Lawlessness and Disorder
The brazen we-make-the-rules-around-here attitude reflected in the Bush administration's domestic spying ukase, and its let's-punish-the-leakers reaction to its exposure, is certainly not just an executive branch phenomenon. Last night's House Republican maneuvers on budget and defense appropriations measures exhibit the same mentality, especially in the strategem that made it possible: a rules change that basically abolished all the rules.
The House's adoption, on a party-line vote, of so-called "martial law," suspending, among other items, the normal requirement that Members have at least 24 hours to read major legislation before they vote on it, was authoritarian even by House GOP standards.
Thanks to martial law, the incredibly convoluted series of decisions made totally behind close doors on the budget bill, turned into a simple loyalty test for partisans. There was a grand total of 40 minutes of debate, which was probably about right since nobody had the chance to read the bill in the first place.
This is, of course, an old tradition for congressional Republicans, dating back to the mother of all unread bills, the 1981 Gramm-Latta II budget reconciliation substitute motion, which basically packed a year's worth of legislation into a multi-thousand-page "amendment" that was drafted in secret and hastily sent to the floor.
At least back then, Democrats controlled the House, and thus the House printing office, and were able to draw attention to the mindlessness of this exercise by publishing Gramm-Latta II exactly as it was received from Republican staffers, with lobbyist phone numbers and lunch orders scribbled in the margins (all of which were duly voted into law).
Now Democrats have to work harder to expose such shenanigans, and their real-life impact. The big pattern, then and now, is that Republicans have steadily degenerated from the party of law and order, to the party that is actually contemptuous of the law when it doesn't serve their purposes, and indifferent to constitutional and legislative order when it thwarts their will. What the Schiavo incident said about the true Republican attitude towards federalism and separation of powers, the "martial law" rule says about the GOP's true interest in rational policymaking and honest debate.
Now Democrats have to work harder to expose such shenanigans, and their real-life impact.
Bush's approval ratings are out of the gutter. That means the media will crawl back into the tank, willingly, in more than a few cases I can think of, which makes Democrats' job even harder still. And I don't think they are up to it. There is no message machine for the Dems, and they are locked out of government, so exactly how do they publicize this sort of thing, which to the average citizen is boring process?
December 19, 2005 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your reference to 1981's Gramm-Latta II (are you sure it was II?; I thought II was in 1982 and G-L I was in 1981...) brought back some memories.
I had just started working in the House for a Freshman Dem from a Southern state who basically got elected on a balance-the-budget platform.
I started in his office the day *after* Gramm-Latta I/II passed and walked into a shitstorm.
After all his campaigning, after him buttonholing anyone he could find in his district to say he was gonna vote for the balanced budget resolution, after carrying Phil Gramm's luggage for weeks (maybe...), the poor SOB voted *against* it.
Why? Because he hadn't *read* it.
Gotta love it...
APB
December 19, 2005 7:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Airportbum:
Thanks for sharing your memories. On a technical note, Gramm-Latta I was the 1981 budget resolution, adopted by the House, that issued reconciliation instructions. But Stockman and company decided that the reconciliation bill put together by House committees didn't make the cuts where they wanted them, and that's why they decided to offer Gramm-Latta II as a substitute.
I don't remember what they called their 1982 budget bill, but 1981 was definitely the year of Gramm and Latta.
December 19, 2005 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
A couple of days back we speculated at my blog about what new, formerly secret Bush-administration horror might come out. I speculated about death squads. Some may have thought that a bit dramatic. For those who thought so I offer a less freaky, albeit still chilling alternative: Total Information Awareness never really died. Its technology is actually at the center of the NSA wiretapping scandal, and that's the real reason why the Bushlings wouldn't go to the FISA court.
I missed it the first time I read it, but Sen. Jay Rockefeller's letter refers to "John Poindexter's TIA" and also to not being a "technician or an attorney" but nonetheless speaks of being very troubled by what he heard in his one briefing back on July 17, 2003.
For those who have forgotten, Total Information Awareness was a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the same agency that created the fledgling Internet back in the sixties) initiative headed by John Poindexter, who had been brought in to the Pentagon strictly for this assignment. Poindexter, you may remember, has a shady past in that he was indicted and convicted for his role in the Iran-Contra affair, so he may be genetically aligned with extralegal enterprises.
The initiative was so alarming that former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (Rep-TX), a staunch conservative, dubbed it "a real menace to our privacy" and called for its immediate dismantling.
As the Armey memo points out, TIA was to be a program "to aggregate a massive amount of personal information into a central, government controlled database for military, intelligence, and law enforcement use." Under severe pressure from the time its existence became known, TIA was thought to have been abandoned.
Here's what cartoonist Bill Mitchell thought about TIA. Courtesy CNN, Nov.21, 2002.
A Reuters story from Jan. 23, 2003 shows that the Senate tried to block funding over concerns about both the potential for abuse and John Poindexter's reputation. This document shows the Congress succeeded on Sept. 24, 2003.
I've just discovered a web page from EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) that covers its concerns about TIA, along with history and links to documents. Although the Congress did its best to stop the development of new technologies for data-mining, there are reasons to believe that these efforts were not wholy curtailed.
All this leads me to believe that we've got more to fear from the increasingly Orwellian Bushlings.
Read more at The New Normal.
December 19, 2005 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ed:
Doesn't that essentially amount to taxation without representation?
December 19, 2005 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
We need to do that polling your Rep thing again, like we did during the Tom deLay "let's change the ethics rules" chapter.
Remember that? When the reps voted via voice vote and wanted no record of their actual votes. We need to poll these guys again.
I know you have to use such a tactice sparingly and with great discretion, but now is such a time and ocasion.
We need to call everyone to call their reps and get them to start answering why it is ok to ignore the constitution, put one man above the law, etc.
They need to feel this one.
December 19, 2005 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats should stage a massive walk-out of Congress, prevent a quorum, or do something else to shut down action until Republicans restore normal rules of democracy. Republicans will try to say that Democrats are betraying the troops, but Democrats simply have to point out that Republicans have allowed corruption to overwhelm the governing process.
Can Dems in the House shut down the House? Or could the GOP caucus simply pass bills without them? I think it's time for Pelosi to get creative. This is becoming outrageous.
December 20, 2005 12:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats cannot prevent a quorum in the House of Representatives or otherwise shut down the chamber. A quorum, as established by one of the few rules of legislative procedure in the Constitution, is only a majority of members. If Democrats didn't show up, Republicans would continue to legislate, just as they do now--without Democratic input. A Democratic walkout might make a statement, but unlike Reid's "close the Senate" maneuver, it would only expose how utterly ineffectual Democrats in the House are.
December 20, 2005 5:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bush's approval ratings are out of the gutter.
Yeah but they might make their triumphant return to the gutter with his claim to have the power to suspend our 4th amendment rights.
But this is more about the GOP's abuse of power in the institution of Congress then it is about the POTUS...even though they are both using the same playbook. This could prove to be a valuable asset for the dems in the upcoming midterms if framed that the GOP no longer cares about the people, just the lobbyist's money...the message has to be sent at the local level.
December 20, 2005 5:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, his ratings are still 395 in NBC's poll and as high as 50% (Hotline). Why the wide range? Are they asking the same approval question very differently?
December 20, 2005 5:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, that should say 39% in the NBC poll. My bad.
December 20, 2005 5:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
You entitled your post "Lawlessness and Disorder". I have never been one who believed the Constitution was as sacrosanct to our rulers as the rhetoric usedto enshrine it in our common mythos. But it has clearly never been as expendable as it is now. Clearly the Republicans never intend to release power...there are too many consequences for them personally (such as corruption, violations of electoral, financial, and laws on governance). Maybe it is time to stop watching polls; it is very possible we have seen our last "elections" (in substance, not form); it is perhaps time to think about strategies to fight a prefascist grouping. The Republican Party whatever it is, is not just a usual political party.
December 20, 2005 6:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
What makes me nervous is that Bush is always at his best when the operative emotion is fear. His spying program has everyone's anxiety up, nervous again about the impact of terrorism, if not terrorism itself. Again and again, for whatever reason, the country has chosen to trust him when it gets nervous. It's a sort collective sticking the head in the sand...Americans dont want to think the true impact of their freedoms being stolen.
It makes me fearful that in some warped way, Bush's approval ratings will actually go up as a result of this debacle.
December 20, 2005 6:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your post is without a thesis, therefore, you have no argument.
December 20, 2005 6:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
That was a great post. I think you are getting to the heart of what they are trying to coverup. They are doing massive data sweeps, between TIA, EPIC, Carnivore, they doing a blanket monitoring and they could not get a warrant for everyone. There is also this bit from Kos when they were severly rebuked by the <a href="http://foi.missouri.edu/secretcourts/seccrtrebuffs.html">Fisa</a>
court back 08/02. This probably had some influence as well.
December 20, 2005 6:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Finally! I've caught a liberal who openly admits that the entire job of the Democratic Party is not to appeal to voters, but rather, to simply wage one large smear campaign against the Bush Administration! The GOP, of course, has known this since 2000, but it's similar to scientists finding a live Giant Squid--almost impossible until now!
December 20, 2005 6:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, his ratings are still 395 in NBC's poll and as high as 50% (Hotline). Why the wide range? Are they asking the same approval question very differently?
Mystery Pollster explains it much better than I could.
December 20, 2005 6:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
But this is more about the GOP's abuse of power in the institution of Congress then it is about the POTUS...even though they are both using the same playbook. This could prove to be a valuable asset for the dems in the upcoming midterms if framed that the GOP no longer cares about the people, just the lobbyist's money...the message has to be sent at the local level.
I think most people think of "abuse of power" as any use of power that they can clearly see harms them. Most people aren't terrorists, obviously, and most people don't really care all that much what happens to the civil rights or privacy of people with names like Abdul or Mohammed or whatever. So what Bush has done doesn't mean a whole lot to them -- they are perfectly willing to accept Bush's claim that he's doing it to "fight terrorism." To actually get to the bottom of the whole thing and see how what Bush has done impacts us all requires active involvement from the citezenry, and they aren't going to do it. How many people even know what FISA is? How many people will find out? Will the media be willing and able to break these things down so the average person can understand them?
Too many things have to go right before the average person becomes informed enough to be outraged. And in the meantime, a blizzard of shit will be poured out by Bush and the right wing noise machine, confusing things further. This will be, at most, a little speed bump, and it could easily turn in to nothing at all. As the 2000 elections demonstrate, this is a country that is willing to trade principle for the easy way out.
December 20, 2005 7:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
You make some very good points owenz. I think the difference is this time with his "I can ignore the 4th Amendment" position is that he has pissed off many people across the political spectrum from far left to far right.
Point taken though...in terms of him surviving political blunders he is like a cockroach. He seems to be survive almost everything politically.
But can the same thing be said about Congress? With the Abramoff mess at a boil, DeLay's troubles, Ney's problems, and now with this blatant abuse of power is the Congress' credibility with the public damaged beyong repair?
December 20, 2005 8:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
But the whole issues of congressional abuse of power is hard to link to Bush, Luigi. I think it would be an issue that plays out better in congressional races on a district by district basis. It is part of the "GOP Culture of Corruption". Abramoff...DeLay...Ney...and their abuse of power in the Congress to help their corruption of our political process.
But as far as our "Teflon Preident" is concerned I think you are right on the money in your assessment...but like I pointed out to owenz, this time (with the position that the 4th Amendment is not important and it's protections can be overlooked when it comes to El Presidente) he has pissed off many on the right. That is the "wild card".
December 20, 2005 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
But the whole issues of congressional abuse of power is hard to link to Bush, Luigi. I think it would be an issue that plays out better in congressional races on a district by district basis. It is part of the "GOP Culture of Corruption".
There is no "Culture of Corruption" if people don't think there is, and people won't think there is as long as the corruption doesn't directly threaten them. I think here, and in another post, you betray an optimism which, alas, is becoming more and more alien to my nature these days.
December 20, 2005 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you can't find examples of such liberals because your characterization of the Democratic party is fundamentally wrong, and therefore you have difficulty finding examples to support your faulty assumptions?
These awesome leaps of logic must be how Republicans con themselves into supporting Bush and his ilk. Make a screwy assumption and then try to force the facts to conform to it, no matter what the reality actually is (cough... WMD... cough).
December 20, 2005 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
... well, there are so many things that Bush deserves to be "smeared" about - lieing us into a war, torture, breaking international agreements, trying to destroy the 4th Amendment, etc. ad nauseum.
December 20, 2005 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink