Yeah, they cut a lot of the early Rebellion scenes; There was a scene where they present Palpatine with a request that his powers be limited or cancelled after the war and he brushes them off pretty much and then there's at least one more scene with Padme, Bail, Mon Mothma and others meeting at Padme's apartment and discussing more drastic actions if Palpatine refuses to step down after the war.

And Palpatine was clouding the force, but it doesn't make him more powerful than the Jedi (though, he was except for Windu, Yoda and Anakin.) Part of the situation is that the Jedi had become complacent and weren't looking hard enough or seriously enough in some cases. Windu was actually tracking the Sith Lord's trail and had followed it from the undercity to 500 Republica, the skyscraper where Palpatine and a lot of important government officials lived, when the invasion of Coruscant began. Palpatine KNEW he was close and so ordered Grievous and Dooku to move up the scheduale of the attack for this reason.