Is it possible to get people's real opinions on whether they approve of the government listening to their phone conversations in poll conducted over the telephone?

"a poll"

must preview

But, of course, the American people aren't interested in any of that. Time told me so.

-- kovie

It gets to the heart of the whole dishonest enterprise. I recently read the whole history somewhere and was surprised Time was designed to serve this function from the very start. I guess that is how they like it, i.e., the readership not knowing either the real story or their reasons for mis-leading.

"When President Bush convened a meeting of his National Security Council on May 22, 2003, his special envoy in Iraq made a statement that caught many of the participants by surprise. In a video presentation from Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III informed the president and hs aides that he was about to issue an order formally dissolving Iraq's Army.

The decree was issued the next day."

~~~

" ... interviews show that while Mr. Bush endorsed Mr. Bremer's plan in the May 22 meeting, the decision was made without thorough consultations within government, and without the counsel of the secretary of state or the senior American commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan. The decree by Mr. Bremer ... prompted bitter infighting within the goverment and the military with recriminations continuing to this day."

~~~

"Mr. Bremer said he did not recall who first proposed the decree dissolving the Iraqi Army. But he acknowledged that he ... favored the move."

~~~

" ...General McKiernan, the senior American military commander at the time, had a very different view on how to raise a new Iraqi military."

~~~

" 'We knew they [Saddam's troops] had either gone home of come out of uniform,' said General McKiernan ... 'The idea was to bring in the Iraqi soldiers and their officers, put them on a roster and sort out the bad guys as we went.' "

~~~

"General McKiernan ... asserted that he neither reviewed nor backed the decree. 'I never saw that order and never concurred,' he said."

~~~

"Lt. Gen. J.D. Thurman, who serves as the Army's chief operatons officer and was the top operations officer for General McKiernan at the time, had a similar recollection. 'We did not get a chance to make a comment ... not sure they wanted to hear what we had to say.' "

~~~

" 'I don't remember any particular response from that [May 22] meeting,' Mr. Bremer said. 'If there had been an objection, I would have made a note of it then.'

Some participants in the session asserted, however, that though the Defense Department leadership may have known in advance of the proposed order, they did not. Mr. Bremer's handling of the issue appeared intended, they asserted, to keep much of the government in the dark until the last minute.

'Anyone who is experienced in the ways of Washington knows the difference between an open, transparent policy process and slamming something through the system,' said Franklin C. Miller, the senior director for Defense Policy and Arms Control, who played an important role on the National Security Council in overseeing plans for the post-war phase. 'The most portentous decision of the occupation was carried out stealthily and without giving the president'e principal advisers an opportunity to consider it and give the president their views.' "

---Michael R. Gordon

---The New York Times, 3/17/08

Why are they behaving like this? When I think about how obtuse they're being despite all evidence available to them, I'm reminded of John DeCamp's comment at the end of this shocking documentary: "When you control the media, the justice department, and the police, you control the system."

Time appears to be firmly under "control."

Discovery Channel doc is here:

http://www.franklincase.org/silencewinmedia.htm

I wrote a letter to Time last night making similar points, and was going to blog about it later today. (I was waiting for permission to use some images)

Scooped again!

The entire thing was stupid for all the points you mention but the thing that I harped on what the claim that the Patiot Act hasn't been abused, something clearly factually false.

...the concluding paragraph of her latest post, which connects the dots from the current financial crises to the criticisms of Obama's pastor:

When I read about rightwing jerks attacking Rev. Wright for telling the truth when they themselves have created the mess we are in (huge expensive war, nose-diving economy, rotting infrastructure, climate change dead ahead, Constitution in shambles, White House occupied by delusional idiot) I know we have entered, not the golden age that the shallow, ignorant economists predicted, but a true iron age of conflict, death, and destruction.

wrong thread!

LETTER TO Senator McCaskill

3/16/08

How can you expect your constituents to approve you voting and siding with the Bush administration? With a Cheney surveillance bill???

"I just don’t think we should punish these companies for their good-faith reliance on government assurances that they were assisting in a legal effort to combat terrorism. If the government violated our surveillance laws by eavesdropping without the necessary warrants, then it is the Administration – not the telecoms – that needs to be held accountable..." (McCaskill's letter).

WRONG. This was decided at the Nuremberg trials...Government cannot order you to break the law. Americans found you will be held accountable if you knew you were breaking the law.

Their "good faith reliance" was based on lucrative government contracts. You really need to get out of Washington more to know what the rest of the country is thinking. No one but the republicans who are peddling this idea believes it....and maybe 18 ill advised democrats.

Bush firmly believes that if he tells someone to do something illegal, that they will be protected by the law, they should go ahead and do it knowing it is illegal and knowing they are breaking the law. 1) the telecoms were breaking the law long before 9/11 with warantless wiretapping of Americans (you do not even know who they were spying on or for what reason because they will not reveal that information to you); 2) The telecoms have a team of legal experts who knew they were breaking the law all along and whose illegal activities were only found out through leaked information to the press; 3) As soon as the FBI failed to pay their surveillance phone bills the telecoms shut down their wire taps in progress...so much for acting out of patriotism; and finally 4) the most important point is the telecoms would not have cooperated except for the lucrative government contracts they were given for their cooperation.

The House had the courage to stand for the rule of law allowing the courts to settle what the telecoms were doing and allowing them to offer evidence privately before a judge to prove their claims. What you fail to acknowledge is that you have been cutting your own throat by siding with Cheney and Rockefeller on this issue. This administration could have been spying and gathering info on your own campaign donors and other dems as well for they will not reveal the details of their spying on Americans even to congress. We would all be better protected if no new FISA bill were made into law than the one passed by the senate.

Is this how you believe your voters wanted you to act...ignoring the polls and joining with republicans (Cheney?) who have brought nothing but disaster in everything they have done? We could have just left the republicans in office if this is what we wanted. Maybe this is how you think you need to act to be accepted in the senate but this is not what we thought we were voting for. We expect you to challenge the president and the republicans on everything. We can't get them out of office fast enough. Political action groups are forming and raising funds to target republican voting democrats of which you will be one. Remember...bipartisanship to a republican is known as "date rape". This vote will come back to haunt you and 17 other democrats who obviously think like Cheney and the most unpopular president in our nation's history who are using this telecom amnesty issue as a means of covering their own lawbreaking behavior...which should be made obvious to you by how blatantly Bush has been lying about the issue. But like you, he assumes voters are ignorant and are believing his misrepresentations (lies). Voters have changed...out of necessity they are coming out in droves to save what is left of our democracy and our freedoms. Stop being such a disappointment to the people who put you in office. Vote democratic. Stand up against the fear mongering and the privatization of our democracy.

Reagan is dead...his policies may live on but we are in the process of doing something about that as well. The nine most beautiful words in the english language that are like music to the ears of those devastated by disaster are..."I'm from the government and I'm here to help". Time to take our country back. No to telecom amnesty...we do not reward lawbreakers. The House has finally stood up. Now it is your turn.

Sincerely....voter.

More people than you can imagine here in MO are very angry at the warrantless surveillance program in operation to the point that they now assume everything they communicate is being monitored. We live in fear of this administration...of what it might do next...and this is exactly what they counted on. Many of us who helped put McCaskill in office are speculating that she has either been intimidated or bought as she has sided with the republicans on nearly every important issue and is not the progressive we voted for. If she thinks it was republicans switching their votes that got her elected she's in for a big surprise. Our greeting here in MO is "Welcome to the New World Order"...psst...don't say a word...they're listening.