Maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not arguing that calling someone a "pussy" isn't offensive. On the contrary, I absolutely intended to be offensive. However, I intended to be offensive by virtue of having called someone a coward, not by demeaning women as women.

Look, I call people pussies: as well as dicks and pricks. So am I both a self-hating female and a man-hater? This "pussy" idiocy has been a topic here and elsewhere, and I say it is silly. Pussies, dicks and pricks are what they are, and I intend (within reason, and not wanting to overs-use scatological terms), to continue to judiciously employ all three terms, whenever one is the mot juste.

Here's another issue - the bill would also provide amnesty for Bush and Cheney on these matters, and if you read the text carefully, it could be used to undermine most (if not all) of the more serious offenses these two have committed.

Pass this bill, and impeachment truly IS off the table, and Guantanamo, Habeus-Corpus-denial, torture, rendition, and cooked intelligence all just became legal.

Sorry I didn't read all 18 pages of comments yet ;-) but

Does this change in the law allowing the AT&T et.al. FISA lawbreaking amount to Ex Post Facto?

From wiki:

An ex post facto law (from the Latin for "from something done afterward") or retrospective law, is a law that retrospectively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law.

And...

Generally speaking, ex post facto laws are seen as a violation of the rule of law as it applies in a free and democratic society. Most common law jurisdictions do not permit retrospective legislation, though some have suggested that judge-made law is retrospective as a new precedent applies to events that occurred prior to the judicial decision.

And if the 110th Congress goes along with this change, does that make the U.S. officially a Banana Republic?

imbillorightsmanandiapprovethismessage

www.BillORightsMan.com

The only editing error was that the last sentence should have been its own paragraph. Then the ... nearly arctic... irony would've been rather hard to miss, I would think.

Repent forever, forgive... never. There was never disclosure nor accounting for MKULTRA and ALL must be named who were either participants or targets. It's said Nixon's enemies list was at least 30,000 yet how many were contacted and apprised of their life circumstance? The villains have the say, but those who have been maligned need to be informed of the tales told on them and dirty tricks played on them even if the sh*t sticks.

What we have is a practical accomadation of the interests and reputations of these various collaborators who worked to enstate a Byzantine totalitarian state fronting illusory libertine excesses as a pallid substitute for America's promised freedoms. If deals struck by those who helped the jackboots were coercive and entered into under duress, this is an extenuating circumstance not exculpation.

Fascists talk outside both sides of their mouths about MLK yet some know the FBI hated him and their fingerprints are all over the record. No justice, no peace. Pat Buchanan wasn't just whistling dixie when he spoke culture WAR.

Corporatists collaborate so the trains still run on time. Won't happen, but the American nation needs to hold a general strike, for the duration, until Bush and Cheney resign jointly: only then could justice be done, if ever.

Once again we see the defining truth of Sen. Clinton's candidacy: A vote for Hillary is a vote for the Status Quo/Establishment/Beltway/Same Old, Same Old/perpetuation of the Dollar Disease that infects and indicts every corner of our government.

It's melodramatic, I know, but in the face of such resigned, untouchable support for Sen. Clinton on the left, I can't help but get excitable when someone with credibility points out the obvious, basic, inseperable character flaws in the Clinton candidacy. The notion that a Presidency is who the President surrounds themself with- in Hillary's case, the same establishment clowns who have bounced around inside the Beltway for years, following the power to get the money, and the money to get the power- is SO IMPORTANT to consider when you go into that booth next November. She represents precisely what is wrong with Washington, both symbolically through her part in the 'Two Families Cartel' that her election as President would establish, and in working reality, as demonstrated by this article and others like it.

I'm sorry, I really do sympathize with Clinton supporters and the reasons for their supporting her, but it is obvious and undeniable that this country needs real change in government, and it should be equally obvious that a vote for Sen. Clinton is a vote against change. (no matter how doggedly her campaign tries to paint her as the 'change' candidate)

Why should the Republicans waste a ton of money and energy offering the American people a viable candidate?

They know the maxim well: with friends like the Democrats, who needs Republicans?

The Democrats are working their damndest to drive a portion of the American people AWAY from them. Thus setting themselves to a stunning defeat against one of the incompetent neo-fundamentalist-nitwits running on the right.

I don't trust a Democrat spying on me illegally any more than I trust a Republican.

after Petraeus PR shows that the public is condemning the Senate and Bush. The public is against amnesty for these lawbreakers just like they are for getting the WH emails and other with held info from sources like the DoJ. The public overwhelmingly voted for representatives they beli8eved would bring about these changes but we have been betrayed. The Senate members and Bush and congress are working apart from the public's wishes as if they are an entity to themselves and will notify us of their decisions that we obviously have little say in these matters once these liars are elected they do what "they" want. Events these traitors could not forsee, nor control, will enter the situation which will change their anticipated outcomes. There are events that can happen that make having money meaningless. The public does not support the senate any longer and expects the senate will never get a clue to what the public has been demanding all along. The outpouring of donations to move on after the senate condemned them proves this, just as the polls after Petraeus' PR surge campaign showed the public unchanged and unmoved by the rhetoric. Yet the beltway advisors shout out it was all a great success and prove they pay no attention any longer to the public but to the fantasy they carry in their heads.