Common Sense Democracy

Via MSNBC.com - McCain criticizes Bill Clinton on North Korea

“I would remind Senator (Hillary) Clinton and other Democrats critical of the Bush administration’s policies that the framework agreement her husband’s administration negotiated was a failure,” McCain said at a news conference after a campaign appearance for Republican Senate candidate Mike Bouchard.

“The Koreans received millions and millions in energy assistance. They’ve diverted millions of dollars of food assistance to their military,” he said.

While this may be true, it’s ridiculous to somehow say that the problem with the current state of North Korea is because of Bill Clinton. The Bush administration has had several years, almost as many as Clinton, to formulate his own policy and take leadership on this situation. What a complete cop-out. Besides that, McCain needs to watch where he’s pointing his finger. He’s been in the Senate longer then either Clinton or Bush were president. You can’t just sit on your ass in the Senate and wait for the President to create policy and then blame everyone else for nothing going right. Are you going to tell me that a powerful Senator can’t take a leadership role in forumulating our government’s policies and do the right thing? This is the epitomy of the GOP blame game.

Why doesn’t he just include the first Bush administration’s failure to deal with North Korea in his criticisms? They had just as little of a policy framework. At least the Clinton administration actually visited Pyongyang.

I would hope that people would see right through this garbage. The GOP is just getting nervous that while we were out attacking Iraq, who had no nuclear weapons, 2 other countries have become a greater threat to our security.

Let’s go GOP… it’s your command, you’re on watch. Take the helm.

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Via MoveOn.org

This week, the Senate is planning to quietly hold a vote that would pardon President Bush for breaking the law by illegally wiretapping innocent Americans without warrants. According to Senator Leahy, the bill would "…immunize officials who have violated federal law by authorizing such illegal activities."¹

President Bush broke the law, and courts are starting to agree. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter once said the program was illegal "on its face." But he has now caved to pressure from Vice President Cheney, and introduced legislation that marks a new low: the bill justifies everything the president did. Worse, it makes it legal to wiretap Americans, in secret, without warrants or oversight, whenever the administration wants to.²

So far, Democrats and some Republicans are holding strong against the bill, and there are good chances to stop it if enough of us speak up. Can you sign the petition opposing the Republican move to pardon President Bush for breaking the law?

http://pol.moveon.org/dontpardon/?id=8810-4350126-WPTqUDpta5J5XPeC8AcqTg&t=2

Many legal experts agree that the president’s program to wiretap Americans who have nothing to do with terrorism violates the law. President Bush already has the authority to wiretap suspected terrorists—and we support that. In fact, his administration can tap anyone it likes as long as it gets an OK from a court a few days later.

Congress should be trying to hold him accountable—that’s their job. Instead, some Republicans are trying to let President Bush off the hook completely. In fact, the legislation would give the president even more unchecked power.

Here are some quick facts about the Cheney-Specter bill:

• It allows President Bush—and every president after him—to wiretap Americans indefinitely, in secret, without a warrant and without any oversight. ³
• It effectively pardons the president for any illegal behavior by forcing Congress to concede that he has the inherent authority to conduct the program⁴—something federal courts, numerous legal experts and many leading Republicans disagree with. ⁵
• It completely guts FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) which has protected the privacy of Americans against illegal wiretaps for close to 30 years.⁶
• It prevents any legal challenges from taking place in the public court system. Instead, it moves all cases to a secret court, where only Bush administration officials can argue it. ⁷
• It would help "immunize" any officials who broke the law in this program from being held accountable in the future. ⁸

Since the program was exposed in December of last year, we’ve learned that President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation of the program, Vice President Cheney also personally intervened to stop telecom companies from testifying to Congress about it, and a federal court recently ruled the program unconstitutional.⁹ In an effort to protect himself from further consequences, the president is pressuring Congress to let him off the hook.

This is an important issue and it will help remind Americans, in an election year, what Republicans are all about—accumulating power for themselves, and trampling the system of checks and balances designed to stop that. Can you sign the petition today?

http://pol.moveon.org/dontpardon/?id=8810-4350126-WPTqUDpta5J5XPeC8AcqTg&t=3

It’s the Senate’s job to act as a check on the president’s power. If they can’t do it, they shouldn’t be in Washington.

Thanks for all you do,

–Nita, Eli, Jennifer, Wes and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
  Monday, September 18th, 2006

Continue reading this post…

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This issue just really fires me up. Let’s take it piece by piece.

Three leading high-profile Republican senators and former Secretary of State Colin Powell broke from the party loyalists and voted against the Bush administration’s proposal on the rules for interrogating wartime prisoners.

Bush held a news conference to discuss.

Questioning of suspected terrorists “won’t go forward” unless Congress clarifies a U.S. standard for the treatment and interrogation of wartime prisoners, President Bush warned on Friday.

Can you say…  bunch of crap?! This sounds like some spoiled kid on the playground who refuses to play on the swings until the other kids go away. Why can’t the intelligence officers, military personnel and other law enforcement officials play by the rules, just like they have for the last 50 years, and do their job as professionals. He makes it sound like everything will just come to a screeching halt if the new rules are passed. One of the things that differentiated American forces from other countries during World War II is that captured prisoners knew they would be treated fairly and humanely, even in most cases, better then their own governments. Often times the only way for enemy soldiers to live was to surrender to US forces, rather then face returning to their commands defeated.

“You cannot ask a young intelligence officer to violate the law,” Bush said. “If Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules … the program is not going forward.”

So basically he’s saying, we want conduct interrogations in a certain way, which is currently against the law so please change the law so we can continue to do it without doing anything wrong. Just ingnore the fact that what they are doing is morally wrong.

“My job and the job of the people here in Washington, D.C., is to protect this country,” Bush said.

Um… yeah, but your job is also to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States. When did we, as a society, decide crimes against humanity was ok as long as we are protecting ourselves?

“I believe Americans want us to protect the country, to have clear standards for our law enforcement, intelligence officers, and give them the tools necessary to protect us within the law.”

There ARE clear standards. The President just doesn’t like the standards. He wants unobstructed power to interrogate prisoners any way our government sees fit. What is this “V for Vendetta”???

In spite of how terrible the terrorists are and how much vengence we want, we can’t allow ourselves to collectively sink to their levels, to levels of indecency where moral values and personal rights and liberties, even for prisoners, are cast aside in the blind pursuit of justice.

Article 3 prohibits nations engaged in combat not of “an international character” from, among other things, “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.”

Link to CNN.com - Bush: Without my plan, detainee questioning won’t continue - Sep 15, 2006

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These days we are surrounded with reports of government eavesdropping, spys being outed and secret intelligence documents being falsified. Sometimes it seems like our modern day government is filled with escalating corruption but in fact the government (or members of it) have been breaking the rules since the beginning. Today in 1811, Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering becomes the first US senator to be censured after being accused of revealing secret documents between the president and senate.

Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

The Most Exclusive Club: A History Of The Modern United States Senate

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MoveOn.org has sent out an email alert about the vote to eliminate the Estate Tax during the next session of the Senate.

As soon as the Senate returns to Washington in September, they’ll be voting on the permanent elimination of the Estate Tax for the richest 2 percent of Americans.1 If the Estate Tax is repealed, millionaires will save close to $1 trillion dollars in the first ten years and that tax burden will shift to millions of ordinary Americans and future generations.2 The vote will be really close, Republican leaders are just one or two votes away.

Responsible Democratic senators have been able to hold the line on the Estate Tax for some time, but now a few Democrats are starting to waver. They continue to feel heat from President Bush and the tax-cut lobby, but they haven’t heard from you. That’s why we’re launching an emergency petition to let the Senate know that we’re paying attention and are ready to hold them accountable. If we can gather 200,000 signatures by next week, we will deliver them to senators in key states.

You can learn more and sign the petition at http://www.political.moveon.org/estatetax/.

Technorati Tags: Estate+tax, Republicans, Democrats, MoveOn.org

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Via MSNBC.com.

Bush has selected actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson to help guide his Supreme Court nominee through the Senate confirmation process.

Thompson, an actor on the NBC television series “Law & Order,” agreed to accept the post in a telephone conversation with the president on Monday, McClellan said.

He said Thompson, a Republican, would serve as an informal adviser to shepherd the nomination through the Senate.

…
Thompson, 62, retired from the Senate to resume his acting career. He has appeared in the movies “The Hunt for Red October,” “Cape Fear,” and “In the Line of Fire.”

Read the full article at Via MSNBC.com.
Technorati Tags: President+Bush, Supreme+Court, Fred+Thompson, Senator+Thompson, Law+and+Order, Republican, Supreme+Court+nominee, White+House

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Here’s a link to a good round-up of the different reactions across blogland regarding the compromise Monday night in the Senate on Judicial nominees. Via Crooks and Liars. If you’re looking for a good summary of what’s been happening in the last few days, this is a good place to start.
Technorati Tags: judicial nominees, filibuster, frist, blog,

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With all of the recent discussions about the fight over the filibuster, I thought I’d post a link to a good overview of the rules of the Senate.

Read the full post at The Rules of the Senate - What they are, why they matter, and how they’ll figure in the filibuster fight. By Chris Cillizza
Technorati Tags: filibuster, Judicial Nominees, constitution

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Via “Filibuster Frist” @ Princeton University

The “Filibuster Frist” at Princeton University has been going on now for over 141 hours.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Princeton class of ‘74, is preparing to change Senate rules to prevent a Democratic filibuster of judicial nominees. To protest this destructive move, members of the Princeton University community have come together to hold a non-stop “filibuster” outside the Frist Campus Center (a building sponsored by Senator Frist’s family).

The response from students has been overwhelming, but we encourage everyone to try to sign up for a time slot. Bring a friend, bring a phonebook, and show your support for democratic institutions.

Visit the website for “Filibuster Frist” @ Princeton University
Technorati Tags: filibuster, princeton, Princeton University, frist

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Via MSNBC.com

A group called Progress For America has launched a massive ad campaign, mostly on Christian radio and targeted television stations, to push President Bush’s conservative Judicial nominees. Progress For America says,

Senate Democrats have abused the rules and refused to even allow a vote,” says the television ad. “So courtrooms sit empty, while thousands of Americans have their cases delayed.

I think Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, said it best.

Apparently, no one at Progress For America has studied the Constitution or a U.S. history book, because their advertising campaign is intended to undermine a carefully chosen system of check and balances that has served this country well for more than 200 years,”

Read more at MSNBC.com
Technorati Tags: filibuster, republicans, democrats, Progress For America

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“The House and Senate Republican leaders have reached a tentative agreement on a budget.” via CNN.com

The plan calls for $10 billion in “savings”. By savings, they mean program cuts. Savings in the context of this article means savings for the government. That translates into loss of benefits for the poor and ederly.

The Blogging of the President has more analysis and insight about the tentative agreement.

Read the original article on CNN.com
Technorati: budget, medicaid

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Crooks and Liars has posted a clip of a video from 1968 with Walter Conkite about a Republican Senator using the filibuster on President Johnson’s Supreme Court nominee. The Senate has claimed that the use of the filibuster by Democrats to stop judicial nominees is unprecedented. Clearly we see that the filibuster has been in use for a very long time and has served as a weapon for both parties.

Read more and view the video clip at Crooks and Liars.
Technorati: filibuster, judicial nominees

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Why are we even having to deal with this? Why are religious organizations now political lobbying groups? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… What about the people in this country who aren’t part of the christian faith or the religious right’s specific set of values. Where is Their representative government? It seems like the separation of church and state in this country now means, separation so long as its everyone else’s faith except the christian right.

Christian radio and television networks on Sunday called for an all out attack on ending the fillibuster on judicial nominees in the US Senate. Of course the christian right knows what is best for the entire country and they are only protecting all of us. I mean over 200 years of using the fillibuster as part of the rules of the Senate were just plain wrong. The forefathers were off their tracks when they created the fillibuster. Those christian forefathers.

So what happens when the Republicans are not the majority party in congress and “liberal activist judges” are just sailing through the confirmation process? The christian organizations might think that whole fillibuster idea suddenly seems like a good thing. There is a reason why legislation moves through our branches of government at a snail’s pace. It’s so that this country is not subjected to the whims and trends of the prevailing radicals of the day. We are forced to think through our decisions, pass through the checks and balances, and make sure the laws we enact apply to and protect all of us, regardless of our faith.

Read more on the story at Yahoo! News
Also at Technorati: fillibuster, religious right, judicial nominees

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