Democracy's Battle Joined, Again

By Robert Parry
December 22, 2005


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

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

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

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

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

Death Match

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can’t Say Liar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watergate & Vietnam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Protect the President’

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheney to the Rescue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

War Resumed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The battle lines are forming.

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

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/122105.html

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


1807-1882



...So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.





http://www.nationalcenter.org/PaulRevere'sRide.html

Well spoken, DWB04.

Thanks for reading
:snowflake:

I am sick, simply sick, to think that vital information was withheld by the press in the 2004 election. This isn't a small error on Bush's part ................ it is nothing less than a violation of our very constitutional rights.

And the press withheld it in fear that they'd be accused of trying to influence the election. If the press cannot inform the American people, then why have them? I can't believe that I just thought that, but how can I think otherwise??? The entire POINT of protecting the press is so that they can provide information that is of public importance. And they utterly failed.

My only consolation is that perhaps if this had been known earlier, the public might have simply accepted and then this outrageous abuse of power would be solidified and approved. Much like that so-called Patriot Act. It's law, it's a violation of our liberties, but the public backed it in large numbers and now we're stuck for a very long time.

But D**N IT!!! That was NOT the media's choice to make!!!!! Their ONLY function is to inform the public regardless of whether we want to be informed or not.

yes, a function of public not corporate advocacy.....and information......

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122105I.shtml

DOWN WITH IMPERIALISM! Two thumbs up for America's Truth, Liberty, Justice, and Democracy...

Vote all the dictators and the manipulators out in 2006 and reclaim the White House for a TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOT (with intelligent thinking and capability and ability to decide, act and talk without hired hands to commercialize his/her speech) ... no more junkies of greed, arrogance, and lies.

Their damning problem is:

They are Paper Tigers.

When there was real fighting- they dodged, hid.
And, when we stand up to these junior high bullies
they'll do the same...they can kiss my Rebel A*s*s.

Hey, Cheney & Bush!!!!!!!!!! Gauntlets are being taken out of closets and dusted off, from Boston to LA, from Seattle to what is left of New Orleans! Be warned, true Americans aren't the stupid masses you wish for. Millions are seeing through your machinations to create a kingship in this country, and millions will take you down.

During the Washington Post chat with Judge Posner yesterday I sent him these two questions (among others). In the 2nd one I too quote Patrick Henry. By the way we have Posner's editorial and the chat transcript in our editorial sub-forum.

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...showtopic=45540

Hey, that's weird -- those guys don't have any drumsticks. Oh wait -- yes they do -- they are black and hard to see.

We need 'Give me liberty or give me death' bumper stickers. I think it makes a great rallying call.

http://stickeremporium.com/mm5/merchant.mv...ory_Code=LS0026

Great thread so far, all of you ! You make me proud to be a member of this forum.

There are some great choices there. Thanks!

Thanks Wundermaus!!!!!

Damn, it's too late for Christmas. However, what a great way to start the New Year.

I can't access this website. Can someone add the url again. I have to paste it in my browser and the other one didn't work.

NRNS

Pick your favorite piece from the Federalist papers and insert here!
:tree:

Huh?

Hamilton-Federalist 9

"http://stickeremporium.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=LS"
(remove the quotes when pasting to your browser's address field)

This link goes directly to the bumper sticker's buy page -
"http://stickeremporium.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=LS&Product_Code=MB00146&Category_Code=LS0026"
(again, just remove the quotes when pasting to your browsers address field)

Dictator Dubya

By Bob Burnett
Common Dreams

Monday 19 December 2005

The Declaration of Independence reads, "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce [citizens] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government." The Founders of the United States invoked this principle to throw off the rule of King George 3. Now we have the occasion to use it to remove emperor George 43.

For five years citizens have suffered "a long train of abuses and usurpations" by George W. Bush. This week brought the announcement that he authorized domestic spying on civilians without bothering to obtain court warrants. Bush admitted this, calling the eavesdropping "crucial to our national security." He didn't explain why he deemed it unnecessary to first get a warrant.

These revelations were the latest in a series of outrages. Over time it has become apparent that three tactics fueled the Bush regime's descent into despotism: The first was designation of the response to the 9/11 attacks as a "war" upon terrorists. The war metaphor permitted the Administration to characterize the President as "commander-in-chief."

As the second tactic, Bush's legal counsel massaged Article 2 of the Constitution, which describes the executive powers of the President. They combined the "commander-in-chief" authority with power granted by a Congressional authorization of September 14, 2001. (This directed the President to "use all necessary and appropriate force" to respond to the attacks.) The White House fashioned an unprecedented definition of Presidential authority. Bush believed that he was above the law. That he could ignore the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. Authorize warrant-less eavesdropping on civilians.

The third tactic was ethical. The Administration asserted that in the war on terror the stakes were so high that the ends must, of necessity, justify the means. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer articulated this line of reasoning.

Krauthammer focused on torture, but his logic is applicable to all Administration wrongdoing. The ethics hinge on a hypothetical situation: A terrorist is captured after planting a nuclear time bomb in New York City. The columnist argued, "Torture not only would be permissible [in this case] but would be required (to acquire life-saving information)." He declared, "elected leaders, responsible above all for the protection of their citizens, have the obligation to tolerate their own sleepless nights by doing what is necessary to get information that could prevent mass murder." Krauthammer reinforced the Administration argument - because we live in dangerous times, President Bush must use extreme measures to protect America.

The Bush case for expanded executive authority relies upon a logical fallacy - inadequate explanation. They don't provide evidence that the extreme action - unauthorized wiretaps - produces better results. The Administration argues that we should trust them that their action produces evidence we need. Krauthammer demonstrated this faulty reasoning in the "ticking nuclear bomb" incident. He claimed that only torture would enable us to find the bomb. However, the same scenario was recently discussed on "PBS News Hour," Jack Cloonan, an experienced FBI interrogator, indicated that torture would not be necessary. "I [can't] think of any situation that's going to arise where I have to use such pressure."

George Bush is a born-again Christian. Yet, it is apparent that the use of torture, and the doctrine that the ends justify the means, flies in the face of Christian Morality. Jesus of Nazareth taught the Golden Rule, "Treat people the way you want them to treat you." As a consequence, mainstream Christians reject tactics such as torture and eavesdropping on civilians. However, since the thirties, some theologians have argued that the elemental rules of Christian morality do not apply to state leaders. In 1932, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote "Moral Man and Immoral Society," in which he argued. "The responsible leader of a political community is forced to use coercion to gain his ends." This ethical doctrine became the basis for the Western "realist" political philosophy.

There are compelling arguments for rejecting these ethics - denying that the ends justify the means. One is legal: Lawyers outside the Bush Administration are appalled at the expansion of Executive powers by the misuse of the commander-in-chief designation.

Another argument is pragmatic: Torture is not a reliable method of obtaining information. As another example, energy spent on surveillance of Quaker Meetings takes agents away from more useful investigations.

Yet another is humanitarian: Torture punishes the innocent as well as the guilty. US authorities acknowledge that the majority of tortured prisoners will eventually be released, charged with no crime.

Finally, there is a common-sense rationale: The argument that the President should have the final say on what tactics are used in the war on terror - on whether we use torture or spy on civilians - ignores the obvious: George Bush cannot be trusted to determine this. He does not have good judgment.

President Bush's assertion of expanded Presidential authority is wrong legally and morally. There is no justification for torture of prisoners or spying on private citizens. Two hundred thirty years ago the Founders rejected similar activity, by another George. It was despotism then, it is despotism now. The conduct of the Bush Administration cannot be tolerated.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122105H.shtml

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.


He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.


He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.


For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury

'He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.'

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

~Declaration of Independence

The Would-Be Dictator: How We Got to This Awful Place

by Bernard Weiner
www.dissidentvoice.org
December 22, 2005
First Published in The Crisis Papers




“If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just as long as I'm the dictator.”

-- George W. Bush, December 18, 2000
(during his first trip to Washington as President-Elect)


It's clear that Bush violated the law by ordering the National Security Agency to engage in warrantless domestic spying on U.S. citizens. So, once again, I have a question for those who, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, voted for George Bush: NOW do you get it?

I posed that same question several months ago, in the wake of the stupendous Bush Administration incompetence that left thousands dead and homeless after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Now more and more facts are being revealed (about spying, torturing, lying) that should make it obvious that those residing in the White House are not only bunglers on a grand scale but dangerous to the current and future health of our democratic republic. They should be impeached and removed ASAP before they take us all down with them.

We already knew how they lied and deceived the citizenry into supporting a war against a country that was weak, contained, posing little or no imminent threat to any of its neighbors, and certainly not to the United States. (Recent polls indicate that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the war was a mistake and the figures are steadily rising for those who think the troops should be brought home as soon as possible.) We already knew how the Bush Administration had effectively turned over environmental and public-health regulation to the polluting industries and drug companies.

But these new revelations about secretly ordering warrantless domestic spying is, as one senator said, an "astounding" violation of how America works as a country of laws.

How could this have happened in a free society? The reasons are many and varied, including a corporate-owned mass media that knew a lot more than it was telling the public. But before we get to the spying and torture scandals -- and the twisted legal reasoning that Bush&Co. use to justify their violating laws whenever they feel like it -- here's my abbreviated chronological take on how we got to this awful place:

The "Opportunity" Afforded by 9/11

One could begin with the reasonable presumption that plans for various Administration moves -- taking control of oil abroad, invading Iraq, packing the courts with HardRight judges, neutering the Democratic party, etc. -- were being discussed by Bush&Co. even before the election of 2000. But so much of that was secret.

Let's start with something more public: the tragic events of 9/11. The Bush Administration may not have known the details of those terrorist attacks -- the date, time, and exact targets -- but a barrage of intelligence reports were coming into the White House in the Spring and Summer of 2001 from allies around the globe that a "spectacular" event was about to be launched by al-Qaida on the U.S. mainland.

In the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," Bush was told that the FBI had found evidence of "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York....CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives." (The Bush Administration apparently ignored intelligence gained after the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center indicating that the terrorists wanted to use airplanes to strike government buildings in Washington.)

Given the urgent warnings from foreign governments along with this PDB, the logical, intelligent, professional thing for Bush to do would be to summon all his key military, intel and emergency-preparedness advisors and figure out how to disrupt the impending attacks. What did Bush and his colleagues do? Absolutely nothing. They chose to look the other way. Nearly three thousand innocents died.

On the morning of the attack, what did Bush do? Absolutely nothing. He sat there with those elementary-school students, and took photos with the teacher and kids, even after his chief-of-staff whispered in his ear that the second tower had been hit and America was under attack. Normally, when there's a possible threat to the president, the Secret Service is trained to surround the guy and whisk him immediately to safety; why was no such policy followed here? Very strange indeed.

What did Rumsfeld do at the Pentagon? Absolutely nothing. He was incommunicado at a meeting in another part of the building when the Twin Towers were hit and collapsed, and when the Pentagon was struck. He emerged only after all the mass-murders had taken place.

Whether all this behavior was simply evidence of utter confusion and/or total incompetence (or, as some would have it, something more sinister) isn't clear. The point is that the Bush Administration did nothing until after the attacks had transpired.

A few days later, then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told NSC staffers that, given 9/11, the key question now was "how do you capitalize on these opportunities" to fundamentally change American doctrine, and shape the world?..."It's important to try to seize on that and position American interests and institutions," she said.

In that sense, 9/11 was analogous to Pearl Harbor, freeing an administration to act boldly, both internally and abroad, in the face of enemy attacks. Recall the telling quotation, referring to radical military reform, from a 2000 Project for The New American Century report: '"[T]he process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."' Note: The HardRight founders of PNAC -- among them Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Zalmay Khalilzad, et al. -- a year later became those in charge of US foreign/military policy.

Shortly after 9/11, deadly anthrax spores were mailed to media outlets and to Democratic leaders of Congress, causing additional fright and panic. Nobody ever has been charged in the anthrax attacks; the spores were traced back to stock from the Army's Fort Detrick Biological Weapons Lab.

Congress, which was shaken badly, didn't need much convincing to urgently pass the so-called USA Patriot Act, even though virtually no members had the chance to read the final version from the White House. Large sections of the Patriot Act consisted of bills introduced by HardRight conservatives over the years but which were rejected by earlier Congresses as far too violating of civil liberties. (Four years later, finally, the Senate is standing up for the Constitution, refusing to extend the worst aspects of the Patriot Act.)

In short, 9/11 gave the Bush Administration a green light to do whatever it said was necessary to locate and destroy those responsible, and to block future terrorists from doing damage to the U.S. again.

But, as we learned years later, that wasn't all that the Bush Administration was engaged in.

The Domestic Spying Scandal

The Bush crew claim that whatever seemingly shady actions they take are done to "protect Americans" from future terrorist attacks. For the sake of argument, let's assume that they are acting out of those best intentions.

Even if one were to give them the benefit of the doubt, why would they constantly and consistently find it necessary to hide and disguise what they're doing (even paying media types to publicize their spin) and to violate the law and the Constitutional protections of due process? Why wouldn't they explain what they're doing, why, and get Congress (with the GOP controlling both houses) to pass the necessary authorizing legislation? And, most importantly, why would they do everything possible to ensure that the appropriate federal courts would have no role in evaluating the legal correctness of their approach? I'll provide an answer below, but first consider:

Bush ordered the NSA to begin secret domestic spying, even though the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act restricts the NSA to spying abroad, except in certain circumstances when the FISA court can OK a wiretap or whatever. With Bush's secret order in hand, and the court in the dark, the NSA could forget about seeking warrants for phone-taps, computer invasions, email readings, and who knows what else (breaking&entering? sneak&peek black-bag jobs?).

Alberto Gonzales, the Bush toady who then was White House Counsel (now Attorney General), devised a legal philosophy claiming that the President is permitted to violate laws whenever he asserts he's acting as "commander-in-chief" in "wartime." Since Bush unilaterally has declared that the U.S. is at "war" -- a war with no foreseeable end against terrorists -- he feels he's home free to do whatever he feels is required. (For more on this legal mumbo-jumbo, see "No Other Way to Say This: Torture Memos Reveal Fascist Mentality."

So far as is known, the memos establishing this authoritarian legal strategy are still operative; indeed, Bush used the "commander-in-chief" rationale in his most recent radio address and news conference when attempting to justify his ordering the NSA to spy inside the country. To "protect the American people," Bush effectively said, I did it, I'll do it again, what are you going to do about it? Gonzales likewise is pounding the theme that the president is acting legally when acting illegally. (When Richard Nixon tried to sell the president-is-above-the-law justification, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed that argument quickly.)


"We Don't Torture" Re-defined

Similarly, to get around U.S. laws and international treaties against torture, Gonzales and Rumsfeld's lawyers at the Pentagon, simply redefined torture to mean causing either death or organ-failure; anything else, including "waterboarding" (near-drowning) and beatings and shootings, pass the test. So, follow the reasoning here: If the interrogation doesn't kill the prisoner or result in organ-failure, ipso facto it's not "torture," and Bush and Rice and the others can baldly assert that "we don't torture." (They have yet to explain the estimated 100+ or more deaths of detainees in U.S. care. Oops.)

Uncooperative high-value detainees are either spirited to secret CIA prisons around the globe for interrogation -- in Poland, Romania, North Africa, etc. -- or are "rendered" to countries (Egypt being one) that are less squeamish about inflicting excruciating pain. The CIA even has its own planes to fly those suspects to the secret CIA prisons or to the "rendering" countries.

One could go on and on, but you get the central idea: The Bush Administration believes itself to be, and acts in accordance with that belief, that it is above the law, untouchable. By any definition, that is a dictatorship -- maybe not a total dictatorship, yet, but heading full-steam in that direction.

And they're willing to draw the line in the political sand right now, making their stand in the face of a tidal-wave of revulsion and anger, probably because they figure Karl Rove's in-your-face approach -- come and get me, copper! -- has worked in the past, so why not one more time? Besides, they may figure that things are going to get worse for them months down the line, when even more Republicans will desert them, so why not try to stanch the flow of impeachment talk now, while they still can call in their markers from the GOP faithful in Congress.

It's the P.N.A.C. Playbook

This bullying, take-no-prisoners attitude, it should be noted, mirrors the philosophy behind the brazen foreign/military policy laid out by PNAC in 2000 and which became the official National Security Strategy of the United States two years later: acting unilaterally, courting no competitors for power, steamrolling and destroying opposition by any and all means necessary.

From this point of view, there can be only one locus of power in America: The Chief Executive. The time-honored "checks and balances" between the three branches of government, under Bush&Co., are no longer valid -- they're sort of "quaint," to borrow Gonzales' term about the Geneva Conventions.

The Judicial Branch is either frozen out of the equation where possible, or packed with like-minded HardRight ideologues who believe in Executive dominance. The Legislative branch is run pretty much by the GOP leadership as an appendage to the White House's political agenda, with the Democrats (made to seem "unpatriotic" if they question Bush's war and torture policies and the like) shuffled off into a backwater, with no real power or influence. The corporate-owned mainstream media, the Fourth Estate, which normally would be the public's watchdog over legislative and executive perfidy, seems content to play lapdog instead.

An End-Around the Judiciary

On those rare occasions when the Judicial and/or Legislative branches stand up and assert their rightful place in the checks-and-balance system of government, the Bush Administration finds ways to go around whatever restrictions are placed on Executive power. Let's take three recent examples:

1. After 9/11, the Bush Administration, exercising what amounts to police-state powers, began rounding up terrorist suspects -- including American citizens -- and throwing them in prisons without recourse to any judicial review, or even contact with an attorney. Several years later, the U.S. Supreme Court finally received a case about such authoritarian treatment of detainees, and ordered the Administration to grant the prisoners access to the court system where they could challenge the legality of their incarceration.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was as blunt about the Administration's illegal misbehavior as could be imagined -- and she's a staunch conservative: The court, she wrote in reference to American citizen Yaser Hamdi, '''made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."'

The response of the Bush Administration to the detainee decision was, in effect, to ignore the court's order. Promises were made, some papers were shuffled, etc., but in practice not much changed. Some prisoners, who had been imprisoned for several years ("the worst of the worst," we were assured when they were first incarcerated), were released as not being threats after all. Few have had their day in court in Bush's military tribunals, and attorneys furnished them by the Administration have denounced the process as pretty much of a fixed farce. Lower courts, packed with Bush appointees, have been supportive, and the Administration is hoping that with two new justices appointed to the Supreme Court -- who will support wide-sweeping Executive power during "wartime" -- the original Hamdi ruling will be overturned. If that were to happen, fascism would have come full flower in America.

The Torture Escape Hatches

2. Last week, facing rebellion in his own GOP ranks and a united Democratic opposition, Bush seemed to cave on the McCain Amendment that would put the U.S. officially on record as not permitting torture to be carried out on prisoners in U.S. care. Politically it was, on the surface, a major humiliation for Bush, who had vigorously opposed the McCain Amendment and threatened to veto any legislation to which it was attached.

McCain came off looking good, but, in reality, he'd been outmaneuvered by Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Bush agreed to McCain's language because that trio already had neutered the impact of the amendment. They were able to carve out enough legalistic wiggle room to permit the continuation of torture, without much fear of political or judicial retribution.

For example, those who reasonably believe they are following lawful orders would be permitted to continue their "enhanced" interrogation methods. (It's the old "I was only following orders" ploy -- a defense used by Nazi war-criminals that was disallowed at the Nuremburg Tribunals.)

Note that the McCain amendment said nothing about the ongoing practice of "extraordinary renditions" to countries allied with the U.S. where tortures of high-level suspects are carried out for the Bush Administration.

3. Finally, McCain and others tied their ban-on-torture amendment to the well-respected Army Field Manual that carefully defines what constitutes acceptable (and successful) interrogation methods and what would go over the line into abuse and torture. Pulling the rug out from under McCain, Rumsfeld simply had the Army Field Manual rewritten to permit "harsh" interrogation methods -- and stamped the descriptions of what is now permissible with a "classified" label, to prohibit quoting from them. (An unnamed Pentagon official suggested that the alteration of the Field Manual was designed to be "a stick in McCain's eye.")

As in all things, he who controls the dictionary controls the world. Torture now means what the Bush Administration says it means, so there -- unless enough ruckus can be generated to get them to back off. (Assistant Defense Secretary Stephen Cambone still has to approve the final Field Manual language.)

In short, thanks to Bush & Friends, U.S. torture is alive and well, despite the reasonable words that appear on a no-torture amendment overwhelmingly ratified by Congress. Needless to say, the Bush Administration's torture practices are the best recruiting tool for Muslim extremists, doing great damage to America's long-term national security.

Impeachment as an Urgent Necessity

Momentum is moving against the Bush Administration as more and more indictments are delivered against key aides and supporters in the innumerable scandals. (You may wonder why so few Democrats are being indicted. Early on, Bush&Co. made sure that the Democrats were frozen out of the power loop, therefore the big-money lobbyists and bribers went to the locus of power -- i.e., to the Republicans.)

Since we don't have official "votes of no-confidence" in our system of government, electorally we have to wait until November 2006 to get the Republicans out of power in the House so that impeachment hearings can begin, and in the Senate, so that a possible conviction can be obtained. (All this pre-supposes that we finally get an honest, verified voting system in place, with no more outsourcing of vote-counting to partisan corporations, in this case Republican-supporting, who use secret coding and who easily can manipulate the tally-results.)

But non-electoral solutions are available:

So much citizen pressure could be put on Democratic and Republican incumbents, anxious to preserve their jobs, that they will vote to initiate impeachment hearings in the next few months. Certainly, there are enough grounds to justify, at the least, calling for impeachment hearings in the House: the felonious outing by Administration officials of a CIA agent for political reasons, Bush's unlawful order to the NSA to spy on U.S. citizens inside the country, committing perjury before Congress to obtain authorization for war on Iraq -- well, those will do for starters. There are no shortages of willful "high crimes and misdemeanors" in Bushland.

Or, another option, perhaps a bit more fanciful at the moment, though perhaps more realistic next year: Republican corporate and political leaders will see the handwriting on the wall -- and the long-term effects on the economy of keeping the disgraced, corrupt Bush regime in power -- and urge Bush and Cheney to resign, for the good of the party and the country.

So our job now, as I see it, is first to supply energy and political cover to the Democrats, Independents and traditional Republicans who want to see the reckless reign of Bush&Co. ended, while we're moving the impeachment ball forward day by day by leaning on our opinion-makers and elected officials to start the process of transformation back to a government of which we can once again be proud.

If this takes massive civil disobedience to convince the elected officials that the citizenry is serious, and that they may be ousted at the ballot box if they don't challenge Bush's crimes, so be it. It's time to move; America can't take much more.


http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Dec05/Weiner1222.htm

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught government & international relations at various universities, worked as a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-edits The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment: crisispapers@comcast.net.

Is George Bush a Mad Emperor?

by William Hughes
(Thursday December 22 2005)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President George W. Bush took the country into the Iraqi War based on a policy of lies. It has cost the lives of an estimated 30,000 to 100,000 Iraqis. Since 2001, Bush has ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on the American people under the guise of catching terrorists. He arrogantly ignored a secret court, the FISA Court, which was set up for that purpose. Bush acts like a mad Roman emperor; he’s as whacky as a Caligula or a Nero.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.”

-- Cicero [1]

The Roman masses finally figured out that their highly eccentric Emperor, Caligula, was a raving lunatic when it was revealed that he was having lavish dinner parties in honor of his favorite horse and that he had even considered making it a Consul! Caligula’s reported incestuous relationships with his sisters was bad enough for them to stomach; the “horse thing,” however, became the tipping point. [2] Caligula had to go! He was soon replaced, in a palace-orchestrated coup de’ dictator, by the bookish Claudius. At that time, unfortunately for the batty Caligula, there wasn’t an “impeachment process” or “censure proceedings” in place, to hasten his exit in a peaceful and dignified manner from the then chaotic political scene in the Eternal City. [3]

Recently, President George W. Bush, a/k/a “Bush II,” --a would be “Emperor,” if there ever was one--was forced to own up to the shocking fact that in Oct., 2001, he had covertly ordered the National Security Agency (NSA), to spy on countless U.S. residents. Is Bush, too, losing his mind? Coming on top of his damnable lies that got the U.S. into the Iraqi War, this is another very disturbing bombshell. [4] Bush has been spying on our citizenry without the required court orders and in direct violation of the liberties guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and in other laws of the land. Question: Is Bush’s acting contemptuously, and above the law, in this latest disgusting scandal, going to be a tipping point for the American people? When are they going to stop putting up with his crazed antics? Will this repulsive episode be, like Caligula’s “horse thing?” Well, I sure hope so!

Bush’s decision to spy on U.S. citizens is a breach of the Constitution that goes to the very heart of our democratic system, the “Separation of Powers” doctrine, and to rule of law. When this story broke on Monday, Dec. 19, 2005, a respected federal jurist, the Hon. James Robertson, resigned from a secret court that oversees government snooping in intelligence cases. Robertson said the president's authorizing a domestic spying scheme “tainted” the court’s work. According to the Washington Post, the judicial tribunal Robertson was sitting on is labeled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or the “FISA Court” for short. It was set up by the Congress, in 1975, to legally empower sleuths of the federal government to engage in: surveillance, eavesdropping, window peeping, wiretapping, planting of bugging devices, along with the interception of snail-mail, and now of e-mail, on suspects in espionage and terrorism-related matters. The court warrant for surveillance, etc., however, could only be issued by one of the judges on the 11-membered panel, if the Justice Department lawyers could show to the presiding jurist that there was “probable cause” that the party and/or parties under watch were “a foreign government or their agents.” [5]

Bush is now making the highly dubious legal claim that when the U.S. Congress authorized him, after 9/11, to use military force against Al-Qaeda, (AUMF), that it had also by implication granted him the plenary power to initiate warrantless searches, in America, of any and all suspects in supposed terrorism matters, whether those targeted are connected to Al-Qaeda or not. This is a preposterous notion, since the Congress, even if it wanted to, couldn’t lawfully grant the president extraconstitutional powers that it didn’t possess. This is the same President Bush, who also has condoned the torture of detainees in the Iraqi War and thinks and acts like the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Convention are just mere “pieces of paper.” Bush is also claiming that he has the inherent, and absolute, power, as president, to order warrantless searches in national security cases. If that is so, why did Congress enact the FISA law? What do you call a delusional elected official, entrusted by the people with acting as a chief magistrate of a nation, who insists that he has powers greater then the limited ones specifically spelled out in the law? In Rome, during the halcyon days of its Republic, they condemned such a person - “as a dictator,” “a traitor,” and “as an enemy of the people!” [6]

There is more relevant history from the Ancients to ponder in this matter. The Roman Emperor Nero, also a seriously deranged man, was reported to have deliberately torched the city of Rome and played his fiddle while singing the ballad, “The Sack of Troy,” as it burned away. On the advice of palace intriguers (the Neocons of that era), he then scapegoated the Christians for the conflagration. Doesn’t that sound a lot like Bush’s scapegoating Saddam Hussein after that highly suspicious 9/11 tragedy? When the tide of public opinion turned against Nero, instead of hiring a fixer, (like a lobbyist Jack Abramoff or Michael Scanlon), to mount a PR counter offensive on his behalf, he took his own life. Nero’s last words, a la Woody Allen, were: “What a showman the world is losing in me!” [7] Bush isn’t a “showman” or a political leader either. He is a demigod, who is mocked nightly for his foolishness by comedians, like Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien.

Nero and Bush, alas, have still more in common. When the imperial Bush was governor of Texas for six years, he signed death warrants for 152 defendants who had been convicted of capital offenses. Petitions for clemency were regularly forwarded to him on behalf of the condemned. Some of these individuals on death row suffered from mental retardation, others had cases where their lawyers were claimed to be grossly incompetent. Bush said he “reviewed each case seriously.” This is just another one of his big whoppers. [8] Even Nero, when he was first required to sign a death warrant, said, “How I wish I had never learned to write.” [9] This was long before he had lost his mind - completely.

More to the point, Bush has now confessed to the shameful fact that the totally unnecessary Iraqi War, which he chose to launch in March, 2003, has killed “more than 30,000 Iraqis.” It has also taken the lives of 2,156 American military personnel, while wounding 16,000 more. The vast majority of the Iraqi victims were innocent people, many of them women and children. A British-based study by Lancet, says that number of fatalities is closer to 100,000. [10] In any event, Bush’s illegal, immoral and unjust Iraqi war has caused more deadly casualties then the reigns of the despotic Caligula and Nero combined! [7] Bush persists, however, in saying that it was all about bringing “democracy” to Iraq. This is the same kind of irrational thinking demonstrated by the unhinged Nero in wanting to “improve” Rome by first burning it to the ground.

What Bush has brought to occupied Iraq, (thanks, too, to his main partners in merciless mayhem: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz), is not “democracy,” but death, widespread destruction, and unspeakable suffering and human misery. He has also created a bitter hatred for America in the Islamic World which will endure for centuries to come.

In summation, what Bush is now doing to the American people by unlawfully spying on them is clearly an impeachable offense under the U.S. Constitution. We are being ruled by a man who has no respect for our laws, the Courts or our institutions. He is a one-man wrecking crew - a menace to our society and to its revered traditions. He is also the architect of another insidious evil -- Perpetual War! Bush is as whacky in his own flakey ways as were the nutty Caligula and Nero in theirs. Unless “Emperor Bush” is stopped - impeached and jailed - by an awakened people, who have reached their tipping point, he will lead America further into the abyss. It is a place from which our Republic, founded by the gallant patriots of old, may never be able to return. [11]


http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/24334

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

~Longfellow Paul Revere's Ride

Thank you, that worked.

There are too many bumper stickers that I like! I'm either going to need a bigger car or I'm going to have to make a tough decision.

Here are some more!!!! I might just need a fleet of cars!

This is from Rep. John Conyers' (D-MI) blog. Sounds like he's p***ed, and with good reason.

http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000331.htm

Bringing Down a Tyrant

By Norman D. Livergood

Today, the United States is being subverted and destroyed internally by a criminal, imperialistic ruling cabal controlling the Bush junta. Plutocratic cabals have previously tried to destroy this nation by achieving dominance in political and economic power. Such attempts in the past have resulted in abject failure and in the case we will examine, led to the destruction of the political party that tried to create a dictatorship.

By understanding the lessons to be learned from this previous attempt at despotism, Americans today can bring down the criminal Bush regime which seized power through a coup d'etat in 2000 and the stealing of the 2002 and 2004 elections--the worst attacks on the human rights in America's history...

(more on this link)
http://www.hermes-press.com/completing2.htm

Dangerous Ambiguities...Patrick Henry, June 5, 1788, To him as well as others, we owe our gratitude for the Bill of Rights


Mr. HENRY." Mr. Chairman, I am much obliged to the {44} very worthy gentleman for his encomium. I wish I was possessed with talents, or possessed of any thing that might enable me to elucidate this great subject. I am not free from suspicion: I am apt to entertain doubts. I rose yesterday to ask a question which arose in my own mind. When I asked that question, I thought the meaning of my interrogation was obvious. The fate of this question and of America may depend on this. Have they said, We, the states? Have they made a proposal of a compact between states? If they had, this would be a confederation. It is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The question turns, sir, on that poor little thing — the expression, We, the people, instead of the states, of America. I need not take much pains to show that the principles of this system are extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. Is this a monarchy, like England — a compact between prince and people, with checks on the former to secure the liberty of the latter? Is this a confederacy, like Holland — an association of a number of independent states, each of which retains its individual sovereignty? It is not a democracy, wherein the people retain all their rights securely. Had these principles been adhered to, we should not have been brought to this alarming transition, from a confederacy to a consolidated government. We have no detail of these great consideration, which, in my opinion, ought to have abounded before we should recur to a government of this kind. Here is a resolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is radical in this transition; our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished: and cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change, so loudly talked of by some, and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relinquishment of rights worthy of freemen? Is it worthy of that manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans? It is said eight states have adopted this plan. I declare that if twelve states and a half had adopted it, I would, with manly firmness, and in spite of an erring world, reject it. You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful {45} people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government...

http://www.constitution.org/afp/phenry00.htm

An excerpt from Barron's

Barron’s: Congress Should Consider Impeacment…


[...] Surely the "strict constructionists" on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary eventually will point out what a stretch this is. The most important presidential responsibility under Article II is that he must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." That includes following the requirements of laws that limit executive power. There's not much fidelity in an executive who debates and lobbies Congress to shape a law to his liking and then goes beyond its writ.

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law. ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/12/24/b...re_n_12841.html
entire article can be read by suscribers

Christmas at Valley Forge


A week before Christmas '77 Washington's army took up winter quarters at Valley Forge on the west side of the Schuylkill. Although the General's choice of location was sharply criticized, the site he had selected was central and easily defended. Then came a cruel race with time to get huts erected before the soldiers, barefoot and half naked, froze to death. Hundreds of horses did in fact starve to death, and for the army starvation was a mortal danger. "No meat, no meat!" was the constant wail. Improvements came about after Nathanael Greene assumed the duties of Quartermaster General on March 23rd.


Yet, despite the ever-present fear of mutiny, no real dissaffection occurred. As Hessian Major Baurmeister conceded, the army was kept from disintegrating by the "spirit of liberty." Men and officers accepted their tragic plight with a sense of humor and extraordinary forbearance, but it was an ordeal that no army could be expected to undergo for long. Nathanael Greene wrote to General Washington, "God grant we may never be brought to such a wretched condition again."


"A light snow fell as 12,000 weary men made their way up Gulph Road to the area selected only days before as winter quarters."

"Lewis Hurt, age 17, a private from Connecticut. Benjamin Blossom, age about 31 years, a soldier from Massachusetts. George Ewing, age 23, an Ensign of the Seventh Company in the Third New Jersey Regiment. Joseph Plumb Martin, age 15 when he enlisted in Connecticut's Third Company on July 6, 1776; age 16 when he arrived at Valley Forge. They came from Virginia, North Carolina, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey...They represented every state in the new union."


"Some were still boys -- as young as 12 -- others in their 50s and 60s. They were described as fair, pale, freckled, brown, swarthy and black. While the majority were white, the army included both Negroes and American Indians."


"Each man had few possessions and these he carried with him. His musket -- by far the most popular weapon -- a cartouche or cartridge box. If he had neither, the infantryman carried a powder horn, hunting bag and bullet pouch. His knapsack or haversack held his extra clothing (if he was fortunate enough to have any), a blanket, a plate and spoon, perhaps a knife, fork and tumbler. Canteens were often shared with others and six to eight men shared cooking utensils."


"The first order of business was shelter. An active field officer was appointed for each brigade to superintend the business of hutting. Twelve men were to occupy each hut. The officers' hut, located to the rear, would house fewer men. Each brigade would also build a hospital, 15x25 feet. Many of the Brigadier Generals used local farmhouses as their quarters. Some, including Henry Knox, later moved into huts to be closer to their men."


"The huts provided greater comfort than the tents used by the men when on campaign. But after months of housing unwashed men and food waste, these cramped quarters fostered discomfort and disease. Albigence Waldo complained, 'my Skin & eyes are almost spoil'd with continual smoke.' Putrid fever, the itch, diarrhea, dysentery and rheumatism were some of the other afflictions suffered by the Continental troops."


"Little is known about the women but there were women at Valley Forge. Junior officers' wives probably remained in the homes of their husbands and socialized among themselves. The enlisted men's wives lived and labored among the troops, some working as housekeepers for the officers; others as cooks. The most common positions were nurse and laundress. A washerwoman might work for wages or charge by the piece."


"The army was continually plagued with shortages of food, clothing and equipment. Soldiers relied both on their home states and on the Continental Congress for these necessities. Poor organization, a shortage of wagoners, lack of forage for the horses, the devaluation of the Continental currency spoilage, and capture by the British all contributed to prevent these critical supplies from arriving at camp.

An estimated 34,577 pounds of meat and 168 barrels of flour per day were needed to feed the army. Shortages were particularly acute in December and February. Foraging expeditions were sent into the surrounding countryside to round up cattle and other supplies. In February three public markets opened. Farmers were encouraged to sell their produce. Fresh Pork, Fat Turkey, Goose, Rough skinned Potatoes, Turnips, Indian Meal, Sour-Crout, Leaf Tobacco, New Milk, Cyder, and Small Beer were included in the list of articles published in the Pennsylvania Packet and circulated in hand bills."


"Entertainment at Valley Forge took many forms. The officers liked to play cricket (known also as wicket) and on at least one occasion were joined by His Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief. Several plays were staged including Joseph Addison's 'Cato' which played to a packed audience. A common recreation was drinking, when spirits were available. And the soldiers liked to sing."


"Throughout the winter and early spring, men were frequently 'on command,' leaving camp on a variety of assignments. Units were formed to forage for food, some were granted furloughs, and individuals regularly returned to their home states to recruit new troops. In January Jeremiah Greenman reported, 'all ye spayr officers sent home to recrute a nother regiment & sum on furlow.'"


"On February 23, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin, Baron von Steuben, arrived at Valley Forge to offer his military skills to the patriot cause. Washington assigned him the duties of Acting Inspector General and gave him the task of developing and carrying out a practical training program."

"Foreign officers were an essential part of the Continental Army. They provided military skills which the Americans lacked. Some, including Steuben, the Marquis de Lafayette and the Baron de Kalb came as volunteers. Kalb quickly proved himself to Washington and Congress commissioned him a major general. Lafayette was given the command of a division of Virginia light troops in December 1777 and later took command of additional troops. Others, such as Engineer Louis Lebèque de Presle Duportail were "covert" aid given leave from the French Army to provide assistance to the Americans. It was Duportail who designed the Valley Forge Encampment."


"With spring the balance shifted. New recruits arrived daily. Reluctantly, Nathanael Greene accepted the appointment as Quarter Master General and began to correct the problems with supplies. Under Steuben's direction the Continentals had become professionals, if not career soldiers. Morale improved as confidence grew."


"General Orders, Tuesday. May 5, 1778 announced the alliance with France and plans 'to set apart a day for gratefully acknowledging the divine Goodness.'"


"On June 19, 1778, six months to the day following their arrival, the Commander-in-Chief General George Washington and the Continental Army departed Valley Forge and marched to Monmouth, New Jersey to engage the British in battle just nine days later."


"This was the army that would continue to victory at Yorktown."

http://www.americanrevwar.homestead.com/files/VALLEY.HTM

Those are the two that I settled on.

Count me in....

I don't have any words of wisdom to offer up this Christmas Eve...

except to remember a Christmas 24th in the past, in the middle of a cold, freezing night, when some men boarded some flat boats manned by some men from Marblehead and crossed the Delaware to surprise the Hessians in Trenton.

December 23, 2005

Impeach the Liar-in-Chief
By Stephen Crockett


The generation of American leaders who fought the American Revolution and crafted the United States Constitution examined the most important issues of government. They considered (1) war and peace, (2 ) the limits to government power vs. individual liberties, (3) how officeholders should be controlled by the citizenry and (4) the raising and management of public money. That generation devised impeachment to remove tyrants and corrupt officeholders from positions of public power based on their experience under the government of King George. Under the present circumstances, it is likely that they would vote to impeach and remove from office George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Bush deserves to be known as Liar-in Chief because he has not been honest with the American public on the most important issues of public policy for the past 5 years of his government. It is amazing that Republicans in Congress were willing to impeach President Bill Clinton over lying about an essentially personal issue over his sex life but are defenders of Bush when he is dishonest on the most important issues of government and public policy.

Bush and Cheney were dishonest with the American voters when they pushed the American nation into the invasion and occupation of Iraq. They did not share the full information collected by our intelligence agencies on WMD’s with all the members of Congress or the voters. Cheney and Bush dishonestly tied Saddam Hussein with the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the United States to justify their unjustifiable war policy.

The Bush Administration intentionally mislead the American public over the use of the excessive government powers granted the federal government by the falsely-named Patriot Act. They claimed that these powers would only be used to fight terrorism. It has mostly been used for matters unrelated to terrorism. It has almost never been used to fight terrorism.

Bush falsely stated that wiretaps under his government were only being conducted under authorization of the federal courts. This was false. Bush violated the law by not getting court authorization for his wiretapping of American citizens. This has not been done since the government of Richard Nixon. Nixon was driven from office based in large part because of this behavior. Bush broke the law passed in the aftermath of Watergate to prevent this kind of governmental abuse of power. Carter and Clinton permitted wiretaps of a handful of foreigners who were agents of foreign governments. Bush wiretapped thousands of American citizens without proven connections to terrorism.

Bush and Cheney has repeatedly lied to the American taxpayers over the impact of their program of excessive tax breaks to the Super Wealthy who have financed their political machine. During the 2000 Presidential Election, they promised tax breaks for the wealthy only because our government was in surplus because of the wise management of President Clinton. They stated that they would not support tax cuts if the government budget was in deficit. This was false. They promised a balanced budget but gave use the largest budget deficits in history. They have spent money in the most reckless manner of any American government in history with huge amounts going to their political supporters with much accountability or plan to pay the bills.

These issues are certainly not the only issues of public policy were the Bush Administration has not been fully honest. Campaign finance, voting machines, media concentration, oil policy, disaster relief, environmental issues, judicial appointments and most other important issues have been things that were spun by the Bush Administration without little regard for being fully truthful with the American citizens.

Our Founding Fathers would not have approved of Bush concerning his honesty or his abuse of the powers of his office. They would have exercised their power of impeachment to remove both Bush and Cheney from office if they were serving in Congress today. Current members of Congress should act the same.

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_fri...he_liar_in_.htm

The Threat of an Unchecked Presidency

James Madison warned Thomas Jefferson, "Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad." The threat to the United States today is real. Yet, in recognition of this threat, Congress painstakingly produced a constitutionally-sound system that allows our government to monitor the activities of those who wish to do us harm, whether they be foreign agents or American citizens. A much different danger has been exposed by President Bush's warrantless spying program: an active hostility by one branch of government to the checks and balances designed to protect our nation's democracy. This hostility "is as pernicious and as damaging as any abuse or panic or misstep of the past," Washington Post defense analyst William Arkin writes. Americans have been asked to "pledge allegiance to a certain post-9/11 Order, abandon the rule of law, compromise our values, turn against our neighbors, enlist in a clash of civilizations, all in the name of defeating the terrorists. We are being asked to destroy our country in order to save it." Our nation has not yet struck a perfect balance between ensuring our security and protecting our rights and liberties. But as the history sketched below demonstrates, the solution lies in more vigorous debate and more careful oversight, not less.

To Thomas Jefferson

May 13. 1798




http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site...4257&ct=1742883

The Hidden State Steps Forward

by JONATHAN SCHELL

[from the January 9, 2006 issue]

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 branch 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 made.

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.

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20060109&s=schell

Steve Chapman

Beyond the imperial presidency

Published December 25, 2005


President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the federal government should be limited but the powers of the president should not. He wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but doesn't think he should be constrained by their intentions.

He attacked Al Gore for trusting government instead of the people, but he insists anyone who wants to defeat terrorism must put absolute faith in the man at the helm of government.

His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential prerogatives of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration's secret eavesdropping program is justified because "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it."

But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.

Even people who should be on Bush's side are getting queasy. David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, says in his efforts to enlarge executive authority, Bush "has gone too far."

He's not the only one who feels that way. Consider the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in 2002 on suspicion of plotting to set off a "dirty bomb." For three years, the administration said he posed such a grave threat that it had the right to detain him without trial as an enemy combatant. In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed.

But then, rather than risk a review of its policy by the Supreme Court, the administration abandoned its hard-won victory and indicted Padilla on comparatively minor criminal charges. When it asked the 4th Circuit Court for permission to transfer him from military custody to jail, though, the once-cooperative court flatly refused.

In a decision last week, the judges expressed amazement that the administration suddenly would decide Padilla could be treated like a common purse snatcher--a reversal that, they said, comes "at substantial cost to the government's credibility." The court's meaning was plain: Either you were lying to us then, or you are lying to us now.

If that's not enough to embarrass the president, the opinion was written by conservative darling J. Michael Luttig--who just a couple of months ago was on Bush's short list for the Supreme Court. For Luttig to question Bush's use of executive power is like Bill O'Reilly announcing that there's too much Christ in Christmas.

This is hardly the only example of the president demanding powers he doesn't need. When American-born Saudi Yasser Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan, the administration also detained him as an enemy combatant rather than entrust him to the criminal justice system.

But when the Supreme Court said he was entitled to a hearing where he could present evidence on his behalf, the administration decided that was way too much trouble. It freed him and put him on a plane back to Saudi Arabia, where he may plot jihad to his heart's content. Try to follow this logic: Hamdi was too dangerous to put on trial but not too dangerous to release.

The disclosure that the president authorized secret and probably illegal monitoring of communications between people in the United States and people overseas again raises the question: Why?

The government easily could have gotten search warrants to conduct electronic surveillance of anyone with the slightest possible connection to terrorists. The court that handles such requests hardly ever refuses. But Bush bridles at the notion that the president should ever have to ask permission of anyone.

He claims he can ignore the law because Congress granted permission when it authorized him to use force against Al Qaeda. But we know that can't be true. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales says the administration didn't ask for a revision of the law to give the president explicit power to order such wiretaps because Congress--a Republican Congress, mind you--wouldn't have agreed. So the administration decided: Who needs Congress?

What we have now is not a robust executive but a reckless one. At times like this, it's apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need it to protect the nation, but because they want more power. Another paradox: In their conduct of the war on terror, they expect our trust, but they can't be bothered to earn it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/new...ll=chi-news-hed

From Barron's, not exactly a bastion of liberalism. This one doesn't require a subscription to read at the link.

http://online.barrons.com/article_email/SB...NDMyODQ0Wj.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20051226/...12898&printer=1

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122605I.shtml

Thanx for posting the whole article Rox.....quite surprising to me as well as the (conservative) Chapman article above...but not surprising in the sense that there are many on the Right who are as concerned about civil liberties as much as we. It's refreshing to hear them speak up. We the people have to choose where we stand.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05361/628256.stm

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060109/schell