Earth to Matt.......

[willstrickland]

Well, I figured this would happen sooner or later. Plame-Wilson to sue:

 

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 13, 2006--Valerie Plame Wilson, Ambassador Joseph Wilson and their counsel, Christopher Wolf

of Proskauer Rose LLP, will hold a news conference at 10 AM EDT on Friday, July 14 at 10:00 AM at the National Press

Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC 20045, to announce the filing of a civil lawsuit against I.

 

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice-President Richard Cheney and Karl Rove.

[mattp]

to end up "dissapproved"

[mattp]

just like CJF.

[olyclimber]

[cj001f]

to end up "dissapproved"

 

Hey! Olyclimber needs to find his own ghetto! I DON'T SHARE!

[mattp]

 

George W. Bush's Impeachable Offenses

December 19, 2005

Ivan Eland

 

Several recent presidents could have been impeached for selected unconstitutional or illegal actions during their presidencies. But the sitting president, George W. Bush, may win the prize for committing the most impeachable offenses of any recent president.

 

Yet when one thinks of bad behavior leading down the road to possible impeachment, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon come to mind first. Although Bill Clinton was impeached for having sex with an intern and then lying about it to a grand jury, a better case could have been made to impeach him for conducting an unconstitutional war over Kosovo without approval by Congress. The articles of Nixon’s impeachment centered on his use of illegal surveillance methods against political opponents and obstruction of justice and contempt of Congress in covering it up. His launching of an unconstitutional war in Cambodia without congressional approval was equally serious, but was left out of the articles. Curiously, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon’s predecessor, also used illegal surveillance activities against political rivals, but was not impeached.

 

Ronald Reagan, who is now a celebrated past president and icon of conservatives, justifiably feared impeachment for the Iran-Contra affair. He knowingly violated the Arms Export Control Act, a criminal statute, and sold arms to radical supporters of terrorists. His administration also unconstitutionally violated a congressional prohibition on providing money and support to the Nicaraguan Contra fighters. The Reagan administration’s violation of the Boland Amendment stuck a knife in the heart of the checks and balances system in the U.S. Constitution by circumventing Congress’s most important power—the appropriation of public monies.

 

George W. Bush is following in the footsteps of his predecessors, but may have left more tracks. For starters, invading another country on false pretenses is grounds for impeachment. Also, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution essentially says that the people have the right to be secure against unreasonable government searches and seizures and that no search warrants shall be issued without probable cause that a crime has been committed. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires that warrants for national security wiretaps be authorized by the secret FISA court. The law says that it is a crime for government officials to conduct electronic surveillance outside the exclusive purviews of that law or the criminal wiretap statute. President Bush’s authorization of the monitoring of Americans’ e-mails and phone calls by the National Security Agency (NSA) without even the minimal protection of FISA court warrants is clearly unconstitutional and illegal. Executive searches without judicial review violate the unique checks and balances that the nation’s founders created in the U.S. government and are a considerable threat to American liberty. Furthermore, surveillance of Americans by the NSA, an intelligence service rather than a law enforcement agency, is a regression to the practices of the Vietnam-era, when intelligence agencies were misused to spy on anti-war protesters—another impeachable violation of peoples’ constitutional rights by LBJ and Nixon.

 

President Bush defiantly admits initiating such flagrant domestic spying but contends that the Congress implicitly authorized such activities when it approved the use of force against al Qaeda and that such actions fit within his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief. But the founders never intended core principles of the Constitution to be suspended during wartime. In fact, they realized that it was in times of war and crisis that constitutional protections of the people were most at risk of usurpation by politicians, who purport to defend American freedom while actually undermining it.

 

The Bush administration’s FBI has also expanded its use of national security letters to examine the personal records of tens of thousands of Americans who are not suspected of being involved in terrorism or even illegal acts.

 

Apparently the president is also taking us back to the Vietnam era by monitoring anti-war protesters. Information on peaceful anti-war demonstrations has apparently found its way into Pentagon databases on possible threats to U.S. security.

 

Finally, the president’s policies on detainees in the “war on terror” probably qualify as impeachable offenses. The Bush administration decided that the “war on terror” exempted it from an unambiguous criminal law and international conventions (which are also the law of the land) preventing torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. An American president permitting torture is both disgraceful and ineffective in getting good information from those held. Furthermore, the administration concocted the fictitious category of “enemy combatants” to deprive detainees of the legal protections of either the U.S. courts or “prisoner-of-war” status. The administration then tried to detain these enemy combatants, some of them American citizens, indefinitely without trial, access to counsel, or the right to have courts to review their cases.

 

All of these actions are part of President Bush’s attempt to expand the power of presidency during wartime—as if the imperial presidency hadn’t been expanded enough by his recent predecessors. President Bush usually gets the Attorney General or the White House Counsel to agree with his usurpation of congressional and judicial powers, but, of course, who in the executive is going to disagree with their boss? According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration describes the president’s war making power under the Constitution as “plenary”—meaning absolute. The founders would roll over in their graves at this interpretation of a document that was actually designed to limit the presidential war power, resulting from their revulsion at the way European monarchs easily took their countries to war and foisted the costs—in blood and treasure—on their people. Conservative Bob Barr, a former Congressman from Georgia who was quoted in the Post, said it best: “The American people are going to have to say, ‘Enough of this business of justifying everything as necessary for the war on terror.’ Either the Constitution and the laws of this country mean something or they don’t. It is truly frightening what is going on in this country.”

[catbirdseat]

Matt, fix your post. It needs some carriage returns. Geez.

[cj001f]

Matt, fix your post. It needs some carriage returns. Geez.

 

I've never said this - cbs - you are a dork. Poltiical posts aren't for reading, they are for kneejerk retorts.

[mattp]

It displays fine on my monitor.

 

The original is here:

web page

[JayB]

I'm waiting for Plame-Wilson© to finish their contract negotiations with Andrew LLoyd Weber so that "PlameGate -The Musical" can finally assume it's rightful place on Broadway. Toss in some witty Plamewear © "I am a Secret Agent" clothing and logo-items while the musical show runs its course, and finish with a nostalgia-driven "Plame!" dramatization on the main stage at the Sands in a decade or so and they'll be in good shape. Toss in some savvy, demographic specificunderwriting by Viagra, Lipitor, and "Hairitage - a Radical (wink) Solution to Hairloss* and you've got an act that'd make the Wayne Newton and Siegfried and Roy look like nightclub acts in Winemucca. And - as a kind alternative to euthenasia, once the Boomers have blown what's left of their meager retirement savings on one last bender in Vegas, the stagehands can just roll a giant mirror across the stage, at which time the rapt audience will applaud itself to death.

 

 

*The ONLY hairpiece which combines the requisite grey-ponytail with top-coverage in a SINGLE unit.

[olyclimber]

I'm waiting for the Rush Limbaugh Viagra commercials.

[Fairweather]

Well, if Ivan Eland says it - then it must be true in your world!

[Fairweather]

Ahhh yes. Now I understand.....

 

http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=487

 

[JayB]

I'm waiting for the Rush Limbaugh Viagra commercials.

 

Cocktail party chatter with new M.D.s indicates that for the average guy, every 20lbs of excess weight submerges 1/2" of unit beneath

a layer of fat, so I suspect that transforming Rush into a spokesmodel for the restoration of functional potency would be a bit much even for the much-touted powers of Viagra.

 

If someone out there invents a man-girdle that can exhume the tackle from beneath a heap of adipose tissue, Rush might be just the ticket for that spokesmodel

gig.

 

Hope everyone got a nice visual out of that one.

[mattp]

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 13, 2006--Valerie Plame Wilson, Ambassador Joseph Wilson and their counsel, Christopher Wolf

of Proskauer Rose LLP, will hold a news conference at 10 AM EDT on Friday, July 14 at 10:00 AM at the National Press

Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC 20045, to announce the filing of a civil lawsuit against I.

 

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice-President Richard Cheney and Karl Rove.

 

All right. Lets see these quys answering questions under oath.

[mattp]

Fairweather:

Do you disagree with what the guy wrote? I thought you'd like this piece because it points out how Clinton should have been called to account for lying to take us into Kosovo.

[Fairweather]

I think the guy lives in fantasy-land. I skimmed some of his other "works" such as "Give Iran positive incentives to halt it's nuclear program" - (gee, didn't Clinton/Albright already try that in North Korea?) - and the site review of his book "The Empire Has No Clothes". Of course, that's America he's referring to as empire. How original.

 

Side note: Why do non-MD's insist on impressing us all with the title of Dr. before their surnames? I really don't think anyone cares.

[mattp]

Ah yes. You don't like his politics. That doesn't surprise me. But what is incorrect in the above-quoted essay? You may not like the tone of some of what you feel is overly critical of the Administration, but have they not done all of the things he says they have?

[foraker]

Side note: Why do non-MD's insist on impressing us all with the title of Dr. before their surnames? I really don't think anyone cares.

 

Actually, the vast majority of "non-MD doctors" (otherwise known as PhD's) almost never use their "Dr." titles, especially not in professional journals. The only time I think "we" do tend to use it is in official correspondence of some sort (where using it tends to get the author more attention than they otherwise might get, e.g. writing to the bank or to some official) or if they are writing for a more general audience and it is a means of establishing some sort of credibilty to the reader who may not be familiar with the authors curriculum vitae.

 

That said, it IS an earned degree and often requires as much if not more effort to obtain than your average MD. Thus, they are perfectly within their rights to refer to themselves as 'Dr.' So, if you don't want refer to PhD recipients as "Dr.", you might also leave off referring to your family physician as such as well. Lord knows, I've seen a fair few of them nearly fail organic chem or squeak by with a 'C' and only then by buggering everyone elses labs.

 

Question: Is your disdain for the Dr title only reserved for the individual in question, whose views and politics you despise, or do we all get to share in it? If Dr. Joe Trickledown (of the Cato Institute) was always referred to in the press with his title, would you be so disparaging? Just a thought.

[cj001f]

I'm waiting for Plame-Wilson© to finish their contract negotiations with Andrew LLoyd Weber

 

I'm waiting for the Bush twins to sign with Vivid

[Fairweather]

Ah yes. You don't like his politics. That doesn't surprise me. But what is incorrect in the above-quoted essay? You may not like the tone of some of what you feel is overly critical of the Administration, but have they not done all of the things he says they have?

 

I don't see anything impeachable in the author's litany of supposed offenses. Lying? A politician? We would have to impeach every president - past, present, future. BTW, has GWB been accused of lying under oath?

[mattp]

Just what does a guy have to do to get impeached around here?

 

Lying about national security and taking us into a war on false premises isn’t enough?

Lying in the State of the Union Speech?

Ignoring Congress’ explicit requirement for FISA warrants?

Round filing the Geneva Convention and saying it is OK to torture prisoners of war?

 

I know, you have stated before that all of this is justified because we are engaged in a war on terror,

or something like that, but don’t you think that at some point enough is enough?

 

Surely GWB has done far worse than lying about a blowjob.

[murraysovereign]

Surely GWB has done far worse than lying about a blowjob.

 

What, are you nuts? Nothing is worse than lying about a blowjob. Ever. If presidents are allowed to lie about blowjobs, then the terrorists have won.

[JayB]

Surely GWB has done far worse than lying about a blowjob.

 

What, are you nuts? Nothing is worse than lying about a blowjob. Ever. If presidents are allowed to lie about blowjobs, then the terrorists have won.

 

Speaking of winning, we're counting on you to help the forces of good prevail in the War on Tweakers.

 

Food for thought at the next Squamish C.O.C. Meeting.

[Peter_Puget]

PP Quote:

 

What I have scoffed at and have complete disdain for are those who have claimed that the Bush administration is something close to the Stalin

regime. Or that they are breaking new ground in illegal behavior or underhanded tricks. I also scoffed at those who claim that the “outing” of Plame broke the law.

This last assertion was bullshit from the start and yes it is true I do think that those who believe are not really think but rather simply shouting the party line.

 

 

By the way enough of you and me let’s talk facts – something I have tried to do in this thread.

How do Novac’s interviews square with what you thought happened with him? How do they fit in with your broader view of the Plamegate?

 

 

If you want to continue to discuss posts of mine in other threads, please start a new thread and supply links to supporting documentation.

 

 

Mattp’s reply:

 

Actually, Peter, I believe YOU started a thread in direct reference to past discussions. Hence your choice of thread titles.

 

 

What I suggested in your thread title was the general “spacey-ness” of your argumentation. No direct reference to any specific thread.

To be clear the reason I was suggesting you open a new thread to discuss my past posts was because you

were redirecting the subject. (ie avoiding the issue of Novac's statements) A new subject deserves a new thread.

 

 

Don’t you find it odd how you accuse me of avoiding your questions

(To other readers: check out how Matt uses this as a diversionary tactic in this very thread) and yet you avoid my very direct and on topic questions to you.

You contiue to avoid any real discussion and throw unrelated accusations into the fray as if that was making some sort of argument.

It is, in the end, simply another form of sloganeering.

Edited July 14, 2006 by Peter_Puget