Obama Administration

A Majority Will Not Vote For the Rights of a Minority

May 142012

Bigoted voters were represented well in North Carolina on the 8th of May as a bill banning same sex marriage, civil unions, and common law marriage was passed with overwhelming support.

On Tuesday May 8, the state of North Carolina joined an incredibly long list in an embarrassing part of American history as much as the human condition: by a 61 to 39 margin the rights of homosexuals to marry, have a legally recognized partnership, or just live together for a long time and receive “common law” recognition were struck down by the bigoted, backwards-thinking, homophobic voters of the tar heel state.

It’s okay though, North Carolina. You’re not going to be unfairly singled out here. In fact, you’ve joined a long line of states that have decided to dictate the terms of love and a lifelong relationship to others. You have friends in Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Depending on which way legal winds blow, you might have friends in other states too. Yes, North Carolina, welcome to the majority – the majority of 31 states that just outright ban homosexuals from marrying.

Also! Welcome to the majority of states that have seen a majority of voters dictate their beliefs to a minority of the population. The same number of votes, 31, have occurred in various American states and have in one way or another denied the same legal recognition to a loving couple of the same sex as those of the opposing. The tyranny of the majority is alive and well!

SCOTUS Takes Up Health Care Reform

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Mar 262012

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear arguments for and against the 2010 health care reform bill, rendering a decision on parts or the entire law by the end of June.

The final test for the Obama Administration’s bid for healthcare reform is finally upon us. After passing the House by a narrow 219 – 212 margin, the Senate by a filibuster-proof 60 – 39, and signed into law by President Obama on 23 March 2010, a legal challenge is the last thing standing in the way of the law being fully implemented over the remainder of this decade.

The fog in the media surrounding this case is extremely thick, with hang-wringing opponents of the bill making this out to be an apocalyptic showdown between the forces of free market capitalism and a Stalinist dictatorship, “death panels” and all. If you can get past that, you’ll find that over the next three days the Supreme Court of the United States will spend the most time deliberating on a case that they have for decades, and are expected to reach a decision in June that could have far reaching impacts on the implementation of the law, the continued existence of the law, future budget deficits over the decade to come, the political capital of the Obama Administration heading into the full campaign swing, and potentially the outcome of the 2012 elections. With all of this in mind, it is surely one of the most important decisions that the Supreme Court will have handed down in our lifetimes.

Codified, Indefinite Detention Now On The Books

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Jan 032012

It hurts to admit, but it's the first step to realizing both political sides want the same thing in this case.

Usually when someone – a business, government, or otherwise – wants to let out some bad information that needs to be public but could do with less exposure (to the benefit of the releaser) it’s a good idea to release said information late on a Friday. This is known as a “document dump”. With the weekend about to begin, whatever stories would come out from the release of said information would be treated to less media exposure than otherwise during the week whether it’s from a function of less journalists writing or less readers reading. It’s a tacky way to play political games that each party, each Presidency, is entirely guilty of.

There’s varying degrees of the dumps, though. A Friday evening is bad enough. A Friday evening before a holiday weekend garners you even less attention. A Saturday afternoon hours before New Year’s Eve celebrations begin? Now that’s a special kind of dump. It was in that dim of a spotlight that President Obama decided to sign into law the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). As mentioned previously, the NDAA is an annual event. It’s a has-to-pass piece of legislation in order to keep funding basic military functions and operations, right on down to paying soldiers. This makes it a juicy and ripe target for attaching controversial riders that would otherwise probably not stand a chance on their own for being passed – or would draw too much negative attention if an attempt was made.

The highlight of this year’s attached uselessness were buried in sections 1031 and 1032 of the law. Signing this bill would codify into law the practices the U.S. has engaged in in the post 9/11 security state: indefinite detention of terror suspects – even the ones who have been cleared of wrongdoing (Guantanamo Bay) – redefining the battlefield as “anywhere” to match the War on Terror’s end time as “never”, and extending the ability to indefinitely detain someone from non U.S. citizens to U.S. citizens in the United States. After some previous argument about draft language of the bill, language that would have given the Secretary of Defense the power to decide who gets to be held indefinitely or not in federal prison or at a military facility was instead transferred to the President. President Obama had threatened to veto the bill if that was not done, and sure enough dropped the veto threat once that was accomplished.

Instead of signing the bill when the cameras were still in Washington and the political world had not checked out for the holidays, the President waited to sign the bill until nearly the last possible moment – during the afternoon on New Year’s Eve. He did sign it with some “reservations” though, expressed in a signing statement:

“The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it,” Mr. Obama said in a statement issued in Hawaii, where he is on vacation. “I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

…

The president, for example, said that he would never authorize the indefinite military detention of American citizens, because “doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.” He also said he would reject a “rigid across-the-board requirement” that suspects be tried in military courts rather than civilian courts.

From the “Boy, We’re Pondering Some Bad Laws Lately” Department: SOPA, NDAA

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Dec 162011

I’d like to submit the following comic from Virtual Shackles as today’s Image of the Day:

There’s a couple of problems out there in the “upcoming laws” department – both progressing through our law making systems with a bit too much speed – implying that the more time is spent to stop and dwell on consequences and ramifications, the less likely said pieces of legislation will be ultimately approved and signed by President Obama.

On the downside, before this is gone into any more deeply – both of these pieces of legislation probably will be signed into law by President Obama.

Both requiring a bit more in-depth dissection than I will be able to get to now – I hope to remedy that in the coming days – the general gist of these probably-going-to-be-laws is as follows:

SOPA: Stop Online Piracy ActNDAA: National Defense Authorization Act

SOPA is a proposed law that sounds like it has a rather clear and concise goal – to stop online piracy. While there is a myriad of ways to combat online piracy with varying degrees of potential success, the methods proposed stink of a fundamental lack of understanding of how the Internet works. In short, if a lawsuit is brought or court order given to shut down a website, instead of stopping at the website now everyone involved with “supporting” that website is a target to. It works like this:

Blah.com hosts Thing-someone-calls-illegal
Takedown notice of blah.com issued, domain seized.
Web hosting provider for blah.com can also be culpable, even though they had no knowledge of the “illegal” content being hosted. Presently this can be gotten around through the “safe harbor” privilege of the DMCA (the current fighting-online-piracy law on the books). SOPA would end that.

This would essentially be the business-oriented equivalent of someone slipping on a floor at the local market, falling, and proceeding to sue the janitor on duty, the maker of the mop used, the store, the company that owns the store, and the municipality for providing the water. The effect of this law would be absolutely devastating to providers of web hosting, virtual private networks, and socially generated content sites: YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, and others. Each site would be inundated with an avalanche of legal threats over the most mundane of infringements that the cost of doing business would skyrocket to the point it is no longer feasible.

That cute video of the baby dancing to the pop song? Takedowns and lawsuits.
The old floppy drives that are used to play Star Wars’ Imperial March? Takedowns and lawsuits.
The latest entertaining meme that might include a person, place, or thing that is trademarked? Takedowns and lawsuits.

Also there’s the small matter of the rest of the world uses the Internet, too. What passes for a crime in the U.S. might not be judged the same way in, say, Canada. Still, once blah.com is seized in the U.S., international viewers lose the same site. The owners of blah.com can also hedge their bets and just reincorporate in a different country – thereby depriving the U.S. of tax revenue. Better still, if blah.com can’t be seized anymore, it will be directed to be blocked instead, creating our own Great Firewall of China.

The NDAA is actually an annual event – it’s been enacted for the last 48 years straight and has to do with setting the defense budget. Thus, it’s a bill that “has to pass” and is a sweet honeypot for attaching riders and provisions that might not normally be passed if they were to be brought up as individual pieces of legislation. This year’s biggest entrants are sections 1031 and 1032. The breakdown of the sections:

Section 1031: Codifies laws enacted after September 11th which allows the President to detain anyone “who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces,” as long as the war is going on and “without trial, until the end of hostilities.” Instead of trial in a civilian court, the person can be tried by a military tribunal, sent in a “transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin,” or best yet, sent to “any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity”. That process is called extraordinary rendition and is a violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture – of which the U.S. has signed and ratified.
Section 1032: Anyone captured under Section 1031 must be held by the military indefinitely until the President decides differently. If the person is a U.S. citizen, they can (but not must) be held indefinitely by either the military or in a federal prison – the choice of which is left up to the President.

The NDAA also extends the definition of “the battlefield” – or places people can be caught – to the United States’ own soil.

When it was revealed that the President was going to veto the NDAA because of these two sections, many were relieved that Bush-era assaults on the Bill of Rights were being ended. Instead, it turns out the original language of the sections left the decision making powers in the hands of the Secretary of Defense. The new language, which was approved by both the House and Senate after the White House veto threat was dropped, transferred those powers to the President himself.

President Obama threatened a veto because it didn’t give him enough power, and relinquished when it did.

This would be the type of thing the Left in the U.S. would be screaming at the top of their lungs over if it were the Bush Administration or Republicans of any sort proposing it. Instead, there is a very distinct fracture that has formed among those who are on the left side of the isle. The “Professional Left” or “Obama Supporters” or “Obamabots” will tell you either none of the above is true, it’s okay if it’s true because Obama won’t abuse the power, or to suck it up and shut up because the Republicans are worse. The true Liberals – and at this point anyone from any part of the spectrum that is supportive of the rule of law – are thus left out in the cold with no real place to turn, and both sides of the political establishment know this to be true.

As the NDAA nears a Presidential signature, the White House used its official Twitter account (one of the sites that could be shut down if SOPA passes) to send out what is probably the tweet of the year in the hypocrisy category:

A War Whose Language Would Kinetically Enthuse Orwell

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Jun 212011

Obama speaking out against Libya in the run-up to the… kinetic military action. (Photo: New York Times)

(a follow-up)

As the inspiring, peaceful Arab spring turned repressive and bloody on the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi in late February and early March, the world watched as a rag-tag band of rebels were being systematically routed back toward their last stranglehold and capital, days after seemingly undoing the Libyan military almost overnight. With empathic pleas from rebels and turncoat diplomats outside of Gadaffi’s grasp, the United Nations voted on March 17th to greenlight a no fly zone over Libya in order to protect the potential slaughter of civilians. By the 19th, French and Italian planes were patrolling the skies over Benghazi, and British and American warships were firing Tomahawk missiles into the country.

In the United States, it was a Saturday. Those viewing the 24-hour news networks were being kept aware of what was going on, but as for the rest of country? There was no break-in to shows or sporting events. There was no dramatic speech or announcement of the involvement of American forces in another country. There was no straight and to the point… On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Muammar Gaddafi’s ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a limited and decisive campaign.

It was a Saturday.
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The Right Call, Pending The Right Outcome

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Mar 292011

President Obama delivers a speech on our Libyan involvement to the National Defense University on March 28, 2011. (Photo: WH.gov)

Last night President Obama took to the airwaves to deliver a speech outlining his rationale for the recent American-led military involvement in the Libya civil war, and its siding with the Libyan rebels. Instead of skirting around the issue or trying to take cover behind rhetoric, the President put himself out in front of the decision, standing by it and whatever its outcome may be because in the end, it was the right thing to do.

For ten days, American military jets, along with air power from other NATO members, have taken part in targeted air strikes against key elements of the army and defenses of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The assaults have allowed rebels mainly based in the eastern third of the nation to regroup after a week of retreat to begin pushing back to the west, edging closer to the capital of Tripoli. The inadvertent result of this military action may be the eventual downfall of Gaddafi himself and the creation of a more democratic and free society by the Libyan people, but it was made clear by the President that this was not the main goal of the attack. Put simply…

We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world … I refused to let that happen.

With friends like these, the average worker won’t need an enemy

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Mar 282011

President Barack Obama meets with the members of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Feb. 24, 2011. Seated to the left of Mr. Obama is Jeff Immelt, chair of the Council & CEO of General Electric. (Photo: WhiteHouse.gov)

Tax day will be upon us in just a couple of weeks. Millions of Americans will be filing down to the local tax preparation office (or their computers) to crunch the numbers and see exactly how much they owe Uncle Sam for the past tax year. Many will be fortunate enough to receive refunds for paying too much, or donating and writing off the proper things in the proper places. If you manage to walk away with four figures coming back, you might find yourself to be fortunate, or accomplished, or just lucky. What if you could come back with ten digits, though?

To pull off a feat like that, you would have to be General Electric. In 2010 the company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion – from the United States came 5.1 billion of that. Profit, not even income (revenue sits around the $150 billion mark). The tax bill for those stellar numbers? A refund of $3.2 billion. A ten-digit refund. This is not just a one off fluke that GE was able to pull off, either. This is the latest result in a multi-year operation by the multinational – along with many other similar companies in the same boat – to loophole their way to tremendously huge tax savings, paying percentages of their income that any other average American could hardly fathom.

All Good Things…

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Mar 232011

Real firepower: Libyan rebels are supported by airstrikes from a UN-mandated No Fly Zone operation, led by the United States

Quick question: in your collective 2011 news betting pools, who took the odds on “U.S. will attack Libya”? Didn’t think so, but if you did you’d be smarter than fate.

The overwhelmingly joyous and positive feeling that was sweeping Arab nations in the Middle East and northern Africa – the feeling of freedom, democracy, and the end of dictatorial rule, has been replaced a couple of times in the past few weeks – first by the sense of impending danger that is armed conflict and degradation into all out civil war – and second by foreign intervention, and the starting of the first new war of the Obama Administration.

To say that the revolts against dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt were bloodless would be far from the truth, but in comparison to the situation in Libya, they are walks in the park. What began as protests by merely hundreds of people in Libya’s second city of Benghazi on the 15th of February rapidly spun out of control for the government of long time strongman and dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Defections from his military and civil servants emboldened the protesters. High profile defections from ambassadors, including the deputy ambassador to the United Nations, quickly gave the impression that Gaddafi was losing control, if not lost already. For a few days it looked as if another multi-decade dictatorship would come crashing down at the hand of popular revolution.

Afghan War Silence & The Embarassment to our Democracy

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Mar 072011

A soldier fires his weapon during Operation Mountain Fire on July 12, 2009.

This October 7th will mark a full ten years of United States involvement in Afghanistan. Already beaten is the previous record for longest modern involvement in Afghanistan held by the Soviet Union (9 years, 50 days), and at present the conflict continues to look like one with no discernible end in sight. With the cost of 2,269 coalition soldier lives (1,413 American), as many as 34,000 Afghan civilians, and more than 383 billion dollars later the war still has no discernible goal, end, or organized plan to get troops out of harm’s way.

While starting two years before the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the Afghanistan campaign found itself relegated to the back-burner for most of the last decade, mainly because the Afghanistan war was seen as the “just war” – we actually had reason to be there instead of Iraq. Most of the anti-war movements and protests throughout the 2000′s centered around this idea – choosing to target Iraq first and Afghanistan second.

Drawdowns to U.S. involvement in Iraq would eventually come, and that combined with a change in leadership in the White House seemed to satisfy a large portion of the anti-war movement – or at least the parts of the movement that did all the fund raising, organizing, and managed to get the media attention (however scarce and mocking, at times). The general feeling with the start of the Obama administration in 2009 was Iraq is winding down. Let’s finish up this whole Afghan thing, get out, and be on with our day.

The anti-war movement fell silent, and bodies kept coming home in coffins.

The Harder Times: Economic Hardship For Only Those Who Can’t Afford It

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Feb 282011

Tax breaks for vacation homes, or tax credits for low income housing and job training? Why is this a difficult decision?

When President Obama decided to punt on the issue of not extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy (or capitulated to Republican demands / made a desperate effort to appeal to a Republican base that wants nothing to do with him / gave up, again / betrayed his liberal base that will march out to vote for him in 2012 irregardless / insert your own quip of a description here based on your amount of current support for the President), he hoped that this olive branch offer to the Republicans – who now control the House – would help with upcoming budget negotiations. Perhaps the interesting mantra of the opposition that centered around “cut everything, including taxes!” to balance the budget would be appeased by a wink in the direction of keeping taxes on the wealthy cut, and in return there could be some leeway given in the “cut everything” world.

Tragically not the case. Nowhere near the case, in fact. There’s a second verse to that mantra, apparently, and that verse is “…and make sure you screw over the not-rich!” While there are independent agencies out there trying to explain this to anyone who would care to read and listen, politicians in charge seem hell bent on pushing ideology over anything that comes close to resembling a long term disciplined strategy to combat a ballooning deficit.

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