Late in the year, when days get dark early and families gather around the woodstove, oldsters sometimes tell about a mythical band of critters who once inhabited these woods. A fractious bunch, ornery but principled, they loved business and hated government. Stories like this would drive them up the wall.
WASHINGTON — Senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation repeatedly approved the use of “blanket” records demands to justify the improper collection of thousands of phone records, according to officials briefed on the practice.
The bureau appears to have used the blanket records demands at least 11 times in 2006 alone as a quick way to clean up mistakes made over several years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a letter provided to Congress by a lawyer for an F.B.I. agent who witnessed the missteps.
Needless to say, conservatives don’t live here anymore.
myiq2xu
centaurs, unicorns, jackalopes and conservatives are all mythical creatures.
Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny on the other hand . .
Dennis - SGMM
This points out the crying need to pass Telecom immunity. The government is obviously not getting enough co-operation from these companies.
r€nato
Whoever would have believed that, given broad powers, law enforcement would abuse them?
Zifnab
Post here often.
Dave S.
But 9/11 changed everything! Protect us, Big Brother!
Xenos
Did the mythical beast – a conservative based on stated conservative principles, rather than cultural reactionism, anti-modernism, economic self-interest, xenophobia, racism, antisemitism, or just damned foolishness – ever exist?
Zifnab
He raised millions of dollars and was the insurgent candidate for Republican Nominee until he got totally trashed in the primary. I don’t agree with most of Ron Paul’s policies, but he was the closest thing to a “true conservative” the Republicans had running. Still, Paul regularly beat the crap out of Guilianni, so I guess that’s something.
The Easter Bunny
Peeps, bitches! Vote for me, I’m ready to take on the Canuckistani menace on Day Fucking One!
Brachiator
That door was closed long ago. Before 9/11, Dubya and his gang successfully sold millions of citizens on the idea that anything that they did was acceptable because they were ethical, religious, hard-headed, and frankly “the right kind of people.”
After 9/11, they just asked, and keep asking, “Don’t you want to be safe?” The Constitution is, for them, a luxury that we can no longer afford.
Democrats whine, and then willingly give in. And although I think (or maybe just want to believe) that both of the Democratic presidential candidates are on the side of the angels, neither one of them have made a strong, persuasive case to the country on the need to reject Bush Administration policies.
John McCain is hopeless here, having decided to embrace the beast no matter what. And should he end up selecting an empty craven opportunist like Mitt Romney to be his running mate, it will be a clear signal that the GOP firmly believes that the only “conservative” principle worth fighting for is maintaining control of the presidency and the Congress.
In my perfect world, during the Democratic debates, the candidates would have shrugged off the lame, repetitive and often pointless questions lobbed at them by the moderators, and also shrugged off the cynical advice of their strategists that try to feed us easily digestible, prettily shaped sound bites, and make a stronger case against the threats to the Constitution and to the people posed by the GOP.
Sojourner
Amen
Svensker
If you’ve switched to quilts you have nothing to worry about.
jcricket
In my perfect world we’d actually have a large cadre of Democratic politicians taking up the mantle of “checking” government power. But that’s not apparently in the cards anymore.
w vincentz
jcricket,
I expect, no…DEMAND, that the next human that seeks to rule this once great nation immediately convene War Crime Tribunals regarding genocide on the Iraqi people and the treason that has been committed against all American citizens. Nothing less will suffice, be it in the global court of opinion or the domestic arena.
The USA set precedents at Nuhremburg.
The Constitution is clear.
Patriots will insist on restoration of prior rights, at all costs. The time has come.
TenguPhule
Yes. We call him John Cole.