New Developments III

Greg
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Post by Greg »

Kucinich's Impeachment Movement Against Bush Gains a Spark of New Life: One Can Hope

Submitted by meg on Thu, 07/10/2008 - 2:55pm.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Meg White

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is stepping back from her oft-repeated pledge not to pursue impeachment of President George W. Bush.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush last month and 3 articles against Vice President Dick Cheney last year. Both resolutions were referred to the Judiciary Committee with no further Congressional action. This time, however, Kucinich said he would introduce new articles if the ones he brought forth last month went nowhere, as was widely expected.

Kucinich introduced a single article of impeachment against Bush this afternoon titled, Deceiving Congress with Fabricated Threats of Iraq WMDs to Fraudulently Obtain Support for an Authorization of the Use of Military Force Against Iraq. Kucinich opened his resolution with the following words:

"Yesterday in the House, we had a moment of silence for the troops. Today it is time to speak out on behalf of those troops who will be in Iraq for at least another year, courageously representing our nation while their Commander in Chief sent them on a mission that was based on falsehoods about the threat of WMDs from Iraq."

Pelosi's comments only briefly brought new hope to the impeachment movement. The Speaker said this morning that she expected the Judiciary Committee to hold impeachment hearings, though she hinted that even if the resolution passed through committee, it would have little chance on the House floor. However, after Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) received the new resolution this afternoon, he said he was unsure as to when or what type of hearing would be held on the matter.

Conyers has said previously that he would consider holding impeachment hearings after the presidential election.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/417
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Post by OscarGuy »

And thus it came to pass that the year was altered to read 1984.

Senate bows to Bush, approves surveillance bill By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer
2 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - Bowing to President Bush's demands, the Senate sent the White House a bill Wednesday overhauling bitterly disputed rules on secret government eavesdropping and shielding telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.

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The relatively one-sided vote, 69-28, came only after a lengthy and heated debate that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks. It ended almost a year of wrangling over surveillance rules and the president's warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The House passed the same bill last month, and Bush said he would sign it soon.

Opponents assailed the eavesdropping program, asserting that it imperiled citizens' rights of privacy from government intrusion. But Bush said the legislation protects those rights as well as Americans' security.

"This bill will help our intelligence professionals learn who the terrorists are talking to, what they're saying and what they're planing," he said in a brief White House appearance after the Senate vote.

The long fight on Capitol Hill centered on one main question: whether to protect from civil lawsuits any telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on American phone and computer lines without the permission or knowledge of a secret court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The White House had threatened to veto the bill unless it immunized companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. from wiretapping lawsuits. About 40 such lawsuits have been filed, and all are pending before a single U.S. District court.

Numerous lawmakers had spoken out strongly against the no-warrants eavesdropping on Americans, but the Senate voted its approval after rejecting amendments that would have watered down, delayed or stripped away the immunity provision.

The lawsuits center on allegations that the White House circumvented U.S. law by going around the FISA court, which was created 30 years ago to prevent the government from abusing its surveillance powers for political purposes, as was done in the Vietnam War and Watergate eras. The court is meant to approve all wiretaps placed inside the U.S. for intelligence-gathering purposes. The law has been interpreted to include international e-mail records stored on servers inside the U.S.

"This president broke the law," declared Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.

The Bush administration brought the wiretapping back under the FISA court's authority only after The New York Times revealed the existence of the secret program. A handful of members of Congress knew about the program from top secret briefings. Most members are still forbidden to know the details of the classified effort, and some objected that they were being asked to grant immunity to the telecoms without first knowing what they did.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter compared the Senate vote to buying a "pig in a poke."

But Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., one of the bill's most vocal champions, said, "This is the balance we need to protect our civil liberties without handcuffing our terror-fighters."

Just under a third of the Senate, including Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, supported an amendment that would have stripped immunity from the bill. They were defeated on a 66-32 vote. Republican rival John McCain did not attend the vote.

Obama ended up voting for the final bill, as did Specter. Feingold voted no.

The bill tries to address concerns about the legality of warrantless wiretapping by requiring inspectors general inside the government to conduct a yearlong investigation into the program.

The measure effectively dismisses about 40 lawsuits that have been bundled together. But at least three other lawsuits against government officials will go forward.

In one of those cases last week, a judge decided that surveillance laws trumped the government's claim that state secrets were imperiled by the lawsuit. However, the judge said the plaintiff could not use classified government documents it had accidentally received to prove it was subjected to illegal eavesdropping. It must instead use unclassified information to show it was wiretapped without court approval. FISA makes provisions for the use of secret evidence once a case is accepted.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a California civil rights organization, intends to challenge the constitutionality of the immunity provision.

Beyond immunity, the new surveillance bill also sets new rules for government eavesdropping. Some of them would tighten the reins on current government surveillance activities, but others would loosen them compared with a law passed 30 years ago.

For example, it would require the government to get FISA court approval before it eavesdrops on an American overseas. Currently, the attorney general approves that electronic surveillance on his own.

The bill also would allow the government to obtain broad, yearlong intercept orders from the FISA court that target foreign groups and people, raising the prospect that communications with innocent Americans would be swept in. The court would approve how the government chooses the targets and how the intercepted American communications would be protected.

The original FISA law required the government to get wiretapping warrants for each individual targeted from inside the United States, on the rationale that most communications inside the U.S. would involve Americans whose civil liberties must be protected. But technology has changed. Purely foreign communications increasingly pass through U.S. wires and sit on American computer servers, and the law has required court orders to be obtained to access those as well.

The bill would give the government a week to conduct a wiretap in an emergency before it must apply for a court order. The original law said three days.

The bill restates that the FISA law is the only means by which wiretapping for intelligence purposes can be conducted inside the United States. This is meant to prevent a repeat of warrantless wiretapping by future administrations.

The bill is very much a political compromise, brought about by a deadline: Wiretapping orders authorized last year will begin to expire in August. Without a new bill, the government would go back to old FISA rules, requiring multiple new orders and potential delays to continue those intercepts. That is something most of Congress did not want to see happen, particularly in an election year.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is party to some of the lawsuits that will now be dismissed, said the bill was "a blatant assault upon civil liberties and the right to privacy."
Wesley Lovell
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Post by OscarGuy »

Google Won't Fight Order To Turn Over Youtube Records
8 July 2008 10:35 AM, PDT

Google has no intention of challenging a judge's order that its YouTube unit turn over to Viacom information about users who viewed videos on the website. However, it said that it would attempt to keep the identity of the users anonymous, since, it said, "IP addresses and user names aren't necessary to determine general viewing practices." Google also assured YouTube users that "IP addresses identify a computer, not the person using it. It's not possible to determine your identity solely based on your IP address." But some YouTube users were unpersuaded. On the TV Week website, one user wrote, "Why aren't the users voicing their concerns to Viacom and Google? We can't just sit here passively and let this happen without having our voices heard. This has less to do with YouTube and more to do with the future of the Internet! If our privacy isn't honored by the courts or Viacom, we must speak out loud and clear."
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Post by Greg »

Here's an intersting idea about replacing crude oil:

Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline

By KENNETH CHANG
Published: February 19, 2008
If two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct, people will still be driving gasoline-powered cars 50 years from now, churning out heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — and yet that carbon dioxide will not contribute to global warming.

In a proposal by two scientists, vehicle emissions would no longer contribute to global warming.
The scientists, F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr., are proposing a concept, which they have patriotically named Green Freedom, for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline.

The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel.

This process could transform carbon dioxide from an unwanted, climate-changing pollutant into a vast resource for renewable fuels. The closed cycle — equal amounts of carbon dioxide emitted and removed — would mean that cars, trucks and airplanes using the synthetic fuels would no longer be contributing to global warming.

Although they have not yet built a synthetic fuel factory, or even a small prototype, the scientists say it is all based on existing technology.

“Everything in the concept has been built, is operating or has a close cousin that is operating,” Dr. Martin said.

The Los Alamos proposal does not violate any laws of physics, and other scientists, like George A. Olah, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist at the University of Southern California, and Klaus Lackner, a professor of geophysics at Columbia University, have independently suggested similar ideas. Dr. Martin said he and Dr. Kubic had worked out their concept in more detail than previous proposals.

There is, however, a major caveat that explains why no one has built a carbon-dioxide-to-gasoline factory: it requires a great deal of energy.

To deal with that problem, the Los Alamos scientists say they have developed a number of innovations, including a new electrochemical process for detaching the carbon dioxide after it has been absorbed into the potassium carbonate solution. The process has been tested in Dr. Kubic’s garage, in a simple apparatus that looks like mutant Tupperware.

Even with those improvements, providing the energy to produce gasoline on a commercial scale — say, 750,000 gallons a day — would require a dedicated power plant, preferably a nuclear one, the scientists say.

According to their analysis, their concept, which would cost about $5 billion to build, could produce gasoline at an operating cost of $1.40 a gallon and would turn economically viable when the price at the pump hits $4.60 a gallon, taking into account construction costs and other expenses in getting the gas to the consumer. With some additional technological advances, the break-even price would drop to $3.40 a gallon, they said.

A nuclear reactor is not required technologically. The same chemical processes could also be powered by solar panels, for instance, but the economics become far less favorable.

Dr. Martin and Dr. Kubic will present their Green Freedom concept on Wednesday at the Alternative Energy Now conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. They plan a simple demonstration within a year and a larger prototype within a couple of years after that.

A commercial nuclear-powered gasoline factory would have to jump some high hurdles before it could be built, and thousands of them would be needed to fully replace petroleum, but this part of the global warming problem has no easy solutions.

In the efforts to reduce humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide, now nearing 30 billion metric tons a year, most of the attention so far has focused on large stationary sources, like power plants where, conceptually at least, one could imagine a shift from fuels that emit carbon dioxide — coal and natural gas — to those that do not — nuclear, solar and wind. Another strategy, known as carbon capture and storage, would continue the use of fossil fuels but trap the carbon dioxide and then pipe it underground where it would not affect the climate.

But to stabilize carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would require drastic cuts in emissions, and similar solutions do not exist for small, mobile sources of carbon dioxide. Nuclear and solar-powered cars do not seem plausible anytime soon.

Three solutions have been offered: hydrogen-powered fuel cells, electric cars and biofuels. Biofuels like ethanol are gasoline substitutes produced from plants like corn, sugar cane or switch grass, and the underlying idea is the same as Green Freedom. Plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, balancing out the carbon dioxide emitted when they are burned. But growing crops for fuel takes up wide swaths of land.

Hydrogen-powered cars emit no carbon dioxide, but producing hydrogen, by splitting water or some other chemical reaction, requires copious energy, and if that energy comes from coal-fired power plants, then the problem has not been solved. Hydrogen is also harder to store and move than gasoline and would require an overhaul of the world’s energy infrastructure.

Electric cars also push the carbon dioxide problem to the power plant. And electric cars have typically been limited to a range of tens of miles as opposed to the hundreds of miles that can be driven on a tank of gas.

Gasoline, it turns out, is an almost ideal fuel (except that it produces 19.4 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon). It is easily transported, and it generates more energy per volume than most alternatives. If it can be made out of carbon dioxide in the air, the Los Alamos concept may mean there is little reason to switch, after all. The concept can also be adapted for jet fuel; for jetliners, neither hydrogen nor batteries seem plausible alternatives.

“This is the only one that I have seen that addresses all of the concerns that are out there right now,” Dr. Martin said.

Other scientists said the Los Alamos proposal perhaps looked promising but could not evaluate it fully because the details had not been published.

“It’s definitely worth pursuing,” said Martin I. Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University. “It’s not that new an idea. It has a couple of pieces to it that are interesting."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/science/19carb.html
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Post by criddic3 »

OscarGuy wrote:The leader of Iran wasn't suggesting it was a bubble. He was suggesting that the prices are being manipulated and are more heavily influenced by the falling dollar than on any supply issues.

As for drilling. I'm not shutting it out because it's an election year or because I hate president Bush. I am shutting it out because it's stupid and does not solve any short term or long term shortage issues. If we are so devoted to alternative sources of energy, then we need to work on that. There is already a hydrogen fuel cell car that gets super great gas mileage without using gasoline. There are plenty of alternatives already in production. If the oil companies spent all that money they were getting, we'd have short term solutions a hell of a lot faster than setting up brand new drilling operations.

In addition, if we really ARE interested in developing alternative sources of energy (technology does exist), then why are we not just digging into our petroleum reserve and putting it into our own market? Why are they not developing the millions of barrels that they already have the land for, but have not yet developed? Why are these oil companies NOT spending their billions in profits to expand processing facilities and increasing efficiency to increase output without increasing imports? Those are all more valuable and safe options than drilling in places that don't need to be drilled. Use what resources you have before you start exploiting the resources you don't need to.

You're only sitting on the idea, not looking at things reasonably, because of your support of the conservative ideals. If you actually researched and understood and talked to people IN the industry (or people who had worked in the industry previously), which I have done, instead of taking your propaganda from the talking heads who spout your Holy Father's (Bush) beliefs, maybe you'd learn a couple of things. But we couldn't have that. I mean what would your education system be if we learned to think for ourselves? Heaven forbid.

And what do these insiders think we should do, aside from alternative energy sources and/or drilling, and/or stopping speculation, and/or stopping price gouging??

All of these ideas have been floating around from both conservatives and liberals. I think we should look at all options, and I said so before.

My point was that we shouldn't dismiss the idea of drilling on the basis of environmental causes, because the truth is that there are ways to do it without causing great harm to wildlife and/or the environment in general. As for it not being a short-term solution, maybe not, but I disagree with the assertion that it isn't a long-term solution.

My feeling is that we won't have a full market of alternative fuels, etc. in full force any time soon and will need the oil we have here to reduce our dependence on foreign sources while we change the way we fuel transportation and the industry itself. In other words, we will need to slowly break away from that dependence, not jump off the bridge with no net, and to do so with our own sources makes sense.




Edited By criddic3 on 1214201093
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Post by Heksagon »

Well, Ahmadinejad is implying that price changes are only short-term. In the long term, all prices are determined by supply and demand. So, if there really are no changes in supply or demand, then any price changes are only short-term.



Edited By Heksagon on 1213885647
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Post by Johnny Guitar »

OscarGuy wrote:You're only sitting on the idea, not looking at things reasonably, because of your support of the conservative ideals.
FWIW, criddic isn't a "conservative." He's a right-winger easily swayed by demagoguery, is all.
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Post by OscarGuy »

The leader of Iran wasn't suggesting it was a bubble. He was suggesting that the prices are being manipulated and are more heavily influenced by the falling dollar than on any supply issues.

As for drilling. I'm not shutting it out because it's an election year or because I hate president Bush. I am shutting it out because it's stupid and does not solve any short term or long term shortage issues. If we are so devoted to alternative sources of energy, then we need to work on that. There is already a hydrogen fuel cell car that gets super great gas mileage without using gasoline. There are plenty of alternatives already in production. If the oil companies spent all that money they were getting, we'd have short term solutions a hell of a lot faster than setting up brand new drilling operations.

In addition, if we really ARE interested in developing alternative sources of energy (technology does exist), then why are we not just digging into our petroleum reserve and putting it into our own market? Why are they not developing the millions of barrels that they already have the land for, but have not yet developed? Why are these oil companies NOT spending their billions in profits to expand processing facilities and increasing efficiency to increase output without increasing imports? Those are all more valuable and safe options than drilling in places that don't need to be drilled. Use what resources you have before you start exploiting the resources you don't need to.

You're only sitting on the idea, not looking at things reasonably, because of your support of the conservative ideals. If you actually researched and understood and talked to people IN the industry (or people who had worked in the industry previously), which I have done, instead of taking your propaganda from the talking heads who spout your Holy Father's (Bush) beliefs, maybe you'd learn a couple of things. But we couldn't have that. I mean what would your education system be if we learned to think for ourselves? Heaven forbid.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
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Post by criddic3 »

OscarGuy wrote:Drilling? Short term solution? You are an idiot. Do you know how long it takes for drilled oil to make it into production? Months, perhaps even years and especially in place that don't already have a drilling operation set up. That would take years and we're not talking just a couple. And most of what we're drilling now goes into the reserve, so it doesn't help the consumer at all. A SHORT term solution is so stop depositing into the reserve to quickly infuse the supply, thus decreasing demand on foreign oil.

And while we're at it, why don't all these oil companies spend the money to increase the production of gas? There hasn't been a new refinery built in the US in over a decade (and it might even be two decades at this point). And it's been several years since existing refineries have been upgraded to increase the amount of gasoline made from one barrel of oil. The technology exists, but we're using decades-old technology for refining oil.

And whether you believe it or not, these record profits from the oil companies could be used to decrease the price of gas. After all, it's the oil companies that determine gas prices.

But if we started right away, it could make a difference sooner than some of the alternative ideas that people have offered. The new technologies available also make it more environmentally safe than many people realize.

I think we should use all of the resources and options available to us. That means alternative energy sources, drilling here, doing something about gas taxes, investigating speculation, etc. Doing one and not the other just wastes time.

It is not idiotic to drill here at home. We should have started doing it years ago. You are idiotic for shutting out any ideas that conservatives, or even just me, might present. Just because it is an election year and you hate President Bush does not mean that these ideas are no good.

--
By the way, all the heaping of praise for Iran's president is silly. many here in America have blamed high prices on speculators, gouging and other reasons. I have heard others say that it is not simply supply and demand, etc.

I do not, however, think it is a "bubble" that will just burst and come down on its own any time soon. I don't see any reason to champion this guy. If he was right, then why is there a need for Saudi production to be increased half a million barrels a day? Why not keep it where it is and let the chips fall where they may? Because he is not right. If nothing is done, the speculators and companies will keep jacking up prices. (Although some have also said that eventually there will be a ceiling for such hikes). The point is that this man is not a guy to get advice from.




Edited By criddic3 on 1213845384
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Post by Heksagon »

If Ahmadejinad is correct, and the high oil prices are "fake", i.e. just a bubble, then they will drop by themselves sooner or later, and nothing particular needs to be done about it.
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Post by OscarGuy »

It's pretty sad when a guy like Ahmadinejad makes more sense than the President of the Untied States.



Market full of oil, price trend "fake": Ahmadinejad By Hashem Kalentari
Tue Jun 17, 2:59 AM ET


ISFAHAN, Iran (Reuters) - The market is full of oil and the rising price trend is "fake and imposed," Iran's president said on Tuesday, partly blaming a weak U.S. dollar which he said was being pushed lower on purpose.

"At a time when the growth of consumption is lower than the growth of production and the market is full of oil, prices are rising and this trend is completely fake and imposed," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.

"It is very clear that visible and invisible hands are controlling prices in a fake way with political and economic aims," he said when opening a meeting of the OPEC Fund for International Development in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, has repeatedly said the market is well-supplied with crude and blames rising prices on speculation, a weak U.S. currency and geopolitical factors.

"As you know the decrease in the dollar's value and the increase in energy prices are two sides of the same coin which are being introduced as factors behind the recent instability," Ahmadinejad said.

Oil steadied on Tuesday after touching a record near $140 the previous day, with traders caught between a weaker dollar and expectations that top exporter Saudi Arabia will ramp up output to its highest rate in decades.

Iran has often said it sees no need for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to boost output.

"EVER-INCREASING DECREASE"

Ahmadinejad reiterated his view that oil should be sold in a basket of currencies rather than U.S. dollars, an idea which has failed to win over other OPEC members, except Venezuela.

"The ever-increasing decrease in the dollar's value is one of the world's major problems," he said.

"A combination of the world's valid currencies should become a basis for oil transactions or (OPEC) member countries should determine a new currency for oil transactions," he said.

Iran, embroiled in a standoff with the West over its nuclear program, has for more than two years been increasing its sales of oil for currencies other than the dollar, saying the weak U.S. currency is eroding its purchasing power.

Ahmadinejad, who in the past has called the dollar a "worthless piece of paper," suggested "some big powers" were driving it lower on purpose:

"The planners for some big powers are acting to decrease the dollar's value," he said. "For years they imposed inflation and their own economic problems to other nations by injecting the dollar without any support to the global economy."

Foes since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran and Washington are also at odds over Tehran's disputed nuclear activities as well as over policy in Iraq. Iran says its atomic work is peaceful.

(Additional reporting by Zahra Hosseinian in Tehran; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by William Hardy)
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Post by OscarGuy »

Now, if he keeps this up, I'll be more supportive of his campaign. Good for him.
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Post by Greg »

OscarGuy wrote:As if we didn't all know that McCain's campaign would model itself after all Republican campaigns in the last 7 years...so much for McCain being able to say that he's not made of the same cloth as Bush. I just hope Obama can turn this comment against him.

Obama: Bin Laden still free because of GOP tactics
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama says he'll take no lectures from Republicans on who will keep America safer. GOP rival John McCain's campaign criticized Obama Tuesday for speaking approvingly of the successful prosecution of terrorists.

A McCain aide said, "Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mind-set" and does not understand the dangers posed by U.S. adversaries.

Obama told reporters that the Republicans have no "standing to suggest that they've learned a lot of lessons from 9-11."

He said they "helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9-11." He said Osama bin Laden is still at large in part because of their failed strategies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080617/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_obama
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As if we didn't all know that McCain's campaign would model itself after all Republican campaigns in the last 7 years...so much for McCain being able to say that he's not made of the same cloth as Bush. I just hope Obama can turn this comment against him.

McCain aide says Obama has Sept. 10 mind-set 23 minutes ago



NEW YORK - Republican John McCain's campaign accused Barack Obama of having a dangerous and naive Sept. 10 mind-set toward terrorism because the Democrat spoke approvingly of the successful prosecution and imprisonment of those responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

In a conference call with reporters, McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann said Tuesday: "Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mind-set. ... He does not understand the nature of the enemies we face." Former CIA director James Woolsey said Obama has "an extremely dangerous and extremely naive approach toward terrorism ... and toward dealing with prisoners captured overseas who have been engaged in terrorist attacks against the United States."

The Obama campaign quickly responded with its own conference call in which Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Richard Clarke, a counterterrorism official in Republican and Democratic administrations, argued the McCain campaign was emulating Karl Rove, President Bush's former political adviser.

"I'm a little disgusted by the attempts of some of my friends on the McCain campaign to use the same old, tired tactics ... to drive a wedge between Americans for partisan advantage and to frankly frighten Americans," Clarke said.

GOP criticism of the presumed Democratic nominee echoed the words of Rove, who in January 2006 said Republicans have a post-Sept. 11 view of the world and Democrats a pre-9/11 view. Eleven months later, the GOP lost control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections.

At issue were Obama's comments Monday in an interview with ABC News. Obama was asked how he could be sure the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies are not crucial to protecting U.S. citizens.

Obama said the government can crack down on terrorists "within the constraints of our Constitution." He mentioned the indefinite detention of Guantanamo Bay detainees, contrasting their treatment with the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

"And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo," Obama said. "What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center — we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.

"And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims. ...

"We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws," Obama said.

Obama agreed with the Supreme Court ruling last week that detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a constitutional right to challenge their indefinite imprisonment in U.S. civilian courts. McCain derided the ruling as "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."

Kerry, who as the 2004 Democratic nominee faced Republican claims that he was soft on terror, accused McCain of "defending a policy that is indefensible" by siding with Bush's policies — particularly with respect to the Iraq war.

"The U.S. is less safe, less respected and less able to lead in the world, and that is the record John McCain has chosen to embrace," Kerry said.
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Post by Damien »

Let's hope he can get those extra 3 points . . .

From Think Progress:

Bush, Cheney, and Rice sink to lowest ratings ever.»
A new Harris poll finds that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are now registering their lowest approval ratings ever. Some highlights:

– President Bush’s latest ratings are 24 percent positive and fully 75 percent negative. Previously, his worst numbers were 26 percent positive and 72 percent negative in April of this year. His ratings are substantially worse than those of any president, except for Jimmy Carter (22%-77% in July 1980), since Harris first started measuring them in 1963.

– Vice President Cheney’s ratings are even worse, 18 percent positive and 74 percent negative, compared to his previous low of 21 percent positive, 74 percent negative last July.

– Secretary of State Rice’s ratings are much better than those of the President and Vice President, but also have fallen to their lowest point ever, 39 percent positive and 54 percent negative, compared to 42 percent positive and 51 percent negative last October.

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"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
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