posted August 23, 2006 11:10 AM              

Just a reminder to believe only half of what you hear from politicians during a campaign. To be a truly informed voter you have to search for the real truth because you can't believe all of what politicians say. Incidentally, it is no compliment for anyone in a government position or running for one to be called "a politician."

New RNC Web Ad Blurs History

Another video on homeland security twists Democrats' words and exaggerates "the Republican record."

August 22, 2006

Summary

The Republican National Committee's latest Internet ad says "the facts speak for themselves," but it twists a few of them.

It rewrites history when it claims Republicans "created the Department of Homeland Security," which the White House actually resisted for nearly nine months before giving in to bipartisan pressure. It gives Republicans credit for a law reorganizing intelligence agencies, which actually passed the House with more Democratic votes than Republican.

The video twists the words of prominent Democrats when it says they are "against terrorist surveillance" and "against terrorist interrogation," when what they are actually saying in the ad is that they are against illegal eavesdropping and against abusing prisoners.

It says Democrats are "against the Patriot Act," and many are, but the fact is most Democratic senators voted for reauthorizing it earlier this year after demanding and getting some civil-rights protections.

Analysis
This ad first appeared on the RNC home page Aug. 18. It uses lines of attack we expect to see repeated frequently between now and election day. It says "terrorists are watching" what Democrats say, then contrasts that with the "Republican record since 9/11."

Rewriting History I:
Department of Homeland Security

The ad claims Republicans "created the Department of Homeland Security." In fact, as we noted before, the Bush administration spent nearly nine months in 2001 and 2002 rejecting calls for the cabinet-level department.

The President created a White House Office of Homeland Security in October 2001, headed by an assistant to the President but with no direct management authority over security agencies. Soon after, a Democrat, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, introduced one of the first bills calling for a full, cabinet-level department. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said on March 20, 2002 that a Cabinet-level agency was not needed.

Ari Fleischer: So creating a Cabinet office doesn't solve the problem. You still will have agencies within the federal government that have to be coordinated. So the answer is, creating a Cabinet post doesn't solve anything . The White House needs a coordinator to work with the agencies, wherever they are.

Rewriting History II:
Intelligence Re-organization

The ad also claims that Republicans "Strengthened and Reformed America's Intelligence Agencies," referring to legislation that actually came through a broadly bipartisan effort.

The National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 passed the Senate 89 to 2, with one Democrat and one Republican voting against. It passed the House by a vote of 336 to 75, and most of those who voted for it were Democrats while most of those opposing it were Republicans. President Bush acknowledged the bipartisan nature of the bill when he signed it Dec. 17, 2004 by including both Sen. Lieberman and Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of California among those he credited, as well as Democratic former congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana, the vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission. That commission, also bipartisan, and also initially resisted by the White House, had urged the reorganization.

Twisting Words I:
"Against Terrorist Surveillance"

The ad shows Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont saying "I look at the illegal wiretaps. . . . I think we should have said that was wrong." Then it superimposes the words "Against Terrorist Surveillance."

That mischaracterizes what Lamont actually said. The words are from Lamont's July 7 debate with Sen. Lieberman. Even in the clip shown in the RNC ad Lamont didn't say he was against surveillance, only against the way President Bush ordered National Security Council eavesdropping without judicial orders. That's made clearer in the full transcript , which shows that Lamont prefaced the snippet we see here by saying "We have a President who is acting as if he is above the law right now."

Whether Bush's NSA program is legal, as the White House says, or not, as US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled last week, is a matter still being litigated. But the fact is that it was illegality to which Lamont objected, not surveillance.

Twisting Words II:
"Against Terrorist Interrogation"

The ad shows Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois denouncing alleged mistreatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, and then superimposes the words "Against Terrorist Interrogation." But Durbin wasn't objecting to interrogation. Durbin actually was objecting to such things as keeping prisoners chained up in their own excrement, as described by an appalled FBI official who had reported witnessing that and other abuses.

Durbin is shown on the Senate floor August 2, 2004, holding a recently released email from a FBI official (whose name had been redacted) summarizing what the official witnessed:

FBI E-mail: On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been there for 18 to 24 hours or more.

The official also described seeing a prisoner nearly lying unconscious in a cell in which air conditioning had been turned off and the temperature was well over 100 degrees, next to a pile of the prisoner's own hair, adding, "He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

Unless the RNC means to endorse such treatment of prisoners as essential to "interrogation" it is mischaracterizing what Durbin said.

A Half-Truth:
Against the Patriot Act

The ad says in print that Democrats are "Against the Patriot Act," which is only partly true. Most Democrats in the House did indeed oppose the Patriot Act in its present form, but not the large majority of those in the Senate. It is true that 156 House Democrats opposed renewing the Patriot Act in the form it went through the House on July 21, 2005. And it is also true that nearly 2/3rds of House Democrats also voted against the addition of some civil-rights measures on March 7, 2006 that were part of a compromise allowing passage in the Senate. Mostly the Democrats said the measures didn't go far enough, so based on the latter vote we judge it is fair to say that at least 124 House Democrats are against the act in its present form, and that 66 support it.

But it's a different story in the Senate, where only 9 Democrats and Independent Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont voted against final passage of the Patriot Act renewal, while 34 Democrats voted in favor.

For the record, the measures that were added included one allowing recipients of a law-enforcement request for business records to challenge a gag order preventing them from talking about it. Another removed a requirement that recipients of national security letters, which are like subpoenas but do not require court approval, disclose the name of any attorney they consult or intend to consult. Another ensures that libraries operating in traditional roles and not as Internet service providers are not subject to national security letters

Reid's Misleading Boast

Incidentally, one of those voting for Patriot Act renewal was Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who is shown in the ad boasting, "We killed the Patriot Act." Reid did say that but, obviously, he chose his words poorly. In fact, Democrats hadn't killed the act; they had only blocked it with a filibuster while demanding some additional civil-rights protections, some of which Republicans later agreed to add. Reid's words are grossly misleading, but that's Reid's fault and not the RNC's. This clip has become a staple of Republican advertising and we suspect we haven't seen the last of it.

-by Brooks Jackson, with Justin Bank, James Ficaro and Emi Kolawole

Sources
“Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer,” Transcript. 19 Mar. 2002.

“President Bush signs Homeland Security Act,” Transcript. 25 Nov. 2002.

“President Establishes Office of Homeland Security,” The White House. 8 Oct. 2002.

Sandler, Michael. "Deal Clears Way for Anti-Terrorism Law," CQ Weekly. 10 Mar 2006.

U.S. Senate, 108th Congress, 2nd Session. Senate Vote No. 216.

U.S. House, 108th Congress, 2nd Session. House Vote No. 544.

"Liberman, Lamont Spar in Conn. Primary Debate," Transcript. 7 July 2006.

"President Signs Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act," Transcript. 17 Dec. 2004.

posted August 23, 2006 01:20 PM            

Democrats have made absurd charges of illegal "domestic" wiretapping and have opened up the nation and our citizens to successful attacks against us because we would have no way of knowing what the hell they're planning....who they are, where they are or when they plan to attack their target(s).

The FISA legislation cannot usurp the inherent authority of the President under his Article II authority as Commander in Chief to wiretap...even domestically for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence. That is so and every court in the history of the United States has ruled that is so...including the FISA Court of Review itself....except one brain dead moron democrat federal judge appointed by the idiot Jimmy Carter who issued a decision...a decision not based on the law, not based on precedents, not based on the FISA law itself and not based on the decision of the FISA Court of Review itself which decided that the President has the inherent Constitutional Authority to order wiretaps to gather intelligence intelligence.

This is the way democrats see the NSA surveillance program working.

Two people are talking on the phone, one in the Middle East...a known terrorist or suspected terrorist.. and someone in America. The NSA is monitoring conversations to or from these people who are not in America..or from the telephone number itself. One of the talkers says...the "attack" is on for Monday. An NSA employee hears details which lead him/her to believe an attack is imminent.

Now this is what democrats want to happen. First, they couldn't be listening in at all if one person in that conversation is in the United States...not without first knowing the name of that US person, what information specifically that person was likely to transmit OR receive and what group or what connection that person has to terrorists or terrorism AND then taking the time to write up a sworn affidavit with all the details of that persons probable involvement..."probable cause", then submitting a request..with the attached affidavit to a judge on the FISA Court for review and hopefully, a warrant will issue to listen in to later conversations..not this one while terrorists plan an attack. The FISA judge then takes the request under "advisement", studies the affidavit and determines if sufficient "probable cause" exists to issue a wiretap order.

While all that is happening...and it could take days or even weeks to get that FISA Court order to wiretap...if at all, A Monday comes and the nuclear power plant at San Onofre is attacked, radiation is released into the air, soil and water on the coast of California, or the Sears Tower in Chicago or the Occidental building in downtown San Francisco is demolished or the Golden Gate Bridge or any number of other nice juicy terrorist targets. And no one would even know it's coming because according to the brain dead democrats, the NSA couldn't be listening in THAT CONVERSATION to begin with.

The problem with the brain dead democrats is that they don't seem to understand that might be the ONLY phone conversation there will ever be, that the details were already worked out BEFORE that person or persons entered the US and they are only waiting for the ORDER to attack the preselected target or targets.

Democrats have a death wish..for the rest of us but not one of them will raise their stinking hands and volunteer to be at the scene of the next terrorist attack.

While you, your mother, father, sister, brother, children, husband are driving across the Golden Gate Bridge on their way to work...or while they are in any number of other terrorist target locations, these radical leftist morons in the US Congress will be sitting on their fat a$$es in their offices on Capitol Hill surrounded by metal detectors, surveillence cameras, Secret Service and Capitol Hill police. So, it won't be their fat @sses which are blown off, it will be yours or someone you know or a family member or members.

The ad you're complaining about is an accurate depiction of democrats. The problem with the ad is that it doesn't go near far enough in tying democrats to their constant obstruction of the President's legal efforts to protect the US and our citizens and it sure as hell doesn't go far enough in tying democrats to the aid and comfort they are and have been providing to terrorists.

Throw every single one of these terrorist supporting, terrorist assisting, terrorist aiding democrat morons out on their fat @sses....preferrably hard enough that their moronic butts...which is where their brains are stored...won't hit the ground until they've crossed the state line of the state from which they came.

BTW, Ned Lamont is a radical socialist horses ass who is a single issue candidate, who couldn't find his ass with both hands.

So is Jonathan Tasini and I wanted NY Voters to get a good long look at this twit socialist. I would have preferred a nationally televised debate between Tasini and Hillary...so the entire country could get a good look at the cut and run SurrenderCrat idiots who would surrender to terrorists in Iraq.

posted August 23, 2006 07:32 PM              

It's not about the war on terror with the radical Republicans so much as more and more power and control for the Executive Branch. Otherwise they would do things according to the law and according to the U.S. Constitution. It's all about gaining more and more power and control and getting rid of the Constitution and writing their own version of it.

posted August 23, 2006 11:52 PM            

How do you think the British knew about the plan to bomb flights between the UK and the US?

How do you think they knew when to move in and arrest the terrorists...before they could carry out the attack?

The very NSA program leftists are wetting themselves over monitored the communications between the terrorists...even to intercepting the go call which was supposed to set the operation into motion.

The NSA was transmitting information from their intercepts of the terrorists calls to the British.

So Mirandee, the British are not monitoring, tracking and surveilling terrorists in a way that the brain dead moron judge would decide was Constitutional...for the United States.

Of course, this idiot's decision is going to be overturned at the appellate level. The democrat morons who cheered her decision speak volumes about their commitment to national security...which is zero.

The rest of us don't have a death wish.

TIME
Thwarting the Airline Plot

"The U.S. picked up the suspects' chatter and shared it with British authorities"

"MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1225453,00.html