Gee, who would have thunk it?

Why is a government phone database a bad idea? Because of stuff like this:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

Hmmm. Do you suppose that tracking calls made by reporters might have a chilling effect on their ability to report, far out of proportion to whatever legitimate security interest the government has in finding and plugging leaks?

Do you suppose that such practices might be ripe for abuse -- used, say, when the activity being investigated is not a national security issue but, say, embarassing or criminal?

Let's extend the analogy to the Internet, and let's make it personal.

I post under a pseudonym. If I were to become a thorn in the side of the administration, they could easily track the IP addresses used for posting, learn my identity, and then take action. What if my employer is one of those that would not be happy to find that I'm running this site? The government could simply inform my employer and I'd be forced to stop blogging on pain of losing my job.

I broke no law. I would not be charged with any crime. But I would be effectively silenced.

Such things are insidious, and harmful to a free society. They ought to be odious to anyone who values a free society and a strong democracy. Handing the government the keys to our privacy in hopes that they will keep us safe from terrorists simply exchanges a distant threat for a near one, and destroys the very thing that we're trying to defend.

civil liberties, privacy, NSA, politics, midtopia

Discriminating against poor students?

A California judge has suspended a statewide exam that high school students must pass to receive their diploma.

Today's Star Tribune had a brief on it, mentioning that the judge concluded the exam discriminated against "poor students" and those with limited English skills.

My first reaction was "Poor students? Isn't that the point of such an exam, to weed out the bad students?"

But upon further research, the judge meant students who are economically poor. And the argument there is an interesting one.

The lawsuit claimed that many students have not had the opportunity to learn the material on the exit exam because they went to substandard schools with unqualified teachers, insufficient textbooks and squalid conditions.

Freedman agreed, saying, "Students in economically challenged communities have not had an equal opportunity to learn the materials tested."

Freedman wrote in his opinion that the "record is replete" with evidence of California's underfunded schools and said his decision applies to students statewide.

Few people would disagree that students should graduate with certain basic skills. And a graduation exam is a good way to test whether they have those skills.

But as this lawsuit highlights, if a student has not acquired those skills, whose fault is it: the student's or the school system's? Who do you punish, the student or the school?

On the other hand, if you can get a diploma without learning those basic skills, what value does the diploma have?

It might come down to cases. But it seems to me the problem can be solved by focusing on the goal: turning out an educated populace.

If a student fails the exam, they don't get a diploma: they get shunted into a high-quality, well-funded remedial program that will bring their skills up so that they *can* pass the exam.

Meanwhile, if a school has a large percentage of students failing to pass the exam, it gets scrutinized. If the problem is funding, it gets more resources. If the problem is staff competence, it gets a housecleaning. If the problem is simply a highly challenged student body -- poor, large number of non-English speakers, unstable homes -- it gets something tailored to that.

Focus on the goal: A diploma should mean something, and if students are failing to learn we should place the blame -- and the resources -- where it belongs.

education, California, politics, midtopia

Highly-enriched uranium found in Iran

is Iran still operating a clandestine nuclear enrichment program?

U.N. inspectors have found traces of near bomb-grade enriched uranium on nuclear equipment in Iran, diplomats said on Friday, as the EU prepared a declaration that will insist Tehran shelve all enrichment work.

Maybe not:

The new discovery by U.N. inspectors of high-enriched uranium traces in Iran was made on equipment from a former research site razed by Iran in 2004 before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could examine it, diplomats said.

Er, okay. So that means they had a clandestine enrichment program. Something we already knew. Phew.

Still, the fact that they had near bomb-grade uranium casts doubt on the peacefulness of the venture. Power plants don't need anywhere near that level of enrichment.

The Iranian reaction was, paraphrased, "you're all a bunch of pussies":

Iran signaled undiminished confidence in a lack of big power resolve against its atomic work with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling Western pressure "psychological propaganda" and the U.S.-mooted, last-resort option of war "unlikely." ... Reacting to the report, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the students' news agency ISNA: "These comments lack any importance and do not come from a real source."

Not really the words of someone interested in a diplomatic solution, are they?

nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Big windfarm planned for Texas

Kudos to Texas for thinking big, as usual.

A proposal to build the biggest offshore wind farm in the nation won approval yesterday from Texas state officials, the latest development in the fast-growing segment of the alternative-energy industry.

Texas General Land Office, which manages state lands and mineral rights, said yesterday that it reached an agreement granting Superior Renewable Energy the rights to 39,900 acres of submerged lands in the Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Padre Island and south of Baffin Bay. The big wind turbines, expected to number more than 100, will be erected as few as three and as many as eight miles offshore.

The Houston company, headed by the former executive of a small oil company, said it plans to build 500 megawatts of capacity, enough to power a small city or about 125,000 homes. But the firm's executive vice president and general counsel Michael Hansen said it will probably be about four years before construction begins.

This is serious money: the project will take four to five years to complete, at a cost of $1 billion to $2 billion.

There are the usual environmental concerns: The wind farm is astride a major migratory bird route. That's a legitimate problem, but surely we can develop ways to keep birds away from the blades. Eventually I'd like to see some sort of cost-comparison for wind farms, quantifying the benefits of reduced pollution against the threat to wildlife. On the plus side, the lease agreement contains tough standards for protecting birds, according to consumer watchdog Public Citizen.

Consider this a test case for offshore wind power generation. If it goes well, wind could become a significant source of power over the next decade.

renewable energy, wind farm, energy, texas, politics, midtopia

NSA spying update

It's been a very busy day at work, and other bloggers are way ahead of me. So I'll just point you to the insights at the following purveyors of food thought:

The Moderate Voice has a good roundup of opinion.
One Donklephant poster explains his concerns, while another asks "does datamining work, anyway?"

My few thoughts:

The Washington Post poll showing 63% support for the program is worthless, because it's based on 400 people interviewed the same day the story broke. It's a sampling of opinion, but not necessarily informed opinion.

The idea behind "social networks" is to find out who's connected to whom. You find a suspect, find out who's talking to him, then find out who's talking to those people, and so on. Sounds great -- unless you've ever played the Kevin Bacon game. Do that and you soon come to the conclusion that it's possible to connect anyone to nearly anyone else in relatively few moves. Which makes sense, because the connections progress geometrically.

So to find a meaningful pattern, you have to start with a known terrorist phone number. And if you've got that, you ought to be able to get warrants to tap that phone, pull its records, and look at those direct connections.

If that's true -- and I freely admit to not be an expert -- all the database does is save a little time. Is that worth the huge invitation to abuse that it offers?

Finally, ThinkProgress notes that the phone companies could be liable for billions of dollars in damages if they turned over records illegally. Somehow I think they'll get excused from that, given the NSA arm-twisting, but there could be some expensive lawsuits in their future.

terrorism, privacy, civil liberties, NSA, politics, midtopia

Rove to be indicted?

Truthout is reporting that Karl Rove has told his bosses that he will be indicted in the Valerie Plame case, and would resign when that happened.

Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors."

Which, at the moment, is all they are. Truthout is not exactly an unbiased source, and so far there's no independent confirmation. But it would be unusual for Truthout to state the case so clearly if they didn't have something to back it up.

Fitzgerald, Plame, Rove, politics, midtopia

Hamas militants propose recognition of Israel

According to Hamas members, there's a spirited debate going on within the party about recognizing Israel.

Many Hamas leaders favor recognizing Israel, but Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar and the group's top leader, Syria-based Khaled Mashaal, have refused, the official said.

The debate became public with the release of a proposal worked out by top militants, including those from Hamas, imprisoned in Israeli jails. The document calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War: the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.

Whether such a land-for-peace deal is acceptable to Israel is a matter of debate. And several other demands in the document, notably the right of return for Palestinian refugees, are strongly opposed by Israel. So the proposal is best considered a work in progress.

In some other promising signs, Israel said it would be willing to use some of its impounded tax payments to the Palestinian Authority for humanitarian efforts within Palestine. And Fatah and Hamas have agreed to stop violent clashes, a step away from civil war if it holds. However violence continued even after the truce.

Baby steps all. But steps in the right direction.

Fatah, Hamas, Palestine, Israel, politics, midtopia

Bob Ney under the microscope

I'm several days late getting to this, but Bob Ney has been added to the Hall of Shame watch.

Ney is under the microscope for allegedly taking contributions and gifts in the form of trips, concerts, sporting events and meals from Abramoff and Tony Rudy, a former aide to DeLay who recently pleaded guilty to charges his conspired to bribe members of Congress with Abramoff.

On Monday, Ney's former chief of staff and later lobbyist Neil Volz was pleading guilty to two minor corruption charges in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. ... Ney allegedly reciprocated for [Abramoff's] favors by introducing legislation to help Abramoff's Indian tribe clients and entered language into The Congressional Record denouncing the business practices of a cruise line owner with whom Abramoff was in a dispute.

A lot of bad chiefs of staff floating around, it seems.

Volz, Ney, politics, midtopia

The parties of disarray

It will come as no surprise that the Republicans are in disarray, with even hard-core partisans turning on President Bush.

The Gallup polling organization recorded a 13-percentage-point drop in Republican support for Bush in the past couple of weeks. These usually reliable voters are telling pollsters and lawmakers they are fed up with what they see as out-of-control spending by Washington and, more generally, an abandonment of core conservative principles.

There are also significant pockets of conservatives turning on Bush and Congress over their failure to tighten immigration laws, restrict same-sex marriage, and put an end to the Iraq war and the rash of political scandals, according to lawmakers and pollsters.

Those are just poll numbers, of course, and it's never a good idea to read too much into them. But the trend has been significant. And the really bad news for Republicans is that conservatives increasingly see little difference between them and the Democrats:

Michael Franc, a top official at the Heritage Foundation, said his organization hosted 600 of its top conservative donors last week and heard more widespread complaining about Republicans than at any other point in the past 12 years. "It begins with spending, extends through immigration and results in a sense that we have Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee for the two parties," Franc said.

Without that difference the election will come down to a referendum on Republican governance, which they will lose. This is a good thing in general -- I think most elections should be a referendum on the party in power. And in this case Republicans roundly deserve to lose. Let's just hope we don't see a whole lot of bad legislation over the next six months as the GOP desperately tries to shore up its prospects.

What might be surprising is that the Democrats are in disarray, too:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and the leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have clashed angrily in recent days in a dispute about how the party should spend its money in advance of this fall's midterm elections.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who is leading the party's effort to regain majority status in the House, stormed out of Dean's office several days ago leaving a trail of expletives, according to Democrats familiar with the session.

The problem is that some Dems want to focus on winning seats this November, while Dean wants to take a long-term view and rebuild the party from the ground up -- and there's not enough money to do both well.

Dean's right that the party needs restructuring. The Dems need to rebuild their platform, and they need to find effective leadership -- something that neither Nancy Pelosi nor Harry Reid provide. But it's not at all clear that Dean is the man for the job, either. His public gaffes have been mounting, and his fundraising hasn't kept pace with his ambitions or the GOP, which has outraised him 2-to-1 in the current election cycle. He's very smart and charming, something I'm reminded of every time I hear him speak. But he's not the measured moderate I want to see in charge.

His triumphs -- energizing the base, using the Internet -- seem largely tactical, not strategic. And his strategy -- spending heavily in Republican strongholds as a long-term effort to build the party base -- is quixotic if it costs the party seats in the meantime, and pointless if that spending is not supported by leadership and platform reforms. If you have a flawed product, no amount of marketing is going to get people to buy it.

Dean should be laying the long-term foundation first, and only then spend heavily to market it. He can do that on the cheap, freeing up money for the November campaign. Increased Democrat influence should translate into increased Democrat fundraising, which will make achieving Dean's long-term plan easier.

Sometimes the Republicans' greatest asset is that the Democrats are their chief opponent. Few governing parties have offered their opponents such an opportunity as exists now for the Democrats. It would be sadly typical if the Dems failed to capitalize on Republican woes because they were too focused on their own problems.

On the other hand, perhaps the sorry state of both parties will cause the rank-and-file to finally get fed up with the current leadership. And then perhaps the ideologues will be thrown overboard and the moderates reassert control. The public hunger for such a move exists; and the first party to make it happen could well be in the driver's seat for years to come.

Bush, Dean, politics, midtopia

NSA has database of millions of phone calls

You've heard about the National Security Agency's data-mining programs -- the ones that sift through huge quantities of data looking for patterns that might indicate terrorist activity.

But up until now the extent -- and implications -- of such programs have been only vaguely discussed, since hard facts were scarce.

No more. USA Today reports that the NSA phone-call-tracking effort is huge -- and it's all being stored in a giant database.

he National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews. ...

The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders....

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

This effort doesn't involve actual eavesdropping -- listening in on the conversations. Legality aside, that would be physically impossible given the volume of calls. Instead the NSA is assembling a record of who called whom when, and for how long, anywhere in the United States.

A look at some of the issues raised by the story:

Extent: The program appears to be far more extensive than has been suggested previously. With an exception I'll discuss below, it's an attempt to log every domestic call in the United States.

Privacy: The records are scrubbed of personal identifying information, such as names, Social Security numbers and street addresses. Getting those requires some showing of "probable cause." But if you have the phone number, there are plenty of ways to get the other information. The simplest is a reverse phone directory, in which you enter a phone number and get the name and street address back.

Plus, there's no way to tell what the information is being used for. The NSA told one phone company that the data could be shared with other government agencies, such as the FBI, the CIA and the DEA. The last example, especially, makes it sound as if the database would be used as a general crime-fighting tool -- conveniently bypassing warrant and privacy laws.

Line-blurring: The NSA, like the CIA, has historically been prohibited from spying domestically for civil liberty reasons. This program is proof that that prohibition has been shattered. Not only is the NSA monitoring domestic communications, but as I'll discuss below, the agency said the information might be shared with the CIA, thus getting the spy agency into the domestic intelligence business.

If you're keeping track, American citizens are now being scrutinized by local police intelligence units, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and even the Pentagon. And those agencies are increasingly unshackled by such bothersome things as warrants or probable cause requirements.

Legality: By law, phone companies require a court order before turning over customer data. The NSA program doesn't bother with that. Nor does it bother with the FISA court, in keeping with Bush administration practice. Instead, Bush claims that the his "inherent authority" and the Patriot Act give him the power to run such a program.

But a telling example is the exception I alluded to above. One major phone company refused to comply with the NSA program: Qwest. (My phone company, by the way), leaving a 14-state hole in the NSA's surveillance. Qwest's concerns were threefold: the legality of the program, who would have access to the data, and how the data would be used.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. ... NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Note that none of these were legal arguments; they were emotional appeals. The NSA was on shaky legal ground -- and knew it:

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

So there you have it. NSA didn't want to ask for permission because they knew they probably wouldn't get it. Not because the FISA court was inefficient, as has been claimed; but because FISA, quite properly, would likely have disallowed the program.

What we have here is another classic example of the Bush administration's approach to security and civil liberties: Begin a hugely invasive monitoring program, with few if any privacy protections; conduct it entirely in secret; and instead of seeking approval and authorization from the organizations expressly established to do so, just ignore them (and the law) and hope not to get caught.

The secrecy part is the most maddening part of it, because it served no legitimate purpose. Suppose everyone knew that the government was collecting data on domestic calls; how does that help terrorists? What could they do about it? The secrecy only served to hide the program from public scrutiny.

Might data-mining be useful? Yes. But it should be fully debated, and if implemented it should come with oversight and privacy protections. These massive, secrecy-shrouded invasions of privacy need to stop.

USA Today also has a useful Q&A on the program.

Update: Congress -- both Republican and Democrat -- is demanding answers. You have to figure that eventually Bush will so alienate the legislative branch that they'll start acting like a real check again.

civil liberties, security, terrorism, data-mining, NSA, politics, midtopia

NSA derails domestic spying probe

A Justice Department investigation into its own role in the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program has ended because -- are you ready for this? -- the NSA refused to grant them the necessary security clearances.

You know, it was kind of a slow news day. Kudos to the NSA for shaking things up.

This was Justice probing its own involvement in the matter, not an investigation of the NSA. So in that sense this is small potatoes. But you have to love it when a government agency foils an investigation into one of its projects by the simple expedient of refusing to share any information on the project.

domestic spying, eavesdropping, civil liberties, NSA, politics, midtopia

Coulter ignores Palm Beach letter

It's here! The Coulter update! And it's good. It's short, too, so I'll quote it in full.

Embarrassing! Conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who makes a nice living commenting on the political process, may temporarily lose her right to be a part of that process.

The blond Democrat slayer has not responded to an April letter from the Supervisor of Elections office asking her to explain why she voted in a Town of Palm Beach precinct that wasn't hers earlier this year.

The elections office tried to contact her again last week with another missive. No response. Now, the voting-eligibility watchdogs are losing patience.

"We may start the administrative procedure to remove Ms. Coulter from the voter rolls this week," said Charmaine Kelly, deputy elections chief. "There will be a public hearing to cancel her registration. If that happens, she won't be able to vote until she re-registers. It's a rather rare procedure."

Kelly said that after the hearing, Supervisor Arthur Anderson also will determine whether to refer the case to the state attorney's office for criminal prosecution.

Of all the possible outcomes, I didn't consider the cagey tactic of simply ignoring the letter. Brilliant! Well, except for losing one's voting rights and possible criminal prosecution...

More as it develops.

Palm Beach, Coulter, politics, midtopia

Bush endorses Jeb

President Bush said Wednesday that his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, would make a good president.

"I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not," the president said in an interview with Florida reporters, according to an account on the St. Petersburg Times Web site.

He said his brother would make "a great president" and that he had "pushed him fairly hard about what he intends to do."

"I truly don't think he knows," Bush said.

Okay, that's what brothers say. But given the president's approval ratings, do you suppose Jeb wishes Bush hadn't endorsed him?

Jeb Bush, Bush, politics, midtopia

HUD, continued

The Washington Post's Al Kamen has picked up the Alphonso Jackson story, but he doesn't add much to the discussion.

The New York Times, on the other hand, reports that Jackson denies the allegations.

But in a statement this afternoon, Mr. Jackson said, "I deeply regret the anecdotal remarks," and he said that during his tenure "no contract has ever been rewarded, rejected or rescinded due to the personal or political beliefs of the recipient." He said his agency is committed to awarding contracts "on a stringent merit-based process."A spokeswoman for Mr. Jackson told the business journal on Tuesday that his story was just meant to illustrate how some people in Washington "will unfairly characterize the president and then turn around the ask you for money." The spokeswoman, Dustee Tucker, said the secretary "did not actually meet with someone and turn down a contract."

Sounds a bit like the Dean Johnson "sanding off the truth" defense. "Anecdotal remarks"? As many observers noted during the Johnson brouhaha, either he's lying now or he lied then.

Given the available evidence, I lean toward the "lying now" end of things:

Ms. Tucker offered a somewhat different account of the Dallas incident last Wednesday, telling the business journal then that Mr. Jackson had been referring to "an advertising contract with a minority publication," although she said she could not give its value.

The paper that broke the story, the Dallas Business Journal, has additional updates:

According to the Center for American Progress and other sources, HUD Inspector General Kenneth H. Donohue is opening an investigation into Jackson's conduct. Calls to Donohue's office were not immediately returned.

Meanwhile, Sen. Joseph Lieberman is calling for an investigation, joining Barney Frank and Henry Waxman on that count.

There was also this interesting bit:

Dustee Tucker, a spokeswoman for HUD, who attended the April 28 event and responded to media questions regarding Jackson's statements at the forum, is on leave. Brown says Taylor's leave had nothing to do with the way in which she handled the situation.

Separately, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., has asked Jackson to release all records related to another company, Shirlington Limo, that won a HUD contract despite a lengthy rap sheet. That seems more smoke than fire at the moment.

Let's wait for the investigation, if there is one. If all Jackson did was tell a tall tale, then he should suffer the same fate as Dean Johnson: public embarassment and chastisement. But if Jackson actually intervened in the contracting process and used politics to decide who got HUD contracts, he needs to resign.

HUD, Alphonso Jackson, politics, midtopia

HUD withholds contract over anti-Bush statement

In an example of politics intruding where it shouldn't, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson told a Dallas audience that he canceled a contract after the contractor told him that he didn't like Bush.

"He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years," Jackson said of the prospective contractor. "He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something ... he said, 'I have a problem with your president.'

"I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

To quote Mary Scott Nabers, a government-contracting consultant in Austin who was asked about the case, "Oh, my goodness gracious."

As you might imagine, several observers have pointed out that Jackson's decision is repulsive. Why should he reward the contractor? Because the contractor could provide the best service for the money, that's why. Jackson is elevating politics above his fiduciary and ethical duty to taxpayers.

But it's not just repulsive; it's probably illegal.

Wonkette has some less-than-balanced background on Jackson; make of it what you will. Meanwhile, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D.-N.J., has called on Jackson to resign.

Nothing yet from the White House.

Jackson should get a chance to explain. If he broke the law, resignation seems the proper sanction. At the very least I'd say that contractor has grounds for a lawsuit.

Alphonso Jackson, HUD, politics, midtopia

Republicans fashion tax-cut extension

The finishing touches appear to have been put on a $70 billion tax-cut package, which includes extending the tax break on dividend income and temporarily shielding some middle-income taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

While I don't have a problem with the dividend break and I've long suggested that the AMT needs fixing, this bill is troublesome on several fronts. CNNMoney has a nice analysis of the provisions, which I will refer to as I go.

One, it doesn't fix the AMT; it's a temporary stopgap. And it only shields households earning $62,550 or less ($42,500 for single filers). Households earning more than that could still find themselves unjustly affected by AMT.

Two, the economy is chugging along okay, so the "stimulus" logic behind extending the dividend break is murky, especially in a time of hefty deficits.

Three, the lawmakers essentially ignore how to pay for these cuts. Or they use smoke and mirrors, such as a provision allowing wealthy taxpayers to convert traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs. Such a move takes money that would have been taxed years from now and taxes it today, robbing future governments of substantial revenue in order to support the current unsupportable levels of spending.

Fix AMT because it's broken. But pay for it. And with other tax breaks, the presumption should be against them. Adults pay their bills rather than run up debt; before embarking on new spending and tax cuts, let's pay the bills we've already rung up.

AMT, taxes, budget, deficit, politics, midtopia

The Bachmann deBachle

Centrisity has a nice roundup of opinion about the endorsement of Michelle Bachmann in the 6th District race.

I agree with his conclusion: Bachmann is the Minnesota GOP's Hillary Clinton, a polarizing figure who garners support and opposition in near-equal measures. By endorsing Bachmann over Krinkie and Knoblauch, the GOP has managed to turn a reliably Republican district into a contest.

And for what? it's not like Bachmann is worth going to the mat for. In fact, several conservative bloggers have already said that they're more worried about Bachmann than either of her likely Democratic opponents.

In a year when the GOP stands to lose control of one and maybe both houses of Congress, you'd think they'd make an effort to court the middle. I guess not.

Oh, well. It's hard to feel sympathy for them when they dig their own grave.

Knoblauch, Krinkie, Bachmann, politics, midtopia

Moussaoui asks to withdraw guilty plea

And so the circus tries to continue for at least one more round.

Just five days after a jury imposed a life sentence on him for concealing his knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Moussaoui told Federal Judge Leonie M. Brinkema that he claimed to be a member of the plot "even though I knew that was a complete fabrication."

Mr. Moussaoui told Judge Brinkema, in what appeared to be a futile motion to withdraw his plea, that he had not trusted the American legal system because he was not assigned a Muslim lawyer, and that his days in solitary confinement had provoked him to fight that system.

The jurors' decision to spare his life made him look at his situation anew, Mr. Moussaoui said. He said he would welcome a trial where he could show he was not part of the 9/11 plot "because I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors."

He won't get it, unless he can provide convincing evidence that he in fact had nothing to do with the 9/11 plot. And we should be careful not to give him much more of a platform before the public eye. He had his trial, and lost; the appeals process should proceed as quietly as possible.

But we should not lose this opportunity to note to the world that, having experienced the U.S. justice system firsthand, convicted terrorist Zacharias Moussaoui now believes he can get a fair trial. Not only is it good PR; it will further undermine any claim he might have to "martyr" status.

Moussaoui, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Contraception: The new abortion

Researchers using federal data have found two interesting trends that chart the relationship between abortion and contraceptives.

Between 1994 and 2001:

1. The rate of unplanned pregnancies rose by 30 percent among poor women. The abortion rate also rose.

2. The rate of unplanned pregnancies fell 20 percent among affluent women. The abortion rate also fell.

Asked what was driving the trends, the authors noted that some state and federal reproductive health programs have been cut or made more restrictive in recent years. State and federal programs have increasingly focused on abstinence rather than contraception, and some analysts have argued that the shift is leading to less use of contraceptives and more unintended pregnancies.

(snip)

The authors said the growing disparities between richer and poorer women appeared to be the result of greater contraceptive use by the more affluent. The health statistics center, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported in 2004 that after decades of increasing contraceptive use, the trend stalled in the late 1990s and began to decline after that. The decline occurred almost entirely in poorer women.

Gee, imagine that. Reduced use of contraceptives leads to more abortions. Sounds like common sense, doesn't it? So why am I writing about it?

Because some people -- some relatively influential people -- disagree. Some Christian conservatives are starting to jump on the same bandwagon that Catholic groups have occupied for decades: life begins at fertilization, and anything that interferes with that is abortion. And they're willing to use laws and government regulations to force everybody to conform to their beliefs.

This weekend's New York Times Magazine had a cover story on the phenomenon. Some quotes:

"We see contraception and abortion as part of a mind-set that's worrisome in terms of respecting life. If you're trying to build a culture of life, then you have to start from the very beginning of life, from conception, and you have to include how we think and act with regard to sexuality and contraception." -- Edward R. Martin Jr., a lawyer for the public-interest firm Americans United for Life

(snip)

Dr. Joseph B. Stanford, who was appointed by President Bush in 2002 to the F.D.A.'s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee despite (or perhaps because of) his opposition to contraception, [wrote in] a 1999 essay: "Sexual union in marriage ought to be a complete giving of each spouse to the other, and when fertility (or potential fertility) is deliberately excluded from that giving I am convinced that something valuable is lost. A husband will sometimes begin to see his wife as an object of sexual pleasure who should always be available for gratification."

Here's what happened during the FDA's consideration of Plan B, the "morning after" pill.

After the agency's advisory committees voted in favor of over-the-counter status for Plan B at the end of 2003, and after it was further approved at every level of the agency's professional staff, standard procedure would have been for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research arm of the F.D.A. to approve the application.

But one member of the F.D.A.'s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee had reservations: Dr. W. David Hager, a Christian conservative whom President Bush appointed to lead the panel in 2002. (After an outcry from women's groups, who were upset at Dr. Hager's writing that he used Jesus as a model for how he treated women in his gynecology practice, he was shifted from chairman of the panel to ordinary member.) Dr. Hager said he feared that if Plan B were freely available, it would increase sexual promiscuity among teenagers.

F.D.A. staff members presented research showing that these fears were ungrounded: large-scale studies showed no increase in sexual activity when Plan B was available to them, and both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Society for Adolescent Medicine endorsed the switch to over-the-counter status. Others argued that the concern was outside the agency's purview: that the F.D.A.'s mandate was specifically limited to safety and did not extend to matters like whether a product might lead to people having more sex.

Meanwhile a government report later found that Dr. Janet Woodcock, deputy commissioner for operations at the F.D.A., had also expressed a fear that making the drug available over the counter could lead to "extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B."

In May 2004, the F.D.A. rejected the finding of its scientific committees and denied the application, citing some of the reasons that Dr. Hager had expressed.

The drug's manufacturer reapplied two months later, this time for permission to sell it over the counter to women ages 16 and up, seemingly dealing with the issue of youth. Then, last August, Crawford made his announcement that the F.D.A. would delay its decision, a delay that could be indefinite.

Note the outsized influence of anti-contraceptive advisors at the FDA, and the FDA's reaction when the stated concern (use by adolescents) was addressed.

Why the opposition to Plan B? The stated reason is that it is an abortifacent, on the theory that at least occasionally it prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg.

But since Plan B is simply a higher dosage of regular birth-control hormones, the same arguments could be applied to the Pill. And IUDs. (And breastfeeding, BTW). And never mind that many of these same groups also oppose other forms of contraception, like condoms and diaphragms. Or that this represents a moving of the goalposts in the abortion debate.

The story sums up the underlying issue nicely:

The conservative [viewpoint is] that giving even more government backing to emergency contraception and other escape hatches from unwanted pregnancy will lead to a new wave of sexual promiscuity. An editorial in the conservative magazine Human Events characterized the effect of such legislation as "enabling more low-income women to have consequence-free sex."

And that is relevant how?

Does effective contraception reduce the risk of pregnancy, and thus reduce a barrier to sex? Undoubtedly. But that's a personal choice, and nobody else's business. It's something to be addressed by education and persuasion, not legislation and regulation.

I have no problem with people believing that contraception is against their beliefs. I have no problem with people trying to persuade others to feel the same. But I have a big problem with using the regulatory process to try to impose those beliefs on others. If you don't want to use contraceptives, don't; but don't try to get them legally restricted so that others can't use them, either.

I also find this argument unpersuasive:

Rector says that abstinence programs can't properly be combined with other elements in a comprehensive sex education program because the message is lost when a teacher says: "One option you might want to consider is abstaining. Now let's talk about diaphragms."

If you can't make the case for abstinence compelling in context, then it's a weak argument. It's almost a "victimology" response to argue that information on contraception must be muzzled in order for abstinence education to be effective.

True, it may be a matter of emphasis. But I doubt most sex ed classes throw abstinence away as a one-liner. And if they do, the answer is to provide curricular guidelines. Spend time emphasizing the advantages of abstinence. Discuss the risks and downsides, from pregnancy to STD to social and mental impacts. Then say "If despite all that you're going to have sex, here's what you can do to reduce but not eliminate some of the risks."

And never mind that study after study has found abstinence-only programs to be ineffective.

The good news is that the people cited in this article still represent a minority view. The article mentions that 98% of sexually-active women have used some form of birth control. It also notes this, about sex ed:

A poll released in 2004 by National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government found, for example, that 95 percent of parents think that schools should encourage teenagers to wait until they are older to have sex, and also that 94 percent think that kids should learn about birth control in school.

Exactly as I outlined above.

And a final statistical note:

Countries in which abortion is legal and contraception is widely available tend to rank among the lowest in rate of abortion, while those that outlaw abortion — notably in Central and South America and Africa — have rates that are among the highest. According to Stanley K. Henshaw of the Guttmacher Institute, recent drops in abortion rates in Eastern Europe are due to improved access to contraceptives. The U.S. falls somewhere in the middle in rate of abortion: at 21 per 1,000 women of reproductive age, it is roughly on par with Nigeria (25), much better than Peru (56) but far worse than the Netherlands (9).

I repeat: feel free to be personally against contraceptive use. But don't use the levers of government to force everyone else to conform to your beliefs.

birth+control, Plan B, abortion, contraception, politics, midtopia

Bush: Guantanamo should close

Speaking on German television, President Bush said he wants to close the Gitmo detention facility.

"Obviously, the Guantanamo issue is a sensitive issue for people," Bush told ARD German television. "I very much would like to end Guantanamo; I very much would like to get people to a court.

"And we're waiting for our Supreme Court to give us a decision as to whether the people need to have a fair trial in a civilian court or in a military court," he said in a transcript released Sunday.

This is remarkable for two reasons: Bush essentially admitting that Gitmo is an embarassment, and his apparent willingness to given detainees civilian trials if the Supreme Court disallows military tribunals -- as it should and hopefully will do.

It would be easy to dismiss this as rearguard damage control, given that the question is in the Supreme Court's hands now. Cynics might point out that Bush was free, any time in the last four years, to charge detainees in civilian court. Instead he set up the tribunals and kept people detained without charge or trial while he fought the tribunal concept all the way to the top.

You might be right. But what you also have is the administration admitting, however obliquely, a mistake. And you have Bush signaling that he will not stonewall the situation if the Supreme Court ruling goes against him. And you have, for the first time, the prospect that detainees will get their day in court sooner rather than later.

But most importantly I think there's now a sense that we have learned our lesson, and Gitmo will go down in history as a terrible idea, not to be readily repeated again.

Bush, terrorism, Guantanamo, Gitmo, politics, midtopia

Innocent man executed in Texas

Just came across this New York Times report from a couple of days ago:

Faulty evidence masquerading as science sent two men to death row for arson in Texas and led to the execution of one of them, a panel of private fire investigators concluded in a report released Tuesday in Austin.

The report, prepared for the Innocence Project, a legal clinic dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions, was presented to a new state panel, the Texas Forensic Science Commission, created by the Legislature last year to oversee the integrity of crime laboratories.

Barry C. Scheck, a co-director of the Innocence Project, said the report offered "important evidence of serious scientific negligence or misconduct in the investigations, reports and testimony of Texas state fire marshals" and called into question not just the two cases but also many others based on similar arson analyses.

The second defendant, by the way, was exonerated and pardoned after 17 years in prison, and awarded $430,000.

The strongest practical criticism of the death penalty -- that it's it's far too likely that an innocent will be executed -- usually draws the response of "name one innocent person who has been executed."

It's a cheap retort, because once someone is dead the investigation ends. Private individuals can keep trying to clear a dead person's name, but such quests are usually quixotic: lack of interest, lack of access and lack of professional investigators end up foiling the effort.

Now, thanks to very unusual circumstances, we have an example of a dead innocent. There's no reason to think they're the only one, but in any case that's one too many.

We need to ditch the death penalty except for extreme and overwhelmingly proven cases. And we need to do it now.

arson, death penalty, politics, midtopia

Judge calls wiretapping argument "gobbledygook"

An appeals court panel has sharply criticized the Bush administration's new rules making it easier to eavesdrop on Internet phone calls.

The skepticism expressed so openly toward the government's case during a hearing in U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia emboldened a broad group of civil liberties and education groups who argued that the U.S. improperly applied telephone-era rules to a new generation of Internet services.

"Your argument makes no sense," U.S. Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards told the lawyer for the Federal Communications Commission, Jacob Lewis. "When you go back to the office, have a big chuckle. I'm not missing this. This is ridiculous."

At another point in the hearing, Judge Edwards told the FCC's lawyer his arguments were "gobbledygook" and "nonsense." The court's decision was expected within several months.

Yowch.

The question at hand is whether Internet Service Providers are "information services", which are explicitly exempted from a 1994 law requiring that telephone service providers ensure their equipment can accomodate police wiretaps. That's what allows monitoring of e-mail conversations and instant messaging, for example.

On the other hand, the judge seemed to agree that the law covers "voice over Internet protocol", or VOIP, which uses Internet connections but functions just like a traditional phone.

This is not a big thing, especially since Congress could easily revise the law to more precisely spell out what they wish to allow. But it's good to see the judicial system keeping an eye out for civil liberties.

politics, Internet, eavesdropping, wiretaps, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Porter Goss resigns

CIA director Porter Goss has resigned.

No reason was given. Goss has been mentioned as being somehow involved in Hookergate with former Rep. Randy Cunningham, but that connection looks tenuous. So unless there's more there than has come out publicly, let's look for less prurient reasons for the resignation. Like, say, his ongoing alienation of much of the senior staff at CIA, which have been resigning in droves. Or his reduced stature thanks to the ascension of John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence. That raises other questions: Did Negroponte push him out?

More as it develops.

Update: The Washington Post's take.

Update 2: Another good question is what this means for the CIA's intelligence-gathering efforts. It's not a good sign that there remains so much turmoil at the agency 5 years after 9/11; It's still caught up in internal problems when we really want it to be focusing its efforts outward. Reform takes time, and will be distracting. The question is, were Goss' reforms the right ones? If so, will they be carried forward by his successor? Or will his tenure turn out to have been a year of spinning wheels that cost us momentum as well as a number of senior operatives?

CIA, Goss, politics, midtopia

"Beyond reason"

The planned 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York City is expected to cost -- are you ready? -- nearly $1 billion.

I'm not making this up.

Rebuilding officials concede that the new price tag is breathtaking — "beyond reason" in the words of one member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation board — and it is sure to set off another battle over development at the 16-acre site, with calls to cut costs, scale back the design or even start over.

This is just the memorial, not the commercial development going up at the site. And that's not counting an $80 million visitors' center being built by the state.

The new estimate, $972 million, would make this the most expensive memorial ever built in the United States.... It is likely to draw unfavorable comparisons to the $182 million National World War II Memorial in Washington, which opened in 2004; the $29 million Oklahoma City National Memorial, which opened in 2000; or the $7 million Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, which opened in 1982.

Much of the problem is that the memorial would be underground, necessitating lots of expensive steel, concrete and labor. But that's hardly an excuse. Some of these estimates are dramatically higher than they were just a few months ago.

The report estimates the cost of just the memorial and its related museum at $672 million, up 36 percent from $494 million only four months ago. In addition, the latest projections include $71.5 million for an underground cooling plant, up from $41.5 million four months ago.

How does a cooling plant's cost go up 72 percent in just four months, except through really bad planning?

If the memorial foundation were able to raise that kind of money privately, then no problem. I'd still think it reflected seriously misplaced priorities, but it's private money. However, in perhaps a sign of good sense among the American public, the foundation has collected just $130 million so far.

New York's mayor and the governors of both New York and New Jersey have said the memorial shouldn't cost more than $500 million. That's still a bit mind-boggling, but as an upper limit it seems quite reasonable.

We need a memorial, and it should be tasteful, impressive and thought-provoking, as befits such a history-changing event. But turning its construction into an enormously expensive boondoggle would not do justice to the memories of the victims. Set a reasonable price tag, and then design the best memorial that fits the budget.

New York, WTC, memorial, Ground Zero, politics, midtopia

Catch a criminal, catch some flak

In the "no good deed goes unpunished" category, the bartender that turned in escaped rapist Michael Benson has been suspended from her job.

Some people have even called her "a snitch," said Nina, who asked that her last name not be published for safety reasons.... Nina said that on Wednesday she was told not to come back to her job of nearly 14 years at Gates Bar-B-Q for a while.

"I don't know why. They told me if I need anything to call them," she said.

Excuse me? "Snitch?" For turning in a convicted rapist? Yeep.

The suspension is more murky. The "call us if you need anything" aspect suggests the suspension is merely for safety reasons, or to make the publicity go away more quickly, rather than some underlying disapproval of her actions. But what a hamhanded way to do it. I hope the suspension is with pay, including what her tips would have been.

America's Most Wanted, Michael Benson, crime, midtopia

Bribery investigation closes in on La. Democrat

Following on the heels of the Mollohan case, here's another demonstration that Republicans don't have a corner on the corruption market:

A while back, Brent Pfeffer, an aide to Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., pleaded guilty to demanding bribes and implicated his boss.

A couple of days ago, a contractor pleaded guilty to paying Jefferson more than $400,000.

Vernon Jackson, 53, chief executive of the Louisville, Ky.-based telecommunications firm iGate Inc., admitted to bribery of a public official and conspiracy to bribe a public official during a plea hearing in US District Court.

Court records make clear that the congressman whom Jackson admits bribing is Jefferson, who represents New Orleans in the House. ... Prosecutor Mark Lytle said Jackson paid $367,500 in checks and wire transfers over a four-year period to a company controlled by the congressman's wife in exchange for help promoting iGate technology in Africa. Jackson also gave the company a 24 percent stake in iGate and paid for $80,000 in travel expenses on the congressman's trips to Africa to promote iGate, which uses technology to transmit data over traditional telephone lines.

Jefferson denies wrongdoing. But prosecutors say he is the target of the investigation. And two solid convictions of other players, both of whom implicate Jefferson, spell bad news for the Congressman.

Congress, bribery, corruption, Jefferson, politics, midtopia

Making policy on the fly

Didn't get to this yesterday:

One might wonder why Senate Republicans haven't yet formally killed their gas tax proposal, given the near-unanimous condemnation it's receiving.

Besieged with complaints about political pandering, GOP lawmakers now say the rebate idea is a non-starter. As Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) explained yesterday, "When my own daughter harasses me, you know you're in trouble."

So declare it dead already, and let's move on.

The reason they haven't might be that lawmakers haven't come up with something equally pandering to replace it. But the real problem, which is the linked article's main point, is that legislators were making this stuff up on the fly.

The response so far has been profiles in panic. Some conservatives dropped their philosophical opposition to tax hikes and business regulations and began complaining loudly about oil companies and the auto industry. ... A few days earlier, Bush backed diverting crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an idea he dismissed less than two years earlier as a political stunt. ... Republican lawmakers likewise have responded with a mishmash of solutions -- some barely vetted, others with little chance of becoming law.

The Democrats get points for at least being consistent, even though their ideas are no more effective or on point than the GOP's.

Memo to all of our elected leaders: Calm down.

The thing about high gas prices is that it is not a crisis. It is (hopefully) a new chronic condition. So hasty, temporary measures to deal with it are ill-conceived at best.

Forget the attempt at short-term, short-sighted fixes. You can't do much anyway. Instead, take a deep breath and do the things that need to be done to assure our long-term energy security -- which means taking steps to reduce our oil dependence.

Do a good job at that -- show that you are sober, smart and willing to take risks to do what must be done -- and maybe your prospects in November will improve.

gas tax, gas prices, oil, energy, politics, midtopia

San Diego ordered to take down giant cross

A cross that has stood atop a city-owned mountaintop in San Diego for decades may have to come down after a 17-year legal battle.

A federal judge moved to end a 17-year legal saga yesterday by ordering the city of San Diego to remove the Mount Soledad cross from city property within 90 days or be fined $5,000 a day.

“It is now time, and perhaps long overdue, for this Court to enforce its initial permanent injunction forbidding the presence of the Mount Soledad Cross on City property,” U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. said.

The 29-foot cross was dedicated in 1954 at the site of a Korean War memorial. A resident sued in 1989 to have it removed. Several attempts to transfer the land under the cross to private groups have been disallowed. So now the cross will likely be moved to nearby private land.

The mayor of San Diego has indicated a willingness to continue fighting the case, but the city is strapped for cash and can ill-afford the fines.

This has become a cause celebre for conservative groups, in part because the original plaintiff was an atheist, and he received assistance from the ACLU. But the legal reasoning seems very clear:

In his ruling, Thompson said he has spent years hearing arguments over the cross, as have other courts.

“Consistently, every court that has addressed the issue has ruled that the presence of the Latin cross on Mount Soledad, land which is owned by the city of San Diego . . . violates Article I Section 4 of the California Constitution,” he said in his order.

I'm not the sort to get all offended by a giant cross overlooking a city -- I actually think the big statue of Jesus that overlooks Rio de Janeiro is pretty cool. But this is about the law, not my personal lack of offense. And the law makes sense. It is wrong for our government to have a cross represent all Korean War vets, as if they were all Christian or even believers. And it is wrong to use city property to promote one religion above all others.

One could argue that the cross has historic significance. After all, we wouldn't move the cross if it was hundreds of years old. Southwestern states operate old Spanish missions as historic sites, for example, and the religious symbols are part of the presentation.

But presenting religion in a historic context is clearly distinct from promoting it. More to the point, the San Diego cross has scant historic value, being less than 60 years old. That is not enough to overcome the importance of the government being seen as neutral on belief -- and nonbelief.

The solution is simple, and has already been planned: move the cross to nearby public land. The cross is preserved and it is still highly visible. But you will no longer have one religion using the levers of governmental power to promote itself.

ACLU, San Diego, religion, politics, midtopia

A general's inside take on Iraq

Fred Kaplan over at Slate reports on a memo that retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey wrote about the situation and prognosis in Iraq. McCaffrey supports the war and now teaches at West Point.

The assessment won't surprise anyone who has been paying attention. Our troops are doing a professional job, and the Iraqi army is coming along. But the security situation is worsening, the Iraqi police and army units are underequipped, underfunded and unable to fight on their own and reconstruction aid is dwindling to nothing.

He estimates it will take 10 years and about $100 billion in economic aid alone to achieve what we set out to achieve in Iraq. Add another $700 billion or so to that total for military operations, if you look at our current rate of spending.

It's an excellent and balanced piece, and points up what I've said for a long time: had the benefits, perils and costs of invading Iraq been fairly and openly debated, the American public would never have signed on. Whatever you may think about the morality of invading -- and I'm generally okay with the idea of taking out bad guys -- I'm pretty sure we could have found better ways to spend $2 trillion.

Go give it a look.

Iraq, McCaffrey, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Specter to hold hearings on Bush conduct

Sen. Arlen Specter said Wednesday that he would hold hearings on the Boston Globe report that Bush has simply ignored 750 laws he disagrees with.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing the White House of a "very blatant encroachment" on congressional authority, said yesterday he will hold an oversight hearing into President Bush's assertion that he has the power to bypass more than 750 laws enacted over the past five years.

"There is some need for some oversight by Congress to assert its authority here," Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. "What's the point of having a statute if . . . the president can cherry-pick what he likes and what he doesn't like?"

Specter said he plans to hold the hearing in June. He said he intends to call administration officials to explain and defend the president's claims of authority, as well to invite constitutional scholars to testify on whether Bush has overstepped the boundaries of his power.

Good. That's a first step. Bush has dared Congress to rein him in; if Congress has any concern at all for its relevance as an institution, they should call that dare.

Specter makes the same point:

Specter said that challenging Bush's contention that he can ignore laws written by Congress should be a matter of institutional pride for lawmakers. He also connected Bush's defiance of laws to several Supreme Court decisions in which the justices ruled that Congress had not done enough research to justify a law.

"We're undergoing a tsunami here with the flood coming from the executive branch on one side and the judicial branch on the other," Specter said. "There may as well soon not be a Congress. . . . And I think that most members don't understand what's happening."

The founders envisioned three branches of government, each jealously guarding their prerogatives, as a way to prevent any one organization from dominating the country. The party system has distorted that; Congressional Republicans now have first loyalty to the president as the leader of the party, as Congressional Dems did under Clinton. Bush has played that for everything it's worth; perhaps now Congress will awaken and push back, once again taking up the Constitutional responsibility that the founders envisioned for it.

checks and balances, Specter, Bush, politics, midtopia

"20th hijacker" gets life

Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison today, the jury still split after seven days of deliberation.

Edward Adams, a court spokesman, announced the verdict outside the courthouse and said the 12 jurors "were not unanimous" in favor of a death sentence for Moussaoui, meaning that he automatically gets a life sentence without possibility of parole. He said the verdict does not indicate how many jurors voted for a death sentence and how many opted to keep the defendant in prison.

Works for me. The guy is a nutter, IMO. Not in the legally defensible sense of not knowing right from wrong, but certainly in the colloquial sense of not being rational. He was clearly guilty, so a death sentence would have been defensible. But life in prison serves justice. And as I'll argue below, it has other benefits, too.

"America, you lost. I won!" Moussaoui yelled as he was escorted from the U.S. District courtroom in Alexandria after the verdict was read. He clapped his hands as he left.

He's mistaken. We won. Anyone can execute a widely hated criminal. Only a free and democratic country gives that criminal a fair trial and then spares his life. The fact that he cannot understand that speaks volumes about the gulf between his worldview and ours.

But speaking of nutters:
"A travesty of justice"
"I hope this ends our little experiment in judicial trials"
"Imbecilic asswipes."

And then there's the illogical:
"Moussaoui just made a chump out of the United States"

These folks don't understand the difference between strength and savagery. All execution takes is fear or vengeance. But it took confidence and strength to let him live. Today we made clear that we do not fear him or his ilk, which is a powerful message to send to a watching world.

Moussaoui, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Hamas blames U.S. for lack of funds

The Palestinian prime minister is blaming the U.S. for its money troubles, saying we're blocking various attempts to get money into Palestine to pay employees.

Haniyeh appealed to Arab leaders to face up to the Americans "to stop the siege imposed on the Palestinian people and to stop the political blackmail against the government." He also called on Palestinian bankers to "show the necessary patriotism."

Uh, no. The real problem here is that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, and attempted to justify suicide bomb attacks against civilians as recently as last month. They're free to do that, but such positions carry consequences. And those consequences can be severe when you're almost entirely dependent on Western aid for your economy. But it's silly to think you can bite the hand that feeds you and expect the feeding to continue.

Hamas has two choices: assume a more responsible stance on Israel, or get used to being strapped for cash. Palestinian voters have their own choices: to pressure Hamas to change, to support Hamas and accept the attendant economic problems, or vote them out.

My sympathy is with the voters, because the main alternative -- Fatah -- has failed them repeatedly over the years and is notoriously corrupt. We should show good faith by pressuring Fatah to reform, as hard as we've pressed Hamas to recognize Israel. That way the Palestinians would have at least one reasonable choice instead of two bad ones.

Palestine, Fatah, Hamas, politics, midtopia

Lip service

Given my previous post about Bush ignoring laws, this would seem to qualify as unintentional comedy.

My question for Bush would be: how do you envision the "balance of powers" operating when you arrogate for yourself the right to decide whether a law is constitutional or not and when you shroud your actions in secrecy -- even, at times, from Congress?

Bush, politics, midtopia

New taxes dead, pander still on life support

Senate Republicans can act quickly when necessary -- such as when their business allies object to proposed new taxes.

Senate Republicans on Monday hurriedly abandoned a broad tax proposal opposed by the oil industry and business leaders, another sign of their struggle to come up with an acceptable political and legislative answer to high gasoline prices.

Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said he had decided to jettison the provision, which would have generated billions of dollars by changing the way businesses treat inventories for tax purposes. Instead, he said the Senate Finance Committee would hold hearings on the plan "later this year, so the pluses and minuses of the provision can become well known."

I actually think the proposal should never have been made in the first place: oil company profits are the least of my worries. But it shows once again how clueless Frist is.

Meanwhile, the $100 rebate plan has not yet had its plug pulled. But sweet merciful death can't be far away, especially because income from the tax provision is supposed to pay for the rebate.

The centerpiece of the leadership proposal, a $100 rebate check to compensate taxpayers for higher gasoline prices, continued to receive a rough reception. Members of the public have telephoned and written to ridicule the idea, and even Republican lawmakers are finding fault.

"Political anxiety in an election year is to blame for a lot of the bad bills Congress passes," said Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who on Monday called the rebate a "knee-jerk populist idea" that voters would see through.

The rest of the bill has some other elements:

The measure includes new protections against price gouging, incentives to expand domestic oil refinery capacity, support for new energy initiatives and tax incentives for buying hybrid vehicles.

Ditch the price-gouging protections, because I have yet to see evidence of it being a widespread problem and anyway I want gas to be more expensive. Expanding refining capacity is fine, because refining is the main bottleneck in our energy supply line. But tax incentives are less important than overcoming political and environmental opposition to their construction.

Support for new energy initiatives is fine as long as it's different sources of energy, not just drilling in ANWR and other such measures that will have no short-term effect and in the long-term will just provide an excuse to continue our oil dependence -- all while incurring lasting environmental damage.

Tax incentives for hybrids is nice, but misses the point. Target the tax incentive at fuel efficiency, not one particular type of motor. I don't care if the car is a hybrid design or not; all I care about is that it gets 50 miles to the gallon.

I'll also note, yet again, that all of these tax incentives and funding options and so on and so forth would be totally unnecessary if we do one thing: keep the price of gas high. Do that, and people will pursue the other options on their own, out of naked self-interest.

oil, Frist, energy, gas prices, politics, midtopia

Police intelligence units stage comeback

In conjunction with yesterday's report that Bush is simply ignoring laws he doesn't like, this all starts to sound like variations on a theme. From U.S. News & World Report:

Since 9/11, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have poured over a half-billion dollars into building up local and state police intelligence operations. The funding has helped create more than 100 police intelligence units reaching into nearly every state.

To qualify for federal homeland security grants, states were told to assemble lists of "potential threat elements"--individuals or groups suspected of possible terrorist activity. In response, state authorities have come up with thousands of loosely defined targets, ranging from genuine terrorists to biker gangs and environmentalists.

Guidelines for protecting privacy and civil liberties have lagged far behind the federal money. After four years of doling out homeland security grants to police departments, federal officials released guidelines for the conduct of local intelligence operations only last year; the standards are voluntary and are being implemented slowly.

I'm okay with the police being on the lookout for terror suspects. But basic standards of evidence and conduct need to be followed, or any such system is guaranteed to be abused.

U.S. News has a sidebar on why pervasive police surveillance is troublesome.

Starting in the 1970s, lawsuits and grand jury investigations uncovered all kinds of abuse by these units: illegal spying, burglaries, beatings, unwarranted raids, the spreading of disinformation. Americans engaged in constitutionally protected free speech were routinely photographed, wiretapped, and harassed--all in the name of national security. In Memphis, the police department spied on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and gathered data on political activists' bank accounts, phone records, and close associates. In New Haven, Conn., police wiretapped over a thousand people. In Philadelphia, then police chief Frank Rizzo boasted of holding files on 18,000 people. The list of "subversives" grew to include the League of Woman Voters, civil rights groups, religious figures, and politicians running for office.

If you want even more history and examples of how police powers can be abused, I heartily recommend Geoffrey Stone's book "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime." It traces the history of free speech law from the founding of the Republic.

The FBI did all sorts of heinous things under its COINTELPRO initiative, including arranging for antiwar activists to be fired, sabotaging the campaigns of antiwar candidates, mailing anonymous letters to their spouses suggesting the activists were having affairs, causing activists to be evicted, disabling their cars, intercepting their mail, planting derogatory information about them in the press.... the list goes on.

Then there's the blurry line between infiltration and agitation:

1. A state undercover agent served as co-chair of the Students for a Democratic Society chapter in Columbia, S.C.

2. Another became chairman of the SDS chapter at the University of Texas.

3. Agents infiltrating the SDS chapter at Northwestern led a sit-in in 1968 and then actively participated in a 1969 Weatherman action.

4. Other Chicago undercover operatives provided explosives to the Weathermen, encouraged them to shoot the police, and led an assault upon a uniformed police sergeant during a demonstration, which was widely publicized as "proving the violence" of the New Left.

Supporters of this resurgence in police activity say that the police have learned the lessons of history and will be more careful this time. I'm not reassured, especially given the examples in the U.S. News story.

In February 2006 near Washington, D.C., two Montgomery County, Md., homeland security agents walked into a suburban Bethesda library and forcefully warned patrons that viewing Internet pornography was illegal. (It is not.)... Similarly, in 2004, two plainclothes Contra Costa County sheriff's deputies monitored a protest by striking Safeway workers in nearby San Francisco, identifying themselves to union leaders as homeland security agents.

Union leaders and Web surfers. Well, I suppose they could cause trouble. But how about this one, from here in Minnesota?

In Minnesota, the state-run Multiple Jurisdiction Network Organization ran into controversy after linking together nearly 200 law enforcement agencies and over 8 million records. State Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, a Republican who oversees privacy issues, found much to be alarmed about when a local hacker contacted her after breaking into the system. The hacker had yanked out files on Holberg herself, showing she was classified as a "suspect" based on a neighbor's old complaint about where she parked her car.

Scary on two counts: the absurdness of the classification system and the insecurity of the data.

Or how about the lead example in the story:

[In Atlanta], two agents were assigned to follow around the county executive. Their job: to determine whether he was being tailed--not by al Qaeda but by a district attorney investigator looking into alleged misspending. A year later, one of its plainclothes agents was seen photographing a handful of vegan activists handing out antimeat leaflets in front of a HoneyBaked Ham store. Police arrested two of the vegans and demanded that they turn over notes, on which they'd written the license-plate number of an undercover car,

DAs and vegan protesters. Not good.

The fight against Al Qaeda is morphing into an intimidation campaign against the same old "troublemakers". We've been down this road before; it will be shameful if we go down it again.

civil liberties, terrorism, politics, midtopia