Rep. Barney Frank (MA), liberal Democrat and the co-author of the disastrous 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, will not seek re-election in 2012. Frank will forever be known, not for his being gay, but for being reprimanded by Congress for his using his congressional status on behalf of a male prostitute he employed as a personal assistant, including his male partner running a prostitution ring out of his office. Although Massachusetts will lose one Congressional seat due to redistricting, the restricting
Presently 16 Democrats and and 6 Republicans have announced they will not run for re-election to the House of Representatives. One of them is Republican Ron Paul who is retiring from Congress but is a active candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination. Paul's district is expected to be safely in Republican hands.
Tomorrow the US House will be in session.
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| Now A Very Concerned Vet |
Today, the US Senate reconvened and resumed consideration of S. 1867, the Fiscal Year 2012 Defense Authorization bill. The bill has 270 amendments pending. Included in the bill is the worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) which passed in a closed-door committee meeting without even a single hearing. It is hard to imagine that Sen. McCain, a decorated war veteran, would have authored and and supported a provision that will direct American military resources to be used - not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone - but against American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even American citizens within the United States. It is a strange world when this site finds agreement with the ACLU on an issue.
This provision as written needs to be stopped. Another democrat Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. However, the best option is having no option of using the military in within the U.S. against its own citizens. That is the present general provision of "Posse Commitatus" which prevents the direct participation by a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law. There have been several efforts to amend this general provision and all have been formerly repealed.
It is proper for the U.S. military to stand on our very borders facing outward to stop invasions and attacks. However, it is improper to have it fighting its own citizens and enforcing laws regardless of the incumbent United States president.
At 5 PM, the Senate will take up the nomination of Christopher Droney to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit. At 5:30, the Senate will vote on the Droney nomination. Droney is the replacement for President Obama’s previous, extremely controversial pick for this seat, Judge Robert Chatigny, whose nomination was withdrawn after objections from Senate Republicans.
Justice Elena Kagan Remains in the News:
The Washington Post reports today, “Just a little more than an hour after some House Democrats recently demanded an inquiry into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s ethics, Senate Republicans stepped up the pressure on Justice Elena Kagan to take herself out of the court’s decision on the health-care reform act. . . . Federal law requires judges, including those on the Supreme Court, to disqualify themselves when their ‘impartiality might be reasonably questioned’ . . . . In addition, it calls for recusal when the judge has served in the government and ‘participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case or controversy.’”
The Post notes, “The charges against Kagan arise from her work as solicitor general, the government’s top appellate lawyer. If she were still in the job, Kagan would be defending the health-care law at the Supreme Court rather than deciding whether it is constitutional. Kagan was notified by the White House in March 2010 — just before the law was passed — that she was under consideration to be named to the high court. She said during her confirmation hearings that she played no role in preparing for the inevitable legal challenges that were to come. . . . But congressional Republicans say e-mails released to conservative groups under public records requests raise questions about the White House’s contention she had been ‘walled off’ from discussions about the health-care act. One e-mail from then-Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal says Kagan wanted to make sure her office was involved in strategy decisions, although Katyal said he took the lead and Kagan was not involved. Another e-mail seemed to indicate enthusiasm for the bill. In response to a message at the time of the vote from Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe, then working at the Justice Department, Kagan wrote: ‘I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing.’ [Rep. Lamar] Smith [R-TX], the [House] Judiciary Committee chairman, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have pressed Holder for more information, which his department has been reluctant to provide.”
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Leader McConnell, and Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Mike Lee (R-UT) wrote, “[E]mails finally produced by your Department in response to lawsuits to enforce the Freedom of Information Act suggest involvement by then-Solicitor General Kagan in the Administration's preparations for defending the [Obama administration’s health care law]. In January 2010—two months before then-General Kagan was even aware she was being considered as a potential nominee to the Supreme Court—your Department began planning to defend this law against legal challenges. Neil Katyal, Ms. Kagan's principal deputy, stated he would "speak with Elena" about her office participating in a Department working group that would plan the Administration's litigation strategy, exclaiming that he wanted the Administration to ‘crush’ those challenging the [health care law].”
The Senate Republicans’ letter summed up their concerns: “President Obama chose to nominate a member of his Administration to the Supreme Court knowing it was likely that, if confirmed, she would be in a position to rule on his signature domestic policy achievement—‘litigation,’ Mr. Katyal noted to former Solicitor General Kagan, ‘of singular importance’ to the Administration. Among other involvement in this matter, it appears that she was privy to discussions of legal claims and litigation strategy concerning court challenges to the PPACA. And it is apparent that she herself enthusiastically supported this legislation as a member of the Administration which is now defending it. When a former member of the Administration is in a position to rule on litigation in which she apparently had some involvement and which concerns legislation she herself supports, public confidence in the administration of justice is undermined.”
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