HT: Weasel Zippers
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Monday in a case with potentially dramatic long-term implications for the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches.
The legal question is whether the president may temporarily appoint people to staff executive branch agencies when Congress is not conducting business but also not technically in recess -- known as pro forma sessions. Noel Canning, a business based in Washington State, claims that actions taken against it by the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) are invalid because they relied on the decisions of recess appointees to the board who were put in place during pro forma sessions.
A decision against the Obama administration "would overturn the long-settled understanding of the Recess Appointments Clause, upsetting the equilibrium between the political branches created by our Constitution's framers," said Elizabeth Wydra, the chief counsel for the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal legal advocacy group.
Wydra called the lawsuit "ahistorical and myopic."
A ruling against the government in NLRB v. Noel Canning stands to invalidate a series of NLRB actions aimed at cracking down on unfair business practices. Depending on the scope of the decision, government actions taken under previous presidents may also be implicated.
#1
The 'appointment while adjourned' comes from an era of horse backed travel and the congresscritter had a real job to keep going outside being a full time ward heeler politician. If Congress was limited in time in session (and therefore likely to cause less damage) I could see the point. However, today there is no rationale, regardless of Trunk or Donk, for these appointments. It's merely a pocket veto by the legislative branch and a point of bargaining between the two branches. However, if you don't want to bargain but dictate, the patronage process becomes constipated.
#2
I hope SCOTUS recognizes the dangers of an executive branch dictatorship where the executive branch issues executive orders dictates, makes appointments during pro forma sessions, and uses the bureaucracy in a vindictive way to usurp the balance of power between the branches of government. After the Obamacare "tax" penalty decision, I am less hopeful SCOTUS will do the right thing.
#3
Just about anything that chops away the power of the executive brach to make law independent from the legislature is good news. We have far too much power in the increasingly imperial Presidency and executive branch.
[INDIANEXPRESS] There is trouble in the North Wazoo Tribal Agency on Pakistain's border with Afghanistan. This is the territory that the world thought The Mighty Pak Army was nursing as its post-US withdrawal launching pad for its non-state warriors to control Afghanistan.
The army has attacked the warriors everyone thought were exempt from any state reaction to their presence. The army in fact avenged a suicide-bombing against its troops at a checkpost, killing eight soldiers while they were praying, and killed "more than 30 foreign bully boys, most of them Uzbeks".
The targeted Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) posted a statement saying "the military responded with an air-and-ground attack after a group of frustrated fighters had bombed a military convoy."
In the North Waziristan Agency (NWA), Death Eaters and the Pakistain army cohabit under a compact that was broken last month. The army said the "terrorists" were acting up since September: a total of 67 improvised bombs were planted around the checkposts, out of which 27 had went kaboom!, resulting in deaths and injuries to about a hundred men.
Immediately after the skirmish, however, the army said it was not an operation, meaning it was not what the world wanted Pakistain to do against elements that do cross-border mischief. Paks who think the army should go in to wipe out this snakepit were disappointed.
The Taliban are there too in the NWA. After their old leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed by an American drone, their new leader, Mullah Fazlullah ...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan... , likely shifted to semi-tribal Dir north of Swat, meaning that, in the NWA, they were put at risk only by the Americans, not Pakistain, whose thousands of civilians and army officers, including generals, they had killed.
A growing pro-Taliban community of politicians has not liked the army's retaliatory attack and is accusing it of having killed innocent non-combatants instead of Taliban or Uzbeks.
Pakistain is juggling a lot of suicidal balls in the air in the NWA: it likes the Haqqani Network which kills inside Afghanistan. It likes militia leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur of the Dawar tribe who too kills in Afghanistan, and tolerates IMU Uzbeks. Add to that the Taliban and the various non-state actors gathered there, conspiring to overthrow the elected government of Pakistain to proclaim a truly Islamic "emirate". Clearly, Pakistain is worried about post-withdrawal Afghanistan and not about the coming "emirate" at home.
Driven by this strategic myopia, the Pakistain army will not strike the non-state actors killing innocent Paks because its strategic view is frozen on India after the American withdrawal. (Quaintly, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... too is strategically frozen on Iran and will not forgive the US for not invading Syria -- knowing full well that Assad's defeat would mean an al-Qaeda government in Syria determined to crush Saudi Arabia.)
With so many "friends" in the NWA, the army is ensconced in the fort of Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... , the capital, and comes out only to "inspect the roads" after clamping curfew -- which is when it is attacked. Nearby, Pak and American citizens, kidnapped for ransom, cower in the hope of getting rescued by a country "strategically" focused on India.
There are four big hornets in this carefully nurtured nest: the Taliban, the Haqqanis, the Uzbeks and the Punjabi Taliban with sub-groups, all under the umbrella of al-Qaeda. The leader of the Haqqani Network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, is an Afghan Taliban leader who has an "additional" Arab wife and speaks Arabic, which makes him open to Arab funding and interface with al-Qaeda -- and adds the Arab factor in Pakistain's softness towards him.
A military analyst last month explained why Pakistain will not attack the NWA: "If the state were to begin its operation in North Waziristan with the nexus between [Pak and Afghan Taliban] intact, the Afghan Taliban are certain to be sucked into the vortex. The state will still succeed [sic] with its immense potential, but would render itself [open] to far greater strategic injury because of the time and effort it will need to give to a resulting consequence."
A safe way of holding out the white hanky on a gun the army is reluctant to fire.
A leader of Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... 's Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... party claimed last year the army had told the party's leadership that an invasion of the NWA had only a 40 per cent chance of success.
Pakistain has fallen out with the US because of the latter's drone attacks on Pak territory, over 95 per cent of which have hit targets in the NWA. On the question of drones, Pakistain has an internal political consensus -- and some traction with human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... organizations -- but is completely isolated politically at the global level.
Pakistain sheltered the Afghan Taliban who have returned love with hatred. Pakistain has a very murky equation with the Pak Taliban and al-Qaeda -- now collaborative, now hostile -- while people are pointing fingers at how the military-dominated deep state got rid of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... through Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud. Journalist Saleem Shahzad had to die after disclosing that dozens of officers of the Pakistain navy had joined al-Qaeda and that a Kashmire jihad veteran, Ilyas Kashmiri, who had joined al-Qaeda, finally got his Death Eaters to attack the Mehran naval base in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... to get them rescued from the navy's confinement.
There is more news about the army's interface with the terrorists-- often its strategic instrument. In his book Inside al Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 (2011), Saleem Shahzad had revealed that Major Haroon Ashiq had defected to al-Qaeda because his brother, Captain Khurram, had earlier joined al-Qaeda and died fighting NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... forces in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... in Afghanistan. Haroon languishes in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, after being acquitted of murdering Major General (Retd) Alavi in Islamabad in 2008 at the behest of al-Qaeda.
Haroon left the army and joined Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... which, he told Shahzad, was an extension of the army. Alienated from the army under Musharraf, he joined Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and thus got closer to al-Qaeda. An al-Qaeda terrorist, Haroon enjoyed contacts inside the army.
Another person hiding today in North Waziristan, which the army will not invade, is an air force officer, Adnan Rasheed. His road to terrorism began with the Tablighi Jamaat A group of itinerant Deobandi preachers who form one of al-Qaeda's recruiting arms... , universally thought to be a harmless apolitical proselytising annual rally, and ended within the fold of Jaish-e-Muhammad, whose leader Masood Azhar was sprung from an Indian jail through a swap between him and passengers of an Indian airliner hijacked from Nepal. Rasheed took his terrorism training at a JeM camp in Mansehra ...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south... near Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... but was nabbed by the army after an inquiry into the al-Qaeda conversions in the air force. The Taliban bribed his transfer from Rawalpindi jail to a less secure Bannu jail, from where it easily got him freed. This air force officer is now the biggest threat to Pakistain at the head of Ansarul Mujahideen. He broke into the Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... jail and took away all the Taliban prisoners while killing the Shia inmates.
On December 30, 2013, Lahore-based Dunya TV channel showed the late chief prosecutor of the Federal Investigation Agency saying that he had got close to solving the mystery of Benazir Bhutto's liquidation and was going to involve officers from the ISI and military intelligence in the inquiry. On May 3, 2013, Chaudhry Zulfiqar was target-killed in Islamabad by al-Qaeda members, one of whom was the son of a retired brigadier.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
"Mullah Fazlullah" oh come on now, fess up. Who made that up?
Posted by: Steven ||
01/11/2014 2:50 Comments ||
Top||
[DAWN] AS the ongoing stage drama that is the Musharraf trial continues, an all too familiar sub-plot is also unfolding. It features the proverbial 'foreign hand', and will likely culminate in a well-choreographed conclusion to the play. The sub-plot has neither received a great deal of attention nor generated any major reaction within the political mainstream or in media circles. But why?
This 'foreign hand' is not of the American, or any other Western, variety. The 'conspiracies' hatched by this external power are presumably home-grown enough that our otherwise paranoid makers of public opinion simply do not feel the need to raise a ruckus. As such, when it comes to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... (and its clone Gulf kingdoms), we declare a holy exception.
It makes perfect sense. Ours is a state created in the name of religion, and Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's holiest site. But when we consider the net impact that Saudi interventions have had on Pak society, our refusal to adopt even a mildly critical stance is mind-boggling.
It is true that Saudi Arabia -- and the Gulf more generally -- has been a major destination for Pak migrants, and that the remittances sent home have greatly boosted the economic fortunes of many families. But then there are millions of Paks settled in the Western world as well, sending back as much if not more money than the Gulf migrants.
The truth is that public opinion -- at least that which dominates in our towns and cities -- has been fomented over the past two decades or so such that there exist very few constituencies willing and able to sustain any kind of critical position on anything that fits into the category of 'Islamic'. This includes Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia, laws that are said to derive their mandate from Islam, and just about every act and/or movement -- individual or collective -- conducted under the pretext 'defence of Islam'.
Thankfully a large number of people in this country of all colours and stripes do not share in the 'consensus'. There has been, and continues to be, contestation in various spheres, both public and private. But the odds are stacked heavily in favour of the pro-establishment position, in large part because of the long-term initiatives that were undertaken under the guise of 'Islamisation' during the Zia years.
It is thus that the media and mainstream parties are relatively quiet as history repeats itself with Saudi Arabia emerging from the shadows to broker a settlement between the two principal protagonists of the current drama, just as it did between the same two individuals 13 years ago.
Of course this is about much more than Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... and Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... . It is about the structure of power in Pakistain and the fact that foreign powers are so elemental to it. What I want to emphasise is that our ranting and raving about the 'foreign hand' is selective: we keep mum when the intervention is being made by our holy Moslem brethren from the Gulf.
If there's an imperative to liberate Pak politics from agendas hatched in foreign capitals, it is not served by such duplicitous manipulation of 'public opinion'. In some ways, this selectivity is akin to proclaiming that we've moved on from the messiah complex which facilitates coup-making generals yet at the same time egging on Supreme Court judges to save the country.
Certainly, we will have to get over our phobia of speaking up against anything done in the name of the faith. The problem is that those who over the years have been brave enough to challenge the taboo are simply not organised as well as they should be to take on the juggernaut that starts with Saudi Arabia (and Qatar, UAE, etc.), works its way through the institutions of the state and media and ends with the firebrand ...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... maulvi in the local mosque.
The reasons for this incapacity do not lie only in the machinations of the powerful right-wing lobby. The fact is that progressives are divided both about the real cause of the problem and the possible ways to deal with it.
I have written on many occasions in the past that too many progressives are alienated from the very society that they wish to help transform. Hence their critique of mindless subservience to the 'defence of Islam' is not couched in the everyday struggle of ordinary working people. Relatedly, their critique can be easily dismissed as part of a 'Western agenda' to defang this holy fortress of the faith.
Anyone with an iota of intellectual honesty knows that insofar as there is a 'Western' agenda in Pakistain, the 'Islamic' agenda of Saudi Arabia & co. is just as damaging, if not more so. The question, as ever, is how to rid ourselves of this holy exception.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] TODAY, the Hazara graveyard in Quetta will be more crowded than usual. Among the visitors will be those who lost their loved ones in the Alamdar Road blasts on Jan 10 last year. The twin bombings claimed at least 81 lives and injured over 170 people, most of them Shia Hazaras who are concentrated in the area. Barely a month later, on Feb 16, another devastating attack in Quetta, this time in Hazara Town, resulted in casualties on a similar scale.
While sectarian terrorism in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... has disproportionately targeted the Hazara community, easily identifiable because of their distinctive physical appearance, other Shias -- especially pilgrims travelling to and from Iran -- have not been spared either. The latest such attack took place last week just outside Quetta, the district most affected by sectarian attacks in the province.
According to a report by the Pakistain Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), out of 33 sectarian attacks in Balochistan last year, 22 took place in Quetta district, which is where the vast majority of Hazara and other Shias live.
Most sectarian attacks in this part of the province are claimed by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... (LJ) and its affiliates such as the Jaish-ul-Islam. Although the location of these groups -- in pockets within Quetta city, parts of Mastung district including Splinji and Kabo, and towards Machh and Kalat -- is well known, apprehending them is not simple, according to police.
"They are situated in a vast area with scattered dwellings and katcha roads; they can see the dust rise from our vehicles from miles away, giving them ample opportunity to escape," says a senior Balochistan police official. "The only time we've had any success is when we've gone in with huge numbers of police personnel and a heli cover."
As for Quetta, he says the mushroom growth of slums in the city and the fact that turbans constantly change hideouts makes them elusive.
They may also be tipped off by sympathetic elements within the law-enforcement agencies. At least two former coppers are currently on trial for colluding with the LJ, which illustrates the inroads that sectarianism has made into the security set-up.
Despite the sobering statistics, however, there has been some improvement over the last few months. Ruquiya Hashmi, PML-Q politician and a Hazara herself, says: "Large-scale sectarian attacks are not taking place with the same frequency as they were earlier and the frequency of assassinations has also reduced." She adds that the police have taken some action against the sectarian groups, particularly after the two major attacks in early 2013.
Sources within Balochistan police say that two major encounters with LJ bully boyz about six months ago, one in Kharotabad and the other near the Eastern Bypass, in which several mid- to high-level operatives were killed (among whom was an ex-constable) "caused a major dent in the organization". Security particularly on routes leading to localities with large Hazara populations has also been enhanced. However, denial ain't just a river in Egypt... such measures cannot have but a limited impact. 'Unsecured' areas remain vulnerable to attacks, such as the place where a bus convoy carrying Shia pilgrims was attacked recently despite the presence of a police security escort.
Sectarian groups in Balochistan are strengthened by their nexus with bully boyz in other parts of the country, which allows them opportunity for refuge and regrouping. For instance, the leader of the LJ's Balochistan wing, Usman Kurd, who beat feet from prison in 2008, is believed to be in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... . According to the PIPS report, "In the last three years different factions of the group have been active in Karachi and Quetta."
What is needed is across-the-board action against terrorist groups, but the establishment's strategic use of bully boy proxies precludes such an approach. In the case of Balochistan, the LJ is said to have links with the pro-government bully boy group Baloch Musallah Difa'a Tanzeem, one of the 'death squads' accused of kidnapping and killing Baloch nationalists.
"Clarity is needed at the state level; ambiguities create space for terrorists," says security analyst Mohammed Amir Rana. "When the state does not take action against some groups, then space is created for the others."
Many believe the state's own Machiavellian dealings with bully boyz are the breeding ground for this hydra-headed monster.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2014 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
Nawaz Sharif
Pervez 
[DAWN] TODAY, the Hazara graveyard in Quetta will be more crowded than usual. Among the visitors will be those who lost their loved ones in the Alamdar Road blasts on Jan 10 last year. The twin bombings claimed at least 81 lives and injured over 170 people, most of them Shia Hazaras who are concentrated in the area. Barely a month later, on Feb 16, another devastating attack in Quetta, this time in Hazara Town, resulted in casualties on a similar scale.
