The site for ranting and reporting by John Masters
Constitutional issues and questions are posted to this category.
I have come across the continent to talk to you about two subjects close to my heart. I care about them as a journalist, a citizen and a grandfather who looks at the pictures next to my computer of my five young grandchildren who do not have a vote, a lobbyist in Washington, or the means to contribute to a presidential candidate. If I don’t act in their behalf, who will?
Read moreOn Thursday, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted very obliquely that perhaps Mr. Gonzales’s time was up. We’re not going to be oblique. Mr. Bush should dismiss Mr. Gonzales and finally appoint an attorney general who will use the job to enforce the law and defend the Constitution.
Read moreA new report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) “has found pervasive errors in the FBI’s use of its power to secretly demand telephone, e-mail and financial records in national security cases.” “The inspector general’s audit found 22 possible breaches of internal FBI and Justice Department regulations — some of which were potential violations of law — in a sampling of 293 ‘national security letters (NSLs).'”
Read moreApparently the President still doesn’t get this Democracy/Constitution thing with the co-equal branches of government and checks and balances. Poor George has repeated his “I’m the Decider” declaration, amending it slightly to “I’m the decision-maker.”
Read moreHere is the Democratic response to the State of the Union Address as delivered by Freshman Senator Jim Webb (D-VA). Extremely well written, consise and delivered perfectly.
Read moreI guess the biggest story going on now is the President’s “surge” strategy for Iraq, and their obvious attempts to generate a confrontation iwth Iran. While I have always felt that George and Dick were stupid and dangerous, I have refrained from calling for an impeachment. However, it is clearly time to set loose the dogs. In the past several months more domestic surveilance by the CIA and the Defense Department has come to light. Bush has started to fire Federal Prosecutors who are investigating Republican congressman.
Read moreWe should be “proud” that the federal government didn’t cancel our elections? That the Bush administration didn’t use the war as an excuse to interrupt the democratic process? Sounds to me like a tinge of regret he didn’t cancel them.
Read moreJust days after his resignation, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany’s top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Read moreKeith Olbermann, on his MSNBC show, has often offered some very insightful special comments at the end of his broadcast. Yesterday’s was especially poignant, so I wanted to share the transcript with you.
Read moreNote to self…October 17, 2006…the day the United States Government nullified the Constitution, and Americans did nothing.
Read moreI’ve seen several articles about this over the past day or so. I’m linking to a brief article on Wired News. Apparently U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is laying the ground work for the more agressive government monitoring of the web, if not outright control. Disaffected people living in the United States may develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills over the internet and that could present the next major U.S. security threat, Chertoff said on Monday.
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