When Did Believing In Checks and Balances Become a "Liberal" Position?

I'm 57 years old and I remember the Watergate era quite well. So I found it interesting to see John Dean testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. His basic point is that our system of government is based on the premise that no one is above the law. Unfortunately, this current administration just doesn't seem to believe that. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the FISA law is really pretty straightforward and unless you can show me a statute that supersedes it, the Bush Administration is breaking the law. FISA was enacted specifically to deal with wiretapping abuses that were performed by the Nixon administration.

While we can hope that the current administration hasn't used the program to hurt their political enemies, we simply have no way of knowing one way or the other. Senator Feingold echoed Ronald Reagan's saying: "Trust, but verify". We simply have no way to verify. There is no check and balance mechanism. I'm not that trusting of ANY administration.

I was a history major in college and I remain an unabashed admirer of this country's founding fathers - despite their flaws I have yet to see any nation-building exercise that has gone nearly as well given the existing institutions they had to work with.

They were rightfully suspicious of unchecked executive power and did their best to devise a system that would provide some sort of counterbalancing equality between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. They hadn't thrown off British rule for nothing. Glen Greenwald's post (which Senator Feingold quoted today) and the "What Would the Founders Say?" post in response are well worth the time to read if you care about the long-term viability of our system of government.

I would argue that by any traditional definition, holding an administration accountable for ignoring a law that it was sworn to protect is a conservative position - but you'd not get that idea from most of the mainstream media.

Update: Anonymous liberal writes, "Even if you trust Bush to use this power only on terrorists and never on anyone else, can you really say the same about all future presidents?"

My point exactly.

UPDATE: A commenter pointed out a possible misinterpretation of my basic point. I was not trying to imply that liberals are not in favor of upholding the constitution. Hell, they are the only ones who currently seem to take it seriously. I was deploring the abandonment of that core American value by self-proclaimed "conservatives" despite the fact that it is a traditional American value. The generic definition of conservatism, as I understand it, is something like "opposition to rapid change in governmental and societal institutions." I consider the abandonment of our systems of check and balances and accountability to be a rapid change in our governmental institutions.

So Much For the "Law and Order" Plank of the Republican Party Platform

Glen Greenwald is going to be publishing a book called How Would a Patriot Act? which should be required reading for any true conservative. Who woulda thunk a Republican president would be so cavalier about compliance with a straightforward statute? I thought "law and order" was a Republican value.

If FISA didn't seem to allow the level of wiretapping the administration felt it needed, why not ask Congress to amend it? There is almost no chance the administration would have been denied whatever they requested to stop terrorism.

I thought this was a nation of laws, not men. The President and his men had three choices....

A) obey the FISA law and, if they thought it necessary, work to have the law amended
B) disobey the law and work to have the law amended
C) disobey the law and pretend that it simply didn't apply to them

They chose option C. Regardless of their motives, what they did was (and continues to be) a clear violation of the FISA act unless someone can show me a law that overrides Section 1811.

This is an extremely dangerous path because..

If any administration is allowed to pick and choose which laws it is obliged to obey, Congress might as well go out of business.

It is useless to pass "laws" if such "laws" can be ignored without any consequences.

It's long past time to stop making apologies for this behavior. This administration is setting precedents for future administrations - like it or not.

An Odd Boundary on the Faith/Science Frontier

This is a repackaging of some half-baked ideas I first posited a number of years ago.
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Think about atoms. Atoms make up matter and matter makes up physical objects. When you see an object, you are seeing light reflected off of the surface atoms of the object. This attribute is commonly called "reflection." Photons of light hit the surface atoms and bounce back toward the viewer.

But let's just consider the second leg of that journey for a moment - the transmission from the atom to the viewer - and call that "flection". Flection can be viewed as an atom broadcasting the attributes of it's "viewer-facing" hemisphere to the viewer. For purposes of this exercise, there must be a viewer involved.

But consider a type of matter where the atom did not transmit its "viewer-facing" hemisphere but instead transmitted the state of it's other (what I'll call "reverse") hemisphere. It would trasmit whatever it "saw" on it's opposite side. The atom would then be invisible to the viewer. With me so far?

Well if you are, let's say, for the sake of argument, that such "reverse-flection atoms" could logically exist based on the laws of physics and that "flection" and "reverse-flection" transmit not just photons, but all other observable/measurable attributes. This would make "reverse-flection atoms" invisible to any tool we might use to assay normal matter. (Could this explain the "missing mass" in the universe?)

I described all this to a neighbor who happened to be an astronomer with the European Space Agency and, while he did not dismiss it out of hand, he rightly pointed out that if it there is no scientific way to prove/disprove the theory, then it's a matter of faith, not science. So by that logic I guess I could conceivably be a prophet for a new religion LOL. Give new meaning to the term genuflection, eh?

Celebrating the Anniversary of the Invention of the Fristian Diagnosis (and St. Pat's)

From the Washington Post about a year ago (March 19)...

Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a renowned heart surgeon before becoming Senate majority leader, went to the floor late Thursday night for the second time in 12 hours to argue that Florida doctors had erred in saying Terri Schiavo is in a "persistent vegetative state."

"I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office," he said in a lengthy speech in which he quoted medical texts and standards. "She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."

Too bad the autopsy totally refuted that conclusion.

You'd think the honorable thing to do would be to say "I was wrong, sorry" and move on but that doesn't seem to be in his makeup. Instead, he says he didn't really make a diagnosis. Ummm... if you're saying you are "speaking more as a physician than a United States Senator." and saying the diagnosis of the other doctors is wrong, aren't you making a diagnosis? Or does the term have some technical meaning I'm missing? Maybe he's afraid of a malpractice suit. In any case it doesn't make me think "Presidential timber" if you know what I mean. Anyone want to offer a second opinion?

Update: According to Wikipedia's Autopsy details, "The brain itself weighed 615 g, only half the weight expected for a female of her age, height, and weight."

If Bill Frist had half a brain, he'd do the right thing.

Warrantless Wiretapping - Read the FISA Act

Glenn Greenwald's post regarding the the censure resolution proposed by Senator Russ Feingold on on the resolution proposed by Senator Russ Feingold makes some pretty compelling reading. For anyone who doesn't think President Bush broke the law with his warrantless spying program, I suggest reading the actual Foreign Intelligence Survaillance Act (FISA) law, Section 1811 "Authorization during time of war" says:

Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for a period not to exceed fifteen calendar days following a declaration of war by the Congress.

Read it for youself.

What this means is that even after a full-blown Declaration of War (and imagine the dire circumstances where that would occur - the last time was after Pearl Harbor) the President can only wiretap without judicial review for fifteen calendar days. What "other law" can the White House cite to give itself unlimited authority to wiretap without a court order?

I'll concede that the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) is a state of war with or without a congressional declaration. But even then you only have a 15 days to wiretap without court approval unless some other law applies. My question is "What other law applies?"

WordMergers

Here's another half baked concept from my long abandoned website. Please feel free to suggest some new ones.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

When you read them, don't say the syllable in parenthesis. For example, kinfestation is a merger of derived from kin and infestation. As far as I know, these terms are all my own inventions.

bag(ag)gravation - getting carry-on luggage stowed

kin(in)festation - overrun with visiting relatives

condemn(emm)igration - how penal colonies get started

cayenne(an)imation - grabbing for water at the ethnic restaurant

prefab(ab)beration - most modern buildings

flag(ag)gravation - hot button in some Dixie states

contempt(tempt)ation - urge to flame

beer(irr)itation - pale ale hangover

resell(cel)ebration - "I just sold my boat"

blue crab(ab)dication - "we don' need no steenking restrictions"

quick fix(fix)ation - always looking to cut corners

fedex(ex)hortation - last minute "guidance" from the boss

All You Can Eat (AYCE) Makes Waste (and Waist)

Here's one of my half baked ideas from a few years ago...

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Here in the Chesapeake region, we've been experiencing a serious decline in the population of the Chesapeake Bay blue crabs (more). The debate over the cause has seemed to focus mainly on overharvesting by commercial crabbers, overharvesting by recreational crabbers, a decline in aquatic grasses and an increase in the population of predators (mainly rockfish).

While I tend to believe overharvesting is largely responsible, I think unnecessary stress is put on the crab population by the practice of having "All You Can Eat" (AYCE) restaurant promotions.
I know this is a time honored tradition but I've seen people eat just the "easy" parts of the crab (e.g., the back fin meat) and throw the rest away. This is simply a waste of a valuable and increasingly scarce resource. Also, the last time I ate an AYCE seafood restaurant (no longer in business), there were a goodly number of undersized crabs being served. (Crabs are supposed to measure at least five inches across from point to point).

The restaurants probably schedule their AYCE promotions prior to knowing how abundant crabs will be. Then if crabs are scarce, I suspect the restaurants will take whatever crabs they can get the cheapest (which translates to small crabs).

My theory is that AYCE puts unnecessary (and easily preventable) stress on the crab population. In short, AYCE makes waste!

Ya Gotta Start Somewhere....

Half baked ideas are undervalued. Please add a BTU or two.

BnS