King-George-gate: Myths v. Realities

[mom cat]

Thursday :: Jan 5, 2006
King-George-gate: Myths v. Realities
A
s most readers here know, the Shills for Republican-Dictators Coalition (SRDC) have been producing the expected voluminous stream of unmitigated lies in the form of talking points, in order to defend the illegal domestic spying program authorized by their Dear Leader-King George Bush. As always, when the internets and airwaves are filled with fakery, it becomes "hard work" to keep track of it all. So, I thought it was time for a post to consolidate the well chronicled responses to the cornucopia of nonsense from the SRDC. In putting this together I have almost exclusively used (and referred to) some outstanding work done by other bloggers - Think Progress (especially Judd Legum), Unclaimed Territory (Glenn Greenwald), Armando at Daily Kos, Coleen Rowley, Firedoglake and others. .

Since there are various categories of false (most of the items below) and occasionaly misleading (like #6 below) talking points from the SRDC, I decided to address them under the following sections.

Talking Points For Felonious Republican Presidents (Registered Trademark of SRDC)

1. Bush did not violate the FISA
2. Bush did not break the law
3. History shows Presidents have the power to violate the law, especially in times of war
4. History shows that other Presidents like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter did the same by overriding FISA
5. Secret warrantless spying of Americans was/is required for national security reasons, since FISA was inadequate, and secret spying could have prevented 9/11
6. Secretly spying on foreigners is legal and constitutional
7. The secret spying only focused on Al Qaeda, terrorists and their supporters and one end of the intercepted communications was always in foreign soil
8. The leak to the New York Times, of Bush's secret spying on Americans, was a crime and had nothing to do with whistleblowers
9. Bush's critics are just partisan political hacks
10. Top Democrats in Congress supported the illegal spying
11. You can trust Bush 100% to not misuse the spying program


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1. Bush did not violate the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)
TALKING
More at:
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006455.php

[lebkuchen]

1. #4 came to my inbox yesterday

I asked for documentation, but the sender hasn't provided it yet.

Thanks for this.