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Just now, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia A. Phillips ruled Don't Ask, Don't Tell violates the 1st amendment rights of gays and lesbians. The case was recently argued by Log Cabin Republicans on behalf of servicemembers. LA Times:
A federal judge in Riverside declared the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional Thursday, saying the "don't ask, don't tell" policy violates the 1st Amendment rights of lesbians and gay men.
U.S. District Court Judge Virginia A. Phillips said the policy banning gays did not preserve military readiness, contrary to what many supporters have argued, saying evidence shows that the policy in fact had a "direct and deleterious effect'' on the military.
Phillips said she would issue an injunction barring the government from enforcing the policy. However, the U.S. Department of Justice, which defended "don't ask, don't tell" during a two-week trial in Riverside, will have an opportunity to appeal that decision.
I've uploaded the full 85-page ruling, which can be found here.
The opening summary:
Plaintiff Log Cabin Republicans attacks the constitutionality of the statute known as the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Act ("the Act" or "the Policy"), found at 10 U.S.C. § 654, and its implementing regulations. Plaintiff's challenge is two-fold: it contends the Act violates its members' rights to substantive due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and its members' rights of freedom of speech, association, and to petition the government, guaranteed by the First Amendment.
The Court finds Plaintiff Log Cabin Republicans (sometimes referred to in this Order as "Log Cabin," "LCR," or "Plaintiff"), a non-profit corporation, has established standing to bring and maintain this suit on behalf of its members. Additionally, Log Cabin Republicans has demonstrated the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Act, on its face, violates the constitutional rights of its members. Plaintiff is entitled to the relief sought in its First Amended Complaint: a judicial declaration to that effect and a permanent injunction barring further enforcement of the Act.
While Phillips issued an injunction preventing the policy's enforcement, it's not clear whether a higher court would issue a stay on the ruling, similar to the Prop 8 case.
This was the case in which friend and colleague Alex Nicholson, who heads up Servicemembers United, testified. Over e-mail, a statement from him:
"This is an historic moment and an historic ruling for the gay military community," said Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United and a multi-lingual U.S. Army interrogator who was discharged under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' "As the only named injured party in this case, I am exceedingly proud to have been able to represent all who have been impacted and had their lives ruined by this blatantly unconstitutional policy. We are finally on our way to vindication."
The way it usually goes when I write about politics and psychology/cognitive science is that I cite something or other in the news and then I draw a connection with authoritarianism, or levels of cognitive complexity or whatever.
I must admit that Bachmann always struck me primarily as (a) paranoid, (b) all over the map, and (c) in full-time projection mode. You just really had to wonder when Obama was more-or-less joined at the hip with BP, and she said, "The other thing we have to remember is that Obama loves to make evil whatever company it is that he wants to get more power from." Me, I got the immediate image of Bachmann as some sort of power-sucking Lovecraftian creature whose response to any sort of failure was intense envy, leading her to project her innermost desires onto others. How else to explain her typically totally whacko take expressing itself in precisely that form?
In short, I was just too taken in by the surface phantasmagoria of the Cougars and Dark-style Michelle Bachmann show. But as soon as I sasaw this short piece, it really clicked for me. Here's the rest of the really brief text:
As noted in my previous diary, Obama has so far kept to his promise to push for keeping the "middle class" Bush tax cuts, however misleading that might be, while flip-flopping on other promises. One of the biggest flip-flops concerns reversing the Bush foreign policy, a multi-faceted issue area where one of the most clear-cut reversals came into focus yesterday, as a federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit over the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, based on "state secrets" arguments which Obama had harshly criticized before taking office.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that former prisoners of the C.I.A. could not sue over their alleged torture in overseas prisons because such a lawsuit might expose secret government information.
The sharply divided ruling was a major victory for the Obama administration's efforts to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy powers. It strengthens the White House's hand as it has pushed an array of assertive counterterrorism policies, while raising an opportunity for the Supreme Court to rule for the first time in decades on the scope of the president's power to restrict litigation that could reveal state secrets.
By a 6-to-5 vote, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary accused of arranging flights for the Central Intelligence Agency to transfer prisoners to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the case on behalf of five former prisoners who say they were tortured in captivity - and that Jeppesen was complicit in that alleged abuse....
While the alleged abuses occurred during the Bush administration, the ruling added a chapter to the Obama administration's aggressive national security policies.
Its counterterrorism programs have in some ways departed from the expectations of change fostered by President Obama's campaign rhetoric, which was often sharply critical of former President George W. Bush's approach.
Among other policies, the Obama national security team has also authorized the C.I.A. to try to kill a United States citizen suspected of terrorism ties, blocked efforts by detainees in Afghanistan to bring habeas corpus lawsuits challenging the basis for their imprisonment without trial, and continued the C.I.A.'s so-called extraordinary rendition program of prisoner transfers - though the administration has forbidden torture and says it seeks assurances from other countries that detainees will not be mistreated.
Here's Glenn Greenwald, who has plenty more to say, but this, I think cuts deepest, because it's not just about Obama, but about us all:
It's from a mid-August report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities "High-Income People Would Benefit Significantly From Extension of 'Middle-Class' Tax Cuts", by Chuck Marr and Gillian Brunet. Along with a segment on Democracy Now! this morning with David Cay Johnston, it sheds significant light on just how deeply conservative the entire discussion of taxes specifically and the economy generally remains. In turn, this is but another indication of just how far Obama is from having brought about any significant movement toward a progressive reframing of issues. (On another topic, last night, Megan McCain criticized his similar failure to lead on gay issues on the Rachel Maddow Show--not just gay marriage, but even DADT. And Democracy Now! also had a segment on his doubling down in support of protecting Bush-era torturers & the exapansion of the "state secrets" doctrine, so there's an unmistakable pattern here.)
As the CBPP report explains:
A fact generally overlooked in the debate over whether Congress should extend the high-income Bush tax cuts - i.e. those targeted exclusively at couples making over $250,000 and single individuals making over $200,000 - is that these households will still receive substantial tax cuts if Congress extends the so-called "middle-class" Bush tax cuts while letting the high-income tax cuts expire as scheduled.
This is because the 2001 tax law's reductions in the lower tax brackets benefit not only people whose incomes fall within the lower brackets but also those whose incomes exceed those brackets. In fact, high-income people actually receive much larger benefits in dollar terms from the so-called "middle-class tax cuts" than middle-class people do.[1]
Specifically, recent estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation show that extending just the middle-class tax cuts would provide more than $6,300 in tax cuts to households with incomes above $200,000, on average, compared to $1,132 in tax cuts for households with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000. The Joint Tax Committee estimates show:
Households with incomes exceeding $1 million will receive an average tax cut of $6,349 in 2011 if the middle-class tax cuts are extended while the high-income tax cuts are allowed to expire. (They will receive an average tax cut of nearly $104,000 if the high-income tax cuts are extended as well.)
The story is similar, if not quite as dramatic, for households that make between $500,000 and $1 million. They will receive an average tax cut of $6,701 if the middle-class tax cuts are excluded (and of $17,467 if the high-income tax cuts are also extended).
For all other income categories, by contrast, the size of the tax cuts are about the same whether the high-income tax cuts are extended or not. Even for households with incomes between $200,000 and $500,000, the effects are similar. The Joint Tax Committee figures show that they would receive an average tax cut of $6,743 if only the middle-class tax cuts are extended, and of $7,152 if the high-income tax cuts are extended, as well.
But it gets significantly worse:
The middle-class tax-cut package the Joint Tax Committee analyzed does not extend the reduction in the tax rate on dividends for couples with incomes over $250,000 (and singles over $200,000). President Obama has proposed, however, that the dividend top rate for high-income people be permanently set at 20 percent, rather than being allowed to return to its pre-2001 level of 39.6 percent. If Congress follows that approach and incorporates this proposal into a middle-class tax-cut package, the average tax cut that high-income households will receive from enactment of such a package will be considerably larger than the figures just cited, and the dollar amount by which the average tax cut going to high-income households exceeds the average tax cut for middle-income households will be significantly larger, as well.
Now let's turn to Democracy Now! and see how David Cay Johnston frames things very differently than you'll normally hear it framed. Johnson, by the way, considers himself a libertarian, but in the old-school sense of not cottoning much to state-created & supported private fortunes. Here's how the interview starts:
(On Dan's suggestion. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley announced yesterday that he is stepping down after 21 years in power. He's been the mayor of a large American city for such a long time that inevitably he'll be blamed and credited for stuff American mayors have little control over. That he has done a poor job for most of the city's people was, of course, to be expected, as they are poor and poorly represented. That Chicago's yuppies secretly and not so secretly love him is also not unexpected. The city that they know has changed in ways they like, and the city they don't know or ever go to is not their Chicago, it doesn't exist for them.
Does this all sound familiar? Well, yeah, it's America, a violent country in its second guilded age, acted out in one city's economic demography. Here then is Daley's finest achievement, a low-crime and 'nice' zone, from downtown ('the loop') north about 8 miles. A huge and mostly 'economically cleansed' district of gentrification, sports bars, police presence, stylish restaurants and fashionable 'alternative' lifestyles:
CHICAGO poverty and the 'yuppie zone' built during Daley's reign.
A new report this week from Mayors Against Illegal Guns reveals the massive--and growing--role played in the Mexican drug war by crime guns trafficked into Mexico from US states--particularly border states, with Arizona leading the way on a per-capita basis. This comes just on the heels of a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center, showing a dramatic drop in the rate of illegal immigration.
A press release from Mayors Against Illegal Guns that accompanied the report stated:
The more than 500 members of the bi-partisan coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns today released a new report, entitled The Movement of Guns Across the U.S.-Mexico Border, that reveals that Southwest border states supplied a disproportionate number of crime guns to Mexico from 2006 to 2009. The report analyzes new data made available to Mayors Against Illegal Guns by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The new data, released by the coalition co-chaired by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, builds on the coalition's first groundbreaking source state analysis, The Movement of Illegal Guns in America, released in December 2008.
"Illegal guns and their accompanying violence devastate communities across our country, now we know more about how guns purchased here have helped sustain violent drug wars in Mexico," said coalition co-chair and New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. "I hope this report from Mayors Against Illegal Guns is a wake up call for policy makers - it is too easy for criminals and traffickers to get guns."
Just as Arizona Governor Jan Brewer finally admits that there are no beheaded corpses in her state's deserts. these two reports combine to show that the entire wave of hysteria she's been riding and helping to foment has everything exactly backwards: hard times are not just reducing illegal immigration, according to Pew, but are actually reducing the total number of undocumented immigrants in the US, at the same time that US-bought guns are exporting violence to Mexico.
Perhaps most striking is the dramatic decrease in the "Time-to-Crime" in Mexico, which experts regard as a key indicator of illegal gun trafficking:
Child-beating. Brainwashing. Turning parishoners into personal servants. Just your normal everyday man of God, right?
He seems to be your garden variety religious grifter/sociopath. At least that's the impression I got from reading this account from SPIEGEL ONLINE:
Islamophobe's Past in Germany
Terry Jones Accused of 'Spiritual Abuse' at Cologne Church
By Yassin Musharbash and Dominik Peters
US fundamentalist pastor Terry Jones, who wants to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, ran a church in the western German city of Cologne until last year when members of the congregation expelled him. Former members have spoken of his hate-filled sermons and insistence on "blind obedience."
....
'Climate of Fear and Control'
In the United States, Jones has already attracted attention on several occasions as an Islamophobic provocateur. What is less well known is that the pastor led a charismatic evangelical church, the Christian Community of Cologne, in the western German city up until 2009. Last year, however, the members of the congregation kicked founder Jones out, because of his radicalism. One of the church's current leaders, Stephan Baar, also told the German news agency DPA that there had been suspicions of financial irregularities in the church surrounding Jones.
A "climate of fear and control" had previously prevailed in the congregation, says one former member of the church who does not want to be named. Instead of free expression, "blind obedience" was demanded, he says.
Various witnesses gave SPIEGEL ONLINE consistent accounts of the Jones' behavior. The pastor and his wife apparently regarded themselves as having been appointed by God, meaning opposition was a crime against the Lord. Terry and Sylvia Jones allegedly used these methods to ask for money in an increasingly insistent manner, as well as making members of the congregation carry out work.
Andrew Schäfer, a Protestant Church official responsible for monitoring sects in the region where Cologne is located, confirmed the accounts. "Terry Jones is a fundamentalist," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Both major churches in Germany have "sect commissioners" who monitor the activities of religious groups, sects and cults. Although they are obviously not totally impartial, the officials' findings are usually considered to be trustworthy.
'Delusional Personality'
Former church members are still undergoing therapy as a result of "spiritual abuse," Schäfer said. According to Schäfer, Jones urged church members to beat their children with a rod and also taught "a distinctive demonology" and conducted brainwashing.
"Terry Jones appears to have a delusional personality," speculates Schäfer. When he came to Germany in the 1980s, Jones apparently considered Cologne "a city of Hell that was founded by Nero's mother," while he thought Germany was "a key country for the supposed Christian revival of Europe," Schäfer says.
Terry Jones used his powers of persuasion to expand the congregation. By the end, Schäfer estimates, it numbered between 800 and 1,000 people. They had to work in the so-called "Lisa Jones Houses," charitable institutions named after his first wife who has since died, under very poor conditions.
Increasingly Radical
Jones became increasingly radical as the years went by, former associates say. At one point he wanted to help a homosexual member to "pray away his sins." Later he began to increasingly target Islam in his sermons. A congregation member reported that some members were afraid to attend services because they expected to be attacked by Muslims. "Terry Jones has a talent for finding topical social issues and seizing on them for his own cause," says Schäfer.
By the end of 2007, the community had had enough. Members confronted him and tried to change the direction of the church. But Terry Jones refused to make changes, they say. In the end, Jones, his wife and their fellow preachers were expelled from the church and he moved back to the US. "The community imploded," says Schäfer. It only has some 80 active members today.
Now the whole world is condemning Jones for his planned burning of copies of the Koran. Schäfer, for his part, sees Jones as a fanatic who is courting global media attention because he couldn't cope with the "immense loss of power and significance."
This is why we have freedom of religion, folks. Because the power that religion gives would-be tyrants over people's souls is just so great, and combining it with the power of government makes it inescapable. When you hear folks talk about bringing the country back to God. When you hear talk of returning to Biblical roots. When you hear people talking about theocracy. This is what it means, and this is what our Founding Fathers wanted desperately to prevent.
What better way for a sociopath to prey upon ordinary people, than to convince them that it's God's will? Who would dare contradict God?
Haley Barbour's at it again. Last week, Rachel Maddow fact-checked Barbour when he claimed he was part of the Southern generation that turned Republican because it was done with segregation. She cited it as an example of Rovian politics--attacking Obama's strength by trying to portray his Republican opponents as the real "post-racialists", much in the same spirit as Glenn Beck, trying to steal MLK's dream.
I picked up on that in my diary, "What happened???" where I compared the 1956 and 1964 presidential election maps, and wrote:
Of course, Barbour was lying through his teeth. Integration was barely getting started when he was in college, and he placed his own children in private academies that were all-white until the last year his eldest son was in attendence. Her guest, Eugene Robinson, outdid himself, and even pointed out the unusual nature of the 1964 election in which Goldwater, who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, only carried five Deep South states plus his native Arizona. But he didn't bring the full weight of this fact to bear, which I think can only be gained by comparing the 1964 map with the 1956 map. The 1956 map was the most stripped-down version of the Democratic "Solid South" which can be found from 1876 onward (except for the Dixiecrat Revolt eleciton of 1948). And the 1964 map, just 8 years later, was an almost exact mirror image. Taken together, the two maps are perhaps the most dramatic representation of the overwhelming power of race in American politics you will ever find.
This week, Barbour's working the other side of that Rovian strategy. He's still trying to play the "reasonable" "post-racial" card, so he doesn't embrace the wild-eyed anti-Obama position. Instead he tries to "explain it"--having it both ways, as a "responsible" "grown-up" who still advances the undermining of Obama's legitimacy as an American president. It's a very sophisticated strategy. Too sophisticated for Barbour to have come up with by himself. It's part of a larger plan, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Rove had had a personal hand in it--though that's just sheer speculation at this point. What matters is that people recognize it for the kind sophisticated Rove-style bank shot that it is.
Here's TPM on an brakfast/interview he had hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, with just the sort of soft lede he would have wanted, as Barbour explains we don't know much about Obama, compared to George Washington chopping down a cherry tree (which, of course, he didn't do) or Ronald Reagan (whose been even more deliberately mythologized):
