Posted on 06/30/2006 7:47:53 AM PDT by Isara
Supreme Court: Ruling for bin Laden's former chauffeur, liberal justices have once again hampered our ability to wage war on terror...
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Justice Stevens' ruling ignored the clear language of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA), passed and signed into law last year, and went on a fishing expedition to find ways around it.
Congress believed that in passing the DTA it was removing the federal courts' jurisdiction over Gitmo detainees. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Specter, who opposed the DTA, complained on the floor of the Senate that under the legislation, "no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to consider the application for writ of habeas corpus."
And, Specter pointed out, "the Supreme Court would not have jurisdiction to hear the Hamdan case.."
Now, lo and behold, we have the court pronouncing on it after all, and Stevens' opinion is typically filled with discussion of congressional floor statements and the DTA's drafting history. But it's the law that's the law — not what this senator or that congressman said during the debate.
As Justice Scalia stated in his tough dissent, "the language of the statute that was actually passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President is our only authoritative and only reliable guidepost."
Liberal members of Congress have even become wise to this game: When they don't like a law being passed, they take to the floor and state what they think the law does — knowing that liberal justices will later use those statements to misinterpret the statute.
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Justice Breyer said the president could ask Congress for authority to set up the military tribunals, and the president has said he'll do that. A vote would put Democrats on record as to whether they think enemy combatants held in an area not under U.S. sovereignty should be treated the same as law-abiding U.S. citizens.
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(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
It's not really interesting (although I understand the comment that you make and I am not taking you to task) it is an end run around the Constitutionally limited authority of the SCOTUS and another way for judges to get laws that they don't support passed through the back door.
Sickening, absolutely sickening. I'm going to go and hurl now.
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