The latest Democratic Debate.

[JazzManJim]

It's certainly been an interesting debate, that's for sure.

A couple highlights thus far:

Peter Jennings asked Al Sharpton about his policies concerning the Federal REserve and monetary policy. Sharpton chewed up his time talking about the IMF and, when Jennings corrected him, stumbled about as badly as I've ever seen him stumble in public.

Clark said, on the Patriot Act, that if the authorities wanted to get a wiretap, they'd have to go get it the old-fashioned way: get an order from a judge. I think if he'd read it, he'd know that that's exactly what they have to do under the Patriot Act.

Kucinich's plan for getting our troops out of Iraq is just flat-out whackadoodle. His education plan involves a curriculum which emphasises arts and music and creativity and bringing in educational psychologists and such. Those industries which require workers knowledgeable in sciences and math must have just cringed tangibly.

Clark absolutely mangled a question about his warm embrace of Michael Moore at a campaign rally (in the light of Moore's comments).

Dean's been very subdued through the debate and so as Kerry. The biggest point-scorers so far seem to be Lieberman, followed not so closely by Edwards.

Jennings has been very uncharactristically harsh with all his questions. There hasn't been a real softball in the whole debate. That's very unusual. Jennings, especially, has asked questions which have gone right at the hearts of the candidates' weaknesses and the answers have been very instructive. The winners on that score seem to be Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, and Dean. Clark, Kucinich, and Sharpton seemed to dig their respective holes deeper.

 

[bill-pix-trade]

It's certainly been an interesting debate, that's for sure.

A couple highlights thus far:

Peter Jennings asked Al Sharpton about his policies concerning the Federal REserve and monetary policy. Sharpton chewed up his time talking about the IMF and, when Jennings corrected him, stumbled about as badly as I've ever seen him stumble in public.

Clark said, on the Patriot Act, that if the authorities wanted to get a wiretap, they'd have to go get it the old-fashioned way: get an order from a judge. I think if he'd read it, he'd know that that's exactly what they have to do under the Patriot Act.

Kucinich's plan for getting our troops out of Iraq is just flat-out whackadoodle. His education plan involves a curriculum which emphasises arts and music and creativity and bringing in educational psychologists and such. Those industries which require workers knowledgeable in sciences and math must have just cringed tangibly.

Clark absolutely mangled a question about his warm embrace of Michael Moore at a campaign rally (in the light of Moore's comments).

Dean's been very subdued through the debate and so as Kerry. The biggest point-scorers so far seem to be Lieberman, followed not so closely by Edwards.

Jennings has been very uncharactristically harsh with all his questions. There hasn't been a real softball in the whole debate. That's very unusual. Jennings, especially, has asked questions which have gone right at the hearts of the candidates' weaknesses and the answers have been very instructive. The winners on that score seem to be Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, and Dean. Clark, Kucinich, and Sharpton seemed to dig their respective holes deeper.

Thanks for the seven dwarf story. Good night.

 

[RoryN]

Clark absolutely mangled a question about his warm embrace of Michael Moore at a campaign rally (in the light of Moore's comments).

Which comments? I missed them.

 

[busybody..]

JENNINGS ON MOORE [Tim Graham]
K-Lo, I must agree strongly: Peter really earns a star for asking Wesley Clark about Michael Moore, and in a way that suggests that calling the president a "deserter" is not factual. Clark's answer -- Moore can say what he wants, and it has nothing to do with me -- is the most clueless thing I've heard out of him yet. Is it just me, or do these candidates appear under-briefed in general tonight? The word "dwarfs" come to mind.

 

[miles]

It's certainly been an interesting debate, that's for sure.

A couple highlights thus far:

Peter Jennings asked Al Sharpton about his policies concerning the Federal REserve and monetary policy. Sharpton chewed up his time talking about the IMF and, when Jennings corrected him, stumbled about as badly as I've ever seen him stumble in public.

Clark said, on the Patriot Act, that if the authorities wanted to get a wiretap, they'd have to go get it the old-fashioned way: get an order from a judge. I think if he'd read it, he'd know that that's exactly what they have to do under the Patriot Act.

Kucinich's plan for getting our troops out of Iraq is just flat-out whackadoodle. His education plan involves a curriculum which emphasises arts and music and creativity and bringing in educational psychologists and such. Those industries which require workers knowledgeable in sciences and math must have just cringed tangibly.

Clark absolutely mangled a question about his warm embrace of Michael Moore at a campaign rally (in the light of Moore's comments).

Dean's been very subdued through the debate and so as Kerry. The biggest point-scorers so far seem to be Lieberman, followed not so closely by Edwards.

Jennings has been very uncharactristically harsh with all his questions. There hasn't been a real softball in the whole debate. That's very unusual. Jennings, especially, has asked questions which have gone right at the hearts of the candidates' weaknesses and the answers have been very instructive. The winners on that score seem to be Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, and Dean. Clark, Kucinich, and Sharpton seemed to dig their respective holes deeper.

It's only a matter of time before Clark is exposed for what he is - a phony. Brokaw already caught him in a lie when he denied ever supporting the war in Iraq.

He's a waste of skin.

 

[miles]

I keep hearing how Clark made some stupid remarks the other day denegrating Kerry's military service (he won a Silver and Bronze Star in Vietnam). Has anyone else heard about it?

Damn, are these Democrats fun, or what?

 

[busybody..]

Attending tonight’s debate will be: John “Abe” Kerry attempting to look presidential; Howard “Al” Dean looking much like the highly sedated nearly catatonic former VP did in the second Bush-Gore debate; John “Buddy” Edwards trying to be everyone’s best friend; Joe “Pepper” Lieberman who will lob minor attacks at the others like one of those small, annoying, yappy dogs; Wes “Headlights” Clark who will no doubt have that same dazed, deer-like look he always has when he is asked a question; Dennis “Alan” Kucinich who serves as the Alan Keyes of the Democrat primary; and Al “Light ‘em up” Sharpton who will provide the evening’s entertainment

 

[badasschick]

I keep hearing how Clark made some stupid remarks the other day denegrating Kerry's military service (he won a Silver and Bronze Star in Vietnam). Has anyone else heard about it?

Damn, are these Democrats fun, or what?

Why do people insist on taking a joke out of context?


you need a hobby.

 

[miles]

Why do people insist on taking a joke out of context?


you need a hobby.

What are you talking about? Did you hear it? I didn't.

 

[RoryN]

Why do people insist on taking a joke out of context?

I know. This generally points to a poor sense of humor.

I'll abstain from drawing on a political party stereotype here.


(Oops. Well, I tried...)

 

[badasschick]

What are you talking about? Did you hear it? I didn't.

It was a quip about outranking Kerry.

 

[busybody..]

THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING


THE CLARK CAMP
For general, a quick change in battle plans
Kerry, Edwards seen as new foes
By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff, 1/22/2004

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- As much as retired Army General Wesley K. Clark might want to avoid the issue, it confronts him at every turn: For him, this has turned into a race between the general and the lieutenant-turned-senator.

After Monday night's surprising Iowa caucus returns, Clark and his aides had to prepare for a scenario they hadn't anticipated: The old putative front-runner, non-veteran Howard Dean, had been replaced by a new one, veteran John F. Kerry.

While Senator John Edwards languished low in the New Hampshire polls for months, his second-place Iowa finish makes him, too, a Granite State factor.

So now, buried between the lines of Clark's stump speeches and appearances, comes a new message: He embodies Kerry's national security credibility and Edwards's Southern background.

"I'm that package all in one vote," Clark said at a press conference in Portsmouth. "I'm a veteran. I've worked in leadership at the highest levels of government . . . I'm from the South, my mother was a secretary." Clark invited the Kerry comparison in a series of veterans-related events yesterday that his aides said had been planned long in advance.

He attended a "Veterans for Clark" press conference in Portsmouth in the early afternoon and held a town hall-style meeting at an American Legion post in Rochester in the evening.

Last night at another such event, Brian Hardy, a VFW post commander from Littleton, N.H., while introducing Clark, harshly criticized Kerry, saying the senator had had "an extreme makeover" from a life of "privilege and wealth to being a man of the people."

Hardy, a former Dean supporter, called Kerry "one of a long line of presidential pretenders from New England who ran and failed."

Clark campaign officials quickly distanced themselves from Hardy's attack. Matt Bennett, Clark's communications director, said: "We did not know he was going to say that, and if we knew we would have asked him not to." Clark himself told the crowd he disagreed with Hardy's statement and considered Kerry "a distinguished senator."

In every encounter with the press this week, Clark has been asked to compare himself with Kerry. Asked about Kerry's military rank at a press conference at his Manchester headquarters later that night, Clark said, "It's one thing to be a hero as a junior officer. He's done that, and I respect him for that. He's been a good senator. But I've had the military leadership at the top as well as the bottom."In less strained moments, Clark tries to shift the subject to the specific experience he gained as he rose through the military. "I'm not trying to draw a distinction between my rank and Senator Kerry's," Clark said in Portsmouth. "We were both young officers in Vietnam. We both pursued different paths of public service."

Instead, he emphasized his experience helping to negotiate the Dayton Accords in Bosnia and leading NATO's war in Kosovo.

"We need a leader who's been on the front lines of battle and in the backrooms of diplomacy," he said in a speech about Iraq at the University of New Hampshire.

Still, for several veterans who declared their loyalty to Clark yesterday, his perceived electability was his most important asset.

"John Kerry cannot win below the Mason-Dixon Line. Clark can conceivably take Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and West Virginia," said Gene A. Friedman, 87, a World War II veteran. "John Kerry has great credentials, and he has good military credentials, but he's a Massachusetts liberal."

Joanna Weiss

 

[ruminator]

It's certainly been an interesting debate, that's for sure.

A couple highlights thus far:

Peter Jennings asked Al Sharpton about his policies concerning the Federal REserve and monetary policy. Sharpton chewed up his time talking about the IMF and, when Jennings corrected him, stumbled about as badly as I've ever seen him stumble in public.

Clark said, on the Patriot Act, that if the authorities wanted to get a wiretap, they'd have to go get it the old-fashioned way: get an order from a judge. I think if he'd read it, he'd know that that's exactly what they have to do under the Patriot Act.

Kucinich's plan for getting our troops out of Iraq is just flat-out whackadoodle. His education plan involves a curriculum which emphasises arts and music and creativity and bringing in educational psychologists and such. Those industries which require workers knowledgeable in sciences and math must have just cringed tangibly.

Clark absolutely mangled a question about his warm embrace of Michael Moore at a campaign rally (in the light of Moore's comments).

Dean's been very subdued through the debate and so as Kerry. The biggest point-scorers so far seem to be Lieberman, followed not so closely by Edwards.

Jennings has been very uncharactristically harsh with all his questions. There hasn't been a real softball in the whole debate. That's very unusual. Jennings, especially, has asked questions which have gone right at the hearts of the candidates' weaknesses and the answers have been very instructive. The winners on that score seem to be Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, and Dean. Clark, Kucinich, and Sharpton seemed to dig their respective holes deeper.

I'm still not sure about the requirements of the PA, I thought a warrant wasn't required for a wiretap under that.

Authorities could wiretap anybody for 15 days, and snoop on anyone's Internet usage (including chat and email), all without obtaining a warrant.

The law before and how it changed: Under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, a traditional phone wiretap could be obtained on a showing of probable cause that one of an enumerated list of crimes had been committed. Warrants were valid for only 30 days, and the government needed to report back to the court. Under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act the requirements for a wiretap order were more minimal: The FBI didn't need probable cause or even reasonable suspicion to install a tap, but only had to certify to a judge that information resulting from such a warrant would be "relevant" to an ongoing criminal investigation. Section 214 doesn't change this standard but broadens the reach—making the FISA pen register/trap-and-trace power available in both criminal and foreign intelligence investigations, so long as the government merely certifies that the information obtained would be "relevant to an ongoing investigation." The probable-cause requirement in criminal cases is gone. Courts may not inquire into the truthfulness of the allegations before authorizing a tap.

 

[miles]

Some quip, badass.

 

[JazzManJim]

What, exactly, did Sharpton do to Peter Jennings?

He's asked Shaprton two questions: about monetary policy and about the emerging democratic movement in Iran.

I"m expecting him to ask about Quantum Theory or Keynes next!

 

[JazzManJim]

Re: Re: The latest Democratic Debate.

I'm still not sure about the requirements of the PA, I thought a warrant wasn't required for a wiretap under that.

The quote here is somewhat misleading:

"Section 214 doesn't change this standard but broadens the reach—making the FISA pen register/trap-and-trace power available in both criminal and foreign intelligence investigations, so long as the government merely certifies that the information obtained would be 'relevant to an ongoing investigation.' The probable-cause requirement in criminal cases is gone."

The old standard for obtaining a wiretap remains.

What changed is how intelligence and national security agencies obtain pen register trap and trace informaton. First, the PA allowded them to use these on electronic comunications. They hadn't been able to do that before.

Well, first, an explanation of what a trap and trace is. A T&T can be put on a telephone by the phone company. It doesn't show who made the calls, doesn't record the calls, and can't in any way determine the substance of the call. All it does is show that a particular phone number called the number in question, or that a number was called from there. Extended to electronic communications, it shows the same thing - the origination and destination headers of the message. It doesn't capture the message itself. It's incapable of doing that.

The problem before was that law enforcement could get a T&T simply by getting a local court order to do so. National Security agencies had a much longer path to do the same thing which routinely took months to put into place. This alows them the same speed that law enforcement agencies already had.

There is also a section specifically written into the PA that says that an agency may not get a pen register trap and trace against an American based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment.

There is an excellent legal analysis written by the Congressional Research Service of the Patriot Act here.

 

[Ishmael]

I keep hearing how Clark made some stupid remarks the other day denegrating Kerry's military service (he won a Silver and Bronze Star in Vietnam). Has anyone else heard about it?

Damn, are these Democrats fun, or what?

The remark was made by someone introducing the General at a speech. Clark as distanced himself from the remark.

Ishmael

 

[Wrong Element]

I keep hearing how Clark made some stupid remarks the other day denegrating Kerry's military service (he won a Silver and Bronze Star in Vietnam). Has anyone else heard about it?

Damn, are these Democrats fun, or what?

I was watching CNN a couple of days ago, and someone from the Clark campaign said something like (paraphrasing): "Senator Kerry left the military after Vietnam, while General Clark chose to stay in the military." I don't get that at all--is the Clark campaign saying that if you didn't make the military a career (leaving aside Kerry's heroic service record), you're somehow less patriotic or less prepared to be president?

Just so everyone knows, Kucinich is in no way representative of the average intelligence level of Ohioans.

 

[JazzManJim]

Just so everyone knows, Kucinich is in no way representative of the average intelligence level of Ohioans.

You're claiming he's an Ohioan? I want to see a DNA test, just to make sure he's an Earthling...

 

[dpakman91]

i just never understand why it is worth it for candidates liek kucinich and lieberman, who really SHOULD know they can't win (the general public certainly knows) to continue campaigning. why is it worth it to them?

 

[bill-pix-trade]

Re: Re: Re: The latest Democratic Debate.

The quote here is somewhat misleading:

"Section 214 doesn't change this standard but broadens the reach—making the FISA pen register/trap-and-trace power available in both criminal and foreign intelligence investigations, so long as the government merely certifies that the information obtained would be 'relevant to an ongoing investigation.' The probable-cause requirement in criminal cases is gone."

The old standard for obtaining a wiretap remains.

What changed is how intelligence and national security agencies obtain pen register trap and trace informaton. First, the PA allowded them to use these on electronic comunications. They hadn't been able to do that before.

Well, first, an explanation of what a trap and trace is. A T&T can be put on a telephone by the phone company. It doesn't show who made the calls, doesn't record the calls, and can't in any way determine the substance of the call. All it does is show that a particular phone number called the number in question, or that a number was called from there. Extended to electronic communications, it shows the same thing - the origination and destination headers of the message. It doesn't capture the message itself. It's incapable of doing that.

The problem before was that law enforcement could get a T&T simply by getting a local court order to do so. National Security agencies had a much longer path to do the same thing which routinely took months to put into place. This alows them the same speed that law enforcement agencies already had.

There is also a section specifically written into the PA that says that an agency may not get a pen register trap and trace against an American based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment.

There is an excellent legal analysis written by the Congressional Research Service of the Patriot Act here.

WOW you are up to date. Thank for clearing the air. It sounds like a good thing to me.

 

[JazzManJim]

Re: Re: Re: Re: The latest Democratic Debate.

WOW you are up to date. Thank for clearing the air. It sounds like a good thing to me.

You'll have to forgive the rampant typos. Unfortunately my speed make the post look like something busybody would write, only without the ranting and multitude of big letters.

I don't claim any special knowledge of the Patriot Act, though. All I can claim is that I took the time to read the act and a couple very thorough analyses. Anyone can do that.

 

[Crazy~Boarder]

I dont like any of them

Personally, I have found that listening to the democrates talk anymore is a strain on my mind. I'm constantly trying to figure out how what the last thing they just said could in any way shape or form make sense, and then I miss what they said after that.

/sarcasm off

That's a little exageration, but I still must say that in this last year, I have found almost anything the Democrats say I totally disagree with. I watched the State of the Union Address, and then I saw an interview with Kerry, and he started talking about how President bush was constantly twisting his words!

This is from the guy who has the commercial that says that he is going to give money back to the people, and he's going to get rid of the Bush tax cuts! Now I understand what he meant because of all the social benefits and all, but if he's going to talk about twisting words, he's the only one I see doing it flat out!

Also after the address, they interviewed a Democratic Senator(or somthing I can't quite remember right now) who misquoted JFK!

So yeah, I'm not saying I agree with the Republicans entirely either, but the Democrats *shakes his head* words cannot describe some of the complete jokes they have in there.

 

[ruminator]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The latest Democratic Debate.

You'll have to forgive the rampant typos. Unfortunately my speed make the post look like something busybody would write, only without the ranting and multitude of big letters.

I don't claim any special knowledge of the Patriot Act, though. All I can claim is that I took the time to read the act and a couple very thorough analyses. Anyone can do that.

All we have to do is rely on blind trust that the power is not abused?

Why is there a bipartisan effort to scale it back?

What was that got signed the day Saddam was captured?

 

[Guest]

John “Abe” Kerry

i actually noticed this too.....I saw nothing wrong with that at all......

I would like to see a kerry-edwards ticket...