Anthony Kennedy has made his decision; now let him enforce it! [2nd update]
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Anthony Kennedy has made his decision, now let him enforce it!
By Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report
Today's infamous 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court granting terrorists the right to an O.J. trial in U.S. civilian courts cries out for the present Chief Executive to so paraphrase Old Hickory's similar defiance of John Marshall 176 years ago with respect to removal of the Cherokee from Georgia.
"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."
The nation survived President Andrew Jackson's defense of his constitutional executive powers against the first Judicial Oligarch. Should President Bush succumb to Justice Kennedy's attempted coup to assume the role of Commander in Chief, it will be much harder for our nation to survive, much less thrive, as it has since 1832.
The ruling granting illegal enemy combatants held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba stands millenia of war law, America military history from George Washington forward, the Geneva Convention, and, common sense on their heads.
The people being held at Gitmo are illegal enemy combatants as opposed to legal POWs. The court waxes ad nauseum about the irrelevance of the fact that the base is not on America soil. I agree. We held hundreds of thousands of legal Japanese and German POWs in the Lower Forty-Eight during WWII, and none were allowed access to U.S. courts.
The court speaks of the length of the "open-ended" detentions. But no one knew in 1944 that WWII would not last as long as the Thirty Years War or the even longer Peloponnesian Wars in Europe in earlier centuries. Thucydides, the author of the acclaimed history of the latter was himself a prisoner of war for much longer than the first terrorist admitted to Gitmo.
Captured combatants are held until the end of the conflict so as to prevent them from returning to the battlefield (see New York, Afghanistan or Iraq). Additionally, they may be charged with war crimes and serve a prison term or be executed. Even in the latter case, such trials have always been held by military tribunals, beginning under General Washington in 1776.
General Washington also not infrequently applied the war law that has always allowed illegal enemy combatants operating among civilian populations to be shot on site or summarily executed.
One of the main purposes of the Geneva Conventions was to discourage operations among civilians by granting rights to legal POWs, specifically denying same to terrorists.
The fact is that when a nation wages war, the Commander in Chief gathers intel on and directs operations against the enemy. He does not ask a court's permission to target and kill particular combatants.
The Constitution was a compromise weighing rights of personal freedom and security between the police and the citizenry. Its application to enemies of the State is an abomination, and one that President Bush is duty bound to defy in order to uphold his Oath.
Supreme Court justices are not the only ones to take oaths to uphold the Constitution and they are not the final arbiters of same. We the People are.
President Bush, be one man with courage and you will make a majority. Lay down the gauntlet for the Dem Congress to impeach you so Osama bin Laden's chauffeur can be tried in front of Judge Ito like a former Avis commercial and Buffalo Bills star turned murderer.
I have no doubt they will blink on that, just as they have on owning defeat since the November 2006 election. They won Congress but haven't had the guts to de-fund the troops. Think they want people that would cut off their heads with machetes to be released by their liberal judges?
I don't. They refuse to own defeat. You must not surrender to five lawyers.
For complete majority and dissenting opinion texts go here.
Scalia said the nation is "at war with radical Islamists" and that the court's decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."
Heed Scalia's words President Bush and follow Andy Jackson's lead.
More later on other issues addressed in the Court's opinions. But the main issue at hand is not the dicta of would be General Kennedy. Rather, it is the resolve of one man, i.e. the guy we elected twice to defend us, which he has done magnificently since 911, no thanks to five lawyers in robes.
[update]
Below is the best explanation of why today's decision is anathema to the U.S. Constitution and common sense.
Testimony of The Honorable William P. Barr, Executive Vice President and General Counsel Verizon Corporation
June 15, 2005
excerpt:
In society today, we see a tendency to impose the judicial model on virtually every field of decision-making. The notion is that the propriety of any decision can be judged by determining whether it satisfies some objective standard of proof and that such a judgment must be made by a “neutral” arbiter based on an adversarial evidentiary hearing. What we are seeing today is an extreme manifestation of this - an effort to take the judicial rules and standard applicable in the domestic law enforcement context and extend them to the fighting of wars. In my view, nothing could be more farcical, or more dangerous.
These efforts flow from a fundamental error - confusion between two very distinct constitutional realms. In the domestic realm of law enforcement, the government’s role is disciplinary - sanctioning an errant member of society for transgressing the internal rules of the body politic. The Framers recognized that in the name of maintaining domestic tranquility an overzealous government could oppress the very body politic it is meant to protect. The government itself could become an oppressor of “the people.” Thus our Constitution makes the fundamental decision to sacrifice efficiency in the realm of law enforcement by guaranteeing that no punishment can be meted out in the absence of virtual certainty of individual guilt. Both the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights contain a number of specific constraints on the Executive’s law enforcement powers, many of which expressly provide for a judicial role as a neutral arbiter or “check” on executive power. In this realm, the Executive’s subjective judgments are irrelevant; it must gather and present objective evidence of guilt satisfying specific constitutional standards at each stage of a criminal proceeding. The underlying premise in this realm is that it is better for society to suffer the cost of the guilty going free than mistakenly to deprive an innocent person of life or liberty.
The situation is entirely different in armed conflict where the entire nation faces an external threat.
In armed conflict, the body politic is not using its domestic disciplinary powers to sanction an errant member, rather it is exercising its national defense powers to neutralize the external threat and preserve the very foundation of all our civil liberties. Here the Constitution is not concerned with handicapping the government to preserve other values. Rather it is designed to maximize the government’s efficiency to achieve victory - even at the cost of “collateral damage” that would be unacceptable in the domestic realm.
It seems to me that the kinds of military decisions at issue here - namely, what and who poses a threat to our military operations - are quintessentially Executive in nature. They are not amenable to the type of process we employ in the domestic law enforcement arena. They cannot be reduced to neat legal formulas, purely objective tests and evidentiary standards. They necessarily require the exercise of prudential judgment and the weighing of risks. This is one of the reasons why the Constitution vests ultimate military decision-making in the President as Commander- in-Chief. If the concept of Commander-in-Chief means anything, it must mean that the office holds the final authority to direct how, and against whom, military power is to be applied to achieve the military and political objectives of the campaign.
I am not speaking here of “deference” to Presidential decisions. In some contexts, courts are fond of saying that they “owe deference” to some Executive decisions. But this suggests that the court has the ultimate decision-making authority and is only giving weight to the judgment of the Executive. This is not a question of deference - the point here is that the ultimate substantive decision rests with the President and that courts have no authority to substitute their judgments for that of the President.
The Constitution’s grant of “Commander-in-Chief” power must, at its core, mean the plenary authority to direct military force against persons the Commander judges as a threat to the safety of our forces, the safety of our homeland, or the ultimate military and political objectives of the conflict. At the heart of these kinds of military decisions is the judgment of what constitutes a threat or potential threat and what level of coercive force should be employed to deal with these dangers. These decisions cannot be reduced to tidy evidentiary standards, some predicate threshold, that must be satisfied as a condition of the President ordering the use of military force against a particular individual. What would that standard be? Reasonable suspicion, probable cause, substantial evidence, preponderance of the evidence, or beyond a reasonable doubt? Does anyone really believe that the Constitution prohibits the President from using coercive military force against a foreign person - detaining him - unless he can satisfy a particular objective standard of evidentiary proof?
Read it all here.
[second update]
In establishing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, President Bush relied on a Supreme Court precedent of more than a half century's standing, Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), which held that nonresident alien enemy combatants had no right to habeas corpus. As Scalia explains:
Had the law been otherwise, the military surely would not have transported prisoners [to Guantanamo], but would have kept them in Afghanistan, transferred them to another of our foreign military bases, or turned them over to allies for detention. Those other facilities might well have been worse for the detainees themselves.
This points to a key limitation in today's ruling. The majority distinguished Guantanamo from the facility at issue in Eisentrager--a U.S.-administered prison in occupied Germany--on the ground that although the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is technically on Cuban territory, America exercises "complete jurisdiction and control" over it. Thus, detainees have constitutional rights pursuant to today's ruling only if they are held at Guantanamo.
What does Boumediene mean in practice? Almost all Guantanamo detainees already have lawyers and have petitioned for habeas corpus. Those cases will go forward in the Washington, D.C., federal trial court. The judges there will have to settle on a standard of proof, and to rule on such tricky questions as how much classified material the government is obliged to provide to terrorists and their lawyers. Since the military's existing procedures are already overly lenient--Scalia lists several cases of released detainees showing up on the battlefield--it seems unlikely that many detainees will end up winning release.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain have said they want to close down Guantanamo, and this ruling makes that outcome more likely. There is little advantage to the U.S. in sending enemy combatants to a facility where they will immediately be able to lawyer up, and indeed, Guantanamo has admitted few new detainees in the past several years. A notable exception occurred in 2006, when President Bush transferred Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and a dozen or so other "high value" detainees there--a dramatic action that helped galvanize Congress to pass the Detainee Treatment Act This turns out to have been a mistake. KSM & Co. now have "constitutional rights." Had they been kept where they were, wherever that was, this would not be the case.
It's possible that Scalia is wrong when he predicts more Americans will die as a result of this ruling. It may be that al Qaeda is a weak enough enemy that America can vanquish it even with the Supreme Court tying one hand behind our back. Anyway, keeping future detainees away from Guantanamo should prevent them from coming within the reach of the justices' pettifogging.
Perhaps decades from now we will learn that detainees ended up being abused in some far-off place because the government closed Guantanamo in response to judicial meddling. Even those who support what the court did today may live to regret it.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report
Race 4 2008
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
[In addition to his corporate work in Atlanta, from 2001-2006, he was the Legal Editor and “conservative voice” of The Champion (Decatur, GA) newspaper, (legal organ for DeKalb County in Metro-Atlanta), where he was the one of first columnists in the nation, soon after September 11, 2001, to comment on the likelihood that captured terrorists in Afghanistan would be deemed to be illegal enemy combatants not entitled to Prisoner of War status under the laws of war.]
I'm just practically SPEECHLESS at the audacity, the hubris, the outright rejection of Constitutional authority on display by the Supreme Court.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
reject this power grab. Until now, he has been able to work out alternatives that were minor intrusions (seeillegal combtent status reviews) with Congress. But Bush and Cheney have been serious about the business of restoring executive power after the Clinton years.
Moreover, Bush may try and find a way to avoid the application of the law thru transfers.
I would prefer that they all be summarily tried and executed or
transferreed to Egypt!
same thing
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...everyone involved would find themselves facing one of Obama's trials for war criminals.
John
----------
Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.
The illegal enemy combatants are currently not allowed into the US, and I can see a massive civil disobedience protest rally if these illegal combatants try to leave an airplane or ship to enter the USA. If we make it extremely difficult for them to enter the country I do not see how they are going to appear in a US court.
Your post about Andrew Jackson and the powder keg he was trying to avoid going off between Georgia settlers and native Americans is a very similar situation. We are not talking about US citizens, and we are not talking about legal POWs. These illegal enemy combatants have absolutely no right to enter the USA and much less rights to access a US court.
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business … frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise.Ronald Reagan
executive branch acquiesence. Think Little Rock.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
McCain, and he won't do anything McCain doesn't want him to do...and guess what McCain's position is on this?!
We're so screwed
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
seems to be leaning toward a new revolution.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business … frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise.Ronald Reagan
of Commander in Chief powers today. I am a loyal patriot to the President We the people re-elected in 2004.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
So they stripped the POTUS of some of his powers...why is this any worse than their absurd opinion on CFR which turned the first amendment 180 degrees from it's original meaning...and Kelo which dumped a steaming pile of crap on the 4th amendment, (or is it fifth?)right to property?
I mean...by all means raise hell and fight this tooth and nail...but it's a little late if you ask me.
:>(
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
If we have never agreed on anything, we agree that the SCOTUS has gone way too far this time. If there is any justic in this universe, there is a special deep-dark pit for Anthony Kennedy in Hell!
Highly recommended!
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I mean I totally agree with what you wrote in the diary and I also understand Gator's angst, but some things should just be left unsaid.
If we were talking about the terrorists then I would paraphrase Samuel Jackson..."Yes I hope they die...and I hope they burn in hell". But we aren't talking about terrorists we are talking about a SCOTUS appointee who we disagree with. Hoping for a spot in hell that especially bad seems a bit much. Shouldn't we be keeping it a little more highbrow than that. Maybe I am wrong but I think his comment went a bit far for my taste, but to each their own I guess.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
Bigger men than me have wished other people to either burn or rot in Hell. I'm not the first, and I won't be the last...
Sorry but them's the rules...just trying to be consistent.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Neither he nor I wish same on any man.
But like Bill Graham said long ago, Florence Nightingale and Hitler can't go to the same place (absent a bunker-bed conversion).
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I got the Dante ref gamecock...but I still don't think what was said needed to be said...I hold many principles in my heart and believe in the cosmic justice that you speak of but I don't need to let my feelings dictate my speech...we have an awful lot of lurkers here on this site as you well know...this is not a private conversation and we should understand that and represent accordingly. But you have been here much longer than I so if you are saying it's all square than so be it.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
Aaron, it wouldn't matter if we only spoke like The Pope. The left hates him too and twists his words to make him evil incarnate.
But I see your point and I'm glad you made it.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
of their oaths aid and abet killers, whether they be abortionists or terrorists.
Repent Anthony and sin no more!
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Like I said I understand your anger and I concur, but some things are best left unsaid...especially if you don't even believe the place exists...that's all...maybe I misunderstood.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
You have been constantly flipping out over an upside down elephant logo in someone's sig line as it was over the top in your eyes, but you wish a Supreme Court Justice "burn in hell" and it is perfectly acceptable to you...
I'll go shut up and get back in line now.
I am sick to my stomach today over this. This ruling- if obeyed- plants us squarely on the slippery slope to sacrificing American lives in the name of treating those who hate us as "fairly" as possible.
Some have said elsewhere that this is not a big deal because "no one is actually going to be released because of this."
But it is a big step down the slipperly slope to requiring Marines to read Miranda rights and CIA operatives hands to be tied by arrest warrrant and probable cause requirements.
I'm also thoroughly disgusted by the opportunity this ruling gives libs to proudly crow about the criminal Bush Administration and their illegal war.
Disgusting all around (except for your blog GC).
require Bush to submit bombing plans? After all if we can't hold them without an OJ trial, surely we need warrants to kill?
absurd
thanks for the kind words SD
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Hey...does this mean that if we capture UBL our troops will have
to read him his Meranda rights? Of course, then they won't be able to search and clear his hide out until they obtain a warrant? and if they see a terrorist running away from them...they won't be able to pursue and detain them without probable cause?
This could get so sticky for our troops it'd be impossible to prosecute a war ever again!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
I replied to your post without reading the whole thing...then I look up and realize you already addressed everything I put in my reply!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
"...for our troops it'd be impossible to prosecute a war ever again!"
Liberal Goal # 2 accomplished.
John
----------
Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.
and be glad that I am not, as I don't have half the leadership those young men and women display every day...
there is a simple solution to the habeas corpus conundrum.
No corpus, no habeas.
Since it is perfectly legal and accepted that I and my men can KILL the terrorists on the battlefield, and apparently, if I capture the same bad guys and turn 'em over to be imprisoned and kept off the battlefield, they can petition for habeas corpus...
I'll just shoot every single bad guy we find.
No corpus, no habeas.
Of course, this is VERY BAD, as it makes every enemy combatant fight to the death, which means more deaths for our guys... but it is one solution.
-TS
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan
... for the most part the really bad guys are probably already fighting to the death so ... The top guys (e.g. KSM) are basically cowards anyway so they are generally not going to be facing US troops. In any combat situation there comes a point where the other guy is down and the killing stops. I'd hate to seeour folks step over the line. And you can bet your lastdime that the lefties, and especially a President Obama and company, would like nothing better than to haul a bunch of American soldiers up on war crimes charges.
John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.
Sorry old man but you, and all of us, lose. Compassionate Conservatism lives on ...
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D918M7T00&show_article=1
ROME (AP) - President Bush has made clear he does not agree with a Supreme Court decision allowing foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
But the president says, "We'll abide by the court's decision. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it."
John
----------
Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.
will seek legislation to respond. So let's wait and see before we read too much into Bush's general compliance statement.
But it looks bad.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
stay tuned
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
and he'll be boiled before he even knows he's being cooked!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
Is a cheap and laughable power grab by the only un-elected, unaccountable branch of government.
They have felt free to toss aside conventions, law, common law, predecent, common sense, in favor of an obvious thumb in the eye of a President they dislike.
There is not one shred of law or civil rights supporting this bizarre ruling.
These five justices have sewn the wind. I hope they live long enough to not only reap the whirlwind they deserve, but to see this piece of injsutice they have inflictedon the American spit out as a precedent, and replaced by real law.
Let's just stop the elections for 2008, send the congress and Senate home tell the truth that we're no longer represented by our government but ruled over by judges...and let the SCOTUS have it all!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
ohhh...and what happened to the concern over Stare Decisis, (I have no idea how to spell this) that Specter and Shumer clucked and cackled about during the Robert's and Alito hearings?
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
law they continue to treat Constituition as a "living breathing" document....they are choking me to death!
Freedom of Religion NOT Freedom from Religion
I agree Leon...especially when it only applies when it's convenient in order to protect your own gilded lilly
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
John
----------
Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.
This is a bad decision, both for the incident case and for the precedent it sets. The Constitutional limits on the Court's appellate powers are clear enough. The Court's opinion that they don't apply to it are also clear.
It's time to reign them in -- the easy way, or the hard way.
--
Gone 2500 years, still not PC.
It's nothing new. The "gay marriage" decisions have even been worse. I have wondered why the states have just not ignored these decisions. But I agree here is the perfect decision for President Bush to say "No".
But to ask a Republican to have such courage is asking too much, I'm afraid. He will do no such thing.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
song: Fame or Fortune?
GC wants only fortune.
thanks my clothes challenged friend
(actually I loved those suits Spike and Denzel wore in malcolm)
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I think this thread is another example of why modern Republicans are not conservatives. Habeas corpus is an 900-year old part of our anglo-american system of government, and it is judges, not the executive, who decide the scope of the protection.
You guys with your fantasies of your president, the most hated in modern American history, lawlessly defying the Supreme Court would be scary if you existed in greater numbers.
Habeas corpus is an 900-year old part of our anglo-american system of government, and it is judges, not the executive, who decide the scope of the protection.
That might be true for those within the realm of authority for the courts.
Enemy Combatants, especially those not in uniform, are not under the authority of the United States Courts. They are under the authority of the Military's Courts instead.
That's precident.
Allowing our enemy, or any noncitizen captured in another country for trying to kill us, to be given the rights of a US Citizen is a dangerous place to go.
You guys with your fantasies of your president, the most hated in modern American history, lawlessly defying the Supreme Court would be scary if you existed in greater numbers.
Awww.... condeming the President's low approval rating of 23%.... how cute.... What is the Approval Rating of Congress? oh yeah... 11%. Should we REALLY compare the Republican President's approval rating with that of the DEMOCRAT Congress?
----------------------
Dependence is Slavery.
Yes, Bush's position is there should be an exception for enemy combatants. That's a reasonable position, and while I don't agree with it I certainly see there are good arguments for it.
Nonetheless, the idea that Bush should defy the Supreme Court is just beyond the pale. There are three checks our Founders created on the Supreme Court. Congress can impeach judges, the President with the consent of the Senate can "stack" the court by appointing more members, and finally the Constitution can be amended.
If you disagree with the outcome, those are the options the Constitution gives your elected branches of government to check the Supreme Court. Violating the law and ignoring the dictates of our highest court is not one of them. It's a crime.
The 4th check is in Article 3, Section 2, which is being constantly brought up today on RedState.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
The famous FOUT check was what the Broncos did to Sand Diego pretty much on a regular basis back in the day.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
Yes, Bush's position is there should be an exception for enemy combatants. That's a reasonable position, and while I don't agree with it I certainly see there are good arguments for it.
No, the standard is that captured enemy are not given trials in the United States and are held in POW Camps until the end of the war.
That's how this has always worked, long before President Bush became President.
Nonetheless, the idea that Bush should defy the Supreme Court is just beyond the pale. There are three checks our Founders created on the Supreme Court. Congress can impeach judges, the President with the consent of the Senate can "stack" the court by appointing more members, and finally the Constitution can be amended.
And, just interestingly enough, all three of those options require the approval and cooperation from the Democrat Congress.... I'm sure THEY'RE interested in preserving our longstanding and legal tradition of holding prisoners of war until the end of the war, without a need for trial, as they were captured on the field of battle trying to kill Americans.
Violating the law and ignoring the dictates of our highest court is not one of them. It's a crime.
So is taking authority that you do not have, as the Supreme Court is doing here.
----------------------
Dependence is Slavery.
...No, the standard is that captured enemy are not given trials in the United States and are held in POW Camps until the end of the war. ...
For those who are entitled to the status of POW you are right. These are not POWs. In case you are not aware, traditionally illegal combatants and enemy combatants out of uniform are generally shot when captured.
What is so d*mned difficult to understand about the difference between a POW and an illegal combatant?
John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.
GC will correct me if I'm wrong but I think it used to be SOP when an enemy is captured on the battle field that they could be summarily executed on the spot as a spy!
I don't know how Kennedy's new standard would apply to an EC that has assumed room temperature before he and his supreme idiots have a chance to get their mitts on them...maybe that should be official US policy in matters of Combat now...that would be "NO QUARTER" i.e. slay the enemy completely totaly and with no exceptions!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
Its in my blog ace.
I would not be surprised if CINC Kennedy soon requires pre-approval of battle plans, requires soldiers to call him when they have an enemy in their sights for approval and lets bin laden's wife sue for emotional distress and Zarqawi's kids to sue for wrongful death damages.
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I meant to say that if a combatant was caught on the field out of uniform he was shot as a spy!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
Read this and end the ignorance.
http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1542&wit_id=4362
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
you know, I feel like I'm the only here with any knowledge of the judicial system. Does this have to be your favorite punching bag? If old precedents were unbreakble and forever law, we'd still have segregation, interracial marriages would still be banned, (Happy Loving DAy by the way, on this day in 1967 the Surpreme outlawed interracial marriage bans), numerous other terrible laws would still be in place. We have to set new precedents, and this is a very unique case. It's not like in Japan and the Nuremburg Trials in Germany, where the they were in foreign territory, they are on American Territory, which, as much as may not like, gives them rights to the American Judicial system, which would be no easier on them than the military tribunal, and the case could be completely closed so as not allow any senstive information out.
Anyway, my point is simply that we have to form new precedents and as the situations and the world changes. Creating a new precedent is nothing bad, or arrogant, or out of the court's bounds, it's part of it's job. Look at it all unbiasedly please. The Court already has four justices who seem to vote on a party line, not on what the law states. Thank God for one truly unbiased moderate Judge in Kennedy, though he disapointed me in 2000, he has saved us from many bad Court decisions over the years, juvenile executions, Oregon v. Gonzales, this for example. One of our best Justices.
and appellate lawyer of 20 years
on how I should "feel".
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
You can't be serious,
"gives them rights to the American Judicial system, which would be no easier on them than the military tribunal."
Since you're the only one here with any knowledge of the judicial system, could you explain how the rules of evidence might be different in a military tribunal? I doubt if any of these cases would make it through preliminary hearing in a civilian court.
Get a grip!
can you save me a bunch of time and tell me how the Supremes squared the decision with the 11th Amendment?
-TS
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan
It is difficult to imagine an entity more full of crap than you, unless it is the Supreme Court.
The Constitution is THE Law of the Land. That is the contract agreed to when the nation was formed. EVERYTHING operates under its mandates. If the Constitution is negotiable, then nothing at all can be guaranteed.
So the Supremes decide that the Constitution is NOT binding on them, and you are all over conservatives because we're, ah, 'not conservative'? And then somehow Bush's poll ratings apparently decide whether his office has any authority.
Mmm hmmm. Whatever.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
And then somehow Bush's poll ratings apparently decide whether his office has any authority.
And yet, the options they give require the use of Congress, which has HALF of the approval rating of the Presidet.
...
----------------------
Dependence is Slavery.
The Founding Fathers were acutely aware that their document didn't cover everything, and that it would need updating and revising as the world changed, that is the purpose of the Surpreme Court. They have to interpet this document, that's their job. There are many times when the court makes rulings that appear to me to be blatantly against the Constitution, this is not one of them. Many the Court's Republican Justices combine together to rule partisanly, as seen ridiculously in the Gore v. Bush decision that likely decided the 2000 election. The right for a state to manage it's own elections is a state's right, left for the states in the constitution. For the Surpreme Court to say Florida didn't have a right to count the tossed out ballots from overwhelmingly Democratic Dade County was far beyond it's rights. They even said that they weren't trying to create a precedent.
Anyway, the Court often makes political decisions that jeopardize the sanctity of our rights as citizens and our laws, but this was not one of them. This was asserting that, according to the constitution, the Judiciary Branch cannot just be ignored by the other two branches, and the major problem is that these terrorists are being held on American soil, which, legally from a constitutional standpoint and from precedent, gives them the right to a real trial. I don't think they need to be put to death though. One, I'm morally against the death penalty, but two, it's what they want. They want to become this great martyrs, to inspire others to attacks and die to kill us with their deaths. We shouldn't give them that. Give them the dishonor of rotting in an empty jail cell for the rest of the lives, going insane with boredom and degregation. Deaths the easy way out, and they've come to want it badly.
1). Gore didn't win the election. Get over it.
2). If you have done anything to assist this decision, please allow me to be the first to tell you: you have helped make it more likely that individuals captured in the field will either be killed out of hand, or handed of for Bill Clinton-style rendition. :ruffling ja waalk's hair: Nice job, Sparky. Hope you don't believe in kharma, because you just bought yourself a motherload.
3). Nothing personal, but I don't think that you're really working out here.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
if not, I'll provide that service in just a second.
As the philosopher said, people who don't read history are doomed to make it up.
The right for a state to manage it's own elections is a state's right, left for the states in the constitution. For the Surpreme Court to say Florida didn't have a right to count the tossed out ballots from overwhelmingly Democratic Dade County was far beyond it's rights.
1. No ballots were "tossed out."
2. An extensive recount, paid for by a consortium of media, in Jan/Feb 2001 showed that even in a best case scenario Gore lost.
3. If there had been a recount that Gore won through creative counting in Dem counties, the governor and secretary of state certified Bush as the winner. The best Gore could have hoped for was a second certification in his favor to be presented to the Congress and then the election would have been decided by the House of Representatives.
You can thank me for the history lesson, something your high school teacher was unable to provide, later.
"A man does what he can and endures what he must."
"2. An extensive recount, paid for by a consortium of media, in Jan/Feb 2001 showed that even in a best case scenario Gore lost."
That particular point is irrelevant to whether or not the Supreme Court overstepped its authority in meddling with Florida's conduct vis a vis its own elections.
And the Supreme Court Did overstep. The Florida Supreme Court did. Look back at the written documentation of what was happening as it was happening. The Florida Supremes were out of control (hell, watch that recent HBO movie "Recount"). The US Supreme Court slapped them down Twice for going beyond their authority.
"Always be honest with yourself. Even if you are honest with no one else."
--me
at least you had a TV show (Worst Wing) in which you and all the other corn flakes all got to sit in the Captain's Chair and play Make Believe President.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
either of the other branches?
So that doctrine of coequal branches that has been preached for nearly 230 years now starting with the very people who wrote the Constitution was always a fantasy I suppose?
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
but this is the perfect situation for it
Now if only it really worked and you'd just disappear...
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Someone tell me that a real version of that button is available, I need one for my work place.
______________________________________
NObama...no way!.....McCain '08 !
Closest thing I have is a talking Dilbert beanbag head that says "I'm surrounded by IDIOTS!" when you drop it on the table (it says a couple of other things too, so it's a little unpredictable)
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but if someone pushed it, then you'd disappear...so then where would you be?
LOL
Just kidding
:>)
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
A much less expensive option...
"Always be honest with yourself. Even if you are honest with no one else."
--me
There is no law, and there is no court in war...A combat zone or any area of support for a combat zone is under Martial Law as applied and defined by the executive powers granted to the POTUS under the Constitution. The SCOTUS has no jurisdiction in an area governed by Martial Law. and the SCOTUS definitely doesn't have jurisdiction in a country outside the US!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
If I have to read these, I'm afraid that I insist that you come up with truly original anti-McCain comments every time. Recycling will just get you tossed more quickly.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
I wasnt intending to rouse any ire - I just wasnt getting a response at the other thread - and I am actually curious to where the man stands.
[update]
Below is the best explanation of why today's decision is anathema to the U.S. Constitution and common sense.
Testimony of The Honorable William P. Barr, Executive Vice President and General Counsel Verizon Corporation
June 15, 2005
excerpt:
In society today, we see a tendency to impose the judicial model on virtually every field of decision-making. The notion is that the propriety of any decision can be judged by determining whether it satisfies some objective standard of proof and that such a judgment must be made by a “neutral” arbiter based on an adversarial evidentiary hearing. What we are seeing today is an extreme manifestation of this - an effort to take the judicial rules and standard applicable in the domestic law enforcement context and extend them to the fighting of wars. In my view, nothing could be more farcical, or more dangerous.
These efforts flow from a fundamental error - confusion between two very distinct constitutional realms. In the domestic realm of law enforcement, the government’s role is disciplinary - sanctioning an errant member of society for transgressing the internal rules of the body politic. The Framers recognized that in the name of maintaining domestic tranquility an overzealous government could oppress the very body politic it is meant to protect. The government itself could become an oppressor of “the people.” Thus our Constitution makes the fundamental decision to sacrifice efficiency in the realm of law enforcement by guaranteeing that no punishment can be meted out in the absence of virtual certainty of individual guilt. Both the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights contain a number of specific constraints on the Executive’s law enforcement powers, many of which expressly provide for a judicial role as a neutral arbiter or “check” on executive power. In this realm, the Executive’s subjective judgments are irrelevant; it must gather and present objective evidence of guilt satisfying specific constitutional standards at each stage of a criminal proceeding. The underlying premise in this realm is that it is better for society to suffer the cost of the guilty going free than mistakenly to deprive an innocent person of life or liberty.
The situation is entirely different in armed conflict where the entire nation faces an external threat.
In armed conflict, the body politic is not using its domestic disciplinary powers to sanction an errant member, rather it is exercising its national defense powers to neutralize the external threat and preserve the very foundation of all our civil liberties. Here the Constitution is not concerned with handicapping the government to preserve other values. Rather it is designed to maximize the government’s efficiency to achieve victory - even at the cost of “collateral damage” that would be unacceptable in the domestic realm.
It seems to me that the kinds of military decisions at issue here - namely, what and who poses a threat to our military operations - are quintessentially Executive in nature. They are not amenable to the type of process we employ in the domestic law enforcement arena. They cannot be reduced to neat legal formulas, purely objective tests and evidentiary standards. They necessarily require the exercise of prudential judgment and the weighing of risks. This is one of the reasons why the Constitution vests ultimate military decision-making in the President as Commander- in-Chief. If the concept of Commander-in-Chief means anything, it must mean that the office holds the final authority to direct how, and against whom, military power is to be applied to achieve the military and political objectives of the campaign.
I am not speaking here of “deference” to Presidential decisions. In some contexts, courts are fond of saying that they “owe deference” to some Executive decisions. But this suggests that the court has the ultimate decision-making authority and is only giving weight to the judgment of the Executive. This is not a question of deference - the point here is that the ultimate substantive decision rests with the President and that courts have no authority to substitute their judgments for that of the President.
The Constitution’s grant of “Commander-in-Chief” power must, at its core, mean the plenary authority to direct military force against persons the Commander judges as a threat to the safety of our forces, the safety of our homeland, or the ultimate military and political objectives of the conflict. At the heart of these kinds of military decisions is the judgment of what constitutes a threat or potential threat and what level of coercive force should be employed to deal with these dangers. These decisions cannot be reduced to tidy evidentiary standards, some predicate threshold, that must be satisfied as a condition of the President ordering the use of military force against a particular individual. What would that standard be? Reasonable suspicion, probable cause, substantial evidence, preponderance of the evidence, or beyond a reasonable doubt? Does anyone really believe that the Constitution prohibits the President from using coercive military force against a foreign person - detaining him - unless he can satisfy a particular objective standard of evidentiary proof?
Read it all here.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was reckless and should've been impeached for not following the law of the land. This is the same justification used for breaking the law by illegals. The law is unjust. The law is unfair. etc etc. The law is the law. The Supreme Court has ruled and this should be accepted unti such a time that we can change the court and change the law.
But this notion that the law should be ignored is dangerous. We certainly wouldn't want this as a precedent. What about times we agree with the Court in the future? Would we want a Democratic president to ignore a conservative court and refuse to obey the law?
This is dangerous rhetoric, IMO.
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I am a Positivist Pastafarian for the alliteration alone.
The Founders did not intend for the Court to have as much power as they have usurped and given to themselves. They never envisioned what has happened.
When warning bells were sounded (by anti-Federalist Brutus I think???), the response from Federalists was not to say that, yes, the Constitution does give the Sup Court this awesome power and that is how it should be. Instead they said that the warnings were unfounded and that we didn't have to worry about a renegade judiciary. Time has of course proved Hamilton wrong, so now we are in a position where the Constitution means literally whatever the Sup Court wants it to mean. By your way, the Sup Court could declare tomorrow that every citizen (check that...every resident, so that illegals could be included) has a basic right to publicly funded healthcare from cradle to grave. By your way, then since the Sup Court said so, then that is the law, then that is what the Constitution actually says. By your way, there is nothing to stop the Court from doing so. By your way, if not enough votes could be mustered to pass an Amendment (and there would not be), then there would be nothing we the people, or any other branch of govt could do about it.
The analogy with illegal aliens is absurd. With illegals you have people entering and/or staying w/o the permission of our nation. With an Executive (or Legislative) defiance of the Sup Court, you have one branch of the govt defending its position as an equal protector and enforcer of the Constitution.
Andrew Jackson obviously should not have been impeached for refusing to bow to John Marshall. Unless the Congress decides that refusing to obey the Court equals some sort of real crime, then there should be no threat of impeachment. The act of defiance itself should be irrelevant, and instead Congress should focus on the issue at hand. Short of a real crime, then Congress should decide who it agrees with. It should not reflexively decide that the Court MUST be obeyed. If it agrees with the President, then case closed. If it agrees with the Court, then it should take steps to make the President enforce the decision. And of course Congress should be free itself to take the initiative in defying the Sup Court, thus putting the President in the position of picking sides.
The idea that conservatives should forever and meekly accept judicial supremacy because someday it might be a liberal President defying a conservative Court just doesn't hold up. For one thing, there likely isn't ever going to be a genuinely conservative Court as demographic trends favor the Democrats. A conservative will not be able to get elected much longer. For another, a conservative court would not be one prone to impose its views on the nation as leftwing activist judges live to do. On all of the hot-button social/cultural issues, a conservative court would simply defer (as it should) to the states and to Congress. The most likely example of a conservative court trying to defend a right that a liberal President and Congress seeks to trample upon is with regards to the Second Amendment, but again, there is very little chance of this scenario ever playing out.
What if a Democratic president ignored a conservative court overruling Roe or some similar ruling?
I'm not saying the Court is right. I'm not even saying we should support the Court in this ruling. All I'm saying is that our system affords them the right to judicial review and they need considerable power to check the executive and legislative branches. That is a fact. Now when any branch decides that they won't abide by the checks and balances rules put forth then the entire system breaks down.
We are still adults with votes. We need to elect more conservative presidents and legislators to change the court in a real way. But we can't encourage any leader to ignore another equal branch of government because we don't like the ruling just as we shouldn't encourage ignoring a president or legislative directive because we disagree.
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I am a Positivist Pastafarian for the alliteration alone.
There is but one conservative Court ruling on Roe; that it is a decision w/o a shred of Constitutional merit, and it is thus overturned, and the matter returns to the states for their own public policy, while Congress decides it for federal purposes (like military bases for example).
How would a liberal President defy this? Would he send in troops to states that pass restrictive laws to force the allowance of abortions?
And again, you are putting forth a scenario -- a conservative Sup Court -- that is very unlikely to occur. Even if McCain wins (which is doubtful), and even if he nominates originalists (again, doubtful), then it is unlikely that Schumer and Reid will allow even and up or down vote on such a nominee if it could result in a true shift on the Court.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
their motor voter lib dem pals loathe are constitutional and just.
apples
oranges
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Rather than oppose the Court let's change it. But it is reckless to shred the Court of any ability to check the other branches.
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I am a Positivist Pastafarian for the alliteration alone.
and their enumerated power to limit their jurisdiction. It is reckless for the other branches to allow their powers to be usurped.
Bork argues that one defiant act would cure the oligarchs as their minds get concentrated on the fact that all they do is write opinions and that their power is commensurate with the weight of their opinions.
All take the oath, Presidents, congress and the lawyers in robes. Two branches can trump the other and We the people decide. presidents can be impeached and so can judges.
Nothing in the Constitution makes the supposed "weakest" branch the final word.
Essentially, Kennedy staged a coup today. He is now the CINC.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
to test the waters and see how far they could really go. As you all have said at one time or another the time is ripe for the democrat party, so test case?
This is emotional as well as legal.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
It is really a poor example to urge the president to follow. The Native Americans were the owners of the land and had treaties with the US government. Andrew Jackson's shameful treatment of them and disregard for the court is one of the blackest moments in our history.
But he wasn't impeached. Good for him.
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I am a Positivist Pastafarian for the alliteration alone.
Jackson saved them from genocide.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
They do not have jurisdiction. They are making a blatant and illegal power grab. They are the ones who ignored the Congress's plain authority under the Constitution.
So therefore the ruling should not only be ignored but openly scorned.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
This is the the separation of powers and checks and balances. Just because we disagree with the ruling and just because we feel it is unconstitutional does not mean we get to ignore the checks and balances.
I am afraid it just doesn't work this way. If it did there would be anarchy. We run on this system because it works for bettter or worse. We wouldn't want a conservative court ignored.
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I am a Positivist Pastafarian for the alliteration alone.
Your reasoning is like a colonial loyalist who could not ignore the power of English tyranny. We are who we are today because we ignored and defied the English tyranny.
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business … frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise.Ronald Reagan
This is the law of the land not the law of a king 3,000 miles away. Washington sent troops to quell the Whiskey Rebellion because they were rebelling against their government not the English. Lincoln fought to the death with Confederates because they were rebelling against their government.
We have a system that can change through the ballot and hard work. There should be no tolerance for ignoring the law of the land.
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I am a Positivist Pastafarian for the alliteration alone.
refused to shine a Redcoat's boots, and bore the scar of a sword wound on his face for the reast of his life. I won't shine Kennedy's Tom Mccann's.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Just how are these 5 men in black robes any different than Plato's philosopher kings? From a few of the comments here about how their word is final and must be obeyed no matter what I fail to see much of a difference.
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business … frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise.Ronald Reagan
We the People Kings bound by judeo-christian values as our King.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
There is no difference...We've stripped the doctrine of coequal branches from government due to the Congress's and the POTUS refusal to act and protect their perks and powers as granted by the Constitution.
If the SCOTUS and overrule the legislation or ignore the obvious meaning of the Constitutions...there is no equality between the branches and we do have philosopher Kings!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
different powers. The word equal is without meaning.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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www.theminorityreportblog.com
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
the Supreme Court is not alone at the top. It is one of three, and it has PLACED ITSELF at the top. The President must knock it off the top or this republic stands no more.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
If that is the case then we don't need a Supreme Court at all. We are one justice away from seizing that Court and you are in a rush to set precedents for ignoring. I don't get it.
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I am a Positivist Pastafarian for the alliteration alone.
...especially if it is the Sup Court declaring, w/o any Constitutional support, that the Constitution now means something noone ever understood it to mean at its very points of passage.
otherwise not subject to checks and balances?
On war issues, the SC is supposed to be the WEAKEST branch of government---not the strongest.
If the SC tells you to kill yourself, will you pull the trigger?
The Supreme Court is subject to checks and balances. Our elected officials are free to amend the Constitution to make their ruling obsolete.
Ignoring the ruling of the Supreme Court would make them obsolete. There would serve no purpose for them.
So it's better to have the wrong purpose for them than none at all? Hogwash! Until they can learn to serve their true Constitutional purpose and follow the law, they deserve to be without purpose. They are liars, and they DESERVE to be disobeyed, even at the expense of becoming obsolete!
They may as well order people to jump off bridges. Would you advocate obeying them then?
Something is not "law" just because a majority or plurality of nine (or three in the lower courts) says it is. They cannot substitute for a constitutional amendment.
Besides, they've already made themselves obsolete through cert denials. They can sit and deny cert to one hundred percent of all cases if they wish, and we are approaching a point where they very well could.
SCOTUS has done so opposite of protecting and defending the Constitution, oh, since 1940 or so, that yes, it's quite a happy thought.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
tax increase that judges would get the message and understand that all they have is their credibility to back up opinions and that the activism would stop.
Just one Andy Jackson moment would concentrate the minds and tame the beast.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
SL, this is uncharted territory. The SC has stated, pretty blatantly, that they are not subject to the letter of the US Constitution, and that they are in fact the Supreme Law of the Land. They have usurped the Constitution.
You are suggesting that the Executive Branch go along with it, in order to .....what exactly? preserve law & order?
And I am stating that in a time like this, when on of the Three Branches has completely gone off the reservation, that the other two branches (1) refuse to acquiesce to SC's usurpation of authority, and (2)smack their stupid butts into line.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
Social Security...FDR
And no one smacked, because it was time of war. Unfortunately, this is happening opposite of what we would normally expect.
Erik
When FDR first proposed SS, the Supremes said, "Where in the Constitution does it allow you to do this?"
FDR replied "Right in the part where these new justices I just ADDED to the bench found it."
He changed the very foundation of the US Supreme Court in response to an unwelcome ruling from it.
"Always be honest with yourself. Even if you are honest with no one else."
--me
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Constitution. If Judge Kennedy+4 can take over Bush's job then we don't need Bush.
circular
The Constitution is written.
Any two branches can trump the third.
We the People ultimately decide.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Unfortunately, partisons are now in control of Congress, not Patriots. What can we expect of this??? Hmm, Congress is re-elected more and more because we live in Rome. Time for your comments to ring farther and farther as well as those from Red State.
What will they decide...not to impeach or even raise the impeachment issue...look who is in charge.
Erik
It would destroy the dem party.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
To ignore the Supreme Court. It is the president's decision whether or not to Enforce a law or ruling. That's what the executive branch does. The legislative branch makes a law, the Supremes decide on its constitutionality and the president decides whether or not to enforce it.
That's where the next check and balance comes in:
If the Legislature disagrees with him, they impeach him.
"Always be honest with yourself. Even if you are honest with no one else."
--me
First of all, the important thing about Jackson is that he defied the Court, and yet our nation did not disappear into some pit of lawless anarchy. Somehow we survived!
Likewise, there would be no real threat of anarchy today if the other two other branches refused to obey it once in while. To be truly effective, a defiance would require the agreement of both Congress and the President, and that alone is enough to ensure that we don't suddenly start ignoring one Sup Court decision after another. One good thing about a well-placed defiance now and then would be that it might just give pause to the likes of Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer, Stevens, and Kennedy. Maybe they will be more likely to base their decisions on the actual Constitution, instead of their own personal policy preferences.
And doesn't the fact that the Court was never intended to have this much power bother you at all? Do you really think that Madison, Washington, Jefferson, and ever Hamilton meant for this to happen? Mindless acquiescence to the High Court is what has allowed things to get so bad with judicial activism.
All three branches have expanded their power beyond what the Founders intended. And yes it bothers me greatly in all three counts. That doesn't mean we ignore one branch. It can be argued that the Court had to expand power to remain able to check the other two expanding branches. You can't expect the Court to unilaterally disarm in this conflict.
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I am a Positivist Pastafarian for the alliteration alone.
... to keep out of things it has no business deciding, whether its abortion, the definition of marriage, whether a small town in Georgia can put up a Nativity scene outside City Hall, or how the Commander in Chief deals with enemy combatants.
1) They are not on American soil, or on a ship at sea flying the American flag.
They are in Cuba on Guantanamo, on land that we lease from the Cuban government.
But to end the silliness, pack them up and send them back to trial under Islamic law in Afghanistan and Iraq.
______________________________________
NObama...no way!.....McCain '08 !
That's fine. You believe that the Constitution should literally mean whatever 5 judges collective desire for it to mean.
But you're wrong on all Counts. At the various times of passage for the Constitution, not one provision in it was ever understood or intended to require that the state extend to homosexual unions the same recognition it gives to traditional marriage. It was never understood that Establishment Clause would prevent the example I gave. It was never understood that there was a right to abortion.
See, I prefer a method of interpretation that places some limits on judges, while you apparently favor one that places no limits at all on them.
Or you have this fetish for trying to argue with people who see you as nothing but comic relief.
So thanks for the laughs, junior.
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Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
Yes it can be ignored. The Constitution does not require anyone to obey the judiciary above the Constitution. Executives and members of the legislative branch take an oath the Constitution, and it comes before the court order just as it comes before any legislative statute or executive order. You don't ignore it based on whether it is "conservative" or "liberal" but on whether it is constiutitonal or not constitutional.
"It works" is exactly what Sandra Day O'Connor said, and it remained her whole philosophy. That is the problem, and that is why most of us are complaining on here! It should NOT work because it is wrong. It works only because so many people in the government CHOOSE to blindly worship and bow down to the judges, never doing anything because they are waiting to serve the judiciary's next whim.
That "it works" is the whole problem!
A court ruling is NOT "law" by definition. They do not have the power to make law. The court writes opinions, and that is what they are. Opinions are not laws.
Moreover, there is a difference between agreeing with the result and agreeing with the Constitution. Something is not law (or in the Constitution) just because a judge says it.
In any event, the whole federal court system, especially the Supreme Court, lost its credibility long ago. It deserves no respect or legitimacy. I've said before on here that I have NO respect for the judiciary and nearly all those who currently serve on it.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"Would we want a Democratic president to ignore a conservative court and refuse to obey the law?"
Actually, I would bet that's already happened.
But not as badly as the Court itself has ignored the clear meaning of the words in the Constitution.
Gamecock is right. Accepting the idea that whatever the SC says is The Law means accepting that a 5/9 majority has the same power as the old Kings of history. Unchallenged and impervious to challenge except by insurrection.
It replaces the Emperor with a committee. And an Emperor will almost always make better decisions than will a committee. He wants to survive, so he won't make suicidal choices.
This decision is another example of the Court doing what it wants to because it CAN.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
game
I believe in actions that are louder than words, and in this case there are actions that can be taken that are the proverbial middle finger to the Supremos.
I'd be quit happy if President Bush whistled up some military transportation for detainees caught in Afghanistan or Iraq with immediate transport of these detainees into the loving arms of Islamic justice and Islamic courts in the respective countries where they were captured.
As an acknowledgement of how far towards democracy these Iran and Afghanistan has come, and recognizing that the Supreme court has gone mad, send them back to where they have committed their crimes for swift and sure judgment by the laws of those countries.
If thats' not a massive middle finger to aimed at NoBama and the Supremes, nothing is.
______________________________________
NObama...no way!.....McCain '08 !
I favor impeachment myself, though. I think that sets the proper tone.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
The tone I think needs set is fine...you are now irrelevant in this matter, the crime and the battlefield where these actions happened was in under US jurisdiction, so we are sending the accused back to where the crimes of which these individuals are accused occurred.
Before someone goes on about ether the loss of intelligence; six years to do that in some cases, or the outcome, maybe they are found innocent and released, there is the matter of trust.
We trust the governments who we are backing to do the just thing, we trust the governments to allow or intelligence agencies to be there when these individuals realize that they now face Islamic justice, far from the tender mercies of the ACLU or Nobama.
In poker terms....ALL IN.
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NObama...no way!.....McCain '08 !
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I predict a sudden and extreme drop in the number of new prisoners captured starting yesterday.
"Always be honest with yourself. Even if you are honest with no one else."
--me
been mentioned yet, but there is a way to deal with this if there were some Republican Senators with backbones who would file articles of impeachment against all five of these justices...of course the Republicans in the Senate ar Jelly Fish so...we soldier on!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
not the Senate, it originates in the house. And that is what I proposed to John Boehner in my open letter.
GOD, what I wouldn't give to have some MEN walking around in Washington.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
Smacking self on forhead...House indicts...Senate convicts...I hate when that happens!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
GOD, what I wouldn't give to have some MEN walking around in Washington.
Men in Washington?...Better yet...Republican men in Washington?...t'would be nice wouldn't it?....
Ya know what will happen...just like the pile of turds they dumped on the First Amendment...We'll all gripe about it for a day or two...and then they'll pull some other outrage that will take our attention from this...and so it goes..the long, agonizing march into slavery and socialist Hell!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
I saw the quotation marks and I thought you were quoting Mae West or Jean Harlow or Deborah Jeane Palfrey, not EPU.
"GOD, what I wouldn't give to have some MEN walking around in Washington."
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
That's OK. I was just funnin' you.
Palfrey, may she rest in peace, would have been the second paragraph:
"Men in Washington?...Better yet...Republican men in Washington?...t'would be nice wouldn't it?...."
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
my opinion of Andrew Jackson on the Georgia v Indian deal. These two decisions are very much alike, and I'd love to see Bush say "STUFF IT!" We need to stop drawing and redrawing lines in the sand with these marxists and start scratching immovable lines in the resolute concrete of our collective conservatism. I've got a mule's stubborness about America's conservative legacy, and I'll be damned if I'll ever give them one inch. I hope Senator McCain is beginning to appreciate the need to develop the conservative coattails he'll need to regain a Congress that will allow him to successfully push for conservative replacements to the Supreme Court and other federal judicial positions. It's 5-4 in the evil side's favor right now. Screw "bi-partisanship", screw compromise! When you compromise with the devil or his minions, it will always be in their favor.
Tim Schieferecke
I do want to make clear that Jackson's hands are not clean on HOW he saved the Cherokee, but the fact is that had he not removed them, they would have been wiped out, and it was an executive power to deal with other nations, i.e. the Cherokee nation.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
If GWB were to declare martial law over Gitmo...wouldn't that reset everything? At the very least it would have to be re-litigated as to whether the President can declare Marshal Law and use his powers as CINC to declare and absence or nullification of civil law?
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
Thereby once again stripping the SCOTUS of it's usurped powers?
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
the ruling. I prefer defiance so that the ruling has little or no precedential power. To declare martial law would simply be a device to defy, and given that the conditions for martial law don't obtain, I prefer that he simply refuse to give the detainees access to US civil courts. That puts the ball in Congress's lap to impeach or not.
He might be able to avoid the application of the ruling by putting them all on a slow boat to China or insist that SCOTUS hire them all as clerks, chauffeurs or janitors.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
That's the quote I wish we'd heard today. But Andrew jackson was both more popular and more sure of himself than Bush is, and he didn't have George Soros to deal with.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
Also, I like "Five of the Supreme Court Justices can say that a camel is a horse. That still doesn't make it a horse."
Followed by "These same five decided that the Fifth Amendment doesn't really mean what it says. They agreed that government can take what it wants for whatever reason it wants, as long as it makes money from it."
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
When the soldiers in the field are informed that in order to take prisoners, they have to read said prisoners their Miranda Rights (which is what this ruling means on the ground), then they will just stop taking prisoners.
"Always be honest with yourself. Even if you are honest with no one else."
--me
I've seen a few people suggest this and, even up until a bit ago I might have.
However, I have to disagree.
I think that what will happen is we'll capture people, then bring them back to the sorting station where they'll go through all of that, as compared to on the field of battle.
What we will see is an increase in violence against the troops as they have yet ANOTHER thing holding them back from doing their job well. We'll get less info from those we capture because they know how protected they are. etc.
And, all of that will be blamed on President Bush and President McCain (if he wins), rather than blaming the Left as we ought.
Now, if we get Obama as President, the media will do a 180. they'll start giving stories about how we're building schools and getting water and electricity to people. We've done this all along, but with a Democrat president, they'll focus on the 'good things' and start to cover up the bad.
Agenda and all that jazz...
----------------------
Dependence is Slavery.
I'd submit two bills as soon as my staff could write them, one would be articles of impeachment for the five justices which have so clearly breached their oaths of office with not only this ruling...but I would site Kelo and CFR as exhibits 2 and 3.
My second bill would be to require those Supremes that voted for this travesty be required to write and deliver a speech of apology to be delivered before a joint session of Congress the first time one of these detainees commit a terrorist attack anywhere around the world after they've been released as a result of this ruling!
I know they'd never pass...but if enough co sponsors could be added to the bill to get it to the floor...the debate would drive the points home and I suspect it would start a conversation on the talk shows just by submitting the bill!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
see update in blog as well
[second update]
In establishing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, President Bush relied on a Supreme Court precedent of more than a half century's standing, Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), which held that nonresident alien enemy combatants had no right to habeas corpus. As Scalia explains:
Had the law been otherwise, the military surely would not have transported prisoners [to Guantanamo], but would have kept them in Afghanistan, transferred them to another of our foreign military bases, or turned them over to allies for detention. Those other facilities might well have been worse for the detainees themselves.
This points to a key limitation in today's ruling. The majority distinguished Guantanamo from the facility at issue in Eisentrager--a U.S.-administered prison in occupied Germany--on the ground that although the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is technically on Cuban territory, America exercises "complete jurisdiction and control" over it. Thus, detainees have constitutional rights pursuant to today's ruling only if they are held at Guantanamo.
What does Boumediene mean in practice? Almost all Guantanamo detainees already have lawyers and have petitioned for habeas corpus. Those cases will go forward in the Washington, D.C., federal trial court. The judges there will have to settle on a standard of proof, and to rule on such tricky questions as how much classified material the government is obliged to provide to terrorists and their lawyers. Since the military's existing procedures are already overly lenient--Scalia lists several cases of released detainees showing up on the battlefield--it seems unlikely that many detainees will end up winning release.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain have said they want to close down Guantanamo, and this ruling makes that outcome more likely. There is little advantage to the U.S. in sending enemy combatants to a facility where they will immediately be able to lawyer up, and indeed, Guantanamo has admitted few new detainees in the past several years. A notable exception occurred in 2006, when President Bush transferred Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and a dozen or so other "high value" detainees there--a dramatic action that helped galvanize Congress to pass the Detainee Treatment Act This turns out to have been a mistake. KSM & Co. now have "constitutional rights." Had they been kept where they were, wherever that was, this would not be the case.
It's possible that Scalia is wrong when he predicts more Americans will die as a result of this ruling. It may be that al Qaeda is a weak enough enemy that America can vanquish it even with the Supreme Court tying one hand behind our back. Anyway, keeping future detainees away from Guantanamo should prevent them from coming within the reach of the justices' pettifogging.
Perhaps decades from now we will learn that detainees ended up being abused in some far-off place because the government closed Guantanamo in response to judicial meddling. Even those who support what the court did today may live to regret it.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
At least until Kennedy writes his next opinion giving constitutional rights to anyone under US control anywhere in the world!
And to top it off...it looks like Bush and McCain are going to let this go by without a whimper!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
we shall see.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
have mass demostrations when they fly the terrorists into the Lower 48 for their HC hearings.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Let's make a deal with Raul, normalize relations, let him stay in power and, in exchange, try Gitmo detainees under Cuban law. They'll wish they had military tribunals again.
and dispense some wild west justice!
Ah to be in the old west again!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
so that landowners will be sanctioned to shoot them under that old state law originally aimed at cattle rustlers. For a while, people were getting away with shooting repo men under that statute.
Where do I get me one of them thar Terrorist Huntin Licenses sheriff?
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
Under US Government; ARMY, NAVY, MARINES, AIRFORCE or COAST GUARD, they all have recruiters.....LOL.
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NObama...no way!.....McCain '08 !
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
If we have to use the established criminal justice system, we could send them over to Sheriff Arpaio.
LOL...I wish they'd give him the right to deal with them
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
"I present, for your entertainment tonight, members of the group responsible for the USA's crackdown on your own illegal activities...!"
Yeah, I predict they'd rather be tortured, if we gave them to Arpaio...
"Always be honest with yourself. Even if you are honest with no one else."
--me
by our five Supreme Court elites that they think terrorists should be treated like American criminals rather than fanatical killers eager to destroy America. Are these justices wholly ignorant of the enemy and previous Court rulings? Now terrorists will have the expectation to be treated as ordinary Americans. This is as ridiculous as it is dangerous. Why should foreign terrorists, who have never set foot in the United States and who do not respect our laws, enjoy the same rights under our Constitution as U.S. citizens?
Justice Scalia, writing in dissent, said: “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, in his own dissent to Thursday's ruling, criticized the majority for striking down what he called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."
and shoot 'em. Done.
think that there is ANY chance that he will do as you and others are asking him to do? Be great if he did, but,Lord!, I can just hear the left screeching now--and I'm thinking that they would consider it well worth it to have Hamdan on TV every night presented as a victim of the evil BOOOSH if it got them what they've wanted since 2000--impeachment.