Math, majorities, and morality

The Senate is an arcane place. The myth is the members are all friendly to one another, and that collegial nature allows them to be more deliberative than the House, where the short terms, and the dissolution of that body, every two years, prevents "Statesmanlike behavior".

This is, of course, nonsense. The standing committees, the tenure of long incumbency, all combine to make the amount of deliberation the House does about the same as that for the Senate.

More relevant, the legislative cycle for both is the same. When the House is dissolved every two years, all the bills the Senate might have gotten passed are dead; because they can't be reconciled to a House Bill. It all has to start over (in theory they could just present the same bill again; but some of the senators might not still be on board, and it takes time from new business).

In, and of themselves, those myths wouldn't be too pernicious. The problem is the newer myth that, "it takes 60 votes to pass something out of the Senate," which is gaining new traction as Brown's win in Mass. means the Republicans again have a 41 member caucus (though, to be honest, with Der Liebermaus [I-Lieberman], and Nelson (D Neb.), they have had an effective 42 votes in favor of gridlock on pretty much anything the Republican party doesn't like. It doesn't matter the least little bit how they vote on bills, if they keep working to keep bills they know will win; and they don't want to vote on from being put to the question).

Fact 1: The Senate passes a bill by simpe majority.

Fact 2: The filibuster allows a principled minority to stymie a piece of legislation.

Fact 3: (this is the important part) Changes in the rules, back in the '70s made a filibuster almost risk free to the people waging it.

See, back in the bad old days, a filibuster prevented the senate from getting any work done. The business of legislating came to a complete stop because the floor was being held. So they changed the rules. Filibusters, when actually being done, took up the morning session, and then the bill in question would be tabled and other things could be addressed.

Which pulled the teeth of the filibuster's possible backlash. There things sat, for a good long time, with both parties keeping the big guns of the procedural armory in check, pretty much. Until the aftermath of the Contract With America crowd. I think most of the evils of the present partisan mess stem from that huge swath of not merely freshmen Representatives, but the neophyte nature of a lot of them to holding office. It made them a lot more partisan, and less aware of what is needed to keep a pluralistic nation afloat. A number of them moved on to the senate, and the machines they built were built by people with blinders, but I digress.

So when Bush/Cheney were being threatened with actual fiibusters, the goons working with them (Lott, et al.) threatened to change the rules of the senate; which is a lot easier than stopping a filibuster. They called it the nuclear option, and it would have made a filibuster a lot harder to just get away with. The Dems caved, and lo! when the Republicans (those paragons of the, "up or down vote") became the minority, the number of filibusters engaged in went through the roof.

The amazing part of the way the game played out was the Dems took it on the chin. The obstructionist Republicans went around saying, "they have the majority, and they can't get anything done." The one occasion when Reid said, "Break out the cots, we're going into special session," they flinched. The last thing they seemed to want was to be seen for what they were (shades of the folks defending Prop. 8. Cameras in the courtroom? The HORROR. Lists of who it was who actually made public contributions to the funding behind Prop 8? A disaster), accountability for what they were doing was anatheman to them.

Reid, of course, didn't take it to heart. All he had to do to make the pain of throttled legislation stop, was make the Republicans actually show what things they were against. Make them stake some claim to principles larger than, "preventing the Democratic Party from doing anything."

Now, with the election of Brown, we have to listen to all that balderdash about, "the needed 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate."

Well, it ain't so. All that needs to happen is to use a tactical nuke. Don't change the number on cloture. Let them have their ability to hold the floor open. But make it a real filibuster again. None of this gentlemen's agreement to have morning filibusters and afternoon sessions. Nope.

Just go back to the old ways of standing up and talking, out in the open, where the public can see what they are for, and against. If they have uch strong principles they will be glad to have them on display.

And the filibuster will, once again, be something which has some claim to merit.

The Supremes, like fools to folly

I'm not going to talk about Citizen's Untited v FEC. (with its tortured extension of the dicta in Union Pacific v Santa Clara Co.. I think it's a bad thing, and I think the effect is, in the short term, not going to be as great as feared. Sandra Day O'Connor does point out the real place we might want to make a correction to ameliorate the possible evils of it is the idea of electing judges.

I will say, before I move onto the really important decision recently handed down, that this isn't a "free speech issue", no matter how it's cast. The restriction was, "content neutral" which has long been the test of allowable restriction (Yes, there is also the "clear and present danger" doctrine of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., but I think that a weaker precedent, even if more widely known and accepted). The complaint here was that the law, in all its majesty was forbidding both rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges. It just happens the rich wanted to sleep under these bridges.

But the folly I want to talk about is Dred Scott v Sanders, because the Supreme Court, in esssence, recreated a class of, "non-persons" in the law. Last month (mid-Dec, 2009) they let stand a lower court ruling, which held that prisoners in Guantanamo aren't persons in the law.

The case was brought under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which applies to all persons. Since the court said it didn't apply, the prisoners in question aren't legal persons.

Worse, the Court said that claims to protection under the Geneva Conventions and the Alien Tort Statute weren't valid becase, "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants.". [emphasis added].

There are a couple of things there which ought to give one pause. One, the lack of being a person in the law. There are a lot of things which that covers. Most of the Bill of Rights are rights of persons, and the main holding in Dred Scott was that slaves, not being legal persons, had no rights.

Secondly, ignore (if you can) that a US Court said torture was acceptable, note the use of the word suspected. Not convicted, not even proven, but suspected.

Third, ponder that anyone can be put in this legal non-person state. If you don't think it can happen to a citizen (who most certainly is a person in the law) go back and review the case of Jose Padilla.

Then look at this, Der Liebermouse demands suspect be declared terrorist and stripped of rights "“We write to urge the administration to immediately transfer Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a foreign terrorist, to the Department of Defense to be held as an unprivileged enemy belligerent (UEB) and questioned and charged accordingly.”

"Questioned and charged accordingly," and, ""torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants."

I worry more about that than I do about poltical advertsing.

Cookery

CG has started to take in a CSA box. So far it's been sort of dull, mostly winter vegetables, and not many. Some boring oranges, and avacados she doesn't care for. A butterut squash, etc.

This week included some chard, and a fair bit of young bok choy. She wondered what we could do with that and my mind started down some flights of fancy. Most people don't care for chard much, but I've had it, or collards, as filling in rolled roasts (very good when served cold in a picnic; sometime I must discuss the art of the picnic; a good place to start is The Wind in the Willows which has a splendid one, right there in in chapter one. It's enough to make one which it was spring, and one could just say, "Oh bother," and dash off to the river and spend the day messing about in boats), but I digress.

So we trotted to the market and bought some flank steak, a onion, some beers (an Anderson Valley Belgian style, "Brother David's Triple" and a bottle from Belgium, Lousberg).

Back home. I was going to make a variation on carbonnade. Set an onion to caramelise, and wilt some chard (sliced off the ribs, and then into thin strips) with a bit of chicken broth in the microwave. Roll a bit of flanken around the wilted kale and some minced onion. Brown that in some bacon fat (the bacon I added to the onion in the saucier). Add the Triple, and some russet potato (I wanted the russet to break down and add body to the beer/broth). Some new potatos, and another onion, cut large.

In a bit, add some carrots, and a tomato. Just before it was done (about an hour on a low fire) put some bok choy in to wilt, toss in the caramelised onions and open the Louberg to drink with it.

What a surprise

The CIA agent who was fêon;ted by the torture apologists for saying torture worked... well, just as I said: he lied.

As reported by Foreign Policy, he's recanted.

Indeed. But after his one-paragraph confession, Kiriakou adds that he didn't have any first hand knowledge of anything relating to CIA torture routines, and still doesn't. And he claims that the disinformation he helped spread was a CIA dirty trick: "In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own."

I told you so.