IS SOUTH CAROLINA IN PLAY?

Corporate shill Graham gets a populist opponent

I wish South Carolina Democrats had picked someone with strong progressive values as the candidate to run against McCain's in-state Mini-Me, hypocritical Republican closet queen Lindsey Graham-- the man with the stained blue dress. But they didn't. They chose a conservative Republican who, like so many mainstream conservatives, was sickened by the Bush Regime's radical excesses and switched parties. Bob Conley, the Democratic nominee, is campaigning as a populist, attacking Graham for his corporatist, even fascist agenda. Example: Conley is a xenophobe and is making a big deal about Graham carrying water for his corporate contributors and supporting massive immigration that supplies cheap labor and weakens unions. Conley's website lays out his Lou Dobbsian position:

Corporate greed is robbing us of our jobs and driving our down our wages. Bob Conley supports secure borders. Corporations that fuel the immigration fire must pay the price. Greedy corporations and unscrupulous businessmen profit, while our working families and taxpayers foot the bill for services for illegals. This is corporate welfare, and it must end.

The legal importation of foreign workers is also driving down wages, and placing Americans in unemployment lines. This is wrong, and must end. Policy needs to change and should be based on what is good for our workers, our families, and our communities-- not the bottom lines of corporations and their lobbyists’ demands!

Overall, Conley seems more like a Ron Paul Libertarian than a real Democrat; in fact he boasts that he voted for Ron Paul for president! Perhaps he can attract South Carolina Republicans. I hope he gives McCain's Mini-Me a tough time. Take a look at this video from right-wing Republican who hates Graham and just discovered Conley:



Aside from pulling his head out of John McCain's ass to shop for cute little Iraqi rugs from time to time, Graham hasn't accomplished much since becoming a senator. He's neither well-liked nor trusted in his own state-- and it goes way beyond the widespread suspicion that he's "light in the loafers." Bush and McCain have been seething over the Supreme Court decision this week which re-affirms habeas corpus and chucks out Graham's disgraceful and unAmerican Military Commissions Act as unconstitutional. Graham is hysterical and threatening to try to amend the Constitution, something Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, isn't likely to go along with.

A dejected Sen. Lindsey Graham blasted the Supreme Court's ruling Thursday on Guantanamo Bay detainees, calling it "dangerous and irresponsible."

The South Carolina Republican, who's also a military lawyer and a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, helped craft the Military Commissions Act and had confidently predicted that it would pass high court muster.

The Supreme Court repudiated Graham in a 5-4 decision, ruling that the 270 alleged terrorists being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba have a constitutional right to challenge their detentions in federal courts.

"The court's ruling makes clear the legal rights given to al Qaida members today should exceed those provided to the Nazis during World War II," Graham said. "Our nation is at war. It's truly unfortunate the Supreme Court did not recognize and appreciate that fact."

The high court's decision was its third ruling in four years against the special powers that President Bush has claimed the executive branch has to detain and try suspected terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

With Graham in the lead, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act in September 2006 after an earlier Supreme Court ruling that the Bush administration couldn't set up a new system for prosecuting alleged terrorists without congressional approval.

The fresh Supreme Court decision is a major blow for Graham politically, eviscerating a law that he recently cited as one of the three achievements of his first Senate term that he was most proud of.

"To the extent that Lindsey Graham wanted to get the federal courts out of the process (of prosecuting detainees) altogether, this ruling is an absolute loss for him, and it's one that Congress can't go back around," said Thomas Crocker, a University of South Carolina law professor.

Graham said he'd explore the possibility of drafting a constitutional amendment "to blunt the effect of this decision."

Any constitutional amendment would be unlikely to move in Congress during the waning months of a lame-duck presidency, however, and at the height of a campaign for the White House.

Graham's talk of a constitutional amendment indicated how little room the Supreme Court has left him, Sen. John McCain-- the presumptive Republican presidential nominee-- and Bush in their long-standing effort to create a separate trial system outside the federal courts for alleged terrorists.