That Liberal Media

The Times headline writer is not hyperventilating after Russ Feingold got his censure hearing:

Call to Censure Bush Is Answered by a Mostly Empty Echo

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, MARCH 31 — The Senate Judiciary Committee opened a bitter if lopsided debate on Friday over whether Congress should censure President Bush for his domestic eavesdropping program.

Although few Senate Democrats have embraced the censure proposal and almost no one expects the Senate to adopt it, the notion that Democrats may seek to punish Mr. Bush has become a rallying cause to partisans on both sides of the political divide. Republicans called the hearing to give the proposal a full airing as their party sought to use the threat of Democratic punishment of the president to rally their conservative base.

Five Republicans at the hearing took turns attacking the idea as a reckless stunt that could embolden terrorists. Just two Democrats showed up to defend it, arguing that Congress needed to rein in the White House's expansive view of presidential power. The Democrats' star witness was John W. Dean, the former counsel to President Richard M. Nixon who divulged many of the details in the Watergate scandal.

The "star witness" is that American hero, John Dean?  Say no more.

But I have more!  I have a great idea for Dems, actually, and no, you can't pay me for this kind of advice:

"If we in the Congress don't stand up for ourselves and for the American people, we become complicit in the lawbreaking," Mr. Feingold said.

Well, the time for noting Congressional complicity is long past - Congressional leaders have been briefed on this program since its outset.  However, if Dems are seriously interested in demonstrating a desire to take this seriously, rather than simply playing "gotcha" politics with this (should I stop right now?), the next step is simple - rather than wait for the day when a Republican majority censures the President, the Dems should create an opportunity to both demonstrate seriousness of purpose and generate headlines and attention.  How?  Simply by punishing, in some fashion, the complicit Congressional Democrats.

Let the democratic Congressional Caucus vote Nancy Pelosi out of her leadership spot, or censure her, or something.  Move Rep. Jane Harman down a peg in the House Intelligence hierarchy, since she didn't blow the whistle on this NSA program when she moved up to become the ranking Democrat on the committee; and do something similar with Sen. Rockefeller, who was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when Bob Graham overlooked this program as chairman, and is currently the ranking Democrat there.

Headlines, credibility, commitment - it's all there.  Won't happen, of course, but there it is.

Comments

[Gary Maxwell]

Way too many of them are already claiming they dont know Feingold, never met the man and cant even spell his name! There wont be any Jane Harman demotions. That would be much to consistent and frankly would let the mask slip too much and let the inattentive public get a goods look at the true face of the Democrat Party today.

But we may get more pandering, like we did yesterday from Howie Dean, accusing Bush of trying to use the illegal immigration debate to score political points ( on an issue he supposed agrees with the President on).

My disgust meter buried the needle awhile back and I have not bothered to have it fixed since I think the needle would just bury in the red zone again.

[clarice]

TM is a damned agitator.LOL

[Joe Mealyus]

I don't see where the April Fools angle is here, but there are two obvious answers:

1. Rockefeller, Pelosi and Harman were not given enough information to understand the assault on the Constitution that was taking place - the structure of "oversight" has become a sham. And remember, Democrats *have* been complaining, very loudly and diligently, about not being given enough info wrt intelligence-gathering and so on.

2. The harm to the country from continued Republican dominance trumps principle here; patriotic Democratic must put aside their desire for truth and justice and concentrate on what's best for the nation.

[Neo]

There is no there there.

The whole NSA program had "oversight by public domain."

[Gary Maxwell]

Joe

those are you only towe "obvious" answers. Here is an obvious you missed. The program is entirely legal and a great majority Americans agree with listening in on Al Queda phone calls from outside the US to anyone here. Prety fing obvious to me.

[danking70]

Hey Joe, what ever happened to a "closed session of Congress"?

Are those only reserved for political stunts?

[richard mcenroe]

Joe — All them smart Democrats duped by the dummy Bush again, huh?

Hell of a selling point, I gotta say...

[Rick Ballard]

"The harm to the country from continued Republican dominance trumps principle"

How does one trump a card that has never been played?

[Other Tom]

Joe's assertion is, quite simply, factually incorrect. No Democrat who has been briefed on the program has claimed not to have been given enough information, and no Democrat who has been briefed has called for the cessation of the program. Harman said she considered the program necessary and vital. Every court that has considered the issue--and there have been four of them, including the FISA court--has said that what the president has done is within his inherent authority under the constitution.

Don't you all just love the felon John Dean? He has made a career out of saying and doing preposterously stupid things, and it is nice to see he hasn't retired. He has now become a sort of wind-up doll; you wind him up and he says "worse than Nixon!" His claim that the NSA program is worse than anything Nixon did provides a nice sound bite, and is a certain headline-maker, but is utterly absurd on its face.

[Jake - but not the one]

Perhaps we shouldn't censure any Dems w/o an investigation. Certainly that seems to be the Republican answer to Bush's clear statement that his administration is breaking the law.

Of course, so far the Rubber Stamp congress hasn't actually investigated much (anything? not sure). Then again, there is that pesky little bit where the Dems who were "informed" were told that if they breathed a word to anyone about it, they would be, what is it, that lunatic right thing, oh yes - tried for treason. That might give them pause for thought, eh?

Moving on.

I am not anyone else, just me. I read here because TM was highly recommended by a more liberal blog than this one - as a replacement for Ben.

Moving on again.

Rick put up a post I can't find where he spoke in pejorative terms of "Hegelian historicism". At least I can't find it in a quick review of the past few posts and the comments. The question is, Rick, what did your comment mean? I did some reading on Hegel today, and I can't make sense of the historical context (how's that for a self referential statement!) and the antipathy exhibited in your post.

I thought of a satire at first, taking of on a new Star Trek movie, The Hegelian Historicism Cluster War or something, and Spock would have been the cool rational one, with Kirk of course going of on narcissicism and whatever else was in Rick's post.

But alas, it would have taken too long to do well, and if you can't do it well, at least do it quick, but now I can't even find the post, so I think that qualifies as not quick enough.

Hence, the simple question.

Jake

[Bill]

Feingold must know by now that the program was constitutional and legal simply because of the lack of support from those who were informed of the program. Feingold must also knows any real investigation such as impeachment hearings in the House and a trial in the Senate would make the Democrats look ridiculous since he is calling for punishment without a conviction.

Perhaps the Feingold should be called Senator Ironpyrite.

[Jake - but not the one]

Bill, do you believe that some things are "true" regardless of who else believes in them, or who espouses belief? Isn't that a kind of relativism? I thought the radical right believed that truth is absolute?

Because your argument amounts to little more than very few are publicly supporting Feingold so he should admit he is wrong. Frankly, I think he's right. So that makes two of us. Is that enough consensus for a provisional truth?

Jake

[Sue]

How exactly does a censure of a president work? Isn't censure for members of the senate? Impeachment for the president? Is Feingold trying to do something that isn't provided in the constitution? Or statute?

[Joe Mealyus]

RM: "All them smart Democrats duped by the dummy Bush again, huh?"

Jake but not the one: "Then again, there is that pesky little bit where the Dems who were "informed" were told that if they breathed a word to anyone about it, they would be, what is it, that lunatic right thing, oh yes - tried for treason."

Duped? Or (as Jbnto suggests) emasculated? It's a tough call.

[SteveMG]

Jake:
"Hegelian historicism"

Not sure how Rick meant it but if I recall my college philosophy classes Hegel thought that history, or more accurately, History has a final purpose or end goal. And that all of these seemingly disparate world events or conflicts between/among nations has a final purpose or will lead, eventually, to a conclusive end. Sort of a secular interpretation of the Christian chiliasm or millenialism.

In other words, history has a teleological aspect to it, to use a fancy word. An end purpose. As you may know, this idea was quite influential on Marx who viewed communism as being the culmination of history's "end".

My guess he was using it in part to criticize Francis Fukuyma's argument that "history had ended" and that liberal, representative democracy had won out as the definitive way of arranging society.

And yes, this will be on the final.

Anyway, I liked Schopenhauer much better. Easier to understand; although his theory of "the will" is really quite chilling and scary.

SMG

[Jake - but not the one]

The truth is (that pesky truth again!) I'd like to say "A pox on both their houses" but in these times the middle is most definitely excluded. There is the right (far, FAR, right) and then there is everyone else. By default I am cast amongst the "everyone" else.

So I think, from what little I know of Pelosi and Rockefella, that maybe their time in the spotlight is up.

Along with Lieberman and a whole host of unprincipled war mongers.

And more than a few unprincipled non-war mongers.

Jake

PS - I don't keep a hit-list, but were I to do so, my two Senators - Inhofe and Coburn - would definitely be on it.

[Sue]

told that if they breathed a word to anyone about it, they would be, what is it, that lunatic right thing, oh yes - tried for treason."

And all those who were, in scary quotes, informed, are now feverishly working on ways to prevent something like this from happening again. I expect to see a concerted effort by those who were, in scary quotes, informed, to pass legislation allowing a senator or congressman to address grievances or complaints about programs that they are not sure are legal without the threat of treason looming large.

[Bill]

do you believe that some things are "true" regardless of who else believes in them, or who espouses belief?

There are somethings that are true even if no one believes them to be true. That is the opposite of relativism.

Since I don't know the facts of the program I have no direct evidence whether it is legal or illegal. But I can, and do, reason from the actions of those who do.

Imagine the following situation being made plain to the American public:

X in Pakistan is being monitored. X calls Y in, oh say somewhere in "Palestine" and says go blow up some refineries in Houston, Texas. Feingold has no problem with us monitoring that but if Y were in Palestine, Texas Feingold has a problem with it.

[Jake - but not the one]

Steve, I have yet to read your law article. Interests have moved on, at least for the moment. That, and Thu turned out to be a LONG day.

Yes, I read about the interpretations to which you refer. But at least in the past 15 years or so (from an article, not personal knowledge), Hegel has been receiving a makeover. Marx, in his own words, had to turn Hegel on his head.

Fukuyama, whom we recently discussed, wrote an article back in '89 that talks of this very thing, and he didn't quite have Rick's take on the whole historicism thing.

Which is why I remain interested in from whence comes Rick - in the ideological sense only. :)

Schopenhauer apparently didn't like Hegel either.

Jake

[Rick Ballard]

Jake,

Here you go.

The 'Influences on Marx's Philosophy' section covers your question - note the reference to Feuerbach as well. It's all part of that wonderful synthesis best recalled by the mnemonic "Hegel to Heidegger to Hitler". Marx and LeComte were simply way stations that became main terminals. Sophists masquearding as sophisticates from beginning to end with all the murder and immiseration that even the most inept of idle dreamers could ever hope to try and disclaim.

[SteveMG]

Jake:
Along with Lieberman and a whole host of unprincipled war mongers.

Right.

And you're not on "the left". It's just us on the far, far right and all of you centrists and moderates like Glenn Greenwald and Paul Krugman and Russ Feingold.

I think you may have accidently let the mask slip there, Jake.

Someone who thinks a Feingold is a centrist has a very peculiar political yardstick that they're using.

I guess you think a Pelosi and a Kennedy and a Rockefeller and a Levine are middle-of-the-roaders too?

SMG

[Bill]

Sue, the Senate has no Constitutional power or authority to censure the President. But, that has not kept them from doing so in the past.

[Jake - but not the one]

Bill, neither Feingold nor any other democrat has a problem with GW monitoring calls from your X to ANY Y anywhere. Feingold's only beef, and mine, is that if Y is a US citizen in the US, GW must follow the law and take his tap to the FISA court.

After the fact, if time is an issue.

So you see, there is no dispute about monitoring the conversations of suspected terrorists. We ALL want those conversations monitored.

All I ask is the GW do it in accordance with the law - a law written to make those very conversations about which we speak subject to a LEGAL wiretap.

Jake

[Jake - but not the one]

Steve, I'll be truthful - I am almost ignorant of Feingold's ideology, other than that he voted against the Iraq AUMF, against the Patriot Act, and wants to censure GW. Those three things I agree with.

Jake

[Bill]

Jake, how do you know that what the NSA is doing is not legal?

Do you have any proof that there is a violation of the law?

Is the law Constitutional?

Is the law Constitutional in this particular instance?

[clarice]

Jake, why do you think that if the tap reveals information about someone in the US the NSA doesn't give it to the FBI to get a FISA warrant to continue surveilling the suspect on US soil? Because I'm reasonably certain that is what we are doing.

Neo, you win wit of the day award..

[PeterUK]

"I did some reading on Hegel today, and I can't make sense of the historical context (how's that for a self referential statement!) and the antipathy exhibited in your post."

Just colour it in then.

[PeterUK]

Bill,
Or as it is more commonly known "Fools Gold".

[PeterUK]

"Duped? Or (as Jbnto suggests) emasculated? It's a tough call."
How do you emasculate Nancy Pelosi?

[PeterUK]

Mr Ballard,
Is it now necessary to tutor the left on Marxism?

[Rick Ballard]

Mr Uk,

Fortunately Dr. Sanity has prepared a primer for that eventuality. I would suggest that it be read with Feelings playing softly in the background.

You raise an interesting point above - considering the current state of leftist thought perhaps a decent market for Marx colouring books exists and should be exploited?

By evil capitalists, of course.

[SteveMG]

Jake:
Steve, I'll be truthful

Please, can we not engage in the "war mongers" characterization? Joe Lieberman is no "war monger."

We had a debate throughout the 1990s about the dangers that we believe Iraq posed to us, our friends, and our interests in the region.

There was unanimity on the need for regime change in Iraq. Granted, we may have disagreed on the methods, but not the need.

This isn't an ANSWER demonstration. We've got some smart and literate folks here even if they have views you (or I) disagree with.

Not to sound like a prissy ass (or too much of one) but TM runs a great site. I think we all welcome the willingness of others to come here and enage in a spirited debate. But let's argue in good faith.

And I admit my side can get testy too.

Okay, off my soap box.

SMG

[PeterUK]

Good idea Mr Ballard,may I suggest for marketing purposes we call the publishing company "The Green Co-operative"?

[Jake - but not the one]

Lieberman voted for the Iraq AUMF and will not admit error.

Iraq was not what it was advertised to be, Steve. If Joe wants to keep his dem creds he's going to have come to see the error of his ways.

Now, on to PeterUK. In the reading I did today, Hegel and Marxism were discussed. Also discussed was that Marxism is NOT Hegelian historicism, and that Marx is said to have said that he had to turn Hegel on his head - to make it work for him, I think was the meaning.

So you see, it's not so easy to come to the convenient but possibly wrong position that Marxism and Hegel historicism have anything in common. Other than bad research, anyway.

BTW, you misspelled "color".

Jake

[Warmongering Lunatic]

Let me quote the FISA Court of Review, in its first decision ever, In Re: Sealed Case

"The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power."

One can argue that the interpretation is wrong. However, if the FISA Court of Review interpreted the Constitution in such a manner, it is clearly legitimate, in the absence of any controlling precedent, for the Department of Justice to have similarly interpreted; and as a legitimate interpretation by the Department of Justice, is is clearly legitimate for the President to accept and use that expert interpretation.

Censure is accordingly unjust, even if the interpretation of the FISA Court of Review and the Department of Justice was incorrect and the searches were illegal (and note under the binding Turong precedent they were certainly constitutional even if illegal).

So, if we should punish the President unjustly, then consistency in applying the principle of punishing people unjustly demands we punish Democratic Congressmen who knew of the program unjustly as well. Anything less is partisan-motivated hypocrisy.

[Jake - but not the one]

Clarice, I am reasonably certain that is not what we are doing.

I am brought to that state of certainty by General Hayden's own words when he spoke on the program. This is quoted from the ACLU site on the NSA suit.

General Hayden has said: “I can say unequivocally that we have used this program in lieu of [the FISA process] and this program has been successful.”

And again:

General Hayden has said, “[t]he trigger [to intercept communications] is quicker and a bit softer than it is for a FISA warrant...

No warrants, no suggestion of warrants. Also, no cases. Isn't that interesting? There appear to be no cases that rest upon information garnered with this "softer" than FISA process.

Can you point me to a case where the FBI was pointed in the right direction and obtained a warrant?

Case being a loose term meaning an article somewhere. I am not being picky here - just the opposite.

Jake

[SteveMG]

If Joe wants to keep his dem creds he's going to have come to see the error of his ways.

Oceans are nice things. One can go sailing or swimming in them. Unfortunately, they no longer are sufficient barriers against threats to this country. We can't hide behind them anymore.

Lieberman understands that. Unfortunately the rest of his party apparently still thinks it's September 10, 2001.

Yes, yes, Iraq was not involved in those attacks. But the terrorist threat emanating from the Middle East doesn't solely or exclusively originate from Saudi exiles. It also comes from dysfunctional (if you will) or failed regimes.

Poor old Joe is trying but his former friends just won't listen. They dislike Bush more than they dislike this new reality.

You ever read any of Sayyid Qatb's (or Qutb) writings?

SMG

[PeterUK]

Jake,A whole day reading Hegel? Anyway on to Hegel and Marx,there is the importance of the">http://www.kheper.net/topics/philosophy/Hegel_and_Marx.html"> Dialectic and other ideas in this nice, simple coloured diagram.Yes ,I understand English cofuses you.
Well that's another of your days filled and we haven't even got round to the sand pit yet.

[PeterUK]

Sorry "confuses you",just in case you get confused.

[Jake - but not the one]

About the Sealed Case. One of the questions recently put to the DOJ by dems is as follows (from Glenn Greenwald. ):

36. Was any judge on the FISA court of review informed of the NSA program as part of the briefing of the 2002 appellate case, In re Sealed Case? Were any of the lawyers on that case read into the program? How many?

Here's the administration's response:

As we noted above, the identity of individuals who have been briefed into the Terrorist Surveillance Program is generally classified. We note, however, that In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d 717 (For. Int. Surv. Ct. Rev. 2002), involved whether the FISA Court had statutory or constitutional authority to place restrictions on interaction of criminal prosecutions and foreign intelligence investigators as a condition for granting surveillance orders. The Terrorist Surveillance Program would not have been relevant to the question before the court in that case.

.
.

Read the last sentence - The Terrorist Surveillance Program would not have been relevant to the question before the court in that case. This is the DOJ speaking. Can it be any plainer? Not even the administration believes that the Sealed Case applies to the illegal NSA spying program.

So the Sealed Case is not an opinion on the current circumstances at all. It is some kind of opinion on GW's authority under the constitution - but not about his authority in reference to FISA. The DOJ says so.

Jake

[Bill]

Also, no cases. Isn't that interesting? There appear to be no cases that rest upon information garnered with this "softer" than FISA process.

Nor would there be, Jake. It is not purpose of the program to make a legal case against terrorists but it is the purpose of the program to stop terrorist acts before they occur.

[Barney Frank]

All this talk of Marx, Hegel and Heidegger gets me confused. So I went to the definitive analysis of all this philosophical historicism; Monty Python. I think this sums it up.......

Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.
Heideggar, Heideggar was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel.
And Whittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nieizsche couldn't teach 'ya 'bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stewart Mill, of his own free will, after half a pint of shanty was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
And Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.

Here's a site to listen to it.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/bruces'-song.htm

[PeterUK]

Bill,
In fact making a case against terrorists would involve the ACLUs of this world and utterly impede the process.

[richard mcenroe]

We have to thank Jake for coming here again and reminding us once more there is no honest discussion with anybody on the left (sorry, the "center"...)

Jake would have us believe after four years of Sunday chat shows, and lavish coverage in the mainstream press, that he only knows a "little" about the positions of Feingold, Pelosi and Rockefeller.

This is equivalent of the protesters who can march alonside the WRP and Spartacist reds while insisting they have nothing to do with them.

Jake might want to reflect on the fact that when Peter was said reject Jesus three times, it was a parable of how his faith was weak...

[JM Hanes]

Jake

"There is the right (far, FAR, right) and then there is everyone else."

ROTFLMAO! Of course, you're hardly alone in deciding to ignore the left as a position with no effective existence.

[Neo]

You'd think that a hearing of this sort, given all due respect, should start out by determining if, in fact, a crime, possible crimes or merely a major "dissing" had been perpetrated by the subject of the censure.

No .. it starts with these hacks from the Political-Legal Jingoistic Complex to give a real "partisan edge" to the hearings. Perhaps the Judiciary Committee hearings last week, when the 5 FISA judges said that it is, without knowing the particulars of the NSA program, quite possible that the whole thing is within the Constitutional powers of the President and therefore quite legal, took the wind out of those sails.

You got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em.

[JM Hanes]

The Democratic mainstream folded this hand the day poll #1 came out.

[Jake - but not the one]

So, Steve, I read some on Sayyed. Interesting read. He's been dead 40 years.

But then the Prophet's been dead some 1300 years (I forget exactly) Jesus has been dead a little less than 2000 years, the Buddha something like 2600 years, so it's not like words don't live on.

Bad men exist. Everywhere. It pays to pay attention to them. Somehow I don't think the debacle in Iraq has done much to discourage Islamic extremism and reduce the numbers of "bad" men in the world.

And about those oceans - don't you think it would be a good idea to secure out ports? And I don't mean the Dubai deal, I mean putting in place actual security and screening at ports where cargo is unloaded off ships. It seems we don't do that well, and that it isn't a big deal for this Republican congress.

Jake

[PeterUK]

Neo,
"You got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em."

They have not as yet got over Mao dying.

[PeterUK]

Neo,
Jake has just folded...If in doubt change the subject.

[Jake - but not the one]

I love this quote -

"Democrats disagree? Of course they disagree. If they didn't disagree, they'd be Republicans!"

Kind of goes to the heart of things, doesn't it?

Jake

[Joe Mealyus]

Me: "Duped? Or (as Jbnto suggests) emasculated? It's a tough call."

PeterUK: "How do you emasculate Nancy Pelosi?"

Okay, perhaps I should have summarized Jake - but not the one's view of the Democrats as "rendered spineless and child-like."

[SteveMG]

So, Steve, I read some on Sayyed. Interesting read. He's been dead 40 years.

Unfortunately, his ideas and thoughts about the West aren't so dead.

Old Joe knows that but he can't convince others.

Like I said, oceans are nice but we can't hide behind them much longer. I wish we could; it'd be nice to tell the rest of the world to go to Hell.

Unfortunately, there's folks out there that would like to take us with them.

SMG

[SteveMG]

And I don't mean the Dubai deal, I mean putting in place actual security and screening at ports where cargo is unloaded off ships

Sure, clearly we can do more and better here. This is one issie where most of the Democrats are ahead of the Republicans (although I can't help but think the Democrats see it as a new jobs program for their union supporters; hey, I can be cynical too).

Frankly, I'm more concerned about the cargo being loaded onto the ship and not as much about the cargo being unloaded once it gets here.

Don't need to unload a nuclear device off a ship. Just sail it into the harbor and well...

SMG

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I am not anyone else, just me.

If you were someone else, would you know?

[Lew Clark]

Actually, I am someone else posting as me. But lately, I've noticed me posting as someone else. So to clear things up, both of us are going to post as some other one else.

[larwyn]

SMG,
Don't even have to get into the harbor, just within range it you have it on a missle.

LARWYN'S CSPAN RANT (CONT'D)

Actually I want to thank them, they have Friday's Senate Judiciary hearing on a continuous loop since I watched it live yesterday morning.

As only Leahy sat with the good Sen "ironpyrite" (tks Bill) it is really an embarassment. But anything is worth getting those Dean soundbites into the CSPAN audience.

Now, they have not broadcast the hearing from last week with the FICA judges as they never taped the
Able Danger Hearing. And to add insult to injury they ran Kerry's speech in Vermont(?) weekend of GOP
meeting in Tennessee.

Have Dems slated for the "Road to the White House" series this weekend. Still have not broadcast any of the speeches from Tennessee.

Per Brian Lamb - "We are neutral".
Yes Brian, that is why early last Sunday morning you had CNN'S line up for Blitzer's Sunday show with
Logo - alone - no FNS lineup.

Suggest they change C-SPAN to C-LIBS.

[PeterUK]

"Okay, perhaps I should have summarized Jake - but not the one's view of the Democrats as "rendered spineless and child-like."

Hardly,they have been fighting like good warriors of the Jihad for the last three years.No wonder they don't want their phones tapped.

[larwyn]

Charlie(CO) & Lew,
Are either of you Finnety?

[kim]

Hey Jake, I've heard Wikipedia called TrekCentralStation.
==================================

[kim]

Organistic metaphysics. Spits.
====================

[woof]

Not even the administration believes that the Sealed Case applies to the illegal NSA spying program.

You mean the legal NSA terrorist surveillance program.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

It is some kind of opinion on GW's authority under the constitution - but not about his authority in reference to FISA.

We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power."

You are reading this backward. The DOJ IS arguing that FISA does not apply, just as this 'some kind of opinion' says. You do remember that the Constitution is a higher law than the FISA don't you?

[woof]

By the way, can anybody tell me where to buy that John Dean's new book. It was really nice of Russ Feingold to let him plug it wasn't it? (He worked for Nixon - you know -- cloven hoofs, the whole nine yards!!!)

[boris]

We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.

What the FISA Court of review Takes For Granted is not what they ruled on in the sealed case. Therefore details of the classified NSA program were not relevant.

The relevence of what the FISA Court of review Takes For Granted applies to delusional moonbats who want to believe that there is no judicial support for the executive on this issue. DoJ has in fact asserted exactly what the FISA Court of review Takes For Granted.

Since the supreme court is more likely to support what the FISA Court of review Takes For Granted than what a partisan dimwit like my junior senator from Wisconsin says, don't expect SCOTUS to rule against the executive on this issue.

[MissScarlett]

Do y'all know if there's any truth to the rumor that John Dean's wife Maureen is an ex-call girl?

Mr. Jake, can you tell me how many containers come through US ports every day and the number of man hours required to inspect them? Is such a thing at all feasible? Thank you.

[larwyn]

Woof,
I tuned into the hearings live on friday, but missed the very beginning. Apparently "a Senator from Texas" had made a remark re Dean's new book. I was watching when he made his statement.

This is paraphase unless in quotes:
I'm here not to sell my next book, but because I think it is important that this committee
"hear from the DARKSIDE".
"My new book" doesn't come out until "this summer".

Now, I will not swear to this in court, but I did see this strange bubble over his head and it contained this strange message:

Summer being a long way from Mar 31st, especially with all those pesky LSM appearances I will have to make to tell about my testimony before this committee. Ca Ching! Ca Ching!

[maryrose]

We have not had an attack since 9/11. I guess the workers at the docks are keeping us safe enough. When you bring facts and logic into the debate that's usually the point where a dems eyes roll back into their head.
OT
I thought the recently released hostage's comments that she Miss Carroll was afraid to say they had been abusive to her both sad and deeply troubling. No one doing humanitarian work should be subjected to this kind of treatment. It makes me want to fight the WOT even harder.

[Foo Bar]

Other Tom:

Joe's assertion is, quite simply, factually incorrect. No Democrat who has been briefed on the program has claimed not to have been given enough information

Here's an excerpt from Rockefeller's">http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/12/senator_rockefe.php">Rockefeller's handwritten letter to Cheney back in '03:

Without more information and the ability to draw on any independent legal or techical expertise, I simply cannot satisfy lingering concerns raised by the briefing we received.

[maryrose]

Gee that letter of Rockefeller's really carries some punch doen't it? end sarcasm. Rocky better have more than this mealy-mouthed missive when he is called in to testify about leaking classified information to the NYT.

[topsecretk9]

Mary
And too bad for Rock, that the NYT's reported the existence of the letter BEFORE Rockefeller said he wrote it...leaker anyone?

[cathyf]

Jake, why do you think that if the tap reveals information about someone in the US the NSA doesn't give it to the FBI to get a FISA warrant to continue surveilling the suspect on US soil?

But, according to the FISC judges who have broken the law and talked to the NYT, the would deny the warrant because they believe that a terrorist in New Jersey who is monitored talking to Osama bin Laden in Pakistan has had his rights violated. If it were a normal criminal court, and the guy in New Jersey was monitored talking to a drug lord in Columbia, the normal non-FISC judges would have no problem signing the warrant.

cathy :-)

[larwyn]

John Dean at MacsMind, Mac never fails to tell us what he really thinks.
Party of Slime

A dusty old felon from the past resurfaced this week, this time to join in yet another moonbat parade against President Bush. Yes the old burglar himself, Watergate mastermind John Dean. You know, the guy who ordered Watergate, and then found a way to pin it on a President to save his own sorry ass.
Cornyn, R-Texas, branded Dean's appearance "odd" because the attorney was "selling a book ... and is a convicted felon."
.....SNIP
Dean, who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in 1973, seemed almost immune to such jabs. Feingold introduced the witness as a patriot, and Dean then introduced himself Friday by smiling slightly and saying, "I think it's important that the committee sometimes hear from the dark side. ... I have probably more experience firsthand than anybody might want in what can go wrong and how a president can get on the other side of the law."

Mac has much more including the History of "Leaky Leahy" the only other Dem Senator that sat at the committee hearing.

[larwyn]

closed wrong tag! Yikes.

[Jim Rockford]

Jake ---
After decades of "run away, run away" culminating in Bill Clinton's feckless impotence (not bombing Osama because Defense Dept Lawyers said property would be damaged) ... GWB kicked Osama's footsie buddy Saddam in the rear. And right out of power.

THAT concentrated minds wonderfully and got plenty of attention. Name of the game in the ME is not to be pulled out from your own personal spider hole.

As for the NSA program, most Americans would say that if GWB was NOT listening in to suspected terrorists in comms with nasties abroad he should be censured.

Go ahead, Dems. Make GWB's day. CENSURE HIM for LISTENING IN TO OSAMA's CALLS. Yeah, that's the ticket. Every time I stop believing in Karl Rove's mind-rays, I get evidence to the contrary.

"We want to treat Osama as a trivial legal matter" ... yeah that's a winning slogan for Dems. Good luck with that.

[kim]

You know, Foobar, you've missed us ridiculing the not-so-good Senator from West Virginia for Immortalizing his ignorance and impotence in that little note to himself. And you want to credit him for that manifesto?
===========================

[larwyn]

Paul Shlichta writes at American Thinker today:
Nostradamus: A Spin Puzzle

April 1st, 2006

[Editor’s Note: This article is satire in celebration of April Fool’s Day.]
Nancy Reagan is a loyal American who has endured false accusations in dignified silence and has steadfastly refused to reveal her key role in U.S. foreign policy. I think it’s time for the truth about Project Nostradamus to be revealed, at least to the extent that security regulations permit.

In the 1960’s, a group of NASA scientists noted a strange correlation between NASA space probes and public events that could only be interpreted by an extrapolation of traditional astrology. The tentative explanation was that a space probe, however small, is a celestial body uniquely identified with the nation that launched it. Therefore, if astrology had any validity, the probe’s encounter with a planet should put that nation strongly under the influence of the planet, e.g. love for Venus and war for Mars.
......It goes on....
Then he gives us the:

Solution to the Spin Puzzle
Here, paragraph by paragraph, are the methods used to distort the facts in yesterday’s article “NASA and Nostradamus”. The ten ploys listed here are but a fraction of the tricks used for deception and hoodwinking—I have already catalogued over fifty—but these are representative of the ones most commonly used by MSM journalists:

Really a Must Read and perhaps an education that should be sent to Mr. Fitzgerald and some of his apologists.

[PeterUK]

Miss Scarlett,
This will give you some idea of what a huge job just policing container traffic would be.
Further many container goods are in bond and under customs seal,they cannot be opened by just anyone.

[Jake - but not the one]

So it is easier to spend as much as a trillion $s and thousands and thousands of lives in a phony war in a foreign land rather than do the things we CAN do to inspect containers? Pardon me if I don't see the logic.

Lets see, attacking OBL, hmmmm. Has anyone read this article about attacking Al Zarqawi? AFTER 9/11?

Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind.

I guess this must be a common failing of recent presidents, no?

Rick, thanks for the link. I followed links all over the place, and the general sense I get of the historical direction of criticism of Hegel is that it has reversed. That Hegel did not promote totalitarianism, that Marx studied Hegel, but used Hegel's work to promote his own ends, that Popper was wrong about a great many things, possibly including Hegel, and so on.

Anyhow, the main thing is thanks for the link.

Jake

[PeterUK]

"So it is easier to spend as much as a trillion $s and thousands and thousands of lives in a phony war in a foreign land rather than do the things we CAN do to inspect containers? Pardon me if I don't see the logic".

Jake,here is some home work,see link above yours,what numbers of personnel,funding and time would it take to inspect containers.
For once let's have a practical solution,this isn't an abstract exercise it is a concrete problem.
Take the figures in the link (2003,they will have increased) and give us your plan,not the Kerryian " I have a plan",but a workable proposition,and do cost it.

[kim]

The logic is attacking the root cause. Why deal impotently forever with an effect? And how did you feel about the Dubai partners thing? Bill's view or Hillary's, or another's?

Enough ad homofaberens. Organicity makes a lot better sense with simple animals. Tell me you're not atomic.
=============================

[Sue]

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2006/04/that_liberal_me.html#comment-15670662>Bill

Once. And it was a political hit job. Withdrawn a few years later. It seems kind of hypocritical of Feingold to be censuring the president for ignoring the constitution by ignoring the constitution. No?

[boris]

From Jake's 2004 msnbc link ...

Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

The delay while attempting to get UN support for the invasion was a mistake. Remember that's one step BJ didn't bother to take in the bombing of Serbia.

[kim]

Feingold is a mess. Larwyn tempted me to a TV for ten minutes of the censure show and the only way that guy gets votes is from the borderlands.

And I suspect Lindsey Graham uses his mind rays to get people to pull the lever.
====================================

[kim]

boris, can you imagine the frustration and irony going through the heads of the administration while they attemped to follow 41's lead through the mess of coalition building? It turns out to have been advantageous after all, for we now know the Poles are steel, and that Italions can show us all how to die.
==================================

[kim]

Is that an Italian Stallion or an Italian Lion? Time to go to the zoo and check out the Quattrones and the Poleaxes.
==================================

[kim]

There's a new habitat with domesticated polecats and Homo fabroccis tending a litter of orphaned andalusians.
================================

[boris]

The Lion of Italy couldn't be a legend in his own time, but he was in ours.

[kim]

I do know why little Johny's grades in math improved after transfer to parochial school for poor performance in public school. Maryrose has heard his explanation: "I saw what they did to the man on the plus sign".
===============================

[kim]

It's almost as bad being witty on the wrong thread as being wrong at the top of your lungs. That last one belonged at Borders, not Harms, and Blowby.

There may be something to 'oversight by public domain'. Hoi tinoi polloi that we are, there is oversight; and I'm betting Fitz is feeling the heat generated by the friction between his 'public' and 'the people'.
========================

[Jake - but not the one]

Here's what we do now to inspect tractor trailer traffic from Mexico into the US. I suspect that we could actually do many of the same things with containers.

A Border Transformed .

Here's an interesting link about two container ports that already scan every container - in Hong Kong.

A Port in the Storm Over Dubai
.

Interestingly eh? Hong Kong already has the kind of inspection on it's container traffic that might do the US some good. Get ready for the punch line - according to Peter's table, the US in TOTAL handles about 25 million TEUs (the units in which container traffic is measured), a big number. According to Wikipedia:

Port of Hong Kong
.

the Port of Hong Kong handled 22 million TEUs in 2005. Just a little less than the US. That kind of implies that maybe we COULD cope with container inspection.

Jake

[kim]

Putting the cart before the horse is as bad as notching the arrow backwards.
===========================

[kim]

Not as bad as pointing the gun at yourself.
==========================

[Rick Ballard]

Intermarriage between the Gump and Snopes family should have been barred by law. The outcome was entirely forseeable.

[kim]

Is that an ad moronem? Jake is fun. Now and then the mask slips and you can see a brain.
================================

[Rick Ballard]

Ad sophmoronem - the veneer must be accounted for. Another emission from the same blog that produced the previous phauxney. Something J if memory does not fail. You may have mistaken a pile of worm castings for a brain.

[Jake - but not the one]

kim, it's not like dealing with it in Iraq is going so well, now is it?

And in any case, you deal with it at BOTH ends. Back to fantasy football - a team with no defense gets spanked every time by a team with both a working offense and a working defense. A team with no offense actually wins once in a while.

Jake

[PeterUK]

"the Port of Hong Kong handled 22 million TEUs in 2005. Just a little less than the US. That kind of implies that maybe we COULD cope with container inspection."

Here we have the true leftist brain at work,Hong Kong is a small island even including the New Territories and Kowloon,not much area to cover.
If you read the list there are some 77 ports spread around continental America,which to my recollection is BIG.

There is the small point that nobody is trying to deliver a bomb to Hong Kong,which is probably why the system works,mainly because it is not known whether it has failed...yet. Of course the Triads can be trusted implicitly
Now onwards to the road links between Canada,Mexico and the US.

[Rick Ballard]

Peter,

One shouldn't leave the waterways without mentioning that small vessels - 30 to 80 footers - enter and traverse a great deal of the US without hindrance every day by the tens of thousands. It's not uncommon knowledge, except, perhaps among the uncommonly stupid bent upon a display of ignorance.

[kim]

Oh, yes, Iraq is doing pretty well. Ask nearly any Iraqi. They are now in charge of their own destiny. Trust in Sistani.
==============================

[kim]

I'm glad to see you agree the stuggle is multistrategic.
===============================