harikari.com

As of late, most of the news media has been reporting on our current financial crisis, and it is very important; however, I think it is also important to to point out that as recessions and depressions come and go, and as corporate greedheads come and go, (most not to where I would like to see them go), and as income taxes go up and down, we usually manage to hold on to our basic rights as citizens in this country of ours that is governed not by a king or despot, but by “We the People.”

I said usually…

On Monday our government released what were known as the Bush Torture Memos, but the scope of the nine memos released on Monday is much broader than torture.  Here’s a clip from the New York Times article about the memos.  (my emphasis added).

The secret legal opinions issued by Bush administration lawyers after the Sept. 11 attacks included assertions that the president could use the nation’s military within the United States to combat terrorism suspects and to conduct raids without obtaining search warrants.

That opinion was among nine that were disclosed publicly for the first time Monday by the Justice Department, in what the Obama administration portrayed as a step toward greater transparency.

The opinions reflected a broad interpretation of presidential authority, asserting as well that the president could unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties, ignore any guidance from Congress in dealing with detainees suspected of terrorism, and conduct a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants.

…

The Oct. 23 memorandum also said that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” It added that “the current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty said that in addition, the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally bars the military from domestic law enforcement operations, would pose no obstacle to the use of troops in a domestic fight against terrorism suspects. They reasoned that the troops would be acting in a national security function, not as law enforcers.

In another of the opinions, Mr. Yoo argued in a memorandum dated Sept. 25, 2001, that judicial precedents approving deadly force in self-defense could be extended to allow for eavesdropping without warrants.   [WTF?]

Still another memo, issued in March 2002, suggested that Congress lacked any power to limit a president’s authority to transfer detainees to other countries, a practice known as rendition that was widely used by Mr. Bush.

We here at harikari have been ranting about Bush’s heinous abuse of power since we went on line in 2005.  These memos prove that we and everyone else who made our views known to anyone who would listen were right when we said that George W. Bush was not abiding by The Constitution he swore not once, but twice, to uphold as President of the United States.  These memos prove that he and the political hacks he hired to staff his Justice Department were stretching legal opinion farther than any reasonably educated U.S. Citizen would ever dare.  These memos essentially argue that the president is above the law and that he answers to no one.  Simply put, that he is a king.

This is the issue that we should be discussing.

Obama knew of these memos before his his speech to a joint session of congress, and that is why he felt it was necessary to say:

To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend, because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America.  And that is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists… because living our values doesn’t make us weaker.  It makes us safer, and it makes us stronger.

And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture.  We can make that commitment here tonight.

And both sides of the aisle stood up and gave him one of their loudest and longest rounds of applause.

That applause was an affirmation that no matter what the outcome in Iraq, George W. Bush will go down in history as one of the worst presidents ever because he willingly undermined our Constitution and took away our rights.  He was NOT working FOR the people, he was working AGAINST the people.

He was, in effect, a tyrant.