say goodbye to the Constitution...
hammertime
2,389 Posts
WHOOOOSHHHH!!! 
Congress is blowing my mind this week. WTF is happening to this country.
Congress is blowing my mind this week. WTF is happening to this country.
Comments
is this torture related?
I learned to say goodbye to the geneva convention a few months ago, it still hurts when I think back on it, but as long as I don't let the memory linger I feel strong enough to carry on
maybe sabadabada can drop some science on why all this is kosher under the constitution and the geneva convention.
Really think about that.
Don't even need to...shit is plain horrible. One step closer to the edge.
Wrioting your congressman, joining a Political action group, etc these are things people shoudl be doing if they really want to try to get something done.
If we sit back and complain while the machine keeps moving we are just allowing the gears to keep on turning. This shit needs monkey wrenches STAT!
Is this like rioting with pens and paper?
Yes!
constituents do this or you are soft!
voting is a start.
connecticut democrats made an ENORMOUS impact on the country by telling Lieberman to fuck off. That vote is going to shape the democratic presidential primaries, it was that important. if you are a democrat and have continually supported the war and/or haven't spoken out against Iraq, Katrina, Torture, etc., you are not getting my vote. I want some people like Howard Dean in Congress. YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
It's not one story. It is the history of the post 9/11 war on terror. This weeks edition is 2 bills passed by congress that will soon be signed into law. The one mentioned above is the detainee bill. The other is the warrantless wire tap bill. The thing about warrantless wire taps is that the next president (Hillary) can tap the phones of the Republican Headquarters, and no one can do a thing about it. No one would know, because they don't have to tell anyone that they are doing it or why.
Part of the reason that Bill Clinton was able to balance the budget is that a bi-partisan group in congress passed a bill that said you can't add any new spending without paying for it. As soon as Bush was in, the Republicans repealed that law. Now the Republicans have created a bloated federal bureaucracy, whose purpose appears to be to funnel money to their friends. They could not have created a bigger bureaucracy if they were Democrats. They have also spent more money, and increased the federal deficit more than any Democrat could.
The reason I bring that up is that I can guarantee you they will repeal the warrantless wire tap law the second a Democrat takes the White House. It might be 2 years, it might be 12, but when it happens they will repeal the warrantless wire tap bill.
As for links, go to your favorite on line news source and check the week in review headlines.
I'm not tryin' to start shit, but do you really believe ur going to take office with far left wingers like Dean???
Voting is a start but we all can't sit complacent until election day.
The immigration marches in Los angeles and other cities played a big part in both bringing attention to citizens and politicians. Things like this (and more) need to be done so that politicians with a 98% re-election rate don't just sit back and collect their tax-money funded paychecks and continue with business as usual.
I hate to say it cause I thnk I'm part of the problem too, but Americans seem ok with complaining in small circles and not taking the risk of getting their voice heard. The way things are going Freedom of speech can very well be censored unless we do something; Constitutional rights being amended for torture is reason enough to speak out.
FOLKS GET LOUD!
I understand that Howard Dean was a in a noisey room of supporters and he yelled, and that yell was broadcast no stop for 2 weeks, but beside that what makes him a far left winger?
He supported the war in Afghanastan.
He wants to rebalance the federal budget.
He wants all Americans to have health insurance.
He wants to allow women the right to decide if they don't or do[/b] want to have children.
He is infavor of the rule of law.
He is infavor of congressional and judicial oversight.
and on and on.
So what makes him far left?
1. The Court was specifically denied jurisdiction over cases involving Guantanamo Bay prisoners by the legislature, but heard the case in violation of that.
2. The decision was in part based on an Article in the Geneva Convention that was not only not agreed to by the United States but specifically rejected.
3. The caselaw that Hamdan is based upon supports the denial of habeus corpus to enemey combatants captured on the battlefield. The implications of Hamdan are that any prisoner no matter where they are captured is somehow entitled to the same rights of due process as an American citizen arrested in the United States.
I understand that Howard Dean was a in a noisey room of supporters and he yelled, and that yell was broadcast no stop for 2 weeks, but beside that what makes him a far left winger?
He supported the war in Afghanastan.
He wants to rebalance the federal budget.
He wants all Americans to have health insurance.
He wants to allow women the right to decide if they don't or do[/b] want to have children.
He is infavor of the rule of law.
He is infavor of congressional and judicial oversight.
and on and on.
So what makes him far left?
what he said.
also, what even constitutes a far left winger by today's standards? look how far the right has gone. the neo-conservatives are about as radical as they come. is a far left winger someone who voted against the war? supports affirmative action? wants more federal spending on global warming? proposes that we cut tax breaks for the rich?
sounds good to me.
I understand that Howard Dean was a in a noisey room of supporters and he yelled, and that yell was broadcast no stop for 2 weeks, but beside that what makes him a far left winger?
He supported the war in Afghanastan.
He wants to rebalance the federal budget.
He wants all Americans to have health insurance.
He wants to allow women the right to decide if they don't or do[/b] want to have children.
He is infavor of the rule of law.
He is infavor of congressional and judicial oversight.
and on and on.
So what makes him far left?
what he said.
also, what even constitutes a far left winger by today's standards? look how far the right has gone. the neo-conservatives are about as radical as they come. is a far left winger someone who voted against the war? supports affirmative action? wants more federal spending on global warming? proposes that we cut tax breaks for the rich?
sounds good to me.
Someone was just pointing out to me that despite taking office with at best 1/2 the vote, Bush did not govern from the center, but instead goverened to his far right base. This was previously unheard of in American politics.
Was that a response?
This bill proposes that any "prisoner" (no definition of that term), no matter where they are captured (i.e, picked up off the street) is somehow an enemy combatant captured on the battlefield (see your point #3). Your six year old nephew would fit the definition if our government scooped him up overseas and labeled him an "enemy combatant". It is completely arbitrary. Bush can call anyone he wants an "enemy combatant" and immediately take away their right to habeus corpus. It is a fucking disgrace. Senator Specter, a republican and head of the judiciary committee, had the balls to call this bill out as being a slap in the face of the constitution.
And we haven't said one word yet about how they tip-toed around torture.
The class divide in America has been stretching for at least 30 years now and shows no signs, whatsoever, of abating. That's never good for any society, especially since the middle class has been trending towards vanishing lower rather than rising higher. The "race to incarcerate" shows little signs of slowing (though prison overcrowding is severe enough to warrant immediate remedy...which alas, will probably be to build more prisons). And while I think much of the anti-immigration hype is largely election year/wedge issue fire-stoking, I really don't see it going away anytime soon. Even if a new president in '08 decided on the immediate and unilateral withdrawal of American troops from Iraq (which is impossible to even imagine), these other social issues are going to be stalking in the background.
It's not that America is on the verge of social collapse (not yet anyways) but I don't want Iraq to overshadow everything else going on. I have no love for the GOP but I'm hardly expecting the Dems to provide much relief even if they were to retake the Senate (unlikely).
What I'm curious to know is if anyone - including folks like Rockadelic and Sabadababa think things are better now than they were, say, 10 years ago. This isn't a smarmy challenge, it's just that, as Americans, we tend to have such a rosy, linear sense of history and I would think/hope that right now, there might be a consensus that actually, we've taken a few steps back - not solely b/c of Bush, but because of a variety of different factors. In other words, I'm not asking for blame here - rather, I just want to see if there are those who think we're actually at the pinnacle of our republic's history.
I think under FDR the Court established that it was within the power of the executive to define someone as an enemy combatant. If you recall, he went ahead and hung the German spies that were picked up on Long Isalnd, and told the Court he was going to do so regardless of how they ruled.
One of those prisoners was, in fact, an American citizen who had moved to Germany and the Court found that this was not an obstacle to him being labled an enemy combatant also.
As for torture, the Geneva Conventions are full of vague language like "affront to dignity" and the like, I see no problem with wanting to define these terms and do it broadly. When did our enemies ever abide by the articles of the Geneva Conventions, the Japanese tortured and killed hundreds if not thousands of American POW's, the Germans shot them at the Battle of the Buldge, the North Koreans and the Vietnamese didn't abide by it, and the terrorists certainly wont. So this whole argument that it puts our soldiers in danger is pretty weak.
I don't think this is true. If you want to argue the point though, you made it, so you go find the statistical eveidence that this is in fact happening.
people here are sad at the lessening of contitutional freedoms cause of government. the snetiment is originally that something needs to be done outside of arguing on everyones favorite internet forum about it.
suggestinos of encouraging voting and contacting congress and possibly more are suggested
but in the end it all ends up falling back on pointless online bickering with lockstep neo-cons.
Are you people telling me that bickering with sabadbabsda is realyl how you want to spend your time on this issue?
Wasted energy
you didn't answer this question:
so you think it is ok for the president to have the authority to label a 6 year old kid, living in manhattan, as an "enemy combatant" and scoop him up out of his house and take him overseas (to who knows where) without giving him the right to seek habeus corpus relief???? how is that constitutional?? please do not become a lawyer if you think this is ok.
the torture argument is minor in comparison but still just as shocking. we, as americans, are going to approve of basically any form of torture that does not leave visible scarring. proud to be an american?