Tag Archives: executive order

Deficit Peacocks, Debt Ceilings, and Indefinite Detention

22 Wednesday Dec 2010

Posted by in budget, Congress, Constitution, economy, financial regulation, health care, Obama, Obama administration, Politics, Taxes, Unemployment, war on terror

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In a January 20 article at the Center for American Progress, Michael Linden differentiated between those who are serious about addressing our fiscal problems–the deficit hawks–from those who posture and preen about it—the deficit peacocks. Here’s how he defines a peacock:

“Deficit peacocks like to preen and call attention to themselves, but are not sincerely interested in taking the difficult but necessary steps toward a balanced budget. Peacocks prefer scoring political points to solving problems.”

This is one of Linden’s ways to spot a peacock:

“…people who now claim to be concerned about our fiscal future even though they recently supported massive budget-busting legislation…When someone supports a deficit commission one day and votes to use another $100 billion of red ink on tax cuts for the rich the next, it is perhaps an indication that his or her commitment to real deficit reduction leaves something to be desired.”

Cases in point:

“Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Monday said they will introduce a bill early next year based on the report from President Obama’s deficit commission.

Warner and Chambliss have been meeting with a group of 18 senators on finding a way to balance the budget, and said they have concluded the debt commission’s proposal is the best basis for bipartisan talks.”

The rest of the “Gang of Eighteen”:

“Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Jean Shaheen (D-N.H.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska).”

Fifteen of the eighteen, including both Chambliss and Warner voted for the tax cut extension last week. Only Wyden, Hagan, and Mark Udall have any credibility here. The rest are peacocks.

The vehicle Chambliss and others plan to use to get their desired spending cuts are negotiations over raising the debt ceiling limit (aka the next hostage situation), another can kicked down the road yesterday with passage of a Continuing Resolution to fund the government through March 4.

“Chambliss said on the call that an impending vote in Congress to raise the government’s debt ceiling…will be an important turning point. “It gives us a deadline to look to from the standpoint of getting some meaningful decisions mad …If we can use that as leverage that’s an ideal scenario,” Chambliss said.”

Ezra Klein has more on what this could mean for the future of health care reform and financial regulation reform:

“The good news is that law will keep the government’s lights on until early March. The bad news is that the law does it by extending 2010’s funding resolution — and that resolution didn’t include provisions for implementing the bills that were passed as the year went on.

…this is bad news for the health-care bill and the financial-regulation bill. There’s been a tendency to assume that the universe of options for passed legislation was binary: Either they went forward, or they get repealed. But with an angrily divided government, we may find ourselves in that little-known middle category: The Republicans can’t repeal them and the Democrats can’t fully fund them, and so rather than simply going forward, they limp forward.”

Klein doesn’t address it, but another question would be what does this does to unemployment benefits? Could the 13 month extension become 3? I guess we’ll find out in March.

Finally, this is what’s so confounding and confusing about the Obama administration. They take one step forward, with the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and then take two steps backward with this:

“The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials.

The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be signed by President Obama early in the New Year. The order allows for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances there change.

But the order establishes indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and makes clear that the White House alone will manage a review process for those it chooses to hold without charge or trial.

Nearly two years after Obama’s pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo, more inmates there are formally facing the prospect of lifelong detention and fewer are facing charges than the day Obama was elected.”

*Sigh*

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White House Considers Executive Order on Indefinite Incarceration

27 Saturday Jun 2009

Posted by in Obama, Politics, Uncategorized

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With most of our celebrity-crazed media and public focused on the death of Michael Jackson, I guess it was the perfect time for a Friday night news dump like this:

“Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war.”

Then came the  non-denial denial and the and semantic games from the White House:

“White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House is already trying to build support for an order.”

Notice the difference in language? There “is” no executive order. The WaPo article didn’t say there “is” an order, it said officials “are crafting” language for an executive order. I had hoped we were through with these kinds of slippery word games.

But the statement by “one administration official” gives it away. I assume the White House wouldn’t waste their time “trying to build support” for an action that they don’t intend to pursue.

There was also this strange claim:

“Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order,” the official said.”

One such civil liberties group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, told TPM:

“Prolonged imprisonment without trial is exactly the Guantanamo system that the President promised to shut down. Whatever form it takes – from Congress or the President’s pen – it is anathema to the basic principles of American law and the courts will find it unconstitutional.”

The ACLU released this statement:

“This is not change – this is more of the same. If President Obama issues an executive order authorizing indefinite detention, he’ll be repeating the same mistakes of George Bush, and his policies will be destined to fail as were his predecessor’s. How justice is served in America should not be an open question in a country where we have a rule of law and a time-tested criminal justice system. Throwing people into prison without charge, conviction or providing them with a trial is about as un-American as you can get. While President Obama might be experiencing difficulty with Congress when it comes to implementing his decision to close Guantánamo, the answer is not to issue an executive order authorizing a system which is unconstitutional and counter to the most fundamental American values.”

That doesn’t sound to me like they “encouraged the administration” to “do it through executive order.”

To me this issue, call it indefinite incarceration, preventive detention, or any other name, goes beyond Barack Obama’s presidency, the “war on terror,” or the closing of Guantanamo. This is a fundamental question of what kind of country we are.

We are the United States of America, damn it. We don’t hold people indefinitely without charges and without trials. If we don’t have enough evidence to bring people to trial, or if the evidence we do have was obtained through torture, we release them, plain and simple.

The danger in this is the precedent. What happens the next time we have a President Nixon, who draws up an enemies list and decides to imprison people indefinitely, and what happens if not just alleged terrorists but American citizens are among those “certain people” who are imprisoned based on nothing more than suspicion. His or her reasoning will be, President Bush got away with it, President Obama got away with it, who is going to stop me?

It’s time to put an end to this before it goes any further.