This article comes in response to Will Saletan’s op-ed in the NY Times regarding the abortion debate, and I think it rebuts his points pretty clearly. This isn’t to say that he isn’t correct, or that this article is. The interesting thing about this exchange is that Saletan puts forth what he claims to be a new argument in the abortion debate, and the Feministe blog post effectively shows that it not only isn’t new, it’s old.

This raises the question: Given how reasonable this argument seems to be (i.e., “Abortion should be quick, accessible and rare”), and how much of the American public agrees with it….why are there such vicious sides taken in the abortion argument? Nearly everyone agrees that abortion is sometimes the best of bad options. Nearly everyone agrees that abortion is never an enjoyable or desirable outcome. Nearly everyone agrees that we should be doing more for sexual education and pregnancy prevention. Why, then, do we appear to be so far from a consensus?

The answer, I think, lies in the inevitable specialization of a two-party political system. As we come to identify with a particular side, we adopt that side’s positions. Over time, we forget the nuanced distinctions between ‘our’ position and ‘theirs’, and we know simply that ours is right and theirs is wrong. Once the nuances are gone, we slowly boil the opposing argument down to a sound byte: “Pro-choice” or “pro-life”, for example. And because of market specialization–because Democrats have blue news sources and Republicans red ones, and likewise for the political persuasions of friends, family, and neighbors–we never hear the heartfelt, complex and (all too often) shockingly similar arguments from the other side.

The irony is, of course, that I’m posting this on a blog dedicated to Democrats. The message must be that if you’re reading this, you should find a conservative to post on our other topics. If you’re a conservative, post us your favorite blogs, and please–please!–leave your opinions here for us to read.

The two-party system suffocates in its own design if we do not exchange ideas. Let’s not let that happen.

Bush is back on the offensive this week defending his illegal spying program. One wonders that with Democrats not sounding the attack horns so loudly, distracted by Alito, why such the loud defense from Bush? It seems to me that they know they’re in too deep, and relying on sketchy legal reasoning.

He said he “had all kinds of lawyers review the process” to ensure it didn’t violate civil liberties or the law.

And he insisted that a recent Supreme Court decision backs his contention that he had the authority to order the program through a resolution Congress passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks that lets him use force in the anti-terror fight.

“I’m not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means: It means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn’t prescribe the tactics,” Bush said.

“All-kinds,” eh George? Look I don’t think you need to be a lawyer to be President, but can you at least be a little more specific when discussing the law, it is after all what you’re supposed to be enforcing as President. It seems that the defense will take on one that has been used in the past, and has failed in the past. That because it is a matter of national security the President doesn’t have to follow the usual rules, and must act as he sees fit to protect the nation. Harry Reid hit the nail on the head when he said “We can be strong and operate under the rule of law…These are not mutually exclusive principles ” they are the principles upon which our nation was founded.”

What is even more frustrating about the entire thing is that the FISA court, which was a court that handled surveillance requests in private, was established for just this kind of wiretapping. The FISA court allowed government to present information to a court off the public record and receive a warrant. The FISA court was not exactly stopping the government from investigating terrorists, on the contrary it long supported most Presidents and their requests. Now, however, the standard that Bush’s Justice Department presented was so low that FISA wouldn’t approve it, and so Bush circumvented the entire legal process.

The only other President who I can recall who tried to use the national security argument as openly as Bush is doing was none other than Richard Nixon. For a bit of history Nixon’s lawyers contended to the Court that they could use information obtained by warrantless wiretaps in court, since they didn’t need a warrant if they acted in the name of national security. The case is one of my favorites perhaps because of its unique name: United States v. United States District Court. I learned of this case in Freshman year when I studied the work of Arthur Kinnoy one of the nation’s most famous civil rights lawyers. This case was decided unanimously 8-0 (Rehnquist had to recuse himself as he prior to appointment was the architect of this theory), that the President did not have this type of unfettered power to spy on Americans.

The freedoms of the Fourth Amendment cannot properly be guaranteed if domestic security surveillances are conducted solely within the discretion of the Executive Branch without the detached judgment of a neutral magistrate. Pp. 316-318.

Resort to appropriate warrant procedure would not frustrate the legitimate purposes of domestic security searches. Pp. 318-321.

It should be important to note that this case deals only with domestic surveillance and the issues of national security in the domestic realm and not internationally. FindLaw however has put together excellent resources for case law on the Bill of Rights, and in particular the Fourth Amendment. In their annotations they find this to say regarding the use of wiretaps in national security:

The question of the scope of the President’s constitutional powers, if any, remains judicially unsettled. Congress has acted, however, providing for a special court to hear requests for warrants for electronic surveillance in foreign intelligence situations, and permitting the President to authorize warrantless surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information provided that the communications to be monitored are exclusively between or among foreign powers and there is no substantial likelihood any ”United States person” will be overheard.

And so of course we can in many ways come full circle, because Rehnquist who was “just a lawyer” for Nixon could be compared to Roberts and Alito who were “just lawyers” for Reagan. The reason the Alito nomination is so important is because the issue of presidential power, as was brought up at the hearings, will be crucial into whether or not the truth of Bush’s program is seen for its unconstitutionality and blatant disregard of FISA and the work Congress and the Judiciary have done to provide ample, expedient, but most of all lawful resources for the President to use in protecting our country.

We know now that this program has in fact overheard the voices and conversations of persons of the United States, in this case a pacifist group in Baltimore, not exactly your group of jihadists, and in fact a waste of resources that could be used to find said jihadists. Congress gave the executive a wide range of powers after 9/11 and did so in the PATRIOT Act. That Bush is relying on a resolution of force against Iraq and Afghanistan as the basis for spying on American’s is simply ridiculous. I wonder, and perhaps someone else could answer this, if Bush justifies any spying done on Americans with the resolutions of force, would that not be a violation of posse comitatus? At every stage the Congress has provided for what the executive can and can not do in regard to surveillance in America, and I think everyone would agree they’ve been pretty generous.

When Congress has saw fit to give the executive further powers to protect the nation it has acted both with the PATRIOT Act, and years earlier with the establishment of the FISA court. This recent trampling of civil liberties seems to be the final straw for members of Congress of both parties who still believe that the oath they took to uphold the Constitution actually means something. Now let us hope they do something about it.

One of my great discoveries over break was that fifty-three Frontline reports are online.

These I watched over break and suggest:
The Persuaders

ANNOUNCER: It’s everywhere you look.
BOB GARFIELD, Columnist, Advertising Age: You cannot walk down the street without being bombarded.
ANNOUNCER: They call it a “clutter crisis.”
NAOMI KLEIN, Author, No Logo: Consumers are like roaches. You spray them and spray them, and after a while, it doesn’t work anymore. We develop immunities.
ANNOUNCER: And the multi-billion-dollar advertising industry is in a desperate struggle to break through.
JOHN HAYES, Chief Marketing Officer, American Express: We don’t just come forward with what we want to sell, we engage you with things that you want.
ANNOUNCER: Advertisers have blurred the line between programming and product.
SCOTT DONATON, Editor-in-Chief, Advertising Age: It’s advertising that people not only will tolerate but will actually go in search of.
ACTRESS: ["Sex and the City"] The way God and Madison Avenue intended.
ANNOUNCER: But how is advertising affecting our lives and the world around us?
MARK CRISPIN MILLER, New York University: Once a culture becomes entirely advertising-friendly, it ceases to be a culture at all.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE “
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, FRONTLINE Correspondent: “ask me this all the time. What about the environment?
ANNOUNCER: Correspondent Douglas Rushkoff takes you inside the changing world of The Persuaders.

Is Walmart Good for America?

ANNOUNCER: There’s never been a company like it.
Prof. GARY GEREFFI, Duke University: Wal-Mart is probably the broadest and most powerful company in U.S. business history.
ANNOUNCER: Its everyday low prices benefit millions of Americans.
BRUCE BARTLETT, National Center for Policy Analysis: Wal-Mart has really given an increase in income to every American.
ANNOUNCER: But some say it’s a bad bargain.
STEVE RATCLIFF: It’s putting people out of work, that’s what it’s doing.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, correspondent Hedrick Smith investigates how Wal-Mart is changing the American economy “
HEDRICK SMITH, FRONTLINE Correspondent: The Chinese guys bought the big machine?
ANNOUNCER: “following the trail of low prices in America to low-cost production in China “
DONALD HAY, Entrepreneur: I said, “Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. The next one’s China. I got to get here.”
ANNOUNCER: “tracking the nation’s growing trade deficit “
YVONNE SMITH, Port of Long Beach: Wal-Mart’s our number one customer.
HEDRICK SMITH: Wal-Mart’s your number one customer?
YVONNE SMITH: Number one customer.
ANNOUNCER: “and examining the growing controversy over the Wal-Mart way.
ALAN TONELSON, U.S. Business & Industry Council: The lowest prices have to lead to the lowest wages and to job loss and to lower living standards.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE, Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

Secret History of the Credit Card

ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE: The average American family has eight.
JIM MUELLER: “Zero percent for life on transfer balances” ”
ANNOUNCER: Credit cards, plastic money, have become both a necessity and a ticket to a better life.
[television commercial]
ACTOR AND ACTRESS: Hawaii!
BEN STEIN, Actor/Author: A credit card is an extraordinary, unbelievably great convenience for the consumer.
ANNOUNCER: But the credit card industry plays by its own rules.
Prof. ELIZABETH WARREN, Harvard Law School: I don’t know any merchant in America who can change the price after you’ve bought the item, except a credit card company.
ANNOUNCER: Credit card banks earn record profits.
LOWELL BERGMAN, FRONTLINE Correspondent: MBNA’s profits last year ” one-and-a-half times that of McDonald’s.
EDWARD YINGLING, American Bankers Association: Well, McDonald’s didn’t do too well last year.
ANNOUNCER: But the profits come at a price.
ANDREW GUILE, Consumer: Now they’ve raised my rate to 19.98, and I have not been late ever.
PAT WALLACE, Bay Area Better Business Bureau: There are irritated, unhappy, dissatisfied customers in this industry.
Prof. ELIZABETH WARREN: They are the new loan sharks in America.
DUNCAN MacDONALD, Fmr. Citibank General Counsel: I certainly didn’t imagine that someday we might have ended up creating a Frankenstein.
LOWELL BERGMAN: Frankenstein? What do you mean, Frankenstein?
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman and The New York Times investigate the secrets of your credit card
.

Karl Rove– The Architect

ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE: Karl Rove had a master plan.
MIKE ALLEN, The Washington Post: He was the architect. His hand was in all of it.
ANNOUNCER: It took 40 years, but he changed the political landscape.
POLITICAL OBSERVER: Karl Rove came to town with one goal, and that was this massive Republican realignment.
ANNOUNCER: How did he do it? And what does it mean for America?
POLITICAL OBSERVER: Karl Rove wants a permanent Republican majority.
POLITICAL OBSERVER: He’s the God inside the machine.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, FRONTLINE and The Washington Post examine Karl Rove: The Architect.

The Torture Question

ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE: There was a lot of soldiers that had digital cameras at Abu Ghraib, and they would take pictures of literally everything that they would do.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE, the story about what really happened in cell block 1A.
Spc. ANTHONY LAGOURANIS, Interrogator, US Army, 2001-’05: Part of it is, they were trying to get information, but part of it is also just pure sadism.
ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE: They felt righteous in doing it, and that’s what made it really dangerous and diabolical.
ANNOUNCER: With exclusive interviews ”
ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE: And this escalated all the way to make them fear that rape could be performed on prisoners.
ANNOUNCER: ”and never before seen footage.
GI: [home video] We’re all mad! We’re all mad!
ANNOUNCER: How high did it reach?
Gen. JANIS KARPINSKI, Cmdr., 800th MP Brigade, 2003-’04: General Sanchez put his finger in Colonel Pappas’s chest and told him he wanted the information.
ANNOUNCER: And what does it reveal?
Gen. RICHARD MYERS, Joint Chiefs Chairman: We’ve dealt with that. If it was only the night shift at Abu Ghraib, it’s a pretty good clue that it wasn’t a more widespread problem.
Sen. JOHN McCAIN (R), Arizona: This isn’t about who they are, this is about who we are.
ANNOUNCER: Where else did it spread?
Spc. ANTHONY LAGOURANIS: It’s not at Abu Ghraib, it’s all over Iraq. The infantry units are torturing people in their homes.
ANNOUNCER: FRONTLINE exposes the dark secrets behind “The Torture Question.”

That’s impeachment. Today on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulus Senator Specter had the following to say:

STEPHANOPOULOS: There was a lot of talk about that at the Alito hearings, and listening closely to you I certainly seem to take away that you believe the president does not have the right, does not have the inherent power under the Constitution to circumvent a constitutional law, and as far as you are concerned, the FISA law is constitutional, isn’t it?

SPECTER: Well, I started off by saying that he didn’t have the authority under the resolution authorizing the use of force. The president has to follow the Constitution. Where you have a law which is constitutional, like Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, there still may be collateral different powers in the president under wartime circumstances.

That’s a very knotty question that I’m not prepared to answer on a Sunday soundbite. But I do believe that it ought to be thoroughly examined. And when we were on the Patriot Act and found the disclosure of the surveillance, I immediately said the Judiciary Committee would hold hearings, and I talked to the attorney general, and we’re going to explore it in depth, George. You can count on that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, if the president did break the law or circumvent the law, what’s the remedy?

SPECTER: Well, the remedy could be a variety of things. A president ” and I’m not suggesting remotely that there’s any basis, but you’re asking, really, theory, what’s the remedy? Impeachment is a remedy. After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution, but the principal remedy, George, under our society is to pay a political price.

As to the legality, Think Progress points to this article in the Washington Post regarding a report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. The report states “that the administration’s justification for the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments.”

Wouldn’t it be a twist of fate if things moved in the direction they should? After all Stephanopolous was the first in the media to mention impeachment during the Clinton scandal, and on his show it’s been mentioned again by a member of the President’s own party.

Governor Kaine of Virginia has stated that he will sign an amendment passed by the Virginia house. The amendment is an outright ban on equal marriage rights to gay citizens. After Kaine signs the amendment it will need to be approved by the Senate before it appears on the ballot for referendum.

Kaine’s spokesman had the following to say regarding the issue:

The governor-elect will sign the bill to call for a referendum. Kaine supports the amendment and opposes civil unions, she said. She added that he is interested in discussing measures to make sure people can still be able to contract with each other.

Huh? So the Governor not only supports a constitutional ban on gay marriage, but is also opposing civil-unions. It seems that to him all they need is a simple contract, never mind the fact that gays and lesbians in Virginia would constitutionally be relegated to second-class citizens. On Kaine’s point of wanting to make sure people can still contract with each other, I wonder what his feelings were on the two attempts to limit the scope of this amendment.

Del. Kristen J. Amundson’s (D-District 44) amendment, which received only 35 votes, would have eliminated all language except for: Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions.

Del. Vivian Watts’ (D-District 39) amendment was also rejected by a vote of 36 to 60. She proposed including a clarification that the amendment would not change any other right, benefit, obligation or legal status pertaining to persons not married.

It seems clear that the failure to include such language is nothing more than a direct assault on Virginia’s gay and lesbian communities. What I don’t understand is Kaine has no worry of re-election, VA limits the Governor to one, five year term. If anything he should use his position as a chance to further gay and lesbian rights in a state where the chance may not come again. Instead he decides to back a movement to add subjugation and discrimination into his state’s Constitution.

Well done Governor, well done.

HatTip: truthout. According to a recently declassified document, available through GWU’s National Security Archive, Bush began an extensive eavesdropping and data-mining program prior to 9/11.

Jason Leopold of truthout gives the document an exhaustive review highlighting the most important parts, that Bush pushed forward these changes, and unlike in the past the NSA instead of redacting the names of Americans it would happen to drop in on in their surveillance, they would now keep track of these names.

James Risen, author of the book State of War and credited with first breaking the story about the NSA’s domestic surveillance operations, said President Bush personally authorized a change in the agency’s long-standing policies shortly after he was sworn in in 2001.

“The president personally and directly authorized new operations, like the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, that almost certainly would never have been approved under normal circumstances and that raised serious legal or political questions,” Risen wrote in the book. “Because of the fevered climate created throughout the government by the president and his senior advisers, Bush sent signals of what he wanted done, without explicit presidential orders” and “the most ambitious got the message.”

The NSA’s domestic surveillance activities that began in early 2001 reached a boiling point shortly after 9/11, when senior administration officials and top intelligence officials asked the NSA to share that data with other intelligence officials who worked for the FBI and the CIA to hunt down terrorists that might be in the United States. However the NSA, on advice from its lawyers, destroyed the records, fearing the agency could be subjected to lawsuits by American citizens identified in the agency’s raw intelligence reports.

Of course the implications here are clear. Contrary to what Bush has said the spying program was not born out of post 9/11 concerns, but instead began with his term of office. Further, the report mentioned that the Director of National Security is required to brief Congress, which of course we now know didn’t happen. Not to mention we also now know that this spying and surveillance program started before 9/11, despite claims to the contrary.