In Retrospect: Who is Really Un-American??
Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
You know, one thing I get so sick of hearing from all the right-wing loons is how Progressives like myself and many of you are un-American. We have our patriotism questioned on a daily basis. Right-Wing idiots on the radio rail about how we do not believe in the Constitution and the values this country was founded on. Well, details that have emerged in the last couple of days show that the Bush Administration and their shameless enablers in the Republican Party and the former Republican Congress are the ones who really do not believe in the Constitution, or the freedoms granted by it.
Despite all the accusations against Progressives and our ideals and candidates the sad truth of the matter is that Conservatives by blindly following the worst President in American history did more to shred the Constitution and the protections contained therein than any Democrat or Progressive would have ever dreamed.
Now, most Progressives were dead-set against granting such an ideologue, and reckless irresponsible man such as George W. Bush with unprecedented powers not granted him by our Constitution because of his own incompetence in stopping the terrorist attacks on 9-11. We had serious problems with rolling back generations of Constitutional protections for anyone. For that, our patriotism was questioned and we were branded as cowards, or worse yet traitors.
Details now not only should scare all Americans half to death but show that Progressives who opposed Bush, Cheney and all their enablers within our government were not only patriotic in their actions, but were dead-on right about the Republican shredding of the Constitution through their own failures and propoganda.
A team of Inspectors General has determined that the true unpatriotic and un-American actions came from the Republican side of the aisle and were much more widespread than we had feared:
WASHINGTON – Not enough relevant officials were aware of the size and depth of an unprecedented surveillance program started under President George W. Bush, let alone signed off on it, a team of federal inspectors general found.
The Bush White House pulled in a great quantity of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, the IGs reported. They questioned the legal basis for the effort but shielded almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal.
The report, mandated by Congress last year and delivered to lawmakers Friday, also says it's unclear how much valuable intelligence the program has yielded.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090711/ap_on_go_co/us_domestic_surveillance
These Inspectors General found not only that the Bush Administration was spying on an unprecedented level, but that these programs were not sufficiently monitored and leads generated had nothing to do with terrorism:
The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the IGs pointedly say that any continued use of the secret programs must be "carefully monitored."
Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."
Now, I do not know what FBI agents found this activity "worthwhile" but they should immediately be dismissed. Just like the failed Bush Administration they seem to think that shredding the Constitution is all right as long as it may make their jobs a little easier. I thought their job was to protect the Constitution, not shred it.
Even scarier is that it appears that only one person got to determine who could know about programs that desperately needed oversight by elected officials and of course, the Bush Administration did not admit to most of the spying they did:
The IG report said that Bush signed off on both the warrantless wiretapping and other top-secret operations shortly after Sept. 11 in a single presidential authorization. All the programs were periodically reauthorized, but except for the acknowledged wiretapping, they "remain highly classified."
Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made a terse reference to other classified programs in an August 2007 letter to Congress. But Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said that when she had asked Gonzales two years earlier if the government was conducting any other undisclosed intelligence activities, he denied it.
Despite the claims of the Bush Administration it appears that these programs had little to do with counter-terrorism:
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden — the primary architect of the program — told the report's authors that the surveillance was "extremely valuable" in preventing further al-Qaida attacks. Hayden said the operations amounted to an "early warning system" allowing top officials to make critical judgments and carefully allocate national security resources to counter threats.
Information gathered by the secret program played a limited role in the FBI's overall counterterrorism efforts, according to the report. Very few CIA analysts even knew about the program and therefore were unable to fully exploit it in their counterterrorism work, the report said.
This report also shows that the Bush Administration ignored the illegal nature of these programs by interpreting the law how they wanted it to be, not how it was written:
The report questioned the legal advice used by Bush to set up the program, pinpointing omissions and questionable legal memos written by Yoo, in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The Justice Department withdrew the memos years ago.
The report says Yoo's analysis approving the program ignored a law designed to restrict the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime, and did so without fully notifying Congress. And it said flaws in Yoo's memos later presented "a serious impediment" to recertifying the program.
Yoo insisted that the president's wiretapping program had only to comply with Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure — but the report said Yoo ignored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which had previously overseen federal national security surveillance.
But to me, the most disturbing part is that although Democrats in the House seem to want to bring more oversight to these operations the White House seems determined to keep them going without oversight:
In the wake of the new report, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, renewed his call Friday for a formal nonpartisan inquiry into the government's information-gathering programs.
House Democrats are pressing for legislation that would expand congressional access to secret intelligence briefings, but the White House has threatened to veto it.
Now, we all know that the Bush Administration will be remembered as a dark stain on freedom and American history. We all know they saw the Constitution as toilet paper, and nothing that should have stopped them from doing whatever the hell they wanted to do. What is quite perplexing to me is why our current administration would see fit to veto a bill that would give the Congress oversight over these programs.
Unlike the Republicans, we simply cannot fall behind a leader of our party blindly and follow him like sheeple no matter what is done. We need Congressional oversight over these programs no matter whether Republicans or Democrats are in the White House. I for one want no part in the shredding of our Constitution and the robbing of American freedoms. That is Republican territory.
What we desperately need is for the Congress to enact legislation that allows our elected Representatives to provide oversight over these programs which the Republicans were all to eager to just trust their failed "god-king" on. Every Administration is subject to the protections of the Constitution no matter what letter is behind their names.
The Obama Administration would do well to bear this in mind:
Although the report documents Bush administration policies, its fallout could be a problem for the Obama administration if it inherited any or all of the still-classified operations.
We simply cannot afford to inherit facism and not end it.
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Terror Alert System to be Reviewed
Remember when the Bush Administration was whipping us all into a frenzy and telling us that we should be afraid, yes very afraid?? Remember when they came up with that cute little system to tell us just how afraid we really should be?? Remember this??:
Well, it appears the guys at Sesame Street might not be able to scare the hell out of us anymore:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/13/obama-review-nations-color-co...
I mean honestly folks, I have not known whether we were at Cookie Monster, Bert, Ernie or Elmo in a long time now. From what I understand we have never been on poor old Oscar the Grouch. Unless you include Dick Cheney. I think this might just be a Bush Administration relic of idiocy that we might just be able to do away with.
Thoughts??
Senator Kyl's Hypocrisy Would Cost His State MiIllions
The hypocrisy of the Republican Party seemingly knows no bounds. In the latest example, Senator John Kyl of Arizona would seek to cost his constituents hundreds of millions of dollars. Why?? Because he wants to attack President Obama about the Economic Stimulus his own rubber-stamping of the Bush Administration helped cause.
The junior Senator of Arizona recently called for an end to all Stimulus spending. However, a closer look at this proposal shows that it would cost the people of Arizona hundreds of millions of dollars and end transit projects in Phoenix. The White House quickly fired back:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090715/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_kyl_stimulus
Of course, Kyl fails to take into account that the stimulus has not really had enough time to work, and that the mess left behind by his predecessors was much worse than anyone anticipated.
Fellow Republican and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood certainly did not agree. He sent a letter to the Republican Governor of Arizona asking if she would like to forfeit the rest of Arizona's portion of the stimulus funds:
This brought a quick, and quite hypocritical response from Kyl's office:
This coming from the same Jon Kyl that had no problem with the former administration politicizing the justice department.
LaHood and other administration officials pointed out just how much money Kyl would cost his own constituents:
The Governor however, seemed not to agree with Kyl on the funding, but stopped short of telling him to shut up:
However, just in case the Republican Governor changed her mind, the mayor of Phoenix was quick to volunteer his city to oversee Arizona's portion of the funding:
Of course, the usual suspects including senior Senator John McCain were quick to defend Kyl to make a political point over the well-being of their own state:
Now, I don't know about you but all this hypocritical railing by hypocritical Republicans about the stimulus spending is getting quite annoying. My own Congressman, Exxon Ed Whitfield complained about Kentucky's piece of the pie when he actually voted than NOBODY should get ANYTHING!!
What is really amazing is that all of these guys who are so dead-set against stimulus spending had no problem whatsoever when they were rubber-stamping the policies of greed and idiocy proposed by George W. Bush that crashed our economy off a cliff. They had no problem allowing him to go to war in the wrong country without oversight which has cost hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands upon thousands of lives.
They were all for giving out no-bid contracts to firms like Halliburton who fleeced American taxpayers for untold more hundreds of billions of dollars while not even doing the job they were paid to do. They were all for the policies of waste and fraud that allowed our injured troops to come home and heal with cockroaches at Walter Reed so long as the public was not aware of it. They are the ones who enabled the waste and fraud that created the need for a stimulus in the first place and now they want to lecture all of us on "fiscal responsibility" because all the money is no longer going to the greediest and least patriotic among us who just so happen to fund their campaigns?? What complete and total hypocrisy!!
Like many Americans I am frustrated at the time it is taking for our economy to recover. However, I think we should focus on the scale of the problem and on who caused it to begin with. Republican control of our government was a huge disaster and men like Jon Kyl and Exxon Ed Whitfield were there every step of the way rubber-stamping every failed policy that created the need for all the measures to try and clean up their mess.
Whether you agree with President Obama on everything or not the fact of the matter is that he inherited a mess caused by the very people who are railing against the measures he has taken to try and help our country recover from the failed rule of a failed party. No person was going to come into the White House and immediately clean up the huge mess left behind by the legacy of a decade of waste, greed and idiocy.
If John McCain would have won the White House, we would be a lot further away from our country recovering because the same policies that caused the crisis would still be used and our country by now would be mired not only in a recession but a full-blown depression.
Americans need a little patience to allow the stimulus to fully take effect. However, the last thing we need to do is listen to the very people whose greed and lunacy got us to the point we were at when President Obama came to office. In retrospect they are railing against their own failure and have proven that they simply cannot be trusted to do anything but crash our economy with their own failed policies of greed. That is the truth they hope we all forget.