"The Bush Administration's argument is that they are not subject to rebuke from the judicial branch, and don't need permission from the legislative branch to do what they want. That's completely contrary to everything our government stands for."
Agreed. I think most Americans should take a remedial U.S. government class. I'm amazed at the number of people who think that the president is above the law and doesn't have to answer to Congress or the courts.
"If anybody has any doubt as to why this "scandal" has been dismissed by everybody except the fringe Bush-haters who think everything is a scandal, look no further than this post."
Not true at all. Congressman Bob Barr (one of the House managers for Clinton's impeachment trial) and conservative bloviator Grover Norquist are both on the bandwagon to kick Bush in the keister over his illegal surveillance.
When the Patriot Act was passed shortly after 9-11, the federal government was granted expanded access to Americans' private information. However, federal law still clearly states that intelligence agents must have a court order to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans on these shores. Yet the federal government overstepped the protections of the Constitution and the plain language of FISA to eavesdrop on Americans' private communication without any judicial checks and without proof that they are involved in terrorism.
Basically, his argument is that the Bush administration operated in areas which FISA doesn't cover. There's no way for us to know whether that is correct or not, since the surveillance is all classified, but it is highly dubious to say the least.
"The President may authorize, through the Attorney General, electronic surveillance without a court order for the period of one year provided it is: only for foreign intelligence information [2a] targeting foreign powers as defined by 50 U.S.C. 1801(a)(1),(2),(3) [3] or their agents; and there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party.[4]"
Every president has asserted the right to conduct secret surveillance within the United States. Before FISA, this was done without warrants. FISA was implemented in order to stop the abuse of warrantless searches. FISA explicitly requires warrants in the event of surveillance of a United States citizen. This applies even when the person on the other end of the line is an agent of a foreign power.
The whole point of FISA was the creation of a secret court which allows the government to perform secret surveillance which is necessary for national security.
Congress has the power to enact laws, and these laws regulate executive authority. If the executive branch believed the FISA law was unconstitutional, it should have sued in federal court to have it overturned. Instead, the Bush administration decided to break the law.
Clinton didn't break the law. He executed the "inherent authority" which has been asserted by many presidents, before the FISA law applied to physical searches. Bush is advocating an inherent presidential authority which could only have existed before it was constrained by Congressional action.
Most of the discussion of inherent presidential authority occurred before FISA. FISA was implemented in order to reign in the abuse of government surveillance which had taken place for decades.
If the president has an inherent authority to violate FISA, then the FISA court itself is unconstitutional and should be disbanded. Methinks that is not the case and will not happen.
Here's some good reading for those interested in this topic:
There was no purpose for the Bush administration to bypass the FISA court. Clinton had some justification, since the FISA court did not oversee physical searches, but Bush had no justification whatsoever. He had the option of obtaining warrants up to 72 hours after the fact. He claims this wasn't fast enough. This is a very difficult story to believe.
Thanks for your insightful posts. Much appreciated.
We Americans need to understand exactly what asymmetric warfare is and how to effectively fight it. Otherwise, we have the potential to increase the risk of terrorism and instability, when we are trying to decrease them.
Some ways not to fight against an opponent utilizing asymmetric warfare:
Protecting Iraqi oil facilities, but not the museums and antiquities (national treasures).
Fighting insurgents by turning out a city the size of Anaheim and conducting "reconnaissance by fire", causing serious damage to a third of the structures.
Giving the impression that American troops are going to stay in Iraq indefinitely by failing to set a timetable.
Collective punishment or overzealous reprisals for attacks on our soldiers and facilities.
Failing to rebuild critical infrastructure, such as the power grid, sewage system, and water treatment facilities.
"Plus the average voter has gotten more conservative over time."
I dispute this. Studies show that the nation is becoming less religious and more tolerant of diversity as time goes by. Lynching of blacks is less and less common. Acceptance of gays is nearly mainstream, not quite there yet in many parts of the country.
Recently, distrust of big business is in resurgence after a series of blockbuster corporate scandals.
Now, support for Congress and the president are at an all-time low. This translates to disgust with the Republican Party. Bush's disapproval rating is hovering around 52%, and polls show that a majority of Americans believe that Bush is not focusing on what's important to them.
It makes me very angry when rightwingers like you accuse the American media of being liberal, when the entire national media almost without exception was cheerleading the Iraq War from the very beginning.
So, it wasn't enough for you to have the media to completely side with the dumbass rightwing invasion plan ("It's like Vietnam, but better!"), but you have to pop around every now and then and rub salt in the wound by telling us, "We never get everything *our* way. Boohooo!! How come you liberals always get everything *your* way? Waaaahhhh!!"
Cry me a river. By the way, aren't you supposed to be in Iraq, helping with the war effort?
If the media had a liberal bias, Bush would have been impeached by now for high crimes.
By the way, stop whining about how you're going to be troll-rated. Grow up.
That study is flawed. Their methodology determined that the ACLU is a right-leaning organization! (WTF?!)
Here is a long detailed article debunking the Tim Groseclose study, which has apparently never been peer-reviewed, yet another reason to ignore it.
The methodology used by the authors for assessing media ideology is completely untenable. There are three principal reasons for this:
(a) The approach G-M use establishes media ideology indirectly, by using the media's think-tank citations and comparing those to think-tank citations by legislators in order to find the legislator whose citations are the closest match. Thus, if a legislator is liberal and the media's think-tank citations match that of the liberal legislator, they would declare the media to be liberal. Momentarily setting aside the fact that this definition of media bias is itself incorrect, their claim would make sense only if it can be independently proven that the think-tanks cited by the liberal legislator are actually liberal. Their study does not prove this at all, considering that their methodology to establish think-tank ideology is itself deficient. Thus, at a fundamental level, their entire conclusion on media bias breaks down. (NOTE: It is not at all implausible that left-leaning legislators may cite more centrist think-tanks in public than progressive/liberal ones, especially considering how the liberal advocacy groups and think-tanks are tarred negatively by the GOP in the illiberal conservative media).
(b) The use of weighted-average ADA scores (for the House and the Senate) is slightly more meaningful than the Median (which they used in the original version of their paper), but even this is completely deficient and incorrect because the ideological center is set not using an independent, objective measure of ideology but based on the (political) positions of the people in Congress at a given point in time. Thus, their model simultaneously assumes that ADA scores can provide an absolute picture of a legislator's ideology but that media and think-tank ideology should be determined not using the same absolute reference but a relative, moving reference that is highly dependent on who's the majority in Congress and how they think or vote. This is not an acceptable model, for, if the minority party becomes the majority party in the next election, the derived ideology of think-tanks or the media could change significantly even though their actual positions underwent ZERO change.
Put another way, if the Republican majority suddenly decides to become 100% conservative, guess what happens. The weighted-mean ADA score would drop, even if the Democrats in Congress DID NOT change at all, and even if the media outlets that are considered "liberal", by the G-M definition, remain STATIC (i.e., no change in their think-tank citation ratios and that of the corresponding "liberals" in Congress). In this case, even though the media's ideology has NOT changed at all, it's adjusted ADA score(s) will artificially look more liberal compared to the lower weighted-mean ADA score. (BONUS FOR LEFTIES: This is right in line with one of the long-time Republican strategies of declaring the media (and Democrats) to be too "liberal" by moving the country to the Right). This is not a partisan issue though. The opposite could occur when we are talking about media outlets that are considered "conservative" because they match the citations of conservative Republicans and if the Democrats decide to become 100% liberal.
(c) The final, and perhaps most serious, problem with their analysis is their attempt to derive a conclusion of media bias using this study - because their definition of media bias, is in itself, completely flawed. Their confident conclusion that they have demonstrated "liberal" media bias is wrong because the study
Quote from an article: "There are fears that a competitive system of private companies won't deliver to rural areas."
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/ ne ws/opinion/5894080.htm
This is what I was talking about. The article goes on to argue, "But the Postal Rate Commission itself found loss-making rural routes constitute "only 2.5 percent of all addresses served."
Serving these routes results in a loss of just $121 million or 0.3 percent of the USPS's total expenditures."
Can anyone imagine private letter carriers taking a loss like that, when they could just tell their customers, "Hey, we don't deliver to that address. You'll have to use the U.S. Postal Service." Of course, they might decide that they could make more money by offering to deliver to any address in the continental United States. But, the decision would be based on their own bottom line, not what is best for the country.
You said: "Also, doesn't it make sense to charge more to deliver to the middle of nowhere?"
Affordable mail delivery to all parts of the country promotes commerce and growth. Same with highways, even though you apparently think highways are evil. Increased commerce makes each of us, on average, a little bit wealthier.
I'm not strictly opposed to privatization of postal service, but having lived through privatization in California, I can tell you that the details are *very* important. You won't get a blanket endorsement from me to privatize regular mail delivery.
I think the reasoning behind the U.S. Postal Service monopoly on letter delivery is that if it had been opened up to the free market, the free market would choose to deliver mainly to urban and suburban areas, and leave rural delivery to the post office. Since the U.S. Postal Service was (and is) required to deliver to rural locations, it would be unable to compete with private companies. They could charge less, because city-dwellers wouldn't have to subsidize their non-existent or limited rural deliveries.
Rural delivery of mail is one of those things which helped the nation grow westward.
Is this monopoly truly necessary in today's world? Maybe, but stamps are cheap. Can't you find something else to bellyache about?
Listen, let me try to explain this as simply as I can, okay? You are quoting a news story which was subsequently corrected. Okay? Does that make sense to you? Do you understand the words?
You have provided no corroborating information or link. No link = no credibility. Provide information to back up your assinine opinions or STFU.
In point of fact, the numbers reported by Answer were greatly exaggerated. They were not correct. You are quoting them as if they are correct and then accusing me of having them wrong. That's backwards.
Wrong, I quoted CNN, which reported that the information came from the NYPD. Provide corroborating information to back up your assinine opinions or STFU.
Baseless? You said that the Iraqi regime didn't commit mass murder on an international scale! You plainly denied the truth! Baseless my ass.
Your opinion. Back it up with corroborating information or STFU.
You've gotta be kidding me. All reputable experts have said that we need to at least double our force in Iraq, in order to maintain order. I'd provide a link, but I'm tired of this one-sided affair where I provide evidence to disprove your ignorance, and you merely spout propoganda with no evidence to back it up.
Your suggestion that most Iraqis live in freedom and safety has to rank as one of the most stupid and inane statements I have witnessed.
Events are spiralling out of control in Iraq. We need to approximately double (at least) the number of boots on the ground. Since our allies are gradually pulling their forces out of Iraq, any additional troops will have to come from the U.S.
How do you propose to double troop strength in Iraq without instituting a draft?
I don't think the Republicans will institute a draft either, but then I reflect on the situation, and I can't imagine how they are going to get out of the pickle they are in. They can't institute a draft -- but they have to. It's a bit of a conundrum, isn't it?
Best thing for Republicans is if Kerry wins the election, and he gets saddled with all the turds that Bush laid while he was in office. The next four years are going to be hell for whoever is in the Oval Office.
"They" were the protesters. The protesters were right, and you and your neocon ilk were wrong. War is never easy. War is hard and should be the last resort. And when you go to war, you shouldn't lie about why you're going to war, or how long it will take, or how much it will cost. The administration deliberately misled the American people on all of these things.
Even you should be able to admit that the occupation of Iraq has been a clusterf*** from beginning to end. The invasion went very well, but there's no point in invading a place if you can't control it afterward. It was a pyrrhic victory.
I could say "yes" but you wouldn't know whether to believe me, would you?:-)
I don't think lying is something to be proud of. If you can't make a decent argument without lying, then you should face the possibility that you may be wrong.
Double-check your figures. Answer said 250,000. NYPD said 50,000.
OK, I double-checked my figures and found out that, Twirlip, you are lying again. NYPD counted more than 200,000 people in the New York march.
Given that the numbers initially reported by CNN were so completely wrong --off by a factor of five! --how much do you trust these numbers gathered from overseas?
A lot more than I trust your numbers. You said, "The biggest pro-Saddam marches of 2003 had, by reliable estimates, a few tens of thousands of participants." You were off by a factor of 100.
"The Holocaust deniers have found a new hobby."
Baseless innuendo from a serial liar. Somebody stop Twirlip, before he lies again.
Russian and Chinese Communists were bitter enemies for decades. All socialists do not believe in the same things, just like all Communists didn't believe in the same things.
Slashdot Mirror
"The Bush Administration's argument is that they are not subject to rebuke from the judicial branch, and don't need permission from the legislative branch to do what they want. That's completely contrary to everything our government stands for."
Agreed. I think most Americans should take a remedial U.S. government class. I'm amazed at the number of people who think that the president is above the law and doesn't have to answer to Congress or the courts.
Unbelievable.
I meant "former Republican Congressman Bob Barr". My bad.
Not true at all. Congressman Bob Barr (one of the House managers for Clinton's impeachment trial) and conservative bloviator Grover Norquist are both on the bandwagon to kick Bush in the keister over his illegal surveillance.
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=
Bob Barr said this:
Here is the link to the statement you cited:
1 2210142dec21,0,3553632.story?coll=chi-newsopinionc ommentary-hed
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-05
Basically, his argument is that the Bush administration operated in areas which FISA doesn't cover. There's no way for us to know whether that is correct or not, since the surveillance is all classified, but it is highly dubious to say the least.
You are incorrect.
_ Surveillance_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence
"The President may authorize, through the Attorney General, electronic surveillance without a court order for the period of one year provided it is: only for foreign intelligence information [2a] targeting foreign powers as defined by 50 U.S.C. 1801(a)(1),(2),(3) [3] or their agents; and there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party.[4]"
You are distorting the issue.
Every president has asserted the right to conduct secret surveillance within the United States. Before FISA, this was done without warrants. FISA was implemented in order to stop the abuse of warrantless searches. FISA explicitly requires warrants in the event of surveillance of a United States citizen. This applies even when the person on the other end of the line is an agent of a foreign power.
The whole point of FISA was the creation of a secret court which allows the government to perform secret surveillance which is necessary for national security.
Congress has the power to enact laws, and these laws regulate executive authority. If the executive branch believed the FISA law was unconstitutional, it should have sued in federal court to have it overturned. Instead, the Bush administration decided to break the law.
Clinton didn't break the law. He executed the "inherent authority" which has been asserted by many presidents, before the FISA law applied to physical searches. Bush is advocating an inherent presidential authority which could only have existed before it was constrained by Congressional action.
Most of the discussion of inherent presidential authority occurred before FISA. FISA was implemented in order to reign in the abuse of government surveillance which had taken place for decades.
If the president has an inherent authority to violate FISA, then the FISA court itself is unconstitutional and should be disbanded. Methinks that is not the case and will not happen.
Here's some good reading for those interested in this topic:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/m010506.pdf
There was no purpose for the Bush administration to bypass the FISA court. Clinton had some justification, since the FISA court did not oversee physical searches, but Bush had no justification whatsoever. He had the option of obtaining warrants up to 72 hours after the fact. He claims this wasn't fast enough. This is a very difficult story to believe.
We Americans need to understand exactly what asymmetric warfare is and how to effectively fight it. Otherwise, we have the potential to increase the risk of terrorism and instability, when we are trying to decrease them.
Some ways not to fight against an opponent utilizing asymmetric warfare:
"Plus the average voter has gotten more conservative over time."
I dispute this. Studies show that the nation is becoming less religious and more tolerant of diversity as time goes by. Lynching of blacks is less and less common. Acceptance of gays is nearly mainstream, not quite there yet in many parts of the country.
Recently, distrust of big business is in resurgence after a series of blockbuster corporate scandals.
Now, support for Congress and the president are at an all-time low. This translates to disgust with the Republican Party. Bush's disapproval rating is hovering around 52%, and polls show that a majority of Americans believe that Bush is not focusing on what's important to them.
It makes me very angry when rightwingers like you accuse the American media of being liberal, when the entire national media almost without exception was cheerleading the Iraq War from the very beginning.
So, it wasn't enough for you to have the media to completely side with the dumbass rightwing invasion plan ("It's like Vietnam, but better!"), but you have to pop around every now and then and rub salt in the wound by telling us, "We never get everything *our* way. Boohooo!! How come you liberals always get everything *your* way? Waaaahhhh!!"
Cry me a river. By the way, aren't you supposed to be in Iraq, helping with the war effort?
If the media had a liberal bias, Bush would have been impeached by now for high crimes.
By the way, stop whining about how you're going to be troll-rated. Grow up.
Here is a long detailed article debunking the Tim Groseclose study, which has apparently never been peer-reviewed, yet another reason to ignore it.
Quote from an article:
/ ne ws/opinion/5894080.htm
"There are fears that a competitive system of private companies won't deliver to rural areas."
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune
This is what I was talking about. The article goes on to argue, "But the Postal Rate Commission itself found loss-making rural routes constitute "only 2.5 percent of all addresses served."
Serving these routes results in a loss of just $121 million or 0.3 percent of the USPS's total expenditures."
Can anyone imagine private letter carriers taking a loss like that, when they could just tell their customers, "Hey, we don't deliver to that address. You'll have to use the U.S. Postal Service." Of course, they might decide that they could make more money by offering to deliver to any address in the continental United States. But, the decision would be based on their own bottom line, not what is best for the country.
You said:
"Also, doesn't it make sense to charge more to deliver to the middle of nowhere?"
Affordable mail delivery to all parts of the country promotes commerce and growth. Same with highways, even though you apparently think highways are evil. Increased commerce makes each of us, on average, a little bit wealthier.
I'm not strictly opposed to privatization of postal service, but having lived through privatization in California, I can tell you that the details are *very* important. You won't get a blanket endorsement from me to privatize regular mail delivery.
Oh heck, I have him set as a "friend". Well, that's easy to fix.
I should choose my "friends" more wisely.
You said:
"I bet you are a dirty hippy..."
How did you get rated a '4' for this abusive post? Are you using multiple accounts or something?
Why does paying 37 cents for a stamp make you so incredibly angry?
Your post completely misses the points I made. I suggest you go back and reread what I wrote.
Meta-moderators are going to have a field day with whoever modded your abusive post up.
I think the reasoning behind the U.S. Postal Service monopoly on letter delivery is that if it had been opened up to the free market, the free market would choose to deliver mainly to urban and suburban areas, and leave rural delivery to the post office. Since the U.S. Postal Service was (and is) required to deliver to rural locations, it would be unable to compete with private companies. They could charge less, because city-dwellers wouldn't have to subsidize their non-existent or limited rural deliveries.
Rural delivery of mail is one of those things which helped the nation grow westward.
Is this monopoly truly necessary in today's world? Maybe, but stamps are cheap. Can't you find something else to bellyache about?
Listen, let me try to explain this as simply as I can, okay? You are quoting a news story which was subsequently corrected. Okay? Does that make sense to you? Do you understand the words?
You have provided no corroborating information or link. No link = no credibility. Provide information to back up your assinine opinions or STFU.
In point of fact, the numbers reported by Answer were greatly exaggerated. They were not correct. You are quoting them as if they are correct and then accusing me of having them wrong. That's backwards.
Wrong, I quoted CNN, which reported that the information came from the NYPD. Provide corroborating information to back up your assinine opinions or STFU.
Baseless? You said that the Iraqi regime didn't commit mass murder on an international scale! You plainly denied the truth! Baseless my ass.
Your opinion. Back it up with corroborating information or STFU.
I tried responding to this already. This may be a double post.
Well, seeing as how I spent nearly a year of my life there, I'm gonna go ahead and say "nuh-uh" at this point.
I don't want to hurt your feelings, but the neocon experiment has been a total bust.
As far as lies go, you have a lot of gall calling me a liar.
You've gotta be kidding me. All reputable experts have said that we need to at least double our force in Iraq, in order to maintain order. I'd provide a link, but I'm tired of this one-sided affair where I provide evidence to disprove your ignorance, and you merely spout propoganda with no evidence to back it up.
Your suggestion that most Iraqis live in freedom and safety has to rank as one of the most stupid and inane statements I have witnessed.
Events are spiralling out of control in Iraq. We need to approximately double (at least) the number of boots on the ground. Since our allies are gradually pulling their forces out of Iraq, any additional troops will have to come from the U.S.
How do you propose to double troop strength in Iraq without instituting a draft?
I don't think the Republicans will institute a draft either, but then I reflect on the situation, and I can't imagine how they are going to get out of the pickle they are in. They can't institute a draft -- but they have to. It's a bit of a conundrum, isn't it?
Best thing for Republicans is if Kerry wins the election, and he gets saddled with all the turds that Bush laid while he was in office. The next four years are going to be hell for whoever is in the Oval Office.
Your statement was, "They were right!"
:-)
"They" were the protesters. The protesters were right, and you and your neocon ilk were wrong. War is never easy. War is hard and should be the last resort. And when you go to war, you shouldn't lie about why you're going to war, or how long it will take, or how much it will cost. The administration deliberately misled the American people on all of these things.
Even you should be able to admit that the occupation of Iraq has been a clusterf*** from beginning to end. The invasion went very well, but there's no point in invading a place if you can't control it afterward. It was a pyrrhic victory.
I could say "yes" but you wouldn't know whether to believe me, would you?
I don't think lying is something to be proud of. If you can't make a decent argument without lying, then you should face the possibility that you may be wrong.
Double-check your figures. Answer said 250,000. NYPD said 50,000.
OK, I double-checked my figures and found out that, Twirlip, you are lying again. NYPD counted more than 200,000 people in the New York march.
Given that the numbers initially reported by CNN were so completely wrong --off by a factor of five! --how much do you trust these numbers gathered from overseas?
A lot more than I trust your numbers. You said, "The biggest pro-Saddam marches of 2003 had, by reliable estimates, a few tens of thousands of participants." You were off by a factor of 100.
"The Holocaust deniers have found a new hobby."
Baseless innuendo from a serial liar. Somebody stop Twirlip, before he lies again.
You're deliberately mis-stating my position. Do you ever stop lying?
So what?
Russian and Chinese Communists were bitter enemies for decades. All socialists do not believe in the same things, just like all Communists didn't believe in the same things.
This stuff is all well documented.
Then why can't you provide a link?
I caught you lying here.
You have zero credibility.