It's the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition:

Rarely in the annals of human experience has so well intentioned an idea been such a monument to failure as America's 13-year attempt to eradicate the evil of alcohol. The National Prohibition (or Volstead) Act was passed by Congress in October 1919, overriding the veto of President Woodrow Wilson. The following January, the Act was ratified as the 18th amendment of the constitution after it had been approved by the required three-quarters majority of US states.

The "noble experiment", as its supporters termed it, did indeed lead to a modest decline in alcohol consumption and an overall improvement in public health. But those meagre and transient advantages were nothing compared to the unintended side-effects of Prohibition: a drastic decline in federal and state revenues, a surge in clandestine binge drinking and of course speak-easies, bootlegging, moonlighting and mobsters, not to mention the criminalisation of millions of US citizens, including some its most eminent politicians, who were technically flouting the law of the land.

Prohibition's passing belongs to a distant age; you have to be 90 years old at least to be a surviving violator. But this 75th anniversary has a rare resonance. Prohibition was brought down by its growing unpopularity, and the indisputable evidence the measure was doing far more harm than good. But the final nail in its coffin was the Great Depression, at its height in 1933. Why should extra misery and deprivation continue to be heaped upon a population suffering so much hardship already? "The human suffering that it [Prohibition] entailed," wrote H L Mencken, journalism's bard of the age, "must have been a fair match for that of the Black Death and Thirty Years War."

Read the entire article by Rubert Cornwell in the UK Independent.

Will you be marking the anniversary tonight? I'll be hoisting a glass and toasting, among other things, all of my comrades here at TPM.

Salud! Kampai! and To Your Health!

Hot on the heels of the "Emoluments Clause" controversy over Obama's nomination of Hillary to his cabinet, is the latest go-round in the never-ending wingnut crusade to disprove Obama's birth certificate and status as a natural-born US citizen, reported here from the Honolulu Advisor:

Another legal effort to force state officials to produce a copy of President-elect Barack Obama's birth certificate has been filed, this time in federal court.

Similar legal actions have been filed here and in several other states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Georgia and Mississippi.

Circuit Judge Bert Ayabe last month dismissed the suit filed in state court here, upholding arguments from Gov. Linda Lingle's administration that birth records are confidential under state law.

The new challenge is an outgrowth of a legal suit filed in Mississippi, which questioned whether Obama is a "natural born citizen" of the U.S.

Plaintiffs in that suit subpoenaed a copy of the birth certificate Nov. 26 from the Hawai'i Health Department. The plaintiffs include conservative political activist and failed presidential candidate Alan Keyes, who lost to Obama in the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois.

Marc Ambinder does a nice job batting down, once again, this absurd notion:

A thinner version of the claim holds that Obama is a citizen, but not a natural born or naturalized citizen and this constitutionally ineligible. This claim rests on a fairly tendentious argument about Obama's father and mother. Obama Sr., wasn't a citizen; therefore, his son could not have been born to two U.S. citizens; to be a naturalized citizen, both parents have to be U.S. citizens. Also: the law requires citizen-parents to have spent a certain length of time in the state; Obama's mother was a woman of the world.

But the two-citizen parent rule, which is no longer in effect, applied to people born outside the U.S.  Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii, a U.S. state since 1959; (had he been born earlier, it wouldn't matter -- U.S. law granted natural born citizenship to every Hawaiian born after 1900.)

Now -- the 14th amendment is fairly clear on the subject:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside

A further objection: to be "natural born," as the constitution requires, is to be born on U.S. soil (check) to two citizen parents (x mark.)  Again -- that claim has no basis in federal law, Supreme Court precedent, or English common law.

Is anone keeping a list of the Obama "conspiracies" yet? We could call it the "O-Files". 

David Kurtz brings up the "Emoluments clause" on the front page here, and I see I missed Greg Sargent's recent post on it at Election Central. I was reading up on this last night and found a tortured explanation of the whole thing here:

There's been talk about whether Sen. Hillary Clinton is disqualified from a position as Secretary of State by the Emoluments Clause:

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time ....

Adam Bonin's Daily Kos blog has a bit more on this, but the short version is that a Jan. 2008 executive order, promulgated pursuant to a 1990s cost of living adjustment statute, raised the salary of the Secretary of State, so the Emoluments Clause question is in play. I very recently read an article by John O'Connor on the subject, The Emoluments Clause: An Anti-Federalist Intruder in a Federalist Constitution, 24 Hofstra L. Rev. 89 (1995), so I asked him what he thought. Here's his answer (some paragraph breaks added); please note that I have some comments at the end of this post that express a somewhat different view:

It seems to me that there are two questions regarding whether the Emoluments Clause to the U.S. Constitution (Art. I, § 6, cl. 2) renders Senator Hillary Clinton constitutionally ineligible for appointment as Secretary of State: (1) whether Senator Clinton is now ineligible for appointment; and (2) if Senator Clinton is ineligible for appointment, whether that ineligibility may be cured by the so-called "Saxbe Fix," whereby the Secretary of State's salary is reduced to the salary in effect before Senator Clinton's current Senate term began.

I think it is beyond dispute that Senator Clinton is currently ineligible for appointment as secretary of State. I also believe that the better construction of the Emoluments Clause is that the "Saxbe Fix" does not remove this ineligibility.

 

The basic story line is this: Bush passed a cost of living increase for the Secretery of State position in 2008. Hillary was a sitting Senator at that time, and is now being appointed SoS, but the Constitution forbids this. The original intent was to prevent Senators or Representatives from creating new postions, or increasing the "Emoluments" (basically salaries) of existing positions, and then getting themselves appointed to those positions and benefiting themselves.

This has been a problem a few times in the past, and the President has in those instances lowered the salary back to what it was, in order to get around the issue. Is it constitutional? It appears not, but no one has attempted to challenge it, and most likely won't, as the President should be allowed to choose whom he or she wants in their cabinet.

This won't be an issue, except amongst the wingnuts. It does make good reading , though, and I highly recommend reading the legal rationales as well as the reader comments in the above-linked post. They appear to be from a number of lawyers and legal scholars and their debate is highly informative. 

Haven't seen this anywhere else:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama is expected to nominate New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to head the Commerce Department, a senior Democratic source said on Tuesday.

Obama is expected to announce the appointment during a news conference scheduled for 1140 EST/1640 GMT on Wednesday in Chicago, his fifth since he began naming nominees for his Cabinet.

The appointment of Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador and energy secretary who became an Obama supporter earlier this year after dropping his own presidential bid, would make him the first Hispanic named to Obama's rapidly filling Cabinet.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4B177C20081202

Having just caught Obama's daily press conference, I'm still amazed that we have a leader who actually wants to be in daily communication with the American people. While Bush lies curled up in a fetal ball somewhere (no doubt counting down the days until his body can leave Washington to rejoin his mind in whatever secret location it has been residing in since, well, August 2001?), Obama has hit the ground running and is doing everything he can to get his cool, calm, and collected intellect wrapped around this huge mess we all face.

The critics may have complained about Obama having no executive experience, but all evidence from the past two years points to the contrary, and not only have the world's leaders taken notice, but the world's executives seem to be pricking up their ears as well. There is an excellent piece up on Reuters today that is a good read:

Business could learn from Obama style, experts say

excerpt:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If Barack Obama were a corporate chief executive, the incoming U.S. president already would be winning high marks for his management style, experts say.

The president-elect's steady hand and calm demeanor that have earned him the moniker "No Drama Obama" are traits business leaders could well learn from, according to management experts.

"What he's doing is masterful," said Paul Reagan, a management consultant and senior lecturer at Wayne State University in Detroit. "His value system is clear, and he spends a tremendous amount of time reinforcing that he does what he says he will do.

"His credibility right now is so high most people already see him as the corporate head," Reagan said.

It's a lengthy article and well worth checking out. How nice is it that we have someone who is able to inspire confidence in these uncertain times?