Ron Paul.

The italicized criterion was “serious.”

Ron Paul is a joke.

at:

http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/votgui…

is what you can in good conscience now indicate.

Good job pushing the issue, saw your original post referenced all around le net, well done indeed.

Welcome back on board with the Democrats, pleased to have you with us this next cycle.

we could have had an interesting conversation about guys like ron paul and dennis kucinich, you and i. but today we’re deadly serious, and we have to be unflinchingly critical of our leaders and the situation they face. i have always admired paul, although we disagree on many issues, and in a fair world he’d be give the same chance the rest of the republicans are given in the media. he’s not, he won’t be, and for that reason, he will remain unknown by most americans. when he’s known at all, it will be as a “fruitloop,” regardless of how sound his policies and record really are. he will raise neither the money nor popular support to seriously compete in the republican party in any state.

As I keep saying, it’s Kos’s job to elect more Democrats. My job is to shove the Overton window left.

Now, I’ve heard the sentiment from Elizabeth. I’d like also to hear the plan.

Thanks for the comment on seeing links elsewhere — interestingly, this is an issue that bubbled up from the C-list to the A-list. (Of course, without an A-list… Elizabeth would have no platform to speak to the issue on. So I would say it’s a neat example of a layered architecture working.)

NOTE There’s a theoretical possibility I’d be with a Republican if a Republican did the right thing. (Cf. teacherken). For obvious reasons, the possibilities of that happening are vanishingly small; they all know the score by now, so they’re all dirty.

UPDATE Er, I am very well aware of my polling site and am, in fact, registered.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Isn’t an agenda of tearing down America’s safety net, abolishing abortion and the separation of church and state, and cheating our infrastructure enough to earn a pretty solid disqualification? And then there are his comments about race — some of which he claims were ghostwritten for him.

If he runs as a third-party candidate, even though he won’t win, he could help sway the election one way or the other.

politician. i honestly don’t know that much about him; it’s not like i have the time to keep up on every republican and his pet lunacies- that would take more time than there is in the day. but what i’ve read and heard from him, despite his idiocy with respect to the safety nets, is so refreshing when compared to the rest of them.

let me get back to this. it’s a discussion worth having: are there any republicans we can work with? paul opposed the war and patriot act, iirc. or if he didn’t right away, he came around really fast.

There is no difference between Hillary Clinton and the Republican party. There is some difference betwene Obama and the Republicans. There has always been a lot of difference between Edwards and the Republicans. Only Hillary supporters are running around telling people that there’s no difference between the candidates. There is a whole hell of a lot of a difference, and that’s what they’re scared of.

Put that on a bumper sticker. Heck, maybe I should.

Prophylatic for anti-“They’re All the Same”/”They’re NOT All The Same” discussion:

I’d rather have Hillary than any Republican, in the same way that I’d rather have—to skew the comparison absurdly—Marcus Aurelius than Caligula.

That is, I’d rather have a monarch who is sane than a monarch who is barking mad. But I don’t want a monarch at all.

It will be interesting to see Hillary’s response to the Edwards throw-down on this, wouldn’t you say?

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

“What part of lesser of two evils don’t you understand?”

… he’s the lesser of the Republican evils, but that may be the faintest praise ever.

From his official site as a member of the us Congress, today:
While serving in Congress during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dr. Paul’s limited-government ideals were not popular in Washington.
He served on the House Banking committee, where he was a strong advocate for sound monetary policy and an outspoken critic of the Federal Reserve’s inflationary measures. He also was a key member of the Gold Commission, advocating a return to a gold standard for our currency.
He was an unwavering advocate of pro-life and pro-family values. Dr. Paul consistently voted to lower or abolish federal taxes, spending, and regulation, and used his House seat to actively promote the return of government to its proper constitutional levels.
In 1984, he voluntarily relinquished his House seat and returned to his medical practice.
He went back to Congress in 1997 and has been there ever since. He’s an incumbent. He’s for the gold standard. He’s against — vehemently — abortion rights. He’s against the Endangered Species Act. His voting record is available here: Ron Paul

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!— Xan

Damn, you guys have a knack for hitting home runs. Thanks for pushing the issue and making some serious contact.

And at the risk of mixing a metaphor, I’m not going to split hairs about sentiments and plans — you got the wife of a candidate, speaking on behalf of the campaign, to publicly state a willingness or accept a responsibility to roll back the current signing statement bullshit, and that is huge.

Good on Edwards, and good on you.

as the beatles once said:

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan…

The Beatles said it twice: Revolution and Revolution 1. :v)

And a plan — say, one of those humongous white papers with bullet points that policy wonks love and every serious campaign has — would be a lot better.

So, I’m re-assured. Somewhat. But not all the way there.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

who invented signing statements, and when?
how are signing statements not the same as executive orders?

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!— Xan

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” was a phrase I grew to loathe in my youth, despite the thrill of hearing it from my mother who so strictly forbade swearing of any sort that my father was compelled to hurl invective in Portugese when unable to repress it entirely.

I suspect that the way this is playing out is calculated strategy: the entire subject having been (and still being for all other candidates, as noted above) verboten, it gets brought up at all first by Elizabeth.

When John actually starts talking about it I (again) suspect that it will not be phrased in terms of “Yeah I won’t do this shit because I am, ahem, such a good and saintly guy.” It will be “Here’s my plan to keep any president forever hereafter from doing this, by not just restoring the Constitution to its former state but strengthening it against any such combination of a tyrannical Executive, complacent Legislature and co-opted judiciary as may happen again in the future.”

Push back, John, push back hard. We keep documenting here day after day the ways in which these constitutional slippages—without there ever being a single word changed in the actual Constitution itself— are becoming accepted ways of doing things, from datamining to airport harassment to cameras-on-streetcorners everywhere to private security companies achieving equal status with state military, et horrific cetera.

Damn if the Deomocrats aren’t going to have to be the conservative party on this issue, as the item being conserved is the fucking Constitution dammit.

Here’s something in Google cache from IU law school (orginally PDF):

The National Archives FAQ explains:
Executive orders are official documents, numbered consecutively, through which the
President of the United States manages the operations of the Federal Government.
The text of Executive orders appears in the daily Federal Register as each Executive
order is signed by the President and received by the Office of the Federal Register.
The text of Executive orders beginning with Executive Order 7316 of March 13,
1936, also appears in the sequential editions of Title 3 of the Code of Federal
Regulations (CFR).
Presidential signing statements.
Much less well-known than the executive order is the presidential signing statement,
which, as “a presidential power tool,” according to Phillip J. Cooper in his recent book,
By Order of the President, is “relatively new and still evolving.”
4
As defined by Cooper:
Presidential signing statements (PSSs) are announcements made by the president,
usually prepared by the Justice Department, that go beyond merely lauding passage of
a statute to identify provisions of the legislation with which the president has
concerns. They also provide the president’s interpretation of the language of the law,
announce constitutional limits on the implementation of some of its provisions, or
indicate directions to executive branch officials as to how to administer the new law
in an acceptable manner. So constituted, the signing statement has been used as a tool
of presidential direct action since the Reagan administration.
5
As with current executive orders, current presidential signing statements are available on
the White House website.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Apparently, signing statements date back to James Monroe.

Here’s an article about executive orders from our friend Wikipedia.

As best I understand it, signing statements are executive interpretations of laws passed by Congress, essentially forming a kind of “rider” on those laws.

Executive orders are direct actions unilaterally declared by the President, with no input from Congress.

and expanded it outside all recognition.

See this from FindLaw on the theory of the unitary executive.

And Charle Savage, who (in a regional paper, not from the Beltway) broke the story. Note also Savage on Scalia of The Bush Court helping the unitary executive along here.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

y’all will forgive me for bowing in respect to your research skills, I do hope.

Signing statements coming into their own during the Reagan era? What a surprise.

FWIW, I think Monroe might’ve been right in his April statement. Competency seems to have been one of his concerns, rather than ideology. Would that Bush had held fast to that tenet of governance … perhaps even to evaluating himself as unfit even in the role of puppet.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!— Xan

This site is a great source for Bush’s signing statements without having to search the Federal Register. It also has links to the actual text of the corresponding legislation to compare the King’s statements to.

A comment - I know Bush’s expansion of the use and authority of signing statements is frightening, but consider all those executive orders out there that are “classified.” As such, no Congressional input, no judicial input and no popular knowledge from which there could be some modicum of accountability.

But what do I know?

what bush has done is truly worse than any particular law or signing statement. what he has done is redefine the meaning of ’executive power’ in the public discourse. in the public consciousness. he’s made it acceptable, normalized, the executive’s ability to “reinterpret” past practices of power in any way he wants. that is the real danger. previous presidents have always understood- act too much the monarch and we’ll come after you.

oddly, i recall this ancient TNR piece from back when i got it in paper form. mid-clinton years, front cover status. the title was something about why despite clinton’s “horrific abuses,” it was a good idea for congress and policymakers to have an “expanded” view of executive power. or perhaps back then they made the countering view, i don’t really remember now.

but creeping executive authority has been a problem, i’d say, since “national security” started taking on a life of its own. the more our gov’t feels it “must” do things from which the executive must sustain “plausible deniability,” the greater the range of tools the executive must have to protect himself from blowback when ops go horribly wrong. bay of pigs insurance, as it were. because when the executive, and indeed no branch of gov’t has control over the MIC, well…

the thing i really hate about our times is that the dems seem to come in only two forms: those too stupid/clueless to pick up on the fact that they have been reduced to rubberstamping puppets (but we’ve got to be civil!); and those who understand the New Monarchy and lust over reaching the throne, and thus won’t step up and defend the traditional application of constitutional principles.

the constitution is a living document, and right now too many people agree that it’s evolved into a meaningless historical document, and not a binding agreement between all of us. i credit bush with a lot of making that so.

because this jerk has made it plausible in the public mind that God is with him in all his craptacularity.

Bush claims to be Methodist, but “ye shall know them by their fruits,”, and everything this Presidont has done comes straight out of the dominionist playbook.

Whether that’s Bush, Cheney, or Rove at work (or somebody else, like “presidential friend and confidante Tim LaHaye,” I don’t know.

I do know it’s bad.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!— Xan

if you cross pollinate a Grover Norquist with a Pat Buchanan you will get a Ron Paul.

*

… I do my best, but I’m sure if you could direct your attention to the matter…

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

the dems seem to come in only two forms: those too stupid/clueless to pick up on the fact that they have been reduced to rubberstamping puppets (but we’ve got to be civil!); and those who understand the New Monarchy and lust over reaching the throne, and thus won’t step up and defend the traditional application of constitutional principles.

Isn’t there a category for the 82% of House Dems that didn’t vote for the FISA bill or the 67% of Senate Dems that didn’t?

Big orange:

Hmm…”foreign born persons” is a pretty broad concept. It doesn’t neccessarily mean a “terrorist.”

Tapping their phone lines and their computers when they call or email home is the easiest way to “round them up.” Illegal immigration will be the conservative boogieman issue of 2008. It preys upon the xenophobia that is still present in our nation. I truly believe that FISA has more to do with rounding up people looking for opportunity and bettering their lot back home, not rounding up people that want to kill us.

The 2008 election will be hotly contested on an issue that is fundamentally about racism. Stated Agenda: Lost jobs. Like Lee Atwater told candidates to talk about fiscal conservatism as a matter of “states rights” in order to get racist southerners to associate it with segregation, similarly, this issue preys upon the ugliest parts of America: so and so candidate will remove all the brown people.

Presidential candidates for an upcoming election represent the direction of their party. Republicans are slashing the right to individual privacy and suggesting we deport all illegals.

This is not definitive. It’s mostly based on gut instinct and connective reasoning.

Of course, they’ll come for the brown niggers first. Then other colors of nigger.

Nice work Harry, Nancy.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Isn’t there a category for the 82% of House Dems that didn’t vote for the FISA bill or the 67% of Senate Dems that didn’t?

yeah, NOT. AGGRESSIVE. ENOUGH.

people have to hear the message before they can comprehend it.

Here’s an article about executive orders from our friend Wikipedia.

Would that be the FBI, CIA, or Fox News edited version?

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

Well, so what if the FBI and the CIA—from IP addresses that they allowed to be tracked, which is amazing in itself—edited Wikipedia entries?

The Neutral Point of View people are going to re-edit their edits.

As I said before: “A transparent system cannot be infiltrated.” Words to ponder…

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

there is that third group of actual progressive who consistently and vocally oppose creeping authoritarianism. barb lee, slaughter, almost always feingold…but they aren’t 82% of the party. i haven’t done this in a while, but it’s not hard to find “good” dems caving on key votes. iirc, lieberman rates a 100% from NARAL and HRC, and we all know what kind of “democrat” he is.

But there is actually a majority of Dems who have voted sanely on FISA, torture, and many other key bills. To me, that says that Darcy Burner’s “more and better Democrats” solution is the way, as opposed to splintering and defeatism, which are frequently being prescribed these days in the leftysphere.

It’s quicker and more satisfying to say “they’re all the same” (as many commenters have) than to take action to work on the “better Democrats” part (as you proposed in a recent post).

I have yet to get an answer I understand — maybe it’s been given, and I’m too thick to see it, or it’s buried in what is by now a very tangled (i.e., organic) series of threads — to a very simple question:

When is it OK to criticize Democrats?

Surely, if “splintering and defeatism” is the criterion, then no criticism is ever warranted, since any criticism could, colorably, be deemed “objectively defeatist”?

UPDATE Or, perhaps, the question is better phrased “What is the most effective way to criticize Democrats”?

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Three words: be more precise.

Trash the turncoats and the ineffective leaders, but don’t paint the Dems who vote in our nation’s best interests with the same brush.

When a minority of people in the party let us down, and we flip the bozo bit on the whole of the party, that’s defeatism.

Criticize the ones who fuck up — including the “leaders” who have failed to build party unity in the face of criminal opposition. Fire away at them (rhetorically, that is), but don’t be cavalier about friendly fire.

Is there something unreasonable about this?

Does our rage at the traitors necessitate that we hate on the ones who are doing what we asked them to do, and what the forefathers would have wanted them to do?

… the loss of essential votes like the FISA one and habeas corpus shows that DINOs should be replaced with true progressives every chance we get.

There is a gamble to this (vide Lamont-Lieberman), but if DINO votes are Republican votes when push comes to shove, it’s not really such a gamble after all.

As I said else-thread:

The problem is that institutionally, the Democratic Party seems to have no way to purge itself of the assholes, or discipline them, so all Democrats get tarred. (And they should be tarred. It’s a party, not an “autonomous collective,” and it’s not like we’re talking about the actions of a few, here.)

Take Jane Harman. Please. We’ve got her signing off on the use of spy satellites for domestic surveillance, after she sat on Bush’s warrantless surveillance program. Sure, Pelosi didn’t make her chair, but she’s still in there, causing Constitutional havoc and destruction.

So, please, let’s not mistake signs of life for true health. The Democrats have a long way to go, and sometimes screams of pain are the result of cutting out dead tissue…

I really think it’s down to the old frogs in boiling water metaphor. The water is heating up out here, and we’re starting to notice. But the water has been a lot hotter a lot longer in the Beltway, so what strikes us—rightly—as serious, as extreme seems perfectly normal to them. And so they blink their eyes, and look around, and wonder what all the fuss is about.

Another way of saying is, is to say “be more precise” seems to say that the problem is, well, “bad apples.” Surely things are more systemic than that?

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

… so, stay tuned!