McConnell also said corporate donations to political candidates were the same as free speech. This man isn't quite a MENSA candidate, and he'll take any position the administration asks him to take.

As long as the argument is waged as a Republican vs. Democrat deal, the real issue will be obscured. As many here have said, it must come down to legality, not partisanship. "Is spying on American citizens without probable cause and without a warrant legal?" not "Which political party has more loyalists available to talk to the Sunday morning talk shows?"

Happy New Year!

The difference between "free speech", and corporate donations to political candidates is what exactly? Even bloggers ask for your donations, presuming you agree with them, you donate. So? You don't have to be MENSA to grasp the concept that cash advances your speech. Your cash donations generally reflects your speech, right? Go figure.
Now.
Who gets to label treason as " whistleblowing ", except for the guilty. Puh-leeeze, don't compare this to Valerie Plame who was NOT covert, was NOT a spy, but simply a desk jockette at Langley, and an adjective to her husband's humble and non-assuming profile. ( Ha. ) He is a blustering fool, full of himself who used his wife's career to grandstand for his lack of credentials and resume and to run the papers with his uninteresting life. Were you impressed, really?

Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson’s employment status was classified. Prior to that date, her affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community. Disclosure of classified information about an individual’s employment by the CIA has the potential to damage the national security in ways that range from preventing that individual’s future use in a covert capacity, to compromising intelligence-gathering methods and operations, and endangering the safety of CIA employees and those who deal with them, the indictment states.

Patrick Fitzgerald
October 28, 2005

Folks take a look at McConnell's contributors... He's saying this because of who is paying him financially...

McConnell is a rabid neocon patsy; he's filthy connected to this Abramoff scam. Look at how to get this guy thrown out and also Henry Hyde, that's why they don't want to investigate. (Zionist money financing, power corrupted..)

Doug

Fox "News" is stultifying. McConnell's commentary was stultifying. Rita's (#2) commentary is stultifying. The ego's refusal to let itself be informed beyond what serves its opinions will be the end of America. The end of America.

Leaking to commit a felony is completely different than leaking to expose a felony. THIS IS NOT A FINE DISTINCTION. IT IS BLACK AND WHITE, NIGHT AND DAY, AND IF THESE PIGS AT THE TROUGH DON'T EASE UP ON THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE PRETTY SOON, THE STULTIFICATION OF REASON WILL RUIN US ALL.

Lack of credentials and resume Rita? Well, lets see, Joe Wilson worked as the American Ambassador to Iraq under the Bush 41 regime. What exactly do you call that? Have you worked for an adminstration lately?

Rita's ignorance is (too) typical of those masses who put this corrupt and inept administration back into business. If you google the word "cult" you will find many articles describing what defines a cult, a cult leader , and a cult follower. Bush and his followers fits into this like a smooth glove. It doesnt' matter what they do and what laws they break.. doesn't matter the lies and propaganda they throw out over and over and over. These ppl will defend him to the end.

It is amazing the dumbing down of americans is coming much faster than we had hoped for. Fox news bigwig recently said (in response to a ques of fox's ethics in news).. he said 'that fox is 90% commentary and 10% and he can't help it if the public , it's viewers don't know the difference".

It's a setup to use the dumbed down masses so the rich corrupt can continue to get wealthier.

When you consider the day to day life of someone like valerie plame having to lead a double life and doing it for so many years, all for her country, and then see those like rita make the comments they do, it just shows not only their ignorance but their ability at being brainwashed by (not bush) but the genius of phat phuck karl rove.. he created bush and the agenda at hand.
People who serve their country for 20, 30, or more years but then speak out agains bush are slime and traitors they say.. as for bush and his cronies they can get away with anything they damn please, thanks to people like rita who are literally causing the downfall of this (once) great nation.

on 9/11 the world was (mostly) with us. today they are against us in droves.. and who can blame them?

Bush has a plan to take everyone's mind off of his lies and illegal spying.. next on the agenda is attacking Iran.

chucky owned....even a caveman redneck can see that.

For Rita: McConnell didn't say corporate contributions ADVANCED free speech, he said they WERE free speech. He took that ludicrous position while opposing Shays-Meehan.

Since when does something tangible, that advances something else, itself become intangible? If vitamins advance good health, do they become health? If sitting on the beach for five hours causes a suntan, does that mean sunshine is dark skin? The difference between political contributions and free speech is absolute, and McConnell is a fool.

Your rant about Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame reads like something out of a neo-con think tank. Valerie Plame was undercover at various times in her career, and at other times she wasn't. Whether national security was threatened by her outing or not (neither of us really knows), C.I.A. agents have complained (C.I.A. people, not me, not Brad) that every C.I.A. agent is now less safe because of Valerie Plame's cover having been broken.

As far as Wilson is concerned, you might check out the praise he received from him another president named George H.W. Bush. Wilson was fine with people in both parties until he started exposing lies...a no-no with the current mob in Washington. Then he became a pariah, like Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, and General Shinseki.

I've been thinking lately that what has been going on in American Society is less a dumbing down than a vulgarizing. In this regard, my thoughts often go to the remarks that 'we ought to nuke this or that', which seem to me to have become increasingly commonplace in recent years, as the corporately funded - religiously fundied - electorally phonied Republican tidal wave has swept across America.

I think the bottom line is that we are going fascist. I think that every Empire does this in it's dying throes and we seem to be on track. Increasingly, the lietmotif of foreign policy is "nuke 'em!" and the leitmotif of domestic policy is "if you are 'good people' you have nothing to worry about."

It's not that Americans are dumb or becoming dumber. It's that they seem to lack the moral courage that they go on so much about.

The good news, I figure, is that it's never too late to step back from the precipice, it's never too late to find the moral courage to stop turning a blind eye to those who promise to protect us and make sure we are fed and tucked in.

When we find that moral courage, we'll confront the Bush administration and we'll ask why it is that every time their actions and polices are legitimately challenged by those whose job it is to challenge, they always find some way around it. Any President who does not believe in checks and balances is a President who badly needs to be checked and balanced.

Now Bush's defense is that they only illegally spied a little? That only makes it more obvious that they needn't and shouldn't have done it at all, if it's even true, which I doubt.

I read the other day that some Bush administration memo explicitly states that they did not formally ask Congress for the power to spy on citizens without warrants because they knew they couldn't get it.

That says it all. They did it anyway, even though they knew Congress would NOT approve.

You know, when you do that in a relationship, the next step is usually divorce, especially if there is no remorce. Without remorse, there must be divorce. Politically, I think we call that impeachment.

It would be amusing if it wasn't so dangerous when our prez states that it's "legal and necessary". No, it is NOT legal nor necessary! Spoken like a true fascist!

For Eppie: Good observation about how the United States has become vulgarized. "Bring 'em on" and
"Shock and Awe" are first cousins of "Nuke 'em."

There was once a time when presidents acted like statesmen instead of wrestling promoters. In fact, we only need go back to the first President Bush.

The 9/11 attack became an imprimatur not only for an invasion of a sovereign country that had nothing to do with the attack, but for hatred of "bad people out there." This didn't happen after the Pan Am explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland. It didn't happen after the first World Trade Center bombing.
Suddenly we're faced with a Muslim caliphate redux,
and Bush the Younger sounds like Attila the Hun.

Remember when you were a kid, there was always a bully in the schoolyard who called people names? If you argued with him, he called you the same names, and since he knew more dirty words than you did, he won the debate. Bush is just like the bully in the schoolyard, the crucial difference being that he starts from a platform of presumed respect.

Our challenge as liberal bloggers is show Bush for what he is without getting down in the gutter with his Boswells in the troll community. And to remember that to earn respect, you have to give it.

In case the US Constitution is relevant, here is what it says:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."(US Constitution, Amendment IV, link here).

The behavior of the president is clearly a violation of the US Constitution, the highest law of the land.

This law is higher than the Supreme Court, higher than Congress, and higher than the president.

The current spy discourse by neoCons as they struggle to maintain a "strict constructionist" position on the words "shall not be violated" and at the same time maintain a "whorishly loose constructionist" interpretation ("it is ok for the president to do it") makes me LMAO.

The president is backing off (link here), saying the program is "limited". If it was so good and is so necessary why is it limited? If it is so good and so mandatory it should be done full on, no holds barred, no punches pulled.

Instead it is "limited", meaning "weak", "not complete", "half assed", "wimpy", and the like. No, no, and hell no I do not believe the Lyin' King. I agree with the american people on this one. The president is a lying fascist.

We in the US are a nation of laws. Even "war" is regulated by our laws:

"The Congress shall have Power To ... provide for the common Defence ... declare War ... raise and support Armies ... provide and maintain a Navy ... make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces ... provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repeal Invasions ... provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States ..."

(US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, link here).

War, whatever it is, is not something the President declares, it is something the Congress does. The neoCon deceivers like to cherry pick the "commander in chief" clause, which says:

"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States"

(ibid, Article II, Section 2, bold added).

The president only comes into the war picture once Congress has declared war and provided funds for it. Then as Commander in Chief, the president can do anything the armed forces can do, which is not to spy on Americans.

When the neoCons talk about war, it is not an American concept, but rather some fascist or communist ideology based upon the blathering of mindless dictator who has no concept of the American spirit.

What the president is doing looks illegal, smells illegal, and is illegal.

For Dredd: The business about "limited" has already been exposed as a lie. Bush isn't only spying on overseas communications, as he first claimed, he's spying on Quakers. Don't know of too many Quakers who talk to terrorists.

He also wiretapped his media soulmate, William Safire. Bad idea. Safire is a pro-Israel hawk on Middle Eastern policy, and a social conservative. But he's a libertarian at the same time, and is raising hell over being spied on. I suspect the libertarians in the G.O.P. might be Bush's undoing on this issue.

Good point about the term "commander in chief." It applies to military forces only. Bush isn't my commander in chief, or yours, or any civilian's. That should be the opening statement at his first impeachment hearing.

Dredd,
Thank you for those quotes from the Constitution. I always believed that, as you say, "We in the US are a nation of laws." But we're not, actually, if there are no consequences to breaking those laws, and it seems horrifyingly evident that there arent any. Or at least, none that come swiftly enough, none that seem to make a fucking DENT in the unfreakingbelievable seemingly-impenetrable armor these crooks, liars & thugs must be wearing! Our legal system moves at FEMA-speed, a damn slowdance if ever there was one.

But anyway. I was just at RawStory & read this:
"...a policy that feels extremely unconstitutional, even if it technically remains within the legal boundaries of the system..."
That's a quote from a piece by Hannah Selinger, titled "Bush's Little Tryst".

I'm sure you know my question: IS what the president did "within the legal boundaries" or ISN'T it?

It seems to me the answer is clearly no, but is there a legally-knowledgeable person out there who can weigh in? Maybe you ARE such a person, Dredd, I don't know.
I tried emailing my question in to RawStory but was rebuffed by an alarming "FORBIDDEN!" admonishment (whoa, jeez) that then closed everything I had open. So I rolled up the rope ladder I had attempted to throw over their fortress wall & slunk back here, where it's usually a bit friendlier.

In regard to our little king george, now might be a good time to recall this tidbit from not THAT long ago:

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all it is the leaders of the country that make policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." --Hermann Goering, speaking at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

Spy vs. Spy

Posting on Monday:
That there is even a discussion about the possibility of constitutionality for Bush-ordered NSA surveillence on Americans is frightening enough for me. This isn't even a close all. Why in the world do Democrats have to focus the spotlight? This is not about media coverage, nor Republican spin anymore. This is about a disengaged citizenry. I have complained as many others that the nation possesses no "outrage" over what has transpired. We accuse Bush of being brain-dead. I am beginning to think he is not the problem.

Joan #17

You asked "is there a legally-knowledgeable person out there who can weigh in? Maybe you ARE such a person, Dredd, I don't know".

This gives me a chance to address one of my pet peeves. I have a degree in legal studies, but the text of the US Constitution does not need "legal interpretation" in my opinion.

When I go into a corporation to head up a software project as a contractor, the first thing I like to do is remind all the corporate employees, who are typically afraid to think outside the box, "Don't leave your common sense at home".

I have a degree in legal studies and the same thing applies. The text of the US Constitution is not a great mystery beyond the comprehension of those not "schooled in the law".

It is written honestly by people who were working for their friends and family, the people. Just use your common sense, read the text, and think about it. You do not need a lawyer to tell you what your law and your heritage, given to you by your forefathers and foremothers, tells you.

The "strict constructionist" rules are no more than reading what is said and adhering to it. The meaning of the text is not mysterious or vague. It needs no legal training whatsoever to understand it. It is English.

Do not surrender your rights as a citizen to "a legally-knowledgeable person" in the sense that they are some super intelligent, wise, understander of words, or anything of the sort. No, the common meaning is the better meaning.

One who attends law school becomes acquainted with latin in order to obfuscate all to often, not to make more clear. English terms and common meaning are the language of the people, latin is the language of those who want to hold power over you. To deceive you.

The greatest part of this matter is intellectual honesty. The president and his neoCon minions have an aversion to intellectual honesty, so they will bastardize the text and come up with a fantasy that does not fit the text.

Then they will hire and use lawyers who are not intellectually honest and who must use latin sounding phrases to make you think they are smarter than you, have your best interest at heart, and have you bow down to them.

Lets stick to English and intellectual honesty, and this picture will increase in focus. The truth is in the text and you can fathom it.

Dredd,
Ok, thanks for that, but then WHY are people constantly saying things like the RawStory writer I just quoted??!!!
WHY do we hear every damn day now that this has to "investigated", that we need a special counsel? People are asking "WHY did he think it was legal?" Isn't ignorance of the law supposed to be irrelevant?!
I agree, it seems that simple to ME, too! What is there to investigate?! He did it, he admitted he did it, case closed. Where's the prosecutor with the handcuffs??

This calls for an all-out letter-wring-emailing-faxing blizzard to Congress demanding they INDICT, which in this arena means IMPEACH.

RLM #16

Yes, when we focus on the fact, as you mentioned too, that the president as commander in chief, is only commander in chief over the armed forces, not the civilians, the people, a really sharp focus emerges.

The armed forces have no business spying on Americans, no matter how many stars they want to pin to their uniform. In fact it is a crime to use the armed forces to enforce the law, and the law (18 USC §1385) is clear:

"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

We know that the president said that is what he is doing, "executing the laws" using the NSA. So we know that the NSA is an arm of the Department of Defense (originally properly named Department of War), and is therefore being used illegally in contravention of the US Constitution and laws.

Indictments and impeachment documents should, accordingly, follow. According to a past white house lawyer and counsel for a US President (link here). Whether they will or not is a political issue not a legal issue.

...Rita said on 1/1/2006 @ 6:57pm PT...
"Happy New Year!"

Right back atcha!

Rita: "The difference between "free speech", and corporate donations to political candidates is what exactly?"

One is speaking and the other is giving money.

Is it actually still legal for a corporation to give money to a political candidate? Sheesh, what a horrible idea. Do they also get to vote? I can't believe we would allow a non-human which can't vote to give money as if it had some human interest in the outcome of the election. Let the stock holders vote or give donations, but what right should a corporation have to give money?

Rita: "Even bloggers ask for your donations, presuming you agree with them, you donate. So? You don't have to be MENSA to grasp the concept that cash advances your speech. Your cash donations generally reflects your speech, right? Go figure."

If you and I stood on soapboxes and yelled our lungs out or spoke steadily for hours on end then we would not only be hoarse and tired, but it would become evident that neither of us would have been able to communicate with many more people than the other. But, the Rich in America have a disproportionate and non-democratic ability to get their message out by using money. It distorts the democratic process and isn't good for America.

Rita: " Now."

Right now?

Rita: "Who gets to label treason as "whistleblowing ", except for the guilty."

Strawman alert!

Who gets to label whistelblowing as treason?

Wouldn't it have been treasonous for the NSA chaps to *not* blow the whistle on the law-breaking being done by the White House? Isn't it part of their duty (at the NSA) to uphold the Constitution and all laws? If they saw the White House spying on people (something the NSA officials would know the law on pretty well) without a warrant, then wouldn't it clearly be required of them to tell the DOJ or the press? I wonder, did they tell the DOJ first? Anybody know about that?

Rita: "Puh-leeeze, don't compare this to Valerie Plame who was NOT covert, was NOT a spy, but simply a desk jockette at Langley, and an adjective to her husband's humble and non-assuming profile."

Sort of OT aren't ya? We were talking about the NSA case.

Rita: "( Ha. ) He is a blustering fool, full of himself who used his wife's career to grandstand for his lack of credentials and resume and to run the papers with his uninteresting life. Were you impressed, really?"

You're way OT here. Let's get back to Bush's traitorous act of spying on Americans without a legal authority or warrant.

FOX viewer Rita knows all of the neocon talking points (aka "lies"). Take off your blinders and stop enabling the crime family!

Another possible bush news diversion may be wefare fraud.

One GOP executive's armed with an attache case can steal more than a million welfare recipients.

. . . . Have You Had Your NeoCon Douche Today ?

Joan #21

You asked "WHY" and the answer is politics and accountability.

Lets remember that the majority party must be held most accountable. I do not know how many times I have heard the presstitutes in the MSM mock the minority party for not being able to stop these things.

Get a frigging grip, it is the majority party only that has subpoena power in congress. They have the power to cover up crimes or impeach.

The majority party, the republicans, have choosen to cover up gross and dastardly crimes for years and years now. It is time for the American body politic to severly punish the republican party.

Even tho I realize and agree that in the main it is the neoCons, not the moderates, who are responsible for the covering up of countless crimes, I do not absolve the moderate republicans who do not resist, and resist hard, the neoCons within the republican party.

The "WHY" is the republican party, beginning with the majority leaders and committee chairmen and chairwomen. America is going to have a surprise for them this upcoming November.

The punishing elections are approaching fast ...

What really actually happened?

Doug Eldritch

#23 MarkH said, "Is it actually still legal for a corporation to give money to a political candidate? Sheesh, what a horrible idea. Do they also get to vote?

Practically. It boils down to the absurdity of corporate personhood --- as if corporations were citizens with the rights of citizens, including free speech (which the courts have interpreted basically to include political contributions).

The damage the concept has done to our nation is incalculable, IMO.

For Arry: I think the "personhood" rationale derives from the fact that a corporation is a legal entity.

By the same token, so is someone's estate. So a corporation has the same standing as dead people, in that context.

We'll have to ask Mitch McConnell if dead people are the same as free speech.

The AG, Ashcroft, was being treated for pancrititus? Isn't that something one gets from alcohol poisoning? I'm no doctor, so correct me if I'm wrong, some of y'all med heads...
Ashcroft the great Christian leader, was a booze abuser?

What a suprise...

Shannon go take your pill. It was good you called for a med head.

Question: Do most, (clearly not ALL), of you curl up at night with your PHD diploma? Are you so educated and open minded that your brains have fallen out? Where DO you get your information? Were you simply born Marxists? Socialists? Being totally un-churched is your first marker, but where was the rest of your thinking cooked? At the university? Law school?

I have ALWAYS heard that the first thing a marxist/ liberal wishes you to know of him are his credentials. Is it not a bummer to be so predictable? The SECOND thing is, of course, to separate himself, intellectually, from the "masses".

I suppose Air - EEH will next say that it is absurd for the Military to be composed of citizens, with the rights of citizens. No, of course not. The group - think here, of the PHD's, will get together and discourse back and forth, (impressing each other I'm sure), on the difference between corporations and the military.

I have decided you are not real people but shills for the Kerry's, Sheehan's, Moore's, et. al, none of whom have a PHD. This trio NEEDS brains so they use yours to their own gain, since you do drink the right Kool Aide and have neither the courage nor patriotism to challenge their own.

You may engage in mocking your visitors who fail to dot an " i ", cross a " t " or think faster than they type. Call every opponent "ignorant" or "stupid", or far worse, trust me. If that serves for your carbs, most of the country just no longer cares. You have carted your outrage around for the last 40 years, and finally everyone is bored with it, and fighting back. Polls look good, Bush is up, NSA actions are understood by 60%, Plame is going no where but the beach, and the NY Times is finally...speechless.

Stultifying Rita (#30)

"Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all..."

Moral cowards can be extremely tenacious about maintaining their ignorance, and it really isn't a matter of where WE get our information, but where you get yours, and WHY you believe it.

I hope your New Year is as unhappy for you as you have helped make my last five years be for me.

lol @ rita

don't want to debate people with opposing views? just call them elitist eggheads. good tactic.

since you're so keen on communism, one of the first things mao did during his revolution was jail and execute dissident intellectuals. read up on it, it seems to be the kind of policy you're advocating.

Agent99 - You took some of the words out of my mouth. More than ever, principles are essential, and the rest of your post is right on. (By the way, I used to be in love with Agent 99 - Oops, now you know I'm no spring chicken.) BVAC - Isn't it amazing to watch the neocons ignore their Stalinist proclivities? Know thyself...Well...
----------------------------------------------------------

Rita - or what was that other name (or, rather, names) you went by? - it's intelligence and curiosity that gets under your skin. If I recall, your MO is "everybody does it" and other weak and flaccid copouts.

By the way, you wouldn't know a socialist or marxist if you ran into one, much less a true citizen of a republic. Thing is, you don't even need a diploma to be educated enough to know them, just curiosity and the energy to check it out. You must be very lazy.

Say, 60% of Americans in the latest poll say that illegal domestic spying is OK. I don't know if it is true. (You said they "understood" the NSA actions, much less likely.) But say it is. It has no bearing on the case of right or wrong or the effects on the republic. There is a matter of principles - Constitutional and American principles. It is an adherence to principles that gets to you, that you don't seem to understand, and that gets you all tangled up in silly statements about shills and Michael Moore and so on. (Plus predictable use of the SOP straw man.)

Actually, Rita, you have the recent political/cultural history of the country completely inverted.

People didn't get "bored with liberals" only recently, after 40 years. New Deal liberalism, which favored labor over management and minorities over the establishment, died amid the Reagan revolution. Walter Mondale appealed to that old Democratic base in 1984 and got blasted. That's 22 years ago!

The rebellion against liberalism (including by "Reagan Democrats") was a collective response to an overly aggressive women's movement that threatened the nuclear family, to militant gays who wanted to blame the government for the AIDS crisis, to a presumed passive foreign policy of Carter's that permitted the Iran hostage crisis, to a perceived softness on crime on the part of liberals, and to runaway inflation and high interest rates.

This is all history, Rita. None of these are important issues today. The term "liberal" doesn't pertain to what's happening in 2006, but what happened in 1980. It's a negative buzzword today, used just as the word "traitor" was to describe ex-Confederate soldiers in 1890 (yes, Rita, Republicans were doing the same thing in 1890 that trolls are doing now).

Times they are a-changin', Rita. But not away from liberals, back toward them. New issues have taken over...unilateral militarism, abuse of civil liberties by government, election fraud, rampant political corruption, undue lobbyist influence, corporate welfare, politicaly cronyism. Not a single issue from the 1980s is big today. And the Cold War ended back then, so you can stop with the Marxist crap.

Sorry if this makes me sound like an egghead. My only credentials are the reality of daily events.

Rita, the philosophy and practice of the type of leaders you support, such as bu$hit, is despotic militarism.

Then neoCon shill family you belong to are fond, at the moment, of saying he is "commander in chief".

The ignorant part of it is that they apply this label in a manner that presupposes the term applies to civilians. That is patently false and ignorant. No Phd needed ... just extracting the head out of the arse.

It does not take a phd to do a "strict constructionist" interpretation of the clause "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States".

Would the "strict constructionist" type of judge you neoCons love to grovel at the feet of say that "commander in chief of the Army and Navy" means a commander in chief over the non-military people?

No doubt this military dictator status is what the neoCons want bu$hit to be. How utterly communistic, fascist, and anti-American that is.

I just emailed this to Hardball on MSNBC:

"Greetings,

Could you please correct some of the neoCons who frequent your establishment of the actual meaning please?"

Hope they drop the latin obfuscation of intellectually dishonest bu$hit lawyers and stick with the common sense meanings of words.

#26 Doug,
To what does your link refer, specifically? There's alot of stuff there...

Former WSJ conservative columnist: "Bush declares it treasonous to reveal his illegal behavior"

I found this on a military website:

"Posse Comitatus Act
Source: G-OPL

'POSSE COMITATUS ACT' (18 USC 1385): A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to 'execute the laws' except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement." (link here).

Yet the president, on national TV, said he was using the NSA (DoD entity) to do searches, which the military website says is a crime.

I just posted a comment on Arlen Specter's, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, website (link here), and to Senator Schumer (link here):

"In using the NSA to spy on Americans to enforce the law, the president may be violating 18 USC 1385, the posse comitatus law.

Please clarify these matters in your committee for everyday Americans."

Hope he is not compromised nor shut down ... tremendous pressure is being brought on him to drop the investigation into the president's crimes.

Big Dan's link in #38 is must reading for everyone. Roberts (conservative journalist, ex of the Wall Street Journal) compares Bush to Hitler, and 9/11 to the Reichstag fire. Roberts says the primary aim of neo-cons at present is to consolidate power in the executive branch...exactly as Hitler did.

Roberts speculates that Bush ignored F.I.S.A. and spied without seeking a warrant (even though he'd have gotten one for almost any reason) because somebody (Rove?) was afraid that the special court might investigate a specific request and discover illegal acitivity connected with the 2004 election.

Interesting! Sounding more like Watergate every day, isn't it? Maybe Bush's admission to the spying was designed to limit the conversation to national security issues ("I'm doing it to protect us!") and disguise other sinister motives. I think we do need that Lugar investigation after all.

Why the remark of my " many other names", referencing previous posts? Are "other names" thought to be of nefarious motivation, a threat to the blog? This is the only name I have, and what would be the point of having other posts under other names? Free speech under one's own name is good enough for me.

How will Americans ever come together? We seem to think the other is from another planet. When did all this happen?

"Neocons"? Bill Crystal is suppose to be one, at least he is prominently described as one. He said they were, frankly, former democrats, even liberals. Bill Crystal is a pretty good example of a neocon since his father has been said to be the father of the neocons. What do you think they are?? Not WHO, but WHAT?

" Times, they are a changin', but not away from the liberals, back toward them," and then your poster launches into the laundry list of "new issues", which to me look like your side throwing up everything along with the kitchen sink, to see if something, anything, will stick! Your political "leaders" are not for the most part even buying into it. That's why I ask where you get your information. They seem so unaware of much, if not most, of your wise and crystal ball knowledge.

I know that the U.S. soldiers who won WWII were mostly "democrats" from the country side. Today it seems to me that you would spit in their eye. It has occured to me that those old boys know that, and though they are from the country side, they don't appreciate your " new issues" very damn much. Maybe even resent it a little, since that is not what they fought for in those foreign wars, for your freedom to tear down our tradition and our culture that was. That's what I think.

Amoral, agnostic, un-patriotic, and pacifist -isolationist, housed in very big government with no respect for the traditions of our country, along with liberal activism in the courts, is the way your radicals portray your side. All that is flatly not my American experience, not the America we all grew up in. Can you see why we are far more suspicious of your views than we are those of our current president, who represents the polar opposite of your views. It looks like the defense of our nation, simply put, protects you as much as me. I am just grateful that my brothers are doing that for me. Your side appears to be set up to jeapordize both those soldiers and me. Nevermind what the outcome is for you. Your future to speak, vote, and slander. If we lose, if we are hit again in a catastrophic manner, I think your side would rally the anarchists. I think my side would prepare and would try come together to act, certainly against the enemy if we had anything left to do it with. I think we would look like New Orleans under Blank-0 if you guys were in charge. Am I wrong?

If your side "wins", where does that leave you? What is your agenda if America becomes pacifist. I am curious what you think your own future is in this "new-issue America" you speak of? For sure my freedom is cut off, but what of your own? Do you think America's enemies want to group hug with you guys? I admittedly don't get it.

Was America's zeal for freedom and the principles on which the country was founded, say in the Constitution, so hard to understand. Weren't they basically good? Acceptable? Is "goodness" for its own sake now reduced to relativism?

Your philosophical couching of anti-American sloppy sentiment can not be hidden nor in a raffle be called illumination....so wordy as to be impotent in practice. How do you function thinking like this and doing precious little to build up anything but power and that preferably in the absence of pursuasion, just go make your positions the law in activist courts.

Rita - where do you get the idea that all of us are "amoral, agnostic, un-patriotic, and pacifist -isolationist, housed in very big government with no respect for the traditions of our country"?

Most of us see, in the not too distant future, a revolution for the noble cause of freedom for all with the same motivation that once drove our founding fathers and guess who the enemy would be if it came to that. It's people like you and Bush.

We are still committed to finding a way to get along with you and everyone else in the world, but patience will eventually run out if things continue along the lines laid out by Bush and company.

I would be very happy if the checks and balances put forth in our Constitution were still effective in balancing the powers of our leaders. That's the American way, but the checks and balances are not working anymore.

I have hope that a new balance can be developed, but if not it will be war. I hope that we can learn from past mistakes, but if not history will repeat itself and we will all be to blame.

Bush has turned the world against the US government. If it comes to war it will be billions against perhaps a 100 million of your ilk. But, it needn't happen if we can control the arrogant accumulation of power that is currently represented by Bushco and its apologists like you.

I admit I haven't been following this thread as closely as I should, but Rita your posts look like something that has gone through the William S. Burroughs cut-up technique!

From: State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, James Risen, published 3 January 2006, pp. 42-60.

Rita:

You can't stand to think of your brothers engaged in an unrighteous war, and so you are unwilling to see the administration's multifarious crimes. This makes you spend your efforts in support of an increasingly unfree and fascist America. You are helping to consign us all to hell, when your brothers are not the unrighteous ones at all. It is the fascist element at our helm. In effect, you'd rather see your brothers die for fascism than bring them home to live in a country where the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights insure their freedom and happiness.

In effect, we, here on this thread, and out there advocating against the criminality of the government and the invasion of a country that was no threat to us, care more about your brothers, without knowing them, than you do. You do not seem to be able to face the prospect of exposing yourself to censure for speaking out against the power structure, EVEN as it means placing yourself against insuring the safety of your brothers.

It is not "pacifist" to oppose engaging in wholesale slaughter where there has been no threat to us. It is not "pacifist" to believe the lives of foreigners are worth as much as our own. It is not "pacifist" to advocate that we HONOR the hundreds of thousands of US troops who have died in defense of the freedoms this administration is stripping away, pissing on their graves, and sending the brothers and sisters of moral cowards off to kill and be killed in the name of Halliburton profits.

If you cannot wrest yourself from the claws of your deep cowardice, at least you could keep quiet. In a real sense, we have your back. We are trying to bring your brothers home safely into a society that not only holds those truths to be self-evident, but backs it up in every minute of every day. You are doing NOTHING but demoralizing people who really would give their lives for their country, for you and your brothers. QUIT MAKING ME ASHAMED TO LOVE YOU. Shut up, and use the quiet to THINK, REASON, SEE.

Shannon Williford #29

Shannon, I believe you mean pancreatisis. Here is a quote from the Health Library at CNN.com

"Heavy alcohol use and gallstones are the primary causes of pancreatitis, but other factors, including certain medical conditions, some drugs, and genetic mutations also can lead to the disorder. Sometimes the cause is never found, although it's likely that a combination of environmental and hereditary factors contribute to most cases of the disease."

Whatever the cause, the AG apparently had a severe case.

Only the tiniest bit off-topic...
Anybody heard of George Miller, congressman from California? We REALLY need more like him. Maybe you all know about this; I didn't.
Here's how he dealt with the administration's trying to
do away with the Davis-Bacon law after Katrina:

"...Democrats complained, but they didn't do anything --- until a month and a half later, when George Miller, a little-heralded California congressman, used an obscure provision of a 1976 law to force Bush to reverse course. The law, the National Emergency Act, was the Watergate-era product of Senate concerns about Richard Nixon's imperial presidency, and it reclaimed for Congress power to countermand the president's authority to declare a national emergency and suspend laws..."
http://www.alternet.org/story/30349/

And speaking of parallels between nixon & our usurper-in-chief, please read the chilling piece by John Dean, "George W. Bush as the New Richard M. Nixon: Both Wiretapped Illegally, and Impeachably;
Both Claimed That a President May Violate Congress' Laws to Protect National Security".
Not exactly a catchy, succint title, but a very good read:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20051230.html

#46
Wow. Excellently said, 99.

Reply to Onyx, #43 >>

I got the idea as I said in my post from the radicals among you. Must I belabor the list of impressions for you that radicals have issued to prove these impressions?

I appreciate your civil reply, however. Then you have to take a look at #46 and you surely get my drift. In all of it, I am left with no direct reply to my quiries. I was wondering how Americans got so estranged from their tradition and speak past each other separated even within families, neighbors, etc.?

Rita, Agent99 at post #46 says it for me.

Beware of those who will not cite the constitution text and discuss it, but would rather talk a hundred miles away from it.

Most neoCons know nothing of the American spirit written down in the text of the US Constitution. They think freedom is a military operation.

It appears things are pretty much constipated here on this thread.

Except for Onyx threatening a revolution of the sort the founders mustered, and Bush and people like me get to be the "enemy". Let me say this about that, I am peace loving to a point myself, kiddo, so if you ever actually pull it off I think you would find some takers over here who, incidentally, have found their own patience with your shrinking cabal in damn short supply.

My patchwork of questions are nothing anyone here seems to have ever journeyed through, hence our divide remains secure. (Good thing you guys aren't in sales,as you would starve to death. )

Curious outside posters are rather used as a punching bag what with your replies never relating to the question, but used to vent, insult, and self-congratulate. I conclude that for all the high minded sounding-off here, the emptiness is palpable.

Good luck hoping that your political smears all stick, we lose the war, your pacifism is the new order, that the stock market collapses and we are all equally poor in the style of Venzuela, that Michael Moore is your new George Washington, and the democrats are court ordered to be in power forever. That pesky right to vote has proven a bummer for them anyway.
Happy '06, from Rita.

Rita hates America.

OK, I know that having a policy of survailence of U.S. citizens is fucked up, but look at it this way. What if an al Queda member makes a call to the U.S. and sets up a contact, and the NSA is forced to wait 74 hours to get a warrant to figure out what is going down. Shit can happen pretty quick.

Clinton and Carter authorized the same exact thing too. How come we don't here anything about that?

I'm out.

Haha Nittany Lion, you've gotta be fucking with me. You've gotta. There's no way you, an alleged law student, can be that dense. You're playing a trick on me, right? I've said in this thread, and other threads, the same thing over and over. I've asked for anyone on your side of the argument to acknowledge one thing, and every time they dodge:

The NSA wiretaps FIRST, without any need for a warrant. THEN it has 72 hours to get a warrant from the mostly-rubber-stamp FISA court. They've gotten around 20,000 such warrants! What the admin DID, was WIRETAP, then BYPASS the court. Didn't get a warrant AT ALL! Dozens of times (at least)!

So answer this question:

Why did they go ahead and get around 20,000 warrants (72 hours after the wiretap!) and then NOT get them for several dozen or so wiretaps?

Respond to that as honestly as you can muster, and I may have a modicum of respect for you.

My answer to it? Well, back when I was in grade school I forgot to write an essay on symbolism in "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss. I had 72 hours to turn it in with a penalty, but I thought to myself 'I don't like Green Eggs and Ham, so fuck that. I'm going to play Atari.'

Except 'Green Eggs and Ham' is the 'FISA court', and 'play Atari' is 'shit on the Constitution'.

Hannity: If Osmam Bin Laden calls the United States, they're saying we need to go spend 76 hours and get a court order before we can record that phone conversation-that's how asinine their logic is.

Hmmmmmmmm... it all makes sense now.

http://www.huffingtonpos...sh-administ_b_13144.html

Whoops, forgot to check back on this. BVAC, you said, Haha Nittany Lion, you've gotta be fucking with me.

You got me... just another one of those "let's see the Repub talking points get trashed" things.

Here's something useful though... Did you know that aproximately 2 or 3 out of every 1000 requests for warrants from FISA are rejected? Leads me to believe one of two things:
a)Wow they're dumb -this policy accomplishes nothing.
b)It's a cover up for spying on a lot more than a few people that are suspected terrorists. (Remember the reason FISA was created - a reaction to Nixon ordering the CIA to spy on Vietnam War protesters.)

So here's the question: Is Bush as dumb as we think? Or better yet, is he dumb enough to buy some bullshit story that we have to wait 72 hours for a warrant from someone else (like the NSA director, or anyone else for that matter) who wants the spying?