There are times when one recollects just how redneck one’s state can be, at times. This is one of those. From Isaac Hunter’s Tavern:

The controversial measures (there are two versions) would let people tow 10-ft-wide mega-boats on the roads in the dark. Standard lane width is 8½ to 9 feet. You do the math.

Supporters of the change say it’ll keep NC competitive in the market for sport fishing tournaments and other luxury boat tourism. But critics say the boats, which aren’t lit, are dangerous on darkened two-lane roads, where they could sideswipe drivers in the oncoming lane.

I can already see the commercials. “I’m a BASS member. And I vote”

…that’s the sound you hear from the Hillary campaign’s chances in South Carolina after this little statement hits the mainstream media:

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Clinton said. “It took a president to get it done.”

Intended or (most likely) not, it comes across as just a bit of a slight, no?

It would be remiss of me to write the following words without prefacing or making some sort of disclaimer that Obama is my candidate of choice. But it should be noted that I haven’t been too sure of this one for too awful long, and in fact had serious doubts, until recently. Lest any further doubts of your own linger, I was holding out hope for another Wes Clark run at it in 2008, and when that didn’t happen, I certainly was quite disappointed that he decided to align so quickly with the Clinton camp.

So, kos, apparently much chagrined at Obama, for a purported statement that, “I don’t want to go into the next election starting off with half the country already not wanting to vote for Democrats — we’ve done that in 2004, 2000,” fires off one of his own:

Psst, Barack, slamming John Kerry and Al Gore is what Republicans do. Not Democrats.

Psst Markos — since when do Democrats find themselves peering down the long barrel of some Reaganesque “11th commandment” of their own?

It is true that the Dems seem to eat their own, whereas the GOP tends to be lockstep — something that’s both an asset and a liability to the party, breeding diversity while also running the risk of causing animosity. You’re well aware of this, and you called out these this splintering in Crashing the Gate. But it’s apparently wrong to call out the failures of past campaigns and candidates — something else you also did in the book?

Markos, we know that you are, amongst other things, a sports fan, so you’re probably well aware that, often times, in close games, controversial (and sometimes bad) calls are made which may very will change the outcome and drastically change the end result. And just as often as people will whine that game was lost due to poor refereeing, cooler heads — often times those of the coaches themselves — prevail and the age-old truth is known: you can’t blame a game on a single call. If your team was good enough, they’d have won decisively, and that single call wouldn’t have affected the result — if it would have even occurred at all.

So now, in an odd bout of revisionism, you’re suggesting that Gore won (he didn’t, semantics and political systems be damned) and that Obama is somehow running to the right in order to win (he’s not).

A lot of people, wrongly or not, thought Gore2K was boring and wooden. The marketing sucked, the end result was both devastating and sobering. So what happened in 2004? Kerry won Iowa, and the Democrats, frothing and ready to take on GWB, buck the general historical trend concerning Iowa caucuses and eventual winners and latch on to Kerry, ignoring his fatal flaws, showering him with support, and run with him all the way through to the doubly-damning 2004 election result.

And Obama is somehow wrong for saying that the Dems need a candidate who doesn’t have a groundswell of opposition from the onset? We can ignore Gore’s buffed and polished weaknesses, but yet ignore the obvious issues a Hillary candidacy will entail? The Hillary campaign may seem like a juggernaut, but maybe that hulking mass is little more than a disguised 800-lb gorilla that everyone seems to be ignoring.

You and I both know the real paradox here — Hillary is the most centrist of the Democratic candidates and yet is the most despised by those on the right. I’m sure the Obama campaign is well-aware of this as well. I don’t know how Obama can be perceived as embracing “right-wing talking points”, either politically or rhetorically. I know you continually discount Hillary “electability” issues by citing national poll after national poll, but national polling did a fat lot of good in 2004.

I find my own anecdotal evidence to be a whole lot more revealing — real people to whom I’ve spoken, not anonymous polling numbers and not merely “centrists”, but those with right-leaning tendencies — people who are publicly or privately fed up with GWB and are looking very earnestly at candidates on the left. They tend to like, and sometimes even admire the likes of Edwards, or Biden, or Obama.

But the paradox lives on and these same people will not, in any way, shape or means, vote for Hillary.

Democrats want a landslide victory in 2008. In 2006 a near tidal-wave of change hit Congress and the Senate, and 2008 could be a repeat of epic proportions if the voters have the right choices. But that choice does not, however fortunately or unfortunately one wants to consider it, include Hillary at the helm. That Obama is recognizant of this does not make him a partisan or someone looking to the right for support. Rather, having seen what has occurred in 2000 and 2004, and what risks the Dems entail if HRC were to get the nomination, I’d say he’s a realist.

So, right about that time when I was supposed to be waking up this morning, I had this crazy dream going on.

In the dream, there were a bunch of journalists invited over to the Clinton house for some event — like a “behind the scenes” sort of campaign event, or an informal party, or something — but it was a strictly off-the-record event — no notebooks, no cameras, etc.

Event took place, and shortly thereafter, an anonymous story was published in a newspaper, highlighting a discovery that Hillary was seen somewhat cozy with this guy that wasn’t Bill — holding hands, etc. Furthermore, a photo was somehow taken which corroborated this charge. It was further claimed that there were actually secret divorce/pre-divorce filings going on in the background between the Clintons, but that things were on the down-low for now, and Bill was helping with Hillary’s political ambitions first.

Meanwhile, this was all over the TV — for example, Chris Matthews, or someone, was talking to a journalist trying to identify the author. One of the journalists (or other attendees?) eventually revealed his thoughts as to whom he guessed the author was — some writer for one of the more gossipy newsrags — but for the most part, no one was talking. At the same time people, after the story had broken, these same journalists were also backing up the assertions — they’d seen the same thing.

Kind of a crazy dream. It was fantastically lucid. I guess the funniest part about it all was the fact that it did seem real — and in fact, in the dream itself, I found myself doing a google news search for info about this.

More and more, I find this the case, though. Rather than having a dream that seems completely outlandish, and then waking up to know it’s just that… I find myself waking up and thinking there is a shred of truth to it — because, after all, I searched Google News, right? It’s another layer of surreality to peel away in the mornings.

Of course, in the real world, there must be some Hillary desperation going on somewhere, what with this joke of a press release. I mean, come on, it looks like something out of The Onion.

Insomuch as one might be able to swallow something published by Mother Jones w/o a little bit of salt, here’s an interesting article on Hillary Clinton’s evangelical connections.

They do turn an interesting angle on Tillich and Niebuhr, in this one. Kind of curious, over all.

It’s things like this that really make me happy to have moved out of Northern Virginia and specifically, the region of Loudoun County in Eugene Delgaudio‘s jurisdiction.

This, for example, really takes the cake. New mandatory bicycle helmet law passes for kids under the age of 15. Great news! One would think that this would be a unanimous vote — politicians especially love to vote on things which appear to have the safety of their constituents in mind! It’s win-win!

And then you have people like Eugene Delgaudio.

The board voted 6-1-1-1 to establish the ordinance, with Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) voting against the measure, Supervisor Stephen J. Snow (R-Dulles) abstaining and Supervisor Mick Staton (R-Sugarland Run) absent for the vote.

Of course, Delgaudio is nothing, if not a cranky old jingoist:

One candidate who has sponsored measures to prevent illegal immigrants from residing in Loudoun County roused boos from the crowd. Loudoun County Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) delivered his speech by yelling into the microphone.

“I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, do you?” he asked.

Eugene Delgaudio, along with his politics his politics, is totally out of step with the region.. I can’t believe he got re-elected almost four years ago, and I hope someone finally steps in and wipes his smug face off the face of the Loudoun BOS. That said, I don’t have a lot of faith in the people of Northern Virginia anymore, either.

So apparently there’s talk of Fred Thompson looking for the GOP nod in 2008. Doesn’t surprise me at all — back when Cheney was having all those health issues prior to 2004 and there was talk that someone else would take the VP slot, Thompson was the first name that came to my mind. More recently, with Cheney’s blood clot issues, Thompson’s name has come up again.

In any case, I can see the campaign commercial:

Hi, I’m Senator Fred Thompson. You may know me in my roles as “Rear Adm Painter” in The Hunt for Red October, “Big John” in Days of Thunder, or “DA Arthur Branch” in Law & Order. Now, I want to be your President.

It doesn’t surprise me that he’s getting a fair amount of ground-level support from GOP grassroots. Here’s a guy who carries the GOP flag without having all that apparent baggage that pisses off the evangelicals… and as we’ll note in the MSNBC article above, he certainly spouts all the talking points:

On the issues, Thompson said he:

• Is “pro-life,” and believes federal judges should overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision as “bad law and bad medical science.”
• Opposes gay marriage, but would let states decide whether to allow civil unions. “Marriage is between a man and a woman, and I don’t believe judges ought to come along and change that.”
• Opposes gun control, and praised last week’s 2-1 federal appeals decision overturning a long-standing handgun ban. “The court basically said the Constitution means what it says, and I agree with that.”
• Supports President Bush’s decision to increase troops in Iraq. “Wars are full of mistakes. You rectify things. I think we’re doing that now,” he said. “Why would we not take any chance, even though there’s certainly no guarantees, to not be run out of that place? I mean, we’ve got to take that opportunity and give it a chance to work.”
• Would pardon former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice now, rather than waiting until all his appeals are exhausted. Thompson is a fundraiser for Libby’s defense.

Obviously, once you get beyond the actors’ facade, there’s a deep level of party loyalty there. At first I thought Thompson might be a bit of a challenge for the Dems in the upcoming election. As it stands, I don’t think he would be as much of a problem as initally imagined. Then again, Thompson, of course, wouldn’t be the first popular actor to run for President…

Nonetheless, if he decides to run, I think he stands a fine chance at receiving the GOP nod.

So, apparently Warner Bros. is on board to produce the Valerie Plame movie. This, amidst the impending decision in the Scooter Libby trial led some over at FDL to ponder who would play whom in the movie.

The obvious names were bandied about. Tom Hanks, or Kevin Spacey, Matt Damon, or even (god forbid) Tom Cruise as Fitzgerald. Samuel L. Jackson or Denzel Washington as Judge Watson… and so on.

Now, maybe I’m all alone here, but I these are all aiming too high and missing the mark. All of these, in my opinion, reflect a real lack of creative thinking and border on a “soap opera”-y absurdity. However, I did have one suggestion that I feel nails Libby to a “T”.

…what about Ron Rifkin?

So, Mark Warner won’t be running in 2008… when rumours of this first started coming out today, I joked that

• Warner’s a moderate Democrat
• He’s used to working with an otherwise divisive, Republican legislature

Therefore, he’s got such confidence that the Dems will regain the House and Senate that he wouldn’t know how to handle it!

As it turns out, he’s doing it to spend time w/ his family:

I have decided not to run for President.This past weekend, my family and I went to Connecticut to celebrate my Dad’s 81st birthday, and then we took my oldest daughter Madison to start looking at colleges.I know these moments are never going to come again. This weekend made clear what I’d been thinking about for many weeks—that while politically this appears to be the right time for me to take the plunge—at this point, I want to have a real life.

And while the chance may never come again, I shouldn’t move forward unless I’m willing to put everything else in my life on the back burner.

This has been a difficult decision, but for me, it’s the right decision.

Now, while that’s a statement that you normally hear from disgraced polticians who resign due to some scandal, Warner is neither a) currently in office nor b) a corrupt politician. In fact, he’s one of the most honest, down-to-earth figures I’ve seen.

So who’s left? Of the current leaders of the pack, I think they’re all seriously flawed. Edwards? A one-term Senator and failed VP candidate? No thanks… and certainly no Hillary! Kerry is said to be considering it again, and I might have to hold my nose and vote him again if he were to get the nod — although the Dems have a habit of eating their own, especially those who lose Presidential elections.

Once again — and even moreso — hoping that the Dems get smart and nominate Wes Clark. Doubt we’ll see it happen though.

Hahahah.

With all the news coming out about House Rep aides being busted for trolling weblogs — and remembering that, back a few months ago, there was a stink about people from Congressional IPs vandalising the Wikipedia article on Tom Coburn… I decided to see if anyone ever visited my measly weblog.

#!/bin/sh

# house
grep “^143.228.” access.log >congress.txt
grep “^143.231.” access.log >>congress.txt
# senate
grep “^156.33.” access.log >>congress.txt

The results were kind of amusing. A lot of the references to my site weren’t so much to my weblog itself as they were to images that had been hotlinked elsewhere… so while this doesn’t tell a lot about how they found my site (although some did), it does denote some interesting viewing habits.

Now, the conventional wisdom is that the Senate is a more prestigious institution, and as such, Senators are more refined, genteel vis a vis the rabblerousers in the House.

Well, a grand plurality of the House hits were to Myspace pages. As for the Senate? Fark.com.

I’ll let the reader draw his or her own conclusions.

Update: For what it’s worth, no one at the DoJ (149.101.0.) has thought enough to stop by.

Well, over the past few days, I was trying to figure out the best way to express my dissatisfaction with Raleigh’s faltering on the Jaume Plensa project which led to Jim Goodmon recinding his $2.5 million grant, but the good folks at Raleighing did a pretty good job expressing what many of us probably feel regarding the bumbling, short-sighted neanderthals on the Raleigh city council:

It would have set Fayetteville Street apart from all of the other main streets in the South. Plensa turned down the City of Miami to offer us his vision and we botched what could have been one of the nation’s best pieces of public art.
…

Raleigh has a history of putting things in the wrong place. Maybe this was the next one of our blunders. We built a Civic Center, the RBC Center, Crabtree, and the N.C. Zoo all in the wrong places. Maybe Soleil is on this list, too. Who knows? On the other hand, maybe we are just scared. We ran off the world’s best glass sculptor and one of the best sculptors (or whatever Plensa really is). We spent millions of dollars on Fayetteville Street yet we’re afraid to address its damning vagrant problem. We were too timid to tell the Hurricanes that the official parade should be downtown.

It’s truly a shame. For a few months now, I’d been telling friends from Chicago — where Plensa’s famed Crown Fountain is enjoyed by millions — that Plensa was coming to Raleigh, too. And now this. Shame on you, Raleigh.

Another good editorial on this latest development is available here at the News and Observer.

I dunno what I can say about the fifth anniversary of 9/11 without sounding like I’m politicising about it. But really… no one, not the people, not the politicians, ever did what they said had to be done — stand up and avoid being fearful. If they’d done that, we wouldn’t be in the state of scrutiny we’re under now.

People always talked about “not being afraid to fly” as an example — “get back on the planes, travel, show that you’re not afraid”. But that’s as far as we’ve gone. Really, people are just as scared as ever, and they used that as an excuse to rationalise expanded surveillance and allow intrusion into personal lives.

The fact is — wiretaps, ability to hold US citizens w/o access to lawyers, even the “free speech zones” — the grounds for these things is fear. The fact that we, as a nation, allow them — or at least haven’t expressed a unified outrage, is evidence that this underlying fear has never dissipated.

“Get back on the plane, show them you’re not afraid.” check

“Get back out there, speak your mind, show them you’re not afraid.” Oops.

“Get back on those telephones, call your friends, show them you’re not afraid.” Oops.

And what I really can’t fathom is the people who say that it won’t be used against your good ole god-fearin’ Americans. Give the government the power to do it, they will. Give corporations the laws, they will use them for their own good. Give individuals the power to persecute others, they will! For chrissakes, we have journalists under DHS criminal complaint due to filmmaking? Prime example of giving someone — in this case, a Someone — an inch and them taking a mile.

There’s nothing wrong with vigilance in a post-9/11 world. But there is a lot wrong with going at it vigilante style, which, it seems, is how we’ve spent the vast majority of the time doing it, since then.

All I ever hear these days, in response to these sorts of thoughts, is something akin to “9/11 changed everything”. Yes, maybe that’s the case — and for all I know, maybe it is a war against a different, changing enemy. But that makes the 2,996 people who died front-line soldiers in this new war — and somehow, in the aftermath, we’re all less free than we were before. So if they didn’t “die for our freedoms”, a term bandied-about far too often, what, then, do they represent? Our way of life? Sorry, that answer fails too, because that way of life went the way of the dodo thanks to post 9/11 legislation. That I really can’t think of much we have gained due to the changes in the post 9/11 world, it only goes to illustrate how much we, as Americans, have lost.

Commemorating those lost on 9/11 makes me also think about the freedoms we’ve lost since then. Five years later, the fears of the American public must still remain — that’s the only way I can understand why we’d let our freedoms be trampled. People say America has come back, is stronger than ever, and isn’t afraid to fight a war against terror. But if this were truly the case, we wouldn’t allow our own freedoms to be so strongly curtailed in the process.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a non-partisan issue, other than the fact that too many people have fallen for the ruse that it is such, that somehow sitting on one side of the political fence or the other automatically makes one fall in the right or wrong camp. Take a step back at this notion, for a second? How ridiculous are we? Isn’t such a divide exactly something some scheming terrorist mastermind out there would look for? Aren’t such statements a freaking big neon sign with a blinking arrow reading, “I’m With Stupid”?

(with apologies to the many who have sung this terrific song).

I’ve taken an old classic, and put together a few new verses for it. Maybe someone more talented than I could record it.

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out: 2006

Once I lived the life of a Sena-taire,
Spit on my voters, I just did not care.
Rebuked Bill Clinton, an unkind attack,
Voted for cloture and war in Iraq…

Then I began to fall so low,
Lost the primary, I did not have nowhere to go.
I get my hands on some respect again,
I’m gonna hang on to it with a goofy grin.

Chorus:

‘Cause no, no, nobody knows you
When you’re down and out.
In your corner, not one Demmy,
And as for friends, you don’t have any.

When you finally get back up all your senses again,
Everybody wants to be your old long-lost friend.
Said it’s mighty strange, without a doubt,
Nobody knows you when you’re down and out.

When you finally get back up all your senses again,
Everybody wants to be your good old long-lost friend.
Said it’s mighty strange,
Nobody knows you,
Nobody knows you,
Nobody knows you when you’re down and out.

Once I had the support of the DLC,
Now they’re all leaving, even Hillary.
John Edwards backs Ned, John Kerry does too,
And Evan Bayh, oh now what should I do?

Supporting Bush’s splendid melee
Def’nitely was the “kiss of death” for me.
I guess now that the only place to go
Is down to Fox News for my own network show…

MyHostCamp, it is time for you to cover your ass.At the time of this posting, if you go to Google news and search for lieberman hacked, you’ll see close to one hundred news stories perpetuating the Lieberman campaign’s story that their website was hacked. There are even two references on the front page:

* Democrat’s Senate campaign alleges (The Age)
* Lieberman campaign says Web site hacked (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

The Lieberman campaign is making thinly-veiled statements that the Lamont crowd is behind it — but in the end, but for a system to be hacked, there would have to be either:

* A failure of the Lieberman campaign to adequately implement security in their PHP web-scripting, or
* A failure on the part of MyHostCamp to implement adequate system security measures.

In both situations, the onus falls, either directly or indirectly, on the host… and it’s for this reason MyHostCamp needs to release a statement.

You see, in the webhosting business, you’ve got to assume the inherent insecurity of your web customers’ scripts. Very few websites go through design review processes and/or security analyses… and even when these things are done, problems still go wrong.

Its for these reasons that hosting companies implement security measures on what clients can and cannot do. They might use chroot jails to assure break-ins are limited to one website, for example. They may limit the execution of certain types of scripts known to allow for malicious mischief. These are just a few rough examples.

Likewise, from a system security perspective, they generally have fallover, redundancy in case something gets compromised or DoS’ed — and they have abilities to block or redirect heavy DoS attacks when they are detected.

Long story short, when the Lieberman campaign implies that their website got “hacked” — it is, more than anything, a direct affront on the security model of their host web provider. Such accusations are black eyes to service providers and can have very real ramifications if it is implied that their facilities cannot hold up or recover from such an attack.

It is for this reason that MyHostCamp needs to make a public statement as to the veracity and accuracy of Lieberman camp’s claims. They need to release a statement as to the reason the Lieberman page (and indeed their own system…?) is down. Is it excessive traffic? Is it a DoS? Is it a failure of the Lieberman camp to pay their fees?

Whatever the case, MyHostCamp needs full disclosure. To do otherwise puts them in the the position of appearing as an ineffective provider. Failing any refutations of the Lieberman campaign’s statements only opens the door to larger questions about MyHostCamp’s capacity.

From your own website:

Overview
myHOSTCAMP’s center of operations in the heart of San Diego, California. We pride ourselves as a quality web host provider offering a simple choice of 3 hosting packages. myHOSTCAMP is an organization premised on the fundamental aspects of simplicity, security, reliability, and stability — driving forces in our current and future success.

MyHostCamp: That Lieberman’s crew is making most likely unfounded accusations at Lamont supporters is one thing. That they are claiming their system got “hacked” at all is a whole different issue, and it reflect squarely on your ability to provide adequate services to hosted customers. It would behoove you to come out and state the reasons for the Joe2006.com downtime.

It may be too early to count one’s chickens before they are hatched, but after the recent news featuring some pretty bad polling numbers for Lieberman, and rumours that his attempts to get a GOTV ground campaign going are faltering — he’s unable to get enough people willing to go hit the streets — things are not looking good for the Senator from Connecticut.

There are still those out there who say Joe’s campaign is not dead yet. To them, I wish the best of luck. Nonetheless, such a statement inevitably made me think of Monty Python…

(click for larger version)

Marshals: Innocent People Placed On ‘Watch List’ To Meet Quota

From the article:

“Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft … and they did nothing wrong,” said one federal air marshal.

…

“That could have serious impact … They could be placed on a watch list. They could wind up on databases that identify them as potential terrorists or a threat to an aircraft. It could be very serious,” said Don Strange, a former agent in charge of air marshals in Atlanta. He lost his job attempting to change policies inside the agency.

Boy, intended or not,  that sure sounds nothing like our own little cultural revolution, does it?  Tell you what, let’s step it up, let’s have our own Hundred Flowers Campaign, too!  Let’s make sure that once’s some has a mark on their name, legit or not, that it’s indelible.  Tell you what, while we’re at it, let’s even infiltrate popular dissent in the name of national security!

Oh wait, we’ve already taken that step.

God, I love the smell of authoritarianism!

Thank you, John Dean, for stating that which I’ve been saying for years; you have some weight to throw around, I don’t.

For more than 40 years I have considered myself a “Goldwater conservative,” and am thoroughly familiar with the movement’s canon. But I can find nothing conservative about the Bush/Cheney White House, which has created a Nixon “imperial presidency” on steroids, while acting as if being tutored by the best and brightest of the Cosa Nostra.

…

Today’s Republican policies are antithetical to bedrock conservative fundamentals. There is nothing conservative about preemptive wars or disregarding international law by condoning torture. Abandoning fiscal responsibility is now standard operating procedure. Bible-thumping, finger-pointing, tongue-lashing attacks on homosexuals are not found in Russell Krik’s classic conservative canons, nor in James Burham’s guides to conservative governing. Conservatives in the tradition of former senator Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan believed in “conserving” this planet, not relaxing environmental laws to make life easier for big business. And neither man would have considered employing Christian evangelical criteria in federal programs, ranging from restricting stem cell research to fighting AIDs through abstinence.

Candid and knowledgeable Republicans on the far right concede — usually only when not speaking for attribution — that they are not truly conservative. They do not like to talk about why they behave as they do, or even to reflect on it. Nonetheless, their leaders admit they like being in charge, and their followers grant they find comfort in strong leaders who make them feel safe. This is what I gleaned from discussions with countless conservative leaders and followers, over a decade of questioning.

Today’s GOP does not hoist any true “conservative” values, much less any of the classic Republican planks. To think, back when I was in high school and college, that which bothered me most about the GOP was its reliance on “guns, tobacco, and the Christian right”. Oddly enough, those hardly seem like the biggest of the party’s problems right now, except say, maybe the rhetoric we keep hearing from the Dobsonites.

Henry Rollins’ letter to Ann Coulter.

When you’re the current administration, perhaps you can take a few of the punches as the tide turns on you over the years. You were able to take Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative lambasting you, around the time of the elections, for your “free speech zones”, and you were able to shrug off the criticism of Pat Toomey and the gang at Club for Growth for the reckless “conservative” spending. More recently, perhaps you could stomach the words of Richard Viguerie, only one of the founding masterminds of the modern Republican party, who called you on your betrayal of the Republican party.

But now, the traditional bastion of libertarianism, the Cato Institute, calls you on your (un)Constitutional arrogance?

Ouch. Just ouch.