It's Called Disenfranchisement

This is an expansion of the last item from last night's newswrap--and it deserves a post. EVERYWHERE. Treating some nuns like convicted felons--that's no way to show the world what democracy is supposed to look like:

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,”' Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

Yes, they're getting away with it. Yes, it's what they have been planning since the first day Bradley Schlozman showed his putrid mug to the public after law school. All courtesy of your Bush Appointed Supreme Court.

Explain to me again how a country that turns away old women who want to vote can lecture the world on anything anymore? Do you remember those pictures of old women in Iraq, holding up their purple fingers?



We are a nation that sends an army halfway around the world to fight an endless war on behalf of those old women in Iraq--just so they can vote and not complain while we line up the means to take their oil. We are a nation that empties the National Guard units in Indiana to do all of this--just so those nuns can be turned away without voting. All of this is the conservative wet dream, writ large, and it is destroying our country.

Did you know both Obama and Clinton voted AGAINST John Roberts being confirmed as Chief Justice? And that they both voted AGAINST the confirmation of Justice Alito? Those are some votes to be proud of. And for an excellent, older article on the mental depradations of a certain Justice Scalia, here's a little light reading for you...

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

As always, you gotta go to the Brad Blog for the real story--the new law in Indiana might have disenfranchised 43,000 people...

And don't forget skippy, too...

A thumb in the eye of the civilized world

To no ones surprise, but the dismay of civilized people the world over, the partisan hacks on the Roberts court have refused without comment to hear a case brought by a German citizen of Lebanesse descent who claims he was abducted by CIA agents and spirited to a prison in Afghanistan where he was subjected to torture tactics. His case is the most extensively documented instance of the United States practice of "extraiordinary rendition" of terrorism suspects.

The Supremes upheld the unanimous ruling of a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit, which found for the government on the specious grounds of "state secrets."

When the Fourth Circuit refused to hear Mr. al-Masri's case, they had reservations. “We recognize the gravity of our conclusions that el-Masri must be denied a judicial forum for his complaint,” Judge Robert B. King wrote in March. “The inquiry is a difficult one, for it pits the judiciary’s search for truth against the executive’s duty to maintain the nation’s security.” When the Fourth Circuit ruled, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the action “truly unbelievable” and “reminiscent of third-world countries.”

While today's action by the Supremes, which let the ruling by the Fourth Circuit stand, is not a surprise; it is expected to cast a further chill over the relationship between the United States and Germany, strained over the United States bullheaded persistence in prosecuting a failed policy in Iraq.

...Mr. Masri’s lawyer in Germany, Manfred Gnijdic, said the high court’s refusal to consider the case sends a message that the United States expects other nations to act responsibly but refuses to take responsibility for its own
actions.

“We are very disappointed,” Mr. Gnijdic said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It will shatter all trust in the American justice system.”

Mr. Masri contended in his suit that he was seized by local law enforcement officials while vacationing in Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003. At the time, he was 41 years old and an unemployed car salesman.

“They asked a lot of questions — if I have relations with Al Qaeda, Al Haramain, the Islamic Brotherhood,” Mr. Masri said in a 2005 interview with The New York Times. “I kept saying no, but they did not believe me.”

After 23 days, he said, he was turned over to C.I.A. operatives, who
flew him to a secret C.I.A. prison in Kabul. There, Mr. Masri said, he was kept
in a small, filthy cell and shackled, drugged and beaten while being
interrogated about his supposed ties to terrorist organizations. At the end of
May 2004, Mr. Masri said, he was released in a remote part of Albania without
ever having been charged with a crime.

The CIA has never admitted to involvement in the al-Masri case, but investigators in Europe have found his account credible and arrest warrents have been issued for 13 CIA agents who have been implicated. While it is unlikely that the Bush administration would have any higher regard for the law in another nation when he doesn't even respect it at home, the existence of the warrants will hamper the ability of the agents to move about Europe.

The Constitution Project, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to focus attention on constitutional issues, called the Supreme Court’s refusal to take
up the case “profoundly disappointing.”

“The government’s treatment of Mr. El-Masri has been appalling, and the executive branch should not be permitted to hide its mistakes behind the so-called state secrets privilege,” said the organization’s senior counsel, Sharon Bradford Franklin. “Now that the Court has declined to consider this issue, Congress should immediately take up legislation to reform the state secrets privilege and clarify that it does not authorize unchecked power to disregard individual rights.”

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has introduced legislation to ban extraordinary rendition, said today that “the Bush administration reflexively responds with the ‘state secrets’ defense whenever it is caught bending or simply ignoring the law.”

I have taken a few moments to contact my Senators and Representative and encourage them to support or sponsor legislation to rein in the abuses of the State Secrets provision that has become a petticoat under which to hide from accountability. I would encourage you to do the same - and remember to be civil.

And if this utter apostasy, this "fuck you" to the rest of the world, does not highlight the importance of a Democrat making the next Supreme Court appointment, I don't know how to reach you.