Russ McBee

In chapter 3,784 of Topsy-Turvy Wingnut Logic For Dummies, Patrick Fitzgerald has suddenly become a hero of the Right, transformed in an instant from his supporting role as Left Wing Lackey #3: News this morning that U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has indicted Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich predictably brought cheers from the ...

As a consequence of this debacle in our local government, Knox County Commissioners are under a court order not to violate the Sunshine Law again, under penalty of fines and possibly even jail time. Given the events of the last year and a half in this county, one would think they'd have sense enough not to discuss the public's business in private ...

Today's updates on the continuing decline: The six Guantanamo detainees who are slated to be tried by the Bush administration's kangaroo courts are now facing the death penalty; if that's their sentence, they'll be executed at Guantanamo. The charges, the torture-derived evidence, the trials, the rules of procedure, the judge, the jury, the ...

(Cross-posted here.)  The ''Open'' Government Study Committee was empowered by the Tennessee state Legislature to study and recommend any needed changes to Tennessee's open records law and its open meetings law. Yesterday, the committee punted on the open meetings law until its meeting today. Sure enough, today's meeting resulted in ...

Michael Mukasey proved on Thursday that he is unfit to serve as Attorney General of the United States: President Bush's choice for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, embraced some of the administration's most controversial legal positions yesterday, suggesting that Bush could ignore surveillance statutes in wartime and avoiding a declaration ...

One year ago today, President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This malignant, perfidious law gives the president the authority to suspend habeas corpus for anyone he chooses. It also sanctifies the admissibility of evidence obtained through torture. For a full year now, our country has been deprived of one of its most ...

The Dems in Congress caved to the White House's bullying and enshrined warrantless, blanket surveillance into American law: The Democratic-controlled House last night approved and sent to President Bush for his signature legislation written by his intelligence advisers to enhance their ability to intercept the electronic communications of ...

Fifty-six Harvard classmates of Alberto Gonzales took out a half-page ad in today's Washington Post which protests Gonzo's perversions of the Constitution and the rule of law. Speaking of their shared experience in law school, the ad says, in part: We knew that the choice to abide by the law was even more critical when public officials were ...

The House Armed Services Committee is considering inserting language into the Defense appropriations bill that would restore habeas corpus. The bill is undergoing markup tomorrow and Thursday. MyDD has the list of Democratic members of the committee (and their phone numbers) here. This is an opportunity to right one of the many wrongs ...