Teddles.com - Political Rants

Today there are articles revealing that the administration is planning the possible use of a first strike NUCLEAR weapon in Iran. Scary? You bet.

Seymour Hersh (and he hasn't been wrong yet about this administration) revealed in the April 17 edition of the New Yorker that Bush and his bunch are talking about using a nuclear bunker busting device to ensure the destruction of the main centrofuge plant at Natanz, Iran.

According to Hersh, a Pentagon adviser said the some officers and officials have threatened to quit over use of such a weapon. That should make an impact at the White House. It hasn't so far. The rogue President and his fascist group of officials will do whatever they choose to do.

When is this country going to wake up and demand action against these lawless infidels???? I cannot believe that the moderates and doves of this and other countries are not screaming about this situation even if it is only rhetoric.

The one thing we should have learned about this administration is that they will deny planning action, tell us that they are working every possible diplomatic avenue available and then commit the troops and weaponry that they had been planning to all along with or without approval from Congress or the people of this country.

You cannot believe a word this administration says. Lying Liars.

Now it has been exposed the the President himself leaked the classified information that led to the exposure of then covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and subsequently all of the agents using the cover agency with which she was associated. He then lied by denying knowledge of that leak. If it were a matter of declassifying information needed to inform the populous he would have admitted to it at the time it became public and the outcry began.

In an article on CNN today Scott McClellan's assertion that Bush had declassified the information was put under examination and comes up short.

"But the court documents show that Bush approved the release of the information 10 days before the White House said the information was declassified.

The information was released on July 8, 2003, according to the documents.

On July 18 of that year, McClellan told reporters "this information was just, as of today, officially declassified.""

The leaked information was supposed to bolster the White House's assertion that Iraq had sought uranium from sources in Niger, a statement included in the President's State of the Union speech in January. It was also used to try and discredit Agent Plame-Wilson's husband and critic of the administration Joe Wilson. He was telling the press that the information had been known to be false for months prior to the speech, a fact later admitted by the White House.

If anyone else had leaked that type of information they would be handcuffed and hauled of with charges of treason. Why is George W Bush not being dragged off to prison as we speak? He is the president, not King, nor the messiah. The administration's assertion that the President acted in the best interest of the nation is contradicted by the fact that he denied knowledge of the leak.

George Walker Bush may have committed treason.

Robert Novak is the conservative columnist tool the administration used to write the articles used to expose not only Plame, but in subsequent articles he named the company, Brewster Jennings, she used as her cover. Doing this exposed countless agents associated with that cover worldwide. How many of these agents were killed or jailed? We don't and probably won't know, but all of them were rendered useless and endangered in the field. Why is this not accesory to treason? Why is he not in handcuffs too? Why is he still being printed in newspapers like the New York Times and The San Diego Union?

Where is the outrage in Washington? Where are the Democrats and yes the Conservative constitutionalists? Why are they not all crying to have him impeached? The call should be loud and constant. We should all be in the streets and on the phones calling out loud for the removal from office of this entire administration.

This President cannot be trusted to tell the truth. He has lied and lied again. He has led us from Peace and prosperity to a country in a war of choice who is hated worldwide, and bankrupt.

Impeach the bastards. All of them.

Here is another article that says more than I could have put down on the subject of the Patriot Act signing addendum. This President is dangerous to this country. He should be impeached and run out of the U.S.

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement
03/24/2006

In addendum to law, he says oversight rules are not binding

By Charlie Savage
Boston Globe

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law.

After The New York Times disclosed in December that Bush had authorized the military to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without obtaining warrants, as required by law, Bush said his wartime powers gave him the right to ignore the warrant law.

And when Congress passed a law forbidding the torture of any detainee in US custody, Bush signed the bill but issued a signing statement declaring that he could bypass the law if he believed using harsh interrogation techniques was necessary to protect national security.

Past presidents occasionally used such signing statements to describe their interpretations of laws, but Bush has expanded the practice. He has also been more assertive in claiming the authority to override provisions he thinks intrude on his power, legal scholars said.

Bush's expansive claims of the power to bypass laws have provoked increased grumbling in Congress. Members of both parties have pointed out that the Constitution gives the legislative branch the power to write the laws and the executive branch the duty to ''faithfully execute" them.

Several senators have proposed bills to bring the warrantless surveillance program under the law. One Democrat, Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, has gone so far as to propose censuring Bush, saying he has broken the wiretapping law.

Bush's signing statement on the USA Patriot Act nearly went unnoticed.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, inserted a statement into the record of the Senate Judiciary Committee objecting to Bush's interpretation of the Patriot Act, but neither the signing statement nor Leahy's objection received coverage from in the mainstream news media, Leahy's office said.

Yesterday, Leahy said Bush's assertion that he could ignore the new provisions of the Patriot Act -- provisions that were the subject of intense negotiations in Congress -- represented ''nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law."

''The president's signing statements are not the law, and Congress should not allow them to be the last word," Leahy said in a prepared statement. ''The president's constitutional duty is to faithfully execute the laws as written by the Congress, not cherry-pick the laws he decides he wants to follow. It is our duty to ensure, by means of congressional oversight, that he does so."

The White House dismissed Leahy's concerns, saying Bush's signing statement was simply ''very standard language" that is ''used consistently with provisions like these where legislation is requiring reports from the executive branch or where disclosure of information is going to be required."

''The signing statement makes clear that the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. ''The president has welcomed at least seven Inspector General reports on the Patriot Act since it was first passed, and there has not been one verified abuse of civil liberties using the Patriot Act."

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said the statement may simply be ''bluster" and does not necessarily mean that the administration will conceal information about its use of the Patriot Act.

But, he said, the statement illustrates the administration's ''mind-bogglingly expansive conception" of executive power, and its low regard for legislative power.

''On the one hand, they deny that Congress even has the authority to pass laws on these subjects like torture and eavesdropping, and in addition to that, they say that Congress is not even entitled to get information about anything to do with the war on terrorism," Golove said.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/
2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot_act_requirement/?page=full

While I like to write my own opinions here, there are articles I find that are written so well as to make me irrelevant. the following is one of those. It is a statement by Senator Patrick Leahy on the Censure of the President.

Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy,
Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee Hearing On
"An Examination of the Call to Censure the President"
Friday, March 31, 2006

This is our fourth hearing to consider the President's domestic spying activities. Regrettably, this hearing, like the two that preceded it, is not an oversight hearing. After this hearing, we will have heard from a total of 20 witnesses. Of those, only one had any knowledge of the spying activities beyond what he had read in the newspapers. That witness was Attorney General Gonzales, who flatly refused to tell us anything beyond "those facts the President has publicly confirmed, nothing more."

What the President has publicly confirmed is that, for more than four years, he has secretly instructed intelligence officers at the National Security Administration to eavesdrop on the conversations of American citizens in the United States without following the procedures set forth in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

After its secret domestic spying activities were revealed, the Administration offered two legal justifications for the decision not to follow FISA. First, it asserted a broad doctrine of presidential "inherent authority" to ignore the laws passed by Congress when prosecuting the war on terror. In other words, the rule of law is suspended, and the President is above the law, for the uncertain and no doubt lengthy duration of the undefined war on terror.

Second, the Administration asserted that in the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, which makes no reference to wiretapping, Congress unconsciously authorized warrantless wiretaps that FISA expressly forbids even in wartime. That is not what we in Congress said or intended.

Because the Republican-controlled Congress has not conducted real oversight, and because the attempts this Committee has made at oversight have been stonewalled by the Administration, we do not know the extent of the Administration's domestic spying activities. But we know that the Administration has secretly spied on Americans without attempting to comply with FISA. And we know that the legal justifications it has offered for doing so, which have admittedly "evolved" over time, are patently flimsy. I therefore have no hesitation in condemning the President for secretly and systematically violating the law. I have no doubt that such a conclusion will be history's verdict.

History will evaluate how diligently the Republican-controlled Congress performed the oversight duties envisaged by the Founders. As of this moment, history's judgment of the diligence and resolve of the Republican-Controlled Congress is unlikely to be kind.

Our witnesses today will address whether censure is an appropriate sanction for those violations. I am inclined to believe that it is. If oversight were to reveal that when the President launched the program, he had been formally advised by the Department of Justice that it would be lawful, that kind of bad advice would not make his actions lawful, but might at least provide something of an excuse.

If, on the other hand, he knowingly chose to flout the law and then commissioned a spurious legal rationalization years later after he was found out, he should bear full personal responsibility. To quote Senator Graham from an earlier point in his congressional service, when he bore the weighty role of a House Manager in a presidential impeachment trial: "We are not a nation of men or kings, we are a nation of laws."

I have said before that this Committee needs to see any formal legal opinions from this Administration that address the legality of NSA practices and procedures with respect to electronic surveillance. The American people have a right to know whether or not their President knowingly chose to flout the law when he instructed the NSA to spy on them.

That is why our next step should be to subpoena the opinions. We know the President broke the law -- we should find out why.

I just get so tired of the lies. Bush was on yesterday "answering " questions in a press conference and all he did was lie. Helen from the AP, after pointing out that all of the reasons the Administration had given for going to war in Iraq had been proven to be lies, pointedly asked him the real reason for the war. All he did was tell the same old lies again like we were suddenly going to believe them. Gosh.



We have lost over 2300 young men and women with countless wounded and maimed to say nothing of the tens of thousands of casualties of Iraqi citizens. I really wish we knew the reason we were fighting .

If it is for the freedom of the Iraqi People to self govern, it was not our business to rid a country of it's leader even if we didn't like him. Even if THEY didn't like him.

If it was for oil...well, we don't seem to be getting that right either. Oil production is far behind pre-war levels.

It is not the job of our President to take care of the people of another nation before taking care of his own people. That is what is happening.

Bush said that he wants healthcare for all Iraqi's. We don't have that here in America. WE have rampant unemployment and no public safety net to take care of the indigent and poor. And what we do have he and his bunch are trying to cut to pay for the war.

He wants to build schools for Iraqi children while cutting funds here for "No Child Left Behind" and raising loan rates on poor and underfunded college students. OUR President....

Corporations are cutting corners and charging double for everything. Bush and his buddies think that is just fine. The Vice President is making a killing with his holdings in Halliburton. The Bush Crime Family (BCF)is making a killing in Carlysle and stand to make a bunch through this port deal with the UAE. I know his Secretary of the Treasury John Snow is going to the bank on this. Snow was the head of a company called CFS that was in charge of railroad terminals. That was purchased by Carlysle and spun off in to a company bought by - who else - World Ports Dubai. All those stock options have been sitting and now are about to pay off - BIG. He's not alone in the payoff circle. Negreponte and a host of other players in the war are longtime members in the inner circle of the BCF.

The conservatives, to retain power throughout history, always make sure that the middle class is disempowered; first financially, which they have been working on through corporate shinanigans like union busting and withdrawing pensions and healthcare, and then by taking civil rights. They have achieved that through scare tactics that have resulted in the Patriot Act, versions 1 and 2.

Did you know that we have a security force within the secret service that the President can call on to attend any and every peace rally, speech, or event he chooses and that can arrest without warrant, anyone they choose and hold them without charge as a suspected enemy combatant? I could be arrested for writing this blog. I can be arrested for the bumper sticker on my car. So can you.

First and formost is the attitude that corporations should be allowed to do and be anything they want. They should not be regulated and should be allowed to outsource all jobs at will, pay little or no taxes and definitedly no benefits to its underpaid workers. They should be allowed to take any and all revenues out of the country at will. Where do you think that leaves the middle class and poor in this country. Look at what they have done already if you think that I am exaggerating. There's more to come believe me.

We all really need to pay attention to what the Patriot Act actually says. Go to a Constitutional review site at a University of your choice to find out the ramifications of this heinous bill. It will shock you how many of your personal liberties, ones that your fathers and grandfathers fought wars to protect for you, are abbrogated under this act.

I understand that after 9/11 everyone was fearful of the terrorists. I understand why it was passed the first time, without being read by most of the legislators in Congress. But to vote for it a second time is shameful and I believe traitorous. There is no excuse ever for giving up our freedoms.

There is more to this administration than meets the eye. It is secretive for a reason, and that reason has nothing to do with national security. It has to do with Empire building and totalitarian government for the purpose, I think, of amassing greater personal wealth. Look back at the despots in history and you will see a common thread.

A favorite saying in Mexico, or so I am told, is the following:

Politicians are the mediocre
elected by the corrupt
and tolerated by the cowards.

Boy howdy if that ain't the truth in the good ole USA as of late.

We allow a poorly educated bumbler to be elected by the manipulations and machinations of totally corrupt people called the Neo Cons via the group called Project For a New American Century. Then we stand back while they shred the constitution in front of us, daring us to challenge them and we do nothing. Our elected officials do nothing.

When are we going to take to the streets to let this administration know that we want our constitution back. We want our rights back and we want government by law back.

There is so much going on and I try to write on politics when I am not angry. That seems impossible at this juncture. But I have found some profound bumper stickers that have helped and I want to get them down before I forget them.

Our neighbors car now reads

Better a bleeding heart than none at all.

Another said

I love my country.
I fear my government.

Somehow I will incorporate them in the structure of this blog before I am dragged off to some gulag in Poland or Cuba.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11836.htm


The above URL hopefully will take you to an article that says much of what I feel of today's government. When I have more time I will elaborate ad nausium.
Thank you Dierdre for sending that one.

Everywhere's a small town she said, if you do something that bothers enough people......
Brian Andreas