Family Research Council on War Protest

The Family Research Council has something to say about the protesters at the march in Washington last Saturday.

FRC has done some digging and uncovered more shocking details about the anti-war march in Washington this past weekend. For such a small crowd, the demonstrators were an interesting bunch of people – everything from actors and anarchists to the members of Congress who marched alongside them, including: Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI). Also addressing the crowd from his prison cell was convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal. After talking to members of the Capitol Hill police, FRC discovered that one reason the officers held back from confronting one batch of protestors was because the anarchists threatened the officers with bottles of human urine. Additional damage done to both city and personal property includes a news truck pelted with rocks and spray-painted street signs. Although the demonstrators claimed they supported the troops but not the war, The New York Times reported that some of the protestors actually spat at war veterans as they marched by. Peaceful civil disobedience has an honorable history in the United States, yet many of those who protested last weekend were neither civil nor peaceful. Speaker Pelosi must respond to these actions, even though her party had connections to this shameful march. For a report from the Capitol steps, log on to www.frc.org and watch the video featuring FRC Radio’s Washington Correspondent, Bethanie Swendsen.

Typical bullshit. This one contains every canard in the book.

The Libby Trial

Judy Miller is coming across as one of the least credible witnesses. in the history of witnesses. The Libby defense team is just destroying her. And it is oh-so-delicious considering she went to jail for 85 days to protect their client and she subsequently testified to the grand jury with a deliberately faulty memory in order to protect their client. And now they are turning that all around to make her look like a liar that is hiding something.

The Judy Miller saga began when the DOJ subpoenaed any notes she had on discussions about Joe Wilson in July 2003. The DOJ didn’t realize that Judy had met with Libby on June 23rd, 2003 so they didn’t ask for notes from June. Judy had an out to avoid turning over her notes from June.

But the DOJ found out about that June meeting from someone else and they confronted her with that information when she appeared before the grand jury. Judy went back and found the relevant notebook in a box under her desk. And when she read the notes from the June 23rd meeting it refreshed her memory about a meeting she had forgotten.

In other words, she used the technicality that the original subpoena didn’t ask for June notes to excuse her obstruction of justice, and then she used the faulty memory excuse to explain her inaccurate testimony about when she first heard about Plame from Libby.

It was all an elaborate ruse to help Libby avoid responsibility for leaking highly classified information. And now, Libby’s defense team is absolutely shredding her credibility because her story is a pile of crap. Yet, if she admits why it is a pile of crap she will be immediately arrested and prosecuted for obstruction of justice. She’s sweating bullets up on the stand, and she is acting like a hostile witness, refusing to answer staightforwarldly even the simplest of questions. She can’t remember anything, she has no knowledge of when she learned anything or from whom, she doesn’t understand the organization of the CIA, or the State Department, etc. etc. etc.

It’s a cruel irony for Judy that all the thanks she gets for obstructing this investigation for over a year is to be destroyed by the people she set out to protect. I love it.

Let this be a lesson to anyone that does business with the Bush administration. I don’t care if you are Karzai, Maliki, Lieberman, or Judy Miller…there is no profit in it. They will destroy your reputation quicker than you can say Colin Powell or George Tenet.

Healthy Political Faith and Dissent

It’s hard to avoid labels.  I am a proud political dissident.  Could the majority of Americans be dissidents?  Think of the two-thirds of the country that believe the nation is on the wrong track, the 52 percent that believe politicians are dishonest, the majority that do not vote, and the vast majority that think of themselves as centrists, libertarians, moderates or independents, rather than liberals, Democrats, conservatives or Republicans.  And definitely think of the many thousands of Americans out in the streets in recent months to protest the Iraq war, and the larger numbers reading Internet sites to sidestep the mainstream corporate media.  Dissidents exist because placing faith in mainstream politicians is as delusional as George W. Bush believing that sending more American soldiers into the Iraq cauldron is justified.  It flies in the face of reality, experience and sanity.
The great paradox is that so many people still desperately place faith in politicians.  It’s as if through magic or divine intervention some super-honest, non-corruptible, brilliant and charming Democrat or Republican can reform the system.  And make us feel good again, restore quality to American democracy, and fight economic inequality by rejecting and stomping on all the evil corporate and other special interests that have robbed we the people of our country.  Someone that will actually put the interests of working- and middle-class Americans above those of rich and powerful elites.

So what should American dissidents put their faith in?

I have long sought the answer to that question to avoid existential depression and despair.  And also to avoid doing what most Americans do to dull the pain: compulsive and distractive consumerism.  This is just fine with mainstream politicians.  Debt-ridden consumers are so much easier to govern than active dissidents.  As George W. Bush has preached on many occasions, neo-patriotism equates to personal borrowing, spending, shopping and consumption.

Other than protesting, I have arrived at two things worth putting my political faith in.  And faith is exactly the right word.  They require devotion and commitment as an act of faith.  There is no way to prove that they will materialize or, if they did, that they would deliver all that is needed.  Yet, to keep putting faith in glib, power-hungry politicians is plain nuts, based strictly on actual history.

My first answer is third parties.  At critical times in American history third parties have come to the rescue and greatly improved our nation.  We need more political competition.  We need some third party to become competitive to Democrats and Republicans in local, state and federal elections.  Some party that does not advocate fractious issues that divide, but rather presents a set of principles that bring American dissenters together to collectively pursue substantial changes in our political and governmental system.

Yet, third parties have not done well in recent decades, despite having highly committed members, albeit in relatively small numbers.  The two-party duopoly has convinced most people to think of votes for third-party candidates as wasted.  And so in every election many – and perhaps most – voters end up voting for the lesser evil Democrat or Republican, and eventually regretting it.  Many others reject placebo voting.  They have properly lost political faith.

My second answer is less understood and just as undermined and sullied by the two-party duopoly and other status quo defenders.  It is to compel Congress to obey Article V of the Constitution that says it “shall call a convention for proposing Amendments” if two-thirds of state legislatures apply for one.  That numeric requirement is the ONLY constitutional requirement for an Article V convention.  Now, here is an absolute truthful fact.  Applications have been submitted from 50 states – actually over 500 applications.  An official with The John Birch Society – one of the nations’s far, far right-wing groups – when confronted with that fact said: “had we ever reached the requisite number of state applications, a convention would indeed have been called.”  I could not believe that this anti-government, pro-constitution group could actually have such faith in Congress.  Or was that just a fanciful excuse for opposing a convention?

Still, we must ask: Why has Congress not called an Article V convention?  The answer is simple.  

Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress have not wanted to share the constitutional power to propose amendments with the states.  Institutionally, Congress has defied Article V to keep power.  As Russell L. Caplan noted in Constitutional Brinkmanship: “Congress has never kept regular track of incoming convention applications, and there exists no official catalogue of the applications adopted by the states since 1789.”  Researchers have had to dig through many documents to build an inventory of state applications (see www.article5.org).

While Congress has acted surreptitiously, many people and organizations on the left and right have steadfastly and openly opposed an Article V convention.  What do they have in common with Congress?  They want to maintain the status quo that gives them ample opportunities to control government.  For decades they have successfully implanted fear into the public consciousness.  They especially like to talk about a “runaway convention,” able to overturn our Constitution, destroy our democracy, and rob us of our civil liberties and freedoms.  

Indeed, at a 1998 House hearing on a bill to amend the Constitution, Republican Charles T. Canady said: “The specter of a `runaway convention’ seems to have been accepted by many as a convincing political argument.”  In 1995, when both houses of the Virginia legislature passed a resolution to limit Article V conventions, one reason cited was “many states are reluctant to ask Congress to call a national convention for fear of creating a `runaway convention’ that might undermine the delicate constitutional framework the forefathers worked so hard to establish.”

Yet some people see the truth.  Writing in the Wall Street Journal in 1997, Roger Pilon of the libertarian CATO Institute made these salient points about an Article V convention: “With Nebraska as the only state with a unicameral legislature, it takes majorities in 75 of the 99 state legislative bodies in America to ratify any change in the Constitution.  Looked at from the other direction, it takes only 13 such bodies to block any change.  …Are we really to believe that a runaway convention could get its schemes past the public?  Are there not 13 bodies in this land that would rise to block all but the most popular of proposals?  …By overwhelming majorities, averaging 75 percent, Americans of every creed and color have come to understand that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system that has resulted, under modern conditions, in our being ruled year in and year out by a class of professional politicians.  That situation is neither healthy nor right in a limited, constitutional democracy.  Fortunately, the Framers provided a way to do something about it, a way to make substantial change while ensuring that our fundamental principles remain in place.”

And Wendell Cox, speaking before the right wing American Legislative Exchange Council in 1995, asserted that “concerns about a `runaway’ convention are entirely unfounded.”  At the conservative Heritage Foundation James L. Gattuso concluded in 1988 that “there are numerous political and restraints which make it virtually impossible for a `runaway’ convention to rewrite the Constitution against the wishes of the American people.”

The Framers gave us the Article V convention option because they anticipated that the federal government could become too powerful or just plain incompetent and ineffective.  Dissidents know this has happened.  The government has already been hijacked by all kinds of moneyed special interests and corrupt politicians.  An Article V convention is like a fourth, temporary branch of the federal government – except that it is really a production of the states aimed at improving the federal Constitution.  With enormous public and media attention its delegates would be far more difficult to corrupt by special interests.

What must be emphasized is that an Article V convention would have NO power to change the Constitution or do anything else other than to propose amendments that would have to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.  

John de Herrera recently summed it up nicely: “Americans have been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog to fear a convention because of what might happen–that it would be some kind of Pandora’s box. But what the newspapers and politicians failed to mention is the ratification process. They only told us half the truth, and as the late great Ben Franklin mentioned, half the truth is often a great lie.”

All kinds of people say totally stupid and wrong things to keep the public afraid of a convention.  Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, a Democrat, wrote in 1986 that “one of the most serious problems Article V poses is a runaway convention. There is no enforceable mechanism to prevent a convention from reporting out wholesale changes to our Constitution and Bill of Rights.”  Wait a second!  An Article V convention can only make PROPOSALS.

In 1987 arch-conservative Phyllis Schlafly said: “If a constitutional Convention can change our structure of government as defined in Articles I, II, and III, it can also change the Article V requirement that three-fourths of the states are needed to ratify any changes. The Convention of 1787 reduced the number of states required to ratify a change from 100% of the states to 75%, and a Convention in the 1980s could `follow their example’ and reduce it further, to 66%, or 60%, or even 51%.”  Just that one stubborn problem: An Article V convention can only make PROPOSALS!

On the positive side is how former Attorney General Griffin Bell saw things: “Those who wring their hands over the prospects of a convention run the risk of exposing their elitism, implying that the average citizen cannot be trusted.”  This resonates with me.  As certain as the law of gravity is, is that elitist politicians cannot be trusted.

Another favorable view was that “the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others [Congress] not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse.”   Abraham Lincoln said that in his first inaugural address.

It comes to this: Be a proud dissident.  Find a third party to believe in.  Take a good look at some new efforts: the Centrist Party (www.uscentrist.org), the Populist Party of America (www.populistamerica.com), and the Whig Party (www.thephoenixchronicles.org).  Join the movement to make Congress obey the Constitution and call an Article V convention that could safely re-energize and engage Americans politically.  The only thing to fear is that bipartisan lies about an Article V convention will triumph.  The job of making American democracy is not done.   Doing what our Founders anticipated we would have to do, through a convention, is not the same as undoing what they did.  They had faith in us.

Thomas Jefferson was correct.  A free people have the right to alter or amend their government when they see fit.  Everyone believes in freedom, yet too many fall victim to phony political faith healers.  Dissidents keep the faith and want to practice freedom themselves.  Just like the people who created our nation.

[Check out the author’s new book: www.delusionaldemocracy.com, and for more information on fighting for an Article V convention contact him at articlev at gmail at the usual dot com.]

Pentagon Suggests Iran behind US Troops Executed in Karbala Attack

Unnamed “US officials” at the Pentagon are claiming that they have reason to believe Iran is responsible for the attack and execution style slaying of 5 US troops in Karbala on January 20th.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — The Pentagon is investigating whether a recent attack on a military compound in Karbala was carried out by Iranians or Iranian-trained operatives, two officials from separate U.S. government agencies said.

“People are looking at it seriously,” one of the officials said.

The official added the Iranian connection was a leading theory in the investigation into the January 20 attack that killed U.S. five soldiers.

The second official said: “We believe it’s possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained.”

(cont.)
Of course, they also say that this serious investigation isn’t based on any hard evidence:

Both officials stressed the Iranian-involvement theory is a preliminary view, and there is no final conclusion. They agreed this possibility is being looked at because of the sophistication of the attack and the level of coordination.

“This was beyond what we have seen militias or foreign fighters do,” the second official said.

A preliminary view. How convenient. How long before it becomes the official US position. To refresh your recollection, here are some news accounts regarding what happened at Karbala on January 20th:

LINK
KARBALA, Iraq – Four American soldiers – whom the U.S. military originally reported were killed when unknown gunmen stormed an Iraqi provincial office in Karbala last Saturday – were in fact taken hostage and later executed by their kidnappers, military officials said Friday.

The abducted soldiers were discovered, with shots to the head, when five Chevrolet Suburbans used in the attack were found abandoned, their doors open, near the city of Hilla hours after the attack. Hilla is about 24 miles from Karbala.

Military officials offered no explanation for why the men originally were reported as having died “repelling the attack.” The Pentagon named the men in a news release on Tuesday and said they’d died “from wounds sustained when their patrol was ambushed while conducting dismounted operations.”

Here’s what the AP reported on January 27th about this attack:

The brazen assault, 50 miles south of Baghdad, was conducted by nine to 12 gunmen posing as a U.S. security team, the military confirmed. The attackers traveled in black GMC Suburbans — the type used by U.S. government convoys — had American weapons, wore new U.S. military combat fatigues, and spoke English, according to senior U.S. military and Iraqi officials. […]

“The precision of the attack, the equipment used and the possible use of explosives to destroy the military vehicles in the compound suggests that the attack was well-rehearsed prior to execution,” said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl of the Multi-National Division-Baghdad.

Here’s what Juan Cole of Informed Comment wrote about the possible identity of these attackers on January 27th at his blog:

Mahawil, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city, is a Sunni Arab guerrilla arena of action, and it now seems likely to me that this was a Sunni Arab operation aimed at harming security arrangements. Shiite Mahdi Army ghetto militiamen don’t know English. If I were in charge of Karbala, I’d put extra security around the city for Tuesday’s Ashura commemoration of Imam Husayn’s martyrdom. The only thing I can’t figure out is that it clearly was an inside job, and so how would there have been Sunni Arab guerrilla sympathizers at this police and army meeting at Shiite Karbala. Maybe mixed units were involved?

So to recap: First the Pentagon claimed these 5 soldiers died fighting off an attack on the place where they were meeting with Iraqi officials. Then, a week later it admits that four of the soldiers were kidnapped and then slain execution style 25 miles outside Karbala. Now it is claiming that Iran may have been responsible for the attacks and that is what the investigation into the attack is focusing on. Interesting how the Pentagon has developed the storyline about this incident, isn’t it?

Not that I’m suspicious or anything, but it sure seems odd that all these stories about the danger Iran poses to America, new US troop deployments to the region to intimidate Iran, and the rejection of diplomacy by the US, all seem to be coming out within the last few weeks:

Like this story from January 29th in which US officials claimed that Iran is supplying “terrorists” in Iraq with arms, bombs and missiles in order to kill American troops there.

Or this story in which the United States rejected the proposal by the head of the IAEA, El Baradei, that UN sanctions and Iran’s uranium enrichment both be suspended and negotiations begun between Iran and the members of the UN Security Council to resolve the ongoing crisis regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Or this story from January 24th, in which unnamed Western and European officials claimed that North Korea is providing nuclear technology and assistance to Iran, and that Iran is only 12 months away from testing a nuclear bomb.

Now we hear that Iran is the most likely suspect behind the murders of five Americans in Karbala 11 days ago. Amazing coincidence don’t you think?

Personally, as I’ve stated before, I think we are in the process of preparing for an attack on Iran this year. And the stories we see now about Iran’s evil intentions are all part of a massive disinformation campaign similar to the one that was employed in the run-up to the Iraq war.

I feel we are in the end game between those who seek to attack Iran militarily (the leaders of the Israeli government and the Bush/Cheney administration), and those, like El Baradei and many in the US Congress in both parties, who seek to forestall such a calamitous event. In Iraq, the Bush administration prevailed, despite a lack of evidence of any real threat from Saddam Hussein’s regime, because they won the propaganda war, i.e., the war fought to control the media narrative that was being “told” to the American and British publics.

We are seeing the same propaganda war being fought again with respect to Iran. On one hand, we have those (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Lieberman, neoconservative pundits and sympathizers in the media, etc.) whom either lied to and/or misled major American news outlets, and through them the American people, about the danger that Iraq posed to us in the wake of 9/11. The same story lines that were used to hype an attack on Iraq are being employed again regarding the danger Iran poses to us now (rogue nation, major terrorist supporter, weapons of mass destruction, an oppressive regime ripe for being overthrown, et alia) The same truth tellers who were right about Iraq in 2003 (and dismissed at the time by the Beltway’s Gang of 500) are standing up and stating that the threat of Iran’s nuclear program is a chimera, based on all the evidence and knowledge regarding Iran we currently possess.

Count me as a skeptic on this story that Iran ordered an attack on US soldiers at the same time it is being threatened with war by the Bush administration. This makes no sense for Iran to have ordered such a murderous assault, not with the sword of an American military Damocles hanging over their head. It makes perfect sense, however, for the Bush administration to claim Iran did it, if the purpose of that allegation is to add another brick to the wall of disinformation which is being constructed to justify a US attack on Iran.
















A blograiser to chat, mingle and change New York history

A little known fact : even though New York has had its fair share of Democratic governors, its state government has been in the clutches of the Republicans for 150 years. The only two times the state government was all blue were in 1932 and 1964. Teddy Roosevelt said once that ‘the state Senate is constitutionally Republican’; it’s not, but it’s been reliably Republican since that party was founded in the 1850s.

It’s probably the main reason so many groups have come together to fundraise on Thursday, February 1st, for Craig Johnson.
Organizations like NARAL, PFAW, the Human Rights Campaign, Democracy for NYC, the Council for Urban Professionals and others are working together for this event. It’s the first time though, that the local blogosphere is an active participant in an election of this kind. The Albany Project, NY Turf, Turning, State Project, our labor of love Daily Gotham and others are stepping in from the outside to help anchor an event like this. Which, may I add, is in and of itself unprecedented.

Another little known detail about the Albany political machine : Incumbency has become the product of anti-democratic redistricting shenanigans.

It is outrageous that NYC, the single

largest demographic in the state, does not have proportional representation in Albany. This is because for years Republicans have been able to pass legislation that favors their districts.

Only in New York would you have majority white and Republican districts inflate their demographics by counting their prison population. This is what The New York Times has to say about the practice : 

Ending the Prison Windfall – New York Times editorial | Prisoners of the Census

Inmates are denied the right to vote in all but two states. But state lawmakers treat them as residents of the prisons when drawing legislative maps, to inflate the head count in lightly populated rural areas where prisons are typically built. This creates legislative districts where none would ordinarily be, shifting political influence from the heavily populated urban districts where inmates live.

Once inflated, these towns and counties siphon an outsized portion of state and federal aid. Politicians in districts with prisons sometimes brag openly about the windfall, as they mock “constituents” who are powerless to remove them from office and are packed onto buses and driven hundreds of miles to their real homes the minute

they leave the prison walls.

The repercussions of this particular practice are atrocious : Mostly white and lightly populated areas upstate are being turned into districts on the backs of a prison population that is not only mostly black and latino and poor, but a product of the Rockefeller Laws that have thrown many a first time drug felon into upstate jails with 25-to-life jail sentences. Prisoners of the Census is an apt name for the countless men and women who are being used as electoral pawns.

So when I was asked to lend my hand for this election, the first thing to come to mind was, “Why should I care about a guy in Long island running for a seat in a predominantly white and Republican district?

Well, given Spitzer has made election reform a priority, there is an even more compelling reason to plant the seeds with this election for a Democratic majority in 2008.

With Spitzer’s commitment to reform Albany and, among other things, vow to end the atrocious practice of “census farming” through prisos, people have come knocking on his door to lend their support. No wonder the campaign manager of Congressman Keith Ellison is working on this campaign. Yes, the “I am swearing on Jefferson’s Koran and don’t you try to stop me” Ellison, junior Congressman of Minnesota.

No wonder the list of people involved and coming to this event is an amazing mashup of the netroots, grassroots and establishment who’s who in New York. The exciting prospect of dismantling the system that has kept a mostly corrupt state government in power is proving to be contagious.

So here’s what we are asking you to do :

BUY A TICKET FOR THE EVENT

Pardon my french but this could very well end up being a clusterf00k of NYC bloggers. To all you networking divas and dillettantes, tomorrow is the night to crack open a box of business cards, fire up your Sidekicks and Blackberries and take stock of the who’s who of New York City politics.

Raising New York with Eliot Spitzer

Feb 1 2007 – 6pm

Prey NYC

4 West 22nd Street

http://preynyc.com

Can’t pay the $50? Don’t worry. Just get your ass over there and donate whatever you can. That’s what the netroots is all about after all, right? Bring four more friends who are willing to donate $5, $10, $20 –whatever it takes, it’s the active participation (and not just the intention) that counts.

Oh, and just so you know, PreyNYC has free wifi. If you want to bring your laptop and liveblog, we’d be happy to set you up at the bloggers table.

PARTICIPATE ONLINE

If you can’t make it to the event, you can still come to either Project, Daily Gotham or NY Turf and check out the final lists of blogs that will be participating online in this event. You will also find at our blogs information on where to join the IRC chat. I will also be opening tomorrow the new CAFE chat, which I will be using to liveblog the event with anybody else who would like to drop by.

You can also donate online. Go to Johnson’s site and give what you can … but make your donation different this time.

Remember Chris Bowers’ The One-Way Flow Of Progressive Movement Money post? This post confirmed all my fears about fundraising and gave me another reason to detest it. Yet, being a member of the reality-based community, I understand why fundraising is so needed.

Which is why I’d like you to consider this : If you come to the party tomorrow or you decide to donate online, I’d like you to take the time to leave a comment on the open liveblogging threads we will have at the hosting blogs. I’d like you to take a moment and leave a note to the ‘consultants’.

Yes. I’d like you to take a moment and tell them how’d you like to see your money used. I am asking you to use wisely the access Brian, Phillip, Michael, Will and all the bloggers in NYC have to these consultants at the moment. I’d like you to seize the moment and tell them how you feel about the issues Bowers raised on his post.

I think it’s really important there’s a dialogue and a discussion between supporters and workers. Especially because, as this campaign has confirmed it, these ‘consultants’ or managers or whatever you want to call them, work all around the country to work with candidates big and small.

Even if you are out in Iowa, Missouri or Alaska, this is an opportunity for all of you to have us hand deliver your comments, criticisms and concerns. Seize the moment and use it wisely.

Thanks so much to have taken the time to read this post. If you are in NYC, come on downtown to hang out with Spitzer, Johnson and the netroots. If you can’t make it to 22nd Street, make a donation of any kind, and get online to network, chat, mingle and help the NYC netroots show how local politics needs to be a national priority for the Democratic Party.

See you tomorrow online and off. Feel fre to drop me a line at nyc/dot/blogdiva/at/gmail/dot/com.

Nota Bene:
My name is Liza Sabater and I am the publisher of culturekitchen and The Daily Gotham. I wrote this diary with the help of the excellent Editorial Manager of The Daily Gotham, Michael Bouldin. I actually have been around Booman Tribune for a while, although I have not been an active participant (I mean, I do run several blogs). But Martin knows I think you guys rock. Hi Martin!

Global Dumbing (political cartoon)

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson


click to enlarge
On the local FM Talk station, 101.1 WZTK, the morning drive time crowd consists of Brad Krantz and Britt Whitmire, plus the sidekick weatherman, Randy Jackson. And when it comes to global warming, it is the trinity of stupidity.

My ire got worked up this last week when Brad asked Randy about his take on global warming. Randy has in the past been very skeptical about global warming so maybe something in his opinion has changed. Obviously not. Brad’s specific question was about sea level rise, wondering since when ice melts in a glass of water, the water level doesn’t rise that much. Randy of course agreed and seemed to have partially based his apparent disbelief on this scientific fact. But the obvious fairy was not at the radio station that morning. The obvious issue ISN’T the icebergs in the sea, it is the thousands of cubic miles of ice ON LAND, in the polar regions. The worry of sea level rising stems from that source of ice, not the ice already floating in the seas. However, the icebergs in the seas do  partially come from this land ice as calved glacier ice.

Ok, I can over look a momentary lapse in reason and logic, this is radio. I have long since given up looking for scientific rationale in broadcast radio.

But this morning came another wave of arrogant stupidity.

Global warming came back to the top of the list of subjects and it was more deeply discussed than the previous ice question Randy Jackson botched. More or less the question of the hour was “do you believe?” One of the callers claimed that we cannot destroy the Earth. We’ll, yeah. That is true. As far as I know Dick Cheney does not have an operational Death Star and the Aldaraan Test has not been scheduled yet. But am I the only one that remembers global thermonuclear warfare? Soviet style? You know, where we can set off enough nukes to make the planet’s surface unlivable? The radio guys seem not to remember.

Thank God we do not have the technology to vaporize the planet we live on, but we do have the power to make Earth unlivable. The climate has always been a delicate balance of wind, water and soil. If it gets disrupted too much, we risk losing a lot of our farm land. Yeah, Canada may have the weather to grow wheat when Nebraska doesn’t, but Canada doesn’t have the soil we do.

But Brad and Britt did keep hitting home the point that we can screw-up local environments like Pittsburgh and Los Angeles with pollution. This must be the obvious fairy at work but her work is far from over. Later on, Britt comments about the movie poster for Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth. The poster has a smokestack that has it’s smoke circulating like a hurricane. He doesn’t believe that man made pollution is making hurricanes more powerful. How can a few degrees in temperature create more fierce storms? Although the obvious fairy is making headway, the thermodynamic fairy and the Great Conveyor Belt fairy have some work to do.

Then to cap it off he says maybe if he sees An Inconvenient Truth, maybe it will explain those issues.

Oh, and he is on the radio 5 days a week.

Feel free to email Brad and Brit at this public email address.

Dear Mom

I know you’ll read this when you get home.  You read all the stuff here every day.  Mom please stop coming to this place.  I have told you face to face that this place is not healthy for you.  You always talk to me and help me when people are not healthy for me and I’m hanging around with them.  These people are not healthy for you mom.  They don’t care about you and honestly they enjoy hurting you and you are letting them.  I know these were the first people who were really nice to you when you were hurting inside about Dad and Iraq but they are like Wren.  They were your first friend on your first day at a new school and a lot of the time that isn’t a very good friend.  It hurts me when you hurt so much.  Please let it go mom.  They have hurt you and they have hurt all of us enough.  It is okay to let them go mom.  Nobody will blame you.  You didn’t do anything wrong.  You are the best mom I know and I want you to be happy inside again so please stop coming here.  Our family can’t do what it needs to do mom when you are sad so much.  I love you.

Appointing U.S. Attorneys — Then and After Reauthorization

[editor’s note, by clammyc] promoted because, well, I wrote it and think it is important…..clammyc

by Adam Lambert (clammyc)
for ePluribus Media

Crossposted on the ePluribus Media Journal

Note: As part of the ePluribus Media researchers diving into the details around the U.S. Attorneys resigning and being replaced (see Gonzales Seven), it became important to step back and look at how U.S. Attorneys were traditionally selected, how they and their offices were organized, and what exactly did the USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 change. Clammyc’s article below provides that background.


The news over the past few weeks regarding Alberto Gonzales and the resignations and replacements of US Attorneys has generated much attention. The reasons are certainly numerous: the timing of Scooter Libby’s trial, the ties that the replacements have to the Bush administration, the questions surrounding the abrupt nature of the resignations and the inevitable comparisons to the Saturday Night Massacre back in 1973.

Until recently (as with many actions regarding political and governmental appointments), there was a general process that was followed when a candidate is suggested, nominated, appointed and confirmed as a U.S. Attorney. Both the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch are involved in this process.

Background

There are 93 US Attorneys (including Puerto Rico and Guam), with each Attorney representing a “district.” Obviously, some states have more than one district while some states have only one district. The following basic information is from the US Department of Justice’s web site (emphasis added):

United States Attorneys are appointed by, and serve at the discretion of, the President of the United States, with advice and consent of the United States Senate.

United States Attorneys conduct most of the trial work in which the United States is a party. The United States Attorneys have three statutory responsibilities under Title 28, Section 547 of the United States Code:

  • the prosecution of criminal cases brought by the Federal government;
  • the prosecution and defense of civil cases in which the United States is a party; and
  • the collection of debts owed the Federal government which are administratively uncollectible.

Each United States Attorney exercises wide discretion in the use of his/her resources to further the priorities of the local jurisdictions and needs of their communities. United States Attorneys have been delegated full authority and control in the areas of personnel management, financial management, and procurement.

Note the bolded part about “advice and consent of the United States Senate” as we will get back to that later.

Each office has Assistant District Attorneys and support staff.  This size will vary, based largely on the district and the volume of work.  The US Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia is the largest, with over 350 Assistant US Attorneys and a similar amount of support personnel.  A smaller office such as Idaho has only about 59 employees, with 25 Assistant United States Attorneys.  While there is a specific process for appointing US Attorneys, the Assistant District Attorneys are largely civil service positions.  Ostensibly, the Attorney General has the authority to appoint Assistant U.S. Attorneys, but that authority has also “ been delegated to the Director, Office of Attorney Personnel Management. Authority.”  

According to the US Code (Title 28, Chapter 35, Section 541), the US Attorney’s term is a four year term, with the US Attorney continuing to serve after the four-year term until a successor is appointed and qualifies.

The Appointment Process

Generally speaking, U.S. Attorneys are recommended by Senators and Representatives in their home state, nominated by the President and then after background checks, presented to the Senate for approval.

That was the process, until the recent language in the reauthorization of the PATRIOT ACT in 2006 changed it.   According to the US Code (Title 28, Chapter 35, Section 546), the following applies:

(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), the Attorney General may appoint a United States attorney for the district in which the office of United States attorney is vacant.  

(b) The Attorney General shall not appoint as United States attorney a person to whose appointment by the President to that office the Senate refused to give advice and consent.

(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the earlier of:  

      (1) the qualification of a United States attorney for such district      
      appointed by the President under section 541 of this title; or

      (2) the expiration of 120 days after appointment by the Attorney
      General under this section.

(d) If an appointment expires under subsection (c)(2), the district court for such district may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled. The order of appointment by the court shall be filed with the clerk of the court.

This will be important later as well.

One thing that is consistent — the President needs the ‘advice and consent’ of the Senate (kind of like the ‘upperdown vote’).

So Why is the PATRIOT ACT Reauthorization Important?

In March of 2006, President Bush signed  USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005.  In addition to all of the other contents of this Act, it amended Subsection (c) of Section 546 (the original law is noted above) and eliminated Subsection (d) in its entirety.

Section 502 of HR 109-333 is the relevant section and is reproduced below:

Section 546 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by striking subsections (c) and (d) and inserting the following new subsection:

(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the qualification of a United States Attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title.

So, basically, what happened here is that (1) the 120 day ‘interim’ rule was eliminated, and (2) the matter was taken completely out of the hands of the district court.  Not only that, but the effect here is that any ‘interim’ US Attorney can by appointed and can theoretically serve until the end of the appointing President’ s term. Additionally, the Attorney General now has the power to appoint an ‘interim’ US Attorney who can serve, in the immediate case, until the end of 2008.

What this does, in effect, is allow the Attorney General to appoint anyone so long as the appointee was not previously submitted and refused by the Senate.  Once again, the powers of the Legislative Branch are being stripped from the process and shifted to the Executive Branch.  Further, this is currently being questioned as potentially unconstitutional in that it is delegating the authority to make such appointments from the President (under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution) to the Attorney General.

While it is important to see the relationship between the ‘interim’ US Attorneys who have been appointed, as well as to uncover any and all reasons why an unusual number of US Attorneys abruptly resigned, we shouldn’t forget the process behind this. The importance of this Administration’s consolidation of power in all areas — including the power to investigate without fear of retribution — should not be ignored.

In fact, it should be highlighted as another in a long line of, at a minimum, potential abuses of power that this Executive Branch has committed over the past six years.

ePluribus Media Researchers, Contributors and Fact Checkers: gles, clammyc, cho, standingup and roxy… with hat tips to the guys on Kos who gave some background… DC Pol Sci, aloyshakaramozov, MarketTrustee, and Carolita

   

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Signs and Portents of War

One man wants a time out with respect to the Iranian nuclear crisis:

The head of the United Nations atomic watchdog agency is calling for a “timeout” on the Iranian nuclear issue, with Iran suspending uranium enrichment and the international community suspending sanctions over a programme that Tehran says is for producing energy but which others maintain is for making nuclear weapons.

A key to resolving the issue is a direct engagement between Iran and the United States similar to that with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei stressed in several interviews over the weekend in Davos, Switzerland, where he attended the World Economic Forum.

“I call on all parties to take a simultaneous timeout. Iran should take a timeout from its enrichment activity, the international community a timeout from the application of sanctions, and parties should go immediately to the negotiating table,” he said. “The right track is dialogue, negotiation.”

And one man doesn’t:

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The United States rejected a proposal by the UN nuclear chief to call “timeout” in the Iranian nuclear crisis, saying the UN resolutions already being applied were not up for renegotiation.

“There is a path laid out for suspension and that is Iranian suspension of their enrichment activities to be responded to by the Council. So that is very clear and it’s not subject to reinterpretation,” the US representative to the United Nations, Alejandro Wolff, said.

Need I say more?