Cheney disobeys Bush; Bush OK with it

Their most blatant lawlessness yet, though obviously not their most serious.  Crimes committed or abetted by the high are “high crimes” in my book.  And these two must be high if they thought this wouldn’t be noticed!  I just wonder why it’s taken 4 years to come up: NY Times sit on it again?!!  (“Sit on it!”  There’s an oldie-but-goodie!)

This may just be the co-defendant “smoking gun” we’ve been waiting for to dump them both ASAP: simultaneous impeachment, simultaneous trial in the Senate, simultaneous removal from office, Dick never gets to be President, Pelosi does!

Cheney’s legislative-branch claim only holds water if it’s Senate business he’s keeping secret… which it’s not, at least in the current case.  In reality, the Vice-President is almost never in the Senate, does not conduct its business, and as “President of the Senate” is less than a figurehead.  This work is done mostly by the Majority Leader, normally with input from the Minority Leader.

In any case, as the linked article suggests, the Senate has complete control over its own business, papers, etc.  Plus, arguably, the Senate could expel its President (Cheney), as any other “member,” by a two-thirds majority even without impeachment and trial (Article I, Section 5).  I think they should go for it… and put an end to Cheney’s F-bombs on the floor at the same time!  (What will we tell the children?!!)

Actually, as I look at Article I, Section 4, the Impeachment section, I note the absence of the word only.  Are there other ways to remove a President or VP?  What if the 2004 Electoral College reconvened (in each State and D.C.) and chose somebody else?  What if a recall election were held?  No other way of choosing a Prez or VP is provided in the Constitution, so Pelosi, again, would succeed to the White House.

At least, let’s finally impeach Cheney, and put this sick dog out of our misery!  The Senate Democrats could even deny Bush his nominee to replace Cheney, although would Bush know what to do without a Cheney pulling his strings?  Maybe we should let him nominate Jim Baker for VP, or somebody else like that unlikely to run in ‘08… much as I hate to leave it in the hands of the Neocons.

And let’s remember to impeach and convict all the other leading Bushies, so they never again “hold an office of trust or profit(sic!!) under the United States”!!!  They’ve all committed plenty of high crimes, least of all, “lying to the American people” and “lying to Congress,” with the grave consequences we all and the world have suffered since 2000.

Where did all these “Founding Fathers” come from, anyway?

According to Wikipedia, which is sometimes right(!): 

In the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, many younger* sons of English aristocrats specifically chose to leave England for Virginia in the Colonies. Many of the early Virginians who were plantation owners were such younger sons who had left England fortuneless due to primogeniture laws. These Founding Fathers of the United States of America were nearly universally descended from the landed gentry of England, with many being descended from English Kings of the late 14th and early 15th Centuries, especially through the numerous offspring of Edward III of England.

(*–ie, non-inheriting)

Would I be a total Marxist if I didn’t fail to perceive lasting class-consciousness among most of these Founders… and their (so to speak) ‘heirs’???!  [Although they had royal and noble and knightly ancestors, they were not themselves - they 'fell out of the tree,' so to speak, at least under English law and custom.]

So what’s wrong with that?  I’m a Monarchist, after all, a Classical Conservative?  Only this: of the handful of mistakes King George III’s advisers/administrators (ie, ministers, politicians) made with regard to these Colonies, one of the biggest was in not supplying us more largely with men and women who were “honourable” or “noble.”  Occasional Crown officials of these Colonies had been knighted, sent here, and left when they completed their service.  As to the future Canada, Nova Scotia warranted a whole bunch of Baronets, a kind of hereditary knighthood, and some of them are still in existence.  And at least one Baronetcy was granted in the Province of New York, to a French-and-Indian War hero whose son moved to Canada as a Loyalist after the Revolution, and whose line of Baronets continues to this day.  But that seems to be all!  As I’ve recently said, if we are deprived of the honorable and the noble, we will be ruled by the dishonorable and the ignoble.  Sure, American textbooks of European history are filled with the misbehaviors of such men and women, but think about this: Out of the tens of thousands of knights and nobles in Europe, we only hear about a handful negatively.  Most were probably no more sinful than you or I.  But they could be prevailed upon, like the Monarch her/himself, with extra persuasion not applicable to you or me: They were “honored” and “noble,” so one could urge them, ‘Hey, live up to it!’  (Talk about “role models”!)  They had public duties and position, a family heritage, training and preparation, Christian/religous  social ethics to live by quite publicly.  They were rulers, regulated by a system and somebody definite, the Monarch; *we* have rulers who regulate themselves, which means not at all!  As I also recently said, at least in Orthodox Christianity, the Tsar of Russia all the way into the 20th century was exhorted by the Church to be moral, to do justice, to show mercy, to do the right thing, and despite Western propaganda to the contrary, usually did his best in a difficult job.  (Remember, Russia was the most diverse, largest landmass of its day – from Poland to Alaska!)

OTOH if our rulers here in America are just about a “contractual, commercial republic,” one whose design even pretends to rely on competing selfishness to limit abuse (like that’s ever worked, especially lately!), how can you morally urge anything on them?!  Instead, we hear just enough Horatio Alger-type stories to try to make us emulate them.  No thanks!  We can do better!  Lots of people do better!

National Aboriginal Day in Canada

is every June 21, the Summer Solstice (“Midsummer” for those of you with more British influence).  Canada salutes Indians (First Nations), Inuit (“Eskimos”), and Métis* who live and have lived in its territory, made many contributions… and often gotten the shaft just the same, though generally not as bad as those on United States-claimed territory.

Interestingly, in Canada there wasn’t the “ethnic cleansing” of Indians and Inuit in the eastern and central part of the country (from Ontario eastward) that there was mostly in the States, so most Canadians still live within a reasonable drive of a Reserve with centuries of open, clear, continuous history, and “visible” Indians have a bigger presence even in these eastern cities than in those of the U.S.

The two big ongoing Native issues in Canada lately have been financial damages for children kidnapped, persecuted, and abused in “residential schools” into the 1970s, and self-governance for Reserves – one way in which perhaps things are a little further advanced in the States.  There’s also the glaring omission of First Nations Treaties legitimizing non-Native presence in British Columbia, and the “falling through the cracks” of officially “Non-Status Indians” and “Off-Reserve Indians.”  There are occasional heated conflicts between Indian groups and governments over land claims and alleged police brutality.  And Natives in Canada also suffer from cultural losses, bad European diets, underemployment, and substance abuse issues, similar to those of Indigenous Peoples around the world actually.

In 1999 Ottawa settled a large Inuit land claim in Northern Canada in part by creating the new Territory of Nunavut from about half of the Northwest Territories, mostly populated by Inuit, and governed in part according to their traditional cultural practices.  In 2005 Inuit in northern Labrador received limited self-government and recognition of traditional rights over much of that part of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, called Nunatsiavut.  And by 2010 Northern Quebec – the mostly-Inuit region called Nunavik - is expected to receive significant self-government; meanwhile the Nunavik Inuit – most of whom live on the shore – have negotiated a land-claims agreement recognizing their traditional rights with regard to waters, islands, and resources surrounding today’s Nunavik, including cooperation with neighboring Aboriginal groups, all awaiting implementation by Ottawa.

(*–Métis are of blended Native and European [primarily French, English, Scottish, and/or Irish] ancestry and blended culture, at least by heritage, excluded from both their communities of origin historically, but often maintaining Aboriginal Rights now once again being recognized by law as they should always have been under Common Law precedents and “the honour of The Crown” – not always “honoured” by Their Historical Majesties’ Canadian or Provincial ministries.  The closest U.S. comparison would be to Native Mixed-blood communities like my Nanticoke Indians of southern Delaware and vicinity, although the peculiar American “racial” politics of Black, White, and Red, often ’spun’ – and continues to ’spin’ – their identities and perceived identities in all directions, and doesn’t know what to do with a “Mixed” identity or culture like in Canada.  Also, Métis is the same word as the Spanish Mestizo – meaning Mixed - though I don’t know how big the Mestizo, ie, Spanish/Indian, profile is north of the Rio Grande.  In Russian Alaska they called Russian/Aleuts Kreol… but also Aleuts who merely learned to read, moved into town, etc., and in fact most Aleuts with Russian surnames have no Russian ancestry, just maybe a Russian godfather when their ancestor converted to Orthodox Christianity.  Back to Canada, some scholars assert that most French Canadians are in fact Métis, and though most French Canadians downplay any Native heritage, the numbers of Canadians claiming Métis identity on Censuses have increased at far above the birth rate in the last generation!  Sadly, the national Métis community is sharply divided between those whose European identity is mainly French and are rooted in the Prairie Provinces, and “The Other Métis” – an excellent website on Mixed-blood persons, cultures, and communities/nations throughout North America… whose author informs me he’s in the process of updating and revising it.  BTW, Métis are categorized as “Aboriginal” – “Indigenous” might be more accurate, but “Aboriginal” is the term in the Constitution Act 1982 - because, hey, they were created here as something new, nowhere else!  This is nothing like the Afrikaners claiming to be “Africa’s White Tribe;” South Africa’s mixed-race persons have traditionally been called “Coloured,” quite distinct from the all-European [largely Dutch] Afrikaners.  In fact, New France had a policy of promoting intermarriage between White trappers and Indian women, as good for the fur business!  Of interest to the U.S. would be the fact that many cities in the Midwest, Northern Plains, and Inland Northwest were founded by French/Indian Métis, of New France or Canada.)

WordPress Feed Stats deleted

As I just found out here.  Was it killing them?  As one responder pointed out:

Apparently a lot more people are now using RSS feeders and not bothering to hit the site itself. W/out the feed stats, I have no longer have any real idea how many readers I actually have.

Sure, it’s free, but when people come here – as WordPress still claims to want – to a certain package of features, and you take them away without an adequate replacement, that’s ethically or morally questionable.  As Americans, there’s a certain “social contract” involved, if not an actual one.

I’d tell them myself, but I couldn’t find any obvious way to add my response to those already posted!

In the military rank-and-file, they say “military intelligence” is an oxymoron; I’m thinking of something similar here….

Tell Congress to Pass the United States National Health Insurance Act

Here.  Page includes video statement by Michael Moore, maker of the upcoming blockbuster documentary Sicko.

White Supremacists

The Seinfeld episode – “The Limo” – where Jerry and George pretend to be other people to get a limousine ride from the airport, only to discover that the people these two Jewish Americans* are pretending to be are White Supremacist/Anti-semite leaders,** is airing.  They discover this when the hot blonde who joined them in the limo hands George a copy of the racist speech he’s scheduled to give that night.  It includes the following:

Cut back to the limo, George is reading from O'Brien's speech.

George: ...and the Jews steal our money through their  

Zionist-occupied government and use the black man  

to bring drugs into our oppressed white-minority communities.  

Jerry: You're not going to open with that, are you?  

Eva: What was that you said about the myth of the Holocaust?  

George: I said so many things.

I underlined “Zionist occupied government” because I was horrified to hear it, since I have previously expressed a bit of sympathy for Pat Buchanan’s calling the U.S. government “Israeli occupied territory” – playing, I always thought, on the common reference for the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights.  I swear, I’ve heard of White Supremacists referring to “ZOG,” but never knew what it meant.  Is Buchanan signalling support for them?!!***  *I* certainly am not!

You don’t have to be “Anti-Semitic” to question the influence any foreign government has over your own, to the detriment of your own country’s national interests and/or global peace, justice, and security.  I AM a Semite: I’m part Assyrian, from way back, millennia – a cousin of God!  I’ve also warned of Anti-semitism in posts.  NO ideology is good: that’s the heart of Classical Conservatism.  NOBODY is good or bad just because of belonging to or not belonging to any group, and I oppose all unsanctioned violence and discrimination, and most that is sanctioned also, as my readers know.  Someone said, “Scratch an anti-Israeli, and find an Anti-Semite,” but “it ain’t necessarily so.”  Do these guys come across as “self-hating Jews”?  (More about religious-Jewish anti-Zionism, ie, not anti-Semitism.)  I don’t think they’re just being Jewish dhimmis, nor am I being whatever an equivalent U.S. Christian term would be.  I’m just an old ’60s-’70s progressive egalitarian, after all.  And note that dhimma’s (sorry, I don’t know the actual plural form) sound in some ways similar to the “treaties” the U.S. government signed with Native nations… and I’m also Native American!

Clear?

---

(*–This is almost two years before George converted to the Latvian Orthodox Christian faith community.)

(**–Why are they Irish, though?!!  “O’Brien” and “Murphy”??)

(***–Like the elderly Jewish voter in West Palm Beach, Florida, after the 2000 Presidential election with the misleading/confusing “butterfly ballot”: “I think I just voted for Hitler!”)

Vote to Impeach Cheney

Here.

There’s an actual bill in the House right now, spearheaded by Kucinich I think, with slowly-growing support there – and of course, massive support out here!

“Canadians fought their wars of independence against the U.S.”

Think about it: 1776, 1812….

From Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor as quoted here: “Since Canadians fought their wars of independence against the United States, it is logical that we should feel a strong suspicion of the mercantilist Whiggery which won the American Revolution.”

That’s a different way of looking at it for us below the 49th Parallel!

(NB: The article and website to which the linked article links seems to reflect more the historical, elitist, Ontario Orangeist,* ‘bootstraps’ Red Toryism, which also had less respect for individual liberties than I propose as an American Red Tory.  The thing is, many internet discussions of Red Toryism cover this old-fashioned, elitist perspective, though it is far from dominant in RTism since, say, WW2.  But this is why it took me so long to find a good discussion of it, though brief… and the need to write my own!)

(*–Ironically, one of the RT philosophical stalwarts these days has been an Anglo-Catholic - even arguably Anglo-Orthodox – Ron Dart!)

House cloning vote

Lemme get this straight: Last week “pro-choice” U.S. House Democrats voted to “ban reproductive cloning,” and “pro-life” Republicans voted against “banning reproductive cloning”?

It’s taken me this long to realize what the “National Right to Life Committee” meant when it said the bill – which may be resurrected (no pun intended) – didn’t actually ban “cloning.”  It banned implanting a cloned embryo in someone’s uterus.  But ISTM it also attempted to ban cloning with the intent of implantation.  It failed to ban other types or intents of cloning.  But wouldn’t this have been a step in the correct direction?

What *I* don’t get is why the “reproductive freedom” Democrats proposed this.  Go figure.

Stem-cell “breakthrough” called dangerous, unusable, and is probably still unethical

Read the WHOLE story - it’s short - not the MSM story and the unquestioning “spin.”

What seems problematic to me is this: They reprogrammed skin cells into what?  “Stem cells”?  or EMBRYOS!!!  They produced MICE, not just “cells.”  They seem to be trying to cloak that reality, or hide it through misdirection, like the sleight-of-hand magician.  A “stem cell” that produces a whole individual is more commonly called AN EMBRYO.

The only ethical stem cells would be those that can produce “tissues,” NOT PEOPLE!!!  And not through disabling the embryos either, like that bizarre, morally-bankrupt Rick Santorum proposal from last year.  They have to produce pluripotent stem cells that never had the ability to grow into/BE a person.  What we seem to have here – though I could be corrected – is merely a NEW METHOD OF CLONING, nothing more, nothing less, nothing other.

Where they’d probably have to go ultimately is to be able to reprogram cells into, NOT pluripotent stem cells, but the specific type of tissue-stem-cell needed for the patient involved; ie, take skin cells or cheek cells or whatever, and turn them directly into whatever tissue the patient needs at that time – nerve stem cells, bone stem cells, muscle stem cells, etc. - without passing through a stage that could (have) or did result(ed) in producing a clone.  ISTM this research suggests that may be doable, we’d just have to find the right genes to turn on, and limit the damage from the retroviruses, tissue cancers, accelerated tissue aging (Dolly, etc.), etc.  And find them without creating clones by accident along the way… or if we do, letting them live.

There’s my positive, constructive challenge to the scientific community.  OK?

Aussie Cardinal probed by lawmakers on cloning threat

Catholic Cardinal of Sydney threatens Catholic members of New South Wales state legislature (called Parliament) with “consequences” if they vote to end state ban on therapeutic cloning.  The upper chamber of this parliament, called the Legislative Council (the lower chamber is called the Legislative Assembly), opens probe to see if his public comments violate any laws.

I don’t understand calling it “contempt of parliament,” since it doesn’t sound like he was testifying to parliament when he made the statement, just speaking publicly… nor refusing to testify under subpoena… the only times I believe contempt of Congress could be charged in the U.S.

Nevertheless, maybe he should look to Rome for marching orders, since there are ’safer’ ways of making the point that, as recently raised in connection with pro-choice legislation in Latin America by various Catholic officials and even the pope, they might view not toeing the party line as self-excommunication.

He has every right to provide spiritual and ethical guidance to his adherents, even politicians among them, even publicly and broadly – though if he and others like him were better pastors and teachers, they might not have to.

Can you imagine the New York Legislature investigating Cardinal Egan?!!

Assorted Monarchy, etc., reflections

If everybody’s sovereign, nobody’s sovereign, and nobody’s subject, so those who can, will do whatever they wish, to whomever they wish.

For Christians, the Christian God is sovereign (hence the title “Lord”) over all Creation, and human sovereigns serve subject to Him, accountable to Him.

The Monarchy in England/Britain was always among the people, representing the Sovereignty of the people, the Nation.  They weren’t “angels in the form of men,” and they weren’t perfect, but they were part of a system.

In the American Constitution what we have is less a system where different branches, divided branches, and levels of government, check each other’s abuses, than a CABAL – ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine.’  (At least in Britain acts of government need the Sovereign’s assent, somebody who can say NO to the cabal.  If government acts needed “the sovereign’s” assent here, we’d all get to vote on every government measure – which of course would be inefficient.)  But this may be how the “Founding Fathers” and “Framers” intended it, wealthy White planters and traders – CABAL – that they were.  Certainly no President of the Executive Branch has ever been removed from office – have we really finally “found angels in the form of men to govern us”?!!! – and no State has ever stood in the way of Federal abuses.  (Though I’m not against the Federal government blocking State abuses, as happened not infrequently in the second half of the 20th century.)  Deals between the Houses of Congress and the Executive Branch go on all the time, and the politicization of the Supreme Court and the rest of the Federal Bench has become legendary.

“In a republic the people reign, they do not rule.”  Who rules?  Our cabalistas, the influential persons connected with our all-but-sovereign corporations, our ignoble rich, the pseudo-educated “neocons,” the big media barons, and the power-mad, hypocritical leaders of conservative Evangelical and Fundamentalist sects… as well as all who truly follow or emulate any of these.

If government excludes Nobles, then the ignoble will predominate!

“Law” used to be a combination of judicial precedent/”wisdom of the court,” legal and political custom, tradition, faith, morality, learned analysis, justice, solidarity, ‘what should be,’ the needs of society, as well as the interplay among Monarchy, Royal advisers and generals, governmental Administrators, Church Hierarchy (bishops and abbots), Lay Nobility, and elected Representatives of the Commons; etc.  Now it’s whatever a short-sighted, selfish, activist, falsely-influential minority from day to day says it is.  Such false democratism needs to be balanced by other things.

There is no “people of the United States” outside the non-legally-binding Preamble to the Constitution of 1787.  There are only the peoples of the Several States.

Maybe the Monarchy Party should change its name to the Crown-and-People Party!

Restoring the representation of State legislative houses in the U.S. Senate would restore the dignity of the U.S. House of Representatives and of the States, and provide more check on the Executive Branch.  But no statewide campaigning or “non-binding” elections should be allowed, so Senators truly represent the States as States again, as bodies politic, ie, their legislative chambers, and not campaign contributors/bribers.

Then we institute full public campaign financing for the House of Representatives, to remove their beholdenness to contributors/bribers also.

Either House of Congress should be able to Impeach, requiring the other House to try its Impeachments.  The present model is based on the UK Parliament, where the Commons impeaches, and the Lords, who traditionally include a judicial function, try impeachments; but the U.S. Senate has never had a judicial function otherwise.  (Of course now in the UK, where they look fixed to remove the Law Lords from Parliament into a new Supreme Court, this distinction between even the Houses of Parliament would cease to exist, giving even less reason for it in America.)

Responsible Government (ie, “parliamentary”) needs limitations on it to mitigate the occasional phenomenon of virtual “elective dictatorship.”

There are more guns per capita in Canada than in the U.S.  Why do more Americans than Canadians shoot each other, or die of accidental gunshot wounds?

It’s easier to prevail upon the morality, wisdom, etc., of one Monarch, than of 218 (or 290) out of 435 members of the House of Representatives, 51 (or 60, or 67) out of 100 Senators, one President, and five out of nine Supreme Court Justices.  On the other hand, it’s easier to suborn the latter than the former, especially if she is unbribeable and not subject to electoral politics.

The Founders and Framers were two-faced.  When it served their purposes, they treated the King of Great Britain as an absolute despot when even in the late 18th century he was limited by his Council and relations with Parliament; yet they treated many Colonial governors as limited by their Councils, when they were ultimately answerable only to London.  So why didn’t they give the President a Council?  They gave him more power than the Kings of England had since the Reformation!  They didn’t even limit him to two terms!!

Was Communist Albania history’s first “atheistic state”… or was (small-R) republican America?!

The ethnic nationalism that grips Orthodox Churches has to be overcome.  Maybe Victoria Clark has it right after all: ‘Phyletism vs. Hesychasm,’ ie, Tribalism vs. inclusive, pan-Orthodox repentance and humility and prayer and faithfulness and communion (koinonia).  OCs in the West aren’t supposed to be so distinguished by immigrant background, nor Orthodox countries in ‘the East’ by pseudo-religious flag-waving, nor their hierarchies by whining and prostrating to the West.  Of course, these phenomena are common in the West too – in fact they’ve been furthered by the West for two centuries - but that’s not my Church, mine by choice is Orthodoxy.

Corporate Media Promoting Benefits from Global Warming

This AOL link will break.  In the meantime, observe how they point out benefits to the Global North, as the NY Times and I have already said.  If you work harder, you’ll see how they don’t neglect detriments elsewhere, and planetarily, but still, this is misleading and shameful.

They also neglect the expected Little Ice Age in the Upper North Atlantic, including their favored Greenland and Iceland.  We’re already seeing fauna migrating southward from the UNA – because it’s cold maybe?!!  They could be the Gulf Stream monitoring system scientists are looking for!

W. “governs like a liberal”?!

If one of the Repug presidential candidates sincerely thinks that, as he said at their debate the other night,* that’s really scary.  But it’s like I say, these hard-rightists think anyone less hard-right than themselves is a flaming Maoist!  To think that someone who thinks like that might steal the ‘08 election… and make Bush look like… Bill Clinton?!!!

Whew!

(*–I don’t know who said it… or care, really.  I heard it in an audio montage on a CBS Radio newscast in my car that night, so the speaker wasn’t identified.  Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee…)

Bush and Putin and China

W. is one to lecture the Russians and Chinese about democracy and human rights.  There are others in the G-8 better-qualified to do so.