Everything Bush has done after his Reichstag fire has been on the basis that the Barbarian-in-Chief is immune to the Constitution, US law, and any international treaties to which the US is signatory.  He's taken the position that he can disappear anyone, anywhere at any time without charge or judicial review and that he can spy on any American of his choosing without judicial review.

The McCain anti-torture amendment is mostly PR for McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.  The same bill said that the disappeared do not get their day in court until after a military tribunal decision is made.  So far there have been 9 of those.  So if you are a detainee you can't be legally tortured but you have no way of enforcing your right.

This is the main reason Scalito has to be kept off the Supreme Court even if it requires a filibuster.  Scalito is a slave to executive and corporate power.

Impeachment.

How many times must that word be repeated before everyone understands that the constitution covers this problem very well. It gives to Congress the power to impeach a president for "high crimes and misdemeanors", and violating the constitution in the wholesale manner that Bush is doing, plus declaring his intent to continue to do so, has to be a "high crime" - in fact the "highest crime" any president can commit.

Where's the outrage, you ask?  Honestly, I blame Democratic politicians.  These suck - absolutely suck - at capitalizing on Bush's blunders.

Just take Russ Feingold, for example.  Here is one of our strongest voices.  Instead of asking Ivo's question (why even bother passing laws like the Patriot Act?), however, Feingold engages the White House on the merits of the Patriot Act:

"Contrary to the president's misleading comments, nobody wants to see the Patriot Act expire," Feingold said Tuesday. "We want commonsense changes to the act that would give the government the power to combat terrorism while protecting the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens."

Trust me, I'm as big a Russ Feingold fan as anybody.  But it's illustrative that our strongest, fiercest voice chooses to argue about the value of the Patriot Act when the President is asserting the broad right to overrule federal law whenever he pleases.  Again, Ivo's words: why even bother with the Patriot Act if the President is going to order federal agents to do whatever he wants anyway?  Why should our omnipotent President bother with Congress at all?  What is the point of debating the merits of the Patriot Act when the President ignores the law?

Republicans gained ascendency by making Democrats look like uncool wimps.  They did it through sarcasm, bold assertions, and flamboyant media personalities.  When will a prominent Democratic Senator make headlines by repeatedly, sarcastically calling George Bush a "dictator" ?  (I like the sound of "Chairman Bush".)  When will Democratic congressmen refuse to debate the Patriot Act until hearings have been held on the NSA program?  My prediction: never.

Hoppy, here is what I wrote to my representatives in Congress re the illegal spying:

Dear

The news that the Bush administration is spying on US citizens in defiance of the FISA laws is quite disturbing to me.  It seems plain to me that the administration broke the law.  Why did they not get warrants?  If they needed to act quickly, they had 72 hours to get warrants after the fact.

If the FISA laws do not work for the president he should go to Congress to fix the laws.  We are a government of laws, not men, and no one is above the law, not even the president.  The president says that Congress reviewed his spying program and signed on to it.  However, the Constitution does not give Congress the right to permit the president to break the law.

If the president has the right to do as he pleases in defiance of the law, then we should schedule a coronation, because he is no longer the president of a republic, but a ruling monarch.

The president has stated that he will continue these activities, therefore, I ask you, as a member of Congress, to demand that the administration cease and desist from these illegal activities under threat of censure or impeachment.

At the rate that this administration is encroaching upon our freedoms, we will soon have few left to defend.

Thank you for your attention.

So what else can we do?  Ivo is right; why bother passing laws if the president has the power to set aside those he does not like?

And yes, where is the outrage?

I don't mean to be prideful or anything but if anyone out there likes my letter, please don't copy it verbatim, because if the members of Congress get letters worded exactly the same way, they see them as astro-turf and don't pay as much attention as they would to an original letter from an individual.

"crow-ligarchy"  (a bunch of crows thinking they're in charge)  misspelled it above.
also misspelled judgement
There, I feel better!

Actually, that is the defense Saddam's lawyers are using.  The (old) Iraqi constitution basically states that the president can do anything at all in the performance of his official duties and it can't be against the law. 

That's why Saddam is being tried under laws that we made up for the purpose of convicting him instead of the laws that existed when he committed his crimes.  

The other solution would of course be to try him in an international court, but we can't do that because we're an outlaw state.

RG 

One interesting thing in this debate about executive power is the fact that you don't seem to see any of the usual democratic presidential candidates out there making a big stink about this.  And, I think the reason is that they lust after the thought that they might actually get to utilize some of this new executive power.  I don't think I have heard Kerry or Clinton out there on this issue.  Hmmmmm......wonder why that might be??  My guess is that monkeys are going to fly out of my butt before either one of these people speaks out against Cheney and Bush on this.

If we stand for anything, its got to be a) reinstating the Constitution and b) holding all Republicans, beginning with McCain, responsible for their attempts to eliminate it over the past 5 years.

How 'bout holding all the Democrats who have done absolutely nothing responsible too? McCain at least got a bill pushed through Congress. The Democrats apparently are still on vacation. I haven't heard one of 'em say anything since before Christmas . . . Why aren't they making more noise? Why aren't they pushing for investigations, impeachment? Attacking McCain seems silly. He at least has done something. What has Biden done? What has Clinton done? What has Kerry done? None of them is worth a dime.

Impeachment.

How many times must that word be repeated before everyone understands that the constitution covers this problem very well. It gives to Congress the power to impeach a president for "high crimes and misdemeanors", and violating the constitution in the wholesale manner that Bush is doing, plus declaring his intent to continue to do so, has to be a "high crime" - in fact the "highest crime" any president can commit.

Impeachment is not a real possibility when the President's party controls the House of Representatives (even if the Senate would vote to convict).

Which pretty much leaves us with the other two options available to us under the constitution.

1. The legal system;
2. The voters.

The executive branch is supposed to investigate crimes, even if commited by members of the executive branch. Precedent is that criminal prosecutions of the chief executive don't happen until after impeachment though, which leaves us w/ option 2: vote the bum(s) out.

We can wail all we want about Congress not doing its job. But we as voters must do ours as well. The founders in general, Jefferson in particular had a great deal of faith that voters would refuse to tolerate abuses of power at election time. Congress may well have abdicated their oversight responsibility, but the founders had equally high expectations of the electorate. Let's not let them down by abdicating ours.

Perhaps it's better to make a distinction here.....of course the congresspeople are going to get upset by all this....they are the ones being pissed on!  I think that the presidential candidates, however, have a whole different agenda....they want to be in power.  I just think it's an interesting juxtaposition to see what the dem presidential candidates-to-be will say about all this (will they actually campaign to weaken the power of the office that they seek?) versus what the congressional candidates say about it.  I don't recall JKerry really going after Bush much on this sort of thing in 04.

I think ratifying a bill is similar to signing a contract. If I find myself signing a mortgage, I’m going to add a signing statement requiring payments due in Monopoly money… When you sign, you are signing off on the language as written. If you can redefine the contents later, what is the purpose of signing or ratifying it?

This is just another attempted CYA by a President who more and more is entangling himself in a tenuous claim of executive privilege. This signing statement is really an implicit admission that he has and will continue to torture contrary to U.S. laws and treaties.

SCOTUS may slap down his Commander-in-Chief claims when they take up Padilla but I don’t think it will change much. Until Senators grow some cajones and begin real investigations instead of whitewashes, nothing will happen.

Re: It's one thing to note that the dems still have trouble understanding the role of the opposition party; it's another thing altogether to assume that kerry or clinton or whomever you want actually also believes in presidential lawlessness.
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Those are good points. I was wondering if private security firms have to seek any sort of authorization for eavesdropping or general surveillance. 

Jane, I wrote a very similar email to my congressperson, Doris Matsui, before Christmas. About the only thing I added was that I expected her to take the lead in demanding that the Judiciary Committee to begin hearings on impeachment. Of course I don't expect a freshman congressperson to have enough influence to cause anything to happen, but I did want her to know my position. If all of us do this, and ask our like minded friends to do the same, it is just barely possible that our Democrats in congress will speak up. Then, the press will be forced to address the issue.

... the American people.

3 GOP senators blast Bush bid to bypass torture ban
Reject assertion he has right to waive rules to protect US security


WASHINGTON -- Three key Republican senators yesterday condemned President Bush's assertion that his powers as commander in chief give him the authority to bypass a new law restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees.

John W. Warner Jr., a Virginia Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, issued a joint statement rejecting Bush's assertion that he can waive the restrictions on the use of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment against detainees to protect national security.