War Powers Act Does Not Apply to Libya, Obama Argues - The White House says the act requiring approval by Congress doesn’t apply to the Libya operation because what United States forces are doing there doesn’t amount to “hostilities.”
Than what is it? Is not bombing hostile? It sure ain't a nicety
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Spinnin' the news
Back in the US, the Republicans continue pursuing their agenda. In hearings called to examine homeland Muslim extremism, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is on the proverbial hot seat. From Minnesota, home of that moderate and sober voice, Michelle Bachman, comes Chip Cravaack (yup, a grown man serving in Congress calls himself Chip). Navy veteran, patriot.
After Peter King blabbed on, Representative Frank R. Wolf of Virginia accused CAIR of “an attempt to stifle debate and obstruct cooperation with law enforcement.” Representative Chip Cravaack of Minnesota went further, telling a witness, Leroy D. Baca, the Los Angeles County sheriff, “Basically, you’re dealing with a terrorist organization.” Sheriff Baca disagreed.
For the casual observer, it may have been a puzzling set of comments. But it is an old argument for CAIR, an aggressive civil rights organization that has long been pilloried by conservatives as the American Civil Liberties Union with a Muslim spin.
For these jerks, the ACLU is evil.
After Peter King blabbed on, Representative Frank R. Wolf of Virginia accused CAIR of “an attempt to stifle debate and obstruct cooperation with law enforcement.” Representative Chip Cravaack of Minnesota went further, telling a witness, Leroy D. Baca, the Los Angeles County sheriff, “Basically, you’re dealing with a terrorist organization.” Sheriff Baca disagreed.
For the casual observer, it may have been a puzzling set of comments. But it is an old argument for CAIR, an aggressive civil rights organization that has long been pilloried by conservatives as the American Civil Liberties Union with a Muslim spin.
For these jerks, the ACLU is evil.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Recovering
Among Women in Congress, a Bond of Friendship
Doctors Call Giffords’s Progress Remarkable
On Friday, CNN reported that doctors might remove her breathing tube as early as today. Doctors have said the breathing tube has been left in place as a precautionary measure and that Ms. Giffords is breathing on her own.In response to a reporter’s question about whether Ms. Giffords’s recovery might be considered miraculous, Dr. G. Michael Lemole Jr., the hospital’s chief of neurosurgery said, “Miracles happen every day, and in medicine, we like to attribute them to what we do or what others do around us. A lot of medicine is outside our control. We are wise to acknowledge miracles.”
Girl’s Death Hits Home for Obama
President Obama is not known for showing a surplus of emotion in public, but toward the end of his speech at the University of Arizona, he paused for 51 seconds and appeared to gather himself. he audience was on its feet. Mr. Obama had just laid down a stark and powerful gauntlet, challenging the country to live up to the expectations of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, whose death on Saturday was an emotional punch to the gut for so many people across the country. Among them, apparently, is the president himself, whose younger daughter, Sasha, was born three months before Christina.
Doctors Call Giffords’s Progress Remarkable
On Friday, CNN reported that doctors might remove her breathing tube as early as today. Doctors have said the breathing tube has been left in place as a precautionary measure and that Ms. Giffords is breathing on her own.In response to a reporter’s question about whether Ms. Giffords’s recovery might be considered miraculous, Dr. G. Michael Lemole Jr., the hospital’s chief of neurosurgery said, “Miracles happen every day, and in medicine, we like to attribute them to what we do or what others do around us. A lot of medicine is outside our control. We are wise to acknowledge miracles.”
Girl’s Death Hits Home for Obama
President Obama is not known for showing a surplus of emotion in public, but toward the end of his speech at the University of Arizona, he paused for 51 seconds and appeared to gather himself. he audience was on its feet. Mr. Obama had just laid down a stark and powerful gauntlet, challenging the country to live up to the expectations of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, whose death on Saturday was an emotional punch to the gut for so many people across the country. Among them, apparently, is the president himself, whose younger daughter, Sasha, was born three months before Christina.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
A new chief, an old constitution
Two stories illustrate today's politics: a new Presidential chief of staff changes the tenor of the White House, and the new Republican majority plays games.
Daley to Become Next White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley will bring an outsider’s voice and a business background as the president continues an overhaul of his staff. Commerce Secretary under Bill Clinton, high-ranking JP Morgan executive, brother of retiring Chicago mayor, this is a well-conected individual that gets some plaudits.
Before Preamble, a Textual Dispute Things did not begin auspiciously for the reading of the Constitution from the floor of the House. Exactly why the Constitution needs to be read in the House is unclear, other, that is, than as political theater.
An Annotated Guide to the Constitution
Daley to Become Next White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley will bring an outsider’s voice and a business background as the president continues an overhaul of his staff. Commerce Secretary under Bill Clinton, high-ranking JP Morgan executive, brother of retiring Chicago mayor, this is a well-conected individual that gets some plaudits.
Before Preamble, a Textual Dispute Things did not begin auspiciously for the reading of the Constitution from the floor of the House. Exactly why the Constitution needs to be read in the House is unclear, other, that is, than as political theater.
An Annotated Guide to the Constitution
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Judging
In a thoughtful article appearing in the August 19, 2010 issue of the New York Review of Books, Ronald Dworkin writes about Elena Kagan and the hearing of her confirmation as the newest Justice to the United States Supreme Court.
As a law professor back in 1995 she wrote of such hearings as taking "on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public." Dworkin writes that her own hearings became just that, as she avoided answering any question with much specificity or substance. Since the Bork confirmation hearing in 1987 when said nominee was skewered, nominees have hewed to the same script: avoid controversy, answer generally, flatter opposing Senators, smile a lot, and play it safe.
Justices Roberts and Alito played that same game: smile, say little. After climbing toi the bench, they joined Justices Scalia and Thomas as a solid right-wing bloc, often getting Justice Kennedy's vote and deciding 5-4 to pursue a conservative agenda.
It is crucial to the role Supreme Court justices play in our constitutional system that they be free and able to reject popular opinion—to overrule the wishes of the majority in order to protect individual rights.
The Court is supposed to rule based on constitutional interpretation, not on individual philosophy. But what is proper constitutional interpretation?
the right-wing phalanx of the Court has used its power to overrule the will of the majority in what strikes many of us as an indefensible and dangerous way: not to protect a vulnerable minority from majority indifference or hatred but to protect conservative interests and privilege from progressive legislation.
Dworkin's politics and worldview are quite clear; I happen to agree with his judgment.
Richard Posner, himself a conservative judge, recently wrote that four of the five most conservative justices since 1937 are together on the Court now: Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito. Many lawyers believe it would have been better had Roberts and Alito been forced to disclose their real substantive intentions in their hearings because they would not have been confirmed if they had.
Richard Posner is a judge, and a prolific author.
Posner said of Roberts: “The tension between what he said at his confirmation hearing and what he is doing as a Justice is a blow to Roberts’s reputation for candor and further debasement of the already debased currency of the testimony of nominees at judicial confirmation hearings.”
That tension is, in fact, that he lied at his hearings, not admitting he went in with the agenda he has pursued as a Justice and as Chief Justice. It has been an agenda of overturning precedent conservatives disagree with, an activist agenda, indeed.
Pressed to address precedent, Kagan spoke of using pragmatism and not overarching philosophical view.
Her answer was almost identical to what Roberts and Alito said about precedent and once they were confirmed they joined the other conservative justices in an overruling spree unparalleled in Court history.
Justice Roberts, overruling a recent decision, said that that decision “actually impedes the stable and orderly adjudication of future cases.” He cited the fact that the conservative justices who dissented in the earlier case had continued to declare their opposition to it. If that is enough to justify overruling, no important precedent would be safe.
Pragmatism? or pursuit of an agenda?
Abortion rights continue to be denounced by Scalia and Thomas and continue to be hated by many millions of Americans. Does that make Roe v. Wade “unworkable”? Many of the Court’s recent abortion decisions—in overruling a recent decision in order to permit a ban on “partial-birth” abortion, for instance—might well be thought to “erode” Roe‘s “doctrinal foundations.” Does that make Roe itself ripe for overruling? (Much of the Roberts Court’s jurisprudence might be preparing for the day it does that.)
Who can doubt that overturning Roe v. Wade is a priority for the right wing?
As a law professor back in 1995 she wrote of such hearings as taking "on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public." Dworkin writes that her own hearings became just that, as she avoided answering any question with much specificity or substance. Since the Bork confirmation hearing in 1987 when said nominee was skewered, nominees have hewed to the same script: avoid controversy, answer generally, flatter opposing Senators, smile a lot, and play it safe.
Justices Roberts and Alito played that same game: smile, say little. After climbing toi the bench, they joined Justices Scalia and Thomas as a solid right-wing bloc, often getting Justice Kennedy's vote and deciding 5-4 to pursue a conservative agenda.
It is crucial to the role Supreme Court justices play in our constitutional system that they be free and able to reject popular opinion—to overrule the wishes of the majority in order to protect individual rights.
The Court is supposed to rule based on constitutional interpretation, not on individual philosophy. But what is proper constitutional interpretation?
the right-wing phalanx of the Court has used its power to overrule the will of the majority in what strikes many of us as an indefensible and dangerous way: not to protect a vulnerable minority from majority indifference or hatred but to protect conservative interests and privilege from progressive legislation.
Dworkin's politics and worldview are quite clear; I happen to agree with his judgment.
Richard Posner, himself a conservative judge, recently wrote that four of the five most conservative justices since 1937 are together on the Court now: Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito. Many lawyers believe it would have been better had Roberts and Alito been forced to disclose their real substantive intentions in their hearings because they would not have been confirmed if they had.
Richard Posner is a judge, and a prolific author.
Posner said of Roberts: “The tension between what he said at his confirmation hearing and what he is doing as a Justice is a blow to Roberts’s reputation for candor and further debasement of the already debased currency of the testimony of nominees at judicial confirmation hearings.”
That tension is, in fact, that he lied at his hearings, not admitting he went in with the agenda he has pursued as a Justice and as Chief Justice. It has been an agenda of overturning precedent conservatives disagree with, an activist agenda, indeed.
Pressed to address precedent, Kagan spoke of using pragmatism and not overarching philosophical view.
Her answer was almost identical to what Roberts and Alito said about precedent and once they were confirmed they joined the other conservative justices in an overruling spree unparalleled in Court history.
Justice Roberts, overruling a recent decision, said that that decision “actually impedes the stable and orderly adjudication of future cases.” He cited the fact that the conservative justices who dissented in the earlier case had continued to declare their opposition to it. If that is enough to justify overruling, no important precedent would be safe.
Pragmatism? or pursuit of an agenda?
Abortion rights continue to be denounced by Scalia and Thomas and continue to be hated by many millions of Americans. Does that make Roe v. Wade “unworkable”? Many of the Court’s recent abortion decisions—in overruling a recent decision in order to permit a ban on “partial-birth” abortion, for instance—might well be thought to “erode” Roe‘s “doctrinal foundations.” Does that make Roe itself ripe for overruling? (Much of the Roberts Court’s jurisprudence might be preparing for the day it does that.)
Who can doubt that overturning Roe v. Wade is a priority for the right wing?
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Democrats Split as House Backs War Funds
The House of Representatives agreed on Tuesday to provide $37 billion to continue financing America’s two wars, but the vote showed deepening divisions and anxiety among Democrats over the course of the nearly nine-year-old conflict in Afghanistan. The 308-to-114 vote, with strong Republican support, came after the leak of an archive of classified battlefield reports from Afghanistan that fueled new debate over the course of the war and whether President Obama’s counterinsurgency strategy could work.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
I know what to buy, or short
Lawmakers Bet on Firms They Oversaw
In 2009, amid the federal government's most aggressive intervention in the U.S. economy in decades, some members of key congressional committees placed bets with their own money on the stocks of companies they helped oversee, according to a preliminary analysis by The Wall Street Journal of public disclosure filings made public Wednesday.
The Journal has reported that some members of Congress or their spouses made bets during 2008 that U.S. stocks and bonds would fall in value. There isn't evidence that any of the 2009 trades identified by the Journal involved nonpublic information or broke any laws. Members of both parties and both chambers traded regularly, although in some cases the trades were made by spouses rather than by the legislators themselves. Whereas many government officials are prohibited from making certain types of investments in which they might have a conflict of interest, members of Congress face relatively few restrictions.
Under the codes of ethics set by the House and Senate, members are generally free to trade stocks or other securities—and to "sell short," or bet that investments will fall in price—even in the case of companies whose fortunes may be directly influenced by legislative actions.
Nice way to make a living.
In 2009, amid the federal government's most aggressive intervention in the U.S. economy in decades, some members of key congressional committees placed bets with their own money on the stocks of companies they helped oversee, according to a preliminary analysis by The Wall Street Journal of public disclosure filings made public Wednesday.
The Journal has reported that some members of Congress or their spouses made bets during 2008 that U.S. stocks and bonds would fall in value. There isn't evidence that any of the 2009 trades identified by the Journal involved nonpublic information or broke any laws. Members of both parties and both chambers traded regularly, although in some cases the trades were made by spouses rather than by the legislators themselves. Whereas many government officials are prohibited from making certain types of investments in which they might have a conflict of interest, members of Congress face relatively few restrictions.
Under the codes of ethics set by the House and Senate, members are generally free to trade stocks or other securities—and to "sell short," or bet that investments will fall in price—even in the case of companies whose fortunes may be directly influenced by legislative actions.
Nice way to make a living.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Country First?
In her column, Maureen Dowd features the Democrats as giddy over their ability to actually get something done, to pass legislation.
The Democrats held hands, held their breath and jumped over the cliff — not that it was a radical bill. And, mirabile dictu, nothing awful happened. The markets went up. The polls went up. Their confidence went up.
And the Republicans? John McCain threatened Democrats, telling an Arizona radio affiliate that “there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year” from Republicans. So much for “Country First.” (He’s so clueless that he came on the Senate floor and said, “Let’s stop this legislation, and let’s start from the beginning.”)
For the rest of the year? There has been no cooperation for the past year. In part, that is a result of the extreme right eing of the Republican party becoming dominant. Litmus tests, purity tests are the norm, and one of the primary enforcers has been Rush Limbaugh. His reaction to the passage of the House bill?
they won yesterday. They won because they held congress and the presidency and therein lies the lesson. We need to defeat these bastards. We need to wipe them out. We need to chase them out of town. [...] “They must my friends, be hounded out of office. Every single Democrat who voted for this needs to know, safe district or not, they are going to be exposed and hassled and chased from office. We now have leftist radicals in charge of your healthcare decisions rather than doctors”
The Democrats held hands, held their breath and jumped over the cliff — not that it was a radical bill. And, mirabile dictu, nothing awful happened. The markets went up. The polls went up. Their confidence went up.
And the Republicans? John McCain threatened Democrats, telling an Arizona radio affiliate that “there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year” from Republicans. So much for “Country First.” (He’s so clueless that he came on the Senate floor and said, “Let’s stop this legislation, and let’s start from the beginning.”)
For the rest of the year? There has been no cooperation for the past year. In part, that is a result of the extreme right eing of the Republican party becoming dominant. Litmus tests, purity tests are the norm, and one of the primary enforcers has been Rush Limbaugh. His reaction to the passage of the House bill?
they won yesterday. They won because they held congress and the presidency and therein lies the lesson. We need to defeat these bastards. We need to wipe them out. We need to chase them out of town. [...] “They must my friends, be hounded out of office. Every single Democrat who voted for this needs to know, safe district or not, they are going to be exposed and hassled and chased from office. We now have leftist radicals in charge of your healthcare decisions rather than doctors”
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