Pangloss

Great, now how do we stop Democrats from simply repeating the process, when they're showing no sign of doing anything differently?

ABC News ran an interesting piece today about how "emergency" spending has exceeded $230 billion since February. Why is this date range significant? Because in February Congress and the President passed PAYGO, which was designed to stop deficit spending. Ah, but it's emergency spending, right? Or is it? Even many of the items that seem urgent (like highway construction in light of our declining infrastructure) don't sound like "emergencies", at least in the sense of not having to pay for them. Just charge it to the credit card, right? It's not as if we really need that credit line for anything, and it doesn't hurt, so just rack up some more debt. I think it's even worse than a simple tendency to reach into that credit line to take care of pressing matters. In my opinion this is also a problem of politics. Once you put a party in power they want to stay there just as badly as the opposition wants to remove them. There is no reason for the party in power to back off the spending spree. They simply have no incentive to do so. The American people have to stand up and explain to them that this sort of business as usual is no longer acceptable. I'm not saying that some (perhaps even all) of these expenses aren't worth doing. But we need to start behaving more responsibly, and we need to start doing that right now. I believe that the party that accomplishes that -- EITHER party -- will ultimately be recognized by the people as the more responsible party, and the one better suited to run this country.

It's cool, I was just wondering if it was the same thing. I'm reading this thread over and still kinda shaking my head in confusion over this whole sequence of events. But kudos on the discussion, and to you and Mooey in particular for the level-headed analysis.

Just the previous discussions which suggest that the lawyers themselves admit the actions. I agree the details here are somewhat obscured and need to be determined precisely in order to find out if any laws were actually broken.

Is this the thing that forufes was talking about over in this thread? http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=52353

The New York Times confirms that it happened, and that the lawyers defended their actions as legal in this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/politics/26gitmo.html The lawyers chose not to hide this information from their clients. Why would they? The clients have a right to know this information, as far as the lawyer is concerned. The rights are extended to the DEFENDANT, not to the LAWYER of the defendant. In their view, the lawyer has no right to withhold that information from their client, and in fact have a duty to do so. But as Representative Jeff Miller of Florida put it, "Attorney-client privilege doesn't give them the ability to break the law and compromise national security," and he's right, it doesn't. (source) And apparently they went a step farther, this from a different article based on the claim of Representative Miller, who introduced a new bill last week to make the actions of these lawyers explicitly illegal: Furthermore, these events have lead to conflicts between the Justice Department and the ACLU, and separately with the CIA, over such practices, with some in the Justice Department supporting the ACLU's actions, and others opposing. (source) Are some on the right using this story to leverage a political charge against the left? Of course they are. Does the law suggested by Representative Miller (a Republican) go too far? It probably does -- the American Bar Association thought so when it stated its opposition, as did many other groups that had no iron in this fire. So be it. (I believe the bill failed in the House anyway.) But as bascule and iNow are so fond of pointing out by means of their own submissions to this forum, with many instances of political smoke, sometimes there is real fire beneath the surface. Instead of insulting me and accusing me of "buying into the narrative and distributing it across the net", you could instead actually address the charge, show where it's incorrect, and discuss the issue politely and professionally.

So you feel I'm redistributing partisan narrative, and that I'm the only one around here who does this, iNow? Would you like to discuss that point in detail?

I really hadn't considered the possibility that Sestak might have done it deliberately. I agree that would be rather remarkable if it were true. Certainly his appearances on camera would be Oscar-worthy if that turned out to be the case. He's given the appearance of being quite confused and surprised by the questions. Interesting speculation, there.

My fault. I don't like it either when the word "centrist" is used to describe people who are moderate but still clearly aligned with the ideological mainstream of their party, so I need to not succumb to that practice myself. The word I should have used was "moderate". The point was just to differentiate him from the more liberal base of the Democratic party.

I agree. Though I don't know that it's so much the current administration that's changed this as it is the Supreme Court.

Fox News has been all over this for days if not weeks (I don't really know, but I noticed it the other night when I tuned in for the first time in years), but I think it's pretty clear that no laws were broken. Unfortunately the White House has now acknowledged that Rahm Emanuel asked President Clinton to offer Sestak a job on a Presidential advisory board or some similar role, and they also confirm that this was done in order to get Sestak to withdraw from the race against Alan Specter. (Sestak declined the offer and won the primary.) President Obama did not take part in the offer, but the offer was made and it does involve access to the President. In short, the White House Chief of Staff tried to buy off a Senate candidate. He simply chose a legal means to do so. That does not make it less sleazy, in my book. ABC News story detailing today's administration press release: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/white-house-details-bid-rep-joe-sestak-senate/story?id=10771039 Politico article on today's disclosures: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37916.html Politico article on the widening scale of the scandal, focusing on the Clinton connection: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37939.html Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedHere's the related law: Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedABC News discussed the issue on This Week today, with some video here (third video in this article): http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/this-week-this-week-the-annotated-version-5302010.html#tp Mathew Dowd said that he feels the biggest affect of this will be on Obama's "brand" of promising change in Washington. None of the round table commentators felt that the case was prosecutable.

People on trial in civilian court have a right to know who is testifying against them. The process is called "discovery". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_%28law%29 That's a common opinion, though, and it's disturbing to me that people don't understand the consequences of using the civilian court system to prosecute terrorists. The people demanded it, but it doesn't seem to me that the people understand its ramifications.

Would anyone care to discuss the outing of CIA agents to terrorists by the partisan left?

Great! I'm glad to hear that everyone here agrees that it's wrong to out CIA agents to Al Qaeda.

Interesting article in the Washington Post today about how Bill Clinton's continued popularity and Senator Blanche Lincoln's struggle to get re-elected in Arkansas put a spotlight on the ongoing struggle between centrists (edit: meant to say "moderates") and progressives in the Democratic party. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052902329.html Not particularly profound, but interesting stuff, and I think worth a read.

Right, she was "outed" by the Bush administration, and the left had a problem with that. But now that it's the left doing the outing, suddenly it's okay.

On the other hand you've put me on to Bill O'Reilly again (hey, with Lost off the air I gotta watch SOMETHING), and I'm finding all sorts of interesting material for new threads.

It just boggles the mind the reasoning people will stoop to sometimes in an effort to uphold a single, narrowly-defined ideological principle. In this case, the allegation is that the ACLU is involved in a concerted and deliberate effort to photograph CIA agents and provide those images to terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Defenders say it's to protect their "right" to know who their potential torturers are so that they can avoid them. No, really. And yet the left went bonkers over the outing of Valerie Plame, the worst-kept secret in DC. Do you guys really wonder why conservatives get frustrated with liberals? Seriously? Some articles for background: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/06/former-cia-lawyer-gitmo-ids-graver-than-plame-leak/ http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/four-journalists-banned-from-gitmo-coverage-for-outing-an-interrogator.html http://blog.heritage.org/2010/05/21/guest-blogger-congressman-jeff-miller-r-fl-on-investigating-the-john-adams-project/

Not the new one (yet). This is a recent but older Arizona law in which the state imposed more stringent penalties against employers of illegal aliens than what federal law does. The Obama administration's position is that it usurps their authority to enforce immigration law. The Court was originally asked to hear the case last fall, but it has not replied to the petition yet. This new filing today, and the particular way of phrasing their position, suggests that they wish the court to consider the case in light of the new law as well. If the court agreed with them then the new law could also be struck down, perhaps even by the same ruling. I think this is an interesting case for another reason -- it highlights the growing confrontation between state and federal governments over ideological differences that lack the simple clarity of past interventions. I think this is further evidence that much of the mainstream left -- and the Obama administration -- does NOT, in fact, recognize the concerns of Arizonans, and would prefer instead that Arizona simply bend over and continue taking it in the rear. Arizona and its citizens have a real beef with the federal government -- an absolutely valid concern, and a darn good reason to think they're not being listened-to. But instead of addressing that concern, the administration's plan seems to be an almost-meaningless gesture toward security (a few hundred more "observers") and a legal effort to remove laws that Arizona has put in place in its own territory. So much for sympathy and a ready ear. Some background here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052804319.html

Well and therein lies the lottery rationale, because I don't suppose if we were to re-impose the income tax on that income level it would stop them from playing the lottery. I'm just astounded that they can find $1,000 to spend on the lottery in the first place. Perhaps this says something about where we might find some room to cut back on social services.

http://consumerist.com/2010/05/poor-people-spend-9-of-income-on-lottery-tickets.html So... why do we exempt them from paying taxes, exactly?

Bascule, I watched an episode of Glenn Beck a couple of night ago, and I was somewhat chagrined to discover that he was a lot worse than I remembered. I had heard him a number of times (mainly on the radio, I believe), but it's been a few years and I don't recall him being nearly so paranoid, delusional and conspiracy-oriented. With the qualifications of Hannity and O'Reilly above (being "better") I think I understand your position now, and I think you're right. Anderson Cooper maybe somewhere between Hannity and O'Reilly, perhaps, but he's not like Beck at all.

Thanks for putting that succinctly; that's exactly what I was trying to say. It's not that I don't think black people face obstacles, it's that I don't think they're so much greater than those faced by others that they need special advantages. But even so, if that's what society has decided is going to happen, fine, I'll go along. But I want to call it what it is, instead of pretending that it's something that it's not. And I think that's exactly what Rand Paul was trying to say about the 1964 Civil Rights Act -- let's recognize what was done, and endeavor to limit that sort of thing to occur as little as possible.

Fair enough.