The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Blog

  • Real Leadership

    “Leadership” is a word tossed around a lot today, especially by those who evidence none of it. But today, in the United States Senate, Christopher Dodd (D-CT) stood up for the rule of law and demonstrated the sort of leadership that once made this nation great. Faced with Harry Reid’s inexplicable kowtowing to the forces of secrecy and intimidation, Dodd first placed a hold on the awful Senate Intelligence Committee bill to “fix” FISA (by, for example, exempting telecom companies from liability). When Reid ignored that (despite centuries of tradition), Dodd fought an underhanded rule change and then signaled his intent to filibuster the bad bill with all his strength.

    How strongly did he feel? He abandoned the Iowa campaign route not three weeks before the caucuses. Let’s repeat that: He gave up his campaign, temporarily, so that he could return to Washington and do his job securing the rights and liberties of American citizens. There are three other Democratic Senators running for office; none of them did the same. I’m looking at you, Clinton, Obama, Biden. People will remember who acted and who only talked about acting.

    I’m not in Dodd’s camp, but I just went online to make a contribution to his campaign. Let’s keep him in the race — let’s help him keep the others honest.

  • What better summary of the past seven years…

    … than the following quote?

    If at the top, the message that’s sent is, “We’re going to bend the rules to our advantage,” the message is clearly understood and creates a culture of attempting to avoid the rules.
    — Steven L. Schooner, a procurement law expert at George Washington University Law School

    Mr. Schooner (quoted in this New York Times article) was speaking with regard to the suicide of Chuck Riechers, the Air Force’s top procurement officer after becoming embroiled in a scandal. In this case, the rules-bending involved having a private contractor pay Mr. Riecher’s salary while he awaited formal confirmation for his new job.

    But really, doesn’t it just capture the spirit of this benighted administration in toto?

  • Health of the Republic: Down 3% to 12%

    Calling Orwell…. Calling George Orwell… Or maybe Kafka is a better target. US military prosecutors have asked for — and now have been granted — a blanket order preventing the defense counsel of a Gitmo detainee from discussing the identity of any prosecution witness with anyone, the defendant included. The defense argues (correctly!) that this contrary to typical process in American courts, not to mention an affront to the values embodied in the Constitution. The prosecution argues that there is absolutely no attempt to hide the operation of the trial from public scrutiny.

    This would be more convincing if the prosecution hadn’t made that argument via a series of emails explicitly meant, themselves, to be secret.

    Secret trials. Secret witnesses. Collusion between judge and prosecutor to achieve a result result politically useful for the present party. Prisoners whisked off to a legal limbo far removed from the usual apparatus of justice. I would have sworn that the Unites States had beaten the USSR in the Cold War. Now it turns out we just stole their methods. Yay, democracy!

  • Proud of My Congressman

    How often do you get to write a headline like that these days? I happen to be served by Rush Holt (Democrat and former nuclear physicist), and Congressman Holt has been — unlike almost all of his peers — quite active in protecting the rights and the security of all Americans. To be colloquial, Rush really has his head screwed on right. The national party would do well to listen more to him and people like him — people who recognize that caving into Republican demagoguery is about the only thing that can guarantee defeat. It’s bad for the party and it’s bad for the nation.

    As an example, I offer this piece written by Holt to refute pernicious “mistakes” proffered by Joe Klein and his ilk, about the RESTORE Act that seeks to redress the current imbalance of power wielded by shadowy and unaccountable officers. I’d suggest checking it out.

  • Worthy of note

    Just another “me-too” blog post 🙁 but I saw this at Talking Points Memo and thought it worthy of being flagged. My God, has there ever been a worse administration? What we know makes them as the worst ever, and now we see, there’s a whole lot they’re trying to make sure we never know…

  • Review: Marc Cohn at the Highline Ballroom

    As is my wont whenever Marc Cohn wanders into the New York-Philadelphia corridor, I went to see him perform — this time, at the Highline Ballroom in lower Manhattan. True to form, it was a fantastic show with Marc the consummate showman. The opening act was Amy Correia and this time, Marc played with a full band.

    More below the fold.

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  • “Miles Away” — Marc Cohn

    I know there’s always something

    We have to go through

    That has some deeper meaning

    Right now I just can’t say

    I know there’s a lesson in here somewhere

    I’m gonna think a lot about it later

    Right now I’m miles away

    (more…)

  • Dishonest or just dumb?

    An article in today’s NY Times caught my eye: “FCC Planning Rules to Open Cable Market” says that the FCC has laid the legal groundwork to re-regulate the cable industry. It struck me because this is quite atypical for the FCC and for the Bush administration in general. Apparently, in the Cable Communications Act of 1984, Congress empowered the FCC to act once the cable industry matured to a certain size: “at such time as cable systems with 36 or more activated channels are available to 70 percent of households within the United States and are subscribed to by 70 percent of the households to which such systems are available, the Commission may promulgate any additional rules necessary to provide diversity of information sources.” (http://www.publicaccess.org/cableact.html)

    Predictably, now that that point has been reached and surpassed, the cable industry is whining about the burdens the FCC may impose. But to do it, they apparently need to distort not just policy but basic math as well.

    More below the fold.
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  • Recycled: What’s So Wrong About Military Tribunals, Anyway?

    Another piece written some time ago (circa 2002 January) that reads chillingly a propos today. This was written before the series of judicial rebukes to the President’s overreaching constitutional “doctrine” of unlimited executive power. Sadly, those rebukes have not rendered the points raised moot.

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  • Waterboarding

    I don’t like me-too blogs but every once in awhile, someone writes on a topic in a way that exactly captures my own feeling, a way that I could never match, much less trump. This piece by Joe Galloway is one such.

    My God, how did we come to a point when Senators and Representatives of the United States Congress cannot seem to comprehend what “torture” is? Seven years ago, I would never have believe we could fall so far so quickly — and I fancied myself a student of history and a cynical observer of human nature.

    I weep for my Republic. I truly do.