Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Indeed!

It was yesterday or the day before that Glenn was discussing something (I haven't seen the whole broadcast yet) about which I had not heard previously:  Working from memory here, apparently in September 2010 (i.e. during the height of the election compaign) a hard lefty with a huge trail of his leftness attempted to assassinate a Democratic governor with a knife-- only he mis-identified his target and instead stabbed the Dean of the university that had invited the governor to speak.

You never heard of that?  Me neither-- until GB.

IMHO GB is a remarkable man in search of Truth for the good of America.  The powers that be fear him-- and they should.

I had:

http://www.nbcactionnews.com/dpp/news/crime/report%3A-missouri-gov.-jay-nixon-was-intended-target-in-penn-valley-community-college-stabbing

Further evidence that the independent judiciary should remain as such.  And, even if Justices Scalia and Thomas "should" have recused themselves, it would hardly have been the most egregious examples of a justice sitting on a decision in a case where he had obvious ties. 

Whether it "matters" or not, it appears mine was lacking!  Sorry about that, Guro!

I mostly agree with you Guro.  I read these articles about 4 hours after talking about the politics of recusal in class.  I am often struck at the sheer dumb luck of what I teach and what goes in politics.  At any rate, I found them interesting, but mostly due to timing. 

The Truth Wears Off
Is there something wrong with the scientific method?by Jonah Lehrer

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer#ixzz1BbJXgS5h

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-01-19-column19_ST_N.htm

SAN DIEGO — Many Americans see Mexico as a dysfunctional family in the neighborhood. With the start of a new year, and a new Congress, President Obama needs to persuade the American people to see Mexico in a different light — as one of the most explosive countries in the region capable of creating a major foreign policy crisis for the U.S. There's no better time to start than with Obama's upcoming State of the Union address.


Thanks to Mexico's narco nightmare, our backyard is on fire. According to figures recently released by Mexican Attorney General Arturo Chavez, the number of deaths in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon took
office four years ago has surpassed 30,000.

You can chalk up a few of those killings to a notorious drug cartel hit man who has admitted to beheading his victims — even though he isn't old enough to shave. A few weeks

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/why-our-best-officers-are-leaving/8346/1/

http://hosted2.ap.org/WTICAM/b7538a1b675b4d059de3e728edc01923/Article_2011-01-15-Presidential%20Appointments/id-22927b442e824facb162b13e5a8efff0

Presidential nominees stymied; Senate seeks change

JIM ABRAMS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate, in its inaugural session, rejected George Washington's nominee to be a naval officer in Savannah because the two Georgia senators wanted their guy in the job. The way of naming and confirming the nation's top officials hasn't become much smarter in the years since.

It's become a lot more of a problem.

President George W. Bush had only about half his political appointees on the job at the time of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in early 2009 found himself dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression without his team of deputies in place. The attempted bombing of an American airliner on Christmas Day 2009 occurred when the Transportation Security Administration was without an administrator.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, in a rare moment of agreement, opened the new Congress this month by endorsing a bipartisan effort to find ways to improve an unwieldy, unproductive system.

It's a challenge because there are so many ways to bog down a nomination.

Reid noted that the slow-moving Senate is now responsible for confirming 1,215 executive branch nominees and the number keeps rising. Brookings Institution senior fellows E.J. Dionne Jr. and William Galston wrote in a study that the number of core policy positions the president must fill has risen from 295 when Ronald Reagan took office to 422 for Barack Obama.

Then there's the onerous screening process, even for lower-level appointees. It's meant that an administration can take months to send a nomination to the Senate for confirmation. Finally, there's the increasingly partisan Senate, where a single lawmaker has the power to bottle up a nomination for months or kill it, sometimes for reasons unrelated to the person in line for the job.

Like their Georgia counterparts of old, Louisiana's two senators stood in the way of nominations last fall to protest the freeze on offshore drilling after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The White House said there would be a one-week delay in making public the president's budget proposal this year, partly because Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., had blocked a vote on Obama's choice to be budget director, Jack Lew, for more than a month.

"Among the democracies, the United States has created — without intending to — what is almost certainly the most ungainly  process of filling a government with qualified people," Dionne and Galston wrote.

A Commission on Public Service headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker recommended in 2003 turning one-third of all Senate-confirmed political positions into career jobs. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes service in the federal government, wants the Senate to commit to voting on the president's top 50 national and economic security officials immediately after inauguration and having the top 500-plus appointees in place by the summer recess.

Those studies dealt primarily with executive office nominees and not the equally vexing issue of judges. There are more than 90 judicial vacancies in U.S. district and appellate courts today. Chief Justice John Roberts complained in a year-end report that "each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of judicial nominations, depending on their changing political fortunes."

Reid, D-Nev., and McConnell, R-Ky., suggested that the chairman and the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee — Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. — lead a working group to study ways to streamline the confirmation process. But progress probably depends on Democratic-led efforts to change Senate rules to make it harder for single senators to hold up legislation and nominees and to reduce the number of filibusters.

At the end of the last session of Congress, 43 nominees, including judges, awaited a vote by the full Senate. That compared with seven at the end of Bush's first two years in office, Reid's office said. Seven have been on the waiting list since 2009.

One result is that many competent people are dissuaded from accepting positions in government, said Max Stier, president of Partnership for Public Service.

"It's the rare individual who is both qualified and willing to run the obstacle course that is required," he said. Stier said there are examples of people, even those without background problems, who had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to get through the screening process.

Presidents sometimes turn to recess appointments — putting people in the jobs temporarily when the Senate is not in session. Obama warned Republicans last February that he would resort to this strategy because of holds on nominations he said were "motivated by a desire to leverage projects for a senator's state or simply to frustrate progress. It is precisely these kinds of tactics that enrage the American people."

Among his recess appointees: Donald Berwick, a Harvard professor now heading the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid; James Cole, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department; Craig Becker, as a member of the National Labor Relations Board.

Obama also avoided a drawn-out fight with Senate Republicans on Elizabeth Warren, his choice to head the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, by naming her to oversee creation of the fledgling agency. That post doesn't require confirmation.

What I will write here likely will lead to backlash and consternation from at least some of you.

Williams sets up the article in a sort of straw man.  Asking the the question of whether the the father of the Constitution was constitutionally ignorant is silly.  And you and I both know it, and so does he.  However, as I often say, Madison was not the only person attending the convention, not the only person writing the Constitution, not the only person voting on the document in convention, and most certainly not the only person voting to ratify the document.  While I want to give Madison his due, it is important to note that even Madison is not solely, or even mostly (despite Williams' set up) responsible for the Constitution.  By the way, Constitution signer Rufus King was in the Senate at the time of Madison's veto.  I can't quickly find if he voted to support the bill, but pretending that he did, he would not be constitutionally ignorant.

Also, it is worth noting that the president, by design, is intended to check congressional power, and no where is this seen more than in the veto.  (Quick note: I like this.  I think the veto is incredibly important and worthwhile.)  Just because Madison SAID he vetoed for a particular reason does not mean that this is the real reason.  Perhaps the House had managed to upset him, and he vetoed for a personal or politcal reason. 

Another important innovation, by President Andrew Jackson, is the veto for strictly political reasons.  He, unlike his predecessors, did not feel the need to even try to justify some of his vetoes with a nod to the Constitution.  While I realize that Jackson postdates Madison, that cannot be said for the other two presidents that Williams uses to support his argument.  Pierce and Cleveland certainly may have felt that a veto was required by constitutional standards, or they could just have used constitutional language to support their politics.  I am not sure why either Pierce or Cleveland would be considered any more constitutionally literate than any other particular president.  Moreover,  it is worth noting that Cleveland hardly met a bill he didn't want to veto, and that over half of Pierce's were overridden: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0801767.html. 

Finally, the Constitution has changed.  Not always in a formal way, and I realize that that it the only way that many of you see it as legitimate.  However, states, in many instances, have asked the national government to step in many different instances, many of which involve "charity."  Moreover, whether Madison likes it or not, we have an interstate highway system, and railroads, and planes. A far higher percentage of the commerce of today is interstate.  If I drink a Coke, based out of Georgia at a McDonald's, based out of Illinois, out of a cup made in , on my way to Maine, it is interstate commerce.  If I order a Dog Brothers DVD and it is shipped to my home, it is interstate. 

Things are different now, politically, environmentally, etc. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/12/era-of-owned-by-china 

DougMacG: While I appreciate the First Amendment a great deal, I like the idea of the revocation of the tax exempt status.  I have no love for Fred Phelps, but I am looking forward to the USSC's opinion on the anti-protest legislation. 

(One small quibble: remember that the lack of protection by the First Amendment is FALSELY yelling fire in a crowded theater.  If I am watching a movie, and there is a fire, I for damn sure want to know!)

I have spent my lunch hour discussing this situation with two anti-gunners.  It did take them 2 minutes after I walked into the lunch room for the discussion to begin.  The backlash is quick. 

Some information on pardons:

Time Magazine's (sorry) 10 most controverisal pardons: http://www.time.com/time/2007/presidential_pardons/10.html

A political scientist discusses the Office of the Pardon Attorney (pp 13-18): http://www1.law.nyu.edu/lawcourts/pubs/newsletter/spring08.pdf

A statistics of pardons, from Presidents Truman to Obama.  Pay special attention to Clinton's last day pardons of Marc Rich, Roger Clinton, and Susan McDougal, accessed from a link on the page. http://www.justice.gov/pardon/recipients.htm

Guidelines for seeking a pardon: http://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon_instructions.htm

Limits on the president's power to pardon: approaching zero; constitutionally, only those who are impeached cannot be pardoned. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07huck.html

A discussion of the edit of the Twain classic. 

Critic’s Notebook
Light Out, Huck, They Still Want to Sivilize You

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/04/opinion-will-the-new-congress-target-judges/

Opinion: Will the New Congress Target Judges?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00c9yfb/The_Monday_Documentary_Power_And_The_Judges_Part_One/

I guess this goes here:

This a link to National Center for State Courts.  I haven't delved too deeply, but it looks interesting.

http://www.ncsconline.org/D_Research/gaveltogavel/

Check this out:

www.spokeo.com

This is an interesting article.  I agree that there are many important events that somehow fail become stories.  Here is another list of underreported news in 2010.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2035319_2035317,00.html

I am stunned at how much my post has generated, for a few reasons.  1, I genuinely found the original aricle posted by GM to be interesting.  I then posted another article with a different list of underreported stories.  I acknowledged the interest I had in GM's post, and thought there might be other stories of interest.  Instead, the interest was that I used TIME MAGAZINE.  Holy ape sh!+, Batman.  

2, Guro Crafty has asked for a cease and desist.  Something about a dead horse... keep kicking it, I'll let you, but I will no longer be brought into the session.  

3, DougMacG, while I appreciate your interest (and I mean that sincerely), I'm not sure how my posting a single article from TIME MAGAZINE is like taking acid.  As I have said earlier, I post stories because I find them to be interesting.  I found the Scalia interview to be interesting, but not because of a browbeating.  

4, I attempt to convey a general appreciation for the materials presented /shared in this forum, even when I do not agree with them, but that is not the norm, it would seem.  If I don't agree with them, I will certainly acknowledge that, but it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the fact that the person found the story worth sharing.  Let me repeat, I don't always post stories I agree with.  I post those I find interesting.  If the articles, etc. that I post don't interest you, don't read them.  But to have 3 day discussion about TIME MAGAZINE, and not the story is pointless.    See 2 above, and the rule about remaining "friends at the end of the day."

Scalia interview:

http://www.callawyer.com/story.cfm?eid=913358&evid=1

GM, every source will have inherent biases.  The purpose of using a minimum of three is a sort of "cross reference."  A blind man can be a good source; and even a liar provides information. 

I figured that was your take on FDR.  Could you please read the entire article, though?  Again, interesting ideas are introduced and discussed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/02/25-predictions-25-years

20 predictions for the next 25 years
From the web to wildlife, the economy to nanotechnology, politics to sport, the Observer's team of experts prophesy how the world will change – for good or bad – in the next quarter of a century

1 Geopolitics: 'Rivals will take greater risks against the US'

No balance of power lasts forever. Just a century ago, London was the centre of the world. Britain bestrode the world like a colossus and only those with strong nerves (or weak judgment) dared challenge the Pax Britannica.

That, of course, is all history, but the Pax Americana that has taken shape since 1989 is just as vulnerable to historical change. In the 1910s, the rising power and wealth of Germany and America splintered the Pax Britannica; in the 2010s, east Asia will do the same to the Pax Americana.

The 21st century will see technological change on an astonishing scale. It may even transform what it means to be human. But in the short term – the next 20 years – the world will still be dominated by the doings of nation-states and the central issue will be the rise of the east.

By 2030, the world will be more complicated, divided between a broad American sphere of influence in Europe, the Middle East and south Asia, and a Chinese sphere in east Asia and Africa. Even within its own sphere, the US will face new challenges from former peripheries. The large, educated populations of Poland, Turkey, Brazil and their neighbours will come into their own and Russia will continue its revival.

Nevertheless, America will probably remain the world's major power. The critics who wrote off the US during the depression of the 1930s and the stagflation of the 1970s lived to see it bounce back to defeat the Nazis in the 1940s and the Soviets in the 1980s. America's financial problems will surely deepen through the 2010s, but the 2020s could bring another Roosevelt or Reagan.

I got your email, and will read it in the AM.  I take your point, but I still see merit in the Time piece.  It is silly, I think, to assume that a single news outlet will provide the whole story.  Bias will persist whether political, geographical, gender etc.  What the stories can do is bring them to our attention and then allow us to research the background stories.  A little research never hurt anyone! 

Thanks for the story. 

BD:

When I saw it was Time magazine I pretty much stopped right there.   My disrespect for this publication is such that I cannot be bothered to say why.  Its like when someone asked Louie Armstrong what jazz was, he is said to have answered "If you have to ask, I can't tell you." 

I will say that I seethe quite a bit that the same folks here in the US who did their very best to sabotage and undercut our efforts there complain that it did not go well.   This is not to say that there was not a loyal opposition; it is only to say that there was a very disloyal one too and that the damage it did was incalculable.

That's too bad.  Several of the stories were ones that I found interesting.  Jihadists in Somalia and unrest among the Irani powers that be, for instance. 

I thought the crux of the article was the lack of philosophy in the class room.  In particular, the lack of teaching critical thinking, according to the author, has led to a perilous situation in the American educational system. 

GM (and others), I post articles that I think are interesting, thought provoking, worthwhile reading, or worthy of discussion.  I don't necessarily agree with any, or all, of the author's contentions, ideas, or viewpoints.  Not everything is a personal attack, an attack, personal, or worth getting bent of shape about.