It just seemed that the Govt case had a lot of smoke and mirrors to it. I expected a jury to at least have some misgivings. What was so compelling that they would find guilty in a day and a half?

It is very easy to convict someone on charges when the law he is supposed to have broken was passed after the government already had him in prison, was unable to try him on the original charges (due to the torture and unlawful detention among other things) so they came up with a new law to fit this new crime of “aiding and abetting a terrorist organization” and then Bush/Cheney identified every organization Padilla had ever given any contributions to as a “terrorist organization” so voila! instant conviction.

Notice that the conviction was for aiding and abetting in ….Afghanistan – NOPE. ….Iraq – NOPE ……Bosnia – YUP, … Kosovo – YUP.

He also supposedly filled out an application to join Al-Quaeda. No one ever said he actually got in! The fact that he was thinking about joining is now considered evidence of a “conspiracy to commit violence” under the new law they charged him with violating.

All you need to do nowdays is to think about doing something and it is grounds for arrest and conviction.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

The situation we are witnessing now is this: This government is now willing to throw everyone, EVEN White America, under the bus in order to preserve the status quo. Remember, this is the same administration that claims to admire the autocratic practices of China.

My classmate caved and, with great candor, said he couldn’t blame the federal employees for turning a blind eye to workplace corruption because he was doing the same thing in order to secure an academic career.

It’s long past time to a) ask whether policing the flock on points of petty-quette should supercede the issue here—and to (neatly paralleling) b) acknowledge that, on the face of it, everyone knows America is a “free-speech zone,” no one needs a “permit” to exercise it, and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so. For example. So which of those do Americans observe, in practice? Prevails? Americans don’t drive 55, either, so which law’ll you fight for? It’s disingenuous to suppose that basically, interpreting these overarching laws out of existence—a practice that has led us to this juncture—prevails or is something any Americans does or should go along with. The intrinsic flaw is that arguing any position at all, at the expense of overarching principles, is bound to have larger consequences.

“Unitary executive.” It’s something that becomes possible when no shared ground at all—rhetorical, legal—none, is demanded or recognized in adversarial practice.

We mean well. But perhaps Americans need to ask themselves a few uncomfortable questions.

While that may seem strong language, stating it is precisely the definition of America. Speaking the truth about America is weak tea compared to taking required action.

So Rich, you advocate anarchy at this point?

To the contrary. I advocate law, and I advocate it at this point.

The Geneva Convention holds it is a soldier’s “duty” to disobey an order if it violates Article 3. Are you prepared to hold American citizens to a lower standard?

I have every regard for courteousness, in substance and form. I make careful distinction between who carries out policy and who, working for other agencies, simply stand by. It’s the southern background, you see, the roots in Tennessee and West Virginia, that taught me to mind my manners.

Perhaps I raised an uncomfortable question.

In a democracy, though, all of us are responsible. As a society, that holds true as well. Anyone who studied the Holocaust, what led to it, and how citizens examined their consciences–or didn’t–is aware that certain excuses don’t wash (have no legal purchase) in the face of “law” that leads to a Gulag Archipelago or carries out the Holocaust. How do you think that happened? First they came for the Fourth Amendment (pick your favorite), and I said nothing.

I’m not looking for a scapegoat–you know what that leads to–but rather include myself in on the responsibility. My forebears studied under theologians who fled the Third Reich–Bonhoeffer, Tillich, Buber–at Union Theological Seminary in NYC. They grappled, as did (some) ordinary German and German-Jewish citizens, with just what do you do? So what does a Christian–an American-do under these circumstances? A valid question, even if you don’t like it.

We have legislators knowingly passing openly unConstitutional laws. A judicial branch ignoring, willy-nilly, precedent, case law, common-sense and the Constitution. Which isn’t new, mind you. And an executive branch that’s openly asserted, in plain English, Kingly Powers. Yet a largely silent legal community hasn’t glommed onto the internal contradictions inherent in it’s own profession. What’s the current legitimacy? Inalienable rights cannot, physically, be suspended: they are intrinsic, bodily, regardles of what’s been taught.

It’s more than fair to ask–ask, civilly–just which law applies (e.g., the First Amendment or its “legal” evisceration, etc., etc., etc.), and just who owes what to whom.

And we need to keep our eye on what is appalling here. I have great admiration for the bloggers here, Christy, but they have a real flair for frank language that is truthful, and an in-your-face rhetoric that veers close to offending the tender sensibilities of certain parlor denizens (i.e., Joe Lieberman, etc., etc., etc.). Jump to conclusions if you like, but hardly in a position to lecture about civility.

The other important thing is to get a Democratic president elected so that the trend toward naming insanely right wing federal judges can be reversed. The judge in this case did some things that seemed blatantly against the defense. It is telling that she remarked to the prosecution that their evidence was very light. It’s too bad she didn’t have sufficient convinction to simply throw the case out for just such a reason.

Jeebus, can people please think before they start typing in nasty invective at other commenters who are trying to keep our government from collapsing in on itself? Because this personal attack on the government employees because they aren’t sacrificing themselves on the alter of your purity bullshit is really starting to piss me off.

The Jose Padilla case is a travesty of justice and a stain on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The case began as a sensational announcement employed as a scare tactic and devolved into a show trial worthy of the Spanish inquisition in which Padilla’s torture and illegal detention were ruled inadmissible by Bush appointee U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Cooke.

We are Jose Padilla — or could be — and therein lies the inherent problem with Bush’s self-proclaimed right to declare a U.S. citizen an “enemy combatant” and detain him in a black-ops brig in South Carolina, where he was subjected to torture, extreme isolation and sensory deprivation, denied the right to speak to a lawyer for two years, and severe violations of his civil rights under the Constitution and his human rights under Geneva Conventions.

Bush and his politicized Department of Justice operate on the theory that the king can do no wrong — but we’re not a monarchy.

Padilla has suffered too many egregious violations and abuses — including three years of isolation and torture — at the hands of his own government. He should be set free and given monetary compensatory damages to pay for the years of psychotherapy that he will surely need to deal with the damage to his mental health caused by the “harsh” interrogation to which he was subjected for three plus years in military custody.

For shame.

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I’m also staying where I am because I believe sanity will return, and I’ll be in a position to help get my agency and my government back on track when it does.

There should be a discussion about the way Padilla has been held for the past five years in this country.