"The End of America" - 4th of July food for thought from Scott Ritter

points to ponder as you watch and listen to scott ritter...

• Iraq
• Afghanistan
• War on terror
• U.S. Constitution
• Bill of Rights
• 4th Amendment
• Geneva Convention
• U.N. Convention against Torture
• Guantánamo
• Abu Ghraib
• Bagram
• Extraordinary rendition
• Warrantless domestic wiretapping
• Patriot Act
• Military Commissions Act
• CIA black sites
• Presidential signing statements
• Executive privilege
• Unitary executive
• Telecom immunity

from brasscheck tv...

Spoken before the US invaded Iraq

"We can call ouselves Americans. We can fly the American flag, but unless we stand up and defend the values that define us as Americans, we will cease being Americans."

Scott Ritter gave this talk before the US invaded Iraq. As a former US Marine Corps officer, UN weapons inspector and expert on the armaments of Iraq, he very publicly disputed the Bush adminstration's claim that Iraq was a threat to the US.

Now the US is on the same path with regards to war against Iran.

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Neither Barack nor Hillary will renounce interpretive signing statements

this is PRECISELY why i have been making daily full burnt offerings to whatever gods there may be that the bush cabal is forced from office prior to 20 january 2009, and the unlawful and unconstitutional mechanisms of unfettered power are both rolled back and forcefully repudiated...

Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) will not commit to ending President George W. Bush's practice of signing statements -- a tactic whereby the president adds his interpretation to laws passed by Congress, possibly allowing his office to circumvent the law -- according to a little-noticed article Monday.

Sen. John McCain R-AZ), however, asserts he would. Asked by a Washington Post reporter, he said he'd never consider it.

"Never, never, never, never," McCain said. "If I disagree with a law that passed, I'll veto it."

Signing statements are a long-time presidential practice, dating to the fifth US president, James Monroe. No constitutional provision or federal law prohibits their usage. They didn't become popular, however, until President Ronald Reagan -- before Reagan, just 75 such statements had been issued.

this is no reason to vote for mccain, but it certainly throws another kind of light on barack and hillary...

p.s. let me be clear... i see nothing wrong with a president adding a statement to a bill upon signing... those messages can be used to communicate many things, but to use them as a means to declare that the president of the united states reserves the power to defy the intent of the law he is signing cannot be one of them...

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Bruce Fein: "Congress has taken the Constitution backward more than three centuries"

another traitorous congressional sellout to a criminal president...

Jan. 28, 2008, is a date that will live in congressional infamy. Congress surrendered the power of the purse over national security affairs to the White House.

President Bush appended a signing statement to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 denying the power of Congress to withhold funds for establishing permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, or to control its oil resources. The statement tacitly averred that Congress was required to appropriate money to support every presidential national security gambit, for example, launching pre-emptive wars anywhere on the planet or breaking and entering homes to gather foreign intelligence.

[...]

Yet Congress acquiesced. It did not pass a resolution disputing Mr. Bush. It did not threaten impeachment. It meekly surrendered its national security relevance. Under the precedent it left undisturbed, the president could flout congressional prohibitions on spending funds to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, to invade North Korea, to conduct military offensives in Iraq, to install an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, or to assist Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

i simply do not understand how or why our elected members of congress can stand aside and allow this criminal president to systematically and thoroughly shred the constitution of the united states...

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Chris Dodd seems to be the only one who gives a crap about the Constitution

why, when we are undergoing the most serious assault on the constitution in our nation's history, is it so damn hard for the candidates to step up to that issue...? the only one who's been regularly doing it, although, imho, not nearly strongly or comprehensively enough, has been chris dodd...

Today Senator Dodd released the following statement calling on Democratic Leadership to ensure that telecommunications companies that have violated the law and consumer privacy are not given immunity.

"Today's report that Verizon provided the Bush Administration with personal information of American citizens absent judicial authorization is deeply troubling. We must be told the full extent of Verizon's activities and what other private information they have provided to the Bush Administration.

"More troubling still is that the United States Senate would sanction those telecommunications companies that have violated the law and the privacy of our citizenry, enabling this Administration's assault on the Constitution."

in all fairness, just the other day, hillary made the first statement that i'm aware of regarding bush's illegal and unconstitutional abuse of executive power, although it's also interesting to note that she did not mention the u.s. constitution...

[Hillary Clinton] intends to roll back President Bush's expansion of executive authority, including his use of presidential signing statements to put his own interpretation on bills passed by Congress or to claim authority to disobey them entirely.

"I think you have to restore the checks and balances and the separation of powers, which means reining in the presidency," Clinton told the Boston Globe's editorial board.

Although Bush has issued hundreds of signing statements, declarations that accompany his signature on bills approved by Congress, Clinton said she would use the statements only to clarify bills that might be confusing or contradictory. She also said she did not subscribe to the "unitary executive" theory that argues the Constitution prevents Congress from passing laws limiting the president's power over executive branch operations. Adherents to the theory say any president who refuses to obey such laws is not really breaking the law.

after the past seven years of george w. bush and his fellow criminals, i am simply not ok with a candidate "crossing his/her heart, hoping to die, sticking a needle in the eye," PROMISING not to abuse executive power and to honor the constitution... without teeth, it's all just words, and, god knows, we've had plenty of those...

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Slipping Iran under the AUMF

i just KNEW there was something extra super-fishy about the u.s. deciding "to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a 'specially designated global terrorist'," and, by golly, so there is...

Here's what it means on the surface, that U.S. -- which increasingly blames Iran for terrorist meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan -- can try to go after those who do business with the Iranian military unit. Still, it's clearly not a normal move -- the first time that a government military has received this terrorist designation -- something that's usually reserved for non-state actors like al-Qaeda. And so no one seems sure what this morning what the concrete impact of this unexpected move will be.

Nowhere yet have I seen what it seems clear Bush's Iran move is really all about.

The White House hawks in Dick Cheney's office and elsewhere who want to stage an attack on Iran are clearly winning the internal power stuggle. And an often overlooked sub-plot on the long road toward war with Tehran is this: How could Bush stage an attack on Iran without the authorization of a skeptical, Democratic Congress?

Today, the White House has solved that pesky problem in one fell swoop. By explicitly linking the Iranian elite guard into the post 9/11 "global war on terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush's lawyers would certainly now argue that any military strike on Iran is now covered by the October 2002 authorization to use military force in Iraq, as part of their overly sweeping response to the 2001 attacks.

This has clearly been the thinking for some time, particularly with talk -- unfulfilled, of course -- by some Democrats on Capitol Hill of either revoking the 2002 authorization or placing explicit curbs on attacking Iran.

In fact, concern that Bush would seek to tie a new war in Iran to the 2002 authorization is exactly what was on the mind of Va. Sen. Jim Webb when he sought legislation in March to bar any funding for a strike on the Tehran regime:

Webb told FOX News last week that his concern came about when he compared the 2002 authorization to go to war in Iraq with the presidential signing statement accompanying it clarifying prerogatives the administration deemed permissible under the authorization.

He said the ambiguity in the signing statement leaves room for the president to interpret the authorization as authorizing war with Iran. And, Webb said, according to the signing statement, the president retains the right to take military action "to respond to threats against American military interests."

oh my dear freakin' lord... that bunch has GOTTA go... while the media and the blogosphere natters on about the departure of the dark lord, karl rove, darth is rubbing his hands in glee over the next phase of his plan for taking over the world... probably, last evening, james woolsey went right from cheney's office to cnn's studios...

During an appearance on CNN’s Lou Dobbs last night, former CIA director James Woolsey, one of the earliest advocates of invading Iraq, claimed that Iran “could have” a nuclear bomb in “a few months.”

“The Iranians continue to work on getting enriched uranium,” said Woolsey. “I’m afraid within, well, at worst, a few months; at best, a few years; they could have a bomb.”

hey, terrific... nothing like a new war to give those old tv ratings a boost...

(thanks to atrios...)

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The NYT has concerns for our Constitution

i wish to hell they'd address our constitutional crisis head-on instead of beating around the bush... (sorry, that was a rotten but completely intentional pun, a variety harder to swallow than the unintentional kind...)

President Bush is notorious for issuing statements taking exception to hundreds of bills as he signs them.

[...]

The Bush administration’s disregard for these laws is part of its extraordinary theory of the “unitary executive.” The administration asserts that the president has the sole authority to supervise and direct executive officers, and that Congress and the courts cannot interfere. This theory, which has no support in American history or the Constitution, is a formula for autocracy.

[...]

When the Bush presidency ends, there will be a great deal of damage to repair, much of it to the Constitutional system. Congress should begin now to restore the principle that even the president and those who work for him are not above the law.

so, nyt, please tell me, what the fracking hell does "begin now to restore" mean...? hmmmmm...? what precisely would that look like...? hmmmmmm...? we've got a major, MAJOR, problem here in this country, namely, that we are losing on a daily basis everything that we were founded on... so, CALL IT FOR WHAT IT IS, WOULDJA PLEASE...?

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God bless Robert Parry who dares to name our country's crisis for what it REALLY is

the reality is staring us right in the face and i simply do not understand why it's so hard to grasp...

In years to come, historians may look back on U.S. press coverage of George W. Bush’s presidency and wonder why there was not a single front-page story announcing one of the most monumental events of mankind’s modern era – the death of the American Republic and the elimination of the “unalienable rights” pledged to “posterity” by the Founders.

The historians will, of course, find stories about elements of this extraordinary event – Bush’s denial of habeas corpus rights to a fair trial, his secret prisons, his tolerance of torture, his violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches, his “signing statements” overriding laws, the erosion of constitutional checks and balances.

But the historians will scroll through front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and every other major newspaper – as well as scan the national network news and the 24-hour cable channels – and find not a single story connecting the dots, explaining the larger picture: the end of a remarkable democratic experiment which started in 1776 and which was phased out sometime in the early 21st century.

How, these historians may ask, did the U.S. press corps miss one of history’s most important developments? Was it a case like the proverbial frog that would have jumped to safety if tossed into boiling water but was slowly cooked to death when the water was brought to a slow boil?

Or was it that journalists and politicians intuitively knew that identifying too clearly what was happening in the United States would have compelled them to action, and that action would have meant losing their jobs and livelihoods? Perhaps, too, they understood that there was little they could do to change the larger reality, so why bother?

As for the broader public, did the fear and anger generated by the 9/11 attacks so overwhelm the judgment of Americans that they didn’t care that President Bush had offered them a deal with the devil, he would promise them a tad more safety in exchange for their liberties?

And what happened to the brave souls who did challenge Bush’s establishment of an authoritarian state? Why, the historians may wonder, did the American people and their representatives not rise up as Bush systematically removed honorable public servants who did their best to uphold the nation’s laws and principles?

dear mr. parry,

if you wrote about nothing else but this from now on, i would not blame you for a minute... the more i observe, read, deduce, and put the puzzle pieces together, the more i realize that the bush regime's wholesale negating of the united states constitution and the establishment of an authoritarian state is the single most dangerous event of modern times... it needs to be shouted from the rooftops, it needs a paul revere sounding the alarm, it needs the loudest, most credible voices pounding it home every day until people pay attention... i appreciate more than i can say your efforts in this regard... at least there are a few who see what is REALLY going on...

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Scott Ritter calls for "repudiation", not impeachment

scott ritter, posting in truthout...

Any effort to impeach Bush and any of his administration found to be engaged in activities classifiable as "high crimes and misdemeanors" would fail to rein in the unitary executive core of any successor. One only has to listen to the rhetoric of the Democratic candidates for president to understand that this trend is as deeply rooted among them as it is with President Bush. Americans today look for leaders without recognizing the absolute necessity of electing team players. The Founding Fathers deliberately designed the executive branch to be strong and independent, but also made sure, through an elaborate system of checks and balances, that it operated merely as one of three separate but equal branches of government.

[...]

The impeachment of President Bush would not in and of itself terminate executive unilateralism. It would only limit its implementation on the most visible periphery, driving its destructive designs back into the shadows of government, away from the public eye, and as such, public accountability. Impeach President Bush, yes, if in fact he can be charged with the commission of acts which meet the constitutional standard for impeachment (and I believe he could, if Congress only had the will to do its job). But to truly heal America, we must repudiate everything President Bush stands for, in terms of not only public and foreign policy, but also in terms of his style of governance, since the former is derived from the latter.

Repudiation is a strong term, defined as "rejecting as having no authority or binding force," to "cast off or disown," or to "reject with disapproval or condemnation." In my opinion, the complete repudiation of the presidency of George W. Bush is the only recourse we have collectively as a people to not only seek redress for the wrongs committed by the Bush administration, but also to purge society of this cancer that threatens to consume and destroy us as a whole, and which would continue to manifest itself in our system of governance even after any impeachment proceedings.

[...]

I fear not the bloody rebellion of an outraged citizenry, but rather the passive submission of a shameful mass which betrays the cause of liberty and freedom through the abandonment of the Constitution, and the obligations of citizenship derived thereof, in favor of the narcotic of consumerism. Such a mass, foreswearing blind obedience to those who profess how to best construct a cocoon that immerses the occupant in transitory comfort, is the most pressing problem facing America today. In a nation whose defining document begins, "We the People," I find that it is we the people who constitute the greatest threat to the future of America. It is not through the force of our actions, but rather the vacuum created by our inaction and apathy, a vacuum all too readily filled by those who would have us exchange our hard-fought freedoms for a gilded cage of market-driven consumerism.

This is the main reason why I am not a proponent of the 'impeach now' mentality so prevalent in political circles that oppose George W. Bush. The expediency of impeachment simply replaces one source of tyranny (President Bush) with another (whomever replaces him). It is not the failures of an individual that have gotten us to where we are today, but rather the failure of the collective.

[...]

Today one only needs to observe the corruption of our rulers and the carelessness of our people to understand the significance of the Constitution when it comes to preserving these United States of America. The nefarious nature of the Bush cancer is that, in its infection of the American system, it seeks to draw legitimacy for its tyrannical actions by citing the very same Constitution it seeks to destroy.

ok, scott, i buy all that... so, what do we DO...?

• Repudiate the notion of a "unitary executive."
• Repudiate presidential signing statements.
• Repudiate executive violation of Article 6 of the Constitution, which binds municipal law in America with binding treaty obligations incurred when the Senate ratifies a treaty or agreement by a two-thirds majority or better.
• Repudiate "faith-based initiatives" pushed by any branch of government.
• Repudiate a weak Congress.
• Repudiate weak senators or representatives, especially those with a track record of abrogating their constitutional mandate.
• Repudiate ignorance, especially that of the American citizen who knows little or nothing about the Constitution which empowers him or her.
• Repudiate consumerism, especially the virulent form it takes in the selfish framework of American-centric capitalism.
• Repudiate pre-emptive wars of aggression.
• Repudiate American Empire.

and then...?

Instead, embrace the empowerment of education. Embrace active citizenship. Embrace the rule of law, as set forth by the Constitution. Do all of this and, in the end, if conditions and circumstance warrant, impeach President Bush and any of those in his administration so deserving.

while i certainly don't disagree with ritter on anything he has to say, i'd like to know what the hell "repudiation" looks like and how it would be binding on anybody... saying "i repudiate" while all the measures that bushco has put in place (signing statements, executive orders, secret detention, warrantless domestic wiretapping, etc., etc.) are still alive and kicking, would only be a gesture of good faith, but would carry no mandate or consequences if not followed...

real "repudiation", imho, MUST be accompanied by an offical, legal, formal striking of the suspect signing statements, passing of legislation forbidding certain types of actions, other legislation repealing the frankenstein laws passed under bushco, and, most importantly, the application of real consequences, consequences with teeth, to the perpetrators of war crimes and constitutional breaches... repudiation in and of itself, while i certainly would like to hear it, particularly since it's something we're NOT hearing much of from anybody at the moment, is great, but unless that repudiation is built into the structure itself, backed up with the force of law and with serious consequences for failure to abide, it is only empty verbiage...

(thanks to luke at wot is it good 4...)

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Why the Iraq debate is a sham

the bush administration has no desire to stamp out terrorism... conflict, violence, terrorism, war and death have all been very, very good assets in support of the two items that have topped the administration's agenda since day one - power and money... the longer the u.s. remains in iraq (which could safely be said was the plan from the beginning), the more desperate the insurgency will become, the more people will join up to be trained and to fight, and the more those now experienced trainees will be exported to stir up trouble elsewhere... the longer the u.s. remains in iraq, the more permanent the permanent bases and the more entrenched the u.s. embassy complex and its extended tentacles will become... the longer the u.s. remains in iraq, the more money will continue flow to bush's corporate cronies and the military industrial complex...

all that's happening now is posturing and gaming, making it look like there's some sort of debate, when, in fact, there isn't... and it's working wonderfully well... polls are taken, opinions voiced, blogs and op-eds written, legislation crafted, votes counted, vetos cast, candidates positions staked out, accusations hurled, loyalties pledged, and huge amounts of media time devoted to what is basically an empty exercise... but, what's important is that we're made to FEEL as though we have a voice, that congress can fill its role as a separate but equal branch of government, that we as citizens can actually override the power and money interests who are the people that are really calling the shots...

so, while we're distracted and barking at the moon (which comes to full this week, btw), the relentless march to the one-party, authoritarian state continues unabated, gonzales remains in charge of politicizing the justice department, executive orders are issued authorizing the president to take control of all three branches of government in an emergency, signing statements are written, "enhanced interrogation" techniques are practiced, recess appointments are made, habeas remains among the missing, military tribunals are conducted, draconian legislation like the intellectual property protection act of 2007 is proposed that calls for making the download and use of pirated software a crime punishable by life imprisonment, and the constitution is repeatedly gutted...

could we be in any deeper shit...? i think not...

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Calling patriotic Americans of good will

i'm going to go out on a limb here, but, hey...!

here's a list of issues i compiled during a random, 15-minute stroll through four progressive/liberal blogs i read regularly...

Think Progress

Iraq
ethics
truth in media
intelligence
immigration
women
health care
judiciary
terrorism

TPMmuckraker

U.S. Attorneys
George Bush
Monica Goodling

AMERICAblog

Iraq
George Bush
gay
insurance
U.S. Attorneys
consumer protection
FDA
Mary Cheney

Daily Kos

Iraq war
Iraq supplemental
Democrats
Racism
Fox News
Black Caucus
2008 elections
primaries
debate

only ONE person on ONE site talked about this...

general strike
moratorium
protest

and NOBODY on ANY site mentioned this...

The United States Constitution

i'm going to make a radical proposition... since we - meaning those of us who are seriously concerned with the direction of our country as charted by the bush administration - are scattered all over the map issue-wise, and our efforts are likewise no doubt seriously splintered, i propose that we unite behind something that we ALL share as an overriding priority - THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION... the constitution, more than anything else, is the guts of who we are as a nation, and it has been under unrelenting attack, not only for the past 6 1/2 years of the bush administration, but, truth be told, for far longer than that... if we would all pull together with the constitution as our rallying cry, accept that it's the single most important, most urgent thing we could possibly be fighting for, and that bringing it back to life would make addressing all those other issues ever so much easier, wouldn't that be worthwhile...?

i envision a cross-country march, starting at the golden gate bridge, citizens joining at every stop, working our way across country, city-by-city, state-by-state, with nothing but copies of the constitution in our hands, until, numbering in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people, highways and byways literally choked with masses of humanity, we arrive in washington d.c., where we demand a return to the principles embodied in that precious document, and where we won't leave until the unconstitutional practices of torture, extraordinary rendition, warrantless domestic wiretapping, waging of illegal wars, manipulative signing statements, and the like are formally renounced, and the perpetrators hounded from office...

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Day #3 that the WaPo smells the coffee, kinda sorta

i do believe a new term has entered the lexicon...

WEDNESDAY NIGHT AMBUSH

day 1, the wapo is simply SHOCKED about comey's testimony...

day 2, they're calling láffaire gonzo a cover-up...

and, now, day 3, they are excoriating bush for trying to hide behind "the national security curtain"...

It doesn't much matter whether President Bush was the one who phoned Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's hospital room before the Wednesday Night Ambush in 2004. It matters enormously, however, whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. That is why Mr. Bush's response to questions about the program yesterday was so inadequate.

there's one statement in the op-ed, however, that is profoundly disturbing...

Under the Constitution, the president has the final authority in the executive branch to say what the law is. But as a matter of presidential practice, this is breathtaking.

is it just me, or is that an endorsement of the bogus unitary executive, signing statement scam, wartime powers of the commander in chief under article II of the constitution bullshit that bush has been slinging at us for years...?

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Didja ever consider the possibility that they've got something up their sleeve?

i guess i'm succumbing to a wee bit of paranoia, but it suddenly occurred to me, do you suppose that the reason behind all of the incredible bush administration arrogance and their willingness to completely ignore public opinion, democratic efforts to rein them in, and, increasingly, opposition from their own party, is that they figure they have an ace up their collective sleeves...? i hate to think this way, i really do, but what if, just what if, they keep stonewalling and flipping us off to the extent that we take to the streets, and, then, suddenly, bingo-bango, out comes martial law... i posted on this late last month, but, ya know, i think it's time to run it out once again, cuz...

it's still out there, ticking like a time bomb...

taken from "Working for the Clampdown," written by james bovard in the american conservative...

Section 1076 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 changed the name of the key provision in the statute book from “Insurrection Act” to “Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act.” The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that the president could deploy troops within the United States only “to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” The new law expands the list to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition”—and such “condition” is not defined or limited.

[...]

“Martial law” is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. Perhaps some conservatives believe that the only change when martial law is declared is that people are no longer read their Miranda rights when they are locked away. “Martial law” means obey soldiers’ commands or be shot. The abuses of military rule in southern states during Reconstruction were legendary, but they have been swept under the historical rug.

Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree. The Bush team is rarely remiss in stretching power beyond reasonable bounds. Bush talks as if any constraint on his war-making prerogative or budget is “aiding and abetting the enemy.” Can such a man be trusted to reasonably define insurrection or disorder? Can Hillary Clinton?

Bush can commandeer a state’s National Guard any time he declares a “state has refused to enforce applicable laws.” Does this refer to the laws as they are commonly understood—or the laws after Bush fixes them with a signing statement?

so, how could things play out...?

These new pretexts are even more expansive than they appear. FEMA proclaims the equivalent of a natural disaster when bad snowstorms occur, and Congress routinely proclaims a natural disaster (and awards more farm subsidies) when there is a shortfall of rain in states with upcoming elections. A terrorist “incident” could be something as stupid as the flashing toys scattered around Boston last fall.

The new law also empowers the president to commandeer the National Guard of one state to send to another state for up to 365 days. Bush could send the Alabama National Guard to suppress antiwar protests in Boston. Or the next president could send the New York National Guard to disarm the residents of Mississippi if they resisted a federal law that prohibited private ownership of semiautomatic weapons. Governors’ control of the National Guard can be trumped with a simple presidential declaration.

yeah, i was just sitting here, swimming around in my usual frustration and amazement that our president and his compadres can be so blatantly flipping everybody off, and seem to think there is absolutely no one that can hold them accountable for anything... they must have some reason to believe they can get away with it...

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"When you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power"

larisa offers a very sobering perspective on just exactly where we stand today in the united states of america...

When the ABA found out about the signing statements, ... they called a meeting to review the legality and Constitutionality of the President's pretend-play at being fully the decider. After they found that most of the signing statements were in direct violation to the separation of powers, they issued a memo.

I wonder what would have happened if legal minds, practicing attorneys, and DOJ officials stood in peaceful protest to any number of extra-legal activities of this administration? It would be a wonder to behold. In Pakistan, that is what the attorneys did [protesting the removal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry by President Pervez Musharraf], still in their best court room apparel, when they were attacked by the police. The violence now is in reaction to the government violence and it will beget more violence - such is the cycle.

It would really be a something to see our legal scholars, practicing attorneys, DOJ officials standing together, and dressed for court and we the people watching from the national jury pool. Not even when habeas corpus was suspended and left up to the interpretation of the President (The Military Commissions Act) did our legal minds leave their offices to stand together on the sidewalks.

Perhaps the difference between the two countries is best summarized by a quote from one of my favorite writers,  Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power -- he's free again."

We have not yet lost enough it seems, but do we want to get to that point?  I don't. Do you?

i push this same theme so frequently that i sometimes just want to throw up my hands in frustration... the current criminal occupants of the white house have been amazingly successful in their ceaseless campaign to destroy the very things that the united states was founded on and, yes, the bush administration is under siege but not nearly to the degree that it SHOULD be and so richly DESERVES to be...

i spent friday evening and all day yesterday standing in front of a room of graduate students, all of them close to finishing their mba degrees... it was a good class, solid people, salt-of-the-earth people, smart people, and we not only learned a lot together, we discussed important topics, topics like dignity, equity and integrity... we also had a good time... moreover, during the long, 600-mile round trip drive, i enjoyed the stark, often dramatic scenery of the great basin... it was easy to slip into a sense of ease, a sense that all is as it should be, that the world continues to turn, and that the sunsets are always beautiful... and, yes, all of that is true... but...

how much better things could be if we could just get our country on the right track... think of the possibilities... i gazed out over the amazing beauty of the vast and empty high desert and speculated about how much better it would be if we could speed from place to place WITHOUT leaving a trail of hydrocarbons in our wake, how much better it would be if we had all of our needs met WITHOUT leaving mining scars scattered across the rugged, sage-covered ridges, how much better it would be to be able to travel our highways WITHOUT being part the endless parade of giant trucks ceaselessly shuttling largely unnecessary consumer items from coast to coast, how much better things would be if we could bring our necessities home WITHOUT seeing the plastic shopping bags we carried them home in pinned to tumbleweeds and barbed wire fences...

i know this much... as long as power and money-addicted people are running our country and the governments of virtually all of the other countries of the world, we are never going to get there... we simply HAVE to toss these bastards out... if we are ever going to get to where we all so desperately want to be, and, yes, NEED to be, they have to go...

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Thank god, some good news at last - on domestic spying

until the signing statement...

Members of Congress from both parties succeeded in passing legislation that restricts the wiretapping of US citizens without warrants by the National Security Agency on Friday.

"When Congress said the Administration must get court approval for domestic surveillance, we meant it. Today, Congress reaffirmed that basic protection," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who co-sponsored legislation included in the intelligence authorization bill that Congress passed.

so, if bush uses the signing statement ruse, will the dems fight it...? if they don't, can we throw them out and replace them with people who will uphold the constitution and work toward the common good...?

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As Bushco grows desperate, don't forget Section 1076 of the Defense Authorization Act

i remember patrick leahy's lonely cry (see below) when this was coming up for a vote... it passed and it's still out there, ticking like a time bomb...

taken from "Working for the Clampdown," written by james bovard in the american conservative...

Section 1076 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 changed the name of the key provision in the statute book from “Insurrection Act” to “Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act.” The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that the president could deploy troops within the United States only “to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” The new law expands the list to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition”—and such “condition” is not defined or limited.

[...]

“Martial law” is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. Perhaps some conservatives believe that the only change when martial law is declared is that people are no longer read their Miranda rights when they are locked away. “Martial law” means obey soldiers’ commands or be shot. The abuses of military rule in southern states during Reconstruction were legendary, but they have been swept under the historical rug.

Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree. The Bush team is rarely remiss in stretching power beyond reasonable bounds. Bush talks as if any constraint on his war-making prerogative or budget is “aiding and abetting the enemy.” Can such a man be trusted to reasonably define insurrection or disorder? Can Hillary Clinton?

Bush can commandeer a state’s National Guard any time he declares a “state has refused to enforce applicable laws.” Does this refer to the laws as they are commonly understood—or the laws after Bush fixes them with a signing statement?

so, how could things play out...?

These new pretexts are even more expansive than they appear. FEMA proclaims the equivalent of a natural disaster when bad snowstorms occur, and Congress routinely proclaims a natural disaster (and awards more farm subsidies) when there is a shortfall of rain in states with upcoming elections. A terrorist “incident” could be something as stupid as the flashing toys scattered around Boston last fall.

The new law also empowers the president to commandeer the National Guard of one state to send to another state for up to 365 days. Bush could send the Alabama National Guard to suppress antiwar protests in Boston. Or the next president could send the New York National Guard to disarm the residents of Mississippi if they resisted a federal law that prohibited private ownership of semiautomatic weapons. Governors’ control of the National Guard can be trumped with a simple presidential declaration.

leahy understood the implications, but either his colleagues didn't or they didn't care enough to stop the bill's passage...

Mr. President, I rise to express my grave reservations about certain provisions of the Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill Conference Report. This legislation poorly handles key provisions related to the National Guard, which — as the events since September 11th have highlighted — is critical to our Nations’ defense. The final conference report drops the reforms known as the National Guard Empowerment Act, a bill that would have given the National Guard more bureaucratic muscle inside the Pentagon. It would have cleared away some of these administrative cobwebs and given the Guard the seat at the decision-making table that it needs and deserves. It also should concern us all that the Conference agreement includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law.

as bushco becomes increasingly desperate, the likelihood that they will resort to desperate measures increases dramatically...

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WaPo: naive or disingenuous?

the wapo chugs along with either (take your choice) 1. a tremendous naivete or, 2. staggering disingenuousness, and then is oh-so-surprised when dear leader disappoints them...

Abuse of Authority
The FBI's gross misuse of a counterterrorism device

THE EXPANSION of law enforcement powers approved by Congress after Sept. 11 and contained in the USA Patriot Act was conditioned on the notion that these new authorities would be carefully used and closely monitored. An infuriating report released Friday by the Justice Department's inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, demonstrates that the Federal Bureau of Investigation treated its new powers with anything but that kind of restraint. The report depicts an FBI cavalierly using its expanded power to issue "national security letters" without adequate oversight or justification.

as i posted yesterday, if they'd just dug this out every once in a while, the abuse of expanded law enforcement powers is simply to be expected... if ya got it, you're gonna use it...

When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying [...]

"The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information..."

they might also have kept this glenn greenwald comment handy...

When a country is ruled by an individual who repeatedly and openly arrogates unto himself the power to violate the law, and specifically proclaims that he is under no obligation to account to Congress or anyone else concerning the exercise of radical new surveillance powers such as NSLs [National Security Letters], it should come as absolutely no surprise that agencies under his control freely break the law. The culture of lawlessness which the President has deliberately and continuously embraced virtually ensures, by design, that any Congressional limits on the use of executive power will be violated.

or this one from steve clemons...

We should also expect that the Patriot Act would be misused, misapplied, and distorted beyond the intention Congress and the White House had for it.

it's really sad when a one of the nation's major newspapers has to be hit upside the head with a 2x4 to get 'em to wake the hell up...

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I'm astounded he's responding at all

he must be feeling a little pressure, don't you think...?

Bush, at a news conference after meeting with Uruguay's president, said he was briefed last week on the report from the Justice Department's internal watchdog that disclosed the FBI's transgressions involving a subpoena known as national security letters.

"My question is, `What are you going to do solve the problem and how fast can you get it solved?'" the president said.

He expressed confidence in FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "Those problems will be addressed as quickly as possible," Bush said.

oh, golly, george... just exactly HOW are these problems going to be addressed...? YOU are the one that created the very set of circumstances that allowed this to happen... YOU are the one, you big, fat liar, who put your signature on this signing statement (below)... YOU are the one who opened this pandora's box, and NOW you say you want to "solve the problem...?" george, i don't know how to break this to you, but you ARE the problem...

When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying [...]

"The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

"solving" this problem, to me, means only one thing, george... you gotta go...

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Reality check: "The only way our form of democracy works is to realize that the President wants to be King"

steve clemons hits on the hard-core reality behind the founders' wisdom in establishing the balance of powers...

The only way our form of democracy works is to realize that the President wants to be King, that Members of Congress want to be re-elected and derive power from keeping the King in check, and that the Judiciary has ultimate authority in most cases to resolve disputes between branches of government and contending political interests. The aspirant King and the wannabe rulers in the Congress both have input into the membership of the Judiciary.

[...]

We should also expect that the Patriot Act would be misused, misapplied, and distorted beyond the intention Congress and the White House had for it.

glenn greenwald elaborates...

When a country is ruled by an individual who repeatedly and openly arrogates unto himself the power to violate the law, and specifically proclaims that he is under no obligation to account to Congress or anyone else concerning the exercise of radical new surveillance powers such as NSLs [National Security Letters], it should come as absolutely no surprise that agencies under his control freely break the law. The culture of lawlessness which the President has deliberately and continuously embraced virtually ensures, by design, that any Congressional limits on the use of executive power will be violated.

i posted on this yesterday, and i'll simply repeat what i said then...

there is no way to overstate how grave is our constitutional crisis... unless and until george and his criminal gang are removed, yadda, yadda, ad nauseam...

and deliver us from evil, amen...

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The constitutional crisis our mainstream political and media elite have collectively decided to ignore

i'm fully excerpting atrios' greenwald snippets...

greenwald's full article is up over at salon...

The Bush administration has created vast and permanent data bases to collect and store evidence revealing the private activities of millions of American citizens. When the FBI obtains information essentially in secret -- with no judicial oversight -- that information is stored in those data bases. This is all being done by the executive branch with no safeguards and no oversight, and the little oversight that Congress has required has been defiantly and publicly brushed aside by the President, who sees legal requirements as nothing more than suggestions or options which he will recognize only if he chooses to. That is the constitutional crisis that we have endured under virtually the entire Bush presidency -- the crisis which, for the most part, our mainstream political and media elite have collectively decided not to acknowledge.

The story here is not merely that the FBI is breaking the law and abusing these powers. That has long been predicted and, to some degree, even documented. The story is that the FBI is ignoring the very legal obligations which George Bush vowed were not obligations at all, but mere suggestions to be accepted only if he willed it. It is yet another vivid example proving that the President's ideology of lawlessness exists not merely in theory, but as the governing doctrine under which the executive branch has acted, time and again and as deliberately as possible, in violation of whatever laws it deems inconvenient.

there is no way to overstate how grave is our constitutional crisis... unless and until george and his criminal gang are removed, yadda, yadda, ad nauseam...

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