Poor Mojo's Newswire

Gerth wrote a story that hilariously reports that Paul is a member of a lunatic organization called the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. The AAPS is a group that was founded as a sort of alternative to the AMA, a group that many conservative doctors dislike. Rand Paul's mouthpiece, Jesse Benton, claims Rand's interest in the organization is limited to its opposition to non-market-based initiatives and to abortion. “Dr. Paul is member of AAPS because they believe that any health care reform should be market-oriented and embrace more freedom, not more government," Benton says. But the AAPS has some bizarre official positions, including: 1) It has expressed doubt that HIV is the cause of AIDS; it published an article in 2007 that asserted “both official reports and the peer-reviewed literature afford substantive grounds for doubting that HIV is the necessary and sufficient cause of AIDS and that anti-retroviral treatment is unambiguously beneficial.” 2) It has asserted that Barack Obama used hypnosis to attract support in his 2008 campaign. It published an article entitled, "Is Barack Obama a brilliant orator... or hypnotist?" From Gerth's article: The paper claims to examine Obama’s speeches “word by word, hand gesture by hand gesture, tone, pauses, body language, and proves his use of covert hypnosis intended only for licensed therapists on consenting patients.” The paper goes on to say that Obama’s “mesmerized, cult-like, grade-school-crush-like worship by millions is not because ‘Obama is the greatest leader of a generation’ who simply hasn’t accomplished anything, who magically ‘inspires’ by giving speeches. Obama is committing perhaps the biggest fraud and deception in American history.” . . .

At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration last late night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets": in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate its legality. . . .