Why the Republicans Are Wrong

In addition to the democrats, that is.

As some of you have already heard, Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) is under investigation for bribery and other related crimes. The FBI already has him on video taking a $100,000 bribe. On a side note, just to show you what kind of guy he is, in the days following hurricane Katrina, while people were still trapped in New Orleans, he had the national guard take him to his house, and when their vehicle got stuck in the mud, he refused the helicopter that was initially sent to retrieve him and demanded another land vehicle come to get him.

Anyways, getting to the point of all of this, the FBI raided his congressional office the other day to seize evidence. Now, various members of the House -- including the Republican leadership -- is claiming that the separation of powers was violated (the FBI is of course part of the executive branch). Now, this is the kind of ridiculous argument I'd expect from the democrats, but I'm severely disappointed in the Republicans for echoing it.

Majority Leader John Boehner wondered "whether the people at the Justice Department have looked at the Constitution." I think Boehner needs to consult the Constitution. Members of Congress do not have a constitutional right to hide evidence of felonies in their congressional offices. The constitution states that members of Congress "shall in all cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place." Nowhere does it say that they are immune from investigation, including searches, and even the proscription against arrest does not apply because it was a felony.

Speaker Dennis Hastert has demanded that the agents who conducted the raid be removed from the case -- but the agents who conducted the raid were not on the case to begin with! Yeah, I know, that doesn't seem to make much sense, but look at the first post link below. A sidenote on Hastert, that ABC news report linking him with criminal investigation in the Abramoff matter is completely bogus, filled with weasel words and misleading innuendo.

Not only does the Congressional vs. Executive branch argument fail on Constitutional grounds, it also fails because the FBI had a search warrant in the case. What does that mean, you ask? It means the Judicial branch was also involved and came down squarely on the side of the Executive.

Relevant posts concerning this issue by Byron York and Andy McCarthy, including background information and legal issues can be found here (mostly background information about the extreme lengths the FBI went to to avoid improper conduct), here (involving a bit of a legal analysis), here, and here. I highly recommend reading the first one, in the very least, just to show what absurd lengths the FBI went to just to avoid the slightest appearance of impropriety (not that that's worked).

Bush has also acted rather dumbly on this issue, with the sealing of the seized evidence for 45 days. Jefferson is a criminal, he should be dealt with, not given special privilege.

Not only do the actions of the Republican leadership not make any ethical sense, they don't make any political sense, either. Is this winning them any votes? The democrats have been smearing them as the party of corruption, and in this case, even though the congressman at issue is a democrat, the Republicans have been bending over backwards to help him cover up.

Like I said at the beginning, the dems have hardly been innocent in all of this, but that's unfortunately expected. The behavior of the Republicans, however, I find particularly egregious.

UPDATE: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has said some reasonable things since I first posted this; it's nice to see one Republican leader in Congress do so.

Beaning Bonds

I don't find Springer intentionally beaning Bonds to be that newsworthy, but the fact that it took him five tries to accomplish it .... Also, Phil Garner's excuses annoy me -- it was blatantly obvious that it was intentional, all five pitches were way inside, most (if not all) of them would have hit him had he not moved out of the way. It was no accident. Try owning up to your actions and displaying a little honesty.

As for fantasy baseball, forgetting to put two starters in your lineup is a bad thing, as I did yesterday with Zambrano and Capuano, Capuano having a good game, but not getting the win, and Zambrano having a great game (8 shutout innings and the win).

Steve Finley

In continuing my recent trend of posts on specific baseball players (well, it's at three now), I bring you Steve Finley. Finley has an amazing seven triples so far this season in his first 83 at-bats (up to 87 on the season after tonight's game). For those who don't follow baseball as closely as I do, that means he's only playing part-time, and is not among the top 200 for at-bats on the season. Now, he is the active career leader in triples, so that he's leading the majors may not surprise you except for two things: he's never had more than 13 triples in a season, and he's 41 years old (that's very old in baseball terms). On the alltime career list, he's moved up from a five-way tie for 116th to a three-way tie for 97th. I was skeptical of his ability to move into the top 100 this season (or possibly ever with his age, and the fact that he had three the last two seasons combined), but I guess he showed me what's what. He doesn't have a shot at number one, as his 119 pale in comparison to Sam Crawford's 309. Still, kudos to him. He's also only two homers short of the 300/300 club, so this should be quite the notable year for him.

Ken Ray

I just noticed Atlanta Braves pitcher Ken Ray, who is back in the majors this season after having not pitched at that level since 1999 (with the Royals). His previous career numbers were not exactly spectacular -- an 8.74 ERA and a 2.56 WHIP. Thankfully for him, he's doing better this season with a 1.72 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP. However, my main point is the sheer persistance of the guy to spend six years out of the majors (after having made it) and to work his way back is amazing. His first appearance ofd the season was a four-pitch strikeout of Barry Bonds. He had a couple shoulder surgeries, which is part of what kept him out of the majors for so long. Anyways, congratulations to him.

Cain

My prediction of Matt Cain for NL ROY is not looking so good right now. He's killing my fantasy team, too (well, not really, but he's not helping). I thought about benching him for each of his last two starts, but went against my gut feeling in a desperate attempt to gain wins. It didn't work, and he got lit up in both games.

In other fantasy news, my team has recovered from its dreadful early position (as low as 19 points, and in last place for most of the first three weeks) and spent a few days recently in first place. My offense is still pretty bad, averaging about three points per category, but my pitching is keeping my team towards the top, averaging about 8 points per category. (Scoring for those of you not familiar with rotisiere is 1 point for last place up through x points for first place (where x is the number of teams in the league; in this case, 9) in each of ten categories -- R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, W, S, SO, ERA, and WHIP.) Through today's games, I'm sitting in thrid place with 56 points, while the top two are tied for first at 60 points, and fourth place is at 51. Those are margins that can be overcome to bring about a change in the standings, but, more likely, I'll stay at third for another day and won't be in first for any notable length of time until my offense gets it together.

Congrats

Congratulations to Matt and Krissy on their wedding. Here's hoping that you'll spend many happy years together. Sorry about the communion issues, too. Hopefully, I'll get up early enough in the morning that I won't need any further apologies ...