(quote courtesy Mickey Kaus)
Silent Running summarizes ;
Bush’s illegal wiretaps on totally innocent US citizens who might be calling Hamas, Hizbollah and Al Qaeda personnel because�er�.because�..well, it�s illegal, and wrong and against the constitution despite that fact that Bill Clinton did it�okay, where were we. John Hindraker at Powerline sits us all down and calmly explains why it’s important during wartime to find out what the enemy is planning, so we can try to stop them, and that in fact it�s completely legal and constitutional, and maybe some people might have forgotten about certain things such as skyscrapers collapsing and the Pentagon erupting in flames. He uses small words so Senator Kennedy can understand.
Against the backdrop of this manufactured New York Times controversy, Bush’s approval ratings have hit the 50% mark, the highest since the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Bush is in real trouble with US conservatives, and it doesn’t matter how the media spins it. All this “approval rating” BS has long been exposed as contrived PR from the state dept. Most of the reasoning GOP conservatives I know, who are not lock-step partisans and love their nation and its constitution above any party spin, are disillusioned in Bush. I have been told by some of them that the GOP faction of the party are desparate to find someone that can revive the electoral fortunes of the GOP Republicans or 2008 will be a sweep for the reds.
Bush trivializing the constitution by putting the US under defacto martial law with Patriot act II while under neither seige nor insurrection,..his dogging the economy with oil shortages and an expensive protracted military foreign policy which made windfall profits for his small cadre of corporate sureties,.. his latest gaff where he showed his real contempt for the constitution by calling it “just a God Damned piece of Paper”,….all this and a list of other out of GOP character items has US conservatives deeply troubled and scrambling for a saleable replacement before 2008.
Hey, I’m fairly conservative/libertarian and pro-America but my high opinion of Bush (and particularly his insider advisory cadre) has worn off greatly. Bush is NOT a constitutionalsist executive, he acts as a ruling class aristocrat….this he shares with Bill and Hitlery Klintoon, and his genetic cousin and fellow Yale Bonesman John Kerry. He views the constitution (or any constraint on executive power) as a road block….just Like the Klintoons.
The Bush dynasty has its roots in the shadowy world of CIA/executive secuiry agencies/Pentagon. It is these quasi-constitutional agencies who have been setting foreign and domestic policy in this administration. Bush jumps at every chance he gets to invoke martial law domestically and militarize civilian policing. He has legislated more athoratarian civilian firearms bans than Klinton. The US Right better get their act together and dump this administration quickly and uncerimoniously….then find themselves a conservative populist-constitutionalist runner for 2008 Presidential….the thought of a second Klintoon Whitehouse is a chilling prospect for anyone who values liberty and freedom….but the way Bush and the Klintons are so tight policy-wise these days one would get the impression there is really no difference between the 2 parties at the executive level….from what I’ve seen of US domestic policy the last 3 years there really isn’t.
Notice the MSM naturally ignores the fact that Democratic President Bill Clinton authorized spying on Americans, too?
I guess if one is a leftist, it’s ok to do what it isn’t ok for a conservative to do. No wonder I often speak of leftism as a threat to the world. They don’t see WWIII or 9/11 Part Two coming. Don’t the fools know anything of WWII and 9/11, other than what their unwashed leftist pals tell them?
Actually, the NYT articles are deliberately uninformative on a very important point. The “questionable” surveillance took place exclusively in instances where one of the parties was outside the US. If Sami el-Arian were to have discussed accelerating jihad with someone from CAIR in a telephone call, his conversation would NOT have been monitored.
By pointing out that this activity was directed against American citizens but burying the precise criteria used to identify surveillable communications, the NYT stacked the deck. Too bad that this is the conduct of one of the most prominant “newspapers of record” in the entire US.
And, finally, while I do not approve of the way the NYT acted, I don’t have any problems with the idea that a newspaper is ventilating a concern with governmental intrusions into the privacy of its citizens. That, after all, is what a newspaper is supposed to do. It will, however, be interesting to see if our congressional representatives take the same serious view as does the NYT. There are a bunch of Senators and Representatives who have served in the armed forces, as have their constituents. Such people understand the value of carefully acquired intelligence.
Redux, I continue to keep an open mind towards how you see President Bush.
Of course, surely you wouldn’t prefer a Clinton or Kerry to a Bush, right? I’d be surprised.
A Clinton or Kerry would just let the terrorists do more or less as they please as well as advancing the extreme social and economic agenda of the ultra-far-left.
Maybe Mr. Bush is not so perfect and I may one day realize your analysis as above is spot on, but for now, I will stick with my preference for Bush over any Democrat that party can proffer. Kerry- ewww! Howard Dean? Why not Steve Martin in a drug-induced frenzy? Same as Howie D, I’d say…
Don’t delude yourself the “surveillence” od civilians without warrant was far wider than “muslims”…US intel agencies used the patriot act to buy the technology to eaves drop on all domestic cell and internet conversations….they are using it to install retinal, face and thumb scans in all public places and for common government documents like driver’s licences….now we see they are using the new biometric state issued dociments as an excuse to demand ID from anyone, anywhaere upon penalty of arbitrary arrest…..fortress America…the last free society is becoming an armed military prison for its own citizens and we have nothing but an out of control intelligence community and executive intilled paranoia to thank for it.
I predict the patriot act provisins will sink in to the average American in time for them to baclash this defacto suspension of civil liberty…..Bush will face the wrath of the voters…and that’s too bad because America needs a strong constitutionalist government now in these dark days…what she has is two parties who are both in a hurry to suspend the constitution and build gulags.
Mackenzie:
Name me one, confirmed case of abuse brought about by the Patriot Act.
WLM Redux
I didn’t notice the “sarcasm on” sign so I take your comments at face value and respond as follows:
“de facto martial law”- please sir, a few facts to support this accusation;
“his dogging the economy with oil shortages” –
Wow, POTUS controls the world’s oil supply! And restricts it – for what purpose -to increase his popularity? The western world’s strongest economy has been dogged?
“expensive protracted military foreign policy”
Protracted? (I love the irony of using an historical name while having no historical perspective.) You expected it would be easier to democratize Iraq than Japan or Germany?
“windfall profits for his small cadre of corporate sureties,..”
Presumably you would not make this accusation without considering arguments for and against.Please post links so we too may consider your sources.
“his latest gaff where he showed his real contempt for the constitution by calling it “just a God Damned piece of Paper”,-”
Please post proof for this accusation- or withdraw it and apologize.
Finally using terms like “Bush Dynasty ” betrays an unserious mind. Dynasties are not elected. Bush’s second elected term of office will expire in January 2009. At that time, as a result of his domestic and foreign policy sucesses, and attacks like yours from his opponents, he will be relaced by a Republican.
WLMR: Just what exactly do you put in your cranberry sauce?
WLMR (rebarbarian)
It’s not the cranberry sauce, it’s the tinfoil tent from the turkey. It’s now covering the “turkey’s” head.
Whoa, folks, let’s not dismiss Redux so easily. He’s to be taken seriously, even if we have trouble agreeing with something he says. I know he understands what’s wrong in Canada, so, not having followed American matters closely myself, I keep an open mind and await evidence… ’cause I know Redux wouldn’t b.s. us like a leftist would.
And any talk of tinfoil only makes one sound like the one claiming to be “Don” when he goes after us. Redux is one of us, after all. And plenty of folks sometimes don’t see what I see, either.
Y’all should listen to Redux. He, after all, ain’t a Librano or Dipper or similar…
As for myself, although I take him seriously when he says serious stuff, that doesn’t mean I’m being told what to think; remember that. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day his words as above were vindicated. After all, anything’s conceivable after 9/11 and after AdScam…
Canadian Sentinel,
Reasonable people don’t make the kind of accusations WLM Redux made about Bush without being able to back them up. Redux has been called, so let’s see what he’s made of.
Sentinel:
Maybe you should do your own research before blindly believing something. Nobody is questioning Redux’s integrity, he made statements, however, that were broad and unsupported and all he is being asked to do is to provide evidence of his claims. So far, the silence is deafening….
sentinal said: “Of course, surely you wouldn’t prefer a Clinton or Kerry to a Bush, right? I’d be surprised.”
Of course not…but in practial operation there is no difference between the Klintoon commies who shredded the constitution with the gonzales case, Ruby ridge, Waco and the first World trade center bombing, selling classified technology to the Chi-coms etc…..now we have Bush who reinstates Klinton’s civilian gun ban, escallates Chinese trade, then he has FEMA go on house to house military search and siezure of lawful privately owned civilian firearms under marshal law, at the same time he is responsible for a virtually open Mexican border and actually interfering with border states actions who are alarmed by the exponetial illegal alien influx and the crime and the resulting degenerating social conditions in the south west…Republicans will lose the SW ( yes even Texas) because of their seeming antipathy towards protecting the southern border and expelling the millions of illegal aliens sapping the public systems in the states.
The information is there if you want to see it…and NO it doesn’t come from fanatical leftist sources.
The fact remains that Republicans now have their turn at feeling cheated by the party Leadership having anything but conservative-constitutionalist ideals and agendas. Dems had Klinton who they found themselves having to defend the despotic anti-constitutional behavior of this sick lecher and the blood thirsty commie dyke he put in the justice department. Any principled Dems left the party and many voted for Bush for change…now we see the same pattern of unconstitutional patrician behaviour from the Bush administration.
US Conservatives, like US liberals have a faction who are blinded by partisanism to the warts and ideological dysfunction in their party and it’s leaders and their agendas. The Dems had their party sold to socialist creeps and statist thugs and any true liberals are scarce in the party operational ranks. Similarly the GOP has a ruling faction populated by anti-constitutionalsists that many in the military refer to as “the crazies”…watch as they continue to turn America into a gulag.
Don’t let partisanism blind you to the only things that count…freedom, liberty and due process in the rule of law and constitutional government.
I became a Reformer and now a CPC activist for the simple reason that the party and its leaders support my core philosophies of:
A) the rights and freedoms of the individual
B) small unintrusive government with adequate constitutional restraints
C) a return to constitutional restraint of federal jurisdiction.
D) populist visibility, accountability and democratic inclusive governing systems.
The day the CPC leader or the party abandon any of these I will no longer support them
All the above have been breeched by the Bush administration in domestic policy actions.
Vin sez:”Mackenzie:
Name me one, confirmed case of abuse brought about by the Patriot Act.”
http://www.papersplease.org/davis/facts.html
want more? do your own google search, there are plenty but only a few where a constitutional court case resulted,
Your papers Please heir Vin? Better have ’em or you come smack up against statist gulag America….ask Deb, the soldier’s Mom from Denver.
At 11:26 am today I challenged you to provide evidence to support your vicious accusations against Bush.
Six and one half hours later you respond- with more unsubstantiated allegations. The only one with any validity is the “open” Mexican border.
Do you need more time or do you want to do the right thing and withdraw your unfounded and intemperate allegations – remarks which a true conservative would not have made in the first place.
Redux
Do you not get out at all? This is the best you can come with? Someone entering onto federal property is asked to show identification.
I take it you’ve never entered a Courthouse in Toronto- where you have to open your briefcase and empty your pockets to gain entry.
Redux:
I ask for an example of an abuse from the Patriot Act and you insult my intelligence with this? This is not an example of the Patriot Act, she was released on tickets, if anything, they were enforcing a state law. Do you realize each state in essence has it’s own criminal code, it ain’t like Canada, maybe that state has a law on the books about identifying to Police when asked. Regardless, this has nothing, what so ever, to do with the Patriot Act. This may just be an example of an overzealous cops(s).
Oh, and btw, I’m sure she had ample opportunity to challenge the tickets in court, funny how this seems to be missing from her story. Don’t believe everything you hear. You still have not come close to proving your post. I still do not see the gulags. I travel in the states often and have never been asked for my “papers” (except when pulled over on a traffic stop of my own fault).
Oh and Redux, I lived in the states a number of years and even the democrats believe in individual freedom at a much larger extent than the CPC. Individual Freedom you say, then why doesn’t the CPC support private health care options, where’s the individual freedom there. What about abortion, where’s the individual freedom for the unborn. The CPC is already abandoning you first and foremost point and I say this as a conservative who plans to vote for the CPC. George Bush believes in individual freedom, much more so than the CPC.
Now, you, on your second point, once again made some outlandish claims, please, as others have said, support with evidence.
Redux:
My apologies, I do see an update as to the court proceedings that this lady is engaged in, nonetheless, you still have not made the link to the Patriot Act and President Bush. As far as I can see, there is no link, the Patriot Act wasn’t listed as evidentiary basis for charge. And you know, if the indictment anywhere mentioned that Act, it would have been on that website.
Overall, conservatives like Bush even if we have some problems on specific issues. We see President Bush as being personally a conservative who sees the presidency in pragmatic terms. We fully understand that conflicts with our enemy create their own dimensions of needs.
We can’t be so pragmatic that we dismiss idealistic and constitutional issues. At the same time, we can’t allow our idealism to cause us to be unrealistic with an enemy who will exploit vulnerabilities to kill us.
A lot of conservatives would prefer that President Bush come down on our side of specific issues. However, we really do not object to phone calls being monitored of suspected Islamist terrorists who try to communicate with colleagues outside the US. In fact we would prefer for these calls to be monitored.
I am active on border issues, and we wish that President Bush was our ally. However, we’ve recently gotten the US Congress to approve a wall between US and Mexico, so even if Bush feels politically he has to come down on the side of powerful agri-interests in various states and districts, we still have enough citizen power to force the issue with our elected representatives.
Most conservatives down here really have a much more measured view of President Bush than Redux suggests.
All this debate because Bush ok’ed listening on communications of suspected terrorists… Folks Canada has being doing it for years to us.
WL Mack Redux:
I couldn’t agree with you more than in your first post.
Cheers from the Libertarian-oriented conservatives like moi!
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/26/no-holiday/
For the record:
I never said I agreed with Redux’s comments on Bush and the current Republican administration. On the contrary, I only said I’m keeping an open mind because I have come to understand Redux as a serious, well-informed person who just happens to use a persona, that of William Lyon Mackenzie’s spirit reincarnated and writing on current events from that perspective. It’s important to remember this. I’ve conversed with the actual person behind the persona privately via email and know he’s as normal as myself and you.
I have a persona, too, though it’s more myself than a different character. I’ve been watching, sentinel-like, over Canada for many years, day in day out, so I’m the “Sentinel”. Nothing egotistical, just an apt moniker.
I certainly never blindly believe what anyone says to me. Those who know me online know this to be true. I have indeed had many disagreements with other conservative folks.
Anyone who thought otherwise, just re-read what I said in my earlier comments in this thread, carefully, and you’ll realize this.
Redux writes:
“A) the rights and freedoms of the individual
B) small unintrusive government with adequate constitutional restraints
C) a return to constitutional restraint of federal jurisdiction.
D) populist visibility, accountability and democratic inclusive governing systems.
The day the CPC leader or the party abandon any of these I will no longer support them”
That makes two of us, Wil. I’ve always been that way and always will. Been Reform since I saw Preston’s poster at university promoting “The New Canada”. Those three words alone were the initial spark that got my attention. True story.
I will look into the info to which you’ve referred wrt Bush and the current Republicans. It’ll take time, as with everything else I came to understand. I actually have the emotional stability to entertain that which is painful to come to grips with. It’s a way of life for me, after all… And the truth sets us free, I always have believed.
Liberals fear the truth as they know freeing the people will end their control over the country. They want to maintain their mass mind control techniques via the MSM, etc… and I want to see this come to an end so Canadians can see what’s really what…
bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Sorry guys and gals, this is just delightfully funny. Only now do you realize your good buddy WLM is one of the tinfoil hat crowd.
Enjoy
PS, you can keep him too.
Very good, Zorpheous. Very well reasoned, there. I’m really convinced by you of that which you’ve written just above. Real impressive.
Wow– ain’t leftists just such smart folks?
Canadian Sentinel,
Who even said I was trying to convience you, or even apply reason. If you feel that WLM is a reasonably logic man with head screwed on tight and correctly, then be all means keep him in circle of friends. Just wait, if the CPC win the election WLM will turn on Harper and the CPC too.
As for me, I’m just enjoying seeing the Liberals self-destruct due to their stupidity and seeing the CPC do the same (but not to the same degree, yet)
Happy New Year 😉
Z
Well, ok, Z. I only meant to say, anyway, that WLM Redux isn’t someone anyone should dismiss easily. He does have a record, at least to me, of knowing whereof he speaks, even if he does have a certain way of talking about things with his writing style.
Happy New Year, Zorpheous.
Sentinal, we could debate the sanity of WLM to the nth degree and I don’t think we would see eye to eye. Although I do consider way more credible than Anonalogue, but that isn’t saying very much. 😉
Happy New Years to you too.
Bush took over a circus and turned
it into a carnival.
I will send the Tsunami people money
just as soon as they let that Austrilian
woman out of jail for using drug’s.
How do you spell scum?
B-U-S-H
How do you spell moron?
S-U-T-T-O-N.