Reid to Deny Bush 'Recess' Appointments

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday November 16, 2007 · 6:43 PM PST

2007/11/16 · 18:43

Wow, this is one way to show some backbone:

Rawstory.com - Democrats are refusing to be made turkeys over the holidays by a lame duck president, a capitol newspaper reports.

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided to keep the chamber in session over the Thanksgiving break to block President Bush from making any unsavory recess appointments while Senators are out of town," Erin P. Billings reports for Roll Call.

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday August 18, 2007 · 10:35 AM PDT

2007/08/18 · 10:35

Egg meet face:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 — Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches of American citizens and the collection of their business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.

Administration officials acknowledged they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.

They also emphasized that there would be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance.

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday July 07, 2007 · 9:58 AM PDT

2007/07/07 · 09:58

I'm having a hard time believing this is OK:

San Francisco - Federal agents do not need a search warrant to monitor a suspect's computer use and determine the e-mail addresses and Web page IPs the suspect is contacting, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

In a drug case from San Diego County, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco likened computer surveillance to the "pen register" devices that officers use to pinpoint the phone numbers a suspect dials, without listening to the phone calls themselves.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of pen registers in 1979, saying callers have no right to conceal from the government the numbers they communicate electronically to the phone companies that carry their calls.

Except that the Web IPs that are sent back and forth are often static, or remain up for some time before expiring (as in the case of dynamicly generated content). This is more akin to allowing the reading and listening-in the judges think they are avoiding by allowing the monitoring of "web address IPs".

Poll

63 votes Show Results

Should the Gov't be able to observe your web traffic w/o a warrant?

63 votes Vote Now!

Should the Gov't be able to observe your web traffic w/o a warrant?

Hell no

58 votes

Well, sure

5 votes

Earmarks: Did your Rep Go Public or Not?

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday June 18, 2007 · 11:35 PM PDT

2007/06/18 · 23:35

PDF from CNN. They called each Representative (people elected to serve in your interest), and each one either made their requested 'earmarks' public, or failed to do so.

Earmarks totaled almost $30 billion in 2006.

pdf list of all representatives and their response OR LACK thereof.

There is no legal requirement to talk to CNN, but this isn't FOX. It seems like a perfectly valid exercise - ask each Representative to identify their earmark requests

Poll

38 votes Show Results

Should all earmarks be made public?

38 votes Vote Now!

Should all earmarks be made public?

Um, Yes, it's our money!

36 votes

Nah, spreading it around on the sly is fine by me.

0 votes

That's not a fair question!

0 votes

What's and 'earmark'

0 votes

How do I qualify for earmarking?

2 votes

Bush: I'm the Derider: G8 Climate Debacle

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday June 06, 2007 · 4:23 AM PDT

2007/06/06 · 04:23

Bush hands Merkel a turkey at G8 with a backtrack on stated desire to lead on climate change.

Instead, it's back to accommodating the short term requirements of corporate masters

More after the flip. I'm wondering what this guy won't do for his business partners at our expense.

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday May 28, 2007 · 1:01 PM PDT

2007/05/28 · 13:01

Fox News Laughability Index - High

Late last night, flipping around. I run into what I thought was MadTV. It was not, being FOX News. They must be trying something other than doom and gloom, with a MadTV twist. They delivered their lines with slapstick gestures and vocal exagerations. Then they cut to Dennis Miller, and nope, it was the same old FOX. What a bucket of piss and vinegar, that guy.

Not that FOX didn't cease being a news outlet, say, since inception, but this laughable high marks a new low.

Poll

35 votes Show Results

What is Dennis Miller?

35 votes Vote Now!

What is Dennis Miller?

Comedian

3 votes

Commentator

2 votes

Bucket of Piss and Vinegar

30 votes

I'm Dreading Today; The Minutemen are Coming

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday March 31, 2007 · 8:29 AM PDT

2007/03/31 · 08:29

I can't believe the minutemen are coming to San Rafael. I've always thought of them as remote fringe weirdoes posting themselves on the desolate border. Those weirdoes are coming to my town today to vent their severely shortsighted views on immigration. We have a very large immigrant community here in the largest city in Marin County - it seems every service you can imagine is packed into this industrious place. Immigrants live in the canal, a neighborhood of small homes, apartment houses and occasional taqueria and carnesaria.

So the minutemen are demonstrating against undocumented immigration in San Rafael today. Unfortunately, my neighbors, the workers I interact with, students, their mothers and fathers are all badly impacted by this group's actions and the ICE raids that drew headlines along with marches here this past month. School officials accompanied children home on busses to make sure an adult would be on the other end of the route - and not in a deportment center.

Poll

61 votes Show Results

What should I do about it?

61 votes Vote Now!

What should I do about it?

Stay home, deny the minutement more press, ignore them

6 votes

Protest the minutemen along side other counterprotesters

21 votes

Salute the counterprotesters with cheers and horn blasts as they pass by

3 votes

Film the whole thing, respecting the privacy of immigrants

19 votes

Protest with the minutemen against undocumented immigrants (not likely)

12 votes

US No Longer Innovation Leader

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday March 28, 2007 · 2:55 PM PDT

2007/03/28 · 14:55

Sad news to me. When I was 7 or 8, I wrote to NASA to send me everything they had on space, planets, black holes, UFOs, project Blue Book; so you see a FOIA request is not that strange a concept to me. Those were the days, the good old days, when federal agencies were responsive to the public. This was a time when NASA had a public mandate that included studying the earth itself, deleted by Bush political cronies to obscure the impact of global warming and divert costs to future generations. This was a time when John F. Kennedy was sending men to the moon, and he meant it, really! He was no George Bush with a pie in the sky Mars shot which distracts. Instead of vainly sending humans to the surface of Mars at great cost, consider all the good cheap missions which would increase our understanding of the universe; but that would pull back the curtain enough it upsets the right wing no nothings that run the White House.

The US has slipped to seventh on the list of most innovative countries in a report from the World Economic Forum. This should alarm business people as well as environmentalists; and concern everyone else in between.

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday March 17, 2007 · 3:13 PM PDT

2007/03/17 · 15:13

I read a few years back WalMart was starting a bank. I though then, what aspect of life doesn't WalMart seek to profit from, expanding into every nook and cranny.

Given the changing regulatory environment, it seems like a victory that they are abandoning their attempt. The fact a discounter blasted for it's labor, competitive, and sourcing practices wanted to become America's 'trusted' banker seemed to be a bold sign of runaway corporate power concentration.

The economics of scale have seemed to have hit WalMart, too, as it's hard to grow when you are already selling $300 billion a year in goods. Maybe this is the begining of the end for their commercial rampage. Story extract on the flip.

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday February 19, 2007 · 6:06 PM PST

2007/02/19 · 18:06

Impeach Bush and Cheney.

The very state of our democracy depends on it - they have abused the system for their own advantage and that of a very narrow consituency. It's time to hold hearings and determine if such crimes have been committed which justify impeachment, and hold up the example to prevent future executives from gambling that no one will react in time to reel in their power grab.

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday February 13, 2007 · 12:46 PM PST

2007/02/13 · 12:46

Oil price spikes and plain old greed caused the Republic Party to tinker with Daylight Savings Time. They said no to regulation, conservation and common sense to suggest that instead of reducing the obscene taypayer funded handouts to big oil (to ease the pain of record profits?)... that a few extra weeks of daylight would translate into reduced power consumption. That's a stretch at best; and how do you measure the impact?

So, off they went tinkering away with our time just to divert from debate on a sensible energy policy. There they go with their overzealous approach to shutting down debate. And what do we get in return for their trickery? A mini-Y2K bug that will end up costing enormous resources for all businesses big and small. Microsoft says outlook appointments are not to be trusted during this 3 week GOP timewarp. That's likely to result in many missed meetings, conference calls, and a lot of time and energy spent trying to catch up... thanks for the bright idea.

TPaine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday February 12, 2007 · 3:14 PM PST

2007/02/12 · 15:14

I had written to Representative Woolsey to encourage a more forceful stand against continued war in Iraq, and I received a thoughtful reply, with a pledge to end the US occupation of Iraq with HR508. Speaker Pelosi had recently namedRepresentative Woolsey to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and with that move, providing more visible Congressional opposition to the war in Iraq.

The best outcome of this week's House debate on Iraq is a vote to end US military engagement in Iraq Encourage your representative to support Representative Woolsey's bill HR508 to end US military operations in Iraq within 6 months.

Please consider recommending this diary to get momentum rolling for passage of HR508. Thank you. This is a binding resolution. HR 508 full text.

Newer
Older

RSS

Reid to Deny Bush 'Recess' Appointments

Daily Kos You Were Right: Democrats Didn't Know What They Were Doing

US Court Says Warrantless Web Use Monitoring OK

Earmarks: Did your Rep Go Public or Not?

Bush: I'm the Derider: G8 Climate Debacle

Dennis Who? [poll]

I'm Dreading Today; The Minutemen are Coming

US No Longer Innovation Leader

WalMart Bank DOA and ILC Moratorium

Impeachment: Get Real

Republicans Create New Y2K Bug with Overzealous Political Tricks

Representative Lynn Woolsey: End US Occupation of Iraq with HR508