Over at the Weekly Standard, founded as the bastion of neoconservative views by William “the bloody” Kristol, Harvard Law School graduate Adam J. White recently waxed poetic about recent revelations that the Bush administration “failed to appraise” Congress of covert CIA programs. Seems White finds nothing illegal in Bush and Co. withholding national security information from the Legislature, since such disclosure might risk national security.
You know, there are Democrats in Congress and who can trust a liberal anyway? Ironically, the claim is actually made on the pages of the Weekly Standard, that the statute in question: 50 USC 413b, from Title 50, Chapter 15, SubChapter III – authorized by writ of the US Congress – requires disclosure of covert activity except as “relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters”. Of course, disclosure to who and what, actually constitutes exceptionally sensitive matters is the real rub. One would think the authors of said statute, would not be the target of such omission. But who knows, perhaps Congress didn’t trust itself?
Of course White, a DC-based associate of Baker Botts — a litigious arm of Halliburton with close connections to Dick Cheney and David Addington, often offers a right-weighted version on state secrets. Back in 2006, White argued in favor of the merger of AT&T and Tele-Communications, Inc. while AT&T was embroiled in controversy over illegal wiretaps. White argued then, that AT&T should be held immune from prosecution for spying on Americans. White truely believes a state secret privilege is inherently democratic, even when the secrets in question hide criminal misconduct. He also asserts that the requirement of national security trumps discloser whenever state secrets are invoked to promote a neoconservative agenda. So there is little surprise, and no new ground broken by the posting of Adam J. White on 17 July 2009 in the Weekly Standard.
Words printed at the base of the Statue of Liberty — worth remembering when the red state folks push the meme that patriotism is only about swinging a big stick — before protecting our borders from foreign culture trumped safeguarding the inalienable rights of all men.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
—Emma Lazarus, (1883)
Tags: cultural anxiety, liberty
Interesting thing from the Sarah Palin biography, she seldom finishes anything.
From Wikipedia:
- Palin was elected twice to the city council of Wasilla, in 1992 and 1995. Palin did not complete her second term on the city council because she ran for mayor in 1996.
- Palin served two three-year terms (1996–2002) as the mayor of Wasilla, before running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor.
- Governor Murkowski appointed Palin to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. She chaired the Commission beginning in 2003, serving as Ethics Supervisor. Palin resigned in January 2004, protesting what she called the “lack of ethics” of fellow Republican members.
- On July 3, 2009, Palin announced at a press conference that she would not run for reelection in the 2010 Alaska gubernatorial election and would resign the present term before the end of July.
Seems the woman enjoys shopping for job titles, but finds work unbecoming.
Tags: job shopping
In a multi-party democratic republic, when one party is clearly out-of-power, obstruction — though not a winning strategy — remains a primary course of action. Consider the effort a tug-of-war, where the goal is to slow the inevitable march of the controlling political party. Yet playing the same hand and expecting a different result is a sure sign of madness. Take the recent track record of my very own Congressional representative: Trent Franks from last Friday, 26 June 2009. Where according to OpenCongress.org, his vote tallied as follows:
- Trent Franks voted No on American Clean Energy and Security Act. The bill was passed.
- Trent Franks voted Yes on Forbes of Virginia Substitute Amendment. The bill was failed.
- Trent Franks voted No on Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriation, 2010. The bill was passed.
- Trent Franks voted Yes on Campbell of California Part C Amendment No. 4. The bill was failed.
- Trent Franks voted Yes on Campbell of California Part E Amendment No. 1. The bill was failed.
- Trent Franks voted Yes on Campbell of California Part C Amendment No. 3. The bill was failed.
And that’s just Republican arrogance on the national playing field. At the state level things are even zanier.
Consider burning Republican social issues which merit state legislation, and I’ll quote from Arnie Moshowitz of Florence, Arizona who wrote on Sunday, June 28, 2009 in the AZ Republic, letters to the editor, this succinct essay entitled, State legislators have lost their minds:
“The state is in a financial crisis of historic proportions, and here is what the elected officials want to deliver:
A law to allow unlicensed concealed weapons everywhere. I already feel safer!
Allowing texting while driving by not passing a law against it. No problem, just watch out for drivers with their heads down.
Allowing fireworks for those 16 years old and older because the kids need fewer fingers and eyes, and we need more fires and air pollution.
Watering down the license-plate readability law.Who needs to know who the lawbreakers and hit-and-runners are.
Making it a misdemeanor to stop and pick up an illegal to dig some holes for you, but being being ticketed at 100 mph on a speed camera doesn’t go on our driver’s-license record.
Eliminate builder impact fees so that we, the citizens, can pay for infrastructure instead of the builder/profit maker.
Is this what the ‘best and brightest’ of Arizona can come up with, or have we uncovered more of the dangers of the Arizona sun beating on their heads all these years?”
Also, let’s not forget, now that we are without a Democratic governor, legislation passes — without the customary veto — to control women’s bodies, by first impeding abortion rights, while secondly, enabling pharmacists to refuse a written contraceptive prescription, when religious belief conflicts with professional duty toward patients. Outrageous! This pandering to the radical right has proven counter-productive for conservatives at the national stage, and such behavior will soon prove deleterious for Republicans in Arizona. Times are changing.
And what solution is offered for the Arizona budget crisis? Try a regressive flat-tax, a trifecta which hurts poor working folk and fixed-income senior citizens, while lessening tax burden on the wealthy. Couple this with a reduction in the assessment ratio for Business’ secondary property tax by 5%. Plus a regressive sales tax to fund public education and social welfare programs, while repealing State Equalization Property Tax — aka the school tax, a double whammy against the less fortunate and a boon for real estate owners.
The poor, the elderly and our children have been chosen to bear the cost of a Republican engineered recession. Those least able to argue collectively are to be punished for the sagging profits of the wealthiest among us. While the rich must forgo luxuries in an economic down turn, the impoverished are asked to pay a greater share of the public debt with funds used to feed their families.
Tags: abortion rights, obstruction, regressive flat tax, regressive sales tax, religious beliefs, social welfare
Most U.S. journalists (on the left and the right), seem a bit smug reporting civil unrest for an Iranian government currently having a rough time balancing democracy with authoritarian rule.(1) This glee in other’s unease largely manifests as chauvinism, either national or faith-based, or a combination of the two. Which explains my embarrassment reading most commentary of the past week as it pertains to the recent election in Iran. Too often a columnist vainly notes an absence of democratic principle in Iran, allowing for a rigged election — as a point of comparative pride, missing a larger truth in the situation.
Much worse, some Republicans — including my very own Senator, John “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” McCain, appear convinced that American interests demand intervention in Iranian affairs at this time.(2) Whether imperial intent of U.S. origin would solve the present crisis in Iran and ease world tension, appears only of passing interest to a saber-rattling neo-con cruising for a fight — like J. Sidney McCain. Such paths offer little mileage for an American public already jaundiced by seven years of Mideastern war and struggling to understand the significance of internal Iranian turmoil.
At fault is neither Islamic faith per se, nor Persian culture. The trouble is religion, intrinsically. When leaders are directed by God, Allah or Zeus, there can be no democratic process. Iran is the clinical case in point. Theocracy never surrenders to the natural rights of its citizens — and it’s not just a middle-eastern phenomenon. Those in this country who wish to remake the United States as a Christian nation, should pause to observe the machinery of power in Iran. The secular founding of our great nation — conceived as an association of men, ruled from the ground up, rather than from the heavens down — has been the cornerstone of our successful exercise of democratic rule for more than 200 years.
Mainstream media would do us all a great service by focusing on reason among men as the rational justification for U.S. achievement as a free nation. We should all consider sympathy the proper emotion, and sorrow the correct expression, offered to the Iranian people as they struggle under the yoke of religious rule, while understandably rejecting the legitimacy of American intervention. Journalists should not miss this opportunity for a valuable civic lesson.
1 CNN – Iranian women stand up in defiance, flout rules
2 Washington Times – McCain believes Iran election was rigged
Tags: from the ground up, national security, religious beliefs, secular founding