POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Biden’s Originalism

Via The Blaze comes the story of how Joe Biden, citing among other authorities the Federalist Papers, argued that only Congress had the power to authorize war, and that for the Executive to do so unilaterally was monarchical. He was able to make this assertion in light of his reading of the clear intention of the Framers, even though their language is probably like more than a hundred years old!!!

And I quite agree with him.

At one time, Obama seems to have agreed with him as well, though times have apparently changed now that FLOTUS can once again be proud to be an American.

Mind you, that doesn't mean that I'm against bombing the crap out of Gaddafi's war materiel. We've seen what sanctions do, when our allies turn a blind eye to backdoor profiteering. On the other hand, Obama sat around for a couple of weeks issuing toothless platitudes when he could have been discussing matters with his Cabinet and Congress, before his higglety-pigglety decision to take action. Instead, Ad Hoc Man waited till the last minute, called an emergency session of his advisers, dropped off a quick note to the legislative types, gave the green light to the military, and flew to Rio to let his melatonin resonate, and perhaps do a little cliff diving for Wide World of Sports.

UPDATE: Gabriel Malor on same.

So this is yet another end run around Congress, which is what he's been doing since well before the GOP took back the House. Only this is far worse than merely avoiding Congress on Yucca Mountain, offshore drilling, net neutrality, card check, and cap and trade. The President has committed the United States to war and placed Service Members in danger without constitutionally-required authority to do so.

Waging war in violation of the U.S. Constitution sounds like a High Crime to me. So I'd like someone to explain to me why we shouldn't be talking about impeachment right now.

And it seems that we dodged a bullet. Two US airmen ejected from an F-15 over Libya. Fortunately, both were recovered, it seems.

They're saying mechanical malfunction, but we'll probably see a couple of Libyan army types dancing on the wreckage with their rifles in an hour or two.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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In His Twilight, A Rosenberg Co-Conspirator Comes Clean

Morton Sobel:

“I did it for the Soviet Union,” he said, leading Mr. Radosh and Mr. Usdin to conclude that Mr. Rosenberg and his fellow American Communists “were motivated by loyalty to the Soviet Union, not opposition to fascism as their defenders claim.”

The Rosenbergs, who were accused of conspiracy to steal atomic bomb secrets from the United States, were sentenced to death and executed in 1953. Mr. Sobell served 18 years for nonatomic spying. He was released in 1969 and, until the Times interview, maintained his innocence and insisted that he had been framed by the government.

But, you know, free Mumia!

Although The Unquiet Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg can hardly be considered definitive, the 83-minute 1974 PBS documentary provides a historical portrait of U.S. political life in both the McCarthy era and the Watergate period of its creation. The Rosenberg case remains controversial to this day, 57 years after the American government executed them for conspiracy to commit treason with conflicting evidence turning up over the years. Facets Video deserves credit for preserving the film and making it available on DVD for the first time.

If you're expecting new revelations, you're certain to be disappointed with the film since the topic has been explored and revisited numerous times. But the film remains a fascinating document that captures the spirit of the Cold War and reveals the darker suspicions Americans began to deal with in the 1970s.

Given the fact that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg maintained their innocence to the very end when they could have spared themselves from the electric chair with even a bogus confession, they established themselves as a symbol that remains deeply troubling for the U.S. Many Americans believed at the time that the Rosenbergs were innocent pawns in McCarthyism's mass hysteria game. We're more than familiar with injustices perpetrated by non-democratic regimes, but it's harder to swallow the possibility that the U.S. government being guilty of executing innocent people for political purpose. But that's the insinuation pointedly made over the course of the film.

Not at all related:

The Lockerbie bombing killed 270 people. Among the many Americans killed was Matthew Gannon, a Beirut-based CIA officer. Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was ultimately convicted of masterminding the attack.

To learn more about the history of Operation El Dorado Canyon and Lockerbie, I spoke with William Beeman, a Middle East expert and anthropology professor at University of Minnesota. The text that follows has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you summarize the political context in the 1980s that led up to the American bombing in Libya in 1986?

Well, Colonel Gadhafi was a very iconoclastic figure from the time he took power in 1969. He had been involved in supporting any number of terrorist organizations including the Irish Republican Army. In particular he was very upset about the fact that anti-Gadhafi forces -- Libyan ex-patriates -- had been operating in Europe. In retaliation, he funded the IRA and he claimed that this was payback for the Europeans that were allegedly fostering opposition to his own government. Gadhafi also claimed to be sponsoring the Red Army Faction [in Germany] and was generally considered to be a terrible gadfly to Europeans and to the United States. He was quite equal opportunity; he also supported Idi Amin in Uganda, and he declared himself the king of kings of all of Africa. So the United States under Reagan declared Libya to be the chief state supporter of terrorism in the 1980s.

What prompted the American bombing in 1986?

The main thing that touched off the incident was the bombing of the La Belle night club in West Berlin in April 1986. There were a small number of people killed and a large number injured. The United States had an absolute smoking gun. The Libyan agents involved in the attack were operating out of East Germany. During the dregs of the Cold War, there was kind of a perfect storm -- East Germany and the communists were involved with the Libyans and they were bombing a night club in West Berlin. So the story was, "Evil Gadhafi and evil communists plot to bomb Westerners." Later on it turned out to be true that the Stasi had been involved, but we didn't know about this for a long time, until after the reunification of Germany. A week after the bombing, Reagan ordered the strike on Libya.

Further: "The story is -- and we don't know this is true for sure -- that he was warned in advance by either the the prime minister of Malta or Prime Minister Craxi of Italy."

Why do I find it easy to believe that Craxi might have done so?

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Public Sector Worker Rights

I've been on about this, including my revisiting the issue of public sector workers, who can't be fired, demoted, or caused to pay for a small portion of their health and pensions, because if they resort to suicide or crime it will be our fault. Via Vanderleun, UW-Madison Philosophy Prof Lester Hunt:

Government workers in Greece, faced with austerity measures, rioted and firebombed a bank, burning to death three human beings trapped inside. In New Jersey the Governor responded to a severe recession by denying government school teachers their expected annual raise (a raise, during a recession) and the reaction from public sector unions was screaming, white-faced rage. Here in Wisconsin, the Governor is trying to limit the collective bargaining rights of state workers -- a measure that would leave them with roughly the same rights that federal workers have -- and the reactions from the unions was three weeks of demonstrations, illegal obstruction of the legislative process, and an unprecedented flood of death threats and obscene phone calls.

Clearly, these people sincerely believe that they have rights that people in the private sector do not have. Why?

*******

Haven't we learned in the last year or so, that government workers feel more entitled than others? After all, starting about 3 or 4 years ago, families in the private sector started to behave as if family members would be laid off or cut back. And they were, and they did the best with it that they could. When private sector workers lose economic ground they do not scream, demonstrate, or riot.

Precisely.

Obama was running neck-and-neck with, or even a nose behind McCain when the markets collapsed. Stupidly, it put him over the top, even though he was clearly the taxiest and spendiest of tax and spend liberals. The MFM presented him as a moderate, and a lot of people swallowed that hogwash because they wanted so to believe in hope and change. As Enoch pointed out earlier today, O also stated that he wouldn't be the kind of interventionist warmonger that Boooooosh! was. Because separation of powers, not running roughshod over the Constitution, Cowboy Diplomacy, restore America's standing in the world.

Aaron Worthing:

And then there was this, from the same transcript:

Muammar Qadhafi clearly lost the confidence of his own people and the legitimacy to lead.

Um, wait a minute, Mr. President… Exactly when did Gaddafi have legitimacy? A dictator is illegitimate every day of his rule.

Farrakhan wonders who Obama thinks he is, deposing an Arab tyrant whom Farrakhan admires, because he's all about the civil rights, obviously. Moammar and son, meanwhile, are shocked that Obama would try to overthrow a regime that's done so much for its people, and think (since Obama's a good man) that he's received very bad counsel.

Over in Egypt, the public sector employees who enjoy special privileges and benefits are the military.

Then, there was moderate Obama differing with Hillary over whether or not people ought to have to buy in to a national health care plan. He was against it.

Shaking some of the much-abused bargaining privileges away from the teachers unions in Wisconsin via legislation amounted to villainizing public workers. But thugs threatening the lives of their political opponents, not worth a comment from anti-bullying guy.

The judge who blocked implementation of Walker's bill, then went on vacation, has a son who is a labor rep.

Coverage in Wisconsin:

My own view is that Walker opponents are hurting their cause with this kind of activity. Without mentioning the Journal Sentinel or criticizing its coverage, I made that point in a March 18 e-mail that provided links to the Nolte and Althouse material. My distribution list included George Stanley, managing editor of the Journal Sentinel.

Stanley responded, “Both sides are demonizing each other with deliberate, dishonest propaganda….You reap what you sow.”

I asked, “Are you suggesting that the behavior of Walker supporters is comparable to that of his opponents?” He replied, “I don’t ‘suggest’ like you, George. I didn’t say a word about behavior or go to your links. I prefer honesty to bullshit.”

I replied, “You use the word "propaganda" and say "both sides" are guilty. Death threats. Nails in the driveway. Obscene graffiti. The list goes on and on. This amazing and unwarranted conclusion apparently is how the MJS rationalizes not covering the story.”

I asked Stanley if I could quote him, as I wanted to submit an op-ed to the paper. He said, “No, you’re just full of shit, that’s all I’m saying.” Not sure if the latter comment was a response to my request or just his way of emphasizing his disagreement with my views.

We now have a better understanding of why the Journal Sentinel has shortchanged this important aspect of the ongoing story. In the managing editor’s view, “both sides” apparently have culpability, “you reap what you sow,” and, in the end, it’s “bullshit.”

P.S. As part of this exchange, Stanley claimed I would “mis-quote” him. On request, I will provide the full text of our exchange.It does not fit the template laid out in Sunday’s paper by Editor Marty Kaiser. Referring to the volume of reader reaction to the Capitol news, he said, “We are doing our best to respond to each phone call, e-mail and letter. We explain to readers the difference between our news pages and our opinion pages.”

Majority of Walker's emails backed his legislation.

Chicago, where a Daley nephew is getting away with manslaughter, is sending Wisconsin Jan Schakowsky and her allies, to show how democracy is done.

Cuz we ain't enlightened, capisce?

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Subtlety [UPDATED]

Wolly takes Joy McCann, aka Little Miss Attila, to task for a supposedly raaaaacist contrast between the behavior of the Japanese in response to the earthquake and tsunami and that of some residents of New Orleans after Katrina. You mustn't comment on such things at all, because reality has a liberal bias.

The funniest thing about this whole kerfuffle, reported by one of Wolcott's minions and then posted on Vanity Fair, involves the layers and layers of fact checking that went into noticing that the piece quoted by Joy is in fact a parody.

Anyway, here's what Wolly has to say about the satirical news piece, so labelled at the site:

Yes, the Japanese people have conducted themselves admirably in a tremendous crisis. On that we can all agree.

But these tributes were thin envelopes for another, different, domestically-targeted message.

It wasn't a subtle message, because conservatives don't know how to be subtle; it requires too much tonal refinement and sensibility.

I think it's terribly cement-headed and rather racist of him not to have noticed that it's not an actual news piece. It reads a little bit like a Chris Rock bit.

So, yeah, Joy pwn3d herself a little bit, but Wolly double-pwn3d himself.

UPDATE: As per her comment below, and as per his post script to his post, both Joy and Wolly were aware that the original piece was satire.

I was led astray by the comments at Joy's post, which, by my gloss, didn't acknowledge that. Wolcott doesn't permit them.

However, if I were attempting to demonstrate the bias of an opponent, I'd point out that they deployed a satirical piece as though it were real, because it answered their prejudices. Wolly makes a good deal of the photograph. I might remind him that it's a photograph, and as far as we know unretouched. As a general rule, we imagine that such documents represent a slice of reality.

Does the document represent the whole story? No. Is the document invalid because it doesn't? No.

Here's a piece on that gang rape case from Cleveland, TX. The races of the accused and the victim are germane, how? The accused certainly seem to think they are.

So, let's return to the Duke lacrosse disaster. Was there a prejudicial profiling regarding the accused? I should think so. Was there insidious contrast? Why, yes.

Here's another case in point, the audio of Andre Carson lying to journalists about what happened when he crossed the Capitol grounds with other Black Caucus members prior to the signing of the HCR monstrosity. Democrats are still lying about ObamaCare, so why not?

Here's a piece on a piece claiming MN Republicans want to make it illegal for anyone on public assistance to have more than $20 in his pocket in any given month.

In a couple of these cases, there is actual bearing of false witness against the accused. In another, there's a comparison that someone finds offensive. I'm terribly sorry if I regard the bearing of false witness more offensive than the other.

In the instant case, involving Katrina, who was it that circulated the stories of cannibalism, because BOOOOOSH!? And why wasn't that much more offensively racist? Am I missing something here? Am I so blinkered?

Obama's lobbing cruise missiles into Libya, while making Soros-profiting oil deals in Brazil, where the US platform fleet will be able to perform some work offshore of what we are told is the most important ecosystem on the planet. Lots of for-real death threats are being thrown at lawmakers and even people who write newspaper letters to the editor in Wisconsin. Japan is reeling. New Zealand is still afflicted. Seriously, I don't know why Wolly bothers.

As regards the accusation that conservatives lack subtlety, I guess I could muster some folks outside of Chesterton, such as Dante, Ariosto, Shakespeare, Nashe, Samuel Daniels, Donne, Austen, Fielding, Sterne, Melville, Bierce, Flannery O'Connor, Flann O'Brien, and oddly enough Oscar Wilde, just for starters, as being in what some of us call the classical liberal tradition--or conservatism, if you prefer.

Ah, well. That's all stuff white people like.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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A Rule 5 Note and a Gallimaufrey of Links

William Teach, who does one of the best Rule 5 round-ups on the web each and every weekend, points out an issue and makes a offer:

BTW, with Smitty going to Afghanistan for a year, not sure if RS McCain will continue doing Rule 5 Sunday posts. He has his FMJRA (linked above), but????? The posts do take a long time, so, if you want to send me your links for Rule 5 babeage or links, use ye olde email (remove the NOSPAM part). Preferably, create the html link so I can copy and paste how you want it to read.

Now, I don't know whether Stacy wants to allow him to cross-post, as we haven't talked about it, but perhaps while Smitty's away, we can each take it in turn to assemble a weekend Rule 5 post.

******

A few days ago, I unfortunately forecast this happening:

Wisconsin Teacher With Long History of Depression Kills Herself, Lowlife Lefties Blame Scott Walker

Where? Here:

You mustn’t lay off any government workers, though, because if they suicide the blood will be on your hands. The same is true when they resort to crime.

*******

God told him to gain power of attorney, then beat the old man to death with a sock full of rocks.

*******

SEIU brought to court on racketeering charges by Sodexo (formerly Sodexho), blames Koch brothers.

Meanwhile, Blago-supporting pol Jan Schakowsky and her minons travelled to Milwaukee to lend her help to recall efforts against Republicans in Wisconsin. Look! Kochs!

Via William Jacobson, 2 of the Fleebaggers drafted the legislation Republicans relied on to pass anti-public union law.

********

Breaking: Andrew Sullivan still cannot bring himself to understand how poor his judgment is.

Stacy at AmSpec:

To which observation I replied:

True: The outrage is not "ubiquitous," but what are lefties like Michael Moore going to do? They got nowhere to go. They backed the most left-wing nominee in the Democratic Party's history - yes, Obama is further left than McGovern or Dukakis - and actually managed to get him elected. And the result is . . . ??

We're still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guantanamo is still in business. Bradley Manning is stripped naked in solitary confinement. Now, another military adventure. You'd think that people who'd been so blatantly screwed over, bamboozled, sold out, ripped off and stabbed in the back would eventually wise up.

But then again: They're liberals.

Randall Jarrell once observed of liberals in the 1950s that "they would have swallowed a porcupine, if you had dyed its quills and called it Modern Art." Now we see that most of the anti-war Left will swallow even war, if you call it Human Rights -- and the president who wages it is a Democrat.

*******

New York Post writer performs same analysis on New Mexico's test scores as Iowahawk performed on Wisconsin's.

*******

I agree with Wolcott. We shouldn't be cruise missiling Libya. We should have taken that airline bombing son of a bitch out years ago in a wet job.

A: You've got violence in my sex! B: You've got sex in my violence!
Both: Mmmmmm!
Voice over: Two great tastes that go great together!

Yeah, I know it's illegal. Think Obama cares?

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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FBI Puzzled by Celebrity Hacking Pattern

"They're not doing it for money, they're doing it for the thrill."

Hackers have apparently gained access to private info -- nude photos and videos included -- of 50 celebrities, all of them female.

According to TMZ, victims include Vanessa Hudgens, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Christina Aguilera, Ali Larter and Demi Lovato.

According to the site, the FBI has identified the ringleader of the hacker group, which was rumored to target politicians and sports figures. They apparently have active email addresses of 100 victims.

Yesterday, the FBI sat down for a chat with Hudgens, whose security may have been compromised by an acquaintance.

Other victims are said to include Busy Philipps, Miley Cyrus, Emma Caulfield, Addison Timlin and Renee Olstead (none of whom I know anything about, except for Cyrus).

An FBI investigator who wished to remain anonymous expressed puzzlement: "Why would someone want naked images of Miley Cyrus, when Rose McGowan and Alyssa Milano have active web presences? It just doesn't feel right. There's something odd about this, and we're going to get to the bottom of it."

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Valerie Plame Accepts New Creative Writing Assignments

Calling Iowahawk. Iowahawk, please come in.

Soon to be a major motion picture!

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson is turning to fiction writing more than three years after publishing a memoir about her career.

The New York Times reports that Wilson has a book deal with Penguin Group USA for a series of international suspense novels. The newspaper says she will team up with mystery writer Sarah Lovett on the books, which will feature a fictional operative.

Wilson tells the Times she's frustrated by portrayals of female CIA agents in popular culture that emphasize their looks rather than their brains.

Wilson's 2007 memoir, "Fair Game," told the story of her CIA career and her 2003 outing that led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis Libby. Her first fiction book is due out next year.

Poor Valerie. They should have given her more creative input.

But all of those edits make O'Keefe's NPR sting a right-wing libel, which is why those folks were fired and/or suspended.

I'm not a big fan of ambush journalism, but it has its uses, for example, when someone refuses to share information that the public has a right to know, or is dishonest about their perspective. I'm also not a fan of tendentious editing. I'm also not a fan of totalizing a complex argument and saying it is necessarily invalid because one aspect of it is.

Which is really why I haven't written about this. But if you feel you've got something to say about it, please feel free.

UPDATE: Let me add a few things.

Although I did wade through a lot of the leaked East Anglia Climategate emails, I occasionally resorted to stating that as an Occam's razor matter, the fact that much of their data was fudged by use of "proxy" locations was telling, and it was also telling that they wouldn't respond to FOI requests. In those emails, they also plotted at how to keep contrary views out of print, and in practice as peer reviewers did not disclose themselves as interested parties.

Here, O'Keefe does provide the raw data, in the form of the unedited tape. The point his interviewer makes about the relative lack of attention that that material has received, though, is valid, as his point about the excising of potentially exonerating material in the edited tape.

Take for example the publication of a Congressional study. If the executive summary of that material states outright that some party is guilty of something, and there turns out to be a lot of mitigating evidence in the body of the report, that's a distortion. I've complained about this practice with respect to now Supreme Court Justice Wise Latina.

NPR's interviewer tries to represent himself as being above the fray in stating at the end that his interview with O'Keefe is itself edited. Though I haven't listened to the whole thing, I imagine that among the material edited out of the interview is any discussion of whether the sacked fundraiser offered in fact to help hide the identity of the donating institution. Perhaps the interviewer didn't think that that information would be germane. To me, it seems it is.

The worst part is at the end, where he does an absolute cut and paste, to demonstrate how far media manipulation can go through convenient editing, though. Why? Because he insinuates that that is what O'Keefe's practice amounts to. It is one thing to make the argument that in kind these are the sorts of edits that O'Keefe practiced, but the logical fallacy (which is one that O'Keefe specifically addressed in the interview) is to consider that it is also valid in degree.*

In so doing, the interviewer commits the exact insinuation that he attributes to O'Keefe.

* I can hardly wait to read Valerie Plame's The Case of the Missing Stapler. See how that works?

UPDATE: Taranto: Civility was always already dead

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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