Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Twits.
wackos
AP has the best report on this, with a delicious final two paragraphs.
What? Why? Did he get caught with an intern or something?
…and thus the House was too busy to debate the nation’s energy policy or take the decision to drill offshore or in ANWR to the floor for a vote.
does make you wonder if Presidnent was a typo or their definition of a shrub.
Lex introduced a new tag here, kabuki. Read up on it. It perfectly applies.
They say that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. That’s codswallop, of course — fiddles hadn’t been invented at that time. Still, this particular act is nearly as productive and produces similar squealing sounds.
And Congress wonders why it is held in such contempt.
– Max
Would someone please put Kucinich out of my misery?
I can’t believe the people who send Kucinich back to Congress year after year do it for anything other than amusement. It would be cheaper though to go to a comedy club and toss back a few doubles……and not as embarrassing to the rest of the nation.
Al Franken wrote in one of his books about impeaching Bush with just two weeks to go in his term ( which presupposes that the Dems would have a 2/3 majority in Congress).
In the book when asked by his daughter why, he responded, “Because we can!” .
Remember the “two-minute hate” sessions in Orwell’s “1984?” These seem to be a regular feature among the “progressives,” only with GWB substituting for Emmanuel Goldstein…and lasting a lot longer than two minutes.
When Bush leaves office, the hate will not go away, but will seek out new targets.
DF
As conservatives have done with the Clintons. Stupidity begets stupdity.
Respects
OAM
Disingenuous<—the only polite word I can think of right now without Lex having to ‘edit’ what I might have said otherwise. Pelosi won’t lead the way to file charges, knowing that what Kookonitch hopes to try is rank stupidity at this point, but she also just doesn’t have the…ummm…fortitude and leadership skill to put the brakes on this debacle.
OAM-Stupidity begets stupidity. Yup.
You are who you hang with. It’s also a lot like being on narcotics. After a while it changes who you are, and there is no easy way back.
Semper Fi.
Mongo,
I don’t get it. You are who you hang with? OAM’s point was that during the Clinton years the same thing occurred-with about the same frequency. Only when its Clinton its Ok-when its Bush it is BDS.
Plus from Pelosi’s and Conyers standpoint it makes some sense-the hard corps base of the Democratic party is furious that Bush gets a pass on a whole list of things that are of questionable legality and / or consititutionality. However unpopular Bush is (still hovering around 70%)-they all know that an impeachment resolution will go nowhere. However the rules of the House allow them to vent. They get to throw them a bone.
It’s interesting to note that G.W. Bush issues a few executive orders on detainees at Guantanimo and wiretapping overseas calls and he’s the greatest threat to civilization since Bubonic Plague, or perhaps Caligula.
Abraham Lincoln suspended habeus corpus. He is now widely regarded as one of our greatest presidents, at least above the Mason-Dixon line.
FDR ordered the internment of citizens of Japanese descent in “military areas” which of course meant the entire west coast. He’s generally considered an excellent wartime president, and though several of his New Deal proposals were later found unconstitutional and are considered by economists to have extended the Great Depression, there is no doubt that the bulk of his legacy is of successful undertakings.
Not bad for a president presiding over a 19% unemployment rate, is it?
Did I mention that in 1996 the AEDPA act passed by Congress limited writs of habeus corpus to 1 year following conviction? That’s with a Republican-majority House and a Democratic President.
One will have to look long and hard to find an administration or a congress that hasn’t stepped on some toes, done a bone-head move, or even signed legislation that was unconstitutional.
With Bush and Clinton, though, it seems personal. That’s a new phenomenon.
– Max
I would submit that it is more than a few “executive orders”-there has been a trend of abuse of the power of the executive, that sadly, was aquiesced to by the Congress which is why impeachment makes so little sense.
Which is probably what is the real impeachable offense if you ask me-Congress let him get away with it. So perhaps the wrong person(s) are under indictment.
Skippy,
Understand something… President Bush has not broken the law. He has not trampled the constitution.
It amazes me, every time I ask someone what rights they personally have lost because of Bush’s abuse of power no one can ever answer that question.
Jim C
That he has not broken the law thing is subject to debate. The contention is made that when the warrantless wiretapping was authorized he violated both the then current FISA law and the 4th amendment.
Furthermore, I would submit that a reasonable case could be made that the President exceeded constitutional or other legal limitations on his war powers. The sponsors of an impeachment resolution have argued that if Bush and Cheney are not held accountable, this administration will hand off to its successors a toolbox of powers greater than any executive has ever held — more authority, concentrated in fewer hands, than the Founders could have conceived or would have allowed.
Not really wanting to discuss this in detail, just pointing out what the logic is. Whether impeachment is the right vehicle to address this is an issue-but it seems clear to me that Congress needs to excercise its role as a check and balance via its power of the purse.
As for what rights I’ve lost-it seems clear to me that first and 4th amendment rights have lost ground during this administration. I personally find many of the expanded surveillance issues found in the current anti-terror laws to be disturbing-just to name a couple.
Seems at least as plausible an idea as impeaching the president for lying about consensual sex.
Skippy, no one really gave a rats ass whether he had a good time or not, he was impeached for lying about under oath. That, my friend, IS illegal, and if you or I were to do that, we would suffer legal penalties. That is an unimpeachable fact. Second, I cannot for the life of me tell one bit if my civil rights have been abridged by the laws and executive orders passed by the Congress and executed by the President. We are at war. Wartime, as President Lincoln found out, forces you to do things that you would rather not do, to save the Union. And please don’t tell us that we are not at war. There’s been far too many civilian deaths since the Marine Barracks were demolished in Beirut for any of us to accept that this is merely random violence, and at best, a police matter.
Like Tom Clancy said, the Constitution is not a suicide pact, and if Jefferson and Hamilton were alive today, they’d be the first ones to tell us to use whatever means necessary to find those that would threaten us. Bottom line Skipp, is that the only people who have anything to worry about, are those sorry SOBs that want to kill my fellow Americans.
Byron,
I’m not telling you that we are not at war. I am telling you that it is not an excuse to deprive citizens of their liberties under the Constitution in the name of some greater could.
Virtually everything that GWB sought to achieve through questionable means could have been achieved without resorting to skirting the law or the Bill of Rights. Plus I have always found it interesting that those who oppose government intervention in areas such as the second amendment are so freely willing to give it away in others (e.g. the 1st, 4th, 5th , 6th and 8th amendments. )
Louis Brandeis summed it up best, “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
“greater good.” I miss the edit function…….
Skippy,
Right? Because someone eavesdrops on your 1-800 sex calls, you feel your rights have been violated? Until you are charged with a crime using that info, I think you are whining about nothing. None of your rights have been violated, because you still walk the streets, still are free to say whatever and associate with whomever you wish. No one has ever told you to shutup or be imprisoned or lose your job.
Conspiring to destroy life, property and liberty would always get one arrested and jailed, even when you were a Midshipman, which is way before you ever heard of George W Bush.
I’m sure your eavesdropping on Soviet and Chinese communications from international waters would be found to be a violation of some poor Chinese citizens rights and therefore illegal in your eyes, and the eyes of jihadis and their drama queen lawyers, though. Too bad. In wartime and in peacetime, THAT was your JOB, Sir.
You are absolutely the biggest whiner I’ve ever come across in a military man. A Sea Lawyer extraordinaire. You remind me of a 20 yr old Seaman First Class who doesn’t want to clean the crappers when the Master Chief tells him to do so. How about that violation of your civil rights? While Lex gives you the benefit of the doubt here, and has for a great length of time, I despise Commanding Officers with your attitudes and loyalties. Who believe your CinC may or may not be followed depending upon whether you agree with his politics or not. And I’m entitled to my own opinions here or anywhere a US citizen may expect to find the privileges of citizenship.
So piss off.
Subsunk
Didn’t these guys do the exact same thing last year when the Dems were in a minority? ISTR that little fan dance was a lot like this one.
And I too am entitled to my opinions here or anywhere a US citizen may expect to find citizenship. I’m just as entitled to my opinions here as you are-or do you also not believe in net neutrality? I never said the President did not have to be obeyed by the military. What I find astounding is that you somehow think that I have to agree with every order I ever obeyed. Did you? And did you never complain about? I strongly doubt it.
I simply believe that I have not abrogated my right to have an opinion, to express that opinion freely, and to engage in a reasonable discourse arguing issues on their merit-not some simpleton’s idea of who should have a right to speak and who should not.
In a way you are proving my point here. Have I been arrested of a crime? No. Have I had my rights violated by someone who thought they had a right to impose their values on me? Yes-and it took me a long time to achieve the legal redress I deserved. ( Which I finally did). Has the government exceeded its authority under the law-in pursuit of its war on terror? Yes it has and its not my word on that subject, the Supreme Court has said so, not once, but three times on these types of issues. They are certainly a lot smarter than me-or do you propose that all 9 justices are whiners too?
The Seaman and the Chief have no bearing on the issues discussed here. Neither does “conspiring to destroy life and property” There are about 4 different issues that all have their basis in contractual and constitutional law.
The largest of which is that just because the President wants something, and there is a war on , does not mean he should automatically get it. Because you do not agree with that proposition does not negate the validity of the argument-nor does it mean it will be solved any time soon because you or I wish it to be so.
I want to say something really nasty-but I’m not going to do it. You think I’m scum? Fine-knock yourself out.
I’d also advise you to pick up a copy of Jane’. The EP-3 does signals intelligence, the E-2 does air control. I don’t speak Chinese or Russian.
But hey, what do facts matter when you are angry?
Skippy…
However the rules of the House allow them to vent. They get to throw them a bone.
Really, they aren’t paid to throw or get bones throwed to. And “the others guys did it first/last” is always an embarrassingly intellectually impoverished argument.
Why waste everyone but the far left’s time on my nickel?
It will come back to haunt them in time…………
If it is any satisfaction, I suspect some 527 will have a field day with the video.
So if enemy signals intelligence came your way in the E-2 squadron, you’d ignore it then because it wasn’t your squadron’s job, eh?
Yes, I am angry. I had to keep my mouth shut for 21 yrs, and I’m sure I saw as much stupidity and injustice in the Navy as you did. And yes, I did disagree with many orders given me over my career, and yet I only disagreed with the Captain in private. Once the CO’s door was open, every single time, those orders were mine. I made them mine once the decision was made. You as a Commanding Officer should know better than to give an order, send your Men out to do what you bid, and then after you feel some mistake was made, have the audacity and lack of courage to claim, “Oh wait. I didn’t mean it that way!” You of all people should recognize that once the decisions are made, the die is cast, and the troops on their way, recall is not easy, and sometimes not possible. When war starts, it is so easy to say, we are with you, Mr. President. We stand behind you. Then when the going gets tough you claim, “well he lied to me. I didn’t know he was actually going to, you know, go to war!” Just as Congress has done. Just as reporters have done. Just as so many judges have done (and it was only 5 of those 9 justices who claim he doesn’t have the power to eavesdrop on terrorists on the communications lines present in this country). The people of the United States disagree with those 5 judges who placed the rights of terrorists above the rights of 3000 fellow Americans who died 7 yrs ago, burning to a crisp in jet fueled flames or dropping 80 stories to explode like bloody water balloons all over the pavement in NYC, or dying screaming under tons of concrete and steel while carrying fire hoses and axes to evacuate people who never did a damn thing to hurt a Muslim in their lives.
And yes, you do have a right to say whatever you wish. Don’t hold back. You’re a private citizen now. You earned that right. Tell me how you feel your country would be better served by failing to listen to foreign communications (80% of which still go thru switches controlled and located in America, and which are ABSOLUTELY fair game in intelligence collection) when our citizens, our families, and our troops lives are on the line. How you’d rather give an advantage to terrorists instead of to our law enforcement and military personnel.
Tell PFC Fouty’s and SPC Jimenez’s, and SPC Anzack’s families about how the Army couldn’t listen in to emails delineating the capture and trading of their persons for those three soldiers until 12 hrs later when the feds got a FISA warrant. But those gents had already been slaughtered and beheaded once our law enforcement got a chance to check the terrorists’ emails. Tell their folks that foreigners, who were speaking to NO ONE in the US, but whose servers reside here, had their communications protected by a FISA court while Fouty and Jimenez were savagely mutilated. Tell them that the intelligence community tried to help their sons, but were refused by a court that felt that intelligence collection is only something done by an EP-3 going in harms way instead of an email tap here is the US. Tell us how the only correct way to gather enemy intelligence is to place a crew in harms way to be captured or killed (shot down), instead of using technical means where no human’s lives are put at risk to gather that intel.
Captain, you are shortsighted and illogical where your Men’s lives are concerned. Why don’t you put yourself in their COs and parents’ place first, and in your Sea Lawyers place second or not at all. Put your CO’s hat back on and look at this from that perspective. If you gave your life to that position, then why have you abandoned it now that your career is over?
Call me whatever you like. Let it all out. It will make you feel better. Because siding with terrorists and people who put America’s rights last sure as Hell won’t.
As for your redress of wrongs, tell me how it was caused by George W Bush and his usurpation of the Constitution and illegal searches and seizures of evidence which caused your misfortune. Why else could you possibly be irked at that portion of his Constitutional prerogatives?
Subsunk
Hi Skippy-san,
I hope all is going well for you, SO and your family. I am spending one of my weeks with my 5 year old daughter here in San Diego. I’ve treasured the days and don’t look forward to Sunday when I have to take her back.
I read a lot of this thread and wrote back a lot which I just deleted. One of the many things that I treasure about all the time and effort that Lex takes with his blog is the spirit of cordiality, professionalism and fun. For me, snarky works but I prefer the core essence of the unbearable lightness of Lex. It doesn’t get much lighter!
regards,
Subsunk,
I just don’t see it the same way you do. That’s all. I can’t and I won’t. Nor do I make the connection between the Navy and larger issues of government that you do. I simply hold a different position than you. They are different to be sure-but for some reason you want to add venom to equation and make me or anyone else who believes differently out to be on the same level as a child molester or worse. I never attacked you personally-nor am I on the side of terrorists.
We both get to vote this year-and in the end the adminstration for the next four years will be decided. Its 99 days till the election and there can be a lot of discussion till then.
You are right. You don’t deserve my venom. Sorry I spewed it. I “vehemently disagree” with you over what constitutes intelligence collection of foreign communications and what is our government spying on us. There is a huge difference in giving up civil liberties and spying on your cell phone comms. You have no right to privacy on any of your communications since everything goes over microwaves today. Everything. If our government isn’t allowed to eavesdrop, then why are PIs and foreign intelligence services allowed to do so? Are the consequences to your life any different?
My answer is no. You may not trust your own government to do what is right, but I do because they are made up of normal everyday folks like you and me. Sometimes they are a little blind and reckless at times. But they are still the best thing going. Next to Red China, I’d give them my kids lives for safekeeping and expect better than they would get in China. But not better than what I can do myself.
I could give two shits who is elected. I have to follow either one of these guys. McCain has more Honor and Integrity, plus his military service is dramatic proof that he puts country before himself. So he will probably get my vote.
But my position isn’t about who will get elected. My position is about who will continue to protect America the way I did and millions of others did. With their lives, blood, toil, tears and sweat. And I’m sick and tired of nimrods like you and me and Dhimmicrats in Congress making the kids who are supposed to defend us lives’ harder and place more restrictions on them fighting the war. I chafed under it when I was a JO. You did too. So remember where you came from and don’t advocate making their lives harder because you don’t think your government will one day play fair with the rules on down the road. Trust the kids we are raising now to recognize when a line can’t be crossed and when they should ask for help. And then get out of their way.
Subsunk
Re the last paragraph. You will get no disagreement from me. If there is one trend in both the military and civilian side that is definately for the worse-its the amount of micromanagement that are young folks get in doing their jobs. You could take half the jobs held by flags and make ‘em O-6 jobs, half the jobs done by O-6′s and have it done by O-5′s and so on and so forth. I think you will agree with me that in particular CPO’s and E-6′s are not given their due in letting them take charge and move out. Now its all about process.
Agreed. If we let the Chiefs do their thing, we’d have less O-gangers screwing things up, and more time to devote to killing those what needs to be killed.
I was so sick and tired of sensitivity training in the 90s I could spit.
Subsunk