Letters to the Editor
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WT
Well, honestly, I think that there's a vast difference between what they'd like to do, what they might attempt to do, and what they can get away with doing.
And you can be sure that when they thought they were on the verge of a Permanent Republican Majority they were more reckless than they are now. Things have changed since the days when they were doing whatever it was that made even Ashcroft recoil in horror. As bad as it look at times, I enjoy knowing that they are seriously worried about being able to keep their asses covered after the next election. Small comfort maybe but somehow I just can't shake the belief that this will catch up with them. Another small comfort; the way the right wing media machine has tethered itself to this administration virtually guarantees that when the lid blows it will take some of the more outrageous hacks along with it. Not very Xian of me but I hope to be able to read Depalma's reaction when his paperdoll world bursts into full on conflagration.
(And what the hell were they doing that even Ashcroft threatened to resign anway? That weird little bedside story is one of the freakier things I've heard in my life as a political being. It's more like a Hitchcock fantasy than an actual news story. When I look at that thing with anything remotely resembling old fashioned sensibility it leaves me looking like a bobble-head doll. Mind-bobbling. Boggle-headed?)
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Pow Wow
Thanks for the links. That EFF site is a treasure trove of info. I just got here today and I don't know what the tenor of the discussions has been but I have to say this is one place where I might actually be less pessimistic that Glenn. I haven't yet resigned myself to thinking immunity is a foregone conclusion. The longer it takes them to get it done the better it is for the citizen. The facts in this case are all on our side, so every single bit of information that manages to find its way out goes in favor of the anti-immunity cause. Immunity may yet happen but until it does I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hound congress 'til they puke.
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@ Armagednoutahere
Yes, but despite my contempt for the idea that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney et al. are geniuses, or infallible, I take smaller comfort from it than you might suppose.
The real problem is structural, not ideological. Until we defang the military-industrial complex, reduce our military expenditures by at least half, re-open genuine negotiations on nuclear disarmament, and bury forever the perilous notions that we're the leader of the free-world, that Israel is a natural ally, or that the threat of force is necessary to make certain that we continue to have first claim on the world's petroleum, victory over the ignorant swine of the current Republican Party can't be considered more than a Pyrrhic one.
Those who've witnessed my dust-ups with bucky1, adnoto, or Chris Sinnard shouldn't overlook the fact that I agree wholeheartedly with their rejection of our unfortunate infatuation with American manifest destiny.
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@The Byzantine
"It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws."
-- Dick Cheney,Vice President of the United States
Source: reacting to the 9-11 attack as reported on PBS "Frontline"
I get back after writing to my Congressman that I don't fear terrorists as much as I fear losing our freedoms and our way of life to panic over terrorism, and I see this.
And suddenly it all clicks into place.
Dick Cheney has spent his life doing whatever it takes to avoid confronting death. 4 deferments, 4 bypasses, a defibrillator, an undisclosed location, and then the above quote, indicating a willingness to sell the country down the drain because he is afraid he's being attacked.
The torture monster, the big tough neocon is nothing but a groveling, fearful coward.
When Pol Pot died, a prominent Cambodian in our town said, "We Buddhists believe in 6 layers of hell. Now we know the sixth is occupied." Let them make an exception for Cheney, let the evil the man has done be interred with his bones. Future generations don't need his legacy.
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Are we supposed to be happy that with signing statements,NSL abuse by the FBI, amnesty for lawbreaking
that there has been added some small oversight measure to the Protect America FISA bill? Our trusted leaders have sold us down the river to the now operating police state. Welcome to the NEW World Order. Pelosi and Reyes are added with Rockefeller to the traitor target list. They stood watching as they allowed our democracy to slip away.
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WT
Indeeed, and defanging that beast is a tall order. In some ways it might be the best thing that could have happened for this admin to be as extreme as it has been. They could have settled for merely forcing America to become a greater generator of income for the M/I Complex and cemented their hold on power without trying to have it all. Their hubris is such that they couldn't resist going for everything their rotten, shrivelled, blackened little hearts desired. When the horror stories of that pursuit finally come out it will help impugn the entire ideological underpinnings that keep the Republican Party/MI Complex lock on our world from being challenged. The sheer extremity of their colossal arrogance might be the best ally we have.
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Ondelette
I never will understand the myth of Cheney's alleged brilliance. Remember that debate with Lieberman where Lieberman pointed out that Cheney had done rather well for himself in the private sector. Cheney said something to the effect, "and the govt had nothing to do with it," and the audience acted like he'd just slam-dunked the debate. I was waiting for the obvious retort, where any debator with a brain would have realized that Cheney had just stuck his ass out there for a beating. But Lieberman didn't sieze the moment to lay out the extent to which the govt had everything to do with the fortune Cheney had made for himself, and the myth of Cheney's sharp mind had another chapter. The media lapped it up.
Of course now I know that Lieberman may well have known exactly what he was doing and let Cheney off the hook on purpose. Either way it's another example of what a total weenie Cheney is and how completely the media laps up the slop that drops onto the floor from Cheney's plate.