Daily Archives: June 13, 2008

Ireland nixes Lisbon Treaty

June 13, 2008UncategorizedMike Eldred

(Promoting this diary is my answer to the poll question at the end… – promoted by odum)

Future of the EU in question

This won’t make any of the U.S. papers, but hopefully GMD wonks will find it somewhat interesting

On Thursday, Irish voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty, which would have redefined the European Union government. Essentially, the treaty would have shifted more power from European states to the central government in Brussels. Institutions such as the courts, banks, and military would have been centralized.

Proponents of the referendum said the new agreement would strengthen the central government; create greater efficiency (fewer state governments doing the same thing); standardize laws regarding human rights, labor, security; and provide greater economic security. Supporters of the measure, including political parties Fianna Fail, Finn Gael, and the Labour Party, among others, cited the European Union’s beneficial effect on Ireland and exhorted Irish voters not to “throw it all away.”

Short sidestory: My brother-in-law almost got fired from the Dublin County Council for “defacing” one of Mary Harney’s pro-treaty “don’t throw it all away” signs – he added a small sign at the bottom that said “… I’ll take half.” (Harney is derided for being the overweight minister for health) http://ocaoimh.ie/wp-content/u… (the photo just shows the signs, no my brother-in-law’s handiwork)

Opponents, including Sinn Fein, the Socialist Party, the democratic socialist Workers’ Party and Libertas, an non-partisan organization formed by a Galway businessman to oppose the treaty, argued that the current EU agreement was indeed beneficial to Ireland, and there was no reason to change it. They warned that it would rob Ireland of its sovereignty. Ireland’s famed neutrality would be forfeited, Irish men and women could be required to serve in a central army, and it would open the back door to European laws on marriage and abortion. (Abortion is illegal in Ireland. They prefer to go to GB or NI for abortions.)

From the EU’s beginning, Ireland has wielded unprecedented power and recieved unprecedented benefit – the treaty would have blunted Ireland’s influence in the EU government.

Perhaps the most significant argument against the treaty for many Irish voters was that it would give too much power to the central government to control taxation. Ireland’s stunning economic growth over the last decade-and-a-half has been fueled not only by massive investment by the EU, but by the thousands of businesses that have moved to Ireland to take advantage of their low business tax rate (12%). Few European countries offer low business taxes, superior technological and civil infrastructure, and a highly-educated population in one neat package.

Although proponents debunked many of the opponent’s claims, the “no” vote appears to have prevailed.

In order to pass, the treaty had to be ratified by all 27 EU member nations. In 26 of those countries, the treaty could be ratified by the representative government; Ireland was required by its constitution to put the question to the electorate. It has already been ratified by 15 members, and is expected to pass in the rest.

The consequences of the “no” vote are still unclear. While some say it will force the EU to continue under the current treaty, others warn that it may mean Ireland is squeezed out of the EU – which could be devastating to the country. When the Irish rejected an earlier EU treaty, it was brought up for a vote again two years later, after a substantial PR campaign. Many have complained that the treaty is too complex, and independent information on what would change has been sorely lacking. So it could come around again.

The no vote is a blow to German Chancellor Angele Merkel, who worked hard during her six-month term as EU President to broker a deal on the treaty. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was said to have been making plans to solidify the new EU government under the treaty during his upcoming term as EU President.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

The poll is mostly for my own edification

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We’re being scammed; there is no gas shortage

June 13, 2008Uncategorizedvtpeace

( – promoted by odum)

And heating oil is estimated to rise 35% this winter:

* it’s NOT supply and demand: Business Week (4/1/08, 4/28/08) report that US gasoline inventories are at their highest levels since the 1990’s with the world supply 2.5% percent higher than May 2007.

World demand is projected to rise by just 2% over the next six months, compelling even the Saudis, (6/10/08) to say prices are unjustifiably high,

* (May 2nd, Bloomberg) reports heavy crude is stored on tankers because onshore storage tanks are full,

and our government is:

* allowing oil refinery production to be cut,

* allowing US oil companies to put undeveloped leases on hold until prices rise, while

* encouraging lobbying efforts to develop off the Florida coast and the Alaskan wilderness,

* Wall St. speculators, allowed to buy on margin via the ‘Enron loophole’ risking little of their own money while increasing the price of oil from $20 – $50 a barrel,

* ethanol investors creating a “silent tsunami” by using farmland for fuel instead of food,

* the Bush-allowed devaluation of the dollar, believed to cause a 30% jump in oil prices,

* oil companies given $17 billion dollars in tax breaks by our government,

* the refusal of ‘energy’ companies like Exxon to commit large-scale capital investment to renewable energy projects,

* the dearth of government-funded renewable energy projects to lessen our dependence on foreign oil,

* fear that Iran’s response to economic sanctions may be to withhold their oil,

* fear that with military confrontation in Iran, other Middle Eastern oil supplies could be disrupted,

* the continued occupation of Iraq far into the future, while

* war profiteers go unprosecuted, and billions of taxpayer dollars are not accounted for,

* and with two failed oilmen running this country into bankruptcy.

This cannot continue. It is upon us to hold the media to account; one 30 second sound bite for each ‘scandalous’ fact is not enough — they need to put all the pieces together to show the extent of the cover-up. We are all being scammed.

We hear about it more from the international press, but it has been covered here, but not enough and not widely.

http://www.businessweek.com/li…

http://www.businessweek.com/li…

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080601…

Barbara

Brian Dubie declares intention to read large book,rumored to be bigger than a phone book!

June 13, 2008UncategorizedBP

(Is there anything about Dubie that’s not symbolic? – promoted by JulieWaters)

MONTPELIER – Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie declared a home-heating fuel emergency Wednesday morning, saying the state needs to begin preparing for worst-case winter scenarios involving shortages of fuel and oil.

He announced that he would begin a thorough review of Vermont’s emergency response plans – a book several times larger than a state phonebook – to determine if the state should begin preparing for emergencies related to fuel shortages.

Dubie, a Republican up for re-election this year, said his declaration of an emergency was a symbolic one, meant to draw local and state attention to the concern that high fuel costs could result in Vermonters being frozen from their homes this winter.Rutland Herald

Simply ,simply ,brilliant ,no one had noticed that fuel is now creeping up over the top .Who could have predicted without Dubie’s well timed reminder that it may be expensive for people to heat their homes ? Why is no one running against this man ?

Habeas – First the Good News

June 13, 2008UncategorizedCaoimhin Laochdha

First the GOOD NEWS . . .

The Supreme Court affirmed yesterday, in Boumediene v. Bush, that the United States Constitution, or some semblance of it at least, still exists in theory. After years of the President of the United States refusing to acknowledge the fact that the Constitution guarantees the right to habeas corpus, the Supreme Court held that the President and Congress do not "have the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will." (The Court is of course correct and this fact is an obvious one. However, the behavior of these two branches of government explain the "in theory" of the sometime rule-of-law government that has developed on our generation's watch).

The Court reached the only defensible position available to it. This case was, literally, a constitutional no-brainer, which is a big part of the problem. A razor thin majority willing to affirm fundamental aspects of the Constitution in the waning days of the Bush administration is a good thing – sure. However, the context of the ruling is more evidence of . . . the bad news . . .

Now the BAD NEWS — We're Really Screwed, America, Face It.

It took the United States Supreme Court 134 pages to explain that a basic, fundamental protection against government tyranny cannot be whimsically cast aside by a lawless President, a timid Congress and an uncritical nation. (Hint, if you want to read a really good distillation of the Court's decision – or any Supreme Court decision – the Supreme Court Reporter includes a "Syllabus" prefacing the Court's order. The Syllabus preceding the Court's habeas decision is only 8 pages and is found at the beginning of the .pdf)

It has been three years since an astounding majority of Congresspeople, all sworn to uphold the Constitution, passed the law that purported to overturn (or to "suspend" indefinitely) Article 9 of the U.S. Constitution. The current Congress has impotently allowed a subversive statute that undermines our Constitutional heritage and basic civil liberties to remain on the books and to be implemented by the Bush administration in bad faith. In Congress, there is little enthusiasm for defending the Constitution or putting up even a token fight to protect liberty under the Capitol dome.

It will take an aggressive Congress to perform the hard work of fixing the damage created by eight years of Mister Bush and twelve years of class-warrior congressional Republican police state corruption. The Supreme Court's decision is one more reminder of what we have not seen from Congress for years. Unfortunately it is also a reminder, now more than ever, of how much faith we need to place in Congress, going forward, despite that institution's betrayal of the American people since it surrendered, on its own behalf, to the President in 2001, and surrendered, on our behalf, to a gang of 20 Saudi criminals shortly thereafter.

The Supreme Court is in pretty bad shape too. Four Justices of the Supreme Court, and countless judges in the lower federal courts too, are aghast at the notion that the Constitution applies to brown people. It is bad enough they must condescend to acknowledge ("extend" they will tell you) the rule-of-law to the rich & white of the Republican elite. However, recognizing that the rule of law must ultimately be applied to those kidnapped and tortured by a criminally driven administration obviously burns their throat raw. The right wing result oriented judicial activism that has been rampant for a political generation is alive and well and will continue for the foreseeable future.

Analysis of the opinion after the jump –

— Note:The Center for Constitutional Rights, which has helped to provided legal counsel to people illegally and indefinitely held by the U.S. government at Mister Bush's behest, has published a really good analysis of the Court's opinion —

Background:

The Bush Administration always took the position that the people it kidnapped from anywhere in the world were not covered by the rule of law. The U.S. could swoop into a country, kidnap, torture and carry away a person and the rule of law played no part in their developing conspiracy.

Later, in Rasul v. Bush, the United States Supreme Court ruled that people taken prisoner/kidnapped or otherwise acquired by the United States cannot have their right to federal habeas corpus stipped away from them. Then Congress piled on and purported to overturn Rasul with the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA 2005) & Military Commissions Act (MCA – 2006). These statutes claimed that people taken by the U.S. government and classified by the U.S. as “enemy combatants” may be held in U.S. custody under lawless conditions. Rather than recognizing the constitutional mandate for habeas review, DTA and MCA only allowed those taken by the U.S. government to contest whether they were/are "enemy combatants" and left the United States with no meaningful acceptance of its constitutional heritage.

Yesterday

the United States Supreme Court ruled that the part of the Military Commissions Act that attempted to block the federal courts from hearing [habeas] claims . . . was unconstitutional. [The] Court unambiguously rejected the political branches’ attempts to cut the federal courts out of the process. In Boumediene v. Bush, the Court held that [people taken into detention by the U.S. government] have a constitutional right to file petitions for habeas corpus in U.S. federal court challenging the lawfulness of their detention.

With Justice Kennedy writing for the majority, the opinion begins with a lengthy survey of historical habeas cases in which common law courts considered cases of noncitizens imprisoned without trial. [His opinion acknowledged the]. . . fundamental principles underlying the purpose of habeas corpus: to allow the courts to act as a check against the abuse of Executive power. “[F]rom an early date, it was understood that the King, too, was subject to the law.” The Court emphasized that the Suspension Clause of the U.S. Constitution was designed by the Founders to “protect against the cyclical abuses of the writ by the Executive and Legislative Branches.” It noted that the “Framers view freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty.” And central to the protection of this liberty is the “duty and authority of the Judiciary to call the jailer to account.” These separation-of-power principles guided the Court’s reasoning throughout its opinion.

In considering the extraterritorial application of the Constitution to Guantánamo, the Court adopted a practical approach it has applied in past cases. The Court strongly criticized the President and Congress’s attempt to declare that because Guantánamo was outside the sovereign territory of the United States, the Constitution did not apply. The Court firmly stated that “To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this Court, say ‘what the law is.’” Several factors warranted application of the Suspension Clause to Guantánamo, including (1) that the petitioners are noncitizens who dispute their status as “enemy combatants” as determined by CSRTs in an unfair proceeding, (2) the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction and control over Guantánamo, with no other country’s laws applying, and (3) no credible arguments exist that habeas proceedings would impede any military mission at Guantánamo. The Court concluded that the individuals at Guantánamo have a right under the Suspension Clause to challenge their detention, and the pragmatic approach it took in reaching that conclusion still leaves space for similar challenges to U.S. detention facilities elsewhere in the world.

Relative to the procedural component, the Court

concluded that the DTA review was not an adequate substitute for a habeas petition. Fundamentally, a habeas proceeding – and any substitute – must afford the petitioner an effective and meaningful ability to correct any errors in the decision under review (here, the determination that the petitioner is an “enemy combatant”), an opportunity to challenge the sufficiency of the government’s evidence, and the opportunity to present and have a court consider exculpatory evidence not considered by the tribunal below. From the initial proceedings in pending DTA cases and the statute itself, the Court concluded that it failed to provide an adequate substitute for habeas. Specifically, the DTA statute fails to provide for release from custody as a remedy, offers no procedures for petitioners to present new, exculpatory evidence and to bring the full range of legal challenges available in a habeas proceeding. As a result, the Court struck down that portion of the DTA that deprived the petitioners of their constitutional right to habeas.

The Court emphasized, correctly (and what an understatement) that the people taken into custody by the U.S. government are facing extraordinary long sentences and no trial. “The gravity of the separation-of-powers issues raise by these cases and the fact that these detainees have been denied meaningful access to a judicial forum for a period of years render these cases exceptional.” The Court therefore ruled that “the cost of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody. The detainees in these cases are entitled to a prompt habeas corpus hearing.”

Which, for GMD readers leaves the question: but can we still trust the Bush administration? Well it depends. As noted by the Center for Constitutional Rights:

Major General Jay Hood, former commander at Guantánamo, admitted to the Wall Street Journal that “[s]ometimes we just didn't get the right folks,” but innocents remain at the base because “[n]obody wants to be the one to sign the release papers. … there's no muscle in the system.”

Historically the Federal Courts were the "legal muscle" the stopped administrations from illegally holding innocent people (or torturing them etc.) The next step is to learn whether this decision means that "illegal" combatent means "taken and held illegally indefinitely" with no respect paid to the rule of law or just "taken and held illegally for a really long time" before the rule of law kicked-in.