Feingold announces he will move to censure President

[Kilmer17]

If Feingold and the Dems SERIOUSLY thought Bush broke a law, they would start impeachment proceedings. Going the censure route simply means they are trying to make political hay with the looney left hate Bush for everything base.

He's spineless. If he had stones, he'd shoot the moon.

[Midnight Judges]

If Feingold and the Dems SERIOUSLY thought Bush broke a law, they would start impeachment proceedings. Going the censure route simply means they are trying to make political hay with the looney left hate Bush for everything base.

He's spineless. If he had stones, he'd shoot the moon.

I disagree. If the Dems attempted impeachment and then lost, it would look like a huge political victory for Bush and the Republicans. Even if Republican House and Senate members think Bush violated the law, they will not vote for impeachment because they don't have the backbone to stand up to the Bush administration with only exception in the last 5 years.

[Kilmer17]

I disagree. If the Dems attempted impeachment and then lost, it would look like a huge political victory for Bush and the Republicans. Even if Republican House and Senate members think Bush violated the law, they will not vote for impeachment because they don't have the backbone to stand up to the Bush administration with only exception in the last 5 years.

But attempting to censure and lose is different how?

And you echoed my opinion on his backbone.

[Art Monk Fan]

The Supreme Court has never ruled on the FISA law. So until it does, the law is still a law.

You misunderstand: the SC ruled on the ramifications of the Afghanistan authorization regarding the power of the President to detain American citizens. The Admin. is claiming the right to warrantless wiretaps under the same authorization -- this has nothing to do at all with the FISA law.

Actually, theoretically the tap is on the foriegn entity. Technically, the tap is on an American resident. We're not tapping phones in Saudi Arabia with this program. We're tapping phones in America and listening for calls from Saudi Arabia...

From what I've read, you're incorrect here -- the Admin. actually tapped the lines outside the U.S. specifically for this reason.

I've never heard this partcular argument. Do you have a cite?

Sorry, it was from a lengthy NPR interview a few weeks ago.

In any case, the Bush Administration has had more than one opportunity since this warrantless eavesdropping program began to rewrite the FISA law. Why not change it from 72 hours (not 48) to something more comfortable with the Patriot Act, which already made other changes to the law. Why not relieve the NSA of the vetting process. Let them submit to the FISA court an "intent to ask for a warrant", and if the justifacation is forthcoming in the investigation, go through the vetting process and obtain the warrant when they're ready.

And none of this addresses the fact that the Bush Administration broke the law. If FISA was truly inadequate, we should fix it, if they were only doing it to protect us, that's admirable, but was still against the law.

Lengthening the time wouldn't help, unless the rest of the law were also changed. The Admin. is currently restricted under FISA from starting the tap until they've got all their legal ducks in a row. The 48 hours is a buffer to allow the court to review the rationale in each case, but that legal case has to be built and ready before the tap can begin. Why? Because, if they begin a tap and the FISA court rejects it within that 48 hours, the NSA has then broken the law.

However, by using the authority granted under the Afghan military authorization, the Admin. can conduct the wiretaps as an act of military surveliance of an enemy during war. This allows them to react quickly, without stopping to put together a legal brief before the tap can begin. Regardless, with the standing precedent from SC on the Afghan military authorization, the Admin. will win a court challenge -- they simply haven't broken the law.

Sorry if it disappoints you to learn that your president isn't a crook.

[flashback]

You misunderstand: the SC ruled on the ramifications of the Afghanistan authorization regarding the power of the President to detain American citizens. The Admin. is claiming the right to warrantless wiretaps under the same authorization -- this has nothing to do at all with the FISA law.

From what I've read, you're incorrect here -- the Admin. actually tapped the lines outside the U.S. specifically for this reason.

Sorry, it was from a lengthy NPR interview a few weeks ago.

Lengthening the time wouldn't help, unless the rest of the law were also changed. The Admin. is currently restricted under FISA from starting the tap until they've got all their legal ducks in a row. The 48 hours is a buffer to allow the court to review the rationale in each case, but that legal case has to be built and ready before the tap can begin. Why? Because, if they begin a tap and the FISA court rejects it within that 48 hours, the NSA has then broken the law.

However, by using the authority granted under the Afghan military authorization, the Admin. can conduct the wiretaps as an act of military surveliance of an enemy during war. This allows them to react quickly, without stopping to put together a legal brief before the tap can begin. Regardless, with the standing precedent from SC on the Afghan military authorization, the Admin. will win a court challenge -- they simply haven't broken the law.

Sorry if it disappoints you to learn that your president isn't a crook.

First of all, FISA allows for 72 hours before you have to get a warrant. Second of all, the law allows for "immediate" surveillance. You can't get any faster than that. If the NSA has some procedure in place before they start surveillance or seek a warrant, that has nothing to do with the law. 3rd, the FISA only applies to wiretaps within the United States, so if these are phones and email servers, etc. outside of the US, FISA doesn't apply anyway. I think you need to get your facts straight.

[chomerics]

If the Dems spent as much time coming up with some platforms/positions that are in line with average Americans as they do on this silly stuff, they might actually win an election again

Who are you to say what they stand for Sarge? You get all of your informaton from right wing sources that tell you they stand for nothing, maybe try and do some research yourself to find out. . .but then when you do, you'll be voting liberal. Your transformation will take a sharp turn when you hit the civillian world, and I think that's the sixth seal if I remember correctly

[Art Monk Fan]

First of all, FISA allows for 72 hours before you have to get a warrant. Second of all, the law allows for "immediate" surveillance. You can't get any faster than that. If the NSA has some procedure in place before they start surveillance or seek a warrant, that has nothing to do with the law. 3rd, the FISA only applies to wiretaps within the United States, so if these are phones and email servers, etc. outside of the US, FISA doesn't apply anyway. I think you need to get your facts straight.

My apologies, it is 72 hours -- that's what I get for trying to do this at work. Regardless, the law allows for immediate wiretaps provided the NSA is sure the FISA court will approve the request. The reason Congress did this was to force the NSA to take the time to build their legal case before they begin the "immediate" wiretap.

[Larry]

Maybe he's the only Senator who read the Patriot Act. Nope, my bad. No Senators read the Patriot Act.

Many of them, in fact, were in a mad rush, immediatly after voting for it, to get on the Sunday talk shows so they could go on record as not reading what they'd voted for.

[Cskin]

Who are you to say what they stand for Sarge? You get all of your informaton from right wing sources that tell you they stand for nothing, maybe try and do some research yourself to find out. . .but then when you do, you'll be voting liberal. Your transformation will take a sharp turn when you hit the civillian world, and I think that's the sixth seal if I remember correctly

Isn't this backward? I think kids get brainwashed and conditioned by the public school and college university enviroment that America is bad... and that we as individuals are obligated to help those the Dems deem as "in need". It's only when people get out into the real world and get their first paycheck do they realize that those "needs" of the misfortunate, the overlooked, and unlucky completely kicks the sh*t out of your paycheck. The shock of learning "what's yours is theirs and what theirs is theirs" can be overwhelming.

[Larry]

:doh: The Supreme Court has already decided that the Congressional authorization to use force in Afghanistan grants the administration power to detain American citizens suspected of terrorist activites. Last I checked, physically detaining a citizen was far more invasive than eaves-dropping on their conversation.

Um, could you let me know when that ruling was?

Last I heard, the SC had really bent over backwards to avoid ruling in the Jose Padilla case. (And then, the day before Bush's new, second, deadline to come up with some possible explanation to justify it's actions, Bush decided to suddenly start obeying the Constitution rather than come up with a justification.)

In addition, the taps are only in cases where one of the parties is located outside of the U.S. and is suspected of terrorism. The tap is technically on a foreign entity.

If the tap is "technically" on a foreign entity (hint: They don't tap conversations, they tap phones. If they're tapping the phone of a guy in Iran, and he calls the US, then they're tapping a foreign entity. And FISA applies. If they're tapping a guy in the US who phones Iran, then they're tapping a US citizen.) then FISA applies. The only reason for ignoring FISA is either that they weren't tapping foreign entities, or they didn't have a good enough reason to tap even a foreign entity.

As for the old fall back that FISA allows for unwarranted taps for 48 hours: the law as written requires that the NSA be assured, before beginning the tap, that the FISA court will grant the tap within that 48-hour period. In practice, the NSA has to go through the entire vetting process, and must build their entire legal arguement before they are allowed to begin the tap. This precludes the quick-reaction capabilites that the program in question affords.

I think I've seen FISA quoted here. And I didn't see anything that said that they had to have approval for a warrant before they ask for a warrant. (I understand that many agencies have such internal rules, but that's a different matter.)

(Although, the parts I've read do say that, to use FISA, there must be "reasonable certainty that the monitoring will not involve US citizens" (or some such)).

[flashback]

First of all, sorry for the bump. I'm still coming to grips with how far outside the mainstream I am on this issue. Second, I found this on Sen. Feingold's website, so I thought I'd share. If you scroll down far enough, there are actually some facts, which are very difficult to get from the MSM (mainstream media).

http://www.feingold.senate.gov/releases/06/03/20060312.html

FEINGOLD TO INTRODUCE RESOLUTION

CENSURING THE PRESIDENT

Feingold Says Congress Must Condemn the President’s Violation of the Public’s Trust Through Illegal Wiretapping Program

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has announced that he will introduce a resolution in the U.S. Senate on Monday to censure the President of the United States. Feingold’s resolution condemns the President’s actions in authorizing the illegal wiretapping program and then misleading the country about the existence and legality of the program. Feingold calls the resolution an appropriate and responsible step for Congress to take in response to the President’s undermining of the separation of powers and ignoring the rule of law.

“The President must be held accountable for authorizing a program that clearly violates the law and then misleading the country about its existence and its legality,” Feingold said. “The President’s actions, as well as his misleading statements to both Congress and the public about the program, demand a serious response. If Congress does not censure the President, we will be tacitly condoning his actions, and undermining both the separation of powers and the rule of law.”

The President’s illegal wiretapping program is in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISA law makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order. The Bush Administration has obtained thousands of FISA warrants since September 11th and has almost never been rejected by the FISA court. FISA even allows wiretaps to be executed immediately in an emergency as long as the government obtains a warrant within 72 hours.

“This issue is not about whether the government should be wiretapping terrorists – of course it should, and it can under current law” Feingold said. “But this President and this Administration decided to break the law and they have yet to give a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate, or legal. Passing more laws will not change the fact that the President broke the ones already in place and for that, Congress must hold him accountable.”

View the Censure Resolution

# # #

FACT SHEET FROM U.S. SENATOR RUSS FEINGOLD

ON HIS RESOLUTION TO CENSURE THE PRESIDENT

Senator Feingold’s resolution of censure condemns the President for breaking the law by authorizing an illegal wiretapping program, and for misleading Congress and the American people about the existence and legality of that program.

The President Broke the Law by Wiretapping Outside of FISA

It Is Illegal to Wiretap Without the Requisite Warrant or Court Order: The law is clear that the criminal wiretap statute and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) “shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.”

FISA Has an Emergency Exception: The Administration has indicated that it ignored FISA because the application process takes too long. In fact, in an emergency where the Attorney General believes that surveillance must begin before a court order can be obtained, FISA permits him to immediately authorize the surveillance as long as the government goes to the court within 72 hours. Prior to 2001, the emergency wiretap period was only 24 hours. The Administration requested and received the increase to 72 hours in intelligence authorization legislation that passed in late 2001.

FISA Provides for Wartime Situations: FISA also permits the Attorney General to authorize warrantless electronic surveillance in the United States during the 15 days following a declaration of war, to allow time to consider any amendments to FISA necessitated by a wartime emergency.

The Administration Has Used FISA Thousands of Times Since 9/11: Administration officials have criticized FISA, but they have obtained thousands of warrants approved by the FISA court since 9/11, and have almost never had a warrant request rejected by that court.

The President Made Misleading Arguments Defending his Wiretapping Program

Military Force Resolution Did Not Authorize Wiretapping: The President has argued that Congress gave him authority to wiretap Americans on U.S. soil without a warrant when it passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force after September 11, 2001. There is no language in the resolution and no evidence to suggest that it was intended to give the President authority to order these warrantless wiretaps. Warrantless domestic surveillance is not an “incident of war” akin to detaining an enemy soldier on the battlefield as the Administration has argued.

In fact, Congress passed the Patriot Act just six weeks after September 11 to expand the government’s powers to conduct surveillance of suspected terrorists and spies. Yet the Administration did not ask for, nor did the Patriot Act include, any change to FISA’s requirement of judicial approval for wiretaps of Americans in the United States.

Prohibition on Wiretapping Limits Executive Power: The President’s assertion of inherent executive power is also wrong. The President has extensive authority when it comes to national security and foreign affairs, but given the clear prohibition in FISA, that authority does not include the power to wiretap American citizens on American soil without a warrant.

Executive Branch Review of Wiretapping Is Not Enough: The President has argued that periodic executive branch review provides an adequate check on the program. But Congress when it passed FISA explicitly rejected the idea that the executive branch should be fully entrusted to conduct national security wiretaps on its own – a power that the executive had abused in the past. In addition, the Administration has said that NSA employees decide whose communications to tap. Executive branch employees are no substitute for FISA Court judges.

Congress Did Not Approve This Program: The extremely limited briefings of the President’s warrantless surveillance programs to a handful of Congressional leaders did not constitute Congressional oversight, much less approval. In fact, the failure of the President to keep the Congressional Intelligence Committees “fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities” was a violation of the National Security Act.

The President Made Misleading Public Statements about Administration Wiretapping

“Finally, we need to renew the critical provisions of the Patriot Act that protect our civil liberties. The Patriot Act was written with clear safeguards to ensure the law is applied fairly. The judicial branch has a strong oversight role. Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, a federal judge's permission to track his calls, or a federal judge's permission to search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of these tools. And these standards are fully consistent with the Constitution of the U.S.”

--President George Bush, June 9, 2005, in Columbus, Ohio

“A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the government can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order. Now, we've used things like roving wiretaps on drug dealers before. Roving wiretaps mean you change your cell phone. And yet, we weren't able to use roving wiretaps on terrorists. And so what the Patriot Act said is let's give our law enforcement the tools necessary, without abridging the Constitution of the United States, the tools necessary to defend America.”

--President George Bush, July 14, 2004, in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

“Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.”

--President George Bush, April 20, 2004, in Buffalo, New York

[flashback]

Breaking another rule as I reply to my own thread...

The real issue here isn't who the President wiretapped, or where, or whether or not National Security demanded it. The issue here is we have (or had, we'll see) a government where the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branch were co-equal. And we have a President who disagrees with that. We have (again, or had) a government based on the rule of law. No one is above the law, not the President as an individual, or the Executive branch collectively.

Even if Bush or an NSA lawyer never used this program to spy on a political opponent, what about the next President, or the President after that? Do we really want a completely secret, unsupervised, domestic surviellance program at the disposal of the President?

[gbear]

Wow, the quotes at the end are interesting. I wonder if he still stands by them? Afterall, June of 2005 was such a long time ago (read sarcasm). I keep coming back to this administration will say anything to get what it wants, and it's constituents don't care if what they say has a high correlation with the truth.

[flashback]

gbear, another thing this points out is the failure of the media to put this stuff together. At the same time the Patriot Act was getting extended and the Congress was inserting itself into the DPW controversy, they're abandoning their oversight responsibility with regard to the NSA program.

link

The Media Firewall

How the Compartmentalization of News Coverage Stifles Political Accountability

By Anonymous Liberal

One of the more puzzling (and at times infuriating) phenomena that I've observed as a consumer of news coverage over the years is the tendency of the media to compartmentalize political stories. Stories that, in reality, are deeply interconnected are often presented as if they had nothing to do with one another and are covered on entirely separate tracks. Analysis is cabined off and facts are presented in a contextual vacuum. It's not clear why this happens.

Perhaps reporters don't want to confuse readers by repeatedly referring to another story. Perhaps they don't want to stray too far from their mandate and step on the toes of their colleagues who are covering those others stories. Or perhaps they're just lazy and haven't done enough research to understand how the issue they're covering fits into the overall picture. Whatever it is, the natural consequence of this phenomenon is that politicians are able get away with making statements and arguments in one context than are entirely inconsistent with the statements and arguments they are simultaneously making in another.

There is no better example of this phenomenon at work than the media's recent coverage of the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy and the simultaneous push on Capitol Hill to renew the Patriot Act. Both of these stories have garnered a significant amount of press coverage over the last few months, but, for the most part, the media has elected to treat them as if they have nothing to do with one another.

This bizarre media firewall has been so effective that I suspect very few Americans even realize what the Patriot Act is, i.e., a collection of amendments to other statutes, the most significant of which is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The primary purpose of the Patriot Act was to modernize FISA, the same statute that the President now claims is an out-dated relic which he has the power to disregard whenever he deems it "necessary."

Last week, the Senate voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act, and that vote was given prominent coverage in both the New York Times and the Washington Post . But neither paper saw fit to mention that the Patriot Act and FISA are essentially the same thing. The Times even quoted President Bush saying the following:

"The Patriot Act is vital to the war on terrorand defending our citizens against a ruthless enemy," the president said in a statement from India. "This bill will allow our law enforcement officials to continue to use the same tools against terrorists that are already used against drug dealers and other criminals, while safeguarding the civil liberties of the American people."

The Post carried part of the same quote and added that "[r]enewing the act, Bush and congressional Republicans said, was key to preventing more terror attacks in the United States."

These statements--while unremarkable in a universe where the president isn't openly flaunting this very law--are entirely incoherent in the universe we actually inhabit, where the president has admitted that his administration is currently engaged in the very type of surveillance that FISA explicitly criminalizes. After all, if some combination of the AUMF and Article II bestow the president with the power to disregard FISA--as the administration and its defenders claim--then, by definition, the amendments to FISA contained in the Patriot Act are clearly not "vital to the war on terror." Indeed, they're entirely superfluous.

Similarly, it makes absolutely no sense to say that the Patriot Act/FISA "safeguard the civil liberties of the American people" when the administration is claiming that it is not bound by FISA's provisions. Because both the Post and the Times insist on covering the Patriot Act renewal and the NSA controversy as if they were totally unrelated stories, both papers simply present Bush's incoherent statements without further comment.

And it gets worse. Though you wouldn't know it by following the coverage in the national media, the President himself has made a number of public statements which are not at all consistent with his current position regarding the effectiveness and application of FISA. In late January, over a month after the NSA controversy surfaced, Glenn was the first to point out that in 2002 the Bush administration publicly opposed an amendment to FISA that would have brought the law closer in line with the surveillance activities the administration was already conducting; the administration argued then that FISA was working fine and that the proposed amendment might be unconstitutional. Although Glenn's discovery spawned a few mainstream media stories, it hasn't even come close to garnering the level of coverage it deserves.

But Glenn's discovery led me to wonder what other inconsistent statements the national media had failed to unearth. It didn't take me long to find some real doozies. For instance, with all the talk of signing statements, it apparently never occurred to anyone at the major news organizations to look up what President Bush said when he signed the Patriot Act into law in 2001. Sure enough, it wasn't at all consistent with what he's saying now. Here's a small portion of what he said:

Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists. The existing law [FISA] was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law I sign today [which amends FISA] will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones. As of today, we'll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology.

The following weekend, the President delivered his weekly radio address and again discussed the amendments to FISA he'd just signed into law. This time he observed:

The new law[which amends FISA] recognizes the realities and dangers posed by the modern terrorist. . .

Under the new law officials may conduct court-ordered surveillance of all modern forms of communication used by terrorists.

Bush ended the radio address by making the following pledge:

These measures were enacted with broad support in both parties. They reflect a firm resolve to uphold and respect the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, while dealing swiftly and severely with terrorists. Now comes the duty of carrying them out. And I can assure all Americans that these important new statutes will be enforced to the full.

As we know now, Bush didn't take his pledge very seriously. If his administration wasn't already violating FISA at the time he made these remarks, it began to shortly thereafter. So much for enforcing these new statutes to the full. To my knowledge, however, Bush has never been questioned about any of these statements, and no major media outlet has printed them (at least since the scandal broke).

I'm sure that part of the problem is that reporters are more concerned with cultivating inside sources and securing exclusive scoops than exploring the public record. But it's more than that. As this week's stories on the Patriot Act demonstrate, the news media just cannot seem to connect the dots. The Patriot Act and the President's statements about the Patriot Act are one story, and the NSA controversy is another.

Of course, the national media isn't solely to blame here. Bush's critics, particularly his Democratic critics, have failed miserably to highlight this connection for journalists. The debate over the renewal of the Patriot Act gave them the perfect opportunity and platform to explain to the public just how radical and incoherent the administration's legal theories really are. But, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, the Democrats have for the most part chosen to play along in this bizarre game.

The debate over the renewal of the Patriot Act has largely played out much as one would have expected had the NSA program never been exposed, with all sides acting as if the law that results from their deliberations will actually define the limits of the government's power. It's as if no one in Congress has truly internalized the implications of the Bush administration's legal theories; no one has really come to grips with the reality that, under those theories, the rules Congress constructs are mere guidelines which may be disregarded at the discretion of the president. No one seems to be asking the obvious question: what's the point? Why spend so much time fine-tuning a law that the President has no intention of following?

If there's a silver lining to be found here, it's that this issue highlights the unique and valuable role that blogs can play in our political discourse. Bloggers are avid consumers of news. They excel at taking bits of information from various news sources and public records and weaving them together into a narrative. It's not at all surprising to me that a blogger (Glenn) was the first to draw the connection between the 2002 DeWine legislation and the current NSA controversy or that blogs like Think Progress are often the first to point out when a politician's current statements are contradicted by prior public statements.

By bridging the artificial media firewall between inter-related stories and constantly sifting through the public record, bloggers play an indispensable role in educating the public and holding politicians and government officials accountable. It would be preferable, of course, if bloggers weren't so often alone in this endeavor, if the national media did a better job of drawing these connections on its own. But as the aftermath of Glenn's DeWine story demonstrated, journalists are becoming more receptive to pursuing stories first highlighted by bloggers (and even crediting bloggers for their work).

This trend is encouraging, and it gives me hope that bloggers can help to de-compartmentalize the news, and by doing so, at least force politicians to adopt consistent talking points. That would be a small but important step in the right direction.

[Guest Gichin13]

I am all for the President being able to protect our country.

I am all for some type of legal authority being available to review searches and seizures.

I am all for flexibility being permitted to permit executive branch authorities latitude to protect our interests by quickly tapping suspected terrorists.

It seems like FISA permitting 72 hour taps without warrants, and basically a rubber stamp on warrants requested by the government, accomplishes all of the above. I have not heard a single persuasive argument for why the President should have no limitations on these warrants.

On a final note, the censure motion is yet another stupid move. I tend to generally like Feingold as he does not appear to be lockstep with the libs, but this move fits into the complain but no direction pattern the Dems seem locked into right now.

[flashback]

I think this issue might be a little bit like when the FDA decided it wasn't going to regulate tobacco. The reason nicotine is not regulated by the FDA is because if it was, it'd be a schedule 1 drug, and illegal to produce, distribute, or use. The reason the Congress won't oversee the NSA program is if they did, they'd have to indict the President. I'm not sure I disagree with the decision. I certainly don't want Cheney or Hastert or Rice running the country.

[hokie4redskins]

It's astounding how willing the democrats are to dig their own graves. What do you do when you see your enemy committing suicide? Sit back, watch, and....

:laugh:

[skinfan133]

hope it gets done, even though im a right winger i cant stand him anymore, he needs a slap on the wrist and a reminder that there are 2 other branches of governemnt out there. suporting dubai was his absolute undoing in the eyes of america, and the spying? get aproval first for certaint individuals who are suspected terrorists through the courts, dont just begin tapping phones without provocation, becuase after all isnt the constitution the supreme law of the land???? bush need this censure to remind him, "hey your human, fix your problems and fall back in"

btw andrew jackson is the only president ever censured, he was a racsist pig, good general, but a pig none the less

[flashback]

It's astounding how willing the democrats are to dig their own graves. What do you do when you see your enemy committing suicide? Sit back, watch, and....

:laugh:

I don't know if this makes you happy or sad, hokie, but Dems are running from this like a Frenchman from combat.

I really want to live in a country where the majority cares about the Constitution more than they care about who gay people can and can't marry.

Remember all those Republicans who got elected to Congress back in the 90's talking about limited government and controlled spending? We could sure use some of those guys in Congress now.

[Crazyhorse1]

Isn't this backward? I think kids get brainwashed and conditioned by the public school and college university enviroment that America is bad... and that we as individuals are obligated to help those the Dems deem as "in need". It's only when people get out into the real world and get their first paycheck do they realize that those "needs" of the misfortunate, the overlooked, and unlucky completely kicks the sh*t out of your paycheck. The shock of learning "what's yours is theirs and what theirs is theirs" can be overwhelming.

What do you mean? How much do I lose to the needs of the misfortunate, the overlooked, and the unlucky? Let's say I make $40,000 a year, standard deductions. two kids. Average taxpayer. How much do I lose?

Since you have experienced the shock, I assume you know exactly how much you lose to these people, don't you? I'm waiting for an answer.

[Crazyhorse1]

The idea Republicans are floating around that the Constitution gives the President certain inherent powers that trump the law sorts of gets in the way of what I've heard all my life that even the President has to obey the law.

Here is a Constitutional OBLIGATION of the President: to see that the laws of the nature are obeyed.

If the President has the inherent right to break any law he wants in the exercise of his so-called "inherent" right to protect the people he could, for instance, murder all political dissidents and then argue it was necessary.

Some total fool, Tony Blankley, I think, argued on TV, recently, that Bush wouldn't be guilty of an impeachable offense or subject to censure until the matters of his inherent powers were decided by the Supreme Court. In other words, Bush could violate any law and then argue to the court after the fact that it was his right because he thought it was justified by national security and that he was therefore acting under authority of an inherent right or power. Then, according to Blankley's model (which he didn't bother to state) Bush would be obliged to stop murdering people or else murder the entire court and name justices to the court who would rule all his past murders inherent powers and therefore above laws against murder.

[flashback]

Well, it turns out, censure is more popular among the American people than it is among Democratic Senators. Go figure.

http://americanresearchgroup.com/

[twa]

I don't know if this makes you happy or sad, hokie, but Dems are running from this like a Frenchman from combat.

I really want to live in a country where the majority cares about the Constitution more than they care about who gay people can and can't marry.

Remember all those Republicans who got elected to Congress back in the 90's talking about limited government and controlled spending? We could sure use some of those guys in Congress now.

Does this mean you would support Newt's run for president?

Viva la differance

[Thiebear]

Crazyhorse did the same poll 2 hours later.. Thats all you need to know..