I have written so much on the Iraq Debacle and how to end it, that I really feel all I am doing now is repeating myself. I am for the Democratic leadership of Congress announcing a date certain for when no more funding would be provided for the Irag Debacle. The date is subject to political consideration. But pick a date certain. Everyone agrees the Congress can do this. Including Bush and Cheney. Despite that some on the Left still write this:

Dems don't have either the votes or the balls to force a constitutional confrontation with Bush to get us out of this war.

What Constitutional Crisis? There would be NO Constitutional Crisis.

After 5 years in captivity at Guantanamo, Australian David Hicks was charged with a terror crime Thursday, for which he will face trial by military tribunal.

A charge of attempted murder was rejected, and Hicks will be tried for the catch-all crime of providing material support to terrorists.

Under the Military Commissions Act, Hicks must be arraigned within 30 days and a military judge will have 120 days to form the military commission.

As to the specific acts Hicks is believed to have committed:

New York is the latest state to abandon the principle that people should be punished, once and only once, for what they have done, but never for a crime they have not committed. Sexual predator laws deprive sex offenders of their liberty after they finish their sentences -- a detention that seems to many (but not to a majority of the Supreme Court) to be a second punishment that isn't moored to a new crime.

Those convicted of any of a wide range of sex-related felonies would be reviewed for potential detainment after their prison sentences end, including those convicted of some nonviolent crimes like giving minors indecent material.

States are permitted knock the cap off sentences by changing the label from "punishment" to "treatment." The state claims the power to detain and treat dangerous and disordered sex offenders to protect against future sex crimes that it fears the detainee will otherwise commit. The laws depend on the assumption that a court can accurately gauge the likelihood that a particular offender will commit a future sex crime -- as if judges, or anyone else, can reliably predict an individual's future behavior. It's sad that New York has joined the score of states that use fear of future criminality to justify the continued imprisonment of sex offenders who have fully served their sentences.

The agreement would also create a new “sexually motivated felony” that would apply to those who intended to commit a sex crime but did not.

Democrats subpoenaed four fired U.S. Attorneys to a hearing on Tuesday to determine if they were fired for political reasons.

The Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law approved the subpoenas for former prosecutors in Arkansas, New Mexico, Seattle and San Diego -- all of whom will be required to appear for testimony at a hearing Tuesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee announced plans for a similar hearing on the same day.

David Iglesias of New Mexico charged his firing was retaliatory for his refusal to prosecute Democrats before the November election.

North Dakota's legislature deserves credit for ridding the state of an unenforceable law.

Under the provision, which has passed the both the state House and state Senate, living together “openly and notoriously” while unwed would no longer be considered a sex crime.

Think of all the cohabiting sex criminals who will suddenly become law-abiding citizens.

Malkin still silent, but McCain is sorry:

Last evening, I referred to American casualties in Iraq as wasted. I should have used the word, sacrificed, as I have in the past.

From the NYTimes:

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian whose more than 20 books shaped discussions for two generations about America’s past and who himself was a provocative, unabashedly liberal partisan, most notably in serving in the Kennedy White House, died last night in Manhattan. He was 89.

. . . Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mr. Schlesinger exhaustively examined the administrations of two prominent presidents, Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, against a vast background of regional and economic rivalries. He strongly argued that strong individuals like Jackson and Roosevelt could bend history.

Update: Keep reading the tea leaves. No verdict today and the jury is leaving early tomorrow. Marcy at Firedoglake has the recap.

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We're in day seven of the Scooter Libby jury deliberations. Jane and Marcy of Firedoglake are live-blogging any news.

Tidbit for today: The jurors asked for another large easel pad yesterday, signifying nothing. Maybe more important - the jurors are in jeans again.

I think the jurors will dress up on verdict day. I have no scientific or anecdotal evidence to back that up, only a memory that it happened in some other high-profile trial within the past few years. I can't even remember now which one.

Please use the comments to update with trial news as I'll be off-line for several hours (although checking in every ten minutes by Treo.) I'll have my laptop with me to get back online if there's a verdict. Feel free to e-mail me if you learn it before reading it here.

Previously, I wrote:

Apparently, Barack Obama apologized for saying that US troops' lives have been wasted in Iraq . . . Obama did indeed misspeak. The fact is our troops in Iraq have not been wasted, they have been used in an enterprise that has been as damaging to the United States as any in memory. They were worse than wasted -- they were employed in a Debacle that was foretold from the first moment PNAC dreamed up this insane scheme in the 1990s.

About Obama, Michelle Malkin said:

I could go on, but it would be a waste of breath trying to get Sen. Obama to acknowledge the existence of countless soldiers and their families who reject his patronizing, infantilizing, and insulting view of all American troops as dupes/victims who have squandered their lives.

Last night, John McCain said:

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said. "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

It would be hypocritical of me to criticize McCain for saying soldiers' lives were wasted in Iraq. It would be hypocritical of Michelle Malkin not to.

Patterico, any comment? H/T Atrios

Former senator Linc Chafee talks about the past:

There was indeed a third way, which Senator James Jeffords, independent of Vermont, hailed at the time as “one of the most important votes we will cast in this process.” And it was opposed by every single senator at the time who now seeks higher office. . . . Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, offered a substitute to the war resolution, the Multilateral Use of Force Authorization Act of 2002. Senator Levin’s amendment called for United Nations approval before force could be authorized. It was unambiguous and compatible with international law. . . . Senator Levin wrote an amendment that was nimble: . . . the amendment explicitly avowed America’s right to defend itself if threatened.

All true . But what I care about is now. What is Carl Levin doing NOW to end the war? Not as much.

In a diatribe against Glenn Greenwald, Patterico seemingly agrees with at least half of what Greenwald says:

To the contrary, Greenwald insists, anonymous comments by hateful leftists prove nothing about the left generally. Nothing! . . . These comments are staggeringly hypocritical, viewed in the light of Greenwald’s extensive history of spotlighting anonymous comments at conservative blogs to reach broad-brush conclusions about the entire conservative movement.

Well, I don't know about that, but presumably Patterico agrees with one of the two alleged sentiments expressed by Glenn. Either the anonymous comments about Cheney mean NOTHING, or the anonymous comments on Right Wing blogs mean SOMETHING.

So which is it Patterico, do anonymous comments mean something? Or nothing?

I tend to the nothing school myself.

See also Atrios and Alicublog.

Many Democratic Senators like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton have argued for years that their vote in October 2002 in favor of the Iraq AUMF was not a vote for war, but to give the President leverage. That is a crock of course. No, the stark choice presented was for war with Iraq or against war with Iraq.

Today, the choice for Congress is just as stark - for continuing the Iraq Debacle or for ending the Iraq Debacle. Democrats in Congress simply have not, and apparently will not anytime soon, accept this reality. More.