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I think this kind of blows a hole in your outrage:United States Constitution, Article 3, Section 2 posted:but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed. That's literally what a secret court would be.
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May 19, 2014 14:22
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BUG JUG posted:The difference is most Americans believe this: Except a) if you're concerned with government killing Americans without oversight, the police have a far greater bodycount, and b) Abraham Lincoln was the greatest war criminal ever for having the Union Army kill all those Americans without trial.
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May 19, 2014 14:24
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BUG JUG posted:The difference is most Americans believe this: We've had Americans join the other side and fight against this country in every war we've ever fought. It has always been ok to kill an enemy combatant regardless of their citizenship. Raising hell because we have no oversight on the CIA program that determined these people were enemy combatants? Go hog wild. Acting like citizenship is a magic shield if you take part in military action against this country and you just said something absurdly stupid
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May 19, 2014 14:27
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Focusing on al-Awlaki is dumb and easy for people who have a hard-on for drones/extra-judicial killing of Americans to hand wave away. The case people should really be focusing on here is the cafe strike where al-Awlaki's son was murdered. His son was not involved in terrorism, and yet was murdered anyway. Somehow this isn't seen as a big deal. Yeah, people who've joined an opposing force in a recognized conflict are fair game because !WAR!, but in the case of al-Awlaki's son there was no war involved at all. There was no foreign army involved at all. There was no action against the US at all, but yet the administration kind of shrugs its shoulders and goes "oops." I don't really think that's acceptable or defensible. ErIog fucked around with this message at 14:38 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 14:36
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I'm less worried about what they can make stick legally and more about what Fox News can ram down the throats of everyone in the country, and "Obama killed an American citizen without oversight" is something they can semi-truthfully repeat for months, with viewers who will see a headline and look no further. It probably won't be a huge issue(I think) but I doubt it won't be brought up in exactly that manner.
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May 19, 2014 14:37
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I think if one looks at the actual concerns of those who wrote the Constitution (and no I am not making an appeal to the idea of the Founding Fathers being some sort of demigods who had full knowledge of the implications their ideas would have two hundred years in the future -- see the Founding Fathers thread for a discussion on that) it is clear that their concern was in providing an open court for people to witness in order to keep the government honest. Congress could move the court around as it wanted, but I suspect the fact that Congress has to pass a law stating where the court was to meet meant that these courts were intended to be visible by the public. As to Whiskey's points: ~*trolls gonna troll*~.
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May 19, 2014 14:37
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BUG JUG posted:I think if one looks at the actual concerns of those who wrote the Constitution (and no I am not making an appeal to the idea of the Founding Fathers being some sort of demigods who had full knowledge of the implications their ideas would have two hundred years in the future -- see the Founding Fathers thread for a discussion on that) it is clear that their concern was in providing an open court for people to witness in order to keep the government honest. Congress could move the court around as it wanted, but I suspect the fact that Congress has to pass a law stating where the court was to meet meant that these courts were intended to be visible by the public. There are already tons of exemptions for the 6th amendment established (anything to do with an organized crime trial being the obvious example), those aren't unconstitutional either (or are as unconstitutional).
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May 19, 2014 14:40
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They're only constitutional if you use deliberately obtuse Roberts-style excuses.
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May 19, 2014 14:46
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Ok let's be honest for a second because I am not going to waste a morning standing on this dumb hill: the question was raised as to what the difference was between the last 20 years of Presidents using F-15s vs ZOMG drones. I pointed that there are some constitutional questions that can be raised over the drone program that if a Republican majority wanted to gussy up articles of impeachment, they could do so fairly easily and possibly even legitimately that are not constructed entirely on race. Yes, there are plenty of Article 6 exceptions, yes Lincoln was king of President Murderers in the War of Northern Aggression, no citizenship is not some sort of magic shield to protect you from any governmental action against you (we're not loving Canada after all). Wonderful. I think the larger point remains though, that the Republicans CAN put together a case that could carry some water, and that is vastly more legitimate from a constitutional and public opinion position than BENGHAZI and/or the IRS scandal, and if they had any brains at all, that is the route they would go.
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May 19, 2014 14:49
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An Angry Bug posted:They're only constitutional if you use deliberately obtuse Roberts-style excuses. No you.
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May 19, 2014 14:49
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ErIog posted:Focusing on al-Awlaki is dumb and easy for people who have a hard-on for drones/extra-judicial killing of Americans to hand wave away. The case people should really be focusing on here is the cafe strike where al-Awlaki's son was murdered. His son was not involved in terrorism, and yet was murdered anyway. Somehow this isn't seen as a big deal. The problem is we don't know if any of what you said about his son's involvement is true or not because there is zero loving oversight on the CIA, it's selection process, it's verification process, and it's confirmation process, and it's authorization process. We have to get a grip on that and rein those bastards in first.
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May 19, 2014 15:11
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effectual posted:And I half want them to fail because gently caress the inflated real estate industry prices I'll never afford and gently caress the banks for abusing this poo poo. I can't imagine how they will succeed or even maintain the current situation given the structural problems facing the housing industry: wages haven't grown, interest rates can only go up, the 30 and under crowd has already been loaded with debt via student loans, and a continual stream of supply is starting to come onto the market due to boomers either retiring and downsizing or their estates liquidating to pay off debt. The 30 year loan already is nearly entirely interest payments at its start so I don't see how even something absurd like a 40 or 60 year mortgage would "help" keep monthly housing costs from being too high. Either serious wage growth has to happen or housing prices need to drop in terms of real dollars and neither of those two options the latter seems to be the most likely (although I would absolutely love to be proven wrong).
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May 19, 2014 15:32
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BUSH 2112 posted:Oh, it's nuts, but Romney floated the idea of a 2016 run (if Jeb doesn't run) to the media and public through Bob Schieffer. Now he's on TV every few days weighing in on whatever is going down in Conservaland. Maybe it's just him trying to take his place as a party grandee, but to quote Malcolm Tucker "[He's] not a grandee, he's a loving blandee." I don't know how accurate Double Down is, but if they got it right, I think he'd go for it (and get destroyed again). I don't know how you're coming to this conclusion, could you elaborate? Romney at his best was the top of a field of half wits and lunatics, with the exception of Huntsman. He knew that the major money only supported him reluctantly, and only because names like Jeb and Christy we're staying out of it. With them almost certainly in play, he'll know that he'll have no chance of getting any major support, especially now that he has the stink of loser on him from two elections running.
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May 19, 2014 15:45
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:The public evidence so far is that it is, and hopefully the lawsuits will bring out more information. Under Obama the rules were altered so that a militant is defined as any military age male. http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/
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May 19, 2014 15:53
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ErIog posted:Focusing on al-Awlaki is dumb and easy for people who have a hard-on for drones/extra-judicial killing of Americans to hand wave away. The case people should really be focusing on here is the cafe strike where al-Awlaki's son was murdered. His son was not involved in terrorism, and yet was murdered anyway. Somehow this isn't seen as a big deal. Except focusing on al-Awlaki's son is even more dumb because he was collateral damage in a strike that targeted/killed Ibrahim al-Banna?
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May 19, 2014 16:02
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Miltank posted:Under Obama the rules were altered so that a militant is defined as any military age male. Ya except not, counting any unidentified military age male killed due to proximity to a strike on a vetted target as a combatant is definitively spinning things in the most administration-postive light possible; but misrepresenting that as saying the administration defines a combatant as literally any military age male is just loving lying.
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May 19, 2014 16:06
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While I do think Romney wanted the Presidency in 2008, his heart wasn't in it in 2012 until much, much later in the campaign. That makes sense, after you've invested enough time in something you get attached to it. It's my understanding that right now Ann Romney wants to be FLOTUS much more than Mitt wants to be POTUS. So . . . he probably will run again. The whole Ann-thing is so incredibly odd. She clearly wants to be loved, so she injects herself into his campaign at every opportunity and it backfires every single time. Ever since Mitt first ran for Governor, everyone (including her) recognizes that the campaign works better with her in the background. But every time, boom, there she is right out the gate grandstanding and grabbing attention. She is the real 
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May 19, 2014 16:27
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computer parts posted:I think this kind of blows a hole in your outrage: No, that means if it happens outside a US State then the location can be wherever since it didn't happen in a state. It does not mean crimes outside the US can be held in secret courts and quoting the line on its own doesn't change that. You're talking about an article written by people who didn't like, among other things, Britain's secret courts and trials because those tend to be a huge farce.
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May 19, 2014 16:50
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Igiari posted:I don't know how you're coming to this conclusion, could you elaborate? Romney at his best was the top of a field of half wits and lunatics, with the exception of Huntsman. He knew that the major money only supported him reluctantly, and only because names like Jeb and Christy we're staying out of it. With them almost certainly in play, he'll know that he'll have no chance of getting any major support, especially now that he has the stink of loser on him from two elections running. It's just a feeling that I have. His 2012 campaign was really badly run, and I think that he really believes that he could do it right. I also think that he was convinced by getting so close that he could, and should, be president. His wife also believes that, and she has a huge influence on him. Like I said, it's just a gut feeling, and it would be pretty weird. I don't think he cares, though. I'm also not saying that it wouldn't be a huge trainwreck.
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May 19, 2014 16:55
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So, even for the state of Tea Party bloggery nuttery, this is a new low. A Tea Party Blogger who goes by the nom de plume of Constitutional Clayton breaks into a nursing home to take a bedside photo of one of the long term residents who suffers dementia there (since 2000). Why would they do such a horrible thing? Why, because the resident is the wife of a (Republican) senator so you can air it as part of a hit piece supporting the senator's Tea Party opponent. http://www.businessinsider.com/clayton-kelly-arrested-for-allegedly-photographing-thad-cochrans-wife-2014-5
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May 19, 2014 17:08
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SirFozzie posted:So, even for the state of Tea Party bloggery nuttery, this is a new low. Is this literally "neeneer neeneer neeneer your wife as dementia"? Good Lord this man needs to get the book holy poo poo.
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May 19, 2014 17:17
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That is baffling, even setting aside how repugnant it is, what on earth would you hope to get out of it? Like how would bringing that up and trotting it around be anything but a big sympathy plug for the guy? The opponent even has the sense to run the gently caress away from the whole thing.
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May 19, 2014 17:20
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DemeaninDemon posted:Is this literally "neeneer neeneer neeneer your wife as dementia"? Good Lord this man needs to get the book holy poo poo. This went on extensively against Clinton in the 90s and Gene Lyons wrote 2 books about it. Here is Charles Pierce with a quick reminder of these shits harassing a woman in the hospital about her daughters suicide because they thought they could stretch it to tag Clinton because the daughter was pregnant at the time http://www.esquire.com/_mobile/blogs/politics/Burglarizing_Private_Lives?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1456_59161503
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May 19, 2014 17:23
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Some of you may have been following the Lt. Governor's race in Texas. Whereas in most states, the Lt. Gov's office is comparable to the US Vice President, in Texas, the Lt. Governor sets the agenda of the Senate, so he has real power. There is a runoff at the end of May between the two top candidates from the primary, incumbent David Dewurst and state Senator and right-wing radio talk-show host Dan Patrick. Patrick, who is as Tea Party as you can get, has been far ahead in the runoff polls and everyone thought Dewhurst was dead in the water. Until... Documents surfaced showing that Dan Patrick was admitted to a mental hospital in the 80's for some unidentified mental malady. Patrick's campaign told reporters that it was just your bog-standard exhaustion/rest-and-recuperation stay, but then further documents came out that showed he had tried to kill himself. This stuff just came out on Friday, so we haven't seen what the polling says, but I'd imagine this sort of thing would play very poorly with the kind of close-minded bigoted jerkoffs that make up the Tea Party base. Remember the case of Thomas Eagleton. It looks like all this stuff is coming from Lt. Gov primary also-ran Land Commish, and certified crazy person Jerry Patterson, and the Dewhurst campaign is publicly distancing themselves from the attacks while laughing all the way to the runoff.
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May 19, 2014 17:26
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Jarmak posted:Ya except not, counting any unidentified military age male killed due to proximity to a strike on a vetted target as a combatant is definitively spinning things in the most administration-postive light possible; but misrepresenting that as saying the administration defines a combatant as literally any military age male is just loving lying. quote:Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent Any military aged men killed by a US strike are reported by the administration as being enemy combatants unless evidence is obtained proving differently.
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May 19, 2014 17:28
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Miltank posted:Any military aged men killed by a US strike are reported by the administration as being enemy combatants unless evidence is obtained proving differently. So he points out you are wrong, explains how you are wrong, so you then quote a chunk that shows he is right as evidence you are right? There is a difference between designating all military aged males as combatants for target selection purposes, and using that to count civilian vs militant casualties. You tried to portray it as the former, when it is assuredly the latter.
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May 19, 2014 17:32
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Ashcans posted:That is baffling, even setting aside how repugnant it is, what on earth would you hope to get out of it? Like how would bringing that up and trotting it around be anything but a big sympathy plug for the guy? The opponent even has the sense to run the gently caress away from the whole thing. Probably the attack ad would have been about how he abandoned his wife in a nursing home after the going got rough.
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May 19, 2014 17:38
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Fried Chicken posted:So he points out you are wrong, explains how you are wrong, so you then quote a chunk that shows he is right as evidence you are right? I never tried to say anything else but what the salon article claimed. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "designate", but I was responding to a claim that the Obama administration rarely kills civilians by pointing out that for the purposes of tallying kills it is easier to be a militant than a civilian. Miltank fucked around with this message at 17:49 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 17:43
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Miltank posted:I never tried to say anything else but what the salon article claimed. Maybe I should the used the word "designate", but I was responding to a claim that the Obama administration rarely kills civilians by pointing out that for the purposes of tallying kills it is easier to be a militant than a civilian. That is again, a lie, unless you're stating that most civilians hang out with targets of drone strikes. You don't seem to understand that the its not "any military age male" its "any military age male killed as collateral while striking a vetted target", this is a massive difference. Also its very self-serving but the administrations logic on this is not without merit. Its basically assuming that any military aged male that's hanging out with a militant leader is a militant unless they have reason to believe otherwise.
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May 19, 2014 17:53
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Fried Chicken posted:This went on extensively against Clinton in the 90s and Gene Lyons wrote 2 books about it. Here is Charles Pierce with a quick reminder of these shits harassing a woman in the hospital about her daughters suicide because they thought they could stretch it to tag Clinton because the daughter was pregnant at the time It's amazing how little of this results in prosecution.
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May 19, 2014 17:56
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Pope Guilty posted:It's amazing how little of this results in prosecution.
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May 19, 2014 17:58
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Jarmak posted:That is again, a lie, unless you're stating that most civilians hang out with targets of drone strikes. I see absolutely no reason to believe that civilians wouldn't be hanging out with the targets of drone strikes. E: the guilty by association argument is a really boldface admission that this is a terror campaign and nothing more. Miltank fucked around with this message at 18:10 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 18:03
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That's some [Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC!]-poo poo Obama's got going right there.
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May 19, 2014 18:04
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Jarmak posted:Also its very self-serving but the administrations logic on this is not without merit. Its basically assuming that any military aged male that's hanging out with a militant leader is a militant unless they have reason to believe otherwise. Or if they happen to be patronizing the same café, or eating dinner at the next table, or living in the same neighborhood, or whatever and whatnot.
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May 19, 2014 18:04
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I was kindof ambivalent about the whole drone strikes thing until I recognized that drone strikes basically fulfill the role of crucifixions for our society. They are the terrifying usage of military force to dissuade that occurs on the edges and boundaries removed from most of the society against those who don't participate in or outright attack the national ideals. And I genuinely wonder what the Presidents response to that analogy would be.
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May 19, 2014 18:04
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Even the concept of a being a "militant" is dubious at best. Why are they a militant? Because they are on a list somewhere?
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May 19, 2014 18:07
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Obama's talk about how he's convinced that drone strikes are legal just infuriated me. Doesn't a head of state have to hold themselves to a higher standard than simply whether something is legal to do? I hope he does have to answer for it someday, but I'm sure a Republican-run impeachment attempt would deliberately avoid getting to the meat of the problem.
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May 19, 2014 18:09
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BrandorKP posted:I was kindof ambivalent about the whole drone strikes thing until I recognized that drone strikes basically fulfill the role of crucifixions for our society. They are the terrifying usage of military force to dissuade that occurs on the edges and boundaries removed from most of the society against those who don't participate in or outright attack the national ideals. And I genuinely wonder what the Presidents response to that analogy would be. Probably that the analogy is retarded and you're insane.
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May 19, 2014 18:09
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Samurai Sanders posted:Obama's talk about how he's convinced that drone strikes are legal just infuriated me. Doesn't a head of state have to hold themselves to a higher standard than simply whether something is legal to do? I hope he does have to answer for it someday, but I'm sure a Republican-run impeachment attempt would deliberately avoid getting to the meat of the problem. If he has to answer for it, it will only benefit the Right.
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May 19, 2014 18:12
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The analogy is sound. The cross is a weapon of terror the same way that a drone strike is. Its just that now the terror of torturous death is replaced by the terror of your whole family being killed in their home.
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May 19, 2014 18:13
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