Let The Sun Shine In
Today Tomorrow (per CHS) is a big day in the life of Firedoglake, the debut of the new, powerful and reader driven Oxdown Gazette. Oxdown will be run by Ari Rabin-Havt, formerly of Harry Reid’s office, an immensely talented and committed progressive voice. But the real power behind Oxdown will be you, and all the other readers, who heed the call and step forward to lend their voice to the work ahead. You are the future; the time is now.
Fittingly, one of the first substantive contributors anteing up at Oxdown is none other than our own longtime Emptywheel and FDL regular, masaccio. Following the lead started by Marcy in her The FISA Loss: Recommendations for the Future post, masaccio has taken the next step in formulating a progressive based action plan. He has done an excellent job identifying several key goals and discussing modalities for obtaining them, and the thoughts and suggestions previously made by many of you here at EW and FDL are an integral part of his discussion. Go read What Should Obama Do For Us? and make your own further suggestions as to what we can accomplish through, and obtain from, Barack Obama in return for our support and votes. Here is my suggestion.
I would like a full and definitive pledge to open and transparent government. When the Democratic leadership were campaigning to claim a majority in 2006, and after they seized that mandate in the election, there was a promise made to change the ways of Washington, specifically in Congress, and stop the secretion of legislation being proposed, stop secret manipulation in back rooms, and to insure that bills are available to the individual members of Congress and the public sufficiently ahead of time to allow intelligent analysis and informed review before voting on the floor.
But when it came to seminal landmark legislation fundamentally weakening and eroding the rights of, and guarantees made to, every citizen that are embedded in the Fourth Amendment, they reneged. When it came to the literal, and arguably unconstitutional, taking of vested monetary claims, by mass numbers of US citizens, being actively and affirmatively pursued in courts of law against co-conspirator telephone companies, the Democratically controlled House of Representatives reneged. Instead of living up to their promises, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Steny Hoyer, and a cast of cronies saw fit to do an about face and operate covertly and clandestinely out of sight, in the shadows, concealing their craven machinations not only from the public, but the vast majority of their fellow Congressmembers too, before coercing a hasty and ill informed vote. The citizens of the United States deserve better treatment and more respect from their elected representatives.
Mr. Obama needs to make a vow to change this pattern and practice for the sunlit better once and for all. Then he needs to convince us why we should believe he is not being patently duplicitous, like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Steny Hoyer were the last time Democrats sought more power from us. Mr. Obama, let the sun shine in.
Well done, masaccio. I left a wee addition to your point 4, about John Yoo’s memos — so important to make those public, and Bradbury’s as well.
I’m shy of getting involved in U.S. electoral politics, although it’s hard to resist when I read stories like this one from this morning’s Guardian:
What can I say? No. Just no.
Sunshine is the best disinfectant. We have a govt. that is so full of disease that I don’t know if sunshine will ever be enough. But it would be a start.
OT, but scary stuff in view of W’s executive order (last year as I recall) saying that in a national emergency he would have complete control and the other branches had no power.
From Larisa Alexandrova’s website where she writes about an article published by rightwing think tank (sic), Family Security Matters, (which is apparently a front group for the Center for Security Policies) that advocates making W dictator/president for life.
Excerpts from the article are in Larisa’s piece; the original article, written last year, has apparently been scrubbed from FSM’s website but is still cached.
The Cheney connection takes it out of the ‘just some rightwing nutcase rant’ category and into the scary category for me. The following is from the Free Market News Network’s site (linked in Larisa’s article) about the Center for Security Matters:
“Dick Cheney, Vice President of the U.S. under George W. Bush, was an early member of Center’s Board of Advisors (which is now called the National Security Advisory Council).
Twenty-two CSP advisers — including additional Reagan-era remnants like Elliott Abrams, Ken deGraffenreid, Paula Dobriansky, Sven Kraemer, Robert Joseph, Robert Andrews and J.D. Crouch — have reoccupied key positions in the national security establishment, as have other true believers of more recent vintage.”
Here’s the link to Larisa’s article:
http://www.atlargely.com/2008/…..p-ass.html
I think the most important thing we can do is hold the criminals in the current administration accountable.
After reading this:
“
And this:
in Glenn Greenwald’s article on Saturday I’m more than a little discouraged about it. Can’t say i’m surprised though. During the primary I kept hearing rumblings of that under the surface of Obama’s rhetoric about stopping the fighting of the 90’s,(and the 60’s) post partisanship (no thank you)and all the rest. When asked directly he said well if there was evidence of criminality t would be investigated but it was important to not get involved in partisan infighting so things could get done. (words to that effect.) That really set the alarm bells off.
I think that the telecom immunity is part of the groundwork to let this group of criminals skate. The “conversation” at netroots seems to be floating the idea by, drop a hint here and there, mention the idea now and then pretty soon its a common understanding.
During the Primary my feeling is whoever swears they will uphold the Constitution and hold these reprehensible “evil-doers” accountable get’s my vote.
Eventually, through studying them, researching and listening I came to the conclusion Clinton was the most likely.
Its ironic I had started out an Obama supporter who didn’t like Clinton to a Clinton supporter. And now I can’t stand the idea of voting for Obama. The FISA vote was the last straw. This though, if my guess is correct is right up with that vote in terms of cynical.
It is incomprehensible to me that this is happening. How the hell can they justify it? I mean logically, with a straight face?
WTF?
So, if Obama wants my vote this is what I want.
Hold them accountable and make them pay for what they have done. Transparently! C-Span. Obama maintained that there would be CSpan coverage of his administration, didn’t he?
Well that is a good start.
Reconciliation is wonderful in places that were changing so dramatically as in South Africa but we are a nation of laws and we can be reconciled after they take meet their responsablities. In fact isn’t that how reconciliation happens in this country? The community imposes the punishment on those who damaged the community through their knowing actions, they serve their time considering their actions (HA!) and then comes reconciliation.
Sorry this is longwinded but I am very upset about this. The Precedents this administration has set into place are chilling. I wouldn’t trust the Dalai Lama with the excessive power they have gained let alone Barack Obama.
Ok then, off to bang my head against a wall for awhile.
That’s the money quote bmaz… Assuming that Obama actually favors open government (which is debatable), I honestly do not know what Obama could say or do at this point to convince me that he would honestly pursue it. His recent betrayals of progressive positions he took in the primary have led me to believe he is just another duplicitous politician content with the establishment’s stranglehold on power.
“…being patently duplicitous…” originally read “…lying through his teeth…” but I thought discretion the better part of limited valor.
JTMinIA – Eh, no, that sheet of toilet paper is getting soggy.
Always the diplomat bmaz ; )
I tried to leave the following as a comment on masaccio’s post at oxdown before the site went down.
There’s an even simpler topic that we have to hit: secrecy. Behind every single point that masaccio makes for his demand letter is one simple fact. The current regime was able to corrupt the democratic process by using secrecy to hide its nefarious plots. If we want to save our democracy we have to fight back against the total control that the executive branch has over secrecy in all its forms. We need strong and effective legislation reforming:
1. Classification – Congress and the Judiciary need to automatic clearance at the very highest level. Each committee gets it for its area and Oversight gets for everything. Improper classification has to have real penalties attached. Classification of illegal or questionable activities are prima facie evidence of obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Members of Congress should have complete immunity for violating classification during debate.
2. State Secrets – Any claim of this privilege gets an automatic ex parte review by the judge with the presumption that the claim is invalid (i.e. the government has to prove their is something to protect and the judge is required to give the benefit of the doubt to the non-governmental party). The executive branch should be required to file a complete report to Congress detailing the exact nature of the activity being protected by state secrets.
3. Executive privilege – We need legislation that defines a clear adversarial process to adjudicate executive-legislative disagreements. The judicial branch can’t hide behind the ’political question’ bs. No one except the President is exempt from appearing before Congress. The GAO needs to be given the power to enforce Congressional subpoenas and contempt citations, subject to a judicial appeal.
4. Deliberative privilege – Needs to be eliminated or seriously restricted. The government belongs to the people and its decision-making process should be open to all.
5. Secret legislation – No secret legislation. No secret appropriations. Closed Congressional hearings should be severely restricted.
6. FOIA improvements – FOIA exemptions should be reduced to privacy and classification. All documents must be produced to the judge hearing the case and the judge decides what can be released. Failure to produce relevant documents should be treated as obstruction of justice.
7. Espionage Act reform – Espionage should be redefined to be possible only during a declared war.
8. Whistleblower protection – any government employee with a well-founded belief that laws are being violated has a positive duty to report that to his departmental IG, the GAO and the relevant Congressional committees. Failure to do so implicates the employee in the activity.
Yup.
Excellent points WO. I could not agree with you more. I think each and every one of those points needs to move to the top of our reform agenda.
I don’t have the figures offhand, but IIRC, the Exec branch has grown many-fold since the mid-1960s and that’s part of the issue here.
How was Cheney able to set up the OSP and create a coup via OLC? Look at the number of Exec appointees he controlled (!), and then how was this admin able to create entire departments out of ‘thin air’ so to speak – within DoS, within DoD, and by appointing their tools to OLC?
To address this would probably take someone with a good sense of not only federal budgets, but the personnel roster. JMO.
“I don’t have the figures offhand, but IIRC, the Exec branch has grown many-fold since the mid-1960s and that’s part of the issue here.
How was Cheney able to set up the OSP and create a coup via OLC? Look at the number of Exec appointees he controlled (!), and then how was this admin able to create entire departments out of ‘thin air’ so to speak – within DoS, within DoD, and by appointing their tools to OLC?”
One very direct way to “fix” the problem would be to slice most of the program people out of the White House Staff, and put them back in the departments and agencies — thus subject to a request from Congress to provide testimony. The best departments and agencies over time have had relatively few “political appointees” below the highest management level, but very high standards for the competence of the professional and permenant staff. Back in the 60’s, there was a big push in many agencies to offer senior management the chance to return to college, for a specialized MA for instance, and make that essentially a condition for promotion. The idea was to develop a cadre of senior managers who moved institutional memory from one administration to the next. I am most familiar with what DOD did with procurement in that era — Harvard and the U of Chicago designed advanced management programs for DOD. At the time DOD had strict rules against a senior employee shifting to the private sector — I believe it was a three year wait before one could accept employment with the “other side”. Restoring such rules would very much slow down the revolving door.
But it will be hard to deny Obama supporters some of the appointments they certainly expect. Al Franken is actually running on this issue — much longer waiting periods before someone can go through the revolving door.
Although I personally agree with you and have the highest regard for your views, it seems unlikely that there would be enough opportunity for inflated, bloated ‘consultant’ contracts to study whether your proposal would be viable.
As written, it seems too sane, simple, and straightforward to have any prayer of being implemented in DC for the foreseeable future.
This vow you want from Obama … do you want it written on the same paper where he said he’d filibuster any FISA bill with immunity or do you have some other medium in mind?
Just askin’.
is anybody else having trouble with the oxdown link?
Yep.
Stating, “Not found on this server.”
Christy has this up on her new post at FDL:
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The person responsible for getting the timing on the Oxdown Gazette debut in this post has been sacked (Owww. Ooops, it was me!). Well Chief, would you believe tomorrow? I need to Get Smart.
Take it easy ;-))
OT Alert!!
JThomason posted a link to Radiohead at Glastonbury (on the Trash Talk thread) over the weekend. Here’s a splendid ‘computational art’ Radiohead link:
http://benfry.com/writing/archives/142
The link leads to what’s probably the ‘first music video made without a camera’ — created entirely using digital data**, and the programmer approached Radiohead because he thought they’d be the only group open to the concept. And FWIW, it’s refreshing to see that Radiohead’s art code can be accessed via a google page. (So UnBushCheney-like of Radiohead.) Woohoo!!
And while you’re over at Ben Fry’s, check out two sports links; one baseball, one football:
Baseball: payroll vs performance in this year’s MBA:
http://benfry.com/salaryper/
(Tip: let the page load fully, then use your direction left/right keys to move the graph so you can see the shifting cost/performance for this year’s pro baseball teams — in this analysis, the Diamondbacks are doing well. Come to think of it… could this be used to illustrate the number/authors of BushCheney ’secret’ documents…? I’m not sure…)
And for football: ‘the farther from the ball, the lower the IQ’:
http://benfry.com/writing/archives/147
** So here’s a shoutout to bigger, faster processors!
Thanks for tolerating the brief OT, and enjoy the music!