A provision in the newly passed health care law could give the Justice Department an extra tool in investigations of state-run institutions and prisons — including in its high-profile probe of an obstreperous Arizona sheriff under scrutiny for his law enforcement record.
One of the federal probes targeting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio involves his treatment of jail inmates, including those rounded up in illegal immigration sweeps. Last year Arpaio, a vocal opponent of illegal immigration, marched 220 undocumented inmates chain-gang style down a public street in Phoenix in what The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund called a publicity stunt designed to humiliate them.
The law signed by President Barack Obama last month contains a little noticed provision that allows the Attorney General to expedite subpoenas from any institution that is the subject of a Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) investigation. That includes the Maricopa County jail run by Arpaio and facilities around the country.
The DOJ's enhanced subpoena power is aimed at probing conditions at government-run prisons, mental health facilities and nursing homes generally — and not specifically at “Sheriff Joe,' as Arpaio has become known. But Arpaio has charged that the federal investigators have targeted him for his politics, an allegation that has raised the profile of his case. His resistance to federal oversight has also vexed the DOJ.
The sheriff has accused Justice Department lawyers of posing as reporters to gain access to one of his news conferences and been rebuked by the head of the DOJ's Public Integrity Section for making misleading statements.
Enacted in 1997, CRIPA allows the Justice Department Civil Rights Division's Special Litigation Section to investigate whether such public facilities have a pattern of violating rights. The law is aimed at exposing patterns of abuse, such as neglect at nursing homes or inadequate access to mental health care.
CRIPA applies only to public institutions including prisons and jails, juvenile correctional facilities and state or locally run nursing home or facilities for the mentally ill or developmentally disabled.
Under the new health care law, the Civil Rights Division has the power to subpoena documents from institutions under investigation without going through a grand jury or a judge. The new power is designed to allow federal investigators to proceed with cases in which subjects have been uncooperative or refused to turn over documentation voluntarily. The Justice Department already has similar power to investigate health care fraud.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment for this article.
While the DOJ hasn't used the subpoena powers yet, ongoing or recent CRIPA investigations have been reported in states including Indiana, Georgia, and New York.
Amy Fettig, staff counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project said she is hopeful the new powers will help the Justice Department thoroughly investigate the conditions in state prisons, which she called a “national disgrace.'
“It's an important step because, under CRIPA, state governments do not have to cooperate,' said Fettig. “It's an extra tool in their toolbox.'
A transition report on the Civil Rights Division found that the Special Litigation Section under the George W. Bush administration had been micromanaged in a way that prevented it from formulating a meaningful agenda. In particular, it found that enforcement of CRIPA had “proceeded at a snail's pace and resulted in relatively few enforcement actions.'
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez recently named Judy Preston as Acting Chief of Special Litigation Section. The former chief, Shanetta Cutlar, stepped down from her position last month and reportedly told fellow employees she had lost the confidence of Justice Department leadership.
“I'm excited to see new leadership in special litigation,' said Fettig. “The most important thing that DOJ can do is to show more leadership on this issue. It's a national disgrace and federal leaders should be investigating and calling for reform.'
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Gee, I thought this was a health care bill, notan outright attack on the state rights. Silly me for thinking he would not use this to attack his enemies.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/07/2010 13:31 Comments ||
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Am I the first to observe that those who favored the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) are concerned about the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons (CRIPs)?
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made an unprecedented gesture of good will to Poland on Wednesday by attending a memorial ceremony for 22,000 Poles executed by Soviet secret police during World War II. But hours later he soured the mood by offering a controversial justification for the massacres.
After attending the solemn event with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Putin said Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the atrocity as revenge for the death of Red Army soldiers in Polish prisoner of war camps in 1920. Putin said 32,000 troops under Stalin's command had died of hunger and disease in the Polish camps.
"It is my personal opinion that Stalin felt personally responsible for this tragedy, and carried out the executions (of Poles in 1940) out of a sense of revenge," Putin said, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
The Polish side had no immediate response to this suggestion.
U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, who has advocated greater Russian recognition of the atrocities, said there can be no justification for the murder of innocent people.
"I think trying to rationalize the massacre in any way is unwarranted. You can't justify that under any scenario. It was senseless and there was no just cause. Those are the facts," Cardin, who chairs the U.S. Helsinki Commission, told The Associated Press.
Earlier on Tuesday, Putin offered a gesture of reconciliation to Poland by becoming the first Russian leader to ever commemorate the Katyn massacres with a Polish leader. He said earlier in the day that the two nations' "fates had been inexorably joined" by the atrocities.
The 22,000 Polish officers, prisoners and intellectuals were massacred by Stalin's secret police in 1940 in and around Katyn, a village near Russia's border with Belarus.
During the ceremony, Putin also offered what appeared to be his harshest condemnation of Stalin's rule to date on Tuesday, saying: "In our country there has been a clear political, legal and moral judgment made of the evil acts of this totalitarian regime, and this judgment cannot be revised."
But his speech stopped short of offering any apology to Poland or calling the massacres a war crime, as some officials in Poland and the United States had urged him to do.
Also, while giving the go-ahead to a joint historic commission on the matter, Putin gave no concrete pledge that all Soviet archives documenting it would finally be unsealed.
Tusk used his emotional speech about the Polish victims to push Putin on this point.
"Prime minister, they are here. They are in this soil. The eye sockets of their bullet-pierced sculls are looking and waiting to see whether we are able to transform violence and lies into reconciliation," Tusk said.
But at an evening news conference, Putin said Russia already has disclosed everything except for the perpetrators' names, which are being kept secret out of "humanitarian" regard for their surviving relatives.
Putin also said Russian people should not be blamed for the atrocities at Katyn.
"For decades, attempts have been made to cover up the truth about the Katyn executions with cynical lies, but suggesting that the Russian people are to blame for that is the same kind of lie and fabrication," he said.
For half a century, Soviet officials claimed that the mass executions had been carried out by Nazi occupiers during the Second World War. But the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev's rule admitted in 1990 that the crimes had been committed by Stalin's NKVD secret police, a precursor to the KGB.
The disclosure opened the floodgates of historical consciousness across the Soviet Union, speeding its demise as nations across the Eastern bloc awoke to the horrors of the Soviet regime and sought independence.
As recently as December, Putin resisted a broad denunciation of Stalin's reign. He told a call-in show with the Russian public that it was "impossible to make an overall judgment" against Stalin because he had industrialized the nation and played a key role in defeating the Nazis.
Russia also has clashed with its neighbors in Eastern Europe over what it has perceived as offenses to the legacy of Stalin and the Red Army. The relocation of a Soviet war memorial in Estonia in 2007 was met with a bristling reaction from Moscow, as was a resolution made by European lawmakers in 2009 equating Stalinism and Fascism.
Putin's meeting with Tusk seems to be part of a broader Kremlin effort to avoid similar confrontations and improve ties with Europe.
President Dmitry Medvedev wrapped up a two-day visit to Slovakia on Tuesday, and said in the capital, Bratislava, that the EU-member state was a "very convenient and open door for Russia to the European Union."
"We are ready to actively go through this door," Medvedev said during a televised news conference with his Slovak counterpart, Ivan Gasparovic.
During the visit — marking the 65th anniversary of the Slovak capital's liberation from Nazi rule — Medvedev gave Slovak officials World War II documents from Russia's state archives.
Sen. Arlen Specter says he has an agreement with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to become the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but three senior Democrats are blocking the deal.
Specter (D-Pa.) has worked diligently behind the scenes to boost his seniority on the Senate Judiciary and Appropriations committees and hopes to settle the issue before the election.
“The arrangement I had with Reid [D-Nev.] is that I would have the same seniority as if I had been elected as a Democrat in 1980,' Specter said in an interview with The Hill. “I would be behind [Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick] Leahy [D-Vt.], and when he moved up to chairman of Appropriations, I would move to chairman of Judiciary.'
When Specter switched to the Democratic Party almost a year ago, he was given the last seat on the dais of the Judiciary and Appropriations panels.
He has since turned into a model member of the Democratic Conference, voting with party leaders more than 95 percent of the time, and worked to convince his fellow Democrats to support his deal with Reid.
“Sen. Reid and Sen. Leahy worked it out with half a dozen of my colleagues that I would be ahead of them on Judiciary,' Specter said. “On Appropriations, this is something that Reid is working on now. The issue is not over.'
A spokesman for Reid declined to comment.
Last month, seven Democrats on the Judiciary panel let Specter leapfrog them in seniority, including Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), vice chairman of the Democratic Conference, and Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the Democratic whip.
But three Democrats elected to the Senate after Specter, Sens. Herb Kohl (Wis.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Russ Feingold (Wis.), have balked at letting him cut ahead of them in line for the gavel.
“You don't come this far to watch people on the other team cut in front of you,' said a Democratic aide, noting that Specter served nearly 29 years in the upper chamber as a Republican.
Another Democratic staffer said the agreement to allow Specter to jump ahead of Schumer, Durbin and other Democrats was in effect “only for this Congress.'
Specter is still ranked as the most junior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, according to the panel's website. He is also listed as the lowest-ranking Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
Democrats on Appropriations have been less amenable to letting Specter jump ahead of them. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) publicly criticized Reid's agreement when it was announced last year.
Since then, Reid has been reluctant to discuss Specter's seniority in public.
Democratic lawmakers note that no agreement is final unless ratified by the entire Senate Democratic Conference.
But the support of seven Democrats on the Judiciary Committee plus the backing of Leahy and Reid means that Specter could have a strong chance of winning broader conference approval.
If Specter were to take over the gavel of the Judiciary panel, he would be in charge of confirming President Barack Obama's nominees to the Supreme Court.
Specter played a significant role in shepherding conservative Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito through the Senate when he served as Republican Judiciary chairman from 2005 to 2007.
Some liberals haven't forgiven him for his aggressive cross-examination of Anita Hill during Justice Clarence Thomas's 1991 confirmation hearing. Specter later expressed regret for his rough treatment of Hill's allegations of sexual harassment against Thomas.
However, Specter sided with Democrats in a high-profile Supreme Court battle several years earlier when he voted against the nomination of Robert Bork.
Specter wouldn't have a shot at the gavel until Leahy, who was elected in 1974, left to become chairman of Appropriations, where he ranks behind Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).
Inouye, 85, is running for reelection this year and appears to be in good health. But in the Senate, circumstances can change very quickly and the senior Democrats on Judiciary want to preserve their chances of taking over the powerful panel.
Specter acknowledged that Reid “had some pushback from the caucus' but said he would not let the issue drop, indicating he may ask the Democratic Conference to vote on the issue before the election.
“I'll bring it back to the caucus at the right time,' he said. “ “It may be appropriate to bring it back sooner' than Election Day.
Specter may hope to press the issue sooner instead of later, because there's a chance that Reid could lose reelection. Without Reid's backing, Specter's case to preserve his seniority would weaken significantly.
Specter's reelection chances would be helped if he could argue to voters that he would be able to use the seniority accrued as a Republican to help Pennsylvania.
A new poll by Public Policy Polling (D) shows Specter trailing Republican candidate Pat Toomey by three percentage points, 46-43. The same survey showed Specter, who faces a primary challenge against Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), with a 34 percent approval rating.
Specter has a close working relationship with Leahy, but he has clashed at times with other Democrats on Judiciary.
The Associated Press reported on a shouting match between Specter and Feingold in 2006 after the panel approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
“I don't need to be lectured by you. You are no more a protector of the Constitution than I am,' Specter shouted after Feingold threatened to storm out of a meeting. “If you want to leave, good riddance.'
Feingold shot back: “I've enjoyed your lecture, too, Mr. Chairman. See ya!'
...With just a few days to go before the end of this recess, House Democrats are cautiously optimistic that they could get through it without a single retirement announcement. That said, there is still a concern that some important incumbents in districts that they are uniquely suited could call it quits. At the top of the concern list this week: Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak. The Democrat best known this year as the Democrat who delivered the winning margin of votes for the president's health-care reform bill is said to be simply exhausted. The criticism he received -- first from the left, and then from the right -- has worn him and his family out. "I abandoned my stated concern for the lives of the unborn as a matter of morality and voted for the bill to stroke Obama's ego. For some reason all the people that used to support me are criticizing me for that. Man, didn't see that coming! Why can't they send me a 'thank you' note like Planned Parenthood did? Buncha ingrates! Backstabbers!"
And if he had to make the decision now, he'd probably NOT run. As of this writing, a bunch of senior Democrats (many of the same ones who twisted his arm on the health care vote) are trying to talk him into running.
"Don't worry, Bart, we got your back! Just like last time."
The filing deadline in Michigan is still a month away, but veterans of that state's politics are skeptical anyone other than Stupak can hold that district in this political climate.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/07/2010 13:47 ||
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Two weeks after President Barack Obama signed the big health care overhaul into law, Americans are struggling to understand how — and when — the sweeping measure will affect them.
Questions reflecting confusion have flooded insurance companies, doctors' offices, human resources departments and business groups.
"They're saying, 'Where do we get the free Obama care, and how do I sign up for that?' " said Carrie McLean, a licensed agent for eHealthInsurance.com. The California-based company sells coverage from 185 health insurance carriers in 50 states.
McLean said the call center had been inundated by uninsured consumers who were hoping that the overhaul would translate into instant, affordable coverage. That widespread misconception may have originated in part from distorted rhetoric about the legislation bubbling up from the hyper-partisan debate about it in Washington and some media outlets, such as when opponents denounced it as socialism.
"We tell them it's not free, that there are going to be things in place that help people who are low-income, but that ultimately most of that is not going to be taking place until 2014," McLean said.
#1
While the health care won't happen until 2014, if at all, the pork attached to it will be all spent this year! Happy piggies in DC are drowning in the fat...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/07/2010 13:35 Comments ||
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Sad that people believe that they can sign up for free health care immediately. It was like the people standing in line in Detroit to get Obama dollars from his stash of cash. I have talked with young, well educated people who think their educational loans are going to be forgotten and that they will get free health care. These people are college educated (advanced degrees) but very liberal. Somehow these people are coasting on hope and believe in fairy tales and the vote-buying largesse (other peoples' money) from Washington.
The last two months have not been good for Alexi Giannoulias, and Mark Kirk now leads him 37-33 in his bid to be the next Senator from Illinois.
A PPP survey taken a week and a half before the primary found Giannoulias up 42-34 on Kirk. But the closing stretch of the campaign did not go well for the Democratic nominee, with the attacks on him resulting in a final margin of victory that was a good deal less than what he had shown in earlier polls. Since then most of the news for him has been bad.
The main reason Giannoulias is behind is that he's getting only 54% of the Democratic vote while Kirk is winning 77% of the Republican vote. It's not that a lot of Democrats are planning to cross over and vote for Kirk, but 36% of them are undecided right now compared to just 16% of Republicans. That suggests Democratic voters don't really know what to make of Giannoulias' problems right now so they're just taking a wait and see approach to the race.
It's clear that the movement in Kirk's direction over the last two months has nothing to do with him and everything to do with Giannoulias. A majority of voters in the state have no opinion of Kirk and his favorability spread of 24/23 is almost identical to the 27/22 he sported in late January. Giannoulias has seen his favorability drop from 31% to 21% and his unfavorability increase from 19% to 28% in that period of time.
Also not helping Giannoulias is that President Obama is not nearly as popular in the state as he once was. 50% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 42% who disapprove. His 7% approval rating with home state Republicans is just as bad as it is with them nationally and his 81% standing with Democrat is about par for the course. He does continue to be more popular with independents in Illinois than he is in most states, with 51% of them approving of his job performance to 38% disapproving. Voters in the state express support for his health care plan by only a 46/43 margin.
The large mass of undecided Democrats are the critical bloc of voters in this race. If they come home to Giannoulias he'll probably still win- this continues to be a very Democratic state. But if they- unhappy with both Giannoulias and Pat Quinn- decide to just stay home or even worse to vote Republican Kirk has a pretty decent shot at winning this. There may not be a state in the country where Democrats have a weaker top of the ticket at this point than Quinn and Giannoulas.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2010 08:39 ||
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The poll does not include dead voters and fake ballots. This is not over.
Giannoulias won't be the Dem candidate on election day. He'll have stepped aside; not because he's been indicted but because he's a loser with a gigantic millstone around his neck. The candidate will likely be Tom Hynes, and I don't see Kirk beating Hynes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2010 11:05 Comments ||
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It's an absurdity that the federal government has the right to make Americans buy health insurance, but what's worse is the ha, ha, ha of the left that free people making their own decisions about the way they live is selfishness or shibboleth.
Heed that shrug of the shoulders- especially in the context of nanny-state interventions quietly disposing of all kinds of small freedoms all about us - and you have a taste of what's to come if the Democratic darlings of the left stay in power in the elections this year and in 2012.
It's not just that the Democrats give hints every day of cracking down on radio speech, of denying workers' rights in union formation and of hitting us with excessive new environmental, energy and financial regulations. The scary part is that this insurance mandate underlines that they have no use for limits of any kind, not even those spelled out in the Constitution.
The insurance mandate is justified by them in part by the commerce clause, which states one of the powers the Constitution gives Congress while it simultaneously says there are no others. This power is in part to "regulate Commerce . . . among the several states . . . "
Clearly, simply, understandably, this clause is about commerce over state lines. It's about having the states abide by rules helping to give us a prosperous economy. For a good part of the country's history, that's how the courts saw it, but then came the New Deal with ambitions that exceeded constitutional barriers. Not only did the FDR administration cite the commerce clause as the justification for laws having nothing to do with interstate commerce, but President Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court with additional justices when it balked. Roosevelt dropped the threat but the court saluted.
Courts have zigzagged since then, but some recent rulings underline that if Congress is going to cite the commerce clause as justification for a law, the law had better concern economic activities that clearly impinge on interstate commerce.
Congress can't just say any old economic activity affects interstate commerce, because there is precious little in our lives that is not an economic activity one way or the other. Whether or not you buy health insurance has about as much to do with interstate commerce as whether you buy galoshes, and if the government can regulate our purchases of private products, Katie bar the door. There will then be nothing it cannot regulate.
The other excuse for the mandate is that the penalty for not buying health insurance is that it is not a penalty. It has been designated a tax, and taxes, it is argued, are clearly allowed under the Constitution. This is so bogus as to make you want to disbar any lawyer who says as much. Calling something a tax does not make it a legitimate tax and does not exclude it from other kinds of considerations, and those who say so have no more credibility than President Obama promising he would never tax anyone making under $250,000 a year.
While a number of state attorneys general are suing to overturn the insurance requirement and other mandates, the betting is that the courts will not intervene on something this big. But how about rescuing the citizenry from the oppression sneaking up on us the way the poet Carl Sandburg said the fog comes, on little cat feet? The left does not think that important, but surely it still counts for human beings to have liberty enough to discover their own lives. Doesn't it?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2010 08:37 ||
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In other news: "Water is Wet", "The Sun Came up in the East."
A California Democrat is proposing a new law requiring residents to register their shotguns and rifles or go to jail, CBSNews.com has learned.
Assemblyman Mike Feuer, whose district includes Beverly Hill and West Hollywood, this week introduced legislation ordering law enforcement to "permanently keep" records of anyone who buys a gun from a dealer or an individual. California already stores information about handgun purchases.
Feuer is no friend of firearms owners: his previous legislative effort, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law, required all new handguns to include "microstamping" technology that can imprint serial numbers on spent ammunition casings. As a Los Angeles city councilman, Feuer proposed limiting city residents to one gun a month.
Feuer spokeswoman Arianna Smith declined to answer questions about the bill on Tuesday afternoon, saying the staff member involved was in a meeting and not immediately available.
The proposal comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a landmark civil rights case, McDonald v. Chicago, which will decide whether Second Amendment rights in the federal constitution trump state anti-gun laws. But California is proposing mandatory registration -- and not a flat ban, as Washington, D.C. once tried and the justices rejected -- and even legal scholars specializing in this area disagree about whether registration is constitutional.
"Even though the constitutionality of such a measure is a close call, it is a horrible public policy choice," says Gene Hoffman, chairman of the CalGuns Foundation. "Just as Canada is about to do away with their long gun registry after squandering $1 billion, California wishes to attack law abiding gun owners for firearms not used in crime."
A CBC News article last month reported that the Canadian parliament is backing away from the nation's gun registry, which was enacted in 1989 and has now come under fire by critics who call it a billion-dollar boondoggle.
Feuer's bill isn't exactly a surprise: He told the Brady Campaign, an anti-gun advocacy group, earlier this year that his forthcoming proposal would give law enforcement another tool to track down people in possession of illegal firearms. "This legislation will close a glaring loophole and ensure that all firearm records, not just handgun records, are maintained for law enforcement purposes," Ellen Boneparth, spokesperson for the California Brady Campaign Chapters, said in a statement at the time.
Feuer appears to have adopted an unusual approach to introducing his mandatory registration bill. He took an existing piece of criminal legislation, AB 1810, that dealt with graffiti and vandalism, and replaced it with a completely new version with the same bill number.
A hearing is scheduled for April 13 in Sacramento before the California State Assembly's Committee on Public Safety.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2010 08:36 ||
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All the left-wing control freaks who want to create a nanny state nightmare such as Kalifornia; just keep it but don't try to infect the rest of the country. Kalifornia is too far gone and beyond hope. Everyone else who wants to have a decent life should leave and go elsewhere. Industry has already fled Kalifornia because business is too costly and over-regulated to compete. The left can just stay in Kalifornia, grow pot, sell it to each other and stay stoned. They are oblivious anyway.
#2
I wonder how much gun crime all of California's other gun laws have prevented? They are one of the most anti-gun states in the union, but from what I understand they have terrible gun crime. There are way too many politicians with "great ideas" these days, and way too many sheeple that happily follow them around bleating out slogans. It sickens me.
#3
Thats cuz when these goofs sit in their climate controlled non-brownout offices and write deep thought laws, they don't have to go to the rough neighborhoods and hills themselves knocking door-to-door, "Declare your Firearms!". Other people put their lives on the line so the goofs feel good at cocktail parties.
And if ya take JohnQC's advice, whereever you go give yourself a couple years to learn the local culture...no offense but a lot of y'all are culturally infected to some degree by no fault of your own.
So what do you all CAs think about there not being any money to house criminals but there is space to throw rifle/shotgun owners in the pen who have not committed a crime? The best part of this article:
He took an existing piece of criminal legislation, AB 1810, that dealt with graffiti and vandalism, and replaced it with a completely new version with the same bill number.
Things are so bad for President Obama these days that he's packing his bags after work today and taking off for Prague.
Not exactly a typical spring break getaway. But after a hot shower aboard Air Force One and a good sleep in the suite with the electric window-shades so no presidential wrist need be turned, there's a private meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. And this new arms reduction treaty the Democrat so desperately wants to sign with him.
Over dinner then, Obama hopes to reassure Eastern European countries that the U.S. is really truly still on their side of freedom and defense, even though it's signing what is actually a pretty modest agreement with the core of the old Soviet empire without a word about human rights.
Ah-hah, you say, but what does this have to do with the domestic U.S. economy and....
...creating new jobs that were supposed to start coming online last year with the $787 billion stimulus bill that Obama took on that same Air Force One all the way to Denver to sign?
Answer: Absolutely nothing. Just like the healthcare debate. Obama did a jobs town hall only the other day. What else do you want?
The new arms treaty replaces the expired START I treaty of 1991, reinstates bilateral inspection and verification and reduces each country's nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed warheads. In other words, instead of enough nuclear weapons to obliterate this delicate blue planet a gazillion times, in theory we'll be able to erase the place only a bajillion times.
This all makes eminent sense within the arcane, convoluted logic of diplomacy, prompting nodded heads, much self-congratulation and champagne-sipping from ridiculously thin glasses. Swell images of proclaimed progress to send home in advance of the 47-nation nuclear summit in D.C. next week.
Does this treaty do anything at all about, say, Iran's nuclear program or the weapons plan developing under the loopy guidance of that tiny North Korean fellow with the Carol Channing glasses?
Well, no, not actually.
Now, remember last fall when Obama unilaterally altered the Bush-planned anti-missile defense systems for Eastern Europe in hopes of encouraging the Russians to pressure Iran? Didn't work.
Not yet anyway.
So we gave that up and got little in return, except growing regional unease among Europeans with memories of iron Soviet rule that run back before the birth of the more trusting Obama.
These Europeans see preoccupied Americans resetting their relationship with Russia with little concern for the folks who agreed to the missile sites we wanted before but now find expendable given grumbles from Russia next door.
Obama gets a glitzy arms agreement that the folks back home didn't know they wanted. And the Russians, who invaded Georgia with impunity during Obama's 2008 Hawaii vacation, don't have to find the money they didn't have to support the larger arsenal they don't need and would likely have to scrap anyway. And Russia remains free to pursue the big arms deals with India and Venezuela.
Iran and North Korea can keep on keeping on. And the official American unemployment rate remains at 9.7% nationally, closer to 20% counting those who've given up job hunts.
One other thing. No, two, actually. Another American president named Woodrow Wilson -- coincidentally also a Democrat and also a former college prof -- went off to Europe about 90 years ago to sign an historic treaty ending World War I and establishing the League of Nations.
Wilson was excited about the international deal and, of course, knew going in that all new treaties take a two-thirds ratification by the U.S. Senate. He didn't get it, primarily due to varying visions of this country's future by Republicans, who controlled the Senate then. Obama's party controls the Senate for now, but six seats shy of the treaty-affirming 66.
The second thing is: While the president is off in that old Prague castle not addressing domestic jobs, a new CNN/Opinion Research Poll finds disquiet back home among 953 registered voters. They were asked: "How well are things going in the country today?"
Not quite one-in-three said Fairly or Very Well. The other 67% said Very or Pretty Badly.
The chance for them to vote on so much more than the treaty comes Nov. 2.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2010 08:30 ||
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nice realistic brutal appraisal of the Zero's motives (bad and venal), gains (few), and losses (ours - but hey! It's just nat'l security). Surprising that the LATimes allowed it. A crack in the dam?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/07/2010 19:25 Comments ||
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I'm beginning to wonder if he keeps his stash in Air Force One. What about it Secret Asian Man?
They've been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement -- and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation's first black president.
"I've been told I hate myself. I've been called an Uncle Tom. I've been told I'm a spook at the door," said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.
"Black Republicans find themselves always having to prove who they are. Because the assumption is the Republican Party is for whites and the Democratic Party is for blacks," he said.
Johnson and other black conservatives say they were drawn to the tea party movement because of what they consider its commonsense fiscal values of controlled spending, less taxes and smaller government. The fact that they're black -- or that most tea partyers are white -- should have nothing to do with it, they say.
"You have to be honest and true to yourself. What am I supposed to do, vote Democratic just to be popular? Just to fit in?" asked Clifton Bazar, a 45-year-old New Jersey freelance photographer and conservative blogger.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2010 08:28 ||
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To quote Napoleon, these people are indeed the "Bravest of the Brave."
#5
I heard on Bill Bennett's morning show that there are 37 blacks running for house or senate seats as Repubs...I bet they're all taking heat as well. I long for the time when we get past all the hyphenated horse shit and are simply just Americans.
#6
maybe they read the news and saw what happened too Zimbabwe and South Africa in the last 20 years. Allen West is one of the black men running as a repub. in FLA. Would get my vote anyday i may just have too drive down and cast one for him
Posted by: chris ||
04/07/2010 11:57 Comments ||
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#7
I long for the time when we get past all the hyphenated horse shit and are simply just Americans.
Won't happen as long as the race baiters can gain money and power by using it.
#8
The real Uncle Toms are those blacks who continue to live on hand-outs of one sort or another.
Indeed. The hatred of those who step out of line and join Republican/other ranks boils down to envy. And the race baiting machine is so hard to confront because we all acknowledge, deep down or subconsciously, that those who hate, whether black or white, are deeply pitiful human beings. It's hard to deal the killer blow to something so pathetic. Those who want to fight it need to learn to divorce the emotion from the emoter: hate the sin not the sinner, as it were. Easier said than done, I think.
#9
In the book, Uncle Tom was a good man, a man of character and faith. He got one of his young masters to teach him to read, as I recall -- or else quietly learned while the lad was tutored, I don't remember -- and turned that skill to reading the bible, making himself from an unskilled slave into a leader in the community, despite the exigencies of a life that took him ever further from his first owner and his first home. Were I Black, I'd be proud to be called 'Uncle Tom'.
#10
There is something particularly maddening about being labeled as "racists" by people who righteously claim that they should be able to dictate one's political viewpoints based on the color of one's skin. Do these people not hear their own words?
#11
As a gay guy, I have been told that being a gay conservative is like being a "Jewish Nazi" or a "black KKK member". I find the best way to respond is to bring it back to the subject that they are trying to change. I say, "How do I, as someone who is gay, benefit from big government, massive debt, mistreating our traditional allies, kowtowing to the worst (and most anti-gay and anti-women) tyrants in the world today, lying about transparency . . . Well, the list can go on for quite some length, as most here know full well. So to any minority tea-partiers out there who want my advice: don't get mad, be prepared.
At least now, there are many concrete examples of the failure of leftist policies to point to. When Dubya was in office, it was more difficult to demonstrate why Bush's policies (in many instances) were preferable to those of his critics. Thanks, Obama, for making it so much easier now.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
