She'll do Bush's dirty work - she always has!

Crooks and Liars and Traitors: treason all around, from sea to shining sea, from the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine to the Feinstein mansion in San Francisco...
Treason to our Bill of Rights, treason to our Constitution, treason to our America.

Tex @ 2:

Here's a better idea. Retire her at the next election she runs in. Elect a Democrat in her place.

But gosh ...how will she get by? ...oh yeah her husband is a War Profiteer ...

So she should get a pass for the little things like approving a racist federal judge,a puppet AG, and telecom immunity because she voted against other things? That's just plain stupid.
I saved three lives before... who can I murder with my free pass?

Feinstein should be investigated for her war profiteering.

This is a great listen

Scott Ritter targets Hillary

Scott Hortons interview with Scott Ritter on the NIE report
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/12/06/scott-ritter-4/

Scott Ritter "the notion that Iran had a nuclear weapon program is an assertion, it is unfounded with hard evidence"

Listen for yourselves. Spread this interview far and wide

Would this get Diane Feinstein's attention?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8KYJsFGLsM

Where's MY retroactive immunity???

ysbaddaden @ 11:

Would this get Diane Feinstein's attention?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8KYJsFGLsM

Hahah. She has a Cheney.

I doubt Diane Feinstein even cares! She SOLD OUT long ago....

According to Bill Carrick, DiFi has such a wonderful record that we shouldn’t question her decision on just this one itty bitty bill, and that if she didn’t vote for Mukasey, we would have wound up with another Bushie for AG. Guess Carrick believes that when a Senator casts a vote that most of their constituents disagree with, they don’t owe their constituents an explanation because they are an independent thinker, and that a Senator has to vote for the first Bush nominee, regardless of their qualifications, because the process takes so long and we have to hurry up and get it over with. Are we sure this guy isn’t a mole for the Republican Party?

You forget that the "establishment" has some major goods on DiFi, like her husband being a war profiteer.

He also made his profits ripping off labor unions by investing their pensions without the permission of the union members, a bonified Federal offense. If DiFi doesn't go along with the ReThugs, they will turn on her and out her husband as being the corporate crook that he is, and that she's continued to enable him through her tenure as a U. S. Senator. So, forget about pressuring her - if they couldn't get the California Democratic Party to censure her for her vote to confirm Mukasey, you won't get her on this issue, either.

Plus, she's probably planning to retire instead of run for re-election in 2010 - you'd have a better shot at pulling off a recall election to throw her out of office in mid-term, like the smart Californians did Gray Davis and replaced him with Ah-nold Schwarzeneggar.

Ahnold - who got his lunch handed to him by the most powerful unions in the State (Law Enforcement, Nurses and Teachers).

.

FISA is a farce.

When did warrantless become legal that Congress has to go make it illegal…

… AGAIN?

I borrow from Rainbow Sally

The problem with FISA is that it wasn’t constitutional in the first place. You can’t make a change like this without an amendment to the Constitution. Let’s take a look at the currently operatice Supreme Law of the Land.

Amendment IV - Search and seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.
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, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So you have the Supreme Law of the Land, which our troops are off preserving protecting and defending somewhere and we have FISA. Once says you must have probable cause AND a sworn or affirmed affidavit and the other says you don’t.

While Congress might be commended for hanging onto it’s authority to make laws rather than to simply pass all authority to the executive branch, this is one law even Congress doesn’t have authority to change.

Because?

BECAUSE THEY OPPOSE ONE ANOTHER. FISA either makes the Constitution meaningless or the Constitution makes FISA meaningless.

Question for thinkers:

Imagine the Supreme Court makes a decision on Habeas Corpus that limits the executive branch’s authority in Guantanamo based on the Magna Carta.

The decision ends up being correct but based on the wrong argument.

Would anyone appeal that decision? No. But then what happens to the authority of the Constitution and Congress as a result.

Ladies and Gents, the Fourth Amendment HAS NOT BEEN REMOVED… Just usurped. Sure FISA protects you and I, but didn’t the good old Fourth?

Congress is busy remaking laws because the old ones got broken!

Think about that!

.

Evan Bayh (D) - IN is for granting Telcoms immunity. He doesn't think its fair that they did what the government told them to do, and as such they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions. Evan is a douchebag.

I didn't realize that upholding the constitution counted as a "litmus test issue".

Who knew?

This is why I don't give a shit about the "liberal" label. I'm not on the same team as Bill Karrick. I am a war vet. I am not stupid. I believe in progressive government. Feinstein is an elected Rep and a Demo. But she ain't on my team. I am absolutely antiwar because I know first hand about these fucking deceptive lairs that become our "leaders". Feinstein is an example of why the general schmo think there is no difference between the parties. Fuck liberals if they don't get progressive politics. Liberals are almost as good at starting wars as the schmucks on the Republican side. If you think of yourself as a liberal and not as an American then you are retarded. This country is based on "radical" ideas that make sure that nobody gets fucked. DiFi is fucking us and who the hell knows why.

Russ Feingold coming thru again for "We the people". Get this mans address and vote for him to be the next President of the United States of America. He is the answer we are all looking for.

Using wiki, look up "War Profiteering". Under "In The United States" it says:

"The Center for Public Integrity has reported that US Senator Dianne Feinstein and her husband, Richard Blum, are making millions of dollars from Iraq and Afghanistan contracts through his company, Perini. Feinstein voted for the resolution giving President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq."

We've all heard the phrase, 'Look up crook in the dictionary and fill-in-the-blank person's picture will be there. Well what a disgrace that a sitting Senator is in the definition of a war profiteer. Since Congress doesn't seem to care, there should be a way for the people to throw out someone like her.

Here is some info about her husband's company:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=45

Why do we allow such obvious comflicts of interest? The Feinstein's are BILLIONAIRES?? How much of that fortune should be considered suspicious?

Hey DiFi, watch THIS!

Keith Olbermann’s Latest Special Comment

Bush: Pathological liar or idiot-in-chief?
Olbermann: We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole, or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked, at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so, whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed were still even remotely plausible. Full story
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22134108/

More Special Comments
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16270176/

Maybe dinky Diane was in the house when Sheldon Whitehouse from R.I. gave this amazing speech.

Press Release of Senator Whitehouse
In FISA Speech, Whitehouse Sharply Criticizes Bush Administration's Assertion of Executive Power

Friday, December 7, 2007

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, delivered the following remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate today:

We will shortly consider making right the things that are wrong with the so-called Protect America Act, a second-rate piece of legislation passed in a stampede in August at the behest of the Bush Administration. It is worth for a moment considering why making this right is so important.

President Bush pressed this legislation not only to establish how our government can spy on foreign agents, but how his administration can spy on Americans. Make no mistake, the legislation we passed in August is significantly about spying on Americans – a business this administration should not be allowed to get into except under the closest supervision. We have a plain and tested device for keeping tabs on the government when it’s keeping tabs on Americans. It is our Constitution.

Our Constitution has as its most elemental provision the separation of governmental powers into three separate branches. When the government feels it necessary to spy on its own citizens, each branch has a role.

The executive branch executes the laws, and conducts surveillance. The legislative branch sets the boundaries that protect Americans from improper government surveillance. The judicial branch oversees whether the government has followed the Constitution and the laws that protect U.S. citizens from violations of their privacy and their civil rights.

It sounds basic, but even an elementary understanding of this balance of powers eludes the Bush administration. So now we have to repair this flawed and shoddy “Protect America Act.”

Why are we in Congress so concerned about this? Why is it so vital that we energetically assert the role of Congress and the Courts when the Bush Administration seeks to spy on Americans?

Because look what the Bush Administration does behind our backs when they think no one is looking.

For years under the Bush Administration, the Office of Legal Counsel within the Department of Justice has issued highly classified secret legal opinions related to surveillance. This is an administration that hates answering to an American court, that wants to grade its own papers, and OLC is the inside place the administration goes to get legal support for its spying program.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I was given access to those opinions, and spent hours poring over them. Sitting in that secure room, as a lawyer, as a former U.S. Attorney, legal counsel to Rhode Island’s Governor, and State Attorney General, I was increasingly dismayed and amazed as I read on.

To give you an example of what I read, I have gotten three legal propositions from these OLC opinions declassified. Here they are, as accurately as my note taking could reproduce them from the classified documents. Listen for yourself. I will read all three, and then discuss each one.

1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.

3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

Let’s start with number one. Bear in mind that the so-called Protect America Act that was stampeded through this great body in August provides no – zero – statutory protections for Americans traveling abroad from government wiretapping. None if you’re a businesswoman traveling on business overseas, none if you’re a father taking the kids to the Caribbean, none if you’re visiting uncles or aunts in Italy or Ireland, none even if you’re a soldier in the uniform of the United States posted overseas. The Bush Administration provided in that hastily-passed law no statutory restrictions on their ability to wiretap you at will, to tap your cell phone, your e-mail, whatever.

The only restriction is an executive order called 12333, which limits executive branch surveillance to Americans who the Attorney General determines to be agents of a foreign power. That’s what the executive order says.

But what does this administration say about executive orders?

An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

“Whenever (the President) wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order,” he may do so because “an executive order cannot limit a President.” And he doesn’t have to change the executive order, or give notice that he’s violating it, because by “depart(ing) from the executive order,” the President “has instead modified or waived it.”

So unless Congress acts, here is what legally prevents this President from wiretapping Americans traveling abroad at will: nothing. Nothing.

That was among the most egregious flaws in the bill passed during the August stampede they orchestrated by the Bush Administration – and this OLC opinion shows why we need to correct it.

Here’s number two.

The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.

Yes, that’s right. The President, according to the George W. Bush OLC, has Article II power to determine what the scope of his Article II powers are.

Never mind a little decision called Marbury v. Madison, written by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803, establishing the proposition that it is “emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Does this administration agree that it is emphatically the province and the duty of the judicial department to say what the President’s authority is under Article II? No, it is the President, according to this OLC, who decides the legal limits of his own Article II power.

The question “whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II,” is to be determined by the President’s minions, “exercising his constitutional authority under Article II.”

It really makes you wonder, who are these people? They have got to be smart people to get there. How can people who are so smart be so misguided?

And then, it gets worse. Remember point three.

The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

Let that sink in a minute.

The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

We are a nation of laws, not of men. This nation was founded in rejection of the royalist principles that “l’etat c’est moi” and “The King can do no wrong.” Our Attorney General swears an oath to defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States; we are not some banana republic in which the officials all have to kowtow to the “supreme leader.” Imagine a general counsel to a major U.S. corporation telling his board of directors, “in this company the counsel’s office is bound by the CEO’s legal determinations.” The board ought to throw that lawyer out – it’s malpractice, probably even unethical.

Wherever you are, if you are watching this, do me a favor. The next time you are in Washington, D.C., take a taxi some evening to the Department of Justice. Stand outside, and look up at that building shining against the starry night. Look at the sign outside- “The United States Department of Justice.” Think of the heroes who have served there, and the battles fought. Think of the late nights, the brave decisions, the hard work of advancing and protecting our democracy that has been done in those halls. Think about how that all makes you feel.

Then think about this statement:

The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

If you don’t feel a difference from what you were feeling a moment ago, well, congratulations – there is probably a job for you in the Bush administration. Consider the sad irony that this theory was crafted in that very building, by the George W. Bush Office of Legal Counsel.

In a nutshell, these three Bush administration legal propositions boil down to this:

1. “I don’t have to follow my own rules, and I don’t have to tell you when I’m breaking them.”

2. “I get to determine what my own powers are.”

3. “The Department of Justice doesn’t tell me what the law is, I tell the Department of Justice what the law is.”

When the Congress of the United States is willing to roll over for an unprincipled President, this is where you end up. We should not even be having this discussion. But here we are. I implore my colleagues: reject these feverish legal theories. I understand political loyalty, trust me, I do. But let us also be loyal to this great institution we serve in the legislative branch of our government. Let us also be loyal to the Constitution we took an oath to defend, from enemies foreign and domestic. And let us be loyal to the American people who live each day under our Constitution’s principles and protections.

We simply cannot put the authority to wiretap Americans, whenever they step outside America’s boundaries, under the exclusive control and supervision of the executive branch. We do not allow it when Americans are here at home; we should not allow it when they travel abroad. The principles of congressional legislation and oversight, and of judicial approval and review, are simple and longstanding. Americans deserve this protection wherever on God’s green earth they may travel.

###

I too believe that pressure must be put on Feinstein and kept there. I have done so through e.mails and posts on various journals.
I just see this as an attempt to gather donations just as the candidates do. Just a link to a petition site before asking for donations would have been nice.

Member of White House Senior Staff involved in CIA Tape Destruction

Probe sought in destruction of CIA tapes Lawmakers charge agency ...
San Francisco Chronicle, USA - 58 minutes ago
... told the Washington Post that longtime Bush aide Harriet Miers knew of the tapes' existence and told CIA officials that she opposed their destruction. ...
CIA was advised to keep interrogation videotapes Houston Chronicle
CIA Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes New York Times
Comment by Jennifer Daskal Sr. Counterterrorism Counsel, Human Rights Watch
Seattle Times - Reuters Canada
all 1,354 news articles »

ABC: White House counsel knew of plan to destroy tapes
WBOC TV 16, MD - 5 hours ago
The network quotes three sources as saying Miers urged the CIA not to go through with it. Word that the tapes were destroyed has sparked a firestorm on ...
Hollywood talks break down...Report: Miers knew about... | kxnet ...
KXMC, ND - 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) ABC News reports that then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers knew the CIA was planning to destroy videotapes of the interrogation of two ...
CIA video firestorm...Blackwater focus narrows...Gunman's suicide ... Reiten Television KXMB Bismarck
Snowy weather...Demands for CIA probe...Hollywood talks fall apart ... KXMC

http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&hl=en&ned=us&q=harriet+mi...

Listening to the "consultant" who has been with Feinstein since the 1980s demonstrates how out of touch her circle is with the threat that is facing us.
I believe that to compromise with the march of fascism at this stage, is to sell out our democracy.
Along with so many others, I have been writing to Feinstein for years, begging her to oppose the war in Iraq. And I have always received officious, brush-off answers, always saying Feinstein knew better because she sat on the intelligence committee.
Well she did not know better. She knew, and she did, worse.
She surrounds herself with people who are out of touch with the today's problems, and they defend their record based on something that happened twenty years ago.
Now is the time we need a Democrat to stand for Democratic values, and it is irrelevant what Feinstein did or didn't do in 1986.
If she voted against Bush's supreme court choices, it was not enough. Why didn't she filibuster them?
Her position on FISA is appaling to many Democrats. Her support of immunity for telecoms would hammer the last nail into the coffin of our democracy.
Her lobbying other senators to support Bush positions is contemptible.
And don't forget that she voted to condemn MoveOn, and that was me, and not Bush.
Dianne Feinstein thinks she can pretend to be a Democrat, but it isn't true. Her "consultants" defending her, show how unaware and unresponsive they are to today's realities.
We no longer trust Senator Feinstein. And with good reason.

it's best if you watch them both at the same time. you can't understand any of it, but it's better than being spun around by a couple of politicians