Pruning Shears

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

I listen to a technology podcast from CNET called Buzz Out Loud, and on Friday’s show they reported that one Bob Burbach won the Consumer Electronics Association’s “Innovation Movement’s Apps for Innovation” with a site called GovPulse, which “give[s] you a way to browse the [Federal] Register (from 1994 on) and use filters to decide what is important to you. And then act on it.” I first became acquainted with the Federal Register on pp. 68-9 of Barton Gellman’s Angler:

The vice president had an instinct for power and unrivaled knowledge of its junctions around the government. One of his first assignments to his staff was a fast-track review of Bill Clinton’s departing executive orders. That would have been a routine step, sooner or later, but Cheney had the savvy to call a halt to the operations at the Government Printing Office. Not many aides would have thought of it. Cheney knew regulations have no legal force until they are published in the Federal Register. Some of Clinton’s orders, signed in his closing hours as president, never made it.

A couple leftover links from Thursday’s OLC post. Here is the formal withdrawal of the torture memos, and here is a group of OLC memos the ACLU pried loose from the Justice Department.

Here are parts one, two and three of Jeff Kaye’s argument that using the Army Field Manual for interrogation is basically a codification of torture as long as the odious Appendix M stays in it.

Helen Thomas is a tough old broad, and I’m glad she’s on the beat.

The DC Court of Appeals gave away more power to the president. It seems as though a significant part of the judiciary wants to rule itself out of existence. What good are checks and balances when they are entrusted to those with an authoritarian streak?

(This is off my usual beat so maybe I’m way off base.) The recent buyer’s remorse among the Republican establishment for Sarah Palin and Michael Steele seem to be byproducts of the GOP’s inability or unwillingness to honestly grapple with the prospect of real leadership within the party for women or minorities. They roll along with white men running the show, occasionally become acutely aware of the how bad that looks, and in a spasm of diversity optics yank someone manifestly unqualified into a highly visible but largely ceremonial post. When the inevitable failure occurs it’s back to the white men. Say what you will about the heat of the 2008 Democratic primary, you had a woman and a black man battling it out through the party apparatus for leadership. In the Republicans’ “wait your turn” model of succession, does anyone really think it will ever be Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s turn? Can anyone blame ambitious women and minorities for looking at the situation and concluding that the only way to have a shot at really becoming numero uno is to amp up the crazy and work outside the system?

Now, the Palins, Steeles and Bachmanns of the GOP have made their own beds and have to sleep in it; either out of native lunacy or cynical calculation they’ve decided to make that their calling card. But I do have a certain latent sympathy for their circumstances of being where they are now, knowing where they want to go, and realizing that the only way to get there is to be a cartoon.

I WISH I COULD WRITE LIKE Roger Lowenstein:

Time was, Americans would do anything to pay their mortgage - forgo a new car or a vacation, even put a younger family member to work. But the housing collapse left 10.7 million families owing more than their homes are worth. So some of them are making a calculated decision to hang onto their money and let their homes go. Is this irresponsible?

Businesses - in particular Wall Street banks - make such calculations routinely. Morgan Stanley recently decided to stop making payments on five San Francisco office buildings. A Morgan Stanley fund purchased the buildings at the height of the boom, and their value has plunged. Nobody has said Morgan Stanley is immoral - perhaps because no one assumed it was moral to begin with.