OT: What constitutes a "High Crime or Misdemeanor"?

That's a real easy one to answer. Unprincipled poseurs, ... just wait and see.

Osama didn't begin it. It was the result of the crumbling of the US Global Empire.

I have said it many times; the real enemy lies within, not on the outside. It happened to the Roman Empire, The Mongol Empire, The Byzantine Empire, The Ottoman Empire, The Austro-Hungarian Empire, The British Empire, and now ..... elementary Watson, elementary.

Abrasha

Gee, I wonder what your agenda might be? Tawk about subtle....

But our fearless leader IS only spying on a very SPECIFIC group (suspected terrorists) in a SPECIFIC crime (future suspected planned terrorist acts). Will you want Hillary to be more specific than that? ;)

That is my point. It is her business not the nation's. OTOH, I think maybe I would prefer to be impeached rather than face Hillary. :-)

This is why I've cast a wary eye on the neocons ever since the early '70s. The goals of their program is one thing. Their way of thinking and operating is another.

'Way back when Irving Kristol was writing the original apologia for neoconism, it had the scent of admiration for "strongman" politics -- aka, the precursors to dictatorial assumptions of power. They tip their hat to democracy but their real sympathies are with the totalitarian swashbucklers and neofascists who just take power any way they can. You see some of this in their academic idol, Leo Strauss. Under his smooth and calm posturing, Cheney is one of those. And, of course, Rumsfeld and Wolfie. And Bush's Brain, Karl Rove.

Now Bush is running up against the limits to where you can go with this attitude in present-day America. It would have worked better back in the middle of the last century. It appears he may have gone to the well with his "base" once too often. There are a lot of flavors of conservatives, but a substantial segment of them have a libertarian bent, and take Constitutional protections very seriously. I think he senses that enough Republicans in the Senate, and maybe in the House, take them seriously enough that he could lose up-or-down votes over the spying thing. Thus, his recent "humility."

-- Ed Huntress

Those who learn from history are condemned to watch others repeat it. --Henry Kissinger

They can try. That'd be the point where they fail.

I just read a news report that suggests you're being a little harsh with the president. He does seem to be getting it:

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BUSH TO WORLD: MY BAD Vows Never to Make Decision Based On Intelligence Again

Days after admitting that his decision to go to war in Iraq was based on faulty intelligence, President George W. Bush issued a two-word statement to the world: "My bad."

Appearing in front of a giant blue-and-gold placard with the words "My Bad" emblazoned on it, the president lashed out at the faulty intelligence that led to his decision to go to war two years ago.

"Faulty intelligence got us into this mess," Mr. Bush said. "But I have learned my lesson, and I will never make another decision based on intelligence again..."

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Full story at:

Today's top story has to be encouraging, too:

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TERROR SUSPECTS TO RECEIVE FREQUENT FLIER MILES New Program Makes Rendering Rewarding, Condi Says

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today acknowledged that the United States often flies terror suspects to foreign countries to be interrogated by means not allowed in the U.S., but said that the government was instituting a new program by which the suspects would receive frequent flier miles for their journeys.

Insiders say that the government's new Terror RewardsT program may be intended to make the practice of rendering - by which suspects are shuttled from country to country for the purpose of interrogation and torture - more palatable to the international community...

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Full story at:

-- Ed Huntress

I don't know the laws and the intricacies and it seems to be a point of contention. Who do you believe and what is the real truth? Or does one just take his favorite politico's word?

LOL That's funny! I watched the Cheney interview last night. It wasn't. These guys are true believers. Their behavior is acceptable because it's them doing this stuff. I can't believe how many are buying in to that nonsense.

I don't think most people *are* buying it any longer. But they're resigned to the idea that we broke it, so we own it, as Powell said.

My feeling of the general mood is that we're just waiting for it to be over, hoping there are no more adventures or surprises before this bunch retires.

-- Ed Huntress

3 years is a long time. We are a long way from a Dem controlled House but I'd love to see such a thing if only to see old georgie get his due. If the HOR would get the ball rollin' I think the Senate would try and convict him. Quite a lot of PO'd Republican Senators these days.

From my POV, there isn't a lot to do right now except to keep the law on their backs. With a Republican-ruled Congress there is no chance of an impeachment over the spying thing. In fact, I'm not sure there should be. But there should be a quick Court decision about its constitutionality, and an end to the end-running. There is no reason for it because the law allows retroactive court approvals of domestic wiretaps, anyway.

I don't think the Dems have their act together sufficiently to run much of anything. They have a long way to go. What I'm hoping for is the ascendance of the moderate/conservative McCainish Republicans and the tossing out of the neocons and the Christian nutball right. They're a marriage made in hell. That looks like a slim hope at the moment, however.

-- Ed Huntress

Everyone should start paying attention to the 2006 house race in their congressional district. It's not too early to meet and talk to your incumbent and anyone running against him/her.

By his own admission in a speech last week, Bush bypassed the FISA court to order wiretaps and the FISA law says it's a federal offense to wiretap without a court order.

The FISA court has issued thousands of tap orders since it was instituted in 1979 and it has refused 5 (!) requests, ever.

The FISA law allows retroactive requests. The governemnt can tap first and file in 72 hours. See

When Bush says the Congressional leadership was briefed the implication is that they didn't object. Since the briefings were top secret Congressfolks that objected couldn't go public. The topic was so secret that in order to register his opposition he had to hand write his own letter which he has just released;

...He wrote it to Cheney in 2003, after he learned about the wiretapping-without-FISA-court-approval maneuver. It's handwritten -- because no one in the meeting could tell anyone else about it, not even a typist. Rockefeller told Cheney he could not endorse the program. He said he was keeping a sealed copy of the letter -- for a moment just like this.

You take one lousy week off to join Thorax at the Elvis concert, and this is what happens: Stephen Young writes on Mon, 19 Dec

2005 18:24:10 -0500 >> Which is worse? Getting a little nookie on the side in the Oval Office or

And where they did the lieing. Democrats seem all upset about a President not telling them everything in public, but not at all about Presidents suborning false testimony in a legal case.

Hey, if they'll lie about sex, even under oath, what else will they lie about?

toodles pyotr

On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 18:24:10 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Stephen Young quickly quoth:

Right. Gettin' head in the Ovulatin' Office wasn't the problem in the former offense. The offenses were lying about it under oath AND allowing tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to be wasted proving it.

And now we have trillions of our dollars wasted over another nothing. Hell, I'm much less comfortable with the world Shrub has given to us than I ever was of Hussein or bin Laden. The farce called "security" at the airport was only the first straw. Bend over, my fellow Americans. More is coming, especially if he pushes the billion plus Muslim population into critical mass.

Here is something interesting. It isn't illegal but it is relevant when your side of an argument comes down to "Trust Me".

"Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap REQUIRES A COURT ORDER. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution." -George W. Bush 4/20/2004

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:05:10 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, pyotr filipivich quickly quoth:

I believe you misspelled "Republicans and Democrats" there, pyotr.