A 1-08-07 Salon story on McConnell becoming energy czar said:

The intelligence community's reliance on outsourcing dates back to the late 1990s, when commercial advances in computer software and communications began to outpace the considerable lead U.S. intelligence once had in encryption and other technologies. These shortcomings were particularly acute at the NSA, which suffered a system-wide computer blackout in 2000 that shut down the agency's global listening and surveillance system for more than two days, reducing the contents of the president's Daily Briefing by more than 30 percent. In response, during the waning days of the Clinton era, the highly secretive agency had opened its doors to contractors.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/01/08/mcconnell/index.html

Glenn’s piece on 10-15-07, “Telecom amnesty would forever foreclose investigation of vital issues,” said this:

The documents that were released as part of the criminal prosecution of Joseph Nacchio, the former Qwest CEO who refused to participate in what he believed to be illegal government surveillance programs (and was then prosecuted for insider trading by the Bush administration), are revealing in numerous important respects.

Nacchio -- who was convicted earlier this year of insider trading for selling his Qwest shares with insider knowledge that the company was about to lose substantial value -- is attempting to prove that, at the time he sold his shares, he anticipated that Qwest would receive highly lucrative government contracts (for surveillance and other programs) that were being negotiated almost immediately upon Bush's inauguration in 2001 -- months before the 9/11 attacks (the bulk of those projects was ultimately awarded to AT&T, Verizon and others).

To prove that, Nacchio has submitted voluminous (and heavily redacted) documentation (.pdf) detailing the vast number of projects which the Bush administration (and, to a lesser extent, the Clinton administration) was pursuing in joint cooperation with the telecom industry.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/15/amnesty/index.html

I recommend the links Glenn provides in this article and letter comments as the best answer to your question that I am aware of.

From Chalmers Johnson:

The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defense budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China.

Shooter has no idea what this means. You needn't bother to explain opportunity costs to him either, Arne. He's going to have to find out the hard way.

... Americans are mean, stupid, and bigoted.

This fundamental problem with our country can't even begin to be addressed until its existence is acknowledged.

By a remarkable coincidence, some of the exact same talking points are on the front page of the RNC's web site at http://gop.com as of right now, and those same talking points are also featured at http://whitehouse.gov right now, and those same talking points are also in this article in the Springfield, Missouri, News-Leader.

http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
/article?AID=/20080122/BREAKING01/80122033

Published January 22, 2008
Bond urges Congressional action on changes to intelligence act

Washington – U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a news release today [...]

[...] “Congress could leave our country unprotected, possibly creating a serious intelligence gap that allows terrorists to use technology to stay one step ahead of us.”

Bond says, “The only responsible action for Congress to take is to pass the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee bill before the Feb. 1 deadline.”

Bond warned “against false claims about threats to Americans’ privacy interests that some liberal Democrats will make over the next week as Congress debates the bill,” the release says.

Bond said “the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee bill goes much further in protecting American civil liberties than the old law.”

- - “The News-Leader” of Springfield, Missouri

Unlike shooter242's line about sacrificing civil liberties and sacrificing the rule of law and sacrificing due process, in exchange for security, the official GOP line is that the GOP and the White House are all about preserving civil liberties and following the law and observing due process.

Senator Bond says the "liberal Democrats" (and Bruce Fein, etc, but nevermind about that) are simply lying about any threat to civil liberties.

Which raise unavoidable questions . . .

Why would they be doing that?

What would motivate such lies?

The weakness in Senator Bond's assertion is that it forces the GOP to assign some motive other than preserving civil liberties to those "liberal Democrats" who oppose the GOP.

So, for instance, Andrew McCarthy, last week at the National Review and this week at Human Events, explains the opposition quite simply: by writing that Chris Dodd & Co. simply want to "shut down intelligence collection" and are a "fifth column" which hates the USA. If one believes McCarthy, then it's only a tiny step farther to be a full-fledged frothing freeper.

And the White House needs those freepers. That's why Bush and Cheney have picnics on the White House lawn for freepers. (See the photos in the archives at freerepublic.com if you think I'm making this up.)

Dana Perino doesn't say such things herself, but her position logically requires Andrew McCarthy to say such absurd things, and without those absurd things, Perino's talking points don't stand up.

It comes down to this: either you believe that Dodd and Feingold hate the USA, or you believe that they're crazy, or you believe that they've got some valid objections to the GOP talking points.

Andrew McCarthy see this quite clearly, so he's spreading the word that the Democrats are traitors.

Your modern "conservative" movement in action: fear and loathing isn't a bug, it's a feature.

When Emerson wrote about the virtues of conservatism, this ain't what he had in mind.

shooter242, whom I seriously doubt will stick around to go down with the Battleship Potemkin as it is scuttled by all the guys with the big hats and medals (like all the other ratz he'll be pushing all the old ladies and kids off the life rafts) -- has but 1 life to give for his country. Someone else's. Shooter, didn't I meet you on Campus not so long ago?? Playing paintball, bad-mouthing illegal immigrants, supporting the war, but vehemently defending your right NOT to go into the military . . . .

"What's that?? Other priorities?? You're needed on the homefront?? Someone's got to keep the homefires burning??"

Well, shooter, when they come to get you, I'm sure that someone, maybe even one of those danged Un-American commies in the ACLU will stand up for you.

Sheesh, pitiful.