The Justice Department will seek a short-term emergency stay to the bar on the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a puzzling twist to a court case that appeared to end the policy outright.

After the Ninth Circuit lifted the stay on a circuit court ruling that labeled the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy unconstitutional and banned enforcement, the military officially suspended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to comply with the ruling. So regardless of the vote in Congress, the Pentagon study, the long lead time for implementation, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is officially dead.

How many times have we faced this stage already? How many times over could we have prosecuted KSM already if we had just used existing, rather than Kangaroo, courts? How many more years will it take to determine whether KSM can plead guilty so as to martyr himself?

Senior Administration officials praised Panetta’s ability in running large agencies and managing large budgets, but there wasn’t any hint that he would somehow become this obsessive budget-cutter at Defense. I would ask the question: just how much did the CIA budget decrease over the past couple years?

In a series of national security moves, the White House will nominate Leon Panetta to become the first Democratic Secretary of Defense since William Perry in 1996. Panetta will replace Robert Gates at the Pentagon. Current Afghan war commander David Petraeus will replace Panetta at the CIA. And Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who was ambassador to Iraq under President Bush, would move to Afghanistan to become the Ambassador there, replacing Karl Eikenberry. Crocker has also served as Ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is one of the most experienced diplomats in the foreign service. Marine Lt. Gen. John Allen would replace Petraeus as the commander of the war effort in Afghanistan.

Hey, remember that Libyan war? Third simultaneous conflict? I know, spending on wars has nothing to do with the budget, so it’s been removed from the discussion lately. Anyway, NATO’s in charge now, and the US bugged out. They’re not even running bombing missions anymore! Except, as friend to FDL Spencer Ackerman points out, they are.

I’m willing to accept that mechanical failure was to blame. I’m no longer willing to accept the pleadings of those who want to defend this action that it’s not technically a war. This may have happened in a training exercise in the same place over the Mediterranean, but we know that it happens during a war.

You know how I have argued that our country does have an industrial plan, one that is commonly called the Military-Industrial Complex? The government dumps seemingly unlimited amount of money into selected projects. Defense companies make sure to spread the jobs created by defense contracts around, so members of Congress support those contracts in bipartisan fashion. And then we export things like jets–one of the few things we export anymore.

Only, if we allow defense contractors to use prison labor, then the whole scheme sort of breaks down.

I don’t agree with Johnson basically at all in his way-too-generous interpretation of King’s words to justify war. I think they’re more tied up in Johnson’s current profession and audience for that speech than anything else. But read the full remarks and judge for yourself.

I chuckled to myself when I read Steven Aftergood’s post on our efforts to instill rule of law in Afghanistan. Not that I don’t support the goal, mind you. But I question whether the United States is in a position anymore to be teaching others about rule of law.