How did Pamela get in the picture?

It's a long movie so I'll be back later...

OK, I liked the movie, but as many of you have commented-Jack Black was miscast. I really enjoyed him in the "School of Rock," but I wonder if he even auditioned for Peter Jackson. The "island" sequence was the best part of the film and some of the camera work was incredible in New York. I thought the movie could have been forty minutes shorter. It was worth still seeing though.

Sorry, but my video file crashed so I can't post it, but Republican Sen. Dick Lugar-is concerned also as he appeared with Blitzer today.

Blitzer: So you want hearings? You want hearings?

Lugar: I do. I think this is an appropriate time, without going back and should the president have ever tried to listen to a call coming from Afghanistan, probably of course. And in the first few weeks we made many concessions in the Congress because we were at war and we were under attack. We still have the possibility of that going on so we don't want to obviate all of this, but I think we want to see what in the course of time really works best and the FISA Act has worked pretty well from the time of President Carter's day to the current time.

Think Progress has more...

Mr. Safire was on MTP today and condemed President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens by using his own personal experiences to justify his position.

Safire:

"I was writing a speech on welfare reform, and the president looks at it and says, "OK, I'll go with it, but this is not going to get covered. Leak it as far an wide as you can beforehand. Maybe we'll get something in the paper." And so I go back to my office and I get a call from a reporter, and he wants to know about foreign affairs or something, and I said, "Hey, you want a leak? I'll tell you what the president will say tomorrow about welfare reform." And he took it down and wrote a little story about it. But the FBI was illegally tapping his phone at the time, and so they hear a White House speechwriter say, "Hey, you want a leak?" And so they tapped my phone, and for six months, every home phone call I got was tapped. I didn't like that. And when it finally broke--it did me a lot of good at the time, frankly, because then I was on the right side--but it told me how easy it was to just take somebody who is not really suspected of anything for any good reason and listen to every conversation in his home--you know, my wife talking to her doctor, my--everything.

"So I have this thing about personal privacy. And I think what's happening now is that the--as a result of that scandal back in the '70s, we got this electronic eavesdropping act stopping it, or requiring the president to go before this court. Now, this court's a rubber-stamp court, let's face it. They give five noes and 20,000 yeses."

Russert: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA.

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Full Transcript

"But just as FDR later made a mistake with the eight saboteurs and hanged them all, and just as we made a terrible mistake with the Japanese-Americans in World War II and have apologized for that. During wartime, we have this excess of security and afterwards we apologize. And that's why I offended a lot of my conservative and hard-line friends right after September 11th when they started putting these captured combatants in jail, and said the president can't seize dictatorial power. And a lot of my friends looked at me like I was going batty. But now we see this argument over excessive security, and I'm with the critics on that."

Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter should remember Safire's words when they gleefully talk about locking up Japanese-Americans in World War II.

Now we're finding out that the Crisco oil anointing, ex-attorney General didn't sign off either.

Jane says Newsweek is reporting:

"On one day in the spring of 2004, White House chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a bedside visit to John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, who was stricken with a rare and painful pancreatic disease, to try-without success-to get him to reverse his deputy, Acting Attorney General James Comey, who was balking at the warrantless eavesdropping...read on"

Digby says: "They've called us unpatriotic to our faces. They've written best-selling books calling us treasonous. It's not exactly a stretch to suspect that these were not just rhetorical flourishes....read on"

John says: "So the question remains, what was Bush really doing, who was he really spying on, and why is he now lying about it?...read on

FDL:

I have no idea whether or not 2006 will be the year the power of the despots in this country will be checked, but if it happens it will be due to people like James Comey who after only three weeks on the job as the number two man in the Justice Department went to John Ashcroft in December of 2003 and told him he had to recuse himself from the CIA leak investigation...read on

Tbogg on Malkin's lame attempt to spin Comey as an underling:

"So the acting Attorney General is just a "underling" , something that we will have to keep in mind next time Dick Cheney fills in for the Prez when he goes into a pretzel coma."...read on

Things are looking mighty bleak for Tom Delay when David Brooks on Friday's " News Hour," sticks the knife in and twists.

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Mad Kane: Auld Lang Impeachment

Night Bird's Fountain: a reminder of what a home-made S.O.B. Tom DeLay really is.

Demagogue: Scrubbing away Abramoff's stench [hat tip to Bring It On

Conservative Truths: a weekly look at little known truths about conservatives

Petrelis Files: NYT's Ombudsman finally addresses the NSA Surveillance story

Bob has cartoons!
: NYT's Ombudsman finally addresses the NSA Surveillance story

Bob has cartoons

Enjoy and be careful tonight. Someone sent me a streamling link to the Video of the Times Square Party.

Click here---or Click here...

Phil Donahue vs Bill O'Reilly

(Originally posted on Sept. 21st) For your New Years's Eve fun.

Falafel Bill's head explodes!

Phil goes on the offensive immediately telling Billy that he's leading the pack to marginalize Cindy Sheehan.

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Donohue: Cindy Sheehan is one tough mother and nothing you say or anyone else is going to slow her down.

Bill: That's fine, she's has a right-

Phil:....You can't hurt her, she's already taken the biggest punch in the nose that a woman can take.

Bill, in his infinite wisdom asks: How? Phil: She's lost a son-Bill: Oh, OK...

Phil asks O'Reilly if his children would fight in the war and the meltdown ensues. Bill tells him that his nephew just joined and blows his top. O'Reilly threatens to boot Donohue off the set for saying absolutely nothing. The bloviator really lost it, playing the " you're denigrating him" card.

Bill, what did Phil say to denigrate him? Nothing. Donohue brought up Jeremy Glick.

Phil: I'm not Jeremy Glick, Billy...You can't intimidate me...

Newshounds has the transcript up...

Bill Bennett: Seems he was on the Bush payroll

The CarpetBagger Report:

"But perhaps the most disconcerting aspect to Bennett moving to CNN is the questionable journalistic integrity he showed while working as a commentator for Fox News. Bennett would appear regularly on all of the major FNC programs and consistently, as one would expect, defended the Bush administration. Unfortunately, Bennett never disclosed the fact that his primary business venture at the time was on the administration's payroll....read on"