-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
CONGRESS ACTION: December 9, 2001 ================= DEMS WIN ANWR: When President Bush came into office, he proposed a comprehensive national energy plan that would have, among many other things, allowed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Naturally, the environmentalists went ballistic. In August the House voted to allow ANWR drilling to proceed, with the area affected by the drilling limited to a mere 2000 acres out of the 19 million acre refuge (0.01%). Now it was up to the Senate, but the Senate is under the control of partisan obstructionist Tom Daschle. Stymied by Daschle in their attempts to get the issue before the Senate for an up or down vote, republicans hit upon what they apparently thought was a clever maneuver. They proposed ANWR drilling as an amendment to the railroad retirement bill under consideration in the Senate, and further, they combined the ANWR drilling plan with a moratorium on human cloning, and proposed both for a single unified vote. Not a single administration official went public to explain the national security imperative of increasing our own oil supply. Under such a ridiculous arrangement, with no high profile presidential support, the combined amendment went down to resounding defeat -- well deserved, if only because it was such a dumb idea. But perhaps the Senate republicans were more clever than anyone suspects, and perhaps conservatives should be cheering. In the opinion of the libertarian Cato Institute: ".why are free-market types cheering the introduction of a 'comprehensive national energy strategy'? After all, conservatives didn't cheer a 'comprehensive national Internet strategy' when one was proposed by Al Gore, a 'comprehensive national industrial strategy' when one was proposed by Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, or a 'comprehensive national health-care strategy' when one was proposed by Hillary Clinton. Conservatives as a general matter believe that the government ought to leave markets alone and that 'comprehensive national economic strategies' are things that old Soviet commissars and young French socialists are in the business of promoting, not free-market American presidents." So if the radical environmentalists and the government just get out of the way, the free market will work its wonders. Not overnight, of course, because it will take time to remedy the problems created over the last eight years by the anti-growth, anti-energy Clinton administration. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute put it, "It is true, as the anti-energy zealots proclaim, that it may take a decade for the oil to start flowing from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and therefore opening ANWR won't help solve our current problems. But we are still a decade away because that was also their argument five years ago when the bill to open a tiny part of the nineteen million acre refuge to exploration was vetoed." Even if congressional obstructionists and radical environmentalists get out of the way, energy independence is still years away. Enter the Segway, a two-wheeled scooter with a wheel on each side, while the rider stands in between holding the handlebars. Introduced this week, it is called a revolutionary new mode of transportation that, according to its inventor, "will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy.'' The battery powered scooter has a top speed of 17 miles per hour, and since there are no windows and no roof, it won't be much good in the rain. There is no back seat, so (soccer moms take note) if you want to drive a kid to school on this contraption, perhaps you'll just have to stuff your youngster into a backpack. Advertised for local use only, you better not have anything you need to carry, locally. Like groceries, or a briefcase to work. Because both of your hands are on the handlebars, although one story claims it can haul 75 pounds of cargo. Maybe they'll sell a tiny trailer that you can drag behind you as you purr along. Urban planners claim it will appeal to "those already using environmentally responsible transport: bikes, skates, buses and trains" -- anything other than bikes, skates, buses, or trains being, of course, irresponsible, according to a typically arrogant media report. After all, doesn't everyone live in metropolitan D.C., L.A. or New York? Why would anyone have the need for any mode of transportation other than bikes, skates, buses, or trains? When the consumer model of Segway comes out, it is expected to cost about $3000. Which is an awful lot for a pair of roller skates or a bicycle. TERROR TRIALS II: The Judiciary Committee hearings staged by Senator Leahy (labeled "Osama's Enabler in Congress" by the journal Human Events) to criticize military tribunals resumed this week. The hearing opened with a statement from Senator Orrin Hatch, justifiably critical of the blatant partisanship and misplaced priorities of Senate democrats: ".we should remember that the purpose of oversight is to make sure the Administration is doing its job. At some point, too many partisan hearings and too much hysteria only make it more difficult for the Administration to do its real job. .Frankly, I think this Committee would better serve the public by looking for ways to help, instead of distracting the Administration, which has an enormous task on its hands and is doing a superb job under difficult conditions. One obvious way we could help is to confirm the nominees languishing in this Committee.In light of the nominations backlog we have, one is hard-pressed to understand the wisdom of holding hearings every other workday on whether Osama bin Laden should be able to avail himself of the intricacies of the hearsay exceptions in the event that he survives the bombs headed in his direction. Am I the only one who finds it ironic that, while no one questions the President's authority to instruct the military to drop bombs on his hideouts, there is a little group of outspoken critics who want to quibble over which set of evidentiary rules the Secretary of Defense should apply in Bin Laden's trial? To those who reflexively oppose the military tribunals, I ask, do we really want to litigate in a criminal trial whether the soldiers who apprehend Bin Laden should have obtained a search warrant before entering his cave? Or whether he understood his Miranda rights? Or whether he is not guilty by reason of insanity?" Democrats and the ACLU say yes. The most negative appraisal came, not from the law professors Lawrence Tribe and Cass Sunstein, but from Timothy Lynch of the Cato Institute: "We must respond to this new threat without losing sight of what we are fighting for. Our troops are not simply defending the property and occupants of some geographical location. They are defending the fundamental American idea that individuals have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. . I am disturbed by some of the actions taken by our government in response to the September 11th attacks." The "Bush order violates separation of powers.congress cannot suspend the trial by jury guarantee.I think a trial by an ad hoc tribunal based upon Nuremberg principles may be the best forum." Tribe, who as recently as November 29 essentially supported military tribunals in an article in The New Republic, must have given himself a severe case of whiplash with the speed of his reversal, when it became clear that he was being seen as supporting Bush. In The New Republic, after gratuitous swipes at the Supreme Court because of it's Bush v. Gore decision, Tribe said, "there remains the fundamental question of whether the core of the executive order, its gratuitous branches pruned, is consistent with the Constitution. I think it may well be. We are engaged in a real war. President Bush's order establishing military tribunals goes too far. It should be cut back by Congress.. But this is not to suggest that those tribunals, at their core, offend any fundamental constitutional precept. . But as we resist measures that make us no better than those we seek to disarm and defeat, we must not bind ourselves too tightly to a mast suited only for navigating peaceful seas." But before the Judiciary Committee, Tribe observed, ".the Order suffers from the compounding vice that it violates the separation of powers required by our Constitution of the federal government. Congress alone can avoid the constitutional infirmities that plague the Military Tribunal Order. the Military Order.is a direct threat to some 20 million lawful resident aliens in the United States. Far better to show our foes that American justice will survive their assault than to sacrifice our core values through hasty overreaction." Sunstein was more prudent: "Some people appear to fear that military commissions, simply by virtue of their status as such, will not be capable of providing fair trials. But this fear, and the contrast between civil and military tribunals, should not be overstated.. . Some of the most difficult issues here involve the conflict between the national security interest in maintaining secrecy and the traditional American antagonism to 'secret trials.' President Bush's Military Order has been criticized for requiring secrecy, but it does nothing of the kind. .in some cases, evidence that supports conviction is properly kept secret, certainly from the public and in truly exceptional cases from the defendant and defense counsel as well. It would be a terrible mistake.to force the executive branch to choose between (a) letting a terrorist go free and (b) disclosing material that is likely to threaten the safety of the nation's people. ... When national security is threatened, the nation's highest priority is to eliminate the threat, not to grant the most ample procedural safeguards to those who have created the threat. But whenever the United States is conducting a criminal proceeding, its highest traditions call for a full and fair trial, as President Bush has explicitly required." By the last day of Leahy's hearings it became obvious that the charges of "shredding the Constitution" had no basis in reality. The senators' pretensions to a principled defense of civil liberties was reduced to whining that they weren't sufficiently consulted by a president who issued a military order in time of war. So ludicrous had their partisan attacks against the administration become that some senators, Kennedy and Schumer in particular, were reduced to babbling about their pet obsession, gun control. This may come as a shock to those senators so very concerned about the alleged rights of foreign terrorists, but the Second Amendment is also part of the Bill of Rights -- the right to keep and bear arms is a civil right belonging to Americans right here at home! (So is the right to free speech, threatened by campaign finance reform; and private property, threatened by extreme environmental laws.) Ashcroft made the basic point: ".the Department of Justice has sought to prevent terrorism with reason, careful balance and excruciating attention to detail. Some of our critics, I regret to say, have shown less affection for detail. Their bold declarations of so-called fact have quickly dissolved, upon inspection, into vague conjecture. Charges of 'kangaroo courts' and 'shredding the Constitution' give new meaning to the term, 'the fog of war.' . We need honest, reasoned debate; not fearmongering. .to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists -- for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends." This administration, under these circumstances, is acting completely properly, because as has been observed repeatedly over the past eight years, character matters. However, those who support Bush, Ashcroft, and company today, might be given some pause when they consider the potential of these very same powers in the hands of a possible President Hillary Clinton and a possible Attorney General Charles Schumer tomorrow. If democrats are truly concerned about abuse of power and violations of civil rights (the civil rights of American citizens, rather than the rights of foreign terrorists), the tyranny of Mary Frances Berry, head of the Commission on Civil Rights (source of the partisan report on last year's election, a report that censored the dissent of a Commissioner who dared to disagree with Berry), in refusing to seat a new, duly appointed and legally sworn-in Commissioner because he was appointed by President Bush, is an object lesson in abuse of power and violation of civil rights. How about some hearings on that? Or are the rights of Americans less important to democrats than the rights of terrorists? WRITER'S NOTICE: I gladly receive and respond to any comments and criticisms readers care to make regarding the content of what I write every week in the CONGRESS ACTION newsletter. But I do not open e-mail with attachments from unknown senders, and e-mails containing attachments are automatically deleted. FOR MORE INFORMATION. ======================== Senate Judiciary Committee: http://www.senate.gov/~judiciary/ Judiciary Committee witness statements: http://www.senate.gov/~judiciary/thisweek.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mr. Kim Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! 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