Category Archives: Politics

Law and Order, Politics

Ramos-Compean

The story of the two “wronged” border patrol agents is still circulating in conservative circles. Read the statement from the US Attorney who prosecuted them (warning: PDF). It deals with a lot of shibboleths being spread by the Right.

One thing I will comment on: reading between the lines, I think Johnny Sutton thinks the 10+ year sentences were excessive as well. But a Clinton-era law puts in a mandatory 10-year sentence for using a firearm to commit a felony. So he had no choice.

I hate mandatory sentences in general and this business of tacking on extra years because a gun was used violates the right of due process. These men were given an extra ten years for a crime the jury never convicted of. And we have seen this guideline abused over and over again — in Texas, against the Branch Davidians, for example.

Perhaps if conservatives focused their energy away from the prosecutor and onto the unconstitutional insanity of 10-year sentence mandates, we’d make more progress.

Civil Liberties, Politics, War on Terror

Quote of the Day

Right now, I’m reading, somewhat belatedly, Team of Rivals. A lot of Bush’s supporters — his few remaining supporters — like to make the comparison of Bush to Lincoln. But apart from both being Republicans, both facing a difficult conflict and both having opposition from peace-seeking Democrats, there is no comparison.

In the face of the greatest crisis in our nation’s history, Lincoln held together a new Republican coalition, got rid of an incompetent Secretary of War and numerous blundering generals and was masterful on foreign relations. Facing a handful of extremists who can’t seem to figure out which end of the bomb to point at the enemy, Bush has fractured the Republican party, stuck with incompetent twerps beyond all reason and alienated the entire world.

But moreover, Lincoln’s use of military tribunals and suspension of certain liberties has been used to justify Bush’s. But again, Lincoln was facing open rebellion, for which exemptions are specifically granted in the Consititution. Bush is not, unless you’re going to go the Algore route and proclaim any opposition to be a fifth column.

And Lincoln himself said and, I’m finding out, lived, the following:

I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the very sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the very extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardize in any degree, the common rights of its citizens.

“Aught that could be construed” — i.e, we shouldn’t be finding little legal loopholes to justify violating liberties. We should not even give the apperance of violating the spirit of the law while obeying its letter. In contrast, this Administation has lawyers figuring out rationaliziations for wiretaps, opened mail, torture and indefinite detention.

“A government had better go to the very extreme of toleration” – in other words, this is the last desparate step. In contrast, the Right’s first inclination is to suspend civil liberties, break the law and violate our treaty obligations.

Night and day, people. Night and day.

Politics

Gore Takedown

Michael Moynihan assaults Algore.

What this means, of course, is that television stations like Current TV (which he co-owns) and films like An Inconvenient Truth (in which he stars) are cracking good fun, full of unmolested “reason,” while the hyenas of AM radio should be actively combated. Money is pernicious in the hands of Rupert Murdoch, owner of the New York Post, The Weekly Standard, and Fox News, but less so in the hands of Joan Kroc, who bequeathed $225 million of her fortune to National Public Radio. Knees knock and boots shake when Clear Channel lards its schedule with right-wing radio hosts—whom Gore, shockingly, calls “fifth columnists”—but less so whenClear Channel launches a handful of left-leaning stations, determining that progressive talk is simply “good business.”

I’ll add a related point: I find it odd to be lectured on fear-mongering from a man who is constantly exaggerating the impact of global warming and latching onto every natural disaster to support The Cause.

Remember, fear-mongering and hype are evil when conservatives do it. But it’s OK when liberals do it. Because it’s true. Calling Republicans evil is OK because they are evil, dontchya know.

Over the last twenty years, I have heard Democratic politicians, including Al Gore, tell me that, if Republicans were elected, social security would be ended, medicare would be gutted, seniors would be eating dog food, blacks would be dragged to death behind trucks, we’d all be homeless, we’d all lose our health care, school children would be starved, the air and water would be polluted, etc., etc., etc. For Al Gore, who has fear-mongered his entire career, to now lecture the nation on their use of irrational fear for political means, is the height of arrogance.

But then again, Gore is so comfortable on that height.

Politics, Science and Edumacation

A Tangled Web

NYT looks at some of the myriad issues involved in the energy bill.

The more I look at it, the more I think a national energy policy is a dumb idea. Our congressmen are not smart enough to understand a complex industry and the result of their attempts to interfere — tens of billions wasted on synth-fuels, billions more on ethanol to pollute the air and drive up food prices, billions more for oil companies to do what oil companies do anyway — have been laughable.

No, let the market decide. Restrict the federal role to funding basic research and environmental controls, but get them out of the micro-management and subsidy business. They don’t know what they’re doing. Would you want a bunch of lawyers rushing in and telling you how to do your job? Why do we have this national delusion that energy is somehow a different industry and government can run it better than the people who have spent their lives within it?

Law and Order, Politics, War on Terror

The Courts Come Through

The US Circuit Court restores habeas and a Georgia Court brings sanity to an out-of-control prosecution.

I am sure both will be bashed by “conservatives” as judicial activism. But, dammit, we need some judicial activism when the President is determined to shit all over the Constitution, the law and our treaty obligations. That’s what they are there for. If they are just going to jump every time the President says “frog”, what’s the point in having a judiciiary.

It’s called checks and balances, you totalitarian twerps. Read up on it.

One other point to make regarding habeas: it shouldn’t have gotten to this point. Too often we think that the constitutionality of a law can only be decided by the courts. But the Congress and the President take an oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter

Both the President and the Congress are obligated to oppose any law or statute which they believes violates the Constitution. But the attitude of both became obvious early on — when they supported a McCain-Feingold law they knew restrained free speech because it was popular. That was an early warning sign that the GOP saw the Constitution as an impediment, not a pact.

We should rarely have to fall back on the courts to defend liberty. And shame on this Administration that we had to on such a fundamental liberty.

Politics, The Nanny State

Zero Tolerance Crap

A Virginia woman is going to jail for 2+ years for having a supervised party for her high-schooler. Reason has the details on this MADD-supported horseshit.

Apparently, it would have been better if she’d turned a blind eye to her son and his friends’ underage drinking, and allowed them celebrate in a motel room, a vacant parking lot, or a woods, as my high school friends did, and then drive home.

…

This is the same zero tolerance line of thinking adopted by groups like MADD and the American Medical Association, which a couple of years ago putting out a study lamenting that—horrors!—most underage drinkers get their first taste of alcohol from their parents. Of course, you could make a strong argument that parents are exactly who we want to give teens their first taste of alcohol.

These people are irrational neo-temperance shitheads. The problem they have is not with responsible drinking — which this most certaintly was — it’s with any drinking. It’s the same posturing and non sequitur logic that has men dying in Iraq who can’t have a fucking beer.

Abolish the drinking age. Make parents responsible. Having kids experience drinking — which no amount of nanny-state bullshit is going to stop — under the supervision of their parents is a good thing.

Politics, War on Terror

Powell

Well, I guess Colin Powell is now a Commie Fag Junkie for calling to close Gitmo, give terror suspects fair trials and restore Habeas Corpus.

Here’s the thing. Before the Iraq War, Powell was pushing for more troops and a coherent occupation plan. No matter what people might say about him, he has been right far more often than George Bush.

Or Don Rumsfeld.

Or Rush Limbaugh.

Or Sean Hannity.

Or Ann Coulter.

Or…

'Culture', Politics

Getting Better

Boaz on how good news gets buried. In 2000, improvements in health and technology reduced the number of heart attack deaths by 341,000.

But this great news about heart disease appeared on page D4 of the Wall Street Journal and on page 13D of USA Today. As far as I can tell, it didn’t appear in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or the Washington Post at all, nor on any NPR program. Though on the NY Times website, you can find an article the same day on the tiny increase in deaths from West Nile virus. And the heart disease story can be found on the Post website, though not in the print paper.

I just recorded a video message for my five-day old daughter telling her to always understand that she lives in the best of times. Too bad our media don’t seem to focus on that.

Politics, Science and Edumacation, Socialism

Friday Linkorama

Sue and I are watching Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! series during feeding breaks. Tonight we watched the show focusing on Norman Borlaug. Read Easterbrook’s outstanding profile and get angry at the enviro-assholes trying to keep Africa in starvation.

That’s real racism.

Why is it that being a commie is still fashionable while being a Nazi isn’t?

The Bushies boasts about bigger welfare rolls. Only this Administration would crow about increasing poverty.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Immigration, Politics

Immigration Panic

I only tend to write about Boortz when he hacks me off. Well, today is more of that. He links to a bunch of posts that do nothing but talk panic about immigration.

National Review says immigrants are taking our jobs. This is the same article that tells us George W. Bush has single-handedly dropped unemployment to record lows.

Kris Kobach has a conniption because these incompetent terrorists with their dumbass plots were immigrants. Again, how is keeping immigrants away going to stop someone flying a plane from Havana to Miami with a bomb?

And there’s panic because Bush may temporarily suspend the new passport requirement for Americans to go to Mexico and Canada. I’m not sure how keeping Americans out of Mexico and Canada is going to stop terrorism.

More bullshit. Can’t we just agree to make it harder to get in this country illegally while making it easier to get in legally? Or would that not sooth the xenophobes?

Politics, The Nanny State

Defining Minimums Up

You want to know why healthcare and insurance is so expensive? Because Congress decides to do shit like this, mandating 48-hour hospital stays for women undergoing mastectomy.

Look, it would be great if this were the case. Women should get a 48-hour stay. But you know what will happen if this law is passed? Insurance will get more expensive. Why should we make it illegal for a woman to chose a cheap insurance company that covers her mastectomy at the cost of rushing her back home? Can’t they make that choice? I thought the Dems were all about choice. But apparently crappy insurance is not an allowable choice.

Culture War, Law and Order, Politics, Socialism

Linkorama

What does a baby-driven sleep-deprived blogger do? He links!

Reason has more on the students punished for excessive celebration. It makes some good points, but I am still sympathetic to the students. Stopping “Students crossing the stage were dancing and flashing hand signs; friends in the audience were jumping up, whooping and raising a racket with air horns.” does not mean you stop all cheering.

Cato fisks Romney on health care. I swear. This election is looking like a choice between the little socialists and the big socialists.

I suspect the rise in violent crime has little to do with Bush. Social factors are critical here – especially the rise of Meth. Yeah, the libs will go on about poverty and race and Katrina or something. But our economy is healthy. No, I don’t think this is Bush’s fault.

But you KNOW that if violent crime had gone up under Clinton, the Right would have blamed him in a heartbeat.

This is why things like TABOR, which set strict spending limits and refund tax excess to the taxpayers, are critical.

The typical Fairfax homeowner is paying $4830 a year in property taxes. The FCTA points out that “if during the past seven years the Supervisors had held real estate tax increases to the rate of inflation, which averaged three percent per year, the typical homeowner would be paying $3,079.” … The supervisors–in Fairfax County and everywhere else–respond, “Would you have us close fire stations or fire teachers or throw widows out in the snow?” Somehow they never discuss, as another item in the FCTA newsletter does, the fact that salaries and benefits have increased far more than population growth or any other measure over the past seven years.

If you give government money, it will spend it. Part of the reason for our massive federal deficits now is because Congress responded to the budget surplus with an orgy of spending rather than a tax cut. And when revenues dropped to normal growth, deficits returns — as every Libertarian predicted.

Even thought I somewhat support the death penalty, I have to disagree with SCOTUS on death penalty juries. Jurors judge the case and the law and a prosecutor’s fucking job is to persuade them that the defendent deserved to be killed. Banning jurors who even question the death penalty is rigging the deck and very likely to produce “hang ’em high” juries that have very high false conviction rates.

Michael Moore. As pig ignorant as ever.

Another sex crime outrage.

This is fricking hilarious.