Apparently, mirandizing doesn’t stop people from talking:
According to all reports, Mr. Shahzad started talking even before he was read his rights (“the law enforcement approach†allows investigators to question suspects immediately if there is an imminent threat to the public). When he was read his rights, Mr. Shahzad seems to have kept talking. The Times reported on Wednesday that he waived his right to a speedy arraignment — to go on talking.
And, you know, we can’t have people talking. We’re supposed to give Congress new constitutional authority to strip Mr. Shahzad of his citizenship and send him to Gitmo without due process of law, where he can be tortured into an incoherent pulp from which no accurate information can be extracted. And we’re supposed to do this in the name of protecting our freedoms.
Naturally, America’s Most Annoying Senator® wants the federal government to have the power to strip an American accused of a crime of his citizenship so that he can be deprived of due process of law. Even more naturally, the same crew forever yammering about the evils of big government and fascism approve of this.
The proposed law would make it illegal for an American citizen to join a foreign army except Israel’s. Violators will lose their citizenship. So, boys, no more running off to join the French Foreign Legion, the Royal Highland Fusiliers, or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police no matter how romantic it sounds.
From the other side of the aisles, someone suggested stopping people on terrorist watch lists from buying guns. As attractive an idea as that might be, it’s still constitutionally iffy. Further, the fact is that firearms are so easy to obtain in this country that making it harder for potential terrorists to purchase guns legally will just send them underground to purchase them illegally. However, I wish that whenever someone on a watch list makes a firearm purchase, all kinds of alarms would go off in national security agencies. Apparently that didn’t happen with Shahzad.
Righties believe that if someone can be denied the right to purchase a firearm by being on a watch list, the Obamaführer will declare all conservatives to be potential terrorists so they can’t purchase arms. I’m serious. However, depriving a citizen of his citizenship on suspicion of a crime is OK.
Anyway, apparently the talkative Mr. Shahzad is telling people he was trained to make bombs by the Pakistan Taliban. If so, either Shahzad is not much of a student, or the Taliban doesn’t know how to make bombs. The Pakistan Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the not-bombing last week, is denying any connection to the incident this week.
“The proposed law would make it illegal for an American citizen to join a foreign army except Israel’s. ”
Thank goodness we didn’t have “America’s Most Annoying Senator (‘R’ as in registered, or ‘R’ as in ‘R’ masquarading as an ‘I,’ formally a ‘D’?) in Congress during WWII, or else Pappy Boyington and the rest of The Black Sheep Squadron would have been stripped of their citizenship, tortured, and sent to Gitmo. Maybe we should do that retroactively. I mean, after all, they were helping THE CHINESE!!!
Joe has a Law Degree, doesn’t he? Where did he get it, in Soviet Moscow? If it was an American school (Yale, I think it was), it should ask for it back. Or give it to the person who took the classes and tests in Joe’s name.
Every time you think the crazy train has reached it’s final destination, it keeps on going, and going, and going…
Hartmann today pointed out that unless we suspend the Constitution (which would have to be selective suspension, given the frequency of constitutional misquotes by the right) that those under suspicion already have rights to see evidence presented, trial by jury and more. Reading Miranda rights is actually what let’s their own words to be used against them.
So McCain and other anti-Miranda nuts seem to be advocating a situation by which self-incrimination could come into question.
Why are these cowards so afraid of democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law. Maybe McCain considers our system of law inadequate because he lost a fair election. Could that be it? How does one make sense of such stupidity?
Is it possible to conceive of a more snivelly, cowardly, un-American idea than Joe Lieberman’s “revoke citizenship first, ask questions later” approach? What is left of this country’s proud tradition of liberty and freedom if we stoop to this level in abject fear? Existing law allows for stripping convicts of citizenship, but it must NEVER be U.S. law to strip suspects of same. Do these cowards not see the potential for abuse of this? Would he strip the Hutari militia people of their citizenship when they get arrested?
I truly do not understand what benefit in security would be gained at all by this approach, much less trading that benefit off against the loss of American values. What exactly do these Lieberman patriots think stands this country above, anyway?
Bruce K
Existing law does not allow for stripping of convicts of citizenship. Existing law allows for the stripping of citizenship from a NATURALIZED US Citizen if it can be proven that they committed fraud on their citizenship application. However, it is not allowed to strip a native born US Citizen of their citizenship. The only way for them to lose citizenship is to renounce it.
Existing law allows for the stripping of citizenship from a NATURALIZED US Citizen if it can be proven that they committed fraud on their citizenship application.
It’s the “due process of law” thing that’s the problem, dude. If the due process of law is respected and a naturalized citizen is found guilty of a heinous crime, and his citizenship is revoked, you won’t hear a complaint from me. But when people start talking about circumventing due process by stripping citizenship first, so that the rights of citizenship are revoked, and then holding the trial/inquisition later, that’s kind of a problem. It means the naturalization process ain’t worth a bucket of warm spit, or the Bill of Rights either.
I would generally say that such buffoonery would be figured out in the courts, if anyone actually tried to do it, and the courts would do the right thing. But then we’ve got the Herr Roberts court where the only reasons you can’t see the swastika armband is because they are wearing robes and I realize the the impact of Bush is still with us.
It’s a case of Pavlov’s dog revisited…Lieberman is just wanting to see if he can get the “patriots” salivating in anticipation of a treat. It’s Malkin 101…work them up into a lather.
We live in some crazy times, my friends.
So crazy that this guy might be right.
“It was a clear cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13….”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/7682072/Ahmadinejad-Osama-bin-Laden-is-living-in-Washington.html
erinyes,
I know it’s sick, but this is like Chavez’s line the day after he followed Bush at the UN. He said something like, ‘Phew, do you smell the sulpher? It’s because that Great Satan, George W. Bush was here yesterday.”
Normally, I’d be no fan of either Hugo or Ahma-I-hate-America-and-Israel-nadinijad.
But some day’s, you gotta love ’em. I always wondered what was in Cheney’s “man-sized” safe. Now, we may know.
Egad what a nasty, foul wreck of a hobbit is Joe L.
I guess that means Israel = “My Precious.” *shudder*
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If we’re going to start stripping rights, I’d like to suggest we start with some of the very ones who are willing to vote to do it, as they are already renouncing their citizenship de facto by sponsoring the destruction of the Constitution, which gives us all our rights. I just can’t wrap my mind around the vast mounds of hypocrisy, duplicity and greed that litter the landscape of my beloved country.
One thing I think we could do away with is the Society for the Preservation of the American Loon, as their population is now so large and widespread as to be beyond elimination. Leisure Guy’s blog “Later On” today linked to a TPM article on the Oathkeepers trying to make citizens’ arrests of people they think are not constitutionally correct, from Obama on down. The loon factor is so similar to the ideas of the no-Miranda crowd that I think they’ll have a joint conference someday. They’ll love each other.
Using righty logic, the not-bombing was a rightwingnut plot since it took news cycles away from the oil spill coverage, detrimental to rightwingnut drill baby drill philosophy.
I’m just saying…
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Maybe, Joe, we don’t need to strip them of citizenship right away. Maybe we could just make them wear some kind of badge on their clothing to indicate they were under suspicion? Something bright, maybe yellow? And perhaps, since we’re honoring Israel by giving it special treatment in the bill, how about a Star of David?
All these people who are merely accused of being ‘affiliated’ with some terrorist group, let’s just make them wear yellow Stars of David on their clothes. Seems like a less drastic solution than depriving them of citizenship without due process, right? Only later, if we need to, can we opt for a more final solution.
It astonishes me that the man suggesting this is a Jew. Of all the peoples of the Earth that should know better…
Gee, I wonder why the Palestinians, or the whole Middle East for that matter are reluctant to see America as an honest broker for peace in the Middle East. Could it be that Israel is seen as America’s darling child?
I hope Lieberman the Zionist cleared his little brain child of stripping American’s of their citizenship with Bebe. We don’t want to upset Bebe, now do we?
It’s a shame that the Israelis executed Adolf Eichmann..We could have used his expertise in mass deportations when we start rounding up and shipping out Mexicans and others of less desirable color.
Poor Joe went through an awful long spell without being on television and probably thought he needed to do something to get back on the Sunday gasbag shows. I can’t imagine any of his corporate sponsors paying him to do this.
You cannot remain silent and may we see your papers please?
http://uncledad.org/blog/
Gulag, you realize my comment was tongue-in cheek satire, but I do think we are fed a constant stream of half truths and embellished (enriched) bullshit to keep things rolling.
I read a quote by George H.W. Bush that in effect said” if the American public knew what we have done, they’d drag us through the streets.”
Fillet and release comes to mind.
We Americans are a civilized lot, we prefer to our violence to be delivered by rough men, like those described by Orwell.
Ahmadinejad’s quip was a finger to the eye; “I know you are, but what am I” school kid provocation, then Hillary and her entourage walk out on his rant.
“we are not amused”.
Having ‘lived’ through the McCarthy era, the ’50’s, this latest demonizing of, searching for someone to blame for anything and everything that can possibly be blamed for everything that is wrong with one’s life, whatever, has, yet again, become something of a cottage industry.
Back in the 20’s and 30’s a lot of Americans joined the Communist Party because they agreed with what it had to say. In the ’50’s having been or still being a member of the Party became something that could land you in jail, cause you to lose your job, be ostracized, whatever. The charge? The Great Satan, the Evil Empire, the Soviet Union was a communist state, therefore, if you were or had been a communist, you were guilty of consorting with the enemy, the USSR.
The ‘demons’ are different, but the mentality lingers.
erinyes,
Yes, I got it. I just wanted to be obnoxious. I guesss I succeeded too well…
Damn straight! If you want to fight for a foreign army, join up with
BlackwaterXe, or G Prime electrolyte gel, or whatever the hell they’re called now. If they won’t pay the rates for a good ass-kicking American military contractor, they’re probably a buncha socialist foreign jagoffs anyway.This is the USA, where you can hire someone to do pretty near anything for the right price. When it comes to mercenaries, we’re the… mercenariest mofos in the world!
The preceding is intended in an entirely ironic sense. In case you weren’t sure.