Dale Carpenter examines the wider legal consequences of the California court’s decision to grant marriage equality. Among his points:
The California court did not hold that there is a new and separate fundamental right to something called “same-sex marriage,” a nuance some critics of the decision have missed.
He has canceled planned addresses in Philadelphia.
A brain tumor, alas.
The strongest Democratic ticket they tested is Obama-Edwards. The strongest Republican ticket is McCain-Huckabee. Romney is the worst pick for McCain. If it were Obama-Edwards v McCain-Romney, the polling now shows: a 52 – 37 Democratic landslide. Romney really is electoral poison. On his own, Obama is ahead by eight, by the way.
Murat Kurnaz, a German national detained for years by the US after his innocence was clear, will testify today. His account of torture at Gitmo exceeds any that I have heard of and rightly evokes skepticism:
“They used to beat me when my head is underwater.
They beat me into my stomach and everything,” so that he’d have to take a breath while underwater, he said.
He also accused his keepers of electrically shocking him until he was numb and chaining him to the roof of an aircraft hangar for five days, only bringing him down so that a doctor could examine him.
The Defense Department has denied his allegations of abuse, calling them “not only unsubstantiated and implausible [but] simply outlandish.”
Let’s hope that this time the Pentagon is telling the truth. A Sixty Minutes report on Kurnaz can be read here.
A reader writes:
I remember this joke that was going around when Bill was first elected President:
After the election and before the inauguration, Bill and Hillary were taking a ride through the Arkansas countryside.
At one point, they drove by a gas station where the attendant was out pumping gas and Hillary remarked, "I dated that guy in high school." Bill chuckled and said, "If you’d have married that guy, you’d be the wife of a gas station attendant. Instead, you married me and you’re going to be First Lady." But Hillary corrected him: "If I’d married that guy, then he’d be President."
Another writes:
“To have it all taken away from her at the last minute – by someone who hasn’t made as many compromises – is therefore unimaginably cruel.”
And taken away by an ungrateful black man supported by ungrateful black Americans. She and her husband are unable to hide their contempt and scorn for the idea that a black man can handle the job. And furious that he is getting there without their help.
I’ve been caught blogging in a previously undisclosed location. Yes, blogging really is that glamorous.
Some very good news: the Bush administration has now formally backed removing the Jesse Helms anomaly from the books – and making HIV the same as every other medical condition for immigration/tourism purposes. Previously, they’d kept mum on this. It’s still touch-and-go on whether the provision survives in PEPFAR but the support of the Bush administration for the issue in principle is great.
Scott Horton defends himself. It is perfectly possible to be in favor of war against Islamist terror and yet believe that military tribunals should be expeditious, fair and according to long-standing Anglo-American principles of justice. And it is perfectly possible to support the detention of terror suspects if they are not tortured or abused and have the right to a fair hearing.
Hamburg, Germany, 8 pm.
