MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: March 26, 2006

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April 1, 2006

ACLU sues South Dakota school district on behalf of Native Americans

The American Civil Liberties Union has just filed a class action suit against South Dakota's Winner School District. The suit charges that the district maintains an environment hostile to Native Americans by giving Native American students harsher discipline and by forcing them to sign confessions for minor rule-breaking.

According to the ACLU, Native American students in the Winner District are given very different treatment from white students. They are three times as likely to be suspended from school, and ten times more likely to be referred to law enforcement. In the Winner district, Native American students are coerced into signing confessions, which are then used to get convictions in juvenile court.

The Attorney General of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe noted that the school district is the second largest employer in the county, yet only two employees out of more than 100 are Native American.

"Native American students are accused of gang-related activities for walking in groups of three or more or wearing bandanas, while their white counterparts are encouraged to wear bandanas at sporting events. And Native Americans are actively discouraged from participating in sports activities."

The ACLU, in challenging the "school to prison pipeline" which is becoming more prevalent in American communities, has identified several policies and practices which exist: zero tolerance policies which criminalize minor school infractions, the bypassing of due process for children, and policy initiatives emphasizing testing and statistics, which lead to pushing out low-performing students.

March 31, 2006

The Mess After Katrina

Seven months after Hurricane Katrina, many New Orleans residents are still largely without jobs, emergency housing, flood protection, mortgage relief, and health care. African-American residents have been hit especially hard by the slow recovery—a recent Gallup poll reported that 53 percent of black respondents had lost "everything" in the wake of Katrina, as compared to 19 percent of whites.

To make things worse, according to the Brookings Institution, rebuilding has proceeded unevenly, and has exacerbated the racial and socioeconomic divides. "The [white, relatively upscale] French Quarter and Uptown, you see life basically as it was before the storm," said Matt Fellowes, a senior research associate at Brookings. "It's eerie, because life really is normal in those neighborhoods and then you cross over the Industrial Canal and enter the lower Ninth Ward or eastern New Orleans, and it looks like a bomb just went off yesterday." And it's possible that this is deliberate policy: Mike Davis has a piece in the Nation this week reporting that "mayor-appointed commissions and outside experts, mostly white and Republican, [are] propos[ing] to radically shrink and reshape a majority-black and Democratic city."

As many as 5,500 homes still need to be leveled in the lower 9th Ward alone., which means that a sizeable proportion of 9th Ward and Eastern New Orleans residents remain in temporary housing elsewhere around the country, and their displacement could have a lasting affect on the face of local politics. 500,000 African-American residents lived in New Orleans before Katrina; that number is now down to 200,000, which will drastically shift the balance of electoral power in the upcoming mayoral and city council elections. Nevertheless, this week a federal judge ruled that the elections will go on as usual, despite the fact that many former residents won't be able to participate.

Bruce Gordon, President of the NAACP, appealed to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco on election matters:

For far too long in Louisiana's history, voting has not been a right afforded to black citizens. Historically, the extension of voting rights to black citizens in Louisiana has been strongly resisted, whether through literacy tests, poll taxes, or other formal and informal practices combined to keep black voting rates in the state low. The impact of Hurricane Katrina now threatens Louisiana's African-American citizens' voting right in equally devastating ways."

Less than 10,000 of New Orleans’ 297,000 registered voters have requested absentee ballots and the city of New Orleans may be on the verge of electing its first white mayor in nearly 30 years.

March 30, 2006

Bush told repeatedly that aluminum tubes were not for building a nuclear weapon

In October of 2002, a National Security Estimate summary called a President's Summary, was written specifically for George W. Bush. In that document, Bush was told that despite the buzz that Iraq's procurement of aluminum tubes was "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."

This memo, however, did not stop Bush from announcing, three months later, in the State of the Union speech, that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes in order to build a nuclear weapon. Later that year, when then-Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley did a review of documents, and discovered the President's Summary, Karl Rove gathered White House aides together and explained that it would look bad if the American people knew that Bush had been advised that the aluminum tubes were probably harmless.

Hadley was reviewing classified records because of statements made by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson that Bush's claims about the uranium were not true. George Tenet, who was CIA director at the time, took the blame for the gaffe in the State of the Union address, saying his staff had failed to warn Bush that the uranium claims might not be true. However, two weeks before Bush was given the President's Summary, Tenet had already told him that both the Department of State and the Department of Energy had doubts about the tubes, and that the CIA was also doubtful. In addition, Bush was advised that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell had doubts about the aluminum tubes, also.

Bush clearly knew he was not being accurate when he implied that Iraq was building a nuclear weapon. The State Department knew he was not being accurate. The Department of Energy knew he was not being accurate. The CIA knew he was not being accurate. They all made a circle around him, but eventually, there could not be enough protection for so great an instance of misleading the American people.

For a detailed looked at the history of the memo and everything surrounding it, you may read the complete report in National Journal.

A Peaceful Iraq... in Turkey?

Howard Kaloogian, the California congressional candidate who"mistakenly" tried to pass off a photo of a peaceful Turkey street setting as a scene from Baghdad, has now called the blunder a "stupid" web error. Kaloogian is running to fill the space left by Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the Republican congressman who resigned amidst evidence that he accepted at least
$2.4 million in bribes.

Kaloogian has been touting the accomplishments of Operation Iraqi Freedom for some time, claiming that biased media reports have given Iraq an undeserved reputation as a violent locale. Iraq "is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be. But, each day the news media finds any violence occurring in the country and screams and shouts about it–in part because many journalists are opposed to the U.S. effort the fight terrorism." In staying with his message about the true tranquility of Iraq, Kaloogian captioned his now-infamous photo: "we took this photo in downtown Baghdad while we were in Iraq." Oops.

But these "stupid mistakes" can no longer slip by unnoticed. Within hours, the blogosphere was pointing out the many faulty aspects in the photo, including western tourists and Roman characters, unlikely in Baghdad. The internet is changing the political landscape, as everything is now fair game for questioning.

For added kicks, check out the latest photo on Kaloogian’s site. It was taken from the upper floor of the Rashid hotel in the Green Zone on July 13, 2005—a little out of date—and one of the buildings depicted has now been completely obliterated.

March 29, 2006

Crackdown on Sex-Selection Abortions

An Indian radiologist was sentenced to two years in jail for providing a pregnant patient with an ultrasound and then disclosing the baby’s sex. Use of ultrasounds to determine gender is forbidden in India due to widespread abortion of female fetuses. The doctor, Anil Sabsani, was caught when he told an undercover officer that for $35, she could know the sex of her child. Once paid, Sabsani divulged that while the fetus is a girl, it could be "taken care of" (wink, wink). This is the first conviction of its kind in India.

According to the Lancet, a leading British medical journal, "the past two decades have seen the birth of nearly 10 million fewer girls than would otherwise have been expected, nearly all presumed by researchers to have been aborted." Sex-selection abortions have been banned for just over a decade in India, and Lancet suggests they haven't disappeared, estimating that 1 out of every 25 female fetuses is aborted, totaling approximately 500,000 per year.

Many people blame technology rather than the fact that, say, many cultures continue to value boys more highly, partly due to their ability for agrarian work. "This is not a cultural thing," says Donna Fernandez, director of Vimochana , a women's rights group based in Bangalore. "This is much more of an economic and political issue. It has got a lot to do with the globalization of technology. It's about the commodification of choices."

Shutting Down Illegal Immigration

Mark Kleiman has some good thoughts on immigration that are all well worth reading. In particular, he's probably right that severe penalties on employers that hire and exploit undocumented immigrants, along with verifiable national ID cards for all citizens and non-duplicable electronic worker identification documents, would probably do much to halt the flow of illegal immigration by reducing demand. (Robert Reich lays out a similar proposal in the American Prospect.) This will never happen in practice—businesses will oppose it, because it would mean paying more in wages—but it would certainly work better than current policies at stemming illegal immigration.

On the other hand, the downsides to this sort of regime are easy to see: Both the government and businesses would have an increased ability to gather information about individuals, and undocumented workers would have increasingly fewer job opportunities—which would, in turn, reduce remittances to sending countries. (Remittances from immigrants in the United States to developing countries totaled $90 billion last year.) In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to pit the interests of low-wage American workers against the interests of even lower-wage workers in developing countries, but that's what the current debate often boils down to.

What "fundamental debate"?

Think Progress notices that President Bush said in his big speech today, "First of all, the globe is warming. The fundamental debate — is it manmade or natural?" Of course, there's not actually a fundamental debate to be had here; scientists have overwhelming evidence that global warming is man-made.

The only "debate" over the causes of global warming seems to be the one carried out in the media, where, as Ross Gelbspan reported a few months ago in Mother Jones, industry-funded scientists and climatologists are given equal time on TV and in print, despite the fact that one side is right and the other's, well, making stuff up. "Teach the controversy," as it's called in another context. Maybe that's what Bush means.

FISA Judges Speak Out

Five former FISA judges told the Senate Judiciary Committee today that—brace yourself now—the president shouldn't get to operate above the law, and that whatever super-secret surveillance program the Bush administration might be running these days, it should be subject congressional oversight:

In a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the secretive court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, several former judges who served on the panel also voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president's constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order. They also suggested that the program could imperil criminal prosecutions that grew out of the wiretaps.

Judge Harold A. Baker, a sitting federal judge in Illinois who served on the intelligence court until last year, said the president was bound by the law "like everyone else." If a law like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is duly enacted by Congress and considered constitutional, Judge Baker said, "the president ignores it at the president's peril."

Well, that last statement doesn't seem entirely accurate. Has the president actually suffered any consequences for ignoring laws enacted by Congress? No, and he probably won't so long as Congress remains in Republican hands.

Meanwhile, Marty Lederman has an interesting breakdown of Monday's testimony by David Kris, a Associate Deputy Attorney General from 2000 to 2003, who says both that Congress never gave the White House the authority to bypass FISA, as the Bush administration claims, and that existing law could very easily be amended to allow the sort of surveillance the administration reportedly wants to carry out. In fact, this modifications are much narrower than those proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter, which would permit, as Lederman phrases it, "indiscriminate surveillance of any U.S. person who has ever communicated with the agent of a foreign power."

March 28, 2006

Monitoring Dillingham

Now here’s a serious waste of Homeland Security dollars. Dillingham, Alaska, with a population of 2,400 (half of which are Native Alaskans), will soon be outfitted with 80 security cameras (over 60 have already been installed) .That’s one camera for every 30 residents, all purchased under a $202,000 Homeland Security grant, the devices are intended to prevent terrorism.

Now granted, Dillingham experienced three homicides and six unclassifiable deaths in the last three years, but this doesn't seem like a responsible use of tax dollars. Police Chief Richard Thompson stands by the expense as a protection against terrorists using local ports as a “backdoor” entrance into the rest of the country.

Beyond adding waste to the $41 billion Homeland Security budget, the proportion of cameras to people envisioned for the town is the most disconcerting aspect of the story. The 2,400 citizens of Dillingham, a town with no streetlights, deserve a right to privacy. According to some residents, people don’t want to visit mental health facilities anymore out of fear of embarrassment. Local fisherman Ronnie Heyano, puts it best, asking, "who will be watching the watchers?"

FEC Regulates the Internet

Yesterday the FEC unanimously approved new regulations that would govern political speech and advertising on the internet. The final rules are less exhaustive than what was originally proposed, and focused on paid political advertisements placed on the internet—campaigns buying such ads will have to adhere to campaign finance laws.

Here are the basic rules:

Paid political advertising appearing on someone else's Web site would have to be reported, regardless of how little or how much it costs. But that responsibility would lie with the candidate, political party or committee backing the ad—not the site accepting the ads.
All ads that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate or solicit donations would have to carry disclaimers.

Bloggers and other individual commentators wouldn't have to disclose payments received from candidates, political parties or campaign committees—but those groups would have to report payments made to bloggers.

No one except registered political committees would be required to put disclaimers on political e-mailings or Web sites. The e-mail requirement would kick in only if the committee sent out more than 500 substantially similar unsolicited messages at a time.

The media exemption enjoyed by traditional news outlets would be extended to "any Internet or electronic publication," which could include everything from online presences of major media companies to individual bloggers.

Any sort of regulations, even seemingly benign ones, will leave the internet vulnerable to greater federal control. However, this particular round of rulings is specific to campaign financing and prevents blogs from being exploited for their potential ad space. Paid political web ads are now subject to the same campaign finance limits as traditional media, which prevents the Internet from becoming what public interest groups refer to as "a loophole for unregulated soft money."

Immigration and Polls

Yesterday, Tamar Jacoby, a pro-immigration analyst, wrote in the Washington Post that not only were guest-worker policies for immigration immoral, but they weren't even that popular:

The Manhattan Institute and the National Immigration Forum recently conducted a series of focus groups testing two contrasting options: a guest worker program or a more traditional immigration plan based on the idea of citizenship.

The results ran sharply counter to the expectations of policymakers in Washington. Democrats and Republicans alike overwhelmingly preferred the citizenship model for reasons of both principle and practicality.

On the other hand, Charlie Cook's "Off to the Races" report today noted that polling reveals that the majority of Americans don't even like guest worker programs:

Respondents were then given two alternative statements. One choice was: "You should grant temporary-worker status to foreigners who are here illegally. Most of them will stay in the United States anyway, and this plan would allow the government to keep track of them and their activities and require them to pay taxes while they are here."

The other option was: "We should not grant temporary-worker status to foreigners who are here illegally, as this would make them and their families eligible for government services while they are here. We should not reward people who have broken the law, and this will encourage even more people to enter the United States illegally."

Given that choice, 39 percent favored temporary status, with 56 percent opposed.

That sure sounds like most people just want to kick all undocumented immigrants out of the country, doesn't it? I have no idea how to reconcile these two findings. Probably, as with most policy questions, what people will agree to all depends on the way things are framed. Cook also noted that 71 percent of poll respondents were more likely to vote for a candidate who "favors tougher immigration controls," which leads one to think that we'll see a lot of demagoguery on this subject come the midterms this fall.

U.S.-Shiite Tensions in Iraq

A year ago, military analyst John Robb predicted that the U.S. in Iraq would begin arming and backing "loyalist paramilitaries" to fight the Sunni insurgency, and that that the tactic could backfire badly. As it turned out, they did and it has, now that Shiite militias linked to the Interior Ministry are massacring Sunnis by the dozen each day, and, as military sources told the New York Times yesterday, pose a greater security problem than al-Qaeda and the rest of the Sunni insurgency do.

Now anyone who remembered what happened in El Salvador in the 1980s—when U.S.-condoned "death squads" prolonged, rather than ended, the conflict—could have told everyone that this would happen. In fact, some people tried. But no one listened. And now that the U.S. military has evidently begun carrying out raids against Shiite mosques—and seriously pissing off the Iraqi government—the real problems are just beginning. Robb has a post today noting just how bad things could, conceivably, get:

Here's a likely scenario for how this will play out: deeper entrenchment within US bases (to limit casualties) and pledges of neutrality (Rumsfeld) will prove hollow. Ongoing ethnic slaughter will force US intervention to curtail the militias. Inevitably, this will increase tensions with the militias and quickly spin out of control. Military and police units sent to confront the militias will melt down (again), due to conflicting loyalties.

Several large battles with militias will drive up US casualties sharply. Supply lines to US bases from Kuwait will be cut. Protesters will march on US bases to demand a withdrawal. Oil production via the south will be cut (again), bringing Iraqi oil exports to a halt. Meanwhile, the government will continue its ineffectual debate within the green zone, as irrelevant to the reality on the ground in the country as ever. Unable to function in the mounting chaos and facing a collapse in public support for the war, the US military will be forced to withdraw in haste.

It will be ugly.

To say the least.

Newly released documents show U.S. role in bloody Argentine coup

If you have never seen the 1985 Argentine film, La Historia Oficial, you have missed not only a very fine film, but a riveting, unforgettable performance by Norma Aleandro, winner of the 1985 Cannes Best Actress award. The Official Story is about a history teacher whose well-placed husband is able to negotiate their adoption of a beautiful little girl. It turns out that the girl is the kidnapped daughter of one of the many "disappeared," some of whom were pregnant women whose babies were given to the families of government officials. Aleandro's character's slow realization of what has been going on in her country--and right under her nose--is almost too painful to watch.

Between 1975 and 1978, at least 22,000 people were murdered or disappeared in Argentina when a military junta took over the country. Last Thursday, the day before the 30th anniversary of this, Argentina's bloodiest coup, the National Security Archive released a series of declassified U.S. documents, as well as secret documents from Southern Cone intelligence agencies, that reveal detailed evidence of the atrocities committed by the junta.

One of the documents is a transcript of a staff meeting of then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. In the transcript, then-Assistant Secretary for Latin America William Rogers advises Kissinger not to be in a rush to embrace the new regime in Argentina:

I think also we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long. I think they're going to have to come down very hard not only on the terrorists but on the dissidents of trade unions and their parties.

Kissinger's reply: "Whatever chance they have, they will need a little encouragement…because I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States."

The Argentine military warned the U.S. Embassy that "some executions...would probably be necessary" and that they wanted to minimize any resulting problems with the United States. U.S. Ambassador to Argentina Robert Hill wrote that "it is encouraging to note that the Argentine military are aware of the problem and are already focusing on ways to avoid letting human rights issues become an irritant in US-Argentine relations."

Some estimates of the "disappeared" are as high as 30,000. Around 500 babies were taken from their parents and given to other families.

Immigration Reform on the Way?

It's not perfect, but the Senate Judiciary Committee decided to report out a quite reasonable immigration bill yesterday:

With Republicans deeply divided, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Monday to legalize the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants and ultimately to grant them citizenship, provided that they hold jobs, pass criminal background checks, learn English and pay fines and back taxes.

The panel also voted to create a vast temporary worker program that would allow roughly 400,000 foreigners to come to the United States to work each year and would put them on a path to citizenship as well.

That doesn't mean a reasonable immigration bill is what will actually become law: the Senate's version of the immigration bill still has to be reconciled with the draconian House version—which apparently envisions the deportation of millions of families with social and economic ties to this country—and the Republican leadership can pretty much dominate that reconciliation process if it so chooses. Whether they'll decide to toss all undocumented immigrants in jail or give them a clear path towards citizenship is unknown. Still, the Senate Judiciary bill is heartening.

But it's also worth pointing out that comprehensive immigration reform can't stop with a bill that only tackles citizenship. Paul Krugman, in an op-ed that was surprisingly negative on immigration yesterday, pointed out that unskilled immigration drives down wages for low-income workers here in America. Well, sure, that's true, but that's an argument for living wages, policies to promote full employment, and the expansion of basic rights to organize. Immigrants who can participate in and strengthen the labor movement in this country will help all workers, native or otherwise. Under the current regime, corporations can use immigration and "guest worker" policies to import a captive labor force, underpay them, and then drive down wages, which accounts for a good deal of the effect Krugman worries about.

Mass Drug Testing in Virginia

Fairfax County, Virginia, recently agreed to a White House pilot program that tests water from the Potomac River Basin for cocaine. The samples have already been collected and shipped off to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, where they are currently being evaluated for traces of the main urinary byproduct of the drug. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors say it is no indication that there is a predominance of drug use in the region, rather, that the White House sees it as a tool to compile a more accurate drug use index.

This is a slippery slope—and could have greater repercussions than simply a change in statistics. Could health insurance companies use the data to increase premiums in the area, citing higher risk clients? Could the results have effects on the way federal funds are disbursed? David Murray, special assistant to national drug czar John P. Walters, said that the wastewater testing "will be very, very useful."

March 27, 2006

Judge rules that school was within its rights to terminate teacher's contract

In early 2003, Deb Mayer, a teacher at Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington, Indiana, led a class discussion based on an issue of Time for Kids, which included an article about planned peace marches against the upcoming war in Iraq. Discussing Time for Kids articles was part of the school's regular curriculum. A student asked Mayer if she would ever particpate in a peace march, and she replied: "When I drive past the courthouse square and the demonstrators are picketing, I honk my horn for peace because their signs say, 'Honk for peace.'" She said she thought "it was important for people to seek out peaceful solutions to problems before going to war and that we train kids to be mediators on the playground so that they can seek out peaceful solutions to their own problems."

That turned out to be a big mistake. According to Mayer, one of her students told her parents that she was encouraging people to protest the war. The girl's father, calling Mayer unpatriotic, called the school and complained. A conference was held, and the father yelled at Mayer, "What if you had a child in the service?" It turns out Mayer had a son in Afghanistan, but that did not settle the matter. The father insisted that Mayer not mention peace in the classeroom again, and the principal agreed to make sure she did not.

The principal then cancelled Clear Creek Elementary's Peace Month, and sent a letter to Mayer, telling her to refrain from expressing her political views. At the end of the semester, the school did not renew Mayers' contract. Affidavits were allegedly gathered from parents which criticized Mayers' teaching style, and an accusation, which Mayers denies, was made that she continued to talk about peace after being told not to.

Mayer sued the school district, on the grounds that the termination was retaliation for expressing her opinion, and that the school had violated her free speech rights. The school maintained that:

Ms. Mayer’s speech on the war was not the reason for her ultimate termination. Instead . . . the motivating factor for her termination was her poor classroom performance, the ongoing parental dissatisfaction, and the allegations of harassment and threats towards students.

Mayer's attorney says that the parent affidavits were signed in 2005, two years after his client's termination, and therefore could not possibly have been used in the decision to terminate her contract. In addition, the attorney cites an excellent evaluation that had been given to Mayer.

Earlier this month, Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed Mayer's case, saying the school district was within its rights to terminate her because of complaints from parents about her performance in the classroom. According to Barker,

...school officials are free to adopt regulations prohibiting classroom discussion of the war...the fact that Ms. Mayer’s January 10, 2003, comments were made prior to any prohibitions by school officials does not establish that she had a First Amendment right to make those comments in the first place.

The judge also suggested that Mayer, by making her comments, was attempting to “arrogate control of the curricula."

Though it may be true that a school has a right to restrict certain speech by teachers, the Mayer case is full of holes. There is no proof other than mysteriously appearing after-the-fact "affidavits" that anyone was concerned about the quality of her teaching, yet there is contrary evidence that she was doing a good job. Furthermore, Meyer spoke only in the context of answering a student's question about standard curriculum content.

Mayer says she has lost her house, her health insurance, her life savings, and her job prospects.

Protests Against Immigration Bill

All sorts of demonstrations are going on around the country today, protesting against some of the immigration bills currently being debated in the Senate. Here in San Francisco, thousands have turned out to protest HR 4437, which would, among other things, make being an undocumented immigrant a felony, criminalize any sort of assistance to undocumented immigrants, and require local police officers to enforce immigration laws. (On the last provision, see Douglas McGray's excellent piece on why hospital workers, police officers, and the like think that becoming immigration "deputies" would be disastrous.)

Anyway, Ed Homich took a few pictures from the local protest here in San Francisco; you can see them below the fold:

T-Bills for Tots

The Federal Reserve recently launched a site geared towards kids aged eleven to fourteen. Trying to make financial matters "fun and interesting," children are lead by a giant eagle wearing a patriotic top-hat and a tie through the basic world of the Federal Reserve. Curiously, the site fails to mention the word "debt" anywhere, a gaping hole in any economics lesson. But it does delve into interest rates, inflation, growth and the Federal Open Market Committee.

Another fun kids' site stimulates kids by querying: "Have you ever asked 'Why do we have to pay taxes?' Do your parents pull their hair out around April 15th?” Oh, to be a kid in the age of the internet.

Scalia Speaks Out on Gitmo

Antonin Scalia recently questioned the rights of detainees in Guantanamo Bay under the Geneva convention:

"War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," he says on a tape of the talk reviewed by Newsweek. "Give me a break."

Challenged by one audience member about whether the Gitmo detainees don't have protections under the Geneva or human-rights conventions, Scalia shot back: "If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy."

Coincidentally, the Supreme Court is set to hear the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan tomorrow. Hamdan, allegedly a former employee of Osama Bin Laden, is challenging the Bush administration’s right to hold military tribunal, questioning whether it violates national and international law by not granting prisoner-of-war protections. Hamdan claims that he did not receive a fair process, an argument that will apparently fall on Scalia’s deaf ears. Despite the fact Scalia’s assertions were not related specifically to this week’s case, U.S. code states , “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” More specifically, a judge should withdraw him/herself where if there is “a personal bias or prejudice.”

And for a little more background on Scalia’s approach to this issue, here is his dissent from Rasul v. Bush in 2004:

"The consequence of this holding, as applied to aliens outside the country, is breathtaking. It permits an alien captured in a foreign theater of active combat to bring a petition against the secretary of defense. . . . Each detainee (at Guantanamo) undoubtedly has complaints -- real or contrived -- about those terms and circumstances. . . . From this point forward, federal courts will entertain petitions from these prisoners, and others like them around the world, challenging actions and events far away, and forcing the courts to oversee one aspect of the executive's conduct of a foreign war."

It's entirely possible that Scalia will recuse himself from Hamdan, much like he did in a case on the Pledge of Allegiance in 2004, after he expressed an opinion on the case beforehand.

"BUSHIT" Sticker Nets $100 Fine

Denise Grier, an Atlanta nurse, was ticketed for driving with a bumper sticker that read, "I’m tired of all the BUSHIT." Accused of brandishing "lewd" material, the officer approached her with his hand on his weapon and dispensed a $100 fine. Grier reportedly has no intention of paying the ticket, saying "I am so appalled at the officer’s attempt to squash my freedom of speech. It’s not just a Democrat/Republican issue. Y’all need to get beyond that. It’s my right to speak, and yours." Stay tuned for her court date, April 18.