Our political system is broken. The people who have broken it are the only ones who can fix it. The people who have allowed it to be broken are all of us.

Does anyone have a practical suggestion for a to reform this ugly mess? I confess I have nothing to suggest that does not involve a constitutional amendment, and that is a non-starter.

Getting rid of a few Blue Dogs is good in and of itself, but the system will remain in failure mode for the forseeable future.

The dirty politics Glenn so ably describes makes me wish for a divulgance similar to the caveats some called for in his previous post on the issue of gay marriage.

"Good morning, I am Senator So-and-so, I have received $45,000 from the telecom industry and weighing the pros and cons of telecom immunity and according to the laws of this nation, I have decided to favor it."

hmmm, really?

What a waste... of potential.

It's a bad FISA circus performance.

I'd rather spend billions on pink cotton candy.

for continuing to shine the light on this FISA issue, and for Great American Hypocrites.

The Telecoms using money that they got from their customers, the public, to subvert the honest legislative process that was intended and use the system against.....the public. Kind of like the drug companies using part of the money they get from the sales of drugs to advertise to the public to get them to use....more drugs. And on and on. Why don't they create some good will by doing the honest thing and reducing their prices? Oh yeah, I almost forgot, greed. It's the capitalist way.

This level of corruption could never have happened without the groundwork of general decay in American society. The social problems of alienation, irresponsibility, greed, sloth, and gluttony have been encouraged by the Corporate oligarchy, because they know a weakened, divided, dependent society is easier to control and exploit.

And all it takes to kill the bad guys is to refuse to participate. Or at least minimize your participation. (e.g. quit watching TV, buy local stuff, walk rather than drive, create real community).

It may however be too late to defeat the corporate/military/police junta which controls the federal government.

Glenn, there are persistent rumors (on Finkelstein's own sight and on Democracy Now) that Holocaust Industry and Beyond Chutzpa author Norman Finkelstein has been detained upon entry to Israel and that he will be deported from there for "security reasons".

This follows a major campaign of harassment of Finkelstein by Dershowitz and his followers (who basically managed to keep him from getting tenure at DePaul).

In a way, this has taken the harassment of American dissent about the Israel/Middle East situation up a notch: Jews are hardly ever prohibited from traveling to Israel (what with being automatically entitled to citizenship on grounds of religion). So far I've only heard of Jewish ISM members being turned away - and great care has (to date) been taken about the treatment of U.S. citizens, with the exception of Palestinians.

If anything, this indicates that the separation of political spheres between Israel and the U.S. is shrinking, and that a respected academic who gets hounded here by Dershowitz and affiliates also gets turned away by Israeli officials at the border. It seems to indicate that either U.S. citizenship doesn't count as much anymore for Israel's border patrol (not very likely) or that the border patrol is following a particular political theme (very likely).

Link on the sig - this story is last on yesterday's DN headline page (and hasn't yet been picked up by the Israeli media - although some Israeli journalists are trying to confirm the rumors; but the authorities aren't talking to them, on account of the Sabbath.)

If you haven't read this:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20853

Judt's review of Robert Reich's thesis of the antipathy of capitalism for democracy is spot on and timely.

Whenever I go on one of my tirades against granting amnesty, many of my friends and collegues give me a shrug or a blank stare, as if to say "with all the problems this country faces, what's the big deal..."

The big deal is exactly what Glenn states here, that we essentially have a "stop and rob" legislative convenience store for rich companies.

That would be a major nail in the coffin of our democracy.

Keep up the good work, Glenn

In a related story earlier this week in TPM, David Kurtz points out a recently declassified sentence from one of John Yoo’s notorious memos:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/todays_must_read_344.php

"Unless Congress made a clear statement in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that it sought to restrict presidential authority to conduct warrantless searches in the national security area -- which it has not -- then the statute must be construed to avoid [such] a reading."

Kurtz continues by saying:

“Poof! Just like that, exclusivity disappeared and the Bush Administration was free to pursue warrantless wiretaping with the official blessing of the OLC. (Former OLC attorney Jack Goldsmith has described his office's memos as "advance pardons").”

According to Article I. (Section 8) of the U. S. Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war on another country. In a close reading of this section, however, one will note that nowhere does it say that this does not “exclude” Iran (or Lichtenstein for that matter). Based on Yoo Logic then, this must mean the President may initiate a pre-emptive strike on either of these countries at any time.

It is time we ceased questioning the legality and begin questioning the sanity of these people.

Well written and logically presented.

One quibble. At the first, you said AT&T gave 5.2 million first three months and implied that was greatly more than what they gave last year, 20 million. In reality, that is only 0.2 million more per quarter than last year, hardly notable and somewhat weakens your following and excellent arguments.

One quibble. At the first, you said AT&T gave 5.2 million first three months and implied that was greatly more than what they gave last year, 20 million. In reality, that is only 0.2 million more per quarter than last year, hardly notable and somewhat weakens your following and excellent arguments.

The point I made was accurate but, for the reason you highlighted, I made the point less clearly that it should have been made.

AT&T's total 2007 lobbying fees were $17.1 million. They're on pace this year to have that be $20.8 million. So that is a substantial increase. But by calling $17.1 million "almost $20 million," I inadvertently obscured my own point. Will fix that now.