Another day, another outrage

Actually, more than one, but we'll start the day with those pesky lawyers at Guantanamo. We definitely need to get rid of them because they're stirring up discontent among the natives.

The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to impose tighter restrictions on the hundreds of lawyers who represent detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the request has become a central issue in a new legal battle over the administration’s detention policies.

Saying that visits by civilian lawyers and attorney-client mail have caused “intractable problems and threats to security at Guantánamo,” a Justice Department filing proposes new limits on the lawyers’ contact with their clients and access to evidence in their cases that would replace more expansive rules that have governed them since they began visiting Guantánamo detainees in large numbers in 2004.

The filing says the lawyers have caused unrest among the detainees and have improperly served as a conduit to the news media, assertions that have drawn angry responses from some of the lawyers.

Then, perhaps we'll move on to Condi Rice flashing Congress the bird:

OSLO, Norway - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has already answered the questions she has been subpoenaed to answer before a congressional committee and suggested she is not inclined to comply with the order.

Rice said she would respond by mail to questions from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the Bush administration's prewar claims about
Saddam Hussein seeking weapons of mass destruction, but signaled she would not appear in person.

By the way, I would understand this better if it said she had said she would not appear in person. What I'm not quite clear on is how she signaled it. Was she waving those flags ships use to signal each other? Or, was she tapping something out in Morse code?

Then, of course, there's always the Bush-Reagan-Bush II-packed Supreme Court that's said preparing to say "free speech goes to the highest bidder."

WASHINGTON, April 25 — The Supreme Court put defenders of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law on the defensive on Wednesday in a spirited argument that suggested the court could soon open a significant loophole in the measure.

At issue is a major provision of the five-year-old law that bars corporations and labor unions from paying for advertisements that mention the name of a candidate for federal office and that are broadcast 60 days before an election or 30 days before a primary. By a 5-to-4 vote in December 2003, the court held that the provision, on its face, passed First Amendment muster.

But a new majority may view more expansively the Constitution’s protection of political messages as free speech, and invite a flood of advertising paid for by corporations and unions as the 2008 elections move into high gear.

And, my doctors wonder why I have high blood pressure!