We are being lied to?
I’m shocked! SHOCKED, I tell you!!

What I should have said more clearly: money is nice, and who doesn’t want more of it? But what I really care about is ‘transparency’ and rooting out error-ridden, amoral, criminal conduct.

The money would be gravy. (And in a choice between telecom $$ or worrying about the food supply, I go with food every time.)
What I care about is the law.
(Hope I’ve finally synthesized.)

Am I correct?

It’s about criminal conduct.
The scale of the Clusterf*ck called ‘Bu$h Cheney administration’ defies the scope of imagination all previous experience.
And thus do we need reminders such as yours.

AT&T reported net income of $3.06 billion, or 50 cents a share, in the third quarter, up from $2.17 billion, or 56 cents a share, in the same period last year. Revenue nearly doubled to $30.13 billion, from $15.6 billion in the quarter last year.

Now, granted, that piddly amount would only be per quarter.

Hate to say it, but I’m deeply pessimistic. With global warming altering ag fundamentals (add on petroleum-based fertilizers, and petroleum-based distribution networks), the food supply takes up more space in my brain that getting $$ out of telcos.

We just need to keep the telcos alive (financially, legally) so we have them as a tool to help address big problems, IMHO. I hope that my worries are overblown…

But I also recall that in 2000, it seemed to be taken for granted that ‘it didn’t matter who’s elected’ and that ‘voting doesn’t matter’.

Our Constitution had already been subverted by Reagan/Bush41 (I still haven’t mastered IranContra, but clearly that was a critical, quiet, under-the-radar dismantling of the Constitution while laundering sums of wealth beyond my grasp).

At least people have finally caught on the Constitution is at risk, larger numbers believe that things are completely out of hand, and many even believe that voting matters.

They want something, and there’s a fervor in the air.
If I were Congress, I’d sure as hell be listening to voters this year. And I’d be using the term ‘accountability’ in every other sentence. FWIW.

Pelosi (and even Reid) needed to be seen offering reasonable compromises, and it’s taken time for Bu$hCo to fully reveal itself as unrepentant, unreasonable, secretive, and criminal. But Bu$h and Cheney overplayed their hand on FISA; “Mama Pelosi” and Congress now hold the upper hand. Let’s only hope they play it shrewdly. (In case they need reminding, Putin and the rest of the world are watching and sizing them up.)

Meanwhile, let’s review what’s occurred since late July:
– late August, a B-52 with nukes goes AWOL. Who knows why or how? But 5 Air Force honchos were booted out of the service in subsequent months; that’s enough evidence to suggest that the AWOL bomber was a Verrrry Big Deal. (We still don’t know whether all missiles are accounted for, IIRC.)
– early Sept. a mystery flight over Syria ends weirdly; do we know what that was about? No, we don’t, but the word ‘nukes’ seems to be involved. Sy Hersh had a recent article in the New Yorker, but there’s been not a public peep officially.
– Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb: the Big Shitpile meltdown accelerates with banks worldwide continuing to ‘write downs’ b-b-b-b-billions; finance and ’securitization’ don’t seem to be a stable economic foundation after all. (Who knew…?)
– during autumn 2007, China and Gazprom.com/Lukoil (formerly known as the USSR) start signing deals for oil rights in Iraq; meanwhile the US majors wait for the ‘Iraqi National Congress’ to pass legislation that will provide a cover of ‘democracy’ for the kinds of legalistic, contractual agreements favored by Big Oil. China and Gazprom.com also get contracts for infrastructure in Iraq.
– also on the oil front, Roy Hunt (of Hunt Oil, purchaser of a $35m Houston site for the future GWBush Memorial Library) undercuts US policy, as well as the US military, by signing an oil deal with Kurdisan. Other ‘oil indies’ follow, while the INC bellows that such ‘contracts’ are ‘not legal’, and the Oil Majors fear they should have signed with Kurdistan and put the pressure on for faster movement on an INC National Oil Law.
– in Oct (or Nov), the Saudi’s crook their little fingers and Dick Cheney hastens to ‘consult’ with them; there, or back again, he stops off to thump Musharef on the back as a buddy.
– unexpectedly, in Oct 2007, the US intel community surprises Bu$hCheney by suddenly and unexpectedly releasing the NIE to the public; the NIE undercuts Bu$hCheney plans to bomb the sh*t out of Iran, consequently much hullaballoo and hubbub follows, including…
– a suddenly-tossed-together Annapolis Peace Summit, to which a surprising range of players actually show up (including Musharef),
– during all this foreign policy confusion, the US economy continues to falter and implode weekly, collapsing further into doldrums as commodity prices rise (atop rising consumer oil costs).
– in conjunction with the imploding economy, business capital vanishes; startups and marginal businesses go under in response to the lack of capital available for business investment,
– the Brits pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan becomes ever more the ‘failed state’ we all should dread, Pakistan behaves like some large, ancient snake writhing (in a fashion that is hideous to behold) to throw off an old, constricting, dessicated political structure,
– global warming continues to accelerate at alarming rates,
– oil multinationals reap windfall profits,
– FauxNewz and wingnut radio audience numbers continue to decline
– the ‘Christian Right’ seems no longer so politically dominant and less aligned with conservative GOP agenda; a new ‘Creation Care’ conversation slowly, quietly begins to emerge voiced by evangelicals who argue that poverty and environmental degradation are closely linked, that ‘justice’ is a core human value, and that their votes are not ‘owned’ by the Rovian-led GOP (Pelosi and Reid, are you listening…?)
– on a visit to France? Germany? Donald Rumsfeld finds that he must flee ASAP, lest he be hauled into the World Court and charged with Crimes Against Humanity,
– in the weekly drip, drip, drip news the politicization of justice in the US becomes better understood by Americans who aren’t even all that political,
– millions of Americans turning out in unprecedented numbers to caucuses and voting booths to register their wrath at the existing economic, legal, and corporate stranglehold on American political life.

Please don’t misunderstand — Congress should not be off the hook for the woes of the nation (or increasing levels of CO2).
Nevertheless, in an effort to try and see how future historians might view this period, it’s worth pointing out that ‘things have been plenty busy’. And not in good ways.

Pelosi and Congress are facing an administration that has fundamentally lost control of the economy, the government, most public opinion (the knuckle draggers are still with them, but that group is also shrinking). Pelosi, Reid, and the Dems confront adversaries who fight dirty, lie, cheat, commit fraud, and stonewall. There is no precedent in US history, and false analogies about how bad Buchanan was only lead us farther afield. This is a unique, deeply dangerous situation. And I’m with Xenos in believing that if this rot isn’t rooted out thoroughly, we’re done for — people need to go to prison, and lose their ill-got gains.

Several comments on this thread are really worth highlighting for many reasons — MadDogs@91, I think is short a few contractors (you missed 1 to turn on the lights, 3 to provide security, 2 to control passwords ;-))

Xenos @102 raises a key topic: even if Bu$hCo staged a ‘false flag’ incident in an attempt to impose martial law, it would almost certainly not work. It might have worked when they still claimed that this was about ‘politics’ and ‘partisan’ differences; it’s now clear to millions of Americans that these people are criminals. (Remember the final scene in ‘Gladiator’, when the Praetorians refuse to act on the command of the Emperor Commodus? We may finally be nearing that point.)

I may be wrong, but clearly the context favors Congress over Bu$hCheney – by magnitudes.
In addition, FISA allowed Pelosi and the House Dems to finally call Bush/Cheney’s bluff.

I hope we’re turning a corner; I hope that future historians may be able to look back on FISA as a key moment when BushCheney overreached and began to topple.

Heaven only knows the economic indicators are profoundly alarming, while the oil majors (and drug cartels, no doubt) continue to profit. Bush is f*cked.

Lab Dancer, all best.