Work Your Brain — 10/03/06

On Terror-steria

mass hysteria
n. A socially contagious frenzy of irrational behavior in a group of people as a reaction to an event.

• The Suntan Menace — The Cunning Realist writes about another incident in our friendly skies where an innocent man is assumed by other passengers to be a terrorist because of “suspicious activities” like going to the toilet when he got on the plane and having an iPod. The most damning piece of evidence was the color of his skin, which was tanned due to the vacation the Jewish father of three was returning from. Mr. Stein was physically attacked by another passenger “claiming” to be a NY police officer and put in a head lock an hour into the flight while he was minding his own business reading a book and sipping his ginger ale. He sounds terribly dangerous. He’s suing the airline for failing to protect him since the cabin crew was aware of the passenger’s obsession with him. He should sue the passenger too.
  

  As someone who travels a lot, owns gadgets, is dark-complected, and even uses the restroom, I keep waiting — with anticipation, I must admit — for some overeager vigilante/Charles Bronson-wannabe to try this crap on me.

• Please step to the white courtesy phone [for a brain] — Mac @ peskyapostrophe reports that a man missed his flight after being detained in an airport in Seattle because he was speaking a foreign language into his cell phone. Hmmmmm… That does sound suspicious. Apparently he was discussing sports, which is really suspicious. The language was Tamil, which is a language largely used in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore and the person who called it in was an off-duty airline personnell. The passenger indicated that in the future, he wouldn’t be speaking Tamil into his cell phone in the airport. That’s just a shame.
• The TSA sucks - hey, better detain me — Mac @ peskyapostrophe also has a post about a Wisconsin man who wrote “Kip Hawley is an Idiot” on a plastic bag containing toiletries said he was detained at an airport security checkpoint for about 25 minutes before authorities concluded the statement was not a threat. You know, because Kip Hawley is the head of the Transportation Security Administration. “A TSA spokeswoman acknowledged a man was stopped, but likened the incident to cases in which people inappropriately joke about bombs.” *snort* Talk about going overboard.

On Torture

• Is The U.S. A Rogue State? — Matthew Yglesias (op-ed writer for The American Prospect) @ CBS News wrote a brilliant opinion piece about how in 2003 President George Bush gave a speech indicating that the U.S. was committed to “world-wide elimination of torture” and leading the fight by example. He said it was an inalienable human right to be free of torture. He also said, “The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control….Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.” Based on that statement from Bush’s own claims, Yglesias wants to know if the United States is now a rogue state since we now legally torture. Have we now become what we set out to eliminate?
  

  Other countries, of course, practice torture in violation of international law. As has now been clear for a while, we have been in their company for some years. The latest twist, however, is that we now won’t show any shame about it. Rather than simply violating the laws to which we have agreed to adhere, we’re repudiating them, simply denying that the standard by which civilized nations operate apply to us.

  The problems here will be widespread. One of the strengths of democracies on the international scene is precisely that it’s much harder for liberal states to violate agreements. Dictatorships can say one thing and do another with ease. Democracies feature free presses, free speech, the rule of law, independent judiciaries, legislative oversight, and other measures to ensure that laws and treaties are followed. This is, to the conservative mind, a weakness. In their view, cheating is a good thing, and America’s historical difficulty in cheating constitutes a problem. They’re dead wrong. Cooperation is a good thing — the best ticket to prosperity, security, and international peace. Democracies can cooperate with other countries — and especially with other democracies — more credibly and effectively, and that’s one of the reasons the world’s democratic block is so much stronger and more prosperous than the rest of the world.

  But the rule of law is now off the table as far as Bush is concerned. What’s more, insofar as national-security policy is at issue, the United States increasingly doesn’t look like much of a democracy. As the congressional Republicans march in lockstep behind the White House’s torture agenda, they don’t even know what that agenda’s composed of. The Boston Globe reported Saturday that 90 percent of members of Congress don’t know “which interrogation techniques have been used in the past, and none of them know which ones would be permissible under proposed changes to the War Crimes Act.” Which is just to say that, in practice, absolutely everything would be permitted, since the only people capable of overseeing the interrogation program haven’t done it, won’t do it, and have no intention of doing it in the future.

  Consequently, the United States now presents itself as what amounts to the globe’s largest and most powerful rogue state — a nuclear-armed superpower capable of projecting military force to the furthest corners of the earth, acting utterly without legal or moral constraint whenever the president proclaims it necessary. The idea that striking such a posture on the world stage will serve our long-term interests is daft. American power has, for decades, rested crucially on the sense that the United States can be trusted and relied upon, on the belief that we use our power primarily to defend the community of liberal states and the liberal rules by which they conduct themselves rather than to undermine them.

  An America prepared to casually toss out the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian diplomacy, along with basic human decency and the rule of law as side helpings, is not a country others are going to want to cooperate with.

  Hat tip: Sean Aqui.

• How long till they come and take your favorite blogger away? — Punkass Mac @ PunkAssBlog.com expresses concern that the inclusion of the term “leftist terrorist” in the NIE report may eventually lead to serious problems for leftist bloggers once the new torture/detainee legislation passes. Pain-in-the-ass lefty bloggers can be labeled as having “leftist terrorist agendas” and disappear into some CIA black prison or Gitmo.

On Iraq

• Batiste — Gregory @ The Belgravia Dispatch wrote an excellent piece, quoting former Major General John Batiste’s testimony before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee which presented a rather scathing review of Rumsfeld’s competence as a wartime leader. Gregory’s analysis is dead on, suggesting that the Bush-Chenney Administration is all talk but no real muscle to back it up, meaning they haven’t or can’t put the resources in to match their own rhetoric.
  

  That is to say, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika are only pretending to have the sang-froid and will and staying power and Churchillian courage to prevail in Iraq. But they are being dishonest with us. They are empty suits, presiding over a failing strategy, none of them with the energy or intellectual courage to own up and demand either that the nation sacrifice and devote adequate resources to the effort, or failing that pursue a convincing alternative strategy. Of course, it’s not all their fault, as they are bowing to some realities, one suspects. If Bush gave a speech calling for re-institution of the draft, or implemention of a war tax, or even less dramatic moves but nevertheless ones that demanded more sacrifice (sending another 50,000 troops in, with casualty rates inevitably increasing, especially if we adopted less conservative force postures in keeping with best counter-insurgency practice) one presumes the nation would turn on the war all the faster (though if such moves changed the tenor of the war for the better perhaps support would not drop as much as one might suspect, although one would need real leaders at the helm explicating the need persuasively, which we don’t). Worth noting too, Rove would allow none of it, with midterms looming in November.

  Regardless, what we have now is not quite ’stay the course’, or the comically desperate sounding ‘adapting to win’, or some such soundbite. What we are doing, really, is half-assing along as best we can without truly summoning all the national reservoirs of power (military, economic, diplomatic, humanitarian) to really have a real go at prevailing, assuming one believes there is still a shot at eking out a victory, an issue where intelligent people (as the previous thread indicated) can disagree. At some point, we either step up, talk to the Iranians and Syrians so as to get more intelligent about pursuing a regional strategy, make clear and signal to Iraqis we’re there to truly prevail by sending in more forces, and otherwise get more serious (more robust force posture to truly “clear”, not via endless rounds of whack-a-mole, but with a convincing footprint and level of sustained effort through entire areas of concern simultaneously, more funds for reconstruction and infrastructure to effectively “build”, increasing American embeds operating with both Iraqi Army and even Police units so as to help develop more of an indigenuous “hold” function, and so on)–or we need to think much more about pursuing an intelligent withdrawal strategy–if perhaps we don’t think the additional effort is worth it (perhaps presiding over a confederation, but holding out the prospects of a unitary state in the future, a la Dayton, is worthy of more thought). Either way, the rough status quo, with a couple soldiers dying a day, dishonors their sacrifice, because it is a sacrifice made in vain. And our leaders are not honest enough to come clean with us about this, or if they think they are being honest with us, it is only because they are living in a deluded fantasy land where fundamentalist-style verities reign, rather than the grim realities presented by the empirical evidence around them.

  Hat tip: John Cole.

Have an opinion on these topics to share or found a post you want to add? Add your opinion or the post link to the comments section. My inquiring mind wants to know!

Tags: John Batiste, Senate Democratic Policy Committee, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Iraq, War, stay the course, adapting to win, propaganda, American soldiers, Middle East, Seth Stein, American Airlines, mass hysteria, terrorism, rogue state, The American Prospect, CBS News, torture, War Crimes Act, Geneva Convention, Congress, Seattle, Tamil, TSA, Kip Hawley, leftist terrorist agenda, NIE report, Guantanamo Bay

Work Your Brain — 09/20/06

• Thank a Democrat for Lower Gas Prices — Richard Cranium @ The All Spin Zone reminds us that it was Democratic Party Congressional candidate Larry Kissell who held a campaign rally at a gas station in Biscoe, NC on August 3rd to remind voters that the price of gasoline was $1.22/gallon when the GOP incumbent in his district took office. Ever since then, the price of gas has been dropping nationwide.
  

  With third quarter oil industry profit statements due out just before the upcoming elections, it’s pretty easy to assume that the Gouging Oil Party boys in the backroom figured that something had to be done, even if (for the oil companies) it meant taking a bit of a hit on the bottom line for a few months. Ergo, gasoline prices have dropped by nearly 30% in the space of a couple of weeks, even as BP’s shutdown of their Alaskan pipeline continues, and middle east tensions continue apace, and (strangely) the cost of a barrel of crude has dropped by maybe 10%. The good news is that, based on my own water cooler conversation, even the most hard core neocons in our midst understand the play.

  So, the next time you fill up your tank and you don’t have to sign over a second mortgage on house to do it, remember that Democratic Party congressional candidate Larry Kissell from NC-8, is more responsible for the drop in prices than anyone else on the planet. Here’s an idea on how to thank Larry: take $10 of that gas savings, and drop it in Larry’s campaign bucket.

• Gas Prices a Republican Dirty Trick — Becky @ Preemptive Karma takes a different look at how the Republicans are using their Big Oil friends to lower gas prices before the 2006 election.

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Tags: gas prices, oil industry, privacy, CIA, CIA Interrogation Program, George W. Bush, Article 3, Geneva Convention, Congress, John Warner, Colin Powell, Jack Vessey, Lindsay Graham, John McCain, POW, torture, detainees, terrorism, White House, politics, anthrax, 9/11, phobic nation, J. Edgar Hoover, FBI, Martin Luther King Jr., Iraq, International Red Cross, Maher Arar, Canada, Syria, JFK Airport

comments See also in Politics & Causes, In the News, Geekery, Blogging & Other Blogs, The World, 9-11 & Terrorism, Iraq & Afghanistan, The Middle East

Work Your Brain — 09/09/06

A Little Fun First

• Thursday Thirteen #2 — ribbiticus @ Pond Perspective offers some gems of advice. Here are my favorites:
  

  5. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

  10. Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

  11. We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

  12. A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

  13. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.

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Tags: Thursday Thirteen, Crayons, terrorism, Logan Airport, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Congress, wiretapping, Osama bin Laden, Mother Jones, liberals, 9/11, religion, aetheists, women, virginity, Journal of Sex Research Western soceity, involuntary virgins, economy, America

Work Your Brain — 09/02/06

First Some Fun

• Thursday Thirteen #3 — Baggage @ Baggage That Goes With Mine wrote thirteen reasons why the internet is better than real life. This is my favorite.
  

  11. On the internet, you can pop into a forum or a blog and tell a person that their beliefs are dumb, they should be breastfeeding, they should never co-sleep, they should divorce their husband, they should shave their legs, and they should stop wearing mom jeans. In real life, people would punch you in the face.

In Memory Of Katrina

• But you can keep them for the birds and bees — Mac @ PeskyApostrophe wonders about all of that Katrina aid money the U.S. asked for and got from other countries last year. She comes to the same conclusion I did.
  

  I’m appalled at a variety of things when it comes to the Katrina rebuilding effort and FEMA’s role in it all, but this is a whole new level of incompetence. As part of my new job, I am now involved in grant-writing. In a good portion of grants, the grantee expects a report as to how the money was used. While I’m sure these gifts did not come with any reporting requirements, if one of our grantees found out their money had been either wasted or didn’t got to the program for which it was intended that would pretty much guarantee they’d never give money to us again. And you have to wonder if, should another emergency situation arise, these countries would think twice about giving aid money to the U.S. if we’re not going to use it and use it wisely.

• First the Flood, Now the Fight — Spencer S. Hsu @ WashingtonPost.com wrote a special report on the butting of heads between FEMA and state and city officials in the rebuilding of the Gulf States and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. FEMA swears it’s not trying to be difficult but the process seems to be designed to wear down those requesting help until they just give up and either take what little they’ve been given, which isn’t much if anything.
  

  Through hundreds of such disputes large and small, the most costly disaster in U.S. history is fast becoming its most contentious, with appeals and disputes worth nearly a billion dollars bogging down repairs of critical public systems and delaying the return of residents.

  Current and former officials at all levels blame FEMA workers’ inexperience with eligibility rules, weaknesses in U.S. disaster laws and inconsistent treatment by Congress for much of the wrangling. The huge scale of the storm and honest disagreement over whether federal or local taxpayers should pay the tab add to the conflict.

  “Disasters should be difficult to declare. . . . But once you get them, FEMA should not worry about cutting costs,” said Daniel A. Craig, who stepped down in October as head of FEMA’s recovery division and is now consulting for New Orleans. “Public entities are eligible for everything they have lost due to the disaster. It is not up to FEMA to cut corners or makes sure money is saved.”

  Gil H. Jamieson, FEMA’s deputy director for Gulf Coast recovery, agreed that “we’re in this to rebuild the city” and added: “We are not in it to delay for the sake of delay. Are there folks who sometimes hose it up? Absolutely. But I think we’re doing a good job of helping it recover.”

  The disputes come as the costliest part of the recovery begins: restoring water, power, roads, bridges, schools and other public facilities along the Gulf Coast. Agency veterans said the spending will have more impact on the physical rebuilding of the Gulf area than anything else FEMA does over the next decade, possibly eclipsing its role in aiding individual victims of the storm.

  The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans, for instance, sustained $446 million in storm losses, said Executive Director Marcia St. Martin. But FEMA has committed just $113 million so far.

  FEMA notes that New Orleans promised U.S. environmental regulators $640 million in repairs before Katrina, and that the antiquated system is too big for the Crescent City’s reduced population.

  “That’s what makes a city — if you don’t have water, sewer and drainage, you don’t have a city,” lamented Robert Jackson, spokesman for the sewer board. “The money so far only scratches the surface of the devastation.

  Hat Tip: Susie @ Suburban Guerrilla

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Tags: Thursday Thirteen, Internet, Hurricane Katrina, FEMA, aid money, Gil H. Jamieson, Daniel A. Craig, Gulf Coast recovery, New Orleans, Islamofascism, George W. Bush, Muslims, women in the media, Support the Troops, defense appropriation bill, Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, Iraq, Afghanistan, Congress, Pentagon, Lower 9th Ward, National Hurricane Canter, 9/11, Max Mayfield, Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah, terrorism, Ann Jones, Taliban, NATO, Christians, American Dream, Martin Niemoller, Germany, Nazis, Rocky Anderson, Utah, Salt Lake Tribune, patriotism, lie, Walter Jones, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Caddam Hussein, Donald Rumsfeld

Generic Signing Statement

This cartoon is funny but more in a gut-wrenching “how true” kind of a way than a “Family-Circus-Look-What-Billy-Did-This-Week” kind of way.

Tags: Law, George W. Bush, Signing Statement, Congress, Veto

Congressional Raises & Minimum Wage

If you make the Federal minimum wage, you earn $5.15 an hour — officially raised last in 1998. Working 40 hours (if your employer allows that) a week 52 weeks a year with no vacation, no holidays, and no sick days, you would earn $10, 712. (If you work those max number of days, that’s 260 days a year.)

Congress works less than 250 days over every two year period called “a session”. They are in Washington D.C. less than 3 days a week and are facing record lows in approval ratings. Yet, this week, for the seventh year in a row, lawmakers embraced a %2 “cost of living” raise that bringing their salaries to $168,500.

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Tags: Congress, minimum wage, politics

Open Letter To Congress

Dear Congress,

The United States has more people in prison than any other country. We’re in debt nearly 9 trillion dollars. We have the second worst newborn death rate in the modern world. 2/3rds of young Americans can’t find Iraq on a map. The dollar is falling, falling, falling. Iraq is a mess. Our 15 year olds rank 24 out of 38 in mathematics and 26 of 38 in problem solving. We’re the fattest nation in the world! Hello, Iran? The number of uninsured Americans continues to rise. We haven’t found Osama bin Laden.. and yet,Congress is focusing its power and efforts on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Seriously?

And you wonder why the vast majority of Americans disapprove of the job you’re doing. [“Dear Congress” (Audacity)]

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Tags: Congress, Iraq, Gay Rights, Iran, Osama bin Laden, national debt, stupid

The Most Law-Breaking President

This is a very long exerpt from an article written by Charlie Savage in the Boston Globe, but it’s well worth the time.

WASHINGTON — President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ”whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush’s assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ”to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ”execute” a law he believes is unconstitutional.

Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power.

But with the disclosure of Bush’s domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override.

Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws — many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush’s theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

[…]

For the first five years of Bush’s presidency, his legal claims attracted little attention in Congress or the media. Then, twice in recent months, Bush drew scrutiny after challenging new laws: a torture ban and a requirement that he give detailed reports to Congress about how he is using the Patriot Act.

Bush administration spokesmen declined to make White House or Justice Department attorneys available to discuss any of Bush’s challenges to the laws he has signed.

Instead, they referred a Globe reporter to their response to questions about Bush’s position that he could ignore provisions of the Patriot Act. They said at the time that Bush was following a practice that has ”been used for several administrations” and that ”the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution.”

But the words ”in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution” are the catch, legal scholars say, because Bush is according himself the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution. And he is quietly exercising that authority to a degree that is unprecedented in US history.

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation’s sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ‘’signing statements” — official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills — sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

”He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises — and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened,” said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

[…]

Bush has also said he can bypass laws requiring him to tell Congress before diverting money from an authorized program in order to start a secret operation, such as the ”black sites” where suspected terrorists are secretly imprisoned.

Congress has also twice passed laws forbidding the military from using intelligence that was not ”lawfully collected,” including any information on Americans that was gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches.

Congress first passed this provision in August 2004, when Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program was still a secret, and passed it again after the program’s existence was disclosed in December 2005.

On both occasions, Bush declared in signing statements that only he, as commander in chief, could decide whether such intelligence can be used by the military.

In October 2004, five months after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in Iraq came to light, Congress passed a series of new rules and regulations for military prisons. Bush signed the provisions into law, then said he could ignore them all. One provision made clear that military lawyers can give their commanders independent advice on such issues as what would constitute torture. But Bush declared that military lawyers could not contradict his administration’s lawyers.

Other provisions required the Pentagon to retrain military prison guards on the requirements for humane treatment of detainees under the Geneva Conventions, to perform background checks on civilian contractors in Iraq, and to ban such contractors from performing ‘’security, intelligence, law enforcement, and criminal justice functions.” Bush reserved the right to ignore any of the requirements.

The new law also created the position of inspector general for Iraq. But Bush wrote in his signing statement that the inspector ‘’shall refrain” from investigating any intelligence or national security matter, or any crime the Pentagon says it prefers to investigate for itself.

Bush had placed similar limits on an inspector general position created by Congress in November 2003 for the initial stage of the US occupation of Iraq. The earlier law also empowered the inspector to notify Congress if a US official refused to cooperate. Bush said the inspector could not give any information to Congress without permission from the administration.

[…]

In December 2004, Congress passed an intelligence bill requiring the Justice Department to tell them how often, and in what situations, the FBI was using special national security wiretaps on US soil. The law also required the Justice Department to give oversight committees copies of administration memos outlining any new interpretations of domestic-spying laws. And it contained 11 other requirements for reports about such issues as civil liberties, security clearances, border security, and counternarcotics efforts.

After signing the bill, Bush issued a signing statement saying he could withhold all the information sought by Congress.

Likewise, when Congress passed the law creating the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, it said oversight committees must be given information about vulnerabilities at chemical plants and the screening of checked bags at airports.

It also said Congress must be shown unaltered reports about problems with visa services prepared by a new immigration ombudsman. Bush asserted the right to withhold the information and alter the reports.

On several other occasions, Bush contended he could nullify laws creating ”whistle-blower” job protections for federal employees that would stop any attempt to fire them as punishment for telling a member of Congress about possible government wrongdoing.

[…]

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive-power issues, said Bush has cast a cloud over ”the whole idea that there is a rule of law,” because no one can be certain of which laws Bush thinks are valid and which he thinks he can ignore.

”Where you have a president who is willing to declare vast quantities of the legislation that is passed during his term unconstitutional, it implies that he also thinks a very significant amount of the other laws that were already on the books before he became president are also unconstitutional,” Golove said.

[…]

A president who ignores the court, backed by a Congress that is unwilling to challenge him, Golove said, can make the Constitution simply ”disappear.”

[…]

Though Bush has gone further than any previous president, his actions are not unprecedented.

Since the early 19th century, American presidents have occasionally signed a large bill while declaring that they would not enforce a specific provision they believed was unconstitutional. On rare occasions, historians say, presidents also issued signing statements interpreting a law and explaining any concerns about it.

But it was not until the mid-1980s, midway through the tenure of President Reagan, that it became common for the president to issue signing statements. The change came about after then-Attorney General Edwin Meese decided that signing statements could be used to increase the power of the president.

When interpreting an ambiguous law, courts often look at the statute’s legislative history, debate and testimony, to see what Congress intended it to mean. Meese realized that recording what the president thought the law meant in a signing statement might increase a president’s influence over future court rulings.

Under Meese’s direction in 1986, a young Justice Department lawyer named Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote a strategy memo about signing statements. It came to light in late 2005, after Bush named Alito to the Supreme Court.

In the memo, Alito predicted that Congress would resent the president’s attempt to grab some of its power by seizing ”the last word on questions of interpretation.” He suggested that Reagan’s legal team should ”concentrate on points of true ambiguity, rather than issuing interpretations that may seem to conflict with those of Congress.”

Reagan’s successors continued this practice. George H.W. Bush challenged 232 statutes over four years in office, and Bill Clinton objected to 140 laws over his eight years, according to Kelley, the Miami University of Ohio professor.

Many of the challenges involved longstanding legal ambiguities and points of conflict between the president and Congress.

Throughout the past two decades, for example, each president — including the current one — has objected to provisions requiring him to get permission from a congressional committee before taking action. The Supreme Court made clear in 1983 that only the full Congress can direct the executive branch to do things, but lawmakers have continued writing laws giving congressional committees such a role.

Still, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton used the presidential veto instead of the signing statement if they had a serious problem with a bill, giving Congress a chance to override their decisions.

But the current President Bush has abandoned the veto entirely, as well as any semblance of the political caution that Alito counseled back in 1986. In just five years, Bush has challenged more than 750 new laws, by far a record for any president, while becoming the first president since Thomas Jefferson to stay so long in office without issuing a veto.

”What we haven’t seen until this administration is the sheer number of objections that are being raised on every bill passed through the White House,” said Kelley, who has studied presidential signing statements through history. ”That is what is staggering. The numbers are well out of the norm from any previous administration.”

[…]

Such political fallout from Congress is likely to be the only check on Bush’s claims, legal specialists said.

The courts have little chance of reviewing Bush’s assertions, especially in the secret realm of national security matters.

”There can’t be judicial review if nobody knows about it,” said Neil Kinkopf, a Georgia State law professor who was a Justice Department official in the Clinton administration. ”And if they avoid judicial review, they avoid having their constitutional theories rebuked.”

Without court involvement, only Congress can check a president who goes too far. But Bush’s fellow Republicans control both chambers, and they have shown limited interest in launching the kind of oversight that could damage their party.

”The president is daring Congress to act against his positions, and they’re not taking action because they don’t want to appear to be too critical of the president, given that their own fortunes are tied to his because they are all Republicans,” said Jack Beermann, a Boston University law professor. ”Oversight gets much reduced in a situation where the president and Congress are controlled by the same party.”

Said Golove, the New York University law professor: ”Bush has essentially said that ‘We’re the executive branch and we’re going to carry this law out as we please, and if Congress wants to impeach us, go ahead and try it.’ ”

Bruce Fein, a deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, said the American system of government relies upon the leaders of each branch ”to exercise some self-restraint.” But Bush has declared himself the sole judge of his own powers, he said, and then ruled for himself every time.

”This is an attempt by the president to have the final word on his own constitutional powers, which eliminates the checks and balances that keep the country a democracy,” Fein said. ”There is no way for an independent judiciary to check his assertions of power, and Congress isn’t doing it, either. So this is moving us toward an unlimited executive power.” [“Bush challenges hundreds of laws” (Boston Globe)]

Tags: George W. Bush, Congress, Boston Globe, The U.S. Constitution

Quote of the Day: Useless Men

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.”
– John Adams

Tags: Quote of the Day, Congress, John Adams

Save The Internet III

SaveTheInternet.com has their own Blog where they are updating regularly with the latest and greatest info on what’s happening with the net neutrality cause.  Please add it to your blogroll.

Tags: net neutrality, Congress, Save the Internet

Save The Internet II

Matt Stoller at MyDD is blogging all this week about the Net Neutrality issue. It affects us all and it really is us versus Big Business. (I normally wouldn’t link to Moveon.org as I think they’re too extremist, but I do believe in this particular cause…if you don’t like them, go sign the petition at savetheinternet.com, which is what I did. )

Background on the Issue: The internet is open because private companies haven’t been allowed to block content they don’t like. Now the telcos want to make it so they can block what you see.The Threat to You is real: Telcos have already blocked competing services, censored emails, and political web sites of unions negotiating with them. Why do you assume they care about your rights?Come On, This Isn’t Really Happening: Fine, don’t believe me. Ignore the fact that the CEO of AT&T is on record that this is going to happen. You can pretend that this won’t affect you, if you want.

‘Net Neutrality’: A Simple Explanation: Annoying tech issue, maybe, but you can watch this this simple video explanation.

Explaining the Players in the Fight: It’s a corporate cartel with bought and paid lobbyists versus a free market and citizens groups.

Can we win this fight? Yes, we can. Congress isn’t that set on giving away the internet. They just don’t understand the issues involved and don’t think anyone’s paying attention.

What You Should Link to:
SavetheInternet.com
Moveon Petition
Save the Internet on MySpace

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Tags: net neutrality, Congress, Save the Internet, AT&T, MyDD

Save The Internet

Now here’s something that isn’t making headline news and should be. This will affect everyone if it makes it through and probably people either think no one will be able to enforce it or it’ll never happen in their life time. This is real Big Brother type stuff.

If you’ve ever been frustrated because you were using a library, campus, military, or work computer and couldn’t get to a website because it was blocked, imagine if your phone company or service provider could do that to you just because they want more money? Imagine that your service provider could charge you extra to go to ebay or Amazon.com or bloglines or cnn.com. Imagine that your service provider could decide whether or not you could read Air America’s site or Rush’s or Fox News or NPRs based on their politics not yours.

Just think about it.

Congress is pushing a law that would abandon “network neutrality.” Network neutrality prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from choosing which Web sites open most easily for you based on who pays them more. Your local library shouldn’t have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.

If the public doesn’t speak up now, Congress will hand control of the Internet to companies that want to decide what you do, where you go and what you watch online. Politicians are already trading favors for campaign donations from these companies. They’re selling us out to people like AT&T’s CEO, who says “the Internet can’t be free.”

Internet freedom could soon be fenced in by the phone and cable companies. If Congress turns the Internet over to AT&T, everyone will be affected.

How does this affect you?
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Tags: COPE Act, Congress, net neutrality, blogs, iTunes, web hosting, politics, Internet

Bush Thumbs His Nose At Oversight In Patriot Act

In another nose-thumbing at the U.S. Constitution and Congress, President Bush wrote another love note to Congress and the American people on the Patriot Act when he signed the latest version on March 9th. He wants to make sure that everyone knows that he doesn’t have to answer to anyone no matter what the law. What happened to checks and balances?

WASHINGTON — When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act’s expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

[…]

Past presidents occasionally used such signing statements to describe their interpretations of laws, but Bush has expanded the practice. He has also been more assertive in claiming the authority to override provisions he thinks intrude on his power, legal scholars said.

Bush’s expansive claims of the power to bypass laws have provoked increased grumbling in Congress. Members of both parties have pointed out that the Constitution gives the legislative branch the power to write the laws and the executive branch the duty to ”faithfully execute” them.

[…]

Bush’s signing statement on the USA Patriot Act nearly went unnoticed.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, inserted a statement into the record of the Senate Judiciary Committee objecting to Bush’s interpretation of the Patriot Act, but neither the signing statement nor Leahy’s objection received coverage from in the mainstream news media, Leahy’s office said.

Yesterday, Leahy said Bush’s assertion that he could ignore the new provisions of the Patriot Act — provisions that were the subject of intense negotiations in Congress — represented ”nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law.”

[…]

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said the statement may simply be ”bluster” and does not necessarily mean that the administration will conceal information about its use of the Patriot Act.

But, he said, the statement illustrates the administration’s ”mind-bogglingly expansive conception” of executive power, and its low regard for legislative power.

‘‘On the one hand, they deny that Congress even has the authority to pass laws on these subjects like torture and eavesdropping, and in addition to that, they say that Congress is not even entitled to get information about anything to do with the war on terrorism,” Golove said. [“Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement” (Boston Globe)]

(Emphasis placed by myself.)

Hat tip to Tennessee Guerilla Women.

Tags: George W. Bush, Patriot Act, Boston Globe, The U.S. Constitution, Congress, Conspiracy Theories

Senate Votes Us A Deeper Debt Hole

Well, this has kind of slipped by with little hooplah, but while everyone was arguing about whether or not to censure President Bush over warrantless wiretapping and whether or not Democrats are spineless cowards (which they are), the Senate voted 52-48 yesterday to raise the limit on the national debt to $9 trillion so the U.S. Treasury wouldn’t default for the first time ever. In case you’re wondering, “$9 trillion represents about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.” [“Senate votes to raise debt limit” (ABS News)] Of course, it’s all up to President Bush now, but with his veto record, I’m not sure whether it’s worth the brain energy to wonder if he’ll sign it.

Granted, this “extra” money will allow the government to pay for the war in Iraq, Medicare, and other Federal programs, but they did it rather than do the responsible thing which is raise taxes. Let’s face it, Bush’s tax cuts have not trickled down to revive anything and they haven’t helped the economy. The only ones benefiting are large corporations and the rich, who can afford to help foot the bill a little more so that our country doesn’t go further into debt.

One of the things I agreed with John Kerry about was responsible spending. O.K. I don’t know if he was serious about it when he said it anymore, but it’s my belief that if you don’t have the money, you don’t spend it. This administration seems to be on a wild spending spree, shopping at all the expensive stores and forgetting to pay rent and utilities and the credit cards and the other necessities. If I managed my checkbook the way they managed the Federal budget, I’d be in prison by now or at least I’d be living in a shopping cart.

Is it too much to ask that my goverment be a little bit more responsible with the money I’m giving it?

Tags: Senate, Congress, George W. Bush, politics, national debt, taxes, Federal budget

Congress Is Dead

With everything going on in the blogsphere, in national politics, in women’s rights, in the Middle East, in Iraq in particular, in the world in general, I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed the last few days. Politics in particular has made me particularly restless the last three or four days. I’ve been debating a personal rebellion, a political mutiny. However, what I’ve come to realize is that it’s hard to defect from a party when you don’t belong to one. You just can’t up and flounce out of the room with a dramatic slam of the door behind you if you weren’t in there in the first place.

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Tags: Congress, George W. Bush, Russ Feingold, politics, Bill Clinton, 9/11, Democrats, Republicans, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan

Bush Is Losing His Iron Grip

Well, well, well…it appears that Bush is losing his hold over Congress. At the very least it appears that some Republicans in Congress are starting to think for themselves or are maybe listening to the increasingly disenchanted majority.

There’s a growing alarm in both parties over the mistreatment of prisoners in the Middle East and Guantanamo Bay and yesterday, in defiance of the White House, 46 Senate Republicans joined forces with 43 Senate Democrats and 1 Independent Senator in voting to define and limit interrogation techniques that U.S. troops may use against terrorism suspects, suspected insurgents, and the like. (And in case you’re wondering, 9 Senators voted against this anti-torture addition to a military funding bill…that’s 9 Senators voting “for” torture if you use the Republican’s own understanding of how these votes work, if last year’s campaign is any indication.)

Meanwhile, President Bush is threatening to veto the larger bill this language is now attached to — a $440 billion military spending measure. If he does veto it, doesn’t that mean he doesn’t support our military? I mean, doesn’t he want the military to be properly funded and armed?

McCain said military officers have implored Congress for guidelines, adding that he mourns “what we lose when by official policy or by official negligence we allow, confuse or encourage our soldiers to forget . . . that which is our greatest strength: that we are different and better than our enemies.”

…

In his closing speech, McCain said terrorists “hold in contempt” international conventions “such as the Geneva Conventions and the treaty on torture.”

“I know that,” he said. “But we’re better than them, and we are the stronger for our faith.” [“Senate Supports Interrogation Limits (WashingtonPost.com)”]

I just puffy heart McCain.

Tags: George W. Bush, Congress, Republicans, Middle East, Guantanamo Bay, torture, John McCain

Support Your President Does Not Mean Follow Blindly

O.K. So, yes, I’m disappointed in the election results.

Honestly? I thought I would be crushed but I’m not. I thought the election was very close though those “on the winning team” seem to think 3.5 million is a big difference though when you consider how many people voted, it’s a drop in the bucket.

So, the Republicans have the White House and Congress. Eleven states shamefully passed constitutional bans that allow a class of people to be discriminated in, which I admit surprised the hell out of me in this day and age.

I’m looking at the silver lining these days.

For the next four years, the Republicans will have no one to blame but themselves for the mess they’ve created in the last four years and as someone kindly pointed out to me recently, John Kerry would not have gotten anything done if he had won because the Republican Congress would have blocked him every which way and he would have been heavily criticized for every little thing. President Bush made the mess and now he gets to sit in it.

Am I worried?

Yes.

Am I bitter?

No.

Mostly I’m tired of the whining, the gloating, and the hateful name-calling between people on both sides of the party lines. I’m disgusted with how nasty the whole election became and how this administration is acting. Bush says he wants to be a uniter but his actions conflict with his words. He’s encouraging the petty, spiteful behavior between people who are now separating themselves based on the colors of the election map. It’s like a giant gang war is about to happen nationwide, the Reds vs. the Blues.

Who cares? Stop whining about what could have been. Figure out what went wrong. Figure out what things you want to do in the next four years to support the things you want to happen and protest those things you feel strongly are wrong. For me, I’m going to get more involved in getting people to register to vote, to care enough to be informed, to get out and vote. Really, I felt strongly about who I wanted in the White House and I voted that way but what I cared about was that people got out and voted and people did in record numbers. I heard last night that a record number of young people under 30 voted this year. Heck, more people voted for John Kerry than voted for Ronald Reagan and more people voted for George W. Bush than any other president in history. As nasty as it all got, people did feel passionate about voting. I’m sorry to see people not channelling that passion in positive ways now rather than dwelling on losing.

I will say that it was eery to be here in Maine the day after the election. It was sad. So many people were just walking around in shock and in mourning. My gay friends were the most affected though Maine was not one of the 11 states of shame. I must say that I feel for them because I wonder why anyone believes that this is the right thing to do. I can’t imagine that Jesus meant for us to love our neighbors and stomp on their legal rights at the same time.

One last comment. A pet peeve I’ve developed. People who voted for Bush keep angrily telling people who didn’t to just shut up and support our President and while I really want to point out that most liberals endured 8 years of Rush’s “White House Under Seige” rants and a witch hunt to find anything on Clinton to criticize and a ridiculous tempertantrum over the fact that he had an affair and lied about it when he should never have been asked about it in the first place, the truth is that no matter who is President, it is our American right to not follow our leaders blindly like sheep. They aren’t perfect and how will they know what we want and if we’re happy with their work if we keep our mouths shut? I support my country. I love my country but I will not follow blindly on a path I do not believe my country should be travelling down. I want my voice to be heard.

Tags: politics, 2004 election, Gay Rights, Republicans, Congress

Reflections On Last Night’s Debate & Related Things

• Why do Congressmen get $7700 per family health insurance packages? Obviously these people have far more money than the people they represent so why are the taxpayers forced to pay this enormous amount to ensure these people when something like 5 Million or is it more are unable to afford health insurance. John Kerry mentioned this number in his promise to give everyone this option. He said that obviously those who could afford health insurance would have to pay for their own, but that those those that didn’t would get the same deal Congressmen do. I think that Congressmen are obviously wealthy enough to afford their own health insurance, why are the taxpayers are not burdoned with it.
• In response to a question regarding job loss in the United States, President Bush said that it was important to re-educate people for jobs of the 21rst century. He suggested that there would be programs at community colleges for this to happen. Fifteen years ago, careers in computers were going to be the jobs of the 21rst century. Now, IT is one of the top industries hit with unemployment in the U.S. As we watch our 21 century jobs being shipped overseas, what jobs does President Bush suggest we re-educate ourselves to do and why is it that my 4-year Bachelor of Science degree is now worthless and needs to be replaced by a community college education?
• President Bush indicated that one of the ways to cut Healthcare costs is to bring the medical sector into the 21rst century with technology. I agree with this. However, as one of my IT co-workers at the hospital pointed out, most hospitals cannot afford to go all the way to electronic medical records. In fact, the very conversion would be a complete nightmare. It would take a decade per hospital probably. And I suppose that the best way to cut costs on this is to ship the IT conversion part overseas. Though likely the consultants would be astonished at the snail’s pace and red tape dealing with a hospital requires.
• Bush refused to answer the question on whether or not he supports overturning Roe V. Wade. He even accused Kerry of wanting to purposely appoint people who he knew would not do this rather than choosing the best person for the job. However, looking at the people Bush has chosen to nominate to key positions where Pro-choice and the option for birth control could be decided and/or taken away, I think that President Bush does in fact have a lithmus test for his appointees, despite his smoke and mirrors claim.
• Kerry correctly pointed out that while “No Child Left Behind” is a good program, it is severly underfunded and this is Bush’s fault. Bush’s reply was to claim that only a liberal would say that increasing education funding by 49% is not enough. The fact is that it wasn’t enough to fund the