64 Senators Support Torture

[Ned]

Ramo, bully for you if you also criticized Clinton, as a lot of the hysteria from the left seems to be pure politics. The reason I say this is that I personally am sure Clinton or Kerry or whoever would not simply politely ask al Qaeda detainee's what they knew about future attacks or the location of their leaders. Even that civilized nation from Europe, the UK, used exactly the same techniques we are using against the IRA and the European courts upheld the UK and said that what they did was not torture.

[Ramo]

Ned, did you even bother to verify Gonzales' propaganda, or did you assume it to be true?

In Hamilton v. Dillin, Congress specifically authorized the President to regulate trade between the US and CSA, and Confederate cotton traders went to court over the tariff Lincoln charged. It has absolutely nothing to do with the President's authority to defy the law.

Secondly, he's selectively quoting. The full quote is

Whether, in the absence of Congressional action, the power of permitting partial intercourse with a public enemy may or may not be exercised by the President alone, who is constitutionally invested with the entire charge of hostile operations, it is not now necessary to decide, although it would seem that little doubt could be raised on the subject

The Court specifically didn't decide the scope of the President's wartime powers. Gonzales painfully quoted the decision out of context. Pure intellectual dishonesty.

Further, you realize the date is 1874, don't you? Also, it's never been cited before in more recent decisions. If you want to go to a more important case, Youngstown Co. v. Sawyer (1952), where Truman used an executive order to take over a Korean steel mill when faced with a strike, SCOTUS has said:

The Executive Order was not authorized by the Constitution or laws of the United States; and it cannot stand.

[...]

In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute.

Note that this decision has been cited nearly 100 times in SCOTUS and Circuit Courts since. In drastic contrast to Hamilton v. Dillin.

If we go directly to the source, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution:

The Congress shall have power....
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

From Article II, Section 3:

[The President] shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

[Ramo]

Ramo, bully for you if you also criticized Clinton, as a lot of the hysteria from the left seems to be pure politics. The reason I say this is that I personally am sure Clinton or Kerry or whoever would not simply politely ask al Qaeda detainee's what they knew about future attacks or the location of their leaders. Even that civilized nation from Europe, the UK, used exactly the same techniques we are using against the IRA and the European courts upheld the UK and said that what they did was not torture.

I don't care what you think Clinton or Kerry would do, or what the Brits have done decades ago. That's not the issue. What we're discussing is what Dear Leader is doing right now. The simple fact is that torture doesn't work and leads to a lot of innocent people suffering. And your apoligism for such actions is just sad.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Btw, in Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer, the important opinion is Jackson's concurrence, which became the law. Those cites mostly point to the concurrence. Jackson does speak about the President acting against Congress' express and implied will (such as a torture statute:

Courts can sustain exclusive Presidential control in such a case only by disabling Congress from action upon the subject

Obviously, that isn't the case there, because Congress has acted upon the subject by passing torture laws, and that isn't being struck down.

Jackson goes on to say:

no doctrine that the Court could promulgate would seem to me more sinister and alarming than that a President whose conduct of foreign affairs is so largely uncontrolled, and often even is unknown, can vastly enlarge his mastery over the internal affairs of the country by his own committment of the Nation's armed forces to some foreign venture

ours is a government of laws, not of men, and that we submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules

Aside from suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in time of rebellion or invasion, when the public safety may require it, they made no express provision for exercise of extraordinary authority because of a crisis. I do not think we rightfully may so amend their work...

The Executive, except for recommendation and veto, has no legislative power

[Ned]

Come on Ramo, the Supremes do say that the president "is constitutionally invested with the entire charge of hostile operations." The question the court was deciding in that case was not that, but something else.

Could the Congress pass a law ordering the president to appoint so and so commander in chief?

[Ramo]

Ned even if you were interpreting that decision correctly, which you're not, that decision has long since been superseded (again, see Youngstown v. Sawyer) by decisions that clearly state that the President is not above the law, and cannot defy Congress' even in prosecuting a war. Period.

And passing a law that outlaws torture is obviously not the same thing as appointing a new CinC (which is clearly a Constitutional power of the President).

[Ted Striker]

Ned,

Who cares?

Do you think if you convolute the base issue enough that you can somehow argue that it's right?

You can't see the forest for the trees.

In fact you're looking at all the branches and walnuts falling on the ground. Concentraing on bird poop stains and woodpekkers and all the little squirrels going around trying to hit it with each other. Oh look that squirrel has the hots for a raccoon wooo ahhhh that's why I'm right and you're wrong!

The rest of us just look at the forest and notice that it's ****ed up.

DUH

[Ted Striker]

Only you can prevent forest fires.

[Drake Tungsten]

Gonzales

[Ted Striker]

Sellout yes men

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Sellout yes men

No need to give yourself a Ted. You've got plenty of other people here to do it for you...

[Ted Striker]

So does your Mom.

[Drake Tungsten]

I appreciate a good "your Mom" crack as much as the next man, but that really didn't make much sense. My mom's getting the here on Poly? So what? 98% of the people here have yet to touch a woman, so what am I supposed to be upset about?

[Ted Striker]

I don't know, you should ask her, I'm just the messenger.

[Drake Tungsten]

OK, Ted...