Wow.

Bushdeficit

This was put together from a piece in the NY Times on Wednesday.  Interesting.

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Who are we?

Who are we?  Who do we want to be?

 

History has shown that from time to time a society has to decide who they are and what they want to be.  This is not something they do on purpose but are more often forced into it when things get really tough.  It makes some sense as when things are going well, people don’t have the need for such thoughts.  The United States has been in that position several times; just before and during the Revolution, the Civil War and during the Great Depression and World War II.  As we enter the second year of the worst economy since the Depression and are entrenched in two wars, we find ourselves again at that point.  These are not the only issues that beg these questions, however.

 

·         Torture:  Does protecting our national security ever give us the right to use this?  No, it does not.  I reject the suggestion that we need to do away with our values to stay safe and believe when we turn our backs on our core beliefs we increase the risks we will be attacked. 

o   Torture is the antithesis of everything we stand for.  Benjamin Franklin said ‘Those who would give up liberty for security deserve neither.’  He was right.  There are a number of reasons for this.  I am honestly torn about which I think it more important – the precedent with set abroad or the one we set at home?  If we can torture others, we inch closer to the day when we can torture our own citizens.  This isn’t just my opinion, it was that of several George W. Bush lawyers who opposed it.  Moreover, one can see this in action when they see how long some American citizens have been detained for suspected anti-American activities.  These are the very things our founding fathers wanted to prevent.  There’s also the point that we see ourselves as a benevolent force in the world but not everyone else does.  When we forfeit our belief in the rule of law as it pertains to others, we become hypocrites and pave the way for others to do as we have done.

o   Torture doesn’t work.  Don’t take my word for it, read a little about how investigators get decent information.  It is not through torture.  Al Qaeda trains its people to deal with torture so they aren’t going to talk.  Ask John McCain how much he gave up during his seven years in a POW camp.  Plus, the people who would talk, generally would say anything to stop the pain so whatever intel they give cannot be relied on.  Dick Cheney has said that we got good information through these methods but has never said if we could have gotten it any other way or if better information was missed because of what we did.  In fairness, he probably doesn’t know and that is a whole different problem.

o   We follow the Geneva Convention to protect our soldiers.  If we can find loopholes in the Geneva Convention, do we really think other countries won’t do the same thing?  Really?  Are we that stupid?

·         Social safety net:  Our political debates tend to center around a few themes and one is how big our government should be.  Do we want a small government with almost no taxes where we all fend for ourselves or do we want one that does for all of us collectively what we cannot do individually?  I would opt for the latter.  The irony is I know we don’t want to decide, we want both.  Exhibit a for this theory is California, which has the closest thing to direct democracy in the US.  The Californian electorate is confused about this as anyone.  Because they can hold direct referendums, they prove they want it both ways.  Prop 13 gutted the state's ability to tax the citizens (yes, I know property taxes were crazy back then) but the same people vote for plans to expand health care and improve education.  It seems we all want decent roads, a good military, an education system that doesn’t suck but you know what?  Taxes pay for that.  Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ‘Taxes are the price you pay for a civilized society.’  Who are we then?    

·         Why do we care about places outside the US and even in space?  

o   Foreign aid:  When polled, people will consistently think that we both spend too much money helping other countries but then think we should be spending more than we are (their estimates are that we spend at least 10 percent of our budget on aid and should spend something closer to that but less while the real amount is less than three percent.)  I think a huge chunk of this is that most people cannot find most other counties on a globe.  President Clinton said that we should have a policy where we have more friends than enemies, and I agree with that.  A first step would be to know more about other cultures.  It is hard for us to ‘get’ the India/Pakistan situation if we do not know the history and/or cannot find either on a map.  Africa is not only not a country but is much larger than Europe yet we learn a lot more about England than anything in Africa.

o   Spacedust:  I attended an event this week where people seemed to think the space program is just not worth anything.  They are not alone.  At least a few Members of Congress have supported ending NASA and using that money for things closer to home.  President Kennedy was right when he said we should go to the moon, though it’s too bad he didn’t live to see it.  Studying the stars does more than waste tax dollars, it inspires innovation.  It creates jobs.  It teaches about who we are and why we are here.  Plus if we don’t get global warming under control it might find us a new place to live… (no, I don’t think we will do that – at least in my lifetime)

o   The arts & humanities:  Such an easy target and so important to our society.  We may not always see the immediate value of either but should they go away we would see the impact of their absence.  

 

Barack Obama’s victory in November was, to me, a sign that we want to go in a new direction.  The course he has set for the country is one that I think we will make life better for all of us and inch us closer to being what we want to be.  My hope is that we will not just look to him but to each other and start to openly talk about this and not just debate it.   

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Some period of time in review

 

 

·         Dick Cheney meets our expectations.  Apparently he admitted to supporting waterboarding.  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney16-2008dec16,0,5456856.story  Looks like he may not be the warm and fuzzy VPOTUS we have all grown to know and love.  And just as he leaves office, maybe the indictments won’t come through until after he and Dubya have left town.  Can a POTUS pardon people in advance?

·         Obama fatigue – catch it!  Sorry.  I love the fact that Barak Obama will be our president soon.  He is a great person and will be a fantastic leader.  It was an amazing night here in DC – election night was like Mardi Gras, the Superbowl, all tennis grand slams, every sporting event championship and New Year’s Eve rolled into one.  For weeks people walked around being nice to each other, like the local government had removed the chlorine from our water and replaced it with Prozac or Xanax.  It has been great but the scale has tipped.  No, thank you, I do not need a toilet seat cover with a picture of the new first family on it.  There are more stalls here with Obama memorabilia than Washington Post stands (maybe the newspapers should think about that as they all file for chapter 11.)

·         The holiday season is upon us but so is the apocalypse.  No, I am not talking about the economy, the auto industry or the Illinois governor.  I went to my second movie of 2008 – yes I need to get out more often – and heard some crazy music playing.  It was the Chipmunks.  It was a cover of an old Journey song.  It was every bit as bad as you can imagine.

·         Speaking of hell, if I am not there now I think I am headed there.  Or at least that’s what every random religious door-to-door congregation in the city thinks because they come to my house five times a week.  I am starting to think there is a big “Satan lives here” sign on my door.  I thought I scared the Mormons away when I gave them a copy of “Under the Banner of Heaven” but they keep coming back.  And if the two overly friendly women with the Watchtower come calling again I am just going to answer the door naked and see if that keeps them away.

·         Christian Bale may be about to jump the shark, he make take the phrase with him.  One of the previews I saw was of a new Terminator movie.  Bale’s big line in the preview was “You tried to kill my mother, you tried to kill me, I am not gonna let you.”  Then let them kill me.  Death sounds better than this.  Didn’t the writers’ strike end last year?

·         Keanu Reeves found his ideal role: disaffected alien.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Keanu.  I loved him as Neo (even despite that line “You can’t die, I love you too damn much.”) and who didn’t love him in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”?  He uttered my favorite line in any movie EVER.  In “River’s Edge” he says, “You just come around here to eat our food and fuck our mother.  You motherfucker.  You food eater.”   If you cannot appreciate that line, well, I can’t help that.

·         And because it’s there:  http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/swear-words

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Dubya was right! OMG!

We have finally been greeted as liberators in Iraq!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-shoe15-2008dec15,0,1930513.story

 

That is, if you mean have liberated them from their shoes…

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Some lessons from W

As the election nears, the media & campaigns focus more and more on, what this year is a much smaller number, undecided voters.  Personally, I see most of these people the way they were portrayed in the Daily Show Samantha Bee/Jason Jones skit from earlier in the week (www.thedailyshow.com).  Seriously, what do these people need to make up their mind?  After the longest presidential campaign in recent history, you really cannot make up your mind?  Where have you been?

This post is not for them (clearly).  There is another group, which is smaller still, of what I will call conscientious objectors.  There are some people who will vote on November 4^th for third party candidates.  Anecdotal stories may lead some to believe they have made a difference in past presidential races à la Ralph Nader in 2000 (a charge I agree with here but it could be an emotional response) and/or Ross Perot in 1992 (and I do not think he caused Bill Clinton’s victory, if anyone outside of the Clinton campaign helped Clinton it was George H.W. Bush himself).  While every person has a vote, not everyone’s vote carries equal weight thanks to the Electoral College.  The conversation about that will have to wait for another day but since it is the system we have, it is what we have to use until someone comes along with something better.  Having said that, it is critically important that people in certain states vote.  And I hope they vote for Barack Obama.  Now I understand the protest vote and appreciate it.  I do, however, think if someone lives in a ‘swing state’ and they choose to either not vote or vote for someone other than John McCain or Barack Obama, that decision is an irresponsible one.

Often I hear people say things like “Well, who we elect president doesn’t matter much because Congress controls the purse strings.”  True.  For many people, the position of POTUS is merely a figurehead.  This is where Dubya comes in and will show why I think even conscientious objectors should vote for Barack Obama.  We have learned many things from Dubya but I think the following show why who we put in the White House matters.

1.       The Supreme Court:  The next president will appoint at least one (probably more) justices to the Supreme Court and that is a big deal.  Justices do not always behave the way the person who nominated them would expect.  That’s fine.  The problem is that once they get there, they get to stay until they die (they all have excellent health insurance, FYI).  Their decisions affect our lives (see DC v. Heller, good or bad it has forced DC to change its laws).  I could almost stop there because it is just that important.  Of course I cannot leave this topic without mentioning part of the reason we are in the mess we are in today, Bush v. Gore, which is why Dubya got to move into 1600 PA Ave, NW to begin with.

2.       War:  The War Powers Act (of 1973 I believe, it was a response to Vietnam) requires the President to go to Congress before they take the country officially to war.  There are two caveats here, the president can send troops anywhere in an emergency (Reagan did it in Lebanon) and as Dubya and Cheney showed, Congress is much too easily manipulated.  Make no mistake, if Gore had gotten into the White House we would not be in Iraq right now.  They don’t call the president “commander in chief” for a nothing.

3.       The priorities of the federal government:  Yes, it is true that Congress funds the government but the Executive Branch has a lot of power.  A lot of power.  They have a lot more now than they did eight years ago, thanks to Dick “evil genius” Cheney.   They set the tone with the people they appoint to their Cabinet and everywhere else.  One Justice Department may enforce certain laws over others.  My favorite example is the Violence Women Act, which the current DoJ does not consider a priority. This is a bill to help victims of domestic violence.  During its passage a group, which sounds normal (is there any group that calls themselves ‘totally insane people for x’?) but isn’t opposed the bill.  They are the Concerned Women for America.  Totally right, wing nut jobs all the way.  You can look into them.  Their members now oversee the enforcement of this law.  This is a very small example – as is former AG Ashcroft’s decision to cover the statues at the DoJ building but never think the federal government doesn’t impact your life.  Trust your water?  One of Dubya’s first acts as president was to try to change the standards for arsenic levels in your water.  It was the only time George Will actually correctly summed up my position, which is/was that I would like our water to be as safe as possible.  Don’t drink tap?  You shower, brush your teeth, wash your clothes with what?  A Britta?  Or look at the EPA.  How long was Christine Todd Whitman there?  Not long because it was clear Dubya et al weren’t interested in the environment (and this was before the White House rejected their proposals on the Clean Air Act because they were sent in an email!).  This is not just about climate change but what species we protect and quite literally how safe the air we breathe is.

4.       Signing statements:  in my social studies class we studied the Constitution.  We learned that Congress passes bills and the president signs then into law (“I’m just a bill” is going through my head right now).  Well, when s/he signs said bill s/he can add something to the bottom that clarifies or changes the meaning and practical implications of the legislation.  Thinking maybe they taught that on a day you cut class?  They didn’t.  That’s because this doesn’t appear in the Constitution.  President Reagan was the first president to use them much and before him they were primarily symbolic.

“No United States Constitution provision, federal statute, or common-law principle explicitly permits or prohibits signing statements. Article I, Section 7 (in the Presentment Clause) empowers the president to veto a law in its entirety, or to sign it. Article II, Section 3 requires that the executive "take care that the laws be faithfully executed".

Signing statements do not appear to have legal force by themselves, although they are all published in the Federal Register. As a practical matter, they may give notice of the way that the Executive intends to implement a law, which may make them more significant than the text of the law itself. There is a controversy about whether they should be considered as part of legislative history; proponents argue that they reflect the executive's position in negotiating with Congress; opponents assert that the executive's view of a law is not constitutionally part of the legislative history because only the Congress may make law.

Presidential signing statements maintain particular potency with federal executive agencies, since these agencies are often responsible for the administration and enforcement of federal laws. A 2007 article in the Administrative Law Review noted how some federal agencies' usage of signing statements may not withstand legal challenges under common law standards of judicial deference to agency action. ^[6]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signing_statements

5.       Politicking v. governing:   There is a BIG difference.  People who are excellent campaigners may not be so good at governing and vice versa.  George HW Bush was better at governing.  His son is better at campaigning, and clearly it is where his interests lie. How many times have we read and seen how this administration has turned the DoJ into its own political police force?  Hired/fired US Attys based on their personal politics?  Granted every time we change presidents most political appointees change but they all are supposed to follow the law and Constitution not their respective parties.

6.       Lastly, because number 3 is so important, privacy.  I am a liberal. I like government. I believe it is there to do for us collectively what we cannot do for ourselves individually.  I do not think 9/11 gives it carte blanche to do whatever it wants.  I do not think they need the Patriot Act nor do I like the changes they made to FISA.  The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act created a court to hear the government’s arguments for why they listened to conversations without a warrant.  Law enforcement agencies had up to three days of listening in before they had to consult the court and between its creation in 1978 and 2001 the court denied the government five times. 

These are some of the lessons we have learned about the Executive Branch from Dubya.  Oh, and if all that didn’t convince  you that your vote for Obama matters I have two words for you: President Palin.

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