"was yellowcake, which cannot be weaponized"

that the FISA discussion was problematical for the regulars here, by the way my unfortunate mention of an OT subject was immediately pounced upon. Heh.

... give an entirely new depth of meaning to the phrase "invulnerably stupid."

Yeah, you're right that the $25B or whatever spending it was Bush agreed not to block in exchange for FISA "reform" was cheap, cheap, cheap. In the overall budget, it's a drop in the bucket, but sometimes these little things, like GI Bills and VA funding and whatnot have a bigger symbolic purpose.

In this case, the programs and their funding are important in and of themselves, but more important, in the framework of the Institution of Government and Congress, is the demonstration that by yielding on "A" you can achieve "B".

That used to be the way the Congress worked all the time. Horsetrading like that almost stopped with the advent of the Gingrich Revolution, and it ground to a complete halt for most purposes when the Busheviks seized the Government.

The mutual backpatting going on within the Palace appears unseemly because we don't see any real "compromise." All we see is a FISA "reform" that further consolidates power in the executive and further shreds the Constitution, and like Good Americans, we won't have it!

We don't see what Bush yielded on, or even that he yielded, because it looks like he got everything he wanted on FISA. But in fact, he did yield on the war supplemental, something he said he'd never do, "$108 Means 108!" So Congress -- not just Dems, but Congress as an institution -- got something important to them out of the deal. GI Bill, VA funding, NOLA levee repairs, unemployment insurance extension is part of it, but more important for the institution is the return of horsetrading to the political process.

Obama played this very badly. He actually could have made the case that there were bigger factors involved in his decision to support the (very flawed) FISA "reform," and he could have said: "Look, we're getting back some of the institutional strength that Congress used to have. By yielding on FISA 'reform,' but not yielding too much, we were able to convince the White House not to block necessary funding for (yadda, yadda, yadda), something they have been adamant about not funding until now. Restoring the institutional viability of your Congress is as important a Constitutional consideration as the privacy issues of the Fourth Amendment. We haven't done a perfect job; this is really just a first step, after years and years of 'my way or the highway' from the Bush Administration. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have a national Congress that actually has a function again."

Or something to that effect.

Instead, he shot himself in the foot.

Oh well. He's young. He'll learn.

your reply to ondelette was. It should be clear that under this bill:

1. NSA gets all US-foreign communication.

2. It does whatever it can with it, and we do not know the limits of their capabilities.

3. This can lead to all sorts of abuses (you saw at least one example).

4. When getting the US-foreign, they will probably get a lot more that they should not have.

Does this sound like what you said? But to summarize: data-mining requires the data. It does not take Yogi Berra to say "You can learn a lot by reading the data."

I'll admit to pouncing if you like, but how do you defend being so fantastically wrong? I mean, really, it wasn't like you were mentioning some cultish thing that appeared in Conspiracy Monthly--anyone who reads the daily paper or even looks at Yahoo headlines would have known that one.

I remain very unclear about the "rights" (euphemistically speaking" of anyone on American soil who was not lucky enough to be a born-citizen (and I think even a few born-of-non-citizens have had their "rights" abridged).

Over the last 20-30 years under the guise of the War on Drugs (and Crime), the rights of "aliens" -- as far as I can tell -- including permanent resident aliens, holders of green cards and even naturalized citizens have been gutted and already represent a now third and fourth tier with different rules.

I discovered the still-warehoused Mariel boatlift prisoners in the late 1990's (around 1997) and was stunned to discover that they had NO rights ... which seems to have been the model for Guantanamo and other "irregular" detentions. Then came Juan Padilla (and John Walker Lindh -- I'm not sure most people know what a travesty his trial was), American citizens, born and bred, but treated as "we're still working out the details" outliers.

Just because FISA is not bugging your domestic calls, as far as I can tell, it doesn't necessarily mean that your calls/emails/bank records are not being vacuumed up -- saved for some future subpoena under some other authority -- or even perused as a peripheral matter under some other party criminal warrant

I can see...

that the FISA discussion was problematical for the regulars here, by the way my unfortunate mention of an OT subject was immediately pounced upon. Heh.

Shooter

Below the box in which we type our comments, is the Salon "letters" policy. The last line reads:

If you are experiencing a problem with our Letters feature or wish to complain about a letter, please send us e-mail at lettersproblems@salon.com.

That's lettersproblems@salon.com

If you feel a poster is only trying to disrupt a "problematical" discussion, for God's (and Glen's) sake, e-mail Salon about it! Try doing that rather than feeding the troll damn it!

That will be my policy from now on. Only the Salon editors can do anything about this. And only a considerable volume of complaints will have any effects.

There is no reason to put up with an admitted, and proud of it, troll.

If you think that arguing over facts established for years with someone who chooses to ignore them, and gull a new series of posters, is something you want to do, that's up to you.

Considering the number of new, well informed posters, and the number of long-time committed posters, there is no reason to get kicked in the teeth to get the letters numbers up.