But it's special paper. Made from hemp, which is now illegal in some forms. How quaint!

I'm sympathetic to your view. We've a long way to go and the minute you stop pushing, the other side pushes back. One step up, two steps back.

Elephantman says: "By the way, did Nancy Pelosi get around to hiring process servers to sreve [sic] subpoenas on all of the trial witnesses in the Hindu Kush?"

Don't be too hard on our resident dropper of elephantine b.s. Mere 28% approval of a "wartime" unitary executive who controlled all three branches of govt has gotta hurt.

Seems the ol' Saddam bin-Laden [whoosh] Osama Hussein sleight-of-hand ain't workin' like it used to; and even wal mart shoppers are starting to wonder why, 5.5 years after 9/11, the real al-Qaeda is treated as neither a law enforcement OR a military matter.

Personally, I think John "Gates of Hell" McCain's little stroll through the market with the U.S. Army is what finally did it. In any event Elephant's job just gets tougher every day.

Abu Gonzalez joins Moveon.org

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/09/gonzales-to-congress-move-on/

casual_observer:

Paul R @ Trolls

It's not convictions that are lacking. It's the courage of those convictions.

"Convictions" in the absence of courage, aren't "convictions" at all. Perhaps they are more like "positions", which can be fairly easily abandoned and/or re-occupied, as political winds change.

Doesn't Elizabeth Barret say something like this somewhere, rather early on?

It's certainly an inspiring sentiment. But philosophically, it collapses an important distinction. Many people do have convictions, even when they fear to act on them, and this is quite different from other people who are considerably more fickle.

It is because our security strategy is actually focused mostly on our internal Muslim population that all these civil liberty evils are being committed, imo.

Or is it the other way around? Because we've always been preoccupied with the enemy within, and locking up folks who are close at hand, we naturally focus on our own internal Muslim population?

"I came to that realization shortly after the 2000 election. I voted Green, and shortly thereafter became a Democrat once I saw the pointlessness of my "protest vote." Granted, I was not living in a swing state, and would not have voted how I did had I been living in a swing state, but I did a stupid thing nevertheless."

In the words of the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," "Moi aussi."

No kings,

Robert

As cheesy and futile as this gesture always seems to me, I've been writing letters to my Democratic representative (Dave Loebsack) and senator (Tom Harkin), begging them to act quickly to restore the rule of law in this country -- and, most urgently, to restore the process rights of the criminally accused.

I've heard nothing back from Loebsack's office (not even the standard "Thank you for your support" form letter), but Harkin's office, after a long delay, replied with an endless form email setting out Harkin's platform in detail -- pages, literally, of policy objectives on everything from Medicare reform to stem cell research to deficit reduction to agricultural relief to, of course, Iraq.

And nowhere in this holistic, detailed statement of Harkin's political positions was there any mention of reversing the erosion ("destruction" is more accurate, but also too depressing) of Americans' most important Constitutional protections. Completely absent from Harkin's laundry list was any mention of the ongoing international crime -- and the shocking moral failure -- of our "black" prisons in Europe, our lawless internment camp in Guantanamo Bay, and our new program of official torture.

In other words, restoring habeas -- and preventing "extraordinary rendition" and the other, less oblique, torture mechanisms favored by the Army and CIA -- ranks so low on Harkin's list of priorities that his interns can't find a suitable form email to send to a self-identified "single-issue voter" like myself.

What's left, then? The media -- outside of the editorial pages of a few major-market newspapers -- doesn't care. Our Democratic leadership doesn't care. My college-educated friends -- while they're generally turned off by what's happening in this country, and can be relied upon to vote for Democrats in the upcoming election -- don't care enough to follow what's going on with our "military commissions" (and these days, even highly literate college graduates tend to know very little about how our judicial system does, and should, work).

I'm not trying to bum everyone out; I'm sincerely at a loss to figure out what can be done to get some traction on this issue, which happens to be the most important to me.

Why was there a Masonic symbol on the tombstone?

"Imagine the nerve of actually having a different idea here and opening a debate."

Hot tip: when you find someone answers your propositions with counterpropositions, factually pointing to deficiencies in your reasoning, and attempting to clarify the issues at hand, it doesn't mean they're trying to stifle debate, and it doesn't help your case by claiming that the forum in which you are airing your arguments, and finding them countered, is in fact stifling the debate you claim to have started.

Please understand that I speak from experience. Some of my own ideas and propositions here have been taken down so many notches that I had to use an awl to cut new ones. This has been, and remains, one of the most open forums I've found to discuss issues.

No kings,

Robert

I admire Mr. Greenwald's commitment to incremental change. But I also relate to Che Pasa's observation that it may already be too late for such tactics.

Despite the current disdain for timetables, ask yourselves this simple question:

Which will come first: the restoration of habeus...or the next terror attack on American soil?

What's with the sudden influx of concern trolls laden with bushels of strawmen? You know you've got a troll when disagreement or debate with his ideas = trying to stifle them. What do they expect? Does debate consist of one person making points and everyone else nodding in agreement, whether they agree or not? No wonder the level of discourse in this country is so low.

And, since when does "efficiency of the court system" have any bearing on whether people are entitled to rights such as habeus corpus? I find that argument disconcerting, at best. That's why Glenn made the sarcastic comment about police officers and warrants - both "arguments" make the same amount of sense: none.