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The Constitution vs National Security
Bush's policy of allowing illegal wire taps is nearing the final throes of crashing and burning.
If the goal was to get Al Qaeda members off the streets and into jail, then the policy has failed. Those same people who may have been found guilty -- had Bush followed the advice of the FISA courts and the Constitution -- will now be able to reasonably cast doubt on any proceedings.
The New York Times reported on what any reputable and qualified defense attorney will rightfully utilize in court:
Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.
The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.
The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.
Though this information certainly affects defendants and their attorneys, it most definitely affects the integrity of the prosecution's case even more.
Reddhedd, at FiredogLake, a former prosecutor herself, addresses this issue:
"I can tell you that this scenario is your worst nightmare in those shoes. No matter how solid your case, no matter how dirty the defendent might be, no matter how clean you thought your case was, the US Attorney is going to have to combat the perception by defense counsel that the defendant found his way into the government crosshairs through a dirty wiretap -- which hamstrings the government's case at the start.
And even though most of the US Attorneys probably had no idea that the NSA program existed (because it would be way above most of their clearance levels), let alone how it was being handled, they are imputed with that knowledge because the government is supposed to act in an above-board manner.
They are required to turn over the evidence used in the investigation of a defendant as discovery -- if crucial evidence was withheld, say that an illegal wiretap was used to target a specific defendant or that during that illegal wiretap, conversations were recorded which would show that the defendant might not be so guilty after all -- well, that is a big no no. And that is true whether or not the prosecutor ever knew the wiretap existed, because the law requires that the government conduct itself fairly in these matters, and that they follow the law. Especially when it comes to exculpatory matters for discovery.
Reddhedd presents a list of further questions to consider:
-- Are these cases going to have to be re-tried, wasting loads of taxpayer dollars if parts of the evidence is found to have been withheld -- especially exculpatory evidence -- because national security concerns were felt at the time to trump civil rights issues?
-- Are judges going to find a way to uphold the convictions (especially where you did have overwhelming evidence of a bad actor, which is highly possible, given the fact that this is Al Qaeda we are talking about), while at the same time smacking down the government through the spectre of prosecutorial misconduct and some dressing down in that regard?
-- Or will there be a case where the evidence that may have been withheld was so egregious that the court will throw out a conviction altogether, whether or not the defendant involved was a terrorist or linked to some sleeper cell in the US?
-- Are these defendants even going to get past square one in determining whether or not they were targets of the NSA? This is highly classified stuff, and the Administration is not going to surrender the information easily, no matter the court order (especially if it makes them look bad). Just how much wrangling will it take to get from A to B on this -- or will they ever get there?
-- How many of these cases are there out there? Will this include immigration deportations? All of those "person of interest" detentions without access to counsel that occurred in the months/years following 9/11?
-- The FISA law allowed for wiretaps without any warrant whatsoever for 15 days following a catastrophic event. If any of these defendants were identified in that period following 9/11, presumably the information would be admissible in court under the law. But did the wiretap or other surveillance continue without a warrant after that period? If so, why, considering any information obtained within that 15 day grace period would surely have served as substantial probable cause for a FISA warrant? (And what kind of idiot would risk not getting a warrant if they could lawfully do so? I mean, please, paperwork is no excuse.)
-- Why in the hell would you be so careless as to risk all of these legal prosecutions -- and future ones -- by thumbing your nose at FISA, the 4th Amendment, Article II, and the other criminal warrant requirements under the law?"
This is what happens when the government breaks the law. Vital information is lost, cases are tossed, and the guilty go free on a technicality. Then, after they are wiser and free, they will simply do a better job of hiding their tracks.
Sadly, this arrogant and shameless President decided to toss the law aside and to hell with the consequences. It is we the American people who will forever deal with the consequences of his crimes.
Which brings to mind the question: Does throwing away the 4th amendment, Article II, and the laws that are the foundation of our democracy really keep us safer? Are they worth fighting for? And what will you do to show that the neoCON framing between the Constitution and national security is nothing but a lot of hot air?
Yes, the policy may crash and burn, and yet again, "they" have a fallback position to shift the blame to "their" enemies.
Should another attack come "they" will point the finger at the "liberals" who "put a stop to the rounding up terrorists without their permission".
Hell, Dick is already saying that 9/11 coulda maybe kinda almost possibly been prevented with this kind of spying... and we "haven't been hit in 4 years, that's no coincidence". (Note: We hadnt't been "hit" in over 50 years prior to the disaster president, but that's apparently not relevant).
Still Cheney after all these wars.
Suz... very good header. Armando over at dailykos and another lawyer, takes a look at FISA and how Ashcroft has managed it or mis-managed it as the case appears to be. He has a long excerpt of Ashcroft testifying before the Senate...
What Went "Wrong" With FISA
by Armando
Wed Dec 28, 2005 at 07:29:34 AM EST
... In particular, the questioning by Senator Michael DeWine (R-OH) of Ashcroft demonstrates that the "failings" of FISA are solely the responsibility of the Justice Department -- Justice, and thus the Bush Administration simply did not do its job on FISA, and the War on Terror, contrary to Justice's current claim that "FISA could not have provided the speed and agility required"...
The excerpt is extraordinary. Please go read it here...
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/28/72934/250
The Hidden State Steps Forward
Jonathan Schell The Nation
09 January 2006 Edition
When the New York Times revealed that George W. Bush had ordered the National Security Agency to wiretap the foreign calls of American citizens without seeking court permission, as is indisputably required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed by Congress in 1978, he faced a decision. Would he deny the practice, or would he admit it? He admitted it. But instead of expressing regret, he took full ownership of the deed, stating that his order had been entirely justified, that he had in fact renewed it thirty times, that he would continue to renew it and-going even more boldly on the offensive-that those who had made his law-breaking known had committed a "shameful act." As justification, he offered two arguments, one derisory, the other deeply alarming. The derisory one was that Congress, by authorizing him to use force after September 11, had authorized him to suspend FISA, although that law is unmentioned in the resolution. Thus has Bush informed the members of a supposedly co-equal ranch of government of what, unbeknownst to themselves, they were thinking when they cast their vote. The alarming argument is that as Commander in Chief he possesses "inherent" authority to suspend laws in wartime. But if he can suspend FISA at his whim and in secret, then what law can he not suspend? What need is there, for example, to pass or not pass the Patriot Act if any or all of its provisions can be secretly exceeded by the President?
Bush's choice marks a watershed in the evolution of his Administration. Previously when it was caught engaging in disgraceful, illegal or merely mistaken or incompetent behavior, he would simply deny it. "We have found the weapons of mass destruction!" "We do not torture!" However, further developments in the torture matter revealed a shift. Even as he denied the existence of torture, he and his officials began to defend his right to order it. His Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, refused at his confirmation hearings to state that the torture called waterboarding, in which someone is brought to the edge of drowning, was prohibited. Then when Senator John McCain sponsored a bill prohibiting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, Bush threatened to veto the legislation to which it was attached. It was only in the face of majority votes in both houses against such treatment that he retreated from his claim.
But in the wiretapping matter, he has so far exhibited no such vacillation. Secret law-breaking has been supplanted by brazen law-breaking. The difference is critical. If abuses of power are kept secret, there is still the possibility that, when exposed, they will be stopped. But if they are exposed and still permitted to continue, then every remedy has failed, and the abuse is permanently ratified. In this case, what will be ratified is a presidency that has risen above the law.
The danger is not abstract or merely symbolic. Bush's abuses of presidential power are the most extensive in American history. He has launched an aggressive war ("war of choice," in today's euphemism) on false grounds. He has presided over a system of torture and sought to legitimize it by specious definitions of the word. He has asserted a wholesale right to lock up American citizens and others indefinitely without any legal showing or the right to see a lawyer or anyone else. He has kidnapped people in foreign countries and sent them to other countries, where they were tortured. In rationalizing these and other acts, his officials have laid claim to the unlimited, uncheckable and unreviewable powers he has asserted in the wiretapping case. He has tried to drop a thick shroud of secrecy over these and other actions.
There is a name for a system of government that wages aggressive war, deceives its citizens, violates their rights, abuses power and breaks the law, rejects judicial and legislative checks on itself, claims power without limit, tortures prisoners and acts in secret. It is dictatorship.
The Administration of George W. Bush is not a dictatorship, but it does manifest the characteristics of one in embryonic form. Until recently, these were developing and growing in the twilight world of secrecy. Even within the executive branch itself, Bush seemed to govern outside the normally constituted channels of the Cabinet and to rely on what Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff has called a "cabal." Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reported the same thing. Cabinet meetings were for show. Real decisions were made elsewhere, out of sight. Another White House official, John DiIulio, has commented that there was "a complete lack of a policy apparatus" in the White House. "What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm." As in many Communist states, a highly centralized party, in this case the Republican Party, was beginning to forge a parallel apparatus at the heart of government, a semi-hidden state-within-a-state, by which the real decisions were ade.
With Bush's defense of his wiretapping, the hidden state has stepped into the open. The deeper challenge Bush has thrown down, therefore, is whether the country wants to embrace the new form of government he is creating by executive fiat or to continue with the old constitutional form. He is now in effect saying, "Yes, I am above the law-I am the law, which is nothing more than what I and my hired lawyers say it is-and if you don't like it, I dare you to do something about it."
Members of Congress have no choice but to accept the challenge. They did so once before, when Richard Nixon, who said, "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal," posed a similar threat to the Constitution. The only possible answer is to inform Bush forthwith that if he continues in his defiance, he will be impeached.
If Congress accepts his usurpation of its legislative power, they will be no Congress and might as well stop meeting. Either the President must uphold the laws of the United States, which are Congress's laws, or he must leave office.
I'm hooked. I ran across a book review which I posted some of in the Book Room forum here...
http://www.democracycellproject.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=83&view=findpost&p=3867
But I have to share this bit with you because it's just so interesting. Makes me take a step back and say, 'I hadn't thought of it that way.'
"While much of the culture-war rhetoric seems to suggest that, politically, there are two kinds of people in America, Republicans and Democrats, there are, in fact, three kinds of people: Republicans, Democrats, and those who don’t vote. The third group is the largest. Since the late 1970s voter turnout in the United States has been a little more than half. In the 2004 election, turnout rose to 60 percent. But even at that, a little less than 30 percent of Americans voted for Kerry, a little more than 30 percent voted for Bush, and the plurality—nearly 40 percent—didn’t show up. They stayed home, even in the face of an election that both sides called the most important in a generation.
When compared with the values of non-voters, the values of politically engaged Republicans and Democrats look virtually identical. It is between voters and non-voters that the real chasm lies. An example: earlier I mentioned that social organization is the area in which Republicans and Democrats diverge most sharply. According to our data, Republicans place more emphasis on patriotism than Democrats do; that is, Republicans are well above average on the value we label National Pride while Democrats are just slightly above average. Meanwhile, Democrats feel strongly that they have an obligation to help those worse off than themselves, and that the rich should try to help the poor. On this value, which we label Social Responsibility, Democrats are well above average while Republicans are just slightly above average. But on both these trends, Americans who say they are unlikely to vote are far below average.
The values of the politically disengaged show a distinct lack of idealism; these Americans seem to reject both the Republican and the Democratic visions of the good life and the ideal community. They don’t believe in the importance of a father-led home as Republicans do disproportionately, but neither do they embrace gender equality as Democrats do disproportionately. They don’t embrace traditional, institutional religion as Republicans do, but neither do they report being attracted to more personalized forms of spiritual practice as Democrats are. They reject traditional values and social norms, but not because they embrace a dream of inclusion and tolerance—the politically disengaged disproportionately reject both the traditional and the progressive.
People who take the time to reflect on a vision for America, who talk about that vision with other people or listen to a discussion about it on television (even from a polemicist!), and who finally vote for their favourite candidate are people who could probably agree on a great deal. As it turns out, it’s not so much the content of the vision that matters; it’s caring to have a vision at all that really counts.
It isn’t that the contest of conservative and progressive ideas and policies doesn’t exist in America. Of course it does, and it’s articulated around the clock through a thousand channels. The point is that that debate, the political debate, doesn’t get at the most important values gap in American society—the gap between the engaged and the disengaged.
So what do America’s politically disengaged care about? They can’t reject everything. This brings us around to one of the two questions I posed earlier. The first question was whether there’s a culture war. Our values data show there is, but it isn’t the one we might have expected. The second question was, If there is a culture war, who’s winning—progressives or conservatives? The answer is neither. When we look at changes in Americans’ values over time (from 1992, when we began our surveys, to the summer of 2004, just before President Bush was re-elected), it’s not the values of the politically ascendant conservatives or the values of the politically challenged progressives that are growing most rapidly. The values that are showing the strongest growth in America—especially among youth—are the values of the politically disengaged."
You can read the whole intro to this book, American Backlash by Michael Adams, here... (I highly recommend it)
http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,0_0670063703,00.html?sym=EXC
Dwahzohn
That sounds like a good book - I still can't explain the people I know with advanced degrees who could not tell me who Condoleezza Rice was!
It's a new day, 300 more Alito documents have been released
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5508078,00.html
As for the war promoters and nationalists, I wonder if they expected an independent Kurdistan and if so, do they think it is a good thing.
Kurds in Iraqi Army Proclaim Loyalty to Militia
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805Z.shtml
Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.
As soon as the Kurds try to do that ... Turkey is going to attack them almost certainly.
Damn georgie has destabilized the entire region.. we will be lucky if all of the globe does not fall into World War Three
Christy
yes I was wondering about Turkey ..
Hah! No one ever expects an Independent Kurdistan!
Dwahzon: You are overwhelming me with number-crunching books! Thanks!
DiAnne: Read the intro link to the book Dwahzon posted -- it's got your "quadrants" approach in a somewhat modified form.
Chuck in Houston
World War I, II, III, what are we fighting for?
don't ask 'em they don't give a damn,
Otter
Kind of interesting after all these centuries that Mesopotamia still falls between the two main regional power nexuses -- Turkey and Iran -- and the coastal city states (all the various neighborhoods of Beirut, Tel Aviv, Damascus, Jerusalem, Amman, etc., and their hinterlands) play a crucial role in that all Western European powers work through them to achieve influence. Likewise, central and eastern Europe tend to work through/against Turkey and Iran to achieve the same. The more things change....
Chuck in Houston
And now this bulletin from the Think Globally, Act Locally Department:
-----
PA. COUNCILMAN-ELECT BALKS AT COLD WAR OATH
by The Associated Press
Published: December 28, 2005
STONEBORO, Pa. (AP) -- A former Marine who won a write-in campaign for a borough council seat will be allowed to take office without signing a Cold War-era loyalty oath affirming he isn't a "subversive."
Gerald Massey, 71, argued that the oath was declared void back in the 1970s. Mercer County's solicitor, Mark Longietti, said his legal research confirmed the law no longer applies.
Massey, a Marine Corps veteran and retired philosophy professor, won a two-year seat on the Stoneboro council in November after a write-in campaign. He balked when borough officials told him to sign the Pennsylvania Loyalty Oath, signed into law in 1951 in an effort to keep communists out of government positions.
"I'm just a little write-in candidate in a small rural town. You might say, 'What does that (oath) matter?'" Massey said. "I think that's actually more important. Democracy starts with these grass-roots undertakings."
Massey has said he will take the oath of office to uphold the state and national constitutions but objected to the loyalty oath on principle, especially use of the word "subversive."
He is scheduled to be sworn in next Tuesday.
-----
Okay, kids, now let's repeat the most imporant part of that short dispatch:
"Democracy starts with these grass-roots undertakings."
Massey knows.
got to get up, stand up, stand up for your rights,
Otter
Welcome home, Chuck! We have some new Houston contacts for you--and Ira too. Time to work together to make some change happen...as Otter sez.
Today is a work-day here--and my laptop appears to be "healed" (now that it's backed up!)
Hope everyone is relaxing a little and planning a lot...
World Wars I, II, III, what are we fighting for?
don't ask 'em they don't give a damn,
Next stop is KURDISTAN!
Just watching a flick with the kids, Steve Martin, from "Father of the Bride", and this scene at the grocery store struck me funny given the times we live in...
- Excuse me, sir. What are you doing?
I'll tell you what I'm doing. I want to buy eight hot dogs and eight hot dog buns to go with them.
But no one sells eight hot dog buns.
They only sell twelve hot dog buns.
So I end up paying
for four buns I don't need.
So I am removing
the superfluous buns.
I-l'm sorry, sir, but you're gonna
have to pay for all twelve buns.
- They're not marked individually.
- Yeah.
And you wanna know why? Because some
big shot over at the wiener company...
got together with some big shot
over at the bun company...
and decided to rip off
the American public.
Because they think the American public
is a bunch of trusting nitwits...
who'll pay for things they don't need
rather than make a stink.
- Get me security.
Well, they're not ripping off
this nitwit anymore...
because I'm not paying
for one more thing I don't need.
George Banks is saying no!
Who's George Banks?
Me!
Uh, why don't we just
calm down now, sir?
I'll tell you why "we" don't calm down.
Because you're not excited.
It takes two people for a "we"
to calm down, doesn't it?
Uh, that I don't know, sir. I'm just
the assistant manager of a supermarket.
But I'll tell you this. If you don't
pipe down and pay for those buns...
I'm gonna call the police.
Oh, right!
Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Right.
Then, the Arabian desert and Persian Gulf shiekdoms came into play first as an extension of the naval power of the British Empire and then as a combination of US/UK aval/air sponsorship of a few charismatic clans like Saud, Sabah, and Khalifa (and later Thani), all of which stem from one nomadic tribe, Bani Utub, plus of course the Trucial states (UAE/Oman).
Chuck in Houston
PS: Sorry for being off-topic but I was just reading up on this and I wanted to write it down -- it helps me think. You guys got me started with that Kurdistan thing.
The absolutely awesome folks over at http://www.FolkAlley.com produce a no-charge 24/7 audio stream of wooden music from all over the place -- lots of folk/bluegrass/americana type stuff, of course, but also other roots music from all over the world. (If you haven't gone there and listened to it yet, by all means do yourself and your computer a favor and do so right away. You'll both be glad you did.)
Anyroad... as I sat down to skim through the latest blog comments this time, they were playing the following song from the 2004 album "Color Came One Day" by the equally absolutely awesome American troubadour Chuck Brodsky (see http://www.chuckbrodsky.com for details)... and it was just so darn apropos to the tone of our recent discussions and the topic of this thread in particular that I simply had to go look up the lyrics and post them here for all of us to ponder and enjoy...
-----
There's terror in our midst
They could be one of us
Behind you in the line
Beside you on the bus
Wearing camouflage
They might be wearing suits
The terrorists among us
Might be wearing army boots
These are dangerous times
People are afraid
No looking back at history
To see how enemies were made
Some dictators are bad
Some dictators are good
That's a hard one to explain
But I wish somebody would
So let us all agree
Let us not dissent
Let us not ask questions such as
Where our freedoms went
We'll just fly fly the flag
Sing G-d Bless America
Question people's patriotism
Who don't join in the hysteria
These are dangerous times
And so we lose our rights
While these terrorists among us
Do their dirty work at night
There isn't time to read
The contents of the bills
That Congress votes for anyway
Up there on The Hill
There's terror in our midst
It wears the good disguise
Fools alot of people
They seem like such regular guys
Rewriting all the rules
You don't have any say
In fact they even count on you
To look the other way
There's terror in our midst
All over the tv
It's what's behind the words
That scares the daylights out of me
The twisting of the facts
The stretching of the truth
The terrorists among us
They manipulate the news
So let us all agree
Let us not dissent
Let us not ask questions such as
Where our freedoms went
We're going to build them schools
We're going to build them banks
We're going to build them pipelines
From their fields to our tanks
My heart goes out to Johnny
Sent off into war
They convince him it's for freedom
That he'd lay his life down for
My thoughts are often with him
I pray he comes home safe
And I pray for every innocent
Laid early in the grave
These are dangerous times
You might be overheard
Using one of whatever they've defined
As being a dangerous word
What if they don't like your songs?
What if they don't like your books?
What if you fit a profile
Based solely on your looks?
They listen to us talk
They read the things we write
They watch us all on cameras
They know where you were last night
They know where you stopped for gas
Which magazines you bought
Back in 1984
This was all just crazy talk
So let us all agree
Let us not dissent
Let us not ask questions such as
Where our freedoms went
Let's have a look inside those pockets
Let's have a look inside that purse
Let's have a look inside that glove box
Or someplace maybe worse
And who was in your house
While you weren't home
And looked in your computer
And through everything you own?
What did they want to know?
Which websites do you visit?
What have you learned about them?
They want to know: what is it?
So let us all agree
Let us not dissent
Let us not ask questions such as
Where our freedoms went
We'll just fly fly the flag
Sing G-d Bless America
Question people's patriotism
Who don't join in the hysteria
-- Chuck Brodsky, "Dangerous Times"
-----
get up, stand up, don't give up the fight,
Otter
Oh, and then of course the US/UK sponsored sheikdoms became the greatest petroleum magnate families in the world. I guess I am thinking that this entire US discussion about our role in the wider middle east lacks a huge element -- namely, developments in the wider middle east. We will never be able to administer Iraq effectively because we don't understand or have access to the real levers of family or neighborhood power in the region, and Iraq will never be "stable" until those folks come up with a consensus between themselves. And stable may not be very pretty or pro-US either (except that we guarantee the flow of hydrocarbons to market, so they can't very well get along without us). In fact, unless the Israeli-Plaestinian conflict begins to include a serious political track for a final adjustment of Israeli borders and the right of return issue, and until we start getting serious about sustainable energy, the middle east will continue to suffer, and, every now and then, some goofy group will use that as a pretext to commit some crazy act against Americans. All the wire-tapping in the world won't change that -- especially when the folks listening in don't have a clue as to what they are listening to, IMHO. There, finally brought it around on topic!
Chuck in Houston, climbing down of the soap-box
Chuck
You are NOT off-topic.
The powers-that-be WANT you off-topic.
"look over here .. homosexuals! look over here .. wild women doing what they want! look over here .. someone has stolen Christmas!"
We are supposed to be out shopping at after-Christmas sales, to help the economy, not reading these stories!
Defense Lawyers Will Challenge Bush's Illegal Wiretaps
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805I.shtml
Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to al Qaeda.
Democrats: Department of Homeland Security Failing
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805J.shtml
A report released Tuesday by 13 members of the House Homeland Security Committee says that nearly three years after the cabinet department's creation, gaps still remain in federal efforts to defend the nation against terrorism - including at ports, borders and chemicals plants.
John Nichols | Censuring Bush Requires Citizens' Help
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805K.shtml
John Nichols writes that as President Bush and his aides scramble to explain new revelations regarding Bush's authorization of spying on the international telephone calls and e-mails of Americans, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has begun a process that could lead to the censure, and perhaps the impeachment, of the president and vice president.
Robert Scheer | Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax Set Free
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805L.shtml
Robert Scheer asks: Why is it not bigger news that those infamous Iraqi female scientists once routinely referred to in the media as "Dr. Germ" and "Mrs. Anthrax" have been quietly released from imprisonment in Iraq without any charges being brought by their US captors?
Let Me Simplify...
Turkey No Likey Iran.
Turkey No Likey Kurds MORE.
Turkey lurky right ON TOP of them.
Kurds go there.
Turkey will kill them ALL.
They've already killed a whole buncha of them, why not more?
Oh and Iran?? They kinda dig the Kurds but also want them ALL to die.
And georgie and bin laden families get riuch off of the ensuing war on Iran.
Just like they did Afghanistan and Iraq, imagine that.. What a COINCIDENCE!!!
And the whole time saudi king will be getting his moustache licked by our 'war prez'... and I would even BET a whole hundred dollars that ISREAL will even help with the intell.
If I HAD a hundred dollars that is... I dont qualify for georgies tax cuts and gas is killing me.
Damn them all.
You know... The more I think of them tapping the UN Security Council Members...
The more it makes sense that Bolton was BLACKMAILING them...
I mean LITERALLY blackmailing them.
Thoughts anyone..?
Christy:
Well, I can't say from personal experience (with regard to UN spying), but my guess is that at that level lots of different groups get dirt on one another in various ways and use it to their best advantage. I think it's fairly standard operating procedure.
On the otherhand, this warrantless wiretapping, which is in direct contravention to the Bill of Rights and to express federal statute, and which, if my quick reading of some press stories is correct, has been admitted to by POTUS, it very troubling. POTUS, if I understand correctly, has intentionally and fragrantly broken the hightest laws of the land, and admits it, and in his defense only says he had to do it to keep us safe.
Frankly, I simply do not believe that such activities in any significant way decrease the risks I and my family face, and, more importantly, as I believe in the idea of America, I would rather face increased risks than throw away the birth-right of Americans to goverment of, by and for the people for an increased (and probably false) sense of security. Or maybe I just read the Gettysburg Address one too many times.
I guess I could live with a short-term suspension of some individual liberties if we faced some real crisis to our national survival and such a usurpation could be demonstrated in some way to help us fight such a crisis, but only after all other necessary measures were taken. I see the ANWAR drilling issue in a similar way -- as a last step in a program of energy independence I might consider supporting it in a crisis, however, it is being proposed as a first step (really, an only step). Hope that made sense. My chops are a little dull owing to the holiday season and everything.
Chuck in Houston
Aw shucks, Chuck, what the heck do you know about oil drilling anyway.
*fnord*,
Otter
Otter:
I don't know as much about drilling and geology and geophysics as I'd like (I've always been on the admin side), that's for sure. It really is a fascinating set of technologies, and, of course, in has numerous applications, many of which are also energy-related, beyond petroleum (to coin a phrase). Some day, I would love to compile a global database of risked reserves in known structures and refining capacities and transporation capacities and consumption patterns in various markets, and alternatives to generating energy and transporting it to end-users (us), and really try to figure out what our energy picture looks like and what it could look like. Some day!
Chuck in Houston
PS: In that bigger energy picture, which is ever more becoming the national security picture as well, my guess is that ANWR drilling would be seen for what it really is -- an expensive and messy and ineffective band-aid marketed as a means of stopping a severe internal hemorrage. Good for the band-aid purveyor, to be sure....
Oh, and I forgot to mention in my PS, it's also becoming the key issue of ecological sustainability. I guess all of that -- economy, eclology and national security -- means it is off-limits for debate by electors in a democracy in national forums with wide exposure. After all, we have bigger fish to fry, like what holiday greetings are appropriate and whether or not gays can enter into monogamous relationships with a legal standing approximating marriage between monogamous female-male couples. Can't wait to see the immigration issue enter into this mix.
Chuck in Houston
Wanted to relay a letter I just received from Sen. Hutchinson in response to my letter bitching to her about her inconsistancies on Meet the Press when asked about the seriousness of perjury charges against Libby. Looks like her response depends on what she believes the word 'Is' means.
Her exact words distinguish what she calls deliberatly lying to a grand jury being different from forgetting a name or date (or I might ad if it is just a Republican lying to the Grand Jury).
She now says that "she intended to express her general concern about 'investigators' who fail to find evidence of a crime and instead look for inconsistancies, no matter how inadvertent, in tsetimony that may have changed over a period of years. I did not refer to a specific case." yea right
"Prosecutors, she continues, play an important role in ours system of justice and to keep the integrity of the process, they must differentiate between a deliberate lie an an unintended mistake"
ergo, prosecutors should differentiate b/w prosecuting, Dems, like Jim Wright and Bill Clinton, vs prosecuting Republicans like Tom Delay/Karl Rove and Scooter Libby who would only make an 'unintended mistake' in their testimony, but would never deliberately lie accodring to the Senator.
Its really a shame that the Texas Democratic Party has been unable to come up with a strong chanllenger to Sen. Hutchinson next year to expose her shameless and deliberate lies to her constituents.
Chuck, is the email address that you post with a valid one? I have some questions for you.
Ira
Oh that Senator Hutchinson! Can't stand her. She is like the biggest Bush apologist.
Good work!
Veritas:
Should do
Ira:
Why doesn't the Democratic Party mount a challenge in Texas? LBJ must be rolling in his grave! Is it a money issue? Also, I'd sure like to as Ms. Hutchinson just what evidence of an underlying crime there was on President Clinton's alleged perjury (and I beleive that perjury charge was ultimately dismissed -- oddly enough once it became a public opinion burden on the GOP rather than a mode of attack). There is direct evidence of an underlying crime being committed in the Libby case -- classified material was released. I believe that fact is uncontested.
Chuck in Houston
File a complaint to the FEC about Move America Forward
The complaint must be mailed to:
Office of General Counsel
Federal Election Commission
999 E Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20463
It needs to be signed, sworn to, and notarized and should include the original and three copies. It needs to follow a standard format laid out by the FEC. Details are listed at www.fec.gov
From what I hear, the form isn't citizen friendly, so maybe Ira can take a look and let us know where he thinks we may need help.
Chuck...check your email.
from my cousin:
You can go here and buy all the military medals that you didn't win while in the service.
And then like Colonel North and General Hackworth you can appear as an analyst on Fox News.
http://www.flyingtigerssurplus.com/search.php?query=purple%20heart
Posted by: not my president at December 28, 2005 04:21 PM
Or, you can buy medals and ribbons to replace the ones that are worn out...or to have extras to put on a different uniform so you don't have to keep moving them from one to the other.
chuck we have had candidates who recently spend upwards of $100/million in a losing governor's race and still lost by 20 points (Tony Sanchez).
Perry ran a dispicable campaign with the other Perry's money, of the famous Swiftboaters. Perry's commercials used DPS officers to say that Sanchez was responsible for drug deals and the murder of their DPS friends(it was truly a new low in campaigning). It makes me shutter chuck, everytime I think of those Rick Perry commercials and their earily similarity to the Swiftboaters. Came from the same ad agency. Had only the DNC and Kerry campaigns come down here and really studied and understood the lengths that the Texas Republican party sinks to in scaring off opponents and how Bush would sereptitiously use those tactics nationally against JK. I truly don't think anyone other than a Texan understands the type of campaigns Bush and Perry have run against Sanchez, Anne Richards and John Sharp, honorable folks who refused to get down in the gutter. It has nothing to do with money or even the strength of our candidates, as Texas Dems were at the top of DNC fundraisers last election cycle, so I truly believe that the money is there if we thought we had a chance aginst such tactics. Our folks have failed to learn that to win Texas elections you have to learn to play really dirty and not expect for the Karl Rove gang to follow any rules or laws. chuck do you think that DeLay or Rove cared one bit that they may have been breaking state campaign laws when they they money laundered $190,000 through the RNC to elect the first Republican state legislature in over 100 years to then ReDistrict and hand DeLay 6 more Republican Congressmen on a silver platter.These folks new exactly what they were doing. We saw that in our own local State Legislative Race when a very popular Dem. incumbent was suddenly swamped by her opponent's ads (Martha Wang) miraculously receiving $50,000 (a hugh amount of money in a legislative race) the last week of her election (of course from the DeLay group). I was working in that campaign(Debra Danberg) and none of us ever understood how Ms. Wang suddenly came up with that hugh ad buy or how we could lose an election all our pollsters told use we were 10 points up in. We do now of course. Rules, laws, those things just don't matter to this crowd of local Republicans.
Welcome to Texas politics 101 Chuck.
The Hightower Report
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
GEORGE W.'S CHICKEN MANURE
Why does reality continue to be such a stranger to George W.? After five years as president, you'd think he would've at least brushed up against some of life's real experiences – even if by accident.
But, no, he seems securely sealed in his political bubble, kept perfectly pure of any intrusion by the hardships that regular folks face. Take the economic climate. Bush is reported to be befuddled by the fact that he's not getting credit – kudos, even! – for what his economists and political puffers tell him is a booming economy. America's economic growth is up, says George excitedly, corporate profits are through the roof, and look, I created 215,000 jobs last month alone.
George, meet Mr. Reality. Yes, there's a boom ... but for whom? You held a Rose Garden press conference to pat yourself on the back about 215,000 jobs. But, one, that barely keeps up with the number of young Americans who entered the job market for the first time in November. And, two, it's not the job, George ... but the wage. Replacing a $35,000 job at General Motors with a $15,000 Wal-Mart job is not counted as progress in middle America.
Here's some more reality for you. While the overall U.S. economy grew last year, middle-class Americans saw their incomes fall for the fifth year in a row. Yes, George, those are the five years of your presidency.
And, while the salaries of high-level executives have risen splendidly on your watch, the average earnings of hourly workers (who make up the vast majority of the American people) are now lower than when you took the helm. Also, did I mention that the number of Americans who find themselves with no health coverage has risen steadily while you've been president?
This is the reality, George, that keeps people from erupting into applause over your handling of our nation's economic fortunes. After all, people know the difference between chicken salad ... and chicken manure.
One More...
The Hightower Report
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
IT'S ABOUT MINISTERING, NOT PREACHING
All of the pundits and consultants are unanimous these days about what Democratic Party candidates must do to gain political favor: emulate Republicans by wearing religion (specifically Christianity) on their sleeves, make alliances with evangelical churches, and openly engage in "faith politics!" The pundits and consultants are, of course, wrong.
Yes, professing one's heartfelt spiritual beliefs can be a positive thing to share with voters, and Democrats will be on particularly strong turf by expressing their political vision and goals in terms of Jesus' own values of economic and social justice. But it's totally wrong to think that faith talk and photo-ops with evangelicals will be enough to convert people to the Democratic cause.
Such shallow, quick-fix thinking misunderstands what goes on inside those megachurches that are home to millions of evangelical Christians – including millions of lower-income working-class folks who logically should be Democrats. While pundits and consultants focus on the preaching inside such churches, the congregations themselves are filled with people who go because of the ministering that the churches provide.
Most Americans these days are struggling from paycheck to paycheck, and they sense that no one in power – political or corporate – gives a damn about them. In many of the megachurches, however, they find a community that not only says, "We care," but also offers material needs that make a difference, including child care, legal help, job searches, housing assistance, dental work, and language classes.
Labor unions used to fill this social void, as did many of the Democratic Party's big-city political machines of old – delivering real service and earning true loyalty in return. The future of today's Democratic Party rests not in preaching, but in ministering – actually delivering the goods to help the hard-hit, workday majority of folks who need them.
Indy
Hightower is a great populist. I don't see how the Republicans do it - they trick people. They certainly aren't populists! It's not the government who is providing the daycare at the megachurches. It's donations. Maybe the govt will kick over some faith-based grants and tax deductions to get the votes, or pretend to be interested in the little guy. It's all fake though. There is no such thing as a Republican populist, I don't think. The religious glazed and blissed-out look has more to do with the oil stocks' climb.
CNBS resports today that 2 tax cuts targeted to the top 2% those earning over $1 million, kick in in January. That is George Bush's reality that Hightower is aluding to Diane. His haves and have mores as he calls them.
This will probably be of interest. The Guardian has gotten a copy of notes taken sometime in the last week or so that portray Chertoff's view of what FEMA's purpose really is.
If you thought it was there for disaster response, you are wrong.
Chertoff: FEMA Changes Could Be Radical
Wednesday December 21, 2005 1:46 AM
By LARRY MARGASAK and LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) - Meeting notes, released Tuesday by a union representative for federal emergency workers, stated that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told employees that many changes planned after Hurricane Katrina were for publicity purposes.
Chertoff's spokesman firmly denied he ever made such comments.
The typed notes, purportedly taken by an unidentified official, said Chertoff told the employees the retooling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency ``is partially a perception ploy to make outsiders feel like we've actually made changes for the better.''
The notes were released by Leo Bosner, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees local that represents FEMA headquarters workers.
Bosner said he obtained the notes from another FEMA official, who he would not identify.
Russ Knocke, spokesman for Chertoff, said it was ``categorically not the case'' that Chertoff made those remarks.
[...]
Bosner, the union representative, said he was told the remarks were made in the past week. The union official said he understood the notes were not taken at the meeting where Chertoff spoke. Rather, they were taken at a second meeting, in which a FEMA official who heard Chertoff relayed those comments to another FEMA audience.
Other points in the notes:
-Chertoff believes that FEMA is not a response agency for disasters. ``We essentially should be only doing recovery,'' the notes said.
-The Homeland Security agency has drafted a proposal to place a senior federal official or Coast Guard admiral in 17 major cities to handle disaster responses. ``This position essentially pre-empts our relationship with the states and locals in terms of response and recovery,'' the notes said.
read the rest here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5493670,00.html
Indy:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5508876,00.html
DiAnne:
Megachurch daycare?! I think you read Dwahzon's link! I think there is something key there; something very fundamental. I think it goes back to Ira's post above about Texas politics too. We can't fight fire with fire on this. Maybe I am naive, but you can't beat tyranny, corruption, and hypocrisy by being more tyrannical, corrupt and hypocritical than the other guy (some tyranny and corruption is probably unavoidable given human nature, and may be required for survival, see below, though times have changed; but it can't be the principle element).
We have to find a different way of fighting back. I am reminded of my Catholic Grandma in Chicago in the 'thirties doing social work that was also part and parcel of a political and union organization delivering "Megachurch" community services and support at the grass-roots and showing people on the street level that they could achieve more justice and better communities by sticking together and fighting for it through the democratic process (OK, wasn't 100% Marquis du Queensbury, but it also wasn't hypocritical, and insofar as it was tyrannical and corrupt, well, nobody's perfect and their opponents were in another league). Or maybe that is just dated nostalgia on my part.
Chuck in Houston
Cindy Sheehan | 2006: The Year the Chickenhawks Will Go Home to Roost
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805A.shtml
Cindy Sheehan: In 2005, we learned that we have the power. We learned that we can't rely on the propaganda media or the empty promises of most of our elected leadership. We learned that we need to be the change that we desire to see. We cannot relax in 2006
James Zogby | Exploiting Fear and Insecurity
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805E.shtml
Undocumented workers and not terrorists are the real reason behind the national driver's license campaign, writes James Zogby. The hated image of the terrorist serves to exploit fear and insecurity and give their campaign needed momentum.
David Moberg | The Republican Crack-Up
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805F.shtml
David Moberg: Bush's bad year has created a political vacuum. Who will fill it?
Iraqis Pummeled at the Pumps
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805H.shtml
Iraq's government has sharply raised the price of fuel and other petroleum products this month, sparking discontent and protests and worrying international observers who say the increases could hurt millions of poor Iraqis and throw the country into further turmoil.
Oops -- I conflated Indy and DiAnne posts in my above -- Indy, that second Hightower post above address just what I was trying to address in my above post and I somehow missed it.
Chuck in Houston
You know, I took this great speed-reading course offered on TV. I read War and Peace in five minutes! It was about Russia...
Chuck in Houston
PS: Sorry for not reading things as closely as I should
Its all the same...
Faith-based Fraudulence.
Can you feel the love of money?!?!
Another Bush Administration funded warping of American society.
One step closer to the theocratic cliff.
Ira:
On the Texas political tactics thing -- that is really interesting. And there is no way I think we can out Swift-Boat those guys. We have to come up with a different tactic. "Rope-a-dope" comes to mind as one potential, you know, how Ali let Foreman punch himself out in the "Rumble in the Jungle," and used humor and taunting to get George "Is that all you have?" to keep on bringing it on. It probably really hurt Ali in the longer run though, but maybe that is stretching the metaphor a bit. And I am NOT trying to infer that Foreman is GOP and Ali Democrat or the reverse! In fact, I was standing in line a while back to get my social security card (I'd never used it in my life but when I came back to the states for a prolonged period I found it has become an internal passport of sorts, just like in the old USSR!), and this guy was telling me about all the great things George Foreman has been doing back in his old North Houston neighborhood. Seems like George Foreman is a good man.
Rope-a-dope, humor, and taunting against overpowering force -- remain standing in the ring long enough to take advantage of that and still have a knock-out punch left in you. Maybe that is a tactical paradigm to deal with this. Of course, if you don't have the legs or the punch, or the ablity to absorb punishment, it won't work.
Chuck in Houston
Hey, why not? We already specialize in faith-based warmongering.
how's that workin' out for ya,
Otter
Posted by: Otter at December 28, 2005 06:19 PM
Holy Bomb-astic Beatitudes Batman...er...
Otteuro.
Go Fish.
Oncall and anyone else who's interested
There's a diary at dailykos that takes on the 'fallacies' of the "Fighting Dems" group that the DCCC and others are pushing. The poster did an interesting analysis.
Check it out here and give him a recommend if you think it worthwhile...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/28/181731/63
OK, I give up -- plus I'm too tired to google and I've got to go get cleaned up for a dinner party, but what in the beejeezus is DCCC?
Chuck in Houston, professing ignorance
DCCC stands for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It's the part of the House Dems campaign outreach to get more Dems elected to the House of Representatives.
http://www.dccc.org/campaignforchange/
Rahm Emanuel (IL-05) is the current chair of the DCCC.
http://www.dccc.org/about/leadership/emanuel/
Chuck in Houston for Dwahzon:
Thanks. I don't necessarily think it is cynical or reactionary to look to people in the armed forces with combat experience as possible political leaders (that's from the DailyKos link, which I found a bit reductionist from a logic point of view). Let's see -- John Kennedy, George McGovern (and Jimmy Stewart), Daniel Inhouye (sp?), John Kerry, Chuck Nagel, Jack Murtha, Bob Dole and George Sr.(to be fair). Wesley Clark. Such service does not automatically confer on a person a special claim(Adolph Hilter was a decorated veteran too), but it certainly does not exclude such a claim and to my mind, other things being equal, gives a person's views added weight. I think (I guess, really, as I do not know from personal experience) that actual combat veterans have a very special insight into life and politics that can very much help the causes of democracy and individual rights that we all cherish.
To pretend that our politics today is not dominated by myths about national insecurity and who is a "real" patriot, I believe, is a dangerous illusion. Demonstrating that combat veterans are willing to stand up in the political realm as witness to the fact that progressive values and real national security go hand-in-hand does, in my opinion, help the overall situation.
Chuck in Houston
Posted by: dwahzon at December 28, 2005 05:32 PM
Hmm...verrry interesting. Basically reinforces some things about that political appointee for me. Response vs. recovery makes me wonder if he knows what these terms mean. Some of the notes basically reiterate what the NRP already states, like the PFO comment and the legality of pre-empting state/local response. I'm surprised some issues are still issues. It's a continuation of what I saw so much of, the inability of leaders in powerful positions to make decisions under pressure in crisis situations.
What is most fascinating to me is that all of these issues raised by Chertoff and the article are neatly resolved in a plan we've been developing. Gotta get back to that plan I see!
Check it out MWC picked up my last article...
They are having a sidebar displacement issue so scroll wayy down
Im third down in their headlines..hehe
http://www.mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3306&Itemid=42
Totally. Un. Freaking. Believable.
Koppel and Brokaw Agree: Clinton Would Have Gone Into Iraq, Too
By E&P Staff
Published: December 28, 2005 12:15 AM ET
NEW YORK Appearing on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert this week, two broadcast veterans, Tom Brokaw of NBC and Ted Koppel, agreed that the press shouldn't be faulted too harshly for not questioning more deeply the claims of WMD in Iraq -- and declared that Bill Clinton would have gone into Iraq just like George Bush if he was still president after 9/11.
Along with Russert, they also argued that it was a "uniformly held belief" that Saddam Hussein had WMD when the Iraq war began.
Here is the relevant excerpt from the transcript.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001738417
... and if Clinton were president during the 80's, he would have shot J.R. too.
Some interesting stuff in here:
FISA Court Modified and Denied Wiretap Requests
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122805Q.shtml
Government records show that the administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of US-based terror suspects without the court's approval.
---We need a big calendar to keep track of court dates: Tom Delay and his goons, Fitzgerald and his suspects, Sybel Edmonds if she gets her day in court, Kenny Lay and the boys, & the wiretap related cases plus the dirty deeds of federal and Supreme courts.
---Also listening to NPR & hearing parallel stuff in Italy whereby the Catholic bishops are seeking to infiltrate government and undo 3 decades of progressive social change, and somehow they are able to get to Berlusconi without really having popular support. They're just loud. Sound familiar?
Heads roll at Veterans Administration
Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed
by Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner
Considering the tons of depleted uranium used by the U.S., the Iraq war can truly be called a nuclear war.
Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium munitions in the Iraq War.
Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given, however a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military.”
Bernklau continued, “This malady (from uranium munitions), that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed.”
He added, “Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!” The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.
“The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,” wrote Bernklau. “He, and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, (it) ... is far too big to hide or to cover up!”
“Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that ‘Gulf Era Veterans’ now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans,” said Berklau.
“The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence,” stated Berklau. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as ‘spectacular … and a matter of concern!’”
When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for “destroying things and killing people,” Fulk was more specific: “I would say it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people!”
Principi could not be reached for comment prior to deadline.
References
1. Depleted uranium: “Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets: A death sentence here and abroad” by Leuren Moret, http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml.
2. Veterans for Constitutional Law, 112 Jefferson Ave., Port Jefferson NY 11777, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director, (516) 474-4261, fax 516-474-1968.
3. Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter. Email Gary Kohls, gkohls@cpinternet.com, with “Subscribe” in the subject line.
Email Bob Nichols at bobnichols@cox.net.
http://www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml
Posted by: dwahzon at December 28, 2005 06:52 PM
Nice to see some old familiar names on the blog today as well.
DW,
I read the diary you linked to. Some very imortant points were raised. I must say that I think John Kerry got his campaign off on the wrong foot when he saluted the crowd and said he was, "Reporting for duty". It was dramatic but not really what most Americans were looking for. I know that comment is going to cause a lot of negative feedback, and the hindsight is always 20-20. I can say, that my wife, who is not a political junkie and certainly not a fan of George Bush (typical of most people who voted for JK) thought JK did not help himself and actually put himself behind the eight ball as he was not the Commander in Chief and thereby elevated the perceptions of George Bush as the Commander in Chief.
With all that being said, I can't express completely my outrage at the DCCC. The fact that they would support a candidate simply because they were in the military, in the primary is a huge mistake. I have said it before and will say it again, it is sleazy politics. Not only that, it is short sighted as is well described in the diary.
Posted by: oncall at December 29, 2005 12:33 AM
Interesting oncall,
Because I thought most people liked that. But what I think hurt him was being NICE!
Because people really want a dirty fight. Guts layed bare and let the meanest one win.
Sadly, that's why Bush one. (Oh..plus a lot of cheating too, but that's normal too--or so they say...)
Hey Rossi...
In case I have not told you today..
You thrill me.
Sparrow Im not sure most people WANT a dirty fight.
I think sometimes an HONEST fight SEEMS dirty because it is simply so brutal.
I imagine that is a fine line for a cadidate... How to be brutally honest without appearing 'mean'.
That and if they told us the FULL truth we would probably pichfork them in mobs.
All of them.
Christy, you are a sicko like me to be UP at 2 am!
Oh, I think what Bush did was FAR FROM HONEST!
Therefore it proves my point. They like DIRTY.
And moving america forward is a DIRTY organization of propaganda.
If they LIKED dirty... he wouldnt have had to cheat darling..
It never GOT honest.. and I KNOW I will hear hell for it.. but it never GOT honest because Kerry never OPENED HIS MOUTH AND TOLD IT LIKE IT IS....
WHY..??
Because it would have 'looked mean'
I think Mr. Kerry was a perfectly acceptable and viable candidate. He certainly struck me as ... quietly brave.
And VERY intelligent.
And honest fight between those two would have been brutal. But I am 100% convinced even now, Kerry would have won that fight.
There is quite a difference between MAD...
And RIGHTOUSLY ANGRY
It is actually a difference you can SEE.
And when you see the latter suddenly spring forth.. it is a ...
A power unto itself.
A power that can be LITERALLY harnessed and directed.
Again in my mind I see MLK... and Bobby Kennedy speaking silently.
They need no words really because HOW they say it, the looks on their faces, the posture of their bodies.. That rightious ANGER..
I have become convinced that all of our leaders can no longer understand WHY we were every angry in the first place.
Too many damn millionaire war profiteers in congress.
Can I buy a lobbiest to reinstate a congressional rule...??
How much does a lobbiest cost anyways..???
I DEMAND THE BAN ON WALKING STICKS IN CONGRESS BE REPEALED IMMEDIATELY.
the conservatives turn and feast on...
why georgie of course...
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/1205/28edbarr.html
You here Christy
Chiefs Demoted in Pentagon Succession Line
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON -- Heading a military service isn't quite the position of power it used to be. In a Bush administration revision of plans for Pentagon succession in a doomsday scenario, three of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's most loyal advisers moved ahead of the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
A little-noticed holiday week executive order from President Bush moved the Pentagon's intelligence chief to the No. 3 spot in the succession hierarchy behind Rumsfeld. The second spot would be the deputy secretary of defense, but that position currently is vacant. The Army secretary, which long held the No. 3 spot, was dropped to sixth.
The changes, announced last week, are the second in six months and reflect the administration's new emphasis on intelligence gathering versus combat in 21st century war fighting.
Technically, the line of succession is assigned to specific positions, rather than the current individuals holding those jobs.
But in its current incarnation, the doomsday plan moves to near the top three undersecretaries who are Rumsfeld loyalists and who previously worked for Vice President Dick Cheney when he was defense secretary.
The changes were recommended, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, because the three undersecretaries have "a broad knowledge and perspective of overall Defense Department operations." The service leaders are more focused on training, equipping and leading a particular military service, said Whitman.
Thomas Donnelly, a defense expert with the American Enterprise Institute, said the changes make it easier for the administration to assert political control and could lead to more narrow-minded decisions.
"It continues to devalue the services as institutions," said Donnelly, saying it will centralize power and shift it away from the services, where there is generally more military expertise.
Under the new plan, Rumsfeld ally Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary for intelligence, moved up to the third spot. Former Ambassador Eric Edelman, the policy undersecretary, and Kenneth Krieg, the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, hold the fourth and fifth positions.
The first to succeed Rumsfeld remains the deputy secretary, a position currently vacant because the Senate has not confirmed Bush's nominee -- current Navy Secretary Gordon England.
Senators have already approved Donald Winter to be England's replacement as Navy chief, and it is expected that Bush will eventually move England into the No. 2 Pentagon job without congressional approval through a recess appointment.
The new succession order bumps the Navy secretary to near the bottom of the line of succession -- eighth behind the deputy, the three Pentagon undersecretaries and the Army and Air Force secretaries.
The Army secretary historically has been third in line, right behind the deputy secretary.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, intelligence gathering has taken center stage. Earlier this year, Bush named former ambassador John Negroponte as the country's first director of national intelligence, charged with overseeing the government's 15 highly competitive spy agencies.
In spring 2003, Rumsfeld installed Cambone -- one of his closest aides -- in the new job of intelligence undersecretary.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-defense-doomsday-succession,1,5936454.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true
U.S. Defends Conduct in Padilla Case
Supreme Court Asked To Overrule 4th Circuit
By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 29, 2005; A04
A federal appeals court infringed on President Bush's authority to run the war on terror when it refused to let prosecutors take custody of "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, the Justice Department said yesterday, as it urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
The sharply worded Justice Department filing was the latest salvo in an increasingly contentious battle over Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in Chicago in 2002 and initially accused of plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb." Padilla was held for more than three years by the military before he was indicted last month in Miami on separate criminal terrorism charges.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit refused last week to allow prosecutors to take custody of Padilla from the military and rebuked the Bush administration for its handling of the high-profile case. The Bush administration took strong issue yesterday with the Richmond-based court's decision and appealed it to the Supreme Court.
It was another remarkable turn in Padilla's case, which has evolved into a legal spat between the executive and judicial branches of government. The dispute is especially unusual because it involves the 4th Circuit, which has been the administration's venue of choice for high-profile terrorism cases since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The 4th Circuit has given the government extraordinary latitude on national security matters, ruling for prosecutors in the cases of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and Yaser Esam Hamdi. Hamdi and Padilla are the two U.S. citizens held as enemy combatants as part of the government's campaign against terror since Sept. 11.
The Justice Department brief said the 4th Circuit had mischaracterized the events of Padilla's incarceration and engaged in "an unwarranted attack on the exercise of Executive discretion." Prosecutors accused the court of going so far as to "usurp" Bush's authority as the nation's commander-in-chief and his government's "prosecutorial discretion."
In Padilla's case, the same three-judge panel that is now drawing the government's ire strongly backed the president's authority to hold Padilla without charges or trial in an earlier ruling. That decision, like the one refusing to authorize Padilla's transfer, was written by Judge J. Michael Luttig, who was a contender to be nominated by Bush to the Supreme Court this year.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts is the Supreme Court justice who oversees cases from the 4th Circuit, but it was unclear yesterday whether Roberts would rule himself on the government's request for Padilla's transfer. The full court is considering whether to take up the merits of Padilla's detention by the military.
Padilla, a former gang member, was arrested at O'Hare International Airport in May 2002 and declared an enemy combatant by Bush a month later. Padilla has been held in a U.S. Navy brig, without charges or trial, ever since.
Attorneys for Padilla and civil liberties organizations took up his cause, saying the government could not indefinitely detain U.S. citizens captured on American soil. But the 4th Circuit ruled in September that Bush had the authority to detain Padilla and that such power is essential to preventing terrorist strikes.
In its ruling last week, the 4th Circuit questioned the government's changing rationale for Padilla's detention since the September decision, because the criminal charges do not mention a dirty bomb plot or any attack inside the United States. The court said prosecutors had left the appearance that they were trying to avoid Supreme Court review of Padilla's case and suggested that Padilla might have been "held for these years, even if justifiably, by mistake."
The charges in Miami accuse Padilla of being part of a violent terrorism conspiracy rooted in North America but directed at sending money and recruits overseas to "murder, kidnap and maim." If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Yesterday, prosecutors denied any attempt to avoid the Supreme Court and said they had narrowed the charges against Padilla because elaborating on the original allegations would compromise intelligence "sources or methods."
"There is nothing remotely sinister about the government's effort to pursue criminal charges that minimize evidentiary complications," the brief said, adding that "there is no basis for questioning the good faith of the government in moving forward with the indictment."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Presidents all the same when scandal strikes
Published on: 12/28/05
Two of the most powerful moments of political déjà vu I have ever experienced took place recently in the context of the Bush administration's defense of presidentially ordered electronic spying on American citizens.
First, in the best tradition of former President Bill Clinton's classic, "it-all-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-is-is" defense, President Bush responded to a question at a White House news conference about what now appears to be a clear violation of federal electronic monitoring laws by trying to argue that he had not ordered the National Security Agency to "monitor" phone and e-mail communications of American citizens without court order; he had merely ordered them to "detect" improper communications.
This example of presidential phrase parsing was followed quickly by the president's press secretary, Scott McLellan, dead-panning to reporters that when Bush said a couple of years ago that he would never allow the NSA to monitor Americans without a court order, what he really meant was something different than what he actually said. If McLellan's last name had been McCurry, and the topic an illicit relationship with a White House intern rather than illegal spying on American citizens, I could have easily been listening to a White House news conference at the height of the Clinton impeachment scandal.
On foreign policy, domestic issues, relationships with Congress, and even their selection of White House Christmas cards and china patterns, presidents are as different as night and day. But when caught with a hand in the cookie jar and their survival called into question, administrations circle the wagons, fall back on time-worn but often effective defense mechanisms, and seamlessly morph into one another.
First, we get a president bobbing and weaving like Muhammad Ali. He knows he can't really tell the truth and he knows he can't rely only on lies. The resulting dilemma leads him to veer from unintelligible muttering to attempts to distract, and then to chest-beating bravado and attacks on his accusers.
Soon, he begins taking trips abroad and appearing at the White House podium with foreign leaders with minimal command of English, allowing him to duck for cover whenever scandal questions arise.
Of course, the president can't carry the entire stonewalling burden alone. The next actors to enter the stage typically are the president's press secretary and the White House counsel's office. Serious scandals tend to spawn congressional investigations and independent counsels. As Clinton quickly learned, and Richard Nixon before him, the best way to short-circuit such endeavors is to force the investigators and lawyers to fight like dogs for every inch of ground they get.
By using the White House counsel's office to bury investigators in a sea of motions, pleadings and memoranda, an administration can drag out an investigation to the point of exhaustion. By the time the investigation actually slogs through this legal maze to bring real charges or issue a report, the courts, public and media are so sick and tired of hearing about it that the final charges fall stillborn from the press.
A critical component of White House Scandal Defense 101 is rallying the partisan base. This keeps approval ratings in territory where the wheels don't start falling off. The way to achieve this goal is you go negative and you don't let up. If you're always attacking your accusers, the debate becomes one of Democrat vs. Republican, rather than right vs. wrong. Anyone who questions the legality of the decision to wiretap thousands of Americans unlawfully is attacked, as either an enabler of terrorists or a bitter partisan trying to distract a president at war.
Yet another tactic is to shore up your congressional base in order to avoid or at least control pesky oversight investigations. A president's job here is made far easier if his party maintains a majority in one or both houses. Even if your party doesn't enjoy control of either the House or the Senate, you can still achieve your desired goal, as did Clinton — America's master scandal handler. You've just got to work harder at it.
The signs are everywhere that the Bush White House is busily implementing all parts of this defense strategy. It would be refreshing if it decided to clear the air and actually be honest about its post-Sept. 11 surveillance. However, that's unlikely. The problem this president faces, as did his predecessors, is that full disclosure would lead to the remedy stage. No president wants to fight that end-game.
— Former U.S. attorney and congressman Bob Barr practices law in Atlanta.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/1205/28edbarr.html
Bush team rethinks its plan for recovery
Aides pushed for a shift in rhetoric to try to shore up public support
By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei
The Washington Post
Dec. 28, 2005
President Bush shifted his rhetoric on Iraq in recent weeks after an intense debate among advisers about how to pull out of his political freefall, with senior adviser Karl Rove urging a campaign-style attack on critics while younger aides pushed for more candor about setbacks in the war, according to Republican strategists.
The result was a hybrid of the two approaches as Bush lashed out at war opponents in Congress, then turned to a humbler assessment of events on the ground in Iraq that included admissions about how some of his expectations had been frustrated. The formula helped Bush regain his political footing as record-low poll numbers began to rebound. Now his team is rethinking its approach to his second term in hopes of salvaging it.
• More politics news
The Iraq push culminated the rockiest political year of this presidency, which included the demise of signature domestic priorities, the indictment of the vice president's top aide, the collapse of a Supreme Court nomination, a fumbled response to a natural disaster and a rising death toll in an increasingly unpopular war. It was not until Bush opened a fresh campaign to reassure the public on Iraq that he regained some traction.
The lessons drawn by a variety of Bush advisers inside and outside the White House as they map a road to recovery in 2006 include these: Overarching initiatives such as revamping Social Security are unworkable in a time of war. The public wants a balanced appraisal of what is happening on the battlefield as well as pledges of victory. And Iraq trumps all.
"I don't think they realized that Iraq is the totality of their legacy until fairly recently," said former congressman Vin Weber (R-Minn.), an outside adviser to the White House. "There is not much of a market for other issues."
It took many months, and much political pain, for that realization to sink in. In the heady days after reelection, Bush and Rove sketched out an ambitious agenda to avoid the traditional pitfalls of second-term presidents. They settled on four domestic priorities for 2005: remaking Social Security, revising the tax code, cracking down on court-clogging litigation and easing immigration rules. As the year ends, only some litigation limits have passed, and Social Security, tax and immigration plans are dead or comatose.
As Bush focused on Social Security the first half of the year, the cascading suicide bombings in Iraq played out on American television screens. It was summer by the time Bush decided to shift public attention to Iraq. A speech at Fort Bragg, N.C., failed to move the political needle. Bush then escaped to Texas for August -- a vacation shadowed for weeks by a dead soldier's mother named Cindy Sheehan, then brought to an abrupt halt by Hurricane Katrina.
Plans to rebuild public confidence on Iraq were shelved as the president was consumed by the hurricane and the fiasco over Harriet Miers's Supreme Court nomination. Then after I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, was charged with perjury in the CIA leak case, Democrats forced an extraordinary closed-door Senate session to demand further investigation of the roots of the Iraq war.
Galvanizing moment
That proved a galvanizing moment at the White House, according to a wide range of GOP strategists in and out of the administration. Rove, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman and White House strategic planning director Peter H. Wehner urged the president to dust off the 2004 election strategy and fight back, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. White House counselor Dan Bartlett and communications director Nicolle Wallace, however, counseled a more textured approach. The same-old Bush was not enough, they said; he needed to be more detailed about his strategy in Iraq and, most of all, more open in admitting mistakes -- something that does not come easily to Bush.
Although Rove raised concerns about giving critics too much ground, the younger-generation aides prevailed. Bush agreed to try the approach so long as he did not come off sounding too negative. Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University specialist on wartime public opinion who now works at the White House, helped draft a 35-page public plan for victory in Iraq, a paper principally designed to prove that Bush had one.
Bush went into campaign mode, accusing Democrats of hypocrisy for voting to authorize the war and then turning against it. When Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) proposed pulling troops out of Iraq, the White House issued an unusually harsh and personal response comparing him to liberal filmmaker Michael Moore. The original draft, officials said, had been even tougher.
Within a few weeks, though, the president shifted tone. Writing off 30 percent or more of the public as adamantly against the war, his advisers focused on winning back a similar size group that had soured on Iraq but, they believed, wanted to be convinced victory was possible.
more... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10621076/
Posted by: Christy at December 29, 2005 02:53 AM
Posted by: marc trager at December 29, 2005 07:08 AM
Bob Barr's opinion would have more merit if he did not try to equate Clinton's peccadilloes with Bush's truly impeachable actions.
Posted by: oncall at December 29, 2005 09:07 AM
You do have to hand it to him that he is being ethically correct about Bush and throwing away his partison acceptance of illegal behavior.
This link is to the ACLU website, showing a public service announcement demanding Congressional hearings on the illegal wiretap scandal. It says that George Bush violated his oath of office and the perameters of the U.S. Constitution by authorizing the wiretaps.
Apparently, they do not have the funds for extensive placement of the piece, so please forward to as many people as possible.
We can't let this go away.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/23203res20051222.html?ht=
Posted by: sparrow at December 29, 2005 09:54 AM
I do, but I am tired of people using their arguments against Clinton as justification for Bush's actions. I know that Barr is not defending Bush, but it makes no logical sense for him to be bringing up Clinton's truly awful, but not illegal, behavior in his commentary. I just got done reading a netscape forum asking questions about the illegal data mining. You may or may not be surprised by the amount of angry comments about Clinton in the forum.
http://community.netscape.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=messages&tsn=1&tid=205957&webtag=ws-newsforum
Posted by: oncall at December 29, 2005 10:26 AM
I can't believe I'm going to say this to YOU, oncall, the doctor!
But Clinton is a fresh wound to Americans. Had Bush's illegal behavior shown up thirty years later, most of the people who remembered the emotions about Clinton would be dead or didn't know or care to begin with.
But Clinton, depite the large approval ratings, is always the target. One way to talk to Republicans is to let them bash Clinton a while, then say, Ok..I hear you on that, but this is Bush and this is current.
Sometimes it helps.
Posted by: oncall at December 29, 2005 10:26 AM
I can't believe I'm going to say this to YOU, oncall, the doctor!
But Clinton is a fresh wound to Americans. Had Bush's illegal behavior shown up thirty years later, most of the people who remembered the emotions about Clinton would be dead or didn't know or care to begin with.
But Clinton, depite the large approval ratings, is always the target. One way to talk to Republicans is to let them bash Clinton a while, then say, Ok..I hear you on that, but this is Bush and this is current.
Sometimes it helps.
More information on my friend Christian Bailey of the Lincoln Group. They're the ones under investigation for planting U.S. military propaganda in Iraqi newspapers... thus far, they are the recipients of $106 million in Pentagon contracts. Not bad for a 30-year old.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1958479_1,00.html
Do you hear those footsteps? Every day, another little piece...
ooooops...Is there an echo...echo...in here?
I swear man...
The more I think out this secret surviellance crap the more paranoid I get.
You know if a whole convy of blacked out suvs pulled up and men in monkey suits rushed my house I doubt I would ever even register surprise.
WHAT freaking country is this again..???