My prediction about the NSA hearings

In reality it will end up being nothing but a show put on by the politicians to convince the (typical) citizen that they, the government, take individual civil rights serious. When folks like us know that the government could care less, so long as their corporate sponsor money keeps coming in.

Sorry if I am being pessimistic. I hope I am wrong...

I was impressed with the indignation from both Dems and GOPers.

http://daoureport.salon.com/synopsis.aspx?synopsisId=c7a6261b-ca97-4bd2-a4a0-655d131080f3

Aside from Kennedy, Leahy, Feinstein (*gasp*..she was good) and Feingold..it was a "snore fest" unless you like Repug Pumps of their Buddies which there was enough of to make one :puke:

But you are probably not.

After watching the hearings I wonder if some senators on both sides are actually frightened by this. It is hard to predict how fear will play out. It also appears to me some Senators have discovered they represent a branch of Government.

My predictions:

a) hearing result in new legislation that legalizes wholesale domestic monitoring of "us persons" based on the executives assertion of need.

or

b) hearing results in absolutely no action by congress, implicitly granting the executive its asserted power to, under their bogus article 2 theory of executive authority and their pathetic claim of authorization via the IWR, do any damn thing they please, constitution or no constitution, legislation or no legislation: the hearing will demarcate the total abdication of the legislative check on executive imperialism.

You take your pick. Just another milestone on the road to tyranny.

Nothing will happen. Like everything else, it'll spin down the memory hole. NSA spying? What spying? Jeez, I think I remember some controversy about this back in 2006. Nothing ever came of it, right?

As long as they keep up the lies, and no one cracks, the leakers will be protrayed as wrongheaded traitorous misfits, and everyone in this regime will get their payoffs if/when they are booted out of power.

Specter and Lindsey Graham have big problems with Gonzales and the NSA spying.

But having to watch Sessions, Hatch, Grassley, Cornyn and Kyl are the sickening parts. They have forfeited any rights to call themselves conservative. As John Dean pointed out on Countdown tonight, throughout history conservatives have been strongly opposed to the inherent rights of the executive exercised by Lincoln and Roosevelt in times of war. That these sycophants can so easily bow down to the Bush Crime Family strips them of any conservative credentials. These people bank on that word ... it's the magic word among Republicans because so many voters identify themselves as conservative.

Democrats should adopt the term conservative in its true meaning ... upholding and defending the basic principles and liberties of the Constitution. The Republicans have become radicals. The term "Radical Republicans" was coined in the aftermath of the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination. The trademark of the Radical Republicans was "waving the bloody shirt" of the war. But after winning election after election by waving that bloody shirt, they presided over the Gilded Age --- enormous accumulations of wealth based on monopolies, speculation, cronyism, and slave labor.

Sound familiar?

Specter showed his true colors with the opening shenanigans making Gnozles testimony unsworn bullshit. He is a duplicitous asshat and is using this hearing to enable more and better tyranny.

Specter said that Gonzales was willing to take the oath, so why didn't he?

Specter's defense was that the laws against lying to Congress are just as strong as the perjury laws. If that's the case, why swear in anybody ever????

Nonetheless, I think Specter and Graham are really pissed about the NSA spying. Being Republicans, they are couching their opposition in as friendly terms as possible. You know that Republicans bucking Rove & Co. are walking a fine line. Specter did say on MTP yesterday that he thinks Bush is breaking the law.

And his closing questions to Gonzales were right between the eyes.