jackie hayes

I'll take the Ravens.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 20, 2006 -> 10:50 PM) OK, then regarding Comitatus specifically... I doubt specific military branches would be held-to for legal purposes, since Comitatus was (i think, correct me if not) written before the AF existed, and you'd want to leave flexibility. And I think since he's been doing it for five years, that the phrase "emergency" is no longer applicable. There is no invading force. There is no riot. I just don't see how surveillance of citizens can fall under emergent military force. And the idea of the Act is, as far as I can tell, to prevent the military from being used against US citizens. Seems to me Bush is trying to have his cake and eat it too - calls it military action so he can keep POWs, but doesn't call it military when he wants surveillance. I don't have the text, revision history, etc, but just going by Wikipedia: "The original act referred only to the United States Army. The Air Force was added in 1956, and the Navy and the Marine Corps have been included by a regulation of the Department of Defense." (Link.) So you're right about the age, but it does mention Army, AF, etc, specifically. I agree on the "emergency" part, I'm just saying, one could argue such and such. If, that is, the 'military proper' is involved in this thing anyway (which I doubt).

NSS72, just to be clear, I'm on the same side of the big picture issue. From what I can find (and I'm not a lawyer, so...), the Comitatus Act does allow exceptions -- for national emergency or war. It specifically prohibits the use of the military for "enforcement". But using military resources inside the US against enemy combatants, during wartime, seems permissable. If nothing else, Wikipedia claims that "Under 18 USC 831, the Attorney General may request that the Secretary of Defense provide emergency assistance if civilian law enforcement is inadequate to address certain types of threat involving the release of nuclear materials, such as potential use of a Nuclear or Radiological weapon. Such assistance may be by any personnel under the authority of the Department of Defense, provided such assistance does not adversely affect US military preparedness." So some vague argument about al Qaeda trying to acquire nukes might be sufficient. And, more importantly, it doesn't address the question I raised first -- have the Army, AF, Navy, or Marines been involved in the wiretapping? I don't believe the act says anything about Justice or the intelligence agencies.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 20, 2006 -> 10:19 PM) Domestic law enforcement is not use-of-force in a governmental sense. Bush's argument is that this is NOT domestic law enforcement, but part of the war against al Qaeda.

That act seems to refer only to the Army, AF, Navy, and Marines. I don't think any of those is involved here, right? There also seem to be a lot of exceptions (war, emergency), and I'm sure the WH would stretch the "necessary" clause to fit here, if it needed to.

Pussy.

I can't tell -- where are you disagreeing with me? I think it was unlawful. They broke FISA, obviously. The WH claims that doing so was necessary b/c of wartime (too many taps too quickly), and appropriate b/c of the force resolution. But, FISA treats wartime explicitly, so Congress obviously does not consider the WH actions "necessary". Imnsho.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 20, 2006 -> 08:33 PM) Except the law provides for this to be done. They just have to follow a procedure. They've chosen not to. Oh, right. It's okay by FISA only if they obtain the warrant ex post. Since they didn't do that, their actions are forbidden by FISA. That much is undisputed, I think.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 20, 2006 -> 08:10 PM) Right. Combatants are combatants, and these prisoners are combatants because of the military action. But that actionable phrase does not cover that which is outside of military force. Military force NEVER deals with domestic situations, by undisputed law. Therefore, no actionable law regarding domestic ANYTHING is contained in that statement. The title contains "military force", but the text itself uses only "force". I don't believe any interpretation of the word should exclude intelligence. In any case, I want to see a source which states that "military" action must be "foreign". The Civil War was just a police action? As for the other point, "a statement about general leeway or force or some other subject cannot be used to break some other law", again, you seem to be implying that the authorization was vacuous, and 'less than a law'. But the Supreme Court accepted that it has the force of law in the Hamdi case. The authorization is itself law. The crux of the matter, imo, is "necessary". The Bush admin claims that it is "necessary" to do something that Congress explicitly forbid in a law that deals explicitly with wartime situations. So apparently Congress, just for fun, decided to outlaw something "necessary" for the protection of the US, and didn't even bother to fix their little national security joke when they passed the Patriot Act. Come f***ing on...

A quote from the SC decision that uses the 2001 resolution: Clearly the resolution is, in some sense, "law" and "actionable". Just not however the WH pleases.

Congress makes the law, so I don't understand this: "no Congressional authorization can grant the authority of illegal activity". It can't countervene the Constitution, but it may, if it wants, authorize the President to act outside a previous law of Congress (like FISA) -- new laws superceding old ones. It seems very clear to me that Congress did no such thing here, but I don't really understand how it's not allowed to change its mind.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 20, 2006 -> 07:19 PM) These taps have been going on pre-9/11, I thought, so that's not much of an explanation. But even more importantly, I'd like to point out again what I mentioned earlier in this very long thread: no Congressional authorization can grant the authority of illegal activity. Congress did NOT pass a law of any kind, first of all - this was a resolution, and there is no action statement in it that can be defensible here, therefore there is no new law regarding it. The taps clearly violate FISA. Therefore, there is no possible viable argument to defend it's legality. Even the Justice department report finds no new defense - they lean on the resolution, which is pretty laughable. If this makes it to a court, I don't see how it will be legal. I think the only thing that keeps Bush out of this mess is if it never makes it to court at all (as was suggested here by others). That could happen if Congress intervenes to pass a new law, or if some red tape BS is thrown at the problem by the administration that causes it to be buried or profoundly delayed. Now, I think these actions were illegal and pretty damn slimy. BUT, to be fair, the resolution does have some power. The Supreme Court did accept that it gave the WH authority to hold US citizens as enemy combatants (though it did not accept the way in which the WH held them). Just saying, it's not true that the resolution is empty.

How is this "conjecture"? We know what was done and what the laws were. I don't see anyone guessing. The WH claims that "necessary and appropriate force" means that the government can ignore the FISA law -- even though that law includes provisions for (initially) warrantless searches and contains explicit exceptions for wartime. If that sort of an argument holds water, you have to ask, are there ANY limits on the President in acting against (or in the general vicinity of) al Qaeda? Does any law restrain him? If the executive branch can't be overseen by a secret court, who the hell can oversee it? If we can not reject an argument that awards dictatorial powers to the executive branch in such a broad area, there's not much left in the idea of checks and balances.

I know he thinks he's a 4.5 player, but with the 'roids he'll be lucky to pull off anything close to that.

He can usually reach around and slap those balls, but this receiver didn't let him get off so easy.

And the Mazatlan owner told Borchard, "Your money's on the dresser, we're done with you."

Wow, I never thought the Twins would beat the Big Unit.

He left because the Sox didn't want him. Everyone wants to start.

In the end, he just barely pulled that one out. Good thing, too -- it's been a long time coming.

I wouldn't bet against it, I'm just saying, I wouldn't necessarily want to bank on it if I'm Harris. If they were certain they wanted him, it shouldn't have been too difficult to insist on a major league deal.

Oh, my. You just hate to see a player go down like that.

Colorado offered a major league deal, right? That's better than "likely".

For my money, DeLong has done a fine job discrediting Luskin. He's not a good one to cite. Krugman will probably win a Nobel Prize someday, Luskin doesn't believe in statistics. No contest. The overall effect on total employment is estimated to be about +2%. But the estimates for the South show a decrease in total employment. Since the damage that Walmart can do is probably only realized over time (driving out other businesses takes a while), and since Walmart has been longer established in the South, that's worrisome. Krugman didn't cite the Global Insight study because it's garbage. They just seem to look at overall averages, making it biased in all the ways that the Neumark study controls for. Neumark (UC Davis) paper Global Insight paper And for good measure, a more credible study arguing that Walmart is very beneficial, albeit in a different way: Hausman paper Hausman is an MIT economist who looks at food prices (lower food prices being a big boon to the poor in any community).

Too far for LenDale White to fall? With all of Jamal Lewis's problems and gripes, he'd seem to be a good match for the Ravens.

What do McD's and the supermarket chains spend (% wise) on health care? These aren't exactly mom & pop stores. 10,000 is FAR too high for the legislature to argue that they didn't want to put large costs on small business. Anyway, the affordability excuse is weak for this particular law; providing comparable health insurance is more difficult for small businesses because they can't get the same rates, but the law only stipulates that a certain percentage must be paid towards health care -- not that some certain benefits must be provided. It's not clear that such a restriction is any tougher on small businesses. It's a 'stick it to Walmart' bill, which will play well in a state as liberal as Maryland. (A Repub gov, I know, but that's an anomaly.) Those who want good, equitable health care should try to distinguish that general goal from particular laws. This law just sucks.