Three wise dudes
Glenn Greenwald on the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan:Nothing is a better fit for this White House than a blank slate, institution-loyal, seemingly principle-free careerist who spent the last 15 months as the Obama administration's lawyer vigorously defending every one of his assertions of extremely broad executive authority. The Obama administration is filled to the brim with exactly such individuals -- as is reflected by its actions and policies -- and this is just one more to add to the pile. The fact that she'll be replacing someone like John Paul Stevens and likely sitting on the Supreme Court for the next three decades or so makes it much more consequential than most, but it is not a departure from the standard Obama approach.
Kagan is Obama's Harriet Miers, and Obama looks more and more like the Democrats' George W. Bush.
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Matt Taibbi on AG Eric Holder's suggestion that the Justice Department is looking to scale back Miranda rights:
For the Democrats, it will surely end up being one of the darker moments of the Obama presidency — not because it’s necessarily so terribly meaningful (at least compared to ending Too-Big-to-Fail), but because it represents a new low on the utter-lack-of-balls front. The only reason we’re even talking about this Miranda issue is because a bunch of morons on talk radio made a big fuss about it, and if our president is going to go sticking his thumbs into the constitution every time he can’t take a few days of getting reamed by a bunch of overpaid media shills whose job it is to hate him no matter what he does, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.
Taibbi has harsh words for "conservative/Tea Partiers/Republicans" on this topic at the link as well.
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Chris Hitchens on France's effort to outlaw the wearing of burques (what Bill Maher calls the beekeeper suits) in the country's public settings:
The French legislators who seek to repudiate the wearing of the veil or the burqa—whether the garment covers "only" the face or the entire female body—are often described as seeking to impose a "ban." To the contrary, they are attempting to lift a ban: a ban on the right of women to choose their own dress, a ban on the right of women to disagree with male and clerical authority, and a ban on the right of all citizens to look one another in the face. The proposed law is in the best traditions of the French republic, which declares all citizens equal before the law and—no less important—equal in the face of one another.
This is a subject in which leftists seem deeply divided. Place me firmly in Hitchens' camp. Of course Muslim women have the theoretical right to dress as they choose-- I say 'theoretical' because there's such a great record of ongoing female subjugation in the culture of the religion's fundamentalist sect-- but what about their daughters? I've got more problems with France's '04 ban on head scarves in public schools, a sign of personal religious affiliation that doesn't obscure the face. It's the concealment that's troubling to me because, as Hitchens states, it can be a tremendous safety concern-- for all of us-- and it can hide the scars of physical abuse. Some religious liberties end at our borders. This is a reality that should be accepted. One is not allowed, for example, to hold a woman or any other person as a slave, even if it's consistent with that potential slaveholder's religious convictions. Female circumcision is also a federal crime, as Hitchens notes. View this outlawing of the burqa as an extension of personal freedoms. A multicultural society is a reality of all of our futures and tolerance will be a requirement. Considering this, we're going to have to be able to look each other in the face.
posted by CM @ 9:22 AM
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