The AUMF, or authorization for the use of military force, gave Bush the right to use whatever force he deemed necessary to fight any country or organization in the War on Terrorism.
For a moment, let’s set aside the fact that the War on Terrorism is essentially a war on a tactic, and instead focus on [...]

That’s right, it wasn’t a Category 5 hurricane…
Bareknuckle Politics had the story first (as far as I can tell) back in October right after the Hurricane decimated the Big Easy.
Now there’s confirmation…
Researchers now say Hurricane Katrina was weaker than they thought when the catastrophic storm slammed ashore in August.
New data from the National Hurricane [...]

Follow these tips.
Step One: Bookmark Bensbargains Xbox 360 Tracker
There are lots of sites that purport to track Xbox 360 shipments. Bensbargains is the best IMO. They’re tracking all the major and a number of minor sites that are carrying the Xbox 360. The site is legit and updated about every minute. Even [...]

Oh, it’s real. But a lot of the places people think they’re seeing it, they’re probably seeing something more mundane. I haven’t yet wrestled all the things I could say about it into one place, but here’s a beginning, and perhaps a step toward a set of parameters for thinking about it.
Pssst … over here.

That’s the sentence for not going through the FISA court to get a warrant either before the fact or retroactively.
I think James Bamford does a good job of calmly explaining the law that has been broken in this video clip, while Victoria Toensing does a good job of calmly apologizing for the law being [...]

Looks like the wiretapping story has legs…
Now, a little background about what I’ve heard on wiretaps…when the government has gone to the courts to request them, those requests have only been denied several times in the last 30 years. So its not surprising that Bush’s actions have pushed people like U.S. District Judge James Robertson [...]

Given the opinions offered to date on degree of latitude involving executive powers, I would guess the response to the headline “Clinton Claimed Authority to Order No-Warrant Searches,” would be …
It doesn’t matter who is in the role of President, this is an example of overreaching beyond the defined bounds of the executive branch. [...]

It was inevitable that somebody would find something significant that Bush said about wiretaps in the past. But who knew it would be so recent?
From April 2004:
Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires � a wiretap requires [...]

Looks like somebody likes our name…or a variation on the theme.
Always remember, the original has an L in it. Ha!
(HT: Joe Gandelman)

Folks, let’s keep the situations being examined in what will probably be referred to in the future as “Surveillance-Gate”, in perspective …
A U.S. president has just received word that American counterterrorist operatives have captured a senior al Qaeda operative in Pakistan. Among his possessions are a couple of cell phones — phones that contain several [...]

George Will wrote a column that came out today, and he asks a very common sense question: why didn’t he ask congress?
Without more information than can be publicly available concerning threats from enemies operating in America, the executive branch deserves considerable discretion in combating terrorist conspiracies using new technologies such as cell phones and the [...]

Drug companies are finding many willing test participants in India and other countries stricken with extreme poverty.
But what cost progress?
Given the rising cost of drug research in the United States and Europe, more and more drug companies are conducting clinical trials in developing countries where government oversight is more lax and research can be done [...]

What. A. Dick.
“Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he’s nice but you don’t take him seriously. That’s Canada.”
But, you know, he’s just kidding…

Well, at least he’s in touch.

Personally, I find this sort of behavior from Bush kind of sad.
We’re talking about the fourth estate here and they can run whatever they like.
From Newsweek:
…Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important storyâ€â€?which the paper had already inexplicably held for a yearâ€â€?because he knew that it would reveal him as [...]

Well, the President received some “on air” time from the networks during prime time last night.
You’ll be happy to note that all subsequent programming was shown in its entirety – even though “Desperate Housewives” was a repeat!
For those of you who did not channel switch when you heard the words “Presidential Address,” what are your [...]

What’s a hidden cost of torture?
How about lives of the torturers?
The feeding pipe was thick, thicker than my nostril, and would not go in. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they kept pushing until the cartilages cracked. I guess I would have screamed if I could, but [...]

This editorial in the NY Times gets it right. The election itself was a success, but a Parliament that’s truly representative of the nation is needed to make sure Iraq has many more of these successful elections.
It is likely to be days, perhaps weeks, before all the votes are counted and the precise shape of [...]

Nope, we didn’t win, but we did beat out the very good The Glittering Eye. Definitely surprised by that one.
I guess we didn’t have a chance really. The winner is a highly religious blog written by homeschoolers and the second is a highly religious political blog. Nothing wrong with either of those, but if there’s [...]