It’s no secret that many think the fierce mood of partisanship is routinely crippling Washington. While most of the fur flies between the major parties in Congress — with the president weighing in occasionally to keep his party leaders on message — this week has seen an outbreak of hostilities in a less traditional venue: between the Supreme Court and the president.
In a controversy stretching back to January’s State of the Union Address, Chief Justice John Roberts told a group of law students at the University of Alabama that President Obama’s very public dissent from the Court’s Citizens United ruling, which effectively rolled back most existing restraints on corporate funding of political campaigns, was a provocation to the court’s cherished independence.
“On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances, and the decorum,” said Roberts. “The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”
It’s true that Obama pulled few punches in characterizing the Citizens United ruling, which had been handed down just prior to the State of the Union speech.
“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.”
Some of the lawmakers on hand interrupted Obama’s remarks with cheers of support. But television cameras panned the Court members in attendance and caught Justice Samuel Alito mouthing the words “not true.”
In Washington and in public debate, response to the dust-up split down partisan lines. Conservatives took issue with Obama’s criticism of the court, and liberals decried Alito’s breach of protocol. Outside of Washington, though, recent polling has shown that the decision is widely unpopular with Americans across the ideological spectrum.
Of course, Roberts wasn’t always so hands-off with the Supreme Court. When he worked for the Reagan administration, he was an aggressive public advocate pressuring the Court and was privately highly critical of how it organized its own business.
And for all the hubbub, it’s worth recalling that smack-downs between the two branches of government, while rare, are not unheard of. In his memoir, President Clinton was critical of the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision that ended that year’s election; Nixon fumed about the Burger Court’s ruling that he couldn’t protect himself during Watergate with “executive privilege;” and way back in 1936, Franklin Roosevelt proposed an additional three justices to the Court so that he could appoint them himself and skew the Court’s decisions in favor of his New Deal proposals.
But it is somewhat rare that these battles are as public or intense as this one appears to be getting. That may be because the Court’s decision was an historic one justifying intense debate, or it may be because politics are getting more conflict-driven across the board.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Dinosaurs were wiped out by a huge asteroid that smashed into Earth 65 million years ago with the force of a billion atomic bombs, scientists said, hoping to lay an age-old debate to rest once and for all.
Artist’s rendition released by NASA shows an asteroid belt in orbit around a star. A huge asteroid that smashed into Earth with the force of a billion atomic bombs wiped out the dinosaur, scientists said, hoping to lay to rest a long-running debate over a mass extinction 65 million years ago. (AFP/NASA/File)
The definitive verdict came from an international panel of experts who reviewed 20 years’ worth of evidence about what caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction that wiped out more than half the species on the planet.
They determined it was a massive asteroid, measuring around 15 kilometers (nine miles) wide, which smashed into what is today Chicxulub in Mexico.
The event marked a pivotal point in history because it cleared the way for mammals to become the dominant species on Earth.
“The asteroid is believed to have hit Earth with a force one billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima,” the researchers said in a report published in the journal Science.
“It would have blasted material at high velocity into the atmosphere, triggering a chain of events that caused a global winter, wiping out much of life on Earth in a matter of days.”
The panel of 41 scientists hope their findings will lay to rest once and for all the debate about what caused the KT extinction.
Some scientists have argued that dinosaurs and species including bird-like pterosaurs and large sea reptiles were wiped out by a series of volcanic eruptions in what is now India that lasted some 1.5 million years.
The eruptions spewed enough basalt lava across the Deccan Traps in west-central India to fill the Black Sea twice and were thought to have caused a cooling of the atmosphere and acid rain on a global scale.
But the evidence gathered for the study published in Science showed that marine and land ecosystems were destroyed rapidly in the KT extinction, leading the scientists to rule out volcanic activity as the culprit, because its effects would have whittled away at dinosaurs and other species over time.
Dinosaurs were wiped out by a huge asteroid that smashed into Earth 65 million years ago with the force of a billion atomic bombs, scientists said Thursday, hoping to lay an age-old debate to rest once and for all. (AFP/Graphic)�
“Despite evidence for relatively active volcanism in the Deccan Traps at the time, marine and land ecosystems showed only minor changes within the 500,000 years before the time of the KT extinction,” the scientists said.
“Computer models and observational data suggest that the release of gases such as sulphur into the atmosphere after each volcanic eruption… would have had a short-lived effect on the planet and would not cause enough damage to create a rapid mass extinction of land and marine species.”
The Chicxulub asteroid, on the other hand, could very well have made short shrift of dinosaurs, pterosaurs and other species, the scientists said.
The impact of the large asteroid would have “triggered large-scale fires, earthquakes measuring more than 10 on the Richter scale, and continental landslides which created tsunamis,” said Joanna Morgan, a lecturer in geophysics at Imperial College, London and co-author of the study.
The asteroid hit Earth 20 times faster than a speeding bullet and exploded into a deadly mix of hot rock and gas which would have “grilled any living creature in the immediate vicinity that couldn’t find shelter,” said Gareth Collins, a research fellow at Imperial College.
“The final nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs happened when blasted material was ejected at high velocity into the atmosphere,” shrouding the planet in darkness and causing a global winter that killed off species that “couldn’t adapt to this hellish environment,” added Morgan.
Another clue that the KT extinction was caused by a huge asteroid and not volcanic activity was evidence in geological records of “shocked” quartz in rock layers at KT boundary levels around the world.
Quartz is “shocked” when it is hit very quickly by a massive force — such as a 15-kilometer-wide asteroid traveling 20 times faster than a bullet.
The KT extinction marked the end of the 160-million-year reign of the dinosaurs and allowed mammals, and eventually humans, to become the dominant species on earth.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care — admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada’s single-payer system.
“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,” Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. “And I think now, isn’t that ironic?”
The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada’s health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and ‘death-panel’-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.
KARACHI, Pakistan – The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday as video emerged of him urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.
This image from video released by IntelCenter Sunday, March 7, 2010, shows Adam Gadahn, featured in a video posted Sunday, coincidentally the day that his arrest by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi was announced. In the video the 31-year-old American al-Qaida spokesman called for Muslim violence, praising the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, as a role model for other Muslims. (AP Photo/IntelCenter
The arrest of Adam Gadahn represents a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement’s No. 2 commander.
U.S. officials did not immediately confirm Gadahn’s capture.
Gadahn has appeared in more than half a dozen al-Qaida videos, taunting and threatening the West and calling for its destruction. A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years.
He was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis of Karachi in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest, but said it happened Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be resolved.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The intelligence officials said Gadahn was being interrogated by Pakistani officials. Pakistani agents and those from the CIA work closely on some operations in Pakistan, but it was not clear if any Americans were involved in the operation or questioning.
In the past, Pakistan has handed over some al-Qaida suspects arrested on its soil to the United States.
Gadahn grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County.
Adam Gadahn, seen in these undated file photos released by the FBI. The American-born Al-Qaida spokesman called on Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces to emulate the Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood in a video posted on a radical Islamic web site on Sunday March 7, 2010. Gadahn, who was raised in California, describes Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should serve as a role model for other Muslims. (AP Photo/photos released by the FBI, File)
He moved to Pakistan in 1998, according to the FBI, and is said to have attended an al-Qaida training camp six years later, serving as a translator and consultant. He has been wanted by the FBI since 2004, and there is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
The treason charge carries the death penalty if he is convicted. He was also charged with two counts of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
The 31-year-old is known by various aliases including Yahya Majadin Adams and Azzam al-Amriki.
His most recent video was posted Sunday, praising the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, as a role model for other Muslims. The video released Sunday appeared to have been made after the end of the year, but it was unclear exactly when.
“You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage,” Gadahn said, an assault rifle leaning up against a wall next to him.
Pakistan joined the U.S. fight against Islamist extremists following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and several high-ranking al-Qaida and Taliban have been arrested. But critics have accused the country of not fully cracking down on militants, especially those who do not stage attacks in Pakistan, all the time while receiving billions of dollars in U.S. aid.
Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere in the country, most likely close to the Afghan border.
Al-Qaida has used Gadahn as its chief English-speaking spokesman. In one video, he ceremoniously tore up his American passport. In another, he admitted his grandfather was Jewish, ridiculing him for his beliefs and calling for Palestinians to continue fighting Israel.
Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Southfield, Mich., condemned Gadahn’s call for violence, calling it a “desperate” attempt by Al-Qaida’s spokesman to provoke bloodshed within the U.S.
Walid, a Navy veteran, said Muslims have honorably served in the American military and will be unimpressed by al-Qaida’s message aimed at their ranks.
“We thoroughly repudiate and condemn his statement and what we believe are his failed attempts to incite loyal American Muslims in the military,” he said.
Imad Hamad, the senior national adviser for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, based in Dearborn, Mich., condemned al-Qaida’s message and said it would have no impact on American Muslims.
“This a worthless rhetoric that is not going to have any effect on people’s and minds and hearts,” he said.
The last person in the U.S. convicted of treason was Tomoya Kawakita, a Japanese-American sentenced to death in 1952 for tormenting American prisoners of war during World War II. President Eisenhower later commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.
Gadahn was last known to be in Southern California in 1997 or 1998. His mother last spoke to him by phone in March 2001. At the time he was in Pakistan, working at a newspaper, and his wife was expecting a child.
Appearing in 2006, in a 48-minute video along with al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, Gadahn called on his countrymen to convert to Islam and for U.S. soldiers to switch sides in the Iraq and Afghan wars.
KARACHI, Pakistan – The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday as video emerged of him urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.