Defiant Bush admits breaking law

Rex Kickass · January 12, 2006

He wasn't in that episode, but the lady who played Pearl in "227" was a friend of the family who lived in the building in that particular episode. She pretended to be a "black japanese" in order to not answer any of the FBI's questions.

FlaSoxxJim · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 10:02 AM)

He wasn't in that episode, but the lady who played Pearl in "227" was a friend of the family who lived in the building in that particular episode. She pretended to be a "black japanese" in order to not answer any of the FBI's questions.

What happened to qualityy entertainment like that?

Was that cute little Janet Jackson in that episode?

kapkomet · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 01:14 PM)

The chief whistleblower/patriot has been identified as Russell Tice. Risin declined to identify him, but Tice copped to it on Nightline Tuesday.

Boy, that book sale is going well, isn't it?

Cknolls · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 06:31 PM)

No it's not.

A state of war is.

Unless we formally declare one, we aren't technically in one. And his powers are limited.

Like Kosovo? Bring home the troops.

Cknolls · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 10:14 PM)

So if our President chooses to imprison every arab because its a war on terror, that's ok because its any means necessary? What if he decides to wiretap on a possible Presidential candidate in 2008 because there might be suspicion that this person at one time may have had some communication with Osama Bin Laden - real or not. Since congress said "any means necessary" and he deems it necessary, I guess that would be OK too under your definition.

In this case the law provides the necessary means. You don't even have to get a warrant before you start wiretapping in National Security cases. You just have to go to the supersecret FISA court within 72 hours of starting to wiretap an individual.

It might be a pain in the ass, and mean some extra paperwork for some folks in the NSA, but in my opinion ensuring our rights, freedom and way of life is what this "war" on terror is all about. And doing a little extra paperwork to ensure it happens seems to be the right thing to do.

What if pigs fly out of my ass?????

kapkomet · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 04:18 PM)

What if pigs fly out of my ass?????

They'd have wires attached to them.

FlaSoxxJim · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 10:42 AM)

Boy, that book sale is going well, isn't it?

I haven't seen how it is selling actually. I think there is a lot more he covers in the book, including some more on the Siebel Edmonds story. Hopefully it sells well.

kapkomet · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 05:56 PM)

I haven't seen how it is selling actually. I think there is a lot more he covers in the book, including some more on the Siebel Edmonds story. Hopefully it sells well.

All smart-assisms aside, I think it sold 8,000+ copies in the first week. As much as it got plugged on the front page of the NY Slimes, I would have thought it would have done much better.

Rex Kickass · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 10:17 AM)

What happened to qualityy entertainment like that?

Was that cute little Janet Jackson in that episode?

No, this was before James Evans died and in the episode he temporarily lost his job at the loading dock because the FBI were snooping around to see who was getting Cuban propaganda.

Velona wasn't in this episode and I wonder if she was even on the show yet.

Rex Kickass · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 11:16 AM)

Like Kosovo? Bring home the troops.

0 US Soldiers died in Kosovo.

FlaSoxxJim · January 12, 2006

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 03:21 PM)

No, this was before James Evans died and in the episode he temporarily lost his job at the loading dock because the FBI were snooping around to see who was getting Cuban propaganda.

Velona wasn't in this episode and I wonder if she was even on the show yet.

You've got the Good Times Collector's DVD s Set, don't you?

Rex Kickass · January 13, 2006

If only. It'd go right next to my Best of Maude DVD.

Rex Kickass · January 13, 2006

Good Times was a spinoff of Maude you know. Starring Bea Arthur.

That should explain my knowledge of this wonderful 1970s sitcom.

FlaSoxxJim · January 13, 2006

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 03:42 AM)

If only. It'd go right next to my Best of Maude DVD.

Best of Maude? What do they do with all the BLANK SPACE left on that disc??

Actually, let me tryy this FROM MEMORY:

Lady Godiva was a freedom rider - she didn't care if the whole world looked.

Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her - she was a sister who really cooked.

Blah blah was the first blah blah (never got those words as a kid) - and we're glad she showed up.

And when the country was fallin' apart - Betsy Ross got it all sewed up.

And then Came Maude. . .

Anything but tranquilizing.

Balta1701 · January 13, 2006

Former President Clinton said Thursday that he never ordered wiretaps of American citizens without obtaining a court order, as President Bush has acknowledged he has done.

Clinton, in an interview broadcast Thursday on the ABC News program ''Nightline,'' said his administration either received court approval before authorizing a wiretap or went to court within three days after to get permission, as required by law.

''We either went there and asked for the approval or, if there was an emergency and we had to do it beforehand, then we filed within three days afterward and gave them a chance to second guess it,'' Clinton told ABC.

Link

FlaSoxxJim · January 13, 2006

Time for another of my semi-occassional story updates.

• The first item is a good challenge to Kap, who has suggested that there are as many legal/constitutional experts who think the "any means necessary" 9/14 Joint Resolution justification holds water as think it is hogwash. Let's start keeping count. 12 recognized experts have drafted and signed on to a letter just sent to Congress woicingh their considered opinion that the White House failed to identify "any plausible legal authority for such surveillance."

Here's the link to the full letter

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650#fnr14

and here are some relevant extracts, as pulled and annotated by the folks at Truthout:

"The program appears on its face to violate existing law," wrote the scholars of constitutional law, some of whom worked in various senior capacities in Republican and Democratic administrations, in an extraordinary letter to Congress that laid out, point by point, why the president is unauthorized to permit the NSA to spy on Americans and how he broke the law by approving it.

"Even conceding that the President in his role as Commander in Chief may generally collect 'signals intelligence' on the enemy abroad, Congress indisputably has authority to regulate electronic surveillance within the United States, as it has done in FISA," the letter states. "Where Congress has so regulated, the President can act in contravention of statute only if his authority is exclusive, that is, not subject to the check of statutory regulation. The DOJ letter pointedly does not make that extraordinary claim. The Supreme Court has never upheld warrantless wiretapping within the United States."

Additionally, "if the administration felt that FISA was insufficient, the proper course was to seek legislative amendment, as it did with other aspects of FISA in the Patriot Act, and as Congress expressly contemplated when it enacted the wartime wiretap provision in FISA," the letter continues. "One of the crucial features of a constitutional democracy is that it is always open to the President - or anyone else - to seek to change the law. But it is also beyond dispute that, in such a democracy, the President cannot simply violate criminal laws behind closed doors because he deems them obsolete or impracticable."

Thr whole letter is worth reading. As for the credentials of the authors, here is the list.

- Curtis Bradley, Duke Law School, former Counselor on International Law in the State Department Legal Adviser's Office

- David Cole, Georgetown University Law Center

- Walter Dellinger, Duke Law School, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel and Acting Solicitor General

- Ronald Dworkin, NYU Law School

- Richard Epstein, University of Chicago Law School, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

- Philip B. Heymann, Harvard Law School, former Deputy Attorney General

- Harold Hongju Koh, Dean, Yale Law School, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, former Attorney-Adviser, Office of Legal Counsel, DOJ

- Martin Lederman, Georgetown University Law Center, former Attorney-Adviser, Office of Legal Counsel, DOJ

- Beth Nolan, former Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel

- William S. Sessions, former Director, FBI, former Chief United States District Judge

- Geoffrey Stone, Professor of Law and former Provost, University of Chicago

- Kathleen Sullivan, Professor and former Dean, Stanford Law School

- Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard Law School

- William Van Alstyne, William & Mary Law School, former Justice Department attorney

• Laurence Tribe, from the list above, is a recognized constitutional authority. He's the one who earlier this week referred to the BushCo legal justification for nSA surveilance as "poppycock".

• Former Clinton era General Counsel for the CIA Jeffrey Smith just sent his own 14-page letter to the House Select Committee on Intelligence asking to be allowed to to testify at hearings that Bush overstepped his authority and broke the law. I saw links to this story testerday but can't fine them now.

• The NSA has warned whistleblower/patriot #1 Russell Tice not to testify before Congress. Why would that be?

• Oh yeah, it turns out that the "any means necessary" 9/14 Joint Resolution justification may be an even bigger load of crap than previously believed. Seems now as if Bush authorised illegal warrantless wiretaps BEFORE 9/11. How about that?

The link is to a Kos entry, and there are links to a Truthout story as well as the declassified document showing this, so if you are not a fan of the evil liberal blog sites you need not click.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/13/103350/780

southsider2k5 · January 13, 2006

Wait we are expected to believe Bill Clinton at his word now? Yeah, I think I will pass and wait for him to be proven or disproven.

Balta1701 · January 13, 2006

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 10:06 AM)

Wait we are expected to believe Bill Clinton at his word now? Yeah, I think I will pass and wait for him to be proven or disproven.

George Tenet did testify to that same thing under oath before Congress already, so Clinton's statement just goes along with that.

Can I say that same thing every time Mr. Bush says something?

southsider2k5 · January 13, 2006

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 01:10 PM)

George Tenet did testify to that same thing under oath before Congress already, so Clinton's statement just goes along with that.

Can I say that same thing every time Mr. Bush says something?

you pretty much do. :bang

kapkomet · January 13, 2006

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 06:05 PM)

Time for another of my semi-occassional story updates.

• The first item is a good challenge to Kap, who has suggested that there are as many legal/constitutional experts who think the "any means necessary" 9/14 Joint Resolution justification holds water as think it is hogwash.

I don't think there's as many as - because a lot of people are jumping for the overthrow of our evil dictator-in-chief...

I really still do believe that there is a certain amount of interpretation to this. I know you disagree, but I really still do think that, for a lot of reasons. I don't have 85 links of proof, other then what I have provided as far as the federalist papers and the Constitution itself.

Nothing's going to happen. Nothing. And it's a damn shame in a way, because I for one would love to really know how the Constitutionality of this would stand in court.

Furthermore, again, it still amazes me how this is all politicized - if it were THAT illegal, you'd HAVE to bring charges against him. The outcry would be much more then it is from just the left.

I guess we're all brainwashed, though.

FlaSoxxJim · January 13, 2006

But the outcry has not been just from the left, from the very outset. The day the story broke, Specter took issue with the president's apparent overreach even befor Russ feingold did.

“There is no doubt that this is inappropriate,” declared Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He promised hearings early next year.

And are all the FISA judges who demanded a review to be let in on why they were sidestepped all left wing extremists?

And finally, if it turns out that the NSA surveilance was in place well before 9/11 with Bush's blessing, there simply is no question of constitutionality because the 9/14/01 Joint Resolution the Justice Department is building it's house of cards on becomes entirely irrelevant.

kapkomet · January 13, 2006

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 10:38 PM)

But the outcry has not been just from the left, from the very outset. The day the story broke, Specter took issue with the president's apparent overreach even befor Russ feingold did.

And are all the FISA judges who demanded a review to be let in on why they were sidestepped all left wing extremists?

And finally, if it turns out that the NSA surveilance was in place well before 9/11 with Bush's blessing, there simply is no question of constitutionality because the 9/14/01 Joint Resolution the Justice Department is building it's house of cards on becomes entirely irrelevant.

That might be true because the precedence had already been set, if you know what I mean. I think this has been done for 20 years or more, and was just now blown out of the water because Bush is the man they want to take down. JMO, of course.

Balta1701 · January 13, 2006

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 03:32 PM)

That might be true because the precedence had already been set, if you know what I mean. I think this has been done for 20 years or more, and was just now blown out of the water because Bush is the man they want to take down. JMO, of course.

If that's the case, can we send Tenet to jail now for lying during his testimony before Congress a few years ago where he said they were getting the FISA warrants?

samclemens · January 14, 2006

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 02:05 PM)