Politics
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Spectering On II
I just came across Arlen Specter's article in the New York Review of Books in which he lays out how he's going reign in executive power and restore checks and balances. Apparently the article came out the day before he announced his switch to the Democratic Party, and it seems to have got lost in
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Danner and Fein on Moyers
But that's the difference between a system that's working correctly, Bill. You don't hide things. The people can decide. And if they ratify it, and Congress authorizes it, say, "We don't want the law to be enforced." That's one thing. We don't– this is the earmark of a tyranny. It's: "Hell with the law. We
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Refusing to Party
(h/t TPM) Twenty percent or one in five Americans identify as Republicans. One in three identify as Democrats, which isn't that great either. But the point is that both parties were at 30 percent in 2004, and even if you want to discount the three point uptick for Dems as inconsequential (it will probably stabilize
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Spectering On
I don't like Arlen Specter. His name has become associated in my mind with saying the right thing and doing the wrong thing. He's all posture and no substance. He is the emptiest of empty suits, a soulmate to the likes of Joe Lieberman. In that his reputation for moderation lies, for we live in
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Torture: The Week in Review (Updated)
If I had one belief in politics, it would be that the freedoms secured by the modern West are worth fighting for. Absolutely central to those freedoms is barring the executive branch from torturing people. No power is more fatal to freedom and the rule of law than torture. It is like Tolkien's ring: no
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Jane Harman: Civil Libertarian
Greenwald today: Behold Jane Harman's overnight transformation from Very Serious Champion of the Lawless Surveillance State to shrill civil liberties extremist. But I'm really wondering: as serious as it is when a member of Congress is the target of government eavesdropping, can we really afford to investigate this? After all, we have so many very
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Of Smoking Guns (Updated)
It's not so important that the CIA agents or uniformed people following orders to torture be prosecuted as that those who gave the orders be. We can argue about whether that's right or wrong, but the more important issue by far is to prosecute the Addingtons, Yoos, Gonzales, Bybees, and any of the civilian political
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Torture Memos
It's a good day. We're not learning anything we didn't really know already about the Bush/Cheney torture regime. The good news lies in learning that the Obama people are not going to collude with the Bushies to stonewall in the name of protecting establishment interests (aka national security) from legal action. There has been every
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The Crazies We Shall Have Always with Us
Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats. But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking
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Sideshow
All this nonsense about teabagging and the antics of wingnuttiana is a sideshow. We should be asking about what's going on in the Obama DOJ. Every time you look around, we learn something disturbing. The crazy right we shall have always with us, but our hope for the future lies in rolling back the Bush