A Banana Republic with Nukes

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The Bush/NEOCON Nexis of Evil has stepped up its attacks on the Bill of Rights and due process of law. Without them, the US descends into dictatorship and tyranny. Is this a Bush legacy you can live with? Fine! Then bend over, pay Bush obeisance and kiss his sorry ass! You are no American! Is this what it comes to? Can the Fourth Reich be just around the corner or is it already a fait accompli?

The Bush administration must surely know that its program of widespread domestic surveillance is illegal, but what Bush is said to have called a "goddamned piece of paper" will not stop them. Bushies have stepped up a war on Due Process of Law and the Fourth Amendment with attacks on the very concept of probable cause. Not mere words on a "goddamned piece of paper", they stand between you and tyranny. They stand between you and Bush!

Neocon “Scholars” Call for Dismembering Bill of Rights

by Kurt Nimmo

Imagine my surprise. A “guest scholar at the center-left Brookings Institution,” Benjamin Wittes, wants to gut the Second Amendment. Wittes told CNSNews “that rather than try to limit gun ownership through regulation that potentially violates the Second Amendment, opponents of gun ownership should set their sights on repealing the amendment altogether.”

Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett, however, did not limit his comments to the Second Amendment, suggesting instead that much of the Bill of Rights has “no contemporary relevance.” As an example, Barnett cited the Fourth Amendment. “Sure it was fine that persons should be secure in their papers and effects back in the old days when there wasn’t a danger of terrorism and mass murder.” According to the professor, the Fourth Amendment is “archaic [and] we don’t need it anymore.”

Of course, this sort of authoritarian nonsense should be expected, as we have allowed the government to be hijacked by a gaggle of neocons and their neoliberal kissing cousins who favor the sort of government operating in China to a constitutionally limited republic of the sort we had until 1791 when the Federalist Alexander Hamilton set-up the first central bank in America modeled after the Bank of England. In essence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have languished ever since and the neocons are now simply doing away with all pretense, not that most Americans will notice—so long as they remain “free” to shop, consume, and watch American Idol.

Incidentally, it is amusing that CNSNews characterizes the Brookings Institution as “center-left,” a designation deemed to give the impression the place is crawling with Democrats and fence-sitting “progressives.” Never mind such labels are worthless, as the transnational plutocrats and globalists in control of the horizontal and vertical consider such appellations of little use beyond hypnotizing the commoners.

In fact, Brookings is strictly a neocon “think tank,” connected at the hip with the American Enterprise Institute (where Bush gets his “minds,” that is to say psychopaths) and the Wharton Business School, allegedly fronted by the Tavistock Institute. In addition, Brookings hosts the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, founded by Haim Saban, the billionaire former Israeli who proudly declares: “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.” Saban is a Democrat—thus demonstrating you can’t tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans without a scorecard. ...

You may recall the famous exchange between Jonathan Landay, a reporter with Knight-Ridder, who queried General Hayden about revelations that Bush had authorized NSA to spy on thousands of American citizens, an apparent and obvious violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution which is, not surprisingly, under attack by fascists in America.

The exchange began with Landay: "My understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures." It was the remainder of the exchange that revealed Hayden to be ignorant of the law and utterly unqualified for the position:

Gen. Hayden: No, actually - the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure. That's what it says.

At this point, I interrupt with the actual text of an amendment of which Hayden was either ignorant or lying, an amendment not taught him in school, an amendment that he obviously never bothered to read.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and 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.
--U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment

Landay: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.
Gen. Hayden: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.
Landay: But does it not say probable ---
Gen. Hayden: No. The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

Of course, the Fourth Amendment doesn't say anything of the sort.

Later, it was reported that Gen. Hayden continued to insist that "reasonable suspicion" trumps "probable cause". Utter bunkum --proof that our educational system has failed us! Even so, Bush and his criminal gang of traitors and usurpers seem to be making it all up as they go along. Bush has sought and gotten the right to throw you in jail without charges, without the right to call your lawyer, without habeas corpus"

Following, in memoriam, our lost republic:

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