Cynical Nation

Yeah, it's a cheap shot. So sue me. What do you think blogs are for?

LOL

Great work!

I'm glad I didn't have to wait around for the political cartoonists to lampoon al-Times as I am over 50 and wouldn't last long enough!

George W. Bush, July 20, 2005:

Before the Patriot Act, investigators could follow the calls of mobsters who switched cell phones, but not terrorists who switched cell phones. That didn't make any sense. The Patriot Act ended all these double standards.

George W. Bush, June 9, 2005:

One tool that has been especially important to law enforcement is called a roving wiretap. Roving wiretaps allow investigators to follow suspects who frequently change their means of communications. These wiretaps must be approved by a judge, and they have been used for years to catch drug dealers and other criminals. Yet, before the Patriot Act, agents investigating terrorists had to get a separate authorization for each phone they wanted to tap. That means terrorists could elude law enforcement by simply purchasing a new cell phone.

George W. Bush, April 19, 2004:

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.

And here's George W. Bush in Hershey, PA on April 19, 2004, talking about the program that you wingnuts want New York Times executed on the spot 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.

Want more?

I have no problem with any of the techniques the Bush Administration is using, if they are used to investigate people who are legitimate terrorist threats. But this is an Administration that has claimed the right to spy on every American citizen, for any reason, at any time. This is an Administration that has said for the last four years, "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." I have NO faith whatsoever in this Administration, nor in their apologists on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, that these techniques will not be used to squelch dissent. And the very fact that lunatics on the right are talking about executions proves it.

Executions?!

Sadly America (this administration) hasn't even had the will to execute real traitors, people obviously guilty of treason - John "Taliban Johnny" Walker-Lindt and Lynn Stewart.

Both are actual traitors and BOTH should've already have been executed.

So much for "Stifling dissent."

In fact, if the executions of such traitors did stifle some of the more radical "dissent," then that would be a good thing.

I have no problem with any of the techniques the Bush Administration is using, if they are used to investigate people who are legitimate terrorist threats.

And the New York Times should be the ones to decide who those people are.