Letters to the Editor
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Yeah, well....
S'all good, L.W.M. We're all figments of one another's imagination. Some light a single candle, some curse the darkness...est ist mir gleich.
A luxury, though, to contain enough of a multitude to do both. Unfair, really. ;-)
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It will be up to future administrations
to uncover what happened when Bush was in the White House, just like it took decades to uncover all the crimes of Joseph Stalin.
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Listen to pow wow.
Some of the rest of us can appear here as a hearse limo-driver,
dangling a lit cigarette from the lip in city traffic causing gridlock!
O, Annoyances.
O, but it's Friday.
Stroke a rabbit tail?
Rub it and chant Om?
O, a 4-leaf good-luck-clover! huh.
burn sage, and bug-repellent smokes.
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William T. I wondered away...
I often think that YKW may wish a new career?
He'd been a happy burned-out modern dancer?
Maybe he will write books to pre-school GOPS!
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Fool?
The March hare, GC! Not so foolish as some have supposed. Heads for the burrow as the Ides approach, I'm told.
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Mona?
Plead with YKW to please stay.
He can do push-ups for stress.
Go visit him in your prom dress?
He needs to dedicate a book to you!
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Aycharaych?
Flandry of Terra fan, n'est-ce pas?
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Steny Hoyer says....
All of us are aware of the fact that technological changes have resulted in some questions being raised because of the fact that we have many of the communications coming through the United States. I frankly think, as the gentleman knows, there is really not a great deal of controversy or difference between the two Houses or between our two sides of the aisle on this issue. There's some differences, but they're not major differences. I think they can be addressed.
So just because we've managed to route a lot more foreign-to-foreign capacity through the U.S., where it's easier to pick off, does that mean we now must start tapping what we couldn't tap previously?!?!?
The thrust of the maladministration's 'argument' is that technical changes have made it more difficult to tap what we used to tap:
http://tinyurl.com/2v5xmb
... and thus that the FISA laws need to be changed to keep us from going blind. Not so. We're getting more than we ever did at the height of the arms race with the nuclear armed Soviet Union.
In fact, they want to tap here because it's easier ... but one of the reasons that there were restrictions built in to the FISA law in 1978 against taps that were performed domestically, the way I read it, is that such domestic taps would carry a much higher proportion of domestic traffic (which is still true), which would pose more of a risk for the inadvertent (or incidental) interception of the communications of persons in the U.S. (see link above or click sig for more).
Cheers,
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James F?
MR. McCains bus driver was seen spraying Lye Sol soap on the public rest room seats.
He did not spit. He used a bedroom pillow.
GOP hopeful's orders no "Whiney The Pooh" bed-sheets in the hotel rooms. GOPS do not
trust the maids who scrub up GOPS mess....
In the morn GOPS eat egg whites and scrapple.
non sequitur? O, very obscure politico's, IMO.
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About that Steny Hoyer...
"I frankly think, as the gentleman knows, there is really not a great deal of controversy or difference between the two Houses or between our two sides of the aisle on this issue. There's some differences, but they're not major differences. I think they can be addressed."
This, and Hoyer's complete lack of argument against immunity during his Feb. 15 appearance on The Jim Lerher News Hour, make it clear that the house leadership is prepared to cave on telecom immunity.
Just be emotionally prepared, folks.
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@WT
It would be wrong of me to take credit for what he says.
I'll take it as a compliment and hope he wasn't insulted by the comparison. As you know, every anonymous poster was me, and half of those who used names.
;-)
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@ L.W.M.
Or the blame. :-)
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The question I haven't seen asked
There are two facts about this whole mess that I've seen reported separately, but not together.
The first is that the illegal spying started before September 11th.
The second is that the Administration was obviously disregarding the warnings about terrorism before September 11th.
Singly these facts are bad enough, but together they lead to the damning question: who was the Administration going all-out to spy on instead of actual terrorists?
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Canada-U.S. pact allows cross-border military activity
I first heard of this story at 4.30 today on Rachel Maddow.
David Pugliese, Canwest News Service
Published: Saturday, February 23, 2008
'Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal.'
Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas.
According to the Air America report, it has been signed and ratified. Secretly.
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a loyal partner in the Global War on Terror(tm).
http://tiny.cc/MJ4Aj
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pointus
Perhaps, but if the house caves on immunity, I hope it at least does so with a conditional provision. I.e. you get immunity, if you first fully disclose all that you know about the legal aspects of and justification for the warrantless wiretap program, and what kind of spying you were asked to do. I.e. cut a prospective deal, via legislation, with the telcoms. I'd rather they not even go this far, so as to not deny plaintiffs their constitutional right to file suit, or set a really bad precedent. But if they cave, there should at least be some payoff. But giving away the ranch for nothing in return is simply indefensible, especially on something this important. And I'm willing to lose a few red state house seats to defend that, even though I doubt that we will. No one's likely to lose their seat this year because the GOP is claiming that Dems don't want the government to listen to Al Qaida. The voters just aren't buying it anymore.
The question is, does the Dem leadership know this, or care?