Portside

There are few things more bizarre than watching people advocate that another country be bombed even while acknowledging that it will achieve no good outcomes other than safeguarding the "credibility" of those doing the bombing. Relatedly, it's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national "credibility" depend upon periodically bombing other countries.

The Government is collecting phone records for millions and millions of Americans under the PATRIOT Act. It's an outrage: The Guardian has obtained long sought-after evidence of the extent of ongoing spying on Americans under the PATRIOT Act -- and it's as bad as we'd worried. The NSA is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

Verizon Communications has responded to an explosive report that outlines the telecommunications giant's role in an ongoing domestic spying program. The response, in a memo to employees, seems aimed at containing a public relations disaster. The wording, however, has to adhere to restrictions, imposed on Verizon by the secret court, not to disclose that the company was ordered to hand over phone logs to the FBI and the National Security Agency.

Colorado has crippled its own ability to tax. And now some citizens say that's depriving them of their right to a republican government.

The Congressional Research Service points out two things that are missing in Canning: precedent and practicality. A quick glance at a dictionary written more than a quarter-century before the Framing, in another country, was enough to sweep away any counterarguments -- most particularly the argument that, whatever words the Framers may have chosen, they were designing a government that would work, not one that would fall apart whenever 40 senators felt grumpy.