Please Pay Attention

While our media has been lapping up the Tea Bag freak show and sniffing Sarah Palin’s skirt, a rather nasty bill has been filed in the Senate. And folks, you just know it’s got to be bad when you see the co-sponors are John McCain and Joe Lieberman. It’s called (cue “Psycho” strings) the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010. So far the only folks I see talking about this are lefty-socialist-types like Glenn Greenwald and the Marxists at AlterNet, who warn the bill’s passage would

set this country on a course to become a military dictatorship.

Among the bill’s more troublesome passages:

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

Basically what this means is that Congress would be giving the President the power to indefinitely detain anyone declared an “enemy belligerent,” anyone at all, without a trial, in a military prison. Even a U.S. citizen.

This is the kind of Constitution-shredding, civil liberties abolishing, tyrannical legislation you’d think would have the Tea People screaming at the top of their lungs and Sarah rethinking her support for its sponsor, John McCain. That it has slid by unnoticed with the largest screamers on the national stage right now is perhaps more troubling than the bill itself, which let’s hope dies a quick death.

Pay attention, people. Yes, I’m talking to you idiots in the tri-cornered hats yammering about crap of which you have no clue. Giving citizens access to a private, for profit health insurance market is not fascism, tyranny, or totalitarianism. Declaring U.S. citizens “enemy belligerents” and detaining them in military prisons indefinitely without trial is.

If there is anyone sensible in the Tea Bag movement they will step away from their crazy compatriots and work to grind this heinous piece of legislation into the dust. And then let’s work to get its sponsors, one John McCain Republican of Arizona and one Joseph Lieberman Independent of Connecticut, out of the U.S. Senate so they can’t do any more damage.

The Jokes Just Write Themselves

Via Attaturk comes word that John McCain’s Straight Talk Express crashed into a van on a Miami street. The van, a Ford Windstar, has since been dubbed the “Reality Express.”

McCain was not on board, though Sen. Joe Lieberman was. No one was injured in either vehicle.

You can check out the damage for yourself here.

Joe Lieberman: Wanker of the Weekend

Instead of “complaining” about the McCain campaign’s Britney Spears/Paris Hilton advertisement, campaign surrogate Joe Lieberman says we should

"relax and enjoy it.”

Yes he really said that.

A politician with an ounce of sensitivity would know what “relax and enjoy it” means to women. The McCain campaign seems to have a deficit of that.

Can’t say I’m surprised.

Dems To Lieberman: Ta Ta

Jane Hamsher reports:

Lieberman Has “Superdelegate” Status Stripped Because of McCain Endorsement

By: Jane Hamsher Wednesday February 6, 2008 6:00 pm

Thanks to Zell Miller, there is a rule to deal with Joe Lieberman:

Lieberman's endorsement of Republican John McCain disqualifies him as a super-delegate to the Democratic National Convention under what is informally known as the Zell Miller rule, according to Democratic State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo.

Miller, then a Democratic senator from Georgia, not only endorsed Republican George Bush four years ago, but he delivered a vitriolic attack on Democrat John Kerry at the Republican National Convention.

The Democrats responded with a rule disqualifying any Democrat who crosses the aisle from being a super delegate. Lieberman will not be replaced, DiNardo said.

Couldn't happen to a nicer turncoat!

Loserman

[UPDATE]:
This explains a lot:

NOVOTNY: Well, it is unusual, as you know, for a Democrat or an independent Democrat, as you call yourself, to endorse a Republican. Did you consider any of your Democratic colleagues?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I did. I mean, to have full disclosure, not one of the Democrats asked for my support, which may be a story in itself. John McCain and I are friends. He did ask for my support.

No, and we don’t want Zell Miller’s endorsement either.Suck on your irrelevance to the Democratic Party, Joe.

I can’t believe I voted for this guy:

Democratic and Republican sources say that Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut and fierce supporter of the war in Iraq, will formally endorse Sen. John McCain tomorrow in New Hampshire.

A McCain spokesperson declined to comment.

A source familiar with the endorsement said that the two will appear of NBC's Today Show tomorrow morning and at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire.

OK, I really voted for Al Gore, and that I’ll never regret -- Hey, I’d do it again in a heartbeat (hint hint). It just so happens Joe Lieberman was on the ticket.

And I can’t for the life of me understand why he still insists on calling himself a Democrat when he clearly left the party somewhere around February 2005.

(h/t, Atrios.)