A spectacular week for the U.S. Congress
I really regret that I don't have more time to write about this, but I had to put something down about how poorly we have been served by our elected officials this past week. In one week, the U.S. Congress has featued prominently in the news twice:
- First, the Congress subpoenas baseball players to testify about steroids in the game. Does anyone care about this? Ok, maybe some people think it's bogus that these guys were juicing (it is cheating) - but an investigation by the United States Congress?!?!?!?! If this doesn't piss you off, nothing will. Never mind that the Bush administration was again chastised last week by a federal court for holding detainees without regard to their constitutional rights, never mind that troops in Iraq still have less armor than they need, never mind that Israel is already threatening a very tenuous peace in the region with new contruction, never mind 40 million Americans without health care. Where are the hearings on these issues? Any time soon? No, baseball is front and center, because a handful of guys took an illegal substance to help them hit a ball.
- Next, as if concerned about fading from the public spotlight for 20 minutes, the Republican dominated House passes a bill ordering a federal judge to re-consider the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Putting aside, for now, the Constitutional implications of such a move (for the uninitiated: separation of powers, might be a little thorny for Congress to start ordering the courts around with person-specific legislation), my favorite part is that this is a Republican Congress that rages about states-rights. Now, a dispute has been exhausted at the state level, and the Congress, unhappy with the result, has inserted itself in the debate. Imagine if a court in NJ ruled that an abortion could not be performed on a pregnant woman who was in a PVS. Now imagine a Democratic-controlled U.S. legislature effectively overturns that decision, ordering a reconsideration of the case so as to open the possibility that the abortion can proceed. Rick Santorum's head would explode.
Too busy to write more - will try to supplement this later with more facts and less ranting.
posted by Brian G. @ 4:17 PM
2 Comments:
I agree with you, but both of those gripes fail on some level, though.
Baseball:
* kids look up to these players (same way music or TV decency is a Congressional topic)
* mad voting parents care
* that anti-trust exemption
* it's "the national pasttime"
* it's a logical fallacy to say that "because A is more important, you shouldn't waste any time on B"
States' Rights:
* Surely, some things are outside the realm of states rights -- e.g. whether you can have segregated schools, whether states can ban abortion, etc. There are lots of religious people who believe that what the Schiavo case represents is on that level.
Joe - maybe you're just playing devil's advocate here but I Brian's argument couldn't be more true. It is a complete waste of taxpayers' money to hold congretional hearings about steroids in baseball. There was/is absolutely no reason for the goverment to get involved.
Yes, kids look up to pro athletes, but they also look up to many other types of people. So why wasn't there a hearing held to squash the beef between 50 Cent and The Game? (I'm just being facetious - imagine 50 Cent rolling in with his posse to take the stand)
MLB should be allowed to police itself. If they allow the game to become overcome by juiced up ball players, they will lose a ton of fans. Thus losing millions, if not billions, of dollars. It makes sense (financially) for MLB to fix the problem. They don't need congress to intrude.
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