Category: Politics

Today’s Washington Post reports that the White House has announced that the Executive Branch does not need to answer to the Legislative Branch.

Well, that’s the short version. The long version is that Congress won’t be permitted — permitted! — to pursue contempt charges against certain members of the Administration for whom the President has invoked executive privilege. How can they do that? Very simple: under federal law the contempt charges must be run through the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who is then legally obligated to convene a grand jury. However, the U.S. Attorneys work for the Justice Department and for Alberto Gonzales. Furthermore, remember that Congress is attempting to investigate how and why 9 U.S. Attorneys were fired.

An anonymous administration official has stated that no U.S. Attorney will be allowed to pursue such charges against the administration, nor “permitted to argue against the reasoned legal opinion that the Justice Department provided.” He did not need to add that at this point, each and every U.S. Attorney knows what will happen to his or her job should if they do not Follow Orders and Tow The Company Line. This of course includes the U.S. Attorney for the District of Colombia.

How on earth is Congress supposed to get to the bottom of anything when the Administration refuses to give them complete documentation and even refuses to allow key witnesses to appear for questioning? They aren’t, and that’s the point.

What exactly are they trying to hide? Perhaps a High Crime or Misdemeanor?

Several possible options lie before Congress. They can use their “inherent contempt” power, which does not require the cooperation of the Justice Department, but will have the look of an internal witch trial. They can impeach Gonzales — he’s already on record lying to Congress and that’s impeachable all by itself — and the Senate can refuse to confirm a successor until this mess is settled and Harriet Miers appears before them. Perhaps they will talk about using the I Bomb on the President himself. And perhaps there is a path that seems clear to guys like Harry Reid that isn’t obvious to you and me. But this situation cannot be allowed to stand.

In closing: War on Science == War on Women; a follow up on an item from 4 years ago (!), details are finally trickling out about Cheney’s energy task force meetings from 2001; Sure, the President gets to invoke privilege, but he also has the right to say you won’t be needing due process; new study by guys who know what they are talking about says there’s a big energy problem, and we’d better address it starting with better efficiency; and finally “Key to a long life — Less Insulin in the Brain cautions us that the best way to get that “less insulin” is “good, old-fashioned diet and exercise.” But then they never tell you what they mean by a “good old-fashioned diet.” A quarter says they mean a diet low in sugar and moderate in complex carbohydrates, because under normal circumstances our bodies produce insulin after we eat such foods. So a sugar-high might be just as bad for you as illegal drugs?

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you are a citizen of the United States of America (as opposed to the United States of George and Dick) prepare to be outraged. You will be in good company.

Scooter Libby has had his sentence commuted. Hours after a unanimous appeals court said he has to start serving his sentence immediately because they don’t think he has a snowball’s chance of winning an appeal , the President himself swooped in, usurping the authority of the Judiciary, and said Scooter can make do with fines and probation.

Oh but wait there’s more. Just go ahead and try to call the White House to let them know your opinion. They’ve decided not to answer the phones for the rest of the day. Frankly I think they’ll use the holiday — oh the irony — as an excuse not to answer the phone until next week.

So the President can’t afford to let Scooter go to jail? Fascinating! Couldn’t even wait to quietly handle this after the 2008 elections, like most normal Presidents? Sure he has the legal authority to do this, but the jury has yet to convene on the ethical authority. By doing this, the President has said in essence I am above the law, and it’s ok to out a spy as long as you are just following my orders.

Guess what, folks? It’s time for a civil suit. And please remember that it is now a well established legal fact that the President can be forced to testify in a civil suit. Maybe the Clinton-haters cut off their nose to spite their face.

So we can’t call the White House. But we can call Congress. According to these guys you can reach them toll free at 888-818-6641, 888-355-3588, 800-426-8073, 800-828-0498 and 800-SOB-USOB. We can call Harry, and we can call Nancy (Sweetie? You’d better have an inaugural gown in mind), and we can leave irate emails and faxes and voicemails for our Congressmen and Senators.

Well?? Get on it!

By now you have probably heard that Bush will get his money for war without end, even though he may have to put up with some social programs and a higher minimum wage to get it.

If you are outraged, here is what you need to do. Get a recent piece of mail that has your zip+4 on it. Now, clicking here will open the House of Representatives website in a new tab. Use that zip+4 to find your Representative and the link to send him or her email. Be sure you fill out the form completely so they will know you are a real human being. Select the entire text of the next paragraph. Using the command from the “Edit” menu of your browser, copy it then paste it into the text box of the form. Add your own words of wisdom if you like and hit send. When you are done, click here to open the Senate website and repeat the process; you won’t need your zip code, only your state. Our elected officials need to know that this will not do at all.

I am very disappointed in Congress for caving to the Bush Administration demands that the Iraq war be allowed to continue, fully funded, with no time-line for leaving. This nation cannot afford to keep pouring money and troops into Iraq. The majority of American people want our troops to come home, and the majority of Iraqi people want our troops to go home. While it is true that conditions in Iraq are chaotic, that is because our troops are there, because the Administration is actively thwarting attempts to come to an internal peace agreement. In fact, a British newspaper has reported that American forces planned to assassinate a major participant in a peace negotiation. It is time to stop pretending our troops are doing anything but getting in the way, and send them back home where they can have the honorable mission of protecting this country.

Thank you for acting on your outrage, and letting your elected officials know that when all is said and done, they answer to voters, not polls and not party leaders.

In closing: Modern Machiavelli; if Congress needs something to argue about there’s always Health Care Crisis Squeezes Working Families; and Japanfilter, Double Big Mac with a Fried Egg on it is thankfully only available for a limited time, and Japan is paying to send our troops out of Okinawa.

So now we know that yes, Elizabeth Edwards is battling cancer again, but that John Edwards will continue to work and campaign to be our next President. I wish I could find a transcript of the press conference, because he said something to the effect of “If I can’t handle both these things at the same time, then I can’t handle being President.”

Sad but true, this puts Mr. Edwards more in line with Joe Average. Over 240,000 women per year are diagnosed with breast cancer alone in the United States, and it’s a good bet that many of them have husbands or other long-term partners.

Joe Average can’t quit work to take care of a sick wife. If nothing else, he would lose his health insurance benefits, which means paying for all her care out-of-pocket. He can’t get private insurance that will cover the expenses, because her illness will be considered a “pre-existing condition.” In fact, woe to Joe if he is self-employed or an independant contractor, since his insurance rates are about to go through the roof at the very time he can least afford it. It is worth noting that the Edwards health reform plan does very little for Joe unless he has an employer. Which reminds me — Mrs. Edwards’s previous bout with cancer was fairly well publicized; is her current problem covered at all?

Nor can Joe Average afford to take a lot of time off work to accompany his ailing wife to doctor’s appointments and hospital visits. Joe is expected to keep his private life to himself. That means no whining, and getting the job done. If Joe gets an hourly wage, he can’t afford to lose the hours as much as he wants to be there for her; if Joe is salaried, chances are he is expected to give 110% and pitch in with unpaid overtime at the boss’s whim. Mr. Edwards, on the other hand, despite his gruelling schedule can still manage to “be there” for important appointments. He’s clearly a stand-up guy in this respect.

If Joe Average has kids, that throws an additional wrinkle into things. Chances are his wife has been the primary provider for the kids, even if she has been working full time. Her illness makes it unlikely that she can continue to do everything that she has done around the house. Joe’s time is already stretched very thin for the reasons described above. If Joe is very, very lucky, he might have a (female) relative who can come help around the house for a few months. It is worth noting that he would never consider asking a male relative for such assistance. If there are no female relatives, either there’s a lot of pizza and canned soup in the Average Family’s future, or he’s going to need to hire some help he can barely afford to pay. Probably both. By way of contrast, the Edwards Family probably already have household staff on at least a part time basis, and they certainly have the money to hire quality in-home assistance if necessary. They also have a grown daughter who can pitch in if needed.

It will be interesting to see how Mr. Edwards’s political stances evolve with his circumstances.

In closing: “fame, narcissism, and MySpace”; yet another state considering a wait and see stance on Real ID; the Heinlein Society; clearing the way to using (what’s left of) our troops at home; Amnesty International thinks our treatment of certain prisoners leaves a lot to be desired, like say, trials; and finally hmm, yeah conservatism is expensive.

Ok, so in ring one of this circus we have Al Gonzales dancing as fast as he can. He has to put on a good show, lest someone notice that only the President can fire federal attorneys. Which means that either the President knew what was going on, has no clue (maybe he thought he was cancelling a delivery of broccoli to the White House), or that the attorneys were fired illegally. None of these is good. As distasteful as it is that after all the things Mr. Gonzales has said and done, it turns out that 8 politically motivated terminations are the one unnacceptable thing in the bipartisan eyes of the Senate. But wait, it gets better! It turns out that this may be a puppet show, with none other than everyone’s favorite crony, Karl Rove pulling the strings from a remote email account. Why is that important? Because if he’d used a whitehouse.gov email account, it would be archived and available on subpoena. So now, everybody wants to get to the bottom of this situation. And that means somebody *cough cough that would be you, Mr. Rove* has to testify before Congress. Not just the Senate. The House of Representatives too. Needless to say the White House doesn’t like that idea one bit. They may have very little bargaining room, as now it seems Mr. Gonzales may have lied to Congress.

Meanwhile in ring two we have the Iraq War. The darn thing is getting ready to have a 4th anniversary, sad as that is to say, and it’s not quite as popular as it was when it was younger. The President is having to spend time and energy defending it, “plead[ing] for patience” and giving us dire, dire warnings about what might happen if we were to stop pouring money down that bottomless pit and support our troops by bringing them home. Be afraid! Be very afraid! I fear that our capacity for fear was drained by years of Department of Homeland Security look out oh wait it’s nothing warnings. It is no coincidence that suddenly reports are coming out of our professional torture chambers that the enemy combatants we have in custody have confessed to everything short of funding John Wilkes Booth (yes folks, that last link is satire). If this isn’t enough to discredit the practice of torture, what more do we need? War is hell, we have lost a lot of lives on both sides, and we have lost a lot of money.

It’s hard to tell what’s going on in the third ring of this circus. It’s totally dark. And even though it’s hard to tell in the dark, it may be covered by a big tarp. And in fact to be perfectly honest, all the things that we are pretty sure we know happened there happened years ago now. But it sure looks like certain people in the administration are doing everything they can to keep the War on Terra rolling. For example, The Taliban offered to send Osama Bin Laden to a neutral country presumably for trial back in October of 2001. If we really wanted justice, the international courts are the place. Seriously, you won’t find an impartial jury here in the United States. Surely the Hague could have helped us out on this one. And then we have the Vice President. It seems that various parties may have been working out of Mr. Cheney’s office to “us[e] stolen funds from Iraq to arm al Qaeda-tied groups and foment a larger Sunni-Shia war…” It was specifically done this way — the author alleges — to avoid the problems of CIA involvement that brought the Iran-Contra scandal to public attention.

If nothing here rises to the standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, what does it take?

In closing: compare and contrast; credit card tricks; credit card tips (hey, I can be fair and balanced too!); a car that’s supposed to be a little fishy; when it comes to TV, “[T]orture is the new sex”; and finally, a big plane we don’t need.

Or, Bring Me the Head of Alberto Gonzales.
Back in January I said to write your Senators and tell them to demand the resignation of United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Bad enough he has called the Geneva Conventions and their prohibition on torture “quaint.”

Bad enough he authored the opionions that allow terror suspects to be held without charges until the end of the War on Terror — a war which Discovery and Ted Koppel are calling “Our Children’s Children’s War”.

Bad enough he thinks it’s just fine for Vice President Dick Cheney to have secret meetings with energy company executives before coming up with an “energy plan”.

Bad enough he has sat in a Senate hearing and said that the Constitution does not actually give us a right to Habeas Corpus.

Now it is clear that he has been instrumental in getting rid of eight U.S. Attorneys — who had recently gotten “glowing performance reviews” — apparently on grounds of not towing the official administration line. The Christian Science Monitor says “At issue is whether the Justice Department’s decision to replace these top federal prosecutors was a political purge and, if so, what Congress can do about it.” Let me tell you what Congress an do about it: Since even “senior” Senate Republicans think this stinks, this is the time for the Senate to act by demanding Gonzales’s resignation. Now.

In closing, Follow-Up Friday is a little early: Pediatricians warn that the kind of insurance policies President Bush and the “free markets fix everything” crowd favor may make kids sicker; Washington Post tells us the bleeding obvious, Health Care is already a huge issue in the 2008 elections; NYT and IHT tell us even more obvious news, the self employed don’t have employers to provide health insurance, and therefore they often must do without; Arnold and Eliot; NYT/IHT are calling it a “home mortgage crisis”; Al Gore says the EU must lead where the USA doesn’t; big diet study says no sugar low carbohydrate diets help people lose weight; and an item I’ve not covered before, internships are so competitive there are companies to help young adults (whose mommies and daddies have money) get them (thus widening the gap between haves and have-nots by expanding the “experiences” and rolodexes of wealthy young adults).

So now, we have word that Presidential candidate John Edwards has proposed a so-called “universal” health plan. Here’s a couple of choice paragraphs from the ABC News version of the story:

“Can we finally say we stand, now and forever, for every single man, woman and child in America having health care, universal health care?” Edwards said before a speech at the Democratic National Committee. “We will leave no one behind. We will not allowed a single family or a single child in America to not have health care coverage and to not have the health care that they need and deserve.”

[snip]

Edwards plan would first require employers to cover their workers or help pay for their insurance. He would try to clamp down on rising costs with tax credits to help lower and middle income taxpayers pay for their plans, expanded government programs like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and changes to insurance laws to require coverage for all regardless of pre-existing conditions or other factors. And he would create nonprofit regional purchasing pools so that consumers would have a way to buy an affordable and high quality plan.

So on one side he claims he wants a plan that provides healthcare for every man, woman and child. And then it turns out his plan depends on employers buying healthcare policies. Apparently he has forgotten that children don’t have employers.

And that is merely the most obvious of reasons his plan won’t work. Everybody else is beating their chests about how it will mean higher taxes! Nobody is mentioning that his plan requires changes to insurance law in pretty much each of the 50 states. Nobody is mentioning that it is just another plan that siphons money out of doctor’s and patient’s and even employer’s pockets, and stuffing the bank accounts of mostly for-profit insurance companies. It’s just another Hillary-style band-aid on a fundamentally broken system.

It’s time for something completely different. Let’s hope we get it before there’s a real medical emergency.

Other Musings: job creation and unemployment numbers are in a place where economists can pretend they are good news; latest salvo in trade war with China; somebody has noticed that contractors amount to a “4th branch of government”, effectively outsourcing things that maybe shouldn’t be outsourced; Prince!; and thanks to frequent-poster Jukkou-san for pointing out that states are fighting back on RealID, so keep bugging your state legislature because it’s working!

Follow up: Some of you realize that Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon is working for the Edwards campaign. She posted a call for questions on the Edwards Health Plan, and linked this document, which confirms that this is a mandatory health plan rather than a universal health plan.

So we as a nation have had a chance to digest the State of the Union Address. And we’ve even had a chance to think about the various rebuttals.

It’s time to send some nice friendly mail to your Senators. Specifically, there are two things you need to impress upon them. The first has to do with their systematic destruction of the minimum wage hike bill that passed the House with flying colors. You may be aware that in the Senate, there has been an attempt to saddle it with a bunch of tax cuts. These cuts allegedly benefit “small businesses”, but I imagine that a close look would reveal a strange definition of “small businesses” is in play. It is worth noting that some news sources drop the word “small” altogether.

But what you may not know is that the Senate has also tried to use this bill to exempt agricultural workers from minimum wage laws! Talk about creating “jobs Americans don’t want”; Americans kind of like being able to — in the immortal words of Mr. Bush — “put food on their families.” And we will scratch our heads and wonder how the next food contamination scare happened. Funny thing about asking people who make under the minimum wage to use food sanitation guidelines.

But wait, there’s more!

This article only touches on a serious problem in the President’s Cabinet. We have an Attorney General for the United States of America who does not believe that we necessarily have the right of habeas corpus. None other than Arlen Spector called him on this, asking how the Constitution can say a right can’t be taken away unless we specifically have that right to begin with. The battle becomes bipartisan as Patrick Leahy joins the action. If you want to see the whole thing in context, these nice people have it.

You need to write both your Senators today. Tell them to pass a clean minimum wage hike, and stop screwing around. Or better yet, tell them that it is high time to demand the resignation of Alberto Gonzales for fundamentally failing to understand the Constitution he has sworn to uphold and betraying his duty as “the people’s lawyer.”

In closing: obligatory comments on health care; terrific site that addresses the practical considerations of travel in the modern world; speaking of travel, Bruce Schneier once more says the truth; yet another Federal voucher proposal, never mind what a bad idea it is; what R2D2 and Chewbacca were really thinking in Star Wars; been a long time since I said anything about Fannie Mae; a different spin on the ticking bomb scenario; a Government initiative that has the stated purpose of food safety but the actual purpose of driving small and sustainable faming operations out of business; and finally, I want a HoverJeep!

Follow up: It seems that someone managed to sneak in an amendment that would pre-empt state laws mandating a higher minimum wage. What on earth were they thinking??

Or, “Yo Quiero Job at Taco Bell”

Yesterday, some people commented on Jeb Bush’s comments that he had no [political] future:

“No tengo futuro (I have no future),” Jeb Bush told Spanish-language reporters in Miami, when asked about any possible political ambitions after he steps down next month.” Jeb Bush told Spanish-language reporters in Miami, when asked about any possible political ambitions after he steps down next month.

Senator Brownback thinks that’s just a shame. Yes, that Senator Brownback.

The nice folks over at The Moderate Voice have a nice commentary with roundup and a brilliant picture of soon-to-be-ex Governor Bush and his esteemed brother, the President.

Now of course political pundits say the Governor is in his current state for no better reason than his brother’s poor approval ratings. Nope, couldn’t have anything at all to do with Terri Schiavo. Nope, everybody secretly hopes the Governor will interfere in their family’s most difficult decisions. Nor could it possibly have anything to do with his stance on the issues, including not even teaching about abortion, supporting “abstinence only” sex-ed, refering to feminism as a “modern victim movement”, repealing motorcycle helmet laws, supporting draconian criminal punishments, spending more money on drug enforcement, bringing in more farm workers from Mexico, and a host of other things that just might not sit well with Joe and Jane Average. At least he supports the Kyoto Treaty.

Alright then, Governor Bush’s comments tend to suggest he is officially planning on not running for President in 2008. Very well. Brother Neil is probably not a viable candidate either. That’s expected; this country has had father/son presidents before, but never brothers. Not even the Kennedys pulled that off.

Now I figure we have 20 years until it’s time to worry about the twins. And even then, I don’t think Jenna is the political one. Barbara is the Yalie, after all. Barbara is in fact the one named after a former first lady, the one who is a fourth generation Yale graduate, the one who was voted most likely to be on the cover of Vogue, and the one who has been clever enough not to say anything stupid on the internet (yet, of course). Oh, and if something she says does get quoted in a bad light, she can always blame Gramma.

In closing: make a better life for yourself, but do it without job training, more education, or help with childcare; “Um yeah, it turns out the economy isn’t doing as well as we told you before, sorry about that”; strangely enough it turns out that contraception reduces infidelity while increasing women’s income potential, put that in your “root of all modern society’s problems” and smoke it; it’s purely a coincidence that yesterday Mr. Bush was talking about a bigger military and today the Canadian news is reporting a test of the Selective Service system; still trying to find a gift for a teenager?; parents, experts agree “maybe we don’t have to drug little Johnny”; how long can Americans continue too spend more than they earn?; an item on ethics, food, restaurants, and you (thanks to Elisa); and finally, GIANT SQUID! Oishii desu ka? (Is it delicious?)

“Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.”

Ok, now think about this for a couple minutes. Exhibit one, Joe and Jane Average support the idea of a minimum wage increase, protecting the environment, getting the heck out of Iraq, repealing the Bush tax cuts, and a host of other “liberal” ideas. In fact, Joe and Jane and the majority of their neighbors support such “liberal” ideas.

Exhibit two, “Purple America,” the idea that America is far more Democratic leaning and liberal than the pundits would have us all beleive. This author focuses on the South, but I think far more interesting is the bright blue of the Dakotas and Upper Midwest.

And exhibit three, the fact that so many elections went to the Democratic Party in light of what was expected to be massive voter fraud ranging from selective purges of voting rolls to voting machine irregularities. In fact, it turned out better than most Democratic strategists honestly thought it would. Now, some of those races were real squeakers, but the Dems won. And the President was seeming downright contrite on Wednesday the 8th. Could that be because — without the fraud — the Dems would have had a genuine landslide? We will of course never know.

So the Democratic Party has a genuine mandate from the people. Not one of those faux mandates President Bush claimed back in 2004.

So if that is the case, why are we hearing stuff from the Sunday talk shows about how there are no liberal plans for the next Congress? If you want to read the comments in context, here they are over at Fox News (yeah yeah I hate to link to them but they are the source). Other sources note that the Democratic faction in Congress is “cautiously moving forward on some issues.”

Our esteemed Congressmen are saying things like:

Well, I think what we really need to do is understand, Democrats like winning elections. We want to win elections, and we’re going to do our best to do so. This doesn’t mean to get into any extreme positions on any matter. We’ll do what makes good sense on Iraq, what makes good sense on tax policy, what makes good sense on the environment and on energy, and we’ll come up with a package that the people will like and that will make good sense in the middle.

Guess what, the Republicans never wanted to meet you in the middle on anything. And “a package that the people will like” is going to be far, far further to the left than your corporate sponsors will allow. Live with it.

Look, nobody expected the Democrats to get really radical. Particularly since they have to get some Republicans on board to make legislation veto-proof. But the least they could do is “the people’s work.” I will agree with Mr. Frank that a minimum wage increase is a good first step (how about instead of a dollar amount, we index that sucker to the poverty line? [Poverty for a family of 4] divided by [52 weeks X 40 hours] = minimum wage]? That way the thing moves every year withoug you guys having to wage any floorfights.)

But for pity sake don’t stop there! And don’t expect anybody to meet you halfway. Do the right thing whenever it is clear there is a right thing to do, and to hell with anybody who would do otherwise. There is a smorgasbord of issues that you can act on the people’s will instead of big money’s will; don’t be afraid to act on them.

The Center is not where you think it is.

In closing: Americans, danger, and risk assessment; the drug crisis that adults make for their kids; and an awesome post from another blog I just discovered. I hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving and are happily preparing for the Midwinter Holidays.

From Snowy Seattle, Peace and Good Wishes and Happy Thoughts.