Defiant Bush admits breaking law

[Cknolls]

It wasn't the Democrats who leaked this story, it was an NSA whistleblower. But I'm sure he's a Democrat too.

 

Are you sure about that?

[FlaSoxxJim]

Are you sure about that?

Actually, no he's not. Not for the most visible whitleblower in this so far.

 

Former NSA amployee Russell Tice confirmed that he is at least one of the several sources for the NYT story.

 

From Democracy Now a couple of weeks ago:

 

AMY GOODMAN: Did you support the President, Russell Tice? Did you vote for President Bush?

 

RUSSELL TICE: I am a Republican. I voted for President Bush both in the last election and the first election where he was up for president. I’ve contributed to his campaign. I get a post -- I mean, a Christmas card from the White House every year, I guess, because of my nominal contributions. But – so, you know, it’s not like, you know -- I think you’re going to find a lot of folks that are in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community are apt to be on the conservative side of the fence. But nonetheless, we're all taught that you don't do something like this…

[FlaSoxxJim]

Good old Turd Blossom taking care of business.

 

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.

 

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

 

"It's hardball all the way," a senior GOP congressional aide said.

 

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Rove2.htm

[kapkomet]

Good old Turd Blossom taking care of business.

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Rove2.htm

Turd Blossom.

 

You know what, though, I say go for it. Again, *IF* the President is this 'wrong' on this issue, expose it, distance yourself from it, and run your election. I bet they have a better chance if this really is 'wrong'.

[Balta1701]

Turd Blossom. 

 

You know what, though, I say go for it.  Again, *IF* the President is this 'wrong' on this issue, expose it, distance yourself from it, and run your election.  I bet they have a better chance if this really is 'wrong'.

That only makes sense as a plan for the Republicans if they're confident that the President will actually have to take some sort of punishment or reprimand over this act. Barring the appointment of a special prosecutor, the fact that the Democrats have no power to subpoena or indict in either house of Congress makes that extremely unlikely. If the Republicans hold together, they know very well that no investigation will go anywhere.

[Balta1701]

Howie Kurtz is ripping on some of the cable networks, and explaining exactly why there will never be a full scale investigation into this matter. That damn liberal media's ignoring it.

 

What's been the biggest domestic issue of the last month or so? Bush administration eavesdropping without court orders. And yesterday was the first congressional oversight hearing on the controversy, with Alberto Gonzales as the star witness.

 

The cable nets all made a great show of 'covering' the Senate Judiciary hearing by carrying the AG's opening statement, then maybe a question or two from Arlen Specter. Then they trotted out their legal analysts to talk about the meaning of the hearing, which by then must have been eight or nine minutes old. The hearing became video wallpaper as the cable talkers talked. They never even got to Pat Leahy, the panel's top Democrat, meaning that only Republican voices were heard. Gonzales essentially got a free ride.

 

Then everyone moved on to other subjects. MSNBC went back to the hearing for a couple of minutes but thought better of it. We had CNN looking at Fall Fashion Week, Fox ginning up a debate on Ken Mehlman calling Hillary angry, and MS doing a 'Massachusetts Murder Mystery.'

 

Now I'm not saying the Gonzales session should have been covered wall to wall (though fortunately it was on C-SPAN). America probably got sick of the preening politicians during the Roberts and Alito hearings. And the cable nets did deal with other serious issues. But they couldn't even be bothered with dipping in and out of the first attempt on Capitol Hill to hold the administration accountable for its domestic spying program. Instead, we had the appearance of coverage, and even that didn't last long.

[kapkomet]

Now that's funny.

[FlaSoxxJim]

House Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry

 

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program.

 

The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/politics..._r=1&oref=login

[Balta1701]

House Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/politics..._r=1&oref=login

Conveniently, just today, a new poll came out in that district showing that the re-election race for the fall currently is a statistical dead heat, 44-43 versus the Democratic challenger. Linky.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Conveniently, just today, a new poll came out in that district showing that the re-election race for the fall currently is a statistical dead heat, 44-43 versus the Democratic challenger.  Linky.

Yeah, but if the GOP is the "Party of National Security" and the NM race is so close, isn't it interesting that she thinks her best bet is to say no to this administrations stance on national security at the expense of the rule of law?

[kapkomet]

Yeah, but if the GOP is the "Party of National Security" and the NM race is so close, isn't it interesting that she thinks her best bet is to say no to this administrations stance on national security at the expense of the rule of law?

New Mexico is usually a Dem leaning state. And it really depends on where she is in New Mexico.

[Rex Kickass]

NM is about the swingiest of swing states actually. Doesn't much lean one side or the other.

[kapkomet]

NM is about the swingiest of swing states actually. Doesn't much lean one side or the other.

Certain parts of the state do. I don't know where she's at, though.

[NorthSideSox72]

The urban centers of the upper Rio Grande valley (ABQ north through Santa Fe to Taos) is failry to very left. The rest of the state is very right, and in fact, many rural counties in NM tend to vote big time for 3rd and 4th parties like Constitutional, Libertarian and Green. It's much like Colorado that way - a corridor of urban Dems, the rest of the state GOP.

 

Wilson's district, NM 1, includes most of Albuquerque and it's suburbs, plus a large swath of mountain and rural area. ABQ is a weird city, in that it leans sort of Dem, but not as much as it would without the military. ABQ has a very large population that either works for the military, or does contract work to it.

Oddly, her district specifically avoids the actual military base itself (Kirtland, Sandia Labs, Manzano Base). So I'd say she has a district very much on the fence, probably leaning further left as ABQ urbanizes.

[kapkomet]

Now it's getting interesting. After hearing details of the program, the tune is changing a little bit, and it's NOT the program that people have been speculating on for almost two months now. Imagine that.

 

As part of his upcoming bill, Specter said he wants the FISA court to review the program to weigh the nature of the terrorist threat, the program's scope, the number of people being monitored and how the information is being handled. If the judges find the program unconstitutional, he said the administration should make changes.

 

"The president should have all the tools he needs to fight terrorism, but we also want to maintain our civil liberties," Specter said.

 

At least one Democrat left the four-hour House Intelligence Committee session saying he had a better understanding of legal and operational aspects of the anti-terrorist surveillance program, being conducted without warrants. But he said he still had a number of questions.

 

"It's a different program than I was beginning to let myself believe," said Alabama Rep. Bud Cramer, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee's oversight subcommittee.

 

"This may be a valuable program," Cramer said, adding that he didn't know if it was legal. "My direction of thinking was changed tremendously."

 

Still, Cramer said, some members remain angry and frustrated, and he didn't know why the White House waited so long to inform Congress of its actions.

 

Again, this may not make the program "legal", but it looks like they may amend the program to MAKE it legal if it isn't.

 

If they are changing their tune that much, 95% of the bulls*** that was speculated on happening wasn't, and this is a legit program that protects our interests.

 

I still wish that we all could understand enough to get rid of the "legal" drama of it all, but I'm doubtful we will ever know.

[Balta1701]

Both the CS Monitor and Newsweek are alleging that the Administration has basically continued the so-called "Total Information Awareness" program under different names (they don't agree on the name) despite the fact that it was completely shut down when it was first discussed.

 

The Newsweek one claims that the program is still running but is basically useless because the intelligence agencies are just collecting information taht they can't use, so it winds up being a black hole which is just sucking up money and information without having a clue who it should actually be targeting. And no one seems to really know what's being done with whatever information is collected either.

[Balta1701]

Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events.

 

The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen.

 

The two heads of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were the only judges in the country briefed by the administration on Bush's program. The president's secret order, issued sometime after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, allows the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and contacts overseas.

 

James A. Baker, the counsel for intelligence policy in the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, discovered in 2004 that the government's failure to share information about its spying program had rendered useless a federal screening system that the judges had insisted upon to shield the court from tainted information. He alerted Kollar-Kotelly, who complained to Justice, prompting a temporary suspension of the NSA spying program, the sources said.

 

Yet another problem in a 2005 warrant application prompted Kollar-Kotelly to issue a stern order to government lawyers to create a better firewall or face more difficulty obtaining warrants.

 

WaPo.

[Balta1701]

Gosh, I'm soooooo surprised by this........

 

Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday.

[YASNY]

Gosh, I'm soooooo surprised by this........

 

Yes, me too. I'm shocked that Congress is not willing to act when there is nothing illegal on which to act.

[Balta1701]

Yes, me too. I'm shocked that Congress is not willing to act when there is nothing illegal on which to act.

And I'm amazed that the Republicans decided that based entirely on their reasoning skills...which of course told them that a continuing investigation of the President would be bad for their reelection chances.

[YASNY]

And I'm amazed that the Republicans decided that based entirely on their reasoning skills...which of course told them that a continuing investigation of the President would be bad for their reelection chances.

 

Them bastards are pretty damn smart, aren't they?

[Balta1701]

Them bastards are pretty damn smart, aren't they?

Except when it comes to, you know, actually caring about doing the right thing for their country regardless of the politics. Which is how most of Congress got in office anyway.

[YASNY]

Except when it comes to, you know, actually caring about doing the right thing for their country regardless of the politics.  Which is how most of Congress got in office anyway.

 

It's always been that way, and always will be that way .. regardless of which party holds the majority.

[Balta1701]

It's always been that way, and always will be that way .. regardless of which party holds the majority.

Which is exactly why you need each party to have control of 1 house of Congress...so that they can check each other and so that they both have subpoena power. You shouldn't trust either of them to do anything that will sabotage their own power, so the only way to make sure there aren't abuses allowed entirely because of politics is to put them at each other's throats.

[YASNY]

Which is exactly why you need each party to have control of 1 house of Congress...so that they can check each other and so that they both have subpoena power.  You shouldn't trust either of them to do anything that will sabotage their own power, so the only way to make sure there aren't abuses allowed entirely because of politics is to put them at each other's throats.

 

In total agreement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I almost choked on those words.