for all good patrons of any store to make sure it is TIME that gets put in back of Newsweek.

With a compliant press and a somnolent Congress, this latest outrage on our Constitution and the separation of powers will have its 15 minutes of fame and recede into the darkness that is the background of political life in Bushworld.

During the Watergate era and the run-up to Nixon's resignation there was real action fueled by genuine outrage at what Nixon and his cronies were doing to our democracy.

Where is the sustained outrage today? Nowhere. Jay Rockefeller is not Sam Ervin. Where are the principled Republicans like Archibald Cox, Elliott Richardson and the guy from Indiana (Ruckelshaus?) They don't exist.

Nothing will be done here. No one has the sustained outrage to carry this thing forward.

Why? Fear. Fear of being attacked. Fear of lack of access. Fear of ratings lower than Fox's. Fear of being shunted to the Metro beat instead of covering National politics. Fear of being voted out of office.

I fear for our democracy.

If the current Democratic power structure does not stand up, we must--must--knock them down and take over. And we must neutralize Bush ASAP. No more war funding. No more excuses. Hearings on who lied to Congress, why, and jail or impeachment depending on who did it.

Not interested? Afraid to do anything about it? I hope you have tickets to see Oprah in Iowa. You deserve it.

If you're going to harangue Kitt over some unanswered question, at least have the courtesy to remind us what the question was so we can judge for ourselves who's being a jerk. Most of us are insufficiently interested to go back to old threads and without that context the default position doesn't look good for your side.

The issue is this, Kitty said I was wrong about many things on a previous thread.. Since then it has absolutely refused to elaborate on what it was that I was wrong about.

What I want to know is exactly what it is it thinks I'm wrong about.

I already explained this in a previous post not all that far downthread.

Since you brought it up, can you please assuage my curiosity: is one of them hrh?

Nope, I was Jonathan Hoag for a while and something else before that. And then something else before that that even *I* can't remember. Too many boards, too many handles and waaaaay too many posts.

One long time poster here recognized my style and obsession and welcomed me but I can't remember who it was.

See looseheadprop's most recent post at FDL:

http://firedoglake.com/2007/12/07/will-american-lawyers-take-to-the-streets-in-support-of-the-rule-of-law-in-the-us/

a response to a call from a lawyer inspired by an earlier post by looseheadprop on a speech by Mario Cuomo.

http://firedoglake.com/2007/11/23/our-lady-of-the-law/

Sometimes Nazi references are appropriate.

When speaking of Right Wing Authoritarians for instance.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. -Mark Twain

That's great news. Power to the netrooters!!!

I heard a rumor that there were some lawyers in our congress. Wonder if they are going to participate. I even remember a few Repugs in congress who keep professing their support of our constitution. No reason they shouldn't participate.

"Sometimes Nazi references are appropriate."

I've never been to Iraq, but anybody who ever saw a Latin American village after a death squad trained and armed by the US military and occasionally commanded by US military officers or US mercenaries, wouldn't find Nazi comparisons far fetched at all. I happened to see such villages back in the day and spole with some of the survivors and I couldn't for the life of me see the difference between Nazi behavior and US conduct in Latin America. Nor do I see any difference between destroying torture evidence to Nazi behavior or the difference between the invasion and occupation of a country that didn't attack us and the Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland, for example.

The position I was trying to state was that since we can never KNOW whether we have free will or not (for reasons Kant argues for in his Critique:free will vs. determinism as antinomies), and since we MUST act as if we do have free will, then the debate on free will is moot.

We have no choice (he he) but to accept that we are free (hmmm: did Sartre crib that from Kant too?)

And I know this is off topic guys, but it is still fun, the little subtexts that spring up. It helps keep us human.

And good luck to bebop traveling in KY or wherever you are: be safe!

Newsweek just hired Karl Rove!

I say put them both behind Harper's!

Like you, I'm sick and tired of Nazi comparisons being declared off limits, when the parallels are so glaring that "...doth protest too much" is really the only explanation for their banishment from "serious" discussion.

Scapegoating minorities? Check.

Secret, mass improsonments without due process? Check.

"Preventive" wars, one after the other? Check.

Nationalism, malignant and xenophobic? Check.

Economy propped up by militarism? Check.

Dissent=Treason? Check.

All branches of government subordinated to an authortian Executive, both de facto and de jure? Check.

The govenment and entrenched corporate interests joining hands against the people? Check.

I could go on, but we all know the drill, and are depressed enough about it.

There is only one other example of this in the modern world.

If the jackboot fits, let them wear it.

I have been reading the remarks by Sen. Whitehouse (D/R.I.) on the Protect America Act (PAA), which Whitehouse says is a "second-rate" piece of legislation, passed by Congress in August under the pressure of what he calls a "stampede" by the Bush administration.

Whitehouse slams PAA further by calling it "flawed and shoddy."

I hope Glenn Greenwald will deal with this stuff. I'm not a lawyer; it all looks like gobbledygook.

Whitehouse says the act provides for unlimited presidential power under executive orders issued by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which is the White House opinion mill operating in the Justice Department. Whitehouse also says the president can "depart" from an executive order without issuing a new one, and in so "departing" has not violated the existing order. He has simply modified it or waived it.

Poof!

Whitehouse says the president, under the PAA, can himself, as the "decider," determine what is lawful under Article II of the Constitution. Article II deals with the powers of the executive branch.

Whitehouse also says the Justice Department is bound by the legal opinions of the president, opinions presumably issued on his behalf by the OLC.

(Do you get the impression you're riding on a merry-go-round?)

Throw in the increased use of presidential signing statements, which say the president may or may not (rather whimsically?) implement legislation passed by Congress, regardless of whether the legislation is rinky-dink or monumental. Critics have said this president may be abusing this technique based on the unusually large number of such statements issued during his time in office.

Considering the PAA and signing statements (dare I call them "gimmicks"?), what power does Congress now have to really get under the rocks on the use or abuse of the CIA, cooked intelligence about WMD and Iraq, nukes and Iran, torture, the fired U.S. attorneys, or the size of the White House Christmas tree?

Aren't we already standing before the great doors of the Supreme Court?

Wait for me while I powder my wig.