America! Home of the Peeping Tom Society…

GEF @ 8:18 PM ET

Bush Administration Wants To Block ACLU From Wiretapping Law Litigation

By TPM

Should federal judges interpreting the new U.S. wiretapping law be able to hear and consider legal arguments from outside parties like the American Civil Liberties Union?

The Bush administration says no.

The Department of Justice filed court papers yesterday seeking to block the ACLU — and any other third party — from submitting briefs to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the classified forums that will be primarily responsible for translating the federal law signed last month into practice.

The DOJ argues that any briefs the ACLU might file would be ill-informed because its lawyers cannot access the classified information at the heart of many FISA cases, and the proceedings would just clog the flow of cases

“The collective effect of these restrictions is to make any meaningful participation by the ACLU…impossible. … Indeed, allowing third-parties to use this Court as a general forum to present facial challenges to the Government’s surveillance activities could cause a flood of litigation that would district this Court from its important national security functions.”

But the ACLU, which has filed a lawsuit seeking access to the FISA court, says the new law is public and complex and the judges should be able to consider a wide range of views when handing down important rulings. Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU’s National Security Project said in a statement today:

“If the government’s request is granted, the court won’t hear arguments from anyone except the government and those arguments will be presented to the court in secret briefs. … Especially because the new surveillance law departs so significantly from the standards that have applied to government surveillance for the last 30 years, any proceedings relating to the new law’s constitutionality should be adversarial and as informed and transparent as possible.”

Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, supports the ACLU’s position. He wrote a paper in 2004 calling for greater participation in the FISA court.”The DOJ is taking an expansive view of executive power and narrow view of judicial power, Swire told TPMmuckraker in an interview today. “Under the government’s view, the judges seem required to uphold an unconstitutional system because the judges are forbidden from getting briefing from anyone other than the executive branch.”

While there is limited precedent for third-party involvement in the typically classified proceedings under the 1978 FISA law, the new technologies that prompted lawmakers to updat the law law may also warrant new procedures, Swire said.

“The 1978 version of FISA targeted one individual at a time or sometime one terrorist organization. The new approach sweeps far more broadly and it looks more like an administrative system than a traditional judicial wiretap order.”

“In light of those changes and the constitutional challenges to those changes, the court would be well served to be briefed with multiple viewpoints,” Swire said.

The DOJ argues that the ACLU already has an opportunity to contest the constitutionality of the FISA law a lawsuit currently pending in New York’s Southern District.

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Regime Change Coming To Israel!

GEF @ 7:48 PM ET

Olmert resignation throws Israel’s politics into turmoil

Israel’s beleaguered prime minister, Ehud Olmert, threw his country and the Middle East into political turmoil last night when he announced he was resigning after months of mounting pressure over corruption allegations.

Olmert said he would step down in September after his Kadima party has chosen a new leader. The main candidates are Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, a pragmatic centrist, and Shaul Mofaz, transport minister but a hawk on national security issues, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the ongoing, though faltering, negotiations with the Palestinians.

Last night’s announcement came as a surprise but hardly a shock, given the accumulating weight of comment that he could not go on in the face of a slew of police and judicial inquiries.

“I will step aside properly in an honourable and responsible way, and afterwards I will prove my innocence,” Olmert told reporters from a podium outside his Jerusalem office. “I want to make it clear – I am proud to be a citizen of a country where the prime minister can be investigated like a regular citizen. It is the duty of the police to investigate, and the duty of the prosecution to instruct the police. The prime minister is not above the law.”

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, deeply pessimistic about peace since talks were relaunched at Annapolis in the US last November, are likely to be indifferent to his departure, though Olmert forged personal ties with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and Fatah leader. Riad Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, said: “It’s true that Olmert was enthusiastic about the peace process, and he spoke about this process with great attention but this process has not achieved any progress or breakthrough.”

A spokesman for Abbas said last night that the Palestinian president considered Olmert’s decision an “internal Israeli matter”, adding: “The Palestinian Authority deals with the prime minister of Israel, regardless if he is Olmert or somebody else.”

Israeli and Palestinian officials said they would continue their efforts to find a peace agreement by the end of the year, in accordance with US deadlines.

Olmert, in office for two and a half years, was also responsible for restarting talks with Syria, through Turkish mediation, but drew criticism that he did so as a diversion from his domestic difficulties. A fourth round of indirect negotiations ended yesterday.

Olmert’s reputation was irreparably damaged by the 2006 war in Lebanon, when he was criticised by an official commission of inquiry for having mishandled Israel’s response to a cross-border raid by Hizbullah guerrillas, embroiling the country in a month-long war in which civilians were subject to missile salvoes and at the end of which there was no clear victory over the enemy.

But he was credited with having helped restore Israel’s battered deterrent capability by bombing an alleged nuclear reactor in Syria and, so many Arabs believed, assassinating a Hizbullah military leader in the heart of Damascus.

Apart from talks with the Palestinians, the biggest issue facing Olmert’s successor will be the crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Mofaz, a former chief of staff and defence minister, said recently that an Israeli attack on Iran was “unavoidable” because sanctions were not working.

Israeli political analyst Dan Margalit, an old friend of Olmert, called the prime minister’s decision to step down “a sad end to a miserable career”. Uri Dromi, another pundit, called Olmert a “lame duck”.

Olmert, the cigar-smoking lawyer and bon viveur, succeeded Ariel Sharon, who was felled by a stroke, after the former Likud leader, who founded Kadima, withdrew Israeli troops and settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

The Israeli public reacted with mounting anger and contempt to the news of Olmert’s legal problems. Nahum Barnea, a columnist with the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, wrote on the eve of the recent EU-Mediterranean summit in France that the prime minister was finished, but was in denial: “Politicians in Israel, the leaders he will meet in Paris, prosecutors and the police all know it. The only one who refuses to acknowledge it is Olmert.”

Primary elections for the Kadima leadership will take place in two rounds in September. The winner will then have 28 days (and 14 more if needed) to form a coalition. If he or she succeeds in doing so, the winner will complete Olmert’s term, due to end in 2010. If not, new elections will be held within three months – and the most likely outcome, according to current polls, would be a win for Likud rightwinger Binyamin Netanyahu.

Olmert is the subject of two criminal investigations. One involves suspicions that he took bribes from the American businessman Morris Talansky and the other charges him with submitting duplicate claims for travel expenses in his previous posts as trade minister and mayor of Jerusalem.

____

Doesn’t Ehud Olmert Look Like an older Lurch ? Sure he does look.. 😉

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Turd Blossom Special… (Video)

By- Suzie-Q @ 4:40 PM MST

This is for you, Geezer! LOL

Love,

S-Q  😉

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Whats in the Future for the US Presidency

by Geezer Power…2:05 pm

From The Economist print edition

Terror not China

Mar 27th 2008

The next president will still focus on the same problems as Mr Bush. But some of the answers may change

IT IS hard to think of a more miserable way of spending your life than running for American president. Dialling for dollars. Hanging out in diners in Iowa and New Hampshire. Glad-handing people you will never meet again. Living on aeroplanes and in hotels. Getting by on four hours’ sleep a night. Delivering the same stump speech ad nauseam.

And what do you get for all that misery? A heap of trouble. America is bogged down in Iraq, the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan and Iran is flexing its muscles, Russian nationalism is on the rise once again and China is getting increasingly bolshy. America’s problems seem to be multiplying at the same time as its ability to deliver results is waning.

Russia is becoming increasingly anti-American as well as increasingly autocratic. It is convinced that America is trying to surround it with military bases, worried that NATO is advancing to its borders and determined to become great again. It has resumed the cold-war practice of flying military missions over the North Pole. It has engaged in a cyberwar with Estonia and used its oil and gas supplies to bully its neighbours. It has also shown an increased willingness to thumb its nose at America (for example, by selling military equipment to Syria and Venezuela) and to form anti-American alliances, particularly with China and some oil-rich Central Asian states.

At the same time America is getting more anxious about China’s growing economic might. Anti-Chinese sentiment in America is already strong. Democrats in Congress are preparing to hammer China over counterfeit goods, product safety and exchange-rate policy. The media have been a-twitter with stories about poisoned pet food, tainted toothpaste and lead-painted toys. America’s trade deficit with China has been rising relentlessly. Many critics argue that China is trying to cheat its way to economic success, keeping its currency artificially low to give Chinese products an unfair advantage, creating barriers to keep out American goods and allowing producers to operate largely outside the law.

Article

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Forget the Surge — Violence Is Down in Iraq Because Ethnic Cleansing Was Brutally Effective

Sudhan @22:55 CET

By Juan Cole, JuanCole.com. Alternet, July 29, 2008.

The bloodbath in Baghdad has resulted in fewer ethnically mixed neighborhoods, leading to the recent drop in violence.

Editor’s note: John McCain’s latest stumble in discussing Iraq — in which he muddled the timeline of the so-called “surge” — was treated by most of the press as an unfortunate gaffe, rather than further proof that the aspiring commander in chief does not know what he’s talking about when it comes to the war and occupation. (One CNN report actually ran the headline: “McCain Broadens Definition of the Surge.”) Meanwhile, the Republican nominee’s recent attacks on Barack Obama for failing to admit the success of the “surge” was widely reported by the same members of the media, whose dominant and uncritical narrative has long been that, as McCain and Bush contend, the “surge” has been an unqualified success. “Why can’t Obama bring himself to acknowledge the surge worked better than he and other skeptics thought that it would?” a USA Today editorial asked last week.

In the article below, Juan Cole takes a closer look at the “surge,” weighing the troop increase alongside the numerous other contributing factors to the decline in violence. At the same time, he reminds us that, regardless of the relative decrease in bloodshed — and what may be behind it — the country is still a frightfully unstable place for Iraqis. “Most American commentators are so focused on the relative fall in casualties that they do not stop to consider how high the rates of violence remain,” he writes. Few people would consider Afghanistan, where last year an average of 550 people were killed per month, a safe place. Yet, “that is about the rate recently (in Iraq), according to official statistics.” — AlterNet War on Iraq editor Liliana Segura

***

I want to weigh in as a social historian of Iraq on the controversy over whether the “surge” “worked.” The New York Times reports:

Mr. McCain bristled in an interview with the CBS Evening News on (July 22) when asked about Mr. Obama’s contention that while the added troops had helped reduce violence in Iraq, other factors had helped, including the Sunni Awakening movement, in which thousands of Sunnis were enlisted to patrol neighborhoods and fight the insurgency, and the Iraqi government’s crackdown on Shiite militias.

“I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened,” Mr. McCain told Katie Couric, noting that the Awakening movement began in Anbar Province when a Sunni sheik teamed up with Sean MacFarland, a colonel who commanded an Army brigade there.

“Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others,” Mr. McCain said. “And it began the Anbar Awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.”

The Obama campaign was quick to note that the Anbar Awakening began in the fall of 2006, several months before President Bush even announced the troop escalation strategy, which became known as the surge.

And Democrats noted that the sheik who helped form the Awakening, Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, was assassinated in September 2007, after the troop escalation began.

But several foreign policy analysts said that if Mr. McCain got the chronology wrong, his broader point — that the troop escalation was crucial for the Awakening movement to succeed and spread — was right. “I would say McCain is three-quarters right in this debate,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The problem with this debate is that it has few Iraqis in it.

It is also open to charges of logical fallacy. The only evidence presented for the thesis that the “surge” “worked” is that Iraqi deaths from political violence have declined in recent months from all-time highs in the second half of 2006 and the first half of 2007. (That apocalyptic violence was set off by the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra in February 2006, which helped provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war.) What few political achievements are attributed to the troop escalation are too laughable to command real respect.

Proponents are awfully hard to pin down on what the “surge” consisted of or when it began. It seems to me to refer to the troop escalation that began in February 2007. But now the technique of bribing Sunni Arab former insurgents to fight radical Sunni vigilantes is being rolled into the “surge” by politicians such as McCain. But attempts to pay off the Sunnis to quiet down began months before the troop escalation and had a dramatic effect in al-Anbar Province long before any extra U.S. troops were sent to al-Anbar (nor were very many extra troops ever sent there). I will disallow it. The “surge” is the troop escalation that began in the winter of 2007. The bribing of insurgents to come into the cold could have been pursued without a significant troop escalation, and was.

Continued . . .

Tags: al-Anbar province, American media, Barack Obama, General Petraeus, John McCain and Iraq, much violence in Iraq, Sunni and Shia divide, the surge, the Kurds, the Mahdi Army, US forces

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Obama: As President Will Reverse Executive Orders That ‘Trample On Liberty’

By- Suzie-Q @ 12:05 PM MST

Obama vows to reverse executive orders that ‘trample on liberty’

Raw Story- Associated Press
Published: Tuesday July 29, 2008

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama told House Democrats on Tuesday that as president he would order his attorney general to scour White House executive orders and expunge any that “trample on liberty,” several lawmakers said.

Presidents, as head of the executive branch of government, issue such orders to direct operations of executive branch agencies, like the Justice Department and the CIA. For example, President Bush used an executive order last year to breathe new life into the CIA’s controversial terror interrogation program that allowed harsh questioning of suspects.

Obama “talked about how his attorney general is to review every executive order and immediately eliminate those that trample on liberty,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.

“He indicated there would be a review in his administration,” said Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the House majority whip.

Obama did not mention executive orders when he addressed reporters who waited for him outside the closed-door meeting. He said only that he would be campaigning alongside members to win the presidency and help expand Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

“I am looking forward to collaborating with everyone here to win the election, but more importantly to collaborate with everybody here and also some like-minded Republicans to actually govern and to deliver on behalf of the American people,” Obama said.

During his presidency, Bush increasingly has relied on executive orders to dictate policies without seeking congressional approval. His orders have ranged from restrictions on striped bass fishing to sanctions against Myanmar’s government.

Obama did not indicate who his attorney general would be, or any other member of his Cabinet. To lawmakers who asked about his Cabinet plans, Obama said: “Get me elected, and then I’ll worry about the Cabinet,” according to Nadler.

Clyburn added that Obama said there were “people in the room with more expertise than him.”

Obama’s meeting with the House Democratic caucus came hours after he spoke with both Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke about the faltering economy, part of his effort to refocus the campaign on domestic issues after last week’s foreign trip.

Obama spokesman Michael Ortiz said the senator and Bernanke discussed the outlook for consumers and businesses, as well as the effect of rising home foreclosures on families nationwide. They also talked about the “strengths of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other financial institutions,” Ortiz said.

Obama called Paulson as he rode to a meeting with Pakistan’s new prime minister, the campaign said.

A campaign statement said Obama asked how the Treasury Department planned to use its new authority with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and whether the government had the tools it needs to address the challenges in the banking industry. As part of the government’s effort to provide mortgage relief to hundreds of thousands of homeowners, Paulson has sought emergency power to rescue lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Congress approved a housing plan last week that would provide relief for 400,000 homeowners who can’t afford their payments by allowing them to refinance their mortgages with more affordable, government-backed loans. President Bush has promised to sign the package into law.

In a day of meetings, Obama also met with Pakistan’s new leader, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

At a fundraising luncheon, he said he told Gilani “the only way we’re going to be successful in the long term in defeating extremists … is if we are giving people opportunities. If people have a chance for a better life, then they are not as likely to turn to the ideologies of violence and despair.”

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Afternoon Jukebox… Take My Breath Away

By- Suzie-Q @ 12:00 PM MST

Berlin – Take My Breath Away – (Top Gun)

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BAM! House Judiciary Committee Has Voted To Hold Rove In Contempt!

By- Suzie-Q @ 8:30 AM MST

Judiciary Committee approves resolution holding Rove in contempt of Congress

RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday July 30, 2008

The House Judiciary Committee has voted 20-14 to approve a contempt of Congress resolution against former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for his failure to appear after a Congressional subpoena.

Voting along party lines Wednesday morning, the committee said Rove broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations of White House influence over the Justice Department, including whether Rove encouraged prosecutions against Democrats.

The committee decision is a recommendation. It remains unclear whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will allow a final vote.

Rove has denied any involvement with Justice Department decisions, and the White House has said Congress has no authority to compel testimony from current and former advisers.

Excerpts from the markup memo of the resolution sent to reporters follows. Rove was overseas at the time of the hearing and alleged that the trip had been planned in advance.

DEVELOPING…

---

RUSH TRANSCRIPT…

TO: Members, Committee on the Judiciary

FROM: John Conyers, Jr.

Chairman

DATE: July 29, 2008

RE: Full Committee Markup
The Committee on the Judiciary will meet to consider: A resolution and report finding Karl Rove in contempt for failure to appear pursuant to subpoena and recommending to the House of Representatives that Mr. Rove be cited for contempt of Congress; and to markup H.R. 6577, to express the consent and approval of Congress to an interstate compact regarding water resources in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin; H.R. 6126, the “Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act of 2008”; H.R. 5950, the “Detainee Basic Medical Care Act of 2008”; H.R. 2575, for the relief of Mikael Adrian Christopher Figueroa Alvarez; H.R. 5243, for the relief of Kim Iizuka-Barcena; H.R. 6064, the “National Silver Alert Act”; H.R. 6503, the “Missing Alzheimer’s Disease Patient Alert Program Reauthorization of 2008”; H.R. 6353, the “Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008”; H.R. 5167, the “Justice for Victims of Torture and Terrorism Act”; H.R. 2140, the “Internet Gambling Study Act”; H.R. 6088, the “National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network Act “; and H.R. 4779, to enact certain laws relating to public contracts as title 41, United States Code, “Public Contracts” markup. The markup will take place on Wednesday, July 30, 2008, at 10:15 a.m. in room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

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Cops Tase Barely Conscious Boy With Broken Back 19 Times For Non-Compliance

anthony @ 12:45 BST

Police: Taser use is “not one of the unanswered questions” surrounding the case

Steve Watson | Infowars.net | Tuesday, July 29, 2008

You couldn’t make it up if you tried. Police in Ozark, Missouri repeatedly tased a critically injured sixteen year old boy after he “refused to comply with the officers”.

The cops were called to investigate reports of a boy walking along a busy overpass, but when they got there they found young Mace Hutchinson had fallen 30 ft to the ground below, breaking his back and and foot in the process.

When he did not co-operate with the cops they pulled out their stun guns and fired them into his body, shocking him up to nineteen times with 50,000 volts.

According to the boy’s father, the actions of the police caused an elevated white blood cell count leading Mace to develop a fever that delayed vital surgery by two days.

Ozark Police Capt. Thomas Rousset tried to condone the use of the taser in comments to the media:

“He refused to comply with the officers and so the officers had to deploy their Tasers in order to subdue him. He is making incoherent statements; he’s also making statements such as, ‘Shoot cops, kill cops,’ things like that. So there was cause for concern to the officers.”

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Acts of War

anthony @ 12:35 BST

AP photo / Brennan Linsley

Scott Ritter | TruthDig | July 29, 2008

The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.

Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating “accident” involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.

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