About Law and Judgement
January 7th, 2007I’m not a fan of John McCain. I think he’s a fake and a liar as a politician, and a cheat as a man. From his ties to unethical lobbyists to his media-made (and McCain-fueled) image as a “straight talker,” I just think he’s slimy, and that slime becomes greener when we look at the way he abandoned his first wife.
With that said, I must add that his political judgement is bad, too, although I’m sure I’ve said it before.
In a week when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney joined the 2008 gop presidential primary race and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani started hiring aides to man his bid, allies of front-runner Sen. John McCain suggested that the guy he’s most concerned about is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The reason: While Giuliani and Romney are moving to the right, Gingrich is already there. But he’s not that worried: Gingrich still hasn’t decided to run, and it’s getting late.
Are you kidding me? Newt Gingrich won’t run, but beyond that overwhelming truth there’s the fact that Gingrich was chased out of the Republican Party by his own Republican soldiers (with a little help from Larry Flynt) and hasn’t received an ovation from anyone in the “mainstream” of the American public since he announced his resignation. And McCain is afraid of him? The only man McCain should be afraid of looks at him from the mirror everyday.
Moving right along…George Bush is still a criminal.
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant, the Daily News has learned. The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a “signing statement” that declared his right to open people’s mail under emergency conditions. That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it. Bush’s move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.
“Despite the President’s statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people’s mail without a warrant,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill. Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail. “The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington. “The danger is they’re reading Americans’ mail,” she said. “You have to be concerned,” agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush’s claim. “It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we’ve ever known.”
It’s getting so bad at the White House — what with Bush’s assertions of Executive Power in the face of The Law — that Harriet Miers, who is a bumbling baboon of a broad, has resigned her post as his chief counsel, a move that acknowledges that he’s going to be confronted by the Legislative Arm of the Law and Miers can’t handle it. Maybe he’ll ask his fathers friends from Iran-Contra to help him — with his impending cover-up of the many crimes committed and justified by his administration, and not just with Iraq.
My, the Republican Party’s best, cleanest hope for the future is Rudy Giuliani…and that’s pretty fucked up.