It has come to my attention that you have been made new community overlord over at Daily Kos.

Congratulations and may I respectfully ask that in your first 100 days of office you release my handle from Guantrollano Bay, Cuba:

http://www.dailykos.com/user/J…

I see no reason for my handle to have been banned.

It’s my real name, what the hell could I possibly do with my real name attached to it that others would be afraid of?!

Unless you are of the belief that some need to remain in “prolonged detention” because I am considered a threat to the Daily Kos.

I can see why seeing how I was e-waterboarded by members of that site to give up my real life info and therefore I am thought to wanting to seek vengeance.

The truth is I want peace.

I want to be afforded the same rights as all others who follow the laws of the Daily Kos.

My original banning under “Jack’s Smirking Revenge” has been reviewed by numerous ex-kos kops who didn’t see a reason for me to even be banned in the first place and who disagree with the methods used to ban and eventually extract information through blackmail.

They agree that the last Administration was wrong to ban me.

I respectfully request full reinstatement if it is a power given to you or at least your influence to have my case reviewed.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Jay Emerson  

(Crossposted from  The Free Speech Zone)

This story is very personal for me seeing how every person I am friends with or meet for the first time gets a variation of a hug.  

The response is usually “why is this person hugging me?” but the awkward moment subsides when they realize that anyone who hugs strangers is crazy enough to kill you.  They smile, laugh, and eventually give up on feeling weird and associate my presence with a hug.  Eventually, they think i’m awesome.

And now, all the kids realize that hugging is cool.  So of course, “the man” bans it….

(Crossposted from The Free Speech Zone)

SAN FRANCISCO – Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban that California voters approved last year, will stand as a constitutionally acceptable exercise of voters’ free will, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, but the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who wed last year will still be recognized as married.

After the pre-ruling chants of “Equality now!”, hundreds of same-sex marriage advocates booed, hugged and wept while a relatively small number of their opponents cheered on McAllister Street as readers recited from copies of the 136-page, 6-1 ruling, issued on the courthouse steps at 10 a.m.

Beneath the buzz of helicopters and amid a jungle of television trucks, same-sex marriage advocates vowed to bring the issue back before voters either next year or in 2012.

Later, a large group of protesters peacefully blocked the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street outside City Hall for several hours. Police led them away, arresting them one by one, as hundreds more looked on, cheering. Police said 175 protesters were arrested.

http://www.mercurynews.com/cri…

(Crossposted from The Free Speech Zone)

On the district court bench, Judge Sotomayor earned a reputation as a sharp, outspoken and fearless jurist, someone who does not let powerful interests bully, rush or cow her into a decision. “She does not have much patience for people trying to snow her,” said one lawyer in 1995, who had cases pending before the judge and asked not to be identified. “You can’t do it.”

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/…

(Crossposted from The Free Speech Zone)

I first met Kristofer Goldsmith and Mathis Chiroux when they came to the Final Presidential Debate at Hofstra University. I had joined IVAW and CODE PINK for a Joint demonstration on Oct 15th, 2008 to allow these two and other veterans to ask their questions at this debate.  They were denied entry and then arrested, Sgt. Nick Morgan was trampled by police on horseback.  I had my own footage and even cross-posted a diary here about it but I deleted that photobucket account. However I still have the videos somewhere on my other computer, but for now, here:

President Obama’s proposal for a new legal system in which terrorism suspects could be held in “prolonged detention” inside the United States without trial would be a departure from the way this country sees itself, as a place where people in the grip of the government either face criminal charges or walk free.

There are, to be sure, already some legal tools that allow for the detention of those who pose danger: quarantine laws as well as court precedents permitting the confinement of sexual predators and the dangerous mentally ill. Every day in America, people are denied bail and locked up because they are found to be a hazard to their communities, though they have yet to be convicted of anything.

Still, the concept of preventive detention is at the very boundary of American law, and legal experts say any new plan for the imprisonment of terrorism suspects without trial would seem inevitably bound for the Supreme Court.

Mr. Obama has so far provided few details of his proposed system beyond saying it would be subject to oversight by Congress and the courts. Whether it would be constitutional, several of the legal experts said in interviews, would most likely depend on the fairness of any such review procedures.

Ultimately, they suggested, the question of constitutionality would involve a national look in the mirror: Is this what America does?

“We have these limited exceptions to the principle that we only hold people after conviction,” said Michael C. Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell. “But they are narrow exceptions, and we don’t want to expand them because they make us uncomfortable.”

In his speech on antiterrorism policy Thursday, Mr. Obama, emphasizing that he wanted fair procedures, sought to distance himself from what critics of the Bush administration saw as its system of arbitrary detention.

“In our constitutional system,” Mr. Obama said, “prolonged detention should not be the decision of any one man.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05…

Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama’s stance on these issues, especially his recent move to block the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees, and his announcement that he is willing to try terrorism suspects in military commissions – a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate.

The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.

They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” – how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05…

If I have to choose a side, there’s no contest.

National Lawyers Guild sprung me out of the joint more times then the Democrats so only rollin’ with the civil liberties/human rights/anti-war/non-profit groups when it comes time to pick a side and they’re saying that Obama isn’t being cool with them.

So now, we got problems.

(Crossposted from The Free Speech Zone)

The statement drew wide notice. The Bush administration’s military commission system was often criticized because detainees were required to be represented by military defense lawyers appointed by the Pentagon and assigned to a special office of military defense lawyers for Guantánamo. Some detainees have refused to work with the lawyers, saying they are uniformed representatives of their enemies.

The filing showed that the Obama administration had not made a substantial change in the restriction.

It said that a detainee would be permitted a lawyer “of the accused’s own choosing.” But it added that the requested lawyer must be assigned to the Pentagon’s office of military defense lawyers for Guantánamo.

Maj. David J. R. Frakt of the Air Force, another defense lawyer for a Guantánamo detainee who is facing charges, said that change indicated that several of the Obama administration’s alterations to the Bush administration’s system were what he called “minor cosmetic changes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05…

Get your hip waders on, I wanna open the shit valves….

(Crossposted from The Free Speech Zone)

…the better question?

Who the fuck cares?

Well in case you do, see me below the fold…