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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Recess appointments
These are an anachronism at best; legislation should be proposed immediately to get rid of them.
It can't be done with legislation; it will take a constitutional amendment:
Article II, Section 2.3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.
No doubt it is an anachronism, based on a slower moving world, but it can't be changed by legislation. So be prepared to find out the day after Congress recesses that Gonzales has resigned and John Yoo has been appointed Attorney General.
So, you actually think it was “illegal” for every wartime President to spy on the enemy within our own borders, huh? How about when FDR shipped off all those Japanese-Americans to internment camps? You don’t think it would take a legal genius to realize said program was illegal either? Well, think again –- Korematsu v. U.S.: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=323&invol=214
Stick to science, son.
Shut up traitor.
Next?
Glenn's question was rhetorical, concerning what GOP Minister of Disinformation Snow meant by a "bipartisan legislative solution" last year; but I was curious, thus Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act
It seems four different bills attempting to save Bush-Cheney were introduced last year, but none passed. They are either still pending, or became moot when the last Congress adjourned at the end of 2006. (I'd guess the latter.) Then the Wikipedia article had this:
"On April 13, 2007 the administration submitted legislation to Congress [title omitted] requesting that FISA be amended 'to bring FISA up to date with the revolution in tele-communications technology that has taken place since 1978, while continuing to protect the privacy interests of persons located in the United States.' "
Minister Snow might have been referring to the ancient legal doctrine of l'Etat c'est Moi, which, roughly translated, means "the Bush-Cheney GOP proclaimed it, therefore it is." Voila! (See also: No Child Left Behind; New Orleans Recovery; Victory in Iraq; etc.)
Since you have such faith in the infallibility of Supreme Court decisions, I am sure that you also support the Dred Scott decision as the last word on the subject. Or Roe v. Wade, for that matter.
The fact is that the FISA law could not be clearer, and violating it is a felony. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. It is not illegal to spy or wiretap – however it is illegal to do it without a warrant. As Ronald Reagan said: facts are stubborn things. So are laws.
Read the book and then see the movie Snow Falling on Cedars. You continue to disgust me.
I still have a Ashcroft style pentecostal, bees-nest, and penitent, permanent, perpetual, everlasting, "Cow Lick Hair Style."
Your not apologizing yet?
I am glad you and the fellow deacons, who dragged me by the legs 50- feet all the way downstairs: thump, thump, thump, Bump...Toward the basement babies-nursery...I am Happy You did Not belive in resuscitation of the church visitors. Liberal church deacons robbed people. Deacons, tripped, beat, tortured, and dragged 'trippers over wood Cains, downward, into a church dungeon. What corrupt ushers I've seen in my day. You get the ice-cream Alamo!
My head still has a huge-bump in it. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, or the BO gas station attendant, can't seem to heal or shrink the mental abuse you "liberal" Arizonians put us poor-drunk church visitors through...
...Mr. T,- I invite your friends, not you, over for mint tea. Please, you stay home and play or pray to grasshoppers and humming birds, or hairy cream and black mild-fatty breast, bumble bees, okay? Okay?
It can't be done with legislation; it will take a constitutional amendment:
Article II, Section 2.3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.
If "session" is defined as the term of the currently elected Congress, then "next session" would be at the end of the next elected Congress's term (the "current session" would describe the one with those currently elected to Congress). Maybe a better read of "session" is when they reconvene from recess until they recess again or adjourn, giving them a chance to give an "up/down" to any such appointments....
Any good "textualist" ought to agree here, and not pretend the words "next" means the full current term of Congress.
Cheers,
Cheers,
So, you actually think it was “illegal” for every wartime President to spy on the enemy within our own borders, huh
No, not until 1978, when it became law that they obtain a warrant as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed that year -- including in time of war. That is, if by "enemy" you mean "U.S. persons" as defined by FISA.
Altho, even prior to that such activity may have been unconstitutional; that remains an unsettled question.
Don't you just wish you'd thought of this sort of language when you were a teenager???
I never in my life expected to see what has happened to language in the public discourse. Words really can mean their exact antonyms, if the speaker and audience are willing to collude.
Anyone read Frank Luntz? (google "luntz pdf" to find lots of strategy by him)
"Facts only become relevant when the public is receptive and willing to listen to them."
"Never say Outsourcing, say Taxation, Regulation, Litigation, Innovation, Education [...] Because it rhymes, it will be remembered.")
"Of course, rhetorical questions work, don't they?"
"Iraq colors all. Saddam is your best defense, even if he is dead. The worldview of Americans is entirely dominated by developments in Iraq."
"It DOES NOT HELP when you compliment President Bush."
(well, that last one is at least honest.)
The media (eat it, Murdoch) is only to happy to use these terms to think in and the viewpoints in the media are so homogenized (sez I) that you can easily find people who are just FULL of phrases right out of the Luntz playbooks.
I bet you could do a dated phrase-count frequency search on USENET and see the bursts immediately after big speeches.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
