This is what Barack Obama has done to the habeas clause of the Constitution:  if you are in Thailand (as one of the petitioners in this case was) and the U.S. abducts you and flies you to Guantanamo, then you have the right to have a federal court determine if there is sufficient evidence to hold you.  If, however, President Obama orders that you be taken to from Thailand to Bagram rather than to Guantanamo, then you will have no rights of any kind, and he can order you detained there indefinitely without any right to a habeas review.  That type of change is so very inspiring -- almost an exact replica of his vow to close Guantanamo . . . all in order to move its core attributes (including indefinite detention) a few thousand miles North to Thompson, Illinois.

So when Obama said this on the Senate floor in 2006, I guess he really was just referring to Guantanamo:

I would like somebody in this Chamber, somebody in this Government, to tell me why this is necessary. I do not want to hear that this is a new world and we face a new kind of enemy. I know that. I know that every time I think about my two little girls and worry for their safety--when I wonder if I really can tuck them in at night and know that they are safe from harm. I have as big of a stake as anybody on the other side of the aisle and anybody in this administration in capturing terrorists and incapacitating them. I would gladly take up arms myself against any terrorist threat to make sure my family is protected.

But as a parent, I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence.

Here's a May 5th story, via TruthOut, by Greg Palast who's also mad as hell about BP failing to do proper booming/containment, Slick Operator: The BP I've known too well:

In 1989, I was a fraud investigator hired to dig into the cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Despite Exxon's name on that boat, I found the party most to blame for the destruction was British Petroleum. That's important to know, because the way BP caused devastation in Alaska is exactly the way BP is now sliming the entire Gulf Coast...the oil from the Exxon Valdez, which could have and should have been contained around the ship, spread out in a sludge tide that wrecked 1,200 miles of shoreline.

And here we go again. Valdez goes Cajun. Where was BP's containment barge and response crew? Why was the containment boom laid so damn late, too late and too little? Why is it that the US Navy is hauling in 12 miles of rubber boom and fielding seven skimmers, instead of BP? It was only last month that BP [pre-explosion], lobbying for new deepwater drilling, testified to Congress that additional equipment and inspection wasn't needed.

This just in: Becnel [attorney] tells me that one of the platform workers has informed him that the BP well was apparently deeper than the 18,000 feet depth reported. BP failed to communicate that additional depth to Halliburton crews who therefore poured in too small a cement cap for the additional pressure caused by the extra depth. So it blew.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me. -Banksy, street artist (b. 1974)

ROME (AP) - Catholic Church officials said Friday the recent creation by researchers of the first synthetic cell can be a positive development if correctly used, but warned scientists that only God can create life.

The U.S. Supreme Court, by declining to examine a case, has let stand a Montana insurance rule that prohibited policy language giving insurers broad powers to deny coverage.

Former state Auditor John Morrison, who decided in 2003 to prohibit the so-called "discretionary clause" in group health and disability insurance policies sold in Montana, said Thursday that keeping the prohibition is a big victory for consumers.

"It is immensely important and affects the health insurance rights of tens of millions of Americans," he said. "Health insurance is only useful if your claims are paid. So, the (clause) goes right to the heart of whether people's claims get paid or not."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it won't consider an appeal of a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Morrison's action was not pre-empted by federal law.

Link

you can even play it with the arrow keys.

Washington (CNN) - In the battle for campaign cash, the Democratic National Committee brought in $10.4 million dollars last month, outraising the Republican National Committee by $3.5 million.

The system thwarts illegal scalpers by requiring fans to buy tickets with credit cards - and swiping the same card and showing identification when they get to the venue.

But the system also stops people from giving the tickets to a third party, like a friend or family member. Any resale has to be done through a site controlled by Ticketmaster, which gets a service fee.

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that prisoners being held without trial in Afghanistan by the military have no right to challenge their imprisonment in American civilian courts. The decision, overturning a lower court ruling in the detainees' favor, was a victory for the Obama administration's efforts to hold terrorism suspects overseas for extended periods without judicial oversight.

In a unanimous 26-page ruling, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that detainees who were captured outside of Afghanistan and brought to a military prison at the Bagram air base have no right to a hearing in which a judge would review the evidence against them and could potentially order their release.

Such habeas corpus rights do "not extend to aliens held in executive detention in the Afghan theater of war," wrote David B. Sentelle, the chief judge of the appeals court, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan. His opinion was joined by Judges Harry T. Edwards, a Carter appointee, and David S. Tatel, a Clinton appointee.

The panel's ruling reversed an April 2009 decision by a district court judge, John D. Bates, who had found that such detainees had the same constitutional rights that the Supreme Court has granted to similar prisoners who were flown to the military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, instead of Bagram.

Bill Clinton is heading to Arkansas next Friday to campaign for Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D), who is currently in a tight runoff with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.

TPM
Interesting in that Halter, Lincolns opponent in the run off, served under Bill Clinton, and was

a senior adviser in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 1993. He advised on a range of policy issues, reviewed and evaluated budgets and management practices of Federal cabinet departments, presented budget options to the President, and formulated Administration positions on domestic and international policy issues. He also coordinated the work of the President's Management Council, a group consisting of the Chief Operating Officers of the Federal Cabinet departments. During Halter's six years at OMB, the government's $290 billion budget deficit was transformed into a $125 billion surplus, and the United States experienced its first balanced budget in 40 years.

wiki