I'm too late. It's clear you heart is already on your sleeve. I hope Obama doesn't disappoint you.

The ACLU is sponsoring a petition:

Attorney General Mukasey must respond to calls for an investigation and immediately appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate crimes that may have been committed by the C.I.A.

http://tinyurl.com/33c8vk or click on my sig

I hope you are jesting about teh crazy and their right to vote. Perhaps this is a state's issue wrt restricting the franchise. However, I know a whole bunch of folks who carry a diagnosis of one chronic mental illness or another, receive treatment, take meds, have psych charts that are several inches thick, who do, in fact, vote. In every election. I'm confident of this legitimate franchise in two states, for sure. While it may be true that someone on an involuntary hospital admission may not be "physically" able to leave the premises and get to a voting center, any numbers of others, who live and work in the community at large, DO vote. I know of no mechanism that would catalog their diagnosis for the purpose of eliminating their vote because it was not valid. To my knowledge, states, generally, do not keep a database of the mentally ill and tie it to the database for voter registration. You were kidding, correct?

... if you have the stomach for it, check out this post of Digby's.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Bruised Genitalia

by digby

It horrifies me to acknowledge that my country will neither live down, nor sufficiently atone, for these abuses in my lifetime.

This post by Andrew Sullivan is worth a look. A letter from a soldier to his mother regarding the reduction in violence.

... I later had the opportunity to discuss this with my son and he fleshed out the point about the neighborhoods being walled off. He told me that there are 17 feet high cement barriers at the end of every street separating manageable neighborhoods. There are checkpoints to control ingress and egress to each neighborhood. Citizens are not able to lead ordinary lives. The joke among officers over there is that in order to show further "progress" the troops will have to circle EVERY house.

We won, what exactly?

What doobstruck said.

It's a huge relief to have access to this poll and the results... for all sides of the argument.

Why was Paul Wolfowitz picked as most influential then? -Denning

Since Ann Coulter made the cover of Time, and a magazine published by the American Bar Association just named Alberto Gonzales 'Lawyer of the Year,' I don't suppose we ought to be surprised that Wolfowitz was selected to be the 'most influential.'

thinkprogress.org/2007/12/12/gonzales-named-lawyer-of-the-year/

You are a gentle soul. As is, surprisingly, at times, LWM. I admit, I often tend to put my head in my hands and, figuratively, walk away. I genuinely appreciate the way you and LWM parse the comments and remember. Thread historians are valuable people.

...the public loses more faith that Democrats can stand up for anything other than obviously winning subjects like giving health care to children. -vontrapp

Since Bush has, once again, vetoed SCHIP, it remains to be seen whether Congress will get it passed. And, we'll have to concede that if a veto override happens, it will only happen with Republican support.

All said, I do like Waxman's solution:

The Raw Story

Wexler to Dems: Want a healthcare plan for children? Try impeachment hearings

David Edwards and Jason Rhyne

Published: Wednesday December 12, 2007

My outrage meter red-lined and shattered the glass today. I believe it was Einstein who said, You can't solve a problem on the same level it was created. However, I'm reasonably confident that term limits isn't the place to look for a solution. I've seen too much mischief created by setting term limits on elected officials where I live.

There's kind of an interesting post by Sanford Levinson at The New Republic. I've no interest in burnishing TNR's image post-Beauchamp. But, I am beginning to think I should pay attention to discussions regarding the Constitution. Levinson argues against placing all of the blame at the feet of well funded lobbyists. I find notions of a Constitutional crisis compelling, but highly unsettling.

...recognizing that "the system" we operate under is to an astonishing degree exactly the system bequeathed us in 1787 by well-off gentlemen petrified, as spelled out especially by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #78, that the haves might, in a true "democracy," be challenged by have-nots. The basic aim of the Constitution, as the founding fathers were candid enough to admit, was to assure the futility of any such challenges.

My fears aside, I've decided I need to be open to thinking about the degree to which our current system might be designed to frustrate us beyond all measure.

I found the comments worthy of a read, too.

http://tinyurl.com/yrfp45 (or, click on my sig)

Without having read it, a link to their article announcing the event...

Republican Club hosts pro-war event

By: Kate Olesin, Collegian Staff

Issue date: 12/11/07 Section: News

http://tinyurl.com/ynr9gy (or, click sig)

I didn't find an article reporting on the event after it happened. The paper's URL: http://www.dailycollegian.com/home/

Yeah, I was aware of the Beauchamp/TNR back story. I was just aggrieved that they backed away and left their source to twist in the end.

Thanks for the heads up on Levinson's book. One more to add to my Wish List ;-)

I have Balkinization bookmarked but tend to focus (more or less exclusively) on Marty Lederman. I'll pay more attention, now. Thanks for that.

Thanks for digging that out. Yeah, university online newspapers can be selective. But, maybe they'll get it up there. With most campuses looking at their winter breaks coming up soon, I'd think they'd have to print it within the next week or so - or, it'll be old news by next semester. I thought I'd keep an eye out, just in case.