*this* supreme court declared current practice had to be via Congressional

[papau]

Law - and that not having such a law made such jailing forever practices and torture rules "unconstitutional"" because in this case "no emergency prevents consultation with Congress" so "judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation's ability to deal with danger. Some read the decision as suggesting the provisions that a new law might have. However, the 6/29/06 5-3 decision did not say that without these provisions, any new law would be ruled unconstitutional.

The current Court majority has no love of the Bill of Rights beyond making sure those rights cover private property claims of Corporations. This new law's loss of habeas corpus — the demand for legal justification of one's imprisonment - is just our "Enabling Act". Indeed Hitler's 1933 Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz - or Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volkgiven in German) was a simple grant of legislative powers to the government - meaning Hitler - now meaning the President - Bush. The US version adds to the 1933 concept a provision that tells the Courts they do not have a right to review actions of the President under this law - and indeed can not review this law - period.

Bush as a less murderous/evil Hitler, obtaining dictatorial powers using largely legal means while the media says nothing against the GOP's new laws, or cheers their passage on (the cheers coming from Fox/Washington Times/RW Radio Talk as usual), has become a valid comparison - albeit a comparison shouted down by our media. Those who said that 9/11 exposed a "failure" of the Bush administration are finally seeing just how successful Bush's pre and post 911 actions have been.

Justice Thomas in the 6/29/06 Gitmo ruling said the majority "openly flouts our well-established duty to respect the Executive's judgment in matters of military operations and foreign affairs." Justice Souter, one of the yes votes to stop the Gitmo assault on the Bill of Rights, said during the oral arguments "Whether or not the writ of habeas corpus was suspended, you are leaving us with the position of the United States that the Congress may validly suspend it inadvertently?" Well, Justice Souter will be happy to see that the suspension/termination of habeas corpus is no longer "inadvertent". The new law even applies to US Citizens as long as they are accused of being "enemy combatants". I guess that is because "military operations and foreign affairs" may have domestic critics that undermine the "war" effort, so we need to give the President this power to go around those pesky civil liberties, and jail those critics forever.

With today's makeup of the USSC, I give this destruction of the Constitution at least a 50/50 chance of being approved by this Supreme Court.

[fasttense]

1. Oh come on, these dancing supremes are just tools of the neocons.

They will never do anything to upset their masters. Now they will dance like they have been paid to do.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. What concerns me that if this new "torture bill" goes before the Supremes,

THEN they'll invoke the Separation of Powers in the Constitution. In other words, the Political Question: a question that a court determines to be not properly subject to judicial determination because resolution of it is committed exclusively to the jursidiction of another branch of government (in this case, the executive), because adequate standards for judicial review are lacking, or because there is no way to insure enforcement of the court's judgment.

[papau]

3. Thomas/Scalia will read it that way - but will the others? n/t

n/t

[Munger5683]

4. The Death of Our Republic and Our Constitution

A Letter to the Editor of my Local Conservative Newspaper

This is what the Republicans and the "Blue Dog" Democrats like Joe Lieberman have brought down on the American people. It is the end of our Republic as we know it. From now on we might as well just say, "We are the "Banana Republic" of the United States!"


Re the following article by Chris Floyd:

Most of the people I know have no concept of how dangerous this situation is. As the author says, “what is safe to do or say today might imperil your freedom or your life tomorrow.” This is the kind of power our idiot Congressional Reps have given to this Imperialistic cabal in the White House. Some of my sister’s friends aren’t worried about this destruction of our Republic, even though thousands of Americans have died to make us free. They feel that they are not in danger because they are good law abiding Republicans. But as the author points out, the law can change from day to day on the whim of this totalitarian Administration, so you’ll never know if you may one day your freedom or your life may be in peril. This is what happened to the people of Hitler’s Germany as they ignored the evil that was going on around them, because they felt that it would never happen to them. As I stated in the last article that I put out, “If I disappear tomorrow because of my activities, that are guaranteed by the Constitution, please come looking for me!” “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.”

"Remember that it is not by a tyrant's words, but only by his deeds that we can know him" ~Dwight David Eisenhower

The article:

Fatal Vision: The Deeper Evil Behind the Detainee Bill

From TruthOut.org
By Chris Floyd, TO UK Correspondent
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 02 October 2006

"There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country - if the people lose their confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and spirit of defiance." - Walt Whitman

It was a dark hour indeed on Thursday when the United States Senate voted to end the constitutional republic and transform the country into a "Leader-State," giving the president and his agents the power to capture torture and imprison forever anyone - American citizens included - whom they arbitrarily decide is an "enemy combatant." This also includes those who merely give "terrorism" some kind of "support," defined so vaguely that many experts say it could encompass legal advice, innocent gifts to charities or even political opposition to US government policy within its draconian strictures.

All of this is bad enough - a sickening and cowardly surrender of liberty not seen in a major Western democracy since the Enabling Act passed by the German Reichstag in March 1933. But it is by no means the full extent of our degradation. In reality, the darkness is deeper, and fouler, than most people imagine. For in addition to the dictatorial powers of seizure and torment given by Congress on Thursday to George W. Bush - powers he had already seized and exercised for five years anyway, even without this fig leaf of sham legality - there is a far more sinister imperial right that Bush has claimed - and used - openly, without any demur or debate from Congress at all: ordering the "extrajudicial killing" of anyone on earth that he and his deputies decide - arbitrarily, without charges, court hearing, formal evidence, or appeal - is an "enemy combatant."

That's right; from the earliest days of the Terror War - September 17, 2001 , to be exact - <b>Bush has claimed the peremptory power of life and death over the entire world.If he says you're an enemy of America , you are. If he wants to imprison you and torture you, he can. And if he decides you should die, he'll kill you. This is not hyperbole, liberal paranoia, or "conspiracy theory": it's simply a fact, reported by the mainstream media, attested by senior administration figures, recorded in official government documents - and boasted about by the president himself, in front of Congress and a national television audience.

Read more: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206A.shtml