Sunday Bloody Sundae

Lieberman says Bush wiretapping 'outside the law'
March 26, 2006
HARTFORD, Conn. --President Bush's authorization of warrantless wiretapping as part of the war on terrorism was "outside the law," Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday.
(okay, this is a weird start for the one democrat who is more in line with the republicans than any other)
Lieberman, D-Conn., also said he opposes a move by a Democratic Senate colleague to censure Bush over accusations that the president unlawfully authorized wiretaps without obtaining court orders.
(and this is totally in line for a man who thinks democrats are either leftist or confused)
"As I read the law I think the president's tapping or surveillance without a warrant was wrong," Lieberman said on "Face the State" on WFSB-TV. "It was outside the law."
(hmmm. outside the law. that could mean illegal. if i were to speed in my car i would be outside the law. if i were to peek in my neighbor's window or steal beer from the minimart i would be outside the law...because it's illegal. so, it looks like lieberman is saying bush broke the law)
"This is an important program," said Lieberman, who is seeking a fourth term this year. "I don't find anybody in Congress who thinks we ought not to be listening to the phone conversations and reading the e-mails of people that we think are involved in and we have reason to believe are involved in terrorist groups. (nice use of the "some people" argument) But it has to be done in America in my opinion pursuant to the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. It has to be done with a court order."
(so, what bush has done is against the law. and what bush has done should not be condoned. but what bush has done should be legal and let's work to make it okay and what bush has done okay in hindsight?)
Lieberman, who has been criticized by liberals for supporting Bush's war policy, faulted a censure move against the president that was proposed last week by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
"My own opinion, and it seems to be shared by most Democratic senators, is that it would be an unproductive use of our time," Lieberman said. "Again, it's looking backward. It would be divisive. The best thing we could do about this program is to bring it under the law and I'd prefer to spend my time and the Senate's time figuring out how we can adopt a law that allows the administration to continue this program but force them to go to court to get a warrant before they do."
(lieberman is using the bush argument: "i won't spend my time looking backwards. i choose to move forward". or what mccain said [paraphrased], " mumble mumble mumble screech into the breach")
(the other argument lieberman makes is let's bring this program under the law. how about we admit that this administration knew the law before it began the program and chose to ignore it. "it" would be FISA, the court that the president goes to when he needs a wiretap or phone bug or computer trace. that court has turned down four requests since 1978 when it was created. it has passed more than 10,000. get a calculator and check that percentage. and lieberman wants to legalize it by making it conform to an existing law that the administration actively and knowingly ignored while bush renewed it in writing every 45 days since 9/11 or earlier)
A possible Republican opponent to Lieberman announced his candidacy last week. Paul Streitz, a 63-year-old Darien resident, said he will seek his party's nomination and will focus on immigration control (good pictures) as his main issue.
(when a republican takes on lieberman with his entire agenda being immigration control that basically means lieberman enjoys getting fence burn and knows he will benefit from it, because he can cover every other republican talking point andf the republican opponent is wondering how to attack one of the very people his party is trying to woo. i'll bet this guy doesn't have much support, because lieberman is being courted by every mainstream republican and some outlying weirdos who don't want to see a different democrat in his place)

thinkprogress has a good point about dickhead tom tancredo who thinks making it a federal crime to aid illegal immigrants is in keeping with the bible.
(i grew up in a liberal methodist church. we were one of the first to offer our sanctuary to el salvadoran refugees and we were one of the first to become a sanctuary for all sexualities. a reconciling congregation. very fun even though i was a teenager when it all first began so i didn't get the full experience. i was a bit preoccupied with the youth group and we were preoccupied with goofing off, flirting, making fart jokes, meeting on the weekends away from the counselors and drinking or smoking the chronic, going to campus life and disrupting the "daylight" [meaning six inches of distance between the participants] dances by actually holding each other [which got bad once when john and i went on to the dance floor together for the song "three times a lady" and began tangoing...we never got to actually tango, it was more of a hand clasp, head spin, grunt and removal from public view by the present authorities], meeting at taco bell or denny's or carl's jr to plot our next crime. i may actually have to scan photos of us for anyone to truly understand our depths...but my church rebelled against anything it saw as betraying the love of christ and the methodist church certainly did that. every organized religion does that. doctrine is the masthead. for the methodists, though, liberal is not a deathknell.).

and only florida could get pissed off at a zealous vote machine overseer who doesn't want to see another 2000 debacle and who keeps proving the newest generation of vote machines are crap. of course, florida did give its electoral votes to bush after the supreme court decided that recounting all of those stupid little ballots one by one was a dumb idea. and the governor and all of his party and katherine harris (who is running for office right now and turning absolutely kooky in her delusional qualities and she was the one who stopped the florida ballot recount before the supreme court ruled and was appointed by jeb bush and accepted money from jack abramoff, jack...off. really, a do over is in order on the name) and the cubans who didn't know that bush hated them, too. especially when it comes to refugees, detainees and baseball world classic runner up winnings. it seems that fidel promised his team's runner up winnings to the victims of hurricane katrina ("i'm walking on sunshine...we-elll..."), but major league baseball and the administration are claiming that cuba gave up all of its monetary rights in order to play in the classic. that may be true, you never know. especially with our country that can't get past the bay of pigs. unless, of course, castro truely was behind jfk's murder and none of them can admit they fucked it up so badly. but i doubt it. some knucklehead democrat would have spilled it by now. in short, no cuban geets for katrina's wet streets.
now, if only hugo chavez would get with the program and stick to making up funny new names for bush and not keep poor people alive on the east coast with his oil. what a bastard. making political hay at the expense of the poor...in someone else's country. in a very obvious manner. which the minority opposition party might try to misrepresent and take advantage of come election time. which would probably help chavez keep his job, because the masses somehow seem to keep liking democrats and liberals if only for their weak knees.

long new york times article about the Lincoln group that pays iraqi newspapers to have its articles published. if only ol' abe could have done this he would never have had to leave springfield.

oh, and in case you thought the liberals in the blogosphere were as unorganized as the democratic party or as allegedly unbiased as the printed and viewed media, oh you so totally suck. we rock. and we're smart. at least in this one case we managed to raise arguments that were actually valid. word has it that al franken was so shaken he dropped his big mac, called michael moore and complained that "the liberals ruined my gucci". not sure what that means unless one of us hit his moped or stopped him from his annual nepalese trek to sit with his yeti.

and it's even better when republicans attempt to eat their own. i've never watched great whites go after each other, but i doubt it could get nastier than fools on a sinking ship who refuse to jump first for fear of being called a coward. oh, and d'amato's "i never met him before" defense is pure bush administration. whether or not it's true.

now, there's news that there may have been a russian mole feeding military info of ours to saddam hussein. good job. the link speaks of how the mole may have been either misinformed or simply very tardy with the intel. huh. ya think one or the other? just maybe? other than forgetting to tell the palace that they needed to act like masses awaiting liberation and strew flowers at our feet and sing whatever their equivalent of hoseanah is and not steal a billion dollars worth of shit in front of everyone (even though the bulk of it was US greenbacks and gold and no one ever saw it anyway). but i'm sure the mole got it right by telling saddam, "hey, hanging out in the presidential palace might be stupic right about now. you got a bunker?". and "the people hate you. did you know that? it seems, based on our newest polls, that this feeling may have existed for some time. some drivel about gas and torture and execution and women going about bareheaded and driving cars and having jobs and flying planes. pretty weird. we're not sure how this happened, but we're going to form a panel to investigate this as soon as possible. in the meantime, you got a bunker?". what is it about the russians? they're so good at offering free or really cheap code for no better reason than they can and it always defies microsoft interventions. but governmentally there is a bit of a competence gap.

i'll stop here. not that any of you dirty little commies will have read any of this. and for that i salute you. i wouldn't either if i was a rigidly caught doctrinaire. lachaim.

lachaim, i say. damn your little commie eyes.

update:
p.s. what do you think? it's 9:20 pm and she is having one of her nightly fits. so, $25-$30 for her and her litter boxes? i will throw in the catnip bags, tennis balls, laser pointer, plastic bags, ink pens, shoelaces, chair arms, pants legs, screen doors, carpets, norway rats and friends' allergies this cat has destroyed. she's a real bitch. and warm. sleeps with me when it's too cold anywhere else. finds the first spot to knead, does that for maybe 5 minutes. then she finds another place to lie down and take a nap. so long as it's right next to me.
think i'll keep her a while longer.