Bush: Stoopid Constitution

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I could not say this any better than Katherine, so I’m not even going to try:

Look. We have a President here who is making a claim of unlimited power, for the duration of a war that may never end. Oh, he says it’s limited by the country’s laws, but they’ve got a crack legal team that reliably interprets the laws to say that the President gets to do whatever he wants. It amounts to the same thing.

I am not exaggerating. I am really and truly not.

September 11 started the war. When will it end? Maybe never. Where is the battlefield? The entire world, including the United States. Who is an enemy combatant? Anyone the President says is an enemy combatant, including a U.S. citizen–no need for a charge, no need for a trial, no need for access to a lawyer. What if they’re found not to be an enemy combatant? We can keep them in prison anyway, and we don’t have to tell their families they’re alive or their lawyers that they were cleared. What can you do to an enemy combatant? Anything you want. Detain him forever, for the rest of his life, because this is a war like any other and we have always been able to detain POWs for the duration of the war. But you don’t need to follow the Geneva Conventions, because this is a war like no other in our history. And oh yes–if the President decides that we need to torture a prisoner for the war effort, it’s unconstitutional for Congress to stop him. They took that position in an official memo, and they have not backed down from it. They have said it was “unnecessary” but they have never backed down from it.

They are not only entitled to do these things to people; they are entitled to do them in secret. When Congress asks for information about them, they can just ignore it. And they are entitled to actively deceive the public about all this.

That’s the power they claim. At what point are we going to take that claim seriously?

I honestly can’t even find the words at this point. There is just so much wrong with this equation to begin to fathom a response.

NSA Secretly Spying on Americans

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Via Laura Rozen, this NY Times article about secret NSA wiretaps on people in America:

Mr. Bush’s executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States – including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners – is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the N.S.A. operation. (emphasis mine)

All this time Bush and his supporters have been saying the Patriot Act does not infringe on the privacy of citizens. Turns out they were right: they didn’t need Patriot Act to do it, they have a secret executive order.

To add insult to injury, a mechanism is already in place to obtain warrants for conducting this type of surveillance. Bush & Co. just couldn’t be bothered to go through the trouble:

The standard of proof required to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is generally considered lower than that required for a criminal warrant – intelligence officials only have to show probable cause that someone may be “an agent of a foreign power,” which includes international terrorist groups – and the secret court has turned down only a small number of requests over the years. In 2004, according to the Justice Department, 1,754 warrants were approved. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can grant emergency approval for wiretaps within hours, officials say.

Finally, as should be expected with this administration, there has been little internal check on the NSA?s new powers:

Several senior government officials say that when the special operation began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight outside the N.S.A. The agency can choose its eavesdropping targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or other Bush administration officials. (emphasis mine)

Only when the Times began sniffing around, and after a judge presiding over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court questioned its tactics, did the NSA reevaluate the program:

A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, helped spur the suspension, officials said. The judge questioned whether information obtained under the N.S.A. program was being improperly used as the basis for F.I.S.A. wiretap warrant requests from the Justice Department, according to senior government officials.

The NY Times held off on the story for a year, doing “additional reporting,” after administration officials asked the newspaper to drop it. I?m glad it is finally coming out, right before the Patriot Act reauthorization hits the Senate. Hopefully, the folks there will finally understand how abusive these new powers, and ones like them outlined in the Patriot Act, are to Americans.

Legends’ Last Stand

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Fresh on the heels of last week’s news that the Navy is reevaluating it’s plans to build a new class of surface ships, we hear from Knight Ridder that our last two battleships, the Iowa and Wisconsin, may be permanently retired as well:

Members of Congress soon will decide whether to decommission the two battleships for good as they work out final decisions in the defense authorization and spending bills.

During the second World War, the aircraft carrier replaced the battleship as the centerpiece of naval combat doctrine, but the Iowa-class ships and other surface combatants were instrumental in winning the Pacific theater of that combat. As evidenced by the article, the ships continued to excel at their role of fire support for more than 50 years:

From World War II until the 1991 Persian Gulf War, support for the Marines was provided mostly by the Iowa-class battleships’ 16-inch guns, which can hurl a 2,000-pound projectile 24 nautical miles.

The DD(X) class of destroyers/cruisers look to be capable platforms on paper, but the first will be not commissioned until 2014. Obviously the Navy anticipates a need for shore bombardment capabilities ? that’s why the DD(X) is designed to deliver multiple artillery warheads on a specific target within several seconds.

If we know we’ll need fire support, and our next available support platform will not be ready for almost 10 years, why not reactivate the ships? Combined, the vessels will cost a meager $1.4 million per year to maintain, and their reactivation might take more than two years. If a crisis develops that requires US Marines to hit the beach, we won’t have that long to call up the venerable behemoths.

Existing cruisers and destroyers could provide a stop-gap solution, but why chance it? If we’ve learned nothing from the Iraq debacle, it should be to plan for the unexpected.

Same Fight, Different Regents’ Meeting

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If you’re not from around here, you may not know of all the fuss going on between a certain segment of the community and the administration at Western New Mexico University. For those who do, please bear with my while I provide a little background.

A group of people, led by Earl Montoya of the Southwest Hispanic Roundtable, have been actively pushing for the resignation of John Counts, the WNMU president. This group has been attending board of regents meetings regularly for the past two years, always trying to speak out against Counts, his administration, etc. For the most part, they have had little success, even in addressing the board.

At Friday’s meeting, however, 14 individuals were allowed to speak, being told that they would each have 5 minutes to do so. In my mind this is the work of regent president Tony Trujillo, who is at least trying to bring the parties together for some semblance of civil discourse. The board rarely allows members of the public to speak during the meeting, except for a 15-minute public input section at the end. So, having 14 people approved to be on the agenda is a momentous move forward.

That is, before it all came crashing down.

I am sick and tired of these people attempting to take over the regents’ meeting for their own purposes. I understand and know full well that there are serious problems at the university that merit further examination. But yelling at the board, and disrupting the meeting for the sake of disrupting it, does not further your cause. Members of the media are burned out from writing about the conflict, and you only confirm everything the administration believes about your tactics and character.

Finally, as they say, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, is the mark of insanity. What do you hope to accomplish by going to these meetings and attacking the regents? The media in this town will no longer write about it: it’s no longer news that you’re going to be at the meeting trying to plead your case unsuccessfully.

This is a situation that warrants actual conversation; until that happens, neither side will make progress. But, in my mind the regents have made the first step. Though they only meet quarterly, and there time in Silver City is limited, they absolutely should listen to the concerns of the public. They attempted to do so on Friday.

Rather than step up and begin the process of reconciliation, we instead witnessed the same, fruitless effort we’ve seen before. It’s time we moved beyond yelling about the problem toward finding an actual resolution.

Update: I forgot to mention all of the good things that were discussed at the Regents meeting. See the Daily Press article for more info.

Peak Oil and Silver City

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I attended a forum on peak oil this weekend here in Silver City. The forum was informative, in that it explained the problem of peak oil, and also some of its complications (e.g. global warming and overpopulation).

The problem with the event, in my mind, was the format. I think the overall thrust is a good one: educating local communities about peak oil is great. If it were truly a first step, I would laud it even more.

But this is the second presentation this group has done in the last six months (that I know of). This forum needed something else: it needed to move beyond information and toward action.

I have a hard time not comparing the forum to the recent tourism summit. That two-day conference was well-structured and meaningful. Goals were established, and a new marketing plan for the Grant County area was developed. All that’s left is follow-up, and I feel confident it will happen. Silver City will need to drastically re-define its image if the area is going to succeed as a tourist destination, especially if peak oil theories hold true.

The peak oil forum, however, provided no real opportunity to take action. One man hit the nail on the head when he said, “We’ve heard a lot of discussion today about preaching to the choir ? why don’t we try and get the choir organized?” This is precisely what needs to occur.

The Southwest Desert Sustainability Project is planning a Global Conference on Sustainability. The two issues are intimately related, and now we are faced with a conundrum. The conference is scheduled for August 2006. Do we, as a community, wait that long before working to develop not just ideas, but measures to combat peak oil problems in Grant County? If not, do we risk taking the wind out of Southwest Desert’s sails?

I hope that this topic does not fall prey to that scourge of Silver City: talk. There are groups all over this town and area who get together regularly to talk about a topic. And that?s all they do.

Peak oil is something that does need to be addressed, and Silver City can land itself on the map if it moves quickly to implement new ideas. The location is perfect for testing responses to diminishing fossil fuels: moderate climate, nominal population levels, an active base of community members, and remote location.

I can?t think of a better place to begin projects that prove sustainability, or prove you don?t need to import huge quantities of commercially-grown food to survive as a community. With cool summers and not-too-cold winters, Grant County offers a great opportunity to showcase homes that don?t need propane or natural gas or heating oil to stay warm, and to look at passive designs that remain cool.

Why not seek some government help to fund such projects? We have two U.S. Senators, who happen to be the chairman and ranking member of the Energy Committee, sitting there in Washington. What about the state?s upcoming windfall in oil and gas money, expected to exceed $700 million for one-time capital outlay funding? Why can?t we tap into that to fund some solar or wind-energy projects, or for development of passive homes? Where?s the money to establish trial programs for new irrigation systems and agriculture techniques?

Currently, Los Alamos, Sandia, New Mexico Tech, and NMSU have the market cornered on such projects. If Silver City wants to become a global leader in sustainable development, that has to change. To do that, the discussion needs to move beyond discussion. Legislation needs to be written and passed. Our civic leaders need to become engaged. Projects need to be started.

Otherwise, we’re just another community that has great ideas.

I’m sure you’re aware

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A post by Ezra Klein over at TAPPED got me thinking: do Democrats really want to win back Congress in 2006, and the White House in 2008?

I?m sure you?re aware, but the Republican Party is completely tanking all over the country. This, I have to say, is a good thing. However, Ezra makes a good point:

?When (Democrats) regain power, those arguments will return to the fore, once again splitting environmentalists from unions, hawks from doves, and big spenders from deficit hawks. It won’t be pretty, and it’ll be all the tougher thanks to the many train wrecks that the Bush administration has set in motion. Spending is far higher than revenues, entitlement growth is set to bankrupt the country, troops are deployed in a foreign land, and things are generally a mess.

?My mind remembers the first post-Clinton days, with tales of missing furniture. It jumps to the burst of the tech-bubble, resulting recession, and Republican blame for the whole fiasco squarely aimed at the previous administration. And even now, in 2005, we?re hearing those Bush sympathizers lay 9-11 and ultimately Iraq on Clinton?s doorstep.

What will the Democrats inherit if they return to power? Ezra hit them pretty well: a huge deficit (though we always get one of those from a Republican president); the possibility of troops staged in a foreign country (if we?re talking 2008, it might be Iraq or Syria or Iran, for God?s sake); a looming energy crisis (if you believe in peak oil); a healthcare system with costs rising faster than inflation; the list goes on and on.

But it was the first part of that paragraph that got me thinking, because I saw it happen here in Silver City recently. A meeting of the Southwest Hispanic Roundtable featured a discussion on roadless forest areas. The discussion turned to the cultural heritage in our area afforded by hunting, and I heard the always-wonderful ?tree-hugger? tossed about as well.

Only the most extreme environmentalists want to ban hunting, and would propose changes that would have a noticeable impact on the Grant County/Silver City people. But Republican propaganda has enabled them to use Democrats? own issues against us. We should maintain the roads already built (for safety reasons as much as anything else) while preserving what we can. Have we really come to the point where our forests don?t provide enough access for our citizens? recreation?

But, we have a group of Hispanics that should be united in defeating Republicans, instead working to limit conservation efforts that have no real bearing on how they live their lives.

The Meyers nomination showed a rare sign of Republican internal dissent (following the smaller revolution of fiscal conservatives in Congress after Katrina). Otherwise, they?ve kept up a good racket by uniting against Dems.

Do we want to take back the government if we?re just going to go after each other when we do?