VICTORY and THE TIME HORIZON

Keith Olberman just NAILED it after the New York Times demanded it.

John McCain sees "Victory" as perpetual unending "Winning" with extra innings or periods always out there on 'The TIME HORIZON".

The Iraqi people want US out
The Iraqi leadership wants US out
The American people want US out
The Europeans want US out
but
for the Republicans Winning = Staying

Today is a landmark day for Obama and us Democrats
We finally have a clear and easily articulated argument for Barack Obama in the area of McSame's ostensible strength. Obama and we Democrats are safely on the side of the Iraqis, the American people and the world on leaving Iraq.

Although many of us have known that Republicans are for endless war up until now it has been difficult to prove something that seemed so preposterous.

The events of the past 72 hours have made it perfectly clear and impossible to refute.

Obama started this with his 16 month plan for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. Despite the attempts to make it seem as if he vacillated or wavered his policy has been steadfast from the beginning.

Malaki in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine then came out solidly in favor of Obama's plan despite the desperate attempts of the Republican's to claim a mistranslation and to make Malaki retract his statement.

Bush then fell into the trap of trying to change name with yet another malapropism - The Time Horizon - thinking that gullible Americans would be confused by the transparent of the Chimp in Chief once again.

McCain then tried to foist off another clueless political spiel as an OP ED to the New York Times who to their credit asked only one thing - "Tell us what VICTORY in Iraq means".

And poor John McCain was left exposed as the fatuous wind bag and water boy for the Neocons and their military industrial complex - you know - the men in the shadows who want nothing more than PERPETUAL WAR.

This is an historic day for us. The situation that we have know in our hearts has existed for a very long time is now in the open in no uncertain terms.

For Republicans VICTORY = STAYING in PERPETUAL WAR.
For Obama and us Democrats - it is the will of the people of America, Iraq , and the World. - an end to the occupation of IRAQ.

Everyone of us should take this beautifully simple and devastatingly clear picture of the difference in US and THEM and post our version of it everywhere we have access.

They cannot drill their way out of this box.
They have put themselves in the spotlight and we need to amp up the illumination.

The Time Horizon is NOW
The PERPETUAL WAR MACHINE is fully exposed
Like Barack's shot from downtown Kuwait city that hit nothing but net this is a winner for Democrats that should be on full repeat from now until November. We now have all the ammunition we need to expose the war machine for what it is in every conversation on every forum in every chat room and in every comment section of every newspaper.

Hammer McCain with his inability to articulate what Victory means
Show the Time Horizon for what it is - Perpetual War.
Obama is scoring big this week and we need to have his back.
Today is a very good day to start this week.

A PRESIDENT for EVERYONE?

Our Country is in SERIOUS trouble.
And make no mistake it is OUR country. Not just the country of progressives and liberals but also the country of reactionaries and conservatives.

Barack Obama is running for President of All the People not just the liberals or progressives President and this is exactly as it should be. This is the change we can believe in.

The true divisions in our politics are far less liberal vs conservative than corporatist vs populist.
Intro
You must enter an Intro for your Diary Entry between 300 and 1150 characters long.

Our Country is in SERIOUS trouble. And make no mistake it is OUR country. Not just the country of progressives and liberals but also the country of reactionaries and conservatives. Barack Obama is running for President of All the People not just the liberals or progressives President and this is exactly as it should be. This is the change we can believe in. The true divisions in our politics are far less liberal vs conservative than corporatist vs populist.

Wouldn't that be something else? A President who does not polarize the nation.

Patriotic
In favor of service to the nation
In favor of a strong military
In favor of involving people of Faith
Sounds downright right wing or does it?

Can Barack Obama do what seems impossible?

Can a military supporter be liberal?
Can an evangelical Christian be liberal?

I was raised a Southern Baptist in Tennessee and I always believed the teachings of Jesus Christ were far more in line with the Liberals' point of view than the Conservatives. Don't Liberals favor mercy, feeding the poor, healing the sick, comforting the elderly and the hopeless, and suggesting that accumulation of vast personal wealth is an inhibition to entering into heaven?

Why should we Liberals concede the Christian Faith to the Conservatives and why have we? Can Barack Obama change that dynamic - a change we can believe in?

Pundits pout that the 'move to the center' is problematic in promoting the idea of change, but real change would be a non-polarizing President who truly represents all the people - not a polarizing left leaning President who changes from a polarizing right winger.

My hope for the nation under Barack Obama is that as President he will take back the country from the special interests and the corporations who seek to profit at the expense of our people. I want to see a fair tax code that makes the rich and the corporations pay their fair share of the costs of the wars from which they profit.

I want the jobs to come back to America for the people who support the corporations by purchasing their products and services. If we need to support more young people through paying for service in Americorps, the Peace Corps, or the Military in exchange for money to attend college I have no problem with that either.

Barack Obama's move to make Patriotism, Faith, and Service a part of the progressive liberal agenda is a good thing and it is a change we can believe in. When you hear these fool pundits opine that these moves are an indication of more of the same call them out for the fools they are.

There is nothing unpatriotic or unChristian about being progressive or liberal.

A President for all the people who seeks to bring the bulk of the nation together by showing the people of Faith and the people who are patriotic that there is no reason a Patriotic Military person of great Faith cannot be a progressive/liberal and a supporter of Barack Obama.

Is that not a change we can believe in?

Stupid is as Stupid Does
by aurabass as posted on Daily Kos
Fri Jun 27, 2008 at 09:03:14 AM EST

Sam Stein's SERENITY LOST: Obama And The Netroots notes a culmination of a week of wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth here among my fellow Kossacks over FISA and notice of a number among us who have gone so far as to withdraw support from the presumptive Democratic Nominee.

I hate to break it to my fellow liberals but this is just plain STUPID.

Last night Keith Olbermann's fine diary shows another side of the situation and makes valid points about the potential damage we do to our one last best hope of overcoming what we lost during the past eight years. Heed the words of John Dean and Keith and don't do anything STUPID.

I will place my liberal activist pedigree and history up against anyone including my arrest record and status as a radical left leaning Democrat, but my enthusiasm for seeing Barack Obama elected is not diminished by FISA.

It seems mine is one of the few voices in the wilderness asking some fairly simple questions of my liberal brothers and sisters. OBAMA IS RIGHT ON FISA was my attempt to get you to actually read the legislation and to stipulate the passages that you believe violate the Constitution of the United States. Only one Kossak, beijingbetty, bothered to come up with a section that she felt fell into that description when she cited some language in Section 705 with the 'emergency clause' and the section that dealt with information obtained using the emergency clause being inadmissible in court. At least she had something specific to list instead of reliance on the generalities of the ACLU letter, Glenn Greenwald and Hunter. I disagree with her but we had something specific to discuss. I see nothing in this FISA legislation that rises to the level of sufficient reason to desert Barack Obama.

I followed the OBAMA IS RIGHT ON FISA with THINGS WE LOST IN THE FISA FIRE as a way to address specific examples of things that could go wrong under the FISA legislation as a practical matter. Nobody could come up with a specific example of how their rights under the Constitution might be violated. In the end any question of Constitutionality of the provisions will be decided in court.

Diane Fienstein says this FISA improvement eliminates warrantless wiretapping and I believe she is correct. So that's a good thing isn't it? Or are you too busy being indignant to actually read the bill and point out where she is wrong?

I don't like the immunity provision (and neither does Barack Obama) but from a practical standpoint how does it effect us? An individual cannot sue AT&T because email was moved to an NSA computer where it may or may not have been read? What are the damages one could recover for that I wonder? In the end the immunity only stops civil suits of questionable value that would be decided by the courts.

The Constitutionality of immunity and any potentially unconstitutional aspect of the FISA bill will be decided in court. And that brings us to what is really important about this situation and really STUPID about those who are withdrawing or limiting support for Barack Obama based on his grudging support of this FISA improvement. The courts will decide and guess who appoints the judges who will hear those cases?

Well it will either be Barack Obama or John McCain. So the only real question we have to ask ourselves when we want to uphold the Constitution and feel the this bill violates the Constitution, is what will the courts decide concerning the Constitutionality of this FISA bill.

So back off of your support for Barack Obama and we can virtually guarantee a court that will care less about Constitutional protection for the right of privacy. A McCain appointee will be far more likely to judge privacy as a right not guaranteed by the Constitution. If that right of privacy you think the Constitution protects is important to you and by your actions you allow John McCain to become President what have you done?

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES.
You will defend the Constitution by helping elect the guy who will fill the courts that rule on Constitutionality with more Scalias and Thomases.
Good work.

We can disagree over whether this bill is an improvement over the current act.
We can disagree over whether this bill ends warrantless wiretaps
We can disagree over the viability of civil lawsuits and damages to those who might have had email read by government agents.
But there should be no disagreement about who will rule on the Constitutionality of provisions in this bill that is going to pass no matter what we do. And there should be no disagreement that Obama appointed judges will be far more likely to rule on the side of our view of the Constitution.
Anybody saying they are liberal Democrats who fails to support the candidate most likely to give us the judicial nominees we want is doing something very STUPID.

Again I beseech you to offer comments that show definitive language in the FISA bill that you would like to see changed. According to Senator Feinstein we will have this bill as a moderate improvement or an extension of the old unamended Patriot Act and those are the choices. Killing this bill doesn't guarantee a better solution. How is that reasoning incorrect?

I wonder why Kossack aren't attacking AT&T and the other Telcoms where they live. Why are there no calls for a boycott of AT&T services and a well funded Move On campaign explaining to AT&T subscribers that they should switch their internet provider and phone service to companies who do not violate the Constitution and spy on their customers? If you want to hit the Telcoms go after their customers instead of concerning yourself with civil litigation that has little chance of success.

If this FISA bill ends warrantless wiretapping and improves however slightly on the current situation I can see no legitimate reason for attacking Barack Obama for not throwing his body on the tracks in front of a train that has already left the station. This bill will pass regardless of Obama's vote and while I can agree with Leahy and Feingold that it isn't enough I cannot see their alternative to the situation as described by Feinstein. What I see here from opponents is a lot of self-righteous indignation from folks who cannot specifically point to a single section of the bill that makes things worse than they are.

Finally, the FISA vote has been delayed and Senator Dodd will offer an amendment to strip the provision on Telcom immunity. That is the proper way to address provisions in this bill that are onerous to those who oppose it. So we have to ask ourselves why there are not additional amendments that seek to change language of other provisions in the bill? Perhaps Obama is right. Maybe there are no other provisions that require rewording to be acceptable to even the most vocal of the FISA opponents in the Senate. I would be quite happy to see the immunity removed regardless of whether Keith Olbermann and John Dean are correct and we might be better off with flawed language leaving an opening. The only way this delay is bad for us is if some of us continue to use FISA as a way to weaken the Obama candidacy.

Please allow our candidate to concentrate on winning by the largest possible margin and leave the FISA wrangling to Dodd and Feingold. Be willing to admit that other than a deciding vote on the bill or the amendment Obama's stand on FISA is not as important as his election to the Presidency. I find it odd that Kossacks can say his vote is a deciding factor in their support while denying that his vote may have an impact on the support of other Americans that are more concerned with security from attack than the constitutionality of the FISA provisions. How can you believe one is true and the other false?

On that basis to reduce your support and effort to elect Barack Obama and thus to improve the chances of Bush III McSame is just plain STUPID.

Things We Lost in the FISA Fire

by aurabass as posted on Daily Kos

Mon Jun 23, 2008 at 10:26:25 AM EST

I started thinking about FISA from a different perspective after reading and writing so much about it over the weekend. Here is my attempt to look at the possible results of the FISA legislation as a practical application .

Reasonable people can disagree but I find the broad hyperbole over the recent amendment to FISA legislation to be quite unreasonable at times.

Yesterday I tried to engage the Kos Community in a serious debate over the specific language in the FISA Bill - OBAMA WAS RIGHT ON FISA The debate generated quite a bit of reasonable discussion accompanied by some ranting about how Obama has sold out the Constitution for political expediency from folks who could not point to any wording in the actual bill to substantiate their claims.

The "throw Obama under the bus" group had little desire to engage in a discussion based on the language of the bill. It's easier to get all self righteous about the issue based on the ACLU or Glenn Greenwald than it is to study the actual language and be specific about your objection. Some of it seems like the NRA "protecting" their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

But this diary is about taking a look at the FISA legislation from another angle that does not involve study of the language of the bill.

This is about the practical application of the FISA legislation and the possible results, trying to find examples of how it might be used to see where it leads. What are your worst fears about how this legislation could possibly be used against us?

This FISA amendment is about electronic and oral communication via computer and telephone mainly international and to and from the United States. It is supposed to be about protecting us from plots against Americans by uncovering evidence of these plots before they occur.

WHAT YOU KNOW GIVES YOU OPTIONS
So what if you know every email and telephone call sent and received across the United States borders was subject to surveillance? What if we decided that expecting these communications to be private was unreasonable given what we know?

Ridiculous you say??? Well not so fast.
I want to explore what we lose if we simply consider all email and international telephone conversations to be insecure as I always have.

Ultimately FISA is about rooting out plots against us and we don't want to give up any real freedom from intrusion in the process so let us take a long look at the reality of how this bill is implemented in practice to see what we have lost.

FIRST WE SHOULD LOOK AT THE NUMBERS.
How many communications fall under the scope of this FISA legislation?
Does anyone doubt that the numbers of international communications using email or telephone number in the millions a day?

Electronic communication comes in the form of email, usenet groups, message board websites, chatrooms, and forums like this one any of which could be used by a group targeted by FISA. The sheer volume of these communications is enormous. It is speculated that certain groups use a hide in plain sight method of communication by going to libraries or internet cafes where they log on to some obscure interest group website like orchid growers or or an ancestry surname group and post messages in code as a part of their planning. With the advent and massive expansion of the Internet there are thousands of such groups and millions of websites and forums or chat rooms where groups seeking to do harm can communicate.
Start a weblog on blogger for free and add a haloscan comment section for free and you have a site where your group can go and communicate through the comment section 24/7 that is hidden in plain sight. Of all forms of communication some of these obviously have no expectation of privacy other than the use of a screen name that conceals true identity.

According to recent statistics from blog-tracking site Technorati, the blogosphere has doubled every six months for the last three years. That's 175,000 new blogs per day worldwide. Technorati added its 50 millionth blog on July 31, 2006. On average, there are 1.6 million posts per day, or 18.6 posts per second. An April, 2008 USA Today article cites ComScore Media Metrix figures for February, 2008:
Microsoft webmail properties: 256.2 million users
Yahoo: 254.6 million users
Google: 91.6 million users
AOL webmail properties: 48.9 million users
In February, 2008, a Yahoo executive claimed the company served 260 million email users.
In October, 2007, an official Yahoo! blog cited statistics suggesting Yahoo represented 255 million of the world's 543 million webmail accounts.

In 2001 it was estimated that there were 180 million cell phones in use in the USA. By 2007 it is estimated that there are 3.3 billion users worldwide and there are 2.6 text messages per day per user for 7 billion text messages per day. If only 10% of that traffic involves the USA it is a whopping 700 million text messages a day. Now prepaid cellular phones are available for purchase on every city street corner without any information available as to the user

Looking at this data it is impossible to conceive how any FISA type program can significantly impact the privacy and freedom of American citizens. How many thousands of people would have to be employed to screen our communications if there were no restrictions on listening in on oral or reading electronic communications? Do we feel relatively private in our communications because we don't think the government can listen as a matter of law or do we feel relatively secure in communicating because of the absurdly large number of communications that are taking place every minute of every day?

Some folks here are worried about an assault on our expectation of privacy from 'unreasonable' access to our cell phone or computer communications. Now I live a rather uneventful life and I can't imagine being upset if some computer somewhere was monitoring every communication I make looking for key words that might prompt a human to review because I am not involved in anything that I think anyone would find interesting. And if I were to become involved in discussing anything I would suspect might cause concern I would find a way to do it that would confound any FISA attempt to know it.

WHY DO YOU BELIEVE YOUR ELECTRONIC OR CELLULAR COMMUNICATION IS PRIVATE?
You do know that it is very easy to clone a cell phone don't you? You do know that it is quite easy to hack a computer and view your email don't you?
It amazes me that people actually think their email and cellular communications are secure in the first place. Now if you have sufficient reason there are plenty of ways to try to secure your communications. But cell phones are as a rule a very insecure means of communication. Even some cell phone spying services leak the data they obtain. There is no easy way to fix cell phones to make them secure. It is best to use prepaid throw away phones and change them often. On the other hand there are plenty of programs available to encrypt email so it can only be read by someone with the encryption decoding program.

WHAT IF WE END THIS ILLUSION OF PRIVACY
So what if we as a country decided that unencrypted email and cellular telephones were not covered under the 4th Amendment and there was no right to privacy for this type of communication? What would we lose?

I can't think of anything that would be lost because I don't think the expectation of security or privacy exists for those communication tools. We are more or less secure from unreasonable monitoring because of the sheer number of these communications - not because of a law or the Constitution.
We know these things are not secure from hackers and it may well be that agencies in our government or other governments intercept these communications and run them through computers trying to find the proverbial needle in a stack of needles. My reaction is - good luck with that because you won't find anything with my email or phone calls. What is more of a concern is having my identity stolen or my screen identity stolen and used by some terrorist cell implicating me in something nefarious in which I have no involvement.

So what are we losing in this FISA fire by bashing Obama for failure to protect our rights to a privacy that only exists in our dreams? If you want private email - encrypt it. If you want private cellular communication buy prepaid throwaway cell phones and change them often. But don't blame this FISA bill for "POTENTIALLY" taking away a privacy that you don't really have. The privacy that is available comes from the massive number of communications and this FISA law may have surveillance loopholes but it cannot make a dent in the tsunami of messages. The real protection or problem for intelligence gatherers is in the numbers.

We seem to be fighting over the figment of some imaginations about a privacy/security that does not truly exist. The ACLU has an agenda and seems to be behaving in a manner suggestive of the NRA's protection of the 2nd Amendment. The FISA bill doesn't make me feel more secure or more vulnerable to surveillance. I have very little objection to it's language. It certainly does nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for electing Barack Obama over John McCain.

Stop for just a minute and consider the real impact of this FISA legislation. Is it really worth it to condemn Barack Obama for his stance on this bill? Do you sound like an NRA lawyer protecting the 2nd Amendment when you argue that this bill destroys the 4th Amendment? I want to be secure in my home and my person but I'm not as concerned about my voice or electronic data once it leaves my body and and my home and becomes a tiny part of the massive flood of communication away from me. I think it is unreasonable to assume that it is secure once it has left me. Can someone convince me that I am giving up something by that thought? We need Barack Obama not some hollow indignation over the loss of something that is not truly lost.

Rush Limbaugh Attacks Black Katrina victims and praises Whites as the Floods hit.

Limbaugh: I want to know. I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois—I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property…I don’t see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don’t see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street. I don’t see a bunch of people doing everything they can…whining and moaning—where’s FEMA, where’s BUSH. I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America.

Thanks to a C&Ler that emailed me much of this post. Limbaugh is an arrogant ideologue that loves Howard Kurtz and hates the black victims of NOLA. Don’t you understand, it was all their fault for not escaping Hurricane Katrina! Wake, up! You drive by media fools. They were lazy, lazy people that deserved their fate. If only they were white and responsible. Just listen to this horrific rant as Limbaugh is all ‘agush‘ with admiration over the way in which Iowa and the Midwest has responded to the flood disaster that befell the area last week. But to just congratulate the residents in their determination and courage in fighting the disaster isn’t enough for the AM talk blow hard. Limbaugh could not pass up the opportunity to once again trot out his old, well known disdain for poor blacks in the south who were victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. To hear Limbaugh describe it, Iowa is more American, more honorable … you know … more white than Louisiana.

Download | Play

It would seem that the images of floating bodies, and documented stories of elderly New Orleans residents drowning in their attics is cold hard facts surrounding humans that Rush Limbaugh thinks could have benefited by just pulling themselves up by their bootstraps a little more. Nevermind that more than 1700 human beings lost their lives on live television as America watched in horror. You don’t hear progressives saying that Iowa is any less devastating because the death toll in those floods was a total of 5. It is still a tragedy. And progressives understand that full well.

But according to Rush the story of Iowa under water isn’t a story about humans over coming adversity. It’s a story about how much more patriotic the white bread basket is than the lazy south.