I will have more to say later, I swear.
Archives for February 2007
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em
I guess after years of deriding MoveOn, the next thing to do is to mimic them:
House Republican leaders and conservative activists are targeting critics of President Bush’s plan to send more combat forces into Iraq — and some GOP lawmakers are on the hit list.
Amid a mounting campaign in Congress to limit Bush’s military options, conservatives led by talk show host Hugh Hewitt have created an advocacy group designed to counter the anti-war MoveOn.org. And its first round of targets will be the 17 GOP lawmakers who voted for last week’s Democratic resolution in the House opposing the troop increases.
First in the sights of the new Victory Caucus is Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla., whose district includes Orlando.
I support this wholly, and hope to assist Hugh in creating his permanent right-wing crazy minority party. They can focus on abortion, patriotism, and immigration. Hell, I even have a Presidential candidate for them- Harriet Meiers.
In all seriousness, Hugh and company- you guys show ’em. I think anyone who demonstrates anything less than absolute and complete fealty to the Decider’s plans should be excommunictaed and defeated, and replaced with someone crazier.
The best way to keep Hugh’s ideas from ever infecting the public agenda is to support them in this cause, because working to defeat the few moderates remaining in the GOP will only keep the Republicans in the minority for a long time coming. So you show ’em, Hugh! I fully support your quixotic quest for ideological purity. But please don’t roll out the phrase “The big tent party” anytime soon.
A Not At All Surprising Decision
Even though I am not a lawyer and I frequently screw up interpretations of rulings, this comes as no surprise:
– Guantanamo Bay detainees may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a ruling upholding a key provision of a law at the center of President Bush’s anti-terrorism plan.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners.
Barring prisoners from the U.S. court system was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system to prosecute terrorism suspects.
***A spokesman for the Justice Department, which was expected to seek dismissal of hundreds of prisoner cases pending in federal court, praised the decision.
“The decision reaffirms the validity of the framework that Congress established in the MCA permitting Guantanamo detainees to challenge their detention” through military hearings coordinated by the Defense Department,” said spokesman Erik Ablin.
Under the commissions act, the government may indefinitely detain foreigners who have been designed as “enemy combatants” and authorizes the CIA to use aggressive but undefined interrogation tactics.
There is really no point joining in on any collective freakout over this, as the time for freaking out has long since passed. The time for that was when they passed this hideous piece of crap. Now, I am afraid, it is merely working as designed.
And that is an important point. This disgusting piece of un-American legislation is no accident- it was plotted and planned, step by step, by a bunch of simpering fools who think nothing of throwing aside what makes this country great in the pursuit of some abstract notion of ‘security.’ Any attempts to stop the legislation were met with accusations that ranged from hating America to outright treason. And again, this outcome was the plan from the beginning, as Marty Lederman notes:
Indeed, according to John Yoo’s new book (and other sources), they were taken to GTMO precisely for the purpose of keeping them out of the reach of U.S. courts. Whatever the constitutional rule ought to be for aliens detained near a battlefield half a world away, it seems perverse, to say the least, that so many important constitutional protections should turn on which direction we choose to direct our ships (or planes) carrying detainees a few miles off the Florida coast.
While we can hope the Supreme Court overturns this nonsense, our best bet is to use the mechanism that created this mess- Congress and the President. Support legislation to reign in this authority, and refuse to vote for any candidate who will not work to overturn this garbage. To do anything else is to shirk your real duty as a patriot and a citizen, despite what the know-nothing scaremongers yell otherwise.
Open Thread
I like to think of Jesus as an Ice Dancer, dressed in an all-white jumpsuit, and doing an interpretive dance of my life.
Others prefer to think of Jesus as Bush:
Over the course of the next two years I think many of these Republicans will regret their decision of support for this Democrat resolution as they realize the extent of its impact. Their careers most likely will end in the same undignified manner as Judas ended his own life. Speaking for myself I can say this without hesitation, there are now seventeen pieces of silver in our party historically represented by red, and I promise you I shall not be colorblind in 08.
Watch out, Judas! Boobookitty is gonna come at you in 2008 like a spider monkey!
Open Thread
Just Say No
It is looking more and more like Hillary Clinton will never be Preznit, and the Republicans will not even have had to fired a shot. That is probably a good thing, because they are busy shooting at Mitt Romney.
And I will go on record and say that I love the nickname “Multiple Choice Mitt.”