First let me say I am not an attorney. I am a student of history, however. My views on the Constitution are both simple and complex.

They are simple in the sense that I view it as inviolable and sacrosanct. It is complex in that I believe we have the right and duty to keep it modern and update it as necessary.

We do this, of course, through the amendment process. The writers of the Constitution (James Madison primarily) purposely made it difficult to amend. This process certainly shouldn't be used frivolously. An example of what I am speaking about is the Bush administration's attempts to get an amendment stating that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Regardless how you may feel about this attempted amendment, keep this in mind; When a constitutional convention is called, it could be used for all sorts of mischief.

I carry a small copy of the Constitution with me most of the time. It is most assuredly my legal "bible".

Habeas Corpus is, perhaps, our oldest legal right. It dates all the way back to the Magna Carta in the thirteenth century. What is its purpose? It means, literally, "present the corpse". It says that no government has the right to hold anyone without presenting them with a list of the charges against them.

This right survived as a part of common law until the 19th century, when Lincoln suspended it temporarily for the Civil War. The next time it was suspended was when the military commissions act was passed a few years ago by a republic controlled congress for a republic president; George W. Bush.

It's time now to restore it. No matter which Democratic candidate wins, we need to press them to pledge to restore this most precious right. They are both attorneys, so they understand full well what Bush doesn't; that Habeas Corpus is the bedrock of our judicial system.

In an apparent violation of both the spirit and the letter of the law, the White House disclosed in Federal Court that computer hard drives containing over 10,000,000 e-mails from 2003-2005, "have been destroyed.":

The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.
...
The White House says it does not know if any e-mails are missing, but is looking into the matter.

Contempt for the American people; disdain for our Constitutional values; obstruction of justice; and, plain old dishonesty... all in a day's work for the Bush/Cheney White House.

Such gross disregard for the American people is not merely negligence, it is a blatant violation of the Presidential Records Act, which states the Archivist of the United States must be consulted before any White House records are disposed of.

These people knew they were supposed to preserve records, and they knew these records contained important information about the run up to the Iraq War and Plamegate - and they destroyed them to avoid accountability.

What can you do? Click here to contact your senator, and tell them you are concerned the White House is breaking the law in and effort to obstruct a legitimate investigation.

Given the track record of this administration, and it's 1,000 documented lies in the rush to war, we must demand the appointment of an independent council, or at the very least a manual recovery effort on each individual White House computer.

It's never too late to send a signal to the Bush Administration, that the American People are tired of the lies and dishonesty. We are sick of being treated like imbeciles: Mr. President and VP Cheney, you have disrespected America. We will not tolerate your abuse of the law and your contempt for the american people any longer.

 

Thank you, D.Tree for posting the FISA fight reminder. 

I don't think the average American understands how important an issue this is to our freedom and liberties.  Bush/Cheney/Rove - The Three Evil Amigos - have turned our government into a type of Big Brother that would disgust even George Orwell.

Listen to how Sen. Russ Feingold explains Bush's "Perfect Crime"

Here's the text.....

The telephone companies and the government have been operating under this simple framework for 30 years. The companies have experienced, highly trained, and highly compensated lawyers who know this law inside and out.

In view of this history, it is inconceivable that any telephone companies that allegedly cooperated with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program did not know what their obligations were. And it is just as implausible that those companies believed they were entitled to simply assume the lawfulness of a government request for assistance. This whole effort to obtain retroactive immunity is based on an assumption that doesn't hold water.

   Read More »

OK, taking a moment to get out of the 2008 Primary Swamp to let everyone know that Patrick Leahy needs our help to preserve American Values in the new FISA law.

Tuesday, February 12 is a critical day in our fight to stand up for American values and preserve our freedoms while protecting our national security. The Senate is voting on amendments to FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law governing the use of wiretaps and other means to conduct surveillance of foreign threats.

Unfortunately, the new FISA bill we'll be voting on still has many problems. I will do everything in my power -- including joining my colleague Chris Dodd in a filibuster against this legislation -- to fix it.

Please tell Congress that any new FISA bill must both protect our national security and preserve our civil liberties!

Please take a moment to click this link and tell your lawmakers to preserve our American Values!

Thank you for your time,
D. Tree

I'll keep this quick and dirty. I have been researching the role of Homeowner Associations in Maryland. Before the end of the month I will hopefully post a link to an op-ed I am writing on this subject. If it no newspaper wants to publish the op-ed, well that is the beauty of the Internet now isn't it. I'll just publish it here.

The thing is of the people who I have spoken to by going neighborhood to neighborhood their is an overwhelmingly negative opinion of homeowner associations (HOA). I have heard one over riding sentiment; it is my home, the most expensive thing I will probably ever buy, no one has the right to tell me what I can and can not do with it. An example of something HOA's like to ban - window air conditioners. One home owner who supports the ban said if they can't afford to run their central AC, the should consider moving to a cheaper home!

I am an experienced real estate title searcher. Deeds used to contain restrictions that banned the following on the property: No niggers, pigs, goats, chickens or Jews. Obviously the reference to two races were outlawed by the Fair Housing Act. The keeping of live stock is regulated by zoning laws. The thing is the point of these restrictions was to insure that property values in the neighborhood weren't impacted by the actions of any one homeowner. This is the exact same justification for the existence of HOA's. So we haven't really come that far have we?

The following got a little bit of attention on Daily KOS yesterday. So what do you think?

Ever since announcing his retirement from Presidents Bush's staff the media has repeatedly asked the question is Karl Rove the genius he has been made out to be? I prefer that we draw a clear distinction between success and genius. Has Karl Rove been a success as a political strategist? Undeniably, yes he has. He took his candidate to executive branch political offices first as governor of Texas, twice. Then again he took Bush to the White House twice. These are successes but I question the term of genius because of his stated goal of a permanent Republican majority. Is this the goal of a genius or a power monger?   Read More »

Looks like us Liberals are not the only people who think the new FISA law rushed through Congress is bad for America. Today ThinkProgress reports that more than 9 major newspapers have editorialized against this legislation.

The Washington Post writes that the new law

"gives Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales responsibility for creating the broad procedures determining whose telephone calls and e-mails are collected. It also gives McConnell and Gonzales the role of assessing compliance with those procedures."

Click "Read More" to see what other editorial pages are saying about this ill-considered law the New York Times calls an "unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush's powers"

Or, CLICK HERE to send a letter to the editor of your paper.   Read More »

As others have noted, Senate Democrats agreed to give Bush more Spying power.

Now, the legislation goes to the House and we need to let our representatives know we don't support *any* new FISA laws until the White House agrees to provide the legal opinions and testimony Congress has demanded.

PLEASE contact your representatives and let them know you do not support the new Bush Eavesdropping law. CLICK HERE for your representative.

Here's a sample of what I just wrote, feel free to cut and pasts for your own:

Honorable (your rep's name),

I am a voter in your district, and I am writing to let you know I do not support the new FISA update law proposed by the White House.

Before Congress agrees to pass any new laws regarding FISA, they must be informed of the legal basis of the President's eavesdropping on American citizens.

Until the White house releases the information and testimony sought by Congress, I do not support any new FISA laws, and I hope you will vote against this measure.

Thank you,
(your name here)

Update:CLICK HERE if you don't know who your rep is, it's super easy!

Last night on CNN, vice president Cheney dismissed congressional investigations into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys:

Vice President Cheney says there are no allegations of wrongdoing in the firing of the U.S. attorneys.

"First of all, there's no charge," Cheney said. "What's the allegation of wrongdoing here? Frankly, there isn't any."

Well, Mr. vice president since you insist on playing dumb why don't we make it a bit easier for you:

The Department of Justice, under the guidance of the White House, directed US Attorneys to engage in Electoral Fraud practices. When those attorneys resisted these illegal political acts, they were fired.

That sir, is a crime. We do not use the power of the government to CHEAT elections Mr. Vice President, and if you can't get that through your thick skull, you have not business sitting in *our* government.

Step down, Mr. Vice president, and stop lying to the American People!

Senator Arlen Specter plans to launch aprobe into the testimony of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

The purpose of this investigation is to determine if the two right-wing nominees mislead the Senate in order to win confirmation.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation.

For one thing, it's not often I applaud the actions of a Republican - but Sen Specter is one of the few Republicans to act impartially in respect of the law, and I applaud his decision.

The other interesting thing is that Specter decided on the probe because of discontent from within the Court itself:

The idea for a review came to Specter when he said he ran into Justice Stephen G. Breyer at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.

Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, drew attention last month for suggesting that Roberts and the conservative majority were flouting stare decisis, the legal doctrine that, for the sake of stability, courts should generally leave past decisions undisturbed.

Roberts and Alito: Both of these young men sat before the Senate and lied through their teeth in order to win confirmation. They mislead the Senate and the American People in their dishonest testimony. Perhaps the most insulting thing is they smiled as they made these false promises.

Clearly, as evidenced by the precedents they have casually overturned, and the dishonesty of their testimony before the Senate, these two men never intended to respect the law or the wishes of the American People. They are not the impartial defenders of the Constitution a Supreme Court Justice is supposed to be - instead they seem to be the very model of the "Activist Judge" conservatives so often lament about.

Mr. Roberts and Mr. Alito: I suggest you show a bit more respect for the positions you have been appointed to, for it is not generally known but Supreme Court Justices CAN be impeached.

For those of you following this story, it will be interesting to see how the RNC reacts to being subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee.

From John Conyers' Statement:

The White House has been stonewalling this investigation at every turn. We attempted to negotiate terms with the RNC as well as the White House to secure these documents. Yet again, the White House has stepped in to prevent the RNC from turning them over. So, we hope that the RNC - unlike Ms. Miers yesterday - will choose to comply with the legal obligation set out in this subpoena, as opposed to the opinion of the White House.

This subpoena puts the White House in a real bind, because if they claim the e-mails are protected by "executive privilege," then they admit they broke the law by subverting the official White House e-mail system as a means to avoid oversight requirements; but if they allow the RNC to produce the e-mails, then they potentially allow evidence of their illegal activities to enter the record.

Anyone want to guess how the RNC and the Whitehouse is going to react? click here to read the subpoena.

House Democrats voted today to reject president Bush's claim of executive privilege in ordering former council Harriet Miers not to appear before Congress as required by her subpoena.

Over the strenuous objections of Republicans, a subcommittee cleared the way for contempt proceedings by voting 7-5 to reject Bush's claim of executive privilege. He says his top advisers, whether current or former, cannot be summoned by Congress.

"Those claims are not legally valid," Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., said of Bush's declaration. "Ms. Miers is required pursuant to the subpoena to be here now.

Next, the judiciary committee will vote on bringing a contempt citation to the floor, followed by a vote of the full House. CLICK HERE to send them your support.

I thoroughly applaud this decision and I look forward to Congress moving swiftly to advance the contempt citation.

The Bush administration has paved the way for a confrontation with the law in its unprecedented claim of "executive privilege." These people who were called to testify before Congress no longer work for the president. They have been called in the investigation of a crime. These two facts make the "executive privilege" claim one of the weakest legal assertions the Administration has ever made... and we know they have made quite a few dubious legal claims.

So what can you do? Let your voice be heard! CLICK HERE to send a note of support to the House Judiciary committee!

This is exactly what we have been watching for over six years. President Bush and Vice-President Cheney have set about creating the imperial presidency that Nixon tried so hard to achieve. In doing so they realized that first they had to hijack the Justice Department. In John Ashcroft they thought they had their man. Then despite his condition Mr. Ashcroft was thinking clearly enough to tell Gonzales that Justice wasn't going along with the warrantless wiretapping scheme. Then eight months later when A.G. Ashcroft resigns, the evil twins insert warrantless wiretapping scheme architect Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. America's cop had just gone on the pad.

Everyone seems to want to tap dance around who is the leader of the band when it comes to Bush/Cheney. When you look at Bush 41's relationship to Richard Nixon you have to ask the question. Is Bush 41 pulling the strings of Washington from Kennebunkport, Maine? This is not a popular idea. After all, it has been fatherly George H. W., that has been going around with Bill Clinton raising money for the poor and devastated people of the world. The former President Bush, has been looked upon much as President Carter is. Both have done a lot of good charitable works since leaving office. I'm not taking that away from President Bush (41). I am however wondering why we have so many former Nixon staff members back in the executive branch. Heck they would bring back John Dean if he still wasn't such an out spoken critic of this kind of politics.   Read More »

Like so many of you, I was deeply saddened by the president's lack of respect for our judicial system and contempt for the rule of law.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, do hereby commute the prison terms imposed by the sentence upon the said Lewis Libby to expire immediately SOURCE

I could take this time to write about how the president's decision makes a mockery of our justice system, and I could ask why we wasted 2 years and millions of tax dollars he was going to let Libby off the hook anyway.

I could observe that the president thinks himself the only judge that matters in this case, and that the American people -- who put their faith in this system -- witnessed nothing more than a show trial.

I could write the Washington press corps and demand they ask the president if he plans to pardon or commute sentences for Jack Abramhoff, or any of the other loyal "Bushies" who have been convicted of felonies.

I could bemoan the fact that this president's actions have undermined the foundations of American justice and have done unrepairable damage to our national morale.

But instead, all I can think is this: Democratic Senators and Congresspeople take heed. The president has never hesitated to wield the power vested in him by the Constitution. It is past time you recognize that YOU have power as well, DO NOT BE AFRAID WIELD IT!!

Last week the Supreme Court took further steps to curtail free speech in this country in their decision in Morse v. Frederick, more typically known as the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case. Not content to merely roll back public school desegregation efforts that have been in place since the 1950s, the court has now ruled that a banner that a student held up as a prank during the Olympic torch passing is not protected speech under the First Amendment.   Read More »

The Supreme Court Ruling outlawing school integration does not only touch on the subject of race -- it also touches on the subject of law and the relationship between its "Spirit" and its "Letter."

I'm with Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent opinion:

The conservative majority cited the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case to bolster its precedent-shattering decision, an act termed a "cruel irony" by Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent. The 1954 ruling led to the end of state-sponsored school segregation in the United States.

It is indeed cruel for so many kids to be denied a good education because of the station in life they were born to. Cruel to tell them our highest court is not willing to right the imbalances in our country that are the legacy of slavery and segregation merely 50 years old.

But the worst irony is that chief justice John Roberts used the words of a ruling that outlawed segregation in order to maintain its very existence.
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Mixing government and private enterprise is a dangerous practice. Government is elected, in a democracy, by private individuals … not by businesses.

Business employs individuals and is an important part of a healthy society but there is a line that should not be crossed. That line is where government becomes more involved in the businesses that employ than it does with those who are employed by business. After all, it is those who are employed that actually vote, not the dollars that business represents.   Read More »

Thinkprogress reports More abuse of Power by President Bush

According to a report released by the Government Accountability Office, Federal agencies ignored 30 percent of the laws Bush objected to in signing statements last year.

In 2006, President Bush issued signing statements for 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills passed by Congress, claiming a right to bypass a total of 160 provisions in them.

Clearly, we can see how the president and his henchmen & henchwomen have been violating the spirit AND the letter of the law since 2001. Now, if they had not been violating the presidential records act this whole time we might have the mountain of evidence needed to impeach him.

Eventually, though, we will find the evidence. Here's to the Lawbreaker in Chief getting punishment he deserves for 7 years of spitting on our constitution and way of life.


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Bush delays signature of law to intentionally break it one last time

On June 4th, Congress passed the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act that closed an loophole in the Patriot Act allowing Alberto Gonzales to bypass congressional approval of US Attorney appointments.

Here's what Sen Patrick Leahy had to say:

That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the president's desk since June 4th. Do you know it seems he just can't bring himself to sign it? Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the attorney general has used the power that we voted to repeal again.

This is one of the most blatant examples of how much contempt the Bush administration has for the law. It is also a good example of how the President abuses his power by violating the "Spirit" of the law while at the same time following the "Letter" of the law

Make no mistake, when Bush says he wants a "strict constructionist" like John Roberts or Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court, he is appointing people who will do everything in their power to abuse the spirit of the law -- without technically breaking it.


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