The Yin Blog

On Obama and Bush national security policies

Today's Oregonian has a pretty devastating guest editorial that lays into President Obama's national security policies. Here's a taste of it:

As a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama criticized President Bush's war policies. But instead of changing course, President Obama has tripled down in Afghanistan, widened the war into Pakistan, multiplied the drone attacks, bombed Yemen and Somalia, and started an undeclared NATO war in Libya. 

On surveillance questions, presidential war powers, Guantanamo, detention policy and habeas corpus, he has similarly stayed the course, or even expanded Bush's precedents. 

Almost none of this had anything to do with killing Osama bin Laden. 

Those who voted for Obama in 2008, expecting a shift in defense policy, must face a sad fact: The United States would have likely spent less money and spilled less American and foreign blood in its wars had the president simply continued on the path charted by President Bush. Instead, we now have Bush Plus.

For the most part, I am not troubled by what President Obama is actually doing, as opposed to what he says he will do. I thought his campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay, without articulating what he planned to do with the detainees -- release them? try them? detain them elsewhere? -- was not a very good idea. And here we are, more than two years later, and he has not closed Guantanamo. To be sure, some of that was due to Republican resistance, but as the machinations behind ObamaCare suggest, if he had really wanted to close Guantanamo, he probably could have.

In any event, I've got a new article up on SSRN that explores the ways in which the Obama Administration's counterterrorism policies either continue or deviate from its predecessors.

Policy blogging at Northwest Free Press

My colleague Jim Huffman (well, soon-to-be ex-colleague, as he's taking early retirement from Lewis & Clark) has started a political news and commentary site for conservatives and moderates: Northwest Free Press. As I share some of Jim's libertarian views, I've agreed to sign on as a contributor. Judging from the lineup so far, I'm guessing that I'll be representing more the moderate wing, with an eye toward fiscal responsibility.

Anyway, I've got a few posts up there already. One is about capital punishment and fiscal responsibility in Oregon, in which I argue that we have the worst of both worlds here in Oregon, since we spend a ton of money to put people on death row, but then we never execute anyone unless they actually volunteer for it by waiving appeals.

Another is about fiscal libertarianism and divided government, in which I respond to Jim's argument that a divided conservative vote will likely lead to a second Obama term. I suggest that from a libertarian perspective, a second Obama term might be preferable to a Republican in the White House, assuming that the Republicans take control of Congress in 2012:

During Republican control of the White House and Congress from 2000-06, the federal deficit exploded, and President Bush signed into law one of the biggest unfunded entitlement expansions – the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, which had a projected cost of $400 billion over ten years, but whose recent projected cost continues to increase: $550 billion over ten years, as of early 2009. Not to be outdone, when Democrats took control of the White House and Congress from 2008-10, they enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which will supposedly reduce the federal deficit, but which predictions have been seriously doubted by the Chief Actuary for Medicare.

Meanwhile, the one time during recent history when the federal government could claim a balanced budget (although even that claim required combining the Social Security surplus with an operating budget deficit) was during the late 1990s, when a Democrat (Bill Clinton) was in the White House, while Republicans controlled Congress. Past history is no guarantee of future results, of course, but I find the Levinson & Pildes argument to be quite compelling. If, as still seems likely, the Republicans take control of Congress, the better outcome from a fiscal libertarian perspective might well be a second Obama term.

Check it out!

This fall, watch NBC's "Grimm" for Portland's sake!

NBC's detective-finds-out-he's-part-of-an-ancient-group-of-monster-killers fantasy mystery series "Grimm" films here in Portland!

So, um, please watch it, so that it gets good ratings and will continue to bring money into our local economy. (I mean, don't watch it if it sucks, of course, but do give it a shot this fall!)

The Dallas Mavs are making the Trailblazers look not-so-bad in retrospect

I'm not really a basketball fan, but the NBA is the only major professional sport here in Oregon (unless you count the Oregon Ducks football team, I guess), so it's hard not to be aware of what's going on. And that is that the Dallas Mavericks were the one team that the Portland Trailblazers really wanted to meet in the first round of the playoffs . . . Portland got its wish, but didn't deliver, losing 4 games to 2.

(At least one of those two wins was a remarkable and memorable win, where Portland came back from a 23 point deficit late in the third quarter.)

It seemed like Portland just blew a good chance to progress beyond the first round.

Yet, now Dallas is headed to the NBA finals, having beaten the 2010 champion L.A. Lakers 4-0 and the upstart Oklahoma City Thunder (nee Seattle Supersonics) 4-1.

That means that Portland actually put up the best fight against Dallas, having won twice as many games as the other two teams combined! I guess it makes us look a little less lame, eh?

Looks like USC's appeal of NCAA sanctions has failed

It sounds like the NCAA has rejected USC's appeal of the massive sanctions leveled against it in the wake of the Reggie Bush scandal. If I were Ohio State, I would be worried.

The best TV commercial ever?

These days, with TiVo, I don't watch commercials any more, but for some reason, I found myself thinking about this old Pamper ad full of baby animals. Notice how it closes with elephants and lions -- my favorites!

 

Jury duty

Today was the third time that I've been summoned for jury duty. (Actually, now that I think about it, I've been summoned more than three times; however, on at least one of those other occasions, I was about to move out of the county, so I didn't have to show up.) Once in Los Angeles, once in Iowa City, and now once in Portland.

This would have been a good time to be picked for a jury. I'm in the middle of grading exams, so of course any distraction seems quite a bit more attractive than it normally might. Plus, I think it would be fascinating to see the inside of a jury. Both times before I was actually voir dire'd and then bounced on peremptories.

I don't resent jury duty in the abstract. Since I'm part of the legal profession, it would be fairly hypocritical for me to want to avoid it when my profession benefits from making everyone do their part as jurors. What I do tend to resent is the seeming waste of my time, since I don't think I'm going to make it on a jury, being a law prof and all. (Although, two of my former Iowa colleagues have served as jurors, so go figure.)

But I suppose if nothing else, I'm there as "peremptory fodder." That is, if I get voir dire'd, one side's attorney is going to have to use one of their precious peremptory strikes to get rid of me, thereby speeding up jury selection. . . .

Anyway, it was relatively painless today. I checked in at 7:55 am, avoided being sent to Gresham (just east of Portland), and missed being called for two trials. At 10:30 am, the clerk released us, and I was able to get some housework done and then get in a good workout before a late lunch and then exam grading. It was definitely a more efficient process than jury duty in Los Angeles.

What is the most accurate time of day to weigh yourself?

Since the beginning of the year, I've lost about 15 pounds, mostly through consistent and extensive exercise (with increasing frequency and duration as I've gotten fitter). I haven't had too many burgers during that time, but I'm taking in 1800-2400 calories a day -- averaging about 2000 -- so it's not like I'm starving myself. As Angelina Jolie put it in the "making of" extra on the Salt DVD, if you exercise a lot, you can't help but lose weight.

Because I weigh myself at the same time of day, I know that the weight loss is real. On the other hand, my weight tends to fluctuate throughout the day by as much as 3-4 pounds. So it got me wondering, what is the most accurate time of day to weigh yourself?

Right after a workout (which is what I've been doing) is pretty much not the ideal time, because some of the weight loss is water-loss, which will get replenished. Is the beginning of the day, when getting up ideal? Or the end of the day, just before going to sleep?

UPDATE: Interesting -- your time running one mile may correlate to your risk of heart disease later on. Another benefit of exercise!

Ohio State football, Jim Tressel, and failure of institutional control

So Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel hasn't been fired yet, even though he's caught up in what seems like a pretty sizeable NCAA violation:

Ohio State officials say Tressel broke NCAA rules because he didn't tell athletics director Gene Smith or the school's compliance office about e-mails he received from an attorney in April 2010, which indicated Buckeyes players were receiving improper benefits.

Tressel never even mentioned the e-mails nine months later, when in December the NCAA suspended five Ohio State players, including star quarterback Terrelle Pryor, for the first five games of the 2011 season for selling memorabilia and awards from the tattoo parlor owner.

It was ridiculous enough that the NCAA let Pryor and the other players play in their bowl game, instead of suspending them immediately. But then it turned out that Tressel allegedly lied to his bosses about not knowing about the violations, and then about why he didn't tell them about what he did know.

At this point, you have to wonder, if USC got hammered for failure of institutional control over the Reggie Bush scandal, how much worse is Ohio State? It would be one thing if Ohio State were to argue, "hey, Coach lied to us, and unless we wiretap his emails, we can't know what he's concealing from us." But that argument would seem to be fall flat on its face when, here, the obvious thing to do is to fire Tressel. If Ohio State won't do that, isn't it conceding that it lacks institutional control?

Some minor news in the Portland bomb sting case

Yesterday, US District Judge King denied the Mohamed Mohamud defense team's motion to order government witnesses not to talk to one another about what they heard or remembered about the first meeting between the defendant and the undercover operatives. (Source: Oregonian)

Oregon Public Broadcasting ran a short item on this story as well, for which I was interviewed about what the defense was concerned about:

Lewis and Clark law professor Tung Yin has been following the case. He says defense attorneys might be concerned about how such conversations might affect testimony if the case went to trial.

Tung Yin: "Whether this is nefarious or simply innocuous, they happen to start talking about the case, they might end up confirming their testimony. You end up with two or three people telling the same story that sounds much more persuasive than if they have inconsistencies and the like."

I'm not surprised that the judge denied the motion. The government lawyers already said that they have told the witnesses not to discuss the case, and it would be difficult for the court to detect and enforce an actual order beyond that.

Neither news story talks about another part of the judge's order pertaining to the preservation of agent notes. The judge's order references a defense allegation that one agent already destroyed his contemporaneous notes, which the defense argues is a violation of the Jencks Act. (The Jencks Act requires federal prosecutors to turn over all statements by government witnesses after they have testified, in order to be available for cross-examination.) The court stated that since no one has testified yet, there has not been a Jencks Act violation.

In addition, this is something that would be fertile ground for cross-examination, since the defense could bring out the fact that the agent apparently had contemporaneous notes, and now those notes are unavailable. Suspicious jurors could wonder about that fact.