amendment to ban flag desecration died

* ap:

"A constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration died in a Senate cliffhanger Tuesday, a single vote short of the support needed to send it to the states for ratification and four months before voters elect a new Congress."

(miguel: "Shouldn't these lawmakers be drawn and quartered just for wasting public money and time to 'solve' a problem that doesn't exist?... Now it's time to start holding our lawmakers accountable for wasting taxpayer money on an amendment to restrict free speech in America."

* turley:

"Yet, when it comes to citizens, the administration demands total transparency to allow it to monitor everyday transactions and conduct.
It is perhaps the greatest danger that can face a free society: a government cloaked in secrecy with total information on its citizens."

* turley:

" Congress has entirely vanished from any role in government. That is, in the last -- I think the 109th Congress will go down as the congress that never existed. There will be no evidence that it ever played a role in governing. So we have no oversight being done by Congress. And what's fascinating is that at that House hearing, I said, you know -- when the chairman asked me, you know, “Why do we have all these whistleblowers? And I said, “Because they think that you’re a joke. They think this committee is a joke. You're not doing any oversight. You haven't done oversight in over ten years.” And what's amazing is that three of the committee members immediately agreed and said on the record, “It's true. We haven't done oversight in over ten years.”
[]
There's a reason why the administration has been threatening prosecution of journalists. Because they're the only ones left. They’ve got Congress totally in a comatose state. They have -- most of the judges today are so conservative that they won't even consider challenges to national security arguments. And it leaves basically the media and the public."

* hitchens argues that the iraq invasion was a good thing because it stopped the murderous sanctions. (btw - i've noticed that everyone uses the term 'invasion' these days, even the corpmedia. it's quite incredible)
(speaking of words, if any other country did was israel is doing tonight, do you think the corpmedia would call it an 'incursion'?)

* juancole:

"At least 50,000 Iraqis have died in violence since the US invasion, according to Iraqi health officials. I am told by people who should know that the Lancet estimate of 100,000 is perfectly plausible, and that was some time ago."

(some time ago = 22 months)