Cheney speaks at Gard fundraiser (mostly dissed Feingold)

[rodeodance]

......

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060313/GPG0101/60313030

Cheney speaks at Gard fundraiser

LAWRENCE — Vice President Dick Cheney spoke a little more than 22 minutes to about 400 people at the SC Grand Monday, talking about the war in Iraq and ripping Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold for calling for a censure of President Bush.

Feingold on Sunday proposed censuring Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.

Cheney, who was speaking at a $500-a-plate fundraiser for State Rep. John Gard, said the American people have already made their decision about domestic eavesdropping.

“We will not sit back and wait to be hit again,” Cheney said in reference to using the eavesdropping to stop terrorists.....

[msongs]

1. yeah most people dont like illegal spying secret police stuff nt

[54anickel]

2. Gosh Dick, I must have missed something somewhere

...the American people have already made their decision about domestic eavesdropping.

Was there a vote of some sort? Surely you're not citing some bogus, poorly worded poll are you? I thought this administration didn't pay attention to polls?

[Erika]

3. W/Cheney/McClellan are always claiming to talk for us

the people. They don't and most of us now recogonize that. Cheney is as out of touch as his president.

[rodeodance]

7. Cheney is relying of polls.

[rodeodance]

10. John Nichols -Feingold says Bush should be held accountable for wiretaps

written before Russ introduced resolution but well worth reading.


E-mail: [e-mail]
Published: March 13, 2006

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/index.php?ntid=76059

Feingold says Bush should be held accountable for wiretaps
Senator favors censuring President
By John Nichols

.....

Charging that the president's illegal wiretapping program is in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - which makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order - Feingold argues that Congress cannot avoid facing the fact that fundamental constitutional issues are at stake.

"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."
Feingold's motion faces an uphill fight in a Republican-controlled Senate that does not appear inclined to make Bush the first president since Andrew Jackson to be censured by Congress. But it does raise the stakes at a point when the Wisconsin senator and civil libertarians have grown frustrated with the failure of Congress to aggressively challenge the administration's penchant for warrantless wiretapping.

Republican senators have proposed rewriting laws to remove barriers to wiretapping, arguing that the president must have flexibility in order to pursue his war on terror.

But Feingold rejects the suggestion that changing the rules after the fact would absolve the president.......

[rodeodance]

11. his email is included above (john.n)

[zulchzulu]

4. John Gard has to be stopped in his tracks

It's good to see Gard hanging out with war-profiteering, draft evading, treasonous Cheney. Birds of a feather...

[rodeodance]

6. Well, if Cheney flies into WI for a fundraiser for him-- I will agree.

[saigon68]

18. Gard is a little NeoCon Tool

He is a pathetic little troll

[rodeodance]

5. and the AP story carried Cheney comments dissing Feingold

The Milwarkee Journal carried the AP story. Nothing else.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FEINGOLD_CENSURE?SITE=WIMIL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Mar 13, 9:16 PM EST

Feingold Draws Little Support for Censure

By LAURIE KELLMAN
Associated Press Writer

.....A day of tough, election-year talk between Feingold and Vice President Dick Cheney ended with Senate leaders sending the matter to the Judiciary Committee..........

"Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy," Vice President Dick Cheney told a Republican audience in Feingold's home state.

.....Cheney said Monday, "The outrageous proposition that we ought to protect our enemies' ability to communicate as it plots against America poses a key test of our Democratic leaders."

"The American people already made their decision," Cheney added. "They agree with the president."

[IndianaGreen]

8. Well, Bush is the enemy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Despite Cheney's humorless jokes and dissing of Feingold, he hasn't addressed himself to the issues that Feingold raised:

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. Mr. President, that is ridiculous. Members of Congress did not pass this resolution to give the President blanket authority to order warrantless wiretaps. We all know that. Anyone in this body who would tell you otherwise either wasn’t here at the time or isn’t telling the truth. We authorized the President to use military force in Afghanistan, a necessary and justified response to September 11. We did not authorize him to wiretap American citizens on American soil without going through the process that was set up nearly three decades ago precisely to facilitate the domestic surveillance of terrorists – with the approval of a judge. That is why both Republicans and Democrats have questioned this theory.

This particular claim is further undermined by congressional approval of the Patriot Act just a few weeks after we passed the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. The Patriot Act made it easier for law enforcement to conduct surveillance on suspected terrorists and spies, while maintaining FISA’s baseline requirement of judicial approval for wiretaps of Americans in the U.S. It is ridiculous to think that Congress would have negotiated and enacted all the changes to FISA in the Patriot Act if it thought it had just authorized the President to ignore FISA in the AUMF.

In addition, in the intelligence authorization bill passed in December 2001, we extended the emergency authority in FISA, at the Administration’s request, from 24 to 72 hours. Why do that if the President has the power to ignore FISA? That makes no sense at all.

The President has also said that his inherent executive power gives him the power to approve this program. But here the President is acting in direct violation of a criminal statute. That means his power is, as Justice Jackson said in the steel seizure cases half a century ago, “at its lowest ebb.” A letter from a group of law professors and former executive branch officials points out that “every time the Supreme Court has confronted a statute limiting the Commander-in-Chief’s authority, it has upheld the statute.” The Senate reports issued when FISA was enacted confirm the understanding that FISA overrode any pre-existing inherent authority of the President. As the 1978 Senate Judiciary Committee report stated, FISA “recognizes no inherent power of the president in this area.” And “Congress has declared that this statute, not any claimed presidential power, controls.” Contrary to what the President told the country in the State of the Union, no court has ever approved warrantless surveillance in violation of FISA.

The President’s claims of inherent executive authority, and his assertions that the courts have approved this type of activity, are baseless.

http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/statements/06/03/2006313.html

[rodeodance]

13. you are right. the RW/Cheney are not addressing the issue.

[rodeodance]

14. Why is so difficult for the Senate to admit the President did wrong.

[IndianaGreen]

15. Who wants to stand alongside Cheney, Frist, and Specter?

That's really what this is boiling down to?

BTW, back in the 1950s many were fearful of incurring the wrath of Joe McCarthy, so they remain silent during McCarthyism.

Russ Feingold is our Edward R. Morrow!

[rodeodance]

16. "The Junior Senator from Wisconsin"--these 5 words used by Cheney

today--
KO said these 5 words were used to introduce McCarthy also.

[brentspeak]

9. Cheney is wrong: Bush didn't "sit back" the first time around

He laid back. On his hammock. While sipping iced-tea. And while petting his dog. For thirty whole days. Not a care in the world.

[rodeodance]

12. "Congress has to reassert our system of government," says Feingold.

From Nichols art. above:

......Though Feingold says that the president's actions are "in the strike zone" of meeting the definition of an impeachable offense, the senator argues that censuring Bush is the proper and necessary step at this time. "The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable," explained the third-term senator who is considering a run for the presidency in 2008.

"Congress has to reassert our system of government, and the cleanest and the most efficient way to do that is to censure the president," said Feingold, who added that he hoped a censure vote would lead Bush to "acknowledge that he did something wrong."

The White House did not respond to Feingold's announcement. But Republican senators rallied to the administration's defense. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, dismissed the censure move as "a crazy political move" that would weaken the president's hand in a time of war. U.S. Senator John Warner, R-Virginia, accused Feingold of "political grandstanding."

[chelsea0011]

17. 18 % approval rating for Cheney. The people have spoken.