Quote:November 19, 2009

BOWLING GREEN, KENTUCKY – Leading United States Senate candidate Rand Paul today criticized the Obama administration’s decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center and try terrorism suspects in United States Civil Courts.

“Foreign terrorists do not deserve the protections of our Constitution,” said Dr. Paul. “These thugs should stand before military tribunals and be kept off American soil. I will always fight to keep Kentucky safe and that starts with cracking down on our enemies.”

Dr. Paul believes in strong national defense and thinks military spending should be our country’s top budget priority.

Quote:Well that is a fundamentally retarded position to take if you want to have anything to do with principles, let alone a revolutionary movement. No doubt he's either going 'right wing opportunism' in an effort to win the Senate seat, or he actually believes it. Both as bad as each other.

http://www.cfr.org/bios/13303/ron_paul.html#2

Military Tribunals and Guantanamo Bay

When asked where he stands on Guantanamo in June 2007, Rep. Paul (R-TX) replied, “Shut it down” (Muckraker Report). “This is an issue that flies in the face of our civic and legal traditions as outlined in the Constitution.” he said.

Paul voted against the Military Commissions Act.

Quote:The greatest danger posed in the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) isn’t that he will go free. The greatest danger is that he will be convicted and that during his appeals the courts will ratify all of the extraordinary measures used to capture and convict him. The great danger is that the courts will ratify the rough, inaccurate and ambiguous norms of martial law as applying to all civil criminal trials.

After a couple of decades of these court decisions reverberating throughout the legal system, we could end up living under de facto martial law.


The Constitution recognizes only two types of trials, the civil and the military. The Fifth Amendment states:

No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Until the Obama administration overturned two centuries of precedence, America had two systems of justice, the civil and the military. The military system played a very small and focused role. It served rough justice in the chaos of war and in places like the open sea in which no nation’s law governed.

For over two hundred years, those captured by the military outside the civil boundaries or caught carrying out military action on US soil, were tried by military tribunals. Up until the 1950s the military used drum head trials to convict and execute those found fighting in violation of custom and international law. Pirates were often hung at sea within hours of their capture. In WWII, anyone fighting disguised as a civilian faced summary execution with the approval of just three officers.

For over two hundred years we were careful to keep a firewall between civil and martial law. We did so because civil and martial law are polar opposites. Civil law is focused on protecting the rights of the accused against the overwhelming power of the state. When there is doubt, the accused walks free. Martial law is focused on imposing a minimal order on bloody chaos. It was focused on allowing the military to complete its mission and win wars. When there is doubt, the accused is presumed guilty.

Now, Obama wants to bring martial law into a civil court room in Manhattan. In order to let a civil conviction of KSM stand, the higher courts will have to overturn almost all the current constitutional protections of the accused.

They will have to overturn the requirement for Miranda warnings. They will have to overturn the Fifth Amendment protection against self incrimination. They will have to overturn the right to face one’s accusers and to examine all evidence and evidence gathering methods.

Even if the courts throw out his conviction, the government will never allow him to go free, so we will toss out protection against double jeopardy if they try to convict with a military tribunal, and toss out the right of no imprisonment without trial if they don’t.

Our system of justice relies on precedent and equality of procedure. The same rules apply to every civil trail. We can’t say that it’s okay to deny the right against self-incrimination in one person’s trial while saying it’s okay in another. If the courts overturn the rights of one individual accused, it must overturn the rights of all of them.

Nothing good will come of this trial.

If it is conducted outside the bounds of normal civil law, it will be nothing but a corrupt show trial whose outcome was preordained by politicians. Instead of showing the world that America is a land of laws in which even our enemies receive fair treatment, it will show the world the opposite.

If it is conducted within the bounds of normal civil law, then it will force the courts to choose between letting a mass murdering terrorist walk free and setting dangerous legal precedents that will undermine the basic civil rights of all Americans.

Obama has unleashed something in America far, far more dangerous than any excesses Bush might have committed. He has taken all the horrible compromises we must make in war and driven them into the heart of the civil legal system. If the courts do not set Khalid Sheikh Mohammed free, the cancer of martial law will metastasize into the entire justice system.

We may eventually wish we had never caught the bastard at all.

Quote:More than $98 billion in improper gov't payments

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Hope Yen, Associated Press Writer – Wed Nov 18, 6:51 am ET
WASHINGTON – More than $98 billion in taxpayer dollars spent by government agencies was wasted, much of it on questionable claims for tax credits and Medicare benefits, representing an increase of $26 billion from the previous year.

In all, about 5 percent of spending in federal programs in fiscal year 2009 was improper, according to new details of a government financial report that were released Tuesday. Saying the overall error rate was similar in 2008, officials attributed the $26 billion jump to some changes in how to define improper spending as well as an increase in overall spending due to the recession.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign an executive order within the next week aimed at cracking down on government waste and fraud, particularly in Medicare and other benefit programs. In the 2009 report, the government officially reported questionable Medicare payments of roughly $36 billion, but that amount will be revised upward to about $48 billion next year as the Health and Human Services Department fully converts to a new methodology that imposes stricter documentation requirements.

"We need to protect taxpayer dollars," Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters. "Every dollar that goes to the wrong recipient or in the wrong amount is a dollar not available to help an unemployed worker, or to invest in education or key priorities of the administration."

Under the executive order, every federal agency would have to maintain a Web site that tracks improper payments, error rates and outstanding payments. If an agency doesn't meet targets for reducing error rates for two years in a row, the agency director and responsible official will have to directly report to OMB to explain the delinquency and new actions they will take.

The Obama administration will also seek to impose penalties on government contractors that receive improper payments so they have incentives to return the money, Orszag said.

Among the reported waste:

_Agriculture: $4.3 billion in improper payments, or 5.9 percent of total department spending. Much of it was in the food stamp, federal crop insurance and school meals programs.

_Defense: $849 million, or 0.5 percent.

_Education: $599 million, or 2.1 percent.

_Health and Human Services: $55.1 billion, or 9.4 percent. That included improper payment rates of 7.8 percent and 15.4 percent in the Medicare fee for service and Advantage programs, respectively.

_Homeland Security: $644.5 million, or 3.7 percent. Much of it was in the Homeland Security grant program as well as Disaster Relief Fund Vendor Payments.

_Housing and Urban Development: $1 billion, or 3.5 percent. All of it was attributed to public housing and rental assistance.

_Labor: $12.3 billion, or 9.9 percent. Almost all of the improper payments were in the unemployment insurance program.

_Treasury: $12.3 billion, or 25.5 percent. All of it was attributed to improper payments in the earned income tax credit.

_Transportation: $1.5 billion, or 3 percent. Much of it was in the Federal Highway Administration planning and construction program.

_Veterans Affairs: $1.2 billion, or 2.7 percent. That included improper payments in the pension and other compensation programs.

_Social Security Administration: $8.0 billion, or 1.2 percent.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who chairs a Senate panel on federal financial management, said he worried that the latest numbers "may still be just the tip of the iceberg" since they don't include estimates for several programs such as the Medicare prescription drug plan.

"It goes without saying that these results would be completely unacceptable in the private sector, as they should be in government, especially at a time of record deficits," Carper said.