Letters to the Editor
What Constitution?
Published Letters: 158
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Mukasey -- are the Democrats Getting This?
[Read the article: Democrats' strategy: Strength through bowing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The chief law enforcement officer of the United States now goes before a committee of Congress and testifies that he refuses to allow charges to be brought against any officer or employee of the United States who engaged in torture, if that officer might have been following orders given by a superior ranking person also employed by the United States government?
What planet are we on?
Saying something like this in public should be grounds for immediate termination of employment, disbarment, criminal prosecution in its own right, and certainly the institution of impeachment proceedings against any President who refuses immediately to fire such a fascist pig. Of course, it's GWB's fascist pig, so the rules seem to differ.
The United States Constitution was not constructed to withstand an unopposed presumption that the King's ministers can do no wrong. Oh, wait, it wasn't even built to withstand an unopposed presumption that there's a king.
Look, let's be honest: all this "above the law" crap just got a huge boost from the Democratic cave on FISA. Mukasey tells Congress there will be no consequences for torture. Rove blows off a congressional subpoena. I'm not sure what else Cheney could say to top "I don't have to talk to Congress because I'm not part of the Executive Branch", but he's undoubtedly trying to think of something. Addington sneers to a congressional committee that he won't answer any question about the legality of administration actions because "I'm not here to give Congress legal advice, you have your own lawyers." Anyone see any chance this will abate or the pace of administration taunting of Congress will get less obnoxious between now and next January?
It's been open season on the Constitution for these bozos since Pelosi proclaimed that impeachment is off the table. It's now worse than that, as there have been obvious bounties placed by the administration on targeted Constitutional principles which are perceived as inconvenient to dictatorship. Every flagrant attack on a fundamental premise of constitutional democracy that can be flouted or abused, without significant Democratic opposition, is going to be flouted and abused between now and January, because the congressional inaction is going to be characterized as consent.
Would somebody please deal with this? And how obvious is the risk that, in the midst of this, there will be a car bomb in Cleveland or some other place, and gee, martial law and the suspension of elections anyone?
Act like a co-equal branch of government, please, Congress. Is that so much to ask? Isn't that our due?
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Patrick Morgan
[Read the article: Democrats' strategy: Strength through bowing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't really out to get you, right?
This has seemed troubling to me for a while, as I commented here back on February 14 during the last round of FISA:
"The thing nobody is asking is whether Obama or Clinton would seek to reverse any of these attacks upon the Constitution. Another thing nobody is asking is why President Bush and his cronies would seek to implement doctrines of presidential power that they would never tolerate if the Democrats proposed them -- and what does this suggest about whether Bush/Cheney has already decided that we're one explosion away from martial law and the suspension of elections."
I'd rather we impeach the bastards first. For posterity and the rule of law.
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What he said!
[Read the article: Interview with ACLU re: constitutional challenge to new FISA law]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Word, Senator, word. That's lingo for "thanks for all the fish", right?
Anyway, we ain't done yet. There are some who care. Thanks, Glenn, especially, for the clarity and the emphases of your tireless efforts. It ain't over til it's over, and it ain't over yet.
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Thank you, Glenn; Thank you, Blue Meme; and who else to thank?
[Read the article: Torture and the rule of law]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If a crime is committed and nobody cares, is it still a crime?
I read Plato a long time ago and all I remember about Socrates now is he liked "Dust in the Wind" when Bill and Ted met him in their Excellent Adventure. I thank Blue Meme (and, for that matter, Good Celery) for the presence of mind to be able to recall some lessons from history that it appears our whole society is doomed to repeat. What a concept:
"the new values were mouthed by Thrasymachus 2400 years ago:
'injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice'."
Glenn, another brilliant exposition of what it means while the rest of us still are sputtering coffee at the outrage and wrongness of it all. Thank you.
The United States Constitution does not contemplate or provide any justification for what has been going on -- but the Constitution is not self-enforcing. It is a failure of integrity -- both in the presidential cabal's evil attacks upon the Constitution's structure in the form of the "unitary executive theory" and in the congressionally obsequious failure to pursue the Constitution's plain enforcement mechanism of impeachment -- that has put us in this position and allows the adminstration to keep us there. [I have referred to the Democratic majority's cowardice as a failure of will, not of law, once before but this reminds me too much of Leni Riefenstahl and the Nazis at Munich so I'm going to stop doing that, not that it doesn't chill me to reflect that the Democrats' acquiescence in the face of the administration's putsch doesn't justify recognizing what Bush/Cheney have almost completely achieved could be called a Triumph of the Will].
The place we should be examining where our government has taken us is in hearings, any kind of hearings at any committee or full chamber level, on Kucinich's impeachment resolutions. Thank you, Representative Kucinich, for not giving in to despondency over the "conventional [unbelievably stupid and destructive] wisdom" that passes for continuing to give credence to an "impeachment is off the table" sound bite as if that assertion possessed some kind of unassailable substantive merit.
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sorry for the double negative
[Read the article: Torture and the rule of law]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I meant to say the administration's conduct and the Congress' cowardice "does", not "doesn't" remind me of the Nazi rise to power.