My wife is a conservative, her father is a WW2, Korean War and Vietnam War veteran. She was born in Marsburg, Germany in 1952 while her father was there doing a "constabulary post" after WW2 and he was sent to Korea from there, and then returned to Germany after his time in Korea to meet his daughter born while he was gone.
She spent most of her youth in Panama, her dad was a trainer in the Jungle Training program there, for people training to go to Vietnam. His experise was animals, and how to trap them for food. Something that Long Range Patrols had a necessity for. She like myself was raised in a military family, and for the most part they are conservative, in politics, in thinking, and financially, as there is usually not large sums of money in military paychecks, especially back in the 50s, 60s and early 70s. You were frugal and learned to live within your means, credit cards were not a way of life back then, and truthfully even when they did become more commonplace, there was not a large call for living "large on credit" it would affect your security clearances, So you lived within your means. But we believed in the flag, our Bill of Rights and our Constitution. We believed that everyone was subject to our laws, even the President.
The last 8 years has shown the nation that the White House does not believe in the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights, or even doing the "right thing", we have a Vice President that thinks the President can order "extra-legal" operations.
Wire-tapping all communications, inside and international, the FISA court be damned. They got Congress to roll over and grant them a few inches where they then took miles of "covert action" that I doubt any lawyer could justify in a court of law.High-tech strip search goes too far
The Transportation Security Administration agent, a gray-haired woman with tired eyes, told me I had been "selected" for enhanced screening and directed me into a large machine
snip
These agents were supposed to be eavesdropping only on the phone calls of Americans overseas who were talking to terrorists. At least that's how President Bush explained it when he was lobbying Congress to allow broader warrantless wiretapping by the NSA.
But rather than protecting our national security, intercept officers spent time violating Americans' privacy by routinely recording salacious phone sex and other personal conversations, according to two whistle-blowers who worked at an NSA listening post in Fort Gordon, Ga. The juiciest stuff was allegedly passed around.
Here is the inevitable: You give people with routine jobs the ability to rummage around in other people's intimate lives -- innocent people who are not suspected of anything -- and bad stuff happens. Privacy goes out the window. Boys will be boys. The rules, law and even the Constitution don't stand a chance. Titillation trumps training, at least for some.
This does not seem to be part of the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights, this is a national government that has run amok, apparently with Congresses blessing, or thru some of President Bush's 1100 "signing statements" those exemptions from the laws that Congress has passed that he does NOT think he has to follow because he's the "Decider"
There is one problem he forgot his oath of office of Office for President
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
from the Office of the Curator
Nowhere in the oath does it allow for "exemptions" that a President decides to entertain or allow his employees to do, under his authority. He is beholden to the same laws of the US as any other citizen.
If the President was beholden to the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) that military members are, I can think of quite a few charges he could be charged under UCMJ
- ART. 81. CONSPIRACY
Any person subject to this chapter who conspires with any other person to commit an offense under this chapter shall, if one or more of the conspirators does an act to effect the object of the conspiracy, be punished as a court-martial may direct.
- ART. 92. FAILURE TO OBEY ORDER OR REGULATION
Any person subject to this chapter who--
(1) violates or fails to obey any lawful general order or regulation;
(2) having knowledge of any other lawful order issued by any member of the armed forces, which it is his duty to obey, fails to obey the order; or
(3) is derelict in the performance of his duties;
shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
- ART. 93. CRUELTY AND MALTREATMENT
Any person subject to this chapter who is guilty of cruelty toward, or oppression or maltreatment of, any person subject to his orders shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
- ART. 99. MISBEHAVIOR BEFORE THE ENEMY
(9) does not afford all practicable relief and assistance to any troops, combatants, vessels, or aircraft of the armed forces belonging to the United States or their allies when engaged in battle;
- ART. 107. FALSE STATEMENTS
Any person subject to this chapter who, with intent to deceive, signs any false record, return, regulation, order, or other official document, knowing it to be false, or makes any other false official statement knowing it to be false, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
- ART. 134. GENERAL ARTICLE
Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.
Since we all know he will never be held to the same standards of the military despite being the Commander in Chief
I propose the new Attorney General in January 2009 appoint a Special Prosecutor to delve into the misdeeds of the Bush Administration, from the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney Generals Mukasey and Gonzalez and Ashcroft and wherever else the evidence leads him, the torture of prisoners at Gitmo, the secret prisons, in Iraq and Afghanistan and where ever else the evidence leads him to both civilian and military authorities. Until we have dealt with the sins of the past how do we assert ourselves to be the nation we used to be, the nation of JUSTICE and freedom and where all are accountable to our laws, and no man is above the law?