Supreme Court rules that detainees have habeus rights

Despite trying his best to stack the court (both of Bush’s appointees voted against this ruling), the Supreme Court still rules in favor of an obvious reading of the Constitution (albiet 5-4):

In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.

Justice Kennedy was the swing vote in this case.  It probably would have been 6-3 had O’Conner still been on the court.

I didn’t see any vote to strip habeus from the bill in 2005, but in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, both Clinton and Obama voted to strip stripping habeus from that bill.  McCain voted to keep it in.  Also, McCain would continue to appoint members to the Supreme Court which would have ruled the other way.  Remember, one more justice and this goes the other way.  Clinton hold outs who want to vote for McCain should think about that.

Facts? What Facts?

I find it humerous how some blogs keep saying that Obama is utterly unelectable in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, even though Obama hasn’t trailed in Pennsylvania since the start of May and is effectively in a dead heat with McCain in Ohio.  And they definitely can’t claim that those states being close is a sign of unelectability since those states were close in 2004 and 2000.  And yes, Gore and Kerry both won Pennsylvania.  Ohio may be a little tougher, but I find this hysterics about Pennsylvania quite humerous.

Update

There is also this:

Racial attitudes pose challenge for Obama

“I don’t think our country is ready for a black president,” Susick, who is white, said in an interview in the paint store where she works. “A black man is never going to win Pennsylvania.”

Now if we were in campaign mode you would see Axelrod, Plouffe or Jackson point out that the person making the comment was just a racist and therefore could be dismissed. But thankfully we aren’t in campaign mode and people like Susick are allowed to speak their mind without being labeled as something they are not.

Nope, someone who said they won’t vote for Obama because he’s black isn’t racist at all. If they said they thought Obama wasn’t experienced enough or was too liberal or whatever…OK fine, I might not agree with it, but it’s their opinion and it’s at least a legitimate reason not to vote for someone. But because he’s black? Sorry, doesn’t fly.

Nothing Racist about this either

Nope, race won’t be played up at all.

Update:

I should also note that it is sexist as well.

NBC/WSJ Poll: Obama by 6, 47%-41%

And McCain barely over 40%.  This is a three point jump from the last poll and puts Obama’s lead at the very fringes of the margin of error (+/- 3%, which can be applied to both numbers).  Obama leads among Hispanics 62-28, women 52-33, and independents 41-36.  Only 19% of Clinton supporters say they would vote for McCain.  While only 61% said they would vote for Obama, that still leaves 20% undecided but at least open to either voting for Obama or whom at least won’t vote for McCain right now.

The only places McCain leads are among men 55-35 and “white suburban women” (talk about drilling down to find a statistic that helps McCain) 44-38.

(They try to play up the importance of this group by saying that it’s 10% of the electorate.  Well, there are a lot of groups that could make up 10%.  And given that no candidate is going to win this block as a whole, we’re talking about 5 to 10% of 10% of the voters.  A.k.a., a grand total of 1/2% to 1% of all voters.  In an extremely close election such as the last two, that might matter.  It doesn’t matter quite as much in a poll where someone leads by 6%.)

This poll seems to confirm Rasmussen’s poll showing Obama ahead by 8% on Sunday through Tuesday and by 5% Wednesday and Gallup’s poll which has Obama up 48%-41%.

Granted, this lead may not hold due to the “nomination bounce,” but I still had to laugh at the anchor on my morning local news this morning who said it was “only” a 6% lead, given that Bush never won an election by that much (heck, he only one the popular vote in one of this two elections) and rarely did either candidate in 2004 get a lead that big.

In some more good news for Obama, a new Rasmussen poll puts him up slightly in Michigan.  That puts him over 300 electoral votes on the electoral-vote.com map.  While not the best projection since it typically uses only the most recent poll and not a collection of polls, it is still useful.

For now I’ll still do my projections weekly, just because there aren’t enough polls to make it worth doing more than that, but I wonder how this nomination bounce will be reflected in state-by-state results.