Peter Welch has announced that he is not going along with a deal apparently being brokered by the Democratic leadership in Congress that would let the Bushies do what they want with the money appropriated for the war:
These things are always in flux, but it’s possible that this deal is unraveling. Still, whether he wins this fight or not, I give Peter credit for standing by his promise.
After catching endless flak on his weird power grab in Windsor County, where he ordered all drug offenses brought directly to the Attorney General’s office, (circumnavigating the Windsor County State’s Attorney Bobby Sand because he opted to send a first time marijuana offender to court diversion) Governor Douglas has decided to back off.
Evidently, when it came out that he didn’t give a damn when, a few days earlier, a more extreme case involving 110 marijuana plants in Orange County was also sent to diversion (the Orange County prosecutor is a Republican, Sand is a popular Democrat – you do the math), the political reek was so extreme and so brazen, even Douglas decided it might be best to backpedal and try to put the mess behind him. He has now rescinded his order that the State Police bypass Sand’s office.
But he can’t quite let it go. From VPR:
(Douglas) “The state’s attorney in Windsor County indicated that he has moved on from what appeared to be a blanket policy of deferring first-time marijuana cases, regardless of quantity. He has met with local law enforcement officers and indicated that henceforward he will talk with them about these cases before making a decision as to how to dispose of them.
Oh really, Governor?
(Sand) “I indicated to governor’s counsel in an email that we don’t have any type of blanket policy in Windsor County and we never had and we never will have with regard to marijuana cases.
This kind of schoolyard BS should be beneath Vermont’s Governor.
Found via Eschaton, but Not Atrios:
Bush and Cheney have broken the law consistently throughout their reign, often openly, and to the great detriment of our own country and others; when they obey it, they do so more as a matter of convenience than from any fealty to it or any fear of retribution. They’re pleased to use the legislature to achieve their ends when they can — as when Congress obligingly immunized administration personnel from prosecution under the War Crimes Act — and to ignore it when they can’t. Former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith explains the dynamic as described to him by Dick Cheney’s current number two, torture maven David Addington: “We’re going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop.” They have, and that larger force has not materialized — and the administration have been at pains to ensure that the force, if it ever arrives, won’t do so in the person of the courts — and the result is a constitutional republic with its framework intact and its guts eviscerated. There is only one remedy, and that’s impeachment.
Read the whole thing here.
I understand (but don't endorse) the political strategy that says that pushing for impeachment “hurts the Dems at the polls” in 2008. And I wouldn't have endorsed it even it if had been true the last time they said it — in 2006 — even as Democrats in localities where impeachment efforts took root posted historic gains and even outperformed their colleagues nationally.
But I understand fear. Really, I do.
Still, you have to wonder what kind of a long term strategy this is for the exercise of power in America. In the 40 years or so since Nixon's first election, the Democrats have held the Congress for 28 years, and been out of power for just 12. It's the exact reverse with respect to the White House, where Democrats have been out for 28 years and in for just 12. During that time, the Republicans have reelected three presidents — arguably the most aggressive expanders of executive power to occupy the office — Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush. In the same space of time, Democrats have reelected just one president (the first elected to two terms since FDR, by the way) — and that guy got impeached!
So I find myself at a loss for explaining why laying low rather than vigorously defending the powers of the one branch Democrats have been successful at holding is so brilliant and pragmatic. It seems to me that the strategy puts all our eggs in one very shaky basket: winning and holding the White House in perpetuity.
I want to win the White House as much as anybody in 2008. Maybe more. But I also know that there's another election coming up after that. And another after that. And another after that. Should we be so unfortunate as to lose one, on what grounds would a later Congress assert the prerogatives it has surrendered this time around? And wouldn't the effort to reassert those powers just fall prey to the same pathetic excuse that quashes it today?
(As usual, Bob Higgins writes another interesting diary. – promoted by Brattlerouser)
Is there anyone out there who still harbors the delusion that George Bush or most of his administration possesses the slightest shred of human integrity or the tiniest morsel of respect for the truth, for law, for the people of this country or any other?
Sorry, the question was rhetorical and asked out of personal frustration with the evil festering stew of lies, theft, brutality and domestic and international piracy that this administration has created in the place of what was once the USA.
No, I’m not naive enough to believe that we were ever a perfect country, free of guilt from participation in many and various Machiavellian schemes and plots over the last two centuries, the influence of the power lusts of private wealth have always had far too much influence in our public affairs to allow us to avoid responsibility for the results of our contributions to the general level of human misery. We have committed serious crimes against people in places as varied as Vietnam and Chile, and as far apart in space and time as Nicaragua and Iran.
In the generally business driven efforts to support the interests of entities such as United Fruit, Chiquita Banana, Anaconda, various oil giants, mining companies, and financial institutions we have gone to bat for tin horn dictators in Iran, Cuba, Chile, Cambodia and in other places to numerous to name here. Even the Mafia found support in the efforts to prop up the fascist pig Batista against communist pig Castro.
Much of our record has not been pretty and, in general, has usually favored and supported wealth and property over humanity and justice.
Revelations last week of more administration lies in the widening “Waterboardgate” scandal came as no surprise to most people and, although many expressed shock and dismay in public, the expressions of astonishment seemed to be presented for dramatic effect rather than as spontaneous displays of true emotion. When it comes to the current administration I don’t believe that there are many rose colored glasses left among the body politic, experience having taught us to assume the worst.
Even the families of the long suffering military who have borne the brunt of the aspirations to Empire of America’s transparently criminal ruling class over the last seven years are now beginning to break ranks with the “commander” who has squandered the lives of their loved ones treated them with such contempt.
I suppose that what depresses me and, in truth, causes me the greatest fear is the fact that the oligarchic forces of fascistic wealth have effectively bought out the opposition which showed it’s true face last month with the passage of the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act,” one of the most frightening pieces of legislation since the “Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.”
This legislative abomination, added to the so called “Patriot Act,” and last year’s “Military Commissions Act” helped to spell the end of any pretense to adherence to constitutional principle and democratic rule in this country.
The forces which have so cynically manipulated public opinion to bring about the death of democracy have always been with us and have, at various times, risen and ebbed as evil tides, of “red scares,” “commie menaces,” of “outside agitators,” and the currently in vogue “Islamofascism,” a term popularized by some Goebbelian marketing wonk in the bowels of Dick Cheney’s office and pressed forward by money driven waves of irrational fear, and the malignant energy of powerful and pathologically dishonest men.
With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, caused in large measure by the abdication of reason by rank and file Democrats, the racist and anti-democratic march to plutocracy, halted and long delayed since the thirties by the common blessings of FDR’s “New Deal,” was born again, hidden behind thinly disguised code words like “silent majority,” “hard hats,” or “family values.”
The incubation of this poisonous philosophical monstrosity did not begin to reach it’s full virulence until large measures of neo-conservative and rabid theocratic ingredients stirred into the mix at the millennium, at which point those who most despised the Constitution and the rule of law were then able, due to a perfect storm of world events, a combination of public dread and apathy, congressional and judicial meekness, and the complete corporate takeover of the fourth estate, to seize control of the very government they long held in such contempt and begin it’s thorough looting, dismantlement and replacement with corporate rule.
Now we have a Department of Agriculture run by agribusiness, the Mine Safety and Health Administration run by corporate mining interests, a Department of Energy thoroughly in the control of multinational oil and gas and coal conglomerates, a health care system run by the insurance and drug industries and on and disgustingly on through every federal department and agency.
The takeover has been so complete and the parties involved so incredibly powerful that the Congress and the courts have, in large measure, knelt in fear and supplication before them as evidenced by the aforementioned “legislation” that would have been laughed out of the halls of congress four decades ago.
But as cowardly as the courts, the congress and the media have become, their cowardice is overshadowed by their addiction to the corporate feed bags of their campaign contributors and advertisers. The lure of hundreds of millions of dollars draws them to the putrid feast like hyenas to the sun ripened carcass of a wildebeest and in their lust to feed at the feet of the ruling class they have lost all sense of shame, all sense of the wretched aroma of their own corruption.
On the horizon looms an election, now entering it’s second painful year, in which nearly two dozen of our most respected flimflams have pandered to the National Association of Manufacturers, the health lobby, the defense lobby, the insurance and energy lobbies along with anyone else who will pay them to turn a trick.
By the time the general election is held just under a year from now the various moneyed interests will have spent nearly a billion dollars to place their man or woman on the puppet throne of public policy and the big dance will go on, the music, the lyrics and the tempo unchanged no matter which “party” is elected to represent their masters in industry.
Looking for solutions? So am I. Finding any? I know of only one.
Write, call, speak out, raise bloody hell, make noise and lots of it. The people who rule will never willingly give up control, they will always strive for more, for absolute control, it is their nature as a class. They will never willingly remove the economic and political shackles they have devoted so much effort to place on the “lesser” classes, they will be satisfied with nothing but total slavery, the complete exploitation of the world’s working people, it is the nature of their class. The people must seize power using many of the same methods employed in shedding the British yoke at the end of the eighteenth century.
In the short term, I will vote for any Democrat over any Republican, even if I have to hold my nose, and when we elect them we must hold their feet to the fire constantly, without letup, to insure a return to open and honest democratic government.
In the longer term we have to insist on the immediate passage of public campaign financing, we must place severe limits on the the ability of corporations to stand above the law and avoid responsibility for their crimes and get rid of the revolving door between elected office and the lobbying industry, and the corporate boardroom. We must enact extremely tough ethics rules for elected and appointed public officials and include within them mandatory jail time commensurate with the seriousness of the crime, in other words, treat violations of the public trust as the treasonous acts that they are.
Along the way we have to seriously revise or reverse much of the misguided and flat out dangerous legislation of this dark era of the neo conservative robber barons and build a new era of progressive populism in which the people truly rule, unencumbered by the tyranny of a cynical and self serving ruling class.
Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust
Links:
Lying Down with Hyenas
I will warn everyone now: this post is a bit wonky and it’s about (zzzzzzzzzzzzz) due process and legal standards:
Per Yahoo News / AFP:
The US Supreme Court ruled Monday judges had greater leeway in handing down sentences, allowing courts to address the disparity in punishments for crack and powder cocaine trafficking.
The high court sided with a judge who gave the same sentence for drug traffickers in either form of cocaine, despite a 1986 federal law that calls for a 100:1 ratio — making the sale of one gram of crack cocaine as serious an offense as 100 grams of powder cocaine.
This is an outstanding development and one that, given how conservative some of the judges are, suggests that the conservative nature of the Supreme Court, while still a problem, is not as complete and overarching problem as I’d believed.
In the case above, and one other, the Court this week has ruled that judges are not required to enact sentences as severe as the guidelines presented by law. In another case, they ruled that just having a gun is not the same as using it:
In a 9-0 decision, the court said the tough anti-crime provision does not apply to traffickers who trade drugs for guns.
[…]
The issue in the case was whether receiving a gun in exchange for drugs constitutes “use” of the gun under federal law.The federal government “may say that a person ‘uses’ a firearm simply by receiving it in a barter transaction, but no one else would,” wrote Justice David Souter. “Given ordinary meaning and the conventions of English, we hold that a person does not ‘use’ a firearm” under federal law “when he receives it in trade for drugs.”
The judiciary is an important body and for some time now, conservatives have been working to diminish its power. Both these rulings fly in the face of that, suggesting that judges do have the experience and perspective to decide what is and is not an appropriate sentence. The rulings, despite the court’s conservative leanings, do a good job of restoring judicial authority without allowing judges to greatly exceed reasonable standards.
So, yes, we have a conservative court. It’s the same court that decided not to hear the appeal of a death row inmate whose lawyer was mentally ill. And that’s a problem. We still need to restore balance to this court and to do so, we’ve got to eliminate Republican rule in the White House. But in the meantime, our law is not yet fractured (though it is definitely suffering from some cracks). I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. Alito and Thomas are probably not going to surprise anyone. Kennedy is now the swing vote on many issues, and he alternates between reasonable and idiotic, so who can tell? Scalia is, well, Scalia. He’s going to be an arrogant bastard, but sometimes he’s an arrogant bastard on the right side of the law.
We’ve got some interesting cases coming up: rights of Americans detained in Iraq to be tried under US law… cruel and unusual punishment in death row cases.
I have to say, I doubt I’ll like the outcome in these cases, but I am becoming more convinced that the justices are, mostly, acting independently. They may be doing things I don’t always like, but they’re basing those decisions on their own ideology, not on which political allegiances they’ll piss off.
From a low point of Bush v. Gore (and I do mean low — probably the lowest point I’ve seen on the court in my lifetime), the court seems to have managed to turn itself back into an independent, if flawed, body once again.
By now I'm sure you all heard that Peter Welch will be voting against the funding bill.
So perhaps a letter of thanks is in order for our Congressman. It appears that his office is beginning to listen to Vermonters' opinions on his campaign issue.
Credit where credit is due, right?
Nate Freeman
I picked this link off of TPM. If the allegations are true – this is simply disgusting and a travesty.
For those who still think the government should not intervene in the mortgage crisis, consider this:
1. Chrysler Corporation’s bailout in 1979;
2. S&L bailout in 1989;
3. Long-Term Capital Fund bailout in 1998;
4. Airline bailout in 2001; and
5. Not mentioned below, the Asian bailout by the IMF in 1997.
A fresh perspective from Robert Reich below the fold.
Moral Hazard Is for Suckers
People tend to be less cautious when they know they’ll be bailed out. But even when they’re careful, people cannot always assess risks accurately.
Robert B. Reich | September 24, 2007
Last summer, while sitting on a beach, I overheard a father tussle with his young son about whether the child was old enough to take out a small sailboat. The father finally relented. “Go ahead, but I’m not gonna save you,” he said, picking up his newspaper. A while later, the sailboat tipped over and the child began yelling for help, but his father didn’t budge. I put down my book, walked over to the man, and delicately told him his son was in trouble. “That’s okay,” he said. “That boy’s gonna learn a lesson he’ll never forget.” I walked down the beach to notify a lifeguard, who promptly went into action.
Letting children bear the consequences of their risky behavior — what some parents call “tough love” — can be applied to adults as well, and conservatives have made a virtual fetish of it. A few weeks ago, as George W. announced a paltry plan to help out a few of the millions of homeowners who got caught in the sub-prime loan mess, he reiterated the credo: “It’s not government’s job to bail out … those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford.”
People do tend to be less cautious when they know they’ll be bailed out. Economists call this “moral hazard.” But even when they’re careful, people cannot always assess risks accurately. Many of the mostly poor home buyers who got into trouble did not know they couldn’t afford the mortgage payments they agreed to. The banks and mortgage lenders that pulled out all the stops to persuade those home buyers to the contrary were in a far better position to know. So were the credit-rating agencies that gave these loans solid credit ratings, as did the financiers who bundled them with less-risky loans and sold them to other financial institutions.
The real moral hazard in this saga started when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cut the Fed’s discount rate (charged on direct federal loans to banks) and announced that the Fed would take whatever action was needed to “promote the orderly functioning of markets.” Translated, this means that lenders, credit-rating agencies, financial intermediaries, and hedge funds will be bailed out, one way or another, because they’re simply too big to fail. Note that behind every one of these institutions lurk thousands of well-paid executives who would have lost big if the Fed hadn’t come to their rescue. Even though they had more information and experience at risk-taking than the suckers who borrowed their money, moral hazard doesn’t apply to them.
When big entrepreneurs take big risks that fail, it’s amazing how often they get bailed out. The history of modern American business is littered with federal bailouts, loan guarantees, and no-questions-asked reorganizations: the Chrysler bailout of 1979, the savings and loan bailout of 1989, the airline bailout of 2001. Most bailouts, however, occur in the relative dark, such as the 1998 rescue of giant hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, the not infrequent bailouts of under-funded corporate pension plans by the government’s Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, price supports for big agribusinesses facing market downturns, or the current bailout of Wall Street being engineered by Bernanke’s Fed.
CEOs get away with stupid mistakes all the time. Some, like Robert Nardelli, the former CEO of Home Depot, drive their company’s stock so low that their boards eventually oust them. But they leave with eye-popping going-away presents nonetheless. (Nardelli got a $210 million severance package.) If you’re an average American who gets canned from your job, even through no fault of your own, you probably won’t even get unemployment insurance (only 40 percent of job losers qualify these days). Conservatives tell us that unemployment insurance reduces workers’ incentive to find a new job quickly. In other words, moral hazard.
Some CEOs use bankruptcy as a means of getting out from under pesky labor contracts. Others use it as a cushion against bad bets. Donald (“You’re fired!”) Trump’s casino empire has gone into bankruptcy twice with no apparent diminution of the Donald’s passion for risky, if not foolish, endeavor. After all, his personal fortune is protected behind a wall of limited liability. But if you’re an ordinary person who has fallen on hard times, just try declaring bankruptcy to wipe the slate clean. A new law governing personal bankruptcy makes that route harder than ever. Its sponsors argued — you guessed it — moral hazard.
The little guys get tough love. The big guys get forgiveness.
It’s become the mantra of the netroots, personified on the long-term, systemic end of the spectrum by DailyKos, and on the more immediate end by the fine folks at OpenLeft (which has been my favorite national blog of late). The netroots is clearly a phenomenon born, bred and thriving in the trenches of the Democratic Party grassroots infrastructure – redefining that infrastructure both culturally and functionally at an astonishing pace.
The founding culture of this site is no different. In fact, when I had the first conversations about the blog with Jack, Ed and David, I had three notions in mind; in the short term, I wanted to promote the hell out of the nascent “Rutland Resolution” impeachment movement, but in the longer term, I wanted to play catch-up with the rest of the country on effecting public dialogue in Vermont the way new media is effecting it nationally, but also on this grassroots transformation taking place within the Democratic Party elsewhere.
The soundbite summation of that goal is this netroots catchphrase, “more, better Democrats.” I think it might be interesting to dissect that a bit. In the face of the groundwork being laid for the inevitable capitulation of the National Democratic Leadership on Iraq funding (again), it would seem timely.
The phrase sums up the transformational goal. More Dems is not in and of itself a worthy target, we have to make them better. The need to promote “better” Dems is an implicit recognition that the greater Democratic political culture and leadership is in need of improvement. The tone on all of these blogs put the urgency to that sentiment.
What’s also implicit is that there are “better” Dems, and worse Dems. What I like about the phrase is that, in three simple words, it rejects the idea that anyone in Washington (or elsewhere) who calls themselves a “Dem” can be reduced to a simple, institutional generalization (bad or good). It implicitly recognizes that there’s a spectrum. In doing so, it makes each individual candidate and elected official accountable for their individual actions to their individual constituents, rather than making them each fully accountable for the collective sins of their Party-mates. This is, of course, what so often makes many third-party promoters so incensed at these blogs, as they’re predicated on the sort of individual accountability model that is incompatible with one of their primary rhetorical tools; the assignment of partisan collective responsibility.
Other third-party promoters are driven to their stances based on rejections of this sort of collectivist mindset. Many of those are often surprisd to find themselves very much at home among the netroots, despite sometimes considerable disagreements over policy. Many more are someplace in between, and find themselves simultaneously drawn to, and leery of, netroots sites like this one.
But “more, better Democrats” also sets up twin goals that may or may not always be in concert. Is Kos right, that our expectations of Democrats should be based on their districts, and that over time voting in conservative D’s from conservative districts is okay if we’re simutaneously pushing moderate Ds in liberal districts to respond to progressive ideals or get booted out in a primary? Maybe Bowers and Stoller are right, that every Dem everywhere should be pressured to be responsive to the full range of progressive ideals (implicit in that, is the idea that in every district that could possibly elect a Dem, there’s a latent progressive culture to be nurtered and allowed to blossom)?
For some on this board, the real manifestation of this question is the “will you vote for Hillary if she’s the nominee” question?
Are we on the cultural clock or the electoral clock for progressive change? Both? Neither? What does the mantra “more, better Democrats” mean to you?