NYT EDIT:Bush ignores the Constitution and the laws of the land

[kpete]

OT, but important: the NY Times has a fine editorial this morning, decrying attempts to retroactively legalize the NSA domestic spying program.

Kabuki Congress

Published: March 6, 2006
Imagine being stopped for speeding and having the local legislature raise the limit so you won't have to pay the fine. It sounds absurd, but it's just what is happening to the 28-year-old law that prohibits the president from spying on Americans without getting a warrant from a judge.

It's a familiar pattern. President Bush ignores the Constitution and the laws of the land, and the cowardly, rigidly partisan majority in Congress helps him out by rewriting the laws he's broken.

In 2004, to take one particularly disturbing example, Congress learned that American troops were abusing, torturing and killing prisoners, and that the administration was illegally detaining hundreds of people at camps around the world. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner, huffed and puffed about the abuse, but did nothing. And when the courts said the detention camps do fall under the laws of the land, compliant lawmakers simply changed them.

Now the response of Congress to Mr. Bush's domestic wiretapping scheme is following the same pattern, only worse.....

.........................

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/06/opinion/06mon1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Kahuna]

1. Your first clue NYT was the stolen election of 2000. If you had

reported it instead of covering it up like it never happened you would have spared yourselves and the world the madness of King George.

[AndyA]

7. The media is largely to blame for this mess

I agree with Kahuna - if the stolen election of 2000 had been reported widely by the media, a lot of this nonsense might not be happening. It's ridiculous to just change the laws to make something that was illegal legal. But that's exactly what's happening.

This isn't America any longer. The complacent, STUPID American people have allowed everything that was fought for to be taken away from them. Shame, shame, shame.

[salin]

2. and the newest example... cited in the Christian Science Monitor:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0306/p01s04-uspo.html

On security, it's Congress vs. Bush

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are taking on the president over terrorism and American power.

By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – Republican lawmakers are moving into open confrontation with the White House on everything from its conduct of the war on terrorism - at home and abroad - to its vision of American power.
It's a shift that reframes the final 35 months of a presidency that has counted on the Republican-controlled Congress to follow its lead, especially on issues of national security.

snip... towards the end of the article (which is a great read, by the way)

Later in the week, the International Relations Committee is expected to begin tough hearings examining Mr. Bush's proposed US-India Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, which provides American assistance to India's nuclear power industry but does not require concessions on its nuclear weapons program.

It's a side deal that allows India to ramp up its production of weapons-grade plutonium, encouraging other nations to violate nonproliferation agreements at a critical time, congressional critics say. US law prohibits the sale of nuclear technology to any nation, such as India, which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

...

Now how in the heck is bushboy going to make this deal about "National Security"?

[rfranklin]

3. India is a vital ally in the "war on terra" and we must provide them with

all the support we can because they are "good people." (Even if they are all going to Hell after George and his handful of supporters are raptured up to Heaven.)

[WePurrsevere]

6. Using that logic should we also support Pakistan in a similar manner?

After all they've supposedly helped us in Afganistan... and yes, I'm being a bit :sarcastic:.

The FACT is that allies change and sometimes quickly. For instance Saddam was the US's bosom buddy not all that long ago. Sorry but the idea of "supporting" India in their quest for nukes has got to rank up there as one of the most insane things I've ever heard... and I can't see how this could possibly be in our country's over all and long term best interests any more then sending all of our jobs there is.

[rfranklin]

12. "War on terra" in quotes indicates skepticism...

and ridicule of the Bush program. Hope you did not miss that.

[WePurrsevere]

13. No I didn't.. I was responding to what I thought was sarcasm with sarcasm.

I guess it lost something in the process of getting from my brain to the written word... sorry. B-)

[katmondoo]

4. The same way he does everything else that is against

the law. He goes ahead and the cowards in congress protest then step in line, make excuses for him then sigh and OK whatever he wants.

[nolabels]

8. Cowards and congress is synonymous

Eventually in life all things change. I have been telling my wife for a few years now that that mostly T.V. sucks (I just about never watch it). That it mostly it tries to fill you with lies and bullshit. Of course she, always finding need to disagree with me, would swear by it and say it's a good place to get news and entertainment(:rofl:) Well after all them years she finally figured it out.

She has recently went to a stress class at work. The class helped her pinpoint it, this T.V. thing, as one of her major stressors. So being things like they are, she put it down for awhile. And so just like drunk or addict going on the wagon her disposition has changed dramatically. This is only anecdotal evidence to be sure. What it does seem to indicate to me though is people zombied out on the tube are really unwitting hapless victims. But the good thing is eventually life does change and you don't have to watch it on T.V. to know about it.

[glitch]

16. I think you are correct about TV. My grandmother used to watch it nonstop

and became very paranoid, despite nothing bad ever happening to her or her neighbors.
I am so glad it's crappy now, because more and more people are turning away from it's toxic spew.

[Disturbed]

5. The fury towards the Neo Fascists is building.

The Rethugs in Congress feel it and are trying to hold on to their jobs, which they have not been doing for five years. They took an Oath and they have not been enforcing that oath. Most Americans are not political but most are not stupid but they are slow and they are slowly realizing that they are being screwed over. The fury cometh.

[mwb970]

10. Let's be fair. We get Indian mangos! (n/t)

[zbdent]

9. Why not? They declared the AMT retroactively refunded to all those

small businesses like Ford . . . :sarcasm:

[necso]

11. Good piece.

Some of the best work in the Times of late has been these unattributed editorials. And while the names are unfamiliar to me, there are identifiable elements of style.

There's also a good piece today on the difficulties at Harvard (and in faculty-staff-academia generally). And there was recently a good piece on psychiatry. -- Rather like rays of light shining through the old, crumbling edifice. Of course, whether this signals rot or rejuvenation is another matter.

The latter piece I didn't see referenced here (it's possible that I missed it), and the former piece hasn't shown up yet (methinks -- and it may not).

But starting a thread, linking, summarizing, various quibbling, etc, sounds too much like work.

"They're fast, but they're lazy".

[BeerIsClear]

14. All the time

I chronicle over at my blog the violations of the Constitution committed by this administration.

wingnutwatch.blogspot.com

[ginnyinWI]

15. kick

[goforit]

17. Plain and simple. No constitution = Tyrranny

Whoooo Hooooo......Party like it's 1999!!!