Gonzales testifies

I didn't get to watch even a part of Gonzales' testimony on Capitol Hill today, but I gather I didn't miss much. He still has no idea who decided to fire the U.S. attorneys in the agency he supposedly runs, and he still has problems making claims that turn out to be misleading.

For instance, he claimed that top Congressional leaders were fully briefed on the warrantless eavesdropping program and urged the administration to continue it. Five lawmakers who attended the briefing disputed his claim. One of them, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said: "He once again is making something up to protect himself." Another, former Sen. Tom Daschle, said "this appears to be another attempt to rewrite history."

Senators, who gave Gonzales some deference during his last appearance, simply were not in a forgiving mood, with many of them telling him pointblank that he should resign.

"I do not find your testimony credible, candidly," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who became visibly angry at several points during his exchanges with Gonzales. "The committee's going to review your testimony very carefully to see if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable."

Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) told Gonzales bluntly: "I don't trust you."

Specter also suggested that Gonzales might need to appoint a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of the prosecutor firings. The fact that a Republican would suggest such a thing is a sign of how deep the mistrust of Gonzales runs.

And in this exchange, Gonzales appears to admit he misled Congress.

"It's hard to see anything but a pattern of intentionally misleading Congress again and again," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told Gonzales during the often-bitter Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. "Shouldn't the attorney general of the United States meet a higher standard?"

"Obviously, there have been instances where I have not met that standard, and I've tried to correct that," Gonzales answered.

Senators took turns raking him over the coals. Specter, again, had the most devastating things to say about Gonzales' misleading 2006 testimony about the eavesdropping program.

Specter said that it was obvious that, as Gonzales initially confirmed last month, Comey was testifying about the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- meaning that Gonzales was not only lying to the Senate in his 2006 testimony, but lying today about "other intelligence activities" to cover up the lie. His advice to Gonzales was "to review your testimony carefully" and that the committee should see "if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable."

Ouch.

If you follow the link immediately above, you'll see that Gonzales maintains he told the truth back then, about there not being "significant" disagreement about the eavesdropping program "as confirmed" by the president. But that's only because the disagreement preceded modifications that led to the "confirmed" version of the program.

In that May 2007 post, I concluded the testimony wasn't particularly relevant, because he didn't actually lie and it's not that important whether there was disagreement or not. Further, he was already in so much hot water that it was hard for it to get any hotter. Turns out I might have been wrong: Congress doesn't like to be misled for any reason, artfully worded or not. Many senators simply believe he lied, or at least deliberately misled, and are focusing much of their anger on that.

At the end of the day, the senators made it very plain that they have lost all confidence in Gonzales. The question now is whether that makes any difference. Answer: probably not. But it means the Justice Department will limp along for the rest of Bush's term, with a discredited Attorney General who has lost nearly all of his senior staff to resignations and who is having difficulty finding replacements.

Most members of Gonzales's senior staff have resigned or are on the way out. Several outside candidates turned down chances to be considered for the job of his deputy, and more than a half-dozen other top positions remain filled by temporary appointees. Some of the department's key legislative priorities — including intelligence law revisions and anti-crime proposals — have also bogged down because of the fight with Democrats over the prosecutor firings.

And it's only going to get worse.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Gonzales v. Congress, Round Four or so

Tomorrow, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will appear once again before Congress. The Carpetbagger Report has an outstanding post on the subject. A taste:

Gonzales has become the most reviled man in the administration, after having been caught lying and losing control of the Justice Department. The political norms of Washington say Gonzales has to go. Bush, meanwhile, is The Decider — and The Decider doesn’t much care about rules.

A couple of months ago, the New York Daily News quoted a “senior Republican” saying, “[Bush] wants to fight, but that will change because it has to.”

But it doesn’t “have to.” It only “has to” if the president wants to be a responsible leader in a political system in which conduct has meaning.

Slate recently concluded, “It is just about universally agreed upon that Gonzales will go down in history as the attorney general who helped the president: 1) torture, 2) wreak havoc on civil liberties, 3) fire U.S. attorneys who didn’t prosecute along preferred political lines, 4) demoralize the Department of Justice, 5) worsen Bush’s already dismal relationship with Congress, and 6) relentlessly hector a man in the intensive care unit.”

News stories are keying off Gonzales' 26 pages of prepared testimony, of which five paragraphs are devoted to the attorney firings. Gonzales' main point: he's staying to help fix the Department's broken image.

Of course, the reason the department's image is broken is largely Gonzales himself. The single biggest thing he could do to repair that image is resign. Which makes his stated rationale just a little suspect. Perhaps Gonzales thinks he can repair the damage, but that's just a bit outside the scope of reality (which, I suppose, would be par for the course.) People had plenty of reasons to dislike Gonzales, starting with his justification of torture. His mismanagement of Justice was really just icing on the cake.

It's tempting to say that if Gonzales really cared about the department, he'd resign. I won't go that far; I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he cares, but harbors major delusions about his ability to fix things given that he himself is the problem.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Anyone but the godless

My presidential ambitions took a hit this weekend. The New York Times ran a story about religion and morality in politics, with Mitt Romney as the hook. But the chart that ran with it -- reproduced above -- is worth a long, close look (click on it to get a larger version).

Not believing in God -- which, defined that way, applies to agnostics like me -- renders a candidate suspicious in the eyes of two-thirds of voters. It's worse than being old, uneducated, gay, Muslim, female, divorced, a drug user or a philanderer.

It's a positive for just 3 percent. Which makes a certain amount of sense: lack of belief is a negative trait, after all -- not negative in the sense of "bad", but negative in the sense that it's defined by the lack of something. It's hard to get excited about something a candidate isn't.

So I'm actually pleasantly surprised that it makes no difference for a third of voters.

It turns out that while the specific nature of one's belief has an effect -- more people are willing to vote for a Mormon than a Muslim, all things being equal -- the most important thing is simply to have a belief.

It's not that simple, of course. For one thing, a candidate usually has more than one trait listed on the chart, and any real candidate is an actual person, far more than the sum of his or her labels. So the chart is more useful as a description of general attitudes than as an attempt to apply it to specific races.

Further, the story goes on to note that the real concern with regard to candidates with minority beliefs is tolerance: John Kennedy got past anti-Catholic bias by promising he would resign rather than let his religion interfere with the national interest. It suggests Romney could pursue the same tact.

I don't know about the resigning bit, but "tolerance" (or more carefully chosen words like "admiration" or "respect") is how I'd frame it if I were running. Lack of belief on my part does not imply hostility to religion; far from it. It simply reflects my own inability to claim belief in something for which I see no compelling proof. In some ways I envy believers, for clearly they've found something that I have not. And who am I to say who's right?

On a political level, religion has a valid and vital role in society, and that role should be tapped wherever and whenever it makes sense to do so. Religion should suffer neither fear nor favor from government.

One concern about a "godless" candidate is that they have no personal ethics, no solid moral foundation. It's tempting to label such concerns ignorant, but there's little political gain in insulting voters. Luckily, such questions are easily addressed by discussing my personal ethics and the principles they spring from. Alternatively I could simply point to various politically useful biographical items, like my military service, faithfulness in marriage or the fact that I was an Eagle Scout. That might not assuage concerns about unbelievers in general, but it would help make one agnostic candidate more palatable.

Meanwhile, the chart reveals some interesting relationships:

1. Being a smoker is worse than being a woman, which is worse than being divorced;

2. Being a former minister is even worse than that.

3. Having an extramarital affair is (slightly) better than admitting past drug use. But both are better than never having gone to college.

4. Being a Muslim is almost exactly as bad as being gay.

5. "Drain the swamp" rhetoric notwithstanding, 35 percent of voters view being a "longtime Washington politician" as a positive.

6. Apparently the recipe for a successful politician is a Christian veteran who ran a business after attending a prestigious university.

Lots more in the chart. What would you do? Which of the characteristics listed are positives or negatives for you, and why?

religion, politics, midtopia

Not your typical whistleblower

The New York Times today has a nice profile of Lt. Col Stephen Abraham, the man whose testimony has cast a shadow on the legitimacy of the Guantanamo terror tribunals and seems to have led the United States Supreme Court to reverse itself and hear arguments about the legal rights of detainees.

His political and professional pedigree make it difficult to accuse him of acting out of base motivations:

A lawyer in civilian life, he had been decorated for counterespionage and counterterrorism work during 22 years as a reserve Army intelligence officer in which he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.... A political conservative who says he cried when Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency, he says he has remained a reservist throughout his adult life to repay the country for the opportunities it offered his family. His father is a Holocaust survivor who emigrated after the Second World War.

He served at the tribunal in 2004-2005, and officially registered many misgivings at the time. But he didn't decide to step forward publicly until he was contacted in 2006 by a law firm representing detainees, who read him an affidavit describing the tribunal process as orderly and carefully considered. Knowing that wasn't true, he agreed to testify. Clearly, these were not the actions of a man seeking publicity.

When the story first came out, I mentioned that one problem with Abraham's account was that it was anecdotal: we had no way to know if his experience was typical, or what the reasons behind it were.

But it turns out he had access to a lot of information, not just his isolated experience on a single tribunal panel.

As an intelligence officer responsible for running the central computer depository of evidence for the hearings, he said, he saw many of the documents in hundreds of the 558 cases. He also worked as a liaison with intelligence agencies....

What sort of problems did he find?

It was obvious, Colonel Abraham said, that officials were under intense pressure to show quick results. Quickly, he said, he grew concerned about the quality of the reports being used as evidence. The unclassified evidence, he said, lacked the kind of solid corroboration he had relied on throughout his intelligence career. “The classified information,” he added, “was stripped down, watered down, removed of context, incomplete and missing essential information.”

To demonstrate the sometimes laughable nature of the evidence, consider this public example:

In a hearing on Oct. 26, 2004, a transcript shows, one detainee was told that another had identified him as having attended a terrorism training camp. The detainee asked that his accuser be brought to testify. “We don’t know his name,” the senior officer on the hearing panel said.

In another case, an Afghani was being held because he had associated with jihadis. He admitted to doing so -- in the 1980s, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when "jihadi" had a whole different meaning. He asked the tribunal if that was the basis of the accusations against him. "We don't know what that time frame was, either," the tribunal's senior officer replied.

Pentagon officials say Abraham simply wasn't in a position to know the full extent of the tribunal process, despite his access to the central database. But Abraham makes his point on more direct grounds:

Colonel Abraham said that in meetings with top officials of the office, it was clear that [innocent] findings were discouraged. “Anything that resulted in a ‘not enemy combatant’ would just send ripples through the entire process,” he said. “The interpretation is, ‘You got the wrong result. Do it again.’ ”

As noted in my earlier post, when his panel decided unanimously that a detainee was not an enemy combatant, they were told to reconsider. They declined.

As it turns out, the story didn't end there -- a move that again calls into serious question the impartiality of the hearings.

Two months later, apparently after Pentagon officials rejected the first decision, the detainee’s case was heard by a second panel. The conclusion, again by a vote of 3 to 0, was quite different: “The detainee is properly classified as an enemy combatant and is a member of or associated with Al Qaeda.”

One wonders how many do-overs the Pentagon was allowed in order to get a "correct" verdict.

Damning as all of this is, caveats remain. This is largely a story that relies on one source -- Abraham himself. He seems a credible witness, and what he says is both compelling and specific. But until his account is subjected to cross-examination or attempted refutation, it should not be taken as gospel.

But it's a reason to look forward to his testimony before Congress on Thursday, and the Supreme Court hearing this fall.

Guantanamo, terrorism, Abraham, politics, midtopia

Stop making me defend Bush

The Gun-Toting Liberal has a post up today expressing outrage over a recent executive order that freezes the assets of, and prohibits aid or donations to, groups or individuals seeking to undermine the government of Iraq.

GTL's up in arms because, on his reading, people could find themselves in trouble for even tenuous links to organizations on Bush's enemies list.

But this isn't as big a deal as GTL makes it sound. It simply extends existing practice regarding anti-U.S. terrorist activities to cover activities aimed at the government of Iraq. And it doesn't criminalize donors -- it simply prohibits them from donating to such groups or individuals.

If you read the referenced laws, you'll find that he's merely exercising authority granted him by Congress, specifically section (b)(2)(A).

One can disagree with the underlying assertions -- whether we are properly in the midst of a "national emergency", whether the identified groups are actually terrorist supporters, how donations of humanitarian aid "seriously impair" Bush's ability to deal with terror.

But his legal authority is clear. He declared a national emergency regarding Iraqi reconstruction efforts back in May 2003, and later amended it in various fashions.

If you've got a problem with it (and I don't, unless and until we find problems with the execution -- for instance, that the list of groups and persons is overbroad) contact Congress. They're the ones who gave him the authority.

Iraq, Bush, politics, midtopia

Rethinking "Collision Course"

More opinions are starting to roll in over President Bush's assertion that Congress cannot pursue contempt charges in cases where the president invokes executive privilege. Plus I've had 24 hours to think it over. And it appears I overreacted a little bit yesterday.

It's deeply offensive on the face of it for the administration to essentially say "we control the prosecutors, and we won't use them on ourselves." It's also deeply offensive to claim that the president and the president alone determines whether executive privilege applies, and that the judiciary had no authority to rule on such a decision. That is what Bush seemed to be saying.

But it appears that the administration's opinion is strictly limited to contempt proceedings, and to a narrower part of such proceedings than I thought. And in that context, all they're saying is that the Justice Department cannot be forced to undermine a valid presidential invocation of privilege. As Walter Dellinger, a Justice Department official under President Clinton who made a similar argument in 1995, puts it:

"Congress can determine what's unlawful but not determine who should be prosecuted," said Dellinger, who is now a Duke University law professor. "It's an important part of the separation of powers. . . . The real issue in this case is whether the claims of executive privilege are valid," a matter that he said would have to be adjudicated on its merits in the courts.

Which in the end echoes my position on the matter: Bush should claim privilege, Congress should claim oversight, and let a court decide who wins.

One reason I thought the president's claim was too broad was framed by a question: What happens if the court rules against the president and he still refuses to turn over the documents? If he cannot be held in contempt, what penalty is there with which to enforce the ruling?

We've got some answers there, too. Besides the political remedies I mentioned yesterday, the key concept is that the Justice Department cannot be used to undermine a valid claim of executive privilege. But if the claim is rejected, it becomes invalid. And if the president still refuses to cooperate, presumably the Justice Department could be used to compel his cooperation.

So let's move past this distraction and get on to the real meat of the matter: a court ruling on the competing constitutional claims.

executive privilege, Bush, politics, midtopia

D.C. madam update

Add to the list of prominent people linked to Deborah Palfrey's call-girl ring: Democratic activist and lobbyist Bill Broydrick. He called Palfrey's number three times in 2004.

Who the heck is Broydrick?

A former state lawmaker and longtime Democratic activist, Broydrick is considered one of the most influential lobbyists in Wisconsin and Washington.

Broydrick and Associates, the firm owned by Broydrick and his wife, Cynthia, consistently ranks among the highest-paid lobbying firms in the state and has offices in Madison, Washington and Tallahassee, Fla.

Broydrick declined to comment on the finding. One interesting twist: His lobbying firm is a joint venture with his wife, Cynthia. If there's any personal fallout, it could turn professional as well.

No evidence of hypocrisy just yet, though.

Wisconsin, Palfrey, Broydrick, politics, midtopia

Collision course

Can you say "landmark ruling ahead"?

The White House has just thrown Miracle-Gro on to the growing Constitutional confrontation between Bush and Congress over the latter's investigation into the firing of U.S. prosecutors.

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

Go ahead and file contempt charges, the administration is saying. Under federal law, those charges can only be pursued by a U.S. attorney. And because the administration won't let the Justice Department approve such a pursuit, the charges will die from neglect.

The power-grab here is pretty astonishing. The president isn't just asserting that his invocation of executive privilege trumps Congress' power of oversight, a claim that is at least plausible; he's asserting that such invocation of executive privilege in the face of a contempt citation can never be challenged in court, because the Justice Department will simply refuse to bring the charges.

Now, this claim is currently limited to the narrow question of Congress filing contempt charges. But within that narrow scope it effectively puts the President above the law. And since contempt charges are Congress' main weapon against executive privilege claims it removes most limits on such claims.

True, Congress could still file a civil lawsuit to force a judicial decision on a specific claim. But such a decision would lack teeth. Say Congress wins its civil lawsuit, and the president still refuses to turn over documents. What recourse does Congress have? Nothing short of impeachment, with contempt charges off the table.

But beyond that, why can't the same logic be applied to any violation of federal laws that rely on the Justice Department for enforcement? Commit the crime, then forbid Justice to investigate; it's a get-out-of-jail-free card, with (once again) impeachment the only remedy.

LAPDOG WATCHDOG
It's also a sign of the lapdog status to which the Justice Department has fallen. Though the Bush stance rests heavily on a similar argument (pdf) advanced as part of a Reagan administration lawsuit, Reagan's White House never actually tried to carry it out. Nor was it resolved in the courts, because the Reagan administration official in question eventually agreed to give Congress the documents it wanted (pdf) -- derailing the lawsuit by caving.

Rep. Henry Waxman gets the best quote on that aspect: "I suppose the next step would be just disbanding the Justice Department." But the best summation comes from Mark Rozell, a professor described as an expert on executive privilege: "It's allowing the executive to define the scope and limits of its own powers."

LEGITIMATE ISSUE
Hidden within here is an interesting, legitimate question. When Congress suspects wrongdoing in the executive branch, how can it be handled? Should Congress have the power to compel an investigation and prosecution of a "co-equal" branch? Probably not. Should the administration have the power to decide whether to investigate or prosecute itself? Probably not. So what's left?

The ideal situation would involve an independent prosecutorial service weighing each case on its merits, not on politics or who signs their paychecks. But it's easy to see why that might not be practical. And anyway the phrase "independent prosecutor" still sends shivers up the spines of people on both sides of the aisle.

That's why the best solution is probably current practice: Let Congress bring contempt charges; let the president invoke executive privilege; and let the judiciary sort out the winner, establishing legal tests for doing so in a consistent manner.

PRACTICAL EFFECTS
The audacity of the claim aside, what would happen if the president's interpretation carried the day? Not quite as much as you might think. He'd be immune from contempt charges, certainly. But that would not shield him from Congressional wrath.

For one thing, Congress could turn to its "inherent contempt" power, last used in 1934, which entails having the Sergeant-at-Arms arrest the suspect and holding a trial on the Senate floor. Sen. Patrick Leahy described the process and history of the procedure back in May 2000, during discussions about whether to subpoena Clinton's attorney general. Among other things, Dick Cheney would preside over the proceedings (unless he was forced to recuse himself for conflict of interest).

There are problems with such a course, however. Besides the archaic spectacle and huge waste of time, Bush could just pardon anyone so convicted -- although there's some debate over whether his pardon power extends to contempt of Congress.

More prosaically, Congress could simply hold up funding bills, nominee hearings and any other business until the president coughs up the information it wants, as well as tying the administration up with endless subpoenas, investigative hearings and other forms of harassment. Not to mention riders specifically forbidding any use of federal funds to fight a contempt citation.

So perhaps the administration should think twice about pushing their case much further. As I argued above, Bush should invoke executive privilege and then let the courts decide if that outweighs Congressional oversight in this particular case.

DELAYING TACTIC
Of course, the administration may be less interested in proving its case than in simply delaying it until Bush leaves office. Two executive privilege assertions, both of which will probably be appealed to the Supreme Court, may well do the trick -- though Congress could petition the Supreme Court to accept the cases directly, bypassing lower courts.

For now, look for two separate constitutional questions to head to the courts. The first will be an opinion on the viability of the latest administration claim. The second (assuming the administration loses the first round) will be the underlying question of whether privilege trumps oversight in this particular case.

executive privilege, Bush, politics, midtopia

Do not adjust your monitor

Came across this fascinating optical illusion while reading up on misleading statistical charts. It's not an animated graphic; it's just your eye playing tricks on you.

My entire family is sick, so this is it for me today. More tomorrow. Consider this an open thread if you've got something you want to share.

optical illusions, politics, midtopia

Bernanke parody video

I'm enough of a politics and business junkie to find this pretty funny. Even if you don't like the economics jokes, it's a pretty slick video -- and the singer ain't bad, either.

The back story: Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School, was a candidate to replace Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chairman. The job ended up going to Ben Bernanke. The video purports to be Hubbard expressing his views on the subject, to the tune of the Police song "Every Breath You Take."

Hubbard, Bernanke, politics, midtopia

One-liners

The story: Larry Flynt claims he has 30 solid leads on names from the D.C. Madam's list, including at least one more senator.
The comment: You know the world is a weird place when Larry Flynt is the conscience of a nation.

The story: In Washington, D.C., vandals trash a man's Hummer, leaving an illiterate protest note: "FOR THE ENVIRON."
The comment: Grow up and learn to spell. Since when is property damage a liberal value?

The story: Rep. Don Young of Alaska -- he of the "bridge to nowhere" -- loudly defends an earmark as "my money" on the House floor. He suggests that one reason Republicans lost control of the House in November is because conservative members had challenged too much such spending.
The comment: It isn't your money, Don; it's the taxpayers' money. Time to retire.

Don Young, Hummer, Flynt, politics, midtopia

Coleman 1, Galloway 0

Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman is enjoying some vindication for his May 2005 confrontation with British MP George Galloway. Coleman, then the chair of the Senate's investigative subcommittee, had accused Galloway of profiting from shady oil-for-food deals with Saddam Hussein.

Galloway appeared before Coleman's committee (pdf) and angrily denied the allegations -- while refusing to address specifics -- and later claimed victory in op-ed pieces.

Fast forward two years. The British House of Commons completed its own investigation into the matter and reached a conclusion quite similar to Coleman's: that Galloway had, in fact, profited from oil-for-food deals. The committee involved has recommended that Galloway be suspended from Parliament for 18 days -- which seems like a slap on the wrist, but is apparently one of the most severe punishments that can be visited on an MP.

Galloway dismissed the report as the work of "a pro-sanctions and pro-war committee of a pro-sanctions and pro-war Parliament passing judgment on the work of their opponents."

Coleman did a bit of crowing, as he had every right to:

The Parliament report, Coleman said, "confirms what we've known all along: Galloway was neck-deep in the oil-for-food deals, he kowtowed to Saddam Hussein, and his bombastic denials were nothing more than a web of misleading statements."

Coleman also said it shows that Galloway was trying to mislead the Senate with his 2005 testimony and create the impression that he did not benefit from Iraqi oil deals.

"As Parliament's report states, he at best turned a blind eye, and 'on balance, was likely to have known and been complicit in what was going on,' " Coleman said. "In response, Galloway will huff and puff, but he can't blow away the facts of this report."

I'm not a Coleman fan -- I consider him an opportunistic weasel -- but I've never had any use for Galloway, either. Galloway was a lightweight, dislikable bully during the hearings, answering questions with rhetoric and bombast rather than relevancy. It was an entertaining spectacle, and one came away impressed with Galloway's forceful assertion of innocence. But one also was aware of all the questions he dodged.

Iraq, Galloway, Norm Coleman, politics, midtopia

Supply-side math

An economist weighs in with a trashing of a Wall Street Journal editorial that uses atrociously bad math in defense of supply-side economics -- in particular, an attempt to at last locate the elusive Laffer Curve. There's a more detailed discussion over at Kevin Drum's blog.

The WSJ's purpose was to show a "sweet spot" for taxation, where if you raised rates beyond that tax revenue actually went down. But there are several problems with their chart.

One is that they're using corporate taxes as their yardstick. But corporate taxes make up a much higher percentage of revenue in a tiny tax haven like Luxembourg than they do in large, diversified economy like the United States. And the main outlier, Norway, has huge corporate tax revenues because of its state oil monopoly. Those factors should have set off alarm bells for whomever was preparing the chart.

They compound the problem by drawing their line through Norway instead of either throwing out that data point (as an obvious outlier) or at least averaging it with the other data points. Then, as Drum points out, if the curve is to be believed, tax revenue crashes to zero at around 33 percent -- even though the chart itself shows companies with rates higher than that having significant tax revenue.

Third, we have no idea how or why they chose the countries in the sample -- indeed, some of the data points are unlabeled. There's no way to tell if the sample is representative, complete, or meaningful.

But mostly, the graph doesn't show any significant conclusions. For example, Australia has one of the highest revenue figures with a corporate tax rate of about 31 percent. But three unnamed countries have significantly lower revenue with the same tax rate. The only possible conclusion is that corporate tax rate is simply not the major influence at play.

As one of the commenters at the first link points out:

This (the chart) is the dumbest thing I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. You don't have to be an economist. All you have to be is somebody who knows what a scatter diagram is.

Silly people.

The basic idea of the Laffer Curve is reasonable -- that there's a sweet spot where taxation is high enough to generate substantial revenue, but not so high that it discourages work and investment. It's simply an expression of the law of diminishing returns. The devil is in the details: where exactly is that sweet spot? Nobody has yet shown it.

It doesn't help that one of the main assumptions behind the Laffer Curve probably is false: that a 100% tax rate will generate no tax revenue because nobody will work if all their earnings are confiscated.

It's false because many people work for reasons other than money. If you love the work, you'll do it for free. Work provides a sense of accomplishment, a chance to get out of the house, a sense of worth.

Further, the Laffer argument assumes that the confiscated money is poured down a hole in the ground. In reality, it's fed back into the economy -- where it may, for instance, provide a worker at a state-owned factory with food and shelter in return for work. In other words, there are ways to incentivize people to work that don't involve money.

I'm certainly not arguing in favor of state socialism. While revenue at a 100% tax rate wouldn't be zero, it wouldn't be very high, either. Money also is the best incentive for a free society, letting people make choices and reap the benefits or drawbacks of those choices. It also seems to work the best for unlocking creativity and hard work, or persuading people to go to the trouble of pursuing specialty training or performing dangerous or unpleasant jobs. I'm just noting the practical reasons why nobody knows whether the tax sweet spot is 25 percent or 80 percent.

The WSJ folks are still idjits.

Laffer Curve, economics, politics, midtopia

Ethics reforms move slowly ahead

It's taken some watchdogging and prodding, but Democrats are still mostly doing the right thing on ethics reforms -- for now.

Sure, there's Jim DeMint (second item) holding up the conference session on the two main ethics bills -- but that's not the Democrats' fault.

And members on both sides of the aisle are balking at creating an independent ethics watchdog with teeth, for fear it could be used as a sledgehammer by political opponents.

But in general they're moving along. For example, The ill-considered plan by Rep. David Obey to keep all earmarks under wraps until the last minute has been scrapped under the weight of resounding criticism. Not only is each project listed in the bill to which it is attached -- along with its sponsor and some details -- but Obey also adopted another suggestion I made: to limit the number of earmarks. He only cut them in half, where I was suggesting cutting the number by 90 percent or more. But it's a start.

The other criticism is Republican complaints that Democrats are using procedural rules to stifle Republican efforts, violating their promises to be more evenhanded. I don't know enough about the details there to render a judgement, but take the complaints with a grain of salt. For one thing, it's an even chance that the Republicans are simply trying to make political hay out of it. For another, the specific measures they object to -- no late amendments accepted, a limit on the number of amendments that can be brought to the floor for a vote -- seem like reasonable compromises to keep the wheels of Congress turning. But if someone with more knowledge of the parliamentary workings of Congress cares to weigh in, I'm all ears.

The biggest problem facing the ethics provisions is time. It's running out, and the slowdown on ethics measures threatens to derail other important legislation that's still in the pipeline. At some point Democrats will have to prioritize their agenda -- and the ethics bills may be thrown overboard to make room for other things.

That last link, by the way, is an excellent analysis of the workings of Congress, the Democratic agenda, and the pros, cons and prospects of pursuing various pieces of it. I heartily recommend that you read the whole thing.

ethics, politics, midtopia

Good news in North Korea

Despite predictions from hawks that it would never happen, North Korea shut down its only working nuclear reactor over the weekend, in exchange for 50,000 tons of fuel oil.

Next step: Getting them to reverse earlier statements and admit they have a uranium-enrichment program, in exchange for another million tons of oil. Talks to that end begin tomorrow.

I hope John Bolton is eating a large helping of crow. Caution and skepticism is always a good idea where North Korea is involved. But Bolton proceeded from the assumption that soft diplomacy would never work -- and, thus, it never did on his watch. In this instance, at least, it appears the Bush administration has learned from its mistakes. Let's hope it continues -- and North Korea continues to meet its obligations.

nuclear, North Korea, politics, midtopia

The government wants your cash

About a year ago, I wrote about the case of a motorist who was found carrying a large sum of money. The police seized it, arguing that it just had to be drug money. They were allowed to keep it without ever bothering to prove an underlying crime, thus establishing the cherished legal principle that police can take your money anytime they like as long as the sum is large enough and the defendant is poor enough.

Now it's happened again, this time in Michigan. But there's a twist: the search that uncovered the money was illegal, which turns this into a case with broader civil-liberties implications.

No matter.

The Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday denied the appeal of a motorist who had to forfeit nearly $181,000 that was found in a backpack during a traffic stop, even though the money was seized illegally....

Tamika Smith, who was stopped by a Michigan State Police trooper, lost the money when a judge ruled prosecutors presented enough other evidence to show it was intended to buy illicit drugs.

That evidence involved such legal activities as being poor, in possession of a large sum of money, while driving a rental car in a known drug-trafficking area.

Some details from Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson:

Five years ago, the 33-year-old Detroit woman was driving her boyfriend and her two small children to Chicago when a state trooper stopped her for speeding on I-94 outside Paw Paw. A license check revealed that the boyfriend had been arrested for cocaine possession and weapons offenses. In a subsequent (and apparently unauthorized) search of the couple's trunk, the trooper discovered a backpack containing $180,975 in cash.

Smith and her boyfriend denied the money was theirs and speculated that someone had left it in the car they had rented just a few hours earlier. But when prosecutors petitioned the state to keep the money, Smith contested the seizure, arguing that the search in which Trooper James Lass discovered the cash was illegal.

Van Buren County Circuit Judge William Buhl agreed, but eventually ruled the prosecutor's forfeiture suit could proceed, so long as the cash was never offered as evidence. When Smith, who had never earned more than $14,000 in a year, offered vague and unconvincing accounts of the money's origins, Buhl concluded that she was most likely a drug courier and ordered the money forfeited to the state.

Now I agree that Smith acted suspiciously and couldn't provide a good explanation of where the money came from. I'll even agree that she's most likely a drug courier. She also lost some standing by first denying that the money was hers.

But that's not the point. Before the government can seize private property, they should have to prove that it is tainted or ill-gotten. It's not up to the individual to prove the money is legitimately theirs; it's up to the government to prove it's not.

Question Smith about the money? Sure. Prosecute her if a crime can be established? Of course. I'd even support putting the money in the state's unclaimed funds account on the grounds that Smith denied it was hers, so she doesn't have a claim to it.

But taking property simply because, in a judge's opinion, someone is "most likely" a drug courier should offend anyone who believes in civil liberties or property rights.

You don't even have to go that far. Justice Stephen Markman, the state Supreme Court's most conservative member, wrote a stinging dissent on the narrow grounds that illegally obtained evidence cannot be used as evidence to support the seizure of said evidence. Here's the full opinion in the case (pdf); Markman's dissent begins on Page 30. In it he notes the bizarre logic used in the main opinion, which asserts that "while the cash itself was excluded from evidence, the trial court could properly consider the implications of the presence of such a large amount of cash in the vehicle." In other words, though the cash itself was excluded from evidence, the cash itself could be included as evidence.

The upshot:

Oak Park attorney Karri Mitchell, who represented Smith in her unsuccessful appeal, said the high court's ruling leaves every Michigan resident's property rights in jeopardy.

"This means that John Q. Public can be stopped for a traffic violation and, if the policeman thinks he can't afford the watch he's wearing, it becomes the property of the state unless he can prove he came by it legitimately," Mitchell said.

But Van Buren County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Bedford, who at one point offered Smith about $30,000 to drop her claim to the $180,000, called Mitchell's scenario far-fetched.

"Theoretically, a person could be forced to prove they came by an [illegally seized] asset legally," Bedford conceded.

"But hopefully, we don't have anybody out there abusing the forfeiture statute and putting people in a position where they have to do that."

Oh, I feel safer already, knowing that the state's best defense is that "hopefully, nobody will abuse the statute."

civil liberties, politics, midtopia

The rhetorical war in Iraq

Last week, the administration released an intelligence summary that warns Al-Qaeda is getting stronger.

The president pointed to this as proof that Iraq is central to fighting AQ. Asked if the report actually demonstrates that Bush's efforts to defeat AQ aren't working, he replied that things would be far worse if he hadn't invaded Iraq.

Mull that over for a second. It's a rhetorical get-out-of-jail-free card. You're Bush, and six years later things are getting worse, not better. No problem! Just claim that things would really be dire if not for your brilliant leadership. It's a completely unrefutable claim, because you can't rewind history and try again.

Unfortunately for Bush, such a bald assertion relies heavily on his credibility on security matters. And he has (charitably) almost none left. He's made so many blithe assertions that have turned out to be flat wrong that nobody believes him anymore.

This ties in with Bush's continuing efforts to tie our opponents in Iraq to 9/11. During a speech at the end of June, he noted that the people we're fighting in Iraq "are the people that attacked us on September the 11th."

Except that for the most part, they aren't. Al Qaeda in Iraq is a mostly local group that arose in 2003 in response to our invasion of Iraq. It has established some contacts with AQ Central and pledged it's loyalty to AQ. But they are at best a local franchisee using the AQ brand name. They are not the people, or even the same group, that attacked us in 2001. Further, they represent only a small portion of the combatants in Iraq.

No matter how you slice it, painting Iraq as a war on Al-Qaeda is a flat lie. "War on Islamic extremism" might be closer to the truth, and even that doesn't encompass the growing, unrelated sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni.

As far as AQ goes, invading Iraq did nothing but help them. Sure, we're killing a few insurgents and jihadists, and some of them are truly bad people. But we haven't hurt AQ at all. Instead, we've given them a major recruiting tool and a place for jihadists of all stripes to hone their tactics -- tactics that are starting to show up in Afghanistan. AQ itself sits fat, happy and generally safe in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

Speaking of which, it was a hopeful sign when Pakistani troops stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad. Any government that wants to be taken seriously simply cannot allow armed groups to challenge them, and the extremists in Pakistan have simply gotten bolder and louder in the absence of government pressure. Gen. Pervez Musharraf's born-of-necessity truce with extremists bought temporary stability in Pakistan, but it gave extremists a safe haven that has helped destabilize Afghanistan.

Now tribal leaders have renounced the truce, with accompanying violence, and Musharraf is moving thousands of troops into the region to try to keep order. Sucky as it is for him, it's good for us. Fighting with Pakistani troops diverts resources the Taliban would otherwise focus on Afghanistan; the military incursion disrupts their rest and training operations; and Musharraf's survival is increasingly tied to defeating the insurgents. All these things should help -- assuming Musharraf both survives and doesn't cut another deal.

On the downside, the fighting could spur more tribal members to join the fight against either us or Musharraf. But at least we're attacking a known insurgent stronghold, not galavanting off on a distracting adventure in, say, Iraq.

A fight like this -- against known extremists in known extremist areas -- is the kind of fight I and many others can support. It may be hard, it may be bloody, but there's no doubt about who the enemy is or why we're fighting them.

Which puts the lie to one final Bush rationalization. On Thursday he referred to the American people's "war fatigue", as if we're all wrung out by four years of fighting.

Maybe he just means people are tired of the war. But the "war fatigue" locution rings strongly of a paternalistic displacement of blame. The war's fine; people are just (understandably, but wrongly) getting "fatigued" by it.

Framed as such, the idea of "war fatigue" is nonsense. The term calls to mind a society stretched by privation, the way the French were wrung out by the end of World War I -- economy in shambles, bled white by the carnage at the front. But as far as Iraq goes, what's there to be fatigued about? The war simply doesn't impact your average citizen except as headlines and images on TV. Bush has borrowed the money to fight it; the war has been accompanied by tax cuts, not tax hikes. It's being fought with a volunteer military, and most Americans don't actually know anybody who has served, much less anyone who was killed or wounded. The military death toll, while the highest since Vietnam, is still pretty small measured by population or even a percentage of soldiers in theater.

People aren't tired of the war on terror; they are tired of the war in Iraq. But it's not because of the strain it has put on society. It's because the war has been shown to be a misbegotten idea badly executed, a mind-bogglingly expensive waste of resources, lives and national prestige.

While Al-Qaeda recovered and grew stronger. Nice work, Mr. President.

Iraq, terrorism, politics, midtopia

D.C Madam update

Two new names have supposedly popped up in the D.C. Madam phone records, but both have problems.

One is Jack Burkman, a GOP lobbyist and conservative pundit who once worked for Focus on the Family. This wouldn't be particularly surprising, given a reported history of propositioning young women. Thus far, though, the claim is limited to a single somewhat obscure web site -- though one that appears to have a copy of the Madam's phone log in its possession. Burkman denies it.

The other is Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the legendary Senate Democrat. His number was found by online journalist David Corn. The problem is that the number match is tenuous -- appearing only on a single brochure put out by an environmental group in 1999. One would expect a number associated with the senator to leave more footprints. Even if the number did belong to Moynihan's office, the client could have been an aide or a visitor -- or it could have been Palfrey calling up to complain about her taxes or something.

Corn goes on to provide a good rundown of the difficulties in finding unambiguous links in the phone records.

Palfrey, Burkman, Moynihan, politics, midtopia

Vitter roundup

In today's Vitter news (shown above with Rudy Giuliani during a visit to New Orleans):

E.J. Dionne, of all people offers a limited defense of Vitter. I heartily agree, except for the part about giving conservative hypocrites a complete pass. Don't go overboard, but point out the hypocrisy.

Best line in the piece comes courtesy of a conservative:

Kate O'Beirne, the conservative writer, deserves a place in the annals of political commentary for her remark on the divorce rate among the top Republican presidential contenders. She noted that the only one with "only one wife would be the Mormon," Mitt Romney.

Ignoring Dionne's advice, Lousiana Democrats plan to call for Vitter's resignation. That's a mistake that will come back to bite them in the long run -- particularly because this is Louisiana.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jim DeMint says he's talked to Vitter, who is apparently at home with his family, and the senator plans to return to work on Tuesday.

Vitter, politics, midtopia

Christian intolerance

It's not quite the same thing as detonating car bombs in crowded marketplaces, but this week has been a reminder that religious intolerance isn't restricted to certain religions or countries.

From Dyre Portents:

Did somebody make this International Religious Intolerance Week and forget to notify the calender makers?

I opened on the fifth with Of Paganism and Pundits,followed that with a post about Christians trying to firebomb another Christian church, then two days ago the Pope declared that all other churches weren't true churches, and today we have this:

"This" being members of a Christian anti-abortion group heckling a Hindu priest delivering the invocation in the Senate chamber on Thursday, saying it was a "false prayer" and asking Jesus' forgiveness for "allowing a prayer of the wicked." Here's the video:


Their group, Operation Save America, then issued a press release:

The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.

Not one Senator had the backbone to stand as our Founding Fathers stood.

Yeah, because the Founding Fathers, as we all know, were flaming religious zealots who expressed nothing but contempt for nonChristian beliefs....

I'm sure this display of stupidity and intolerance will do wonders for this group's cause, not to mention their eventual disposition in the afterlife.

religion, politics, midtopia