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Monday, May 15, 2006
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Brian Ross and Richard Esposito (via ABC News): "The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations. 'It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration,' said a senior federal official. The acknowledgement followed our blotter item that ABC News reporters had been warned by a federal source that the government knew who we were calling."
Thanks to Josh Marshall who adds, "Ross's report is still awfully murky. But it suggests that the FBI is using new provisions of the Patriot Act which allows for the expanded use of so-called National Security Letters. As Ross explains, 'the NSLs are a version of an administrative subpoena and are not signed by a judge. Under the law, a phone company receiving a NSL for phone records must provide them and may not divulge to the customer that the records have been given to the government...'
"This is what the Patriot Act is being used for. In a free society, law enforcement goes before independent magistrates. Apparently we're now beyond that."
Thanks to 2020 Hindsight for the graphic.
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
8:54:12 PM 
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Captain's Quarters: "How will that sell? Predictably. Tom Tancredo and Peter King, both House Republicans, tore the speech apart. Immigration activists Raul Hinojosa and Cecilia Munoz, the latter with the National Council of La Raza, appeared cautiously optimistic. That doesn't surprise me; the news for them was that the President did not get diverted from his course by his fractious base...
"So much for border security.
"Two possibilities exist. Either Bush doesn't care about border security, or the White House couldn't coordinate its policy spokespeople to stay on message, or perhaps both. None of these options build confidence in this administration."
Andrew Sullivan: "I have to say I found little wrong with it. The president's insistence on both goals - border security and gradual legalization of millions of illegal immigrants already here - makes sense to me. His eschewal of inflammatory rhetoric was welcome. His enthusiasm for immigration and his empathy with immigrants are genuine, it seems to me. The rhetoric wasn't inspiring, but it wasn't pedestrian either. In all this, he was doing what a president should do: try and bring factions together for a constructive and comprehensive reform. I fear the tenor of the debate on the right has gone too far for the president to win back much of his base; and the Democrats are not likely to go out of their way to help him win a victory this year. But the future base of the Republican party, if it manages to appeal to the exploding Latino population, will be in a better mood. The Bush we saw tonight was more like the Bush we thought we were getting in 2000. Which is why, perhaps, his increasingly extreme and angry party will only turn on him some more."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
8:44:03 PM
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Science Blog: "Fabled equatorial icecaps will disappear within two decades, because of global warming, a study British and Ugandan scientists has found. In a paper to be published 17 May in Geophysical Research Letters, they report results from the first survey in a decade of glaciers in the Rwenzori Mountains of East Africa. An increase in air temperature over the last four decades has contributed to a substantial reduction in glacial cover, they say."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
8:37:15 PM
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Andrew Sullivan: "One of the most disturbing aspects of the rise of Christianism has been the attempt to coopt the armed forces. We have already seen what happened at the Air Force Academy, where Christianists corralled individuals, Christian and otherwise, into public praying along the lines of the religious right. We have seen a top army general publicly depicting the war on Islamist terrorism as a fight between Christ and Muhammed. We have another general sending out campaign pamphlets from his work computer, urging the election of Christianists to Congress. No one objects to private and voluntary prayer groups that allow servicemembers a choice as to how they collectively pray. But in public meetings, where everyone is present, the prayers should indeed be non-sectarian, inclusive, perhaps ideally be a moment of silence, as current military rules insist. That's what the Christianists object to. They seek to impose their faith as the public one for all Americans, and have slipped such a provision into the military appropriations bill. The National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces opposes it."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
5:57:06 PM
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Josh Marshall: "I think part of the issue for many people on the administration's various forms of surveillance is not just that some of activities seem to be illegal or unconstitutional on their face. I think many people are probably willing to be open-minded, for better or worse, on pushing the constitutional envelope. But given the people in charge of the executive branch today, you just can't have any confidence that these tools will be restricted to targeting terrorists. Start grabbing up phone records to data-mine for terrorists and then the tools are just too tempting for your leak investigations. Once you do that, why not just keep an eye on your critics too? After all, they're the ones most likely to get the leaks, right? So, same difference. The folks around the president don't recognize any real distinctions among those they consider enemies. So we'd be foolish to think they wouldn't bring these tools to bear on all of them. Once you set aside the law as your guide for action and view the president's will as a source of legitimacy in itself, then everything becomes possible and justifiable."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
5:52:30 PM
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Andrew Sullivan: "My own preference for Bush over Gore in 2000 was primarily because I feared Gore would increase government spending and regulation too much. Yeah: I know. Gore's credibility on the environment - a growing issue - his history of foreign policy hawkishness but opposition to the Iraq war, and his general association with what has become Clinton era nostalgia, do indeed make him an interesting possibility. Then there's just the karma. If we're looking to heal the wound of 2000, who better?"
2008 Presidential Election
5:49:26 PM
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Bob Herbert: "In the dark days of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt counseled Americans to avoid fear. George W. Bush is his polar opposite. The public's fear is this president's most potent political asset. Perhaps his only asset. Mr. Bush wants ordinary Americans to remain in a perpetual state of fear -- so terrified, in fact, that they will not object to the steady erosion of their rights and liberties, and will not notice the many ways in which their fear is being manipulated to feed an unconscionable expansion of presidential power."
Thanks to Mathew Gross for the link.
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
5:46:02 PM
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Stygius: "Envivronmental degradation, strategic dependence on loathsome regimes, economic wealth flowing out our borders to said regimes, all conributes to the national security crisis this country faces as a result of oil dependence. And what can be a starker example of that, than our military's dependence on imported oil."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
7:12:37 AM
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Josh Marshall: "Andrew Sullivan just published an email from a reader who says it'll be Al Gore in 2008 for the Democrats, not Hillary. I could see it. I could totally see it. I don't think Hillary is anywhere near as strong as she looks or as people seem to think she is. And Gore would be formidable."
Andrew Sullivan: "She seems unstoppable as a candidate for president, and yet has huge liabilities for the Democrats. Will someone emerge to get in her way?"
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
7:09:21 AM
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Bull Moose: "The Moose observes that the President may be dispatching the Guard not so much to defend the borders but rather to protect the Republican majority. Desperate times demand desperate action. No, the Moose is not referring to the illegal immigration problem at our nation's borders. The Moose is talking about resolving the civil war within the Republican Party. The Political Office in the White House is receiving reports that potentially millions of conservative refugees are streaming across the border from the President's popularity. They are fleeing a party that has betrayed them with high taxes and gross incompetence. These immigrants who are threatening to stay home in November and Mr. Rove must call on all of the nation's resources to send them home."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
7:06:10 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 11:32:14 AM.
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