Because politics is a farce?

O/T Pentagon nominee promises reporters won’t be rated before embeds. Link.

I think Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are both artists and both have a good sense of the absurd and the artistic talent to “paint” reality clearly in all its absurdity. Humor helps too.

Boy I needed that laugh.

Dark humor, but needed, thanks.

It puzzles me that the politicians and the Villagers have been able to survive Stewart’s and Colbert’s satire, actually, because they cut so close and deep sometimes. Is this just a problem of numbers? Me, I watch Stewart and Colbert and I think that our team should already have won, but then I wake up the next morning, and nope, the crooks and liars and sycophants are still in place.

No, they’ll just be rated.

I wonder whether Mr. Gates has revised the payment scheme for the propaganda supposedly retired and disinterested generals who commentate constantly on the airwaves.

Funny, but true. Thanks for this, EW. A little bit of sugar and medicine and all that.

With all of the Colbert and Stewart we see at TPM, interesting that this one isn’t up there.

Really good catch.

I only see clips posted on the web, but can see why my nephew and his friends (20 somethings) turn to these shows to find out what’s going on.

True, Colbert and Stewart are our best political commentators. They do this magic insight often several times a night, and the big networks manage hardly any, ever. Is it because we can only laugh when confronted with the truth about how badly we are being bought and sold?

OT

Ten Unsolved Mysteries in the “War on Terror”
Posted by Jane Mayer

The first year of the Obama Administration is almost over, yet many mysteries surrounding the so-called “dark side” of the “war on terror” remain unsolved.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2009/12/unsolved-mysteries-in-the-war-on-terror.html

I only see clips posted on the web, but can see why my nephew and his friends (20 somethings) turn to these shows to find out what’s going on.

One of my nephews (late 30s) says the same thing.

Bob in AZ

Stewart, Colbert their writers. Genius.

“I meant to say it was Mussolini talking about Fascism”

Jack Bauer interrogates Santa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdeAp-49UyI&feature=related

Blackwater guards want to bar prosecution from using their nicknames:
Savage Viking and Extreme
Go figure
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/12/lawyers-for-blackwater-guards-challenge-use-of-nicknames.html

Interesting. I gotta say, that is a limine motion I would have filed were I defending them too. Close call, it is not as dead on the subject (slight pun intended) as “Murder” was in the 2nd Circuit case; but I can see the argument that it is prejudicial without adding to the probative facts on the elements of the counts charged. Probably a valid motion if you ask me.

LOL – yeah, I think any good defense lawyer would file the motion. Let’s face it – when you wonder about how a guy gets a nickname like Savage Viking or Extreme, thoughts of modest restraint in the use of violence don’t come to mind.

BTW – Lamberth has been telling the DC crew at an ABA event that courts can handles terrorism trials – no sweat.
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/12/dc-could-still-see-terror-trials.html

His talk focused mostly on the ability of the federal courts to handle the criminal trials of terrorism suspects. He said that while he did not want to weigh in on the politics of bringing the Guantanamo prosecutions stateside, the court system was more than prepared to handle them.

“I think federal judges are capable of trying whatever comes our way,” he said. He noted a long list of terrorism cases which have been handled successfully by U.S. judges, including the trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and the prosecution of the four men convicted for bombing the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

“Wasn’t that a war-like act?” Lamberth asked, in reference to the Kenya attack. “Wasn’t that Al-Qaeda declaring war on us? And yet we tried them successfully in the federal courts.”

He does note that not all the DC lawyers are uber willing to take terrorism cases though:

Lamberth said some judges on the court “aren’t anxious” to preside over a potential criminal prosecution. He said he has offered to take the case himself if one is assigned to the court.

You know, with a wife and daughter at home, and out and about in society, i would think twice too were I picked off of the wheel for KSM’s trial. That is okay; there are plenty of judges without qualms. Heck, here there are judges that won’t hear trial cases during the summer; there are others that love to handle the summer ones and then have them assigned to the old courtroom up north that is otherwise rarely used. Moral of the story is there are plenty of reasons one judge may not want some individual case and another would; no big deal, that is normal. Lamberth is right.

The fact that he offers is important in my book. You can’t fault someone for not wanting one, but you have to admire a bit the opposite as well – being welling to step up and say – sure, I’ll take that case.

I wouldn’t be all that surprised to see some of the Terror Trials sent to the Northern District of Illinois, given the purchase of the new super-max prison in Thompson Illinois. Perhaps the fact that Pat Fitzgerald is USAG in that area has something to do with selecting the location.

Thompson is really an isolated area. I have traveled through it a number of times as it is on my favored driving route between Minneapolis and Yellow Springs Ohio — and having to attend four board meetings a year in YSO, and not being particularly interested in driving through or around Chicago where like as not you will sit in a traffic tie up, I scoped out a scenic route that among other things, takes one through Thompson. The so called “Great River Road” goes through the place — and the area is essentially a very large bird refuge in the midst of wetlands along the Mississippi. I never saw a place where one might even stop for a coffee and pie, let alone any motels or places to eat — but I think it has one gas station with a coke machine. Very near Thompson is a marvelous and huge open air vegetable market that is mainly for the fine restaurant trade, (Daily sales and delivery to Chicago and St. Louis), but is open to the public. When driving to YSO I always took along a cooler, and stopped on my way home to pick up interesting veggies at great wholesale prices.

But what intrigues me was the comment that when acquired, DoJ would be building a very secure court room there that would be assigned to the Northern District of Illinois — and it is not that far from Fort Leavenworth, where key Military Courts under DOD jurisdiction are located. Driving time to Thompson from Chicago is probably about 3 hours, from Leavenworth to Thompson (I-35 to I-80) about four hours. Something tells me many of the Judges and Lawyers with Terrorist Cases may come from the Heartland once the Thompson super-max is transferred and adapted to these needs. Of interest, the place also is near Cedar Rapids Iowa, which has the oldest Muslim settlement in the US, oldest functioning Mosque, the most established school for American Imams. It was founded by people from Lebanon in the 1880′s during the hay-day of founding Utopian style settlements in this Iowa-Illinois area.

I have a hard time figuring out how any of the actual “terror trials” would end up – from a jurisdictional standpoint – in ND IL instead of the sites of the attacks.

That does leave a big question on the courtroom issue, though. My current understanding on Thomson transferees is that they may include any or all of this assortment(althoug I don’t think it is clear yet):
1. Persons tried by a military commission and found guilty and sentenced to a period of confinement, but for whom confinement in a brig is not deemed appropriate;
2. Persons tried by a civilian proceeding as a part of the “terror trials”(which may end up including “home grown” terrorist charges and found guilty in trials; and
3. Detainees who are not being tried in either commission or civilian proceedings but are also not being released. My understanding is that in a fit of wild noblesse oblige, Obama may choose to allow such creatures – at his pleasure – the ability to have periodic hearings to determine if they are still too much of a threat to release (or if continued detention with out trial makes them like us better). The facility might be for those kinds of hearings. Or not – that just comes to mind.

Something tells me many of the Judges and Lawyers with Terrorist Cases may come from the Heartland once the Thompson super-max is transferred and adapted to these needs

The editors of The Guantanamo Lawyers are going to be here tomorrow ;) That might be a question worth asking them.

They don’t seem to have had all that much trouble moving trials to either Southern District of NY or Northern Virginia in the past, so I would imagine they will accomodate this.

Thompson is really right on the border between two appeals court circuits, Iowa, just across the river, would be the 8th, and while I can’t remember with certainty the number of the other, I believe Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio are a circuit (is it the 7th), with HQ in Cincinnati.

I think what is interesting is this is hardly a region of the country over populated by Lawyers. The guys and gals who do agricultural land trusts, wills and fairly normal criminal law, and the occassional divorce may well live in rural Illinois and Iowa — but these are likely to be sole practices, or relatively small firms not known for their expertise in Terrorism Trials and Appeals and Military Commissions. Those sent to Thompson may not be getting lots of visits from their attorneys. A friend of mine from Grad School set up an environmental law practice on the Iowa side of the river, but not all that far from Thompson, having decided after law school that he wanted to live in the country. Spent years dealing with cases involving the Corps of Engineers and their flood-control constructions on the Mississippi and tributaries. He is retiring now, and passing on his 2 lawyer firm to a son plus daughter-in-law.

The region does have one lovely out of the mainstream place to live that might appeal to some, About 50 miles north of Thompson is Galena, Illinois which has been nicely preserved as a late 1800′s small town. Illinois has built the place up as a tourist destination, featuring US Grant’s homes and the like, but added on lots of B&B’s, artists studio’s, potters, sculptors in stone (fine limestone), and small wineries that produce some quite exceptional boutique wines. They also attracted quite a number of writers to the area, thus the preserved downtown is really a find if you like used and speciality bookstores and the like. For some reason it has not been widely advertised, but commercially it seems to be a success. So if a few lawyers want to set up a Terrorist Practice, and live in an interesting small town, Galena might be a place to scope out. Last time I was through there I noticed one could buy a ten room brick late 19th Century house for around $100,000. Thompson is perhaps an hour’s drive down a two lane road that follows the river through the bird refuges.