sophiaserpentia | (no subject)

Argh, i don't trust 'em as far as i can throw 'em, neither Democrats nor Republicans. On matters of domestic spying and privacy and governmental war powers, there's barely any difference between them at all.

When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a "signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

"The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach "will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

... David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said that the signing statement means that Bush believes he can still authorize harsh interrogation tactics when he sees fit.

"The signing statement is saying 'I will only comply with this law when I want to, and if something arises in the war on terrorism where I think it's important to torture or engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct, I have the authority to do so and nothing in this law is going to stop me,'" he said. "They don't want to come out and say it directly because it doesn't sound very nice, but it's unmistakable to anyone who has been following what's going on."

from Bush Could Bypass New Torture Ban

Two Republicans and a Democrat are responsible for this piece of work:

The Bush administration notified federal trial judges in Washington that it would soon ask them to dismiss all lawsuits brought by prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, challenging their detentions, Justice Department officials said Tuesday.

The action means that the administration is moving swiftly to take advantage of an amendment to the military bill that President Bush signed into law last Friday. The amendment strips federal courts from hearing habeas corpus petitions from Guantánamo detainees.

... Although the courts and Congress are co-equal branches of government, the Constitution allows Congress to define the scope of jurisdiction for all federal courts below the Supreme Court.

from U.S. to Seek Dismissal of Guantánamo Suits

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The problem is those labels, Democrat and Republican. Fact of the matter is, you generally have two types of people - relatively decent, and relatively not. They're to be found across most spectra of society, in varying degrees.

Interesting - but the second link is broken.

Oh, rats. Well, here's another source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/politics/04gitmo.html

Yup yup. If you haven't been reading

pecunium on this subject, you should be. He's an Army interrogator who vehemently disagrees with the admin's position on all this.