The Heretik

HOKUSAI REMINDS ME

HOKUSAI REMINDS ME again when the world runs weary to a stop.  Hokusai reminds me the same snow falls around the world, that we sometimes see it less than white, when night is falling and shadows fall as softly as whispers.  Hokusai reminds that the world of coming shadows, of coming hues of gray and blue soon will grow black, that in some of this is a beauty chilled and crisp. Hokusai the wild youth who became the old man mad with painting reminds me always of the snow cold that melts on your face and mine.  And when the snow cold melts to run down our faces we are alive.

I'M NOT A LAWYER, BUT . . .

TODAY’S LINE from Condoleezza Rice on Meet The Press is a preview of what you can expect to hear from the President and anyone making his case for spying without a warrant on citizens.[C&L video]  The president has the authority. . .

Tim, the president has authorities under FISA, which we are using and using actively. He also has constitutional authorities that derive from his role as commander in chief and his need to protect the country. He has acted within his constitutional authority and within statutory authority. . .
Tim, again, I'm not a lawyer, but the president has constitutional authority and he has statutory authorities.

RICE REPEATEDLY SAID she was not a lawyer, yet offered a “legal” explanation for the President's acts.  He has the authority.  Constitutional authority.  Statutory authority.  Yet he crossed constitutional lines and he disregarded statutes. But he has the authority.  Because his lawyers offered him independent advice.  Or something.  Stir this in with numerous mentions of September Eleventh, September Eleventh and you will have the gumbo the White House will serve up to disguise its treading upon the fourth amendment.  The cynical may count up the number of times Rice recites she is not a lawyer, but others may find this simply hard to stomach.

THE BAR EXAM The right says right on to all Bush has done. He should be doing more of the same. The left calls for impeachment.  And others say move on.  We live in a strange world where lawyers whisper in private and non lawyers and lawyers shout now in public. On one side the outrage comes from a lack of answers, on the other that authority is even questioned.  Some won’t get answers no matter how many questions get asked, but the questions remain.  We live in a world where people view freedom differently and what security is remains something few will allow many to question.

NEW AMERICAN GOTHIC

MY WIFE IS DONE beating up on traitor Democrats like Biden and Kennedy.  She will leave those losers right where they belong with the other frothing rabid dogs. My wife wants to give a beating where the beating belongs. She wants to beat the bushes now, in particular Bush George.  She says if he were our son, she would tell him he is one bad son of a bitch.  I am no sure how to tell her what that makes her.

SHUT UP she says. Shut up, you bitches.  I am pretty sure she spiked the eggnog after she found out the New York Times spiked this spy on citizen story for a whole year.  When she heard about all the right and righteous ones on the right who want to put the Times on a spike for treason, I think she downed a whole bottle of Jim Beam while I was working what is left of my upper body at the home gym. The Times has  a past it should have lived up to sooner, rather than later, my wife said.
 
SHUT UP you bitches, she said with some relish.  We know treason and have seen it before.   I know it was alcohol I was smelling on her breath as she finished up the last of her toast and the editorial in the Washington Post. I enjoyed that brief moment of silence before the damn broke loose. The torrent started to rip Bush’s way.
 
SHUT UP she says. Shut up, you bitches. I am pretty sure the minister might notice something other than angel’s breath this morning when my angel takes the sacrament.  It’s beats the devil out of me how I am going to make her stop her stammering about beating the hell out of that son of a bitch Bush. Don’t you see it’s all related, she yells as she puts on her yellow coat.  I am going to drive us now to the meeting house if she doesn’t drive me crazy first.  I hope she doesn’t start up about the lawyers.  She would say by by to Bybee in a minute. 

SHUT UP she says.  Shut up, you bitches. You is a bitch, I heard her  say. Rarely am I the one to suffer her attack.  And her grammar seemed lost, if only for a moment. My wife collected what I thought was the lost parts of her mind.  Then she said. Not you.  Yoo,  John Yoo is a bitch.  I hoped she would be done by the time we got to church, because I was sure all the congregants would hear her and possibly god in high heaven.  Yoo is in trouble and I'm glad it's not me.

SHUT UP she says.  Shut up, you bitches.  Things got more graphic as she stuck her head out the car window.  She suggested a solution to the problem which might work for her, but not for me.  My wife said we should take all these lawyers who tell Bush breaking the law is all right and we should shove them all up Bush's ass.  My wife said that would shut up those bitches for good and might give Bush pause from running his mouth as well.  My darling who smiles rarely went quiet, then gave me the oddest grin.

THEN SHE TURNED ON ME and asked me where is Osama?  I didn't want to be the one to tell her the reason he hasn't been found.

MEMO FROM DEVINE, WRIGHT, AND WRONG

TO: YOUR DUDELINESS IN CHIEF war president, and ruler of the free world
FROM: Yer lawyer, and frat bro, T. Naughton Devine.
RE: Your powers.

Your powers are limitless, maybe even more than that.  So long as the war lasts, your power will as well. Do what you have to and we will come up with arguments as needed.  Per our previous discussion, think about declaring yourself president for life. Some members of your own party may object, but will fall in line.

YOU ARE A PRESIDENT without precedent!   Remember you are saving lives here! Also, executing all Democrats and media types might be helpful.  The less traitors around, the more rights for the rest of us.  See Rumsfeld about finding pens less mighty than the sword.

KOOL AID TIME AGAIN

SAVING LIVES will be the saving line if not the saving grace for a White House looking to save its collective ass.  The collective ass would be what the President is trying to make of us but he is saving lives against this the great new collective. We are saving lives in The War Against Everything TM.  Check out how may times Scott McLellan says the White House is saving its ass saving lives by breaking the law spying on citizens by doing what is necessary consistent with the laws of our country and the Constitution.  If you haven’t noticed, it’s us against them time again.

OUR CAUSE IS JUST and we are not afraid to look just ridiculous in the fight against them.  The new collective we fight against replaces the old collective that was communism.  The new collective is the caliphate. Or the dream of the caliphate. The caliphate is the dream of Osama who we can’t catch. Or Zarqawi who we caught, but released. All these Arabs who are Muslims and Muslims who are not Arabs will unite together with Muslims who are secular and not practicing what the others preach to crush us.  Our enemies are far more organized than us and even more singleminded than Our Leader when he decided spying on us was the way to save us from them.  They who are them only dream of making our nightmare come true.

IT’S ALL PRETTY CLEAR Bush getting caught doing what he shouldn’t have done he wouldn’t have done if the evil doers hadn’t made him do it.  Spying?  Must be done. Gotta save lives. From them. Patriot Act?  Saving lives.  From them.  And saving time.  Because when you are saving lives, the quickest way to do it is to march right over the Constitution.  Even FISA courts can't be bothered with. Anybody who doesn’t understand that is unamerican.  You are either with us or against us. Blah, blah, blah.

CRY ME A DAMNED RIVER

THERE ARE MANY RIVERS TO CROSS before we get to the dance of the damned where demagogues again appeal to fear while they condemn those who lament the loss of liberty. Bush is still president and Rudy Giuliani would like to be.  If there are two men who have milked the sad cow of September Eleventh more, somebody tell me please.

WHEN THE MILKING IS DONE we will still have our tears, perhaps finally dry.  We have seen a river of tears running along the Hudson.  We have seen a river of woe along the Potomac.  We have known true patriots who defend rather than attack.  We know who cries true for lost soldiers and lost liberty. We have seen enough of lost soldiers to know a river of tears will not wash them back.  We will not be governed by demagogues who say they defend liberty, but then attack it when we turn our backs.

THE PATRIOT IS SEEN in the word and in the act and scoundrels are as well. A president who thinks he shouldn’t have to take the time to get a warrant before he can spy on you now says no time may be lost. The Patriot Act must be approved . . . so we can spy on you.  The Senate as a legislative body is but meant to approve the emperor's dicutms.

Yet a minority of senators filibustered to block the renewal of the Patriot Act when it came up for a vote yesterday. That decision is irresponsible, and it endangers the lives of our citizens. The senators who are filibustering must stop their delaying tactics, and the Senate must vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act. In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment.

WE HAVE EACH had our single moment of sadness that goes on forever more within. Bush says we can’t wait until our enemies from without strike again. The Patriot Act Giuliani says was carefully considered was voted on without debate.  The fool is quick to judge while the tongue of the wise will let his words wait. Bush must think us fools, as though we don’t know the law.

AT LEAST BUSH MENTIONED the law, the law he didn’t respect when he decided laws mean nothing if you are a war time president.   It is hard to figure what Bush seeks to remind us of more to scare us, that we are at war, or that he is president.  He’s a war president. Damn it.

To fight the war on terror, I am using authority vested in me by Congress, including the Joint Authorization for Use of Military Force, which passed overwhelmingly in the first week after September the 11th. I'm also using constitutional authority vested in me as Commander-in-Chief.
In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.

SOME MIGHT OFFER a message to Bush as we step lively in our dance of the damned. The demagogue should know: Just because you say it doesn’t make it so.  Warrantless searches and spying are not consistent with U.S. law nor with the Constitution. We the people deserve better and it’s time you remembered that people don’t forget.  We have cried a river of tears for the lost and drowned in your rhetoric, your duplicity and bad faith. I would not tell you to cry me a river and tell you to drown in that damned river for all your lame protest, but others less patient just might. And they might tell Giuliani the viper Il Douchebag to go to hell too.

MORE ON BUSH AND SPYING
OOPS, HE’D DO IT AGAIN Only unamerican activities can save America, folks. Bush sounds like a little boy unappreciated.

Appearing angry at points during his eight-minute address, Bush said he had reauthorized the program more than 30 times since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and plans to continue doing so.
"I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaida and related groups," he said.

THE HERETIK NOTES COMMANDER IN CHIEF, war forever, spying forever, President challenged. And he’s angry.  Bush does not get it.

Reacting to Bush's defense of the NSA program, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said the president's remarks were "breathtaking in how extreme they were."
Feingold said it was "absurd" that Bush said he relied on his inherent power as president to authorize the wiretaps.
"If that's true, he doesn't need the Patriot Act because he can just make it up as he goes along. I tell you, he's President George Bush, not King George Bush. This is not the system of government we have and that we fought for," Feingold told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The president had harsh words for those who talked about the program to the media, saying their actions were illegal and improper.
"As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have," he said. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."

SO THE QUESTION IS who is the enemy? And who is putting our citizens at risk? Those questions remain for us to answer. When Bush was done with his Saturday radio address, he took no questions.

STILL MORE ON the question Bush looks less and less likely to answer.
NY TIMES ASKS the question today: But Mr. Bush did not address the main question directed at him by some members of Congress on Friday: why he felt it necessary to circumvent the system established under current law, which allows the president to seek emergency warrants, in secret, from the court that oversees intelligence operations. His critics said that under that law, the administration could have obtained the same information.

THE HERETIK ASKED the same question two days ago.

RELATED HERETIK POST Inherent BS
ALSO SEE Does He Know He Isn't King ?

SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS

THE GREAT VICTORY ON TORTURE John McCain “won” on Thursday is now over. Open now the gates of hell and of Guantanamo. Torture is back in business, big time.  What the left hand gives, the right takes away.  Rights and dignity in McCain’s measure against “torture” sit side by side with a Graham amendment in a single Defense spending bill. Justice and decency are bid for in the dropping of coins from our national treaury, then they drop from sight.  Let the victory tour roll on.  The Graham Levin amendment limits appeals of detainees for justice and um not incidentally allows “coerced testimony” to be used in military courts.

Thomas B. Wilner, a lawyer who represents a group of Kuwaiti detainees at Guantánamo Bay, said in an interview that the new language would render the McCain restrictions unenforceable at the Cuban prison. "If McCain is one small step forward, enactment of this language would be two giant steps backwards," Mr. Wilner said.
Two of the main Senate sponsors of the measure, Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, defended the changes made to the language that the Senate passed last month, 84 to 14.
Mr. Graham acknowledged the measure's intention to make it possible to use information obtained by coercive interrogation techniques in military panels that evaluate whether detainees at Guantánamo are being rightfully held as "enemy combatants." He argued that the techniques were not abusive.

LEVIN SHOULD BE PARTICULARLY ASHAMED in this pass the buck pas de deux.  In this dance of the damned, he says he had to choose between two bad alternatives.  Evil wins when good gives up and chooses the lesser rather than fighting for the better.  The New York Times has an editorial out that says  Ban All Torture, which is what you would think happened in with the McCain amendment.  But what really happened is a case of you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours and don’t look at whether we just scratched the eyes out of some poor bastard or worse. 

JUSTICE IS BLIND to what will now go on, but the architects of this minor atrocity will pat each other on the back.  Call in the cameras. We have an announcement. Torture is banned, but it isn’t.  Are the cameras ready? Done.  You scratch my balls, I’ll scratch yours. Such announcements sound like  the scratching of fingernails on a chalkboard.  Chalk one up for tearing out fingernails. We do not torture, but tortured testimony is cool.  Or something

KAFKA MEETS MISTER MACABRE in the form of David Addington, whose name never fails to add up as a minus where  a man’s dignity, the political process, and language meet.

Mr. Addington, who was a primary architect of the presidential order [establishing the military commissions], argued in the debates earlier this year that by explicitly prohibiting evidence obtained by torture, the administration would raise an unnecessary red flag. suggesting at least implicitly that prisoners in American custody were, in fact, being tortured, officials said.

SO THE ADMISSION COMES in the denial.  We cannot deny what we do because that would admit what we do.  So we slip into darkness, back into the black sea, and our reptilian past.

MORE VOICES IN THE SOUND AND THE FURY
EMILY BAZELON The Get Out of Torture Free Card: How will McCain and Graham-Levin-Kyl play out in practice? One reading of the twin provisions is that a government interrogator who tortured a detainee could be prosecuted for violating McCain's ban, even as the testimony he elicited is used to keep that detainee or another one behind bars. Talk about sending mixed signals. In practice, though, it's hard to see how claims of torture will come to light in any of these proceedings.

SOME WILL SAY Bush and more particularly Cheney won on this. No one won. We all lost.

BODY AND SOUL Jeanne has an assignment: This is confusing, and it's meant to be. While the headlines blare that Bush finally agreed that torture and abuse will not be allowed, and that the Army Field Manual will determine how prisoners are treated, it looks like the final agreement will be that torture is forbidden, but if one of our guys happens to do it, he can argue that a "reasonable person" wouldn't have considered an act contrary to the Army Field Manual to actually be unlawful, and if a victim confesses under the stress of that accidentally unlawful treatment, we can still use the information in a tribunal. And if you happen to find yourself in that unhappy position, you will have no right to ask why you're being held.

THE HERETIK SUSPECTS some teachers may offer more assignments of reading Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. 

WAPO GETS IT RIGHT well half right, when it says: In short, restoring the rule of law over an administration that deliberately chose lawlessness in its treatment of detainees may be an arduous process. And yet the McCain amendment is a vital, and hard-won, opening move.

THOSE WHO FORGET the bad faith this administration has engaged in may soon see worse.  The Post seems to have jumped on the McCain train and neglected to connect how the Graham Levin Kyl amendment kills it.

PESSIMIST at Left Coaster sees the cartoon aspect: What was it Boris Badinov used to say? Ah, yes: "Never underestimate the power of a schnook!"

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH gets the bottom line on this: If passed into law, this would be the first time in American history that Congress has effectively permitted the use of evidence obtained through torture.

INHERENT BS

LET THE McKRAP TM FLY inherent or otherwise. We live in the age of inherent BS. You Yoo would think we had been through this before.  You Yoo would think we would have learned.  You Yoo would be wrong.  Power seeks power the way water seeks a drain.  In the inevitable and violent vortex democracy is sucked, down and out and the citizens who survive the silent cataclysm are left high and dry, out of luck, out in the cold.  You Yoo would think we should be glad we survived the presidential power grab all external threats to us.
 
ALL HAIL the king the president of the United States.  If you wonder why Bush calls himself a war president, it is because the base of his claims to great power rests on the powers found in Article Two of the Constitution as war time commander in chief.  The other articles of the Constitution are discarded like yesterday's fashions. Just what Bush wars against remains to be seen. If war lasts forever or longer, sound the trumpets and get ready for the coronation. Those holding the crown may need to wait until Congress get done with an investigation.  Or do they?

WE NOW LIVE in a bathtub republic where power floats wherever the king the president might drift.  All the king’s horses and all the king’s president’s men advise the chosen one the mere man who lords over us who serves us his serfs (we the people) he may do whatever  he wants because all laws that apply to us must never apply to him.  There have always been and will always be inherent powers in monarchy the presidency.

PERHAPS THE DIVINE right of presidents kings would be more deferred to if the man who wears the separation of powers down the crown acted more the wise prince rather than the court knave.  Could anyone have thought five years ago  Americans would court the world now with minstrel tales of torture justified, with the sophistry of the less than sage?  Could anyone have thought five years ago the ursurper the president might order dubious yet deemed patriot acts upon the people and loose spies upon us in our homes?  You Yoo who thought this must be telling a jester’s joke but you Yoo would be wrong.

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOO YOU a bad thing for us if you are a narcissist like Bush who wears the crown.  For those who are unaware of how we got to be just above the drain in our bathtub democracy, some info on the four horsemen of the coming apocalypse would be helpful.  These guys never saw a constitutional right they couldn’t ride right over with arguments unworthy of even King John’s men before Runnymeade and the Magna Carta in the fourteenth century.  Here be horsemen who would protect some kind of heaven with arguments of hell.

RIDE ON, HORSEMEN Alberto Gonzales rides lead, followed by Jay Bybee, and David Addington, and John Yoo.  Gonzales was a judge in Texas, is the Attorney General of the United States now, and might still be a judge yet.  Jay Bybee said Guantanamo was a good thing. Dick Cheney’s new chief of staff David Addington supports power unbridled for the President in all he says and does.  But more than anyone, if you are looking for someone on whom all these argument rise from or fall, you would be looking for John Yoo.  He is now a law professor at the University of California at Berkely.  Google the goods and beware.

RECOMMENDED READING on  John Yoo
JOHN YOO  Behind the Torture Memos: Gonzales' advice raised legal and policy questions. Legally, could the president determine by himself that Al-Qaida or the Taliban were not entitled to POW status? No one doubted that he had the constitutional authority. Presidents have long been the primary interpreters of treaties on behalf of the United States, especially in the area of warfare. Federal judges have since split on the POW issue.

NO ONE DOUBTED?  No one doubted within the Bush administration. There are plenty of doubts in this country and around the world.

MORE YOO The Senate and Congress' decisions provided the basis for the Justice Department's definition of torture: "Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture (under U.S. law), it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years. . . . We conclude that the statute, taken as a whole, makes plain that it prohibits only extreme acts.''

FOR THOSE WITH DOUBTS if you heard Gonzales talking earlier this week, this still is the President’s definition of “torture” so when you hear him say we don’t torture, remember this is what he thinks applies. [Yoo memo pdf]

JOHN YOO ON THE PATRIOT ACT One thing 9/11 showed was that terrorists from abroad were working within the U.S. So, no artificial line could be drawn between foreign and domestic threats. The Patriot Act allowed agencies to pool information together and look at patterns. The primary achievement was taking down the artificial line. . .
The Patriot Act really only makes amendments to existing laws. In regards to warrant searches, secret courts approving these warrants, electronic surveillance… these things already existed for use with Soviet spies. The Act simply re-oriented these things to terrorism. It has been upheld by appellate courts as constitutional. When people bring up concerns with civil liberties and the Patriot Act, it’s usually due to a misunderstanding of other legislation passed around the same time that they associate with the Patriot Act but is not part of it.

JOHN YOO WITHOUT IRONY  Nations have powerful incentives to comply with the laws of war contained in the Geneva Convention. A United States or a Germany will care for captured prisoners, because any ill treatment could trigger retaliation against its own soldiers.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW how we ended up spying on our own citizens, consider what happened with the Bush’s dubious Executive Order on Enemy Combatants and Yoo’s earlier statement about artificial lines.  The order clearly states  The term "individual subject to this order" shall mean any individual who is not a United States citizen  . . .  Yet even with the words in writing, United States citizens have been declared enemy combatants.  The Bush administration is now trying to avoid a ruling in court on this in the curious case of Jose Padilla.  As with Padilla, the Bush White House avoids doing things regarding NSA spying in open court, in open forums, or even in secret courts, perhaps because a fear remains the people would then come to their senses.

YEAH, WHAT HE SAID
UNCLAIMED TERRITORY The notion that one of the three branches of our Government can claim power unchecked by the other two branches is precisely what the Founders sought, first and foremost, to preclude. And the fear that a U.S. President would attempt to seize power unchecked by the law or by the other branches – i.e., that the Executive would seize the powers of the British King – was the driving force behind the clear and numerous constitutional limitations placed on Executive power. It is these very limitations which the Bush Administration is claiming that it has the power to disregard because the need for enhanced national security in time of war vests the President with unchecked power.

RELATED HERETIK POSTS Blank Checks, No Balance.  Kool Aid Time  Again.  Memo from Devine, Wright, and Wrong.

MORE ONGOING BS

MORE ONGOING BS Bush needs to find a new word, because if he keeps using the word ongoing, he will face more ongoing investigations of himself. The New York Times story on domestic NSA spying has come in out of the cold and it’s getting hot for Bush.  Democrats and Republicans both seem more troubled than Bush himself about NSA spying on the domestic front.

Bush said in an interview that “we do not discuss ongoing intelligence operations to protect the country. And the reason why is that there’s an enemy that lurks, that would like to know exactly what we’re trying to do to stop them. “I will make this point,” he continued. “That whatever I do to protect the American people — and I have an obligation to do so — that we will uphold the law, and decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people.”

WHAT BUSH CONSIDERS upholding the law will now be subjected to more ongoing scrutiny. 

SUNSET ON THE BAY OF CONFUSION

THEY'RE BACK or at least we think they are. They're back for now. The Typepad sites and my images will be back . . .. someday.  Maybe this weekend. Or not.  The Heretik welcomes you to another glorious weekend at Lefty's Lounge high above the Bay of Confusion.  Good news: all Typepad bloggers drink free tonight and maybe forever. Bad news: it's going to be crowded tonight.

SO LEAVE A LINK and have a drink. We are glad to be together. For as long as we are.  Until something goes wrong again. 

TODAY'S SITE OF THE DAY Typepad Refugees.  Stop by and wish us well there because we were ill. And bad and ugly. Oy.