Truth and Traditions

One is tempted to quip about the good old days of Presidential moderation under Bush 43.

Last Sunday was the 90th day of bombing in Libya, but Mr. Obama — armed with dubious legal opinions — is refusing to stop America’s military engagement there. His White House counsel, Robert F. Bauer, has declared that, despite the War Powers Act, the president can continue the Libya campaign indefinitely without legislative support. This conclusion lacks a solid legal foundation. And by adopting it, the White House has shattered the traditional legal process the executive branch has developed to sustain the rule of law over the past 75 years.

via Obama’s Illegal War in Libya – NYTimes.com.

Some of the nation’s largest corporations have amassed vast profits outside the country and are pressing Congress and the Obama administration for a tax break to bring the money home.

The idea is that the year they bring this money home, corporate tax drops from 35% to 5.25% for these rapatriating companies. In theory, that tax on all this money that would otherwise stay overseas would bring all sorts of benefits. Here’s that theory:

“For every billion dollars that we invest, that creates 15,000 to 20,000 jobs either directly or indirectly,” Jim Rogers, the chief of Duke Energy, said at the conference. Duke has $1.3 billion in profits overseas.

Practical reality is likely to be different:

But that’s not how it worked last time. Congress and the Bush administration offered companies a similar tax incentive, in 2005, in hopes of spurring domestic hiring and investment, and 800 took advantage.

Though the tax break lured them into bringing $312 billion back to the United States, 92 percent of that money was returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks, according to a study by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research.

Fortunately Obama and Geithner have  “been uncharacteristically harsh in its criticism of the idea.”

For now.

via U.S. Companies Press for Repatriation Holiday – NYTimes.com.

Electing men who would be king to the presidency is not good for our democracy. Not good at all.,

There’s another significant and telling parallel between Obama’s illegal war and the Bush eavesdropping scandal. One of the questions frequently asked about the NSA scandal was why Bush and Cheney decided to eavesdrop in violation of the law rather than having Congress approve their program; in the wake of 9/11, both parties in Congress were as subservient as could be, and would have offered zero resistance to requests by the administration for increased eavesdropping powers (the same question was asked of Bush’s refusal to seek Congressional approval for the detention and military commissions regime at Guantanamo). The answer to that question ultimately became clear: they did not want to seek Congressional approval, even though they easily could have obtained it, because they wanted to establish the “principle” that the President is omnipotent in these areas and needs nobody’s permission (neither from Congress nor the courts) to do what the President wants.

Obama seems to feel the same need.

All that aside, what is undeniable is that Obama could have easily obtained Congressional approval for this war — just as Bush could have for his warrantless eavesdropping program — but consciously chose not to, even to the point of acting contrary to his own lawyers’ conclusions about what is illegal.

Other than the same hubris — and a desire to establish his power to act without constraints — it’s very hard to see what motivated this behavior.  Whatever the motives are, it’s clear that he’s waging an illegal war, as his own Attorney General, OLC Chief and DoD General Counsel have told him.

via Obama rejects top lawyers’ legal views on Libya – Libya – Salon.com.

The war on drugs is a bust.

This is how the war on drugs will end: with elder statesmen calling for radical change, and millions of victims of the drug war saying enough is enough, and fiscal conservatives tiring of the expense, and civil rights advocates embracing reform as part of their agenda, and young people rejecting the war as the folly of their elders, and elected officials deciding it’s time to step out—and tens of millions of parents concluding that their children and the future of our society are better served by policies that rely dramatically less on criminal sanctions and harsh punishments and much more on science, compassion, health and common sense.

via The Forty-Year Quagmire: An Exit Strategy for the War on Drugs | The Nation.

Pretty soon they’ll be searching every house, at night, so they can look through the trapdoor that’s under every  bed, you know, the one that hides all the monsters.

There are two sides of the terror coin, after all: the people who want to kill you and the people who dislike the United States being at war all the time. Keep tabs on them both. Hell, just keep tabs on everyone. Everyone is now a terrorist.

Weirdest part: how did the FBI know who to go after when they wanted to perform raids? THEY LOOKED THROUGH OBAMA’S PHONE BOOK. Haha, there is some ironic proof he is a secret socialist terrorist. Some of those targeted are union organizers and activists Obama had contact with in Chicago.

via FBI Now Investigating Major U.S. Enemy: Domestic Peace Activists.

Just what we need, more well-heeled pests throwing their money in the they lobbying pits:

In nearly two decades of research and advocacy on pesticides and human health, Environmental Working Group has never before seen the produce industry take a high-profile role in debates over pesticide policy and safety, as it has this year. Invariably, it was the trade association for the pesticide industry that took the lead.

That group, which began life as The Agricultural Insecticide and Fungicide Association and evolved into the National Agricultural Chemicals Association, most recently rebranded itself “CropLife America” after it became evident that even the mention of “pesticides” or “agricultural chemicals” evoked a negative public response, Similarly, most agribusinesses have adopted the pesticide industry’s defensive code words, “crop protection chemicals” or “tools.”

In the past year, however, EWG observed a striking change: an unprecedented, highly public lobbying and PR campaign by fresh produce organizations aimed at downplaying consumer concerns about pesticides.

via Best Friends Forever? Produce Growers and Pesticide Makers Deepen Their Bond | Environmental Working Group.