Isn't that correct?

So why doesn't Obama appoint Dawn Johnson to head the OLC?

Unless I'm missing something (which would not be the first time), what is holding Dawn Johnson's confirmation up is nothing more that right wing opposition to her public expressions of support for the Rule of Law and the principles of the United States Constitution.

This is the opportunity for Obama to throw a bone of consistency to the people whose belief that the way to address the lawlessness of the Bush Administration is to address it, rather than normalize it. And if there is any merit to the surmise that Obama would like to do this, but is gunshy over creating a lengthy public debate over things like torture and enforcing the law which would "dominate multiple news cycles", the way to mimimize that feared diversionary debate is to reduce the news cycle window. Make the appointment, as is clearly within the President's constitutional prerogative -- and announce that he has no interest in engaging in a protracted public debate over "whether it is a good idea to respect and enforce the Constitution of the United States of America", since he has sworn an oath to do exactly that and he refuses to prevent Ms. Johnson from serving the country for stating exactly that understanding. It's a four day news cycle over a holiday weekend celebrating the Declaration of Independence and the associated principles of American democracy -- let's see the Republicans turn the weekend into a celebration of the refusal to respect the Constitution.

He wants to do it, now make him do it? Even Robert Reich is dusting off and presenting as a "mainstream idea" this FDR concept that has been floating around places like here for months and months. So make him. Send an e-mail to the White House demanding a recess appointment for Dawn Johnson to head the OLC. Just sayin'.

cap n trade these

http://rawdawgb.blogspot.com/2009/06/cap-n-trade-these.html

But "their" President, as is implied by the original article; i.e. that they would be going against the wishes of Their Leader.

I mean, really. Ignored the wishes of the president. How weak is that? During Vietnam the South Vietnamese on the American side were called "the running dog lackeys of the capitalist, imperialist war mongers". In Iran, just on the eve of the '79 revolution, one of the soon-to-be-deposed Shah's ministers was criticized for "flying in the face of God and his emissaries".

How can we let the rest of the world beat us in the hyperbole and invective department? How about - These constitutional roaders are flying in the face of our dear leader's correct and logical demands? That might bring a smile to some faces and help counteract the urge to cry that comes on every now and again.

We spread DU all over the ME, poison The Troops with chemicals and leave them crippled for life with "Gulf War Syndrome".

And now we have the massive burn pits all over Iraq that spew plumes of toxic black smoke in the air 24/7. There were even reports of medical waste being thrown on the burn piles as well, leading to stray dogs running around with limbs they've scavenged.

http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2009/06/29/x-file-vet/

‘X-File’ Vet May Be Link to Burn-Pit Truth

by Kelley B. Vlahos, June 30, 2009

Yesterday, Edward Adams was an X-File, but tomorrow he might be the critical link between the toxic plumes rising recklessly from U.S. Army installations in the war zone and the growing number of veterans crippled by unexplained nerve, heart, and respiratory damage back home.

That’s because unlike any other known case, according to advocates, Adams was recently told by a board of military doctors at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii that his health anomalies – including the appearance of countless holes or "cysts" riddling the tissue around his lungs and an aorta that has shrunk to half its normal size in three months – "probably is related to the exposure to burn pits in Iraq."

This is coming at a time when the Pentagon has so far maintained there are "no significant short or long-term health risks" from the massive burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, which incinerate, in open air, everything from medical waste to plastics, dining hall trash, rubber, lithium batteries, petroleum products, and hardware, causing a noxious, jet-black plume and huge clouds over the area.

Adams, 33, went into the Army just five years ago a healthy, athletic young man. Six months into his 15-month deployment to Iraq (his first and only one), he was getting by like an out of shape middle-aged couch potato. He told Antiwar.com in a recent interview that his breathing "just got worse and worse. I would run a quarter mile and I was just wasted. I was just done."

Describing the smell from the ominous pit at Camp Speicher where he was stationed as "just horrendous," he said he wasn’t the only one experiencing problems in his unit, but their queries about a possible connection to the black dragon went unanswered, even hastily dismissed, by base doctors. It wasn’t until doctors at Tripler Hospital began looking into his case that the grim consequences began to emerge.

Or this article from last October on the burn pits:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski215.html

The Burn Pit

by Karen Kwiatkowski

There is an open burn pit at the huge American air base in Balad, Iraq, largest of four US taxpayer-funded military monstrosities built in Iraq and operated to this day without a legal status-of-forces agreement. Military Times reports on the environmental concerns of this pit not only because the details are vivid and alarming, but because Balad’s burn pit is part of a larger toxicity problem created by the American government in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rand recently published "Green Warriors: Army Environmental Considerations for Contingency Operations from Planning Through Post-Conflict." The title alone would be Orwellian, if the researchers at Rand had the slightest sense of irony. As direct and grateful beneficiaries of the most polluting, destructive, and studiously careless post–Cold War government on earth, their "Green Warriors" is a modern-day Looney Toon.

Balad, a microcosm of Americana abroad and shining icon of our foreign policy in gas and oil rich regions, produces, among other things, 250 tons of waste per day. That’s over 90,000 tons of waste per year. Waste the size of a US aircraft carrier, or an entire Washington Monument in garbage, year after year – just from one Iraqi base. Who says America doesn’t produce anything!

Today, three "green" incinerators exist at Balad. But to date, the majority of waste is still burned in the open pit. It’s only news today because some apparently unpatriotic American servicemen have been complaining about possible health effects of living downwind from the burn plume.

Yet the exact same Imperial War Machine sincerely wants to clean up the environment, and isn't interested in more power and control. So ride your bikes to work and recycle, turn off all the lights, light candles. But whatever you do, don't follow the example of the US Government and burn all of your garbage in an open pit in the backyard.