Enemy Combatant
Monday, December 29, 2003
OK, I just read a very informative article this morning (not available online yet, I don't think) that said the following (I'm summarizing):
California's Vehicle License Fee (VLF) was set up something like a non-self-executing REVERSE "cost-of-living-adjustment" tax, to go down when times are good and up when the economy sours . . .
" . . . During the boom years of the late 1990s, the VLF had been chopped to one-third of its full amount, and the state had 'backfilled' the dollars lost to local governments, replacing them with money from the general fund.
"Before voters recalled him, Gov. Gray Davis raised the VLF to its full level to help cover the state's huge budget deficit, estimated at around $40 billion.
"However, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office, he fulfilled a campaign pledge to once again lower the fee to its one-third level. Essentially, he did it by declaring there was no fiscal crisis in California and using his power as governor to unilaterally reduce the VLF. The reduction in the fee created an additional funding shortfall of $4 billion.
"[When local governments howled, and threatened to sue the state,] Schwarzenegger responded by unilaterally diverting $2.6 billion to counties and cities to cover the money they'd lost when he reduced the VLF. He did it under an obscure state budget law, called Section 27, that was designed to allow the governor to cover some unexpected budget shortfalls in times of crisis. In other words, he did it by declaring that California was in a fiscal state of emergency and by claiming for himself the power to unilaterally appropriate money."
So, Gray Davis got recalled because he RESTORED a car tax to its previous level. Arnold then: (a) repealed the car tax because there was no crisis warranting the raise; then turned around and (b) grabbed money out of the general fund while the legislature was not in session, on the grounds that there was a new fiscal emergency (entirely of his own making, of course).
Can you IMAGINE any Democrat getting away with this kind of headspinning, schizoid, Donovan-like behavior? ("First, there is a crisis/Then there is no crisis/Then there is")
Sunday, December 21, 2003
I watched this my own damn self, and saw and heard Clark say it, with my own eyes and ears.
"No shit," as it were:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.hts/nation/2312399
Dec. 21, 2003, 1:25AM
Better not mess with Clark
Associated Press
DERRY, N.H. -- Moments after praising his opponents in the Democratic presidential race as worthy running mates, Wesley Clark said, in no uncertain terms, how he would respond if they or anyone else criticized his patriotism or military record.
"I'll beat the s--- out of them," Clark told a questioner as he walked through the crowd after a town hall meeting Saturday. "I hope that's not on television," he added.
It was, live, on C-SPAN.
'Thing is, he didn't euphemistically say he'd "beat the s--- out of them" -- in a one-on-one conversation with a supporter, about what he would do if Bush tried the same chickenshit disinformation campaign that he spread about John McCain in South Carolina -- Clark said that he'd "beat the SHIT out of them" -- right there on public access, gu'mint TV.
HA! I loved it . . .
Keep talking blunt like that, General, you're gonna find yourself drawing bigger crowds . . .
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Two BIG, BIG decisions out of two different federal courts of appeal today, each delivering a roundhouse punch to Generalissimo Culo de Pita, erstwhile Maximum Ruler of Gitmo.
First, from Best of the Blogs, the good news for Jose Padilla:
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Justice Served
Jose Padilla has won a big victory for all Americans over our imperial president and his administration's outrageous, illegal and immoral efforts to concentrate all power in the Executive branch. A federal appeals court just ruled that the president does not have the power to detain an American citizen seized on U.S. soil as an enemy combatant. Little by little, the courts are rolling back the excesses. I don't think even the Supremes are going to go along with Junior on this one.
posted by Jerry Bowles 4:21 pm
Next, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held, essentially, that ALL Gitmo detainees were being held illegally:
"Even in times of national emergency . . . it is the obligation of the judicial branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the executive branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike," said the ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
It added it could not accept the position that anyone under the jurisdiction and control of the US could be held without "recourse of any kind to any judicial forum, or even access to counsel, regardless of the length or manner of their confinement".
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Excellent article on how our Squanderer-in-Chief, the Job Houdini, is increasingly being perceived out in the Red States:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0349/perlstein.php
{snip}
. . . Intriguing cracks are opening in the Republican firmament. Take the factory owners I meet in the Rock River Valley's population center, the city of Rockford, who are ready to burn George Bush in effigy.
"I'm very conservative," Eric Anderberg of Dial Machine says, in the boardroom of the machine-parts factory his family built in 1966. "Always voted Republican. But I'm extremely concerned with what I hear from this current administration." Eric is 32, fiercely political, and articulate. He's called over two of his older industrial-park neighbors, Don Metz of Metz Tool and Judy Pike of Acme Grinding. Family manufacturers like these were the foundation of the modern conservative movement, reacting against the moderate Republicanism of Dwight Eisenhower in the '50s. Now they are a wedge in the Republican coalition. I ask if they could imagine supporting, for president, a Democrat. Don Metz, who in his golf shirt looks like he just came back from a midday round, doesn't hesitate: "No problem. Somebody steps forward and says we're going to make manufacturing a priority in this country." They would even donate the legal maximum of $2,000.
The reason is economic near-devastation. Unemployment around here has increased by half in the last three years. . . .
{snip}
I think those inside the rightwing echo-chamber that now calls itself the American news media are completely unprepared for the political tsunami that's coming next November . . .
