The real, gigantic story being missed , especially by the media

is that Bush has OFFICIALLY ON THE RECORD declared himself dictator since he is saying that his actions are not subject to existing law or to review by either the judicial or legislative branch. It doesn't matter which specific action of his has taken him to this point, this is the point we are at. This is the point we need to discuss and focus on and demand that our Legislative Branch declare their views on:

Once and for all -

Is the President, even a President in a time of "war" and in his role as Commander-in-Chief able to declare himelf above the rule of law and not subject to the checks and balances described and outlined and empowered in the Constitution of the United States of America?

Yes or No?

This is what Bush has actually discussed in the Oval Office with his advisors because they have issued written opinions on this very matter. We are discarding the Constitution of the United States of America because of the opinions of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft among others. Do their opinions overide the opinions of hundreds of years of American law and tradition? If you answered no, how many times does someone need to invoke the phrase "9/11 changed all that" to make you change your mind?

He has to actually meet the press.

The 'liberal media' should ride his ass for meeting the press so rarely, while we are at war.

FDR met the press twice a week, no matter what.

war powers. the media is not ignoring it. at least the print media is not ignoring it.

How does one declare they have war powers when WE ARE NOT AT WAR! Yes, we have troops in a combat zone, but there is not (and never has been) a declaration of war on Iraq and, by Bush's own admission we are "Mission Accomplished" as far as the invasion/occupation is concerned. So it is just another day in peacetime america, not wartime america.

And for all you "war on terror" lovers out there I am going to toe the leftist line and say you cannot declare war on an idea. The "war on terror" is a political euphemism and nothing more.

Congress behind this. It's plain wrong; he is not the king, nor the dictator. If we let this slide, he'll get away with thinking he is, as will his cronies and loyalists.

Spying on Americans

Sunday, December 18, 2005; Page B06

IN THE WAKE of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the New York Times reported last week, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance of hundreds of U.S. citizens and residents suspected of contact with al Qaeda figures -- without warrants and outside the strictures of the law that governs national security searches and wiretaps. The rules here are not ambiguous. Generally speaking, the NSA has not been permitted to operate domestically. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires that national security wiretaps be authorized by the secretive FISA court. "A person is guilty of an offense," the law reads, "if he intentionally . . . engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute" -- which appears, at least on its face, to be precisely what the president has authorized.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121701005.html

Despite the 'on its face' qualifier, this is a fairly strong editorial.

so what if it cost a couple billion? it's taxpayer money, and it's the taxpayer who 'elect' bush
btw remember david copperfield made that statue of liberty disappear on live tv? and when he finished, the old gal was back good as new, unlike the wtc....the gopig musta hired cheap 2 bit magicians! frig!

You'd think the folks at Faux News would pick up on that. I'm glad to read that George Will was upset by the whole thing.

The press seems to be slowly grabbing onto this issue. How effectively remains to be seen. At first, they were buying into the whole 'it's an emergency' crap, but now you're seeing the '30 renewals' references.

Ultimately, I fear that people will not understand the nuances behind the fact that there are ways to do this legally, and that he has CHOSEN not to do so. He CHOOSES to ignore laws that are inconvenient to him.

People have to start suing and someone needs to start drafting impeachment papers.

...the NeoCons intend to maintain permanent control of the government.

There will be NO Democratic Party presidents in the future if the NeoCons have their way.

This issue is absolutely critical for anyone giving this matter any thought at all.

The intention is to 'scare' the Right, not describe reality.

strategy. Countless other humongous stories are being missed/ignored by most of the MSM. :grr:

liveoaktx has video clip montage of Sam Donaldson, Cokie (?) Roberts and George Will on the Stephanoopadoopalus show where they actually are comparing bush to King George of England, and that the Constitution was drawn up with one of its main focuses being how to rein in executive power and keep it from running rampant.

George Will was almost apoplectic. I thought he was going to bang on the table for a minute, there.

Everyone who has any understanding of what bush has done is well aware of the implications. That's why the story is so big. No one is above the rule of law. No one.

Something I am trying to find out... it was posted on another thread. How does this fit in to the bigger picture?

http://www.aclu.org//privacy/spying/15189prs20021118.html

In First-Ever Ruling, Secret Appeals Court Allows Expanded Government Spying on U.S. Citizens (11/18/2002)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON - Ruling for the first time in its history, the ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review today gave the green light to a Justice Department bid to broadly expand its powers to spy on U.S. citizens.

"We are deeply disappointed with the decision, which suggests that this special court exists only to rubberstamp government applications for intrusive surveillance warrants," said Ann Beeson, litigation director of the Technology and Liberty Program of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"As of today," she said, "the Attorney General can suspend the ordinary requirements of the Fourth Amendment in order to listen in on phone calls, read e-mails, and conduct secret searches of Americans' homes and offices."

At issue is whether the Constitution and the USA PATRIOT Act adopted by Congress after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks permit the government to use looser foreign intelligence standards to conduct criminal investigations in the United States.

Last May, in a historic first, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court (FISA) made public a unanimous decision rejecting the government's bid for expanded spying powers. After the Justice Department appealed, the ACLU was granted permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the appeals court, together with the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Center for National Security Studies, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Open Society Institute.

The ACLU and its coalition partners are examining today's decision and considering a number of options, including requesting an appeal to the Supreme Court and asking Congress to clarify through legislation that it did not authorize the Justice Department to use FISA's looser surveillance standards in ordinary criminal cases.

"This is a major Constitutional decision that will affect every American's privacy rights, yet there is no way anyone but the government can automatically appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court," Beeson said. "Hearing a one-sided argument and doing so in secret goes against the traditions of fairness and open government that have been the hallmark of our democracy," she added.

The FISA court and the Court of Review were created under a law passed by Congress in 1978, which authorizes government wiretap requests in foreign intelligence investigations. Under these procedures, all hearings and decisions are conducted in secret.

Although the ACLU and its coalition partners were allowed to file a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the lower court ruling, they were not allowed to participate in the oral argument before the Review Court that resulted in today's decision, and they are not automatically entitled to submit an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Today's decision comes on the heels of a White House announcement of a new system being developed at the Pentagon that would be able to track every American's activities. The so-called "Total Information Awareness" program will create -- according to Pentagon officials -- the infrastructure for the most extensive electronic surveillance system in history. Conservative New York Times columnist William Safire has dubbed the program "a supersnoop's dream."

The FISC Review Court is a special three-judge panel appointed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist in accordance with provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The judges are: Hon. Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Hon. Edward Leavy, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Hon. Ralph B. Guy, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

The court's decision is online at http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/newsroom/02-001.pdf

A feature with documents related to the case is online at http://archive.aclu.org/issues/privacy/FISA_feature.html

An ACLU news release on the Total Information Awareness program is online at /safefree/general/17109prs20021114.html

about the Wiretaps, do you think he going to cite this as a valid excuse for doing this?

because that is the case then this is HUGH!! in a bad way. I feel as I may puke right now.

Also I am assuming that there was no other courts to take the decision to since this was a "secret court"?

I am going to search for that other thread that you mentioned.



Give Mommy a Kiss....."

to see what spin he puts on it.

I am not in the US.

All too often law has been written in this country for the sole purpose of covering someone's ass. These laws are often (or at least eventually) seen for what thye are and changed to apply the standards of the people. MUCH pressure must be put on our gov't to fix this RULING (NOT a law)...
from your first link:
"The ACLU and its coalition partners are examining today's decision and considering a number of options, including requesting an appeal to the Supreme Court and asking Congress to clarify through legislation that it did not authorize the Justice Department to use FISA's looser surveillance standards in ordinary criminal cases."

he agrees that Bush has gone too far?

George Will and Cokie Roberts all worked up about the abuses of executive power :wow:
?!? like they finally woke up from the poppy field. They acted really shocked.

thanks to Can-o-Fun site (our liveoaktx):

Windows media: http://www.canofun.com/blog/videos/thisweekbushspyingpatactdec1805.wmv

I didn't care for the part where G. Will seemed to be defending W by talking about Lincoln suspending habeus corpus, but then in a later clip Will was righteously PISSED, hitting the table multiple times (not exactly banging on it, but still): (starts at about 3:50 in the video)
"This is a fundamental Madisonian separation-of-powers argument. Much of the political argument of the western world for 500 years has been about how to tame executive power. The Dec. of Ind. is all about "HE" did this and that, it's George the 3rd. Now, we were founded out of suspicion of executive power, the founders at Philadelphia FOR A REASON made *Congress* (hits table) Article ONE (hits table) of the Constitution."

Will very pissed about W.'s "capacious view of executive power... literally unlimited"

All four of them seemed pretty agitated. George Steph mentioned at least a couple of times that they could wiretap first, then get the warrant later (within 72 hours).
Will: "If it was necessary to do this, Congress would have given him the power in 10 minutes! And the FISA court would have gone "sure"! (others reply "absolutely", "that's right", etc.)
Donaldson multiple times talking about "breaking the law" "he had the legal means to do this but he chose not to do it legally." "If the President can break any law he wants..."
<snip>
Will: "overreaching"
<snip>
Cokie:"You're back at the King, which is certainly NOT what the Constitution writers had in mind." Also she said that Katrina showed that the govt. can't make us safe (!)

court and how Bush chooses to ignore it.

And despite a fervent desire for this story to get buried in the weekend and further buried by an appeal to patriotism (they've been banging that drum too long) it isn't going to happen by a longshot. Hey, I've heard Fitzgerald will be finishing up his current investigation soon. Maybe Bush should appoint him to investigate this. Yaaahhh, that's gonna happen.

dictatorial power. Let's see if he will leave the white house in Jan 2009.

"the terrorists have declared a perpetual war on us"

What arrogance!

"Fuck YOU!" he says to all of America..."I'll do what I damn well please!"

But this time he overplayed his hand and it WILL come back to bite him in the ass.

He sounds like a broken recored 9/11-9/11-9/11-9/11-9/11......I'm convinced he's a madman.}( :evilfrown: :evilfrown: :evilfrown: :evilfrown: :evilfrown:

and they are as always using him as a tool but as he becomes less stable, he gets out from under them from time to time and that's when we see under the facade to see the scary little men running this circus.

WE'RE NOT AT WAR! . . . yes, we are engaged in hostilties in Afghanistan and Iraq, but only Congress can declare war -- and to my knowledge they haven't done that . . . so this bullshit about exercising extraordinary powers during wartime is, well, bullshit . . .

He has officially declared himself a dictator. He's the American Hitler. And it is being F**KING IGNORED!!!!

K & R

How many of the day to day Germans had any inkling or at the very least a slow inkling? Most people in America couldn't care less about who or what is running our government having no concept that it impacts them very directly until it does in fact affect them in a personal way.

of the Constitution.

Well done!

:kick: and recommend

He flat out said that he invaded Iraq on faulty intelligence, that it killed 2000+ Americans and 30,000 Iraqis (real numbers are 150,000 to 300,000), BUT THAT HE WOULD DO IT AGAIN BECAUSE IT MADE THE WORLD A SAFER PLACE.

Any other President would have been impeached long ago, but this Cabal hasn't been rigging Federal Elections since 1994 just so that they could impeach their figurehead.

We live in a dictatorship with a democratic facade. And the facade is becoming more transparent with each passing day. And I'll tell you what: when that facade goes, the real suffering begins.

BITCH!!!!!!!!!

Let's write all we can, while we can!!!

Start burning up your phone lines!!!!

Our Democracy DEPENDS on it!!!!

the law doesn't matter in itself, its what you can get away with that matters. That message has been broadcast across america, awakening criminal minds and corrupting values.

IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS hopefully!

Harriet and Alberto said I could!

I am pinning my hopes at this moment on the belief that the 9/11 hypnotic trance is wearing off and the legislative branch will wake up and decide that they will not go along with the involuntary nutectomy. They are strapped to the table right now and Cheney is advancing with the scalpel.

Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml

when his approval rating is at his lowest point. These are desperate actions that will not work.

:scared:

I don't think he'd go to all this trouble for three more years...

place. Read this Du editorial - the author says some things that people had better pay attention to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/12/03_splash.html

The preparations for military martial law, a dictatorship that cannot be opposed, are clear:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5582171&mesg_id=5583373

Even some of the GOP are starting to sweat the advent of a totalitarian state:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2316702

what Executive Order Bush used to authorize this? Apparantly he made an Ex. Order back in 2002 to allow the NSA to do this. At least, this is what the NY Times reported. But no one's ever cited a specific order & I'm starting to wonder if there even is such an order. In Bush's speech, when he was citing the "legal basis" for the NSA wiretaps, he never cited any specific executive order. Instead, he just cited his authority as "commander-in-chief" & the Afganistan war declaration. Why wouldn't he cite an order if he'd made one? Is it possible that Bush never signed an Executive Order at all, but simply decided to do it on his own? Even classified Executive Orders leave a trail. That would make this even more illegal & show they knew this was something to hide from everyone.

Anyone paying half a whit of attention gets it. The media? Naw, it's just a "valid position, on the other side of the debate." But this isn't a dictatorship (yet) and personally deciding things with no review and continued defiance of the Constitution as Bush has done de facto makes it one. To DARE to say so is not something those that want their fat paychecks on CNN et all, will ever say. May they rot in hell.

I personally can read DU but I've decided I can't keep up with my disgust and outrage and it's ruining my own war on Christmas season. SO I applaud all of you that can stand to post. I'm so done right now. It's not worth it. I can't take it anymore! Get me out of this nightmare. I'm just waiting for Santa Claus to save us all.

we need every voice now, right now, at this very moment in history because if this can't be stopped (and there is a chance it can't be) there will be violence. As I view it, every post we make is a vote and in some ways more important than a vote because it reflects our views and wishes at a precise moment in time. Right now my stomach is churning - I blew up to my wife and terrified the dog - but nothing is more important to me than our system of government and that it shall not perish.

PS Merry Christmas or whatever is your prefered greeting.

Bush is making gaff after gaff. Somewhere he threw out the ear mike in exasperation. In exasperation with his failed advisers he is "leveling' with the people as HE sees fit. From the extremely botched wording of expressing confidence in Delay's innocence to the wire taps etc. Bush has lost it- the script, the ear phone or his mind or some combination of the same- or all.

People are just as mad that HE is saying what has been assiduously avoided by media, by Dems and his own party.

Have a very Merry Breakdown, George.

"How can we get around that?" when they talk to each other? I now believe that Gonzales is nothing less than consiguleri.

when the puppet actually must believe he is president. Cheney often jumps from behind the distant curtain when the jig is up which proves what actually tenuous strings hold this charade together. However, it is a long historical tradition that only the strongest and and most central public forum, an actual speech by the Leader, for example, or some incredible forceful natural event(Katrina), that are allowed to nail down a deviation from the happy go along get along contented norm.

His crimes are legion and known. His opposition and his beneficiaries alike slide helplessly around what is weakly called the bully pulpit. Which in fact is America's tacit Divine Right of Presidents. behind the front scene all the flaws, the horrors of policy, the criminality and incompetence can visibly stalk about with impunity relative to the raw possession of seats of power and the instruments of public scrutiny. For some reason people who can never be shot or impoverished0 the communal "leadership", cringe in fear. The people who do the dying for the flaws of the leadership are helped daily NOT to face the betrayal, the monstrosity of their vain sacrifices on the altar of their own enslavement.

But now, unlike many of the tortured, ambivalent, somewhat redemptive figures of past presidential debacles and national sins, we have the convenient idiot torching in public embarrassment, the gauze curtains of immodest tyranny. Anyone with common sense knows that a single tape recorder getting words from the horse's anatomy would have sufficed, but Hah!, we ain't gonna make that mistake again no sir-ree. Ain't gonna appoint poor people whose power will go to their head and ruin the corporate Vision. Ain't gonna appoint someone too smart and too up front so that the underlings can take full advantage of the huge public blindspot to all things on all sides of the bully pulpit. Get a brain dead dummy. Oh oh, not too charismatic and uppity like Reagan who didn't dance perfectly to the Cheney Bush gang tune. Get one of our own.

Thank God they keep following this path of self destruction, so that maybe, just maybe, we can be led off the vast path of our own to Hell, by the blunt, power drunken admissions of capital crimes.

If Bush admitted to ALL his sins unrepentantly, what would the rest of the nation do? When is enough enough to end the charade?

And will the charade itself mercifully be ended or will those Dems desperate just to replace the goons on the stage with a better performance, instead respond to the crisis of these times and of humanity as a species perhaps, and use the buffoonish shame to cleanse the system of its fatal disease?

I'm soooooooooo tired of this "we are war" bullshit. If that's the case, fukstick has the numbers...he could get a declaration of war passed through Congress (or he could have...not now) and a lot of the illegalities that have occured, MAY be plausible. The more this shit talks, the greater damage he does to this country and what remains of a representative government.

:crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy: