Members of Congress are arguing along party lines about whether the upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into the warrantless wiretapping constitute enough of a congressional inquiry, or whether other panels should get into the act. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who already had planned for his Senate Intelligence Committee to consider the spying, let his understandable frustration with Democrats show last week in a letter that noted, according to The New York Times: “I think we can all agree that intelligence issues, especially in the middle of a war, should not be used as fodder for political advantage. Doing so is unnecessary, unwise and potentially dangerous.” Congress needs to thoroughly and honestly examine whether the Bush administration broke the law by conducting wiretaps of U.S. citizens without a court warrant. But can’t everybody on Capitol Hill and the White House rise above politics and fight the war on terrorism together?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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17 Comments
At time I hate being a realist, I really wish to be either one who knows nothing of this like many I have spoken to and they had not heard of the warrant less domestic spying? The reasons why we invaded Iraq and the questioning of those reasons? Watching Survivor and how their favorite team is doing in the play off is more important to them than what this country and it Government is doing. Bush could declare Marshall law or Al-Qaeda could blow up half the country and they would not notice.
Or I would like to be one of those that have so much blind conviction that they can ignore totally any sense of reason or fact that does not support their view. If they are Liberal then anything a Conservative said is a lie. If they are Conservative then anything a Liberal said is a lie. If someone in the middle said it then they are dismissed as being part of the opposite side and so it must be a lie.
In the end it will not be Bush or Al-Qaeda that brings about the end of the Untied States of the Americas.It will be apathy and partisan politics, one side will never know it happened and be found standing in front of a cold dark TV. wondering why there is no picture. The other side will simply dismiss it as being the fault of the Liberals or the Conservatives and point to the failing economy and bombed out building as proof they were right. .
My sisters way of reading the news is to read the headline and look at the weather in the corner as she walks by the newspaper stand. She doesn’t own a television.
I agree with you completely writerdog.
I watched on Cspan the democrats hold an excellent panel on the spying on americans issue in the basement. They met in the basement because all the meeting rooms were in use even though everyone was in recess.
Pat Roberts, we are still waiting for the hearings you were going to hold on the misinformation of the Iraq war.
Why should we believe you when you say you’re holding one now?
America is already falling to terrorists, called Americans and you are part of the problem Mr. Roberts.
One more thing.
I fully expect that this hearing will be nothing more than a dog and pony show. No bite, no real relevance on finding out who/how.
Just more spin and no answers.
“But can’t everybody on Capitol Hill and the White House rise above politics and fight the war on terrorism together?”
Sure Pat, you first.
Remember when Bush kept saying (and how he still says) “they hate us for our freedoms.”
Why should we give up our freedoms if they are what distinguish us from terrorist ideology?
I’m still waiting for Pat Senate Intelligence Chair Roberts to start the investigation of what went wrong with Iraq war “intelligence” as he himself promised before the 2004 election.
He doesn’t want to start it because it’s perfectly obvious what was wrong with pre-War intelligence: the man in the Oval Office making the decisions.
The problem with “rising above politics” is that the whole “war on terrorism” has been a obvious legal and political instrument from the beginning. It was all–deliberately–about expanding government power.Yes, there was a real attack, but the Bushies never saw it as anything other than an opportunity for a bloodless coup. If anything, they’d made America a more dangerous place to live.
If it’s needed to be politicized to dump some of these crooks who betraying the American people, so be it. Not that I have any great confidence in the Democratic Party (but they’re a much option than, say, Hamas, and nearly anything is better than the current “leadership”).
Rage . . . you rock! :)
We become what we detest. One more step for the U.S. down the road to becoming a rogue nation:
“You may have heard of the tactic. As a way to leverage information or capture an enemy, terrorists sometimes kidnap innocent women and children in order to put pressure on their husbands or relatives. It’s called kidnapping and blackmail. Except that in Rumsfeld’s military, the United States now uses the tactic. Sure, it’s against the Geneva Conventions. Sure, those Conventions are supposed to apply in Iraq. But this is the Bush administration. King George doesn’t have to obey the law; and his military can do anything they want. The Pentagon has gotten used to denying hard evidence of abuse – and no one, of course, has been disciplined for following the instructions given ultimately in Washington. “It’s very hard, obviously, from some of these documents to determine what, if anything, actually happened,” says the Pentagon spokesman. No, it isn’t. And so we slowly descend toward the level of the enemy. Because King George can.”
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/01/getting_their_w.html
Yeah, all that death and destruction those planes caused on 9/11 were all meant to provide the administration and government with more power. That was one heck of a plan! I thought you guys said that Mr. President was dumb?
Sombody get a towel. NoJo said “9/11″ and wet himself again.
“Rage . . . you rock! :)”
Thank you, sir! I don’t often contribute, but I try to do my part.
NoJo, what part of “Get the people who attacked us” don’t you understand? Overthrowing the Taliban and attacking Iraq were both wars of choice (and, by the way, the mess in Iraq has obscured the fact that Afghanistan hasn’t exactly settled down to peaceful democracy). And we LET Al-Qaeda’s people escape into Pakistan!
The whole “war on terror” was a means to make the entire world a battlefield–including the U.S.–with the same rules, uhm, except of course for U.S. law, the Geneva convention . . . . . .
Every war is a war of choice.
You either choose to fight or you don’t.
The war for independence was a war of choice, I suppose we should still be another English colony?
Nathan, you are king of stupid analogies. Obviously, a “war of choice” means one you don’t HAVE to fight.
The War of Independence was for OUR country, our lives, our freedoms. Nobody really WANTED to start a new country out of the blue; they felt they had no choice. I guess you never read the Declaration of Independence, have you, Nathan?********************************”Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. “*******************************
Throwing your own pathetic illogical back at you, since it would be our “choice” whether to overthrow the U.S. government, I suppose you think we should?
I despise all of the traitors in DC, on both sides of the aisle! The insane quest for cheap labor, cheap votes and “multiracialism” has put us all at risk.
Viva La Raza Blanco!!!
“Despite assurances from government officials that the border with Mexico is secure, a Department of Homeland Security document obtained by the Daily Bulletin reveals that law enforcement officials are seeking five Mexican nationals suspected of bringing explosives into the United States.The internal “Intelligence Alert” from the Office of Border Patrol — issued to law enforcement officials Jan. 12 — stated that the Mexican nationals were heading to San Francisco to sell the explosives…”
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3445990
Mr. Roberts is representing Mr. Bush as a mouth piece. Mr. Roberts does not represent the citizens of this country. If it is illegal what is being done according to the law, then Mr. Roberts in his support of Mr. Bush’s illegal activities should be held accountable when the Impeachment Process starts and should be included also.
Mr. Roberts should do what he has taken an oath to do. Defend and Support the United States Constitution. Obviously, Mr. Roberts has forgotten that oath and why he was elected. Must be all the money he has received from yearly pay increases and money under the table from the lobbyist.