For The Record

by digby

Blue America and Color of Change ran a full page ad in the Washington Post this morning to make one final argument — plea really — for the congress to stand up for the constitution. Here’s the ad:

We’ve been fighting this thing for many, many moons and tomorrow the whole thing comes down to one, final, ill-advised retreat they are calling a “compromise.”

The congress is about to validate and legalize the president’s theory that he has the right to ignore the constitution. And because the telcoms will be given immunity it’s very hard to see how we will ever get a court to rule on whether that’s constitutional. This is a very bad precedent and one that we will regret. If you give them more power than they need, they will use it. It’s what humans do.

The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

George Washington
1796 – Farewell Address

Greenwald lays it all out one more time and makes an announcement today for future plans to keep fighting for civil liberties. And Jon Stokes Timothy B. Lee writes more here about why this is more than just a horror show of insider corruption and lack of accountability. We’ll all be paying the price for this down the road.

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