The Wiretapping Issue

    In between the election and the carnage in Iraq and the other top news stories in the past few months, we have forgotten all about the illegal wiretapping issue that is slowly winding its way through the courts.

   Thus far, the program has continued unabated. AHHH, but the Dems are taking over soon. Will things change any?

 

Despite a Year of Ire and Angst, Little Has Changed on Wiretaps

By ERIC LICHTBLAU @ NYTimes
Published: November 25, 2006

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 — When President Bush went on national television one Saturday morning last December to acknowledge the existence of a secret wiretapping program outside the courts, the fallout was fierce and immediate.

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and head of the Judiciary Committee, said his party missed its chance on wiretapping.

Mr. Bush’s opponents accused him of breaking the law, with a few even calling for his impeachment. His backers demanded that he be given express legal authority to do what he had done. Law professors talked, civil rights groups sued and a federal judge in Detroit declared the wiretapping program unconstitutional.

      More HERE

It is time to get out of Iraq!

By Washington correspondent Kim Landers

from ABCNEWS Online

The United States has condemned the violence in Iraq that has left more than 200 people dead.

The White House is calling the car bomb attacks in the Shiite Sadr City area of Baghdad "senseless acts of violence".

A spokesman says US President George W Bush is committed to working with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, and a meeting between the two leaders in Jordan next week will go ahead.

Supporters of the prominent Iraqi Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, have threatened to pull out of Iraq's national unity cabinet and parliament if Prime Minister Al-Maliki meets Mr Bush as planned next week.

The group says US troops should be held responsible for attacks in Sadr City because the troops had failed to improve security there.

It claims to have evidence of collusion between US forces and Sunni extremists.

Meanwhile, US Vice-President Dick Cheney will be in Saudi Arabia tomorrow for talks with King Abdullah about the situation in nearby Iraq.

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     On top of this  we have Richard A. Clarke saying that we need to withdraw from Iraq.

 

by Richard A. Clarke  via New Republic
Post date 11.21.06 | Issue date 11.27.06

Americans tend to think we can achieve almost any goal if we just expend more resources and try a bit harder. That spirit has built the greatest nation in history, but it may be dooming Iraq. As the head of the British Army recently noted, the very presence of large numbers of foreign combat troops is the source of much of the violence and instability. Our efforts, then, are merely postponing the day when Iraqis find their way to something approaching normalcy. Only withdrawal offers a realistic path forward...

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    This Bush administration has kept us in Iraq for much longer than is necessary and it is time for us to come back home! There is no point in any more of our children getting killed in a war that was never thought out before we invaded.  Bush can claim that this war was about WMD's or liberating Iraq all day long but we all know that this is not now, nor has it ever been, true.   Be a man for once Mr.Bush, admit your mistake and bring our girls and boys home!