wiretap lies

Chris Floyd writes: "What a difference a year makes -- or is it an election? Back in 2004, George W. Bush was caught on camera explaining very carefully that the government always requires a court order when "chasing down terrorists." Trying to sell the Patriot Act -- which he wanted renewed but which was coming under increasing fire from all sides of the political spectrum -- Bush was very clear that "a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way." By that, he meant thatneither the Patriot Act nor its ostensible cause -- the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- changed the absolute legal requirement for the government to get a court order before ordering wiretaps against suspected terrorists."

'it's just a goddamned piece of paper'

from capital hill blue: GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the [Patriot] act could further alienate conservatives...

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.

10 big questions

Jarrett Murphy of the Village Voice writes:
1. Where was the "National Command Authority"?
2. Who gave the order to try to shoot the planes down?
3. What exactly were all those firefighters doing in the towers?
4. Did anyone think the towers would collapse?
5. Why was Giuliani's command bunker at ground zero?
6. Why did 7 WTC fall?
7. How did the twin towers fall?
8. How dangerous was—and is—the air at ground zero?
9. What exactly did Zacarias Moussaoui plan to do?
10. What's on those blanked-out pages?

another war

Eric Alterman, author of "When Presidents Lie," writes: We know now...that after the famed Gulf of Tonkin "incident" on Aug. 4, 1964 - in which North Vietnam allegedly attacked two American destroyers - NSC officials doctored the evidence to support President Lyndon Johnson's false charge in a speech to the nation that night of "open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America." In fact, no real evidence for those attacks has ever been found.

Here is 60 Minutes Producer Don Hewitt discussing the fake Gulf of Tonkin incident.