Da Desperate Dims!

[SuperScout]

Sen. Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, who is widely thought to be pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination for 2008, will introduce a Senate resolution today to censure President Bush for authorizing the wiretapping of telephone conversations of suspected terrorists. [EARTH to Russell: we're at WAR! Is that too difficult of a concept to grasp?]
In the House, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, will ask for the formation of a committee to investigate whether the president should be impeached. [And bring this one too!]

Neither effort is expected to succeed. Republicans, who hold a 55 to 44 majority in the Senate and a 31-seat margin in House, called the attempt "grandstanding" and "crazy." [So what else is new with Da Dims? They nave no agenda, no plan, only a weak strategy of bashing Bush.]

"It's an unusual step," Mr. Feingold told interviewers yesterday on ABC-TV's "This Week." "It's a big step, but what the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered.
"We all believe there should be wiretapping in appropriate cases -- but the idea that the president can just make up a law, in violation of his oath of office, has to be answered."
The Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach a president or censure its own members, but there is precedent for resolutions of presidential censure. The Senate censured President Andrew Jackson in 1834 for defying the Whig Party, and Republicans attempted, and failed, to censure President Clinton in 1998 after the House impeached him and the Senate acquitted him.
Mr. Feingold's measure states that "the United States Senate does hereby censure George W. Bush, president of the United States, and does condemn his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans." [Uhh, wouldn't it first seem prudent to determine if in fact the 'wiretaps' were indeed illegal, before you go jumping off that bridge, Senator?]
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, who appeared on the ABC-TV program after Mr. Feingold, said such a resolution is "a crazy political move" that would weaken America's strength abroad.
"We are right now at a war, in an unprecedented war, where we do have people who really want to take us down," Mr. Frist said. "So the signal that it sends that there is in any way a lack of support for our commander in chief, who is leading us with a bold vision, in a way that we know is making our homeland safer, is wrong. And it sends a perception around the world."
Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, a senior Republican, dismissed the Feingold resolution as "grandstanding." Tracey Schmitt, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said "Senator Feingold's out-of-touch attack demonstrates once again that Democrats are willing to play politics with the most important issue facing the American people."
President Bush defended his wiretap authorization -- bypassing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires judicial oversight -- as permitted by the Constitution and necessary to wage effective war against terrorists.
"Just who is the enemy to the Democrats, the president of the United States or the terrorists working to destroy our way of life?" asked Ron Bonjean, spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican. "Their political smear tactics represent everything the Democrat Party stands for: absolutely nothing."
Mr. Frist did not answer when an interviewer asked whether he would allow a censure measure to reach the Senate floor for a vote. "This is the first I've heard about it. I really am surprised about it, because Russ is just wrong. He is flat wrong. He is dead wrong." [Come on, Frist, let's have an up or down vote, so America can see what sort of jackasses Da Dims really are!]

[colmurph]

I think that he ought to differentiate between "Wiretaps" (where taps are placed on telephone lines) and listening in on electronic broadcasts (cell phones are essentially radios and not protected from eavesdropping by any laws that I know of)
With cell phones, as with CB radio's, ham radios and regular 2 way radios, there is no implied "Expectation of Privacy". Anybody who makes a call on a cell phone has no reasonable expection of privacy because their conversation is being broadcast to whomever can receive it.
When I was listening to Short Wave and Micro Wave Radio transmissions I often would hear one side of a cell phone conversation. Was I "wiretapping"? I think not! I was sometimes entertained by what I heard though.

[Seascamp]

Nothing new, heck, way back in the days when it was hotter at noon, women were women; and so were some of the men, it was the same exact deal. T?was the media pissing in our back pocket, politicos running their stilettos at us, from the back of course, Ho was the much loved hero, much renting of garments, on and on.

But at the time we were the ones taking the risks and catching the heat, now everyone is in the same boat, even the Dems. Or mayhaps they got themselves some King?s X, eh, and can afford to squander tactical advantage and the ability to chop the perps off at the knees before they can do us serious harm.

I need me some of that King?s X for my family and wonder if the Dems have a sales web site and take Master Card or Visa. Maybe ya rub it on like mosquito repellent and are rendered safe from all perp harm. They must have something, eh. No fear, right, rub on some ?Dean?s Own? medicament and be a stylin, way cool and out of harm's way.

Scamp

[SuperScout]

Even more amazing than the idiotic resolution is the fact that Feingold din't even have the courage to stay around on the Senate floor and debate the measure when it was presented. It is so typical of these gutless wonders, that they don't even have enough personal or political courage to stand up for what they have just proposed. And he's supposed to be one of the front-runners for the 2008 Dim nomination? Bring 'em on!

[SuperScout]

Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold accused fellow Democrats on Tuesday of cowering rather than joining him on trying to censure President Bush over domestic spying. "Democrats run and hide" when the administration invokes the war on terrorism, Feingold told reporters. [But where was Fringold the other day, after he deposited his load of crap on the Senate floor, then fled the sceen rather than stay and debate the resolution? He is the poster chld for cowering, but then again, what does one suspect from gutless wonders?]

Feingold introduced censure legislation Monday in the Senate but not a single Democrat has embraced it. Several have said they want to see the results of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation before supporting any punitive legislation.

Republicans dismissed the proposal Tuesday as being more about Feingold's 2008 presidential aspirations than Bush's actions. On and off the Senate floor, they have dared Democrats to vote for the resolution.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., tried to hold a vote Monday on Feingold's resolution but was blocked by Democrats. He said Tuesday that Feingold should withdraw the resolution because it has no support. "If the Democrats continue to say no to voting on their own censure resolution, then they ought to drop it and focus on our foreign policy in a positive way," Frist said in a statement. [Da Dims' Illogic Path: First, we put up a resolution, next we convince our colleagues that it's so stupid that nobody is supporting it, then thirdly, we refuse to allow it to be voted on, up or down.]

Feingold's resolution condemns Bush's "unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required" by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.