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It's Time !
In December, 2005, John Dean wrote that a sitting president had admitted committing an "impeachable offense". Today., a three judge appellate confirms that Dean was correct. The first news report to "hit" Google news, spun the court ruling in the opposite way....but Judge Batchelor's opinion in the Sixth District's ruling today, is quite clear.
Could it be more clear that the ruling states that Bush violated the FISA law? Did Bush publicly admit to doing so? Is this a serious enough violation, especially considering Bush's open admission, and the clear examples to back Judge Batchelor's majority decision, to begin hearings to impeach Bush for breaking the FISA law. I think that it is. It is also a test for this congress. This is the highest court ruling that they can expect to receive, on a matter of open and admitted lawbreaking at the felony level, by president Bush. Quote:
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In some unbiased, empirical universe, I have no doubt that Bush would be impeached and removed from office. His administration has committed some egregious errors against the people of the United States and against the Constitution, any of which would, in my opinion, be sufficient grounds for those to go forward. However, I think going down that road at the current time is a pretty useless course of action.
Regardless of who is at fault, this country has a lot of problems that we need to deal with internally and externally. With the next election coming up, it would be very easy to cast prolonged impeachment proceedings as a partisan waste of time when there are more important things on the line. Frankly, I agree. Bush is a lame duck and is going to act accordingly. Nothing is really gained from going through all of that except for a possible feeling of vindication. Show how bad he was by doing things right and by using the time to solve problems that make a difference instead of punishing a 5 year old who mistakenly got elected (twice). |
i have read two or three arguments about the bypassing of the church act..(1) that it is in itself an unconstitutional abrogation of executive privilege
(2) that is was de facto authorized by congress when it approved "use of force" in the context of this idiotic war on terror (3) the arguments re. state of emergency outlined by dean with reference to nixon/lincoln. the first of these is obviously straight cheneythought. i was not aware that an administration can simply decide for itself which laws it deems worthy of following like this. so the other arguments are the operative ones: the legitimacy of it's (adjective deleted) "state of emergency" also known as the bush "war on terror".... so the first "patriot act" was broad enough to enable this farce to get going. the reauthorization, however, contained a whole series of supposed "safeguards" on civil liberties: http://judiciary.house.gov/Printshop.aspx?Section=232 so i would think that the problem with assuming that these actions constitute grounds for impeachment seems to me to sit with the reading of the two patriot acts--particularly the second--and information about what the nsa program has actually been doing--which is not available to us little people. behind this, the obvious problem of what was wrought by the republican controlled congress, a fine reactionary politoburo-type operation. so it seems to me that the separation between whether bush *should* be impeached (a politico-ethical argument) vs. whether there is some way to imagine a justification for these actions that rests not just on the cheneythought of argument 1 above, but on what the republican lackies in congress authorized these assholes to do. then there is the problem of the effects of the bush people having exercised the prerogative that seems somehow normal to stack the courts with rightwing ideologues (in the name of putting a "stop to judicial activism" naturlich)...which leads me to my side question re. the 6th circuit decision--i dont understand the thinking behind declaring the aclu not an "aggreived party" and so "without standing to bring suit."--could someone explain this to me? anyway, backstory infotainment: here is a webpage with a series of excerpts from david cole and james dempsey's 2002 book "terrorism and the constitution" which provides something of the backstory to the "patriot act" and other, equivalent idiocies: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ci...stitution.html extensive documentation of the activities associated with the nsa wiretaping program and its predecessor in poindexters "total information awareness" program can be found at the electronic frontier foundation's website: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/ which includes links to this critique of the bush people's conduct by a former fisa judge, royce lambeth: Quote:
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Yes he did. Should he be impeached? Absolutely, however, after Clinton and the atmosphere of politics today, it would be suicide for the Democratic party. Bush has enough supporters that would continue the hate politics, and I fear many Americans while they dislike Bush and feel he has been a lousy president, would in fact, start supporting him, which sounds absurd, but for some reason we are that way.
No, what we need to do to Bush and especially Cheney is go in collect everything that can be considered evidence and then wait till he is out of office and try them for treasonous actions, violation of the people's trust, grievous misconduct and whatever else you can find. The people may be more open to this, especially if you have enough evidence. But to go after him now? Is suicide. If tried and found guilty when out of office, I believe we need should send them all to Guantanamo and show them what their non torture is truly like. |
I was hoping the Iraq and/or upcoming Iran war would be the impeachable offense(s), but I'll settle on the illegal bypassing of the FISA court to lead to impeachment. Anyone who understands the formation of the FISA court understands that the President was never intended to have the power to bypass it. Remember that Watergate resulted in the Church Act, which led to FISA.
Go back to Texas, Bush. |
Well, the President even has the right to order someone killed, such as they have been trying with Castro (not all of that story is a myth). You know, Arafat didn't die of a "liver disease." That was either us or Israel, or collaboration.
That's crazy because I wonder if there's anyone he DOESN'T have the right to order killed, where the line is drawn. You? Me? It's scary... So I can't imagine how we could impeach the president for cutting corners around FISA. All we're talking about is privacy. |
Capone was brought in for federal income taxes. You take what you can get.
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I suggested a while ago that the victims of Bush's "domestic spy program" come forward and testify in front of Congress. It looks like the appellate court would like to see the real victims come forward as well.
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If the victims of the "domestic spy program" were in fact terrorist or those communicating with terrorists, we may agree that there was a technical violation of the law, but not a violation of the spirit of the law. If you would want Congress to attempt to impeach Bush on a technical violation of the law, I am sure Bush would be up for the challenge and the American people would see it for what it truly would be - pure political grandstanding. |
horseshit, ace.
if you do even the slightest bit of research on this program--and i mean ANY research--you will find a number of problems that, like it or not, are real: to wit 1. it really is not within any accepted definition of executive power that a president (well, vice-president) can decide that a law he does not like can be ignored. congress did not repeal the church act and it is therefore binding. that this administration does not like the law does not mean it is not bound by it. the administration is not sovereign, it is not the Source of Law which cannot be Bound by Law because it is the Source--so cheney's carl schmitt fantasies reach their limit (look up carl schmitt sometime) 2. given that the law has not been repealed and is therefore binding, all acts which have been authorized by way of signing orders and the like are violations. the are all actionable. but if there were such legal cases that went to trial, the outcome would not be given in advance simply because there is a raison d'etat argument that the administration DOES have available to it which has as its base teh actions of a grovelling republican-controlled congress. so while it is not obvious how such a process would go, it IS nonetheless clear that what is happening in this situation is real--and not simply "political grandstanding"--by which i take it you mean "initiated by parties which are not republican" as a synonym for "without merit" simply because if a is true then b is as well and even saying the two statements one after the other is almost a tautology. or so it appears from your posts, ace: hell, i dont even know why you bother to type them. they seem implied--you could just post an empty box and everyone could fill in the phrase "x is political grandstanding" if the situation involves parties who are not the bush administration and "y was entirely justified" if the situation involves the bush administration. |
I could be a victim and not ever know it simply because of my opposition to the president. I have a funny feeling host and others could be, too. So how do you suggest we come forward and say we've been spied on when we don't know? The list should be made public, then impeachment will be certain.
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Where does it say in the constitution that the president has the power to order anyone on the planet killed just because he feels like it? I do not remember reading that.
In fact, I'm pretty sure the constitution specifically provides that the government CANNOT do that. Quote:
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In your comments you have not given any reason why Congress has not taken decisive action - assuming Bush blatantly violated the law and abused his executive power to the degree suggested by many on the left. Quote:
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If there is an illegal domestic spy program targeting purely innocent US citizens, I doubt Bush is sitting in the oval office listening to the phone calls of 300 million people every day. So there has to be one hell of a big team of federal employees somewhere (perhaps it has been outsourced to India) listening to what you are ordering on your pizza. Then there would have to be another large group of people who take the information and then sit around and decide how to make your life miserable. So, out of either of those groups, there has to be at least one who would want to take Bush down. Even the Mafia had people who would "rat" on their Mafia buddies. Or, perhaps you can accept, without divulging the names of the terrorist we are monitoring, that the intent of the program was in-fact to track the communications into and out of this country of known terrorist. A much shorter list than the entire population of the United States, I might add. :rolleyes: |
ace: raison d'etat would cover claims of over-riding "security" interests.
what i mean is straightforward: i think the administration is in significant legal trouble because they chose to ignore fisa. i think their central claim regarding the law itself is worthless. but i think they could have a defensible position of "national security" on the basis of the first patriot act--if they pursued the warantless wiretaps after the 2nd, however, they are fucked. this assuming that a case went to court and received treatment that you or i might get and not the treatment meted out by far right judges who owe their jobs to the administration. at any rate, that's all hypothetical. so maybe there are fewer than the 3,000 violations cited in the critique of the bush administration i quoted earlier. as for your absurd charge that "the left"--what the fuck is that?--takes no stand on principle and only "hates bush"--that, sir, was even less worth the time it took to type than most other elements. you want the principles? the bush administration has used the general hysteria that followed 9/11/2001 for its own political purposes since the afternoon of that day. i oppose everything they have done. all of it. "principle" style statements: there is no terrorism. there is no war on "terrorism". there is no "nation" there is no democracy in america to be exported. what there is is an administration with a dangerously authoritarian outlook presiding over a socio-economic order that is rapidly sliding into decadance, irrelevance, collapse. nothing the bush people have done offers even the beginnings of a coherent assessment of the situation, not to mention a coherent response to that situation. so there is no place within the discourse were are collectively hobbled with that allows for anything like a "stand on principle." the stand on principle is the refusal to accept this limited and limiting state of affairs. so from my viewpoint, ace, your "principled positions" are nothing of the sort. this is one of the reasons i do not interact with you in general . i think that a wise position, and i am returning to it now. |
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I don't belong on any lists, and I won't be on any lists. I love my country, and the idea that I can be considered a potential enemy because I think the president is a dolt is outrageous and my phone being tapped is a personal injury. If I'm being monitored, I'm being harmed. Quote:
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Those ACLU "leftists" weigh in on the 6th Circuit's decision:
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So people on the left are constantly complaining about Bush, yet do nothing. You and others seem to think this issue is such a clear violation of the law and an abuse of power, yet nothing happens. If I thought what you and others thought, I would work tirelessly to do something to correct the situation. All we get from the left is talk. You either believe what you say and act on it, or the talk is just "blowing smoke". Quote:
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They're spying on American citizens. How does that not concern you, regardless of whether or not you have something to hide? |
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I'm saying that's a naive attitude, based on all the misinformation and lies from the administration. Why the heck would you trust these people? |
Wasn't questioning the Bush Administration for ignoring Richard Clarke's warnings of increased terrorist "chatter" one of the strongest criticisms of the government after 9/11 occurred? Did congress reassert the viability of the Patriot Act for political reasons or legitimate security concerns?
Clarke says Patriot Act Preserves Civil Liberties 'I can't find anything wrong with it [the Patriot Act], and if I'd had it prior to 9/11, it would have been a hell of a lot easier to stop 9/11.' By Alvin Powell Harvard News Office People who care about civil liberties in the United States should embrace rather than fight the USA Patriot Act, former Bush administration anti-terrorism coordinator Robert Clarke told a standing-room-only audience at the John F. Kennedy School of Government April 21. Though the Patriot Act has been assailed as an attack on civil liberties, Clarke said the act provides law enforcement tools that could prevent another major terrorist attack. And a second attack is sure to prompt even harsher legislation. "I would argue the thing that you should do today that most protects civil liberties in this country is to help prevent another major terrorist attack, because no matter how many of us send checks to the ACLU, if there's another major terrorist attack in this country ... hold onto that Bill of Rights, because it's going fast," Clarke said. "So be very, very careful about opposing things like the Patriot Act. If you believe in civil liberties, you've got to stop that next big attack." Clarke said he believes if legislation similar to the Patriot Act had been passed before Sept. 11, 2001, it may have helped prevent that day's terrorist attacks. "I can't find anything wrong with it and if I'd had it prior to 9/11 it would have been a hell of a lot easier to stop 9/11," Clarke said. Clarke, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School and author of "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," served as a senior White House adviser for four presidents, including a stint as national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection, and counter-terrorism from 1998-2002. Clarke was interviewed during Wednesday's event by Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Director Graham Allison in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. The recent publication of Clarke's book, coupled with his testimony before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, catapulted him into the national limelight in recent weeks. His assertion that fighting al Qaeda was not an urgent priority for the Bush administration in the months before Sept. 11, 2001, won Clarke praise from administration opponents and made Clarke a target of criticism for administration supporters. In answering questions from Allison and from the audience, Clarke covered many aspects of the United States' war on terror. Clarke repeated his criticism of Bush administration tactics, saying that the invasion of Iraq played right into al Qaeda's hands. Not only did it fulfill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Ladin's predictions that the United States would invade and occupy an oil-producing Arabic country, Clarke said, it is also draining resources that could be used more fruitfully in the fight against terrorism. Clarke repeated his insistence that Iraq, though run by an oppressive regime, posed no immediate threat to the United States, either through support for terrorism or through its possession of weapons of mass destruction. Clarke said the war on terror is actually a civil war within Islam between the extreme version preached by Osama bin Ladin and more moderate elements. So far, the U.S. is losing the battle for ideas in the Islamic world. Al Qaeda is more sophisticated than we've given it credit for, Clarke said, and is far better received among its Islamic target audience than the United States. To ultimately win the war on terror, Clarke said the United States has to somehow begin winning over the millions of Muslims who, though not actively fighting, are supporting radical causes monetarily and through other kinds of support. The U.S. took a step away from that goal by restricting visas for students from some foreign nations who want to study here. Part of the problem, Clarke said, is that the United States, while talking about democracy, has supported oppressive Arabic regimes. The downside of encouraging democracy in Islamic countries, he said, is that we may not like the outcome of their democratic elections. Resolution of the Palestinian issue is essential, but not enough on its own to give the United States a favorable image among Muslims. When asked about his own apology to the nation for failing to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks during testimony before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, also known as the 9/11 commission, Clarke said victims of such tragedies need psychological support as well as physical support from their government. Clarke said apologies should only be given if they're genuine, so President Bush shouldn't give one if he doesn't think he did anything wrong in the days before the 9/11 attack. "It's quite clear the president and others feel they have nothing to apologize for and so they shouldn't," Clarke said. As far as security today, Clarke said though many attacks have been stopped, there have also been many more attacks by al Qaeda worldwide since Sept. 11 than there were before. In the United States, he said, airlines are undoubtedly safer, but the nation hasn't spent the money needed to make trains, container ships, and other potential terrorist targets safer. In response to a question from the audience, Clarke said the recent bombings in Spain indicate that an al Qaeda attack before the U.S. presidential elections in November is possible. He said the bombings could be timed to influence the outcome, but also said a case could be made that either major party candidate would be acceptable from al Qaeda's point of view. |
has anyone here read the briefs in this case? I haven't had a chance yet, but I would imagine they are online and accessible. If this is like most hard cases, I would guess there are good arguments on either side on the merits.
The standing issue is actually not that hard, and the Sixth Circuit is right on that one, unless standing doctrine has changed radically since I was in law school. And BTW, guys, Judge Taylor's opinion was, as a piece of legal work, an utter piece of shit. I could have written a better opinion coming out that way than she did (but then, I'm a lawyer and can argue just about anything and make it sound good LOL.........) Maybe I'll read some of the briefing and describe it here (as if I don't already have enough to do ..................) |
.pdf of the ruling here.
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I don't see a reason for a 4-administration senior anti-terrorism expert to lie, do you?
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You see no need for a security-surveillance apparatus working in the foreign/domestic service of the United States?
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Now...my question to you...in view of the following "record"......why would you be willing to give people like these more unaccountable authority than what I just described? The following was last posted on May 24: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...9&postcount=16 Quote:
<h2>Ssssllllllaaaaappppp !!!!</h2> ace: thenk youuuu sirrrr....I'd like another !!! <h2>The Flip:</h2> Quote:
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<h2>The Flop:</h2> Quote:
<h2> Flop ?????</h2> Mr. President....I thought that you boasted that the surveillance technology "gap" had been fixed....you took credit for fixing it....<b>59 months before you said this:</b> Quote:
Here is Bush, just weeks after he is alleged to have (by James Comey) directed Card and Gonzales to Ashcroft's ICU unit bed to sign an authorization that Ashcroft was no longer legally authorized to sign...he had relinquished his duties due to illness: Quote:
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9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11...... <h2>The Flip....and The Flop:</h2> <center><img src="http://www.citizensforethics.org/filelibrary/JAGWB.jpg"></center> Quote:
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Because I think it necessary. It need not be draconian, but national-level security is as central to law and order as local neigborhood-level security.
The Patriot Act: Separating Hysteria from Fact by Jonah Goldberg Every time self-described civil libertarians pick something to complain about, they end up with egg on their faces. The latest embarrassment is the revelation that the Department of Justice has not invoked the Patriot Act's Section 215 - a section of the act that the ACLU crowd claims has turned the FBI into a library-raiding Gestapo. What, in reality, is Section 215? It's a relatively innocuous provision of the Patriot Act that allows law enforcement to obtain, after getting approval from a judge, documents from third parties - your credit card company, for example - if they're pertinent to a terrorism investigation. Caught up in the Section 215 hysteria they helped create, librarians have gone batty. One even burned her records lest the feds get their hands on the raw data revealing how many 15-year-olds borrowed "The Catcher In the Rye." Senator Russ Feingold even declared that Section 215 has made Americans "afraid to read books, terrified into silence." Well, it turns out that this has all been an exercise in self-indulgent, pompous liberal feel-goodism and false bravado. Not only has the government never used 215, but the section doesn't even mention libraries - or any of the other secular holy sites allegedly imperiled by it. At minimum, critics should stop talking about the Patriot Act's "trampling of rights" in the present tense. And lest they claim that they are being "vigilant" in the face of potential threats, someone should remind them that vigilance is fine, but lying and fear-mongering is crying wolf. The Section 215 bashing is just the latest in an ongoing campaign to make up a problem out of the Patriot Act that does not exist. I'm sure you've heard that the Patriot Act also permits, in the words of Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine, "spying on the Web browsers of people who are not even criminal suspects." Errr, wrong. The Patriot Act actually toughens the standards by which the government can snoop on electronic communications. Before the Patriot Act, there was no settled law on whether the government - or for that matter, some random stalker or Amazon.com - could acquire that kind of information. The Patriot Act made it a crime for the government or anybody else to pry into your e-mail without getting a court order. There's been a lot of gnashing of teeth over the allegedly "widespread" civil rights abuses since Sept. 11. Well, it's a good thing the Patriot Act requires the DOJ's inspector general to investigate civil rights complaints. The last report, issued over the summer, found that there were 34 "credible" allegations of abuse out of 1,037 claims made over a six-month period (note: that's allegations, not convictions). And most of these "credible" but unproven allegations involved such horrors as verbal harassment of prisoners by prison guards. That's not nice and it shouldn't happen, but it's hardly 1930s Germany. The complaints of lost civil rights go on. We hear about prisoners "kept in secret" when they're really not. Rather, the government won't release their names to the media - or to the terrorists who are keen to find out such information. However, the prisoners themselves - through their lawyers or families - are free to release their names. The ACLU says that the feds can secretly enter your home while you're out and rifle through your files, underwear drawer, whatever. Well, that's true, if the cops get a warrant first and notify you later. If that scares you, I'm sorry. But it's hardly something new. And of course, there's the partisanship. John Ashcroft (for whom my wife works) is the most unpopular man in the universe - if you go by what the Ashcroft-phobes say. There's nothing you can say that goes far enough for the hysterical base of the increasingly hysterical Democratic party. Senator John F. Kerry declared at a recent debate that he could see in the audience "people from every background, every creed, every color, every belief, every religion. This is, indeed, John Ashcroft's worst nightmare here." One might ask Kerry, "Have you no shame, Senator?" But it's too late for that. The pertinent question now is: "Have you lost your mind?" Ashcroft's job approval rating with the American people is about the same or higher than every major Democratic figure, including Hillary and Bill Clinton and Tom Daschle. The Ashcroft - and Bush - haters need to get out more. Indeed, we're told there's a nationwide groundswell against the supposed "trampling of civil liberties." But two years of Gallup polls show that as many people think the government hasn't gone "far enough" restricting civil liberties in order to fight terrorism as think it's gone "too far." Meanwhile, a solid majority believe - and have believed all along - that the government's gotten it "about right" on civil liberties. This should be sobering to the people who have steadily beaten the drums about this stuff because it shows that most Americans don't take them seriously - and they're right not to. |
I'm sure someone can quickly explain to me why article author Jonah Goldberg, someone with close ties to Bush crony Ashcroft, knows about what parts of the Patriot act are or aren't used.
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Goldberg is a journalist, not Ashcroft's younger brother.
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and from a guy who argued in the la times that what an "iraqi augusto pinochet" would be a good thing.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...ck=1&cset=true so it would follow that for a guy who actually believes stuff on the order of fascism wasnt so bad: at least the trains ran on time--i mean who actually believes that--the patriot act aint so bad. maybe you dont know who pinochet was. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet it is baffling to me that in order to make various bush initiatives seem neutral by comparison, folk are willing to post stuff by explicitly conservative authoritarian writers. |
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Perhaps he read about it on the Internets?
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I post compelling (overwhelming ????) evidence....quoting from government web pages, the POTUS and Atty. General Gonzales, making untrue and manipulative statements, almost identical to statements that the POTUS had made five years earlier, for the purpose of persuading us to not object to their unchecked (by a judicial review and then, if appropriate and legal, a judicial warrant) use of authority that they have illegally taken unto themselves, i.e., breaking/ignoring FISA law provisions, misuse of and failure to account for all NSL's issued (National Security Letters.....) The <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=120447"> Official Declaration of War Against Bush - Cheney and their Republican Supporters</a> began with: .......To start it off....what are you thinking.....what do you read....what do you "know"?????? Do we even speak the same language, anymore???? <h3>Here's the "editor at large", of one of your most prominent publications:</h3> Quote:
powerclown did not display the date that the JOnah Goldberg oped was written: Quote:
Goldberg's assurances about "warrants signed by judges", is especially laughable.... <h3>As the DOJ's IG reported, the FBI did not use Section 215 orders until 2004....AFTER Goldberg's oped was published....rendering it irrelevant to the subject of it's main point. Goldberg (and powerclown....) ignore the fact that we only know about abuses of our rights if and when the DOJ allows it's IG to inspect for them....and when the DOJ does not redact his findings from his official reports.... Before our rights were taken away, at least an impartial judge was presented with evidence to justify what it was that the FBI and other law enforcement sought permission to search for, and if the judge approved, a search could be conducted within the parameters that the judge had granted, based on the evidence presented to obtain the warrant. The target of the search could then present the record of the evidence that was used to obtain the judge's signature of the warrant, and the parameters (the limits) that the judge defined for the search.....to another judge and a jury, to show any discrepancies between what law enforcement presented to the warrant signing judge....and what they actually searched for, how....and why....</h3> <h2>....and now....powerclown....what do we have? Looks like a lying POTUS and Atty. General, and an untold, unchecked amount of abuse of our constitutional rights.....</h2> Quote:
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Why shoot the messengers? These are political positions shared by many like-minded individuals. Wouldn't it be more substantive to critique the ideas they message - the other side of the coin, as it were? Can it be proved empirically and objectively that the Patriot Act is an unconstitutionally illegal encroachment on civil liberties, for example? Might there be any chance that overzealous criticism of FISA falls under what Judge Mills recently referred to as a "subjective fear of surveillance."
Patriot & You Enough with the anti-Ashcroft hysteria. We need the Patriot Act. October 04, 2004, 12:53 p.m. by DEROY MURDOCK "We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night," John Kerry told Iowa voters last December 1. "So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft. That starts with replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time." Characteristically, Kerry now denounces the Patriot Act, although he voted for it. At least as late as August 6, 2003, Kerry bragged about that decision. He told New Hampshire voters, "Most of [the Patriot Act] has to do with improving the transfer of information between CIA and FBI, and it has to do with things that really were quite necessary in the wake of what happened on September 11th." Unlike the Tumbleweed-in-Chief, members of the new Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law unswervingly promote the Patriot Act as a shield against Islamo-fascists eager to slaughter more Americans in massive numbers. The Coalition urged Congressional leaders September 23 to renew the Patriot Act next year. "We write to express our strong support for the USA Patriot Act and concern about misinformation about the necessary legal tools it provides to battle al Qaeda and other terrorist enemies," states a letter signed by former Gotham mayors Rudy Giuliani and Ed Koch, ex-CIA chief James Woolsey, actor Ron Silver, and 66 other leading Americans. They quote Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Senator John Edwards (D., N. C.), who also voted for the Patriot Act and said, "We simply cannot prevail in the battle against terrorism if the right hand of our government has no idea what the left hand is doing." By boosting penalties for terrorism, dragging analog-era surveillance laws into the digital age, and tearing down the wall that kept American spies from comparing notes with cops, the Patriot Act has helped thwart numerous terrorist conspiracies, among them: FBI efforts to nail the Lackawanna Six al Qaeda cell began in summer 2001. Separate teams probed their suspected drug and terrorist violations. According to the Justice Department's "July Report from the Field: The USA Patriot Act at Work," "there were times when the intelligence officers and the law enforcement agents concluded that they could not be in the same room during briefings to discuss their respective investigations with each other." Under the Patriot Act, these officials began exchanging data, pooled their energies, and jailed all six upstate New York terrorists for seven to ten years for pro-al Qaeda subterfuge. In the Portland Seven case, the Patriot Act let the FBI follow one terrorist's plans to attack domestic Jewish targets while other conspirators tried to reach Afghanistan to help al Qaeda and the Taliban battle American GIs. The FBI and prosecutors jointly imprisoned six of the Seven for three to 18 years. As the DOJ dryly adds: "Charges against the seventh defendant were dismissed after he was killed in Pakistan by Pakistani troops on October 3, 2003." The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Eight were indicted for materially supporting foreign terrorists. Before that, Patriot Act Section 219 let the supervising federal judge quickly issue a search warrant in another jurisdiction, rather than consume precious time by involving an additional, local jurist. The Virginia Jihad Nine have been jailed for four years to life for training in Pakistani and Afghan terror camps between 1999 and 2001 and for paramilitary jihad instruction in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C. Patriot Act information-sharing language helped incarcerate these members of the Dar al-Arqam Islamic Center. Patriot Act Section 371 is helping the feds seize $659,000 that Alaa Al-Sadawi, a terrorist-linked New Jersey mullah, tried to smuggle to Egypt through his elderly parents. Customs agents found this cash in a Quaker Oats carton, a Ritz Crackers box, and two baby-wipes packages, all stashed in the imam's father's luggage. As Dick Morris recalled in the September 12 New York Post, under the Patriot Act, federal intelligence agents in March 2003 gave information to the NYPD gleaned from interrogations of al Qaeda honcho Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM). This prompted New York's Finest to guard the Brooklyn Bridge and arrest Iyman Faris before he could blast it into the East River. Similar intelligence sharing helped the NYPD unravel an al Qaeda plot to use a law-abiding Manhattan garment company to ship bombs and Stinger missiles into New York. Details massaged out of KSM foiled Islamist designs to fire these Stingers at jetliners departing Newark Airport. Despite its caricature as an anti-Islamic nightstick, the Patriot Act helped save a mosque. Jared Bjarnason allegedly e-mailed the El Paso Islamic Center April 18 and threatened to torch it if hostages were not freed in Iraq. Patriot Act Section 212 let the FBI locate Bjarnason through his Internet service provider and cuff him before he could set the mosque ablaze. Thanks to such post-Patriot Act cooperation among the CIA, FBI, police, and prosecutors, "more than 3,000 terrorists have been rolled up worldwide, including two-thirds of al-Qaeda's leadership," investigative journalist Ronald Kessler estimated in USA Today April 21. Still, the American Civil Liberties Union and its allies see the Patriot Act as the birth certificate of an American police state. Speaking September 9 at a homeland-security seminar in Colorado Springs, Heritage Foundation scholar Paul Rosenzweig dismissed worries about, for instance, Patriot Act provisions on "delayed notification search warrants." "They can come into your house, and you'll never know about it," Rosenzweig said in mock horror. "Imagine if you had to tell John Gotti that you bugged his house. 'Speak clearly into the chandelier, John.'" As for alleged civil-liberties violations, the Justice Department's inspector general found only 17 Patriot Act-related complaints through December 2003 that merited investigation and substantial review. That is a rather low error rate given millions of contacts over two years between Justice employees and average citizens. Quintennially reauthorizing the Patriot Act would help Congress guard against potential abuses. Journalists also would howl if overzealous feds ever began examining library reading lists without search warrants. That said, wouldn't it have been nice had FBI agents on, say, September 1, 2001 learned that Mohamed Atta had borrowed books on Boeing 767 flight techniques and high-rise fire-fighting challenges? While Americans ponder legal niceties, those who want YOU dead likely weigh the relative merits of explosives versus poisons. Remember the enemy against whom the Patriot Act is deployed. Osama bin Laden's 1998 declaration of war against the U.S. is icily clear: "The ruling to kill all Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it." The Patriot Act stands between that and you. In Defense of the Patriot Act By Orrin Hatch USA Today | May 14, 2003 The tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001 — and the killing of more than 3,000 Americans — are forever etched in our nation's memory. Soon after this tragic attack, Congress in bipartisan fashion enacted the Patriot Act, a long-overdue set of measures that provided law enforcement and intelligence agencies with basic tools needed to fight and win the war against terrorism. In 1996, I proposed many of these same measures in an anti-terrorism bill. Had these measures been in place prior to 9/11, law enforcement agencies may well have been able to catch some or all of the terrorists. The Patriot Act has not eroded any of the rights we hold dear as Americans. I would be the first to call for corrective action, were that the case. Yet not one of the civil liberties groups has cited one instance of abuse of our constitutional rights, one decision by any court that any part of the Patriot Act was unconstitutional or one shred of evidence to contradict the fact that these tools protect what is perhaps our most important civil liberty: the freedom from future terrorist attacks. Several important provisions of the Patriot Act are scheduled to sunset, or expire, on Dec. 31, 2005. When the bill originally was passed by the Senate, I opposed the sunset, along with 95 other senators. Given the importance of the Patriot Act tools to our nation's war against terrorism, why would we simply sunset these provisions when we know full well that the terrorists will not sunset their evil intentions? There is no logical reason for our nation to lay down some of its most effective arms while fighting this war. Last Thursday, the Senate added another important anti-terrorism provision to the arsenal of weapons to combat terrorism. The Senate fixed a gap in the original 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize the gathering of intelligence information relating to "lone-wolf" terrorists — who cannot be linked to an international organization or state. This bipartisan proposal will enhance the ability of the FBI and intelligence agencies to investigate terrorists and detect their plots to prevent devastating attacks on our country. Lawmakers were right to fix this glaring problem. Congress has had a full opportunity to weigh and assess the benefits of the Patriot Act, and that will continue whether or not there is a sunset. Some have claimed that the sunset is needed to ensure proper oversight. That is silly. Congress can always exercise oversight and change or repeal any law if warranted. The bottom line is clear: We should not undermine or limit our law enforcement and intelligence agencies' efforts by imposing requirements that go above and beyond those required by the Constitution. That would only have the effect of protecting terrorists and criminals while endangering the lives of innocent Americans. |
The information was and continues to be highly suspect. We are showing that the author has zero credibility, and the author provides no proof for his claims. The story is without credibility. This isn't an ad hominem, it's an ad article.
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Post something that challenges what was confirmed by Bush's January 2006 admissions concerning his admitted authorizations to disregard FISA procedures and provisions, even though, twice in October 2001, he told us that the laws had been modernized to his satisfaction....and DOJ IG Glen Fine's March, 2007 report, <h3>instead of what you've been doing in you two recent posts here...posting now irrelevant opinions no newer than from 2004, of other conservatives.</h3> |
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edit: So everyone not abiding by hosts political doctrine is irrelevant. Into the disintegration machines with them. I can imagine to myself what hosts America would look like. Thoughts of inverted peace symbols, moldy peony incense, armadas of "che gueverra" tshirt factories, and goosestepping, overweight neohippies with the munchies peeing all over themselves. I do not want hosts America. |
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I don't think people understand this. You need to actually read host's posts. Read them. Just do it. Because if you don't, you're just going in circles. Host made it clear above that your 3 and 4 year old articles are not relevant today, and told you where you can get new information. You ignored it and pretended it was an ad hominem, then went off on some useless and meaningless attack: Quote:
Edit: I suppose the flip side would be those who support the administration. They would support wiretapping, bypassing the law and that's completely unchecked. They would support the attacking of those who did not follow the administration, be the attacks subtle or gross. They would support endless wars intended to create opportunities for corporations who have highly placed political allies to make billions of dollars, funded by our taxes. They would support the centralization of all government and military power into the office of the president/despot. They would watch without a care in the world as our civil liberties melted away. Honestly, I'd be frightened of a world that those who support the current administration would dream of. That's what concerns a liberal such as myself. What kind of world do you want to leave your children? A world without war or poverty or famine? A world where they can speak out against the selfish or the greedy in power, where they can publish articles challenging power, where one can freely practice religion and cannot be arrested and held without due process? |
powerclown, it is not as if I've only posted all of the following as a factual record that illustrates all of "the news reporting and documented (on the whitehouse.gov web site....) record" <h3>that Jonah Goldberg has had to minimize or entirely ignore in order to maintain his gushing</b> (as in unprofessional behavior and attitude on the part of one who is presented as a "journalist") Praise of Cheney. and the fact that I pointed this out:
"powerclown did not display the date that the JOnah Goldberg oped was written:" Quote:
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my June 14th post: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...01&postcount=4 Quote:
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<b>....and I posted the following, on April 29th, at this link:</b> http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=48 Quote:
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I'll run through it in short bursts: Cheney on Nov. 14, 2001: Quote:
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How can you tell that they were lying to us then, and now....because all Bush and Cheney had was "Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague", and "Zarqawi was in Baghdad and ran a "poison camp" in Iraq"....and Cheney still justifies the invasion of Iraq, this month, and Bush did as recently as last September, with the worn out mantra that "Zarqawi was present", even though he had no relationship with Saddam or his government, and was located at a "poison camp" in an area of Northern Iraq that US military and it's Kurdish allies could access....if they wanted to.....but Saddam's military could not...... [quote] Quote:
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It is not my "politics" that is your REAL objection, powerclown, it is the consequences of where your preference for "information" sourced from filtered conservative talking points ends up leading you to, when the your resulting POV is displayed competitively alongside the POV of "the rest of us". You would not receive, without protest, assertions by willravel and I, for example, that the three major WTC towers collapsed as a reult of any means other than the crashes of airliners into two of those towers, <h3>if we justified our opinions on support as questionable as the support you've offered here to qualify your opinions</h3> in defense of Bush and Cheney on matters related to Libby's guilt and sentence, and accusations that Bush broke the laws protecting us against illegal surveillance, searches, or intelligence gathering..... You accused me, in the post I linked in my reply to roachboy, in a recent post on this thread, of <b>"posting "guerilla oped pieces" 99 percent of the time"</b>...but it is more accurate to say that I post more links to whitehouse.gov and doj.gov pages, than every other poster here, combined, to back my arguments..... Your "stuff" is almost always contradicted by "stuff" that has not been spun through conservative filters..... |
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Update: I would use opinions from these journalists as further argument against impeachment of W at this time. There is another side to TSP and FISA and surveillance in general which I don't think is being accurately represented in this thread.
Reagan Would Have Ordered Terrorist Surveillance by Edwin Meese III Posted: 02/12/2007 This is the eleventh in an occasional series of exclusive articles in which leading conservatives who served in the Reagan Administration explain how they believe the principles of Reagan conservatism ought to be applied today and in the coming years. This week, Edwin Meese, who was Reagan’s first presidential counselor and then attorney general, addresses the necessity of intercepting terrorist communications and its constitutionality. It is always risky, if not presumptuous, to declare how a former President would act in situations that have arisen more than 15 years after he left office. But there are valuable lessons to be learned from the example of the executive leadership set by Ronald Reagan and the principles that guided his decisions. President Reagan believed that fidelity to the Constitution was the primary responsibility of every public official and that the solemn oath he took to preserve and protect our Founding Charter was a solemn trust. But he knew the document thoroughly and understood the powers it conferred on a President as well as the limitations it prescribed. As a student of history, particularly the founding of our nation, Reagan appreciated the role that the drafters of the Constitution set out for the chief executive, including the responsibilities of the commander in chief to insure the defense of the nation and its people. Used During Cold War That is why I believe Ronald Reagan would take the same position our current President and the Department of Justice took on the subject of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Under this program the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts and records international communications between a telephone located in a foreign country and one in the United States when one or both ends of the line involve known or suspected terrorists. Similar surveillance activity was utilized during the Cold War, including the period of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, to obtain intelligence about threats to our national security. At that time, this highly classified work was carried out in secret so as not to warn enemy agents of our surveillance capabilities. It is only in recent years that irresponsible news media elements have revealed the Terrorist Surveillance Program to the public, thus compromising a valuable means of thwarting terrorist threats to our country. The controversy over the NSA's surveillance program is based on the contention of some that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) enacted in 1978 is the exclusive authorization of foreign intelligence surveillance and that any NSA activity must comply with all of its requirements. These opponents argue that even the President cannot order international communications interception without going through the FISA process, even in wartime. History of FISA But this view ignores the legislative history of FISA as well as the judicial determinations that have occurred since its enactment. Ronald Reagan believed that under the Constitution the President has the inherent authority, as the commander in chief, to direct a military intelligence agency, such as the NSA, to intercept enemy communications during wartime or when necessary to protect the national security. This has been the consistent position of every administration before and since the enactment of FISA. During congressional hearings on the FISA legislation during the Carter Administration, then-Atty. Gen. Griffin Bell testified that the FISA bill being considered could not interfere with the President’s inherent constitutional authority to order communications surveillance for intelligence purposes. It is not only the lawyers in the White House and the Department of Justice who hold this view supporting executive authority for communications intelligence activities. Every court that has ever ruled on this issue, including the FISA Court of Appeals, has supported the view that a President has inherent constitutional power to authorize measures such as the Terrorist Surveillance Program and that this power is at its greatest during wartime. There is only one exception to this judicial record: the recent decision by a single federal district court judge who ruled against the NSA program. Her ruling has been extensively criticized by legal experts from widely differing political and philosophical viewpoints and lacks any legal or persuasive merit. As he demonstrated during the Cold War, Ronald Reagan believed that a President should use every legitimate means to protect the nation. That is why he would understand that intercepting terrorist communications that might provide early warning about an attack similar to those on Sept. 11, 2001, is critical to our society. Further, he would know that obtaining such information is essential to establishing the reasonable cause to then obtain an electronic surveillance warrant under FISA so that further investigation can proceed. President Reagan believed that our nation's chief executive should energetically use his authority as commander in chief in matters concerning national security. He demonstrated this in ordering the rescue operation in Grenada, in supporting the Freedom Fighters in Nicaragua and in dealing with the Soviet Union. I believe he would counsel that a President should do no less in terms of authorizing communications intelligence efforts that could save this country from another devastating terrorist attack. ACLU Hails Major Defeat in War on Terror by Peter Ferrara Posted: 08/29/2006 The 4th Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure is a critical protection for the civil liberties of Americans, and should not be lightly cast aside. But liberal/left critics of President Bush’s War on Terror are quite wrong in suggesting to the American people that this amendment requires a judicially issued search warrant before any search or seizure can be made. The courts have upheld 30 different exceptions to the search warrant requirement of the Amendment. These include cases where the lives of officers or others are threatened, hot pursuit, border searches, school locker searches, or where emergency conditions exist. The key word in the 4th Amendment is unreasonable. That means under certain conditions a search or seizure without a warrant may be allowed. But the ACLU has disdained all such notions of reasonableness in its now temporarily successful jihad against the international surveillance program of the NSA. Under this program, U.S. intelligence officials have monitored and wiretapped phone calls from overseas phone numbers believed to be used by terrorists to phone numbers in the U.S. As President Bush has said, if al Qaeda is calling someone in the United States, we want to know about it. Such phone calls may reveal not only terrorist plots, but terrorist cells within the U.S. After this program was recently revealed by the New York Times, the ACLU has been concocting crackpot lawsuits to have it declared unconstitutional. They finally found an apparently crackpot judge, Anna Diggs Taylor in a Detroit District Court, who yesterday did exactly that. Judge Taylor, appointed by Jimmy Carter in 1978, has a long history of hard left political activism and Democrat party partisanship. Her opinion wildly states that the President argues “he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the first and fourth amendments of the Constitution itself.” She then takes a shot at the Bush family in saying, “There are no hereditary Kings in America….” She concludes that there is no power for the President’s NSA surveillance program in the Constitution, even though the Constitution extensively grants the President power over national defense, military affairs, and foreign policy. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero hailed Taylor’s ruling calling it "another nail in the coffin in the Bush administration's legal strategy in the war on terror." In this the ACLU is finally right about something. Notice how a cabal of left-wing extremists has worked together to now almost destroy a major weapon in the War on Terror. First the program is revealed by the increasingly far left New York Times. Then a phony legal war is pursued against the terrorist surveillance by the hard left ACLU. They manage to get the case before a nutcase lefty Federal judge in Detroit, and voila America loses a major weapon against terrorists trying to commit mass murder against us. Here are the reasons why the NSA surveillance program is reasonable and constitutional even without judicially issued search warrants for each phone number tapped. First, the surveillance is limited to phone calls from overseas, where U.S. constitutional protections do not apply, using phone numbers tied to terrorists and their activities, into this country. Those calls may well be to terrorist agents and cells in the U.S. and involve terrorist acts of mass murder against American citizens. Indeed, those terrorist acts could involve attacks involving poison gas or other chemical weapons, biological weapons, or even nuclear weapons. So the stakes are of the highest value. Secondly, the surveillance appears to have been successful in stopping actual attacks against Americans. Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and now deputy director of national intelligence, said last December, “This program has been successful in detecting and preventing attacks inside the United States.” Indeed, wiretaps and intercepted communications were key to British intelligence stopping the terrorist plot to blow up ten airliners over the Atlantic earlier this month, and this precise NSA surveillance program may have been involved in assisting them Thirdly, the surveillance does not involve law enforcement or gathering evidence for criminal proceedings. It involves foreign intelligence gathering information on possible attacks against the American people by foreign combatants, to be used to stop those attacks. Indeed, phone recordings from the wiretaps would never be submitted in a court for prosecutions because then the methods and operation of the program would have to be publicly revealed. For this reason, no liberty is even restricted by the program other than the liberty to commit terrorist acts. Fourthly, no one has uncovered a single instance of abuse of this program. The plaintiffs in the Detroit case could not prove that they had been wrongly harmed by the program, or even that they had been wiretapped. They were journalists, researchers, and lawyers who claimed that they needed to speak to terrorists abroad for valid reasons, but feared these terrorists would now not talk to them due to fear of the possible NSA surveillance. Because they could not show any actual harm, they did not even have standing to bring the suit, and it is likely to be thrown out on appeal for this reason alone. Fifthly, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) set up special courts for investigators to obtain warrants for domestic surveillance of suspected foreign agents. It does not apply to foreign intelligence surveillance of enemy combatants operating overseas, or to communications to or from those combatants with someone inside the U.S. That comes within the military powers of the president, not domestic law enforcement. It is akin to battlefield intelligence, for which no warrants are needed. Sixthly, obtaining a warrant even from a FISA court requires a voluminous filing to meet exacting standards. That would be an undue burden on intelligence agents trying to get information to stop an attack on the U.S. from foreign combatants overseas. The attack may be imminent, or the trail may be lost if we do not act immediately. Moreover, we may rightly not impose a probable cause standard before the activities of such foreign combatants are monitored for the essentially military activity of stopping an attack. Every president since World War II has claimed the same power as President Bush and used warrantless wiretaps for foreign intelligence surveillance. In 1994, then Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick defended President Clinton’s use of that power by saying, “Case law supports that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes.” Until yesterday, no U.S. court has ever ruled that the president did not have this authority. Indeed, the FISA court itself has said that all the “courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information.” Judge Looney Tunes Taylor never addressed any of these precedents. For all of these reasons, and others, this rootless decision itself born of extremist plotters, will be reversed on appeal. |
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Is this the same Ed Meese, counsel to Pres Reagan, who resigned under a cloud in the Iran-Contra investigation? And the same Peter Ferrara, who took money from convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and wrote op-ed articles favorable to Abramoff? The FISA law is pretty clear about obtaining a warrant, even after the fact in emergency cases, and it was violated at Bush's direct actions and orders. |
Same Ed Meese. You don't value his opinion? He went to Yale and UC-Berkeley. He's an intelligent guy. Were you looking for the purest journalistic pontifications of Jesus Christ himself? Meese must know *something* about what he's talking about. Is it that we don't want to read Ed Meese's political opinions, or is it that we don't want to read American conservative opinion in general? How about this: if you don't approve of this next journalist, you give me the name of a conservative journalist you do trust and I'll track down one of his/her articles.
Checked and Unbalanced George Will's diatribe against the NSA program is meritless. February 16, 2006 3:44 PM By Andrew C. McCarthy As a reverent admirer of George Will, it pains me to say that his diatribe today against the National Security Agency's terrorist-surveillance program is an embarrassing magpie of hyperbole and error. Will's premise is that the administration, in authorizing the program, has promulgated the "monarchical doctrine" that "whenever the nation is at war, the other two branches of government have a radically diminished pertinence to governance, and the president determines what that pertinence shall be." This is so outlandish as to defy measure. Neither the administration's position nor the NSA program have much of anything to do with governance in the domestic sphere—which, it should be observed, is the only sphere in which one of the branches Will refers to, the judiciary, ever has a role in governance. A Foreign Affair Will can suggest otherwise only by misrepresenting the program as "warrantless surveillance...targeting American citizens on American soil." In fact, the program targets al Qaeda, a foreign terrorist organization with which we are at war, and which is energetically working (it tells us unabashedly) toward a strike against our homeland which would dwarf the carnage of 9/11. The program targets, moreover, only international communications by this foreign enemy, some of which cross U.S. borders. Of course, it is settled law that warrantless searches at the border are an entirely legitimate exercise of executive power, even in peacetime. Anomalously, Will finds warrantless searches in wartime of possible enemy commands to launch a strike that could kill countless thousands of Americans to be an exercise in despotism. The administration's position, and the program, is pertinent to governance in the field of foreign relations. In that field, whether Will likes it or not, the president has primacy—primacy of the same sort the Supreme Court enjoys in interpreting the Constitution and Congress in funding governmental operations. The president does not enjoy such primacy because of some Bush administration ipse dixit. It has been the law ever since we began living under the Constitution. Will is offended by what he calls "the administration's argument that because the president is commander in chief, he is the 'sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs[,]'" a contention Will preposterously calls a "non sequitur [that] is refuted by the Constitution's plain language." Perhaps Will—who evidently has no problem relying on Supreme Court precedent when he thinks it advances his position—should take a look at what that tribunal has said in this regard. What The Court Does Say He'll find that what he is quoting is not "the administration's argument." Rather, it is the Supreme Court's interpretation of the very Constitution to which Will alludes. Specifically, the Court divined in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export (1936) the "delicate, plenary and exclusive power of the president as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of foreign relations." (Emphasis added.) The Court reaffirmed the point a half-century later in Navy v. Egan (1988), observing that it had long "recognized the generally accepted view that foreign policy was the province and responsibility of the Executive" (internal quotation omitted). The Court has not rested this view solely on the president's status as commander-in-chief but on all the powers vested in him under Article II. This includes all of the executive power itself which, as the Framers well understood, needed a far wider berth in the international arena if the Nation was to be secure. Will, however, curiously contends that this concept cannot be squared with the Constitution the framers bequeathed us which, according to Will, "empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war, fund and regulate military forces, and make laws 'necessary and proper' for the execution of all presidential powers." (Emphasis in original.) And what the Constitution Says But he's wrong. For example, the Constitution does not empower Congress to ratify treaties. The president ratifies treaties (as well as makes them); "Congress" has no role at all—the Senate must consent to them, but such consent does not bind the president to put treaties into effect. The power to declare war has never been a power to make, authorize, or initiate war. Indeed, as demonstrated in The Powers of War and Peace by Professor John Yoo, formerly of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the Framers altered a draft of the Constitution that would have empowered Congress to "make" war, settling on "declare," a term of art which, at the time of the founding, merely meant the provision of formal notice to the world (including the enemy) of a state of total war (as opposed to some lesser degree of hostilities), which triggered various rights for belligerents under international law. It is no accident either that the U.S., despite having participated in numerous wars, has formally declared war only five times in its history (and not since 1941), or that our British forebears frequently fought wars with no formal declaration whatsoever. Furthermore, the "necessary and proper" clause sheds exactly no light on the current controversy. It is freely conceded that Congress has the authority to make laws necessary and proper to vindicate the powers enumerated in the Constitution. That hardly means, however, that the president is impotent to take measures consistent with his own inherent authority under Article II—and the president, it bears noting, is the only governmental officer bound by our fundamental law "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" (Article II, Section 1). Nor does it mean the president is bound to honor congressional enactments (such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)) to the extent their operation would constrain his inherent authority—a position supported historically by administrations of both parties because of the elementary proposition that a statute cannot trump the Constitution. It is simply a fact that there is a chasm between presidential authority in the domestic and foreign realms. In domestic affairs, we live in a single political community, the government has a monopoly on the use of force, and courts are imposed as a bulwark to protect Americans from executive and legislative overreaching. There, Congress has broad powers to regulate executive action. Not so in the international arena. There, we confront unpredictable contingencies including enemies claiming the power to use massive lethal force. The circumstances are not hospitable to the same kind of antecedent law-making that is practical in domestic affairs. That is why the framers provided for an energetic executive, not national security by committee. It is also, no doubt, why, in United States v. Brown (1973), the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, in upholding the president's inherent Article II authority to conduct warrantless wiretaps for foreign intelligence gathering, asserted that "[r]estrictions upon the President's power which are appropriate in cases of domestic security become artificial in the context of the international sphere." It is why, when FISA became law in 1978, President Carter's attorney general, Griffin Bell, stressed that FISA did not (and, indeed, could not) vitiate the president's inherent authority under Article II. It is why, in 1994, President Clinton's deputy attorney general, Jamie Gorelick, testified that the president maintained his inherent Article II authority to order warrantless searches even when FISA was expanded to regulate such searches. And it is why, even after a quarter-century of FISA, the highest and most specialized court ever to review that statute, the Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, observed in 2002: "[A]ll the other courts to have decided the issue [have] held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information... We take for granted that the President does have that authority." (Emphasis added.) A Spurious Citation Will's apparent response to the weight of this authority—I must say "apparent" because he doesn't deign to discuss any of it—is to misstate the resolution of the 1952 steel seizure case. There, he claims, the Supreme Court "held that presidential authority is weakest when it clashes with Congress." But that was not the holding of the Court. It was the view of Justice Robert Jackson in a concurring opinion. Even Justice Jackson, furthermore, did not claim that presidential power disappears when it is at loggerheads with Congress's will. Instead, the outcome of the historic and inevitable competition between the political branches depends on the nature of the powers implicated as they relate to the dispute at issue. The steel seizure case, though it occurred against the backdrop of the Korean War, involved presidential interference in a domestic collective bargaining dispute. To the contrary, the NSA program involves foreign intelligence collection, a matter as to which we needn't speculate the extent of presidential authority—as we have seen, that authority is plenary. Little wonder then, as pointed out in a recent letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee by attorney Bryan Cunningham (a former official in the Clinton and Bush administrations), that it was the very same Justice Jackson who wrote for the Court only two years earlier, in Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), that the president was "exclusively responsible" for the "conduct of diplomatic and foreign affairs." A Further Misunderstanding Will's attack on the administration's secondary position, viz., that its NSA program is authorized to operate outside FISA's strictures by Congress's post-9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), is specious. He begins, yet again, by either misunderstanding or misstating the argument. The administration is not, as Will avers, "incoherently" claiming that it thinks Congress tacitly blessed warrantless monitoring even though it really believes Congress would have declined such authority if asked specifically. As Attorney General Alberto Gonzales explained in answers to questions posed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, the administration believed it could not get FISA amended to approve the NSA program without compromising operational details of the program, which would inexorably have alerted the enemy to our capabilities. Thus it went ahead, not because it thought Congress unreceptive but because it believed—quite plausibly—that it already had valid legal grounds and pursuing additional, more specific authority would have undermined wartime effectiveness. Will then grouses: "the argument that the AUMF contained a completely unexpressed congressional intent to empower the president to disregard the FISA regime is risible coming from this administration. It famously opposes those who discover unstated meanings in the Constitution's text and do not strictly construe the language of statutes." But it is Will's contention that is risible. Let's leave aside that the president's authority over foreign intelligence collection is so firmly entrenched as to require little discussion. In point of fact, what this administration "famously" did only two years ago is argue to the Supreme Court that the AUMF tacitly authorized the detention without trial of American-citizen enemy combatants. The Supreme Court accepted that argument in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), another case Will neglects to mention. The Court accepted the argument, it bears underscoring, based on the very rationale that applies perfectly here: the AUMF provides authority for all the fundamental aspects of war-waging. Those include the detention of enemy combatants, and they include—just as basically—the penetration of enemy communications. Finally, as George Will knows as well as anyone, the president is no monarch. While his polemic is counterfactually entitled "No Checks, Many Imbalances," the Congress has the ultimate and complete check here. It can, right this minute, vote to cut off appropriations for the program. Naturally, it won't do that because it recognizes that the program is necessary and that the American people are not offended by the manner in which it has been implemented. And for all Will's bombast about the Constitution's plain language and structure, it is difficult to imagine anything that would have been more startling to those who crafted our fundamental law than the suggestion that the president of the United States needs a federal judge's permission to intercept the international communications of a wartime enemy that seeks, above all else, to mount a massive attack against the homeland. —Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. |
Can you please put articles on quotes?
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IMO, Meese's opinion of the limits on the executive branch are tainted by the excesses of the Reagan administration re: Iran/Contra, in which he played a significant role. BTW, Hillary went to Wellesley and Yale Law School. Does that make her equally intelligent and "must know 'something' about what she is talking about". (Meese's education is a specious argument to say the least) I value many conservative opinion makers, George Will and Willliam Buckley, among them, although I rarely agree with either and I dont consider them to be journalists. |
powerclown and dc_dux,your exchange inspired me start a <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=120775">thread</a> that uses Meese offered as a journalist as an example of the divide on this forum, and in the country. It gets that issue out of here, and we'll get to see if everyone actually wants to discuss this thread's topic.....or the predictable issues of introducing a supporting author who many others view as the Alberto Gonzales of his era....and more...
Meese's article was written in February, and since this week, the number of federal judges who have ruled that Bush has violated the FISA laws, has doubled: Quote:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...dor_Associates |
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Here's a lawyer who claims to still be employed at DOJ, and.....after this is distributed, only because he enjoys some civil service protections against immediate punishment or dismissal: Quote:
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With the above as a given, nothing of merit has happened to make Bush accountable. Absolutely nothing of merit. Why? My answer is that for the most part Bush is honest and is doing the best he can. That he has made some mistakes but has tried to fix them. That if he did step over the line, it was with the intent to protect American lives. If you, most Democrats, those on the left, the Bush haters, truly believe what you say you believe and let Bush get away with "it", what does that say? You have a recurring point in your posts, and I already know your position will never be changed. I have a recurring theme in my posts. If someone would give a good clear answer to my questions, my view could change. So far the answers have been unclear, evasive and off the point. Here is another question. If Koppel truly believes in a total separation between performance and serving a partisan agenda how can he support any political appointments at DOJ? For example if the next President wins based on a party platform of going after employers who hire illegal immigrants (partisan agenda), and you have people at DOJ not willing to act on that agenda, doesn't the President have a right to fire those people based on their lack of performance relative to the agenda? |
It's not so much what Bush may or may not have done, that bothers me. It's the fact that he put a power into motion that WILL BE ABUSED and powers that take freedoms away (just because YOU may believe that you have nothing to hide doesn't mean squat).
I just think something needs to be done so that these powers are never granted to a president or congress again. Then again, this whole topic sort of takes the eye and attention off the true problems facing this nation, the economy, rebuilding the infrastructure, good paying jobs, getting the middle class growing again instead of shrinking.... etc etc..... |
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I guess my question would be: what makes you think that Bush is honest or is doing his best for the good of the US? So far, every move he's made has weakened us in some way. From his months of vacations pre-9/11 to Afghanistan, everything has been a fiasco, and it's all been detrimental to the US. Quote:
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Would you ever purposefully break a law? I would. At the trial my intent may not matter, but it certainly may matter in the big picture. Quote:
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I can think of several alternatives. 1) Never bother Iraq again and let them take care of their own shit. 2) Full arms embargo until a revolution installed a new government. 3) Supporting rebels against Saddam. 4) Make peace with Iran. Quote:
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Without going through the whole song and dance, again, this is an article that echoes my take on the invasion. Quote:
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Speaking now as the bell cannot be un-rung, we should be supporting one of two things: unification of Palestine and Israel, giving equal representation to each people in a government that services both people separately but equally, Or the permanent establishment of an independent and unoccupied Palestinian state with a dmz separating Israel and Palestine, and have Jerusalem as international land. Open support of Israel's war crimes against Palestine feeds the fire between both sides of militants, be they Palestinian guerilla fighters or the Israeli army. The idea would be to promote peace as much as possible, throughout not just Israel but the whole region. If, for example, we were to have sent humanitarian aid to Israel and Lebanon last year, it would have sent a strong signal that we care about the well being of the region, not just our ally/butt buddy Israel. Lebanon was just getting on with it's existence after the civil war when this serious setback actually galvanized support for the Hezbollah. That's a bad thing. Quote:
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Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said he was surprised and unaware of civil liberties violations committed by the FBI during its exercise of Patriot Act powers — including the use of so-called National Security Letters — until an internal Justice Department report uncovered them in March 2007. But Gonzales and his predecessor, John Ashcroft, were routinely sent notifications from the FBI when such violations occurred and had to be reported to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), according to documents released this month under the Freedom of Information Act. Here is a timeline:So do you consider this an abuse of power? Should Gonzales "be fired and possibly put in jail' as you suggested above? |
Ace.....lets just cut to the chase here. I ask you to defend this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVw4tpQF03Mhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVw4tpQF03M |
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I don't see the importance of who put a name on the list. The important question is why the name was put on the list. If there is evidence that a termination was done illegally, that angle should be pursued. I understand the perceived need to know who put the name on the list so "they" can compel testimony to determine why the name was put on the list to then determine if any law was broken. The problem is that in this situation the "why" can be almost whatever the administration wants it to be (I put him on the list because I don't like demeanor as a ...whatever. They can be vague). Trying to prove a law was broken with these terminations will be virtually impossible. If you want me to defend Gonzales using the same prepared statements - I can only add, that I would have done the same unless I had something new to say. Quote:
If these violations were willful, I would expect someone to be held accountable. If Gonzales, has the responsibility to act but failed to act, he should be confronted with his failure and be given an opportunity to explain his failure. Given the amount of time he has spent testifying to Congress, I assume the question has been asked of him. Has it been? {added} Is the IOB similar to an Internal Audit department? I looked at a few of the reports, they referred to AG "guidelines" violations while not describing the activity as illegal or as an abuse of power. It would be interesting to see any communication on these issues between the AG's office and the FBI. Then I think we can make a better judgment on Gonzales. |
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He has been given the opportunity, under oath more than once.....and he lost his memory. |
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So you attribute Gonzales's`not acknowledging reports of violations he received over the preceding days and months as memory loss....the Libby defense. I guess that's better than the Bush defense...as least you didnt refer to Gonzales' false statements under oath in a Congressional hearing as "Churchillian hyperbole". |
ok, someone help me out here. What does a nation do when its chief law enforcement agent is caught lying about illegal activity?
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Are your saying that Gonzales is not responsible for deliberately misleading items that he included prepared statements, knowing that they will be delivered in sworn testimony, and that the contradict the information, on the exact same subject, that has been crossing his desk, for weeks? Quote:
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....and ace, page 19 of Gonzales's sworn April 5, 2005 statement, shows that he did prepare....did do research: Quote:
...and two years AFTER we now fid out that Gonzales was receiving a steady stream of reports of abuses by the FBI of Patriot Act provisions, we read this finding by the DOJ IG: Quote:
I think it is appropriate to ask this now, ace....do you receive any compensation, in money or other goods, to post your opinions on this forum? ....Or are you just an unconcerned citizen because you "have nothing to hide"? Do you see any problem cooperating if the DOJ told you that they were going to mount a closed cicuit video camera....with sound recording, in your living room, or above and behind where you sit at your computer? |
Having an unpopular, and perhaps blinded opinion is not reason to accuse someone of being influenced by bribery. While I too, am perplexed at the apparent visualization deficiency some individuals project,and even question the ability to think critically at times, asking someone if they are payed to ignore the obvious is a bit extreme.
Ace is welcome to his opinion, as is everyone else. That he might decide to look the other way when all information points to something other than that opinion is...more of a reason to continue showing him the facts, rather than alienate him further with pointless accusation. |
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I have said the above in many ways, many times, that would be the reason you are not surprised. Quote:
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I also know what I would do if I were President. I don't know what you would do. So, let's say you are writing a book and doing research on terrorists. Let's say you gain the confidence of a known terrorist and he tells you about specific plans to kill Americans. Let's say as a result of the surveillance program, the government was listening to your calls, and call you in for questioning. You have a right to claim the information obtained was done so without a warrant and not cooperate and take legal action. Would you? Would you cooperate? Why or why not? |
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But he didnt....he said categorically that there were no violations of civil liberties There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse."This was during a hearing on reauthorization of the Patriot Act so if I were to assign a motive for his perjury, I would suggest it was deliberate for fear that the truth may have slowed down reauthorization..but that is just conjecture, based on my profile of Gonzales as someone repeatedly willing to ignore the law and/or lie, misrepresent or obfuscate in pursuit of Bush's political agenda. What would I do....I wouldnt have lied like that under oath. |
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Rather than admit you fired the guys to protect your pal, you tell the DA they were incompetent and justly fired for one thing or another. Unfortunatley for you, the state legislature decides to hold hearings to find out who is telling the truth, and you decide to "forget" what happened, as it was last year some time. Are you in any way credible? and do you deserve to be mayor? |
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I would keep Congress (at least the Intel Committees in closed session) fully informed so that they can meet their oversight responsibilities and I would seek warrants from the FISA court. In the cases where surveillance was needed immediately, I would seek the warrant after the fact as is provided for in FISA. Bush did not of these things. He kept Congress and the FISA court totally in the dark for nearly two years of surveillance activities. Congress had (and still has) no idea who was monitored, how many were monitored or if there were any abuses of the process. That is something I would NOT have done. |
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ace....the Intelligence Oversight Board has the responsibility to:
(a) Inform the President of intelligence activities that any"and the IOB reported both legal and procedural violations. Not all violations of federal law need to be adjudicated in court in order reach a conclusion of an illegal act. That should be enough for Gonzales not to have lied and said... "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse." |
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So, first I don't think the Administration did anything illegal. Second, if they did, they won't admit it. A long time ago I concluded that this was a waste of time. At this point there is no legitimate point to trying to prove the firings were illegal, other than to score a few political points because of the embarrassing manner in which Gonzales handled this from the beginning. Perhaps Congress can have hearings on this regularly until the '08 elections, so members of Congress can look concerned as they ask the "tough questions" and come across as being deeply offended by the very thought of political appointments. Quote:
I assume wherever you work, audit reports are prepared. They may conclude there were procedural errors, or they may conclude there was illegal activity. I think most people in your office or department understand the difference. If you testified to Congress, would you admit there was illegal activity, until it was proved? Would you call procedural errors illegal activity? |
When did this thread become about firing US attorneys? It is about the administration's surveillance activities.
add: ace...I give up. I am convinced you will twist and turn every piece of evidence against Bush/Cheney/Gonzales that is uncovered and make every convoluted semantic argument you possibly can to avoid accept the facts. |
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You are the first to reference Gonzales in post #57. Quote:
Is that twisting and turning evidence against the administration? I think your frustration comes from your unwillingness to address questions. |
Ace is actually....correct for the most part. I believe I actually understand his position now, and it makes sense.
1) Investigations at this point have failed to prove anything Illegal. 2) If there were illegal activities, they do not exist until proven. 3) No guilty party is likely to be forthcoming in incriminating itself. 4) The nature of these investigations make it compelling to plead the 5th or forget, rather than risk prosecution for perjury. 5) The actions of the Administration are completely understandable in this context, regardless of guilt or innocence. He has a very valid position, and if any of us were to honestly evaluate what position we would hold if we were supportive of the Administration the stance Ace holds would be a very good one to have. From a strictly legal standpoint, the actions of the White House are acceptable. It is only from a deep distrust, and dislike of being lied to that they can be faulted. |
Thank you. I guess if I could write my thoughts as clearly as you, I would save a lot of time.
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tecoyah:
Investigations in the limited time that Democrats have been able to control oversight hearings have revealed numerous illegal activities: * violations of the Civil Rights act on at least 50 occasions at DOJ by using political affiliation in hiring career attorneys * violations of the Hatch Act by the administrator of GSA for conducting political activities during work works at the request of the WH ...and political briefings at at least 15 other agencies still under investigation * illegal restrictions on Freedom of Information requests at numerous agencies * influence peddling (related to Abramoff)`by top officials at Dept of Interior * and the latest revelations of violations of law, executive orders and procedures re: abuse of civil liberties by the FBI and false statements by the AG to highlight just a few off the top of my head that have been uncovered in the last 6 months. It is difficult, if not impossible, for Congress to perform its oversight responsibility if the administration ignores subpoenas, claims executive privilege at every turn, destroys e-mails, commits perjury in order to prevent disclosure of potentially illegal activity...all at levels not seen before by any previous administration in my lifetime. The most bogus position of those you described: 4) The nature of these investigations make it compelling to plead the 5th or forget, rather than risk prosecution for perjury is bullshit.....pleading the 5th or conveniently "forgetting" the facts in order to protect yourself from potential prosecution is one thing..but there is no legal or moral justification for using the 5th and stonewalling to avoid telling the truth about others, which appears to be a common practice among this administration. |
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Those avoiding testimony are likely doing so at the direction of Administration officials, and as of now they are allowed to do so. The blatant disregard for subpoena power given to congress may very well be the downfall of the obstruction tactic in the long run. As it is, Ace is still correct in his opinion, they are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. That they are trying to prevent access to the information that proves the guilt is beside that point. |
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While it may indeed seem I was expressing the obvious, taken in the context of my explanation I think it was acceptable, and fitting to do so.
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i should have been clear about this i guess:
the response was not directed at you, tec. it was directed against the position you (accurately) summarized. |
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If your comment is directed to me, why not put a specific issue on the table. I am not sure what to do with these many general backhanded comments. The same offer goes to DC or anyone else. I am here, I am not going to run and hide. Challenge my points and my opinions, address them or ignore them, but what is the point of backhanded comments? |
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I provided this observation and a link to quotes of Gonzales's Dec/. 2005 statement on the white house website: Quote:
Ace, you claimed on this page; http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ll#post2260614 ....that Bush "Bush really say what he means and do what he says" I posted this (post #16) in opposition to your opinion: <h2>The Flip:</h2> Quote:
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<h2>The Flop:</h2> Quote:
<h2> Flop ?????</h2> Mr. President....I thought that you boasted that the surveillance technology "gap" had been fixed....you took credit for fixing it....<b>59 months before you said this:</b> Quote:
Here is Bush, just weeks after he is alleged to have (by James Comey) directed Card and Gonzales to Ashcroft's ICU unit bed to sign an authorization that Ashcroft was no longer legally authorized to sign...he had relinquished his duties due to illness: Quote:
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Here is text from winston Churchill's first speech as Prime Minister of England. It is full of hyperbole and symbolism. Generally when I listen or read speeches or statements from world and national leaders, I give them a little room for being a leader and attempting to put a pretty face on information. If you call that "lies" we are in 100% agreement. Quote:
<b>ace, I think that your last post on this thread pre-supposes that your "take" about the exchanges you have had with the rest of us, is an accurate one. You may be sincere......but in the example that I've provided in this post, your "Churchill comeback" did not begin to respond to or counter, the argument and the support for it...that I had posted. I've had the impression that you are indifferent as to whether you are "taken seriously" in our discusssions, but your last post confirms that you are not indifferent. Why don't you "raise the bar" by posting better supported opinions. I don't think that your Churchill quote, along with your opinion that Bush's and Gonzales's disingenuous excuses, over five years, that limiting surveillance laws were written in the "era of rotary dial telephones", years after Bush said that the laws had been updated, was taken as a serious challenge to the citations contained in my post to support my opinion. I welcome your challenges ace, but you have not done, in your challenges, what you claimed, in your last post. </b> |
I asked a question that you ignored, and the discussion stalled because of it in my opinion.
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Yeah, you did ask that, ace....in post #29....quite a bit after you had attempted to counter the supported points in my post that "Bush does not say what he means and means what he sez"....and, just as you had in post #20, instead of admitting that the evidence....Bush quotes from the white house web site between 2001 and 2006, on the narrow subject of the need to "modernize" 1978 laws to "keep with the terrorists" use of communications technology, showed that Bush said in 2001 that the 1978 law had been modernized to his satisfaction. Instead of admitting that Bush and Gonzales, in 2004, 2005, and in 2006, were on record, saying the opposite of Bush's October 2001...twice repeated and twice documented assertions that the surveillance laws had been modernized to his satisfaction, you chose to post a 1940 Churchill quote about the threat Britain confronted on Churchill's first day as Prime Minister.
That's what you do, ace....that's how you attempt to deflect damning specifics to your arguments, instead of meeting them head on. I was the other party in our exchange. You chose not to engage me. You made no attempt to deal with the impact of proff that Bush and Gonzales used the same excuses to justify breaking the law, four years after Bush ahs used the same excuses to change the law that they went on to break....beginning just months after Bush claimed the law had been modernized to a point where Bush could legally conduct surveillance activities within it's restrictions. The points discussed are not a game, ace. Why should the tactics of the discussion be reduce to a game? You get what you give here, ace. I'mm too skeptical of IBD editorials to learn much from them, but that is about all you've offered here, that is germane to discussions that you've engaged in. You get what you give, ace. The potenital was there, in my example discussion, for you to post information to show me that I'd overlooked something, that...indeed....other instances had emerged where terrorists had used new technology to thwart provisions of the FISA laws that were not modernized in the 2001 revisions.....you chose instead to quote a 67 year old Churchill speech and then ask if other leaders hadn't embellished their rhetoric in the past..... Do you think that you planted doubt in my mind as to whether or not Bush and Gonzales had made deliberately deceptive comments to justify breaking the law against unwarranted domestic surveillance? |
I stated directly the Bush used hyperbole and has made exaggerated statements. I also stated directly that he cherry picked intelligence information. It is convenient that you forget those clear and direct statements, isn't it? I just don't consider what he said lies. And I further said that I did not rely on his public statements as the basis for my support of the war.
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If thousand were not killed and wounded as the direct result of these people's hubris (.....or is it their incoherence?) this "reporting" would be offensive.... pathetic, but, under the circumstances, it seems like the reporting of crimes by the criminals, themselves......
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http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/C...eidRunaway.jpg
Pretty interesting comparison. http://www.townhall.com/funnies/cart...MichaelRamirez |
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The fact of the matter is Iraq had nothing (but oil) and there was no way they could have hurt us. To even compare WW2 with this "war" is an insult not to others intelligences but yours man. Argue your case, but to compare the 2 is idiocy. WW2 = Pearl Harbor, Hitler's eradication of jews, Hitler and Japan wanting to conquer the world, it was us or them, we had very strong equal allies and did NOT do it alone Iraq = absolutely no connection ever proven to Al Quida, 9/11, no WMDs found, Hussein couldn't even move without us threatening him, he was a danger to noone, the allies we do have, that haven't backed out are pretty much there because Bush made very lucrative trade agreements/concessions or bribes to them. Don't even start with War on Terrorism bullshit..... Iraq had nothing to do with it and until the borders are secure and we have no illegals coming in then I'll take it seriously.... otherwise, again your editorial comic is just an insult to yourself. |
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I understand all the objections to our occupation of Iraq, I also understand the objections regarding our preemptive strike against Iraq, because I can appreciate thoughtful people disagreeing on military strategy and military priorities . The only thing about this that I don't understand is how anyone believes if we rolled up our military and brought them home that our enemies would end their war against us. It gives me comfort, that at least a few others and I are in agreement.
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If we left Iraq, we would be in less danger here in the US. That is a fundamental, undeniable fact. |
Here is a map of the ME:
http://www.travel.com.hk/map/newmap/...web/meast2.gif I look at the map and see that Iraq is a high value military strategic location. I think it is important that Iraq have a government friendly and cooperative with us and our military. You may not agree or like what this guy writes, but it is a view shared by many regarding the US strategy concerning Iraq, and its a source other than the White House or my point of view. Quote:
And we have this from Al-Qaeda: Quote:
I think we need to take a long-term view of this issue and recognize what needs to be done in order to have a more peaceful tomorrow. We either get the job done now or we do it later. Doing it now seems to be more efficient. |
ace.....your post demonstrates how you have been duped by WH and Pentagon propaganda to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq:
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The conclusions I have come to have had almost nothing to do with the rhetoric from the Bush administration. I am the first to admit that the rhetoric from any leader needs to be questioned and looked at carefully prior to supporting a war. From my point of view those who simply relied on the words from Bush when they voted for the war were negligent in their duties. Unfortunately that includes many Democrats who admit that they failed in their responsibility, yet your focus is on me in saying I have been duped. I think that is a strange way to look at this. |
ace...I focused on you because the articles you posted from aina and heritage perpetuate the propaganda.
After the first gulf war, Iraq was not a threat to the US or the region. The small contingent of al Queda in Iraq today is not a serious threat to the US. If there is a threat to the US, it comes from the al Queda in Afghanistan/Pakistan that we allowed to reinvigerate in order to pursue the folly in Iraq. |
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By the way there is no charge for that valuable piece of psychoanalysis. Quote:
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Here is my prediction: Clinton or Obama will be our next President. Our military will be in Iraq through their first term even though they will be elected with the understanding that ending the war, bring our troops home will be their number one priority. Clinton or Obama will serve only one term. |
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