John Yoo suggests you ignore the Constitution

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Tuesday December 20, 2005 · 1:50 AM PST

2005/12/20 · 01:50

(John Yoo takes another stab at twisting the Constitution inside-out and beyond: A president can pull the trigger

"Article 1, Section 8: Powers of Congres ... To declare War...."

Seems pretty simple to me, but then I'm not a professor of law at UC Berkeley like Prof John Yoo. I read this bit of the Constitution of the United States of America, and I think: "It's up to Congress to decide when my country goes to war." Prof Yoo, with his much broader experience in law -- and his personal law degree, which certainly demonstrates his superior grasp of the law in all its subtlety -- reads these three words as meaning that Congress has the right to pay for military activities in which the president chooses to engage. Read More

John Yoo: torturing language, seeking the jackpot

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Monday December 12, 2005 · 9:00 AM PST

2005/12/12 · 09:00

Thanks tothe L.A. Times for telling me all I need to know about John Yoo's book about why we've been wrong about the President's powers for over 200 years and why Congress has actually been irrelevant all these years. I do not have to wait for my library to get a copy of the book, "The Powers of War and Peace", and then wait for my turn on the hold list to come up (I'm already waiting to get season 2 of "Alias" and that's a long enough wait).

Yoo, who is now a profesor of law at Berkeley, was the primary author of the Justice Dept's decision that the Geneva Convention was optional for the United States. Yoo was simply acting to promote one-half of the Bush Administration's policy objectives: use the so-called war on terror to maximize American hegemonic power anywhere in the world, by whatever means possible (the other half of the policy agenda, of course, is "make shitloads of money for Dubya and his homies"). The bottom line in all of these arguments, of course, is that 9/11 is such a great excuse, let's use it. And let's not even try to be subtle. Read More

Curveball: If he hadn't existed, they would have invented him.

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Sunday November 20, 2005 · 11:57 AM PST

2005/11/20 · 11:57

I expect a number of people will diary this, but it deserves it. For me, it's an exercise in learning, just like college: Read and takes notes, then write them up. Find the important parts, make sure they stick, make sure I communicate those parts effectively. It's a big article (with a great timeline at the end) and the Times is free onlin (may need to register, but I've never gotten spammed by them).

How U.S. Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball'
by Bob Drogin and John Goetz, Special to The Times

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Wednesday November 16, 2005 · 10:38 AM PST

2005/11/16 · 10:38

I'm trying to explore more of the blogosphere, generally a waste of time since most of the bloggers I read have the same skill level as many people who write "poetry" -- none. I'm not out to find blogs to laugh at; I'd really like to find quality blogs to check periodically for new thoughts and ideas, even ones I don't agree with.

But holy crap. This guy is something else: Everything I Know Is Wrong. His site contains a long list of recommendations, right at the top where you can't miss them. But when I followed the links all I found were reciprocal links, sites with no mention of this blog, or dead links. A lot of the links went to archives at the specified sites, and the archived locations were nearly 2 years old. So at one point in time, he got some fellow travelers to do a bit of logrolling for him, and that's good enough to stay the course. Read More

NIE report: Congress kills our children through laziness

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Saturday November 12, 2005 · 10:27 AM PST

2005/11/12 · 10:27

Here's the part of the Milbank-Pincus WaPo article that troubles me most (highlighted in lipris' diary):

"Congress was entitled to view the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq before the October 2002 vote. But, as The Washington Post reported last year, no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page executive summary." Read More

White Phosphorous Report - on IMDB!

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Thursday November 10, 2005 · 9:36 PM PST

2005/11/10 · 21:36

for godsakes, i found this on IMDB! it's a report from the radical left wing rag, the Columbia Journalism Review, asking why American media have universally ignored the RAI documentary on the bombing of Falujah with white phosphorous. from the article,

The CJR article concluded, "This story demands a closer look from the American press. We deserve to know whether or not the allegations have any merit -- and whether or not the military has been misleading us about the weapons it's using in Iraq." Read More

U.S. did drop phosphorus bombs on Falujah (UK Independent)

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Monday November 07, 2005 · 9:14 PM PST

2005/11/07 · 21:14

(this may not be news to many here. i didn't know this was alleged; i'm horrified but unsurprised if it's true.)

today's Independent Online reports that new and overwhelming evidence is now available that proves US forces dropped illegal phosphorus bombs on Falujah in November 2004. the military claims a few bombs were used for illumination purposes; the dead and wounded demonstrate they were used to destroy the city. Read More

Arianna: Wrong on Carville

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Friday November 04, 2005 · 6:16 PM PST

2005/11/04 · 18:16

Arianna Huffington, whom I normally enjoy greatly, went off on James Carville this week. She doesn't find him entertaining, which is fair considering he's on infotainment shows as opposed to doing real journalism; but she takes, I think, a totally wrong wrong read on his appearance on The Situation Room. When Wolf Blitzer asked him about Cheney and Plamegate, Carville's response was to focus on the president, using the term "Vice nothing" to emphasize that the buck is supposed to stop with Bush.

Arianna read this as ducking the issue, and she puts the blame on the fact that Mary Matalin, Carville's wife, worked for Cheney during the first term. She thinks Carville is compromised as a result and should be off the air entirely, saying nothing. Because he refused to talk about Cheney, Arianna argues, the net effect is to give Cheney a pass. I see it differently. Read More

Scooter, Nixon & why we can't be happy

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Wednesday November 02, 2005 · 9:00 AM PST

2005/11/02 · 09:00

During my high school years, I sang in the church youth choir. Those were the days of the Jesus Freaks, pre-fundamentalist charismatic apolitical fellowship volleyball and singing for the pleasure of salvation days. We frowned on pre-marital sex, but for us that meant petting, and possibly we were against abortion, but I cannot remember a single conversation about it. The times were completely different. To be a fundamentalist then meant you took the Bible seriously on spiritual terms. It was not a declaration of war against the World. It was just another way to say, I'm saved.

And I was saved, and it saved my life, if not my soul. I had a crappy childhood, which did not set me apart too far from the crowd, but it was miserable enough for me. I have no idea where I would have gone, what I would have become. I became a Christian, and I went to Bible study, to youth group, and I sang in the choir. I enjoyed it tremendously. Read More

Alito & FDR (thoughts on a manifesto)

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Monday October 31, 2005 · 11:11 PM PST

2005/10/31 · 23:11

when FDR became president, the Supreme Court was completely out of touch with America's realities. he had to threaten to pack the court to get it to start paying attention to why he and Congress were passing radical new legislation and programs. gradually, the obstructionists were replaced by jurists who were willing to work with the President and Congress to address the changing world. it was never a perfect system, but FDR's court eventually helped pave the way for modern civil rights and public good. Read More

purple snot

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Thursday February 03, 2005 · 8:56 PM PST

2005/02/03 · 20:56

i saw the pictures of those purple fingers, and the question that came to my mind was,

what the hell do those wingnuts have up their noses? and why are they so proud of being able to do what any 6-year-old has down to an artform?

was it chewy-licious?

and when will any of them have the guts to actually do something strong and courageous? like go work in a refuge camp, or stand up for peace and not easy warmongering?

wait til the purple-fingered corpses start turning up in iraq. then let's see what kind of brave response these chickenhawks have.

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