It seems to me that outside the Hersh article and Arkin's revelations on Pentagon war-gaming, there hasn't been any insider leaking via Congress on secret briefings, etc., which would be strongly suggestive that a path to war has already been selected. The Guardian(UK) has an article up on joint UK-US war-gaming at Fort Belvoir nearly two years ago, with Iran as the target; the Telegraph(UK), close to UK military, also has run several pieces on the "likelihood" of US(- UK?) operations directed against Iranian nuclear installations (as a first step to "regime change"?). I'm curious that with not only misgivings of current civilian war-planning competency amongst the uniforms in the Pentagon, but also an increasing lack of confidence shown by Congress in the prosecution of the two war theatres already in play, that if indeed the Cheney cabal has pushed the start-button, people in Congress wouldn't know about it, and do the usual thing by leaking concerns to favoured media outlets. Unless the Cheney Administration is prepared to launch military action against Iran without benefit of some sort of AUMF fig-leaf from Congress, the silence is puzzling.

They’ve already crowned him King and aren’t about to restrict his powers. Think about all those wonderful contracts to private enterprise and the destruction of several social programmes Republicans detest. Not to mention the money they would lose from lobbyists.

Despite what you and I think, there is a considerable approval rating for the appointments to the Judiciary, and quite a few voters are leaping with glee that Roe could be overturned. Many voters do prefer getting their news delivered to them from TV broadcasters. Limbaugh, et al, has quite a wide following of listeners.

Background to the gift of power to the President

Might the problem be the Congress is afraid there would be a backlash from the voters? Representatives and Senators in order to be elected have to solicit votes from their base.

Case in point: Immigration legislation. There are a substantial number of voters that believe the way to correct illegal immigration is to build fences and evict illegal immigrants. If they really wanted to reduce the number of illegal workers that work for very low wages, they would back high fines for employers. That’s far too radical for many voters because it would increase the price of consumer goods and services. The allure of Walmart is too strong. I’ve seen several blogs written by very well educated people that don’t believe citizenship should be granted to children born in the United States to an illegal alien.

Protectionism is becoming a dominant theme. Foreign workers are seen as hijacking American jobs. There is beginning to be resistant to students from other countries at University levels. What I’m hearing is there should be fewer visas granted to them and they should pay higher fees than American students.

Congress won’t risk defying the voters who elected them.

It's the same damn thing over and over again, incompetence and arrogance.

If you probe the criticisms hurled from the right to the left about "elitism" and the influence of the academy on Democrats (and the endless complaint about the liberalities of universities), those criticisms are about the incompetence and arrogance, in the right's view, of intellectuals with little knowledge of "reality" who are seen to influence the Democratic Party to a disastrous degree.

But check out the irony: the audacious incompetence of our current political leaders is fueled by those post-Straussians who are the epitome of ivory tower arrogance and irreality. These guys, taken altogether -- Wolfowitz to Rumsfeld to Bush and Cheney -- are what the military have been up against. Capricious, and egotistical, the civilian leaders play with their tin soldiers in the safety of the offices knowing that, beyind the Osama game, the Iraq game, and the Iran game, enormous profits are to be made.