How To Leave Iraq In One Year

PLUS: Marking the Katrina anniversary...Listen to experts save the constitution from Cheney...Everyone’s ticked at Senator Craig...Bush wants $50 billion more for Iraq...China’s patrolling the internet with cartoons...A dead millionaire’s dog makes big...The stars are dancing again...It’s all about Nancy Grace...Ahmadinejad’s getting a movie...And poor mamma’s doing more than her fair share. It’s August 30th and what the world needs now is no more drugs. Is this thing on?

Celebration Excuse

30BC

Egyptian ruler Cleopatra famously commits suicide by way of asp

1905

Baseball great Ty Cobb makes his professional debut with the Detroit Tigers

1957

Sen. Strom Thurmond tries to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957 by launching a 24 hour filibuster. He failed.

1967

Judge Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American justice on the Supreme Court

1974

The last episode of The Brady Bunch airs

1983

Astronaut Guion Bluford becomes the first African American to travel in space on the U.S. space shuttle Challenger

1989

Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley, who famously said “only the little people pay taxes,” is found guilty of tax evasion

1993

David Letterman launches the late-night talk wars, debuting his new show on CBS

Eat More Cake

1797: The mother of Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Remember, Frankenstein was the *doctor’s* name. The monster was never given a name.

1893: Louisiana politician and inspiration for All The King’s Men, Huey Long

1918: Frozen baseball legend Ted Williams

1963: Our favorite dirty cop, actor Michael Chiklis (The Shield)

1972: Actress Cameron Diaz (Charlie’s Angels)

1982: Tennis phenom Andy Roddick

Daybook

POTUS

No public appearances planned

STUMPIN’

Senator Hillary Clinton on David Letterman

ON THE HILL

Congress is on recess, picking out their fall colors.

BELTWAY AND BEYOND

Education Secretary Margaret Spelling is in Alaska touring schools and urging the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind

TV TIME

TiVo this

Oprah: Oprah’s Favorite Giveaway Ever—The Results!
The View: George Lopez, Alan Jackson, guest co-host Joan Rivers (Rerun)
Regis and Kelly: Relly Nominees: Best Athlete, Best Non-Human
Ellen DeGeneres: Julie Andrews, Mike Holmes (Rerun)

Stay up late

Letterman: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Willie Nelson & Kenny Chesney
Leno: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jarod Miller, Wilco
Late Late Show: Pamela Anderson and magician Hans Klok, Avi Liberman, Nellie McKay (Rerun)
Conan: Kevin Bacon, Will Forte, Eisley
Last Call: Kathy Griffin, Enrique Iglesias (Rerun)
Kimmel: George Lopez, Matt Dallas, Yung Joc

 

Eavesdrop

STEAL THIS AUDIO:

Bloggers, Activists and Officials Weigh-In on Wiretapping

Who: Former Representative Mickey Edwards (R-OK), Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Morton Halperin, ACLU Political Director Caroline Fredrickson, MoveOn campaign leader Nita Chaudhary, and Reason magazine contributing editor and blogger Julian Sanchez. [American Progress]

What: A series of panels at the Center for American Progress on the recent expansion of Presidential authority provided by the expanded version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that allows “the government to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant as long as the “target” of the surveillance is located outside the United States.”

Why you should care: These new provisions were not just to update FISA for the digital age. Instead, it was a sweeping expansion of Presidential power to spy on Americans without a warrant. These provisions were enacted with no public debate, and with intense pressure on Congress right before their August recess. Luckily, there is a sunset provision after six months, meaning the program will have to be reauthorized. Activists are gearing up to pressure lawmakers to prevent this unconstitutional expansion of power to prevail.

Representative Mickey Edwards (R-OK):

  • The lack of a warrant is a constitutional issue: “The requirement for a warrant is in the Constitution, it’s not in the FISA Act.”
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  • Congress must step up and demand information on how the original illegal wiretapping was allowed to go on: “This is an equal branch of government! The executive branch has no authority to say we will not give you the information you need. And for the Congress to say ‘well, gosh, we can’t do anything…will you please give it to us?’ It’s absurd....”
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Morton Halperin:

  • The real motivation from the White House: “...enact something over the objections of the Democrats and to try to create a situation in which the President could complain that the Democrats don’t care about national security.”
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  • “There is no privilege to withhold information from the Congress on grounds of national security...”
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Caroline Fredrickson:

  • Remember Nixon? Caroline does: “...We have had a government that has engaged in politically targeted surveillance...we certainly now have a system in place where there is no check.”
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Nita Chaudhary:

  • But, standing up for civil liberties is not dangerous politically: “It’s not a political risky issue either, it’s a terrible conventional wisdom that it is.”
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  • Security requires liberty: “Preserving these liberties and this democracy is essential to our security going forward. There is no way we can lead on freedom in the world if we are denying basic rights at home.”
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Julian Sanchez:

  • The White House’s tactics with Congress: “...a “chicken” methodology where they do the most reckless possible thing in every instance…it’s like ripping your steering wheel off when you’re playing a game of chicken which is insanely reckless but it means the other person has to veer.”
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  • To some extent, we need a new paradigm of supervision for the new technologies of surveillance: “We need to rethink the way we conduct oversight of investigation when the point of the investigation might not be to prove a known target is a terrorist but to look out at the haystack looking for the terrorist needles.”
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Masthead

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Mic Check is produced every weekday by Christy Harvey, Sara Langhinrichs and Nicole Murphy, and is a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Read more about Mic Check.

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