Fitz!

aww I had News Hour on but wasn’t listening - that happens a lot lately.

Scott at 2 — they have both the transcript and the video available on the NewsHour website. :) The internet is awfully handy.

Damn EPU’d. I’ll try again:

I think it’s important to note Justice Souter’s argument because it is as clear and elegant a rebuke to the wingnuts as possible:

“For reasons of inescapable human nature, the branch of government asked to counter a serious threat is not the branch on which to rest the Nation’s reliance in striking the balance between the will to win and the cost in liberty on the way to victory.”

It has indeed been an interesting day, I’m particularly interested in Glenn’s pointing out that the decision clearly undermines not only all of Bush’s Unitary Executive meanderings around the Constitution - but also destroys the keystone of his NSA Wiretaping Arguement.

Further, I believe that the SCOTUS has exposed the Prez to War Crimes Charges, in accordance with what Amnesty International argued over a year ago - completely destroying former White House Councils Alberto Gonzales attempts to sidestep the issue.

Vyan

Vyan

Christy, here is salon.com’s piece on Hamdan, not specifically what you’re looking for.

Thanks, punaise at 5 — I did a cursory search and couldn’t find the Guantanimo piece — but I was in a rush and thought I’d get back and find it later. Thanks for the Hamdan article link. :)

Fitz!

would this it?:

Torture teachers

An Army document proves that Guantᮡmo interrogators were taught by instructors from a military school that trains U.S. soldiers how to resist torture.

By Mark Benjamin

Punaise at 9 — YES! That’s it. Thanks much — will link it above. :)

Do’t miss Digby on the heroic efforts of Navy lawyer Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift.

Colleagues attributed the high court ruling to what they considered to be Swift’s determination to protect the integrity of U.S. jurisprudence against a Pentagon bent on retribution for terrorism attacks on U.S. forces.

When we talk about “support the troops,” this is a guy who deserves some support. He walked the walk so that the rights of soldiers everywhere to the dignity and due process afforded by the Geneva Conventions would be protected. Digby notes:

The military has many men and women of great physical courage. That’s the point, after all. But it takes a person of exceptional character to be willing to take on the military hierarchy from within in order to preserve our fundamental principles. I’m skeptical that the threat of Islamic terrorism can be properly categorized as a war but if it is, one of the big battles being fought is for the integrity of the American system, and the battle is internal, not external. In that battle, this guy is a hero.

The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer actually reported last summer about interrogators being trained in the torture-resistance school:

Winkenwerder told me that bsct members are not under his command; rather, they fall under military intelligence. He said that he knew little about the program’s daily operations but had heard that a number of bsct psychologists and psychiatrists had received specialized training. “It’s connected to some military acronym,” he said. “Something to do with Survival and Evasion.”

Winkenwerder was referring to a Pentagon-funded program known as sere, which stands for “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.”

Good ol’ Winkenwerder. My my my.

John Yoo: “They either have to, as Andrew said, continue to hold people and have no trials at all, or have lots of Moussaoui-like trials, because the other alternative is to force the government to go into a situation where they have to put someone on trial in civilian court or a court-martial court, but at the same time risk blowing their intelligence sources and methods.”

Interesting statement. We did try Moussaoui and that trial turned out well. OK, sources and methods might be an issue but correct me if I’m wrong - our military knows how to do trials that are fair without blowing national security secrets. No?!

Off-topic in the earlier thread, but on-topic for this one:

Via Crooked Timber, Steven Poole has a great bit of snark on the dissenting opinions in the Hamdan case. He’s not a lawyer, but I hope his view on the tribunals and the Geneva Conventions is correct:

Alito does not challenge the finding that Geneva Common Article 3 applies; he argues instead that the special military commissions used at Guantanamo do in fact constitute what Geneva demands, a “regularly constituted court” [p177]. This is a difficult argument to make, given that Geneva’s elucidatory commentary explicitly defines “regularly constituted” courts as meaning “ordinary military courts”, and explicitly excludes “all special tribunals” [p180]. Because the Guantanamo military commissions do not rise to the standard of ordinary courts martial and are used nowhere else, they are clearly the sort of “special” tribunals banned by Geneva, as the Court in fact found.

Anyone have an informed opinion on this? If this is correct, it would mean that whatever enabling Specter decided to do, he can’t just reconstitute Bush’s military tribunals by congressional action (at least not without withdrawing from the Geneva Conventions.)

(BTW, though this bit is serious, the rest of his post is quite snarky and fun, and he only took down Scalia and Alito; he didn’t even get to Thomas.)

Christy 10 - glad to oblige. I still cough up the salon.com subscription fee, so at least I don’t have to wade through a commercial each time.

Otisishungry at 11,

If there is any justice, someday Lt. Cmdr. Swift will get a Congressional Medal of Frredom while John Yoo gets to wear legirons. Unfortunately, with this administration and Congress, it’s just as likely to be the other way around.

Is it me or did J. Stevens go out of his way to crush each of the arguments of J. Thomas’ dissent? Maybe like shooting fish in the barrel, but he seemed ticked.

Also, Thomas’ use of the word “unitary” wasn’t accidental, was it?

Now for the bad news– Wingnut senators Kyl and Graham are already working on legislation that would help the administration do an end-around the SCOTUS decision. I have no illusions that the administration will alter their behavior as a result of this ruling. It is a legal victory in the abstract, but its practical consequences are not likely to be great when you have a rubber-stamp Congress and a compliant media.

pgl at 14: Yoo is either believing his own propaganda or blowing smoke. Our justice system is quite capable of conducting trials involving secrets without compromising national security, however, as we’ve seen, the Bush Administration would rather pretend that’s not true to preserve their ability to quash anything the don’t like with “State Secrets,” and since they’d rather no one found out whether anyone at Gtmo is innocent or guilty, they don’t have much motivation to actually conduct such trials.

“John Yoo”

Didn’t John Dean school that boy a few months ago?

pgl says
June 30th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
John Yoo: “They either have to, as Andrew said, continue to hold people and have no trials at all, or have lots of Moussaoui-like trials, because the other alternative is to force the government to go into a situation where they have to put someone on trial in civilian court or a court-martial court, but at the same time risk blowing their intelligence sources and methods.”
———————————————————-
Excuse me, but is he really saying that military court-martial-type courts don’t have mechanisms in place to handle classified material? Or is he just whining about having to have trials in general?

Cosmo — you mean Sens. Kyl and Graham who were specifically called out in the SCOTUS opinion as having filed *cough* hastily *cough* put together legislative history in a tranparent attempt to manipulate the Court? Shocking. Shocking, I say, that both of them would be doing CYA for the Administration.

(Guess Huckleberry has reverted to Shucks and Awe Boy status again…)

Vyan — thanks for bringing back the link to the war crimes articles. Rereading the Newsweek article now is even more chilling than it was then, because we can now see clearly what even Gonzales had figured out — “jeez- we may committing war crimes!”

So what did they do? Instead of changing their behavior and complying fully with the Geneva Conventions and the War Crimes Act, they had the President sign a piece of paper that says those laws don’t apply — notions rejected yesterday by the Supreme Court.

Let’s see, what degree of legal malpractice is it to advise your clients in ways that expose them to greater likelihood of liability for war crimes? Uh . . . And that may explain why Yoo was very uncomfortable on Nightly News last night.

Anyone heard from Gonzalez (or Addington) lately? These people should be hauled before Congress and asked why they shouldn’t resign or be fired. Oh, and disbarred, too.

Frank Probst at 22 — Yoo is whining about the fact that lawful courts, be they civilian or military in jurisdiction, do not allow evidence that was obtained by torture as lawful evidence in the court of law. And the whole reason for these half-cocked tribunals that were overturned by Hamdan was to circumvent the prohibition of the use of evidence obtained via torture.

Christy,

Here’s a link to an article about what Kyl and Graham are up to….

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2....._0629.html

Another link Christy

Michael Dorf on Findlaw

The thing I’d like to see hammered on more is all the wingnut arguments that begin with the assumption that everyone there is a known terrorist. The basic right-wing approach to law and order is that if you assume any suspect is guilty, you can justify almost anything.

The reason we have trials is to find out for sure whether the people we’ve apprehended are guilty, not just as window dressing before a first-rate hanging. You’d think someone who claims to be a conservative and want government off people’s backs would get that.

And the further way to hammer this is to ask, whenever any of them start talking about “the worst of the worst” and “terrorists who want to kill us,” ask them whether the administration has released known terrorist or held innocent people, because it has to be one or the other.

… and if Professor Yoo thought he was already unpopular in Berkeley — today must be a doozy for him …

Yoo is a disingenuous asshole. There are thousands of criminal trials held every day in this country. Adding several hundred more would not be a burden on the system. His legal reasoning on the Geneva Convention was rejected by the Court, and he knows it. He is now covering his butt and hoping he can avoid being tried for war crimes.

I apologize for just driving by, if this has already been covered. After the NewsHour coverage–(Yoo looked as though he had indigestion; can you say war crimes?)–Olbermann covered it. He started by declaring that the trubunals had been found unconsitutional. John Dean didn’t correct him on it, but my uderstanding is that the court only went as far as illegal, not unconstitutional.

Mary had an excellent post on this that wasEPU’d on the last thread at # 132.

Christy Hardin Smith says:
June 30th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Frank Probst at 22 — Yoo is whining about the fact that lawful courts, be they civilian or military in jurisdiction, do not allow evidence that was obtained by torture as lawful evidence in the court of law. And the whole reason for these half-cocked tribunals that were overturned by Hamdan was to circumvent the prohibition of the use of evidence obtained via torture.
———————————————————-
Ah. And are they now expecting Congress to pass a law saying that torture confessions are okay? I’m sure Specter will roll over on command, but I don’t think McCain is going to swallow it. He tends to get testy when it comes to torture. Maybe Clarence Thomas can explain the realities of war to him.

*ilson46201 says:
June 30th, 2006 at 12:54 pm

Law schools attended:

David Addington: Duke
Alberto Gonzales: Harvard
John Yoo: Yale

Sorry, I was in court most of today and have not kept up with the threads, so if someone has already posted on this, I apologize for the duplication.

Also, this is a drive by, I gotta get some papers out before 5 EST.

The repubs are going after the judicial branch!!

The Homeland Security Committee not the judiciary committee is serving up a bill to sic an IG on the federal courts.

http://judiciary.house.gov/Hea.....aspx?ID=63

Good morning. I want to welcome everyone to this important hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security to examine H.R. 5219, the Judicial Transparency and Ethics Enhancement Act of 2006, introduced by the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Sensenbrenner.
…………………
snip
…………………

H.R. 5219 establishes an independent Inspector General within the Judicial Branch who is appointed by and reports directly to the Chief Justice of the United States. The Inspector General will conduct investigations of complaints of judicial misconduct, conduct and supervise audits, detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, and recommend changes in laws or regulations governing the Judicial Branch.

He goes on to claim that there is some huge problem with judges refusing to recuse themselves and failing to do finacial disclosure.

I practice almost exclusively in federal court, I belong to federal courts committees in regular bar associations and I even belong to a bar associaition restricted to federal practitioners.

I know many federal judges socially and they do not hesistate to carp about instituional problems.

There is no widespread problem with judges refusing to recuse themselves for conflict of interest. This is a patent lie.

I am not opposed to IGs. I used to be legal counsel to an IG. Istill do private sector IG work. I think everybody needs an IG.

But this is not that. There is no widespread proablem. The federal IG system is starved of funding right now and is having trouble doing it’s exisitng work.

This is to the courts and judges what Bushco’s crap about criminally prosecuting the NYTimes is to jouranlsts.

This is pure intimidation. They have lost a few court cases and now they want to scare good judges into leaving the bench. Oh and a side benefit, they get to pack the courts somemore.

Judges are not allowed to speak out. Lawyers must do so for them.

SCOTUS needs to have the realities of the 21st century signing statement explained to it. GOP Congress passes **something** that might allow tribunals to continue; Bush signs it and appends a signing statement.

Problem disappears.

How many divisions has SCOTUS?

Dover Bitch, thanks.

Really makes me wonder how Thomas, Alito, and Insanelia could rule the against the majority. Even I’m getting tired of comparisons to Germany in the 30s but is there any doubt now on how it IS happening here? A Dem. loss in ‘06 and another SCOTUS appointee and its over.

Op-eds and Editorials nationwide should be blasting these 3 stooges, especially Thomas for that moronic opinion, non-stop.

So when did CNN start selling ads to the floor humper? I’m looking at him right now next to the Lou Dobbs transcript. Boy, that ad sure classes up a website.

Nothing will happen! The rubber-stamp Repub Congress will now rush to make the military tribunals legal or something similar to seem like they are following this ruling. The detainees in Gitmo will continue to languish and never really be charged or if charged have a fair trial.

As this dkos diary shows a Gitmo detainee could not prove his innocence (forget about proving guilt by the prosecution) as the military said they could not locate witnesses in Afghanistan when the Guardian newspaper found them in 3 days.

The SCOTUS can’t enforce anything and the rubber-stamp Repub congress will continue to provide cover for the biggest power grab in modern US history. And the corporate media will obscure and confuse that the majority of the American people who can’t be bothered will continue to not be bothered to do anything. There is no opposition to this regime. The majority do not care. Look at the pathetic turnout in elections!

If you don’t want to read what’s on the web my npr (kqed) station had an interesting show on Hamdan this morning. Here is the link:

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R606300900

You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/kqedforum

After about 30 minutes of retyping punctuation (wooie), I have here an excerpt from a fresh AP article. How important are November and ‘08? THIS important:

Roberts, the smooth and savvy chief justice from central casting, promised at his confirmation hearings last September to be a “modest” justice rather than an activist. In that spirit, he opted for a basic black robe rather than the flashy gold stripes worn on the sleeves of his predecessor, the late William Rehnquist.

Roberts has spoken publicly of his desire to achieve unanimity through narrow rulings that would offer “clarity and guidance.” And he had some success, evidenced by a healthy share of unanimous opinions.

Even some cases that were expected to split the court — on abortion, campaign finance and disabled inmates, for example — were resolved unanimously and without creating upheaval.

But as more difficult cases trickled out before the justices began their summer break on Friday, it became clear that “the early buzz of peace, love, harmony and Kumbaya was probably overstated,” said Ohio State University law professor Douglas Berman. “This is a closely divided court on a lot of issues that can’t help but express genuine disagreements on the way critical legal issues ought to be looked at.”

In a 5-4 case on Monday upholding Kansas’ death penalty law, the four liberal dissenters labeled the statute “obtuse by any moral or social measure.” Justice Antonin Scalia, known for his fire-breathing opinions, countered that the liberals were contributing to international “sanctimonious criticism of America’s death penalty.”

In a 5-3 ruling on Thursday, the court’s last day, moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joined the court’s liberal members in finding that President Bush had overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees. Justice Clarence Thomas underscored his strong opposition by reading his dissent from the bench for the only the second time in his 15-year-career.

In a major wetlands case this month, the court produced five separate opinions covering 100 pages. Roberts lamented that, because of the muddled result, interested parties “will now have to feel their way on a case-by-case basis.”

The divisions aren’t just along liberal-conservative lines.

Within the reinforced conservative wing of the court, there are strong and sometimes conflicting opinions.

Scalia took fellow conservative Alito to task for making “illegitimate and ill-advised” use of legislative history in one opinion. In another case, Alito faulted Scalia for making “a subtle but important mistake” in his analysis of a defendant’s right to counsel.

Both men seemed to be sending the message that they’re not intellectual clones: “Don’t call us Scalito,” as paraphrased by lawyer Kathleen Sullivan, moderator of an American Constitution Society panel reviewing the court’s term.

For all of the focus on the court’s new fifty-something justices and the chemistry of the so-called Roberts court, it turns out that the jurist to watch is 69-year-old Anthony Kennedy, a moderate who’s been on the bench nearly two decades. His role as a swing voter was overshadowed in years past by that of centrist Sandra Day O’Connor.

But now that O’Connor is gone, “the basic principle that you need to understand is that it’s Justice Kennedy’s world and you just live in it,” said Washington lawyer Thomas Goldstein, who regularly argues cases at the high court and tracks voting trends.

As he fancifully put it, “Justice O’Connor, having been the most powerful woman in the universe, handed the keys to him on the way out the door and said, ‘Have fun,’ and he took up that invitation.”

This term, Kennedy has provided the fifth vote on some of the court’s toughest cases, including the death penalty, Guantanamo and wetlands cases.

More often than not, he has sided with the conservatives. Court watchers expect that trend to be more pronounced next term, when the docket includes contentious issues such as affirmative action and a federal ban on what opponents call partial birth abortion.

“We’re almost certain to see next term an emphasis on those areas, namely abortion and race, where Kennedy is measurably more conservative than O’Connor in ways that likely will be utterly decisive,” said David Garrow, a Supreme Court historian at Cambridge University.

The replacement of Rehnquist with Roberts didn’t shift the court’s ideological balance much, but the substitution of Alito for O’Connor clearly pushed the court to the right.

An analysis of voting trends shows Alito’s affinity with the Scalia-Kennedy-Thomas-Roberts bloc to be as much as 15 percent higher than was O’Connor’s.

“I think everybody really has to be aware that the court has become considerably more conservative,” said Goldstein. “The real pitch in ideological cases has to be made to Justice Kennedy, and it’s very much going to have to be made on a case-by-case basis.”

The court’s shift to the right could well sharpen in years to come, depending on the timing of future departures from the bench and the political party of the next president. The court’s four conservatives — ages 51, 56, 58 and 70 — are actuarially destined to outlast the liberals — ages 66, 67, 73, and 86.

That age split has created an unusual dynamic for Roberts, at 51 the youngest chief justice in two centuries.

“The people sitting around the conference table are his parents’ generation and they call him chief,” said Thomas Baker, a Florida International University law professor who served as Rehnquist’s first administrative assistant. “His self-deprecating style helps here. His humor helps here. And, one thing that cannot be overlooked, is how impressive his intellect is.”

The court’s new lineup is likely to change the dynamic in ways that extend well beyond the differences in how Roberts and Alito might vote compared with Rehnquist and O’Connor, says John McGinnis, a Northwestern law professor who worked with Alito in the Reagan Justice Department.

For example, there are some early signs that Justice Stephen Breyer may be inclined to vote more strategically to stay within the majority on certain cases, McGinnis said. And Roberts, for his part, may be assigning Breyer to write certain opinions in an effort to keep him from reflexively siding with the other liberals.

“I think that will be a story we should be following for the next five years,” McGinnis said.

OT, re: TRex’s Late-Nite, last night:

Wolcott reviews Pam…

http://jameswolcott.com/archiv.....uments.php

“…temptress in a teapot…”

Oh, dear!

Larry @ 35

Maybe they can start with Scalia and his duck huntin’ buddy, VP McBirdshot

Off topic but couldn’t not share - a quote from the NY Times today regadring the ridiculous ‘media’ Congress hearing:

“We are here today because there hasn’t been enough red meat thrown at the Republican base just before the Fourth of July recess,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Loving it!

TeddySanFran says
June 30th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
SCOTUS needs to have the realities of the 21st century signing statement explained to it. GOP Congress passes **something** that might allow tribunals to continue; Bush signs it and appends a signing statement.

Problem disappears.
———————————————————-
I continue to doubt that it’s going to play out this way. If they had the votes for a stunt like this, Kyl and Graham wouldn’t have had to put their fake debate in the Congressional Record. And Bush is pretty unpopular with the House right now. There’s a world of difference between Congress bashing the NYT and enabling a Bush to get around a SCOTUS decision. And again, I think Congress is going to balk at revoking the Geneva conventions. As John McCain can tell you, they’re there for a reason.

G W BUSH: STEALING DEMOCRACY ONE ELECTION AT A TIME.

Now working on the Mexico election:

http://www.gregpalast.com/section/articles

Stealing Mexico - Bush Team
Helps Ruling Party
‘Floridize’ Mexican
Presidential Election
By Greg Palast
6-30-6

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “ARMED MADHOUSE: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal ‘08, No Child’s Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.”

George Bush’s operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections. I’m not talking about the November ‘06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I’m talking about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.

It begins with an FBI document marked, “Counterterrorism” and “Foreign Intelligence Collection” and “Secret.” Date: “9/17/2001,” six days after the attack on the World Trade towers. It’s nice to know the feds got right on the ball, if a little late.

What does this have to do with jiggering Mexico’s election? Hold that thought.

This document is what’s called a “guidance” memo for using a private contractor to provide databases on dangerous foreigners. Good idea. We know the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf Emirates. So you’d think the “Intelligence Collection” would be aimed at getting info on the guys in the Gulf.

READ MORE….

today’s Froomkin begins:

Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling, definitively curbing the Bush White House’s assertion of nearly unlimited executive power in a time of war, puts the other two branches of government back in business.

The Republican-controlled Congress, which has remained resolutely blind, deaf and dumb as President Bush took national security matters entirely into his own hands, now has little choice but to rouse itself to some sort of action.

And in reasserting the rule of law, the high court has opened the way to what could be major legal action over other executive branch violations of established statutes — about domestic spying, for instance. The ruling even raises the possibility that U.S. forces and Bush administration officials could be tried for war crimes.

The rousing of the legislative and judicial branches is the ultimate nightmare of the unilateralists within Bush’s inner circle, most notably Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, David S. Addington. They had argued that nothing — not Congress, not the courts, not traditional notions of basic human rights — should limit the president from pursuing the nation’s enemies however he saw fit.

Worth watching closely: Whether the high court’s decision will bolster the stature of other members of the administration, many of whom have reportedly had reservations about the Cheney-Addington approach all along. Or whether Cheney and Addington will continue to have Bush’s ear, and will keep plotting in the shadows.

. . .

Christy,

OT BUT…Security issue?
I see that there is another Larry posting @35. Never thought about this before but one can see the potential mischief, problems and disruption this could create here at FDL???

Larry

Christy

Thanks so much for putting all this together and making it accessible, great job.

The Lehrer segment was priceless.

Yoo-hoo…boo-hoo

B-o-o H-o-o

Bahahahahaha…

be leary of Larry?

P,

You crack me up. But I am being serious.

Well — that (Larry 48) clears up my confusion.

and yes yoo should be leary of larry

Larry, you’re right - that could lead to a lot of confusion.

haven’t seen this elsewhere but

Carl Levin has said he will “cooperate” with Kyl and Graham?!!

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, pledged to craft legislation addressing the court’s ruling that tribunals weren’t explicitly authorized by Congress and didn’t adequately protect the rights of the accused. Democrats such as Senator Carl Levin of Michigan said they would cooperate.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....amp;refer=

Frank at 22 (and Christy’s followup): I accept the premise that John Yoo is a whiner and I certainly can believe that Bush et al. want to introduce coerced confessions (ala torture). John whiner Yoo, however, was trying to make the argument that obeying current procedures precludes protecting sources and methods. I suspect he’s flat out wrong. Could you confirm? Incidentally, some fellow named Brian over at Tom MaGuire’s place is accusing ME of wanting trials where the government would have to air everything in the public to have a trial. I told Brian to visit FDL where the liberal ladies are very good lawyers. I’m sure Brian would appreciate a clear answer to this query.

and nthis Larry does not leery

Not to diminish the seriousness of double Identity but, Punaise,You missed the obvious. Leery O’Larry.

timothy larry’s gone
no no no no he’s outside
looking in

We need to put each and every Dem on notice now that they are not to support any efforts to pushback on the SCOTUS ruling - can we make a plan for this? perhaps a July 4 greeting to each reminding them of the constitution?

suggest more “recent” Larry adopt a suffix or modifier

Such as “Larry JD” or “Lawyer Larry,” punaise?

and Specter’s legislation will make what the bums have been doing legal. If Levin and the other dems want to go along to git along so they look like they are protecting the murkan people, then we need to throw the bums out.

Huckleberry wants guidelines to come from the UCMJ– hahaha– the one they are currently gutting?

btw, Commander Swift will be on cspan tomorrow morning at 0745 for 45 delightful minutes.

lotus, sure something like that. this come’s up from time to time (mary, etc.)

multiple names have not been an issue so far - folks do seem to just adopt a variation …
but I’d support a registration scheme that would allow us to reserve our unique logins and maybe tag them in some way (reserved logins in a diff. color or something?) if it’s possible to do this without requiring registration to post so we don’t discourage new reader/commenters.

That said, our hostesses have enough on their plates and take very good care of us so we can easily continue to monitor these things as a community without added work and expense.

just imho

Unusual as you would think, I have run into multiple Bustednuckles on the net.

what siun said re names and re Senators.

Siun is right.Agreed

be wary of larry

If you link to a website with your comments, that gives some distinguishing characteristic to your name — though some may not consider the link distinguished.

to my great disappointment, punaise at yahoo dot com was already taken.

if you ever see a post from 3sivund, it’s my upside down alter ego.

Yes, not everyone could be “HopeSpringsATurtle.” Probably the simplest way to go would be “Larry … Larry 2 … Larry 3,” if it came to that. Except: how would a newbie know?

i agree that very common names like ‘mary’ or ‘larry’ are hard to keep track of in here … some sort of appendix or descriptor is helpful like ‘Tom_of_Chicago’ does. My own moniker is made of my quasi-common first name with my zipcode…

come *ilson, you know it’s the orange hair that gives you away. or is it stalinist red now?

HopeSpringsATurtle - best handle ever

I also didn’t want to be mistaken for a distinguished Ambassador in here as well …

Tom @ 46

Bush definetly wants Calderon to win, because he’s had a long history with the economic elite of Mexico

Rouge Bolshevique, s’il vous plait !

don’t tarry, Larry.

Something else from the comments over at Tom MaGuire’s place. GOP troll Patrick Sullivan is trying to make his 1st contribution on any topic ever as he tries to explain Scalia’s dissent. Something to do with the Detainee’s Treatment Act of 2005 and the Exceptions Clause, which Sullivan claims grants Congress the right to limit Supreme Court review. Now Patrick is no lawyer and he’s getting some harsh feedback - partly from me and I’m no lawyer either. To those who know the law and the Constitution, does Mr. Sullivan have ANY point here at all?

Errrm, definitely

but you are an ambassador of sorts, *ilson.

Siun I was screwing around with my 68…

Your 65 is right, our hosts do not need any more c**p on their plate.

and ilson your 73

are you implying that I am just some common everday run of the mill Larry?

Will the REAL Larry please stand up? The guy with all my bar tabs. I don’t have a worry with someone else impersonating me…who in their right mind would do that? chuckle

Ghostman

my political sympathies were obvious years ago when I had cats named Babrak and Karmal and my first pitbull was named Najibollah

Punaise said best handle ever..

funny… I hear that often

“retardeau” had me cracking up earlier.

not best handles, plural….

Christy at 3 - that was backdoor sarcasm. I’m still pissed at Jim Lehrer for his softball talk with Rove at the RNC the summer before. And guess what - sucking up don’t work Jim - you and PBS still got funding cut and controls put in.

Ghostman ,

You and I share a common love for a certain whiskey.

The real Larry has stood up and still has your bar tabs….watch out.

our hosts do not need any more c**p on their plate.

That would be the CCCP, no? I thought they had a going-out-of-business sale. Did *ilson buy up the artifacts? Stalin’s corpse, the Lubyanka, etc.

Dover B - I missed that one

Larrys Siun Larry - well, my dear, if you care to add a little gaelic to your moniker, I’m all for it!

the gender may be a tad off for you though

(grinning to whichever Larry I’m grinning at)

Andy McCarthy over at NRO’s The
Corner states: “A big issue to watch out for as congress re-examines this: the protection of classified information from al Qaeda in the trial process. One of the principal reasons for having commissions rather than courts-martial or civilian trials is to prevent our enemies from learning what we know and how we know it.” This goes to my question about John Yoo’s whining and that comment by Brian over at Tom MaGuire’s place (where they seem to want to attack liberals who dare visit). Comments on what Andy is trying to argue here?

our hosts do not need any more c**p on their plate.

carp. mmmmmm

Ahhhh, Larry. Very good. Very good. The “Oil Of Conversation.”

Ghostman

(feeling a bit dispirited with this World Cup - no glorious teams like Korea last time … perhaps Fr v Br will help tomorrow!)

siun - I’ll be pulling for France of course, but this is almost certainly the end of the line for them.

The Lyubianka was built before 1900 as the corporate headquarters for the All-Russia Insurance Company — it became the Secret Police Headquarters after 1917 and it remains to this day offices for the Russian Border Guards …

ahem. some of us are supposed to be working…. back later

Siun your 94

I must be a having a brain fart…you are over my head with that one

.. the original Larry sheepishly admits

I would rather poll for france.

Concerning the “Torture Techniques” that SALON talked about that were learned at SERE school - I wonder just what they learned because the purpose of SERE school is to survive captivity with honor and adhere to the Code of Conduct. I’m a Navy SERE school grad. What you learn in SERE school, without giving away anything that they did to me, was to keep the faith with your fellow prisoners and to keep from doing stupid stuff so that you can come home with honor. The government doesn’t want you to get maimed or killed in prison but they do want you to learn to resist to the best of your ability. And when you fail, and you will fail, they want you to be able to pick yourself up the next day and resist again (mentally and physically). It’s not like these SERE school instructors are a bunk of torture freaks because they’re not. I’d really like to know what the SALON article is talking about. I think that they may have gone for some sensationalism here.

Christy, are you on hand?

I see Mary 133, last thread, promises analyses that are “probably going to pop in and out very OT at times.”

Could you/the moderators please snag these to collect in one place (i.e., the front page) for us? If they just show up randomly, possibly EPU’d, we could too easily miss them.

Redshift #28

The thing I’d like to see hammered on more is all the wingnut arguments that begin with the assumption that everyone there is a known terrorist. The basic right-wing approach to law and order is that if you assume any suspect is guilty, you can justify almost anything.

The reason we have trials is to find out for sure whether the people we’ve apprehended are guilty, not just as window dressing before a first-rate hanging. You’d think someone who claims to be a conservative and want government off people’s backs would get that.

Exactly, especially considering the allegations that about 90% of those at Gitmo have been subject to torture and are innocent of any involvement with either Al Qaeda, Iraq Insurgency or the Taliban.

Vyan

97 Ghost…the pretenders are simply the “Lubricant of leers.”