Columnist.
Only in Washington, D.C., would Mitch McConnell's Rube Goldbergian plan to capitulate on the national debt limit without admitting it be taken seriously. The Senate minority leader's "Plan B" is Exhibit A in the case against Congress, which dodges responsibility with the alacrity of a roach dodging a shoe. Like the congressional response to Barack Obama's unauthorized intervention in Libya's civil war, which has elicited disapproving noises but no decisive action one way or the other, McConnell's solution debases the legislative branch by letting the president do what he wants without officially endorsing it.
According to the White House website, President Obama enjoys the comfort and convenience of two "highly customized" Boeing 747s with "4,000 square feet of floor space on three levels," including " a medical suite," two galleys that "can feed 100 people at a time" and "an extensive suite for the President that features a large office, lavatory, and conference room" -- all at taxpayer expense. But as he proved at his press conference on Monday, where he once again inveighed against "these egregious loopholes that are benefiting corporate jet owners," Obama cannot stop complaining about other people's fancy airplanes.
There was a time when Barack Obama seemed more honest than Bill Clinton. While Slick Willie notoriously claimed he smoked pot but "didn't inhale," Obama candidly admitted: "When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently. That was the point." Lately, I have not been so impressed by Obama's truth-telling tendencies. Three incidents last week vividly illustrated the president's Clintonian desire to have things both ways, even if it means insulting our intelligence.
When it comes to monitoring their children's media diets, some parents worry about sex, while others worry about violence. I worry more about inane sitcoms featuring smart-alecky kids and dumb adults, which is why I have blocked the Disney channel. Different parents have different standards, and the same parents are likely to have different standards for different children, depending on their age, maturity and personality. Because of this diversity, policies that aim to bolster parental authority by restricting minors' access to material the government deems inappropriate, such as the California video game law that the Supreme Court overturned this week, would be doomed to fail even if they did not violate the First Amendment.
During the Bush administration, when the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel got into the habit of rationalizing whatever the president wanted to do, Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen dreamed of an OLC that was willing to "say no to the president." It turns out we have such an OLC now. Unfortunately, as Barack Obama's defense of his unauthorized war in Libya shows, we do not have a president who is willing to take no for an answer. While running for president, Obama criticized George W. Bush's lawless unilateralism in areas such as torture, warrantless surveillance and detention of terrorism suspects. "The law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers," he declared in 2007, condemning "unchecked presidential power" and promising that under his administration there would be "no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient."
Forty years ago this Friday, President Richard Nixon announced that "public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse." Declaring that "the problem has assumed the dimensions of a national emergency," he asked Congress for money to "wage a new, all-out offensive," a crusade he would later call a "global war on the drug menace." The war on drugs ended in May 2009, when President Obama's newly appointed drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, said he planned to stop calling it that. Or so Kerlikowske claims. "We certainly ended the drug war now almost two years ago," he told Seattle's PBS station last March, "in the first interview that I did." If you watch the exchange on YouTube, you can see he said this with a straight face.
Jack Kevorkian's first suicide machine, which he called the Thanatron, delivered the same three chemicals commonly used to execute condemned prisoners: the barbiturate sodium thiopental to induce sleep, pancuronium bromide to paralyze the muscles and sodium chloride to stop the heart. After his medical license was suspended in 1991, Kevorkian had trouble obtaining the drugs, so he switched to the Mercitron, a mask attached to a tank of carbon monoxide. In both cases, death was a favor that Kevorkian, who proudly eschewed payment for his services, dispensed to people who convinced him they had good reasons for wanting to die. By contrast, the suicide kits that Sharlotte Hydorn sold from her home in El Cajon, Calif., were available to anyone with $60 and a mailing address. Unfortunately, to the extent that the government recognizes a right to suicide, it takes its cues from Kevorkian, who died last Friday at the age of 83, rather than Hydorn, a 91-year-old entrepreneur whose business was shut down by the FBI the week before.
Just before midnight last Thursday, a White House autopen signed legislation extending controversial provisions of the Patriot Act that were scheduled to expire the next day. President Obama authorized the use of a machine to produce a facsimile of his signature because he was traveling in Europe. But it was oddly appropriate, given the facsimile of congressional debate that preceded the bill's passage. The extension was rushed through Congress based on a false sense of urgency, much like the original Patriot Act, which legislators did not even have time to read.
A few years ago, two police officers were chasing a crack dealer at a Lexington, Ky., apartment complex when they lost sight of him as he ducked into one of two units at the end of a breezeway. Detecting "a very strong odor of burnt marijuana" coming from the apartment on the left, they figured that must be the one, so they banged on the door and shouted, "Police!" Hearing "the sound of persons moving," the officers later reported, they feared evidence was being destroyed, so they kicked in the door. It turned out to be the wrong apartment, but inside the cops discovered a guest smoking pot and, during a "protective sweep" of the apartment, saw marijuana and cocaine powder "in plain view." A more thorough search turned up crack, cash and drug paraphernalia.
In 1995, when he was speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich told a gathering of Blue Cross/Blue Shield executives that he and his fellow Republicans planned to present "a free-market plan" that would compete with Medicare and ultimately drive it out of business. "We believe it's going to wither on the vine," he said, "because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it." Ever since then, Gingrich's critics on the left have been citing that comment to portray him as a hardhearted ideologue bent on tearing up the social safety net. Gingrich, who last week announced he is running for the Republican presidential nomination, is so eager to shed this image that he is willing to endanger Medicare reform by badmouthing a plan that by his own account is very similar to his own.
Two weeks ago, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire vetoed a bill that would have clarified the rules for supplying medical marijuana in her state. She cited an April 14 letter in which Jenny Durkan and Michael Ormsby, the U.S. attorneys for Washington, threatened to prosecute not only growers and providers but also "others who knowingly facilitate" their actions, including landlords, financiers, and even state employees who license and regulate medical marijuana suppliers. U.S. attorneys in Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Rhode Island and Vermont have sent similar letters in recent months, discouraging some jurisdictions from proceeding with plans to establish licensed medical marijuana dispensaries. These threats, which are backed by the Justice Department, kill any lingering hopes that President Obama would keep his campaign promise to respect the medical marijuana laws that have been enacted in 15 states and the District of Columbia.
According to the official story, Osama bin Laden was killed because he resisted the Navy SEALs who were attempting to capture him at his hideaway in Abbottabad, Pakistan. "If we had the opportunity to take him alive," John Brennan, the president's counterterrorism adviser, said on Monday, "we would have done that." Does it matter? Evidently the Obama administration thinks it does. But such fastidiousness seems inconsistent with the president's policy regarding terrorism suspects who are not in custody, which is to shoot first and never ask questions.
Last week, unveiling a plan to curtail "diversion" of opioid painkillers, Obama administration officials said they aim to "strike a balance between our desire to minimize abuse of prescription drugs and the need to ensure access for their legitimate use." This balance will never be achieved because the two goals are fundamentally irreconcilable. Since pain cannot be verified objectively, there is only so much a conscientious doctor can do to make sure a patient is not a malingerer, an addict or a drug dealer. At a certain point, he has to choose between trusting his patients and helping the government enforce its arbitrary dictates regarding psychoactive chemicals. If he sides with his patients, he risks his license, his livelihood and his liberty. If he sides with the government, it is inevitable that some patients will suffer needlessly.
Preet Bharara seems to be haunted by the fear that someone, somewhere, may be playing poker. Last year, Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, threatened an Australian payment processor with up to 75 years in prison for helping online poker companies do business with their U.S. customers. Last Friday, he announced similar charges against 11 people associated with the three leading poker sites serving American players. If you type in the Web address for PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker or Absolute Poker, you will see a notice that the domain name has been seized by the FBI. The notice cites some impressive-sounding crimes, but the statutory language cannot conceal the legal weakness and moral triviality of Bharara's charges.
This year, for the first time in more than a decade, I ventured outside the reassuring realm of TurboTax while preparing my return, looking for a late-arriving form at the IRS website. It's scary out there. Staring at bewildering forms and instructions, I flashed back to the days when I did my taxes by hand, based on my uncertain understanding of what was required, and hoped for the best -- "the best" being a future free of audits, interest on back taxes, liens, fines and prison. Although clever software has helped shield me from the infuriating, nerve-wracking complexity that the Taxpayer Advocate Service identifies as "the most serious problem facing taxpayers," it has not changed the underlying reality.
In 2003, Paul Ryan was one of 207 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted for the Medicare prescription drug benefit championed by President George W. Bush -- a reckless expansion of a huge program that was already heading for bankruptcy. This week, Ryan, who now chairs the House Budget Committee, did partial penance for that budget-busting blunder with a plan that includes ambitious Medicare reforms as well as $5.8 trillion in spending cuts during the next decade. At a time when Democrats and Republicans are squabbling over whether to cut $33 billion or $61 billion in spending this year -- neither of which would make much of a dent in a deficit that is expected to hit $1.6 trillion -- Ryan's plan may seem breathtakingly bold. But while it is admirably forthright in some respects, it dodges several important questions. It's too bad there is no opposing party to keep the Republicans fiscally honest.
As the Supreme Court heard a First Amendment challenge to Arizona's rules for public financing of political candidates on Monday morning, it became clear that the state's Clean Elections system was doomed. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is expected to provide the decisive vote, telegraphed his position by plainly describing the system's essence, albeit in the form of a question. "Do you think it would be a fair characterization of this law," Kennedy asked Institute for Justice attorney William Maurer, "to say that its purpose and its effect are to produce less speech in political campaigns?" It is difficult to conclude otherwise after considering how Arizona's Citizens Clean Elections Act works and how its supporters justified it.
In December 2007, The Boston Globe asked 12 presidential candidates about military action aimed at stopping Iran from building nuclear weapons. "In what circumstances, if any," the Globe asked, "would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress?" Here is how Barack Obama responded: "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." According to Obama's own standard, then, he violated the Constitution when he ordered a military attack against Libya.
During a Senate hearing last week, Rand Paul complained about the federal energy standards that will force conventional incandescent light bulbs off the market during the next few years. "I can't buy the old light bulbs," the Kentucky Republican said. "That restricts my choice." The response from an Energy Department official nicely illustrated the paternalistic, know-it-all attitude Paul was criticizing. "I'm pro-choice on bulbs," insisted Kathleen Hogan, the deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency. "My view is, what you want is lighting." And the government, in its infinite wisdom, will tell you what kind of lighting is best for you.
In the context of federal spending that will total something like $3.8 trillion this year, $61 billion is a rounding error. Yet the Democrats resisting that amount in House-approved cuts say it will wreck the economy while leaving children unschooled, taking food from the mouths of the elderly and casting disabled people into the streets. Laughter is the only appropriate response to such predictions. In these absurd times, when both parties quibble over crumbs while the layer cake of debt rises higher and higher, laughter is a mark of fiscal seriousness.
