My previous

I'd encourage everyone to follow your link in support your "GG 'race-boated'" [your term] HRC.

was missing an "of" and an "allegation". But you get the gist, I'm sure.

Trying to think of constructive ways to respond to this travesty. The majority of the Democratic caucus voted agains the FISA "compromise." Accordingly, wouldn't it make sense for those of us who reside in the districts of those who voted no to pressure our representatives to remove Hoyer and replace him with someone who more closely reflects the will of the caucus? It seems to me that most representatives would be afraid to lauch such a challenge unless assured of the participation of others to ensure success. If we can build a grassroots movement to exert pressure in each district and can keep each other, and the representatives' staff advised of the campaign, that could make a difference. We can't wait until the next election to punish Hoyer. I know of the leadership, Larson (CT) and Lewis (GA) voted nay on the bill and could be suitable replacements for Hoyer.

I knew when I read your post I had done a terrible job (as usual) of communicating my point.

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.

I agree with you 10000% and I would want the court to rule that way also. The fault in my scenario does not lie with the Court but with the legislature and the executive, or just the legislature depending on the circumstances.

If we are going end rendition, torture, "illegal combatants" and gitmo by bringing the "war on terror" under the law, we have to make sure we are operating under the constitution or there will be great pressure to pull terror suspects back out of the judicial system if those laws were declared unconstitutional.

The FISA surveillance bill is one of the cornerstones of bringing the "war on terror" under the rule of law because the FISA updates will make the evidence gathered though surveillance legal. If the Supreme Court declared the FISA updates unconstitutional, which I believe they rightly should, then this whole system falls apart.

The problem lies with the passing of unconstitutional laws, not with the supreme courts declaration that those laws are unconstitutional. Now throwing shit at the constitution and seeing what will stick after the supreme court cleans it up is a favorite pastime of congress. Just look at flag burning and internet censorship laws.

My point is that this is a very dangerous time constitutionally to be playing that game. If bringing the "war on terror" under the law fails because of badly written legislation, my fear is the population will blame the courts and the constitution, not the legislature.

Re: "I have, in all my time on these letter boards, not seen a single instance of the starry-eyed Obama worship that you are all railing against."

ROFLMAO

In deference to Little Brother's sensibilities [insert a small lopsided grin with a wink to signify I'm teasing]... I guess that would look like ;-/

You can break up those long url's by using "break" tags (H/T Anonymust). In that way the url will span a couple of lines which people can copy and paste to either a clipboard or into an address window itself. The tags are (br) in the middle of the url (where you want the break to occur)and (/br) at the end of the url. Naturally, you substitute the angle brackets <> where I have used parentheses for illustrative purposes.

Example:

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/(br)
2008/06/21/obama/new/form.html(/br)

Little Brother also mentioned TinyUrl. That website is www.tinyurl.com and the directions for converting a long url into a tiny one is pretty straightforward at the site. Even I can do it! Some folks don't like those because you can't see (or mouse over) to know exactly where you're going. Haven been bit by more than one spoof in that regard, I'm hesitant to follow them unless I have a sense of trust for the person posting them. I follow those from people I "know" or have a sense of history with.

My post @ 11:38 was intended as a response to your query @ 11:30ish

I have, in all my time on these letter boards, not seen a single instance of the starry-eyed Obama worship that you are all railing against.

Here's the lead diary on Daily Kos today -

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/21/103553/507/344/539693

It's about his FISA position. The headline: Obama's outsmarted us again. It goes downhill from there.

I thought it was satire at first.

It's official: I love you.

The third choice is to put all of the url after http// in the box at the bottom and it will come up when someone clicks your screen name. It appears red when you put your cursor over the screen name.

Achilles' Heel:

"Where I draw the line and say 'shut up' is when people start throwing little tantrums to the effect of allowing McCain to win just to spite everyone."

Uhh... dunno if you're aware of it, but you just threw a little tantrum.

January 21, 2009 - Welcome to the Barak Obama Administration:

- Warrantless spying on American citizens continues with no one held accountable for the violations of law and Constitutional rights.

- Troops stay in Iraq indefinitely. The "green zone" is more heavily fortified. The U.S. continues to use military intimidation as the chief tool to secure the cooperation of other sovereign nations.

- The U.S. continues to have the abusive, patchwork non-system of medical insurance for its citizens, who continue to die and go bankrupt at record rates.

- The federal government continues record spending and borrowing to support its military apparatus and the various entitlement programs.

- The borders continue to be porous, with illegal aliens driving down wages and benefits of workers who are U.S. citizens, to the delight and profit of the big corporations.

- The "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (aka the North American Union) linking Canada, the United States, and Mexico politically and economically is strengthened by extra-legal means.

January 21, 2009 - Welcome to the John McCain Administration:

- Ditto the above.

We're screwed again. Bush gets a third term. Thanks a lot, guys!