IF YOU OR A RAG HEAD THEN YOU DO HAVE SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT. YOU MUST HAVE VOTED FOR JOHN 2 WAYS . SO IF YOU DO NOT LIKE BIG BOTHER LOOKING AT YOU ,GO TO FRANCE . [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-disgusted.gif[/img]

 

Ron, Im an old timer as well, and i think sometimes the lessons on morality and dececy i learned are no longer valid, but i know of no other way...once you pass 50, its hard to change who you are.

My dad told me a long time ago...when youre right, you dont back down. when the constitution and every persons freedom is at stake, its worth fighting for.

I dont buy the belief that putting republican criminals in jails, is supporting obl. I see it as every citizens duty to the country, to watch over the public officials and hold them accountable for their actions.thats one of the tenants of the republican party...and its funny, because when i championed the fight against clinton...i had lots of republican supporters, but when i choose to shine the light of truth on a republican, i get respones like the last one. Id do it to a democrat just as easily as a republican, the country and the constitution come before party loyalty...as it should.

Im not alone in this fight. Ever wonder why all the whistleblowers and leakers are coming out of the woodwork? Ever wonder why the administration is trying so hard to silence them? They are our first line of defense, and they are trying to signal the public that some very wrong and illegal acts are being committed, and being kept secret.

You gotta do what you gotta do, i cant change....so i gotta defend america, the best way i know, and that means getting the word out, because the media wont do it.


if you have time, could you explain to me, why intelligent people choose to believe known liers. No one has ever gotten around to explaining to me, why people do that. I really dont understand it. If a wife lied to husband about an affair...does the husband ever trust her again? why are we so eager to defend and excuse a politican..who means far less to us than a wife.we hire them thru elections..they work for us...were the employer...why do we tolerate lying? Im not picking on you, and i wont rip your answer apart, im really just curious why it happens. If you dont know....then thats two of us who dont know.

 

Believe it or not, although you hate me, im still gonna defend your country and its values, i only target people who have voilated the public trust, im in no way defending terrorists or supporting them( contrary to faux news, the issues are separate....its posible to have the criminals in jail AND have safety and security).
I spent 8 years in the military, and believe me, ive faced tougher than you. If your so pro war...why dont you enlist?until you have served 8 years or more...you have no position to question my loyalty.
I voted for nader the last election..so youre wrong about that too.

 

Heres an interesting article in the news.

Yet Another Bush Lie

By Robert Parry
February 8, 2006

George W. Bush has assured Americans that they can relax about his warrantless wiretapping because the program is reviewed by lots of lawyers and intelligence professionals. What he doesn’t say is that officials who object too much find themselves isolated, ridiculed and pushed out of their jobs.

For instance, when Deputy Attorney General James Comey refused to recertify the spying program in March 2004 – while Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital – Bush gave Comey a derisive nickname, as “Cuomey” or “Cuomo” after New York’s former liberal Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo, Newsweek has reported.

Similarly, a high-ranking intelligence official who questioned the wiretapping program told the Washington Post that his objections soon made him an unwanted outsider. He encountered awkward silences when he attended meetings where the eavesdropping rules were discussed.

“I became aware at some point of things I was not being told about,” the intelligence official said. [Washington Post, Feb. 5, 2006]

Another outcast from the Bush administration’s clique of insiders was Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith, who reportedly led an internal rebellion of Justice Department lawyers who protested Bush’s assertion of nearly unlimited presidential powers for the duration of the War on Terror.

“Demanding that the White House stop using what they saw as farfetched rationales for riding rough-shod over the law and the Constitution, Goldsmith and the others fought to bring government spying and interrogation methods within the law,” Newsweek wrote. “They did so at their peril; ostracized, some were denied promotions, while others left for more comfortable climes in private law firms and academia.”

White House Nerves

Goldsmith – a Republican conservative but not a believer in the absolutist Presidency – started getting on the White House’s nerves in fall 2003 after taking over the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

First, Goldsmith argued that Iraqi prisoners were protected by the Geneva Conventions and couldn’t be subjected to coercion. Then, Goldsmith challenged a legal memo that had supported Bush’s right to authorize torture.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief counsel David Addington addressed Goldsmith with dripping sarcasm, accusing him of undermining the powers of the President, Newsweek reported in its Feb. 6, 2006, edition.

“Now that you’ve withdrawn legal opinions that the President of the United States has been relying on,” Addington reportedly told Goldsmith, “I need you to go through all of OLC’s opinions (relating to the War on Terror) and let me know which ones you still stand by.”

Goldsmith’s opposition to Bush’s program for warrantless wiretapping of Americans brought the tensions to a head. He drew support from Comey, who refused to sign a recertification of the wiretap program in March 2004 when he was filling in for ailing Attorney General Ashcroft.

White House chief of staff Andrew Card and Bush’s counsel Alberto Gonzales rushed to visit Ashcroft, who was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery. Faced with Comey’s objections – and the resistance from Goldsmith – Ashcroft also balked at continuing the wiretap program, which was temporarily suspended while a compromise was reached on more safeguards. [NYT, Jan. 1, 2006]

The battle over the warrantless wiretaps reportedly earned Comey the derisive nickname from Bush as “Cuomey” or just “Cuomo,” a strong insult from Republicans who deem the former New York governor to be both excessively liberal and famously indecisive.

Comey – previously a well-respected Republican lawyer who was credited with prosecuting key terrorism cases including the Khobar Towers bombing which killed 19 U.S. servicemen in 1996 – had been deputy attorney general since December 2003.

Plame Case

But by 2004, Comey already was wearing out his welcome with the White House. He also was responsible for picking Patrick Fitzgerald to be special prosecutor to investigate who leaked the identity of a covert CIA officer after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, criticized Bush’s misuse of intelligence on Iraq.

In 2003, when Ashcroft was still handling the investigation, Bush had expressed confidence that the leakers would never be identified. But Ashcroft stepped aside because of conflicts of interest and his deputy, Comey, selected U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald.

By mid-2004, Fitzgerald was proving himself to be a dogged investigator as he zeroed in on Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis Libby and Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove as two officials suspected of exposing CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Demanding testimony from prominent journalists, such as New York Times correspondent Judith Miller, Fitzgerald was too high profile for the White House to easily remove. But the days of Comey – Fitzgerald’s chief ally – were numbered.

After the “torture memo” leaked to the Washington Post in June 2004, Comey and Goldsmith threw down the gauntlet again, leading the fight to repudiate the memo and pressing for a revised version that deleted the most controversial elements, again angering the White House, according to Newsweek.

Facing withering criticism from White House hardliners, Goldsmith was the first big name to go. In summer 2004, a battered and exhausted Goldsmith quit the Justice Department to become a professor at Harvard Law School.

Comey’s Departure

A year later, Comey followed Goldsmith out of the department, going into private law practice. On Aug. 15, 2005, in his farewell speech, Comey urged his colleagues to defend the integrity and honesty of the department.

“I expect that you will appreciate and protect an amazing gift you have received as an employee of the Department of Justice,” Comey said. “It is a gift you may not notice until the first time you stand up and identify yourself as an employee of the Department of Justice and say something – whether in a courtroom, a conference room or a cocktail party – and find that total strangers believe what you say next.

“That gift – the gift that makes possible so much of the good we accomplish – is a reservoir of trust and credibility, a reservoir built for us, and filled for us, by those who went before – most of whom we never knew. They were people who made sacrifices and kept promises to build that reservoir of trust.

“Our obligation – as the recipients of that great gift – is to protect that reservoir, to pass it to those who follow, those who may never know us, as full as we got it. The problem with reservoirs is that it takes tremendous time and effort to fill them, but one hole in a dam can drain them.

“The protection of that reservoir requires vigilance, an unerring commitment to truth, and a recognition that the actions of one may affect the priceless gift that benefits all. I have tried my absolute best – in matters big and small – to protect that reservoir and inspire others to protect it.”

Bush first tried to replace Comey with Timothy Flanigan, a former deputy White House counsel who had become general counsel of Tyco International. But Flanigan’s nomination foundered over questions about his dealings with corrupt Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Flanigan’s role in developing White House interrogation policies.

‘Torture Memo’

In 2002, as deputy to then-White House counsel Gonzales, Flanigan joined other right-wing lawyers in advocating legal strategies for protecting administration officials implicated in abuse of detainees.

An Aug. 1, 2002, memo – prepared by hardliners in the Justice Department and signed by Jay Bybee, then-chief of the Office of Legal Counsel – defined torture so narrowly that interrogators would have wide latitude in abusing prisoners to extract information.

The memo also sought to give Bush authority to order outright torture of detainees. This “torture memo” argued that U.S. government operatives should be spared prosecution for torture if they had Bush’s approval.

Flanigan sat in on at least one meeting during which lawyers discussed various torture techniques, including telling detainees that they would be buried alive and subjecting them to “waterboarding” which involves tying a person to a board and using water to simulate drowning.

Flanigan and Addington reportedly tried to shepherd this policy through the government by limiting the opportunities for critical comments. As Newsweek reported, Flanigan and Addington “came up with a solution: cut virtually everyone else out.”

During questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee on his nomination to replace Comey, Flanigan declined to say whether he voiced support for the “torture memo” in its original version, although he did say he supported a revised – less sweeping – version in December 2004.

Flanigan also told the committee that he saw ambiguities in setting limits on the abuse of detainees, saying that he did “not believe that the term ‘inhumane’ is susceptible to succinct definition.” As the fight over his nomination grew more contentious, Flanigan asked Bush to withdraw his name on Oct. 6, 2005. [Washington Post, Oct. 8, 2005]

With Flanigan’s nomination in flames, the acting deputy to now-Attorney General Gonzales became Paul McNulty, who also has a strong pedigree as a hardline Republican legal operative, a Bush loyalist and a member of Gonzales’s inner circle.

McNulty was chief counsel to the Republican-run House Judiciary Committee when it pressed for impeachment of Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1998. McNulty also headed Bush’s Justice Department transition team after Election 2000. [NYT, Oct. 21, 2005]

Plame Probe

Since Gonzales – like Ashcroft – has recused himself on the Plame leak investigation, McNulty also has inherited the job of overseeing Fitzgerald. In that position, the deputy attorney general can apply subtle pressure on the special prosecutor through the allotment of staff and other bureaucratic means.

The notion of constraining the work of a special prosecutor by gaining control of his oversight is not unprecedented.

After Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh broke through a long-running White House cover-up of that scandal in 1991, Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist engineered a behind-the-scenes coup against the senior judge overseeing Walsh.

In 1992, Rehnquist ousted moderate Republican Judge George MacKinnon as chief of the three-judge panel that picked and oversaw independent counsels. MacKinnon had staunchly backed Walsh, another old-time Republican jurist, as he peeled back the secrets of the complex Iran-Contra schemes, which threatened George H.W. Bush’s reelection.

At that key moment, Rehnquist replaced MacKinnon with Judge David Sentelle, one of President Ronald Reagan’s conservative judicial appointees and a protégé of Sen. Jesse Helms, then one of the most right-wing Republicans in the U.S. Congress.

Earlier, as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, Sentelle had teamed with another Republican judge, Laurence Silberman, to overturn the felony convictions of Oliver North in 1990. Sentelle also provided one of the two votes in 1991 to throw out the convictions of North’s boss, National Security Adviser John Poindexter.

Faced with these obstructions, Walsh had come to view the Reagan-Bush loyalists on the U.S. Court of Appeals as “a powerful band of Republican appointees [who] waited like the strategic reserves of an embattled army.” Sentelle, who had named his daughter Reagan after the President, was one of those “strategic reserves.”

A dozen years later, George W. Bush executed a similar maneuver, replacing a relatively non-partisan Republican (Comey) with two candidates who are considered more politically reliable – or some might say pliable (Flanigan and McNulty).

With Comey gone, Fitzgerald still pressed ahead with his investigation of the White House leak of Plame’s identity, but he had lost the strong institutional support that Comey had provided.

On Oct. 28, 2005, Fitzgerald indicted Libby for lying to investigators and obstructing justice, but the special prosecutor backed off from his expected indictment of Rove, who had become Bush’s deputy chief of staff.

(Significantly, Libby was replaced as Cheney’s chief of staff by David Addington, who had helped formulate the White House policy on torture.)

On Feb. 6, 2006 – with few Americans knowing or understanding the significance of this history – Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, avoiding any details about the internal disputes on the legality of Bush’s warrantless wiretaps.

Gonzales simply told the senators that the administration’s reading of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 let Bush bypass its seemingly clear language requiring warrants from a special secret court for wiretaps of communications originating in the United States.

Even Republican senators Arlen Specter and Lindsey Graham objected to the administration’s strained interpretation of the law.

But Bush, in effect, is buying time while he builds federal judicial majorities in favor of his vision of an all-powerful presidency.

Bush took a big step in that direction with the confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito, an architect of the so-called “unitary executive” theory. The U.S. Supreme Court now has at least four of nine justices who favor granting the President virtually unlimited powers as Commander in Chief.

In the meantime, Bush is relying on shrewd bureaucratic maneuvers – neutralizing and removing skeptics – in order to fend off harassing actions by Democrats and other Americans, including traditional Republican lawyers, who oppose Bush’s extraordinary assertions of power.

 

When you say known liars, who are you referring to? I believe Bush to be a Godly man who starts his mornings with a prayer for guidence and I regard him as a statesman who makes decision based on principle rather than a man who tests the polls to decide where to stand. I do not believe Bush has lied about anything. He might have been confused or given poor information and I think he is mistaken on border control and spending but I don't believe for a second that his motives are bad in the way he executes his office.

On the other hand, if you are referring to John Kerry, or Howard Dean or Ted Kennedy I wonder to how people can believe a word they say after all the years of misconstruing what conservatives are about and so on.

A close friend of mine thinks Kerry was a moral man with deep principles and that Bush was a liar and a thug. My friend is a good man but I disagree with him whole heartedly. (btw, I am a good man to). I can't tell you what happens in our upbringing that shapes us in the ideology that we hold. Some of us have parents that influence our political bias. Others have life changing events that set their way of thinking.

This country is so big and there is so much political spin, no one can get to the real context of a decision made by the president or anyone else in high government. We tend to choose the sources of information that we trust the most to allow them to influence our belief structure on generalities as well as specifics. I believe the mainstream media to biased against conservatives unless it is a conservative that doesn't like a sitting conservative president. Therefore I do not accept the information that comes from newsrooms at face value. I check them out the best I can before I buy off on what they say. If you have confidence in the media or the democrats to tell you the truth about Bush, then you will allow them to influence your opinion of him. It is critical that we choose the right sources of information to put our trust in if we want to be right.

To further bash the point, there is no way you could put together conclusive evidence as to whether Bush is a liar that only has his interests in mind or a good man that is doing the best he can to make a difference for the good. I have never met him and talked to him and had a friendship with him long enough to accurately discern his motives. I bet you haven't either. Yet there is some reason I trust him through all that has happened and you don't.

Why do you think that is?

Ron

 

I guess i see almost all politicians, as liers....its almost like its become a job requirement. I see all the scandals, and dirty money, and hidden adjendas (like the bankruptcy bill to protect credit card companies, and the medicare bill to protect the insurance and pharm. industies)It seems as though if the person isnt taking bribes and offers...hes aware of others who do, but wont rat them out. It doesnt seem like any politicains speak for real midddle class americans any more. who defends the middle class? seems like the wealthy have plenty of supporters, they keep getting tax breaks and we keep picking up the tab.
Can you think of 5 things the administration has done for the middle class...in the last 5 years. I got a huge list of whats been done to us...but none for us.
As far as evidence of lying and wrong doing by bush and cheney..if you seak youll find it. But if you dont go looking for it, the media has made sure that its tough to find. There are whole websites, devoted to exposeing the lies, as im sure there is for exposeing the democratic sides lies as well.
If youre interested, this is one of the more moderate sites on exposing the lies of bush.
bush lies
I know youre a good man, and religous...so am i. we just have different views of whats happening.

 

This editorial, was in yesterdays news.

Sibel Edmonds is the founder and director of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers. Ms. Edmonds worked as a language specialist for the FBI's Washington Field Office. During her work with the bureau, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Since that time, court proceedings on her issues have been blocked by the assertion of "State Secret Privilege" by Attorney General Ashcroft; the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the Department of Justice. Ms. Edmonds is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani; and has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, and a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University.

Porter Goss' Op-ed: 'Ignoturn per Ignotius'!

by Sibel Edmonds (a.k.a. whistleblower)

Dear Mr. Goss, the timing of your recent op-ed in the New York Times interestingly coincides with the upcoming congressional hearing by the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats & International Relations on National Security Whistleblowers. Your comments are predictably consistent with the pattern of "preemptive strikes" you and the administration have been keen on maintaining. I do not blame you for your opposition to legislation to protect courageous whistleblowers, which will enable the United States Congress to reclaim some of its authority and oversight that it has given up for the past five years. No sir, you have all the right and reason to be nervous. However, I must take issue with your attempt to mislead the American public - another habit of your heart - by presenting them with false information and misleading statements.

Sir, as you must very well know after your years in congress as a representative and as a member of the intelligence committee, there are no meaningful legal protections for whistleblowers. What is troubling is that while you are well aware of the fact that there are no meaningful or enforceable laws that provide protection to national security whistleblowers, you nevertheless state that such workers are covered by existing laws. That is simply false. You state that "the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act was enacted to ensure that current or former employees could petition Congress, after raising concerns within their respective agency, consistent with the need to protect classified information." The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which appears to be the legal channel provided to national security employees, turns out on closer inspection to be toothless. Please refer to the recent independent report issued by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on National Security Whistleblowers on December 30, 2005. The report concludes that there currently are no protections for national security whistleblowers - period. Let me provide you with a recent example illustrating the fallacy of your claim:

In December 2005, Mr. Russ Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and action officer, sent letters to the chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, and requested meetings to brief them on probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while he was an intelligence officer with the NSA and DIA. In his letter Mr. Tice, as a law abiding and responsible intelligence officer, stated "Due to the highly sensitive nature of these programs and operations, I will require assurances from your committee that the staffers and/or congressional members to participate retain the proper security clearances, and also have the appropriate SAP cleared facilities available for these discussion." On January 9, 2006, the NSA sent an official letter to Mr. Tice stating "neither the staff nor the members of the House or Senate Intelligence committees are cleared to receive the information.

Now, Mr. Goss, please explain this to the American public: What happened to your so-called appropriate congressional channels and protections available to national security whistleblowers? Mr. Goss, what "protected disclosure to congress" According to the NSA no one in the United States Congress is "cleared enough" to hear reports from national security whistleblowers. Please name one whistleblower to date who has been protected after disclosing information to the United States Congress; can you name even a single case? Or, is that information considered classified? How do we expect the United States Congress to conduct its oversight responsibility and maintain the necessary checks on the Executive Branch, when agencies such as yours declare the members of congress "not cleared enough" to receive reports regarding conduct by these agencies? Where do you suggest employees like Mr. Tice go to report waste, fraud, abuse, and/or illegal conduct by their agencies? Based on your administration's self-declared claim of inherent power and authority of the executive branch overriding courts and the United States Congress, what other channels are left to pursue?

Okay, now let's move to this notion you and the administration seem to be so very keen on: Classified & Sensitive Information. Let's start by asking how we define "classified & sensitive information," and who decides what is classified and sensitive? According to the statement by Thomas S. Benton, National Security Archive, on March 2, 2005, during the congressional hearing on "Emerging Threats: Overclassification & Pseudo-Classification," the deputy undersecretary of defense for counterintelligence and security declared that 50% of the Pentagon's information was over-classified, and the head of the Information Security Oversight Office said it was even worse, "even beyond 50%." Don't you find the percentage of falsely classified information appalling? Well, you should; it is your responsibility, because the executive branch, under the office of the United States President, is solely responsible for classification or pseudo-classification of information. Now, based on this knowledge, what should happen when you tell the public, when you tell the United States Congress and the media "Oh, you are not allowed to have this information; this information is highly sensitive and classified"? This is what should happen: we, the people, the Congress, and the media, should first ask you for the merits of the classification; have you prove to us that the information in question should in fact be classified; and you, the executive branch, have the obligation to truthfully respond.

On the issue of classification in your op-ed you go further and cite the cost of unauthorized disclosure to the American taxpayer, "unauthorized disclosures have cost America hundreds of millions of dollars." Since you brought up the issue, let's explore it fully and give the American people the real facts, shall we? The Office of Management and Budget report on classification costs to U.S. agencies (the CIA's are still classified; but of course!), gave us a benchmark number and some sense of comparative expense to the taxpayer - the reported dollar figure was over $6.5 billion in fiscal 2003. Now, since the percentage of falsely classified data has been determined to be in the range of 50%, the cost of our agencies' pseudo classification to the American taxpayer amounts to over $3 billion. Mr. Goss, you do the math; do you really want to attempt to twist and misuse the cost of classification to try to strike a chord with the taxpayers? It is not going to stick; wouldn't you agree?

Let's try your security angle on the subject of classification, where you state "disclosure of classified intelligence inhibits our ability to carry out our mission and protect the nation." The entire 9/11 Commission report includes only one finding that the attacks might have been prevented (Page 247 & 376). They quote the interrogation of the hijackers' paymaster, Ramzi Binalshibh, who commented that if the organizers, particularly Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had known that the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, had been arrested at his Minnesota flight school on immigration charges, then Bin Laden and KSM would have called off the 9/11 attacks, because news of that arrest would have alerted the FBI agent in Phoenix who warned of Islamic militants in flight schools in a July 2001 memo; a memo that vanished into the FBI's vaults in Washington. The Commission's wording is important here: only "publicity" could have derailed the attacks. Classification is indeed a very important mechanism, if it is applied diligently and wisely; however, as illustrated above, in certain circumstances, even with respect to national security information, classification can run counter to our national interests.

Mr. Steven Aftergood, the Director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, so very eloquently stated "the information blackout may serve the short-term interests of the present administration, which is allergic to criticism or even to probing questions. But it is a disservice to the country. Worst of all, the Bush administration's information policies are conditioning Americans to lower their expectations of government accountability and to doubt their own ability to challenge their political leaders. Information is the oxygen of democracy. Day by day, the Bush administration is cutting off the supply."

Mr. Goss, since you proudly quoted from the Rob-Silberman Report released in March 2005, let me do the same and present you with another quote: "In just the past 20 years the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, NRO, and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have all been penetrated. Secrets stolen include nuclear weapons data, U.S. cryptographic codes and procedures, identification of U.S. intelligence sources and methods (human and technical), and war plans. Indeed, it would be difficult to exaggerate the damage that foreign intelligence penetrations have caused." It appears that the only ones not privy to our so-called sensitive government and intelligence information are the American citizens, since our enemies and allies have been successfully penetrating all our intelligence agencies (including yours sir) and nuclear labs and facilities. Sir, with all due respect, you have not even succeeded in protecting your own agencies, offices and facilities against foreign penetration; you seem to be incapable of conducting appropriate background checks on your own employees; you failed to protect us against the 9/11 attacks; and you have failed in gathering intelligence and reporting it accurately on the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. With this kind of record how can you go on lecturing the Congress and the American people on your superiority and inherent authority to do whatever you wish, however you wish, and without having to provide any report or any answer to anybody, including the United States Congress?

Last year, the CIA, your agency, classified the entire findings of the Inspector General's investigation into the failures of CIA managers prior to 9/11. Sir, I believe you made the case for this classification based on your intention to protect the wrongdoers within the CIA bureaucracy from being "stigmatized." Is this what your op-ed intended to say? Did you mean to say that these national security whistleblowers may end up stigmatizing the wrongdoers and incompetents within the rank and file of the CIA by divulging information that you decided to classify to prevent exposure of embarrassing and criminal activity? Was that a Freudian slip, since nowadays the lines get blurry between classification for national security purposes and classification to protect the agency's bureaucrats?

Mr. Goss, I cannot attribute this misleading op-ed to your ignorance, since you were a member of Congress until recently and are surely aware of the lack of meaningful protection for national security whistleblowers; so I won't. I will not attribute it to your stupidity, since obviously our Congress confirmed your position and I do not intend to insult their wisdom and intelligence. Thus, it must be your arrogance, nurtured and fed by your boss on your purported inherent and limitless authority and power, leading you to treat us, the American Public, as stupid.

Sincerely,
Sibel Edmonds
A Proud National Security Whistleblower

 

This should lighten the mood

The Republican Fisherman

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered
her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him,
Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour
ago, but I don't know where I am."



The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot
air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet
above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and
100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.



She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Republican."


"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"



"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is
technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information,
and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."



The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Democrat."



"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"



"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where
you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of
hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you
expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you
were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault."

 

here's another


One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he
>asked about his bill and the barber replies: "I'm sorry, I cannot
>accept money from you; I'm doing community service this week" The
>florist is pleased and leaves the shop. Next morning when the barber
>goes to open there is a thank you card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.
>
>Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to Pay his bill
>the barber again replies: "I'm sorry, I cannot accept Money from you;
>I'm doing community service this week." The cop is happy and leaves the shop.
> Next morning when the barber goes to open up there is a thank you
>card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.
>
>Later a Republican comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his
>bill the barber again replies: "I'm sorry, I cannot accept money from
>you; I'm doing community service this week." The Republican is very
>happy and leaves the shop. Next morning when the barber goes to open,
>there is a thank you card and a dozen different books such as "How to
>Improve Your Business" and "Becoming More Successful."
>
>Then a Democrat comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his
>bill the barber again replies: "I'm sorry, I cannot accept money from
>you; I'm doing community service this week." The Democrat is very
>happy and leaves the shop. The next morning when the barber goes to
>open up, there are a dozen Democrats lined up waiting for a free haircut.

 

I WAS IN THE ARMY FOR 4 YEARS AS A M-1 TANK MECHANIC, 1981 THUR 1985. AND THANK YOU FOR SERVING, AND I HAVE A 23 YEAR OLD IN THE ARMY IN IRAG (1ST/8th CAV).