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Originally posted by rue:

No, I don't think the US system works.

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Originally posted by rue:
In no particular order:

1) eliminate corporate 'personhood'
2) institute a parliamentary system
3) use only public funding for campaigns
4) have election reform (use the Canadian system)
5) have several foreign news media covering the US and have them be carried on public airways during prime time

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And speaking of name-calling... who would that be, 'Rap?

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I phrased my comment specifically so that those who think this ruling was a good thing fit my description.

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Originally posted by rue:
In no particular order:

1) eliminate corporate 'personhood'

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2) institute a parliamentary system

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3) use only public funding for campaigns

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4) have election reform (use the Canadian system)

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5) have several foreign news media covering the US and have them be carried on public airwaves during prime time

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Originally posted by Geezer:
3) use only public funding for campaigns
if you're talking about "hard money" that goes directly to campaign treasuries, that's cool. But, would this also limit the 1st Amendment rights of people who believe they have a stake in the election, either one guy with a million dollars to spend, or a million folks with one dollar to spend?

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In no particular order:
1) eliminate corporate 'personhood'
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I assume to remove corporate voice in the political process. I got no problem with this if there's a practical way to implement it. If that's not what you mean, please clarify.

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2) institute a parliamentary system
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Any particular features of a parliamentary system you think are superior? The British system produced Tony Blair, who I don't think is on your "good guys" list. A quick Google shows both good and bad parliamentary governments.

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3) use only public funding for campaigns
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if you're talking about "hard money" that goes directly to campaign treasuries, that's cool. But, would this also limit the 1st Amendment rights of people who believe they have a stake in the election, either one guy with a million dollars to spend, or a million folks with one dollar to spend?

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4) have election reform (use the Canadian system)
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If you have a link to the "Canadian system" you refer to, I'd appreciate it. I'm not up on the latest in Canadian election reform.

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5) have several foreign news media covering the US and have them be carried on public airwaves during prime time
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Interesting concept, but I'm not sure how this could be required. It seems to be sort of a 1st Amendment "Freedom of the Press" issue. If Foreign news media don't want to cover US news, or don't think it's in their best economic interest, how do you compel them?

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I am really not trying to disagree with you on any of these points. Some I really don't have the information I need to form an opinion, and some I'm just asking what I think would be the obvious questions that might arise as to their practicality. I'm really interested in your opinion about these basic issues. I may not agree with all of them, but I'll try to be open-minded.

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Originally posted by rue:
Corporations currently have the same constitutional protections as individuals, including free speech. What I mean is - just remove those protections by removing corporate 'personhood'.

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Mixed governments (PMs plus presidents) don't fare very well. And though Tony 'Poodle' Blair is not on my "good guys" list, he his, by all accounts, overall preferred to anyone else. To some extent this is due to the weakness of the opposition AND the weakness of challengers from his own party. But overall, the best thing about parliamentary systems is the ability to vote the government out between elections. I am still convinced it helps keep the system honest.

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I mean run the campaigns as a public service with public money. Debates, Q & A sessions, position statements. Require that media give free equal air time/ column space to all candidates and forbid campaign advertising. (Gives a new take on the notion of 'free' speech, eh?) In case you are wondering, the private use of public airwaves requires that the companies operate in the public interest.

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Paper ballots, all publicly hand counted, overnight.

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Plenty of 'foreign' media report on the US for home consumption. These reports could and should be broadcast to the US to break the stranglehold of toady journalism. And broadcast media is probably the easiest entry due to the 'public interest' requirement.

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I'm curious what you have to say.

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Originally posted by Geezer:

Equal time I have no problem with, to a point. There should probably be some requirement, number of signatures on a petition or some such, for inclusion, or we'd get hundreds of PNs blanketing the airwaves.

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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I phrased my comment specifically so that those who think this ruling was a good thing fit my description.

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Do you include SCOTUS in your list of pansy-assed appeasers? Just curious!

Can you perhaps tell us all how you linked one attribute (agreeing with the Supreme Court ruling) with the other (pansy-ass appeasers)? I just can't seem to make that leap. Be explicit. Make sure you go step by step... inch by inch... millimeter by millimeter...I don't want to get lost again.

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Don't piss in my face and tell me it's raining.

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5 wrong justices
Updated 6/29/2006 11:25 PM ET
By John Woo

By putting on hold military commissions to try terrorists for war crimes, five Supreme Court justices have made the legal system part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to the challenges of the war on terrorism. They tossed aside centuries of American history, judicial decisions of long standing, and a December 2005 law ordering them not to interfere with the military trials.

OUR VIEW:Suspects deserve fair trials

As commander in chief, President Bush has the authority to decide on wartime tactics and strategies. Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln and FDR settled on military commissions, sometimes with congressional approval and sometimes without, as the best tool to punish and deter enemy war crimes. Bush used them to solve a difficult tension: how to try terrorists fairly without blowing intelligence sources and methods.

The circus that was the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui shows the dangers in trying to use normal courtroom rules to prosecute terrorists intent on harming the USA. Bush's decision was supported by Congress, which authorized the president to use force in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Earlier, Congress had recognized commissions in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and last year it created an appeals process for them.

What the justices did would have been unthinkable in prior military conflicts: Judicial intervention in the decisions of the president and Congress on how best to wage war. They replaced his wartime judgment and Congress' support with their own speculation that open trials would not run intelligence risks. Their decision to impose specific rules and override political judgments about military necessity mistakes war — inherently unpredictable, and where our government must act quickly and sometimes secretly to protect national security — for the familiarity of the criminal justice system.

Two years ago, the same justices declared they would review the military's detention of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Congress and the president expended time and energy to overrule them. Hamdan will force our elected leaders to go through the same exercise again, effort better spent preventing the next terrorist attack.

John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, served in the Justice Department in 2001-03. [link] http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-06-29-oppose_x.ht
m]

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The merits portion of the Court’s holding is even more troubling, as Justice Stevens and the Court majority seem bent not only on ignoring congressional mandates but on assuming to themselves the powers of the office of president as well. Article II of the Constitution makes absolutely clear that the president, not the courts, is commander-in-chief. His power in this arena is particularly strong when Congress has lent its own support, as it did with the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, enacted shortly after September 11, 2001. That Act of Congress authorized the president to use all necessary and proper force to capture or kill those who had a hand in the attacks on the United States and to prevent similar attacks in the future. The power to detain enemy combatants has always been considered as incident to the war-making power, as a matter of both domestic and international law. That power has also included the power to try detainees for violations of the laws of war, without having to submit to the oversight of civilian courts in the process. The Constitution even permits trials of our own servicemen in military rather than civilian courts, yet Justice Stevens and the Court majority seem intent on extending greater protections to our terrorist enemies than the Constitution affords to our own men in uniform .
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzZmOTBhMzFlY2VlMzI5NjYyNzMzZWVlN
TAwNzZhMWM=

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There is little or no question about the constitutionality of the military commissions. (Although there is an outside possibility the Court will rule that the alien defendants are protected by the Due Process Clause (see footnote 15 of Rasul) and that the commissions fail to provide due process.)

Nor, in my view, is there any real question that Congress has as a general matter authorized the use of military commissions to try crimes against the laws of war. That was essentially the holding of cases such as Quirin and Yamashita, and subsequently Congress re-enacted 10 USC 821, without calling into question those decisions.

The questions in Hamdan are, instead, whether Congress has authorized the types of commissions that the President has created -- i.e., whether the commissions, as presidentially authorized and as implemented, conform to statutory authority -- and whether and to what extent these commissions violate any restrictions that the statutes expressly or implicitly impose.

The most important restriction is likely to be that the commissions must themselves comply with the laws of armed conflict (LOAC). (Several Justices pressed the SG on this point at oral argument, suggesting that if Congress authorized the military to convene trials for violations of the laws of war, surely Congress would have insisted that those trials themselves comply with the laws of war.)

And then the key question becomes what, exactly, the laws of armed conflict require with respect to such commissions, and whether these commissions meet those specifications. And in determining that question, most of the attention will likely be on Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which might apply here as a matter of treaty obligation (a question on which the DC Circuit split 2-1), and which in any event likely reflects the customary LOAC to which the commissions must adhere.

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(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States

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5 members of the USSC, to be sure. They completely ignored prior Supreme Court rulings.

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Originally posted by rue:
ChrisIsAll,

whatcha need help with ????

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Originally posted by rue:
First of all, corporations no longer have free speech rights. They may not contribute to individuals, campaigns or parties directly or indirectly, or advertize. They may not fund, commission etc 'issue' ads. In other words, they have no political campaign voice. (YEE HAAA !)

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Parties and candidates may not advertize etc. They have a forum and it will put all contenders on an equal footing.

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Private citizens and pooled individual donations, and pooled individual donations from non-profit groups may be used for advertizing. No individual may donate more than $250 US total in any year without being a declared (and listed) donor.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Strangely, bureaucracies work rather well. If there was some way to make each "bureau" (school board, health department, regulatory agency) a true meritocracy it might function without a political appointee or an elected board "telling" it what to do. Maybe they should make their case directly to the public for their budget and programs, direct-democracy style.

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Thursday, June 29, 2006 06:24 TIMES READ: 666
Hey! The system works yet again!

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