Dirty Politician: Rep. Jerry Lewis

House Appropriations Committee chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA), under federal investigation himself, abruptly fired 60 contract investigators working for the Appropriations Committee to identify government fraud and waste. This stalls out all of the investigations, which have been saving billions of dollars and identified numerous instances of malfeasance.

Lewis spokesman John Scofield says "there is nothing sinister going on."

A bad argument in support of the Protect Marriage Arizona amendment

Gun rights advocate and "uninvited ombudsman" Alan Korwin has sent out a checklist of his recommendations on the Arizona ballot propositions. I disagree with him on several of the propositions, perhaps most significantly on his recommendation of a yes vote to amend the Arizona Constitution to ban same-sex marriage and any legal arrangements that are "similar to" marriage. Here's his argument for 107:

107 YES Protect marriage amendment. If people want gay unions, polygamy, bestiality or whatever, I say let them, but not under government sanction and funding. I'd like to see us return to "holy matrimony" without any government involvement. Getting married for tax breaks is so wrong.

But this argument presumes the effect of 107 is to get the government out of the marriage business, which it isn't. Rather, 107 has the effect of enshrining existing statutory prohibitions on a form (or multiple forms) of legal contract between consenting adults into the Constitution, and going further to restrict any such arrangement "similar to" marriage. It isn't pro-liberty, it's anti-liberty. It isn't eliminating special privileges, it is adding them to the Arizona Constitution.

It's perfectly reasonable to argue that nobody should have tax breaks or special privileges under the law, but it's not reasonable to say that because such privileges are wrong we should restrict them to a particular set of people. That's not only unfair, it's unconstitutional--a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. It's like arguing that the government shouldn't confer support on religion, so we should vote yes on an amendment that limits government support to the Christian religion, and keep it from supporting Islam or other religions. (No doubt there are many Americans who would, quite wrongly, support such a law.)

Now, some advocates of Proposition 107 have argued that there is no violation of the equal protection clause because a gay man has the same right to marry a woman as a heterosexual man does. But this is just like arguing that a prohibition on interracial marriage doesn't violate the equal protection clause because a black man has the same right to marry a black woman as a white man has to marry a white woman--the description of the right is being crafted to exclude the category of person who is being discriminated against.

As Ed Brayton has pointed out on numerous occasions, the arguments for the unconstitutionality of a ban on same-sex marriage are of the same form as the arguments for the unconstitutionality of a ban on miscegenation, just replacing "different race" with "same sex." If you think that the Supreme Court ruled correctly in Loving v. Virginia, you should also think that Arizona's Proposition 107 violates the U.S. Constitution for the same reasons.

See also my previous post on the Protect Marriage Arizona amendment. You may also find David Friedman's economic analysis of marriage arrangements to be of interest.

UPDATE (October 21, 2006): Just to make it clear, THeath has enumerated some specific examples of what opponents of gay marriage are actually endorsing (there are several more if you follow the link)--these aren't hypotheticals, these are real people:

• There was the friend I wrote about recently who was turned away from from the emergency room, where his partner had been taken after suddenly collapsing at work, and told he could not be given any information because he was not next of kin. He had to leave the hospital and retrieve their legal documents before he could gain admittance to see his partner when a married spouse would have been waved through without question.


• My friend was luckier than Bill Flanigan. When his partner Robert Daniel was hospitalized in Baltimore, the couple had their legal documents with them, including durable power of attorney and documentation that they were registered as domestic partners in California. But those documents were ignored by hospital staff and Flanigan was kept from seeing his partner until Daniel’s mother and sister arrived and by then Daniel was unconscious, with his eyes taped shut and hooked to a breathing tube; something Daniel had not wanted.


• Even having a will didn’t help Sam Beaumont when his partner of 23 years, Earl, died. Oklahoma requires a will to have two witnesses, but Earl didn’t know that and his will leaving everything to Sam had only one. So Earl's cousins, who disapproved of his relationship and most of whom never spoke to the couple or even came to Earl’s funeral, successfully sued to take away the home and ranch Sam an Earl had shared for 23 years. A married spouse, even in the event of a will lacking enough witnesses, would’ve had the right to automatically inherit at least some of the estate.

Further Update (October 22, 2006): Ed Brayton takes apart the Alliance Defense Fund's white paper on these marriage amendments here.

Matt Taibbi takes on 9/11 conspiracy theorists

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone has an excellent article on 9/11 conspiracy theorists, pointing out the absurdity of their claims in the form of a dialogue among the plotters:

BUSH: So, what's the plan again?

CHENEY: Well, we need to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. So what we've decided to do is crash a whole bunch of remote-controlled planes into Wall Street and the Pentagon, say they're real hijacked commercial planes, and blame it on the towelheads; then we'll just blow up the buildings ourselves to make sure they actually fall down.

RUMSFELD: Right! And we'll make sure that some of the hijackers are agents of Saddam Hussein! That way we'll have no problem getting the public to buy the invasion.

CHENEY: No, Dick, we won't.

RUMSFELD: We won't?

CHENEY: No, that's too obvious. We'll make the hijackers Al Qaeda and then just imply a connection to Iraq.

RUMSFELD: But if we're just making up the whole thing, why not just put Saddam's fingerprints on the attack?

CHENEY: (sighing) It just has to be this way, Dick. Ups the ante, as it were. This way, we're not insulated if things go wrong in Iraq. Gives us incentive to get the invasion right the first time around.

BUSH: I'm a total idiot who can barely read, so I'll buy that. But I've got a question. Why do we need to crash planes into the Towers at all? Since everyone knows terrorists already tried to blow up that building complex from the ground up once, why don't we just blow it up like we plan to anyway, and blame the bombs on the terrorists?

RUMSFELD: Mr. President, you don't understand. It's much better to sneak into the buildings ourselves in the days before the attacks, plant the bombs and then make it look like it was exploding planes that brought the buildings down. That way, we involve more people in the plot, stand a much greater chance of being exposed and needlessly complicate everything!

CHENEY: Of course, just toppling the Twin Towers will never be enough. No one would give us the war mandate we need if we just blow up the Towers. Clearly, we also need to shoot a missile at a small corner of the Pentagon to create a mightily underpublicized additional symbol of international terrorism -- and then, obviously, we need to fake a plane crash in the middle of fucking nowhere in rural Pennsylvania.

RUMSFELD: Yeah, it goes without saying that the level of public outrage will not be sufficient without that crash in the middle of fucking nowhere.

There's lots more dialogue in the article... Taibbi summarizes:

None of this stuff makes any sense at all. If you just need an excuse to assume authoritarian powers, why fake a plane crash in Shanksville? What the hell does that accomplish? If you're using bombs, why fake a hijacking, why use remote-control planes? If the entire government apparatus is in on the scam, then why bother going to all this murderous trouble at all -- only to go to war a year later with a country no one even bothered to falsely blame for the attacks? You won't see any of this explored in 9/11 Truth lore, because the "conspiracy" they're describing is impossible everywhere outside a Zucker brothers movie -- unbelievably stupid in its conception, pointlessly baroque and excessive in its particulars, but flawless in its execution, with no concrete evidence left behind and tens of thousands keeping their roles a secret forever.

Check it out--highly recommended, along with these other 9/11 conspiracy debunking sites.

How planespotting uncovered CIA torture flights

The Village Voice has an excerpt from the book Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, which is fascinating reading. The hobby of planespotting--watching and recording information about planes that take off and land--led a few individuals to deduce that planes spotted at "Base Camp" in Nevada were being used by the CIA to transport prisoners to locations in eastern Europe and the Middle East. Individuals correlating data with each other over the Internet and comparing to flight logs and testimony from released prisoners yielded very specific results. Civil Air Landing Permit data was used to identify obscure companies with clearance to land anywhere they want, including restricted military bases--such as One Leasing, Richmor Aviation, Stevens Express Leasing, Tepper Aviation, Path Corporation, Rapid Air Trans, Aviation Specialties, Devon Holding and Leasing, Crowell Aviation, and Premier Executive Transport Services. The planes owned by some of these companies were found to be visiting military bases, Guantanamo Bay, Morocco, Romania, Poland, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Jon Sifton of Human Rights Watch has conducted analysis of the resulting flight data to determine which stops were merely for refueling and which were for destinations--acute angles for inbound and outbound flights from a stop are indicative of a destination rather than a refueling stop, for example.

Bush campaigns for a racist and an violent adulterer

George W. Bush is on the campaign trail for racist Virginia Senator George Allen and for Pennsylvania Representative Don Sherwood--just in case you had any doubts about where Bush stands on moral issues.

Allen is the Senator who referred to an Indian representative of his opponent's campaign as a "macaca," a racial slur common in French North Africa, where his mother grew up. He also used to keep a noose hanging in his office, and several people who knew him in his college days have reported that he used to make common use of the epithet "nigger" (but not the word "epithet"), and two sources say that he once put the severed head of a deer in the mailbox of a black family.

Sherwood has admitted to having a lengthy (five-year) adulterous affair, and he settled a lawsuit which accused him of choking his mistress. His wife has referred to his affair as "a mistake."

Bush's press secretary Tony Snow addressed the president's support of Sherwood by observing that we are all sinners and deserve forgiveness. Forgiveness, perhaps. A seat in Congress, no.

UPDATE (October 20, 2006): Bush chose to campaign for these people of poor character during the same week that he has proclaimed "National Character Counts Week, 2006," a proclamation which begins:

America's strength is found in the spirit and character of our people. During National Character Counts Week, we renew our commitment to instilling values in our young people and to encouraging all Americans to remember the importance of good character.

UPDATE (November 8, 2006): Don Sherwood lost, and it looks like George Allen will also lose.

Innocent torture victim still on no-fly list

Maher Arar, a Canadian (born in Syria) who was arrested by the U.S. and sent to Syria where he was tortured as a result of the RCMP's erroneous labeling of him as someone associated with al Qaeda, was unable to receive a human rights award in Washington, D.C. because his name is still on the TSA no-fly list. Arar currently has a lawsuit pending in Canada against the RCMP.
(Also see the Wikipedia entry on Arar.)

This is further evidence of the TSA's failure to competently maintain the no-fly list.

UPDATE (October 20, 2006): Ed Brayton has discussed this story today.

UPDATE (January 23, 2007): The U.S. Attorney General and head of Homeland Security are both insisting that Arar remain on the no-fly list for reasons which they have disclosed only to officials in Canada. The Canadians don't think those reasons make any sense. My guess is that they think somebody they sent off to be tortured might have a beef with the people who did it to him.

The Worst Congress Ever

There's an excellent article in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi called "The Worst Congress Ever."

When the Democrats take back one or both houses of Congress, I hope they will not be following the Republican rulebook for payback, but will try to return some dignity, honesty, integrity, and accountability to the legislative branch of our government.

One exception, though--they should follow the Republican lead from 1995 and not require minority party approval for issuing subpoenas to the White House as they clean house. It's high time that Congress started actually providing some oversight of the executive branch again.

The Bridge: Attacked by Scientology

Independent filmmaker Brett Hanover made a very nice little one-hour film called "The Bridge," about the Church of Scientology, which he put out on Google Video and YouTube about a month ago. Scientology came after him, and he buckled, withdrawing the film and saying that he no longer supports it. Google and YouTube took it down.

But it's still out there. Watch it, it's pretty well done.

The Five Stages of Republican Scandal

From "PT," a reader of Talking Points Memo:

5 stages of Republican scandal:

1. “I have not been informed of any investigation or that I am a target”
2. “I am cooperating fully, but this whole thing is a political ploy by the Democrats”
3. “I’m SHOCKED by the mistakes made by my subordinates”
4. “I’m deeply sorry for letting down my friends and family. I now recognize that I am an alcoholic. I will be entering rehab immediately, so I have no time for questions”
5. “Can I serve my time at Eglin Federal Penitentiary (aka Club Fed)?”

I'm sure these work just as well in a bipartisan manner (with minor rewording), but today it is most fitting as written.

Poston internment camp film

An archivist at the Arizona Historical Foundation, Linda Whitaker, found a 25-min 16mm film canister last fall while preparing an exhibition on World War II Japanese internment camps. The film can was labeled "Poston Color Dupe." The film turned out to be footage of Arizona's Poston internment camp, which was located in La Paz county, 12 miles south of Parker. The film had a magnetic strip for sound, but it had deteriorated, so what is left is a color silent film. It has been converted to DVD format and is for sale for $40 from the Arizona Historical Foundation.

Poston was one of two sets of Japanese internment camps in Arizona, and was also known as the Colorado River Relocation Center. It was composed of three camps, called Poston I, II, and III, on reservation land of the Colorado Indians. It operated from April 1942 to March 1946, and at its peak housed 18,000 people. The other was the Gila River Relocation Center about 50 miles southeast of Phoenix, which housed 13,000 people at its peak, and operated from May 1942 to February 1946. It was composed of two camps, Butte Camp and Canal Camp, which were built over the objections of the Gila River Indian tribe, on whose land they were built.

The Japanese-Americans who were taken from their homes in California and Arizona and forced to live in these prison camps were mostly U.S. citizens (about 2/3). The Poston and Gila River camps were, at the time, the third and fourth largest "cities" in Arizona, after Phoenix and Tucson.

The Poston camp was built by Del Webb, best known as a homebuilder of planned communities in the southwest (such as Sun City and Anthem).

The discovery of this film serves to remind us how a country can get so caught up in wartime fear that it disregards its own Constitution and tramples the rights of individuals.