When pols fail: late inning aid from lawyers, spooks and brass
The widening recognition that the political class in Washington is neither willing nor able to defend our democracy anymore has generated a surge of stand-up activism in some unexpected constituencies. - Ed.
We are lawyers in the United States of America. As such, we have all taken an oath obligating us to defend the Constitution and the rule of law…. We believe the Bush administration has committed numerous offenses against the Constitution and may have violated federal laws…. Moreover, the administration has blatantly defied congressional subpoenas, obstructing constitutional oversight …. Thus, we call on House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to launch hearings into the possibility that crimes have been committed by this administration in violation of the Constitution…. We call for the investigations to go where they must, including into the offices of the President and the Vice President. -- American Lawyers Defending the Constitution
Over one thousand lawyers – including former Governor Mario Cuomo and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein – have signed onto the above statement demanding wide-ranging investigative hearings into unconstitutional and potentially criminal activity by the Bush administration. See "Read more..." for full article.
When the CIA and elements of the Pentagon do more - much more - than the Democrats to restrain the Bush gang from plunging the planet into an even wider spasm of war, it is time to recognize the absolute irrelevance of the Democratic Party - certainly, under present leadership.
Jaws dropped in capitals all around the globe when the combined intelligence agencies of the United States yanked the rationale for war with Iran, like a rug, from under George Bush's feet. It was a mutiny, centered in the CIA and in the Pentagon's nine separate intelligence agencies, designed to prevent Bush and Dick Cheney from expanding, against all military and political logic, their failed jihad in the Persian Gulf. Visibly startled, Bush behaved like he'd been knee-capped by his own men - which he had. The Pentagon-CIA revolt - witnessed by the entire planet - is unprecedented in modern times. Anyone who tells you differently is too blinded by imagined spy-novel schemes to recognize a mutiny when he sees it. See "Read more..." for full article.
Ralph Nader: "Things Are a Lot Worse than We Thought!"
Short Nader meditation on claim by Rep. Olver (D-MA) that impeachment proceedings would trigger attacks on Iran, martial law at home and cancellation of the 2008 election. (Oct. 11, 2007- 3' 26")
AS Gen. Pervez Musharraf arrested judges, lawyers and human-rights activists in Pakistan last week, our Senate was busy demonstrating its own civic mettle. Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, liberal Democrats from America’s two most highly populated blue states, gave the thumbs up to Michael B. Mukasey, ensuring his confirmation as attorney general.
So what if America’s chief law enforcement official won’t say that waterboarding is illegal? A state of emergency is a state of emergency. You’re either willing to sacrifice principles to head off the next ticking bomb, or you’re with the terrorists. Constitutional corners were cut in Washington in impressive synchronicity with General Musharraf’s crackdown in Islamabad...
This is a signal difference from the Vietnam era, and not necessarily for the better. During that unpopular war, disaffected Americans took to the streets and sometimes broke laws in an angry assault on American governmental institutions. The Bush years have brought an even more effective assault on those institutions from within. While the public has not erupted in riots, the executive branch has subverted the rule of law in often secretive increments. The results amount to a quiet coup, ultimately more insidious than a blatant putsch like General Musharraf’s.
More Machiavellian still, Mr. Bush has constantly told the world he’s championing democracy even as he strangles it. Mr. Bush repeated the word “freedom” 27 times in roughly 20 minutes at his 2005 inauguration, and even presided over a “Celebration of Freedom” concert on the Ellipse hosted by Ryan Seacrest. It was an Orwellian exercise in branding, nothing more. The sole point was to give cover to our habitual practice of cozying up to despots (especially those who control the oil spigots) and to our own government’s embrace of warrantless wiretapping and torture, among other policies that invert our values.
The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.
The American economy can take a lot of abuse, but no economy is invincible. Illustration by Edward Sorel.
When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.
I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
Excerpt: I have argued that in the closing stages of a `fascist shift', events cascade. I am hearing about them, even across the globe...
Let us think like business consultants analyzing the decisions of a business that claims it is going to close its door in just a year. What kinds of decisions is it making? Here is a quiz, if you still doubt that we need to shift our thinking and recognize what appears to be 'a paper coup.':
- Is building a US Embassy in Baghdad the size of eighty football fields and at a cost of well more than half a BILLION dollars evidence of short- or long-term thinking?
- These walls would crumble if the next legitimate president independently ends the war. How about defending and expanding the basis for FISA violations at this late stage -- after all, these folks will be gone in a year?
- How about the decision to fight so hard for a US attorney who will defend the view that the President is above the law?
- Why would that matter so much in an administration folding its tents?
- Why the rush to establish Guantanamo as a permanent part of the landscape and even seek money at one point to double its size -- if the next President, a truly independent Republican or Democrat, might just close it down?
- Why the push to expand a war that makes no military or popular sense, rush through military tribunals that the next President might just disband, and, by the way, drum up a fresh new World War III?
- Do the neo-cons advising Giuliani look like a fresh page for an independent, transparent election or an ideological continuity of government in themselves?
- Do these look like the short-term tactics of a fading administration -- or the institutional strategic bases for some kind of new long-term beginning?
National Lawyers Guild Unanimously Advocates Bush/Cheney Impeachment
Saturday, November 3 2007
On Friday at the National Lawyers Guild 70th Anniversary Law for the People Convention, in Washington DC, the membership "unanimously and enthusiastically" passed the following resolution supporting the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. — Ed.
The Path to Power Bill Moyers Journal October 26, 2007
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL... Some of you will remember that back in July the conservative scholar Bruce Fein was here on the JOURNAL expressing outrage over expansion of presidential powers under Bush and Cheney.
BRUCE FEIN: Take for instance the assertion that he's made that when he's out to collect foreign intelligence, no other branch can tell him what to do. That means he can intercept your emails, your phone calls, open your regular mail, he can break and enter your home, he can even kidnap you, claiming I'm seeking foreign intelligence there is no other branch - Congress can't make it illegal, judges can't say this is illegal. I can do anything I want.
BILL MOYERS: ...Here's some background as to why so many people of different political stripes are alarmed. President Bush and Vice President Cheney espouse the theory of the unitary executive. That means the President's orders can't be reviewed, questioned, or altered by the other two branches of government. He alone can say what the law means, or whether or not it will be enforced or ignored. In effect, George W. Bush says his powers must be unilateral and unchecked.
Critics claim the President has used the war on terror to put himself above the law and that he has created a secret presidency of classified decisions and orders, that approve extraordinary renditions, torture, illegal detentions, and wiretapping without warrants with the collaboration of big telecom companies. This boundless secrecy and surveillance evokes images counter to American values.
Where is Congress? It's way past time for members to stand up. Historic matters are at stake. The Constitution is being trampled, the very form of our government is being perverted, and nothing less than American democracy itself is endangered -- a presidential coup is taking place. I think of Barbara Jordan, the late congresswoman from Houston. On July 25, 1974, this powerful thinker and member of the House Judiciary Committee took her turn to speak during the Nixon impeachment inquiry.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total," she declared in her thundering voice. "And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution."Where are the likes of Barbara Jordan in today's Congress? While the BushCheney regime continues to establish a supreme, arrogant, autocratic presidency in flagrant violation of the Constitution, members of Congress largely sit there as idle spectators -- or worse, as abettors of Bush's usurpation of their own congressional authority.
Every law student promptly learns the national ideal that our country is governed by the rule of law, not the rule of men. Today, the rule of law is under attack. Such activities have become a big business and, not surprisingly, they have involved big business...
Presidential power has accumulated over the years to levels that would have alarmed the founding fathers whose constitutional framework never envisioned such raw unilateral power at the top of the Executive branch. Accordingly, they only provided for the impeachment sanction. They neither gave citizens legal standing to go to court and hold the Presidency accountable, or to prevent the two other branches from surrendering their explicit constitutional authority-such as the war-making power-to the Executive branch. The federal courts over time have refused to adjudicate cases they deem “political conflicts” between the Legislative and Executive branches or, in general, most foreign policy questions...
Books and law journal articles have been written about times when government violates the laws. They are long on examples but short on practical remedies of what to do about it.
Effective little image blast on the politics of fear
Disclaimer: This video was apparently produced by or for the Ron Paul presidential campaign. Neither the "PTWC" summit nor its organizers and endorsers will be using this event or website to promote any specific party or candidate, but we will from time to time include certain campaign generated media pieces that effectively illustrate deft media technique or some aspect of our core concerns. These do not imply an endorsement of any candidate. They merely acknowledge the media craftsmanship involved. - Ed.
House passes HR 1955: Time to start watching what you think
By a 404 to 6 vote, the House today passed H.R. 1955: The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This foreshadows America's first thought crime legislation in nearly a century and, as noted below, its overwhelming bipartisan support is tripping early alarms on both the right and left. You will notice that the language is so vague that it makes any truly serious dissent, including this little media summit, potentially vulnerable to its definitions. You may also note the irony that 1955 marked a US free speech renaissance after McCarthy's witch hunt was dismantled the previous year. - Ed.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution. (Continued in Read more...)
JANE HARMAN'S WAR ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT - The Politics of Paranoia By Col. DAN SMITH counterpunch.org October 25, 2007
Congresswoman Jane Harman has introduced legislation--H.R. 1955: "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism"--that is expected to be referred to the House Rules Committee for assignment of floor time for debate by the House. This is a bill that is unneeded, unwise, and unfortunately will pass and be signed into law as it purports to be part of the response to 9/11 and the global war on terror. (Continued in Read more...)
WASHINGTON - The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost as much as $2.4 trillion through the next decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said yesterday. The White House brushed off the analysis as “speculation.”
The estimate was the most comprehensive and far-reaching one to date. It factored in costs previously not counted and assumed that large number of forces would remain in the regions.
According to the analysis, the United States has spent about $604 billion on the wars, including $39 billion in diplomatic operations and foreign aid.
If the United States were to reduce the number of troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan to 75,000 six years from now, it would cost the United States $1 trillion more for military and diplomatic operations and $705 billion in interest payments to pay for the wars through 2017.
U.S. Medical Schools, Drug Makers Share Strong Ties
By Amanda Gardner HealthDay Reporter washingtonpost.com October 16, 2007
TUESDAY, Oct. 16 (HealthDay News) -- More than half of department chairs at U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals have financial ties with the drug industry, a new study finds.
These institutional relationships seemed to be just as widespread as those of individual physicians or scientists with industry.
"There is not a single aspect of medicine in which the drug companies do not have substantial and deep relationships, affecting not only doctors-in-training, resident physicians, researchers, physicians-in-practice, the people who review drugs for the federal government and the people who review studies," said lead researcher Eric Campbell.
Prof. Emanuel Pastreich of George Washington University offers his insights on war profiteering, the military-industrial complex, and the Iraq War-- in particular its parallels, not to Vietnam, but Imperial Japan's occupation of Manchuria during the 1930's. See "Read more..." for related reference links.
Just as this White House publicly abhors our enemies' inhumanity but embraces rendition, waterboarding and "enhanced interrogation techniques," we see them fighting the fires of "Islamofascism" with the Constitution cremating fire of the unitary executive. On October 16 FBS' Frontline presented Cheney's Law, a kid glove treatment of this corporatist usurpation that nevertheless may help awaken the nation to the coup well underway. The troubling question remains why Cheney and his backers would work so hard for absolutist authority when they theoretically face an imminent election that could take it all away. Click on the graphic below to watch the entire show. - Ed.
From Frontline Intro: For three decades Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a secretive, behind-closed-doors campaign to give the president virtually unlimited wartime power. Finally, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Justice Department and the White House made a number of controversial legal decisions. Orchestrated by Cheney and his lawyer David Addington, the department interpreted executive power in an expansive and extraordinary way, granting President George W. Bush the power to detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy -- without congressional approval or judicial review.
Iraq is ‘unwinnable’, a ‘quagmire’, a ‘fiasco’: so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be ‘stuck’ precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no ‘exit strategy’.
Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in the United States. And, because of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world’s oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; in Texas alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one quarter of the world’s oil resources. The value of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today’s prices. For purposes of comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion.
NSA Pushing warrantless wiretaps 6 months before 9/11
Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm
Qwest Feared NSA Plan Was Illegal, Filing Says
By Ellen Nakashima and Dan Eggen Washington Post October 13, 2007
A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.
Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week... Nacchio's lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.
I wish people would stop breaking into tears when they talk to me these days.
I am traveling across the country at the moment — Colorado to California — speaking to groups of Americans from all walks of life about the assault on liberty and the 10 steps now underway in America to a violently closed society...
More times than I can count, courageous and confident men who are telling me about speaking up, but who are risking what they see as the possible loss of job, home or the ability to pay for grown kids’ schooling, start to choke up. Yesterday a woman in one gathering started to cry simply while talking about the degradation of her beloved country.
And always the questions: what do we do?
It is clear from this inundation of personal stories of abuse and retribution against ordinary Americans that a network of criminal behavior and intention is catching up more and more mainstream citizens in its grasp. It is clear that this is not democracy as usual — or even the corruption of democracy as usual... It is clear yet that violent retribution, torture or maybe worse, seems to go right up this chain of command? Is it clear yet that these people are capable of anything? Is it obvious yet that criminals are at the helm of the nation and need to be not only ousted but held accountable for their crimes?
20. Corporate crime inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined.
Whether in bodies or injuries or dollars lost, corporate crime and violence wins by a landslide. The FBI estimates, for example, that burglary and robbery -- street crimes -- costs the nation $3.8 billion a year.The losses from a handful of major corporate frauds -- Tyco, Adelphia, Worldcom, Enron -- swamp the losses from all street robberies and burglaries combined. Health care fraud alone costs Americans $100 billion to $400 billion a year.The savings and loan fraud -- which former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called "the biggest white collar swindle in history" -- cost us anywhere from $300 billion to $500 billion.
by Daniel Ellsberg consortiumnews.com September 26, 2007 (Edited text of a speech delivered Sept 20, '07 at American University)
I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state.
If there’s another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.
Memory Lane constitutional commentary from May, 2006 that remains even more grimly relevant today.
Keith Olbermann interviews George Washington University constitutional law prof Jonathan Turley on the rising power and numbers of literal criminals in the Executive branch and the parallel attacks on Constitutional governance.
The brief sampling of media work presented here makes it painfully clear that we do not lack brilliant voices, great stories, or mounting evidence of illicit forces run wild. What we do lack is a coherent vision of what we face and ways to quickly communicate it to the public with galvanizing power.
Our challenges are ignorance, fear, censorship, propaganda and an increasingly lethal merger of authoritarian corporate values and repressive military force.
Despite our unprecedented array of talents, truths and new tech resources, conditions continue to worsen at a truly surreal rate. Many say our democracy will not survive the decade. Others have difficulty recognizing it right now.
We only know it's time for the best & brightest working against this coup to come together now and urgently explore what can and must be done.
Coup News 
