Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I don't disagree on your assessment of the Huffington Post. It's a partisan blog like many others and to my knowledge doesn't hold itself to any particular standard of journalistic integrity. The blogs are like the Opinion page in a newspaper. Columnists are paid to create controversy, not report the news. Reporters on the other hand, along with the news editors that supervise them, are or at least should be held to a different standard. If they report something as fact, then it should be double- and triple-checked. News provided by one source should have verification from other sources. Reporters should not state or include opinion in their news stories, although I'll admit that sometimes the choice of words leave news readers with an opinion. Most established news organizations hold to these journalistic principles. What's important for us, the readers, is to understand is what stuff is someone's opinion and what is actually the news. Otherwise, it's almost certain that incorrect, or at least unbalanced, opinions will be formed or conclusions reached.

AMEN !!!!!

I think that if you want to link to an OPINION that is fine but indicate it as such !!!

Interesting read from Dionne Searcey of the Wall St Journal on this subject...

"Regardless, three days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, House and the Senate passed joint resolutions authorizing the President to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

It is amazing how easy it has become to be pompous and self righteous 8 years removed from that attack on our country !!!!

"The whole kerfuffle over disclosure skirts the legal elephant in the room in the most recent revelation: if our CIA’s shaggy assassins (trust us, we’ve seen those secret agent types on the Iraqi battlefield and they appear to never, ever shave) came across Osama bin Laden in a cave, can they legally kill him on the spot? "

PS: and this from todays NY Times....

"The program was designed in the frantic weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks when President George W. Bush signed a secret order authorizing the C.I.A. to capture or kill operatives of Al Qaeda around the world. To be able to kill Osama bin Laden or his top deputies wherever they might be — even in cities or countries far from a war zone — struck top agency officials as an urgent goal, according to people involved in the discussions"

"Current and former officials said that the program was designed as a more “surgical” solution to eliminating terrorists than missile strikes with armed Predator drones, which cannot be used in cities and have occasionally resulted in dozens of civilian casualties.

“The Predator strikes have been successful, and I was pleased to see the Obama administration continue them,” said Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “This was another effort that was trying to accomplish the same objective.”

Mr. Bond would not discuss specific details about the terminated C.I.A. program."

Because the program never carried out any missions and because Congress had already signed off on the agency’s broad authorities after Sept. 11, the officials and some Republican legislators said the C.I.A. was not required to brief lawmakers on specifics of the program."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/us...l.html?_r=1&hp




http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/07/13/...ver-finds-him/

Now add to this story the fact that just came out that the Democratic congressmen and women made this available to the PRESS first when they wrote the letter to the CIA !!!!

Is everyone ok with our congress doing this ? Why no outrage about this ?

Originally Posted by Bucco

Interesting read from Dionne Searcey of the Wall St Journal on this subject...

"Regardless, three days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, House and the Senate passed joint resolutions authorizing the President to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

It is amazing how easy it has become to be pompous and self righteous 8 years removed from that attack on our country !!!!

"The whole kerfuffle over disclosure skirts the legal elephant in the room in the most recent revelation: if our CIA’s shaggy assassins (trust us, we’ve seen those secret agent types on the Iraqi battlefield and they appear to never, ever shave) came across Osama bin Laden in a cave, can they legally kill him on the spot? "

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/07/13/...ver-finds-him/

Now add to this story the fact that just came out that the Democratic congressmen and women made this available to the PRESS first when they wrote the letter to the CIA !!!!

Is everyone ok with our congress doing this ? Why no outrage about this ?

...Because memories are short, and the only thing that counts is "me."

The number of things that have been trumped up as having importance are too numerous to list. However, they all have one thing in common - tomorrow's political gain. And both parties are guilty to some extent. What is sad is that "party faithful" follow the respective DNC/RNC press releases as if they constitute the Third Tablet. There is no possible consideration that the "party faithful" are being manipulated in as skilled a fashion as ever seen.

Being a member of a political party is a noble action. Being a political party fanatic is like being a fanatic about anything - blind and dangerous.
When party members don't run their party, but let themselves be dictated to by "party elite," then it's Berlin in 1936 all over again. And running your party is not just donating money and being a bobble-head yes-doll over every party-issued statement or position. Today's parties survive by virtue of the multitude who are willing to be blindly led for the sake of belonging to something which is bigger than themselves and chock full of celebrities.

There's been a lot of fingerpoint from Democrats at Republicans, and Republicans at Democrats. That accomplishes nothing. Much more effective fingerpointing would be by Democrats at Democratic leadership, and Republicans at Republican leadership. Then the parties would be "of the people" instead of "for the leadership.

"...When party members don't run their party, but let themselves be dictated to by "party elite," then it's Berlin in 1936 all over again...."

If anyone that enjoys reviewing the history of the rise and fall of the leaders of Germany in the late 30's and early 40's the similarities are coincidence for sure, but attest to your comment.

The Germans were in the deepest recession in history; their leader promised to bring it to an end; every German will be taken care of; there will be more jobs created than people who need them; the leadership was led by a charismatic, hypnotizing speaker; he surrounded himself with un questioned loyalists appointed by himself and on and on.

No intention to indicate our leadership is of the character of those in that day and age. Only that the modus operendi is almost a match. Coincidental, no doubt. But we the people should take note of history....it does repeat itself.....and the pied piper continues his march with nary a bleat from the followers.

btk

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I don't disagree on your assessment of the Huffington Post. It's a partisan blog like many others and to my knowledge doesn't hold itself to any particular standard of journalistic integrity. The blogs are like the Opinion page in a newspaper. Columnists are paid to create controversy, not report the news. Reporters on the other hand, along with the news editors that supervise them, are or at least should be held to a different standard. If they report something as fact, then it should be double- and triple-checked. News provided by one source should have verification from other sources. Reporters should not state or include opinion in their news stories, although I'll admit that sometimes the choice of words leave news readers with an opinion. Most established news organizations hold to these journalistic principles. What's important for us, the readers, is to understand is what stuff is someone's opinion and what is actually the news. Otherwise, it's almost certain that incorrect, or at least unbalanced, opinions will be formed or conclusions reached.

In response to your comments I decided to do some basic searches. I typed "legitimate news sources" into google and I did alot of clicking and reading. What I found interesting is the links that the news sources provide. You click onto a news source and then click on the author and then click on his columns and you will find which way he/she leans.
The lines get even blurrier when you click on "politics" because it gives many Blogs sites like Huffingon and Slate.
My final thought: Real facts should be verified, somewhat. But when you go to a news source that has broken down the news by category...they have "politics" as a separate subject. My feeling is that once the word "politics" is mentioned...facts get blurry.
Anyways, when I first joined this site, I was a little naive as I thought it was just a site that a bunch of guys gave political opinions. I then noticed that one poster here gives more links then he/she gives his own political thoughts. At first that angered me as I thought it was just a lazy way of getting your opinion out there without putting an effort into it. As I settled in here I started to do the "link thing" myself and not really thinking about the sources of the links. Anyways, here is a link with news sources...notices where the links take you when you click onto the political section:
http://www.headlinespot.com/

removed,, after all this, realized the original thread was lost.

If the "program" that was so secret amounted to authorizing the CIA to go underground and then kill Osama bin Laden or other al Quesda leaders, I guess I'm left thinking what's the big deal? How different is this from the Navy Seals operating behind enemy lines during Viet Nam, with the mission to kill the leaders of the North Viet Nam army? How different from skilled snipers going underground, like during most wars, with the objective of killing enemy leaders? How different from the Air Force flying drones remotely and killing enemy operatives? How different from working with foreign organizations, like the Israeli Mussaud, to kill foreign enemies? How different from employing our own spies to kill enemies?

First, I can't imagine that Congress would have disapproved such a plan. Secondly, how is this different from what we've done in one way or another in many previous wars?

I guess I'm left wondering, if Dick Cheney and George Bush really felt that this type of program needed to be conducted secretly...WHY?

I think the whole thing is a diversion so we won't think about Pelosi and crew and their shenanigans. Dominating the news cycles, is a favorite past time in DC..

Letterman Top Ten.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MJeG...layer_embedded

Originally Posted by KayakerNC

Letterman Top Ten.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MJeG...layer_embedded

Oh geez that was a good one

My personal favs: #10,#8,#6, but #1 LOL

Link didn't work right but that is OK as Bitterman is too smug for my taste.

I cannot understand the LOL and humor thrown at this issue.

We either have an administration who knowlingly broke the law OR we actually have folks in congress that would play politics in the open with our national security.

Either way I do not see the humor or passing off as politics as usual !

Despite the humor that some see in this...this is the latest I could find...

"The CIA ran a secret program for nearly eight years that aspired to kill top al-Qaeda leaders with specially trained assassins, but the agency declined to tell Congress because the initiative never came close to bringing Osama bin Laden and his deputies into U.S. cross hairs, U.S. intelligence and congressional officials said yesterday.

The plan to deploy teams of assassins to kill senior terrorists was legally authorized by the administration of George W. Bush, but it never became fully operational, according to sources briefed on the matter. The sources confirmed that then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney had urged the CIA to delay notifying Congress about the diplomatically sensitive plan -- a bid for secrecy that congressional Democrats now say thwarted proper oversight."

"Panetta's revelation that he had terminated the program drew fresh criticism from Republican lawmakers yesterday.

"Why would you cancel it?" asked Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee. "If the CIA weren't trying to do something like this, we'd be asking 'Why not?' "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...302589_pf.html

"With their Speaker behind them, House Democrats are pushing ahead with plans to hold a series of hearings investigating instances in which intelligence officials may have misled members of Congress.

Senior Democratic aides said that a major announcement could come by the end of week, but it was already clear on Monday that House Democrats are seizing on weekend news reports that former Vice President Dick Cheney hid information from Congress."

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/...009-07-13.html


NOTHING FUNNY TO ME HERE !!!

Originally Posted by Bucco

I cannot understand the LOL and humor thrown at this issue.

We either have an administration who knowlingly broke the law OR we actually have folks in congress that would play politics in the open with our national security.

Either way I do not see the humor or passing off as politics as usual !

Those are the same people who laugh at baseball players raping little girls.

All of this "Cheney broke the law" stuff can be resolved really fast. All it takes is one reporter asking Director Panetta, Congressman Reyes, Senator Feinstein or Attorney General Holder which statute (___ USC _____) does any one of them charge was violated?

It's that simple.

Since that hasn't happened, it's seems like it political gamesmanship at its worst/normal.