Political news for February 5, 2008

Tap, tap, tap: Mcjoan at DailyKos reports on more FISA shenanigans today by Senate Republicans that may put the voting off until Thursday. But don't YOU put off taking action to stop unlawful spying on Americans. If you missed Keith Olbermann's blistering “Special Comment” about Bush's lawless abuse of FISA, check it out here.

Please, no gifts: 2/5/2008 is a 5th anniversary for good soldier Colin Powell. Wonder how he sleeps…

Maude bless local bloggers: odum at Green Mountain Daily discovers what the Corporate media missed: Congressman Patrick Leahy stops Bush from taking over management of the National Guard units, which have always been state militias.

Death warmed over: Jane Smiley (who writes lovely novels) offers at Huffington Post a really ugly forecast for the next Democratic president, whether or not named Clinton.

The real danger of the next four years, as I see it, is that the election of any Democrat will trigger the rightwing deathsquads in all their different guises — the media deathsquad, that hounds the president with nonsensical stories of scandal and distracts him from his business; the survivalist NRA deathsquads that pull off home-grown terrorist attacks, like the Oklahoma bombing; the lobbyist deathsquads, that gut all socially conscious or beneficial legislation, such as universal healthcare; the religious deathsquads, that harass and torment anyone who doesn't conform to a narrow and authoritarian social model; the thinktank deathsquads that propound deadly theories about the perfection of the “free market” or the horrors of “islamofacism” or the non-existence of climate change. It would actually be nice if the Fellow Wehner is telling the truth, that it is the Clintons personally that are the problem, because then the election of Obama would indeed signal a change. But if the goal of the corporatocracy is what it has seemed to be — the permanent replacement of American democracy with a global imperialist empire and oligarchy of wealth, then Obama doesn't have a chance — he will either be corrupted or destroyed.

So, on that upbeat note: If you're in a Super Tuesday state, don't forget to

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