First step, get rid of the witnesses

Back in December, I wrote about a New Jersey student who recorded his history teacher engaging in lengthy religious harangues. I'll repost part of that story here:

Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.

"If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong," Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. "He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he's saying, 'Please, accept me, believe.' If you reject that, you belong in hell."

Classy, no?

After hearing one such harangue, one of his students, Matthew LaClair, tape-recorded eight subsequent classes, then complained to the school district.

At the time, the district said they had disciplined Paszkiewicz, but declined to say how. Now the other shoe has dropped.

After a public school teacher was recorded telling students they belonged in hell if they did not accept Jesus as their savior, the school board has banned taping in class without an instructor’s permission, and has added training for teachers on the legal requirements for separating church and state.

Training? Fine. But banning the tape-recording of classes? Besides obstructing learning -- some students record their classes to aid in their studying -- it seems an odd thing to do after a recording documented a problem that needed to be addressed.

The school board's stated rationale is privacy:

After several students complained to the school board that their voices had been broadcast on the Internet and on television news programs without their consent, the board adopted a policy in mid-January that requires students to request permission from an instructor to record or videotape a class.

Beyond the question of whether anyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a classroom (answer: probably not), the problem would seem to be with the act of broadcasting, not the act of recording. So the school board's ban seems unnecessarily broad -- and raises the question of whether they simply want to avoid any more embarassing revelations.

Especially because whatever disciplinary action they took apparently didn't work:

Meanwhile, Matthew said that Mr. Paszkiewicz recently told the class that scientists who spoke about the danger of global warming were using tactics like those Hitler used, by repeating a lie often enough that people come to believe it.

Context is everything here. Schools are supposed to be about intellectual inquiry, which can include lively debate on controversial topics. And at least this isn't religious proselyzation. But it's difficult on the surface to see what relevance global warming has to American history, Paszkiewicz's assigned subject.

That's not necessarily a problem; off-topic discussions should be allowable. So if this was an open debate, fine; if it was a teacher subjecting his students to a political diatribe, it's a problem. For my money, it's difficult to imagine a teacher legitimately invoking Hitler in such a discussion.

It's up to the school district how they want to handle the teacher. But banning recording devices strikes me as a poor decision intended more to shield the district from scrutiny than to protect legitimate privacy concerns.

education, politics, midtopia

Recession ahead?

Some interesting economic news today.

Savings rates: It's the worst since the Great Depression, negative 1 percent. Meaning people are spending more than they're taking in and not putting money aside for a rainy day. But take that with a grain of salt, because the savings rate is a highly flawed statistic. it doesn't count home equity, for instance, or retirement accounts or stock appreciation. It's basically a measure of cash flow, not solvency. It's true we stink as savers, but not nearly as bad as the savings rate would indicate. A more accurate picture would rename the savings rate to "cash flow" and pair it with a net worth measurement.

Other economic news: The same link shows the ISM manufacturing index falling below 50, an indication that the sector is contracting, while jobless claims also fell, indicating fewer workers being laid off. But job growth was a lower-than-expected 111,000 -- not enough to keep up with population growth -- and as a result the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.6 percent. Wages were essentially flat, rising about as much as inflation.

A couple of economists I know -- one a Republican, one a Libertarian -- think we're headed for a mild recession in 2007. The above numbers, plus the cooling of the housing market, generally lend credence to that view. An interesting thing to speculate about is the timing. In an expansion, wages typically lag overall economic growth. But this expansion has been unusual in the length of that lag, and overall wages are only now starting to rise in meaningful amounts -- just in time for a new recession to put an end to that. Which means we would have gone through an entire expansion cycle without much if any benefit trickling down to the workers. They aren't going to be happy about that. It also helps explain why a lot of people don't think the economy is all that fabulous even though the macro statistics are pretty good.

economy, politics, midtopia

Global warming showstopper

It's real. It's serious. And it's largely man-made.

That is the consensus opinion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group that includes hundreds of scientists in 113 countries and represents the current state-of-the-art on global warming.

The report says rising temperatures are "very likely" human-caused -- a phrase that reflects more than 90 percent certainty.

Some specifics:

The panel predicted temperature rises of 2-11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. That was a wider range than in the 2001 report.

However, the panel also said its best estimate was for temperature rises of 3.2-7.1 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2001, all the panel gave was a range of 2.5-10.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. An additional 3.9-7.8 inches are possible if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.... Many scientists had warned that this estimate was too cautious and said sea level rise could be closer to 3-5 feet because of ice sheet melt.

Besides directly flooding land, rising sea levels would increase erosion, increase flooding during storms, and degrade inland soil and water quality. And that effect would be compounded by another effect of global warming: an increase in the number and intensity of severe storms like hurricanes.

What should be done? The report is a bit gloomy about that. It says the warming at this point will continue for centuries no matter what humans do about it. So the question is, what effort should be made now to eventually mitigate our influence on global temperature?

Those are the sort of questions that Congress will take up soon. The House has created a global warming committee, which is supposed to develop a bill by July. Meanwhile, various Senators have introduced bills aimed at reducing U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases by various amounts. So we can expect some sort of action on that front sooner rather than later. Whether it will amount to more than grandstanding, and whether it will survive potential Republican opposition, is another thing.

Food for thought.

politics, midtopia

Double the surge! Or halve it

President Bush's surge has been advertised as involving 21,500 soldiers. I always assumed that was a total. But now the Congressional Budget Office says that only counts actual combat troops, and when you add in support troops the figure could be as high as 48,000.

The number comes in response to a request from Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., the chairman of the House Budget Committee, for an estimate on how much the surge will cost ($27 billion a year, as it turns out).

What are support troops? They're the folks who back up the soldiers doing the actual fighting. For every infantryman on the front line, there's a whole bunch of soldiers behind him, responsible for paying, feeding, equipping, informing and otherwise taking care of his needs. The ratio of combat to support troops in a military organization is known as the "teeth-to-tail" ratio, and that ratio is usually quite lopsided. When I was in the Army in the early 1990s, the Soviets had a ratio of about 3:1, meaning there were three support soldiers for every soldier actually fighting. The U.S. ratio was much higher: 8:1 or even 10:1, IIRC.

The lower the ratio, the more combat power you can deploy with a given number of troops. But the higher the ratio, the more durable your combat power is. So the Soviets could throw huge numbers of troops into the fray, but their logistical train was fragile so their combat power would decay rapidly. We could field fewer combat troops, but our robust tail meant we could sustain that level of combat power far better.

That assumes, of course, that the tail is actually functional, and doesn't simply represent bureaucratic dead weight.

Anyway, the reason I assumed the 21,500 figure included support troops is because such figures almost always include support troops. If you're sent to Iraq, it doesn't matter if you're a rifleman or a clerk-typist; you're in Iraq, and you count as part of the overall strength. So it's a bit surprising to find out that Bush was counting things up differently.

There are two reasons he might have done this, and which you choose probably depends on your view of Bush. On the one hand, it could have been politics: he might have played up the lower figure in order to minimize opposition to the move. On the other hand, it could have been that he simply didn't know yet how many support troops were being sent.

Me, I'm actually happy to find out he was undercounting. 48,000 troops still isn't a big enough increase to show we're serious, but it's a lot closer than 21,500.

On the other hand, maybe we only need half as many troops after all. In a frankly bizarre bit of testimony before Congress, Gen. George Casey -- the outgoing top general in Iraq who Bush has nominated to be the Army chief of staff -- said the surge was too big, and only half as many troops were needed.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on his nomination to be Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey said he had asked for two additional Army brigades, based on recommendations of his subordinate commanders. Bush announced Jan. 10 that he would send five extra brigades as part of a buildup that would total 21,500 soldiers and Marines.

Asked by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., why he had not requested the full five extra brigades that Bush is sending, Casey said, "I did not want to bring one more American soldier into Iraq than was necessary to accomplish the mission."

Yeah, because things went so well under Casey's watch. Methinks his credibility on this issue is not so high.

To be fair, Casey may be talking about a narrower, more specific thing: the number of troops necessary to carry out the specific mission he was given. As we discovered in September, actually defeating the insurgency hadn't been our mission up to that point. So if Casey defines his mission narrowly enough, his numbers make sense. But then he's either being myopic or obliquely saying that the problem was the mission -- a subtle criticism of Bush, who defines the missions that the military then carries out.

I'm beginning to think, however, that Bush isn't solely at fault for the mess that has engulfed Iraq.

politics, midtopia

Minimum wage bill passes Senate

After lots of wrangling the vote was 94-3. Among those voting against the bill was Jim DeMint. Presumably he was miffed that his line-item veto amendment failed.

The bill includes tax breaks for small businesses that must be resolved in conference committee, because the House version didn't include them. If the House goes along with the tax breaks, the bill will pass. If the conferees decide to strip out the breaks, then the "clean" bill will have to pass the Senate, a dicey proposition.

I urge Congress to keep the breaks. They are reasonable, and are paid for by eliminating various tax shelters and placing limits on tax-deferred compensation for executives.

BTW, today's political chuckle is provided by the White House. Remember when President Bush challenged Congress to balance the budget? Then consider this.

After the House passed its bill on Jan. 10, the White House issued a statement insisting that final legislation include small business tax breaks. It subsequently issued a statement supporting the Senate version, but said the revenue measures were not necessary.

Got that? Our newly minted deficit hawk of a president said the bill must include tax breaks, but didn't need to include revenue measures to pay for the tax breaks.

Perhaps someone needs to explain to Bush what "fiscal conservative," "balanced budget" and "deficit reduction" means.

Update: Here's a fun find: Two years ago, Republicans argued that a $2-an-hour minimum wage hike would cripple the economy. Now that the increase is a reality, let's see if they turn out to be right.

minimum wage, politics, midtopia

Chavez takes over

Hugo Chavez's captive National Assembly voted to give him the power to legislate by decree for 18 months, marking another step in Venezuela's remarkably open journey from democracy to dictatorship.

So what does he have in mind?

Chavez, a former paratroop commander re-elected with 63 percent of the vote in December, has said he will decree nationalizations of Venezuela's largest telecommunications company and the electricity sector, slap new taxes on the rich, and impose greater state control over the oil and natural gas industries.

The one I have the most problem with is the nationalization of the telecom. State control of the media is the first prerequisite for tyranny, and there's no compelling reason for it.

The law also allows Chavez to dictate unspecified measures to transform state institutions; reform banking, tax, insurance and financial regulations; decide on security and defense matters such as gun regulations and military organization; and "adapt" legislation to ensure "the equal distribution of wealth" as part of a new "social and economic model."

Chavez's defenders like to minimize his powers, noting that they are carefully defined and restricted to certain topics. But read the above list: what has been left out? His new authority is properly described as "sweeping." The only real check is the National Assembly's ability to revoke his power.

Chavez plans to reorganize regional territories and carry out reforms aimed at bringing "power to the people" through thousands of newly formed Communal Councils designed to give Venezuelans a say on spending an increasing flow of state money on projects in their neighborhoods, from public housing to potholes.

Local control over spending is a fine principle, but a lot depends on how those Communal Councils are formed and operated. Anyone want to bet that they turn into a patronage mill for Chavez supporters?

Sad as it is to see what is happening to democracy there, our proper response is to do nothing. As I've written before, Chavez is genuinely popular in Venezuela. His actions have majority support at the moment. I think Venezuelans will come to regret throwing democracy away, but if they want a socialist dictatorship they should have it, and it should be none of our business.

But it is sad to see George Lucas made into a prophet: "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."

Chavez, Venezuela, politics, midtopia

A cure for cancer?

It sounds too good to be true. But everything I can find says this could be legitimate.

A molecule used for decades to combat metabolic diseases in children, may soon be available as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer, University of Alberta researchers are reporting.

In results that “astounded” school scientists, the molecule, known as DCA, was shown to shrink lung, breast and brain tumours in both animal and human tissue experiments. The study is being published today in the journal Cancer Cell.

Besides being known and safe, the drug is in the public domain -- meaning if this pans out, treatments would be dirt cheap. On the downside, it might be difficult to get it through clinical trials and bring it to market, since there's little or no profit in it for drug companies. So public financing of the trials may be necessary.

And those clinical trials are crucial. Lab results and even animal testing are nice, but the drug industry is littered with compounds that passed those two hurdles and failed in human testing. Such trials are expensive and take time, so any actual treatment is still years away.

But if this works, it would be way, way cool.

DCA, cancer, medicine, midtopia

A Republican deadline in Iraq

Republican war supporters have given Bush their own deadline to show progress in Iraq -- six to nine months.

Several leading Senate Republicans who support President Bush's troop-boosting plan for Iraq say they will give the administration and the Iraqis about six months to show significant improvement.

“I don't think this war can be sustained for more than six months if in fact we don't see some progress,” Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said Wednesday. Until this month, he was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Roberts' comments came two days after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the new U.S. military push was the Iraqis' “last chance.”

“This needs to be successful over the next six to nine months,” McConnell said in an interview Monday with Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto. “And if not, we're going to have to go in a different direction.”

There you have it. As I've said before, Bush has one last chance to succeed in Iraq, because both Democrats and Republicans want it off the table for the 2008 elections.

These are war supporters, mind you, and their work is largely an attempt to derail the anti-surge resolutions making their way through Congress. But it's a sign of how far the debate has shifted that the hawkish alternative is a six-month deadline.

Speaking of resolutions, war opponents appear to have found bipartisan common ground.

Two senators, a Republican and a Democrat, leading separate efforts to put Congress on record against President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq joined forces Wednesday, agreeing on a nonbinding resolution that would oppose the plan and potentially embarrass the White House.

Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., had been sponsoring competing measures opposing Bush's strategy of sending 21,500 more U.S. troops to the war zone, with Warner's less harshly worded version attracting more Republican interest. The new resolution would vow to protect funding for troops while keeping Warner's original language expressing the Senate's opposition to the buildup.... It lacks Levin's language saying the troop increase is against the national interest, and it drops an earlier provision by Warner suggesting Senate support for some additional troops.

Works for me. The important thing is to get Congress on record opposing the plan. Though I hope Bush's "surge" works, I doubt it will, and Congress needs to get out front on the issue to avoid being accused of armchair quarterbacking with hindsight. The resolutions lay the groundwork for later, more robust action if such proves necessary. And it will give Bush a huge cudgel to use against Congress if he turns out to be successful.

Debate on the measure could begin Monday.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Gonzales to release details of NSA program

It's always nice to see the Attorney General respond so quickly to Midtopia's concerns.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday he will turn over secret documents detailing the government's domestic spying program, ending a two-week standoff with the Senate Judiciary Committee over surveillance targeting terror suspects....

The documents held by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — including investigators' applications for permission to spy and judges' orders — will be given to some lawmakers as early as Wednesday.

Gonzales said the documents would not be released publicly. "We're talking about highly classified discussions about highly classified actions of the United States government," the attorney general said.

Good. Congressional oversight is needed to ensure that Congress' concerns are being taken seriously.

And as always, Gonzales is good for an Orwellian laugh:

"It's never been the case where we said we would never provide the access," Gonzales told reporters.

Technically true. What he did do was spend hours saying that turning over details might pose a security risk, with the clear implication that the administration might refuse to do so. And National Intelligence director John Negroponte said that separation of powers might prevent the administration from turning over the documents. So he did everything he could to resist such a turnover without actually saying he wouldn't turn them over.

Now we have to trust our Congressional representatives to do their job.

terrorism, FISA, NSA, Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Bipartisan ethics trouble

Republicans raised red flags when Democrat Allan Mollohan -- whose finances are currently under investigation by the FBI -- was poised to chair the House Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee, which oversees the FBI's budget. Democrats ignored the protest and Mollohan today chairs the subcommittee -- though he has promised to recuse himself from votes on the Justice Department's budget.

The Republicans were in the right on that one. But it turns out they have their own problem with another subcommittee. The Financial Services Committee's oversights and investigation committee, and the ranking Republican, Gary Miller.

After months of GOP ethics scandals, House Republicans chose Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.) as the ranking member of a panel charged with investigating financial institutions — even as the FBI was looking into his land deals.

Representative Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, named Miller to the top GOP spot on the oversight and investigative subcommittee Jan. 9, according to a committee release. Watchdog groups have been raising red flags on several of Miller’s land deals since The Hill and other media outlets first scrutinized them early last year. Yesterday, a spokesman for the southern California city of Monrovia confirmed that agency officials had contacted the city about Miller’s land deals in the last two months.

The quoted portion is wrong, because Miller's problems involve allegations of tax evasion -- the domain of the IRS, not the FBI. That makes his situation the same as Mollohan's, because his subcommittee oversees the Department of the Treasury, which contains the IRS. He's not the chairman, true; but Miller should not be the ranking member, either. A member, fine; he is innocent until proven guilty. But not in a position of authority.

Details of Miller's transactions can be found here and here. Among them: trying to get a federal position for a city councilman who was about to vote on a land deal that would net Miller $10 million, using his staff for personal errands, and using his office to try to get Rolling Stones concert tickets.

Further, he avoided paying taxes on the $10 million by claiming the property was taken through eminent domain -- even though Miller had been lobbying the city to buy the parcel, and the program the city was using to buy the land specifically prohibited eminent domain takings. He then repeated the tactic twice more with the proceeds.

Like William Jefferson's frozen, foil-wrapped $90,000, the evidence against Miller is too strong to give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to important positions.

politics, midtopia

Good principle, bad law

Remember those campaign dirty tricks from this past election season? The fliers falsely claiming endorsements, or attempting to fool voters into thinking a candidate belonged to the other party? Or intimidate Hispanic voters? Or give voters an incorrect polling place? Or annoy opposition voters with repeated computerized phone calls?

Barack Obama and Charles Schumer do. And according to the New York Times, they plan to introduce a bill outlawing such behavior on Thursday.

Along with defining these crimes and providing penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment, the bill would require the Justice Department to counteract deceptive election information that has been put out, and to report to Congress after each election on what deceptive practices occurred and what the Justice Department did about them.

The bill would also allow individuals to go to court to stop deceptive practices while they are happening.

I understand and agree with the principle: in my above linked post on the Maryland false-endorsement scam, I suggested that Gov. Robert Ehrlich's campaign should face lawsuits and steep fines for its sleazy behavior.

But practically speaking, the law -- especially the part that allows for immediate lawsuits -- will probably just create a mess. The bill will apparently not apply to honest mistakes. But how do you separate the deliberate acts from the honest mistakes, especially in a world where someone sees a conspiracy behind every mistake?

The only way to draw that line is in court, after a full investigation. And that's not going to happen on the day of an election. I understand the desire to stop bad behavior before it affects the vote, but what the bill would do is provide an avenue for partisans and crackpots to turn Election Day into a circus. Ironically, the act of filing lawsuits could itself become a deceptive campaign tactic, attempting to use smoke to create the impression of fire.

So fine: make deceptive campaign tactics a crime that carries steep penalties. But apply them after the fact. On Election Day, rely on the deterrence value of the new penalties as well as the system we have now: the vigilance of the parties, election officials and the media. That system brought to light all of the acts that inspired this bill.

If we're going to enact Election Day reforms, let's make it reforms that matter. Require election boards to have enough voting machines on hand in all precincts to handle the volume of voters; establish training and ethical standards for poll workers; establish ballot-design standards to eliminate confusion; and provide resources to ensure a fast official response to reports of fraud, not so much to catch the perps but to contain the damage and protect everyone's right to vote.

Update: Captain Ed feels much the same way.

dirty tricks, elections, politics, midtopia

No more Tomcat parts

In response to Congressional criticism (and, of course, fear of Midtopia), the Pentagon has announced it will stop selling F-14 parts as surplus.

Well, for now, anyway. The Pentagon has halted the sales pending a "comprehensive review" of its auction procedures.

The sales were less of a big deal than it seems, because my earlier speculation was correct: the parts that were being marketed were general aircraft hardware like nuts and bolts, things not unique to the F-14 and thus not particularly sensitive. So to some extent this is Congressional (and mostly Democratic) grandstanding.

But given that Iran is the only other user of F-14s, it's reasonable to ask why we should make their life easier by selling any aircraft parts to them, even those they could obtain elsewhere. And there's also the documented problem of sensitive parts getting mixed in with the basic stuff. Until that is sorted out -- presumably what is being done by the "comprehensive review" -- there's no sense in selling anything.

F-14, Iran, politics, midtopia

Congress finds its spine

Finally.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee began laying the constitutional groundwork today for an effort to block President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq and place new limits on the conduct of the war there, perhaps forcing a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

They were joined by Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who led the panel for the last two years, in asserting that Mr. Bush cannot simply ignore Congressional opposition to his plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.

"I would respectfully suggest to the president that he is not the sole decider," Mr. Specter said. "The decider is a joint and shared responsibility."

Mr. Specter said he considered a clash over constitutional powers to be "imminent."

I don't particularly agree with Russell Feingold, who is calling for American troops to be withdrawn within six months. There may come a time for such a curtain drop, but it isn't now: Bush should be given one last chance to try to pull this out, to show that his "surge" will work. I'm skeptical, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

But I fully support Congress starting to exert its Constitutional authority and responsibilities. If they don't lose their nerve, we may end up with a historic delineation of the relative wartime powers of the executive and legislative branch.

First, let's quickly dispose of a tangential political canard.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch repeatedly talked about the need to "support our troops," suggesting that a resolution opposing Bush's strategy would undermine them. He was handily cut apart by Feingold, who noted that the troops would not be hurt in any way. They would still be paid, supplied and trained as usual -- just not in Iraq. Richard Durbin delivered a second blow, noting that troops are being sent to Iraq without proper training or equipment. "Now who is standing behind the troops?" he said. Specter, citing a Military Times poll, added that since only 35 percent of service members support Bush's plan, questioning that plan would seem to be doing what the troops want.

Those responses neatly demolish the idea that "supporting the troops" requires supporting the president's use of them. That was a central tactic in war supporters' attempts to stifle debate on Iraq, and both the attempt and the faulty logic behind it always angered me. Sad as it is to see the tactic still being used on the floor of the Senate, it's good to see it quickly and robustly refuted.

But back to the constitutional debate. Congress's authority to cut off funding is undisputed. That's how Congress -- not the executive branch -- finally ended American involvement in the Vietnam War. And Congress has the sole authority to declare war as well. That bookends the debate: Congress can start and end wars. But what power does it have over the conduct of a war?

As a practical matter, it's usually better to have one commanding general than 536 of them. So let's stipulate that as long as the president and Congress agree on a course, the president should generally be left alone to command the troops.

But if push comes to shove, who wins?

It seems to me that if Congress has the power to start and end wars, it must also have the power to take lesser steps, such as establishing limits on a particular war or attaching strings to military funding. Congress' impeachment power supports this idea: If Congress really wanted to, it could impeach the president and then keep on impeaching his successors until they found one willing to fight the war to their liking.

The Founders, remember, had just gotten rid of one executive tyrant; they did not wish to empower another. Most important governmental powers rest in Congress, and the real biggies -- the power to tax and impeach, for example -- belong exclusively to the House, the people's representatives.

The president's commander-in-chief powers, then, are subservient to Congress: he fights the war on their behalf. At the Senate hearing, that was the testimony of Louis Fisher, a constitutional law specialist for the Library of Congress. As he put it, "The same duty commanders have to the president, the president has to the elected representatives."

But as another witness -- Robert Turner, a professor at the University of Virginia -- noted, such power comes with a price: blame. He said Congress was responsible for the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia because they wouldn't let Nixon fight inside Cambodia. That's a stretch, but it also demonstrates why Congress has generally been only too happy to let the president make such decisions in all but the most extreme cases.

Besides moving toward a confrontation on Iraq, Congress also issued another pre-emptive warning on Iran.

"What I think many of us are concerned about is that we stumble into active hostilities with Iran without having aggressively pursued diplomatic approaches, without the American people understanding exactly what's taking place," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told John Negroponte, who is in line to become the nation's No. 2 diplomat as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's deputy.

And for today's political humor, here's Negroponte's response to a question from Chuck Hagel.

Negroponte repeated President Bush's oft-stated preference for diplomacy, although he later added, "We don't rule out other possibilities."

"Preference for diplomacy"? Surely he jests. Bush, after all, has flatly rejected talks with Syria or Iran over Iraq. And he has let the Europeans take the lead on talks over Iran's nuclear program, contenting himself with rattling sabers in the background.

Some of that is reasonable, even justified. I'm doubtful diplomacy will succeed in persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. But to claim Bush has a preference for diplomacy is a bit removed from reality.

constitution, Iraq, Iran, politics, midtopia

The meaning of race

Rep. Tom Tancredo is a partisan buffoon. But even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes, and his latest hobby horse manages to hit a target worth skewering -- even if it's not exactly the target he was aiming at.

Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado and an outspoken opponent of diversity who has called Miami a "Third World country", is calling for an end to race-based caucuses. He's specifically taking aim at the Congressional Black Caucus, which has 43 members, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which counts 21 members.

First, let's outline how Tancredo is wrong. To begin with, he apparently doesn't understand what a caucus is.

The purpose of caucuses is to provide a gathering point and support for minorities within a larger group whose views and interests might otherwise be diluted or ignored by the larger group. I'm not talking just race: you could have a female caucus, an opera fan caucus, a sneaker caucus, or what have you.

Check out this list of Congressional caucuses. They're all over the map. The only common principle is that they represent smaller interest groups within the larger body of Congresscritters.

A white caucus would be pointless, because the entire Congress is a white caucus. That said, Tancredo has every right to form one; he would just be displaying ignorance.

Being informal interest groups, caucuses should have the right to include or exclude anyone they want, since their sole purpose is to promote a particular interest, and it should be up to the caucus members to define what that interest is. So race-based caucuses are fine, in my book.

But not all caucuses are equally deserving of respect. And this is where the blind squirrel finds a nut.

Tancredo's latest outburst was prompted by what he said were the efforts of a white Republican, Stephen Cohen, to join the CBC (Cohen's district has a large black majority), only to be rejected because he was white.

Never mind that Cohen never actually sought to join the group. The thought that he might was enough for the CBC's chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, to confirm that only blacks are welcome.

I've been underwhelmed by the actions of the CBC in recent weeks; they've seemed determined to put skin color above everything else, including ethics and common sense, as when they gave William "my freezer is my bank" Jefferson a standing ovation, or pressuring Nancy Pelosi to make Alcee Hastings chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Then there is their historic snubbing of a black Republican, Gary Franks, in the early 1990s, which seemed to suggest that to be a CBC member you not only had to be black, but you had to be a Democrat -- or at least hold certain views on civil rights.

So while I respect the CBC's right to have to a "blacks only" policy -- and the policy even makes some sense, if the purpose of the CBC is less about advancing black causes in general and more about increasing the number, power and visibility of black members of Congress -- I'm not so impressed by their actions of late. And the reaffirmation of the "blacks only" policy forces me to wonder:

What constitutes "black"?

It's similar to a question I like to pose to anti-Semites, who rave about Jews controlling the world: How do you define Jew? If it's cultural, how do you determine they are part of the culture? If it's religious, can we exclude nonobservant Jews? If it's racial, how much Jewish blood do you have to have to be considered a Jew for the purposes of world-domination statistics?

So here's the question I would pose to the CBC: How much black blood is required before you can join the CBC?

Is Tiger Woods black enough? Or too Asian? I suspect he'd make it in, because Barack Obama is a member and he's half white. But then where do they draw the line? A quarter black? An eighth? A sixteenth? Just give me a number, that's all I ask.

I suspect it will come down to "looking" black. Which is fine and arguably valid, since "looking black" is at the heart of most racism and discrimination. But seeing them try to define the dividing line would be both entertaining and a reminder of how truly silly and meaningless racial distinctions are.

Thanks, Tom. You're an idiot, but sometimes you're a useful idiot.

race, politics, midtopia

Maybe -- maybe -- real change

I'm oddly heartened by the extended and bloody fighting currently taking place along Haifa Street in Baghdad.

Attack helicopters pumped rockets at gunmen holed up in office towers and apartment blocks yesterday, as US and Iraqi forces swept through a notorious Sunni-insurgent enclave in the heart of Baghdad.

The US military said the fighting around Haifa Street was part of a new offensive launched before dawn to disrupt illegal militias and bring the volatile area at the heart of Baghdad under the control of Iraqi security forces.

At first glance, there's not much to be heartened by. This is the third or fourth time we've "retaken" the area since the invasion. And it's a Sunni stronghold, so it could be viewed as just another battle between the Shiite government (supported by U.S. troops) and the Sunni minority.

But one reason Haifa Street is restive again is that Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army has been less active, thanks to an apparently real withdrawal of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's protection. Doubts over whether Maliki was willing or even able to bring al-Sadr to heel drove a lot of skepticism over Bush's "surge" plan, which could only work if the Iraqi government finally got serious about getting its house in order. Not only does Maliki appear to be making a genuine effort, but al-Sadr himself seems to have realized that a confrontation with the government is not in his interest.

There remain, as always, serious signs of concern. For instance, A Sunni general respected by his American advisers was replaced midfight by a Shiite general, on Maliki's orders. And an American vow to fight gunmen in Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods alike remains untested. I don't doubt the Americans are willing to be evenhanded, but are the Iraqis? Maliki says yes, but he's been, uh, less than truthful on that score before.

This is but a small first sign -- not even a step. And there still remains the hard tasks, like cracking down on death squads, eliminating corruption and "ghost soldiers" in the Iraqi army, reforming the Iraqi police.... the list goes on.

But for now, Maliki has shown more willingness to do what is necessary than I would have believed even two weeks ago.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Truth or dare

Republican Rep. Tom Davis released a report (pdf) a couple of weeks ago slamming the Justice Department's handling of the Sandy Berger case.

"My staff’s investigation reveals that President Clinton’s former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger compromised national security much more than originally disclosed," Davis said. "It is now also clear that Mr. Berger was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to compromise national security, apparently for his own convenience."

Well, he doesn't really come up with much new information. And at least he doesn't accuse Berger of attempting a cover-up, though he intimates such might have occurred.

His major action point (signed by every Congressional Republican): Make Berger take the polygraph test he agreed to as part of his 2005 plea bargain.

That's a fairly pointless requirement, since polygraphs are unreliable. And the failing here is the Justice Department's, not Berger's. But okay: if Berger agreed to take such a test, he must. Obviously.

The issue here is not holding Berger to the terms of the agreement; it's what will be done with the polygraph results if they are made public.

At best, such tests are only 70 percent or 80 percent reliable, and that's when administered by a skilled technician to a relatively normal subject. Knowledgable subjects can lie and get away with it; anxious subjects will generate lots of false positives. And if the technician isn't top-notch, all bets are off.

So let's say Berger flunks the test. Does that mean he stole other documents or is guilty of a cover-up? Maybe. He could just be part of the unlucky 20 percent. Or it could mean he was nervous.

If he passes the test does that mean he's innocent? No. Maybe he was a cool villain and spoofed the test. Maybe he just got lucky. Maybe the technician was incompetent.

Polygraphs can be useful tools for helping focus an investigation: if a subject routinely fails on certain topics, then those topics might be worthy of further investigative scrutiny. But a polygraph test in and of itself is too unreliable to tell us anything useful about guilt or innocence. In partisan discourse, though, such nuances will be lost. No matter what the result of the test, Berger is screwed.

He gets limited sympathy from me on that score: he stole classified documents, after all. But let's not see this particular move for more than what it is: a partisan attempt to keep a Democratic scandal alive.

security, Berger, politics, midtopia

Ain't capitalism great?

If you need a few belly laughs, check out the 2006 edition of "101 Dumbest Moments in Business" as assembled by Business 2.0.

Wal-Mart wins pride of place for 2006, grabbing 6 of the 101 spots for its snake-bitten marketing efforts.

But there are countless jaw-dropping other contenders. The first link will let you click through all 101. Some individual highlights:

Northwest Airlines providing "live cheap" advice for laid off workers, including dumpster diving.

Chevrolet sponsoring a "make your own commercial" promotion for their Tahoe SUV -- only to watch in horror as ads proliferate with taglines such as "Yesterday's technology today."

Kazakhstan's central bank misspelling "bank" on their currency.

A Comcast repairman falls asleep on a customer's couch -- and the customer turns it into a video.

The BBC invites an IT expert in for a segment -- but end up mistakenly interviewing an unknown computer technician who was waiting in the lobby for a job interview.

Great stuff.

business, humor, politics, midtopia

Another made-up scandal

I've been ignoring this one for a couple of days, but hot on the heels of the "Paul Pelosi owns Del Monte stock" fabrication, we get a twofer: accusations that Barack Obama was raised Muslim -- and that the accuser is Hillary Clinton's campaign.

The dual claims were raised in an unsigned, anonymously sourced article in Insight Magazine, a publication of the Moonie-owned Washington Times that was so unsuccessful as an actual magazine that it went online-only a couple of years ago.

An investigation of Mr. Obama by political opponents within the Democratic Party has discovered that Mr. Obama was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia. Sources close to the background check, which has not yet been released, said Mr. Obama, 45, spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia.

"He was a Muslim, but he concealed it," the source said. "His opponents within the Democrats hope this will become a major issue in the campaign." Sources said the background check (was) conducted by researchers connected to Senator Clinton.

Let's note that even if the claim were true, the writer is suggesting that attending a madrassa between the ages of 6 and 10 somehow makes one a fundamentalist Islamist and terror supporter -- never mind that Obama has been a Christian for his entire adult life.

Fox News picked up the story repeatedly, first on "Fox and Friends" and later John Gibson, who had the flair to bring on a Republican strategist to discuss the issue -- who promptly said the effort could be a "despicable act by an absolutely ruthless Clinton political machine."

But the story isn't true. CNN actually sent a reporter to Indonesia to visit the school. Turns out that while the student body is predominantly Muslim -- hardly a surprise, because so is Indonesia -- it's a secular, public school with a mixed population and no religious curriculum.

That didn't stop the usual right-wing suspects from spreading the fake news -- from the Freepers to, again, Rush Limbaugh.

And Insight Magazine itself? Its response to CNN's story was a classic duck -- "We didn't say it -- we simply reported that Hillary's people were saying it." Well, actually, it appears you just made it up. How morally reptilian.

For their part, the Clinton campaign denies any involvement and Obama ripped Fox and Insight a new one.

And in any case, this whole thing fails the logic test. Why would Clinton's people even be talking to a nutrag like Insight? Even if Clinton wanted to smear Obama, why would she choose a little-known partisan website to do so? Further, Clinton is presumably trying to weaken Obama in the Democratic primary. What part of this story would do so? I just don't see Democratic primary voters giving a rat's ass that Obama spent a few of hs younger years at a Muslim school.

On the other hand, it makes perfect sense for an amoral conservative publication to run such a story. Even if the specific accusation is debunked, it reminds voters that Obama has a Muslim background and quitely reinforces the idea that Hillary Clinton is evil, even if she can't actually be traced to this particular brouhaha. Tada! Both Democratic frontrunners tarred.

If Insight has any actual evidence to back up their story, now would be the time to provide it.

Coupled with the Pelosi smear, I think we're seeing a resurgence of the bad old days of conservative commentary, one marked by conspiracy theories and rumor-trafficking. Such fare occurs on both the left and the right, of course, most notably the left's fascination with Karl Rove and the belief that Bush controls oil prices. But it is usually most marked in the side that is currently out of power. What is disheartening is that it has taken just two months of minority status for the right wing's old habits to emerge.

Shame on them, and shame on conservative commentators and media outlets for their unquestioning acceptance of complete rubbish.

Update: John Gibson remains cartoonishly unrepentant. Just for example, Gibson assumes that the CNN correspondent involved is Indonesian, "probably went to the same madrassa", and thus is probably lying. Except that if he had bothered to actually read the CNN story, he would have known that CNN sent John Vause, an Australian, from their Beijing bureau. Idiot.

ethics, Clinton, Obama, politics, midtopia

While Congress fiddles....

The minimum wage bill saw a lot of action in the Senate but few actual results.

As promised, Harry Reid let the Republicans propose a line-item veto amendment on the bill. That was rejected 49-48, but could come back up again because that vote was far less than the 60 needed to invoke cloture and cut off debate.

However, the immediate debate moved on to other grounds, namely Republican insistence that the wage increase be paired with tax breaks for small businesses to help cushion the blow. Senate Democrats are amenable, but the House could force the issue on two fronts: the House bill doesn't contain tax breaks, and it's the House's prerogative to propose tax measures.

The lack of tax breaks led Senate Republicans to block the wage bill, so it's currently at an impasse.

I would have liked to see the line-item veto pass, but it had its chance and is done. If there's a reasonable opportunity to revive it, fine, but it should not be used to hold up the wage bill.

Overall, the House should compromise in this case. The proposed tax breaks are reasonable: extending a tax credit for employers that hire low-income workers, and a simplified expense deduction for small businesses. Further, as required by the new pay-as-you-go rules, the $8.3 billion cost will be offset by a cap on tax-deferred executive pay and the elimination of an array of tax shelters. That provision alone is worth the price of admission, as such tax-deferred paydays are at the root of many a tax-avoidance scheme. House Democrats would be foolish to let a fit of pique get in the way of such progress.

Negotiations continue, and the Senate will take another crack at it soon. Let's hope reason prevails.

taxes, economy, politics, midtopia

Pointless silliness

Glad to see our representatives are wasting time on stuff like this.

In a move that left Republicans crying foul, the House voted Wednesday to change its rules and grant limited and mostly ceremonial voting rights to the five delegates representing the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories.

The resolution passed 226-191, largely along party lines. The voting rights for the District of Columbia, Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are largely symbolic and the rules change is designed to make sure that the delegates' votes cannot affect the fate of legislation.

How will it work, you ask?

The rules change will allow the delegates to cast votes on amendments. However, they cannot vote on final passage of a bill, and, if the delegates tip the balance on any given amendment, the House will re-vote on that amendment without the delegates' participation.

So what's the point? There isn't one, really. Most of the delegates are Democrats, but because their votes don't count this is more feel-good symbology than anything else.

Pointless as the move was, Republican reaction was over the top:

Republicans were fuming after the vote and labeled it "a power grab."...

"The Revolutionary War was fought over the idea of 'taxation without representation,' but the Democrats are pushing forward the policy of 'representation without taxation,'" Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said, noting that voters in the four territories do not pay federal income taxes.

They'd have a case if the delegates had any actual power. But they don't.

There's a history here. This essentially reestablishes rules first put into place in 1993 -- the last time Democrats controlled Congress. The Republicans took over in 1994 and promptly canceled the arrangement. So this could be viewed as a simple move to reassert a political principle -- or it could be viewed as the Democrats giving Republicans a poke in the eye.

Is it Constitutional? Apparently so, as ruled by the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals in Michel v. Anderson, a 1994 ruling dealing with the 1993 law. Territories cannot have Senators or full voting rights in the House, but the House is free to give territorial delegates limited power through its organizational rules. Delegates already participate in committee votes and have other privileges too, such as franking. This is an extension of that.

So it's partisan and pointless, but legal. Now that that's over with, I hope they move on to more important things.

politics, midtopia