You might want to thank Diebold Inc. for that one as much as the American people.

I’ll also add that, despite that, I make sure I go out and vote in every election. And when I vote, I avoid BOTH Democrats and Republican candidates like the plague. If more poeple had done likewise in ‘04, maybe we wouldn’t have these problems.

You might want to thank Diebold Inc. for that one as much as the American people.

I’ll also add that, despite that, I make sure I go out and vote in every election. And when I vote, I avoid BOTH Democrats and Republican candidates like the plague. If more poeple had done likewise in ‘04, maybe we wouldn’t have these problems.

It’s the childish paranoia, half-truths, misinformation, and hate pervading the comments in this section were what got my attention. You’re all pretty much ignorant, uncritical thinkers, and have a myopic world view, and if you’re too dumb to at least SUSPECT how much you don’t know, you’ll probably never self-examine enough to improve with time. Apparently the world isn’t to your liking and you feel cheated that it isn’t. So you throw tantrums, lash out at authority figures, dream up grand conspiracies, and justify your pitiful existence with the nobility of your “cause.” You insult and denegrate those that don’t even know you exist, believing this makes you feel big and important and smarter than they are. You’re yappy little dogs barking at the big dog outside the window who you know can’t get to you, even if he wanted to. You use the anonymity of the internet to say things you wouldn’t have the balls to say face to face, in an isolated place with those who disagree with you. If you behaved like this in your real life, you’d frequently get your ass kicked, and deservedly so. If you did, you’d learn something.

You’re living in a dream world, a world of pure good (you) and pure evil (them) which is no more than your own unconscious mess being projected on the outer world. Conspiracy theories and “Bush is the devil incarnate” attitudes are really getting boring. He’s not infallible and neither are you. But he’s not a complete fruitcake as most of you are.

Support your candidate for elections and vote for them, but if they don’t win all the time, don’t insult us and tell us we’re all fools and that you’re the geniuses who know how to make it all better. If your candidate for team captain doesn’t always win, support the team anyway or if you can’t, make constructive criticism or shut up. Only childish egomaniacs don’t understand how boring they are when they collect a few facts on an issue and try to ram their theories down our throats (rudely).

If you’re the people who know better and can do better, make a ten year plan to run for President and see how you fare in the public eye. Come up with a better strategy to determine the fate of billions of people on this planet, send it to the NYT editorial page, and see how much respect you get. Do something useful instead of trading theories based on half-truths, whining, and insulting the administration on the internet. Or go see a competent therapist who can help you separate fantasy from reality.

Check this out, especially the part I placed emphasis on. Our efforts at tracking terrorists’ finances was public knowledge in the weeks after 9/11. It was released by the White House.

So when are you going to charge Bush with treason for helping the terrorists?

Fool.

Fact Sheet on Terrorist Financing Executive Order
September 24, 2001

- The President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State and others are working with our allies around the world to tackle the financial underpinnings of terrorism. We are working through the G-8 and the United Nations. Already, several of our allies, including Switzerland and Britain, have frozen accounts of suspected terrorists.

Read more here.

Comment by mike — June 27, 2006 @ 1:19 am

Yes, Mike, it was a dance. Maybe a tango…not sure. You didn’t even begin to address the gist of my questions, which is this: why is it perfectly acceptable for Bush to talk about our efforts to track terrorists yet when the press reports on it, calls of treason and imprisonment resonate throughout rightwing land.

Mike, had you bothered to link to the site I provided, you would have read President Bush’s own words in 2004 telling the world, including any terrorists who could understand the English language, how we tracked their activities.

Instead, as if on cue you went on yet another 9/11 tangent, a typical rightwing tactic. Did you even bother to read any of the detailed info on Glenn Greenwald’s site, to which I linked? Obviously not. Let me offer a bit more info. For your viewing pleasure, in Bush’s own words and my own translation thrown in:

That means terrorists could elude law enforcement by simply purchasing a new cell phone. The Patriot Act fixed the problem by allowing terrorism investigators to use the same wiretaps that were already being using against drug kingpins and mob bosses.

Message to terrorists (for the ignorant among us): We are wiretapping your cell phones.

The Patriot Act authorizes what are called delayed notification search warrants. I’m not a lawyer, either. (Laughter.) These allow law enforcement personnel, with court approval, to carry out a lawful search without tipping off suspects and giving them a chance to flee or destroy evidence. It is an important part of conducting operations against organized groups.

Message to terrorists: We can perform surprise searches of your property.

It’s common sense reform, and it’s delivered results. In April 2004, a man sent an e-mail to an Islamic center in El Paso, and threatened to burn the mosque to the ground in three days. Before the Patriot Act, the FBI could have spent a week or more waiting for the information they needed. Thanks to the Patriot Act, an Internet provider was able to provide the information quickly and without fear of a lawsuit — and the FBI arrested the man before he could fulfill his — fulfill his threat.

Message to terrorists: Internet providers are cooperating with us so that we can have access to, and can read, your e-mail.

There you go…just 3 examples of United States President George W. Bush telling the world, including any terrorists or would-be terrorists who could understand English, how we are tracking them.

And now, for the icing on the cake, President George Bush telling terrorists that we monitor their financial activities, something that the rightwingers are ready to throw reporters into prison for:

Before September the 11th, law enforcement could more easily obtain business and financial records of white-collar criminals than of suspected terrorists. See, part of the way to make sure that we catch terrorists is we chase money trails. And yet it was easier to chase a money trail with a white-collar criminal than it was a terrorist. The Patriot Act ended this double standard and it made it easier for investigators to catch suspected terrorists by following paper trails here in America.

I look forward to reading another non-answer today, Mike. Hope to see you soon and hope you are having a good morning.

The difference, as far as I can see consists mainly of two points:

1) Using the phrase “during a time of war”. This is a neverending “war against terror” that is so poorly defined that it could conceivable be stretched out indefinitely. The administration has taken to calling it “The Long War”, and for good reason. The only reason I can see for fighting an undefined adversary in these circumstances is the unbound expansion of executive power. If we are at war, it is against our own people ; intelligence against terrorists would be best gathered from outside this country, where their operations are based … I don’t think those are the interests we are truly following.

2) The difference between codebreaking in World War II (and other such comparisons) and publicizing wiretapping and other forms of domestic monitoring. The former would be a secret, such as the locations of German U-Boats in the North Atlantic or the more abstract notion that we could understand coded conversations. The latter is mentioning a method of investigation, which does not inherently compromise National Security. I think that the only way it could be said to compromise National Security would be to admit that it is outside of the jurisdiction of the Executive, in which case it would not be part of common knowledge. Either way, it’s a losing proposition. (either it compromises National Security because it’s not within jurisdiction or law, or it doesn’t compromise National Security and it’s a moot point)

It doesn’t really matter that the examination of domestic phone and bank records doesn’t really further the cause of tracking terrorism; the only people who have been caught with anything resulting from this most likely would never have become actual terrorists (see the other news stories on this site for more information about this). We can’t really point to anything that this has done other than allow us to spy on ourselves under the guise of a “time of war”. Perhaps a time of war, but not a war against terror… people are still terrified, just now we’re terrified of our own government.

(As an aside, name-calling and such practices don’t really help to further the debate taking place on this forum. I’m not a real fan of the current administration, but I can only blame them for that, since I haven’t seen any laws or policies come out of them which have seemed to better the American people… their focus has been more on a series of foreign countries and boogiemen.)

Hypocritical bastards…all of them.