Do you think * had the NSA wiretap the Kerry campaign?

I can't help wondering if the * admin used the NSA to get the inside scoop on phone calls and emails within the Kerry campaign. Am I totally off-my-rocker paranoid to be thinking about this? :crazy:

I think there's a definite possibility that that took place. Or maybe we've both gone crazy. Either one.

If it is, (which I don't know) I can imagine Kerry's would have been - they might get inside information and if he was talking to international leaders (which he has done for 20+ years on the SFRC) they could twist it.

Do you think Rove would pass up a chance to sneak around?
He probably thought he was above the law, and it would never come out.
Just like leaking a CIA officer; having cronies at Diebold; re-districting counties... what else? And I'm sure the list will continue to grow.

This sounds EXACTLY like something they would do. The friggin' rat bastard weasels.

and ---- The friggin' rat bastard weasels.

It does sum them up well though - you wonder if that's what Kerry is thinking with those soulful stares in committees.

that Island Blue is genetically a Bay Stater. She was just born in the wrong state. ;-)

I do actually have deep, deep Massachusetts roots on one side of my family. (Of course my ancestors haven't lived there since the mid/late 1700's but who's counting?)

The truth is, we had some really good teachers this past weekend who taught us all a lot in a very short period of time. :) It was not only fun, but an educational experience.

that both HQs were wired.

You just watch what you say out loud or on email. Unless you don't give a s***.

(I believe you and if everyone thought that it likely was true) It justseems way too Nixon too believe.

Are you talking about 2 HQs of the Kerry campaign or are you saying both the * and Kerry HQs were possibly wire tapped. Just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly.

That would be my guess.

but KarenDC or one of the MA people would know for sure.

was in Washington.

The first location was on Capitol Hill (right around the corner from our house actually, making it possible for Dick to slip home and take a nap, since he was putting in 18 hour days). After March and the end of the primaries for all intents and purposes, that space was too small. There were people sitting on the staircases with laptops, along the hallways, etc.

The next space was about three blocks from the White House and was in what had formerly been a law firm (Bob Dole and I think George Mitchell had been in that space) and it was huge. I think the campaign had three full floors by the end.

The Boston HQ also grew by the summer and schedulers for JK and THK, were in both places, making the scheduling calls the most complicated! Remember JE and EE had to be scheduled as well.

When I think back, now, I realize that my husband was so right when he said, "there is no learning experience so intense as running for president." JK learned more than anybody; I think that is what we are seeing now.

and murderers and likely even had people paid off on the inside, too.

Where they wanted to bug the headquarters of the DNC? The supversion of our democracy was obvious then, now it seems, "Oh, I guess they would do that" - shows how much worse Bush is.

anything past these lying sleazy corrupt mf'ers. (New Yawker coming out of me)

I don't believe one fucking word that comes out of their corrrupt mouths. They used every bit of corruption they could mustard up during last years campaign. I would like to impeach every last one of them, and put their asses in jail where they belong. :mad:

that the Dems had the Reps HQ bugged and vice versa.

I do not think the Kerry people bugged the Bush HQ. But I am sure the Bush people ASSUMED that their space was bugged.

I think, in this town, one just assumes a lot.

Remember that in DC, wherever you are in the downtown area, you are on camera.

One of the "sports" here is to talk in "code" and mess with the spies.

I will go on record here as saying that never once in the entire campaign did I ever get wind of or observe the Kerry people doing anything illegal or even underhanded.

I sometimes wished they would. (not really, just a wistful dream of just retribution)

But no one had any doubt that the Bush people had infiltrated and/or were listening in. The HQ where the campaign was between March and the election had been a big Repub. law firm. It was "swept" but I don't think anyone was being naive.

How long have they held on to this info? Dear Gawd, if they knew this before the election and kept it to themselves, then it's as though they were on the RNC payroll.

I watched Chris Matthews for a few minutes tonight. He made me ill. He honest to gawd made me ill. He actually said that he was sorry the NYTimes story broke today because it was taking away from Bush's big victory in the Iraq elections yesterday. Matthews actually said that if Bush is able to 'bring democracy and free elections' to Iraq that he should go on Mt. Rushmore. These people are deluded. Just deluded.

Honestly, whatever it takes to get 'our' country back. Whatever it takes. When we dismiss the idea that people are being illegally spied on by a power-mad group of meglomaniacs then it's just time to weep for America. (I knew I wanted to work hard for change in '06. I am going to take a transcript of that disgusting Mattheews show with me and pull it out every time I need more motivation. That's just awful. We have to have a change in this country. We just have to.)

Just when you think he's in one place he pops up 180 degrees away. Mt Rushmore, he has to be kidding. He is so easilly back on the bandwagon it isn't funny.

I agree with you the problem was not that it took away from the latest Bush glory day, but because I suspect that the year they had this may have more than 12 months. I do think it could have influenced a stadium full of people in Ohio.

Liberal because they want their friends to have access to birth control and they support gay rights? These are the relatively easy positions that people in the big east coast media can take to say they are 'liberal' and oh so above the yahoos in the rest of the country. (And they are relatively easy positions to hold in the big cities on the east cost. It doesn't cost anything. It doesn't challenge anything in the power structure.)

But then they do all that cheerleading about the war and publish whatever the Bush Admin wants without using their power to investigate. They don't care about the Constitution of the United States being violated by these horrors, they just don't care.

They knew this last year. They knew and held it because it might have upset the Bushies. This is unbelievably awful. Thank gawd for the internet and for all those liberal blogs that really are going after these traitors to the Constitution. Thank God for Patrick Fitzgerald and at least one person in Justice (and I'm sure there are many more) who actually give a damn about this country and not just about their friggin access to power. Thank God for people who can still feel outrage: this is the one thing that still gives me hope, even when disgusting things like this come out.

Honestly, just when you think the media can't be anymore craven or cowardly, something like this comes out. Can the New York Times please print an apology to John Kerry about this action, because he deserves one. (Yeah, when hell freezes over.)

before the election? If so, can a group of citizens file a lawsuit against the Times for election-tampering? It would basically amount to that.

Spying on American citizens without a warrant is awful. (My God, we fought a War of Independence in the Country to get away from an authoritative government that thought it could do whatever it wanted with it's citizens. We established a Bill of Rights and a demarcation between what the federal government could and could not do in regard to arbitrarily spying on it's citizens. This is outrageous.)

In my humble opinion, this is just the last straw. I really thought I was motivated to work in '06. This is floors me. It just friggin floors me. I remember the Church Committee hearings in the 1970's that discussed domestic spying (under Nixon) and put rules in place to safeguard the freedom of the American people to be safe from their own government. And Bush, arbitrarily because he thinks he's been elected Dictator of the US just waltzes in and erases those protections. This, to me, is tyranny. This is what we fought to get away from, the tyranny of a little tin god who thinks he can do whatever he wants and that laws are things other people obey.

I swear, whatever it takes to gt rid of these people is worth it. I am not leaving my country in the hands of these power-mad tyrants. The Bill of Rights will not die under my generation's watch. No friggin way. Oh, this is so beyond the pale, it's sickening.

I was beside myself with joy today to see Bush get slapped down on the REnewal of the Patriot Act, partly in response to the news that he was using the NSA to spy on Americans. (Clear abuse of power.) He must be stopped and no amount of diversionary, feel-good fakery about the over-hyping of the Iraqi elections is going to divert from that.

Shame on these people. Shame, shame, shame. Generations of Americans didn't go to war and fight to defend a country that does this. Shame.

... I grew up in Romania (been in the US for a LONG time). Grew up knowing that you had to watch what you said on the phone. Took me a while to get rid of that feeling, and then took even longer to remember that I still had to watch what I said when I was talking to family & friends back there. I REFUSE to once again watch the words I say and type. Disgusting! And the argument that it is all for a "higher good" and we have to trust the government that has our best interests at heart is nonsense. A point stressed very well yesterday by Feingold, if I remember correctly.

is going to issue a CYA response. The NYT claims the Bush administration requested it not be published before the election in the interest of national security. BS, it was an illegal act.


No check out this article:
Spying & the Public's Right to Know
By Robert Parry
December 17, 2005

The New York Times has disclosed that George W. Bush secretly waived rules restricting electronic surveillance inside the United States, allowing spying on hundreds of Americans that normally would require a court warrant. But almost as stunning was the Times admission that it had held the story for a year.

snip...

The article stated that “the White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting.”

In the final weeks before Election 2004, Bush administration officials might have been nervous, too, that the revelation that Bush had asserted broad presidential authority in overriding legal constraints on domestic spying could have played into the hands of Democrat John Kerry. But there is no indication that political concerns were raised with New York Times executives.

Still, there is an unwritten rule in elite U.S. journalism that sensitive stories should not be published in the days before an election so as not to skew the outcome. A countervailing view holds that newsworthy information should be reported to the American people whenever a story is ready, regardless of the political calendar.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/121605.html


I know what he's saying, but this too is BS. What about the Osama story and all the rest of the shit stories that dropped in the weeks leading up to the election.

It's not like they were asked, in the interest of national security (whatever this part is BS too), to hold a story about a key person involved in the operation who was being indicted on extraneous charges. The operation itself was illegal.

The only valid thing in this article that applies to this situation is the last statement:

"A bigger question for American citizens, however, may be why leading U.S. news organizations, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, seem so committed to advancing the Bush administration’s foreign-policy agenda – while also protecting its political flanks."

...comment yesterday, major jaw dropping moment. Matthews is weird, in spite of everything I often find his hour interesting to watch, even find his quirkiness amusing in a good way at times, and then he drops comments like this out of the sky, and the hand reaches quickly for the remote control. He obviously likes to shock, and he does not care much how he does it + he talks too much and fast, the thinking on the other hand sometimes lags behind.

I can't watch him on a regular basis, because the veins and arteries in my head threaten to explode when he does stuff like that. I do sometimes watch him when he has specific guests that I'm interested in.

and tough questions. And he has really had the best Plamegate coverage going.

But yeah he can be annoying as hell -- That's why I Tivo his show and make liberal use of fast-forward.

I read this when I jumped out of bed this morning to go to the good computer (other infested with pop-up ads) to look at Vektor's photos. This comment about Mt. Rushmore just registered.

Matthews is a fucking imbecile. Bush ignores a note warning about a 9/11 style attack, spends seven minutes staring into fucking space after the attacks, goes off on a tangent about Iraq's connection to 9/11 instead of focusing on more important issues in Afghanistan, hypes the evidence to start an illegal war with Iraq, causes thousands of American casualties, kills tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, destroys their country and most of its historical sites, presides over an administration of crooks and liars who outed a CIA agent's name---a treasonous act according to Bush Sr, kisses his brown-nosing pals ass for six days while a major US city succumbs to flood waters and hundreds of thousands of Americans in the region lay starving and unprotected from the elements, authorizes the government to illegally spy on Americans and this fucking idiot thinks (on the same day of the NSA story) that he should be on Mt. Rushmore?

He should be impeached and tried for his crimes.

Nothing Bush is willing to do will reverse the shit load of anger he's stirred up in the Middle East.

... I think he did say that he belongs on the Mt. IF the democracy thingy works in Irak. BIG IF. An outstandingly idiotic comment, nevertheless. As for the IF: heard a short snippet on NPR on Thursday, no idea who was talking, but the point was that after a short interlude of pseudo-democracy, the likely scenario is that another strong man will get the power, not necessarily somebody in the Saddam mold, but still a strongman. I see it as a likely scenario, assuming that full fledged civil war does not happen first. Or civil war --> strongman.

that Matthews makes is that the ends justify the means. They do not. The comment was idiotic, uncalled-for and only fuels the notion of greatness in the minds of kool-aid drinking Americans.

The other point about the election resulting in a democracy in Iraq is how I view the situation too.