Oliver Willis

Yesterday, I went to Arlington National Cemetery. I saw JFK’s grave site and the eternal flame, as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the intricate changing of the guard associated with it. But what left the biggest impression on me where the headstones. At Arlington, there are literally headstones as far as the eye can see.

And it makes you think - why are those people there? They served their country, and in honor to their service, they are buried on hallowed ground. They’re all there - WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan… and Iraq, as well as others who served when we weren’t at war.

But before you go on the grounds there’s a historical video telling you about Arlington National Cemetary. One fact that stood out is that at it’s current rate, Arlington will be full by 2025.

We should probably work to stop that from happening any sooner than necessary.

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One of the things we’ve got to start doing is quit accepting that the nonsense ginned up by the Republican PR industry (RNC, White House, MRC, AEI, Heritage, Fox, MRC, etc.) has any merits and must always be answered.

Folks, they’re lying and full of shit. When your opponent is lying like that, just say it and keep talking about what’s important. If someone says the sky is green, it’s no use to point out scientific data otherwise. It just isn’t true and you should say so. The time for this attitude has long passed.

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Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.

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He wonders about the lack of terror alerts in 2005 vs 2004. Hello? George Bush was running for president in 2004, not ‘05. No need to scare the populace in ‘05. Silly liberals.

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Reality beats satire

Santa Claus points a handgun at a masked terrorist on a Christmas card that John Michael Snyder, public affairs director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, sends this year to a number of recipients.

Named Dean of gun lobbyists by The Washington Post and The New York Times, Snyder includes the president and members of Congress as addressees.

Here’s the card.

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Business begins to pick up

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush’s secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court’s work.

This begins to sound like the president’s possibly illegal activity is undermining the work of the FISA court, also known as defending America from terrorists.

It’s a good thing there weren’t any interns around, because then people would start using the “I” word.

ALSO: Clinton/Carter Executive Orders Did Not Authorize Warrantless Searches of Americans (via mr. curmudgeon)

MORE: Duncan says “traitor”. I’m liable to think people who make it easier for enemies of America to do their work are actively working with terrorists by default.

AND: Spying Program Snared U.S. Calls

A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.

Reagan DOJ official Bruce Fein in the Washington Times:

President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law. He cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses. Congress should swiftly enact a code that would require Mr. Bush to obtain legislative consent for every counterterrorism measure that would materially impair individual freedoms.

Mr. Fein, I keep hearing this clicking sound during our phone calls… (Fein was one of the big Clinton haters on the tv during the ’90s)
Colin Powell:

 My own judgment is that  it didn t seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go and get the warrants [through FISA]. And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it [begin surveillance]. The law provides for that. And three days later, you let the court know what you have done, and deal with it that way.

This is what I don’t get. Getting a warrant is easy, they could even get one after the fact. They must have either felt they were so powerful they didn’t have to do it, or they are hiding something (”Yeah, so I got the order to bug Howard Dean’s phone right here…”).

DNC: Did George Bush Break the Law?

Interestingly, this is not a case of “what did the president know”, etc. The president knew, the whole time.

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