This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Legal

  • Taliban Guantanamo Grad takes the easy way out

    Abdullah Mehsud, Guantanamo Class of ’04, decided it was better to blow himself to smithereens than to end up in a Pakistani prison according to the Globe and Mail;

    Abdullah Mehsud, 31, spent over 2 years in Guantanamo.

    Shortly after his release in March 2004, Mr. Mehsud shot to prominence by kidnapping two Chinese engineers working in South Waziristan, a region known as a hotbed of support for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

    “He was killed in a house in Zhob,” Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said, referring to a district of southwest Baluchistan province neighbouring Waziristan.

    A counter-terrorism squad acting on a tip-off raided the house belonging to a senior official from the pro-Taliban Islamist party of Fazal-ur-Rehman, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly.

    “We asked them to surrender but they opened fire,” Mira Jan, the chief administrator for Zhob, told Reuters.

    But how could this be? Abdullah signed a pledge that he’d avoid violence before he was released from Guantanamo. Surely, there’s some mistake. There’s no way those poor innocents held captive in Guantanamo could harm anyone.

    From a three-year-old Reuters story;

    Despite gaining their freedom by signing pledges to renounce violence, at least seven former prisoners of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have returned to terrorism, at times with deadly consequences.

    […]

    The former prisoners include Abdullah Mehsud, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee linked to Al Qaeda who oversaw the recent kidnapping in Pakistan of two Chinese engineers, one of whom was killed.

    On Friday, Pakistani soldiers began a massive search for Mehsud, 28, who returned to Pakistan in March after about two years’ detention at Guantanamo. Pakistan officials say he has forged ties with Al Qaeda since then.

    Oh, so there’s been a massive search for Abby since 2004. From a BBC profile of Abby;

    In a telephone interview with the BBC in 2004, Mehsud told our correspondent that he led his fighters by example by taking risks and surviving in tough conditions.

    Criticising US policies toward Muslims, he said the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan was a provocation for the followers of Islam and must be avenged.

    So what do we do now? Now that we’ve suddenly, just today, learned that terrorists don’t keep their word? What’s the alternative to Guantanamo since we can’t imprison thugs and apparently we can’t release them on their own recognizance. What do the brilliant human rights advocates on the Left suggest we do?

    Seems we have a tiger by the tail.

  • El Pollo Rico esta cerrado; Illegal Immigrants deported

    I saw this story initially on Telemundo’s local news last night and to hear it told on the Spanish language channel, you’d have thought that Federal agents were persecuting hispanic-Americans. I didn’t hear anything about the money laundering until I searched the web. This from the Washington Post;

    Four members of a family that owns popular chicken restaurants in the Washington area were arrested by federal agents yesterday for knowingly employing illegal immigrants and laundering the money earned from that business, according to immigration officials.

    Francisco Carlos Solano, 55, and his his wife, Inos Solano, 59, of Germantown; Consuelo Solano, 69, of Arlington County; and Juan Faustino Solano, 57, of Kensington were charged with employing and harboring illegal immigrants, money laundering and structuring deposits to avoid financial reporting requirements, according to a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday. Nine employees of their El Pollo Rico restaurant in Wheaton were taken into custody and will be placed in deportation proceedings, authorities said.

    The Solanos were all legal immigrants from Peru and Columbia – but they were dealing with illegal immigrants. Now, to hear Telemundo’s news readers tell it, Federal agents were harrassing Hispanic businesses, but as it turns out, Federal agents were arresting criminals. Even if you disregard the fact that they were harboring illegals, there was still over $7 million dollars being laundered – and that could’ve been used in the drug trade or terrorist activities – or human trafficking. From the Post again;

    Federal agents say the Solanos deposited more than $6.6 million into a business account between June 2002 and September 2006 in increments of $7,000 to $9,000, which authorities say was done to avoid filing currency transaction reports that must be submitted with deposits that exceed $10,000.

    Now that’s supicious. From the local NBC4 news;

    On Friday, agents said they seized more than $3 million in cash and jewelry from residences of the defendants, and several vehicles.

    Investigators said the money was hidden but could easily be accessed at the residences in Germantown and Wheaton.

    “In one residence we found over $2 million concealed in various places, including kitchen cabinets. In the other residence we found about $1.5 million in various safes,” said James Dinkins, of Immigration Customs and Enforcement.

    Officials said their investigation began about a year ago because of suspicious banking activity such as a quick succession of high-volume deposits and withdrawals. Officials said the underlying immigration violations were revealed over the course of the investigation.

    Nine immigrant workers, employees of El Pollo Rico and residents of Guatemala, were arrested and charged with immigration violations in connection to the case. Officials said they face possible deportation.

    I’ll tell you why this story interests me; it’s about a quarter-mile from my home (I prefer to live among Latins and Asians than among the goofy yuppies and hippies in Chevy Chase and Bethesda). The smoke from the roasting chicken filled the air of the hill on which Wheaton sits and is a beacon to the passing hungry people. Apparently, I’ve been complicit since I’ve been a frequent customer of El Pollo Rico – y es la verdad que el pollo esta bien sabroso y rico. Pero…I mean…but that’s definitely criminal behavior.

    This morning I went to my local barbershop, where the haircutters are Latin and Chinese immigrants (legal, I’m sure) was empty. Usually the whole neighborhood is bustling with Latin customers, but not today. The Washington Post noticed, too;

    “There’s much hubbub right now because of what happened,” Juan Lopez, 27, of Wheaton said in Spanish. “There are many people who don’t want to return to work, because they think immigration will come back.”

    Lopez, who said he entered the country legally, said he quit his job at a nearby business because he feared immigration officers.

    Seems to me that a legal immigrant would have nothing to fear. And I wonder if Juan Lopez was his real name.

    What really pissed me off about the whole thing (besides the fact that I’ve been duped by El Pollo Rico into funding whatever illegal activity they’ve been involved in) is the Montogomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger on Telemundo last night explaining that Montgomery County cops were not involved in the raid and that the Hispanic community has nothing to fear from the Mont. Co. Police because they have no intention of enforcing the law in Montgomery County. There’s nothing on the Mont. Co. Police website of the television conference. I guess the statement was in reaction to things like this quoted from the Post story;

    [Luis] Lora also worried that the arrest would negatively impact the image of the Hispanic community. “They make the community look bad,” Lora said. “If he’s a minority, people will say every minority does the same thing.”

    And the arrests and the ensuing rumors caused a near riot at the small strip mall;

    Shortly after the raid, rumors of immigration arrests spread throughout the community, which is heavily populated by Latinos, causing several witnesses to become angry, News4’s Jackie Bensen said.

    According to Bensen, that anger appeared to boil over when a crowd in the shopping center where Pollo Rico is located witnessed a tow truck towing an SUV that belonged to a restaurant employee.

    The tow truck was taking the vehicle away because it violated the parking time limit, Bensen said. The move caused an angry exchange between witnesses and the tow truck driver.

    Friends of the SUV owner teamed up to pull the vehicle off of the tow truck, Bensen said. The owner then left the scene in the vehicle.

    That’s stupid. If the Latin community quit facilitating illegal immigration by equating it with legal immigration, and calling 4th and 5th generation Americans illegal immigrants, maybe they’d be taken a little more seriously. Legal immigrants helping illegal immigrants enter this country and setting up shop doesn’t help, either.

    I’ve always admitted that I admire the work ethic many Latin immigrants bring to this country – and in Metro DC, the truth is that illegals do the jobs that the lazy-ass Americans who populate this welfare kingdom won’t do for any price. That may sound cliche` to many of you, but you have to live here to see it for yourself.

    However, I support the federal government enforcing the law and shipping every illegal they catch back to their own countries – I also hope that those who are deported and who want to come here and work hard come back legally.

  • Treason

    Apparently, US Congressmen standing on Saddam Hussein’s terrace declaring that Hussein is a more rational actor and more trustworthy than President Bush on the eve of our invasion of Hussein’s Iraq is not treason.

    The US Speaker of the House meeting with terrorist governments and transmitting false messages from other governments against the advice of the Executive Branch is not treason. Facilitating the sales of space and missile technology to our economic and military rival, China, in return for political campaign donations is not treason. Turning a blind eye to North Korea’s nuclear program is not treason.

    Calling our soldiers murderers and SS concentration camp guards is not treason. Demanding the release from Guantanamo of dangerous terrorists bent on our destruction is not treason. Facilitating the immigration invasion from our South is not treason.

    So what is treason these days? Ask Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.;

    “Get rid of all these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist author, president of Waterkeeper Alliance and Robert F. Kennedy’s son, who grew hoarse from shouting. “This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors.”

    Yep, global warming deniers are treasonous. People who question the Flat Earth Society of Global Warming Nuts are treasonous. If you don’t run around behind Chicken Little Manbearpig and screech that the sky is falling, you’re a traitor.

    Yet let’s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn’d upside down.

  • Clinton II; Libby pardon was cronyism

    I’m still trying to catch up on the news after being in the hinterlands among people who are more worried about the lack of rain for this year’s sweet corn harvest than they are worried about politics. I figured that the Libby thing would be played out by now, but being among real people made me forget that Republican transgressions are always much more serious than those of the Democrats – well, for the media and the Congressional Democrats anyway.

    I dipped in my toe this morning by watching Fox News Sunday which had my idiot, pussy, partisan Congressman Chris VanHollen as a guest. And so I can always count on him to get my blood pressure up – because it reminds me of how stupid my neighbors are for electing the moron to Congress. He was one of the first to pile on the Army over the conditions at Walter Reed, then when the Army tried to speed up construction of the new Walter Reed facilities in Bethesda, VanHollen stepped in to delay construction because it’d disrupt his commute in the morning.

    So I jumped over to the Fox News website and watched Hillary Clinton call the Libby pardon “cronyism”(Video). Cronyism? Can she be serious? Or does she forget that we can google a search of her husband’s pardons – he pardoned murderers, terrorists and drug dealers as well as cronies. In fact Clinton, pardoned more people on January 20th, 2001 than President Bush has pardoned in the last six years.

    Clinton pardoned contributors, disgraced cabinet members, Susan MacDougal who kept his secrets in prison (unlike her husband who mysteriously died when he was about to tell what he knew), Clinton’s own drug dealing half-brother, a disgraced CIA director who was under investigation for pilfered national secrets. But pardoning Libby is “cronyism” – despite the fact that Libby wasn’t the criminal the special prosecuter was looking for, or involved in the incident that the prosecutor was investigating.

    This extent of partisanship probably borders on Democrats being criminally partisan.

  • Spector needs a copy of the Constitution

    According to John Stanton of Roll Call, Arlen Specter is pushing a bill to limit the scope of presidential signing statements;

    Frustrated by the Bush administration’s continued use of presidential signing statements to challenge or ignore provisions of Congressionally approved legislation, Senate Judiciary ranking member Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has reintroduced legislation to rein in President Bush’s ability to use the tactic.

    Specter, who has long been a critic of Bush’s use of signing statements, quietly introduced his Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007 on Friday.

    “The president cannot use a signing statement to rewrite the words of a statute nor can he use a signing statement to selectively nullify those provisions he does not like,” Specter said in a floor statement.

    “The Constitution grants the president a specific, narrowly defined role in enacting legislation. … The Constitution provides that when a bill is presented to the president, he may either sign it or veto it with his objections. He may also choose to do nothing, thus rendering a so-called pocket veto. The president, however, cannot veto part of a bill, he cannot veto certain provisions he does not like.”

    So what Specter is saying is that he doesn’t like the way the President interprets the laws Congress writes, so he wants to improve the President’s reading skills by taking the President to court. I guess that won’t slow down government much will it?

    But the only thing the Constitution says about the President’s responsiblity to execute Congress’ laws is “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Now that doesn’t sound very “specific or narrowly defined” to me, Senator.

    And I don’t think the founders were inclined towards one branch of government using another branch of government to bend the third branch of government to it’s will. I think the good Senator has lost more than his hair.

  • Bush commutes Libby’s sentence – so?

    First – an admission. I was told about a month ago that this would happen, by a source I can’t name. See? I keep promises. I guess I could’ve written it as a prediction a week or so ago and looked like a fricken genius, but I never got all wrapped up in the minutae of the case. I just made an off-handed comment to someone that the sentence was excessive and that the judge, Reggie B. Walton, was an asshole – that’s when my source told me the back story. So there’s still stuff I know that I’m not telling. By the way, I will tell you that Judge Walton is not an asshole – that’s all I’m saying at this point.

    But let’s get to the drama queens – like Obama;

    “This decision to commute the sentence of a man who compromised our national security cements the legacy of an administration characterized by a politics of cynicism and division, one that has consistently placed itself and its ideology above the law,” Obama said. “This is exactly the kind of politics we must change so we can begin restoring the American people’s faith in a government that puts the country’s progress ahead of the bitter partisanship of recent years.”

    We already know that Libby didn’t leak Valerie Plame’s name to Bob Novak – the reason for the whole investigation in the first place. So, what national security issue are we talking about here, Barack? I wonder if he even knows what the case is about judging by that nonsensical statement.

    “Today’s decision is yet another example that this administration simply considers itself above the law,” said Clinton of Bush’s decision to commute Libby’s sentence. “This case arose from the administration’s politicization of national security intelligence and its efforts to punish those who spoke out against its policies.

    “Four years into the Iraq war, Americans are still living with the consequences of this White House’s efforts to quell dissent. This commutation sends the clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice.”

    Does she think we just forgot about her first tour of the White House? Does she remember kathleen Wiley’s cat disappearing? Linda Tripp and others suffering the wrath of the IRS? And the only attempt to punish Joe Wilson for “speaking out” was made by Joe Wilson’s lyin’ mouth. Should I remind her that John Kerry dropped Wilson from his campaign website when it was proven that Wilson was nothing but a lying, self-serving primadonna?

    And the prettiest candidate ev-ver, John Edwards;

    “Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences could take the action he did today,” Edwards said. “President Bush has just sent exactly the wrong signal to the country and the world. In George Bush’s America, it is apparently okay to misuse intelligence for political gain, mislead prosecutors and lie to the FBI.

    “George Bush and his cronies think they are above the law and the rest of us live with the consequences. The cause of equal justice in America took a serious blow today.”

    Like John Edwards would know anything about being equal with the rest of us, or even anything about justice.

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said: “The President’s decision to commute Mr. Libby’s sentence is disgraceful. Libby’s conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq war. Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone.

    “Judge Walton correctly determined that Libby deserved to be imprisoned for lying about a matter of national security,” Reid said. “The Constitution gives President Bush the power to commute sentences, but history will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own vice president’s chief of staff who was convicted of such a serious violation of law.”

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “The president’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people.

    “The president said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak case. By his action today, the president shows his word is not to be believed,” Pelosi said. “He has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice, he has failed to uphold the rule of law, and he has failed to hold his administration accountable.”

    Reid and Pelosi had better check their hypocrisy meters on those statements and see how it pegs when the names William Jefferson and John Murtha are run through the meter. And it’s all hyperbole, any-damn-way.

    All of those Democrats act as if the rule of law has been tossed out the window – one guy who got railroaded by an over-excited prosecutor got an unreasonable sentence commuted. That’s it. He wasn’t even the target of the investigation – just an ancillary player.

    If they want to talk about breaches of national security and circumventing the rule of law, let’s talk about Sandy Berger and his reluctance to even meet the terms of his plea agreement. When the Democrats get their panties in a wad over that, maybe they’ll have some credibility on the Scooter Libby subject.

    The Bloodthirsty Liberal has more on the hypocrisy, Crotchety Old Bastard thinks it was a weak decision (so does the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal), Curt at Flopping Aces thinks the Left’s reaction will be pure entertainment for the rest of us, the editorial board of the Washington Post, typically a useless opinion, says that “Scooter Libby’s prison sentence was excessive, but so is President Bush’s commutation.”

    Mark Finkelstein at Newsbusters brings us the “Today” interview with Joe Wilson from this morning – as if Wilson has anything newsworthy to say about the case now. 

    Wesley Pruden gives the President “one cheer, but no more than two”;

    He spared Scooter Libby from prison, as decency demanded, but left intact a $250,000 fine, which can only be regarded as tribute to the venality of a special prosecutor and the vanity of a federal judge (both lawyers, after all).

    I guess that’s the only time that we’ll read that Libby still got hit with a $1/4mil fine.

  • What year is this?

    I made the mistake of reading the Washington Post this morning before I read anything else. I read about the Democrat presidential candidates debate last night here in DC (excuse me for not knowing there was a debate scheduled last night in my hometown). Anyway, I read about about some Supreme Court decision that somehow portends the end of civilization (something else I missed yesterday, apparently – probably because of the chattering class’ preoccupation with the immmigration bill);

    The forum at Howard University seemed to be a guaranteed fit for Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the only black candidate in the race. He repeatedly discussed racial disparity, education and AIDS and used his unique status to call for greater responsibility from African Americans, one of his frequent themes. But the audience largely embraced the other seven Democrats on stage as well, applauding Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) when she called for a greater focus on AIDS research and cheering Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) when he called for an end to the Iraq war.

    By the end of the 90-minute forum — attended by numerous prominent black leaders, including Al Sharpton and Princeton scholar Cornel West — the group had covered an array of issues, such as the genocide in Darfur and disparities in education.

    “You can look at this stage and see an African American, a Latino, a woman contesting for the presidency of the United States,” Clinton said. “But there is so much left to be done, and for anyone to assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the reality in front of our very eyes.”

    Obama, when it was his turn, said, “We have made enormous progress, but the progress that we have made is not good enough.”

    Just hours after the Supreme Court handed down a decision restricting public school districts’ use of race in most school-acceptance decisions, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) described the ruling as “a major step backwards.” He added: “And as president of the United States, I would use whatever tools available to me to see to it that we reverse this decision today.”

    Referring to the Bush administration, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) said: “They have turned the court upside down, and the next president of the United States will be able to determine whether or not we go forward or continue this slide.”

    So, I’m thinking “Holy Crap!, the Supreme Court has refused to allow Black people into schools across the country based on their skin pigment”. But then I find out that’s not exactly true from the Wall Street Journal;

    In one of its most bitterly divided rulings of recent years, the Supreme Court sharply restricted how school districts can racially integrate their student bodies, reflecting deep disagreements over the meaning of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

    Yesterday’s ruling could bring sweeping change to hundreds of public-school districts, many of which must rethink the use of various race-based policies they have voluntarily adopted, including the busing of students from minority urban areas to predominantly white suburbs. Except for districts ordered by courts to remedy the ills of prior official segregation, the decision effectively outlaws assigning students to a school because of their race.

    That means more districts are likely to seek diversity based on students’ socioeconomic status. Some, such as Pinellas County, Fla., have already dropped any consideration of race.

    So basicly, the Supreme Court just ruled what it’s always ruled – no preference based on skin color, no restrictions based on skin color. So what’s earth shaking about this? Well, the Supreme Court actually ruled in favor of everyone equally, not giving any preferences to anyone. They said a lack of skin pigment is equal to some skin pigment and a lot of skin pigment – that in the Great Scheme of Things, all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

    Someone said once;

    I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

    Honestly, I thought we’d arrived at Martin Luther King, Junior’s dream. So what are the Democrat candidates talking about?

    “You can look at this stage and see an African American, a Latino, a woman contesting for the presidency of the United States,” Clinton said. “But there is so much left to be done, and for anyone to assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the reality in front of our very eyes.”

    Race is only a problem because Democrats see it as a problem. What, pray tell, is left to be done? Legislate away thoughts? Legislate some grandiose give-away program – based on skin pigment? The court said we’re all equal – regardless of skin pigment. I think we’ve come thousands of miles from where we were when I began my life.

    Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) described the ruling as “a major step backwards.” He added: “And as president of the United States, I would use whatever tools available to me to see to it that we reverse this decision today.”

    A step backwards from where? How? Just mouthing these empty words certainly don’t help, Mr. Pudgy. Words that promise to overturn the colorblind Constitution. Empty BS from the Empty BS Party.

    This is just another campaign issue they plan to wave like a bloody shirt – but nothing they can do anything about because there’s nothing that can be done. Remember the blue ribbon commission on Race that Bill Clinton empaneled? What did they do about race besides yammer? What could they do? Just talk – because the problem is only in some people’s minds. Usually weak-minded people at that.

    Like the guys at the Daily Kos – this guy in particular; Adam Bonin who wrote a lengthy essay on the decision today on AlterNet wherein he concluded;

    It is difficult to deny the importance of teaching children, during their formative years, how to deal respectfully and collegially with peers of different races. Whether one would call this a compelling interest or merely a highly rational one strikes me as little more than semantics. The reality is that attitudes and patterns of interaction are developed early in life and, in a multicultural and diverse society such as ours, there is great value in developing the ability to interact successfully with individuals who are very different from oneself.

    I thought we were all equal – that we’re all the same. And who gives a tiny rat’s ass whether or not we “interact successfully”, and where in the Constitution does mandate that the government has to insure that we “interact successfully”? Since when is a court required to engineer our social strata? Who are these goofballs and what law school teaches this goofball stuff?  

    And anyone who thinks Renquist and O’Connor would’ve voted differently, they’re fooling themselves – you can’t blame this on Bush. Blame it on the Constitution.

  • Leftist hyperbole on parade

      There was a demonstration in front of the White House yesterday called “Voices Against Terrorism” – sounds like a good reason to protest, doesn’t it? Except the “terrorism” they’re “against” is that which is inflicted (supposedly) on people by the Bush Administration. According to Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson;

    In 1996, [Sister Dianna] Ortiz founded the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International, which brings together survivors and advocates for human rights issues, and she began to travel across the country to tell her story. Participants at this weekend’s vigil, the coalition’s 10th, included 75 survivors from some of the 150 countries the organization cites for practicing and condoning torture.

    “We’re not just telling it — we’re reliving it,” Ortiz said. “We feel like we are back in our cell.”

    This year, survivors and activists had a specific mission: demanding the repeal of the Military Commissions Act, which President Bush signed in October. Coalition members say they think the act is unconstitutional, is a severe violation of human rights and essentially legalizes acts of torture, she said.

    The act establishes procedures for conducting military investigations and hearings for suspected terrorists and combatants. One of the activists, Ray McGovern, who was a CIA analyst for 27 years, said the act ignores prisoner rights established by the Geneva Conventions and the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act.

    Well, ya know what, I went to the Military Commissions Act (.pdf), known to the legal world as Public Law 109-366, and read all 39 pages. There is nothing in the law that “legalizes acts of torture”. It doesn’t even address torture except to make it a crime and forbid it’s use to extract evidence. It doesn’t violate the Constitution because it’s mandated purpose (948b) is;

    This chapter establishes procedures governing the use of military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war and other offenses triable by military commission.

    That’s it - nothing about American citizens, so it can’t be unConstitutional. In fact, it specifically forbids the admisibility of evidence extracted using torture during Military Commission procedings;

    ‘‘§ 948r. Compulsory self-incrimination prohibited; treatment of statements obtained by torture and other statements.
    ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—No person shall be required to testify against himself at a proceeding of a military commission under this chapter.
    ‘‘(b) EXCLUSION OF STATEMENTS OBTAINED BY TORTURE.—A statement obtained by use of torture shall not be admissible in a military commission under this chapter, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.
    ‘‘(c) STATEMENTS OBTAINED BEFORE ENACTMENT OF DETAINEE TREATMENT ACT OF 2005.—A statement obtained before December 30, 2005 (the date of the enactment of the Defense Treatment Act of 2005) in which the degree of coercion is disputed may be admitted only if the military judge finds that—
    ‘‘(1) the totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable and possessing sufficient probative value; and
    ‘‘(2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence.‘‘(d) STATEMENTS OBTAINED AFTER ENACTMENT OF DETAINEE TREATMENT ACT OF 2005.—A statement obtained on or after December 30, 2005 (the date of the enactment of the Defense Treatment Act of 2005) in which the degree of coercion is disputed may be admitted only if the military judge finds that—
    ‘‘(1) the totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable and possessing sufficient probative value;‘‘(2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence; and
    ‘‘(3) the interrogation methods used to obtain the statement do not amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment prohibited by section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

    Of course, the Washington Post couldn’t bother to find that section of the law before publishing their story, could they? Nope, they just quote the moonbats – cuz that’s much better copy than some dry old facts;

    “The act needs to be banned for practical and moral reasons,” McGovern told yesterday’s crowd. An opponent of the Iraq war, he accused then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in May 2006 of lying about prewar intelligence during the question-and-answer session of a speech in Atlanta.

    I guess Ms. Johnson couldn’t help but inject a bit of the standard “Bush lied, troops died” meme into her obviously biased “story”. 

    Mr. McGovern would do himself a favor by actually reading the Act instead of going off half-cocked, but that wouldn’t serve his search for fame very well, would it?

    The Act, which grants non-Americans the same Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections as the Bill of Rights, is a reasonable law, under the circumstances. Given that many of the nations from which these suspected criminals come would execute them nearly as soon as they are apprehended, it’s pretty damn civilized.

    I think it’s kind of disingenuous for the Left to be so upset about what they consider terrorism committed by the United States but they wouldn’t dare speak out against Islamofacists who behead journalists for video-fare, send six-year-olds with bomb vests into battle,  and hide under females’ clothing to perpetrate their crimes.

    But the Left, and these want-wits in particular, make wild, unfounded accusations hoping no one will ever have the gumption or the wherewithall to prove them liars. They depend on ignorance and laziness.

    Ms. Johnson concludes her front page piece with a quote from terror victim, Sister Ortiz;

    Ortiz said that the protest and vigil were significant and that her goal is to raise public awareness.

    “When I first came back, very few people were speaking out,” Ortiz said. The torture survivors in this country “believe that we don’t have the right to be silent. We have the moral responsibility to speak the truth.”

    I agree and sympathize, Sister, however, your message is being diluted by Leftist hyperbole and you’ve become a political tool of the anti-Bush moonbats.