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Bush's executive tyranny
The Los Angeles Times ^ | 03/04/09 | Tim Rutten

Posted on 03/04/2009 9:27:02 AM PST by AngelesCrestHighway

Just how close to the brink of executive tyranny did the United States come in the panic that swept George W. Bush's administration after 9/11? The answer, it now seems clear, is that we came far closer than even staunch critics of the White House believed. On Monday, the Obama administration released nine legal opinions produced for the Bush White House by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That heretofore obscure office essentially serves as the president's arbiter of what's legal and what isn't. Among other things, the memorandums issued by the office in 2001 asserted that Bush had the power to order the military to capture suspected terrorists on U.S. soil and to treat them as enemy combatants without any rights to due process. In the course of such operations, according to the Office of Legal Counsel, the military was free to ignore 4th Amendment prohibitions on illegal search and seizure and to engage in warrantless wiretapping. 1st Amendment protections of free speech also could be suspended at the chief executive's directive, according to these opinions, and the president has the power to abrogate any international treaty at will.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Miscellaneous; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: blamegame; bush; commies; presidentbush
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To: AngelesCrestHighway

Good to see the BDS is still in full swing...


21 posted on 03/04/2009 10:07:27 AM PST by ElectricStrawberry (27th Infantry Regiment....cut in half during the Clinton years...)
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To: AngelesCrestHighway

To The LA Times:

RELEASE THE TAPE WITH OBAMA & AYERS!!!!!


22 posted on 03/04/2009 10:08:50 AM PST by this is my country
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To: AngelesCrestHighway

“Executive tyranny” boiled down means “to kill combatant enemies of the United States instead of attempting to arrest them.”

Gee, this is pretty much what every wartime president of the US has done, especially when the US itself is attacked. This puts him in the same boat as George Washington, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and a bunch of others.


23 posted on 03/04/2009 10:15:14 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: AngelesCrestHighway
On Monday, the Obama administration released nine legal opinions produced for the Bush White House...

Sort of makes you wonder about the timing of this release huh.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

24 posted on 03/04/2009 10:51:12 AM PST by OpeEdMunkey (We seem to have reached a critical mass of stupid people.)
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To: AngelesCrestHighway

So the Dems and their media shills are reduced to releasing Bush administration memos about something that might have happened eight years ago but didn’t? This isn’t even a good joke anymore.


25 posted on 03/04/2009 10:55:59 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: AngelesCrestHighway

Where’s the barf alert? I grant it should be obvious, but,...just sayin’.


26 posted on 03/04/2009 10:57:45 AM PST by BelegStrongbow (I'm still waiting for the One to say something that isn't a lie)
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To: BelegStrongbow

Sorry....I forgot it. (BIG BARF ALERT)


27 posted on 03/04/2009 11:57:53 AM PST by AngelesCrestHighway
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To: AngelesCrestHighway
Bush was trying to protect the US from terrorists. The Democrats automatically are on the side of the terrorists against Bush.

During the Bush administration, Democrats in agencies like the CIA would leak memos to the press to undermine Bush's policies as much as they could. Now they have free range to look for documents that might be used for political effect--since Obama has no solutions, his strategy for staying popular is to blame the previous administration for everything.

28 posted on 03/04/2009 4:16:15 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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