Detain 'em and Deport 'em
Been reading a lot lately from Daily Kos folks who support a major increase in the use of immigration detention and a "get tough" policy on "illegals". People of good conscience can differ on the...
View ArticleAlito on Asylum
Alito's position on reproductive rights is the BIG issue that will energize both the Democratic and Wingnut base. But how does he stand on other human rights issues? Republicans like Alito are known...
View ArticlePostcard from Iraq
Let me write about an Iraq that exists as more than a reflection of our anger and outrage at the Bush Administration; an Iraq that existed before the invasion, and will continue after the last US...
View ArticleIraq Postcard II
A few days ago I wrote about the borderlands between Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq. Today I'd like to write about Iraq's Shia' majority. Shia' politics is the politics of raw emotion: despair,...
View ArticleImmigration Detention: American Gulag
This diary is as much about rule of law as it is about immigration. The Bush Administration and their allies in Congress have taken it upon themselves to remove judicial oversight abroad in...
View ArticleLieberman and Brownback - We Need You (today)
OK, can we find two more unpopular senators here on Daily Kos than Joe Lieberman and Sam Brownback? Is redemption possible, even for just a little while, and even on one issue? Contrary to their...
View ArticleWar Crimes come home to roost in IL-11th
Imagine for a moment what the Republican Party would do to Sherrod Brown if: (1) His father in law was an indicted war criminal; (2) His wife was the political advisor to an indicted war criminal; and,...
View ArticleIraq Journal - the Border
I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to work in Iraq, and occasionally post diaries on Daily Kos. These diaries are an effort to provide more context to the current conflict, from a little closer and...
View ArticleA gentle critique: Iraq mortality report
Let me preface this diary by saying the recent Johns Hopkins study on mortality in Iraq may well be accurate, and that I'm not debating the larger questions of US complicity in the war or culpability...
View ArticleIraq Diary - Civil Society
This is the latest in a series of periodic diaries from Iraq. I haven’t written one for a few months, but this last week has been unusually depressing and frightening and the week’s events deserve...
View ArticleSaddam's Execution - Conversation with his Appeals Court Judge
An Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam’s death sentence, and the AP reports that he has been handed over to the Iraqi government for execution within the next 24 hours. The inexorable slide toward...
View ArticleWhite House picks pastry chef w/“light touch”
This diary won’t be up to my usual standards, but there’s something so grossly offensive about reading the words "White House" and "light touch" in the same sentence, that I feel compelled to comment....
View ArticleOut Now!
Compare and contrast:Bush Administration incompetence doomed New Orleans. We created this mess by building levies on the Mississippi, destroying the wetlands, cutting canals through the delta, and...
View ArticleTurks invade? Realtime news from Kurdistan
OK, this will be a short diary. There are several diaries up right now about the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, so I feel compelled to post some quick information because we actually work there,...
View ArticleDream Act Defeated in Senate
The Senate just voted on the DREAM Act. The vote was on a procedural motion, so 60 votes were needed to proceed to vote on the DREAM Act itself. It was not really all that close. 54 voted in favor,...
View ArticleGWB: Defining Down Torture for 40 Years
Wow. Fourty years ago today, George W. Bush first found his name in print in the New York Times. At the time, Bush was a senior at Yale and former president of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity....
View ArticleGitmo defense attorneys endorse Obama
I'll make this a very brief diary and add some caveats right at the beginning. First, I hope this diary doesn't turn into an opportunity for more fighting in the primary wars, because all three...
View ArticleHow long has this been going on? Fraud at the NRCC
Just a short diary about some new developments in an interesting story. As was mentioned last week in the NYT, the National Republican Congressional Committee called in the FBI to investigate...
View ArticleDawn Chorus - Iraqi Kurdistan Edition
Last week, Lineatus asked me to write a guest Dawn Chorus diary on location in Iraq. I wrote the following last weekend in Suleymaniya, a city in the Kurdistan region, and am posting it this...
View Article"The Annointed One" - viral video, Obama and Abortion
Unfortunately, I share the same last name as a certain former Republican Congressman. It's not a common name, and for the last few weeks I have been receiving e-mails from a member of his family, who...
View Article