Letters to the Editor
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jayackroyd
Nothing on this subject in the Edwards interview.
Was I wrong to think there might be? Sometimes there's just not enough time for all questions. Still, if Keith had intended to discuss it with John Edwards, I wish he had given it higher priority than the stupid back-and-forth with O'Reilly and the homeless vets.
Obviously, not to suggest that homeless vets is a trivial issue, but does a spat with Bill-O have to take precedence over very important, substantive issues?
I'm probably making intemperate assumptions again.
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Anonycoward
If you had a legitimate fear of your government torturing you for 5 years in a dungeon before sentencing you to 17 years in prison for a 'thought crime', you wouldn't be posting on this message board, and neither would Glenn write what he writes for that matter.
What say you to the fact that "The Land of the Free" has the highest incarceration rate in the world, bar none?
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html
More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there, according to a new report by the Justice Department released Sunday. That's 1 in 37 adults living in the United States, the highest incarceration level in the world.
It's the first time the US government has released estimates of the extent of imprisonment, and the report's statistics have broad implications for everything from state fiscal crises to how other nations view the American experience.
If current trends continue, it means that a black male in the United States would have about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime. For a Hispanic male, it's 1 in 6; for a white male, 1 in 17.
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Oh my God- I'm gonna be beheaded!
although to people who actually travel outside the borders of the United States, the number of American journalists, missionaries, and tourists who have been kidnapped, forced to read derogatory statements about their country on videotape, and subsequently beheaded is a little more serious of a matter.
Oh- that's happened to how many Americans? Is that a big worry for you traveling around the world? Getting beheaded?
Hmmmmm, what is a more legitimate concern for a traveling businessman? Being beheaded by religious fanatics or having his business phone calls listened in on overseas by a byzantine government that could then do any manner of a million things with such info if so desired- from nothing- to bartering it away to your politically connected competitors to holding onto to it in a file for later use . . to just making you afraid that your calls are being listened to. What would you worry more about if you were in London Or Riyadh or Tehran even. Being beheaded by fanatics working for the World Caliphate of your pinhead pussy nightmares or the privacy of your phone calls from your own government?
See- one fear is rational. One isn't.
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SHORTER DEM CANDIDATES:
You support me, I don't support you...Asta la FISA baby!!!
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pluege
It really is appalling, though not entirely surprising, that the TV media obsesses over these celebrity exchanges between Obama and the Clintons, while completely neglecting the FISA story.
Seriously, they are treating this Bill-said-Obama-said tripe like the fatuous feuding between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump.
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@ the "Depends"-wearing anonymous
While your [sic] laughing, imagine that the trivial events of your life are important enough for the intelligence community to actually give a shit about.
Speaking from experience, are we? But yes, I remember James Madison, just the other days, saying that, really, the gummint would never intrude on its citizens unduly, and that we ought to give the gummint a lot of slack because they're the good guys and can be trusted to only look out for what's right (and safe) for us.
You know, that bidness about actually requiring a magistrate to sign on to someone snooping, that's just going a little overboard, dontcha think, it's best if the decisions as to who is snooped on and why be kept very, veeeerrryyy secret and unexamined.
Because that's all that's required under the unamended FISA: Someone has to explain why it is they think it's an actual "bad guy", you know, and not some Ed Meese-Judith Resnick type folks that really are interested for some reason in some schmo "[not] important enough for the intelligence community to actually give a shit about"....
Cheers,
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DCLaw1
I took Glenn's update III to indicate there might be. Tim Tagaris late of Dodd's campaign, at OpenLeft, suggested maybe on CNN, but Edwards gave the same answer on the comportment of the candidates. I have no idea the degree to which the topics of discussion are pre-arranged.
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A Good Question...
...For those who are pro-immunity, but think the telecoms didn't break a law.
Why do they need immunity?
The statement made by granting retroactive immunity is "We're aware that you KNOWINGLY BROKE THE LAW, but we're going to let you get away with it, anyway, because we like why you did it (and we don't want to piss off our donors)." Otherwise, as someone else said, why are we even having this discussion?
In addition, the motives of Dick Cheney and his ilk are pretty clear, too - immunity will mean that no one ever gets to know what the telecoms and the Bush Administration were doing.
If you think this is a good use of government, I'm happy to know that you'll never agree with me on anything.
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Immunity and hypocrisy
In addition, the motives of Dick Cheney and his ilk are pretty clear, too - immunity will mean that no one ever gets to know what the telecoms and the Bush Administration were doing.
Yup. Using the standards of the gubmint rumpswabbers- "they have nothing to fear if they are innocent". So why do they need immunity?
You know why they need immunity? Because they weren't listening in on "Terrorists". They were listening in on the domestic political foes and for all manner of self serving means.
Funny- I remember being right behind many conservatives when they were calling for Hillary's head for those 900 FBI raw data files on GOPERS and others that inexplicably just happened to somehow get "Found" on her office floor in a corner one day. A Beltway politician has a mountain of FBI files with blackmail rumors and raw data on people who are her political opponents? We need to get to the bottom of this.
Those same "conservatives" today when Bush and Cheney have massively violated numerous laws and may have rampantly abused wire taps? NOpe- nothing to see hear- move along - just liberal lies- and surrender monkeys who want us to be ruled by "islam" trying to hurt Leader!
These people don't have one principled bone in their body. All their talk about rule of law, ethics, creeping government power, abuse of power- by the Clintons? Just politics. They never believed a word of it.