Important, Please Read.

The following is copied from a post by Orin Kerr at http://volokh.com. This is significant information which everyone must at least make themselves aware of.

Of judicial appointments Bush has said, "Federal judges have the duty to interpret the Constitution and the laws faithfully and fairly, to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, and to do these things with care and with restraint."

Apparently, Bush does not think the executive should exercise such restraint or interpret the Constitution fairly and faithfully.

As you read this consider the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . "

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Domestic Surveillance By the NSA?: James Risen and Eric Lichtblau break a tremendously important story in tomorrow's New York Times about a secret program that has permitted the NSA to spy without a warrant inside the United States. The story begins:

"Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials."

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications."

The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches."

How much monitoring is occurring?

"Here's what the article says: While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time."

Is this legal, you're wondering? The article offers this:

"Mr. Bush's executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States - including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners - is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the N.S.A. operation.

"The legal opinions that support the N.S.A. operation remain classified, but they appear to have followed private discussions among senior administration lawyers and other officials about the need to pursue aggressive strategies that once may have been seen as crossing a legal line, according to senior officials who participated in the discussions."

According to the story, some officials objected, and DOJ audited the program:

"Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation, a former senior Bush administration official said. before the 2004 election, the official said, some N.S.A. personnel worried that the program might come under scrutiny by Congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was elected president."

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This is significant information for anyone who worried that our freedoms were being eroded at home while Americans are dying abroad under that very banner.

Further, I'd like to make a specific point as to the comment: "the need to pursue aggressive strategies that once may have been seen as crossing a legal line." Regarding the Constitution, conservatives famously argue that the Constitution is NOT a "living document" that evolves with the times but that it should be applied as the framers would have intended at the time of drafting. Therefore, under that philosophy, there can be no policy that was unconstitutional a few years ago but suddenly now fits well within the Constitution's boundaries.

In fact, it is not that such practices are now constitutional, the truth of the matter is that now, the Administration merely disregards the boundaries the Constitution places on their exercise of power.

What is Integrity?

According to Merriam-Webster the most looked-up word by users of their online dictionary service this year was "Integrity!"

What does it say about the condition of this country when so many people don't know the meaning of that word? Of course not all internet users are American, just most of them.

Number ten on the list was "inept."

Continued Persecution of Christians

At the University of Kansas a professor stepped down from his post as Department of Religious Studies chair after comments he made in an email to members of a student organization became public.

This professor was scheduled to teach a course next spring called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies" in response to the recent changes in Kansas State Department of Education policy that will allow teaching of intelligent design in science classes.

In the email the professor stated that a course describing intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in [religious fundamentalists'] big fat face."

One could obviously make a reasonable argument that his presentation of the material might be one-sided. Unquestionably a foolish thing to say knowing such statements could become public, and apparently a dangerous thing to say in America these days.

Driving early Monday morning, the Professor realized that he was being followed. He pulled over and two men stepped out of their truck and beat the professor with their fists and a metal object and made reference to the controverial course. The professor suffered bruises on his face and arms.

In investigating the attack, the Sheriff's office seized the professor's car, searched his office, and seized his computer. Perhaps the attackers are hiding in there.


Merry Christmas to the Free People of America!

Persecution

Cries about persecution are at a fever pitch. You can hear constant assertions that Christians are being persecuted in the United States and that Christmas is being suppressed.


FoxNews chastized Walmart in several shows and articles (despite their deep love and frequent defense of the corporation) for preferring the greeting "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas." Strange that FoxNews asserts that corporations should be free to refuse to hire or may fire certain people (think anti-discrimination laws) but they should not be free to select the holiday greeting they prefer.

Bill O'Reilly recently exclaimed that "what [principals and school boards are] trying to say is that we don't like the 82 percent of Americans who believe that Jesus was God or the son of God." One problem for O'Reilly to deal with is that school boards are democratically elected. he preaches the infallability of elections and yet hates the product. Besides, how are these school boards getting elected over the will of "82 percent of Americans?"

Regardless, Bill bluntly states "Now there is an anti-Christian bias in this country and it is more on display in Christmas season than any other time." Sure Bill, just look around, you can hardly tell it is the Christmas season at all.

Another Fox News Anchor, John Gibson, has recently published a book called "War on Christmas" in which he asserts that "even the colors red and green are under attack" and that "You can't say 'Merry Christmas' at a school or office anymore." I have seen no evidence to support either of these statements but he makes the assertions nonetheless.

"Not since Stalin's time have Christians been so savagely persecuted" asserts Pat Buchanan on WorldNetDaily.com. Another article they published this week bears the headline "CRIMINALIZING CHRISTIANITY: How America's founding religion is becoming illegal"

Dishing it Out:

In the midst of all of these cries of injustice from the right, we see them pressing another agenda.

"Christian group pulls Wells Fargo accounts: Focus on the Family objects to donation to gay rights group" A headline reads today from the San Francisco Chronicle. The articles describes that "Focus on the Family's move follows a recent spate of conservative boycotts and other actions against large companies that support gay and lesbian causes."

Conservative groups have also sought boycotts of Proctor & Gamble because they advertise during the TV show "Will and Grace" and against the Walt Disney Company for hosting "Gay Days" at their theme parks.

Today, Ford Motor Co. announced that is will no longer advertise in magazines targeting gay readers. Ford denies that the move is the result of pressure from Christian groups, but the American Family Association began a boycott in May, which it cancelled last week asserting that "we feel that our concerns are being addressed."

Today the Supreme Court will hear a case brought by Harvard Law School that asserts that Law Schools may refuse to allow the military to recruit on campus unless they commit to a non-discrimination hiring policy, like all other firms who recruit on campuses are required to do. As of now, the government seeks to withdraw funding provided to such schools if they refuse to allow the recruiters on campus. The schools assert that they should not be an instrument to the government's discrimination in order to get the funding.

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With all of this in mind, I wonder who it truly is who is being persecuted and who is doing the persecuting.

Should WalMart say Merry Christmas to Gay people this year? Doesn't the right usually decry this victim mentality anyway?

"Us" versus Them

Some on the right have a strong desire to retain a division between the "haves" and "have-nots." We consistently find that policy and attitudes from the right pursue such a doctrine of exclusion and preservation of a caste system based on socioeconomic status.

Consider Higher Education

Our tax dollars fund public institutions of higher education and yet many still cannot afford to go, most cannot afford without financial aid. Bush and Congress are now seeking to reduce funding for education and funding for federal student loans. This means that tuition costs will rise, state taxes to fund these institutions may rise, and fewer people will be able to get loans. While every taxpayer will be putting more into education, only those who can pay out of their own pockets will be able to attend these "public" schools.

A conservative radio talk show host, Michael Medved argued that there is no justification for having the government subsidize student loans at all.

Isn't a more educated population better for the whole country?

When Bush Administration officials said that outsourcing jobs was "a good thing" they based their argument on the idea that those are unskilled jobs, and that skilled jobs will remain. Yet, we also see Bush's policy that only those Americans who can themselves afford the training for such skilled positions have a place in this America.

The average person is left to fend for himself.


Propaganda of Division and Exclusion

Pundits on the right claim that the "leftist elite" is condescending toward the average American and doesn't respect them. We see however, from FoxNews and other sources, that if you disagree with them, you too, have no place in their America.

Consider Sean Hannity's book "Deliver us from Evil," the evil he argues against is not only terrorism but also "the modern Democratic Party," "leftists," and "liberalism." Hannity would have you believe that nearly half of congress and half of the voting US public are in fact "Evil" by the nature of their ideas.

(Ironically, the cover of Hannity's book has a picture of him with the Statue of Liberty over his right shoulder, I'm not sure whether he thanks the French for their gift to the United States in his book or not.)

Ann Coulter has written several books on the subject as well. Her book "Treason" which does not discuss the impropriety of giving the names of under cover intelligence agents to the media for publication as political revenge, but instead argues that “Liberals have a preternatural gift for always striking a position on the side of treason.” Coulter says, “Everyone says liberals love America, too. No, they don’t.”

Another point of irony, accusing someone of a crime that one know's the accused did not commit is slander, which happens to me the name of Coulter's previous book, so I guess she must know what she is talking about.

A newer book by the same author is called "How to Talk to a Liberal (if you must)." It was the right saying that the left was condescending wasn't it?

Either the righties aren't listening to what they are saying or they are satirical geniuses.


Us versus Them

Why is the right at war with the rest of America?

When Congressman Murtha, a 37 year veteran of the Marine Corps, sought for Congress to issue a resolution that American troops should be brought home as soon as practicable, the Republicans changed his resolution to a demand for immediate withdrawal and he was called a "coward" by Congresswoman, Jean Schmidt (R).

What happened to the popular mantra "Support the Troops?" Does that exclude veterans? It shouldn't.