swearing-in ceremony] and still support and defend the Constitution of the United States? Such restriction, in my book, is counter to the Constitution and therefore quintessentially un-American.

I absolutely welcome polite debate about this issue.

1-05-07 Note: The Median Sib has written a post to clarify the post that I have responded to here. I won't try to characterize it or comment on it except to invite my readers to visit her blog to better understand her position on the issue of Keith Ellison's election, his use of the Koran, and other things.

Here is a previous post on the separation of church and state.

We Hold These Truths...

Celebrating Independence Day

-- Pursuing Happiness

Terrell grills the burgers - coated in ranch dressing .
(Good idea, Beth - though I added a secret ingredient.)


Adam Climbs a tree.

Ten kids romp on the levee.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness


And the bursting was in the air right over our heads and the ash fell into our laps!

Happy Independence Day-
Let Freedom Ring!


When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

[Signed by] JOHN HANCOCK [President]


New Hampshire
JOSIAH BARTLETT,
WM. WHIPPLE,
MATTHEW THORNTON.

Massachusetts Bay
SAML. ADAMS,
JOHN ADAMS,
ROBT. TREAT PAINE,
ELBRIDGE GERRY

Rhode Island
STEP. HOPKINS,
WILLIAM ELLERY.

Connecticut
ROGER SHERMAN,
SAM'EL HUNTINGTON,
WM. WILLIAMS,
OLIVER WOLCOTT.

New York
WM. FLOYD,
PHIL. LIVINGSTON,
FRANS. LEWIS,
LEWIS MORRIS.

New Jersey
RICHD. STOCKTON,
JNO. WITHERSPOON,
FRAS. HOPKINSON,
JOHN HART,
ABRA. CLARK.

Pennsylvania
ROBT. MORRIS
BENJAMIN RUSH,
BENJA. FRANKLIN,
JOHN MORTON,
GEO. CLYMER,
JAS. SMITH,
GEO. TAYLOR,
JAMES WILSON,
GEO. ROSS.

Delaware
CAESAR RODNEY,
GEO. READ,
THO. M'KEAN.

Maryland
SAMUEL CHASE,
WM. PACA,
THOS. STONE,
CHARLES CARROLL of Carrollton.

Virginia
GEORGE WYTHE,
RICHARD HENRY LEE,
TH. JEFFERSON,
BENJA. HARRISON,
THS. NELSON, JR.,
FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE,
CARTER BRAXTON.

North Carolina
WM. HOOPER,
JOSEPH HEWES,
JOHN PENN.

South Carolina
EDWARD RUTLEDGE,
THOS. HAYWARD, JUNR.,
THOMAS LYNCH, JUNR.,
ARTHUR MIDDLETON.

Georgia
BUTTON GWINNETT,
LYMAN HALL,
GEO. WALTON.

By the light of burning flags...

An epidemic of flag burning has evidently struck. The brave Republicans are standing tall to stop this major catastophe. Check it out:

From Zenyenta:

I guess there's no hope that we'll be able to cut down on this absolute epidemic of flag burning that's taking over our streets and neighborhoods. Right?

From J.D. Henderson:

Unlike other nations, no American soldiers have ever died defending our flag. What they gave all to defend is the Constitution, and it cheapens the sacrifice of our soldiers to claim that they risked, or lost, their precious lives for a mere symbolic piece of cloth. They did not. They served the idea of self-government, and were willing to risk their lives to defend the ideals of our Republic as set down in writing. They defended the freedom to disagree. Including the freedom to, yes, burn the symbol of all we hold true.

From Oh!Pinion:

Desecrating the Constitution in a half-baked scheme to protect the symbol reveals a deplorable lack of appreciation for what’s most important.

From a regular guy usually on the other side:

Burning the flag as an act of protest, however offensive it may be to veterans like myself who offered to place ourselves between it and its enemies, is an inherently political statement. I don't believe that our govenment should go any farther down the road of regulating our political speech.

From Dana Milbank:

The Citizens Flag Alliance, a group pushing for the Senate this week to pass a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, just reported an alarming, 33 percent increase in the number of flag-desecration incidents this year.

From History Mike:

If protesters decide that they can best communicate their points with a burning flag, so be it. I will boo them loudly and go about my business knowing that they have likely turned off 95 percent of people who might otherwise listen to what they say.

From Bill Press:

If Republicans hate Cuba, China, Iran, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq – Why do they want the United States to be so much like them?

"If a jerk burns a flag, America is not threatened. If a jerk burns a flag, democracy is not under siege. If a jerk burns a flag, freedom is not at risk
and we are not threatened.
My colleagues, we are offended; and to change our Constitution because someone offends us is, in itself, unconscionable,"

-- Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-New York).