CNN is reporting that SCOTUS has ruled that the detainees in Gitmo have constitutional rights and can challenge their detention in civilian court. That sound you hear is six years of Republican bullshit being flushed down the drain, followed by the inevitable wailing from the Malkin wing of the GOP:
ACTIVIST JUDGES! ACTIVIST JUDGES!
More as this shakes out.
*** Update ***
scav
! oh please please please please please!!! And CAN’T I just hear the distant thunder of heads exploding.
Punchy
Absolutely no chance of Bush obeying this order from the SC. We’ll hear one or several of these:
1) “Article II, bitches!”
2) “AUMF, bitches!”
3) Cheney: “I’m not in the executive, so I’m not bound by decisions made by the SC. So suck it, bitches”
4) “We respectfully decline to adhere to these activist judges’ decisions”
Bet on it. There’s NO WAY these guys see a civy judge/jury.
Don
Link Not much context here though. Anyone got a better one?
MattF
It’s times like this that I miss Mitt Romney. Double Gitmo!
The Moar You Know
Well, this admin has very few options left:
1. Turn them all loose. My bet is on this option.
2. Kill them all today.
3. Do the right thing and let them have their day in court.
OK, I’m only yanking y’alls chain with number 3. We all know the Bush administration will never obey any court decision.
Punchy
Honestly, why do they even bother to ajudicate these matters as a 9 member court? Why not just ask what Stevens thinks?
Seriously, when has Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts NOT voted as a solid bloc on every and all major cases? Really, the most important man in this country right now (IMO) is Justice Stevens.
To think 4 judges think the 3-ring circus at Gitmo DESIGNED AND DEDICATED to finding all defendants guilty no matter what is fine is purely sickening.
john b
and i was beginning to think checks and balances were a thing of the past.
cleek
OT: Marines toss puppy-tossing Marine.
Just Some Fuckhead
I hope this puts to bed the nonsense about how smart or independent Roberts is. What a huge fucking disappointment, just another rightwing nut in a more outwardly pleasing wrapper.
Paul Weimer
{snark} This just confirms that we need to get rid of Stevens. His librul rulings are preventing President Bush’s strong leadership! I pray for the day for a real Conservative Court so that we can send all of these libruls to Gitmo to understand that we need to deny these prisoners Habeas Corpus in order to win the War on Terra! {/snark}
Zifnab
Actually, guys. They don’t always rule together.
From Obsidian Wing…
This from last week.
El Cid
And, right on cue, from Malkin:
Just Some Fuckhead
It should be noted that all four are Roman Catholic. And the other Catholic member of the court, Kennedy, often swings their way.
WTF is up with the SCOTUS, five out of nine are Catholic, 2 more are Jewish and two are protestant?
And all but one of them (the smart one, Stevens) is a Harvard or Yale grad?
We could use a little more advise in your advise and consent role, Senators. Kthx, bye.
TheFountainHead
WAY OT: John, are you anywhere near Shepherdstown? I’m sending a skid-load of gear down there for some Contemporary Theatre Festival and the address sounded familiar for some reason.
Scott H
the detainees in Gitmo have constitutional rights
Ya think!?
Oh, before I read the news report, let me just guess who dissented.
JR
Dear Jesus, the comments over at Hot Air are gold.
4tehlulz
Translated: I agree with al Qaeda that American liberty and the rule of law are shams and should be disposed of immediately.
Dork
Can I haz imparshul jewdishal sistem now?
Zifnab
No no no. I’ve seen this James Bond movie before. You’ve got to say the nation will “rue” the day. And you’ve got to do it bald, while sitting in a high backed chair with a white cat and a monocle.
Wilfred
Wow. Surprised and happy to hear it. Of course, it does mean the end of life as we know it and the final victory for the islamofascistterroristhordes.
But still.
nightjar
fixed from a lack of respect.
Dracula
Anyone else think, after seeing Scalia’s response, that he’s jumped the tank from “impartial-but-leaning-right” to “will do/say/parrot whatever the Cheney regime asks me”?
Seriously, isn’t his dissent parroting Bush Admin talking points? Since when is a SC justice allowed to appeal to emotion and ideology instead of logic and reasoning?
What a POS Justice he’s become…
4tehlulz
PROTIP: Scalia was never impartial.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m pretty sure he started there.
The Moar You Know
Which is why this election is going to be the most important one for the next thirty years.
jenniebee
Well, while we’re waiting for that to happen, we’ll still be living and we’ll still be us, with everything that’s always meant still intact. Enough of living on our knees, throwing away every freedom every patriot has ever fought to protect out of our fear of teh terra. If this kills us, at least we stood up for what we believe in first. At least now we die on our feet. And that’s something.
BH-Buck
The Moar You Know, exactly!
The Moar You Know
You can’t possibly be serious. He’s never been impartial. The man’s been an apologist for neo-fascism before he even passed the bar exam.
BH-Buck
jenniebee, very well said.
Are we men or are we a bunch of basement-hiding, cheetos-eating bed-wetters?
Zifnab
Wait, when did this become golf?
TheFountainHead
Don’t you think there ought to be a third option for the women?
jrg
Crazy, left-wing activist judges. Don’t they know that someone is a terrorist if the president says so? What could possibly go wrong with detaining people indefinitely and denying them a trial? “Innocent until proven guilty” was made up by the left as a partisan response to BDS (so was “separation of church and state”, but that’s another post).
If you’re interested in the truth (not some left-wing fantasy), go here. Be prepared to see some scary stuff. This is the documentary that the radical left does not want you to see.
Scalia spilled his urine for your freedom. He stormed the beaches at Nantucket, for God’s sake. You ungrateful bitches would not understand that, because you all hate America and want to die in a terrorist attack.
montysano
So, we live in a country where:
– We happily toss other humans into the Gulag, and never lose a moment’s sleep as to their guilt or innocence;
– We watch 50M of our fellow citizens wallow around without health care, and refuse to consider any solution because it might mean sacrifice or inconvenience;
– We gladly allow millions of Third World workers, essentially slaves, to fill WalMart with crap for our amusement.
And then…… go to church on Sunday and praise Jeebus? Do I have this straight?
Chris Johnson
I’m extremely sure the administration is going to try for-
2: kill them all today so they can’t testify.
The reason is, the reports I was hearing about how one of the prisoners was reportedly trying to convince all the others to commit suicide… himself acting as the sockpuppet of the administration, I’m betting. Anyone have more on that stuff? I don’t even remember the guy’s name but that was the first thing that came to mind.
I think it would be great if this could be avoided, and it’s not by any means a sure thing that it’ll happen, but I’m telling you, be aware that the administration may prefer to simply kill everyone without process and claim they committed suicide.
I’m calling it.
passerby
Let’s review the anomalous events that have recently been reported in the corporate media:
1) Laura Bush, from some sunny resort in Afghanistan, comes out with a sympathetic defense for the wife of the opposing party’s nominee. (to which we respond: WTF!?)
2) Bush weaves some ruefulness (“I guess I sounded like a blowhard but, I’m really not”) into his daily saber rattling while in Europe. (to which we respond: Really. Really!)
3) Out of the blue, the SCOTUS suddenly turns against the total inhumanity at Gitmo–every opinion prior to this one had been to allow its existence. (our response: about goddam time!)
What’s going on?
I don’t think the Bushes and the SCOTUS have suddenly had some kind of epiphany. I think pressure is being brought to bear and they know their rape-pillage-and plunder train is pulling into the station and they need to make nice and right quick.
Also, this pressure can’t be coming from within the US. Certainly, the Executive and Judiciary are not responding to the will of the people–us people don’t have that kind of clout. Congress, maybe? HaHaHaHaHaHa…(ad infinitum)
Q: So from where else can this kind of pressure, or potent influence, or coercion if you will, be coming??
I’m staying tuned.
I recommend Jiffy Pop–a turban of fun.
T
Dug Jay
West Virginia’s senior Senator, Robert Byrd, strikes again. Already, the DOJ has announced that up to 50 prisoners at Gitmo will be relocated to a West Virgina federal prison at Hazelton, WV. God only knows how much this will cost US taxpayers after the millions to be spent on upgrades are completed.
BH-Buck
montysano, sadly and pathetically, yes. :-(
Dennis - SGMM
jennibee, true. I’ve never been able to fathom how the same nation that managed to get through the Revolutionary War, the War Between the States, WWI, WWII, and decades of the real threat of nuclear annihilation with its head held high suddenly found itself terrified by a small bunch of bearded bozos with improvised weapons.
Cowardice was never en vogue until they put a coward in the White House.
montysano
Some drug was being chased by police the other night, and crashed her car at the gate to the local army base. ZOMG! What if that had been a terraist!!
Out came the checkbooks, and somewhere today, a security contractor is smiling.
montysano
Some drug suspect was being chased by police the other night, and crashed her car at the gate to the local army base. ZOMG! What if that had been a terraist!!
Out came the checkbooks, and somewhere today, a security contractor is smiling.
BH-Buck
Dug Jay, millions here or billions overseas. What’s the difference?
(Oh, right – BILLIONS!)
basement-hiding cheeto-eating bed-wetter
Are you calling me a girl? That’s low.
passerby
Nah, don’t fret about the money DugJay. One day soon, the absolutely worthless (currently backed by hotair)Federal Reserve Note we call the USDollar will rise from its ashes in front of a new, globally sanctioned, Gold Standard.
Exciting times.
T
peach flavored shampoo
The local Hen House just announced they’re almost out of Cheetos, Mountain Dew, and diapers. Also, plastic keyboard spittle-protectors are selling strong, but strangely, few of these panicky chubsters are purchasing any sunscreen or sunglasses. Instead, basement curtains.
What could be going on?
passerby
Winner!
T
BH-Buck
Just read a user comment on a Robert Byrd video at YouTube:
Can teh stoopidity get and greater than this?
SamFromUtah
I’m extremely sure the administration is going to try for-
2: kill them all today so they can’t testify.
They don’t have to kill them to avoid their testifying – they can just torture them into insanity, like with Padilla. That’s option 4.
D. Mason
Hey monty I think we’re neighbors.
John Cole
Because housing them indefinitely in a facility that had to be BUILT in Gitmo was FREE!
El Cid
IM IN YR CONSTUTN PROTECTN YR RITES
montysano
So… does “montysano” now make sense to you? Feel free to drop me a line at dbennett at tlsinc dot com.
Martin
Not to mention the convenience of all the lawyers and support staff that we always keep in Cuba and the transportation costs there.
And why do we need to upgrade these facilities? My understanding is that when Gitmo opened it was plywood, chain link, razor wire, and the usual guys with M16s.
D. Mason
Sure it does but, it was the reference to the incident at RSA that caught my attention.
Tsulagi
And right on cue, from the serious adults at RedState…
Savor the irony indeed. That from the minds of the patriots.
Shorter non-Nazi-appeasing patriot: If we can get one of our own, a self-serving gutless retarded spoiled brat elected as president and fill Congress with enough that will bend over on cue, then all is good in the republic. Any tedious constitutional issues/questions can simply be addressed and resolved by The Decider in an executive finding. If he sees fit and takes the time to do so.
Pure unadulterated dildoed assholes.
Pooh
LOL at “Constitutionally strip the Supreme Court of Jurisdiction.” EPIC fail of Con Law 101.
Jeff
In fact, you didn’t even have to wait for the Malkin wing. This was built right into the opinion’s main dissent! Unelected, poltically unaccountable Justice Roberts writes:
zzyzx
I don’t know, Article III, section 2 does seem to provide some evidence for that:
The last phrase there implies that Congress could make exceptions, at least to me.
Sebastian Dangerfield
Some hits-and-runs …
Punchy: Your point might have some force if you correctly named the swing justice. That would be Justice Kennedy (who pointedly authored today’s opinion), not Justice Stevens. Stevens is a quite reliable pro-civil-liberties justice. Kennedy, a Bush I appointee, not so much. But it’s Kennedy who has assmued the swinger mantle after O’Connor retired.
4tehlulz and others: While I wholeheartedly agree that Scalia has never been what one would call “impartial,” it is the case that earlier in his career, he could lay some claim to being a “principled conservative” justice, not merely a partisan hack. In the 1989 case Mistretta v. United States, for instance, he played against conservative type (which, at the time meant chiefly “lock ’em all up for a very long time”) by issuing a dissent holding that the harsh federal sentencing “guidelines” (considered at the time to be entirely mandatory and binding on judges) violate the separation of powers. Although it pains me to say it, his Mistretta dissent is a powerful and correct exposition of separation-of-powers doctrine. My point, though, is that Scalia has gone from issuing usually interesting opinions that I usually disagree with to dashing off hackwork that would not look out of place on the WSJ’s op-ed page.
zzyz: The question whether the Exceptions Clause that you point to means that Congress can shut off all avenues of judicial review whenever it feels like it (and doesn’t like how the courts are deciding cases) is actually quite complicated. Moreover, in cases — like Boumdiene — that implicate habeas corpus rights (i.e., cases involving the Excutive clapping someone in irons), you have to contend with the very strong injunction in the Suspension Clause. Given that bar against suspending the “privilege of habeas corpus,” it is simply not sensible to interpret the Exceptions Clause to mean that Congress can eliminate habeas review of Executive detention.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Dennis,
While some of the wingnuts are truly wetting their beds, I’m convinced that at least some portion of them understand that teh terra poses no real threat to the US. For them it is about justifying their internal power grabs and settling scores with their domestic opposition, nothing more and nothing less.
And it isn’t just the elites leading the ignorant and gullible sheeple around by the nose either – I think the idea of sticking it to teh Left by any and all means necessary appeals to a fairly large fraction of the population (say 20%). If they have to pretend to be afraid of scary Mooslims to do it, well a true American patriot is willing to make any sacrifice for the good of the country.
Basically, the Civil War never really ended, we just use more subtle weapons to fight each other now.
OMG the Reichstag is on fire!
Clutch414
How sad is it that we are celebrating a close 5-4 Supreme Court decision TO UPHOLD THE BASIC PROTECTIONS OF LAW GRANTED IN THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION?
Ugh.
Delia
I blame Obama. His terrorist knuckle-rap with his wife has clearly caused the collapse of the SCOTUS.
zzyzx
Sebastian – that actually worries me that there’s a constitutional loophole.
west coast
The guys at RedState must have failed their high-school Civics exams, especially the part about Marbury v. Madison.