Letters to the Editor
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apropos
My browser (Safari) happens to ellipsize long page titles in the back list. As I navigate the pages of this letters thread, this is what I see:
"Letters: Amnesty Day f ... king telecoms"
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Pro War / good faith
You are even wingnuttier than usual today to accuse Glenn of not granting "good faith" when every RW mouthpiece hitman out there constantly refers to the left as "pro-terrorist".
Go Cheney yourself.
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There is hope!
Primary rout in Maryland by progressive Donna Edwards over incumbent DINO Albert Wynn!
2008 congressional elections
Main article: Maryland congressional elections, 2008
On February 13, 2008, Al Wynn was defeated in the Democratic primary by Donna Edwards. This time, Edwards won the backing of the influential MoveOn.org, which helped Ned Lamont defeat Joe Lieberman in the 2006 primary. Edwards also had the support of many progressive community organizations, and many influential netroots organizations such as Daily Kos and OpenLeft.
Al Wynn had been successful in securing corporate donations from energy corporations and multi-national banking interests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Wynn
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I'm so Angry
What the Senate has done just makes my blood boil. And Obama wants more bi-partisanship? We've had enough bi-partisanship. What we need is a REAL Democrat to bring our country back. Clinton isn't any better. She didn't even bother to vote on this bill. Oh how I wish Edwards was still in the race.
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More on Donna Edwards
Open Left tells the story of the Donna Edwards win over incumbent Al Wynn, and why this means more than one primary defeat of an Emanuel DINO.
http://www.openleft.com/
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An example
"Go Cheney yourself."
Ah - a frothing hater and case in point.
Do try to clean the dribble off your shoes when you're done.
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Elsewhere in Maryland
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-first0212,0,2004192.story
Incumbents Gilchrest, Wynn ousted
State Sen. Harris wins in 1st District;
Democratic activist Edwards prevails in 4thBy Bradley Olson and Matthew Hay Brown | Sun reporters
1:29 AM EST, February 13, 2008[...] No Maryland congressman had lost a party primary since 1992.
[...] Branded a liberal in a district where that label amounts to a scarlet letter, Gilchrest was targeted in a withering series of negative television commercials and direct-mail fliers that jammed the mailboxes of district voters for months. Some voters stuck with him despite the attacks, but others were persuaded that he doesn't truly represent the district.
- - The Baltimore Sun, 02/13/2008
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AND THE U.S. SENATE FIDDLED WHILE AMERICA FELL
As a former civics teacher, what would I tell my students about the day the U.S. Senate sold-out the true values of our Constitution?
We do not have a representative form of government. Our millions of e-mails and phone calls to our Senators do not mean a hill- of- beans.
Our U.S. Senate has become as ''corrupt'' and anti-democratic as those in the days of Ceasar, and yes, Nero , fiddling as Rome burned....except this time it is the U.S. Senate that is fiddling as our beloved form of government falls.
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Upside down
Isn't it ironic that the verdict in the OJ trial, which happened in a court of LAW, and which was based on LEGAL arguments, generated such a calamitous DIN of outrage, and here we have what is, in effect, a mafia hit on the American people; perpetrated by Dons Bush and Cheney and all their family members, from the McConnells to the Bonds to Dem. Senators to the telecoms, and...... Not a Peep.
It's the 50's all over again, Father Knows Best; only back then we were still close enough to Hitler and Mussolini to stray too close to the facist fire.
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Process for Constitutional Challenge?
It has been pointed out repeatedly that the FISA bill passed by the Senate is in direct conflict with the Fourth Amendment. The process for amending the Constitution is quite clear, and passage of a bill in Congress, followed by a presidential signature, is not that process. If this bill becomes law, we will have in place a law that conflicts directly with the Constitution.
My question is : What is the process for challenging the Constitutionality of this law? I realize that in most situations, someone with standing initiates a civil challenge. This is very difficult in the case of the FISA revision, as the government is so quick to assert state secrets that it is virtually impossible to establish standing by showing that one's individual records have been accessed.
Yesterday on a thread at Firedoglake, I posed the hypothetical of the Attorney General in the next administration beginning a challenge to the Constitutionality of this law. It was quickly shot down over there, but I still hold some small hope that this route would be possible. As the primary enforcer of the laws of the United States, shouldn't the Attorney General be empowered to ask the courts to rule on the Constitutionality of a law? If not the AG, would this fall to the Solicitor General instead?
The more general question is: Does a Constitutional challenge to a law always have to be originated by someone with clear standing, or is there a process by which concerned citizens or government officials can present a direct challenge?
I realize the next Congress can and should simply pass a new law revising and reforming the atrocity about to be put upon us here, but I am exploring routes for challenge on the sad assumption that the next Congress will not be a sufficient improvement over the current one to achieve this (Donna Edwards notwithstanding--she is the epitome of our "More and Better Democrats" efforts).
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But Shooter...
Putin's Torture Colonies
February 12, 2008; Page A16
"The protest began after OMON [riot police] had been brought to correctional colony No. 5 (Amur Oblast, Skovorodino Rayon, village Takhtamygda) and started massive beatings of the prisoners. People in camouflage and masks were beating with batons inmates taken outside undressed in the freezing cold. . . . As a protest, 39 prisoners immediately cut their veins open. http://tinyurl.com/yr2blt"
Was that the same Putin that Dubya was speaking of when he claimed he looked into his eyes and saw he had a good soul or some crap along those lines? Where was your hero, the Draft Dodger-in-Chief's judgement that day? Oh, and isn't head slapping (beatings), temperature extremes, isolation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and rape, attack dog intimidation, genital electrocution all part of the US torture program? I invite you to differentiate the two...