Fleas Jumping Off The Dead Administration – Lets Prosecute

Bush’s Muse Stands Accused

Speeches Weren’t His, Colleague Says By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer

He has been hailed as the best White House speechwriter since Kennedy’s Theodore Sorensen, the muse behind President Bush‘s most famous phrases, the moral conscience of the West Wing. But now Michael J. Gerson is accused by a former colleague of taking credit for words he did not write.

According to Matthew Scully, who worked with him for five years, Gerson is not the bard of Bushworld but rather a “self-publicizing” glory hog guilty of “foolish vanity,” “sheer pettiness” and “credit hounding.” In Scully’s account, Gerson did not come up with the language that made him famous. “Few lines of note were written by Mike,” Scully says, “and none at all that come to mind from the post-9/11 addresses — not even ‘axis of evil.’ “

Scully’s blistering portrait of one of the president’s most prominent former advisers, in the new issue of the Atlantic, touched off an intense pushback by the White House yesterday as top Bush aides jumped to defend Gerson as the victim of a jealous associate. But the internecine feuding may signal something broader than pride of authorship. Scully’s 10-page indictment represents the sort of classic Washington tell-all once rare in an administration known for discipline and loyalty.

This is a great illustration of ‘rats jumping ship’, ‘fleas jump off dying animals’.  The impenetrable armor that has protected this most despicable monster, is melting away.  The insiders and kamikazes are seeking safe refuge and last minute advantage.  When you know a cause is lost, you turn ‘states witness‘ to protect your own ass.  Watch the coming months as former ‘unknowns’ emerge to ‘tell all’ about the greasy workings they participated in or witnessed.   Just like someone who ‘rats’ on a mafia boss, these whistleblowers are seeking asylum from the ‘Republican Dons’ who would hurt them very much …

This country needs a Nuremberg Trial for these criminals. There is no excuse. They are the guilty fringe of the most dangerous administration this country has ever produced. The definition of America was edited and re-written to serve the agenda of corporate greed. The crime of taking the emotional tragedy of 9/11, and skewing it to serve their prime agenda of invading Iraq instead of pursuing the “perpetrators” is a ‘high treasonous crime’ against this country. We should be set up to start our own Nuremberg Trial as soon as these guys evacuate the highest positions in this land!

Good Timing For Bush – American Al Qaeda Speaks

Qaeda video vows attacks on US missions

LONDON (Thomson Financial) – A wanted American member of Al-Qaeda has warned in a new video that US diplomatic missions and other interests were ‘legitimate targets,’ vowing that the network would attack these ‘spy dens.’

In the footage compiled by Al-Qaeda’s production arm As-Sahab, an unnamed narrator singled out US missions in oil-rich Gulf Arab states as potential targets.

American Terrorist Threatens U.S. in New Al Qaeda Video

CAIRO, Egypt — An American member of Al Qaeda threatened foreign diplomats and embassies in the Islamic world calling them “spy dens” in the terror network’s latest video released Sunday. “We shall continue to target you, at home and abroad, just as you target us, at home and abroad, and these spy dens and military command and control centers from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzan al-Amriki.

Well, well, well, whether the threat is real or not, the timing of this new threat is impeccable. That children’s story, about the kid who cried ‘WOLF’ too many times, is front and center in my mind. King George has deceived us so many times and been caught in so many lies, that I am skeptical about any more video productions allegedly from Al Qaeda. If this threat is real, we are at the same security level we’ve been in since the war began. Nothing has really changed. Bush and his marketing handlers have staged so many productions that Hollywood should be the one threatened. Funny how Al Qaeda pops into the news every time Bush wants to pull something over on Americans. This ‘American Al Qaeda’ is probably a CIA operative who is handed a script to boost polls to continue Bush’s Armageddon Envy.

Bush Ability to “Strike Fear” Trumps The Bill Of Rights

House Approves Wiretap Measure

White House Bill Boosts Warrantless Surveillance

By Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick Washington Post

The Democratic-controlled House last night approved and sent to President Bush for his signature legislation written by his intelligence advisers to enhance their ability to intercept the electronic communications of foreigners without a court order.

The 227 to 183 House vote capped a high-pressure campaign by the White House to change the nation’s wiretap law, in which the administration capitalized on Democrats’ fears of being branded weak on terrorism and on a general congressional desire to act on the measure before an August recess.

If BushCo can strike fear into the hearts of our elected representatives, forcing them to enable illegal and unconstitutional acts, then we have elected nothing! This is now a ghost democracy fraught with Black Ops and Shadow Government. Civil war or revolution is no longer an option … because every move we make is scrutinized. Americans are all suspects now. Americans are the enemy. Americans will become the zombies from George Orwell’s ’1984′ where hidden microphones and informers in order to catch potential “thoughtcriminals” who could endanger the security of the Dystopian GOP Party.

The original statute was enacted after the revelation of CIA abuses in the 1970s, and it required judicial oversight for most federal wiretapping conducted in the United States.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates, and many Democratic lawmakers, complained that the Bush administration’s revisions of the law could breach constitutional protections against government intrusion. But the administration, aided by Republican congressional leaders, suggested that a failure to approve what intelligence officials sought could expose the country to a greater risk of terrorist attacks.

Democrats facing reelection next year in conservative districts helped propel the bill to a quick approval. Adding to the pressures they felt were recent intelligence reports about threatening new al-Qaeda activity in Pakistan and the disclosure by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) of a secret court ruling earlier this year that complicated the wiretapping of purely foreign communications that happen to pass through a communications node on U.S. soil.

 

King George Wins Wiretapping For All Foreigners

Associated Press
House Approves Foreign Wiretap Bill

WASHINGTON –

The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government’s abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate’s approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying Saturday, “Protecting America is our most solemn obligation.”

Oh well.  What did you really expect?  FISA  neutered,  the 4th Amendment a memory.

The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency’s ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals “reasonably believed to be outside the United States.” Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate’s approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature.

10:38 P.M. –

On agreeing to the resolution Agreed to without objection.

10:37 P.M. –

Considered as privileged matter. On approving the Journal Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: 205 – 187 (Roll no. 837).

S. 1927:

to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to provide additional procedures for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence information and for other purposes

(Click here to see how everyone voted) 

Many congressional Democrats wanted tighter restrictions on government surveillance, but yielded in the face of Bush’s veto threats and the impending August recess.

“This bill would grant the attorney general the ability to wiretap anybody, any place, any time without court review,  without any checks and balances,”  said Rep. Zoe Lofgren,  D-Calif.,  during the debate preceding the vote.   “I think this unwarranted, unprecedented measure would simply eviscerate the 4th Amendment,”  which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

The House of Faux Representatives must have a VERY good reason to appease the King.  I am sure the Sunday morning talk shows will be filled with excuses and explanations.  This bill is a great tool not bound by accountability.  Gonzales  will be the decider when and where to use his expanded powers.  Woe, I mean Wow,  I feel safer already.  Time to learn sign language.  I think I’ll wear moccasins, too.  They make no sound as you tiptoe across the border into Canada.

Casual Lawbreaking at the White House

By Dan Froomkin   Special to washingtonpost.com

New evidence unearthed by House Democrats establishes that White House political adviser Karl Rove and many of his colleagues used Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for official business — even though White House policy is clear that doing so is a violation of the Presidential Records Act.

How did such casual lawbreaking come to be so widespread?  And why was it tolerated?  Those are among the questions the White House has yet to answer satisfactorily.

And as the new House Oversight Committee report points out, the White House counsel’s office — then headed by current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — was aware of these violations of e-mail policy, but chose to do nothing about it.

Ron Hutcheson writes for McClatchy Newspapers: “Presidential adviser Karl Rove sent more than 140,000 e-mails through the Republican National Committee’s computer system, circumventing a federal law intended to guarantee the preservation of presidential records, House of Representatives investigators have concluded.

“While 88 White House aides used the back-channel system, Rove was its biggest user at the White House, and more than half of his communications dealt with official business, according to an interim report by the House Oversight Committee. . . .

We don’t have to follow NO STINKIN’ RULES! 

Enforce LAW on the OTHER GUYS, we don’t worry ’bout NO STINKIN’ LAWS!

Bush – Cheney Playbook … Quote Hermann Goering

Hermann Goering:Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. quote verified at snopes.com

If you don’t recognize the strategy implemented on Americans since September 11, 2001, then you are totally unconscious. Osama and his 9/11 catastrophe has given Bush & Co. the psychological tools to change America into a self-destructing megalomaniacal world bully. Osama is still at large. AlQaeda is growing stronger. We have definitely lost our way … but still use the names Osama and AlQaeda as an excuse to self-destruct.

Hermann Goering was familiar with this political formula.

Impeach this Nazi dictatorsip!

Theodore Roosevelt:

 

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. (1918)

 

Human Rights & Law – Bring Our Constitution Back!

Bush suffers court setbacks in war on terrorism

By James Vicini of Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush’s broad assertions of power in his war on terrorism are under assault by U.S. judges who have rejected his indefinite imprisonment of enemy combatants and the domestic spying program.

A pair of recent rulings, one from military judges and the other from a U.S. appeals court, delivered new legal setbacks for Bush’s tactics in dealing with terrorism suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or in the United States.

“In case after case, this nation’s judicial branch has told the administration that it may not trample on fundamental rights in the name of national security,” said Hina Shamsi of the New York-based group Human Rights First.

Federal Court rullings …  Bush could not declare civilians in this country to be enemy combatants and have the military hold them indefinitely.

The ruling said Bush overstepped his authority …

… violated free-speech rights, protections against unreasonable searches and the constitutional check on the power of the presidency.

Human rights and civil liberties groups said the decision underscored the importance of judicial review as a check on Bush’s executive power.

“Once again, the courts have stepped in to rein in the executive and restore the rule of law,” said Jennifer Daskal, U.S. advocacy director of Human Rights Watch.

New law creates … a new system of military trials for Guantanamo prisoners to replace the one struck down by the Supreme Court.

 With super-glue and duct tape we shall mend our Constituton – we must be more vigilant!  Dictatorship is not an option!

BILL OF RIGHTS

• Sixth Amendment: guarantees a speedy public trial for criminal offenses. It requires trial by a jury (of peers), guarantees the right to legal counsel for the accused, and guarantees that the accused may require witnesses to attend the trial and testify in the presence of the accused. It also guarantees the accused a right to know the charges against him. The Sixth Amendment has several court cases associated with it, including Powell v. Alabama, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, Gideon v. Wainwright, and Crawford v. Washington. In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that the fifth amendment prohibition on forced self incrimination and the sixth amendment clause on right to counsel were to be made known to all persons placed under arrest, and these clauses have become known as the Miranda rights.

• Seventh Amendment: assures trial by jury in civil cases involving anything valued at more than 20 United States dollars at the time, which is currently worth $300, when accounting for inflation.

• Eighth Amendment: forbids excessive bail or fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.

 Ignore your rights and they will go away …