This is the same Supreme Court that upheld cavity searches for overdue traffic fines.
No, the SCOTUS held that a prison/jail is a secure facility, and that the people administrating that facility have a reasonable responsibility to ensure that the safety of the prison/jail is not compromised, and in some cases, it is reasonable and possible to believe that a person would get themselves arrested for a minor crime in order to smuggle a weapon or other item into such a secure facility.
So what you're saying is that Obama claims he can detain you indefinitely without any specific statutory authority, and you're OK with that.
The statement which I made contains no personal opinion nor implies anything. I have merely stated what THE GOVERNMENT is arguing. And yes, the government has been arguing that it already had this authority since the time of GW Bush.
Face it, Obama is a straight up fascist. If you vote for him, you're voting for fascism.
You apparently do not understand what fascism means, otherwise you would not have posted this.
He's already assassinated an underaged American citizen without any due process whatsoever.
Killed != assassinated. The US was not targeting that individual and had no intention of killing that individual. That individual happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Assassination requires the INTENT to kill THAT SPECIFIC PERSON. I will give you Anwar al-Awlaki, and Osama were "assassinated", but al-Awlaki's son certainly doesn't meet the bar necessary to justify the use of that term.
The US simply does not "assassinate" when it kills innocents in collateral damage from warfare. Is it right? No. Is it wrong? Absolutely. But the US is not INTENDING to do it, and would make a different decision if they had foreknowledge of the consequences. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was not targeted in the assault, this is undeniable fact. And thus had no position to claim "due process", because there was no intent of the US government to harm him in any way shape or form.
If an FBI agent is raiding a house that I just happen to be near, and a gun battle erupts, and I end up killed by an FBI bullet even though I am an innocent bystander, THAT WAS NOT AN ASSASSINATION. That was an ACCIDENT. A tragic accident indeed, and one that is upsetting and morally unjustifiable, but as it was not intentional, there is a different position to everything.
Why didn't Abdulrahman al-Awlaki not get due process? Because he was an ACCIDENT.
BTW, there is no such thing as "trivially unconstitutional". Such a concept is incompatible with the rule of law.
You're wrong there. If a state passed a bill allowing them to print their own non-precious-metal money, then that would be stricken down so fast it would make ones head hurt. Even a first year law student could look at such a provision and go "no."
But then you don't seem to understand various details of politics, so, why start there?
You haven't been paying attention to the SCOTUS lately, have you? That's the last place I'd look for any relief from corporate fascism.
Except that this SCOTUS is massively against the government trampling unnecessarily over personal liberties.
And as I said elsewhere, the decision that this court made was founded upon a simple and clear judicial matter: the government is arguing that the provision effects no new powers. If so, why pass it in the first place? So, it has to be interpreted as effecting new powers, and since it doesn't have the proper scope limitations on it, it is unconstitutionally vague.
SCOTUS would bat this down in a 9:0 decision I think. (You know the liberal justices will vote against it. And the conservative justices could only vote for it if it effects now powers, and is not vague.)
You're a little TOO untrusting...
There is the little matter of the Oath of Office, and something I like to refer to as "personal integrity".
Ok, let me rephrase this. Why veto a whole mess of a bill that allows us to pay our soldiers and the rest of our defense and neglect that duty of the President over a matter that is trivially unconstitutional or irrelevant/redundant?
Firstly what is wrong, is that there are stars that do not undergo fusion...
If you mean brown dwarfs, I'm open to tweaking the definitions to fit them in in either category, though I'd personally tend towards categorizing them as planets. If you're referring to ex-stars, I was glossing over that for simplicity's sake. Let's say, round and big enough to have triggered fusion at some point. Or you could simply call them ex-stars.:)
Interesting question... does the fusion have to be natural? How would we distinguish natural from "unnatural"? And what if something had fusion for a very brief moment.
As an example, the Earth has had a few naturally-occurring fission reactors in its history... if the Earth ever had a fusion event naturally by your standards it would then be a star or ex-star...
Not his fault the republicans tied an unconstitutional provision to the NDAA. It is his fault for negotiating with terrorists.
Except that the courts are well prepared to challenge and dismiss unconstitutional government actions...
Why veto a whole mess of a bill over a single clearly unconstitutional provision, when instead you can issue an executive order to stop anyone from using the provision, until such time as the courts strike it down?
international law does not provide for the existence of individuals without a citizenship.
That's completely and utterly false. Look up stateless person. International law has recognized this situation since the time of the League of Nations, long before the existence of the UN. There are a number of UN conventions that deal with stateless persons - see this one, from 1954, or the more specific one, dated 1961 here.
I stand corrected... one cannot usually WILLINGLY become a stateless person. And the international community has been working hard to eradicate the situation.
Google generally takes to naming things the local term. But I knew about a naming clash for Macedonia. Apparently Google has labeled it first with its native name, then the Latin character equivalent while also including the United Nations-recognized "FYROM" (the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia... yes, the "former" is capitalized correctly... it is also sorted as if it starts with a "t", because it does.)
First time accepted submitter Arker writes inter alia when he meant to say either
"among other things"
"I copied and pasted from the article", or
"I'm a first year law student"
In context, the usage is not clear, but I'm guessing the first one. In case it helps someone who likewise wanted to know if it could possibly be used as an innuendo. I don't like learning new words that can't be innuendo'ed.
As well, "et cetera" should never be used, because we speak English, not Latin!
He should be thrown out of office on treason against the constitution.
So, your argument is that he should be thrown out of office without due process?
Or are you arguing that he should be properly impeached, placed on trial for treason, at which point, where are the constitutionally necessary two people attesting to the treason that they themselves also committed? As well, there's this little stickler that requires that treason is constitionally defined to be "shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
You're no better than the purported hypocrite that you detest.
Exactly. Even when I post direct articles from reputable sources like NYtimes or USAtoday about Obama assassinating 3 Americans (including a 16-year-old boy) without giving them their constitutional right to a trial to prove their innocence, there are some people who refuse to believe it. And continue loving the man. (Or just call me racist against black people.)
Exactly. Even when I point out to people from numerous reputable sources (every US History textbook) that Abraham Lincoln assassinated THOUSANDS of Americans in the 1860's without giving them their constitutional right to a trial to prove their innocence, there are some people who refuse to believe it. And continue loving the man. (Or just calling me racist against black people.)
Just how gullible are you? Has the phrase "He beats me because he loves me" ever passed your lips?
If selling out every democratic principle is what it takes to win Congress's trust, we don't need it. We'd be better off with a president that vetos every single grab for power and gets nothing else done, than we are with this collaborater.
"Even when it means that our own troops won't get paid for waging war!"... this is the necessarily implication of "The President should have vetoed the 2012 NDAA".
If he wanted to reject those provisions, he should have vetoed it. Actually, if he wanted to adhere to his oath to uphold the Constitution, he is required to veto it. But he didn't, so we know how much an oath is worth to Barack Obama.
You can't veto the NDAA, because then how are you going to pay the troops without authorization? That's why the NDAA always contains crap like this, because it's "must pass" legislation.
However, Obama did the right thing in this case. He gave a signing statement that had no power, but puts his views on the matter on record. He then signed an Executive Order baring the execution of the law, as he deemed it unconstitutional.
BTW, who's fucking complaining about the Republicans breaking their own legislative rules that acts of congress have to be specific. This shouldn't have been attached as a rider to must-pass legislation at all.
Honestly, it's like Congress made a law saying that you cannot kill babies, and then attached a rider saying "OBTW, we can detain you for anything at anytime, for any reason, for any length of time", and when the people fail to vote for the bill, because who wants to be branded as a person who is for baby killing? (Theo de Radt?)
When a harmless pot head is killed by a police officer, the officer generally gets a paid vacation for his trouble.
It is standard process that an officer is placed on paid administrative leave in ALL shooting deaths. So, it doesn't matter if the officer shoots a "harmless pot head" or a machine-gun-wielding terrorist roaming a college campus. They get paid administrative leave.
This is to allow them time to investigate and see if the action taken was justified. "Why don't them place them on unpaid leave during that time?" Because you cannot punish a person prior to due process taking its course.
Obama directed the DOJ not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. He could do the same with any other law. This is why his argument that "we have to enforce the law" when it comes to Cannabis dispensaries [laweekly.com] is entirely bankrupt.
No, Obama directed the DOJ to not DEFEND the Defense of Marriage Act in court. The Obama administration still ENFORCES the DOMA every year, when it refuses to allow same-sex married couples to file as married (IRS being part of the Department of Commerce).
3) Obama tips off certain folks via other channels to challenge the law, AND, 4) He passes word to the Judge that he'd like to see that provision taken down in court.
Both of these steps are unnecessary. People were going to challenge the law regardless of if anyone tipped them off to challenge it or not. Obama already issued an executive order that bans execution of the provision already anyways. So as far the Obama executive works, it is already operating as if the law had not been passed. (Unfortunately, any new President could come in and reverse that executive order with minimal effort.) So, Obama already did better than anyone challenging the law can do: defuse it right away.
The fourth point is irrelevant, because the judge notes the reasoning behind her decision. Firstly, the government's best argument is that the NDAA provision is redundant, which even taken at full merit, allows the judge to issue an injunction without any affect on public interest.
Secondly, the judge pointed out that reading the NDAA as redundant is a mistake of legislative interpretation that holds that all actions taken by the legislative branch must have a purpose (otherwise, why would they spend the effort doing them?) So, the NDAA must be read as if it granted new powers, and since the NDAA does not have any construction to appropriately narrow its scope, such as definitions and clarifications that other laws receive, it is undeniably vague.
Seriously, any judge should have come to this decision....
If OBL had gotten a US green card first, would we just have to give up and let him have his way with us?
We'd have had to make a good faith attempt to capture him instead of moving right to assassination, if we cared about our laws.
How it went down allows for the argument that we attempted to capture him. Seriously, how would anyone be able to argue that he was not shot in a justified action in the process of his capture? How would we distinguish between "we shot him on site" from "he became a lethal threat to our forces, and we shot him"?
Al-walaki at least had going that there was absolutely no ground troops involved, so there is no doubt that we didn't attempt a capture... but even then, as someone else argued, our rights should extend to non-citizens as well. Well, we violate non-citizen's US rights all the time when we shoot them in war. And what of all the people killed in the Civil War who actually WERE citizens? (By legal definitions of the Union north, not by self-classification of the Confederate south.) Should we have held a good faith attempt to capture every soldier and then hold a trial for them?
War and combat are distinctly different from civil criminal process.
The AUMF is the "existing law" the NDAA codifies, you simply have chosen to misread the statute.
The AUMF is not what the NDAA provision codifies, the AUMF is what codifies the AUMF.
As the court properly noted in its decision, if the Government's argument is that the NDAA merely affirms the AUMF, or codifies powers the Executive already had, then that would require a rejection of standard legal theory that each legislative act must be considered on its own, as a wholly separate action.
Also, the preliminary injunction granted, given the Government's arguments are taken at full merit, would be irrelevant anyways, as it would take away no ability that the Government has at its disposal.
The problem is that in the argument to retain the law, the Government is making an egregious error... they're arguing that the NDAA is redundant.
The move was likely a financial one, as he owns an estimated 4 percent of Facebook and stands to make $4 billion when the company goes public.... Saverin’s move, which they dub a “scheme” that would “help him duck up to $67 million in taxes.”
You're telling me he only has to pay 1.6% on $4 billion? Goddamn the rich have it good.
No... he will still have to pay taxes on the price of Facebook PRE-IPO. But after that, as long as he has citizenship elsewhere, his capital gains are income to his new government, and no longer the US government.
I'm not familiar with all the details of this particular case, but there is a difference between paying as little tax as possible (everyone should be attempting to do this...) and committing tax fraud.
In this particular case, the person was born in Brazil, and living in Singapore, and plans to continue to live in Singapore indefinitely. Sounds like the most rational reasons for forfeiting his US citizenship to me.
And from a legal standpoint, as long as he holds citizenship of some recognized country then he is entirely free to do so. However, individuals who reside in the US, and have no other citizenships anywhere else cannot just renounce their citizenship to dodge taxes, because international law does not provide for the existence of individuals without a citizenship. So, one can only renounce ones citizenship if one already has another citizenship. (US Courts have also held that a US citizen cannot lose their citizenship without willful revocation of it, since the Constitution guarantees your citizenship. So, no act of Congress or other legislative body can dismiss a person's citizenship against their will.)
TFS is misleading... the things you complain about are only complained about in aspects.
<karma-whoring>
Magnifying Glasses vs. Binoculars... he suggests that these icons should have been switched Televisions... he complains about the "rabbit ears" aspect of many iconic renditions
The other two are just assuming that no one touches the tools anymore because they're not widely wielded anymore.
Woah, nifty... I like the idea that the court has supreme say in legal matters, because that's what they're there for after all.
I mean, it's the fundamental reason why the US court has constitutional review... it's not in the Constitution, (but then working off of a Common Law heritage, a lot wasn't codified for a long time) but it was recognized that even the government must bow before the courts.
Of course, getting courts to work fairly with democracy... that's a tangly bit that I've yet to be solved well.
You are presuming that I'm trying to define a planet with the notion that clearing out its orbital path is a prerequisite. I'm suggesting that the whole notion is absurd in the first place that it should even be a part of the definition. Orbit clearing is simply not even necessary to be in the definition. Then again I'm also suggesting that the heliocentric definition by the IAU is just as absurd as it requires that planets also must orbit the Sun, and any object which does not orbit the Sun is thus not properly called a planet... even if it happens to orbit another star or simply orbits the center of the galaxy.
Except the "heliocentric" IAU model makes no such claim. The IAU classification system only applies within the Sol System. Extending it outside the Sol System is as easy as: "orbits the stellar mass(es) directly" instead of "orbits the Sun directly".
More specifically and pedantically, the exact IAU text bolded for emphasis:
The IAU...resolves that planets and other bodies in the Solar System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:
This is clearly interpreted as: "the IAU is making rules about the Solar System, and the Solar System only, these rules do not apply outside of the Solar System."
Beyond the IAU specification, the loosely but not strictly established definition of a planet is an object orbiting a stellar mass(es) directly, and is not a stellar mass itself. With the pedantically added inclusion of "is also not a Brown Dwarf"...
When it works the court system provides our most important guardianship of civil rights.
I usually attempt to bring this up, any time someone tries to claim that the 2nd Amendment protects all other US rights. I'm like, no... your right to redress our grievances does. You can't take away the ability of people to bear arms... out of all the rebellions that the US has had, only one was without the right to bear arms, and it is in fact, the only one that succeeded...
BTW, what country do you live in? I can only guess, and don't have much of a clue where and what tradition you're even talking about.
Except by that definition, then the Earth has not cleared its orbit...
Neither has Jupiter, Saturn, or Mars, and arguably Neptune as well. Even Uranus has "large planetary-like objects" near it.
Is Venus genuinely the only real planet in the Solar System?
That is why the whole notion of clearing out the orbit is as silly as any other part of the IAU definition.
Except "cleared its orbit" does not include any satellites, and also does not include small masses (non-planetoids). So, my definition has no problem with downgrading everything except Venus, because the satellites do not count. However, if you consider Luna/The Moon as a dwarf planet, now you have the Earth in an orbit with a dwarf planet, and thus no eligible for the "planet" nomenclature.
My definition doesn't have a problem... sure it's arbitrary, but it doesn't have a problem. Your alternatives however do....
Slashdot Mirror
This is the same Supreme Court that upheld cavity searches for overdue traffic fines.
No, the SCOTUS held that a prison/jail is a secure facility, and that the people administrating that facility have a reasonable responsibility to ensure that the safety of the prison/jail is not compromised, and in some cases, it is reasonable and possible to believe that a person would get themselves arrested for a minor crime in order to smuggle a weapon or other item into such a secure facility.
So what you're saying is that Obama claims he can detain you indefinitely without any specific statutory authority, and you're OK with that.
The statement which I made contains no personal opinion nor implies anything. I have merely stated what THE GOVERNMENT is arguing. And yes, the government has been arguing that it already had this authority since the time of GW Bush.
Face it, Obama is a straight up fascist. If you vote for him, you're voting for fascism.
You apparently do not understand what fascism means, otherwise you would not have posted this.
He's already assassinated an underaged American citizen without any due process whatsoever.
Killed != assassinated. The US was not targeting that individual and had no intention of killing that individual. That individual happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Assassination requires the INTENT to kill THAT SPECIFIC PERSON. I will give you Anwar al-Awlaki, and Osama were "assassinated", but al-Awlaki's son certainly doesn't meet the bar necessary to justify the use of that term.
The US simply does not "assassinate" when it kills innocents in collateral damage from warfare. Is it right? No. Is it wrong? Absolutely. But the US is not INTENDING to do it, and would make a different decision if they had foreknowledge of the consequences. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was not targeted in the assault, this is undeniable fact. And thus had no position to claim "due process", because there was no intent of the US government to harm him in any way shape or form.
If an FBI agent is raiding a house that I just happen to be near, and a gun battle erupts, and I end up killed by an FBI bullet even though I am an innocent bystander, THAT WAS NOT AN ASSASSINATION. That was an ACCIDENT. A tragic accident indeed, and one that is upsetting and morally unjustifiable, but as it was not intentional, there is a different position to everything.
Why didn't Abdulrahman al-Awlaki not get due process? Because he was an ACCIDENT.
BTW, there is no such thing as "trivially unconstitutional". Such a concept is incompatible with the rule of law.
You're wrong there. If a state passed a bill allowing them to print their own non-precious-metal money, then that would be stricken down so fast it would make ones head hurt. Even a first year law student could look at such a provision and go "no."
But then you don't seem to understand various details of politics, so, why start there?
You haven't been paying attention to the SCOTUS lately, have you? That's the last place I'd look for any relief from corporate fascism.
Except that this SCOTUS is massively against the government trampling unnecessarily over personal liberties.
And as I said elsewhere, the decision that this court made was founded upon a simple and clear judicial matter: the government is arguing that the provision effects no new powers. If so, why pass it in the first place? So, it has to be interpreted as effecting new powers, and since it doesn't have the proper scope limitations on it, it is unconstitutionally vague.
SCOTUS would bat this down in a 9:0 decision I think. (You know the liberal justices will vote against it. And the conservative justices could only vote for it if it effects now powers, and is not vague.)
You're a little TOO untrusting...
There is the little matter of the Oath of Office, and something I like to refer to as "personal integrity".
Ok, let me rephrase this. Why veto a whole mess of a bill that allows us to pay our soldiers and the rest of our defense and neglect that duty of the President over a matter that is trivially unconstitutional or irrelevant/redundant?
Firstly what is wrong, is that there are stars that do not undergo fusion...
If you mean brown dwarfs, I'm open to tweaking the definitions to fit them in in either category, though I'd personally tend towards categorizing them as planets. If you're referring to ex-stars, I was glossing over that for simplicity's sake. Let's say, round and big enough to have triggered fusion at some point. Or you could simply call them ex-stars. :)
Interesting question... does the fusion have to be natural? How would we distinguish natural from "unnatural"? And what if something had fusion for a very brief moment.
As an example, the Earth has had a few naturally-occurring fission reactors in its history... if the Earth ever had a fusion event naturally by your standards it would then be a star or ex-star...
Not his fault the republicans tied an unconstitutional provision to the NDAA. It is his fault for negotiating with terrorists.
Except that the courts are well prepared to challenge and dismiss unconstitutional government actions...
Why veto a whole mess of a bill over a single clearly unconstitutional provision, when instead you can issue an executive order to stop anyone from using the provision, until such time as the courts strike it down?
international law does not provide for the existence of individuals without a citizenship.
That's completely and utterly false. Look up stateless person. International law has recognized this situation since the time of the League of Nations, long before the existence of the UN. There are a number of UN conventions that deal with stateless persons - see this one, from 1954, or the more specific one, dated 1961 here.
I stand corrected... one cannot usually WILLINGLY become a stateless person. And the international community has been working hard to eradicate the situation.
Google generally takes to naming things the local term. But I knew about a naming clash for Macedonia. Apparently Google has labeled it first with its native name, then the Latin character equivalent while also including the United Nations-recognized "FYROM" (the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia... yes, the "former" is capitalized correctly... it is also sorted as if it starts with a "t", because it does.)
First time accepted submitter Arker writes inter alia when he meant to say either
In context, the usage is not clear, but I'm guessing the first one. In case it helps someone who likewise wanted to know if it could possibly be used as an innuendo. I don't like learning new words that can't be innuendo'ed.
As well, "et cetera" should never be used, because we speak English, not Latin!
He should be thrown out of office on treason against the constitution.
So, your argument is that he should be thrown out of office without due process?
Or are you arguing that he should be properly impeached, placed on trial for treason, at which point, where are the constitutionally necessary two people attesting to the treason that they themselves also committed? As well, there's this little stickler that requires that treason is constitionally defined to be "shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
You're no better than the purported hypocrite that you detest.
Exactly. Even when I post direct articles from reputable sources like NYtimes or USAtoday about Obama assassinating 3 Americans (including a 16-year-old boy) without giving them their constitutional right to a trial to prove their innocence, there are some people who refuse to believe it. And continue loving the man. (Or just call me racist against black people.)
Exactly. Even when I point out to people from numerous reputable sources (every US History textbook) that Abraham Lincoln assassinated THOUSANDS of Americans in the 1860's without giving them their constitutional right to a trial to prove their innocence, there are some people who refuse to believe it. And continue loving the man. (Or just calling me racist against black people.)
Just how gullible are you? Has the phrase "He beats me because he loves me" ever passed your lips?
If selling out every democratic principle is what it takes to win Congress's trust, we don't need it. We'd be better off with a president that vetos every single grab for power and gets nothing else done, than we are with this collaborater.
"Even when it means that our own troops won't get paid for waging war!" ... this is the necessarily implication of "The President should have vetoed the 2012 NDAA".
If he wanted to reject those provisions, he should have vetoed it. Actually, if he wanted to adhere to his oath to uphold the Constitution, he is required to veto it. But he didn't, so we know how much an oath is worth to Barack Obama.
You can't veto the NDAA, because then how are you going to pay the troops without authorization? That's why the NDAA always contains crap like this, because it's "must pass" legislation.
However, Obama did the right thing in this case. He gave a signing statement that had no power, but puts his views on the matter on record. He then signed an Executive Order baring the execution of the law, as he deemed it unconstitutional.
BTW, who's fucking complaining about the Republicans breaking their own legislative rules that acts of congress have to be specific. This shouldn't have been attached as a rider to must-pass legislation at all.
Honestly, it's like Congress made a law saying that you cannot kill babies, and then attached a rider saying "OBTW, we can detain you for anything at anytime, for any reason, for any length of time", and when the people fail to vote for the bill, because who wants to be branded as a person who is for baby killing? (Theo de Radt?)
When a harmless pot head is killed by a police officer, the officer generally gets a paid vacation for his trouble.
It is standard process that an officer is placed on paid administrative leave in ALL shooting deaths. So, it doesn't matter if the officer shoots a "harmless pot head" or a machine-gun-wielding terrorist roaming a college campus. They get paid administrative leave.
This is to allow them time to investigate and see if the action taken was justified. "Why don't them place them on unpaid leave during that time?" Because you cannot punish a person prior to due process taking its course.
Obama directed the DOJ not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. He could do the same with any other law. This is why his argument that "we have to enforce the law" when it comes to Cannabis dispensaries [laweekly.com] is entirely bankrupt.
No, Obama directed the DOJ to not DEFEND the Defense of Marriage Act in court. The Obama administration still ENFORCES the DOMA every year, when it refuses to allow same-sex married couples to file as married (IRS being part of the Department of Commerce).
3) Obama tips off certain folks via other channels to challenge the law, AND,
4) He passes word to the Judge that he'd like to see that provision taken down in court.
Both of these steps are unnecessary. People were going to challenge the law regardless of if anyone tipped them off to challenge it or not. Obama already issued an executive order that bans execution of the provision already anyways. So as far the Obama executive works, it is already operating as if the law had not been passed. (Unfortunately, any new President could come in and reverse that executive order with minimal effort.) So, Obama already did better than anyone challenging the law can do: defuse it right away.
The fourth point is irrelevant, because the judge notes the reasoning behind her decision. Firstly, the government's best argument is that the NDAA provision is redundant, which even taken at full merit, allows the judge to issue an injunction without any affect on public interest.
Secondly, the judge pointed out that reading the NDAA as redundant is a mistake of legislative interpretation that holds that all actions taken by the legislative branch must have a purpose (otherwise, why would they spend the effort doing them?) So, the NDAA must be read as if it granted new powers, and since the NDAA does not have any construction to appropriately narrow its scope, such as definitions and clarifications that other laws receive, it is undeniably vague.
Seriously, any judge should have come to this decision....
If OBL had gotten a US green card first, would we just have to give up and let him have his way with us?
We'd have had to make a good faith attempt to capture him instead of moving right to assassination, if we cared about our laws.
How it went down allows for the argument that we attempted to capture him. Seriously, how would anyone be able to argue that he was not shot in a justified action in the process of his capture? How would we distinguish between "we shot him on site" from "he became a lethal threat to our forces, and we shot him"?
Al-walaki at least had going that there was absolutely no ground troops involved, so there is no doubt that we didn't attempt a capture... but even then, as someone else argued, our rights should extend to non-citizens as well. Well, we violate non-citizen's US rights all the time when we shoot them in war. And what of all the people killed in the Civil War who actually WERE citizens? (By legal definitions of the Union north, not by self-classification of the Confederate south.) Should we have held a good faith attempt to capture every soldier and then hold a trial for them?
War and combat are distinctly different from civil criminal process.
The AUMF is the "existing law" the NDAA codifies, you simply have chosen to misread the statute.
The AUMF is not what the NDAA provision codifies, the AUMF is what codifies the AUMF.
As the court properly noted in its decision, if the Government's argument is that the NDAA merely affirms the AUMF, or codifies powers the Executive already had, then that would require a rejection of standard legal theory that each legislative act must be considered on its own, as a wholly separate action.
Also, the preliminary injunction granted, given the Government's arguments are taken at full merit, would be irrelevant anyways, as it would take away no ability that the Government has at its disposal.
The problem is that in the argument to retain the law, the Government is making an egregious error... they're arguing that the NDAA is redundant.
The move was likely a financial one, as he owns an estimated 4 percent of Facebook and stands to make $4 billion when the company goes public. ...
Saverin’s move, which they dub a “scheme” that would “help him duck up to $67 million in taxes.”
You're telling me he only has to pay 1.6% on $4 billion? Goddamn the rich have it good.
No... he will still have to pay taxes on the price of Facebook PRE-IPO. But after that, as long as he has citizenship elsewhere, his capital gains are income to his new government, and no longer the US government.
I'm not familiar with all the details of this particular case, but there is a difference between paying as little tax as possible (everyone should be attempting to do this...) and committing tax fraud.
In this particular case, the person was born in Brazil, and living in Singapore, and plans to continue to live in Singapore indefinitely. Sounds like the most rational reasons for forfeiting his US citizenship to me.
And from a legal standpoint, as long as he holds citizenship of some recognized country then he is entirely free to do so. However, individuals who reside in the US, and have no other citizenships anywhere else cannot just renounce their citizenship to dodge taxes, because international law does not provide for the existence of individuals without a citizenship. So, one can only renounce ones citizenship if one already has another citizenship. (US Courts have also held that a US citizen cannot lose their citizenship without willful revocation of it, since the Constitution guarantees your citizenship. So, no act of Congress or other legislative body can dismiss a person's citizenship against their will.)
TFS is misleading... the things you complain about are only complained about in aspects.
<karma-whoring>
Magnifying Glasses vs. Binoculars... he suggests that these icons should have been switched
Televisions... he complains about the "rabbit ears" aspect of many iconic renditions
The other two are just assuming that no one touches the tools anymore because they're not widely wielded anymore.
Woah, nifty... I like the idea that the court has supreme say in legal matters, because that's what they're there for after all.
I mean, it's the fundamental reason why the US court has constitutional review... it's not in the Constitution, (but then working off of a Common Law heritage, a lot wasn't codified for a long time) but it was recognized that even the government must bow before the courts.
Of course, getting courts to work fairly with democracy... that's a tangly bit that I've yet to be solved well.
You are presuming that I'm trying to define a planet with the notion that clearing out its orbital path is a prerequisite. I'm suggesting that the whole notion is absurd in the first place that it should even be a part of the definition. Orbit clearing is simply not even necessary to be in the definition. Then again I'm also suggesting that the heliocentric definition by the IAU is just as absurd as it requires that planets also must orbit the Sun, and any object which does not orbit the Sun is thus not properly called a planet... even if it happens to orbit another star or simply orbits the center of the galaxy.
Except the "heliocentric" IAU model makes no such claim. The IAU classification system only applies within the Sol System. Extending it outside the Sol System is as easy as: "orbits the stellar mass(es) directly" instead of "orbits the Sun directly".
More specifically and pedantically, the exact IAU text bolded for emphasis:
The IAU...resolves that planets and other bodies in the Solar System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:
This is clearly interpreted as: "the IAU is making rules about the Solar System, and the Solar System only, these rules do not apply outside of the Solar System."
Beyond the IAU specification, the loosely but not strictly established definition of a planet is an object orbiting a stellar mass(es) directly, and is not a stellar mass itself. With the pedantically added inclusion of "is also not a Brown Dwarf"...
Or you could simply call them ex-stars.
Why multiply terms unnecessarily?
When it works the court system provides our most important guardianship of civil rights.
I usually attempt to bring this up, any time someone tries to claim that the 2nd Amendment protects all other US rights. I'm like, no... your right to redress our grievances does. You can't take away the ability of people to bear arms... out of all the rebellions that the US has had, only one was without the right to bear arms, and it is in fact, the only one that succeeded...
BTW, what country do you live in? I can only guess, and don't have much of a clue where and what tradition you're even talking about.
Except by that definition, then the Earth has not cleared its orbit...
Neither has Jupiter, Saturn, or Mars, and arguably Neptune as well. Even Uranus has "large planetary-like objects" near it.
Is Venus genuinely the only real planet in the Solar System?
That is why the whole notion of clearing out the orbit is as silly as any other part of the IAU definition.
Except "cleared its orbit" does not include any satellites, and also does not include small masses (non-planetoids). So, my definition has no problem with downgrading everything except Venus, because the satellites do not count. However, if you consider Luna/The Moon as a dwarf planet, now you have the Earth in an orbit with a dwarf planet, and thus no eligible for the "planet" nomenclature.
My definition doesn't have a problem... sure it's arbitrary, but it doesn't have a problem. Your alternatives however do....
Stars are round and big enough to trigger fusion. ... What's wrong with that definition?
Firstly what is wrong, is that there are stars that do not undergo fusion...