Congratulations, Secretary Mabus!

WAPT is reporting that former Gov. Ray Mabus has been confirmed as United States Secretary of the Navy.

Congratulations to Secretary Mabus -- we're proud of you!

Secretary-Designate Mabus Clears One Hurdle

From the Navy Times this morning:

The Senate Armed Services Committee recommended Thursday that the full Senate vote to approve the nominations of Navy Secretary-designate Ray Mabus, Navy Undersecretary-designate Robert Work and other nominees for civilian Pentagon posts.

Mabus and Work’s nominations were part of a group approved by voice vote, according to a committee announcement. It wasn’t clear how long it could be before the full Senate votes on whether to confirm the nominees.

Congratulations to Ray Mabus -- and on to the Senate!

h/t to Dorsey Carson (via Facebook)

WTF??? Obama SG to SCOTUS: Let Cops End-Run Lawyers of Suspects

SCOTUSblog reports a disappointing development: the United States of America, through Obama Administration's Solicitor General, is arguing that law enforcement should be allowed to question suspects even after they have had lawyers appointed for them. As SCOTUSblog explains:

"The U.S. Solicitor General, speaking for the federal government, urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to overrule its 1986 decision in Michigan v. Jackson. Seeking to assure that the right to counsel is not lost during police interrogation, the Court ruled in Jackson that, once an accused has claimed that right in court, any waiver of that right during police questioning would not be valid unless the individual initiated communication with the officers."

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/us-challenges-michigan-v-jackson

The Government's amicus brief was filed in the case of Montejo v. Louisiana (07-1529), which was argued last January. The Supreme Court, in an unusual move, asked for supplemental briefing on whether Jackson should be overruled. The Obama Administration said it should, explaining:

“Although the Sixth Amendment affords criminal defendants a right to counsel at certain critical pre-trial stages, the Amendment should not prevent a criminal defendant from waiving that right and answering questions from police following assertion of that right at arraignment. Jackson serves no real purpose and fits poorly with this Court’s recent precedent; although the decision only occasionally prevents federal prosecutors from obtaining appropriate convictions, even that cost outweighs the decision’s meager benefits.”

The answer to this argument was put rather well by Justice Souter and four other members of the Court just last Monday. In Corley v. United States, the Court refused to overrule another longstanding rule -- the exclusion of confessions taken when the suspect has been detained for an unreasonable amount of time without being taken to Court for an initial appearance. [Note: this is called the McNabb-Mallory rule]. The Court's majority opinion, written by Justice Souter, said:

"In a world without McNabb-Mallory, federal agents would be free to question suspects for extended periods before bringing them out in the open, and we have always known what custodial secrecy leads to. No one with any smattering of the history of 20th-century dictatorships needs a lecture on the subject, and we understand the need even within our own system to take care against going too far. Custodial police interrogation, by its very nature, isolates and pressures the individual, and there is mounting empirical evidence that these pressures can induce a frighteningly high percentage of people to confess to crimes they never committed, see, e.g., Drizin & Leo, The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World, 82 N. C. L. Rev. 891, 906-907 (2004). "

Justice Frankfurter's point in McNabb is as fresh as ever: "The history of liberty has largely been the history of observance of procedural safeguards."

Thanks, Justice Souter. In real life, unlike Law & Order, law enforcement can not be sure they have the right suspect. Letting them question someone in custody after they already have a lawyer -- which violates the whole raison d'etre of the right to counsel -- leads all too often to the conviction of the innocent.

This is a very distressing sign that it's "business as usual" at the Obama Justice Department -- that it's more important to show solidarity with prosecutors than it is to seek justice. What a shame.

House of Hypocrisy, Part Two

Our local conservatives are singing from the same hymnbook as their heroes, the House Republicans. One particularly ugly rant was posted on the blog Jackson Jambalaya, attacking an article written by Ronni Mott of the Jackson Free Press. The title of the JJ post was "Is Ronni Mott a Liar, Hack, or Just Plain Stupid?" You can read the whole post here: http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-ronni-mott-liar-hack-or-just-plain.html

What the JJ blogger calls a "lie" is this sentence by Ms. Mott: "The [stimulus] bill’s passage proved to be highly partisan—with Obama and the Democrats on one side and the nearly the entire GOP lined up against it—despite the president’s best efforts to reach across the aisle."

Ronnie Mott's whole story is here: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/stimulus_transparency_021709/

Perhaps our local conservatives should check the actual statements of the House Republicans. Now that the stimulus bill has been enacted into law, they are falling all over themselves to tell their constituents what wonderful things have been included. One of many catalogs of these comments has been posted on Jake Tapper's blog on ABC News' website. You can find it here: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/back-at-home-co.html

Here's a sampling of what House Republicans say when they get back home:

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, for instance, issued a press release last week heralding how he "won a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners" by working with Democrats to pull a provision from the Senate bill that he feared would hurt American Indian and Alaska Native owned businesses.

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., issued a press release saying, “I applaud President Obama’s recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America’s future.”

Rep. Pete Hoesktra, R-Mich., "tweeting" to his homefolks: "If you know of someone thinking of buying first home, now may be the time. Stimulus incentive is very generous! Up to 8k! Check it out."

In New Jersey, Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., toured a Army Corps of Engineers construction site that will likely get stimulus dollars. "This is a classic example of a "shovel-ready' project," he said.

In Kirksville, Mo., Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., visited Truman State University where he said: “Within the stimulus package there is some Pell Grant money, which is a good thing. It helps students be able to pay for their education and that's kind of a long term stimulus effect there. I mean obviously that's not gonna provide a job in the next 120, 180 days, but the ability of someone to get an education is an economic development tool."

Sen. Kit Bond, R. Mo., heralded $2 billion in funds in the stimulus bill to jump start low income housing projects. "Bond says the $2 billion amendment is small potatoes in the nearly $800 billion package, but it will save jobs, employing more than 3,000 people in Missouri alone," the local paper reports.

So if Republicans had "no input" into the stimulus package, why are they falling all over themselves to TAKE CREDIT for it?

What happened -- just as Ronni Mott reported -- is that the Obama Administration reached out to Republicans, then included spending items and tax cuts that had their support. (The President also excised items after Republicans complained -- the family planning funds come to mind).

Only after they got much of what they wanted through private discussions, did the Republicans quail about the overall cost of the bill. Their complaint that they "never saw the language" until the day it was proposed rings hollow -- the Bush/Paulson bank bailout was only a page long but had support from both sides of the aisle.

So leave Ronni Mott alone, folks. She's dead-on right. Again.