Shorties’ Advocate

Follow up on last post.

Two items on Plan B: one from Time Magazine and a frankly more important one from Molly Saves the Day.

Cheneyfilter: Mr. Cheney dazzles us with logic that would have earned him a D- in high school geometry. He also completely reframes reality to suit his rhetorical whim. In other Cheney news, we bring you See Dick Run (the country) and — only tangentially about Cheney himself — Cheney Can’t Scare Me Anymore. One thing that struck me as interesting about this editorial is that the author thought this was so important, he wrote and submitted this despite being on sabbatical.

“OK, OK, we’ll give them a trial. But we won’t show the accused all the evidence.” No! Really! Never mind that pesky Constitution thingy: “Despite assuring Congress that career military lawyers are helping design new trials for accused terrorists, the Bush administration has limited their input on their key request, that any tribunals must give detainees the right to see the evidence against them, officials said.” Somehow or another, this country managed to get through the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the War on Drugs, to say nothing of Prohibition without such measures. The government didn’t need secret evidence against Al Capone.

Insane rules on asylum.

They’ve run afoul of the Patriot Act of 2001 and the REAL ID Act of 2005, which further tightened asylum laws.

The Karen are not alone. Many people trying to escape Cuba, Liberia, Colombia and other troubled countries are classified as having provided “material support” to terrorists. In reality, many were forced to aid violent soldiers who passed through their villages.

Women in Liberia who were raped by soldiers have been told that they offered aid to rebel groups, experts say. Cubans who resisted Fidel Castro’s communist regime have been denied entry here because of supposed affiliation with clandestine terrorist groups.

Many Karen refugees, who make up the largest group affected by the legislation, may have aided the Karen National Liberation Army, a militia that fights the country’s military junta.

Here is an update. Two things about this situation strike me as being even more Kafka-esque. First, under Real ID rules, none of these people will be able to get a form of identification that will allow them into any federal building, such as an immigration office or a courthouse. Hopefully you see where that might delay normalizing their status. The other thing that should make your head spin is that while we are turning away people who are the victims of horrible violence in their home countries, who already have family and support organizations here in the United States, who would otherwise live in refugee camps hoping nothing else bad happens, and who most importantly are using legal channels to try and get into the United States, the Senate wants to give just forgive and forget about several million people who came to this country illegally. Not even the Right Wing News thinks that’s a good idea.

Obligatory comments on the anniversary of Katrina: one by a Professor of Political Science who just happens to have family in New Orleans and one more general item about Katrina, Terrorists, and the DHS from Dr. B’s guest blogger, No Nym. Note the links; a good researcher cites sources. Update: just arrived in my email.

A timely item on school lunches and agriculture.

Consumer confidence numbers for the American economy were released today, and they are down. It’s the lowest level since last November, and the biggest drop — what a coincidence — since Katrina hit. Let the argument about what that means begin. While many people are talking about the fact that Americans are worried about the availability of jobs, few are openly talking about the fact that real wages are stagnant. Update: lagging consumer confidence could also have something to do with the fact that poverty remains unchanged (1 out of 8 people and 1 out of 4 black people live in poverty) and the number of people without health insurance rose for the 5th year in a row.

Elsewhere in the wild world of business and economic news: Whispers of Mergers set off Suspicious Trading (who knew??) and United States wants China to have bigger role at the IMF. I am curious about the real reasons why.

And finally, an utterly absurd situation which sums up why average people will either insist upon an overhaul of airplane security rules or stop flying: Airline loses the prosthetic leg of a disabled athlete after making her put it in checked baggage.