Recently the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to challenge their detentions in federal court. Naturally, this provokes the Chicken Little response from the White House. Dana Perino warns the ruling means that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be able to roam the streets of Baltimore, or Fort Lauderdale, or wherever he pleases! Well, the only way this happens is if the United States government has been unable to compile any evidence whatsoever that he is a threat to the public or that he has committed acts of war against the United States. And if no such evidence exists, why should he be held in a military prison?

The truth, as detailed in the above AP article, is much more nuanced. Yes, the ruling may expedite the release of prisoners who are actually not terrorists, but cases of mistaken identity or simply unlucky Muslims civilians. But KSM would almost certainly still be confined to Guantanamo. And those who have been released would not necessarily be placed on US soil. In fact, the Supreme Court has not indicated where these detainees would be released, nor has any other federal court.

This is one of many examples where the so-called "liberal" justices are actually giving deference to the executive branch and yet still upholding the rule of law. They are ensuring that Guantanamo detainees are afforded proper legal protection, yet still giving the executive branch almost complete control over their fates. This is not judicial activism in the slightest. It is the last line of defense against a secretive and stubborn administration who just likes to do things their own way.

My Congressman, Barney Frank, is a bit of a paradox to some. He holds very liberal positions on some issues, such as same-sex marriage and legalization of marijuana. But as chairman of the (very busy) House Committee on Financial Services, he gets a chance to show off his best trait, other than his sense of humor: his ability to forge compromises. Republican Dana Rohrabacher, a memeber of the panel, claimed he gets better treatment from Rep. Frank than from his own leadership!

Barack Obama on the surface is a liberal, too. In fact, the National Journal rated him the most liberal senator in 2007, whatever that means. (Translating "liberalness" into numbers is an inexact science). And so the Republicans ridicule him as a liberal extremist. Yet Obama is a dealmaker, too, and for a long time I've compared him to Barney Frank in that regard.

An example comes to mind: Frank's approach was to start with an idea for a bill that pleased the liberal base and liberal interest groups, such as a bill that would end job discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people (LGBT). Frank soon sensed, however, that he did not have enough votes to pass the bill with the existing language. So, he looked for changes he could make that would bring more moderate-to-conservative Democrats and a few Republicans get on board so that he could secure its passage. As a result, he decided to drop the provision that protected transgendered people and sure enough, Frank won a majority of votes and the bill was passed. (Unfortunately, it was attached to a larger bill that the president later vetoed.) Some gay and transgender rights groups were up in arms at the change, but Frank demonstrated that one can't just wish a good bill through Congress; sacrifices must be made.

Obama encountered a similar ordeal when he was in the Illinois state Senate. In 2002, Obama became chairman of the Health and Human Services committee. He used this perch to push forth a bill that would cover 150,000 Illinois residents with health insurance. However, this bill also took a tricky road. In order to persuade moderates to join the cause, he met with insurance lobbyists and even acceded to two requests of theirs (a move criticized by Obama's base). Yet the bill passed and became law, and today even Obama's liberal supporters admit that the concessions he granted to the lobbyists had little impact down the road.

When Barack Obama talks about uniting people to achieve success, it's not just hot air; he's done it before. Even liberals like Barney Frank and Ted Kennedy earn respect from conservative colleagues by including them in the process and working for results.

John McCain has recently rolled out his solution to skyrocketing gas prices: eliminating the federal gas tax for three months. Even though I don’t currently drive I realize that these gas prices are hurting millions of low and middle-income families. They have my sympathy, but halting federal gas taxes is not the solution—this is classic Republican tax ignorance. Republicans insist on lowering taxes but refuse to put something to offset the tax decrease. John McCain’s idea for the struggling American economy is to make the Bush tax cuts to the rich permanent, eliminate the federal gas tax, and continue the most expensive war in history for the next 100 years. Gas taxes are used to pay to repair and build new roads, and if a president takes away the funds used to repair roads by the excise tax on gas then he must replace it with something else. McCain’s advice is to take away the funds for America’s crumbling infrastructure, when America should be using civil engineering projects that build and repair infrastructure as a way to get out of this recession. Even worse, while McCain calls his tax pause “temporary,” everybody knows once a tax break is made it is nearly impossible to put the tax back in place. So when Democrats tried to reinstall McCain’s temporary tax break he would call them high taxing liberals. It seems as if McCain’s economic advice is almost as bad as his defense advice. 

April 23rd looks a lot like April 21st. The show might as well be over. Hillary is only in an even worse position to win the nomination now. A 55%-45% result is a loss for her. She needs to utterly crush Obama the rest of the way if she wants the nomination. And it's just not going to happen. But let's test how likely her chances are, again using CNN.com's indispensible delegate calculator. Let us first give Hillary a ridiculous start in her favor -- we shall split the superdelegates down the middle between her and Obama. (This is ridiculous because between February 5th and April 7th, Barack Obama gained 69 superdelegates and Clinton lost two. The trend has not reversed in recent weeks. But we will press on anyway.)

Even under this scenario, Hillary would need to win 76% of the remaining pledged delegates. This is a remarkably tall task given that she has taken 76% of the delegates in a sum total of one contest -- the primary in Arkansas, a state where she served as First Lady for 12 years and in which Obama did not bother to campaign.

This situation gets even more desperate for Hillary when we factor in even a modest 8-point victory for Obama in North Carolina, to be held May 6th. (Current polling suggests a possibly higher margin, but we are airing on the side of caution.) With this setback, she would have to claim a staggering 89% of the other pledged delegates.

Even a fantastically poor showing by Obama in Indiana that same day, something unrealistically low like 38%, would still mean Hillary would have to capture 97% (!!!) of the remaining delegates from the following states/territories: Guam, West Virginia, Kentucky, Montana, South Dakota, and Puerto Rico. Some of these states have caucuses, and Obama has beaten Hillary in caucuses 13 to 3.

In other words, she cannot win. The math is simply not there. Even seating the Florida and Michigan delegations will do little to help her. She has lost. It is time to move on and start attacking John McCain already . . . or did you already forget that there was someone else running for president?

The removal of 416 from an alleged cult ranch in Eldorado, Texas has brought back memories of the Jim Jones debacle in 1978. Granted the group in Eldorado did not assassinate a Congressman, but many facts are similar. Texas Department of Public Safety officers allege charges of sexual abuse, child abuse, neglect, and endangerment. Another 139 women left the compound on their own accord after the raid. Investigators from the county, state, and Federal Bureau of Investigation are still compiling evidence and have launched a fugitive recovery search for one of the abusers.

In 1972, Jim Jones opened two churches in California, but accrued a series of criminal and civil charges against his organization. Fearing constant pressure from authorities, Jones moved his group to Guyana in 1974. For four years, his group lived in secrecy until a visit from California Congressman Leo Ryan. After four years of abuse, colony members expressed to the Congressman their desire to leave the compound. Jones ordered the Congressman killed and then directed a mass murder suicide.

While the outcomes of the two cases are different, the facts of the each case point to the problems of child abuse, spousal abuse, and other criminal activities inside cults. In this alleged cult in Eldorado, it is safe to assume that women and children had few rights and a very limited ability to flee to the outside world. The best way to combat cultlike organizations is through education. Educating people to be respectful of themselves and others will allow many to prevent this type of behavior. Of course children have little choice in these situations, but steps can be taken to ensure their safety and protection such as random site visits by local authorities to their schools, similar to family services inspections of day cares and public and private schools.