[excon]

Hello:

George W. Bush, according to recent memos released by the White House, was prepared to take over the country no matter what the Constitution said about it. Read about here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/us...html?th&emc=th.

I'm sure some of you thought taking over the country was a great and patriotic thing to do. Personally, I think it was IDIOTIC, and against the law.

This is exactly WHY we need to prosecute the dufus and his crew. We need to make CERTAIN that nobody like HIM ever gets elected again.

excon

[tomder55]

Just when the left was prepared to make Rush Limbaugh the whipping boy now comes more fodder for the BDS crowd.

was prepared to take over the country no matter what the Constitution said about it.

Curiously President Bush did not do that even though he was given a confidential policy option. You would think the way he is portrayed that he would've jumped at the chance.
The President got the legal opinion he could knock down doors w/out warrants if he wanted to.
And yet... he didn't.

Perhaps if the battlefield had been in the US, as AQ wanted, instead of Iraq, these contingency plans would be needed and wanted by the people .

By the way sure do wish Obama would release his birth certificate and medical records as quick as he is releasing policy documents from the previous administration.

Yeah I remember how quickly President Bush dumped the secret files of the Clintoons on the media...

... what he didn't?? Never mind.

[speechlesstx]

NRO has linked to them so read them for yourself. Opinions don't necessarily translate into policy. All those fears that Bush would take over the country never came to pass and he's out of your hair now... or would be if so many weren't so eager to execute the man and so incapable of letting the hatred go.

I'm sure Democrats would never be capable of such atrocities as those attributed Bush...

"Of course it's a violation of international law...go grab his a$$." -Al Gore

[excon]

Hello again, Steve:

When criminals are prosecuted in our courts, I'm sure you don't think it's because they're hated... Nope. It's because they broke the law.

I don't hate the dufus. I simply believe in the law

excon

[kp2171]

I don't like the dufus, and I voted for him (or more likely, against the idiot dem) twice.

What the hell does that make me? King of the fidiots?

[ETWolverine]

Excon,

Obama is prepared to control how you spend your money, what you drive, what type of house you live in, how much you pay for the everyday products you buy, which doctor you visit and how often, what kind of medical and elder care you get, what lightbulbs you can use and what kind of toilet you flush.

And think that Bush was trying to usurp the power of the Presidency? Nothing that Bush ever did or attempted to do comes CLOSE to the level of imperialist control being exhibitted by Obama.

[excon]

Obama is prepared to control how you spend your money, what you drive, what type of house you live in, how much you pay for the everyday products you buy, which doctor you visit and how often, what kind of medical and elder care you get, what lightbulbs you can use and what kind of toilet you flush..

Hello El:

That's all?

Well, at least he ain't going to listen to my phone calls.

excon

PS> How you been?

[speechlesstx]

So what are the specific charges against him? Are you prepared to also charge the NY Times for revealing state secrets and whatever government official responsible for the leaks?

What's outrageous here is Holder's announcement on releasing these that "Americans deserve a government that operates with transparency and openness." This is an administration and congress that passed a trillion dollars in spending without having read the bill. This is an administration that just gave AIG another #30 billion and none of it has been explained to taxpayers. This is an administration that can't even vet its own nominees and appointees... but they're all too eager to make the previous administration transparent.

[ETWolverine]

I'm good, bro. But I'm still going to be spotty at this site.

In any case, I don't see people listening in on my phonecalls as a violation of my rights. There is no constitutional guarantee of privacy, regardless of what some might say. There IS a guarantee of the right to liberty and the pursuite of happiness. Telling me what toilet I can use is a violation of both my liberty (to choose what toilet I use) and the pursuit of happiness (I enjoy toilets that get it all in one flush). Ergo, Obama is violating my Constitutional rights. Bush didn't.

Some things never change.

[excon]

So what are the specific charges against him?

Hello Steve:

Violation of FISA for starters. He admitted to doing it, and challenged us to DO something about it. Nobody is arguing that he DIDN'T do that - only whether he had the authority to do so.

To me, and I can read the Kings English, the evidence is clear. He broke the law. If, however, after an investigation, no charges are brought forth, then so be it.

excon

[speechlesstx]

Then I suppose you need to take it up with Obama since his DOJ is in the way of getting the ruling you seek.

[tomder55]

Said it before. Obama wants the flexibilty to retain the options that are the blue print of the Bush Doctrine in fighting jihadistan.

[tomder55]

In a federal lawsuit, the Obama legal team is arguing that judges lack the authority to enforce their own rulings in classified matters of national security. The standoff concerns the Oregon chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi Arabian charity that was shut down in 2004 on evidence that it was financing al Qaeda. Al-Haramain sued the Bush Administration in 2005, claiming it had been illegally wiretapped.

At the heart of Al-Haramain's case is a classified document that it says proves that the alleged eavesdropping was not authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. That record was inadvertently disclosed after Al-Haramain was designated as a terrorist organization; the Bush Administration declared such documents state secrets after their existence became known.

In July, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the President's right to do so, which should have ended the matter. But the San Francisco panel also returned the case to the presiding district court judge, Vaughn Walker, ordering him to decide if FISA pre-empts the state secrets privilege. If he does, Al-Haramain would be allowed to use the document to establish the standing to litigate.

The Obama Justice Department has adopted a legal stance identical to, if not more aggressive than, the Bush version. It argues that the court-forced disclosure of the surveillance programs would cause "exceptional harm to national security" by exposing intelligence sources and methods. Last Friday the Ninth Circuit denied the latest emergency motion to dismiss, again kicking matters back to Judge Walker.

In court documents filed hours later, Justice argues that the decision to release classified information "is committed to the discretion of the Executive Branch, and is not subject to judicial review. Moreover, the Court does not have independent power . . . to order the Government to grant counsel access to classified information when the Executive Branch has denied them such access." The brief continues that federal judges are "ill-equipped to second-guess the Executive Branch."

That's about as pure an assertion of Presidential power as they come, and we're beginning to wonder if the White House has put David Addington, Mr. Cheney's chief legal aide, on retainer. The practical effect is to prevent the courts from reviewing the legality of the warrantless wiretapping program that Mr. Obama repeatedly claimed to find so heinous -- at least before taking office. Justice, by the way, is making the same state secrets argument in a separate lawsuit involving rendition and a Boeing subsidiary.

The Obama Justice Department Adopts the George W. Bush Administration's Legal Stance on Presidential Powers - WSJ.com

[excon]

Hello again, Righty's:

I can give you THREE compelling reasons to prosecute the dufus in chief.

The first, and most important to a righty: (1) to preserve the peoples right to imprison their chief executive when he violates the law, so that you can do it to OBAMA when HE violates the law, as I'm certain you think he will.

(2) He threw YOU under the bus when he "abandoned free market principles", so why not throw HIM under one too.

(3) Because he broke the law. I don't know WHY that reason isn't compelling to you righty's, but it IS to me.

excon

[tomder55]

It's that ole presumption of innocence thingy .

I don't think hearings and reviews of the war against jihadistan ;what worked and what didn't is a bad idea at all. Competing assertions that various things the administration did prevented or did not prevent... identifiable terrorist threats. It would be beneficial that these claims were validated or refuted by an impartial group of experts and investigators.
But that is not what is being proposed.

Do I think this Congress could conduct such hearings imparially ? No .Neither do you .By stating off the bat that you think he should be prosecuted shows that what you are looking for is something beyond justice.

Jeremy Rabkin law professor at George Mason University testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee as Sen Lehey is preparing his Stalinist show trial .

He said :
We can, of course, ask a commission to establish certain facts, such as precisely what advice the Justice Department gave to the Defense Department and the CIA regarding the legality of controversial interrogation practices. But much of the documentary record is already becoming public, as the Justice Department continues to release opinions on such questions by the Office of Legal Counsel. What many advocates of a "truth commission" seem to have in mind is not simply an exercise in gathering facts but in assessing blame.

Last summer there was a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee which was informally known as a "pre-impeachment hearing." Representative Dennis Kucinich and former Representative Elizabeth Holzman and a number of other formidable witnesses insisted that the President Bush was guilty of such "high crimes" that the House had an obligation to commence impeachment proceedings, even in the final months of the administration. Frederick Schwarz of the Brennan Center testified at that hearing on behalf of the seemingly more modest proposal for an "Investigatory commission" that would "play the important role of holding accountable those who are responsible for wrongdoing and for legal and constitutional violations."
I happened to be a witness at that hearing. I recall how angry many of the witnesses were. When I said -- in front of the C-SPAN camera -- that my fellow witnesses were lacking in historical perspective, I received a torrent of angry email from ordinary people around the country. These people were even more vehement in denouncing the "crimes" of the Bush administration, starting with the "crime" of taking the country to war in Iraq on knowingly false pretenses -- as they were quite sure the Bush administration had deliberately lied the country into a pointless war.

Suppose, after 9/11, the Bush administration had established an "investigating commission" to identify persons responsible for rallying support for terrorist networks, for raising funds, organizing false identities and providing other forms of assistance for terrorist networks. Suppose in the interest of informing the public, the commission had been authorized to publish its findings and name names of individual suspects. Surely, such a procedures would have been denounced by civil libertarians. Where there is enough evidence for criminal prosecution, they would have said, the government should secure indictments and proceed with criminal prosecution. Where there is not such evidence, the government should keep silent. Otherwise, the government can destroy reputations and inflict terrible damage on people's careers and livelihoods, without giving them any real way of defending themselves against reckless or ill-founded accusations.

I am afraid such a recourse has come to look plausible to some critics of the Bush administration because they have been blinded by their own rage. President Bush may deserve all sorts of criticism. Still, there is no sane comparison between America under George W. Bush and Chile under Augusto Pinochet. I don't think we are likely to secure "reconciliation" by a process that starts from such a very extremely partisan premise.

How is a "truth commission" any less objectionable, from the standpoint of due process?
If there is evidence of criminal doings then I'm sure AG Eric Holder is on the case already. But let's not subject ourselves to the buffoonish behavior that Congress displayed during such inanities like the Baseball Steroids hearings .