Americans United for the Separation of Church and State help you demand that the Senate confirm Dawn Johnsen for Mr. Obama's Office of Legal Counsel. The Senate has held up this nomination for a year now, apparently for two reasons: one, she's very pro-choice, and two, she's been extremely critical of Tha Bush Mobb's approach to the Constitution, specifically as it relates to terrorism. To which I say: and? Abortion is a legal medical procedure, and Mr. Bush was, in fact, so wrong about everything that you don't even need to be a Constitutional scholar to say why. One could very easily play the we're-at-war-with-terrorists-and-the-President-needs-all-his-advisors card on Republicans -- hell, it's what they did! But I'll just say I think Mrs. Johnsen would do an exceptionally good job at the OLC, and merits our support.
Meanwhile, I'm extremely sad to report that America's Last Conservative, Paul Craig Roberts, has apparently written his last column. I was shocked, actually, since Mr. Roberts has written more withering columns than today's, but the last paragraph goes like this: "The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off." I almost want to give the guy a hug, right after I yell at him for giving up (even as I know I might throw my hands up one day). But I also must confess I feel a little guilty about this extinguishing -- I've pushed Mr. Roberts's work plenty in this forum, but now I feel like I should have linked to every single column he ever wrote for Counterpunch; they were that good, that vital. I know he still defends his work for Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, and I also know Counterpunch excised much of his anti-immigrant fervor, and yes he did once write that the 20th century "persecution" of the rich constituted "the greatest genocide in history." But Paul Craig Roberts is a true American patriot nonetheless, and we will all rue the day that he chose silence.
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