Bush considered restrictions to the first ammendment!

So it appears that the Office of Legal Council took to creating opinions on even further torching of the constitution then was actually exercised by our Former Dictat...uh I mean... President Bush Jr. (I hesitate to link to huffpo but I can't find a major new outlet reporting this yet)
HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPostIts hard to imagine why they would ask the OLC to produce an opinion on this if there weren't considering using it.I would like to hear how our conservative peers defend this? This is especially considering that this would have greatly expanded the power of the federal government while currently we have Republicans railing against Obama for supposidly expanding government.What would it have looked like had Bush exercised the same latitude from these opinions in the same way he did for torture, rendition, and wiretapping? Would we have seen:State takeover of media?
State censorship of media?
Wholesale detention of protesters (worse than they already did)?
Anti-sedition edicts straight out of the executive branch?Really at the point that they were willing to toss out the First Ammendment, they sky is the limit. They probably didn't do it because they realized that they could not sell it politically. But damn, I have no idea how Bush defenders can possibly defend this.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Bush Adm. Weighed Restricting 1st AmendmentSeriously this is Jack Bauer crap straight out of 24.No comments so far? This is evidence #1 that these guys were wiping their ass with the Constitution.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I haven't had a whole lot of time to search but so far I haven't seen a single major media outlet give a treatment of this issue.The things that are on topic seem to be primarily concerning Republican angst over socialism and arguing if Rush Limbaugh is the real leader of the Republican party.Where the fuck is the outrage!!! People have been hanged and shot in this country for lesser acts of treason!

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

While all you have is some freepers, WND conspiracy theory, we here in reality have memo's from the Office of Legal Council that explicitly state that in their opinion the President has the power to suspend the Constitution (including the 2nd) by the mere virtue of his role as Commander in Chief.If anything, there is more evidence that Bush wanted to take away your guns than anything you can offer as evidence that Obama has done especially considering that his official position is that he does believe that the 2nd ammendment is a personal right.Given the treason so explicitly laid out in those memos, aren't you pissed off that these guys are still walking around out there free and clear? These guys were in a position to just about take a match to the founding documents of our country and all you can complain about is being afraid that you will no longer be able to go buy a rocket launcher?Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

The thing that frustrates me the most is this whole concept of "not looking backwards" that has been embraced by Obama. I realize he is in a pickle of having to try to get things done with a chicken-shit democrat controlled senate but these guys like Yoo and Rove literally are murders and traitors. If we don't "look back" into crimes of that magnitude we are essentially saying that whatever an ex-president or his administration does is okay because we hit RESET no less than every 8 years anyway.If there are no consequences, then it WILL happen again.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I would wager to say that over 90% of the activist base of the progressive movement, the very same people who are still recovering from the sunburn of walking the pavement to get Obama elected, favor some kind of retribution for what is, by definition, treason committed by former Bush officials.At the very least, I hope something comes of the Conyers investigation of Rove on the issue of the attorney firings and most of all, Don Siegelman's political prosecution. Bush and company obviously had no moral qualms about illegially imprisoning Democrats. It blows the mind to think that Democrats are so tepid about enfocing the law against ACTUAL crimes that these guys committed.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

The answer is quite simple. Our method of electing people sucks. Who were Pelosi, Schumer, etc supposed to be replaced with? Republicans? Even if that was possible in their districts based on demographics, I don't see how that would have changed the current situation at all.What we need is instant runoff voting so that these people can get REAL primary challanges or so that people can vote for a 3rd party in an general election without "throwing away" their vote.This will have numerous effects not the least of which will be to show these people in no uncertain terms how close to the edge they are to loosing their constituients. Right now the only thing they have are opinion polls which only means they have to play politics well enough just to not be AS BAD as their opposition. And given how bad Republicans are these days, thats a pretty darn low bar.Toss in a robust public financing of elections and you will start to see the scale shift.You also have to take into account that I said the activist base. Most people who are voting don't fall into that category but it is the folks who were hitting the pavement who made the Nov landslide possible. The tide is shifting a little bit and more attention is being paid to those folks because they are voting with their feet. Look no further than the guy (I can't remember his name) who ousted Leiberman in the '06 primary. When the people who do the work of running the politics get pissed off enough, they can impact the entrenched.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Overthrowing the Constitution is the definition of treason. Maybe you should choose your words more carefully because down below you talking about "altering" it which is VASTLY different from "overthrowing" it. That's fine and dandy but the problem is that there are RULES about how the Constitution can be changed and they are contained within....the Constitution.To change the Constitution you need 2/3 majority of Congress and 3/4 of the states to adopt changes. Either that or a new Convention.The reason that the actions of Bush, Yoo, and company are treason is precisely because they were throwing out the Constitution without deference to the rules about how you go about doing that. There is NO provision for unilateral rejection of the Constitution by the Executive Branch. In fact, they take an oath just like all public officials to FOLLOW and PROTECT the Constitution. Breaking their oath to protect and defend the Constitution, blatantly disregarding the rule of law, disregarding the Constitution when they have no right to, is why they are traitors.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

No, bootleggers during Prohibition were criminals. All traitors are criminals but not all criminals are traitors.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson