Who mourns for Detroit? The lessons of ancient city-states

Thousands of years ago, as early as the 8th century BCE, there was a very prosperous city on the coast of southern Atlantic coast of the Iberian peninsula known as Tartessos. Located near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River, the city (really, it was a small civilization) became quite wealthy via trade. Metals mined in the north and locally from the river and surrounding marshes formed the basis of this trade, as sea-faring cultures of the period like the Phoenicians visited Tartessos frequently. In fact, the Spainsh city of Cadiz, located someways to the South of Tartessos, was founded by the Phoenicians specifically for the purpose of trading with Tartessos (Cadiz was known then to the Greeks as "Gadir"). The growth of coinage in the following centuries only increased such activity and Tartessian wealth. Initially, at least.

At some point after the classical period of the Greeks (5th to 4th centuries BCE) Tartessos went from significant city-state to basically nothing. It is unclear what happened in this regard. But by the dawn of the common era, Tartessos was no more, it was but a memory, a name of a city that appeared in the histories of various writers in the classical period and before.

I first became aware of Tartessos when I was in high school and was pouring over the legends of Atlantis. For Tartessos has been offered up by some as a possible real-world source of Plato's Atlantis, mostly because it was one of the few (the only?) advanced civilizations known to the ancients that was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, a critical aspect of the Atlantis story woven by Plato. And because Tartessos seems to have simply disappeared, both historically and archaeologically, it has been theorized that it was more or less swallowed by the sea, which again fits well with Plato's story. This website provides a list of some other ways Tartessos mirrors the legend.

Whether or not Tartessos was the basis of Plato's Atlantis story, it still may very well be the case that Tartessos was ultimately a victim of changing geography. The Guadalquivir Marshes were once less extensive and surrounded a large inland lake (shown in the above map) to the north of Tartessos--known as Lacus Ligustinus--that likely served as fishing grounds and a trade-hub for the hinterlands along the Guadalquivir. As that lake slowly disappeared, so might have Tartessos.

But there is an alternate explanation, or at least a secondary one: perhaps Tartessos collapsed because the basis of its wealth disappeared. As the Greek and Roman civilizations expanded, new sources of metals appeared, as did new trade routes. Tartessos ceased to be a critical hub in this regard. The history of Cadiz--the Phoenician colony--supports this idea, as it went from being an insanely wealthy trading center to basically a naval base by the 2nd century BCE, as it came under Carthaginian then Roman control. Tartessos, minus it's dominance in the metal trade, might very well have been a casualty of war; offering a less-strategic position than Cadiz, conquerors may have found no reason to maintain it.

Has there ever been a GOOD farm bill?

An editorial in the Chicago Tribune is entitled "Senate passes a bad farm bill." And that begs the question: has the Senate--or the House--ever passed a good farm bill? We all know what farm bills are about. Pork (figuratively, but sometimes also literally). That's been the case since 1933, when the first so-called farm bill--the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933--was passed.

The 1933 legislation was passed during the Great Depression, so we might be inclined to cut the federal government a little slack for offering up various subsidies, subsidies that were paid for by a special tax levied on companies that used the agricultural products in question, like cotton, corn, tobacco, and even hogs. But then again, we might not. Especially since the bill was ultimately found to be unconstitutional--only partly because of the above tax--by the Supreme Court in 1936 (United States v. Butler). It's worth quoting from that ruling, I think. These are the specific findings of the Supreme Court, the things held by the Court:

(1) The Act invades the reserved powers of the States. P. 68.

(2) Regulation and control of agricultural production are beyond the powers delegated to the Federal Government. P. 68.

(3) The tax, the appropriation of the funds raised, and the direction for their disbursement, are but parts of the plan -- the means to an unconstitutional end. P. 68.

(4) The power of taxation, which is expressly granted to Congress, may be adopted as a means to carry into operation another power also expressly granted, but not to effectuate an end which is not within the scope of the Constitution. P. 69.

(5) The regulation of the farmer's activities under the statute, though in form subject to his own will, is, in fact, coercion through economic pressure; his right of choice is illusory. P. 70.

(6) Even if the farmer's consent were purely voluntary, the Act would stand no better. At best, it is a scheme for purchasing with federal funds submission to federal regulation of a subject reserved to the States. P. 72.

(7) The right to appropriate and spend money under contracts or proper governmental purposes cannot justify contracts that are not within federal power. P. 72.

(8) Congress cannot invade state jurisdiction by purchasing the action of individuals any more than by compelling it. P. 73.

(9) There is an obvious difference between a statute stating the conditions upon which moneys shall be expended and one effective only upon the assumption of a contractual obligation to submit to a regulation which otherwise could not be enforced. P. 73.

(10) Owing to the supremacy of the United States, if the contracts with farmers contemplated by the Agricultural Adjustment Act were within the federal power to make, the States could not declare them void or prevent compliance with their terms. P. 74.

(11) Existence of a situation of national concern resulting from similar and widespread local conditions cannot enable Congress [p4] to ignore the constitutional limitations upon its own powers and usurp those reserved to the States. P. 74.

(12) If the novel view of the General Welfare Clause now advanced in support of the tax were accepted, that clause would not only enable Congress to supplant the States in the regulation of agriculture and of all other industries as well, but would furnish the means whereby all of the other provisions of the Constitution, sedulously framed to define and limit the power of the United States and preserve the powers of the States, could be broken down, the independence of the individual States obliterated, and the United States converted into a central government exercising uncontrolled police power throughout the Union superseding all local control over local concerns. P. 75.

(13) Congress, being without power to impose the contested exaction, could not lawfully ratify the acts of an executive officer in assessing it. P. 78.

That's quite the list, isn't it? Look especially at numbers (2), (8), (11), and (12). To call this a smackdown of Federal authority would be something of an understatement. The Court is very clearly admonishing the Federal Government, both for its attempt to exercise powers it does not possess and for its attempt to usurp the authority of State governments, not to mention the unfair taxation of a limited group as a means to benefit another group (a more clear-cut case of wealth transfer by fiat would be hard to find).

Metadata and Constitutional Fornication

The current buzzword on the 'net: metadata.

That's what the NSA--and probably the CIA, the FBI, and other agencies--has been collecting, via phone records, search data, and the like. Defenders of these activities--and make no mistake, there are many on both sides of the aisle--insist such collections are nothing for the typical citizen to worry about, that because it's just "metadata" the government is not learning anything personal or private about individual citizens. As this piece in the New Yorker notes, Dianne Feinstein--for instance--has no problem with the collection of metadata:

Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from liberal Northern California and the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, assured the public earlier today that the government’s secret snooping into the phone records of Americans was perfectly fine, because the information it obtained was only “meta,” meaning it excluded the actual content of the phone conversations, providing merely records, from a Verizon subsidiary, of who called whom when and from where. In addition, she said in a prepared statement, the “names of subscribers” were not included automatically in the metadata (though the numbers, surely, could be used to identify them). “Our courts have consistently recognized that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in this type of metadata information and thus no search warrant is required to obtain it,” she said, adding that “any subsequent effort to obtain the content of an American’s communications would require a specific order from the FISA court.”  

She said she understands privacy—“that’s why this is carefully done”—and noted that eleven special federal judges, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret, had authorized the vast intelligence collection. A White House official made the same points to reporters, saying, “The order reprinted overnight does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls” and was subject to “a robust legal regime.” The gist of the defense was that, in contrast to what took place under the Bush Administration, this form of secret domestic surveillance was legitimate because Congress had authorized it, and the judicial branch had ratified it, and the actual words spoken by one American to another were still private. So how bad could it be?

But such a head-in-the-sand point of view ignores the reality of metadata, that through it very specific things can be known via simple extrapolation. Kurt Opsahl at EFF provides some examples in this regard:

What they are trying to say is that disclosure of metadata—the details about phone calls, without the actual voice—isn't a big deal, not something for Americans to get upset about if the government knows. Let's take a closer look at what they are saying: 

• They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don't know what you talked about. 

• They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret. 

• They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don't know what was discussed. 

• They know you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. But the content of those calls remains safe from government intrusion. 

• They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local Planned Parenthood's number later that day. But nobody knows what you spoke about. 

Sorry, your phone records—oops, "so-called metadata"—can reveal a lot more about the content of your calls than the government is implying. Metadata provides enough context to know some of the most intimate details of your lives.

Now, let's be clear on terminology here. "Metadata" is properly defined as data about data. It's data collected about specific groups of data. Thus for something like phone calls, the data would be all of the individual phone calls en toto, who made them, who was called, what was said, etc. But if we were to then look at this set of data from above (in a manner of speaking), we could collect a whole new set of data--times calls were made, locations made from, durations of calls, etc.--and compile that data with reference to those criteria alone. The internals of the calls wouldn't matter. That's metadata. And really, given a large enough number of collections in this regard, we could also have another new set of data with reference to the metadata; this would be meta-metadata. Sound complicated and somewhat esoteric? It is.

Closets are for hangers, winners use the door

We live in interesting times. Perhaps not as interesting as many moments in the past, but interesting nonetheless. Incidentally, the expression "may you live in interesting times" is often characterized as a Chinese curse, not unlike "may you always get what you want." There's no evidence that either expression is specifically of Chinese origin, but that doesn't lessen their meanings in the least.

Both expressions appear to be blessings, not curses, at first blush. Who wouldn't want to live in interesting times? Who wouldn't want to see their every desire fulfilled. But curses they most certainly are.

"Interesting" means not boring, therefore exciting and--reality being reality--dangerous, scary, or both. The 1930's and 40's were--without a doubt--interesting times for much of the world in this sense. So were the years of the Russian Revolution if one happened to be in Russia, and those of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) for most all of continental Europe. Telling someone they should have to live through such a period is most assuredly a curse.

As bad as that now sounds, telling someone that you hope they always get what they want is even worse. For such a state of existence means taking all of the mystery out of life, all of the hope. It's condemnation to a life without surprises, wherein effort is pointless and accomplishments simply have no meaning. Worse still, it also carries another implication: the idea that we idealize objects of desire, to the extent that getting them--especially with little or no effort--is never fulfilling; oftentimes, there are unexpected consequences that go along with such "getting" as well.

History is a funny thing. As we live the here and now, we form opinions on what is transpiring, of course, And we expect those opinions to be reflective of how future generations will view the same moments, the same events, the same history. The presidencies of Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy provide the perfect examples. In the moment, both Presidents were lightning rods. Their immense popularity was always countered by a deep-seated hostility--if not outright hatred--towards each from a smaller portion of the population. And for what? Not for their accomplishments, not for their policies per se, but for their supposed ideology and their evinced identities as human beings. Of course, the popularity both enjoyed was not all about policy, either. Far from it. Much of it was more about how both looked, spoke, and acted. Kennedy especially benefited from the cult of personality that surrounded his political career from start to finish.

Make no mistake about it, President Obama is getting the same sort of treatment, by and large. There are people--lapdogs is a better characterization--who cannot and will not accept any criticism of the the President's actions or those of his administration. Similarly, there are also those who will not give the President or his administration any credit whatsoever. And yeah, the card-carrying racists are there. They always have been. They were around for JFK too, because he was a Catholic (something many people seem to have forgotten). But their numbers are just not that significant, in my opinion. Most of those who object to Obama as a matter of course are not racists, they're ideologues, just as was the case for Reagan, JFK, and to some extent every President, even (especially?) George W. Bush.

But it's the "interesting times" that occupy historians and its the "interesting times" wherein such ideologues rise to the forefront, again as was the case in the Kennedy and Reagan eras.
Historical analysis of such past times often involves judging such ideologues and their evinced criticisms, because they are not always wrong. The standard history--the analysis of the times generally accepted as correct--of the Great Depression was, for a long time, the story of how the policies of FDR saved the nation from the Depression (along with the idea that WWII was the ultimate economic catalyst). That narrative is no longer taken as a given; many historians who focus on the period now see FDR's policies as far less helpful to the economy than had been assumed.

Such is the nature of historical analysis, of the search for truth.

A shameful last week of school

As I've noted in some previous bits, I have three children. The oldest is fifteen and in high school (9th grade), the middle one is twelve and in middle school (7th grade), and the youngest is in elementary school (Kindergarten). So yeah, I have three schools to deal with, three different starting times, three different ending times, three PTAs, three sets of administrators, and so on. But I'm not really complaining. I'm not super-active in all three schools, though I do help out, go on some field trips, help with some events, et cetera. Mostly, I'm involved with the elementary school. And it's only fair: the older two--when in elementary school--saw me put in a lot of time at their school. The youngest deserves the same, I think.

Despite me not being all that active at the middle and high schools, however, I do know what's going on. I track my kids' grades online, I read the e-mails and hand-outs I receive from the schools, and frankly both older kids tell me what they are doing (usually over dinner). Therefore, I know what they've been up to during the last week and what they will be doing this week, the last week of school for all three of them: nothing. Absolutely, positively nothing. They're even being told not to bring book-bags--let alone book and notebooks--these last few days.

The youngest--the one in Kindergarten--had a field trip to a bowling alley today for the end-of year-class party, has "board game day" tomorrow, "pajama day" on Wednesday, then graduation ceremonies on Thursday. The classroom is--for all intents and purposes--no longer functional. Everything is packed up. But it is Kindergarten. A few fun days to end the year isn't really all that bad. And the teacher--to her credit--is still having the kids do some writing and math handouts each day. But I fear this is not common, that its the exception rather than the rule. Homework has come to a full stop, and homework is distributed by the Kindergarten teachers as a group.

The other two, as I noted above, are being told not to bring anything school-related to school, apart from their lunches. Exams are over, the schools are in full shut down and clean up mode. And in that regard, there is no learning taking place. Zero. Nada. Zilch. So the question must be asked: why are they still in school? Attendance policies are far from lax at public schools in Miami-Dade County. In fact, my daughter cannot miss another day this quarter without triggering an automatic SARB event (school attendance review board). She's a straight A student in AP courses in an IB program. So despite some health problems earlier in the year--which had no impact on her grades--she's on the edge, attendance-wise.

Where is the sense in any of this? There are--again--no learning-type activities taking place, no more tests, no more quizzes, no more anything. Who cares if the students even bother to show up this last week or so of school? Well, the schools care, because funding is tied to attendance numbers, so they can't have a massive drop off in the latter or else they risk the same for the former. Silliness.

Erick Erickson's fantasy world-building

The writers' website I frequent--AbsoluteWrite (AW)--has a huge variety of forums for pretty much every genre of writing under the sun. For instance, there is a forum specifically for writers of erotica, as well as one for people doing historical writing--fiction and non-fiction, and many, many others. Included, of course, is a forum for sci-fi/fantasy writers. It's one of the more heavily utilized genre-specific areas of AW; many would-be writers hope to be the next George R. R. Martin or the next J. K. Rowling.

One of the most import issues for such writers is that of world-building, of creating a fantasy or futuristic world/universe in which a story--or series of stories--is to take place. And the meticulous world-builder needs to be concerned not only with geography, flora, and fauna, but also with political  and economic systems along with social customs and institutions. More often than not, worlds populated with humans mirror our own realities to some extent, in the present day or in the past. The worlds of high fantasy writers, filled with mythical creatures like dragons and unicorns, tend to be ones with feudal societies, by and large, peopled by knights, nobility, and fair maidens, along with common folk of all sorts.

Such worlds hearken back to the real feudal periods of our world. Weapons and armor--from siege equipment to swords to crossbows to platemail--are based on what really existed in the past, though specific items might come from different periods or cultures. Clothes, building styles, and basic economies usually follow suit, being drawn from predominantly pre-industrial societies. Political systems for the most part tend to follow fuedal patterns, or at least commonly understood/supposed feudal patterns.

As such, these swords and sorcery fantasy realms are ones with usually very distinct gender roles. George R. R. Martin's Seven Kingdoms is--from this perspective--not so very different from Tolkien's Middle Earth or Robert E. Howard's Hyboria. Writing styles and specific plot lines aside, all three--and many, many other "epic" works of fantasy--are worlds wherein men dominate, insofar as they are the warriors, the political leaders, and the religious leaders. To be sure, this is no hard and fast rule: powerful women exist in many of these worlds as well, but they are exceptional women. as written, not the norm for their societies.

There are, of course, occasional societies of "Amazons" in such worlds, wherein common gender roles are specifically reversed. But for the careful writer, such societies pose a problem: there is nothing--historically speaking--on which to base them. For in the history of mankind, the vast majority of political systems were and are patriarchal to some extent. The earliest societies--prior to the rise of agricultural communities--may have been more or less egalitarian (there is still much debate about this), but since then history of mankind involves patriarchal societies.

There have been theories of ancient matriarchies offered up by people from time to time, but no serious anthropologist accepts such things. For no actual, documented case of a matriarchy exists in human hisory; there are but a handful of societies--since the rise of agriculture--that even approach being non-patriarchal (thus possibly matriarchal, or at least egalitarian), though there are certainly examples of matrilineal and matrifocal societies.

But what we are talking about is big picture stuff here, when it comes to the history of mankind. True enough, warfare has been--and largely remains--the province of males, partly because of biological reasons. And that one reality, in and of itself, led to a male dominance of political power, both for reasons of opportunity and security. Such political dominance could have--and often did have--repercussions for the social and economic spheres of interaction. Thus, patriarchy trickled down, in sense (in a very general sense, to be sure).

The persistence of such structures needed justification. And--as is often the case for social, economic, and political institutions of all sorts--religion was sometimes used to provide that justification. So was simple power, as well.

But even then, even with the apparent dominance of patriarchal structures, it would be a major error to argue that such structures were the natural way of things, for at the lowest level--the household level--things have never as consistent in this respect as many would like to believe.

Fast forward from the past to the present day. Ours remains a patriarchal society, for the most part, with regard to overall structures (at a macro level, one might say). But not wholly. At the household level--or micro level--again things are not so consistent. It is argued by some that the institution of marriage was and is an aspect of a patriarchal society, insofar as it exists to control women. But the fact of the matter is that marriage as an institution is a primary means of maintaining equality between the sexes, especially with regard to property rights (which--like it or not--remains the cornerstone of liberty).

Nobody rides for free: Michael Grunwald, NPOs, and broken clocks

Michael Grunwald is a skilled writer and investigative reporter. Let's stipulate both of these things from the beginning. But neither one means Grunwald's own opinions on politics or anything else are  necessarily well-informed, much less automatically correct. I've taken Grunwald to task here twice before: once for his economic ignorance and once for his rather pathetic and ill-informed defense of the Solyndra loan. With regard to the first--the "economic ignorance"--Grunwald had written a book (The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era) that was basically an attempt to justify the Obama Administration's Stimulus Bill. Fellow journalists on the left were quick to praise Grunwald's analysis because--like Grunwald--they really don't understand economics, or at least those aspects of economic theory that come into play when discussing the Stimulus Bill.

Today, Grunwald has a new piece out at Time's Swampland wherein he argues for getting rid of tax-exampt statuses for charities across the board, as well as tax deductions for charitable contributions. But before I get in to congratulating him for being 100% right in this regard, I first need to point out his inconsistency on the matter. For when Grunwald jumps to the defense of the Stimulus Bill--either in a book or in an article--he is quick to point out how a good portion of the bill was devoted to...tax deductions and tax breaks:

Most of the Recovery Act consisted of straightforward aid to states and to the vulnerable, infrastructure spending, and tax cuts.

And as Grunwald makes very clear, the Stimulus Bill--in his mind--was undoubtedly a Good Thing. True, he wanted it to be bigger, like the other neo-Keynesians out there, but he takes it as a given that the bill did stimulate the economy, did jumpstart a recovery, and did prevent a depression. Quote obviously, all of those tax breaks in the bill played a huge role in this regard (if one accepts his kind of thinking, which of course I don't).

So one can't help but wonder where the logical consistency is in Grunwald's mind with his new call to get rid of all kinds of tax breaks. Note how he characterizes charitable deductions:

But as long as I’m using my chain saw, the charitable deduction, which costs the Treasury nearly $50 billion a year, is another perk for folks who want hospital wings in their name. You can’t take advantage unless you’re rich enough to itemize. The higher your tax bracket, the more you benefit from the deduction.

See that? According to Grunwald, such deductions cost the government money, meaning the money belongs to them first, the individual second. And if such deductions did not exist, introducing them would necessarily result in economic stimulus, by his way of thinking. The lack of intellectual rigor is staggering.

I could go on and on, but as I noted above part of the raison d'être for this bit is to congratulate Grunwald for getting something right. And what does he have right? It's the central premise of his piece: we need to get rid of tax exempt statuses across the board. Charitable deductions on income tax returns can go, too.

But these things don't need to go because they cost the Treasury--and therefore the Federal Government--money. Because they don't. Such claims are based on a static view of reality, on the idea that if there were no tax exempt orgs, the current ones would have the same structures, assets, and potentially taxable events. No, the reason why these things need to go is because they are wrong, end of story. It doesn't matter if the government ends up with less revenue or more from such changes, wrong is still wrong.

Grunwald specifies some tax-exempt orgs in his piece (my boldface):

In 2012, the U.S. had 1,616,053 tax-exempt organizations, 10 times the number of fast-food restaurants. Harvard University is tax exempt even though it has a $31 billion endowment; it’s basically a huge hedge fund with a lucrative merchandising operation attached to a school. The NFL is also tax exempt, to help its owners keep more of their profits away from Uncle Sam. The Prostate Cancer Fondation doesn’t pay taxes either, although it did pay its CEO $1.2 million. You may or may not like the Heritage Foundation or Planned Parenthood, the Chamber of Commerce or the AFL-CIO, the Boy Scouts or the NCAA. But the tax dollars you send to Washington help ensure that none of those groups has to send any tax dollars to Washington.

The last line is undoubtedly true. Look at the orgs he mentions. They are big money businesses. And like any other business, corporation, or citizen they utilize public resources and infrastructure. They should be on the hook for taxes--to fund resources and infrastructure--just like the rest of the country. Churches and other religious orgs are in the same boat. Proponents of tax exempt statuses argue that forcing theses orgs to pay taxes will limit what they can do or even cause them to go under.

So what?

Why should my tax dollars subsidize resources used by, say, the NFL? Or the American Cancer Society? Or the Catholic Church? And if taking away the tax deductions for charitable contributions causes me to lower my contributions, what does that really say about me as a person?

This kind of nonsense--the creation of special tax loopholes, exemptions, and deductions--is part of why we have a skyrocketing debt, true. Getting rid of all the nonsense might possibly increase revenues (though it might not), true. But the fact of the matter is that taxes are not supposed to be monies paid in tribute to the government, but rather monies paid for services--or potential services--rendered. As I explained in the piece linked to above:

Taxation has a simple goal: to fund the government. And it is based--in nations founded on a social compact theory--on a simple standard: pay for service rendered. Taxation is not tribute. Taxation is not punishment. Citizens pay taxes because the government serves their interests, provides security, and manages the laws and rules of society. That's all there is, there isn't anymore.

This is the foundation of the social contract theory of government; government must be funded to work and everyone who is a part of the society being governed is obligated to pay their fair share. No one--no group, no org, no company--is special; none should be above the law or this simple requirement. Nobody rides for free. So yeah, Grunwald is right, even if for the wrong reason.

Cheers, all.

Rosen-gate: know the playas, hate the playas

This is the story that started the most recent train wreck involving Attorney General Eric Holder. It was written by FoxNews reporter James Rosen in June of 2009 and it eventually led to an investigation of James Rosen and his unnamed source, who was revealed to be former State Department employee--and current Senior Analyst at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory--Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. Kim was charged with leaking classified material under the Espionage Act in August of 2010. Politico detailed the specifics back in 2011, including his relationship with James Rosen and the questionable actions of the FBI in that regard:

Kim's lawyers also claim that the FBI set a "perjury trap" by asking Kim about meetings with a journalist, apparently Rosen, when the FBI already knew about the meetings. Justice Department guidelines suggest that perjury or false statement charges should not be brought when the only false statement a suspect made amounts to a denial of another crime. In other words, prosecutors shouldn't gin up an extra charge against an alleged drug dealer simply by asking him if he's a drug dealer and getting him to deny it.

What was less than clear then--and now is quite clear--is how the FBI came to know so much about the specifics of these meetings. The FBI was culling the e-mail account of James Rosen, thanks to a search warrant approved by Federal Judges in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (the DDC). That warrant was applied for by Ronald Machen, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia--appointed by Obama in December of 2009 (confirmed by the Senate in February of 2011)--in May of 2010.

The warrant was initially approved by Magistrate Judge Alan Kay, but with the proviso that the subject of the e-mail search--James Rosen--would be informed once the records were unsealed (Judge Kay agreed to keep the records sealed for a a time). Machen objected to this conclusion: he did not want to be forced to reveal to Rosen that the latter was being targetted, so Machen took the ruling to another Judge in hopes of getting that element changed.

This second Judge in the chain was Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola. Unfortunately for Machen, Judge Facciola concurred fully with Kay, writing:

Such notice may be delayed, as Magistrate Judge Kay has provided, according to 18 U.S.C. § 3103a(b) and that period of delay may be extended upon motion to the Court for such extension. Nevertheless, eventually, the subscriber of the e-mail account to be searched shall receive a copy of the warrant as notice pursuant to rule 41(f)(1)(c).

For purposes of understanding the above, here is the relevant statute from the U.S. criminal code:

(b) Delay.— With respect to the issuance of any warrant or court order under this section, or any other rule of law, to search for and seize any property or material that constitutes evidence of a criminal offense in violation of the laws of the United States, any notice required, or that may be required, to be given may be delayed if— 

(1) the court finds reasonable cause to believe that providing immediate notification of the execution of the warrant may have an adverse result (as defined in section 2705, except if the adverse results consist only of unduly delaying a trial) 

(2) the warrant prohibits the seizure of any tangible property, any wire or electronic communication (as defined in section 2510), or, except as expressly provided in chapter 121, any stored wire or electronic information, except where the court finds reasonable necessity for the seizure; and  

(3) the warrant provides for the giving of such notice within a reasonable period not to exceed 30 days after the date of its execution, or on a later date certain if the facts of the case justify a longer period of delay.

Section 2705 spells out the valid reasons for requesting a delay in notification, but generally limits such delays to ninety days, at which point another application is required--showing cause--to continue the delay.

Machen, still not satisfied (because he simply did not want Rosen to know about the search), appealed the decision again, this time coming before Judge Royce C. Lamberth, Chief Judge of the
DDC. And from Judge Lamberth, Machen got exactly what he wanted: the ability to indefinitely postpone notifying Rosen of the search.

A dying hound with a streak of Rin Tin Tin

There's still a pile of scandals on the front steps of the White House. From Benghazi, to the IRS, to the First Amendment, none of them have been resolved, at least not to the satisfaction of President Obama's political foes and critics (and people engaged in rational thought). To his supporters and panegyrists in the media? For most of them--though not all--there never were any scandals to speak of. Benghazi for instance is much ado about nothing, an unfortunate situation that was ultimately unavoidable. All the Administration and the nation can do--in the agile minds of such people--is pick up the pieces and move on. The IRS targeting stuff? Even for those on the left that see problems with what went down, those problems begin and end with a handful of people at the IRS, proper. There's nothing--again, in their minds--to indicate the Administration had any role, direct or indirect, with the targeting and nothing to indicate it knew about what happening earlier than the general population. Ditto for the assault on the First Amendment, via subpoenas for phone records and the like from FoxNews and the AP. Holder--the head of Justice--was blissfully unaware of what was going on in his own agency (kinda like with Fast and Furious) so the Administration can hardly be expected to have known, either.

Thus, the essential response to all of these scandals from the President and his people is encapsulated in one word: ignorance.

The Administration was ignorant of the changing dynamics and growing dangers in Libya prior to September 11th, 2012 (despite the reports of Chris Stevens detailing such changes). It was ignorant of goings on at the IRS and at the Justice Department, despite the fact that both agencies answer directly to the executive branch, despite the fact that Holder is an Obama appointee who has been under heavy scrutiny for years and that the former head of the IRS--Doug Shulman--made more trips to the Obama White House (over one hundred) than any other IRS chief in recent history.

By the way, as a side note take care not to buy into the spin out there on Shulman. It is true he was appointed by George W. Bush in 2008, but his name was put forward by Democrat Max Baucus, who basically left Bush with a choice: Shulman or no one (Baucus has been chair of the Sentate Finance Committee since 2007).

But back to the ignorance of the current Administration.

Here's the thing about ignorance as a defense: there's no counter, other than noting it. If someone admits to ignorance, what can be done in reply, absent some sort of "smoking gun"? Such arguments play themselves out on messageboards and the like on a near-constant basis, both with regard to those who defend the ignorant and those who use their own ignorance as a defense (and occasionally both at the same time).

Ambassador Stevens is still dead

I don't enjoy being so brutally blunt, but the point needs to be made, again and again and again. The sitting U.S. Ambassador to Libya--Chris Stevens was assassinated (not just killed) in Benghazi, Libya on September 11th, 2012 by Islamic terrorists linked to al Qaeda in a pre-planned attack on the U.S. mission in that city. And after months of obfuscation, misrepresentation, and stonewalling by the State Department and the Obama Administration, investigations into the whys and hows of all this have failed to produce much of anything.

This is unacceptable, in my humble opinion.

Yes, there is a big story--and a clearly deep-seated problem--at the IRS. There's also a similar one at the EPA, though it's getting limited attention. Then there's the apparent contempt of the current administration--perhaps shared by previous ones, to be fair--for the First Amendment and investigative reporting. All of these things are important, they deserve the attention of the citizenry and by extension the media, because they all represent unacceptable incursions on liberty by the Federal Government in general and the executive branch in particular.

But none of them--none of them--involve the assassination of a top government official and the attempt to cover up the incompetence that led to that assassination.

Luckily, there are some people in elected office still aware of this distinction, still continuing to focus and press on the Benghazi situation. And I'm going to name them: Senator John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Senator Kelly Ayotte.

As frequent readers of this blog might know, I'm no fan of Senator McCain in general. But I have never and would never question his patriotism and commitment to keeping America safe. Whatever  faults he has, he is consistently on the right side of things when it comes to national security. Graham I respect a great deal. Ditto for Ayotte who has quickly proven to be one of the most serious-minded elected officials in all of DC. As a group, these three have been all over the Benghazi situation from the beginning, so when they speak on the issue, people--all people--would do well to pay attention. Yesterday, the three issued a joint press release that details what we know and what we don't know about Benghazi. The things we still don't know:

We do not know whether the President was made aware of the classified cable that, according to published media reports, Ambassador Chris Stevens sent in August 2012, stating that the U.S. Mission in Benghazi could not survive a sustained assault from one or more of the threatening militia groups that were operating in eastern Libya.

We do not know whether the President’s national security staff made him aware of the attacks on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi that occurred in April and June of last year and the assassination attempt on the British Ambassador in Benghazi around the same time.

If the President was informed, we do not know what actions, if any, he ordered.

We do not know who within U.S. Special Operations Command, Africa ordered a U.S. special forces detachment in Tripoli not to go to Benghazi to assist the Americans under attack, and why that “stand down” order was given, as the former Deputy Chief of Mission in Tripoli, Gregory Hicks, testified to Congress.

We do not know why, on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history, after multiple attacks last year on U.S. and Western interests in Libya, and with rising insecurity in countries across the Middle East, U.S. military units and assets in the region were not ready, alert, and positioned to respond in a timely fashion to what should have been a foreseeable emergency – despite the fact that there is a U.S. military base in Souda Bay, Crete, which is a short flight to Benghazi.

We do not know what the President did or who he was in contact with during the seven hours of the attack, and we do not know why the President did not reach out to Libyan President Magariaf during that period of time.

We still do not know the names of the survivors of the Benghazi attack, and they have not been interviewed by the Congress.

We do not know why the testimonies of the U.S. personnel who were evacuated from Benghazi on September 12, 2012 – eyewitnesses who knew there never was a demonstration outside the U.S. Mission – were not shared in a timely way with, and immediately factored in to the judgments of, our intelligence community.

We do not know whether this failure reflects obstacles that still exist to the free sharing of information across executive branch agencies, which was a key concern of the 9/11 Commission.

We do not know why the Administration did not do more to support and assist the new Libyan government that took power after the fall of Qaddafi, including in the establishment of civilian-led national security forces that operate under central government control, a counterterrorism force that is trained and equipped to combat Al Qaeda and its affiliates, national justice and prison systems, and effective control over the immense stockpiles of weapons and dangerous materials that exist across Libya. The result of this ‘light footprint’ approach was that Al-Qaeda, its affiliated groups, and local militias were able to establish sanctuaries almost uncontested in the ungoverned spaces of eastern Libya. Some of these individuals were involved in the attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi.”