I'm vacationing in California and I thought I'd let you know that the LA Times reports in 4 short paragraphs "House Passes Compromise Bill" on page A11. Obviously that story is much less important than the front page stories, which include:

"Hard-earned Million: Lil Wayne is a Tough Act to Follow"

and

"Multiple Choice for SAT takers"

It's jarring.

You realize that when you tell me "Get over yourself, commit to _real_ action, and I'll be impressed" you are asking me to vote for a candidate who stands for some of the most radical policies of the Bush administration? Well, what impresses you apparently doesn't impress me. Not impressed by wishful thinking masquerading as some sort of pseudo-realpolitik.

I said that, for a political shift to occur, Nader would have to win "eight or nine percent". You then tell the that this supposedly already happened in 2000. Which is false. Nader won, if I remember correctly, about 2.7% of the vote then. Which was not enough. Eight percent, on the other hand, would be enough.

As for McCain and true evil, well I think of him as more of a clownish sort of figure than an evil one, but I agree that he would make for a very bad president. Obama would make for a better president, but by embracing the Bush administration's authoritarianism, he is still squarely outside the range of acceptable choices.

"Does anyone think that it will be good for the fourth amendment, good for the constitution and good for the country if terrorists convicted in a court of law under an Obama administration are freed by a supreme court ruling because the government unconstitutionally collected evidence against them?"

Let me fix that for you.

Does anyone think that it will be good... if people ACCUSED OF BEING TERRORISTS, convicted in a court of law BASED ON "EVIDENCE" GATHERED UNDER TORTURE, are freed by a supreme court ruling?

Yes. I do. People under torture tell the interrogators what they want to hear. That's not evidence. Oh but wait, we know what the truth is without needing to hold a trial. Just like we knew there were WMDs in Iraq, and tortured people until they told us there were.

I don't know if it would be good for the country to try and convict every person in the Bush regime who approved torture (including Bush himself) as war criminals. But I know that to lock up the first set and not the second set would be a horrible injustice.

"Give me liberty or give me death!"

--Patrick Henry

"... and secure the Blessings of Liberty"

--preamble of the United States Constitution

"Live Free or Die"

--New Hampshire state motto

"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

--lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner, by Francis Scott Key

Our ancestors wanted Liberty, and they put it ahead of their own security, for they took the most extraordinary steps of all to obtain it: they undertook an insurrection. What is less secure than that, when you don't even know where your neighbor stands, or whether he or she is an informant?

It is time to grow a spine and stand for our principles. It is time to stop being swayed by fear-mongering fools, and time to stop tolerating those who are. Before we hand over our rights to our government for the illusion of "security" we should consider that history has shown us again and again that it is our own governments that we should most fear, not any shadowy bogeymen. Shame on all Republicans for exploiting in the most unpricipled manner those who are afraid of their own shadow. And shame on the Democrats and on Obama for craving power so much that they are afraid of standing up for our principles before our citizens and electorate.

Does this FISA legislation (e.g., currently HR 6304) contain patently unconstitutional elements, and, if so, what are they in your opinion?

Of course, realizing that what is "unconstitutional" is what SCOTUS rules as such. For example, the MCA gives the President final cut on treaties such as Geneva, in clear contravention of Article III. SCOTUS hasn't ruled on that yet, and may not ever -- or, if they do, a Roberts Court with just one more right wing seat may well back Bu'ush's authority, constitutional incoherence notwithstanding. After all, we've just witnessed the maudlin spectacle of the otherwise "strict construction" "textualist" Scalia whining in poignant libbie judicial activist fashion against the Gitmo ruling on the utilitarian "people will die" basis.

But, do you seen any glaring specific unconstitutionalities here that might one day be reversed?

"[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of [the] noblest characteristics of the late Revolution." - James Madison, "Memorial and Remonstrace" (1785)

So what number experiment on our liberties are we at now? If you count signing statements we're topping a thousand.

Let me ask the question another way-- is it theoretically possible under senate rules that any senator can place a hold on the new FISA bill?

Glenn, I can only take my hat off to as cogent, level-headed a response regarding Barack Obama’s own capitulation that one could ever read, even disregarding the fact it came at the end of what had to be the most rage-inducing, socked-in-the-gut few days a blogger who cares so deeply about our Constitution and our rights could ever encounter. You’ve been on riding herd on FISA and Bush/Cheney’s arrogations since I started visiting UT over two and one-half years ago - this had to be a tough one.

You set aside your rage in a way most of us could not do - see this video for a pretty coherent rant by Cenk Uyger on Obama, Hillary Clinton and Democrats in general @

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bdyE8-Zlc&feature=user

Heck, I even kicked in an extra ten bucks to the Blue America PAC simply for the spiteful pleasure I derived yesterday from seeing Baldie McEagle, Kitt and a few others humorously slap around a hapless troll who picked the wrong day to make his debut.

Obama and most politicians’ worst nightmare is not the occurrence of a deadly act of terrorism on our soil; it’s that it occurs just after they have supported legislation that could be interpreted in any scant, oblique way to have enabled it. With this War on Terrorism mindset firmly in place that affects the breadth of our policy-making - not just as it relates to national security matters, but fundamentally to our allocation of limited national resources - we are headed to many more misguided policy decisions, and maneuvers by clever, adroit politicians to obscure them.