In a decision which ought to reassure those on the left who think the court has gone too conservative, the Supreme Court has ruled in the case of Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld that prisonsers held at Guantanamo Bay cannot be tried by special military tribunals. The decision was based on both provisions of the Universal Code [...]

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Yet again the House of Representaitves is considering a vote on the Hinchey-Rohrbacher Amendment, the Wilmot Proviso of the new millenium. It's an amendment jointly sponsored by a Republican and a Democrat to protect the rights and safety of private users of medical marijuana and exempt them from criminal prosecution. It doesn't legalize pot and [...]

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The first act of any tyrranical regime is to disarm the populace. One of the things which sets the United States apart from most of the rest of the world - more even than the other provisions of our Constitution - is that our Republic has built into it a tolerance of and endorsement of [...]

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In Congress's recent consideration of a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, no one seemed to be asking the fundamental question which underlies the entire gay marriage issue. Marriage is first and foremost a religious institution. It is a fundamental sacrament in most churches. Why does the government [...]

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On Wednesday information leaked from the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that the Iraqi government was considering offering amnesty to terrorist groups who were willing to lay down their arms and cease hostilities. The reports were quickly repudiated in a statement issued later in the day, and Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi who had been [...]

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After testifying five times about his involvement in the 'outing' of CIA operative Valerie Plame, Senior Whitehouse Advisor Karl Rove was finally notified this week that he would not face charges for his role in leaking her identity to the press. His attorney commented: “We believe the special counsel's decision should put an end to [...]

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Controversy is growing over the release of an amateur video of what appears to be a singing U.S. Marine performing a song called “Hadji Girl” while people in the background laugh and applaud. The video was first released on the video-sharing network YouTube which features a wealth of silly and bizarre amateur videos. It eventually [...]

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You’ve probably noticed that gas prices here in the United States have been at ‘historic’ high levels for quite a while now. What that means is that they’re super high compared to what we’ve gotten used to, but not quite as high as they were under Jimmy Carter when prices are adjusted for inflation. Everyone’s [...]

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This past weekend here in Austin we were handed a perfect object lesson of the nature of illegal immigration and immigration enforcement courtesy of gun-toting INS agents looking to make an example and score some PR points for Governor Petty and President Bush. Early Saturday morning java junkies at the Texas French Bread near the [...]

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As I've mentioned before, there's a new nightspot called The Oaks just down the road from my house out here in eastern Travis County. Our neighborhood hasn't traditionally been the center of the phenomenal Austin music scene - everything seems to start downtown and move west rather than east - and that makes The Oaks [...]

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