The Told Me If I Voted for McCain...

[Haggis@wk]

...we'd have a president sign a "new law that would authorize the U.S. military to arrest and indefinitely detain alleged al Qaeda members or other terrorist operatives captured on American soil." Including American citizens.

Where are all of you "Civil Rights Warriors" (Nicole Marie, Barfle ,more here --doesn't that seem quaintly innocent today Barf?-- Piqaboo and all the others who I don't have time to look for) who all got your panties in a twist when you thought Bush might look at your library card or screamed to high heaven when he might listen to a phone call made in Lebannon?

Where the hell is you indignation now? Your moral outrage? We use to joke that Nicole Marie might end up in Gitmo. Well now there is a legal precedent for the first time in a long time (not the first time, unfortunately) that permits just that. An American citizen can be picked up by the U.S. military and transported anywhere and detained indefinitely at the whim of the president (wasn't that the implied threat of the PATRIOT Act you all deplored at the time?).

No condemnations from our "loyal liberal left"?

For those who assume a president would never turn down new powers to strip people of their liberty, the ACLU notes that "the last time Congress passed indefinite detention legislation was during the McCarthy era, and President Truman had the courage to veto that bill."
Phafft!

[dai bread]

Luckily, my sister still has her NZ passport. Her children have them now, too.

[Haggis@wk]

…we’d get a president who classifies all the rules he needs to kill you.

For Christmas, Your Government Will Explain Why It's Legal to Kill You.

Ha! Just kidding! It won't tell you that. That's classified!

The DOJ has rejected a Freedom of Information Act request from the New York Times that asked the agency to reveal the legal basis for the newly unveiled American program of strategic drone-attack assassinations of American citizens off the field of battle

Summary:
• The government dropped a bomb on a U.S. citizen,

• who, though a total d**k and probably a criminal, may have been engaged only in propaganda,

• which, though despicable, is generally protected by the First Amendment;

• it did so without a trial or even an indictment (that we know of),

• based at least in part on evidence it says it has but won't show anyone,

• and on a legal argument it has apparently made but won't show anyone,

• and the very existence of which it will not confirm or deny;

• although don't worry, because the C.I.A. would never kill an American without having somebody do a memo first;

• and this is the "most transparent administration ever";

• currently run by a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Merry Christmas!

Com’on Nichole, get indignant, there’s a good chance the next president will be a Republican so you can just pretend you were prescient….

[jamiebk]

I am a little more disturbed with Boehner cutting off CSPAN. I guess we don't have representative government or free speach any more either. Pretty lame

[Giant Communist Robot]

Complaining about the lack of rights for terrorists like al-Awlaki (and this was the person whose rights were at issue in the link) seems a little far to the left for you, Haggis.

[Haggis@wk]

Complaining about the lack of rights for terrorists like al-Awlaki (and this was the person whose rights were at issue in the link) seems a little far to the left for you, Haggis.

If being against a U.S. government that claims a secret mandate to murder any Ameicans without any due process defines me as being Leftist then I guess I'm a Leftist. I'm even more incensed by all these hypocrites who'd be sceaming bloody murder if these killings happened under a Republican president. Right now the president can order the military to lock you up without due process or, if that's inconvenient, then just order that you be killed, no justification required.

I'll make a prediction that as soon as this happens with a Republican in office everyone, including some of the hypocrites here, will be coming out of the woodwork to condemn him/her, and rightly so. But right now it's just too inconvenient to do so. Besides, their best bud Barry would never kill someone who doesn't deserve it, would he?

It's just wrong that any president has that authority, regardless of party affilation.

[Giant Communist Robot]

Besides, their best bud Barry would never kill someone who doesn't deserve it, would he?

You may not have noticed, but he's been killing people left and right. He's a killing machine.

[Giant Communist Robot]

secret mandate to murder any Ameicans

Is this how you feel about al-Awlaki?

[Haggis@wk]

Is this how you feel about al-Awlaki?

To a degree, yes. Apparently the only publically available information show that he was, as the article says,

...though a total d**k and probably a criminal, may have been engaged only in propaganda

,


If they had additional information that showed he was

"levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

all and good, show us.

personally, I'm willing to be very lenient about the strength of the evidence (the "two witnesses in open court" for instance) but we didn't even have that.

Now, our Congress has given the President broad powers to wage war against Americans based on a classified procedure and with no identifiable judicial oversight. In addition, the President can now order the U.S. military (I assume it would be my old compatriots in the various MCIOs, "Military Criminal Investigation Organizations" since it was determined decades agao they have the quasi-legal authority to "apprehend" civilians) to pick up American citizens (you, for instance) and hold you in limbo with no recourse to habeas corpus. I personally believe that violates Posse Comitatus. And if that doesn't alarm you let's not forget that Posse Comitatus does not pertain to the U.S. Navy, and by Extension the USMC.

All of this is so much more egregious than that stupidly named "PATRIOT Act" and yest because he is "their president" the Democrats and their hypocritcal "civil rights" wing are shockingly silent. Not unlike the various women's groups giving that serial philanderer Clinton a free pass.

Except for a convenient 8 year gap NOW had never met a rape victim it didn't love. Because of conspiratorial silence the damage to the womens movement's credibility in the U.S.has deen (probably) forever tarnished and shown to be the partisan politcal movement it always was. I expect the ACLU and other professional civil rights whiners will be/are being similarly tarnished.

Regardless, the cynical Libertarian in me is appalled at the lack of objections by all right thinking Americans, even those whiners.

This is a bad thing.

[Haggis@wk]

With Reservations, Obama Signs Act to Allow Detention of Citizens.

Well, the reservations couldn’t have been THAT great, if he does why not issue a “signing statement”?

[Shapley]

...or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Didn't Congress do this with the North Vietnamese during the later part of the Vietnam War?

Just think, if President Nixon had this authority, he could have bombed the Capitol building...

[Haggis@wk]

that the president would declare "loyalty day"