It happened today and now we have to live with it. The disgraceful Slobodan Milosevic-style “Act to Protect My Peoples” has been signed into U.S. law.
What was once a misguided reaction to 9/11– the elevation of the President to the Decider, the sham trials, the secret kidnapping and torturing, the flaunting of national and international law, ie, all of what should have been put right long ago– has been made legal, prettified as a Congressional Act complete with calligraphy and provisions and sections and fancy signatures at the bottom. It’s a disgrace and it was the lead in exactly one of the nation’s top five newspapers.
You can’t not look at the pdf of the document– it’s full of creepy Halloween gems, the gory bits of this high-speed traffic accident of a document. To generally sum up: (1) the president or sec of defense decides who has rights and who doesn’t; (2) they don’t have to tell anyone why or how they made their decisions; (3) and they also decide for people all over the world when and where the Geneva Conventions apply.
‘‘(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 com-
petent tribunal established under the authority of the
President or the Secretary of Defense.‘‘(4) CLASSIFIED INFORMATION.—The term ‘classified
information’ means the following:
‘‘(A) Any information or material that has been deter-
mined by the United States Government pursuant to
statute, Executive order, or regulation to require protection
against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national
security.‘(g) GENEVA CONVENTIONS NOT ESTABLISHING SOURCE OF
RIGHTS.—No alien unlawful enemy combatant subject to trial by
military commission under this chapter may invoke the Geneva
Conventions as a source of rights.
You could be an unlawful enemy combatant. And so could I. And there’s not a whole lot anyone could do about it. How’s that for national security? It’s the sort of thing that could bring the Democrats over to the side of the National Rifle Association.


Poor Pope Benedict XVI. Like Sammy Hagar to David Lee Roth, he’s having a hell of a time living up to his superpopular predecessor. Pope John Paul II got his own comic books, a flash Popemobile, and calls for canonization. Pope Benedict got the keys to the Vatican and some poorly-made flaming effigies.