May 3, 2004
THE PRESIDENT, NOT PRESIDENT BUSH:
Bush not seeking any extraordinary power (Michael P. Tremoglie, 5/02/04, Philadelphia Inguirer)
On Wednesday, two cases were argued before the Supreme Court: Padilla v. Rumsfeld and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.The first case questions whether President Bush has the authority to identify, seize and detain an American citizen as an enemy combatant on U.S. soil. Padilla is an American citizen who traveled abroad, met with associates of al-Qaeda, received training in explosives, and returned to the United States to engage in terrorism, at the direction of al-Qaeda. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld concerns the executive branch's right to detain a "citizen" captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan by the military forces of an American ally and transferred to the custody of our military. Hamdi is imprisoned incommunicado, without access to a lawyer, and without a trial (like other POWs).
Protests have verged on the hysterical. You'd think Bush had unilaterally ordered the suspension of the Bill of Rights.
One of the most unfortunate things about the hysteria has been the tendency to cast this as a personal issue for George Bush. The question is about the powers of the president and the government in general, not him specifically. These and the Guantanamo cases really just boil down to whether every prisoner taken in time of war is suddenly going to have a court-created right to have his status adjudicated. Since we currently hold as many as 10,000 prisoners, that would probably keep the federal courts busy for awhile. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 3, 2004 1:06 PM
"Since we currently hold as many as 10,000 prisoners, that would probably keep the federal courts busy for awhile."
So what you are saying is that this is a win-win situation?
Posted by: Rick T. at May 3, 2004 1:58 PMIf the Supreme Lefties get their way and create such a right, I would imagine Congress's response would be to create a special Article III court to adjudicate such cases. They'd at least have to address the venue / forum-shopping problem, or every Gitmo inmate will file in the Northern District of California to get a San Francisco jury and an appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
If the Congressional GOP really wants to push the judicial confirmation issue, they should do the same thing they did with the FISA Court back in the 1970s and staff the Terrorist Court with judges from existing Article III courts, then authorize more judgeships on those courts, which the President will then have to fill. They'll probably have to create a bunch of new judgeships anyway, just to cope with the workload for the foreseeable future.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at May 3, 2004 2:21 PMPerhaps they'll propose the Gitmo residents be granted citizenship.
Posted by: genecis at May 3, 2004 5:34 PM>...then authorize more judgeships on those
>courts, which the President will then have to
>fill.
After the usual litmus test concerning Strongly Held Beliefs re A Woman's Right To Choose.
Posted by: Ken at May 3, 2004 6:40 PMThe courts are already so busy that they're cutting loose rapists like Ramirez with little or no jail time so they can turn around and murder teenage girls like Dru Jadiin (sp?) if the liberals persist in handcuffing both the war on terror and the criminal justice system so that the Ernesto Mirandas and Jose Padillas are free to rape and murder innocents for fun or Allah, they'll give rise to (1) an army of real life Frank Castles, Harry Callahans and Paul Kerseys, operating with the blessing of the general public and/or (2) a totalitarian dictator far worse than even their worst imaginations cast Bush as.
Posted by: MarkD at May 3, 2004 6:55 PMKen, it's even worse than you think. I went to law school in the 90s and the usual phrasing then was "A Woman's Right," period. The defining essence, as it were, what it is to be a woman.
Of course, maybe that was only what they said when hostile right-wing nuts were present and fingering their rosaries menacingly in the general direction of such ovaries as may have been at hand, but I doubt it.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at May 4, 2004 11:30 AMSo the definition of being female these days is sleeping around AC/DC punctuated by occasional abortions.
I'm glad I was such a complete loser in the dating game. "Blessed is the womb which never bore, and the tits which never gave suck."
You know, they wouldn't get away with this in The Handmaid's Tale or under the Taliban. Now that the Taliban have been overthrown, do I have to convert to Wahabi Islam and move to Saudi in order to make sure of a decent and moral woman?
Posted by: Ken at May 4, 2004 12:27 PM