Democratic Congress Should Stand Up to Bush

Speculation on last night's Countdown with Keith Olbermann centered on the reason for Carl Levin's signaling that the Democrats in Congress will cave on Iraq funding: that the Democrats don't want to "own" the Iraq issue, they prefer to give Bush what he wants and let him have full responsibility for the consequences of the continued occupation.

I think this is cowardly, even if it is good politics (which I concede it may be). Too many lives are at stake. Bush's arrogant stance, effectively saying that Congress' only responsibility is to agree with him and pony up the money, just can't be countenanced. (Perino as much as said exactly this yesterday). Bush wants Democrats in Congress to come to the White House so he can lecture them and harangue them into capitulating. They should say, no, thank you, Mr. President. We will meet with you to negotiate a resolution of this issue, not to be dictated to. If you cannot move towards accommodating the clear will of the American people, we have nothing to talk about. The funds are appropriated, with the conditions imposed which reflect the desires of the majority of Americans. Deal with it.

The leadership should send the president an open letter, and use some of their leftover campaign funds to publish it in newspapers around the country. It should say clearly that the American people want this occupation to end, that continued funding of the occupation forces will not be forthcoming without provisions for ending the occupation, and if the president chooses to veto the funding measure, the consequences are on his head. It should call on the American people to make clear to this rogue administration, with calls, letters, and e-mails, that this is in fact the will of the people, which the president must accede to.

UPDATE: This is what Sen. Reid actually said:

"The American people want the President and the Congress to work together to bring this war to an end, safely and responsibly. Congressional Democrats are willing to meet with the President at any time, but we believe that any discussion of an issue as critical as Iraq must be accomplished by conducting serious negotiations without any preconditions. Our goal should be to produce an Iraq supplemental bill that both fully funds our troops and gives them a strategy for success.

"With his threat to veto such a plan for change in Iraq, President Bush is ignoring the clear message of the American people: we must protect our troops, hold the Iraqi government accountable, rebuild our military, provide for our veterans, and bring our troops home.

"The President is demanding that we renew his blank check for a war without end. Despite the fact that the President persists in trying to score political points at the expense of our troops, congressional Democrats have repeatedly reached out in the spirit of cooperation. We renew our request to work with him to produce a bipartisan bill that provides our troops and our veterans with every penny they need, but in turn, demands accountability."

This isn't quite strong enough, to my mind, but it's a start. As I've said before, though, it's time to explicitly revoke the 2003 Iraq War resolution, and make it clear that the president's policy of indefinite occupation of Iraq will become illegal after a certain date, to be specified.

John Edwards' Statement on Bush plan to veto funding for military

From Edwards's website.
John Edwards Calls On President Bush To Take Responsibility For The Consequences Of His Veto Threat On Iraq

"If President Bush vetoes funding for the troops, he will be the one who is blocking funding for the troops. Nobody else.

"Now is not a time to back down; it is a time for strength and conviction. The President's veto threat should only strengthen our resolve to stand by our troops and end this conflict.

"The Congress should make absolutely clear that they are going to stand their ground, supporting the troops and reflecting the will of the American people to end this war. If the President vetoes a funding bill, Congress should send him another bill that funds the troops, brings them home, and ends the war. And if he vetoes that one, they should send him another that does the same thing."

An Open Letter to the President

Dear Mr. President:

I am very, very disappointed in the stance you have taken on the Iraq funding Supplement, as indicated by your press conference this morning. I am particularly disappointed by your bellicose name-calling and refusal to even acknowledge the will of the majority. You blame the representatives of the people for voting the way the last election clearly indicated the people want their Congress to vote: to begin to bring to an end the occupation which has emerged from the war in Iraq, which you started on false pretenses. The people have spoken, and they demand that your protracted war, with no end in sight, to fight the wrong enemy at the wrong time for the wrong reasons, must come to an end.

You claim, against all evidence, that the people are with you. But you are wrong. By a significant majority, the American people want this useless, baseless war ended. It seems that only you, and others so isolated in their blind support of you that they cannot see the evidence before their eyes, continue to believe a majority still supports this war.

More disturbingly, you seem to fail to grasp the essential principles of American government. Foreign policy, especially military policy, is ultimately decided by Congress in our system. The power to declare war is explicitly reserved in the Constitution to the Congress. The practice since World War II of ceding this power to the presidency with “resolutions,” or sometimes simply acquiescing in the illegal usurpation of this power by presidents, without any authorization, has proven unwise and dangerous. The Iraq occupation proves this yet again.

Regardless of the appropriateness of war-by-resolution, it should be clear that when the Congress unambiguously votes to bring a military operation to an end, as it has here, the permission given to the president in some past resolution is revoked, and his failure to comply with the express wishes of Congress is unlawful usurpation of powers he does not have. I only wish this Congress had made even clearer that the 2003 resolution, passed as it was on the basis of misinformation and deceit, is now revoked. But how you can conclude that the Congress continues to authorize the indefinite continuation of this occupation is beyond me. Apparently, you do not consider yourself answerable to the electorate, or the Congress, at all.

If funds are ultimately denied for the continued military occupation of Iraq, it will be because, and only because, you have refused to accept the clear will of the people and their representatives, in appropriating funds conditioned on the commencement of the process of disengaging from this war of occupation.

You are not the Emperor of America, sir. You are the servant of the people, whose will you are now openly and dangerously defying. This is shameful, illegal, and very, very dangerous.

I hope you will reconsider your reckless disregard for the principle that government of the United States is by consent of the governed. I hope you will sign the appropriations supplement bill when it comes to your desk, and begin, as is your real job, executing the instructions of the people’s representatives, which are clear: you are to end the occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home.

David Studhalter

Update: Glenn Greenwald's related comments on Giuliani's scary views on presidential power.

McCain votes with Wingers to Eliminate Federal Minimum Wage

In my ongoing campaign to get Americans to wake up and realize that Saint John McCain is a right winger, not a moderate, please note that he was one of 28 Wingnut Senators to vote to eliminate the Federal Minimum Wage entirely.

The Escalation, a set-up

Take a look at this. [Sullivan]

President Bush has less respect for the constitution than any president in living memory: of that, I'm sure. He is probably also overall the least honest. (Nixon lied about everything, but I think this one takes the cake).

My e-mail to John McCain

I sent this to John McCain's Contact point on his website:

Dear sir:
With all due respect, it is one thing to say, 'I recognize
what polls show the public predominantly wants in Iraq, but I believe what I've proposed is what's right, and it's the policy I intend to fight for.'

That I could respect. Disagree with, but respect.

But to claim, as you have done, that the re-election of Mr. Lieberman "proves" that the American people do not favor expeditious extrication of American forces from Iraq is either dishonest or simply ignores reality. Numerous recent polls have shown that a significant majority of Americans want just that, and exit polls in Connecticut showed that only 15 percent... FIFTEEN... favored sending more troops to Iraq. A recent Salt Lake City Observer poll showed that even a majority of Utahns favor orderly withdrawal.

Stand up for what you believe, if you think it's the right thing to do, but don't pretend it's not a minority view. To do so is either dishonest or foolhardy.

Working Harder for the Man / Bob Herbert NYT

Robert L. Nardelli, the chairman and chief executive of Home Depot, began the new year with a pink slip and a golden parachute. The company handed him a breathtaking $210 million to take a hike. What would he have been worth if he’d done a good job?

Data recently compiled by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston offers a startling look at just how out of whack executive compensation has become. Some of the Wall Street Christmas bonuses last month were fabulous enough to resurrect an adult’s belief in Santa Claus. Morgan Stanley’s John Mack got stock and options worth in excess of $40 million. Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs did even better — $53.4 million.

According to the center’s director, Andrew Sum, the top five Wall Street firms (Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley) were expected to award an estimated $36 billion to $44 billion worth of bonuses to their 173,000 employees, an average of between $208,000 and $254,000, “with the bulk of the gains accruing to the top 1,000 or so highest-paid managers.”

Now consider what’s been happening to the bulk of the American population, the ordinary men and women who have to work for a living somewhere below the stratosphere of the top corporate executives. Between 2000 and 2006, labor productivity in the nonfarm sector of the economy rose by an impressive 18 percent. But workers were not paid for that impressive effort. During that period, according to Mr. Sum, the inflation-adjusted weekly wages of workers increased by just 1 percent.

That’s $3.20 a week. As Mr. Sum wryly observed, that won’t even buy you a six-pack of Bud Light. Joe Six-Pack has been downsized. Three bucks ain’t what it used to be.

There are 93 million production and nonsupervisory workers (exclusive of farmworkers) in the U.S. Their combined real annual earnings from 2000 to 2006 rose by $15.4 billion, which is less than half of the combined bonuses awarded by the five Wall Street firms for just one year.

“Just these bonuses — for one year — overwhelmingly exceed all the pay increases received by these workers over the entire six-year period,” said Mr. Sum.

In a development described by Mr. Sum as “quite stark and rather bleak for the economic well-being of the average worker,” the once strong link between productivity gains and real wage increases has been severed. The mystery to me is why workers aren’t more scandalized. If your productivity increases by 18 percent and your pay goes up by 1 percent, you’ve been dealt a hand full of jokers in a game in which jokers aren’t wild.

Workers have received some modest increases in benefits over the past six years, but most of the money from their productivity gains — by far, it’s not even a close call — has gone into profits and the salaries of top executives.

Fairness plays no role in this system. The corporate elite control it, and they have turned it to their ends.

Mr. Sum, a longtime expert on the economic life of the American worker, said he is astonished at the degree to which ordinary workers have been shortchanged over the past several years. “Productivity has been exceptional,” he said. “And for most of my life, the way to get wages up was to be more productive. That’s how our economy was supposed to work.”

The productivity gains in the go-go decades that followed World War II were broadly shared, and the result was a dramatic, sustained increase in the quality of life for most Americans. Nowadays workers have to be more productive just to maintain their economic status quo.

Productivity gains are no longer broadly shared. They’re barely shared at all.

The pervasive unfairness in the way the great wealth of the United States is distributed should be seen for what it is, an insidious disease eating away at the structure of the society and undermining its future. The middle class is hurting, propped up by the wobbly crutches of personal debt. The safety net, not just for the poor, but for the middle class as well, is disappearing. The savings rate has dropped to below zero, and more Americans are filing for bankruptcy than for divorce.

Your pension? Don’t ask.

There’s a reason why the power elite get bent out of shape at the merest mention of a class conflict in the U.S. The fear is that the cringing majority that has taken it on the chin for so long will wise up and begin to fight back.

McCain and Biden Comments

I got these from http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com.

I simply fail to understand why so many otherwise reasonably progressive people give John McCain a pass. Here's what he said at the American Enterprise Insitute, a hard-right "think tank," yesterday:

Contrary to popular notions that U.S. troops are getting "caught in the cross-fire" between Sunni and Shia fighters, and are therefore ineffective in ceasing the smoldering civil war, the track record is that when U.S. troops stopping sectarian violence is excellent, where American soldiers have been deployed to areas in turmoil, including Baghdad neighborhoods, the violence has ceased almost immediately.

Similary, the marines in Anbar province report very positive effects in reducing the non-sectarian al qaeda based violence that is the predominant cause of instability there.

This is contrary to virtually all reported intelligence and news reports for the past three years. Either this man is so deluded in his hawkish mindset, or he's just as much of a fibber as Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Doesn't much matter which: he's obviously rushing headlong in the opposite direction from the clear desires of the large majority of Americans: to extricate us from this enormous, unproductive mess as soon as possible.

Contrast this with Joe Biden's remark in a WaPo interview, also from yesterday:

I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost. They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy -- literally, not figuratively."

See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010401525.html.

Buddhism and Science: Bodhicitta

From Choosing Reality by B. Alan Wallace:

In all of human experience two types of aspiration bear an integrity and nobility beyond all others: the yearning for understanding and spiritual awakening, and the longing to be of service to others, to dispel suffering and bring joy. Modern science, as developed and expressed by the greatest of its exponents, is motivated by both these aspirations. Intellectually and practically it stands, at its best, as a model of freedom and inquiry and ingenuity; and if put into active balance with religion and philosophy, it may well serve us long into the future.
[...]
It is possible to integrate one's yearing for truth with one's wish to help others so taht tehy become one's
abiding motivation in solitary and active life. This is achieved through a cultivation of a 'spirit of awakening' [bodhicitta]: the aspiration to attain full awakening in order to be of most effective service to others. This longing may lead one into the deepest states of contemplation as well as the most active ways of service. It implicitly acknowledges the interdependence of self and others and the kinship of all that lives, and is the sole motivation with which one can attain the full spiritual awakening of a Buddha. Just as it is the supreme motivation for spiritual practice, so is it the finest incentive for scientific research. As physics and Buddhism encounter one another in the modern world, it may in this spirit of awakening that they find their deepest affinity and sense of integration.

Policy of Cruelty

The following is a quote from former Naval General Counsel Alberto Mora, featured in an article in the current New Yorker by Jane Mayer.

In my strongly held view, anyone who doesn’t wholeheartedly endorse this statement, and do everything in his or her power to see to it that every action taken by or under the authority of the government abides by its spirit, has no business serving in our government in any capacity.

“If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America—even those designated as ‘unlawful enemy combatants.’ If you make this exception the whole Constitution crumbles. It’s a transformative issue.”

Pakistani Cleric solicits murder

ABC news reports that a Pakistani Muslim cleric has offered $1 million for the murder of one of the Danish cartoonists who drew cartoons of Muhammad. Every Western nation should demand of President Musharraf that this blatant solicitation of murder be immediately investigated and prosecuted, failing which diplomats should be withdrawn. This is just not acceptable conduct in countries claiming the privileges of membership in the International community.

We cannot tolerate a government that deliberately breaks the law

I keep hearing on the media various citations of public opinion that the unwarranted wiretaps carried out by the Bush administration are necessary, might prevent a terrorist attack, we're at war, so it's OK, etc. But these all miss the essential point, as far as I'm concerned. The issue is not whether the wiretaps are a good idea. Maybe they are, I don't pretend to know for sure. The issue is whether this administration is constrained to abide by the rule of law. It claims it isn't... or rather that a grossly vague authorization to "use force" allows it to ignore the 4th amendment and particular statutory provisions wholesale.

There are two, in my opinion, inescapable realities here:

1. Any reasonable interpretation of FISA, which is the law of the land, prohibits this conduct. In conjunction with the 4th amendment, the conduct is unquestionably illegal. The rationalization offered by the administration is simply not a credible interpreation of the intent of the Congress to delegate powers to the presidency.

2. The administration opposed a bill in Congress in 2002, while it was carrying out this illegal acitvity, which would have made reforms to FISA to make the kind of wiretaps they want to conduct easier to authorize.

I don't see how any reasonable person can fail to draw the conclusion: the government deliberately concealed from the public and most of the Congress the fact that it was intentionally violating the law.

Impeachment is called for (even though it is probably not politically feasible, unless the House reverts to the Democrats this year). Not because the wiretaps weren't necessary... that's a separate issue. Because if we are to be a nation of laws not of men, we must not tolerate our government intentionally violating the law in so widespread, long-term, and flagrant a manner as this, or else we place the future of representative government in doubt.

Emptiness and the Sublime ~ A Holiday Reflection

One of the wisest and most profound scholars and practitioners of the Buddhist tradition of Madhyamaka, the second-century master Nagarjuna, taught that the real meaning of the somewhat cryptic wisdom teachings on emptiness of our Founder, Shakyamuni, as, for example, in the Heart Sutra, mean that all form, all matter; even consciousness itself; are without inherent existence and have as their essential nature emptiness. There are elaborate and very involved logical and experiential bases for this doctrine, but I won't belabor the point. The conclusion from all of this (often omitted in glosses on Buddhism), however, is that far from there being simply nothing, i.e., no-existence (nihilism), the mere appearances to mind which those of us living in the World experience as suffering, transitory enjoyment, form, consciousness. . . the universe itself . . . are by their essential nature beyond conceptual thought; a genuine reality which is open, expansive, relaxed, and blissful.

Perhaps this points to the common ground between Western theological religion and Buddhist practice: The Western One-God and our Vajradhara are both representations of that which is so beyond human ordinary mental conception that all description, all words, all concepts fail us, and we can only revere it and seek to involve ourselves in its direct experience. And in so doing we discover that the sublime creates in our hearts potentially limitless lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity, purification, and wisdom.

May everyone's holidays be happy, and may they have a happy, productive, and healthy New Year!

More on Why Bush should be impeached and removed from office

Josh Marshall has an excellent analysis of why the right-wing apologists for this president's failure to uphold the constitution have it all wrong. Even if the argument that the president has extraordinary emergency powers has some merit, it is clearly and in my view inarguably incumbent upon the president to inform Congress of any such actions, as soon as practicable, and follow their legislative dictates on any further use of a particular power or application of a particular policy. Any other conduct is misdemeanor in office, and the president should be impeached. Including for failure to so consult with Congress. This president has been explicitly and quite blatantly violating the clear provisions of statutory law for years, without seeking Congressional approval. This is unacceptable, and the President should be impeached, convicted, and removed from office with all speed.

The President has deliberately violated his oath to uphold the constitution and must be impeached

The New York Times reports this morning on Bush's explanation for why he violated the explicit terms of the law on surveillance of American citizens and the requirement for judicial review. His explanation is entirely unsatisfactory. There is no credible legal defense: when Congress speaks on a particular subject, and explicitly requires judicial review for a particular executive action, the president may not reply on vague "use of force" authorization or reliance on undefined additional executive powers to openly and deliberately violate the law. The conclusion is inescapable: this President has intentionally violated his oath to uphold the constitution. Impeachment forthwith is the only reasonable course of action, and those who fail to see this are facing the slippery slope of the end of American representative government (in the relatively near future), and facing it with frightening indifference.

Global Warming: Rushing towards Catastrophe

The NYT has an editorial today about the shameful fiasco in Montreal, saying that the best that can be said about it is that the other countries struggling to work out a framework for dealing with the crisis of global warming refused to allow the US to blow the entire conference to smithereens.

Elizabeth Kolbert has a lead "Talk of the Town" piece in the current New Yorker too, in which she says it's no longer a question of putting off catastrophe; it's a question of rushing towards it. (No link currently available).

Intolerable Shame, If True

I have no way of verifying the following, from Steve Clemons's The Washington Note, but I can say that Clemons is a generally reliable and sober person, who reports this as fact, so it carries a certain credibility to me. If this is true, it is so abominably shameful that a major shakeup at the CIA and the Administration is called for. This kind of unAmerican activity simply must stop. We Americans must not continue to tolerate this sort of thing being committed in our names.

Make it $100 million for Innocent Rendition Victim Khaled El-Masri
I just got off the phone with a prominent Arabic journalist producing a program on the politics and practice of rendition.This journalist, Yosri Fouda, has interviewed at length Khaled El-Masri, the innocent victim of American kidnapping and rendition gone very wrong. I have not read extensively about El-Masri's case, so this may be public record, but what I did not know when I wrote last night's post were the details of how he was "dumped" after American authorities learned he was innocent.

Get this now. El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was kidnapped while vacationing by American intelligence agents. He was transported and "questioned" -- allegedly roughly -- by American authorities in Afghanistan. Along the way, these investigators finally figured out he was innocent and reported back to CIA Director George Tenet. Tenet had him held ANYWAY for another two months. And then. . .you might ask, could it get worse? Well, yes.
We dumped him blind-folded in the deep forest, mountainous triangle area between Albania, Serbia and Macedonia. He had to walk out with no money, no identification. He got to a border guard station -- and because of his inability to identify himself and because of how "outlandish" his story sounded to the border guards he met, he feared that the entire process would begin. We dumped him blindfolded in a forest in one of the toughest regions nearby. Were U.S. authorities hoping he'd just be shot by someone else? What were they thinking?Let's make sure that one of the journalists traveling with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice asks about this detail of the story that had escaped me and others before. What is this about dumping a known-innocent guy in the Serbia-Kosovo-Macedonia triangle? More later.-- Steve Clemons

UPDATE: My friend, journalist Eli Lake, has suggested in the comments section that someone (including TWN) pose the question of how the El-Masri case occurred to the CIA, which handled this case. He has a good point, and we will follow up on it. But others in the press corps ought to also follow up with the CIA. SCC

The Great Misleader

Krugman in today's Times (unfortunately behind Times Select Firewall) argues cogently that Bush's "major policy address" on Iraq was more of the same deliberate misleadership we've become accustomed to, and, at least up until now, the press has largely acquiesced in.

Among his chief examples are the completely misleading figures given on oil production. Of course oil production in Iraq increased from 2003 to 2004. During and just before the war in '03 there was effectively no oil production, so if it didn't increase in '04 it would really be a major drop. The truth is that oil production in Iraq, depsite rosy predictions by the neocons in Fantasyland, has never achieved in pre-war, Sanctions-in-effect levels.

He also points out that the statements about "progress" in Fallujah, Samara and Najaf are pretty blatantly just not borne out by the real facts.

I was impressed by the CBS News dialog between Bob Schieffer and Lara Logan on the day of Bush's speech. Schieffer asked her about the Airport Road, which Bush claimed was now under Iraqi control. Logan said, "That's just not true, Bob," and proceeded to describe the real situation. This is what the American people have a right to expect: a press that does its homework and fact-checks everything the Great Misleader says.

Lieberman defends Bush Iraq Policy

This is a good example of why I've thought for some time now that Joe Lieberman should resign from the Democratic party -- like Sharon from Likud -- and join the Republicans. Of course, he should resign his Senate seat too, since he was elected as a Democrat. To continue to serve as a Republican is a fraud upon the electorate... and he's already doing it, in everything but name.

Bamford on White House Prewar Deception Strategy

See James Bamford in Rolling Stone on the White House's outsourcing strategy to create the propaganda climate to sell a war to depose Saddam Hussein.