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Thursday, October 19, 2006

This Congress and this president

Seems the atrocities keep piling up. No one seemed to notice at first when president Bush signed the anti-terrorism act the other day, that it had ramifications. Keith Olbermann, did, though, and said it in his extra-long special comment last night: The Death of Habeas Corpus, transcript and links to video.
Your words are lies, Sir.
They are lies, that imperil us all.
"One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks," …you told us yesterday… "said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America."That terrorist, sir, could only hope.
Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.
Habeas Corpus? Gone.
The Geneva Conventions? Optional.
The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.
These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be "the beginning of the end of America."


Sheila Lennon has lots more links on this story. Jurist has news, background, commentary on military tribunals and habeas corpus, including a column from University of Virgina history professor Paul Halliday on a time when habeas corpus was suspended:
Americans, like the English, have always needed habeas corpus most when our fears were greatest. When we use habeas corpus, we protect the safety of both our physical selves and our moral selves.
...Well might the President reflect on this history before his signature makes the Great Writ quite a bit smaller.

(Added later:) Also, Human Rights Watch has an analysis of the provisions of the Military Commissions Act.

And, in Rolling Stone, a tribute to the group that passed this bill: The Worst Congress Ever. The ten worst are profiled separately. It doesn't seem ten's enough.
These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch...a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater.

4 Comments:

  • When you cite that loon, Keith Olbermann, as an authoritative source, you know it is time to take a blogging mental health break.

    By Blogger PJ-Comix, at 7:38 PM  

  • Here's your loon, PJ:

    I am a 30,000 year old reincarnated being from the 5th dimension. Once every 6000 years I materialize in your dimension in a Las Vegas hotel suite where I chant my holiest of mantras: "RAMA DAMA, I WANNA HOT MAMMA!!!"

    Moron.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:04 PM  

  • Corruption in Surfside Florida? BLOG

    Former Surfside mayors, Tim Will and Paul Novack, were steadfast advocats for effective growth management in Surfside. In 1992, Surfside residents overwhelmingly supported a referendum to prevent a twenty-story beachfront condominium. For more than a decade until 2004, Mayor Novack and his family, served this small Dade County community for the grand fee of one dollar per year, consistently denying any requests for height and density variances, maintaining heights at twelve stories east of Collins Avenue, and five stories to the west. Nominator Charlotte Greenbarg wrote that, thanks to Mayor Novack, "the town's zoning code has been consistently, fairly and effectively enforced." Besides that, Novack maintained a balanced budget without raising property taxes. On his shift, there was a one-minute emergency police response time, under 3 minute fire & rescue time, and garbage picked up six days a week for a nominal fee.

    Newcomer Mayor Charles Burkett and his slate of commissioners, including Vice-Mayor Howard Weinberg, an attorney, whose own publicity alludes to connections to Sobonito, the online porn giant, defeated Tim Will in the March 2006 elections, with an average of 150 votes more, out of a 1223 voter turned out. Surfside, Florida's populace is about 5,600. Inspite of all accounts of reassurance toward preservation and lower density plans by Burkett, the town is headed in the opposite direction in the wake of charettes inpsiring New Urbanism plans which include multi-zoning, and multi-stacking of traditionally opposing zoning, in the style of stacking residential units above storefronts. Surfside residents now face a complete wipeout of their charter and codes including Mayor Novak's Referendums which were designed to discourage overdevelopmentand population crunches, by mandating a town vote for such decisions. But the new guys in town started by giving an already new town manager, WD Higginbotham (Gainsville), a recent hire from the old regime, a 30% raise, by firing the 30+yr tenured town attorney for an expensive firm with a record of being a proponent of skyscrapers and overdevelopment, they have already closed the town's community center pool, have all but stopped town maintainance and code enforcement, installed unpermitted signs renaming parts of the town without county permission, effectuated double rescue-fire taxation, and sites high costs for the slowly delapidating disrepairs. Choice appointed committee and board members with felony records, cronies doubling as goons and beating up citizens in our streets, and non-citizens, their chief PAC has been given a paying job as tourist director for the town, and we are facing the impending threat of replanning for mixed-zoning in our mainly single family town.

    Surfside is in danger of losing its small-town beachside character it has been since its inception in 1938. As a result, concerned citizens, adversarial groups have sprung up within the town to follow the underhanded and deceitful events that are transpiring on a daily basis in our town.

    Link in and stay tuned to the "Corruption in Surfside Florida? BLOG.

    http://surfsideflorida.blogspot.com/

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:36 PM  

  • And I was ABSOLUTELY SERIOUS when posting that self-description. Okay, I LIED. I'm really 30,002 years old but don't look a day over 30,000 years old.

    By Blogger PJ-Comix, at 6:59 PM  

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