Category: Issues of the Day

From an article in the Los Angeles Times:

Dinny the roadside dinosaur has found religion.

The 45-foot-high concrete apatosaurus has towered over Interstate 10 near Palm Springs for nearly three decades as a kitschy prehistoric pit stop for tourists.

Now he is the star of a renovated attraction that disputes the fact that dinosaurs died off millions of years before humans first walked the planet.

Dinny’s new owners, pointing to the Book of Genesis, contend that most dinosaurs arrived on Earth the same day as Adam and Eve, some 6,000 years ago, and later marched two by two onto Noah’s Ark. The gift shop at the attraction, called the Cabazon Dinosaurs, sells toy dinosaurs whose labels warn, “Don’t swallow it! The fossil record does not support evolution.”

Spent shells litter the ground at what is left of the firing range, and camouflage outfits still hang in a storeroom. Just a few months ago, this ranch was known as Camp Thunderbird, the headquarters of a paramilitary group that promised to use force to keep illegal immigrants from sneaking across the border with Mexico.

Now, in a turnabout, the 70-acre property about two miles from the border is being given to two immigrants whom the group caught trying to enter the United States illegally.

The land transfer is being made to satisfy judgments in a lawsuit in which the immigrants had said that Casey Nethercott, the owner of the ranch and a former leader of the vigilante group Ranch Rescue, had harmed them.

From The New York Times

If a 59-year-old Speegleville man had not been arrested Monday night shortly after he reportedly destroyed a roadside memorial to fallen U.S. soldiers near President Bush’s ranch, McLennan County Sheriff Larry Lynch would have known where to find him later this week — in Lynch’s Sunday School class.

Sheriff’s office investigators said Larry Chad Northern drove his pickup truck over hundreds of small wooden crosses bearing the names of soldiers who died in the war that peace activists had placed along Prairie Chapel Road. …

Northern was arrested shortly after 9:30 p.m. Monday after he was spotted changing a tire on his pickup, authorities said. Small white crosses were found stuck in the truck’s undercarriage, according to sheriff’s office reports.

From the Waco Tribune-Herald. Northern is a Vietnam veteran.

Functional Ambivalent has some interesting observations on the war protest at Crawford and President Bush’s reaction — Necessary Inhumanity.

In a sign of the changing politics of gun control, the Senate appears poised to pass a top priority of the National Rifle Assn. this week, legislation that would shield the gun industry from lawsuits arising from the misuse of its weapons.

Gun manufacturers have pressed for years for such a law. They argue that it is needed to protect them from lawsuits filed by municipalities or individuals that the industry contends could bankrupt some gun makers. Dozens of such lawsuits are pending across the country.

From a report in the Los Angeles Times

So much for Runaway Jury.

Billmon at Whiskey Bar has been on a roll today on the Roberts nomination and the “liberal disease,” including this:

The Dems don’t want to be like Fredo — weak, insecure and eager to earn the good will of people who are inevitably going to be enemies of “the family.” (That’s where too many of them are at now.)

They shouldn’t be like Sonny — impulsive, emotional and a few quarts short of a full crankcase. Shrub is like that and it’s usually what gets him into trouble. (“Bring ’em on!”)

The Dems need to try to be more like Michael — cool, analytical and totally pragmatic. “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”

Sometimes that means ordering a hit, sometimes it means biding your time. Sometimes it means striking with everything you’ve got — e.g. the “baptism” scene.

See also here, here and here.

Some well-considered questions for Supreme Court nominee Roberts suggested by the Christian Science Monitor:

Senators shouldn’t put Roberts in the position of dodging questions because they may pertain to future cases. But they can get to his judicial approach and other issues by questioning along these lines:

• Point to a few instances when you’ve had to put aside strong personal views – either in your White House work or your two years on the bench – to argue or judge a case.

• As the definition of rights – in education, the workplace, family planning, etc. – has expanded in US history, has it been better for state and federal legislators or for the courts to bring those to citizens?

• Even if a decision is based clearly on the Constitution, should a justice also weigh the consequences of that decision on broader society?

• Should the Constitution be a flexible document whose interpretation changes with the times?

• Public approval of the Supreme Court has eroded over the years. What should be done to reverse that slide?

• Name three books that would give Americans a better understanding of the role of the courts, especially the Supreme Court, in a democracy.

In light of the Roberts nomination, and the assumption that Roberts would vote to reverse Roe v. Wade, FunctionalAmbivalent argues this could be a good thing for liberals. The public, FA argues, is so overwhelmingly pro-choice (despite the noise to the contrary) that once The Court rules against it, the reaction and outrage will throw the Republican rascals out.

If that happens millions of people who have ignored abortion as an issue because it’s protected by The Court will be activated in a way they’ve never been activated before. You want a glimpse of what might happen? Consider the issue of property rights and eminent domain. …

One Supreme Court decision and Hey, Presto! The middle class is storming state capitals, scaring the shit out of politicians and demanding the kind of protection that, only a few days before, they had assumed they had from the courts.

Imagine, if you will, the effect it would have on politics if the court tossed Roe.

Go read FA’s whole posting.

Joel Achenbach takes the long view on the Roberts’ nomination:

Nowhere in the Constitution, as I recall from the time I glanced at it in the Rotunda of the National Archives, does it say that the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter of the aforesaid Constitution. That’s something John Marshall invented, to vex Jefferson. The Supreme Court has been on the road to extreme activism since that gloomy day in 1803. The Roberts Court will let the president decide the important Constitutional questions, such as how many terms he should serve (two being laughably too few), and who should be his successor. Bush clearly cut a deal with Roberts: “I’ll give you a lifetime appointment if you give me one too.” The one thing that most bugs the Bush clan is that their hereditary monarchy has not yet been officially established as a matter of United States law. And Dubya is surrounded by advisers who think we need to roll back everything to roughly 1787, and then keep going, until we reach the Holy Grail of extreme conservatives: Overturning the Magna Carta.

Rehnquist — Stanford/Stanford (law degree)
Stevens — Chicago/Northwestern
O’Connor — Stanford/Stanford
Scalia — Georgetown/Harvard
Kennedy — Stanford/Harvard
Souter — Harvard/Harvard
Thomas — Holy Cross/Yale
Ginsberg — Cornell/Columbia
Breyer — Stanford/Harvard

Roberts — Harvard/Harvard

DES MOINES (AP) — In the name of homeland security, motorists are going to see costs skyrocket for driver’s licenses and motor vehicle offices forced to operate like local branches of the FBI, the nation’s governors warn.

The new federal law squeezed this spring into an $82 billion spending bill had Republican and Democrat governors fuming at their summer meeting here, and vowing to bring their complaints to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at a Monday meeting.

“It’s outrageous to pass this off on the states,” said Republican Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, incoming chairman of the National Governors Association. “You’re essentially asking the front-line clerks at the DMV to become an INS agent and a law enforcement agent.”

…

Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico said the law, known as the REAL ID Act, unconstitutionally infringed upon state laws such as his, where illegal immigrants have been able to get licenses.

New Mexico’s approach made roads safer since licensed immigrants could get insured, helped the state keep track of immigrants, and also helped integrate immigrants into the community, he said.

“It’s a shortsighted, ill-conceived initiative,” Richardson said. “We’ll challenge it constitutionally.”

USATODAY

This case is not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock’s parlance, a MacGuffin, which, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, is “a particular event, object, factor, etc., initially presented as being of great significance to the story, but often having little actual importance for the plot as it develops.” Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam’s supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife’s outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh’s theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in “Psycho.”

This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit – the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes – is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That’s why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair.

Frank Rich, The New York Times

A truck bomb detonated today near a group of American soldiers who were distributing candy to children in a poor neighborhood in the eastern part of the city, killing as many as 27 people, about two dozen of them children, and wounding dozens more, government and hospital officials said.

The New York Times

Valerie Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985. All of my classmates were undercover–in other words, we told our family and friends that we were working for other overt U.S. Government agencies. We had official cover. That means we had a black passport–i.e., a diplomatic passport. If we were caught overseas engaged in espionage activity the black passport was a get out of jail free card.

A few of my classmates, and Valerie was one of these, became a non-official cover officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed.

— Larry Johnson, guest at the TPMCafe

Via Crooks and Liars. Wonderful.

A CIA manager once told me about life under cover. He went by his regular name, lived in a regular neighborhood, etc., but as far as anyone knew he worked for the Navy. In fact, he told me, one time his car broke down and his neighbor insisted on giving him a ride to work at the Washington Navy Yard (in southeast Washington, D.C.). The neighbor kept insisting and he finally had to accept.

After being left off at the Navy Yard the CIA employee had to figure how to get back across the Potomac to Virginia to his “real” office. He was further away than when he started.

In other instances we were often amused when we held a meeting that included CIA or other “under cover” agency personnel. The sign-in sheet consisted of names like Cindy D., Bob L., Frank C., etc.

Lastly, my particular favorite under cover story. After visiting a “secret” location for business and being well treated, I composed a short thank you note to the man in charge. I addressed it to him by name. I ran the draft past my staff member who was liaison with that agency. The staff member came back, saying the note was great except that the man’s name was classified because he worked undercover. So we sent the thank you without the name.

His name was John Smith.

If you’d like to understand what’s going on with Karl Rove and the Valerie Plame leak, The Washington Post‘s Dan Froomkin has a great summary as of this afternoon.

“Police were tipped off to the party by a photo developer at a drug store who saw pictures of the occasion.”

The crime was a stripper at a 16-year-old’s birthday party. Couple Sentenced for Hiring Son a Stripper

Link via dangerousmeta!, which has a great new look.

A report from the Los Angeles Times, Jury sends a message in case involving teen’s cell use:

“It is more and more common in accidents to subpoena production of the driver’s cellphone records,” Grant said. “At all times, drivers are responsible for the safe operation of their vehicles, and when they breach that duty they are liable.”

In this particular case, which involved no permanent injury to the police officer who was hit by a 16-year-old, the jury awarded $7.3 million; the case was settled for $6 million. The appearance of the young lady in court may have influenced the jury:

The teenager “showed up with a $1,000 Louis Vuitton purse and $1,000 spike heels,” Parris said. “I just wanted the jury to see the purse again. She didn’t want to show it. I asked her if she had the cellphone with her. When she pulled it out, the power was on. She had come to court with a cellphone turned on. The jury was kind of incensed by the whole thing.”

Paul Harvey’s Tribute to Slavery, Nukes, Genocide (June 23):

Drawing a contrast with what he cast as the praiseworthy nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, Harvey lamented that “we sent men with rifles into Afghanistan and Iraq and kept our best weapons in their silos”–suggesting that America should have used its nuclear arsenal in its invasions of both countries.

Harvey concluded:

“We didn’t come this far because we’re made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever.

“And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. So it goes with most great nation-states, which–feeling guilty about their savage pasts–eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy.”

From the speech of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in support of the measure legalizing same-sex marriage in Spain:

We are not legislating, honorable members, for people far away and not known by us. We are enlarging the opportunity for happiness to our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends and our families; at the same time we are making a more decent society, because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members.

… Today, the Spanish society answers to a group of people who, during many years have, been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, whose dignity has been offended, their identity denied, and their liberty oppressed. Today the Spanish society grants them the respect they deserve, recognizes their rights, restores their dignity, affirms their identity, and restores their liberty.

It is true that they are only a minority, but their triumph is everyone’s triumph. It is also the triumph of those who oppose this law, even though they do not know this yet: because it is the triumph of Liberty. Their victory makes all of us (even those who oppose the law) better people, it makes our society better. Honorable members, there is no damage to marriage or to the concept of family in allowing two people of the same sex to get married. To the contrary, what happens is this class of Spanish citizens get the potential to organize their lives with the rights and privileges of marriage and family. There is no danger to the institution of marriage, but precisely the opposite: this law enhances and respects marriage.

Jesus’ General

I told an old joke at dinner.

The story goes that shortly after the end of World War II, an American soldier and a Russian soldier were patrolling the demarcation line between two sectors in Berlin. Every day they would walk up and down, up and down separated by a line. Eventually the two got to talking. One day the Russian said the American, “I don’t understand what is this ‘freedom’ business you Americans are always going on about. What use is ‘freedom’?”

“I can explain,” replied the American soldier. “When I’m demobilized and go home, I can walk up to the gate of the White House and shout ‘Truman is an IDIOT’ — and no one will do anything to me. That’s freedom.”

“Well,” the Russian replied, “if that is all there is to freedom, then we have freedom in the USSR too. When I go home, I can go up to the gates of the Kremlin and shout ‘Truman is an idiot’ and no one will do anything to me either”

“Is that still true?” a voice asked. Images flashed by: today’s White House. Surrounded by barriers to keep the public at a distance. Anxious guards who hustle the President away any time a small plane takes a wrong turn. An administration that will do anything to insulate itself from criticism.

“Of course it’s still true,” I reassured the children. “I can go right up to the White House today and shout ‘Truman is an idiot’ and no one will do anything to me, either.”

Michael Froomkin, Discourse.net

In a sign of the continuing partisan division of the nation, more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country.

Among those living in the Western states, a 52% majority favors Congress using the impeachment mechanism while just 41% are opposed; in Eastern states, 49% are in favor and 45% opposed. In the South, meanwhile, impeachment is opposed by three-in-five voters (60%) and supported by just one-in-three (34%); in the Central/Great Lakes region, 52% are opposed and 38% in favor.

Impeachment is overwhelmingly rejected in the Red States—just 36% say they agree Congress should use it if the President is found to have lied on Iraq, while 55% reject this view; in the “Blue States” that voted for Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry in 2004, meanwhile, a plurality of 48% favors such proceedings while 45% are opposed.

Zogby International

Poll taken June 27-29.

Joining The Netherlands and Belgium. Canada is expected to approve same-sex marriages by the end of July.

See report from The New York Times.

From a report in the Los Angeles Times:

Doing time in a California state prison won’t be quite the same beginning Friday. All inmates, once given tobacco and matches along with their prison blues and toothbrush, will now be forbidden to smoke. …

Judging from the experience of other states — and reports from a few California prisons that are already smoke-free — health costs will go down. But their experience also shows that forcing inmates to kick the habit has downsides. …

When Maine banned smoking in prison in 2000, assaults quadrupled.