4.01.2006
Who Are The Fools?
"We the People" are all time fools if we don't push for Cheney/Bush impeachment!
4/01/2006
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3.31.2006
Look into the Senate Judiciary Committee Censure Statements
Raw Story has the statements of Senator Russ Feingold, John Dean and Bruce Fein to Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing On the Call to Censure posted. Here is a taste of what hey had to say, follow the links for the full statements:
Senator Feingold
If Congress doesn’t have the power to define the contours of the President’s Article II powers through legislation, then I have no idea why people are scrambling to draft legislation to authorize what they think the President is doing. If the President’s legal theory, which is shared by some of our witnesses today, is correct, then FISA is a dead letter, all of the supposed protections for civil liberties contained in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act that we just passed are a cruel hoax, and any future legislation we might pass regarding surveillance or national security is a waste of time and a charade. Under this theory, we no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government, we have a monarchy.
We can fight terrorism without breaking the law. The rule of law is central to who we are as a people, and the President must return to the law. He must acknowledge and be held accountable for his illegal actions and for misleading the American people, both before and after the program was revealed. If we in the Congress don’t stand up for ourselves and for the American people, we become complicit in his law breaking. A resolution of censure is the appropriate response – even a modest approach.
John Dean
No presidency that I can find in history has adopted a policy of expanding presidential powers merely for the sake of expanding presidential powers. Presidents in the past who have expanded their powers have done so when pursuing policy objectives. It has been the announced policy of the Bush/Cheney presidency, however, from its outset, to expand presidential power for its own sake, and it continually searched for avenues to do just that, while constantly testing to see how far it can push the limits. I must add that never before have I felt the slightest reason to fear our government. Nor do I frighten easily. But I do fear the Bush/Cheney government (and the precedents they are creating) because this administration is caught up in the rectitude of its own self- righteousness, and for all practical purposes this presidency has remained largely unchecked by its constitutional coequals.
Bruce Fein
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am grateful for the opportunity to express my support for Senate Resolution 398. It would censure President George W. Bush for seeking to cripple the Constitution’s checks and balances and political accountability by secretly authorizing the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens in the United States in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and misleading the public about the secret surveillance program.
Censure of the President for official misconduct is a species of congressional oversight of the Executive Branch including the exposure of mismanagement, corruption or other wrongdoing. Broad congressional oversight jurisdiction was endorsed by the United States Supreme Court in Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178 (1957).
Congress regularly writes reports harshly critical of official actions at the conclusion of oversight hearings, for example, the Majority Report of the Iran-contra Joint Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran. Censure seems to me at least a first cousin—a collective judgment of Congress about the performance of the President regarding the discharge of official duties, including an obligation to faithfully execute the laws. With regard to S. Res. 398, it is also a statement to the Supreme Court that Congress disputes President Bush's interpretation of FISA and inherent Article II powers. If President Harry Truman could run against a “do nothing “ Congress, I see no reason why Congress cannot reciprocally run against a "doing wrong" president.
What do you think?
Read the post below this. Does a domestic police state make you feel safer? Themedia is reporting more and more on the present administrations corruptness ineptitude and disregard for the future of America on so many fronts.
Censure may break the seemingly hypnotic state "We the People" seem to be functioning under. Plus, we will see just who in the halls of politics puts the rule of law in the fore. We will get to learn about the scope of the illegal wiretapping because the move to censure will call it out on the carpet- it maybe much more vast than the Bush administration has led us to believe.
The NSA is not only the world's largest spy agency (far larger than the CIA, for example), but it possesses the most advanced technology for intercepting communications. We know it has long had the ability to focus powerful surveillance capabilities on particular individuals or communications. But the current scandal has indicated two new and significant elements of the agency's eavesdropping:
1. The NSA has gained direct access to the telecommunications infrastructure through some of America's largest companies
2. The agency appears to be not only targeting individuals, but also using broad "data mining" systems that allow them to intercept and evaluate the communications of millions of people within the United States.
Partisan Politics as Usual?
Will it be partisan politics as usual? Or a principled stand for Constitutional law?
Let the members of the Judiciary committee know you care about America.
Link to News Now to follow this issue.
3/31/2006
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Bush/NeoCon Priorities Revealed
With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.
But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.
Why would Mr Bush not take out this "terrorist mastermind"?
‘People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of pre-emption against terrorists.’
— Roger Cressey, Terrorism expert
Read the article
Impeachment (Bush/Cheney) seems sensible.
3/31/2006
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3.30.2006
Safeguarding the Constitution
Safeguarding the Constitution is a bipartisan effort, it should be beyond party allegiance...
When the Senate Judiciary Committee convenes as extraordinary session on Friday to consider the Feingold's motion to censure the president for ordering federal agencies to engage in eavesdropping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's requirement that judicial approval be obtained for wiretaps of Americans in the United States, the dissenting senator will call two witnesses.
Making arguments about the extreme seriousness of the warrantless wiretapping issue -- and the need for a Congressional response -- will be noted constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, who served in President Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice as Deputy Attorney General, and author and legal commentator John Dean, who served at Richard Nixon's White House counsel before breaking with the president to reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Watergate era.
It seems to me that the testimony of these two men will shed much needed light on the issue- Mr Bush is committing an impeachable offense. But it is a hearing about censure.
Have you called/written/faxed your legislators about censuring President Bush?
The Million Phone March makes it easy to take action.
This is about the only way that "we the People" will get the benefit of a hearing concerning the legality of Mr Bush's warrantless spying on Americans.
It will also shed light on the monarchial tendencies of the present administration-
Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.
In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."
Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "
Censure can be the first step to getting America back on it's Constitutional path.
Judge Harold A. Baker, a sitting federal judge in Illinois who served on the intelligence court until last year, said the president was bound by the law "like everyone else." If a law like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is duly enacted by Congress and considered constitutional, Judge Baker said, "the president ignores it at the president's peril."
Let your legislators, Republican and Democrat, know you are aware of what is going on; voice your concerns.
Ernest Partridge has written an insightful essay "The Democrats: Missing in Action", it is thought provoking and far reaching.
Watching the Democrats, one would think that they never gave up believing in Santa Claus.
Like little kids in December, they seem to believe that just by being nice, Santa will deliver the gifts: election victories and control of the Congress.
The Republicans know better. They analyze, they scheme, they think things through, they act aggressively and ruthlessly, and thus they win.
Unfortunately, the Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And opportunities aplenty are coming their way which, for the most part, they simply ignore. For example, when one of their number, Senator Russ Feingold, speaks up with a loud and eloquent voice, he is told to shut up. Demanding censure of the outlaw President, he is told by his own party, is “not nice.”
Talk to people about what you know.
3/30/2006
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3.28.2006
Learn About the Israel Lobby in the U.S
I recommend that you read deeply and judge on it's merits "The Israel Lobby and U.S Foreign Policy"(.pdf file) by John J. Mearsheimer, Department of Political Science
University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
The paper linked above is complete with footnotes which you can google up for verification. The London Review of Books has an edited version, which is a bit shorter than the originals 40 or so pages(80 pages with the endnotes).
John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt are respected scholars, yet it seems the commercial press would not publish their work.
"I do not believe that we could have gotten it published in the United States," Mearsheimer told the Forward. He said that the paper was originally commissioned in the fall of 2002 by one of America's leading magazines, "but the publishers told us that it was virtually impossible to get the piece published in the United States."
Most scholars, policymakers and journalists know that "the whole subject of the Israel lobby and American foreign policy is a third-rail issue," he said. "Publishers understand that if they publish a piece like ours it would cause them all sorts of problems."
In their paper, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," the two professors accuse "the lobby" of "policing academia," intimidating scholars and stifling dissent on campuses, mainly through accusing critics of being antisemitic.
Mearsheimer said that he and Walt expected to be accused of being anti-Israel and antisemitic, so they made a point of stating in the study that the establishment of Israel was morally justified and that America's support of Israel, in principle, is justified as well. He said the paper takes issue with the extent of American support for Israel and the role that the pro-Israel lobby plays in pushing for such assistance.
Witness Alan Dershowitz, perenial apologist for Israeli state policy (as well as documented plagiarist while doing so) on the attack:
Dershowitz, who is one of Israel’s most prominent defenders, vehemently disputed the article’s assertions, repeatedly calling it “one-sided” and its authors “liars” and “bigots.”
He criticized three piece on three grounds, alleging parallels with neo-Nazi literature, saying that Walt and Mearsheimer’s characterization that Israeli citizenship is based on “blood kinship” is a “categorical lie,” and taking issue with the representation of the lobby as all-encompassing.
Dershowitz said that the article used “quotes from [Israel’s first prime minister] David Ben-Gurion and [former president of the World Jewish Congress] Nahum Goldmann that are found repeatedly on hate sites,” and that in asserting that the Jewish state was founded on “blood kinship,” the authors were mistakenly conflating the right of Jews to immigrate to Israel with citizenship.
Walt and Mearsheimer countered in an interview that “the principle of ‘blood kinship’ refers to the fact that Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and that whether or not you are Jewish is normally a function of ancestry, especially maternal ancestry.”
Is it anti-semitic to criticize the actions of the state of Israel? To document a large and powerful lobby here in the United States?
Norman Finkelstein has taken on those who would equate criticism of the state of Israel's actions with anti-semitism in his book "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History". Here is Israeli civil libertarian Felicia Langer in the preface of the German edition of this excellent and eye opening book:
It was high time a book on the misuse of anti-Semitism as a political weapon got written. Now it has found its author: Norman Finkelstein. He is no stranger to daring challenges, and as this book clearly shows, Finkelstein has got what it takes. The precision and meticulousness of his research and analyses are admirable.
In the first part of the book, Finkelstein focuses on the misuse of anti-Semitism by the pro-Israel lobby in the United States and Europe, in support of Israeli policies. Any time there is a real risk that the international community will increase pressure on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories as required by international law, a new anti-Semitism campaign is launched: "yet another meticulously orchestrated media extravaganza alleging that the world is awash in anti-Semitism."
With their allegations of anti-Semitism, American-Jewish elites seek, above all, to convince everybody that critics of Israel are really anti-Semites in disguise. Reports on what it is like for Palestinians to live under occupation, reports on their oppression and their suffering must remain taboo – only Israel is entitled to victim status. Thus reality is being inverted, in order to make sure that Israel enjoys immunity.
The hysteria about a "new anti-Semitism" serves not only to silence legitimate criticism of Israel, but also to deflect attention from violations of international law and elementary human rights.
Read "The Israel Lobby and U.S Foreign Policy"(scroll down to download) and check out the citations. Explore criticism of the paper while noting what about it is being specifically called inaccurate. You be the judge. As the paper itself notes:
Some readers will find this analysis disturbing, but the facts recounted here are not in serious dispute among scholars. Indeed, our account relies heavily on the work of Israeli scholars and journalists, who deserve great credit for shedding light on these issues. We also rely on evidence provided by respected Israeli and international human rights organizations. Similarly, our claims about the Lobby’s impact rely on testimony from the Lobby’s own members, as well as testimony from politicians who have worked with them. Readers may reject our conclusions, of course, but the evidence on which they rest is not controversial. (.pdf)
3/28/2006
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