Let’s keep this short, so the Obama apologists can get right to work. Time is money, after all!
The Obama administration has refused to declassify a secret memo from the George W. Bush presidency that justified the warrantless spying conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).
[The Atlantic via Cryptogon]
{ 85 comments }
President Barry W. Obama strikes again?
In keeping with the "Let’s keep this short", how about "Opologists"?
P.S. I find this utterly unsurprising, given that President Obama insisted on renewing the USA PATRIOT Act with its most odious provisions intact.
P.P.S. Let's talk about Yoo. Here's a Scott Horton post that shows how Yoo got off the hook, and who did it…David Margolis at the D.O.J. (and of course, Margolis' boss then and now, Eric Holder).
~
Well waddya expect? With Eric Holder, former interference runner for Dole bananas and their funding of para-military thugs in Columbia running the DOJ?
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15535
Oh but if you could see it, you'd understand why. (Here's a hint: it's more than 41 and less than 43)
Rat bastard. Bin Laden's dead. Sadam's head flew off when they hung him. Afghanistan's a Certified Quagmire. What secrets are left?
They're still spying on us without warrants, is my guess.
~
Ah, yes. There it is. You're post was right where they told me it would be.
Especially the stuff that is in Cheney's book… all to soon be common knowledge… and scary.
You know, it never before occurred to me that Bill Clinton is the Universal Answer.
Eight years of (comparative) peace and booming markets, with low interest rates and inflation. Sounds like heaven now. You probably know the joke, lame as it may have been, was really about HHGttG.
Which Newsmaxxx will report as "Kenyan Usurper Keeps Secret Files!"
Barry's total status-quo corporatist whorism is boring. You have to sex it up a bit to get the page views.
Well, they could show you the memo, but then they'd have to kill you.
Volunteeers?
What, and end up meeting you all early and unexpected-like? I'm gonna be seeing you anyway eventually, I'll just sit right here and let someone else volunteer.
We'll leave a light on for ya.
Oh Ken – this is not going to end well. Besides – they released 8 sentences from that 21 page document. Why can you never be satisfied??
Of course, it was only the punctuation stretched into three lines…Looked kinda like "…!,!!!!!!!!..!!!!!!!!!…!!!!!!!!!!!!"
So there's no chance they're still spying on us without warrants, is there?
NSA tells me that you, there at 192.186.243.219, are about to receive a visit from some, uh, "government" people. Resistance would not be a good idea.
"192.186.243.219"
The nerd in me thinks you transposed two digits.
You’re on the list now too.
So, we all need to be really really nice to you, is what you're saying?
Let's see them find me once I swim out to international waters!
Peter Thiel's Libertarian Paradise Island has an extradition treaty. You're chum, er, shark bait, er, you know what I mean.
It's not like 80% of our navy has anything else to do right now.
Don't get too close to China! I'd really miss your biting wit if anything untoward happened.
Only Cantonese people eat cats; In Manchuria, cats are sacred to the 18 beautiful girls. (So my student told me.)
Chances are high that they never stopped.
Take it for granted that people are or will be "disappeared" by order of some secret committee, too.
Isn't that what Wikileaks is supposed to do?
John "Yellow Peril" Yoo is the scariest government official ever seen: that frozen face saying, "Well, if you don't actually pull the leg off the terrorist, it isn't torture. I'm a lawyer. You can trust me."
Do you agree with the Bush/Obama Doctrine?
In what respect Charlie?
They're just protecting the American people — because John Yoo's justification for warrantless wiretapping, like his justification for torture and indefinite detainment without charges, is so stupid that it would cause harm if anyone actually tried to read it.
In the interest of time-saving, allow me to give an Opologist's (thanks, ifthethunderdontgetya!) take: COINTELPRO
This is something that presidents and their spy agencies do, and always have done. No real surprises here.
EDIT: President McCain and Vice President Palin (or, alternately, President Rodham and Vice President Edwards) TOTALLY would have unclassified this memo. Let's vote for them.
That's a defense?
Illegal (not to mention, heinous) activities the FBI engaged in during the 50s and 60s mean we should be happy with the lack of change we're getting from
Bush'sObama's D.O.J., today?Heck, you'd be better off with, "If you're not guilty, you have nothing to worry about."
~
I didn't say it was a defense. It's a reality. I'm not claiming in any way that the Obama policy is not offensive, simply that it is not unexpected. We should resist it by the same methods (MoveOn petitions?) that we would under any other president.
No, I fear they'd do the same, too. No future president will ever truly give up "unitary executive."
Come on, people! He's already released his sekrit birf certificate. How much more do you want???!!!?!?!?!?!?11/!?
I forgive you President Obama I’m sure you know what’s best for the country.
Will that suffice Mr. Layne or should I genuflect more humbly?
A memo FROM Dubya? What color crayon did he use?
Whatever color you would use for the Muslims in that 9/11 coloring book.
He dictated it to someone literate, who then corrected the grammar, etc.
Blood from an Iraqi Child Red
When is Barry going to go before the nation and rip off the Mission Impossible disguise mask, exposing himself as Jeb Bush?
This is as surprising as Sarah Palin quitting something, anything.
Well, in Obama's defense, if he released the memos, the next president might release memos about his own violations of our privacy. And that would just be nutty.
You say that as though the next (Republican) president isn't going to do that anyway, for
spitetransparency.Because Obama keeps thinking if he only tries a little bit harder, the GOP will start to like him.
I don't think so. Clearly, he really doesn't care that much what the GOP per se thinks of him, he's chewed their asses out in public enough times, and he just did it again today. I think he makes his decisions based on facts and information. I don't particularly like this decision, and I wonder what is behind it. We really should be looking at what we can *do* to dismantle the Patriot Act and it's infringements on our rights. How do we combat this? It's clear the President doesn't agree with us on this issue, and neither do most of our legislators. How do we win this issue?
Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one. Obama has gone out of his way to appeal to the GOP, to bring them in and be "bi-partisan." I don't think all his decisions are based on facts, he's not apolitical after all. He occasionally chews them out to satisfy the base that he's not totally abandoned it, but then he moves to the right's position. He's done it on health care, he did it on the debt ceiling. He told off the GOP on that too. He wasn't going to have a bill that didn't include revenue increases! That was something he supposedly believed in. But, where did those go? They sure weren't in the final bill. Instead, he gave up those in favor of giving the GOP 98% of what it wanted.
I judge him by his actions, not his words, even if they're occasionally harsh. He is at his core a compromiser, who is unwilling to stick to his own position to see if the other side moves towards him. He seems to believe if he moves towards them, it will be taken as a sign of good faith, and they'll play fair. Instead, they take it as a sign of him being a weenie, and demand more.
Any of you guys remember how disappointed we were with JFK? Are we perhaps a little too naive in our expectations? Does power corrupt? Where do bears take craps?
Any of you guys remember how disappointed we were with JFK?
Just because a guy fails the bar exam, creates a crappy magazine, and then dies in a tragic plane accident does mean we're disappointed.
Wait – how old do you think we are?
I heard that he survived, and after mildly successful reconstructive surgery, married Samantha Bee and got a gig on The Daily Show.
JFK is remembered kindly only because he died before the Vietnam shit hit the fan.
I believe the Opologists line will be about Obama rising above it all and not wanting to "criminalize politics."
Because that is somehow worse than politicians being criminals.
We are so fucked.
"… the ethics lawyers in the Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that he was guilty of "professional misconduct," a judgment he escaped when a higher up concluded that his reasoning was "flawed" and "extreme" but sincerely held."
Ummm…whuck? Those are not errant earthquakes that have been happening on the east coast; that's this country's evermore rapid descent down a slippery fucking slope.
Makes sense, Barry and Dumbya are BFFs and shit.
Domestic spying is on the books, it'll never be taken off, no matter how "lib'ral" the administration in "power" is.
Have you given up on all the Hope and Change stuff?
Yeah … me too.
Given all the Shit Cheney probably has on Obama, his real parents, college grades, years in a North Korean education center, etc. etc., you can understand why they don't want to make any waves.
Keeping with Mr. Layne's theme though, the one major disappointment I have with the current administration is that they don't have the guts to at least wash our dirty linen. I don't care if they don't prosecute the likes of Yoo or Cheney, I understand that such things would look very political. But get the information out so the American People can know what has been done in their names. Or at least, send a CD over to wikileaks and let them get it out. How hard would that be?
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
That's why infections don't like sunlight.
Hey, Khrushyev did it.
Always being the bigger person sucks and is generally not an advisable strategy if one wishes to not be steamrollered.
Look, if he doesn't get a second term, they make him give back the ashtrays. You people just have to understand that.
At what point have any of you voted for a politician who did not disappoint you in some serious fashion during your lifetime?
At what point in your life have you not had to settle for the lesser of two evils?
Hey, leave my wife out of this!
Is there no third thing? You present us with a false dichotomy.
The dichotomy I presented you with is either true or false.
It is a logical fallacy and can never result in truth.
As I wanted to say to a friend of mine, "Look, the Republicans are cartoonishly insane and have given up even the pretext that they believe non-rich Americans are fully human and I have no doubt that as a gay man Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry would love to see me in a camp of some kind, so I very likely will vote for Obama no matter what. Now could you please lay off the 'unserious firebagger from the professional left who doesn't appreciate ten-dimensional chess or super-duper-pragmatism' crap even when I approvingly quote Glenn Greenwald? k thnx."
I know what the solution to this shit is! Democrats should stay home and not vote in protest! That will totally fix it!
Wonkette, 2015: Bachmann Won’t Release Obama Memos On NSA Warrantless Domestic Spying.
Probably because he's doing the same thing.
Dubya goes out, Dubya's policies stay in, never a fucking mis-communication, sadly.
Yeah, presidents tend not to release secrets and shit they are currently and actively involved in. They also tend not to go after the guy before them. Surprised, right? I know it's shocking, right?
Disingenuously naive person is disingenuous.
He'll forget all about us the next time he finds a good phone sex call.
Just call us "used liberal cum-encrusted snotrags," see if we care.
It looks like we'll have to agree to disagree.
I just want to say that in a democracy, numbers rule. Teabaggers and conservatives are very, very good about contacting their representatives, showing up, and spreading their version of events. Lefty liberals don't seem to be quite as good at it. We could do better. We could, and should, do more.
I don't think numbers do rule in our democracy (or a republic)–except for campaign dollar numbers. For instance, the vast majority of people in this country want higher taxes on the wealthy, but the political debate in Washington is about cutting spending. If numbers of voters counted, that would not be the discussion we'd be having. A majority of people think the solution to SS is to raise the cap on contributions. But Washington is instead talking about raising the retirement age.
Yes, the liberals need to call their reps and agitate, but we also need reps who will actually stand up for Democratic party principles. We have too few of those kinds of Democrats and sadly the President isn't one of them.
So what if more Teabaggers call for cuts to social programs? WTH should a Democratic president listen to them? And more importantly, why the fuck would he agree to their right wing batshittery?
George Bush pursued his policies without regard to whether he had popular support–largely because he did not have it. Obama and the Dems HAVE popular support for many of their policies, and they still don't pursue them. I contact my senators and rep at least weekly. I live in GA, so all three of them are right wing nutjobs. Even when we had a Democratic Rep, he was Jim Marshall who voted more with the GOP than his own caucus. His district included one of the 7 poorest cities in the country and yet he voted against stimulus, against health care reform–in short he voted like a Republican. And all my letters and emails didn't change that.
I'm cynical. I think the only numbers that rule in our government are campaign dollar numbers. Both parties are willing to sell out the poor and working class and middle class for the benefit of their corporate overlords.
I think saying Teabaggers do more also misses that they are useful idiots for the Republican echo chamber. They're a minority of people in this country, but they are taken more seriously than their numbers suggest. Because they have a media (Fox News, WSJ, etc) that is willing to report on them as if they are anything but GOP partisans in colonial costumes.
And the thing is, I know Obama is a centrist–at best. He's not a liberal. But I thought he would at least stand up for Democratic Party policies he espoused on the campaign trail. Yes, he's met a lot of those, but at the same time he's let us down in many many ways. And part of that is because he's been so worried about being bi or post-partisan, that he's negotiated or just outright conceded the policies he supposedly favors.
Αthens had democracy. The USA has oligarchy, getting more autocratic every week or so.
Maybe, we'll be so lucky to descend into Chinese-style rule…
Then we need to fight harder to keep what we had.
There are moments when I think the US is becoming the farcical version of the Byzantine Empire, with all the despotism and pomposity, none of the art or spirituality or diplomatic finesse.
However, history is not predestined. We can make our own future better, just as we can pull up the milkweeds and buttonweeds from our garden.
I think it's time to rearrange the pieces. Bring back Habeas Corpusand the rule of law. Replace Congress and Presidency with aparliament.
I'm always surprised at how many educated Chinese people really believe the American tradition. They really believe we have honest officials, real elections, etc. Maybe they'll get there yet. Britain did via the Reform Bills, etc.
Comments on this entry are closed.