Apologies - that "Enformy" web site is very difficult to follow. Alford did not work with departed co-investigators, an admirer and fellow traveler did (the author of the site).

Alford was interested in how "Native American languages and cosmologies hold the keys to the mysteries of quantum physics and the nature of reality." (http://www.seedgraduateinstitute.org/conferences/language/LOSfilm.htm)

Still, additional criticisms of a less pseudosciency nature would be appreciated.

Is one of the options being kicked around - a truth and reconciliation commission that would not lead to prosecutions, but to healing.

This smacks of the "understanding and therapy" Rove said liberals wanted to extend to terrorists after 9/11. Democrats were terribly offended by that and "stressed that they were nearly unanimous in supporting Bush in congressional votes on his response to the Sept. 11 attacks and his decision to go to war in Afghanistan." (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8324598/)

Golly. It's retroactive.

SEC. 11. APPLICATION.

This Act applies to claims pending on or after the date of enactment of this Act. A court also may relieve a party or its legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding that was based, in whole or in part, on the state secrets privilege if—

(1) the motion for relief is filed with the rendering court within one year of the date of enactment of this Act;

(2) the underlying judgment, order, or proceeding from which the party seeks relief was entered after January 1, 2002; and

(3) the claim on which the judgement, order, or proceeding is based is—

(A) against the Government; or

(B) arises out of conduct by persons acting in the capacity of a Government officer, employee, or agent.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/state_secrets_legislation.pdf [This is the only version of the House bill I've been able to find (H.R.984). Wired: Threat Level has been a good source in the past, though.]

Mr. Obama, on the other hand, routinely ascribes to others views they don't espouse and says opposition to his policies is grounded in views no one really advocates....

There are two ways Rove has worked this strategy - the first is ascribing views that no one advocates to others and the second, which Anonymous Liberal describes (Update V), where the straw man has a trunk and where X is a position that they themselves have espoused or a transgression which they themselves have committed.

Using the second Rovian "straw man" while accusing Obama of the first - that's gall. Awe inspiring gall, so whether it's self-delusion or conscious deceit doesn't seem to matter.

One admin's DOJ does not have to defend the previous admin...

A report prepared last year by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) concluded that in nearly a dozen recent environmental cases, the Department of Justice did not appeal adverse court rulings, switched positions mid-case or agreed to an "anti-environmental settlement" with industry plaintiffs. "The reason for this is the administration does not feel bound by the constraints of the laws in their agency actions," said Greg Wetstone of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on Schumer's report. But Rey said that government attorneys are doing the best they can to keep up with the legal challenges. "The numbers will probably show you that we defended more of these rule makings that emanated from the Clinton administration than the Clinton administration defended" from the administration of former president George H.W. Bush, he said.

http://www.nathpo.org/News/Federal/News-Federal_Agencies10.htm

Philip Pullman, who was a keynote speaker at the convention wrote: "Malevolent voices that despise our freedoms," which was posted on The Times web site, but quickly pulled down. Excerpt:

Are such things done on Albion’s shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today....

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys....

We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more....

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don’t mind if we are. They don’t think we care about it....

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001)....

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum

http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/007085.html

Convention on Modern Liberty http://www.modernliberty.net/

Could the answer to what Obama is doing be in the FISA Amendments Act, which he voted for? There are several suits brought by the ACLU and others challenging its constitutionality (see http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/33940res20080205.html). I guess now we can predict how those will be fought by the DOJ. Does the Obama DOJ need to fight Al Haramain in order to ensure that a precedent won't be set that will affect these or future challenges?