Federal Judge Rules Bush Wiretapping Program Illegal

A small step in restoring a respect for the the Constitution and the rule of law which had been utterly lost during the Bush years- but we’ve got a long way to go!! And why is the Obama administration still defending this stuff?

So-called “Judge” Vaughn Walker, who is a lawless, San Francisco homosexual activist, asserts that the Bush terrorist surveillance program is “illegal”? Hahahahaha. Although the lawless 9th Circus Court of Appeals will dutifully affirm Walker’s utter lawlessness, expect the four pro-Constitution justices (i.e., Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Roberts) and Anthony Kennedy to rule against Walker’s like-minded, completely lawless justices (i.e., Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer and the racist, self-described “wise Latina”). Not even Anthony Kennedy is lawless enough to side with Walker.

Only in the delusional mind of the far right are judges who uphold the Constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure “lawless”, and judges who rule that corporations are people are “pro-Constitution”.

Thanks so very much for this reporting, Michael Scherer.

As always Textee, you’re a class act. One need read no further than “homosexual” to know all they need to know.

Smear! nuffsaid

This is a very hopeful sign, he said softly, crossing whats left of his fingers.

Apparently being a homosexual ‘activist’ -meaning maybe someone who supports constitutional rights for GLBT folks?- is a bad thing. Who knew?

textee, your take on this would be interesting, except for the fact that it adds no novel ideas to the discussion — all you really had to do was remind everyone that you were one of the people who define the Supremes as either “pro-constituion” or “lawless” based upon whether they generally side with “right-wing” radical ideology or not, and we all could have written the rest of your opinion for ourselves.
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Your exaltation and and demonization of Supreme Court justices based soley upon group labels is poisonous to a healthy politic.

t

This just reminds me of how Right wing public relations specializes in, when the kettle, calling the pot black before the pot can say anything.

I) In this case: since Bush was blatantly acting unconstitutionally, knowing it would come up, they said the same about HCR.

2) In both campaigns to deflect Bush and Cheney both being chickenhawks, they, in the nomination campaign in 2000 followed by the 2004 election, when running against war heroes of Vietnam, made false claims about their rival first.

I do not know if somebody planned or expected a Republican to do impeachable offenses years in advance, but, Impeaching Clinton gave impeachment such a bad name that only Dennis Kucinich considered impeaching Bush and Cheney.

Their tactics are reprehensible, yet, highly effective.

This should be on the front page of every paper in America.

It’s do unto others before they do unto you.

@textee Walker is a libertarian-leaning judge appointed by George Bush, Sr. He’s one of the smartest minds on the federal bench — acknowledged by any lawyer who has had to argue in front of him. Of course, it’s much easier to just gay-bait him. I guess that’s what passes for reason on the right these days.

Good, I said from the drop that this was a slippery slope the government should never have gotten involved in.

Warent-less wiretaps? What’s next warent-less search and seizure? Jury-less trials? This was a stupid path that never should have been started down.

Finally a judge actually makes that point.

“only Dennis Kucinich considered impeaching Bush and Cheney.”

Unfortunately for good ol’ Dennis not very many people listen to him. Probably because after he ran Cleveland into the ground he has continued to talk about how great a job he did “saving” the city. When Kucinich saves your city you get the “worst city in America” award from Forbes.

No one listened on what might have arguably been a decent idea (in terms of breaking the Constitution etc, not war crimes) or at least an idea worth listening to and debating the merits of, because Dennis was such a vocal idiot about everything else he’s ever said.

I do not find the perspective of Forbes to be as exalted of a yardstick as I infer that you infer it is. Just what is the overriding authority of judgement from a perspective of what makes the rich richer?

You’re right, I actually bow down and PRAY to Forbes every night before I go to sleep. I mean they… I don’t know how to describe it… it’s like Jesus on paper!

Everyone wants to be rich, don’t lie about it, you do too even if it’s just so you can give it away. No other country has the upward and downward social mobility of the USA, and Forbes reports on it.

Until a better publication comes a long with better credentials I’ll stick with them over the dailykos.

johnny427:

There is no “gay-baiting” of Walker by me. My conclusion of Walker is based on his actions on behalf of the plaintiffs challenging the duly passed California proposition on marriage. Read up on Walker’s actions. It ain’t pretty ….

I saw Cleveland for the second or third time in my life briefly at the Rock and Roll Hall of fame (seen better, seen worse – about an hour and a half of fun) and know that Drew Carey made a career out of making fun of Cleveland.
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I, also, said before, Dennis can be a little bit wacky.
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If we didn’t just have an impeachment trial for a president who was the first one in US history to have the Supreme Court allow him to be sued (Thomas Jefferson set the precedent that a president does not testify in court while president) lied about an extraneous part of the trial, Dennis’ voice would have been drowned out by a chorus of people looking to impeach Bush.
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OT Forbes list of great places to live is pretty good, but a little bit random.

@textee Save me. The right has made a huge issue of Vaughn Walker’s sexuality, which neither they nor the plaintiffs would have done if he were straight. It’s shitty politics and if you had any decency you would know it. Dude was appointed by Ronald Reagan and once defended the IOC vs. having to use the term “Gay Olympics.” Go crawl back into the 1950s where you and McCarthy and Hoover can have a secret threesome at night and then excoriate gay people during the day.

sasquatch @ 7.2 ~

Ha, ha.
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I would like to be rich so I could try to do good things with it for us all, but that is just because so much total bad is done by the sum of others with riches, and thus beign rich becomes won of the few ways to counter that,
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But i stilldo not consider it a god, nor the yardstick by which “sucess” ought to be measured.
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I lack the information with which to judge, but could it be that Dennis’s “saving’ of the city might have been thwarting a furthering of greedy control by certain instituitons? I know it is hard to ague “things are better because they otherwise would have been worse”, but is this notion out of the question?

Wiretapping muslims who are raising money in the US is nothing but a good idea!
We should have been wiretapping Obama and discovering what foreign nationals were contributing millions illegally to his campaign.

Should we have been wiretapping Republicans to see what corporations were paying for their campaigns and wiretapping the phones at Fox and right wing radio to see who is paying them off?
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BTW: did you give up on attacking everything as “Communist” after I showed you that the civil rights movement which protects the rights of blacks and, apparently like yourself, Latinos right to vote or are you against your own right to vote because you are scared it might cause a communist government?
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How about Right winger’s phones like:
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1) Suicide bomber Joe Stack.
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2) Eric Rudolph 1996 Olympic bomber.
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3) Timothy McVeigh.
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Obama is a Hawaiian.
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Hawaii is a part of the US.
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If you have a Latino name, even you are tenth generation, should we, also, wiretap your phone, Ricardo?
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(Like me, I bet wiretapping your phone will tell us that burning question “what does Ricardo order for takeout” and nothing more useful than that.)

Ricardo,
Watch the German movie, The Lives of Others.
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It is about an East German Stasi agent wiretapping the phone and apartment of a perceived political dissident.
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Tapping phones without probable cause is Communist.
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It is,also – for a different ideology – fascist.
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Now is the time to talk about totalitarianism.
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Nothing good can come from randomly tapping people’s phones.
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Imagine if, due to your Latino first and, possibly, last name that the FBI listens in on your phone and knows about everything you do.
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This is how Democrats hate communism.
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Unless there is a reason to believe you are going to commit a crime, I do not want to know nor have the Federal state or local government know what you say online, what you say on the phone or what you talk to your woman about in private.
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Besides the fact that most people’s private life will bore you to tears, it is wrong for governments to know this kind of thing.
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This is why Democrats called the Bush Administration proto-fascist: wiretaps.
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If you like being wiretapped, Fidel Castro would love to wiretap you. (I don’t care if you are Cuban, Mexican – from England even – but you can go to Cuba and get wiretapped as much as you like and somebody will listening every time and writing down how often you fart.)