Reason # 18,435 to hate Bush

[TrailBate]

I think it's more like a case of apathy, my view of politics is very simplistic; Those with the dough make the rules, always have, always will. You'll never change it, never.
And finally I could care less which "club" you belong to. :'(


it's apathy that is getting thousands of people killed, and ruining this country.

[vinnycactus]

were you guys around during the Vietnam conflict?

[kernel crash]

"Kerry, Kennedy and Frank here from me all the time..... "

Talk about preaching to the choir. There's a sad bunch right there. Hey did you see Kennedy do the backstroke when he was questioned about his membership to a club that doesn't allow women? (And you though he wan't a good swimmer). Andy Hillier asked him "why would you belong to a club like that?" Kennedy said well I uh, I uh, well if that's true, I uh, I, I would have to quit that club. What a two face idiot! Hey Trailbait. Why don't you write Teddy another letter and ask him how he could belong to such a club or does that not fit your agenda.

[stich]

LOL!

[FriedRys]

Jeez, you'd think a smoking gun of that caliber would get more mainstream press. ::)

[TrailBate]

"Kerry, Kennedy and Frank here from me all the time..... "

Talk about preaching to the choir. There's a sad bunch right there. Hey did you see Kennedy do the backstroke when he was questioned about his membership to a club that doesn't allow women? (And you though he wan't a good swimmer). Andy Hillier asked him "why would you belong to a club like that?" Kennedy said well I uh, I uh, well if that's true, I uh, I, I would have to quit that club. What a two face idiot! Hey Trailbait. Why don't you write Teddy another letter and ask him how he could belong to such a club or does that not fit your agenda.


Hey, they are my reps and senators, who else should I write to? So what if he belonged to a men's only club? They exist, you know. I have no problem with that. How about the anti-women, anti-black club Alito belonged to?

[TrailBate]

Jeez, you'd think a smoking gun of that caliber would get more mainstream press. ::)


Maybe once they find George W's spooge on Harriett Miers' dress, something will happen.

[stich]

Nah, that only happens to Democrats :-*

[GeepNutt]

"Kerry, Kennedy and Frank here from me all the time..... "

Talk about preaching to the choir. There's a sad bunch right there. Hey did you see Kennedy do the backstroke when he was questioned about his membership to a club that doesn't allow women? (And you though he wan't a good swimmer). Andy Hillier asked him "why would you belong to a club like that?" Kennedy said well I uh, I uh, well if that's true, I uh, I, I would have to quit that club. What a two face idiot! Hey Trailbait. Why don't you write Teddy another letter and ask him how he could belong to such a club or does that not fit your agenda.


Hey, they are my reps and senators, who else should I write to? So what if he belonged to a men's only club? They exist, you know. I have no problem with that. How about the anti-women, anti-black club Alito belonged to?


No no no..... Kennedy didn't belong to that club, he just sent $100 a year to them. ;D

[TrailBate]

Nah, that only happens to Democrats :-*


Well, there was Newt Gingrich, who was having his own affair while he was going after Clinton's affair....

[Mr_Cheeze]

Jeez, you'd think a smoking gun of that caliber would get more mainstream press. ::)


Maybe once they find George W's spooge on Harriett Miers' dress, something will happen.


Imagery like that I don't need during lunch.

[FriedRys]

Jeez, you'd think a smoking gun of that caliber would get more mainstream press. ::)


Maybe once they find George W's spooge on Harriett Miers' dress, something will happen.
Yeah, maybe, but I bet G.W. has the good taste to go after a better looking broad than Monica.

[TrailBate]

Lebanon and the Palestinians now have democratically elected terrorist groups.

Funny how we don't hear Bush take credit for "spreading democracy" in the Middle east anymore.....

[Rych]

Lebanon and the Palestinians now have democratically elected terrorist groups.

Funny how we don't hear Bush take credit for "spreading democracy" in the Middle east anymore.....


Its not like this has not happened before...ie Sinn Fein

[Mr_Cheeze]

Hitler was democratically elected, also. Only goes to show that hate is a dangerously powerful political tool.

So I guess this means we'll likely be upping our already pornographically large amount of aid to Israel to unprecedented levels. The Jewish lobby just became that much more powerful an entity.

[TrailBate]

CNN on Bush's Budget:

"..But among the losers were 141 government programs that Bush sought to sharply reduce or eliminate entirely. Almost one-third of the targeted programs are in education including ones that provide money to support the arts, vocational education, parent resource centers and drug-free schools.

"My administration has focused the nation's resources on our highest priority -- protecting our citizens and our homeland," Bush said in his budget message."

Yep, we'll all be safe and secure, but we'll be frickin retarded. "duh, what's that there constitution thingy? Bill of rights? I don't need no more bills to pay!"

[Rych]

Can Laura Bush cause a man to burst into flames?

[catbbq]

Can Laura Bush cause a man to burst into flames?


Only makes sense. G.W. can cause hurricanes, so it only makes sense Laura is pyrokinetic.

http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/52/64/81m.jpg

[TrailBate]

Another one of Bush's cronies not actually qualified for his job:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/politics/08nasa.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Big Bang is just a theory. Evolution is just a theory. The constitution is just a theory. Freedom is a myth.

[Slider]

So Libby was only following orders when he outed Plame. You think it will be tracked all the way to the very top, right on up to Rove? ;D

This is fun, and getting more fun all the time. Someday, one of those who complain about all this focus on the Bush administration will say "Gee, you guys were right all along." But I won't hold my breath.

Unfortunately, the Republicans in both corrupt houses are only slowly coming on board. It may take too long for us to see a REAL impeachment trail, centering on issues of national security.

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February 10, 2006
Ex-Cheney Aide Testified Leak Was Ordered, Prosecutor Says
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, told a grand jury that he was authorized by his "superiors" to disclose classified information to reporters about Iraq's weapons capability in June and July 2003, according to a document filed by a federal prosecutor.

The document shows that Mr. Libby, known as Scooter, was actively engaged in the Bush administration's public relations effort to rebut complaints that there was little evidence to support the claim that Saddam Hussein possessed or sought weapons of mass destruction, which was used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

The document is part of the prosecutors' case against Mr. Libby, who has been indicted on charges that he lied about his role in exposing the identity of a C.I.A. operative to journalists.

The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, said in a letter to Mr. Libby's lawyers last month that Mr. Libby had testified before the grand jury that "he had contacts with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate ('NIE')," that discussed Iraq's nuclear weapons capability. "We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."

Mr. Libby was indicted on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice last October in what Mr. Fitzgerald has charged was a willful misleading of investigators about his role in exposing Valerie Wilson as an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. Ms. Wilson is the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who had accused the administration of twisting intelligence about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from the government of Niger.

Ms. Wilson's identity was first disclosed in a column by Robert D. Novak in July 2003, just after Mr. Wilson wrote an Op-Ed column in The New York Times saying he had investigated the Niger claim and found little evidence to support it. Mr. Wilson charged that destroying his wife's undercover status was a way to discredit him and his assertions.

The prosecutor's note of Jan. 23 does not, however, make any reference to Mr. Libby's involvement in the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's identity. It seems, rather, to be part of an effort by the prosecutor to demonstrate that Mr. Libby was engaged in using secret information to press the administration's case at the same time that Ms. Wilson's identity was leaked to reporters.

The letter was first reported Thursday by the National Journal, which said its sources had identified that one of the superiors was Mr. Cheney.

The National Intelligence Estimate, which was done in October 2002, said that Iraq "will probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade," but it included some dissenting views. The report was classified.

But amid doubts about the rationale for the invasion of Iraq some of which were attributable to Mr. Wilson's Op-Ed article, the administration declassified the report on July 18.

Mr. Fitzgerald said in his letter that Mr. Libby discussed the contents of the classified report in a July 8 meeting — 10 days before it was declassified — with Judith Miller, then a reporter at The Times. Ms. Miller, who spent 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify in the leak case, has told the grand jury that Mr. Libby told her about Ms. Wilson at the same meeting.

Mr. Fitzgerald said that Mr. Libby's testimony showed how Ms. Wilson's status was disclosed. "Our anticipated basis for offering such evidence is that such facts are inextricably intertwined with the narrative of the events of spring, 2003, as Libby's testimony itself makes plain," he wrote.

Mr. Libby's lawyers have already suggested they will mount a defense in which they will not challenge the charge that he made misstatements about how he learned of Ms. Wilson's identity and whether he shared that information with reporters. They have said that any statements he made to investigators that might have been untrue were the result of his preoccupation with many serious matters of national security at the time.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

[TrailBate]

Abramoff is also talking about how often he met with Bush.

[Slider]

No! That can't be!

Bush has said many times that he can't remember meeting with Abramoff. We all know, George W. Bush DOES NOT LIE!!!

Get a grip, Trailbait. I mean, really.

Slider

[TrailBate]

Have you guys seen the latest defense of the Plame leak? Cheney says he has the authority to "unilaterally declassify" information. So, if Cheney leaked Plame's identity, it's perfectly legal, cuz the VP can leak what he wants!

I love this administrations view that they can pretty much do whatever they want, because they were elected.

[FriedRys]

Have you guys seen the latest defense of the Plame leak? Cheney says he has the authority to "unilaterally declassify" information. So, if Cheney leaked Plame's identity, it's perfectly legal, cuz the VP can leak what he wants!

I love this administrations view that they can pretty much do whatever they want, because they were elected.
Just look at it this way, if the Dems get the power back they can pull the same tricks and site Dr Evil as precedent. Now calm down, two more years and you get another shot.

[Rych]

Interesting. I wonder if, BIG IF, this report proves to be true we can put thr Bush lied about WMD to bed?
If the report is true, then I guess it can be said that we are less safe now since we do not know where these WMDs are.



Intelligence Summit to Air 'Saddam's WMD Tapes'
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
February 15, 2006

See Related Story: Secret Saddam WMD Tapes Subject of ABC Nightline Special

(CNSNews.com) - Reportedly armed with 12 hours of Saddam Hussein's audio recordings, the organizers of an upcoming "Intelligence Summit" are describing the tapes as the "smoking gun evidence" that the Iraqi dictator possessed weapons of mass destruction in the period leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which according to the New York Sun has already authenticated the Saddam tapes, has reopened its investigation into the possible existence and location of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD). But some long-time liberal skeptics are showing no inclination to change their minds.

In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, the Bush administration argued that the war was necessary as a preemptive strike because the Iraqi president had WMD and there was a danger that he would use them against the United States.

On Oct. 6, 2004, Charles Duelfer, advisor to the director of Central Intelligence on Iraqi weapons, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Saddam did not have WMD at the time of the invasion and that the weapons were likely destroyed following the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. On Jan. 12, 2005, the U.S. announced that is was stopping its search for the weapons in Iraq.

But a four-day Intelligence Summit, to be held Feb. 17-20 in Arlington, Va., is re-igniting the debate over the Iraqi WMD. The featured discussion, on Saturday, Feb. 18, is titled: "Saddam's WMD Tapes: 'The Smoking Gun' Evidence." The agenda for the event indicates that the person who will speak about the tapes is at this point "anonymous."

The New York Sun on Feb. 7 reported that Rep. Peter Hoekstra's (R-Mich.) committee had obtained the audio tapes from former federal prosecutor John Loftus. According to the report, Loftus received the tapes "from a former American military intelligence analyst." Loftus is president of the Intelligence Summit, which is a yearly gathering of experts in the fields of counter-terrorism and intelligence gathering.

Jodie Evans of the anti-war group Code Pink, however, told Cybercast News Service that she does not think the Saddam recordings will lead to any new information. The government, according to Evans, has "said a lot of things for a long time."

"There's a difference between what they've been saying and what's real, and when they find something real, I'll comment."

Danny Schechter, author and producer of the film version of "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception," said he is "weary of these intercepts."

"Nobody denies that Saddam Hussein did have a WMD program. The United States knows that, we have the receipts, we supplied some of the initial technology," Schechter said.

But the weapons were destroyed in 1991, after the first Gulf War, he asserted.

"The question is not, did he have a program, but did that program represent a threat to the United States, to England, or to anywhere else," Schechter said. "I would be hesitant about raw intelligence that has not been analyzed, but that is being used in a partisan way by members of Congress," he told Cybercast News Service.

"Saddam Hussein is probably one of the most demonized world leaders, with Dick Cheney a close second," Schechter added.

Saddam is currently on trial in Iraq for ordering the killings of more than 140 Shiite Muslims in 1982. One of his former military advisors and top generals, Georges Sada, has written a book titled: "Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein."

Sada, who is a national security adviser in Iraq's new government, alleges that in June 2002 Saddam transported weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq and into Syria aboard several refitted commercial jets, under the pretense of conducting a humanitarian mission for flood victims.

A Feb. 2 Cybercast News Service article quoted Jamal Ware, the communications director for Rep. Hoekstra as saying that "the chairman has read General Sada's book ... He will meet with General Sada to hear first-hand him laying out the case that this transferal may have happened." The New York Sun article from Feb. 7 indicated that Sada has since met with Hoekstra to talk about the issue.

[Slider]

Pure fantasy, that reads like great disinformation PR.

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[Rych]

Pure fantasy, that reads like great disinformation PR.

Slider
S

Could be. ABC's Nightline is such a friend of the Bush Administration.

[Slider]

I just caught the reference to Danny Schechter. He used to be "Danny Schechter the News Dissector" back before the days of Charles Laquidara on WBCN in Boston. Maybe '72 or so. Cool.

Slider

[TrailBate]

Faux news was all over this last night. They had some guest on Handjob and Colmes talking about the new “smoking gun” that Saddam had WMD’s. Alan “I’m not a liberal, I just play one on Faux” Colmes tried to ask him a question, and the guy was just like “no, I’m not going to answer any of your questions. I’m not going to let you invalidate this.”
This guy would not stop talking to let Alan say anything. Finally Alan said the tapes were from 1995, and the other guy says. “so?”
Alan said, “so they were gone by the time Bush wanted to invade.”

Funny stuff.

[Rych]

Alan said, “so they were gone by the time Bush wanted to invade.”

Funny stuff.



What do they mean by gone? Gone to Syria? Gone to a hole in the desert? Chemical weapons cannot just be flushed down the toilet.

[TrailBate]

Alan said, “so they were gone by the time Bush wanted to invade.”

Funny stuff.



What do they mean by gone? Gone to Syria? Gone to a hole in the desert? Chemical weapons cannot just be flushed down the toilet.




Gone. as in Iraq doesn't have any. and Bush knew it.

let's say they went to Syria. Will you support an invasion of Syria?

[Rych]

let's say they went to Syria. Will you support an invasion of Syria?


Its too broad a question. If you asking if we should invade and stay and build a democracy there...no. If you asking if our military rolls through Syria, looks for WMD, and is out before the end of spring training, then maybe. The fact is there are a lot of terrorist states out there and we can't afford to rebuild them all.

[Slider]

Can't find a more revealing story about Bush, his policies, and his complete ease in talking out both sides of his mouth than this one.

State of the Union: We need research into alternative energy

The NEXT day: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory announces large layoffs due to $28million in Bush funding cuts

Last week, with a Bush visit imminent, he gave them back $5 million

Policy by spin control is all we got these days.

Slider

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 22, 2006
Bush Admits to 'Mixed Signals' Regarding Laboratory on Renewable Energy
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
GOLDEN, Colo., Feb. 21 — President Bush acknowledged on Tuesday that his administration had sent "mixed signals" to the Department of Energy's primary renewable energy laboratory here, where government budget cuts forced the layoff of 32 employees who were then hastily reinstated just before Mr. Bush's visit.

"I recognize that there has been some interesting, let me say, mixed signals when it comes to funding," Mr. Bush said at the start of a panel discussion at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which researches solar and wind power as well as energy from plants, like ethanol.

Mr. Bush added: "The issue of course is whether or not good intentions are met with actual dollars spent. Part of the issue we face, unfortunately, is that there are sometimes decisions made as a result of the appropriations process, where money may not end up where it is supposed to have gone."

The president was referring to an embarrassing sidelight of his State of the Union address on Jan. 31, when he called for new research into alternative energy to help wean the nation from its century-old oil habit. But the next day the laboratory announced that a $28 million budget cut was forcing it to lay off researchers in ethanol and wind technology, two of the areas that Mr. Bush cited in his address as full of promise.

This past weekend, with Mr. Bush's visit to the laboratory looming, the Energy Department announced that it had transferred $5 million back into the laboratory's budget and that the 32 employees would be reinstated.

"My message to those who work here is, we want you to know how important your work is," Mr. Bush said. "We appreciate what you're doing. And we expect you to keep doing it. And we want to help you keep doing it."

Managers at the laboratory began calling the employees back on Monday, a holiday, and phone calls were continuing on Tuesday. None of the employees were back at work in time for the president's visit, said a laboratory spokesman, George Douglas.

"Human Resources had to figure out how to do this," Mr. Douglas said in an interview as Mr. Bush shook the hands of employees. "There was some paperwork. We've never done this before — let people go and then hire them back in two weeks."

Mr. Douglas said the laboratory still faced a $23 million shortfall for the 2006 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, with its total annual budget now at $179 million. As cost-cutting measures, he said, the laboratory planned to cut back on subcontractors, employee travel and conferences.

Mr. Bush's appearance at the laboratory came at the end of a two-day, three-state tour, to Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado, to try to focus Americans' attention on the alternative energy proposals he set forth in his State of the Union address. In that speech, Mr. Bush declared that the United States is "addicted to oil" and proposed that the government spend more money on research into ethanol, solar and wind power and battery- and hydrogen-powered cars.

"I think part of this deal today is to help develop national will," Mr. Bush said in the panel discussion, when he was flanked by seven White House-selected energy specialists who backed up his ideas.

Members of both parties generally praise the president's proposals, although Democrats say they are not adequate to address the nation's dependence on oil and Republicans are skeptical about the practicality of alternative fuels like ethanol, which is made from corn or plant fibers.

Mr. Bush was a voice of optimism on the panel, where he tried to cut through the scientific jargon and nudge the experts into nontechnical sound bites for the local news.

When Dan Arvizu, the director of the laboratory, went into a complicated explanation about a new form of ethanol made from wood fiber, Mr. Bush interjected: "I think what he's saying is one of these days, we're going to take wood chips, put them through the factory, and it's going to be fuel you can put in your car. Is that right?"

"That's absolutely true," Mr. Arvizu replied.

"That's the difference between the Ph.D. and a C student," Mr. Bush said, referring to his well-known grade-point average in college.

[MissJean]

...Bush, his policies, and his complete ease in talking out both sides of his mouth than this one.

State of the Union: We need research into alternative energy

The NEXT day: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory announces large layoffs due to $28million in Bush funding cuts

Last week, with a Bush visit imminent, he gave them back $5 million




Hmmm, could it be Bush is flip flopping?

But, I guess he's flopping in the right direction at least.

[Slider]

Today, at least, and not flopping as far as he previously flipped. More flop than flip, definitely.

Slider

[Rych]

I'm surprised you lefties aren't jumping on Bush for the UAE port deal....I guess it's because this is something we'd all agree on.

[Slider]

That one needs no help from the left. Both sides of the aisle see it as a bonehead move.

Slider

[TrailBate]

I think it's a great idea. Who better to protect us from terrorists than a country that has ties with terrorists?

It's like when Muslims riot, they only attack non-muslims, right? So terrorists will leave these ports alone.

Besides, there is not point in complaining. Bush will just veto any attempt to block it. You guys really should not undermine the President during a time of war. Why do you hate America so much? I'm going to report you guys to Homeland Security for sedition. Have fun in Gitmo, you commie bastards!

[TrailBate]

I'm actually more interested in watching Iraq tear itself apart. Nice job Bush! How's that "spreading of freedom and democracy" going? I won't even mention the Palestinians.....

you know, I used to cringe whenever a far left wing wacko would say Iraq was better off under Saddam, but in many ways, it really was.

[catbbq]

I'm actually more interested in watching Iraq tear itself apart. Nice job Bush! How's that "spreading of freedom and democracy" going? I won't even mention the Palestinians.....

you know, I used to cringe whenever a far left wing wacko would say Iraq was better off under Saddam, but in many ways, it really was.


But you've never had a problem being a far left wing wacko, so that makes sense.

[TrailBate]

For Bush bots, a left wing wacko is a blanket label for anyone who opposes Bush, since republicans can't face the truth.

But if my alternative is to be an oppressive traitorous anti-constitution perverted Christian right wing fascist war criminal, I guess i'll be happy with the left wing wacko.

[Mr_Cheeze]

For Bush bots, a left wing wacko is a blanket label for anyone who opposes Bush, since republicans can't face the truth.



This statement might hold some credibility if you had never shown the penchant for blanket labeling anyone with an opposing or non-Bush-hating viewpoint as either a Republican or Bush backer. Slider is even more guilty in this regard.

[TrailBate]

For Bush bots, a left wing wacko is a blanket label for anyone who opposes Bush, since republicans can't face the truth.



This statement might hold some credibility if you had never shown the penchant for blanket labeling anyone with an opposing or non-Bush-hating viewpoint as either a Republican or Bush backer. Slider is even more guilty in this regard.


There's a difference between calling somebody a Republican or Bush backer/bot, and calling someone a "wacko."

I think there's a 99.99% chance that if you support just about any of Bush's controversial moves these past 5 years, you are a Republican or Bush backer, no?

I'm definately a liberal. No doubt about it. Which of my viewpoints earns me the title of "wacko"?

[catbbq]

you know, I used to cringe whenever a far left wing wacko would say Iraq was better off under Saddam, but in many ways, it really was.


This one.

[TrailBate]

you know, I used to cringe whenever a far left wing wacko would say Iraq was better off under Saddam, but in many ways, it really was.


This one.


In what ways is Iraq better off now? Iraq was one of the best educated countries in the region, with the lowest unemployment. They had electricity, clean water. They had no car bombs or terrorist attacks. No Mosque bombings, no religious killings. They are still getting tortured and arrested without charges. They had low fuel prices, now they sometimes have to wait in line for days for gas.

So how is Iraq better off now?

[Slider]

This statement might hold some credibility if you had never shown the penchant for blanket labeling anyone with an opposing or non-Bush-hating viewpoint as either a Republican or Bush backer. Slider is even more guilty in this regard.


Non Bush-haters are inattentive, unintelligent, pro-fascist, or in on the Grand Fleece somehow. Republicanism is optional, but not required. Some of my best friends are Republicans. And lots of them hate Bush too.

Slider

[TrailBate]

don't forget "paranoid."

[Rych]

For Bush bots, a left wing wacko is a blanket label for anyone who opposes Bush, since republicans can't face the truth.

But if my alternative is to be an oppressive traitorous anti-constitution perverted Christian right wing fascist war criminal, I guess i'll be happy with the left wing wacko.

joe lieberman is not a left wing wacko, but you're no joe lieberman.


Don't forget the term moonbat.

[TrailBate]

joe lieberman is not even a democrat.

[Mr_Cheeze]

This statement might hold some credibility if you had never shown the penchant for blanket labeling anyone with an opposing or non-Bush-hating viewpoint as either a Republican or Bush backer. Slider is even more guilty in this regard.


Non Bush-haters are inattentive, unintelligent, pro-fascist, or in on Slider


You see, this is the kind of condescending crap that pisses people off. Hey, everybody should be hateful like me or else they're just stupid and ignorant. Take a pill.

You ever think that the non-haters are just not hateful? Or maybe they just don't look at the world in black and white terms. Here is where we have the middle ground. Maybe you've heard of it. Those of us who can discern the Bush is a poor President.. without having the ever-enlightened liberal elite tell us as much at every term... while maintaining a sense of equanimity about politics in general. The problem with the hard liberal Democrat is his seeming inability to understand, or more likely ignorance of, the fundamental problems with their own party's contribution to the nature of big politics, as if Republicans have a monopoly on bullheadedness, corruption, and bad decision making. Hardly.

One thing you can say about the GOP, they are much better organized and capable of presenting ideas to the American people, as evidenced by the last several election cycles. Perhaps many of those ideas are bad, but at least they have them. Tell me, who is going to carry the torch for the Democrats in 2008? Is it going to be another Gore or Kerry with lots of negative rhetoric but no real ideas on how to run the country? Seems to me like nobody is in any great hurry to put their name out there. Why not? Here we have a very vulnerable George Bush, and by extension, Republican party and nobody is willing to say, hey, start thinking of me now. I'm going to do this about Iraq, and that about fossil fuels. Why? Because they have no ideas on what to do about any of that. All they have is how everyone should have health insurance. Great. Super. Just what this country needs, another entitlement program, because how can that possibly be a bad thing? It's for the children!

Yea, now I'm rambling. Then again, Slider, that's all I ever do, right?

[TrailBate]

Gee, Cheeze, you didn't fly off the handle like this when I was called a "wacko". hmmm, wonder why....?

As for ideas, it's true the Democrats don't seem to have any. (although securing our ports was one of them.)

But I laugh at this argument that "at least Republicans have ideas." yeah, they spy on american, but at least it's an IDEA. They lie to invade countries, but at least it's an IDEA. Republicans have done nothing to improve this country.

[Slider]

You ever think that the non-haters are just not hateful? Or maybe they just don't look at the world in black and white terms.


Your post represents very well exactly why we got stuck with a treasonous, profiteering moron like Bush as president. Like most Americans, you want there to be AN ANSWER. Terrorists burnt us bad, ratchet up the domestic spying. Saddam is a bad guy, make a war. Want to get a war-trashed economy back on track, cut taxes.

Unfortunately, in all three cases, the responses, while easy to describe, comprehend and sell to a desperate people, have nothing to contribute to solving the problem. We had plenty of advance intelligence on al Queda, whatever threat Saddam posed was certainly not worth the lives and dollars we’ve spent in Iraq, and the tax cuts have only increased our frightening deficit and done nothing to boost the economy.

Recent Republican success lies in the central idea embraced by marketers everywhere: There’s a sucker born every minute. Offer those suckers pat solutions to grossly over-simplified problems, and they’ll feel all warm and cozy, and vote their liberty away. The problem is simple: There are no simple problems.

The Democrat’s failure lies in their embrace of issues that are not so simple as stopping homosexual marriage. The world is a complex place, but getting elected means ignoring that fact, finding some inane hot-button issue, then pressing it all day. The Dems may have to sell their souls, as Rove et al did long ago, if they want to get us off this insane merry-go-round that Bush has placed us on. I hope not. More likely, the American people will simply see that simple solutions didn’t work, and it is time to get back to diplomacy, intelligence gathering, and economic support for the third world, and things should get better over time.

Meanwhile, even the Republicans are starting to question the Bush administration, on many levels. I’m hoping that even their policy making will come around to the real world, and we can start cooperating again to make it better for all of us.

So you want to point fingers, start looking at yourself. I see a far greyer world than you do. Unfortunately for your argument, the evil that Bush represents is more stark than most.

Slider

[TrailBate]

The Port plot thickens....



DOBBS: President Bush's family and members of the Bush administration have long-standing business connections with the United Arab Emirates, and those connections are raising new concerns and questions tonight in some quarters about why the president is defying his very own party leadership and his party in defending the Dubai port deal.

CHRISTINE ROMANS: The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is a major investor in The Carlyle Group, the private equity investment firm where President Bush's father once served as senior adviser and is a who's who of former high-level government officials. Just last year, Dubai International Capital, a government-backed buyout firm, invested in an $8 billion Carlyle fund.

Another family connection, the president's brother, Neil Bush, has reportedly received funding for his educational software company from the UAE investors. A call to his company was not returned.

Then there is the cabinet connection. Treasury Secretary John Snow was chairman of railroad company CSX/. After he left the company for the White House, CSX sold its international port operations to Dubai Ports World for more than a billion dollars.

In Connecticut today, Snow told reporters he had no knowledge of that CSX sale. "I learned of this transaction probably the same way members of the Senate did, by reading about it in the newspapers."

Another administration connection, President Bush chose a Dubai Ports World executive to head the U.S. Maritime Administration. David Sanborn, the former director of Dubai Ports' European and Latin American operations, he was tapped just last month to lead the agency that oversees U.S. port operations.

[FriedRys]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/business/worldbusiness/25terminal.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/24/AR2006022401810.html






And just for the record, I think it's stupid, moronic, idiotic, jackass, halfwit, slackwit, dimwit move to even suggest this.

[TrailBate]

And just for the record, I think it's stupid, moronic, idiotic, jackass, halfwit, slackwit, dimwit move to even suggest this.


So, have you come up with some ways Iraq is better off now than with Saddam?

How about this one: Iraq's only "battle ready" troops are..well.. not so much

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/24/iraq.security/index.html


I guess that's expected when Bush says we're making progress, turning corners, etc etc.

[Rych]

Bush gives $7 Billion Kiss to The oil industry

…The big issue going forward is whether companies should be exempted from paying royalties even when energy prices are at historic highs.
In general, the Interior Department has always insisted that companies would not be entitled to royalty relief if market prices for oil and gas climbed above certain trigger points.
Those trigger points — currently about $35 a barrel for oil and $4 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas — have been exceeded for the last several years and are likely to stay that way for the rest of the decade.
So why is the amount of royalty-free gas and oil expected to double over the next five years?
The biggest reason is that the Bush administration, apparently worried about the continued lack of interest in new drilling, waived the price triggers for all leases awarded in 2000 and 2001.
At the same time, many oil and gas companies contend that Congress never authorized the Interior Department to set price thresholds for any deepwater leases awarded between 1996 and 2000.
The dispute has been simmering for months, with some industry executives warning the Bush administration that they would sue the government if it tried to demand royalties.
Last week, the fight broke out into the open. The Interior Department announced that 41 oil companies had improperly claimed more than $500 million in royalty relief for 2004.

[TrailBate]

"To clinch a nuclear weapons deal, [Bush] had to give in to demands from the Indian nuclear lobby to exempt large portions of the country’s nuclear infrastructure from international inspection.

With details of the deal still under wraps, it appears that at least one-third of current and planned Indian reactors would be exempt from [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspections and that the president gave into Indian demands for “Indian-specific” inspections that would fall far short of the normal, full-scope inspections originally sought.

Worse, Indian officials have made clear that India alone will decide which future reactors will be kept in the military category and exempt from any safeguards.

The deal endorses and assists India’s nuclear weapons program.

US-supplied uranium fuel would free up India’s limited uranium reserves for fuel that would be burned in these reactors to make nuclear weapons. This would allow India to increase its production from the estimated 6 to 10 additional nuclear bombs per year to several dozen per year."


So we HAD to invade Iraq because they did (not) have nukes, but India is our friend because the nonproliferation agreement does not apply to them.

Pakistan is also our friend even though they are a dictatorship with human rights violations that has sold nukes and/or nuke know-how to Iran and North Korea?

[TrailBate]

Teacher put on leave for criticizing Bush.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/03/03/teacher.bush.ap/index.html

[Rych]

Teacher put on leave for criticizing Bush.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/03/03/teacher.bush.ap/index.html


Ya, that's why he was suspended. It had nothing to do with calling the WTC a valid military target...tell that to the window washers. My guess this was not the only anti-government lecture. The funny thing is I bet this clown of a geography teacher will probably become a professor in the Ivy League where diverse opinions are discouraged.

I wonder if his kids could pass a state capital test?

[TrailBate]

Teacher put on leave for criticizing Bush.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/03/03/teacher.bush.ap/index.html


Ya, that's why he was suspended. It had nothing to do with calling the WTC a valid military target...tell that to the window washers. My guess this was not the only anti-government lecture. The funny thing is I bet this clown of a geography teacher will probably become a professor in the Ivy League where diverse opinions are discouraged.

I wonder if his kids could pass a state capital test?


you must be reading a different article. Whatcha reading? (serious question. no sarcasm. seriously)

[Rych]

Teacher put on leave for criticizing Bush.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/03/03/teacher.bush.ap/index.html


Ya, that's why he was suspended. It had nothing to do with calling the WTC a valid military target...tell that to the window washers. My guess this was not the only anti-government lecture. The funny thing is I bet this clown of a geography teacher will probably become a professor in the Ivy League where diverse opinions are discouraged.

I wonder if his kids could pass a state capital test?


you must be reading a different article. Whatcha reading? (serious question. no sarcasm. seriously)


I heard the tape.

[TrailBate]

Long live democracy!

The Patriot Act renewal passes, which allows, among other things, federal investigators to get access to library, business and medical records without a court order.

damn. okay. Long live the King!

[TrailBate]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/07/eavesdropping/index.html

This is brilliant. If Bush was not breaking any laws, why do the Republicans need to pass a NEW law suddenly making what Bush did legal?

Clinton should have done this. Just pass a bill making BJ's and pergury legal. Case closed!!!

[TrailBate]

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today presented an upbeat report of the conflict in Iraq and said he agrees with the commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the news media has exaggerated the number of civilian casualties in the conflict....

"We do know, of course, that al-Qaeda has media committees. We do know that they teach people exactly how to try to manipulate the media. They do this regularly. We see the intelligence that reports on their meetings. Now I can't take a string and tie it to a news report and then trace it back to an al-Qaeda media committee meeting. I'm not able to do that at all.

"We do know that their goal is to try to break the will; that they consider the center of gravity of this -- not to be in Iraq, because they know they can't win a battle out there; they consider it to be in Washington, D.C., and in London and in the capitals of the Western world."


Today, in the Real World:

Gunmen in camouflage uniforms storm private security company offices in Baghdad and kidnap dozens of employees, news agencies report.

and

The bodies of 18 men have been found strangled with their hands tied behind their backs in western Baghdad, an official with Baghdad Emergency Police tells CNN. According to the official, police discovered the bodies in a Kia minibus in the Amiriya neighborhood.


Somebody needs to tell Rummy to just shut the hell up.

[kernel crash]

"Somebody needs to tell Rummy to just shut the hell up."

TrailBait, again what's your point! You seem to present these points as if one contradicts the other. When in fact both of these points are correct. Yes al-Qaeda would like to manipulate the media at home. No surprise there. Are you saying Rumsfeld is lying? And yes there is killing and chaos in Iraq. Men found strangled with their hands tied behind their backs. Kind of reminds you of the scum were dealing with if you ask me. By the way, I don't detect any outrage from you in the discovery of men strangled with their hands tied behind their backs. Yet when Americans dump water on the heads of captured fighters, you get all worked in a lather. Go figure.

[TrailBate]

"Somebody needs to tell Rummy to just shut the hell up."

TrailBait, again what's your point! You seem to present these points as if one contradicts the other. When in fact both of these points are correct. Yes al-Qaeda would like to manipulate the media at home. No surprise there. Are you saying Rumsfeld is lying? And yes there is killing and chaos in Iraq. Men found strangled with their hands tied behind their backs. Kind of reminds you of the scum were dealing with if you ask me. By the way, I don't detect any outrage from you in the discovery of men strangled with their hands tied behind their backs. Yet when Americans dump water on the heads of captured fighters, you get all worked in a lather. Go figure.


Not at all. Rummy is saying things really aren't that bad, and that it's Al Qaida that is manipulating the media. Come to find out, they are also manipulating a lot of dead bodies!!

I get mad no matter who gets killed over there. It's a result of Bush's policies.

I get mad over mistreatment of "terrorists" because there is NO system in place to make sure they are terrorists. Not to mention I hate the fact our country is now a country that shoves glow sticks up foreigner's butts. It's illegal in Alabama, so it should be illegal in Cuba, too!

[kernel crash]

"I get mad no matter who gets killed over there. It's a result of Bush's policies"

So people dying in Iraq is the results of Bush's policies? I guess that would explain the thousands that died in Iraq before Bush was elected to his 1st term.

[TrailBate]

Yes, the people who have died there the past 3 years are Bush's fault. yep.

[FriedRys]

Yes, the people who have died there the past 3 years are Bush's fault. yep.
All of 'em? :o

[TrailBate]

Yes, the people who have died there the past 3 years are Bush's fault. yep.
All of 'em? :o


All Americans and all civilians who have died in violence related activity. yes.

[TrailBate]

I love Vermont:


"In the quaint country community of Newfane, Vermont (near the socialist, Volvo-driving summer camp of my youth), residents have voted overwhelmingly to support impeachment proceedings against George Bush.

Interestingly enough, the town was named for Thomas Fane, "supporter of a 16th-century movement to dethrone Queen Mary." So you can see where the inspiration came from...

The town voted 121-29 for a resolution which, according to John Nichols, states:


Whereas George W. Bush has:


Misled the nation about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction;
Misled the nation about ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda;
Used these falsehoods to lead our nation into war unsupported by international law;
Not told the truth about American policy with respect to the use of torture; and
Has directed the government to engage in domestic spying, in direct contravention of U.S. law.


Therefore, the voters of the town of Newfane ask that our representative to the U.S. House of Representatives file articles of impeachment to remove him from office.

Though Vermont's rep Bernie Sanders calls impeachment "impractical" due to Republican control of congress, other towns are chiming in:

"The surprise came from neighboring communities where, inspired by Newfane's example, citizens demanded that their town meetings address the issue. At least three other Vermont towns -- Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney – voted for impeachment resolutions Tuesday night. Dummerston and Putney in floor votes, while Marlboro voted by paper ballot 60-10 for impeachment."

[off piste]

I love Vermont:



So do I:

http://www.packing.org/state/vermont/

[Mr_Cheeze]

So do We!!!
http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/BDX/BDX335/bxp63139.jpghttp://nlgba.com/images/gayline/gay-couple-14.jpghttp://www.gay-dating-site.com/pics/lesbian-couple-kissing.jpg

[off piste]

So do We!!!


Which one are you?!? ???

[Mr_Cheeze]

So do We!!!


Which one are you?!? ???


The fish sticking its tongue out

[TrailBate]

What Bush Says:

"The situation in Iraq is still tense, and we're still seeing acts of sectarian violence and reprisal," Bush said in a speech in Washington. "Yet out of this crisis, we've also seen signs of a hopeful future."
The attack on the Al-Askariya Mosque, one of the holiest sites to Shiite Muslims, was meant to ignite a civil war between Iraqi Shiites and minority Sunnis, Bush said, but "the Iraqi people made their choice. They looked into the abyss and did not like what they saw."



Reality:

At least 86 bodies were found in Iraq's capital during a 30-hour period ending at midday Baghdad time today, authorities said, raising fears that sectarian reprisal killings are continuing at a grisly pace. Police say 29 of the bodies were found in a shallow grave on the eastern side of the capital in a Shiite neighborhood. Their hands were tied behind their backs and bullets shot through their heads.

[kernel crash]

"They looked into the abyss and did not like what they saw."

That's a great line. Actually ol George might have a point here. If they hadn't looked into the abyss, we might be counting the sectarian violence and reprisal by the hundreds.

Is it my imagination or has the press turned the corner a bit. In the last 2 weeks I've seen more positive stories coming out of Iraq than I've seen in the last 2 years. I've got a theory but I need to see if the trend continues.

[FriedRys]

I think George Bush likes kites. :o


http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/killer-kites-end-pakistans-game-of-death/2006/03/11/1141701733528.html


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11766288/


_________________

[Slider]

Now try to tell us that this isn't a direct result of Bush policies. If I had kids, and voted for the Treasonator, I would have some serious regrets. Kiss their financial security goodbye, for decades, assuming we can stop the idiot from doing further damage.

Slider

----------------------------------
Red Ink Raises Red Flag For U.S.

$9 Trillion Debt Limit Clouds Federal Outlook

By DAVID LIGHTMAN
Washington Bureau Chief

March 17 2006

WASHINGTON -- The federal debt, which for years has been soaring beyond fathomable levels, got permission to grow even more Thursday.

The new debt limit of nearly $9 trillion, approved by the U.S. Senate on a 52-48 vote, gave economic experts new chills - and should give the public renewed reasons to worry about the economic future:

The country will endure about $30,000 in debt for every man, woman and child when the new limit is reached.

When it hits that limit, the debt will have ballooned by $3 trillion since President Bush took office.

The nation's first 42 presidents took 224 years to roll up $1 trillion in foreign-held debt. In the last five years, that foreign-held amount has more than doubled, and promises to keep soaring.

And so on.

The limit was raised by $781 billion. Three Republicans joined one independent and 44 Democrats, including Connecticut Sens. Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman, in voting no. The House agreed to raise the limit last year.

In a city where talk is cheap, or at least incessant, there was little talk about the debt limit.

"It's a vote no one wants to take," said Adam Hughes, director of federal fiscal policy for OMB Watch, a Washington research group. Democrats hate the debt talk because they get accused of being big spenders. Republicans hate it because they get charged with giving too many tax breaks to rich people.

And lurking behind the finger-pointing is the kind of brutal warning issued by Comptroller General David Walker, an independent analyst not known for hyperbole.

"Continuing on this imprudent and unsustainable fiscal path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy," he said, "and ultimately our national security."

But the price of not raising the limit this month was even more frightening. Had Congress not acted by March 24, Social Security checks could have stopped. The United States would have defaulted on its obligations. Foreign investors could have lost confidence in the United States. Federal agencies would have begun plans to shutter their doors.

So while Apocalypse Now has been avoided, there's still the specter of Apocalypse Later. Here's why.

First, the more the debt blizzard continues, the more interest the government has to pay. And the more interest it pays, the less government money is available to spend on other programs - like health care, education, social services and defense.

Second, someone has to buy the securities that help pay off the debt. More and more, those buyers are from foreign countries. The United States now owes Japan $668 billion, China $260 billion, and the United Kingdom $220 billion, to name a few.

That in turn could influence foreign policy. "How are we going to get tough with somebody we owe $660 billion?" asked Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

Third, the more the debt snowballs, the more likely the prospect foreign investors could stop investing. "They could become afraid we won't pay it back," said Hughes.

Fourth, more debt could mean higher taxes - a fairly simple way to pay off the debt.

Finally, more debt usually means consumers wind up paying higher interest rates. The more the government has to borrow to pay for itself, the more it competes with the private sector for money. That competition drives up rates, which represent the cost of money.

That's why politicians stay away from debt debate as if it were a contagious disease. In a week when the smallest nuances of federal spending are being discussed long into the night in both houses, the debt limit got one hour of the Senate's time Thursday.

About the only moment of drama - and it was literally a moment - came when Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., tried to require the Treasury Department to "report on the economic and security implications of our debt to foreigners."

Republicans resisted, saying that adding such language to the bill would mean the House would have to consider it again. "There's no need for it," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. That was that - 43 Democrats and one independent backed Baucus, while all 55 Republicans said no.

The Senate then quickly voted to raise the limit for the fourth time in five years, and afterward, there were none of the usually self-congratulatory press releases or press conferences.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., could only shake his head and move on. "If my Republican friends believe that increasing our debt by almost $800 billion today and more than $3 trillion over the past five years is the right thing to do," he said, "they should be up front about it."

The only reaction from outside the Capitol was a sigh of relief that the government could return to business as usual. Within hours of the Senate vote, the Treasury announced it would auction $20 billion in three-month bills and $17 billion in six-month bills on Monday. It had delayed that news until it saw what the Senate did.
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-debtlimit0317.artmar17,0,6797610.story?coll=hc-headlines-home (http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-debtlimit0317.artmar17,0,6797610.story?coll=hc-headlines-home)

[TrailBate]

Yep, George Bush is an 18 year old unemployed girl with a credit card in our children's name with a 9 trillion dollar limit.


Republicans also just turned down a measure introduced by Democrats to tighten port security.

[kernel crash]

I wish the Republicians in the Senate would of had the stones to say No Way! I'm surprised they would have given the Democrats this issue come November. At least drunkin sailors spend THEIR own money.

"Republicans also just turned down a measure introduced by Democrats to tighten port security."

I'm sure there's more to it than that.

[TrailBate]

I'm sure there's more to it than that.


http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/16/port-security-funding/

[TrailBate]

let's see. $9 trillion at the Fed Funds interest rate of 4.5% for ONE day is.....$1.125 BILIION.

this thing grows by a billion dollars every day on interest alone.

[Slider]

At least there's one court that sees the threat in letting Bush make his own laws. Maybe there's still hope on the treason and perjury fronts. Just gotta get the courts involved, and the gutless Houses out of the process. At least that would force Alioto and Roberts to show their own hands, once the cases reached them.

Slider

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

March 18, 2006
Judges Overturn Bush Bid to Ease Pollution Rules
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
WASHINGTON, March 17 — A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a clean-air regulation issued by the Bush administration that would have let many power plants, refineries and factories avoid installing costly new pollution controls to help offset any increased emissions caused by repairs and replacements of equipment.

Ruling in favor of a coalition of states and environmental advocacy groups, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the "plain language" of the law required a stricter approach. The court has primary jurisdiction in challenges to federal regulations.

The ruling by a three-judge panel was the court's second decision in less than a year in a pair of closely related cases involving the administration's interpretations of a complex section of the Clean Air Act. Unlike its ruling last summer, when the court largely upheld the E.P.A.'s approach against challenges from industry, state governments and environmental groups, the new ruling was a defeat for the agency and for industry, and a victory for the states and their environmentalist allies.

In the earlier case, a panel including two of the three judges who ruled on Friday decided that the agency had acted reasonably in 2002, when it issued a rule changing how pollution would be measured, effectively loosening the strictures on companies making changes to their equipment and operations.

But on Friday, the court said the agency went too far in 2003 when it issued a separate new rule that opponents said would exempt most equipment changes from environmental reviews — even changes that would result in higher emissions.

With a wry footnote to Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," the court said that "only in a Humpty-Dumpty world" could the law be read otherwise.

"We decline such a world view," said their unanimous decision, written by Judge Judith W. Rogers, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Judges David Tatel, another Clinton appointee, and Janice Rogers Brown, a recent Bush appointee, joined her.

The winners this time —more than a dozen states, including New York and California and a large group of environmental organizations — hailed the decision as one of their most important gains in years of litigation, regulation and legal challenges under the Clean Air Act.

The provision of the law at issue, the "new source review" section, governs the permits required at more than 1,300 coal-fueled power plants around the country and 17,000 factories, refineries and chemical plants that spew millions of tons of pollution into the air each year.

"This is an enormous victory over the concerted efforts by the Bush administration to dismantle the Clean Air Act," Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, whose office led the opposition from the states, said in an interview.

Mr. Spitzer, who is running for governor, said the ruling "shows that the administration's effort to misinterpret and undermine the statute is illegal."

Howard Fox, a lawyer for Earth Justice, which represented six environmental and health groups in the case, called the ruling "a victory for public health," adding, "It makes no sense to allow huge multimillion-dollar projects that drastically increase air pollution without installing up-to-date pollution controls."

The E.P.A. issued only a brief statement, saying: "We are disappointed that the court did not find in favor of the United States. We are reviewing and analyzing the opinion."

The decision is unlikely to be the last word; several circuit courts or appeals courts have considered or decided related cases, and the issue may eventually reach the Supreme Court. Some in Congress say the uncertainty demands an overhaul of the Clean Air Act itself, but there has been no real movement in that direction in recent years.

The new ruling addressed the administration's effort in 2003 to offer relief to energy companies that faced costly settlements of litigation brought by President Clinton's E.P.A. The agency proposed exemptions for companies whenever upgrades to their equipment amounted to less than 20 percent of the replacement cost of the equipment. In effect, that made perennial repairs of old equipment a more attractive alternative in many cases than its outright replacement.

Energy companies said the two rules the administration proposed in 2002 and 2003 would help them expand energy supplies at lower cost to consumers. But environmentalists said the change would result in just the kind of increased pollution that the law was intended to control.

The Clean Air Act calls for companies to build plants with up-to-date control technologies, and the new source provision was a way to ensure that as time goes by, pollution controls must be modernized along with the plants themselves.

Industry groups, which had challenged the first E.P.A. rule last year as not being flexible enough, were aligned with the agency this time. In general, they have been close partners with the Bush administration in environmental matters, pushing for greater economic considerations in the creation of any new policy.

The 20 percent threshold in the overturned rule would have enabled plant operators to make many repairs and upgrades without spending additional tens of millions of dollars for more advanced pollution controls. In settlements under the old rules, some companies faced costs of more than $100 million.

"This is a terrible decision," said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a trade organization, arguing that the "any physical change" definition created financial instability for plant operators who spent as much as $800 million for a new boiler.

He and other industry leaders expressed hope that the court ruling might induce Congress to pass new legislation that would include New Source Review, a step that he said would make it easier for plant operators to plan for their future upgrades and investments.

John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, called the ruling "a significant setback to business efficiency" and environmental quality.

The government has 45 days to decide whether to seek a review of the ruling by the entire appeals court.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

[off piste]

Sometimes it's not so great when courts get involved:

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060317113409990036&ncid=NWS000100 00000001

Court OKs State's Anti-Abortion License Plates
By LUCAS L. JOHNSON II, AP

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (March 17) - A federal appeals court Friday allowed Tennessee to offer anti-abortion license plates bearing the message "Choose Life."

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati overturned a lower-court ruling that said the tag illegally promoted only one side of the abortion debate.

"Although this exercise of government one-sidedness with respect to a very contentious political issue may be ill-advised, we are unable to conclude that the Tennessee statute contravenes the First Amendment," Judge John M. Rogers said in a 2-1 ruling.

An anti-abortion group, Tennessee Right to Life, declared victory.

"It's a validation of our position all along that the Legislature had the authority to authorize a plate that favors normal childbirth over the practice of abortion," said Brian Harris, the group's president.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Boyce F. Martin Jr. said the plates should be banned because they amount to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

Abortion-rights proponents complained the state does not offer those with other political views a similar way to express them. An attempt to create a "Choose Choice" tag failed in the Legislature in 2002.

"We don't think it's in the state's best interest to be promoting such a one-sided view," said Keri Adams, of Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee, a plaintiff. The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee also was involved in the case.

Federal appeals courts have been divided over whether such license plate programs are constitutional. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower-court ruling that said similar South Carolina license plates violated the First Amendment.

Drivers will be able to pay an extra fee in Tennessee for the "Choose Life" plate, and some of the proceeds will go to New Life Resources, an anti-abortion group.

Tennessee is the 13th state to offer "Choose Life" plates. The others are Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota. Most states donate proceeds to adoption groups, but Alabama, Hawaii, Maryland and Montana donate at least some of the money to anti-abortion groups.

Tennessee has more than 120 specialty plates, most of them saluting uncontroversial subjects such as the Tennessee Titans football team, the Smoky Mountains and the Tennessee Walking Horse.

Gov. Phil Bredesen let the anti-abortion license plates measure become law but declined to sign it, and he urged lawmakers to develop a new approach to deciding which causes would benefit from the sale of specialty plates

[velo93]

an empty bed is ready and waiting in the hague for you know Who......

[TrailBate]

KABUL, Afghanistan Mar 19, 2006 (AP)— An Afghan man is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death on a charge of converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime under this country's Islamic laws, a judge said Sunday.


Way to go, Bush!

[off piste]

If it were Bush's fault, wouldn't he be rewarded for converting to Christianity and executed for turning away? After all, Bush is doing everything because Jesus is telling him to......

[kernel crash]

"Way to go, Bush! "

Way to go Bush??? Is there anything that happens on this entire planet that isn't George Bush's fault? Cmon trail bait, even for you, this is a bit much. You've been drinking too much of the move on kool aid.

[TrailBate]

"Way to go, Bush! "

Way to go Bush??? Is there anything that happens on this entire planet that isn't George Bush's fault? Cmon trail bait, even for you, this is a bit much. You've been drinking too much of the move on kool aid.



Did we not invade Afghanistan to get RID of this kind of government? DId Bush not say we were setting up a democracy that tolerated ALL religions? (btw, the answers are "yes" and "yes")

Is this why Americans died? Most of whom would call themselves Christian?

Sounds like we've set up a government that might support some kind of terrorists, no?

Bush did NOT finish the job. Let's hope Iraq turns out a little better, mkay?

[FriedRys]

Seems to me the real culprit would be organized religion and the loonies the follow them.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-03-18-voa7.cfm

All he has to do to avoid being killed is tell them okay, I'm a muslim again.

[Slider]

Email is pretty central to any job, right? So this story means FBI can't do their job due to budget constraints.

Go ahead, try to show how this isn't a direct result of the policies of The Moron in Charge.

Slider

FBI, you've got mail -- NOT!
FBI official says budget doesn't cover accounts for all agents

NEW YORK (AP) -- Budget constraints are forcing some FBI agents to operate without e-mail accounts, according to the agency's top official in New York.

"As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts," Mark Mershon said when asked about the gap at a New York Daily News editorial board meeting.

"We just don't have the money, and that is an endless stream of complaints that come from the field," he said.

FBI officials in Washington denied that cost-cutting was putting agents at a disadvantage.

Spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan said e-mail addresses are still being assigned, adding that the city bureau's 2,000 employees would all have accounts by the end of the year.

Mershon, the assistant director in charge of the agency's New York City office, also said that 100 city agents have been given Internet-ready phones such as BlackBerry devices.

Christine Monaco, a spokeswoman for the FBI in New York, said Monday that all FBI agents can communicate with each other via a secure internal e-mail system, and about 75 percent of the New York office's employees have outside e-mail accounts.

"The outside e-mail accounts have to be separately funded," she said.

Senator Charles Schumer called for better access to technology for agents.

"The FBI should have the tools it needs to fight terrorism and crime in the 21st century, most of all in New York City, and one of the most effective means of communications is e-mail and the Internet," he said.

"FBI agents not having e-mail or Internet access is much too much a pre-9/11 mentality."

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/20/fbi.email.ap/index.html

[TrailBate]

to jump into Conspiracy Land:

Perhaps this was intentional? No more emails out there for special prosecutors to use in criminal investigations of, oh, I don't know, faulty pre-war intelligence and treason against CIA agents?

[kernel crash]

"Did we not invade Afghanistan to get RID of this kind of government? DId Bush not say we were setting up a democracy that tolerated ALL religions?"

Well maybe...

"To devout Muslims, Islam is worth dying for, and killing for... For we all have, or have had, causes for which we, too, would kill... The Christian West partook of two of the greatest mass slaughters of human history, World Wars I and II, featuring poison gas and the carpet bombing and atomic bombing of cities to advance the cause of democracy – that same democracy Islamic peoples now use to advance the cause of Islam and Islamism."

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49373

[Slider]

to jump into Conspiracy Land:

Perhaps this was intentional? No more emails out there for special prosecutors to use in criminal investigations of, oh, I don't know, faulty pre-war intelligence and treason against CIA agents?


I dunno. Judging from the Moussaoui case, better tools might make them even more incompetent.

Slider

[BadDNA]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/23/a_generous_bush_always_thinking_of_others/

[Slider]

Here it is, the moment we've all been waiting for. Libby says it was Bush who authorized him to sell the country down the river.

I wonder how the gutless Houses will evade this one. We might have to wait until the majority turns in the upcoming elections, but it will be worth every minute.

Slider

Papers: Cheney aide says Bush OK'd leak
By Pete Yost, Associated Press Writer | April 6, 2006

WASHINGTON --Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

Before his indictment, I. Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The authorization came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main reason the president and his aides had given for justifying the invasion of Iraq.

Libby's participation in a critical conversation with Miller on July 8, 2003 "occurred only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the National Intelligence Estimate," the papers by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stated. The filing did not specify the "certain information."

"Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller -- getting approval from the president through the vice president to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval -- were unique in his recollection," the papers added.

[TrailBate]

hmmmm,
who was it that said he'd fire ANYONE involved in the leak......??

Actually, I've already heard Bush's excuse: He's the President. And as President, he's allowed, unilaterally, to declassify information.

[TrailBate]

strange, I can find this story everywhere, EXCEPT on Fox.....hmmmmm....??

[off piste]

strange, I can find this story everywhere, EXCEPT on Fox.....hmmmmm....??


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,190843,00.html

Libby: Bush Authorized Leaks About Iraq

Thursday , April 06, 2006

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

Before his indictment, Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the Plame leak that Cheney told him to pass on the information and that it was Bush who authorized the leak, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The authorization came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main reason the president and his aides had given for justifying the invasion of Iraq.

Libby's participation in a critical conversation with Miller on July 8, 2003 "occurred only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the National Intelligence Estimate," the papers by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stated. The filing did not specify the "certain information."

"Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller -- getting approval from the president through the vice president to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval -- were unique in his recollection," the papers added.

[off piste]

hmmmm,
who was it that said he'd fire ANYONE involved in the leak......??

Actually, I've already heard Bush's excuse: He's the President. And as President, he's allowed, unilaterally, to declassify information.

What, are you frigged in the head?!? They get their authority right from Jayyyyyyyyyy-zzzzzzzzzz-issssssssss

[TrailBate]

Now I see why Fox took so long to get the story up. It has a few interesting spins from everyone else, including how Wilson "left out" some details about Iraq seeking yellowcake from Sudan in his report to the government, and how Bush and Cheney both have the authority to declassify information, etc.

[Slider]

I don't have the source for this, since it came to me via email, but it sounds plausible. The cover-up is usually worse than the crime itself, from a getting-punished perspective. If true, Bush would officially be a Lying SOS.

Slider

" According to four attorneys who over the past two days have read a transcript of the President Bush's interview with investigators, Bush did not disclose to either investigators or the special counsel that he had authorized Cheney or any other administration official to leak portions of the NIE to Woodward and Miller or any other reporter. Rather, these people said the president said he frowned upon "selective leaks."

Bush also said during the interview two years ago that he had no prior knowledge that anyone on his staff had been involved in a campaign to discredit Wilson or that individuals retaliated against the former ambassador by leaking his wife's undercover identity to reporters. "

BadDNA - can you fix that URL post so the page width is back to normal?

[Mr_Cheeze]

Here it is, the moment we've all been waiting for.


"We" as in you and Trailbait, I am assuming. Cuz I know I haven't been waiting for it. Telemark, CP, anyone else... you guys been waiting for this?

Superman Returns... now, that I've been waiting for!

[Slider]

Here it is, the moment we've all been waiting for.


"We" as in you and Trailbait, I am assuming. Cuz I know I haven't been waiting for it. Telemark, CP, anyone else... you guys been waiting for this?

Superman Returns... now, that I've been waiting for!


Think of "we" are referring to those actually concerned about the rule of law in this country. I'm guessing it roughly equates to those in the 68% disapproval margin.

Slider

[kernel crash]

"Think of "we" are referring to those actually concerned about the rule of law in this country. I'm guessing it roughly equates to those in the 68% disapproval margin."

We'll see. I think this statement is interesting, for now. "There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity."

My predictions? The Republicans will lose seats in the house but will maintain the majority. (The immagration issue will see to that). Bush and his admin will continue to fail the smell test but like the former teflon Prez, will somehow manage to evade the gas chamber.

[Slider]

"Think of "we" are referring to those actually concerned about the rule of law in this country. I'm guessing it roughly equates to those in the 68% disapproval margin."

We'll see. I think this statement is interesting, for now. "There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity."


This is where it gets interesting. If Bush told Cheney to authorize release of any part of the NIE report, regardless of the Plame thing, then his statements to the investigators, when he denied any role, were perjury. He most likely did tell Cheney and Libby to out Plame, but it no longer is a necessary step for him to have committed a felony.

Slider

[Mr_Cheeze]

More news we've all been waiting for! (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-040706davinci_lat,0,2412456.story?coll=la-home-entertainment)

News all bad women drivers and teenagers have been waiting for. (http://www.comcast.net/news/health/index.jsp?cat=HEALTHWELLNESS&fn=/2006/04/06/362651.html&cvqh=itn_fda)

News all religious wacko conservatives have been waiting for. (http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/apr/07judas.htm)

[catbbq]

More news we've all been waiting for! (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-040706davinci_lat,0,2412456.story?coll=la-home-entertainment)

News all bad women drivers and teenagers have been waiting for. (http://www.comcast.net/news/health/index.jsp?cat=HEALTHWELLNESS&fn=/2006/04/06/362651.html&cvqh=itn_fda)

News all religious wacko conservatives have been waiting for. (http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/apr/07judas.htm)


As for the cell phone issue, it is just move right wing propoganda. Everyone knows that the cell phone companies has Bush in their pocket. Just like global warming, mass deaths from head and ear tumors are imminent. I just hope I die in a mining accident or globally warmed bathtub accident before my cell phone gets me.

[jakazz]

"Think of "we" are referring to those actually concerned about the rule of law in this country. I'm guessing it roughly equates to those in the 68% disapproval margin."

We'll see. I think this statement is interesting, for now. "There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity."


This is where it gets interesting. If Bush told Cheney to authorize release of any part of the NIE report, regardless of the Plame thing, then his statements to the investigators, when he denied any role, were perjury. He most likely did tell Cheney and Libby to out Plame, but it no longer is a necessary step for him to have committed a felony.

Slider


ok i'm not pleased with some , most of his decisions, but better than kerrry would have done, lets be real here. and if you want to talk about perjury,... hello anybody remember slick willy, teflon bill as the state troopers in ak. called him while they were bringing hookers to the gov mansion.

come on people, granted its not a perfect system but waht other country would you want to live?

[TrailBate]

ok i'm not pleased with some , most of his decisions, but better than kerrry would have done, lets be real here. and if you want to talk about perjury,... hello anybody remember slick willy, teflon bill as the state troopers in ak. called him while they were bringing hookers to the gov mansion.

come on people, granted its not a perfect system but waht other country would you want to live?


Wait. Aren't these the same State Troopers that were part of Clintons big drug ring?

It's not a perfect system. But If I wanted to live in a country that lied to invade countries, sent it's own citizens off to die so the Dear Leader could make more money, tortured people, detained people indefinately without any legal recourse, sent people to foreign illegal prisons, and tried to ruin the lives and careers of anyone that didn't agree with The Party, I'd move to the Soviet Union.

[FriedRys]

ok i'm not pleased with some , most of his decisions, but better than kerrry would have done, lets be real here. and if you want to talk about perjury,... hello anybody remember slick willy, teflon bill as the state troopers in ak. called him while they were bringing hookers to the gov mansion.

come on people, granted its not a perfect system but waht other country would you want to live?


Wait. Aren't these the same State Troopers that were part of Clintons big drug ring?

It's not a perfect system. But If I wanted to live in a country that lied to invade countries, sent it's own citizens off to die so the Dear Leader could make more money, tortured people, detained people indefinately without any legal recourse, sent people to foreign illegal prisons, and tried to ruin the lives and careers of anyone that didn't agree with The Party, I'd move to the Soviet Union.
Not sure if you caught the news lately, but he Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. ;D

[TrailBate]

Not sure if you caught the news lately, but he Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. ;D


Yeah, right! More republican propaganda you got off of Fox news! Let me guess, Reagan had something to do with it, hmmm?

[FriedRys]

Not sure if you caught the news lately, but he Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. ;D


Yeah, right! More republican propaganda you got off of Fox news! Let me guess, Reagan had something to do with it, hmmm?
Damn it, you got me, I withdraw my comment due to the inabillity to back it up with unbiased reporting. ;)

[catbbq]

ok i'm not pleased with some , most of his decisions, but better than kerrry would have done, lets be real here. and if you want to talk about perjury,... hello anybody remember slick willy, teflon bill as the state troopers in ak. called him while they were bringing hookers to the gov mansion.

come on people, granted its not a perfect system but waht other country would you want to live?


Wait. Aren't these the same State Troopers that were part of Clintons big drug ring?



Sorry to rip on the newbie, but Teflon Bill was governor of Arkansas, not Alaska. (AR vs AK).

[TrailBate]

Wow, and he even had the Alaska State Troopers involved? That's a mighty big drug ring. They grow good **** in Alaska?

[catbbq]

Wow, and he even had the Alaska State Troopers involved? That's a mighty big drug ring. They grow good **** in Alaska?


His influence is bigger than a Cuban cigar.

[Slider]

Bush's war on democracy is even broader than I thought before. Turns out the White House was coordinating the whole NH phone jamming thing. Three convictions in NH already, and it is time to look at the administration's role.

These guys somehow manage to keep the sleaze coming.

Slider


Documents: GOP official in phone jamming case called White House
By Larry Margasak, Associated Press Writer | April 11, 2006

WASHINGTON --Key figures in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002 had regular contact with the White House and Republican Party as the plan was unfolding, phone records introduced in criminal court show.

The records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 -- as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.

The national Republican Party, which paid millions in legal bills to defend Tobin, says the contacts involved routine election business and that it was "preposterous" to suggest the calls involved phone jamming.

The Justice Department has secured three convictions in the case but hasn't accused any White House or national Republican officials of wrongdoing, nor made any allegations suggesting party officials outside of New Hampshire were involved. The phone records of calls to the White House were exhibits in Tobin's trial but prosecutors did not make them part of their case.

Democrats plan to ask a New Hampshire judge Tuesday to order GOP and White House officials to answer questions about the phone jamming in a civil lawsuit alleging voter fraud.

Repeated hang-up calls that jammed telephone lines at a Democratic get-out-the-vote center occurred in a Senate race in which Republican John Sununu defeated Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, 51 percent to 46 percent, on Nov. 5, 2002.

Besides the conviction of Tobin, the Republicans' New England regional director, prosecutors negotiated two plea bargains: one with a New Hampshire Republican Party official and another with the owner of a telemarketing firm involved in the scheme. The owner of the subcontractor firm whose employees made the hang-up calls is under indictment.

The phone records show that most calls to the White House were from Tobin, who became President Bush's presidential campaign chairman for the New England region in 2004. Other calls from New Hampshire senatorial campaign offices to the White House could have been made by a number of people.

A GOP campaign consultant in 2002, Jayne Millerick, made a 17-minute call to the White House on Election Day, but said in an interview she did not recall the subject. Millerick, who later became the New Hampshire GOP chairwoman, said in an interview she did not learn of the jamming until after the election.

A Democratic analysis of phone records introduced at Tobin's criminal trial show he made 115 outgoing calls -- mostly to the same number in the White House political affairs office -- between Sept. 17 and Nov. 22, 2002. Two dozen of the calls were made from 9:28 a.m. the day before the election through 2:17 a.m. the night after the voting.

There also were other calls between Republican officials during the period that the scheme was hatched and canceled.

Prosecutors did not need the White House calls to convict Tobin and negotiate the two guilty pleas.

Whatever the reason for not using the White House records, prosecutors "tried a very narrow case," said Paul Twomey, who represented the Democratic Party in the criminal and civil cases. The Justice Department did not say why the White House records were not used.

The Democrats said in their civil case motion that they were entitled to know the purpose of the calls to government offices "at the time of the planning and implementation of the phone-jamming conspiracy ... and the timing of the phone calls made by Mr. Tobin on Election Day."

While national Republican officials have said they deplore such operations, the Republican National Committee said it paid for Tobin's defense because he is a longtime supporter and told officials he had committed no crime.

By Nov. 4, 2002, the Monday before the election, an Idaho firm was hired to make the hang-up calls. The Republican state chairman at the time, John Dowd, said in an interview he learned of the scheme that day and tried to stop it.

Dowd, who blamed an aide for devising the scheme without his knowledge, contended that the jamming began on Election Day despite his efforts. A police report confirmed the Manchester Professional Fire Fighters Association reported the hang-up calls began about 7:15 a.m. and continued for about two hours. The association was offering rides to the polls.

Virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same number, which currently rings inside the political affairs office. In 2002, White House political affairs was led by now-RNC chairman Ken Mehlman. The White House declined to say which staffer was assigned that phone number in 2002.

"As policy, we don't discuss ongoing legal proceedings within the courts," White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said.

Robert Kelner, a Washington lawyer representing the Republican National Committee in the civil litigation, said there was no connection between the phone jamming operation and the calls to the White House and party officials.

"On Election Day, as anybody involved in politics knows, there's a tremendous volume of calls between political operatives in the field and political operatives in Washington," Kelner said.

"If all you're pointing out is calls between Republican National Committee regional political officials and the White House political office on Election Day, you're pointing out nothing that hasn't been true on every Election Day," he said.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien LaVera said Monday: "With every development in this case, there are new questions about the extent to which key national Republicans had knowledge of or were involved in a criminal scheme to keep New Hampshire voters from getting to the polls. The American people have a right to know whether the White House political director, who today sits as chairman of the national Republican Party, had any hand in it."

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[TrailBate]

Yes, but Where is your EVIDENCE?! ;D

[Slider]

I'm waiting for the NewsMax regurgitation of a Bill O'Reilly propaganda piece based on adminstration misinformation leaked to planted journalists.

Shouldn't take long. ;)

Slider

[TrailBate]

From the Washington Post:

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.

[catbbq]

From the Washington Post:

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.


So what?

[TrailBate]

So what?


So tens of thousands of people are dead. Glad to see you could care less.

[catbbq]

So what?


So tens of thousands of people are dead. Glad to see you could care less.


If you care so much, what are doing about beside posting articles we could read elsewhere? Making perfect predictions of the past? Planning on voting democrat in the next election? Think it will help?

Only chance you got of changing anything is running for office yourself. If you move to NH, I'll vote for you.

[Slider]

WTF? If you aren't interested, you really don't have to read it.

Case closed.

Slider

[BG]

I read it mostly 'cause i'm addicted.
Nothing like political blather to pass the time.
Where can i go for help?

BG

[Slider]

C'mere, kid. Step into this alley. I got some political **** that'll knock your socks off.

Forget that pansy blowjob stuff, we're talkin' treason. It'll take you right to the top. And this one is on me. Next time, bring some spin, cause this **** don't grow on trees. ;D

Slider

[off piste]

C'mere, kid. Step into this alley. I got some political **** that'll knock your socks off.

Forget that pansy bowjob stuff, we're talkin' treason. It'll take you right to the top. And this one is on me. Next time, bring some spin, cause this **** don't grow on trees. ;D

Slider


You are truly a twisted individual. ;)

[BG]

Wow, see now you know why this is so addictive.
Pansy blowjobs, knocking my socks off, treason, alleys, taking me to the top and it all being on you. Damn, dosen't get any better.

BG

[TrailBate]

If you care so much, what are doing about beside posting articles we could read elsewhere? Making perfect predictions of the past? Planning on voting democrat in the next election? Think it will help?

Only chance you got of changing anything is running for office yourself. If you move to NH, I'll vote for you.


Nobody reads these articles.

Whose making perfect prediction of the past? I was against this war from the beginning, as were most liberals.

This attitude of "you can't make any difference" is pathetic. Too many people have this attitude, and don't do anything. THAT is why it's hard to make a difference. Too many people don't care.

There are riots, coups and civil wars in most countries over LESS that what Bush has done here.

[catbbq]

If you care so much, what are doing about beside posting articles we could read elsewhere? Making perfect predictions of the past? Planning on voting democrat in the next election? Think it will help?

Only chance you got of changing anything is running for office yourself. If you move to NH, I'll vote for you.


Nobody reads these articles.

Whose making perfect prediction of the past? I was against this war from the beginning, as were most liberals.

This attitude of "you can't make any difference" is pathetic. Too many people have this attitude, and don't do anything. THAT is why it's hard to make a difference. Too many people don't care.

There are riots, coups and civil wars in most countries over LESS that what Bush has done here.



I didn't say "you can't make a difference." I said YOU (Trailbait) ARE NOT making a difference. In fact, I said that you can make a difference by running for office. You point out some other options. So start revolution. There is an article worth reading.

[BG]

Yes, let's riot, coup, and procede with civil war. That will do it.
What isn't being done that you are so upset with. The fact that there are some who may not see things quite your way on a lousy forum?
Are there not accusations, investigations, allegations, prosecutions, research, indictments ect going on as there should be. Is my being pissed going to help what is happening. Is my slandering you going to get to the root of what is going on in the world today? All i can do is the best i can for research and understanding and then vote. Maybe that is just not enough in this mixed up country anymore, maybe it is time to rebel and fight for what i think is right for maybe what chief Wiggings says carries a lot of truth
" Can't you people take the law into your own hands? I mean, we can't be policing the entire city!"

BG

[TrailBate]

sorry, it's just when I hear, or think I hear, the "you can't make a difference" attitude, it pisses me off.

I vote, I write my reps, I debate people hoping to change some minds.

There are NOT enough investigations. The Gov't has refused to investigate the wire tapping, the pre-war intelligence, any memos and minutes of meetings that keep popping up, the foreign prisons, the oil companies, voting irregularities, etc. What they DO investigate, is steroids in baseball.

[kernel crash]

"There are riots, coups and civil wars in most countries over LESS that what Bush has done here. "

Really? Can you name a couple?

"I debate people hoping to change some minds."

Really? I wonder how many people out there have had their minds changed because of something TrailBait has posted here? I'm serious. Raise your hands. Please. I really want to know.

The point catbbq was making is you really bring nothing new to the discussion. All this stuff is out there. It's not hard to find. In fact its impossible to avoid.

[TrailBate]

"There are riots, coups and civil wars in most countries over LESS that what Bush has done here. "

Really? Can you name a couple?

"I debate people hoping to change some minds."

Really? I wonder how many people out there have had their minds changed because of something TrailBait has posted here? I'm serious. Raise your hands. Please. I really want to know.

The point catbbq was making is you really bring nothing new to the discussion. All this stuff is out there. It's not hard to find. In fact its impossible to avoid.




So, it's all out there, not hard to find, impossible to avoid, yet you can't think of any riot, coup, or civil war started on less than what Bush has done here?

And if it is all out there, why don't you care? Why are you getting annoyed that it's being debated?

You either don't know, or don't care. You MUST know, since it's "impossible to avoid", so apparently you don't care. Which is pretty sad.

[kernel crash]

" So, it's all out there, not hard to find, impossible to avoid, yet you can't think of any riot, coup, or civil war started on less than what Bush has done here?"

OK let me play your game for a minute. You want a riot? Sure lets look at those lazy French slackers that have been hitting the streets. They look pathetic to the rest of the civilized world. But I'm not losing any sleep over it. Should we be hitting the streets? People get excited about what affects them directly, mostly in their pocketbooks. So French take to the streets. Meanwhile our economy seems to be doing pretty good. People aren't as enraged as you think they are.

"And if it is all out there, why don't you care? Why are you getting annoyed that it's being debated?"

What makes you think I don't care just because I don't follow your logic lock step? I care plenty. I'm more bothered by the immigration issue than most of the stuff that gets your blood presure going. If I sound annoyed its just because there is nothing new here. Politicians are doing what they have always done. Were paying the price. Hey but we'll get them at the next election. Right! Hey I just might be more cynical than you.

[TrailBate]

" So, it's all out there, not hard to find, impossible to avoid, yet you can't think of any riot, coup, or civil war started on less than what Bush has done here?"

OK let me play your game for a minute. You want a riot? Sure lets look at those lazy French slackers that have been hitting the streets. They look pathetic to the rest of the civilized world. But I'm not losing any sleep over it. Should we be hitting the streets? People get excited about what affects them directly, mostly in their pocketbooks. So French take to the streets. Meanwhile our economy seems to be doing pretty good. People aren't as enraged as you think they are.

"And if it is all out there, why don't you care? Why are you getting annoyed that it's being debated?"

What makes you think I don't care just because I don't follow your logic lock step? I care plenty. I'm more bothered by the immigration issue than most of the stuff that gets your blood presure going. If I sound annoyed its just because there is nothing new here. Politicians are doing what they have always done. Were paying the price. Hey but we'll get them at the next election. Right! Hey I just might be more cynical than you.



There is/was also Nepal, Belarus, Ukraine. Hell, even illegal aliens protested all over America.

More Americans have died in Iraq this month than in all of last month. Evidence keeps coming out showing Bush KNEW he was lying about Iraq before the war.

But so what? let's just wait 2 1/2 years for the next Presidential election. What could possibly happen until then, right? Just a "nukular" war with Iran, perhaps.....

[Rych]

WTF? If you aren't interested, you really don't have to read it.

Case closed.

Slider



Truthfully I prefer Slider and trailbait's politics to someone with no politics at all.

[TrailBate]

Does the pace of the pre-war Iran intel look familiar to anyone?



Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, U.S. Says (Update2)

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Iran, defying United Nations Security Council demands to halt its nuclear program, may be capable of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days, a U.S. State Department official said.

Iran will move to ``industrial scale'' uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges at its Natanz plant, the Associated Press quoted deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saeedi as telling state-run television today.

``Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days,'' Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow.

[Slider]

Yeah, the rap sounds familiar. Especially when CNN is saying that top intelligence officials in the US think an Irani nuke us years away. It is still a problem, but this false urgency thing is exactly what got us into the Iraq quagmire.

The main reason Iran is rattling the nuclear saber these days is because we are hemming them in by occupying both Pakistan and Iraq. Don't forget that the Iranis lived for years under the Shah, a real SOB that we planted in the country. They have good reason to be scared shitless of us, and nukes are a reasonable security blanket especially in light of the Bush leaks about being willing to use our own on them.

Now, don't get me wrong, we do NOT want Iran to have a nuke. But there are far better ways to stop them than via yet another war that we can definitely not afford. That, BTW, is another reason this is an opportune time for them to pull this. Bush has us so far overextended, we are simply not a real threat to anyone. That is why the nuke thing was leaked in the first place. We have no real alternative.

Slider

U.S. intelligence: Iran years away from nukes

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iran remains years away from obtaining the materials and technology necessary for a nuclear weapon, despite its announcement this week that it has begun enriching uranium, several top U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday.

Kenneth Brill, the head of the newly created National Counterproliferation Center, said the U.S. assessment on the timeframe of Iran's weapons development was sufficiently broad that it does not need to be modified.

Senior intelligence officials alternatively say Tehran will have a nuclear weapon within a decade, or within several years.

"What the Iranians have announced, is what they've announced," said Brill, speaking alongside nine senior intelligence officials at a discussion of the Office of the National Intelligence Director's first year. "They need to let the (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors in there to see it, because they have obligations."

He noted that the regime has blustered before about developments that did not readily materialize.

"We really have to see what's happened in Iran," Brill said. "There is still a very significant amount of time that needs to be worked through by the Iranians to get to where they want to go."

Defending the quality of intelligence assessments, Brill said much of what the intelligence agencies have predicted has been validated by the IAEA and others.

U.S. intelligence officials are scrubbing their information and analysis on Iran as tensions increase over its nuclear program. Tehran insists its work is solely for peaceful, civilian purposes, but the U.S. and a number of its allies believe it is after a nuclear arsenal.

The nation's No. 2 intelligence official, Gen. Michael Hayden, said the Iran intelligence has benefited from the lessons-learned exercises on estimates about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Based on all the data available to spy agencies, he said confidently that Iran is intent on developing a nuclear weapon. Over time, he added, "We are able to be more clear." He declined to offer specifics about the information -- or the gaps in information.

The top U.S. intelligence analyst, Thomas Fingar, said changes have been made in how analysis is done. "All of us have greater confidence in the judgments that we are making and bringing forward on Iran," Fingar said.

He said the various intelligence agencies took to heart the various reports on the flawed intelligence leading up to Iraq. "We get it," Fingar said. "We realize we have got to rebuild confidence."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/04/13/us.iran.ap/index.html

[BG]

"The top U.S. intelligence analyst, Thomas Fingar, said changes have been made in how analysis is done. "All of us have greater confidence in the judgments that we are making and bringing forward on Iran," Fingar said.


Thomas Fingar, i knew his brother, Middle...
I'm losing confidence that there is any "intelligence" in this country.

BG

[off piste]

***Knock Knock Knock

"Let me in, I promise -- I'm different now -- I've chaaaaaaaaaanged!!!!!!!"

[Slider]

***Knock Knock Knock

"Let me in, I promise -- I'm different now -- I've chaaaaaaaaaanged!!!!!!!"


Blues Brothers?

Slider

[off piste]

***Knock Knock Knock

"Let me in, I promise -- I'm different now -- I've chaaaaaaaaaanged!!!!!!!"


Blues Brothers?

Slider


One of my ex's -- ca. 1987

[Slider]

Life is a learning experience.

Slider

[Mr_Cheeze]

Now, don't get me wrong, we do NOT want Iran to have a nuke. But there are far better ways to stop them than via yet another war that we can definitely not afford.

Here's an idea that I believe has worked before. Work on Israel. Keep trying to convince them that should Iran produce a nuke, the "Holy Land" will be turned into the holey land. I suspect it won't take much convincing.

If only the Crusaders were still around. Man, those were the days.

[Mr_Cheeze]

Then again, maybe we won't have to convice Israel ourselves with dummies like this leading Iran.
http://www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2006/04/14/367936.html&cvqh=itn_iranleader

[Slider]

He might as easily have said "Bring it on!"

Israel just might.

Slider

[FriedRys]

He wants us to invade so he can scream out to all Muslims that the U.S. is indeed on an Imperialist expantion plan and look, they invade Iraq, they invade Iran, your next unless all Muslims get together and fight the Great Satan and it's Zionist masters.

[Slider]

Would he be far from the truth? He lived through life under the Shah, don't forget.

Slider

[kernel crash]

Seems to me they had a lot more freedoms under the Shah of Iran. The women could walk the streets in Western clothes without fear of death.

[Slider]

You don't know what you are talking about. SAVAK made the Nazis seem like Boy Scouts. Evin Prison, still in use, is the stuff of nightmares.

I should add that things are pretty repressive now, but that is the culture the Iranis have chosen. It was not imposed on them, as was the Shah and his henchmen.

Slider

[FriedRys]

Would he be far from the truth? He lived through life under the Shah, don't forget.

Slider
Do you really think that anyone in the U.S., goverment or civilian, wants to go screwing around in Iran? What possible reason could there be, aside from denying them nukes?

[Slider]

It could be bluster. Hopefully, especially the tactical nuke idea, it is. As a tactic, it would be a lot more effective if we at least appeared to have the capability of carrying it out. We're way too overextended for that.

Slider

[TrailBate]

we may not have the ground forces for an invasion, but we could easily go with a persistant bombing/guided missile/naval campaign.

[TrailBate]

interesting little "educational" film about nuclear bunker buster boms'

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/nuclear-bunker-buster-rnep-animation.html

How would the military even know these worked? Have they been tested?

[off piste]

Hey Trailbait -- I found your new avatar:

http://www.ifh.ee.ethz.ch/~ballisti/for_fun/politics/TIME-Bush_resigns.jpg

[TrailBate]

thank you kindly

[TrailBate]

Bush has already decided to attack Iran. (warning: left wing website!)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/04/15.html#a7928

[TrailBate]

LA Times

"The Bush administration Wednesday [April 5, 2006] unveiled a blueprint for rebuilding the nation's decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity.

The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernization of the nation's massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War.

Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining aging bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs per year by 2022, as the Pentagon retires older bombs that it says will no longer be reliable or safe."

[Slider]

Anything that brings Armageddon closer has got to be great. And I am sure we would only use any new weapons strictly on non-Christians. We'd just be helping the Rapture along a little...

Slider

[TrailBate]

seriously, anyone that believes that crap, should be banned from holding public office.

[TrailBate]

From NY Times:

"Iran has consistently maintained that it abandoned work on this advanced technology, called the P-2 centrifuge, three years ago. Western analysts long suspected that Iran had a second, secret program -- based on the black market offerings of the renegade Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan -- separate from the activity at its main nuclear facility at Natanz. But they had no proof.

Then on Thursday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was "presently conducting research" on the P-2 centrifuge, boasting that it would quadruple Iran's enrichment powers. The centrifuges are tall, thin machines that spin very fast to enrich, or concentrate, uranium's rare component, uranium 235, which can fuel nuclear reactors or atom bombs.

. . . The new claim focuses renewed attention on Iran's rocky relationship with Mr. Khan, who provided it with much of the enrichment technology it is exploiting today. If Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim is correct, it probably indicates that relationship went on longer and far deeper than previously acknowledged. Mr. Khan and his nuclear black market supplied Iran with blueprints for both the more elementary machine, known as P-1, and the more advanced P-2."


Pakistan fits every Neocon requirement for a country that needs to be invaded.....

[Slider]

This one belongs under the "hate Bush" because, now that we're finally reaching the generals, the Torturer in Chief can't be far behind.

It is kinda like a horse race. Which sleazeball, evil deed will come home first and bring on the much-deserved impeachment trial? I still have my money on treason, but you never know...

Slider


April 19, 2006
Judge Orders a Top Officer to Attend Abuse Trial
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, April 18 — A military judge on Tuesday ordered the general who headed the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to appear at the court-martial next month of an Army dog handler in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

It was unclear, however, whether the officer, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, would testify in the trial of the handler, Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, who is accused of using his working dogs to abuse detainees at Abu Ghraib. If General Miller testified, he would be the highest ranking officer to do so at any trial stemming from the misconduct at the prison.

In January, General Miller invoked his right not to give testimony that might incriminate him and said through his lawyer that he would not answer any questions in court-martial proceedings involving two dog handlers. General Miller's refusal to testify prompted the Senate Armed Services Committee to delay his scheduled retirement until he appeared before the panel to explain himself.

A military lawyer representing General Miller, Maj. Michelle Crawford, did not respond to e-mail messages sent to her on Tuesday. A civilian lawyer for Sergeant Cardona, Harvey J. Volzer, did not respond to e-mail and telephone messages, although Mr. Volzer said in an interview last month that he expected General Miller to testify.

The military judge, Lt. Col. Paul H. McConnell, rejected a request from Sergeant Cardona's lawyers to compel Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to appear at the trial.

Lawyers for Sergeant Cardona have said that General Miller could shed new light on the origins of the interrogation practices at Abu Ghraib. General Miller, while commander at Guantánamo Bay, was sent to Abu Ghraib, near Baghdad, in August 2003 to help improve the intelligence-gathering operations at the prison.

At General Miller's recommendation, military dogs were taken to Iraq in the fall of 2003. General Miller has said the dogs were to be used to help maintain order. The former chief military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, said last month at the trial of another dog handler that he had discussed with General Miller the "Arab fear of dogs" as a reason to "set the conditions" for interrogations.

But Colonel Pappas, testifying under a grant of immunity, said the Army lacked clear rules for using dogs in interrogations at Abu Ghraib, and he took the blame for mistakenly authorizing the use of muzzled dogs inside interrogation booths when only the top commander in Iraq could have approved that step.

General Miller was never summoned to testify in the first trial, in which Sgt. Michael J. Smith was sentenced to six years in jail for tormenting detainees at Abu Ghraib with his snarling Belgian shepherd for his own amusement.

General Miller's lawyer said in January that the general did not intend to answer any more questions because he had already given statements to Congressional committees, Army investigators and other military court proceedings, and that he stood by those statements.

Mr. Volzer, Sergeant Cardona's lawyer, said in an interview last month after the completion of the first dog-handler trial that he would reveal new information at his client's court-martial, which is to begin May 17 at Fort Meade, Md. Mr. Volzer has said that the dog handlers were following the orders of their superiors.

Several investigations have cleared General Miller of any wrongdoing. The most recent inquiry, an Army inspector general's report on Dec. 20, 2005, also concluded that General Miller should not be punished for his role in overseeing detainee operations.

In sworn statements to the inspector general, Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt of the Air Force, an investigator who interviewed Mr. Rumsfeld twice in 2005, said the secretary closely monitored the interrogation of a high-level detainee at Guantánamo Bay and was "talking weekly" with General Miller. The statements from the inspector general's report were first reported last week by Salon.com.

At the request of military commanders, Mr. Rumsfeld in December 2002 approved 16 harsher interrogation techniques for use against the detainee, Mohamed al-Kahtani, believed to have been the planned 20th hijacker on Sept. 11. A month later, Mr. Rumsfeld temporarily rescinded the techniques after military lawyers complained.

[TrailBate]

Awww, Scott McClellan quit....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12387465/

[Slider]

Anyone with any character left before the last election, when this administration had the biggest exodus since the Nixon era. I bet he feels a LOT better.

His former job might be the only one worse than spokeperson for the Catholic church when they were re-screwing all the victims of pedophilia they created.

Slider

[TrailBate]

Hey, at least the priests were only screwing some kids. Bush is screwing everyone (except rich people)

msnbc:

"With the expected passage this spring of the largest emergency spending bill in history, annual war expenditures in Iraq will have nearly doubled since the U.S. invasion, as the military confronts the rapidly escalating cost of repairing, rebuilding and replacing equipment chewed up by three years of combat.

The cost of the war in U.S. fatalities has declined this year, but the cost in treasure continues to rise, from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found."


Better cut some more taxes!!

[FriedRys]

They're all liers :P

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27626

[Slider]

Speaking of liars...

We ought to start a pool. How many lies did Rove tell the grand jury? He's back in front of them today. Can't be good for the Treasonator.

Slider

From today's NYTimes:

April 26, 2006
Rove to Testify Again in C.I.A. Leak Case
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
WASHINGTON, April 26 — Karl Rove, the senior counselor to President Bush, is expected to appear this afternoon before a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a Central Intelligence Agency officer's identity.

The appearance in federal court comes at a politically sensitive time for Mr. Rove, who was relieved of his policy portfolio at the White House in a staff reshuffling earlier this month and now faces the challenge of helping Republicans maintain their primacy in the midterm elections this fall.

Mr. Rove, once considered a key figure in the case, has not testified since last October. Although he has said he is innocent — and has kept a relatively low profile on the matter in recent months, even as his former colleague, I. Lewis Libby, has proceeded to trial in the case — Mr. Rove's appearance at the courthouse was sure to revive questions about his legal status and whether he will ultimately be charged.

It was not immediately clear what questions Mr. Rove would be brought in to address. Over the last few months, the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has sought to establish whether a Time magazine reporter, Viveca Novak, played a role in alerting Mr. Rove, through his lawyer, about his possible involvement in the investigation after it had already begun.

In his initial testimony to the grand jury, in February 2004, Mr. Rove failed to disclose that he had ever discussed the issue of Valerie Wilson, a C.I.A. operative, with any reporters. Mr. Rove came forward months later to change his story, acknowledging that he had a phone conversation with Matt Cooper of Time Magazine in the summer of 2003 that eventually turned to the subject of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, Ms. Wilson's husband.

Mr. Rove said he had forgotten the call, one of hundreds he participates in each day. Lawyers for Mr. Rove say he will be exonerated in the case, in part because he volunteered details of his conversation with Mr. Cooper.

Since then, however, another Time magazine reporter, Ms. Novak, has said that she told Mr. Rove's lawyer, in several conversations in early 2004, that she believed his client had been a source for Mr. Cooper.

Ms. Novak said the lawyer, Robert Luskin, appeared surprised to hear of Mr. Rove's involvement, raising questions about whether Ms. Novak effectively tipped off Mr. Rove to come forward with evidence about himself.

So far, only I. Lewis Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has been indicted in the leak inquiry. He faces five counts of obstruction, lying and making misleading statements to prosecutors and the grand jury.

No one has been charged with the underlying crime of revealing classified material. Mr. Fitzgerald is seeking to establish whether any crimes were committed with the disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's identity, which first appeared in a column by Robert Novak, who is not related to Ms. Novak, in July 2003.

Even before Mr. Rove arrived at the courthouse, Democrats began to pounce on the issue, one of several controversies they hope to capitalize on in the fall elections.

"This additional Rove visit clearly shows that the Plame investigation is far from over and that Patrick Fitzgerald is living up to his reputation as an impartial, dedicated prosecutor determined to turn over every stone," Senator Charles E. Schumer said in a statement.

[TrailBate]

At least the CIA agent that leaked the foreign prisons was fired, and may be charged now. And now they are going after whoever leaked the illegal phone-tapping program. Isn't it amazing at how fast this administration gets to the bottom of leaks it does NOT like, yet the Plame leak investigation has been going on for 3 years?

[TrailBate]

CNN.com

"Every American taxpayer would get a $100 rebate check to offset the pain of higher pump prices for gasoline, under an amendment by Senate Republicans. But don't start spending it yet -- the plan also includes opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, which most Democrats and some moderate Republicans oppose."

So, they are either bribing Americans to support opening ANWR to drilling,
OR
When democrats oppose the bill for the ANWR reason, Republicans will just say, "see! They don't want to give Americans a refund for high gas prices!"

Where is this rebate coming from? The gas companies, or our own tax dollars?

[catbbq]

CNN.com

"Every American taxpayer would get a $100 rebate check to offset the pain of higher pump prices for gasoline, under an amendment by Senate Republicans. But don't start spending it yet -- the plan also includes opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, which most Democrats and some moderate Republicans oppose."

So, they are either bribing Americans to support opening ANWR to drilling,
OR
When democrats oppose the bill for the ANWR reason, Republicans will just say, "see! They don't want to give Americans a refund for high gas prices!"

Where is this rebate coming from? The gas companies, or our own tax dollars?


Although I don't agree that we need a rebate for high gas prices, any rebate the government forces should come from "our own tax dollars". After all, they are our dollars.

[TrailBate]

Although I don't agree that we need a rebate for high gas prices, any rebate the government forces should come from "our own tax dollars". After all, they are our dollars.


The rebate should come from the oil companies. Why should we increase Bush's record deficit because of this?

[TrailBate]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/27/katrina.fema/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

hmmm, it worked fine until Bush came along......

Why is it that even though the investigations found that the main problem with FEMA is that it is now under DHS, these dip****s just want to make a new agency under DHS?!. Yeah, just rename it. That'll do the trick. morons.

[catbbq]

The rebate should come from the oil companies. Why should we increase Bush's record deficit because of this?


Should we get rebates from all companies that make 10% profit or better?

And it is the country's deficit, not Bush's. If you want it to go away, elect someone who does spend so much money. And taking more of my money is not a valid option. Your free to donate more of your money to the government as you see fit.

[TrailBate]

The rebate should come from the oil companies. Why should we increase Bush's record deficit because of this?


Should we get rebates from all companies that make 10% profit or better?

And it is the country's deficit, not Bush's. If you want it to go away, elect someone who does spend so much money. And taking more of my money is not a valid option. Your free to donate more of your money to the government as you see fit.


where are you getting this 10% from? I keep seeing 40 and 50%

yes, it IS the country's deficit, thanks to Bush. It's also YOUR deficit. YOU will have to help pay it back. There was no deficit when Clinton left office.

[kernel crash]

"where are you getting this 10% from? I keep seeing 40 and 50%"

Where are you getting 40 to 50%! Nobody is throwing out those numbers. I believe the profits from the oil companies are lower, as a percentage, than the profits from the major pharmacuticals.

[catbbq]

The rebate should come from the oil companies. Why should we increase Bush's record deficit because of this?


Should we get rebates from all companies that make 10% profit or better?

And it is the country's deficit, not Bush's. If you want it to go away, elect someone who does spend so much money. And taking more of my money is not a valid option. Your free to donate more of your money to the government as you see fit.


where are you getting this 10% from? I keep seeing 40 and 50%

yes, it IS the country's deficit, thanks to Bush. It's also YOUR deficit. YOU will have to help pay it back. There was no deficit when Clinton left office.


I got the 10% from Marketplace on NPR. That was last quarter, but since the profits were about the same this time, I assume the 10% is still fairly accurate.

[heckler]

I think the difference between phamacutical companies (which should also be held accountable) and oil companies is that only a small percentage of people NEED drugs. Most of us need gas and even if we drive nice fuel efficient 6 cyl cars ;) our food and everything else is carried on fuel using vehicles.

The profits seem huge numerically because the companies do so much business. I can buy that, Maybe. Will anybody in our government do anything about it? Nope. Why? Because we are a capitalist country and our elected politicians can only dream of having the chutzpah to rape the American people for that much money. They are in the business of making money and they are doing a fine job of it. At our expense, as it were.

IF this "rebate" of $100 were solely funded by extra taxes put on the oil companies, why not? You know that wont happen though. Oh, how about repealing the gas tax for a while to "ease the burden"? That will make it easier on all those Hummer owners who already got their $100,000 tax deduction.

[TrailBate]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042602307_pf.html

[catbbq]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042602307_pf.html


What a great article. It doesn't stop at the elected though. What are YOU driving? Myself, when I do drive, it is either a 2001 Nissan Sentra (30mpg) or a 2005 Honda Element (25 mpg).

[TrailBate]

I drive 65 now instead of 80. Adds 2 miles per gallon, or 32 miles per tank, or 128 miles per month.

I have a reverse bumper sticker on the front of my car that says, "I'm not tailgating, I'm drafting". But the Big Rigs I tailgate can't see me anyway.

The bumper sticker on the back (right next to "impeach Bush") says, "I'm not slow, I'm ZEN"

Sometimes I just float to work on a cloud of Moral Supremacy.

[catbbq]

Speaking of drafting, perhaps we should spend some research money on drafting technology. I saw on discovery channel or something similar several years ago computer control cars that would travel inches from each other at high speeds.

Sometimes I get around by sliding on the slime tree huggers ooze.

[kernel crash]

"Sometimes I just float to work on a cloud of Moral Supremacy"

Yeah. I picked up on that a long time ago.

[heckler]

Speaking of drafting, perhaps we should spend some research money on drafting technology. I saw on discovery channel or something similar several years ago computer control cars that would travel inches from each other at high speeds.


That must explain all of the tailgaters here in MA. They are all trying to save gas going 75mph with one car length between each of them. Darn smart!

[TrailBate]

Bush expected to approve Dubai takeover of defense plants

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/28/security.dubai.bush.reut/index.html


In other news, Syria has been approved to take over US Nuclear Power plant operations.

[TrailBate]

Report reveals number of secret FBI subpoenas
Disclosure mandated as part of Patriot Act renewal



Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court's approval, the Justice Department said Friday.

It was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed how often it uses the administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without a judge's approval or a grand jury subpoena.

Friday's disclosure was mandated as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, the administration's sweeping anti-terror law.

The FBI delivered a total of 9,254 NSLs relating to 3,501 people in 2005, according to a report submitted late Friday to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. In some cases, the bureau demanded information about one person from several companies.

The numbers from previous years remain classified, officials said.

[TrailBate]

Abu Ghraib interrogation chief charged with cruelty

Friday, April 28, 2006; Posted: 6:29 p.m. EDT (22:29 GMT)


Lt. Col. Jordan is the highest-ranking officer to be charged with abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army on Friday charged the former head of the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq with cruelty and maltreatment, dereliction of duty and other criminal offenses for his alleged involvement in the abuse of detainees at the notorious prison in 2003 and for interfering with the abuse investigation



Jeez, haven't we caught all the "few bad apples" in these "isolated incidents" yet?
Lets keep going up the ladder, people!!

[Slider]

Yet more Bush sleaze. His three-month FDA head is under FBI investigation for lying to Congress, and is planning to take the Fifth. Interesting how the very Constitution Bush seeks to undermine ends up being the only hope his henchmen have to avoid jail.

Slider

April 29, 2006
Ex-Head of F.D.A. Faces Criminal Inquiry
By GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON, April 28 — Dr. Lester M. Crawford, the former commissioner of food and drugs, is under criminal investigation by a federal grand jury over accusations of financial improprieties and false statements to Congress, his lawyer said Friday.

The lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, would not discuss the accusations further. In a court hearing held by telephone on Thursday, she told a federal magistrate that she would instruct Dr. Crawford to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination if ordered to answer questions this week about his actions as head of the Food and Drug Administration, according to a transcript of the hearing.

Dr. Crawford did not reply to messages seeking comment, and Kathleen Quinn, an F.D.A. spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Dr. Crawford resigned in September, fewer than three months after the Senate confirmed him. He said then that it was time for someone else to lead the agency.

The next month, financial disclosure forms released by the Department of Health and Human Services showed that in 2004 either Dr. Crawford or his wife, Catherine, had sold shares in companies regulated by the agency when he was its deputy commissioner and acting commissioner. He has since joined a Washington lobbying firm, Policy Directions Inc.

The criminal investigation was disclosed at a court hearing in a lawsuit over the F.D.A.'s actions on the emergency contraceptive Plan B, a subject of bitter contention during Dr. Crawford's tenure as acting commissioner and commissioner. After the pill's maker, Barr Laboratories, applied three years ago to sell the pill over the counter, the agency repeatedly delayed making a decision on the application.

While many lawmakers, abortion rights advocates and former F.D.A. officials said the delays had resulted from politics, Dr. Crawford and other agency officials said their concerns were scientific and legal.

An advocacy group, the Center for Reproductive Rights, sued the agency in federal court in New York over the delays. Many such suits are quickly dismissed, but a federal judge allowed the case to proceed, giving the center the right to interview top F.D.A. officials, including Dr. Crawford.

Dr. Crawford was scheduled to be questioned under oath on Thursday, but on Wednesday Ms. Van Gelder, who is his personal lawyer, asked for a delay, saying she would instruct him to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights. Dr. Crawford previously declined to answer questions from the Government Accountability Office about Plan B.

Ms. Van Gelder told Magistrate Judge Viktor V. Pohorelsky of the District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Thursday that Dr. Crawford had been represented by Justice Department lawyers in the reproductive rights center's suit.

According to the transcript, she said that Dr. Crawford was under criminal investigation and that the issue of his financial disclosures "is within the grand jury."

Before Dr. Crawford's confirmation, the secretary of health and human services, Michael O. Leavitt, promised that the F.D.A. would act on the Plan B application by September 2005, a promise that led two Democratic senators, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Patty Murray of Washington, to relent in their efforts to delay the nomination. But after he was confirmed, Dr. Crawford announced an indefinite delay that has remained in effect.

Simon Heller, a lawyer for the reproductive rights center, noted that the F.D.A. had long insisted that its actions regarding Plan B were not unusual.

"It would be remarkable if the Justice Department was conducting a criminal investigation of Plan B and at the same time asserting in a civil case that everything done was normal," Mr. Heller said.

[Slider]

You think Facsism is too strong a word to describe the Scumbag in Chief? Read a little of this. The rest is here:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/

Slider

Bush challenges hundreds of laws
President cites powers of his office
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 30, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power.

But with the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override.

Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws -- many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term, said Bush and his legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever more governmental power into the White House.

''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper said. ''This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."

For the first five years of Bush's presidency, his legal claims attracted little attention in Congress or the media. Then, twice in recent months, Bush drew scrutiny after challenging new laws: a torture ban and a requirement that he give detailed reports to Congress about how he is using the Patriot Act.

Bush administration spokesmen declined to make White House or Justice Department attorneys available to discuss any of Bush's challenges to the laws he has signed.

Instead, they referred a Globe reporter to their response to questions about Bush's position that he could ignore provisions of the Patriot Act. They said at the time that Bush was following a practice that has ''been used for several administrations" and that ''the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution."

But the words ''in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution" are the catch, legal scholars say, because Bush is according himself the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution. And he is quietly exercising that authority to a degree that is unprecedented in US history.

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation's sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ''signing statements" -- official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

''He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises -- and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened," said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

[TrailBate]

maybe Bush will eliminate the impeachment process before November

[BG]

maybe Bush will eliminate the impeachment process before November


I hope so, i wouldn't want to go through that ******** again.

BG

[Mr_Cheeze]

As I was reading that article Sunday morning, my first thought was how Slider and Trailbait are reading this and masturbating with glee. Then I said, yup, one of them will be posting this as soon as humanly possible. I mean, because none of us here understand, yet, the extent to which these guys feel George Bush is bad. Eighty pages of this thread aren't enough for us to get how they feel. Hey, what's another 7 pages of a predictable Globe article?

[Slider]

Yet you still don't see the threat the Fascist poses. So we soldier on....

Slider

[TrailBate]

Wow, Cheeze, you are NOT surprised by our reaction? It should be EVERYONE's reaction.

But i guess you just don't care that the King has decided which laws do and do not apply to him?

[slapheadmofo]

"I'm invoking the King's privilege - three moves to one! YES!"

http://www.ladyofthecake.com/mel/world/images/likepiss.jpg

[TrailBate]

what?! No political posts in 3 days? can't have that...


from crooksandliars:

Bush says the highlight of his presidential career was catching a 7.5 pound perch in his lake. Except that...

The only problem is that the world's record for the largest freshwater perch caught is 4 pounds 3 ounces.

So Bush either doubled the world record, and didn't report it, or he's a liar.


Apparently, since Bush didn't have any "best moments", he had to invent one.

[jakazz]

perssonely i dont gw is all that smart of a guy, there has to be someone helping him.

I come from a republican family, all my life and generations before, and yes i voted for gw like a good boy... ??? BUT... something did worry me, when i was talking to my father, a very smart, grad 3 ivy league schools, and a jock to boot, he said something to me that shook me to my bone " you have to worry about a man like that, because he believes that he is the only one who knows what right, someone like that can do some real damage" This was my father saying this to me, he was a depression baby, grew up in the projects of nyc. got into columbia, partied to much and got sent to korea, got out and finished schooling and is well versed in history. I'm not scared of much, but i am of bush, his religous furer (sp) scares me to the point of him thinking he is the savior of this country and only he can save us all. i'm sure he has some handlers pulling the strings for him to go this way or that. just my 2 cents...

oh and slider and trailbait really must be liberals......do u own cats? ;D ;D

[Slider]

Are any of you guys gonna even try to defend this? Next step is random, warrantless house searches. Have some cookies ready.

Slider

THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING


NSA has database of domestic US phone calls: report
May 11, 2006

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The agency in charge of a domestic spying program has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, including calls made within the United States, USA Today reported on Thursday.

It said the National Security Agency has been building up the database using records provided by three major phone companies -- AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. -- but that the program "does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations."

USA Today said its sources for the story were "people with direct knowledge of the arrangement," but it did not give their names or describe their affiliation.

The existence of an NSA eavesdropping program launched after the September 11 attacks was revealed in December.

Defending the controversial program, President Bush and his administration officials have said it aims to uncover links between international terrorists and their domestic collaborators and only targets communications between a person inside the United States and a person overseas.

But USA Today said that calls originating and terminating within the United States have not escaped the NSA's attention.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," the paper quoted one source as saying. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within U.S. borders, it said the source added.

The NSA has "access to records of billions of domestic calls," USA Today said. Although customers' names and addresses are not being handed over, "the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information," it said.

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who headed the NSA from 1999 to 2005 and was nominated by Bush on Monday as director of the CIA, would have overseen the call-tracking program, the paper said.

Hayden, as well as NSA and White House officials, declined to discuss the program, USA Today said.

Among major U.S. telecommunications companies, only Qwest Communications International Inc. has refused to help the NSA program, the paper said.

Qwest, with 14 million customers in the Western United States, was "uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants," USA Today said.

It said the three companies cooperating with the NSA "provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers."



© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[BG]

Old news.
I sure hope they like home made choco-chip.

BG

[TrailBate]

Good thing it's being investigated! Oh, wait. It's not.



WASHINGTON - The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

The inquiry headed by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program.

"We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program," OPR counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Hinchey. Hinchey's office shared the letter with The Associated Press.

... "Without these clearances, we cannot investigate this matter and therefore have closed our investigation," wrote Jarrett.

[Slider]

It ain't old news. Up to now, the excuse has been that only calls originating overseas were tracked. All the quoted parts are lifted from Wikipedia:

"The Bush administration has refused to say — in public or in closed session of Congress — how many Americans in the past four years have had their conversations intercepted and recorded or e-mails read by intelligence analysts without any court authorization. The Washington Post interviewed intelligence officials and stated that, "two knowledgeable sources placed that number [of people who may have had their communications intercepted] in the thousands; one of them, more specific, said about 5,000."[13]

Now we're talking millions, which is more than a slight difference. Previously, in defense of the illegal domestic surveillance, Bush has referred to the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against September 11 Terrorists Act ("AUMF").

"The AUMF states, "[t]hat the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." The Administration believes that "all necessary and appropriate force" includes foreign intelligence surveillance activity, including the monitoring of communications between terrorists that contact persons on American soil and vice-versa. Further, the administration argues that the phrase "he determines" implies that determining appropriate foreign intelligence targets is at the sole discretion of the President as Commander-in-Chief and no other authorization is required to approve these operations."

Millions of domestic phone calls are impossible to trace to any foreign threat, al Queda or other. It is nothing more than the growth of a police state, akin to pre-collapse Russia, or North Korea. That is not the USA we all think of, but it is where Bush is taking us.

Slider

[BG]

In the USA i think of, this has been going on for a long long time.
I'll have the cookies ready, and their favorite beverage.

BG

[Slider]

If, by "long, long time" you mean since Bush trashed the Constitution, then you are correct, sir.

There was no database of millions of domestic calls, collected without warrants, before the Treasonator decided he knows what's best for us all, regardless of the law.

Slider

[BG]

Yeh, it's all Bush's idea.

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0200echelon.htm

BG

[catbbq]

Yeh, it's all Bush's idea.

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0200echelon.htm

BG


Obvious propaganda put there in the last couple days by Bushbots. I'm looking at kernel_crash.

[Slider]

Yeh, it's all Bush's idea.

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0200echelon.htm

BG


Unrelated. In this case, the NSA, under the Scumbag in Chief, bought databases of phone call records from the service providers. 50 million citizens, a pure fishing expedition, and totally illegal. No court oversight, no warrants, no nothing except complete disrespect for the Rule of Law.

Qwest Communications, out of them all, was the only one to tell Bush to **** off. And the rest, who caved, are completely liable for their chicken **** cave in. Many lawsuits are in the offing.

Qwest says they werre threatened with no further government business, and other harrassment. Integrity is a rear commodity these days, especially when the Scumbag in Chief is completely lacking.

Slider

[BG]

Longlive Data Mining.

BG

[Slider]

Long live Fascism. Sieg Heil!

Or, not. If we stop the scumbag.

Slider

[BG]

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.

7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. “Normal” and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.

14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.

Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not.




Ah, the 14 signs of the Big F. Sounds like basic human nature to me.
Sounds like America has always been a bit F'd.

BG

[Slider]

Wow. Not even I would go so far as to say we've always been a Fascist state. The reason is that we've always fallen back on a very important document that differentiates us from some of the more extreme examples. It has protected us form serious threats, like the McCarthy witch hunts, and Nixon's attacks on our democratic process.

The difference now is that the Constitution is being openly and purposely defied, exactly for many of the reasons cited in your list. What is happening now isn't a game, or a passing fad. It is a serious erosion of all the things that protect us from the fate of the North Koreans.

Slider

[FriedRys]

KEEPING RECORDS OF MY PHONE CALLS?!?! WTF?!?! >:(
Thats it, the Facist Bush Regime has taken it too far! There is no reason for them to know what pizza joint I frequent!!!!!!

[BG]

KEEPING RECORDS OF MY PHONE CALLS?!?! WTF?!?! >:(
Thats it, the Facist Bush Regime has taken it too far! There is no reason for them to know what pizza joint I frequent!!!!!!






I do believe there could quite possibly be a connection between Papa Gino's and and the next terrorist attack. Although i think it's far more important that they get a fix on how many calls you are making to you're arms dealer and if that corelates with a cetain brand of beer purchased regularly with that secret from you're wife credit card you got from the South American accountant you met on that unscheduled visit to Kazickstan last Christmas. ;D

BG

[Mr_Cheeze]

Wow. Not even I would go so far as to say we've always been a Fascist state. The reason is that we've always fallen back on a very important document that differentiates us from some of the more extreme examples. It has protected us form serious threats, like the McCarthy witch hunts, and Nixon's attacks on our democratic process.

The difference now is that the Constitution is being openly and purposely defied, exactly for many of the reasons cited in your list. What is happening now isn't a game, or a passing fad. It is a serious erosion of all the things that protect us from the fate of the North Koreans.

Slider


WHich has resulted in what exactly? Has your life or that of anyone you know been directly affected by this or the Patriot Act? Do you expect it to? I think it's a pretty safe bet to say no and no. This is the same outrage that arose over the library book issue. Oh no, they can check what you're reading! How dare they! The humanity!! It doesn't affect me, no. I don't even go to the library, but I could! And they could see that I enjoy reading junky pop sci-fi novels!

Please. All of this outrage over so-called potential violations of civil liberties. Well, I would suggest that you not call your Muslim extremist buddies over in Yemen for a while.

[off piste]

Wow. Not even I would go so far as to say we've always been a Fascist state. The reason is that we've always fallen back on a very important document that differentiates us from some of the more extreme examples. It has protected us form serious threats, like the McCarthy witch hunts, and Nixon's attacks on our democratic process.

The difference now is that the Constitution is being openly and purposely defied, exactly for many of the reasons cited in your list. What is happening now isn't a game, or a passing fad. It is a serious erosion of all the things that protect us from the fate of the North Koreans.

Slider


WHich has resulted in what exactly? Has your life or that of anyone you know been directly affected by this or the Patriot Act? Do you expect it to? I think it's a pretty safe bet to say no and no. This is the same outrage that arose over the library book issue. Oh no, they can check what you're reading! How dare they! The humanity!! It doesn't affect me, no. I don't even go to the library, but I could! And they could see that I enjoy reading junky pop sci-fi novels!

Please. All of this outrage over so-called potential violations of civil liberties. Well, I would suggest that you not call your Muslim extremist buddies over in Yemen for a while.



It was kind of fun, though, here at work yeasterday, while in a conversation with one of Trailbait and Slider's ultra right wing Born Again counterparts (who sounds exactly the same, just on the other end of the spectrum), going on with the same old canned responses, such as not having to worry if you're not doing anything wrong, etc. He was practically pounding his fist on the table about how all this is being over-reacted to. I ended the conversation and left him quiet and a little pale looking when I mentioned that eventually, probably in '08, a Dem administration was going to be in charge of all these mechanisms of the Patriot Act.

[TrailBate]

WHich has resulted in what exactly? Has your life or that of anyone you know been directly affected by this or the Patriot Act? Do you expect it to? I think it's a pretty safe bet to say no and no. This is the same outrage that arose over the library book issue. Oh no, they can check what you're reading! How dare they! The humanity!! It doesn't affect me, no. I don't even go to the library, but I could! And they could see that I enjoy reading junky pop sci-fi novels!

Please. All of this outrage over so-called potential violations of civil liberties. Well, I would suggest that you not call your Muslim extremist buddies over in Yemen for a while.


So you don't care about the pre-war intelligence, because it did not affect you? you don't care about outing CIA agents, because it did not affect you? You wouldn't care about random searches and seizures, until you became the target of one? You don't care about people being locked up in foreign prisons, because you are not one of them? You obviously don't care about the illegal immigrants either, since it does not affect you. Apparently, you did not care about Clinton's perjury either.

You can't wait for this to directly affect you. It will be too late by then.

First Bush said we were getting warrants. Then we weren't getting warrants, but we were only tapping international calls to terrorists. Now we're tapping everyone.

[kernel crash]

The following is a quote from an article dated May 27, 1999. So again is this something new? Apparantly not.

" ...alarmed by the existence of Echelon, a computer system that monitors millions of e-mail, fax, telex and phone messages sent over satellite-based communications systems as well as terrestrial-based data communications. The system was established under what is known as the "UKUSA Agreement" after World War II and includes the security agencies of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand."


http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/05/cyber/articles/27network.html

[TrailBate]

Looks like an international program through the NSA that lawmakers demanded information on, and got it.

But it was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

So, Kernel, You don't mind the government tapping your phone calls, then? And you don't mind the Justice Department tried to investigate it, but was shut down?

[kernel crash]

According to the latest polls, 66% of the country doesn't seem to have a problem with this. The phone numbers are stored in a database so that a year from now if we find out that Abu Ali down the street has ties to International terrorists, we can go back and see who he was talking to. Not sure if that's completely illegal. Your naive if you dont believe this sort of thing has been happening for many many years. If you got hauled in for a crime and went to court, dont you think your phone records would come into play and could be used to convict you or help prove your innocence? My point is that this information is already being collected one way or the other. You can't put that genie back in the bottle.

[catbbq]

Looks like an international program through the NSA that lawmakers demanded information on, and got it.

But it was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

So, Kernel, You don't mind the government tapping your phone calls, then? And you don't mind the Justice Department tried to investigate it, but was shut down?


Settle down Jr. Their not tapping everyone's phone. They simply have call records. Not so different than the company that keeps calling me trying to sell me insurance. Not to mention the Policeman's Ball guys.

[Mr_Cheeze]

I don't think one has to be "ultra-right wing" to see that there are obvious overreactions by both the lefties, as well as the anti-government conspiracy wingnuts, who some might describe as ultra-ultra right wing. To the average, mind-your-own-business American who can only go by how their own lives are affected by government decisions, it's kind of hard to go off the deep end over this stuff, since, as was previously stated, we're not sending encrypted e-mails to Mahmoud al Sadr over in Syria. But hey, I feel good knowing that the ultra-Bush haters are on the task of watching out for my civil liberties... at least up until the point where they're defending the guy they like for doing the same exact thing, being as it's been done by every president since who knows when. These guys don't like to hear that, though. If it ain't about Bush, it doesn't count. It doesn't fit the agenda.

[TrailBate]

According to the latest polls, 66% of the country doesn't seem to have a problem with this.

wrong. 66% of people don't mind the US Government "wire tapping terrorists." Neither do I!

It's all in the wording.

Bush's approval rating, btw, is under 30%

[TrailBate]

If it ain't about Bush, it doesn't count. It doesn't fit the agenda.


Just the opposite. If Bush is doing it, then it's okay. He is just fighting terrorism, right?

So, Cheeze, Kernel, You do NOT care if the government taps your phone, AND you do not care that Bush shut down a department of justice investigation?

[BG]

Tap my phone, not my keg.

BG

[kernel crash]

" wrong. 66% of people don't mind the US Government "wire tapping terrorists." Neither do I!

It's all in the wording."

Yes and I don't believe the wording was the way you expressed it here. Otherwise your saying 34% of the people would have a problem with the government wire tapping terrorists. Even that's hard to believe. As far as wire tapping me, I'm not overly concerned. That info will never come back to haunt me. If what Bush is doing is illegal, then throw the book at him. Take him to court. If he's guilty, he'll go down right?

[Slider]

It's like you guys never studied history, social science, political science, or anything else that might give you a clue as to how this country got to be what it is, what enables us to have this forum, why we can vote, make laws, and live our lives as we choose.

You seem to think it's due to some sort of process independent of the actual choices we all make every day, that freedom and democracy are in some way perpetually guaranteed, regardless of the **** we pile on the process that brought them into life. It is as if you think that freedom is simply your innate privilege, and nothing can take it away.

The only obvious parallel I can see is the Scumbag himself, waltzing through Yale but learning nothing at all, except that he was born into privilege and he's gonna make the effing frat party last as long as he can, and damn the consequences.

If we don't stop him, you'll get to see the consequences soon enough. And your kids will never know what the hell we were talking about in the first place.

Slider

[Mr_Cheeze]

We've never studies history... and you've obviously never studied math, for you've lost all sense of reason, man.

Then again, it's raining so hard right now, I can see how you might think the sky is falling.

[Mr_Cheeze]

And off the news wire... to go with everything else, Bush is now a racist to boot!

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/05/13/bush_weighs_deploying_guard_to_us_border/

::)

[TrailBate]

" wrong. 66% of people don't mind the US Government "wire tapping terrorists." Neither do I!

It's all in the wording."

Yes and I don't believe the wording was the way you expressed it here. Otherwise your saying 34% of the people would have a problem with the government wire tapping terrorists. Even that's hard to believe. As far as wire tapping me, I'm not overly concerned. That info will never come back to haunt me. If what Bush is doing is illegal, then throw the book at him. Take him to court. If he's guilty, he'll go down right?





Here's a poll for ya.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/12/bush.clinton.poll/index.html

[TrailBate]

We've never studies history... and you've obviously never studied math, for you've lost all sense of reason, man.

Then again, it's raining so hard right now, I can see how you might think the sky is falling.


Let's see, Bush lied about WMD's, Al Qaida, 2,500 Americans are dead because of it, and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi's. Bush has killed more innocent people than Bin Laden has. The Taliban is resurging in Afghanistan.

Bush is arresting people without charges and sending them to foreign prisons to be tortured.

Bush is outing CIA agents that don't do what he says.

Terrorism has actually worsened since 2001.

Bush lied about the extent of the phone tapping program.

Bush ignored New Orleans.

We have the worst deficit ever.

Protesters get arrested. Bush holds fake "town hall" meetings to screened audiences. Bush passes off fake news stories to news channels.

Bush continues to pass tax breaks and legislation that helps big business, especially oil, including allowing more poisons into your air and drinking water.


I could go on and on. yet, i'm just "overreacting."

If you don't mind these things so much, I guess you think Stalin was a pretty good guy, too.

Bush isn't just the worst president ever. He's a fascist, and a murderer. He's a criminal with an organized crime unit running the country. He should be put under oath, impeached, tried in a criminal court. He loves capital punishment, let's see him tried for all the deaths he has caused.

but I know, Cheeze and Kernel think impeachment is only for blow jobs.

[TrailBate]

" wrong. 66% of people don't mind the US Government "wire tapping terrorists." Neither do I!

It's all in the wording."

Yes and I don't believe the wording was the way you expressed it here. Otherwise your saying 34% of the people would have a problem with the government wire tapping terrorists. Even that's hard to believe. As far as wire tapping me, I'm not overly concerned. That info will never come back to haunt me. If what Bush is doing is illegal, then throw the book at him. Take him to court. If he's guilty, he'll go down right?




The republican controlled congress is too corrupt to take him to court. November cannot come soon enought.


here is your poll:

"A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it."

[TrailBate]

Conservative Joe Scarborough:

"Now, whatever you consider yourself, friends, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. With over 200 million Americans targeted, this domestic spying program is so widespread, it is so random, it is so far removed from focusing on al Qaeda suspects that the president was talking about today, that it's hard to imagine any intelligence program in U.S. history being so susceptible to abuse"

[kernel crash]

"Here's a poll for ya."

What does this poll have to do with the subject of collecting phone numbers, and how the majority of Americans are not particuarly concerned? Is this news that Bush's poll numbers are down? Don't we get the latest poll update on Bush 2 or 3 times a week? So what's your point that you haven't already made 3,347 times on this forum?


" Let's see, Bush lied about WMD's, ...

Bush is arresting people without charges and sending them to foreign prisons to be tortured...

Bush ignored New Orleans...

If you don't mind these things so much, I guess you think Stalin was a pretty good guy, too..."

Man you are all over the place here. New Orleans? Stalin? Do you know how Ridiculous you sound? I'm no fan of Bush. So why does it bother you so much that I'm not all in an uproar over this phone data bank issue?

[TrailBate]

Man you are all over the place here. New Orleans? Stalin? Do you know how Ridiculous you sound? I'm no fan of Bush. So why does it bother you so much that I'm not all in an uproar over this phone data bank issue?




I'm simply pointing out what a lying scumbag this guy is. Don't get mad at me for pointing it out repeatedly. Get mad because it's true. If you're ok living with this kind of government, you are living in the wrong country.

[TrailBate]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/12/191230/117


Since 1967, the Emergency Law No. 162 of 1958 has contiuously ruled Egypt. Guess what the basic premise of the law has been, since its inception? To protect the Egyptian people from terrorism - Islamist terrorism. Its basic effect? The detention of anyone considered to be a threat to the state.

neo marxist's diary :: ::
The riots in the streets this week in Cairo are merely another reaction by the people against this repressive law. Mubarak on April 30th renewed the law for another two years, promising the completion of 40 years of near contiguous rule under this "emergency". Sound familiar? It should.

Since Hasan al-Banna founded the group in the 1920s, as a means to fight against British imperialism and the effects of modernity and development upon the life of Egyptian Muslims, they have been the target of Cairo. Nasser abolished the group, arrested its members, and tortured them. Sadat released most of the prisoners, but in 1981 cracked down again upon Egytian Islamists and was promptly assassinated. And Mubarak has played an endless back and forth game with the group, both persecuting them while promising a freer Egypt wherein the Brotherhood could assume some sort of political power.

What, you might ask, does this have to do with us? I tell you: look at the similarities. The Egyptian government has for decades been fighting against Islamist groups, and used this fight as an excuse to preserve their own power and repress their people.

What have we been complaining about for the last 5 years? A nebulous, vague war against a belief system. A war that logically has no conclusion. A war that self-perpetuates. A war that has allowed our government to claim "securty" as the reason to indefinitely jail Americans, to listen in on our phone calls, to aggregate our call data, to deport citizens of allied nations for torturing, to even snoop in on our library records. All this, while our government, like Egypt's, tells us that it's all for our own good. For our own security.

But just like in Egypt, this "security" effort isn't to preserve the American way. It's to preserve the way of Cheney, Halliburton, and McDonnel Douglas. Just as Hosni Mubarak is keeping autocratic control through these measures, so too are our elites and big industry. What happens if Mubarak decides to insitute real election reform, end repression, and give all equal opportunity to run for office? As the results showed in the 2005 elections, which were rigged in his favor and yet still gave up seats to the opposition, Mubarak and his cronies would be on the way out. Cross the sea to Washington. If BushCo gave up its foreign imperialistic war? What result? Bush would no longer be a war president. His war posturing, his fear mongering would not be there to hide his kleptocracy. It would be the end of Bush, just as it would be the end of Mubarak.

The point to take from this comparison is that it could be us. Just one more large attack and we very well could end up an Egyptian police state.

[BG]

"The point to take from this comparison is that it could be us. Just one more large attack and we very well could end up an Egyptian police state."

Oh don't you fret my pretty pet, it will be a lot worse than that.
I do believe we should all be fighting againt the effects of mordernity and development, it will be our downfall, why, it already has.

BG

[kernel crash]

"Don't get mad at me for pointing it out repeatedly. Get mad because it's true. "

Why do I get the feeling that the further to the left someone is, the harder they try to "convert" over the rest of us, to their way of thinking. It's like they can't seem to understand why we don't all respond to world events the same way they do. So they keep coming at us again and again. They don't seem to understand that we are capable of forming opinions based on our values, experiences, and perceptions. Not to mention a healthy amount of distrust that comes from seeing up close and personal, the bipartisan piling on that both parties are guilty of.

[kernel crash]

The Egyptian comparision is lame at best. The biggest difference is that in a few short years we will have the opportunity to say how we feel about all of this. We can then elect someone to run this country in a totally new direction, or we could decide to stay the course. Of course some will suspect ballot tampering etc, etc. And on and on we'll go.

[off piste]

"Don't get mad at me for pointing it out repeatedly. Get mad because it's true. "

Why do I get the feeling that the further to the left someone is, the harder they try to "convert" over the rest of us, to their way of thinking. It's like they can't seem to understand why we don't all respond to world events the same way they do. So they keep coming at us again and again. They don't seem to understand that we are capable of forming opinions based on our values, experiences, and perceptions. Not to mention a healthy amount of distrust that comes from seeing up close and personal, the bipartisan piling on that both parties are guilty of.


Wow! You just described the far-right, Christian fundy I deal with every day at work.

What a co-inky-dink!

[BG]

Damn, nobody wants to be in the middle anymore. BORING.

BG

[Slider]

We are already in a pretty pathetic state if anyone who defends the Constitution is considered "Far Left."

The Christian Right has so skewed the balance of the playing field, that you guys don't even see the problem any more.

Slider

[kernel crash]

"The Christian Right has so skewed the balance of the playing field, that you guys don't even see the problem any more.

Slider "

Just to be clear, I am not a member of The Christian Right. Not even close. And if Bush has broken the law, and is guilty of high crimes and treason, then he should get what's coming to him. Nobody is above the law.

[Slider]

Just to be clear, I am not a member of The Christian Right. Not even close.


I never claimed you were, and didn't even suspect it. But, nevertheless, they are there. And their arguments are carrying more weight in the public forum than their numbers would justify, due to very effective organization.

There was a time when the validity of the Constitution was unquestioned. Now people actually tell pollsters that they don't mind ceding their own privacy protections so the government can protect us better. This willingness to implicitly trust the government, and remove all the carefully crafted protections of our civil rights and checks on unbridled power comes from the exact same place that makes some pronounce the Bible as the ultimate authority on all things moral. Blind faith is replacing reason and the protection of law, and it is just plain idiotic.

Slider

[BG]

America has done a horrible job in educating their people to all think the same way in these matters.

BG

[Slider]

America has done a horrible job in educating their people to all think the same way in these matters.

BG


Regarding the importance of the Constitution? I agree completely.

Slider

[catbbq]

It's amazing how the far left and far right talk about how we uphold the consistution and they tear it down.

Until it comes to personal freedom or taxes. Then it isn't a matter of law but a matter of morality or need. Its immoral not to take care of those who don't take care of themselves. There's no need to allow citizens to carry a gun.

[kernel crash]

"Now people actually tell pollsters that they don't mind ceding their own privacy protections so the government can protect us better."

Yup. People are saying, look, I'm willing to cut the government a little slack here if it allows them to get intel that otherwise might slip through the cracks or might be useless because of a time issue. People are not saying they want to relinquish their entire civil rights package. They are saying that they trust this administration to do the right thing. Meanwhile those that would kill us are not playing by any rules that we would recognize.

[BG]

" This willingness to implicitly trust the government, and remove all the carefully crafted protections of our civil rights and checks on unbridled power..."


Again, taking a foot and turning it into a mile.

BG

[Slider]

People are not saying they want to relinquish their entire civil rights package. They are saying that they trust this administration to do the right thing.

Beyond the obvious problem that their trust is misplaced, there is the far more ominous one that the next administration, or the one after that, may be even more vile.

Your take shows a deep lack of understanding about how our government works, and how we are protected from the abuse of the power we hand our elected officials. The concept of checks and balances, and the ideas behind the Bill of Rights, aren't things that we can use today, toss tomorrow, then try again on Thursday. To be worth anything, they have to underlie every single law and decision that our government makes. If they don't, there's no walll between us and Fascism.

To use a real example, Bush wants to monitor all our phone communications, ostensibly to watch for al Queda plots. What will stop him from instead watching all the activities of anyone who opposes him? You think that great paragon of virtue Rove will step in and tell George to cut it out? Maybe Cheney will call a halt out of concern for the democratic process?

It isn't gonna happen, and we need to bar the possibility that even worse abuses occur, right now.

Slider

[TrailBate]

Looks like reporters and journalists are the real terrorists!

from ABC:

"A senior federal law enforcement official tells us the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources. It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation. We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation."