Mark Schauer Condemns Bush’s and Walberg’s Fear-Mongering
Crazy wingnut Tim Walberg doesn’t yet realize what even the White House has realized–the fear mongering isn’t working any more. Here’s the op-ed Walberg wrote condemning Democrats because they insist on protecting Americans’ civil liberties and privacy.
House leadership will not support current FISA legislation because the bill would prevent trial lawyers from suing American telecommunications companies who cooperate with American intelligence agencies’ monitoring of foreign terrorist communications.
Recent news reports revealed that almost 40 lawsuits are pending against the very telecommunications companies who helped our country in a time of crisis. Gathering intelligence to defend America’s national security has never been and should never be a political issue.
It is shameful that some in Washington place the ability of trial lawyers to sue over national security. When American companies assist American intelligence agencies with monitoring foreign terrorist threats, they should be thanked, not sued.
We need the foreign intelligence surveillance law passed so America’s intelligence community can monitor al-Qaida and other terrorist networks without getting permission to listen to foreign terrorists plotting on foreign lands.
I guess Tim Walberg doesn’t even know that our intelligence community already has–and has always had–the ability "to monitor … al Qaeda without getting permission to listen to foreign terrorists plotting on foreign lands." If he doesn’t even know that most basic fact about FISA, then he surely doesn’t know that the reason the telecoms want immunity is because they agreed to spy on Americans based solely on the legal authorization of the White House Counsel–the President’s own lawyer!
Blue America is supporting Walberg’s challenger, Mark Schauer. Here’s what Mark has to say about FISA:
I’m Mark Schauer. Personally I’m tired of Tim Walberg and George W. Bush using fear about our national security to score cheap political points. Congress has passed legislation to ensure that tools are in place to protect our country’s safety, but Walberg and Bush seem more interested in protecting big corporations that have helped them listen to our phone calls, read our emails, violate our privacy, then they are about protecting law-abiding citizens. I believe our Constitution, and our rights, including our right to privacy, are worth fighting for. If our government or big corporations break the rules, they should be held accountable.
Support the guy who supports the Constitution, not more fear-mongering.
Actually the fear-mongering is only part of a huge iceberg. I know parts of it from being in a family for more than 26 years who joined them back in the 70’s. And do they have plans! Unbelievable stories always are more fun when everything is trying to come together! Better hold on to your hat because you haven’t seen anything yet!
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL
Sorry, I forgot to add that my ex-family got busted in Mexico later last year. There are web articles on investigations with busting “Clyde O’Connor” and Ton’s of cocaine.
U.S. Cocaine-Plane Invasion Spooking Latin America
Trail of Evidence Points to Major Covert Operation Targeting Venezuela
http://narconews.com/Issue51/article3031.html
Clyde and my ex-brother-in-law are brother-in-laws and partners and the money may behind Clyde. Even though the family often bragged about being a CIA Asset, Clyde is still “foot loose and fancy free”! Imagine that! But what’s even more interesting is how many years they have been involved as a CIA Asset as this started way back in the 70’s. Search on “The Dirty War” to learn their first connection with a CIA operation. But it even gets more interesting as there’s a huge Laundromat that involves a lot of people to handle the $100 weekly shipments of cocaine that come into the Chicago area split with Florida and New York. And all my yelling and screaming about this has gotten me nowhere. There are a lot of someone’s being protected and I know this goes way up! Being in a family for more than 26 years has given me a good education but this has also become personal since my youngest son is involved with Rezko, on trial in Federal Court in Chicago. Oh by the way, the family is also tied in with Gus Boulis and his Casino Boat business. I was supposed to visit him in 1990 for a week but didn’t. Lucky I didn’t go as look what happened to Gus.
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL
So Marty. Baby. You seem to know what the Really Big Coin is that’s gonna drop. So spill already!
“Support the guy who puts supports the Constitution, not more fear-mongering.”
This is the operative line. My Representative is a Dem. member of the Progressive Caucus, but not very. One of my (Democratic) senators was a member of the Gang of 14 who enabled the Alito nomination, and who voted for the bad Senate FISA bill. I’d consider voting for an honest Republican with a track record for supporting the Constitution against either one of them, if I ever get the opportunity. I am truly fed up with the “Impeachment is off the table” Democrats, no matter what their “Progressive” rating is.
Bob in HI
Oops. But I better get rid of that second verb in the sentence, then, huh?
“Oops. But I better get rid of that second verb in the sentence, then, huh?”
Yeah, well that, too. I knew what you meant. *G*
Bob in HI
Agree completely.
But as for Walberg’s ‘trial lawyers’ obsession:
First, I wonder which Wingnut Think Tank fax that piece of fear mongering drivel oozed from (because Walberg probably didn’t write that piece of foaming hysteria).
Second, I wonder… and yeah, I hate to get ‘too personal’, but I still wonder… how did Walberg become so afraid? Did he spend his childhood confined to a playpen, never allowed to explore? Did he ever climb a tree (and fall out of it)? Did he ever get to make ‘forts’ with blankets and furniture when he was a kid? Did no one ever read him a bedtime story and tuck him in? On any number of levels, more and more I find myself wondering how much of the insanity that we see on the public stage traces back to inept, impoverished, or simply inadequate parenting.
How did these people become so afraid?
I just don’t get it.
Trial lawyers are the new immigrants when it comes to right wing hate mongering.
OT, but that is one nice ad for Greenwald’s book in the upper right of the page.
o.k., ew,
but i’m not exactly one of the fdl cognoscenti.
so, for one,
where is this guy from?
what’s his sin?
Schauer?
His district starts about a mile from my house. MI-07, currently occupied by Tim Walberg. Schauer is currently the Dem Leader in the State Senate. He’s from Battle Creek, MI, and has always done well in his district, which is a big chunk of the Congressional district. A nice guy.
thanks, ew.
i’ve got my bearings now.
Schauer’s may be the strongest argument against immunity, but Bush Immunity by extension is at the heart of the matter, for, by extension, immunity for Telco’s is immunity for BushCo; that’s what loyal Bushies are really after.
The Telco’s are easily off the hook when they present their evidence of
BushCo letters or corroborated statements assuring them they were within the letter of the law. Their own industry associations have published letters that telco’s need no damn immunity. They WANT the hearings to proceed!
So many recommendations of the 9/11 commission have been ignored.
– port security and search of shipping containers
– better integration between CIA & FBI (this last obviously a fatal flaw that mad the success of the 9/11 attack possible)
– changes in US foreign policy, which currently unnecessarily inflames world public opinion (not sure if the 9/11 commish discussed this, but it’s clearly a major issue)
It would be good if implementing the recs of the 9/11 commission was a campaign issue now. As usual, the Bush/Cheney faction has done an excellent job in diverting attention to a non-issue (as far as fighting terrorism is actually concerned).
We do live with real risk of a serious terror attack.
O/T and several days late, but I just watched the 60 Minutes interview with Feith, and there is a priceless moment about halfway through when it becomes clear that Feith cannot remember a clear statement in his own book, the claim that the looting in Baghdad post-invasion was a direct result of too few troops. At first he says he doesn’t think he discussed troop levels. And then when the passage is read back to him, he tries “misremember.”
He didn’t write his own book. I know you’re shocked.
And more from Juan Cole today:
http://www.juancole.com/
I just noticed Jack Goldsmith wrote in Slate that we need telecom immunity. Wtf, Jack!
I’m sorry to tell you this, Sparkles, and when I say I’m sorry, I really mean that I am sorry, but that is where Goldsmith, Comey, and Philbin have been for a while, along with Ashcroft:
All those nice young men. I don’t understand it.
Oh yeah, I guess that does ring a vague bell. That little trio is so hellbent on trying to persuade us that everyone in the Bush WH, DoD, and DoJ only wanted to protect America. Everything they did was only to protect America. Every night they lay awake, the Cheneys, Addingtons, Libbys, the Yoos and Bybees and Haynes, envisioning future terrorist attacks and thinking of ways to protect America. Because the biggest executive power grab in the history of America was NOT foremost on their minds, no sir.
Yes, except I don’t understand why the trio would have any interest in defending the others. Sheesh: if you turned out to be smarter than the others were, why not recognize that? It worries me a bit because it makes me wonder what else is there that we don’t know about.
A lot.
Two things:
First:
It continues to bug me how the Bush/Cheney administration is able to generate any degree of support for the notion that intercepting & warehousing every phone call & email message American citizens have does results in any actionable intelligence.
Right from the outset conversation is by far the most idiomatically & personally nuanced form of communication, and thus the most obscure form of intelligence. Even a complete forgery is more amenable to being analyzed down to something meaningful, the Ledeen fictions on the Iraq-Niger alleged deal being a pretty typical example. Ive been involved in several dozen major criminal enterprise prosecutions, either for the government or in defending someone, with data bases of wiretapped communications ranging from a handful to a upwards of a half-million, and not one of them succeeded in securing a conviction for anything without at least one other inherently more compelling form of evidence concerning which the evidence from the wiretaps at highest worked to eliminate or reduce doubts as to the motives of those involved in doing the things the other evidence proved they had done or were planning on doing.
That is, the only effective use of wiretapped material in the setting of criminal litigation is extremely narrow.
Ive seen a few instances where wiretapping intelligence led to discovery of other more important & definitive evidence, but in each such case the wiretapping was done very narrowly, with a focus on at most a handful of persons whose activities were already such to attract attention, & with the benefit of the wiretapped evidence coloring the content of the communications to allow for follow-up. Broad, aimless, ”non-minimized” wiretapping invariably will come up with SOMETHING [the revelations on Gov Spitzer being typical, regardless of whether that was actually how the investigation got onto his hobby], but the broader and less minimized the program, the more the chance of that approach yielding something actionable approach the order of odds of it being found out without wiretapping even existing.
Life is full of risk & will always be so. For the government to spend billions on technology aimed at scouring all electronic communications to sift through it all with machinery incapable of applying idiomatic discriminators means upping the odds of finding out some impending plot on the scale which the Bush-Cheney administration uses for advertising purposes numerically not exponentially, as if it were rational for you to spend the equity in your house to buy tickets in a nationwide lottery.
Second:
The design of the plot that led to the 9/11 tragedies was in large part a function of its audacity, on a scale which even Osama Bin Laden has both said & implied exceeded his grandiose expectations. Even from reading just Lawrence Wright’s its clear ObL understands the real power in that event lay in promoting the kind of insensible paranoia which after all is the aim of acts of terrorism. So what in hell value in draining the national treasury & stripping out huge features of what it means to be an American in an absurdly-long-odds effort to look for something that isn’t going to happen anyway?
Yesterday & today the punditocracy has engaged in relative weighting of the latest evidence that suggests Sen McCain has not bothered to even try to understand the difference between Sunni Muslims & Shia Muslims, against Sen Obama saying ”Iraq” in reference to a foreign influence on ”Iraq” when he clearly meant, as the witnesses readily recognized, ”Iran”. No matter how one wishes to spin those mistakes, there is no excuse is available to someone like Rep Walberg who has penned or approved or allowed his name to appended to a deliberately composed lie. That is a sure sign of having sold out his oath of office or possessing an intelligence which is so low it would disqualify him from any public service beyond gathering up hotdog wrappers in a park.
Hmmm said:
“So Marty. Baby. You seem to know what the Really Big Coin is that’s gonna drop. So spill already!”
From what I know, there are many coins and some have already dropped. The big one is a White House Coup by a similar group who tried in 1933. But for reasons I can not discuss, the Coup is having trouble although we may end up having to live with a lot of crap from their attempt for years.
An important side note is that the results of the 1933 Coup produced little if any consequences for those involved. Point blank, they get all of them nor did they take care of justice correctly. My family was laudnering money for the Iran/Contra affair in the 80’s. Look who got blamed and what happened to them. Same as the 1933 Coup, little if any consequences paid and few were brought to justice. So here we are again, only this time there’s more than 7000 people dead or murdered depending upon how you look at it and thousands harmed all for money and to set a path for Dictatorship.
I was told the Coup was a long term process taking years to setup the Government for a moment where we have a day called “The Change” The Change would be when the Dictatorship was imposed and the Prisons or Detention Camps would start up. I was personally warned that if I talk to anyone about this that I would be setup and thrown into a Mental Ward. Or even worse, be set up for someone elses murder and executed similar to what was happening in Texas at the time. Bush was the Texas Governor at the time.
The Change would be triggered by the collapse of our economy thought by the family to be started by a collapse of the Housing/Loan Market. If you look at our economy and what is happening to our dollar, everything appears to be in the starting point of a tailspin.
What funds the Coup is the sale of Drugs that pays for “Black Op’s” which supports the changes for the Coup. The “Drug system” is absolutely enormous and is complete with laundromats, protection systems for the laundromats and much more. I was told that “corruption” protects and guarantees safe passage from point of origin all the way to each destination. A lot was discussed about Colombia and it’s easier to point you to look at what is currently happening in that area.
The laundromat in my area which the family is directly involved has a small army of people involved. The family braged about being a CIA Asset as they have been involved since “The Dirty War” later 70’s. This comment came about from me questioning my brother-in-law about why they choose to do such a risky venture. He felt they wouldn’t ever be touched AND he said that the Banks from the 1933 Coup never were touched. He said there are far too many people able to protect the others if something were to happen.
You can’t run a wide scale drug system without special security and credit checking systems either. This also exists and no one is going to believe it either. The Chicago papers seem to be protecting those in higher places because they run from getting involved and block other attempts. I was told in the 80’s and 90’s that both papers have people placed in special places and this seems to be true.
Along with my family are the DuPonts who I was introduced to one while married. They were discussed in this latest article released yesterday at MadCow.
‘Hyena Pack’ Owned DC9 Busted in Mexico
http://www.madcowprod.com/04092008.html
There’s been other articles written that more than suggest a Coup is in the works. I’ve been talking about what I know for a years as well.
The Silent Coup – How a nation ruled by law, becomes a nation ruled by men http://www.opednews.com/articl…..p___ho.htm
There are reasons why I can’t talk about the credit and Bank areas more than I have already. I’m able to but I can’t right now – sorry. But what should be remembered is that the family started in the later 70’s and still are involved to this day doing the same things. Hence, being a CIA Asset seems to have some meaning for the current moment that is until the FBI functions correctly. Here I have a lot more to talk about but for this time I can’t — sorry.
The drug system is important to the Coups existance. It’s huge and involves a great deal spanding over many countries. Notice what is currently happening in Colombia and the Colombian President’s pursuit of getting more money from us, plus don’t dismiss what he was known for before becoming President. FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds explanation explains a great deal and who is involved at the top. Some of these names were favorite topics within the family along with explanations seem to sum up more of a complete criminal system. Once the drug system is broken up, the Coup will have to look elsewhere for finanical support. This appears to be currently starting to happen and to me is a good sign.
There is a whole lot more Mmmm but maybe it could be for another time. Hope this helps?
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL
Mmmm… Another link for you to look at.
Continuity of Government & The “ENDGAME” Scenario
http://antifascist-calling.blo…..dgame.html
There are many links to review however the landscape is constantly changing. Usually the best is the latest since it’s a collection of past effort. Please Enjoy…
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL