Congress must stay until it OKs terror bill

[lily]

Blame the Democrats for something that you have been doing that was found to be illegal. Then ask that the power be given to Gonzales..........well one thing we can agree on, is Congress better not leave for vacation before passing a bill, otherwise somehow we will find out Bush rangled a way to recess one to suit him. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20108672/)

Bush: Congress must stay until it OKs terror bill
President blames Dems for not drafting eavesdropping bill he can sign



Updated: 28 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Friday that Congress must stay in session
until it approves legislation modernizing a U.S. law governing eavesdropping
on foreigners.

"So far the Democrats in Congress have not drafted a bill I can sign," Bush
said at FBI headquarters, where he was meeting with counterterror and
homeland security officials. "We've worked hard and in good faith with the
Democrats to find a solution, but we are not going to put our national
security at risk. Time is short."

The president said lawmakers cannot leave for their August recess this
weekend as planned unless they "pass a bill that will give our intelligence
community the tools they need to protect the United States."

[NortheastCynic]

Wow.

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;
I would love to hear how this 'occasion' can be considered 'extraordinary'.

-NC

[ViolaLee]

It's a horrible idea to make them rush a bill through so they can go on vacation. Especially a bill that's so important and so likely to violate our constitutional rights.

[micfranklin]

Bush forcing Congress to help wiretap foreigners.

Chalk up another way he managed to break the law before his term ends.

[Truth_and_Power]

The FISA court review would happen 120 days after the surveillance began, another senior administration official said Friday. Until then, McConnell and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would oversee and approve the process of targeting foreign terrorists, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing negotiations.

The administration is demanding that this apply to monitoring of all foreign targets, no matter whether they end up communicating with another foreigner or someone in the U.S., and no matter whether they are a suspected terrorist or a target for some other reason, said the first official.


Sure 120 days makes sense. 20 days to draw up the request, 40 days to drive to washington from virginia, 20 days to make it up the steps to the FISA courthouse, 20 days in the lobby, and 20 days in session discussing it.

[ViolaLee]

"a target for some other reason."

There's some scary words. Like a target Karl Rove feels the need to spy on?

It's not like the Bush admin and the Justice Department and the Republican Senators have pressured any prosecutors to indict Democrats or changed the rules so 100s of White House employees could speak to US Attorneys about ongoing cases or anything. It's not like Karl Rove didn't want to remove a US Attorney from Little Rock Arkansas to replace him with his croney so he could base his Hillary bashing campaign from her home town.

/sarcasm

Obviously the Bush admin wants to use the Justice Dept, illegally to bring down Democrats. Obviously the Bush admin wants to spy on Americans without a warrant.
Obviously Karl Rove is the master of political and campaign dirty tricks.

What does that add up to for you?

[lily]

Viola, I know how you feel about the fired attorneys, but I think this is too important of a topic to be derailed. This is something that has been ongoing and now that it has finally been found to be illegal, Bush wants to force congress to do it his way by threatening a veto, or "grounding them", like children.

NC made an excellent point, which is being ignored.

He is going to be the one to decide what congress should know, no matter what committee they are on and he wants to have Gonzales head this for him!

[DANG]

Larisa Alexandrovna (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/an-open-letter-no-more-p_b_58813.html)

An Open Letter:
No More Power to the Executive, Ms. Pelosi, No More!

Posted August 1, 2007 | 11:21 PM (EST)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

I cannot fathom why you would think it wise on any level to grant more power to those who have already so abused it, but since you are bent on enabling the imperial presidency, let me just remind you of something: There is nothing wrong with the FISA law that the impeachment of Dick Cheney cannot resolve. We, the public know this. More importantly, we the press know that giving the President more surveillance power is not only un-Constitutional, it is also a direct and full frontal assault on the press. Or did you actually think that Karl Rove and his new spy toy are going to go looking for Osama bin who?

I know you are eager to get to your month long, paid vacation - something our soldiers do not get and something the voting public does not get either. But if you are going to leave the country unsupervised while you are gone, the least you can do is not pass something as serious as an expansion of surveillance powers for the Decider as you head off to get your last tan of the summer.

Ms. Pelosi, you have said that you are working to reach an agreement with the White House sometime this week. Pray tell, what is it that you need to agree to that will justify anything this administration promises in exchange? You have already taken impeachment off the table, something you have no right or authority to do, as your oath of office should remind you on a daily basis. But you have unilaterally decided that no matter what the public wants, it is your opinion on this that is important, when in fact your opinion means nothing outside your duty.

Instead of going on a vacation, you should be babysitting Congressional chambers so that this duplicitous administration does not make any more recess appointments, such as, perhaps, a new Attorney General?

You should be on the House floor daily to make sure that a deranged mad-man you refuse to remove from office does not launch an illegal war against yet another country. You should be investigating if and why a Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, was really framed by the Rove machine - as many people believe - in order to make room for the White House sanctioned candidate in Alabama. You did read the letter of 44 former state attorneys generals demanding that Congress investigate why Siegelman was imprisoned?

Or were you otherwise busy drafting the more-power-to-the-decider law instead of sparing this man from having to endure one more day of false imprisonment? You should be working day and night to set right what is still wrong in New Orleans.

You should be demanding to know what happened to over $9 billion dollars of OUR money gone missing under this administration in Iraq, a sizable amount that no Executive Branch official can "recall" and something Congress appears to be barely interested in locating.

You should be doing something, anything but going on vacation. In short, you should be the leader that you were elected to be.

Instead, your last concern....

More... (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/an-open-letter-no-more-p_b_58813.html)I fully concur.