[quote="rota";p="253433"]Bush authorizes a dubious war, breaks his own laws, weakens our rights as Americans. He reminds me of that crazy drunken patriot at the bar. "We're American, (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)! We can do whatever the hell we want!" or "If I were in charge, I'd just nuke the whole go(*)(*)(*)(*)ed middle f@ckin' East and be done with it!" And the nationalist love him for it!

I said this already, but he's a man on a mission. He will succeed in spite of the law! His actions will only get worse as his term sputters out.

__________________
WARNING: In the unlikely event of an accidental agreement with any or all points made in the above post, contact a clinical psychologist immediately.

The views expressed in the above post are not necessarily those of Joker and/or any of his affiliates.

"You have found the secret message. Do you have too much time on your hands? ...Let it go."

[quote="Joker";p="253447"]You described Abe Lincoln perfectly. Except that is only your opinion that he broken any laws, and your opinion like so many others doesn't count.

__________________
Cheney is the second executive officer to shoot someone in the face and chest. Clinton was the first.

While I don't have many problems with the Swift program, the hyperventilating over its revelation gets tiresome.

The administration has said it is tracing terrorist financial transactions. So that's not a surprise to anyone.

The methodology is roughly the same as that used for the NSA phone database. So that's not a surprise.

So what, exactly, did terrorists learn that they didn't know before? At best, that we were hooked into Swift. Which is a minor revelation. Because they wouldn't have to know about Swift to know they should take precautions with their money.

Further, a huge chunk of global financial dealings go through Swift. So even knowing about the tapping, there's not much al-Qaeda can do other than abandon electronic money transfers entirely. Which would be a victory in itself. It's hard to keep a global terror network operating with piles of money brought in on muleback.

__________________
Man up.

Let's see, this looks like mostly a done deal at this point, but there's still a few interesting developments this morning. Congress seems to be running around trying to find a way to save the President's face on this one, 'cause it'll be a national disgrace if this situation sinks any further, and it's in no one's best interests to see our Prez strung up by the ba..... (oops, can't say that). How to say this.... um.... Bushie probably basically means well, it's just that he's so SO misguided, and if there's any way we can keep this thing from completely blowing up in the international community, we should probably do so. (I say "we" in the sense of "we Americans" - I mean, it's not a partisan thing - much as I dislike Bushie, there's still the issue that he does represent the United States of America, and he will continue to do so for two more years, and to set that particular ship completely adrift would be extremely counter-productive). But keep an eye on Congress in the next few days, you may see some interesting things. The "obvious" would be that you'll see the Republicans closing ranks, and votes split pretty much right down the middle along party lines (that's just the "domestic politics" aspect of it), and a noticeable toning down of rhetoric on the part of the Democrats - and that'll probably last "for a while", until someone figures out what to do, and at that point my guess is you'll see some serious fractionation and re-alignment within both houses of Congress.

Let's see - the other thing that'll happen, is that you'll finally see the appearance of some significant checks and balances on the President. They're probably a day late and a dollar short, (I mean, six years late and two trillion dollars short), but at least this situation will be serious enough to give the legislative and judicial branches a good swift kick in the pants, and hopefully that'll be enough to wake them up. This morning, we heard the Supreme Court basically saying that Bushie over-stepped his boundaries by detaining Gitmo prisoners without charges, and that Bushie's proposed military tribunals are unacceptable.

You see, this is the thing about Bushie. He's got more of the Texan sense of the swaggering cowboy, than he does of the NATO sense of shared values within and among civilized nations. After all, this is why the Geneva Conventions were created in the first place - and NATO as well - they represent a concrete acknowledgement that the civilized nations of the world have common interests, and a common set of behavioral boundaries. Bushie is just the type of guy that wants to go his own way, and that's exactly why we have "checks and balances" institutionalized into our Constitution.

So, you're right Bronco, my opinion doesn't really matter (except in the sense that I vote), but even a conservative Court will recognize that these types of issues are "American" issues, and not "Republican" or "Democratic" issues. And with any luck, maybe some of that mentality will re-awaken in the Congress as well. The thing I'll be watching with great interest in the next few weeks, is how much of this story actually makes it to Joe Average American. 'Cause if this message is lost on Joe Average, then We the People of the United States of America will have done ourselves a great dis-service, and by extension the media will have done us a dis-service, and our elected representatives will have done us a dis-service.

This is really going to be an "acid test" of sorts, to see where this country is headed in the near term.

I just heard Barney Frank say on the floor of Congress he objects to the NY al-Times disclosing the financial trackings of terrorists. Even freaking, flaming, lib Barney Frank doesn't support what the al-Times did!

__________________
"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
Winston Churchill

Even Nancy Pelosi just said on the House floor she and no other demo condones the disclosure of national security data by the NY al-Times!

Congratulations--you people have managed distancing yourselves further to the left than Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank.

__________________
"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
Winston Churchill

Cute point to one betrayal of a national secret to say see we already knew how this national secret worked so who cares that the SAME paper revealed both national secrets.

Look, Magoo. Even Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank are saying they do not condone the al-Times publishing the story. Do you really believe a position to the left of these two far-left kooks is reasonable? Frank even tried (but failed) getting a vote on his resolution stating national security issues should not be made public in newspapers!

__________________
"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
Winston Churchill

Have you been reading my posts? All is revealed therein....

This is perfectly logical behavior, given what I've been telling y'all.

It all makes sense now (unfortunately).