It's time to plan a March On Washington again.

Next Spring, early May, perhaps. --renzo capetti

Arne, silly boy. I know what tube worms are and wouldn't expect someone like you to post compromising photos of yourself on the web unless, of course, they institute some sort of nude ski racing at your mountain-of-choice in the future. Tube worms on skis! ;-}

Looking forward to seeing the fishies.

E-prof, I only wear my socks when it's cold, and they pretty much all look and function the same regardless of which side's facing out. Otherwise it's flipflops in order to avoid the occasional thorn left behind when assembling bouquets. I have a little more trouble on mornings when I have to dress before I've absorbed sufficient caffiene and end up trying to put a bra on inside-out. Now that's a real challenge.

And trowels disappear, and reappear, on a schedule that has little to do with alcohol consumption levels and which I've never been able to figure out. That's why I have several.

Now that we're nearing BYOM (bring your own machete) season in the garden, I've even had to break out the spare stash of pruners.

Prof. Lederman at Balkinization links here to Glenn's good catch on Sen. Bond's flip dismissal and AG Mitchell's empty promises, and the likelihood of abuse of the authority, but adds the following point:

I'd like to focus, however, on a much more fundamental problem with Senator Bond's statement: It's simply not true, even if the government does not abuse the new statutory authorities.

The new statute permits the NSA to intercept phone calls and e-mails between the U.S. and a foreign location, without making any showing to a court and without judicial oversight, whether or not the communication has anything to do with al Qaeda -- indeed, even if there is no evidence that the communication has anything to do with terrorism, or any threat to national security.

Link at my sig.

Cheers,

Even with the majority...they fall over with the slightest of nudges. Do they seriously need it to be 99-1 in the senate before they can do anything or prevent things like this from happening? Hell, even at 99-1 I bet they'd get filibustered.

It was my understanding that the FISC ruling which Glenn is referencing is still classified. I've heard other speculation that this was all about email; since you don't know where the recipient is going to be you can't determine that both ends are foreign.

Regardless, if the Attorney General can order surveillance without a warrant on foreign-foreign communications, then I don't understand how those communications flowing through our fibers changes anything. They're still foreign-foreign calls.

Your articles are peerlessly sharp, and would still be a pleasure to read even without all the obvious relevance they have.

Your tireless work on the FISA issue, specifically (not to mention a dozen others) left me in shock, only because it failed to inspire our Democratic Congress as much as it should have.

Please keep up the fight, and whenever you can, suggest ways for us to help.

Cheers,

Bill Girard

After reading this, are you of the opinion that this is about foreign-to-foreign calls?

For bonus points, check out the name of the section. "Electronic surveillance authorization without court order; ..."

The whole controversy over amending FISA began when the administration claimed that the FISA court ruled that FISA requires a warrant for foreign-to-foreign communications when they pass through the U.S. communications infrastructure. Whether FISA really does require or that, the administration claimed the court so ruled.

David Kris has said that the ruling likely applies to email communications, whose geographic origin and destination are unclear. Either way, that's what Rachel Maddow was referencing -- if that's really the problem, then just amend FISA to clarify that no warrants are required in that case. No need to overhaul the whole thing.

It's important to remember that as heroic as Feingold is - and nobody admires him more than I do - he's still a Democratic Party politician who is constrained in what he can say. Of course he's going to be limited in his criticism of Obama and say things like (paraphrasing) "I have confidence that President Obama will recognize the error of his ways and try to fix this."

He can't go on MSNBC and discourage people from voting for the Democratic nominee. He only said that because Rachel asked him directly about Obama. I really don't think he was trying to say that there was no need to worry since Obama had a Secret Plan. To me, it seemed more like it was almost subtly pressuring Obama -- "I expect you to fix this" -- while towing the party line that, of course, you should still vote for Obama.

Given his position, there wasn't much else he could say.

And trowels disappear, and reappear, on a schedule that has little to do with alcohol consumption levels and which I've never been able to figure out. That's why I have several.

Funny, so do trolls disappear and reappear, on a schedule that has little to do with intelligent discussion levels and which none of us have ever been able to figure out. Good thing Salon has so many. Trolls, that is.

Glenn, I love ya dude. You're practically the only reason why I re-upped to Salon this year. My premium item was your book, for chrissakes! I take everything you post about quite seriously, but c'mon:

Absolutely. As long as the trains run on time, everything else is just gravy. Who cares if the Government spies on us, surveills (sic) us with no warrants and breaks the law? All that matters are material comforts -- just like the Founders said.

I just spent the last 8 years (as did you I suspect) railing against the black & white, with-us-or-against-us attitude for you to pull that crap on me now. I'm sorry if you think being employed or providing for your child is a "material comfort" but I'm a father now. Things like the continuing existence of the environment and making sure my son can eat, sleep and go to college are VERY IMPORTANT to me. So sue me.

Governments spy. Some (usually the crappier ones) do more than others. Some, like the present one, are so incompetent that they can't even be bothered to hide it from people. So I guess in that regard we're lucky.

Look, I know its you're job. And the issue is a total hits/revenue generator. I'm just trying to get people to see the forest for the trees, here.

Thank god for Jesse Jackson, I guess. In my impromptu poll taken at work today, that's all people were talking about when you bring up Obama. I guess ignorance IS bliss in this case.

Another good point. No reason to pipe up about any of this. Obama will wave his magic wand and - presto -- all will be good again.

I'm not saying that, and you know it. I just really think we need to coalesce around this candidate. There's about 15 different things the McCain campaign or McCain himself said in the past few days that you could devote a few columns to, but you just keep on hammerin', despite the obvious passing of the equine. It does make me think that we progressives would rather be out of power because we've gotten so used to it...

Here's a black & white for you: Come January 20th, 2009 either Barack Obama or John McCain will be POTUS. I know which one I want. I'll be donating to him again in the next few weeks. He could use the help. Seems BOTH his friends AND his enemies are attacking him this week. And oh, the concern and handwringing and disappointment!! Welcome to politics, kids!