No Man is Above the Law, Not Even YOU, Mr. President!

Oops! I didn't see that a new thread had started. This is a repost from the previous thread....

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S CONFESSIONS
G. Pascal Zachary, AlterNet
Bush's advocacy of lawlessness lies at the heart of the right-wing agenda to remake America.
http://www.alternet.org/story/29995/

INTELLIGENCE ABUSE DEJA VU
Gary Hart, HuffingtonPost.com
Here we are again, 30 years later, and once again willing to sacrifice constitutional liberties for security expediency.
http://www.alternet.org/story/29990/

THE CONSTITUTION DOES NOT APPLY
Molly Ivins, AlterNet
Bush is not above the law; so why is he acting like a God-appointed king?
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/29983/

A BAD YEAR FOR GOLIATH
Rebecca Solnit, Tomdispatch.com
The torture, the poor, the scandals and the spying: was 2005 the moment when the world's last standing superpower began to totter?
http://www.alternet.org/story/29898/

THE 2005 P.U.-LITZER PRIZES
Norman Solomon, AlterNet
From primetime slime to self-praise, these awards honor the stinkiest media performances of the year.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/29959/

Ditto (I wouldn't re-post if this didn't apply).

Posted by: Bush I was not my president at December 23, 2005 09:19 AM

His dad's AND Chinkster's roles during Iran-Contra, along with about a dozen other people who were part of that fiasco who currently hold appointed posts by Cretin II are part of those sealed documents. I'm old. I watched the Iran-Contra hearings on TV (yes, back in those days they actually pre-empted soap operas for real news on regular networks - watching Reagan testify, seeing the look of utter confusion on his face, led me to believe he was already senile while in office - I'd seen the same thing with my grandfather). What's going on now with Iraq is only the tip of the iceberg for events that started many, many years ago. Some of this crap started under Reagan and Cretin I, and now Cretin II wants to out-do his daddy.

As far as bringing troops home? How long will that last? Weeks? Months? Only until after the Nov. '06 elections? Please. Even a child lying when he's caught with his hand in a cookie jar can tell a better tale than that.

Click on the links to the last three articles I posted last night and go check the PNAC web site. He (and PNAC) intend to make both Afghanistan and Iraq military outposts so they have closer access to invading other countries in that region. It's all about the control and the production of OIL because the world has reached peak capacity, the supplies of oil reserves underground will be dwindling from now on out, and Bushies and his corporate buddies intend to get rich off of the last oil left in the world, wich will give them world dominance, and the ability to rule the world through control of the oil (and control of the money they make off of the oil they sell). Period.

Everything else is a side issue, and they will break any law in this land or in the world to achieve their ends, and tell us it's "for our own good" to fight these unseen "enemies of freedom."

There is an excellent rebuttal on the warrantless surveillance line at kos. The embedded links are particularly helpful in developing a full picture. Armando is a lawyer who often writes for the front page of dailykos.

Check it out here...
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/22/2384/4062

Why didn't we do this when our elections were faked?

http://www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2005/12/23/289925.html

Our news talks like a few disgruntled Sunnis are unhappy with the result but this article talks about hundreds of thousands just in Bagdad, lots of Shiites and unrest and demonstrations all over Iraq. W on the radio was talking about what an amazing example of liberty, & heard Rumsfeld going on about the token few coming back from Iraq & that was already planned months ago. It's timed for domestic Christmas consumption.

On a lighter note, Washington state is trying to be as free of oil as possible, and even industries here are starting to go biodiesel!

Georgies elections have ENSURED civil war in Iraq will continue.

Pretending otherwise is futile.

btw Suz.. great header article...

YEAH WHAT IN THE HELL ARE THEY HIDING....???

Ellen Beth has another great piece today on the history of the Bill of Rights and why it's important for us to remind those in power that we don't have to give up our rights for security.

http://ellenofthetenth.blogspot.com/

Slippery slope issue.

Big outcry when the money runs out.

Taxpayer money funding religious instruction.

Or, depending on your point of view, a Godsend for Gulf Coast schools.

You choose.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/12/23/katrina.education.ap/index.html

Friday, December 23, 2005

Spy net may pull in all U.S. calls overseas
Many Americans' privacy is at risk, some say

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
THE BOSTON GLOBE

WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency, in carrying out President Bush's order to intercept the international phone calls and e-mails of Americans suspected of links to al-Qaida, has probably been using computers to monitor all other Americans' international communications as well, according to specialists familiar with the workings of the NSA.

The Bush administration formally defended its domestic spying program in a letter to Congress late Thursday, saying the nation's security outweighs privacy concerns of individuals who are monitored.

In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Justice Department said President Bush authorized electronic surveillance without first obtaining a warrant in an effort to thwart terrorist acts against the United States.

"There is undeniably an important and legitimate privacy interest at stake with respect to the activities described by the president," wrote Assistant Attorney General William Moschella. "That must be balanced, however, against the government's compelling interest in the security of the nation."

The Bush administration and the NSA have declined to provide details about the program the president authorized in 2001, but specialists said the agency serves as a vast data collection and sorting operation. It captures reams of data from satellites, fiber-optic lines and Internet switching stations and then uses a computer to check for names, numbers and words that have been identified as suspicious.

"The whole idea of the NSA is intercepting huge streams of communications, taking in 2 million pieces of communications an hour," said James Bamford, the author of two books on the NSA, who was the first to reveal the inner workings of the secret agency.

"They have a capacity to listen to every overseas phone call," said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, which has obtained documents about the NSA's using Freedom of Information Act requests.

The NSA's system of monitoring e-mails and phone calls to check for search terms has been used for decades overseas, where the Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches does not apply, declassified records have shown.

But since Bush's order in 2001, Bamford and other specialists said, the same process probably has been used to sort through international messages to and from the United States, though humans have never seen the vast majority of the data.

"The collection of this data by automated means creates new privacy risks," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog group that has studied computer-filtered surveillance technology through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.

Among the risks, he said, is that the spy agency's computers will collect personal information that has no bearing on national security and that intelligence agents programming those computers will be tempted to abuse their power to eavesdrop for personal or political gain.

But even when no personal information intercepted by the NSA's computers make it to human eyes and ears, Rotenberg said, the mere fact that spy computers are monitoring the calls and e-mails may also violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizures.

The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether automated surveillance of phone calls and e-mails, without a warrant, is constitutional.

The closest comparisons, legal specialists said, are cases challenging the use of dogs and infrared detectors to look for drugs without a warrant. The Supreme Court approved the use of drug-sniffing dogs to examine luggage in an airport, but said police could not use infrared scanners to check houses for heat patterns that could signal an illegal drug operation.

"This is very much a developing field, and a lot of the law is not clear," said Harvard Law School professor Bill Stuntz.

Bush and his aides have declined to answer questions about the spying program, other than to insist that it was legal. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week said the program only targeted messages "where we have a reasonable basis to conclude" that one of the parties is affiliated with al-Qaida.

And some legal scholars have maintained that a computer cannot violate other Americans' Fourth Amendment rights simply by sorting through their messages, as long as no human being ever looks at them.

Alane Kochems, a lawyer and a national security analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said, "I don't think your privacy is violated when you have a computer doing it as opposed to a human. It isn't a sentient being. It's a machine running a program."

But Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin said Fourth Amendment privacy rights can still be violated without human contact if the NSA stores copies of everyone's messages, raising the possibility that a human could get access to them later. The administration has not revealed how long the NSA stores messages.

Balkin added that as technology becomes ever more sophisticated, any legal distinction between human agents and their tools is losing meaning.

Under the theory that only human beings can invade people's privacy, he said, the police "could simply use robots to do their dirty work."

In 1978, after revelations that President Nixon had used the NSA to spy on his domestic enemies, Congress enacted a law making it illegal to wiretap a U.S. citizen without permission from a secret national security court. The court requires the government to show evidence that the target is a suspected spy or terrorist.

Under the 1978 law, NSA authorities have had to obtain a warrant from the secret court before putting an American's information into their computers' search terms.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/253223_spying23.html?dpfrom=thead

SOUTH DAKOTA'S ANTI-CHOICE CHARGE
Nancy Hatch Woodward, AlterNet
South Dakota abortion opponents are hoping to make getting an abortion so onerous that women will just give up trying.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/29988/

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/29982
If Clinton Jumped Off A Cliff...
The right pulls out a 9th grade classic.

Way back in the comment stream somewhere, someone posted a link to an article titled "Bonfire of the Inanities; Seriously, Could It Get Any Worse?". This is a year-end political wrap-up piece by Barry Crimmins that's published in this week's edition of The Boston Phoenix. It's quite long, but worth reading every word of because not only is it very informative, it is also *wickedly* funny.

I highly recommend that y'all read this article, if you haven't done so already. You might find it easier to do that in the plain-text version republished by TruthOut rather than wading through the graphics on its native site. Here's that link again:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122205S.shtml

The real reason I wanted to call (or re-call) this article to the attention of the DCP audience is because of one particular paragraph that mentions another example of the ShrubyaCorp administration's imperious skankiness when it comes to hiding, dodging, and lying about its activities whenever possible:

"And then the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University, discovered that the administration, breaking with a tradition of openness that began in 1816, has decided to withhold the names and work locations of about 900,000 government civilian workers. If we don't know who's working for the government, we don't know who to ask what the government is doing. If they don't have anything to hide, why are they hiding 900,000 people? Too bad they didn't have this policy when Valerie Plame still had her job."

That particular scandal was announced in December also, so it's pretty much gotten lost in the shuffle of all the other heinous scandals crawling out of the White House woodwork this month. But it sure sounded like something we'd all like to know about here on the blog, so I googled up TRAC's website to find out the details. And they're verrry interesting, too. Here's the link to read about 'em for yourselves:

http://trac.syr.edu/foia/

Amazing. What a year. What a fall. What a month. And still the hits just keep right on coming...

drag 'em all out from under their slimy rocks,
Otter

What a fall, indeed.

(all unidentified govt workers now known as "all the Kings horses and all the Kings men")

Congress Extends Patriot Act for One Month
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122305Z.shtml
Congress on Thursday approved a one-month extension of the Patriot Act and sent it to President Bush in a pre-Christmas scramble to prevent many of its anti-terrorism provisions from expiring December 31. The brief extension of the widely criticized bill is perceived as a conceptual victory over the controversial provisions that were not permanently adopted.
Excerpt:
"It appears to me that Congress understands we've got to keep the Patriot Act in place, that we're still under threat," Bush said before boarding a helicopter for a trip to the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, my question is: WHO is still under threat??? Seems to me the only people under threat from anyone is the American people from the Bu$hCo administration because of the paranoid voices inside the head of The Cretin ~ and, of course, the Iraqi people because of The Cretin's LIES about Iraq's involvement in 9/11. I suspect The Cretin will be lying about 9/11 and all these imagined "threats" clear up through inauguration day of the next president in Jan. '09.... My mind goes numb just thinking about the prospect of that many years of the repetition of that BIG LIE....

Sadly we do not have anymore what I call true patriots like Daniel Ellsberg who are willing to come forward risk jail and their very lives to make sure we all know the truth of whats going on in this administration. The Bush Administration and actually the whole Republican party have become bullys on the block sadly they have come to represent how other countries see us. People are afraid to speak out when they do they are ruined in everyway possible. Sadly those in the "Press" have become panderers for this administration, so we have NO transparicy(sp) in government any longer. Democrats are rolling over true conservative Republicans are rolling over. There just arent anymore brave public servents.

Oh for one just one Daniel Ellsberg to be around today. We might live in a differant world than we do now.

http://www.ellsberg.net/

Less than half of tsunami funds spent by charities:
In the first nine months after the Indian Ocean tsunami, a group of private charities including the American Red Cross spent less than half of the $1.8 billion they received from American donors, a new report has found.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3539015.html

So... what are they waiting for? A time when it will be convenient for Halliburton or one of its subsidiaries to be awarded a no-bid contract...???

I'm where I can't get together anything about this, really, but what's this about Alito having quite a role in defending wiretappers back in the Reagan era during his formative years?

Also noticed that Science magazine featured as its primary achievement in science last year the study of evolution. Have been reading in a professional journal just now about pseudoscience vs science and it all sort of fits. We need to firmly advocate for real science and progress.

That is one very creepy Seattle P-I article about computer sorting of outward-bound emails and phone calls made by Americans and goes with what has been posted by people who follow the electronic frontiers stuff about snooping. It's no wonder lots of Libertarians are agreeing with progressives about how the government is overstepping. I for one do not value a little more (shallow) promise of security over my civil liberties.

From The Democratic Daily

See original post for many links

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1493

Today is Festivus, the nondenominational holiday made famous on Seinfeld. The Festivus celebration includes The Airing of Grievances in which each participate at the Festivus Dinner tells each other all the instances where they disappointed him or her that year. In the spirit of George Lakoff’s “strict father” model for Republican leadership style, for Festivus this year I rant to one and all about all the ways in which George Bush has disappointed me:

George, you twice took an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution and you claim to support judges who look to the intentions of its framers. Yet you take executive powers, and the powers of the commander in chief, far beyond what the framers ever intended. Emergency powers are intended to allow for immediate response to a crisis, not to allow for an indefinite expansion of your powers without legislative approval or judicial review.

You failed in the most important duties of your office, protecting the country when under attack. You ignored the warnings about al Qaeda from your predecessor upon taking office. You ignored warnings in your own intelligence briefings that terrorists planned an attack involving hijacked airplanes, and then on the day of the actual attack you sat down to read a book, possibly for the first time in your life. I hope you enjoyed My Pet Goat. Now if you would only read a few books explaining the background to the problems you have been mishandling.

After failing to take action to protect us from an imminent attack, you totally screw up in retaliating against the wrong country. Your failure to settle matters in Afghanistan before attacking Iraq allowed Bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora when he could have been captured.

Who has your foreign policy helped? You sure helped al Qaeda grow, as Saudi and Israeli studies showed that it was opposition to the war which radicalized those fighting American troops. The other big winner has been Iran as you have spread our military too thin to respond to problems beyond Iraq.

You even considered bombing al-Jazeera. Listen, if you really wanted to get rid of a bunch of religious fanatics and political extremists who were using biased news reports to prop up a corrupt government and reduce freedom you should have gone after Fox News. If Pravda had been as effective in deceiving the public as Fox News and the rest of the right wing noise machine is, the Soviet Union would probably still exist.

Then there’s this Medicare plan of yours. The plan is so messed up that only one million have voluntarily enrolled so far. The rest are people who were automatically signed up because they were already in Medicaid programs. Those in Medicaid programs had their prescriptions paid for at negotiated discount prices, but your plan prevents such discounts in the Medicare programs providing a financial windfall to the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of the taxpayers. What a great deal for the pharmaceutical companies who donated fortunes to you–plus you gave them a great excuse to eliminate their patient assistance programs. Of course don’t forget the insurance industry, which also makes out great thanks to the subsidies you are providing for Medicare managed care plans–plans which have historically been so inefficient that insurance companies will only get involved if they receive such subsidies, again at taxpayer’s expense.

You sure are great for your friends in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Then there’s the oil companies. How much did they stand to gain if you got away with the ANWR drilling? I’m sure they would have gotten a better deal than the consumers who would have save a whole one cent per gallon at the pump.

Besides undermining our national security and harming the environment, you have run up record deficits to undermine our financial futures while giving huge tax cuts which primarily benefit the rich. You have undermined important parts of the Constitution as you have engaged in illegal surveillance of American citizens, worked to destroy the checks and balances which have so far saved us tyranny, and you have harmed the separation of church and state which is so important to guarantee that everyone can practice (or not practice) religion in the manner they desire.

Your disdain for the democratic process was especially seen in your campaign last year. You both avoided contact with all but firm supporters, and avoided discussing any real issues. You were too afraid of a real discussion of the issues, knowing in such a situation you would be rejected, so instead you based your campaign upon distorting the positions and record of your opponent. I don’t think you ever commented on a single position actually held by John Kerry.

You were even so far off the wall as to suggest that intelligent design be taught in schools as an alternative to evolution. At least you aren’t flip flopping this time (which is something you and not John Kerry has been guilty of). Supporting such superstition over science is consistent with your overall disregard for science. Calling intelligent design a valid alternative to evolution to explain the development of life is as nonsensical as promoting the belief that earth quakes occur because the gods are angry as a valid alternative to geology.

Traditionally, at the Festivus dinner we have the The Feats of Strength. This year I propose that we show our strength by working to remove from Congress those who have collaborated with you and replace them with new members who are willing to vote for your censure or impeachment and restore Constitutional rule as intended by the Founding Fathers. You already have the distinction of being the first President to admit to an impeachable offense in your illegal surveillance, and your lying us into war was an even worse crime. Both are certainly more deserving of impeachment than a private sexual affair and creative uses of cigars.

Next year, when we have a Congress willing to take action against you and to reestablish the form of government envisioned by the Founding Fathers, we can call it a Festivus Miracle.

Now, in the spirit of Festivus, I invite you all gather around an aluminum pole to air your grievances or perform a feat of strength.

The conservative Everett Herald has run the usual Charles Krauthammer column and even HE THINKS BUSH CIRCUMVENTED THE LAW in letting American citizens be monitored without warrants!

AHem *cough* pardon me.. hate to interrupt here, but I do believe someone is trying to change the subject

RUMSFIELD ANNOUNCES TROOP REDUCTIONS

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10573155/

This was a splashy headline about an hour ago, now down to a subheading... and once you read it you'll realize it don't mean c**p...

Frankly, it's one of the sleaziest tricks I've seen in a while

impeachment without conviction is failure.

Tom Daschel says GW explicitly requested domestic surveillance after Sept. 11, and Congress denied the request:

Rawstory
Daschle: Congress Denied Bush War Powers in U.S.

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 23, 2005; Page A04

The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority "in the United States" in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today's Washington Post.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122202119.html

Administration defends NSA eavesdropping to Congress
Letter: Secret court lacks 'speed and agility required'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Justice Department lawyers have sent a letter to key congressional leaders providing legal arguments they say justify President Bush's decision to authorize the National Security Agency to intercept communications between people in the United States and potential terrorist contacts abroad.

The five-page letter, sent late Thursday to House and Senate Intelligence committee chairmen and their Democratic counterparts, asserts that national security interests must be paramount when weighing the interests of security and privacy.

The letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General William Moschella, repeats administration reliance on Article II of the Constitution, which gives the commander in chief authority to protect the nation, and the post-9/11 law that authorized the president to take steps against al Qaeda.

The letter reiterates the president's contention that the court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, could not have been used to seek intercepts in cases where time was critical.

"FISA could not have provided the speed and agility required for the early warning detection system," the Justice Department letter argued.

"Nevertheless I want to stress that the United States makes full use of FISA to address the terrorist threat, and FISA has proven to be a very important tool, especially in longer-term investigations," it said.

The Justice Department apparently was designated to assure Congress that the administration was not violating privacy rights as critics in both parties have charged.

"There is undeniably an important and legitimate privacy interest at stake," the letter said. "That must be balanced, however, against the government's compelling interest in the security of the nation."

The letter was sent to Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, and John Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, and to Reps. Peter Hoekstra, R-Michigan, and Jane Harman, D-California.

During his end-of-year press conference Monday, Bush called the NSA eavesdropping program essential, saying it was limited to international communication to known terrorists and their associates.

"We know that a two-minute phone conversation between somebody linked to al Qaeda here and an operative overseas could lead directly to the loss of thousands of lives," Bush said.

But Democrats and Republicans have questioned the legality of the program, and some lawmakers have called for an independent investigation or congressional hearings.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, said Sunday that he believes Bush's action violated the law.

"[The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] says it's the exclusive law to authorize wiretaps," Feingold said. "This administration is playing fast and loose with the law in national security. The issue here is whether the president of the United States is putting himself above the law, and I believe he has done so."

Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, said the president could have gone back to a FISA court after the wiretaps if he was concerned about speed.

"I'm just stunned by the president's rationales with respect to the illegal wiretapping," Reed said. "There are two points that have to be emphasized with respect to the FISA procedure: They're secret, and they're retroactive.

"There is no situation where time is of such an essence they can't use the FISA proceedings. And so the president's justification, I think, is without merit."

Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, said the president could have gone back to a FISA court after the wiretaps if he was concerned about speed.

"I'm just stunned by the president's rationales with respect to the illegal wiretapping," Reed said. "There are two points that have to be emphasized with respect to the FISA procedure: They're secret, and they're retroactive.

"There is no situation where time is of such an essence they can't use the FISA proceedings. And so the president's justification, I think, is without merit."

Posted by: marc trager at December 23, 2005 02:15 PM

Uh huh... and SOMEONE who is not afraid of being screamed at by The Cretin needs to tuck Georgie into bed with some night time reading of Article II.... NO president has the powers Moschella claims The Cretin has further up in the article. He's going into realms of fairy tales to claim such presidential powers are granted to ANY president under the Constitution, past, present, or future.

WHY is it The Cretin and his staff seem to lack any powers of comprehension??? Or haven't they read Article II?

Cindy Sheehan | Language of the Heart
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122305I.shtml
Cindy Sheehan writes that we need to learn a new language of peace and love that we can speak - even shout - to our leaders, who only understand the language of greed and murder.

Alito Argued to Overturn Roe in 1985 Memo
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122305J.shtml
Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito wrote in a June 1985 memo that the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion should be overturned, a finding certain to enliven January's confirmation hearings.

Daschle: Congress Denied Bush War Powers in US
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122305L.shtml
Congress rejected the Bush administration's request for war-making authority "in the United States," in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to Daschle.

Michael Scherer | Crypto Man
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122305M.shtml
After reporting on America's spying operations for 25 years, James Bamford is speaking out against Bush's FISA runaround. He says the wiretapping is illegal.

The Question of the Day, via Josh Marshall. . .
(December 22, 2005 -- 05:56 PM EDT)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007304.php
Every so often a reader writes in and asks this question. And it's a
pretty good one. So here goes: When was the last time there was a
major terror alert? They were something like a regular occurence for
the eighteen months or so before the 2004 election. And through 2004
the administration pushed the line that al Qaida was aiming to disrupt
the elections themselves. But as near I can tell there hasn't been a
single one since election day.

Through 2004, of course, critics of the administration routinely
questioned whether the frequency and timing of the various terror
alerts were not all or in part for political effect.

How do we explain what appears to be a night and day difference
between the year prior to November 2004 and the year since in terms of
terror alerts and scares?

-- Josh Marshall

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122305Y.shtml
A Milan court has issued a European arrest warrant for 22 CIA agents suspected of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from Italy’s financial capital in 2003.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/US/Supreme_Court
Alito Defended Officials From Wiretap Suits
WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito defended the right of government officials to order domestic wiretaps when he worked for the Reagan Justice Department, documents released Friday show. He advocated a step by step approach to strengthening the hand of officials in a 1984 memo to the solicitor general. The strategy is similar to the one that Alito espoused for rolling back abortion rights at the margins.

Posted by: not my president at December 23, 2005 03:06 PM

Amazing.... I was just wondering the same thing myself about two hours ago. Couldn't remember when the last 'terra' alert was, just knew the only ones I remembered came with monotonous regularity before the '04 elections.

So, when the Patriot Act comes up for a vote in a month (after the holiday travel is over and done with ~ can't interfere with airline corporations making a profit, ya know, with or without real intelligence of an imminent attack), ya think there will come a 'terra alert' just in time to make senators and reps kowtow to The Cretin again and give him the extra powers he thinks he has (or needs) to illegally wiretap just anyone in this country??? Ya think he'll be excused and get off scot-free AGAIN for his high crimes and misdemeanors because he'll once again say he's violating our rights for our own good to protect us??? Ya think Congress will fall for that LIE again?!?

We're this close to the '06 election, after all, and the secret wire taps could be used against people surrounding the campaigns of those who are up for re-election, both Dems and Pugs....

A Conditions-Based Withdrawal?
Today, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced the administration would withdraw two combat brigades from Iraq – approximately 7,000 troops. Rumsfeld disingenuously claimed that the pullout was a result of improving conditions on the ground. “Conditions here in Iraq have evolved favorably,” Rumsfeld said. Since the largely peaceful elections on December 15th (peaceful because insurgents observed a truce that allowed Iraqis to go to the polls), the violence on the ground has escalated to pre-election levels:

“A soldier was killed by a bomb Thursday while on patrol in Baghdad, the military said. Violence around the country, including a suicide car bombing, left more than a dozen people dead, including six police officers, authorities said.” [LAT, 12/23/05]

“Guerrillas stormed an Iraqi army post on Friday [near Adhaim, north of Baghdad], killing 10 soldiers and wounding 20…in the bloodiest attack since last week’s parliamentary election.” [Reuters, 12/23/05]

“Violence has once again risen following a period of quiet around the election, for which a huge security clampdown was imposed.” [AFP, 12/20/05]

“[Vice President Cheney’s visit to Iraq] came as insurgents broke the relative calm since the national election on Thursday with a string of attacks in central and northern Iraq that left at least nine people dead.” [NYT, 12/19/05]

“Gunmen killed two relatives of a senior Kurdish official and 17 others died in a string of attacks overnight and on Sunday, piercing three days of relative calm that followed the country’s first election for a full-term parliament.” [AP, 12/18/05]

While Rumsfeld’s announcement of a pullout appears to be in line with the goals of Rep. John Murtha and other critics of the Bush strategy, there is one key difference. The Bush Administration wants the American public to believe that the pullout is a validation of a successful strategy. In contrast, Murtha has said a pullout is necessary because “our current policy is creating as many or more terrorists than it is eliminating. It is simply not working.”

In order to fix the Bush administration’s failed strategy in Iraq, it’s important that the administration speak honestly about why it is beginning to pullout.

Ellen Goodman's column this week is particularly worth reading for DCPers everywhere:

-----

Who Owns September 11?
December 22 , 2005

BOSTON-- So it comes down to September 11, 2001. Again. The president has drawn a great dividing line through the country, separating his supporters from his critics. Again.

This time, those who see a presidency run amok are not just labeled "defeatists." They are considered amnesiacs.

This time, those who oppose torture are diagnosed with short-term memory loss. Those who are outraged at domestic snooping are people who have forgotten to be afraid.

[snip]

We have been handed yet another in an endless series of false choices. Those who don't blindly trust the president are dismissed as amnesia victims. Americans who don't connect the dots from 9/11 to Iraq or spying or torture are cast as actors living in a foolish, fearless, fantasy world.

Indeed, 9/11 was the day the president became the commander in chief. The words he often repeats were spoken to him by a rescue worker at the World Trade Center: "Whatever it takes."

[snip]

"Whatever it takes" does not mean "whatever the president says it takes." It does not mean becoming our own worst enemies. It does not mean approving torture or domestic spying. And it most certainly does not mean watching silently as a commander in chief takes on the uniform of a generalissimo.

Who owns September 11? The White House has built its own memorial and raised a stiff price of admission. It only allows in those who agree with the president. But the memory and meaning of 9/11 do not belong to any partisan. It's common ground waiting to be recaptured. Whatever it takes.

-----

Complete column here: http://www.postwritersgroup.com/archives/good1222.htm

whatever it takes to kick 'em all out of office,
Otter

Just in case I don't get back here before the holidays, here's a doo wop white christmas to you!

http://www.reuters.hu/card_dom/index_content.html

Happy holidays, everybody - whichever one is yours to celebrate!

Peace, y'all.

Posted by: Carol at December 23, 2005 04:46 PM
That's absolutely THE BEST version of that song I've ever heard (and I thought I'd heard them all!). Thanks, Carol. Happy Holidays to you.

HEY EVERYONE....

Watch www.thinkprogress.org VERY CLOSELY...

They are on a hell of a roll over there and have debunked ALL of it. I MEAN ALL OF IT.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

Keep an eye on them, use it for the neocon relatives that you are forced to tolerate. Let them see for themselves.

Oh... and from someone who does not partake...

Merry Christmas Anyway.

Oh and before ANYONE says anything on my Merry Christmas...

I do not partake in culture wars that mean nothing either.

It is Christmas, Ill say Merry Christmas.

On New Years I will have the very real pleasure of saying HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

Now thats a holiday even a heretic Christian like me can appreciate and participate in.

Chris Matthews: 2005's Misinformer of the Year

http://mediamatters.org/items/200512230005

Since our launch in May 2004, Media Matters for America has monitored, analyzed, and corrected conservative misinformation in the media, wherever and whenever we find it. As you may remember, last year our staff conducted an extensive review of all the misinformation we identified and corrected in the early days in order to name the first annual "Misinformer of the Year." We singled out one particularly egregious purveyor of falsehoods and awarded Bill O'Reilly the dubious title. O'Reilly graciously accepted the award on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor.

This year, of all the news anchors, columnists, pundits, and reporters whose work we've critiqued and corrected, one man stands alone as a clear successor to the O'Reilly throne. We are pleased to announce broadcast journalist, former newspaper bureau chief, former presidential speechwriter, and best-selling author Chris Matthews has earned the title of 2005's "Misinformer of the Year." At times, it has even been difficult to tell the difference between 2005's Misinformer of the Year and his predecessor.

For your reading pleasure, we've compiled some highlights of Matthews's most egregious false and misleading claims, as well as his glowing and gushing praise for President Bush.

Without further ado:
Click on link for entire list....

Don't know if this story was posted earleier but it is sure suspicious:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito defended the right of government officials to order domestic wiretaps for national security when he worked at the Reagan Justice Department, an echo of President Bush's rationale for spying on U.S. residents in the war on terror.
Then an assistant to the solicitor general, Alito wrote a 1984 memo that provided insights on his views of government powers and legal recourse - seen now through the prism of Bush's actions - as well as clues to the judge's understanding of how the Supreme Court operates.

The National Archives released the memo and scores of other documents related to Alito on Friday; the Associated Press had requested the material under the Freedom of Information Act. The memo comes as Bush is under fire for secretly ordering domestic spying of suspected terrorists without a warrant.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Monday he would ask Alito about the president's authority at confirmation hearings beginning Jan. 9. The memo's release Friday prompted committee Democrats to signal that they will press the conservative jurist about executive powers.

The memo dealt with whether government officials should have blanket protection from lawsuits when authorizing wiretaps. "I do not question that the attorney general should have this immunity," Alito wrote. "But for tactical reasons, I would not raise the issue here."

Go ahead, confirm Alito now... I double dog dare ya.

Bend over, Rover.

As I said before: I'm old... I remember historical stuff which has now resulted in the latest egregious errors by the current neoCon Republican administration.... Connect the dots.... Deja vu....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11365.htm
Democracy's Battle Joined, Again

By Robert Parry

12/22/05 George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have reignited a long-smoldering war fought over the Imperial Presidency, a conflict that flared in the mid-1970s, after the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam disaster, and resumed a decade later in the Iran-Contra Affair.

This time, however, the legions for the Imperial Presidency seem poised to overwhelm the weakened defenders of the traditional American democratic republic who for years have chosen retreat over confrontation.

That is the real back story behind the disclosures that Bush is asserting his inherent powers to jail citizens without charge, order the physical abuse of detainees, spy on Americans without a court order, ignore treaties, and invade countries without the necessity of congressional authorization.

Bush and Cheney are saying that in the War on Terror, they must be a law onto themselves with the flexibility to do whatever they deem necessary. When they say they are operating within the law, what they mean is that their interpretation of the law gives them unlimited powers.

As Cheney told reporters aboard Air Force Two on Dec. 20, “I do believe that especially in the day and age we live in, the nature of the threats we face, the president of the United States needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national security policy.” [NYT, Dec. 21, 2005]

Death Match

So, this White House has thrown down the gauntlet to Congress, the courts, the press and the broader American public – to anyone who opposes an autocratic Executive – daring them to a fight to the finish.

In this looming showdown, the confidence of Bush and Cheney is buoyed by the fact that they have a huge right-wing media infrastructure that treats whatever they say as truth and will disparage anyone who criticizes them.

This right-wing media machine – built over three decades from the ashes of Vietnam and Watergate – demonstrated its power in the 1980s by containing the Iran-Contra scandal and in the 1990s by nearly hounding a Democratic president out of office. [For details, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege.]

In contrast, American progressives opted for a strategy that eschewed a counter-media infrastructure. Over the past three decades, liberal funders invested mostly in social projects, such as feeding the poor, and in local organizing with the slogan, “think globally, act locally.” [For details on this strategy, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The Left’s Media Miscalculation.”]

The consequences of the Right’s investments in national media are now becoming obvious, as the Bush-Cheney administration uses its committed defenders to protect against negative public reaction to its historic power grab.

While the White House can count on the Right’s vertically integrated media machine – from cable TV to talk radio, from newspapers and magazines to book publishing and the Internet – the opposition has mostly scattered voices on the Internet and in fledgling “progressive talk radio” to make its case.

In recent months, the mainstream press – humiliated over its credulous coverage of Iraq’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction – has published a few revelations from government whistleblowers upset over Bush-Cheney abuses. But the major news media still shies away from going so far as to invite a right-wing backlash.

How else to explain why New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. held the story about Bush’s warrantless wiretaps for more than a year, when timely publication before Election 2004 would have given the American voters a chance to deliver a judgment on this extra-legal program. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Spying & the Public’s Right to Know.”]

Instead of informing the nation, Sulzberger bowed to the administration’s demands that the Times spike the story. It was finally published on Dec. 16, 2005, because it was about to be revealed in a book written by one of the reporters, James Risen.

Can’t Say Liar

Also note how the mainstream press continues to choke on calling Bush a liar even when the facts are obvious. For instance, the disclosure that Bush signed his order for warrantless wiretaps in 2002 led researchers back to an assurance he made to the American people in a speech in Buffalo, N.Y., on April 20, 2004.

After calling for renewal of the USA Patriot Act, Bush veered off into a broader discussion of wiretaps. “By the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires – a wiretap requires a court order,” Bush said. “Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.”

Though a clip of Bush’s statement was carried on network news programs, it was followed by the White House explanation that Bush was only talking about the Patriot Act. The network news reporters presented that claim as the final word on the subject.

But Bush’s wording indicates that he is not talking only about wiretaps under the Patriot Act. He clearly deviates from that discussion when he says “by the way” and adds “any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap.” He then insists that “nothing has changed” when the policy had changed two years earlier.

Perhaps, a listener should conclude that whenever Bush inserts the words “by the way” that’s a signal he’s lying. Or maybe there’s some semantic argument about what the words “any time” mean.

If Bill Clinton’s spokesmen had tried to spin such an obvious lie by their boss, they would have been ridiculed; the right-wing news media would have hammered away at this proof of Clinton lying – and the mainstream media would have heartedly agreed.

In this Bush case, however, the outcome is the opposite. The right-wing media defends – or simply ignores – Bush’s lie, and the mainstream press accepts the false explanation.

The pattern has been evident before, for instance, when Bush has repeatedly lied about Iraq’s Saddam Hussein refusing to admit United Nations weapons inspectors, thus forcing a reluctant Bush to order the invasion in March 2003.

The truth is the opposite. Hussein relented and let U.N. inspectors into Iraq in November 2002 and eventually gave them unfettered access to whatever suspect-WMD sites they wanted to inspect. According to chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, Bush forced the U.N. inspectors to leave in March 2003 so the invasion could proceed. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “President Bush, With the Candlestick…”]

Watergate & Vietnam

But the Bush-Cheney revival of the Imperial Presidency can’t be understood without knowing the history of the last 30 years. This constitutional battle was previously joined in the mid-1970s after exposure of Richard Nixon’s Watergate spying operations and the loss of 57,000 American soldiers in the failed Vietnam War.

Congress began reasserting its traditional position as the Founding Fathers’ first branch of government, with control over the purse strings, the power to declare war, and the authority to impeach members of the Executive Branch.

The War Powers Act was passed in 1973, restricting the president’s authority to send U.S. troops into war zones for extended periods. In 1974, Nixon resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment over Watergate. A year later, Congress required the president to give timely notification about intelligence operations. In 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act set standards for national security wiretaps.

During key years of this struggle, Dick Cheney was White House chief of staff under President Gerald Ford, and in 1976, George H.W. Bush was CIA director. Both men chafed against these intrusions by Congress, the press and the public into the cloistered world of the national security elite.

CIA Director Bush launched one of the first counterattacks in defense of the Imperial Presidency by successfully lobbying to block release of a report on CIA abuses investigated by Rep. Otis Pike, D-N.Y.

The White House resistance to congressional interference surged again after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, with Bush as his vice president. The Reagan administration clashed often with Congress over covert U.S. military activities in Central America and intelligence operations in the Middle East.

These tensions led Reagan and Bush to take some of their initiatives underground to avoid congressional objections to policies, such as military aid to Nicaraguan contra rebels and arms-for-hostage trades with the Islamic fundamentalist government of Iran.

In effect, Reagan and Bush were asserting again that the Imperial Presidency held intrinsic powers over foreign policy that allowed the White House to ignore laws that barred arming the Nicaraguan contras and shipping weapons to states, like Iran, designated as supporters of terrorism.

After the administration’s Iran-Contra operations were exposed in fall 1986, the constitutional tug of war resumed. Initially, the White House retreated under a barrage of negative publicity focused on the wacky scheme of funneling some profits off the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras.

‘Protect the President’

To protect the president, chief of staff Don Regan cobbled together a “plan of action” shortly before the Iran-Contra diversion was announced on Nov. 25, 1986. Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North and his colleagues on the National Security Council staff were to take most of the blame.

“Tough as it seems, blame must be put at NSC's door – rouge operation, going on without President's knowledge or sanction,” Regan wrote. “When suspicions arose he [Reagan] took charge, ordered investigation, had meeting with top advisers to get at facts, and find out who knew what. … Anticipate charges of ‘out of control,’ ‘President doesn't know what's going on,’ ‘Who's in charge?’”

Suggesting that Reagan was a deficient leader wasn’t a pretty option, but it was the best the White House could do at that moment. The other option was to admit that Reagan had authorized much of the illegal operation, including arms shipments to Iran through Israel in 1985 that some senior administration officials had warned not only were illegal but possibly amounted to an impeachable offense.

So, North was fired and his boss, national security adviser John Poindexter, resigned. The White House press office spun the scandal as a case of a few “men of zeal” operating outside the authority of Reagan and Bush.

By February 1987, this containment strategy was making progress. A presidential commission headed by former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, wrote a report that found no serious wrongdoing, though it criticized Reagan's management style.

The Tower Board said the scandal had been a “failure of responsibility” and chastised Reagan for putting “the principal responsibility for policy review and implementation on the shoulders of his advisers.”

Cheney to the Rescue

When the Iran-Contra investigation switched to Congress in mid-1987, the White House got a strong helping hand from Cheney, then a Wyoming congressman and an emerging Republican star. He aggressively defended Reagan, Bush and other party leaders.

North received congressional immunity for his testimony and described the White House cover-up that had followed the Iran-Contra disclosures. He called it a “fall guy plan” with him as the fall guy.

But congressional Democrats were faced with a tough choice, especially when the Cheney-led Republicans made clear they would fight the investigation every step of the way and pro-Reagan activists across the country rallied to North’s defense.

In effect, the Democrats, who then controlled both houses of Congress, had three options: one, they could get to the truth, show that Reagan had authorized illegal operations and seek his impeachment; two, they could reveal Reagan’s central role and take no action, thus creating precedents for circumventing Congress in the future; or three, they could blame Oliver North and a few other “men of zeal.”

The Democrats – led by accommodating figures such as Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana – picked option three, largely ignoring evidence pointing toward Reagan, Bush and the CIA. By accepting North as the fall guy, Congress put a fig leaf over its prerogatives, even as those powers shrank.

But conservatives learned an important lesson. They could resist congressional incursions against the Imperial Presidency by both battling inside Congress and turning loose their emerging media power and energized right-wing operatives. They discovered that the Democrats would buckle.

The Republican Iran-Contra success also encouraged conservatives to keep building the media infrastructure, adding major new voices on right-wing talk radio, Fox News and influential Internet sites through the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, on the Left, progressive funders continued to spurn proposals to build media.

War Resumed

After Texas Gov. George W. Bush wrested the presidential election away from Vice President Al Gore in 2000, the advocates of the Imperial Presidency were ready to consolidate their gains.

Bush announced as much in December 2000 when he joked that “if this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier – so long as I’m the dictator.” On Jan. 20, 2001, in one of his first acts in office, Bush signed an executive order expanding secrecy over the historical records of the Reagan and Bush I presidencies.

Again, Dick Cheney was at the forefront of the offensive.

As vice president, Cheney asserted secrecy over the meetings of his energy task force in early 2001. And after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he helped formulate the strategy for pronouncing Bush as the all-powerful “war president” who had the right to wield whatever authority he wanted as long as the War on Terror lasted.

In his discussion with reporters on Dec. 20, 2005, Cheney elaborated on his vision about the inherent powers of the presidency.

“Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam both during the 70’s served, I think, to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area,” Cheney said as Air Force Two took him on an inspection tour of the Middle East.

“Part of the argument in Iran-Contra was whether or not the president had the authority to do what was done in the Reagan years,” Cheney said. “And those of us in the minority wrote minority views that were actually authored by a guy working for me, one of my staff people, that I think was very good at laying out a robust view of the president’s prerogatives with respect to the conduct of especially foreign policy and national security matters.”

Cheney also warned Democrats who don’t accept this assertion of “robust” presidential powers that they can expect to be punished politically. “Either we’re serious about fighting the War on Terror or we’re not,” Cheney said. [NYT, Dec. 21, 2005]

So, the gauntlet has been thrown down – and there are no prospects this time for finessing the outcome as Hamilton and the Democrats tried to do in the Iran-Contra Affair.

The choice is clear to American citizens, too. Either they accept the Imperial Presidency that gives Bush the authority to do whatever he wants in the name of fighting terrorism – from imprisonments without trial to detainee abuse to spying on anyone deemed a security threat – or they act now.

The battle lines are forming.

On one side are the White House legions arrayed with superior organization, extraordinary resources and state-of-the-art media artillery. On the other side are defenders of the democratic republic, a tattered band armed mostly with a belief that an unrestrained Executive is anathema to all that Americans have fought and bled for since an earlier generation of patriots confronted the forces of King George III on Lexington Green and at Concord Bridge.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

An Ominous Neocon Gathering :

On his November trip to the U.S., Ahmad Chalabi, Iraqi deputy prime
minister in the “interim government” arising from the invasion he helped
plan, visited Richard Perle in the latter’s suburban Washington home.
There the two -- who go way back, friends since 1985 -- were joined by a
Syrian gentleman named Farid Ghadry.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Dec05/Leupp1222.htm

Critics Question Senate’s Supposed ‘Anti-torture’ Stance:
While most media treatment of the McCain torture “ban” is repeating politicians’ spin, civil libertarians see compromise legislation has rendered it largely toothless and possibly added to the problem
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2702

Did anyone besides me wonder WHY The Cretin caved in and okay'd the McCain ban against torture??? With all the exemptions and caveats, it's a toothless bill....

Double rebuke for Bush as judges attack terror moves :
President George Bush faced a rare challenge from the judiciary yesterday when two courts questioned the legality of his expansion of presidential powers in the war on terror.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1673196,00.html

Federal judge rules Chinese Gitmo detainees can be held indefinitely :
A federal judge ruled Thursday that two Chinese Uighur detainees held by the US at Guantanamo Bay could be detained there indefinitely even though their imprisonment was unlawful.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/12/federal-judge-rules-chinese-gitmo.php

Don't know if anyone posted this earlier but its great
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2005/12/night-with-scott-ritter-and-some-other.html

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/us/us_armed_forces

Link to a weak story about how troops are to be reduced in Iraq next year.

I tried to watch some 'evening infotainment news' tonight (I think I actually managed about five or ten minutes), and the ABC version of the story said Rumsfeld said that IF the Iraqis were trained and IF this and IF that and If the other happened, THEN there would be a reduction in troops, but of 7,000 of one state's Guard unit scheduled to leave, half would likely stay home and the other half would be sent to neighboring Kuwait.

I laughed hysterically until I thought I'd cry. Some troop "reduction"!!! Then I wondered how The Cretin's administration would "adjust" the numbers of troops in Iraq next year to make it SEEM like there was some kind of "reduction" for the sake of the neoCons they want to have elected.

I suspect it's all going to be a farce, based on the usual LIES we've heard over the years....

Otter I heard a song the other day I wish JK had used against Bush in '04 that we now need to rewrite with lyrics for our bud Santorum. I think the song is called They Call Him Flipper and needs to get some early play up in Pa:

Santorum Breaks With Christian-Rights Law Center

Associated Press
Friday, December 23, 2005; Page A11

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 22 -- Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) withdrew on Thursday his affiliation from the Christian-rights law center that defended a school district's policy requiring the teaching of "intelligent design."

Santorum, the Senate's third-ranking Republican, is facing a tough reelection challenge next year. Earlier, he praised the Dover Area School District for "attempting to teach the controversy of evolution."

But the day after a federal judge ruled that the district's policy on intelligent design is unconstitutional, Santorum told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was troubled by testimony indicating that religion motivated some school board members to adopt the policy.

Santorum was on the advisory board of the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, which defended the district's policy. "I thought the Thomas More Law Center made a huge mistake in taking this case and in pushing this case to the extent they did," Santorum said. He said he will end his affiliation with the center.

The leading Democratic challenger in Santorum's 2006 reelection bid, state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., accused him of backtracking. Casey spokesman Larry Smar said that Santorum's statements were "yet another example of 'Election Year Rick' changing his positions for political expediency." Casey has led Santorum in recent polls.

In 2002, Santorum said in a Washington Times op-ed article that intelligent design "is a legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in science classes."

We need a strategy to attack Alito in the next few weeks perhaps a memo showing collusion b/w Gonzalez and Alito regarding intercepts will show up. Both Maine Senators need to be targeted.

And here's to you, Senator Flipper:
Flipper by Vars and Dunham - Flipper Lyrics

"They call him Senator, Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning,
No-one you see, is smarter than he, and he will tell you so,
And we know Senator Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder and delusion,
Flying there-under, under the sea!

Everyone loves the man who thinks he is the king of the sea,
Ever so pompous is he,
Tricks he will do when our children constitution disappears,
And how they laugh at him when he's near!

They call him Flipper, Our Pa. Senator Flipper, faster than lightning,
No-one you see, is smarter than he thinks he is,
And we know Sen. Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder and shame,
Flying there-under, under the sea! "

© 2005 LyricsOnDemand.com All lyrics are property and copyright of their owners. All lyrics provided for educational purposes only. LyricsOnDemand.®

READ THIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH... Interesting shittokki Batman...

Newly Emboldened Congress Has Dogged Bush This Year

By Jim VandeHei and Charles Babington
Washington Post

After four years in which Congress repeatedly lay down while President Bush dictated his priorities, 2005 will go down as the year legislators stood up.

This week's uprising against a four-year extension of the USA Patriot Act was the latest example of a new willingness by lawmakers in both parties to challenge Bush and his notions of expansive executive power.

Since this spring, Congress has forced Bush to scrap plans for a broad restructuring of Social Security, accept tighter restrictions on the treatment of detainees and rewrite his immigration plan. Lawmakers have rebuffed Bush's call to make permanent his first-term tax cuts and helped force the president to speak more candidly about setbacks in Iraq.
"What you have seen is a Congress, which has been AWOL through intimidation or lack of unity, get off the sidelines and jump in with both feet," especially on the national security front, said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).

What is most striking is that the pushback is coming not just from Democrats and moderate Republicans, who often disagree with Bush, but also from mainstream conservatives.

The year's events, say some legislators and scholars, reflect more than just a change in the president's legislative scorecard. They suggest Bush may have reached the outer limits of a long-term project to reshape the powers of the presidency. This effort was underway even before the military intervention in Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks contributed to a traditional wartime flow of authority to the executive branch.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush has been especially aggressive in the area of domestic surveillance. This month's revelations about the administration's use of the highly secret National Security Agency to monitor some domestic communications without judicial review has whetted a new -- and critics say overdue -- appetite for congressional oversight. Hearings are planned next month into whether Bush acted lawfully.

Power among three branches of government always ebbs and flows, and it is possible Bush will regain dominance.

But several factors are working against him as he heads into the final three years of his presidency without obvious momentum. Many of the priorities he laid out at the start of the year, such as revamping Social Security, went nowhere. Bush has yet to highlight a new agenda, though White House aides say he will do that in the new year.

Bush's task, however, is complicated by the fraying of reins that he and GOP congressional leaders jointly used to keep control of Washington's agenda. A leadership crisis in the House -- prompted by the indictment of former majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) on charges of campaign finance violations -- has made it harder to enforce loyalty from rank-and-file Republicans. In the unwieldy Senate, meanwhile, party discipline remains difficult even though Republicans hold 55 of the 100 seats -- as was proved this week when the leadership had to yield on an Alaska oil-drilling proposal and the Patriot Act extension.

As important, Bush cannot run again, and the closer lawmakers get to the next congressional elections, the more inclined they are to oppose him if it helps them at home. Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), for instance, told constituents he would not want the president campaigning for him because he feels Bush's immigration policy is too soft on border enforcement.

"This is partly a function of approval ratings," said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). "People pay attention [to polls] and start saying, 'Lets take a more independent tack.' It is frankly self-interest, self-preservation."

Bush also faces a Democratic Party more united in its opposition than perhaps at any point this decade. Emboldened by their defeat of Bush Social Security's plan, Democrats have shown unusual solidarity in thwarting his agenda elsewhere. They have also instituted a leadership system to discourage dissent by threatening members with the loss of committee seats if they work too closely with the GOP. Roll Call newspaper recently reported that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) threatened to remove Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) from the Energy and Commerce Committee for siding with Republicans on a key trade bill. Towns did not return five phone calls requesting comment.

Nowhere has this changing attitude -- and the influence of Congress -- been more apparent than in the debate over Iraq and terrorism-fighting tactics in recent months. Led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Congress forced the president to accept specified limits on torture that Vice President Cheney and Bush opposed for months. That victory came only weeks after Congress put pressure on Bush to more clearly articulate his Iraq strategy, which led to a new White House campaign in recent weeks to restate the case for the war to the public.

Now, some in Congress are trying to take back some of the authority they granted the Bush White House last term. When four Senate Republicans joined nearly all the Democrats in filibustering a four-year renewal of the domestic surveillance law called the Patriot Act -- which Bush ardently sought -- his Senate allies were forced to accept a temporary six-month extension. Yesterday, the House dealt a tougher blow to the president, agreeing only to a one-month extension. Bush had repeatedly said he would not accept "a short-term extension," but the GOP-controlled House left him no choice.

As for the non-security matters, which got much less attention this year, Congress is also showing more vigor in driving the agenda. In the immigration debate, Republican congressional anxieties forced Bush to talk more about border security.

"I think the congressional agenda has been more realistic and frankly more limited than Bush's," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). "The Bush presidency has a lot of big ideas, which is generally a good thing, but there just is not a lot of legislative follow-through."

Cole echoed what is one of the biggest GOP gripes about the Bush White House: that it lacks seasoned political and policy aides with the experience to work with congressional leaders. But several lawmakers said that after that message was delivered privately to Bush, they have seen the White House pay more attention to congressional concerns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122201829_pf.html

U.S. has been secretly testing for radiation
Monitoring from public places was conducted without warrants, officials say

The Associated Press
Dec. 23, 2005

A classified radiation monitoring program, conducted without warrants, has targeted private U.S. property in an effort to prevent an al-Qaida attack, federal law enforcement officials confirmed Friday.

While declining to provide details, including the number of cities and sites monitored, the officials said the air monitoring began after the Sept. 11 attacks and was conducted from publicly accessible areas, which they said made warrants and court orders unnecessary.

U.S. News and World Report first reported the program on Friday. The magazine said the monitoring was conducted at more than 100 Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C. area — including Maryland and Virginia suburbs — and at least five other cities when threat levels had risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle.

The magazine said that at its peak, three vehicles in Washington monitored 120 sites a day, nearly all of them Muslim targets identified by the FBI. Targets included mosques, homes and businesses, the magazine said.

The revelation of the surveillance program came just days after the New York Times disclosed that the Bush administration spied on suspected terrorist targets in the United States without court orders. President Bush has said he approved the program to protect Americans from attack.

Targeted for being Muslims
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights group, said Friday the program "comes as a complete shock to us and everyone in the Muslim community."

"This creates the appearance that Muslims are targeted simply for being Muslims," he said. "I don't think this is the message the government wants to send at this time."

Hooper said his organization has serious concerns about the constitutionality of monitoring on private property without a court order.

Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, said Friday that the administration "is very concerned with a growing body of sensitive reporting that continues to show al-Qaida has a clear intention to obtain and ultimately use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear" weapons or high energy explosives.

To meet that threat, the government "monitors the air for imminent threats to health and safety," but acts only on specific information about a potential attack without targeting any individual or group, he said.

"FBI agents do not intrude across any constitutionally protected areas without the proper legal authority," the spokesman said.

In a 2001 decision, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that police must get warrants before using devices that search through walls for criminal activity. That decision struck down the use without a warrant of a heat-sensing device that led to marijuana charges against an Oregon man.

Local officials not notified
Roehrkasse said the Justice Department believes that case does not apply to air monitoring in publicly accessible areas.

Two federal law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the program is classified, said the monitoring did not occur only at Muslim-related sites.

Douglas Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, said the location of the surveillance matters when determining if a court order is needed.

“The greatest expectation of privacy is in the home,” said Kmiec, a Justice Department official under former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. “As you move away from the home to a parking lot or a place of public accommodation or an office, there are a set of factors that are a balancing test for the court,” he said.

Despite federal promises to inform state and local officials of security concerns, that never formally happened with the radiation monitoring program, said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

The official said that after discussions with attorneys, some state and local authorities decided the surveillance was legal, equating it to air-quality monitors set up around Washington that regularly sniff for suspicious materials.

"They weren't targeting specific people, they were just doing it by random, driving around (commercial) storage sheds and parking lots," the official said.

Asked about the program's status, the official said, "I'd understood it had been stopped or significantly rolled back" as early as eight months ago.

Such information-sharing with state and local officials is the responsibility of the Homeland Security Department, which spokesman Brian Doyle said was not involved in the program.

Hey Ira:

Santorum needs to lose. He needs to be hung on the horns of that dilemma of his own making. Flush them out and bag them. One step at a time! (1) flush (2) bag.

Chuck in Houston

I'm sorry, but just the term "Santorum" sounds like something that has already been flushed and bagged.

The administration's talking point will be that the Power of the Executive Branch has badly ERODED since the time of Nixon & that Bush's Great Legacy is bringing it back to its Former Glory.

We can combat this by sarcastically referring to him as King George. I'd also love to see Cheney thought of as a Puppetmaster somewhere besides the converted-left and a recent cover of the New Yorker which showed W with a feather duster.

Marc Trager
Google Dan Savage and Santorum & you should get the real meaning of the word relatively new word "santorum" - we had a contest here in Seattle to come up with a concept & I don't want to write it here. You will get the idea but don't do this search before eating.

http://www.spreadingsantorum.com = shortcut

PS. Our family has a personally autographed photograph of Rick Santorum magnetically attached to the side of our microwave. When we requested it, he gladly obliged, and was vain enough to sign in silver ink.

Hello and goodnight to all--my hard drive is in need of triage and so I have not been online much. Hopefully we will save my laptop in surgery tomorrow!

Lots of good work happening in here (DCP) and around the blogs!

Have a wonderful weekend--if the laptop doesn'take it, we will save what we can!

Dianne... Pop stars sign their autographs in silver ink.

Anyone wanna pop Rick?