Could the Press Grow a Spine?

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...

Here's the difference between a Democrate and Republican. A Democrate

Hey, you've got a misspelled word there......that'd be R E P U B L I C A N E.
Let's not be giving away that we snoozed in spelling class.

(^-^)))

George Z.

Ummm, Dude- tell me; how exactly does he "keep $900,000 for himself,"
exactly?

I hear this stuff from Comrade Art and the other Mikhail Moores of the
world.

I've heard of only a very small number of wealthy people who hid their money
in mattresses or buried them in the back yard; oddly enough, most of them
were either espoused socialists or some other brand of kook.

Steve Swartz



"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 08:58:01 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

On 24 Jun 2004 14:13:20 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

The constitution was intact until Bush was elected.

Arthur Kramer

OK, Art. Put up. What part of the Constitution is no longer intact?
What has been fractured and by what specific Bush action? Have your
rights been impaired? Are you going to bring up the PATRIOT act? How
has that impacted your freedom. Have you been incarcerated? Censored?
Abused? Religously restricted? Have your taxes been raised? Is your
economy improving after the damage of 9/11? Is unemployment down,
productivity up?

Oh, you'd rather redistribute the wealth of the wage-earners to the
welfare queens and coke dealers.


Here's the difference between a Democrate and Republican. A Democrate
with a million dollars would give the bottom 100 million on the wage
chart each a penny (have to have the equality thing, no favortism
etc.) effectively helping nobody and accomplishing nothing but ****ing
away a million dollars, adding themselves to the welfare-cheese line,
and then bitching because the government isn't supporting him. A
Republican would give $10,000 to ten dirt-poor people and keep the
other $900,000 of his hard-earned cash for himself. How is this
better? Those ten people will be able to actually make their lives
better, the rich guy will stay off the welfare charts AND he's still a
happy camper.





Stop sloganeering and support your contention.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

Subject: Could the Press Grow a Spine?
From: Ed Rasimus
Date: 6/24/2004 7:58 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

On 24 Jun 2004 14:13:20 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

The constitution was intact until Bush was elected.

Arthur Kramer

OK, Art. Put up. What part of the Constitution is no longer intact?
What has been fractured and by what specific Bush action? Have your
rights been impaired? Are you going to bring up the PATRIOT act? How
has that impacted your freedom. Have you been incarcerated? Censored?
Abused? Religously restricted? Have your taxes been raised? Is your
economy improving after the damage of 9/11? Is unemployment down,
productivity up?

Oh, you'd rather redistribute the wealth of the wage-earners to the
welfare queens and coke dealers.

Stop sloganeering and support your contention.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8


The patriot act tears the constitution to shreds giving dictatorial power to
the neocons. Madison is spinning in his grave and Washington is in tears. The
bill of rights no longer exists. The 14th amendment will be the next to go.And
the Fereral governement was never bigger and more powerful than it is today
under the neocons.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Could the Press Grow a Spine?
From: Ed Rasimus
Date: 6/24/2004 7:58 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

On 24 Jun 2004 14:13:20 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:


The patriot act tears the constitution to shreds giving dictatorial power
to
the neocons. Madison is spinning in his grave and Washington is in tears.
The
bill of rights no longer exists. The 14th amendment will be the next to
go.And
the Fereral governement was never bigger and more powerful than it is
today
under the neocons.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS

Oooh, the bogey man is coming to get you! Did you know they have medication
for paranoia these days?

And has anyone else noticed the increased use of the term "neocon" by the
desperate left to describe anyone they don't like, which in my opinion is an
example of the prejudicial language fallacy.

Jarg

In article ,
(ArtKramr) writes:
The patriot act tears the constitution to shreds giving dictatorial power to
the neocons. Madison is spinning in his grave and Washington is in tears. The
bill of rights no longer exists. The 14th amendment will be the next to go.And
the Fereral governement was never bigger and more powerful than it is today
under the neocons.

And yet it was voted in unanimously in the Senate - (All the Senate
Democrats voted for it, including John Kerry), and overwhelmingly in
the House (Including 90% of the Democrats). Should power be trusted
to those so easily deluded, then? (If indeed you aren't being
hyperbolic)

The Congress, after all, is where Bills are submitted - by Congressmen
(Congresspeople? Electred Legislatural Representatives of the Populous
and the Various States, then) and voted upon. The President, or, ofr
that matter, the rest of the Executive Branch, don't draft or submit
bills, bills, (They do, of course, ask some sympathetic type in
Congress to do so), son't vote on them, and have no seats on the
COnference Comittees that sort out/rewrite the differences in the
versions passed by the House & Senate. Anything that occurred from
this proccess to your disfavor happened with the full complicity and
cooperation of the Democrats.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On 24 Jun 2004 14:13:20 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

The constitution was intact until Bush was elected.

Arthur Kramer

OK, Art. Put up. What part of the Constitution is no longer intact?

Article One.

Commentary on the News Hour last night indicated that since the
Congress is charged with regulation of the armed forces, Bush usurped
that power by trying to dictate how prisoners would be treated.
Ooops.

The legal experts they had said that most of the documents released by
the White House dealt with how to twist the law so as to avoid being
charged with felonies. Disgusting.

Bush is the worst president -ever- and he has to go.

Walt

On 24 Jun 2004 13:56:48 -0700, (WalterM140) wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On 24 Jun 2004 14:13:20 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

The constitution was intact until Bush was elected.

Arthur Kramer

OK, Art. Put up. What part of the Constitution is no longer intact?

Article One.

Commentary on the News Hour last night indicated that since the
Congress is charged with regulation of the armed forces, Bush usurped
that power by trying to dictate how prisoners would be treated.
Ooops.

What part of Commander-in-Chief escapes you? Pick up a book on
Constitutional Law and you'll find that the "regulation of the armed
forces" applies to how the members of the force shall be governed and
treated. This is handled through the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
which is still in force. You may even note its application against the
criminals of Abu Ghraib.

The legal experts they had said that most of the documents released by
the White House dealt with how to twist the law so as to avoid being
charged with felonies. Disgusting.

Not "legal experts" but democrats in the Congress in an election year.
As I recall, it was your favorite president and fellatee who debated
what the meaning of "is" is. What legal experts? What documents? What
law? Who charged? The current occupant of the White House has not been
charged with any felonies. Harder to say that about his predecessor.

Bush is the worst president -ever- and he has to go.

"So let it be written, so let it be done..." Walt has spoken. QED.

Broaden your scope, Walt. Stop mouthing sound bites. Avoid repetition
of the last thing you've heard. Don't continually repost the same
single view that supports your contention. Get out of the house more.
And, stop posting news stories from 2000--a lot has happened since
then, and they weren't that important even when they were current.



Walt

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

From: (WalterM140)


Ed Rasimus wrote in message
...
On 24 Jun 2004 14:13:20 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

The constitution was intact until Bush was elected.

Arthur Kramer

OK, Art. Put up. What part of the Constitution is no longer intact?

Article One.

Commentary on the News Hour last night indicated that since the
Congress is charged with regulation of the armed forces, Bush usurped
that power by trying to dictate how prisoners would be treated.
Ooops.

Really? Try Article 2, section 2:

Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of
the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into
the actual service of the United States

Article 1 section 8 describes funding the military, declaration of war and
making regulations. Those regulations are now called UCMJ.

Tell me how Bush "usurped" that article.

The legal experts they had said that most of the documents released by
the White House dealt with how to twist the law so as to avoid being
charged with felonies. Disgusting.

No, they said what was being suggested didn't violate any law. They twisted
nothing. Sitting on the hood of your car isn't a violation of law, it is also
not twisting the law.

Bush is the worst president -ever- and he has to go.

Gee, that sounds like an absolute. I take it you have compared him to each and
every president in detail?

Walt

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

The constitution was intact until Bush was elected.

Arthur Kramer

OK, Art. Put up. What part of the Constitution is no longer intact?
What has been fractured and by what specific Bush action?

Bush usurped the Constitution.

I was speaking from memory a bit earlier.

From the News Hour last night (6/23):

EUGENE FIDELL: I think there were some aspects to the original memoranda that
were extremely disturbing; specifically the notion that the president, as
commander in chief, was essentially above the law.

And I think that, if anything, that set off a firestorm of controversy here.
What I see is a lot of government time... lawyer time being expended on a
subject that most people I think would consider off limits in any event.

RAY SUAREZ: Were you comforted, reassured, by the tone of some of the
communications in response to those original memos -- not affirming their
findings?

EUGENE FIDELL: No, I was dismayed, as a matter of fact, because this sort of
dialogue that had been going on, conversation within the executive branch,
continued on and on within terms of reference that I thought were very, very
surprising. I was shocked by the whole conversation, actually.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Wedgwood, I ask you the same question. What did you
conclude from watching this evolving communication between the White House and
its lawyers?

RUTH WEDGWOOD: There were a lot of memos that got released in the last couple
of days and I think we are all digesting them still.

I think what bothered a lot of people, including me, about the original way
that the memos were framed is it seemed to be worrying as much about potential
criminal liability as what should be the standards that we choose to govern
ourselves by or that we're committed to govern ourselves by, by international
law, i.e., the relevant question is not simply is there a felony that attaches
to conduct but rather what should we do, which is why I took some comfort today
from the president reiterating again in the most imperative terms that the
standard has to be humane conduct.

RAY SUAREZ: In the written communications, do you have that same reassurance?
Do you think the government came down in the right place?

RUTH WEDGWOOD: The office of legal counsel has always had a function that is
much like a court because there are questions that the executive branch has to
address that may never get to court.

So OLC, which is an entirely obscure agency in justice, has always been seen as
quite dispassionate or at one step removed from the fray, not operational.

So I suppose my first critique is that they should have apprised the president
more thoroughly of the differences, of the view that others were likely to
take.

One can propose an idiosyncratic view, a dumbed down view of torture that is
only organ failure, but if 97 percent of the world does not agree with you or
99, you should apprise the president of that so he can make an informed
judgment about how he will fulfill the American duty to be humane.


Conditions of prisoner abuse

RAY SUAREZ: There was still a lot of conditional declarations, weren't there,
that laid out a case and then said but, on the other hand, here's this case,
where conventions may not apply, where the detainees are not like ordinary
POW's, that still reserve the right to use the harshest physical treatment?

RUTH WEDGWOOD: There are a lot of different both treaties and standards of
customary law that can apply here. Most of the law of armed conflict is not
written down – it's customary law -- but it is still real law.

One of the arguments I did not like in the early January memo is the claim that
because customary law may not be part of domestic law, that therefore it is not
worth considering. It is still international law.

Other countries have the right of so-called diplomatic protection of their
nationals and how they're treated. So we have to be mindful surely of
international standards, whether or not Congress has translated them into
domestic law.

RAY SUAREZ: Eugene Fidell, though the administration has rejected many of the
early legal opinions, didn't they, at the same time reserve for themselves the
ability to in the final analysis to use harsh physical measures that Geneva
Conventions might consider torture if they feel it's necessary?

EUGENE FIDELL: That's exactly right. That's one of the things that's very
disturbing. What you get if you read all of the memos, you come away with a
sense that all options remain open; that one of the objectives being served is
to effectively immunize U.S. personnel against prosecution for misconduct. This
is one of the things that's most disturbing. Can I give you an illustration?

RAY SUAREZ: Sure.

EUGENE FIDELL: There is a legal memorandum that was prepared by the judge staff
advocate for the U.S. Southern command that says this: regarding the uniform
code of military justice, the proposal to grab, poke in the chest, push
lightly, and place a wet towel or hood over the detainee's head would
constitute a per se violation of the assault statute, military statue.

Threatening a detainee with death may also constitute a violation of that
statute or the statute on communicating a threat -- "it would be advisable to
have permission or immunity in advance from the convening authority," the
military commander, "for military members utilizing these methods."

What this is is a road map for permitting, condoning criminal conduct. And to
see this in a legal memorandum, I have to say, I almost fell out of my chair
when I read that.

RAY SUAREZ: Ruth Wedgwood?

RUTH WEDGWOOD: Well, I think some of these have a certain macabre quality. I do
think that the centerpiece of attention ultimately after they rescind the memos
because it is unprecedented act that the administration took yesterday of
rescinding an office of legal counsel memo – to my knowledge, it has never
happened before.

They have promised to review them all, vis-Ã*-vis interrogation standards. But
I think the important question going forward is to look at what is acceptable
and not acceptable given our values, given our law, given what we want to be
seen as in the world in interrogation methods.

There are people involved in this process who I think are moral human beings.
They intend to be. They face a difficult situation where it seems to have been
case in the fall of 2002.

They thought there was an intelligence spike and they worry that the two
alleged al-Qaida guys at Guantanamo might be the key to preventing those
attack. So one can't deny that there are exquisite moral dilemmas here but I
think the key is to resolve them in a way that we are proud of.


The legal issues associated with the memos

RAY SUAREZ: Well, I don't want to get into how many angels can dance on the
head of a pin kind of arguments but I do want to understand the mechanics. You
talk about rescinding the memos -- does that mean the administration says, by
doing so that it rejects all the reasonings, or is there kind of a laundry
list, things that they may think are still true in there like powers that in
here in the commander and chief -- the ability to decide whether prisoners are
covered by the Geneva Conventions or not -- that they still may find valid
although they reject the overall conclusion of the memo.

RUTH WEDGWOOD: Well, that they have been rescinded subject to rewriting and
reconsideration and promised that all issues be reconsidered.

If I had to be a book maker, I would guess that one that is likeliest to
disappear is the claim that the president has an absolute power that can never
be touched by Congress, that even if Congress passed the statute, that they use
the "P" word, the president nor his employees may do the following kinds of
acts.

The claim that he was immune from that statute, that Congress didn't have the
power to reach that act, even though Congress's power under Article 1 of the
Constitution gives them the right to prescribe rules for the governance of the
armed forces. That was an audacious claim. It's not part of this necessary
conversation. And I think some things like that will disappear.

RAY SUAREZ: Is it unusual for you as a lawyer to be able to see the evolution
of a policy debate in documents like this?

EUGENE FIDELL: It's very unusual. Internal government legal memoranda are
typically not made public.

On the other hand, in this case, we have a number of effectively opinions of
the attorney general and I remember when the whole question of prisoner of war
status for Taliban and al-Qaida came up, thinking, gee, I bet there is an
opinion of the attorney general floating out there. It never came out or never
came out until over two years later.

My personal view, Ray, is that on matters that so close to the nation's
interest, every possible document that can be made public ought to be made
public.

Some of this is not going to make much sense to laypersons but it's important
that lawyers in our society, the lawmakers in our society, the legal academy,
be able to bring their critical skills to bear. You can't do that if you don't
have the hard copy.

I think there is an issue, it's not just the question of moving forward in
terms of how particular policies of interrogation play out, as well by the way
as who should be punished for what here because there are cases, as we all
know, pending in the pipeline for Abu Ghraib.

But it also has to do with policy towards transparency and the government's
legal apparatus. We can't allow every bit of legal advice that every official
decision maker, including the chief executive receives to become, you know,
public the next day necessarily.

But I certainly think that policy on that question of transparency has to be
revisited. Incidentally, there is a similar question in the U.K., the United
Kingdom , where the British government has resisted making public some legal
advice received from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general there.


Â* Should the government release more documents?

Â* RAY SUAREZ: Well, much of it is out but by common consent, not all of
it. Do you think all of it needs to be released, professor?

RUTH WEDGWOOD: Well, the argument you hear on the other side is if you tell
al-Qaida or whoever that exactly what they should expect, even within certainly
the boundaries of humaneness, it is easier for them to train against the
techniques.

So I think what happened in the last day or two is really quite an
extraordinary event in the sense that administration understands that after Abu
Ghraib, people are so troubled, they're troubled.

They want to know where it came from, that you have to have a transparency that
really is probably unprecedented.

I do think and here I surely agree with Gene, is that the on issues of this
gravity, you want this kind of discussion to be one that's taken with more
advice, perhaps, than one had in the very small inside loop.

There are checks and balances in the government. It's wonderful to see how
uniform guys, even with careers in front of them, are duty bound and not afraid
to speak their mind and Secretary Rumsfeld reconsidered things when the JAGS,
the Judge Advocates General complained. That's a healthy check and balances.

The Congress is going to want to be involved in this now. I think it is going
to be a much broader conversation and frankly after Abu Ghraib, which even DOD
I think wonders how it happened. It is probably inevitable.

RAY SUAREZ: Thank you both.

EUGENE FIDELL: Thank you, Ray.



http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white...ners_6-23.html

Walt

"WalterM140" wrote

[.]

There are checks and balances in the government. It's wonderful to see how
uniform guys, even with careers in front of them, are duty bound and not
afraid
to speak their mind and Secretary Rumsfeld reconsidered things when the
JAGS,
the Judge Advocates General complained. That's a healthy check and
balances.

Your reference says "healthy check and balances" - so what part of the
Constitution is no longer intact?