Jefferson would not have supported the foreign policy of the USA for many years now, and he would be in open rebellion against this current tyrannical administration. A second revolt against a madman named George, thief of habeas corpus.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended legislation:
For protecting himself and appointees, from facing Trial, and Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of this world;
For depriving humans, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting humans beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring island Naval base, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into this Country:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For superseding our own Legislatures, and declaring himself with addendum affixed to legislation signings, invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has plundered seas, ravaged Coasts, burnt towns, and destroyed the lives of people he was subsequently unable to prove had caused this country harm;
He is at this time transporting large armies of corporate mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens whose contacted and honourable service in our military had ended, forcing them to bear Arms against an unproven enemy, or to fall themselves into a judiciary regimen which no longer adheres to due process of law.
He has excited sectarian insurrections amongst a foreign people, an endeavour likely to bring on the inhabitants of our country, the merciless Terrorists, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Just what do you base this claim upon? Turkey is a democracy. It has its shortcomings. Care to get into an argument about a two-party stranglehold's effect on democratic processes?
Turkey is vehemently opposed to being forced to admit to Armenian genocide a century ago. At the same time, as many Turkish journalists have pointed out, France's stand against Turkey's admission into the EU because of this is certainly lest than virtuous, given that they have never owned up to their own more recent history in Algeria.
The PKK is a group recognised by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. After its leader Abdullah Ocalan, was captured by Turkish Special Forces in Kenya, many governments and groups protested his trial as unfair. The main reasons for this was that the trial was held in the Ankara State Security Court, which is ruled by a three judge panel in which a military officer is included as one judge, and that after his arrest, Ocalan was unable to be reached by attorneys for ten days. Compare and contrast these judicial flaws with the obscene US treatment of detainees, and the Guantanamo Show Trials in which any defendant allegations of torture are considered classified information?
In regards to the YouTube incident mentioned; it was quickly ruled as an unconstitutional act by a Turkish court, and its import was greatly inflated in the Western media. Read a Turkish editorial on the matter:
If we were to allow in unlimited number of temporary visas for any person who was employed as a Corporate Executive, and then inform them that the temporary visa was transferable to a permanent one, only if they succeeded in keeping jobs in America, along with keeping the corporation competitive in the global market, it would substantially decrease outsourcing in the USA. Another benefit from this would be a significant downward pressure on Corporate executive compensation packages.
Although intended as comedy, this exemplifies why there should be open borders for immigration worldwide, and why any concept of citizenry not based upon voluntary decision is an illegitimate assertion of state power over individual rights. Acquiescing to the state's assertion of power in this regard is in reality an atavistic return to feudalism.
America was founded upon the concept of a Natural Right to Expatriation, which was then understood to mean both egress from and ingress to a country. This was essential in legitimising their separation from the yoke of allegiance to the British Crown. It was an expression of Human Rights by a free people, rather than an act of rebellion by treasonous subjects of the crown.
It seems Americans are more content to be the subjects of lords than free humans these days. Contemplating the implications of this for both my country, and the world, is a source of sadness.
This was a decision on the filed amended claims from a lawsuit decided last July in Google's favor. I'm rather impressed with the KinderStart attorney, Gregory Yu, but it takes two citations to show it. First, an Out-Law dot com article, after describing how the judge pummelled the lawsuit for the second time, decided to pound a bit upon Mr. Yu too:
Judge Jeremy Fogel of the US District Court for the Northern District of California threw the case out, saying that KinderStart had been given a second chance to make its case and had still failed.
"The Court concluded in its July 13th Order that KinderStart had failed to allege facts sufficient to support each of the four elements of an attempted monopolization claim," said the judge. "The Court also noted that KinderStart had not sufficiently described the markets relevant to its claim. The SAC [second amended complaint] suffers from essentially the same defects."
[. ..]
KinderStart lawyer Gregory Yu of law firm Global Law Group was reprimanded by the judge for his unsupported claims that other companies had suffered unfair treatment at the hands of Google. "The Court concludes that the allegation that Google sells priority placement in its results should not have been made based upon the limited information identified by Yu," said Fogel. "As presented to the Court on this motion, Yu's purported evidence is either double hearsay or hearsay speculation as to the 'mysterious' causes of improvement in a website's position in Google's search results. The Court concludes that the allegations are sanctionable under Rule 11 because they are factually baseless and because Yu failed to perform an adequate investigation before filing them."
"It is true that Yu spoke with a number of people who believe that Google engages in religious or political discrimination, but a reasonable, competent investigation requires more than suspicions or belief. Yu had a professional responsibility to refrain from filing such allegations if he did not have appropriate supporting evidence," said Fogel.
Fogel said that he would take action against Yu. "Yu should have removed the allegations of sold search rankings and discrimination from the second amended complaint, and Google is entitled to reasonable compensation for having to defend against these claims," he said.
Now return if you will to the time after a judgment had been entered last July, 2006 in Google's favor, but with a leave to amend, and we find Yu out pitching for potential clients:
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel for the Northern District in San Jose dismissed all nine claims, saying that KinderStart's claims were insufficient or failed to allege facts or conduct to support that the claims or were too vague.
Fogel specifically dismissed some of the claims against Google "with leave to amend," meaning that KinderStart can modify and refile the complaint.
[. ..]
...KinderStart attorney Gregory Yu also claimed victory, noting that the judge left the door open by allowing KinderStart to refile the claims. He said he plans to file an amended complaint before the next court date, which is scheduled for Sept. 29.
Yu also said he was encouraged by the judge's discussion pertaining to the defamation claim, and he urged other Web site publishers to contact him...
"The decision suggests that, if properly alleged, Google may be defaming a whole class of Web sites sacked with a '0' PageRank," he wrote in a statement. "If plaintiffs show Google manually tampered with even a single Web site's PageRank, Google's entire claim of 'objectivity' of search results and rankings could collapse."
Elinor Mills,"Judge dismisses suit over Google ranking, CNET News dot com, July 13, 2006
Fremont County Colorado Department of Human Services, officially;
Steve Clifton, individually and officially;
Dawn Rivas, individually and officially;
Todd Hanenberg, individually and officially;
Dan C. Kender, individually;
Anna Hall Owen, individually and officially,
Defendants-Appellees,
and
Fremont County District Court,
Defendant.
No. 04-1133
(D.C. No. 03-RB-743 (MJW))
(D. Colo.)
No. 04-1155
(D.C. No. 03-RB-743 (MJW))
(D. Colo.)
I. Background
Ms. Fields's daughter was the subject of a dependency and neglect proceeding initiated by the state of Colorado in January 2003. In connection therewith, the state provided Ms. Fields a court-appointed attorney, Mr. Kender, but Ms. Fields also hired Ms. Shell, a journalist who researches and documents child protection agencies' practices, to act as an expert consultant. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Fields executed a power of attorney naming Ms. Shell as her agent. Ms. Fields also agreed to be included in Ms. Shell's documentary video project concerning child protection services.
On April 16, 2003, Mr. Meconi, the Fremont County DHS's attorney, filed a motion in state court to make Ms. Shell a special respondent in the pending dependency and neglect action. The motion sought to prevent Ms. Shell "from contacting the minor child or [Ms. Fields] . . . and from otherwise being involved in the proceedings . . . , including, but not limited to, acting as counsel for [Ms. Fields] or otherwise engaging in the unauthorized practice of law."
[. ..]
On May 9, after a hearing on the motion to make Ms. Shell a special respondent, the state court issued an order granting the motion, vesting legal custody of Ms. Fields's daughter with the Fremont County DHS, and scheduling a jury trial. In making Ms. Shell a special respondent the court observed that Ms. Shell, "in the guise of acting as the agent" for Ms. Fields, has "essentially been providing legal advice to [Ms. Fields]." The state court further ordered Ms. Shell specifically prohibited from:
1. Preparing, providing or otherwise generating any legal documents;
1. Providing any legal advice to [Ms. Fields], regardless of whether she (Suzanne Shell) characterizes it as legal advice or counseling;
1. . . . having any relationship or contact with [Ms. Fields] at all; [and]
1. . . . exercising, in any way, the rights or authority expressed in the power of attorney given to her by [Ms. Fields] . . ..
What wasn't discussed by the Telegraph is that other associations the former professor has may be a motivating force for his hate mail. There are those who believe that astroturfing for Oil Corporations is not the most honourable of activities.
The Federal Judiciary should stay out of political battles, as it cheapens their legitimacy in the public eye. It is a shame that they did not heed this, in the election aftermath of 2000. Still, it is not the President, and his unlawful acts which are being appealed. It is the NSA's unlawful acts determined to be unlawful, notwithstanding that they claim were predicated on a presidential finding.
These unlawful acts are surely Constitutional Violations. Whether the Legislature finds the courage to challenge this foul tyranny remains to seen. It seems that the only action which the GOP considers impeachable has not occurred within the last six years, since GW was gelded by Laura in 1984; obviously, there remains nothing to fellate...
The Government is basically saying that since they are now in compliance with statutory rules guiding FISA warrants, that the original plaintiffs, who won the suit under appeal, no longer have standing. Yet their pleading arrogantly begs for an appeal determination by denying the original case controls, and that the compliance to FISA warrant rules is not the result of them following the lower Court's determination. From the supplemental submission:
This suit is predicated on the notion that the TSP is unlawful because it authorized electronic surveillance that was not supervised by the FISA court. As the Government explained in its briefs, the TSP was lawful and in accordance no only with statutory authority but also the President's inherent constitutional authority. Nevertheless, not that the President has decided not to reauthorize the TSP, and any electronic surveillance that was being conducted under the TSP is now being conducted solely subject to the FISA Court's approval, the essential predicate for plaintiff's claims and request for relief no longer exists. Accordingly, the intervening FISA Court orders fundamentally alter the nature of their litigation.
This is an appeal to a lower Court case which determined the the NSA had acted illegally, and any arguments questioning the standing of the original plaintiffs needs to take into account a reasonable expectation that the plaintiffs will be subjected to the same criminal NSA behaviours in the future. Yet this pleading does not even recoginse the lower court's ruling as law, instead conversely states that it is not law, that Mr. Bush's powers as President place him without the very constraints of the document which is the only grounding for the legitimacy of his acts, The US Constitution.
Mr. Bush and his Administration have in the past shown themselves to possess a preponderate predilection to engage in lies and deceptions, attempting to obfuscate many actions it engages and had engaged in. When the continuing facts had become public; the evidence leaving no doubt as to the Bush Administration's blatant dishonesty, and unlawful acts, the Bush administration then attacked the press as sappers of National Security. It is laughable to allege that Mr. Bush will not, as soon as he believes no one is looking, again unconstitutionally authorise unwarranted surveillance.
Mr. Bush is not above the law. The plaintiffs should still have standing in the appeal case, and this sham of a pleading should be denied.
Rather ironic that the previous post was under the heading: "If People could READ", when you supply data that isn't even what was asked for. It is easy to understand why you'd post as an anonymous coward with sources like MEMRI and the Washington Times too. I asked for citations backing up the claim that "France, China and Russia were against because they were secretly making billions on the oil for food program.", and you respond with a copy and paste excerpt from a subsection of an out of date MEMRI article which is titled:
The Saddam Oil Vouchers Affair, Part I: A. Complete List of Recipients of Oil Vouchers (in alphabetical order by country) (All numbers for barrels of oil unless indicated otherwise)
You dump data which is total number of barrels of oil in Iraqi vouchers, which doesn't indicate if the vouchers were filled or unfilled, doesn't offer a dollar amount, doesn't differentiate between secret and public, and doesn't attempt to sort legal from illegal. To that I'll add that MEMRI is a known propagandiser which often plays fast and loose with the truth.
No offense taken, btw, although I am glad you didn't burst into flames over my response. I happened upon your post in this thread after laying a few licks down before it. It seems that the more I age, the closer I relate to my roots from the high desert west; and often go cowboy, slinging fast and hard off of the hip. Goldwater happens to be one of the few contemporaneousness politicians I respect. Not because he held positions that I agreed with, but because his positions were true to his philosophy first, damn the party. He was actually troubled that racists were attracted to his ideology in '64, because his opposition to Johnson's Great Society was anchored in exactly what he said it was, a belief that welfare would trap its recipients within a web of defeatism, and make their plight worse than before. When he ran the family's department store in Arizona, it was the first to hire blacks as retail clerks, and offered one of the most generous health/retirement packages of any employer in the state. Facts that many of Goldwater's critics seem to miss. I tend to slam quick and hard around conservatives, and within their namespaces, whenever I come across hypocritical claims of affinity to Goldwater too.
In the same vein is a fairly recent article by a paleocon that I've often disagreed with in the past, heir to a Greek shipping business, Taki Theodoracopulos, who has even bragged about naming one of his houses after Pinochet. Still, it is hard to disagree with his renouncement of the bipolar polity:
"What are Right and Left any more? Who is a liberal and who is a conservative? When Madeleine Albright proudly announces that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children via the sanctions on Iraq were worth it, even God becomes suspect. Which liberal or conservative can explain to me the difference between an Iraqi insurgent's roadside bomb that kills civilian passersby and a U.S. bombing raid that also causes the deaths of innocent women and children? Both are acts of savagery: in both cases one knows in advance that civilians will most certainly be killed. Bush and Americans in general claim the moral high ground, but both are terribly wrong. War is a barbaric business. Only defensive wars are justified.
When this journal began four years ago, a bum by the name of David Frum accused us of being unpatriotic Americans-this from a man who has never seen war up close and would never send his son or daughter to serve their country. But we were proved right. Iraq is the greatest American foreign-policy failure, bigger than Vietnam, but the neocons have yet to apologize. To the contrary. The Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard's William Kristol, a sofa samurai par excellence, is urging Uncle Sam to stop dithering and to engage in more pre-emptive wars. Kristol calls himself a conservative. Could I possibly call myself the same? Not on your life.
All governments are monopolies of organized force, inherently unjustifiable. And once accepted, they are bound to get out of control sooner or later. No, there is no longer a Right or a Left. Bush's mammoth expansion of government power and spending makes LBJ look like Robert Taft, the last true conservative-and peace lover, I might add.
Judging from the server logs relevant to a section of a site I am a primary of, there has been a slowly increasing interest in habeas corpus. Maybe I misinterpret but I believe it represents an increasing concern also.
It is the Constitution's Thirteenth Amendment, Clause 1, that binds the government to provide due process of law to all it detains:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
It is heartening when learning of others who also carry the fight. When I began, there were times I felt as if I was standing alone against the stormwall. I believe that the great majority of Americans can be made to understand why an equal application of law, irrespective of citizenship, is one of the essential cornerstones to justice; and in a society where justice is denied, liberty is only a soon to be forgotten dream.
On this there can be no agreement to disagree. It is a clear line which cannot be crossed. It is not up for negotiation upon any bargaining table. The president's war powers do not magically place him without the US Constitution. He is not above the law. Existing on the high ground offers no significant advantage if one exists there alone, it is good that others agree. The Dreamtime America may yet survive. The enfilade of their moral awakening awaits.
"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."
Thank-you. I held a reply until this thread had fallen off of the front page. What threatens our Republic currently is not terrorists, but instead powermongers who would strip the citizenry of their birthright to liberty. It gives me no pleasure at this point in my life to resist, but I am compelled. Thus speaks honour to duty.
The president hasn't the right to imprison humans as criminals without acquiring a conviction against them in a public trial that follows due process of law. You claim the detainees are murderers. What do you base this allegation upon? The word of a man who took this country to war for causes which turned out to be false?
When did a obscene act of terror by 20 determined and lucky guys, which to America's great misfortune got scheduled during an administration that was so arrogant, ignorant and derelict that they didn't see it coming, get hyperbolised into a definition of "invasion"? Twenty guys five years ago does not an invasion make.
The Constitution's restraints upon a legitimate American government did not end the day The ole Gimper's 'freedom fighters' became Duyba Pudd's 'evil doers', no matter how many different ways LooneyCons attempt to spin it. Although it's easy to understand why they are so easily terrorised: 6 years out and they still shriek in panicky alarm, and shudder with hysterical quivering whenever their thoughts are drawn like a moth to a light, inexorably towards the Penis of the President Past. CaponCons, still resentful that their hereditary afflictions of weak bladders and uncontrollable sphincters made them unsuitable to serve in the US Military.
Article 4; Section 3, clause 2 - congress' power to oversee federal property
Twice in The Fifth Amendment
no deprivation of life liberty or property without due process of law
any taking for public purposes requires just compensation
14th Amendment, clause 1 - redundant repeat of the 5th Amendment's due process clause to bar individual state's deprivations without due process of law.
Under the Gonzales rationale, there is NO Constitutional Right to Possess Privatre Property
Also worth noting is that the Constitution's one mentioning of habeas corpus is listed under Congressional Powers, not the Executive's. Mr. Bush's thefts of the detainees' habeas corpus rights before the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was enacted into law are multiple Constitutional violations by an overreaching executive.
and you sir, are a tampon in a girlieboy's trousers desperately in need of having a Bush Man Date properly inserting an Official Abu Ghraib Interrogator's Model Chemical Light Stick of GOP Enlightenment®*. It seems you mind still resides in the darkness...
*The Chemical Light Stick of GOP Enlightenment, and all of its variants is a registered trademark and property of the RNCC. It is protected by the DMCA, RIAA, DoJ, DOT, IRS, USMC as well as any Federal, State or International statutes we can bring to bear targeting your bit&torrented ass, so don't even think about it Mr. Limp-Wristed Geek, because the NSA is always listening in on you too.
A determination by military tribunal that a detainee is an unlawful combatant, is a determination that they are not a Prisoner of War, but instead a human being held without trial as a criminal actor by the US Government. Due Process of Law Controls at that point.
It should also be noted that many of the deetainees were stripped of Geneva protections without first have a military tribunal decide their status. The decision was instead based only upon a written fiat of Mr. Bush's, who is NOT a "competent tribunal", which is the standard stated in the Geneva Conventions.
I dislike revisionaries who attack revisions of others in an attempt to give credence to their own propagadising misstatements of fact; so please, could you offer citations for:
"France, China and Russia were against because they were secretly making billions on the oil for food program."
Oh, and by the way, one or two private actors of a specific nationality does not prove governmental collusion, especially not in the case of a former French minister under Chirac, as it is a case of just one, and if it is evidence of guilt, then GW should be serving life without possibility of parole for his associations with and appointments of criminal actors. You slander America's longest historical ally without even a decent offering of hearsay evidence in callous disregard for the fact that Chirac, out of all of the outspoken European leaders was the closest to reality in his assessment of Pre-war Iraq's WMD capabilities.
Are you a graduate of the Groundskeeper Willie's School of International Relations?
The Declaration of Independence was still the document which justified a revolution against one's own country by humans who believed in the rule of law. It is also one of the primary foundations of the Dreamtime America, and as a walkabout, I am aware of its great import:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
The Declaration of Independence has another point of relevance in this thread. Many of the injuries claimed as cause for America's Independence are the very same injuries charged against Mr. Bush. It provides a brutal irony with A Comparison of Georges; in the first instance of George, it was a King of England, in the latter George, it is the President of the United States.
To illuminate this; Let the allegories be presented to a candid world:
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Party's Legislators to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has called for hurried unargued legislation at improper times before elections, for the sole purpose of fatiguing the opposition into compliance with his measures.
He has disregarded Representation repeatedly; alleging his written muses in addendum to legislation signings, carried a greater force of law than enactments which opposed with honourable firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to the Senatorial Duty of advice and consent over his Judiciary Nominations.
He has erected Ministry of Homeland Defense, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People; funded through draws upon the future's treasury, which will eat out their pensions
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended legislation:
For protecting himself and his appointees, excluding them from International Trial and Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of this World;
For depriving humans, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting humans beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a Neighbouring Island Naval Base, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into this Country:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For ignoring our own Legislatures, and declaring himself invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
What does this mean? That we should grant such a privilege to everyone captured?
No, as long as the detainees are held under the umbrella of protection that the Geneva Conventions provides, then The US Constitution; Article VI, clause 2 guides:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Under this clause, the Geneva Conventions, being treaties made "under the Authority of the United States", are The Supreme Law of The Land. The Geneva Conventions cannot be lawfully abrogated by a signatory during a time they are at war. America was at war on September 11, 2001. Constitutional Violation number one for Mr. Bush in this analysis. Furthermore, the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War in Article I; part 4A, describes six separate classes of individuals who are POWs under the Conventions; Article 4B describes two more classes of individuals who "shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention". Article 5; paragraph 2 then states: "Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.". It is transparently false to allege that Mr. Bush by his own lonesome self qualifies as "competent tribunal". Constitutional violation number 2.
The moment the detainees are yanked out from under the Geneva Protections, having been defined by Mr. Bush as "unlawful combatants", then they are by definition being detained by the US government as criminal actors, and other sections of the Constitution control.
The US Constitution, Amendment XIV; Section 1 says:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
As the detainees are removed from the battlefield, they immediately are being held in places under the jurisdiction of the US Government, the rule of America law begins to greatly limit the government legitimate actions in the retainment of these humans. The US Constitution, amendment V states:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Just what part of the phrase No Person is so nebulous that its meaning is not clear? Even if the weaslie and dubious claim the the exclusionary clause "in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger" is accepted as applying to enemies, and not just American forces, it still only applies to the preceding right t
The US is at war with Al Qaeda. (Yes, at war. See below*.) There isn't much of anything going on here that President Roosevelt didn't do in WW2, and in many ways there is less. We seem to have survived that war.
This of and by itself speaks loudly to the moral relativism which runs rampant within modern conservative thought. No Real Conservative would ever justify an overreaching Executive's actions by grounding their arguments into the thoughts, words or deeds of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Besides that, it is a clear-cut violation of the US Constitution for Mr. Bush, of and by his own unlawful claim to war powers that exist without the Supreme Law of the Land, to have abrogated habeas corpus:
Article. I. of the US Constitution defines the duties of the legislative branch of our government. Habeas Corpus is only mentioned once in The US Constitution: Article I, section 9; clause 2:
"The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
It was not within Mr. Bush's rightful powers to rescind habeas corpus, he should have instead requested it from Congress.
Even Kenneth Starr wrote a letter of opposition to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, because it unlawfully would rescind habeas corpus rights:
Although the Rasul Court limited its holding to statutory habeas rights, which may be limited by the Congress, the Supreme Court nevertheless viewed Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as a territory within the control and jurisdiction of the United States. Accordingly, the Eisentrager case may no longer be relied upon with confidence to rule out constitutional habeas protections for Guantanamo detainees. One of the Eisentrager factors that limited constitutional habeas rights for aliens in military custody was whether the detainee was held outside of the United States. Based on the finding of the Rasul case that Guantanamo Bay falls within U.S. territorial jurisdiction, Guantanamo detainees likely have a different constitutional status than the alien detainees in Eisentrager, who were held in Landsberg, Germany.
Article 1, section 9, clause 2 of the United States Constitution provides that "[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." The United States is neither in a state of rebellion nor invasion. Consequently, it would problematic for Congress to modify the constitutionally protected writ of habeas corpus under current events.
So here, a Republican Majority Congress defended a GOP president's unconstitutional usurpation of their duties with their unconstitutional act, rescinding habeas corpus in absence of any "Cases of Rebellion or Invasion". Not only that, the same enactment conferred immunity to the executive branch for past violations they committed, which is another constitutional violation in itself:
Article 1, section 9, clause 3 of the United States Constitution states:
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
You defend tyranny, and you add to this offensiveness by implying the Mr. Bush's War Upon Iraq was in some convoluted rationalisation, a war upon our real enemy, al Qaeda.
Pass this trash upon some FREEPing board which may yet still fall for the distortions, ok?
Slashdot Mirror
What would TJ do?
Jefferson would not have supported the foreign policy of the USA for many years now, and he would be in open rebellion against this current tyrannical administration. A second revolt against a madman named George, thief of habeas corpus.
Just what do you base this claim upon? Turkey is a democracy. It has its shortcomings. Care to get into an argument about a two-party stranglehold's effect on democratic processes?
Turkey is vehemently opposed to being forced to admit to Armenian genocide a century ago. At the same time, as many Turkish journalists have pointed out, France's stand against Turkey's admission into the EU because of this is certainly lest than virtuous, given that they have never owned up to their own more recent history in Algeria.
The PKK is a group recognised by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. After its leader Abdullah Ocalan, was captured by Turkish Special Forces in Kenya, many governments and groups protested his trial as unfair. The main reasons for this was that the trial was held in the Ankara State Security Court, which is ruled by a three judge panel in which a military officer is included as one judge, and that after his arrest, Ocalan was unable to be reached by attorneys for ten days. Compare and contrast these judicial flaws with the obscene US treatment of detainees, and the Guantanamo Show Trials in which any defendant allegations of torture are considered classified information?
In regards to the YouTube incident mentioned; it was quickly ruled as an unconstitutional act by a Turkish court, and its import was greatly inflated in the Western media. Read a Turkish editorial on the matter:
Barin Kayaoglu, "Defending YouTube or Defending Atatürk?", Journal of Turkish Weekly, 17 March 2007
Try expanding your knowledge, instead of depending upon others' prejudices for you bigotry.
If we were to allow in unlimited number of temporary visas for any person who was employed as a Corporate Executive, and then inform them that the temporary visa was transferable to a permanent one, only if they succeeded in keeping jobs in America, along with keeping the corporation competitive in the global market, it would substantially decrease outsourcing in the USA. Another benefit from this would be a significant downward pressure on Corporate executive compensation packages.
Although intended as comedy, this exemplifies why there should be open borders for immigration worldwide, and why any concept of citizenry not based upon voluntary decision is an illegitimate assertion of state power over individual rights. Acquiescing to the state's assertion of power in this regard is in reality an atavistic return to feudalism.
America was founded upon the concept of a Natural Right to Expatriation, which was then understood to mean both egress from and ingress to a country. This was essential in legitimising their separation from the yoke of allegiance to the British Crown. It was an expression of Human Rights by a free people, rather than an act of rebellion by treasonous subjects of the crown.
It seems Americans are more content to be the subjects of lords than free humans these days. Contemplating the implications of this for both my country, and the world, is a source of sadness.
This was a decision on the filed amended claims from a lawsuit decided last July in Google's favor. I'm rather impressed with the KinderStart attorney, Gregory Yu, but it takes two citations to show it. First, an Out-Law dot com article, after describing how the judge pummelled the lawsuit for the second time, decided to pound a bit upon Mr. Yu too:
Now return if you will to the time after a judgment had been entered last July, 2006 in Google's favor, but with a leave to amend, and we find Yu out pitching for potential clients:
US Court of Appeasls for the Tenth District (html doc online)
v.
and
I. Background
Ms. Fields's daughter was the subject of a dependency and neglect proceeding initiated by the state of Colorado in January 2003. In connection therewith, the state provided Ms. Fields a court-appointed attorney, Mr. Kender, but Ms. Fields also hired Ms. Shell, a journalist who researches and documents child protection agencies' practices, to act as an expert consultant. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Fields executed a power of attorney naming Ms. Shell as her agent. Ms. Fields also agreed to be included in Ms. Shell's documentary video project concerning child protection services.
On April 16, 2003, Mr. Meconi, the Fremont County DHS's attorney, filed a motion in state court to make Ms. Shell a special respondent in the pending dependency and neglect action. The motion sought to prevent Ms. Shell "from contacting the minor child or [Ms. Fields] . . . and from otherwise being involved in the proceedings . . . , including, but not limited to, acting as counsel for [Ms. Fields] or otherwise engaging in the unauthorized practice of law."
[. . .]
On May 9, after a hearing on the motion to make Ms. Shell a special respondent, the state court issued an order granting the motion, vesting legal custody of Ms. Fields's daughter with the Fremont County DHS, and scheduling a jury trial. In making Ms. Shell a special respondent the court observed that Ms. Shell, "in the guise of acting as the agent" for Ms. Fields, has "essentially been providing legal advice to [Ms. Fields]." The state court further ordered Ms. Shell specifically prohibited from:
Sourcewatch offers a bit of illuminating data. Since the site is built on media wiki software, I advise a gander at the article's history too.
What wasn't discussed by the Telegraph is that other associations the former professor has may be a motivating force for his hate mail. There are those who believe that astroturfing for Oil Corporations is not the most honourable of activities.
It would mean the end to Drudge....
The Federal Judiciary should stay out of political battles, as it cheapens their legitimacy in the public eye. It is a shame that they did not heed this, in the election aftermath of 2000. Still, it is not the President, and his unlawful acts which are being appealed. It is the NSA's unlawful acts determined to be unlawful, notwithstanding that they claim were predicated on a presidential finding.
These unlawful acts are surely Constitutional Violations. Whether the Legislature finds the courage to challenge this foul tyranny remains to seen. It seems that the only action which the GOP considers impeachable has not occurred within the last six years, since GW was gelded by Laura in 1984; obviously, there remains nothing to fellate...
The Government is basically saying that since they are now in compliance with statutory rules guiding FISA warrants, that the original plaintiffs, who won the suit under appeal, no longer have standing. Yet their pleading arrogantly begs for an appeal determination by denying the original case controls, and that the compliance to FISA warrant rules is not the result of them following the lower Court's determination. From the supplemental submission:
This is an appeal to a lower Court case which determined the the NSA had acted illegally, and any arguments questioning the standing of the original plaintiffs needs to take into account a reasonable expectation that the plaintiffs will be subjected to the same criminal NSA behaviours in the future. Yet this pleading does not even recoginse the lower court's ruling as law, instead conversely states that it is not law, that Mr. Bush's powers as President place him without the very constraints of the document which is the only grounding for the legitimacy of his acts, The US Constitution.
Mr. Bush and his Administration have in the past shown themselves to possess a preponderate predilection to engage in lies and deceptions, attempting to obfuscate many actions it engages and had engaged in. When the continuing facts had become public; the evidence leaving no doubt as to the Bush Administration's blatant dishonesty, and unlawful acts, the Bush administration then attacked the press as sappers of National Security. It is laughable to allege that Mr. Bush will not, as soon as he believes no one is looking, again unconstitutionally authorise unwarranted surveillance.
Mr. Bush is not above the law. The plaintiffs should still have standing in the appeal case, and this sham of a pleading should be denied.
Rather ironic that the previous post was under the heading: "If People could READ" , when you supply data that isn't even what was asked for. It is easy to understand why you'd post as an anonymous coward with sources like MEMRI and the Washington Times too. I asked for citations backing up the claim that "France, China and Russia were against because they were secretly making billions on the oil for food program." , and you respond with a copy and paste excerpt from a subsection of an out of date MEMRI article which is titled:
You dump data which is total number of barrels of oil in Iraqi vouchers, which doesn't indicate if the vouchers were filled or unfilled, doesn't offer a dollar amount, doesn't differentiate between secret and public, and doesn't attempt to sort legal from illegal. To that I'll add that MEMRI is a known propagandiser which often plays fast and loose with the truth.
No offense taken, btw, although I am glad you didn't burst into flames over my response. I happened upon your post in this thread after laying a few licks down before it. It seems that the more I age, the closer I relate to my roots from the high desert west; and often go cowboy, slinging fast and hard off of the hip. Goldwater happens to be one of the few contemporaneousness politicians I respect. Not because he held positions that I agreed with, but because his positions were true to his philosophy first, damn the party. He was actually troubled that racists were attracted to his ideology in '64, because his opposition to Johnson's Great Society was anchored in exactly what he said it was, a belief that welfare would trap its recipients within a web of defeatism, and make their plight worse than before. When he ran the family's department store in Arizona, it was the first to hire blacks as retail clerks, and offered one of the most generous health/retirement packages of any employer in the state. Facts that many of Goldwater's critics seem to miss. I tend to slam quick and hard around conservatives, and within their namespaces, whenever I come across hypocritical claims of affinity to Goldwater too.
In the same vein is a fairly recent article by a paleocon that I've often disagreed with in the past, heir to a Greek shipping business, Taki Theodoracopulos, who has even bragged about naming one of his houses after Pinochet. Still, it is hard to disagree with his renouncement of the bipolar polity:
I await the PostDigital Political wavefront...
Judging from the server logs relevant to a section of a site I am a primary of, there has been a slowly increasing interest in habeas corpus. Maybe I misinterpret but I believe it represents an increasing concern also.
Will Peace, but Keep Your cartridges Dry...
It is the Constitution's Thirteenth Amendment, Clause 1, that binds the government to provide due process of law to all it detains:
It is heartening when learning of others who also carry the fight. When I began, there were times I felt as if I was standing alone against the stormwall. I believe that the great majority of Americans can be made to understand why an equal application of law, irrespective of citizenship, is one of the essential cornerstones to justice; and in a society where justice is denied, liberty is only a soon to be forgotten dream.
On this there can be no agreement to disagree. It is a clear line which cannot be crossed. It is not up for negotiation upon any bargaining table. The president's war powers do not magically place him without the US Constitution. He is not above the law. Existing on the high ground offers no significant advantage if one exists there alone, it is good that others agree. The Dreamtime America may yet survive. The enfilade of their moral awakening awaits.
Thank-you. I held a reply until this thread had fallen off of the front page. What threatens our Republic currently is not terrorists, but instead powermongers who would strip the citizenry of their birthright to liberty. It gives me no pleasure at this point in my life to resist, but I am compelled. Thus speaks honour to duty.
The president hasn't the right to imprison humans as criminals without acquiring a conviction against them in a public trial that follows due process of law. You claim the detainees are murderers. What do you base this allegation upon? The word of a man who took this country to war for causes which turned out to be false?
And you call ME a Moron?
Just when were we invaded by Iraqis?
When did a obscene act of terror by 20 determined and lucky guys, which to America's great misfortune got scheduled during an administration that was so arrogant, ignorant and derelict that they didn't see it coming, get hyperbolised into a definition of "invasion"? Twenty guys five years ago does not an invasion make.
The Constitution's restraints upon a legitimate American government did not end the day The ole Gimper's 'freedom fighters' became Duyba Pudd's 'evil doers', no matter how many different ways LooneyCons attempt to spin it. Although it's easy to understand why they are so easily terrorised: 6 years out and they still shriek in panicky alarm, and shudder with hysterical quivering whenever their thoughts are drawn like a moth to a light, inexorably towards the Penis of the President Past. CaponCons, still resentful that their hereditary afflictions of weak bladders and uncontrollable sphincters made them unsuitable to serve in the US Military.
See how much fun non sequitur and ad hominem arguments can be? I hope all of this diversionary excitement did not cause you to forget to stock up on that most important conservative provision in case of terrorist attack, or even in the more likely event that the BusHandlers decide things are bad enough for a feigned for political expediency, heightened color coordinated terror fear level: A case of Super-Absorbent Depends©...
Got anymore of them original insults like girlyboy; Mr. Dittohead?
Under the Gonzales rationale, there is NO Constitutional Right to Possess Privatre Property
Also worth noting is that the Constitution's one mentioning of habeas corpus is listed under Congressional Powers, not the Executive's. Mr. Bush's thefts of the detainees' habeas corpus rights before the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was enacted into law are multiple Constitutional violations by an overreaching executive.
and you sir, are a tampon in a girlieboy's trousers desperately in need of having a Bush Man Date properly inserting an Official Abu Ghraib Interrogator's Model Chemical Light Stick of GOP Enlightenment®* . It seems you mind still resides in the darkness...
* The Chemical Light Stick of GOP Enlightenment, and all of its variants is a registered trademark and property of the RNCC. It is protected by the DMCA, RIAA, DoJ, DOT, IRS, USMC as well as any Federal, State or International statutes we can bring to bear targeting your bit&torrented ass, so don't even think about it Mr. Limp-Wristed Geek, because the NSA is always listening in on you too.
A determination by military tribunal that a detainee is an unlawful combatant, is a determination that they are not a Prisoner of War, but instead a human being held without trial as a criminal actor by the US Government. Due Process of Law Controls at that point.
It should also be noted that many of the deetainees were stripped of Geneva protections without first have a military tribunal decide their status. The decision was instead based only upon a written fiat of Mr. Bush's, who is NOT a "competent tribunal", which is the standard stated in the Geneva Conventions.
I dislike revisionaries who attack revisions of others in an attempt to give credence to their own propagadising misstatements of fact; so please, could you offer citations for:
Oh, and by the way, one or two private actors of a specific nationality does not prove governmental collusion, especially not in the case of a former French minister under Chirac, as it is a case of just one, and if it is evidence of guilt, then GW should be serving life without possibility of parole for his associations with and appointments of criminal actors. You slander America's longest historical ally without even a decent offering of hearsay evidence in callous disregard for the fact that Chirac, out of all of the outspoken European leaders was the closest to reality in his assessment of Pre-war Iraq's WMD capabilities.
Are you a graduate of the Groundskeeper Willie's School of International Relations?
The Declaration of Independence was still the document which justified a revolution against one's own country by humans who believed in the rule of law. It is also one of the primary foundations of the Dreamtime America, and as a walkabout, I am aware of its great import:
The Declaration of Independence has another point of relevance in this thread. Many of the injuries claimed as cause for America's Independence are the very same injuries charged against Mr. Bush. It provides a brutal irony with A Comparison of Georges ; in the first instance of George, it was a King of England, in the latter George, it is the President of the United States.
To illuminate this; Let the allegories be presented to a candid world:
No, as long as the detainees are held under the umbrella of protection that the Geneva Conventions provides, then The US Constitution; Article VI, clause 2 guides:
Under this clause, the Geneva Conventions, being treaties made "under the Authority of the United States", are The Supreme Law of The Land. The Geneva Conventions cannot be lawfully abrogated by a signatory during a time they are at war. America was at war on September 11, 2001. Constitutional Violation number one for Mr. Bush in this analysis. Furthermore, the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War in Article I; part 4A, describes six separate classes of individuals who are POWs under the Conventions; Article 4B describes two more classes of individuals who "shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention". Article 5; paragraph 2 then states: "Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.". It is transparently false to allege that Mr. Bush by his own lonesome self qualifies as "competent tribunal". Constitutional violation number 2.
The moment the detainees are yanked out from under the Geneva Protections, having been defined by Mr. Bush as "unlawful combatants", then they are by definition being detained by the US government as criminal actors, and other sections of the Constitution control.
The US Constitution, Amendment XIV; Section 1 says:
As the detainees are removed from the battlefield, they immediately are being held in places under the jurisdiction of the US Government, the rule of America law begins to greatly limit the government legitimate actions in the retainment of these humans. The US Constitution, amendment V states:
Just what part of the phrase No Person is so nebulous that its meaning is not clear? Even if the weaslie and dubious claim the the exclusionary clause "in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger" is accepted as applying to enemies, and not just American forces, it still only applies to the preceding right t
This of and by itself speaks loudly to the moral relativism which runs rampant within modern conservative thought. No Real Conservative would ever justify an overreaching Executive's actions by grounding their arguments into the thoughts, words or deeds of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Besides that, it is a clear-cut violation of the US Constitution for Mr. Bush, of and by his own unlawful claim to war powers that exist without the Supreme Law of the Land, to have abrogated habeas corpus:
Article. I. of the US Constitution defines the duties of the legislative branch of our government. Habeas Corpus is only mentioned once in The US Constitution: Article I, section 9; clause 2:
It was not within Mr. Bush's rightful powers to rescind habeas corpus, he should have instead requested it from Congress.
Even Kenneth Starr wrote a letter of opposition to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, because it unlawfully would rescind habeas corpus rights:
So here, a Republican Majority Congress defended a GOP president's unconstitutional usurpation of their duties with their unconstitutional act, rescinding habeas corpus in absence of any "Cases of Rebellion or Invasion" . Not only that, the same enactment conferred immunity to the executive branch for past violations they committed, which is another constitutional violation in itself:
Article 1, section 9, clause 3 of the United States Constitution states:
You defend tyranny, and you add to this offensiveness by implying the Mr. Bush's War Upon Iraq was in some convoluted rationalisation, a war upon our real enemy, al Qaeda.
Pass this trash upon some FREEPing board which may yet still fall for the distortions, ok?