...on the CSPAN that is not worth paying attention to, The United States House of Representatives votes on motions to suspend rules to discuss naming a post office in Taft, California.

yep.

Which is actually orders more productive than what they were doing about an hour ago - making a congressional declaration of congratulations to LSU for winning a football game.

The US Government. It's fannnnnnntastic!!

That glimmer of light.

You don't want to know what it is ;-)

I hear that train a' comin'

it's comin' round the bend

-Johnny Cash

I'm not watching this on CSPAN, so I may be missing somthing good. But it seems to me that there would be so many ways to spin a Bush veto:

1. Our "business school" president protecting his buddies in high places at the expense of our national security.

2. Let justice take its course. If the telcoms didn't do anything wrong, then they have nothing to worry about.

3. An arrogant bully refusing to acknowledge when he's beaten.

4. A liar who won't come clean with the American people--do we need these protections or don't we?

5. A power-mad executive who thinks we need to trash the Constitution in order to save it.

And I'm sure dozens of others. This could be a "Have You No Sense of Decency" moment for the Democrats (from the confrontation between Joseph Welch and Joseph McCarthy that led to the latter's downfall). I get the feeling, however, that the Democrats are too cowed to see it that way.

I seriously had no idea a person by the name of Saxby Chambliss actually existed, let alone was a Senator for Georgia, and that he was the bastard that attacked Max Cleland as being unpatriotic. And, of course, he is a lawyer.

As a lawyer myself, I am shocked and embarassed about how many lawyers in Congress are voting for retroactive immunity and expanded wiretapping powers. This validates my thoughts on my three years in law school, and the law as a "profession" in general. To paraphrase: Those who can, do, those who can't, go to law school.

What, Department of Homeland Security and ICE isn't good enough for you?

I'm reminded of Molly Ivin's remark about a Pat Buchanan (I think) speech; "It was better in the original German".

Even brother Pat is starting to sound like a liberal these days.

-- Aycharaych

Yes she wrote that about Pat; it was one of her best I think. Old Pat is a liberal compared to many who call themselves one these days. He wrote a book (I never read it) called something like, "A Republic, not an Empire".

Anyone who is against America as world ruler is an ally to me. There can be no freedom at home as long as we control others abroad.

"Is this not one of the defining characteristics of a fascist state?"

No, but it was a defining characteristic of Nazi legal theory.

A little late to the party, but did Bond actually say something to the effect that the FISA court is not "suited for litigation"? Isn't that like saying the doctor's office isn't suitable for a physical exam?

Dodd gets more impressive every time I see him speak...

No, but it was a defining characteristic of Nazi legal theory.

-- Hume's Ghost

Did Hitler ever abrogated the Weimar Constitution? I think he just suspended it.

Mark Pryor is the current Senator from Arkansas. David Pryor is his dad, who used to be Senator.

8'(

Aycharaych, thanks for responding. This election has me grasping at straws and then putting them in my hair, which I then tear out.

Or perhaps we will just pass smoothly to a new administration next Jan.

Indeed, Giorgio Agamben draws on Carl Schmitt's definition of the Sovereign as the one who has the power to decide the state of exception (or justitium), where law is indefinitely "suspended" without being abrogated. But if Schmitt's aim is to include the necessity of state of emergency under the rule of law, Agamben on the contrary demonstrates that all life can't be subsumed by law. As in Homo sacer, the state of emergency is the inclusion of life and necessity in the juridical order solely in the form of its exclusion... Agamben’s thoughts on the state of emergency leads him to declare that the difference between dictatorship and democracy is thin indeed, as rule by decree became more and more common, starting from World War I and the reorganization of constitutional balance. Agamben often reminds that Hitler never abrogated the Weimar Constitution: he suspended it for the whole duration of the 3rd Reich with the Reichstag Fire Decree, issued on February 28, 1933. Indefinite suspension of law is what characterizes the state of exception.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Agamben

Is the media going to understand and be able to explain what the Republicans just did? Yes, that's a rhetorical question.

What do these people do again?

The accompanying claim that companies should never "second-guess" the "judgment of the President regarding what's legal" -- which I just heard from John Cornyn and Saxby Chambliss...

There needs to be a word that combines "sanctimonious" and "authoritarian," like one of those marvelous German compound words.

"Sanctoritarian."

have any regard whatsoever for the "judgment of the President regarding what's legal"?

He's not a Constitutional scholar. He's not even a lawyer.

There is absolutely nothing in this man's experience that would make him more qualified regarding the legality of presidential actions than any one of us here.

Why would anyone, anywhere, credit the President's opinion on legal matters?

Regardless of what you might think of him personally, he has no more relevant work or academic experience than I do.

I don't feel shy about "second-guessing" the plumber if he feeds me some obviously wrong story with a huge price tag.

Just because he happened to get the job doesn't mean he knows a dang thing about it. In fact, I'd trust plumbers on plumbing matters far more easily than trusting politicians on legal matters.

Mark Pryor, not David Pryor

________________________________________________

Be that as it may, one wishes that the prior Pryor had used Pryor restraint.