While the temps near our DC offices are forecast to get near 100ºF this week, we have no doubt that inside the Old Senate Chambers last night, and inside the normal Senate chambers today, will be where the real heat is at.
As you may know, the full U.S. Senate - all 100 members - met yesterday evening in the Old Senate Chambers to discuss a possible way around Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid invoking the infamous "nuclear option" in the U.S. Senate. Since no deal was reported out of that meeting, we fully expect Majority Leader Reid to push ahead with all seven votes on President Obama's nominees this morning.
If Sen. McConnell and the Republican leaders in the Senate balk, stall, or try to obstruct a vote on any of those nominees, Sen. Reid has confirmed he will push the metaphorical button, and use the so-called nuclear option to change the rules in the U.S. Senate. That the Republicans' obstructionist ways will finally blow up in their faces shouldn't surprise anyone - and frankly, this rule change isn't anything to fear.
The level of rule change Majority Leader Reid is looking for isn't a complete elimination of the filibuster in the Senate. Rather, it's an adjustment that actually brings the Senate closer to both the letter and the intent of the Constitution, specifically Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 - The Appointments Clause.
The Appointments Clause empowers the President of the United States to appoint individuals to positions, including cabinet level agencies, with the "advice and consent" of the Senate. There's nowhere in this clause, or in any of our country's founding documents that says this power had a duel use, as both a way to confirm nominees and a way for the Senate to prevent a President from picking the people that President wants to work with in the Cabinet. The Senate is simply supposed to advise, and then, if a majority of Senators agrees, consent to the President's nomination. That's a majority of Senators - not a supermajority.
Yet, as Sen. Reid noted in his Monday press conference at the Center For American Progress, Republicans in the Senate have used the filibuster at such a high rate, if they continue at this pace, before the end of his second term, they'll have blocked more of President Obama's appointments than all other Presidents have had blocked by the Senate, combined.
There's absolutely no reason for this kind of nullification tactic by Republicans - or anyone else for that matter. Indeed, as the Washington Post's Greg Sargent noted Monday morning and as Sen Tom Harkin of Iowa noted Monday afternoon, Republicans aren't filibustering President Obama's nominees for any reason other than as an act of nullification.
As Sargent also correctly noted, even longtime GOP House and Senate staffer Richard Arenberg conceded last week that the way Republicans have been using the filibuster to block presidential nominees under President Obama has been effectively "poking the Democrats with a sharp stick."
That Harry Reid has finally been pushed to the point of using the Constitution to blow away at least some of the pointless and infantile obstruction of the Republican Party may blow back a bit in the faces of Democrats, true.
More likely, though, using the "nuclear option" to fix the Senate, and make it more functional again, will force sane Republicans in the Senate to truly take on the tea bag extremists in their own party - and that's an explosion we've been waiting a long time to see.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Monday, July 15, 2013
Symbols Of Injustice
"Even when we already know the likely outcome of some events, we can still be amazed at how some of those events unfold - and how persons involved in those events can justify horrible outcomes as acceptable."
That's how we began a commentary back in 2012 about stupidity in law and politics, in which we wrote about George Zimmerman's murder of Trayvon Martin. Sadly, we didn't know how prophetic those words would be.
In case you missed the news, on Saturday night, George Zimmerman - a man who admitted to shooting and killing the unarmed, innocent, barely 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida in February of 2012 - was acquitted of second degree murder in a Florida courtroom. While George Zimmerman may be legally not guilty of second degree murder, he will never escape the fact he killed an innocent boy.
Even so, George Zimmerman got to go home. He'll likely get his gun back. Trayvon Martin is still dead, and the legal system in Florida - because it cannot be called a justice system - failed him. That system isn't some mechanical thing, though. That so many groups and individuals failed the innocent Trayvon Martin hasn't been lost on us.
To start with, Mr. Zimmerman, who was supposed to be a "Neighborhood Watch Captain" failed in his duties, completely. Not only should Zimmerman - a man convicted of assault more than once - not have been carrying a weapon on his neighborhood watch duties. He shouldn't have even been allowed to carry a gun. Sadly, we've discussed the failures of the gun lobby to be responsible more times than we'd care to count in these pages.
The Florida legislature also failed the young Trayvon Martin - though we have a strong suspicion the laws in Florida are actually meant to be unjust. Even so, as writers Josh Marshall and Eugene Volokh point out, the self-defense statutes in Florida, and indeed around the nation, don't actually match up with what common sense - and the original common law they were based on - should be.
The Florida State Attorney General and the Seminole County prosecution team also obviously failed in their duties. There are concerns about how they handled evidence, and about how race was and was not used as a factor in court, in what was an obviously a racial shooting incident. The list of failures by the prosecution team may even spur U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to file charges against both the prosecution team and Mr. Zimmerman himself.
The upside, such as it is, to all this failure, is that George Zimmerman has to spend the rest of his life being George Zimmerman. As both supporters of Trayvon Martin and of Mr. Zimmerman noted over the weekend, Mr. Zimmerman isn't even safe in his own hometown of Sanford any longer - and he likely won't feel safe in most places in the United States.
Further, there are still more lawsuits Zimmerman will have to face, including a civil lawsuit where he will be forced to testify, and that legal experts we've consulted note he is highly likely to lose.
If there is any individual justice for Trayvon Martin, that may be part of it: that George Zimmerman is now sentenced to a life of perpetual paranoia, and unending lawsuits with little hope of ever being anything more than a living symbol. For gun nuts, racists, and Fox News viewers, that symbol will be as a hero who can effectively roam neighborhoods freely at will, dispensing "justice" vigilante-style, as Charlie Pierce so eloquently noted at Esquire.com.
For the rest of us, Zimmerman should be a symbol of how all Americans have failed, and are continuing to fail, in ensuring we have a true justice system, and not just a legal system.
That's how we began a commentary back in 2012 about stupidity in law and politics, in which we wrote about George Zimmerman's murder of Trayvon Martin. Sadly, we didn't know how prophetic those words would be.
In case you missed the news, on Saturday night, George Zimmerman - a man who admitted to shooting and killing the unarmed, innocent, barely 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida in February of 2012 - was acquitted of second degree murder in a Florida courtroom. While George Zimmerman may be legally not guilty of second degree murder, he will never escape the fact he killed an innocent boy.
Even so, George Zimmerman got to go home. He'll likely get his gun back. Trayvon Martin is still dead, and the legal system in Florida - because it cannot be called a justice system - failed him. That system isn't some mechanical thing, though. That so many groups and individuals failed the innocent Trayvon Martin hasn't been lost on us.
To start with, Mr. Zimmerman, who was supposed to be a "Neighborhood Watch Captain" failed in his duties, completely. Not only should Zimmerman - a man convicted of assault more than once - not have been carrying a weapon on his neighborhood watch duties. He shouldn't have even been allowed to carry a gun. Sadly, we've discussed the failures of the gun lobby to be responsible more times than we'd care to count in these pages.
The Florida legislature also failed the young Trayvon Martin - though we have a strong suspicion the laws in Florida are actually meant to be unjust. Even so, as writers Josh Marshall and Eugene Volokh point out, the self-defense statutes in Florida, and indeed around the nation, don't actually match up with what common sense - and the original common law they were based on - should be.
The Florida State Attorney General and the Seminole County prosecution team also obviously failed in their duties. There are concerns about how they handled evidence, and about how race was and was not used as a factor in court, in what was an obviously a racial shooting incident. The list of failures by the prosecution team may even spur U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to file charges against both the prosecution team and Mr. Zimmerman himself.
The upside, such as it is, to all this failure, is that George Zimmerman has to spend the rest of his life being George Zimmerman. As both supporters of Trayvon Martin and of Mr. Zimmerman noted over the weekend, Mr. Zimmerman isn't even safe in his own hometown of Sanford any longer - and he likely won't feel safe in most places in the United States.
Further, there are still more lawsuits Zimmerman will have to face, including a civil lawsuit where he will be forced to testify, and that legal experts we've consulted note he is highly likely to lose.
If there is any individual justice for Trayvon Martin, that may be part of it: that George Zimmerman is now sentenced to a life of perpetual paranoia, and unending lawsuits with little hope of ever being anything more than a living symbol. For gun nuts, racists, and Fox News viewers, that symbol will be as a hero who can effectively roam neighborhoods freely at will, dispensing "justice" vigilante-style, as Charlie Pierce so eloquently noted at Esquire.com.
For the rest of us, Zimmerman should be a symbol of how all Americans have failed, and are continuing to fail, in ensuring we have a true justice system, and not just a legal system.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Food For Thought
As we head toward the first regular weekend on the downhill side of 2013, food and hunger are on our minds, for multiple reasons. Conveniently, we're also looking at a feast of news stories to choose from today.
There's the bitter fruit of the GOP that continues to rot that political party from the inside out. This was exemplified by a mostly party-line vote in the House on Thursday, on the Farm and Food Bill. With that vote House Republicans made it clear they expect all of America to shell out billions of dollars in subsidies to Big Agriculture. At the same time, they also expect Americans who are poor - including children and the elderly - to go hungry indefinitely, as Republicans refused to fund any portion of the traditional food aid package, primarily food stamps.
There is the spicy meat of the immigration bill too, though it also seems that legislative topic may have passed its 'use by' date, also thanks to the obstinate and ignorant extremists in the House GOP. The stale nutcake of the George Zimmerman trial is also on the news buffet, though frankly, as people who have a bit more refined palate for news, we're pretty tired of that tabloid fodder.
Of course, the fiery stew of turmoil in the Middle East continues to boil and make a very explosive mess. The Syrian civil war is rolling on, and sectarian violence continues in Iraq, even as Egypt's latest revolution attempts to move toward its next phase.
For all the choices on the news menu today though, since it's Friday, we're looking forward to the weekend, and to our collective guilty media pleasure - specifically, the HBO show 'The Newsroom,' which begins it's second season this Sunday.
For far too many spoiled, bitter pundits inside the Beltway and in New York, hating on Aaron Sorkin's 'The Newsroom' during the show's first season became the "cool" thing to do. Even many writers and journalists whose parents haven't bankrolled their dabbling in news media threw potshots and low blows at the show, in desperate attempts to appear cool.
For many of those working in the media who haven't had traditional paths to success, who've busted their backsides for years and worked their asses to positions of prominence, the show is a humorous, overwrought paean to what great media - and specifically, the news media - really should be.
For all the snark and bitter "hate-watching" comments many media hacks have already been gleefully tossing around, the stories produced by "The Newsroom" parallel many of the tales told in newsrooms our staff and friends have worked in or known over the last thirty years - stories that primarily only members of the media have seen, heard, or experienced regularly. We certainly don't think those stories should remain just the purview of those in the media.
We'll admit - many of our professional colleagues tend to turn their noses up cynically at fare like 'The Newsroom,' that are basically stories they've already had a taste of before.
That's certainly not something we'll do this weekend, with the comfort food for the spirit that is what "The Newsroom" really is for us and others in the media, who are lucky enough to work ourselves to the bone doing something we love.
TV, in general, may not be the perfect form of entertainment escapism - but 'The Newsroom' gives us a taste of what media, done well, should really be like.
There's the bitter fruit of the GOP that continues to rot that political party from the inside out. This was exemplified by a mostly party-line vote in the House on Thursday, on the Farm and Food Bill. With that vote House Republicans made it clear they expect all of America to shell out billions of dollars in subsidies to Big Agriculture. At the same time, they also expect Americans who are poor - including children and the elderly - to go hungry indefinitely, as Republicans refused to fund any portion of the traditional food aid package, primarily food stamps.
There is the spicy meat of the immigration bill too, though it also seems that legislative topic may have passed its 'use by' date, also thanks to the obstinate and ignorant extremists in the House GOP. The stale nutcake of the George Zimmerman trial is also on the news buffet, though frankly, as people who have a bit more refined palate for news, we're pretty tired of that tabloid fodder.
Of course, the fiery stew of turmoil in the Middle East continues to boil and make a very explosive mess. The Syrian civil war is rolling on, and sectarian violence continues in Iraq, even as Egypt's latest revolution attempts to move toward its next phase.
For all the choices on the news menu today though, since it's Friday, we're looking forward to the weekend, and to our collective guilty media pleasure - specifically, the HBO show 'The Newsroom,' which begins it's second season this Sunday.
For far too many spoiled, bitter pundits inside the Beltway and in New York, hating on Aaron Sorkin's 'The Newsroom' during the show's first season became the "cool" thing to do. Even many writers and journalists whose parents haven't bankrolled their dabbling in news media threw potshots and low blows at the show, in desperate attempts to appear cool.
For many of those working in the media who haven't had traditional paths to success, who've busted their backsides for years and worked their asses to positions of prominence, the show is a humorous, overwrought paean to what great media - and specifically, the news media - really should be.
For all the snark and bitter "hate-watching" comments many media hacks have already been gleefully tossing around, the stories produced by "The Newsroom" parallel many of the tales told in newsrooms our staff and friends have worked in or known over the last thirty years - stories that primarily only members of the media have seen, heard, or experienced regularly. We certainly don't think those stories should remain just the purview of those in the media.
We'll admit - many of our professional colleagues tend to turn their noses up cynically at fare like 'The Newsroom,' that are basically stories they've already had a taste of before.
That's certainly not something we'll do this weekend, with the comfort food for the spirit that is what "The Newsroom" really is for us and others in the media, who are lucky enough to work ourselves to the bone doing something we love.
TV, in general, may not be the perfect form of entertainment escapism - but 'The Newsroom' gives us a taste of what media, done well, should really be like.
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