Letters to the Editor
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Veto? Maybe.
If I hope very hard, and click the heels of my ruby slippers, I might believe that Congress sends Bush the "good" bill you mention.
But I'm not so sure he would veto it. I'm guessing that he'll sign it, but make a "signing statement" to eviscerate the "good" provisions and leave the rest intact. Then he'll push for another bill with amnesty in some obscure amendment.
Not that signing statements have any force of law, but Versailles ^H^H^H Washington DC seems to treat them as if they do.
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From Jon Stewart
Do you think the ultimate irony might be that all the work that Dick Cheney has done will make Hillary Clinton the most powerful president in the history of the United States?
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Timing
In taking up the FISA issue now, Pelosi appears to be following through on her buyers' remorse statements in August. Democrats can use timing very much to their advantage here. By passing a bill without immunity and demanding full disclosure to Congress of the previous programs, a Presidential veto would put very much needed attention on this issue. Plenty of time remains until sunset of the August bill in February, so the ridiculous "emergency" pressure tactics used in August are worthless now.
In order to truly defang the fear-mongers, the Democrats also should insist on private briefings showing the "successes" of the August bill. It was passed on the "virtual certainty" that an attack was being planned. If the measures approved stopped such an attack, Congress must be informed of such a success. I'm sure a private briefing could be managed in a way that would not damage future use of the measures. I'm also confident that this has in fact not happened, as the Bushies would have been falling all over themselves with their "I told you so" announcements of their glorious achievement.
Every day that goes by with debate on the merits of restoring FISA to its original intent and not giving a free pass to previous law-breaking serves to ratchet up the pressure on Bush and McConnell to show just why these extraordinary powers are truly necessary. Shining light on the issue simply increases the likelihood the public, and perhaps even the Senate Democrats, will realize how foolish the path has been so far.
Guess I'd better get back on the phone to Bill Nelson's office. In fact, maybe the number should be added to my speed-dial list.
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Glenn,
Don't you mean Mitch McConnell in this sentence?
The real problem here seems to be that the wretched, principle-free, administration-revering Democratic faction on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- particularly Jay Rockefeller, joined by the Dianne Feinsteins and Bill Nelsons -- is eager to reach a "compromise" with their Bush-loyal "colleagues" (such as "Kit" Bond and the Responsible, Honorable, Serious Mike McConnell).
Mike McConnell - DNI
Mitch McConnell - Senator Minority Leader
Glenn, I don't say much in the comments... I can barely keep up with you, let alone all the replies! But I'm cheering you on from the sidelines, as I'm sure many of us are. And I learn something every day.
PS: I did write to ADL and got a response and wrote back, no 2nd reply.
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A bit O/T, but talk about Helping the Terrorists...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801817.html?hpid=topnews
And these are the evil clowns to whom the Dems will cede more powers!
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Rove Returns
Remember this was the issue Karl Rove said was going to be a big winner for Republicans in 2008. It sure looks like his plan is working, thanks Democrats.
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Gads
Gag Zeus?
Get them Zeus!
Or a Gehenna!
Go get slime gecko's.
'Um are all gewgaws!
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Gads.
I agree.
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Not telecom
Casual Observer.... I think this company would likely fit in the telecom niche.
This isn't a "telecom" company.
http://www.siteinstitute.org/mission.html
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/29/060529fa_fact
All this proves is that Republicans are so incompetent, they make privatization look good. That's astonishing because there are many functions of government that can never be duplicated safely and properly by the private sector. This also tends to make one think that we are not that safe with these bumbling incompetents protecting us. Maybe we would be safer if they broke some laws. Very sad.
Telecom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecom
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They may be living in caves
but they are a helluva lot smarter and more sophisticated in many dangerous ways than most of the people in our current government. And they do want to attack us again, thanks again to these same incompetent morons.
While intranets are usually based on servers in a discrete physical location, Obelisk is a series of sites all over the Web, often with fake names, in some cases sites that are not even known by their proprietors to have been hacked by Al Qaeda.
One intelligence officer who requested anonymity said in an interview last week that the intelligence community watched in real time the shutdown of the Obelisk system. America's Obelisk watchers even saw the order to shut down the system delivered from Qaeda's internal security to a team of technical workers in Malaysia. That was the last internal message America's intelligence community saw. "We saw the whole thing shut down because of this leak," the official said. "We lost an important keyhole into the enemy."
By Friday evening, one of the key sets of sites in the Obelisk network, the Ekhlaas forum, was back on line. The Ekhlaas forum is a password-protected message board used by Qaeda for recruitment, propaganda dissemination, and as one of the entrance ways into Obelisk for those operatives whose user names are granted permission. Many of the other Obelisk sites are now offline and presumably moved to new secret locations on the World Wide Web.
The founder of a Web site known as clandestineradio.com, Nick Grace, tracked the shutdown of Qaeda's Obelisk system in real time. "It was both unprecedented and chilling from the perspective of a Web techie. The discipline and coordination to take the entire system down involving multiple Web servers, hundreds of user names and passwords, is an astounding feat, especially that it was done within minutes," Mr. Grace said yesterday.
http://www.nysun.com/article/64163