Bad day for Republican ethics

Yesterday was a good day for Republicans on the ethics front. Today, not so much.

First, you have Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., giving up his seat on the influential House Appropriations Committee after the FBI raided his house in connection with the Jack Abramoff scandal. His wife, a fundraiser, was on retainer to Abramoff, and also worked on Doolittle's campaigns.

That said, his action is classy compared to that of Democrat William Jefferson, who you may recall had to be kicked off the Ways and Means Committee after his house was raided -- a raid, admittedly, that has thus far produced no actual charges.

Over in the Senate, meanwhile, a gutless anonymous Republican blocked a minor campaign-finance bill for unknown reasons, with the assistance of Sen. Lamar Alexander.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), the lead sponsor of a bill that would end the antiquated practice of requiring senators to file their forms on paper, stood on the senate floor Monday and reminded members of a process that borders on the absurd.

Instead of filing forms electronically, as candidates for president do, senators print their reports and deliver them to the clerk's office. The staff scans them into a computer so they can be electronically transmitted to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC then prints the forms again and hires workers to type the data into a database so it can finally be made public online.

But before Feingold's bill could move forward, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) rose and announced, "Mr. President, on behalf of a Republican senator, I object."

The bill simply provides for senators to file their forms electronically like everyone else. Why anyone would object to such a common-sense measure -- much less do so anonymously -- is beyond me. There are only two explanations I can think of: the senator in question likes the lengthy delay the current inefficiency introduces between the filing of the report and its availability; or this is being used as leverage in negotations on another matter.

I suppose there's a third explanation: this is just part of a general GOP effort to gum up the works in Congress and make it hard for Democrats to claim any legislative successes.

That's a time-honored bipartisan tradition, but I'll be glad when the Senate ethics bill finally clears the conference committee and such holds become a thing of the past.

Update: And a day later, another Republican resigns a committee seat after another FBI raid:

Rep. Rick Renzi stepped down temporarily from the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, after the FBI raided his family's business in connection with an ongoing federal investigation.

Agents took documents, the Arizona Republican said in a statement issued late Thursday night....

The Justice Department has been investigating Renzi for months, but the subject of the inquiry has never been made public. Media reports last fall gave conflicting versions, with authorities said to be looking into either a land swap involving a former business partner of Renzi or a Pentagon contract involving Renzi's father, a retired Army general.

Update II: The Sunlight Foundation has narrowed down the Senate hold culprit to 12 senators, and is calling all of them to try to narrow the list even further.

Update III: The Sunlight Foundation has now narrowed it down to three senators: John Ensign, David Vitter or Judd Gregg.

Renzi, politics, midtopia

Supreme Court backs partial-birth abortion ban

I wasn't entirely expecting this.

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long- awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

I gave my thoughts on this case months ago, when the Supremes first accepted it for review, and it hasn't changed any since then. The procedure is exceedingly rare, and there are at least some cases where it is medically justified. So the question for me -- and the Court, apparently -- is whether there are alternatives to partial-birth abortion that are equally effective and safe. If so, then banning a specific, gruesome procedure is no problem. If not, the ban would effectively prevent women in certain situations from obtaining a medically necessary abortion.

The Court decided there were sufficient alternatives. Notably, the government suggested that if the fetus were killed first -- by lethal injection to stop the heart, say -- it could then be legally aborted.

This may be true, but then one may ask what is gained by banning PBAs. It will ban one particularly gruesome procedure, yes. And it marks a legal landmark of sorts -- the first upheld restriction on a particular kind of abortion. As such, one might view it as the first step toward a wider ban.

But in the end, it doesn't appear that this ruling will prevent any abortions at all -- doctors will simply use alternative methods. And the Court explicitly left open the door to lawsuits by women harmed by the ban -- though that after-the-fact form of redress isn't going to help anyone in their seventh month of pregnancy. Someone is going to have to actually suffer some harm before the ban can be challenged.

What's interesting is how the Court managed to ignore precedent to reach its ruling, specifically the Stenberg v. Carhart ruling in 2000, in which a nearly identical ban was struck down by the Court. While the Court explained that it did not in fact ignore Stenberg -- that it's ruling is merely a narrow procedural one -- it's still hard to see how there are any substantive differences between the law then and the law now. The only real difference, it would seem, is the makeup of the court: specifically, the departure of Sandra Day O'Connor and the arrival of Samuel Alito.

That's how it has always been, of course: what is constitutional depends heavily on the biographies of the Justices. And it's not even necessarily a bad thing, for that is one way that law evolves. Still, this is a stark reminder of the essentially political nature of the Court.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a stinging dissent, read aloud from the bench. Read it and the other opinions here (pdf).

And for a truly excellent, in-depth discussion of the case by a bunch of lawyers, head on over to Stubborn Facts. They do a much better job of it then I could ever hope to.

abortion, politics, midtopia

From your pocket to Edwards' head

I like John Edwards. I voted for him in the 2004 primaries and was glad when he became Kerry's running mate. I'm not sure I'm going to back him this time around, but I like his approach, his position on many issues and I've gone so far as to sign on to his blog network so I can get updates from his campaign.

But stuff like this makes me pull my hair out.

Looking pretty is costing John Edwards' presidential campaign a lot of pennies.

The Democrat's campaign committee picked up the tab for two haircuts at $400 each by celebrity stylist Joseph Torrenueva of Beverly Hills, California, according to a financial report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

FEC records show Edwards also availed himself of $250 in services from a trendy salon and spa in Dubuque, Iowa, and $225 in services from the Pink Sapphire in Manchester, New Hampshire, which is described on its Web site as "a unique boutique for the mind, body and face" that caters mostly to women.

Now, I'm not naive. I know the importance of looking good in politics. I know wealthy people develop expensive tastes. And amid grueling 14-hour days of campaigning, I have no objection to candidates indulging in a little pampering along the way. I also don't buy into the charge that Edwards is a hypocrite for living a lavish lifestyle while basing his campaign on fighting poverty. The dude made his money; he can spend it any way he wants, and being rich does not disqualify someone from caring about social issues.

But c'mon: $400 haircuts? The campaign has to know how bad that looks. Not to mention the practical question: Is this really the best use of campaign funds for someone running a distant third in the money race?

If he really thinks the cuts are worth it, great. But in that case I humbly submit that Edwards would be way better off paying for them out of his own pocket. He'll still look fabulous, and he won't have to deal with embarassing disclosure forms ever again.

Update: Clearly reacting to my massive influence, Edwards does as I suggested.

Edwards, politics, midtopia

Iran supporting the Taliban?

Take this one with a grain of salt at least as large as that used when the U.S. made similar accusations about Iranian involvement in Iraq.

U.S. military officials raised worries of a wider Iranian role in Afghanistan on Tuesday when Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Washington that U.S. forces had intercepted Iranian-made mortars and plastic explosives intended for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Counterterrorism officials in Washington have said a handful of senior al Qaeda operatives who fled to Iran after the war in Afghanistan in 2001 may have developed a working relationship with a secretive military unit linked to Iran's religious hard-liners.

U.S. officials caution, however, that any Iranian link to fighting in Afghanistan, notably in providing weapons to Taliban fighters, remains cloudy.

As with suspected Iranian involvement in Iraq, it's a reasonable possibility. But as with Iraq, there are certain uncomfortable facts that need explaining, such as whether any such activity is condoned or controlled by the government, and why Shiite Persian Iran would go out of its way to arm Sunni Arab and Pashtun fundamentalists.

Especially considering how some of the earlier allegations turned out. Remember the Austrian sniper rifles? Supposedly 100 .50-caliber weapons sold to Iran were found in Iraq -- 100 literal smoking guns.

Except that turned out not to be true. The rifles' maker, Steyr-Mannlicher, called attention to an article in an Austrian daily, Wiener Zeitung, specifically debunking the story, then followed that up with a press release Tuesday driving the point home.

So while I can readily believe Iran is stirring the pot in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I require some decent proof before we take drastic action. CIA, get cracking. Or heck, just capture some insurgents or Iranians in the act of bringing weaponry across the border.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, politics, midtopia

The Onion on McCain

Ouch.

In what insiders say is an attempt to revitalize his flagging campaign and convince voters that he is still a straight-talking maverick, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) announced Sunday that he will subject himself to the same mental torment and physical abuse he endured nearly 40 years ago at the same Vietnamese camp where he was once held as a prisoner of war.

"On Saturday at approximately 2:40 a.m. I will fly over the capital city of Hanoi and have my plane's right wing blown off by a Russian missile," said McCain, adding that the force of the ejection from an aging A-4 Skyhawk should render him unconscious and break both of his arms and "preferably [his] right leg." "I will then be taken to a bug- and rat-infested cell where, with both nobility and grace, I will suffer the worst forms of human indignities."

McCain, once considered a shoo-in for the Republican presidential nomination, insisted that his upcoming stay at the Hanoi torture facility was simply a late addition to a previously planned trip to Southeast Asia, and has nothing to do with his faltering campaign.

Funny. Mean, but funny. Read the whole thing.

humor, McCain, politics, midtopia

Standoff over Iraq

In what the White House insisted was a "dialogue" instead of negotations, President Bush met with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over the emergency appropriation bills for Iraq and Afghanistan.

During an hourlong meeting at the White House, the president told lawmakers directly he will not sign any bill that includes a timetable for a troop withdrawal, and they made it clear Congress will send him one anyway.

Hmm. Well, I hope the cookies were good. Otherwise that was a rather complete waste of time.

Okay, maybe not totally wasted: the Democrats got in at least one good dig:

Several officials said the session was polite. But they said it turned pointed when Reid recounted a conversation with generals who likened Iraq to Vietnam and described it as a war in which the president refused to change course despite knowing victory was impossible. Bush bristled at the comparison, according to several officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. One quoted him as saying, "I reject" the comparison.

Actually, it was good simply to have direct talks on the issue so both sides could get a clear sense of the other's mood. Talking through the media is all very well, but there's no good substitute for face-to-face when money and lives are at stake.

NPR's Political Junkie was speculating that Congress would adopt the nonbinding Senate plan, and Bush might sign it. I agree with the former; the latter depends on how Republicans weigh the politics and how strong Bush's connection to reality is the day the bill lands on his desk.

Reid, Pelosi, Bush, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Dinosaur turns Democrat

This isn't big news, but it's interesting, in that you rarely see a switch like this after so long in the fold.

Maverick former GOP Rep. Pete McCloskey, who represented Northern California in Congress from 1967 to 1982 and ran unsuccessfully again last year, has announced that he's switching party registration and becoming a Democrat.

McCloskey, who was an original author of the Endangered Species Act, made his scorn for the modern Republican Party clear during his primary campaign against former GOP Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy last year. He contended that leaders like Pombo and former Majority Leader Tom DeLay had been corrupted by power.

After losing the primary bid, he endorsed the Democrat who eventually beat Pombo in the general election.

McCloskey is 79, and not exactly a major player. And he was always a bit on the independent side. He was the first Republican Congressman to call for the impeachment of President Nixon, and his opposition to the Iraq war led him to endorse John Kerry in 2004.

But it does indicate that the GOP has moved rightward enough to leave behind people like McCloskey, who at one time not only considered themselves Republicans but were part of the party's public face.

McCloskey, politics, midtopia

Oh, Wolfowitz

I've been too busy to write much about the other brewing scandal in Washington, that of Paul Wolfowitz and his girlfriend's cushy job. It's not because I'm a big fan of his; in fact, whenever I need a good "laugh or else I'll cry" moment, I hunt up links like this one to read up on arguably his finest moment: the trashing of Gen. Eric Shinseki:

In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that "stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible," but would oppose a long-term occupation force. And he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it.

Bwahahaha! Flat wrong on the first, and the second might have been true if we hadn't a) sent too few troops to keep order or b) prevented it.

Then throw in this:

Mr. Wolfowitz spent much of the hearing knocking down published estimates of the costs of war and rebuilding, saying the upper range of $95 billion was too high, and that the estimates were almost meaningless because of the variables. Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion to $20 billion. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," he said.

Bwahaha! HA HA HA!

Oh, that Wolfowitz. What a kidder.

After manfully helping guide us into a bad war, he was rewarded with a chance to do real damage at the World Bank, where he was able to hector debtor nations to be more fiscally responsible while helping squeeze their economies with austerity measures and stiff payback schedules.

Actually, he hasn't been that bad at the World Bank. His anticorruption drive has drawn fire, but there's much to like about it, and while critics have a point about being careful not to intrude too much on a nation's internal affairs, it's hard to sympathize with countries complaining about crackdowns on bribery -- especially when they're countries like China, which doesn't actually need the money it borrows from the Bank.

Upon taking the helm of the bank, though, Wolfowitz had to find a new job for his girlfriend, a bank employee. That's fair. And I have no problem with the transfer being a promotion or opportunity: she should not see her career suffer simply because her boyfriend got promoted.

So while the details -- like her massive pay raises -- raised some eyebrows, it struck me as relatively small potatoes, even if it undercut Wolfowitz's anti-corruption agenda.

But this is just ridiculous.

The U.S. Defense Department ordered a contractor to hire a World Bank employee and girlfriend of then-Pentagon No. 2 Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 for work related to Iraq, the contractor said on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Science Applications International Corp., or SAIC, said the Defense Department's policy office directed the company to enter a subcontract with Shaha Riza, under which she spent a month studying ways to form a government in Iraq.

Wolfowitz, a key Iraq war architect who left the Pentagon in 2005 to become president of the World Bank, is already under fire for overseeing a high-paying promotion for Riza after he took the helm of the poverty-fighting global lender.

This isn't as egregious as it could be, because the contract paid expenses only, not a salary. And right now all we have is the claim of a contractor. But if this turns out to be true, it's unacceptable. The Pentagon had no business insisting that a contractor hire someone connected to a senior Pentagon official.

What remains to be seen as well is whether Wolfowitz himself had any hand in this. If he did, he will face more than ethical questions: he'll probably face criminal charges.

Wait, was that a tear? Nope. My mistake.

Wolfowitz, politics, midtopia

DeMint scores again

Central Sanity has a nice example of Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (a man I've started to really like, even though he's way too conservative for me on most things) again holding Democrats' feet to the fire on ethics and budgetary matters.

What makes it a win for the rest of us and not just partisan point-scoring is that it worked.

Under pressure from GOP conservatives, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee announced new rules Tuesday to overhaul the way lawmakers send taxpayer dollars to their districts and states.

The move by Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., came as conservatives including Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., increased the pressure to change the much-criticized, often secretive way in which "earmarks" are inserted into appropriations legislation.

The rules would require all earmarks - the footnotes in bills that lawmakers use to deliver federal bacon to their states - be clearly identified in documents accompanying appropriations bills. The requesting senator, the recipient of the earmark and its purpose would have to be made public and posted on the Internet.

Senators would also be required to certify that neither they nor their spouses would benefit financially from any earmark.

Shame on the Dems for having to be prodded into it. Good that, having been prodded, they did the right thing.

ethics, politics, midtopia

More trouble for Gonzales

The Virginia Tech shootings have prompted a postponement of Alberto Gonzales' Congressional appearance, which may be a good thing for him; it'll give him time to come up with an explanation for this.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' assertion that he was not involved in identifying the eight U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign last year is at odds with a recently released internal Department of Justice e-mail, ABC News has learned.

That e-mail said that Gonzales supported firing one federal prosecutor six months before she was asked to leave....

It doesn't just contradict Gonzales' initial account, an explanation of which will be the focus of his appearance. It appears to contradict the testimony he has prepared for that appearance, in which he states the following:

Mr. Sampson periodically updated me on the review. As I recall, his updates were brief, relatively few in number, and focused primarily on the review process itself. During those updates, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign.

Except that:

The recently released e-mail from Sampson, dated June 1, 2006, indicated that Gonzales was actively involved in discussions about Lam and had decided to fire her if she did not improve. In the e-mail to other top Justice Department officials, Sampson outlined several steps that Gonzales suggested, culminating in Lam's replacement if she failed to bolster immigration enforcement.

"AG [Attorney General] has given additional thought to the San Diego situation and now believes that we should adopt a plan" that would lead to her removal if she "balks" at immigration reform, Sampson wrote.

The e-mail laid out other possible ways to deal with Lam short of dismissal. Gonzales supported the idea of first having "a heart to heart with Lam about the urgent need to improve immigration enforcement" and of working with her "to develop a plan for addressing the problem." Sampson said another alternative would be to "put her on a very short leash.

"If she balks on any of the foregoing or otherwise does not perform in a measurable way … remove her," Sampson wrote of Gonzales' suggested plan. "AG then appoints new U.S. [attorney] from outside the office."

Will we be treated to the spectacle of Gonzales "clarifying" his clarification?

Meanwhile, the House is considering granting immunity to Monica Goodling, the Gonzales aide that took the Fifth in order to avoid testifying, as the Justice Department refuses to comply with a Congressional subpoena and a reinterview with Kyle Sampson now has the House Judiciary Committee interested in Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, who Sampson said was consulted about the firings.

Update: The Senate apparently is investigating Sen. Pete Domenici's role in the firings as well.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

MAC puts hammer down on cabbies

One of the Muslim accomodation issues I wrote about last month has reached a resolution of sorts.

On an 11-0 vote Monday, Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) members voted to crack down on drivers refusing service, making Minnesota the first place in the country to decide how to treat Muslim cabbies who decline to transport alcohol- toting riders on religious grounds.

Starting May 11, any airport taxi drivers who refuse riders will face 30-day suspensions. Drivers will have their licenses revoked two years for a second offense.

This isn't a full resolution because some cabbies are considering suing on the grounds of religious discrimination.

One might ask what's the big deal, especially because the problem is rather small: Just 27 refusals of service out of 120,000 total rides during the holiday travel season. Why not just use the existing rules, in which a cabbie who refuses to accept a fare must go to the back of the taxi line and wait all over again?

The answer lies in another number: 75 percent, which is how many airport cabbies are Somali Muslims and thus likely to refuse an alcohol-carrying fare.

In some ways, this is the reverse of the Minneapolis Community and Technical College situation in the earlier blog entry. And the logic is the same: a minority can often reasonably be accomodated; but a majority must be watched lest it impose its views on the rest of us.

In the MCTC case, providing a footbath for Muslims is reasonable because it benefits everyone and Muslims are such a small minority of students that it cannot reasonably be argued that they are imposing their views or practices on nonMuslims.

In the taxi case, however, Muslims make up a strong majority of cabbies. Allowing them to discriminate against passengers carrying alcohol benefits only the cabbies and could make it very difficult for such passengers to get a ride, which makes it an unreasonable accomodation.

I suspect, however, we'll get to find out what a court thinks.

civil liberties, Minnesota, religion, politics, midtopia

Corzine was speeding, too

What a moron. Not only was New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine not wearing a seatbelt, he was going way too fast.

The sport utility vehicle carrying Gov. Jon S. Corzine was traveling about 91 mph moments before it crashed, the superintendent of state police said Tuesday....

The speed limit along that stretch of the parkway is 65 mph.

Hey, I speed, too. But rarely do I go 26 miles over the limit, and in any event I wear a seatbelt.

Let's just touch briefly on the arrogance of a governor disregarding laws that apply to us mere mortals. Especially when those same governors occasionally sign tough anti-speeding measures into law. One might even be tempted to make a political issue out of it.

Unfortunately, Corzine has lots of bipartisan company in the speeding department.

Republicans
South Dakota's William Janklow killed a motorcyclist while speeding. He was a four-term Republican governor, and was a member of Congress at the time of the accident.

South Carolina's lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer, has a long history of speeding violations.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry tried to get out of a speeding ticket in June 2000.

Democrats
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is a famous leadfoot.

As is Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

That doesn't excuse any of it, of course. It simply demonstrates that power often leads to arrogance.

Still, Corzine's a special case. He might be perversely thankful he's seriously injured -- it's probably the only thing saving him from a severe political butt-kicking for being dumb and arrogant.

politics, midtopia

Day of silence

This just sucks.

At least 33 people are dead in what may be the biggest mass shooting in modern American history.

I'm done blogging for the day. I'll leave you with one thought: an event like this happens two or three times a day in Iraq, which has less than a tenth of our population. Give thanks you live here, even if we have to deal with the occasional armed nutjob.

My thoughts and best wishes are with the students, the victims and their families.

politics, midtopia

Prosecutor bias in Wisconsin

As Alberto Gonzales prepares to testify before Congress, expect the case of Georgia Thompson to get an extensive airing.

Opponents of Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin spent $4 million on ads last year trying to link the Democratic incumbent to a state employee who was sent to jail on corruption charges. The effort failed, and Mr. Doyle was re-elected — and now the state employee has been found to have been wrongly convicted. The entire affair is raising serious questions about why a United States attorney put an innocent woman in jail.

The conviction of Georgia Thompson has become part of the furor over the firing of eight United States attorneys in what seems like a political purge. While the main focus of that scandal is on why the attorneys were fired, the Thompson case raises questions about why other prosecutors kept their jobs.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which heard Ms. Thompson’s case this month, did not discuss whether her prosecution was political — but it did make clear that it was wrong. And in an extraordinary move, it ordered her released immediately, without waiting to write a decision. “Your evidence is beyond thin,” Judge Diane Wood told the prosecutor. “I’m not sure what your actual theory in this case is.”

What was so unusual about this case? A list:

1. It wasn't even within the jurisdiction of the U.S. attorney who prosecuted it, Steven Biskupic -- it was in the domain of Wisconsin's other U.S. attorney, Erik Peterson.

2. Thompson was accused of improperly awarding a travel contract to a politically connected firm. This ignored the fact that the contract was competitively bid. The firm in question won the contract by the simple expedient of having the lowest bid.

3. Thompson was but one of seven members of a committee that awarded the contract, and she wasn't even aware that the firm was a major contributor to Gov. Doyle.

4. Biskupic leaked the investigation to the media in late 2005, in violation of federal guidelines.

5. The prosecution was timed perfectly to conclude just before the November elections.

Yeah, that looks good.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Gonzales: "I have nothing to hide"

The Justice Department has released the opening statement -- all 25 pages of it -- that Alberto Gonzales intends to read at the start of his testimony tomorrow before Congress.

Critics will not be mollified.

He boldly asserts that while the prosecutor firings may have been handled badly, they were not improper. He proposes a simple criteria for impropriety: "The
replacement of one or more U.S. attorneys in order to impede or speed along particular criminal investigations for illegitimate reasons." He then adds: "Our record in bringing aggressive prosecutions without fear or favor and irrespective of political affiliations – a record I am very proud of – is beyond reproach."

He might not get past that statement, because it's demonstrably untrue. We know that several of the prosecutors were criticized for being insufficiently zealous about prosecuting voter fraud. Given that the "voter fraud" initiative overwhelmingly focused on Democrats, included some really questionable cases with big political implications and turned up little to no evidence of such fraud, it's hard to see how that could be construed as a nonpartisan effort. And that's without referring to the disputed study that concluded Democrats were investigated or indicted seven times as often as Republicans. So it's hard to see how Gonzales can make his claim with a straight face.

He now acknowledges that he was kept briefed on the progress of the prosecutor firings, including discussion of specific names, while saying he did not make any decisions about who should be fired. His explanation is reasonable -- he basically viewed the prosecutors as presidential employees, so his input didn' matter -- but not only does this contradict his earlier statements, but it's kind of stunning that the head of the Justice Department would take no role and no apparent interest in the firings of a tenth of his prosecutors. As several observers have noted, such detachment would appear to be de facto proof that Gonzales failed in his responsibility to protect the independence of federal prosecutors.

In that context, his acknowledgement that he was "less than precise" with his earlier words reads like a euphemism for "I lied." Especially given his tortured parsing of his earlier words, in which "I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process" is supposed to have meant "I was being briefed by him, even though I just said I was not involved in any discussions."

He points to changes he is implementing, notably starting an investigation by Justice's internal watchdog and improving communication with the current crop of U.S. attorneys.

The one mistake he acknowledges making is that the firings should have been handled in a more "personal and respectful" way. But mostly he deflects criticism toward Kyle Sampson.

That takes up 7 pages. Then he segues into a discussion of national security, notably defending the various eavesdropping and investigative tools authorized by the Patriot Act. But while he cites a short list of accomplishments, he doesn't demonstrate how those are connected to the powers in question. He only addresses the FBI's abuse of National Security Letters in the context of "we're improving oversight." The interesting news there is that the FBI is conducting a comprehensive review of NSLs at all 56 FBI field offices -- a far more extensive look than the four-office sample that led to the discovery of NSL abuses. And, of course, the even more egregious use of "exigent letters" is banned.

He also, rather comically, argues for a revison of FISA -- a law that as White House counsel he considered irrelevant, overridden by the president's "inherent authority." Having openly violated FISA for years, it's pretty nervy to now ask Congress to revise it.

And then he closes with this line: "We all recognize that we cannot afford to make progress in the War on Terror at the cost of eroding our bedrock civil liberties. Our Nation is, and always will be, dedicated to liberty for all, a value that we cannot and will not sacrifice, even in the name of winning this war. I will not accept failures in this regard."

Pretty funny coming from the guy most instrumental in eroding those liberties.

The rest of the testimony is dedicated to fairly noncontroversial items, like fighting crimes against children, drug abuse, and so on.

Dan Froomkin has some other thoughts on the matter, with links to other good examples of Gonzales word torture, as well as Sen. Pat Leahy's dismissive response.

And then there's this piece from the Albuquerque Journal (h/t: Moderate Voice), suggesting that at least one of the prosecutors -- David Iglesias -- was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici pressured President Bush. It indicates repeated pressure and questioning of Iglesias by Domenici, notably an aggressive attempt to increase corruption prosecutions -- over Iglesias' demurrals -- after Iglesias indicted two prominent Democrats in 2005.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Conservatives want Gonzales gone

Just in Time for Gonzales' Congressional appearance:

In what could prove an embarrassing new setback for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the eve of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a group of influential conservatives and longtime Bush supporters has written a letter to the White House to call for his resignation....

"Mr. Gonzales has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances," it declares. "He has brought rule of law into disrepute, and debased honesty as the coin of the realm." Alluding to ongoing scandal, it notes: "He has engendered the suspicion that partisan politics trumps evenhanded law enforcement in the Department of Justice."

Among the signers are Bruce Fein and Richard Viguerie, prominent Republican activists; David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Bob Barr, a former Republican Congressman; John Whitehead of the conservative Rutherford Institute.

As the story notes, many conservatives have disliked Gonzales for other reasons for years. But this just underscores the lack of support Gonzales has anywhere outside the White House -- and the political costs of his continued presence atop Justice.

Here's the full text of the letter.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Sperm cells from bone marrow

Might this turn the gay-marriage debate on its head?

Women might soon be able to produce sperm in a development that could allow lesbian couples to have their own biological daughters, according to a pioneering study published today.

Scientists are seeking ethical permission to produce synthetic sperm cells from a woman's bone marrow tissue after showing that it possible to produce rudimentary sperm cells from male bone-marrow tissue.

The researchers said they had already produced early sperm cells from bone-marrow tissue taken from men. They believe the findings show that it may be possible to restore fertility to men who cannot naturally produce their own sperm.

So it's a fertility treatment, that just happens to allow lesbians to conceive a child biologically related to both parents. It's also part of a larger effort to take bone marrow stem cells and try to coax them to differentiate into different kinds of cells.

It won't work for gay male couples, because they lack ovaries and eggs.

Also, because of the lack of a Y chromosome, all children of such unions will be female.

The science is still very young; they haven't actually made viable sperm yet. But it's intriguing.

Update: I've come up with one wrinkle to this potential procedure that raises ethical questions. It appears that it could allow a woman to produce a child entirely by herself: combining an egg from her ovaries with sperm taken from her marrow.

I'm not sure that's exactly unethical -- it's really just a do-it-yourself sperm-donor kit -- but given the inbreeding problem, it's probably a very bad idea. It would be banned for the same reason cousins aren't allowed to marry.

gay rights, stem cells, science, politics, midtopia

Views on the surge

The latest play-by-play on whether Bush's last chance is working:

Killings are down significantly in Baghdad -- 1,586 in the past two months, down from 2,871 in the two months before that.

But that's still an unacceptably high number, and in part the killing has merely shifted to other, less well-defended areas -- killings elsewhere are up by 500 people in that period. Still, as proof of concept, it's not bad. The idea all along was to secure Baghdad and then expand that security outward to the rest of the country.

What it does demonstrate, however, is that it will take far more troops to get killings in Baghdad down to a reasonable level -- never mind reduce killings elsewhere. Which has always been the suspected weakness of the surge: that it's too small, and unsustainable even so.

Unsurprisingly, Charles Krauthammer swears the surge is working. His evidence is skimpy: mostly military claims that Anbar Province, once almost given up for lost, has now "turned the corner." Even if true -- and Krauthammer places a lot of significance on what could easily be taken as light-on-details military "happy talk" -- it has little to do with the surge. It is good news that 14 of 18 Sunni tribes in Anbar have finally gotten sick of Al-Qaeda; but it remains to be seen whether that situation will hold, it doesn't address the problem with native Iraq insurgents, and it's unclear whether it holds relevance for the Sunni/Shiite sectarian violence that has been the prime driver of violence of late. If you believe that AQ is largely responsible for that violence, great; if you believe the violence is more broadly rooted than that, trouble.

He also cites news reports that various neighborhoods in Baghdad are safer than they were a few weeks ago -- which dovetails well with the reduced death toll.

Ironically, both developments, in passing, destroy two arguments advanced by war supporters.

The killing data from Baghdad further drives a stake into the ridiculous idea that Baghdad is only slightly more dangerous than some major American cities, even the reduced death rate translates to about 9,500 killings a year in a city of 7 million. By comparison, New York City endured 596 murders in 2006.

And the "Sunnis turning on AQ" news contradicts the idea that if we withdraw from Iraq, it will became a haven for Al-Qaeda. This is further refuted by the aftermath of the Parliament bombing. The local AQ affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack, which drew bipartisan criticism from prominent Iraqis -- emphasized by an unprecedented Friday session of Parliament. There are still major questions over how the bomber gained access to the Parliament building -- dark actions that could mean more than the encouraging lip service paid today. But unanimous condemnation is a starting point.

Whatever reasons we have to stay in Iraq, preventing it from becoming a safe haven for terrorism is not one of them.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Scandal roundup

Where to begin?

In the prosecutor probe, the Justice Department released hundreds of documents that Congress had been seeking, forestalling a possible legal standoff. Only partly mollfied, the Senate Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas for documents and testimony from Justice's William Moschella and Karl Rove aide Scott Jennings.

Meanwhile, new revelations abound in the e-mail probe. The White House, after first saying lots of e-mails may have been deleted, now says some of them could have been related to the prosecutor firings.

Then it turns out that the RNC stopped automatically deleting e-mails by White House officials in 2004, and in 2005 specifically took away Karl Rove's ability to delete e-mails. Breaking it down, that means:

1. Four years worth of e-mails (2001-2004) are gone (unless there were backups and forensic examination can recover them).

2. After 2004, the only way e-mails would have been deleted is if the officials themselves specifically deleted them.

3. After 2005, there should be a complete record of Rove's e-mails. So if they're missing, something's not right.

Amid it all, the White House not only continues to refuse Congressional requests to question Rove and several key aides. It is expanding its "executive privilege" authority to include the RNC e-mails, and has the chutzpah to try to use the e-mail scandal as leverage:

Now that Democrats are also demanding access to the political e-mail, the White House took steps on Thursday to use those latest demands as leverage to force Democrats to accept the White House’s conditions for making Mr. Rove and the others available.

In a letter to Mr. Leahy and Representative John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Fielding, the White House counsel, said the administration was prepared to produce e-mail from the national committee, but only as part of a “carefully and thoughtfully considered package of accommodations” — in other words, only as part of the offer for Mr. Rove and the others to appear in private.

Mr. Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, issued a tart reply: “The White House position seems to be that executive privilege not only applies in the Oval Office, but to the R.N.C. as well. There is absolutely no basis in law or fact for such a claim.”

Somehow, I don't think that will work. The more revelations emerge, the more the White House refusal to allow questioning looks like a desire to hide something rather than a principled stand on Constitutional issues.

Up until the latest revelations, the White House had at least a wobbly leg to stand on. No longer. The more they delay and obstruct and refuse to cooperate, the worse it's going to be for them and the more political hay Democrats will make. It'll be interesting how far Bush is willing to push a losing hand -- and how much patience Congressional Republicans will have with him doing so.

Update: a make-you-think post from Glenn Greenwald noting the peculiar history of missing and deleted documents in the Bush administration.

Okay, the federal government is a big place. And the missing documents involve all sorts of different agencies and levels of that government. And if the government were truly competent, things they claimed were destroyed would not surface later -- they would actually be destroyed.

Still, there's a pattern here. And if it's not deception, then its incompetence and a massive credibility problem.

Update II: Rove's lawyer says Rove did not intentionally delete his own e-mails, and believed they were being preserved.

Separately, the newly released Justice documents appear to contradict some of Kyle Sampson's Senate testimony.

The documents show that beginning in a January 2006 e-mail to White House Counsel Harriet Miers, Sampson proposed some of the administration's most senior lawyers to replace U.S. attorneys in San Diego, San Francisco, Michigan and Arkansas.

But he told Congress something else:

"On December 7th [2007], I did not have in mind any replacements for any of the seven who were asked to resign," Sampson said then, under questioning from Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y.

Now, we could be talking about the difference between having replacements in mind and having them actually lined up. But Sampson's testimony was still a bit misleading.

And another document showed that among the criteria used for ranking prosecutors was whether they were members of the conservative Federalist Society. Only one fired prosecutor was a member: Kevin Ryan, who everyone seems to agree was fired for cause.

Finally, the White House floated the possibility that as many as 5 million e-mails may have been lost when the White House converted from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook in 2001 and 2002.

Deliberate? Maybe not. Hugely, mind-bogglingly inexcusable? Yes.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

N.J. Governor Corzine critically injured in crash

Don Imus claims another victim:

New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine was in critical condition Friday but expected to recover after his SUV crashed into a guard rail while heading to a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Despite the "critical" designation, his injuries aren't life-threatening and he's expected to recover fully:

The crash on the Garden State Parkway broke the governor's leg, six ribs, his sternum and fracturing a vertebrae. Authorities were still searching for a pickup truck driver whose actions were blamed for causing it.

Corzine, 60, won't be able to resume his duties as governor for several days, if not weeks, and he won't walk normally for months, Dr. Robert Ostrum said performing surgery on the governor Thursday night at Cooper University Hospital.

While he's out, State Senate President Richard Codey will be acting governor. Luckily, he's got a lot of experience for a temporary replacement:

The acting governor, Codey, also served as acting governor for about 14 months before Corzine took office last year following former Gov. James McGreevey's resigning over an extramarital affair with a man.

Hmm. Maybe Codey's some sort of gubernatorial bad-luck charm....

Best wishes to the governor for a full and speedy recovery.

Update: Corzine apparently wasn't wearing a seat belt. Dumb.

Corzine, politics, midtopia

Rethink those truisms

A couple of doses of cognitive dissonance for certain quarters of the political sphere:

1. Trickle-down theory doesn't work in the real world. The most relevant fact: the reason we need to tax the wealthy is because that's where the money is: since 1980, the inflation-adjusted median wage has actually fallen, while incomes for those in the top 0.1 percent earn four times what they did then. It's not class warfare to tax that discrepancy. And as the article argues, it will not result in top earners working less or taking fewer risk. The rest of the article points out a long list of areas where trickle-down theory disagrees with both classic economics and real-world experience.

2. Voter fraud probe comes up empty. You may recall that worries about voter fraud were the rationale for what otherwise might look like political investigations of Democrats. Now it turns out that those worries were, charitably, overblown. After five years of investigating, the Justice Department has precious little to show for it.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show.

That's not all. To keep the charade going a little longer, a federal panel edited a report on voter fraud, changing the conclusion from "little evidence" of fraud to "the pervasiveness of fraud is debatable."

And then there are the clear miscarriages of justice:

Mr. Ali, 68, who had owned a jewelry store in Tallahassee, got into trouble after a clerk at the motor vehicles office had him complete a registration form that he quickly filled out in line, unaware that it was reserved just for United States citizens.

Even though he never voted, he was deported after living legally in this country for more than 10 years because of his misdemeanor federal criminal conviction.

Fabulous.

Voter fraud is a crime. True fraud should be prosecuted vigorously. But it makes no sense to destroy people's lives for making mistakes, especially small ones. And it's just plain irresponsible for the White House and other Republicans to keep flogging the "widespread fraud" line when it's just not true -- and firing prosecutors for not being zealous enough in bringing nonexistent cases.

voter fraud, politics, midtopia

White House e-mails deleted

You know that brewing scandal over White House use of RNC e-mail addresses?

Well, it just got a lot, lot bigger:

Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted -- lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas -- due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.

The problem:

Until 2004, all e-mail on RNC accounts was routinely deleted after 30 days. Since 2004, White House staffers using those accounts have been able to save their e-mail indefinitely -- but have also been able to delete whatever they felt like deleting. By comparison, the White House e-mail system preserves absolutely everything forever, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.

The part that will have administration critics salivating:

The leading culprit appears to be President Bush's enormously influential political adviser Karl Rove, who reportedly used his Republican National Committee-provided Blackberry and e-mail accounts for most of his electronic communication.

Now one could argue that the problem, while real, was inadvertent, not done with evil intent. And I'm sure the familiar sight of administration incompetence partly explains the problem.

But it stretches credibility to think that someone as highly placed as Rove would not have understood the very clear White House rules governing e-mail:

"Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

"As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."

The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."

And if that wasn't clear enough, the handbook notes -- as was the case in the Clinton administration -- that "commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements."

So we're left with three possible explanations:

1. Karl Rove is an idiot;

2. Karl Rove thought the rules didn't apply to him;

3. Karl Rove deliberately circumvented the records laws.

The answer, for now, appears to be #2:

For Rove, a noted Blackberry addict who holds the position of senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, that would have meant switching from one device to another when alternating from White House business to Republican party business. Apparently he didn't bother.

I wrote in my earlier post that as a blogger with multiple e-mail accounts, I can understand how staffers could have inadvertently used the wrong account on occasion. But this isn't inadvertent misuse; this is blatant disregard for the rules.

And it's not just Rove. Fifty White House staffers were issued RNC communications gear, and apparently many of them also used the RNC gear for official business and improperly deleted messages.

And in classic Bush administration fashion, it's nobody's fault:

So is anyone in trouble? Apparently not. Stanzel was careful to apportion blame widely and generically. "This issue is not the fault of one individual," he said. He refused even to acknowledge that it is the White House counsel's office that is responsible for the establishment and oversight of internal rules of conduct. The White House counsel during Bush's entire first term, of course, was Alberto Gonzales, now the embattled attorney general.

There's more. Read the whole thing. And check out the related coverage. Particularly note the case of Rove aide Susan Ralston, who deliberately used RNC accounts to communicate with Jack Abramoff. And if you want another indication that the White House was fully aware of the situation and that transgressions were not inadvertent, read this:

In another e-mail exchange revealed during the investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a White House official was described as warning that "it is better to not put this stuff in writing in [the White House] . . . email system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc." Abramoff responded in an e-mail that the message in question "was not supposed to go into the WH system."

It's hard to read that as anything other than a deliberate circumvention of the law. The Democrats are going to have a field day. And deservedly so.

Update: Sen. Patrick Leahy blows a gasket. Yikes.

RNC, Rove, politics, midtopia

Two major attacks in Baghdad

Not good news:

A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone on Thursday, killing at least eight people, including two lawmakers, the American military said. At least 10 other people were wounded.

Thursday's attack came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed in that attack.

I'm kind of surprised the suicide bombers haven't targeted big bridges before this. It's an effective way to both kill people and paralyze the city.

The Parliament bombing is more troubling, considering the Parliament is deep inside the Green Zone. The bomber either got through several layers of security undetected -- which strikes me as unlikely -- or he had inside help. The implications of that could be huge.

It would appear the Parliament bomber was Sunni, because the dead were either Shiite or Kurd. In particular we can probably rule out Moqtada al-Sadr as a suspect, because six of the wounded were from his party.

Is this a comment on whether the "surge" is working? Not of the "smoking gun" variety. The Green Zone is a heavily fortified, high value target, so attacks there don't reasonably reflect security conditions elsewhere in the city. As for the bridge attack, not only is the surge still gathering steam, but it's pretty much impossible to prevent all attacks by suicide bombers. A checkpoint on the bridge might have helped stop that attack, but there's a limit to the number of potential targets the military can protect with limited forces. It's worth asking, though, if such a major piece of infrastructure was guarded -- and if not, why not. Baghdad is crisscrossed by rivers, notably the Tigris; lose enough bridges, and the city would essentially be cut in half.

All that said, inasmuch as this reflects a recent uptick in violence in Baghdad (after an initial decline), it could end up being part of a body of evidence that the surge produced only temporary benefits. But only time will tell.

Baghdad, surge, Iraq, politics, midtopia

The high price of animal shelters

Two years ago, our oldest cat died. A year ago, so did our second. Both were elderly; their deaths were sad but not unexpected. They're buried together in the woods in our back yard.

Four weeks ago, we decided it was time to have cats around again. So we visited several local shelters and finally adopted a pair of 3-month-old female kittens: a feisty short-hair calico and an affectionate black domestic longhair with extra toes on its front feet. I'll post pictures later when I get time.

We believe in adopting from shelters rather than buying purebreds for both humanitarian and economic reasons. And while we've always been sort of opposed to declawing -- my wife calls it "cutting off their fingers at the first knuckle" -- we reluctantly decided to have them declawed because we both work and wouldn't be able to spend the necessary time teaching them not to shred the furniture.

What floored me was the cost.

The adoption fee for each cat was $150 plus tax. That included a bunch of veterinary care prior to adoption, plus free microchipping and spaying afterward.

Both had colds -- a common ailment in shelters, where animals live in close proximity to each other -- so a vet visit and some antibiotics cost $50.

Declawing was another $200 apiece -- no charge for the extra toes. They also got their distemper boosters.

So four weeks in, we've invested more than $800 in these two "free" cats.

Declawing was a choice, of course. And the fees in the Twin Cities are far higher than those at shelters out in the country. But that's a staggering amount of money -- and it doesn't even include things like food, litter boxes or litter.

I understand that shelters need to cover expenses, and I don't begrudge them or the vets the money. We love the cats -- even if they keep us awake at night with their playing, or by jumping up on the bed and purring in our ears -- and can afford the cost.

But it has set me to wondering: At what point does the cost of adoption start interfering with their mission to save animals? A lot of families that might otherwise make wonderful homes for abandoned animals simply can't afford to spend that kind of money on a pet. Are the shelters dangerously narrowing their customer base in a pennywise, pound-foolish fashion?

Those thoughts came back to me after reading about research in adoption psychology. This refers to a growing trend among animal shelters to study the psychology of shelter animals, as well as that of people who give up pets and those who adopt them. The idea is to not only match people with compatible pets: the goal includes discovering why owners give up pets (in hopes of reducing the number of abandoned animals) and to develop shelter designs and training programs for abandoned animals that will make them more adoptable. The overall goal: greatly reducing the number of animals euthanized every year.

The article is flawed. It starts out strong, then devolves into a lightweight story about the author's decision to adopt a dog from the shelter he's writing about. But it makes some sobering points:

1. Of the 4 million dogs that enter animal shelters in the United States each year, half are euthanized.

2. The most heartbreaking scene was the description of the shelter's "disposition team", which has the emotionally wrenching job of assessing new arrivals and deciding, on the basis of a few minutes' interaction, which animals get sent to the adoption kennels and which get sent to the canine Treblinka of the euthanasia room.

3. While the main reasons for surrendering dogs are understandable -- biting, aggression, chewing on furniture, inability to house-train, moving, loss of job -- many are downright frivolous and reflect a shocking emotional disregard. Among the examples cited in the article: animals surrendered because they were "boring", or the owners were going on vacation, or the family had bought new furniture and the dog's coloring didn't match.

The most interesting argument the article makes is that pets are being forced to adapt to a changing human culture that they were never bred for. Most dog breeds were developed for specific outdoor purposes: herding, catching rats, hunting. These jobs not only selected for energy and intelligence, but were usually performed in the company of people or other dogs.

But our population is far more urban and suburban these days, and in many families the adults all work -- and work long hours. So those dogs are now forced to endure long days alone in a house or apartment, with the boredom and loneliness relieved only by the arrival home of their humans -- who after a long day of work are often too tired or stressed or busy to deal with the needs of their canine companions.

The article cites some successes -- including one here in Minneapolis, where "socialized" puppies were far less likely to be returned after adoption. Another training program in New Hampshire cut the euthanasia rate in half, while in Ohio an aggressive spay/neuter program has helped cut euthanasia by 40 percent while reducing the number of abandoned dogs by 16 percent.

Still, I was left wondering if there are any real solutions, or if the ethically numbing reality of animal shelters are simply the way things are. As long as adoption is expensive; as long as people have unrealistic expectations of their animals; and as long as substantial numbers of people refuse to have their animals spayed, there will always be more abandoned animals than there are people to adopt them. And that means there will always be disposition teams separating the lucky from the unlucky.

It strikes me that there is plenty of room for either states or private foundations to get involved here. I see a two-pronged approach.

1. A subsidy program to reduce the cost of adoption, thus broadening the base of potential adopters;

2. An aggressive education, subsidy and (perhaps) enforcement program to encourage widespread spaying/neutering of pets. Working with vets, say, to offer pet owners a one-year discount on vet services if they get their pet neutered (with the state picking up most of the difference). Or shelters requiring that anyone dropping off a litter of kittens or puppies must get the mother spayed. Or cities requiring spaying as part of their licensing process except for licensed breeders. The idea is to make spaying the default choice, so that it occurs unless the pet owner is highly motivated to avoid it.

Then, perhaps, shelters can do more of the sheltering part of their job and less of the emotionally numbing work that comes from serving as a triage center for society's carelessness.

Update: Picture of cute kitties added.

pets, animal shelters, politics, midtopia

Republicans claim "meaningful amendments" crown!

We're all of three months into the 110th Congress, so of course it's time to grade the Republicans. At least, that's what House Republicans seem to think.

This is a special sort of report card, in which they choose the categories and introduce them with a self-serving blurb. But what the heck. Here's what they have to say for themselves:

House Republicans have successfully passed more meaningful amendments in the first three months on 2007, than the Democrats were able to pass in the past 12 years. One prominent analyst remarked that House Republicans are creating "a series of substantaive wins" through effective use of procedural rights on the floor.

Wow. "More meaningful amendments." Anyone else impressed? The "prominent analyst," by the way, is lobbyist and conservative Washington Times op-ed contributor Gary Andres.

The ironic thing is that their relative success in this small-bore world can be ascribed to the Democrats not using the hardball tactics employed by Republicans when they were in the majority. Indeed, Andres speculates with apparent glee that the raging GOP success with "meaningful amendments" may lead Democrats to clamp down on that openness. I'm not sure why he considers that a good thing.

Next up: Online communication.

House Republicans are reaching out to the online community more aggressively than ever before; Rep. Cantor is proud to be a part of this effort. In the past three months, House Republicans have held a successful blog row, produced several online web ads, been in constant communication with the blogs, among other ideas. How successful do you feel these efforts have been?

Double wow. I thought we were supposed to be ranking their job performance, not their PR efforts.

Lastly, defining the stakes (or, as the secondary label puts it, "Showing that Democrats are wrong for America"):

House Democrats are making a lot of legislative mistakes; in just their first three months of holding power, they have passed the largest tax hike in American history, failed to fund America’s troops, and increased the federal budget by billions with pork projects. How effective do you feel House Republicans have been in highlighting these errors?

Nah, no spin there. And once again, why are we grading PR efforts?

That, by the way, is it. The entire report card you are encouraged to fill out.

I could tut-tut about this, but really it's the political equivalent of mind candy. And for people with any perspective at all, it would be all in good fun. I'm just not sure the designers of this report card actually have perspective, because they seem so serious about it. It's almost as if they don't realize how ridiculously blinkered they sound.

politics, midtopia

Business backs universal health care

I'm catching up on my reading, and just finished an interesting piece on the prospects for health-care reform.

I've argued before that health coverage needs to be de-linked from employment status. It's both a fairness factor for employees (why should I pay more for worse coverage simply because I work for a small business?) and an economic factor for employers, to whom rising health care costs represent a barrier to hiring and a competitive disadvantage versus foreign companies who bear no such burden.

Now, at last, business seems to be reaching the same conclusion. As Sen. Ron Wyden, a longtime advocate of universal coverage, notes, "The refrain from business was, 'We can’t afford to do universal health care.' Now the refrain is, 'We can’t afford not to do it.'"

Which is why you have the odd spectacle of a union-busting CEO, Steve Burd of Safeway supermarkets, joining former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie to form the Coalition to Advance Health Care Reform, a business advocacy group that will push universal coverage.

One might be forgiven for being skeptical, and think this is just another Orwellian-named group whose actual agenda is to scuttle universal care. But Burd has been walking the walk for a while, giving talks to business groups promoting the idea. And one can certainly see the self-interest involved. The real trick will be in the details. Everybody wants universal care -- but what level of benefits? At what cost? Who pays? And who manages it? Those are the things that will need to be ironed out.

Still, it's good to see the various interest groups starting to line up behind the general idea of comprehensive coverage. It's only a first step, but a very important one.

Burd, health care, politics, midtopia

Republican pessimism for 2008

I've said before that if Bush doesn't do something to make Iraq a nonissue before the 2008 elections, Republicans will be battling Democrats to be the first to string him up.

Now Republicans are starting to make similar noises, openly worrying about the damage Bush and Iraq will do to them in the 2008 elections.

In interviews on Tuesday, the Republicans said they were concerned about signs of despondency among party members and fund-raisers, reflected in polls and the Democratic fund-raising advantage in the first quarter of the year. Many party leaders expressed worry that the party’s presidential candidates faced a tough course without some fundamental shift in the political dynamic.

“My level of concern and dismay is very, very high,” said Mickey Edwards, a Republican former congressman from Oklahoma who is now a lecturer in public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. “It’s not that I have any particular problem with the people who are running for the Republican nomination. I just don’t know how they can run hard enough or fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of the Bush administration.”

This on a day when John "Gaffe" McCain is trimming headquarters staff and trying to revitalize his candidacy -- by once again highlighting his support for the Iraq war.

Yeah, that'll work.

The story notes several things working against the Republicans besides Iraq:

1. That Democratic fundraising advantage is huge -- $78 million to $51 million.

2. The spectacle of the GOP frontrunners -- moderates as far as Republicans go -- transparently altering long-held positions in an attempt to appeal to the conservative base.

3. A general exhaustion after eight years of Republican rule.

All of the above is causing more and more people to identify themselves as Democrats. The shine may wear off of that over the next two years, but for now the momentum favors the Democrats.

It also appears that the politics of "wedge issues" may finally be exacting a toll on the party that invented them.

Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, said the party’s presidential candidates were being whipsawed as they tried to appeal to conservative voters who have a history of strong views on issues like abortion and gay rights. “These tests are destroying the Republican Party,” Mr. Simpson said.

Lord, one can hope so. Not to see the GOP destroyed, but to see such "tests" abandoned.

Abortion and gay rights, while legitimate issues, are not the sort of issues that are likely to ever be settled at the ballot box, turning as they do on rights rather than statute. Even if you hold strong views on those subjects, you're bound to get tired of having them dragged out time and again and forcing elections to focus on them without ever solving them, while more relevant and substantive -- and solvable -- issues are pushed to the side.

I hope the GOP gets at least some of its act together by 2008. My personal dream scenario would be the Dems winning the White House but losing one chamber of Congress -- say, the House. That would give Democrats control of policy initiatives (not to mention confirmation proceedings), while forcing them to deal with Republicans on legislation -- particularly budget legislation. I think that would be a recipe for compromise, with gridlock as a not-too-bad fallback position.

politics, midtopia

Delegating disaster

The White House is looking for someone to take over responsibility for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

The snark in me is asking "isn't that Bush's job?" But I realize that's unfair. We're talking day-to-day management of the war, which isn't a presidential duty.

No, the real telling thing is that nobody wants the job.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,'" he said.

You don't make general in the military without being able to smell a fiasco from miles away. Not that you really needed a special Spidey sense in this case. Not when the Pentagon is extending the tours of all Army soldiers in Iraq to 15 months, administration supporters like Bob Novak are saying the "surge" isn't working and Bush is preparing to sit down with Democrats to discuss ways to get continued funding for the wars.

What's more interesting is the view expressed by Sheehan, who retired after a 35-year career in the Marines.

"I've never agreed on the basis of the war, and I'm still skeptical," Sheehan said. "Not only did we not plan properly for the war, we grossly underestimated the effect of sanctions and Saddam Hussein on the Iraqi people."

In the course of the discussions, Sheehan said, he called around to get a better feel for the administration landscape.

"There's the residue of the Cheney view -- 'We're going to win, al-Qaeda's there' -- that justifies anything we did," he said. "And then there's the pragmatist view -- how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence."

That, folks, is a Marine saying the war was a mistake, Cheney is a problem and we should be looking to withdraw, not get drawn in further.

Maybe Cheney can take the job.

Iraq, politics, midtopia