Democrats: The Chicken Doves

February 21, 2008
Democrats: The Chicken Doves

Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."

The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what's to come if they win the White House. And if we don't pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there's still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame.

FISA Law Undermines Democracy

January 26, 2008
FISA Law Undermines Democracy

The House has passed a reasonable new bill — fixing FISA without further endangering civil liberties. But Mr. Bush wants to weaken FISA as much as he can. And the Senate leadership has been only too happy to oblige.

With the help of Republican senators and the misguided chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, the White House got a bill that, once again, reduces court supervision of wiretapping. It also adds immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the illegal spying.

Mr. Bush says without amnesty, the government won't get cooperation in the future. We don't buy it. The real aim is to make sure the full story of the illegal wiretapping never comes out in court.

From CIA Jails, Inmates Fade Into Obscurity

October 27, 2007
From CIA Jails, Inmates Fade Into Obscurity

Since 2004, for example, the CIA has handed five Libyan fighters to authorities in Tripoli. Two had been covertly nabbed by the CIA in China and Thailand, while the others were caught in Pakistan and held in CIA prisons in Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and other locations, according to Libyan sources.

The Libyan government has kept silent about the cases. But Libyan political exiles said the men are kept in isolation with no prospect of an open trial.

Other ghost prisoners are believed to remain in U.S. custody after passing into and out of the CIA's hands, according to human rights groups.

At least one former CIA prisoner has been quietly freed. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence agent captured after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, was detained at a secret location until he was released last year.

Ani gained notoriety before the Iraq war when Bush administration officials said he had met in Prague with Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker Mohamed Atta. Some officials, including Vice President Cheney, cited the rendezvous as evidence of an alliance between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The theory was later debunked by U.S. intelligence agencies and the Sept. 11 commission, which revealed in 2004 that Ani was in U.S. custody.

The Iraqi spy resurfaced two months ago when Czech officials revealed that he had filed a multimillion-dollar compensation claim. His complaint: that unfounded Czech intelligence reports had prompted his imprisonment by the CIA.

The CIA has resumed its detention program. Since March, five new terrorism suspects have been transferred to Guantanamo. Although the Pentagon has not disclosed details about how or precisely when they were captured, officials have said one of the prisoners, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, had spent months in CIA custody overseas.

Democratic Concessions Are Expected on Wiretapping

October 8, 2007
Democratic Concessions Are Expected on Wiretapping

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — Two months after vowing to roll back broad new wiretapping powers won by the Bush administration, Congressional Democrats appear ready to make concessions that could extend some of the key powers granted to the National Security Agency.

Bush administration officials say they are confident they will win approval of the broadened wiretapping authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess, and some Democratic officials admit that they may not come up with the votes to rein in the administration.

House Passes Resolution Condemning MoveOn.org Advertisement

September 26, 2007
House Passes Resolution Condemning MoveOn.org Advertisement
(Democrats are pussies)

Washington D.C. (AHN) - The liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org's front page ad in the New York Times referring Gen. David Petraeus as "General Betray Us" created such a controversy that the House voted to condemn it on Wednesday.

The House passed a resolution commending Gen. Petraeus by a 341-79 vote and condemning the advocacy group.

In Search of a Congress

September 21, 2007
In Search of a Congress

If you were one of the Americans waiting for Congress, under Democratic control, to show leadership on the war in Iraq, the message from the Senate is clear: “Nevermind.’ The same goes for those waiting for lawmakers to fix the damage done to civil liberties by six years of President Bush and a rubber-stamp Republican Congress.

The Democrats don't have, or can't summon, the political strength to make sure Congress does what it is supposed to do: debate profound issues like these and take a stand. The Republicans are simply not interested in a serious discussion and certainly not a vote on anything beyond Mr. Bush's increasingly narrow agenda.

Senate Condemns MoveOn Ad -- Group Hits Back

September 20, 2007
Senate Condemns MoveOn Ad -- Group Hits Back

NEW YORK After the U.S. Senate today easily passed a resolution, with 72 votes, condemning actions by MoveOn.org after its recent "General Betrayus" full-page ad in The New York Times, the activist group has hit back.

In an email to members this afternoon, group leaders declared, "Every day, our brave men and women are dying in a bloody civil war this Senate has done nothing to stop. Yesterday, they couldn't even pass a bill to give soldiers adequate leave with their families before redeploying. But they're spending time cracking down on a newspaper ad?

MoveOn Ad: 23 Democrats Voting to Condemn Free Speech

MoveOn Ad: 23 Democrats Voting to Condemn Free Speech Who will they betray next?
Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Conrad (D-ND)	Dorgan (D-ND) Feinstein (D-CA) Johnson (D-SD) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA)	Leahy (D-VT) Lieberman(ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) McCaskill(D-MO) Mikulski (D-MD) Nelson (D-FL)	Nelson(D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Salazar(D-CO) Tester (D-MT) Webb (D-VA)

Media Misrepresent Dems' Options on Iraq War: Confusing 'can't' and 'won't'

September 13, 2007
Media Misrepresent Dems' Options on Iraq War: Confusing 'can't' and 'won't'

The problem with all these accounts is that Congress does not have to pass legislation to bring an end to the war in Iraq--it simply has to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the war. This requires not 67 or 60 Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41--the number of senators needed to maintain a filibuster and prevent a bill from coming up for a vote. In other words, the Democrats have more than enough votes to end the Iraq War--if they choose to do so.

The Democratic leadership may believe--rightly or wrongly--that such a strategy would entail unacceptable political costs. But that's very different from being unable to affect policy. To insist, as many media outlets have, that the Constitution makes it impossible for Congress to stop the war obscures the actual choices facing the nation--by confusing "can't" with "won't."

"Intentional Manipulation Of The Facts" To Get Surveillance Act Passed

August 11, 2007
"Intentional Manipulation Of The Facts" To Get Surveillance Act Passed

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — At a closed-door briefing in mid-July, senior intelligence officials startled lawmakers with some troubling news. American eavesdroppers were collecting just 25 percent of the foreign-based communications they had been receiving a few months earlier.

"There was an intentional manipulation of the facts to get this legislation through," said Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, a Democrat on the Intelligence Committee who voted against the plan.

"There was an intentional manipulation of the facts to get this legislation through," said Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, a Democrat on the Intelligence Committee who voted against the plan.

Democrats are Pussies

August 7, 2007
Democrats are Pussies

But Congress looked Bush's insatiable quest for power squarely in the eye, unlocked the chicken coop, and said to the fox "here–take anything you want." The changes that were made were subtle, but arguably they gave the Bush Administration even more than it asked for. And from this point forward, any conversation any American has with a foreigner or a person overseas may be snooped upon, no warrants necessary.

Those who expected the Democrats to stand up to this may have gotten a shock. I wasn't shocked at all. Many see a Democrat-Republican divide over the rise of the National Surveillance State, but that's foolish. In Britain, the Labour Party has introduced legislation which arguably did more than even Bush to erode civil liberties (and of course, the Britons had fewer liberties to start with. The American Revolution was about something, after all). What we're witnessing is another demonstration of Lord Acton's famous maxim: those who hold power tend to seek to extend it. At this point, Democrats are nearly giddy with the prospects of recapturing the White House and resuming rule with a solid power base in the Executive and the Legislature. And with this prospect, suddenly the specter of intrusive big government seems somehow far more palatable to them, and America's constitutional system and the rights of the individual citizens are less of a concern.

Congress is stampeded into another compromise of Americans' rights

August 6, 2007
Congress is stampeded into another compromise of Americans' rights

THE DEMOCRATIC-led Congress, more concerned with protecting its political backside than with safeguarding the privacy of American citizens, left town early yesterday after caving in to administration demands that it allow warrantless surveillance of the phone calls and e-mails of American citizens, with scant judicial supervision and no reporting to Congress about how many communications are being intercepted. To call this legislation ill-considered is to give it too much credit: It was scarcely considered at all. Instead, it was strong-armed through both chambers by an administration that seized the opportunity to write its warrantless wiretapping program into law -- or, more precisely, to write it out from under any real legal restrictions.