February 26, 2008
Memo to Stephanie Tubbs Jones:
Were Barack Obama actually a native of Somalia, he would be ineligible for the American presidency. Or perhaps you simply mean that since Somalia is in Africa, and that Obama's father was born in Kenya, and Kenya is next to Somalia, therefore Obama is Somali. Alternately, perhaps you mean that all African Americans are actually natives of Africa. Either way, I suggest that you reexamine your logic.
Posted by Andrew at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2007
Morals and Marriage
Stop buying their frame. Yeah, you Liberal Seagull, stop that right now. When the Right says that the only proper love for your country is the childish sort that one feels for mommy and daddy. The answer is right in front of you:
"People in less jingoistic countries love where they live, too; but often it's a love born of preference and familiarity. They love their countries while acknowledging their faults; they don't feel they have to prove their love by angrily denying that those faults exist."
This, too, is patriotism. It doesn't lead to wars, but it sure does lead to national health care. It is the love one feels for their spouse-- adult love. In a very real sense, we are married to our various nations. We can chose to leave them, but the separation process would be a painful one. We stay, loving our partner, perfecting the relationship, learning from one another.
Simply ceding patriotism denies us this useful concept. More: it denies us the fuel we need to fire the process of making this a better place to live. Letting the Right own the word diminishes us all...
Posted by Andrew at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2007
Quick pictorial illustration of the postscript bellow:
Posted by Andrew at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2007
Life and times..
I could probably churn out good commentary by doing nothing but reading slacktivist and saying: "what he said". I'll try to keep that sort of thing to a minimum:
Here's the deal: Whatever the technical details of the case, whatever the particulars of the applicable immigration and customs laws, if you confiscate the entire life savings of a minimum-wage dishwasher, you're doing something wrong.
I'll go a step further. As soon as they discovered this guy-- a guy who was able to save US$59,000 as a dishwasher, they should have gotten a judge. That judge should have asked Mr. Zapeta if he wanted US citizenship and was willing to pay back taxes. If the answer to those questions was "yes", the judge should have administered the Citizenship oath right there and then...
If the answers to either of those questions was "no", we need to figure out why- and make the changes necessary to attract and and hold onto people of such outstanding character...
It's not too late, though. Perhaps we can trade Guatemala one for one: Lou Dobbs for Pedro Zapeta. We'd be getting the better end of the deal...
Posted by Andrew at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2007
Bill O’Reilly Admits: "I am a racist"
How else would you characterize someone who expresses amazement that black people behave the same as white people in restaurants:
“I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.”
Posted by Andrew at 05:06 PM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2007
Asking political questions = Tasering offense?
There are many disturbing things about this segment:
1) The student is forcibly removed from an auditorium for asking a (politically embarrassing) question
2) No one tries to help him
3) Other students applaud the suppression of said speech. (To be fair, many of them were probably tired annoyed with the speaker for making a speech in the form of a question)
4) A US Senator watches this suppression of free speech and makes no move to intervene. (again, to be fair, he does state that he would like to answer the questions)
5) The police use a taser on a student who cannot possible resist them.
Those are the ones that jump to mind. Perhaps the worst thing of all was the utter complacency of the student body. The bedrock principles of democracy were violated before the watching eyes of these students and they applauded that the annoyance was removed from their midst. Perhaps this isn't the death knell for democracy, but it sure isn't a promising sign...
Posted by Andrew at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2007
Racism: Still a problem in America
I know I've written about this before, but...
Almost a year ago, in the small northern Louisiana town of Jena, a group of white students hung three nooses from a tree in front of Jena High School. This set into motion a season of racial tension and incidents that culminated in six Black youths facing a lifetime in jail for a schoolyard fight.
The story that has unfolded since then is one of racism and injustice, but also of resistance and solidarity, as people from around the world have joined together with the families of the accused, lending legal and financial support, adding political pressure, and joining demonstrations and marches.
The nooses were hung after a Black student asked permission to sit under a tree that had been reserved by tradition for white students only. In response to the three nooses, nearly every Black student in the school stood under the tree in a spontaneous and powerful act of nonviolent protest. The town's district attorney quickly arrived, flanked by police officers, and told the Black students to stop making such a big deal over the nooses, which school officials termed to be a "harmless prank." The school assembly, like the schoolyard where all of this had begun, was divided by race, with the Black students on one side and the white students on the other. Directing his remarks to the Black students, District Attorney Reed Walters said, "I can make your lives disappear with a stroke of a pen."
The white students who confessed to hanging the nooses never received any meaningful punishment.
It gets uglier...
Posted by Andrew at 10:03 AM | Comments (2)
July 16, 2007
If Yale had any sense of decency...
They would Retroactively Revoke John Yoo's JD. If Berkley wishes to maintain its status as a top tier law-school, they will fire John Yoo:
The Framers charged the President with protecting the nation, he tells us, "even if that meant fighting with the legislature to enforce the desires of the people." True to their British heritage, Yoo also asserts, the Framers modeled the President's war powers on those of King George III. They therefore refused to grant Congress even a concurrent power to commence war. At its core, the Constitution embodies the Framers' intention to prohibit Congress from "encroaching" on the executive's power to initiate as well as conduct war.
(via)
Anyone who fails so badly to understand the uncontroversial history of the US Constitution is simply unfit to practice or teach law...
Posted by Andrew at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2007
Something Michale Moore never told you
Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs.
The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.
Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.(via those pinkoes at Consumer Affairs)
Makes you wish we lived in a kinder, more just nation, doesn't it?
Posted by Andrew at 08:38 PM | Comments (0)
Speaking of Impeachable offenses
So to recap:
Charges were not brought against Dick Cheney because one of his top aids steadfastly lied-under oath- to protect the VP. We know the aid lied- under oath- because a jury convicted him of lying under oath. Lest we think lie was no big deal, I remind my readers that it concerned matters of national security; the Executive Branch outed one of our undercover spies to discredit the spouse of said spy...
This crime is a big deal. Had the White House not done this, there is a chance (small, I admit), that the American people would have been properly informed of the true state of affairs in Iraq, and therefore over 3,000 of our brothers and sisters wouldn't be dead...
President Bush commuted the sentence of Vice President Cheney's co-conspirator. The stated reason for that commutation is that said co-conspirator is a good friend of the Washington Press Corpse*, who worked long and hard for the Vice President...
That rolling sound you hear is John Adams in his grave...
*intentional
Posted by Andrew at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2007
"You'd think we'd lead with that story"
A hundred years from now, Historians who wish to chart the decline of America will be able to point to this momentary triumph of substance of vapidity, and use it to understand the destruction of American sources of information. We can't trust the media-- not because it's biased, but because it's trivial...
Bravo Ms Brzezinski! With luck you'll be rewarded...
Posted by Andrew at 09:29 AM | Comments (1)
June 01, 2007
How to Remember stuff
Posted by Andrew at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
May 29, 2007
Restrooms behind Slave Quaters
 |
| From Arlington Nat... |
Looking up that hill- if you don't know better, and don't have a map- you (or, at least I) naturally think that this must be the tomb of the unknown soldier. So I took the long walk uphill in the oppressive heat. Every time I was tempted to complain-- even to myself-- about the weather, I forcibly reminded myself that some people didn't even get a grave...
Imagine walking miles to visit the UN building. On arrival, you finagle your way to the entry way of the Security council, there to see the famous tapestry rendition of Guernica. Instead, you discover that it has been replaced with a video clipping from triumph of the will. Damnit! We put the National Cemetery at Arlington specifically so that the Traitor Lee could never return. Honoring his memory there seems like dishonoring all those who died so that men might be free...
 |
| From Arlington National Cemetery |
I'll post pictures and stories tomorrow. Right now I just want to say that I am utterly disgusted by the idea that at the very tip top of Arlington National Cemetery-- the tomb given pride of place-- is the arch-traitor Robert E. Lee. Lest anyone forget, Lee was the man who, in a craven act of treason, ordered the deaths of more Americans than even Osama bin Laden. This act of treason, these deaths, were caused defending the holy principle that one man ought to be able to own another. Honoring such a man makes me sick...
Posted by Andrew at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2007
Great. Just... Great.
Why are we led by these idiots? As we all know by now, some "terrorists" tried to kill Americans at Fort Dix. Apparently, the FBI put together a team who went roving for American Muslims who might be coercible into plotting Terror. This seems like a legally questionable, though tactically not-unreasonable, way to catch would be terrorists. Having said that, these guys aren't it:
Also, one of the men, Tatar, called a Philadelphia police officer in November, saying that he had been approached by someone who was pressuring him to obtain a map of Fort Dix, and that he feared the incident was terrorist-related, according to court documents.
MSNBC
One of the "terrorists" called the police on one of the "FBI agents" to report suspicious activities! There is less here than meets the eye...
Posted by Andrew at 11:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 17, 2007
Allowing Partisan Politics To Define America.
A buddy of mine sent this link. Here's my reply:
Scott,
The founding fathers were terrified of parties and partisanship. They hated the very idea that Free Citizens might vote for men over ideas. And yet... Thomas Jefferson founded the very first political party in America. His "Democratic-Republican, (later: "Democratic") Party championed a week central government. When he was VP, he did everything in his power to stifle President Adam's agenda. It did not begin personally, but it ended that way...
There are Roughly a dozen partisan offices that I vote for, and roughly that many more non-partisan offices that I vote for. There are probably a dozen more measures on each and every ballot. I'm a seriously political guy. I've had dates where we did nothing more than study what was on the ballot. Every year around election time, my family gets together and does even more studying of the issues and candidates. When I walk into a ballot booth, I still don't know all that I should about who and what I am voting for...
What a party does is create a world view, and then analyze issues in light of that world view. Knowing that the Republican Party are for a certain issue or candidate tells me a whole lot about that issue or candidate. A whole lot of my work is done for me...
The problem (as illustrated by your link) is that party politics doesn't seem to be about "ought" any longer, but rather "is". We are not fighting over whether or not church and state _ought_ to be separated, but rather over whether or not evolution _is_ true. We don't argue about if we _ought_ to be in Iraq, but whether or not Iraq _is_ improving. We aren't arguing about what the size of government _ought_ to be, but rather over whether cutting taxes _is_ allowing for the expansion of government...
The problem isn't that we have parties: Political parties are good and useful things to have. The problem isn't that partisanship is creating its own ideas about best ways of governing the country. Those are good useful debates. The problem is that at least one major party has lost it's grip on reality. That will kill us all...
Posted by Andrew at 10:09 AM | Comments (1)
March 27, 2007
National Disgrace
How the government is failing Katrina victims. - By Blake Bailey - Slate Magazine
We could, if we wished, make every Katrina survivor whole again. We chose not to. We could, if we wished, rebuild all the destroyed houses gratis; a way of apologizing for our utter failure to accurately and adequately protect Americans lives and property. We chose not to...
Instead we have chosen to dangle the "promise" of care and help before the people we failed to protect. Never mind compassion, simple good governance would dictate that we fully staff any agencies we create. Instead we've chosen to pay only lip service to the idea of making good on our error. These are policy choices made by the government of the United States of America, on behalf of her citizens. If you're an American, you own 1/300 millionth of this continuing disaster. We need to ensure that we only vote for politicians who understand their duties...
Posted by Andrew at 10:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 07, 2007
Moment of meditation
I live in a country that maintains a network of secret prisons specifically in order to torture people. You know this, but you may not have thought about it. Think about it now...
Posted by Andrew at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2007
Its just a suggestion...
By any measurement, George W. Bush has been an awful president. The argument may rage as to whether he has been worse than Buchanan, but “not as bad as the president who led us into Civil War” is the very definition of what is known as “damning with Faint Praise”...
Enumerating the colossal failures of George W. Bush would be a task too immense for this post. Indeed, a full recounting may take more time than any one writer could invest. Nonetheless, such awfulness must be punished. As far as I know, George Bush’s malgovernance falls a single hydrogen atom’s thickness short of an impeachable offense. Our Constitution must be respected, lest we commit similar offenses as the man who is redefining the presidency to suit his own whim. At the same time, a censure is meaningless...
Thus, I propose that congress pass a bill which, upon his leaving office, will strip from George W. Bush every legal benefit to which EX presidents are normally entitled. He would be responsible for his own medical care. He would not have a taxpayer-provided stipend. His secret service protection would end with his presidency; he would have to pay for his own presidential library. Bush has been called “the first CEO President”. Let him receive the anvil parachute his tenure has earned him...
Posted by Andrew at 07:15 PM | Comments (1)
February 10, 2007
President nearly kills press corps...
Just in case you hadn't heard: George W. Bush doesn't like the press. I think his "frat boy" image has gone too far...
Posted by Andrew at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 16, 2007
Sign of the Times
A customer today told me that Airport Security confiscated some anti-Bush key chains and bumper stickers. He believed that the action was both censorious and legal...
I don't know if the action or the belief in the action's legality bothers me more...
Posted by Andrew at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2007
Sunday sunday sunday...
Posted by Andrew at 11:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 04, 2007
Bush Can't read
W pushes envelope on U.S. spying
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
Posted by Andrew at 12:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 02, 2007
A very silly article
I wouldn't even had noticed this Very Silly Article if Google hadn't pointed it out. Nonetheless...
Imagine you're the owner of a Las Vegas night club, say the Ceasars Palace's PURE nightclub. Britteny Spears falls asleep while partying. Since your entire customer base is people who want to be Britteny, you've got a problem. The whole world (at least the world who comprise your customers) is about to start thinking of your club as the sort of place where 25 year old newly single multi-millionaires can't find enough action to stay awake...
The easiest way to deflect the negative mindshare this is bound to bring is to blame the person herself. And whaddya know? Who's interests are being served here? Not those of Ms. Spears-- to the owners of the Ceasars Palace's PURE nightclub, she's just the help. Their name isn't even mentioned until the 3rd paragraph. The story isn't about how dull the nightclub is, but rather about how. Ms. Spears can't handle her lifestyle. Very clever Ceasars Palace's PURE nightclub. very clever indeed...
Posted by Andrew at 09:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 30, 2006
Terrorism: it's not just for Muslims anymore.
But then, it never was:
Jackson Sun - www.jacksonsun.com - Jackson, TN
Demetrius "Van" Crocker of McKenzie, convicted in April of attempting to obtain a chemical weapon and possession of stolen explosives, was sentenced to 30 years in prison Tuesday by U.S. District Judge James Todd in Jackson.Crocker, who told undercover FBI agents of his desire to explode a briefcase bomb while Congress was in session, was found guilty by a jury in about 90 minutes in April.
The 40-year-old farmhand and father of two was convicted of accepting what he thought were ingredients to make Sarin nerve gas and a block of C-4 explosive from undercover agents in October 2004.
The maximum penalty Crocker could have faced for the convictions would have been a life sentence. Todd did order lifetime supervised release for Crocker once he gets out of prison.In all, Crocker was convicted on five charges: one count of attempted possession of a chemical weapon, one count of inducing another person to acquire a chemical weapon, one count of possession of stolen explosives, one count of possession of explosive material with intent to harm an individual or damage or destroy a building, and one count of possession of an unregistered destructive device.
During the trial, prosecutors introduced video- and audio-taped conversations that Crocker had with undercover agents, laced with profanity, racial slurs and Crocker's open hatred of all things to do with the government.
Why didn't we hear about this 25 months ago? I should have thought that terrorists threatening congress would have been big news just before an election...
Posted by Andrew at 06:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 25, 2006
A few bad apples
Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general
Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.
Nothing to see here folks. Move along, move along. Actually, this really isn't enough to hang him. Show me the signature authorizing water boarding, and I'll be on the phone with congress...
Posted by Andrew at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 02, 2006
I'd like my democracy back, please...
Florida ballot terminals favor Republicans | The Register
Florida voters using electronic ballot machines are having persistent problems choosing Democrats in early elections, the Miami Herald reports.The touch-screen gizmos seem strangely attracted to Republican candidates. One voter needed assistance from an election official, and even then, needed three tries to convince the machine that he wanted to vote for Democrat Jim Davis in the gubernatorial race, not his Republican opponent Charlie Crist.
Which is why I am in favor of paper ballots. Machine -and -Eye readable paper ballots...
I just wonder how many people are having these issues and not noticing...
Posted by Andrew at 11:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 17, 2006
I'd call it kafkaesque
Save that a trial would be an improvement.
In a jail cell at an immigration detention center in Arizona sits a man who is not charged with a crime, not suspected of a crime, not considered a danger to society.But he has been in custody for five years.
1 man still locked up from 9/11 sweeps
This is being done in your name. In my name. It must end...
Posted by Andrew at 12:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2006
He didn't even ask any questions
In reading This piece at Hullabaloo, I was suddenly reminded of the above quote from Star Wars...
Darth Vader tortured Han Solo because Darth was evil. Did Han commit crimes? Yeah, goes with the word "smuggler". Could Han have been convicted sans torture? Absolutely. But Darth Vader was a "master of evil" and so tortured an Imperial Citizen simply to cause pain. Because he could...
Jose Padilla is an American Citizen. We tortured him for 3 years. This was done in our name. my name. It resulted in no convictions, no plots being foiled, it resulted in nothing...
No matter the hypothetical situation involving Jack Baur and a ticking nuke, the fact-- the reality-- is that in this case our government tortured an American citizen every day for over 3 years. And nothing came of it. Is that the sort of nation you want to live in?
Posted by Andrew at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2006
Torture...
So, the US government wants to be able to torture people. The fear-- they claim-- is that they might need information quickly. Ticking time bombs and all that. Fine…
If an investigator is certain that torture is necessary, so convinced that without his trusty alligator clips an American city will be lost to nuclear fire, let him go to jail for it. If it turns out that he was right, it’ll be a nice club fed sort of environment. If he was wrong, it’s San Quentin…
Unless… you don’t think the administration just wants to torture people for the sake of torturing them do you?
Posted by Andrew at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2006
Healthcare Blues
I have long believed that the American system of health care is nuts. Basically, Americans go to a bookie (called a "health insurance agent") and make a bet that they won't get sick. If they do, the bookie pays out. The bookie has absolute incentive to pay as little as possible-- and has the discretion on what to pay for. Americans don't have the discretion, doctors don't have the discretion, the bookie has the discretion. Does that seem crazy to anyone else?
Worse than that, when the bookie does lose their bet, they have the power to decide that they weren't actually covering you anyway. Crazy crazy crazy...
(Link stolen from Ezra Klein, who said:
We rely almost exclusively on private insurers whose primary business imperative is not to pay when we get sick. They do that by seeking to deny coverage before the fact, or reject claims afterwards. They pay for platoons of employees who have no job other than scrutinized thousands of policies a week to find sufficient cause for cancellation. Say what you will about the inefficiencies of the public sector, but can it really match the ruthlessness and absurdity of insurers spending large amounts of money so they don't have to insure? Is that sort of profit motive really what you want underlying your health care coverage?
Posted by Andrew at 12:30 PM | Comments (1)
September 17, 2006
How American Torture costs American Soldiers' lives
Andrew Sullivan | The Daily Dish: What We've Lost
Thinking hard on what I now know of history, psychology, and the meanness of politics, that reputation for fairness was damn near unique in world history. Can you tell me of any major military power that had it? Ever? France? No. Think Algeria. The UK? Sorry, Northern Ireland, the Boxer Rebellion in China... China or Russia. I don't think so. But America had it. If those men had even put up token resistance, some of us would not have come back. But they didn't even bother, and surrendered at least in part because of our reputation. Our two hundred year old reputation for being fair and humane and decent. All the way back to George Washington, and from President George H.W. Bush all the way down to a lance-corporal jarhead at the front.
Read, of course, the whole thing...
Posted by Andrew at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 04, 2006
Labor Day Funnies
It usually goes without saying that the middle-class doesn't understand the plight of the working poor. Having recently escaped (by all of one paycheck!) the clutches of poverty myself, I feel that I have some insight in these matters. Working at a retail job means a 1500 calorie per day diet. This is a problem that needs fixing...
Before the problem can be fixed, though, we need to do a better job educating people as to the existence of the problem. I didn't realize how deep the ignorance until I read a comment over at Random Jottings which assumed that WalMart workers started at US$9 per hour! For unskilled workers!
It took me a few minutes to get my laughter under control, as you might imagine. I've had some friends work for WalMart-- none of them has ever made that much. A quick search tells me that WalMart starts between US$6.25 and US$7 per hour. With luck, this bit of ignorance has now been corrected, and we can all go back to figuring out how to make US$9/hr the actual starting wage at WalMart, and similar companies...
Posted by Andrew at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2006
Yo filters!
This blog isn't porn. That is all...
(I just changed one of my category topics to try and get around the filters. I wonder if that will work)
Posted by Andrew at 10:36 AM | Comments (3)
July 20, 2006
How an Empire Crumbles
Punmeister123 (1:09:36 PM): what does a "good" teacher look like?
"Friend from work" (1:10:10 PM): on ratemyprofessors
"Friend from work" (1:10:10 PM): lol
Punmeister123 (1:10:26 PM): sure.
but...
what is your criterion for good?
"Friend from work" (1:10:35 PM): good reviews
"Friend from work" (1:10:36 PM): easy teacher
"Friend from work" (1:10:37 PM): lol
Punmeister123 (1:10:43 PM): "easy" meaning _what_?
"Friend from work" (1:10:48 PM): they say
"Friend from work" (1:10:50 PM): "easy A"
Punmeister123 (1:11:02 PM): hm
don't you want to learn?
"Friend from work" (1:11:28 PM): i want to get a 4.0
"Friend from work" (1:11:34 PM): if learning fits, awesome
This may explain my GPA...
Posted by Andrew at 01:14 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 19, 2006
Quickpost
John & Belle Have A Blog: Dead Right
Of course there have been hundreds of such changes – never mind since the Donner party’s day, just since 1945 … But the expansion of government is the only one we can do anything about.All of these changes have had the same effect: the emancipation of the individual appetite from restrictions imposed on it by limited resources, or religious dread, or community disapproval, or the risk of disease or personal catastophe.” (David Frum’s Dead Right (1994)p. 202-3)
I must note-- since any person of decent moral character won't realize this-- that David Frum is explicitly calling "the emancipation of the individual" a bad thing. David Frum is a former speech writer for President Bush. He is one of the premier thinkers of the Republican Party. I cannot even conceive of giving a Republican my vote unless he or she explicitly states that they do not agree with this sort of thinking...
The "Emancipation of the Individual" is the goal of American society. David Frum calls himself it's enemy...
Posted by Andrew at 01:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 10, 2006
Why schools fail:
HBO: The Wire - Behind the Scenes - Ed Burns
Well, it's how damaged these kids are. I mean, it's profound. You get a class of 35 kids, of which five or six are thugs—what the DSM calls "oppositionally defiant children." So they're fighting and disruptive and cursing you like sailors.[...]
Their needs are so phenomenal on the educational level. And then, as you get to know them, you realize that that is just the crust on the cake. Kids are seeing people killed in front of them. In the first year I was teaching, there were 120 kids in our group; thirteen had been shot. This was in seventh grade. Lots had been stabbed. All of them had been abused, one way or the other. So when you put them in a classroom with a curriculum that doesn't compute with their world, everybody has a way of surviving, right?
For the record: I was stabbed in homeroom—at a private school...
I have never seen a theory of education reform that accounts for this. Other than “reform our whole F---ing society”, I don’t know that I will. Ultimately, our school’s failures are a small example of the larger failures of American Society. Fixing us will fix the schools. Nothing else will do much...
Posted by Andrew at 03:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 06, 2006
Religious bigotry
A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. The religion (if any) of a second family in the lawsuit is not known, because they're suing as Jane and John Doe; they also fear retaliation. Both families are asking relief from "state-sponsored religion."
To contrast that, I was taking a practice test for citizenship. One of the questions was “why did the pilgrims come to the New World.” The answer, of course was “to escape religious persecution.” It’s sad to know that the most recent of recent immigrants have a better grasp of American History and what it means to be an American than do many residents of America’s First State...
Do I even have to talk about how unconscionable this is? Is it necessary for me to mention that this is the United States of America. These sorts of things are not supposed to happen in this country? I suppose some might call it a step forward that it’s not Protestants and Catholics at each other’s throats. Perhaps that’s the problem: now that American Catholics and Protestants have begun to believe that-- at core-- they are both Christian. Neither group fears that what the State will begin teaching their children will be antithical to their own. In the mean time they’re able to use their combined strength to beet up on the rest of us. Lovely...
Posted by Andrew at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2006
John Weidner Hates America
In reading this charming post, John Weidner shows himself to be an enemy of the American Revolution. He has forgotten that freedom does not mean physical security, but rather the ability to be secure from random abuses of governmental power. But enough of my prose for a moment, let’s look at his blatherings:
Under ideal circumstances there should probably have been no public arrests at all. The junior jihadis should have been quietly whisked off to Gitmo, so as not to alert others that they are being watched.
Does John Weidner really want to give to every politician and every future politician and every conceivable future politician the right to make secret arrests of citizens? Whatever he thinks of George Bush, does he truly believe that Bush’s successor or Bush’s successor’s successor wouldn’t use this power for purely personal ends? Can Mr. Weidner not think of any single politician in all of America who wouldn’t have him—John Weidner-- locked up for his political beliefs?
We the public know who the Government is arresting not to show the face of the evil we stand against, but rather so that we the people know that the Government is, in fact, fighting against evil and not us. What does Mr. Weidner think Liberty means if it doesn’t have at its core the right to know and decide how the government is using its vast power? And how can we citizens know and make those decisions if the government isn’t required to tell us what it’s up to? Indeed, the whole argument in favor of the Second Amendment (by people on the Right) is to keep the government too scared of us citizens to cause soviet-style disappearances.
I don’t trust anyone with the power to make citizens "disappear". The fact that Mr. Weidner does says frightening things about his belief in liberty...
Posted by Andrew at 12:38 AM | Comments (1)
May 26, 2006
Policy Scholicy
I Drew This: How to select someone for an important job.
Posted by Andrew at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 25, 2006
The Main Stream Media
I have long found it hard to credit that the “Main Stream Media” (MSM) is biased towards lefties. This is the media, after all, which gleefully repeated lie after lie after lie about Al Gore during the 2000 Presidential race. It is the same Media which hounded Clinton and couldn’t get the most basic facts of his healthcare proposal strait (polls showed that the public’s knowledge about the program actually declined after months of debate on the subject!)...
And so I point out this article on what the “MSM” is all about. The simple answer is that our political media has all the intellectual rigor and self-honesty as their colleagues covering the Oscars. The media is catty and thinks of that cattiness as real, honest-to-the-0gods investigative reporting. Some day, perhaps, we will see a return to political coverage that emphasizes challenges over chat, actions over asininities; the quality of a Senator’s proposal over the quantity of a Senator’s matrimony. Until that day comes, speaking of a monolithically Marxist media is absurd...
Posted by Andrew at 12:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 19, 2006
NON NON NON NON!
The Advertiser: It's official - English language of the U.S. [20may06]
I’m too tired and annoyed for reasoned debate right now. But gods help us! Everyone learns English when they get here. Some just don’t learn it as quickly or as well as others.
Posted by Andrew at 08:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 19, 2006
A response to an idiotic Email
Making Light: Pass This On To All Your E-Mail Friends....
(no, not the Email some idiot sent me earlier this week. If you’re the sort of idiot who thinks Kerry committed treason, you can rest assured that I’ll have nasty things to say about you, but after finals)
What in the world are you talking about? Of course the First Amendment rights come from the Constitution. This is just flat insane. If you’re trying to set up a strawman at least use straw.But since you brought the question up, shall we start talking about how the Bush administration treats people as traitors for defending their constitutional rights? Shall we talk about how Bush treats the Bill of Rights like toilet paper?
There’s much here I disagree with. But there’s a lot here to cheer. So give it a read and shame a wingnut...
Posted by Andrew at 01:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2006
Pretty much, yeah
I Drew This: How the current Congress would have handled Watergate.
PS: do any of you feel this blog has been "foisted" on you?
Posted by Andrew at 12:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 17, 2006
More on Cheney’s gun
YouTube - Scientific Proof Cheney's Shooting Story A Lie
How far was the Vice President from his friend? This video does a few tests and compares them to Cheney’s statements. Conclusion: the Veep is a liar...
Posted by Andrew at 05:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 06, 2006
This blogpost may well be illegal in Bush’s America
The Other Big Brother - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com
So, to recap, the president has declared that he can use powers found in Article 2 of the constitution to deprive Americans of their Civil Rights. Actually, he didn’t do that. He whispered it. He kept his usurpation of American liberty secret until he could put in place the pieces of his twisted pseudo-laws. Let us make no mistake; the President has violated American law...
Even worse than that, he isn’t violating us to keep us safe from our enemies. He claims that these abuses are like cutting off an a gangrenous arm—rather lose the arm than death to the body. Instead he is cutting off the arm of the body politic—because it threatens to remove his favorite toy...
Is this treason? Perhaps. It certainly rises to impeachable levels. Future generations will marvel at us no matter what we do. The question is: will they celebrate us for our fortitude, or learn from our mistakes. If we have any love of liberty at all, we must take the legal steps to remove President Bush...
Posted by Andrew at 06:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 31, 2006
Oh my gods, please let this not be true.
AlterNet: War on Iraq: The Fear That Kills
The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom. "There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night," Karpinski told retired US Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview.It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers. So the women took matters into their own hands. They didn't drink in the late afternoon so they wouldn't have to urinate at night. They didn't get raped. But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said.
American Soldiers were raping other American soldiers, and the victims felt they had no recourse save risking death? This is exactly what happens when you condone torture; the basic humanity gets stripped away from those doing the assaulting; the begin to see everyone as merely walking meat. We need to end this...
Posted by Andrew at 01:06 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
How a president makes the law
If you’ve ever wondered how the president makes a law, or if he can eat a baby, the answer is just
one click away...
Posted by Andrew at 01:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 21, 2006
An audience of 2
This one is for people living in my old hometown. If Pombo is your rep, you need to vote against him. Seriously, a trained an untrained monkey would do less damage than this fool. Please take a look...
Update:
What? I just want to make super-dooper sure that there are no italics...
Posted by Andrew at 11:39 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 17, 2006
The cost of racism
If you believe, as I do, that "all men are created equal", you also believe that so-called "race" is merely a social construct, and utterly meaningless.
This pernicious believe has a high toll; imagine a middle east with neither "Palestinians" nor "Israelis" vying for a "homeland". We’d still find things to fight over (see: the US/Soviet Cold War), but the ethnic conflicts that keep us from understanding our mutual humanity would probably lessen even these conflicts…
We don’t even have to look beyond our own shores, nor look to body counts, to see the high cost of racism. If we understand that the entire country exists along the same bell-curve of potential, and also observe that certain socially-created “races” have markedly lower achievement rates, then we can assume that we as a society are destroying our nation’s potential...
Remember that the world is not Zero Sum. Every job that a "black" person gets is not one that is taken away from a "white" one. A "black" entrepreneur (or "white" one) can create a job for a "white" worker (or "black" one)...
When we create and give meaning to arbitrary distinctions, and artificially debilitate a group based on these distinctions, we allow for fewer entrepreneurs (or skilled laborers of any type) to create as much wealth for the nation as they might. As a result, we are all made poorer off. We cannot want this...
Moreover we create a society in which the best and the brightest of the disadvantaged group will put their efforts into overcoming these artificial divisions. Imagine the brilliant mind of the Reverend Doctor King leading this nation as President, rather than fighting his nation for the chance to be treated like a co-equal citizen. Imagine General Little, rather than the radical Malcolm X. Ambassador Douglass, rather than the exile Fredrick Douglass. Think of every "black" drug dealer as a would-be accountant...
That’s the cost of Racism. It’s far too much to pay...
Posted by Andrew at 05:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 06, 2006
The Wrong Man
Research In Review at Florida State University
It’s an embarrassing outcome for George Bush because it showed that Gore had gotten more votes. Everybody had thought that the chads were where all the bad ballots were, but it turned out that the ones that were the most decisive were write-in ballots where people would check Gore and write Gore in, and the machine kicked those out. There were 175,000 votes overall that were so-called “spoiled ballots.” About two-thirds of the spoiled ballots were over-votes; many or most of them would have been write-in over-votes, where people had punched and written in a candidate’s name. And nobody looked at this, not even the Florida Supreme Court in the last decision it made requiring a statewide recount. Nobody had thought about it except Judge Terry Lewis, who was overseeing the statewide recount when it was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The write-in over-votes have really not gotten much attention. Those votes are not ambiguous. When you see Gore picked and then Gore written in, there’s not a question in your mind who this person was voting for. When you go through those, they’re unambiguous: Bush got some of those votes, but they were overwhelmingly for Gore. For example, in an analysis of the 2.7 million votes that had been cast in Florida’s eight largest counties, The Washington Post found that Gore’s name was punched on 46,000 of the over-vote ballots it, while Bush’s name was marked on only 17,000.Posted by Andrew at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 18, 2005
Intolerable Executive Action
Imagine the founding father of your choice was having dinner with you one fine evening. First you’d be like "whoa Ben Franklin! What are you doing in my living room? Do you prefer your hamburgers medium or well done?" Then you’d have to explain what a "living room" is, and what a "hamburger" is...
Finally, however, you’d get around to asking him what he thinking about a president granting himself the authority to issue warrants for wiretaps without judicial oversight. And what, exactly, he thinks about a president doing such a thing in secret. There might be a few things in there you’d have to explain (like modern telecommunications), but ultimately he’d start darkly muttering about having a revolution. And, just so we are clear, so would Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, or just about anyone else who put their life on the line against English Tyranny...
See, our constitutional system is based—as anyone with a passing familiarity with Schoolhouse Rock can testify—on a system of checks and balances. What this means at a more technical level (I’ve got to school to study this!) is that each branch of government has a different set of incentives so that the odds of all of them wanting to do badly at the same time are low. Moreover, each person in each branch of government will jealously guard their interests, so that if one branch tries to reach too far, to take too much, the other branches will swoop down and scream bloody murder...
Which is why what Bush has done goes against the very fabric of the American Constitution. He has usurped for himself the power to act as judge—in addition to his ability to execute laws. Moreover, he has created laws ("executive orders") in secret—laws which negatively effect American liberties. This act is as intolerably as it is illegal. President Bush ought to face the full wrath of an outraged citizenry over this issue. Contact your Representative or Senator and express your outrage. If they seem unconvinced, remind them their own powers have been diminished—that’ll get their attention...
UPDATE:
This Link Has always been here. I've certainly not added it since the comment went up...
Update update:
The link above has not always been there. Saying so was my way of implying that I am an idiot for not having included it in the original post.
Posted by Andrew at 10:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 12, 2005
Time for a 28th amendment
I would like, very calmly, to propose that we fix the massive loophole in our constitution that allows congress to pass laws which the public is not aware of. I would also like, very calmly, to suggest that the whole reason we bother having an America is so that we don’t have things like "secret laws"...
Posted by Andrew at 08:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 09, 2005
Just a little longer..
The George Bush Countdown Clock
Posted by Andrew at 10:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 06, 2005
Profiles in Courage
So, a professor teaches a class. He is intemperate enough to state that the class will not be kindly received by religious fundamentalists. In fact, he even seems to revel in that fact:
One recent e-mail from Mirecki to members of a student organization referred to religious conservatives as "fundies," and said a course describing intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." Mirecki has apologized for those comments.
Which is stupid and wrong. Well, it’s correct. But he could and should have phrased things differently, or not said anything. Hell! Let’s go a step further; he was displaying some rather nasty intolerance issues against a religious group. Not ok...
The university made him apologize. Makes sense. Totally appropriate. But, this wasn’t good enough. Some members of the “Religion on Peace”, the one that teaches if their face is slapped that adherents should “turn the other cheek”, decided to slap back. Except that this particular group of the Religion of Peace are distinguished by their inability to tell allegory from reality. So they used actual fists...
How can they continue calling themselves “Christian”? Why should I not feel that everyone who does call themselves that is a danger to me? Some day there will be a reckoning...
Posted by Andrew at 01:36 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 05, 2005
Republican Scandle Card
STATE BY STATE GOP SCANDAL SCORECARD
Yes, my folks Representative is on it...
Posted by Andrew at 10:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 17, 2005
Brownian Motion: a Moderate Proposal*
In this day, it has become an article of faith--even among many liberals-- that Roe V. Wade was poorly decided, and makes for bad law. By imposing the Rule of Law over the whim of the majority, activist judges proved that they could find in the constitution any rights at all—even ones which are not specifically enumerated.
Even more pernicious, however, is another ruling, made by another group of unelected, unaccountable so-called justices. The decision, of course, is BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION.
This decision is pernicious, not in its actual effect, but in the way the constitution, precedent, and the will of the majority is twisted to arrive at that effect. Few would still publicly argue that segregation is a good thing. And yet none were given the choice—segregation was not overcome by a state by state campaign that changed hearts and minds, but rather by judicial fiat.
The bare reasoning is suspect. The court did not rest on the precedent of “separate but equal”, the bedrock of Southern law for generations, but rather upon finding within the Constitution—the 14th amendment— the idea that self-esteem ought to be a goal. The very language of the court speaks not of “tangible” goods, but rather tries to quantify that which is intangible. As if such a thing were not a flat contradiction!
Moreover, the court specifically rejected an originalist reading saying “we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy v. Ferguson was written.” If the court can turn the constitution into a “living document”, it won’t be stopped anywhere—they can find any right at all within the clear text of the constitution.
Perhaps worst of all, this decision created a class of rights for some at the expense of the rights of others. For every black parent who now had the “right” to send their child to a better school, the court created a white parent who no longer had the “right” to send their child to a segregated school. What right could be more precious than the rights of a parent to choose how their child is raised? By a single act of judicial activism, the Court stripped every parent of that most basic right.
Of course, it should be noted that even if we overturn the Brown decision, Segregation would not return. No, it would be left up to each individual school district to decide whether they want to return to the traditional moral values of their forefathers. Those of us who oppose segregation would be allowed to present the case to our local school boards, to truly win the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens. After all, that is the principle enshrined within our constitution: majorities getting to do what they want.
*This title is supposed to invoke Swift’s modest Proposal. This is to let everyone know that this post is Satire, and not to be taken literally...
Posted by Andrew at 10:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 25, 2005
Dear Senator Boxer
I have noticed your newly published Novel Time to Run at a recent trip to a bookstore. The bit of it I was able to read at the store (times are tough, funds are short) seemed interesting. The central question you pose (how personal ought the political be) is one well worth exploring. With respects, Senator, I must say that there are better places for a sitting minority member of the US Senate to be directing her energies...
Senator, there are real issues and real problems with our country. The Bush presidency has destroyed Americas ability to operate overseas. Domestically, he has done so poorly that it seems that we are doomed to lose a city every time storm season comes around. If fiction were the only tool at your disposal to correct these monstrous wrongs, I would gleefully tell you to get typing. I refuse to believe that the Democratic Party has fallen so far that one of its Senators has no other tool.
I respectfully submit that if you publish another novel within your current term of office, I will have to find someone else to vote for in the Primary.
Posted by Andrew at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 19, 2005
Thank you President Bush
Ezra Klein: Rendering Health Punditry Obsolete
If things keep going down this road, all my raging against pharmaceutical patents and monopolistic practices won't make a damn bit of difference soon, as all the drugs will be made on South Korea anyway.
In only 5 years, we’ve gone from being the world leader in science to competing against China and South Korea. Good for humanity, I guess. But bad for America. Who knew Bush was such a one-worlder at heart?
Posted by Andrew at 12:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 18, 2005
Winston Smith Sums up:
I ended up being against invading Iraq, but anybody who didn't feel the allure of ousting Hussein and building a liberal democracy must have a heart of stone. The WMD case was pathetic but that's not the case that liberal hawks relied on. There was a strong humanitarian case to be made for the war, even if it may not have been quite strong enough to justify it. If the average liberal hawk who supported invasion was a chump it was because he mistakenly thought (a) that this administration really gave a damn about human rights and (b) that this administration was minimally competent.
Let me just add that I am a liberal hawk. I also feel dumb for not recognizing how basically incompetent Bush is...
Posted by Andrew at 04:13 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 30, 2005
The American Web
America needs to give up Internet control
I have this general feeling that the US does a better job running the Web than an international coordinating body would. This does not mean that I am correct...
What bothers me is this: if the Internet is a tool which can be used to further American interests, and if the world is now afraid of letting that tool stay in American hands, we’ve screwed up...
What is really worrisome is that it is Republican immoral policies which have caused the world to want to rip this tool away from us. Once again the American Right has damaged American strength...
Posted by Andrew at 11:57 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 29, 2005
God of Gaps...
Mind the Gaps - Intelligent design as an answer to all life's great conundrums. By Dahlia Lithwick
I am sure Ms. Lithwick esq is familiar with the concept of the “god of the gaps” theory. For those who aren’t Religious Studies minors, this theory holds that God is wherever human intelligence can’t (yet) penetrate. Why does a rainbow appear after a storm? God is giving us a sign of his covenant. Why do we have fossil records of animals and plants which no longer exist? Satan God is testing our faith...
Interestingly, my theology professor specifically counsels against the “God of the gaps” theory, saying that it A) denies the deeper grandeur of God acting in the human heart, and B) as science progresses and more is known, it makes God smaller. Of course this very fear of a shrinking God is what is causing the Intelligent Design people to be so vocal-- and what makes their theory so very unconstitutional in the public classrooms...
Posted by Andrew at 04:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2005
Oh my Gods!
I wish such things were surprising anymore...
- Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
Why, why why? Why on Earth are trained emergency response personal being so badly misused? Why did the federal government fail so badly? The answer, of course, is that the Federal government has been driven into the ground by a half-decade of republican philosophy...
Posted by Andrew at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 02, 2005
Martial law is not marital law.
Nor is it rule by Marshal
Posted by Andrew at 02:13 PM | TrackBack
September 01, 2005
Hurricane Katrina
I really ought to mention it, you know? I mean, a city of over one million people uninhabitable for months-- if ever again; not something to ignore. On the other hand, I don’t know what to say. Donate Now...
I suppose we could play the blame game:
For example, in the 1990s, in planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government figured it would pre-deploy nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level city and have hospital ships nearby, said James Lee Witt, who was FEMA director under President Clinton.Federal officials said a hospital ship would leave from Baltimore on Friday.
And we can send out our prayers. I dunno. It all just seems so ineffectual at this point...
Posted by Andrew at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 25, 2005
What would Jesu say?
What if Christ spoke at a Republican Party fund-raiser? By Tom Peyer
Posted by Andrew at 06:44 PM | TrackBack
Doctors fleeing the country.
The Globe and Mail: Finally, more doctors returning to Canada than leaving
Well, not quite. But Canadian Doctors are leaving the US and heading back north, despite the fact that they get paid twice as much here. Since they also do about three times as much paperwork, perhaps we can understand why...
Come to think of it, there are more doctors per capita in Canada than in the US. Basic supply and demand would thus suggest that Canadian doctors get paid less, yes? And, if Canadian doctors are complaining of overwork, how must our own doctors be feeling? Perhaps that is why malpractice rates are so high in this country. The question then becomes: how does the US system attract as many people into med. School as the Canadian system does? Obviously “more money” isn’t the solution...
Posted by Andrew at 01:38 PM | TrackBack
August 11, 2005
Separation of what and whatnow?
Forward Newspaper Online: In Mailing%2C Falwell Urging Backers To %27Vote Christian%27 (Registration or Bugmenot required)
As part of a bid to revive his Reagan-era conservative powerhouse, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Moral Majority leader, is urging Americans to "vote Christian" in 2008."As national chairman of the Moral Majority Coalition, I am committed to lending my influence to help turn out at least 40 million 'faith and values' voters in 2008 to assure that Sen. Hillary Clinton, or someone of her ultra-liberal ilk, will never be president of this nation," Falwell wrote in a recent mass fund-raising letter.
The letter comes with a car window sticker declaring "I Vote Christian."
Falwell wrote that his goal "is to utilize the momentum of the sweeping conservative mandate of the November 2, 2004, elections to maintain a faith and values 'revolution' of voters who will continue to go to the polls to 'vote Christian' and call America back to God." He added, "Everyone now knows that the stage is set for the church of Jesus Christ to turn this nation back to the faith of our fathers and the Judeo-Christian ethic."
Posted by Andrew at 01:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 10, 2005
Ever Wanted to Know?
How To Tell How Gay Your Gay Son Is
Posted by Andrew at 03:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 02, 2005
Recess appointment
It sounds like something kids would do on the playground. In fact, Bush’s nomination of Bolton is a childish sort of temper tantrum. No one wants to play my game? Fine! I’ll just create a whole new game...
Let us imagine that the year is 1793. President Washington wants to appoint an ambassador to Russia. The first guy goes through the Senate, who then adjourns for the summer to get the hell out of Philly. The newly-made ambassador drops dead of dysentery. Washington could wait another 3 months for the Senate to get back in session, another month to have the new guy confirmed, and then another several months for the new guy to actually reach Russia. Or, you know, the recess appointment...
The example above is what the recess appointment exists for, why it was written into the constitution in the first place. Let’s try this example:
The year is 2005 President Bush sends an ambassadorial nominee to a Senate controlled by his own party. For 3 or 4 months, the guy languishes in committee as questions grow over his basic competency. Bush’s own party are having serious doubts about the guy, and are hoping that the President will pull him. The committee stops holding hearings, saying “more study” is needed. Members of the President’s party who sit on the committee are saying that they won’t vote for the guy, and are sending private messages to the president to pull the plug. The President waits until the Senate recesses and then appoints his man anyway...
Does that sound like what the founders had in mind? No. The problem with John Bolton’s appointment is that it was tacitly rejected by the Senate. Granted, they did not do their job and actually follow through with a formal rejection—yet rejection was plainly what they were in the middle of...
Bush’s abuse of the constitution to appoint Bolton is that of a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. Perhaps if his party gets spanked at the polls, it would inhibit future adolescent outbursts...
Posted by Andrew at 11:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 01, 2005
Why does Sandra day O�Connor hate America?
Justice O'Connor Is Retiring. May the gods help us all. This will probably make he run up to the Iraq war look like a minor, petty issue. Come to think of it, that fact should tell us a lot about where America is as a nation. Nonetheless, these next few months of partisan wrangling should be nasty, brutish and long...
Posted by Andrew at 12:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack