Does a terrorist, a child molester, or a mass murderer deserve an open trial? What if, through some technicality, or through an OJ type runaway jury, someone truly dangerous is set free? Are we to risk open trials for those in Guantanamo? Many Americans can feel their blood pressure rise as lawyers rise to the defense of those whose aim is to kill us all. Some lawyers don't seem to mind the company they keep. Marc Thiessen spoke for many as he was subjected to a withering interview by comedian Jon Stewart. He was reacting to a Department of Justice lawyer who had defended someone who can best be defined as a terrorist.

Some of these people have very radical views. Jennifer Daskal is one of these lawyers who has been raised questions about. She has written that any terrorist who is not charged with a crime, even though they're being held as lawful combatants, should be released from Guantanamo and set free -- even though we know they may go out and kill American soldiers.

Those who now boast of having voted for McCain ("Don't blame me") point to radicals who seem to have seized the very government that should be protecting us. How do these people see the world? One would have been willing to let genocide mastermind, Nazi Adolf Eichmann, go free.

...they deserve to have some adjudication of their cases. And there's a fear that if you release them that they'll go back and fight again against us. And that may have already happened. But balance that against what it's doing to our reputation throughout the world and whether it's enhancing recruiting for people to join al-Qaeda and other organizations and want to do bad things to the United States of America.

... we've got to adjudicate these people's cases, and that means that if it means releasing some of them, you'll have to release them. Look, even Adolf Eichmann got a trial. I mean, there--we are signatories to numerous agreements on human rights, against torture, universal declaration on human rights...

The leftist radical, the one with so much sympathy for every bad guy from terrorists to Nazis was, of course, John McCain speaking in 2005.

Sometimes being an American is not easy. The banter about how fair trials are too costly or too risky would have been familiar to Adolf Eichmann. Let's indeed be careful of the company we keep.

The coming Democratic electoral disaster in November has captured everyone's attention. Analysts tell us that Democrats will be losing big if the economy doesn't improve quickly in ways that will touch the lives of ordinary people. People captivated by fright tend toward the irrational. The idea that Republicans will do all they can to break government apart, then campaign on a platform of repair loses its irony as people face a personal economic abyss. Political analyst Charlie Cook says we should look to employment to forecast the election. "The market could go up substantially and I don't think it's likely to change the outcome." He predicts voters "are really only aware of unemployment." He's right.

Democrats will lose in a major way this year, but liberals have much to cheer about. The longer term is reflected in a Florida poll that foretells the future of the Republican Party. Conservative Charlie Crist, current popular Governor is about to lose to a more extreme conservative, Marco Rubio. "Lose" is too mild a word. In the Republican primary, increasingly right wing members of the party will be throwing rocks at him. He will lose in a tsunami. He started as the overwhelming favorite, and is now 32 points behind.

Rubio is likely to win the general election, once again depending on the economy. But the nomination of candidates who are ever more extreme does not bode well for the GOP. The economy will not be glued to the bottom of the ocean forever. And the pressure on candidates to race off the rightward edge of the charts has been accelerating for decades. Rubio is part of a national trend. Conservative ascendancy in the Republican party has resulted in a sort of cannibalism. Conservatives once gunned for moderates. Now, as membership in the GOP shrinks, conservatives are under fire as not conservative enough. It's the French Revolution applied to politics.

Unemployment is like a slasher movie. Nobody is safe. In the general terror, one statistic stands out. Current polls actually show voters preferring Democrats, although by a narrow margin. Republicans stand to win, not because they are more popular, but because their supporters are more enthusiastic. Those who prefer Democrats are dispirited, likely to stay home. It is an off-year election. It is an off year economy.

A thinly veiled racist presentation by a Republican staffer, showing operatives how to raise funds is creating headaches for the party. President Obama is shown in white face, ostensibly as the Joker of Batman fame. As significant is the unfortunate image Republicans have of contributors. Frighten the little ones enough, and they will hand over their cash, says the presentation. Big donors have matching egos. Flatter them, and they will support the party. All like Pavlov's dogs, salivating at the bell. There is insult there for everyone.

Certainly it is offensive. Absolutely, it is a GOP headache. But the offense will fade. The headache is temporary. More serious is that it illustrates the rightward, cynical direction of a party in a resurgence that is destined to be short term. Serious Republicans who look to the future will see a blank.

A little over two years ago, Mike Rogers, blogger, fundraiser, pro-gay activist, attended a conservative prayer vigil on the steps of the nation's capitol. He handed out leaflets, McCarthy style, naming 27 “known homosexuals in the Bush administration and Republican party.” The organizer of the political prayer event, Patrick J. Mahoney, ordered him to stop, then directed his flock not to accept the leaflets. They contradicted conservative election prayer.

The ethics of outing gay public personalities is clear. Don't do it. While the Supreme Court says that public personalities have little legal right to privacy, it seems clear that a moral right exists. But Rogers makes a fine distinction. He insists he is not outing gays. He is reporting hypocrisy.

Certainly hypocrisy is there, at least in some cases. When Mark Foley solicited "inappropriate" emails from teenage House pages, his example was not the first. Foley's targeted pages were later attacked by conservative bloggers, who published their names and addresses, Michelle Malkin style. It seems the youngsters were guilty of tattling on Mr. Foley. I suppose a point of clarity is in order. Malkin did not participate in attacking the interns. She only published name, address, and driving directions to the homes of small children whose parents had allowed their photos to be used in a public health reform effort. Nothing gay about it. Strictly business.

Larry Craig's wide stance was destined not to be the last instance of hypocrisy. Both Craig and Foley were self-contradictions, leading secret lives while attacking gays. Reverend Ted Haggard resigned as President of the National Association of Evangelicals after a male companion outed his secret life. Haggard had also been actively anti-gay. Most recently, Roy Ashton, an anti-gay Republican State Senator in California, was arrested on a drunk driving charge after leaving a gay bar with a male companion.

It is not difficult for most to gloat. A person I admire greatly points out a very simple moral equation. These people are all, everyone of them, garden utensils, political hoes. Considerable surface evidence supports this observation. They advanced their careers substantially by attacking gays.

I see a story more complex and considerably sadder. Each had a world view shared by many of us raised in an earlier age. It was a simple world way back then. There were no gays with a different sexual orientation. There were only perverts, deserving of our contempt. A lifetime struggle against themselves had to produce at least some who were viciously anti-gay.

It is hard to imagine lives of daytime antagonism and nighttime urges that would not also involve considerable self-loathing. Deliberate or not, these are tragic figures. More important, the pathology that a deeply ingrained denial of self entails is not limited to public figures. Many suffer in silence.

It is an affliction imposed by society. It ought to stop. It eventually will.

I’ve always believed that my personal life is personal and I have a public role, a public job, a public responsibility. But I felt I could keep the two separate.

 - - State Senator Roy Ashburn (R-CA), March 8, 2010

Declares that nonbinding resolutions to Congress are a complete waste of time and pledges that the General Assembly will focus on meaningul legislation to solve problems in this state

 - - Non-binding Resolution Against Non-Binding Resolutions, March 3, 2010
     Sponsored by Democrats after Republicans proposed resolutions
     demanding that Congress keep gays out of the military, and demanding
     that the governor solve budget problems by buying lottery tickets

Wow. Just when you thought it was impossible to get ordinary folks to see through the wonkdom to the evils of filibuster abuse, along comes a poster child to cast a perfect shadow.

Last year, as Barack Obama took office, Senate Republicans made a change they could believe in. Instead of filibustering on important matters of principle, they decided to filibuster pretty much everything. So nothing gets done today unless 60 votes can be gathered to end debate. This is very new.

But unemployment was an exception. At issue are benefits for working men and women who are actively seeking employment without any luck. It's not hard to find them in today's economy. Employment is what experts call a lagging indicator. People being able to pay their bills, keep their homes, feed their kids, are pretty much on the tail end of a recovery. And a lot of people are at the tail end of unemployment benefits. Democrats thought they had enough Republican cooperation to keep a filibuster from happening.

It turns out there are a ton of other obscure procedural delays Senators can use to hold things up. Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) used as many as he could think of. Other things also expired this past Sunday. Highway funding stopped, so more workers were laid off. Small business loans got canceled, so more little shops closed. Start up businesses postponed starting up. Even Doctors were affected. Those willing to see Medicare patients got 21% of their fees postponed.

Reminded by a freshmen Democrat of the hardship he was causing, Bunning replied with an earthy expletive beginning with "Tough". A reporter asked why he was holding things up. Bunning gave a middle finger wave. He later explained to the Senate that he was facing his own hardships. "I have missed the Kentucky-South Carolina game that started at 9:00 and it's the only redeeming chance we had to beat South Carolina since they're the only team that has beat Kentucky this year."

This provoked sympathy from Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ). Unemployed people have it way too easy, said Kyl. They are "being paid even though they're not working." Senator Steve King (R-IA) agreed. "We shouldn't turn the 'safety net' into a hammock." Bunning's action against the unemployed also won support from House member Dean Heller (R-NV). Extending unemployment benefits for people thrown out of work is simply "creating hobos."

The crippling effect of filibuster abuse is hard to explain. It lacks drama in today's Senate. Nobody talks all night long. It's all quite bloodless, consisting of filings and motions. Procedural stuff.

Bunning backed down on Tuesday, but it still seems possible that at long last, a human face has been put on the filibuster. It is the snarling visage of the Republican Senator from Kentucky.

Conservatives are ambivalent about Communist China. Before he became President, George Bush (the one folks kind of like), was the US Ambassador to the People's Republic, as it is inaccurately called. He is still well regarded by those in control of that totalitarian state. Commerce benefits US mega-businesses. Trade provides cheap goods for sale in the US. Setting up factories in Communist China provides direct access to dirt cheap labor. Anything that hurts US labor unions is dear to the hearts of Republicans.

There are drawbacks, to be sure. Poisonous substances are less expensive to produce, so lead painted toys are sometimes found in the mouths of American babies. Chinese espionage is rife, targeting industrial information and classified defense secrets.

And then there are the Uighurs, pronounced WEE-ghers. This is a foreign word to Republican politicians, and unfamiliar to most of us. They are scattered all over central Asia. The western part of China is the closest Uighers have to a homeland. The area was traded back and forth among different empires until the Communist Chinese captured it in the late 1940s. It has been in tyranny ever since. Uighurs are vicious anti-Communists. They are also fanatically pro-American. They love our country.

Well, what is the United States to do? Go to war over the region? Oppression is pretty much an internal matter. None of our business. Until recently.

In Afghanistan, some local Uighurs accepted rifle training from former freedom fighters against the Russian occupation. Much later, the Afghan trainers joined al Qaeda. When the US liberated Afghanistan, the Uighurs were turned in for bounty money. The ferociously pro-American refugees were accused of being with Osama bin Laden.

It was a silly charge, which the GOP administration found to be completely false. Even so, they were thrown into Guantanamo. The Bush/Cheney White House was afraid to let them go because the Peoples Republic of China defined them as terrorists against Communism. When the Obama administration decided to release them, in spite of Communist objections, Republicans went berserk. They accused Obama of being soft of terrorists.

The courts have ruled that the Uighurs were wrongly imprisoned. Oddly, the Obama administration has appealed it to the Supreme Court. The high court may declare it a moot point, since the Uighurs have been released and resettled in small pacific island countries. The Obama White House, in a play to to preserve executive power, wants the original ruling overturned on the grounds that lower courts did not know the Uighurs would be resettled.

Here's to the fond hope that the Supreme Court somehow supports the lower courts and spits right in the eyes of Obama and his critics, all at once. US treatment of the Uighurs is what puts the "GROSS" into "gross injustice."

Why does he hate us so much and say those kinds of things? He doesn’t know us.

 - - Rushan Abbas, lawyer to pro-American Uighurs, May 19, 2009
     quoting his clients after Newt Gingrich repeated Communist Chinese
     accusations that the ethnic refugees are actually terrorists