Blackmail Acknowledged

As Brian Leubitz covers (see, they don't need me!), Arnold Schwarzenegger has threatened to veto every bill in the last legislative session if he doesn't get what he wants on water. The leadership is working toward a solution, but still remain far apart. They haven't figured this out for 30 years, but Arnold needs a solution in 30 hours or an entire year's worth of work gets vetoed for no reason.

I just want to add to the chorus of how appalling this is. We're talking about legislative blackmail.

And incredibly, Arnold has an ally in palace courtier George Skelton:

It's ugly. But it's an available political tool that the governor would be derelict not to use when an issue as critical as water is at stake.

This isn't about some narrow scheme important only to a narrow interest. Nor is it merely about a governor's pet project -- other than his legacy-building, which should be encouraged as long as it helps the state. It's about finally resolving an acute, decades-old problem that is worsening and affects practically all Californians.

Here's another old white man with health insurance who could give a crap if women get maternity care in their health insurance plans, to just pick one bill at random. Or who could care less if people who have insurance get dropped from it when they want to use it, to pick another. George Skelton would actively make the lives of Californians worse because he thinks it's sporting to see the Governor "use his power." That the power is illegal is of no consequence.

Then there's this whopper:

These and other arguments -- such as details of a new governing system for the delta -- have raged for years. Schwarzenegger apparently doesn't much care what the Legislature decides. He just wants it to compromise and send him a bill.

Yeah, he doesn't care at all. He actually invented the Latino Water Coalition, the fake-grassroots group pushing all the Republican solutions in water negotiations, but he's really just an innocent bystander. An innocent bystander who would destroy women's health and allow insurance companies to kill people for profit and a host of other things, all with an asshole like George Skelton cheering him on.

Impeach Arnold?

Could it be that enough Democrats in the Assembly have finally had enough with the culture of blackmail and are ready to exact some real consequences?

In the Assembly, Democrats are employing tactics that seem designed to pressure the governor into signing bills. Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, sent a letter to Attorney General Jerry Brown asking him to investigate whether the governor's strategy is illegal. He cited a part of the state constitution that says it is a felony to seek to influence a legislative vote by means of "bribery, promise of reward, intimidation or other dishonest means."

"While politicians are certainly allowed to express their disagreements in any way they find productive, they are not allowed to refuse to perform their sworn duties in order to force the legislature to accept policy positions," Torrico wrote. "And public officials are specifically prohibited from the kind of direct 'horse trading' in which a government official agrees to take, or not take, a certain action in exchange for a specific vote."

Assembly sources said some Assembly Democrats even suggested on a conference call last week that the lower house should impeach the governor if he imposes a mass veto. The constitution says the Assembly has the "sole power of impeachment" and that it can pursue it on a majority vote for unspecified "misconduct in office." The Senate would then conduct a trial.

The idea seems to crop up every time lawmakers are frustrated with the governor, said Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco. It appears to be mostly talk for now.

"I know some members have mentioned the possibility of impeaching the governor," Torrico said, adding, "There's certainly a growing number of members who consider the governor's extortion tactics to be illegal and a dereliction of duty. But (impeachment) has not been discussed formally in the caucus as an option."

This sounds like a bluff on all counts, although the Governor's actions certainly violate the spirit and (depending on your reading) the letter of the law about using "bribery, promise of reward, intimidation or other dishonest means" to influence a legislative vote. I don't expect Jerry Brown to act on it, however, because he'd probably welcome the ability to threaten the legislature in this manner were he the Governor.

And yet, if the Governor were to veto the entire legislative session because he couldn't get his way on water (and doesn't that represent a failure of HIS leadership, not the legislature's?), I would say a case could be made that using extortion and running the state like a Hollywood negotiation is grounds for removal. What's more, while a two-thirds vote for removal in the Senate would be unlikely (though, given Schwarzenegger's standing in the Republican Party, not completely out of the question), just saddling him with the legacy of impeachment would be a crushing blow to his ego, not to mention his efforts at putting a happy face on his astonishingly awful leadership.

I don't think this is much more than a parlor game. But just so we know the rules, a Governor can be impeached for "misconduct in office" by a simple majority in the Assembly. According to Article 5 of the Constitution, it seems that during impeachment - not removal but impeachment - the Lieutenant Governor becomes Governor. ("The Lieutenant Governor shall act as Governor during the impeachment, absence from the State, or other temporary disability of the Governor or of a Governor-elect who fails to take office.") Given that John Garamendi could be elected to Congress in four weeks, the line of succession appears to show that the President Pro Tem of the Senate would be next in line. So if the unthinkable happens, by November 3 we could be looking at Governor Darrell Steinberg.

Arnold Supports Health Care Reform - Just Not In California

One of the enduring takeaways of the Schwarzenegger era is just how much latitude he is given on the national level as some kind of transformative post-partisan leader, when those same reporters know that California is crumbling into dust under, and in many cases because of, his leadership. We witnessed this again today as national media types heaped praise on the Governor issuing a letter about the Obama health care reform plan:

“As Governor, I have made significant efforts to advance health reform in California. As the Obama Administration was launching the current debate on health care reform, I hosted a bipartisan forum in our state because I believe in the vital importance of this issue, and that it should be addressed through bipartisan cooperation.

“Our principal goals, slowing the growth in costs, enhancing the quality of care delivered, improving the lives of individuals, and helping to ensure a strong economic recovery, are the same goals that the president is trying to achieve. I appreciate his partnership with the states and encourage our colleagues on both sides of the political aisle at the national level to move forward and accomplish these vital goals for the American people.”

I love the phrase "significant efforts," by the way. Others might call them "failed efforts," but YMMV.

But this "praise" for health care reform is just a piece of paper. One would think that the national media would seek to know the actions of the Governor on health care - one would be wrong, but one would still think that. And it would take about 10 seconds of Googling to figure out that the Governor has vetoed key elements of the legislation working through Congress. Last year he vetoed AB1945, which would have banned rescission, the insurance industry practice of dumping sick customers for technical violations on their applications like typos the moment that they try to use their policies for treatment. He vetoed SB840, the universal health care bill, on multiple occasions in the past. He vetoed SB1440, which would have mandated that insurance companies spend 85% of premiums on medical care. He vetoed SB973, which would have created a public insurance option by linking local and regional measures. He vetoed AB2, expanding the state's high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions.

He basically has vetoed many of the same provisions to be found in the current health care bill. And he is threatening to veto every bill on his desk this year, including another bill to ban rescissions so that customers who have paid insurance premiums for years aren't left to die when they want to use their policies. Anthony Wright notes some of the other bills:

* AB 119 (Jones): GENDER RATING, to prohibit insurers from charging different premium rates based on gender.

* AB 2 (De La Torre): INDEPENDENT REVIEW, to create an independent review process when an insurer wishes to rescind a consumer's health policy, create new standards and requirements for medical underwriting, and requires state review before plan approval. Also raises the standard in existing law so that coverage can only be rescinded if a consumer willfully misrepresents his health history.

* AB 98 (De La Torre): MATERNITY COVERAGE, to require all individual insurance policies to cover maternity services.

* AB 244 (Beall): MENTAL HEALTH PARITY, to require most health plans to provide coverage for all diagnosable mental illnesses.

Dan Walters calls these bills "nothing of cosmic importance". Well sure, he's not going to have a kid, and women are charged more than men by insurance companies anyway! To an entitled white man with a good-paying job, he doesn't have to worry about losing his policy or not getting comprehensive medical coverage. But to a woman who can't afford to lose her job to have a baby, or someone with a mental health problem who can't get relief for his suffering, or someone with an individual policy living constantly in fear that his or her insurance will get revoked precisely when they need it, these are issues of "cosmic importance." Anyone saying otherwise is ignorant.

And yet the Governor will have no problem holding these bills, and these people, hostage. His buddies at the Chamber of Commerce probably don't want him to sign them at all. So he writes a pretty letter supporting health care reform, while denying the very same measures to his own constituents. And national media types call him a "bold leader."

Culture Of Blackmail

One reason why I didn't particularly care for the Guardian's Failifornia article was that it was really a human interest piece masquerading as a serious argument. It's not because its data was flawed or its tone insincere - though there's some of that; the long section on Mendota neglects to mention that the city hinges entirely on agriculture and features 30% unemployment or more ANYTIME there's a drought, unconnected to the larger structural problems in the state - but because it didn't even try to assess the root causes of the crisis or the steps for resolution.

For example, it would be beneficial to take a look at the culture of blackmail we have here in state government (as an aside, did the writer even visit Sacramento?). Politicians have learned over 30-plus years of dealing with onerous budget requirements that threatening blackmail is really the best way to get anything done. Witness Arnold Schwarzenegger, threatening to veto nearly 700 bills that have passed both houses of the Legislature unless he gets his way on a water bill.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, apparently standing by a threat to veto hundreds of bills on his desk unless a deal can be reached on the state's water problems, has suggested to Senate leader Darrell Steinberg that all legislation before the governor should be withdrawn to avoid a veto. About 700 bills are awaiting action.

Schwarzenegger did not formally request that the bills be yanked, but that was the implicit suggestion in his proposal, Capitol sources said.

The communications between Steinberg and the governor were referenced in an e-mail sent from Steinberg to Senate Democrats this week. In the internal e-mail, which was reviewed by Capitol Weekly, Steinberg said Schwarzenegger "even mentioned coming back this week to withdraw bills from his desk and hold them until after water is done."

Arnold is absolutely ballsy enough to do this. He has only signed 3 bills in the past four weeks since the Legislature adjourned September 11, and with six days to go and the Legislature not scheduled to return until after the deadline on October 11, I'm convinced of his sincerity to basically flush the entire legislative session down the toilet.

You just don't see headlines like this in other states. And that's because the process here rewards blackmail. Arnold knows that there are no repercussions for vetoing 700 bills. There's no media willing to call him out, there's no possibility of a veto override because of some unwritten rule whereby that function doesn't exist anymore, and there's a high possibility of legislative Democrats simply capitulating to whatever shrieking Republican demands in order to appear "reasonable" or just move along the machinery of government. Arnold's just using good tactical sense because the system is set up to reward the most outlandish actions. So he'll probably get what amounts to a bailout of wealthy agribusiness interests at the expense of the environment and the working class.

This is truly the portrait of failure in California. Right-wing interests have learned how to hijack so well you'd think they attended one of those Al Qaeda training camps where they practice on the monkey bars. And the entire political class walks around as if this is perfectly normal. It's actually appalling.

If you want to drill down to why California is in crisis, it's because we routinely see political leaders walk into the capital strapped with dynamite across their chests, only to be given the key to the city and a milkshake as a reward for such behavior.

Veto Threat?

This is a gentle veto option, but if Obama actually carries through with it, I'd have to hand it to him.

The White House on Tuesday suggested that President Obama would consider vetoing regulatory reform legislation if it did not include strong enough protections for consumers of credit cards, mortgages and other financial instruments.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that there were "big" concerns inside the administration over reports that Congress was scaling back a key pillar of the president's approach to reform: the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). And, in a warning shot to the legislative branch, he suggested that proposed legislation to create the CFPA might not pass the president's desk if it becomes too watered down in the process.

"The president would not sign any bill that he thought was too weak," said Gibbs. "I think we have seen what happens whether it is credit card companies, mortgage companies, we now see it more in stories covering the charges for bank overdrafts and the amount of money that costs the American people each year. The American people deserve an advocate on their behalf dealing with these entities. The president believes that strongly and believes that at the end of the day we will have a strong Consumer Finance Protection Agency working on behalf of the American people."

This is the proper use of the bully pulpit. The CFPA has already been gutted to an extent. Obama laying a marker can help assure it won't get gutted any further.

Obama veto threats have been rare to this point. The only other I can remember had to do with eliminating the F-22 fighter plane. This is a very good sign, if he's willing to go up against powerful interests, and his own party in the Congress, and siding with the people.

The banks are still running roughshod over Congress. They've beaten back any serious attempt to rein them in, and even now, after taking hundreds of billions if not trillions from the federal government, they are still taking major risks, still not engaging in consumer lending, still playing with derivatives at the same numbers from before the crisis. Clearly the Congress has shown no ability to stop them, and to this point, neither has the President. I hope this signals a true change.

Palace Sentries Dispatched To Guard The Drawbridge

The establishment in Sacramento has manned the barricades, battened down the hatches and gone on the offensive to prove their own worth. They sent their best man in the media, George Skelton, out to prove that no, despite your lying eyes, the California Legislature had a real banner year. After all, they managed to bring suffering to the lives of hundreds of thousands of state residents with consensus and bipartisan elan!

The current Legislature, regardless of Duvall and despite ideological polarization, has had a better year than it's getting credit for.

Its main accomplishment was keeping the state afloat amid a flood of red ink, created primarily by the toughest economic times since the Great Depression. OK, so it did use some bailing wire and chewing gum! The bills got paid, even if briefly with IOUs.

With great difficulty and pain -- at least for Democrats -- the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed programs by roughly $30 billion. They also struck a major blow against "auto-pilot" spending by permanently eliminating all automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments, except for K-12 schools. And they summoned enough courage to temporarily increase taxes by $12.5 billion.

In the end, they found a way to restore health insurance for 660,000 low-income kids.

The tax increases hit the more vulnerable elements of society disproportionately, of course. They actually found that way to restore children's health insurance by lowering industry taxes and increasing the co-pay and deductible burden on the low-income families themselves, while reducing the covered care. And anyone who adds cutting $30 billion in programs and eliminating COLA as an accomplishment is a bit of a social deviant. But there are probably no lengths to which Skelton will go to defend the palace walls from the rabble who think, based on the evidence, that the system is horribly broken.

Steve Maviglio wisely steers clear of the more horrific achievements of this year's Legislature, and offers a slightly more defensible outlook of the '09 Legislative session. Still, there's a lot unsaid:

Looking back, getting the measures on the May ballot was a significant early success that required 2/3 votes. And toward the end of the session, in addition to the renewable energy bill, Speaker Bass pushed through measures on childrens health and domestic violence that won broad bipartisan support. (The Speaker also got a standing ovation, and she appears to have strengthened her support in Caucus. Compare that to the ouster of the two Republican leaders).

Okay, so the grand water deal didn't get done. Big deal. Nothing like that has been done for a generation. Perhaps Senate President pro Tem Steinberg set the bar too high when he said he'd get it done. In any case, all parties agree that they got close and can pick up the pieces and get it finished in short order.

So for all those crying for major reforms, put it all into perspective. Sure, improvements could be made, and things could have been better, but this is not reason for drastic action. Far from it.

Of course, the renewable bill is veto bait, as are many of the other major bills pending the Governor's signature. And the domestic violence bill didn't pass the Senate, so, um, that doesn't count. The prison bill offered decent parole reforms but stopped well short of a real solution. Everyone keeps saying the water bill will happen but the two sides remain far apart, and the fact that they'll have to go into overtime to reconcile it kind of proves the point, no?

But Maviglio tips his hand with the line "this is not reason for drastic action." Of course he would say that. He's profited well from the status quo. Anything that messes with it could hurt him professionally, and what's more, could stop the endless blaming of outside factors to account for stunning failure.

There is no shame in stating that this was a failed legislative session. Just about everyone in California would agree with you, particularly the ones who are suffering the most from the destruction of social insurance caused by the most heartless cuts. Simply put, the Great Recession dominated legislative activity, and the conservative veto from various 2/3 requirements restricts the Legislature from fulfilling the expressed will of the people through their votes (NOTE: This does not only come into play with the budget; late last Friday Republicans blocked over 20 bills that required 2/3 votes for one reason or another, probably because they knew they could get away with it). That's not something to explain away, it's actually something to fight, every single day until the problem is rectified.

Skelton and Maviglio may want to tell themselves all is well, but the public knows better, and they're going to demand major structural change. Those who think that the Legislature can still be a force for good in the state can get aboard and provide the best ideas to break the supermajority gridlock and get the state moving again. Or they can defend their narrow interests. Their defense will fail, and it would be a shame not to see them on the right side of history.

Bait And Switch: The Governor's Executive Order To Destroy California's Green Economy

As Jim Evans, Communications Director for Sen. Steinberg, notes, the Governor is poised to veto a bill he championed, which would mandate the highest renewable energy standard in the nation, requiring utilities to get 33% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. But it's far worse than just a veto. Schwarzenegger wants to then set the standard himself by executive order. You can see why this would please him - he would be able to say that he boldly moved the state forward in the renewable energy space, while vetoing the bill from the Legislature that would do the same thing. And he wold significantly weaken the standard in a variety of ways.

The order presumably would set no limit on how much of the green power could be imported from other states.

Environmentalists who have been told about the governor's still-evolving plans said Schwarzenegger also was considering directing the California Air Resources Board to look at broadening the state's definition of renewable energy sources to include large hydroelectric dams and nuclear energy plants.

Critics questioned whether Schwarzenegger's order would be binding once he leaves office at the end of 2010. The validity of the order would be subject to a variety of potential legal challenges, they predicted.

So Schwarzenegger would allow utilities to outsource all the green jobs that would be created if power needed to be created on California soil, ruining the one area of potential economic recovery in the bill. He would put the standard on shaky legal ground, open to litigation and an unclear mandate. And he would hand a gift to the nuclear power industry by twisting arms at the Air Resources Board to change their definition of renewable energy.

This isn't just short-sighted, it's downright criminal. A high renewable standard could spurn all kinds of economic activity, but without a limit on importation, that activity will just go elsewhere instead of California. This is an effort of questionable legality for Schwarzenegger to reward corporate cronies with lower purchasing prices for green energy at the expense of California jobs.

Astounding.

More End-Of-Session Notes

A few end-of-the-session tidbits for you:

• CapAlert reports that Karen Bass will try again to get some of the more spineless members of her caucus to support a prison reform bill better than the scaled-back effort it already passed. Bass talked about adding the "alternative custody" provisions into the bill, which would get it to the proper level of cuts, but not the sentencing commission, which still looks dead, sadly.

• One bill we know to be dead is SB88, which would have forced localities to get permission from the state before going into bankruptcy. This was a union-backed bill to protect their local contracts, but city governments balked. Sen. Mark DeSaulnier says he'll try to broker a compromise for next year. Those bankruptcies are probably right down the pike, so he'd better hurry.

• The bill that the Governor arrogantly vetoed earlier in the week, in a hissy fit because he wasn't getting his way on water or prisons, was a bill to initiate a Vietnam Veteran's memorial day. It was authored by Republican Assemblyman Paul Cook, and he's whipping support to undergo the first legislative veto override in Sacramento in about 30 years, which is truly a sad legacy. Only in California could securing an override on an uncontroversial bill be something that could end a political career, as Cook acknowledged today. An override would be at least a sign of life in the Legislature.

• A lot of rumbling about the water bill, which is being written completely in secrecy, and without the input of politicians who represent the Sacramento Delta. Bass hinted at a bond issue to finance whatever comes out of conference, which would cost $600 million $800 million in debt service annually without any consequent gains in revenue to pay for it.

Could be another long night...

The Fate Of Healthy Families

One of the better tangible policy changes during the first 6 months of the Obama Administration is the expansion of SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Starting from the premise that all children deserve access to health insurance, SCHIP is a state/federal partnership that seeks to cover children who fall between the gaps, whose families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough money to afford health insurance. The program has been wildly successful since its introduction under the Clinton Administration, and virtually every state has expanded their state-based SCHIP budgets to cover the maximum amounts of children.

Every state except California, that is. As part of the budget revision, the Legislature cut Healthy Families, causing between a $128 and $144 million shortfall in the program's current budget. With his veto pen, the Governor (illegally?) slashed $50 million more. The total, as much as a $194 million shortfall, is over 50% of its budget. This has led to the only waitlisting in the country for an SCHIP program.

The program already froze enrollment earlier this month, quickly amassing a waiting list of some 22,000 kids in need of health care, and swapped its application payment assistance program for $4.6 million in savings. Now, to cope with the cuts, it's expecting to disenroll hundreds of thousands of participants starting later this fall [...]

No talk of preserving a safety net for the neediest here. Disenrollment will be based on when participants entered the program. Children who hit their one-year coverage anniversary will not be eligible to renew their enrollment, and will instead be moved to that growing waiting list.

"At this point, it is strictly based on eligibility renewal dates," Puddefoot said. "Those children who were enrolled in July or August, and those children who were first enrolled in September will be the first to be disenrolled.

This could impact as many as 900,000 children.

Officials with the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board met in Sacramento today to figure out the policy for waitlisting or disenrollment, and to explore additional avenues of support to fill the program gap. Many have speculated that First Five, the successful voter-approved program to support young children, could provide some funding, but they cannot cover a $194 million dollar hole, and their mandate allows them only to support children between 0-5. At the meeting, the board basically punted.

The task of shedding hundreds of thousands of children from the public Healthy Families health insurance program - or finding ways to keep some enrolled - was put off Thursday until Aug. 13 by the board managing the program.

The Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board must come up with a plan to respond to deep cuts in California's budget, including Healthy Families [...]

Disenrolling children from Healthy Families "is something we do not relish doing," said Cliff Allenby, the board's chairman, as members listened to a number of speakers anticipating harm that will come from cutting so many children from insurance. Allenby said the board "may have no choice," but is looking at ways to restructure the program to reduce costs and raise money for premiums from other sources.

Among the options under consideration: eliminating vision benefits, increasing co-pays and changing reimbursement schedules.

First Five committed to help with some money, but failed to delineate the amount.

I know one way to instantly restore $50 million in funding for poor children - by overriding Arnold's possibly illegal vetoes.

F-22 Intrigue

The debate in the Senate over additional funding for the F-22 (even if this funding is cut, we'll have 187 of the fighters available) took a turn last night.

Senator Levin for some reason withdraws his amendment to strike funding for the F-22 fighter that the President wants discontinued and over which he threatens a veto of the bill. And hate crimes legislation finally finds a legislative vehicle to be attached to. Only it's... the bill the President threatens to veto if the F-22 money isn't struck. That ain't gonna go over well, if anyone's looking. I don't know if there's any other effort underway besides Levin's to strike that F-22 funding. We'll see. Meanwhile, Senator Reid has done what needs doing to clear the decks for a vote on the hate crimes amendment. He's filled the amendment tree and filed for cloture [...]

I'd hate to see them stay until one in the morning on Friday to get this done, only to attach it to a doomed bill. But maybe it's not so doomed if this is attached. Maybe that's the thinking. To trade the president the hate crimes salve he promised the LGBT community after the DOMA brief fiasco in exchange for his letting the F-22 authorization escape the veto. Slick!

The White House appears serious enough about removing the additional F-22 funding that I suspect the amendment will return in some form, if not in conference committee. Peter Orszag also objects to $438.9 million in funding for a new engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, which has a perfectly good engine already. And the F-22 funding is being assailed in print media, both in this NYT op-ed:

The plane, the most expensive jet fighter ever built, was designed for cold war aerial combat. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has repeatedly argued that the Pentagon needs to phase out such high-cost, outdated programs so it can buy the kinds of weapons that American troops desperately need to complete their mission in Iraq and defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The F-22 has not been used in either war. Buying more would only make it harder for the Air Force to shift money into aircraft like unmanned intelligence drones and the more adaptable, cheaper-to-fly F-35 fighter, which is set to begin production in 2012 [...]

Providing for America’s real defense needs is expensive enough without making the military budget double as a make-work jobs program. Capping the F-22 program at 187, as the Pentagon wants, would keep production lines intact for years to come, well beyond the immediate need for stimulus-related job creation.

Not to mention this reported piece in WaPo (h/t Hilzoy why the hell are you leaving blogging!!!), detailing all the failures of the F-22 as a vehicle:

"The United States' top fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-22, has recently required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000, a far higher figure than for the warplane it replaces, confidential Pentagon test results show. (...)

"It is a disgrace that you can fly a plane [an average of] only 1.7 hours before it gets a critical failure" that jeopardizes success of the aircraft's mission, said a Defense Department critic of the plane who is not authorized to speak on the record. Other skeptics inside the Pentagon note that the planes, designed 30 years ago to combat a Cold War adversary, have cost an average of $350 million apiece and say they are not a priority in the age of small wars and terrorist threats.

The plane is literally "vulnerable to rain." And we spend $1.7 billion a piece for them.

So I think the F-22 funding will come out, by hook or by crook. But here's the really interesting part of the defense bill:

The Obama administration has objected to a provision in the 2010 defense funding bill currently before the Senate that would bar the military's use of contractors to interrogate detainees.

The provision, strongly backed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), describes interrogations as an "inherently governmental function" that "cannot be transferred to contractor personnel." It would give the Defense Department one year from the bill's enactment to ensure that the military had the resources to comply with it.

A White House policy statement yesterday signaled "many areas of agreement" with the bill that emerged from Levin's committee late last month but said the administration has "serious concerns" about some provisions. The statement repeated Obama's threat to veto the $680 billion bill unless $1.75 billion to fund an additional seven F-22 fighter aircraft is removed.

The more that we privatize interrogation, the more likelihood that those less accountable contractors sully America through torture. We can absolutely meet the needs of intelligence gathering without using CACI or other contractors, and it's sad to see the Obama Administration fight this provision.

Basically, there's a whole lot tied up in this bill at the moment. I could see nothing passing and defense funded under last year's agreement. Which would be a net loss and a missed opportunity at reform, not to mention a loss for the hate crimes bill.

Thing Is, The CIA Does Lie

The CIA trains their agents to lie pretty much as a matter of course, and they have a long history of at the very least concealing the truth from the American public, if not outright lying to them. I don't think anyone in the entire country could say with a straight face that the CIA tells the whole truth to anyone, be it Congress or anyone else. And now we have verbal confirmation of this fact.

Remember how CIA Director Leon Panetta said in May that members of the House Intelligence Committee “will have to determine” whether the CIA accurately and appropriately briefed Congress about the agency’s “enhanced interrogation program”? It appears that Panetta reached a conclusion himself.

On June 26, six Democrats on the committee — Anna Eshoo (Calif.), John Tierney (Mass.), Rush Holt (N.J.), Mike Thompson (Calif.), Alcee Hastings (Fla.) and Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) — wrote to Panetta, “Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all Members of Congress, and misled Members for a number of years from 2001 to this week.” The letter — which doesn’t explain what those “significant actions” concerned — asks that Panetta “publicly correct” his May 15 statement that it isn’t CIA “policy or practice to mislead Congress.” TWI acquired a copy of the letter, which comes after CQ reported that committee chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) also nebulously stated that CIA “affirmatively lied” to the committee.

But CIA spokesman George Little says it’s “completely wrong” to say Panetta determined CIA misled Congress, as the six legislators charge. “Director Panetta stands by his May 15 statement,” Little said. “It is not the policy or practice of the CIA to mislead Congress. This Agency and this Director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta’s actions back that up. As the letter from these six representatives notes, it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees.”

Here's more on Silvestre Reyes' claim that the CIA lied to the House Intelligence Committee.

The backstory here is that, in the wake of this seeming breakdown of information between the CIA and Congress, the House wants to change the way the CIA must brief their actions to Congress. The "Gang of Eight" process - the leaders of the intelligence committees, and the leaders of both Houses of Congress - just flat-out isn't working. And the White House has threatened a veto of the entire intelligence appropriations bill based on the changes.

The Administration strongly objects to section 321, which would replace the current “Gang of 8” notification procedures on covert activities. There is a long tradition spanning decades of comity between the branches regarding intelligence matters, and the Administration has emphasized the importance of providing timely and complete congressional notification, and using “Gang of 8” limitations only to meet extraordinary circumstances affecting the vital interests of the United States. Unfortunately, section 321 undermines this fundamental compact between the Congress and the President as embodied in Title V of the National Security Act regarding the reporting of sensitive intelligence matters – an arrangement that for decades has balanced congressional oversight responsibilities with the President’s responsibility to protect sensitive national security information. Section 321 would run afoul of tradition by restricting an important established means by which the President protects the most sensitive intelligence activities that are carried out in the Nation's vital national security interests. In addition, the section raises serious constitutional concerns by amending sections 501-503 of the National Security Act of 1947 in ways that would raise significant executive privilege concerns by purporting to require the disclosure of internal Executive branch legal advice and deliberations. Administrations of both political parties have long recognized the importance of protecting the confidentiality of the Executive Branch's legal advice and deliberations. If the final bill presented to the President contains this provision, the President's senior advisors would recommend a veto.

This is simply wrong. The Gang of Eight style of intelligence briefings facilitates abuse, and the politicization of intelligence. Obama probably sees the system as a good way for the executive to maintain control over intelligence and the CIA's actions, but if he wants money for those actions, he's going to have to stop the process that enables official lying. So the House, especially after this series of events, should go ahead and pass the intelligence appropriation as is, and if Obama vetoes it, he can go ahead and live with a CIA that has no funding.

The further context for this is that House Republicans screamed like banshees when Nancy Pelosi suggested that the CIA lied to Congress. Except they do. All the time. And whether or not it's inconvenient to say it, it's true.

Schwarzenegger Threatens Government Shutdown

The Governor's shock-doctrine approach to the current budget crisis became very apparent this week, as he engineered rejections of bipartisan stop-gap measures and solutions that would cover $21.5 billion of a $24 billion dollar deficit. He clearly would rather essentially shut down the state government than participate in the normal political process of compromise and negotiation. This is his chance to be a dictator, and he is banking on the desire of Democrats not to watch the lights go out in Sacramento to push through his agenda.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, seeking to conquer what could be the last budget crisis of his tenure, is engaged in a high-stakes negotiating strategy with lawmakers that could force him to preside over a meltdown of state government.

As legislators have scrambled to stop the state from postponing payment of its bills and issuing IOUs starting next week, the governor has vowed to veto any measure that fails to close the state's entire $24-billion deficit [...]

The governor readily admits that he sees the crisis as a chance to make big changes to government -- to "reform the system," he said Friday -- with proposals he has struggled to advance in the past.

Among them: reorganizing state bureaucracy, eliminating patronage boards and curbing fraud in social services that Democrats have traditionally protected. The governor also would like to move past the budget crisis to reach a deal on California's water problems that has so far eluded him.

By agreeing to a partial budget solution such as one the Assembly approved Thursday, the governor would lose leverage to accomplish many of those things. Without the pressure of imminent insolvency, Democrats might be less likely to agree to his demands.

This is a dangerous strategy - not for Schwarzenegger himself, but for the hundreds of thousands of Californians who depend on a functioning state government every day. Contrary to popular belief, the recipients of these IOUs would not be debtholders or vendors, but the most vulnerable people in society - families on welfare, the elderly, the blind, the disabled, and poor college students with state aid grants. These are the pawns in the game Arnold has been playing.

The Governor has brought back to the table long-sought goals that he wishes to implement over the protests of a majority of the legislature. Some of them are described in his weekly radio address. The LA Times has a good synopsis here:

Back on the governor's demand list is a plan to cut the pensions received by state workers, which unions have stymied before but which he thinks may gain traction with a cash-strapped public. Schwarzenegger also views this as an ideal time to once again target growth and fraud in the state's multibillion-dollar in-home healthcare program, which employs 300,000 unionized workers.

His agenda includes anti-fraud efforts and tougher enrollment requirements for the state's food stamp programs, efforts that advocates for the poor say are designed to discourage people from participating. In his radio address, he said the state and counties could get by with a "fraction" of the 27,000 workers now handling eligibility for Medi-Cal and food stamps by using Web-based enrollment.

Schwarzenegger has revived plans to allow local school districts to contract out for services like school bus transportation and lawn maintenance, a proposal favored by the GOP but despised by school employee unions.

Arnold has basically taken the lesson of the GOP, holding the budget hostage for pet projects like privatization and purging state services rolls of the dependent (I'm sure a lot of the desperately poor have Web access to fill out their forms).

One wonders if this will finally color the local coverage of the Governor, which throughout his tenure has been fawning, even in the face of near-historic unpopularity. Some reporters seem to be coming around.

Arnold Plays The Gingrich Role, Threatens Government Shutdown

(UPDATE: I got a copy of the Budget Conference Committee report, will give more info later)

The plot thickens. The Governor today threatened to veto the work of the bipartisan Budget Conference Committee and reject any bill that, essentially, doesn't hew to his desire to destroy the social safety net of the state. The Democratic leadership countered that they'll pass the bill anyway.

Democratic legislative leaders vowed today that the Legislature will pass a "share the pain" budget-balancing plan early next week - with or without tax increases -- that will close the state's spending deficit without completely shredding California's social services safety net.

The vows by Senate President Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, came about an hour after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he wouldn't sign a plan that was balanced with tax increases.

The rhetorical staking out of ground by the key figures in the current version of the state's ongoing fiscal melodrama came a day after the Legislature's joint budget conference committee, on a party-line vote, adopted a plan that included about $2 billion in new oil production and cigarette taxes to help bridge a $24 billion budget gap.

Let's take a brief look at what else the conference committee has done. They resisted some of the worst health care cuts, including the total elimination of Healthy Families (the SCHIP program). They reduced education spending significantly in both K-12 and higher ed. They reduced corrections spending by a fairly large amount. Despite the fact that state parks pay for themselves, Democrats agreed to cut state participation in park funding, replacing it with additional fees on park admissions. They agreed to increasing withholding by 10%, which amounts to an interest-free loans from citizens to the state. According to Karen Bass, they agreed to 45% of the Governor's proposals in full, and 93% in part.

So the idea that Democrats are not cutting spending is simply unreasonable and wrong. At the same time, they rejected additional cuts to state worker salaries. They rejected the end of Cal Works or Cal Grants or In-Home Support Services. And some of the Governor's proposals, like borrowing from local governments, were rejected unanimously.

I don't even much like what the Democrats came up with. But they did not agree to completely wipe out the social safety net, calling for moderate increases in revenue on constituencies who have been getting away with murder, pretty much literally, for decades, to pay for the externalities in health care costs that they impose on the public. As Noreen Evans explains:

Californians expect their schools to be good, a safety net to be available to the needy, a college education to be affordable for working families, their air and water to be clean, and their parks to be open and kept up. In order to meet their expectations, we must to pursue new revenues. Today, for the greater good, we approved two new tax proposals that won’t impact most Californians.

Establishing a 9.9 percent tax on oil extracted from California would generate $830 million in FY 2009-2010 and $1.1 billion in future years. This precise proposal was part of the governor’s budget proposals last year. Increasing the excise tax on cigarettes by $1.50 per pack generates $1 billion in FY 2009-2010.

Tax increases require a 2/3 vote. Absent the pursuit of new revenues, wider and deeper cuts will be required. Getting new revenues requires a mere 6 Republican votes: 2 in the Senate and 4 in the Assembly. It is undemocratic that the votes of 6 Republicans can veto the votes of 75 Democrats.

But Arnold wants to destroy the state of California like a good little neo-Hooverist, so he said no.

The Dem leadership appears to want to have this fight for the moment, so they ought to realize one thing: Arnold will ultimately be responsible - and reviled - in a government shutdown situation. No question about it. Not 1 in 10 Californians can even NAME a Democrat in the legislature. If the ship sinks, Arnold will be perceived as the skipper. And so, if and when Arnold vetoes the bill, the Democrats should send it back - with MORE tax fairness solutions, daring Arnold to prolong the agony. That resets the battle and draws clear lines between those who want the richest companies in America to sacrifice along with ordinary Californians, and those who want to protect the rich completely. Unfortunately, the Dems are tipping their hand that this will not be the case.

But Bass and Steinberg seemed to be reconciled to the likelihood that the tax hike proposals would fail next week. Steinberg said that if they did, the package they sent the governor would have a reserve $2 billion smaller than he had sought.

We have a couple days to change this dynamic. The progressive movement around the budget has stiffened spines a bit so far. Time to make the calls and emails.

This is funny:

Schwarzenegger added that he wants a budget plan that will bridge the entire projected deficit of $24 billion, not a stopgap measure to "kick the can down the alley."

The plan must consist of permanent solutions to the state's fiscal problems, not one-time revenue that sparks ongoing spending commitments, Schwarzenegger said.

When Schwarzenegger was reminded that his own budget plan contains some one-time revenue proposals, such as acceleration of income tax payments, he smiled.

"Very good point," he said. "We don't want to add to the problem."

The cyborg is not running on all cylinders. He has a single-minded purpose to kill the California dream and even these extremely moderate revenue enhancements.

...Document here:


June 16 2009 Conference Report -

We Don't Have Gay Marriage Because Of A Dysfunctional Political System

Today, the Vermont legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto and voted to allow same-sex couples to marry. They become the first state to legalize gay marriage through the legislative process rather than the courts. Of course, California passed a gay marriage bill twice, in 2005 and 2007, only to see the Governor veto the legislation both times. And then... nothing.

Now, the bill never passed by a margin approaching a 2/3 vote in either chamber, so you might question the efficacy of an override vote. However, that only makes sense if you aren't aware that the California legislature NEVER overrides vetoes. This actually came up last year, when the Governor vetoed the initial FY2009 budget and the legislature threatened to override. Instead they ceded to the Governor's demands. Indeed, California has never overridden a budget veto in the history of the legislature, and the legislature pretty much never overrides vetoes of any other kind, even if the measures pass both houses with overwhelming margins. The last override in California? THIRTY YEARS AGO.

Part of this is due to the unnecessary forced bottlenecks in the legislative process, where practically everything passes right at the end of a legislative session, and the Governor vetoes after the session ends, which means that the legislature is out of session at the time they could override a veto. But another part concerns an insidious professional courtesy mixed with threats, where the Governor in recent years has implicitly vowed to veto all kinds of bills if he's ever overridden on one.

The overall point is that California's government does not operate like a functioning political body. The veto override, a major tool for a legislature to impose their will on a Governor, doesn't exist. The majority vote, when a Governor agrees with the thrust of the legislation, with respect to the budget and taxes, doesn't exist. And so ordinary functions of political bodies are closed off to California, by self-imposed means. This highlights once again why we have an ungovernable political structure that needs to be radically changed.

Prolonging The Distraction

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas vetoed a marriage equality bill today, hiding behind the "separate but equal" civil union law affording rights and benefits to same-sex couples. Last week Douglas claimed his veto threat was based on wanting to "focus" on the struggling economy. Now Vermont legislators will have to focus on a veto override for a week. Makes sense to me!

The State Senate, which passed the bill 26-4, will vote to override tomorrow. But the House vote was lower than the 2/3 threshold needed for override. According to the Kos diarist,

Several members of the Vermont House who voted no on the bill last week have indicated that they would vote to override the Governor's veto on principle stating they could not in good conscience vote for the bill itself, but were willing to vote to allow the will of the majority to become law over the veto. However, other members who voted for the bill may switch and vote against the override attempt using the governor for cover.

Hopefully the House will come through.

Dems Play Soft With Bully Schwarzengger

So the Governor kicks sand in the face of the entire state Legislature, vetoing 130-odd bills with the same generic "Sorry, I couldn't persuade any Republicans on the budget so now you will pay" message, including some which were passed out unanimously, and the leadership's response is not "Time to override" but... "Oh yeah, well just try that again!"

Of course, the governor has always made it clear he prefers campaigning to governing. That has to change if we have any hope of solving California’s challenges. The people of California deserve better than constant campaign mode. The people of California deserve better than staged fights for the cameras.

I’m willing to look past all this and hope we can see a new start. Part of that should involve the new bipartisan blue-ribbon commission I’ve been pursuing to look at tax modernization and two year budgeting and other potential solutions to California’s chronic fiscal crises. The governor has been supportive of that effort, and it’s a good place for us to move forward from.

I will also be asking Assembly members to reintroduce all the blanket-veto bills and will expedite their passage so the governor can have a second chance to act responsibly on them.

That is weak from Karen Bass. There is absolutely no reason not to go back into a lame-duck session in November after the elections and get this done. Otherwise you are enabling a bully. At least some lawmakers get this:

Assembly Majority Floor Leader Alberto Torrico vowed today to push for a bipartisan legislative backlash against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by overturning many of his recent vetoes.

"We're all very frustrated, both Democrats and Republicans," the Fremont Democrat said at a news conference this morning. "I don't think there's going to be any problem attaining the votes for an override." [...]

Torrico said that when the Legislature reconvenes in January, he will push for overriding vetoes of both Democratic and Republican bills that received two-thirds support in the Legislature. Dozens of bills could qualify, he said.

Torrico said that he had not yet discussed the idea at length with legislative leadership, but "I think that's going to be the first order of business upon our return."

Sadly, Torrico doesn't know what he's talking about. The bills expire at the end of the legislative session and cannot be taken up in January.

Just leaves you brimming with confidence, doesn't it?

Instead of just stamping your feet and talking tough, this is a perfect opportunity for action. Go back to work before November 30 and override these vetoes.

I Am The Veto King, I Can Do Anything

Robert made an oblique reference to it, but the Governor showed his true character with his series of vetoes this week. Yes, he did allow some valuable bills to pass into law, particularly SB 375, the land use bill. You will now be able to register to vote online thanks to the signing of SB 381, and your menus at restaurants will have calorie contact and nutritional information. He also signed two green chemistry bills that will crack down on hazardous industrial chemicals, and in the biggest surprise, he signed AB 583, the clean money bill which would establish a pilot program making the Secretary of State races in 2014 and 2018 publicly financed races. (It was a bit easier for Arnold to sign this one, because it also must be put before voters on the June 2010 ballot.)

So those are some of the success stories. But there are hundreds of failures, some of them absolutely inexplicable. We knew that Arnold would veto SB840, the single-payer bill, but he also vetoed health care provisions that were in his own legislation from last year's health care reform overhaul, including one that would end rescission (dropping patients after they put in a claim) and requiring that 85% of insurance premiums be spent on health care. He vetoed the California DREAM Act for the second year in a row, after it was altered to conform to the standards he set in last year's veto message. He vetoed a bill which would have done away with the archaic and authoritarian practice of requiring loyalty oaths for state employees, because it's "our responsibility to ensure that public resources are not used for purposes of overthrowing the U.S. or state government, or for communist activities." He vetoed sensible card check legislation for farm workers that would have allowed employees to unionize while resisting employer intimidation. He caved to Big Business - and Sarah Palin - and vetoed the groundbreaking port cleanup bill that essentially signs a death warrant for families living in and around that toxic stew.

All in all, he killed 35% of the bills sent to him this session, and 45% of those sent in the rush of the final week. Most of the vetoes I described above reflect the right-wing ideology and fealty to the Chamber of Commerce that I've come to expect from the Governor. But what's unusual is his contempt for the legislative process itself. Here's Frank Russo:

On many of the bills the Governor did not give a clue as to why he did not sign them, and instead employed a cryptic boilerplate veto message: “The historic delay in passing the 2008-2009 State Budget has forced me to prioritize the bills sent to my desk at the end of the year’s legislative session. Given the delay, I am only signing bills that are the highest priority for California. This bill does not meet that standard and I cannot sign it at this time.” How will this look in the future—next year or when history is written? In the hundreds of bills that met this fate there are many that were trivial or could be seen in that light. Some were amended down to the point of a pilot project or study or some other pale shadow of their former selves and the original intention of the legislator that introduced them. Even in this form, to the people involved, some of these were very important.

Some of these bills were passed out of both chambers with UNANIMOUS support. And he rejected maybe 500 bills with that dismissive message.

It's not like these bills are foisted upon the Governor after being hidden away in secret. There is public information on all of them, and I'm assuming he has a staff to read the bill text. The excuse is not only lame, it's a final middle finger at the legislature, a disregard for the work that they do. As Dan Walters noted:

The budget imbroglio, the governor's threat to veto bills unless it was resolved, the Legislature's delay in sending him last-minute bills, the hundreds of vetoes, and his drive to change how legislative districts are redrawn every decade worsen his already acidic relationship with the Legislature. The relationship is now so bad that Schwarzenegger was unable to move a single vote from his fellow Republicans on the budget.

There's really only one thing to do. Veto overrides are incredibly rare in California, with the last one occurring I think 30 years ago. But it is incumbent upon California lawmakers to stand up for themselves and immediately move into a session where all unanimous bills are voted on in an effort to override the Governor. This is as much about checks and balances as anything else. Schwarzenegger showed his contempt for the process by hijacking the budget late in the game and threatening to veto. The "detente" against veto overrides should be dead and buried by now. I'm sure Democrats would welcome the maneuver, and Yacht Party Republicans aren't too pleased with the Governor in their own right.

This is about asserting the ability to carry out a core job function. If unanimous bills can be vetoed with no consequences the legislature just diminished greatly in stature. Stand up for yourselves. Stand up to this bully of a governor. Override.

Schwarzenegger Vetoes Budget

This was kind of a no-brainer for the Governor. While his popularity has stumbled during the budget crisis, the legislature is worse, and the early reviews of the budget are very negative. By vetoing it, Arnold sets himself apart from the failed budget process and gets to say that "I did all I could" when he is inevitably overridden.

A budget veto would be a first for California, but legislative leaders in both parties said early this morning that it is likely the Legislature would override it.

"I'm pretty confident we are not going to have any difficulty" overriding a veto, said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles). "We would do it in rapid fire."

The last bill override was in 1979, when Jerry Brown was governor (the bills concerned state employees and insurance).

That last bit of information should tell you all you need to know about the dysfunctional state political system. No veto overrides in 30 years? What a farce.

Now, the flip side to this political move by the Governor is that he will be shown to have essentially no power in Sacramento. He's been completely divorced from the Yacht Party, having no ability to move them on any significant issue. And now the budget will be passed over his veto (I'm guessing this eliminates his ability to blue-pencil anything out of it, too). Schwarzenegger's power is at its lowest ebb now.

But he's playing a post-partisan game, and he'll hope to regain some of that relevancy with the presumed March '09 special election. Wherein there will be no talk of the slashing of the vehicle license fee which contributed mightily to this mess, of course.

...adding, there's one other wrinkle to this, and that's this:

If lawmakers vote to override the veto, Schwarzenegger said, he will veto all the bills awaiting action on his desk.

This gives a measure of leverage to the Governor, but it looks to me like he's learned from his Republican friends how to hijack.

UPDATE: Karen Bass' statement is here.

They were only some of the victims of a chronic budget problem in California that has been going on for decades. Over the past few months it became clear that California’s chronic budget problems couldn’t be resolved in a single session of the legislature. Not when we have a 2/3 requirement to pass a budget and raise revenues - a disastrous tyranny of the minority that other states have sensibly avoided. Not when we have a revenue system based on what made sense in the 1930s - a system that careens from year to year with no long term stability.”

If the people of California are the victims in the chronic budget crisis, the 2/3 vote and the outdated revenue system are the villains. Because of the two thirds vote requirement when legislative Democrats made cuts and supported taxes-- and when the governor made cuts and supported taxes—a small Republican minority was still able to hold the budget hostage for almost three months.”

If Governor Schwarzenegger had been able to convince even a handful of legislators from his party to support a budget – AS EVERY OTHER GOVERNOR IN HISTORY HAS BEEN ABLE TO DO – we wouldn’t be in this situation. But Governor Schwarzenegger was not able to produce a single vote -- and the people of California were hurting -- so we stepped in to pass a compromise budget that, while ugly in many aspects, at least buys us time to make progress on the real reforms we need.

I think she's interested in changing the 2/3 requirement.

Sense Of Proportion

So the technical glitch on the farm bill was cleaned up, and Bush's veto officially overriden. The intent of the Congress and the President is obvious, but due to Constitutional procedure they might actually have to vote on this turkey AGAIN. Can we move ahead a couple hundred years at this point? Bill text is already available online. Can't that be the text the Congress "sends" over to the President, and can't the President do what he wants with it? If you want to keep having bill-signing ceremonies, that's fine, but why do we have to act like we're still using quills and horseback here? A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Meanwhile, is it at all possible to take John Boehner seriously?

Democrats said the matter stemmed from a clerical error. But Republicans pounced on the "fiasco," which they said would require a temporary extension of the current farm bill.

"What's happened here raises serious constitutional questions -- very serious," said Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "I don't see how we can proceed with the override as it occurred."

Yes, some clerk forgetting to insert Title III of the bill is a "serious constitutional question." The President nullifying federal laws through signing statements, torturing prisoners in violation of international law, rendition, indefinite detention, spying on Americans without a warrant in contrvention of the 4th Amendment, eliminating habeas corpus, planting military propagandists in the press and lying about the WMD threat used to take the nation to war... these are mere technicalities.

Puh-leeze.

Viva W, Torture Si!

The Editors have King George W. dead to rights:

With WPE’s veto of a bill banning waterboarding, we now have a list of nine laws that our President thinks are so wrong-headed that he can’t simply ignore them like he usually does with laws he doesn’t like. The offending legislative initiatives, in order:

1. Funding for potentially life-saving research using stem cells.
2. Benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet, that we might someday leave that country.
3. Again, funding for potentially life-saving research.
4. Health insurance for children.
5. Water resources act: the one veto which it can be plausibly argued had something to do with fiscal discipline.
6. A bill that would ban the use of thimerosal, which crazy people think has something to do with autism. Sure, okay, whatever.
7. Again, health insurance for children.
8. A defense authorization bill pocket-vetoed at the last minute for somewhat puzzling reasons (Jack Daniels)
9. A ban on (some kinds of) torture

So to recap: health insurance for children: very bad. Potential cures for crippling disease: very bad. Spending on infrastructure: occasionally bad, but way to close the barn door after burning the building down. Mercury in vaccines: not a problem (which, to give him credit, is probably true). Torture: absolutely vital. Jack Daniels: awesome.

Of all of those, asserting the unilateral right to torture other human beings is perhaps the lowest, although denying kids health care and life-saving research are pretty far up there, too. It's like the Kentucky Derby of the most morally offensive act!