This morning Marc Ash, Executive Director of Truthout.org, posted an open letter to Barack Obama. You can read the full letter at the Truthout site, but here is what I consider the salient parts of it.

Dear Senator Obama

Monday, 14 July 2008

by Marc Ash, t r u t h o u t

   Dear Senator Obama, I just slogged through a lecture by The New York Times about how it is the “far left” that is most offended by your vote to ratify retroactive immunity for the US telecommunications companies that provided aid and comfort to George W. Bush’s illegal program of domestic spying. Further, The Times implied, “mainstream Democrats” take a more mature and pragmatic view. The piece seemed to read like public relations material. But that’s silly – it was news, of course.

   In fairness, the political center moves around more than a set of goalposts on the White House lawn. So, the relevancy of the Times’s argument has a limited shelf life regardless. The real issue is twofold.

   Trust and the Law

   Let’s assume the time has come to limit the scope of your campaign signs to the word “Change.” The tag line “… we can believe in” has outlived its credibility. You may indeed change some things, but there won’t be much to believe in. It will pretty much be on a case-by-case basis from this point forward. The difference is trust. Before you had it, now you don’t.

   The problem is that what was at stake in the FISA legislation vote was more than a political ideal; it was the rule of law. You ratified an unconstitutional and egregious degradation of the Fourth Amendment. That won’t go away easily. The United States’s Constitution is not merely the security blanket for “civil liberties groups.” It is the birthright of all Americans. It is our national treasure.

   The thing that jumps out at me when I review the reader comments posted at the bottom of our article pages is the mounting outrage at what can only be described as lawlessness in our nation’s capitol. There is a growing consensus that the consent of the governed is lacking. That may not sound like a big thing, but I assure you it is. The alternative to the rule of law is the law of rule.

   The current commander in chief has established a function of monarchy in the oval office. Would you choose to undo that, or assume it? If the decision to ratify FISA was not your own inspiration, then at whose behest did you do so? And what next will they want? These are deep questions.

But just for this once, I hope anyway, I’m going to post a straight quote from RedState today… because it’s the only thing I think I’ve ever seen from them that I agree with.

Posted at 3:05pm on Jul. 9, 2008 – RedState.com

They’re winding up FISA now in the Senate. Took ’em long enough.

By Moe Lane

There were two Senators who were serious Democratic Presidential candidates, and they both voted on FISA. One of them voted against telecom immunity – a matter of extreme importance to the netroots – all the way down the line (and despite the fact that Democrats in Congress have assessed the public mood, and have clearly decided that the bill must be passed). The other voted against it… except for the final vote, which is the only one that the population will actually care about. In other words, we have a case of actual integrity versus equivocation.

The funny part is that the netroots went with the equivocator. Barack Obama brazenly lied to them about his intent to filibuster FISA, and they support him anyway. And now they have to go give him some more money, so that he can lie to them some more. Funny, I don’t recall Hillary Clinton being nearly as bad in that regard this election cycle.

Have a nice day.

[snip]

…And Reid is recessing, in order to let the GOP go have its (delayed by the Helms funeral) lunch. Isn’t he just the best, most biddable Democratic Senate Majority Leader that the GOP could wish for?

I could use a drink.

Anyone else?

Lately there has been a growing and increasingly loudly voiced call from some of the more extreme centrists and from the DLC itself pushing the idea that to win elections – the upcoming 2008 presidential election comes to mind for some strange reason – and gain power Democrats will have to move sharply to the right, and that liberals and progressives are dooming America to successive rethuglican administrations.

Sunday morning, March 11, 2007 in “Where Is America’s True Center?” David Sirota wrote that:

The purported proof of such an assertion by Democratic Leadership Council mouthpieces Elaine Kamarck and Bill Galston was this finding:

“In 2004, only 21 percent of voters called themselves liberal, while 34 percent said they were conservative. The rest, 45 percent, characterized themselves as moderate.”

The Washington media joined with Kamarck and Galston in billing this as an extraordinary finding that proved once and for all that Democrats must become more “moderate” or “conservative” because so few voters labeled themselves “liberal.”

Are they going to Steal 2008?

by Greg Palast, www.gregpalast.com

Are they going to Steal 2008? Don’t worry: it’s already stolen. But you can steal it back. Ted Rall and I have teamed up for one of the first ever series of hard-edged investigative journalism – in ‘toon form. Steal this strip … and pass it on: VOTE THEFT FOR IDIOTS – PART 1 … (click here to download a pdf)

No time like the present to attack Iran

Of all the nations America has arbitrarily decided are evil, the worst is Iran, an oppressive theocracy that sponsors international terror, but doesn’t pretend to be friends with us and give us oil. Obviously they must be destroyed, but we’re running out of time to do so. Experts agree we must attack by January, or it’ll be too late. If we wait any longer, we run the risk of no longer having a president who’s crazy enough to do it.

We must bomb Iran, as payback for the Iranian hostage crisis, a despicable act that happened before I was born. Those hostages were taken in retaliation for the America-backed coup that occurred when my dad was a baby. So you see the startling immediacy of the conflict. The problem is the only possibly attackable thing Iran’s president has done lately is say a lot of crazy stuff. And though our own president has shown it’s a short leap between saying crazy stuff and blowing things up, Iran hasn’t yet made the jump.

After all…. we’re not democratic Democrats. We’d never lie to you. You can trust us. Honest.

APNewsBreak: US asks to rewrite detainee evidence

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 20, 2008, Filed at 8:43 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration wants to rewrite the official evidence against Guantanamo Bay detainees, allowing it to shore up its cases before they come under scrutiny by civilian judges for the first time.

The government has stood behind the evidence for years. Military review boards relied on it to justify holding hundreds of prisoners indefinitely without charge. Justice Department attorneys said it was thoroughly and fairly reviewed.

Now that federal judges are about to review the evidence, however, the government says it needs to make changes.

The decision follows last week’s Supreme Court ruling, which held that detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian court, not just before secret military panels. At a closed-door meeting with judges and defense attorneys this week, government lawyers said they needed time to add new evidence and make other changes to evidentiary documents known as ”factual returns.”

Attorneys for the detainees criticized the idea, saying the government is basically asking for a last-minute do-over.

”It’s sort of an admission that the original returns were defective,” said attorney David Remes, who represents many detainees and attended Wednesday’s meeting. ”It’s also an admission that the government thinks it needs to beef up the evidence.”

Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin declined to comment on the plan. The discussions were confirmed by several attorneys and officials who attended or were briefed on the meeting with the judges and defense lawyers.

”It’s a totally fishy maneuver that suggests that the government wants, at the 11th hour, to get its ducks in a row,” said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney representing several detainees. He was briefed on the plan.

(There’s more, if you can stomach it…)

When contacted for her reaction to the Bush administrations request, Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi looked up from a kneeling position and said “impeachment is off the table…”. And winked.

The endlessly repeated term “Vital National Interests”, as near as I can figure, is from the point of view of those in power, the corporatists and the puppets they fund into congress and the oval office, a euphemistic term, a way of saying they’ll do whatever it takes, invade whatever country they have to, kill whoever they need to, and steal whatever resources are required, to keep the “empire” from collapsing.

“Their” empire. The one that enables them to sit in luxury at the top of the pyramid of bodies, American and other, that they climb over to get to the top of.

I think that Iraqis are no more likely to give up, roll over, play dead, and hand their country to an occupier, any occupier, than the Mujahideen the Soviets tried to conquer in Afghanistan were.

No matter how long it takes, Iraqis will have their country back. The question is, what will be the ultimate price. To Iraq, and to America.

Afghanistan is still there. The USSR is not…