The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law.

After The New York Times disclosed in December that Bush had authorized the military to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without obtaining warrants, as required by law, Bush said his wartime powers gave him the right to ignore the warrant law.

And when Congress passed a law forbidding the torture of any detainee in US custody, Bush signed the bill but issued a signing statement declaring that he could bypass the law if he believed using harsh interrogation techniques was necessary to protect national security.

Past presidents occasionally used such signing statements to describe their interpretations of laws, but Bush has expanded the practice. He has also been more assertive in claiming the authority to override provisions he thinks intrude on his power, legal scholars said.

Bush's expansive claims of the power to bypass laws have provoked increased grumbling in Congress. Members of both parties have pointed out that the Constitution gives the legislative branch the power to write the laws and the executive branch the duty to ''faithfully execute" them.

The decision, which many private-sector players had strongly recommended, was released in a departmental notice published Friday.

The council, which plans to meet at least quarterly, will bring together various federal agency employees and private-sector representatives to discuss the Department of Homeland Security's infrastructure protection plan, which remains in draft form. The fields represented range from agriculture and energy to information technology and telecommunications. Participants include the U.S. Telecom Association, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and Internet infrastructure services provider VeriSign.

If those participants are required to comply with FACA, it could leave them seriously hindered in sharing "sensitive homeland security information," the department said.

The 1972 law generally requires such groups to meet in open sessions, make written meeting materials publicly available, and deliver a 15-day notice of any decision to close a meeting to the public. The last is a particular point of concern for Homeland Security officials, who anticipate that private emergency meetings may need to be scheduled on short notice.

The private sector, fearing that sensitive data will get to the wrong hands, has continued to resist sharing important information with the feds, the Department of Homeland Security said, citing government auditors' findings from late 2003.

Making the meetings public would amount to "giving our nation's enemies information they could use to most effectively attack a particular infrastructure and cause cascading consequences across multiple infrastructures," another departmental advisory council warned in August.

One privacy advocate said he didn't buy the excuses. "The public has an extremely strong interest in knowing whether DHS and the relevant industries are doing enough to protect facilities, and whether there might be company negligence that contributes to any possible security vulnerabilities," David Sobel, a general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, wrote in an e-mail interview.

Michael Aisenberg, government relations director for VeriSign, dismissed such worries, saying he predicted only a limited number of the council's meetings would actually be closed to the public.

"But there are families of data and information that are much more appropriately handled in confidence, at least in the early phases of an exploit or event," he said, praising the exemption as highly valuable and long overdue. "There were no tools in place to allow DHS or any other agency to have meetings with collective groups of government and industry that would not be covered by the FACA."

Homeland Security said in Friday's notice that it recognized "the important principle of transparency as a foundation for public confidence in government" and planned to make the council's meetings public whenever "feasibly consistent with security objectives." It said it also planned to issue public notices of all meetings, closed and open alike, "unless exigent circumstances arise" and that it would maintain a publicly available Web site with meeting agendas and periodic reports.

But he had been under investigation for illegal gambling and in line with a local police policy on "organised crime" raids, the heavily armed team was there to serve a search warrant.

Dr Salvatore Culosi (family's picture)
Dr Salvatore Culosi was unarmed when he was accidentally shot

As officers approached with their weapons drawn, tragedy struck. A handgun was accidentally discharged, fatally wounding Dr Culosi.

Two months on, investigations into the incident are still continuing, a delay which Dr Culosi's family says is compounding the "horror and burden of it all".

Salvatore Culosi Sr, the dead man's father, told the BBC: "I never knew him to carry so much as a pocket knife so it bewilders me how a detective could spend three months investigating my son and not know he is a pussy cat.

"If anything comes out of this it must be that another family does not experience this pain and anguish for absolutely no reason.

"Policy needs to change so these kinds of accidents never occur again."

'Excessive force'

Professor Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year

"I have no problem with using these paramilitary style squads to go after known violent, armed criminals, but it is an extreme tactic to use against other sorts of suspects," he said.

Dr Kraska believes there has been an explosion of units in smaller towns and cities, where training and operational standards may not be as high as large cities - a growth he attributes to "the hysteria" of the country's war on drugs.

"I get several calls a month from people asking about local incidents - wrong address raids, excessive use of force, wrongful shootings - this stuff is happening all the time," he adds.

Every wrongful death of a civilian, or criminal killing of a police officer, fuels the complex and emotive argument over the way the United States is policed.

Those who reject criticism of the use of Swat teams argue that the presence of the units actually prevents violence through the credible threat of overwhelming force.

John Gnagey, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, told the BBC: "What we find is that when Swat teams go out, shootings go down.

"We don't see it as escalating anything. We see it as reducing violence."

The NTOA rejects Dr Kraska's figures and says the actual number of deployments is far lower, but says there is a need for national training standards.

An NTOA study of 759 Swat team deployments across the US, found half were for warrant service and a third for incidents where suspects had barricaded themselves in a building - 50 were for hostage situations.

When criminology professor David Klinger looked at 12 years of data on Swat teams in 1998, he also found the most common reason for calling out teams was serving warrants, but that the units used deadly force during warrant service only 0.4% of the time.

Recruitment video

Last year the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) commissioned music video director JC Barros to make them a 10-minute film - To Protect and Serve - that would "get young men and women excited" about a career with the force.

More action film than recruitment video, it follows two LAPD officers who - in one day - capture a robbery suspect, are first on the scene when a gun-toting man takes a woman hostage, mediate a fight, and help to find a young kidnap victim.

Along the way they are supported by colleagues from bike patrol, K-9 dog teams, air support and, of course, the Swat team.

But Dr Kraska sees such initiatives as reflecting a changing culture of police work.

"These elite units are highly culturally appealing to certain sections of the police community. They like it, they enjoy it," he says.

"The chance to strap on a vest, grab a semi-automatic weapon and go out on a mission is for some people an exciting reason to join - even if policing as a profession can - and should - be boring for much of the time.

"The problem is that when you talk about the war on this and the war on that, and police officers see themselves as soldiers, then the civilian becomes the enemy."

This is a watershed moment in the struggle to create a powerful, educated and active contingent of individuals with no hierarchical structure but with a unified cause.

Charlie Sheen is the forerunner of the third wave of 9/11 skeptics to go public.

The first wave was concerned and informed American and worldwide citizens who educated themselves and formed action groups and organizations to inform others.

The second wave was former government officials and people of high office risking their political reputation to voice their doubts on 9/11, people like Paul Craig Roberts, Professor Steven Jones, Michael Meacher and Andreas von Buelow.

The third wave is high profile individuals who already have a substantial media platform from which to speak the truth, Hollywood stars and cultural icons. Charlie Sheen must be commended for risking his entire career for the sake of the truth and the future of America.

The fourth and final wave will be people who were in government at the time of 9/11 or those employed by the Bush administration at the time of 9/11, such as secret service officials and others close to the administration, going public with what they know. By this I don't mean watered down shills like Richard Clarke but individuals with hardcore information that could be the catalyst for impeachment.

At that point the call for a new independent investigation of 9/11 will be deafening and impossible to ignore any further.

Our efforts in stalling these control freaks is really beginning to pay dividends. Our patience for freedom will outlast their lust for power and the human spirit will triumph over evil.

Let's start with this. Forty percent of US households own guns and some 80 Americans are shot dead in non-combat gunfire each and every day of the year. As for children, like the poor kid who was rushing home to pick up a video game and who was described in the Associated Press article as "a popular, hard-working and clever student," he became 1 of nearly 1000 children under the age of 19 who are shot dead every year. That's about 1 every 3 hours.

Doesn't this make you wonder just a little bit why anyone would want to visit the USA? I know you risk your life crossing the street in any big city, but in the nether regions of Northern America it becomes a real threat because the shooter, in this case, had every legal right to have the shotgun he used. The State of Ohio, which has as its motto With God All Things Are Possible, does not require anyone buying a firearm to obtain a permit. You get the impression the place is run by undertakers desperate for more business. If you're headed to Disney World, a fitting icon for the state's governor come to think if it, you should know that Florida passed legislation just last year giving Floridians the right to "stand their ground." That gets translated into the right to open fire, even in crowded public places, if they feel threatened for one reason or another. The powerful gun lobby is trying to get Florida to adopt a bill that would give workers the right to tote their arms into the office even if the company they work for says you can't bring your arsenal to work. This gives a whole new meaning to Going Postal.

Imagine you're on vacation, maybe someplace like South Beach. You hang out for a few days and really relax spending as much time on the beach as in the trendy bars. Maybe you even forget to shave for a couple of days and then remember you promised the kids back home you'd send a postcard. So you stroll into the nearest post office, reach into your cutoffs for a pen and, being a little unkempt and suspicious looking, you're dropped in a hail of bullets that could rival the gunfire at the O.K. Corral. Luckily you're just winged but two unsuspecting bystanders are dead and everyone tells the cops it was your fault because the workers felt threatened by the way your reached for your pen.

If it's legal to carry a gun, any gun, I wonder if it's legal to wear a flack jacket on the streets of America? Probably not. The cops might think you're up to no good if you try to protect yourself in the most violent nation on earth.

Heading south? Ask yourself... Why?

Several hospitals have acknowledged that they put some discharged indigent patients with nowhere else to go into taxicabs headed to the area because it offers a chance for getting services and shelter. Los Angeles police also are investigating whether other law enforcement agencies dump people without anywhere else to go downtown.

"We have been looking into homeless dumping for some time, and this (tape) gives us another example of what has been going on," said Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the city attorney's office.

Diana Bonta, vice president of public affairs for Kaiser Southern California, said the hospital attempted to find a shelter for Reyes, but when that failed, it was determined that she would be taken to the Union Rescue Mission. Hospital officials are trying to find out why Reyes, who was in the hospital after suffering a bad fall, was left on the street still wearing her hospital gown and slippers.

The incident violated hospital policy and will not occur again, she said.

"We have a policy of treating our patients with compassion and care," Bonta said. "This should not have happened."

Andy Bales, president the Union Rescue Mission, where Reyes remained, said the incident was the third in the past week in which security cameras caught taxis dropping people in the area. The problem will continue until a coordinated discharge plan between hospitals and shelters is created, he said.

"We just can't drop people off like baggage," he said. "We can't have a society where these people have nowhere to turn when they need care."

State Sen. Gil Cedillo of Los Angeles, a Democrat, has introduced a bill that would prohibit any arresting agency from taking people who need drug treatment, mental health services or shelter outside their jurisdiction.

Los Angeles County officials are also considering establishing five regional homeless centers in an attempt to reduce dumping, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

The regional homeless centers plan would spread the responsibility of caring for the homeless to suburbs instead of concentrating it downtown, the newspaper said. Each 30-bed center would operate 24- hours a day and would accept people from hospitals, police and care providers. The goal would be to find the resident permanent housing and services such as mental health and substance abuse treatment, officials said.

The first part of this article will further explore and explain the alarming characteristics of mass surveillance programs; the latter part of the article will examine the "not so obvious dangers" the programs pose to the civil rights of American and foreign citizens by further detailing the type programs that have thus far been uncovered and the type information being collected on the individual as well as the inherent abuses of this power.

This article by necessity will fall on the deaf ears of our Congress
(because Congress has no other type ears) and hopefully will be ignored by the intelligence and Gestapo agencies of our government. The target of this information would normally be the American people with their power to influence their political representatives to demand increased civil rights oversight. But today, Americans apparently have little desire to avoid the inevitable calamity that lack of concern, apathy and a carefully nurtured ignorance foster. Americans are getting the government they deserve. So, there is no target audience for this report. It should be read exclusively for its entertainment value.

Changing Reasons for Spy Systems and Programs.

Present day spy systems were conceived during World War II. The end of the war brought the danger of funding and personnel cuts to the various spy systems that had been developed through the cooperation of the "allies" during the war. The onset of the Cold War became the answer to the "spooks" most fervent prayer. Not only were personnel and funding cuts avoided, but budgets became inflated past the "spooks" wildest dreams; as budgets were inflated, oversight by any outside agency dwindled according the their wildest dreams. If there were accidental glimpses into the spy industry's workings and half-hearted objections raised, agency goals were shifted to meet the challenge of exposure. Military objectives were changed or were expanded to include "justified" commercial targets. Spying for "commercial" reasons were rationalized with many justifications. The results, in many cases, turned out to be oriented for the benefit of corporations that, by coincidence, turned out to be contributors to the "deaf and dumb" political entities who should have been overseeing the "spook" transgressions against the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. So, everyone one was happy - the American citizen because he was blissfully ignorant of what was being done to his freedoms, the spook agencies because their budgets and staffing were growing exponentially and the politicians were happy because of the "corporate political contribution manna" falling from heaven.

If the Cold War provided a steroid-type growth stimulus to the spy industry, 9/11 brought about a further undreamed of growth pattern. Not only could budgets and staffing be mestasized, but new surveillance program contracts could be given to favored defense contractors; even the miniscule oversight by Congress of pre 9/11 spy agency programs could be further curtailed without a whimper from Congress. The hysteria created by the government created vision of Bin Laden hiding in a cave with his "super magic" cell phone directing a world-wide network of terrorists was enough to engender a Homeland Security spy apparatus replete with an intelligence czar and virtually unlimited powers, no oversight and a limitless budget. (Of course it has never occurred to Joe Citizen or to our Congress to question how the "will-of-the-wisp Bin Laden could direct such a network from a cave in Afghanistan even with a "super magic" satellite cell phone. Even more to the point, the following sections may cause the reader to question how any Bin Laden communications could possibly escape the detection and locating capabilities of the ECHELON program. However it should be noted that, asking such questions could well earn one the label of terrorist sympathizer).

Programs of Mass Surveillance and Their Characteristics.

1. The ECHELON Program.

"The existence and expansion of ECHELON is a foreboding omen regarding the future of our Constitutional liberties. If a government agency can willingly violate the most basic components of the Bill of Rights without so much as Congressional oversight and approval, we have reverted from a republican form of government to tyranny." [1] The breeding ground for ECHELON was laid in 1947 between the US and four partners - the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Since then additional partners have been drawn into the system so that at present, within Europe, all email, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency, transferring all target information from the European mainland . . . to Fort Meade in Maryland[2] . . . Additionally, space-based electronic communications "vacuum cleaners" pick up radio, microwave and cell phone traffic on the ground.[3] The program is administered by the National Security Agency (NSA) and boasts the most enviable array of intelligence equipment and personnel in the world. "The NSA is the largest global employer of mathematicians, featuring the best teams of codemakers and codebreakers ever assembled."[4] With this "land-based system of intercept stations, intelligence ships sailing the seven seas and top-secret satellites . . . very few signals escape the system's electronic grasp. Having divided the world up among the UKUSA parties, each agency directs its electronic "vacuum-cleaner" equipment towards the heavens and the ground to search for the most minute communications signals that traverse the system's immense path". [5] Additionally, at least three major domestic fiber-optic telephone trunk lines - each capable of carrying 100,000 calls simultaneously - were discovered (in 1997) to be wired through the British equivalent of Fort Mead -Menwith Hill. This allows the NSA to tap into the very heart of the British Telecomm network. This scope of surveillance capability and sophistication is duplicated with each of the other NSA spying partners so there is virtually no communication signal generated on the planet that is not within the grasp of these giant signal "vacuum cleaners".

Even this technical sophistication does not fully explain the power of this program. The true power comes through the combination of the mechanical and electronic components allowing the interception of global communication signals with the software that allows the intercepted communications to be properly separated by category, origination/destination, subject matter, priority, etc. for most effective analysis in terms of tracking trends and "hot spots". This surveillance program is an extremely powerful tool in the hands of any government or agency and is very, very effective as a political tool/weapon or as commercial espionage weapon. The program is capable of intercepting an individual cell phone signal and, through voice recognition programs, recognize and categorize the call for trend analysis or individual content.

ECHELON Capabilities.

In short, "the extraordinary ability of ECHELON to intercept most of the communications traffic in the world is breathtaking in its scope. These programs and computers transcend state-of-the-art; in many cases, they are well into the future. Processing millions of messages every hour, the ECHELON systems churn away 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, looking for targeted keyword series, phone and fax numbers, and specified voiceprints". [6]

1. Resistance to "Snooping on the Snoops".

There is concerted resistance by intelligence heads, law enforcement agencies and political representatives for oversight and control of surveillance activities such as those of ECHELON. All sorts of convoluted, complex legal arguments are raised to defend the activities of ECHELON, protect power kingdoms and avoid shining the light of public scrutiny and oversight on these and all other spying activities. The Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 and the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania are all persuasive arguments presented to justify the status quo and further unrestricted growth of the programs. The argument for "security" always triumphs over common sense and concerns for civil rights violations. Additionally those in government who attempt to pry too closely into the workings of ECHELON with civil rights concerns have frequently been warned off after finding themselves targeted for investigation by the intelligence "system".

. . . "But despite the real threats and dangers to the peace and protection of American citizens at home and abroad, our Constitution is quite explicit in limiting the scope and powers of government. A fundamental foundation of free societies is that when controversies arise over the assumption of power by the state, power never defaults to the government, nor are powers granted without an extraordinary, explicit and compelling public interest".

As the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan pointed out: The concept of military necessity is seductively broad, and has a dangerous plasticity. Because they invariably have the visage of overriding importance, there is always a temptation to invoke security "necessities" to justify an encroachment upon civil liberties. For that reason, the military-security argument must be approached with a healthy skepticism: Its very gravity counsels that courts be cautious when military necessity is invoked by the Government to justify a trespass on [Constitutional] rights". [7]

2. Abuses of our System of Government by the System(s) of Surveillance.

The systems of espionage, in all their forms, beg for abuse by those wishing to maintain their positions of power and influence. The mushrooming range of espionage used by the surveillance system(s) oversteps the threshold of abuse by a wide margin. The systems have been used to spy on political opponents and label as subversives those who expose the excesses of corrupt government activity, disregard for human rights, corporate pollution and even the promoters of the gospel of Christ. That the intelligence powers of the United States should be arrayed against peaceful organizations both within and without the country in the name of "security" is blasphemy against our Constitution and demonstrative of our government's desire not to monitor, but to control.

Although economic spying is probably one of the least offensive parts of the government's surveillance programs, it bears mentioning because its exposure shows the versatility of the programs and the "tailoring" efforts of monitored information to uses other than strictly interpreted national "security" matters. Economic spying has reached such a level that there have even been departments created within the government whose mandate is that of passing ECHELON gathered information to various US companies for exploitation against foreign industrial competitors. While this may be interpreted as a beneficial by-product of the system, its use is a double-edged sword because foreign partner governments and economic competitors can use the same information in the same manner against the United States.

The incestuous relationship between the companies producing the ECHELON technology and the intelligence agencies is one that may not meet the strict interpretation of "conflict of interest", but at the very least represents an improper use of taxpayer funds.

It should be noted that: "while the UKUSA is a product of Cold War political and military tensions, ECHELON is purely a product of the 20th Century - the century of statism. The modern drive toward the assumption of state power has turned legitimate national security agencies and apparati into relationship pawns in a manipulative game where the stakes are no less than the survival of the Constitution. The systems developed prior to ECHELON were designed to confront the expansionist goals of the Soviet Empire - something the West was forced out of necessity to do. But as Glyn Ford, European Parliament representative for Manchester, England, and the driving force behind the European investigation of ECHELON, has pointed out: "The difficulty is that the technology has now become so elaborate that what was originally a small client list has become the whole world."[8]

Conclusion.

It must be remembered that although the sophistication and capabilities of ECHELON is futuristic and would seem to be all encompassing, it is only one of many similar programs in use and on the drawing boards of our government. The total spy and surveillance capability of the United States and its allies is truly beyond comprehension - and apparently beyond control. Journalists have been working for 40 years to penetrate even the fringes of ECHELON capabilities. There are unknown numbers of programs in their infancy that are just as powerful in their own ways as ECHELON. Put together and working against Americans, other nations and the "global" individual with no oversight from the American government or any other government, the possibilities of a New World Order are terrifyingly close to the grasp of our more unscrupulous politicians. If one considers the evolution of the automobile since the end of World War II and compares that evolution to that of the spy and surveillance programs our government has constructed, then we may get a "feel" for the present state of the black art of espionage as it exists today. If we consider the history of the totalitarian governments of Russia and Germany since 1930, we can see the absolute dedication of tyranny to its own survival and growth at any cost. Today, if we can tear our attention away from the latest "Survivor" epic, we can see face to face the evil that is being prepared for those who adhere to the tenants of our Constitution. The gulags of today hold an assortment of Muslims and Arabs that our government says wishes to do us harm. Tomorrow they may hold an assortment of Americans who our government "says" wishes to do "it" harm.

Reference:

[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] from ECHELON: America's Secret Global Surveillance Network Copyright 1999/2000 Patrick S. Poole

Nolan K. Anderson is a retired engineer and a veteran of Korea who was once a "conservative" until he found there was nothing left to conserve and as a veteran hates to see a tour in Korea go to waste. (He may be reached at nkanders@bellsouth.net ).

See also http://home.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echres.html

I had the impression that indicating a lack of support for our commander in chief was a constitutional right and sometimes a patriotic duty. But never mind that. It would be a waste of time to censure Mr. Bush because censure would not compel him to do anything he doesn't want to do, such as obey the 1978 law governing domestic wiretapping.

The only thing worth doing is to stop the president from carrying out such eavesdropping without genuine oversight by the courts. And that is one option our incumbent lawmakers wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

Republicans, after all, control both the Senate and the House, and they are far more intent on protecting their party than upholding their prerogatives as a co-equal branch of government. Recently, Senate GOP leaders offered to bless the program without even investigating first to find out what, exactly, they are blessing.

Under this plan, the National Security Agency could listen in on the international phone calls of Americans if there is "probable cause to believe that one party to the communication is a member, affiliate or working in support of a terrorist group or organization." But no court would review whether "probable cause" exists. That assessment would be entirely up to Mr. Bush and his subordinates.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech in Chicago last week, explained the equally rigorous process that the president has to go through to renew his surveillance effort: "Before he reauthorizes the program, the intelligence community has to certify that the threats still exist and recommend that the program be renewed. The secretary of defense has to sign off on it. The attorney general of the United States ... has to certify that it is compliant with the laws and Constitution of the United States. Then the president reauthorizes the program." What a relief it is to know that the administration can't renew the program without the approval of the administration.

This is an absurd parody of the checks and balances our system is supposed to provide. If the framers of the Constitution had thought a single branch of government could police itself, they would not have created three branches.

The idea was that each branch would jealously guard its powers against the others. But in this case, Congress passed a law, the president ignored it, and Congress applauded him for doing so.

What the framers didn't anticipate was the rise of political parties, allegiances to which now override every other consideration. This episode makes clear that the best government is divided government - where the party that occupies the White House does not control Congress. Only then can we rely on lawmakers to provide a meaningful check on presidential power. With the GOP dominant at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, the president can treat Congress as an obsolete irrelevancy.

Sen. Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, defending the GOP proposal against critics who say it's pathetically weak, said he resented being called a "lap dog of the administration." That label certainly is unfair. Even lap dogs will bite if they're kicked often enough, which is more than you can say for congressional Republicans.