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Title: (Jonathan Turley) Expert: Both parties cooperate to keep administration crimes secret
Source:
Raw Story
URL Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Turle ... _should_limit_use_of_1128.html
Published: Nov 28, 2007
Author: David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Post Date: 2007-11-28 18:35:21 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 144
Comments: 11
Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane The Bush administration has made widespread use of the so-called state secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits that seek to challenge its domestic wiretaps and other illegal activities. Now two veteran senators, Arlen Spector (R-PA) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA), are teaming up to craft legislation that would direct judges to evaluate the government's state secrets claims rather than accepting them uncritically. Keith Olbermann described this proposed legislation with a high degree of skepticism, saying sardonically, "The bill may end up as part of the Senate's wiretapping law, due for a vote next month -- after which the president will sign it and monkeys will fly out of his butt." He then turned to constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, asking him why there isn't already such a law, as most Americans would assume there would be. "It actually is the law," Turley replied. "This has been a distortion, or a mutation of the law. The privilege has become something that I think the Supreme Court never imagined when it first created it." "Today, the privilege is used primarily not to keep something secret, but to keep something from being used against the government," Turley went on. "I was in a courtroom when people laughed when the government counsel argued that they could use the privilege to claim as secret something that was published on the cover of the New York Times." Turley said that some judges are already scrutinizing government claims under the state secret privilege but suggested that those who do not are merely "lazy." He pointed out that even the original case which established the privilege was eventually found to have been based on a lie, "and the Supreme Court refused to reexamine the case." Perhaps Turley's most telling observation was that members of both parties are happy to see these cases dismissed because they are determined to keep impeachment off the table. "There's a lot of people, both Democrats and Republicans, that ... don't want a court to say that the president did something that is a federal crime. That's why they're trying to get all these cases thrown out of court. ... When a federal judge says the president committed a crime, it's pretty darn hard to ignore that." However, he agreed with Olbermann that it would still be important to have such a law in place for after Bush leaves office, saying, "The privilege is now a tool used to protect the government from its own crimes." Expert: Both parties cooperate to keep administration crimes secret
11/28/2007 @ 9:07 am
This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast on November 27, 2007.
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#1. To: robin (#0)
I heard Turley say all this again today on Randi Rhodes's radio show.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
Good, now if he can get on Fox News.
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ping to the enemy
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Yes, alas, whites' worst enemies are their fellow whites. Remember Morpheus' speech before the woman in the red dress. Tavis Smiley recently said much the same thing:
#2. To: robin (#0)
#3. To: aristeides (#2)
#4. To: Tauzero (#0)
#5. To: robin (#4)
"To be a black leader you have to accept the 'anyway' proposition," said Smiley. "You have to decide that I love these negroes so much, I want to serve them so much, that I'm going to love them and serve them anyway, they will try you and will be unappreciative."
 | “There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.” -- Calvin Coolidge, "Whose Country Is This?",Good Housekeeping |
#6. To: Tauzero (#5)
Did you ever think about looking at people as being good or evil instead of black or white?
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#7. To: robin (#3)
he, like Larry Johnson and many others that actually see what the emperor isn't wearing, are no longer summoned to the murdoch star chamber.
if he can get on Fox News
#8. To: robin (#6)
Oh sure, but it wasn't reciprocated. I know, I know, it was racist of me to expect that. There wasn't an interracial consensus on what is good and what is evil. The interracial consensus today of course is than whites are uniquely and especially evil, so I'm having a hard time seeing my motivation here.
| “There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.” -- Calvin Coolidge, "Whose Country Is This?",Good Housekeeping |
#9. To: Tauzero (#8)
nonsense, you've been watching too much political news
The interracial consensus today of course is than whites are uniquely and especially evil, so I'm having a hard time seeing my motivation here.
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#10. To: robin (#9)
lady, I hardly ever watch the tube anymore Though I have gut convictions about a number of things, philosophically I don't believe in good and evil. And that's a good(!) thing, because if I did, I might think the people of some groups are especially evil, rather than just different, and I don't actually like thinking that of other groups. Which I know is very white of me.
| “There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.” -- Calvin Coolidge, "Whose Country Is This?",Good Housekeeping |
#11. To: Tauzero (#10)
ok, I give up for today - that's an interesting line of logic though.
because if I did, I might think the people of some groups are especially evil, rather than just different
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