Politics
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Mental Templates
The argument between the left and right is not about the dots; it's about how we connect them. A big part of the problem, of course, is that in matters of public policy the dots themselves are pretty slippery, and you can argue endlessly about whether a dot is really a dot. So it's easy
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How Bad Does It Have to Get?
And will it be to late when it gets that bad to do anything about it? That's my fear. I believe we are drifting inexorably toward an authoritarian police state not unlike that typical of what you find in Latin America. Drifting isn't dramatic–it happens slowly, incrementally. One little thing taken in isolation doesn't make
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Signing Statements
Dahlia Lithwick at Slate gives us a little more detail on where things are headed with this presidency and the kind of court that he has created: There are two ways President Bush likes to wage war on your civil liberties: He either asks you to surrender your rights directly—as he does when he strengthens
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Drift toward Authoritarianism
Robert Parry has been the best at articulating the implications of the Alito nomination: Today, Americans have rights only at George W. Bush’s forbearance. Under new legal theories – propounded by Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito and other right-wing jurists – Bush effectively holds all power over all Americans. He can spy on anyone he
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Is Alito a Wingnut?
Alito's appointment worries me because of the way his appointment fits into the larger trajectory of the right wing agenda. I don't know that he's a wingnut, but I'm satisfied from what I've read and heard that he is an ideological power conservative who follows the law when it is clear, but when there is
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The Price of Stepping Up
The other day I criticized the Democrats for their ineffectiveness and bloviating during the Alito confirmation hearings. I said that the hardliner conservatives are correct in stereotyping liberal Democrats as weak. They prove themselves right every day when the Democrats roll over for them. And the few that actually stand up they can safely isolate
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Wretched Performance by Dems
I don't know what's worse, the GOP agenda to move the country toward the right or the Democrats supine compliance. The primary effect of the Democratic senators' questioning in the Alito confirmation hearings this week was to reinforce the public's stereotype of Democrats as formulaic, pompous jackasses. It was depressing. Bob Parry puts it well
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The Unitary Executive
This is a phrase that's making its way now into the public consciousness, and it puts a tag on something that we've been witnessing for the last four or five years, which is our drift toward authoritarianism. The "unitary executive" is code on the authoritarian right for the legal argument justifying the president's doing pretty
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Bush’s Walk on the Dark Side
As you push the limits, wherever they may be, to create a situation in which all control rests in your hands, the odds are that you will create an uncontrollable situation as well. From torture to spying, such acts, however contained they may initially appear to be, involve a deep plunge into a dark and
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More on Impeachment
Read John Dean's FindLaw article comparing the Nixon and Bush wiretapping offenses. Some key grafs: No one questions the ends here. No one doubts another terror attack is coming; it is only a question of when. No one questions the preeminent importance of detecting and preventing such an attack. What is at issue here, instead,