Letters to the Editor
bamage
Published Letters: 1114
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RE: Not on topic
[Read the article: PBS's "Frontline: Spying on the Home Front"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I brought it up a couple of days ago, it was in the context of media deficiency. The amendment is still virtually unreported.
And yes, Dear Leader will almost certainly ignore it.
The timing is fortuitous, nonetheless. Leads me to believe the issue isn't completely dead (in Congress). If Congress ever sinks their teeth into this, the noose might be a smidgeon tighter vis a vis the ongoing programs.
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Revealing my ignorance...
[Read the article: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Can a President be indicted, after he's left office, for crimes committed during his tenure i.e., could W possibly go to jail if the Dems sweep in '08?
And why is You Know Who still allowed in here?
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One more obvious question
[Read the article: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]WHY did Comey, Ashcroft, et al "refuse to certify" "the program"?
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DIGG count 32...
[Read the article: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]At the risk of DIGG-whoring, this post truly deserves it. One painless way to help spread some of GG's insight on this topic is to simply hit the little DIGG button at the bottom of the post. It's easy, folks. The DUGG list over there is missing a lot of the regular commenters from over here (hint, hint).
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About "Strangelove"
[Read the article: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just imagine if all of the archetypes were real (I say they are). OK, now substitute W for the oh-so-reasonable President Merkin Muffley (yeah, I own it).
Not so funny, now, izzit? We're living it, baby.
"I do say, no more than ten to twent million dead. Tops"
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Not original, but a proposed solution for the "Letters" problem
[Read the article: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the letter writers were allowed to rate comments (+/-), and filter those below a user defined threshold, then comments like Ondolette's, or vitually everything written by the more erudite/persuasive commenters here would remain. And the inane, vacuous leavings of the likes of You Know Who and Sharter would be easily filtered out.
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Chalmers Johnson has a piece EVRYONE should read...
[Read the article: What will be done about James Comey's revelations?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://www.alternet.org/stories/51975/?page=1
Don't know how much I can/should excerpt, but here are a few paragraphs...
If... people actually believe a presidential election a year-and-a-half from now will significantly alter how the country is run, they have almost surely wasted their money. As Andrew Bacevich, author of The New American Militarism, puts it: "None of the Democrats vying to replace President Bush is doing so with the promise of reviving the system of check and balances.... The aim of the party out of power is not to cut the presidency down to size but to seize it, not to reduce the prerogatives of the executive branch but to regain them."
George W. Bush has, of course, flagrantly violated his oath of office, which requires him "to protect and defend the constitution," and the opposition party has been remarkably reluctant to hold him to account. Among the "high crimes and misdemeanors" that, under other political circumstances, would surely constitute the Constitutional grounds for impeachment are these: the President and his top officials pressured the Central Intelligence Agency to put together a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's nuclear weapons that both the administration and the Agency knew to be patently dishonest. They then used this false NIE to justify an American war of aggression. After launching an invasion of Iraq, the administration unilaterally reinterpreted international and domestic law to permit the torture of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, at Guant·namo Bay, Cuba, and at other secret locations around the world.
Nothing in the Constitution, least of all the commander-in-chief clause, allows the president to commit felonies. Nonetheless, within days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush had signed a secret executive order authorizing a new policy of "extraordinary rendition," in which the CIA is allowed to kidnap terrorist suspects anywhere on Earth and transfer them to prisons in countries like Egypt, Syria, or Uzbekistan, where torture is a normal practice, or to secret CIA prisons outside the United States where Agency operatives themselves do the torturing.
On the home front, despite the post-9/11 congressional authorization of new surveillance powers to the administration, its officials chose to ignore these and, on its own initiative, undertook extensive spying on American citizens without obtaining the necessary judicial warrants and without reporting to Congress on this program. These actions are prima-facie violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (and subsequent revisions) and of Amendment IV of the Constitution.
These alone constitute more than adequate grounds for impeachment, while hardly scratching the surface. And yet, on the eve of the national elections of November 2006, then House Minority Leader, now Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), pledged on the CBS News program "60 Minutes" that "impeachment is off the table." She called it "a waste of time."...
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Timeline related?
[Read the article: What will be done about James Comey's revelations?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Late yesterday Cmdr. Matt Diaz was convicted on counts related to the emailing, to the Center for Consitutional Rights, of the names of some 550 detainees @ Guantanamo Bay. This was early '05.
Also Thursday, the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the NSA to comply w/ FOIA filings related to the NSA's warrantless wiretapping of 16 lawyers representing Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Release the hounds...
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Versailles/Diane Rehm
[Read the article: More fallout from the Comey revelations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I get the impression that the DR Show, broadcast as it is from D.C., has a fairly broad "inside the Beltway" listenership. Today, she had what I would categorize as a pretty damn good (for Versailles) discussion of the whole Gonzogate brouhaha - inclusive of the implications of Comey's testimony.
When I got on (snuck in again, heh, heh) I had not yet reviewed GG's Open Sources show, so I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants. I did flatly state, though, that the President was clearly a multiple felon, and the only thing standing between W and impeachment if not jail time was Gonzo.
Tellingly, nobody on the esteemed panel contradicted me. Perhaps the times they they are a changin'.
Link to the show(News Roundup Hour 1):
http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/07/05/18.php#13188
Gonzo discussion commences about 13:45 in... Extensive discussion devoted entirely to various aspects of Gonzo ensues for the next 15 minutes.
My commments begin @ ~ 33:45 in...
Worth a listen, perhaps.
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My buddy sent me this
[Read the article: More fallout from the Comey revelations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]re: Yoo
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/interviews/yoo.html