Detainment Entertainment

You'd figure with President Obama's executive order reinstating military tribunals over Gitmo terror suspects and codifying indefinite detention without trial into law would cause the GOP to yell FASCIST really, really loudly and for them to oppose it, because Obama is doing something, so Republicans must do the opposite.  But Republicans apparently love the idea of the military being able to declare anyone a terrorist and detain them indefinitely so much that they're fighting to remove Eric Holder and the Department of Justice from having any oversight over terrorist detainees whatsoever.

And guess who's leading the charge?  That's right, Mean Old Yelling Man and Huckleberry Hound.

Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are teaming up with Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to write legislation that would take decisions about trying detainees out of the attorney general's hands and hand that power to the secretary of defense.

In the wake of the White House's new executive order allowing Guantanamo detainees to be held indefinitely, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) unveiled legislation that would, among other things, affirm the military's right to detain, hold and interrogate detainees at its discretion without Department of Justice or Attorney General Eric Holder involvement.

McKeon said he was working with McCain and Graham to craft a bill that would try to gain traction in both chambers.

Such legislation could attract significant Democratic support, considering Democrats' willingness to buck Obama's attempts to shutter Guantanamo Bay and Holder's decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civilian court in New York City, a decision that was later reversed after prominent Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) vigorously opposed the move.

In a striking move late last year when Democrats still controlled the House majority, they attached a provision to a $1.1 trillion resolution to keep the government funded next year that would prevent Obama from spending any funds to try terrorism suspects in civilian court instead of military commissions.

"Our military, not the Department of Justice, should be leading on law of war issues," Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL), a reservist in the Army's Judge Advocate General program who serves on the Armed Services panel, told reporters Tuesday afternoon. 

So Republicans are not only completely okay with our military declaring people to be terrorists, detaining them indefinitely without due process, possibly subjecting them to military tribunals and then removing any oversight from the Justice Department, they're actively changing the law to do this.

Double G had this one pegged on Twitter yesterday.

GOP wants to empower military to detain people without involvement of AG - uh, that's called "military dictatorship"

Pretty much.  Republicans love freedom and law and order and the Constitution, unless Scary Mooslim Supervillians from the Legion of Doom show up and we have to throw all that away in a frenzy of pissing ourselves or else Lex Luthor and Magneto will show up and break them out of superjail.

Hey, plenty of Democrats will go along with this crap too.  I think they might be able to use this as a poison pill on the debt ceiling or the budget and force a shutdown scenario, or hell they might have enough Democrats go along to get a veto-proof margin on this.  Keep an eye on this one.