All President Bush wanted was "immunity" for the telecommunication companies.  Why?  To shield them from lawsuits.  Or to be more specific to shield them from motions of discovery which would reveal the full details of the spy program which our own government refuses to divulge.

Why the warrantless spy program in the first place?  The difference is record keeping and justification.  After all you can wiretap BEFORE even requesting a warrant and since almost every request the only requirement is you have to pass the laugh test.  If you can dress even the flimsiest piece of evidence and not have the judge fall down laughing your request will be granted.  And given only two requests have ever been rejected perhaps even that bar is too high.

No.  The real reason beyond just a pure power grab by the executive branch is so they never have to have anything they do or say explained to anyone.  And so if they decide to spy on say the Quakers or perhaps suspect lefty sites.  Or anything you'd never actually want to admit to.

The Republican search for a candidate ends with ... Francis H Powers.  With their first, second, third, and perhaps even fourth tier candidates balking at running and with the party near broke the Republicans have turned to the finest counterpoint to the "elitist" Democrats.  A rich investment banker.

http://www.silive.com/...

Got back from Richmond County Democratic Committee meeting in Staten Island.  Always meant to become more involved with the local Democratic Party since moving here but never quite got around to it.  More or less the same as other Democratic Party official organs I've seen elsewhere.  Very grey with most of the members being rather clubby and knowing each other.  But also welcoming to new and younger blood coming in.  I can't emphasize enough how much people need to get involved in local parties and not just in political campaigns.  We often complain about their decisions (or the decisions made by the party organs above them) but if we ourselves aren't involved we are the only one to blame if we disagree with them.

It's name is a misnomer.  It isn't some type of escalation for the battle for the nomination.  Indeed we've known for months that Hillary Clinton or her surrogates planned to contest who from Michigan and Florida got seated.

I wrote about this back in March and admittedly I got a few facts wrong; but on the whole, I think I got most of it correct. I'll be more clear this time.

I've always been a news junkie.  And by always I mean I read the newspaper back in elementary school.  Not something to boast about since it probably said more about how odd I was than necessarily how smart I was.

But one thing I do recall as far back as I can remember is the constant media self-criticism over it's own excesses.  Once upon a time the news people would complain about how the time devoted to issues has shrunk.  They'd mention how the time given to a political issue has shrunk from say three minutes to one minute.  They'd plead guilty to being too poll driven.  Or personality driven.  Or complain about 30 second sounds bites.  (If only soundbites ever could go back to being that "long" again!)

Sure they'd repeat the same error over and over again.  But something has changed.  2008 is the year shame died.

Less than a year ago Florida and Michigan embarked on a dare.  Republican and Democratic Party rulemakers wishing to prevent a cycle of states moving their dates forward and moving the Presidential race into 2007 drew a line in the sand.  The states of Florida and Michigan crossed that line and forfeited their delegates on the Democratic side.  They thought maybe their contest would influence the race anyway and by the time the convention came around the parties already having settled on a nominee would restore their delegations so that it wouldn't become an issue in the general.  For better or worse on the Democratic side the race continues and Michigan and Florida's gamble is looking more and more like a bad one.

This has been discussed before.  But what I want to focus on is the bodies that will truly decide the question.  The Rules and Bylaws Committee, the Credentials Committee, and the Convention itself.

In 1992 Alan Dixon, longtime Senator from Illinois, ran for re-election and faced a tough primary challenge from millionaire businessman Al Hofeld.  Hofeld ran a blistering array of negative advertisement against Senator Dixon.  And Senator Dixon had no choice but to respond.

The result?  An obscure state rep who previously had little chance of winning came from behind to beat both of them.  Their money and their experience came back to bite them as they turned their considerable advantages into a death dance that consumed them.

Until New Hampshire the campaign was easy.  I had my candidate Bill Richardson.  He was the most experienced.  He issued policy statements that I pretty much agreed with.  I thought he would make the best president.  Best of all even if he had little shot of winning it was a way of sticking it to the media figures who decided to annoint three famous one term Senators the only "real" choices.

My second choice Chris Dodd dropped out even before Richardson did and given I don't think much of either Kucinich or Gravel I'm forced back to the "big three."

We're in familiar territory that we've seen before.  The Bush administration being deceptive and stonewalling while new unflattering information rises to the surface.

We've also been conditioned to expect the most unpleasant unexpected.  I remember dismissing reports of torture of US detainees immediately after September 11th as at best fantasy and at worst conspiracies spun by those who just have an axe to grind against the United States.  It seems almost as if there is nothing you can't put past the Bush administration.

We must resist that temptation.