If you think someone is a troll then why not ignore them? And if you disagree with them, why not argue with them?

Not to be too pseudo-Yodaish... but it seems like the answer is contained in the question, dunnit?

And WT...fancy-ass tequila should always be drunk neat. Margarita mix is to mask the taste of the truly awful stuff. A nice Don Julio añejo washes away the sins of the world, at least for a bit.

I stand corrected.

I took it as gentle and well-earned chiding, no worries.

The title phrase, for what it's worth, was from King's Dark Tower series - something spoken by one of the hero's adversaries when he knows he's been outgunned...

This is after all a truly liberal action. It's a direct redistribution of wealth.

It's a tax rebate. People are getting their own money back.

I love when people on the right try to define leftist positions using some caricature they invented.

Bush can literally give away money, and STILL no one will share the love.

So presumably, Shooter, if Hillary Clinton walked up and gave you a $600 check, you'd be her friend for life? No? How about $600,000?

"Of course not, what do you take me for?!"

"We've already established that. Now we're haggling about price."

People said that after Vietnam, too. Well, except for the camel part.

I prefer that formulation, but any elderberry extract of good quality should work as well.

Lots of people I know are sick, and my office is half empty. It's like the first chapter of The Stand.

I just want to take a moment to reflect on how horrible the "line" is that the Democrats are holding. From the Reyes letter to Bush, listing the powers they've already given him:

First, NSA can use its authority under Executive Order 12333 to conduct surveillance abroad of any known or suspected terrorist. [...]
Second, NSA can use its authority under the Protect America Act, enacted last August, to conduct surveillance here in the U.S of any foreign target.[...]
Third, in the remote possibility that a new terrorist organization emerges that we have never previously identified, the NSA could use existing authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to monitor those communications.

So yeah, bully on them for not giving him everything he wants. The phrase "too little, too late" comes to mind, however.

I know this is not news to many of you. I just can't get it out of my head, though.

the use of the secret courts to approve all these warrants and their evident extreme reluctance to ever say no

That is exactly what I find so terrible. FISA was not created because of a "lack of law;" as the Church Committee found, the FBI and CIA had been breaking the law for years and years. FISA was about creating a legal framework for espionage.

Now, you may feel that there is value in regulating behaviour that the government is going to engage in anyway. I don't. I'd prefer to go back to the Fourth Amendment, which in my mind is pretty clear about these matters.

As far as it goes, yes, a secret court is on balance better than completely unrestricted secret espionage of anyone at any time. And being waterboarded is better than being broken on the rack. But I don't have any desire to hide my disgust at the fact that we are even having these types of discussions.

Well, don't know if I am one of Glenn's "followers," but my views certainly have no currency in the current Congress.

What I am never able to understand is why these right-wing authoritarians are so gleeful about the real possibility of a President Barack Hussein Ahmedinejad Chavez Chirac Osama Obama inheriting all these sweeping powers.

Clinton determining OBL was legally immune form the US

You're so cute when you do that, drop something vague in hopes that someone will go "ooh, ooh, what did Shooter mean by that?"

And just as a frame of reference, I'd be curious just what you thnk the Bush administration has done more "comptetently" than, well, anyone? I mean, no matter how ideological you are, one would think there would be some standard for competence based on, you know, results.

As we (bizarrely IMHO) blithely talk about giving governments more and more power in the name of "security," I find it interesting how little discussion there is of the role of good old fashioned cock-ups - rather than, say, brilliantly-executed cyber-surveillance - in violating people's privacy and civil rights:

WASHINGTON — A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/washington/17fisa.html

The right-wing authoritarians' newfound faith in the inherent goodness, infallibility, and - dare I say it - competence of government would be laughable if it weren't so damn dangerous.

Apparently you and quite a few more are hot to trot to have your personal communication accessible ro government scrutiny at all times, along with that of all your family, all you neighbors, everyone in your city and state. Can you envision Republican lists, anti-Clinton lists, right-wing troll lists? Apparently not. And you're worried about who knows your HDL level?

What the hell are you thinking about?

Steyn's post took a statement of Glenn's, and instead of saying that it showed how laughably "hystrionic" they are, showed what "emotionally exhausted," clueless-about-the-true-strategic-challenge nellies those of us in the reality-based world are.

I did not see any sort of offer to "ease up on the war on terror" in the passage. If I missed it, kindly remedy my "deficient education" -- without links this time. The last effort didn't work out to well, I recall