gAlienLifeform

@ gAlienLifeform @lemmy.world

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Joined

3 yr. ago

9mo ago

Frustrated GOP moderates join Democrats to force Obamacare extension vote
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gAlienLifeform @lemmy.world 9mo ago
Could it be because their constituents will fuck them up if their healthcare premiums skyrocket?
Doubtful, since open enrollment already closed and this bill is DOA in the Senate if it manages to make it out of the House anyway. They're just taking the opportunity the Dems who voted to reopen the government handed them to pretend to care about this issue without actually doing anything about it that might threaten their donors' taxbreaks.

9mo ago

Better not leave the house until you've finished this book series.

I mean, if you want to have access to all of the court opinions interpreting a law (which is arguably more important because some decisions completely change what laws actually do) you're going to be paying Thompson Reuters or somebody else like that a monthly subscription fee for the privilege pretty much everywhere in the US. Being able to know in a really detailed and specific way what is and isn't legal is absolutely paywalled in this country.

The US has been using this kind of logic since Sept 12 2001 (arc)

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, the George W. Bush administration arrested hundreds of suspected terrorists. Most of them were never criminally charged and eventually let go. Some spent years in inhumane conditions, even though they had no connection to the Taliban or al-Qaida. In 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many of those prisoners were being held, and described them using this term.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD RUMSFELD: And one of the most important aspects of the Geneva Convention is the distinction between lawful combatants and unlawful combatants.
PFEIFFER: By labeling them unlawful combatants, the U.S. said it was justified in holding them indefinitely without trial and denying them international legal protections. The Trump administration is now applying the same term to people on board boats it's blowing up because it says they're transporting drugs from South America. The language here matters. It underpins the legal arguments presidents make to justify their actions. Here's current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth referring to the cartels that ship drugs from the southern hemisphere to the United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PETE HEGSETH: So our message to these foreign terrorist organizations is we will treat you like we have treated al-Qaida.

A lot more good information and history in that article, but the important point is that because they're not soldiers (i.e. lawful combatants), they don't get Geneva Convention protection, but because they're not criminals either they don't get due process protection either. It's a completely blatant and stupid way to just ditch all the humanitarian guardrails around government violence we spent the 20th century building, it was fucked 20 years ago and it's fucked today but we never held the people doing it accountable so here we are.