Bush Considered Throwing Out First Amendment

Newsweek:

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.

Read the whole story: Newsweek

Comments

[lesterbud]

09:10 AM on 03/05/2009

Maybe a certain talk show host brought Cheney and Bush to their senses.

I am not in the habit of quoting this person, but here it goes...

“You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.”

-Rush Limbaugh

Ouch, that really hurt.

[1differentdrummer]

05:52 AM on 03/05/2009

Did not the man himself tell us it would be so much easier if he were dictator? He knew what he wanted to do and did he not telegraph the whole deal? Where were the press?

[citizen of the universe]

05:51 AM on 03/05/2009

The media fell down on the job during 911 and it's still down. The Bush administration had reporters and whole networks pushing the "propaganda". The media was banned from taking pictures of flag draped coffins; I have yet to see any major media outlet do a piece on the many journalist who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan; newsrooms are "for profit," and since when is a pundit considered a journalist, wouldn't the researchers on their staffs be the journalist? There's only the facade of "free" media when the same people "own" the various media items/outlets we consume, the view is not free it's familiar. The 1st amendment, it's already gone.

[guytaur1]

01:19 AM on 03/05/2009

A President considered breaching the Consititution. A memo exists to prove it. Forget impeachment why is he not on Trial for Treason

[markm8128]

12:55 AM on 03/05/2009

This stuff is only news to anyone who was asleep for the last 8 years, or was too incohernet to notice what was going on....

[applescruff]

12:31 AM on 03/05/2009

I'll have to get back on this issue.
I'm going to have to find out what my opinion is from Rush.

Sincerely: Loyal Missouri Republican

[livesinreality]

12:06 AM on 03/05/2009

And the wingnuts call libs and progressives anti-American ! now we see that conservatives are the anti-American with THEIR agenda.

[kre8tr]

10:32 PM on 03/04/2009

Never have so few tried to do so much to so many. So ends the story of the man who would be king.

[Emlyn]

08:27 PM on 03/04/2009

How dare Bush and cohorts do this to our country? Don't they love our country? Apparently not. I would like ALL of them prosecuted and go to jail.

[applescruff]

08:24 PM on 03/04/2009

Has it not occured to the Republican Party that thier choice of a President in George W. Bush represented the first time in American history where our leaders were so scared and unprepared in the face of crisis that they could not govern within the frame work of our own U.S. Constitution?
Instead they set up a defacto dictatorship so they would not be bothered by pesky hinderances like the laws of our Nation. They then proceeded to punish those who were lawless and without regard for human lives with lawlessness and disregard for human life. Talk about pathetic incompetence at it's worst.

[Tom Joad]

08:30 AM on 03/04/2009

Those who will join me in calling this treason, say 'aye'...and let the treason trials begin.

[ProfessorDuh]

09:03 AM on 03/04/2009

Aye.

[rich misty]

07:22 PM on 03/04/2009

aye

[billrott]

08:12 AM on 03/04/2009

There is a simple word for these allegations if true. It is called treason.

[Tom Joad]

08:30 AM on 03/04/2009

with you 100%.

[ajax2]

10:47 PM on 03/03/2009

The media fell asleep while the constitution was torn to shreds, first props to Bob Woodward.

[goodog]

01:52 AM on 03/04/2009

The Justice Department adopted Yoo's opinions as operational policy, and they were used when the administration bullied the press NOT to publish developing stories about torture, extraordinary rendition, the yellow cake forgeries, and other diabolical matters until AFTER the 2004 election.

[scooperss]

07:34 AM on 03/04/2009

I always knew Dan Rather was right to sue CBS.

[AbstractImp]

10:13 PM on 03/03/2009

Thank you Obama, and Hillary, and all the voters who threw Bush out instead.

[johnnyjust]

09:41 PM on 03/03/2009

I heard Bush was going to declare martial law to stay in power and Obama would never be President.

Didn't believe it, though. Only libs are that gullible. ('Gullible' still not in dictionary.)

[bdaved]

11:10 PM on 03/03/2009

I heard a guy on Election night in 1992 telling everybody they could kiss their guns goodbye.

[1differentdrummer]

05:48 AM on 03/05/2009

Are you sure he didn't say to kiss their guns good night? Well, maybe not. Among the Rs, aren't fearmongers' voices the loudest voices?

[RGKahn]

11:26 PM on 03/03/2009

gullible |ˈgələbəl|
adjective
easily persuaded to believe something; credulous : an attempt to persuade a gullible public to spend their money.
DERIVATIVES
gullibility |ˌgələˈbilitē| |ˈgələˈbɪlədi| |-ˈbɪlɪti| noun
gullibly |-blē| |ˈgələbli| adverb
ORIGIN early 19th cent.: from gull 2 + -ible .
THE RIGHT WORD
Some people will believe anything. Those who are truly gullible are the easiest to deceive, which is why they so often make fools of themselves.
Those who are merely credulous might be a little too quick to believe something, but they usually aren't stupid enough to act on it.
Trusting suggests the same willingness to believe (: a trusting child), but it isn't necessarily a bad way to be (: a person so trusting he completely disarmed his enemies).
No one likes to be called naive because it implies a lack of street smarts (: she's so naive she'd accept a ride from a stranger), but when applied to things other than people, it can describe a simplicity and absence of artificiality that is quite charming (: the naive style in which nineteenth-century American portraits were often painted).
Most people would rather be thought of as ingenuous, meaning straightforward and sincere (: an ingenuous confession of the truth), because it implies the simplicity of a child without the negative overtones.
Callow, however, comes down a little more heavily on the side of immaturity and almost always goes hand-in-hand with youth.