Mainstream?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, which shows a majority of the US public disapproving of the way current administration is handling things and has for quite some time:

http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm

How Iraq is being handled by current administration is even more opinionated:

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

While it's simplistic to apply liberal and conservative labels to issues and opinions, the US is split almost evenly between registered Democrats and Republicans. When opinions favoring one side of any issue become lopsided, as they have, labels mean nothing. I've been a traditional Republican all of my adult life and disapprove of any administration that grows government at record rates, displays complete fiscal irresponsibility, encourages debt that will put future generations into indentured servitude, expands conventional military forces during unconventional times and tramples on my civil liberties for any reason at direct cost to me and my country. We have political corruption that's being accepted by many due to an impossible promise of security. Our national treasure is being drained and debt incurred by that fear mentality at a rate which will defy replenishment and repayment.

 

Why don't you quit cutting and pasting and actually write what you think. It has been the tactic for some time to appeal to Republicans by saying you are a long time republican. I don't buy it. You are spewing left wing propaganda that can probably be found on moveon.org.

The polls have not been accurate in a long time. The best proof of that is the polling used during the Bush/Kerry election. Every poll in the last week said Kery was up by 5 and the exit polling said the same. They were wrong. Look at the ratings of the mainstream media who I can't even stand to watch anymore. They are plummeting. The major news organizations like the New York times are losing readership in droves yet the new media, bloggers, talk radio and Fox News is making record profits, ratings and readership.

The most accurate opinion pole is watching where people are spending money, not who you can get to answer questions the way you want them to. You can take two products and put them on the market. One tastes good, the other tastes bad. Soon the good one is selling like crazy and the bad one is not selling hardly at all. Now, go on a marketing campaign and tell everyone long enough that the bad one is selling more units. The result will be that most people think the bad one is selling more units but it will not change the ratio of sales. The good one will still sell good and the bad one won't.

I am not saying conservative is good and liberal is bad, I am simply making an illustration. Right now and for the last 20 + years conservative values sell well and liberal values do not. Even Clinton ran as a conservative both times to get elected. Why would he do that if liberal is what the mainstream wanted?

Why don't you send people to www.factcheck.org? That should clear a number of the issues up that you are complaining about. Instead of just taking your word for how things are, people can actually get the resources to find out the truth for themselves.

Lastly, let me give you the definition of an intellectual. An intellectual is someone who can take the most complex subject and simplify it to the point that everyone can understand it. Liberals tend to consider themselves as intellectuals as you do. You think I am simplistic in my thinking and can't fully comprehend the gravity of the subject. The liberal definition of an intellectual is to take the most simplistic concept and complicate it to the point that no one can understand it or explain it. If people can figure things out and see the truth on their own, what do they need Liberals for? That would be more than you could bare.

 

Youre attacking the wrong guy...its me who does all the copy and pasting....and if it upsets you, to hear the truth..watch Faux news.

I try to get the middle view point out there....the right seems to be able to control the airways and get their message out, but the middle isnt heard from. im trying to educate the younger readers in the forum, that there is a different view point...other than the official one. If you think what i post is far left, youre mistaken. There is stuff way more left than i point out, and even i dont believe the extremes on either end of the spectrum.

Point out where in fiengolds speach, there was a untruth or mis statement of facts.

 

I am not attacking anyone. Your last post was from your brain rather than a paste. That is a good start.

Why don't you tell me the truth in whatever speech you were referring to........

BTW, everyone thinks of themselves as in the middle politically. Almost no one considers themselves extreme. You will think anyone to the left of you is too liberal and anyone to the right of you is too conservative. There is no revelation in your claim that you are in the middle.

Both political parties have tried to have claim on the middle for as long as they have been around.

 

Most polls usually have a +/- margin of error of 5%. So that poll was still accurate. Anytime the numbers are within the margin of error, it's equal.

Just because something is selling, doesn't mean that's it's the best option out there. Case in point: Microsft Windows. Horrible security history. Slow to fix. Fixes cause so many problems that it takes corporations months to regression test them.

The mainstream is middle of the road. Very few issues actually seperate people, and those are thrust up as these huge issues. You see Democrats calling for Bush to reign in spending in the latest budget. I kinda chuckled at that. Each party has their pet project, pork, programs, etc.

Never heard of that before. I'll have to check it out more.

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I dont want to be accused of plagerism, so i show my sourses,
If you check back, a couple of days ago, in this thread, i posted the text of russ fiengolds speach.
Point out where hes inaacurate.

 

Black and Red,

You are clearly open minded. You are correct when you say that just because something sells well doesn't make it the best option. Unfortunately we live in a world where we have to make sacrifices. There may have been other options that were better than Windows but were they viable options? Could they meet the volume demand? Could they meet the cost requirements so as not to drive up the cost of computers?

What sacrifices in other areas would we have had to make to take advantage of better security found in a different operating system?

There is no ideal, there is just life. All I meant by that statement was follow what people are doing. Trust in the American people on the large scale. Even a completely free society isn't perfect but it is the best we have. Capitalism vs. Socialism is a valid illustration. In a perfect world where there is no selfishness, socialism would be ideal. Since this is not a perfect place and selfishness is the defining characteristic of our nature, socialism has failed everytime it was tried. Capitalism is the only economic basis that is consistent with complete freedom. It sucks that some get left out because they are less intelligent or have less physical talent or simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The alternative though requires limiting freedom of citizens to keep it "fair".

This thread is about the question of freedom. I don't care if Bush or Kerry or Hillary is in the White House sworn to protect this great land. Under the current circumstances since "911" I want the President to profile, spy and whatever else he has to do to make sure bad guys aren't slipping through the cracks. These guys say we are no safer but they couldn't be more wrong. How many successful terrorist attacks have we had on our shore since "911"?

None!

Where are all the terrorists being engaged?

Iraq and Afghanistan and anywhere else other than here! Pretty smart, huh. Oh and we happened to free about 50 million people from dictatorial control while we were at it. They are democracy's now and they overwhelmingly love us for going the distance. I don't care what these guys say about people not wanting freedom. That is a lie! Freedom is cherished above all things when compared.

If I have to wait longer to get on a plane or I have to make dam.n sure my papers are in order to re-enter the country, no problem. Just keep us safe. If you want to listen in on my phone conversations right now, no problem. I have nothing to hide. When the war is over though, you better back off!

This whole notion is bogus though. Bush is not breaking any laws. He is granted this right by office to do what is necessary to protect this nation. He swore a constitutional oath to that effect. Any law put in place to inhibit the presidents ability to defend this nation is in fact unconstitutional in itself.

The things Bush id doing right now are no different than what any president has been doing since the introduction of the telephone. Clinton authorized more wire taps than Bush has to date without the consent of the judiciary and that wasen't even during a time of war!

I challenge any of you who read this thread to do what it takes to check my information out. Do not look at news organizations or talk radio. Look at the government websites. Look at factcheck.org and see for yourself if the information is accurate.

I put my confidence in people's ability to tell the difference between propaganda and factual information. Sometimes, however, it takes a little work and study to tell the difference.

Educate yourselves on what is really happening. Don't take my word or anyone elses in a place like this that has the luxury of throwing out ideas and statements with no verification or accountability.

Ron

Facts

 

I am not familier with the speach. Please tell me what you liked about it...

I looked back to about page 9 and gave up..... Maybe I missed it. Re-quote it and I will read it.

Ron

 

On the President’s Warrantless Wiretapping Program
by Russ Feingold


Statement delivered on the Senate Floor by U.S. Senator Russ Feingold February 7, 2006.

Mr. President, last week the President of the United States gave his State of the Union address, where he spoke of America’s leadership in the world, and called on all of us to “lead this world toward freedom.” Again and again, he invoked the principle of freedom, and how it can transform nations, and empower people around the world.

But, almost in the same breath, the President openly acknowledged that he has ordered the government to spy on Americans, on American soil, without the warrants required by law.

The President issued a call to spread freedom throughout the world, and then he admitted that he has deprived Americans of one of their most basic freedoms under the Fourth Amendment -- to be free from unjustified government intrusion.

The President was blunt. He said that he had authorized the NSA’s domestic spying program, and he made a number of misleading arguments to defend himself. His words got rousing applause from Republicans, and even some Democrats.

The President was blunt, so I will be blunt: This program is breaking the law, and this President is breaking the law. Not only that, he is misleading the American people in his efforts to justify this program.

How is that worthy of applause? Since when do we celebrate our commander in chief for violating our most basic freedoms, and misleading the American people in the process? When did we start to stand up and cheer for breaking the law? In that moment at the State of the Union, I felt ashamed.

Congress has lost its way if we don’t hold this President accountable for his actions.

The President suggests that anyone who criticizes his illegal wiretapping program doesn’t understand the threat we face. But we do. Every single one of us is committed to stopping the terrorists who threaten us and our families.

Defeating the terrorists should be our top national priority, and we all agree that we need to wiretap them to do it. In fact, it would be irresponsible not to wiretap terrorists. But we have yet to see any reason why we have to trample the laws of the United States to do it. The President’s decision that he can break the law says far more about his attitude toward the rule of law than it does about the laws themselves.

This goes way beyond party, and way beyond politics. What the President has done here is to break faith with the American people. In the State of the Union, he also said that “we must always be clear in our principles” to get support from friends and allies that we need to fight terrorism. So let’s be clear about a basic American principle: When someone breaks the law, when someone misleads the public in an attempt to justify his actions, he needs to be held accountable. The President of the United States has broken the law. The President of the United States is trying to mislead the American people. And he needs to be held accountable.

Unfortunately, the President refuses to provide any details about this domestic spying program. Not even the full Intelligence committees know the details, and they were specifically set up to review classified information and oversee the intelligence activities of our government. Instead, the President says – “Trust me.”

This is not the first time we’ve heard that. In the lead-up to the Iraq war, the Administration went on an offensive to get the American public, the Congress, and the international community to believe its theory that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, and even that he had ties to Al Qaeda. The President painted a dire – and inaccurate – picture of Saddam Hussein’s capability and intent, and we invaded Iraq on that basis. To make matters worse, the Administration misled the country about what it would take to stabilize and reconstruct Iraq after the conflict. We were led to believe that this was going to be a short endeavor, and that our troops would be home soon.

We all recall the President’s “Mission Accomplished” banner on the aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003. In fact, the mission was not even close to being complete. More than 2100 total deaths have occurred after the President declared an end to major combat operations in May of 2003, and over 16,600 American troops have been wounded in Iraq. The President misled the American people and grossly miscalculated the true challenge of stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq.

In December, we found out that the President has authorized wiretaps of Americans without the court orders required by law. He says he is only wiretapping people with links to terrorists, but how do we know? We don’t. The President is unwilling to let a neutral judge make sure that is the case. He will not submit this program to an independent branch of government to make sure he’s not violating the rights of law-abiding Americans.

So I don’t want to hear again that this Administration has shown it can be trusted. It hasn’t. And that is exactly why the law requires a judge to review these wiretaps.

It is up to Congress to hold the President to account. We held a hearing on the domestic spying program in the Judiciary Committee yesterday, where Attorney General Gonzales was a witness. We expect there will be other hearings. That is a start, but it will take more than just hearings to get the job done.

We know that in part because the President’s Attorney General has already shown a willingness to mislead the Congress.

At the hearing yesterday, I reminded the Attorney General about his testimony during his confirmation hearings in January 2005, when I asked him whether the President had the power to authorize warrantless wiretaps in violation of the criminal law. We didn’t know it then, but the President had authorized the NSA program three years before, when the Attorney General was White House Counsel. At his confirmation hearing, the Attorney General first tried to dismiss my question as “hypothetical.” He then testified that “it’s not the policy or the agenda of this President to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.”

Well, Mr. President, wiretapping American citizens on American soil without the required warrant is in direct contravention of our criminal statutes. The Attorney General knew that, and he knew about the NSA program when he sought the Senate’s approval for his nomination to be Attorney General. He wanted the Senate and the American people to think that the President had not acted on the extreme legal theory that the President has the power as Commander in Chief to disobey the criminal laws of this country. But he had. The Attorney General had some explaining to do, and he didn’t do it yesterday. Instead he parsed words, arguing that what he said was truthful because he didn’t believe that the President’s actions violated the law.

But he knew what I was asking, and he knew he was misleading the Committee in his response. If he had been straightforward, he would have told the committee that in his opinion, the President has the authority to authorize warrantless wiretaps. My question wasn’t about whether such illegal wiretapping was going on – like almost everyone in Congress, I didn’t know about the program then. It was a question about how the nominee to be Attorney General viewed the law. This nominee wanted to be confirmed, and so he let a misleading statement about one of the central issues of his confirmation – his view of executive power – stay on the record until the New York Times revealed the program.

The rest of the Attorney General’s performance at yesterday’s hearing certainly did not give me any comfort, either. He continued to push the Administration’s weak legal arguments, continued to insinuate that anyone who questions this program doesn’t want to fight terrorism, and refused to answer basic questions about what powers this Administration is claiming. We still need a lot of answers from this Administration.

But let’s put aside the Attorney General for now. The burden is not just on him to come clean -- the President has some explaining to do. The President’s defense of his actions is deeply cynical, deeply misleading, and deeply troubling.

To find out that the President of the United States has violated the basic rights of the American people is chilling. And then to see him publicly embrace his actions – and to see so many Members of Congress cheer him on – is appalling.

The President has broken the law, and he has made it clear that he will continue to do so. But the President is not a king. And the Congress is not a king’s court. Our job is not to stand up and cheer when the President breaks the law. Our job is to stand up and demand accountability, to stand up and check the power of an out-of-control executive branch.

That is one of the reasons that the framers put us here - to ensure balance between the branches of government, not to act as a professional cheering section.

We need answers. Because no one, not the President, not the Attorney General, and not any of their defenders in this body, has been able to explain why it is necessary to break the law to defend against terrorism. And I think that’s because they can’t explain it.

Instead, this administration reacts to anyone who questions this illegal program by saying that those of us who demand the truth and stand up for our rights and freedoms have a pre-9/11 view of the world.

In fact, the President has a pre-1776 view of the world.

Our Founders lived in dangerous times, and they risked everything for freedom. Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death." The President's pre-1776 mentality is hurting America. It is fracturing the foundation on which our country has stood for 230 years. The President can't just bypass two branches of government, and obey only those laws he wants to obey. Deciding unilaterally which of our freedoms still apply in the fight against terrorism is unacceptable and needs to be stopped immediately.

Let’s examine for a moment some of the President’s attempts to defend his actions. His arguments have changed over time, of course. They have to – none of them hold up under even casual scrutiny, so he can’t rely on one single explanation. As each argument crumbles beneath him, he moves on to a new one, until that, too, is debunked, and on and on he goes.

In the State of the Union, the President referred to Presidents in American history who cited executive authority to order warrantless surveillance. But of course those past presidents – like Wilson and Roosevelt – were acting before the Supreme Court decided in 1967 that our communications are protected by the Fourth Amendment, and before Congress decided in 1978 that the executive branch can no longer unilaterally decide which Americans to wiretap. The Attorney General yesterday was unable to give me one example of a President who, since 1978 when FISA was passed, has authorized warrantless wiretaps outside of FISA.

So that argument is baseless, and it’s deeply troubling that the President of the United States would so obviously mislead the Congress and American public. That hardly honors the founders’ idea that the President should address the Congress on the state of our union.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978 to create a secret court, made up of judges who develop national security expertise, to issue warrants for surveillance of terrorists and spies. These are the judges from whom the Bush Administration has obtained thousands of warrants since 9/11. The Administration has almost never had a warrant request rejected by those judges. They have used the FISA Court thousands of times, but at the same time they assert that FISA is an “old law” or “out of date” and they can’t comply with it. Clearly they can and do comply with it – except when they don’t. Then they just arbitrarily decide to go around these judges, and around the law.

The Administration has said that it ignored FISA because it takes too long to get a warrant under that law. But we know that in an emergency, where the Attorney General believes that surveillance must begin before a court order can be obtained, FISA permits the wiretap to be executed immediately as long as the government goes to the court within 72 hours. The Attorney General has complained that the emergency provision does not give him enough flexibility, he has complained that getting a FISA application together or getting the necessary approvals takes too long. But the problems he has cited are bureaucratic barriers that the executive branch put in place, and could easily remove if it wanted.

FISA also permits the Attorney General to authorize unlimited warrantless electronic surveillance in the United States during the 15 days following a declaration of war, to allow time to consider any amendments to FISA required by a wartime emergency. That is the time period that Congress specified. Yet the President thinks that he can do this indefinitely.

In the State of the Union, the President also argued that federal courts had approved the use of presidential authority that he was invoking. But that turned out to be misleading as well. When I asked the Attorney General about this, he could point me to no court – not the Supreme Court or any other court – that has considered whether, after FISA was enacted, the President nonetheless had the authority to bypass it and authorize warrantless wiretaps. Not one court. The Administration’s effort to find support for what it has done in snippets of other court decisions would be laughable if this issue were not so serious.

The President knows that FISA makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order. Why else would he have assured the public, over and over again, that he was getting warrants before engaging in domestic surveillance?

Here’s what the President said on April 20, 2004: “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.”

And again, on July 14, 2004: “The government can’t move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order.”

The President was understandably eager in these speeches to make it clear that under his administration, law enforcement was using the FISA Court to obtain warrants before wiretapping. That is understandable, since wiretapping Americans on American soil without a warrant is against the law.

And listen to what the President said on June 9, 2005: “Law enforcement officers need a federal judge’s permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist’s phone, a federal judge’s permission to track his calls, or a federal judge’s permission to search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of these tools. And these standards are fully consistent with the Constitution of the U.S.”

Now that the public knows about the domestic spying program, he has had to change course. He has looked around for arguments to cloak his actions. And all of them are completely threadbare.

The President has argued that Congress gave him authority to wiretap Americans on U.S. soil without a warrant when it passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force after September 11, 2001. Mr. President, that is ridiculous. Members of Congress did not think this resolution gave the President blanket authority to order these warrantless wiretaps. We all know that. Anyone in this body who would tell you otherwise either wasn’t here at the time or isn’t telling the truth. We authorized the President to use military force in Afghanistan, a necessary and justified response to September 11. We did not authorize him to wiretap American citizens on American soil without going through the process that was set up nearly three decades ago precisely to facilitate the domestic surveillance of terrorists – with the approval of a judge. That is why both Republicans and Democrats have questioned this theory.

This particular claim is further undermined by congressional approval of the Patriot Act just a few weeks after we passed the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. The Patriot Act made it easier for law enforcement to conduct surveillance on suspected terrorists and spies, while maintaining FISA’s baseline requirement of judicial approval for wiretaps of Americans in the U.S. It is ridiculous to think that Congress would have negotiated and enacted all the changes to FISA in the Patriot Act if it thought it had just authorized the President to ignore FISA in the AUMF.

In addition, in the intelligence authorization bill passed in December 2001, we extended the emergency authority in FISA, at the Administration’s request, from 24 to 72 hours. Why do that if the President has the power to ignore FISA? That makes no sense at all.

The President has also said that his inherent executive power gives him the power to approve this program. But here the President is acting in direct violation of a criminal statute. That means his power is, as Justice Jackson said in the steel seizure cases half a century ago, “at its lowest ebb.” A recent letter from a group of law professors and former executive branch officials points out that “every time the Supreme Court has confronted a statute limiting the Commander-in-Chief’s authority, it has upheld the statute.” The Senate reports issued when FISA was enacted confirm the understanding that FISA overrode any pre-existing inherent authority of the President. As the 1978 Senate Judiciary Committee report stated, FISA “recognizes no inherent power of the president in this area.” And “Congress has declared that this statute, not any claimed presidential power, controls.” Contrary to what the President told the country in the State of the Union, no court has ever approved warrantless surveillance in violation of FISA.

The President’s claims of inherent executive authority, and his assertions that the courts have approved this type of activity, are baseless.

The President has argued that periodic internal executive branch review provides an adequate check on the program. He has even characterized this periodic review as a safeguard for civil liberties. But we don’t know what this check involves. And we do know that Congress explicitly rejected this idea of unilateral executive decision-making in this area when it passed FISA.

Finally, the president has tried to claim that informing a handful of congressional leaders, the so-called Gang of Eight, somehow excuses breaking the law. Of course, several of these members said they weren’t given the full story. And all of them were prohibited from discussing what they were told. So the fact that they were informed under these extraordinary circumstances does not constitute congressional oversight, and it most certainly does not constitute congressional approval of the program. Indeed, it doesn’t even comply with the National Security Act, which requires the entire memberships of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee to be “fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States.”

In addition, we now know that some of these members expressed concern about the program. The Administration ignored their protests. Just last week, one of the eight members of Congress who has been briefed about the program, Congresswoman Jane Harman, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she sees no reason why the Administration cannot accomplish its goals within the law as currently written.

None of the President’s arguments explains or excuses his conduct, or the NSA’s domestic spying program. Not one. It is hard to believe that the President has the audacity to claim that they do. It is a strategy that really hinges on the credibility of the office of the Presidency itself. If you just insist that you didn’t break the law, you haven’t broken the law. It reminds me of what Richard Nixon said after he had left office: “Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.” But that is not how our constitutional democracy works. Making those kinds of arguments is damaging the credibility of the Presidency.

And what’s particularly disturbing is how many members of Congress have responded. They stood up and cheered. They stood up and cheered.

Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote: “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

The President’s actions are indefensible. Freedom is an enduring principle. It is not something to celebrate in one breath, and ignore the next. Freedom is at the heart of who we are as a nation, and as a people. We cannot be a beacon of freedom for the world unless we protect our own freedoms here at home.

The President was right about one thing. In his address, he said “We love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it.”

Yes, Mr. President. We do love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it. We will fight to defeat the terrorists who threaten the safety and security of our families and loved ones. And we will fight to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans against intrusive government power.

As the President said, we must always be clear in our principles. So let us be clear: We cherish the great and noble principle of freedom, we will fight to keep it, and we will hold this President – and anyone who violates those freedoms – accountable for their actions. In a nation built on freedom, the President is not a king, and no one is above the law.

I yield the floor.

 

Thanks Hondabuster.

I disagree with his entire premis. The substantiation of his speech is found in the 4th amendment.....to be free from unjustified government intrusion.

The NSA is not wire tapping you. They are wire tapping people who they think are in league with Al Qaeda. During this time in history, any concern of a citizen or resident of the US communicating with Al Qaeda should be surveiled without beaureucratic limitation. The President takes a Constitutional oath that requires him to defend this nation. Any law that could be made that would reduce the President's ability to defend is unconstitutional. What if you had a judge make an error in judgement and not allow a wire tap that lead to a bombing on American soil? Would you blame the Judge or the President? The judge takes an oath to defend the Constitution, not the nation in times of war.

Typical scare tactic to try to make average Americans think the government is watching them change their shorts!

Once you remove the relevance of Fiengold's constitutional substantiation, the rest of the speech is simply idealogical fluff. To build this case on an excerpt from the 4th ammendment that contains a word as relative and subjective as "unjustified" (which is the qualifier by the way) is weak and a waste of the Senate's time.

Ron