forsberg_us wrote:

Max wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

I don't believe the Constitution distinguishes between those circumstances.  I'm not suggesting waiting a year, but are you really suggesting that in today's era of cell phone and blackberry technology, you couldn't get in contact with enough senators for an emergency vote in a matter of a few minutes?  Obama is receiving plenty of criticism of his action from his own side of aisle for the way he handled this issue.  Kucinich even went so far as to call Obama's actions "impeachable."

The constitution does not distinguish the two, common sense does.  Go back through history and you will find many instances of the president committing US troops to combat missions without a declaration of war from the Senate.  The debate as to whether it is an abuse of power or a privilege of the Commander-in-Chief greatly predates Obama's action in Libya, a point that I am sure you are well aware of.

Personally, I don't agree with Kucinich on the impeachability quote.  But I don't really see any facts that justified keeping this from Congress.  First of all, it wasn't like this situation popped up overnight.  The original protests started in mid-February.  Gaddafi's military forces began beating back the rebels around the end of February.  The Arab League began seeking a UN imposed no-fly zone in early March.  Logic would suggest that the Senate could have been assembled and asked to vote to authorize the use of the military in the event the UN took action.  Of course, that may have required the president to cancel his Brazilian vacation.

Well, I suspect the decision works like this:

1) if we go to the senate for a little skirmish like this we give away power that other presidents have wrested away from the senate and risk a whisper campaign of being called a wuss.

2) if we go to the senate, each and every senator who knows how to wield power will ask for his or cut in order win his or her vote.  by the time we're through buying this victory, the political cost will have been more than it is worth. 

Fuck the senate, this will be done by executive order.

Please guys. Let's not re-hash this. Even Ann Coulter admits the evidence is overwhelming that Vince Foster committed suicide. And Wellstone and Brown both died in accidental plane crashes. You know how much I love a good conspiracy theory, but there's just nothing there.

The author of the Wellstone book is also convinced Bush brought down the towers on 9-11. I don't exactly consider him a very credible source.

My biggest issue with our involvement in Libya--and admittedly it isn't based on anything but a gut feeling--is that just like Afghanistan in the late 70's/early 80's, we're going to look back 20 years from now and realize that we supported and armed the people we are then fighting against. 

I know the theory is that we're preventing the massacre of civilians, but as the rebels move into cities that support Ghaddafi, are we to believe they aren't killing any civilians?  And if they are, then aren't we contributing to their deaths?  Plus it now seems Ghaddafi's forces are winning anyway. If he's winning with the no-fly zone in place, do we simply let him win, or do we start attacking his tanks and artillery?  If he wins and starts executing the opposition, do we step in?  What's the end game?

forsberg_us wrote:

The author of the Wellstone book is also convinced Bush brought down the towers on 9-11. I don't exactly consider him a very credible source.

I believe that you misspoke and meant to say that 'one of the two authors of the Wellstone book . . . '. 

In any event, the issue is not his testimony, counsel, but the facts.






Then again, as regards 9/11, it has been observed that there are four broad classes of conspiracy theories:

1) the Bush administration's explanation (i.e. a conspiracy of 20 Arab college students in Germany planned and executed the whole thing).
     -this conspiracy theory has been strongly attacked by a variety of groups, conservative and liberal, including some of the organizations of the survivors of 9/11

2) the second broad class of 9/11 conspiracy theories is that massive government negligence created a gap that 20 Arab college students in Germany were luckily able to exploit. 
     -the Bush administration (and Clinton Administration) hates this one.

3) the third class of 9/11 conspiracy theories is that the government was aware of the plot, but did nothing, knowing that it would provide the "Pearl Harbor" that the Neo-Cons desired to start a new series of wars in the Middle East.
     -you might recall that arch-conservative Raj used to voice support for this class of conspiracy theories.  You might also have noticed that many scholars now suppose that the real Pearl Harbor falls into this class of conspiracy theories, that is, the Roosevelt administration had already broken the Japanese naval code, and surely must have known that the attack was coming.  That the strategically crucial aircraft carriers all headed out to sea shortly before the attacks, and the outdated battleships all stayed behind to get bombed (and sunk, in the case of several), appears either very lucky, or else highly damning.  So, there appears to be a historical precedent for this class of conspiracies.

4) the fourth class of 9/11 conspiracy theories is that it was actually planned by America, or perhaps Israel, presumably to achieve the ends noted in "3)" above.
     -you might notice that Operation Northwoods, conceived of by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and proposed to President Kennedy in 1962, is very similar in its overall strategy and tactics.  It "included hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government. It stated: The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.'"  So, false flag operations like this have known precedents.

Last edited by Max (3/31/2011 1:09 am)

You forgot several other equally plausable theories

5) The Westborough Baptist Church theory- 9/11 was God smiting the US for its tolerance of homosexuality.

6) The Tokyo theory- Godzilla did it

7) The Clask of the Titans-  Unable to locate a virgin in or near NYC to sacrifice, the Kracken brought down the towers.

8) The Moon Landing Theory- Planes never crashed into the towers.  They're still there, but ordinary citizens are no longer able to see them

9) The Harry Potter Theory- The towers came down as part of Voldemort's return to power.

"9) The Harry Potter Theory- The towers came down as part of Voldemort's return to power."

Hold it right there, buster. Anyone with a brain knows Voldemort was in Romania trying to track down the Elder Wand so he could unite the three Hallows and attain immortality.
It's patently obvious that Snape, in his role as a spy for the Order of the Phoenix, brought down the towers on secret orders from Dumbledore in an attempt to frame Voldemort and force the Ministry of Magic to acknowledge the Dark Lord had, in fact, returned to power and was not only gathering Death Eaters but having them infiltrate the Ministry itself.
Since he was already in possession of the Elder Wand, Dumbledore - aware that he was under the terminal curse of the horcrux Voldemort placed in Slytherin's ring - knew when Snape then acted on his request to kill him, Snape would in turn be killed by Voldemort, thus eliminating the only two people who knew about the 9/11 conspiracy.
So stick that in your Beaded Bag, Mr. Know-It-All.

Last edited by artie_fufkin (3/31/2011 9:48 am)

artie_fufkin wrote:

Max wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

And Wellstone and Brown both died in accidental plane crashes. You know how much I love a good conspiracy theory, but there's just nothing there.

You are very gullible if you are not even a little bit suspicious by the death of Paul Wellstone, his wife, and daughter.  Please read at least a little bit.  And also know one thing, electro-magnetic pulse is not a mystery weapon, it is a known fact.

I was curious when it happened, but I've read enough to convince myself that someone would have come forward with some form of information about a conspiracy.
I've been told by enough cops enough times that the main reason they're able to solve crimes is because people can't keep their mouths shut. If Wellstone's plane was brought down on purpose, someone would have talked by now.

There is a difference between dumb everyday punks and guys hired by the government to assassinate someone.  Not saying it is true but if it is whoever did it is one drunken slippage of words from dieing if they are not dead already.

forsberg_us wrote:

You forgot several other equally plausable theories

5) The Westborough Baptist Church theory- 9/11 was God smiting the US for its tolerance of homosexuality.

6) The Tokyo theory- Godzilla did it

7) The Clask of the Titans-  Unable to locate a virgin in or near NYC to sacrifice, the Kracken brought down the towers.

8) The Moon Landing Theory- Planes never crashed into the towers.  They're still there, but ordinary citizens are no longer able to see them

9) The Harry Potter Theory- The towers came down as part of Voldemort's return to power.

So, presumably you are such a thorough advocate of the Bush Administration's conspiracy theory that you ridicule all others: Mohammed Atta, using a few million dollars provided by Al Qaeda, organized 19 other Arab students to plot a simultaneous hijacking and bombing of 4 large airplanes, learned to fly, and pulled off an attack so novel and audacious that the USA had never dreamed that such a thing would happen and thus had no credible mechanism to defend against that novel style of attack.

That's a pretty wild conspiracy theory, Fors.

APRTW wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

Max wrote:

You are very gullible if you are not even a little bit suspicious by the death of Paul Wellstone, his wife, and daughter.  Please read at least a little bit.  And also know one thing, electro-magnetic pulse is not a mystery weapon, it is a known fact.

I was curious when it happened, but I've read enough to convince myself that someone would have come forward with some form of information about a conspiracy.
I've been told by enough cops enough times that the main reason they're able to solve crimes is because people can't keep their mouths shut. If Wellstone's plane was brought down on purpose, someone would have talked by now.

There is a difference between dumb everyday punks and guys hired by the government to assassinate someone.  Not saying it is true but if it is whoever did it is one drunken slippage of words from dieing if they are not dead already.

There is a famous stat from the movie Executive Action: "At the end of the film a photo collage is shown of 18 witnesses: all but two of whom died from unnatural causes within three years of the assassination. A voice-over says that an actuary of the British newspaper The Sunday Times calculated the probability that all these people who witnessed the assassination would die within that period of time to be 1000 trillion to one."

And there is an interesting comparison from Indonesia.  Suharto's wife died in . . . 1996, I think.  Rumors began floating very quickly that she was accidentally shot by one of her sons as she tried to be a human shield to protect another of her sons, during a brother on brother fight.  On my trip last week I heard some new 'details' which is that the doctors and nurses who treated "Ibu Tien" all vanished without a trace.  There is far less known fact about the death of Ibu Tien than there is about the death of JFK, but in any case, it is not unheard of to eliminate witnesses.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Beck is done.  He's so far out of it he has become a weight around the ankle of movement conservatism and Fox is trying to dump him, but in an elegant way.  He'll be gone before the next election cycle, before next month if Fox can find a soft landing for him.

The Today show had a Glenn Beck tape announcing his ending of his show.  Guess you knew Artie!

artie_fufkin wrote:

Webstergrovesalum wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

Beck is done.  He's so far out of it he has become a weight around the ankle of movement conservatism and Fox is trying to dump him, but in an elegant way.  He'll be gone before the next election cycle, before next month if Fox can find a soft landing for him.

The Today show had a Glenn Beck tape announcing his ending of his show.  Guess you knew Artie!

That quote was from Max. It's OK to say whatever you like as long until your ratings start dropping and your advertisers start to flee.
The right-wing radio station here just exorcised its house troglodyte. He got the axe because he admitted on the air to hiring his female interns on the basis of their looks, sleeping with them, and telling his audience what an honor it was for the interns to sleep with him.

Pretty solid hiring criteria.  Just don't brag about it on the radio. 

(grin) (grin) (grin) (grin) (grin)

"Pretty solid hiring criteria.  Just don't brag about it on the radio."

I didn't say I had a problem with it. I think it's ironic that his bosses kept him on the air after comments about "Mexican women with mustaches" being responsible for importing Swine Flu, stating his desire to kill Muslims, and advocating for the impeachment, imprisonment and execution of the last three American presidents for treason, but finally decided he had crossed the line when bragged about banging some bimbos as far back as 20 years ago.