Bush backers tried the old “oh, yeah, you did it, too” line to try to discredit Al Gore’s indictment this week of the Bush administration’s misuse of executive power. The GOP spin was that the Clinton/Gore administration also did warrantless searches of American citizens, which apparently means that it’s OK.
“Al Gore’s hypocrisy knows no bounds,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan (in photo) said Tuesday, citing as evidence the FBI’s warrantless search of the home of CIA spy Aldrich Ames. Only problem is that at the time of that search, in 1993, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act didn’t cover physical searches. That changed in 1995 with legislation that President Clinton supported and signed, The Washington Post reported.
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed separate lawsuits Tuesday claiming that the National Security Agency’s surveillance program violated Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures. And The New York Times reported that FBI officials repeatedly complained about how ineffective the surveillance program was and that FBI director Robert Mueller reportedly raised concerns about the program’s legal rationale.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday supporting Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act was based on administrative law, not the Constitution: The court said that Congress had not given former Attorney General John Ashcroft the “extraordinary authority” to revoke the federal prescription-writing privileges of Oregon doctors who followed the state law. But as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, Ashcroft’s intervention was contrary to “the background principles of our federal system.” The regulation of medicine has always been a state issue, not a federal one. And like it or not, the voters of Oregon have twice approved physician-assisted suicide.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (in photo) suggested Monday that hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that “God is mad at America.” The day before, Indianapolis Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt (who badly missed a potential game-tying field goal) said, “I guess the Lord forgot about the football team.” It’s God’s fault that there are storms and that New Orleans was built below sea level with shoddy levees? Or that a football kicker choked? Maybe the University of Kansas should blame God for its recent basketball losses.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Let’s talk shingles. I like the look of the wood shakes on my house, but I’m all for a bill by Rep. Mario Goico, R-Wichita (in photo), that would allow homeowners in strict covenant neighborhoods to replace shakes with fire-resistant shingles.
Let’s face it — this stuff is kindling. Might as well douse your roof with lighter fluid. But worse yet, the wood shakes apparently provide an ideal ecosystem for brown recluse spiders. At least, that’s what the exterminator told me when our house suddenly turned into a brown recluse sanctuary — the little buggers were everywhere.
Some people (like me) will brave spiders and fire for the wood shake look. But no one should be forced to risk their lives for aesthetics.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., went over-the-top in her speech Monday at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. Among other statements, she said: The House “has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about. It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard.” The House is akin to the brutality and inhumanity of slaveholders? No contrary views are heard? Please. The Bush administration and the GOP Congress are easy targets for criticism without having to exaggerate or make improper historical analogies (which can minimize the original horrors). The same goes for those who compare Bush and others (including the Clintons) to Hitler.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
How the Kansas Coliseum is doing today may have nothing to do with how the larger downtown arena will do once it opens in late 2008 or early 2009, but it was encouraging to see that the U.S. Hot Rod Association’s Thunder Nationals again attracted a sellout crowd (for it) of 7,000 Saturday night at the Coliseum. Admission to Wichita Thunder hockey games is almost 25 percent better than a year ago (“Of course, they’re winning,” Coliseum director John Nath noted Tuesday). Singer Brad Paisley also sold out a scaled-down, 5,500-seat Coliseum in October. Wichita clearly has enough people to sustain a larger arena. Especially given the sad state of the national touring scene, the challenge will be coming up with events able to coax locals into showing up and parting with their money.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
