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Jan. 18, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:25
January 18, 2007, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, this has a potential to be a barn burner today, folks.
Stacks of stuff galore here.
I'm going to have to talk fast, so you're going to have to listen fast if we're going to get to all of it.
So hunker down and buckle up.
Greetings, welcome, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network, and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I indeed am your highly trained broadcast specialist, making it look easy.
Making everybody think they can do it until they try it.
800 282-2882, the phone number, the email address, rush at EIBNet.com.
Last uh program yesterday around 2 30, the news hit.
2 30 Eastern Time.
The news hit that the president had decided not to renew a program of domestic spying on terrorism suspects.
Once again, the drive by meeting, this is a Reuters story, continues to misrepresent what the program is.
It is not, and it never was domestic spying.
We're going to lose this war if we cannot convince the American people, if the American people cannot be told accurately what the program is that is designed to keep America safe.
But anyway, that's a little beside the point.
The Reuters story said that President Bush has decided not to renew a program of domestic spying on terrorism suspects.
This, according to the Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, ending a law enforcement tactic criticized for infringing on civil liberties.
Gonzalez wrote a letter to congressional leaders which said the president has determined not to reauthorize the TSP, the terrorist surveillance program when the current authorization expires.
Well, I blew a gasket.
Everybody blew a gasket.
Everybody assumed that the administration had caved, once again, bowing to liberal critics for reasons that we can only guess and speculate.
And there were people, and I I must tell you, I was one of them.
This program has been under constant assault ever since it was leaked and announced in the New York Times.
There has been an ongoing effort by a shadow government, I am a of at least that's my opinion, to do everything possible to sabotage victory over this enemy.
And I at the at uh throughout this two-year period, the the whys, the motivation for that have not been so interesting to me as has been the effort to alert people that's what's going on.
This is a program that's we 9-11 happened.
We're doing everything we can to try to find out when such an attack might happen again.
And you do that by monitoring terrorist phone calls, phone calls from known terrorists outside the country, talking to people inside the country, or vice versa.
Terrorists in this country, known terrorists in their phone numbers talking to people outside the country.
And this whole thing was misrepresented as domestic spying that was portrayed as Bush in the White House listening in on your phone calls and the phone calls of liberals.
And frankly, liberal lives are so boring, who'd want to waste time listening to their phone calls.
Anyway, the whole thing was under assault for two years, uh, and and a whole bunch of people were doing everything they could to defend the program on the basis of national security, under the basis that the president is the commander-in-chief and that the judiciary, Pfizer court or anybody else cannot sit there and tell him how to operate war.
He cannot operate commander-in-chief duties.
They don't have the constitutional right to intercede in national security matters by fiat, including the FISA court.
Well, when this news hit yesterday, I don't know about a lot of other people, but I felt sold out.
And I say what what is the point of defending what you believe in as far as what the administration's doing when eventually they're going to cave.
Well, since about 2 30 yesterday afternoon, uh, there has been a little bit more brought to light on this.
The White House says that they didn't get out in front of the news quick enough to explain what had been going on.
Uh their Basic point is that this is a win for them, but they can't explain how, because when you when you ask them you know pointed questions, they say it's classified.
Sorry, we can't we can't answer that.
You're just gonna have to accept the fact that this is a huge win.
We got the FISA court to agree with what we want to do in perpetuity.
Well, I understand that nobody ever thought the program was going to end.
It's the process here that is of concern to people like me, who are originalists when it comes to the Constitution.
And my my fear yesterday was that not that the program was going to end, but that the president was surrendering constitutional authority to the judiciary in these matters when that is not necessary and not required.
So why is he doing this?
Are we back to the new tone?
We're back to trying to make the liberals love us.
Are we trying to clear the decks of everything controversial here so that the only argument on the table is Iraq?
Uh the the administration and and some people that uh uh see it a different way think that it is a huge win.
But if you look at a portion of the letter that uh that that Gonzalez sent uh to the Senate Judiciary Committee, there's this little passage in it.
In the spring of 2005, well before the first press account disclosing the existence of the terrorist surveillance program, and that would have been the New York Times leak, the administration began exploring options for seeking FISA court approval.
Well I read that and I said, why do you need it?
You'd been doing the program for these two years, and you've been telling people or a year, and it you've been telling people that it's it's it's totally legal and above board.
Why are you seeking FISA court approval, which is what the left was demanding?
If you've been doing it's a i the the way the left is gonna see this is blood in the water.
They're gonna say, aha, administration admitting all along that they know they've been on the outer edges of the law here, and they're trying to get within the law now.
And the impression left was by this letter, this little passage in Gonzalez letter, uh, is that the uh administration knew all along that they were in trouble over this.
And uh one of the reasons why was they knew that the FISA court couldn't cooperate on streamlining the process.
You know what the legal system's like.
You get a new- you intercept a phone call and you need fast action, or you gotta go to court and get a warrant and all this.
By the time all that process stuff happens, you may have lost the lead.
You may have lost the opportunity.
And the Bush people were telling us two things.
The FISA court would not cooperate on streamlining the uh the process for warrants once they had uh made a successful intercept.
Um and they were also telling us they could proceed uh with the uh without the authority to do it.
I mean they had the authority to proceed without it.
Uh and as such, a bunch of people began spouting that line for them.
Well, they don't need this kind of authority.
This is and they don't.
This is the bottom, they still don't need the authority.
And yet now they've they've gone back and then the the story is the FISA court is brought on board.
This is a big win, and this is a program in perpetuity for every president now on and for forever, uh, which nobody questions that we're still answering the process.
And if you ask them, uh, well, do you need to get warrants?
I can't answer that because it's classified.
When you ask them about the process of how this is a big win, they, because the information is classified, can't tell anybody, so they can't sell this.
The very administration who's responsible for selling this has got their own hands tied by the uh the nature of the fact that this is uh supposedly classified data.
So what we what we got yesterday was the Bush administration arguing for years that the program was critical to national security and fell within the president's constitutional authority.
Uh uh and now, with the news that hit yesterday, the turnaround and appear to surrender presidential authority was just mind-boggling.
Uh it it seemed uh th the administration was repudiating all the arguments that it had made, uh, both in the public and in testimony, uh that the that the program was okay and and legal.
So anyway, uh it it's it's it's still a disturbing thing because the things that we all need to sell this thing uh can't be provided, including the uh the administration.
Now, let me give you my perspective on this, just so you are clear uh on on my context here.
I am an originalist in the Constitution.
Now I believe what it says.
And I don't think the courts have any authority to review the president's authority to intercept enemy communications during wartime.
They didn't even try this against Lincoln.
They tried to shut down Lincoln every which way they could.
They didn't, they would have never thought this about FD.
FDR was opening mail during World War II.
And nobody said a word about, in fact, with the hearings today, Gonzalez got his rear end kicked about that very quick.
The president opening mail, you know, leahy inspectors smell blood in the water.
I mean, they if this was to mollify critics, it's done just the opposite, and it always will do just the opposite of modifying critics.
Because you can't give your critics enough.
When the critics are liberals, you cannot give them enough.
If you give them everything they want, you it's absurd to even discuss it.
But the courts in the Constitution have no authority to review the president's authority to intercept enemy uh communications during wartime, and to confer such authority on the courts is how we get to this current situation.
And I don't know what authority has been conferred on the FISA court because we can't be told about this.
But the net effect could be to unleash judicial review of all kinds of war decisions that the president is solely empowered to make.
And when the judiciary gets involved with the way it's composed these days, we're gonna have nothing but a bunch of wells commanders in chief imposing their own personal policy preferences on something like war, which they don't have any right to be involved in.
It's uh now now some people say this gets really thick here.
Some people look at the Fourth Amendment and the reasonableness uh uh aspect or clause of the Fourth Amendment with a reasonable uh right to uh whatever it is, uh be safe in our persons and guard against searches and this sort of stuff.
Uh some people say, yeah, these searches must be reasonable uh and that they apply to citizens even in the war context.
Uh I don't know the Fourth Amendment has anything to do with the war context.
That's that's the argument.
But you know, the the intellectuals are getting hold of this and they're putting it in their meat grinders, and by the time they get finished with it, nobody will be able to understand it.
Uh it just seems to me Congress has constitutional authority to end the war, to defund the NSA to defund this program.
Congress can do that, but the courts can't.
And the Congress isn't going to do it.
They're in the process of going through meaningless but destructive shows of of resolutions and votes on resolutions that don't count and don't do diddly squat other than feed the morale of the enemy.
Not only the enemy over there, the enemy within our own borders.
If our government wants to use information it gets through an NSA intercept to prosecute somebody criminally, now then the Fourth Amendment and due process kick in.
But the Fourth Amendment cannot apply in wartime to enemy combatants intercepting their messages.
Now, after you've done that, and you want to prosecute somebody criminally for what you've learned, then the Fourth Amendment can kick in.
But the Fourth Amendment, like the whole Constitution, is not a suicide pact.
The Fourth Amendment cannot sit there and serve as an obstacle to national security.
And neither should the courts in this country be able to do that.
They are not elected, and they are unaccountable.
I gotta take a break here.
Um things are spiraling out of control here, be it genuinely or in a PR sense, and in politics, PR perception is reality.
I have just a little bit of advice for the administration.
But I'll get to that right after this break.
Uh take your time, folks, be patient, take a breath.
I know I'll take a couple.
Again, 800 2822882, stay with us.
Well, now this.
This frankly is not helpful.
A story from the Associated Press.
The presiding judge of the FISA court, by the way, for those of you in uh real Linda FISA stands for foreign intelligence surveillance court, Pfizer's the FISA Act, which established a court.
Super secret court out there.
Uh The presiding judge of the Pfizer court said she has no objection to disclosing the legal orders and the opinions about the program that targets people linked to Al-Qaeda, but the Bush administration would have to approve release of the information.
At least this judge did not say that she has uh no objection to disclosing illegal orders and opinions about the program on domestic spying.
At least the judge got it right here as to what the program is.
But the import of this is that the Bush administration is saying, well, we can't reveal any of the process information, how we got to where we are here, that's a win-win because it's classified.
The judge here has just said, I don't care.
The release information, but I need the administration's um permission to uh do so.
Uh the administration says it can't say what's up.
The court says, sure, it can.
We just can't do it without the administration's approval.
So now we'll go through the next dance on this.
All right, here's there's there's some things happening.
If you're one of these people out there that you're paying attention to news, you know, my gosh, everything's disintegrating here.
We got Maliki over in Iraq saying, get the troops out, just give us a bunch of guns.
Uh you've got Chuck Hagel and a bunch of cowardly Republicans trying to implement their own version of the new tone by joining Democrats in this resolution.
We have audio sound bites, by the way, to support all of this coming up here.
I'm just setting the table.
Uh you have this, the domestic spy program.
See, I victimized myself by it.
The uh foreign surveillance program, uh that that seems to be a cave.
Uh, and you look around and say, Oh my gosh, everything's just disintegrating here.
And the president seems to be trying to uh give the critics, uh, his critics everything they want just to get these issues off the table.
And people are sitting around wondering, can this administration reassert itself?
Yes.
And this is not a unique prescription offered by me.
But this administration could jump start itself with a conservative agenda, emphasizing core principles, offer the people an alternative to the doom and gloom left, and that's exactly what we're getting from them.
It's not, it's not changed since the last year and the last two years, and certainly during the last campaign, there's nothing but doom and gloom being offered by the left.
Doom and gloom is seductive.
It's much easier to be doomy and gloomy, especially when it seems like the whole government's doomy and gloomy, than it is to be optimistic and uh and positive about being an American and about living in this country.
So come out with some alternatives to this doom and gloom and demand, and this is the key, demand that the senators who are going through the motions of this resolution, either support the war or defund it.
Let's have a little substance here, but stop undermining our armed forces with PR stunts like non-binding resolutions.
The administration needs to assert charge here, act like they're in charge rather than reacting to all of this, uh so all these defections and what they what they appear to be.
Uh you have senators out there who are practicing their own form of the new tone.
They're cutting deals with liberals, they're undermining the administration, they're doing it on purpose.
The administration's undermining itself with this NSA program and not being able to tell us why it's a big win-win-win.
Uh and if you can't if you can't enforce party discipline in Congress, your own party, if you can't keep, and I know we got some wacko moderates and liberal Republicans that we're talking about national security here.
We're talking about the war on terror.
If you can't keep these people in line, uh, then well, if if you don't practice it yourself, then how are these people gonna be any different?
I mean, if you're gonna run around and start making deals with Democrats on this issue or that domestic issue or that, then why should a Republican senator sit there and say, I'm gonna stay loyal to the administration.
Everybody's in their own world now.
Everybody's doing their own new tone, and everybody's out for themselves.
And it seems to be that everybody thinks the best way to get what they want is to dump on this administration.
And the administration has the power, it's the presidency for crying out loud, have a power to um to stop all this.
Just, you know, what w if this trend continues, uh, you can imagine what's ahead regarding illegal immigration.
We haven't even gotten to the non pardon of the I know what's a dumb deal anyway.
I gotta take a brief time out here, folks.
We'll get to your phone call, some of the audio sound bites supporting all this right after uh this.
Now, here's an interesting story.
This is today, this is uh, well, what is it?
It's uh San Francisco Chronicle, and it's actually by one of their local reporters, Jennifer DeLouie.
Uh and this may provide a little bit of a clue as to what the new deal with the FISA court is.
Uh, he said hopefully.
Uh Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez on Wednesday warned Federal judges not to meddle in cases involving national security in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute.
Gonzalez said that federal judges are not, this is a quote, not equipped to make decisions about actions the president takes in the name of preserving national security.
Amen.
Yes.
Not only they're not in the position to know, and not equipped to know, they're not constitutionally entitled.
Pardon me for yelling.
Gonzalez said a judge will never be in the position to know what is in the national security interest of the country.
Yet, after warning judges not to meddle, then we heard the news about this new deal with FISA.
But we don't know what the details are.
We do we know the program's continuing, but we don't know just how big a role the judiciary has been given in this.
This may indicate again, he said hopefully uh that the FISA court uh has granted the administration more power.
Well why they wouldn't want to say that if it's true.
I just I'm you know, we're all we're all flying blind here on this, and it's our instincts guided by intelligence versus what we're being told, and we've got to make a decision here on what we follow.
Audio soundbite time, the uh Attorney General got roasted today up on Capitol Hill Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, and don't forget Leakey Leahy, uh Pat Leahy is now the chairman of the committee.
And I mean, it after you know, Spectre, the ranking Republican on the committee, and Leahy just just they could not wait to have at Gonzalez today uh couple of bites here, Spectre first.
Your letter to Senator Leahy, the chairman and me noted that you had been working on it since uh the summer of two thousand five.
And it is uh a little hard to see why it took so long.
And we will want to inquire further into the details as to the process that uh uh that you used.
Well, I understand pr Spectre wanting the details of the process here.
I mean, uh that that's fascinating.
And what's more interesting to me about the fact that the administration Gonzalez and his letter said they've been working on it since December 2005.
Why work on it at all if their position was they were totally within their constitutional rights to conduct the program the way they were?
See, that's the big bugaboo here.
And Gonzalez does admit that in his letter to these guys, that's what Spectre's talking.
Why?
If if all this time we've been told this is a hunky-dory program, this program is legal, president has this authority, other past presidents have used this authority, then why spend these two years responding to the critics saying it was violation of civil liberties, human rights, and all that other gobbledygook that the left throws in.
Spectre was more curious why it took so long to get to the position he wants, which is the courts being able to shut down the administration and administration any time.
Uh Gonzalez uh next had a question from from Leahy who said, is the Bush administration opening Americans private mail without a warrant?
Yes or no?
Senator the answer is no, to my knowledge.
There is no physical search of mail ongoing under either the authority to use military force or the presence inherent authority under the Constitution, except this otherwise authorized by statutes passed by the Congress.
You understand some of our concern because of the willingness and the uh we may disagree on this, but the willingness in the administration to ignore FISA and uh wiretaps.
Are you saying that they're balling FISA in mail openings?
What I'm saying, Senator, is that to my knowledge, there is no ongoing physical searches of mail under the authority we've claimed under the authorization to use military force or under the presence and hearing authority under the Constitution, as far as I know.
None ongoing.
Has there been some?
Not that I'm aware of, no, sir.
Well, can we can we go go back and look at the uh Roosevelt administration?
It was it was it was part and parcel of national security, and the country I don't know if they even knew it at the time, but those who did were all for it.
Uh you you see, this is this is what is so maddening.
We've got people like Senator Leahy and and the whole Democrat caucus in the Senate, joined by some Republicans who seem hellbent on hamstringing every effort to protect this country.
If it means they can destroy Bush, you wouldn't believe a number of Democrats who in the last two to three years said, we need more troops in Iraq, we need more troops in Iraq.
I've got the sound bites coming up.
We need more troops in Iraq.
Bush comes out for more troops in Iraq, and every one of them changes his position from the new uh House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Sylvestre Reyes, to uh Howard Dean to uh Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton.
Uh so I th this is the thing that's troubling about this is that there is an ongoing effort to sabotage this administration, and rather than it just appears the administration doesn't realize this.
To us, we think they can't how do they how can they not know that there is an effort out there to not just defeat them policy wise, but to destroy them?
When you come along and and and announce this uh the end of the FISA program, the TSP program as it's been known, and can't tell anybody what's new about it, even though it's really good and a big win.
You're asking people to accept it on faith.
Uh let's grab some phone calls.
Dennis Lindale, Texas.
You're up first today for sir.
That's a uh awesome responsibility, by the way.
Well, thank you very much, Rush.
I'm gonna do my best.
Uh, megadatos from here in Texas.
Thank you, sir.
But uh what I was wondering is, is it possible, just from your view, you're gonna know a lot more about this than I do, but is it possible that the FISA court has granted President Bush more authority, uh more free hand, but then President Bush doesn't want to talk about it for the same reason they didn't want the whole thing brought up to begin with.
It lets the terrorists know what we're doing.
Yes, that is possible.
That's entirely possible.
Uh they have been asked that very question.
They say we can't answer national security, classified information, which I understand.
I mean, this is a program designed to catch bad guys.
You can't go out there and say here's how we're gonna do it, whatever, and so on.
But they're really taking a beating on this from all sides because the way it was initially reported was they had caved.
They had ended the program.
That the program that they had said was legal, constitutionally and every other way, was fine and dandy.
But and and now we learn that they have been uh trying to alter it to uh respond to the what the critics were saying about it and so forth.
It just it makes pull our hair out.
You know, I I've hell with you know satisfying critics on this when you're talking about national security, especially these critics who can never be satisfied, it can never be brought on board to this.
Right.
But yeah, you're y it's entirely possible that's happened.
All right, but thank you very much, Russ.
You bet.
And with with the the FISA, the presiding judge of the FISA court is doesn't seem bothered by any of this, she's willing to talk about it.
But I look at I can understand the administration wanting to keep this stuff all hunky-dory national security.
Here's here's the one thing that that uh you can fall back on.
If you're if you're one of these people that's you know hot under the collar about this.
The one thing this administration has not caved on.
The one thing that's why this was so upsetting yesterday to some people.
The one thing they have not caved on is the war on terror and national security and defense.
And uh to believe that, okay, they have now because they seem to be caving on some other things would be a stretch.
I think if there's one thing this administration is hellbent is going to happen, is that uh while they're in office, we're going to be victorious in the war on terror and we're going to be vigilant, we're going to make sure as best we can that things like 9-11 don't happen on these shores again, and the uh desire to keep the machinations of the program, the workings of the program classified so as not to have that information get in the hands of the enemy.
You know, once it gets you know it it it won't be long.
Sadly, I won't be long that the whole thing uh how this happened is going to end up in the New York Times.
It'll be a leak.
Somebody somewhere is going to leak this, it's gonna be the New York Times if we're just patient.
We will we will find out what really went on here and how we got to this point and what the end result is, as far as the leaker and the New York Times want it to be portrayed.
Uh Indianapolis, John, welcome to the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Well, hi, Rush.
Um I'm I've calmed down a little bit.
I'm I'm furious.
I've got a loved one in this fight.
He's been to Iraq three times, got a medal for Valor.
You know why we went to the Marine Corps?
Because of 9-11.
He decided he was going to give blood that week then he decided to join.
John, could you do me a favor and hold the phone?
You want a cell phone, right?
Yeah.
But you hold that phone a little further away from your mouth.
I can hardly understand what you're saying.
Sure, I'm sorry.
Is that better?
A little bit more.
A little bit more, is that better?
That's better.
All right.
Anyway, let me tell you what I did today to indicate my own impotence and how angry I am.
I fired off a letter to the president, and I said, I'm very disappointed that you've advocated presidential responsibility and constitutional authority regarding this decision.
Secondarily, I said, Mr. President, I'm very disappointed that you have chosen not to prosecute treasonous behavior.
Are we at war or are we not?
If we are, then people who deliberately seek our defeat, are they not traitors?
Now let me tell you where I'm coming from.
Two reasons I called.
The main reason I called is you're my guru.
What do we do?
I've got two wimpy senators, Richard Luger and Evan Bai.
I've got two MP senators, and now I've got a wimpish president who will who is abdicating constitutional authority.
And we're going to lose this war.
And we've got people who are acting in a traitorous, treasonous manner who are not being prosecuted for it.
What the hell are we supposed to do?
Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
Uh what what's the what's the treasonous behavior?
You're talking about leaking.
Well, the New York Times the New York Times has has have they not publicly.
Well, if you're if you're livid about that, I'm sure you remember the story from last week where the FBI cannot investigate any of these agencies that have leaked because the agencies that have leaked are not participating.
The quote unquote victim agencies will not participate.
All right.
Okay, all right.
I don't know why that should shut down an investigation, but the FBI says we if if the if there are leaks coming from State Department CIA, and the State Department of CIA said, Well, uh uh we yeah, we we we're not gonna participate here in the investigation, the FBI says there's nothing we can do.
Well subpoena them.
Right?
Well that's I yeah, convene a grand jury.
Exactly.
Yes, yes, I know.
I I I hear you.
Look, you said you calmed that you weren't quite as hot as you uh as you were when the show began.
Is that right, or did I misunderstand you?
No, you're well, I've gotten there again.
I'm sorry, but I've gotten there again.
Um, well you have to hold out the possibility here, because the we look at the questions that you have and a lot of people have, the administration can't answer.
Classified information.
It is possible that they have scored a huge win here.
But one question regarding that, and you've made that point, and I I do understand it.
My my problem with that is it's still abdicating to a court if if the reports are clear.
Well, I know.
I'm you and I are on the same page on that.
I I you know the the hell with the judiciary get involved in national security.
There's nothing the Constitution gives them the right, and there's nothing In the Constitution says you have to extend them the right.
And as an originalist, and I can tell you are one, uh, John.
Yeah.
It is it is maddening in front because especially with the composition of the judiciary today.
Uh, John, quick change of subject.
Uh, how do you feel about the horses and the patriots on uh Sunday?
Oh, well, I'm a seasoned ticket holder who who cannot go to the game.
That's another story.
Let me tell you this.
Well, what no wonder you're burned.
Oh, I'm I am.
I almost said a bad word.
Hey, hey, look, I'm a Peyton Manning fan, I'm a Colts fan.
We love the Colts.
And if God's on our side, the team from Massachusetts, which deserves defeat, will be defeated.
That's all I can say.
Go Colts, go Peyton Manning.
We despise the Patriots.
And we'll be back after this.
Hi, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, cutting edge, society level ocean behind a golden EIB microphone at the prestigious and distinguished limbaugh institute for advanced conservative studies.
The first caller was from where in Texas.
Do you had you did you keep a note of where in Texas this guy was from?
Doesn't matter.
I'm just trying to identify him.
Um he asked me the question could this have been a big, big, big, big, big win?
And could it be the administration wants to keep the uh results of the program secret so that the terrorists don't know what we're doing?
That's why they want to keep things classified.
Uh the terrorists already know what we're doing.
We're trying to kill them.
Well, some of us are.
Uh, some Americans are trying to give them a ticket out of town.
Uh some Americans, some Democrats want to bring the terrorists in on peace negotiations.
But some Americans are trying to protect the country and defend again.
And the terrorists know what we're trying to do.
So, you know, they may not know how, but they know what we're trying to do.
This is a this is a a legal issue, predominantly, folks, and the enemy may not care about the legal aspects of this.
Uh let's walk through this one more time.
Brevity is a soul of wit.
I'm gonna try to I'm gonna go through this.
Using common sense, intelligence guided by experience with as few words as possible.
If the court, the FISA court, has agreed the president can continue doing what he's doing, then it's no secret.
We know there's no reason to say it's secret.
If the court has decided to raise the bar and required probable cause, i.e.
the fourth amendment being applied to enemy combatants.
Isn't that cool?
If that's what's happened, we can only speculate because we don't know.
But if the court has decided to raise the bar, required probable cause, then I can see why the administration want to keep that secret, because to agree to that would be to reveal that they've caved.
Uh but what's the reason for keeping that from the public other than than a political reason?
Uh it it's hard to see.
This is a big win.
And I want these guys to have big wins.
That's the thing.
I just have I have a tough time.
See, if the if the courts agreed to the program as practice, there's nothing to keep secret about it.
Now, if the court has limited them, program goes on, but the court has limited them, and they don't want the enemy to know how they've been limited, then you may want to keep that secret.
But even so, that's not a big win.
Because the program going on is that that that was always going to happen, despite what you had heard from the left, they weren't going to be able to shut it down.
So that's in as few words as possible of the way I'm analyzing this up till now.
There's big news, by the way, out of where.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, remember that that that Walmart uh law against uh that Maryland law against Walmart about their uh health care for their employees and so forth, and if they didn't contribute enough, didn't pay their employees enough health care, they have to send a balance of the second court told them it's unconstitutional.
Uh, have details coming up, but that it's great news just in and of itself uh that the legislature cannot, the Maryland legislature just cannot run roughshod over the private sector that way.
But the interesting thing is that the way the court shut it down, they also shut down the central pillar of Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care plan in California, and may have just told him that his plan's unconstitutional too.
Sit tight, watch more straight ahead, don't go away.
Okay, for those of you watching on the Ditto Cam, it's time for the bars again.
See the rest of you and the ditto cameras here in mere moment.
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