Despite all the fear-mongering Republicans wanting to throw more money at the southwest border, statistics show it's not needed.

The AP examines the statistics and concludes the border area may be one of the safest places in America.

The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities.

[More....]

President Obama will meet with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer today. Brewer intends to ask Obama for more federal assistance in securing the border.

Obama should insist on immigration law reform before throwing more money at the border. Putting enforcement first is the wrong approach. [More...]

It may be a holiday weekend, but there's little to celebrate with Arizona's immigration law. Protests will be held in 60 cities across the country.

The protest in Phoenix, to include a five mile march to the state capitol, is expected to draw 50,000. I'll bet it's a lot higher. Sports fans are being asked to boycott some games.

The San Francisco Giants are also hosting a weekend series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, and activists are planning to protest outside AT&T Park Friday night and Saturday.

Today, DOJ filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking it to find that federal law trumps Arizona's Employers' Sanctions law. [More...]

The House of Representatives has voted to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." 168 Republicans and 26 Democrats voted against the amendment which is contained in the annual Pentagon policy bill.

The provision would allow military commanders to repeal the ban, which would permit gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time....The repeal would be allowed 60 days after a Pentagon report is completed on the ramifications of allowing openly gay service members. The report is due by Dec. 1.

A similar provision passed the Senate Armed Services Committee today. The vote was 16 to 12, and one Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia, voted against it.

Sen. John McCain vows to keep fighting the repeal: "“I think it’s really going to be really harmful to the morale and battle effectiveness of our military,” he said.

Also today, the full Senate "approved a nearly $60 billion measure to pay for continuing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq." The vote: 67 to 28. The House will now consider its own war funding bill which provides for even more money.

After meeting with Republicans toay, President Obama will ask Congress to fund sending 1,200 National Guard troops to secure the Mexico border in a greater effort to crack down on illegal trafficking organizations.

McCain says it's not enough. He wants 6,000 deployed.

The cost of the 1,200 troops: $500 million. What's it for?

[I]ntelligence and intelligence analysis, surveillance and reconnaissance support.

We already authorized $1.3 billion in Merida funds for the war on drugs in Mexico. Even though it hasn't been fully distributed , Obama is planning on asking for another $390 million.

Throwing more money into the failed policies of the past 40 years will do no good. The cartels will become stronger.

Glenn Greenwald and Matt Yglesias have a curious exchange (see Kevin Drum for the weirdness of the dispute) about President Obama and civil liberties. For the full argument, click the links, but I found these two quotes to be the key takeaways. Yglesias wrote:

"This is what I think: If public opinion were friendly to civil liberties, then public policy in the Obama era would be friendlier to civil liberties than it currently is."

I say duh. Obama is a pol. And they do what they do. I think the actual issue is identified in this from Yglesias:

[P]eople who want to halt the erosion of civil liberties need to do a better job of persuading people that the erosion of civil liberties would be a bad thing.

The question is, is Obama one of those "people?" And if so, why is he not doing more? Yglesias, like me, is cynical about politicians, and expects nothing from Obama on this. I do not see this as excusing Obama, but being realistic about him, and every pol. That is why a true progressive flank can never accept a role as cheerleader for any pol. Glenn chooses to criticize Obama. Me? I criticize the supposed progressive flank for being unthinking Obama cheerleaders. (NOTE: I have strong disagreements with Greenwald on certain civil liberties issues and find myself defending the position the Obama Administration has taken that Glenn disagrees with. But I make no pretense to being part of the progressive flank on civil liberties.)

Speaking for me only

The ACLU and other civil rights groups have filed a class action lawsuit challenging Arizona's immigration law.

"Arizona's law is quintessentially un-American: we are not a 'show me your papers' country, nor one that believes in subjecting people to harassment, investigation and arrest simply because others may perceive them as foreign," said Omar Jadwat, a staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "This law violates the Constitution and interferes with federal law, and we are confident that we will prevent it from ever taking effect."

Grounds for the suit:

The lawsuit will challenge Arizona's law on the grounds that it interferes with federal authority over immigration matters, and that it invites racial profiling against people of colour in violation of equal protection guarantees enshrined in the Constitution.

More from the ACLU here. [More...]

The boycott of Arizona hotels following the enactment of its terrible immigration law, S.B. 1070, is having an effect according to a new report.

STR data shows Arizona hotels began losing business soon after the law was signed on 23 April....The Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association reported at least 23 meetings had been cancelled throughout the state, representing an estimated US$6 million to US$10 million in lost revenue.

“The economic impact is increasing every day and every week. Groups that were considering us as an option are pulling out of Tucson and other Arizona cities,” said Richard Brooks, director of sales and marketing for the Westin La Paloma in Tucson. Groups that were considering holding meetings at the hotel for 10 years or more out are not considering Arizona now, according to Brooks.

[More...]

How is "assasination" different than citizenship stripping?

Citing with approval news reports that President Obama has signed a secret order authorizing the targeted killing of a radical Yemeni-American cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki, Mr. Lieberman argued that if that policy was legal — and he said he believed it was — then stripping people of citizenship for joining terrorist organizations should also be acceptable.

This echoes Glenn Greenwald:

Outrage over Lieberman's citizen-stripping bill is odd in light of Obama's assassination program: which would you rather have done to you?

I think this argument features a strain of divergence I have with Greenwald (a good faith disagreement) and people like Joe Lieberman. You'll also see it in my discussions of preventive detention. The Laws of War are simply different from criminal law. Thus, killing an enemy combatant or detaining an enemy combatant is a different matter than incarcerating (or even executing) an individual for criminal actions. More . . .

Citizenship stripping proponents seem to have as their goal removing terror trials from the federal courts:

“It reflects the changing nature of war and recent events,” [Sen. Scott] Brown [R-MA] said Thursday. “War has moved into a new dimension. Individuals who pick up arms — this is what I believe — have effectively denounced their citizenship, and this legislation simply memorializes that effort. So somebody who wants to burn their passport, well, let’s help them along.”

Identical legislation is also being introduced in the House by two Pennsylvania congressmen, Jason Altmire, a Democrat, and Charlie Dent, a Republican. The lawmakers said at a news conference that revoking citizenship would block terrorism suspects from using American passports to re-enter the United States and make them eligible for prosecution before a military commission instead of a civilian court.

(Emphasis supplied.) This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the Sixth Amendment:

Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon emails me to say that Schumer was blindsided by a reporter's question and doesn't support the measure at all:

The senator was approached abruptly in the hall of the Capitol by a reporter before he had even heard about the legislation or what it did. Having learned about the proposal, he believes it would be found unconstitutional in this context and would also be ineffective. There are much better ways of obtaining information from terrorists.

Neither constitutional nor effective. In other words, a typical NeoCon proposal.

Speaking for me only

Lindsey Graham:

“Miranda warnings are counterproductive in my view,” Graham said at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday. “We need a law that would allow you to go to a judge…and hold a guy like this and work with the intelligence officials of this country. Even if you’re an American citizen helping the enemy, you should be treated as a military threat,” Graham said. “Devise a law that recognizes we’re at war.”

If Lindsey Graham has the courage of his rhetoric, the solution is simple - repeal all federal laws criminalizing terrorism. After that, Miranda becomes irrelevant.

If you want to treat terrorism solely as a question of war, then do that. So long as people like Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham insist that suspected terrorism be treated as a criminal question, then Miranda and terror trials in federal court will remain "counterproductive" in their view. They need to put their money where their mouths are.

Speaking for me only