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[Amuro Ray]

Does the fact that the Senate passes defense bill with detainee policy compromise really mean Citizens Will Be Indefinitely Detained Without Trial

[Thad]

Adam Serwer at Mother Jones has a rundown.  As he puts it:

It says that the president has to hold a foreign Al Qaeda suspect captured on US soil in military detention—except it leaves enough procedural loopholes that someone like convicted underwear bomber and Nigerian citizen Umar Abdulmutallab could actually go from capture to trial without ever being held by the military. It does not, contrary to what many media outlets have reported, authorize the president to indefinitely detain without trial an American citizen suspected of terrorism who is captured in the US. A last minute compromise amendment adopted in the Senate, whose language was retained in the final bill, leaves it up to the courts to decide if the president has that power, should a future president try to exercise it.

Which is rather better than what I thought it was.  I assumed it was a case of "This will get thrown out by the courts after the first few people who get disappeared finally get their day in court"; if the day in court is a preemptive step then I think we're in much better shape.  The courts aren't perfect but they're still our best check against the excesses of the other two branches, and I find it hard to believe even the most reactionary wants to give the President the power to circumvent the Sixth Amendment.

The language in the bill that relates to the detention authority as far as US citizens and permanent residents are concerned is, "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States."

As I've written before, this is cop-out language. It allows people who think the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks gives the president the authority to detain US citizens without charge or trial to say that, but it also allows people who can read the Constitution of the United States to argue something else. That's why Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has proposed legislation to make it clear that indefinite detention authority does not apply to US citizens arrested in the US—which at the very least, should force Congress to go on record about who exactly is opposed to detention without trial at the whim of the executive branch.

[...]

But "symbolic" and "political" doesn't mean "meaningless." Codifying indefinite detention on American soil is a very dangerous step, and politicians who believe the military should have an even larger domestic counterterrorism role simply aren't going to be satisfied with this. In fact, if there is another attack, it's all but certain they will hammer the president should he choose not to place the suspect in military detention.

[...]

In case it's not clear, I still think the president should veto the bill. What it does is bad enough. It just doesn't do what a lot of people are saying it does.

[Brentai]

What always confuses me is that the hawks who really do think the President should have these sorts of powers are the same ones who think Barack Obama is personally out to destroy them.  Like, you guys do know that these powers aren't going to Dubya, right?

[Thad]

Maybe they think there'll be a Republican in the White House before any of this can be enacted?

Or maybe they're worried about being called soft on terrorists.

Hard to say.

[Royal☭]

Probably the same group that claims that taxes are the government stealing your money at gunpoint, but also support increased spending on the military.

[Thad]

Not quite the same.  That's self-serving hypocrisy.  Granting more power to their political enemy is not.

[Brentai]

No, that's just the regular kind of self-serving hypocrisy.  This is taking a guy who the freaks are so terrified of that they'll push for someone who stands against everything they put their very faith in just to get rid of him, and giving him more weapons to use against them.  At some point the party lines have to start working at such directly opposite purposes that they can only be resolved with a division in the ranks (though I'd say that the aggressively pro-tax contingent in the House GOP puts us most of the way there).

[Thad]

This is taking a guy who the freaks are so terrified of that they'll push for someone who stands against everything they put their very faith in just to get rid of him, and giving him more weapons to use against them.  At some point the party lines have to start working at such directly opposite purposes that they can only be resolved with a division in the ranks (though I'd say that the aggressively pro-tax contingent in the House GOP puts us most of the way there).

Well, and I think over the course of those two sentences you've laid out the difference between the rank-and-file Republican establishment and the clowns.

The establishment will say whatever makes the clowns happy, but that doesn't mean they actually believe it.  (I don't think Trump, or even Arpaio, really believes Obama was born in Kenya.)

[Brentai]

Yes, yes of course, but I'm saying we're getting to the point where it's impossible to make the clowns happy.  It'd only take a few more infectious memes to lock the establishment into an inescapable catch-22 wherein every option is equally unacceptable.

Not that I actually care about that shit any more.  ONE party collapsing in on itself is only going to create a power vacuum for something stupider to fill.  The only way to win here is to either bring about a decisive and complete third-party victory, or knock the pillars completely out of the system and start over.