Today's a day of dread

You can bet that millions of Americans who were soaking up the news on Condi, Madonna and Wesley Snipes had no idea that George W. Bush today (10/17) - by the poison stroke of his pen - signed the Military Commission Act and thereby killed the Writ of Habeas Corpus in these United States.

It was quite an accomplishment. Going back to the Magna Carta (1215), English Law (1679) and the U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 9), habeas corpus means a detainee has the right to be brought to court for a determination of whether his/her imprisonment is legal and whether he/she should be freed.

The torture president has acted definitively - in a threat to detained foreigners and American citizens alike - and apparently almost nobody has noticed. For sure, voices of sanity and alarm are out there, like Russ Feingold and Keith Olbermann. But how can they compete with Madonna?

Talk about an entire nation going to hell in a handbasket...