Jake - March 14, 2010 | 10:24 pm · Link

Indefinite dentention. I somehow missed that lesson on the Constitution while educated in a secular government public school….No doubt, the Texas Board of Education is adding the Constutional right to indefinte dentention of all those individuals we believe are guilty, whether in fact they are guilty or not, to the curriculum…

A true Constitutional principle, or maybe indenfinite dentention was an 11th commandment, one that Moses chose not to publicize…

Joseph Nobles - March 14, 2010 | 10:32 pm · Link

Holy crapola OT: I believe the reconciliation bill has dropped (2300 pages, lots of stuff), I think.

But I’m not sure because it looks like the reconciliation bill has a public option.

PDF file from budget.house.gov of 2010 Reconciliation Bill – warning: large download

Um – again I say, holy crapola.

ETA: OK, this is what they have to start with, the text from the three committees as reported out, but mark-ups begin tomorrow. Evidently the public option will be stripped out. I think.

ajr22 - March 14, 2010 | 10:47 pm · Link

Ot rod blagojevich waiting tables on apprentice saying nice to meet you, innocent of all charges. The man has no shame.

Keith G - March 14, 2010 | 10:52 pm · Link

Speaking of dicks, the corporate dicks who run Stars on Ice have, “...deemed [Johnny] Weir not family friendly.”

And I was so going to the show. Not any more.

Weird thing is, I bet he would be a huge draw for the very population they are trying to “protect”.

http://www.allvoices.com/contr.....ohnny-weir

Gordon, The Big Express Engine - March 14, 2010 | 11:02 pm · Link

Seriously, what’s the prize in the BJ NCAA pool. Some swag? Bragging rights? Should we pony up $10 a head?

asiangrrlMN - March 14, 2010 | 11:14 pm · Link

@Annie: I know! My Raven does the same thing. His newest thing, though, is to join me in the tub (and I mean it literally. He climbs onto my body) and drink from the tub that way. He doesn’t mind getting his paws wet, but I still tense up a bit because Raven + water + paws on boob = disaster in waiting.

The one time Shadow tried to walk on the back of the bathtub, he fell in. I have NEVER seen him move so quickly as he did in leaping out of the tub. Now, he stays on the floor and just imitates a meerkat in order to drink from the tub.

Annie - March 14, 2010 | 11:19 pm · Link

@asiangrrlMN:

LOL…You are awesome…Your description is poetic…

I wonder if our Lady Smudge has left scars on arguing’s chest…I imagine her really getting into that “I love you and will show you by digging into your chest with my paws” thing…

arguingwithsignposts - March 14, 2010 | 11:24 pm · Link

@Annie:
She does so late at night right now. When I am able to fall asleep, I will find her digging into my chest (and purring deeply) when I wake up, which is quite a wild scene. My disorientation+lady smudge’s assumed superiority.

burnspbesq - March 14, 2010 | 11:30 pm · Link

In case you missed it, here is pretty much the definitive takedown of Cheney, McCarthy, et al on the ridiculous AQ7 issue.

http://volokh.com/2010/03/10/l.....-mccarthy/

There was also a very good piece in the weekend WSJ print edition, written by the court-appointed lead counsel for Timothy McVeigh.

rob! - March 14, 2010 | 11:58 pm · Link

Greenwald recently wrote that the reason there’s no PO in the HCR bill is because Obama is working behind the scenes to keep it out, then going out and lying to the public about it.

He also said the reason most people can’t face the real truth, and that is Obama is bald-faced lying. A pretty stunning set of accusations:

http://www.salon.com/news/opin.....index.html

Joseph Nobles - March 15, 2010 | 12:01 am · Link

@KG:

Ah, man, don’t get me started. Walmart is almost a single payer all by itself. It’s got massive purchasing power, and that’s how it gets “low prices always.” Competition ensures that it does indeed pass those savings onto us, but it is the closest picture we have to a single payer system in the marketplace.

So if the government had a single payer system, it could really drive down costs due to its purchasing power, and pass the savings onto the owners of government – us. Heck, make it a plain old public option, one among many privately offered plans. Tie the public option’s hands behind its back: make it castastrophic care or essential services so that insurance companies can offer more perks for more cash. But at least the basics would start getting covered.

Nobody should retire on Social Security alone. And no one should rely solely on the government public option. But at least an market-participating option would be there as a last resort.

Zuzu's Petals - March 15, 2010 | 12:06 am · Link

@burnspbesq:

After his latest performance over here, and some of his recent posts at Salon, I look twice at anything he has to say. If he’s right he’s right, but he can also be really offbeam. So I look twice – or three or four times – because I just don’t trust him anymore.

burnspbesq - March 15, 2010 | 12:15 am · Link

@rob!:

It was undoubtedly not lost on you that Mr. Greenwald did not offer even one scintilla of evidence in support of his theory.

Mike Kay - March 15, 2010 | 12:22 am · Link

@robertdsc: greenwald’s nutty act betrays a definite control freak, and deep insecure. I mean, look at Kos, he doesn’t run around the internets arguing with people who disagree with him or even worst, bash him. He just lets roll off his back.

Uloborus - March 15, 2010 | 12:47 am · Link

@KG:
No, the democrats have pointed that out before. It just gets absolutely no media time whatsoever.

Deschanel - March 15, 2010 | 1:01 am · Link

Glenn Greenwald is a very fine mind a very good writer. I look at the unbelievably catty and petty ..attitudes about him, and I wonder what side some people are on.

Seriously, BJ must be right wing tourists’ favorite place to watch progressives eat their own. But I’m sure they prefer lesbian porn, so I’m probably wrong there.

I do not get the Greenwald dislike. Yes he can be long-winded and boring about things like TORTURE in our name. I zone it out too, it’s incredibly awful to contemplate.

But if we’re worth half a damn as a society, we need people like GG to remind of of the real horrors of unlimited detention and the severe miscarriage of justice that comes with eliminating habeas corpus. He’s a fine mind doing good work, and seeing him mocked here makes me wonder about this place.

No idea why he’s BJ commenters’ sudden enemy. I think it’s dick and unfair and not warranted by anything he’s ever said or written.
He’s a good guy. On our alleged side, but hey, go slam him and make me wonder if there is a side. Meanwhile, there’s loads of Republicans who totes agree with your sniping about Greenwald.
Knock yourselves out.

FlipYrWhig - March 15, 2010 | 1:17 am · Link

Glenn Greenwald knows about civil liberties and the law. Ergo, a piece that involves slamming Lindsey Graham for pettifoggery about civil liberties and the law, and Dana Milbank for following his lead, will be pretty solid.

All his stuff about the health care bill (including Rahm Emanuel) has just been more and more tenuous extrapolation from his idea that the Obama administration isn’t behaving in good faith on civil liberties… and hence the Obama administration is unlikely to behave in good faith on anything else. It’s sort of a “seamless garment” idea, where once you start distrusting you kind of have to distrust them on every issue—lest you prove yourself a gullible, bootlicking dupe.

That’s why it feels “conspiratorial.” I think it’s because civil liberties are so primary for him that falling short on civil liberties is so unthinkable, it can only be evidence of rot everywhere.

FlipYrWhig - March 15, 2010 | 1:23 am · Link

@Deschanel:

He’s a good guy. On our alleged side, but hey, go slam him

Um, that’s the problem I have with him. The first card he plays is saying that if you disagree with him you’re just blindly devoted to Dear Leader. It’s his favorite slam. That’s not cutting any slack for people who are on his alleged side.

If he didn’t do that so much, I’d have very few issues with him.

FlipYrWhig - March 15, 2010 | 1:30 am · Link

@gwangung:

he can be less than precise about figuring out who’s being catty and who’s being critical of his reasoning

I think that’s a useful distinction. But I’d add to it that he’s absolutely certain that his reasoning is unquestionable, which is why he treats both cattiness and actual criticism with either disregard or contempt.

FlipYrWhig - March 15, 2010 | 1:37 am · Link

@Deschanel:

Meanwhile, there’s loads of Republicans who totes agree with your sniping about Greenwald.

To add to my previous comment, there’s also loads of Republicans who agree with Greenwald that Obama is a deceitful, untrustworthy figure who inspires cult-like devotion among his followers. I don’t think this is a useful way to sort out why it’s fair or unfair to criticize Greenwald because of the associations it builds between “sides.”

bago - March 15, 2010 | 1:56 am · Link

I think Glenn Greenwald is quite sharp. The time he came by the comments section here I think most of the kerfluffle was mostly an issue of parsing the scope of terms used in the writing, but after the third round of back and forth with people talking past each other I gave up. I have no idea how it ended. I hope you fuckers didn’t drive him off forever. Seriously, when “American Values” have been perverted to mean wiretapping for all along with kidnapping, torturing to death, and wars of choice… Well, I just don’t think it’s a good idea to be all catty about some definitional confusion when we are seriously considering gutting the constitution.

gwangung - March 15, 2010 | 2:00 am · Link

But I’d add to it that he’s absolutely certain that his reasoning is unquestionable, which is why he treats both cattiness and actual criticism with either disregard or contempt.

Well the combination of the two is what really gets people; I’ve met a lot of people who think their reasoning is absolutely unquestionable but are fairly polite about it…

Mike Kay - March 15, 2010 | 2:46 am · Link

@Bill E Pilgrim:

sniffle. poor glenn is a victim. wallowing in pity and victimization is unattractive. in other words, people of glenn’s ilk can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

El Cid - March 15, 2010 | 4:47 am · Link

I guess my weighting is different than most here—I find Greenwald’s relentless pursuit of arguing about quite clear principles without respecting alleged political consequences to be immensely valuable, while his personal opinions on interpretations of Administrative or political party motives when empirical evidence is light to be quite typical of blog writers, and most of the time in the neighborhood of how I’d feel about the situation if I chose to go beyond what’s known.

To me it seems that the viewpoint for most here is fairly reversed—what’s most significant about Glenn’s writing is his imputation of motives and a tone they find offputting. Particularly when there’s the suggestion that the administration or other Democratic officials are actually doing wrong things for ill motives, whether based on wild extrapolation or fairly moderate interpretations.

Those characteristics have been hallmarks of many of my favorite writers and regular chronicler critics of the world’s machinations (say, I. F. Stone, whose writings on many occasions were other than staid and avoiding of guessing), and there have always been academics to write with the most cautious empiricism.

Nancy Irving - March 15, 2010 | 5:27 am · Link

“Lindsey Graham and his quest to statutorily implement a system of military commissions and indefinite detention…”

And the Tea-Party folks say OBAMA is the one who’s gonna set up concentration camps, LOL.

El Cid - March 15, 2010 | 7:43 am · Link

@Mike Kay: I read this blog and I also read stuff like CounterPunch.

I read foreign writers who don’t give a shit about American political norms and use terms like “imperialism” and spend not one moment suggesting that the U.S. political establishment has the faintest good will toward their people.

Secondly, I think that there’s quite a bit more historical evidence on which to justify hasty assumptions that American political officials truly are working for cynical motives and serving power rather brutely than insane right wing charges that lawyers serving in defense of controversial defendants are likely sympathetic towards Al Qa’ida.

So, no, it shouldn’t offend me when someone feels (or in print alleges) that Obama was working behind the scenes against the public option, primarily because insurance corporations opposed them—a not unrealistic assumption to make, though I think the more important factor was the rest of the political establishment’s opposition to it—versus when a shitty proven liar accuses without evidence attorneys of treason. The first might be wrong and unproven, but it’s neither absurd nor unprecedented. The latter is simply absurd and without precedent.

And anyone who believes it’s the same sort of thing will just do better not to spend time interacting with me.

@the farmer: First, Greenwald is not a journalist, and has not claimed to be. As for the PAC stuff, I have not the foggiest idea what this refers to.

Let me stress that I care not one whit whether or not people who read this blog like or hate Greenwald—good lord knows I’ve seen this place filled up with ridiculous nonsense.

I’m going to read both, and I’m going to read and take what I like from the truly intemperate left or foreign blogging sites, i.e., the ones which, if Hamsher makes people here retch, would cause internal organs would leap from out of their bodies.

sparky - March 15, 2010 | 8:42 am · Link

@El Cid: agreed.

and i think much of the vitriol here could be explained by your observation about non-US writers not respecting the convention of always arguing that the fault was a specific politician’s rather than the country’s. after all, america can only be failed, not fail.

@rob!: no it doesn’t. that’s a false dichotomy. that’s akin to the “you are with us or you are against us” notion. it was bullshit in 2002 and it’s bullshit now.

FlipYrWhig - March 15, 2010 | 9:31 am · Link

@El Cid:

I also read stuff like CounterPunch.

Alexander Cockburn is the douchiest douche that ever douched. Compared to him, Glenn Greenwald is a purring kitten.

@El Cid:

what’s most significant about Glenn’s writing is his imputation of motives and a tone they find offputting.

Well, his discussion of motives sucks. I think Cockburn is the same way, actually: when things that are bad happen, it’s because somebody powerful not only hasn’t stopped them, or can’t stop them, but actually wants them to happen.

And this kind of criticism is entirely self-inflicted. There’s no reason why he has to discuss anyone’s apparent motives by reverse-engineering them from public statements mixed with random rumors. He can just talk about how Lindsey Graham is lying or about what a travesty it is for Obama to continue practices like extraordinary rendition, and what drives them to do it is completely immaterial.

gwangung - March 15, 2010 | 10:15 am · Link

Well, his discussion of motives sucks. I think Cockburn is the same way, actually: when things that are bad happen, it’s because somebody powerful not only hasn’t stopped them, or can’t stop them, but actually wants them to happen.

And this kind of criticism is entirely self-inflicted. There’s no reason why he has to discuss anyone’s apparent motives by reverse-engineering them from public statements mixed with random rumors.

Well the really stupid thing is that this evidence nearly always supports multiple explanations or multiple sets of motivations. Trying to pin it down to one motive is almost always unjustified. That the evidence may more strongly support a particular explanation does not mean that this is the true explanation if there’s alternative explanations (particularly since there are certainly other information that we don’t know about or cannot know about).

Mike Kay - March 15, 2010 | 10:55 am · Link

@burnspbesq: Well, maybe he admires Ann Coulter, an ex-litigator who never bothers to establish a foundation.

apnea - March 15, 2010 | 9:32 pm · Link

Wow, massive concern trolling alert !

GG needs to check his sources ! That’s, like, totally unacceptable to interpret and extrapolate and stuff, y’know?

Like, bloggers are really pompous, and they’re always convinced they’re right, right?

Somebody stop them !

the farmer - March 16, 2010 | 4:16 am · Link

#52 El Cid. @the farmer: First, Greenwald is not a journalist, and has not claimed to be.

Hes not an actual journalist, he just plays one on Salon dot com. Got it.

As for the PAC stuff, I have not the foggiest idea what this refers to.

Yeah. That figures.

*