Odhavblog is moving!

The new site is called Freedom Syndicate. All new posts will be there.
The new blog will be a little more formal than OdhavBlog has been, and I might actually try to get some links from other blogs and more traffic... wish me luck, and tell everyone about it!

And of course... bookmark it!

After promising conservatives a Supreme Court appointment "in the mold of Thomas and Scalia," and after foundering with the nomination of the laughable and Supremely unqualified Harriet Miers, Bush has gone the safe route this time, nominating a man nicknamed "Scalito" for his similarity to judge Scalia. Judge Samuel Alito Jr., an appeals judge in the 3rd circuit, is well-qualified and conservative beyond question, however his nomination should not be as contentious as would have been the nomination of either Luttig or Owen.

Admittedly, I am yet to dig up any dirt on Alito, which there is sure to be at least a little -- I will report back later with his shortcomings and any developing difficulties. Right now, however, it seems that Bush will probably win a confirmation as Democrats begrudgingly consent. Republicans should also be largely satisfied with his conservative credentials, which should placate the parts of his Republican base who had (rightly) criticized him of late regarding the Miers nomination.

One interesting speculation I've been thinking about is that prior to the Miers nomination, there would have been a much more vehement rejection of another white male nominee. By nomination Miers, Bush achieved (consciously or not) a lowering of standards in that regard, and will now draw little criticism for not coming up with a female nominee. With the bad taste of the Miers nomination still in the back of everyone's mind, people will be relieved that he didn't nominate Barney or Miss Beazley. (No really, click that last link. It is the most hilarious thing ever. It even has a delightful cameo by Harriet Miers.)

Your moment of Zen:
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings: "Don't look at me Barney, I'm trying to leave no child behind."

RFID Chips in Passports

Big Brother never stops finding new ways to keep an eye on us. The State Department just came out with an announcement that beginning in early 2006, all passports will contain a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip, which will hold personal information about the passport holder (link here). These RFID chips can be scanned remotely and will include information such as the name, nationality, gender, place and date of birth, and a digital photo of the holder. The new passports are said by the State Department to increase security.

Just like the de facto national ID card just introduced, not only will this new intrusion into privacy do little or nothing to stop illicit production of fake ID's, it will also bring new dangers with it. RFID chips are cheap and getting cheaper, and are easy to program -- there is nothing to say that ID fakers will not be capable of easily duplicating the RFID chips in their fake passports. Just like the national ID card, which in reality is no harder to duplicate than most state ID's, these new passports will do little to increase security.

At the same time, these cards will allow anyone with an RFID scanner to remotely access personal information about the cardholder, and could be used to track people's movements. Terrorists and kidnappers will be able to easily identify Americans abroad using scanners, and anyone with a scanner will be able to instantly learn sensitive personal information.

The most striking danger, though, is the potential for government abuse of these passports. The RFID cards could be used to track political opponents, dissidents, and anyone else who is deemed a threat by a government official, so long as a person has their passport in their possession. In the coming years, the government could install scanners throughout busy cities such as New York for minimal cost, and learn who is going where, and when. Also look for RFID chips to be put into driver's licenses eventually. The federal government has already claimed the right to include RFID chips in national ID's, and people are required to carry these ID's with them at least whenever they drive, usually all the time.

The State Department claims a number of security precautions intended to keep the information on the RFID cards secure, however resourceful hackers will doubtless find ways around these protections. Also, knowing the intricacies of the RFID cards' protections, the government could easily develop ways to quietly circumvent these "protections" without raising suspicions, if they deem that doing so is in their interests.

The State Department, after the proposal of RFID use in February, received 2,335 comments, 98% of which were negative. Of course, the State Department proceeded with the program despite the overwhelming opposition to the idea. Democracy in action...

I was just reading more about about the economics behind minimum wage laws, and came across something interesting about their theoretical effects vs. their empirical effects. As a logical necessity, raising the minimum wage will result in unemployment. This is one of the most basic and self-evident of economic truths -- when the price of a good or service increases, fewer people will purchase that good or service, since people have limited funds and are more likely to purchase cheaper goods. In this sense, labor is theoretically exactly the same as any other good or service (labor is merely providing a service for an employer). Obviously if candy bars were suddenly $5 each by law, fewer people would buy candy bars. If they were $1 by law, more people would buy them than if they were $5, but still fewer than if they cost their natural price. So it is also with minimum wages.

The odd thing is that there is a good deal of reasonable debate about whether or not the empirical findings actually match this obvious theoretical truth. There have been studies that showed increases in unemployment with minimum wage laws, and there are studies that show decreases or no change at all. It is possible that increases in unemployment happen over long time periods, and are therefore harder to study. It is also possible that the natural complexity of the market makes changes hard to detect. It is also possible that there is some unidentified factor which counters the theoretical effects of such laws.

The one thing that should be disturbing to everyone, however, is that most voters and lawmakers do not consider the economic effects of these laws -- they think of it as an obvious solution to poverty with no unintended consequences. The reasoning is that the problem is lack of money, so if the government makes employers give more money to workers, everything will operate smoothly and people will be better off. Like so many government policies, the analysis does not seem to go past the "common sense" answers which are often flat-out wrong. An example of this is the millions of dollars of aid sent by our government to poor African nations. It seems obvious that people are poor, so send them food and money. The problem is that the influx of free food from America and other nations undercuts the market for local farmers, who cannot compete to stay in business. This prevents any kind of economic development that could help Africans permanently better their situation, and makes them permanently dependent on constant aid just to maintain their terrible living conditions. This unintended consequence is well documented and accords perfectly with economic principles, but for some reason virtually no one I've ever talked to had heard of anything like it. Frustratingly, it seems like politicians will continue to do what makes them look good, not what is actually good for people.

Here are some links about minimum wage laws and the African situation:
"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!", with James Shikwati
Outlawing Jobs, the Minimum Wage, by Murray Rothbard
The Impact of the Minimum Wage, by Jared Bernstein and John Schmitt
The Minimum Wage, at The Filter (the parts from Marginal Revolution about women and minimum wage laws are somewhat questionable, but everything else is pretty good)

Last night I was discussing politics again with a friend and some other people, and he was claiming that people who sign contracts, like when you get a bank account, are somehow forced into those agreements since you "have to" have a bank account. Because of this, he claims, people should not be bound by those agreements. Also, he said that the banks are somehow "stealing" from people because of the "unfair" conditions of the contract (he never addressed how free accounts are "stealing" from anyone since you don't give them any money at all). He said that since the contracts were so long and legalistic, no one really reads them before signing them and therefore there was no real obligation to meet the terms of the contract.

Now, not to be hard on my friend (many people agree with him on this subject) this struck me as somewhat childish -- if someone is too lazy or careless to fully read an agreement before signing it, I don't think they have any right to complain if the terms of the agreement are later found to be unfavorable to them. This, however, was more of a peripheral issue, with the central issue being that Joe thought that social and economic forces forced people into these agreements against their will. If we are to accept this view, then no one can really be held responsible for anything, since entering into a non-mandatory contract is about as voluntary an action as there could be.

Once we accept the idea that people can be abstractly coerced by economic forces, and that this coercion absolves them of responsibility, where do we draw the line between what is voluntary and what is coerced? Behind every decision and action taken by a person, there is surely some influencing factor that could be called "coercive" under this definition. (Like that people "have to" take crappy jobs because they would otherwise starve.) It seems to me that if someone is not directly coerced with physical force or threat of physical force, then they should be held responsible for their actions and bound by agreements into which they enter. To define things otherwise is to treat everyone as a child or victim. Also, society as a whole could not operate if people did not enter into agreements that they believed were voluntary and would be honored -- all of economics is based on this principle. If I could at any time abrogate on an agreement, claiming that some abstract force had coerced me into the agreement, there would be no way to establish even the most basic economic exchanges that provide people with basic necessities.

I think that the only reasonable way to look at economic agreements (such as employment, banking agreements, purchasing goods, etc) is that no one has a "right" to banking, employment, etc. because without bankers and employers having established their businesses, there would be no way to be employed. The employer does the employee "a favor" by hiring him, and the worker helps the employee by helping him to utilize his capital for profit. Even if this situation is seen as less than ideal, the employer had no obligation to hire the worker, and both parties accepted the terms of the agreement (good and bad) because they perceived a net gain.

To claim that voluntary employment is coercive or exploitative ignores the fact that 1) the agreement would not have been reached had both parties not perceived gain in it, and 2) the employee is privileged by the chance to work for money, just as we are privileged to have the wealth that we do. We owe this privilege to the work and vision of entrepreneurs who initiate these mutually beneficial situations.

I am yet to hear a coherent, reasonable alternative to this view which justifies the view that labor is exploitative or that employment is coercive. Since this view is the basis of all government social aid and socialist/leftist thought, it is of course critical to understanding whether or not leftism is a reasonable system.

Anyone who would be willing to present even a brief outline of the argument for these views, please email me or comment. I find it hard to believe that there does not exist a logical explanation behind these beliefs, however the arguments that I have heard were illogical and demonstrably based on false impressions and misunderstandings of economic principles.

The more I read about the entire "Plamegate" debacle, the more I am struck with an obvious fact -- one that has only been pointed out by far-left elements in their hopeful (and often unrealistic) projections. This obvious fact is that in the White House, like in any other company or institution, decisions are made at the top levels and are then delegated to lower officials. By this, I mean that it is highly unlikely that some mid- or low-level official decided to begin the smear campaign against Wilson that resulted in this whole mess. That type of decision would usually only come from Bush, Cheney, Rove, or one of the very highest officials on par with them.

This is not just hoping that high-level officials will be indicted, since it is probable that higher level officials delegated any illegal actions to lower officials -- that is to say it is highly unlikely Bush, Rove or Cheney actually did any of the dirty work that could get them indicted. But there is no way to claim that this was the result of any "rogue elements" within the administration, or that Libby et al. were acting of their own volition. That isn't how the White House works... there would have to be higher involvement and direction.

Even though it is improbable that Bush or Cheney actually did anything illegal (Rove, on the other hand, is still well within Fitzgerald's crosshairs), the investigation itself is likely to end with Bush or Cheney as the original organizers of the smear attempt. This is why the entire investigation has the potential to cripple Bush's administration, other than the normal leaching of legitimacy from his presidency that comes with any large investigation. People are very excited now about the indictment(s) that have come out and will soon be unleashed, however the most interesting parts of this case may end up having little or nothing to do with any indictable offense.

This is a rare chance for us to look deep inside the administration and their workings in justifying the war in Iraq. Don't make the mistake of tuning out as soon as the indictments are given -- there should be much more to come.

This flash movie about New Labour, Tony Blair, and the destruction of Britain is equal parts hilarious and disturbing. You have to love British humour.

Good to know there are people who hate Blair as much as I do.

Apparently Steven Clemens' "uber-insider source" from the other day who claimed that Fitzgerald would come out with indictments on Wednesday was an uber-homeless dude on the bus. To his credit, the entire pathetic MSM was all over the story too, claiming with their normal authority that Fitzy would grace us with up to 5 indictments on the 26th. Well, it turns out it will probably be more like 4, 2 of which won't even be given to administration officials, and we don't get them until Friday. At least we know for sure that Fitzgerald's grand jury expires on Friday. So unless Fitzgerald completely drops the ball and just forgets to issue indictments, tomorrow is the day.

I guess it would have been entirely too joyful to have Harrietard's withdrawl and Rove's crucifixion on the same day. I guess if our biggest problem is which day Bush will be humiliated on, we really don't have much to complain about.

Pop the champagne! Earlier today, Bush accepted the withdrawl of Judgetard Harriet Miers!

Today, let us celebrate that we the people are at least capable of holding the President to very very low standards of competency from his appointees, even if we do not yet expect this level of competence from Bush himself. I was getting ready to post a little on how Harriet Miers writes like a high school student with a C average, but that now being unnecessary, I present you with... this.



A llama? A lost evolutionary stepping stone? Bush's next Supreme Court pick? You just wait and see.

P.S. I just realized that since Harriet Miers is gone, I guess that means most Republicans will go back to being mindless irrational partisan sycophants, and all criticism of Bush will cease as they get behind him in the coming indictments. Of course there are exceptions to this (some conservatives will realize that Bush is still a moron), but it is still unfortunate. I was starting to enjoy reading conservative blogs and websites where self-declared Republicans weren't deathly afraid of taking Bush off his pedestal and pointing out that he isn't a conservative at all. I guess it was too good to last.

Here's a very interesting, and somewhat counter-intuitive take on African aid and the problem of poverty. In it, an African economist describes how the money pouring into African countries often does more to hurt the people in the nation than it does to help them.

File under counter-intuitive economic consequences that few understand and politicians scorn, next to minimum wage laws, welfare, and virtually every other form of government economic intervention.

Those of you who still for some odd reason do not hate police and are not convinced that our entire criminal justice system is absurd and harmful and evil, I suggest you stop by Radley Balko's weblog, TheAgitator.com

Here are some nice samples of the stuff you'll probably never hear about unless you read Radley's blog:

46-year old parapalegic father imprisoned for 25 years over pain medication
Police solicit prostitutes, take part in sexual acts, and then arrest the prostitutes
Small towns unnecessarily get SWAT teams, hell breaks loose
Crooked cops let off former police chief after drunkenly causing accident

And it goes on and on and on, for those who care to open their eyes to the crooked, evil things our government does every day. Oh, and he has a lot of funny stuff about insane European laws that, for example, give $600 fines to people who don't walk their dogs 3 times a day, and make fishbowls illegal because they're "cruel".

If this crap keeps up (which it will), I might have to throw in with Robertson, Falwell, and the rest of those loonies and agree the end of the world has to be coming.

The buzz around D.C. is that tomorrow, October 26th, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will come out with indictments against numerous White House officials. Steven Clemens over at Washington Note claims that he was told by an "uber-insider source" that 1-5 officials will be indicted, probably on the higher end of that range, and that those to be indicted received letters today informing them of their indictment. Clemens also claims to have confirmed this with another source, so it is looking pretty likely that tomorrow will be the day (especially since Fitzgerald only has until the 28th before the grand jury expires). No further word on who will be indicted, however it is very likely that among those charged will be Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. If there are more indictments, as in 4 or 5, things could get very messy depending on who the other 2 or 3 happen to be. I guess that makes today "Fitzmas Eve"... Everyone have some egg nogg and get ready for what could be the biggest political bloodbath since Watergate. Keep in mind I said could be. Sorry folks, no guarantees.

Quick Republican Scandal Guide

News has just come out that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, one of the most probable candidates for indictment in the ongoing "Plamegate" probe by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, learned the identity of Valerie Plame and her status as a covert CIA operative from none other than his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney.

Although it remains highly unlikely that the VP himself will be indicted, that is a possibility if he lied under oath at any point regarding his involvement in the scandal. Also, if Cheney encouraged Libby to lie about his involvement, he could face indictment for obstruction of justice. Once again, neither of these outcomes are very probable, however with only three days remaining until Fitzgerald's grand jury expires (on the 28th), these new revelations regarding Cheney's close involvement with the scandal are very interesting.

It is hard to imagine how President Bush would fare if he were to lose both his "brain," Karl Rove, and his Vice President to indictments. With his approval ratings floating in the low 30's, a developing scandal like this, which would be "bigger than Watergate" if it directly involved Cheney, would be sure to further depress his ratings.

Democrats and various other Bush opponents are hoping for the worst-case scenario (or the best for them), which would involve the indictment of Rove, Libby, Cheney, and possibly even Bush himself (which is very doubtful). A scandal of sufficient magnitude could pave the way for Democrats to make great gains in the '06 elections, gaining enough of a majority to even make possible the option of impeachment proceedings.

At the same time, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been arrested and is standing trial on charges of criminal conspiracy and money laundering. Although the prosecutor in the case, Ronnie Earle, has failed to make a very solid argument against DeLay, the stigma of indictment has already significantly harmed DeLay's career. Also in the past few days it has come out that leading Senate Republican Bill Frist, who is being investigated for insider trading, was in fact aware of his holdings of HCA Inc. stocks which he had claimed were in "blind" trusts. One of Frist's main defenses against the insider trading charges has been that he was unaware how much of any given stock he had, so it would have been very difficult to act on insider information to save money without knowledge of his specific stock holdings. These new details, however, show that Senator Frist was not entirely forthcoming, and make it more likely that he might be charged with wrongdoing.

Although indictments of such high-level officials as the Vice President and President are very unlikely, the combined political fallout of a Rove/Libby indictment, the ongoing Tom DeLay scandal, and the insider trading investigation of Bill Frist may combine to turn Congress against Republicans in '06 unless they find a way to turn things around.

A good first step towards regaining support might be to withdraw Harriet Miers as Bush's Supreme Court nominee and nominate a solid conservative that would energize the Republican base. The President has seemed so out of touch with Republicans lately, though, that no one can be sure exactly what he will do next.

If I hear one more moron talking head talk about "criminalization of politics" I am going to lose it. If one of us poor plebians goes against a mandate of the state, we are criminals. If a politician shows himself or herself to be completely crooked and corrupt and criminal, well then someone must be "criminalizing politics."

Guess what? All politicians are criminals. All politics is criminal. What else should we call it when these people steal huge amounts of money from people, coerce them, invade countries, kill tens of thousands of innocent people, and every other sort of evil that is the business of politicians? We should push for real criminalization of politics, as in actually holding politicians to the same moral standards of everyone else. As in not pretending like theft is not theft if some big guy we call government does it.

(Hat-tip to Crooks and Liars)

The New York Times, in the great tradition of such mindless opinion writers as Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and Paul Krugman (I do give them props for hating Bush, but that's about it) has once again done the unspeakable. They have killed Rosa Parks. Earlier this year, a series of ridiculous editorials appeared in the Times comparing Judith Miller to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. for her "defense" of "free speech" which really had more to do with protecting the Bush administration from political backlash and making herself famous. I know that if someone compared me to Judith Miller, I couldn't be blamed for dying. And that is exactly what the honorable Mrs. Parks has done.

Miller had actually received clearance from her source, "Scooter" Libby, before going to jail, but decided to stay in jail. She claimed this was because she thought the clearance she received from Libby was "coerced". I think she was distracted by the sound of cash registers chinging in her mind with every second she sat in a cell. It was nothing but a cheap attempt to whore herself out for publicity, and it failed miserably. Hopefully the Times will give her the hatchet, and she can learn a valuable lesson about 1) being a mouthpiece for Bush's Iraq lies, and then 2) her own pathetic attempts to be some sort of martyr.

Mrs. Parks, a great American hero, was one of few recipents of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was the highest civilian symbol of recognition in the country until George W. gave George "Slam Dunk" Tenet (an utterly worthless human being if one ever existed) one a couple years ago. Now that I think about it, that also probably had something to do with the death of Mrs. Parks.

How about we have some indictments for the murder an old woman who was 10 times the person Bush ever will be? I know its absurd and baseless and stupid to blame Miller, the Times, Bush, or Tenet for Mrs. Parks' death, but if I can't blame Bush for absolutely everything now, what good are insanely low approval ratings? Just roll with it.

For some time, high-level military and government officials have been fighting against the release of the remaining Abu Ghraib photos and videos. A judge ruled late last month that the government must release the remaining pictures after the ACLU sought release of the pictures through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, after viewing a number of these pictures screened for Congress, described the pictures:

The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience... We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.

When U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ruled in favor of the ACLU last month, he gave the government a deadline for release of one month, however ongoing appeals by the government are expected to further delay the release of the photos. Many supporters of the Bush administration and war in Iraq have claimed that releasing these pictures would inflame terrorists, causing more American casualties. Judge Hellerstein rejected this argument, saying that it amounted to blackmail and that the terrorists "do not need pretexts for their barbarism." He continued:

Our nation does not surrender to blackmail, and fear of blackmail is not a legally sufficient argument to prevent us from performing a statutory command. Indeed, the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed.

It seems we finally have found at least one judge who values openness in government and respects the people's right to know what is being done in their names with their tax dollars. Those who claim that releasing the pictures would cause harm to Americans fail to realize that those who "rape and murder" in our name have already harmed us more than any story. Suppressing the evil acts of our military does not serve democracy or freedom, and only ensures that future abuses will occur.

Jon Stewart. Excellent.

Quotes from the Interview:
Bill O'Reilly: There's a lot of wrongs we have to right in this world. We have to take down a lot of bad people...
Jon Stewart: And when are you going to start doing that?

Jon Stewart: I will say this. We do add insult to injury. But -- you add the injury.

Jon Stewart: If this were the peanuts series, France is Marcy. Every now and again she shows up, she's standing next to peppermint Patty, but nothing's happening with France.

Later on... O'Reilly keeps saying "What's the matter with you?" and making fun of France. Everyone boos O'Reilly loudly, and he gesticulates wildly while ranting about "left-wing lies."

Earlier today, a Texas judge issued an arrest warrant for Republican Congressman Tom DeLay, setting his bail at $10,000. DeLay is expected to surrender to authorities soon, however his lawyers would not comment on when or where he would be taken into police custody. DeLay and his lawyers had hoped to avoid being handcuffed, fingerprinted, and having a mugshot taken. DeLay's lawyers were unable to avoid these normal arrest procedures as they had wished, for the sake of avoiding embarrassment.

I'm unaware what makes Mr. DeLay so special that his pride should exempt him from normal arrest procedures, but I'm glad that he has been taken off his high-horse and not treated like the autocratic ruler he thinks he is. Some partisan Republicans are claiming that the prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, sought to have DeLay arrested in such a manner just to embarass him, although they overlook the fact that these indignities are what everyone has to go through when charged with a crime.

If DeLay was granted special treatment, people might realize that this really is a country split between the rulers and the ruled. Hopefully DeLay will end up in an orange jumpsuit when this is all over with. If he ends up in jail, stripped of his expensive suits and veneer of legitimacy, he will no doubt fit right in among all the other thugs and crooks.

Over the weekend, planned protests by neo-Nazi groups in Toledo, Ohio were met with pre-emptive rioting by the mostly black community. As police assembled before the group of 14-24 white supremacist demonstrators could begin, members of the community began throwing rocks at the police, and then proceeded to loot stores and set buildings ablaze in the neighborhood.

Let me first say that I think the local residents were completely justified in disturbing the protest -- if such a group of bigots descended on my neighborhood with the blessing and protection of the government, I would make it as expensive as possible for the government to aid these bigots in insulting me and my community. The taboo in America on using any form of violence ever is absolutely ridiculous, granted that the police protecting these racists would not have hesitated at all to crack skulls if anyone raised their voice or got too close. Of course I think the state should grant the KKK and neo-Nazi groups the same first amendment rights as everyone else -- meaning the police shouldn't obstruct the racist demonstrators -- but if the racists intend to peddle hate and ignorance and bigotry, people have no obligation to allow them to spread that filth in their neighborhoods. There is a big difference between hateful, ignorant, racist speech that at very least implicitly advocates violence against minorities on the one hand, and opposition or support of a war, policy issues, or other common causes of protests on the other hand. People can pretend that all speech is equal, but words do have meaning, and blind, ignorant hatred deserves to be rebutted (by people acting freely, not by police), forcefully if necessary.

What the situation degenerated into, though, was just another example of just anger becoming wanton violence and rioting. Of course I don't defend the looting and arson that took place, especially because the looters targeted local businesses who were in no way associated with the neo-Nazi demonstrators. However, the issue is not as simple as "all good" or "all bad". Part of the violence that occurred was, in my opinion, just and necessary to show the hateful bigots that they were not welcome. Insisting that we respect hateful, violent groups like neo-Nazis is foolish and nothing more than an absurd extension of the politically correct idea that everyone deserves the right to express their hateful, violent ideas. If someone marches through a neighborhood of African Americans, preaching hatred against minorities, they should have the snot kicked out of them. The remaining (and majority of) violence that occurred, on the other hand, was criminal, unnecessary and unjustifiable.

As many people have pointed out, it probably did more to help the neo-Nazi cause than the demonstration ever would have, since it portrayed blacks as violent, antisocial criminals. This is unfortunate, and in retrospect things would have been better if violence was avoided completely, since the people of Toledo showed themselves incapable of limiting their use of force to the obstruction of hatred and racism.

I guess it makes me a "radical" that I think people have the right to oppose evil in their neighborhoods with force, but if you set aside pie-in-the-sky ideals of nonviolence, the reality is that anyone preaching blind hatred on the sidewalks of innocent, good people in an attempt to intimidate them deserves a knee to the face. People have the right to defend themselves personally against extreme intimidation (i.e. burning crosses, spewing racist epithets, etc.) since such hateful intimidation is a form of violence.

Now lets not have anyone who fails to understand the subtlety of what I'm saying come at me saying that I'm breaking libertarian principles of non-aggression or implicitly advocating violence against anti-war protestors or something. First you have to understand the distinction between bigoted hate speech and other forms of protest. Also, I'm not even necessarily saying that beating these people to a pulp is the morally right thing to do, I'm just saying that I understand the response and I respect anyone who responds similarly.

Honestly, who doesn't want to stomp on a KKK member's head?

P.S. Why is it that there are virtually two police for every peaceful protestor at anitwar protests, and these protests are always relegated to "free speech zones" far from anyone, and neo-Nazis are allowed to protest in the middle of a black neighborhood? Also, why do police beat, shoot with rubber bullets, and illegally imprison peaceful protestors all the time (as in NYC during the RNC, in Seattle and Miami) but are incapable of protecting people's property when a racist protest goes awry? Seems strange, doesn't it?

Oops! Looks like someone else has discovered the truth about public education. While studying in India, James Tooley ran across a most interesting phenomenon:

Out of curiosity, I left my work--looking at private schools for the elite and middle classes--and took an autorickshaw into the slum areas behind the imposing 16th-century Charminar in the center of the Old City. And to my surprise, I found private schools on almost every street corner. Inspired by that, I grew to know many of the school owners, teachers, parents, and children; I learned of their motivations and difficulties and their successes and requirements.

Since then I have found private schools in battle-scarred buildings in Somaliland and Sierra Leone; in the shanty town of Makoko built on stilts above the Lagos lagoons in Nigeria; scattered among the tin and cardboard huts of Africa's largest slum, Kibera, Kenya; in the teeming townships perched on the shoreline of Accra, Ghana; in slums and villages across India; among the "floating population" in Beijing; and in remote Himalayan villages in China. Indeed, I have yet to find a developing country environment where private schools for the poor don't exist.

Tooley also found that not only are these private for-profit schools more available to the poor than public schools, they also provide a much better education than public schools.

...and don't you dare act surprised. (Hat tip to Reason's Hit and Run blog.)

A new announcement by al Qaeda has called a recently "seized" letter -- supposedly from top al Qaeda lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri to the insurgent leader in Iraq Abu Masab al-Zarqawi -- a fake. The group "al Qaeda in Iraq" released a statement saying that the letter is an obvious forgery by the "Black House," their term for the White House. Analysis of the Arabic usage by Juan Cole lends creedence to this claim, since many phrases used in the letter would be inappropriate in a communication between two Sunni Muslims, one of whom (Zarqawi) is also a Salafi.

The expression that makes the letter suspect, according to Cole, is a reference to the Prophet Muhammad's grandson as an "Imam," which is a Shiite term. Such a term would not be used by a hard-line Sunni like Zawahiri, especially in a communication with Zarqawi, who has called for war against Shiites, and is an equally hard-line Sunni. Cole also mentions "There are other odd things about the letter," that he plans to discuss later.

Cole's best guess, which matches with the claims of al Qaeda's statement, is that the letter is most likely a U.S. psy-ops forgery, although he suggests the possibility that the letter could have come from Iran. If the letter originated in Iran, the mistakes could be explained as a Shiite (as most Iranians are) trying to sound like a Sunni (and doing quite badly).

All I can say is that if our government is going to fabricate communications between terrorist leaders and sell them to the American public as legitimate, they should take some of the billions of dollars we give them and learn to fricking speak Arabic. Just a thought.

I found a short article earlier today written by an "anarchist/feminist" student of MIT, (most likely left-anarchist), and I thought she made some very good points:

I suppose I'm just supposed to smile pretty and accept gratefully whatever petty handouts from the patriarchy I can get, whatever piddling of civil liberties I can demand without offending anyone. And I suppose we anarchists could just smile pretty at the riot cops and feign a submissive demeanor. If we treat them like friends, it'll take our cause a whole lot further, we're apparently meant to believe.

Folks, don't fool yourselves, and don't participate in your own victimization. Cops serve the state. They are willing to inflict severe harm on your person if you do not obey whims of power emanating from the state or from their own egos. Cops may be fellow humans temporarily misguided by short-term prospects for power, but they are most certainly not our friends.

Not everything is as black and white as people may wish. Not all anarchists "hate police" or think they are subhuman. Nor should people who value their liberty bow down before the illegitimate domination of the state. Police are not absolutely evil, but they are without a doubt willing to inflict great harm on anyone who gets in their way, or who disobeys any dictate of the state. They will often bend or break the rules in order to assert their "authority." If anyone other than a police officer acted as they do, they would be considered psychopathically aggressive.

Having become used to the violent presence of police, most look the other way. People then whine and complain and become angry at "violence" at protests when anarchists break through police lines or don't follow exactly where they are herded by the authorities. At the same time, these people ignore the militarized police, decked out in armor and toting automatic weapons, who beat and oppress, and sometimes shoot unarmed people. The anarchists are not beating anyone. They are not depriving others of liberty. And with the exception of the few cases when they destroy private property, which I do not approve of, they are doing no wrong at all by not letting themselves be controlled and herded like animals. The violence of the police far surpasses individuals exercising autonomy and opposing the orders of police.

If America cared anything about freedom, if a police officer attempted to arbitrarily control any individual's movement when that person has broken no laws at all, that person should tell the cop to shove it. And the cop should do as told. They are supposed to serve and protect not control and oppress.

Over at Ann Althouse's blog, the newest thing is the fad of single mothers perusing sperm donors online, having the sperm shipped to their doctor, and then of course, having babies as consciously-chosen single mothers. It goes without saying that these mothers have the means to support the children, since they are trying to have children.

Many of Althouse's commenters (mostly conservatives, as Althouse's blog is home to mostly conservative, though reasonable, viewpoints) generally responded in horror, saying that it would be terrible for children to grow up without fathers. Many posters even said that the children of these women were almost certain to become criminals, citing studies (although not giving links to sources) that say over 90 percent of men in jail were raised by single mothers. The problem I have with this assumption that these children will grow up to be criminals is that, first off, it really makes no sense.

Most children who are born to single mothers are born to single mothers who unintentionally became pregnant, and who do not have the resources to provide for their child. In these situations, no doubt, the child is more likely to become a criminal, however there is no indication that is because of lack of a father, but rather that it is a product of the poverty in which the child grows up.

When mothers choose to have a child as a single parent, and they have sufficient resources to take care of the child, there is no reason the child should be predisposed in any way to any criminal activity. If this were true, children in which the parents divorced when the child was very young should be just as likely to become criminals as children of povery-stricken single mothers. The reality of the situation is nothing like this. Poverty and ignorance are the greatest factors that contribute to criminality, and there is nothing to indicate that these children of well-off single mothers will be any more prone to violence or theft than anyone else.

Of course it is an entirely different subject if people think that a male role model such as a father is necessary for the child to be "completely healthy" in mind and body, but it is really no one's business but the mother's and the father's -- both whom have consented to the insemination procedure -- who actually raises the child. What of children who are raised by grandparents, or a single grandparent? What of children with 2 parents who they never see, who are constantly in day care? There are innumerable less-than-ideal (in the traditional sense) family situations, and people need to realize that this is the reality of the world. Just because something is different doesn't mean it is unhealthy or will make children into criminals.

Of course most children would probably rather have two parents, however the cries from the crowd at Althouse's blog that these women were "selfish" seem to be nothing but holier-than-thou condescension. There is nothing selfish about wanting to bring life into the world if you believe that you can provide for the child, which without a doubt these women do believe. There are probably many two-parent couples who do a worse job of taking care of children than these competent single mothers. In short, I think it is wrong to judge these women and assume they are "selfish" and treat children as "accessories," as many claimed. Why is it that the motives of couples in having children are always unassailable, but single women who want children are assumed to be petty and selfish?

Thankfully these people do not have the power to enforce their small-minded and shallow views of what is right and wrong.

The Thing About Police

Taxation is theft. When you are taxed, it is nothing more and nothing less than a group of people, who have decided that they will take money from you, forcefully taking your money from you. No matter how many people in society support that group's claim to your money, so long as you do not voluntarily consent to giving the money, it is theft. I am yet to hear anyone give a good reason why it is immoral for any person or group of people to steal from another person, except if the aggressor happens to be "the government." As if those words "the government" magically invert all meanings of right and wrong.

If everyone in your town cheered for the lowlife who ransacked your house and stole your property, would it be right? Of course not. If your town had a vote, which you could vote in, as to whether they should loot your house and leave you with nothing, would it be right to do if they all voted for it? Of course not. No governmental claim that their actions are morally right can withstand even the most basic logic challenge.

The reality is that taxes have nothing to do with rightness or consent of the governed or any other cloudy ideas sold to the masses to make them feel good about being robbed. The reality is that the government takes your money and my money because they can. Because they're stronger, and have more guns, and no one can stop them. The state is the institutional expression of the shunned, evil principle that might makes right. Only our deluded, indoctrinated minds hide the criminal nature of the state.

When the Mafia sets up an extortion operation in which they claim to provide "protection," the men who enforce the fees of this "protection" are rightly called thugs and criminals. And the Mafia does in fact protect you from everyone except themselves. This is exactly what the state does. The police -- the thug enforcers of the state -- protect you from anyone else, but if you fail to pony up the payments, you will meet with virtually unlimited violent force.

Instead of seeing police as what they are -- the mindless fighting dogs who rob us on behalf of politicians and bureaucrats -- we praise them for their "service" and "selflessness." They are mindless because they are dedicated not to justice or right, but to "the Law," whatever it may be, no matter how evil it may be. When Congress passes a law that is clearly evil and wrong, everyone curses Congress. Why doesn't anyone curse the police who make that law a reality? Without the police, the whims of the state would not be a burden on anyone.

Although they certainly deny the reality of what they do -- they are just as well indoctrinated as you and I -- through years of aggression and constant battle with "criminals" more often than not the power goes to the heads of the police. And so you have corruption and beating and police who think they are above the law.

This is not to say that all police are subhuman or evil. I have met many very good men who were police officers. What this is to say is that what they do is undeniably evil, yet they do not realize it.

The worst part of it all is that at any second these police, who hold the Law higher than any friendship, would turn on anyone for any victimless activity that the state frowns upon. And so every day, police busy themselves with the work of ruining lives, the lives of nonviolent, good people who don't want to give 40 percent of their hard-earned wages to the state, people who take some substance those in Washington have deemed unacceptable. Of course they also do good, since they are also charged with preventing real crime, like theft and assault and rape and murder. But irony abounds, since at any minute these men would gladly assault and imprison you if you stand up against their thievery, or swallow a pill, or inhale some smoke, or cross a street at the wrong spot, or do anything not within the limits of acceptable behavior that are imposed on us.

Of course we cannot live our lives in constant fear and resentment, so we move on and hope that we are not victimized by these armed thugs of the state. Most of the time you need not even think of them. They are not all that bad for most people, and that is why we accept the situation as it is. Things are not that bad, we say. We forget about the couple hundred or thousand or tens of thousands of dollars that could have educated our children, cured our illnesses, and made our lives better. We forget about all the people wasting away in prison for possessing a dried plant or for not filling out this-or-that form correctly. Although we turn our backs on the people who are wronged by the violence of the state -- those who are hurt, imprisoned, terrorized, and even killed, our blindness and acceptance does not make anything right.

To me, at least, this is clearly evil.

What would you do if a woman you knew owed you $1.16? If you're the state, you'd sick your attack dogs on her. In Ohio, a woman was arrested for owing just over a dollar in city income taxes. On top of that, she had the nerve not to register the proper documentation with her masters.

Loveland city manager Fred Enderle said regarding the case,

"Whether it's $1 they owe us or $1,000, it's not fair to the rest of the public to not pursue that person," he said. "There is some expense involved, but it goes back to the principle. We have laws. The laws have to be complied with. At what cost do you stop enforcing the law?"

That makes perfect sense. Lets throw all reason and common sense to the wind and be legalistic morons. I'm sure everyone else in Loveland was up in arms about that $1.16 and how unfair it was that she wasn't cuffed like an animal for not paying it. At least it gives the police another opportunity to intimidate a poor defenseless woman.

Oink Oink.

The useless idiot of the day today is Dan Swarthout, the head of the "Christian" activist organization Christians Reviving America's Values (CRAVE). Swarthout is pressuring Congress to pass laws limiting the actions of civil liberties organizations such as the ACLU. Presumably since the very name of the organizations speaks of "reviving" America's values, you would think these people would stand for a strict reading of the Constitution.

Well, it appears such is not the case, as Swarthout has criticized the ACLU for calling into question New York City's new policy of randomly searching people in the subway system. Unsurprisingly, Swarthout shows himself to be completely ignorant of constitutional limitations which prohibit such blanket searches of individuals. The courts have widely held that in order to stop someone and search them, there must be clear, articulable, specific facts or circumstances which justify the search. Of course random searches do not in any way meet this requirement.

Furthermore, Swarthout has claimed that the ACLU isn't standing up for American citizens, but for criminals and terrorists. Implicit in this statement is that anyone accused by the government of anything is a criminal or a terrorist, since the ACLU only works to ensure that all the accused are granted the full protection of due process. Swarthout probably fully supports Bush's new policy of eschewing due process and detaining any American citizen he wishes indefinitely without charge or recourse to civil courts. Because of this, one can reasonably conclude that Swarthout is a MORON, and that nothing he stands for has anything do with Christianity or Constitutionalism or anything like that.

He is a mindless sycophant, an apologist for power, and an obstacle to freedom. As such, his opinions mean little or nothing, and if he is taken seriously by Congress, that will only be one more reason this corrupt establishment of violence deserves our contempt.

Last weekend, the huge $23 billion auto-parts company Delphi went broke. Along with the recent bankruptcies of United Airlines, Delta Airlines, Northwest Airlines, with GM in dire straights, and scores of other large corporations stagnating and failing, it seems that this trend must have something of a cause, or if not a cause, then a large contributing factor that we can point to.

The most interesting cause, suggested by economist and financial analyst Bill Bonner, is that large corporations have tended in recent history to become more bureaucratic and weighted down. Whereas companies were once mainly headed by risk-taking entrepreneurs, Bonner says, "Instead, they're in the hands of professional functionaries, pension funds, and fund managers." The well-publicized collapse of many airline companies due to pension costs and other bureaucratic failures, along with the failure of these airlines to expand considerably in recent memory, suggests that these companies had lost the spirit of service as they have become more heavily regulated and less entrepreneurial.

Also, concessions to labor unions for better benefits have grown with time, and many large companies find it impossible to remain profitable given the high cost of labor within the US and the cheap alternatives for their competition overseas. Contrary to leftist claims, labor concessions do not always just "cut into the massive profits" of large corporations, but as we can see, often contribute to the bankruptcy of previously profitable corporations. Delphi's 50,000 workers are partly paying the price of unrealistically high wage and pension demands, as they are now threatened with unemployment.

Contrary to popular opinion, profit margins in most industries are very small, and the excess costs of regulations and artificially inflated labor costs can, over time, leave these companies unprofitable and broke. The labor unions who fought against the oppression of "the man" -- the leadership of Delphi -- have now endangered the jobs of 50,000 people with their fantasies of the bottomless pockets of the rich.

These same problems have plagued European corporations for some time, and have led to the bankruptcies of many organizations. As American businesses feel the costs of these government intrusions, workers and entrepreneurs alike have to consider the possibility of going without their favorite cars, without airline service, and without numerous other goods and services as government stifles production.

This is not at all to demonize workers or union representatives -- the interests of workers are best served not by short-term concessions that lead to bankruptcy and unemployment. By dealing with slightly lower wages and benefits in order to ensure greater job security and the possibility of future increases in benefits that come naturally as a result of expanding business, workers can help themselves.

The basic lesson of all this is that money does not grow on trees. The government cannot create wealth through heavy regulation, and businesses cannot create money that they do not have just to placate their workers. When political or union pressures result in policies and laws that act against the principles of economics, everyone ends up worse off.

This is kind of an old story (hat-tip to The Agitator), but I just ran across it:

In September, at the University of Central Florida, an undercover cop tried to bust up some underage college drinkers, and when they didn't believe he was a cop, he flashed his badge and fired a shot into the air. An Orlando reserve cop, upon hearing the shot, ran to the scene and shot the undercover cop, killing him, thinking that he was shooting at people.

Now lets not even go into how stupid it is to be discharging a firearm in an area full of drunken college students, and lets not consider that the policy itself is ridiculous, to have armed undercover police that hell-bent on getting college drinkers. Lets just consider what would have happened if an legally armed civilian had done the same thing as the Orlando cop, and ended up shooting the undercover officer? He would no doubt be charged with at least voluntary manslaughter, and spend at least a good 5-10 years behind bars for it. Since it was a police officer that shot the undercover cop, though, no one is being charged with any wrongdoing.

What's even better, is that the college is officially blaming "underage drinking" for the incident, as if that had anything to do with the officer needlessly shooting his gun in the air and the response of the other officer. In fact, had the police not been there, it is almost 100 percent guaranteed that absolutely no one would have been harmed. Unsurprisingly, when misguided zealots like those so upset with underage drinking send armed men into such a situation, tragic things can result.

To sum up, since the state reserves the right to tax minors, charge people over 18 as adults in court, force 18 year-olds to die at war, and every negative responsibility of adulthood, it is ridiculous that people are so up-in-arms about underage drinking when the drinkers are of college age. Most people, in fact, will serve alcohol to minors who are serving in the military, which only shows the hypocritical nature of the whole situation. We can let some minors drink, people reason, but the rest of them must be treated like thieves and murderers and all other criminals for doing something that hurts no one.

When our idea of criminality becomes completely unhinged from its roots, and starts making completely harmless things into serious crimes, this kind of insanity is bound to result. Also, if police spent less time busting drinking parties, they would have a lot more man-hours to dedicate to stopping murderers, wife-beaters, thieves, and other real criminals who actually hurt people.

So-called economist Paul Krugman over at the New York Times is angry that no massive bureaucracy has been assembled to centrally plan the reconstruction of New Orleans:

Nobody thinks that reconstruction should already be under way. But what's striking to me is that there are no visible signs that the administration has even begun developing a plan. No reconstruction czar has been appointed; no commission has been named. There have been no public hearings. And as far as we can tell, nobody is in charge.

I think Mr. Krugman needs to let go of his outdated liberal conceptions of the state as omnipotent purveyor of good. 'Reconstruction czars' don't get anything done. Commissions and public hearings obstruct progress. 'Somebody being in charge' is the last thing we need if we want to see New Orleans re-established as a thriving city. The state didn't build it the first time around (except for the levees that failed), and if Washington bureaucrats turn this into their pet project of city-building, we can probably expect it to go as well as their efforts at nation-building, that is to say it will be a wasteful, chaotic mix of cronyism, profiteering, incompetence, and failure. The only cities the government has ever built were slums, and that's what New Orleans will be.

Would you ask thieves to build your house?

(Hat tip to Cafe Hayek for the links.)

As we of course have all come to realize, anything fun in this world will be the object of someone's fear and hatred. With the release of the fun new Napoleon Dynamite talking pen, so too has come the obligatory batsh!t-insane mom who wants the pen banned.

Taking up the mantle of Supreme Warlord of the hordes of worthless human beings whose only pleasure is in obstructing the pleasure of others, Melissa Hart says she is offended by Napoleon Dynamite's saying "You guys are retarded." In a perfect world, the resounding echo from every life-affirming human would be: Who cares? Be offended. We'll just continue enjoying our lives as you sit mired in your own hypersensitive absurdity.

If you don't like something, the answer is not to immediately appeal to the state to forcefully restrict anyone from any sort of enjoyment. In short: Mind your own damn business. You have no right to deprive others of anything they wish to obtain, so long as they do not harm you.

A suggestion for Mrs. Hart: if you're worried about the word "retarded," don't send your kid to public school, or any school for that matter. It gets much much worse than 'retarded', much earlier than you would think. The constant hateful mockery of demonic, ignorant little children will be much more painful for your child-with-down-syndrome than a soundbyte coming from a pen. In fact, your child would probably find the pen delightful.

How about you appeal in a civil manner to the other parents of children at the school to give their children some moral sense so they will not make constant jokes at the expense of your child? Banning a pen will not solve anything.

Next the piggly-wiggly army will be cuffing even more children and throwing them in jail with drunken child molesters for using the word "retarded."

Here you witness the dissolution of civilization; the birth of madness.


P.S. How was that for a melodramatic ending?

From Reuters:

"The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere."

So the president is threatening to use his veto power for the first time in his entire presidency -- and keep funding from our troops in the process -- because Congress wants to make sure American forces are not torturing detainees. Does this mean that Bush approves of torture? That he thinks it is more important for soldiers to be able to torture prisoners of war than to provide the military with adequate funding? Is this man serious?

How does a person even make a stand in favor of torture in any situation? Of course Bush isn't saying "lets all torture everyone," but when someone says that torture should not be the policy of the US military, and takes steps to ensure that it is in fact not a policy of our military, how do you oppose that?

The only three reasons I can think of that a person would act like the President is are 1) he is so drunk with power that he believes the American military should not even have to answer to the American people, 2) he personally thinks torture is a valuable tool, and wants to ensure that it continues to occur "under the radar", or 3) he believes investigations into torture would lead to revelations that abuse was actually condoned from higher levels within the military, enough so to even damage him personally.

Whether the reason he is responding to this amendment is one of these, or something I cannot even imagine, we will hopefully find out, depending on how this all plays out. Hopefully Bush has the sense not to veto defense funding in favor of torture. I can't even imagine how infuriated that should make everyone in America, Republican or Democrat.

To even come out publicly and threaten to veto the bill over this should make us all wonder if Bush really is drinking again. At least no one can say he was ever predictable.

Criminals in Office

Back in February this year, the majority decision in the Supreme Court case of Kelo v. New London resulted in a monumental change in the principle of eminent domain. Whereas the government could previously claim lands only for "public use" due to the protections of the fifth amendment, this new decision established that anyone's property could be claimed so long as the goal of such seizure was to increase tax revenue.

In the majority opinion of the 5-4 decision, justices Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Breyer, and Ginsberg absurdly extended the definition of "public use" to cases in which the seized private land would be transferred to other private parties. They argued that so long as the tax revenue from the new development exceeded that of the initial owner, the public benefitted and therefore the transfer fell under "public use."

Adding insult to injury, the city greatly undervalued the amount of compensation the homeowners were due, and when the 5-years of judicial proceedings ended, city officials announced that they would charge the homeowners tens of thousands of dollars in back-rent for the time they had been living "on public property."

These despicable acts show the true nature of the state, which has no reservations about robbing innocent people of their homes, and then charging them for it. The result of this decision is that any wealthy individual with sufficient political connections can force any number of residents from their homes, so long as what they build over the ruins of these people's homes brings in more money for the state. After the decision, most Americans were justifiably upset, although some blindly trusted that the powers granted by the decision would not be abused.

Even before the supreme court decision, governments throughout the country had been using similarly expanded definitions of "public use" to justify expelling families from their homes so that private developers could build malls, hotels, and casinos. In many cases, the studies supposedly demonstrating the benefit to the community are done by the developers themselves, and are riddled with inaccuracies and exaggerations. In one case in Freeport, Texas, the government plans to displace numerous businesses and homes to make room for a privately-owned yacht marina. For more examples of these crimes, visit the Institute for Justice webpage.

In almost every one of these cases, in addition to being forced from their homes or losing their means of making a living when their businesses are forcefully closed, people's properties are extremely undervalued by the thieving government, usually only paying people around half the value of their property.

What kind of a government allows this sort of criminal behavior? What kind of court system condones these practices? If Americans cannot even be secure in their homes, and are always at risk of being robbed and displaced, how can we continue to call this a "free country"?

Shame on these thieves in suits, shame on the criminals in robes who facilitate these crimes, and shame on the developers who use the criminal state to make easy money off the suffering of others. What rights do we have, if not the right to protect our homes and livelihood? Our government would be wise to cease these inexcusable, autocratic practices, lest the people who provide their paychecks decide to treat them like the criminals they are.

BREAKING NEWS:

Responding to widespread criticism and disappointment from conservatives in response to his nomination of Harriet Miers, President Bush earlier today released a statement outlining his contingency plan should Miers fail to be approved as Supreme Court Justice.

In a surprise move, President Bush layed out his intentions for a new Supreme Court nominee: "Should Ms. Miers fail to secure approval from the Senate, I would like to announce that my next choice for a spot in our nation's highest court will be Steve Johnson, my best friend from elementary school. Mr. Johnson currently works as an insurance salesman, and has in the past graduated from high school, coached middle school baseball, and read the book Treason by Ann Coulter. Although he is slightly less qualified than Ms. Miers, I believe he will serve our country well as a member of the Supreme Court."

In another surprise move, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has once again come out in support of the President's choice, stating that Mr. Johnson would be "an excellent addition to the Court," and that his lack of legal experience "should not be viewed as a negative, but as an asset, bringing a different perspective to the Court." Although Reid still supports Ms. Miers' nomination, he says he will do his best to rally Democratic support for either nominee.

There's a great article over at OpinionJournal.com about the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Written by Randy E. Barnett, a conservative and professor of law at Boston University, the article addresses the concerns the American people should have with such an unqualified candidate as Miers, and one who is moreover a close friend and confidant of the president.

With all the talk of Roe v. Wade and questions about how conservative Ms. Miers is, along with doubts regarding Miers' evangelical Christian faith, most of America seems to be missing the most important questions, which Barnett addresses masterfully.

As everyone now knows, Ms. Miers has never been a judge before. Supporters of the nomination repeatedly cite Justice Rehnquist, who had also not been a judge. There is, however, a huge difference between the two. Justice Rehnquist was a constitutional scholar, and had extensively studied all aspects of constitutional law and interpretation. Ms. Miers, on the other hand, has no such qualifications -- her conceptions regarding the constitution are not the product of years of extensive study and experience, and are idealistic and academic at best.

Secondly, calls of "cronyism" leveled against Miers largely miss the point. They don't recognize that the greatest danger resulting from Miers' relationship with the president is the probable lack of independence that would result from this. As a close friend of the president, would Miers be capable of rebuking the president as he deprives U.S. citizens of due process as he has done in the case of Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi? Are her beliefs sufficiently developed that she will be able to act as an effective counterforce to expanding executive and legislative power? Would Miers be able to shake off the prejudices and preconceptions that come with having served in the executive branch for a good deal of her career?

Miers' religious beliefs and ideological preferences are not nearly as important as her undeveloped view of the constitution and lack of experience dealing with constitutional issues, as well as her close ties to many members of the executive branch that make it less likely that she would exercise sufficient independence as a justice.

Read the article by Barnett, which goes much more in-depth that my thoughts here, and presents a more complete picture of the situation.

It has come to my attention over the past few days that Ronnie Earle is somewhat of an idiot. After DeLay's lawyers found a glaring error in Earle's indictment (unrelated to most of the supposed "errors" pointed out by right-wing pundits, which I have rebutted here), Earle secured another indictment from another grand jury, so as to "cover all his bases", this time charging DeLay with a number of crimes, the most significant of which is money laundering.

While in the past I have demonstrated that what DeLay was doing was actually money laundering, I was unaware that the conspiracy charges previously brought against DeLay did not adequately address this. DeLay is plainly a crooked, corrupt politician, which has been established by his four previous rebukes from the nonpartisan Goverment Accountability Office, as well as the plethora of other shady deals of which he has been party (I have blogged on a number of these).

The sad thing is that Earle seems to be pretty incompetent, which makes it much more likely that DeLay will walk. Of course Earle works for the government, so it should be so surprise that he is terrible at what he does, but this is a time when it would be good to have someone who knows what they are doing in charge of the prosecution, not a grown man who goes by the name Donnie.

I guess I'll hold out and hope for the best -- that somehow Earle will find a way to use the obvious evidence against DeLay without succumbing to his stupidity. If DeLay walks, we can all hope that his reputation will have been sufficiently ruined (since it deserves to be) and the Republicans will distance themselves from him. Unlike some partisan Democrats, I just want to see DeLay removed from office because he has shown himself to be a great example of everything a politician can do to act against the interests of democracy and the people's interest.

To keep my coverage of this whole DeLay fiasco "fair and balanced", I also found a site that has tons of information on Democrats doing the same stuff DeLay has been doing. The problem isn't one man or one party, but the whole political system that is saturated with money and power-hungry people with no ethical principles and no accountability.

The more I read about Tom DeLay's indictment, and the defenses of him that are being thrown around, the more I become convinced that DeLay really does exemplify the kind of corruption that has made our government more responsive to demands for favors from big corporations than it is to the needs of American taxpayers. Whether or not he is guilty of the charge being brought against him, however, I do not know. With the evidence that has been made public to this point, I don't think Earle will be able to convict DeLay, but I also don't think a grand jury would have indicted DeLay had they not been presented evidence of wrongdoing beyond what is public at this point.

The defenses that I have read largely hinge on a legal technicality, but whether DeLay is elected or not, what happened is undoubtedly shady and contrary to the intent of the law. There are also problems with the way the allegations are presented by DeLay's defenders. From National Review Online:

The alleged violation involved a money swap between the now-defunct Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), which DeLay helped found but never managed, and the Republican National State Elections Committee (RNSEC). TRMPAC sent a check for $190,000 to RNSEC, and RNSEC then sent checks totaling approximately the same amount to Texas House candidates in October of 2002. Earle, a Democrat, calls this money laundering, because the money that TRMPAC sent to RNSEC came from corporations, which are barred from contributing to campaigns in Texas.

The problem with this description is that what really happened is the following:
A political action committee (The TRMPAC mentioned above) that DeLay founded took in $155,000 in corporate money, and sent $190,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee (RNSEC), the "soft money" arm of the Republican Party. This committee then wrote checks amounting to $190,000 to seven Republican candidates using its noncorporate accounts.
The flow of money here is obviously from the corporate contributors to the candidates, with the TRMPAC and RNSEC acting as mediators. This is textbook money laundering -- intended to conceal the source of the money, which was corporate donors.

Republican Deparment of Justice official Barbara Comstock attempted to spin the issue by stating: “Had corporations sent money directly to the RNC or RNSEC, the transaction would be legal. How could anyone conspire to do indirectly what could legally have been done directly?” Yes it would have been legal for the corporations to send money directly to the RNSEC, so long as the RNSEC did not use that money for campaign contributions, as it did. I agree that it would make no sense to run the money through an additional PAC if the money was not intended to go to Republican candidates, but as we know the intention was to use the corporate money for these campaign contributions, and that is why the money was run through the TRMPAC first, to further hide the original source of the money.

So it is obvious that this is nothing more than straight-from-the-books money laundering -- if Earle has evidence that DeLay had advance knowledge of this transaction, and DeLay's lawyers don't skirt the intent of the law on some minor technicality, DeLay should be found guilty. Then again, if Earle can't tie DeLay to the transaction or if there is a technicality that can be exploited, the Hammer will walk free.

Whatever happens, it should be clear at this point that the charges are not "fabricated" and that someone went to a lot of trouble to conceal the source of that money. Why would they do that if what they were doing was completely legal?

Once again the federal government has shown itself to be completely inept in the face of disaster. After hurricane Rita hit Texas, the FEMA reaction in Houston has once again been terrible, to the point of even obstructing local efforts at relief.

The good news is that the local authorities are fighting back. The Houston Chronicle reports: "County Judge Carl Griffith has become so frustrated with the federal relief effort that he has instructed all local officials to use police force if they have to to take supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency." Added Judge Griffith, "If you have enough policemen to take it from them, take it."

Apparently FEMA has learned nothing after Katrina, and continues not only to fail at providing relief, but is once again actually making the situation worse. Thankfully local officials in Houston are responding appropriately to the worthless agency, by taking control of the situation and refusing to defer to inefficient, ineffective federal bureaucracy.

If only this sort of contempt for the federal stooges was displayed by every local government in the face of all the other forms of federal bureaucratic bungling that cripple our country every day. Imagine how much better everyone's lives would be if every federal official who attempted to trample the rights of citizens and throw their weight around was repelled with force by accountable, limited local governments. If state and local governments did this kind of thing enough, people would probably start to realize that their lives would be much better if the feds stayed completely out of the picture.

Yesterday, federal auditors at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that rebuked the Bush administration for disseminating "covert propaganda" within the United States in violation of the "publicity or propaganda prohibition" in federal law. (Link to the NYTimes article.)

The sad thing, though, is that the GAO has no authority to do anything but release reports on the myriad violations of law and constitution by our government. If anyone in government was serious about keeping politicians in line, they would give the GAO prosecuting power, or at least force the Department of Justice to investigate the reports released by the GAO.

Once again, the Bush administration demonstrates their contempt for any limitation on government power, and no one is prepared to hold them accountable. If anyone can show me any way in which our government is different from the unrestrained totalitarian democracy of Jacobin France, I would love to hear it. When was the last time anyone in government was removed from office or even fined for committing a crime? I must have missed the part of the constitution that says as long as you're a government official you can break every law there is, and never be held accountable in any way.

Here's some more on DeLay's outstanding record of ethical violations and corruption:

DeLay's Dirty Dozen

Some of these violations include:
Using money from a children's charity as cover for corporate donations DeLay spent on "dinners, a golf tournament, a rock concert, and Broadway tickets."
Taking a $100,000 check from a private prison company while considering a bill to privatize Texas prisons.
Going on a trip to Seoul, South Korea that cost $106,921, payed for by a South Korean lobbying group.

...and many more.

It seems that even if DeLay beats the charges of criminal conspiracy he is currently facing in Texas, he could still be removed from office on any number of criminal corruption charges -- although it is unlikely that will happen. Since most members of Congress are just as crooked as he is, and since even the honest members of Congress are under his thumb (he can destroy the career of just about any Republican who goes against him), there probably isn't anyone willing to hold him accountable.

Republicans Kick Spin Machine into High Gear for DeLay

With news of the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the right-wing spin machine has kicked into high gear, attempting to discredit the charges against him. In a tactic that has become common among Republican smear-artists, TV and radio personalities, as well as DeLay himself, have claimed that the District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, is a "partisan fanatic" and that the "baseless" allegations are part of a "vengeful" investigation.

Furthermore, by claiming that the indictment itself presents no proof that DeLay committed any crime, and that DeLay is hardly mentioned in the indictment, pundits allege that the case against DeLay is flimsy and can not possibly hold up in court.

Firstly, the attempts to paint District Attorney Earle as some sort of partisan fanatic look foolish to anyone who is at all familiar with his record. In his capacity as District Attorney, Earle has prosecuted 15 elected officials, 12 of whom were Democrats, and three of whom were Republicans. Furthermore, it is ridiculous to claim that the indictment is some sort of personal or partisan vendetta, since District Attorney Earle did not even indict DeLay. A Texas grand jury indicted DeLay after seeing evidence against him. Members of the grand jury have also explicitly stated that they were not at all pressured by Earle regarding the decision whether to indict or not.

Claims by DeLay and his supporters regarding the content of the indictment -- that it lacks evidence and hardly mentions DeLay -- also reveal a complete ignorance of the law in question and the purpose of an indictment. An indictment is meant to present what charges are being brought against the defendant. Indictments rarely if ever lay out evidence of guilt, and those who claim that the lack of such evidence in DeLay's indictment is somehow not normal are either being disingenuous or are completely ignorant of the purpose of an indictment.

In this case, the charge brought against DeLay is of criminal conspiracy to violate Texas campaign finance and election laws, which prohibit use of corporate funds in elections, in the 2002 elections. In the words of Earle, "The indictment describes a scheme whereby corporate money, which cannot be given to candidates in Texas, was sent to the Republican National Committee where it was exchanged for money raised from individuals and then sent to those Texas Legislative candidates." (Basically just good old-fashioned money laundering.) Indictments are not meant to present evidence that the accused committed the crime in question; that is what a trial is for. The indictment must only inform the accused which law they are being charged with breaking. The indictment does just that.

Claims have also been made that the indictment does not actually accuse DeLay of breaking any law, since it does not claim that DeLay himself took any direct action to contravene the law. This, however, is irrelevant since DeLay is being charged with conspiracy to violate the law. In a conspiracy charge, what must be determined is that 1) DeLay entered into an agreement with two of his associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis (who have also been indicted), with the intention that a felony be committed and 2) one of the group, not necessarily DeLay himself, performed an "overt act" in an attempt to go through with the agreement and violate the law. In line with this, the indictment does claim that DeLay entered into such an agreement with the intention of violating the law prohibiting use of corporate money for campaigning, and that one of his associates performed an "overt act" as part of that agreement.

These disingenuous claims will no doubt fail to convince anyone with any knowledge of the law in question or basic legal practices. They are no doubt meant to save face for DeLay in the eyes of the public, so that if he is found innocent he can then be portrayed as being falsely accused of a crime he never had anything to do with. Also, these arguments predictably attempt to turn the tables on Democrats, so that instead of DeLay being seen as a crooked criminal on par with the Enron executives, he can be seen as the victim of a Democrat abusing his position as prosecutor to smear DeLay with trumped-up charges.

I'm not saying that DeLay is definitely guilty, or even probably guilty -- that must be determined by the judge or jury after having seen the evidence. It is absurd that people are already saying that DeLay is innocent, when they haven't seen any evidence one way or another. It is equally absurd to say that DeLay is guilty at this point, for the same reasons. My point is that these attacks on Earle for being a "partisan fanatic" are baseless when you look at his record, and that a lack of evidence in the indictment does not in any way indicate that the case is flimsy. Indictments are not meant to make the case against the person who is charged, and they are not meant to present evidence. Whether the case is flimsy or bulletproof, we'll find out soon enough in court.

Too bad these smear-artists will succeed at fooling so many people with their spinning, personal attacks, and bald-faced lying. Those of us who see through the mindless ranting of these talking heads, however, will wait until Earle presents his arguments in court to determine whether DeLay is innocent or guilty.

The only thing that makes me think it might be more probable than not that DeLay is guilty is his history of numerous ethical violations, which I will cover later. Of course even if he is guilty, that doesn't guarantee that Earle has proof of it. I'm going to reserve judgement on this until I hear more facts and less spinning.