But wait, there's more! And it's not better!

[solarbird]

(If you're looking for the ACTION ITEM on the torture bill, check the previous post to this one. If you've contacted the feds before but not this past week, do it again. NOW. There's almost no time left - tomorrow may be too late - and the odds are poor, but this can't go down without a fight all the way until the bitter end.)

But now, get this:

Free Market News Network reports that a bill granting the President nearly unlimited secret warrantless wiretapping on Americans is probably going to be combined with the War Crimes revision/legalisation of torture bill to insure it gets a floor vote before the end of the session. For bonus points, it moves court challenges against said wiretaps from the regular judicial system to the secret FISA court. The security blog at Wired has heard the same report, and quotes Congressional Digest on the matter.

Anybody know whether this is actually true? This is insanely important, so please respond if you have information!

Honestly, even I'm kind of amazed at this point, and I'm pretty cynical and surly. Every time you think this administration and party have run out of ways to copy dictatorships and turn the Presidency into a Premiership, it finds something new! What next, unilateral PolitbureauPresidential acts of law followed by optional Congressional consideration and the opportunity to reject? Cheney already proposed something not entirely unlike that a couple of years ago, so who knows? These days, the sky's the limit! Government uber allies, baby! Government uber allies!

Comments

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Revocation of habeus corpus and expansion of wiretapping, all at the same time. Where have I heard that before (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree)?

[foibos.livejournal.com]

It's a pity we can't invoke Godwin's Law to drop the Bush administration.