Month: January 2006

There’s a smackdown debate on conservative foreign policy in the correspondence section of Commentary. Check it out.

ALITO AND EXECUTIVE POWER: It’s why he was nominated, why Miers was nominated and why Roberts was nominated. They all believe in an executive branch on steroids – the kind of thing conservatives once worried about. Sandy Levinson elaborates here.

TORTURE IN BURMA: The Burmese regime is one of the most odious and nutty on the planet. Read this account of torture in Burmese prisons. Now remember that, according to the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto, Mark Levin, Rich Lowry, John Yoo, and many others, nothing detailed in this account qualifies as torture at all.

A FIRST AMENDMENT FOR BRITAIN? A good idea from what looks like a stimulating book, “The Retreat of Reason.”

TACKLING JESUS: Not an easy decision.

– posted by Andrew.

Jack Shafer wonders whether it’s true that H. L. Mencken actually produced 70 million words in his lifetime. He reckons it’s more in the 5 million range. But what if he’d been a blogger, as I suspect he would be if he were alive today? I just counted up the words typed into this blog over 2005. I say “typed” because a chunk of them are quotes or emails from readers and the like. Nevertheless, at 530,000 words a year, a blogger could match Mencken’s lifetime record in a decade. Six years and counting …

THE MEDIA VERSUS ISRAEL: A round-up of last year’s worse anti-Israel bias.

CONSERVATIVES AGAINST WIRE-TAPPING: Remember when conservatives believed in restraining government power, not allowing it to spend as if there were no tomorrow and to let it wiretap citizens without so much as the flimsiest of rubber-stamping court checks? It turns out there are still some conservatives willing to resist the imposition of an above-the-law executive. Digby cites several sources here. Glenn Greenwald surveys the scene here. Bill Safire is on board. Even one priest in the Bush-cult called Powerline has demurred. Cato has suggested that if the president can simply break the law when he feels like it in pursuing the war on terror, why bother with the Patriot Act at all? Or the McCain Amendment?

– posted by Andrew.

“You’ve stated precisely the right question. It’s interesting that in his signing statement, Bush appeals to the “constitutional authority of the President” and the “constitutional limitations on the judicial power,” but nowhere mentions the constitutional authority of Congress, which includes the powers: “To declare War, grant Letters of Marqe and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water,” “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces,” and, “To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations” (U.S. Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 8). It seems that even a strict constructionist would have to concede that Title X falls well within these powers.”

We’re not talking strict constructionism here. We’re talking about a president who believes that he alone can determine any policy even vaguely related to a war that he has redefined as a permanent condition for the indefinite future. My best guess is that we’ve only begun to find out what powers he has secretly assigned to himself. I certainly don’t trust him not to authorize torture again in the future. The only recourse is the press and the Congress. The Courts are in the process of being stacked with men and women completely deferent to executive power. I’m beginning to believe that Democratic retaking of at least one half of the Congress this year is essential to resisting the potential dangers of our current situation. And I’d say the same if we had a Democratic president with Bush’s contempt for the rule of law, and if the Republicans were the party in opposition.

– posted by Andrew.

This is a useful primer on how the Bush administration has tried to add executive interpretation to Congressional law as a way to affect its implementation and potential review by the Courts. No big news that Sam Alito was behind the push to extend executive power. The entire point of Bush’s Supreme Court nominations is to buttress executive power at the expense of the Courts. But this should clearly be a central issue in the Alito hearings. As the imperial presidency nudges toward the edge of an imperial monarchy, this issue needs airing. Badly.

– posted by Andrew.

In my view, this could turn out to be the big question of the new year: Do we have a president who refuses, in any matter tangentially related to the war on terror, to obey the law? We know he broke the FISA law and lied about it. We know he broke U.S. law against torturing detainees, and lied about it. Now we find that he is declaring himself unbound by the McCain Amendment. Marty Lederman is on the case. Money quote from the president’s signing statment of the Amendment:

The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

Translation: I will violate this law whenever I feel like it. I hoped we had put this issue behind us. It appears we haven’t.

– posted by Andrew.

That’s Frank Foer’s description of the “Mainstream Blogosphere.” Ouch. What goes around …

– posted by Andrew.

iFilm’s best clips of 2005 are well worth a gander. My favorite Chinese Backstreet Boys wannabes are in there. Enjoy.

The culture war heats up in Britain.

– posted by Andrew.

After never sending enough troops to provide order for a peaceful democratic transition in Iraq, the Bush administration is now cutting Iraq’s reconstruction funds to zero in the future. Once again: a memory check. Do I recall being told that a critical element in winning over Iraqis would be a massive Marshall-Plan-type effort to rebuild the economy? Was I then reassured that America’s military strategy would be primarily to protect infrastructure and to rebuild the shattered energy and electricity grid? Last week saw a major oil refinery succumb to insurgent sabotage. And up to a quarter of all reconstruction funds have been soaked up by security. Now the funding will end altogether. And people wonder why the Bush administration has a trust issue with the American public.

GAY COWBOYS: Been there. Done that. Pudding, anyone? Meanwhile, Ross reviews …

– posted by Andrew.