So, illegal wire-tapping's ok but...

All I can say is, well, finally.

After quietly accepting, when not actively abetting BushCorp™'s assault on all rights not there own, Congress is finally saying enough already.

Sure it took an FBI raid on the offices of one of its own, and sure it's, no doubt, triggered by fear that further investigation will further expose the corruption that lies at the very heart of the GOP dominated Congress.

None the less, if you can't defend a right being excersized by your adversaries, what good is that right at all? (By the way, Jonathan at Past Peak yesterday posted an essay on Justice as Fairness that seems on point).

Anyway.

It seems that "allegedly" corrupt Democratic Congresscritter William Jefferson has done his nation a service: waking a Congress that has here-to-for been asleep at its Constitutional wheel. From The Nation:

To their credit, Republican leaders of the House have reacted with appropriate fury.

Speculating about "whether people at the Justice Department have looked at the Constitution" lately, House Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, declared that "Congress will clearly speak to the issue of the Justice Department invasion of the legislative branch." In explaining the character of that defense, Boehner said, "I've got to believe at the end of the day it's going to end up across the street at the Supreme Court. I don't see anything short of that." Hastert left no doubt that he saw the need to address the issues raised by the raid as essential to the maintenance of the provisions of the Constitution written to protect the independence of the Congress.

"The Founding Fathers were very careful to establish in the Constitution a Separation of Powers to protect Americans against the tyranny of any one branch of government. They were particularly concerned about limiting the power of the Executive Branch," explained the speaker. "Every Congressional Office contains certain Legislative Branch documents that are protected by the Constitution. This protection-as the Supreme Court has repeatedly held-is essential to guarantee the independence of the Legislative Branch. No matter how routine and non-controversial any individual Legislative Branch document might be, the principles of Separation of Powers, the independence of the Legislative Branch, and the protections afforded by the Speech or Debate clause of the Constitution must be respected in order to prevent overreaching and abuse of power by the Executive Branch."

Hastert needs to wage this battle. And he ought not be mocked for the seriousness with which he has approached it.

Now I realize that it is VERY tempting to mock speaker Hastert for being so late to recognize the Constitutional abuse BushCorp™ has wreaked on this country. And one wonders whether this is simply a calculated way for Congress to distance itself from a wildly unpopular president.

None-the-less, I believe the House leadership is on the right side of this particular outrage.

And my hope (likely vain I realize) is that this incident will draw more attention to the abuses this administration has heaped on all of us.

[Update: It now appears that the FBI is indeed investigating Hastert in relation to the Abramoff case.

And to think that I entertained any thought that the GOP's outrage over the Jefferson search warrant was actually principled.

Just what I deserve for abandoning cynicism, even momentarily. Well, to quote our Dear Leader: "Fool me twice, won't get fooled again".]

More Al Gore

Great new article on Gore in New York Magazine.

It's long, but extremely insightful and well worth the time if you are interested in this country's, this world's future.

I'm not going to reprint or really write much about it at the mo', you should just go read the thing. But one paragraph discussing the politics of a Gore 2008 primary race struck me as possibly prophetic:

No surprise, then, that the prospect of Gore redux is causing queasiness in the Clinton ranks. For some time, the thinking there has been that only two potential candidates have the capacity to toss the chessboard in the air, altering Team Hillary’s carefully calibrated plans: Barack Obama and Gore. And it is Gore who would produce the biggest fits—not least because he would bring to the surface all the old internecine rivalries and interfamilial weirdness of the Clinton years. [Emphasis mine-SK]

Gore/Obama in 2008? It's something to think about.

Gore in '08?

The drumbeat continues with a major article by Ezra Klein in American Prospect. If the possiblity of a Gore comeback intrigues you, as it does your CaliBlogger, I strongly suggest you read the whole article. But in the meantime here are the concluding paragraphs:

It’s hard to believe that Gore doesn’t wish to correct the record on himself, rewrite his legacy. In a sense, that’s what he’s been doing since 2000. Andrei Cherny, a former close aide of Gore’s interviewed for this piece, protested that “Gore was never a prototypical New Democrat. He never thought of himself that way. ... There were a lot moments of overlap, but he always had a much more populist streak than the DLC did. Partly his father’s son, that old southern populist tradition.”

Since his loss, that old populist tradition has burst through the membranes of caution and ambition that once constrained it, and Gore has exploded back into the Democratic consciousness. In the late 1980s, his reputation as a New Democrat propelled him to the party’s vanguard; in 1992, it netted him the vice presidency. Today, his leadership as a New New Democrat, enabled by his disintermediated communication strategies, has begun restoring his reputation among liberals and allowed him to step forth from the wreckage of 2000 as a progressive statesman. The question, of course, is whether he could retain that standing in the chaos of a presidential campaign. The Internet may well have reinvented Gore, but for Gore, the issue may be whether it’s done the same to politics.

Now I realize it's way too early to be thinking about 2008. But the more I ponder the Gore question, the more I want to ponder it.

Not a monkey's uncle exactly...

Hmm, turns out our closest relatives may be even closer than we think.

From the Washington Post:

When the ancestors of human beings and the ancestors of chimpanzees parted ways 6.3 million years ago, it was probably a very long goodbye. Some of their descendants may even have gone back for a final tryst.

That is the conclusion a group of scientists has reached, using a comparison of the genes of humans and their closest animal relatives to sketch a picture of human origins far more detailed than what fossil bones have revealed.

According to the new theory, chimps and humans shared a common apelike ancestor much more recently than was thought. Furthermore, when the two emerging species split from each other, it was not a clean break. Some members of the two groups seem to have interbred about 1.2 million years after they first diverged -- before going their separate ways for good.

I love stories like this, and not just because I find scientific discovery inherently fascinating, though that is a large part of it. As someone who loves puzzles, scientific inquiry sometimes seems like solving a Sudoku, though on a grander scale:

Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes that contain about 30,000 genes. Each gene is made of strands of DNA "letters" in a specific order, and the letters can change, by mutation, over time. The rate at which changes occur is fairly constant -- and very slow.

As a result, genetic mutations can be used as a kind of evolutionary clock. The number of DNA differences between two species' versions of the same gene is an indication of how long the species have been separate -- how long since individuals were last interbreeding and sharing genes.

When Nick Patterson of MIT and his colleagues at the Broad Institute compared the genes of humans and chimps, they found that one of the chromosomes -- the female sex chromosome X -- was 1.2 million years younger than the others. It appeared the two species shared a common ancestor who gave them both their X chromosomes, and did so more recently than the ancestors who gave them all the other chromosomes.

The best explanation, the scientists think, is that ancient humans and chimps broke away from each other not once, but twice. The first time was more than 6.3 million years ago. The second time was at least a million years later.

What probably happened was that some of the evolving human ancestors bred with the evolving chimps. This was perhaps not as strange as it seems, for although there were some physical differences between the two groups, "the early humans must have looked pretty much like chimpanzees," said Mallet, the London geneticist.

Males have only one X chromosome, which is necessary for reproduction. As is often the case with hybrids, the male offspring from these unions would probably have been infertile.

But the females, which have two X chromosomes, would have been fertile. If some of those hybrid females then bred with proto-chimp males, some of their male offspring would have received a working X from the chimp side of the family. They would have been fertile -- and with them the hybrid line would have been off and reproducing on its own.

But as much as I love this kind of stuff, what really pops my cork is the image of all those IDiots out there whose veins must be ready to burst when reading such stories.

Though I'm not at all sure what Neal Horsely will make of all this. Perhaps he'll start cruising the zoo for dates?

Some thoughts on immigration

In an effort to distract from his incredible shrinking poll numbers, the Preznit delivered a speech on immigration policy designed to make Lou Dobbs' head explode. But rather than deconstruct presidential proposals that have no hope of passing our xenophobic House, I thought I'd take a stab at the whole immigration thing myself.

After all, I grew up in San Diego, doesn't that make me an expert? (That's a joke folks).

Anyway, here goes:

Maybe I'm way off base, but shouldn't we be encouraging immigration?

Robert J. Samuelson's op-ed in today's WaPo helped crystalize a thought that's been rolling around in my cerebral cortex for a while now: that immigration could actually help resolve the demographic problems with Social Security and Medicare.

With the aging of the baby-boom generation and concomitant increases in both Social Security and Medicare expenses being born by a relatively smaller number of younger workers, there seems to me just a few options. Either a) decrease the amount of benefits paid out, either by reducing benefits to all seniors, reducing the number of seniors eligible for benefits (e.g. increase the eligibility age, or means test benefits), or b) increase the dollars coming into the system by either increasing taxes on current workers, or increasing the number of workers paying taxes.

Frankly I believe that the answer will lie in some combination of all those approaches, but the one I'd like to look at is the last: increasing the number of workers paying into the system.

Think of it this way, the main challenge facing Social Security is too many seniors relative to active workers, or to re-phrase, too few active workers relative to too many seniors.

At the same time we have 12 million workers (and potentially hundreds of thousands more annually), some of whom are actually paying into a system whose benefits they'll never reap, but most of whom are participating in underground economies where the main beneficiaries are their employers.

Hmm, the US needs workers, and these folk need work, doesn't it seem like we should be able to work something out?

Now just letting millions of unskilled, untrained workers flood our labor market does us little good (though I've yet to see any convincing numbers as to the societal costs of undocumented workers relative to their societal contributions), but be that as it may, certainly skilled, trained (or trainable) immigrants would certainly better benefit the economy.

My thoughts for solutions are as follows.

First, make a commitment to integrate all immigrants into our society as quickly as possible.

This requires both a clear path towards citizenship, as well as a commitment from the immigrant to take that path. I have some thoughts on what these steps should be, but I'd love input from the group.

Second, institute qualifying criteria for fast-track immigration. And throw out the current limitations on the numbers of highly qualified immigrants.

Third, implement pro-labor policies. This last may not seem germane to the immigration issue, but stay with me. Current lefty opposition to more liberal immigration reform is often based, and rightly so, on the effect of unlimited numbers of unskilled workers on wages. But to admit such is not to buy into the GOP canard that there are some jobs Americans won't do. I'd submit, rather, that there are jobs Americans won't do for slave wages, and neither should immigrants.

The GOP effort to drive a wedge between immigrant communities, and the Black community that should be, in fact, its natural ally must be stopped. Imagine the impact of both communities joined in demanding, for example, a raise in the minimum wage, as well as increased support for labor organizing, or universal healthcare?

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts. But, regardless, I just can't seem to shake the feeling that there's a solution in there somewhere. What I'm hoping for is some input from you folks.

Am I completely missing something here?

[X-posted at DailyKos. Be sure to read the comments, which are quite superior to my little scribblings]

Al Gore in 2008?

After his recent SNL appearance, there's been some talk.

On NSA Spying, Polls and Civil Rights: Your Mom is Right

Much of the chatter (and obfuscation to my thinking) about the recent revelation of the vast extent of the NSA domestic spying program has been focused on a Washington Post poll saying that 2/3rds of Americans approve of it.

And while one can argue over the validity of the polls, point out conflicting polls, question methodology and phraseology, in some cases it just doesn't matter.

The thing about polls though is that sometimes they don't, or at least shouldn't matter, especially when basic rights are at stake, like, for example, the 4th amendment's requirement of probable cause.

I believe Billmon has the right of it:

The whole point of having civil liberties is that they are not supposed to be subject to a majority veto. Hobbes may not have believed in natural rights, but our founders did. And their opponents, the anti-Federalists, were even more zealous about restraining the powers of the federal superstate, which is why they forced the Federalists to write the Bill of Rights directly into the Constitution.

It defeats the purpose of having a 4th Amendment if its validiity is entirely dependent on breaking 50% in the latest poll. It would be nice to have "the people" on our side in this debate, and obviously a lot of them are, even if Doherty's plurality still prefers Leviathan's crushing embrace. But some things are wrong just because they're wrong -- not because a temporary majority (or even a permanent one) thinks they're wrong.

Or as my mom might put it, just because everyone's doing it doesn't make it right.

Thank you mom.

Happy Mother's Day.

We're the NSA and we're listening to you

In defense of his warrantless domestic spying program the Prezbot has famously stated that if a terrorist is calling you we want to know about it.

And while this characterization of the NSA program is (as is typical for BushCorp™ spin)disingenuous in the extreme, your CaliBlogger is wondering whether, given the latest revelations of the vast extent of domestic spying, the Prez will be using this argument: if your aunt Millie is calling you we want to know about it?

The Moderate Voice has a nice rundown on the story, as well reaction around the blogosphere.

Shameful

If this news doesn't enrage you, I don't know what will:

The United States has the second highest death rate for newborns among industrialized nations, according to a new global report.

The death rate for U.S. newborns is 5 per 1,000 live births, the same as Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia, the Save the Children report released Monday showed. Latvia had the worst rate -- 6 per 1,000 -- among industrialized countries, the Associated Press reported.

Japan had the lowest newborn death rate -- 1.8 per 1,000 -- among the 33 industrialized nations. The Czech Republic, Finland, Iceland and Norway tied for second place with 2 per 1,000.

Racial and income disparities are factors in the poor U.S. ranking. Among black Americans, the newborn death rate is 9 per 1,000, which is closer to rates in developing nations than rates in industrialized countries, the AP reported.

A lack of national health insurance and short maternity leaves in the United States may also be factors, the report authors said. [Emphasis mine-SK]

Disparities indeed:

Republicans readied as much as $100 billion in tax cuts for votes in both chambers of Congress, including extending low rates on dividends and most capital gains...

-snip-

The legislation also would renew for two years a benefit companies such as General Electric Co. and Citigroup Inc. claim when they sell financial products outside the U.S. Lawmakers neared agreement on a second measure that includes continuing a lapsed tax credit for research relied on by companies such as Boeing Co. and Dow Chemical Co.

Wonderful, tax cuts for the rich and powerful, while American babies continue to die at an unconscionable rate.

But wait, simply widening the gap betweeen rich and poor in America isn't the GOP's only tack, they're also seeking to help insurers avoid state requirements for children's healthcare:

Senate Democrats vowed Tuesday to fight provisions in Republican-backed legislation that they charged would reduce health insurance coverage for millions who already have it.

The bill would allow small businesses to join across state lines to buy insurance, which would give them enough clout to negotiate better rates, said Sen. Mike Enzi, the chairman of Senate's health committee and lead supporter of the measure.

"This is something that the small businesses have been asking for for almost 15 years," Enzi said.

But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said the legislation marked "a retreat from our commitment to cancer. It's a retreat for our commitment to diabetes. It's a retreat from our commitment to mental health parity." He and other critics said it would allow small businesses to purchase insurance that overrode coverage requirements mandated by the states.

-snip-

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said he fears the insurance industry would offer plans that exclude childhood immunizations and other important services. They would also be allowed to increase premiums beyond what individuals states now allow.

"What we're doing here is shrinking the amount of benefits offered to people," Dodd said.

In recent decades, it has become common for states to require that insurance companies offer coverage for certain types of cancer screenings, such as mammograms, 49 states; colorectal examinations, 22 states; and cervical cancer screenings, 29 states.

"If you find cancer early and detect it early, you're not only going to save costs, you're going to save a life," said Daniel Smith of the American Cancer Society. "One of the barriers to going to get screened is if your insurance company won't cover it." [Emphasis mine-SK]

Of course all this avoids pointing out what would really help with the US' newborn death rate, as well as myriad other problems: a progressive tax system that rewards work more than wealth, and single-payer health care which takes insurance costs out of the hands of giant for-profit corporations.

Leggo my Foggo

Another spook bites the dust:

WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) -- CIA Director Porter Goss' No. 3 man at the agency, facing investigation as part of a congressional bribe probe, quit Monday, an official said.

Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the CIA's executive director, announced his resignation in an e-mail message to agency staff, a U.S. official told United Press International on condition of anonymity.

Yes, a scant week after rumors first surfaced that top CIA officials might be implicated in the brewing Hookergate scandal, and a mere 3 days after the CIA head Porter Goss resigned in shame left to pursue opportunities in the private sector, Goss' handpicked number 3 spy has been frog-marched out of Langley left to spend more time with his family.

Co-incidence? Sure it is.

Though I'm pretty sure the official statement that "When you have a director announcing his departure, there is bound to be some turn-over of senior staff,"
actually translates into: "Let the new guy get his own hookers".

At least that's what I've heard.

Worst. President. Ever.

It's sometimes hard to guess what history will judge to be BushCorp™'s greatest failure.

Its inability to protect American lives on 9/11 despite the warnings of the previous administration as well as that infamous PDB Osama bin Laden Determined To Strike in US?

Perhaps the needless loss of lives, limbs, treasure and international standing that is the Iraq war?

Or maybe the erosion of civil rights so well exemplefied by the Patriot Act and warrantless NSA wiretaps will be W's ticket to historical infamy.

Global warming anyone?

And certainly one of the clearest examples of BushCorp™'s incompetent legacy is the level of fiscal irresponsibility being demonstrated by a purportedly conservative administration. Even the Washington Post gets it:

SHEER COINCIDENCE: Last Monday, the Social Security and Medicare trustees released their annual depressing report. On Tuesday, congressional negotiators handed President Bush a "victory" -- his assessment -- in agreeing to extend his capital gains and dividend tax cuts. Mr. Bush and his fellow tax-cuts-above-all proponents would like you to believe that the two events are unrelated. But taken together they underscore the terrible fiscal predicament that Mr. Bush has chosen to bequeath to his successor.

According to the new estimates, the Social Security trust fund will be depleted in 2040, one year closer than last year's projection, while Medicare's will run out in 2018 -- two years sooner than last year's projection and 12 years earlier than estimated when Mr. Bush took office. These dates may still sound remote, but the problem is more imminent than the customary focus on insolvency suggests. Far earlier than the insolvency date, the programs will be spending more than they take in, in payroll taxes in the case of Social Security, in payroll taxes and premiums in the case of some parts of Medicare. Because of higher-than-anticipated hospital costs, the price of Medicare hospital benefits will exceed tax collections and other dedicated revenue this year -- a situation that will persist and worsen rapidly after 2010. And every year of procrastination makes the eventual solution more painful.

But the best Mr. Bush can come up with is a bipartisan commission -- yes, another one -- to study the problem. And even that seems to be only make-believe. He mentioned a commission in his State of the Union address but hasn't bothered to appoint members. He proposed minimal Medicare cuts in his latest budget and then emitted nary a peep of protest when Congress proceeded to ignore him.

When it comes to ensuring the permanence of his tax cuts, though, Mr. Bush is a lot more energetic. Last Tuesday, after he summoned Republican leaders to the White House, they agreed to extend Mr. Bush's cuts on capital gains and dividends, now set to expire in 2008, through the end of 2010. This means that all the tax cuts Mr. Bush has presided over are now set to expire on the same date, Jan. 1, 2011 -- draining the treasury of needed revenue until then and setting the stage for a difficult decision at that time. Allowing all the tax cuts to expire simultaneously is politically unthinkable and economically unwise. Yet this is also the time when strains on the budget from the retirement of the baby boomers will begin their unsustainable upward path.

The breathtaking irresponsibility of this won't become totally clear until Mr. Bush is back on the ranch. But history's verdict is predictable: bad enough to squander a chance to improve the nation's health while there was still time; unforgivable to make it so much worse. [Emphasis mine-SK]

Worst. President. Ever.

More MSM bias

Just as in Iraq, the media always seem to focus on the negative.

What about all the Kennedys who didn't drive drunk last week? During Cinco de Mayo no less?

Just a co-incidence, ahem

I'm well aware that co-incidence doesn't necessarily imply causation, but jeez, look at this time line.

A few days ago, CIA director Porter Goss is alleged to be implicated in Hookergate, the continuation of the whole Cunningham, MZM, Mitchell Wade corruption fiasco.

Next day, he categorily denies participation in the Dukester's hooker poker parties at the Watergate (for Chrissake) and another DC area hotel.

Today, CIA director Porter Goss resigned without explanation.

Hmmmm. I'm sure he just wants to spend more time at home eavesdropping on his own family.

The thing that pisses me off: the Washington Post story doesn't even allude to the possibility that Goss has been implicated in scandal.

And I can understand they don't want to imply causation, but how can they not even mention it? Even buried somewhere in the 17th paragraph?

As you might expect, the blogosphere has not been nearly so circumspect.

Expect to hear A LOT MORE on the topic.

[Update: Josh Marshall has a great summation of the story as we know it so far]

My $.02 on the Moussaoui life sentence

For my part I believe the decision to sentence Al Qaeda wannabe Zacarias Moussaoui to be the correct. And not only because I'm generally suspicious of the death penalty.

A quote from the Christian Science Monitor story seems dispositive:

Moussaoui stunned many terrorism experts when he testified that he was tasked to fly an airplane into the White House on 9/11 with convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid. The government's own evidence suggested that Moussaoui had preknowledge of the plot, not that he was to become an active participant in it.

Many legal analysts said it suggested Moussaoui wanted to become a martyr and was tailoring his testimony to help achieve that result. [Emphasis mine-SK]

And why should we assist such martyrdom?

No reason I can think of.

A 9/11 victim family member put it best: "Let him rot".

I couldn't agree more.

Colbert's big splash

Stephen Colbert's little chat at the WHite House Correspondents' Dinner has caused a wee firestorm in the blogosphere, a firestorm that seems to be in exact opposite proportion to the deafening silence one (mostly) hears from the corporate media.

A major exception is WashingtonPost.com's Dan Froomkin, who asks the right question:

So was the biggest news of the night that Bush so effectively and humorously poked fun at himself? Or that a captive president -- and, to a lesser degree, the press corps -- had so sit and watch as they were subjected to devastating, vitriolic satire?

Possibly because they themselves were targets, most reporters chose to downplay the Colbert part of the evening.

Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the New York Times with some of her favorite bits: "Mr. Bush: 'I'm sorry that Vice President Cheney couldn't be here tonight. I agree with the press that Dick was a little late reporting that hunting episode down in Texas. In fact, I didn't know a thing about it till I saw him on "America's Most Wanted." '

"Mr. Bridges: 'You reporters would go nuts if you knew the full story. He was drunk as a skunk! On one beer! Light beer! Oh, people were duckin' and divin' for cover. I wish I'd been there. I saw him coming down the hall the other day, I looked at him and said, "Don't shoot!" '

"White House officials and Mr. Bridges said the double stand-up was the idea of the president, who last year ceded his spot on the program to his wife and in previous years relied on slide shows as visual props for his routines. As the 2,500-plus guests at the annual event know, by tradition the president is supposed to make fun of himself in an effort to establish his regular-guy credentials and ingratiate himself with the press."

Bumiller doesn't even mention Colbert at all.

As mentioned, the lack of media attention has rather raised Mr. Colbert's already high status on the left to rather a cause celebre.

If you want to see what I mean, just check out some of the diaries over at Daily Kos, this one, for example, or perhaps this one.

And I'm not EVEN trying to list all the postings at HuffingtonPost and Eschaton.

Where I would like to direct you is to a site created by Kos diarist grokgov: Thank You Stephen Colbert whose mission is to collect a million thank you notes. The site's been up since last night and as I type has collected 15292 thank yous.

If you appreciate speaking truthiness to power as much as I do, click over there and add your name to the list.

Oops, that's 15319 thank yous now.

Speaking truthiness to power

Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report is one of the few (along with Jon Stewart and Keith Olberman) "must-see" shows in the CaliBlogger household. And here's yet another reason why.

At this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner, Colbert, serving as headliner, and with guests including the cream of the DC power elite, up to and including George W. and Laura Bush, pulled exactly ZERO punches in his, as usual biting satire on the state of the nation.

Needless to say, King George, his royal consort, and a fair number of DC power brokers were, shall we say, less than pleased.

And, of course, the loyal lapdogs of the wingnut blogosphere are busily excoriating Colbert's performance even as I type.

Which only proves the point, if the right hates something this much, isn't that de facto evidence of its value?

But don't take my word for it, DemocraticUnderground has the video here. Frederick, posts the transcript at DailyKos. And Joe Gandelman has a nice overview, plus exerpts and links to commentary from around the blogoshpere at The Moderate Voice.

Can't we just call it Watergate-gate?

Better and better.

Just when you think the self-immolation of the Republican party couldn't be more complete, another revelation crops up to add yet more evidence of GOP corruption.

In fact, the only element that's been missing from the DeLay-Abramoff-Cunningham-Safavian-AIPAC-Rumsfeld-Brownie, et alia, et alia set of GOP greed, corruption, incompetence, & c., & c. story, has been the one thing that REALLY catches the public's attention: sex.

Courtesy of my erstwhile hometown paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Federal prosecutors are reviewing records of two Washington, D.C., hotels where Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes rented suites as part of their investigation into whether prostitutes were involved as he tried to curry favor with lawmakers and CIA officials.

Wilkes, whom federal prosecutors have identified as a co-conspirator in the bribery case of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, rented hospitality suites in the capital on behalf of his flagship company, ADCS Inc.

As The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in December, the suites – first at the Watergate Hotel and then at the Westin Grand Hotel – had several bedrooms where lawmakers and other guests could relax.

Federal investigators are trying to determine whether Cunningham and other legislators brought prostitutes to the hotels or prostitutes were provided for them there, according to a report in yesterday's Wall Street Journal that was confirmed by the Union-Tribune. [Emphasis mine-SK]

I love the last line highlighted: are trying to determine whether Cunningham and other legislators brought prostitutes to the hotels or prostitutes were provided for them there. Think about it.

Yep, that's the controversy, did Wilkes et al. provide the hookers for the congresscritters, or did they bring them themselves?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Email humor making the rounds

Stop me if you've heard this one:

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are flying on Air Force One.

The President looks at the Vice President, chuckles, and says, "You know, I could throw a $1,000 bill out the window right now and make somebody very happy."

The Vice President shrugs and says, "Well, I could throw 10 $100 bills out the window and make 10 people very happy."

Not to be outdone, the Secretary of Defense says, "Of course, then, I could throw 100 $10 bills out the window and make a hundred people very happy."

The pilot rolls his eyes and says to his co-pilot, "Such arrogant asses back there. Hell, I could throw the three of them out the window and make 6 billion people unbelievably happy."

via Needlenose

A Vision for the Democratic Party

For much of my life I've considered myself politically independent, and typically to the left of either major party. In fact, though I'm now ashamed to admit it, I didn't even vote in the 2000 presidential election.

But then Bush happened, and I realized that the only hope for getting rid of this fool, criminal, satanic minion fellow was by supporting the opposing party.

And so, in 2004, after initially supporting Howard Dean, I held my nose and voted for Kerry.

And we all know how well that turned out.

Now it may well be that Republican depredations and incompetence have grown so great that Democrats can win simply by pointing out that hey, at least they're not Republicans.

But would it not be better to take the opportunity of the GOP collapse to establish a more lasting Democratic and progressive ethos? To shift the center a little back to the left?

In an important article in The American Prospect (which you should read in full here) Prospect editor Michael Tomasky makes the case for a unifying principle for today's Democratic party.

For many years -- during their years of dominance and success, the period of the New Deal up through the first part of the Great Society -- the Democrats practiced a brand of liberalism quite different from today’s. Yes, it certainly sought to expand both rights and prosperity. But it did something more: That liberalism was built around the idea -- the philosophical principle -- that citizens should be called upon to look beyond their own self-interest and work for a greater common interest.

This, historically, is the moral basis of liberal governance -- not justice, not equality, not rights, not diversity, not government, and not even prosperity or opportunity. Liberal governance is about demanding of citizens that they balance self-interest with common interest. Any rank-and-file liberal is a liberal because she or he somehow or another, through reading or experience or both, came to believe in this principle. And every leading Democrat became a Democrat because on some level, she or he believes this, too. [Emphasis mine - SK]

Mr. Tomasky's essay and argument needs to be read in full to be appreciated (yes, I know it's long, but it may be one of the most important essays you'll read this year). But the gist is this, that to be truly successful, the Democratic party has to move away from the simple single-issue, litmus test sort of politics to which it has become addicted. And, equally important, those single-issue groups so accustomed to guiding Democratic politics need to recognize their own self-interest in promoting a broader set of Democratic goals.

Interest groups need to start thinking in common-good terms. Much of the work done by these groups, and many of their goals, are laudable. But if they can’t justify that work and those goals in more universalist terms rather than particularist ones, then they just shouldn’t be taken seriously. Immigration policy can’t be chiefly about the rights of undocumented immigrants; it needs to be about what’s good for the country. Similarly with civil-rights policy -- affirmative action, say, which will surely be up for review one day again when a case reaches the Roberts court. As I noted above, when talking about Gingrich’s failure in 1995, there exist powerful common-good arguments for affirmative action. In addition to the idea that diversity enriches private-sector environments, affirmative action has been the most important single factor in the last 40 years in the broad expansion of the black middle class, which in turn (as more blacks and whites work and live together) has dramatically improved race relations in this county, which has been good, as LBJ would put it, for every American.

As Mr. Tomasky puts it, the common good is common sense. It also happens to stand in sharp contrast to the every man for himself, social Darwinism that characterizes the modern Republican party.

And wouldn't it be nice, the next time your annoying Naderite friend starts ranting as to how the two parties are the same, to be able to contradict him?

And wouldn't it be nice to vote without holding your nose?

Whitehouse "shake-up"

Scotty's gone, Bush's brain to be freed up to focus more on politics than on policy (yeah right), but until BushCorp™ manages to let some top officials "seek opportunities in the private sector" or "spend more time with their families" nothing will change, in either the direction of the country, or in the standing (now a new low) of the Bush administration.

Of course the early retirements most beneficial would be that of Bush and his veep themselves. But failing that, the BushCorp™ official who's most obviously outlived his shelf life is Donald Rumsfeld.

Unfortunately, I believe Rummy's here to stay, and I think Josh has the right of it:

With Rumsfeld, or any other cabinet secretary, there's a related problem -- the importance of which has, I think, not been fully appreciated or aired. If Rumsfeld goes, you need to nominate someone else and get them through a senate confirmation. That means an open airing of the disaster of this administration's national security policy. Every particular; all about Iraq. Think how much they don't want that ...

And I'll repeat: Think about how much they don't want that.

Headline: US Generals Call For Rummy's Resignation

I guess the real question is, why do they hate America?

James Wolcott Liveblogs the Oscars

If you don't read Wolcott everyday , shame on you, you should read him every day, even when he doesn't post.

Regardless, here's a link to his take on the Oscars.

Now, if only he'd liveblog the Vanity Fair party, now THAT would be worth reading.

Jon Stewart at the Oscars

When Jon Stewart was first announced to host the Oscars this was my take:

One wonders what our favorite anti-BS (fake) newsguy will do with all the self-serving sincerity that is tinseltown, but it takes no crystal ball to note that BushCorp™ and friends seem hell bent on providing plenty of material.

So as a prognosticater I was pretty close, Jon was clearly too hip for the room, and he was sure to include the inevitable Dick Cheney joke.

I haven't delved into the blogworlds reaction, yet, though I imagine many are disappointed that he didn't go into any sharper BushCorp™ critiques. My thought is that, professional that he is, Jon (as demonstrated by the opening Last Available Warm Body Montage) just did his job and didn't look to make the show all about him.

I'm guessing Hollywood's reaction will be ho hum. But I laughed anyway.

And the Oscar lobbying, political ad sendups were hysterical.

Painted in Blood, an Abstract Expression of Horror

Expect a furor over the release of additional pictures of Abu Ghraib atrocities.

Some will question whether the release of these pictures provides anything new to the debate, to my mind these new pictures serve as a reminder that the administration and military policy makers truly responsible for these atrocities are still walking around free, and in many cases, with promotions or awards to boot.

One of the most interesting perspectives I've read to date is by Washington Post staff writer Philip Kennicott, referring to the above image. The essay should be read in full, but here's a taste:

What's powerful, and infinitely sad, about this bloody floor is the silence. Whatever happened in this room, it almost certainly was accompanied by a cacophony of pain. That's gone now. As is anyone involved with what happened there. The garbage on the floor, the opening of a toilet, suggest human beings reduced to refuse. The anonymity of those who may have suffered is absolute. Other photographs have appeared with faces decorously blacked out, a nod by those publishing the images to the dignity of the victims. Here, everything has been blotted out, and strangely enough, the dignity is now complete.

The victim is now just blood, there is no face to put on him or her, nothing we can say about what or where the wounds were, and how they happened. And in this abstraction from anything identifiable, the victim becomes completely, finally Human, not a particular man or woman, with a certain color of skin, or cut of hair, or any clothing to place him or her in the categories that we use to make sense of the faraway, the foreign or the frightening. The abstraction of blood leaves an open space for anyone looking at this picture to imagine himself or herself in its midst, to imagine, say, that the blood pooling on the floor like wax before it drains to the opening of a rank toilet is our own. And that these dull industrial tiles, with their insidious repetition of a pattern, are the last things we remembered before the lights went out.

Those who deplore the release of these images are right in that they may add no specific new evidence to a forensic or political or journalistic argument. And they draw us -- no, wrench us -- further from what Americans like to think of as "closure," the end of the shame, the end of the argument. But this one image, just a pattern of darkness on a canvas of cement and tile, opens up everything, because who can look at it without going there? If the original Abu Ghraib photographs compelled us to realize our connection to the perpetrators -- our soldiers, fighting our war -- this sad, silent image begs us to at least imagine that we are connected, in a deeper, human way, to the victims. [Emphasis mine-SK]

Indeed, here's a suggestion to all those who believe that people's responses to these images are overwroght.
Imagine this view to be your last of the world, as it may well have been for some other human soul.

Then imagine that those who made this happen are still happily ensconced behind their desks in the Justice Department, or the Pentagon, or the White House.

How do you feel now?

State of the Union

What follows are excerpts form tonight's State of the Union address (full transcript available here) followed by my snarky comments in italics.

To confront the great issues before us, we must act in a spirit of good will and respect for one another. And I will do my part.
Does that include not misrepresenting your opponent's stances?

In this decisive year, you and I will make choices that determine both the future and the character of our country.
We will choose to act confidently in pursuing the enemies of freedom or retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life.
We will choose to build our prosperity by leading the world economy or shut ourselves off from trade and opportunity.
Apparently not.

Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror.
Democracies like Iran and Hamas in Palestine?

In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today there are 122.
Including Iran and Palestine?

And we are writing a new chapter in the story of self-government, with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink, and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom.

At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half -- in places like Syria and Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea and Iran -- because the demands of justice and the peace of this world require their freedom as well.
Exactly how are fixed elections in Iran better than the fixed elections in Egypt, or the US for that matter?

Their aim is to seize power in Iraq and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world.
Sure it's their aim, now.

BUSH: But they have miscalculated. We love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it.
Even if it means surrenduring it to the government wiretaps.

There is no peace in retreat.

And there is no honor in retreat.
But, to paraphrase General MacArthur, perhaps we should advance in another direction?

We remain on the offensive against terror networks. We have killed or captured many of their leaders.
Just not the most important ones.

We're on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory.
And that would be?

First, we are helping Iraqis build an inclusive government, so that old resentments will be eased and the insurgency will be marginalized.
Or become part of the governing coalition.

Second, we are continuing reconstruction efforts (at least all the swimiing pool hardware is shiny)and helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy (by stuffing millions in unmarked bills into file cabinets across the country), so all Iraqis can experience the benefits of Exxon/Mobile freedom.

Third, we are striking terrorist targets (with more new tqargets created every day) while we train Iraqi forces that are increasingly capable of defeating the enemy, (that we continue to create).

BUSH: Iraqis are showing their courage every day
By going out their front doors

Our work in Iraq is difficult, because our enemy is brutal. But that brutality has not stopped the dramatic progress of a new democracy. In less than three years, the nation has gone from dictatorship, to liberation, to sovereignty, to a constitution, to national elections, (to civil war).

BUSH: The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home.
Though many will also come home in boxes in cargo holds as well.

As we make progress on the ground and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels. But those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C.
What about by politicians in undisclosed locations?

In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice. Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.
As well as incompetence that seems incapable of anything but failure.

Hindsight alone is not wisdom.
No, but neither is denial.

And second-guessing is not a strategy.
And niether is wishful thinking.

With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor.
OK, you first.

A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our Iraqi allies to death and prison, (or at least a retreat to their New York and Paris townhouses) would put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country and show that a pledge from America means little.

Members of Congress, however we feel about the decisions and debates of the past, our nation has only one option: We must keep our word, defeat our enemies and stand behind the American military in its vital mission.
Our men and women in uniform are making sacrifices and showing a sense of duty stronger than all fear.

BUSH: They know what it's like to fight house to house in a maze of streets, to wear heavy gear in the desert heat, to see a comrade killed by a roadside bomb.
(Insert tribute to a soldier far more honorable than Bush, Cheney and the rest of the draft-dodgiing chicken hawk Yellow Elephants here).

(Insert toothless calls for greater democracy in the mid-east here.) And by the way, what of the two biggest offenders of civil rights, Russia and China? Perhaps chickenhawk bush is showing the bright yellow stripe that runs down his back?

And, tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.

To overcome dangers in our world, we must also take the offensive by encouraging economic progress and fighting disease and spreading hope in hopeless lands.
BUSH: Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies; it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need.
Not that we're doing nearly enough, but OK.

Our country must also remain on the offensive against terrorism here at home. The enemy has not lost the desire or capability to attack us.
Be afraid and submissive, be very afraid.

(Insert specious justification for illegal domestic spying here)

Did I mention you should be afraid?

Our economy is healthy and vigorous, and growing faster than other major industrialized nations. In the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million new (Mc)jobs -- more than Japan and the European Union combined.
BUSH: Even in the face of higher energy prices and natural disasters, (and despite my own incompetence) the American people have turned in an economic performance that is the envy of the world.

BUSH: We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy, even though this economy could not function without them.
All these are forms of economic retreat, and they lead in the same direction: toward a stagnant and second-rate economy. (The BushCorp plan?)

In the last five years, the tax relief you passed has left $880 billion in the hands of huge multinational Corporations, the Paris Hilton set, American workers, investors, small businesses and families. And they have used it to help produce more than four years of uninterrupted economic growth.
Yet the windfall for the rich tax relief is set to expire in the next few years.

BUSH: Keeping America competitive requires us to be good stewards of tax dollars.
Vote Democrat!

This year my budget will cut it again and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities.
Indeed, all those programs for poor people must be obviously failing. People are still poor, see my point?

BUSH: I am pleased that the members of Congress are working on earmark reform, because the federal budget has too many special interest projects (proposed by Republicans). And we can tackle this problem together, if you give me the royal powers which are my birthrightpass the line-item veto.

BUSH: The retirement of the baby boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the federal government. By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire federal budget. And that will present future Congresses with impossible choices: staggering tax increases, immense deficits or deep cuts in our outrageous militaryevery category of spending.

Keeping America competitive requires affordable health care.
Fat chance of that with Republicans in charge.

Our government has a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor and the elderly, and we are shirkingmeeting that responsibility.

(Insert proposed payoff to the medical insurance industry here)

BUSH: Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.
This is apparently news to Bush. A wee bit late to the party, but hey better late then never, right?

(insert proposed payoffs to energy industry here)

I'm paraphrasing here: Edjumacation is (they tell me) good. So is, though the jury's still out on evolution, science.

And the number of children born to teenage mothers has been falling for a dozen years in a row.
Except for poor mothers in red states with restrictive abortion regulations.

They are concerned about grand scale Republican corruptionunethical conduct by public officials and discouraged by activist courts that protect equal rights for gaystry to redefine marriage.

Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms; creating or implanting embryos for experiments; creating human-animal hybrids; and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.
Human-animal hybrids?! Um, Mr. President? "The Island of Doctor Moreau" isn't a documentary.
Human life is a gift from our creator, and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale.
Unless it for the military.

BUSH: So far, the federal government has committed $85 billion to the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. We are removing debris and repairing highways and rebuilding stronger levees. We're providing business loans and housing assistance.
To help make up for our incompetence before the disaster. Wasn't it a Republican who said that you can't solve problems by throwing money at them?

(insert laughable allusions comparing himself to Lincoln and Martin Luther King here)

BUSH: Before history is written down in books (I'm told), it is written in courage.

Like Americans before us, we will show that courage and we will finish well.

We will lead freedom's advance.

We will compete and excel in the global economy.

We will renew the defining moral commitments of this land.

And so we move forward optimistic about our country, faithful to its cause and confident of the victories to come.

May God bless America.
And may God have mercy on your souls.

Shafted

First the good news, the 72 miners trapped by fire in a potash mine have been rescued, and not only that, none even required hospitalization.

Miraculous one might say, especially in contrast with the two preceding coal mine disasters which left 14 dead, and one miner in grave condition.

Miraculous one might say, except that the real reason for the the different outcomes was geographical, the surviving miners were working in Canada, the dead ones in the United States.

And this is no mere co-incidence or simple anti-Bush snark, the reasons for the outcome in the Canadian mine are very easy to see:

The miners reported smoke and quickly headed for the refuge rooms, which can be as large as 50 feet by 150 feet and have an internal supply of oxygen that lasts up to 36 hours, along with food, water, chairs and beds.

The West Virginia miners had no such luxuries.
And why, pray tell is that?
Were the accidents unforseeable? No. In fact coal mining is appreciably more dangerous than potash mining.

The simple fact is that mine safety regulations in the US, under the Bush administration, where they haven't been gutted entirely, carry only the merest of penalties.

And so while their industry rakes in billions from their work, US mine workers operate under conditions that make them more vulnerable than need be, as the happy conclusion of the Canadian incident demonstrates.

Were I a family member of one of those West Virginia miners, I'd be angry indeed, that the government that is so willing to cancel our civil liberties in the name of security, is so unwilling to enforce very simple measures here at home that could have saved a loved one's life.

And I'd be angry as hell that instead of proper regulation, when it comes to disaster preparedness, our born-again administration prefers to wait on miracles.

The ghost of disasters future

New Orleans reconstruction not going that well? I'll try to control my shock.

Nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans, President Bush's lofty promises to rebuild the Gulf Coast have been frustrated by bureaucratic failures and competing priorities, a review of events since the hurricane shows.

While the administration can claim some clear progress, Bush's ringing call from New Orleans's Jackson Square on Sept. 15 to "do what it takes" to make the city rise from the waters has not been matched by action, critics at multiple levels of government say, resulting in a record that is largely incomplete as Bush heads into next week's State of the Union address.

This comes as a surprise to no-one, no-one, at least, who has been paying the least attention to BushCorp™'s phenomenal record of incompetence.

The problems include the slow federal cleanup of debris in Mississippi and Louisiana; a lack of authority for Bush's handpicked recovery coordinator, Donald E. Powell; the shortage and poor quality of housing for evacuees; and federal restrictions on reconstruction money and where coastal communities can rebuild.

With the onset of the hurricane season just four months away, there is no agreement on how to rebuild New Orleans, how to pay for that effort or even who is leading the cross-governmental partnership, according to elected leaders. While there is money to restore the city's flood defenses to protect against another Category 3 hurricane, it remains unclear whether merely reinforcing the levees will be enough to draw residents back.

I highly recommend the article for a full rundown of failures.

But it basically boils down to a failure to allocate sufficient resources, a lack of leadership, and a lack of organization.

In other words the typical BushCorp™ modus operandi.

And it light of Bush's pledge to "do what it takes" to rebuild New Orleans, we might well put a new interpretation on his very similar pledge to "stay the course" in Iraq.

My frequently recurring thought is, as always: is it any surprise that people who claim to hate government can't govern?

Democracy on the march

The recent landslide victory by the radical Islamic group Hamas might cause some to question the validity of our president's claim that democracy is the magic potion that will lead to global peace. I mean Hamas seems rather an unsavory group upon which to pin one's democratic hopes.

Hamas is closely related to the Muslim Brotherhood and its stated goal is to "remove Israel from the map", and to establish an Islamic theocracy in the area that is currently Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza strip. In pursuit of this, Hamas affirms a right to engage in military struggle.
[snip]
Hamas is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union, Canada, the United States, and Israel, and its attacks targeting Israeli civilians and other human rights abuses have been condemned by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

But perhaps Hamas victory this week is a function of the peculiar history of the Palestinian people and is now way indicative of a democratic trend.

Just because the people of the Gaza strip have voted into office a religiously fundamentalist and warlike group doesn't mean that trend will happen in any other countries.

It certainly couldn't happen here.

American Ideas and Ideals

For those of us who fear that BushCorp is using the terror of 9/11 to destroy the values that make America worthy of saving, Jack Grant, writing at The Moderate Voice, has an excellent (though long) essay on the subject. Here's a taste, but really, you should read it all, isn't your freedom worth it?

There are few things in this world in which I firmly believe, and even fewer that I am willing to stand up for. The ideas of freedom and democracy are among those precious few.

There is a critical difference between ideals and ideas.

The ideal of America has been murdered in the past five years by the actions of the government of the United States, but the ideas underlying America have not yet been destroyed.

The ideas of freedom and democracy are what I believe in. What are the gravest threats to these ideas, an external threat of terrorist organizations who kill people to get headlines, or those who claim the world changed on September 11, 2001 and say that to protect our "freedom" we must push aside the ideas of civil liberties in order to provide safety against terrorist threats?

In other words, there are those who say that we must kill the patient in order to "cure" the disease. This is a solution that appeals to the simple-minded, but not to those who truly understand the fundamentals underlying our Constitution.

What is clear to me is that which is the true threat, and that threat is NOT the one commonly perceived.

It is often quoted, by me as much as by others, something that was written by one of my heroes, Benjamin Franklin, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Those who proclaim "the world changed on 9/11" as an argument towards undermining the freedoms we had against government surveillance of our lives understand neither the nature of the world before September 11, 2001, nor do they understand the foundations underlying our Constitution.

The best of GOP governance

In today's Washington Post Harold Meyerson observes that incompetence is BushCorp™'s defining feature:

Incompetence is not one of the seven deadly sins, and it's hardly the worst attribute that can be ascribed to George W. Bush. But it is this president's defining attribute. Historians, looking back at the hash that his administration has made of his war in Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina and his Medicare drug plan, will have to grapple with how one president could so cosmically botch so many big things -- particularly when most of them were the president's own initiatives.

He follows with a nice rundown on the administration's multitudinous failures. And just in case you're not familiar with the latest:

It's the president's prescription drug plan (Medicare Part D), though, that is his most mind-boggling failure. As was not the case in Iraq or with Katrina, it hasn't had to overcome the opposition of man or nature. Pharmacists are not resisting the program; seniors are not planting car bombs to impede it (not yet, anyway). But in what must be an unforeseen development, people are trying to get their medications covered under the program. Apparently, this is a contingency for which the administration was not prepared, as it has been singularly unable to get its own program up and running.

Initially, Part D's biggest glitch seemed to be the difficulty that seniors encountered in selecting a plan. But since Part D took effect on Jan. 1, the most acute problem has been the plan's failure to cover the 6.2 million low-income seniors whose medications had been covered by Medicaid. On New Year's Day, the new law shifted these people's coverage to private insurers. And all hell broke loose.

Read the whole article, but let me suggest a further conclusion. Bush's failures are not sole the result of incompetence. They are the result of the inherent Republican belief that government is the problem, not the solution, to quote GOP Saint Reagan.

And I must ask my fellow citizens, what sense does it make to put government in the charge of those who hold such a belief?

In many ways then, this is the best GOP government we'll ever have. Think about that.

The cost of war

The reasons against the war in Iraq sometimes seem as numerous as stars in the desert sky, and, at least to some, as compelling. The cost in American and Iraqi lives, those of the dead as well as those of the maimed, could well move one to tears.

In political terms, the costs could be, conceivably, even worse. The loss of US goodwill and crediblity with the international community is something that may take decades to repair, if it is even possible to do so. The costs of this loss, as well as the weakening of our armed forces, seem to be playing out in the showdown with Iran over nuclear weapons, and seem to be part of our continuing difficultie with North Korea as well.

It strikes me as incredibly ironic that the US' ill-advised attack on Iraq, designed by the neocons to bulk up US credibility, has instead managed to degrade it.

But since GOPers seem immune to any number of arguments against the war in Iraq, I thought it would be helpful to put it in terms the typical Republican can identify with: money.

According to a new analysis by Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes, the actual economic costs of the Iraqi war vastly overshadow both the administration's current requests, as well as their laughable pre-war estimates. Writing in the LA Times:

LAST WEEK, at the annual meeting of the American Economic Assn., we presented a new estimate for the likely cost of the war in Iraq. We suggested that the final bill will be much higher than previously reckoned — between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, depending primarily on how much longer our troops stay. Putting that into perspective, the highest-grossing movie of all time, "Titanic," earned $1.8 billion worldwide — about half the cost the U.S. incurs in Iraq every week.

Like the iceberg that hit the Titanic, the full costs of the war are still largely hidden below the surface. Our calculations include not just the money for combat operations but also the costs the government will have to pay for years to come. These include lifetime healthcare and disability benefits for returning veterans and special round-the-clock medical attention for many of the 16,300 Americans who already have been seriously wounded. We also count the increased cost of replacing military hardware because the war is using up equipment at three to five times the peacetime rate. In addition, the military must pay large reenlistment bonuses and offer higher benefits to reenlist reluctant soldiers. On top of this, because we finance the war by borrowing more money (mostly from abroad), there is a rising interest cost on the extra debt.

Our study also goes beyond the budget of the federal government to estimate the war's cost to the economy and our society. It includes, for instance, the true economic costs of injury and death. For example, if an individual is killed in an auto or work-related accident, his family will typically receive compensation for lost earnings. Standard government estimates of the lifetime economic cost of a death are about $6 million. But the military pays out far less — about $500,000. Another cost to the economy comes from the fact that 40% of our troops are taken from the National Guard and Reserve units. These troops often earn lower wages than in their civilian jobs. Finally, there are macro-economic costs such as the effect of higher oil prices — partly a result of the instability in Iraq.

To a liberal like myself, these numbers raise thoughts about how much of the US' badly degraded social safety net could've been shorn up by that money. How many improvements in healthcare and education could've been fully funded. How many lives could've been improved.

But for my Republican friends, in terms you can understand, just think of how many tax-cuts and faith-based programs might've been funded, how many fences raised along the border with Mexico, how many more FBI agents to analyze the President's illegal wiretaps.

You'd think it'd be enough to make Rush Limbaugh cry.

Time to upturn the pigtrough

I don't frequently agree, as one might guess, with conservative pundit George Will.

Mr. Will however, is at least the sort of conservative who has, to date, largely shunned the BushCorp™, power for power's sake kool-aid. And like many an honest (or at least sincere) conservative, he seems truly disheartened by the level of corruption in the Republican party.

Now one may ask why, just now, is this long time DC insider so interested in cleaning up congress. Couldn't be a belated effort to save the GOP's elephantine ass on the Abramoff corruption scandal or anything? Nah.

But be that as it may, Mr. Will has recently shown that even political hacks can come to wisdom.

And on what subject does your CaliBlogger agree with the wiley Mr. Will?

Earmarks.

As I wrote last week:

As has been shown over and over again, efforts to reduce the flow of money, either directly on indirectly into politicians' pockets have proven futile. If corporations and wealthy individuals have both money to spend and an expectation it'll buy them a favor, they'll find a way. What campaign finance laws and such really do is serve as full employment insurance for millions of very clever lawyers looking for the (inevitable it seems) loophole.

No, rather than throw down a rather porous gauntlet for interest groups and their battalions of lawyers, better to enforce a very simple rule for a few hundred congresscritters: No more earmarks.

If lobbyists can no longer count on getting a specific bit of legislation into the books simply by getting Congressman X seats for the Superbowl, they'll be much less inclined to even try. These are businessmen after all, and like any good businessman, a lobbyist will want to get the most bang for the buck. So if no bang is there to be had, neither will be the bucks.

No doubt having read an advanced copy of my LTE to the Pasadena Star-News (read it here), Mr. Will, in an effort, no doubt to avoid getting "scooped" on the idea, rushed into yesterday's Washington Post:

Forbid appropriations to private entities. Government money should flow directly to government agencies -- federal, state or local. And those agencies should be required to formally testify that local projects receiving national funding serve essential national needs. Appropriations that are, in effect, cash flows from individual representatives to private entities are invitations to corruption. Federal money directed to private entities was what ex-representative Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) was bribed to deliver.

So, end "earmarks." They write into law a representative's or senator's edict that a particular sum be spent on a particular project in his or her state or district.

And while such suggestions may be mere CYA attempts by conservatives in the face of the GOP's Abramoff corruption scandal, still, I believe suggestions like those made by Arizona Republican, Rep. Jeff Flake have merit:

Flake proposes legislation that would prohibit federal agencies from funding any earmark not contained in a bill's actual legislative language. And the bill would allow a point of order to prevent the waiving of House rules against including non-germane spending -- earmarks not included in either House or Senate spending bills -- in conference reports.

I strongly doubt that the GOP as a whole would even consider endangering the support they receive from their corporate masters, support based on the many little billion dollar favors a Congressman can give.

Which presents an opportunity for Democrats to stand up for real reform, and stand up against earmarks.

And I would certainly support any candidate who can honestly answer yes to the following question: Do you support the complete elimination of Congressional earmarks?

A blogosphere breakthrough

We interrupt our usual programming to announce a blogosphere exclusive, Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice has the hookup to: THE BEST BLONDE JOKE EVER.

Enjoy.

Truthiness, justice and the American way

If you're not a fan of the Colbert Report...well why not?

But anyway, mock pundit (in the way Jon Stewart is a mock newsman), Stephen Colbert is already impacting the American lexicon, even if he's not getting credit for it.

Adam Green has the call:

Harkening back to October 17, 2005, the night the Colbert Report debuted on Comedy Central, Colbert replayed his first Word of the Day: Truthiness.

At the time he had joked, "Now I'm sure some of the Word Police, the wordanistas over at Webster's, are gonna say, 'Hey, that's not a word.'" But on Monday, Colbert swollowed (sic) his pride - he admitted he was wrong. Because it turns out, this week the American Dialect Society voted "truthiness" the 2005 word of the year. Colbert commented:

Press article announcing this prestigious award - written by one Heather Clark - had a glaring omission: Me. I'm not mentioned, despite the fact that truthiness is a word I pulled right out of my keyster.

Instead of coming to me, here's where Ms. Clark got the definition. "Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State university who specializes in lexicology, said 'truthiness' means 'truthy, not facty.'"

First of all, I looked him up. He's not a professor, he's a vising associate professor. And second, it means a lot more than that, Michael.

I don't know what you're getting taught over there in English 201 and 324 over at Tompkins Hall, Wolfpack. But it isn't truthiness.

In fact, the AP article misses the entire satirical point, that truthiness is the kind of mindset that makes people believe Saddam was involved in 9/11 and al Qaeda and that eolution is "just" a theory.

And though I suspect that the real culprit is some editor, the object of Stephen's wrath is the woman with the byline on the article, Heather Clark.

The truth is clear from American Dialect Society's website
.

And if you'd like to politely suggest a correction I'd suggest contacting Ms. Clark.

And, as Mr. Green suggests:

And if you're on the fence about whether to contact her, don't just do it for Colbert. Do it in the name...of truthiness.

Congress: Reform thyself

As DC Republicans nervously wait for the scandals to hit the fan in the Abramoff bribery debacle, they are also devoting a lot of energy (hot air mainly) to something called "lobbying reform".

You have, or will soon see, a plethora of news articles like this one from the Washington Post:

Hill Weighs Curbs on Lobbying:
More Disclosure, Ban on Sponsored Trips Under Consideration

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 12, 2006; Page A04

Congress is poised to pass measures early this year that would clamp down on lobbying activity and possibly end some lawmaker travel.

Lawmakers are moving quickly to devise lobbying legislation and to approve it soon after Congress returns later this month. The rush has been caused by recent lobbying scandals, including the guilty plea last week of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is cooperating with prosecutors in a corruption investigation of Congress.

But while I think that more disclosure is great and that bans on exorbitant gifts and trips are long overdue, if the goal is to eliminate much of the outright quid pro quo horse-trading that passes for government these days, at least one of two other things must happen.

Congresscritters must be forbidden from accepting campaign contributions from lobbyists and their surrogates and/or they must give up the ability to place earmarks in legislation.

And of the two, I believe that eliminating the earmark would be far the most effective anit-corruption tactic, and thus the most dificult to enact.

As I've earlier remarked while blogging on governmental malfeasance in both the preparation for disasters like Katrina, as well as FEMA's inadequate response (a state of affairs that continues today by the way, though in Texas and Oklahoma):

Currently the administration and congress are seeking to divert attention from their corrupt and irresponsible behavior by focusing their wrath on the admittedly woefully inadequate disaster response. But as heads cool, and minds take over, it is past time to hold the President, and especialy Congress responsible for the pork-laden earmark process and the feckless use of our nation's resources.

As we can see from the potentially avoidable tragedy of New Orlean's burst levees, such negligence borders on the criminal, if not the treasonous.

The Congressional earmark process must be severly curtailed, if not eliminated entirely, and in the 2006 mid-terms I expect a promise to that effect from any Congresscritter with the barest hope of being elected.

As has been shown over and over again, efforts to reduce the flow of money, either directly on indirectly into politicians' pockets have proven futile. If corporations and wealthy individuals have both money to spend and an expectation it'll buy them a favor, they'll find a way. What campaign finance laws and such really do is serve as full employment insurance for millions of very clever lawyers looking for the (inevitable it seems) loophole.

No, rather than throw down a rather porous gauntlet for interest groups and their battalions of lawyers, better to enforce a very simple rule for a few hundred congresscritters: No more earmarks.

If lobbyists can no longer count on getting a specific bit of legislation into the books simply by getting Congressman X seats for the Superbowl, they'll be much less inclined to even try. These are businessmen after all, and like any good businessman, a lobbyist will want to get the most bang for the buck. So if no bang is there to be had, neither will be the bucks.

Until congress takes this simple step, any "reform" will be just so much windowdressing.

The REPUBLICAN Corruption Scandal

Despite what you'll be hearing from GOPer liars spinmeisters, Democrats have never taken ANY bribes from Casino Jack Abramoff. DNC chairman Howard Dean smacks down Wolf Blitzer. The transcript is from Kos:

BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges, among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrat who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?

DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we've looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that's true.

BLITZER: But through various Abramoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.

DEAN: That's not true either. There's no evidence for that either. There is no evidence...

BLITZER: What about Senator Byron Dorgan?

DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They're not agents of Jack Abramoff. There's no evidence that I've seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They're scared. They should be scared. They haven't told the truth. They have misled the American people. And now it appears they're stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.

BLITZER: Unfortunately Mr. Chairman, we got to leave it right there.

Crooks and liars has the video.

You dirty rat...

Ah for the good old days of Jimmy Cagney gangster flicks, when you could tell the good guys from the bad.

In news that further re-inforces the Republican corruption as a bad gangster flick image (see fedora Jack Abramoff here) Time is reporting that Duke Cunningham wore a wire while co-operating with the feds.

Washington's power players have always bragged about being well-wired, but for disgraced former congressman Duke Cunningham, "wired" wasn't just a figure of speech. In a week when legislators are focused on the question of who else might be brought down by ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s cooperation with prosecutors as he seeks lenient sentencing over his two federal guilty pleas this week, sources tell TIME that in a separate investigation, ex-Rep. Cunningham wore a wire to help investigators gather evidence against others just before copping his own plea.

Many before me have suggested the idea of the Bush crime family and I've already resisted the tendancy. But doesn't this stuff begin to remind you of an old episode of Law and Order?

Washington DC, where the government is corrupt and the Republicans are nervous.

The Saturday Column: Whither now the governator?

If, as a noted English writer once said the past is prologue, then we can perhaps guess the future course of Schwarzenegger's newest initiatives.

In Thursday's State of the State address, the Republican governor outlined a series of proposals that would make any self-respecting Democrat weep with joy, including proposals to limit tuition fees for the state's universities, raise the minimum wage, and most ambitiously, to float a massive public works bond to shore up Califonia's woefully inadequate transportation systems.

I'll, no doubt, have more to say on all of these proposals as they near either fruition or failure in the coming year, but at the moment I wanted to look at their political implications.

Let's look at the Governator's record.

In the 2003 recall election which saw Arnold's ascent to the pinnacle of California politics featured promises of bi-partisanship and an end of the pay to play mindset so devastating to Gray Davis' career. And while the promise not to accept money from special inteests proved as specious as anyone paying attention to modern American politics would expect it to be, Arnold held largely to his pledge of bipartisan co-operation regarding the most important of his then proposals, the bond issue restructuring California's debt situation.

Well and good.

Then something funny happened.

Around the time of the 2004 Republican National Convention, someone (contributors no doubt) reminded Arnold that he is a Republican. His glowing support for Bush at the convention was inevitable if he was going to garner a a coveted primetime speaking spot, as was, no doubt, his support in the ensuing presidential campaign. But going further, he infuriated California Democrats by actively campaigning against them, including some who had bought Schwarzenegger's "spirit of bi-partisanship" rhetoric and supported his proposals.

Then in 2005 the other shoe, inevitably, dropped. The governator's State of the state message was a shot across the bow of Democrats and their supporters, as well as manna from heavan (to mix metaphors) for the very right wing California Republican party. Why this shift to the right?

To me, anyway, the answer is not entirely clear. Were Schwarzenegger's proposals to strike at a major Democratic constituency, unions, merely a reflection of Schwarzenegger's own pro-business tendancies (as well as his chamber of commerce type supporters)? Or was it a cynical ploy to shore up his Republican base (and build an enormous campaign war chest), anticipating this year's election year swing back to the center?

In the end I suppose it doesn't really matter, as we've now enough information to make an educated guess as to what Schwarzenegger's next year and his new administration (if re-elected) will look like.

My prognostication.

2006 will see Schwarzenegger making furious efforts to pass his proposed initiatives, his success to be determined largely by the political calculations made by the Democrat controlled legislature. Sacramento Democrats face a choice. Do they support the governor's proposals in an effort to show themselves as working in that much vaunted bi-partisan spirit? Do they kill the governor's proposals by either blocking them outright (unlikely) or by tacking on provisions (e.g. pro-union) that will prove impossible for Arnold to swallow?

My guess is that, after an enormous amount of horse-trading, relatively bi-partisan proposals will either be passed by Sacramento, or make it successfully to the ballot as initiatives.

I (for now) make no guesses as to the success of such ballot initiatives, but should he be re-elected one thing seems clear, expect Schwarzenegger to make another hard right turn. In 2007/8 he'll be looking to shore up (yet again) the Republican faithful and repay his campaign debts and prep himself (yet again) for the national spotlight of the 2008 Republican convention where the support of of a "moderate" Republican governor will (yet again) be coveted as a mask for the Republican party's wingnut true inner self.

California Democrats and independents are faced then with this choice: are the benefits of supporting Arnold's current proposals for a tuition freeze, increased minimum wage, and urgently needed infrastructure support worth the wingnut causes he'll no doubt espouse once re-elected?

And California Republicans face a similar choice, can they bite their tongues long enough to help Schwarzenegger get re-elected, counting on getting their due in 2007/8?

Jon Stewart to host Oscars

Too cool:

Jon Stewart, the Emmy-winning host and co-writer of Comedy Central's mock newscast "The Daily Show," today will be named host of the 78th Annual Academy Awards, three sources familiar with the selection process said Wednesday, ending months of speculation about the show's next emcee.

Academy officials and longtime Oscar producer Gil Cates have settled on Stewart, 43, who hosted the Grammy Awards in 2001 and 2002, the sources said.

One wonders what our favorite anti-BS (fake) newsguy will do with all the self-serving sincerity that is tinseltown, but it takes no crystal ball to note that BushCorp™ and friends seem hell bent on providing plenty of material.

Abramoff strikes deal with feds

As I expected, Casino Jack Abramoff today struck a deal with federal prosecuters to serve a lesser sentence for his various and sundry crimes in return for his co-operation in the ongoing investigations of his congresscritter clientele.

Super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's guilty plea Tuesday to three felony counts sets the stage for the biggest congressional scandal perhaps in decades, certainly since the Republicans took over Congress 10 years ago, pledging clean government.

In exchange for his guilty pleas, in both the Washington case and a separate Florida case in which he was indicted last year, Mr. Abramoff will cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating members of Congress, Capitol Hill aides, and other lobbyists. Political players with ties to Abramoff and his network, who knew the lobbyist was preparing to cut a deal, have been sweating for months. Now they're sweating harder.

Though members of both parties are involved, analysts expect Republicans - who control both houses of Congress - to bear the brunt of the political fallout. Abramoff, who has close ties to former House majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas, allegedly funneled campaign donations to lawmakers, who were treated to lavish trips and meals, in exchange for official acts.

"It could end some careers," says Jennifer Duffy, an analyst at the non- partisan Cook Political report.

Ah yes, one can hope.

But further, I hope the Abramoff scandal not only brings down those who've vioalted the current law, but also exposes the extent of entirely legal corruption now permeating Washington.

For to a large degree it seems that Abramoff's greatest problem is that his dealings with congressmen simply went a little too far beyond the usual wink-wink, nudge-nudge of pay to play politics as usual. Abramoff's quid pro quos were simply too blatent.

And until such a time as election campaigns no longer cost millions per politician, lobbyists will continue to creep along the fine line of what's leagal and what's not. And some, like Abramoff, will occasionally cross over.

[Think Progress has a truly comprehensive breakdown of Abramoff's house of cards]

New Year's Resolution

To do everything my small voice allows me, to see that George W. Bush, for once in his life, actually faces the consequences of his actions.