Glenn,

What's up with Roger Pilan bringing up In re Sealed 2002 as a counter point to your assertion that FISA is Constitutional? This man leads CATO's Constitutional Law section and you took him to the woodshed..LOL

Was it a test? Did he not know it was dicta?

Keep up the good work!

Mason

that's why this thread is still rolling along.

What, you didn't like my idea of a non-profit scenario to replace the military-industrial complex?

I liked it just fine, but I do think there should be a little bit of a profit margin given to the contractors. Why, it'd be positively un-American to expect them to do all that work for no profit at all!

What are you, some kind of ... of socialist or collectivist or something?

:-)

...to send an email to Senator Specter, directing him to your comment here. Now for Senator Casey...

Executive privilege is intended to protect the legal behavior of the executive branch. It was not intended as a means for the executive branch to hide illegal behavior.

A leader with integrity would leave settled law in place, and if circumstances made certain illegal actions necessary in the leader's judgment, then he would be willing to stand in a court of law to defend his decisions. The American people on the whole are a civil and reasonable people who understand the concept of mitigating circumstances. Quality law does not need to change, what needs to change is the attitude of certain government officials who treat our democratic republic as if it is their personal play thing.

...to send an email to Senator Specter, directing him to your comment here. Now for Senator Casey...

Another citizen from the great state of Pennsylvania!

I'm from Western PA myself ...

Well, I do think manufacturers (of war-making machinery) should still get their "salary," just not the huge corporate profits. Does that make me a collectivist or something?

Ultimately, it seems to me awfully unAmerican (in the pre-WWII sense) to arrange our foreign policy in order that multinational corporations (that later relocate to Dubai) may accumulate huge pots of money by manufacturing products that will be used to wage wars in which young (and older) men and women will die or suffer grievous injuries. And when some of those who benefit financially from such deals are also part of our government, it becomes obscene.

But, I didn't think of that alternative "non-profit" scenario until I read Larry, the dfh's comment, and wondered if removing the corporate profit motive might be another way of allowing a different sort of market force to work. Ethics unencumbered by Profit.

Fwiw, whenever I take one of those political compass tests, I always end up in the lower left quadrant. I'm not entirely sure that it's the one for collectivists... I'll have to go look.

In the meantime, I have added that idea to the "Voter's Platform" we are crafting at Gordon's blog: Achieving Our Country. If there's something important to you, or anyone else, that you'd like to see the Democratic Party (or even the GOP) address, please drop by and post it in the comments. Gordon will add it to the front page.

http://achievingourcountry.blogspot.com/

North or south? I used to live in Jamestown, NY, many years ago... now, those were some winters! Do you remember 1977-78? Yikes!

Southeastern PA is a bit more temperate, in fact, almost tropical lately.

Chris, I just had a chance to read your excellent response on your ideas of radically new perspectives. I like all of them. Reeducation camps and a Truth Commission are brilliant. We would have to come up with a new name for the camps because anything tied to the communist boogey man won’t fly. Maybe we could call them Rest and Recuperation from Fighting Those Terribly Non-serious Liberals and Libertarians and Disappointing Moma and Discovering the Joy of Confessing Camps. Karen, truth would have to be defined more clearly for the common sense thinking impaired neocons and religious ideologues before they would understand how to testify and prepare their cases.

North or south? I used to live in Jamestown, NY, many years ago... now, those were some winters! Do you remember 1977-78? Yikes!

Southern ... As for the winter of 1977, my family and I were coming home from Virgina Beach and it had started to sleet and snow a little bit when we got on the turnpike at Breezewood for the last leg of the journey home.

Ended up being on the PA Turnpike for 26 hours! I remember my Dad literally having to pry his hands from the steering wheel of his 1972 Chevy Impala. There were six of us in the car. It was a heck of a trip, one we still talk about at family gatherings.

Southeastern PA is a bit more temperate, in fact, almost tropical lately.

Nothing but hot and muggy and lots and lots of rain the past few days ...

“Radically new perspectives” to me would be broad policy objectives like reallocating military spending to upgrading domestic infrastructure, reducing our military presence overseas, a goal of reversing the job flow away from service to production, which is killing this country on many levels, public works programs, a single payer Medicare or VA style universal health care system, massive aid to alternative energy efforts, a specific program for disenfranchising and shipping all lobbyists, public relations spoke persons, spin doctors, and advertising executives to reeducation camps, the usual pipedreams we see so often on these pages. I realize its hard for a politician to say they will set goals like this because it opens too much room for attack, and pundits will ask “what’s your plan to get there,” but I'd like to hear them put out for discussion, and I’m not nearly as impressed by the signifiers being put by Clinton and Obama and their camps.

Would you like to add something to a very new project started by Gordon, a commenter here...

http://achievingourcountry.blogspot.com/

He's started a post dedicated to a Voters' Platform (disclosure: I asked him to)... so that we can tell the candidates what we want, rather than wait for them to tell us what they're willing to give us in the way of a platform for the election.

You have a lot of good material above.