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January 20, 2006
See this phone #?? 866-730-6468??
Let me tell you about that number. It showed up on my cell phone last night at 7:14 pm. Then the same number rang me at work at 9:02 am today. This morning, in the midst of a busy Friday, I decided to answer it.
It was the Los Angeles Times telemarketing department cold-calling me to try and get me to subscribe.
What.the.fuck. My CELL phone!
I guess the bad news about revenue loss has them grasping, but they should know better then having cell phone numbers in their auto-call dial bank.
Wait. Know better? Strike that. We are talking the Los Angeles Times.
Posted by Darleen at January 20, 2006 12:15 PM
Comments
The L.A. Times is desperate, and will stop at nothing to possibly get new subscribers; they call us all the time! (Not our cell phones, fortunately---and, yes, they should know better.)
Heh, heh, heh. . . I'm kinda enjoying their desperation.
Posted by: TalkinKamel at January 21, 2006 06:56 AM
At least it wasn't the NSA....but then, they wouldn't call you. They'd just listen in.
Posted by: Brad at January 21, 2006 10:56 AM
Brad
I realize you're trying to be cheeky, but the NSA intercept program doesn't "listen in". And if my neighbor were calling al Qaeda friends overseas, I damned well expect the government to know about it.
sheesh
Posted by: Darleen at January 22, 2006 09:32 AM
- I just watched Mary Matlin disembowel Susan Estrich on H&C over this lefteist BS meme on "domestic wiretapping". Time after time Mary asserted that the program is not domestic at all, but specifically targetted at Al Qeada operatives, and time after time, like the dutiful Liberal she is, Susan kept saying "but....but....Congress...". I'm so tired of the extreme lefts willful ignorance, its past time just to turn on the ignore sign.
- The truth behind this phoney #16 "protecting rights" get Bush screed, is that that is exactly what it is. Once again the left tries to reframe the whole debate in terms of criminality and law enforcement, rather than what it is "war time espionage counter measures, against enemy combatants". This is the same nonsense that the Clinton administration practised, and look what THAT got us. But theres yet another reason for the left to play this angle. If you can move the goalposts over to "criminality" and gain traction with the deception its all about "law enforcement", then its just a short jump to "well if its just criminal activity then there is no war". Its soooooo fucking transparent and pitiful.
- So far the left is something like 0 and 15 against Rove/Bush. Now they have to deal with their announced engagement to Usama. I hope they enjoy all the bad PR this faux "issue" is gaining them, but then I guess it will make a good matching bookend to UBL's affections.
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 23, 2006 07:10 PM
I'm so tired of the extreme lefts willful ignorance
And I'm so tired of Right Wingers who can't even spell "al Qaeda."
Big Bang, let me ask you this: If the NSA's program is legal, then how come they don't bother to apply for the FISA warrant before "specifically targeting" our enemies?
Posted by: Brad at January 23, 2006 07:22 PM
- Brad - is there a school somewhere that leftwingers go to learn reading non-comprehension. Its all about "war" and Article II powers, and the Constitutional duty the Pres. has to protect the country in war time. Warrents are for criminal activities. Just because espionage is criminal in nature, has nothing to do with treating it like criminality. Try learning to read at least as well as you spell.
-BTW... Has Usama signed on to give a keynote address at the DNC or the Press Club yet?
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 23, 2006 07:34 PM
I guess by your worldview, BBH, "war crimes" is an oxymoron? Basically you're saying that foreign intel surveillance cannot be regulated by Congress if we're at war?
You're not on any legal standing there. Congress can and should regulate domestic surveillance...and even when war has been declared, the law limits warrantless wiretapping to the first fifteen days of the conflict.
Posted by: Brad at January 23, 2006 08:28 PM
- Thats exactly what I'm saying, because arguing to give enemy agents ANY sort of pass is ideological nonsense, and political suicide. Please oh please continue on with this BDS campaign. Go before the American people with that position. I beg of you. Just make sure to leave someone a name and address of a close relative so they'll know where to ship your political remains if you decide to do that.
- Brad - at some point the left had better get off this mindless Bush-bashing, and start formulating ANY sort of party social plan and platform. Short of that, you'll just continue to fall further and further behind. Maybe Usama could be preveiled on to help you write it, being as hes joined the Democratic party. But you'll need to set out your positions clearly, and find all the areas of commity. Otherwise he may change his mind. You know how fickle those darn terrorists can be.
- If you go down the line on social issues, his ideas resonate very well with the left. In the area of women, where he thinks its ok to beat them with a tire iron because they might dishonor their husbands by learning to read, he'll need to work on that. Although on second thought Code Pink can probably apply the usual "revisionistic nuances" and just go with the boys will be boys screed.
- You guys really need to break out of your denial. Like I said, you're 0 and 15 against Rove/Bush, and politically your ideas have put you in worse shape than you were 6 years ago. Basically your ideology has fucked you worse than a 50 year old whore in a Hongkong opium den. From the way you seem to just be obsessively commited to self destruction with all those gun rack flyover red staters and their "evil" values, I'm thinking epithamy is just not in your future.
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 23, 2006 08:55 PM
Sweet baby Jesus. Maybe it would just be easier if someone with a working brain would go over to the DNC and paint a sign on the front door in 10 foot letters.... "Hey dipshits....HE"S NOT RUNNING AGAIN!"
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 23, 2006 09:28 PM
"mindless Bush bashing"? What I wrote was based on legal reasoning. Congress is supposed to regulate wiretappin,: and the law limits warrantless wiretapping to the first fifteen days of the conflict.
You can try to prove me wrong, or you can just sling mud.
Posted by: Brad at January 24, 2006 06:26 AM
- Or a third alternative is to deny you the enaliable right of the typical Liberal perfidity, namely: If you can't win the debate you're in, change the characterization and terms until its in your favor. Good luck. there may still be a recluse 95 year old in an attic in Kansas, or a large number of children under the age of 6, that do not see through this crap. Most adults just think its gotten into pure self-delusion on the part of your party.
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 24, 2006 07:48 AM
- But if you insist. Heres the truth. There is no way in hell the SCOTUS will ever find that the Congress can limit or directly interfer with the Executive, in terms of its own execution or self regulation. Thats what the term "seperation of powers means". The Congress legislates, the Executive executes, and the SC adjudicates. this question has been broached any number of times over the decades and the SCOTUS always asserts the autonomy of the Executive powers. The only thing the Congress can do in direct terms of limiting Presidential execution is impeachment, which is why rabid nervous Democrats are constantly playing to the base back home with the usual feckless "He doesn't agree with us so we need to impeach him". Its transparent, partisan demogogery, and its been done to death. The problem that the Democrats face is the 700 pound gorilla that all this nattering is designed to obscure. They don't hold views that resonate with the majority of Americans, and they have evolved into a purist cult, unable to any longer muster a majority. Its gotten to the point where every time one of the Dem leaders go on camera with yet another anti-Bush screed, people snicker into their hands. I was once a young Democrat, and it surely is painful to watch the slow but sure stangulation of your party by the extreme left elements that have hijacked your whole agenda.
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 24, 2006 08:12 AM
- Oh and by the way. Just to give you some more good news. Sooner or later the "myth" of championing of the "little guy", which the Liberal/Democratic party has used to hang on for the past 50 years, is also going the way of the Dodo bird. When Hillery did her pandering gesture of "Plantation in the Congress" speech during MLK day, it was an embarrissment. She lacks the political polish of her husband, whom was always able to use the "grievance" card of identity politics to his favor. For her, the thought process among Black Americans shifts from "looking out for me" to "you poor incapable thing". The long term problem for the Democrats is maintaining that plantation thinking, not eleminating it. They will instantly lose 3/4's of their base when the minorities come to realize what got them there, the race card, becomes a yoke around your neck at some point, denying you true self sufficiency and economic parity. Condi Rice may well be the death knoll for the Democrats, which I'm sure they are all to aware of, so personally I expect an even more vicious, openly racist, campaign strategy in 2008 from the Dems. Black Americans will only stand for just so many eggregious attacks on one of their finest accomplished citizens before they come to see the Dem game plan, and realize theres more gold in "overcoming" than in grievance. After all everyone knows there is nothing that a welfare based party has to offer a truly self sufficient citizen.
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 24, 2006 10:01 AM
are youtruly self sufficient, Big Bang? Can you even spell without assistance?
You claim that "Separation of powers" will keep Congress from curtailing the NSA's warrantless surveillance program: Have you ever heard the term checks and balances?
FISA was established in order to check the Executive--when the executive overstepped his bounds in the 60s and 70's.
Congress also can override Presidential veto-- but I don't suppose you knew that.
What an "embarrissment"...
Posted by: Brad at January 24, 2006 10:52 AM
- The ole "touchy-feely" thing `eh Brad. You've got nothing or you would stay on subject.
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 24, 2006 11:09 AM
BBH,
If the Senate Democrats had not given Alito a hard time-- that is, if they hadn't asked him any tough questions, and if special interest groups had not protested in any way, and Alito had gotten a "clean bill of health," as it were-- wouldn't you and your Republican buddies have said,"Look at them Dummiecrats--they're a bunch a wimps. They just rolled over and gave up! Ha!"
Point being: the "advise and consent" role the Senate is constitutionally obligated to play doesn't mean "roll over."
BTW, you never responded in a substantive way to any of my points about Congress having the right to oversee and approve surveillance, and warrantless surveillance being limited by law to the first fifteen days of a conflict. What gives?
Posted by: Brad at January 25, 2006 09:31 AM
Brad - the typical leftwing evasions. Heres the skinny. The Dembulbs did not limit their freeking "inquisition" to the normal areas, namely questions intended to uncover weakness of chracter, areas of lacking important experience; In other words the normal approach that should be taken. Instead they used the hearings as a podium for long party speeches, playing to the base, and making it absolutely clear they were intending to vote as a partisan block against him, precisely because, hes not an ideological handmaiden for their favorite activist positions. At the same time they've engaged in the worst sort of ideological/partisan gimmickry, threatening fillibuster, they are so desperate to placate their base. In other words they've completely gone off the deep end into partisanship and base pandering. For you to try to hide behind legitamate inquiry is just more of the usual perfidity that the left seems to have raised to an art form. Its obvious, you're whole agenda, even to an 8 year old.
- The statutes you're quoting apply only to innocent American citizens, and has nothing to do with enemy combatants in a time of war. Intersetingly enough your own people have suddenly started soft peddling this whole idiotic screed, now saying they think FISA only applies if a citizen is talking to an "al Qaeda" agent. I think they'll even back off on that, because its pretty much a given if you're acting in a possible way that makes you an agent to our ewnemies you're also a combatant, protected only by the geneva conventions. I'd hate to be the lawyer that tried to argue otherwise in front of the SCOTUS or even the 9th circuit. You'd have your head handed to you.
- The reversal of your Komrades, is no doubt due, to the poll feedback they're getting that says this is another badly conceived "get Bush" campaign, that the public isn't buying.
- One of ypour problems is whats called "issue saturation". Even if almost everyone of the thinly desguised "get Bush" efforts hadn't gone over the PR cliff in the last 6 years, the pattern begins to be obvious even to the most casual observer. Maybe the Dems thought this was their only chance to regain power, but even one of your own talking heads, Bob Beckle, said on FOX the other day, ..."you need to give up the ghost on BDS and get a party plan together or its not going to matter". Ignore the advice at you own colective political peril.
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 25, 2006 04:03 PM
- I left a few typo's in there just to give you something to do with your pandantic brain besides mentally masterbating..... *snort*
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 25, 2006 05:20 PM
The statutes you're quoting apply only to innocent American citizens, and has nothing to do with enemy combatants in a time of war
BBH: you seem to have this incredible trust of your Federal government, thinking that they only conduct surveillance operations on "enemy combatants."
Also: you make refernec to "long party speeches." You know that expression about "the pot calling the kettle black?"
Now go wash out your potty mouth, and get a dictionary.
Posted by: Brad at January 25, 2006 06:19 PM
"you make refernec...."[sic]..."...and get a dictionary."...You know that expression about "the pot calling the kettle black?"
- See...theres your lesson for the day son. Now you know why only someone who is young and inexperienced ventures into the "I'm so fucking perfect" arena ...
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 25, 2006 08:49 PM
I guess you don't know the difference between a typo and a misspelling. "Desguised" for example, is clearly a misspelling.
Look Hunter-- clearly you don't want to debate, you just want to snicker and sling mud. How old are you?
Posted by: Brad at January 26, 2006 09:32 AM
- Kid I have tooth brushes older than you. Thats also not a good line. Do you have a serious attention span problem or what?
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 26, 2006 09:04 PM
- But look. I don't want to hurt your tender feelings or ears, so I'll go easy on you.
- You asked do I have this incredible trust of my government. I would think it kind of odd to vote for someone and then run around in an elevated state of paranoia and not give him my trust. Besides this is all more malarkey. When slick Willy was having his apple polished and diddling any woman unfortunate enough to find herself alone with him, I don't recall a single Liberal doing anything but defending his amoral BS, and absolutely no screeching that he was attacking your liberties when he was doing break and enters without a warrant.
- The Liberals have shown they're simply going to try/say anything they're so panicky about being out of power. Again they are running another scam, hoping the general public will fall for it. They can't get access to certain information unless one of their Liberal lackies leaks it illegally to the press because they don't have the clearances. The President, CIA, NSA, DoJ, Secret Servive, Miltary Security et. al., are closely monitored by oversight committees and select Senators on the hill that have the clearences and review everything they do. Its been that way for many years, and the BS'ing Dems know that full well. So just stop with the nonsense if you want anyone to ever take you serious again.
- I think you lefties want to believe that everyone else that's not in your camp is some kind of mental door stop. Trust me. You most assuredly do not have the market cornered on intelligence, as badly as you need to think you do. Whats even worse is, everyone out there sees through all your tangled revisionist "nuance". the only thing nuanced is your own brains. Watching you argue some of these things is actually embarrassing.
- BTW, you might want to pull in your spurs a bit. All your Dembulb leaders today, the Bush-bashing gang, suddenly took a decidedly softer line. Now its down to: "Well if we don't have a law then we should." Right...absolutely....of course... We really need to pass laws just to assuage your phoney paranoia. Uh huh.... check
- What happened is they're seeing the feedback from this idiotic scheme is not cutting it with the public. So now you're 0 and 16. Whats the next attack going to be? So pitiful and obvious, as well as boring and infantile....
(When you get done spell checking my post, see if you can understand and comprehend English.)
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 26, 2006 09:39 PM