Bush is worse, hands down...

Hoser voted for Bush, but he'll never admit it.

statistics supplied by fox news

anyone of weak character appointed to a position of power will inevitably be hated by those beneath him

we need a good president for once...not some marketable jackass dangling from a string

i couldn't vote for both so i decided not to

well, nixon's wiretaps were actually domestic...

nixon actually introduced a lot of very progressive social programs... and sent thousands of people to their deaths.

i dunno, but this would be my order

worst
1.Buchanan
2.Hoover
3.Mckinley
4.bush/nixon

what is buchanan ever do to you to get the #1 slot? is it cause you thought he was gay? look, the guy just didnt want to get married, ok?

PatMeebles said:

As are Bush's..in fact he's voilating a law that was put in place after Nixon to insure that it couldn't happen again.

HailTheLeaf said:

The ignorance of that statement is laughable.

I'm just mad bush isn't doing even more crazy things. c'mon there are so many things that guy could be doing.

anyhow, his wire-taps are on both domestic and international. we've only seen a small part of what they are actually doing. it's not like they got exposed for 1 or 2 cases and then open their books fully.

what pisses me off about bush today is the whole signing statments thing. the backdoor line item veto that noone cares about him doing. it's jefferson all over again. oh well, let them eat cake.

PatMeebles said:


No, it's not. Whenever the Attorney General and others in the Bush administration are asked about whether any of these calls have both ends in the US, they never give a direct answer to rule out that possibility. Every analyst (and common sense) says they would rule it out unless it was true. Furthermore, FBI agents with expertise on the subject have gone on the news and stated that historically speaking, it is very likely there will be vast abuse of this obviously unchecked policy, because that's what always happens under these circumstances. The concern about the issue is so great it has resulted in many Republicans challenging the confirmation of Mike Haydn as new CIA chief, since he ran the NSA wiretapping program. Apparantely, those Republicans don't find the ignorance of her statement as laughable as you do.

Nixon was a piece of shit, but I went with Bush.

They're almost even in thier crapitude. I voted for Nixon cause I knew just about everyone else was going to vote for Bush.

We need another Bill Clinton... Greatest U.S. President since FDR!

i am not a crook

Man_of_the_Century said:

but we can't have a man who likes getting his dick sucked in office!

ShadowSD said:

No, the opposition on the Republican side to Hayden is led by Rep. Hoekstra, who doesn't want a military man running the CIA. The reasoning for this is that Hoekstra believes that instead of being an advocate for the intelligence community, Hayden would turn the CIA into the defense department's bitch. I disagree with that assessment, but it's a fairly reasonable conclusion.

And of course domestic calls will end up in the computers in a data mining operation. The deal is that they're supposed to be deleted unless they're followed up on constitutionally.

Have any of you read FISA? Hell, you don't even need a warrant AT ALL for any type of intelligence gathering if the target is a non-US person. A US Person is defined as either a citizen or a legal alien who's living here permanently. So any tourist from another country can be spied on without any warrants according to FISA.

And if you read any federal court case on the matter of eaves-dropping, the courts will say over and over again that the government CAN spy without a warrant to gather foreign intelligence. Everyone says the system is unchecked, but nobody complained about Clinton's unchecked domestic physical search (as opposed to eaves dropping). Nobody complained about Carter's eavesdropping, or FDR's spying.

Where the fuck is Hoser when you need him???

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/012631.php






Read the whole thing. THE WHOLE THING.

I wish that when people are arguing politics on the internet they would try to find unbiased sources rather than posting links to blogs and sites with banner ads advertising either "FU*K BU$H" or "LUCK FIBERALS" t-shirts.

Biased, yes. Unqualified? Not at all. I don't really see how you can argue against their piece when all their doing is quoting court cases in their proper context. These guys are lawyers by trade. It isn't Cletus Buckeye's hick-loving law analysis.

Pat Meebles nli said:


None of this addresses one basic problem. The FISA laws that were created in the late 1970's were meant to prevent the executive branch from violating the Constitution's fourth amendment. So even if we are to believe that courts judged that 72 hour waiting period unconstitutional because it meant the FISA court was encroaching on Presidential authority, it still not does do away with the issues concerning why that original law was created in the first place: to prevent the executive branch from violating the fourth amendment.

It is a basic legal principle (and basic logic) that if any law protecting the constitution is later deemed unconstitutional, that the original consitutional question that inspired that law is not settled and tucked away, but rather remains unresolved.

That's the legal answer, here's the common sense one:

Is it more likely that the administration wants unchecked power, or that all these people would be trying so hard to challenge them in the courts when they have no legal ground to stand on?

Not to mention the Patriot Act in and of itself is unconsitutional and violates our rights. And why does Bush need to spy on groups that promote peace here in the U.S. to gather foreign intelligence on "terrorists"?

Bush isn't the first to do this, and he won't be the last. And who are "all these people" that want to try him in court? ACLU? Ray McGovern? Cynthia McKinney?

And if a law is unconstitutional, the president does not have to follow it. Period. And I'm going by what FISA judges said when they were on a panel discussing the NSA program with senators. The FISA court was, in fact, one of the courts that wrote that the president does have the authority to conduct warrantless wiretaps for intelligence gathering.

I suppose no one told that to the FISA judge who resigned in protest when he found out about the warrantless wiretaps.

yes, because in a true democracy, to truly have FREEDOM the government can completely invade your life, spy on it's own citizens, and find out whatever it wants about you. It's the American way!

PatMeebles said:

The favorite argument of Bush loyalists, marginalize any dissent as extremist.

In reality, though, there are plenty of people from across the political spectrum who want the wiretapping laws examined, many of them conservatives. You say that Republicans only have issues with Hayden's military status and not the eavesdropping, but House Majority Leader Republican John Boehner, among many conservatives in Congress, is focusing on the wiretaps, demanding information on their scope.

According to a recent poll, 53% of the public is against warrantless domestic wiretapping, and conservatives have been some of the most vocal against it:

"It means that we're changing our whole concept of what liberty is. People used to think that they could make a phone call, and the fact that they were doing that and who it was to would be confidential between themselves, and in fact there's a law on the books that says it's supposed to be confidential."- Former Republican Party Chairman Jim Gilmore (MSNBC - Thursday, 5/11)

"You know this program scares the hell out of me... I was always frightened by it. I'd go home to the district, I would complain about it; liberals would agree with me, conservatives would agree with me, but the teeming masses in the middle couldn't care less. Their attitude is simple: if I'm not a member of Al Qaeda, I've got nothing to worry about. And that is a dangerous position to take." - Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough (MSNBC - Friday, 5/12)

"I don't care for it at all... it's interesting, though, people are still calling Bush a conservative. Since when are conservatives so willing to trust the government? This stuff stays on the books, its purpose always expands, that's the nature of goverment. We're using it to go after Al Qaeda now, what will it be used for twenty years from now?" - Conservative Commentator Tucker Carlson (MSNBC - Friday, 5/12)

Responding to Carlson on that same program, Scarborough replied: "Just imagine if Bill Clinton tried to pass something like this. Even after 9/11, Republicans would not stand for it." Carlson agreed.

That last part really says it all.

You do realize that the government could not spy on everyone, even if it wanted to, right? People spend soooooo much time on the phone, it's an astronomical number even when you're only counting international phone calls (something like 2 billion minutes last year).

And that last poll you cited is from a gallup poll that was surveying about the latest leaked story. That specific poll's questions did not mention that

1) The name, address, time, or content of the phone call is not being collected.

2) The data collected is stored in a computer, and is never seen by human beings.

3) The computer is looking for numbers that are already being investigated.

When these factors are mentioned (at least the first one) in a different poll, the numbers become 2-1 in support of it. 60+% support versus 30+% dissaproval.

And conversely, if you were to mention how there is no oversight that would ever prevent that information for being used for other purposes, you can bet the survey would be affected in the other direction. And how about if the people surveyed heard about this?


"Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling

A Senior federal law enforcement agent tells ABC News the government's tracking the numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources." - ABC Reporters Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, 5/15

Actually, they don't know who I'M calling. There's no name, or content included in the call. They don't even have the resources to look at everyone's call, because there's simply too much data to collect in that instance. They're only looking at numbers that were called from a certain number that they've already looked at.

And since leaking is illegal, I'm honestly surprised that ABC would be shocked to find out that the government is looking for leakers. They didn't even mention if a warrant was involved. If they knew that warrant weren't not used, you'd know they stress it when talking about it.

Because if there was a warrant, the agent would be risking prosecution by tipping off ABC,whereas if there was no warrant, he couldn't violate it by warning them. Furthermore, such whistleblowing would serve no purpose if there WERE a warrant, and makes perfect sense if there's no warrant (given the timing).

I was talking about a warrant served to tap phones to find a leaker. You seem to be referring to the program that's being "whistleblowed" (I can't think of another suffix to make that word work). That is, if I'm reading this right.

"such whistleblowing would serve no purpose if there WERE a warrant"

I know, I was referring to the difference between the two. If there IS a warrant to tap the phone, it has nothing to do with the current NSA story, so why would the agent risk violating a warrant by tipping them off? On the other hand, if there is NO warrant to tap the phone, then the whistleblowing is both relevant to the current wiretapping controversy and less of a risk for the agent doing it in terms of being prosecuted. Therefore, given the two options, it is more likely that there was no warrant here.

The main issue here though is what would stop the government from doing that to ABC, circumventing not only the fourth amendment but the first amendment? Nothing, given the President's attitude towards the law, a boundless authority that goes beyond anything Nixon attempted.

Leaks are illegal. Finding out who's leaking the information isn't circumventing free speech.

I vote hail the queef!

hoser said:

I dont even know what this is about, but she gets my vote as well.