Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Yesterday the House voted to grant federal employees four weeks of paid parental leave. If it becomes law, that means a baby born to one or more federal employees will have four weeks of extra attention, four weeks when their parent(s) will be able to get up in the night without worrying about being a wreck at work in the morning, four weeks of bonding, maybe four weeks of breastfeeding.

Pete Sessions argued against it as too expensive: $20M/year.  With 1.8M federal employees, that’s about $11 per employee per year.

Pete Sessions also opposes abortion rights; he doesn’t mention abortion on his House website, but he’s consistently voted to make abortions harder and harder.  In other words, he favors creating unwanted babies, but he’s unwilling to spend a few dollars to help them grow up sane and healthy.

I just saw an article at AfterDowningStreet.org claiming that Hillary Clinton, when employed by the House Judiciary Committee in investigating Watergate, was dishonest and unethical. The writer spoke to, among others, the committee’s chief of staff, Jerry Zeifman. Clinton was working on a memo supporting the position that Nixon had no right to counsel before the committee; Zeifman told her she should read and cite a recent case that gave the opposite precedent; when she finished the memo, he found that she had (a) ignored that case, and (b) removed it from the committee’s files. Apparently, she was taking this position in the first place because her political patron was tied to the Kennedys, who didn’t want Nixon defending himself too well—he could have excused his own abuses of power by digging up JFK’s.

There’s more (including from the chief Republican counsel), but, to me, that’s the worst of it. If this is true, then Clinton probably committed a crime, in order to strengthen her patron’s political standing.

The LA Times has an article saying that, under the revised Patriot Act, the power to review state death penalty cases has been moved from the federal appeals courts to the Attorney General…who, of course, has greater expertise in judicial review, and certainly no political motivation for being tough on crime.

Seen on TruthOut: an article on John Edwards’s antipoverty stance.  Summary: Edwards has chosen to make poverty his main issue, even though it may not be a winning issue, because he cares about it.  It’s not just a puff piece, either; it points out the things Edwards has done that make him look less sincere (he worked for a hedge fund from 2004 to 2006; he has a 28,000-square-foot home), compares him to people who want to do even more, and explains why his plans may not make much difference.

I just read through the text of HR 393, submitted by Rep. Charles Rangel of New York. The summary says:

To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make permanent the favorable treatment afforded combat pay under the earned income tax credit, and for other purposes.

Now, supposedly, Rangel submitted the bill because he wants to stir up some trouble over the fact that the children of the people who got us into this war are not at risk to fight in it.  But, even if that’s true, this is a bad bill:

• The President would have the sole power to determine what qualifies as national service. He could conscript people from Massachusetts to pick up trash in Crawford, TX.
• Although the summary of the bill refers to “during wartime”, the bill would also permit military conscription during a national emergency (as declared by the President) or during any military operation authorized by Congress.
• The President gets to set the criteria for deciding whether someone has performed adequately in civilian service, and the penalties for failure to do so.
• The President gets to choose the manner of selection.
• There’s a provision that everybody inducted for national service has to undergo a physical and mental examination; being found unfit may get you a deferment…but not necessarily. (For military conscription, you do have to meet the same standards as a volunteer.)
• Although it says every citizen (or resident) between 18 and 42 is obliged to serve, it doesn’t specify whether you’re automatically discharged on your 42nd birthday (maybe you can be inducted the day before, and kept for 2 years?); nor does it mention whether a non-citizen has the option to leave the country to avoid service.

It seems to me that, if a Congressman submits a bill, even if it’s just a strawman that he doesn’t want to be passed, he should hold it to a higher standard than this. As written, this bill would basically authorize the President to order anybody he wants to do anything he wants. “Oh, gee, Senator, looks like your name came up for the post of crash test dummy.”

I just read that today’s Rolling Stone will have an article saying that, in Georgia, in 2002, Diebold (a) ran the elections themselves; and (b) patched the software on their machines that were going to be used in Democratic counties.

It’s not on Rolling Stone’s site, yet; guess I’ll have to go buy a copy.

Just spotted on the BBC: the Supreme Court has ruled that the Administration does not have the power to use military tribunals to try detainees at Guantánamo.

This morning I happened to see an article at The Consumerist about American Apparel.  It’s a resignation letter from an employee sick of abusive treatment.  Apparently, AA treats its employees well only when convenient.  Allegedly, retail staff work 60-80 hours per week without overtime; the only people who are exempt from this sort of abuse are the ones sleeping with upper management.  (Not surprisingly, the CEO has been sued for sexual harassment.)  When asked for overtime, the company says maybe they can afford it as back pay in a few years, when they’re making more money.

BusinessWeek writes:

“It was a company built on lechery,” says a former stock person. “I thought it was a male contemporary perspective on feminism, but it turns out to be just a gimmick,” says another ex-employee. And another: “I made sure to stay away from the store when I knew [Charney] was coming into town. It’s not one person — he’s aiming for all women.”

Of course, I don’t know enough to be sure of the truth; but I thought Irregular Goods might want to check it out.