Re: NYT's Unconscionable Decision

----- Original Message -----


Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 8:38 PM
Subject: Your article - the NYT's Unconscionable Decision to Sit on the NSA Story

Dear Lawrence R. Velvel,

I'm just a housewife, but I asked the NY Times the same question. They never published my letter to the editor.

I think that the Times indeed helped Bush get into office by withholding the secret spying story. Will the NY Times ever reveal the truth?

I think that is a question they dare not answer.

Aleta Payne




----- Original Message -----

Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 11:58 AM
Subject: congressional coup d'etat

Sir -

As to congress, forget it. The only interest of congress is "self - interest". You will not find one, save Ron Paul, with a complete set of requirements for leadership - brains, spine, guts and balls. These despicable people, masquerading as our "betters", are, in reality, caricatures of leaders that are cheap to buy and sell.

As to El Ultimo, aka God's Direct Communicator, preferably, to this writer, the chimp-in-charge, it is shown daily how easy it is for him to spend other people's money, use other people's children and use an entire nation for selfish, personal ideas. He cares not of right and wrong, fair and unfair, legal or illegal - he is, after all, as chimp-in-charge, above all laws, domestic and international, Geneva and Nuremberg conventions be damned in the process, as well. After all, just who is it that God must ask to countenance his actions?

We have the worst thing a nation can have - a megalomaniac in charge with a rubber stamp legislative body that is selling all but themselves down the river of fire to the pits of Hades. This is not the stuff of which great nations are made. It is simply the stuff that every dictatorship and tyranny have been composed of since the dawn of time.

We have the government we deserve for the ignorant dolts we have become. The ignorant ass that represents himself as El Ultimo is, in the end, a fitting "representative" for America become amerika.

Kirk A. Hayes


----- Original Message -----

Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 10:58 AM
Subject: Why didnt the whistle blowers keep blowing

Dear Mr. Velvel,

Thank you for your article. This is the first time Ive read any of your pieces and I found it informative.

I have a question that I haven't been able to answer concerning the subject of the NYT belated release of the NSA story. If there were "Nearly a dozen current and former officials" who discussed this program with the Times because of what is claimed "their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight", why didn't they talk to other reporters when the saw the Times was not going to reveal it?

The only answer I can come up with is that the administration found its leak or leaks and plugged them. The whistle was silenced and that was what kept other media sources from being informed by the conscientious objector. The fact that the administration is looking for the leak source of this is odd. They've had a over a year and couldn't find it? Was Ashcroft the leak?
Another possibility for someone leaking this would be to keep Bush from being reelected. It probably would have worked too. After the election and Bush's victory, there may have been no motive for this person or persons to pursue leaking to another source.

I am a scientist not a journalist so I may be totally off the mark. If you have time and can offer any explanation I would be extremely grateful.

Thank You,
Paul Guggenheim
Chicago, IL



----- Original Message -----

Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 11:41 AM
Subject: Bush and the constitution

Very well constructed article about Bush. I just read an article by Joe Sobran who learned somehow the following Bush quote: "Don’t throw the Constitution in my face. It is just a G—D----- piece of paper."

I voted for him but Clinton limited his excesses to sex under the presidential desk. Kerry is far worse than Clinton and I cannot measure him against Bush.

Jack Ludwick
Tyler, TX


----- Original Message -----

Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 7:48 PM
Subject: very good account of NYT on CounterPunch


Many thanks for speaking out. Paul Craig Roberts


----- Original Message -----


Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 3:01 PM
Subject: Alito and this administraion

Sir,

Firstly, Alito is anathema, and not qualified to be a sitting judge on the Supreme Court , evidenced by his lack of humanity and disregard for the ordinary citizens of America as his record as judge shows. Secondly, thank you for your article of January 7, let us hope that someone of intelligence in the senate reads your article-one can always hope. The gravity brought to bear on some of these issues by people like yourself informs us of the great unwashed that we will no longer be considered as a tin hatted, eyeball rolling fringe element, ridiculed and laughed at for our insistance that there were no WMD-Per Scott Ritter, Hans Blix, and other sources, that the patriot act abrogates our rights, that this administration is incapable of doing anything that resembles responsible government, or that it even gives a shit whether we live or die, in this, or any other country--per Katrina, and the killing of so many innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their incompetence, and the permitting of that incompetence to continue by the rest of government--Senate, Congress, et al., is beyond my ability to understand. And to show my limited intelligence, in my anger I am compelled to say these motherfuckers need to be frog marched out of the Whitehouse as soon as possible, before they commit their next faux pas in Iran, or country du jour, which, if attacked by us and/or Israel could well destabilize the Middleast and start a series of events that in the long run could possibly trigger the use of nuclear weapons in a world where their proliferation has eroded the fear of their use. My feeling and that of some of my friends, is that we are at a tipping point, not in relation to oil necessarily, but in relation to our irrational responses to perceived threat. If our country insists on going down this road, it can only lead to our diminution, or demise, and I will say it again--This administration must be removed from power as soon as possible, they are extremely dangerous, a very real threat to this country and the world at large.

Regards

Burnie



----- Original Message -----


Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 8:32 PM
Subject: fisa

Why doesn't anyone argue that 5 offices of FBI in MN, AZ, and lessor known in FL, and OK, offices KNEW Arabs were taking flight lessons and contacted office #5 in DC with this info requesting to further investigate all this info was avaliable w/o fisa warrants and w/o patriot act provisions. These facts alone lay waste to the argument for both power grabs by this power hungry executive branch.