October 1, 2007 archive

Almost a year ago, I published an essay at dkos entitled, “Late night optimism“.  This is a partial repost with some additional commentary about what’s changed since then, and what’s remained – wonderfully – the same.

Here was the original text, and I’ll add my new reflections at the bottom:

I stumbled back home a few hours ago from a Saturday night on the town, and I wanted to share a few observations with you all before bed.  This isn’t a hardcore political diary, but I had politics on the mind tonight – in the more abstract form of social interaction. 

Maybe a bar isn’t always the best place to be thinking about the Democratic party on the mind, not to mention dailykos.  I’ve been participating less and less here, partially because of an increased level of responsibility at my job, and partially because – and this happens to anyone who takes breaks from here – I’d felt the community was shifting away from what I’d come to know.

Which is fine.  Communities change over time; some people enter and some people leave, and it’s not always easy to find your bearings – even when you’ve been around for a while.  But I’m going to back up a bit and tell you about my night, and the kinds of thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head:

I think there is some confusion about the unitary executive theory and what it has become under the Bush Adminstration. Initially, it meant something less ambitious than what the Bush Administration turned it into. The older theory was describe by now Justice Alito, as follows:

In a speech to the Federalist Society in 2001, Alito said:

When I was in OLC [] . . ., we were strong proponents of the theory of the unitary executive, that all federal executive power is vested by the Constitution in the President. And I thought then, and I still think, that this theory best captures the meaning of the Constitution’s text and structure . . . .” “[T]he case for a unitary executive seems, if anything, stronger today than it was in the 18th Century.

Frankly, this is not a remarkable nor important view of the theory. The problem is what is has become under the Bush Administration:

Here’s what it means for Bush:

The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

The Bybee Memo put it this way:

Any effort by the Congress to regulate the interrogation of battlefield combatants would violate the Constitution’s sole vesting of the Commander in Chief authority in the President. . . . Congress can no more interfere with the President’s conduct of the interrogation of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategic or tactical decisions on the battlefield.

This is the pernicious Unitary Executive theory as we know it today. It is utterly unsupported by the Constitution and the jurisprudence. I’ll explain on the flip.

http://www.usatoday….

Clear evidence is emerging that the secret government is clashing with the “sheeple” government and they can’t get their stories straight.  While Pelosi is dissing “the fence” the reality of a long term pet project of the Bilderburg/New World Order/CFR crowd is pushing for an EU style merger called the North American Union.
Yes, elite shitheads whose sole existence consists of being parasites want to grab even more power for themselves.
www.spp.gov,  ya, that is dot gov
http://www.nascocorr…
Note that these pricks have changed their site, updating it to make it out like it’s a benevolent service.
http://www.augustrev…
And as timely as government is the factories are already flying out of Mexico in favor of far cheaper China labor rates. 
I can testify to the efficiency and “stellar” quality coming out of the factories in Mexico.  The company I work for did it.  Massive goat fuck that was.  Incidentally the flight to Mexico actually started before NAFTA.  I do remember one of my projects in the late 80’s was to recycle American made parts because the ones from Juarez were useless.  So will that make it twice in my lifetime I get laid off because some asshole wants his 1.78 billion golden parachute bonus.

Hmm…If I wrote my memoirs would they just rub me out?
http://www.bilateral…
http://www.teamliber…

Just as I said three days after those Nov 7 elections I knew Pelosi was with the Illumninati and this one shows it once again.  Note here I should not use the term Illuminati, but rather global interests who own the US government.

So on top of nuking Iran, thug cops tazering and breaking the arms of high school kids, the bird flu, bio-safety-level4 labs,depleted uranium tanks in Kansas, Habeus Corpus and that funny echo effect you hear on your cell phone, what’s up in your life.  Ain’t “freedom” wonderful?

The new Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker has both good news and bad news, on the Bush Administration’s warmongering against Iran.

The good news?

I was repeatedly cautioned, in interviews, that the President has yet to issue the “execute order” that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued.

Furthermore, understanding that the American public isn’t buying his demonizing of Iran, Bush has realized that he can’t sell an all-out war. He also seems to understand that Iran really is at least five years from having nuclear weapons capabilities, so there is no imminent threat.

The bad news?

Bush realizes that Iran is the big winner of his Iraq disaster. So, he has to do something. As an average adolescent would, Bush seems to have decided that the best way to reverse the victory he handed Iran, by invading Iraq, is to bomb them.

(T)here has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning. In mid-August, senior officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. And two former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the Iranian Operations Group.

Three points: