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Showing posts from June, 2006

The NewsHour Hamdan roundtable transcript

This transcript is a must read. Participants include Neal Katyal (Mr. Hamdan's lawyer), Joseph Margulies (Northwestern University Law), Andrew McBride (lawyer who filed amicus brief siding with the administration) and John Yoo (UC Berkeley Law, and "primary architect of the Bush administration's detainee and interrogation policies while working in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel") ANDREW MCBRIDE: ...If a foreign force uses a flag of truce in the battlefield to fool our troops and then shoots at them, I don't think that our military needs to consult a judge before they punish that act. And I think that having the judiciary intervene in that and superintend that weakens our military. MARGARET WARNER: But you're saying that's what this ruling does? ANDREW MCBRIDE: I'm saying that's what this ruling does, by emphasizing the role of the court in evaluating whether or not statutory criteria are met. I think the president, as comman

Hamdan v Rumsfeld

For the latest information and links on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld read Think Progress and Majikthise . This graf, from Glenn Greenwald gets to the core of it: It has been some time since real limits were placed on the Bush administration in the area of national security. The rejection of the President's claims to unlimited authority with regard to how Al Qaeda prisoners are treated is extraordinary and encouraging by any measure. The decision is an important step towards re-establishing the principle that there are three co-equal branches of government and that the threat of terrorism does not justify radical departures from the principles of government on which our country was founded.

Copa do Mundo

I've been catching World Cup noontime matches at my current favorite place to watch a soccer game...a little Ethiopian restaurant here in North Oakland called the 'Red Sea.' There's a cafe/bar to one side of the building with a TV high up in one corner. The sun comes blazing in off Claremont Avenue. The door opens and closes with new arrivals and the patrons inside welcome the occasional curious passerby. For some games the scene is packed with people (games with Brazil or the Netherlands tend to draw a crowd.) For others, it's a quieter affair...and I might be the only one present who is not a 'regular.' There's something about a soccer match...a specific aural quality. Crowd noise, the constant chatter of the announcers, the free flowing commentary that soccer fans offer up in parallel to the match. Horns. Cheers. Chants. Groans. In soccer anything can happen at any time, hence the need to orient oneself with one's ears to the developing a

SayNotoPombo and CA-11

Babaloo at SayNotoPombo asks the question of the day. (Btw, right now is a great time for SF Bay Area and Central California activists to look into ways of helping Pombo's opponent, Jerry McNerney, as he gears up to defeat Pombo this fall. Interested? Try Left on 580 , and, of course, SayNotoPombo and, if you're so inclined, its ActBluePage .)

the Freedom Tower: redesigned

The New York Times reports today about the proposed redesign of the "Freedom Tower" to be built at the former site of the World Trade Center buildings in New York. It is very much worth checking out the slide-show of photographs and plans included at the link. This is what, in 2011, the replacement for the World Trade Center buildings will look like. I've written about 9/11 before....in 2005 here and, from 2004, here . You can tell from those pieces that I'm convinced that we haven't even begun to deal with nine eleven as a nation. It's something significant, building on the site of Ground Zero. Significant as a stand alone act and significant for what kind of building and memorial we choose to place there. In my mind, the debate and delay that has plagued the project, the snail's pace at which it has proceeded...serves as a kind of stand-in for the missing national dialogue about 9/11. We haven't really talked about "nine eleven" in a

Hubbies, dh's, and fidos...woof woof!

Amanda Marcotte, of Pandagon , has a great post up tonight about the "lost keys" problem. Aside from the fact that I'm single, and hence, the post does not apply to me....I don't have that problem. I keep a duplicate set of keys by the door. It's when I lose those that I'm fucked.

Billmon on the Crise de Blogs

Like alot of folks, I've been watching the World Cup. If you like soccer, it's been thrilling. The pace, the build up of play, and the moments of occasional brilliance that flash across the screen add up to a Carnaval of fut . And, as in every World Cup, once in awhile we get to see a player....Maniche, Maxi Rodriguez, David Beckham, Fabio Grosso...work some piece of particular brilliance that is all the more remarkable because it is decisive . Well, Billmon just pulled off something like the blog equivalant. His long meandering summary of this crisis of the blogs, including a kind of blogging apologia, is worth following to its conclusion. Speaking of which, this passage has the ring of truth: Whether that's good or bad for the Kossaks I don't know -- I suppose it depends on how much credence you give to Gandhi's old saw: "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." In the real world -- and in imperial America

James Wolcott takes on blogofascism

Wolcott is brilliant. (Thank you, digby.) If you're up late reading and follow technology issues, don't miss this piece on King of Zembla. And if you blog, and like theory, this essay on Blog Theory by Jodi Dean at Bad Subjects is pretty damn interesting. (thanx to Wood s Lot.)

open source politics

We've come a long way from the heady moment that gave rise to this August 2003 interview between prominent internet theorist Lawrence Lessig and then Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi. Just one week ago, over one thousand of us met up in Las Vegas at the first Yearlykos convention. It was an experience that replicated on a communal scale the thrill that Matthew Gross must have had when, as Joe Trippi recounts above, Matt drove from Utah to Vermont unannounced to work on the Howard Dean campaign. We at Yearlykos took online politics offline.  Names became faces. The netroots networked . Candidates courted bloggers. The blogosphere, quite literally met the press. In contrast to Trippi and Lessig in 2003, however, we had new buzzwords at Yearlykos; the convention was awash in references to "People Powered Politics" "the millennial generation" and "social networking software." With this essay, however, I'd like to make the case for a quiet phras

When every vote is counted: Dellums wins

This article puts an end to the saga of the Oakland mayoral election. Ignacio De La Fuente will not contest the results and on January 1st 2007, Ron Dellums will be Mayor of Oakland. Respect should be accorded Mr. De La Fuente for this stance as his move frees up a goodly number of activists and dollars from Oakland to focus on other local races next fall...the most significant of which is CA-11, where Jerry McNerney's effort to unseat Congressman Richard Pombo will need all the help it can get. I'd like to say to Mayor-elect Dellums that here in my North Oakland neighborhood I've encountered many voters who voted for either of his two opponents: Nancy Nadel or Ignacio De La Fuente (both of whom retain their positions on the city council, by the way.) While Nadel voters seem happy enough to welcome Ron Dellums as mayor, I consistently hear apprehension from De La Fuente voters about Ron Dellums as mayor, even a sense that Ron Dellums won on "popularity" alone

Christopher Hayes on Yearlykos

Christopher Hayes of In These Times adds another worthwhile Ykos essay.

paperbacks and cassette tapes

There was a time...what seems to be a fucking long time ago...when someone could hand me a paperback or a cassette tape and rock my little junior high mind. I remember my friend Everett passing on his brother's cassette copy of Magical Mystery Tour and listening...cluelesslessly at first and then with increasing wonder, over and over again...to John Lennon's Strawberry Fields. Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop. Or the time a schoolteacher loaned me a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions . Cracking that paperback meant entering headlong into Vonnegut's pathetic, delicious, cynical world; it was like Vonnegut was leaning over my shoulder, vodka on his breath, more than a little sad to have to disabuse me of my dewy ideals. A paperback is a discrete thing. It's physical. When I was thirteen and hungry for anything new...for dispatches from what we used to call the "real world" before that term became a TV show...a paperback was a way out and a way in

Jerry McNerney: Progressive Patriot

Matt at SayNOtoPombo reports that Jerry McNerney, Democratic candidate running to unseat Congressman Richard Pombo in CA-11, has won the title of Progressive Patriot from Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriot fund. You can read the full story here . Kudos to all those in the netroots whose activism helped Jerry win this honor. In particular, a hat tip to what's proving to be the local blog that could.

Steve Soto on Yearlykos

Steve Soto of the LeftCoaster has a great essay up on Ykos. It dovetails with one of the points I made in my essay below: It's June. It's 2006. There's a clear task at hand; and it's called the 2006 elections. On other fronts, Jedmonds at Pandagon had this take-no-prisoners response to a passage in Garance Franke-Ruta's sure-to-ruffle-feathers coverage of Ykos for TAPPED .

current clicks: majikthise

Majikthise has some great posts up about yearlykos and other sundry items from...the inimitable majikthise perspective.

diary up

I put a diary up at dailykos about Yearlykos. It's pretty much a "meta" piece that is best read with all its dailykos comments (which were excellent and insightful) so I won't cross post it or add anything here other than to say: It was great to meet so many fellow bloggers and to travel back an forth to Las Vegas in such good company. These are exciting times for grass roots politics.

micah sifry on yearlykos

Try this intelligent take on the event. I have my own thoughts, but they are still percolating...

Count every vote...

I think we can all agree to be patient and wait for the final results to know if we just elected Ron Dellums mayor here in Oakland or if we have a run off. Funny thing, I went from telling Nadel voters how they showed that "every voter counts" to seeing the exact same thing apply to Dellums and De La Fuente. It just goes to show. Every vote does count. Off to yearlyKos...hopefully they'll wrap up the counting and process by Monday! peace kid o

Still Waiting........

Looks like the results so far give Angelides the win (and look bad for Francine Busby ), but here in Oakland we're still waiting, and will likely have to wait till after noon today. SF Gate has got three articles to read while we do... Here's one on CA-11. (McNerney and Pombo win.) Here's one on Oakland Mayor. . And here's a must read Matier and Ross on how big spending special interests came out for Moderate Dems against Progressives...often with the use of misleading names.

a long night ahead in California...but especially Alameda County

Try Trail Mix for an inside take on CA-50...(or better yet go to trusted "election night central" at dailykos .) and SayNotoPombo has updates and commentary on CA-11's interesting results on both sides of the primary battle. And, as far as Alameda County....let's just say it's going to be so long a night (they are manually feeding every paper ballot into machines at a central location)...that it will probably be morning before we have all the precincts in. And, yes, in any close State-wide Democratic CA race that's going to mean we're ALL going to be waiting on Alameda County. More here as soon as I know it. Update 1 : SF Gate has some Oakland Mayoral initial returns: Ron Dellums: 11,800 (44.3%) Ignacio De La Fuente: 9,600 (36%) Nancy Nadel: 3,948 (14.8%) Those numbers are really interesting. Since there's really nothing more to go by...allow me to point up what I find suggestive here. Nadel voters knew going in that Nancy had little chanc

In support of Ron Dellums

I've held off writing about the Oakland mayor's race in part because it represents the classic "Oakland Conundrum:" there are multiple candidates worthy of consideration, all of whom have worked hard for Oakland. For myself, before Ron Dellums' entry into the race, I would have strongly considered voting for Nancy Nadel over Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, whom I respect but disagree with. Councilwoman Nadel is a committed and pragmatic progressive representing a "Green" ethos who is willing to put it out there and run for local office and make a difference here in Oakland. Kudos to her. Too often, candidacies like Nadel's (and Aimee Allison's run for City Council) are underappreciated. They shouldn't be. Candidates winning local office and making an impact are exactly how progressives can best put our ideas into practice, and Councilwoman Nadel has done that and deserves praise. All that being said, however, I am supporting

Vote for Debra Bowen: CA Secretary of State

Any Californian concerned about privacy, election reform and good government should make sure to vote for Debra Bowen for CA Secretary of State on June 6th. Here's a link to Bowen's website and, from the SF Chronicle : As chair of the Senate Elections Committee, Bowen has been a determined advocate of bringing more transparency to the political process -- such as getting lobbying expenses online in a more accessibly way -- and installing more rigorous standards on the use of electronic voting equipment. She has done her homework on technological issues and is ready to make the case that California needs a more aggressive secretary of state to restore public confidence in the electoral process. Put Bowen in office in CA and you've got someone who understands election reform in a position where she can have a profound effect on it. In my view, that's a necessary complement to the hard work SO MANY local activists have done here in CA running for Party and County offices