Letters to the Editor
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pwn3d
Yeah. Well...
Let's see. Dodd (D-CT) has a hold on the Intelligence Committee bill, so Harry will introduce that one as the "base" FISA reform bill, because that's what Dodd and Feingold want him to do, according to Harry, and Lindsey Huckleberry (R-SC) has a hold on the House anti-waterboarding bill, so Harry won't introduce that one, because that would be mean.
Or something.
It's now well beyond surreal.
Cloud Cuckoo Land was never so sublime.
Get me a drink.
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@be bop
A few days ago you made reference to working for VA I think.
Today, you talked about Ia Drang, and added that you are an Army vet from that time; you know: THAT time.
I want to acknowledge a "glancing blow" or two from you to me that I perceived as I began scribbling a bit on this blog, and express appreciation for your lyricism.
There's quite a bit of powerful thought here, not a little justifiable anger, and a fair amount of bombast.
You provide a salve which I know others appreciate.
So I leave you with something, a kind of caution that I try to recall when I feel my fingers slip-sliding into a line or a graph that can quickly come off as foolish, and once sent, can't be pulled back. It's my way to keep myself in check, but it's offered to you as a compliment.
Walt Whitman, presumably taking in the mass of his work, said he would be satisfied as a poet in the world if he could "contribute a verse."
I wish that for you ...
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Thank you, moore234!
I've been looking for some kind of "free" fax method. I just hope the cover page ad doesn't get my letters tossed.
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Barney Frank
Barney Frank:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/12/AR2007121202837.html
Democrats Blaming Each Other For Failures
By Jonathan Weisman and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 13, 2007; Page A01[...] Just last night, the House, for a second time, passed legislation to stave off the growth of the alternative minimum tax, to be paid for by a measure to stop hedge fund managers from deferring compensation in offshore tax havens. Like the previous House version, it has virtually no chance of passing in the Senate.
Officially, House Democrats blame Senate Republicans, who have used parliamentary tactics to block even uncontroversial measures. But they are increasingly expressing public frustration with Reid and Senate Democrats for not putting up a better fight.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) called it a "hold and fold" strategy: Senate Republicans put a "hold" on Democratic bills, and Senate Democratic leaders promptly fold their tents.
Asked about his decision on government funding, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) groused to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call: "I'll tell you how soon I will make a decision when I know how soon the Senate sells us out." Senate Democrats have fired back, accusing Pelosi and her liberal allies of sending over legislation that they know cannot pass in the Senate [...]
- - Washington Post, front page article, Thursday
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-- susan sunflower
Streisand is good but Elaine Page is the best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s96NZoeDs68
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New York Times Editorial Board
New York Times Editorial Board:
http://nytimes.com/2007/12/14/opinion/14fri1.html
Editorial
Notes From the Global War on Terror
Published: December 14, 2007[...] Congress certainly has not done the job. For six years, it stood by mutely or actively approved as President Bush’s team cooked the books to justify war, drew the nation’s electronic spies into illegal wiretapping and turned intelligence agents and uniformed soldiers into torturers at outlaw prisons.
Now, with the opposition party in control on Capitol Hill, lawmakers have a chance to start setting right some wrongs in these areas. But there are disturbing signs that they will once again fail to do what is needed.
EAVESDROPPING
After the disclosure that Mr. Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail messages without a court warrant, Congress has been struggling to write a law that does three important things: force the president to obey the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA; preserve the power of judges to approve and monitor surveillance of Americans; and update FISA to keep pace with technology. Last summer, Congress gave Mr. Bush a bill that had the needed updates but made it easier to spy on Americans.
That law expires in February, and the House has passed a bill that updates FISA while doing a great deal to ensure real judicial and Congressional oversight of any eavesdropping. The Senate Judiciary Committee also wrote a bill that does those things — with a sensible two-year expiration date.
Mr. Bush, of course, wants fewer, not more, restrictions and wants those powers to be made permanent. He also wants amnesty for telecommunications companies that gave Americans’ private data to the government for at least five years without a warrant.
Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, seems intent on doing the president’s bidding. He has indicated that instead of the Judiciary Committee’s bill, he may put on the floor a deeply flawed measure from the Senate Intelligence Committee that dangerously expands the government’s powers and gives undeserved amnesty to the telecommunications companies. The White House says amnesty is intended to ensure future cooperation but seems truly aimed at making sure the public never learns the extent of the companies’ involvement in illegal wiretapping.
That will leave Democratic senators like Christopher Dodd and Russ Feingold in the absurd position of having to stage filibusters against their own party’s leadership to try to forestall more harm to civil liberties.
INTERROGATIONS AND TORTURE
The recent disclosure that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogation of two Al Qaeda prisoners was a stark reminder of the catastrophic blunder that Congress made by enacting the Military Commissions Act of 2006. In addition to creating kangaroo courts to try the Guantánamo detainees, the bill permitted Mr. Bush to abrogate the Geneva Conventions by creating secret, extra-legal rules for interrogations by intelligence agents.
It was obvious that the tapes were destroyed to protect interrogators or their bosses from being held responsible for illegal acts like waterboarding. Congress must investigate the destruction of the tapes, using subpoenas, if necessary, to officials like John Rizzo, the C.I.A.’s senior lawyer, and Jose Rodriguez, the former chief of clandestine services, who ordered the tapes’ destruction in 2005.
USE AND MISUSE OF INTELLIGENCE
Americans were stunned when the White House released a new intelligence assessment that said that Iran had halted its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003. Beyond those startling facts were questions about whether Mr. Bush knew of this assessment when he was warning about World War III if Iran were allowed to get a nuclear weapon.
And that was a reminder of another time when Mr. Bush misled the nation about Iraqi weapons programs that had long disappeared. The Senate Intelligence Committee was supposed to have an investigation years ago into what Mr. Bush and other officials knew about the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons when they used it to stampede the country into war.
For more than two years, the Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Pat Roberts, made sure that a report would never be finished. It has now been in the hands of his replacement, Democrat Jay Rockefeller, for nearly a year, and there is still no report. [...]
- - New York Times Editorial Board