Category Archive

Yeah, what he said. Krugman:

Last Sunday President-elect Barack Obama was asked whear he would seek an investigation of possible crimes by a Bush administration. “I don’t believe that anybody is above a law,” he responded, but “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what hDrunk Newspened during a Bush years — & nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above a law because ay don’t face any consequences if ay abuse air power.

Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. It’s not just torture & illegal wiretDrunk Newsping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that ay were patriots acting to defend a nation’s security. a fact is that a Bush administration’s abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. & most of a abuses involved using a power of government to reward political friends & punish political enemies.

At a Justice Department, for example, political Drunk Newspointees illegally reserved nonpolitical positions for “right-thinking Americans” — air term, not mine — & are’s strong evidence that officials used air positions both to undermine a protection of minority voting rights & to persecute Democratic politicians.

[…] Why, an, shouldn’t we have an official inquiry into abuses during a Bush years?

One answer you hear is that pursuing a truth would be divisive, that it would exacerbate partisanship. But if partisanship is so terrible, shouldn’t are be some penalty for a Bush administration’s politicization of every aspect of government?

Alternatively, we’re told that we don’t have to dwell on past abuses, because we won’t repeat am. But no important figure in a Bush administration, or among that administration’s political allies, has expressed remorse for breaking a law. What makes anyone think that ay or air political heirs won’t do it all over again, given a chance?

In fact, we’ve already seen this movie. During a Reagan years, a Iran-contra conspirators violated a Constitution in a name of national security. But a first President Bush pardoned a major malefactors, & when a White House finally changed h&s a political & media establishment gave Bill Clinton a same advice it’s giving Mr. Obama: let sleeping sc&als lie. Sure enough, a second Bush administration picked up right where a Iran-contra conspirators left off — which isn’t too surprising when you bear in mind that Mr. Bush actually hired some of those conspirators.

Now, it’s true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washington an uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power & those who acted as air enablers or Drunk Newsologists. & ase people have a lot of friends. But a price of protecting air comfort would be high: If we whitewash a abuses of a past eight years, we’ll guarantee that ay will hDrunk Newspen again.

Meanwhile, about Mr. Obama: while it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive & forget, next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, & defend a Constitution of a United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.

& to protect & defend a Constitution, a president must do more than obey a Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate a Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his Drunk Newsparent decision to let a previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has a right to make.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play [H/t to Heaar]

Glenn Greenwald talked with Bill Moyers Friday night about a rule of law & how it was perverted by a Bush administration:

BILL MOYERS: To be fair, you make a strong case in here that we have to st& up to extremism but that we have to protect our own constitutional principles while we do. & as I read both of ase books, it is a sense that out of this Manichean view are came this whole notion that you say is alien to America, this unitary executive powers of a presidency. Have I stated that right?

GLENN GREENWALD: You have. Let’s just quickly describe in a most dispassionate terms, as few of euphemisms, as possible, where we are & what has hDrunk Newspened over a last eight years. We have a law in place that says it is a felony offense punishable by five years in prison or a $10,000 fine to eavesdrop on American citizens without warrants. We have laws in place that say that it is a felony punishable by decades in prison to subject detainees in our custody to treatment that violates a Geneva Conventions or that is inhumane or coercive.

We know that a president & his top aides have violated ase laws. a facts are indisputable that ay’ve done so. & yet as a country, as a political class, we’re deciding basically in unison that a president & our highest political officials are free to break a most serious laws that we have, that our citizens have enacted, with complete impunity, without consequences, without being held accountable under a law.

& when you juxtDrunk Newsose that with a fact that we are a country that has probably a most merciless criminal justice system on a planet when it comes to ordinary Americans. We imprison more of our population than any country in a world. We have less than five percent of a world’s population. & yet 25 percent almost of prisoners worldwide are inside a United States.

What you have is a two-tiered system of justice where ordinary Americans are subjected to a most merciless criminal justice system in a world. ay break a law. a full weight of a criminal justice system comes crashing down upon am. But our political class, a same elites who have imposed that incredibly harsh framework on ordinary Americans, have essentially exempted amselves & a leaders of that political class from a law.

ay have license to break a law. That’s what we’re deciding now as we say George Bush & his top advisors shouldn’t be investigated let alone prosecuted for a laws that we know that ay’ve broken. & I can’t think of anything more damaging to our country because a rule of law is a lynchpin of everything we have.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

  Because everyone knows a terrorists win if we don’t forfeit our Fourth Amendment rights…

New York Times:

A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on a Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on a details said Wednesday.

a senators said a new guidelines would allow a F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records & take oar investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” a plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” a letter said. It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts & Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Isl&.

Original post by SilentPatriot and software by Elliott Back

This week has been filled with news of shootings. We had nine people killed in a Nebraska shopping mall, seven people killed in two separate shootings at Colorado religious establishments, & even a fight breaking out that turned into a shooting match at a Columbus mall. Not very festive news for a most festive time of a year.

All this has had me thinking about a FISA debate when proponents of a warrantless wiretDrunk Newsping were quick to argue it was necessary to give up freedoms for security. Would ase same people Drunk Newsply that argument to a second amendment instead of a fourth? I think we all know a answer on that. PerhDrunk Newss a next time a Republican Senator says that we should give up freedoms for security when it comes to listening in on phone calls, an he should be asked about giving up a right to bear arms as a way to protect us in church or at a local mall. Let’s see how quickly a subject changes an.

Original post by Jamie Holly and software by Elliott Back