post-mortem coming, I want to post this already.

[solarbird]

I'm writing a short FISA post-mortem - and that was the post of opening this window to write a post, even - but I'm not getting to it quickly enough, so here, have this for the moment instead:

Glenn Greenwald analysies a new decision on indefinite detentions from the 4^th circuit appellate court, ruling that "the President can order anyone in the U.S. imprisoned in a military brig as an 'enemy combatant' — even if they have never fought on a battlefield or with a foreign power against the U.S. Rather, mere accusations by the President of 'terrorism' are sufficient to justify the indefinite incarceration of such an individual as an 'enemy combatant,' who is then denied basic Constitutional guarantees." The decision states that such detentions can be indefinite in length (including, specifically, decades). It also states that US citizens are not exempt from this in any way:

...it is likely that the constitutional rights our court determines exist, or do not exist, for al-Marri [the defendant] will apply equally to our own citizens under like circumstances... the protections we declare to be unavailable under the Constitution to al-Marri might likewise be unavailable to American citizens...

He also comments on the politisation of the Justice Department into a personal enforcement and protection arm of the Chief Executive here.

brazilrascal has posted a longish article ("Event Horizon") you should read here, about the near-ritual reversing of roles now underway in the 2008 campaign:

It’s already started. Conservative blogs like Ace of Spades and Michelle Malkin are testing the waters, warning of the impending Obama Socialist-Islamo Negrocracy and its rampant abuse of executive power. Such an unprepared, unstable president might even ingulge in massive wiretap programs free of oversight, or add little notes to laws basically stating that "this holds as the law of the land, unless I disagree at some point in the future" ...

I don’t think it’ll get to a full reversal, however, because liberals and conservatives currently have very different views of what it means to be an opposition party. In fact, it can be safely asserted that the only thing that is more conservative-friendly than a democrat minority is, oddly enough, a democrat majority in legislative affairs. On the other hand, the GOP perfected brinkmanship to a T, blowing up even minor issues to levels of conflict and media attention that put the Cuban Missile Crisis to shame.

And everyone, I think, has already heard about the Bush administration's torture regime was taken directly from 1950s Chinese Communist torture systems designed to elicit confessions, true and false. So yeah, it was on purpose.

I'm going to be walking away somewhat from most of this for the rest of the year. Everything remaining is going to be election noise, and I frankly can't stand it. I'm not going away; I'll still post if there's some particular new horror, and there certainly will be. I do think that the only election that matters very much at this point is the Chief Executive race, because if you're going to have a king, you're better off having the least bad one, and Senator McCain seems to be doing his best to prepare to be as bad a one as possible. Congress has written itself out of the government, so I don't exactly expect any resistance to any of a Chief Executive McCain's court nominees no matter who is in charge, and that's most of what's left to fight for in the wreckage. I'll have more on this, I suspect but do not promise, in my FISA wrapup post later.


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Comments

[ummdruff.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. You loathe lesser-evil voting but then advocate it in the next paragraph.

On the courts, from the link I posted above:

"And then there's the issue of the courts, the big joker the liberals wave when all other arguments seem shaky. But hasn't Obama already aligned himself with the right wing of the current Court, three times in the current session, and on three pretty show-stopping issues? I know, the response would be that he's just posturing and on balance he'd appoint more "centrist" -- as even his running dogs put it - judges. (This is the "I know he's always out with her in public and looks like he's enjoying himself, but he told me he really loves me and is just sticking around for the kids" argument.)
...
I'm increasingly convinced that the courts issue looms so large because the liberals have given away everything else. It feels ever more the property of Dem hacks who have to strain to find any basis for plausible product differentiation during election season."

[solarbird]

Only for the Chief Executive, and for the exact and only reason I specified. And I did not say that Senator Obama would appoint better judges; I said that there's at least some reason to hope he might, as opposed to Senator McCain, who has promised repeatedly not to. With McCain, we're guaranteed more Scalias; with Obama, there is a chance we might not.

I agree the odds are very bad. But we're one vote away from losing habeas corpus, and we have to take the best chance we have of keeping that, whatever that is.

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

just fyi, McCain has also said something about O'Connor being his favorite justice, and I believe he voted to confirm Clinton's (mostly very good, at least relative to what the alternatives are) nominees. This was to Clinton supporters. I realize he said he loved the nutjob crowd to his base, and more often and more publicly.

I don't want either appointing the judges. Maybe McKinney can win a small state and together w/an improved McCain campaign throw it into the house? That will wind up being an Obama victory, but on that might scare the dems enough to show some semblance of non-authoritarianism, at least . . .