As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
This diary is an attempt to clearly describe and explain what I’ve come to believe is the most promising and least time-consuming route to a Congress filled with legislators who actually represent the will, and the best interests, of the American people, while honoring and respecting our Constitution – for fear of genuine, realistic challenges to their jobs should our will and best interests (continue to) be ignored: My proposal is for a limited-objective, but detailed and focused, pledge challenge that candidates for Congress would need to adopt to receive our support, and that they will pledge to honor to the best of their ability despite opposition from the Party to which they belong.
A Congress so-reformed, in turn, could be expected to stand between the American people and the multinational corporation’s ceaseless hunt for profit, not to facilitate that profit-hunt at the expense of the American people, as is the case today, but to prevent the people and assets of this nation from becoming helpless prey for those corporate predators.
Though the pledge concept is quite simple, it will need coordination and publicity by one or more reform groups promoting a nationally-uniform blueprint, and will need to be implemented by local citizens using newspapers, blogs, word-of-mouth, and, where feasible, advertising. And, of course, worthy Congressional candidates will be a necessity for its success. It is Congressional candidates on which this diary focuses, not presidential candidates.
So: How, building on the laudable concept and structure of the AccountabilityNow PAC, might we get from here to there against long odds, in the absence of publicly-financed federal campaigns for office, or equal access to the ballot because of Party-implemented obstacles, or a central source of funding that can compete with those of corporate-underwritten Congressional incumbents and Parties…?
1. Where “we” is the American public at large, irrespective of Party membership, or lack thereof, acting, organizing and fundraising on its own, federal House district by federal House district and state by state, in pursuit of a nationally-uniform reform objective, but without top-down leadership from any single charismatic or well-funded candidate-leader, or established political Party…
2. And where “here” in 2009 is chronicled by these recent accounts illlustrating just portions of the ‘long (and growing) train of Congressionally-tolerated-or-instigated abuses and usurpations’ and Congressional abdications – which both dishonor and harm the American people, and to which we all feel compelled to respond – with which a reformed United States Congress will need to contend [time-pressed and other readers should feel free to skip/skim past these compiled excerpts, referring back to them later as needed]…:
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/202_how-we-might-break-merciless-stranglehold-that-two-corrupt-parties-maintain-on-our-congress-and-nation
As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
In a court declaration this spring, Kuwaiti citizen Fouad Al Rabiah, a 20-year airline employee, father of four, and college graduate from universities in Scotland and the United States, who has been held prisoner since 2002 without formal charge, or review by a Geneva Convention-compliant Article 5 tribunal, as a de facto non-POW war fighter and/or war criminal, in the off-limits-to-visitors American military prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, and coercively interrogated throughout his imprisonment, wrote:
…a senior [redacted] interrogator came to me [in Guantanamo, in 2002] and said: “There is nothing against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent.”
That March 17, 2009 declaration by Al Rabiah for his habeas corpus court hearing only came into being because, six years after Al Rabiah filed his habeas petition on May 1, 2002, the Supreme Court – in its vital role as part of our third, independent Judicial/Article III Branch of government – in June, 2008 belatedly ordered an end to the severe and unprecedented breach of Constitutional limits by abusive federal military and police authorities, that had been selectively implemented since September, 2001 against foreign Arabs and practicing Muslims at the behest of both the Executive/Article II and Legislative/Article I Branches of our government. As a result, a year after the Supreme Court’s order in Boumediene, a federal district judge this year finally heard and ruled on the merits of Al Rabiah’s 2002 appeal, which asked simply to have the Executive Branch’s reason for its unilateral military imprisonment of Al Rabiah made known to a neutral Judicial Branch magistrate, and accepted or rejected as valid under American law and the law of armed conflict.
Following Al Rabiah’s August, 2009 merits hearing (in anticipation of which his March declaration was filed) – held seven years after it should have been, largely because of the abdication of oversight by Members of Congress of the wars they launch (or, these days, the wars they simply dangerously rubberstamp the launching/expansion of), and because of the many venal authoritarian followers in Congress who politicize and subvert justice for personal gain or personal spite, while refusing to question the far-reaching actions of the largely self-directed Pentagon and CIA – Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled in a comprehensive and clearly-explained opinion, on September 17, 2009:
If there exists a basis for Al Rabiah’s indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this Court. Al Rabiah’s petition for habeas corpus is GRANTED.
[…]
The Court shall issue an Order requiring the Government to take all necessary and appropriate steps to facilitate Al Rabiah’s release forthwith.
That’s coming from a judge who knows far more than the average Member of Congress about the highly-classified actions of our government in its pursuit of suspicious foreign agents inside the U.S., Kollar-Kotelly having been the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for most of the Bush/Cheney reign.
This, on the other hand, is coming from one of the most powerful, plugged-in legislators in the House of Representatives – Dave Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Ex Officio member of all 12 of its subcommittees, which fund every agency of the Executive Branch, speaking on the House floor Thursday, October 1, 2009:
Now, this country has a problem. After September 11 we picked up a lot of bad and dangerous characters and shipped a lot of them to Guantanamo. We also picked up, on the basis of bad information, some who didn’t belong there. From what I can tell, it would appear like virtually every single person there now deserves to be there.
To anyone actually trying to pay attention to what the Congress of the United States has allowed to transpire in our military prisons – with essentially no oversight from either its Armed Services (chaired by Carl Levin and Ike Skelton) or Foreign Relations (chaired by John Kerry and Howard Berman) Committees – it’s obvious that Dave Obey, among many, many others in our federal legislature, is not even trying to pay attention to the many horrific consequences of the Congressionally-authorized-and-unleashed years-long Executive Branch use of violent armed force abroad.
To his credit, Obey was actually attempting, without sufficient facts in hand, to rebut [link broken, 2/2012; a search of the Appropriations Committee’s two websites – segregated by Party – failed to retrieve the document] unproven and disproven racism-tinged accusations by Harold “Hal” Rogers of Kentucky about our military’s Arab prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Before I quote some of the wild-eyed, specious claims of Rogers, though, and for the information of Obey and others, including our AWOL media, here’s how things now stand, after the first independent analyses by another branch of government of the Executive Branch’s claims about its military prisoners have finally been undertaken, post-Boumediene, as explained by Harper’s Scott Horton on October 1, 2009:
Seton Hall Law School students and faculty issued a series of impressive reports surveying the available evidence, and they suggested that perhaps as many as 80% of the total inmate population of Gitmo were innocent people, swept up as a result of generous bounty payments the United States offered to Afghan warlords and Pakistani security officials.
Now, as habeas corpus cases are processed, we finally have a basis to judge the Bush-Cheney claims about the Gitmo prisoners. The “judging” is being done by federal judges in Washington, nearly all of them conservative Republicans and quite a few appointed by George W. Bush himself. The results? The process is still ongoing. But at this moment, decisions have been rendered in 38 cases. The government was found to have had a tenable basis to hold eight Gitmo prisoners, and to have no basis in 30 cases. So far at least, the court judgments are remarkable in their coincidence with the numbers from the Seton Hall study. The judicial reviews—which have gotten far less press coverage than the scatter-shot attacks of Dick Cheney and his daughter–can be summarized this way: “Worst of the worst? Not so much.”
Here’s the roll call, with the status, the prisoner involved, the judge who ruled, and the prisoner’s nationality:
Freedom granted—30 (20 of whom are still in custody)
17 Uighurs—Urbina (4 released to Bermuda)
5 Bosnian-Algerians—Leon—(4 released—3 to Bosnia and 1 (Lakhdar Boumediene) to France)
Mohammed el Gharani (Chadian)—Leon (released to Chad)
Yasim Muhammed Basardah—Huvelle (Yemeni)
Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed—Kessler (Yemeni)
Abd al Rahim Abdul Rassak Janko—Leon (Syrian)
Khalid Abdullah Mishal Thamer Al Mutairi—Kollar-Kotelly (Kuwaiti)
Mohammed Jawad—Huvelle (Afghan; released to Afghanistan)
Mohammed Al-Adahi– Kessler (Yemeni)
Fouad Al Rabiah—Kollar-Kotelly (Kuwaiti).
Freedom denied—8
Belkacem Bensayah (Bosnian)—Leon
Hisham Sliti (Tunisian)—Leon
Muaz Al Alawi (Yemeni)—Leon
Ghaleb Nassar Al Bihani (Yemeni)—Leon
Hammamy (Tunisian)—Leon
Waqas Mohammed Ali Awad (Yemeni)—Robertson
Fawzi Al Odah (Kuwaiti)—Kollar-Kotelly
Sufyian Barhoumi (Algerian)—Collyer
As for what lead to those decisions, here’s the burden of persuasion, quoting Judge Kollar-Kotelly in her Al Rabiah decision, that the entire resources of the American military and Executive Branch of government could be called on to meet to win those 38, and any future, cases, in order to keep legitimate armed conflict fighters detained (whether or not they committed any recognized offenses against the law of war) for the duration of the conflict:
Pursuant to the Amended Case Management Order that the Court adopted in this case on December 22, 2008, the Government bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that Al Rabiah is lawfully detained.
[…]
The Government must come forward with evidence demonstrating by a preponderance of the evidence that he is lawfully detained, and if the Government fails to meet this burden, the Court must grant Al Rabiah’s petition for habeas corpus.
That’s all. Not “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Not a jury conviction. Simply by “a preponderance of the evidence,” in the judgement of one judge, that the years-long detention by our military of the prisoner at issue is and was lawful under our Constitution, the 2001 AUMF, and the law of armed conflict. If that low standard can’t be met, with all the odds and classified intelligence in the government’s favor, the detainee wins his case – as 30 of 38 have finally succeeded in doing since June, 2008, thanks to the help of many volunteer civilian defense counsel, and many principled active military JAG officers who are quietly working to resist and undo the unjust abuses perpetrated by their own branch of government.
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/192_you-will-not-leave-this-place-innocent-even-if-you-are-just-ask-our-senators-representatives-who-preach-that-ucmj-violative-dod-detention-alone-proves-guilt-of-detained-foreigners
As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
Action in the Senate and House this Thursday, September 17, 2009, “Constitution Day,” starkly highlighted the longstanding casual disregard for self-governance, and the disrespect for one of the most fundamental prohibitions of our Constitution, that many of our federal legislators exhibit, including Party leaders like Harry Reid who direct floor action and ought to know better.
First, the (Very) Good:
Mr. REID. […] I think it is important to say to everyone that we are now in a mode of doing some legislation. I appreciate very much the cooperation of all Senators, Democrats and Republicans. We are now in the mode of, when a bill comes up, people can offer amendments. For a number of years, that simply was not the case. When there are circumstances and a decision is made not to allow amendments, I understand, after people are in the habit of being able to offer amendments, how concerned they become. We will approach that whenever it comes about, if there is a decision made to so-called fill the tree and not allow amendments.
In the way we are working, we are taking some tough votes. Democrats are offering some difficult amendments, Republicans are offering some difficult amendments. But that is OK. We are working through these bills. We could have been voting on cloture on the Transportation appropriations bill. We could have been invoking cloture on that bill this morning. It simply has not been necessary.
We have some nominations we are still working our way through. One Republican Senator has held up a nomination for quite some time. He came to me yesterday and said: You can go ahead and put that one through.
I am satisfied and confident this is the way the Senate should operate.
We have the health care bill on the horizon. If we are able to get 60 votes to proceed to it, it is going to take everyone’s cooperation and patience to work through the amendments that will be necessary to go forward on that bill. I am hopeful and confident we can work through that bill. If not, we will have to go to reconciliation, which I hope we don’t have to do, but if we have to, we have to do that.
Anyway, I feel good about what we have been able to accomplish this week. I repeat, it sets a pattern of how we should be legislating.
Behind me is Senator Specter. He came to me a number of times last year and said: Are there going to be amendments allowed? And I said yes. He said he would vote to move forward on the bill. I think there were other people who felt the same way, but they just were not as vocal as Senator Specter.
I appreciate the good work, including that of my colleague, the senior Senator from Kentucky, who is one of the people who has stressed how important it is to have amendments. I recognize he cannot control his Senators all the time, nor can I. In spite of that, we have been able to work through legislation.
I want to get the appropriations bills done, as does Senator McConnell. He and I have been members of the Appropriations Committee during our entire tenure in the Senate. It is important that we work through these bills. As of today, we will have completed five of them. We are going to do our utmost to do the conference reports before the first of October. We may have to–not may–we will have to have a short-term CR, and by the end of that short-term CR, hopefully we can complete all the appropriations bills.
English translation for Reid’s first couple of semi-coded paragraphs in this floor statement: “Circumstances” means Party politics (too-often dictated by the White House) and the desire of Senators to avoid the accountability of casting a vote, yea or nay, on the public record. “Filling the tree” because “a decision is made” is the Majority Leader’s practice (under both Parties) of providing cover for his Party members by blocking what Reid openly admits here are (considered to be politically) “tough votes” from ever needing to be taken by the Senate. Filling the tree and allowing only a pre-selected, very limited group of amendments to receive floor debate and votes, via secretly-negotiated unanimous-consent agreements between the Party leaders, prevents the legislative and democratic process of full and fair floor debate from taking place in the Senate. It’s a way of controlling political fallout, at the expense of genuine legislating and a full hearing and debate on germane amendments any Senator wishes to offer.
For whatever reason, at least on these mostly-unnoticed, under-reported appropriations bills, Harry Reid is obliquely announcing here that the Senate has returned to being an actual legislature until further notice, after years of Party manipulation of floor proceedings. Reid states he will not abuse the process, or thwart the democratic will of the Senate, by blocking politically-sensitive amendments with negotiated deals to limit amendments on these spending bills (or with early cloture votes), and has instead opened the floor equally to all Senators to offer improvements to the bills.
And, better yet, even on an unquestionably controversial, politically-potent topic – the upcoming floor debate on health insurance reform – Harry Reid is stating that he is prepared for an open, democratic debate on the Senate floor, without a rigged game of pre-arranged 60-vote margins for passage, or severely-limited amendments. [Though the content of the consolidated bill brought to the floor of course remains hugely significant, and very much under his control.]
All germane health reform ideas would therefore be eligible for debate on the floor, and Senators will be expected to vote them up or down, or to filibuster and block filibusters, as each is considered in turn. Only after that process is given its full measure of floor time, will the possibility of reconciliation be considered, Reid indicates. So the process of reconciliation would be necessary only if some Democratic Senators betray their own Party platform, and refuse even to end debate on key amendments, or the bill itself, so as to allow their colleagues to cast their simple-majority votes – yea or nay – on particular provisions. Meaning the specious, unproven public claims that “we don’t have the votes” will finally be put to the test, in the open, on the public record, on the Senate floor.
Hear, Hear. If Reid keeps to his word, and allows the necessary time for that healthy floor debate on the Senate health care bill, the nation will see the Senate work its will – out in the open, in the democratic, fair method, as designed, of one Senator, one vote, without interference by top-down Party dictates. This is essentially the Senate acting as adults – as legislators, not just political Party pitchmen – and though it pleases the Republican minority by giving them more of a voice, it will also helpfully expose Democratic pretenders, while reducing the need for Reid to enforce Party-line conformity in an effort to reach labor-intensive, off-floor deals that try to pre-determine outcomes. So far, so good.
Now, the Bad:
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/94_harry-reid-re-opens-senate-floor-to-amendments-but-promotes-unconstitutional-bills-of-attainder-on-constitution-day
As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
As reported Friday by Lyle Denniston of scotusblog.com, principled military defense counsel, in the Military Commissions proceeding United States of America v. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, et al., have courageously and commendably appealed to an independent federal court – over the heads of the unaccountable commission’s unresponsive military judges – in an overdue effort to provide genuine, competent defense services to their imprisoned clients.
These non-UCMJ military tribunal proceedings were first unilaterally instituted by the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration, then formalized with Congressional blessing in 2006 (with the help of both Parties) after the Supreme Court finally stopped that particular Bush/Cheney grab for unchecked power. These irregular and unjust commission proceedings have attempted to railroad to their death, as admitted 9/11 conspirators, the long-held-and-abused clients of these military JAG lawyers.
The Appeals Court has ordered the government to reply by next Tuesday.
Filed on Wednesday, September 9, 2009, in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, on behalf of Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, by U.S. Navy JAGs Suzanne Lachelier and Richard Federico, of the Office of Chief Defense Counsel, Military Commissions, Department of Defense, in the form of a Petition for Writ of Mandamus And Writ of Prohibition:
RELIEF SOUGHT
Petitioner requests that the Court hold that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is unconstitutional, declare all proceedings before the military commission to be a nullity, and enjoin further proceedings therein.
ISSUES PRESENTED
(1) Does the Military Commission Act of 2006, on its face or, in the alternative, as applied in the military commission proceedings below, exceed Congress’s constitutional powers to convene law-of-war military commissions under the Define and Punish Clause (Const., Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 10)?
(2) Does the Military Commissions Act of 2006, on its face, violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We demonstrate in this Petition that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Pub. L. 109-366, 17 (October 2006) (“MCA”), on its face and as applied in this case, exceeds the constitutional limits on Congress’s power to authorize military commissions. In the terms of Geneva Convention Common Article 3, the commission in this case is not a “regularly constituted court.” Because Petitioner has the right not to be tried by a tribunal that has been ultra vires from its inception, the petition should be granted and the case should be dismissed.
Mandamus and prohibition are remedies to be applied only in extraordinary circumstances. The situation facing Petitioner is indeed extraordinary, however. Not only is the MCA unconstitutional on its face, but the proceedings themselves have been “irregular” in every sense. In fact they have been a travesty of justice, a “system” — in the military judge’s own words — “in which uncertainty is the norm and where the rules appear random and indiscriminate.” Military Judge Ruling D-126, at 3.
The reason for this state of affairs, moreover, is clear: These cases were never intended to do justice. Instead, what the government has sought, and to date received, is not a legitimate judicial proceeding but a political show trial.
The process has been corrupted by illegitimate political considerations at every step. Political distortions of the judicial process begin with the MCA itself. The provision limiting its jurisdiction to aliens (the basis of the facial challenge infra) was designed to avoid the political consequences of imposing the MCA’s facially unconstitutional procedures like this on American citizens. Sections 948c, 948d(a). No other American criminal court system is so obviously founded on such politicized and illegitimate premises.
[…]
Most recently, the FBI began an investigation of military defense counsel that has calculatedly employed heavy-handed investigative techniques that have destroyed attorney-client relationships and the ability of some counsel to perform their defense responsibilities. The investigation was almost certainly instigated by the CIA, since it is being overseen by the agency of the Department of Justice to which the CIA reports. Peter Finn, Detainees Shown CIA Officers’ Photos: Justice Dept. Looking Into Whether Attorneys Broke Law at Guantanamo, Washington Post (August 21, 2009).
[…]
The absence of rules has suited the prosecution’s overarching strategy, which has been to avoid all regular trial process and proceed directly to execution. The government has been explicit about this goal.
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/91_us-navy-military-commission-defense-counsel-in-usa-v-ksm-et-al-petition-federal-appeals-court-to-end-segregated-sham-military-commissions
As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
The House Progressive Caucus [link broken, 2/2012; the Washington Post offers only post-2009 Plum Line posts in its website archive] has, very commendably, again made it crystal clear – this time [link broken, 2/2012; the Washington Post offers only post-2009 Plum Line posts in its website archive] directly to a President of their own Party – that their overriding objective for health insurance reform legislation, as federal legislators and representatives of the people, is the well-being of their constituents. In this arena, improving the well-being of all necessarily means favoring the greater public good at the expense of some of the immense profits of privately-owned health insurance and other medical services companies.
Public opinion polls continue to show that a majority of Americans want the choice of a robust public plan and we stand in solidarity with them. We continue to support the robust public option that was reported out of the Committees on Ways and Means and Education and Labor and will not vote for a weakened bill on the House Floor or returning from a Conference with the Senate.
Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, a public option built on the Medicare provider system and with reimbursement based on Medicare rates-not negotiated rates-is unacceptable. – Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Woolsey & Grijalva, 9/3/09
“Unacceptable,” because ineffective and even counter-productive.
This has been primarily a fight about insurance reform, instead of a fight about fundamentally reforming the health care delivery system of this nation, ever since single-payer reform was ruled out of bounds by the powers-that-be, before the current debate even got underway. Thus, those federal representatives dedicated to the well-being of their constituents, and a more perfect union, have already significantly compromised and moderated their minimum requirements, and lowered their expectations far below a quasi-“perfect” single-payer objective of fundamental health-care reform.
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/89_what-is-a-party-for-a-more-perfect-union-or-presidential-pr-americans-should-know-difference
As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
The last public testimony-gathering hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, or any of its subcommittees, regarding health insurance reform? May 12, 2009.
The first public meeting of the Senate Finance Committee to democratically debate and mark up (amend) health insurance reform legislation? On some unknown future date, more than eight months into 2009, contrary to a “schedule” that promised otherwise:
Senator Grassley and I have laid out a schedule to do just that. Our schedule calls for this committee to mark up a comprehensive health care reform bill in June. We should put a health care bill on the President’s desk by July 4.
– Chairman Max Baucus, March 10, 2009
How can this be? Ask George Bush, Kit Bond, Jay Rockefeller, or Harry Reid, who successfully played a very similar game of inverting, and subverting, the legislative process, while recklessly breaching the separation of powers, when they used the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by Rockefeller to force through “reform” (with telecom immunity) of FISA, in October, 2007. That telecom-immunity-laden FISA “reform” was a permanent replacement for the Protect America Act, and was passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee 3 months after the PAA was forced through Congress on the cusp of a month-long August recess, undebated and unexamined by those legislators responsible for its enactment.
For those who weren’t following closely at the time, we learned a bit about the (non-public) manufacturing and subsequent passage of the FISA Amendments Act in the Senate Intelligence Committee, thanks to the frustrated comments of Russ Feingold in the subsequent, public FAA mark-up in the Senate Judiciary Committee to which it was (purportedly) sequentially referred [Feingold, Feinstein, Whitehouse and a few Republicans sit on both committees]. Feingold revealed, basically in passing, that the Intelligence Committee was effectively presented with a fait accompli – a completed FAA bill, basically the Bush White House-written bill – by Jay Rockefeller and Kit Bond, which Rockefeller and Bond then insisted the committee pass essentially as was in the name of bipartisanship.
Meaning that, in practice, no meaningful committee amendments (unless endorsed by both Bond & Rockefeller) were to be entertained on this vital bill, for fear of disrupting said purportedly-delicate “bipartisan” deal (bipartisan meaning one Republican and one Democrat), per the dictate of Chairman Rockefeller. Disgracefully, most of the Democrats on that vital intelligence oversight committee simply went along with Rockefeller’s autocratic command (partly in hopes, it’s true, that they could remedy problems and actually offer amendments in the sequential referral of the bill to the Judiciary Committee – but, as we know, Harry Reid had the last laugh on that plan…). And thus the FAA bill was promptly passed out of Rockefeller’s Intelligence Committee 13-2, with all but two Democrats (Feingold and Wyden) voting in favor – upon which it was immediately, and repeatedly, hailed by its proponents as a triumphant and overwhelmingly “bipartisan” achievement, and declared essentially unimprovable by further (or any) amendment…
Talk about the bastardization of democratic process and the deliberate subversion of full and fair legislative debate and amendment.
Well, it’s now the Senate Finance Committee’s turn to undemocratically invert the legislative process, as part of the Democratic Party’s effort to reverse-engineer in private a health insurance reform bill, working backward from a pre-determined outcome dictated by Party, not by principle or merit, or by independent thinking or informed debate by our federal representatives in Congress.
Former Republican Party Leader Mickey Edwards:
Granted, there are distinctions in political philosophy that draw people to one party or the other, but it is nonetheless clear that there is far less independent thinking going on than good governance would demand.
[…]
Loyalty to party undermines the very essence of representative government, which depends on entrusting members of one’s community to act in one’s stead. What author Peter Shane labeled Madison’s Nightmare has come true: We live in a world of constant partisan warfare, a never-ending battle between clubs, undermining the belief that a citizen’s vote truly counts for something.
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/86_senate-finance-committee-chairman-baucus-obama-reid-promote-backroom-bipartisanship-at-expense-of-open-government-democratic-debate
As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
The federal legislators quoted herein, excerpted from a bygone Congressional era of genuine floor debate – an era that predates the destructive influence of the corporate-funded television ad election campaign – were broadcasting early warning signals to the nation, about how the increasingly-centralized, consolidated power and control of the modern Political Party, when wielded by the White House over Congress, represents a clear and present danger to our Constitution’s separation of powers.
“Increasingly” centralized, in that not until 1899 (in the House) and the early 1900s (in the Senate) did the position of “Majority/Minority Leader” – Party positions focused solely on a Party agenda – come into existence in our federal legislature. The Democratic Party led the way in both cases, followed shortly thereafter by the Republican Party:
Soon after Democrats took control of the Senate in 1913, they began to suffer from poor attendance at their party caucus meetings. Party leaders had decided to make key decisions on the Democratic administration’s legislative priority “tariff reduction” in [secret] caucus rather than in the [public] Finance Committee. This would allow Democrats to achieve a party position on politically sensitive tariff rates before confronting the Republican minority. Poor caucus attendance by those favoring tariff reduction, however, gave greater weight to Louisiana’s two Democrats who vigorously supported high protective tariffs on imported sugar. Additional defections would have risked letting these senators significantly undermine the party’s commitment to lower tariffs.
Of course, it’s one thing to attempt to enforce obedience to a Party line within Congress itself, using legislative whips and secret balloting, in pursuit of a genuine, well-known, accepted Party platform pledged to the voters during a campaign, to which all Party members essentially subscribe. [Though even this much enforced order obviously compromises the independent action and responsibility of our representatives, and dangerously empowers a select few, absent Party disagreements, in addition to entrenching a Party-created divide in our Congress that should be lessened, not deepened, if democratic debate in the greater public interest, with a minimum of close-minded partisan and parochial factionalism and gamesmanship, is our objective.]
The situation I’m focused on here, however, is that of the insidious modern phenomenom of a President who can successfully (and secretly) demand obedience in a Congress of the same Party, to the President’s preferred policy “agenda” in the name of Party loyalty. That is carrying consolidated Party power too far to preserve representative self-government, as the Bush years so dramatically demonstrated, and it dishonors and eviscerates the Constitutional division of power demanded by the American form of government. We do not have a Parliament, with a Prime Minister. We have an independent Legislative Branch of government. And though our democracy-hostile national media won’t honor or explain the difference, we must, if we mean to retain our liberty and to restore our ability to self-govern, by reforming the decrepit practices of our modern federal legislature.
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/82_congress-of-1938-in-its-own-words-defending-separated-powers-in-face-of-party-pressure-to-consolidate-power
As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
As shamefully continues to be the case with innumerable civilian whistleblowers, when honorable members of our Armed Forces speak up to expose serious wrongdoing, too-often corrupt higher-ups in the chain of command silence them or countenance whitewashed investigations.
And Members of Congress – particularly the members of its powerful Armed Services Committees, chaired by Carl Levin and Ike Skelton – likewise turn their backs and a deaf ear to honest troops who report mistreatment by other members of the U.S. military of Muslim prisoners held at its limited-access prisons abroad; thereby catastrophically failing to do their duty to oversee our Armed Forces, and directly contributing to the lowering of standards (and morale) of those forces.
Investigation initiated after an Interrogator associated with the 22nd MP Battalion reported that he knew of abuse that had occurred at the Temporary Holding Facility at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). The interrogator said that “he was reporting this conduct because he felt the actions were inhumane even though every harsh interrogation was approved by the J2 of the TF [Task Force 6-26] and the medical personnel prior to its execution” (9119). The abuse included sleep deprivation, 20-hour interrogation sessions, and a guard’s providing a prisoner with urine to drink. The CID investigation appears to have been terminated because “the subject of this investigation is a member of TF 6-26 and the Special Agent in Charge, SOTF [Security Operations Training Facility], has accepted investigative jurisdiction in this matter” (9118). SOTF’s case number is 0016-04-CID343. (The SOTF file is posted below.)
Investigation into allegations by senior Psyops officers in Afghanistan who witnessed indiscriminate assaults by Special Forces on villagers during raids in Gurjay and Sukhagen. Abuses included hitting and kicking villagers in the head, chest, back and stomach, and threatening to shoot villagers. Investigation failed to prove or disprove allegations and was terminated because victim and other villagers could not be interviewed due to location in high threat combat area and status as Anti-Coalition Combatants. The report indicated that the investigation should be re-opened when the high threat level was lowered.
Iraqi detainee stated that he was taken from his cell to another location by plain-clothed Americans who beat him in the head and stomach, dislocated his arms and “stepped on the detainee’s nose” and broke it, while demanding he admit to having committed crimes. He claimed that one of the soldiers later beat his leg with a baseball bat. Medical reports in the file confirm that the detainee had a broken nose, fractured leg and scars on his stomach. Soldiers confirmed that TF 20 interrogators questioned the detainee, and wore plain clothes. Although the case was initially closed, it was reopened based on an indication that the detainee’s initial reticence to make a formal complaint was due to threats by U.S. soldiers. The investigation was closed after it “failed to prove or disprove” the offenses.
Investigation into allegations of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib in Sept. 2003 by members of the 519th Military Intelligence Batallion. SPC at Abu Ghraib provided sworn statement that he overheard a MP dog handler stating that a game was being played to see which dog handler could get the most detainees to urinate on themselves. Investigation established the offense of detainee abuse did not occur as alleged by members of the 229th MP company.
Investigation initiated following discovery of a CD during an office clean-up in Afghanistan, containing numerous pictures of American soldiers posing with pistols and M-4 rifles pointed at the heads and backs of hooded and bound detainees. The photographs were taken by a number of soldiers from the Second Platoon of the 22nd Infantry Battalion while stationed at Fire Base Tycze, Dae Rah Wod.
Numerous soldiers admitted to posing in the pictures and taking and downloading the photographs as “mementos” of their time in Afghanistan. The investigation found probable cause to believe that eight soldiers committed the offense of Dereliction of Duty, but not the more serious charge of Aggravated Assault. Most of the soldiers interviewed stated that they were not aware of any set policy on the treatment of detainees, and did not realize at the time that their actions were wrong. A sergeant stated that he had also seen pictures on Army computers of detainees being kicked, hit or inhumanely treated while in U.S. custody.
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/76_military-jags-seek-american-justice-for-911-congress-promotes-soviet-style-injustice-with-mca
As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
The military defense counsel expert on Military Commissions, that is, who won the release today of his client in the Jawad habeas corpus case in Judge Huvelle’s courtroom – which should, at long last, send Jawad home to Afghanistan within a month.
Below are very important and enlightening excerpts from testimony at a hearing today about Military Commissions in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution – chaired by Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York (also in attendance were Bill Delahunt, and, intermittently, Sheila Jackson-Lee and Steve King) – by that expert, Major David Frakt:
Many of the [Guantanamo] detainees were completely innocent of any wrongdoing, and had simply been turned in for bounty, or were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The worst that could be said about many of them was that they had fought against the U.S. and Coalition forces that had invaded Afghanistan, conduct that, under the laws of war, would not be considered a war crime. A small group of those captured were likely guilty of terrorism crimes, but not crimes of war.
[…]
Second, the drafters [of the original Military Commission rules] classified as “war crimes” conduct, such as conspiracy and terrorism crimes that are violations of regular criminal law but had never previously been recognized as covered by the laws of war, largely because the laws of war rightly apply to the narrow context of armed conflict. They also created a number of “new” war crimes based on the alleged status of a person, rather than on conduct that actually violates the laws of war.9 The most egregious examples of these were the invented crimes “Murder by an Unprivileged Belligerent,” and “Destruction of Property by an Unprivileged Belligerent” which appeared in the original commission’s list of offenses. These provisions made killing U.S. soldiers, destroying military property, or attempting to do so, a war crime. In other words, the U.S. declared that it was a war crime to fight [against the U.S.], regardless of whether the fighters comply with the laws of war.
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/73_rep-nadler-listened-will-ike-skelton-heed-expert-witness-who-carl-levin-ignored
As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post’s 2009 comment thread is available at that link.
Although I recognize that Congress is now a closed-door dealmaking club, hostile to liberty – a Party-dominated institution that allows itself to be run by the President as an unConstitutional Parliament, so that the House and Senate no longer function as an open, democratic federal legislature – I can expose and refute some of the false and misleading, or willfully ignorant, claims made by a few Senators while the 2010 Defense Authorization Bill – containing yet another flawed version of Military Commissions – was recently lauded-instead-of-debated on the Senate floor (before passing late last Thursday, 87-7).
Some “debate” rebuttal offered in the absence of principled participation by Senators who know better:
Senator Whitehouse, who won’t confront specious allegations: “I don’t want to get into a discussion right now on whether military commissions are a good or bad idea…”;
Senator Leahy, who won’t amend or block provisions he knows to be flawed: “I am concerned that some of the modifications proposed by this [military commissions] amendment would depart from the traditional protections provided by CIPA. For example, CIPA requires the Attorney General to certify that the disclosure of certain information would cause identifiable damage to the national security of the United States. Here, an unidentified “knowledgeable United States official” would make that declaration, instead. This amendment also imports a new standard that would require a judge to consider whether disclosure of information would be “detrimental to national security.” It would further prohibit the accused from appealing a court order allowing the Government to withhold access to information based on an ex parte proffer by the Government. This marks a serious departure from CIPA’s framework for allowing defendants to reconsider such rulings in order to ensure that they are allowed meaningful access to evidence and can present a thorough defense.”;
Senator Feingold, who will only insert an unspoken sentence or two into the record the day after the bill passes, to mark his purported displeasure: “I remain concerned that the military commission process is so discredited that it may not be possible to fix it. And I have yet to hear a convincing argument that other options for bringing detainees to justice–the civilian Federal criminal justice system and the military courts martial system–are insufficient or unworkable.”
Here are some of the assertions by their colleagues that these Senators let pass unremarked and unchallenged [bracketed commentary and emphasis added]:
Permanent link to this article: http://debatingchambers.com/64_senators-who-lie-to-america-senators-who-let-them