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Hillary has 666 tatooed inside one of the folds in her thighs. She creeps me out on levels I didn't know I had. Rudy does the same thing to me, but not quite as intensely. And I love the idea of Republican pro-choice Papist running the country.

Huckabee's a temporary amusement. He's "Rudy" for the Jesus Nut crowd.*

McCain's no fool but he's burned far too many bridges for any serious party apparatus to get behind him. He's also too old. He'll evoke visions of Dole in 96.



*Of the Notre Dame football movie fame.

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Shia : Catholic :: Sunni : Int'l Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Tough call.

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i've relatives that are jewish but they eat bacon.

Can i be shia but not get whipped?

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Dunno. DOJ's making no promises these days. Can you stand to live in Europe?

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even LGFootballs isn't predicting the takeover will be this decade. Hillary will have the chance to enact walls again before we have to pick.

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It would be foolish to think that conversion will change your relationship with your wife, but you can always hope.

Hillary's defensive crouch, domestic-policy edition.
 

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Maybe he has too much class:

• McCain knows perfectly well that his somewhat-softer-on-immigration stance is killing him in the primaries and still won't budge. ("He paused and shrugged. 'I don't want to be president that bad.'")

linky

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Good for him. He just got my vote if he makes it. The one thing I loath almost as much as social conservatives is the Lou Dobbs "pull the ladder up behind you" populist crowd. Fucking pack of Archie Bunkers if you ask me.

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Apparently Mitt Romney, with a flourish, fired his lawn company yesterday because they use undocumented labor. I wonder if he's going to also stop eating food harvested or processed in the US and stop eating in restaurants all together.

He certainly won't be able to find a place to eat or a building constructed here in Houston that wasn't the result of immigrant labor.

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If the American Nazi Party promised him enough votes that robot would grow a Hitler moustache.

I confuse Romney and Edwards all the time because they appear to have been constructed in the same factory.

Is it possible to find two human beings more shallow and full of shit? They make Hillary look human.

too funny
 

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speaking of hypocrits, did you know Pelosi let people keep getting exposed to the horror that is waterboarding for years w/o speaking out?

• Waterboarding: Congress Knew
  December 11, 2007; Page A26
  After three days of screaming headlines about the CIA destroying videotapes in 2005 of the "harsh" interrogation of two terrorists, it now comes to light that in 2002 key members of Congress were fully briefed by the CIA about those interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. One member of that Congressional delegation was the future House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1197...googlenews_wsj

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With the well-established correlation between stress levels and intentional (and non-intentional) spelling errors employed in argument on this board, this is as good a sign as any that the primaries are fast approaching.

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Dude, there's a divide the size of the Grand Canyon between Shamnesty proponents like McCain (depending upon what day of the week it is) and foaming xenophobes like Lou Dobbs.

So it's not an either/or.

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Setting aside the absurdity of the phrase "fully briefed," and assuming that she disagreed with what the CIA was up to, what should she have done?

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Voiced objection then, pehaps?

Per other versions of the news item, at least two members (unidentified) of this bipartisan group asked if there were actually more severe techniques.

She clearly didnt object to that line of questioning, either.

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Damn you Slave, you've burned down my soapbox.

I just like any excuse to piss on Dobbs and the protectionist crowd.

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But what she heard was classified, so that would have been illegal. (You're forgetting that Pelosi didn't have the ability to get Bush to selectively declassify national secrets that she wanted to spread.)

Hell, let's just assume both were her.

Because you know that Robert's Rules of Order were being used to run the meeting and you've seen the transcript?

Lindsey Graham does outrage well, but it would be nice to see him actually go to work on this.

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you point is "Hank spelled something wrong?" are you kidding me?

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I'll say this for Nancy Pelosi. She has a hell of a figure for a 63 year old woman. That's about the only recognition worthy thing I've seen from her since she's had the wheel.

Mind you, I don't downplay the significance of that. She is a great improvement over Hastert.

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what have the Dems done lately? Express outrage. Seeth?

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My side comment was simply an allusion to our enlightening "Dims" and "Democrat Party" debates. But thanks for letting me know, Hank, that your hand is firmly on the wheel and we're still in the middle of the road.

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The transcript says the Marquis of Queensbury Rules were in effect. Get your facts straight.

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at first I found this funny, then i realized you meant it, and it makes me sad, because GGG and Club both take this board seriously, and they will be sad when they realize you have no crumb of credibility left here.

Though I just defended Pelosi, mostly out of annoyance, I think congressional oversight of intelligence affairs is f*cked up as discussed in this post by Marty Lederman:

• The Government Institution Most in Need of Comprehensive Reform
  
  No, not the Office of Legal Counsel. The intelligence oversight apparatus. Yes, a large part of the problem is the particular Democrats who happen to be among the "Gang of Eight" and "Gang of Four." (To get a good sense of why the Senate Intelligence Committee will not get to the bottom of the latest scandal, just take a look at this lackluster performance by Jay Rockefeller yesterday on Face the Nation.) But even if we had the very best Dems on the Committee, there would still be virtually nothing they could do to address possible unlawful, or even just unwise, conduct by the intelligence agencies. (But cf. this post by Michael Froomkin on the Speech and Debate Clause.)
  
  The pattern is by now very familiar. Whenever the Administration begins to do something of dubious legality, it:
  
  1. sends to Congress messengers who the Intel committees trust -- solemn, serious, professionals, often uniformed military officers
  
  2. to inform a very select, small number of legislators of the conduct -- legislators who have developed close and trusted relationships with the intel officials briefing them and who are, quite understandably, loathe to undermine such relationships, which do, after all, facilitate trust, access, and oversight itself
  
  3. and to provide such briefings after the conduct has commenced
  
  4. in a highly classified setting
  
  5. putting the conduct in its best possible light -- in particular, making sure to insist that it has prevented terrorist attacks
  
  6. while assuring the legislators that it has been vetted by the lawyers and is legal
  
  7. without showing the legislators the legal analysis supporting the conduct
  
  8. without disclosing the legal arguments that cut the other way
  
  9. without informing the legislators of any policy-based or legal dissent within the executive branch
  
  10. while warning the legislators that they may not legally breathe a word of it to anyone -- certainly not to staff, or their fellow legislators, nor to experts outside Congress who might be able to better assess the legality and efficacy of the conduct
  
  11. and while insisting that the legislators cannot second-guess the need for classification and secrecy, even in cases -- such as with respect to OLC opinions concerning what techniques are lawful and which are not, and with respect to conduct that has been revealed to the enemy already -- where there is no legitimate justification for the classification.
  
  The reaction from the Intel Commmittees is, alas, predictable: Muted, furtive and internal (i.e., entirely ineffective) protest, at best. More often than not, acquiescence and encouragement.

He goes on to suggest reforms.

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Maybe she was expressing her outrage and you didn't realize that's what it was because -- unlike, say, Scooter Libby or Karl Rove (or Richard Armitage [hi Slave!]) -- she didn't disclose classified information.

i like this part best!

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Though you do your level best to ensure that no one could take this board seriously, it's not working, so perhaps you should try another schtick.

It's a moot point.

An early version of the next NIE says with "mderate-to-high confidence" that Iran put its waterboarding programme on the shelf, so everything is really jim dandy.

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that you have your blog spin ready for the story doesn't mean it isn't absurd for one of the Dems to pretend like keeping this sort story "confidential" has any value to them at all.

as to who brings "schtick" to this board, let me assure you this board would miss me far more than it would miss you. you could be replaced by a carefully programmed web spider.

This is the 911 Commission's recommendations regarding Congressional oversight of Intelligence.

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In fairness, Hank's the least of the reasons this board is not taken seriously.

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no sebby, if not for me this board would be a clearinghouse of ideas, a place open minded people can come to discuss the day's events and be convinced by insights from those with whom they have initially disagreed. if only i would leave Ty would build that temple on the hill!

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I'd rather talk about intelligence oversight, so I regret having taken your bait.

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are you the discussion director now? why is it "bait" whenever it is something against the Dems?

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I would rather talk about the Pelosi thing you raised than about your stupid meta- schtick about the board. Back to Pelosi, then. Why do you think Democrats feel free to disregard national security classifications? Are you thinking of some other time that Pelosi disclosed classified material she received in that sort of briefing? 'Cause I'm not remembering that.

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You did this on purpose.

S_A_M

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"Pelosi" as in the dems and their staff, tons of things over the past several years.

and beyond whether she discloses it, why do they mention it to congress? isn't the point so Congress can object when appropriate? did she take steps to raise the issue and try to reverse the practice?

the underlying point is that the Dems are completely full of shit on the issue because they accepted it until they could posture in public hearings. see?

can't fake indignation for the camera, how do you feel about waterboarding? who cares. I'm going to lunch.

Now, waterboarding out in public hearings how do you feel?

Barbarism! not something the united states should be involved in!

It shows the whole act is nothing more than posturing, and that the Dems don't put the country's interest above their desire to pander.

do you want to talk about that?


edit: and I'm sure it'll come out soon that she "was doing everything she could to stop it!" much like clinton and al queda.