Racing Into The Wind
With this joyous day for all, comes personal sorrow for one. The death of my friend and hero, Phil Hill.
Bmaz is a rather large saguaro cactus in the Southwestern Sonoran desert. A lover of the Constitution, law, family, sports, food and spirits. As you might imagine, a bit prickly occasionally. Bmaz has attended all three state universities in Arizona, with both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Arizona State University, and with significant post-graduate work (in physics and organic chemistry, go figure) at both the University of Colorado in Boulder and the University of Arizona. Married, with both a lovely child and a giant Sasquatch dog. Bmaz has been a participant on the internet since the early 2000’s, including active participation in the precursor to Emptywheel, The Next Hurrah. Formally joined the Emptywheel blog as an original contributing member at its founding in 2007. Bmaz grew up around politics, education, sports and, most significantly, cars; notably around Formula One racing and Concours de Elegance automobile restoration and showing. Currently lives in the Cactus Patch with his lovely wife and beast of a dog, and practices both criminal and civil trial law.
With this joyous day for all, comes personal sorrow for one. The death of my friend and hero, Phil Hill.
John McCain is famous for his symbiotic love affair with the national press. But the bloom may be coming off the faded, old, wrinkly rose. The new Time article from Jay Carney and Michael Scherer really shows how dramatically the relationship between McCain and the press has changed.
We are now on the third day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC). I have watched most all of the major prime time speeches, thanks to the straight up coverage of CSPAN. Save for a fleeting reference by Dennis Kucinich, the issue of torture as has not been particularly mentioned at the DNC. At another convention, however, the American Legion was fostering a discussion on torture and the “war on terror” that Dick Cheney and Jim Webb were having to address.
Two things have caught my eye this morning. Both have to do with security surrounding the two political conventions. Are the enhanced surveillance techniques just rolled out by the DOJ and Mukasey already exhibiting their heavy hand?
The Bush Administration leaned on the Swiss government to destroy crucial evidence in a broad investigation into the nuclear proliferation network of AQ Khan because the information would implicate the CIA and US Government in a web of entangled activities. As a result, innumerable criminal investigations have been compromised, if not destroyed altogether. And Khan and the others walk free.
For so long now we have been eagerly awaiting the results on the DOJ IG/OPR investigation into the curious and unprecedented firing of nine US Attorneys by the Bush Administration. Today the Washington Post has a report out that gives the lie to the Bush Administration’s previously stated reason for firing Arizona US Attorney Paul Charlton. If the reasons stated on the record are not accurate, why were the US Attorneys fired?
In the face of what ought to be the most serious and profound Presidential election in the last 75 years, and with the opening of the Democratic Convention on the brink, it seemed appropriate to recalibrate for a moment. Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005. Three years ago to this very day. And it is being forgotten in the inane headlong rush to argue over tangential trivia.
Ill winds have been blowing through the Mississippi political and legal scene for a long time now. There is Trent Lott and his son-in-law Dickie Scruggs. A real soap opera there. There is a never ending list of of political takedowns being performed in Mississippi, and neighboring Alabama, on Democratic attorneys and politicians at the hand of the politicized Bush Department of Justice.
Five days ago, in the post we discussed the new set of domestic spying protocols that the Bush Administration is determined to entrench into law and practice before leaving office, and learned that Attorney General Mukasey would release new guidelines within weeks to streamline and unify FBI investigations of criminal law enforcement matters and national security threats. Well, that didn’t take long; they’re here, and it is a chilling grab by the Bush Administration of unheard of domestic police state powers, emasculating the Constitution in the process.
Judge Royce Lamberth has had the guts and determined conviction to to make tough, fair and necessary rulings that question authority and stand up to big government and behind the common citizen. Today, he does it again by calling the Bush Administration out for their bad faith delay and obstruction actions in dealing with the Habeas Corpus applications of the Guantanamo detainees filed pursuant to the Boumediene decision recently issued by the Supreme Court. In other news, the Bush Administration has shown once again why they are the polar opposite of Lamberth by enacting yet more police state surveillance modalities.