Magpie

Saturday, July 2, 2005

Dubya's administration would prefer that we forget ...

... about the question of who in the White House leake the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak in 2003. Plame, you'll recall, is married to former State Department official Joseph Wilson, who had publicly debunked Dubya's claim that Saddam Hussein's government had tried to buy uranium from the African nation of Niger. Since early on, there's been speculation that Dubya advisor Karl Rove was behind the leak.

It now appears that Rove's invovlement with the leak may be far more than speculation.

The story is still new and confusing, but it's definitely going to be interesting to see where events lead.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:42 PM | Get permalink

Trouble ahead?

We've been reading some scenarios for what is likely to happen now that Dubya has a Supreme Court vacancy to fill. Some of them are pretty grim.

Brad Plummer at Mother Jones thinks that Dubya will throw out a sacrificial nominee:

Some lunatic winger will get nominated -- maybe even Janice Rogers Brown -- the Democrats in the Senate will say, "Oh hell no" and launch a filibuster. So the battle will rage on for a while, Bush's "base" will get riled up and motivated to send in lots and lots of money, conservative judicial activists will blast their opponents with fairly superior firepower, and bobbing heads in the media will start carping on those "obstructionist" Democrats (bonus carping here if the nominee is a woman, minority, and/or Catholic). Finally Bush will give a very somber speech about withdrawing his nominee, announce that he's very disappointed in the Senate, toss in a few bonus 9/11 references, and nominate some slightly-less-lunatic ultraconservative instead. The new nominee gets treated as the "compromise" candidate, is lauded far and wide as a moderate, and finally gets confirmed after pressure on the Senate Dems to "act like grown-ups" by television pundits who can afford to get their abortions abroad and will have no problem with a Supreme Court hostile to labor and environmental protections.

Jeffey Dubner thinks things will go a bit differently. While Dubya will nominate a hard-right judge, he's not going to be willing to lose a fight, even to win in the end and make the Democrats look bad:

One possibility is that Democrats will put up the fight Brad predicts but begin to believe that they're losing the PR war, in which case Democrats (led by 2006ers like Ben Nelson and Robert Byrd) fold and lose. Or, Harry Reid musters all his powers of persuasion (quite possibly reluctantly) to hold Democrats in line, in which case Republicans will hammer Democrats with cloture votes or similar showy challenges until they decide it's time to deploy the nuclear option. Or, just maybe, the nominee is so egregious that the Republican "moderates" realize how ashamed they should be of themselves and vote no.

But this president will not allow himself to appear to be defeated on something so important. He certainly won't set himself up for failure, as Brad predicts, even if such a failure is deemed to be a PR victory that results in an ultra-conservative justice anyway. Just not, as his father might say, gonna do it.

We sure hope Plummer and Dubner are being overly pessimistic.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 PM | Get permalink

Friday, July 1, 2005

Why vacancies on the US Supreme Court matter.

The news of Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation from the Supreme Court sent our memory back about thirty years. We remember sitting in a politics class at the University of California, and hearing the professor suggest that Richard Nixon's revenge on the country for having been forced to resign was his appointment of William Rehnquist to the Court. Rehnquist, the professor said, would be a dependable right-wing vote on the Court until sometime in the 21st century. Not only was the professor right, but Rehnquist became an even more powerful figure on the Court in the mid-1980s when he was elevated to Chief Justice by Ronald Reagan.

Now the Republican right has an even better chance to influence the direction of the Supreme Court than Nixon did in the 1970s. With the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor, and the likely resignation of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the near future, the court could swerve dramatically to the right if Dubya can force a couple of hard-line conservatives (along the lines of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas) into one or both vacancies.

To help us get an idea of how much trouble a right-wing Court could be, People for the American Way has compiled a list of rights and protections that could be at risk. Here's part of it:

Civil Liberties

Indefinite detention: Two more votes with Scalia and Thomas would have reversed the Court?s 2004 decision that detainees at Guantanamo can present claims challenging their indefinite detention in federal court. Justice Thomas would even have upheld indefinite detention of U.S. citizens on American soil without any rights.

Free speech: Just two more justices like Thomas and Scalia would allow government to significantly limit free speech by charging controversial speakers large permit and police protection fees.

Legal aid: One more vote with Scalia and Thomas would have reversed a decision that has allowed federally-funded legal aid attorneys to continue helping clients challenge welfare laws that the clients feel are unfair.

Civil Rights

Affirmative action and equal opportunity: Just one more far-right vote on the Supreme Court would completely eliminate affirmative action and restrict other means of promoting equal opportunity.

Voting rights: Just one more right-wing vote on the Court would make it impossible to challenge even blatantly partisan political gerrymandering. Current far-right justices Scalia and Thomas want to go even further and overturn 30 years of Supreme Court decisions that protect minority voting rights.

Job and other discrimination: Just a few more far-right votes on the Court would make it much harder to prove or remedy bias based on race, age, gender, disability and other factors. For example, it could become impossible for state employees to address violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act. [...]

Women's Rights

Right to privacy and reproductive freedom: A Scalia-Thomas majority would overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate a woman?s constitutional right to reproductive freedom. They believe there is no constitutional right to privacy, and would allow states to ban abortion without exception. Furthermore, hospitals would be allowed to test pregnant women without their knowledge or consent for suspected drug use and provide police with the results.

Discrimination against women: Just two more justices like Scalia and Thomas would have allowed sex discrimination during jury selection and prevented state employees from suing for damages under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Such right-wing justices would also make it harder to prove gender-based discrimination on the job and eliminate affirmative action for women under federal statutes.

Sexual harassment on the job or in school: A few more justices like Scalia and Thomas would make winning justice in the courts more difficult for victims of sexual harassment. They would drastically limit employer responsibility for harassment by supervisors and reduce protection against abusive or hostile work environments. Also, one more Scalia-Thomas vote would undoubtedly eliminate any federal protection for public school students against sexual harassment by other students.

The rest of the list is here.

PFAW also has a detailed report on how the right-wing judicial agenda of Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia threaten the legal protections and constitutional rights. A PDF of that report can be downloaded here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:06 PM | Get permalink

Politics in the US are about to get very interesting.

US Supreme Court justice Sandra O'Connor resigned from the Court this morning. O'Connor was frequently the swing vote, denying the Court's consrvatives a majority on close decisions.

Dubya and the GOP now have a chance to create a reliable conservative majority on the Court, thereby gaining control of the last branch of government that — at least sometimes — tosses roadblocks into the path of the Republicans' right-wing social and political agenda. If Democrats (and the few remaining GOP moderates) cannot mobilize to prevent the confirmation of another right-wing justice, the US right wing may be able to put their stamp on US politics for decades to come — even if the GOP loses control of the presidency and one or both houses of Congress.

We can expect the battle over Dubya's Court nominee to replace O'Connor to be hard-fought and nasty — especially given that the prez is expected to have the opportunity to fill another vacancy when Chief Justice William Rehnquist retires from the Court in the near future.

Fasten your seat belts, folks.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:34 AM | Get permalink

Riverbend weighs in ...

... with her review of Dubya's Iraq speech.

While we're running the risk of posting overly much about the Iraq speech, we figure that since Riverbend and lives with the consequences of Dubya's invasion of Iraq every day, we should take her opinion on what's going on in Iraq rather seriously. Here's part of what she had to say:

"We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard and rebuilding while a country is at war is even harder."

Three decades of tyranny isn't what bombed and burned buildings to the ground. It isn't three decades of tyranny that destroyed the infrastructure with such things as "Shock and Awe" and various other tactics. Though he fails to mention it, prior to the war, we didn't have sewage overflowing in the streets like we do now, and water cut off for days and days at a time. We certainly had more than the 8 hours of electricity daily. In several areas they aren't even getting that much.

"They are doing that by building the institutions of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and equal justice under law."

We're so free, we often find ourselves prisoners of our homes, with roads cut off indefinitely and complete areas made inaccessible. We are so free to assemble that people now fear having gatherings because a large number of friends or family members may attract too much attention and provoke a raid by American or Iraqi forces.

Riverbend saves the best part of her post for last, and we won't spoil things by posting it here. Go over to Baghdad Burning and read the whole post.

[Note: When we read the post, there was an HTML problem at Riverbend's site that made the blog look empty, except for the post's headline. Just scroll down a bit and you'll find the rest of the post.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Dubya's Iraq speech, concise version.

At the French newspaper Libération, Pascal Riché pulled out the prez's most important words. See if you can identify Dubya's subtle theme.

Global war on terror, September the 11th, 2001, terrorists, terrorists , totalitarian ideology , freedom, tyranny, oppression, terror, kill, terrorists, September the 11th, freedom, enemy , war, terrorists, kill, murderous ideology , terrorism, terrorists, free nation, war on terror, freedom, violence and instability, dangerous, violence, bloodshed, violence, sacrifice , war on terror, violence, killers, freedom, criminal elements, hateful ideology, freedom, liberty, democracy, terrorists, war on terror, terrorists, Osama Bin Laden, murder and destruction, enemy, terrorists, car bombs, enemy, terrorists, suicide bomber, enemy, terrorists, violence, terrorists, terrorists, terrorists , freedom, enemies, September the 11th, Bin Laden, enemy , free, tyranny, terrorists, anti-terrorist, free, al Qaeda, free nation, terrorists, terrorists, enemy security terrorists, anti-terrorist terrorists, terror, enemy, tyranny , enemies, freedom, freedom, ideologies of murder, atrocity, September the 11th 2001, car bombers and assassins, freedom, freedom, flying the flag, freedom, freedom, September the 11th 2001, enemies

Although he tried to find them, Riché regrets that he couldn't find the words 'weapons of mass destruction.'

Via truthout.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:29 PM | Get permalink

Submitted for your consideration ...

First, here's an artist's rendering of the Freedom Tower, the proposed replacement for the World Trade Center:

Proposed Freedom Tower in NYC

[Graphic: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP]
Our first impression of the tower was that it looked like somebody had shoved a box over San Francisco's Transamerica Pyramid and then stuck a fork in the top. But we were mistaken.

Consider this other picture, which will be familar to anyone who likes to eat gyros or kebabs:

A tower of meat

[Photo: A. Gifford]
If you're having trouble, visualize what the photo would look like upside-down.

Just a coincidence, we ask?

[We'd love to claim that we figured this out by ourself, but we have to admit that we stole shamelessly from this post over at Making Light.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:12 PM | Get permalink

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Keeping up with inflation, Washington-style.

Members of the US Congress will be getting a US$ 3,100 pay raise next year, after a Democratic-led attempt to force a vote on the automatic pay hike failed. The raise will bring congressional salaries up to US$ $165,200 annually.

We have to admire the shamelessness of House majority leader Tom Delay's rationale for the raise:

"It's not a pay raise," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "It's an adjustment so that they're not losing their purchasing power."

This, of course, comes from one of the people responsible for blocking every attempt to raise the minimum wage for the rest of the country since Bill Clinton's second term. Obviously, the fact that the earning power of mimimum wage workers has dropped by 15 percent since 1997 doesn't cause Delay to lose any sleep at night.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:55 PM | Get permalink

Nothing new from Dubya.

The prez's ~~photo-op~~ speech on Iraq was just another version of the 'stay the course' message that's been coming out of the White House for months. The main thing we noticed was the number of times Dubya managed to mention 9/11 (five).

Dubya's declining numbers in the polls were obviously behind the reason why, instead of addressing the nation from the Oval Office, the prez tried to re-capture his post-invasion glory by giving his speech in front of US troops at Fort Bragg. (We kept looking in back of Dubya for the 'Mission Accomplished' banner.)

If you feel the need to read the whole speech, it's here.

More: For some contrast to Dubya's happy-talk version of Iraq, here's part of the latest post from Chris Albritton, who's just returned for another reporting stint in Iraq:

News flash: Iraq is a disaster. I've been back one day, and the airport road was the worst I've ever seen it. We had to go around a fire-fight between mujahideen and Americans while Iraqi forces sat in the shade of date palms on the side of the road, their rifles resting across their laps. My driver pointed to a group of men in a white pickup next to me. "They are mujahideen," he said. "They are watching the Americans." Indeed, they were, and so intently that they paid no attention to me in the car next to them. We detoured around two possible car bombs that had been cordoned off while Iraqis cautiously approached.

[US defense secretary] Rumsfeld's assessment of "good progress" on the constitution is not accurate, as the committee to draw it up still hasn't completely agreed on how the Sunnis will take part.

When I was in Ramadi, I found the morale to be lower than expected. It wasn't rock-bottom among the Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, but it wasn't great. Most of the ones I talked to weren't confident they were doing anything worthwhile, and were instead focused on getting home alive. If a few Iraqis had to die to make that happen, well, war is hell.

I'm not sure who's winning this war, the Americans or the insurgents. But I know who is losing it: the Iraqi people. Those bumps in the road are their graves.

Albritton's reference to 'bumps in the road' was a jab at Rumsfeld, who spoke a couple of days ago about the few 'bumps on the road' that can be expected before there is a good outcome to the war in Iraq.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Go Canada!

The Canadian House of Commons has given its final approval to a bill giving nationwide legal recognition to same-sex marriages. The vote was 158-133, with most members of the ruling Liberal party supporting the measure.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where approval is expected within a few days.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:10 PM | Get permalink

The US war on Iran.

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter thinks that the war has already started.

To the north, in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the US military is preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran.

Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld's interest in Azerbaijan may have escaped the blinkered Western media, but Russia and the Caucasus nations understand only too well that the die has been cast regarding Azerbaijan's role in the upcoming war with Iran.

The ethnic links between the Azeri of northern Iran and Azerbaijan were long exploited by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and this vehicle for internal manipulation has been seized upon by CIA paramilitary operatives and US Special Operations units who are training with Azerbaijan forces to form special units capable of operating inside Iran for the purpose of intelligence gathering, direct action, and mobilising indigenous opposition to the Mullahs in Tehran.

While we'd really like to see some documentation for many of the things that Ritter presents as fact, his article still contains much food for thought — especially given the victory of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in last weekend's presidential run-off in Iran.

Via Aljazeera.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:12 PM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

Altostratus clouds over Las Vegas!

Red sky at night

[Photo: Carl Crumley]

The lights directly below the clouds are the hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.

You can view a larger version of the photo here.

Via Earth Science Picture of the Day.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:26 PM | Get permalink

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Burning the US flag.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the following proposed amendment to the US Constitution:

The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

The amendment is designed to do an end-run around a 1989 Supreme Court decision that held that flag-burning was a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. The proposed flag-burning amendment now goes to the Senate, also controlled by Republicans, where it faces a somewhat uncertain future.

We have to wonder what connection the current concern over the well-being of the US flag has with the president's record low support in the polls and the deepening quagmire in Iraq. And why do members of Congress view flag-burning, which is a rare event, as such a grave danger to the Republic that passing a constitutional amendment is a greater priority than, for example, dealing with the nation's growing economic problems, the crumbling educational system, election reform, or the lack of health care for millions of citizens?

And we have to agree with a question raised by Al-Muhajabah at veiled4allah: Just how many of the supporters of the flag-burning amendment, whether in Congress or among the general public, thought that the descration of the Koran at Guantanamo (or anywhere) was no big deal?

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:34 PM | Get permalink