[Winstonm]

Sadly, you are probably right. It's not on American Idol and has nothing to do with Brittney or Paris....

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Jan 5 2008, 03:11 PM, said:

Sadly, you are probably right.  It's not on American Idol and has nothing to do with Brittney or Paris....

YEs....there will be a zillion( that means alot) more minutes in my local paper, tv and radio on britney and paris than this thingy.

Britney at the house
Britney in the ambulance
Britney on the gurney
Britney at the deposition late....in fact 11:32 ...get the facts
Britney at the Hospital

See my Britney all the time newspaper and cable tv channels.

Cia thingy ...whats that?

[Gerben42]

Quote

Britney at the house
Britney in the ambulance
Britney on the gurney
Britney at the deposition late....in fact 11:32 ...get the facts
Britney at the Hospital

See my Britney all the time newspaper and cable tv channels.

You ALMOST got it, forgot to connect the dots.

Britney was drugged by the CIA! If suddenly I don't post here anymore, I'm probably held prisoner somewhere...

[Winstonm]

As long as the CIA doesn't erase the Paris and Britney sex tapes no one will care.

[blackshoe]

Paris and Britney had sex with each other?

[helene_t]

Winstonm, on Dec 24 2007, 05:34 AM, said:

President Bush issued a signing statement that indicated he would follow this law when it did not conflict with national security.

This is completely ridiculous. Nobody would argue in favor of torture in cases where national security was not perceived as an issue. So giving the president a mandate to ignore the law whenever he perceives national security to be an issue is the same as having no law on torture.

If the president thinks torture should be allowed, fair enough. Then he should just veto the bill. Maybe the congress could overrules his veto. In any case, he should chose whether he wants to abide by the law, or resign.

[Winstonm]

helene_t, on Jan 6 2008, 08:10 AM, said:

Winstonm, on Dec 24 2007, 05:34 AM, said:

President Bush issued a signing statement that indicated he would follow this law when it did not conflict with national security.

This is completely ridiculous. Nobody would argue in favor of torture in cases where national security was not perceived as an issue. So giving the president a mandate to ignore the law whenever he perceives national security to be an issue is the same as having no law on torture.

If the president thinks torture should be allowed, fair enough. Then he should just veto the bill. Maybe the congress could overrules his veto. In any case, he should chose whether he wants to abide by the law, or resign.

From his book a gentleman named Glenn Greenwald wrote: (emphasis added)

Quote

President Bush has for several years authorized the National Security Agency to wiretap telephones within the United States without a judicial warrant. Doing so is illegal, but Bush claims that security against terrorism requires it. Here our puzzle arises. The administration thinks that certain wiretaps are necessary. But under existing law, it can readily obtain a warrant from a special court. When warrants have been requested from this court, they have never been denied. Why, then, do the minions of the Bush administration decline to seek a warrant? The answer cannot be that sudden emergency leaves no time to go to court, since the law allows for an immediate wiretap so long as judicial approval is secured a short time later.

As Congress devised the law, the FISA court plays two critical, independent functions — not just warrant approval but also, more critically, judicial oversight. FISA's truly meaningful check on abuse in the eavesdropping process is that the president is prevented from engaging in improper eavesdropping because he knows that every instance of eavesdropping he orders will be known to a federal judge — a high level judicial officer who is not subject to the president's authority … it is precisely that safeguard which President Bush simply abolished by fiat. In effect, President Bush changed the law all by himself, replacing the federal judges with his own employees at the NSA [National Security Agency] and abolishing the approval and warrant process entirely.

So as you seee, the entire Bush Administration does not believe they are above the law; they believe that in matters of national security they are the law.

[mike777]

"So as you seee, the entire Bush Administration does not believe they are above the law; they believe that in matters of national security they are the law."


American History is replete with Presidents who have acted so.....and been accused of acting King like.

We can only hope the next President will consult with his or her lawyers on matters of national security.

Just as we can only hope the next CIA will consult with their lawyers before doing any spy type stuff.

If there is any conflict of interest, hopefully the lawyers can step in and make the decision.

[Al_U_Card]

Ouch! When you give it over to the lawyers......its just like asking your accountant how to do your job......he is just a scorekeeper.

The Bush-league lawyers were probably too busy with their prayer meetings to consider the legal ramifications (as if they knew them based on Gonzales et al) of what laws were being trampled in the name of keeping their interests secure....errr.... national security.

[AisA101]

Sorry, I disagree. To expose our agents to reprisals is counter productive and potentially criminal.

I do NOT agree with McCain he is weak minded and not the only combat veteran to have an opinion. He should realize we are dealing with types that do not even consider the Geneva convention. Cutting the heads off of their captives and using bombs strapped to civilians is common place.

You do not use the Constitution to protect those committed to destroy it!

[Winstonm]

Quote

Sorry, I disagree. To expose our agents to reprisals is counter productive and potentially criminal

Repeat after me:
Valerie Plame is real; Jack Bauer is fiction.
Valerie Plame is real; Jack Bauer is fiction...

Quote

You do not use the Constitution to protect those committed to destroy it!

Exactly! Instead, you use executive orders and signing statements!

[Al_U_Card]

Strange, how the more powerful one gets, the more likely one is to stoop to the most basic methods to achieve their ends. Something about getting lazy or stupid or both...

From what I gather, your constitution (to which you pledge allegiance) contains all sorts of mechanisms for adjustment and alteration....just not at the hand of one individual or one branch of the government. They were quite clever, those framers of the constitution. They understood the use and abuse of power and how to thwart it.

I wonder if any Diebold machines were used to count the votes in New Hampshire? Interesting that the agent of change and novelty was "upset" by the favourite and poster-child for the establishment. It only takes a few machines to change 39% vs. 32% to 38% vs 35%. But what a difference in momentum! Tears or crocodile tears?

[mycroft]

"You don't use the Constitution to protect those committed to destroy it!"

Of course you do. Otherwise *you're* one of those destroying it, and by your own argument, you don't get the protection of the Constitution either.

Many years ago, someone Very American (I hope people understand what I mean by that - there are many very patriotic Americans I know who don't fit) said, defending a similar argument, "The last enemy the U.S. has fought against that followed the Geneva Convention were the <deleted> Nazis". - So why should we? was the point.

The answer then, and the answer now, is because we aren't fighting for the life of the United States. Frankly, all the terrorists for all the causes in the world could gang up, make it their sole goal to destroy the United States, and they would barely scratch the surface, even without all the "improvements" since 2001. The United States is going to take more of a hit, in life toll as well as damage, this year from the games played by their bankers than they will from terrorism in a decade.

We are fighting for the idea of the United States, for "democracy", "freedom", and the "rule of Law". In other words, we are defending the Constitution - and "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" makes as much sense now that "the village" is the bedrock of the Nation as it did when it was a few mud huts in Viet Nam.

Also, "the terrorists hate us because of our way of life, which is better than what they want to impose" - i.e. freedom, democracy, and all those other words the politicians use. Every time we do something "because it's needed to fight the terrorists", we have to look at it and see if we are not doing the terrorists' jobs for them - i.e. destroying our way of life.

The proper response, should we actually have wished to do all those grand things that W. said early in September 2001, would have been to say '<deleted> you, you aren't going to make us change. You can do what you can, and It Just Won't Matter." Protect the right thing - which doesn't necessarily mean American Lives - or your or my life, for that matter. Do what the Amish did in 2006, in other words - "you can kill us, but you can't destroy our way of life".

Of course, W. et al had no interest in actually doing any of that - they wanted to change "our way of life" to "what they wanted to impose" too, just a different set of impositions, and so we got the DHS, the "you don't mind if we just check up on you and make sure you're a true PATRIOT, do you? Act" and all the rest of the accelerated devolution of the United States into a police state.

And the bugger of it is, a lot of Americans are cheering them on.

To paraphrase St. Mark, as it has been ruled that corporations are people: "For what shall it profit a country, if it shall gain the whole world, and lose its own soul?"

Michael.

[Al_U_Card]

mycroft, on Jan 11 2008, 01:53 PM, said:

And the bugger of it is, a lot of Americans are cheering them on.

They won't know what they've got 'til its gone.

You (the United States) is at the tipping point. If the trend continues into the next mandate, you may never recover (without significant bloodshed of americans by americans). They want you docile and subservient so that they can (re)write history and re-establish the divine right of royal (read corporate) bloodlines.

Just look at the lives lost to "terror" versus anything else. (We won't mention the actual fault for 9/11.) You are giving up your ideals and your futures for a set of rules that can only lead to ruin.

Good luck.

[luke warm]

when american citizens aren't protected by their own constitution, something somewhere is very wrong

[mike777]

"Just look at the lives lost to "terror" versus anything else. (We won't mention the actual fault for 9/11.) You are giving up your ideals and your futures for a set of rules that can only lead to ruin."


Ok I will ask:
1) Are you saying we need to lose more lives or that we are doing good things to keep the number down? In other words whatever Bush is doing seems to be keeping the number down.
2) Or we need to stop doing what we are doing and therefore lose even less lives?
3) Ok what or who is the actual 9/11 fault?
4) I hope we are not losing our ideals, if so I pray that new immigrants will renew all of us.

[mycroft]

I don't know from the poster, but I think that the U.S. is keeping the number down, but that the number wouldn't be much higher if the U.S. never did the things that would have been illegal in 2000; and that the cost to the ideals of the United States is much higher than the added number.

I also think that the cost in lives to the U.S. by this "turn the other cheek" (seems to be my day to quote Christian Scripture) philosophy would actually be lower than what actually occurred, as it would not have involved restarting the Iraq war. But that's neither here nor there.

Freedom isn't free - as other people say. And sometimes, freedom and safety are antithetical. And we all know what the popularly quoted American Founding Fathers had to say when they considered the relative priority of freedom and safety.

I sound rather bloodyminded and uncaring - but realize that it's my life and liberty on the line, too.

Michael.

[Winstonm]

Quote

"Just look at the lives lost to "terror" versus anything else. (We won't mention the actual fault for 9/11.) You are giving up your ideals and your futures for a set of rules that can only lead to ruin."


Ok I will ask:
1) Are you saying we need to lose more lives or that we are doing good things to keep the number down? In other words whatever Bush is doing seems to be keeping the number down.

How these questions relate to the statement is beyond me - they are totally unrelated.

What is the purpose of asking these questions when the previous poster made no such assertions either way?

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Jan 11 2008, 08:56 PM, said:

Quote

"Just look at the lives lost to "terror" versus anything else. (We won't mention the actual fault for 9/11.) You are giving up your ideals and your futures for a set of rules that can only lead to ruin."


Ok I will ask:
1) Are you saying we need to lose more lives or that we are doing good things to keep the number down? In other words whatever Bush is doing seems to be keeping the number down.

How these questions relate to the statement is beyond me - they are totally unrelated.

What is the purpose of asking these questions when the previous poster made no such assertions either way?

What?

It is exactly on point.

He implies the number of lives lost to terror is less than other things, anything else. Why is the number less than anything else? Do you think he is implying the number is much greater?

Secondly he then mentions he wont mention the actual fault for 9/11

Finally he says we have given up our ideals.


that is why I ask..

[mike777]

mycroft, on Jan 11 2008, 08:10 PM, said:

I don't know from the poster, but I think that the U.S. is keeping the number down, but that the number wouldn't be much higher if the U.S. never did the things that would have been illegal in 2000; and that the cost to the ideals of the United States is much higher than the added number.

I also think that the cost in lives to the U.S. by this "turn the other cheek" (seems to be my day to quote Christian Scripture) philosophy would actually be lower than what actually occurred, as it would not have involved restarting the Iraq war.  But that's neither here nor there.

Freedom isn't free - as other people say.  And sometimes, freedom and safety are antithetical.  And we all know what the popularly quoted American Founding Fathers had to say when they considered the relative priority of freedom and safety.

I sound rather bloodyminded and uncaring - but realize that it's my life and liberty on the line, too.

Michael.

I thought you framed the issue well.