From Rupert’s Journal, we give you this breaking news that Unindicted Co-Conspirator Karl Rove has announced his resignation from the government payroll, effective the end of August. Per how these things are done, he quite literally said “he wants to spend more time with his family”. Some highlights from the announcement, reflecting things that only Karl would have the nerve to say: In the interview, Mr. Rove said he expects Democrats to give the 2008 presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he described as “a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate.” He also said Republicans have “a very good...

Well, our friends at the Center for Constitutional Rights have brought suit in federal court in San Francisco to set aside the Protect America Act of 2007, a/k/a the bipartisan attempt to abrogate the Fourth Amendment by repealing FISA. Our interview with CCR’s President Michael Ratner may be found here, and the interviews of numerous attorneys working with CCR in representing Guantanamo detainees may be found on the side-bar (or check the end of this post, our recent interview with Mike Otterman). The CCR attorneys, of course, claim that their conversations were likely monitored, including presumably telephone calls overseas which...

Teddy Roosevelt said “Speak softly and carry a big stick”, presumably meaning (I think, anyway) that “actions speak louder than words…” or something like “if you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds are sure to follow.” George W. Bush’s mantra would be something like speak incoherently and bellicosely and bluff the ability to back it up, and failing that, just say “9-11” a lot. Or something. And spend ourselves into oblivion against enemies who pose no threat to us, opposing any conceivable good government could do for all but the super-rich on “philosophical” grounds… and otherwise run...

Coming as no surprise whatsoever given the Senate’s recent action described here, the Democratic-led House of Representatives, which has proven every bit as worthless as the Democratic-led Senate, joined the upper house in selling out further vast swathes of civil liberties to the Bush Administration and passed the “temporary” FISA repeal (thereby permitting unlimited electronic eavesdropping by the federal government, as long as an appropriate official utters the phrase “it’s to protect us against terrrrrrrrorists”), rather than take a vacation in August and be called bad names by those mean Republicans. Here’s the thing: in practical terms, the Bush Administration...

Ah, don’t we all remember August, 2002? We were all getting ready for that manly celebration of September 11th +1.0, when the President could tell us how manly he handled the whole thing because he showed up a week later with a bullhorn, kind of like how he did back at dear old Yale and Andover with the boy-cheerleader teams. Andy Card told us we didn’t roll out new products in August. And I concluded that a war in Iraq was being played for domestic political purposes, to wit, to corner Democrats into a no win situation of either supporting...

Not much to add to the commentary surrounding the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis yesterday that has killed at least four people. Others have expressed anger that America’s obsession with tax cuts at the expense of maintaining infrastructure has resulted in, well, this. I will simply recall that shortly after September 11th, one of my fears was crossing the bridges here, either into Manhattan or other points, for fear of terrorism. Turns out, of course, that as we learned from the steampipe explosion next to my old office building, or the bridge collapse in Minnesota… we need to be eternally...

Kenneth D. Ackerman practices law in Washington, D.C., and has served as a government official in both the legislative and executive branches of government. He is the author of four books, his most recent, “Young J. Edgar: Hoover, The Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties“, chronicling the response of then Attorney General Mitchell Palmer to a series of anarchist bombings and other violence around the United States in the aftermath of the First World War, including one at his own house that nearly killed him and his family. Palmer directed a series of raids to round-up, and eventually...

I guess celebrity deaths famously “come in threes”, but I cannot recall another instance where the three involved were all regarded as visionaries, if not revolutionary geniuses, in their respective fields: legendary football coach Bill Walsh passed away at 75, legendary late night talk show host Tom Snyder passed away at 71, and legendary film director Ingmar Bergman passed away at 89. Well, at least those three men managed to make it into their 70’s or beyond. No explanation for why the youngest member of the United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts collapsed at his vacation home in...

Christy Hardin Smith of Firedoglake gives us this account of a story that our usual “All Paris, Lindsay, Britney, Nicole, Brangelina and their friends all the time” press seems to have ignored… i.e., 24 out of 93 United States Attorney positions are now vacant, and likely will be for the rest of the 541 or so remaining days of the Bush Administration, as not so much as one proposed replacement has been sent to Congress for action. Given the quality of personnel that this President has all-too-frequently placed in high positions in the Department of Justice, starting with the two...

The chick famous for being Paris’s sidekick and Lionel’s daughter took a plea deal in L.A. for driving under the influence, and will undergo rehab, pay a stiff fine, and serve four more days in jail than Scooter did. In so doing, she joins her good friend Paris Hilton, and, any day now, Lindsay Lohan, in that category of the “We did more time than Scooter Girls”. Where am I going with this (other than probable mega-hits for mentioning so many celebrities at once)? I’m going to the United States Constitution, specifically Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, which provides:...