Mr. Smith Goes Ballistic: “The rule of law has rarely been in such a fragile state.” Chris Dodd

McCamy Taylor

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Wed Jun-25-08 03:35 AM
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Mr. Smith Goes Ballistic: “The rule of law has rarely been in such a fragile state.” Chris Dodd

I. The Day the Law Died : 12-12-2000, Bush v. Gore

Warrantless Wiretap is cool, the administration tells us, because of the Day Everything Changed. So is torture. So is the death of habeas corpus. So is a politicized Justice Department. So is federal government that serves as a feeding trough for nation’s biggest corporations.

They have a point. Everything did change. The problem is their calendar. Bush likes to claim he hit the trifecta on 9-11-2001 when thousands of U.S. citizens died so that he could have rising popularity polls, and Cheney could exploit their deaths for profits for Halliburton. John McCain’s adviser Charlie Black recently was quoted as saying that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would give him own man a “big advantage”. That is bullshit.

The day that should live in infamy, the day that John McCain wants to see repeated is December 12, 2000---the day when five supremely unjust Supreme Court Justices decided a case based upon the identities of the parties in the case and killed the rule of law in this country

We had Sandra O’Connor who told friends that if she did not decide for W. she would never get to retire from the court, since she was not about to quit during a Democrat’s administration. Poor Sandra. I feel your pain. We had people like Rehnquist and Scalia and Thomas, who always vote for state’s rights suddenly throwing state’s rights to the wind to back up the hereditary claim of the first President Bush’s imbecile son. It was easily the most disgraceful opinion the court had rendered since Plessy v. Ferguson. Hell, maybe even since Dred Scott. Here are some reviews:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/sctsuicide.html

THE SUPREME COURT COMMITS SUICIDE.
Disgrace
by Jeffrey Rosen
Conservatives have lectured us for more than 30 years about the activism of the Warren and Burger Courts. Those tinny and hypocritical lectures are now, thankfully, over. By its action on December 12, the Supreme Court has changed the terms of constitutional discourse for years to come. Just as Roe v. Wade galvanized conservatives a generation ago to rise up against judicial activism, so Bush v. Gore will now galvanize liberals and moderates for the next generation

http://www.censurethefive.org/

No, the truth is that the Five willfully fixed the outcome of a presidential race in which more than 6 million Floridians and 100 million Americans had participated in good faith and prevented a national election from being concluded in the legally prescribed manner. And this is but one form of gross misconduct by the Five that can be equally substantiated in connection with their handling of Bush v. Gore.

http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/history/faculty/TROYWEB/Courseweb/DershowitzvsPosner.htm

We both believe that the five justices may have been unconsciously motivated by a desire to select Bush as president. We both believe that such a desire, if conscious, would be lawless. You believe that the majority justices did not deliberately try to swing the election to Bush. I conclude, after reading hundreds of opinions, articles, and testimonies by these justices, that they did deliberately try to swing the election to Bush.

The Supreme Court of the United States, or more specifically Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O’Connor and Kennedy committed cold blooded, premeditated murder against the rule of law in this country on December 12, 2000. Everything that has followed has been a direct result of that initial breach of their judicial duty.

II. Before There Was 9/11, There Was Enron

After the Supreme Court under Rehnquist and Scalia killed the rule of law in Dec. 12, 2000. Bush and Cheney rushed in and began to dance over the law’s grave wearing powdered wigs and pump heels just like a couple of 18th century aristocrats.

Cheney approached the telecoms about starting his illegal blackmail/wiretap program in January 2001, while the Taliban was still one of the “good guys,” potential business partners for Enron’s gas pipeline business.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/qwest-ceo-not-a.html

This link describes AT&T agreeing to help the administration on Feb 1, 2001 and Qwest turning them down later that month. Unless Rasputin-Rove is going to claim a crystal ball, that spying must have been for some use besides terror prevention.

That was just the first of many lawless activities that Bush and Cheney would get up to. Soon, Cheney was protecting his buddies in the energy industry who were hard at work price gouging the state of California. He did this by forcing the FERC---which was staffed with people hand picked by industry insiders like Ken Lay—to suppress evidence of wholesale electricity price fixing. Read about one such instance in this report.

http://www.truthout.org/article/jason-leopold-cheney-suppressed-evidence-california-energy-crisis

All of this illegal behavior occurred before 9/11, when everything was supposed to have changed. Before there was an Article II exemption. Before there was a terror threat. The plans for the invasion of Afghanistan were drawn up before 9/11, too. That was because the Taliban had resisted the U.S. State Department’s attempts to broker that gas pipeline deal between it and Enron.

Hmm? When the U.S. said” 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs'” to the Taliban in August when it was trying to get that all important Enron pipeline deal through, did the Taliban decide that was a declaration of war from the U.S?

http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5166

Was that why Al Qaeda decided to attack the United States first? Because they knew that war was inevitable? In other words, were they provoked into attacking in order to give the Bush administration an excuse to use those war plans it had already drawn up?

Had there been no 9/11, Bush and Cheney could have been impeached for their complicity in the Enron scandal and bankruptcy. The Democratic controlled U.S. Senate was still investigating Enron when Karl Rove used the issue of “terra” to gain GOP control of the Senate in 2002 and kill the last chance of Enron accountability for the Bush administration. Without 9/11, Congress might have flipped to Democratic control. The invasion of Iraq was timed to coincide with the release of the FERC report that confirmed that price gouging of California really did occur (though the feds have never prosecuted anyone for it). The recall of Gov. Davis and the instillation of the Terminator allowed Bush and Cheney to stop the civil suit which might have uncovered their involvement.

So, I guess 9/11 did change one thing. It made it possible for Bush and Cheney to get away with the criminal activity which they had committed for their good buddy Ken Lay, George W. Bush' biggest donor during his run for president, though W. would later say that he hardly knew Kenny Boy.

In addition to using 9/11 as an excuse to invade Afghanistan, for the crime of not giving Enron the gas pipeline that it wanted, House Republicans and the White House proposed an immediate infusion of cash for several large corporations in the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center as a "stimulus for the economy." Enron was one of the companies slated to get a huge chunk of taxpayers money. The GOP controlled House quickly passed the measure. The White House lobbied for it, but the Democratic Senate put on the brakes, and after the Senate finally killed the "stimulus package" Enron was forced to reveal what it had been concealing from the public---it was bankrupt.

I have never figured out why the Democratic Congress did not resume the Enron investigations in January, 2006. During the first eight months of 2001, the Bush-Cheney administration broke the law brazenly for Enron and there was never any Article II to hide behind and no claim of national security interest. These guys could--and should--- be nailed to a cross for what they did for that corporation.

III. When the Democrats Control Both Houses of Congress, Why Do Two Senators Have to Make Like Mr. Smith in Order to Protect The Rule of Law?

Someone tell me that the Congressional Democrats own more than one spine between them. I can think of no other reason why Nancy Pelosi would call upon Senate Democrats to debate the FISA bill that she just rubber stamped, bless her timid little heart. What is she afraid of? The people in San Francisco are not going to toss her out for being soft on terror. The Bay Area is full of godless communists and gays, remember?

From Chris Dodd’s statement today:

The rule of law has rarely been in such a fragile state. Rarely has it seemed less compelling. What, after all, does the law give us anyway? It has no parades, no slogans. It lives in books and precedents. And, we are never failed to be reminded, the world is a very dangerous place.
Indeed, that is precisely the advantage seized upon, not just by this Administration but in all times, by those looking to disregard the rule of law. As James Madison, the father of our Constitution, said more than two centuries ago, “It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger…from abroad.”
With the passage of this bill, his words would be one step closer to coming true. So it has never been more essential that we lend our voices to the law, and speak on its behalf.
What is this about, Mr. President?
It’s about answering the fundamental question: do we support the rule of law…or the rule of men? To me, this is our defining question—indeed it may be the defining question that confronts every generation.
This is about far more than a few telecoms – it is about contempt for the law, large and small.

Senator Dodd is correct. Contempt for the law is exactly what got us the first Bush-Cheney administration. Who would ever think of hiring a company to draw up a phony felons list of the names of African-American felons from anywhere in the United States whose names sound sort of like African-American (but not White or Latino) Florida voters? Especially after the company that has agreed to do the work has warned you that the list will be completely unreliable as an actual voters list. Only a politically biased Florida Secretary of State named Katherine Harris working under Gov. Jeb Bush who were trying to disenfranchise Democratic voters. Who would think of having another politically biased Secretary of State named Ken Blackwell in another battleground state strip Democratic voters from the rolls by the thousands and deny Democratic precincts polling equipment and certify unlawful recounts and attempt to restrict exit polls? Only Karl Rove whose contempt for the law is so endless that he had federal attorneys fired and hired based upon the dirty election tricks they would or would not perform for him.

Worse than Watergate? Indeed. Nixon was elected. He really wanted to get re-elected with a blow out margin. Bush-Cheney was never about winning any stinking election. Bush-Cheney was a coup followed by a second coup. What we have now is a hereditary monarch, who rules by force. We all know what the Founders thought of monarchies:

http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/commonsense/text.html

But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked; and the improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions. Thomas Paine Common Sense

Dodd lists some of the crimes against the law committed by the Bush-Cheney administration before asking this question:

So I will ask the Senate candidly, and candidly it already knows the answer:
Is this about security—or is it about power?
Why are some fighting so hard for retroactive immunity? The answer, I believe, is that immunity means secrecy, and secrecy means power.

Of course it means power. The very first criminal act---after the one that made it all possible, the one that occurred on Dec 12, 2000 when the Supreme Court murdered the law---was Dick Cheney’s decision to have every email, phone call and fax communication in the country routed through a room as if he was trying to recreate the Soviet Union. And that is the maddest kind of power grab of all.

And now that they are about to leave office, with no hand picked Republican successor to grant them a pardon, Bush and Cheney want it all made legal.

IV. Isn’t Anyone In the Press Curious Anymore Or Have They Bred That Out of Reporters?

With all that phone bugging and email intercepting, there must be quite an Enemies List out there. I will bet that Cheney's Enemies List puts Richard Nixon’s list of Democratic fund raisers and celebrities to shame. Mere curiosity ought to have the press arguing against FISA immunity. The Watergate Enemies List was the hottest news to hit Washington in years back in 1973, and it remained news for years. If the news was just about generating copy, you know which way the reporters would go on this story.

Unfortunately, I think half the press is too scared to act like real reporters and the other half is too happy being spoon fed their next story by political parties.