Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
Ed Brayton is a participant in the Center for Independent Media New Journalism Program. However, all of the statements, opinions, policies, and views expressed on this site are solely Ed Brayton's. This web site is not a production of the Center, and the Center does not support or endorse any of the contents on this site.
Any and all emails that I receive may be reprinted, in part or in full, on this blog with attribution. If this is not acceptable to you, do not send me e-mail - especially if you're going to end up being embarrassed when it's printed publicly for all to see.
I think Michele Bachmann is trying to set some sort of record for public stupidity. Her latest blatantly false claim was made, unsurprisingly, to effusive praise from Sean Hannity:
BACHMANN: Twenty-eight pages. Sean, you know the one question they don't ask? They don't ask, "are you an American citizen?" They don't ask if you're here on a visa or when it expires. We have no real idea how many illegal aliens are in our country. But wouldn't you think, here they are asking every personal question about our lives, they could at least ask if we're an American citizen? They don't bother to ask for that. That's why I think people need to read this census for themselves. If you go to my website, michelebachmann, you can read it.
One of Andrew Sullivan's readers absolutely nailed, in my view, the reason why Sarah Palin appeals so much to the religious right. I'll paste the whole thing below the fold:
This is actually about a year old but I missed it when it was posted. SBH, a frequent commenter here, managed to track down that famous fake quote from Patrick Henry and show where it came from. Here's the quote as usually offered by the Christian Nation apologists:
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!
Lyle Denniston at ScotusBlog has a provocative post about the possibility that last week's important decision allowing defendants to cross examine forensic experts could already be at risk if Sotomayor is confirmed. And it's not terribly farfetched. The Supreme Court has already granted cert on a very similar case for next term, which means it could overturn its own ruling with the switch of a single vote. And there is some evidence to indicate that Sotomayor may be considerably more pro-prosecution and anti-defendants' rights than Souter.
There is a very interesting battle going on in Washington over the question of which branch of government controls what must be done with terrorism detainees, both before and after having a trial. A sizable number of detainees have already been found innocent but they are still being held because neither the Bush nor Obama administrations wanted to release them in the United States but no other country has been found to take them.
The problem is particularly acute for the 13 Chinese Uighurs who have been acquitted in federal court but are still being held at Gitmo because they can't be sent back to China, where they will likely be imprisoned by the government, and no one wants them released here. In fact, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in April that the federal courts cannot order any detainee to be released in this country.
Now that it seems my friends are stalking Dr. Isis and pointing her to fabulous shoes -- peacock feathers? Seriously? -- I thought I'd link to a post that illustrates why I adore her so. It seems that ScienceBlogs' very own Egyptian goddess has been proving correct the old aphorism to the effect that no good deed goes unpunished. Story below the fold:
Lots of news outlets, citing a Time magazine report, have reported that Obama has finally chosen a church and it's the chapel at Camp David.
Now, in an unexpected move, Obama has told White House aides that instead of joining a congregation in Washington, D.C., he will follow in George W. Bush's footsteps and make his primary place of worship Evergreen Chapel, the nondenominational church at Camp David.
To give you an idea of just how far into the lunatic fringe Glenn Beck is slipping, look at this clip from his show where his guest declares that the only thing that can save America from Obama is for Osama to detonate a really big weapon in the United States.
Ta-Nehisi Coates has an excellent post about the right's continual insistence on the most shallow and arrogant conception of patriotism, the macho nationalism that is so ubiquitous among conservatives. He is responding to this statement by Liz Cheney objecting to Obama's unwillingness to offer such a vision:
We've now seen several different occasions when he's been on the international trips, where he's not willing to say, flat out, 'I believe in American exceptionalism. I believe unequivocally, unapologetically, America is the best nation that ever existed in history, and clearly that exists today.' Instead we've seen him do what we saw him do in the speech in Cairo, which is sort of, 'on one hand this, on the other hand that,' and then attempt to put himself sort of above it all. I think that troubles people.
Jane Mayer has a very important article in the New Yorker that focuses a lot of attention on Leon Panetta as CIA director, but also discusses the many people with torture blood on their hands from the Bush administration who are still in position at the CIA and elsewhere in the Obama administration. Those people include John Brennan, who was Tenet's chief of staff and is currently Obama's chief adviser on such matters, as well as several CIA higher ups just below Panetta. I think it helps to explain a lot of what has happened (or not happened) in the last few months in regard to truth commissions, prosecutions of Bush administration officials or CIA operatives and the release of memos and pictures about torture. Here's a long excerpt:
Or perhaps more appropriately, ironic quote of the day. From Worldnutdaily managing editor David Kupelian:
At WND, we don't mock patriotic Americans trying to set their country right. We don't rewrite White House press releases and call it news. We don't bow and scrape before President Obama or anyone else. We don't pretend abortion is OK, or that same-sex marriage is good, or that global warming is "proven science," or that more government is the solution to all problems, or that Palestinian leaders wants peace, or that the Constitution is old-fashioned, or that the "Federal Reserve" is good for America. In short, we're not politically correct and we have no sacred cows. Instead, we really do strive to tell the truth that Americans desperately need and deserve to hear.
I actually already had Pat Buchanan's latest column on my screen to write a response to when a reader emailed me and referred to the column as "Brayton bait." And that is indeed what it is, a column full of discredited nonsense by someone who knows nothing about evolution but is utterly unaware of their own ignorance.
I am always amused when general-topic writers take on this particular issue while knowing nothing about it and think that by reading a few creationist websites or pamphlets they know all they need to know about evolution. This column is a textbook example. It's basically a cliff's notes version of the creationist jokebook.
The non-partisan Congressional Research Service has issued a report (PDF) on Judge Sotomayor's record that reaches the same conclusion I did after reading through a few dozen of her written opinions -- that far from being some ultra-liberal judicial activist she is a moderate, middle of the road, careful judge who adheres closely to precedent.
"As a group, the opinions belie easy categorization along any ideological spectrum. Perhaps the most consistent characteristic of Judge Sotomayor's approach as an appellate judge has been an adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis, i.e., the upholding of past judicial precedents. Other characteristics appear to include what many would describe as a careful application of particular facts at issue in a case and a dislike for situations in which the court might be seen as oversteping its judicial role."
A group called Velvet Revolution is targeting 12 Bush administration attorneys for disbarment for their role in justifying and providing legal cover for the torture of detainees.
Torture is illegal under both United States and international law. The Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, and it states that treaties signed by the U.S. are the "supreme Law of the Land" under Article Six. The Geneva Convention and The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment both prohibit torture and have been signed by the United States. These laws provide no exception for torture under any circumstances. Moreover, the United States Criminal Code prohibits both torture and war crimes, the latter which includes torture. The Army Field Manual prohibits the use of degrading treatment of detainees.
Despite this well-established law, under the Bush administration, torture was authorized by George Bush and kept secret using classified designations. The White House requested legal memoranda to support its use of torture and it received those authored by a host of attorneys, including John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and Stephen Bradbury. Attorneys who advised, counseled, consulted and supported those memoranda included Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, Michael Chertoff, Alice Fisher, William Haynes II, Douglas Feith, Michael Mukasey, Timothy Flanigan, and David Addington.
Glenn Greenwald makes an excellent point, one originally made by Helen Thomas during a press conference last week when President Obama was waxing eloquent about the power of the images of brutality coming out of Iran to galvanize world opinion and illustrate the nature of barbarism. I didn't watch the press conference so I didn't see this exchange, but bravo to Helen Thomas for bringing it up:
From North Korea's amusingly delusional strongman Kim Jong-Il:
"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," a dispatch from the official Korean Central News Agency said.
Oklahoma's favorite wingnut legislator, Sally Kern, is now trying to pass a "proclamation for morality" in that state. Predictably, it includes several of those now-infamous fake quotes that David Barton has thrust upon the world. Here's the full proclamation:
Marcy Wheeler has a post about statements made by Presidents Bush and Obama commemorating the anniversary of the UN Convention Against Torture, which was Friday. Notice the sheer chutzpah of Bush's declaration from 2003, which was issued a mere few weeks before Bush signed the first official order allowing torture of detainees. His declaration said:
"Now ACORN has been named one of the national partners, which will be a recipient again of federal money," Bachmann said. "And they will be in charge of going door-to-door and collecting data from the American public. This is very concerning because the motherload of all data information will be from the census. And, of course, we think of the census as just counting how many people live in your home. Unfortunately, the census data has become very intricate, very personal (with) a lot of the questions that are asked.
"And I know for my family the only question that we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that."
There are reports that the Obama administration is getting ready to put out an executive order allowing indefinite detention of some of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.
Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.
After months of internal debate over how to close the military facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible.
Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
