Replies: 17 Comments

Comment #1: sanitysojourner said on 12/23/05 @ 12:09pm ET...

Rep. Conyers, in a previous post I indicated that I was afraid of my own government. This revelation has greatly enhanced that fear.

And, sad to say, I am not surprised.

As Sen. Russell Feingold was the first to say, we don't need the Patriot Act at all if the president is going to blithely ignore the Constitution.

The hard question -- requiring an even harder answer -- is: what can we do about it?

Comment #2: GreyHawk121 said on 12/23/05 @ 12:23pm ET...

Thank you, Congressman, for this post. It's a good one.

I'll direct a few folks this way...

Comment #3: Patriot said on 12/23/05 @ 3:18pm ET...

Mr. Conyers, I read your resolutions and was filled with such pride and a sense of accomplishment and a sense of being validated. When the Downing Street Memo was first discussed and I joined your movement, I told my children to watch... that this was a moment in history, a moment when the balance tipped toward truth and accountability. I am so proud to have been a small part of what you have accomplished and will yet accomplish.

We live in an amazing time. I'm a part of it, all of us here on this blog along with your staff, other bloggers and web sites owners are part of it. We're changing America and the world.

I told my kids you are not only someone involved, but you are leading the charge. You are the mad pit bull that won't let go. I salute you, sir. Your report is another step along the path, a major step and I'm just pleased as punch to be here.

My son is Skype with me now, writing to you, too (using my account because he's on a roll and doesn't want to wait two days to have his say) so everyone say "Howdy" to Adam.

PS I am "myeasybase.com" on Skype. I changed my username to make generic.

Comment #4: Patriot said on 12/23/05 @ 3:23pm ET...

"My son is Skype..." correction: My son is on Skype with me now, writing to you. (note to self: preview before submitting)

Comment #5: calebfaux said on 12/23/05 @ 3:39pm ET...

This moment is as frightening as any as I've known in my 53 years. If this assertion of the notion of the "imperial presidency" is allowed to stand, our country will change irrevocably.

Its tragic, maybe no accident, that its playing out while the nation is distracted by the holidays. Please, please, do not let this die.

Comment #6: Patriot said on 12/23/05 @ 4:10pm ET...

Hello, I'm Patriot's son. I don't have the patience to wait two days for my own login account; I will do so soon but must speak now.
As I recall the purposes of the three branches of government are as such:

The Legislative Branch is responsible for writing and editing laws.
The Judicial Branch is responsible for the interpretation of the laws set forth by the Legislative Branch.
The Executive Branch is responsible for the enforcement of those laws.

If the Executive Branch representative, i.e. the president, perceives a flaw in the law, he or she is obliged to bring the matter to the attention of the legislative branch. The Legislative Branch will then review the law, and implement whatever additions or omissions are required. It is not the responsibility of the Executive branch to write or modify laws.
If the Executive Branch perceives a flaw in the interpretation of the law, the Executive Branch is then obliged to bring the matter to the attention of the Judicial Branch. The Judicial Branch will then review the law, and set forth guidelines for the implementation of that law. It is not the responsibility of the Executive Branch to interpret the law.

The responsibility of the Executive Branch is to uphold the laws written by the Legislative branch, in the manner prescribed by the Judicial branch.
If the Executive branch acts outside the guidelines set forth by the other two branches, then the Executive Branch is failing in the duties for which it is responsible.

Bush... DO YOUR JOB AND ONLY YOUR JOB!!!

Comment #7: Patriot said on 12/23/05 @ 4:15pm ET...

#5 calebfaux: I just read the Attorney General's statement and, yes, that is scary. Very, very scary. But I think he's losing his power. His ratings are in the toilet and if he does much more dictator-like deeds, the moderate Republicans will be as scared as we are and that will give more weight to our side. The pendulum swings to the right THEN to the left.

All will be good in the end. I really believe that.

Comment #8: Nolip said on 12/23/05 @ 4:27pm ET...

No wonder George is warm for Alito's form...you can do anything illegal that you want to do as president because you have the Judicial arm of the government covering your arse..."Constitution in Crisis" should read "Thomas Jefferson et al roll over in their graves...actually I think they're spinning!"...

“Reagan-era memo said attorney general should be immune from lawsuits."

While serving in the Reagan administraion, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito defended the right of government officials to order domestic wiretaps without obtaining a warrant.

Alito defended government wiretap rights

Comment #9: Marilyn Conner said on 12/23/05 @ 4:28pm ET...

Everything the Bush Administration does is frightening and wrong.
Any idea why he changed the order of succession within the DoD?

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 22, 2005

Executive Order: Providing An Order of Succession Within the Department of Defense

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, 5 U.S.C. 3345 et. seq., it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Subject to the provisions of section 3 of this order, the officers named in section 2, in the order listed, shall act as and perform the functions and duties of the office of the Secretary of Defense (Secretary) during any period when the Secretary has died, resigned, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office of Secretary.

Sec. 2. Order of Succession.

(a) Deputy Secretary of Defense;

(b) Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence;

(c) Under Secretary of Defense for Policy;

(d) Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics;

(e) Secretary of the Army;

(f) Secretary of the Air Force;

(g) Secretary of the Navy;

(h) Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller);

(i) Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness;

(j) General Counsel of the Department of Defense, the Assistant Secretaries of Defense, and the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation;

(k) Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Material Readiness and the Director of Defense Research and Engineering;

(l) Under Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force; and

(m) Assistant Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, and General Counsels of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force.

Sec. 3. Exceptions. (a) No individual who is serving in an office listed in section 2(a)-(m) in an acting capacity shall act as Secretary pursuant to this order.

(b) Precedence among officers designated within the same subsection of section 2 of this order shall be determined by the order in which they have been appointed to such office by the President. Where officers designated within the same subsection of section 2 of this order are appointed on the same date, precedence will be determined by the order in which they have taken the oath to serve in that office.

(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of this order, the President retains discretion, to the extent permitted by law, to depart from this order in designating an acting Secretary.

Sec. 4. Judicial Review. This order is intended to improve the internal management of the executive branch and is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other person.

Sec. 5. Revocation. Executive Order No. 13000 of April 24, 1996, and the President's memorandum of June 2, 2005, entitled: "Order of Succession of Officers to Act as Secretary of Defense," are hereby revoked.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

December 22, 2005.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051222-7.html

Comment #10: Rusty said on 12/23/05 @ 4:36pm ET...

Daschle: Congress Denied Bush War Powers in U.S.

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 23, 2005; Page A04

"The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority "in the United States" in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today's Washington Post.

Daschle's disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122202119.html

Uh . . . when is someone in Congress or the media going to point out that Bush and GOP leaders are FASCISTS ? ? ?

How much more evidence is needed?

Do they have to wear a BIG SIGN saying "I AM A FASCIST" ? ? ?

Does a big blimp have to fly over the White House, Congress, and the RNC, displaying "BEWARE: FASCISTS AT WORK" in flashing neon lights ? ? ?

Governor Taft in Ohio is about to sign a bill authorizing the arrest of anyone who won't provide personal ID information to the police.

"Porter Goss is said to have asked for Turkey’s support for Washington’s policy against Iran’s nuclear activities, charging that Tehran had supported terrorism and taken part in activities against Turkey.

Goss also asked Ankara to be ready for a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria."

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=89141

Adolf W. Bush has subdued Afghanistan (Austria) and Iraq (Czechoslovakia), now its time to attack Iran (Poland).

The Reichstag fire . . . er, I mean the 9/11 attacks, proved that Amerika is surrounded by enemies! We are encircled by hostile states intent upon our destruction! Only the Great Leader can save us! God has sent him to us to save us from the evil Jews . . . er, I mean the evil Muslims!

Oops, I forgot . . . the Great Leader and his Party members all wear nice suits and ties, smile a lot, and have shiny American flag pins on their lapels, so they obviously can't be fascists. They're just a little confused about this CONSTITUTION thing and are just trying to save us from the Jews . . . er, I mean the evildoers.

If the defeatists and liberals and gays and the friends of the Jews . . . er, I mean the friends of the terrorists would just leave them alone, Amerika could have the lebensraum . . . er, I mean the security it needs to last for a thousand years.

I appreciate this forum, but if we don't want to have serial numbers tatooed on our arms and reservations for the next train leaving for that nice relocation camp in Treblinka, Ohio, it might be helpful to talk about fascism WHEN IT'S STARING US RIGHT IN THE FACE.

Frosted Rusty

Comment #11: Bill_o_Carolina said on 12/23/05 @ 5:05pm ET...

Thank you Mr. Conyers and have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Comment #12: Bill_o_Carolina said on 12/23/05 @ 5:30pm ET...

Here's a post I found very very interesting. Perhaps someone here can enlighten me as I never fly.

excerpt;
Last month, Qualcomm Corporation issued a press release stating that they had developed a new technology that would finally make it possible to make cellular phone calls from commercial airliners. Using a technology called "Pico Cells", the system will work as a link between the airliner and ground towers. According to the press release, it is currently impossible to connect by cell phone in a plane that is above 4,000 feet.
--http://www.globalnewsmatrix.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4073

Comment #13: Patriot said on 12/23/05 @ 8:39pm ET...

I've read the first half of the report. What a historical document! There are some people having a very nervous holiday season.

Good job, Mr. C!

Comment #14: epppie said on 12/23/05 @ 9:42pm ET...

I'm happy with Emperor George. It's about time we had an emperor around here!

'Specially if we are going to be an empire!

"We" being the right people.

Comment #15: Frosted Flake said on 12/23/05 @ 9:57pm ET...

I apologize for the delay in posting comment. I see that my absence has been noted (Hi, Rusty). Some posts are harder to write than others, Very briefly, I do not recall having so enjoyed a christmas gift at least since my first bike. Maybe longer. I hope to have my comment posted before the football game tomorrow, and might have something useful.

This post though, is a slam dunk and I can do it off the cuff.

Cutting thru the alleged gordian knot in one stroke, I note that the administration has been in consultation with the reporters who broke the story all the way down the line. They knew what the story was the whole time and the whole time amounts to over a year. There is no surprise here for the administration. Yet there have been no arrests, nor is there the suggestion that there might be. Further, it may be noted that while the administration, in various ways, remonstrated against publication, it did not and should have, if there was a legal basis, prohibit publication. The primary assertion that the the publication of the story was illegal is demonstrated to be fraudulent by the lack of enforcement action on the part of the administration.

If the law is on thier side why haven't they used it? The domestic power of the executive amounts to little more than the ability to require anothers attendance to particular matters in front of an unbiased jury, and to there make referance to the law. This power pales in comparison to what it could be because the function of the jury is to check the balence, which requires a comparison of the the law with the facts, and to issue a finding, or verdict.

This doesn't always work. But it works often enough to be of some value. And in this case we have the extra wrinkle in that, in the theater across the street from this one there is another story playing out, with a passel of astonishing similarities, but in which the administration is propounding a legal theory 180 degrees in opposition to the line staked out here. I'd like to think it impossible to pursue mutually exclusive stratagies in simultaneous cases. In the interest of law, justice and freedom. But, what I genuinely know to be impossible is the prevention of a clever newsman watching both cases from comparing the two of them on the front page. Headline : AT LEAST one of these is wrong.

Fact is they both are. One claims there is lawbreaking, the other that there isn't. The case asserted good is not pursued, the case asserted bad is............Proceeding. Libby Has been indicted, basicly for 'resistance'. Rove is next, if he doesn't roll over. If you have just returned from a ten year stint in a cave, on Mars, with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears, singing "Nom hyo rhenge' quow", and you want to know what's happinin, this is the place to start. There is little more than this to this admonistration. (spelt rite) That the administration acts in the exact manner one would expect of criminals is what is being demonstrated here. I'd like to say this more cleverly, but, People who act like criminals, are.

Notice that I've made not one referance to specific law in this post. The administration didn't either, in its' letter to the heads of the intelligence commitees. I'd referance the PDF, if it would load today, but it won't load today, so I'll have to use my recollection of it in making this point, and look at it again later. What I recall the administration doing was, using a few words from several statues to string togeather a series of words amounting a sentance and then making the assertion that because each of those words was written by Congress (at one point or another) the sentance made out of them was also written by Congress, and is law, whether Congress likes it or not. This is the same method used by Bart Simpson when he followed Marge around with a tape deck, so that he might cut and splice her words into what she not only never would have said, but never did. That's a cartoon, this is life, other than that, no differance.

Taking a step back to more readily appreciate the bigger picture, brings easily to my recollection a phone conversation I had with the Marion County District Attorney. I was trying to find out how it was he could stand silent before the Court when asked to state the reason I had been, on his say so, held for a week without my medicine. The legal theory he cited to justify his action was " Gom da flu da flibbit." He then, with an air of expectancy awaited my response. When I pointed out that this made no sense, at all, in any language, he said that if I didn't understand what it was that he had said, I would just have to take his word for it. That turned out to be true. It turned out that way because the means of legal force were in his hands, not mine. I could, and did, file a complaint with USDOJ. DOJ doesn't give a gom da flu da flibbit. I am welcome to sue, as Amy Conroy did here in Oregon recently. She spent $100,000. All she won was $5 Million, from the taxbase. She did not affect policy. At all. That, and the lack of a 100,000 bucks tends to limit what a man can do about this on his own hook and if the Congress feels a collective novelty in the explanation it has recieved from the executive in regards this matter it might worth a moments thought that it is usually us being told what you said and this time it is you being told what you said. It might be worth another moment to consider the sort of language the Congress will have to use in future if it wishes to communicate its decisions into actions. The laws might have to be made very short. And impossible to misunderstand.

Or you could ask the reporters if they want to plead not guilty.

It'ed be a great story. All you would need is one lawyer with prosecution experience to make sure it gets done right, and the reporters could fill the forms out themselves. They would do it, because at the end of that rainbow is an official lie to Congress. Just like the one that took the armies of several Countries into Iraq.

Think of it as another Christmas preasent.
Frosted Flake

Comment #16: DTW 06 said on 12/23/05 @ 11:16pm ET...

"No people ever lost their liberties unless they themselves first became corrupt. The people are the safeguards of their own liberties, an I rely wholly on them to guard themselves." - Andrew Jackson

Comment #17: cali said on 12/24/05 @ 12:44pm ET...

Congressman Conyers,
I'm not sure of this site, as I have never been to it before. If it is reliable you might want to check out this military mom's story.

Letter From a Military Mom: Domestic Spying & Incident of Intimidation of Military Families

I am sending this letter to you in hope of finding a source to hear my concerns. It is something that has bothered me since the occurrence, and I know it is not something that should have happened, and I worry for my family's safety as I step out to speak about this. During my son's deployment to Iraq, February 2004-February 2005: I created a small group website on MSN, for families and friends of our soldiers’ deployed unit. It was a membership only site, and we were a tight group of mostly "Moms", from all over the United States, just trying to make it through each day. The support and help we gave one another is a singular experience of grace, I will never forget. We were a group of 77 families from all over the country, at the time of the call. Every single family was phoned and told not to use the site; and I believe some 150 other families were phoned as well, as it was an official order from a commanding officer. I have waited to speak of this situation until my son was home safe and sound, and also after his transfer to another base. Yes, I was afraid of repercussions that could have harmed him, one way or another. I called my local senator's office, 4 months ago, following up every 10 days to 2 weeks, and still have no answers or support.

Robin Vaughan
MomRobin7@msn.com

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=559&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0