Why do we call the Anthrax thing terrorist? …

Because it took aim at civilians and though it wasn’t likely to really kill it did instill terror in some people. It terrorized them.

it’s official! Edwards lost!

Cause’ Matthews said so.

Idiot

Maybe Edwards should volunteer to go on Hardball to show up Tweety.

Corporations want rights like American citizens. They need to be accountable to the law like American Citizens (well make that most American citizens except White House felons sentenced to too many 30 months in jail.)

To have Rights you have to be a person and don’t you have to have been born in America or Naturalized to be a Person?

Corporate Personhood just ain’t natural!

OTOH, being a person living in Washington DC and not getting to vote for President is definitely unnatural.

Hugh @ 56

…
Hillary is only starting her second term as Senator. Obama isn’t through his first term. Edwards was in the Senate how long? One term.

It is interesting that Hillary’s eight years in the WH is not cited as experience. I don’t think she was baking cookies.

We’re trying to select a President, not another senator. It’s entirely different.

Hillary’s experience in the WH is probably a big plus, but it’s hard to know for certain. It’s hard to tell how much she participated and there was all that push-back against the Starr chamber. It might not have been the best experience of her life.

Anyway, we’ve broken through a lot of that and the Repubs are pretty well deflated, at least for a while.

I think we can’t completely discount the Repub slime machine with their wealth of knowledge about Hillary, but it still seems likely our next president will have it much easier than did Bill Clinton.

Dodd is good. And we would be very comfortable with President Dodd.

Generally I agree. He just doesn’t seem to sparkle in the eyes of the public. Maybe Veep…maybe just great senator.

Oh god, Hillary had a good NCLB response going until she basically said, “Bush implemented it wrong.” No, Hillary, it was designed specifically to destroy public education. It’s a bad idea from soup to nuts.

The problem is that everybody panders to the Education “issue”, but nobody has a terrific answer. Hillary should be careful to stop stepping on that landmine.

I mean, we obviously support publicly funded education for everybody and we support aid to underfunded schools and we support fact-based education rather than faith-based crap. But, beyond that what should we call for?

With the recent SCOTUS ruling taking away efforts to integrate there should be an entre to the issue which would differentiate Dems and Repubs quite well.

Dems support equalized funding for kids (all the SC might allow for now) and integration (SC doesn’t like) to unite our people and to further education of kids about the world around them.

Repubs cringe at the thought of any of that.

The big question is HOW to achieve the integration while pugs control SCOTUS. I wish Roberts good health, but I do wish he’d stop playing in the sandbox with Repubs and stick to the Law.

Hillary is the one the rethugs want most because they know she will be the easiest to defeat. That is why they are pushing her (tweety & Business Week)

One of the typical things that irks me when I see a general election and one guy is just slamming the other one to the mat over and over is “WHY wasn’t the dufus candidate revealed during the primary?” I think all the serious debate among Dems will help us pick the best candidate for their ideas and character and leadership (at least in theory). But, I fear it could be really nasty during the general election when question quite different than we’re now discussing will be asked — thrown at a candidate is more like it.

Repubs hurl feces really well and we need to begin considering how a candidate is going to face some rather obvious attacks and questions.

Could Gravel (for example) face questions about being out of politics since the ’70s?

Could Dodd face questions about his support for certain corporate interests the Repubs would be certain to investigate?

We Dems don’t look for dirt during a primary, but the Repubs would definitely do it in the general election campaign.

Isn’t immunity after the fact an ex post facto law and therefore unconstitutional. Or does the principal only apply to making laws which would make a formerly leagal act illegal? Not forgiving past lawbreaking?

Seems to me it should work both ways. Not that there is any jeopardy for these guys in the US. The biggest dust ups will be when international courts and tribunals try to snag Americans. No way that will happen either. If a Democratic administration gave up an American to an international court the guns would come out.

Ex post facto can, indeed, only occur if an individual is exposed to greater jeopardy for an act committed before a law was broken. It doesn’t work the other way. If a law is changed because it is determined as “unfair” or “unjust” all those that have prosecuted and convicted for such crimes have their sentences remitted.

To me this principle makes perfect sense. Where I have real problems is the awarding of pardons before the individual has actually been tried and convicted (a pardon suggests guilt even when the Court may find the individual innocent…I would think that something like this should be issued only when the Executive finds clear evidence of Judicial Malfeasance in the trial). In addition I have real issues with a certain type of “blanket pardon”. This is when an individual or group is “pardoned” for unspecified crimes.

Does the Executive really mean that he is enabling someone to walk away from crimes that he is absolutely unaware of? Child molestation? Murder? Treason? Smuggling narcotics out in dead soldiers bodies? That the pardon is valid for ALL POSSIBLE CRIMINAL ACTS? Well so much for the concept of “equal justice under law”.
In my view an Executive should be required to specify the Criminal Acts that the pardon covers.

Because this in no way limits or restricts the President from giving those pardons, this is likely Constitutional. He simply has to define what the pardons are for and who is covered. If he is pardoning people for “torture” he should be compelled to say so. If he is pardoning people for “domestic espionage” against US Citizens, hear too this should be required in any pardon.

It simply makes sense…as a future Justice Department and the Courts need precise guidance as to the INTENT and bounds of any pardon.

BHatten @ 225

Why do we call the Anthrax thing terrorist? Because it is mean, sneaky? I really do not know how the definition applies. I think it is a word that magnifies everything. Is every treat to do harm terroristic? In contrast to a prank?

Because of all the punditry the world had to listen through about ‘weaponisation’.

The Anthrax attacks were called “terrorist” because they appeared intended to sow fear in the public mind by attacking fairly prominent media and government officials. Recall that the attacks actually did kill several people. The Anthrax was dessiminated through the public mails…meaning random people could have been victimized (and apparently were).

When you have to shut down Congress for a week, and several Democratic leaders are targetted…that’s serious.

It was NOT a “prank”…the attacks were very real…even if the actual Anthrax spores were not as virulent or able to spread through the atmosphere as quickly as had been originally been suggested.

That said, the FBI did little to defuse the hysteria when they learned that the spores were not weaponized, and were not of a type “only available from Iraq”, etc. There was likely good “political” reasons for keeping THAT drum beating…as well as NOT actually doing anything towrads finding those who actually threatened our leadership (Pat Leahey was one of those targetted I recall).