Jim Fuglie's News from the Trail
First things first. Happy Birthday, Mom. I know you’ll get this message a little late, but you know I am thinking about you this morning. (Note to readers: Mom doesn’t do computers. She’s 82 and says that’s just one thing she’s not going to learn. Besides, she’s too busy to fool around with things like that. But she reads these notes every day, because my secretary, Pat, prints them and mails them to her, so she gets them the next day. So she’ll read this Wednesday.)
While I’m on the subject, let me tell you a story about her. A number of years ago, Mom went to an estate auction with a friend, and was looking through some stuff on tables when she spotted something she thought I would like. It was on old letter, typewritten, from then Attorney General William Lemke to a fellow Nonpartisan Leaguer in Adams County. Signed by Lemke, and dated sometime just before the 1920 election. A true collectible, and one Mom thought I should have.
So when it came up for bids, she started bidding, and noticed right away someone was bidding against her. Well, ever frugal Mom went along up to $7.50 and then decided that was high enough, and she let the other fellow have it. As the afternoon wore on, she happened to end up next to the fellow who bought it and he asked her why she was bidding on it. She replied that her son was involved in politics and she thought he might like to have it. “Well, then,” the fellow said, “he can have it. I’m a stamp collector and just bought it for the stamp on the envelope.” And he gave her the letter. I still have it. Thanks, Mom. And have a great birthday.
Good Old Garrison
Well, I just love Garrison Keillor. I’m a faithful Saturday afternoon listener to A Prairie Home Companion. Mostly, he’s kept politics off the show since his favorite foil, Jesse Ventura, left office, with just subtle digs, mostly at the Republicans, from time to time. But he also writes a syndicated political column which someone sends me from time to time (Mary Sand, a fellow Dunn County Democrat, nearly an endangered species there, sent me this one), and he pulls no punches in these. His most recent one starts:
I would not send my college kid off for a semester abroad if I were you. Last week, we suspended human rights in America, and what goes around comes around. Ixnay habeas corpus.
The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, has decided that an "enemy combatant" is any non- citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter.
If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok or Cairo, suspected of "crimes against the state" and held in prison, you'd assume that an American foreign service officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned. The Senate also decided it's up to the president to decide whether it's okay to make these enemies stand naked in cold rooms for a couple days in blinding light and be beaten by interrogators.
This is now purely a bureaucratic matter: The plenipotentiary stamps the file "enemy combatants" and throws the poor shnooks into prison and at his leisure he tries them by any sort of kangaroo court he wishes to assemble and they have no right to see the evidence against them, and there is no appeal. This was passed by 65 senators and will now be signed by Mr. Bush, put into effect, and in due course be thrown out by the courts. None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Idea.
Mark their names: Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.
Note that list does not contain the names Conrad or Dorgan. Good for you, Kent and Byron!
You can read the rest of the Keillor column by clicking here.
It’s worth finishing.
See you on the Trail.
Jim
While I’m on the subject, let me tell you a story about her. A number of years ago, Mom went to an estate auction with a friend, and was looking through some stuff on tables when she spotted something she thought I would like. It was on old letter, typewritten, from then Attorney General William Lemke to a fellow Nonpartisan Leaguer in Adams County. Signed by Lemke, and dated sometime just before the 1920 election. A true collectible, and one Mom thought I should have.
So when it came up for bids, she started bidding, and noticed right away someone was bidding against her. Well, ever frugal Mom went along up to $7.50 and then decided that was high enough, and she let the other fellow have it. As the afternoon wore on, she happened to end up next to the fellow who bought it and he asked her why she was bidding on it. She replied that her son was involved in politics and she thought he might like to have it. “Well, then,” the fellow said, “he can have it. I’m a stamp collector and just bought it for the stamp on the envelope.” And he gave her the letter. I still have it. Thanks, Mom. And have a great birthday.
Good Old Garrison
Well, I just love Garrison Keillor. I’m a faithful Saturday afternoon listener to A Prairie Home Companion. Mostly, he’s kept politics off the show since his favorite foil, Jesse Ventura, left office, with just subtle digs, mostly at the Republicans, from time to time. But he also writes a syndicated political column which someone sends me from time to time (Mary Sand, a fellow Dunn County Democrat, nearly an endangered species there, sent me this one), and he pulls no punches in these. His most recent one starts:
I would not send my college kid off for a semester abroad if I were you. Last week, we suspended human rights in America, and what goes around comes around. Ixnay habeas corpus.
The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, has decided that an "enemy combatant" is any non- citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter.
If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok or Cairo, suspected of "crimes against the state" and held in prison, you'd assume that an American foreign service officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned. The Senate also decided it's up to the president to decide whether it's okay to make these enemies stand naked in cold rooms for a couple days in blinding light and be beaten by interrogators.
This is now purely a bureaucratic matter: The plenipotentiary stamps the file "enemy combatants" and throws the poor shnooks into prison and at his leisure he tries them by any sort of kangaroo court he wishes to assemble and they have no right to see the evidence against them, and there is no appeal. This was passed by 65 senators and will now be signed by Mr. Bush, put into effect, and in due course be thrown out by the courts. None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Idea.
Mark their names: Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.
Note that list does not contain the names Conrad or Dorgan. Good for you, Kent and Byron!
You can read the rest of the Keillor column by clicking here.
It’s worth finishing.
See you on the Trail.
Jim
posted by Dem-NPL at 12:11 PM
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