Is the judiciary unchecked?

From Slate:

"When a federal judge ordered 17 Chinese Uighurs, detained at Guantanamo Bay, released into the United States last October, he took to its logical conclusion the judiciary's increasingly bold effort to supervise the president and Congress. Justifying his ruling in the face of Congress' exclusive constitutional power over when, which, and how foreign nationals may enter the United States, Judge Ricardo Urbina reasoned that "our system of checks and balances is designed to preserve the fundamental right of liberty." He saw his order as necessary to that end. But if he's right, then the judiciary itself is the unchecked branch of government. And while judges have expanded their power before in our history, never have the claims to supremacy of some of them been so extreme."

Federal judges are the weak link in terrorist issue

"The reason we sent the terrorists to Guantanamo in the first place, rather than bring them onto US soil, was never really connected to worries that they might escape. The Bush administration feared, quite correctly, that if the inmates were in federal prisons on US territory, federal judges would take their pleas for constitutional rights more seriously.

That argument is still true, and bringing the terrorists to the United States puts us at risk that they could be freed by court order.

Some detainees will be tried in US courts on US soil. The first will be tried in New York.

This raises two problems: First, if he is acquitted, where will he be released? Likely, he'll just be invited to walk out the door and onto the streets of New York. Second, is there a danger of terrorist retaliation or attempts to interdict the trial with violence?

Trying a terrorist in the Big Apple serves to paint a bull's-eye on the courthouse."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05232009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_terrorists_best_us_hope_170582.htm

The terrorists would look pretty in pink

The panicky pols are again in a lather, this time over where to put a few hundred suicidal maniacs once their current group home, at Guantanamo Bay, is closed for violating President Obama's terrorism etiquette.

Besides a swarthy, Arabic complexion, these men have one common denominator: they are willing to die if they can only take some us along for the ride. Needless to say, their hatred of America arouses sympathy among liberals.

So, in true liberal fashion, President Obama has ordered that Guantanamo be closed within one year, without having first determined what to do with the killers-in-waiting.

The answer is hiding in plain sight.

Turn the prisoners over to Sheriff Joseph Arpaio of Maricopa County, AZ, where they could get in touch with their softer side by wearing pink clothing and answering to female guards.

It's easy to see that Arpaio, 76, is on the right track: he has been denounced by Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Arizona Ecumenical Council, the American Jewish Committee, and the Arizona chapter of the Anti-Defamation League.

An Army veteran, Arpaio was first elected shriff in 1992, and has won reelection four times. He resurrected chain gangs, serves inmates surplus food and prohibits sexually eplicit material. His jailhouse radio station serves up classical music, opera, Frank Sinatra hits, patriotic music and educational programming.

For years, Arpaio has operated a tent city to house some inmates. When they complained about the heat, Arpaio replied, "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths."

But he, too, has a softer side. He allowed the inmates to strip down to their pink underwear.