CITE!!!
Was there an article in Time magazine about the Powell/Bush conflict? If it’s online I’d love a link… I’m a political junkie 
Number of executive orders issued by the last 3 2 (full) term presidents:
Clinton: 364
Reagan: 381
Eisenhower:486
from: http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/executive_orders/disposition_tables.html
Has she been convicted, or is guilt just assumed in matters like this ?
Me and my son went to the first annual Peace Concert (an alternative to the air show) yesterday.
The lady who was one of the performers has some songs.
this one seems appropo:
AFAIK the trial hasn’t been held yet. From what I read about this case, there seems to be lots of evidence against her, so it appears that she is guilty.
I won’t offer any substantive, point-by-point defense of Mr. Ashcroft, but I can’t think of anything he’s done that should change anyone’s mind about him.
If you’re on the Left, obviously the man is every bit as “bad” as you feared. But if you’re not… he hasn’t done anything that should alienate people who liked him in the first place.
Perhaps I live in an ivory tower, but I have yet to encounter the fascist police state that Ashcroft’s enemies insist the U.S. has become.
>> Perhaps I live in an ivory tower, but I have yet to encounter the fascist police state that Ashcroft’s enemies insist the U.S. has become
99.9% of the people in China never encounter the the fascist police either. It is only the remaning minority who need protection from the State. In the US there are already a few people whose rights are being violated. The fact that it is not you or me does not mean they do not deserve their rights like you or me.
Now there’s a rigorous standard.
<<99.9% of the people in China never encounter the the fascist police either>>
There are almost 300 million Americans. Somewhere between, 30 and 300 of our citizens had their usual civil liberties infringed. The complement of 99.9% is .1%, which is 1 per 1000, which totals 300,000 Americans. That’s inaccurate. Let’s try again.
The number of Americans whose civil liberties have been infringed by Ashcroft may be about 30 to 300. That’s a range of 1 in 1 million to 1 in 10 milliion, i.e. 0.00001% to 0.0001%. So, the percentage whose rights have NOT been infringed amounts to 99.99999% to 99.9999%.
A civil liberties violation to even one person is still wrong, but let’s keep straight the magnitude of the problem.
>> A civil liberties violation to even one person is still wrong, but let’s keep straight the magnitude of the problem.
Which is exactly my point. Nowhere did I say or imply any figures about how many people’s rights are being violated by the US government. My point is only that one person abused by the US government is one person too many and there are a number of persons in that situation.
December, it only takes one case to set a precedent, after which it applies to everybody. The magnitude of the problem is unchanged.
I’m cutting and pasting from an e-mail discussion I had with an Ashcroft-supporter many months ago, so some of the incidents are out of date.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ashcroft’s aspirations of becoming Big Brother has been revealed in several major incidents (so far).
(1) FOIA debacle. On Oct. 12, 2001, Ashcroft re-wrote the FOI standards in a memo. He said that the basis for which FOI requests can be denied was no longer “foreseeable harm” but a “sound legal basis.” After much outcry, the House Government Reform Committee (the Committee with FOI oversight) said on March 7, 2002, “Contrary to the instructions issued by the Department of Justice on October 12, 2001, the standard should not be to allow the withholding of information whenever there is merely a ‘sound legal basis’ for doing so.”
http://www.rcfp.org/news/2002/0307waxman.html
(2) Refusing to release the names of foreign national detainees. Yes, Ashcroft is within the bounds of the law for holding foreigners without bail hearings or formal charges. However, there is absolutely no justification for not releasing their names, other than to prevent the public from discovering what, exactly, he is doing.
(3) Allowing federal authorities to monitor communications between federal prisoners and their lawyers without first obtaining a judicial warrant. 'Nuff said.
(4) Giving the government power to detain a foreigner even after an immigration judge has ordered his release.
(5) The USA Patriot’s Act. Written by John Ashcroft, was passed by the House and Senate after Ashcroft “demanding that they move immediately to show the nation and the terrorists that we would surely prevail in this war for freedom.” Where to start?
-
The FBI can demand from bookstores and libraries the names of books bought or borrowed by anyone suspected of “involvement in internal terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” The bookstores then are under an automatic gag order and cannot reveal what they have done http://www.insidevc.com/vcs/opinion/article/0,1375,VCS_125_1002273,00.html
-
Wiretaps are now easier to get. Even if the primary purpose were a criminal investigation, intelligence surveillance merely needs to be only a “significant” purpose for the provisions to apply.
-
The government can get access to Internet communications upon a showing that the information would be “relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.” The communications are subject to “nationwide service” and are, in essence, blank warrants.
-
“The FBI need only certify to a court that it is conducting an intelligence investigation and that the records it seeks may be relevant. With this new power, the FBI can force a business to turn over a person’s educational, medical, financial, mental health and travel records based on a very low standard of proof and without meaningful judicial oversight.”
<<it only takes one case to set a precedent, after which it applies to everybody. The magnitude of the problem is unchanged.>>
That’s more-or-less the slippery slope argment. It has some validity in some cases, but the above statement is far too extreme, IMHO.
E.g., Janet Reno took responsibility for the Waco horor in which a bunch of innocent women and children belonging to an oddball church were incinerated. That didn’t lead to wholesale murder of women and children in churches across America; it was an isolated case.
Bobby Kennedy approved the wire-tapping of Martin Luthor King. That doesn’t mean RFK was a racist; quite the reverse is true. That was an isolated case.
One could argue that any single case has the potential to grow to significant magnitude. However, most of them don’t grow like that. So, the magnitude is a key element.
I don’t want to get too much off topic, but the Branch Davidians were innocent? Is it legal to resist arrest and hold stand-offs with the police and FBI in Texas?
Not that I’m implying they they deserved to die, before anyone thinks I meant that.
So because the abuses are small, it’s not important that Ashcroft is fostering them ? That seems at odds with the assertion that “any single case has the potential to grow to significant magnitude.”
Reno pulled the weeds before they took over the yard. Ashcroft appears to be spreading manure.
They weren’t The Branch Davidians. They were human beings. At least 86 of them died horribly by being incinerated. A few of them had committed serious crimes. Most were innocent of any crime. Many were women, children and infants. Quite a few were minorities.
Regardless of who started the fire, the fact remains that the FBI had no plan at all to rescue the innocent people. No doubt the Branch Davidian leaders deserve enormous blame, but the FBI deserves some blame too. They should have been protecting the innocnet, but they made no effort at all to do so.
I don’t know what you mean by “fostering.” As I see it, holding Jose Padilla indefinitely is questionable. On the one hand, he’s a danger, because he might build and detonate a dirty bomb. OTOH he’s an American citizen.
But, one cannot equate detaining one American citizen on somewhat dubious grounds with putting every single Japanese-American in a concentration camp.
This is a hijack, but what weeds did she figuratively pull? 
She didn’t show much respect for civil liberties when her people captured the dangerous Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint!:eek: