Friends:
Remember how it was in the bad old days of Bush-Cheney? They would pile one horror on top of another to the point where when the next one came down, our reaction became: So what's new?
At least in those days we could look forward 2,4, 6, 8 years and comfort ourselves with the thought that at least then we'll have the opportunity to change the direction of our govt.
Are we at a similar point now? We read about Obama's not unlikely next pick for the Supreme Court to replace one of its aging liberal members and we say: So what's new? We're getting inured to Obama's atrocities just as in the bad old days. But what relief can we look forward to in the next 2,4, 6, 8 years?
***
Glenn Greenwald
Mar 26, 2010
The horrible prospect of Supreme Court Justice Cass Sunstein
Glenn Greenwald writes:
The N.Y. Times bizarrely claims that choosing this long-time defender of Bush radicalism would "excite the left"....
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/26/court
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/26/court
The New York Times' Peter Baker has an article today on Obama's leading candidates to replace Stevens, in which one finds this strange passage:
The president’s base hopes he will name a full-throated champion to counter Justice Antonin Scalia, the most forceful conservative on the bench. . . . The candidates who would most excite the left include the constitutional scholars Harold Hongju Koh, Cass R. Sunstein and Pamela S. Karlan.
While that's probably true of Koh and Karlan, it's absolutely false with regard to Sunstein, who is currently Obama's Chief of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. From the beginning of the War on Terror, Cass Sunstein turned himself into one of the most reliable Democratic cheerleaders for Bush/Cheney radicalism and their assault on the Constitution and the rule of law.
Here are some of the lowlights of Sunstein's record abstracted from Greenwald's article.
He:
* Defended Bush's military commissions and wrongly predicted that the courts would uphold these commissions [Does this put Sunstein in Clarence Thomas territory?]
*Defended Bush's warrantless wiretapping
*According to the Washington Post,
Sunstein argues that Bush's decision to conduct surveillance of Americans without court approval flowed from Congress's vote to allow an armed struggle against al-Qaeda. "If you can kill them, why can't you spy on them?" Sunstein said, adding that this is a minority view.
Read Greenwald's blog
The horrible prospect of Supreme Court Justice Cass Sunstein
In January 2010, two months before the Supreme Court opening became a news item, Greenwald warned his readers of:
Obama confidant's spine-chilling proposal
Cass Sunstein wants the government to "cognitively infiltrate" anti-government groups
Cass Sunstein wants the government to ... Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, ...
By Glenn Greenwald
Friday, January 15, 2010
Cass Sunstein wants the government to "cognitively infiltrate" anti-government groups
Cass Sunstein wants the government to ... Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, ...
By Glenn Greenwald
Friday, January 15, 2010
