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Sheldon Whitehouse speaks out on Bush criminality

Friday, December 7, 2007

Rhode Island traded a mediocrity for a first rate Senator when it threw out Lincoln Chafee last year.

Senator Whitehouse scores the Bush criminal enterprise in a Senate speech. (Full story here).

Let’s start with number one. Bear in mind that the so-called Protect America Act that was stampeded through this great body in August provides no – zero – statutory protections for Americans traveling abroad from government wiretapping. None if you’re a businesswoman traveling on business overseas, none if you’re a father taking the kids to the Caribbean, none if you’re visiting uncles or aunts in Italy or Ireland, none even if you’re a soldier in the uniform of the United States posted overseas. The Bush Administration provided in that hastily-passed law no statutory restrictions on their ability to wiretap you at will, to tap your cell phone, your e-mail, whatever.

The only restriction is an executive order called 12333, which limits executive branch surveillance to Americans who the Attorney General determines to be agents of a foreign power. That’s what the executive order says.

But what does this administration say about executive orders?

An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

“Whenever (the President) wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order,” he may do so because “an executive order cannot limit a President.” And he doesn’t have to change the executive order, or give notice that he’s violating it, because by “depart(ing) from the executive order,” the President “has instead modified or waived it.”

So unless Congress acts, here is what legally prevents this President from wiretapping Americans traveling abroad at will: nothing. Nothing.

That was among the most egregious flaws in the bill passed during the August stampede they orchestrated by the Bush Administration – and this OLC opinion shows why we need to correct it.

Read the article. Whitehouse is a good lawyer. He got Mukasey to give a contrary opinion during his confirmation hearings.

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A Mormon story

Friday, December 7, 2007

Since Mormons are in the news lately, I share herewith a story about my own pilgrimage to the Mormon Tabernacle back in 1971. The school year ended early as a result of the post Cambodian invasion student strikes. Four Bowdoin students, including me, decided to take the archetypal road trip, so we took off in an ancient car and headed West. We stopped in Salt Lake City and joined the other tourists at the Visitor’s Center near the tabernacle. As I recall, we infidels weren’t allowed into the tabernacle proper.
 
The visitor’s center was replete with dioramas about the Mormon religion, including tributes to some great Americans who had been retroactively, so to speak, Mormonized by the Mormons themselves. I recall particularly that somehow the deist Thomas Jefferson was actually a proto-Mormon. We also learned that the Book of Mormon was chock full of accurate prophesies about such things as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, all of which, by some strange coincidence, had taken place before Joseph Smith “found” the golden tablets.
 
At this point in my life I think it’s fair to say that I was teetering on the brink of agnosticism, but had not yet abandoned the one true faith. I had only a vague idea of the racist foundations of the Mormon faith. The one thing I did know is that they had compromised their belief in polygamy when it became politically inconvenient. To me this seemed like a cop-out.
 
The Visitor’s Center engaged in a rather hard sell, about which more later.
 
I don’t remember how, but we (mainly me), long haired hippies that we were, became involved in a conversation with some apple cheeked young Mormons, who were somehow replaced at a later point by a non-apple cheeked much older Mormon with whom I engaged in a civil but emphatic debate about the merits of Mormonism. My main beef, as I said, was their willingness to compromise what they said was religious doctrine, and our discussion more or less revolved around that point, though I’m sure their free and easy re-writing of history came up, as did other nonsensical points of doctrine.
 
Lo, and it came to pass that while we were talking a great multitude of tourists gathered round about us. And it further came to pass that eventually the Mormon elder gave up on this particular infidel and walked away. And the multitudes did crowd about me, and did slap my back and give other signs of approbation, be I hippie or no, insofar as they were all mightily fed up with the hard sell and explicit put-downs of their own religions. And lo, did I learn at that moment that you can only push people so far, and I do truly believe that Willard and his ilk will find that to be the case this year.
 
I signed their guestbook, bought a Book of Mormon and left. I tried to read it as we traveled, but it was written in what I can only call parodic King James style, much like the paragraph above, full of “came to pass”es, but lacking all the poetry and grace. I finally gave up, but not before gaining an appreciation of the racism that is a bedrock principle of the faith. The creation myth of the Mormons is no sillier than the Biblical but is explicitly racist. I can understand why Willard wants to leave the subject of his actual beliefs off the table, while nonetheless insisting that only those who believe in some ridiculous fairy story, never mind the details, have a place in our public life.
 
It turned out that signing that guestbook was a bad idea, because later that summer two more apple cheeked, white shirted, Mormons turned up at my door seeking to convert me. I was young and foolish, so I let them in the door, and proceeded to engage in another debate. They made no converts that day, and I got no accolades. This time the only audience was my mother, and she wasn’t impressed.

For those not conversant with the Mormon creation myth, it is recounted in cartoon style below (stolen from Oliver Willis). I don’t vouch for this being 100% accurate, but it accords with my recollections of this truly dreadfully written book.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy0d1HbItOo[/youtube]

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JFK versus Willard Romney

Friday, December 7, 2007

There have been a number of comparisons between Willard Romney’s speech yesterday and John Kennedy’s speech in 1960 to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. It really boils down to this: JFK was trying to extinguish the flames of religious bigotry, Romney was trying to fan the flames while changing the direction of the wind.
 
Nothing makes this point better than these contrasting quotes, first from Kennedy:
 

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end–where all men and all churches are treated as equal–where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice–where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind–and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood. (Emphasis added)

Now Romney:

We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning.  They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God.  Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life.  It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism.  They are wrong.

 
Kennedy succeeded in convincing the country, if not his audience, that he would keep his religion out of politics and would not be a tool of the Pope (what an absurd notion, given the reality of the man). Romney tried, with what success we will soon know, to convince his audience that he would interject religion into politics and that he would be their tool where it counted.
 
Congrats to the Courant, by the way, for shaking off its tabloid ways to cover this speech well. This comparative sidebar was especially good:
 

 Kennedy, 1960:
?Expressed unequivocal support for separation of church and state.?
?Addressed specific issues raised by his Catholicism, such as aid to parochial schools.?
?Answered tough questions from his audience after the speech.?

“I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me.”

Romney, 2007:
?Said religion should play a role in public life.?
?Made only passing references to issues raised by his Mormon faith.?
?Did not answer questions after his speech.?

“Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.”

I will not get into this abuse of the founders, the flower, some might argue, of the anti-religious Enlightenment. One could write a book about Romney’s mischaracterization of their religious views. But I supposed that’s to be expected from a guy whose religion claims some of those same founders as brother Mormons. (see my next post, coming soon).

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Pants on fire

Thursday, December 6, 2007

A short course from TPM on NIE lies

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=iMzJRMmQ7WM[/youtube]

That was yesterday. Today, poor Dana tries to explain it all:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBDTb-PvLsk[/youtube]

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Bad Behavior redux (briefly)

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Looks like my problems yesterday were not unique. Susie at Suburban Guerilla was also banned from her own site:

Apparently every IP on earth has been flagged by Bad Behavior as a spam IP address, so nobody, including Susie, has been able to create posts or make comments.

I just visited the Bad Behavior site, where they seem to be blissfully unaware of the problem.

One benefit to losing the spam protection is that the site loads much more quickly now.

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A political forecast

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Let me be the first to predict that Mike Huckabee will not suffer as much from freeing a dangerous rapist who went on to murder two women than will Giuliani for using New York taxpayer dollars on maintaining his mistress.Most of the press is still in the first stages of love with Huckabee as the likable up-and-comer to pile on this story right now, and in a few weeks it will be dismissed as old news.

I very much hope I’m wrong, though if I am it may very well mean we’ll end up with the loathsome Romney (but they’re all loathsome, aren’t they?).

Filed in Presidential Politics | | Comments (2)

Bush exposed again

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

There must be a backstory to all this. Sure, Bush lies all the time, but how often does the White House basically admit it:

CNN reports:

President Bush was told in August that Iran’s nuclear weapons program ‘may be suspended,’ the White House said Wednesday, which seemingly contradicts the account of the meeting given by Bush Tuesday.”

The White House statement released by Dana Perino tonight also states McConnell told Bush “the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran’s covert nuclear program.”

One must wonder why the word “seemingly” is in there. The statement directly contradicted Bush.

Could it be that McConnell served notice on the White House that if they didn’t “correct” Bush’s statement, McConnell would go public. After all, Bush was, in effect, accusing him of being an incompetent, if not worse.

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An unpredictable wrinkle in Iowa

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

1% more Conscious has an interesting post on something of which I was unaware. Iowa caucus goers vote their top two choices. The second place votes of those who voted for the bottom tier candidates (Biden, Richardson, and, alas, Dodd) are added to the top tier candidates. I agree with IC’s conclusion, those votes are unlikely to go to Hillary.

Filed in Presidential Politics | | Comments (2)

Bad Behavior behaves badly

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

When I tried to log on to my site today, I was not allowed to enter, on the grounds that I had been identified by my spam catching plug-in (Bad Behavior) as a person who had engaged in malicious behavior on the site. This seemed rather unkind, since after all it is my website. Technically, I should be allowed to be as malicious here as I want. Beyond that, I plead not guilty. Cranky maybe, but not malicious.

Luckily, with a little help from the tech folks at Blue Host, and access through my wife’s computer (she apparently was not perceived as malicious) I was able to turn off Bad Behavior. This may result in a lot more of the mechanized spam it formerly blocked showing up in the comments. I’ll do my best to scrub it, but I’m normally on the site in the evening, so things may pile up during the days.

Also, on the advice of the Tech guy, I have to approve comments from first time commenters, after which they will be posted automatically. I think that starts from today, so those of you who have commented in the past may find that your first comment posted after today won’t appear until I’ve had a chance to approve it.

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This attack on corporate America brought to you by Wal-Mart

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Yesterday my wife and I went to the Stroll in Mystic, and stopped in to see Dan Curland at the Mystic Disc. Dan told us that he has had to concentrate more on selling vinyl these days. Downloading is part of it, but a large part of the problem stems from monopolistic or semi-monopolistic practices on the part of the corporations that control distribution of compact discs. That’s par for the course but here’s worse. Dan said that he couldn’t sell the latest Eagles CD at all. Cuz why? Starbucks, I guessed. No, worse, he responded. “Wal-mart?”, my wife and I said in stunned unison.

Bingo.

The deal is explained charitably here at an Eagles fansite. Dan Henley is impressed with Wal-Mart’s PR about its environmental sensibilities. So the Eagles haven’t sold out. Not by a long shot. Why Dan even told us that there’s a ten minute song on the CD blasting corporate America, a song you can only hear by buying it at your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart.

Way to go, Eagles.

Maybe Henley really believes the Wal-Mart environmental bullshit. It’s always possible. Even the most cynical can sometimes be credulous. I remember years ago reading a book by Harlan Ellison called the Glass Teat, a book primarily about television. Elllison is a great science fiction writer who wrote a story with the greatest title I’ve ever seen: I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. The Glass Teat was actually a collection of columns, in one of which Ellison lauded the Shell oil company because it had added “platformate” to its gasoline, which it touted in a mercilessly long advertising campaign as some sort of wonder additive that increased gas mileage. (I know I’m dating myself here) He took their advertising at actual face value, something totally out of character for him. He got a lot of feedback to that column, and in the next he expressed wonder that his readers could be so cynical as to believe platformate was nothing but hype. So he actually contacted Shell, asked for the data to back up its claims, and discovered, to his surprise, that platformate was just..hype. Methinks if Henley looked closely he would find that Wal-Mart’s environmentalism is 21st century platformate.

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