Liars and more liars

wartime vs Wartime

Here's a great post by Kevin Drum on what is really considered 'wartime' as to allow the President to assume wartime powers.
Dubya seems the think that he is a wartime President. If we go along with that we would be in at 'War' permanently.

As Joshua Marshall puts it: "How 'wartime' are we?


December 20, 2005
WARTIME....Do President Bush's inherent constitutional powers as commander-in-chief give him the authority to override federal law and approve domestic spying by the NSA? That's certainly the justification he provided at Monday's press conference:

Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is, absolutely. As I mentioned in my remarks, the legal authority is derived from the Constitution, as well as the authorization of force by the United States Congress.

Bill Kristol and Gary Schmitt support this assessment in the Washington Post today, and they've been joined by a small army of other commentators.

Of course, their argument is not that the president has the inherent power to authorize domestic surveillance anytime he wants, only that he has that power during wartime. And as near as I can tell, that's the elephant in the room that no one is really very anxious to discuss: What is "wartime"? Is George Bush really a "wartime president," as he's so fond of calling himself? Conservatives take it for granted that he is, while liberals tend to avoid the subject entirely for fear of being thought unserious about the War on Terror. But it's something that ought be brought up and discussed openly.

Consider a different war, for example. It's safe to say that whatever Bush's NSA program actually involves, no one would have batted an eyelash if FDR had approved a similar program during World War II. Experience suggests that during a period of genuine, all-out war, few people complain when a president pushes the boundaries of the law based on military necessity. But aside from World War II, what else counts as wartime?

If you count only serious hot wars, the United States has been at war for over 20 of the 65 years since 1940. That's a lot of "wartime."

However, if you count the Cold War, as conservatives generally think we should, the tally shoots up to about 50 years of war. That means the United States has been almost continuously at war during the past 65 years — and given the nature of the War on Terror, we'll continue to be at war for the next several decades.

If this is how we define "wartime," it means that in the century from 1940 to 2040 the president will have had emergency wartime powers for virtually the entire time. But does that make sense? Is anyone really comfortable with the idea that three decades from now the president of the United States will have had wartime executive powers for nearly a continuous century?

Somehow we need to come to grips with this. There's "wartime" and then there's "wartime," and not all armed conflicts vest the president with emergency powers. George Bush may have the best intentions in the world — and in this case he probably did have the best intentions in the world — but that still doesn't mean he has the kind of plenary power Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt exercised during their wars.

During a genuine emergency, the president's powers are at their most expansive. The rest of the time they're more restricted, whether he considers himself a wartime president or not. Right now, if George Bush needs or wants greater authority than he currently has, he should ask Congress to give it to him — after all, they approve black programs all the time and are fully capable of holding closed hearings to debate sensitive national security issues. It's worth remembering that "regulation of the land and naval forces" is a power the constitution gives to Congress, and both Congress and the president ought to start taking that a little more seriously.

UPDATE: I haven't read all the comments, but a couple of emails have persuaded me that part of this post was sloppily worded. To make myself clear, then: although Presidents have increased authority during wartime, both in theory and in practice, that authority doesn't extend to deliberately violating acts of Congress. The president is required to obey the law during both war and peace. I've modified the post slightly to make that clearer

Boring Canadian Names

What is up with Canada?

I was just reading a story about a dispute within the Canadian Parliament about the export and pricing of soft wood (hehe...soft wood...), and anyhoozle, the three principles involved in the discussion are;

Paul Martin (Prime Minister, of course)
David Wilkins (US Ambassador)
Stephen Harper (Conservative leader of Parliament)
Jack Layton (New lefty Democrats)

Setting aside the issue, because, well...What is up with those generic names of Canadians. It's not a completely homogenous society, you know. Use a little flair. Whatever happened to those hockey player names like Marcel Dionne or Jacques Lemair or Gilles Desjardins. Even Joni Mitchell seems sort of adventurous compared to the Neil Young, Anne Murray, or BRYAN Adams (by the way, please don't yell "Summer of '65!" at a RYAN Adams show because it really pisses him off! Wait...maybe you should do that. Cuz it's fun!)

Now I certainly don't want to imply that these people aren't dynamic individuals or anything (after all, I'm moving there if we keep f---ing up the world) - just for moms and dads in Canada to throw in a Nigel or a Samson or a Indira or a Calliope here and there.

Peace.

O’Reilly Claims He Is Personally Responsible For Lower Gas Price

Thank God for Bill O'Reilly. He is doing so much important work for the common man.
This blathering idiot thinks that he is actually responsible for the price of gas going down.

I believe that he is responsible for going down on something else.


From Think Progress :


In an interview yesterday with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto, Bill O’Reilly claimed that his reporting intimidated oil company CEOs into lowering gasoline prices:

O’REILLY: I have guys inside the five major oil companies - my father used to work for one of those oil companies by the way - who have told me that in those meetings they look for every way to jack up oil prices after Katrina, every way, when they didn’t have to. They got scared because of my reporting and reporting of some others. They said, “Uh ho.”

CAVUTO: So wait a minute, you’re not, you’re taking credit for gas prices being down from where they are?

O’REILLY: I said my reporting and some reporting of others. They got scared.

Watch the clip in Quicktime


So not only is Bill O’Reilly saving Christmas, he’s making it cheaper for you to get to the mall. Is there anything this guy can’t do?

Full transcript below:

CAVUTO: Ok. Gas prices are down a lot. Why do you think that is?

O’REILLY: Because they’re afraid they were going to go to jail. They were afraid they were going to get the Enron treatment and those CEOs who manipulated them up…

CAVUTO: Why are you sure they have manipulated them?

O’REILLY: Because I have inside guys who tell me that.

CAVUTO: That the CEO’s of these companies, who are part of a cabal…

O’REILLY: I have guys inside the five major oil companies - my father used to work for one of those oil companies by the way - who have told me that in those meetings they look for every way to jack up oil prices after Katrina, every way, when they didn’t have to. They got scared because of my reporting and reporting of some others. They said, “Uh ho.”

CAVUTO: So wait a minute, you’re not, you’re taking credit for gas prices being down from where they are?

O’REILLY: I said my reporting and some reporting of others. They got scared.

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