Showing posts with label Gonzales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gonzales. Show all posts

Thursday, June 21, 2007

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:


Sunday, May 27, 2007

Palast: Three Million Voters Challenged in Karl Rove's Fraudulent Scheme

An endemically crooked GOP regime is already planning the theft of the next election. This is a hard story to cover simply because there are so many headlines to choose from. Which one is the lead? You choose:
White House and Justice department officials conspire to cover up the role played by Karl Rove in the spreading US Attorney firing scandal
or
E-mails indicate Karl Rove is up to his neck in the White House firing of US attorneys
and the headline for this article:
Karl Rove's fraudulent scheme targets the voting rights of three million American voters
Investigative reporter Greg Palast is breaking this story this weekend, most prominently in this interview with Democracy now:


A brilliant reporter, Palast nevertheless benefited from a mistake that, with any luck at all, might bring this criminal White House down. From Les Enrages, we learn that 500 of some 5 million emails were delivered to Greg Palast by mistake. Intended for RNC.org they wound up in Palast's hands at RNC.com.


An act of "God" or the Smoking Gun? Will the mainstream media redeem itself by covering a story that promises to address the endemic crookedness of the White House itself? Sadly, the Democrats, are compromised with regard to Iraq, by rights their issue. Will they blow it with regard to the US Attorney firing scandal as well?

A jaded, tired, exploited populace would like to know: why does this story matter and why should we pay attention when nothing else has stuck? Who is not jaundiced when Bush has in fact gotten away - so far - with the commission of capital crimes?

There is a larger but related story. Unfortunately, the media has not excelled in covering "larger" stories. In this case, the deliberate, orchestrated firings of US attorneys are integral to this administration's enthusiastic attempts to subvert the rule of law in order to promote an extremist right wing agenda. This charge is made persuasively by Charles Tiefer, former solicitor of the House of Representatives. If true, it amounts to high treason, no less so than the criminal nature of Bush's prosecution of an ongoing war crime: Iraq!

Those benefiting from Bush's often criminal policies include war profiteers like Blackwater and Halliburton, religious zealots and ideologues intent upon establishing an anti-American, religious theocracy and other extremist organizations who oppose many of the rights guaranteed us by the Bill of Rights. That's why I call Bush's policies in this regard "treasonous". Differing on policy is one thing. Conspiring with subversives, as Bush has done, is another. It is subversive to engage in activity which is in itself illegal with the end view being the absolute destruction of the US Constitution.

A final word of advice for Democrats: you can still redeem your party but only if, for once, you forget the advice of corrupt consultants and stupid focus group talking points. Instead - do what IS right! That is, oppose the utter criminality of this destructive administration with every means necessary and legal. Bring the Congress to a halt if need be. Revolutionary times demand revolutionary action. End this war and end the stranglehold Bush has on democracy!

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