Think Progress

JUSTICE -- MUKASEY ATTEMPTS TO GUT IMPACT OF SUPREME COURT RULING PROTECTING DETAINEE RIGHTS: In a landmark decision issued last month, the Supreme Court ruled that habeas corpus protections apply to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Speaking at the conservative American Enterprise Institute yesterday, however, Attorney General Michael Mukasey called on Congress -- not the courts -- to set the rules by which detainees challenge their detention in civilian courts, an attempt to "limit the impact of the ruling." Mukasey said Congress should pass legislation barring federal judges from releasing any of the detainees, who he claimed "pose an extraordinary threat to Americans." Under Mukasey's plan, the government could detain prisoners indefinitely as long as the conflict against al Qaeda persisted. Mukasey added that only after the trials are completed should prisoners be able to file habeas petitions to appeal their detentions in civilian courts. "What Mukasey is doing is a shocking attempt to drag us into years of further legal challenges and delays," observed Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The Supreme Court has definitively spoken, and there is no need for congressional intervention," Warren added. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) called the speech "an attempt to create an election-year security issue where there isn't one."

WOMEN'S  RIGHTS -- OVER 100 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DECLARE OPPOSITION TO BUSH'S 'RADICAL'  CONTRACEPTION STANCE: More than 100 members of Congress signed a letter to President Bush yesterday urging an end to a Health and Human Services (HHS) draft proposal that would reclassify contraception as abortion. The letter warns that the proposal would "have a disastrous effect upon access to safe and effective birth control for millions of women" and create a "radical reversal of decades of public health work." The HHS proposal would require hospitals receiving federal funds to pledge that they would not discriminate against people who refuse to provide forms of contraception due to religious beliefs in hiring positions. In the letter, 104 representatives wrote that the move "would allow any provider, who wants to deny a woman emergency contraception or even birth control pills, to claim protection based on a personal belief that such pills fit the regulatory definition." At a press conference, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) said, "We will not put up with this radical, ideological agenda to turn the clock back on women's rights." The Bush administration has a history of hostility to birth control, from viewing contraceptives as part of the "culture of death" to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt's assertion that health care providers with moral objections to abortion have no obligation to refer patients to other providers. 

CONGRESS -- REID MOVING 'COBURN OMNIBUS' TO SENATE FLOOR: Roll Call reported yesterday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) "will begin the process of moving the 'Coburn Omnibus,' a set of bills that have broad bipartisan support but have been held up" because of Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) objections.  Coburn has earned the reputation of "a fly in the soup," abusing the Senate's hold privilege -- a technique which allows senators to "object to bringing a bill or nomination to the floor for consideration" -- to prevent the leadership from bringing matters to a vote. Some of these measures include funding for stroke prevention legislation, lateral sclerosis legislation, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Act, the Emmitt Till Unsolved Crimes Act, and the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment Act. Currently, Coburn has a hold on nearly 100 non-controversial and bipartisan bills simply because they are "bills that he just doesn't like." Roll Call notes, "Debate on the bill could begin Friday, and Coburn has raised the possibility of using the chamber's arcane rules to grind the Senate to a halt."

A military judge ruled yesterday that prosecutors in the trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former driver, "cannot use as evidence some statements the defendant gave interrogators because they were obtained under 'highly coercive' conditions." Hamdan's "allegedly incriminating admissions made up a key part of the prosecution’s case against him."

The current economic expansion "is the first in 60 years that may end before many Americans have recovered from the last slowdown. Annual family incomes adjusted for inflation have grown just 0.8 percent since the end of 2001." Median U.S. family incomes, adjusted for inflation, dropped from $59,398 in 2000 to $58,407 in 2006.

The New York Times reports that "for the first time since the women's movement came to life, an economic recovery has come and gone, and the percentage of women at work has fallen, not risen. ... After moving into virtually every occupation, women are being afflicted on a large scale by the same troubles as men: downturns, layoffs, outsourcing, stagnant wages or the discouraging prospect of an outright pay cut."

Though Big Oil companies "insist they're trying to find new oil" to help bring down gas prices, more than half of the money from their record profits is being spent on stock buybacks and dividends rather than exploration. While spending on stock buybacks and dividends has increased 25 percent since 2000, the percentage spent to find new deposits of fossil fuels "has remained flat for years, in the mid-single digits."

FEMA reported yesterday that federal officials vastly overestimated the value of hurricane relief supplies given away earlier this year. According to the report, the General Services Administration (GSA) mistakenly counted "a single item as being worth as much as multiple items contained in a package of goods. The original GSA estimate of $85 million should have been $18.5 million."

"Members of Congress appropriated more than $18 million in Defense Department earmarks in fiscal 2007 for projects that either were not needed or failed to support the Pentagon’s mission," according to a Pentagon inspector general report.

Radovan Karadzic, "the wartime leader of Bosnian Serbs, was arrested Monday night" and is being extradited to The Hague where he will be tried by the U.N. war crimes tribunal. Karadzic "faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities committed between 1992 to 1996."

And finally: Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-VT) guest appearance in the new movie, "The Dark Knight," has been getting quite a bit attention on national blogs. Leahy, a huge Batman fan, appears in the movie "as a brave older gentleman who confronts the Joker after the evildoer crashes a swank party." Writing on The Hill's blog yesterday, Leahy expounded further on why he likes the film: "This, more than any earlier film, explores the psychotic nature of the Joker, but also the psychological conflicts in the Batman." He also pays tribute to late actor Heath Ledger, who played the Joker.