I will keep my daily discipline for Lent but in a little while. For now....
Senator Harry Reid and Congressman Silvestre Reyes both sent Valentine letters to Bush, basically telling him to put a sock in it (or was that shove it somewhere?). About time someone told him to.
Amongst other comments, Reid wrote this:
Your opposition to an extension is inexplicable. Just last week, Director of National Intelligence McConnell and Attorney General Mukasey wrote to Congress that "it is critical that the authorities contained in the Protect America Act not be allowed to expire." Similarly, House Minority Leader Boehner has said "allowing the Protect America Act to expire would undermine our national security and endanger American lives, and that is unacceptable." And you yourself said at the White House today: "There is really no excuse for letting this critical legislation expire." I agree.[Emphasis mine. Note the genteel wording in which Reid calls Bush a liar, which, of course, he is.]
Nonetheless, you have chosen to let the Protect America Act expire. You bear responsibility for any intelligence collection gap that may result.
Fortunately, your decision to allow the Protect America Act to expire does not, in reality, threaten the safety of Americans. As you are well aware, existing surveillance orders under that law remain in effect for an additional year, and the 1978 FISA law itself remains available for new surveillance orders. Your suggestion that the law's expiration would prevent intelligence agents from listening to the conversations of terrorists is utterly false.
Reyes wrote this:
Because I care so deeply about protecting our country, I take strong offense to your suggestion in recent days that the country will be vulnerable to terrorist attack unless Congress immediately enacts legislation giving you broader powers to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans' communications and provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the Administration's warrantless surveillance program.
Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) has authority to conduct surveillance in at least three different ways, all of which provide strong capability to monitor the communications of possible terrorists.
It's about time someone threw facts back in the lying weasel's face. [Yes, now you know what the "W" stands for.]
You can read it all in mcjoan's post at Daily Kos. Kagro X reminds us all that if you quote the President be sure to note that he's lying (always a good policy).
Mcjoan also points out that the world does not end when Dems do stand up to the chimperor:
The Democrats stood up to Bush, and the world didn't end. And I bet it felt really, really good. I know it did. I heard the raucous cheers on the House floor when Hoyer made that statement. Remember how good it feels, Dems, and keep at it.It seems Keith Olbermann may have ended his special comment with this:
We will not fear George W. Bush, nor fear because George W. Bush wants us to fear.
On that happy note, to borrow from Garrison Keillor on "The Writer's Almanac":
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
--the BB
4 comments:
It's very important to have chiles on Valentine's Day, sweet pea. You did well.
And ahem, I saw your post at Doxy's. Does this mean what I think it means? Blessings on (re)new(ed) beginnings.
No, dear Jane, it just means we know we enjoy each other's company and it would be silly not spend time together. We did agree to be each others non-exclusive valentine, but we've been doing that since a month after the breakup.
Okay, got it. Blessings in any case! I am glad you have found ways to love each other well. The Hallmark categories sure don't fit real life, do they? Nor do the obituaries. My friend Mary Hunt, Catholic lesbian feminist theologian who is the author (among many other writings) of a wonderful book on the theology of friendship, always gets mad when she sees an obituary saying "she left no survivors" when the person had all manner of close friends, just no surviving direct blood relatives or other-half-of-a-couple. Things are now changing in obituary-writing, but I think of that now and again. I would hate for others to define me, in death or in life, just as a middle-aged spinster (though that is what I am, among other things) because my life is rich in relationships. One of my best friends is a former boyfriend from 20 years ago. We talk very frequently (we live in different parts of the country and he travels a lot) and laugh and offer support and probably know as much about the details each other's daily lives as anyone else does. What do you call that relationship? My best friend from college is a gay Jewish man to whom I dedicated my book on prayer and who was one of the people who urged me toward the Episcopal Church. He's a real soul brother and I love him dearly. What do you call that? (It's a rhetorical question, I know you understand all this.) My closest friend from childhood is still my close friend; I am godmother to one of her children; we share memories and present values in ways neither of us shares with anyone else. One of my best friends overseas (and a couple of other people I know) could probably best be described as an amitié amoureuse, a term that doesn't even exist in English. (It's French and means a friendship where the two people are a little in love with each other, but that doesn't really describe it because the English description doesn't catch either the nuance or the fullness, and the French term, while it generally applies to a non-sexual relationship, could also include a relationship that has a sexual or erotic dimension.) One of my sisters in ministry shares with me the history of having been a Roman Catholic feminist and then emigrating to a church that would ordain her, but keeping her ecumenical commitments and social justice focus as well as a contemplative spiritual practice. What do you call our deep bond, which is of the church as well as of our hearts?
This is where I think the radical notion that our primary relationships are not our family -- THAT, by the way, is Jesus' and classical Christian "family values" -- is something we need to ponder.
And don't get me wrong. I am very close to my biological nuclear family. I love my parents and admire their marriage, I am very close to my one and only brother and now to his beloved, with whom he has made a new life, I adore my nephews and their partners and children. And I have preached and officiated and co-officiated at countless weddings and helped bless other holy unions. So I'm all for couples who live under one roof and do the couple thing (which isn't Hallmark either, but that is another rant for another day). But it ain't the whole story and as long as we keep making it the standard against which all other relationships are measured, we've got a problem. (Mary Hunt argues this in her book and has done so in some interesting essays and op-eds too. Friendship as the standard works much better. (And is much richer and more elastic.) In fact, my favorite Gospel for a wedding sermon, also my favorite among wedding sermons I have preached, is Jesus' "I no longer call you servants but friends" in John. That sermon was at the wedding of dear friends at which I co-officiated with another dear friend --another non-Hallmark-card relationship-- who was a Jesuit priest and writer. Lots of that when I was a lay Catholic with an M.Div. doing ministry: the priest would sign the papers and but we'd officiate together.)
Okay, my mug of coffee has definitely kicked in, I'd better go finish another report ;-). Lots of love to you, dear BB. You understand all of the above, and that's probably why I wrote all of it here.
Jane, thank you for speaking up for the myriad ways humans are in relationship. There are so many ways for friendship and love to be manifested and we show such little imagination or understanding by ignoring most of them.
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