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This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn't have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush's abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush administration's program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That's why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.

But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any president or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court.

So basically he voted for this to undo things from the bill from last year. If this bill failed a worse one was in the works that the Bush gang would have liked to see get passed. So I'm guessing if Dems started to vote ageist it GOP members (who wanted the worse one) would have voted ageist this one. The dems might have been able to dead lock things but that might have meant that the NSA could continue to do wire taps with out restriction. Personally I'm not at all happy about this but I think he did the best he could and I still think that he will do more to undo the abuse once in office.

It's not just FISA, there's also the death penalty for child rapists (is that "progressive"?), pulling out of public financing, and even being inflammatory on abortion despite being pro-choice in the past.

I think I agree with the Huffington Post. Is this the guy everybody got excited about?

Their last CEO sat right in front of congress and was giggling about this (if you can find the video you can see it in his expression, I remember it) and told them they were an oil company. That is when he was explaining how he got 400 million during his last year as his salary, and exxon dropped a whopping 10 million on all alternative energy projects combined. Go by a corporations true actions, not what they might jabber about. Their own internal reports diss all forms of alternative energy. Uranium is not credible alternative energy, on the contrary, it is one of the most dangerous forms of energy and right now we could be staring at a huge expanded war in the middle east over who gets to use uranium and when. You can't just dismiss this either, it is real, right now, in your face and has the potential to spiral out of control. My guess is you hit it, they were trying to fake out some young people to work for them because of their deserved bad reputation. The same young people who will be the first drafted to fight in the expanded resource wars because we stay stuck on oil and uranium. That was just propaganda to try and get you to work for them, their real actions show their real intent, they got the planet by the balls and will squeeze until well past hurting, they have no desire to make it a better deal for YOU, they want a better deal for THEM because that is how they make more profit, and keeping you tied to petroleum and centralized electricty production is the easiest way to do that.

And quite frankly, I hope they don't go into alternatives. We need to just route around exxons and similar entrenched companies profits bottlenecks and the major filth and pollution and political weirdness associated with conventional petroleum and the contentious use of nuclear power.. They don't need to be the energy vendor lockin corporation forever. Let some other companies and people do it, and we need a massive push for DEcentralization and home and business production of energy, solar pv and thermal, personal wind power, electric vehicles and home brewed biofuels for cars, etc. Energy needs to be "open sourced" even more than software code. Vendor lockin is never a good idea. How many wars and threats of wars and how much wallet hijacking do we have to go through to keep some companies rolling in the dough forever? And why would it be a good idea to keep that company in such a position of political influence and political power? I see zero reason to do business with those people and hope they gradually just go broke, because people switch away from their products by the millions. And oil shale and oilsands will just perpetuate all this excessive climate weirdness and still result in massive pollution. We need to as quickly as possible work on eliminating the need to go there in any large fashion, same as with coal. That was OK in the 20th century, but we know better now, time to move on and do it better.

His explanation is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-obama/my-position-on-fisa_b_110789.html b Still BS though.

Agreed. He's essentially saying "I held my nose and voted yes." Congress is lead by the Democrats currently. You're telling me they couldn't have negotiated for most of what Democrats wanted, or waited 'till Obama was sworn in as President? Gimme a break.

His explanation is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-obama/my-position-on-fisa_b_110789.html b Still BS though.

Q: Mac or PC?
McCain: Uhh, neither. I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all the assistance I can get.

I'm confused. Isn't he The Decider?

I think the issue is a bit more politically complex than people are giving it credit for.

In order to understand the reasoning behind his shift in position, you should watch This Keith Olbermann Special Comment about the issue.

To greatly simplify it -
An army of lawyers have been going over the wording of the "Retroactive Immunity Clauses", and came to the conclusion that it ONLY APPLIES TO CIVIL CASES.

What does that mean?
It means even with the "Retroactive Immunity", they can still be brought up on criminal charges.

I think criminal prosecution in a criminal courty is more important than some petty monetary settlement from a civil one.

Also, the video mentions how the president couldn't pardon the telephone companies if they are convicted, because that would be an admission of wrongdoing.

It's a good video!

So Ron Paul was right after all. If we just BUTT OUT of the world militarily and politically, ...and stop pulling tigers tails everywhere we find them, ...and stop leaving our military everywhere ...and stop promising to be in Iraq for another 100 years... and stop building military bases and a US Embassy bigger than the VATICAN... then maybe with a few years gone by after all that... maybe then we could trade and have commerce and live peaceably in the world.

ahh but WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE, profitable for government that it is, there will be no chance of that...

American Dollars are less than worthless right now- "Barclays Capital has advised clients to batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm, warning that the US Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle and let its credibility fall "below zero". - Telegraph.co.uk

Keep an eye on Jindal... He's often mentioned as a possible (though somewhat improbable) running mate for McCain, on account of his ethnic background (he's East Indian, I believe) and his youth. These details are supposed to figure into some kind of counter to Obama.

He may have been a bio major, but he's very Catholic and very socially conservative, however, and claims to be a faith healer and to have performed exorcisms.

Huffington Post/Newsweek, claims McCain Campaign Aides Steered "Secret" Campaign For Telecom Immunity. Not that it's easy to find anyone in Washington without connections, but still.

FTR: "The Office" is a newsroom at a medium-market Canadian television station.

I don't know if you see yourself as some kind of crusading news-hero or something, but you have no idea what you're talking about, and the question as you have framed it is simply nonsense. It is based on a false premise.

Because you are too lazy, or too lacking in talent, or just too stupid to do even a tiny little bit of research and find out for yourself why this is the case, I have done in a few minutes what you could have done at any time to figure out why there is no correlation between the quality of a journalist's work and what ethical rules they use during interviews, especially with respect to one narrowly-defined situation.

Follow the links and read:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/omid-memarian/samantha-power-ethical-jo_b_91401.html

http://www.journalismethics.ca/ethics_in_news/adams.htm

http://www.rrj.ca/issue/2006/spring/617/

http://www.eagle.ca/caj/

If, having read what you will find there, you still cannot understand why your question and its underlying assumptions are based upon an indefensible lack of understanding, then you should probably enrol yourself in a remedial reading course.

I am fairly confident that you won't bother to read what you will find at these URL's. At least one of them might take as much as five or six minutes to read in its entirety. If you actually do read them instead of just searching for "record" and reading sentences where the word appears, all will become clear to you, and it will be like the sun breaking out from behind clouds.

Personally, I'm expecting rain.

but ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/the-nobel-prize-and-russe_b_9307.html

It's amazing how much he's changed since then, isn't it? As a registered Democrat, I could actually respect the McCain of 2000. Now he's been voting against his own reform bills, supporting torture, supporting telco amnesty for spying on Americans, and pretty much everything else you could think of.

By the way -- the summary article got something wrong:

McCain is not the stranger to technology some think him to be

No, the McCain *campaign* is not a stranger to technology. McCain most definitely is a stranger to technology. When asked whether he was a Mac or PC person, he responded:

"Neither, I'm an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance I can get."

That's right. A president who, this day in age, doesn't know how to use a computer. Makes his policies on tech issues make a lot more sense, though. Back in 1999, running for the White House, this was remotely excusable. Today, it's just sad. A year ago, I set up a older woman who has brain damage with a Linux desktop and net access and she uses it just fine.

McCain is not the stranger to technology some think him to be.

Yes he is: McCain Admits He Doesn't Know How to Use a Computer.

Your little anecdotes are nice, but try reading about wait times in the US rather just relying on the few examples which pop up in your life.

Realize, though, that not every donation is an attempt to curry favor. I donated a few hundred to Obama, and I develop a website for an online travel company, but that doesn't mean Obama is in the pocket of Big Travel or Big Internet. Similarly, if 1000 gas station attendants donate $20 to McCain, that will be logged as $20,000 coming from the oil industry, but don't tell me those attendants are buying influence.

$7 million from the entertainment and computer industries sounds suspicious, but it's not like the RIAA just cut him a seven-figure check. Obama is an inspiring liberal (as opposed to Kerry in '04 and Gore in '00), and he has really strong support amongst Democrats with higher education. This translates to affluent Hollywood actors and Silicon Valley professionals donating and fund-raising on Obama's behalf.

I'm not saying Obama is going to turn a blind eye to his financial backers; nobody is ignorant of where their support is coming from. But when both candidates are refusing money from federal lobbyists (I know Obama is, pretty sure McCain is) and taking it in small amounts from individual contributors, this kind of tallying isn't damning.

Millions of people have donated to Barack's campaign, mostly in small denominations. How much more legit can hard-money donations from private individuals get? What, should only people who don't have employment be able to donate?

I guess MS isn't doing this anymore.

http://www.billparish.com/20000418microsoftnotax.html

But Walmart, however, is still doing this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-norman/wal-marts-whac-a-mole-tax_b_98539.html

When this SSD is cheap enough that I can buy 3-4 of them and stripe that into a bus-raping powerhouse, [url]for less than a mortgage payment[/url], then we'll talk.

Of Obama, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/07/intel-advisor-breaks-with_n_90427.html

Of Clinton, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/hillary-clinton-a-bundle_b_70052.html which shows she skipped an earlier vote on the subject. However, she differs from Obama's lobbying efforts, where most of the bribery, oops, influence begins.

Of Obama, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/07/intel-advisor-breaks-with_n_90427.html

Of Clinton, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/hillary-clinton-a-bundle_b_70052.html which shows she skipped an earlier vote on the subject. However, she differs from Obama's lobbying efforts, where most of the bribery, oops, influence begins.

More sooner than later. Read this article. Long but worth read.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html

You see, the only way MADD would know that the game actually warns you against this type of behavior is if they were to spend an hour or two actually playing it.

Reminds me of the MAXIM review of the latest Black Crowes CD...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/23/black-crowes-say-maxim-re_n_88101.html

otherwise Lincon would have had no recourse to lock up captured southern military soldiers as individual rebels

there was no concept of "enemy combatant"

succeeding

Having room for only one cable-based provider on the public poles and selling that space for profit isn't a government granted monopoly in the same sense as we usually use the term. It's just necessarily a one-winner competition, like many things in business. A true government-granted monopoly is where the government makes competition illegal, such as with spectrum usage and intellectual property. As the other response pointed out, it would have been wise to structure its usage in such a way as to make the physical infrastructure the property of the people, in return for open-access rules or long-term carrier contracts (someone has to pay for it all). But even though we didn't do it that way back then, look at all the ways you can get Internet across the last mile. TV cable, telephone lines, power lines (and we do frequently own those), numerous wireless proprietary spectrum devices, wireless public spectrum devices (802.11), cell phone spectrum devices, and satellite line-of-sight devices. Sure, some are better than others. But is this really not enough for adequate competition?

Personally I don't even think that spectrum should be regulated. If it weren't, and anyone could broadcast over whatever spectrum they wished, we would probably have had vastly superior wireless technologies for decades now. It would have been necessary to develop them in order to provide any reliable service wirelessly. But the payoffs would have been huge.

Slashdot on this
Freedman/Lessig on this

Every time there is pain in the market, people want to jump in and regulate it away. But pain is what moves the market forward. Let Comcast and Qwest and the other entrenched players screw us over for a few years. You'll see other services crop up in their place using alternative technologies. Let's work on mesh networks too, and peer-to-peer Internet. Pipe-dreams today, but a robust and unregulated reality tomorrow. The government is never going to cause any of those advances. It is too busy being the bitch of entrenched players. Even if this market *isn't* going to fix itself, regulation is a bad idea. Government slows things down and screws them up. It is not your friend. It does not work for you. It has no resources of its own. It always over-reaches. It never leaves once you invite it in. It is fiscally irresponsible. It is not creative. It is not subtle. It is never sensitive to change. You will regret it. And I hate to see geeks doing this to themselves.

"Big deal, we've got a huge, untapped reserve under the northern Midwest. Too bad we haven't built any new refineries in the past 30 years. "

Memos Show Oil Companies Closed Refineries To Hike Profits - Politics on The Huffington Post:

from an old deja link.. (referencing DOE website... link since removed.. I wonder why??? )

"The United States experienced a steep decline in refining capacity between 1981 and the mid-1990s. Between 1981 and 1989, the number of U.S. refineries fell from 324 to 204, representing a loss of 3 million bbl/d in operable capacity (from 18.6 million bbl/d to 15.7 million bbl/d), while refining capacity utilization increased from 69% to 87%. "

Current DOE refiinery stats. Indicates the number of large US refineries has droped to less than 135..

The wool has been pulled over your eyes.. 324 down to 140 .. at least 184 refineries closed in the last thirty years.. P.S. One does NOT BUILD NEW refineries if one is STILL CLOSING surplus facilities..

We have to be careful that we do not lose our identity as a country of freedom via our efforts to protect that freedom.

I would usually post a comment LOL about such ridiculously overwhelming amount of naiveness. But this is too serious to take it as a joke.

You still don't realize you lost that already do you?

This article might give you a new perspective, it's long but I promise it's worth it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html

You're wrong.

Why do I say this?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/31/clinton-surrogate-ed-rend_n_94280.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Rendell#2008_Presidential_election

That's why.

So when the people on the left disagree with you, and the people on the right disagree with you, you need to consider the possibility that you're too stupid to know you're wrong.

Are you that stupid, or do you know you're wrong? Argue with Hillary's friend about Fox news, liar, I've heard everything from you I need.

. . . to place their propaganda on the internet (ahem, Huffington Post, DailyKos, etc, ad nauseum), then why can't the military use bloggers to post its point of view?

Seems like another double-standard to me.

You didn't say it directly, but you did compare Obama's preacher, Rev. Wright to Jerry Falwell. Obama and Wright were clearly buddies. Falwell and McCain are not.

Neither is misrepresenting someone's position ("McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years" or "Obama is a Muslim")

While you may not disagree with them because they are not as far left leaning as the rest of them, they do go out of their way to represent all sides and have never celebrated the deaths of Americans in Iraq.

60 minutes for example just did a puff piece on Al Gore and global warming. They did not post an opposing view, and there is plenty to choose from.

1. John McCain's Biography Tour To Show How War Dominates His World View
   - kind of news (he's going on a biography tour), the other is opinion
2. Obama Bowl-A-Rama: Watch The Gutterballs Roll
   - not even close to news
3. Little Girl From Bosnia Scandal Shocked, "Surprised" By Clinton's Lie
   - not news, anti-Clinton piling-on

1. John McCain's Biography Tour To Show How War Dominates His World View
   - kind of news (he's going on a biography tour), the other is opinion
2. Obama Bowl-A-Rama: Watch The Gutterballs Roll
   - not even close to news
3. Little Girl From Bosnia Scandal Shocked, "Surprised" By Clinton's Lie
   - not news, anti-Clinton piling-on

1. John McCain's Biography Tour To Show How War Dominates His World View
   - kind of news (he's going on a biography tour), the other is opinion
2. Obama Bowl-A-Rama: Watch The Gutterballs Roll
   - not even close to news
3. Little Girl From Bosnia Scandal Shocked, "Surprised" By Clinton's Lie
   - not news, anti-Clinton piling-on

...but that's not the message given there week after week. The clips in question come from a few specific sermons -- which aren't, as a whole, as inciteful as the specific elements cut from them and aired -- given shortly after Obama decided to run for President, and for which he was not himself present.

Were controversial messages given from the pulpit while Obama was present? Absolutely. Hateful? No -- and when Obama heard about the sermons in question going close to that line, his decision to stay with the church was significantly influenced by knowledge of Wright's impending retirement.

I grew up in a church where the sermons given rotated between the board of elders -- and several of them preached things I absolutely wouldn't want to be associated with today. What I do know about Obama -- the friends he keeps, his considered thought process (The Audacity of Hope reveals much about his thought process -- and how he takes detailed, considered, multi-sided views on issues others see through partisan glasses -- additionally confirmed by every piece I've read by someone who's worked with him or knows him personally), and -- yes -- his elloquence, makes me excited to be represented by a President I can believe in.

But hey, don't take my word for it -- ask Huckabee.

Hey! Speaking of which - guess what she's doing now! Yet another reason to avoid McCain like the plague!

1-800-ALQ-AEDA and ask for John McCain.

Erm, wasn't Wright's speech just commenting on the views of US Ambassador Edward Peck?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html

Ten Steps To Close Down an Open Society

1 Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2 Create a gulag
3 Develop a thug caste
4 Set up an internal surveillance system
5 Harass citizens' groups
6 Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7 Target key individuals
8 Control the press
9 Dissent equals treason
10 Suspend the rule of law

...furthermore has declared that earmarks need to be eliminated.

All of them? I think not. And he's all for the biggest earmark of them all... for maybe another 100 years at least. Feel free to nit-pick.

Free the Keating Five!... oh, wait

Think about leaders that you've disagreed with, too, but followed because you had faith in where they were going.

You should read or watch Obama's speech on race. The oppression of black people was real although people didn't see it that way. Many black people are still disgruntled over this, and it shouldn't be forgotten less the same mistakes are repeated but it also shouldn't taint our views needlessly in the present because many things have already changed for the better.

It's by this and other insights that have been learned overtime that we can comment on Tibet. Calling people hypocrite for the 'sins their fathers' doesn't work because it discounts for their abbility to learn from their past mistakes.

Being able to learn however requires a certain amount of freedom, freedom to learn and discuss the past from any angle. If you can not criticize your own past or present, then it's impossible to learn.

China doesn't seem to have these freedoms.

Not being from New York I didn't know much about the man, so I checked, and it turns out he's a Democrat. So ever since yesterday I've been wondering if this was an attempt to bring down the Democratic Governor of a key state, like they did in Alabama. I'll be curious to see how much media complacency there is in the New York case.

Soon Chicagoans will be pissed, if they aren't already, due to a recent sales tax increase.

Would you rather they come up with a free-speech-restricting law that's more enforceable?

Why not? Anonymous political donations, for example, are quite impossible already — and sites like this even make the donors easily searchable. (One can even incorporate such searches into their Human Resources practices — legally.)

And if donations aren't anonymous, and limited (as per McCain-Feingold and other unconstitutional legislation) — to your liking, then it is rather inconsistent on your part to complain about bans on anonymous speech...

Here's an Old story (that happened when I was there in Vegas).

http://www.dmvnv.com/news/05-005.htm

The link I provided is from when they recovered the license making equipment and supplies that had been stolen from a DMV. Replacing a picture on an ID card isn't so impossible when you can just make another ID card from scratch with a new picture and someone else's information.

Now, for a number of years in Virginia, your Social Security number was ALSO your driver's license number. Not only that, but your license was on paper, along with another additional information sheet... and all of it was kept in an OPEN clear plastic sleeve. This changed years ago, but as of The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, no state can use a SSN as a Driver's license number.

Most states only require a piece of mail and a birth certificate, in order to get a state issued picture ID. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that you need a picture ID to get a picture ID. So how hard would it be to take someone ELSE's birth certificate and a piece of their mail, and get yourself a new Identity? Sure, there are other measures in place to make it more difficult to get a social security card re-issued, as well as getting into a bank account... but then again...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/20/nyc-bank-lets-wrong-man-w_n_87647.html

There's a story about a man who went to his bank, and the teller assumed by his NAME only, that he was the same man who had opened up a business account with $5 million in it. You see, another man with the same name had indeed opened an account for his business with $5 million in it. The teller insisted that the account was indeed his (the wrong man with the same name), so he withdrew $2 million.

Where were the Picture ID's then?

I'm just adding, not so much refuting you.

Retinal scanning is the way to go.

After they're done gutting FISA, they'll "reward" the media giants with tiered WWW pricing and the banning of "evil" protocols - just watch.

Signing Statements:

http://www.coherentbabble.com/signingstatements/TOCindex.htm

On December 20, 2007, President Bush signed routine postal legislation. In a "Signing Statement", the President claims Executive Power to search the mail of U.S. citizens inside the United States without a warrant, in direct contradiction of the bill he had just signed.

January 4, 08 Story:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003508676_mail04.html

House Dems Near Surrender on Bush Spying:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-melber/house-dems-near-surrender_b_89726.html#postComment

Washington Politicians Are Gutting America Like A Fish:

http://whitehouser.com/politics/bush-fascism-failed-democracy/

Bush Legacy Already Established - Helen Thomas:

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/helenthomas/15358518/detail.html

Nancy Pelosi:

http://www.house.gov/pelosi/

email:

americanvoices@mail.house.gov

(415) 556-4862

District Office - 450 Golden Gate Ave. - 14th Floor - San Francisco, CA 94102

Greetings:

I left you a voice message earlier.

There is an article at The Huffington Post:

House Dems Near Surrender on Bush Spying:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-melber/house-dems-near-surrender_b_89726.html#postComment

If you read the comments, I think you might just begin to understand the movement that is starting to happen. I think all the Democrats you lead in the House should read this.
It's of things to come.
We have had it.
Democrats, and even a lot of Republicans are starting to wake up to the major damage done by this President, to our Constitution and our Freedom, and of the empty promises you, Nancy, made to those of us that put you there to represent us.
This Congress, lead by you, will be held responsible for idly standing by, and of recent, participating in the dismantling of our laws and accepted practices and replacing them with "mere precedent" and outright disregard for the rules of law, the ones we go to prison for, the same ones others are exempt from.
You and the Democratic Party will hear from us, we have, as a group, a starting list of 12 in the Democratic Party that will not be returning, as they are to be voted out.
The Republicans, double.

You have woken the sleeping giant that is the American people, and you all will be hearing from us and a growing number of voters across this country, that oddly enough depends on a manipulated election system we've all grown wise to.

A few weeks ago, we had thought you all had come to your senses by standing up to Mr. Bush and his group, but evidently, it was fake. We had, at one time thought that maybe you were waiting for the proper time to act. But you've decided which side you're on.
You all have failed to uphold your oaths.
We/I, have lost faith, so we shall act, and we will organize, and we will win.
Last chance has already past, and you all blew it to a lame duck President, no less.

SURRENDER DOROTHY

http://www.littlestuffedbull.com/images/comics/surrenderdot.jpg