Monday May 31
Legal Back Doors
The U.S. Steps Up Push Against Online Casinos by Seizing Cash [NYTimes.com]. This is just unbelievable. John Ashcroft's Justice Department has frequently been turned down in attempts to apply federal anti-gambling laws to offshore Internet casinos. So now they're seizing funds in America that those operations have used to pay for advertising, on the grounds that media companies are "aiding and abetting" gambling by accepting ads. Talk about an unconscionable, morality-driven use of the legal back door. This takes the cake.
Posted by glenn at Wednesday May 26
Suicide Is Painless
A U.S. Appeals Court on Wednesday ruled that a Bush Administration directive seeking to stop Oregon doctors from helping terminally ill patients commit suicide was unlawful and unenforceable. The decision by the 9th Circuit held that Attorney General John Ashcroft overstepped his authority when he ordered Oregon doctors to ignore a state law -- the "Oregon Death with Dignity Act." both passed and then later reaffirmed by voters via referrendum -- that allowed phyisicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients who wished to die. [Reuters.com].
The specific legal question addressed was not whether physician-assisted suicide is appropriate, but rather only who decides, states or the federal government. In a switch much like 2000's Bush v. Gore case that decided the presidential election, a liberal majority relied on principles of federalism to find that medical practice is an issue on which states have the final word, while the dissenting conservative judge argued that the Attorney General and the Constitution permit federal regulation of medical practice when it involves controlled substances. (The full opinions are here.)
The dissenting judge was J. Clifford Wallace, for whom I clerked in 1981-82. He is an independent, tremendously principled and courageous jurist. But I find it ironic that Judge Wallace used decisions extending the scope of federal power to override what he and other conservatives have for years championed, namely the limited nature of federal authority vis-a-vis traditional state activities regarding health and safety (known in legal parlance as "police power"). I think he's wrong here, but I have and always will greatly respect his legal judgments even when they disagree with mine.
The one point on which I violently disagree with with Judge Wallace's dissent, however, is his claim that the majority's decision overrides the democratic process. Seems to me it's really the other way around. Ashcroft disregarded the state democratic process to issue a federal edict. When state voters affirmatively decide, twice, to allow physician-assisted suicide, what right does the federal government have to step in and change that? And even if the feds have the power, isn't it contrary to everything America stands for to have the courts permit it to do so -- particularly when there is no constitutional barrier to state law -- in the face of a democratically approved law in an area of traditional state concern?
The next battleground of this issue will be the many cases certain to arise regarding gay marriage. It will be interesting to see whether the same, ironic switch between liberals and conservatives happens here, as well. I suspect the answer will be like the case last year in which the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, overturned Texas' law criminalizing homosexual sodomy. It will be treated almost as a no-brainer.
Monday May 24
A Bleak Mood
President Bush is hearing increasingly bleak warnings that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is heading for failure -- from Republican and Democratic members of Congress, current and former officials and even some military officers still on active duty. Iraq Setbacks Change Mood in Washington [LATimes.com]. So what is Dubya going to say tonight? If it's just the same old "stay the course," one's got to wonder who is steering the ship of state in the US these days.
Even more ominously, this same L.A. Times article reports that Republicans themselves are rapidly becoming the most pessimistic, charging that the "neocons" have led the party astray with expansive foreign ambitions.
Nice phrase -- "global social engineering." Illustrates how, without its now-defunct WMD and terrorism rationales, this Administration's only remaining justification for the War in Iraq is far more to the left, and cleary way more liberal, than anything Clinton or his Democtratic predecessors ever did.
Ogres Are Like Onions
I saw Shrek 2 over the weekend, as millions of others seem to have done as well. Shrek 2 Devours US Box Office. Very well done, possibly better than the original. Of course, I would rather be Mike Myers or Cameron Diaz, each of whom was paid $10 million to do the voices for a mere five days work. Now that's the life!
Friday May 21
Beheading Revulsion
Last weekend I found the video of Islamic terrorists decapitating American Nick Berg on the Internet, and watched it. Two Held Over Berg Beheading [ITV.com]. The video is revolting, but the rest of the world has seen it. Let's hope Islamic law, with rapid, brutal execution by stoning, is applied to these folks accused of the crime. And if not, that the US government finally begins to understand that guerrillas and insurgents fighting against an occupation army will always win in the long run.
Tuesday May 18
Horse Racing Sentimentality
The amazing 12-length victory by Smarty Jones in The Preakness on Saturday has prompted Tony Kornheiser, of Pardon the Interruption fame, to lament about the good old days -- now gone forever -- when baseball, boxing and horse racing were the top American sports. Needed: One-Horse Power [washingtonpost.com].
Tony, you're getting really old if you're nostalgic about the 1940s and '50s. I think we're all much better off with the NFL, NBA, auto racing and the other sports that have surged in the past 40 years -- and yes, that includes NHL hockey!! Far more exciting, far less riddled with scandal and you don't have lots of old men wandering around trying to win that one, last big bet.
Yeah, it's nice to have an actual Triple Crown contender, one who has put in a performance rivaling Secretariat from 1973, but the old days are old because they're gone. Get over it.
Monday May 17
War Crimes?
From bad to worse to an unmitigated disaster goes the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. Newsweek now reports that "[t]he White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for 'war crimes' as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush Administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue." The memo itself strongly recommended that President Bush exempt the treatment of captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from the Geneva Convention in order to avoid possible liability for dramatically more agressive interrogation techniques approved by the White House.
The memo -- and strong dissents by Secretary of State Colin Powell and his chief legal advisor, William Howard Taft IV -- are among hundreds of pages of internal Administration documents on the Geneva Convention and related issues that have been obtained by Newsweek and are reported for the first time in this week's issue. So while top White House officials publicly talked about trying Al Qaeda leaders for war crimes, the internal memos show that Administration lawyers were privately concerned that they could tried for war crimes themselves based on actions the Administration was taking, and might have to take in the future, to combat the terrorist threat.
Holy crap, this is dynamite! It blows a whole in Rumsfeld's argument that the Abu Ghraib atrocities were committed by a few individuals without sanction by the Pentagon or White House officials. And the really sad part is that the White House counsel concluded that even if the Geneva Convention was determined not to apply, America would still meet "its committment to treat the detainees humanely" consistent with "miniumum standards of treatment recognized by the nations of the world." Parading captives naked, hooded and with attack dogs nearby is hardly the stuff of "humane treatment," it seems to me.
We've got yet another new scandal, folks. If Clinton could be impeached for lying about a blow job, the same conclusion certainly would hold for Bush and an interrogation policy knowingly in violation of the Geneva Convention. Whether that will happen depends on politics, but it just might.
Sunday May 16
From Bad to Worse
The president of the Iraqi Governing Council was killed early Monday in a huge explosion set off by a suicide bomber outside the headquarters of the US-led coalition authority. [washingtonpost.com].
This quagmire is getting worse every day.
Monday May 10
The End of the Line?
Here's what the Arab media are saying about the shocking abuse of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison:
Sadly they are exactly right. These atrocities have revealed an occupation that is bereft of moral values and one that -- far from representing U.S. ideals -- looks a lot like what America has been fighting against. If the global war on terror is a battle against what President Bush calls "the evil doers," people now have to recognize that the enemy is us.
In other cultures, leading politicans and generals would long ago have resigned out of shame. Yet we're taking the approach of prosecuting a handful of young reservists, thrown into guard duty with no training, without forcing anyone higher up the chain of command to accept responsibility. It's a moral challenge America is failing.
Wednesday May 5
Gore Kids TV
After teasing for a year, former VP Al Gore's new television network is going to be "an all-news network for young people," not a political channel. Gore: Cable Channel "Not Going to be a Liberal Network."
Thank goodness. I have ranted about Gore's television plans and am already tired of his (now pudgy) face back in the news. And I'm sure this will be just as much as bust with kids as was Gore's 1980s effort to censor music lyrics.
Tuesday May 4
Go Bolts!
One year ago the Tampa Bay Lightning were advancing in the Stanley Cup playoffs over the Washington Caps and I was screaming "hit the midget" against the Lightning's shortest player -- now the NHL scoring champion -- Martin St. Louis. This year the Lightning have won 8 of 9 playoff games (including a sweep of the proud Canadiens) and will enjoy a break of 10 days before they start the Eastern Conference championship series against either Philadelphia or Toronto. Oh, and I am cheering for them, big time!!
Monday May 3
Prisoner Abuse
For all its pissing and moaning over the Geneva Convention when it suited U.S. purposes, it turns out that the Bush Administration has been covering up atrocities like torture, electrocution and sexual abuse inflicted on Iraqi prisoners of war. Headlines like these and and photos like these are filling the Arab media. This is a very bad thing and a very bad time in the world today to be an American.