Letters to the Editor
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@shooter242
Oops! Sorry. "Putting words in your mouth." I know you hate that, and that it somehow invalidates my entire position. Let me start over; forget what I said.
What's your opinion of this bill?
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Two little eedjits, sitting in a tree....
... "K" "I" "S" "S" "I" "N" "G"...
[Sh**ter]: Brilliant.
[Elephantdung]: And to restore government by legislature instead of government by lawsuit.
[Sh**ter]: Well said, E-man.
And how the hell are you going to get a law to work if the maladministration ignores it (or even breaks it), and there's no courts to rein them in?
If Sh**ter thought that we ought to have "government by legislature", you'd think the eedjit would at the very least support enforcing those very laws that a legislature wrote....
But watch someone dare defy a megacorporation, and Sh**ter will be all for their hot'n'heavy lawyers slapping the little guy silly. You know, like Mickey Dee going after the woman out here named McCaughey that decided to name her coffe shop "McCoffee's".... Mickey Dee thinks they have the friggin' patent on the most common Scottish surname beginning....
Cheers,
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Some new eedjit wrote:
There are serious questions there. Does FISA apply to what was actually done? Was it intended to apply? Was there a legitimate national security issue that was being addressed by Presidential order? Does FISA need amendment? Are civil suits an intended remedy for the kind of alleged FISA violation that you are claiming?
Why, yes indeed. But, sadly, now that the telecom immunity seems destined to become law, we won't actually find any of this stuff out.... You were in favour of investigation here, at the very least, before handing out immunity as warranted based on the findings, right, Elephantdung?
Cheers,
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"land of the thief home of the slave"
"It was turned around so that right looked wrong; it was turned around so that up looked down
It was turned around so that those who marched in the streets with bibles and signs of peace became enemies of the state and risk to national security
So that those who questioned the operations of those in authority on the principles of justice, liberty, and equality became the vanguard of a communist attack
It became so you couldn't call a spade a "explicative" spade."
thank you to gil scott-heron for these words. how relevant they remain.
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Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé!!
I am of the mind that the internets are an action inhibitor.
Well, to the extent that they're keeping you off the barricades, I suppose you're right.
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A Political Calculation
The Democratic Senators have made the Political calculation that if they don't pass this Bill and a terroist attack occurs between now and the election, it will be the Democrats who will be held responsible. They know that the media can be counted on to do everything in their power to make sure that the Democrats loose not only the Presidency, but the House as well as they ignore the Bush administrations managment of the War on Terror and focus ony on the Democrats failure to pass this Bill. They have made a calculated guess that most Americans aren't paying enough attention to this issue to care about it. Saddly they are probably not wrong. Note Clinton, as usual, hedged her bets by choosing not to vote. At least Obama took the pricipled stand.
Everytime I think I can't find a reason to be even more disappointed with the Senate, Reid finds a way to prove me wrong.
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Uh, No...
"Does FISA apply to what was actually done?"
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There is no real question that the Bush Administration still believes this, as it fought long and hard for retroactive amnesty of telecom lawbreaking.
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-- Paul Daniel Ash
Well, no, actually. The Bush Administration has said that no laws were broken, but that it nevertheless wanted to protect the telcoms from vexatious and horrifically expensive civil litigation which might impact on future national security operations. It was the right thing for the Administration to do. It was the stand-up thing to do. The Administration had every right to expect it and its officers would be immune from suit or prosecution. It undertook the amnesty provisions to protect its principles.
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An interesting note by Matt Browner-Hamlin on the blogger phone call with Dodd
After relaying Dodd's comments about deciding the bill would pass the Senate with retroactive immunity, so he wanted to get it over with and on to the House where something better could come out and be sent to a conference committee. What followed is interesting to me:
Dodd went on and noted that if the conference report doesn’t produce a good bill, “I will use all the tools available to me as a single senator to delay this issue.” Asked if that would include a filibuster, Dodd said, “I will use whatever vehicles I can.”
This does set up one more chance for Dodd to stand up, and to do so outside of the current unanimous consent agreement. I think Reid is taking him seriously on this point since I have heard somewhere today that he has another 15 day extension in the works, if needed. I think Dodd could be the reason it would be needed.
Link: http://tinyurl.com/34yqdc
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It's Kind Of Neat
You know, sitting outside of the center of the universe, watching the Empire going round and round, and even the the Tidybowl man doesn't seem to give a shit. Two hundred and some thirty years?? Nice experiment, too bad it didn't work.
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I admit haven't been paying much attention lately but....
You are aware, aren't you, that Dodd's original filibuster was caused directly by blogs and online grassroots activists, with Glenn Greenwald foremost among them? -- Jordan Orlando
What filibuster?? You mean the completely inconsequential "hold" that no one respected? Did I miss something? When did Dodd take control of the Senate floor and not give it up until he was dragged from the chamber kicking and screaming? Anyone have a youtube of that? Because I can't believe I missed it. No? Well like I said before..why should we expect him to do it when we won't?
Ok, how about that nice video where he quotes our very own Glenn Greenwald! Man that sure was great.
*PDA, maybe you will like this pic better. He "won"*
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson