Politics: January 2008 Archives

In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush said all future earmarks that are not passed as law will be ignored by the Executive branch.

This is clearly his right: Congress can pass laws, but they have no other power to dictate how the Executive does its job. If a bill's report says "give $30 billion on Acme Inc. to make anti-terrorist widgets," but that is not in the actual bill, then it is not law, and not binding on the Executive.

A spokesman for Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) says:

It is hypocritical that President Bush is considering issuing an executive order on a spending bill passed by a Democratic Congress with bipartisan support while failing to do so with spending bills passed by Republican Congresses in the past.

I don't know if hypocritical is quite the right word (it depends on his reasons for not doing so before), but I mostly agree: my first reaction was "finally, even if it is several years late." And it may not have any effect at all, if no more spending bills reach Bush. So it is an essentially valid criticism of the President, to my eyes, but it doesn't argue against what he did (just what he didn't).

That's OK, the Republicans offer such criticism, via spokesman for Thad Cochran (R-MS):

Just as Congress takes the president's budget request under very careful advisement, so should the president honor the report language Congress writes to accompany bill text. Requiring all budget specifics to be included in bill text would be highly inefficient and would cripple an already difficult budget process.

I don't have any sympathy whatsoever for someone who complains that following the Constitution is inconvenient. Congress takes action through passing bills. There should be no shortcuts, period, because every shortcut they take is less power the citizens have.

For what it's worth, my second favorite moment of the address was when Bush said, "On matters of justice, we must trust in the wisdom of our founders and empower judges who understand that the Constitution means what it says." And then during the applause, he looked down with disdain toward the front row, at Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote a book explaining why he ignores the Constitution.

OK, I am the one who looked at Breyer with disdain at that moment, but still.

Washington State legislators want to impeach the President. Some say this is not the state's business, but it is true that House rules allow states to submit requests for impeachment. So that's all fine.

What isn't fine, however, is that this bill is nonsense. Now, of course, Congress can impeach for any reason it wishes. But that doesn't mean those reasons can't be bad ones. And the three cases it attempts to make are uniformly bad.

Indeed, the author of the bill tells a half-truth right off the bat: the bill claims that a bipartisan Senate investigation into the use of prewar intelligence (S.Rep. 109-330) found that Bush was "misleading" and "deceptive." In fact, most of the Republicans disagreed with the report's conclusions (the "additional views" section of the report takes up 40 percent of the report: 125 pages vs. 83), and the Chair of the committee -- in a virtually unprecedented move -- wrote an addendum to the report that essentially called the Democrats liars. How is that bipartisan, let alone conclusive?

Here is what Chairman Roberts wrote, in his dispute of the findings, on page 130 (his emphasis), and joined by five of the other seven Republicans on the committee:

The adopted conclusions are not supported by fact. Taken as a whole, they misrepresent the [Iraq National Congress'] relationship to the Intelligence Community, leaving the impression that the INC (with the knowledge and acquiescence of intelligence officials and policy makers) intentionally provided the Intelligence Community with false information in an effort to push the United States to war with Iraq. These conclusions -- and the misconceptions they support -- are a myth.

Obviously, the implication that the conclusions stated by Senator Rockefeller are "bipartisan" is misleading at best. Yes, it was a bipartisan commission, but most of the Republicans disagreed with its conclusions. And Roberts is right: the evidence of deceit simply isn't there.

The second and third claims feed off the first: Bush and Cheney lied to Congress and the public. Again, there is no serious evidence to back this up.

The fourth and fifth claims are about warrantless wiretapping. This brings us to two fundamental flaws of logic. For starters, they are asking Congress to impeach the President for something that the Congress knew about beforehand, and did not try to prevent. That is nonsensical on its face.

But additionally, there is a real legal disagreement about whether the wiretapping program was legal. This is something that should be decided by the Supreme Court, not Congress. And if the Supreme Court finds against the President, then impeachment should not follow unless the President continues in that course of action. If we allow Congress to threaten impeachment over a valid legal disagreement, then we are in effect ceding the President's obligation and authority to interpret the law and the Constitution for the Executive branch to the Legislative branch, which is a serious violation of the separation of powers.

There's a reason why the Democrats never took the warrantless wiretapping to the Supreme Court: it didn't want to lose. I personally think that the case is significantly stronger against wiretapping than for it, but the Democrats didn't want to turn this into a legal dispute. They wanted to keep it rhetorical.

The sixth claim has the same flaw, except that in this case, it did go to court, and the President lost: the Supreme Court ruled that a citizen cannot lose his rights by being declared an enemy combatant. However, again, this was a reasonable legal dispute, as Bush pointed to lots of precedent that supported the position. I disagreed with Bush's position, and am glad that the Supreme Court overruled him, but it would be a violation of separation of powers to say that Bush should not have done it just because Congress said so.

And that's it: half-truths, complaining about things the Congress conceded to beforehand, and attempting to violate the separation of powers. That is what all of the articles of impeachment I've ever seen drafted against Bush amount to.

Now, bill sponsor Eric Oemig would likely object and say, especially in regard to the first claim, "there's a lack of evidence, but that is what impeachment is for, to investigate." He argues in the text of the bill, "if the President and/or members of his administration committed such offenses, ignoring these offenses would undermine core American values of truth and justice." But this has already been investigated. And there remains no evidence.

Ths is not about "core American values of truth and justice." It's about attacking President Bush. And that's fine and all, but trying to couch this in facts that don't exist, and arguments that are not logical, is not.

Members of the IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) are claiming that their unit commanders encouraged them to commit war crimes, and that these decisions are coming from the top down. They are having an event in March, and calling it "Winter Soldier."

This may remind you of 1971, when members of the VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) claimed that their unit commanders encouraged them to commit war crimes, and that these decisions were coming from the top down. They had an event called Winter Soldier, in which they presented these claims.

The problem is, the Winter Soldier event in 1971 contained many half-truths and even downright lies. That's not to say everything was a lie, of course; indeed, we know some of it was true. But you couldn't know from listening which was which, and without evidence, none of it could be trusted. We have many examples of incorrect and unverifiable claims, as well as claims that soldiers were pressured into saying they saw things they didn't see.

And the events themselves are only part of the story. VVAW, as IVAW is doing now, tried to create a larger narrative for which absolutely no evidence existed. For example, you may recall John Kerry saying the atrocities were "not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis," and that they were committed "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." No evidence exists to support either claim. Nor is there evidence to support his claim that black soldiers died more than whites.

My point is, of course, not that IVAW members are lying. My point is that nothing they say is to be trusted without verifiable facts. This is, of course, no different from anyone else. We should always demand proof. But when the honor of the other vets is at stake, we should be even more cautious than usual.

It's very simple. If the IVAW, or anyone else, complains about atrocities, ask for evidence. If they provide none, or if what they provide is weak and insufficient for belief, then ignore their complaints.

On Up Front with Robert Mak, Governor Gregoire was asked if the replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct is the biggest public safety threat in Seattle, why has nothing been done for the last seven years, including three years with her as governor?

Gregoire said, yes, it is the most threat, and that there were two reasons why it's not been fixed yet: first, because Transportation was not reporting directly to her until 2005, and second, because if they didn't do environmental impact studies, they'd get sued.

Unfortunately, she does not take the next logical step and say that our current environmental impact study process is clearly doing more potential harm than good. So we'll continue to waste time and money and, potentially, lives, by bowing to the altar of Gaia. Of course, that's not to say that we should completely ignore the environment. But we clearly take it way too far, often doubling the time and cost of projects, for no clear benefit whatsoever.

As Eric Earling noted the other day, Maralyn Chase (D-Econuts) has been busy. But her ban on plastic grocery bags is just the beginning.

You may have heard about her carbon tax, or her use of the carbon tax to subsidize other businesses. But that sort of socialist redistribution of wealth is old hat, right?

You may also have heard of her bill to ban plastic water bottles; why should grocery bags have all the fun? She also wants to ban non-recyclable fast food packaging.

But by far, my personal favorite is requiring retailers of small-scale gas-powered equipment to give equal or greater shelf space and signage to electrical or battery alternatives, plus requiring that all state government agencies purchase the non-gas alternatives, and pays local governments to follow suit. The department of general administration will cease use of all gas-powered lawnmowers, string trimmers, and weed blowers by October 1, 2008. Oh, and it levies an additional six percent tax on all such gas-powered equipment.

If you have enough land such that electric and battery equipment is impractical, well, you shouldn't have that much land, of course! And if you sell a lot more gas equipment than electrical or battery equipment because there's many more gas models and no one wants the others, well, don't worry: the six percent tax will make up for your wasted floor space. That's how it works ... right?

And if any of you are passing by a Home Depot or somesuch, please count the number of different types of lawnmowers available. I'm curious.

As reported in the Herald, Rep. Dan Kristiansen has proposed three bills to raise revenue to fix "safety corridors," including U.S. 2. A key passage in the article -- damning to Democrats, if only people will wake up and pay attention to what's going on -- is this: "... Kristiansen is a Republican operating in a Democrat-controlled Legislature whose leaders know that he's opposed the last two increases in gas taxes for road projects around the state. Neither one contained funds for U.S. 2 partly because of his opposition."

Again, the simple fact of the matter is that the state has been able to fix U.S. 2, but has failed to do so, and people have been dying because of it. That's indisputable, and bad enough. But that Democrats are failing to fix U.S. 2, and therefore allowing people to die, over partisanship -- not just in the opinion of Republicans, but stated as fact by reporters at the left-leaning Herald -- is simply unconscionable.

If you like laughing at Tom Cruise and/or Scientology, this video is for you.

A science teacher got in trouble for asking some of schoolkids to drink a gallon of milk. I am not entirely sure, but I think the point was to show that it would make you sick.

I once, in high school, tried to drink a half gallon of ketchup, during lunchtime. That's 64 ounces. A gallon of milk is, therefore, 128 ounces. The human stomach can hold maybe a gallon, but don't bet on it. I could only get in about 60 ounces of ketchup on an empty stomach. Shortly after I gave up, I ... gave it up. The acid in the ketchup didn't play nice with the acid in my stomach and I vomited most of it into a garbage can.

After lunch the dean of students called me into his office and tried, but failed, to reprimand me. He first said it was gross, I said well yeah, but I didn't know I'd vomit it up. Maybe I should have, but I didn't. He said it was dangerous. I asked how, and he said I could get have gotten sick. Well, first, I'd survive, and second, I threw it up anyway. Then he said I could have inhaled it. Trying to stifle my laughter as much as possible, I informed the dean that I'd been drinking liquids all my life and was pretty good at it by now.

I've many times ingested large quantities of milk, including whole quarts in mere seconds (I think my record was 8 seconds). But two quarts -- which I tried -- didn't get all the way down and made me ill.

So anyway, short story just a little bit longer, that teacher should have known better. It was only going to result in sick kids and bad news for the teacher.

I know it's long over -- a whole five days ago -- but just for fun, I wanted to count the uses of the word "change" in the Democratic debate last weekend.

(No, I didn't count by hand ... I'm a Perl programmer!)

The exact word "change" appears 68 times, out of 16,786 words (0.4 percent of all words used). After removing common words -- "the," "to," "and," "I," etc. -- only four words were used more often than "change": "know," "think," "people," and "President." If you add in variants ("changes," "changing"), then "change" appears 80 times, beating out "President."

The scorecard was: Clinton 27, Edwards 18, Obama 16, Richardson 7, WMUR anchor Scott Spralding 7, ABC anchor Charles Gibson 5.

And yet, the only things I know of that any of them want to change is increasing the amount of government control over our lives.

It's not that I am against change. But I am against a philosophy of change for the sake of change. And that is what I am hearing, especially out of Edwards and Clinton. Most things do not need change. Most things are just fine. Most things are better than bad: they're good.

It is, frankly, intellectually offensive to me to be running on a platform of "change," because I don't want someone who is going to be for change, I want someone who is going to be for specific changes ... and will leave everything else alone.

Clinton says, "I am offering 35 years of experience making change and the results to show for it." It brings to mind the old SNL skit for First Citiwide Change Bank, a bank that does nothing except make exact change: "All the time, our customers ask us, 'How do you make money doing this?' The answer is simple: Volume. That's what we do."

Or, at least, it's what they want to do.

The Washington GOP precinct caucuses are coming up on February 9th, four days after "Super Duper Tuesday." If the GOP nomination is still up for grabs after February 5th, Washington becomes very important.

However, it is even more complicated here than in Iowa.

In Iowa, the Democrats select delegates by precinct based on which candidate they support. The Republicans just straight-up vote for their candidates.

But in Washington -- speaking for the Republicans, not sure about the Democrats -- we elect delegates as individuals. We can consider their presidential preference if we want to (the rules state that each delegate nominee shall state their preference, or declare themselves uncommitted), but we still elect the delegate, and the candidate preference is not binding.

Further, this only determines who goes to the county convention. Even if 1/4 of the precincts send all Ron Paul delegates, those delegates then have to get elected at the county convention to get to state, and it is theoretically conceivable that none of them would go. Same thing at the state level, to be a national delegate.

And to top it all off, this only accounts for half of Washington's national delegates to the Republican convention; the other half are determined by the statewide primary on February 19.

The Democratic part of that primary, however, does not count for anything. At all. It's a big waste of taxpayer money and time. The Democratic delegates are selected entirely by caucus/convention.

Washington state law requires a Presidential primary be held, but -- because it would be an unconstitutional infringement on the right to association -- does not require that it actually have any meaning. Indeed, it states right in the law (not that such permission is needed, as it is a First Amendment right) that a party may base its allocation of delegates based in whole or in part on the party's caucus and convention process.

And, of course, the Democrats have chosen to do that in whole, and the Republicans to do that in part.

So there's a state law that says "we must have a presidential primary, even if it is not used for anything." Kinda silly. And it also makes the primary results very unpredictable, since many Democrats, knowing the Democratic primary is meaningless, may vote in the Republican primary instead (as is happening in Florida right now, for different reasons, but the same result: the Democratic primary means nothing, and the Republican primary counts for only half).

There is an oath you must sign to vote in the primary, however, and someone who is a Democrat, or who has participated in the Democratic caucus in 2008, cannot vote in the Republican primary unless they lie on their oath.

Complicated.

More from your Friendly Neighborhood Nanny State.

Hot on the heels of passing R-67, Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is now trying to pass universal health care for everyone in the state of Washington.

Now, I go in skeptical, for two reasons: first, I despise the idea of universal health care, and second, Kreidler has already proven he is a bit loose with the truth.

And I wasn't disappointed. Well, I was, but only because I wasn't.

On Upfront with Robert Mak, Kreidler described the plan for state-controlled coverage for catastrophic care, "something over 10 or 20 thousand dollars in a given year, along some minimal level of what might be considered preventive such as an annual physical, immunizations, cancer screening, that type of minimal level, guaranteeing for everybody in the state of Washington that level of health care."

Mak's first question was about cost. Kreidler responded, "well it's not cheap, that's for certain, but we're all paying for it right now, it's not as if we're adding new money to the system; what we're doing is making sure that we have some form of assessment so that it's fair and it's equitable and broad-based, and whatever mechanism that might be, payroll tax or whatever it might be, is essentially supplanting what we're paying for already."

When Mak asked about employer-offered care, Kreidler responded, "I think what employers will find ... is that it's going to be easier for them to provide routine health care by virtue of the fact that the major medical -- the unexpected, catastrophic-type costs -- are taken care of."

Kreidler added, "this is going to be done ... all the way through private insurance ... if you like the insurance you have today, keep it and stay with it ... you will effectively have a regular routine health insurance, and then you would have the catastrophic coverage that is guaranteed to everybody in the state of Washington."

Wow. So, to recap to this point, based on what Kreidler said:

1. It won't cost any more money than what it costs right now. Raise your hand if you actually believe this. Then slap yourself with it.

2. It won't actually replace employer care, because it is not complete. It just covers most reasons you would go to the doctor, not all. And Kreidler thinks that it will free up money by your employer to use for expanded health care or other benefits for you. If you believe this and your hand is still upraised, slap yourself again. (Not even Kreidler believes this, since he already said we're not adding new money to the system.)

3. If you have an out-of-state employer, as I do, then you're in even worse shape: there is virtually no chance that I'll get any increased benefit or salary adjustment due to decreased health care cost to the company. In fact, I'll probably have to pay the same amount for my health care, because it's a group cost: every employee in every state pays the same, so chances are, people like me will be paying twice as much -- the same as before, plus the new taxes -- for health care.

4. If you want to "opt out" you're in the same boat: you still have to pay the taxes, of course. Plus, Kreidler also wants to try again to get control over the individual coverage market, which means you'll probably have a lot fewer choices there.

5. It will likely require an income/payroll tax. Rage ... growing ...

6. It applies to everyone in Washington, apparently including non-citizens, and people here illegally.

7. It is a separate insurance policy. Not only will this be a logistical nightmare, with your insurance policies battling out which policy covers something -- and yes, this will happen even if it is the same insurance company, because the policies are paid by two different payers -- but it relies on the private insurance companies actually deciding to play this new, complicated, game. Don't count on it; the companies might decide to just not play. You might lose your insurance company.

Feel free to add to the list.

One thing I don't know is how much control the governor has over any of this. Basically, how much can Governor Rossi do to help fix the problems?

Edwards says that every time you talk about change, the "forces of status quo" come out to attack you, and directly implied that because he was for change and Hillary was attacking him, why, she must be for the status quo!

And then he said -- this is just boggling -- that the issue of lobbyists is very personal to him. Lobbyists. I can see abortion, or war, or taxes, or many other issues being very personal to you. But ... lobbyists? There is nothing inherently good or bad about lobbyists. Everyone who petitions the government on behalf of others is a lobbyist. That is part of any representative system.

I said it four years ago, and I'll say it again: Edwards is either really stupid, or he really disrespects the intelligence of the public.

The Democratic debate last night most prominently featured the candidates arguing about which of them had the best self-narrative. "I am for change," "I am for experience," "I am for freedom of choice," "I am for helping everyone." They really didn't talk about the issues much, it was mostly an argument about who has the best way of approaching the issues, who has the best story, who has the best image.

And incredibly, Hillary closed her comments with a claim that the Democrats covered the issues better than the Republicans.

Not that the Republicans were great, but they mostly stuck to the issues and ideas, and not to the personalities or personal stories or narratives.

Shrug.

Oh well, I expect a lot less tonight, not because I think Chris Wallace isn't as good as Chuck Gibson (I think he is quite a bit better), but because the fix is already in. They have excluded Ron Paul, signifying that this debate is for the nation, not for New Hampshire, and the New Hampshire GOP thus withdrew its support of the debate. Very poor decision by Fox, and undermines the whole thing.

Heck, if I were a GOP candidate attending, I would consider not going at all, and absolutely would speak out against the decision.

John Edwards said that because of the Iowa results, it is now a two-man race -- literally, two men, Edwards and Obama.

That doesn't even make sense on the surface: Edwards only beat Clinton by 0.28 percent, and she actually leaves Iowa with MORE national delegates than Edwards, because of her strong showing in Iowa's Fifth Congressional District. So even though she came in a very close third, she actually did better than Edwards, who came in second.

So in fact, Hillary came in second in the way it counts: she has the second most national delegates in the state. And that is not even counting "super delegates," where she is far outpacing both Edwards and Obama.

But even if none of that were true, even if Edwards had left Iowa with more delegates -- in, or out, of Iowa -- than Clinton, it is still nonsensical to count her out, as obviously she is far stronger in many other states than she is in Iowa.

Of course, if you are reading this, you probably already know that. And that's the point: everyone knows that. So why would Edwards say that she is out of the race? It can only be for one reason: he's desperate, so he is resorting to baldfaced lying in the hope he can peel off some more votes.

And that typifies Edwards. He pretends he is the antiwar candidate, despite cosponsoring the authorization for the use of force. He pretends he defends the "little guy," when his extremely lucrative career was made on exploiting the "little guy." He acts like he is experienced, when he has spent only one term in the Senate. Then he acts like he is an unknown outsider (a speech he gave yesterday bragged about coming in second against two "rock star" candidates) despite being on the national ticket just over three years ago.

I've said it before, and it is unfortunately true: I would much rather have Hillary as President than Edwards. Those who know me -- even a little -- know that this isn't much about Clinton, but a lot about Edwards, and nothing good. But I would love to see him win the nomination, because he is such an easy target for the GOP. Too bad he has no chance.

So WillAffleckWU says I am "a Royalist and avowed hater of our Freedoms and Rights, after all, not to mention a combat avoider" and that I have "ill-informed neoconservative opinions."

I am about the farthest thing from any reasonable definition of "royalist," for whatever he could possibly mean by that. I've never in my life taken a single action to avoid combat. None of my opinions are neoconservative, and as to ill-informed, well, no moreso than anyone else's. I tend to not form opinions at all until I do get significant information. Funny, though, that his opinions of me are obviously ill-informed.

As to being an "avowed hater of our Freedoms and Rights" ... WillAffleckWU denys property rights in favor of his view of the "common good." For example, he favored a recent proposition to take massive amounts of money from citizens in order to force those citizens into using a mode of transportation they overwhelmingly don't want to use.

He wants to take away our freedom and rights, both coming and going: take away the fruits and the mechanism of our liberty (our money and property) in order to take away the expression of our liberty (the ability to drive from place to place). And as a Green, this is his normal M.O.

Another "winner" recently said that I put "the power of the state over that of the individual." I can't think of any example where I do that, and neither could he: his one example was about preservation of natural resources, but he takes the side of the government over the individual on that issue. And I don't take sides on that issue at all out of a specific context, which he didn't provide, so it wasn't an example that fit me anyway.

So the reason I bring all this up is because I was hoping maybe one of you can help me come up with examples of where I put the power of the state over that of the individual. I can't think of any. The only time I can think of that I favor the power of the state over the individual is when that power is used to directly defend other individual rights -- such as arresting someone for assault -- which obviously doesn't count.

But maybe I am missing something. Help me out!

In her lawsuit, Stacie Somers makes three claims.

First, that Apple is "constricting the market" by choosing to not license a propietary licensing technology. In other words, because a third party decided to make music files that only certain players can play, Apple is somehow to blame for not paying for that privilege. Because apparently, everyone has the right for someone else to provide them with every proprietary technology that a third party comes up with. It's in the Constitution.

Second, she says that while Apple must license the other proprietary technology, that it is not allowed to have its own properietary technology. Because, um ... it just can't. It's totally a different thing.

Third, she claims Apple can only buy music from iTunes Music Store, which contains the aforementioned proprietary technology. Because apparently she's never heard of this marvelous device called a "Compact Disc" that you can buy -- like your iPod -- in places with names like "Target" and "Amazon" and "Fred's Gas Station." And there's also Amazon and other retailers that sell downloadable music you can put on your iPod.

Even without even getting into the actual claims, which have no merit, it's clear that she has suffered no damages whatsoever -- potential or otherwise -- and therefore has no standing anyway.

Pick the statement below that makes the sentence true.

There is only one correct answer.

"The Constitution of the United States ..."

a. "... requires a complete separation of church and state."

b. "... creates three coequal branches of the federal government."

c. "... limits the federal government to using only those powers which are defined (or implied) by the Constitution."

d. "... gives a minority in the Senate the authority to block Senate action by filibuster."

e. "... provides that the accused shall be tried by a jury of peers."