THE END OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY; THE END OF HABEAS CORPUS

That’s right, fellow Freedom Fighters™ and Defenders of Democracy™, America has divorced itself from arguably the single greatest law that protects the people from the government: the writ of habeas corpus, which was signed into law in the Magna Carta by King John of England in 1215.

In short, habeas corpus gives the accused the right to challenge his accusers and to challenge his detention. Our founding fathers established the American legal system such that a prisoner is assumed innocent until proven guilty. This was a modification of British law, where the prisoner is assumed guilty until proven innocent. In an America without habeas corpus, the prisoner is assumed guilty and sentenced without even so much as a trial in a kangaroo court.

What many Americans may not realize in the furor over the treatment of non-American prisoners is that the law passed by Congress applies to EVERYONE, American or not.

Thus, according to the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, it is perfectly hunkey dokey to disappear any one of us at any time to Guantanamo Bay or any one of over a dozen secret CIA prisons around the world. No phone call for you! No lawyer for you! No charges for you! They can take you away, and not even your family will ever know what became of you.

Welcome to the New Republican America, where you have the right to remain silent. If you choose to volunteer an opinion that does not please His Royal Highness King George W. Bush or his fascist cronies, corporate beer buddies, or fundamentalist minions, you have the right to be disappeared and tortured indefinitely.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Then get the hell out there and vote the bastards out of office.

Only don’t expect too much from the Democrats. Between this political fiasco and the spreading of electronic voting machines across the nation in the past several years, the Democrats have proven that they care a whole lot more about staying in power (!) than doing what’s right for the nation or its beleaguered people.

It’s time for a revolution. We need to, as Harry Belafonte says, throw our bodies onto the cogs of the machine. The machine needs to be brought to a standstill, and everything that harms us must be excised like the cancer that it is and burned away so that it can no longer harm anyone. We need to restore the single term limits our founding fathers designed for this country. And we need to redistribute the wealth from the corporations that are hoarding it back to the people that produce it.

Let’s all do everything we can every day to make this happen.

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From our mailbag

Reader R.R. sent this in:

The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual manner, think about whether you want the "politicians" spending your tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

a. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

b. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

c. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

d. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

e. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending

Good for a giggle: Stick that magnetic yellow ribbon up your SUV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmsOIjzQ1V8

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Recommended Links

Keith Olbermann defines cowardice: George W. Bush and the Republican party
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15004160/

Protect yourself online
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15001617/
http://torpark.nfshost.com/

Can Bush read?
http://www.slate.com/id/2150435/entry/0/fr/rss/

Pervez Musharraf on The Daily Show: he’s smarter and more articulate than George W. Bush; he has a better grasp of world affairs than Bush; and he has a far better command of the English language than Bush. Did we say he also comes across as being a whole lot more intelligent than Bush? If not, we sure meant to!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/27/musharraf.dailyshow.ap/index.html

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From our information clearinghouse

These are items we receive from the countless mailing lists to which The Scallion collectively subscribes. They are worth the effort of at least a good skim.

This week, we are focusing on Thom Hartmann, Greg Palast, and the Huffington Post (which we affectionately call “HuffPo” when we’re too hurried to type). Please be sure to listen to and read "Democracy Now!" and to read AlterNet and the American Progress Report from the Center for American Progress.

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From Thom Hartmann

Screwed: The undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It is available for a limited time at the special low price of $14.92 (a 35% online only discount) at http://www.powells.com/biblio/1576754146
Also available at http://www.amazon.com

Published on Monday, September 25, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Republicans Give In To Bush, Betray America
by Thom Hartmann

Senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham were presented with an opportunity to uphold the fundamental human right known as habeas corpus, or flinch and write a law that would retroactively make sure that George W. Bush could not be prosecuted for violations of habeas corpus in our overseas concentration camps and prisons. It was a contest between protecting the President and protecting the Constitution.

The Republican senators flinched, and in last week's so-called "compromise" chose Bush over the Constitution. In doing so, they turned their backs on a rule of law that stretches back over nearly eight centuries to an epic moment in 1215 on a meadow by the River Thames in the United Kingdom.

The modern institution of civil and human rights, and particularly the writ of habeas corpus, began in June of 1215 when King John was forced by a group of feudal lords to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede.

Two of the most critical parts of the Magna Carta were articles 38 and 39, which established the foundation for what is now known as "habeas corpus" laws (literally, "produce the body" from the Latin - meaning, broadly, "let this person go free or else give him a trial - you may not hold him forever with charging him with a crime"). The concept of habeas corpus in the Magna Carta led directly to the Fourth through Eighth Amendments of our Constitution, and hundreds of other federal and state due process provisions.

Articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta said:

"38 In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.

"39 No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."

This was radical stuff, and over the next four hundred years average people increasingly wanted for themselves these same protections from the abuse of governmental power that the feudal lords had gotten at Runnymede. But from 1215 to 1628, outside of the privileges enjoyed by the feudal lords, the average person could be arrested and imprisoned at the whim of the king with no recourse to the courts.

Then, in 1627, King Charles I overstepped, and the people snapped. Charles I threw into jail five knights in a tax disagreement, and the knights sued the King, asserting their habeas corpus right to be free or on bail unless convicted of a crime.

King Charles I, in response, invoked his right to simply imprison anybody he wanted (other than the rich feudal lords), anytime he wanted, as he said, "per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis."

This is essentially the same argument that George W. Bush makes today for why he has the right to detain people without charges for as much as their entire lives solely on his own say-so: because he's in charge. And it's an argument now supported on the record by these Republicans who have chosen to betray America's founding principles in exchange for peace with the White House.

Legal scholars had expected that George W. Bush's decree to the "renegade" Republicans would meet true resistance.

After all, King Charles' decree wasn't well received. The result of his overt assault on the rights of citizens led to a sort of revolt in the British Parliament, producing the 1628 "Petition of Right" law, an early version of our Fourth through Eighth Amendments, which restated Articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta and added that "writs of habeas corpus, [are] there to undergo and receive [only] as the court should order." It was later strengthened with the "Habeas Corpus Act of 1640" and a second "Habeas Corpus Act of 1679."

Thus, the right to suspend habeas corpus no longer was held by the King. It was exercised solely by the people's (elected and hereditary) representatives in the Parliament.

The third George to govern the United Kingdom confronted this in 1815 when he came into possession of Napoleon Bonaparte. But the British laws were so explicit that everybody was entitled to habeas corpus - even people who were not British citizens - that when Napoleon surrendered on the deck of the British flagship Bellerophon after the battle of Waterloo in 1815, the British Parliament had to pass a law ("An Act For The More Effectually Detaining In Custody Napoleon Bonaparte") to suspend habeas corpus so King George III could legally continue to hold him prisoner (and then legally exile him to a British fortification on a distant island).

Now, the third George to govern the United States, 191 years later, isn't even bothering with the civilized step that King George III of England took, of asking Congress for a temporary suspension of habeas corpus for a particular situation. Instead, he's demanding that his Republican colleagues give him the sole power to do away with habeas corpus altogether - and Bill Frist is insisting that they will push it through even over a filibuster.

It's a virtual repeat of Charles I's doctrine that a nation's ruler may do whatever he wants because he's the one in charge - "per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis."

Article I of the Constitution outlines the powers and limits of the Legislative Branch of government (Article 2 lays out the Executive Branch, and Article 3 defines the Judicial Branch). In Section 9, Clause 2 of Article I, the Constitution says of the Legislative branch's authority: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Abraham Lincoln was well aware of this during the Civil War, and was the first president to successfully ask Congress (on March 3, 1863) to suspend habeas corpus so he could imprison those he considered a threat until the war was over. Congress invoked this power again during Reconstruction when President Grant requested The Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871 to put down a rebellion in South Carolina.

But there is no "Rebellion or Invasion" going on in America right now.

Nonetheless, our President has locked people up, "per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis." Some of their names are familiar to us - US citizens Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi, for example - but there are over ten thousand whose names we are not even allowed to know. It's a state secret, after all. Per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis.

The Founders must be turning in their graves. Clearly they never imagined such a thing in their wildest dreams. As Alexander Hamilton - arguably the most conservative of the Founders - wrote in Federalist 84:

"The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus ... are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it [the Constitution] contains. ...[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. ...

"'To bereave a man of life,' says he, 'or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore A MORE DANGEROUS ENGINE of arbitrary government.''' [Capitals all Hamilton's from the original.]

The question these tragic Republican senators, ultimately, propose to decide is whether our nation will continue to stand for the values upon which it was founded. And they have chosen timidity and convenience - to trash habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions and the US War Crimes Act - instead of fulfilling their oaths of office to "defend the Constitution of the United States of America."

President Thomas Jefferson rebuked those who wanted America ruled by an iron-handed presidency that could throw people in jail without constitutional due process.

"I know, indeed," Jefferson said in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1801, "that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. ...

"I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it is the only one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern."

The sum of this, Jefferson said, was found in "freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation."

When I was working in Russia some years ago, a friend in Kaliningrad told me a perhaps apocryphal story about Nikita Khrushchev, who, following Stalin's death, gave a speech to the Politburo denouncing Stalin's policies of imprisoning people without trial. A few minutes into Khrushchev's diatribe, somebody shouted out, "Why didn't you challenge him then, the way you are now?"

The room fell silent, as Khrushchev swept the audience with his eyes. "Who said that?" he asked in a reasoned voice. Silence.

"Who said that?" Khrushchev demanded angrily, leaning forward. Silence.

Pounding his fist on the podium to accent each word, he thundered, "Who - said - that?" Still no answer.

Finally, after a long and strained silence, the elected politicians in the room fearful to even cough, a corner of Khrushchev's mouth lifted into a smile.

"Now you know," he said with a chuckle, "why I did not speak up against Stalin when I sat where you now sit."

Apparently Senators Graham, Warner, and McCain have about as much spine as did the members of Khrushchev's Politburo. One wonders what sort of Stalin-like threats Bush made to get them to so completely compromise their principles and betray the trust of their country.

Thom Hartmann is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show carried on the Air America Radio network and Sirius. www.thomhartmann.com His 17 published books include "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection," "We The People: A Call To Take Back America," "What Would Jefferson Do?" and "Ultimate Sacrifice." His most recent book is "Screwed: The Undeclared War on the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It."

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From Greg Palast: Cynthia McKinney was blackballed for taking on Cheney! Her inquisition left him gasping, stammering, and ashen. Even though our media carefully hid this information from us, we all remember what happened to her after that.

AMERICAN BLACKOUT

Featuring Cynthia McKinney, Greg Palast, Bernie Sanders, Bob Fitrakis and many others...


September 28, 2006
By Zach Roberts

I'm going to start this with a sales pitch: you need to buy this film. No, really. Not because Greg Palast receives second billing but because you must see this film.

American Blackout is the kind of documentary that only comes along every few years. It's the sort of film that changes things -- changes how you think. If there was any justice in this world this film would receive the same buzz and box office that anything that Michael Moore releases gets. Greg Palast told me the film "blew him away" -- this from a man who is almost always underwhelmed by documentaries, especially ones about his field of expertise.

Watch the Trailer

When delving into the voter issue, the media distracts you with all the things it loves to talk about. But you need to forget the hanging chads and forget the malfunctioning machines. They're just a sideshow to the real story. The real story is a lot less sexy, dealing with road blocks, purged voters, 'misplaced' voting machines, uncounted ballots and long lines. This is the Civil Rights Movement all over again but this time there are no great monsters like Bull Connor. The lynchings today are electronic and political... and the freedom riders nowhere to be found.

American Blackout, directed by Guerrilla News Network's Ian Inaba uses a stunning mix of never before seen archive and firsthand interviews. Inaba knows how to make otherwise dull C-Span clips look like something completely new and interesting. He does this by split-screen and zooming so you know who you're supposed to be looking at -- Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush, ChoicePoint representatives. You see them lying to a Civil Rights panel, you see them sweat when questioned by Congresswoman McKinney. All I can say is that I am stunned that I've never seen this technique used before -- it keeps you interested, on your toes and wanting for more. Yes, you will be wanting to see more of this documentary, these 90 minutes fly past quickly. So do take notes -- there will be a test afterwards -- the 2006 election.


Among the great footage in this documentary is a pan shot of lines of people waiting to vote -- I saw this once before, when I was 13 and apartheid came to an end. South Africa held its first free election and Black voters could be seen in lines that went on for miles. But this is America, we are not a developing democracy and should long have emerged from the dark ages of electoral segregation.

The story of Cynthia McKinney that sews the running thread through the film, is uglier than even I knew. Many only familiar with the Congresswoman's press coverage will be aghast at just how distorted a picture the media has fed us.
It literally defies belief.

Here we see her cross-examining Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with such surgical precision and grasp of her brief that Rumsfeld is left stammering and ashen-faced. It makes us wonder what kind of country we might have right now if more had put this administration under such factual scrutiny. American Blackout lays out exactly why she has been so relentlessly hounded. Every one of her speeches brings to mind the hoarse pleas of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a force to be reckoned with. (In the DVD extras you can watch "Capitol Policeman Speaks Out" and see why she "lost it" back in March 2006.)

Inaba's film is intense yet easy to grasp for even the most non-political among us.

And for those who can't sit in one place for too long, the DVD comes with a shortened version which still gets the point across in under 20 minutes.

Since I started with a sales pitch it only seems right to end with one: Remember when in the days after 9/11 our president told us to go out and shop? Do the patriotic thing and buy this DVD. In fact I would buy several: you are going to want to pass this one around your friends and chances are you're not going to get it back.

Buy it directly at the American Blackout website. We get nothing from these sales except the knowledge that we are supporting one kick-ass filmmaker with a gotta-see-it call to arms against the racial poisoning of our democracy.

Or donate a tax-deductible $50 or more to our educational foundation and Palast will send you a signed copy of American Blackout. All proceeds support the investigative work of the Palast team.

"A muckraking indictment" (LA TIMES) and "engrossing, fast-paced, stylish... a powerful examination of voting rights in America." (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER)

*****

Leni von Eckardt contributed to this article.

*****

Greg Palast is a reporter for BBC Television and the author of the just-released New York Times Bestseller, Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.
Read his articles and watch his reports at: GregPalast.com

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From HuffPo

Retired General: "Rumsfeld's Dismal Strategic Decisions Resulted In The Unnecessary Deaths Of American Servicemen And Women, Our Allies, And The Good People Of Iraq"...

AP

The Democrat's Capitol Hill "oversight hearing" yesterday elicited a stream of scathing remarks from former military officials on Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq War. Speaking in the wake of a report that Iraq has fueled Islamic terrorism, two retired Army generals and one former Marine colonel slammed Rumsfeld's performance on almost everything aspect of the conflict

Retired Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste delivered perhaps the lengthiest and most condemning public words on Rumsfeld yet: "Secretary Rumsfeld ignored 12 years of U.S. Central Command deliberate planning and strategy, dismissed honest dissent, and browbeat subordinates to build 'his plan'...[he] refused to acknowledge and even ignored the potential for the insurgency...Rumsfeld's dismal strategic decisions resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies, and the good people of Iraq." Although Rumsfeld quietly mouthed "no" when asked at a press briefing whether he would considering stepping down, it will be difficult for him to ignore the extensive critique.
Click here to read the whole story.

Click here to discuss it on HuffPost.

On AOL News... Where Is Gas the Cheapest? See 10 States With Best Deals

ON THE BLOG TODAY

Arianna Huffington: Clinton/Fox Update: Will Wallace Interview Make Him Rethink His Wishy-Washy Stance on Connecticut?

Nora Ephron: Socks

Alec Baldwin: So Many GOP Blunders, So Few Weeks till Midterms

Robert Greenwald: Erik Prince, Blackwater War Profiteer, Attacks Iraq for Sale

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US Intel Report: Iraq "Cause Celebre" For Extremists...

AP

Excerpts from a major intelligence report were declassified today, revealing that the Iraq war has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic extremists and is "breeding a deep resentment of the US in the Muslim world."

Roughly three pages of the thirty-page report were released; President Bush was "clearly unhappy" about the declassification, but information from the document had been released by The New York Times over the weekend. The report cited four major factors that fuel Islamic militants: the Iraq "jihad," anti-US sentiment among "most Muslims," a sense of powerlessness, and the slow pace of reform in most Muslim nations. Predicting that Islamic extremism will grow both geographically and in numbers, the document points to the Iraq war as "cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi requested rare secret session to examine the report, but her request was voted down in the Republican-dominated House.
Click here to read the whole story.

Click here to discuss it on HuffPost.

On AOL News... Condi Rice Fires Back at Clinton: See What They Say About 9/11

ON THE BLOG TODAY

Arianna Huffington: HuffPost Fearless Video Extravaganza!

Kevin Bleyer: Pervez Has Left the Building

Laurie David: Remembering "The Detroit Project"

Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval: How We Discovered The Power of Nice

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Poll: Iraqis Back Attacks On US Troops...

AP

New poll results released yesterday revealed that six out of ten Iraqis approve of attacks on US-led forces, while four in five believe that US forces provoke more violence than they prevent.

Although three-quarters of respondents believe that the US plans to keep permanent military bases in Iraq, more than half want their government to ask US troops to leave within a year. A overwhelming majority has a negative opinion of Osama bin Laden. The poll was conducted for the University of Maryland's Program on International Relations.
Click here to read the whole story.

Click here to discuss it on HuffPost.

On AOL News How Much Do Prices Vary? New Survey Compares Cities

ON THE BLOG TODAY

Arianna Huffington: D.C. Fear Face-Off: It's GOP's Fear of Reality vs Dems' Fear of Perception

Lynn Sherr: Women On The News, Then And Now (Hint: There Are More Now)

Hooman Majd: The Iranian Poker Game

Michelle Pilecki: The Cover Story That Newsweek Doesn't Want to Sell to America

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Sen. Leahy: "THIS IS SO WRONG, UNCONSTITUTIONAL, UN-AMERICAN"...

AP

The Senate passed President Bush's controversial detainee interrogation bill yesterday while voting down four amendments, proposed primarily by Democrats, meant to temper the legislation. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) voiced his concern, saying, "This is wrong. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American."

Sen. Leahy co-sponsored an amendment with Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) that would protect detainees' right to challenge their own detention. The amendment was defeated 51-48, with four Republicans crossing over partisan lines to vote for the amendment. The legislation will allow Bush's CIA detention program and disputed interrogation techniques to continue unfettered.
Click here to read the whole story.

Click here to discuss it on HuffPost.

On AOL News: Rank Presidents Best to Worst See How Others Judged Them and Tell Us Who Tops Your List

ON THE BLOG TODAY

Arianna Huffington: Majority of Iraqis Approve of Attacks on US Troops, Why Are We Still There?

Coleen Rowley: A Bill Born Out of Fear

Naomi Wolf: The Ripple Effect

Jane Smiley: What Fresh Hell Is This?

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LURID SCANDAL PUTS HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP IN POLITICAL PERIL...

From yahoo.com

A lurid political scandal surrounding a former Representative's inappropriate messages to underage Congressional pages has put the House Republican leadership in peril. Former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned Friday after e-mails and instant messages he sent to Congressional pages, some as young as 16, were made public. Top Republicans, including Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and majority leader John Boehner (R-OH), knew about the e-mails for months, yet said nothing. NRCC Chairman Tom Reynolds may have contributed to Foley's reelection campaign after finding out about the e-mails.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-NV) raised the "possibility that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives knew there was a problem and ignored it to preserve a congressional seat this election year." Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) said, "It's outrageous...it really makes me nervous that they might have tried to cover this up."

The FBI launched an investigation into the e-mails yesterday.
Click here to read the whole story.

Click here to discuss it on HuffPost.

On AOL News: Rumsfeld Says He's Not Considering Resigning

ON THE BLOG TODAY

Arianna Huffington: A Day of Atonement Wish List

Fran Visco: Coburn to Breast Cancer Community: Drop Dead

Alec Baldwin: Forgeddaboutit!

Stephen Elliot: How Mark Foley Represents the Entire Republican Party

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