The thing is, though, from what I’ve seen of modern politics, some Congresscritters will vote for it. They’ll then go to accuse those who voted against it of supporting terrorists in their campaign commercials. I suspect my own Rick Santorum will be among them.
As opposed to the reasoned argument you put at post #19 as to why this isn’t important? If you’ve said anything of substance in this thread so far, can you direct us to it?
Just trying to figure out if this is an actual issue or just another thread in the long list of “Bush is bad” threads.
Don’t worry yourself over it sweetie, there’s a world happening all around you.
Why is one independant of the other? And what do you mean by “actual issue”?
The actual issue is that Bush has proposed setting up a new Kangaroo Court so that he can skirt the Constitution.
There is no doubt that this is another in a long list of “Bush is bad” threads. There are a lot of “Bush is bad” threads because, well, Bush is bad. He does bad things, makes bad policy and tries to pass bad laws.
There is a world happening around you too, duffer. But go on and stick your fingers in your ears and say “Lalalalala” really, really loudly, sweetie. If you do it loud and long enough, perhaps you can filter out the actual issue of how bad Bush is.
Yeah, silly us. The most powerful man in the world, who has sworn to uphild the Constitution, has done everything in his power to subvert the Constitution. And has done so blatently and unashamedly. But that’s just because we want something to bitch about.
Tell me, duffer, do you honestly not see how outrageous this is? If not, how many times were you dropped on your head as a child?
Fucking moron.
Here’s a clue for the hopelessly clueless: It’s an actual issue.
Fucking moron.
Hello? I think I’m on record about the impropriety of threads that castigate GWB for every single action he takes that doesn’t receive full endorsement by The New Republic, because, you know, he must be doing it for nefarious reasons because Bush is The Eeee-vul.
What we’re talking about here, thank you, is the absolute gutting of the criminal justice system as it’s been practiced in this country for 230 years now, the filing off of serial numbers and a new paint job in a law-drafting chop shop on a revised version a plan that SCOTUS has explicitly said is unconstitutional. The hypothetical example starring you, personally, as an accused terrorist posted earlier in this thread should give you pause.
There are even, as 'luci noted above and Chief Justice Rehnquist suggested in his book, occasions when a constitutional guarantee must be finessed. President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in a portion of Maryland during part of the Civil War for good and proper reasons – and was duly spanked for it later by SCOTUS.
There may be good and sound reasons why a given defendant should not be confronted with every bit of the evidence against him, when publicizing said evidence might empower other, uncaptured terrorists to exploit a weakness in the country’s defenses against terrorism. That does not mean that the judge of the case and the defendant’s lawyer, sworn as an officer of the court, may not review said evidence in camera and identify a workaround to do justice to and fort the defendant. Other examples will, I’m sure, occur to people.
Yeah, some things changed with 9/11. The idea that this is a Constitutional republic governed by the rule of law, is not one of those things. Mr. Bush and his cronies do not have the right to pick and choose what parts of the Constitution they will honor and what parts they will ignore.
Now, if you have some substantive defense of the Bush plan, I’d love to hear it. If you want to just wave your hands and say, “You’re only saying this because you hate Bush and support terrorists,” go back to the sandbox and wait until you have the maturity to address facts and issues rather than just calling names before you get involved in these discussions.
Hell, I’d accept anything of substance from any of his 6,605 posts. Something of substance from duffer in a single thread? Let’s not make it too hard on him, now, buns3000.
So it’s an admission against interest, and admissible even under current rules as an exception. That’s kinda my point. Hearsay is a piece of swiss cheese anyway. Maybe I’m biased from being routinely ruled against as a defense attorney, but there’s usually a way for the prosecution to get a piece of hearsay in under our supposedly already-due-process-airtight system of criminal law. I don’t see this proposal as anything drastically different in that area.
The areas I outlined in my post above, however, are fatal.
Here we go with some more from the Judge Advocate Generals of the uniform services. They don’t like it and are willing to stand up on their hind legs and say so. The Sec of Def is either having a fit or has decided that the judgment of the uniform lawyers is irrelevant. Shame!
These high ranking officers apparently still remember the oath that ALL military people take, when they put on the uniform… They swear to uphold and defend the CONSTITUTION of the United States. This is not an oath of personal loyalty to Bush or The White House or the party, it is an oath to the Constitution. What Bush wants to do with his latest regurgitation of something that had alrady been thrown out by the Supremen Court, is to completely ignore it and destroy the things the country was founded on. He really needs to attain lame duck status ASAP, as in being relegated to a weak and powerless putz. Any sane person would have never even considered this piece of shit he is trying to push through. Any politician who signs up to it will be destroying whatever career he/she had.
You know, duffer, I like coming into the majority of the “Bush is teh evil” Pit threads and poking fun at the habitual Bush-bashers almost as much as you. But this time they’re on to something. If this were to pass, several parts of the Bill of Rights would be rendered moot. I don’t think it’ll ever make it all the way into law, but this action is definately worthy of contempt.
Indeed, sometimes even a blind pig finds a truffle.
Indeed - given recent acknowledgements of Bush supporters as to concerns about Bush’s behaviors, perhaps the scales are falling away from your eyes. Good on you, I say. I know that sometimes growth can be painful, but it will be for the best, in the long run.
Just don’t be so hard on yourself and your ilk - there’s no need to call yourselves pigs.
I meant it as a metaphor, I wasn’t trying to call anyone a pig. Apologies if it came across that way.
And by the way, I’m anything but a Bush supporter. I just like poking fun at the rabid Bush Anti-fan club. They take themselves so seriously and get really pissed if you don’t jump right in and lambaste Bush with them.
Not fair to hold a poster to GD standards here. This is the Pit.
Douchebag.
Actually, duffer, allow me to apologize for this in advance. It was unnecessarily mean. Sorry, dude.
But I’ve run out of patience with Bush as well as those that defend him. Sure, I’ll pop into threads where Bush is blamed for a non-issue, and I’ll help with the pile-on. It’s not that I have nothing better to do. It’s that the idiot used up all his idiot chips long ago, and is now running on idiot debt. I’m continually astonished at what the chimp gets away with. Six years ago if you had told me what a colossally evil yet bumbling President he would have made, I’d have accused you of making it all up.
White-hot contempt is all I have left for the guy, and I’m not much more patient with people who still defend him.
If the Post article is minimally accurate in describing this proposal, it’s a terrible idea on several levels.
Let’s hope Congress does its job and rejects it.
Actually, the Supreme Court threw out Bush’s tribunal plan because it was not authorized by Congress. He is now asking for it to be authorized by Congress. if they do so, it will remove the objection the Supreme Court opinion noted to the plan.
It’s far from clear that this plan is unconstitutional.
It’s very clear to me that the plan is very unwise. But “unwise” does not imply “unconstitutional”.
The SC also noted that [url=]the laws of war, including both the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions still apply to the Gitmo prisoners. Do you really think this plan could pass muster under either of those?
Corrected:
The SC also noted that the laws of war, including both the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions still apply to the Gitmo prisoners. Do you really think this plan could pass muster under either of those?