Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Meghan McCain Warns of Looming Civil War in the GOP
I suspect that the infighting among conservatives reflects a broader trend in our culture, or more specifically our culture wars. When you have been fighting for so long, sometimes it is hard to recognize that the war may have already been won or lost. The younger generations do not recognize the perceived or real threats shared by their parents. The older generations wrongly assume that the younger generations do not care. A word of caution to the more politically liberal among us...the same is true for them! While I may not personally agree with everything that Meghan McCain has voiced, I deeply respect her willingness to speak truth to power!
Posted: 09:00 AM ET on CNN PoliticalTicker
From CNN's Rebecca Sinderbrand
Meghan McCain addressed a group of gay Republicans in Washington Saturday.
WASHINGTON (CNN) – Meghan McCain warned a group of gay Republicans Saturday that there was "a war brewing in the Republican Party" – a war between the past and the future.
"Most of the old school Republicans are scared s***less of that future," she told a gathering of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay and lesbian party members.
The 24-year-old daughter of former GOP presidential candidate John McCain pushed back against critics upset over her comments to CNN that she wanted President Obama to succeed, and played down her recent headline-grabbing feuds with conservative commentators Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. "I did not expect my frustration with what I perceive to be overly partisan and divisive Republicans to cause a national incident," she said.
"I feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes…I think we're seeing a war brewing in the Republican Party," she said. "But it is not between us and Democrats. It is not between us and liberals. It is between the future and the past…
"I am concerned about the environment. I love to wear black. I think government is best when it stays out of people's lives and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government should always be efficient and accountable. I have lots of gay friends. And yes, I am a Republican," she told a cheering crowd.
Last week, McCain signed a deal with Hyperion to write a book about the future of the Republican Party. She said Saturday that embracing new technology wouldn't solve the party's problems. "Republicans using Twitter and Facebook isn't going to miraculously make people think we're cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don't divide our nation further will," she said. "That's why some in our party are scared. They sense the world around them is changing, and they are unable to take the risk to jump free of what's keeping our party down."
On Monday, McCain wrote an opinion piece urging the Republican Party to use more gay-friendly language. "Of all the causes I believe in and speak publicly about, this is one of the ones closest to my heart," she wrote in a blog post on the Daily Beast titled 'Memo to the GOP: Go Gay.' " If the Republican Party has any hope of gaining substantial support from a wider, younger base, we need to get past our anti-gay rhetoric."
McCain's father, former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, does not support same-sex marriage but opposed a constitutional amendment five years ago that would have banned the practice, calling the legislation "un-Republican." Speaking to the Log Cabin Republicans Friday, former Bush and McCain senior advisor Steve Schmidt publicly endorsed same-sex marriage.
© 2008 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Mr. Obama: Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely...
You gave us your word, "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Furthermore, you know that you are directed to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed...." Oh yea, one last word of truth spoken to power: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Mr. Obama, make this right!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
(04-06) 15:26 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The Obama administration is again invoking government secrecy in defending the Bush administration's wiretapping program, this time against a lawsuit by AT&T customers who claim federal agents illegally intercepted their phone calls and gained access to their records.
Disclosure of the information sought by the customers, "which concerns how the United States seeks to detect and prevent terrorist attacks, would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security," Justice Department lawyers said in papers filed Friday in San Francisco.
Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lawyer for the customers, said Monday the filing was disappointing in light of the Obama presidential campaign's "unceasing criticism of Bush-era secrecy and promise for more transparency."
In a 2006 lawsuit, the AT&T plaintiffs accused the company of allowing the National Security Agency to intercept calls and e-mails and inspect records of millions of customers without warrants or evidence of wrongdoing.
The suit followed President George W. Bush's acknowledgement in 2005 that he had secretly authorized the NSA in 2001 to monitor messages between U.S. residents and suspected foreign terrorists without seeking court approval, as required by a 1978 law.
Congress passed a new law last summer permitting the surveillance after Bush allowed some court supervision, the extent of which has not been made public. The law also sought to grant immunity to AT&T and other telecommunications companies from suits by customers accusing them of helping the government spy on them.
Nearly 40 such suits from around the nation, all filed after Bush's 2005 disclosure, have been transferred to San Francisco and are pending before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. He is now reviewing a constitutional challenge to last year's immunity law, which the Obama administration is defending.
Walker is also considering a challenge to the surveillance program by the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a now-defunct charity that was inadvertently given a government document in 2004, reportedly showing that its lawyers had been wiretapped during an investigation that landed the group on the government's terrorist list.
The Obama administration is also opposing that suit and has challenged Walker's order to let Al-Haramain's lawyers examine the still-classified surveillance document.
The administration's new filing asks Walker to dismiss a second suit filed in September by AT&T customers that sought to sidestep the telecommunications immunity law by naming only the government, Bush and other top officials as defendants.
Like the earlier suit, the September case relies on a former AT&T technician's declaration that he saw equipment installed at the company's San Francisco office to allow NSA agents to copy all incoming e-mails. The plaintiffs' lawyers say the declaration, and public statements by government officials, revealed a "dragnet" surveillance program that indiscriminately scooped up messages and customer records.
The Justice Department said Friday that government agents monitored only communications in which "a participant was reasonably believed to be associated with al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization." But proving that the surveillance program did not sweep in ordinary phone customers would require "disclosure of highly classified NSA intelligence sources and methods," the department said.
Individual customers cannot show their messages were intercepted, and thus have no right to sue, because all such information is secret, government lawyers said. They also said disclosure of whether AT&T took part in the program would tell the nation's enemies "which channels of communication may or may not be secure."
by Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/07/MNRP16TJOQ.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle
© 2009 Hearst Communications Inc.
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Friday, April 03, 2009
Bumble bee song
Well,sorry to keep you waiting!Here is another song I found along with butterfly.Enjoy!
