Sic Semper Tyrannis 2008

The McCain/Palin Administration - Not!

Sarah Palin started calling it the "McCain/Palin Administration" immediately after her coronation at the Republican convention.  Most of us "inside the beltway" creatures knew right away that this was a bad thing.  For the vice-presidential nominee of any party to claim that he or she will exercize executive power during the administration of the presidential nominee is an act of unconstitutional bravado unsupported by history or law.

"W" gave Cheney delegated power, power based not in law but in his own willingness to sign over function and authority.  It should be understood that "W" could have delegated the same authority to "Joe" Wirzelbacher (or whatever his name is).  So long as he was a citizen, the same powers that "W" gave Cheney could have been "loaned" to "Joe."  The point is that the "loan" of powers by Bush to Cheney was a personal matter, and the loan does not endow future vice-presidents with similar or indeed any powers or functions other than to succeed to the presidency and to act as the president of the senate.  Former vice-presidents have not claimed that the presidency of the senate involved anything other than an occasional appearance in the chamber and the casting of tie breaking votes.  Sarah Palin's apparent belief that she could inject herself into the business of the senate seems to be unprecedented.  It would have been interesting to watch.

Alas, it will not be.

After watching the developing dynamic of the election state by state, I have come to think that this election will be a landslide of historic proportion.  This is a "perfect storm" for the Republicans.  There are many cyclones that have produced this typhoon; revulsion against the proto-fascism of the neocons, the muddle that is the Bush Administration, "Darth" Cheney and his henchmen, the two wars, the failure to capture bin Laden, the stock market crash, the rumors of a coming depression/recession, etc.  Add some more disasters to the list if you like.  There are many possibilities.

It looked for months as though the deep seated racism of many Americans might be enough to hold back the wind, but that ancient sin and defect has not proven to be effective this time. 

Obama will be president.   The Democrats will hold both houses of Congress so strongly that they will be tempted to govern unwisely, pushing the country farther to the left than its nature will allow.

McCain will be finished.  Perhaps he can find some peace in that.  Palin will become queen of the Northwest and prophetess of the Evangelicals.  Unfortunately for her, there are not enough votes in that base to elect her president.

We will see what the new adminsitration will be like.

It would be a good thing to have a government made up of human beings.  pl

Fortunato's Creed

"Pat Army Specialist Stephen R. Fortunato (25) passed away in Afghanistan this past week. He wrote the following recently and if you see fit please pass it on as it is especially poingant considering his short time here. He was from my hometown, though I did not know him I knew his family and he came from fine stock. All the Best Bobo " ""If I may … I’d like to say something….Just to get it out there so it is clear. To all the pampered and protected Americans who feel it is their duty to inform me that I am not fighting for their freedom, and that i am a pawn in Bush’s agenda of greed and oil acquisition: Noted, and Fuck You. I am not a robot. i am not blind or ignorant to the state of the world or the implications of the “war on terrorism.” i know that our leaders have made mistakes in the handling of a very sensitive situation, but do not for one second think that you can make me lose faith in what we, meaning America’s sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers in uniform are doing. I am doing my part in fighting a very real enemy of the United States, i.e. Taliban, Al Qaeda, and various other radical sects of Islam that have declared war on our way of life. Unless you believe the events of 9/11 were the result of a government conspiracy, which by the way would make you a MORON, there is no reasonable argument you can make against there being a true and dangerous threat that needs to be dealt with. I don’t care if there are corporations leeching off the war effort to make money, and I don’t care if you don’t think our freedom within America’s borders is actually at stake. I just want to kill those who would harm my family and friends. it is that simple. Even if this is just a war for profit or to assert America’s power, so what? Someone has to be on top and I want it to be us. There’s nothing wrong with wishing prosperity for your side. I am a proud American. I believe that my country allows me to live my life more or less however I want to, and believe me, I have seen what the alternative of that looks like. I also believe that our big scary government does way more than it has to help complete fuck-ups get back on their feet, a stark comparison to places where leaders just line their own pockets with gold while allowing the people who gave them their power and privilege to starve. I have chosen my corner. I back my country, and am proud to defend it against aggressors. Also, if you dare accuse us of being inhumane, or overly aggressive because we have rolled into someone else’s country and blown some shit up and shot some people, let me remind you of just how inhumane we COULD be in defending ourselves. Let me remind you that we have a warhead that drops multiple bomblets from the stratosphere which upon impact, would turn all the sand in Iraq to glass, and reduce every living thing there to dust. Do we use it? No. Instead we use the most humane weapon ever devised: the American Soldier. We send our bravest (and perhaps admittedly craziest) men and women into enemy territory, into harms way, to root out those whom we are after and do our best to leave innocent lives unscathed. …One last thing… A proposal: I know it has been stated time and time again but I just think it is worthy of reiteration. If you find yourself completely disgusted with the way America is being ran, and how we handle things on the global stage, you can leave. Isn’t that amazing? No one will stop you! If you are an anarchist, there are places you can go where there is no government to tell you anything. That’s right…you are left solely to your own devices and you can handle the men who show up at your door with AKs in any way that you see fit. Just don’t try good old American debate tactics on them because you will most likely end up bound and blind-folded, to have your head chopped off on the internet so your parents can see it. However, if you insist on staying here and taking advantage of privileges such as free speech and WIC, keep the counter-productive shit to a minimum while the grown ups figure out how to handle this god-awful mess in the middle east. Stephen R. Fortunato 26th Infantry Regiment US Army"'

Schedule

I will be gone until Wednesday.  I am on a panel at Fordham University Tuesday.  It is at the Manhattan Campus of the law school from 1 to 5 PM.  Subject "Torture and American Culture."

For those who might be interested, I have fnished a draft of my next novel, "Death Piled Hard."  pl

http://www.fordham.edu/Campus_Resources/Public_Affairs/topstories_1379.asp

Powell endorses Obama

I watched this.  I suppose that President Obama will find something for Colin Powell to do for the next few years, but that will be unfortunate.

Powell is someone who truly "blotted his copybook" as the Brits used to say.  After a lifetime of service and achievement, Powell chose in the end to "drink the koolaid" that flowed in the bloodstream of the Bush/Cheney/neocon regime that has ruled the United States for the last eight years.  He was Secretary of State at a time when his firm opposition, and ultimately his resignation would have crippled the onrushing utopian crusade for Westernization in Iraq. 

He did not choose to follow that path.  Instead, he chose to believe the corrupted judgments of an intelligence community leadership that betrayed the country and the armed forces by producing nonsensical estimates designed to create support for war among an ignorant and bellicose public that hungered for revenge aganst an enemy they could not even define.

Today, when he was asked by Brokaw about his role as perhaps the greatest enabler of the Iraq War decision, he took shelter behind the collection of garbage that was served up in 2002-2003 by George Tenet and company as justification for war.

For Shame!  For Shame!

He should hide himself and hope that someday men will remember the good of him and not the worst.  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081019/pl_politico/14714

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell

PS  Contrary to Brokaw, on MTP, it does not appear that Powell commanded an infantry battalion in the 101st Division in VN.  Comment?

"Serving the President"

Today it was once again possible to hear both serving officers of the armed forces and the newspeople who cover them speak of their belief that military and naval officers "serve the president."  This time the mention was in connection with the "discovery" that Petraeus and Odierno have decided (some time ago) that they will not vote in the national election.  Odierno was taped saying that voting would be a bad idea because to do so would compromise his ability to "serve the president" whomever that might be.

It was actually a very old custom of the US Army that regular officers did not vote.  My father did not vote until he retired from the Army.  That custom has not been followed for a long time, but the reason that Odierno gave is not the reason that was contemplated in the past.

In days of old, it was understood that members of the armed forces served the constitution and through that instrument they served the federal union.  That is quite different.

The principle is simple.  The president is not sovereign.  He is the instrument of the constitution as are the members of the armed forces.  The president has no authority or right to order anyone in the armed forces to do anything that is unconstitutional or indeed illegal.  If he does, then he need not be obeyed and such an order is proof in itself of a "high crime."

The present administration in Washington has done everything in its power to persuade that, in effect, the president IS sovereign.  This is a lie and a pernicious doctrine that, if accepted, would make us all the servants of a king or perhaps a queen.

I have had old army friends argue to me that they DO think of the president as king and that they must think thusly because how else would they know whom to obey.

I think it must be said that such ideas are unworthy in those to whom the constitution and the people have entrusted so much.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty

"Joe" and the Magic Plunger.

Someone wrote to ask if I thought "Joe" might be a "plant," a "shill,"  a "ringer," etc.  The appearance of this fellow in the midst of the desperate search by Rick Davis, McCain et al for a rallying figure among the white, working class electorate does raise a certain question for me.

Someone should be taking a close look at Mr. Joe the everyman.

He brings to mind a bit of doggerel that my "mates" used to sing in pubs in the Gulf:

"Oh who IS the Sultan of Muscat and Oman?

Is he a yes man or is he a no man?

Or is he indeed, the abominable Snowman?"  Anon.

Look closely boys and girls of the media.  That is what you are paid for.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/nyregion/17plumber.html?em

The GOP and the income tax.

A new feature of the ever evolving memes and themes of the McCain presidential campaign is the accusation that Obama is in favor of a "redistribution of wealth" in the United States through what amounts to confiscatory taxation.  Both McCain and his familiar, Rick Davis, have been saying that (paraphrase) "Americans do not want to see income redistributed through taxation" and that to redistribute income in that way is (paraphrase) "not the American Way."

They must be talking about some other "America," an "America" that exists in a parallel universe, hidden away behind the walls of the "Racket club," or the "River Oaks Country Club." 

This "America," the one that most of us live in has had a graduated, progressive income tax as a feature of life and death for as long as any among us can remember.

Now, it is true that the denizens of that other, more exclusive "America" often manage to use the intricacies of the tax code in their favor so as to not pay very much income tax.  Warren Buffet's famous remark that his cook (or some such person) actually pays more tax than he does come easily to mind.  Nevertheless, a progressive income tax is what we have.

Does this mean that McCain opposes the progressive income tax?  Does he favor a flat tax or a "national consumption tax on steroids" as I do?

Are the Republicans serious when they mock poor Biden (ole foot in the mouf) for implying that paying taxes is patriotic?  Surely they do not mean that?  The US income tax is largely collected on the honor system-----  Hmmm.

Actually, we all know that the tax drivel is just irresponsible propaganda.  This too will pass.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Income_tax

Trouble reaching SST?

I number of people are reporting difficulty in reaching SST.  How many?  pl

Outplayed again in Iraq?

"If the parliament refuses, Maliki would have "no choice" but to request a U.N. extension "because the American forces will lose their legal cover on Dec. 31," he told the Times of London in a weekend interview. "If that happens, according to international law, Iraqi law and American law, the U.S. forces will be confined to their bases and have to withdraw from Iraq," Maliki said.

U.S. officials do not dispute that the absence of an agreement would probably require an immediate end to combat operations and, at a minimum, confinement to bases on Jan. 1. Officials refused to discuss the sensitive issue on the record while negotiations are ongoing.

"I am actually reasonably optimistic we will come to closure on this in a very near future," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters Friday as he returned from a five-day trip to Europe. A month earlier, on Sept. 8, Gates told Congress that he expected an agreement "within the next few weeks."

"But I had hoped that some weeks ago," Gates added.

Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi said yesterday that an accord is unlikely before the end of the year, citing the number of parties that must sign off on the deal. "I'm not sure that the time we have left is enough for all of these organizations to study it, revise it and agree on the text," Hashimi told McClatchy Newspapers.  Karen de Young

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Ah, the wily Saracens....

How does that piece of Kiplinesque doggerel go?

"It is not good for the Christian white

to hustle the Asian brown.

For the Christian riles and the Asian smiles

and he weareth the Christian down.

The end of the fight is a tombstone white

with the name of the late deceased and

the epitaph drear

"A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."

So maybe Kipling didn't write it exactly like that.... I like it this way.

I have the following from our brother Al:

"What are the odds that what all this really means is that Maliki is planning to wait until the December 31^st deadline in order to avoid making this difficult political decision?  This would allow him, in effect, to plead that he is forced by circumstances beyond his control to order the United States out of Iraq.

Best, 

Al "

Pretty good thinking Al, pretty good.  I had thought earlier that Maliki and Company would cave in to US demands.  Seems like I was wrong.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/13/AR2008101302846.html

TA post on reading list.

Take a look.  pl