Employment Relation

That seems to be the gist from the Talk Left campaign for Miers and from many other prominent "liberal" blogs. But when I look at today's LA Times article on her, I can't feel so optimistic.

Hecht is known as the most conservative member of the conservative Texas Supreme Court. "He's sort of the [Antonin] Scalia of that court: smart, aggressive and very conservative," said University of Texas law professor Douglas Laycock.

Hecht, a vocal opponent of the abortion right, said in an interview Tuesday that Miers shared his views. The two attend the evangelical Valley View Christian Church near Dallas.

"Harriet goes to a church that is pro-life. She has for 25 years," he said. "She gives them a lot of money. Her personal views lie in that direction."

But when asked if her personal opposition to abortion would give her sufficient cause to overturn the Supreme Court's abortion precedent, Hecht said, "I think she'll say they won't."

Very carefully stated, counsellor. It's not that this friend thinks she won't overturn Roe, it's that she'll say she won't overturn Roe. Big difference, that.

Miers' thin record has alarmed many conservative activists, who fear she won't be the unwavering voice on the right that they want on the high court. But Hecht's comments on abortion are among several pieces of evidence that have persuaded many other conservatives to support President Bush's Supreme Court nominee.

"I encourage people to connect the dots," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. "Hecht is a pro-life conservative, so we take a lot of comfort from that."

Miers gave $150 to Texans United for Life in 1989 and was a sponsor of their annual dinner that honored Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), a leading congressional opponent of abortion.

Lorlee Bartos, who was Miers' campaign manager in her race for the Dallas City Council in 1989, recalled that she was surprised to learn her candidate was opposed to abortion rights.

"I wanted her to meet with a group of pro-choice women, and she said she wasn't pro-choice," Bartos said. "She said she had been pro-choice but had changed her view."

Moreover, as Sekulow noted, Bush has vouched for her. "She shares the president's judicial philosophy," he said.

In his news conference Tuesday, Bush said he did not recall discussing abortion or Roe vs. Wade with his longtime lawyer.

But he added: "I made my position very clear in the course of my campaigns. I'm a pro-life president. And I know her. I know her heart. I know what she believes…. And she knows exactly the kind of judge I'm looking for."

There's one post in Talk Left's collective opining that I agree with: Harriet Miers is not inherently unqualified simply by her lack of judicial experience. I know of several people -- including someone in my family -- who know the law quite well, are brilliant to the point of genius (such as my dim wits can discern), can write and speak quite eloquently and convincingly about it, and yet have no judicial experience.

It's just the rest of the stuff about her that worries me.

Leave it to a holier-than-thou reactionary to illustrate for all to see why the government should have no place in controlling abortion. Media Matters reports:

Addressing a caller's suggestion that the "lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years" would be enough to preserve Social Security's solvency, radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett dismissed such "far-reaching, extensive extrapolations" by declaring that if "you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies "would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," then added again, "but the crime rate would go down."

[audio clip]

Not only is it an incredibly racist proposition -- just because African Americans are disproportionately incarcerated doesn't mean they are predisposed to criminal behavior -- but it raises the spectre of what's at stake when the government controls abortion: If reproductive rights are subsumed under governmental authority, then then government will be able to not just prevent aborting a pregnancy, but also require abortion ... you know, in the interests of the state (such as theoretically reducing crime).

Eugenics. That's what the anti-choice crowd is pushing us towards. Do we really want government breeding programs?

Do we want them controlled by radical bigots like Bill Bennett?

Some matters are best kept out of government hands.

Roberts, Jefferson, Lincoln, and the Fifth Republic of America

"This Court is the judge of its own power."

- First Monday in October

Nominee Roberts. We don't know all that much about Roberts, the man. We have heard his record recited, but I look into his eyes, see his earnest yet friendly face, and wonder - who is he?

After the first day of televised testimony, we have not learned all that much. We have heard Senators tell us what they think the Court is like and it reminds me of celibate Priests at the nuptials telling us what makes a great marriage.

What makes a superb Chief Justice? To listen to the learned solons, he is the Chief Umpire in an arena where the Republicans and Democrats strut and fret.

Senators pontificate about what Roberts should say or should not say and how he should conduct himself. I am sure this is more for the cameras and the folks back home than for Roberts who I assume is his own man. I assume that someone who would be seriously nominated for the Chief Justice would know a thing or two about how to deliver legal opinions without personal prejudices leaking out and does not need advice from senators on how to do that.

This process of choosing the Justices has changed as the nation moves away from the mortals who crafted the Constitution of 1789. Were they merely men?

In 1961, John Kennedy entertained American Nobel Prize winners at a gala dinner. He said,

this is the greatest collection of talent and genius gathered at the White House at one time since Jefferson dined here alone.

Through the lens of time, the Nation's Founders take on Herculean proportion, yet as conservative writer, Dan Smoot, once remarked in his famous "American's Promise," it was a remarkable task that mortal men from so many different interests were able to compromise to craft a truly remarkable document.

We all remember the story from high school - the Constitution 1789 was somewhat of a happenstance. A Constitutional convention was called to make some adjustments to the Articles of Confederation that had been in force since 1781. Instead of a small fix, a new Constitution was drafted.

What Smoot and other have understood was that at its best, our constitutional process is not a zero-sum-game. How do we define a zero-some-game? It is a state of affairs where to the extent someone wins, all others lose - like in sports. Like where there is an Umpire to make calls on rules of physics. The Founders understood the desirability of win-win compromises, although in politics these are the products of genius.

Take for example the interest of states with large populations versus small populations in 1789. There was tension as to how the States would be represented and a bicameral legislature was proposed - we see it in the Mother Country - Lords and Commons. We all know the senior chamber, the Senate, has two senators per State while the lower chamber is based on population. Not exactly a zero-sum-game.

We only have sketchy stories of how this all came about as it was decided there would be no official stenographers at the proceedings, but many issues - especially slavery - threatened to take the whole business apart.

Were these men just plain smarter than we are today, or is it as Smoot poetically suggests, there was a divine presence at these proceeding?

For every "original intent" there was another, perhaps equal, "original intent" that the framers compromised on. For example, the smudge in the Constitution is it recognized slavery as a just institution. But the slave states wanted slaves counted as population for congressional districts. But slaves were property and there were factions that did not want them counted at all under those circumstance. Hence the compromise was struck - blacks were thee-fifths of a person. What was the "original intent" there?

Slave owners? These are the godlings we all but deify and whose names we speak in hushed voices? Or were these men of flesh and blood and human foibles who made decisions based on greed and power and who had to compromise on that "curious institution?" Conflating these two pictures - men of compromise and men of ambition - certainly goes to the heart of the American mythos.

And out of these proceedings came the Supreme Court. From what accounts survive the Constitution of 1789, it was not a hotly contested issue, some would quip "almost an afterthought."

John Jay was appointed by George Washington as its first Chief Justice and some say that Jay "created" the Court as the third branch of government, although there are those who would not be so sweeping in their view. Nevertheless, the Court emerged as the interpreter of the Constitution. Even though most of the Framers were around - and many held high office - Jay's Court was the first to tell them what the Constitution meant.

It was Gore Vidal who said this Nation has had five Republics. There was the Republic of the Founders. Then Jacksonian Democracy. Lincoln changed the Nation remarkably, well beyond the Founders, and finally there was the New Deal - that is, until Reagan and the Fifth Republic. Interestingly, all cite the Constitution of 1789 as their justification.

Is the Court going to assert itself as the third branch of the government or will it merely clear the ideological way for the Fifth Republic to work its vision on a nation that will be 230 years old next July?

Lincoln is quoted,

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed.

No foreign power or combination of foreign powers could by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up from among us, it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die of suicide.

As a citizen what I want to hear is Robert's view of the Fifth Republic and to what extent is the art of compromise part of how the Fifth Republic runs, and whether the rights we had under the Fourth Republic will be preserved as the Fifth Republic unfolds.

He owes us that much and we owe it to ourselves to flush out those answers.

Now don't you refugees er, evacuees had connections to the White House? You'd be able to really cash in on disaster.

Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast. One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton. Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane. Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

We all know about Cheney's alma mater, Halliburton, which as already received $9 billion in taxpayer dollar contracts. And those are not exactly squeaky clean billions, either:

Pentagon audits released by Democrats in June showed $1.03 billion in "questioned" costs and $422 million in "unsupported" costs for Halliburton's work in Iraq.

But wait, there's more:

TWO BUSH APPOINTEES AT HALLIBURTON Allbaugh formally registered as a lobbyist for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root in February. In lobbying disclosure forms filed with the Senate, Allbaugh said his goal was to "educate the congressional and executive branch on defense, disaster relief and homeland security issues affecting Kellogg Brown and Root." Melissa Norcross, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said Allbaugh has not, since he was hired, "consulted on any specific contracts that the company is considering pursuing, nor has he been tasked by the company with any lobbying responsibilities." Allbaugh is also a friend of Michael Brown, director of FEMA who was removed as head of Katrina disaster relief and sent back to Washington amid allegations he had padded his resume. A few months after Allbaugh was hired by Halliburton, the company retained another high-level Bush appointee, Kirk Van Tine. Van Tine registered as a lobbyist for Halliburton six months after resigning as deputy transportation secretary, a position he held from December 2003 to December 2004. On Friday, Kellogg Brown & Root received $29.8 million in Pentagon contracts to begin rebuilding Navy bases in Louisiana and Mississippi. Norcross said the work was covered under a contract that the company negotiated before Allbaugh was hired. Halliburton continues to be a source of income for Cheney, who served as its chief executive officer from 1995 until 2000 when he joined the Republican ticket for the White House. According to tax filings released in April, Cheney's income included $194,852 in deferred pay from the company, which has also won billion-dollar government contracts in Iraq.

Then there's Bechtel corporation, which was so closely knit with the Reagan and Bush the elder administrations. Why, in this so-called conservative era, do so many people seem to float back and forth between Republican administrations and government contractor boardrooms? Bush the lesser ran on a platform of "cleaning up government." What is this supposed to be? Clean pork? Of course, even though these corporations are feeding at the taxpayer trough, Bush wanted to give them a little extra juice, so he issued an order allowing them to take advantage of the desperation wrought by Hurricane Katrina and pay the people who do the actual work below the market wage.

The Davis-Bacon law requires federal contractors to pay workers at least the prevailing wages in the area where the work is conducted. It applies to federally funded construction projects such as highways and bridges. Bush's executive order suspends the requirements of the Davis-Bacon law for designated areas hit by the storm. Bush's action came as the federal government moved to provide billions of dollars in aid, and drew rebukes from two of organized labor's biggest friends in Congress, Rep. George Miller of California and Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats. "The administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities," Miller said.

In other words, if you're an owner, you get to feed at the taxpayer trough. If you're a worker, you can look forward to cut-rate wages. Why? Why because this is the "ownership society" -- that means the government helps the owners, and the rest of you need to show ID and get into that concentration evacuee camp. Isn't that just lovely? (Via Echidne and DreamOfPeace on Our Word)

The aftermath of Katrina continues to reveal some very dark and disgusting things happening in our country.

Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. The guards further told us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement".

...[A police commander] told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the City. The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts. Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!)....

...Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued....

...This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. FEMA Chief Waited Until After Storm Hit

The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000
Homeland Security employees to the region — and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents....

...Brown's memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public."

Santorum considers 'penalties' for Katrina victims

"I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties, candidly, on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

[Video link]
Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA

Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency....

...Roy Fire Chief Jon Ritchie said his crews would be a "little frustrated" if they were assigned to hand out phone numbers at an evacuee center in Texas rather than find and treat victims of the disaster.
Also of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by their municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up the tab to fill the firefighters' vacancies while they work 30 days for the federal government.
"There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste."
Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.
But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
What’s Allbaugh Doing For Halliburton?

On February 1, 2005, The Allbaugh Company, under the name of M. Diane Allbaugh, registered to lobby for Kellogg, Brown & Root. The lobbying registration form lists Joe M. Allbaugh, former 2000 Bush campaign manager and former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as KBR’s official lobbyist.

The purpose of the lobbying agreement between Allbaugh and Halliburton was ostensibly to “Educate the congressional and executive branch on defense, disaster relief and homeland security issues affecting Kellogg Brown and Root.� Just last week, the Wall Street Journal reported, “Senate Appropriations staffers warn business lobbyists are maneuvering to tack on special-interest amendments� to the hurricane supplemental spending bill.

[embedded links at Think Progress]
And conservative apologists and excusers try to claim that there's nothing to be upset about. Maybe to them this really is the way America should be -- nasty, brutish and quick to blame the victims. Me, I have higher ideals and expectations from our country, our government.

(Hat tip to Dr. Laniac for the links.)