Word: swiftly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...18th century, Jonathan Swift was criticized for his satirical essay A Modest Proposal, which suggests that poor Irish treat their children like food and sell them to the rich. Swift was not promoting cannibalism or infanticide: he thought his audience would understand the absurdity of such ludicrous ideas. Does the New Yorker really believe Obama is a Muslim extremist and his wife a terrorist? No, but the editors thought Americans were smart enough to interpret the utter ridiculousness as an exaggeration - one that fits well into this increasingly overdramatic presidential campaign. Lauren Tighe, Saginaw, Michigan...
...18th century, Jonathan Swift was criticized for his satirical essay A Modest Proposal, which suggests that poor Irish treat their children like food and sell them to the rich. Swift was not promoting cannibalism or infanticide: he thought his audience would understand the absurdity of such ludicrous ideas. Does the New Yorker really believe Obama is a Muslim extremist and his wife a terrorist? No, but the editors thought Americans were smart enough to interpret the utter ridiculousness as an exaggeration--one that fits well into this increasingly overdramatic presidential campaign. Lauren Tighe, SAGINAW, MICH...
Four and a half years later, Hamdan is still at Guantánamo, but Swift's prediction has proved correct. A Yemeni man in his late 30s, Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, was at the center of perhaps the Supreme Court's most important decision on presidential power ever. He is now the first defendant in America's first war-crimes trial since World War II. Hamdan stands accused of providing material support for terrorism and conspiracy. If convicted, he could face life in prison...
...things didn't turn out as the Administration planned. In 2004, Swift, Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed lawyer, persuaded his client to reject the government's tentative offer for a guilty plea--20 years' imprisonment in exchange for full cooperation, including testifying at the military commissions of other detainees. Together with a young constitutional-law professor named Neal Katyal, Swift built a defense that delayed Hamdan's military tribunal for years as it gradually made its way through the courts. Hamdan's time at Guantánamo was turbulent. Officials characterized him as a problematic prisoner, a rabble rouser who turns every...
...there also is a tradition of tough - and swift - justice in West Texas. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Texas sodomy law and news spread of the polygamists' move to the Yearning for Zion Ranch, a local state representative worked quickly and quietly to change the state's antiquated marriage laws. The age of consent was raised from 14 to 16, and marriages between stepchildren and stepparents were outlawed. The changes were modeled on a Utah law that was believed to have prompted Jeffs' decision to move his flock to more-remote places in Texas, Colorado and Mexico...