No Questions Asked

More disturbing news from the bench:

The Supreme Court made it easier for the police and prosecutors to question suspects, lifting some restrictions on when defendants can be interrogated without their lawyers present.

In a 5-to-4 ruling, the court overturned its 1986 opinion in a Michigan case, which forbade the police from interrogating a defendant once he invoked his right to counsel at an arraignment or a similar proceeding.

That 1986 ruling has not only proved “unworkable,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, but its “marginal benefits are dwarfed by its substantial costs” in that some guilty defendants go free. Justice Scalia was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

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Kudos to Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the 1986 decision for making an unusual public dissent saying that the “police interrogation in this case clearly violated petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel,” and that overruling the decision “can only diminish the public’s confidence in the reliability and fairness of our system of justice.”

Miranda rights: “The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he or she has the right to remain silent, and that anything the person says may be used against that person in court; the person must be clearly informed that he or she has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning, and that, if he or she is indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to represent him or her”

Sixth Amendment: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.”

Here’s a nice piece by Howard Zinn reminding us that Obama, as good as he is, is still a politician. All politicians lie and cater to special interest groups. It’s just a fact of life in the US.

We are citizens, and Obama is a politician. You might not like that word. But the fact is he’s a politician. He’s other things, too-he’s a very sensitive and intelligent and thoughtful and promising person. But he’s a politician.

If you’re a citizen, you have to know the difference between them and you-the difference between what they have to do and what you have to do. And there are things they don’t have to do, if you make it clear to them they don’t have to do it.

From the beginning, I liked Obama. But the first time it suddenly struck me that he was a politician was early on, when Joe Lieberman was running for the Democratic nomination for his Senate seat in 2006.

Lieberman-who, as you know, was and is a war lover-was running for the Democratic nomination, and his opponent was a man named Ned Lamont, who was the peace candidate. And Obama went to Connecticut to support Lieberman against Lamont.

It took me aback. I say that to indicate that, yes, Obama was and is a politician. So we must not be swept away into an unthinking and unquestioning acceptance of what Obama does.

Our job is not to give him a blank check or simply be cheerleaders. It was good that we were cheerleaders while he was running for office, but it’s not good to be cheerleaders now. Because we want the country to go beyond where it has been in the past. We want to make a clean break from what it has been in the past.

I had a teacher at Columbia University named Richard Hofstadter, who wrote a book called The American Political Tradition, and in it, he examined presidents from the Founding Fathers down through Franklin Roosevelt. There were liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats. And there were differences between them. But he found that the so-called liberals were not as liberal as people thought-and that the difference between the liberals and the conservatives, and between Republicans and Democrats, was not a polar difference. There was a common thread that ran through all American history, and all of the presidents-Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative-followed this thread.

The thread consisted of two elements: one, nationalism; and two, capitalism. And Obama is not yet free of that powerful double heritage.

We can see it in the policies that have been enunciated so far, even though he’s been in office only a short time.

Some people might say, “Well, what do you expect?”

And the answer is that we expect a lot.

People say, “What, are you a dreamer?”

And the answer is, yes, we’re dreamers. We want it all. We want a peaceful world. We want an egalitarian world. We don’t want war. We don’t want capitalism. We want a decent society.

We better hold on to that dream-because if we don’t, we’ll sink closer and closer to this reality that we have, and that we don’t want.

US jails China bankers for fraud

Two former Bank of China managers and their wives have been given lengthy jail sentences in the United States for stealing $485m (£320m)…

Prosecutors said the convictions showed foreign nationals could not “live off their ill-gotten gains in the US”.

Living off ill-gotten gains is reserved for US bankers. The hypocrisy continues.

Michael Savage replaced Phil Donohue during the buildup to the Iraq War. Good for the UK officials for recognizing a hate monger when they see one. Savage angrily rants against anything he dislikes and urges people to taunt  those with different views. The US banned Yusaf, formerly known as Cat Stevens for security reasons. Who’s more likely to foster hate?

 US ‘hate list’ DJ to sue Britain

A US radio talk show host says he will sue the British government for defamation after being placed on a list of people banned from entering the UK.

Conservative political commentator Michael Savage, real name Michael Alan Weiner, is one of 22 people barred for fostering extremism or hate.

He has described the Islamic holy book the Koran as “a book of hate” and questioned cases of autism.

Mr Weiner said he opposed violence and objected to being linked to murderers.

He told his radio audience that he was intending to sue British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who he described as the “lunatic … Home Secretary of England”.

“To link me up with skinheads who are killing people in Russia, to put me in league with Hamas murderers who kill people on buses is defamation,” he said.