Total Failure in Iraq.......
 

But Terriers are so cute.

This is ironic because I was accused of being called a Pit Bull at the Chamber of Commerce meeting this weekend. I was also called a crazy environmental wacko, irrational and idealistic.

I don't consider myself an environmentalist. For example I think the Global warming thing is a bunch of hype. I think people's property rights are constantly being infringed up by evironmental laws and regulations. These regulations amount to government takings without just compensation.

Here was the point I was making and you tell me whether or not I am crazy, idealistic and wacko environmentalist.

The reason why Free Markets are great is because free markets are the best way to create the most efficient markets. Efficient markets benefit everyone involved in them.

When government messes with the markets it creates distortions and resources are not allocated well. For example, if the Government sets the price of Oranges at five dollars each, everyone will grow Oranges to make the five dollars and there will be way too many oranges. Many more oranges will be grown than are used, and then you end up throwing away mountains of oranges when those resources could have been used for something else.

Export subsidies cause the same problem. If it costs me ten dollars to make and export a product, but I can only sell it in China for nine dollars, I shouldn't do it. But if the government gives me a three dollar subsidy for every product I sell then I sell as many as I can. But the more I sell the more the American taxpayer gets screwed, and the guy in China that can make it for five dollars goes out of business, so the less efficent business survives.

In energy the government messes with the market to screw things up. Nuclear power is my favorite example. The Nuclear Power industry claims that nuclear power is a cheap way to make electricity. That is not true. The government distorts the market by providing insurance for Nuclear Power Plants. No private insurance companys will do it, so the government steps in and provides insurance at below cost thereby screwing the taxpayer. We pay the difference. So the price charged for the electricity that Nuclear Power plants produce does not reflect the true cost because of the insurance subsidy. IN addition, nuclear power plants produce waste, that at this point in time no one has figured out how to dispose of. If GE was stuck with disposing of the waste (in other words having to take in the cost of having to store the waste on their own property for an unlimnited period of time) they wouldn't build nuclear power plants because it would be cost prohibitive. However, for some unfathonable reason, our government takes responsiblity for the waste and it becomes the taxpayers problem. Nuclear power is not cost efficient, but market distortions by the government allow Nuclear power plants to compete in the market place.

The respresentative from PG & E at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, did not like it when I said that nuclear power plants only exist because our government does not understand that socialism does not work. Is this not corporate welfare? Shouldn't anyone that truly believes in free enterprize and free and efficient markets would want the government to stop subidizing nuclear power?

How is what the government does with Nuclear power any different from what it does with farm subsidies or steel quotas?

Most of our "environmental laws" would not be necessary if the government did not subsidies waste and pollution. You can't go out and throw trash out on your neighbors lawn, or on a public street. That is illegal, because you are responsible for your trash, not your neighbor or the government.

Yet this basic concept of private and public property is completely disregarded all the time in this country (and in the world). Industrial power plants dump stuff into public rivers all the time. Or they pump chemicals into the public air. Why are they allowed to do this? If they are allowed to do it they should at least be charged for it so the products they are producing reflect the real cost of the product. If they are not charged for it is not the government subsidizing them by allowing them to dump toxins in public areas? How is the different from me dumping my trash on a public street?

If markets are to work efficiently people and companies need to be responsible for material they dispose of. People say that zero emmission cars are not cost efficent. That is only because people that drive emission cars are not either forced to put a bag over their exhaust pipes to collect the exhaust and then store the bags on their property, or forced to pay a fee for dumping their crap in the public airways. If the true cost of running an internal combustion engine were worked into the cost of running it, people would be looking at alternatives.

All sorts of money in this country is wasted on Packaging. But that is because people can just throw stuff away. The governmet just takes care of the waste, subsidizing the people that are throwing away waste. If McDonalds had to figure out how to dispose of all the packaging (instead of being allowed to dump in the government's lap), either by buying the land where to store the stuff indefinitely, or figure out a way to get some one else to take the excess packaging of their hands, McDonads would come up with recycable material immediately for their packaging.

If companys and people were made resonsible for dealing with their waste the markets would become much more efficient and we wouldn't need to worry so much about environmental laws.

Is this totally crazy and insane? Some one tell me where my logic is screwed up?

http://www.sherrybarnettphotography....XIECHIX6Kw.jpg
http://www.pixposters.com/thumbs/ab1b2.jpg
http://untruenews.com/unimages/bill_maher_sm_bw.jpg
http://www.peterthottam.com/ptsuit7trans.gif
http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/ava...ine=1111011941

I don't understand how the President's authority as commander-in-chief can be said to authorize warrantless searches and seizures, given that the latter protection is in a constitutional amendment. (Last in time, etc.)

I thought you and I had a truce on calling each other racist?

The only instance I have heard is in late 2001 and early 2002 he ordered tapping of communications into and out of Afghanistan. If you recall, we were sort of in the dark about what was going to happen next. Our intelligence had clearly fallen behind with regard to Al queda and what cells might exist here.

I assume if there was reason to suspect an individual, NSA could have gotten a tap- (if not then I have zero problem with what they did- if we have so hamstrung our ability to fight that we can't even tap when there is cause, then law need to be broken).

If the taps included tapping people just because they communicated with Afghanistan I would be bothered, especially if it continues today- but if placed in context of those days it would certainly be understandable that there was a desire to capture anything we could from Afghanistan. Like I wouldn't be bothered if anyone who went to Afghanistan from what, 1995 until 2001 is looked at with extra scrutiny at an airport etc.

I know also that some of the taps continue, but have no idea of the circumstances- I would hope by now there are specific reasons for any taps-

What gets me is that very similar activities occured to break the Mafia. But I guess you were okay with that because they all had Italian names?

The Republicans have been arguing this case consistently for a hundred and forty years. See ex Parte Milligan. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...vol=71&invol=2

Generally, however, Democratic Presidents have had an easier time convincing the court that the "power to wage war is the power to wage war successfully", and should outweigh individual rights protected by the constitution, as in the Korematsu and McKinley cases. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...=323&invol=214 , and, especially, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bi...&invol=397#399 .

Indeed, but the complicating factor is that here we have a federal statute (F.I.S.A.) saying "Thou shalt not . . . " -- unless you have the approval of this Court, using the special expedited procedures provided. That destroys the application of the McKinley rationale, though not [eta: entirely] the Korematsu rationale.

The administration decided both that the FISA court procedures were not speedy enough, and that they would prefer not to have to demonstrate cause in each case.

They also decided to assume this authority rather than request it publicly (say, through the "Patriot" Act). Perhaps truly for reasons of national security (i.e. the terrorists would somehow not think that their communications would be monitored) -- though I suspect avoiding a p.r. firestorm was the true reason.

It is also not clear to me that any of the Dems in Congress were notified that this program was going on. (Limited leadership notification to the majority and Intel . committee chairs.)

Assuming the very best intentions in the world, and assuming that this government power is never, ever, misused, this still plays badly for the administration.

S_A_M

Silly man. Clear breaches of the law in the form of abuses of power by high ranking administration officials are the hallmark of excellence in a Republican administration. This revelation was just what was needed to assure W's place as the sixth head on Mt. Rushmore.

Remember: getting blow job and lying about it = impeachment, if only because the death penalty apparently can't be applied; incredible abuse of power and violation of laws which represent the core values of the American Republic = beatification.

Wiretap Dancing
 

That's why I use nothing but burner cells and always speak in code. Fringey is actually my wife, and Hank and I agree about absolutely everything.

See, Hank's regular speech appears to be gibberish because he speaks in code, too.

Indeed, my cites were only meant to show how one could defend the President, not to take sides. And to bring up McKinley, because it's mildly amusing.

The question of FISA is a different one. I believe the most common basis for the President to use in flouting Congress has been executive privilege, which I do not think of a particularly well-established legal precedent, and which tends to focus on actions only of the President relating to his office and perhaps to his highest level of advisors. It seems a stretch to authorize activities of some black cloaks in the NSA using executive privilege.

Is there a basis other than executive privilege for a President to use in ignoring Congress? If not, can anyone tell me how we get to executive privilege protected conduct in this case?

Historically, it has always been, and I believe still is, accepted that we need some top secret spies doing top secret things. However, Congress chose to limit those activities in specific ways - is there a way around that today?

It is not 100% clear that the program is illegal. That a law appears to expressly forbid it does pose a problem, however.

The White House has known of this story for more than a year. Given that, the inability of the administration to cite more than "Presidential prerogatives" thus far, and the level of discomfort associated with the discussion, show that they don't exactly have a long line of on-point precedents to cite and that they really don't want a detailed legal analysis/debate.
[Would it really help them politically to pull out Korematsu?]

As a matter of law, I have trouble seeing how the program can be challenged -- who has standing? The program and targets are secret, not revealed, and can't be prosecuted based on information gathered by these taps. So, how does such a case get to the courts?

S_A_M

It also has the word "unreasonable". TSA conducts searches all the time. But they're considered reasonable.

Not saying these are reasonable searches, but the argument could be made.

That's why Congress is calling for hearings.

But there might be some kind of taxpayer suit for acting in excess of authority by NSA. Is J. Edgar still alive and running that place?

Not a problem. An opportunity.

It's an opportunity to expound on how people who might be upset by this hate America. And probably harbor terrorists. And definitely kill puppies. After all, the only people who have something to worry about are people with something to hide.

Damn. You're taking all the good lines.

Are you sure you don't want to create a Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan sock so we can have lengthy conversations?

The problem you have here is the precedent set by the exclusionary rule. Instead of punishing the perpetrator you punish the victim. The cops violate the constitution all the time but the only result is the exclusion of the evidence. So in this case all the evidence aquired through the illegal wiretap will be destroyed and nothing will be done to the people who did the wiretaps.

You know I am not fond of the exclusionary rule, but in this case I believe that if the government found what it is looking for, the violators will not get off at all. They will be terminated.

The problem arises if the government finds less than it is looking for, and, as we know, this has already happened once with respect to Iraq.

Punishing the Guilty
 

I was kidding around, but in all seriousness there seems to be no precedent for punishing government officials who violate the search and seizure laws. If you don't punish an FBI agent (or his superiors for ordering an illegal wirtap) what precedent is there for punishing the Bush administration?

With Clinton there was the precedent of punishing perjurers but I don't see any precedent with wiretap violations.

In the United Kingdom they actually do punish officials who do illegal things and they do not have the exclusionary rule. I think their system is better.

Punishing the Guilty
 

All excellent points. I, for one, welcome our new Republican overlords!

Confidential to the wiretappers: Hi guys! Just kidding about all that stuff I wrote and said before!

Punishing the Guilty
 

I, because I lead such a boring life, have nothing to hide from an illegal wiretap. The FBI could tap me for a year and come up with nothing to prosecute me with. But because the exclusionary rule I have no remedy. If they found something incriminating, then I would have a remedy. But if they don't they just go on their merry way.

FWIW, this was quite good. The only thing that would make me laugh harder would've been a justification of domestic surveillance as a means of promoting Free Markets.

Punishing the Guilty
 

While I can appreciate that Republicans would rather debate the merits of the exclusionary rule (which I agree is something akin to using a hammer to drive a screw), let's stay on point: Administration. Horrifying abuse of power. Outrage (or lack thereof).

"Hey! Look over there!" is not a defense.

Punishing the Guilty
 

You have a law enacted in the late 70s as part of the "CIA is bad and we should be good" house cleaning. I believe there were several restrictions put in place by Carter. Times change and the months after 9/11 were not a time where people in charge were prone to ignoring identifying a terrorist threat. The thing that came out today is that there needed to be some tie to al Queda for the green light to be given to eavesdropping. Do you really think most people would be bothered that we eavesdropped on suspected al queda conversations?

The thing that I don't get is why getting a warrent would be time delaying. Is this special court not able to grant the warrents immediately?

Punishing the Guilty
 

I'm hardly up to date on FISA, but my understanding from press reports is that the Gov't could seek permission retroactively if they had to act quickly.

It's also occurred to me that when the Administration deems those troublesome laws to be getting in the way of our security and all, what we really need is an obscure, mid-level, telegenic government official around which to rally. What's Ollie North doing these days?

Punishing the Guilty
 

Kind of like saying, we shouldn't address the social security problem because the medicare problem is worse. I feel your pain.

When I agree with the administration, I will defend it to the death. But when I disagree with them I won't. I am not trying to defend the administration here. And I am not trying to distract people from this issue. Knowing how much people hate this administration I don't think there is any fear of people forgetting about the issue.

I don't really know much about the wiretapping. At this point everyone is still in the dark.

However, I was just trying to point out that if they really did some nasty things there is no precedent for punishment. Thanks to the precedent set by the exclusionary rule, they could have tapped every phone in the United States and nothing will happen to them.

Punishing the Guilty
 

Good point. And who cast Poindexter for this part? The guy just looked guilty. Bad casting job.

Spanky has argued that we should support particular policies because they are supported by Business. Spanky has also argued that we had to go to war in Iraq to prevent Saddam from becoming the next Hitler.

Hitler received strong support from Business. Eerily, Bush receives strong support from Business. Therefore, Bush must be stopped before he invades Poland and kills 6 million Jews.

Punishing the Guilty
 

The FISA court can move quickly, and _very_ rarely denies applications.

However, I think the theory was that this policy saves time by avoiding another layer of review AND avoiding any outside scrutiny of the justification for the warrant.

However, I understand that FISA has procedures for retroactive approval in exigent circumstances.

Therefore, this end run around FISA only makes sense to me if (a) the administration wanted to do a boatload of these wiretaps very, very quickly; and (b) did not necessarily have the sort of individualized evidence for each potential target which would have justified an application to the FISA court.

In my view, this is consistent with the idea of scrambling in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 -- and finding it a damn convenient procedure thereafter.

S_A_M

Punishing the Guilty
 

It's a very big delay when the G can't establish a lawful basis for getting the warrant. Hence the problem.

Punishing the Guilty
 

I don't recall.

S_A_M

Punishing the Guilty
 

Tex Colson, G. Gordon Liddy, and a few other boys from the Old Skool Daze might disagree with this.

Punishing the Guilty
 

You're familiar with Bivens, no?

Problem is a terrorist will have a hard time showing damage.

Punishing the Guilty
 

I read something that in a recent year there were around 1500 requests for a warrent, and no denials. Thus, at least as to when the admin seeks the warrent, it seems safe to say they do not over reach (or the Judicial review is a sham).

The court is 8 District judges selected by the Chief Justice- thus they probably are pretty law and order types. Given the 1500-0 I sort of doubt the reason to not seek a warrent has to do with lack of grounds.

It may well be stuff that is so sensitive it isn't worth risking the identity- and not to sound like Penske, but theAmerican people had a vote on who they wanted making this type decision.

The answer for the Herion use is not more Heroin.
 

Isn't the problem with Oil is that we are too dependent on it? Free markets generally produce the most efficient markets (except of course with natural monoplies and then government has to step in to make them efficient). However, efficient markets don't take into consideration strategic issues.

We buy oil from the Middle East because it is cheap. However, since the Middle East is an unstalbe region, and the cheap oil could get turned off, this use of Middle Eastern oil is making us vulnerable.

So the answer to the problem is not finding alternate sources of Oil but to turn to an energy source where we are not dependent on an unstable source. Finding alternate sources of oil for a while may reduce problems but does nothing to address the long term problem.

I agree with a lot of what George Will says in this piece, but I think he is missing the point that drilling the ANWAR is not going to help solve the strategic issue at hand. Eventually it will run out and then we will be back to depending on the places with all the reserves: The middle east and Hugo Chavez. So from my perspective whether or not we drill in ANWAR is not a big issue. The big issue is reducing our dependence on Oil (which is only necessary because the main source of Oil is from an unstable place).

George Will

Our Fake Drilling Debate: Collectively Hiding Behind ANWR

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | In 1986 Gale Norton was 32 and working for the secretary of the interior on matters pertaining to the proposal to open a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — area 1002 — to drilling for oil and natural gas, a proposal that then had already been a bone of contention for several years. Today Norton is the secretary of the interior and is working on opening ANWR.


But this interminable argument actually could end soon with Congress authorizing drilling. That would be good for energy policy and excellent for the nation's governance.


Area 1002 is 1.5 million of the refuge's 19 million acres. In 1980 a Democratically controlled Congress, at the behest of President Jimmy Carter, set area 1002 aside for possible energy exploration. Since then, although there are active oil and gas wells in at least 36 U.S. wildlife refuges, stopping drilling in ANWR has become sacramental for environmentalists who speak about it the way Wordsworth wrote about the Lake Country.


Few opponents of energy development in what they call "pristine" ANWR have visited it. Those who have and who think it is "pristine" must have visited during the 56 days a year when it is without sunlight. They missed the roads, stores, houses, military installations, airstrip and school. They did not miss seeing the trees in area 1002. There are no trees.


Opponents worry that the caribou will be disconsolate about, and their reproduction disrupted by, this intrusion by man. The same was said 30 years ago by opponents of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which brings heated oil south from Prudhoe Bay. Since the oil began flowing, the caribou have increased from 5,000 to 31,000. Perhaps the pipeline's heat makes them amorous.


Ice roads and helicopter pads, which will melt each spring, will minimize man's footprint, which will be on a 2,000-acre plot about one-fifth the size of Dulles Airport. Nevertheless, opponents say the environmental cost is too high for what the ineffable John Kerry calls "a few drops of oil." Some drops. The estimated 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil — such estimates frequently underestimate actual yields — could supply all the oil needs of Kerry's Massachusetts for 75 years.


Flowing at 1 million barrels a day — equal to 20 percent of today's domestic oil production — ANWR oil would almost equal America's daily imports from Saudi Arabia. And it would equal the supply loss that Hurricane Katrina temporarily caused, and that caused so much histrionic distress among consumers. Lee Raymond, chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil, says that if the major oil companies decided that 10 billion barrels were an amount too small to justify exploration and development projects, many current and future projects around the world would be abandoned.


But for many opponents of drilling in the refuge, the debate is only secondarily about energy and the environment. Rather, it is a disguised debate about elemental political matters.


For some people, environmentalism is collectivism in drag. Such people use environmental causes and rhetoric not to change the political climate for the purpose of environmental improvement. Rather, for them, changing the society's politics is the end, and environmental policies are mere means to that end.


The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society's balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivism — of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America — is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality.


People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources.


Therefore, one of the collectivists' tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern — the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use environmentalism to advance a collectivizing energy policy. Focusing on one energy source at a time, they stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting, manufacturing or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power.


A quarter of a century of this tactic applied to ANWR is about 24 years too many. If geologists were to decide that there were only three thimbles of oil beneath area 1002, there would still be something to be said for going down to get them, just to prove that this nation cannot be forever paralyzed by people wielding environmentalism as a cover for collectivism.

Punishing the Guilty
 

Where they prosecuted for installing illegal wire taps or violating peoples constitutional rights? I thought they were prosecuted for breaking and entering, assault etc. Anyone know the answer to this?

The answer for the Herion use is not more Heroin.
 

Couldn't it just do this by wiretapping?

Punishing the Guilty
 

If by "very rarely" you mean "never". My understanding of the history is that the FISA court has denied 3 applications. Ever. In 30 years. All three of those were reversed on appeal to the FISA court of appeals.

But, at least there is a process established whereby a judge actually looks at the basis for the wiretap. As distrustful as I am of ex parte, closed-door proceedings, at least this one has some level of safeguard.

C'mon baby tap my wire
 

Is now running through my head. To the obvious tune. That song is ripe for a parody. Alas, I suck at them.

Punishing the Guilty
 

Am i on ignore?

Punishing the Guilty
 

Depends. Are you between resignations ?