Going to D.C.

Blogging will be pretty light over the next five days. Me and my family are flying to Washington, D.C. for my grandmother's burial, followed by a few days of sightseeing.

The kids are pretty young, so while we'll make a visit to the Capitol Mall I probably won't be able to satisfy my inner political geek and watch a Congressional session. Mostly we'll be visiting things like the National Zoo, Colonial Williamsburg and (if my wife is feeling generous) a Civil War battlefield or two.

We're getting back Wednesday, so look for posting to resume Thursday.

Meanwhile, feel free to treat this post as an open thread if you've got something you want to discuss.

Update: Bumped this to the top of the blog so it wouldn't get lost.

politics, midtopia

A visit to the Creation Museum

Ars Technica visits the Creation Museum. Here's their report.

evolution, science, religion, politics, midtopia

Gonzales no-confidence vote set for Monday

Darn it! I'm going to miss this one:

The Senate will hold a politically-charged vote Monday related to a no-confidence resolution in the embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

This being the Senate, the Monday vote is actually a vote on whether to hold a no-confidence vote. So assuming it passes, maybe I'll be back in the saddle in time for the actual vote.

Republican leaders are criticizing the vote as politically motivated (well, no kidding). It's something of a no-win for them. A vote against Gonzales would embarass the White House; a vote for him exposes them to the political ramifications of being on record supporting Gonzales amid various unfolding controversies over his performance.

But it still ought to proceed. If a majority of senators have no confidence in Gonzales, that should be made apparent, in as forceful a way as possible. Nothing else is likely to get through Bush's stubborness and make him realize that Gonzales is a liability, not an asset.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Robert Bork, hypocrite

This is priceless.

Robert Bork ... is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.

Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs' ability to recover through tort law.

I'm just speechless.

The Wall Street Journal has the lawsuit documents (pdf) and its own commentary.

tort reform, Bork, politics, midtopia

Another eminent domain outrage

Stubborn Facts has crossposted a Rich Horton interview with Philip Klein, maker of the eminent-domain documentary "Begging for Billionaires."

It contains one of the most absurd uses of eminent domain ever: declaring some of suburban St. Louis' most valuable real estate "blighted" so that the city could seize it and hand it over to a developer as part of a redevelopment plan.

Abuses like this have generated bipartisan support for eminent-domain reform, more clearly spelling out the conditions under which property may be taken. I think the issue is murkier than some purists would like you to believe, but the general principle is sound: the state should be allowed to seize private property only in very limited circumstances and for very limited purposes.

The linked post has much, much more. Give it a read.

eminent domain, politics, midtopia

A gay linguist speaks out

Stephen Benjamin, one of the gay Arabic translators kicked out of the military under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy -- despite a crippling shortage of Arabic speakers in uniform -- has written an essay for the New York Times.

His description of what happened:

My story begins almost a year ago when my roommate, who is also gay, was deployed to Falluja. We communicated the only way we could: using the military’s instant-messaging system on monitored government computers. These electronic conversations are lifelines, keeping soldiers sane while mortars land meters away.

Then, last October the annual inspection of my base, Fort Gordon, Ga., included a perusal of the government computer chat system; inspectors identified 70 service members whose use violated policy. The range of violations was broad: people were flagged for everything from profanity to outright discussions of explicit sexual activity. Among those charged were my former roommate and me. Our messages had included references to our social lives — comments that were otherwise unremarkable, except that they indicated we were both gay.

I could have written a statement denying that I was homosexual, but lying did not seem like the right thing to do. My roommate made the same decision, though he was allowed to remain in Iraq until the scheduled end of his tour.

The result was the termination of our careers, and the loss to the military of two more Arabic translators. The 68 other — heterosexual — service members remained on active duty, despite many having committed violations far more egregious than ours; the Pentagon apparently doesn’t consider hate speech, derogatory comments about women or sexual misconduct grounds for dismissal.

Also, consider this:

My supervisors did not want to lose me. Most of my peers knew I was gay, and that didn’t bother them. I was always accepted as a member of the team. And my experience was not anomalous: polls of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan show an overwhelming majority are comfortable with gays. Many were aware of at least one gay person in their unit and had no problem with it.

Everyone in Benjamin's unit knew he was gay and didn't care. Which would seem to destroy the whole "bad for morale" argument against gay soldiers, at least in noncombat units.

He also notes the lengths the military is going to to entice new recruits, including lowering recruiting standards and paying higher bonuses and other benefits. He then notes that simply repealing "don't ask, don't tell" could add 41,000 soldiers to the roster. Which approach makes more sense?

(The 41,000 figure, by the way, comes from a 2005 analysis by UCLA law professor Gary Gates).

Benjamin's final paragraph:

As the friends I once served with head off to 15-month deployments, I regret I’m not there to lessen their burden and to serve my country. I’m trained to fight, I speak Arabic and I’m willing to serve. No recruiter needs to make a persuasive argument to sign me up. I’m ready, and I’m waiting.

As I said in my previous post on this, the military's policy on gays has always been asinine. But in this time of war and manpower shortages, it's gone from asinine to indefensible. Pass the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, now.

gay rights, military, politics, midtopia

Berger, assault and earmarks

Ethics-related stories are just tumbling out today, so rather than give each a separate post I'll round them up here.

SANDY BERGER
Sandy Berger accepted disbarment yesterday, giving up his license to practice law after stealing classified documents from the National Archives. Doing so means he doesn't have to answer further questions about his actions there, which undoubtedly will fuel further speculation about what he might have stolen.


STATEHOUSE FISTICUFFS
A Republican lawmaker in Alabama, Sen. Charles Bishop, punched another senator in the head yesterday. He said he was provoked when Sen. Lowell Barron called him a "son of a bitch." "I responded to his comment with my right hand," Bishop said. While expressing regret, he has so far declined to apologize.

Barron denies he said it, and claims it was Bishop who swore at him. His version has some credence, because everyone agrees that the confrontation came during a time when Republicans were angry at Democrats for blocking a Republican bill, and it was Bishop who approached Barron, not the other way around.

Makes you wonder if Bishop was channeling the U.S. Congress in 1856, when a Democrat, Preston Brooks, nearly beat Republican Charles Sumner to death with a cane. Though if so Bishop should probably be very cautious, because while Sumner eventually recovered and enjoyed a long career in Congress, Brooks died a year later of the croup.

In any event, perhaps criminal assault is not the best way to express opinions in the Senate chamber.

Update: We've got video!

SHINING A LIGHT ON EARMARKS
Finally, the Hill details the earmark requests of members of the House Armed Services Committee, and compares it with campaign contribution records. Turns out earmarks are a bipartisan smorgasbord. But the implication of wrongdoing is a bit off, in my opinion. There's no indication that the earmarks were tit-for-tat favors, and it's to be expected that members would seek help for large employers in their district, while large employers will naturally have more employees contributing to a given candidate's campaign.

The main thing this story does is serve as a test: will sunlight actually discourage earmarks? I guess we'll find out.

Berger, earmarks, ethics, politics, midtopia

Another Abramoff plea

When Democrat William Jefferson was indicted on bribery charges earlier this week, it gave the GOP a welcome respite from coverage of their own ethics problems.

But now the honeymoon is over.

Italia Federici, an ally of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty Friday to tax evasion and obstructing a Senate investigation into the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Federici's plea was part of a deal with the Justice Department that two people close to the case said could lead investigators to officials in Congress and the Bush administration.

Federici served as a go-between for Abramoff, who currently is in prison, and J. Steven Griles, a deputy Interior secretary who also has pleaded guilty to lying to Senate investigators.

She also embezzled money from a lobbying group she co-founded -- the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy -- and didn't bother to pay income taxes for three years. Sounds like a real charmer.

Her testimony could implicate Democrats as well as Republicans, of course. But the odds don't favor the Republicans. Besides her distinctly Republican ties, the GOP was the majority party at the time, and lobbyists would naturally have directed most of their efforts -- and bribes, if that was their modus operandi -- at Republicans. So expect this to lead to yet another crop of really bad headlines for Republicans.

Federici, Abramoff, corruption, politics, midtopia

Jefferson pleads not guilty

No big surprise here:

Rep. William Jefferson pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of soliciting more than $500,000 in bribes while using his office to broker business deals in Africa.

Jefferson, D-La., said he understood the charges during the federal court hearing. He was released on $100,000 bond.

This might indicate he doesn't plan to resign, but it doesn't preclude the possibility. Several Republicans initially refused to resign, only to change their mind as they witnessed the political damage to their party, the unlikelihood of their re-election, their diminished political power, and the difficulty in handling the business of Congress while dealing with a criminal investigation.

The real bad news is that his trial isn't scheduled to begin until January. So unless he resigns we've got another six months worth of "Jefferson still in Congress" to look forward to.

Update: Jefferson says the money in his freezer was part of an "http://www.myfoxkc.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=3437146&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.3.1">FBI sting operation. This leaves me a bit confused. Let's say he claims he was cooperating with the FBI. In that case we're supposed to believe they gave him the money, then raided his home and arrested him for having it. And if he wasn't cooperating, why did he take the $90,000 and hide it in his freezer?

If Jefferson's lawyer is worth any money at all, he'll tell Jefferson to shut up about the case from now on. Though I hope Jefferson ignores the advice.

Jefferson, politics, midtopia

9/11 bullies

Coyote Angry has a wonderful post on the abuse of the victim card being perpetrated by Ed Root, president of the Families of Flight 93, which is trying to build a memorial at the crash site in Pennsylvania.

Some excerpts:

[Root is] whining because a landowner doesn't want to give away 273 acres of his land to the National Park Service to build a memorial.

I'm truly sorry that innocent people died on that flight and I'm sorry for the pain that has caused their friends and families but I have to tell you: innocent people die every single day and we do not confiscate private property from people in order to build them shrines.

What caught my eye is that Root is trying to assemble 1,300 acres for the memorial.

Excuse me? 1,300 acres? What the heck for? The impact site is the size of a couple of football fields. The memorial design looks nice and all, but it includes a huge amount of space that has nothing to do with the crash except that it lies under the plane's flight path. And a huge amount of land that doesn't even have that much relevance.

I have no problem with him wanting to assemble a big memorial. And I fully understand the Park Service taking the opportunity to create more parkland. But 1,300 acres is a want, not a need.

That said, the land in question is the actual site of the crash. So it's "must-have" land. Because of that, Root claims the landowner is "holding the American people hostage" by refusing to sell. Coyote Angry's response:

No he is not "holding the American people hostage". You are trying to hold him hostage. It's his land, he can jolly well tell you to jump off a cliff if it suits him. Why on earth would he want to try and negotiate any sort of deal with a whiny windbag like you. You'd probably turn right around and look for some reason to sue him as soon as the deal was closed.

Meanwhile, the families have criticized a donation box the landowner has placed near the site, saying it "degrades the memories" of their loved ones. The landowner says he's trying to recoup some of the $200,000 in lost mining income and $10,000 a month in site security costs that being a neighbor to history has saddled him with.

Now, there's plenty of reason to think the landowner isn't exactly an angel. He knows his land is crucial. A memorial negotiator says he wants $10 million for it, not the $500,000 or so they say is market value; his donation box is apparently misleadingly marked, so people think they're donating to the memorial when they put money in it; and the Park Service says the security he's paying for is unnecessary.

Still, the landowner allows people on to his property to visit the site and isn't demanding compensation for lost income and increased security costs. His major crime appears to be that he won't simply sell his land to the family group, preferring instead to deal with the Park Service.

Further, I'm not sure how it's degrading to the memory of the dead to put out a donation box, but it's not degrading to their memory to use them as a club in an effort to strongarm said landowner.

First the $1 billion memorial at Ground Zero, now this. Stuff like this is going to hasten the onset of 9/11 Victim Fatigue.

Flight 93, 9-11, politics, midtopia

Senate bill targets habeas corpus

Excellent news out of the Senate today.

A bill that would allow terrorism suspects access to federal courts to challenge their imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

The committee, on an 11-8 vote, advanced a bill that would allow prisoners to protest their detentions through a writ of habeas corpus, considered by many to be the cornerstone of the U.S. judicial system.

Nice as this is, it's sad that in 2007 I find myself writing about a decision to restore a fundamental principle of American jurisprudence.

Ten years ago, if you had asked me whether the United States government would ever imprison people -- citizen or not -- indefinitely without charge and with no right to challenge their detention, I would have laughed out loud. That went against so many laws, Constitutional principles, simple fairness and basic American values that it would have seemed inconceivable.

Today I marvel at the naive hubris of my younger self -- and the unprincipled cowardice that led our elected representatives to so readily abandon such a basic precept of justice.

I look forward to the debate on this. Democrats will try to attach it to the defense spending bill, which if they succeed should make the measure veto proof: Bush is unlikely to veto the defense authorization simply to derail the habeas corpus provision. The biggest question is whether Senate Republicans have the desire and the unity to tie it up.

Let me point out two passages from the link, one illustrative and one simply amusing.

Administration officials and most Republicans say they do not think dangerous terror suspects should have access to U.S. federal courts or other rights guaranteed to Americans under the Constitution.

The fatal flaw in this reasoning is, of course, that the defendants in question are suspects, not proven bad guys. The whole point of habeas corpus is to make sure we separate the guilty from the wrongly held. Bush and "most Republicans" apparently feel they can skip that step. We can't. Any argument predicated on "they're terrorists!" fails, because that case has not been proven.

Second, there was this:

"The great history of our nation is built on having judicial review, on having openness, and we should not out of fear or indifference or whatever turn our back on that great history," the committee's Democratic chairman, Patrick Leahy, said.

"Or whatever"? Way to kill what started out as a pretty good flight of soaring rhetoric, Patrick. Something tells me that 50 years from now, law students won't be quoting that particular utterance.

The bill is expected to hit the Senate floor later this month.

habeas corpus, terrorism, civil liberties, politics, midtopia

The J-Bomb

The indictment of William Jefferson appears to have set off an explosion of activity in Congress, most of it aimed at reviving the moribund Ethics Committee.

The House quickly approved a Democratic motion that makes an ethics investigation mandatory when a member is indicted, then okayed a Republican motion to refer Jefferson's case to the committee to see if he should be expelled.

The vote was overwhelming on the Democratic motion: 387-10, with 15 members voting "present" and 20 not voting. Of the 25 voting either "nay" or "present", 16 were Democrats and nine were Republicans.

Of the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, by the way, only Lacy Clay and John Conyers voted "nay", while three voted "present" and five didn't vote (including Jefferson).

The vote on the Republican motion was only a little closer: 373-26, with 13 "present" and the same 20 members not voting. 13 members of the CBC voted "nay"; three voted "present" and the same five didn't vote.

One of the CBC members voting "present" in both cases was Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the chairwoman of the ethics committee. She and other members of the committee mostly recused themselves from both votes.

So despite concerns that the CBC would try to protect Jefferson, a strong majority of the caucus supported both measures.

As I've said before, the Republican effort is premature, driven as it is by the idea that a simple indictment should lead to expulsion. But the motion merely asks the ethics panel to examine the case and decide if Jefferson should be expelled, so it's not a big problem as is. I imagine the panel will decide "no" unless truly damning evidence emerges against Jefferson in the meantime.

ALLOWING OUTSIDE COMPLAINTS
Separately -- and to more resistance -- the Democratic leadership is pushing a rules change that would let outsiders file ethics complaints against members. Currently only members can file complaints.

That particular rule, by the way, was introduced by the Republican-led House in 1997 after Speaker Newt Gingrich was slapped with a $300,000 fine (to be fair, Democrats supported it, too). It was accompanied by an unwritten "ethics truce" that produced a truly notable result: Only two ethics complaints have been filed in the last 10 years, the most recent in 2004, when Rep. Chris Bell, D-Texas, broke the truce by filing a complaint against Tom DeLay (the other was filed by former Rep. Bob Barr in 2001).

The proposal -- which has not yet been presented to Republicans -- has some House members worried about being inundated by a wave of politically motivated complaints. That's a legitimate concern, but it ignores the Senate, where outsiders are allowed to file complaints without notable hardship for senators. A simple screening process would help weed out frivolous complaints from genuine ones.

CALLS FOR RESIGNATION
Meanwhile, The New Orleans Times-Picayune has called on Jefferson to resign, as have some freshmen Democrats. And a judge froze Jefferson's assets to prevent him from spending or hiding potentially illicit gains.

THE MONEY PROBLEM
If Jefferson truly is innocent, he should stick it out. But if he's guilty -- as seems very likely -- he should resign and spare himself and his party the embarassment. Trouble is, he's not a wealthy man: he may be in a situation where he needs his Congressional salary in order to pay the bills as well as expected legal fees. That doesn't affect the moral dimension, of course, but it may present him with a practical dilemma.

ethics, Jefferson, politics, midtopia

Ann Coulter update

I missed this one by several weeks; my apologies.

Ann Coulter has been cleared (sort of) of voter fraud charges.

I say "sort of" because the circumstances are rather weird.

Coulter's lawyer suggested that Ann put the wrong address down out of concern about a potential stalker -- which doesn't make it legal, by the way.

Then an FBI agent, Jim Fitzgerald, made an unsolicited call to the investigating officer to confirm that he was "working" a stalking incident involving Coulter.

Here's where the trail gets really murky.

As for Coulter's alleged stalker, check this out: Fitzgerald identified him as conservative Christian, rabid anti-Coulter blogger Dan Borchers of coulterwatch.com. Borchers said he remembers talking to two FBI agents about stalking accusations — in 1998.

Told those facts, Fitzgerald conceded that there was no reason to keep "working" the case.

Meanwhile, amid stonewalling by Coulter's lawyer, investigating officer Kristine Villa closed the voter fraud investigation -- without interviewing Coulter, the real-estate agent whose address she used, or any of Coulter's or the agent's neighbors.

To be fair, the poll worker who first reported Coulter's potential crime backtracked on his story somewhat:

Whited, a staunch Republican who once ran for West Palm Beach mayor, told Page Two last year that Coulter dashed out of his polling place when he asked her to write a change of address. He later bragged on a radio show that he witnessed her committing a felony.

To Villa three months ago, however, Whited said Coulter may have misunderstood him and that he may have had a hand in her voting in the wrong precinct.

The FBI is conducting an internal investigation of Fitzgerald's actions. For what it's worth (and it's not worth much), an anti-Coulter site that has been following the case closely (and for which Borchers is a guest blogger) quotes Borchers claiming Fitzgerald is an ex-boyfriend of Coulter's -- but provides no evidence to back that up.

Back in Palm Beach, meanwhile, elections supervisor Arthur Anderson is considering whether to ask the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look into the case now that the Palm Beach police have closed their investigation.

I certainly hope there will be more to this little saga. Especially now that it has taken a really weird turn.

Coulter, politics, midtopia

Bush looks to his legacy

As President Bush's administration begins winding down to a much-anticipated close, we're starting to see some attempts at legacy burnishing. This is where presidents on the downslope of their time in office propose a series of ambitious or laudable initiatives that they hope will get them remembered as visionaries and big thinkers.

When a president is as weakened as Bush is, the burnishing takes the form of proposals that he never felt merited serious effort or political capital earlier in his administration, and that will not even be seriously considered until the next administration is in office. It's risk-free, pain-free posturing for the history books.

Thus we are treated to the following:

GLOBAL WARMING
Trying to get out in front of the global warming debate, Bush has proposed ambitious global talks to get the world's biggest polluters to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions (full text of his speech is here).

Sounds great. Except that the timeline is for the long-term reduction goal merely to be defined by the end of 2008 -- shortly before Bush exits the White House. The proposal has other weaknesses, but that's the biggie: there will be no pain incurred during Bush's watch, and implementation and enforcement will be the responsibility of his successor.

This is somehow supposed to overcome Bush's record on global warming, including the United States' continued rejection of European proposals to actually take action now and impose mandatory emission caps, his ignorance and dismissal of his own EPA's science, moving to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions only after losing a Supreme Court case (and once again, the regulation won't actually begin until the next administration), cutting back on efforts to monitor global warming, and so on.


AIDS PREVENTION
Next Bush has proposed doubling his program to combat AIDS, from $15 billion over five years to $30 billion. The original $15 billion, you may recall, partly involved shifting around money that had already been budgeted (cutting child-health programs, among other things) as well as a questionable focus on abstinence-only programs and efforts to undermine condom distributions. It was also slow to get going, with most of the spending budgeted (does this sound familiar?) for after the end of Bush's first term. But there was significant new money involved, and the plan did focus attention on the AIDS pandemic.

$30 billion is a real step forward (some quibbling over whether we're already spending that much anyway aside, as well as criticisms that the amount of money designated for HIV treatment is inadequate). But once again the five-year request -- if funded, as expected -- will not take effect until after he leaves office. So his successor will be responsible for coming up with the money to carry out his grand proposal. I think Bush's interest is genuine, but it's also not going to be his problem.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Bush's plan to balance the federal budget bears fruit in 2012 -- if all of his tax cuts are made permanent, optimistic economic growth projections are met, inflation is ignored and social programs are gutted. Then there are the other questionable assumptions, like relying on hefty revenues from the alternative minimum tax and expecting no Iraq war expenditures after 2009. Never mind the more than $2 trillion in debt he rang up -- if the budget isn't balanced in five years he'll shrug and say, "if only they had listened to me." This from the guy who routinely backloads the pain of his proposals, be they new spending or tax cuts.


IRAQ
Bush seeks to avoid any criticism for "losing" Iraq by giving the cleanup job to the next president -- or presidents, given his comparison of Iraq to Korea.

The gears of government can turn slowly, of course, and as 2009 gets closer, more and more Bush actions will see their launch points moved into the post-Bush era. And there's a legitimate use for the bully pulpit as the end draws near, to try to inspire and influence American policy long past 2008. But as the list above demonstrates, some of Bush's recent proposals are either a) pure fantasy, b) revisionist history or c) things that Bush was unwilling to tackle during his own terms.

Look for even grander proposals in the months ahead.

Bush, politics, midtopia

Democrats do the pork-weasel dance

This is astonishing, both for the brazenness of the tactic and the amount of power David Obey has arrogated to himself:

Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify "earmarks" — lawmakers' requests for specific projects and contracts for their states — in documents that accompany spending bills.

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., says those requests for dams, community grants and research contracts for favored universities or hospitals will be added spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills to send to President Bush.

Obey says the problem is that there are too many earmark requests, and he doesn't want scrutiny of them holding up the larger bills. Fair enough: 36,000 earmark requests is a lot to slog through.

But not only does his edict directly violate recently adopted rules on earmark disclosure, it sets him up to be the sole watchdog on earmarks. And the side effect (whole point?) of the exercise -- not leaving enough time for the earmarks to be publicy scrutinized -- makes the proposal simply unacceptable.

Just a suggestion here, David, but perhaps the solution to being inundated with earmark requests is for the leadership to put a limit on them -- say, four per legislator per session. That would immediately cut such requests to fewer than 2,000 and force legislators to prioritize them.

In the irony department, several Democrats over in the Senate oppose Obey's power grab, among them the King of Pork himself, Robert Byrd. His reasons are not particularly laudable -- he's mad that he won't find out until the fall which of his pet projects will be funded -- but they suggest that Obey's edict may not survive for very long for reasons that have little to do with ethics.

Tangentially, Robert Novak notes that it's not like Republicans are particularly virtuous on the matter, either. But that doesn't in any way excuse the Democrats, because as the majority party they bear the most responsibility for following their own rules.

The Democrats have to start following the spirit as well as the letter of those rules. Earmarks should be debated when bills are considered, just like Democrats promised. If that is a burden, then cap the number and dollar value of earmarks allowed -- preferably at very low levels.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: if the Democratic victory signaled a mandate for anything, it was ethics reform. If they want to keep their majority in 2008, they must follow through on that. Overall they've done a pretty decent job. But stories like this demonstrate why constant vigilance is necessary, lest they slipside back into their bad old habits when they think nobody is looking.

Clean it up, guys. Write clear, strict rules and abide by them. Otherwise every charge of "hypocrisy" is justified.


Obey, ethics, politics, midtopia

Jefferson follow-up

While some observers see the Jefferson indictment as possibly leading to a wider rift between Nancy Pelosi and the Black Caucus, at least the Caucus is doing the neutral thing regarding Jefferson:

Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), a veteran caucus member, said it would be "as supportive of our colleague as possible, in terms of saying a person in America is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty."

Exactly what I expected, but didn't dare hope for.

While the Caucus would be crazy to go to the mat for Jefferson, they do have a point about a double standard:

The black caucus accused Pelosi of a racially tinged double standard. As she was moving against Jefferson, she allowed Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), who is white, to remain on the Appropriations Committee despite dealing with his own federal investigation. Mollohan, now chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the departments of Commerce and Justice, did recuse himself in issues involving federal law enforcement.

The difference, such as it is, is that the case (and known evidence) against Mollohan is nowhere near as lurid or eye-popping as that against Jefferson. But that's a pretty small difference. The more relevant distinction might be that Mollohan is a far more powerful legislator than Jefferson.

Regardless, Mollohan has no business retaining his seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, and arguably ought to step down from the Appropriations Committee in general. Letting him stay there is a far more egregious black eye for Democrats than letting due process take its time with Jefferson.

Update: Jefferson meekly gave up his seat on the Small Business Committee, sparing himself and committee members the embarassment of an expulsion vote. And Republicans are pushing to have Jefferson expelled from Congress -- an ethical standard I criticized as extreme in yesterday's post. Pelosi, meanwhile, is expected to quickly name 10 Democrats to a pool used to form investigative subcommittees of the Ethics Committee, a necessary prelude to an Ethics investigation of Jefferson.

Let me repeat: establishing expulsion-on-indictment as a standard for membership in Congress would be a very, very bad idea. It would be bad for individual rights, bad for representative democracy and encourage politically motivated investigations of Congress members. Republicans need to stop the irresponsible grandstanding. Isolate Jefferson? Fine. Kick him out before he's had a trial? No.

Black Caucus, Mollohan, Jefferson, politics, midtopia

Sen. Craig Thomas dies

Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyoming, Dick Cheney's replacement in the Senate, died yesterday.

He was 74, and had leukemia. So as these things go, this is not a giant shock. But it moved very rapidly, having been diagnosed just a few months ago.

Thomas was a reliable cog in the conservative Republican machine. Other than the factoid that he was elected to replace Cheney in 1989 after Cheney went to Washington to be Secretary of Defense, politically this is interesting only for the lesson in differing state rules over succession.

In most states, when a senator dies, the governor appoints a replacement, in keeping with the idea that senators represent the states even though they're now directly elected rather than appointed.

Since Wyoming Gov. David Freudenthal is a Democrat, that would mean a slight strengthening of Democratic control in the Senate.

However, Wyoming's law is different. The state Republican Party will get to nominate three people to replace him, with Freudenthal doing the choosing from among the three.

I don't think either system is better or worse than the other. Wyoming's puts a premium on maintaining party control of the seat, minimizing partisan bloodletting and disruptions in Congress; other states put a premium on letting the elected state executive choose the best person available. There are strengths and weaknesses to both approaches.

My condolences to Sen. Thomas' family.

Craig Thomas, politics, midtopia

Al-Qaeda fed up with pace of Freedom Tower construction

This is hilarious in a sick, Onion-type way.

terrorism, humor, politics, midtopia

Lewis Libby sentenced to jail

Lewis Libby was sentenced this morning to 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine.

For the Libby apologists out there, consider this statement from the judge:

"Evidence in this case overwhelmingly indicated Mr. Libby's culpability," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said moments before he handed out the sentence. The judge said he was sentencing Libby "with a sense of sadness. I have the highest respect for people who take positions in our government and appreciate tremendously efforts they bring to bear to protect this country."

At the same time, Walton said, "I also think it is important we expect and demand a lot from people who put themselves in those positions. Mr. Libby failed to meet the bar. For whatever reason, he got off course."

The prison term was at the bottom end of the range suggested by prosecutors: 30 to 37 months. Defense attorneys sought probation.

Now the pardon watch begins. Bush himself may have nothing to lose from issuing a pardon: he'd probably lose whatever political capital he had left, but he doesn't have much of that anyway. But I suspect Congressional Republicans with 2008 political aspirations would line up to murder him.

If he waits until the end of his term to grant the pardon, Libby will have already served about half of his sentence. So maybe Bush will do that and claim that Libby has paid sufficiently for his crime. But that means letting Libby sit in jail for 15 months.

Libby, politics, midtopia

Judge tosses detainee case

A military judge threw out charges against a Guantanamo detainee today, on a major technicality that could potentially delay or derail dozens of cases.

Canadian detainee Omar Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured after a deadly firefight in Afghanistan and who is now 20, will remain at the remote U.S. military base along with some 380 other men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback, said he had no choice but to throw out the Khadr case because he had been classified as an "enemy combatant" by a military panel years earlier — and not as an "alien unlawful enemy combatant."

This may seem like a minor technicality, but it's not. "Alien" means U.S. citizens cannot be subjected to the commissions. And "unlawful" means neither can someone who merely took up arms against the United States. Unlike "enemy combatant", which just means somebody who shoots at American soldiers.

So now the United States will have to re-examine all the existing detainee cases and certify that the defendants are unlawful enemy combatants. That could take months.

And here's an irony for you: The military says it will appeal the ruling. Trouble is, the court that is supposed to hear such appeals -- something called the "Court of Military Commissions Review" -- doesn't exist. Constituting it could also take months.

The drawbacks of trying to build a court system from scratch aside, this case has even more interesting things going for it. In fact, I meant to write about this several days ago but never found the time.

Thus far, only three detainees have been charged under the commission system: Accused bin Laden driver and bodyguard Salim Ahmed Hamdan; Australian David Hicks; and Omar Khadr.

These three are the ones we, in our infinite wisdom, decided to put on trial first. The two most notable things they have in common are being fairly small potatoes and not really fitting the popular description of "terrorist". All three, in fact, were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, all but Hamdan nothing more than footsoldiers for Al-Qaeda's conventional forces and Hamdan seeming to be little more than that.

But Khadr is unique in one respect: he was 15 when he was captured.

Someone please tell me why, in our infinite wisdom, we decided that the third person charged should be a child soldier? Can anyone think of anything more politically explosive than that? International law (despite a definitional gray area as to what constitutes a child) generally considers child soldiers to be victims, not criminals; it focuses its opprobation on the commanders who recruit, train and lead children, not the children themselves.

The kids themselves are handled more carefully by the international community, through programs designed to ease them out of killing and back into "normal" life. They aren't thrown in prison to rot or tried for crimes. Kids that young simply aren't considered fully responsible for their actions.

I'm not a fan of the tribunal system, but I cannot even begin to plumb the stupidity of throwing such red meat to the tribunal's critics. "Hi! We're the United States! Not only do we detain people for years without charge; when we finally do charge them, we do it in a military court with limited rights for the accused, and we put kids on trial!"

Lordy, we're dumb.

civil liberties, terrorism, Omar Khadr, Gitmo, politics, midtopia