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WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday called for "strong and robust" presidential powers, saying executive authority was eroded during the Watergate and Vietnam eras. Some lawmakers objected that President Bush's decision to spy on Americans to foil terrorists showed he was flexing more muscle than the Constitution allows. The revelations of Bush's four-year-old order approving domestic surveillance without court warrants has spurred a fiery debate over the balance of power between the White House, Congress and the judiciary. "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority and I think that the world we live in demands it," Cheney...

ABOARD AIR FORCE II - Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday vigorously defended the Bush administration's use of secret domestic spying and efforts to expand presidential powers, saying "it's not an accident that we haven't been hit in four years." Talking to reporters aboard his government plane as he flew from Islamabad, Pakistan to Muscat, Oman on an overseas mission, Cheney said a contraction in the power of the presidency since the Vietnam and Watergate era must be reversed. "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority and I think that the world we live in demands it. And to...

Sydney police 'to get new powers' Police have already made a number of arrests Police in Sydney will be given tough new powers to crack down on rioters, the New South Wales premier has said. The state parliament will meet on Thursday "to deal with criminals and thugs who are causing disturbances across our city", said Morris Iemma. He was speaking after a second night of race riots left seven people injured. Gangs of young men of Middle Eastern appearance rampaged through the suburb of Cronulla, in apparent revenge for attacks by white youths on Sunday. In the adjacent suburb...

KAZAN, August 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin told the State Council Friday that he had asked the Cabinet to speed up work on the bill delegating some of the federal government's powers to regional authorities. Putin said that increasing the role and independence of the provinces was a long-term goal possible to achieve only if all the branches of the government worked toward it together. The list of powers vested in regional governments should be extended, he said, adding that a State Council ad hoc group had discussed the issue with Cabinet ministers earlier in the week....

"War of the Worlds" Spielberg-esque Message: Don't Fight Terror By Debbie Schlussel I'm violating Steven Spielberg's review policy for "War of the Worlds" and telling you what I think ahead of tomorrow's scheduled release date. I saw the movie at a press screening, last night, and was disturbed by the message: Don't fight terror, and everything will work out. (Security was literally tighter than that for going to the White House to meet the President. No purses allowed. Three wandings by security.) It's bad enough that Steven Spielberg is adding "balance" and factual inaccuracy to the story of the Israeli...

A well-known conservative and founder of the grassroots public policy organization Eagle Forum says it is not as important to get people of a particular political camp appointed to the federal bench as it is to limit what judges will have the jurisdiction to rule on once they get there. Political commentators agree that the long-threatened Senate filibuster showdown and the tentative compromise that was eventually reached were all about one thing -- the imminent battle over the likely appointments of judges to the U.S. Supreme Court in the next few years. Most pundits seem to feel everything depends on...

World Powers in 2030? a shift in the balance of power continues Those who grew up during the Cold War may have trouble keeping up with shifts among major world powers. Some still think that Russia will reemerge as a superpower, even though it is not even one the world's top 15 economic powers. One may dismiss Japan as a major military power, not realizing that it is the world's second largest economic power whose military spending exceeds that of China. The respected Economist magazine recently published: "World in Figures, 2004." Data has been extracted from this book to provide...

First, let us understand what the Terri Schiavo matter was not about: Despite ideological diatribes from David Corn at The Nation, this was not "an ugly big-government attempt to intervene in a family conflict" designed to appease "religious right crusaders." Despite ranting from Robert Scheer, also at The Nation, this was not "egregious political opportunism and shameless trafficking in human misery," and the citation of dubious polls won't validate Scheer's hope that the majority of Americans want to see a helpless woman starved to death by judicial order. And despite hysteria from the Los Angeles Times, this was not "a...

So far, it appears Judge Greer has been given the power to let Michael Shiavo starve Terri Shiavo to death. Here are some links about Greer: http://www.jud6.org/Addresses/JudgesPhoneNumbers/judgeaddressandphonelist.htm http://www.theempirejournal.com/0228051_petition_seeks_impeachme.htm http://www.hospicepatients.org/wwwboard/messages/330.htm http://www.earnedmedia.org/tf0311.htm http://www.terrisfight.net/ http://www.anncoulter.org/ This is a petition to remove Greer. http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ijg520/ As for what can be done for Terri, here is the Florida Constitution: http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?Mode=Constitution&Submenu=3&Tab=statutes#A04S01 Here's what Governor Jeb Bush can do under the Florida Constitution. ARTICLE IV EXECUTIVE (a) The supreme executive power shall be vested in a governor, who shall be commander-in-chief of all military forces of the state not in active service of the United States. The governor...

Spring Breakers are not easily offended, but even they will admit some behavior crosses the line. "We saw two people actually having sex in the sand," said Nat Gale from Hartford, Conn. "Their friends were all around them. Everyone was trying not to look but they were looking." Because nobody complained to authorities, it's questionable whether the couple could have been convicted of committing a lewd and lascivious act. Florida courts have ruled that an unsuspecting member of the public must be offended before somebody can be convicted of the crime. State Sen. Mike Fasano and State Rep. John Legg,...

Supplicants send their mail to the unseen powers that be By Fayza Hassan Egypt Today ArchivesMany believe Bab Zuweila to be a mystical site CUSTOMS DIE HARD, nowhere more than in Egypt. Archaeological documents show that from as early as the Old Kingdom up to modern times, an endemic and persistent distrust in medicine and justice, as practiced in the land, often led the Egyptians to address their requests for health and legal redress directly to their dead relatives and the gods. Later, when monotheistic religions prevailed, they were addressed to saints whose extraordinary powers had become firmly rooted in...

Newly released documents from the Bush administration show that a former member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle has resurfaced inside the new Iraqi government, bringing charges of corruption, bribery and bid-rigging. As a result, millions of U.S. aid dollars and billions in Iraqi government funds have disappeared in an ongoing scandal that is poised to engulf Baghdad and Washington. Worse still, a leading candidate for the top elected post in Iraq has also been implicated in the report as having taken "payoffs" in order to rig a major government cell phone contract. According to a May 2004 U.S. Defense Department...

In the past few years, there have been several attempts by overweight people to blame their health problems on McDonald's and other fast-food restaurants, and they have sought legal remedy in the courts. They've argued that fast-food restaurants served them food that has made their belts increase in size to a degree that now the only things that they're able to buckle are floor boards. Personal responsibility takes yet another holiday, and now, thanks to the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, it's retired to Barbados for the foreseeable future. A lawsuit was brought against McDonald's on behalf of two...

WASHINGTON - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York Gov. George Pataki are pressing Congress to protect key parts of the Clean Air Act as lawmakers and the Bush administration seek to change the law. The two moderate Republicans on Tuesday urged senators considering updating the act not to reduce the powers states have now to enforce environmental regulations or create tougher state regulations. The governors, who both place great emphasis on their environmental initiatives, wrote to members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which will hold a hearing Wednesday to consider changes to the Clean Air Act....

A Justice Department lawyer may have been laying the groundwork for the Iraq invasion long before it was discussed publicly by the White House. Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon. The memo, written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, argues that there are effectively “no limits” on the president’s...

One useful fact all Americans should keep in mind is that they have no "right" to be protected by the police. American police are reactive, not proactive. They don't usually "prevent" crime. They catch lawbreakers after they have committed a crime. This was by design of the Founding Fathers. Because, as we see today with the anti-terrorism laws, in order to "prevent" crime, police would need all sorts of obnoxious powers that would trample all over our rights of life, liberty and property. Instead, Americans were intended to have the means of self defense. Put another way, the Constitution does...

Here's a quick question for all you Constitutional scholars: Which of the enumerated powers authorized to the federal government are described in the Bill of Rights? None, of course. Except in later amendments, regulatory powers given the federal government by the Constitution of the United States are listed in the body of the Constitution. The Second Amendment, then, is something else. When we are unsure about the exact meaning of a section of the Constitution, the Supreme Court instructs that we should look to The Federalist Papers for clarification. In Cohens v. Virginia the Court said: "Its intrinsic merit entitles...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - In a deepening political crisis touched off by anti-corruption efforts, Nicaragua's congress has voted to give itself the power to ratify and dismiss Cabinet ministers and other officials. The constitutional amendment, which was approved late Thursday and would have to be affirmed again in next year's legislative session to take effect, grew out of a power struggle between President Enrique Bolanos and the party that put him in office, the Liberal Constitutionalist Party. Bolanos lost its support after his anti-corruption campaign landed the party leader and former president, Arnoldo Aleman, in prison, where he is serving 20...

Congress Sends $800 Billion Debt Limit Increase To Bush Same story November 19, 2004 CAPITOL HILL -- A bill raising the federal borrowing limit by $800 billion is on its way to President George W. Bush's desk . . . the debt limit bill will pump up the federal borrowing cap to $8.18 trillion. That is 70 percent the size of the entire U.S. economy, and more than $2.4 trillion higher than the debt Bush inherited upon taking office in 2001. To get a handle on the size of the real national debt, see: Measuring the Federal Government's Unfunded Liability...