Yesterday's protest in front of the U.S. Capitol, organized by Rep. Michele Bachmann, had the usual cast of tea-party extremists. But this time, they were openly assembled by GOP leaders as an official House Republican event. Republican members of Congress stoked the crowd's extremism and gave them their seal of approval.

Dana Milbank described the scene:

In the front of the protest, a sign showed President Obama in white coat, his face painted to look like the Joker. The sign, visible to the lawmakers as they looked into the cameras, carried a plea to "Stop Obamunism." A few steps farther was the guy holding a sign announcing "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds" [sic], accusing Obama of being part of a Jewish plot to introduce the antichrist.

But the best of Bachmann's recruits were a few rows into the crowd, holding aloft a pair of 5-by-8-foot banners proclaiming "National Socialist Healthcare, Dachau, Germany, 1945." Both banners showed close-up photographs of Holocaust victims, many of them children.

Not just their extremism and frothing-at-the-mouth hatred of Barack Obama was on display. The crowd's hypocrisy was also on full display. Again from Milbank's column:

[A] man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care -- rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip. ...

By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony as she said farewell to her recruits.

"You," she said, "are the most beautiful sight any of us freedom fighters have seen for a long time."

Talk about hypocrisy - and not just about government-run health care. They say they're "freedom fighters." Whatever principle it is that motivates these extremists, it sure isn't freedom.

Where were they when President Bush claimed that simply by declaring an American citizen an "enemy combatant" - a decision unreviewable by a court or any other entity - he could have that person arrested without a warrant and imprisoned for life without access to a lawyer or an impartial judge?

Where were they when Americans were arrested at Bush events simply for wearing John Kerry tee-shirts and having anti-war bumper stickers? Or when President Bush planned a Total Information Awareness program, in which the federal government would regularly monitor our credit card purchases, our travel, our telephone records, and other everyday activities? Or when President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was executed in flagrant violation of the law, to say nothing of the Bill of Rights?

Where were they? These "freedom fighters" did nothing.

Perhaps some enterprising journalist will ask people who attended yesterday's staged event where they were when freedom was genuinely threatened during the course of the Bush presidency.

Of course, journalists don't need to ask where the people who organized the event were while Bush was engaged in a war against America’s civil liberties: They were helping him.

The attack that took place yesterday at Fort Hood was utterly horrifying, and Americans of all stripes are holding the victims of the violence in their thoughts and prayers.

That the perpetrator of the attack was deeply disturbed is obvious, but it’s also been widely reported that he is a practicing Muslim.

If he were a Christian, no one would use the incident to spread suspicion of Christians, but because of deeply ingrained cultural misunderstanding of Islam, some commentators are pushing the lie that Nidal Malik Hasan’s reprehensible actions should in some way reflect on all Muslims.

That’s absurd.

People For the American Way Foundation said as much today.

While the facts of the case are still being established, some commentators have latched onto the suspect’s name and religion and used them to impugn the characters of all Muslim Americans. That’s unacceptable. All Americans are united in condemning this violence, and it would be horrific if this incident was used to sow divisiveness and discord.

Our friends at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) put out a press release that should have been entirely unnecessary, but which should clear up any lingering misconceptions:

We condemn this cowardly attack in the strongest terms possible and ask that the perpetrators be punished to the full extent of the law. No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence. The attack was particularly heinous in that it targeted the all-volunteer army that protects our nation. American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured.

Yesterday’s shooting was a tragedy, and the proper response is sympathy for the heartbreaking ordeal the Fort Hood community is going through. Not intolerant attacks on fellow Americans.
 

Last week we mentioned the anti-Muslim witch hunt that some members of Congress wanted to start against, of all people, Congressional interns.

And yesterday People For President Michael B. Keegan wrote about the chilling resurgance of McCarthy-like tactics coming from the Right Wing.

But we'd be remiss in failing to point out another Congressman standing up for religious liberty and against anti-Muslim bigotry.  Representative Keith Ellison,  himself the first Muslim-American member of Congress, took to the floor of the House to read a statement from the Congressional Tri Caucus.  The statement made clear that people of all races and religions are welcome in the halls of Congress.

You can read the statement and watch a video of Rep. Ellison's remarks here.

Congressman Ellison and all the members of the Tri Caucus, we salute you!  Thanks for standing up for religious liberty for all.

Changing Hearts and Minds. That was the focus this past weekend at two panel discussions I moderated at the California NAACP State Conference on the topic of Homophobia in the Black Church. From my vantage point it’s clear that these real in-person talks truly help people understand the dangers of homophobia. After the panel, a few people testified that their views about homophobia and even LGBT equality have changed completely. It’s remarkable the change that we can effect through honest, respectful conversation.

I waned to share just a few highlights from the panel:

Rev. Kenneth Samuel (Vice Chair - African American Ministers Leadership Council of PFAWF and Pastor of Victory for the World Church in Stone Mountain, GA) spoke passionately about the health risks to the Black community from Heterosexism and Homophobia. Forcing people to live closeted or secret down low lives, leads to risky behavior. This in turn can lead to grave consequences as it relates to STDs.

Dr. Sylvia Rhue (Director- Religious Affairs of the National Black Justice Coalition) reminded us that the LGBT Equality movement is comprised of fights for several basic civil rights, and that speaking out against homophobia is a continuation of the civil rights movement.

Rev. Deborah Johnson (Founder- Inner Light Ministries) spoke out about the dangers of Homophobic behavior. He explained how it has led to a history of violence against LGBT people of color throughout history, even at the hands of black brothers and sisters.

Rev. Byron Williams (Pastor- Resurrection Church in Oakland, CA and member of the AAMLC of PFAWF) dared all of us not to compare “black” oppression to “LGBT” oppression, but to recognize that oppression is just that, and it goes against the Christian ethic of Love thy Neighbor.

As moderator of the discussions the common ground was clear to me - we must LOVE one another and speak out against homophobic behavior.

Question: Can a police officer pull a driver over on suspicion of drunk driving based only on an anonymous tip? Based on the quotations below, can you guess what governmental body was asked this week to answer that question?

Every year, close to 13,000 people die in alcohol-related car crashes - roughly one death every 40 minutes. ... Ordinary citizens are well aware of the dangers posed by drunk driving, and they frequently report such conduct to the police. A number of States have adopted programs specifically designed to encourage such tips ...

[Another lawmaking body] adopted a rule that will undermine such efforts to get drunk drivers off the road. [It] commands that police officers following a driver reported to be drunk do nothing until they see the driver actually do something unsafe on the road - by which time it may be too late.

There is no question that drunk driving is a serious and potentially deadly crime ... The imminence of the danger posed by drunk drivers exceeds that at issue in other [situations]. In a case [with an anonymous tip that someone at a bus stop is carrying a gun], the police can often observe the subject of a tip and step in before actual harm occurs; with drunk driving, such a wait-and-see approach may prove fatal. Drunk driving is always dangerous, as it is occurring. ...

The conflict is clear and the stakes are high. The effect of [needing more than an anonymous tip to permit the police to stop a driver] will be to grant drunk drivers "one free swerve" before they can legally be pulled over by police. It will be difficult for an officer to explain to the family of a motorist killed by that swerve that the police had a tip that the driver of the other car was drunk, but that they were powerless to pull him over, even for a quick check.

Is this a legislator urging his colleagues how to vote on an important policy question?

No. It's Chief Umpire John Roberts, and he's not exactly neutrally calling balls and strikes.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari in Virginia v. Harris, declining to hear the appeal of a drunk driving case involving a police stop based only on an anonymous tip. Roberts, joined by Justice Scalia, issued a stinging dissent from that decision not to hear the case. Their dissent was brimming with ... policy considerations.

This blog has written before on the pernicious myth that judges shouldn't affect policy, pointing out that that's exactly what courts are supposed to do. It's inherent in interpreting the law in difficult cases. Yet part of the Far Right's propaganda to demonize liberal judges and portray them as anti-American is the line that they "legislate from the bench," usurping policymaking powers from the people's elected representatives.

No one should be fooled into buying the Right's framing. Progressives shouldn't be bullied into parroting it. And the press needs to start asking why the Right always remains silent when conservative jurists engage in this perfectly normal, long-accepted practice.

Last week, four Congressmen, obviously concerned that they had so-far failed to plumb the depths of anti-Muslim bigotry, decided to demand an investigation into Muslim interns in Congress.  Their evidence?  A book published by World Net Daily, itself a monument to America's First Amendment protections for the ignorant and the morally bankrupt.

But before this story gets swept into the dustbin of political history, we should applaud some folks who stood up against the reckless, McCarthy-like accusations being leveled against young people who wanted to get engaged in the political process.

Per TMP, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez was first out of the gate in condemning the smear, followed by John Conyers and Andre Carson.

And, if you missed it, Rachel Maddow spoke out on the issue, appropriately slamming the group of Congressmen who decided that it would be politically expedient to fan the flames of religious strife.

So, while it's important to condemn elected leaders who exploit bigotry for political gain, it's important to applaud those who stand up to it.

Bravo!

Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case of 13 Uighur detainees held at Guantanamo Bay who are no longer classified as enemy combatants and have been determined to be no threat to the national security of the United States. These detainees - who were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan and have been held by the U.S. since 2001 - were cleared for release by the Pentagon in 2003, but six years later, they have yet to be set free.

After the Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene last year that Guantanamo detainees have the right to bring habeas corpus claims in federal court to challenge the legality of their detentions, a federal judge in DC ordered that the Uighur detainees be immediately released into the United States since they cannot return to their own country. As members of a Turkic Muslim minority from the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, their release back into their own country would likely result in torture and execution.

In February 2009, a 3-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that order, finding that the federal courts lack the authority to order their release into the U.S. Describing it as an immigration decision, the panel concluded that only the executive branch has such authority and even suggested that the detainees apply for entry into the United States through the Department of Homeland Security pursuant to our immigration laws. In petitioning the Supreme Court for certiorari review, the Uighur detainees argued that stripping the power from the federal courts to order their release into the United States rendered the habeas right recognized by Boumediene meaningless. And indeed, they continue to be held behind chained fences guarded by military men.

Disappointingly, Obama's Solicitor General Elena Kagan urged the Supreme Court not to hear the case, arguing that they have no right to enter the United States. Kagan wrote that "they are free to leave Guantanamo Bay to go to any country that is willing to accept them," but acknowledged that the detainees "understandably do not wish to [return to their home country]." Kagan's brief even attempted to portray the conditions of the Uighurs' imprisonment as not so bad.

In contrast to individuals currently detained as enemies under the laws of war, petitioners are being housed under relatively unrestrictive conditions, given the status of Guantanamo Bay as a United States military base…[They are] in special communal housing with access to all areas of their camp, including an outdoor recreation space and picnic area. . . [They] sleep in an air-conditioned bunk house and have the use of an activity room equipped with various recreational items, including a television with VCR and DVD players, a stereo system, and sports equipment.

Sounds just as good as freedom, doesn't it?

But what if there is no country willing to accept them? That is the case for at least one of the Uighur detainees who has serious mental treatment needs. In that scenario and under these set of circumstances - where they have been found to be no threat to the United States - shouldn't the U.S. take it as a moral imperative to immediately release these people even if they must be released into our borders? Particularly since the media coverage of their wrongful detentions at Guantanamo Bay by the United States is what highlighted the bull's eyes on their backs for the Chinese executioners in the first place?

Let's not be distracted by side arguments by the DC Circuit or our new SG. First, this is not an immigration matter subject to the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security or Congress. These people had no intention or desire to migrate to the United States. They were involuntarily and wrongfully imprisoned by the United States for over eight years. Second, they are not free in any way and are in every sense of the word imprisoned. If relocation to another country is not available, the United States has a moral duty to immediately release these people into the U.S. subject to any parole conditions that may be appropriate. And if the judiciary is the only branch of our government that has the moral compass to do what is right, they should be vested with the power to do so. That is the root of habeas corpus relief which was designed to remedy unlawful government detention. That is why we have our constitutional system of checks and balances.

The Right regularly attacks progressive judges for "making policy" and "legislating from the bench." But in oral arguments yesterday, the Supreme Court Justices demonstrated yet again that one of their most important roles is to make policy in difficult circumstances where the law is unclear.

The case involves a man named José Padilla who was born in Honduras and has lived in America for 40 years. (He is no relation to the former "enemy combatant" of the same name). Considering whether to plead guilty to trafficking in marijuana, he turned to his lawyer for advice. Relying on the lawyer's incorrect assertion that a guilty plea would not affect his immigration status, he pled guilty and now finds himself subject to deportation.

The Court must decide if Padilla was unconstitutionally deprived of effective assistance of counsel and should therefore be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea. During oral argument, Justices across the ideological spectrum appropriately asked probing questions as they wrestled with difficult policy options. The Washington Post reports:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor ... said the threat of deportation was an important component of a defendant's decision on whether to go to trial and risk a longer sentence, or plead guilty to a charge that would automatically send him back to a place where he "might starve to death."

But other justices worried that it would be impossible to limit the issue to deportation -- a tack that Padilla's attorney Stephen B. Kinnaird suggested was one way to narrowly decide the case.

"We have to decide whether we are opening a Pandora's box here, whether there is any sensible way to restrict it to deportation," said Justice Antonin Scalia. "What about advice on whether pleading guilty would -- would cause him to lose custody of his children? That's pretty serious. What if pleading guilty will -- will affect whether he can keep his truck, which is his main means of livelihood, or whether -- whether it would be seized by the government as the instrument of his crime?"

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said he was sympathetic to Padilla's predicament. "Your argument has an appeal because removal is such a harsh consequence, particularly for someone like your client, who had been in the United States for a long time," he said. But he wondered how to ever know whether such a conversation had occurred between client and attorney.

Clearly, deciding difficult cases like this is not as easy as simply calling balls and strikes.

I look forward to hearing those who vigorously complain about "legislating from the bench" condemn Justices Scalia and Alito for yesterday's questions.

I also look forward to seeing exactly what process they propose the Justices use to call this a ball or a strike.

This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Salazar v. Buono, a case involving the display of a cross on top of Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve, which is federal property. (People For the American Way Foundation joined an amicus brief in this case filed by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and other religious and secular non-profits).

By now, you've probably read about Justice Scalia's angry response when a Jewish lawyer had the audacity to point out that Jews don't use Christian crosses to honor their dead.

Mr. Eliasberg [the ACLU Foundation attorney] said many Jewish war veterans would not wish to be honored by "the predominant symbol of Christianity," one that "signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins."

Justice Scalia disagreed, saying, "The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead."

"What would you have them erect?" Justice Scalia asked. "Some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David and, you know, a Muslim half moon and star?"

Mr. Eliasberg said he had visited Jewish cemeteries. "There is never a cross on the tombstone of a Jew," he said, to laughter in the courtroom.

Justice Scalia grew visibly angry. "I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead," he said. "I think that's an outrageous conclusion."

When I read this, my mind immediately went to … crayons. Yes, crayons.

When I was five, I had a somewhat peach-colored crayon that Crayola called "flesh." I'm white, and the crayon was close to my own skin color. It didn't occur to me that Crayola was assuming that all people are white. I didn’t need to think about it – After all, I was part of the majority. Later on, of course, I realized how this nomenclature marked African Americans as other, as outsiders in our society.

But not everyone who is a member of the in group has the capacity to understand what it is to be on the other side. Justice Scalia certainly doesn't.

For Justice Scalia, the cross has never had anything but positive connotations. From the perspective of his life experience, how could a cross grave marker be anything but an honor?

But in the history of America, Jews and other non-Christians have experienced the cross at times as neutral, and at times as a symbol of exclusion and persecution. Yet when someone points out that Jews do not see the cross as a symbol of honor, Justice Scalia gets angry.

In analyzing how the law impacts people, a wise judge considers people who are different from himself. A wise judge has empathy. Justice Scalia has none.

This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Maryland v. Shatzer, a case involving the constitutional right to counsel during police questioning. The questions asked by the Justices – even the most conservative of them – exposed one of the great lies the Far Right tells about our nation’s judiciary: that courts should not make policy.

In 1981, the Court held that once you tell the police that you want your lawyer, the questioning must stop either until your lawyer arrives, or you yourself initiate further communication. This rule protects you from being badgered by the police to change your mind before the lawyer shows up.

In 2003, after Michael Blaine Shatzer asked for a lawyer, the police dropped their investigation and released him from their custody. Three years later, new evidence arose in the case. The rule established in 1981 would suggest that the police were still barred from questioning Shatzer. That was the issue before the Court this week. To help them analyze the case, the Justices asked the sorts of hypothetical questions they often ask. The Washington Post reports:

Justices seemed generally supportive … that police should have been allowed to question Shatzer again, but they had a hard time agreeing on how the rule should be changed.

[Chief Justice] Roberts worried that police could repeatedly question and dismiss a suspect who asks for a lawyer. "You know, just sort of catch-and-release, until he finally breaks down and says, 'All right, I'll talk,' " Roberts said. ...

[T]he justices wondered what could be done about a suspect who asks for a lawyer, never actually receives one or is convicted, and then is questioned years later, perhaps for a different crime.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. posed this hypothetical: What if someone was arrested for joy riding in Maryland, invoked his Fifth Amendment protection, and was never convicted? Could police in Montana question him as a murder suspect in Montana 10 years later?

When [Shatzer’s attorney] said no, Alito replied: "And you don't think that's a ridiculous application of the rule?"

[Then] Alito raised the hypothetical ante to a crime committed 40 years later ...

If the police let a suspect go after he asks for a lawyer, does the Constitution prohibit the police from questioning him again half a century later? Should there be limits? What should they be? How do you decide?

The Justices deciding this case are not simply calling balls and strikes, the insulting umpire analogy that Roberts infamously used during his confirmation hearings. Roberts, Alito, and the other Justices are weighing the consequences of different possible interpretations of the 1981 precedent as they apply it to a new and unforeseen situation.

Just as legislators do, they will be making policy. And that's fine. That's what courts are supposed to do. It's inherent in interpreting the law in difficult cases such as this.

So the next time the Washington Post quotes a right wing propagandist condemning progressive judges for making policy or "legislating from the bench," perhaps the Post will do more than collaborate by simply reprinting the accusation. Perhaps the Post will cite its own reporting and point out that all judges weigh policies and make law, but that the Far Right is silent when conservative judges do it.