Around town: stuff from my inbox

National Geographic is commemorating World Refugee Day tomorrow at their headquarters downtown with a free party and showing of the movie God Grew Tired of Us (movie is at 4 PM).

WHEN: Saturday, June 23, starting 12 pm, movie at 4pm
WHERE: National Geographic headquarters

Special advance screening of "NO END IN SIGHT," winner of the 2007 Sundance Special Jury Award for Documentary, followed by a panel discussion. Admission is free, BUT you must RSVP via the above link; first come first served. About "No End in Sight":

The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq's descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality, and anarchy, "NO END IN SIGHT" is a jaw-dropping, insider's tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness, and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell Lawrence Wilkerson, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003), as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts.

WHEN: Monday, June 25, 2007, 7:30pm to 9:30pm
WHERE: E Street Cinema, 555 11th Street NW (near Metro Center and Gallery Place metro stops)

Should Impeachment be on the Table? An impeachment grassroots town hall forum at George Mason University, with participants including:

• Bruce Fein, Constitutional lawyer; Associate Deputy Attorney General, Reagan Administration; Principal, the Lichfield Group; Principal, the American Freedom Agenda; former General Counsel, FCC.
• Lawrence Wilkerson, Chief of Staff for Secretary of State, Colin Powell; Visiting Professor, College of William & Mary; former Director, USMC War College, Quantico, VA; Colonel, US Army, retired.
• Marcus Raskin, Co-Founder, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC; Professor, the George Washington University; author “Four Freedoms Under Siege,” and “In Democracy’s Shadow.”
• Barbara Olshansky, Professor, Stanford Law School; former Deputy Director, Center for Constitutional Rights; Co-Author “The Case for Impeachment.”
• Mark Levine, Host “Inside Scoop” radio, internet and TV talk show; former U.S. Congressional staff attorney.
• Dennis Loo, Professor, Cal Poly Pomona, Co-Editor “Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush & Cheney.”
• Barbara Bowley, Associate Professor & Director Education Services, Woodbury University; contributor “Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush & Cheney.”
• Ron Pinchback (Moderator), General Manager, WPFW (89.3 FM), Pacifica Radio, Washington, D.C.

WHEN: Saturday, June 23, 1-4pm
WHERE: George Mason University Mason Hall Conference Center

Captain John Smith’s Shallop Docks at Mount Vernon

...commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Captain John Smith’s extraordinary voyage to explore the Chesapeake Bay. A replica of Smith’s 30-foot “shallop” will retrace the 1,500 mile route, stopping at Mount Vernon with an exhibition that offers an in-depth look at the world of the early 17th-century Chesapeake Native American and English cultures. Created by Sultana Projects, a non-profit educational organization, on the web at www.SchoonerSultana.org.

WHEN: June 23-24, 8am-5pm
WHERE: Mt. Vernon


Not necessarily going to make it to any of these myself, but who knows. Hat tips for the first three items go to Ray, Robert, and Michelle (Takoma Park Impeach Bush Cheney), respectively.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:32:00 PM -- |    

 
Cheney makes his move
"The Raw Story" reports: Cheney tells agency that Vice President's office is not part of the executive branch. Michael Roston writes:

The Office of Vice President Dick Cheney told an agency within the National Archives that for purposes of securing classified information, the Vice President's office is not an 'entity within the executive branch' according to a letter released Thursday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Via Ice Station Tango (a deserving Koufax "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition" nominee). I've heard of Cheney's and his chief of staff David Addington's theory before: because Cheney can cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, he's neither executive fish nor legislative fowl, so to speak.* Yeah, right.

To me, what seems almost more remarkable -- within the Bush mafia, that is -- is how Cheney is thumbing his nose at Bush. As House Government Oversight chairman Henry Waxman wrote:

"The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, you exempted the Office of the Vice President from the presidential executive order that establishes a uniform, government-wide system for safeguarding classified national security information," Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the Committee's chairman, wrote in a letter to Cheney. "Your decision to exempt your office from the President's order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk. It is also hard to understand given the history of security breaches involving officials in your office."

(Emphasis added.) It's as if Paulie Walnuts tells Tony Soprano it's his pad and his racket money, and Tony can go take a hike. Wouldn't happen -- or at least it wouldn't last.

Instead, because Bush lets stuff like this go, he's got a completely unaccountable, competing power center next door, no matter how it may be sold to him as sticking it to Congress or preserving executive power or something. Only a completely overmatched president -- a Ralph Cifaretto, maybe? there's probably some better example -- would put up with it for a second. Hmm. Wonder if Cheney's ever punched Bush in the face.

Enough Sopranos -- impeach them both, impeach them all. But, as Robert Lanza noted in his public comments at the Takoma Park city council meeting earlier this week, it would be wise to impeach Cheney first.


=====
* UPDATE, 6/22: There's more on this in an article by Scott Shane in today's New York Times, Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data. The agency is the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO). The refusals date back to 2003 and 2004 -- and an appeal by the agency to the Attorney General has been languishing since January of this year. Shane:

... Mr. Addington stated in conversations [with the head of ISOO -ed.] that the vice president’s office was not an “entity within the executive branch” because, under the Constitution, the vice president also plays a role in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate, able to cast a vote in the event of a tie.

Mr. Waxman rejected that argument. “He doesn’t have classified information because of his legislative function,” Mr. Waxman said of Mr. Cheney. “It’s because of his executive function.”

UPDATE, 6/22: Steve Benen ("Carpetbagger Report") notes that Cheney's, um, special theory about his office was out in the blogs much earlier this year. I apparently either channeled or half-remembered some of digby's comments from back then. posted by Thomas Nephew at 8:33:00 AM -- |    

 
Support the Employee Free Choice Act

• Establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
• Provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
• Allow employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.

The last provision -- called "card check" or "majority signup" by labor, and "streamlining union certification" in the bill -- is designed to make it easier for workers to unionize. It's important to note that EFCA doesn't prohibit the traditional route to unionization: secret ballot elections. Instead, it simply provides an alternative.

The "majority signup" unionizing process recognizes that traditional secret ballot elections in the workplace can bear little resemblance to the elections we (hope we) use to elect political leaders. The graphic to the right, based on a report for American Rights At Work, shows some of the differences. Imagine if your mayor could credibly threaten you with shutting down the city if his opponent were elected.

While such tactics are supposed to be illegal, it can be years before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) gets around to considering complaints -- let alone punishing management. Thus, according to the AFL-CIO, 25% of companies facing union campaigns illegally fire pro-union workers.

Management has the advantage anyway: they can campaign round-the-clock against unions with posters and meetings, while workers are restricted to breaks and after hours organizing; 92% of companies facing union campaigns have mandatory, closed door anti union meetings; union organizers, of course, can't compel anyone to listen to them.

Some fret that the "card check" method will make it too easy for pro-union workers to coerce other workers into signing pro-union petitions as well. It's hard to see how, though; labor law (including the EFCA) prohibits that. At any rate, a study by Adrienne Wheaton and Jill Kriesky found that workers actually feel less coerced by co-workers in "majority signup" situations than in secret ballot ones. That would make sense: "majority signup" would create less of an embattled atmosphere than a high stakes secret ballot election. (Meanwhile, of course, the respondents felt much less coerced by management as well.)

Something is keeping reported tens of millions of Americans from joining unions even though they'd like to; it's probably because it's usually just too much of an uphill battle. The Employee Free Choice Act will level that playing field -- and bring higher wages and better benefits to workers, for a change.

Contact your Senators and urge them to support this bill and resist Republican efforts to filibuster it. The Employee Free Choice Act deserves an "up or down vote" -- and then it deserves to win.


=====
FURTHER READING: For the Long Run: The Employee Free Choice Act, Jefferson Cowie, Cornell University, April 2006, and other documents at the AFL CIO's "Who Supports the Employee Free Choice Act?" Wal-Mart is the poster child of unionbusting, of course; one of the most recent studies of their methods is by Human Rights Watch: Discounting Rights: Wal-Mart's Violation of US Workers’ Right to Freedom of Association (summarized here). posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:31:00 AM -- |    

 
How to trap a Fox
Rick Perlstein, attending the Take Back America conference, reports How Liberal Activists Outfoxed Fox; the video above is moviemaker Robert Greenwald's own documentary about the campaign to prevent Fox from hosting a presidential debate in Nevada earlier this year. Perlstein:

...Greenwald produced a video of the most damning clips of Fox savaging Democrats. The video included an address for an online petition at the end. WIthin 24 hours the petition had received thousands of signatures. They got angry local Nevada Democrats to bug Nevada Democratic leaders. They got local Nevada bloggers - people with but a thousand or two thousand readers a day - on the case. These blogs were read by local politicians, party officers, local media. The elites started taking notice. They managed to get national coverage of a local story. That made it bigger locally.

As the controversy started burbling, Fox made a clever play. They approached Air America and invited them to contribute a liberal to the debate panel. Tokenism: a powerful hustle. Especially since it would help them slap the "fair and balanced" imprimateur on a TV show designed, like all "Fox News" programs are designed, as a platform to humiliate Democrats.

Not so fast. Mark Green, Air America's co-owner, told the panel audience about the spanner he threw in Fox's works: not only did he turn them down, he sent letters to every Republican state chair, pointing out that Fox News and Air America have similar-size audiences, proposing that Air America sponsor a Republican candidate debate. The brilliant PR gambit amplified the entire message of the movement: Everyone knows agrees Air America is a liberal activist organization. Presto! He had just framed Fox as an equally activist organization of the right. (Green, Rudy Giuliani's longtime rival in New York municipal politics, repeated the quip he publicly made to Ailes: he could be at least as "fair and balanced" to Giuliani as Fox would be to the Democratic candidates.

On March 9 the debate was cancelled. Left wing activists had managed to do what conservatives had done for years: make a small story into a big one and seize terms of discussion.

Read Perlstein's whole article; he's good at getting across just how important this win was -- both because of what was defeated and because of how it was done. Greenwald's videos Fox Attacks: Black America and Fox Attacks Obama are available on YouTube. They prove that Fox isn't a "fair and balanced" news organization, it's a Republican PR firm with a news storefront.

For more on the TBA conference, check out alt hippo's posts, starting here. Obama apparently had 'em rocking and made alt hippo "just a bit less cynical," but a TBA post by Isaiah Poole indicates Edwards (the one I'm pulling for) did OK too. But "unlike some residents of the White House, I actually believe in the Constitution" is something I really wanted to hear from someone. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:26:00 AM -- |    

 
Remarks to the Takoma Park City Council on impeachment
During public comment period at Monday night's Takoma Park City Council meeting, several of us spoke in favor of a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Like all Takoma Park City Council meetings, this meeting was videotaped and can be viewed on line.

After some preliminary remarks by councilmembers, the public comment period began at around 7:45 minutes into the meeting; click here for the video. Speaking for the impeachment resolution were Sue W., myself, Katie Bergstrom, Robert Lanza, Colleen Cordes, Nina Falk, and Michelle Bailey.* Here's my own statement:

I’m here to support the impeachment resolution sponsored by Councilman Reuben Snipper.

I’ve collected signatures on behalf of this at the Farmer’s Market, and can tell you that the response to this idea is overwhelmingly positive.

But there have also been questions that deserve answers, including, fundamentally, why bother with this? What good will a city council resolution do? So I’ll try to explain why I think this resolution is a crucial duty.

The short answer to "why bother?" is summed up by the counter-question: "what if we don't even bother?" Among the terrible precedents this administration has set are: the utter sin and crime of torture. A fraudulent case for war. Abrogation of habeas corpus. Warrantless surveillance in direct defiance of specific law. A king-like disregard and contempt for other laws properly passed and signed, and a refusal to enforce them. Each of these are grounds enough for impeachment, and there are more; together, they add up to a administration that must be opposed, whose very policy is to flout the Constitution and laws designed to control it.

But also, unless we act now, the next administration like this one can take its lawless, amoral, unconstitutional approach as a consensus starting point, instead of a shame on this country and a reproach to its institutions.

That’s where we come in. The first three words of the Constitution are “We, the people.” We “ordain and establish” the Constitution, we are responsible for it. We, here in this room, too. You, our elected leaders, too. To echo a certain president’s father: “these aggressions must not stand.” They must at least not stand unopposed.

I think we absolutely have to do this. I want to be able to tell my little girl years from now “we tried.” (Of course, I’d like even more to say, “and we won!”).

So thank you all for considering this resolution, and for the opportunity to speak for it. And to all of you who vote for it: I’m sure you’ll have many other important achievements -- but I think this will be the finest thing you ever do in public office.

Thank you.

Pardon all the emphases; I hoped they'd help me a little while I was speaking, and maybe they did. All the comments were good, but I'll highlight a point made by Ms. Cordes:

...I think that we can see that Congress has been intimidated by the president and by the whole national security apparatus, and that it's the place of local governments like Takoma Park, who don't suffer the same intimidation, to stand up and create some groundswell so that Congress understands that the people are behind this.

Mayor Kathy Porter said the impeachment resolution would likely come up for a vote in July.


=====
* I may have misspelled one or more of these names.
NOTE: "Takoma Park Impeach Bush Cheney" may post transcripts of each supporting statement at their web site. The group can be reached at takomaparkibc@gmail.com.
UPDATE, 6/19: Meetup badge added.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:37:00 AM -- |    

 
Jeffrey Rosen's perplexing questions answered
Recently I was looking at Jeffrey Rosen's March 2007 New York Times Magazine article The Brain on the Stand again, because I thought it might be relevant to an online discussion elsewhere. While the article -- which discussed how the law might be affected by new scientific findings about the brain -- was definitely interesting, it turned out it wasn't really relevant to the discussion. Still, this part at the end caught my eye:

As the new technologies proliferate, even the neurolaw experts themselves have only begun to think about the questions that lie ahead. Can the police get a search warrant for someone’s brain? Should the Fourth Amendment protect our minds in the same way that it protects our houses? Can courts order tests of suspects’ memories to determine whether they are gang members or police informers, or would this violate the Fifth Amendment’s ban on compulsory self-incrimination? Would punishing people for their thoughts rather than for their actions violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment?

However astonishing our machines may become, they cannot tell us how to answer these perplexing questions. ...

Answers: No. Yes. No. Yes. This has been "Jeffrey Rosen's perplexing questions answered."

My answers are purely prescriptive, of course: assuming the technology were available, no doubt the police could find a judge sufficiently unethical to condone its use. My answers also reluctantly accept Rosen's framing -- even though questions like the last one should really be cut off at the First Amendment pass, with any strays rounded up at the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, before any of them ever even reach the Eighth Amendment.

Rosen continues and concludes his article with these final words of wisdom:

...We must instead look to our own powers of reasoning and intuition, relatively primitive as they may be. As Stephen Morse puts it, neuroscience itself can never identify the mysterious point at which people should be excused from responsibility for their actions because they are not able, in some sense, to control themselves. That question, he suggests, is “moral and ultimately legal,” and it must be answered not in laboratories but in courtrooms and legislatures. In other words, we must answer it ourselves.

OK, but I wonder if many of us will want Jeffrey Rosen on the inevitable blue ribbon committee that will be "answering it ourselves" if he thinks his questions were all that perplexing. Questions about the neurological basis of responsibility shouldn't morph back and forth with those about basic rights to privacy, freedom of speech, and against self-incrimination. Findings about the former have no impact on the latter -- whether or not the tools used to investigate them could be abused that way.

It's not that Rosen is thinking about the issues, it's that he thinks they're hard that bothers me. As Rosen's article indicates, this stuff isn't comfortably in the distant future any more; even if most of what he describes is still too crude for prime time, our prime time is already pretty crude and getting cruder.

There seems to be a kind of legal scholarship that delights in discovering gray areas and hard questions where simple bright lines are available, and would do the rest of us a world more good. I'm reminded of Judge Richard Posner, for instance; there's also paperwight's post (great title: "Jeffrey Rosen: Grifter's Delight") from a while back, about Dr. Rosen's excellent visit to Guantanamo. While I no longer subscribe, and can't recall in detail, I do remember being annoyed by what felt like a "on the one hand, on the other hand, on the third hand" analysis of the legal issues there in his New Republic writeup, "My Gitmo Vacation" (sub. req.).

It seems to me such scholarship and punditry generally gets more play than "bright line" analyses; maybe we prefer to think that the law and our human rights are and ought to be mysterious, and believe we need latter-day oracles to tell us so. Or maybe it's just the folks running the New York Times and The New Republic who believe we ought to feel that way.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:01:00 PM -- |