Another Brick in the Wall...

First is was the the failure of the Obama administration to begin investigations of war crimes under the Bush administration. You remember...water-boarding, stress positions, torture. Then it was the request for dismissal of Jewel v. NSA. And, now it's this...

Obama to Appeal Detainee Ruling

On April 2nd, United States District Judge John D. Bates, ruled that three prisoners at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan were entitled to the same legal rights GITMO detainees were granted last year by the US Supreme Court. On Friday, the Obama administration announced its intent to appeal this ruling.

Habeas Corpus has been a cornerstone of jurisprudence since the Magna Carta, or even earlier, by some accounts. It does not serve to determine the innocence or guilt of the defendant but rather, it serves to determine whether or not the defendant is legally imprisoned. In the cases of the men being detained at Bagram, they were captured outside of Afghanistan and have been imprisoned for some six years without charge or trial.

The Bush administration claimed the authority to suspend habeas corpus in the cases of those individuals described as "enemy combatants", including those interred at GITMO. This policy was later enshrined in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It wasn't until 2008 that the US Supreme Court in BOUMEDIENE v. BUSH repudiated the Bush administration by stating that the denial of habeas corpus for GITMO detainees was unconstitutional and that they were entitled to hearings where they could contest their imprisonment and the charges against them. By extension, this ruling could apply to those in US custody elsewhere...such as at Bagram Airbase, and this is what Judge Bates has done. Why the Obama administration would choose to challenge what appears to be settled law is disappointing and, in this case, disturbing.

President Obama rode into office on a pledge of change, yet here his administration stands, defending the very policies of the Bush administration that played a key role in undermining America's reputation around the world as a beacon of hope and justice. As a former professor of constitutional law, President Obama should not need to be reminded by a layman that he cannot "...support and defend the Constitution..." by undermining the very foundations upon which it stands. Nor should he need to be reminded that using the authority of the office to cover up the crimes of his predecessor is nothing less than complicity in those crimes.

Additional Sources:

Obama and habeas corpus -- then and now

Judge Rules Some Prisoners at Bagram Have Right of Habeas Corpus

MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT

An Open Letter...

...To President Barack Obama.

Dear Sir,

In November of 2008 you were elected to the office of President of the United States by me, and millions of other Americas, on a platform of hope and change. But recently, it seems to be more a case of "Meet the new boss...Same as the old boss".

It began with the reluctance of your administration to live up to its duties in investigating the Bush administration for its apparent violation of US and international human rights law regarding the abuse of detainees in US custody. Now your administration seems to not only be siding with the late, unlamented Bush administration, but are actively seeking to expand the authority they claimed to conduct domestic surveillance operations on US citizens without a warrant! This in response to the lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The motion submitted by your DOJ does nothing short of gutting the Fourth Amendment, and all in the name of "state secrets". As a former professor of constitutional law, Mr. President, it should not be necessary for me...a layman...to tell you that a right unenforced is no right at all. Secondly, using the doctrine of "state secrets" as a means of preventing the investigation of a crime is no better than complicity in that crime.

Make no mistake sir, you and your administration have been doing some good things. But, as we said in the Navy, "One 'Awww shit!' wipes out all of your 'Attaboy!'s". In this case you have a MAJOR "Awww shit!"

Will they stop at nothing?

It appears that the GOP is attempting to beat the Obama administration into submission on the issue of releasing Bush administration torture memos. According to Scott Horton of "The Daily Beast", the Senate GOP assmonkeys are:

...(N)ow privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. - Scott Horton

...Namely the confirmation of Dawn Johnsen to the head of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel.

If, the actions sanctioned in these memos was legal as they, and former members of the Bush administration have long held, and still do, they have nothing to worry about.

The release of the memos, already cleared by Attorney General Holder, has apparently caused a rift in the Obama administration, this according to Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek". The effort to block the release of these documents is being led by John Brennan, once considered by the Obama administration to head the CIA. Brennan has apparently persuaded DCIA Panetta that it is in the national interest to block the release of these memos. It would seem that avoiding embarrassment of "...foreign intelligence services who cooperated with the CIA, either by participating in overseas "extraordinary renditions" of high-level detainees or housing them in overseas "black site" prisons..." trumps the rule of law.

Unfortunately, for the GOP and the late, unlamented Bush administration, the actions outlined in these memos are illegal under US law and treaty obligation and international law. The attempts by Senate Republicans to suppress these documents would seem, at the very least, to constitute attempts to suppress evidence of criminal activities sanctioned by the Bush administration...If not outright collusion.

Mr. Brennan's, and now DCIA Pannetta's, efforts to suppress these documents in the name of national security is equally troubling. Did we not have enough of this under the Bush administration? Using the rubric of national security to suppress the evidence of criminal activity is collusion in said activity.

The only way to put this issue to rest is to release all documents pertaining to it and appoint a special prosecutor with the mandate, the staff and the funding to follow the evidence wherever, and to whoever, it may lead.

Treason by any other name...

...Is still treason. And suborning treason is exactly what Dick Cheney is doing with his "stay behinds" in the Obama administration and various other agencies.

In an interview on "Fresh Air with Terri Gross" Seymour Hersch, veteran investigative reporter with the "New Yorker", Hirsch stated that Cheney left these "stay behinds" for his own purposes...

You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence. - Seymour Hersch

Cheney is a private citizen now, his security clearances are null and void as he no longer has a "need to know". By encouraging his moles to report back to him he is suborning treason, and if the information is classified, he...and they...are engaging in espionage. I understand the penalties for this are quite severe.

Thus far, however, the Obama administration seems content to let the worst excesses of the Bush administration go unanswered for. Perhaps that will change with this new awareness of traitors in their midst.

Imagine that...

After years of being detained at GITMO, being subjected to water-boarding and other forms of torture...er, "harsh interrogation"...it turns out that Abu Zubaida provided no actionable intelligence. What was obtained, before he was tortured, I mean "harshly interrogated", were the names of Al Qaeda members and their associates, and many of those were found on the hard drive of his laptop. And, contrary to claims by the Bush administration, Zubaida was not Al Qaeda's "...number three leader..." He was simply a go-to guy for arranging transportation for the families of Al Qaeda functionaries. No "plots" were foiled by his torture and perhaps the only ones furthered were those of the Bush administration to keep America in a constant state of fear.

Like so much else involved in the Bush administration's "war on terror", exaggeration, misinformation and outright lies were the preferred tools of the administration in maintaining a level of fear in America conducive to whatever action they chose to pursue. From illegal domestic wiretapping to the suspension of habeas corpus...from claiming the authority to suspend the constitutional rights of American citizens to invading Iraq...the Bush administration ground the Constitution under its heel, using the "war on terror" as a convenient pretext for whatever action it chose to take to secure its grasp on power. We are only now beginning to realize the true scope of the Bush legacy...memos by John Yoo and now federal Judge Jay Bybee are but the tip of the iceberg.

Even more disappointing is the failure of the Obama administration to live up to its duties under US and international law. That being to prosecute those individuals responsible for providing legal cover for the administration's torture policies or those who authorized the use of torture on prisoners in US custody. It doesn't require a congressional "truth commission"...Just a special prosecutor with the staff and funding to follow the evidence wherever, and to whoever, it may lead. The platform of change President Obama ran on are beginning to ring hollow.


Sources:

Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots

Profile: Abu Zubaida

Secret Bush Administration Torture Memo Released Today In Response To ACLU Lawsuit

Top Interrogators Declare Torture Ineffective in Intelligence Gathering

ENOUGH ALREADY...!

In another glaring example of just how weak the shit of the right wing in this country is, they've created another steaming handful of crap to throw at President Obama to see if it sticks. They're getting as bad as a bored chimp at a zoo throwing crap at the zoo patrons. At least there's substance to what the chimp throws.

Few, if any, public speakers in large venues fail to use teleprompters. It's a modern fact of life, they're used by everyone from college professors all the way down to pond scum like Sean Hannity and Glen Beck. And the RWN's conveniently forget that every word Bush ever read, stumbled through more appropriately, off a teleprompter was written for him. Obama writes his own material.

Even more ridiculous is the main stream media like AP and CNN picking up this long debunked BS story first promulgated by the likes of FOX Noise and Politico to Townhall and the Drudge Report during the presidential campaign. As usual, the MSM is behind the curve. It seems likely that space aliens have taken over the MSM with the aim of turning people's brains to mush so they can spread them on toast like Cheez-Whiz. They can safely abandon the plan however as they have found a a seemingly endless and ready to eat source between the ears of the GOP leadership, its apologists and their slavish followers. We offer them our profound thanks for their selfless sacrifice to save the human race.

"You were created by the magicians; return to your dust..."

Such were the words of Rav Zeira to the golem sent to him by the Babylonian Talmudist Rava around 300AD. It appears that the GOP congressional leadership has similar words for Dick Cheney after his pasty face showed up on the TV last week.

Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input.

Displeased with the former vice-president's recent media appearances, Republican lawmakers say he's hurting GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral drubbings. - The Hill

Apparently, whenever Cheney come shambling forth from his crypt at an undisclosed location, he raises the twin specters of he and Dubbyuh running the country into the ground. This makes it all the harder for the GOP to rebrand itself for public consumption as it attempts to distance itself from the Bush administration, not that they're having a tremendous amount of success in either case.

All I can say is "Bring it on!". If he really wants to talk about the policies of the Bush administration that have done so much harm to this nation and the principles it was founded upon, let him do so under oath and before a judge.

Some perspective...please.

Let's put the issue of bonuses for AIG's, and executives at other federally bailed out financial corporations, in perspective. They are irrelevant. So these sots negotiated sweet-heart contracts. So what...? They're just doing what they've always done, look out for number one and devil take the hind-most. The populist kerfuffle over over these bonuses are a side-show and they distract from the real issues at hand.

These bonuses are irrelevant in the face of the hundreds of billions of dollars the feckless, reckless captains of the financial industry have already cost the tax-payer ...in the face of more than 4,000 dead US service men and women in Iraq...in the face of the more than 25,000 US service men and women maimed and crippled...in the face of the the nearly 100,000 documented Iraqi civilian casualties...in the face of war profiteers raking in billions in ill-gotten gains. And, in the face of the recently leaked ICRC report which documents abuses at GITMO...the outrage over executive bonuses is irrelevant. Of far greater relevance is the question that goes begging if, as President Obama has repeatedly stated, "No one is above the law...", that question being, "Why are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and all of the others involved in the issue of authorizing the torture of "enemy combatants" in US custody still free persons?" Why are they walking around, attempting to rewrite history with every breath instead of in prison and awaiting to stand trial for their crimes?

It is past time to put these issues in perspective...Sure, you don't fuck with peoples money. But what is money in the face of crimes of such enormity and influence on our national character that to ignore them will make an utter mockery and sham of the Constitution and the rule of law. Absent these foundations, all else will fall and fail.

What the F@#*?

In a "What the f@#*?" moment on Sunday, Dick Cheney stirred from his crypt at an undisclosed location. He was seen on CNN's "State of the Union" with John King. What was the purpose behind Cheney rousing from his unnatural sleep? To bad mouth the Obama administration and urge Americans to be afraid...very afraid...of terrorists, economic disaster, cats and dogs cohabiting, alligators walking on two legs and eating babies like a bunch of stoners wolfing down Mallowmars...You get the idea.

My first reaction was "Why is anybody paying ANY attention to anything he says. After all, he's been proven so wrong on so many things during his tenure as VEEP and "Dark Lord of the Sith", that his credibility is, shall we say, non-existent. But wait, there is an upside here.

"What is that upside?", you may ask. To put it simply, it is that his putting his pasty face and rancid ideology out on the airwaves serves as a stark reminder of just why we are in our current straights. You know...coming up on eight years in Afghanistan...an unnecessary war in Iraq with the ongoing occupation...Stripping regulatory mechanism from the financial industry which would have prevented or ameliorated our current economic breakdown...The horrors of Abu Ghraib, renditions, black sites and GITMO.

Given his negative ratings before he was ushered out of the White House with his man-sized safe (crypt?), he serves the country well by reminding us all of just why the Republicans were run out of Congress and the White House on a rail. So just keep putting your ugly mug out there on the airwaves...Dick, and we'll keep remembering why we kicked your, and Dubbyuh's, sorry asses to the curb.

Phyrric Victory

This is old news, but it's been gnawing at me like a sore tooth for far too long.

"This is a victory for the separation of powers and congressional oversight," Conyers said in a statement. "It is also a vindication of the search for truth. I am determined to have it known whether U.S. attorneys in the Department of Justice were fired for political reasons, and if so, by whom."

Now had it been me, or any other member of the hoi polloi, we would have long since been frog marched by US marshals to some dank holding cell in the Capital until we agreed to testify before Congress as a subpoena would have required us to do. And then there is the issue of criminal penalties for contempt of Congress..."not less than one month nor more than twelve months in jail and a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000". But no, Karl Rove and Harriet Miers freely disregarded multiple subpoenas, thereby showing their utter contempt for Congress. Representative Conyers claims of "victory" and "vindication" in this matter are as empty as Rove's and Miers' claims of "executive privilege".

According to everyone involved in the now infamous firings of US attorneys, from then Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to Rove, Miers and others, the President was out of the loop on the matter. Since no conversations were held with Bush on this matter, no claim of executive privilege can be allowed to stand. But in a bit of political kabuki theater, Rove and Miers will be deposed under penalty of perjury before a closed session of the House Judiciary Committee. So much for "victory" and "vindication".

In the midst of this was the Obama White House pushing for an agreement such as this. It was their hope to avoid a fight over executive privilege which would limit their, and future administration's, options in the matter. Never mind, of course, that executive privilege is not mentioned anywhere in Article 2, nor anywhere else, in the Constitution. It is worth noting that the same arguments used by the constitutional originalists on the right to deny women abortion rights can be used to deny Bush, or any other, administration claims of "executive privilege".

The Obama administrations failure to take a firm stand against this particular abuse of power on the part of his predecessor is disappointing. As a professor of constitutional law, President Obama should know better. The law must apply to all or it applies to none.

Let's Freeze Gubmint Spending

This is the "NEW" economic strategy put forth by House Minority Leader John Boehner(R-OH). Freeze government spending as America, and the world, stumble towards the abyss of economic disaster. This hearkens back to the Golden Age of the GOP during Ronald Reagan's presidency...a very different time and a very different world. Never mind that Reagonomics failed then too. Rather than invest the money siphoned to corporations and the wealthy on new infrastructure and technology, American corporations bought up their smaller competitors in an orgy of mergers, the end result being less competition in the marketplace, decreased productivity and more economic power in fewer hands. There was no "trickle down" of prosperity to anyone outside the rarified atmosphere of America's top 1%.

Desperate for ideas in the face of their growing irrelevancy, the intellectual bankruptcy of the GOP leadership reveals itself in their continued reliance on the discredited ideas. Reaganomics...tax cuts for the wealthy...continuing with the policies that have led us to our current straights...They propose to essentially do nothing in the face of an economic crisis which could dwarf the scope and magnitude of the Great Depression.

The GOP has become the party of Hoover...He did nothing after the stock market crash of 1929...history has shown us the consequences of inaction. The shanty towns that resulted from Hoover's paralysis became known as "Hoovervilles". Should Representative Boehner's plan of inaction gain a foothold, will the shanty towns that rise amidst the ruins of the nation's economy be known as "Boehnervilles"? That would be unfortunate given the phonetic pronunciation of Representative Boehner's name. As we all learned in school, "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking."

Rush Limbaugh IS the defacto head of the GOP

First Michael Steele takes Rush Limbaugh to the woodshed...



Then kisses Limbaugh's ass...

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.” (…)

“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. “It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not.” - RNC Chairman, Michael Steele

It would appear that the lunatic fringe of the GOP has become its mainstream when the titular leader of the GOP, Michael Steele plays "Steppin' Fetchit" to the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

On the Unitary Executive

For most Americans the term "unitary executive"has little meaning. The application of that formerly obscure school of political thought, however, has implications for all of us, and none of them good.

The foundation of this theory rests upon the "Vesting clause" of the Constitution which states, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.", as well as the "Take care" clause. This latter states, "The President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed..."

The argument is, in essence, that all executive power lies in the hands of the presidency, and any attempt by either the legislative or judicial branches to exercise oversight or place limits on the power of the executive are unconstitutional.

This theory has its roots as far back as the founding of the country, but it has never been as aggressively pursued as it has by the current Bush administration, which sees the theory as the basis for nearly unlimited executive power. And while this theory may have been examined by the founders it was discarded in favor of the separation of powers.

This separation of powers was deliberate, in that the Founders knew all too well what happened when all power was concentrated in one set of hands, having only just thrown off the yoke of such a ruler. This separation of powers was not simply meant to be symbolic either as it is a cornerstone of the Republic. James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers, No. 47, Para. 4,

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

This is a clear and unequivocal contradiction of any claims the Bush administration and its supporters might make regarding the intentions of the Founders towards the accumulation of power in any one branch of government.

It is also worth noting that this aggressive assertion of unitary executive theory flies in the face of traditional conservative suspicion towards a strong executive. Due to the efforts of Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, and others, unitary executive theory has become central to conservative ideology.

This assertion of unchecked presidential power by the Bush administration can be seen in numerous instances. In the case of Jose Padilla, a US citizen, the administration usurped habeas corpus by taking Padilla into custody on US soil and holding him without charge or access to counsel for nearly three years. In ordering the NSA to undertake a program of eavesdropping on US citizens absent a warrant, in direct violation of federal law, the Bush administration effectively held itself to be above the law. In seeking legal sanction for torture, in direct conflict with US and international law and treaty obligations, the Administration asserted authority to act unilaterally and without congressional oversight in any manner it sees fit in the name of "national security".

Past presidents have attempted to assert a more energetic presidency, some with success, some without. Thomas Jefferson successfully expanded the authority of the President to appoint judges in the case of Marbury v. Madison. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Theodore Roosevelt expanded presidential powers, but only to the extent which hose powers did not conflict with prohibitions enumerated under the Constitution or by federal statute. Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans. Harry Trueman attempted to prevent a strike during the Korean War with Executive Order 10430. And, of course, the Nixon administration and its program of domestic surveillance and burglaries.

The key difference between past successes and failures, to expand presidential authority, and the Bush administrations attempts to do so, lies in the fact that these attempts were open to legislative and judicial scrutiny. They could be upheld or overturned based upon the review of these assertions of presidential power under the law. The Bush administration vigorously, some would say aggressively, obstructs any attempt at legislative or judicial review of its assertion of executive power. Such actions make it abundantly clear that the Bush administration sees the doctrine of the "unitary executive" as providing all the justification it needs to ignore, overrule, or bypass entirely, either Congress or the courts. This based solely on the interpretation, by Bush and other members of his administration, of the Constitution...Even when those interpretations usurp federal law and treaty obligations and even those bills which he signed into law.

In 1939, a young German constitutional lawyer explained the power claimed by Hitler as "Leader", in the following manner:

The authority of the Leader is total and all-embracing: within it all resources available to the body politic merge; it covers every facet of the life of the people; it embraces all members of the German community pledged to loyalty and obedience to the leader. The Leaders authority is subject to no checks or controls; it is circumscribed by no private preserves of jealously guarded individual rights; it is free and independent, overriding and unfettered.(emphasis mine) - Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich In Power, pg 44, Penguin Books, 2005, ISBN 0-14-303790-0

There is Striking similarity between this assertion of executive power in pre-WWII Germany and the assertions of executive power made by the Bush administration and its supporters. In both cases, the executive can disregard the legislative and judicial processes in pursuit of its goals; the rule of law becomes an irrelevancy.

Writing in Common Sense, Thomas Paine stated that,

"...in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."

In asserting the unfettered power of a "unitary executive", President Bush and his administration, are asserting that they, not Congress nor the judiciary, are the ultimate arbiters of what is and is not lawful. In doing so, they usurp the rule of law and the law is no longer king.

Sources:

Unitary Executive Theory

The Hidden Power

The Unitary Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State?

How Much Authority Does the President Possess When He Is Acting as "Commander In Chief"?

Federalist No. 47

Common Sense

Why the Bush Administration is losing the "War on Terror"

With the new year, I think it necessary to look back on the claims of the Bush administration concerning the "war on terror".

After the failure to find ANY WMD's in Iraq, the Bush administration changed its rationale for the invasion of Iraq to that of it being a key front in the "war on terror"...We were "Fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.

In a bipartisan survey of some 100 of America's top foreign policy experts, the overwhelming majority believe that the policies pursued by the Bush administration with regards to combating terrorism and securing America are failing. 84% of respondents believe the US IS NOT winning the "war on terror", and 86% believe that Americas face increasing danger around the world.

The April 2006 NIE, page 2, concludes the following:

"...the Iraq conflict has has become a 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding deep resentment of US involvement of the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement..."

Far from making the world a safer place, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a boon to the jihadist movement in general and Al Qaeda in particular. It took a country that posed little or no terrorist threat to America or its allies and turned into a threat of major proportions, threatening the stability of the entire region. The invasion and occupation also made a shambles of what little pre-war planning was done by the Bush administration by spawning a tenacious insurgency that has tied down troops in far greater number than ever anticipated by the Bush administration.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq has attracted foreign fighters like flies to crap. Contrary to what one might think, these are not seasoned terrorist fighters, rather they are new recruits drawn to the jihadist movement by the invasion and occupation of Iraq. A 2005 study indicated that the vast majority of these foreign fighters had no previous links to terrorism, and were radicalized by the invasion of a Muslim nation that posed no credible or immediate threat to the US. And there is no indication that his trend has reversed itself. And while driving the Taliban and Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan shut down their training operations there, the invasion and occupation of Iraq provided live fire training to new recruits to the jihadist movement. This is giving rise to a whole new breed of terrorists who have sophisticated training in demolitions, linguistic skills and insurgency tactics and loosed them on the world.

Despite the claims of the Bush administration that the "war on terror" is being won, terrorist attacks around the world have increased since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, increasing some fourfold in 2005 and another 25% in 2006with the numbers for 2007 set to outstrip even those.

Bush's belief that "...We are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here at home..." ignores a few obvious facts, not the least of which being that if we had not invaded and occupied Iraq, the insurgents in that benighted country and many of the foreign fighters would not be fighting us at all...either here or there. The resources expended in Iraq, in terms of blood and treasure, could have been applied to hounding Al Qaeda out of existence, protecting our borders and ports, protecting nuclear weapons sites in the former Soviet Union and rebuilding Afghanistan to reduce the liklihood of the terrorist resurgence we see happening there now.

The policies pursued by the Bush administration since 9/11 have done little to secure either America or the world from terrorism. Instead they have helped fan the flames of jihadist fanaticism, leading to an increased threat to America and the world. The policies pursued by the Bush administration are losing the "war on terror" for America.


Other Sources:

How America Created a Terrorist Haven

Study cites seeds of terror in Iraq

Terrorist Attacks Rose Sharply in 2005, State Dept. Says

Terror attacks worldwide rose 25 percent in ’06

The "Protect America Act"...Part II

With the renewal of the misnamed "Protect America Act", which has less to do with protecting America than it has with gathering even more power to the presidency in the name of national security, being debated I have one question. This piece of legislation undermines key constitutional protections against blanket warrants and provides no real accountability to either the judiciary or to Congress. Coupled with habeas corpus being effectively gutted by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, US citizens are bereft of the protections against the abuse of power the Constitution was intended to protect us against.

Given that the Bush administration, every time, justifies these erosions of the Constitution in the name of "national security", my question is this, "How is supporting and protecting the Constitution incompatible with supporting and protecting America?"

Absent the Constitution, there is no America.

The "Protect America Act"...

...Has less to do with protecting America than it does with accruing more power to the Executive branch under the guise of national security. Let's look at some of it s provisions.

First is the retroactive immunity to lawsuits for those companies which participated in the electronic surveillance of US citizens without a court order/ warrant. If such behavior is legal, as the Bush administration asserts, why do these corporations require such immunity?

The report to the FISA court under this piece of legislation would detail only how the program deals with the intercepts of persons "reasonably believed" to be overseas. What becomes of those intercepts of electronic communications from ordinary Americans caught up in this fishing expedition is not detailed at all, let alone mentioned.

The bi-annual reports to congressional Judicial and Intelligence sub-committees will contain information only about the violations of the secret guidelines used by the Attorney General to target subjects of surveillance. Nor does the AG have to report on how many Americans' calls have been tapped, picked up incidentally or even how many Americans are official subjects of surveillance.

The current "sunset" clause of this pernicious law may be of little values as it will fall in the middle of a heated campaign season where there will be little, if any, enthusiasm for correcting the glaring deficiencies of this deeply flawed piece of legislation.

But most important is the nature of the "warrants"issued under this act. The Attorney General, not the court or other independent body, has the authority to issue warrants lasting up to a year against anyone "reasonably suspected" of being outside the US. The FISA court is cut entirely out of the loop. These warrants are also effectively "blanket warrants" which are a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, and I quote,

...no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

With the Legislative and Judicial branches effectively out of the picture oversight of the Executive branch becomes a polite fiction, at best. At worst, it becomes totally non-existent.

The Bush administration has repeatedly argued that the process of obtaining individualized warrants is "too time consuming". But under the FISA Act of 1979, the AG has 72 hours within which to retroactively obtains a warrant after the surveillance has started, and in that nearly thirty years, only four, count 'em, FOUR requests for warrants from the FISA court have been denied.

Surveillance of the citizens of a country absent effective judicial or legislative oversight is a police state tactic of benefit to no one but those holding the reigns of power. Such authority sought by the Executive branch, under the guise of national security, is little more than a power grab intended to stifle dissent and eventually identify those dissenters and target them for punishment.

The Constitution was not crafted to make abuses of power convenient for any one branch of government, particularly the Executive branch. The system of checks and balances was designed to prevent such abuses. The GOP controlled Congress of 2000 to 2007, however, shamefully placed loyalty to party and president above their duties to their constituents and the Constitution, when it rubber-stamped the Bush administrations assault on the Constitution. But as far as Bush is concerned, "...It's just a god-damned piece of paper....", after all.

I can only wonder...

...Why...If the war in Iraq is so crucial to America's security...If the greater "global war on terror", is so essential to the the future of American society...Why aren't Americans being asked to pay for it? I mean after all, our man and women in uniform are paying for it with their limbs...their mental health...THEIR LIVES...So why aren't we here, safe and snug in our homes, enjoying all that America has to offer, paying for the costs of the war?

Why hasn't American industry been marshaled to meet the needs of our service members by shifting their production capacities from the newest model year car or the latest widget to the up-armored vehicles, body armor, weapons, and spare parts our troops desperately need?

Why haven't we, the people been asked to pay the costs of this war if it is so vital to the further existence of this nation? If, as Bush and his Republican supporters claim, this war is so crucial, why aren't they willing to pony up the cash to pay for it? Hell, if it's that important, I'd be willing to sell the car, take the bus to work and pay the extra cash to help secure the country against a threat of such horrific magnitude, and I'm just a middle-class Joe.

Why aren't we paying? Because just as Bush is kicking the can that is the war down the road for the next administration to deal with, he's doing the same thing with the costs of the war. But rather than passing it on to the next administration, the next few generations of Americans will be footing the bill. Rather than do the fiscally responsible thing by raising taxes, Bush is financing his war with borrowing on an unprecedented scale from foreign interests. This practice has serious security implications for the US as well as financial ones as some of these foreign lenders don't exactly have America's best interests at heart.

So, let's push Congress to adopt David Obey's war tax...2% to 15% on every $100 of income. It's a small price to pay to see to it that our men and women in uniform have everything they need to fight for this nation and see to it they receive the care they deserve when they are wounded or maimed and their families are properly cared for should they be killed in the line of duty.

The Scum Also Rises...

Yesterday, another big, nasty turd floated to the surface of the Bush administration punchbowl. Turns out that Chimpy McPresident lied about shutting down the black sites and stopping the torture of detainees.

After stating publicly and emphatically in December of 2004 that "torture was abhorrent", a secret memo was issued by Bush administration apparatchick, fixer and Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez. This memo gave "explicit authorization" to use interrogation techniques against detainees at these "black sites" and other US facilities which meet the criteria for torture as laid out in US law, the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva conventions.

This establishment of secret prisons, legal protections for those engaging in these practices, and the overarching shroud of secrecy surrounding these operations and the Bush administration in general, are indicators of a shift towards a fascist/totalitarian regime. Given the abolition of habeas corpus, the power of the President to be the sole arbiter of who is and is not an "enemy combatant" and the new powers to declare martial law under a much looser definition of a "national emergency" are all grave threats to the Constitution and the democratic processes of this nation.

No president, Democrat or Republican, should possess the powers that the Bush administration has accrued to the Executive branch, especially powers such as those outlined above. They usurp the constitutionally established separation of powers and marginalize the Legislative and Judicial branches, which serve to maintain the checks and balances so necessary in a democracy.

There are those who would argue that a unitary executive is needed to streamline the decision making processes of government. However, the Madisonian separation of powers was never meant to promote efficiency, but rather to prevent the exercise of arbitrary power. Power which the Bush administration has exercised since 9/12/01.

George Bush's America...Laying the Foundation for Fascism

History has provided us with a very clear picture of the arc a democracy takes when it is being systematically destroyed from within. We watched this happen last September as the military seized power in Thailand, overthrowing the duly elected government.

There are a number of steps to this process, and rather like a recipe, following them will yield the desired result...A fascist state. And the political arc of the Bush administration is laying the foundation for a fascist state.

The first step is to invoke an enemy which is presented as a threat to the a country's very existence. This enemy presented itself to the Bush administration on a silver platter on September 11, 2001. A few short weeks later, with little meaningful debate, a cowed Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act. Unfortunately the PATRIOT Act had less to do with patriotism or protecting America than it did with concentrating power into the hands of the President.

Next, an extra-judicial prison system is created. Such a system is, initially, populated by "enemies of the people". Since the populace of a given country doesn't really identify with this prison population, they fell safer and generally condone these extra-legal prisons. In the case of the Bush administration, this system is populated by "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Baghram and other as yet undisclosed locations. The caveat here is that President Bush has reserved the right to declare anyone an enemy combatant.

The establishment of a network of paramilitary groups to impose the will of the government under the auspices of restoring civil order. We see this nascent system in the rise of US dependence on PMC's (Private Military Contractors) to provide services, both at home and abroad, generally performed by the military or duly established law enforcement agencies. The deployment of Blackwater Security forces to New Orleans.

Another essential ingredient is establishing a system of internal surveillance to be deployed against a country's population. We saw this with the revelations of Bush ordering a program of warrantless surveillance of US citizens outside the bounds of FISA and Title III. With this program being justified in the name of "national securitry", this cornerstone of dictatorial power may be freely wielded by the government as a blunt weapon to keep dissent in check.

With the infiltration of anti-war groups throughout the country by various government agencies, another stone in the foundation of a fascist state has been firmly set in place by the Bush administration. And with the definition of terrorism under the PATRIOT Act so broad as to include many activities considered as activism or civil disobedience, the definition of "terrorism" eventually will expand to include mere dissent.

The most glaring example of the next ingredient, the arbitrary detention and release of citizens, comes in the form of the Transportation Security Administration's "no-fly" list. This list includes peace activists, college professors, Ted Kennedy, and ordinary citizens. History has shown us that this list of potential enemies of the state only expands ever deeper into the life of the average person.

Threats to those who voice their opposition to government policies or are in positions to obstruct the implementation of increasingly oppressive government action is the next ingredient. We have seen members of the US government penalized for whistle-blowing on the ongoing corruption of US contractors in Iraq, a military lawyers career wrecked for opining that the GITMO detainees be given fair trials, threats against a law firm offering to defend the GITMO detainees pro bono. Most ominous, however was the abortive attempt to subvert the Justice Department by attempting to fire any and all federal prosecutors who place loyalty to the law and the Constitution above loyalty to party and president.

Control of the news media is crucial to any nascent fascist state. This process is underway in America with the increasing consolidation of major news outlets into fewer and fewer hands. But there are to many alternative outlets for that effort to be entirely successful. The alternative, as pointed out by Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal, is for the news well to be poisoned by a continuous stream of lies, misinformation, disinformation and dissembling coming from the White House.

Equating dissent with treason is another ingredient to this foul hell-broth. This has been used by the Bush administration soon after 9/11 when, then Attorney General, John Ashcroft gave his "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" speech before Congress. And with the passage of the Military Commissions act of 2006, Bush now has the power to charge anyone with being an "enemy combatant". It is also worth noting that President Bush can delegate any member of the executive branch to define "enemy combatant" in any way they wish.

Suspending the rule of law while paying lip service to the rule of law is the final ingredient to this noxious brew. With the Posse Comitatus Act essentially gutted by the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, President Bush can declare martial law for any number of "crises" other than insurrection or invasion. Even more pernicious is the use of signing statements by President Bush in order to skirt, or outright ignore, the provisions of the laws passed by Congress and he signs into law rather than vetoing them as he should if he is in disagreement with them.

America is not yet fully down the road to a fascist state, and the transition will not be violent, as it was in Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany. It will come on "little cat feet", whilst we are transfixed by the latest episode of "American Idol" or the mos recent stumble by any of a bevy of celebretards.

Thomas Jefferson said it best..."The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Yet we, as a nation, have become distracted from that ideal and goal. Having been born in freedom we have come to take it for granted that freedom will always be there. It won't. We should allow no president the power the Bush Administration is attempting to gather to the presidency. Such power, in any hands, corrupts the wielder absolutely and will lead this nation down a path to oppression and tyranny.

Sources:

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

An Examination of Bush Fascism

The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot, By: Naomi Wolf

Alan Greenspan's deconstruction of Bush's fiscal policy

" 'They (the GOP) swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose' in the 2006 election, when they lost control of the House and Senate." - Alan Greenspan, NYT

The GOP abandoned its principles of fiscal conservatism and spent tax-payer money like a bunch of sailors on liberty in the Phillipines, at least when we still had a base there. And Bush never saw a GOP spending bill that he didn't like. Of course, Chimpy's dirty little war in Iraq didn't help matters any either. The total costs of the war, at least to this point are expected to exceed $2 trillion...Yes boys and girls, that's TRILLION.

And, of course, Chimpy, in order to finance the war has borrowed heavily from foreign nations in order to finance it. Never mind that some of those nations don't exactly have America's best interests at heart, which opens a whole can of worms with regard to national security. Of course the responsible thing to do would have been to eliminate Chimpy's tax cuts, and raise taxes to pay for the war, rather than foisting the burden onto future generations.

But that's what Chimpy McPresident is best at...Kicking the can down the road...passing the problem on for someone else to clean up. He's been doing it his whole life, only this time, Poppy can't quietly hush things up with a little cash to quiet the squeaky wheels and make records disappear. To many have witnessed and documented the trail of wreckage of the Bush administration has left in its wake. We'll be left trying to clean up this mess for decades, maybe even generations, to come, while Chimpy tries to skate off and wash his hands of it. But that much blood leaves an indelible stain.