Ali al-Marri Held Indefinitely in America

The New York Times published an opinion the other day about the case in which, for more than five years, the Bush administration has been holding Ali al-Marri, a legal resident of the United States, in near isolation under President Bush’s reprehensible enemy combatant doctrine.

Mr. Marri was arrested in Peoria, Ill., in December 2001 on criminal charges. In 2003, while his criminal case was pending, Mr. Bush designated him an enemy combatant, and he was moved to a Navy brig near Charleston, S.C. For 16 months, Mr. Marri was held incommunicado. During his detention, he reportedly has been subjected to treatment that borders on, or actually is, torture.

That doesn't sound like the America I grew up in. Do you think some of this Executive power will be diminished with the new administration? I certainly hope so.

The Witness L.A. site put it a bit plainer.

Intolerable is exactly the right word. It has been intolerable to have our democracy highjacked by an administration so drunk on its own unchecked executive power that it has crossed a line, the crossing of which, as British historian Andy Worthington put it, “.. cannot be accepted in a nation, like America, committed to basic human rights and the principles of its Constitution.”

REASON NUMBER 4768 THAT WE ARE HAPPY OBAMA WON: Because we will soon have a president who will not repeatedly fill us with shame and dread by imprisoning people without due process.

What do you think? Were the many questionable detentions that took place in the wake of 9/11 justified? Did some hidden good come from them? Were we perhaps spared other attacks as a result of these policies?

Does so much Executive power inevitably get misused? What if Mr. Marri had been a gun enthusiast? If he and his family and friends had been armed to the teeth, legally, would that have made a difference? I read today about how an armed citizenry is what's preventing tyranny. How would that work exactly?

Convicted Felons Allowed to Vote

In most states, convicted non-violent felons can regain their right to vote. In Virginia, this may favor Obama. Politico.com has the story.

Thousands of former felons may be voting in the upcoming election, thanks to Virginia's two most recent Democratic governors.

Former Gov. Mark Warner and current Gov. Tim Kaine both worked to restore the voting rights of nearly 6,000 nonviolent felons in Virginia. During his 2002-2006 term, Warner helped 3,414 of these felons regain their right to vote. Kaine did the same for 2,576 felons in the first three years of his term.

To me this is the very type of progressive thinking that I'd expect from Democrats. It seems almost incompatible with the party line for a Republican governor to do something like this. If the movement catches on, who knows, perhaps white collar felons will one day be able to regain their right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.

What do you think? Will we ever see the day when a non-violent offender will be able to regain all his rights? Or do you think once a felon always a felon?

The Gun Lobby Will Go to Any Length

On the site Mother Jones, there's a fascinating article entitled “There’s something about Mary: Unmasking a gun lobby mole,” which was published on July 30, 2008. The authors James Ridgeway, Daniel Schulman, and David Corn have put the spotlight on the "industrial espionage" that goes on between powerful lobbying groups and their antagonists, in this case the NRA and the Brady Campaign. It seems, Mary Sapone is nothing less than a bona fide undercover agent for the gun lobby.

Using her maiden name, McFate, Sapone began posing as a gun control activist in the mid-1990s. Bryan Miller, the executive director of Ceasefire New Jersey, a grassroots gun control group, recalls first meeting her in the summer of 1998. The NRA was holding its annual convention in downtown Philadelphia, and the event drew the usual bevy of protesters. Among them was a middle-aged woman then living in Pennsylvania who made a point of introducing herself to Miller. In the following years, Miller would remember this encounter well, as he watched McFate rise from a street protester to a figure known nationally within his movement.

During Sapone's ascent through the ranks of the gun control movement, she worked for the NRA, according to a business associate.

On the Brady Campaign site a challenge of sorts is proffered in an article called, "The NRA's Dirty Tricks Revealed."

Brady President Paul Helmke wrote in his blog "When the National Rifle Association asks its members for their next contribution, they might want to disclose how much of that money will be spent to spy on gun violence victims and their families."

What occurs to me is another challenge to the pro-gun folks. Let's find a way to reduce the gun violence in America to the point that the gun-control people will get off your back. Instead of encouraging the "us against them" mentality, lets work together to get the guns away from the criminals. Some of you guys are too defensive about your "right to bear arms." The moment we start talking, you think we want to take your guns away. I don't.

Can we all agree there are too many guns in the hands of criminals? From there we can discuss what's to be done.