locks out comments about 75 minutes later.

As reported on RawStory here and elsewhere, Former House Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay started his own blog, here.

In the nineteen sixties and seventies the western world was in the throes of a cultural and psychological revolution of awareness that at times threatened to bring down the governments and destroy the societies of some of the most powerful countries on earth, and terrified many who were unable to step outside of the structure and limitations of the worldviews they had constructed for themselves in the course of their lives.

Jeez - pull at a thread, and the whole thing falls apart.

The head of the U.S. Air Force's Office of Legal Operations, a full colonel and former general counsel to the White House Military Office at the time the gov't's torture and Geneva-violating policy was adopted, was recently discovered to have practiced law for the last 20 years, after being disbarred.

for leaving so much of the budget undone.

There has been some discussion going around the blogosphere regarding the Repugs failing to do any meaningful work and failing to produce a budget for most of the government (save defense and war).  The broad consensus is that they have punted on most of the work of Congress.

All Dems should thank the Repugs abundantly for punting on all those spending bills.  

Why?

On November 16th, Sen. Dodd introduced legislation to amend Bush's military tribunal law (MCA) which was recently enacted. As Dodd stated, the purpose of his legislation, which will be addressed early in 2007, is to undo Bush's law and seeks to "redesign the court system" and "significantly, accelerate civilian court scrutiny  of the system's constitutionality."  And, defense lawyers are continuing to challenge the constitutionality of military tribunals, which means at some point the courts could decide that any trials should be held in civilian courts.

Recently Jim Wallis has been trashed at TalkLeft.  The threads are one thing, the main posts another.  We are all used to mindlessness being expressed in the threads, by people who show up often and seem to have time on their hands for everything but thoughtful commentary.  But when the main posts disparage an important progressive figure as a "useful idiot," an "enemy within," a "fool," and more, TalkLeft has reached a new low.  

Students of Richard Hofstadter will recognize what he meant by the paranoid style: a "sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy."  Wallis is, unfortunately, not the only one who has recently been subjected to this style of polemic in the main posts.  "Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed," wrote Hofstadter, "than with the truth or falsity of their content."  Small-minded posters who are hyper-sensitive about "ad hominen" rejoinders can apparently dish it out but not take it, another sure sign of the style.  One should think that those living in big tents would be able to accommodate diverse and even conflicting views.  Fuzzy thinking, contentiousness, and grandstanding are, of course, well-known impediments to living with diversity.

I have known Jim Wallis for more than thirty years.  I respect him especially for his protests against unjust and immoral wars (often including civil disobedience), his longstanding concern about the environment, and his persistent outcry against the poverty that kills.  While I do not entirely share his views on abortion, I believe they too are worthy of respect.  His stance on abortion is not so different from that of Nat Hentoff.  Mine is closer to that of Yale law Prof. Jack Balkin, that there are two rights to abortion: "The first right to abortion is a woman's right not to be forced by the state to bear children at risk to her life or health. The second right is a woman's right not to be forced by the state to become a mother and thus to take on the responsibilities of parenthood, which, in our society are far more burdensome for women than for men."  I think Balkin is correct about the limits of the state.  But abortion is also a moral issue, not merely a matter of "rights."  Like many others, I believe (mainly on moral grounds) that we should work for a society in which abortion is safe, cheap and rare.  To that extent I am with people like Wallis and Henthoff.  Be that as it may, my main point is that it should be possible to engage such people in conversation and debate without descending to overheated rhetoric and phantasmagoric polemic.

The Democratic Party will not easily consolidate its recent electoral gains if it continues to be perceived as unfriendly to religious people.  That is not only part of Jim Wallis's message. It is also a deficit that few are better positioned to do something about.  As a progressive Evangelical, of which there are still precious few, he has enormous potential to help Democrats make inroads into the Republican religious base.  The significance of that potential may be lost on some who frequent this site.  Fortuntely, it does not seem to be lost on the Democratic leadership, which asked Jim Wallis to give this week's radio address.  Excepts are included below.

Well, one cannot say it was not inevitable.  As time goes on, those who served the Preznit in the Office of Legal Counsel go on to bigger and better things.

Jay Bybee to the Ninth Circuit.

John Yoo, back to Boalt Hall, the Op-Ed pages and some think tank.

And so on.  

[One wishes one-tenth of the people who get exercised about a lady getting gigged for hanging a peace symbol, would get bent out of shape over this.  These professorial appointments are thousands of times more dangerous than some knucklehead boss of a HOA.]

What happens when ridiculous mandates are made more ridiculous?  Believe it or not:

These foreigners do not belong here.  Whatever their reasons for coming and however valid those reasons may seem, this is not their land.  They were not invited.  They are not welcome.  Truly, it is unfortunate that, in their home countries, they have had to suffer persecution, poverty, squalor, and the like.  It is unfortunate that the economic and political opportunities they may find here are largely unavailable to them there.  It is unfortunate that such circumstances have necessitated that they travel an arduous distance to seek the better life that is their due and desire as much as anyone's.  But they simply do not belong here.

And yet they come and they come, waves of foreigners with their strange customs and alien language, making themselves at home in a place that is not their home.  Even worse, by virtue of their needs and numbers, they import the hardships they seemingly left behind: the crowded conditions, the drain on local resources, and the tension and incivility that arise from such.  It is difficult not to feel resentful.  Yet, somehow, those who have lived here for many generations are expected to acquiesce and accommodate to these interlopers.  Those who may rightly call this land home must watch in growing dismay as all that is familiar and cherished is strangely transformed.

Like it or not, though, the Europeans are here to stay.

Seymour Hersh has a new report about how the Bush Team plan to prevent Congress from interfering with any actions Bush wants to take against Iran, even if this action violates legislation passed by Democrats to prevent funding of regime change in Iran.  Does anyone remember Iran-Contra scandal?

Unless you want a former Bork law clerk, who Bork himself calls "one of my favorites", on the D.C. Circuit and the fast track to the Supreme Court.  

Read on.  There's a lot more.

Bush and Congress recently passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to take rights away from persons suspected of being terrorists who are imprisoned at Guantanamo. Problem is a report released today shows that long before this law was passed, Bush Team had bifurcated the process so that a key element of any war crime prosecution was established in "administrative" proceedings devoid of any legal rights. Any new legislation by the Democrats to correct Bush's military tribunal law needs to address this backdoor loop hole.