Politics

I’ve been something of a low-level fan of Gore Vidal for quite a while now. I say “low-level” simply because every time I’ve seen him in something (such as Bob Roberts, where most of his political ruminations were unscripted and entirely his) or read interviews with him, I’ve liked what he has to say, and yet I’ve not read any of his books (something which I’d really like to correct sometime soon).

The LA Weekly currently has an interview with Gore Vidal which is well worth reading, touching on everything from what our founding fathers might think of Bush and his cronies to electronic voting. Some very good stuff in there.

But Gore, you have lived through a number of inglorious administrations in your lifetime, from Truman’s founding of the national-security state, to LBJ’s debacle in Vietnam, to Nixon and Watergate, and yet here you are to tell the tale. So when it comes to this Bush administration, are you really talking about despots per se? Or is this really just one more rather corrupt and foolish Republican administration?

No. We are talking about despotism. I have read not only the first PATRIOT Act but also the second one, which has not yet been totally made public nor approved by Congress and to which there is already great resistance. An American citizen can be fingered as a terrorist, and with what proof? No proof. All you need is the word of the attorney general or maybe the president himself. You can then be locked up without access to a lawyer, and then tried by military tribunal and even executed. Or, in a brand-new wrinkle, you can be exiled, stripped of your citizenship and packed off to another place not even organized as a country — like Tierra del Fuego or some rock in the Pacific. All of this is in the USA PATRIOT Act. The Founding Fathers would have found this to be despotism in spades. And they would have hanged anybody who tried to get this through the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Hanged.

(via /.)

It’s about damn time.

Setting the stage for a historic clash between presidential and judicial authority in a time of military conflict, the Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether prisoners at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are entitled to access to civilian courts to challenge their open-ended detention.

The court said it would resolve only the jurisdictional question of whether the federal courts can hear such a challenge and not, at this stage, whether these detentions are in fact unconstitutional. Even so, the action was an unmistakable rebuff of the Bush administration’s insistence that the detainees’ status was a question “constitutionally committed to the executive branch” and not the business of the federal courts, as Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson argued in opposition to Supreme Court review.

And in what may be a good sign, it looks like the Supreme Court has decided to play hardball with this case, and make sure that their decision is final:

It was evident on Monday that this, too, was a question on which the justices want to have the final word. That conclusion emerged from a comparison of how the administration phrased the question presented by the two cases with how the justices phrased it in their order granting review. Solicitor General Olson said the question was whether the federal courts had jurisdiction to decide the legality of detaining “aliens captured abroad in connection with ongoing hostilities and held outside the sovereign territory of the United States at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.”

The Supreme Court, by contrast, said it intended to decide the jurisdiction of the courts to hear challenges to “the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.” The court’s question incorporated no assumption about whether the base was or was not “outside the sovereign territory of the United States.”

These people have been locked up for over a year and a half, with no legal counsel, no recourse, no charges. With little more than an accusation, they were tossed into a prison out of the public eye where the US could take advantage of the unusual and unclear legal standing of the base to essentially do whatever they wanted without fear of recourse. It’s long past time for this to stop, and for Guantánamo’s prisoners to be given the basic rights that any other prisoner is guaranteed.

Much as I may dislike Rumsfeld (along with the rest of the Bush administration), I always figured he at least had some amount of intelligence. But this latest “I didn’t say that” spiel is nothing short of ludicrous…

…on Feb. 20, a month before the invasion, Rumsfeld fielded a question about whether Americans would be greeted as liberators if they invaded Iraq.

“Do you expect the invasion, if it comes, to be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?” Jim Lehrer asked the defense secretary on PBS’ “The News Hour.”

“There is no question but that they would be welcomed,” Rumsfeld replied, referring to American forces. “Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and the al-Qaeda would not let them do.”

[…]

But on Sept. 25, – a particularly bloody day in which one U.S. soldier was killed in an ambush, eight Iraqi civilians died in a mortar strike and a member of the U.S-appointed governing council died after an assassination attempt five days earlier – Rumsfeld was asked about the surging resistance.

“Before the war in Iraq, you stated the case very eloquently and you said . . . they would welcome us with open arms,” Sinclair Broadcasting anchor Morris Jones said to Rumsfeld as the prelude to a question.

The defense chief quickly cut him off. “Never said that,” he said. “Never did. You may remember it well, but you’re thinking of somebody else. You can’t find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said.”

Does Rummy really think he’ll be able to get away with claiming that he didn’t say these things? In today’s ‘net connected world, anything said on the public record is there for good once it propagates into news stories posted across the ‘net.

If Rummy’s memory is really that bad, perhaps Google could help him refresh it with results like this PBS transcript of the interview with Jim Lehrer that the quote comes from. Or this Department of Defense transcript of the same interview.

Let’s try that “You can’t find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said,” statement again, shall we?

(via Will)

The director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A. Campen, has decreed that any questions to the White House must be filtered through Republican committee chairmen, effectively cutting off any questioning from Democratic representatives.

The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers.

[…]

“Given the increase in the number and types of requests we are beginning to receive from the House and Senate, and in deference to the various committee chairmen and our desire to better coordinate these requests, I am asking that all requests for information and materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen and be put in writing from the committee.”

He said this would limit “duplicate requests” and help answer questions “in a timely fashion.”

It would also do another thing: prevent Democrats from getting questions answered without the blessing of the GOP committee chairmen.

“It’s saying we’re not going to allow the opposition party to ask questions about the way we use tax money,” said R. Scott Lilly, Democratic staff director for the House committee. “As far as I know, this is without modern precedent.”

From what I can tell, this seems to be the political equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears, squinting your eyes shut, and chanting “LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Classy.

(via Len and Atrios)

I’m so disappointed that I didn’t find out about this earlier. I can’t tell you how much safer and more secure I feel about the world around me to know that our dearly beloved President declared the week of October 26th to November 1st, 2003, to be Protection From Pornography Week.

Why, just the other day as I was in the corner store by my apartment, I was suddenly assaulted by Pornography. Racks and racks of catalogs, cardboard squares just barely covering the bountiful breasts of the ladies on the covers. “BARELY LEGAL!”, they screamed at me. “JUST TURNED EIGHTEEN!” called out another magazine. I couldn’t get away — I tried to leave, but suddenly I was accosted by “THE GIRLS OF STARBUCKS!” It was horrendous!

And if that weren’t bad enough — though I shudder to recall it, dear reader, and I do hope that those of you of a delicate constitution will turn away — right next to these was an even more hideous display of Pornography. Videos! I didn’t want to look at them, but the gaudy colors, the huge type on the boxes, and the titles — my God, the titles! “HOT CHOCOLATE LOVE!” cried out one, and I tried to turn away, lest it tempt me further. But it did me no good — right next to it sat another, coyly taunting me with promises of “HOT ASIAN ACTION!”

I turned and fled — it was more than any sane person should have to bear. How can we continue to allow this filth, this putrescence, this utter degradation to invade our lives? Sure, some may try to claim that it was in a small corner of the store, that I didn’t have to look. But truly, brothers and sisters, they called to me! I was a slave to their wanton desires! This must be STOPPED!

Ahem.

Or we could just go on with our lives and spend our tax dollars on something that might actually do some good for once. Cripes.

And now, in honor of this precious and noble week, I give you…BOOBIES!

Another thing that D and I noticed while we were looking at the proclamation.

We have committed significant resources to the Department of Justice to intensify investigative and prosecutorial efforts to combat obscenity, child pornography, and child sexual exploi-ta-tion on the Internet.

“Exploi-ta-tion.”

The only explanation we could come up with is that breaking the word down like that is the only way President Bush would be able to make it through that many syllables without stumbling, and someone forgot to correct that before uploading the speech to the site. But even so — couldn’t they at least break it down into the correct number of syllables?

(via Paul)

The NRA has a 19-page ‘blacklist‘ of groups, associations, companies and individuals known to support gun control legislation posted on their website. Feeling left out ’cause you’re not on it? Sign up to be added!

(via MeFi and Dad)

Bonus link: The truth about the Second Amendment.

As a matter of law, the meaning of the Second Amendment has been settled since the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). In that case, the High Court wrote that the “obvious purpose” of the Second Amendment was “to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness” of the state militia. The Court added that the Amendment “must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.” Since Miller, the Supreme Court has addressed the Second Amendment in two cases. In Burton v. Sills, 394 U.S. 812 (1969), the Court dismissed the appeal of a state court ruling upholding New Jersey’s strict gun control law, finding the appeal failed to present a “substantial federal question.” And in Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55 (1980), the Court upheld the federal law banning felons from possessing guns. The Court found no “constitutionally protected liberties” infringed by the federal law.

In addition, in Maryland v. United States, 381 U.S. 41 (1965) and Perpich v. Department of Defense, 496 U.S. 334 (1990), cases not involving the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court has affirmed that today’s militia is the National Guard.

Since Miller was decided, lower federal and state courts have addressed the meaning of the Second Amendment in more than thirty cases. In every case, the courts have decided that the Amendment guarantees a right to be armed only in connection with service in a “well regulated Militia.” The courts unanimously have rejected the NRA’s view that the Second Amendment is about the self-defense or sporting uses of guns. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit wrote, the courts “have analyzed the Second Amendment purely in terms of protecting state militias, rather than individual rights.” United States v. Nelson, 859 F.2d 1318 (1988).

(via [fold_and_mutilate])