Funny what you see when you’re getting your oil changed: The waiting room had FOX News going, so I got a rare glimpse. The anchor, a scary-looking woman with way too much eye makeup, was trying to get the requisite two opposing sides to say that because “all” the people Bush spied on were “really bad guys” that what he did was O.K. And because Bush did the noble thing and admitted he was doing this, these “really bad guys” are going to get off on a technicality.
Our team explained that the 4th Amendment is not generally regarded as a technicality but a pretty important foundation of our society.
What he didn’t say was what I learned in Constitutional Law 101: illegal evidence – evidence obtained in an illegal search – is not made more legal in light of what it reveals. Murder cases have been thrown out over this fact. It’s not new, and it’s not directed at the Bush White House. It’s just bedrock law in America. Or it was until Bush came to town.
The spin is bad guys calling bad guys, but that is not the truth. In the run up to the Iraq war NSA was spying on the UN and on the Security Council delegations. Email, faxes, and telephone calls by antiwar activists to the UN and those delegations were therefore harvested. Technically the UN is international territory, but it still seems to have been US to US monitoring, something prohibited by law.
While Bush admitted to doing spying he defiantly claimed the right to do so and said he would continue to do so. Whether its spying, habeas corpus, or torture there is the assertion that he has dictatorial powers based on his powers as Commander in Chief during wartime. But it is not a war defined under either US or International Law even assuming such powers actually exsist. It is a rhetorical war similar to the war on drugs and the war on crime, both of which are ongoing and endless.
Bush swore to “uphold and protect” the US Constitution, not the people of the US. Not that protecting the citizenry isn’t a noble cause in and of itself, but he violated the nation’s most sacred document in doing so.
The 2006 midterm elections may turn out to be one of the most important in US history, as they literally spell the difference between Bush answering for his crimes against the nation and his finishing out his 2nd term.
For all our moaning and groaning about this administration, I’d wager not many have written their representatives in Washington urging them to ensure we do away with those evoting machines that have proven to be so easily hacked, thus setting us up in 2006 for another loss. Just as in the 2004 election, it doesn’t have to be by much, just enough. And now the clock has run out on anyone being able to do anything about them by the 2006 election. Now friends, who will we point the finger at when we lose again?
BILL OF RIGHTS???? WHAT BILL OF RIGHTS???? ALL THAT SON OF A BITCH IN THE OVAL OFFICE HAS IS A LYING BUNCH OF MISFITS THAT IS IN LINE TO HELP HIM FILL HIS 2 FRONT POCKETS OF MONEY THAT SEEM TO NEVER GET FULL!!!! THIS IS THE CROOKEDIST BUNCH OF MISFITS IN THE WHITW HOUSE AND SENATE AND CONGRESS THAT HAS EVER BEEN! IT IS LOOKING LIKE THERE IS SOME SORT OF SCANDAL ON MOST OF THE REPUBS UP THERE!!! WAKE UP AMERICA! NEED TO PUT THE BASTARDS OUT! GET US BACK ON TRACK AND IN GOOD ATANDING IN THE WORLD AGAIN!!!
I am simply amazed at what this asshole can get away with. All he need do is say “9/11” and like hormone-laden nymphets at an Elvis concert, the people swoon at his “decisiveness”
I cannot imagine congress or the supreme court, if it should come to that, to stand for this. If they turn the other cheek, then they are irrelevant.
[chsrles, I like you.]
too late to work within the system and too soon to oust them all. I cleaned that up. Don’t want to be on file you see