McCain sees detainee ruling as one of the 'worst' in 'the history of this country'
By Steve Benen Friday Jun 13, 2008 4:00pm
The Supreme Court ruled this week to extend access to the federal courts to detainees at Guantanamo Bay. When reporters asked John McCain for his reaction a few hours later, he struck a disappointed note, but seemed pretty level-headed about the case. “[I]t is a decision that the Supreme Court has made,” McCain said. “Now we need to move forward. As you know I always favored closing Guantanamo Bay and I still think we ought to do that.”
That McCain did not share the right’s apoplexy over the ruling was not especially surprising — his record is that of someone not entirely comfortable with the Bush administration’s detainee policy. Indeed, in 2003, McCain blasted the administration’s notion of indefinite detentions and publicly challenged the Pentagon (specifically, Rumsfeld) to resolve the matter by either processing the detainees as war criminals or returning them to their home countries for trials. Shortly thereafter, McCain added that the detainees “have rights under various human rights declarations,” one of which is “the right not to be detained indefinitely.”
The Bush administration ignored McCain’s advice, and the two-year detentions McCain was worried about have since become six- and seven-year detentions. It makes sense, then, that McCain struck a moderate tone yesterday.
Apparently, though, moderation didn’t poll well overnight. Yesterday, McCain quickly embraced the far-right line and denounced the ruling in the strongest of terms.
John McCain weighed in on the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the rights of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to challenge their detention in U.S. courts at a town hall meeting Friday, calling the 5-4 decision “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
McCain said he that while he has been a vocal opponent of torture and advocated closing Guantanamo, he does not believe prisoners deserve the same rights as U.S. citizens.
“These are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they are not and never have been given the rights that the citizens of this country have,” he said. “Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation and the men and women who defend it.”
Remember the good ol’ days? Before John McCain became a shameless hack? Good times, good times.
Boumediene is not “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” McCain must know this, but the ruling seems to be inspiring all kinds of right-wing hyperbole. Did you catch what Scalia wrote in his dissent?
“The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed. The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.”
For a less unhinged perspective, there are plenty of great analyses of the court’s ruling, but as always, I’m partial to Dahlia Lithwick’s take.
This raises the question of what Scalia would do with these prisoners, many of whom have been held for six years without charges. If they can’t reasonably be tried or released, it must be a great comfort to believe that they are all killers and terrorists, and no further proof is needed.
The claim that the majority handed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others at Guantanamo the keys to the cells is absurd on its face. As Justice Kennedy is careful to point out in his majority opinion, the court is not ordering the release of any detainees; it is restoring their fundamental right to a habeas proceeding before a neutral fact-finder. The court did not get to the question of whether the president has authority to detain these petitioners. Nor did it actually grant anyone a writ. The majority did not strike down the MCA or find the military trials the Bush administration established to be unconstitutional. The court merely said that the petitioners are entitled to some reasonable approximation of a habeas corpus proceeding, and that the jumped-up pretrial hearings known as Combatant Status Review Tribunals just don’t substitute. Chief Justice John Roberts may insist that these tribunals represent everything a prisoner could ever wish for in the way of due process rights. But Justice Kennedy points out that the detainees’ lack of a real lawyer and their inability to rebut the charges against them make for a process that is, by definition, “closed and accusatorial” and thus open to “considerable risk of error.” (Not to mention that if a CSRT finds that you’re NOT an enemy combatant, they can just order a do-over!) Such error may result in a lifetime of detention. The majority isn’t persuaded the risk is worth it. Wrote Kennedy: “Given that the consequence of error may be detention of persons for the duration of hostilities that may last a generation or more, this is a risk too significant too ignore.”
And in the end, this is the fight between the majority and the dissent: Kennedy and the justices who signed his opinion (David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg) are worried about the very real risk of a lifetime of mistaken imprisonment. And the dissenters (Scalia, Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito) are worried about the risk of … what? Not an actual mistaken release, but a day in court. The big threat here is of federal court review that may — somewhere far down the line, and at the moment entirely hypothetically — result in the release of a detainee or (more attenuated still) the disclosure of a piece of hypothetical information that could help the terrorists in their fight against us. […]
In the event that one of the prisoners who has suffered years of abuse and mistreatment at Guantanamo is someday actually released following a federal habeas proceeding and blows something up, Scalia wants to be able to point at Justice Kennedy as the man who let him go. Or if in the course of a someday trial, a piece of evidence is leaked that somehow strengthens a terrorist group, he can blame Kennedy for his blind faith in the federal courts. The dissenters here are unwilling to bear the risk that any of the 270 men at Guantanamo — among them people who were grabbed as teens and others who claim actual innocence — go free. And, indeed, reasonable people can disagree about whether that risk is too much to bear. But Scalia and his dissenting friends today made clear that this is not the risk to which they most object. What they cannot accept is the risk that their brothers and sisters on the federal bench — with decades of judicial experience and the Constitution to light their way — might now do what they are trained to do: hear cases.
That McCain would consider this “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country,” suggests he’s truly gone — and he’s not coming back.
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Of course he would! He's McLame!
I believe the bill of rights is a minimum standard as to how to treat all human kind.
its really nice to have another guy running for president and who has spent what, 30 years in the senate, and apparently has never read the constitution
of course, it seems the four dissenters never read the constitution either
i wonder if mccain feels this decision is worse then dred scott or the alien and sedition acts
The ruling which was THE worst in the history of this country was the one which put Bush in office.
Grampy McSame has completed his metamorphosis into GWB III. Proving that he is the beyond political scum.
Real attorneys agree with the ruling. The administration is simply saying that military tribunals don't comply, so now this will have to go back to court while the detainees rot some more, as habeas corpus does not apply to military trials. This will get more interesting. Unfortunately, the prosecution has destroyed evidence along the way, and now has too little to try almost anybody.
It's time to call the men in white jackets to fit McNutcase with a straitjacket and haul his arse off to the loony bin.
John McCain is a fraud and so too is his sycophantic pal Joe Lieberman. Both men are deranged and psychotic. Both men are dangerous for the future well-being of America. Swift-boating both men is a liberal imperative, unless you want to ever deal with their war-mongering and looting of what is left of the Treasury.
Weekend Edition
June 13-15, 2008
From Glory Boy to PW Songbird
John McCain: War Hero or North Vietnam's Go-To Collaborator?
By DOUGLAS VALENTINE
If you have no idea what war is about, thank your gods. It is not what you see in Mel Gibson movies, nor is it hidden within the Big Lie Big Brother tells you about Pat Tillman’s heroic “Army of One” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When my father was in New Guinea with the 32nd Division in 1942, his fellow American soldiers would point their long Springfield rifles skywards and shoot at American pilots flying overhead.
“Glory Boys,” the long-suffering ground troops called them.
The pilots had comfortable quarters beside the airstrip in Port Moresby. When orders for a mission came down, they’d climb in their planes, rattle down the runway, and soar over the Owen Stanley Mountains with the clouds in spotless uniforms, breathing fresh clean air. The Glory Boys weren’t trapped in the broiling jungle, in the mud and pouring rain, their skin rotting away, chewed by ghastly insects, bitten by poisonous snakes, stricken with cerebral malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and a host of unknown diseases delivered by unknown parasites.
If the Fly Boys perished, it was in a blaze of glory, not from a landmine, or a misdirected American mortar, or a Japanese bayonet in the brain.
One day my father and his last remaining friend, Charlie Ferguson, were walking through the jungle up to the front line. One the way they passed a group of bare-chested Aussies in khaki shorts sitting round a grindstone sharpening their knives. Every once in a while one of the Aussies would hoist his rife and casually put a bullet into a Japanese sniper who had tied himself into the top of a nearby tree. Not in any place that would outright kill him, but some place painful enough to make the point....
....McCain learned his lesson well from the Vietnamese propagandists who used him for their psywar projects. But it’s not the collaboration that makes John McCain unfit for office; it’s the fact that he has managed to rewrite his collaboration into political capital. “He’s a war hero, respect him, or die.”
As a pedigree, the McCain family’s stature rests on the status and prestige of its achievements in the military: rank, medals, and most importantly to John McCain’s presidential campaign, the image of warrior masculinity: the straight talking maverick of the Republican Party, the 21st century rendering of Teddy Roosevelt.
Not exactly. In his current presidential campaign, he’s cozying up to the hate-mongering Christian right he once criticized. He’s reversed positions on so many issues that his Democratic rivals have assembled his contrasting statements into “The Great McCain Versus McCain Debates. (12)
Underlying the Jekyll-Hyde reversals is McCain’s hidden past of collaboration. Somewhere in the unplumbed human part of John Sidney McCain III, he knows his POW experience contradicts the war hero image he projects. This essential dishonesty, this lie of the soul, is a sign of a larger lack of character - like the major in my father’s POW camp, but without the come-uppance.
McCain is not some principled leader, not a maverick cowboy fighting the powerful. He’s a sycophant. He believes in nothing but power and will do anything to attain it. He explodes in anger when challenged because, when a criticism hits to close to home, it goes to straight his deep-seeded shame....
Read the entire article @:
http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine06132008.html
Doug Valentine is the author of The Hotel Tacloban, the story of his father’s experiences in a Japanese POW camp in World War Two. The Hotel Tacloban is available at Mr Valentine’s websites http://www.DouglasValentine.com and http://valentine.sb2.authorsguild.net
Brendan McQuade assisted Mr Valentine by providing timely research for this article.
Mr McQuade can be reached for interviews about this article at: 860-334-3661
McClatchy: Supreme Court ruling could free scores from Guantanamo
oh, and can scotus be impeached? cuz scalia needs to be removed from the bench
more americans will be killed if we provide prisoners the right of habeaus corpus? if we dont torture, if we treat them like human beings?
no sir, you need to read your history books
wanna know why the germans chose not to fight to the death and ran to surrender to american soldiers? because they knew they would be treated humanely
5-4 decisions suck.
Which is partly why the next presidential election matters.
Footnote: The minority doesn't always get it right. But America should have a clear direction from the Supreme Court.
Guess McCain would be happier if the Vietcong continued with torture after the death of Ho Chi Minh. McCain spent 5 years as a POW. He was tortured during the first two years and then Ho Chi Minh died and the Vietcong stopped torturing the POWs.
dave @ 4:
You got that right.
justice kennedy was appointed by republican pres. ronald reagan and he voted for right to habeus corpusfor the prisoners
Yeah! In your FACE Dred Scott!
Cats r Flyfishn @ 13:
But Gore didn't fight. He gave up. He handed the presidency to shrub. That's why I want a fighter. Obama is a fighter.
Cats r Flyfishn @ 12:
It is debatable whether McCain was actually "tortured" or whether those injuries came from being shot down. McCain is a pathological liar and he has embellished the "maltreatment" he received. McCain was actually treated better than most POWS because of his father and that had he been "made an example of" would have worked against the interests of the "enemy." McCain is no war hero and his "POW status" does not make him an "expert" on foreign affairs, despite that b.s. image.
Hey Catz - long time no see. :)
I had a lovely dinner last night with Kiwi mates who seem doubtful a black man could win in America, even now, but very depressed with the idea that McCain would have any chance of winning. And, it seems, there are still NZ troops in Afghanistan. Did the haka for Laura Bush. Conversation steered from there to how Kiwis are being treated in American airports (they are going out of their way this year to avoid even a transit stop in the States when they go to Amsterdam to see their daughter), and how on earth did the American ever get to this stage where we're seen as about as bad as the Saudis or China when it comes to respecting human rights. The feeling is one of sorrow, not anger, and I so hope Obama does manage to win this election, if for no other reason than to put an end to the Bush-Republican damage to our reputation around the world. We're a pariah nation now. Even when countries around the world would welcome us back should be be able to stop the Bush legacy, McCain will only continue that, and I'm not so sure America can survive another four years of this.
As Cliff Schecter details in his book The Real McCain, Mr. Straight Talk offered anything but in lauding what Congress had done in the Military Commissions Act. On September 28, 2006, McCain declared Geneva had been preserved after all:
It's no wonder the Washington Post took McCain to task in the fall of 2006 for his Orwellian double-speak:
For more details, see:
"McCain's Sins of Military Commission."
I don't consider POWs to be heros unless they did something while in captivity in which they risked their own well being to save another person. A hero is someone that puts another person(s) safety before their own. I haven't heard any reports that indicate that McCain jeopardized his own well being to save another person while he was in captivity. Therefore, he is no hero. He was a POW. That's about it.
McCain simply lacks GW Bush's only intellectual skill - double speak.
On the one hand Bush claimed to be "spreading Democracy" in the Middle East.
On the other, he claimed the guarantees of the US Constitution (specifically Habeas Corpus) do not apply to persons (most of whom are from the Middle East) who are not American citizens.
And until day before yesterday, Bush got away with it.
Check out another example of Bush double-speak unravelling:
(IPS) POLITICS-US: Bush Pledges on Iraq Bases Pact Were a Ruse
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/.....in-cartoon
dave @ 4:
Amen.
nonny mouse - hi, sweetie. I am reading your book. WOW! It is great. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Great story. I'm telling everyone about it. Nice to hear from you, too. I've been busy over at TheZoo lately and my own blog. Obama needed all the support he could get while he was campaigning in Pennsylvania for six weeks, so I created a blog :)
The Constitution isn't just for citizens.
McCain should be disqualified for his ignorance of the Constitution...
...even if Barack Obama has no clue on the economy...
Please call his office and ask them how he could be in Congress since 1982 and not know the meaning of habeas corpus.
Disgraceful.
nonny mouse @ 18:
Those of us that still have jobs or some sort of income, middle class and above will survive if McCain became president. The poor people of this country, those without health care and live life on a shoestring will not survive.
The Right talks about following the Constitution, but when it comes to actually following it they present some boogey man argument why it cannot be followed. They talk about America being a model for the rest of the world. Dictators hold prisoners forever.
See McCain debate McCain:
http://www.jedreport.com/2008/06/mccain-2005-vs.html
Apparently McCain learned nothing from his time as a POW. Nothing at all.
I remember the good ol days when National Security was a priority..
Uncle Joe Hussein Mccarthy @ 10:
Yes they can be impeached, Samuel Chase was impeached in 1804, the only one, however he was acquitted. You have a trial in the Senate with a requisite super majority (2/3). An extremely tall order.
It is much better to not let them on in the first place.
Thanks Catz, kind of you to say so. :) My sales did have a little bump after the book got a bit of push from C&L. (And for those who want to check it out, shameless plug, OT, sorry site-monitor, please forgive - it's called Redemption by Lee Jackson, aka, moi.)
And it's not actually that far OT, since the main character is someone who suffered three years of torture after being specially renditioned. I would have thought, and hoped, that it would be an obsolete story line by now. Alas, it's not. I suppose if McCain wins, that means the novel stays 'relevent' for another four years... Oy, depressing thought.
Of the nine Supreme Court Justices, only two were appointed by a Democratic president. The remaining seven were appointed by either Gerald Ford (Stevens), Ronald Reagan (Kennedy & Scalia), George H. W. Bush (Thomas & Souter) or George H. Bush (Roberts & Alito). The four dissenters (Scalia, Thomas, Roberts & Alito) were all appointed by a conservative Republican. Of the five dissenters (Kennedy, Souter, Stevens, Ginsberg & Breyer) two were appointed by a liberal Democrat (Clinton) and three were appointed by conservative Republicans (Ford, Reagan & George H.W. Bush) The Supreme Court decision to support the habeas corpus right wasn't a political one, it was a legal one. If any politics were involved, the only evidence of consistency is that the four dissenters were all appointed by conservative Republicans. The words conservative and liberal are being used as means to obfuscate the legal justification as to why this Supreme Court decision went against the Bush administration. It's a false argument that I hope is now clear to the uninformed.
Back in the 60's, there was a persistent right-wing campaign waged to "Impeach Earl Warren", Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that struck down racial segregation. While this campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, it served as a rallying cry that sustained right-wing activism for many years.
After Bush and Cheney are out of office and Democrats control the Federal Government, the authoritarian hydra will no longer have a prominently visible head to target. I think an "Impeach Scalia" movement could put real pressure on the Democrats to something retroactively significant to atone for their failure to impeach the current regime.
Paul @ 30:
A latent-effect type permutation of Stockholm Syndrome count?
Republicans (bar ron paul) hate habous corpus and the constitution.
McCain debates McCain:
http://www.jedreport.com/2008/06/mccain-2005-vs.html
good video opinion of the ruling
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&It...
what a pathetic thing that McCain would think that preserving a vestige of decency in a preposterously abusive system is "one of the worst" rulings the court could make. It boggles the mind that a former POW...ohgod why even go into it?
And yet, I don't believe that he would have said such a thing until he became a White House whore. (Or is it "lap dog"?)
But then, this is the guy who effectively sold out his own daughter: remember when he went crawling back to the guys who ruined him in the SC primary for having non-white daughter? Obviously there is no depth to which this creep will not sink. In other words, he's the perfect repub nominee.
Yes, because the Dred Scott decision was such a good one. It almost destroyed the union when it came out. Read it sometime. It was more that "just" Dred Scott wasn't free. It effected the entire slave issue and the fate of black freemen in the US, north as well as south. Some parts of the North almost broke away from the union due the decisions that ruling made. Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed.
I understand what you are saying in #8
"“Glory Boys,” the long-suffering ground troops called them.
The pilots had comfortable quarters beside the airstrip in Port Moresby. When orders for a mission came down, they’d climb in their planes, rattle down the runway, and soar over the Owen Stanley Mountains with the clouds in spotless uniforms, breathing fresh clean air. The Glory Boys weren’t trapped in the broiling jungle, in the mud and pouring rain, their skin rotting away, chewed by ghastly insects, bitten by poisonous snakes, stricken with cerebral malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and a host of unknown diseases delivered by unknown parasites."
However, not all of the guys who went on missions in those planes were pilots. My dad was a tail gunner. Only about 20% survived WWII. And told us stories about huts filled with insects, animals, heat that couldn't be escaped, etc. Very few people have it easy when they are fighting a war.
Alice Hussein Chomsky Nader @ 31:
Chase was acquitted at the Senate Trial of 1805, the impeachment by the House was 1804.
And here all along I thought Johnny Boy's and everybody elses' first obligation was for protecting the Constitution. Mr. McFudd went even further when he said that now the courts would be clogged with all sorts of filings every time the detainees had a dietary complaint. I guess if you graduate 894th out of a class of 899 from Annapolis, you can't be expected to have ever heard of the Magna Carta, or have an understanding of Habeas Corpus. Why is it that the Repugs always run C minus students as candidates.
Why is it that the Repugs always run C minus students as candidates.
because it's what they have.
McCain is a mediocrity just like the bushboy. but McCain has piled being a whore on top of it.
McSame is a shell of the bum he used to be!
Lish @ 34:
I'm all for an "Impeach Scalia" movement after November when the Democrats have a stronger control in Washington DC.
think how anybody in his own party who knows anything and has any intergrity--and there must be some, surely--think how they must despise him.
Spaghetti Monster @ 45:
I think the reality is that the campain is just unmasking him. didn't take long, did it?
Moon @ 42:
Nerds are not popular because they are too fascinated with productively solving problems and being creative to develop the zero-sum high-school/prison/ladies-who-lunch game skills.
Anyway, Cindy's throwing a `kegger! How cool izzat!
If what the warmonger-torturers say about the detainees is true - they aren't U.S. citizens, they aren't prisoners of war, they aren't even real humans like you and me (never mind that most of them are just regular dudes who got sold up the river for the cash bounties we were throwing around with abandon) - why don't they go in front of the news cameras and demand all the prisoners be summarily executed ASAP? Problem solved! If they have no rights, it can't be wrong to kill them, and since their world is either black or white, anything that isn't wrong must be right. Right?
Paul @ 30:
He may have been reprogrammed.
MKULTRA-style. The Russians were also doing very similar work as the CIA was doing, some say, even more advanced and effective.
The matter really comes down to guilt or innocence. Love the previous links, but justice is the bottom line.
http://democurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/06/mccain-to-detainees-guilty-un...
Truth B Told @ 51:
Hm. well if that's the explanation, they did a good job.
Truth B Told @ 52:
I mean, think about it: think how un-American he sounds when he says such things about the rights of prisoners. Does anybody here NOT think it sounds Stalinist?
I've heard the Neocon's make the argument before that we shouldn't give prisoners the same rights as US citizens. The problem with that argument is that the right not to be held indefinitely without charges is not a right reserved for US citizens, it is a human right recognized by most of the world. Mainstream media doesn't challenge the Neocon argument, they just repeat it.
Moon @ 43:
yeh. he belonged at Annapolis as much as GWB belonged at Yale.
McCain said he that while he has been both a vocal opponent and proponent of torture and advocated closing Guantanamo, he does not believe prisoners deserve the same rights as U.S. citizens, such as the right not to be tortured.
John McCain weighed in on the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the rights of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to challenge their detention in U.S. courts at a town hall meeting Friday, calling the 5-4 decision “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” He added, "As president, I'll support judges who know their job, like Roger Taney."
Karen @ 58:
McCainn does not believe prisoners deserve the same rights as U.S. citizens, such as the right not to be tortured...
Um... isn't Jose Padilla a U.S. citizen?
McSame is just pissed off because he was best buddies with Prince John Lackland; the Magna Carta spoiled some of that "Divine Right" to which the GOP seems to feel entitled.
As heartening as the Supreme Court's decision was, I have to say, I tend to agree with paradox over at the Left Coaster:
Karen @ 58:
Just to be clear, the bolded text is my snark.
Scalia becomes more and more like the tragic character of Dr. Ernst Janning in "Judgement at Nuremburg", who was so enamored of protecting the state that he couldn't see justice and liberty for ordinary citizens being destroyed by the state.
I guess what I'm trying to say is Scalia is nothing less than a fascist tool. Oliver Wendell Holmes probably would have had him impeached, disbarred and imprisoned.
nonny mouse @ 60:
Nevertheless, the decision concerned the rights of non-citizens designated enemy combatants.
Republicans are fond of noting that their abolition of habeas corpus applies only to non-citizens. As disgusting (and unconstitutional) as I find the notion that non-citizens do not have the right to habeas corpus to begin with, how exactly do they think that a citizen the government simply designates a non-citizen enemy combatant will be able to prove his or her citizenship without the right to go to court?
Why doesn't he support the GI legislation?
Mike the Riverine @ 64:
When Scalia's jurisprudence is not informed by his prejudices (e.g. often on the rights of criminal defendants and the necessity of jury trials) he often either persuades me or gives me pause.
When Scalia's jurisprudence is informed by his prejudices (e.g. freedom of religion cases, establishment clause, "American exceptionalism," unenumerated rights of minorities and gays) he comes across as such a rabid, snarling, out-of-control bigot that I worry for his sanity.
McCain is a war criminal, then and now. Unlike John Kerry, Max Cleland and Chuck Hagel, McCain learned nothing from Vietnam.
Again being in the military or a POW does not make a person some kind of foreign policy "expert." I am so tired of the deference given to McCain that he is somehow more "qualified" regarding foreign affairs. Foreign affairs transcends military policy. There are plenty of former POWS then who going by the deference to McCain whom are equally qualified as McCain would be to lead America.
McCain's status as a POW does not make him an expert on anything, including foreign policy. McCain's unprincipled stand on torture shows that his experience amounted to no gains in wisdom or humanity. McCain is very confused and as a war mongerer someone very dangerous if ever elected as POTUS.
I hate to say it but even Bush is smarter than McCain. McCain has been totally feminized and emasculated by George W. Bush. And we are to believe MCain is a maverick or a tpugh guy? McCain is senile and not fit to be POTUS!
republicans are little different then the terrorists bush and company profess to be the enemy.
The only difference between a republican and a terrorist is that a republican is to much of a coward to blow himself up to acheive his goals, they just pay someone else to do it.
Come to think about it that is what binladen does pay someone else to blow themselves up, I guess there is no difference between a republican and a terrorist!
Spuds @ 68:
At least Bush was smart enough to give the controls of the Hellbound train over to Cheney, who unlike Bush, isn't afraid of the horsepower or speed.
Who does ol' McCain have to do the same? Well, this ain't a sled of Budwiser Clydesdales, though I bet Cindy's dollars have done their share of whipping ol' Johnny into whatever she wants him to be.
say it LOUD
say it PROUD
......i want to be just like JOHN "THE BUSH REPUBLICAN" MCCAIN
.......................................a lot like DUBYA, but when the Alzheimers kicks in a little like Reagan ! ! ! !
McCain left his first wife because of a car accident that she was badly injured.
Without the money of his second wife, Cindy, McCain would be a nothing in politics. I am wondering who wears the pants in the McCain family, John or Cindy. I think Cindy is the dominatrix of the family. I can see Cindy McCain with her whips and the dog collar around Johnny as he begs her for more money so he continue whoring for votes. John McCain is pathetic.
Isn't a detainee without habeas corpus simply a hostage?
Karen @ 65:
… how exactly do they think that a citizen the government simply designates a non-citizen enemy combatant will be able to prove his or her citizenship without the right to go to court?
They don't. It is the modus operandi of the authoritarian the world over. You simply make someone disappear. They then join the ranks of the disappeared. No legal fuss, no legal muss.
moniker @ 73:
Either that or a kidnap victim.
It is my understanding that there are CIA being tried in absentia in Italy for kidnapping as with their 'renditioning', little or no mention of it here.
I read the decision. It's not all that radical. It still says that you can throw them into a hole and forget them for up to six years. It doesn't make any sort of provision about actually arresting them that all regular americans get. No miranda rights or anything. It didn't say that the procedings couldn't be closed door or classified. It didn't even outlaw rendition. It just says that after a long time you have to tell them what they're charged with and give them a reasonable opportunity to argue they're case. Then you can throw them right back into the hole that they came from since after six years in lock up half way around the world they won't be able to come up with any witnesses or evidence to back up they're claim. All the majority said is that the kangaroo court has to look a little more legitimate. If any are released and they go back and blow people up it's not because we let them go it's because we threw them in a hole for 6 years when they were innocent and now they're pissed.
I thought the more interesting piece of the decision was their assertion that the U.S. had homesteading rights. They said that even though Guantanamo was technically Cuban, since the U.S. had had control over it for so long U.S. law applied. Does that mean that if Cuba ever wanted it back we could call it an invasion? It's as if the U.S. could claim large swaths of foreign land had the same legal status as embassies. That's a pretty colonial reach.
"McCain sees detainee ruling as one of the ‘worst’ in ‘the history of this country’"
That's funny, because i see almost everything about this decade as one of the worst periods in the history of this country.
Interesting that McCain refers to the Gitmo detainees as "enemy combatants" - weren't most of these guys, like, taxi drivers and such things? There were even a bunch of young boys there for a long time. If we just imprision these people and never bring them to trial or produce evidence against them, how does the world know if they have even committed any crimes at all? I guess it doesn't matter to JmC.
Is anymore proof needed that McCain is, rather than a maverick, a complete sell-out to the extreme right. That man has abbandoned all principles in his mindless ambitions to be the next president. This proves that he's not thinking clearly or he would realize that you don't adopt the failed policies of the most unpopular "president" in American history.
It was another right-wing Senator from Arizona, a senator named Barry Goldwater, who lost an election be a lopsided margin because he did not read the mood of the people. It appears like McCain wants to go for a new alltime low.
i don't get it.
if credible evidence surfaced linking mccain's halliburton & raytheon pals to the 9/11 attacks, wouldn't he want them all to get a fair trial?
"these are people who are not citizens, they are not and never have been given the rights that the citizens of this country have,"
*snort* Didn't mccain help write the amnesty plan for illegal immigrants before he voted against it?
miss skeptic @ 78:
A large number of detainees are in Gitmo because the U.S. paid bounty-hunters on a per head basis to report them. The bounty-hunters often reported innocent people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. All that they were concerned about was to collect as much bounty loot as possible. Lady Justice must be weeping.
Alice Hussein Chomsky Nader @ 42:
There was a much more recent SCOTUS impeachment: Abe Fortas. I think it was late sixties or early seventies.
In alienable rights means what then?
Someone define this for me
"“These are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they are not and never have been given the rights that the citizens of this country have,” he said. “Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation and the men and women who defend it.”"
Actually, in this 'modern age' I think it's a no-brainer to say everyone on the planet deserves these right: just a few tyrants and dictatorial governements prevent it. I mean isn't that the message the USA has sent to the world for eons. Now, "they" want to engage in "war" -(they're so serious about it??)- to spread democracy and human rights. (See anything wrong with this bu$h adminstration picture????)
Robin @ 84:
Inalienable Rights are rights that cannot be surrendered or transferred; rights which should never be taken from anyone. It is a central concept of "The Rights of Man" which you can probably look up on the Wikipedia. It is also one of the central tenets of Democratic Liberalism and, ironically, supposed to be a central in Democratic Conservatism. These so-called "conservatives" in the USA are nothing of the sort; they are authoritarianists.
... Because he finds a redeeming quality to the refusal of Habeas Corpus Rights.
So, let him inform us what this redeeming quality is.
After all, Habeas Corpus Rights aren't just for Americans because many other nations also recognize these basic tenants and Rights.
Maybe John can explain how we are a beacon of Liberty and Justice FOR ALL when we shield that light from others?
.
McSame loves Big Brother!
John McCain is an "IDIOT" and he goes about proving it at least 4 times a week. I read on one of the web sites the other day that a recent pole has Obama up by 6 points and I would like to know who in hell are the 94% of nitwits out there who would actually vote for that jackass.
FM 27-10 mccain should read it some day.
naschkatze Hussein @ 83:
House impeachment proceedings had begun against Fortas in 1969 but he resigned before the House vote was taken.
The House brings the charges, the Senate conducts the trial. The charges stemmed from a financial impropriety.
Edwin Hussein @ 85:
Actually according to the Constitution and the oath John McCain took when he went in the service and the oath he took when he became a US Senator his first obligation is to protect and defend the rights granted in the Constitution, one of those rights being that of Habeas Corpus to all people.
That Goddamn piece of paper again. That pesky Constitution is such an inconvenience to Republican criminality.
It's just not fair, and I thought Scalia and Roberts were going to burst into tears in their statements of dissension. I'm sure if they had their way they would replace it with the old Articles of Confederacy.
McCain will fix all this when he's elected. Oops, he's never going to be elected, because he's just another intellectually challenged, war mongering, NeoCon.
Never mind.
Dred Scott was the worst court decision. But then again Mc Shame actually applauded that decision when it was handed down
James Parson @ 94:
I'll bet he was all over Plessy when that was decided too.
What an asshole. In my humble opinion, when anyone is accused of a crime, and particularly when he has been deprived of his rights, he should have the opportunity to know the crimes of which he has been charged, and have the right to challenge those charges. That the current administration is fascist and has been doing everything it can to destroy any remnants of a democracy in the USA, is obvious.
The worst thing about this SCOTUS ruling is that it was only 5 to 4 in favor of a fundamental right like Habeas Corpus, rather than 9 to 0. The narrowness of this decision illustrates the gravity of the danger this country has been facing for at least the last eight years.
Here's a question to those who are against this ruling:
Suppose the detainees were Americans being held indefinitely in a foreign country. Would you still be against this ruling if it was handed down by the courts in that country??
I remind everyone that Bush, in an exchange with NBC's David Gregory, once said that if other countries adopted the policies of the Military Commissions Act, the world would be a better place, even if other countries indefinitely held our troops and withheld evidence related to criminal charges against them.
Interesting how McCain changed his tune overnight. I wonder if someday, after he has lost the election, McCain will look back on how he had to tow the crazies' line during this election and cringe. The hard right despises him even as he does their bidding.
"McCain sees detainee ruling as one of the ‘worst’ in ‘the history of this country’"
Funny, I though one of the worst rulings was when the 5 conservative activist justices trumped American democracy by installing the Bush the Despot who has since run America into the dirt?
Terrible @ 92:
We all know it, the world knows it, why doesn't the GOP???
(Answer-- in case you weren't sure-- ;) ---->>>They're authoritarian dictators.)
Wow, the recent ruling allowing prisoners Constitutional protection was the same as the Dred Scott decision where slaves were found to be property.
Republicans simply hate our form of government....
I am confident that if we ignore McBush, he will simply go away.
Scalia , now there's a piece of work , too bad it wasn't he who Dickhead shot in the face . Mcsame is nothing but a hypocrite , the great American hero who was captured and in a camp , how terrible ! But when it comes to others , many who are completely innocent being imprisoned and tortured without any rights , that's just fine . Chicken crap cowards , the weasels ought to be wearing tutus ! How many have they silently released after months or years ogf hell in Gitmo hmmmmmm ? Bush , Cheney , Rumsfled and others are the ones who belong in Gitmo or better yet send em to the Hague . We are about due for some pink or beige or chartreuse alerts aren't we ?
"All men are created equal" no longer applies? It would seem very non strict interpreter-like to think that...
One of the most important reasons we have to get Obama in the White House , the Supreme court , we sure don't need more right wing lunatics like Scalia deciding the future of this country .
Any fool should realize that the President is assuming the power of the courts while diminishing the authority of judges. He would eventually dismiss them, like President Musharrif in Pakistan did during their last election cycle, and make himself the ultimate "decider".
So if, say, PoWs in foreign camps were prevented contact from the Red Cross or US embassy people, that's alright then, is it? So why does the US gripe about its captured soldiers being executed without trial?
If this is one of the worst decisions according to McCain I just wander what he would consider one of the best ...
Anyway he is no better than Bush and it is high time the White House would be a place of sanity rather than reactionism
"These are enemy combatants..." So says McCain. In fact, most of them aren't. A few probably are. And the justice system is the only way to determine which are in fact enemies. Clearly McCain doesn't trust the system any more than Bush does.
The Bush/McCain logic would permit an invading army to round up people on the street, anywhere in the world, and hold them forever...simply because a president says they're enemies of the United States. No accountability. No apology or recompense for holding an innocent person against his will. Which French king was it who said, "Better to punish the innocent than let the guilty escape."?????
Perhaps we are seeing the rove free GOP election machine at work. He did steal 2 elections so he knows how to get things done. I think someone else reporgrammed McCain into McBush and know its almost laughable seeing ole John pulling the Titanic's stern line. Anyone can change their tune so even to a wised up GOP'er he is a sheep in wolves clothing blinding emulating idiotic Dumbya. The Old McSame was perhaps the most liberal republican - a middle of the road guy that would seem to be in a large unrepresented part of the political spectrum. I have long felt that a third party is needed in this country, one that represents the middle ground between the two parties. Of course, the only thing the democrats and GOP can agree on is to squash any potential viable third party, so its never going to happen until we kick out all the lifers and implement term limits with no exceptions.
Paying contractors to lasso up the gitmo guys led to no presentable cases. It would be exposed they got rounded up for $$$ and publicity to show the war on terror is working. These actions like our foreign policy in the last 7 years create even more hatred and terrorists against US. We created Gitmo and know we are stuck with it. McSame can only blame his own for ... "worst" decision in US History.
So someone who was tortured as a prisoner of war has no empathy for our tortured prisoners of war. If that isn't a dictionary example of an empty husk of a human being, I don't how what is.
USA:
FEAR
EATS
THE
SOUL
Cindy McCain wears the pants in that family. Johnny Boy has to ask her for money from her pink pocketbook before he can do squat.
Oh, what a maverick Johnny Boy is!
It is time to ask Johnny Boy where he'd be in politics without Cindy's cash....Johnny better understand who the real woman is in their relationship. Johnny also better understand that men would be nowhere without a woman giving birth. So, when McCain insults women, he better think again.
Citizenship is not a requirement for prosecutorial rights under the Constitution. Merely being a person on American controlled soil is all that it requires. Executive Fiat to declare otherwise is a fiction invented by Bu$h etc. Not knowing this should be an immediate disqualifier from presidential candidacy.
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