Waiting for your explosion, Mr. Creosote.
Posted on 08/03/2007 9:46:51 AM PDT by kristinn
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, who has the power under the Constitution to keep Congress in session, 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."
Earlier Friday, the White House offered an eleventh-hour accord to Democrats in the negotiations over the matter, saying it would agree to a court review of its foreign intelligence activities instead of leaving certification up to the attorney general and director of national intelligence.
But it attached several conditions that could be unacceptable to Democrats: that the review would only be after-the-fact and would only involve the administration's general process of collecting the intelligence, not individual cases, said a senior administration official speaking on condition of anonymity to more freely discuss internal deliberations.
SNIP
The two sides, however, still are far from striking a deal on what all agree needs to happen, and soon: an update of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
At issue is how the government would spy on foreign terror suspects overseas without invading Americans' privacy rights. Democrats want the special FISA Court to review the eavesdropping process to make sure the surveillance does not focus on communications that might be sent to and from Americans.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
The constitution grants no such power to the President to COMPEL attendance to a session of Congress. Only each house of Congress has the power to arrest a member of Congress and force them to attend a session. The president could order a session of congress to reconvene for a special session but that would put Congress back in session in which case he could not force attendance because Article I of the US constitution says that congressman : shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize that was the question - I don’t think he (or even the Congressional leaders) have any power to compel attendance of any specific member(s), but I don’t know for certain.
Also, I don’t know all the ins and outs of quorum calls, what constitutes being “in session” for each chamber of Congress, etc. If many/most members leave for several days at a time to go to their districts etc. (as they frequently do for their 4-day weekends), when is Congress in session and when is it adjourned? I think these are issues of the rules of each chamber rather than the US Constitution - I don’t recall any such details anywhere in the Constitution. In fact, it only refers to an annual session of Congress and I don’t think it was envisioned in the 18th century that legislatures would convene for so much of each year (the Utah state legislature still has an annual session of only about 6-8 weeks).
Catch 22...unfortunately.
Thanks for the clarification.
Call all constitutionalists.
Lurking
Well there you go. Another daydream of mine turns to vapor.
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
Ditto
Waiting for your explosion, Mr. Creosote.
Also takes the demonization of the Iraqi leglislature away from the Democrats... not that that will stop them but it makes them even less credible this September when they ignore Petraeus’s report. Too bad Bush didn’t play more hardball with the Congress pre-election 2006 but you’re not supposed to have to with politicians who are supposed to be your friends...You know, those “drunken sailors”.
To all with unjustifiable blind faith in criminal godvernment:
FreePers have a conservative reputation. You mean well. You want to be true patriots. I salute you for that. But . . .
Do you really, REEEEAAALY want traitorous el busho ramming through another unjust “law” to legalize spying on patriotic US citizens?
Do you really want an electronic surveillance bug in your ear, in your mouth and up your butt? I don’t. Any normal American doesn’t.
This corrupt godvernment OF the godvernment, BY the criminal godvernment, and FOR ONLY criminals in godvernment (+ their crime bosses, partners & affiliates) have feverishly, hellishly worked to scorn We The Victimized People and fully earn our mistrust. They’ve consistently betrayed us at almost every turn.
Why pat these thugs (evil godvernment is organized crime, folks — the Federal Mafia) on the back and root them onto more acts of tyranny?
Look, I’m more patriotic than all of them combined with scant exceptions like Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Tom Coburn, and a very few others less than 50% of the time. Before we let them KILL THE REST OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS –which is what they’re doing under el busho’s whipping– don’t you think that butthead should first:
•secure borders and ports to STOP the invasion and hostile occupation
•stop doling out Terrorist, uh, pardon me, “student” visas to RIM caliphate tyrannies (RIM = radical islamofascist militant; you know, those ragheads we don’t want killing us)
•screw Political Correctness and RE-INSTITUTE Racial Profiling to identify and apprehend terrorists ???
These are 3 Common Sense steps before ‘legalizing’ spying on Americans. You’re foolish if you think our criminal godvernment does not already spy on We The Victims, and shall stop spying on us. NO WAY, JOSE!
In the grossly misnamed PATRIOT Acts (read them sometime) criminal godvernment deliberately & loosely, very loosely defines “Enemy of State”, “terrorist”, “person of interest”, “terrorist suspect, sympathizer”, etc. When queried, godvernment’s professional LIARS (salaried by taxpayers to lie to us) say they need flexibility (read: ever-morphing) defining of such terms to deal with the “War on Terror”.
Do you know why? Because neo-comms don’t like any opinions differing from their brainwashing and propaganda. Ergo, I’m an “Enemy of State” because I disagree with their treason, schemed destruction of the Bill of Rights and US Constitution. I’m not your typical RIM terrorist, but talking against organized crime in the Federal Mafia can be defined as Enemy of State. godvernment criminals will conjure up a newly morphed definition to get me for telling too much truth.
FreePers are already awake and using their minds. Just make sure it’s really you yourself using your mind (not godvernment programmers), and drink less of the neo-comm Party-Line Kool-aid. neo-comms are really communists redux.
Meanwhile, el presidente jorge busho hisses more lies with forked tongue thru venom fangs.
el busho is hellbent on legalizing spying on Americans. Ramming through passage of the FISA “modernization” bill is a higher priority than justice for True Patriots, like Ramos and Compean.
But, hey, what do you expect from a neo-comm tyrant? Do you think it wants another draconian “law” in-the-making scuttled by dumb@$$ Americans? After We The Victimized People sunk el busho’s “Amnesty Bill”, that lizard-lipped, snake-skinned el presidente is hotter than its cold-blooded rattler kin basking & baking on hot rocks in 110 degree desert heat.
Maybe it’ll strong-arm congressthings into passing its “Foreign [AND Domestic] Spying [on US Citizens]” bill so stentors and reprehensives can’t go vacationing until el tyrant gets what it demands.
Oh, pardon me. it already did that and commanded congress to stays until it passes “modernized” FISA. Boy, oh boy, this sidewinding neo-comm tyrant is just too quick for this snakebit ol’ codger!
Anyhow, you can take action to try to prevent more viper venom from snakey rattler el busho. Please see below.
Quotes of the Day:
From “The Devil’s Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce . . .
Representative: In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.
Senate: A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
Subject: Why we’re confused, and what to do about it
We admit it. We’re confused. We would like to be able to tell you what is happening with the so-called FISA “modernization” bill — which may legalize government spying on innocent Americans — but we can’t. No one understands what is going on with this bill, including the members of Congress.
There are so many different versions of this bill, and amendments to it, and back-room negotiations and deals being made, that no one really knows anything about what will come to the floor. And yet, Congressional leaders want to rush to a vote before they recess.
This shouldn’t be happening, and it couldn’t happen if DownsizeDC.org’s “Read the Bills Act” was the law of the land.
There’s also a lot of lying going on. For instance, President Bush has claimed that the FISA law hasn’t been updated since 1978. TRUTH: The FISA law has been updated more than 50 times since 1978, including multiple times since Bush was elected.
President Bush signed these updates into law! Our elected leaders really are scoundrels.
Here’s what we’re going to do. Let’s hit them on two fronts today. First, send Congress a message telling them not to rush to a vote on FISA modernization before they leave. Stress this in your comments. NO RUSHED VOTES!
We’ve defeated this monster before by delaying a vote, and there’s a real chance we can do that again now.
You can send that message here.
Second, hit them on the “Read the Bills Act.” Send them a message about RTBA. Tell them the confused rush to a vote on FISA modernization is proof that we need DownsizeDC.org’s “Read the Bills Act” with its 7-day waiting period before a vote can be held on any bill.
You can send that message here.
Finally, it would be really helpful if you could make phone calls too, stressing these points. You will see the phone numbers for your elected representatives when you log-in to send your message to Congress (or when you register if you are sending a message for the first time).
Sorry for the confusion, but that’s the way these guys operate.
Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.
Perry Willis
Communications Director
DUH
Can you say “this was not considered on Wednesday, Sept 12, 2001?”
I guess the Rats still don’t consider Iran and Syria enemies of the US even though they have both declared it.
Yup!
...folks are getting upset again!
Y'all need to tune this LIVE SHOW in right now.
He waited until the Republican time was up so they could not respond to his comments.
They requested a chance to address that issue, Hasting would not allow it.
convene != compel attendance
Might have no quorum. Might have a nice thumbing of noses at the President. It could pan out in a very interesting way, but I think that President Bush is likely right in judging them too cowardly to stand up to him.
The Iraqi government should condemn our Congress going on vacation with the issue left unsettled.
right, but the question remains: when the President can ‘convene’ Congress does that compel the attendance of any particular member(s) or do House and Senate rules simply determine what it means for them to be in session? [many members might choose not to attend all or part of the session, just as various members are away from time to time campaiging for the presidency, re-election, other office, hanging out with mistresses or lobbyists, or merely slumming.....]
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
>>This is a serious hole in our intelligence gathering that needs to be fixed ASAP. I’m glad the President is putting the screws to Congress on this.<<
I wish with all my heart that I had not lost confidence in the President on these matters. Otherwise I would have agreed with you. I don’t want this President to have any additional power. Sad but true.
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