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Category: Politics Page 4 of 73

Rep. Moran is Dead Wrong on the TSA’s New Searches

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On November 19, 2010

In Law, Politics, Travel, Virginia

Next time you see Rep. Moran, let him know what you think of his position on the TSA’s new nude-photo-or-get-your-genitals-groped policies:

Northern Virginia Rep. Jim Moran (D) dismissed the recent wave of privacy concerns generated by controversial Transportation Security Administration screening practices, saying: “I could care less whether somebody feels me up.”

[ . . . ]

“You know, it there’s intrusiveness, if it makes you shy or embarrassed or whatever, I’m sorry,” Moran continued. “You just go with the flow. That’s life in the 21st century. I don’t have much sympathy for the privacy advocates on that.”

No, Rep. Moran, you don’t just go with the flow.  In fact, let me remind you what you are expected do:

    “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”

Try it in this instance.  Your constituents will appreciate your efforts.

START Priorities

By

On November 18, 2010

In Personal, Policy, Politics

If you think I can get a bit over the top on the TSA or ridiculously overreaching IP laws, just wait until I get rolling on US/Soviet/Russian nuclear proliferation.  That we ever got to where we are today is testament to both the giant failures and achievements of humanity that we even *have* a today.  And now we’re here, with the GOP preferring to spend its time saving us from Texas Representative/Village Idiot Louis Gohmert’s “terror babies” instead of, well, I’ll let Josh from TPM sketch it out:

Russia still has a massive strategic nuclear arsenal with pretty much the exclusive goal of being able to devastate the United States and kill pretty much all of us. For 15 years we had pretty robust right to inspect their arsenal many times a year, make sure they only had as many as they were allowed under our treaties and actually get up on the delivery missiles themselves and look at the payloads? Now we don’t. In fact, we haven’t since December 5th of last year. At first that wasn’t that big a deal. Not much can happen in a few weeks or few months. But now it’s been almost a year. So all that trust but verify stuff Ronald Reagan was so into? Well, now we can’t verify. And for as much as you’re worried about some Muslim guy blowing up a plane and killing a few hundred people, these are weapons designed to kill hundreds of millions of people. Do you feel more secure knowing we’re just taking everything on faith from the Russians? Or that our intelligence on their missile designs and practices is growing older by the day?

And do we hear the White House pointing this out?  Anyone?  Hello?

Losing Democrats: Illustrations

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On November 5, 2010

In Policy, Politics

My friend Vivian has an excellent post up that demonstrates why no one rallied around Rep. Glenn Nye (D-VA02). He didn’t stand for anything.

~

We saw it coming (at the end, anyway), but I still mourn the loss of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI). And for reasons that have zero to do with preserving Democratic power:

For years, Feingold was one of the few — and sometimes the only — voice in the Senate skeptical of the government’s increasing demands for domestic surveillance power and control of the internet. He was one of 16 Senators who voted against the Communications Decency Act of 1996, an internet censorship bill later struck down by the Supreme Court, was the only Senator in 2001 to vote against the USA Patriot Act, and he introduced a measure to censure President Bush for his illegal warrantless wiretapping program.

“Senator Feingold was a true champion of civil liberties,” said Marc Rotenberg, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, based in Washington, D.C. “He spoke out against the Patriot Act and the dramatic growth of government surveillance programs when many other Senators stood by silently. His voice and his commitment to the Constitutional rights of all Americans will be missed.”

~

Rep. Jim Oberstar’s (D-MN) (what the hell, Minnesota?) represents a serious policy advocate setback:

But beyond the immediate politics, Oberstar’s loss signals the end of an era for America’s bicycle movement. Oberstar was a titan of non-motorized transportation. The President of the League of American Bicyclists, Andy Clarke, said this morning that, “we lost a star player in yesterday’s elections.”

“As for the defeat of Congressman Oberstar, that’s a real loss. Regardless of party politics, Oberstar was a true champion of transportation issues and his loss is a major blow to everyone interested in the passage of a robust, multi-modal, long-term transportation bill – including bicyclists.”

Friday Notes: Reclaimed Edition

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On November 5, 2010

In Distribution, Politics, Society, Taiwan

It’s been some time, no?  So let’s see what’s in the closet:

Taiwan!  I know, surprise.  But still, my head’s still half there, and I keep finding more avenues of interest.  One of the big sources of that is Michael Turton’s blog, which appears to focus on my general areas of interest – cycling, politics, and information control – but in a Taiwanese context.  Check it out.  This great piece on subtle (and not so subtle) creeping censorship is great, as is this photo series on the (often hilarious) political billboards featuring posing candidates.  It does not, unfortunately, include a shot of my favorite: two candidates, thumbs up, over the headline: “Younger and Better!”

Girl tends a fire on WenHua St., near Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan

~

This should be circulated to everyone you know who is considering law school:

The number of people employed in legal services hit an all-time high of 1.196 million in June 2007. It currently stands at 1.103 million. That means the number of law jobs has dwindled by about 7.8 percent. In comparison, the total number of jobs has fallen about 5.4 percent over the same period.

At the same time, the law schools—the supply side of the equation—have not stopped growing. Law schools awarded 43,588 J.D.s last year, up 11.5 percent since 2000, though there was technically negative demand for lawyers. And the American Bar Association’s list of approved law schools now numbers 200, an increase of 9 percent in the last decade. Those newer law schools have a much shakier track record of helping new lawyers get work, but they don’t necessarily cost less than their older, more established counterparts.

~

The US may have had to occasionally compromise on its trumpeted values to combat Terraism., but we still stand strong against obvious things like child soldiers, right?  Well . . .:

The Obama administration quietly waived a key section of the law meant to combat the use of child soldiers for four toubled states on Monday, over the objections the State Department’s democracy and human rights officials. Today, the White House tells The Cable that they intend to give these countries — all of whose armed forces use underage troops — one more year to improve before bringing any penalties to bear.

The NGO community was shocked by the announcement, reported Tuesday by The Cable, that President Obama authorized exemptions from all penalties set to go into effect this year under the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2008. The countries that received waivers were Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Yemen.

Anyway, it’s not like being a kid *really* makes a difference in the US.

~

Bob Gucionne died while I was on my trip, and no one around me knew who he was.  And that made me sad, because I used to love his magazine as a kid.  No, not that one.  The other one.

Krugman (and Me): “Blame the Whiny Center”

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On November 3, 2010

In Politics

I’m just going to go ahead and lift the entirety of Krugman’s post, because I want you to read the whole thing. What else should we do in these waning days of socialism, right?

So, we’re already getting the expected punditry: Obama needs to end his leftist policies, which consist of … well, there weren’t any, but he should stop them anyway.

What actually happened, of course, was that Obama failed to do enough to boost the economy, plus totally failing to tap into populist outrage at Wall Street. And now we’re in the trap I worried about from the beginning: by failing to do enough when he had political capital, he lost that capital, and now we’re stuck.

But he did have help in getting it wrong: at every stage there was a faction of Democrats standing in the way of strong action, demanding that Obama do less, avoid spending money, and so on. In so doing, they shot themselves in the face: half of the Blue Dogs lost their seats.

And what are those who are left demanding? Why, that Obama move to the center.

And Harry Reid will lead the way.

Yelverton for Congress? Or Something Else?

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On November 2, 2010

In Politics, Virginia

Has anyone even heard of Stephen Yelverton’s (write-in) candidacy for Virginia’s 8th District before this week?  I’m just back from my polling station (where I voted for Rep. Jim Moran), and was rather surprised to see three people wearing t-shirts promoting the write-in candidacy of a Stephen Thomas Yelverton.  Until a few days ago, I’d never seen that name in Arlington, nevermind any campaign coverage.  No debates, no campaigning – nothing.   Yet there were three people working the poll, with printed t-shirts, and scads of quality yard signs.  All for an out-of-nowhere candidate?   So I had to look a few things up:

  • His website.  See it for yourself.  Convincing?  Not particularly.  The URL was registered in March 2010.
  • Contributions.  According to Open Secrets, he’s an exclusively Republican giver.  Mostly the RNC and George W. Bush until the mid 00s (and folks like Lauch Faircloth and Jesse Helms in the 90s).
  • Finances.  I’m a bit hesitant to mention this, but 1) he’s running for Congress (apparently) and 2) it’s one of the few relevant results that come up when you search his name, but this guy is still dealing with a personal bankruptcy.  The proceedings appear to involve substantial amounts, but you have to wonder where he’s getting the money to pay poll workers and print t-shirts/signs.  His candidate site says that he only accepts contributions from individuals of less than $200 (mere coincidence that that’s the reporting threshold, I’m sure), so we don’t have any fundraising records available.

So I called the contact number on his website, which turns out to connect me to his cellphone.  Apparently catching him on his way out of the Metro and heading into court.  He tells me that he’s a genuine candidate and self-funding.  He also said that he’s been advertising for the past couple of weeks, but has been “laying the groundwork for 6 months.”  He gave me the short pitch on his positions (reform Congress, transparency, etc.), but I told him that I was mostly interested in verifying whether he was a genuine candidate, and not someone just designed to peel off votes.  He responded by telling me that yes, he was a real candidate, and that he was running against both the Republican and Democratic candidates.  He also told me that he’s never been particularly involved in Arlington or Alexandria politics.  He then said that he had to head into the courthouse, suggested that I call back in the afternoon if I’d like, and we concluded the call.

He was polite enough, and I don’t have any personal reason to doubt the man.  Yet, in light of the circumstances, I’m still wondering if it’s a bid to peel off enough voters to give Murray (the GOP candidate) a shot.  Now, I could very well be wrong – the 8th District race isn’t interesting to me, and I’ve not kept my ear to the ground for every detail.  Jim Moran’s imperfect, but he’s orders of magnitude better than Murray (who thinks a winning strategy in the 8th is going on the G. Gordon Liddy radio show, or accusing his GOP primary opponent of supporting gay marriage (horrors)). As a result, I’m confident Jim Moran is going to beat Murray handily.  But this whole thing gives me a nagging feeling that maybe someone, somewhere, thinks that – with a write-in candidate who can peel off the votes of those who are tired of Jim Moran, but won’t vote GOP (a group which includes a fair number of Democrats) – Murray just might have a shot.  And maybe they’re betting on it.

Update: The Sun-Gazette did have a brief note late last week on Yelverton’s self-announced entrance into the race, and I’ve been told that he’s also placed some advertising in the Falls Church News Press.  It’s also my understanding that he tried – and failed – to secure enough signatures to qualify for the ballot as an independent earlier this year.  That helps tilt the balance in favor of an actual, if still ill-executed, candidacy.

(The Wrong Kind of) Continuity of Government

By

On September 10, 2010

In Law, Politics

When we talk about the impressive ability of the United States to transfer political power every four/eight years, we call it impressive because we presume it involves introducing some change that the exiting party opposes.  And the entire point of elections is to provide an opportunity to introduce that change.  So, in that context, I ask – how in the hell did we end up here?

On issues ranging from the government’s detention authority to a program to kill al Qaeda terrorist suspects, even if they are American citizens, Mr. Obama has consolidated much of the power President George W. Bush asserted after Sept. 11 in the waging of the U.S. war against terror.

[ . . . ]

Overall, [former CIA Director and Bush appointee] Mr. Hayden said, there is more continuity than divergence between the Bush and Obama administrations’ approaches to the war on terror.

“You’ve got state secrets, targeted killings, indefinite detention, renditions, the opposition to extending the right of habeas corpus to prisoners at Bagram [in Afghanistan],” Mr. Hayden said, listing the continuities. “And although it is slightly different, Obama has been as aggressive as President Bush in defending prerogatives about who he has to inform in Congress for executive covert action.”

I never thought that Obama (or any president) would willingly give up the expanded state surveillance powers, but I have to admit to being surprised that he’s put so much effort into protecting torturers:

In a 6-5 ruling issued this afternoon, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed the Obama administration a major victory in its efforts to shield Bush crimes from judicial review, when the court upheld the Obama DOJ’s argument that Bush’s rendition program, used to send victims to be tortured, are “state secrets” and its legality thus cannot be adjudicated by courts.

[ . . . ]

The distorted, radical use of the state secret privilege — as a broad-based immunity weapon for compelling the dismissal of entire cases alleging Executive lawbreaking, rather than a narrow discovery tool for suppressing the use of specific classified documents — is exactly what the Bush administration did to such extreme controversy.

This is exactly what Candidate Obama decried.  And now President Obama has completely embraced it.  This isn’t some small matter of little interest to those outside of the legal or political worlds.   The ACLU’s Ben Wizner, who argued the case, said:

This is a sad day not only for the torture victims whose attempt to seek justice has been extinguished, but for all Americans who care about the rule of law and our nation’s reputation in the world. To date, not a single victim of the Bush administration’s torture program has had his day in court. If today’s decision is allowed to stand, the United States will have closed its courtroom doors to torture victims while providing complete immunity to their torturers.

I’d like some of that Change We Can Believe In, please.

(Be sure to click through to the Washington Times (yes, Washington Times) story at the first link, if for no other reason than to behold the amazing agreement of parties from across the full political spectrum on the continuity between Bush and Obama).

Actions Have Consequences

By

On September 9, 2010

In Politics, Society

Over at TPM, Josh Marshall has an excellent post on Taking Responsibility:

Speaking just now on MSNBC James Zogby made a very good point — and pressed Andrea Mitchell on it. His point was that sure, this Pastor Jones fool is one guy, who’s managed to get worldwide attention for his stunt. But you cannot separate him, as I noted below, from the whole climate of hate speech and anti-Muslim agitation from the Newt Gingriches and the Sarah Palins and the rest of them.

At that point, Mitchell jumped in and said, wait, Palin said she disagrees with the Koran burning. To which Zogby replied, something to the effect of ‘C’mon’. ANd that’s just the right reply. This is the standard approach of race haters and demagogues. They keep stirring the pot, churning out demonizing rhetoric and hate speech. Then some marginal figure does something nuts and suddenly … oh, wait, I didn’t mean burn Korans. Where’d you get that idea from?

Wherever, indeed.

Debating the Surveillance State

By

On August 26, 2010

In Politics, Society

Glenn Greenwald keeps up the good fight in responding to two essays which:

perfectly illustrate the continuous stream of manipulative fear-mongering over the last decade which has reduced much of the American citizenry into a meek and submissive faction for whom no asserted government power is too extreme, provided the scary menace of ‘Terrorism’ is uttered to justify it.

And really, please read the links given via “two essays” above. While this subject sometimes feels like a hobby horse that I’m either riding or beating to death, I continue to believe that it is an issue critical to our society.  And yes, things *have* changed:

Every President until George W. Bush — including Ronald Reagan — was able to keep the country safe while adhering to that surveillance safeguard. But while even the most hawkish Americans in the 1980s — facing the Soviet threat — understood that domestic eavesdropping should be conducted only with judicial warrants, the war cheerleaders of the current decade insist that the far less formidable threat from Muslim extremists means we must vest the Government with the power of warrantless surveillance — even on American citizens, on U.S. soil. That’s how far we’ve descended into the pit of fear-mongering and submission, thanks to the toxic mix of fear-mongers and the authoritarian cowards they exploit.

There’s no excluding of Barack Obama in this paragraph.  Like most presidents, he’s held onto the powers grabbed by the previous one.  This is not a partisan issue.  It’s a fundamental issue.

Save Yourselves, White People!

By

On July 22, 2010

In Politics, Society

Rachel Maddow goes to town, demonstrating the very clear, very straight line between the segregationist politics of past and present:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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