eisely

Instruction?? I don't need no instruction!! I know how to do that.

I always carry cash, and not just because I am old fashioned. I have frequently encountered situations where electronic payment or payment by check was not feasible. Be prepared!!

There are some bills I still pay by check. I also want a paper check in the file for medical expenses and charitable donations.

It is neither unscoutlike nor unpatriotic to dislike the president or his policies. What I don't like is name calling and I would consider that unscoutlike.

mmhardy,

Can you name anybody you know who was ever hassled, arrested, or sent to prison under the Patriot Act?

Chances are if the liquid fuel for your stove has frozen up, it is too cold!

Just a little humor there.

I avoided the oscars. However I understand that Sean Penn, in accepting his Oscar for his portrayal of Harvey Milk denounced all those who voted for Proposition 8 here in California in the last election.

Sounds like fun. I hope their awards ceremony is not as boring and predictable as the Oscars this last Sunday.

Actually, let me restate that. I am sure that the scouts' awards ceremony will be far more interesting than the Oscars this last Sunday. Who will give the acceptance speech denouncing the homophobic boy scouts?

What we use is not suitable for large projects but is suitable for training and "camp gadgets." We use the round wooden closet rods that are about 2 inches in diameter. These should be available at any Home Depot, Leow's, and similar stores. Kind of lame, but we don't have to cut any trees down and they are easy to replace and easy to store.

I have never heard of BSA revoking an Eagle rank for any reason whatsoever, even when it was pretty clear that the rank was obtained fraudulently. Another urban legend.

One thing that is not mentioned is fulfillment of leadership responsibilities. These are rank requirements that are not skill related. The BOR is forced to rely on the SM or somebody else to confirm that these requirements really were met in a manner consistent with the expectations of the troop. This is one area where the SM is a gate keeper. I have seen too many boys thinking that all they have to do is get their ticket punched and then they move on without having really done anything in a POR, not even showing up. The BOR is essentially forced to rely on the SM as the final "quality check" that all the requirements really have been met.

I am confident that if Eric Holder and his minions think there is sufficient evidence of a crime to warrant further investigation, they will do so.

Coming back to the original point of the thread, what does Sen. Leahy's proposal add to all this?

Merlyn,

I am still somewhat confused. You began by mentioning a DOJ Inspector General report, and apparently that is what you are still talking about. I would not think that subpoena power would be required for an Inspector General investigation. Of course any targets of any investigation still retain their 5th ammendment rights, regardless of subpoenas.

The controversy about the individuals you named of which I am aware revolved around refusal to testify before congressional committees on grounds of executive privilege and separation of powers. It is my understanding that congressional committees in general require a special grant of subpoena power if they feel they need it. That is why your mention of subpoena power and the ongoing controversy about Karl Rove et al testifying or not testifying makes me think you are referring to the congressional investigation.

As far as I know the continuing refusal of former members of the Bush administration to testify before congress on these matters is still up in the air.

Clearly claims of executive privilege and separation of powers can be abused, but the issue goes beyond any particular dispute. There have been some cases litigated on these issues, but, if I am not mistaken, the federal courts have tended to shy away from getting involved in these disputes between the legislative and the executive branches. There will come a time when the Obama administration will refuse information to the congress on these same grounds.

Merlyn,

I assume you are referring to the congressional investigations of the DOJ attorney controversy. Correct?

There is a great deal that can be written about ACORN but it would be pointless to do so since they too will likely get even more millions out of the so called stimulus package.

But I digress.

The only reason for suggesting a special prosecutor is doubt about the agency's ability to investigate itself. With the change in administration, I would think that any concern about an internal white wash would go away. If anything, the concern should be about a politicized prosecution.

Be that as it may, special prosecutors are rarely a good idea. The law requiring special prosecutors on the least suspicion of wrong doing in the executive branch was originally put in place by democrat controlled congresses as a response to the original watergate scandal. Special prosecutors were used to pursue a variety of allegations during the Reagan years, resulting in, among other things, a bogus indictment of Sec. Defense Weinberger days before the 1988 general election in a transparent attempt to influence the election.

This of course was followed by a renewal of the law and the investigations of the Clinton years. After the democrats had a taste of these out of control relentless investigations, they wisely let the law lapse without renewal. To be clear, at that point in time the democrats no longer controlled majorities in the congress, but nobody was speaking up in defense of the special prosecutor law at that time.

Subsequent special prosecutors have been named from time to time under the authority of the AG. Fitzgerald is the most noted recent example and an example of a special prosecutor who would not close up shop until he convicted somebody of some offense, even after he knew the identity of the original leaker.

With respect to the US attorney firings, I think it best to let the justice department under the new administration make its own determination. If the new AG and his subordinates think there are provable criminal violations, they should proceed and they are capable of doing so without appointing a special prosecutor. The justice department would retain accountability for the outcomes. In this vein, if the justice department thinks there are no grounds for prosecutions, they should say so to clear the air.

Again, what real purpose would be served by Sen. Leahy's "truth commission?"

Personally I think the failure to pursue vote fraud cases is a grounds for dismissal, particularly in light of what we now know of ACORN.

I did not see the word "illegal" used.

Let's walk through Gern's list.

Torture is an open issue. However, given the recent testimony of the last head of CIA, the two or three water boardings that occurred resulted in disrupting several plots and rolling up other Al Quead cells. I doubt that the American people would agree that the executive branch has gone too far in this area given what has happened and is likely to happen if vigilance is relaxed.

As someone else noted, US attorneys serve at the pleasure of the attorney general. I have not heard any serious claims that ongoing investigations of republicans were aborted as a result of the firings that occurred. If a particular US attorney is not pursuing the priorities wanted by the president or attorney general, then the president and/or the AG have a perfect right to send such a person packing. There is no doubt that Gonzales made a hash of all of this, but I doubt very much that any provable criminality took place.

Rendition of foreigners to other jurisdictions was a practice initiated under the Clinton administration. If we apprehend someone who is wanted in another jurisdiction, I doubt that it is illegal to transfer that person to that jurisdiction, whether or not we have an extradition treaty with that jurisdiction. I am not an expert on immigration law, but I suspect that the government has a right to terminate a foreign national's visa status and deport them at will if that person is either charged with a crime in the US or suspected of some illegal activity hostile to US interests. If the foreign national is in the US illegally, then deportation would be appropriate anyway. It would be useful to know more about the pertinent law on this, but I am willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to the government.

As far as I know the "warrantless wiretaps" have mostly involved US to foreign communications or foreign to foreign communications that happen to pass through US carriers. The purpose of these wiretaps is to gather intelligence to prevent further terrorist attacks. The 9/11 commission identified several clear intelligence failures, and the Bush administration took several steps to remedy those failures. There is a difference between intelligence gathering and seeking information for criminal prosecutions. As far as I know, whenever these issues have been litigated the courts have consistently sided with the executive branch.

The outing of Valerie Plame was done by Richard Armitage on his own volition. He was a deputy secretary of state under Colin Powell at that time. The requirements of the law to prosecute for this action are very particular and most likely were not met. Is there any doubt that a prosecutorial zealot like Fitzgerald would not have prosecuted on this charge if he felt the charges could be made to stick? Fitzgerald knew of Armitage's role shortly after he took over the investigation and such charges were never laid against anybody.

Prosecutorial discretion is one of the major factors protecting us from a police state. Let the responsible officials in the justice department decide what investigations they think are meritorious. No useful purpose would be served by Leahy's "truth commission" and a great deal of damage to the larger society and political comity would be done. The fact that Leahy would even seriously suggest such an idea speaks volume about him as a man.

Well at least you are honest in your motivation.

Legislators have no business stirring up passions, which is the sole purpose of the proposed exercise. Holder should exercise proper prosecutorial discretion in pursuing investigations and possible charges without political pressure from a rabid partisan legislative witch hunt.

It would help if you could provide a list of those things done that you consider to be crimes, so we can better inform Sen. Leahy what he should be looking at.

GernBlansten,

One of the problems is that Leahy assumes that crimes have been committed. The legislature has no business investigating alleged crimes. That is what we have a Justice Dept for. This is merely political grandstanding to the detriment of the country as a whole. I am sure that Eric Holder is quite capable of pursuing politically motivated prosecutions without the good Senator's assistance.

Sen. Leahy (D-Vermont) has proposed in a recent speech a "truth commission" to hound former members of the Bush administration. I find it hard to imagine a more divisive thing for the Democrat controlled congress to do. So much for bi partisanship.

To me Leahy comes across as one of those politicians who will put his personal gain above the good of the nation.

The "truth commissions" set up in the post apartheid era in South Africa came out of a totally different political situation and served a valuable purpose. All we have done in the US is a routine change in which party has the executive branch. This is a very dangerous idea. To his credit, Pres. Obama has not endorsed this idea, but he has not repudiated it either.

_______________________________________

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is proposing a "truth commission" to investigate abuses of detainees, politically inspired moves at the Justice Department, and whole range of decisions made during the Bush administration.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the primary goal of the commission would be to learn the truth rather than prosecute former officials, but said the inquiry should reach far beyond misdeeds at the Justice Department under Bush to include matters of Iraq prewar intelligence and the Defense Department.

Leahy outlined his suggestion for a "truth and reconciliation" commission during a speech at Georgetown University Monday.

"I'm doing this not to humiliate people or punish people but to get the truth out," he said.

The panel he envisions would be modeled after one that investigated the apartheid regime in South Africa. It would have subpoena power but would not bring criminal charges, he said.

Among the matters Leahy wants investigated by such a commission are: the firings of U.S. attorneys, treatment and torture of terror suspect detainees, and the authorization of warrantless wiretapping.

"Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened" during the Bush administration, Leahy said.

Some Democrats have called for criminal investigations of those who authorized certain controversial tactics in the war on terror. Republicans have countered that such decisions made in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks should not be second-guessed.

"We need to be able to read the page before we turn the page," Leahy said. "We need to come to a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the government created a 9/11 commission to examine failures within government anti-terror efforts.

Leahy said that commission was hampered by a lack of cooperation from the administration, and would like a new commission to have access to everything they needed.

He said he was offering the idea to see how much support it had.

"We need to see whether the American people are ready to take this path," he said, adding that he did not have anyone in particular in mind to lead the commission, but wanted "people with real credibility."

The CC does not have the unilateral authority to remove any adult volunteer. There is no prescribed procedure for doing this of which I am aware. The authority rests with the Institutional Head or the Chartered Organization Rep. if there is one. COR is not a required position.

The one way a CC could effectively remove an adult volunteer without anybody noticing is at re charter time by just deleting the name from the roster of adults re registered. Since the re charter documents have to be reviewed and signed by others this would be a sneaky way of doing such a thing, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility.

Keep in mind that only the local or national council can remove a volunteer from scouting altogether. A unit may relieve an adult of responsibilities and demand that the adult no longer participate in unit activities, but that adult remains a registered scouter until the registration expires.

Lacking by laws, there is no real guidance I know of for conducting a committee meeting. Some on this forum maintain that committees are never expected to vote on anything. As an earlier post points out, going into closed or "executive" session is entirely appropriate for certain types of discussions and/or actions. If there are no by laws or written rules for conducting committee business, things are left pretty much to the whim of the CC.

As OGE points out ASMs are technically not part of the committee. I personally think it would be a mistake to exclude ASMs from committee deliberations. If the ASM in question is a parent of a currently registered youth member of the unit, then that ASM certainly has a parental right to at least listen and observe.

If Obama were to veto this legislation that would be a game changer and would certainly increase my estimation of him. One of Bush's biggest failings was that he never attempted to rein in the recklessness of his own party in the congress. The republicans paid a political price for their ways and they deserved to do so. Unfortunately the democrats in congress are if anything more reckless. The most recent "approval rating" for congress that I have seen was 25%, which is up from single digits. It is not at all difficult to understand how Obama may really believe that he has a mandate to drastically change American society, but he and his party may be in for surprise. We shall see.

I am not an attorney, but I disagree that this is not an issue for lawyers.

Lawyers have to tell us what the law is and is not. One of the lawyers in the Bush administration Justice Dept., John Yoo if I recall correctly, apparently authored guidance early on after 9/11 about what is permissable and what is not. He is one of those ex Bush officials whom some people believe is a war criminal. I have not seen the memos he wrote, but if one is a war criminal merely for giving your best advice, where does this leave us? He may have been dead wrong in his opinion at the time, but a war criminal?

President Obama published an op ed on his "stimulus package" in the Washington Post today. A link is at the end of this post.

I put "stimulus package" in quotes for a reason, since as his op ed makes clear, his legislative desires include a variety of initiatives that are not at all related to stimulating the economy. It is utterly disingenuous for any president, including former President Bush, to expect everybody to just roll over for every major policy change that president may want without debate. Yet this seems to be what President Obama expects.

If President Obama could clearly point to how all his detailed proposals will really make an immediate difference in the state of the economy, those proposals would probably pass pretty quickly, but this thing in its present form is little more than a gigantic pork barrel designed to grow the role of the federal government in everybody's lives. It deserves debate.

I do give President Obama credit for claiming that only 5 million more American jobs will be lost, not the 500 million per month that Nancy Pelosi has claimed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020403174.html

To respond to Lisa's question, I am not looking for saints for appointees. We are all impefect human beings and we all probably have done things of which we are not particularly proud. Tax cheats cross a line.

I think the woman was dealt with very unfairly compared to the others. Her problem occurred several years back and she dealt with it at that time. I think she did pay interest and penalties. It is my understanding that neither Geithner nor Daeschle paid any penalties, just interest. If someone has better information on that point, please provide it.

It comes down to two points.

Point one - character counts. Neither Geithner nor Daeschle exhibited much of this since they both cheated and both put off dealing with their problems until they believed it was likely they would be appointed to something.

Point two - the laxity and/or incompetence in the vetting. These were self inflicted wounds by the nascent Obama administration. These errors cannot be laid at the feet of the evil republicans, the vast right wing conspiracy, or Fox news. It is to Obama's credit that he has taken responsibility for these errors. Nevertheless, it does not give me much comfort to think that this administration may be so clumsily incompetent. The jury is still out and I am keeping my fingers crossed.

OGE,

I too have read occasional pieces about various community colleges, and other public schools below the college level, modifying their facilities to accommodate Muslims. I am not sure how I feel about that, since minor modifications may be reasonable, but it does raise the question of government subsidizing a particular religion. Where is the ACLU when you need it?