Return of the p3 year-end metalist

The p3 metalist is back!

It's a somewhat trickier process than in years past, simply because the internet has been flooded with that scourge of social media content, the listicle – many of them "insane," most of them containing things "you won't believe" (why read it, I wonder?), and not a few of them slathered with adolescent contrarianism (e.g., over at cracked.com right this minute they're touting "5 Reasons Space Travel Is Going To Suck").

The p3 metalist elements – some traditional war horses, some one-of-a-kind – were chosen according to the criterion that each item should be useful, or if not useful then obviously an investment of time and trouble that is, of itself, still worthy of some kind of respect. Similarly, they should be authoritative, not arbitrarily glued together as clickbait by someone too lazy to really get a handle on a topic and write it up in an interesting way. For example, you may not find the first item –

1. Playboy ranks every episode of every Star Trek TV series – original, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and the animated series – from worst to best.

– terribly useful, but you have to respect the author's willingness to take on the big tasks, in this case the individual rating of over six hundred episodes. So without further ado:

2. Project Censored's top 25 censored stories of 2014. Project Censored, the little engine that could, got its start 38 years ago down at Sonoma State University.

3. The Oregon Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse 2014 list of formally challenged books in Oregon libraries. There are eleven items on the list, along with the reason for the challenge and the final disposition of the challenge. And it's always a delight to be reminded that the OIFC is maintained by the state of Oregon.

4. The Onion's AV Club lists the 20 worst films of 2014. A disturbing appearance on the list by Simon Pegg, as well as two (!) appearances each by John Cusack and Liam Neeson. Gentlemen, either listen to your agents or fire them.

5. The Rolling Stone's 40 most groundbreaking albums of all time. This one almost got bumped off the list for describing a Kanye West album as both "auto-tune heavy" and "emotionally naked" in the first entry. One or the other, please. But then it settles in a little more. Music lists tend to be a little like rating MAD Magazine – sometimes it doesn't amount to much more than noting that it was funniest in the days when you were reading it regularly. This one rises above that, I think.

6. Bill Moyers' list of underreported stories from 2014. These were chosen by "editors, journalists and friends of BillMoyers.com," as opposed to the academics – faculty and students – who assembled the Project Censored list, so the differences are interesting. And there are a number of them.

7. Ten classic German expressionist movies now available for free, via openculture.com. Because this is my metalist.

8. ThinkProgress' list of nine "travesties of justice that would be unbelievable if they weren't true." That clickbait title almost caused this item to get tossed off the list, but the content is worth going over, if only to see all of these American horror stories collected in one place.

9. Oregon AG Ellen Rosenblum's list of the 20 worst charities, based on the percentage of donations that go to administrative and fundraising costs, rather than going to the actual cause they claim to support. (Have we mentioned Portland's own Mercy Corps lately?)

10. iMediaEthics' list of the five most controversial cartoons of 2014. Somehow they missed this series of terrible decisions surrounding a piece by the Indy Star's Gary Varvel.

11. And finally, from Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern comes the 10 worst civil liberties violations of 2014. This was a tough year to be part of the Bill of Rights, unless you were the Second or Tenth Amendment, in which case you probably thought it was a pretty nice ride. But if you had anything to do with not establishing state religion, preventing unreasonable search and seizure, or guaranteeing due process, or contained the phrase "cruel and unusual," then not so much.

Happy birthday to the Bill of Rights

Two hundred twenty-three years after it was ratified, the Second and Tenth Amendments are all the rage. But the First Amendment has been twisted largely beyond recognition by the Roberts Court. A constitutional law professor took time out from campaigning for president in 2008 to hand an anvil to the Fourth Amendment. And the Eighth Amendment was publicly disgraced last week.

Still, it was a good idea. And in fairness, no one has tried to quarter troops in my house as far as I can remember.

Happy birthday to what's left of the Bill of Rights.

Quote of the day: Pierce on conspicuous-by-its-absence at the Democratic 2012 platform

Remember the amendments that come between the Third and Fifth Amendments, and between the Fifth and Seventh Amendments?

The DNC apparently doesn't anymore:

[T]he platform is shamefully silent on the Bush-era national-security policies that the current administration has kept in place — or, more accurately, made a permanent part of the American government. They are not defended or justified. They are simply taken for granted and not mentioned at all. Nothing at all in there about preventive detention. No position taken on warrantless surveillance. (The 2008 platform went bananas on this subject.) There's some mush in there about how we no longer torture, which may or may not actually be true. It's early days yet, but it's hard to see anything more disgraceful coming out of this convention than the fact that the Democratic party has gone hopelessly AWOL on civil liberties.

More here. 

Quote of the day: “Third-rate” was losing its zing, anyway

Charles Pierce on the gradual abdication by Congress of its exclusive war-declaring rights under the Constitution, including the new Bush-Obama theory of extrajudicial killing as a presidential perq:

No Congress is ever going to impeach a president over the improper use of military force; in 1972, Congressman Robert Drinan, S.J. tried to do that to Richard Nixon over the blatantly impeachable offense of bombing Cambodia in secret, only to have the sainted Tip O'Neill squash the whole business until they could do it properly over a conspiracy to cover up a cheap-ass burglary.

The unforgiving minute: Detachment and devotion

Dedicated to state-sponsored executioners, torture experts, and assassins -- and their enthusiasts -- everywhere:

The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.

Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms

Minute's up.

Dispatches: Your brain on politics, opposing indefinite detention, supporting a single-payer plan, and more

Dispatches: Your brain on politics, opposing indefinite detention, supporting a single-payer plan, and more

Items from the p3 inbox:

• This Is Your Brain on Politics, forum on progressive politics featuring Mike Lux, Steve Novick, and Carla Axtman, is this Sunday at the Bipartisan Café. (Facebook)



• Let President Obama know you're opposed to indefinite detention without charge or trial. (ACLU)



• Contact your representative and show your support for real health care reform. (Working Families/AFL-CIO)



• Join Michael Moore in calling for inclusion of the single-payer option in media coverage of health care reform. (FAIR)

Happy birthday to the Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the US Constitution became the law of the land on December 15th, 1791, when ratification by the Virginia legislature meant approval by the states had cleared the three-quarters constitutional requirement.

And they remained the law of the land right up to the point that the Bush/Cheney administration, aided and abetted by a supine Democratic congressional minority and a sycophantic national press, decided they were incompatible with their theory of executive power.

Those ten amendments (there were two more that weren't approved) were introduced to Congress by James Madison as a check on the limits of federal power. They guaranteed freedom of speech and of the press, the right to due process, and . . .

What the hell--there's only ten (at least on paper there are still ten); let's just list them. For fun, see how many you can name before reading down.

Not counting the Preamble, they are:

First Amendment – Establishment Clause, Free Exercise Clause; freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly; right to petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment – Right to keep and bear arms.

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Third Amendment – Protection from quartering of troops.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Fifth Amendment – due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, eminent domain.

No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Sixth Amendment – Trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

Seventh Amendment – Civil trial by jury.

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Eighth Amendment – Prohibition of excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Ninth Amendment – Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment – Powers of states and people.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Good stuff, isn't it? "Shall make no law;" "shall not be violated;" "shall not be infringed;" "shall enjoy the right." That was back in the day when the writers of laws knew how to put some Old Testament oomph into their bills. (Too bad about that grammatical mare's nest in #2, but what are you gonna do?)

The thing about Bills of Rights, and the reason that even enlightened administrations find them occasionally irksome (and unenlightened ones find them an affront to their ambitions, to be gotten around by whatever means), is that at the end of the day the possession--to say nothing of the exercise--of our basic rights by some is often just a damned nuisance to others. And sometimes, however much they cherish their own rights, those others might welcome the removal of a nuisance (or protection from a boogeyman) even more.

Here's a case in point. (There are others.)

In 35 days we get to find out if a former constitutional law professor can be as safely be trusted with our rights as a couple of clown college alumni.

Fixing the Constitution: Obama will only go as far left as the left pushes him

Late last week, Digby had a good post on a topic everyone's hot on right now: How far to the left or the right will Obama govern?

The answer, which I consider especially smart even by Digby standards, since I've been saying much the same thing since last spring: Obama will govern just as far to the left as he's pushed into doing by the left itself, and probably not much farther.

In the current political world, I believe that Obama and the Democrats need a strong left wing that is out there agitating in order that we can continue to build popular support and also give them a political excuse to do things that the political establishment finds too liberal. Being cheerleaders all the time, however enjoyable that is, is not going to help them. Leaving them out there with no left wing cripples them.

One of the problems for Democrats has been that there has not been an effective progressive voice pushing the edge of the envelope. Therefore, when they inevitably "go to the middle" as politicians often feel they must do, the middle become further and further right. It is my belief that one of the roles of the progressive movement is to keep pulling the politicians back to the left, which often means that we are not being publicly "supportive," in order that we really do end up in the middle instead of farther to the right than the country actually is. […]

So, everyone needs to relax a little bit about the blogosphere criticizing Obama and the Democrats. We are necessary. If all Obama has is the Villagers and the right defining what change means, then those are the parameters within which he will have to operate. He needs us to "make him do it."

I'm sorry if that's a buzzkill, but things move fast in politics and there's no time to waste. The mandate is being defined as we speak. We can't just sit back and bask in our glory while the villagers are busily narrowing Obama's options.

Don't get me wrong; he's not off to a bad start, at least as far as his talking game goes:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

That's all good. And he'll also need to hit the ground running on beginning to reverse the economic damage that the Bush administration has inflicted on the nation.

But there's something missing here. Conspicuous by its absence, one could say.

Here's a hint:



We're not America again until our basic Constitutional liberties and the rule of law--over which Bush and Cheney have run roughshod--are restored.

The ACLU has a good starting point, in its agenda for Obama's first day, first 100 days, and first year in office.

Day 1:
1. Stop torture and abuse.
2. Close Guantánamo, and restore the rule of law for detainees
3. End and prohibit the practice of extraordinary rendition.

Those are pretty hard to argue with. Obama's starting to make the right rumblings about closing Guantánamo, but the legal and constitutional pig's breakfast that the Bush administration has made of the Gitmo prisoners' status is not going to make it go as easily as it sounds. There will be plenty of temptation, and plenty of encouragement from tough-on-terrorism wannabes, to drag his feet on this one once the ugly complications become apparent. We can't let him do it. Shut Gitmo down.

First 100 Days:

1. End warrantless spying on US citizens.
2. Rein in ever-expanding and error-ridden watch lists.
3. Rescind the "Ashcroft Doctrine" undermining the Freedom of Information Ac.
4. End government monitoring of political activists.
5. Order the DOJ to resume civil rights enforcement by the Civil Rights Division.
6. Suspend the Real ID Act pending congressional review.
7. Rescind the abortion gag rule on foreign aid.
8. Ban all workplace discrimination against sexual minorities by the federal government and its contractors.
9. Implement a moratorium on the death penalty until the issue of racial disparities has been addressed.
10. End the practice of government-sponsored religious discrimination known as the "faith-based initiatives."

Of these, I'd move #7 up to Day One. The Reagan/Bush era restrictions were rescinded by Clinton on his first day in office. Bush 43 reinstated them again on his first day in office. Obama needs to show he's serious. Day One.

The list of constitutional protections to establish or restore for Obama's first year in office is a long one--too long to include here, so check it out at the ACLU's site. Many of the ACLU's Year One recommendations address the growing encroachment of government and corporate databases--some illegal, some error-ridden, some involving constitutional issues that no one's paying attention to--on our privacy.

Some of these are things Obama can do with the stroke of a pen on an executive order. Many will take the cooperation of Congress, so it can be an early chance for Democratic congressional leadership to take their newly-increased majorities out for a test-drive and see what they can do.

It's great that we've elected Obama. Now we have to make him do what needs to be done, and for that he has to have us in his grillwork. Obama was not elected by the center, and certainly not by the right. We need to make sure, in the famous phrase of Molly Ivins, that he knows he has to dance with them what brung him.


(Image via Mike Luckovich.)

"You know, democracies accept certain risks that tyrannies do not."

A lot of civil libertarians did not expect this fortunate break this morning:

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

The justices handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court's liberal justices in the majority.

The dissenting justices were Scalia, Roberts, Alito, and--presumably--Thomas although, since Scalia was drinking a glass of water while the minority opinion was being read, Thomas remained silent. Noting the razor-thin 5-4 vote, John Aravosis comments:

If John McCain becomes president, the court will shift to the right and this will be another decision, like Roe v. Wade, that will be overturned.

Technically, that's probably not true about Roe (the anti-choice justices know they don't have to run the risk of backlash that overturning it would create; all they have to do is keep it technically legal while incrementally making it less and less available in practice to everyone--at least, everyone except the daughters of John McCain and George Bush.) But it's dead-on regarding habeas corpus. If elected, McCain would use the first vacancy on the court to secure that fifth vote to dispense with due process and habeas corpus in the name of fighting terrorism.

It's a sign of how empty many of our handy political distinctions have become when four Supreme Court Justices who would happily throw out a 700-year-old legal principle upon which most of our liberties as Americans are based can be described as "conservative."

It's sign of how little these people believe in the strength of our form of government, even as they call themselves patriots, that they don't believe it can be preserved without altering or eliminating its most fundamental values--or that we should even try.

(Title quote from constitutional scholar Bruce Fein.)

That sound you hear is the last tiny shred of Colin Powell's dignity and reputation evaporating

Among the many things that Colin Powell must surely regret--and what a long and star-studded list that must be--right at the top has be the day he ever became connected with the Bush family.

In the mid-1990s he was respected on all sides, considered wise, moderate, and statesmanlike. When Powell announced his decision not to run for President in 1996 (like Eisenhower, the mainly non-political Powell had been courted by both Republicans and Democrats), it was a landmark moment.

This week he finished the trip from hero to late-night punch line to national disgrace, thanks to the leaked accounts showing that Powell was one of the Principals Committee, along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, and Ashcroft, who, in meetings beginning in 2002, carefully worked out the system under which torture would thereafter be carried out by the United States of America. Never questioning if it would be or should be carried out, note well--simply working out the procedural minutiae necessary for it to achieve maximum effect.

Will Bunch writes:

Well, I can't wait for Powell's next Barbara Walters appearance so he tell us how he pleaded with Cheney and the others not to do this, either. Give me a break. Anyone who sat in those meetings and didn't stop America on the path to torture is just as guilty as those who proposed it in the first place. And that includes not only Powell but former attorney general John Ashcroft, whose reported quote that "History will not judge this kindly" will be in your grandchild's textbook.

First medicinal wine from a teaspoon, then beer from a bottle, eh, General?

When the Center for Public Integrity undertook the unenviable task of tallying the number of false public statements ("lies," in the vernacular) made by the seven top members of the Bush Administration in the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003, Colin Powell --t hat delicate flower with his quivering, hair-like ethical sensibilities, who considered his knowingly dishonest February 2003 presentation to the UN to be, in hindsight, a "blot," who insisted that carrying out policies he later claimed not to believe in at the time somehow made him principled -- that Colin Powell racked up 244 documentably false public statements about Iraq. That achievement placed him second only to Bush himself, with 252.

Olbermann: Mr. Bush, "We're better than you"

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment Monday night dipped into the proscribed lexicon--the words that the Media Insiders are forbidden to use--in describing Bush and the end of Daniel Levin's career in the Justice Department.

The canon of impermissible journalistic language includes:

• "criminal conspiracy to save the ass of George W. Bush"
• "liar"
• "screwed"
• "wouldn't just mean impeachment"
• "going to prison"

The story, broken three years after the event by ABC News, has been unsurprisingly missing from the mainstream news media radar screen, but in two sentences, it's this:

1. In 2004, then Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin, in order to form a judgment about whether waterboarding, among other interrogation techniques, constituted torture and was therefore illegal under American and international law, subjected himself under controlled conditions to waterboarding at a military base near Washington DC.


2. Even knowing that his ultimate safety was assured by the experts monitoring his condition, Levin found the experience of incrementally drowning so terrifying that he put his professional opinion--"torture is abhorrent"--in a Justice Department memorandum, shortly after the dissemination of which he was forced out of his job by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Here's Olbermann's comment:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Transcript here.

No wonder Olbermann has been deemed no longer safe for basic cable.

The unforgiving minute

Well, let's just say this: If America is going to have state-sanctioned sadism, then then you can rest assured it's going be efficient state-sanctioned sadism. 'Cause that's how we do things around here, Jack.


Not this:

Oh, don't worry. I'm not going into that cavity. That nerve's already dying. A live, freshly-cut nerve is infinitely more sensitive. So I'll just drill into a healthy tooth until I reach the pulp. That is unless, of course, you can tell me that it's safe.

- Dr. Christian Szell, Marathon Man (1976)

This:

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again.

- Counterterrorism consultant Malcolm W.
Nance, smallwarsjournal.com (2007)

And the good news is, the man who appears an inevitability to be our next Attorney General evidently--although we can't be 100% certain--thinks this sort controlled drowning is legal if a Republican president authorizes it.

America: Our inquisitors don't leave marks.^TM


Minute's up.

Wyden, Smith, and due process: The clock is ticking

S.A. 2022--which restores the right of habeas corpus after it was removed by the abominable Military Commissions Act of 2006--will come up for a Senate vote in the next couple of days.

Ron Wyden will probably vote for it, but will he sign on as a co-sponsor?

Gordon Smith, despite his faux centrism, has stuck by Bush whenever it counted--will he vote the Bush party line again on S.A. 2022?

Read more here, including how to make your voice heard.

While making your voice heard is still, you know, legal.

This just in: "The Pinhead Defense" gains popularity throughout Bush administration

Exhibit 1: Director of Space Flight for NASA, testifying before the Senate subcommittee on Science and Space:

SENATOR: Sir, in your capacity as Director of Space Flight, I assume that you have given serious thought to the question of gravity. Would that assumption be correct?

DIRECTOR: I don't--Senator, can you be a little more--I'm not familiar with the subject of your question.

SENATOR: Gravity, sir. I'm referring to the attractive force that all massive bodies are theorized to exert on each other. It holds the earth together, keeps it in its orbit around the sun . . . ? One of the four basic components of any possible Unified Field Theory? Surely you are familiar with this?

DIRECTOR: I would have to say this is not a topic on which I've been fully briefed.

SENATOR: "Fully briefed?" Sir, if your pencil rolls off your desk, does it land on the floor?

DIRECTOR: [Looks thoughtfully at the pencil on the table in front of him.] Senator, I would have to get back to you on that.

Exhibit 2: Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifying before the House subcommittee on Public Health:

REPRESENTATIVE: Sir, I would like to draw your attention to the process known as Pasteurization, and--

DIRECTOR: Congressman, I have to interrupt for a moment. What was--what was that word again?

REPRESENTATIVE: . . . Pasteurization?

DIRECTOR: Yes. Pasteurization. Could you use that in a sentence?

REPRESENTATIVE: [Long pause.] Well, sir, I believe I was just doing that.

DIRECTOR: I see.

REPRESENTATIVE: Sir, are you telling me you don't know what Pasteurization is? The process of heating milk to kill dangerous organisms, then chilling it again for transportation or storage? Sir, this is simply--we are talking about one of the greatest advances in public health since the adoption of public sewer systems! And you're saying you've never heard of it?

DIRECTOR: Not a clue. They heat the milk?

REPRESENTATIVE: Yes. Named after Louis Pasteur?

DIRECTOR: [Shrugs.] Nope. I got nothing. Congressman, do--[Lowers voice, leans closer to mike.]--do the Russians know about this?

Exhibit 3: Attorney General, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

SHERMAN: Now, are there any U.S. citizens being held now by foreign governments or foreign organizations, without access to attorneys, as a result of rendition, where agents of the administration have taken people into custody and then given them up to foreign officials?

GONZALES: I don’t — Congressman, I don’t know if I have the question to that question either. It’s something I would have to look at.

SHERMAN: Wouldn’t you, as the chief officer responsible for protecting our civil rights, want to know?

GONZALES: Yes. And I’m not suggesting that that is occurring — It’s just — quite frankly, I hadn’t thought about this.

Note: To the best of our knowledge here at p3, only one of these has actually happened.

So far.

"A republic, if you can keep it:" Two tentative, but encouraging, bits of news

(Updated below.)

From MyDD, but picked up and circulating all around the net, comes word that on the House Armed Services Committee, chairman Ike Skelton has the votes to include restoration of habeas corpus back into the authorization bill now going through markup.

MyDD lists all the players and rightly encourages everyone to contact their representative on this. Although, actually--since we're debating a question that's absolutely fundamental to whether we're going to live in a democracy or a dictatorship--phone calls seem awfully tame. Something more along the lines of a million people in a torchlight procession circling the White House seems in order.

If Turkey, with a little more than a quarter of our population, can turn out 750,000 people demonstrating in defense of the separation of church and state, as they did last month, surely we can find a million people for habeas corpus.

Still, seeing the Democrats seizing the opportunity to restore the defining principle of civilized nations to America is a sign of hope.

Of course, the short-term fate of the authorization bill, if passed with the restoration of habeas corpus, will be quick and unpleasant: Bush will either veto it (more likely) or sign it in tandem with a "signing statement" saying he considers himself under no obligation to abide by the terms of the law regarding habeas.

Which brings us to the second encouraging bit of news:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is threatening to take President Bush to court if he issues a signing statement as a way of sidestepping a carefully crafted compromise Iraq war spending bill.

Pelosi recently told a group of liberal bloggers, “We can take the president to court” if he issues a signing statement, according to Kid Oakland, a blogger who covered Pelosi’s remarks for the liberal website dailykos.com.

“The president has made excessive use of signing statements and Congress is considering ways to respond to this executive-branch overreaching,” a spokesman for Pelosi, Nadeam Elshami, said. “Whether through the oversight or appropriations process or by enacting new legislation, the Democratic Congress will challenge the president’s non-enforcement of the laws.”

It is a scenario for which few lawmakers have planned. Indicating that he may consider attaching a signing statement to a future supplemental spending measure, Bush last week wrote in his veto message, “This legislation is unconstitutional because it purports to direct the conduct of operations of the war in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the presidency.”

A lawsuit could be seen as part of the Democrats’ larger political strategy to pressure — through a series of votes on funding the war — congressional Republicans to break with Bush over Iraq.

This is a matter of political strategy, yes; but it's much, much more. It's also about blocking Bush and his people from their steady march down the path of destroying our form of government.

Go get 'em, Pelosi.

Let's get this constitutional crisis to the Supreme Court where it belongs, where we can get some resolution and find out what kind of country we live in. And let's do it before Bush has the chance to stack the deck any further in his favor.

Update: The word from mcjoan is that the habeas corpus language isn't going to be in the authorization bill. The fight goes on. All the more reason for Pelosi to open up the second front in courts.