I talked to Representative Barbara Lee's office, because she's chair of the Progressive Caucus, who took such a strong, principled, effective stand for Constitutional government, as opposed to Steny Hoyer's never-introduced abomination, permanently gutting FISA and the Fourth Amendment.

What Lee's staffer said was that they had taken no official position on any bill (i.e., not on the RESTORE bill above, which I think is from Conyers), but that they would support a bill from Rush Holt, were it to be introduced.

The Conservative movement wants to break the government and privatize its functions. They've been ideologically commmitted to that for years, and when Bush seized power, they followed through.

So, why doesn't the Army fall under that general heading?

After all, if the Army is broken, then mercenaries can assume its functions, right?

Just a thought...

And why would they? It's not in their interest to do so.

The Founders taught us to depend, not on the "goodness" of individual "trusted" leaders, but on a system established, with carefully devised checks and balanced, to protect us from tyranny. Federalist 51:

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Wise words that Our Betters in the Village have forgotten.

Keep the cocktail wienies coming!

Just asking... In comments on Fred's chin-wiping teabaggery, reader Enough writes:

Would The Washington Post, if requested, hand over to the government the information it has about people who post comments on its Web site? Some of the comments certainly could be construed as showing extreme, possibly dangerous, emotions. If the Post discloses the information, would it be "acting as patriotic corporate citizens in a difficult and uncharted environment"?

Good question. Tell me again why anybody--at least anybody not using a proxy--would post at WaPo's site? Presumably, their revenue model depends on dedicated users, so it would be a useful question to ask them. I'd ask Debbie Howell, except that would be totally useless.

Because that's really what's at stake here -- whether there is the rule of law in our corporate state.

The wingers have a history of gotcha electronic communication; I know because I've been pw0ned myself.*

And it's only going to get worse as we gear up for 2008 and their rage increases. It's right out of the Rovian playbook that they'd attack our strength in digital communication and a dense network of trusted though informal sources.

Maybe it reads like a parody because it is a parody. And I can read the headlines now....

* The underlying truth of the matter is that the Conservative movement makes no distinction between armed warfare abroad and political warfare at home. It is all the same battle to them. So consider email with faked headers, say, as a form of informational warfare. Not to be overly foily....

First time commenter vermont_2020:

Maybe my mad Google skillz aren't up to to, but I can't find the material from the Brattleboro Reformer on identity theft that you're citing. Not via Google, and not via the Reformer's own search function.

Got a link? Readers? Anyone else have better luck?

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BRFB&p_theme=brfb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=allfields(Boylan%20rental)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=(%22Boylan%20rental%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no

First Glenn gets one; now it turns out Kevin got one.

What I do I have to do to get one?

I don't want to start talking about the goats, but if that's what it takes....

Col. Jerry "Cheetohs"* Boylan.

Yes, it has a nice ring to it.

* As in:

"Hey, Mom! Bring some more Cheetohs down to the basement, wouldja? And a new keyboard. This one's all sticky..."

If opposed Mukasey is "good politics," then so much the better, say I.

Ditto, if restoring Constitutional government is good politics, we know it's going to happen.

Outcomes matter, not personal authenticity.

Now, granted, the Democratic Party has a long, long way to go. But any opposition to Mukasey is good behavior, and we need to look at it, and reward it, in that light.