Couldn't Sleep; Did a Little Reading

This from Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who suggests Bush, after completing his "farewell tour" of Europe, do the same here in America. Choice quote:

Swedish Covenant Hospital, Chicago Illinois

A trip to the emergency room at Swedish Covenant would allow you to meet some of the millions of Americans who can't afford health insurance and others who have seen their family premiums nearly double. Remind everyone of your old comment: "People have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."

Also, a great little bit from Bob Cesca:

I support off-shore drilling in just one place: the coastline of Kennebunkport. Years of messy exploration followed by dozens of giant platforms. In Kennebunkport only.

And, finally, from Ted Rall, on the recent Supreme Court ruling restoring habeas corpus protections to detainees at Guantanamo:

Deranged leaders who carry out horrific acts of mass murder and oppression with the consent of the people are hardly new to American history, reminds Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States. "Begin with the Salem witchcraft trials of the 1690s," he told a commencement ceremony at Southern Methodist University. "Move forward to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the early Republic, and from there to the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Turn then to the arbitrary political arrests of the First and Second World Wars, the many abuses of the Cold War McCarthy era, and from there the civil liberties climate in our time."

So many oopsies! But those are temporary excesses, Weinstein reassures. "Self- corrective forces at work in American society"--lefties, liberals, a single swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court--always pull us back before we careen off the brink. Disaster is avoided.

[...]

We think we Americans are good people who do bad things when we're not on top of our game. "Self-corrective forces," we pat ourselves on our collective backsides, always kick in before we go too far. But that's not really how it is. Some Americans are good. Other Americans are bad. And the good ones are often lazy, willing to let the bad ones get their way.