The Obama administration announced today that it will move detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the correctional facility at Thomson, Ill.

"The administration plans to expand the security perimeter of the facility, make it the most secure in the country and hold U.S. military commission trials inside its walls," Reuters reports. "The move is part of Obama's struggle to fulfill a campaign pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. naval detention camp prison, which was opened in 2002 after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to house foreign terrorism suspects."

Supporters of the plan have come from across the political spectrum, though there were vociferous criticisms lobbed upon the administration's announcement. Among those eager to have the facility house Guantanamo detainees are residents of Thomson. "The move is expected to bring about 3,000 new jobs to ... a region afflicted by high unemployment," reports The Guardian. 

Read more »

Opponents of health care insurance reform continue to hammer away at health coverage mandates that Congress is mulling. But David Orentlicher, a law professor at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis and co-director of the Hall Center for Law and Health, maintains that those opponents are pushing a wobbly argument. In a column for The Huffington Post, Orentlicher, also on the faculty of the Indiana University School of Medicine, concludes that such mandates are "justified by the Constitution's grant to Congress of a taxing power and a commerce clause power."

Orentlicher writes:

The taxing power is a well-established basis for enacting an individual mandate. Indeed, this country has had a tax-based mandate to purchase health care insurance for nearly 45 years. The Medicare program imposes a payroll tax on Americans as a way to fund coverage of their hospital costs once they reach age 65. People cannot opt out of Medicare; it is an obligatory system of health care insurance for one's senior years. Similarly, Congress can use a payroll tax to implement a mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance before they reach age 65. Under the House bill, for example, people will pay a 2.5 percent tax on their income unless they have health care coverage.

...

Under the commerce clause, Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, and the health care insurance industry clearly falls within the Supreme Court's understanding of interstate commerce.

Orentlicher's entire piece is available here. For more on the debate over individual mandates, see analysis from Professors Erwin Chemerinsky and Robert A. Schapiro. 

[Image via drboyceretirement.blogspot.com/ ]

Read more »

This weekend, Daily Kos blogger Mike Stark caught up with Sen. Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as Leahy approached the Capitol. Stark asked the senator if he thought that torture memo co-author Jay Bybee should resign from his post as a judge at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 

Leahy replied in the affirmative: 

I think the fact that this was hidden from the Senate when he was up for his confirmation and it was known by him and known by the administration ... he really should do the right thing now. He should resign.

Read more »

Sen. Joe Lieberman's threat to kill health care reform with a filibuster has promoted Sen. Tom Harkin to consider pushing legislation to end the obstructive tactic. Harkin, TPM reports, said, "I think there's a reason for slowing things down ... and getting the public aware of what's happening and maybe even to change public sentiment, but not to just absolutely stop something." TPM notes, however, that altering Senate rules, especially the filibuster, "would be a Herculean feat." 

But Washington, D.C. attorney Nicholas Stephanopoulos writes for The New Republic that senators might be able to seriously discuss the filibuster's fate if they did so in the context of ending it at a future date. Citing famed philosopher John Rawls, Stephanopoulos, a board member of the ACS Washington, D.C. Chapter, writes that lawmakers could tackle this debate if they did so "behind a ‘veil of ignorance.'" Senators are far too self-interested to dump the filibuster now, says Stephanopoulos, but they would likely be more objective if they debated the issue for future generations.

Stephanopoulos writes:

A debate now on whether to eliminate the filibuster in the future would transform senators' decision-making calculus. The key question would no longer be whether they enjoy the personal clout conferred by the filibuster, or whether it advances or threatens their parties' agendas. The issues, instead, would be whether it makes sense for almost all Senate business to require a supermajority, whether 40 senators representing as little as 10 percent of the population should be able to block a bill, and whether the Constitution's many checks and balances should be supplemented by yet another procedural obstacle. Many more senators likely would say no if self-interest and partisan advantage were, for the most part, removed from the equation.

Read more »

At a recent ACS event exploring criminal justice policy, Sen. Jim Webb and Rep. Robert C. Scott said the nation needs to confront shortcomings of the criminal justice system.

Below are two YouTube clips of the lawmakers' comments. Webb discussed legislation he is sponsoring, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act, and Rep. Scott said that tough-on-crime laws have proven ineffective and costly.

Webb said, "America's criminal justice system is broken and its inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process."

Rep. Scott said, "Research clearly demonstrates that a comprehensive approach - a strategy of prevention, early intervention and rehabilitation will significantly reduce crime and usually save more money than you spend it the process." Video of the event, including the lawmakers' entire comments, is available here.

Read more »

Second Vacancy Opens at 10th Cir.: Chief Judge Robert Henry, appointed by President Bill Clinton, steps down.

4th Cir. Nominees Get Hearing: Judges James Wynn and Albert Diaz have hearings scheduled before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week.

Judicial Conduct Commission Profiled: Texas' State Commission on Judicial Conduct has risen into public view amid the investigation into the state's top criminal court judge.

Who Should Recuse Who?: Federal judges to put up "stiff resistance" to recusal rules being debated in the House of Representatives.

Judges, Friends & Facebook Friends: Florida judges are now operating under new guidelines for how they interact digitally with lawyers.

Read more »

The Supreme Court added new cases to its docket this morning, including one involving the extent of privacy for employee text messages and another involving whether immigrants convicted of repeated drug possession charges can be deported.

In City of Ontario v. Quon, the justices will determine whether Ontario, Calif., officials violated the privacy rights of several police officers by reading scores of text messages they sent via pagers issued by the police department. A U.S. District Court ruled against the officers, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the city had violated the privacy rights of police officers. Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, told the Los Angeles Times that the case "came down at a moment when there was virtually no protection for employee privacy. If it stands, it would mean employees for the first time could communicate at work with privacy." City officials, however, argue that employees should expect no privacy when using equipment provided by the employer.

In Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, the justices will consider a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that upheld deportation proceedings of a legal alien convicted of multiple, minor drug possession offenses. The Associated Press reported that while the Fifth Circuit upheld the deportation proceedings, other federal circuits have ruled in favor of immigrants.

The high court also denied, without comment, a case involving four former Guantanamo Bay detainees who say they were tortured and denied their religious liberty rights. For more discussion of today's Supreme Court action see analysis from SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston here.  

Read more »

Earlier this week, the Heritage Foundation sponsored an event to promote the claim by some opponents of health care insurance reform that a law mandating individuals to purchase coverage would be unconstitutional. Covering the event, the National Journal's Stuart Taylor concludes that despite the arguments from conservatives the high court would and should uphold such mandates.

Taylor writes that according to "most of the experts who have weighed in on whether the Supreme Court would uphold a mandate for individuals to buy comprehensive health insurance unless they're already covered by employer-based plans. They cite the justices' very broad reading since the New Deal of Congress's powers to regulate interstate commerce and to tax and spend." Taylor is not a fan of the high court's reading of the Commerce Clause, but concludes that the Supreme Court should defer to Congress and the executive branch to avoid "an all-out war between" the branches of government.

Constitutional experts, such as law professors Erwin Chemerinsky and Robert A. Schapiro have more forcefully argued that individual mandates are constitutionally sound. See their arguments here and here. 

Read more »

American Schools

The Art of Creating a Democratic Environment

By Sam Chaltain

[Available Here]

Ask different people to define what it means to be an American in a single word, and you'll hear the same answer: freedom. 

In that one word we capture the historic, partly fulfilled promise of the United States. And we name an irresistible, universal human impulse -- to be in control of our own destiny, to feel visible to others, and to have a say in determining the shape of the world around us. 

Alongside the need for freedom, there is an equally pressing human desire for structure safety and a sense of order to the world. 

These universal needs -- for freedom on one hand, and structure on the other -- are particularly relevant to our nation's school leaders, who must strike the right balance between the two in order to create healthy, high-functioning learning environments. 

In my years as an educator, I have witnessed scores of schools that choose, consciously or unconsciously, to value one of these needs at the expense of the other. I wrote this book to deliver a message to school leaders: You do not need to choose. It is possible -- indeed, essential -- to find the right organizational balance between individual freedom and group structure. In fact, research confirms that when school leaders do so, they create optimal conditions for student learning, motivation and engagement. 

Read more »

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance three of President Obama's judicial nominations. The Committee approved the judicial nominations of Judge Denny Chin (left) to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Rosanna Malouf Peterson to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington and William M. Conley to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The nominations await confirmation by the full Senate.

Earlier in the week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy urged the Senate to confirm dozens of judicial and executive branch nominations being held up by Republicans. Leahy noted that nine nominations for federal courts and several nominations for critical leadership positions in the Department of Justice await Senate confirmation. "This year we have witnessed unprecedented delays in the consideration of qualified and noncontroversial nominations," Leahy said in a statement. "We have had to waste weeks seeking time agreements in order to consider nominations that were confirmed unanimously. I hope that instead of withholding consent and threatening filibusters of President Obama's judicial nominees, Senate Republicans will treat the nominees of President Obama fairly." 

[image via Mac Ambo]

Read more »

Seven months ago, the United States issued a list of human rights commitments and pledges in support of U.S. candidacy for membership in the U.N. Human Rights Council. The decision to join the Human Rights Council was the right thing to do. It was as an important step in breaking with the Bush administration's unilateral and disastrous policies on human rights. While we welcomed this move, we noted that the Obama administration had "missed an opportunity to detail exactly how it will reaffirm its commitment to ending human rights violations at home beyond vague rhetoric." We warned the Obama administration to "move beyond ambiguous commitments which are similar to the ones heard from the Bush administration over the past eight years."

There is no question that this administration is currently facing multiple and daunting challenges, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the safe closing of Guantánamo, the economic crisis and rising unemployment, health care, energy reform and much more. However, nearly a year after Obama's inauguration, the administration has yet to announce any major domestic human rights initiative, outline a detailed plan to honor and expand our existing human rights commitments and translate them into domestic policy, or incorporate them into the daily working of the U.S. government.

Read more »

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced yesterday that greenhouse gases are, in fact, harmful to human health and the environment. The EPA's ruling is the most direct government-backed pronouncement of the harmful effects of greenhouse gases. The EPA released the findings as part of a study ordered by the Supreme Court in 2007. At the time, the high court ruled that despite objections by the EPA it did have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases pursuant to the Clean Air Act. The EPA's findings announced this week clear the way for it to develop and implement regulations that will curb greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

The EPA's announcement stirred familiar debate on the matter. The National Association of Manufactures again claimed that combating pollutants will harm business production, claiming that new regulations would "come at a huge cost to the economy."

Many climate change experts, however, lauded the EPA's findings as reflective of the Obama administration's commitment to addressing greenhouse gas emissions and clean energy. "'The stage is now set for E.P.A. to hold the biggest global-warming polluters accountable," said Emily Figdor, federal global-warming program director for Environment America. The EPA's report coincides with the start of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, which began this week. It is expected President Obama will reference the findings at the conference as evidence that the U.S. is taking the lead in addressing climate change. 

[image via James Durkee]

Read more »

On Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Scott Horton examined the report released by Seton Hall University on three "suicides" of Guantanamo detainees in 2006.

"The task that the Seton Hall authors took upon themselves was to review the work that was done by the military investigators, not to do their own investigation," said Horton. "And I think they demonstrate conclusively that the military investigation was profoundly flawed, that it rushed to judgments that really weren't supported by the evidence."

"We need a new, serious investigation," Horton concluded.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read more »

The effort to improve diversity in college football coaching seems to be getting a slight boost, USA Today reports. The newspaper notes that with Virginia's hiring of Mike London, there are now 12 minority head coaches in the "120-school Football Bowl Subdivision." But the report notes that while the new number is a record, it "is low in a sport in which nearly two-thirds of all players are minorities."

In a 2008 Issue Brief, published by ACS, Washington, D.C. attorney Douglas C. Proxmire examined the NFL's Rooney Rule, which requires pro-teams with head-coaching vacancies to interview one or more minority candidates, and concluded that it should be expanded to other sporting arenas, such as college football.

Proxmire wrote, "NCAA Division I college football would appear to be the next logical arena for adoption of the Rooney Rule, as some measure is desperately needed to address the woeful disparity between minority head coaches and minority Division IA football players." Proxmire noted in his Issue Brief, "The Rooney Rule, Its Application and Ideas for Expansion," that while the NCAA "has resisted taking the formal step of implementing the Rooney Rule, the NCAA Division I Athletic Director's Association has made a commitment to interview at least one minority candidate when an NCAA Division I football head coaching position opens."

Tony Dungy, former coach of the Indianapolis Colts, who is encouraging the NCAA to diversifying its coaching ranks, told USA Today that the new hires were a hopeful signal, but that he was waiting to see what happens at BCS schools because "that's the place we have to look, because that's where you have a chance to win a national championship."

Read more »

Legal aid services for the economically hard hit continue to be woefully underfunded as the desire and need for them rise. Mary Pat Flaherty of The Washington Post focuses on the D.C. region, noting that in Maryland, the Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals has "urged lawyers to donate time or money to preserve the programs." The programs receive a lion's share of funding from interest on funds that law firms hold in escrow for clients. But with markedly low-interest rates, The Post reports, legal services have suffered.

The Post writes:

At the very time that more newly poor need help with the likes of mortgages, rent disputes and battles over wages, clinics across the country that help with noncriminal cases are enduring sharp funding drops.

The newspaper notes that nationally "interest on lawyers' trust accounts has fallen from $371 million in 2007 to a projected $93 million this year."

At an event hosted earlier this year by ACS, the Center for American Progress and the Washington Council of Lawyers, experts explored the Great Recession's impact on the availability of legal aid services. Click on picture to watch the discussion. 

Read more »