President Bush's decision to bypass court review and authorize domestic wiretapping by executive order was part of a concerted effort to rebuild presidential powers weakened in the 1970s as a result of the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War, Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122105K.shtml

William Rivers Pitt: If we as a nation do not impeach a sitting president for such a vast array of blatantly illegal activities - activities directed at the American people themselves - then as a nation of laws we have lost our way. We have no meaning. We are finished, and the ideals for which so many have served and fought and died are ashes. Intolerable. Impeachable.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122105I.shtml



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3822/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2005/122005MaryPIRG.shtml


Informant: NHNE

David Cole: The message transmitted by the Bush White House is crystal clear: When the president decides existing law is insufficient to protect Americans, he'll move ahead on his own and do whatever he deems necessary in the war on terror. Bush acted as if there are no checks and balances in the American system of government. Some things changed drastically after 9/11, but we cannot allow that to be one of them.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005E.shtml

Vietnamese victims of the defoliant known as Agent Orange wound up a month-long visit to the US at the invitation of veterans, Vietnamese Americans and peace activists, to press their case for reparations from the US government and the companies that made the deadly chemical.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005G.shtml

The British Foreign Office privately accepts that CIA rendition flights did pass through its territory, a diplomatic source told United Press International.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005C.shtml

With tensions rising in the Capitol, Senate Democrats threatened on Monday to derail a $453 billion military spending bill over an Arctic oil drilling dispute, just hours after the House approved the measure in an all-night session that also included passage of a $40 billion budget-cutting bill.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122105Z.shtml

Boston Globe
by Peter S. Canellos

12/20/05

On the morning of April 9, 1952, American flags flew above 88 steel mills across the country, signaling a change in management. The president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, had seized control of the mills, claiming that the intransigence of the private owners would lead to a strike that would cripple US efforts to win the Korean War. 'The president has the power to keep the country from going to hell,' Truman told his staff, according to David McCullough's 1992 biography. Truman was wrong, according to the Supreme Court, in its most extensively reasoned decision charting the limits of presidential power. The so-called 'steel seizure case' is suddenly in the news again because President Bush is now saying that his powers as president and commander-in-chief -- the justifications cited by Truman -- permit him to authorize wiretaps on US citizens...

http://tinyurl.com/9dnvh


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Washington Times
by Nat Hentoff

12/19/05

For a time, during her closely scrutinized visit to Europe, the secretary of state had a credibility problem responding to growing concern about frequent air traffic by CIA planes over countries there. She denied that CIA 'renditions' of terrorism suspects to other countries involved torture. But a headline in the German publication Der Spiegel asked impolitely: 'Does anyone believe Condoleezza Rice?' Despite the increasing reports in the European press of CIA planes crisscrossing Europe, she repeatedly said, 'The United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture.' Moreover, she declined to comment on charges by many journalists, including this one, that the CIA on its own has a network of secret interrogation centers in Europe. Yet, on Dec. 5, Brian Ross reported on ABC News that al Qaeda suspects in two secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe had been cleared out before Miss Rice's arrival, and the suspects were moved to a new hidden CIA facility in the North African desert...

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20051218-100758-7583r.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp