Howard Wolfson just wrote a piece on TNR saying that Nixonland—the politics of dividing Americans against each other along racial and cultural lines, is over. Clinton first began to deal with it by acknowledging the era of big government was over and by going along with Republican takes on crime and welfare. He points out, quite accurately, that the standard Nixonian attacks on Obama haven't worked, even as Obama has promised to increase the size of the army, indulge in faith based spending and voted for spying on Americans and gutting the 4th amendment when he voted for FISA.

Bart Gellman's Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency has been rightly celebrated for its detailed depiction surrounding the March 10, 2004 hospital confrontation over the warrantless wiretapping program. But it most valuable as a catalog of the ways Dick Cheney worked the federal bureaucracy to achieve his goals.

This is a proposal put forward at the rule of law roundtable to form a “Church Commission” like body to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by the Bush administration.

All this time, the fevered left has speculated that BushCheneyCo used its illegal warrantless eavesdropping powers on their political enemies. Not so, says Jane Mayer on Bill Moyers last Friday (via Digby).

Tim Shorrock describes the possibility of a second Church Committee to investigate the abuses of the Bush--and Reagan and Clinton--Administrations.

Donna Edwards gave a characteristically uplifting and provocative speech tonight for the keynote address at Netroots Nation. I'm sure the entire speech will be available soon, so be sure to check it out. But especially striking was how she tackled the Barack Obama problem. Obama's absence here, frankly, has taken a lot of air out of things, but even more so is the general sense of disappointment with Obama.

Anklage von George W. Bush!

Davin Hutchins at the American News Project follows the money trail to find out how telecom dollars influence Congressmen to say what they say and vote the way they do.

It's hard to accept any of the justifications that have been given by Congressional sell-outs for backing the FISA bill. Did they want to seem "strong" on national security? Considering the press (and everyone else) are talking about the Senate "bowing to President Bush's demands," it's difficult to imagine what they thought they'd gain -- or that they expected to be perceived as anything with more fortitude than a box of jelly donuts.

The ACLU is going to challenge the FISA Amendments Act in court. They're also going to be taking out a full-page ad in a major national newspaper in protest, and the first 10,000 people to sign on will have their names included.

If you are on our email list you got to be first in line to have your name included last night. If you aren't, it's still early and you can still sign on here.