sfarber

A Pax Romanica on your house

The New York Times gives us this fascinating op-ed likening the recent outbreak of politically convenient cowardice in our own senate to that of the Roman senate circa 68 B.C. around the time of the great fire at Ostia. That fire included the burning of a Roman fleet and kidnapping of two senators by “pirates”. While I tend to view 9-11 as more reminiscent of the Reichstadt fire, apparently, this sort of “throw out all semblance of checks and balances, due process and, quite frankly, sanity, because civil rights don’t mean anything when we’re dead” (to paraphrase a recent screaming...

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Anniversary schmaltz

Amidst all our nation’s domestic mirth and merriment, Mrs. TD and I are pleased to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary today (even if, for a short time, there was some doubt about the legal viability of our marriage, given its original situs.) So, let me wish a most happy anniversary to Mrs. TD.

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Congress passes star chamber and torture

While Will Rogers always said that no citizen was safe while the Congress was in session, any claim to humor in that remark was duly eviscerated when the august body, the United States Senate, duly caved to the President’s demand to “try” poor schmucks that he calls “terrorists” arbitrarily (if at all), detain them forever, and insulate anyone who would abuse them (i.e. himself) from later prosecution, and passed this abomination of a bill, making us, officially, the only nation in the world to legally and officially sanction torture. BTW, there is nothing stopping the application of this “law” (the...

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Causes Du Jour

Our buddy and AmStreet head muckity muck Kevin urges us to take a look at his piece summing up the call among people of conscience (i.e. Democrats and Independents) for the immediate release of both so-called “National Intelligence Estimates” pertaining to the Iraq War, so that the President can’t “nuance” his way out of the ultimate conclusion that his boneheaded decision to invade Iraq and his even more boneheaded mismanagement of that invasion made the problem of terrorism worse. Not so hard, is it? And I am reminded of having sat through a legal seminar at work on the subject...

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G.O.P. March to Victory– Nuts and Bolts

The Grey Lady treats us to this year’s principal GOP winning strategy: arbitrary enforcement of voter identification requirements. On the surface, one recognizes that someone just has to prove who they are for just about everything in our security crazed country (including frequently entry into private office buildings), so why not “prevent fraud” in voting? I agree. Why not? Well… the overwhelming majority of reported incidents of fraud occur with respect to absentee ballots (as the article notes). Absentee ballots, frequently people living abroad, in the military, traveling, etc., are overwhelmingly (at least historically) Republican voters. And yet, the i.d....

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The G.O.P. Victory Tour

We’ve, of course, been harping on the themes that the GOP wiill be relying upon to victory in maintaining control of both houses of Congress around 44, 45 days from now, including (obviously) first and foremost torture and star chambers, with Big Brother surveillance next week… all, you know, to keep us safe. BTW, given the USA intelligence report out that shows that we have made the threat of terrorism far, far worse thanks to our Iraq invasion; according to reports of the National Intelligence Assessment reported upon by the Grey Lady, it appears that AQ and other terrorist threats...

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“Borrow and Spender-In-Chief” Derides “Tax and Spenders”

What’s old seems to be new again. Flush from the sudden goodwill from being almost certainly about to be exonerated-by-legislation for his own (and his associates’ and underlings’) war crimes, the President has now moved on to that tried and true Rovian tactic: accuse the Democrats of being the party of higher taxes. No, not even I can believe it either… but that’s the theme and the pose he is taking, and it would seem that this may be the full extent of Republican “domestic policy”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you just have to admire...

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Dems Played as Usual, Kabuki Complete on Star Chamber/Torture Bill

The Grey Lady and the WaPo give us their accounts of detainee treatment agreements reached between Senators McCain, Warner and Graham, and the White House. I have a pretty good idea what the bills are about (stripping jurisdiction from federal courts to hear habeas corpus writs, and ostensibly trying to provide the dictatorial tools Cheney wants by Congressional rubber stamping what John Yoo had previously told the President he could do by “unitary executive” fiat)… they are about denying any semblance of a fair trial to terror suspects, they are about wink-winking to torture carried out by the CIA, and...

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Tomorrow’s news today… or something

Let me quote Bill Scher (author of “Wait! Don’t move to Canada!“), who I interviewed, just one post down: As to national security, this is another matter. What we really need to do is lay out our foreign policy principles and what we want to achieve globally. One area is promoting democracy– that is a key liberal goal and principle, to be sure. And George W. Bush SAYS the same thing– HE wants to promote democracy. Ah, but he doesn’t DO it. And we can point to example after example, from condoning a military dictatorship in Pakistan, helping to oust...

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TD Blog Interview with Bill Scher

Bill Scher is the executive editor of the popular Liberal Oasis web-site, among whose credits include the first interview with a presidential candidate by a blog. Mr. Scher is the author of “Wait! Don’t Move to Canada!: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America“, a handbook of political strategies for liberals interested in advancing the liberal cause. Mr. Scher also appears regularly on Air America’s “Majority Report“. On September 19, 2006, I had the privilege of speaking to Mr. Scher by telephone; what follows are my interview notes, as corrected where appropriate by Mr. Scher. The Talking Dog: I’ll belay...

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