Re: Aliens Among Us

1

Ogged--it is not easy at all to denaturalize you for anything you do after becoming a citizen.

I think the habeas-stripping provision for non-US citizen "enemy combatants" in the United States will be struck down though I am not absolutely sure.

There are still plenty of middle eastern people who want to come here, I can personally attest (I worked in the immigration system till yesterday).

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2

When I was in grad school, I knew a fair number of noncitizen legal residents, and I listened to them complain about irritating paperwork, visas, tax laws, etc. I wonder what those conversations are like now, especially in departments with more middle-eastern students. If that were my position, thinking about Maher Arar would make me pretty much lose my shit.

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3

My dad's Egyptian. He's been waiting to emigrate to the US for over a year now (on a sponsored visa). I don't think this changes much for him, but it changes it for me.

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4

And side note: ogged, FL, the fact that you guys feel as depressed about this as I do makes me feel a little better. If I didn't read blogs, I would be in even more despair now. Of course, if I didn't read blogs, I probably wouldn't have even known this was happening. So, I guess it's a wash.

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5

you'd never think "foreigner" if you looked at him

Until you noticed the color of his skin.

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6

LB says that US citizens can also be declared "enemy combatants" and be denied a jury trial. So okay, we get haebus, but personally I'm thinking that's a good thing to know if/when I try to explain to conservative white bigots why this is still something to worry about.

My mother-in-law is a legal resident, not a citizen. Of course she's German, not middle eastern, but still. My friend Ali is a non-citizen Iranian on a green card. Yikes.

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7

Until you noticed the color of his skin.

No, actually he's quite light-skinned. Doesn't "look" middle-eastern.

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8

Ogged, you need a hug. Well, really, you need a functional democracy. But a hug will have to do.

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9

I think it would take a judge about fifteen minutes to strip me of my citizenship if I donate to the wrong charity (and would you donate to any Muslim charity right now?), and I'd be subject to the same kind of treatment that "aliens" might get.

I don't mean to claim that this is reassuring, and I don't have the law straight enough to explain it, but even though I brought it up sourly yesterday, citizenship-stripping is hard. They're going to have to change the law pretty severely (not that that's unlikely, of course) to strip people of their citizenship.

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10

My honey has been trying to figure out whether he wants his last name to be one word or two words. He hasn't quite understood the urgency of my appeal that whatever he decides, he should be absolutely consistent and not fuck around with paperwork. Like you, ogged, he's naturalized, but still I worry.

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11

This is so like the gay marriage thing, insofar as knowing people who could be affected has a big impact on one's attitudes. That I can imagine my good friends x, y, and z being stopped at the airport makes me worry about the bill; if it were all an abstraction, as it is for many Americans, it would be easier to assume that all would be well. Not that I'm Mr Cosmopolitan or anything.

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12

1: I have to think you're being really naive. Whenever "our civilization is threatened" (read: whenever the forces in power need a stick with which to beat us), it becomes significantly less difficult to strip people of their citizenship.

In 1954, there was the Loss of Citizenship Act, which allowed the government to revioke the citizenship of anyone who joined the Communist Party. Replace "joined the Communist Party" with "gave aid or comfort to a terrorist organization" and we're back where we started.

Since the "war on terror" is the cold war of the 21st century, expect all the batshit crazy stuff that happened then to happen again. Unamerican Activities Committee? Don't be surprised.

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13

Thank god about teh citizenship. After that scar pic, I don't really want to see Ogged stripped of anything, if you know what I mean.

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14

Ogged--it is not easy at all to denaturalize you for anything you do after becoming a citizen.

Tell that to Hamdi.

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15

Didn't Ashcroft's proposed Patriot Act II contain a provision that would allow naturalized citizens to be stripped of citizenship if they provided "material support" to a terorist organization? I think it didn't pass, but still, not so far-fetched.

6: LB, I'm trying to find language in the text of the bill that says that U.S. citizens can be declared enemy combatants. The only definition of an enemy combatant that I see is restricted to aliens. I might be missing something, could you direct me?

Wow, I was awake all night worrying about this.

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16

I need to start going to church again, and register as a Republican.

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17

I don't know about denaturalizing Ogged, but we could denature him with a little heating.

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18

That's misleading, Hamdi gave up his citizenship as a condition of his release. It's not clear what would have happened had he refused to give it up.

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19

That's misleading, Hamdi gave up his citizenship as a condition of his release. It's not clear what would have happened had he refused to give it up.

One assumes he wouldn't have been released. I'm willing to bet that's what he was told, and that he had good reason to believe that to be true.

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20

15: 948a(1), says Balkin.

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21

Not to be a downer, but why would they need to strip people of their citizenship if they can just disappear them even if they're citizens?

Yesterday I was thinking that non-US citizens are probably safer from this, just because _they_ might have a government which would try to use its influence to secure their freedom. But that's probably a bit much.

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11: Yeah--I'm trying to convince my dad and my sister (both living in conservative places) to call the local Dems and fucking volunteer to register people and get out the vote. My sister's all "I'm crazy busy" and my dad's all "ummmm..." *And* my sister's married to a legal resident alien, even. Jeez.

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23

15:

Sec. 948a. Definitions

`In this chapter:

`(1) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT- (A) The term `unlawful enemy combatant' means--

`(i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces); or

`(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.

This definition doesn't require an unlawful enemy combatant to be an alien. I was wrong, and should go back over to Bitch's and correct myself -- it looks like only alien unlawful enemy combatants can be tried by military commissions. It's not clear to me what the legal consequences of being a US citizen declared an unlawful enemy combatant -- there may be none at this point.

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24

No, I think they would have had to give him a hearing in a real court at that point, and I know they didn't want to do so (he may also have not wanted to, that I don't know).

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25

20, 23: Thanks.

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26

It's not clear to me what the legal consequences of being a US citizen declared an unlawful enemy combatant -- there may be none at this point.

But we have an administration that construes any hint of legal ambiguity to mean that it can do whatever it wants.

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27

Or taking the word 'alien' out of the bill might be next year's amendment.

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28

No, I think they would have had to give him a hearing in a real court at that point, and I know they didn't want to do so (he may also have not wanted to,

What? At what point? After the Supreme Court decision? Yeah, sure, but prior to that (for three years) the government's theory was that their characterization of his status was determinative. And it's not like there was no chance that that theory would have carried the day. Thomas in dissent:

"In this context, due process requires nothing more than a good-faith executive determination.3 To be clear: The Court has held that an executive, acting pursuant to statutory and constitutional authority may, consistent with the Due Process Clause, unilaterally decide to detain an individual if the executive deems this necessary for the public safety even if he is mistaken."

Text of the third footnote: "Indeed, it is not even clear that the Court required good faith. See Moyer, 212 U.S., at 85 (“It is not alleged that [the Governor’s] judgment was not honest, if that be material, or that [Moyer] was detained after fears of the insurrection were at an end”).

So, post this decision, it doesn't seem crazy to me to think that the government told him that they would would fight him every step of the way, and use every available means to continue to detain him forever. And then offered him a "choice."

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29

I'm not sure which is more depressing or frightening to me--the fear that these powers will be used against me or mine because they will be used against everyone, or that they will be used against me and mine b/c we're different enough that the rest of the citizenry will happily turn their backs on us.

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30

Yes, after the Supreme Court decision. That's when they made that deal with him. Thomas's dissent is manifestly insane.

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31

My mother's a resident alien, so is my brother. I'm a naturalized citizen. I don't fear deportation, and while politically unreliable, don't look middle-eastern or foreign, but there are a lot of us who are just one side or the other of citizenship.

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32

I think Ogged should lighten up and remember all the good things this country has given him.

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33

29: I think the second. If there were a real question of these powers being used against everyone, this bill would have raised much greater notice and alarm.

The Bush administration has done a very good job of creating a Them who are exclusive of Us, and who have to be stopped at any cost. I'm thinking of that Matt Lauer interview where Bush says something along the lines of, "Matt, imagine your family killed, by terrorists. That's what I'm trying to stop." Would he say that to Matt Lauer if ML were not white? I mean, if Matt Lauer were Arab or Persian, he would probably be more worried about his family being held in indefinite secret detention by the U.S. government.

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34

Osama Wins a sad story from Meteorblades about his stepson Ibrahim moving to England.

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35

"Matt, imagine puppies being run over by a steam roller, driven by terrorists. That's what we are trying to stop."

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36

What?!!! They're going after the puppies now too? Well dam the torpedoes says I -- we're in this one til the bloody end.

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37

33: I'm less sanguine. The powers *could* be used against anyone; the idea that they probably won't is precisely the kind of thinking that lets this stuff get passed. Saheli's two is the scarier scenario, morally speaking, but one isn't particularly unlikely in terms of the law as written.

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38

or that they will be used against me and mine b/c we're different enough that the rest of the citizenry will happily turn their backs on us.

This is what you should worry about. And why you should be "less different" if you can.

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39

Me.

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40

The things I don't know at this point are "Who can be stripped of citizenship, and what is the process?" and "What rights does a native-born American, living in America, have if he's declared an enemy combatant?"

And also, what happened to the "unlawful combatant" category.

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41

33: But they keep "them" amorphous enough that they can put anyone into on a whim. John Walker Lindh, f'rinstance. Or the lawyer in Portland whose name I can't remember. Until someone close gets "themmed", most people believe that the government wouldn't be abusing people if they didn't deserve it. If you doubt this, consider the criminal justice system.

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42

I had a really good convo with my lame-ass father about the criminal justice system just yesterday, in fact. The us/them divide is really kind of mind-boggling once you see it. The problem is, so many people don't.

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43

There used to be that line about "a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged," to which the rejoinder was "a liberal is a conservative who's been indicted."

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44

All you people talkig about leaving the USA: where do you think you can go for freedom under the law? Don't try England: you can be extradited from here without any input from a British court.

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45

That's one of the really disheartening and frightening things about conservatives, especially Christians. To them there are good people and bad people, and you can just tell.

Due process is no good, because it means that good people have to obey pointless little laws, and bad people go scot free on technicalities, for example, if what they're doing is not actually illegal. And some bad people are really so terribly bad that they deserve no mercy.

Parody, yes, exaggeration, yes, but not by much. They really want to replace law with gut feeling.

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42 - I had a really good convo with my lame-ass father about the criminal justice system just yesterday, in fact. The us/them divide is really kind of mind-boggling once you see it. The problem is, so many people don't.

Yeah, funny so many people don't see this. :-)

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47

44: I've always figured the best bet is to develop an affinity for sheep. Canada's too close, and they have oil.

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48

24 -- Take a look at the Padilla decision from the 4th Circuit. That's what happens when they check the 'citizen/enemy combatant' box.

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49

Plus New Zealand is way, way prettier.

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50

Apparently "enemy combatant" is sometimes used for "unlawful enemy combatant", which is usually what is in question.

Apparently citizens **do** have habeas corpus rights, but do individuals in custody have any way of proving citizenship? I've already heard of US citizens who couldn't prove it being deported to Mexico.

In the extreme case, a natural-born American citizen could end up in custody incommunicado forever, without a way to get a court appearance to prove his citizenship so that he could get habeas corpus rights and get a trial.

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51

49: Haven't been to NZ yet, but it would have to be pretty fricking gorgeous to come out way ahead of BC. OTOH parts of NZ would be a lot more habitable in the winter. OTOOH I, like JM, have access to a bolthole in the middle of nowhere in Canada.

Actually my preference would be to declare a do-over on the whole Fort Sumter thing and kick the ex-Confederate states out or have the West Coast and Rocky Mountain states join with BC and Alberta or something.

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52

But they keep "them" amorphous enough that they can put anyone into on a whim.

When I said me and mine I didn't mean the obvious group labels like brown idol worshippers with non-European, recent roots. I was thinking of any number of troublesome categories I associate with. "Them" can be amorphous and anyone--as long as approximately half of the voting public, appropriately distributed, is persauded that they are not "Them," and that even fewer people are persuaded there's no need for them to start rioting on the streets. It's no longer tyranny of the majority so much tyranny enforced by the indifference of the majority.

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53

I have too many international friends to be relaxed about this at all. And I'm wondering how illegal immigration could tie into all of this.

Alberta might take Montana, but they'd sell BC down east.

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54

Alberta still needs a port, and they have more in common with BC than the East, yes?

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55

52 is well said.

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56

In the extreme case, a natural-born American citizen could end up in custody incommunicado forever

I imagine there are many cases where a natural-born American citizen might simply be detained pending further questioning for an indefinite period of time. I suppose we'll all have to brush up on our bribery skills to get by in this new America. Viva la mordida!

Also, don't look now, but Gary's locking and loading.

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57

If 'in common' is defined as 'what a bunch of potheads', maybe.

(Vaguely-related pet peeve: conservative fantasy that Alberta, 'conservative' Alberta will get so fed up with crazy Canada that they'll leave and beg to join the U.S. )

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58

You know, I'm not putting my faith in an Alberta/Montana alliance. Screw the ranchers (I mean, if push comes to shove--I like Montana, myself) and give me the coasts.

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59

I've heard Montana is very beautiful.

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60

Western Montana is very beautiful. Eastern Montana absolutely is not.

I'm very depresssed about the fact that NO ONE I know IRL seems to be more than vaguely aware of the fact that this bill passed yesterday, and none seem to know or care what it says.

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61

Honestly, Brock, in the last couple of weeks it's really come home to me how important teh internet is to my knowledge of current events. TV coverage ain't shit, and I rely on the web to read the NYT, LAT, and WaPo, etc., but even so the blogs still point to stories that I might otherwise overlook. What's depressing isn't that people don't know; it's *why* they don't know.

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62

NO ONE I know IRL seems to be more than vaguely aware of the fact that this bill passed yesterday, and none seem to know or care what it says.

Well, someone has to watch American Idol.

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63

59: Why the hatin' on western Canada? BC is pretty good, and Alberta's a hell of a lot better than the states that fill that cultural/economic niche in the U.S.

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64

(But I'd be with B if push came to shove. I think the mountain states ultimately have a hell of a lot more in common with the west coast than with the south, but if they insist on disagreeing, fuck 'em.)

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65

I spend probably about six weeks in Alberta a year, and the Canadian rockies are stunning, as are the central badlands with all the dinosaurs near Drumheller. Not hating on Alberta just cause I said I heard good things about Montana.

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66

Much of BC (by area) is at least as conservative as Alberta. Alberta just doesn't have an equivalent to the SW coast & Vancouver.

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67

In terms of beauty, I'd be sorry to lose the south, I must admit. But politically, those people are fucking crazy. I blame Jesus.

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68

66: Same with California. Not having major liberal cities to balance out the conservative farmers = nope, sorry. Please reapply when you resemble Minnesota.

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69

67: Careful! Apostropher smash!

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70

63: Hell, parts of BC are about as good as it gets.

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71

68 gets it exactly right.

oh, and a couple of those others were mine. flaky browser memory...

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69: He hates Jesus more than I do.

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73

Eastern Montana has a beauty of its own. To this beholder it compares favorably with plenty of other places.

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74

Is this the right time to ask whether we're just brains in bottles? Because I'd hate to think that I was moving to BC when my bottle was still stuck back in the states. That's an area of vulnerability that bothers me now.

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75

My people founded a lot of towns in Western Alberta. You know the drill: one wife in Mexico, one wife in Utah, and one wife in Alberta...

One of the non-minor towns is actually named for a great-great-grandfather. I'm sure it's a hotbed of liberalism by now, though.

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56:I'll be darned. But I did it first over at ObsWi, in comments. Nobody but y'all will miss Gary & me, and I don't know if anybody around this blog would make a CNN headline, so I recommended that the big bloggers Say the Bad Thing. Or the other bad thing. Just to get attention. "Why is Kevin Drum willing to do ten years in jail?" TimBurkean puppets, I spose. But I can't see what harm it does to any but the perps.

This is a weird thing. Because if only 1-2 do it it is pointless, if 100 do it it is interesting, if 100,000 do it it can bring down a gov't. Katherine said civil disobedience should be against an unjust law. I am trying to think of one. I could imagine activities around the habeas bill, but discussing them will get Feebies at my door.

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77

When I was visiting this summer they arrested some proto-Mormon (I don't know what to call the people that say they're Mormon but are pro-polygamy, JM, no offense intended) father-figure type on grounds of child exploitation. Orders people to give their 14 year olds to 50 year old guys, sort of thing. In Bountiful, I think.

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78

Dateline, October 10, 2007: Breaking News from Fox News:

Major Terrorist Attack Prevented; Six Terrorists Arrested, Tried, and Executed.
[snip]
In fact, none of the terrorists executed today were American citizens. They had all expressly renounced their citizenship during questioning.

Excerpts of their interrogation have been made available to Fox News. They clearly show that these enemy combatants, although born in America, had voluntarily renounced their citizenship and so were illegal aliens within the country, plotting terroristic acts. The full transcripts will not be released, to protect national security.
...............

You think citizenship is going to count for squat when Habeas Corpus is gone? When someone can be convicted on the basis of testimony extracted with torture? You're dreaming.

Sure--you may think that extreme methods like this were always available if the government wanted to frame someone, even before the Omnibus Torture & Tyranny Act. But now it's not just available: it's *legal*.

At the beginning of this week, we lived in a republic. Now, we live in a tyranny. We've got our work cut out for us, getting our republic back.

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79

FLDS guy (Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints), Jeffords, if I'm not mistaken. Bad dude.

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80

Warren Jeffords, yes, I think that was it. Lots of very golden blonde children on the news in Little House on the Prairie clothes. (Are there a lot of blonde Mormons?)

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81

Huh, my great great grandfather's brother settled in Alberta, but named the town after his home town in Iowa. My own feelings about Alberta are a little mixed. One never wants to hear from an authority figure 'We don't want your kind in our country' but at least here in the US, I get to ignore such things. That's more of a border town thing, I guess, and back then, we poor working Montanans had a love-hate relationship with the more affluent Albertans coming down to enjoy looser social norms. (Then a whole bunch of rich Californians came, and made the Albertans look a whole lot more reasonable).

Albertans in Montana behaved like Texans in Juarez.

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CharleyC - What home town in Iowa? I grew up in the state.

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83

Warren Jeffs. His father was Rulon Jeffs. I think the family empire of pedophilia and mass marriage started to crumble when nothing apocalyptic happened upon the death of Rulon Jeffs.

3 or 4 years ago Teresa Nielsen Hayden started to write and link to some great material about the FDLS situation and how the Arizona government completely ignored it for decades.

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84

Are there a lot of blonde Mormons?

Yes, though I'm not one of them. England and Germany were the first countries targeted for conversion.

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Swedish too.

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86

Interesting.

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87

Wait, the process Luttig gave Padilla where he said, "Stay on that brig on the President's say so" complies with the Hamdi plurality?

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88

I'm beginning to regret all those "osam/a osa/ma jih/ad opera/tion d/estroy cleve/land is a go" international phone calls I've had. cause there are, like, a lot. I was jes funnin'!

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89

Not sure which thread to put this on, but:

One thing that I've not noticed being mentioned here is the impact this bill will have on US allies and their likelihood of co-operating in the GWOT.

British soldiers, for example, are subject to the Geneva Convention and are under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. British forces operating alongside US forces in Iraq or Afghanistan could quite conceivably be tried and convicted as accessories to war-crimes commited by US forces.

UK special forces, for example, who apprehend some terror suspect might be unable to hand him over to US custody for fear of prosecution. This applies across the board.

The US might have explicitly avowed it's 'objectively all-evil, all the time' status but other countries have not.

This measure, apart from being fucking immoral, is also likely to be a negative force in the 'war on terror' and the only reason I can see for passing it is that these evil bastards just like the idea of torturing people. Which is sort of what people like McManus and Emerson have been seeing all along, of course.

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90

Al -- as long as you google-proofed the phone conversations you should be fine.

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91

The NY Times has a scary story today about an American citizen who was denied permission to fly into the Unites States unless he submitted to an FBI interrogation.

The upshot: he and his father were prohibited from returning home for 5 months. The cops will get leverage anyway they can. What good is an American passport?

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92

What good is an American passport?

The difference between 5 months and forever. Between Lodi and Guantanamo. No one sings about being stuck in Gitmo again.

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93

Point. Thanks for the laugh.

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