August 2003 Archives

President Bush has found a target for our times: federal employees.

President Bush exercised an escape clause in federal pay law yesterday that allows him to stick to his proposed 2 percent pay raise for civilian employees next year rather than agree to a formula that would trigger an increase of about 15 percent.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Bush said the larger increase "would threaten our efforts against terrorism or force deep cuts in discretionary spending or federal employment to stay within budget."

But after deciding that we could afford multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthy despite the war on terror and his desire to go to war in Iraq, I can do without the President's claims that a higher payraise would "threaten our efforts against terrorism."

How pathetic.

The Calpundit parses recent Bush Administration and military statements about the need for more troops in Iraq and reaches an interesting conclusion:

So it's not that we don't need more troops — as Donald Rumsfeld keeps insisting — it's that we don't need more American troops. An All-American occupying force, you see, lacks the legitimacy that it needs in the Arab world. (emphasis in original)

If only to see just how dishonest leading Administration officials continue to be when it comes to the situation in Iraq.

The Associated Press' Jim Abrams reports:

The federal government is heading toward a record $480 billion deficit in 2004 and will rack up red ink of almost $1.4 trillion over the next decade, according to the latest analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

The nonpartisan budget office on Tuesday also confirmed earlier estimates that the federal deficit for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 will be $401 billion, well above the previous record of $290.4 billion set in 1992.

These numbers, moreover, do not include the approximately $160 billion in annual surpluses the government's trust funds -- like Social Security -- run annually. (Click here to see the CBO's graphic, and note how the off-budget surpluses mask the true size of the goverment's on-budget deficits.)

This masking is important. It makes the government's deficit appear smaller than it is. It is also, through this 10-year projection, the only way to claim that the government is moving back to surpluses.

A close look at that chart above shows that the on-budget deficits never go away -- surpluses are only possible by counting the Social Security trust fund surpluses that are supposed to help fund the impending retirement of the baby boom generation.

Instead, these surpluses are being transformed into debt that our children and grandchildren will be on the hook to pay out of their taxes.

That will be a large part of our legacy. Not that President Bush cares.

The Associated Press' Siobhan McDonough reports:

Congressional investigators say they can't determine the oil industry's influence on the White House's energy policy because Vice President Dick Cheney refused to provide documents about his energy task force.

The General Accounting Office said in a report Monday that other parts of the government did not fully cooperate, either.

Investigators said none of the main federal agencies involved in the task force gave a complete accounting of the costs they faced in the development of the national energy policy, despite the GAO's request.

I continue to find it interesting to observe how Republicans changed their outlook about investigations of the executive branch on January 20, 2001. Must be a coincidence.

Thomas Oliphant explains why blaming Governor Gray Davis (D) for California's budget situation (and everything else bad in the state) may be easy. But those charges, like the recall effort that conservative money spawned, are most unfair.

Davis proposed budget plans that were balanced between new tax revenues and spending cuts. Such an idea is not novel in California's history. Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson -- former Republican governors -- took similar action when they faced budget problems that were similar in scope.

But, as Oliphant explains:

Apparently, what was good for those geese is unacceptable for today's gander -- the evil Democratic Governor Gray Davis. In today's politics, it is apparently acceptable for the minority Republicans in the Legislature to bring government to the equivalent of a halt, block any deficit cutting plan that directly mixes taxes and spending cuts, blame the resulting bulge in the deficit on the evil Davis, and then seek to toss him from office via recall nine months following his reelection.

When the gridlock became ridiculous last spring, Davis proposed his own version of a mixed solution, but the tack taken by Reagan and Wilson was all of a sudden unacceptable to today's Republicans, who have now been joined by one of the candidates in the recall election -- Arnold Schwarzenegger -- whose guru is the same Pete Wilson. The actor's candidacy is based on a deliberate falsehood, namely that California's are uniquely overburdened by taxes, a fiction so easily disproved that to utter it ought to be instantly disqualifying.

The touchstone issue on which California Republicans solidly reflect voter sentiment is in their opposition to tax increases, a position they see as Ronald Reagan's legacy. Yes, Mr. Reagan was elected governor in 1966 after promising to "squeeze, cut, and trim" the budget, and he made some trims, to be sure. But he balanced the deficit he had inherited the old-fashioned way — by raising taxes.

In the first week of his governorship Mr. Reagan proposed a $1 billion tax increase, then the largest tax hike ever sponsored by any governor of any state. It was a relatively progressive proposal, too, imposing higher rate increases on banks and corporations than on individuals. The Reagan tax increase was equivalent to $5.3 billion in 2003 dollars. This year Republicans in the legislature unanimously opposed a Democratic proposal for a half-cent sales tax increase that would have raised at most $2 billion.

Thomas Friedman eventually reaches a correct and important conclusion about the situation in Iraq:

So, the terrorists get it. Iraqi liberals get it. The Bush team talks as if it gets it, but it doesn't act like it. The Bush team tells us, rightly, that this nation-building project is the equivalent of Germany in 1945, and yet, so far, it has approached the postwar in Iraq as if it's Grenada in 1982.

We may fail, but not because we have attracted terrorists who understand what's at stake in Iraq. We may fail because of the utter incompetence with which the Pentagon leadership has handled the postwar. (We don't even have enough translators there, let alone M.P.'s, and the media network we've set up there to talk to Iraqis is so bad we'd be better off buying ads on Al Jazeera.) We may fail because the Bush team thinks it can fight The Big One in the Middle East — while cutting taxes at home, shrinking the U.S. Army, changing the tax code to encourage Americans to buy gas-guzzling cars that make us more dependent on Mideast oil and by gratuitously alienating allies.

The Baltimore Sun's Michael Hill has an interesting commentary looking at deregulation's history and its impact on our nation. As Hill writes:

Three apparently disparate events -- the Enron debacle, the chaos of the California governor recall and the blackout of the Northeast quadrant of the country -- could be called the Bermuda Triangle of system dysfunction.

The common factor is deregulation.

After all, when it comes to items like electricity, people find market failures -- like blackouts -- intolerable.

The Washington Post's editorial writers make several important points today:

There's no magic solution for the challenges the United States faces in Iraq, but a key first step would be to face them honestly. Even before the war, we and many others urged the administration to level with Congress and the American people about the likely costs of postwar occupation. It failed to do so, perhaps, it now seems, because the administration itself harbored an unrealistic view. Has that changed? Last week, asked about the challenges of attracting more troops from countries that resent sole U.S. authority, Mr. Powell said, "I don't think there is a problem."

We will know that realism has crept into the upper reaches of the Bush Administration when (among other things) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld decides we need more troops on the ground, our leaders decide to do what is necessary to get other nations to support the rebuilding, and we hear about a major effort to improve the daily life of the Iraqi people by doing more to rebuild key infrastructure.

The California recall situation remains quite fluid.

As I explain in a post I made to the Political State Report, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante (D) leads Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) by a 35-22 margin in a Los Angeles Times poll about the gubernatorial recall campaign.

While that gap seems a bit high to me, it does indicate that Schwarzenegger's coronation by the national media is just a bit premature. The poll, moreover, shows that Governor Gray Davis (D) has a chance to survive the recall.

Davis winning would be the best result. That is the only potential way to stop the potential government by recall attack that California conservatives seek to unleash.

Matthew Miller, in another of his typically great columns, focuses on what the California recall campaign tells us about our flawed campaign finance system and the need to take another look at the Supreme Court's Buckley v. Valeo decision.

If you can look beyond the hoopla, California's recall madness makes the strongest case yet for revisiting the Supreme Court's constitutional equation of money with "speech" - the logic that's warped our campaign finance rules since the famous 1976 case of Buckley v. Valeo.

Start with the obvious question: Why should a wealthy mischief-maker like Republican congressman Darrell Issa have been allowed to spend the million or so on paid signature-gatherers needed to put a recall on the ballot and plunge the state into chaos?

In this respect, of course, the recall is merely the apotheosis of the Initiative Industrial Complex that has taken over California in the last 20 years. Everyone here knows that for a million bucks you can get pretty much anything on the ballot - that's the ante for hiring the firms that canvass the malls to qualify whatever measure you'd like put before voters.

If your first instinct is to ask, "Hey - why is it legal to use paid signature gatherers, if the whole idea of ballot measures is to let ideas with broad grassroots support come forward?" you're a true democrat with a small d - but you're not a constitutional scholar.

Look at what Buckley v. Valeo has wrought. Paid signature gatherers. Candidates who claim that we should vote for them because they are rich and therefore do not have to be bought. The fact that both parties recruit affluent candidates because they can work outside our pathetic campaign finance system.

Miller explains that changes are needed. Another is public campaign financing, which would take special interest money out of candidate fundraising and help ensure we do not reach the point when only the affluent will have the resources to run for office.

California Recall Gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) promised the impossible yesterday in his first major policy appearance, which focused on the state budget and economy.

No wonder he did not want to focus on the details. The San Francisco Chronicle's Carla Marinucci quotes Schwarzenegger:

"The public doesn't care about facts and figures," he said in answer to a question about when he would provide details of his economic and budget plans. "They've heard figures for the past five years. What the people want to know is if you are tough enough to clean house."

Schwarzenegger's promise not to raise taxes (except in emergency), not to touch education, and yet balance the budget through "action" is simply not credible. Virtually all of the budget rollovers and one-time savings have been used. Given the make-up of the state budget, education or taxes simply has to be on the table in a credible plan to balance the state's structural deficit.

Schwarzenegger also does not level with California's voters about the difficulties of achieving a two-thirds vote in favor of a budget plan in the State Legislature.

Perhaps Schwarzenegger can win with only sound bites and platitudes. Pandering has often proven to be the path of least resistance.

You don't like the way some series of events in your life has ultimately played out?

Then follow President Bush's example: just revise it.

Real politicians manage expectations beforehand, not after the fact. Especially when it comes to important things like waging war.

(Thanks to Behind the Homefront for the link.)

TAPPED, following up on an earlier Talking Points Memo story reminds readers that while military operations were going on in Kosovo, then House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) led House Republicans in a vote not to support our troops' actions.

National Journal contributing editor Dick Kirschten outlined DeLay's strategy:

In the 213-213 vote denying House backing for the Kosovo air campaign, veterans marched mostly in partisan ranks. With House Majority Whip Thomas D. DeLay, R-Texas, a nonveteran, urging a negative vote as a slap against President Clinton's leadership, 63 of the 81 House Republicans with military service opposed the resolution, while 16 supported it and two did not vote. Among Democratic veterans, 42 voted yes, 11 no and one was absent. (emphasis added)

University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato, a well respected national political analyst, argues that our nation's founders created a better governing blueprint than the Progressives of the early 20th Century when they chose representative government over direct democracy. He writes:

But whatever their shortcomings, almost all the other states do not have California's extreme system of pure democracy, a wildly popular but destructive legacy of the Progressive movement. The Progressives' bequest has perverted the founders' desire for trusteeship government, which is based on the essential need of a busy, distracted electorate to place faith in representatives it elects. These leaders, chosen in free elections for fixed terms, were meant to make decisions in our best interests — with the people exercising judgment about those decisions by endorsing or replacing those representatives at the next scheduled election.

Regular scheduled elections are an important part of ensuring stable self-government. There are some conservative multi-millionaires who do not understand this principle.

That does not mean we have to fall for this game.

Jonathan Turley makes note of the Pentagon's plans to rewrite history in a way that protrays the Iraq war and aftermath in a more positive light.

With the reality of entrenched opposition in Iraq resulting in increasing U.S. fatalities there, the opposition at home to the occupation is hardening by the day. The military appears to have come up with a solution: Change reality.

In what has been described as a "Pentagon infomercial," the Defense Department has hired a former producer of the TV show "Cops" to film postwar Iraq from its perspective. Though producer Bertram van Munster has denied that he is shooting a propaganda piece, it is clear that the Pentagon is gearing up to frame its own account — and history — of the Iraq war.

Actually, I cannot blame the Pentagon for its efforts. We should, however, wonder why Hollywood allows such editing to go on without much mention.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jay Bookman agrees that we have to get serious and get more troops into Iraq.

With more troops, fewer U.S. soldiers get killed, and fewer Iraqis as well. More troops also increase our chances of eventually remaking Iraq. But as a percentage of population, we have far fewer troops occupying Iraq today than we did in either Kosovo or Bosnia, and neither of those missions was this dangerous or volatile.

Or as important.

The Pentagon, though, has made it clear that no more troops will be coming. The reason, not admitted publicly, is that they don't exist. We've already committed 40 percent of our total ground force to Iraq, apparently for quite a while, and committing any more would stretch us dangerously thin elsewhere around the empire.

But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says it is. It often gets ugly when ideology runs up against real-world events.

A suicide bomber killed at least 17 people today in an attack against the United Nations' UN Headquarters in Iraq.

Perhaps now would be a good time to reassess our troop strength there and come to the conclusion that former Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki was correct to argue that several hundred thousand troops were needed in Iraq to handle the war's aftermath.

I realize that this conclusion runs counter to neoconservative doctrine. But it is time to get realistic before the situation deteriorates even more.

Joshua Micah Marshall recaps the welcome rhetorical whack General Wesley Clark gave to House Majority Leader Tom "I Am The Federal Government" DeLay (R-Texas) today on CNN's Late Edition.

Rarely has a politician so deserved it.

Institute of Governmental Studies Director Bruce Cain rightly argues that California needs to reform its recall provisions. He writes:

Whether or not one likes the current recall effort, it would be prudent to fix the features of the recall law that are most vulnerable to abuse. It is one thing to experience occasional wacky and weird politics, but it is another thing to encourage problems by design.

Thomas Oliphant explains why this week's Blackout should remind us -- yes, even those anti-government conservatives out there -- why government is necessary, and why common sense is often provides better solutions than ideological purity.

Daniel Williams reports about more bad news from Iraq:

Iraq's just-renewed oil exports came to a halt today, a U.S.-appointed Iraqi administrator said, after saboteurs blew up the main pipeline to Turkey overnight, crushing hopes that revenue from the country's most valuable asset would begin to pour in again.

The pipeline that runs from oil fields near Kirkuk was opened only three days ago. Saboteurs set off explosives along a section of the 46-inch diameter pipe near the town of Baiji, 120 miles northwest of Baghdad, said the acting oil minister, Thamir Ghadban. The attack will cost Iraq $7 million a day in lost crude oil earnings.

Now, how could this have happened? If you have been paying attention, you could likely guess. Williams explains:

Ghadban, appointed by U.S. occupation authorities, indicated that U.S. forces are insufficient in number to protect Iraq's vital lifelines. Under Hussein, he said, oil pipelines were protected by a multilayered force of special oil police, the army and internal security forces working with regional tribes. "All that has disappeared," he said. "There is a void."

Ghadban added that he has been pressing officials with the U.S.-created Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA, which runs the country, to increase security along the pipelines, but without success. "This is beyond the resources of the oil ministry. It's the CPA's responsibility," he said. "I've been talking about it for the past three months."

The Bush Administration's Iraq policies have accomplished something that may have seemed impossible.

No, not in a good way. The Washington Post's Anthony Shadid reports:

A popular Sunni Muslim cleric has provided grass-roots and financial support to a leading anti-American Shiite cleric, a rare example of cooperation across Iraq's sectarian divide that has alarmed U.S. officials for its potential to bolster festering resistance to the American occupation, senior U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

The ties mark one of the first signs of coordination between anti-occupation elements of the Sunni minority, the traditional rulers of the country, and its Shiite majority, seen by U.S. officials as the key to stability in postwar Iraq.

President Bush and members of his Administration say many nice words about supporting the troops.

Here's just the latest example revealing just how empty the Bush Administration's rhetoric is. The San Francisco Chronicle's Edward Epstein reports:

The Pentagon wants to cut the pay of its 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, who are already contending with guerrilla-style attacks, homesickness and 120- degree-plus heat.

Unless Congress and President Bush take quick action when Congress returns after Labor Day, the uniformed Americans in Iraq and the 9,000 in Afghanistan will lose a pay increase approved last April of $75 a month in "imminent danger pay" and $150 a month in "family separation allowances."

The Defense Department supports the cuts, saying its budget can't sustain the higher payments amid a host of other priorities. But the proposed cuts have stirred anger among military families and veterans' groups and even prompted an editorial attack in the Army Times, a weekly newspaper for military personnel and their families that is seldom so outspoken. (emphasis added)

I could not disagree more. I am tired of seeing this Administration wrap itself in the flag and then seek to screw over our men and women in uniform.

(Thanks to The Lofty for the link.)

RonK over at The Daily Kos argues that California Governor Gray Davis (D) could benefit from the Blackout because it should make people see the truth about how California's blackouts happened. He writes:

Davis had been right all along -- but the damage was done. In diffuse public consciousness, the finger of blame followed Davis ... even as the body of evidence pointed conclusively in the opposite direction. Months of extortionate pricing left California (and other western states) tens of billions of dollars in the red. Regulators and courts found against the banditos, but did little to make ratepayers whole.

This recall campaign is going to have to grow more serious by several orders of magnitude for people to accept this argument. Perhaps I will be surprised and that will happen.

I fear, however, that we will see the opposite. I worry that Californians will hear "blackout" and continue their wrongful blame association of that event with Governor Davis. That would make it harder for the Governor to fight off this conservative-funded recall effort.

The Blackout of 2003 exposes some major energy problems facing the United States. Our power grid is old and vulnerable.

This Blackout is just the latest symptom of our national refusal to maintain and expand its infrastructure. North American Electric Reliability Council General Counsel David Cook warned Congress two years ago that something like this could happen. In 2001, the American Society of Civil Engineers reported that the nation faced $1.3 trillion in infrastructure needs over the next five years.

President Bush yesterday said something important in the Blackout's aftermath in response to a reporter's question:

Of course, we'll have time to look at it and determine whether or not our grid needs to be modernized. I happen to think it does, and have said so all along.

Here's a follow-up question, Mr. President, for you to consider.

How, exactly, do you propose the nation pay for this needed upgrade at a time when your fiscal policies have left us adding two billion dollars a day to the national debt?

Just wondering.

Matthew Miller wonders why the so-called liberal media is helping the Republicans get away with lying about their true position on government fiscal policy.

After all, Republicans are not trying to cut the government's size despite all of their whining about "big government." They are merely sticking our children -- and other future generations -- with the bill for the programs they also seek to expand. Miller concludes:

This, then, is today's spectacle: "Family values" Republicans are sticking the kids with the bill for current spending while railing fraudulently against the "big government" they support.

Then they attack Democrats for offering the radical idea that we ought to pay for the spending we all agree we want (and that's before we even begin fighting about other things government might do - like cover the uninsured, or help poor children get better teachers).

If we had a functioning press corps - one that simply presented these facts again and again - the fiscal and moral fraud of the GOP position would be self-evident.

Robert Scheer explains why he is going to vote against recalling California Governor Gray Davis (D):

However you feel about Gray Davis, the fact is, this recall has become a shell game, led and paid for by Republicans, that conveniently distracts from the alarming failures and frauds of the White House. That includes the Bush administration's blind eye to the energy sting that robbed the California government of a good chunk of its past budget surplus.

The giddy media spectacle of porn stars and action heroes seeking to lead the world's sixth-largest economy should not divert us from the fact that the key black marks on Davis' resume — the energy crisis and the budget shortfall — were both messes created by deregulating, tax-cutting Republicans.

This recall effort may succeed. That does not make it any less wrong.

The Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon continues his laudable efforts to warn Americans about the danger that we are overburdening our military personnel. He writes:

For those doing their Army math, that leaves only the 2nd Infantry Division, 10th Mountain Division and 25th Infantry Division that will not spend time in Iraq in 2003 or 2004. But the 2nd and 25th are dedicated to the Korea mission, and the 10th is needed in places such as Afghanistan. There is no one left for the following rotation to Iraq, in late 2004 or early 2005.

But now that we have embarked on this Iraq adventure, we need to ensure that we can manage the mission without overworking and overdeploying our men and women in uniform.

We need a larger Army force. That means we need to provide more pay and benefits to make joining the service a more competitive option.

If we refuse to see this, and we continue to extend overseas deployments, we will lose many good men and women who decide that the military life is too hard on their families.

That will leave us in an even more dangerous position than the one in which we presently find ourselves.

Normal Ornstein and Michael Calabrese remind us that the Federal Communications Commission is not just making misguided judgements when it comes to media consolidation. In fact, one more quiet initiative could prove just as bad -- or worse.

Ornstein and Calabrese explain:

We're talking about the privatization of the airwaves, a public resource worth hundreds of billions of dollars in both market value and future federal revenue. The contemplated FCC action could result in the biggest special interest windfall at the expense of American taxpayers in history.

The rapid trend toward wireless communication has made access to the prime frequencies that pass easily through walls, trees and weather an increasingly valuable right. A recent study estimated the market value of this spectrum at $770 billion. These airwaves are owned by the public. For more than 75 years broadcasters, cellular phone companies and other commercial service providers have acquired exclusive access to scarce spectrum space only under temporary, renewable licenses; in return, they serve the public interest.

But if the FCC has its way, that social contract will be voided.

Some public officials are already on the lookout for this giveaway. We, the people, need to let our federal Representatives and Senators know that we would find any such action completely unacceptable.

E.J. Dionne reminds us that just a few short years ago the Republicans were the ones repeatedly condemning the sitting president for his foreign policy. Dionne is left to point out what should be obvious:

It is not at all astonishing that partisans would claim that their own political attacks are morally justified while the opposition's assaults are wretched exercises in partisanship. What is astonishing is that anyone would take such claims seriously.

The governing party may find this inconvenient. Too bad.

Calpundit helpfully explains why there was an alphabet drawing today to determine the order in which candidate names will appear for question two of the recall ballot.

(Yes. There was a reason beyond the fact California seeks to specialize in election circuses.)

We will soon know whether the ballot will top 200 candidates. County elections officials are going to have to scramble.

I, for one, really hope some reporter-type takes a cue from the Eschaton Assignment Desk:

Dear Washington Press Corps, here's an easy one for you. Could someone please verify if Jack Van Impe Ministries International was really contacted by the Office of Public Liason of the White House and Condoleezza Rice to prepare an outline on the coming apocalypse?

You did read that correctly.

At this point, I would hope another story like this would not surprise you. The National Journal's Peter Stone writes:

As criticism over the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction continues, a new wave of accusations seems ready to break—this time, over complaints that in its efforts to sell the war, the White House also hyped claims about the links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime.

Three former Bush administration officials who worked on intelligence and national security issues have told National Journal that the prewar evidence tying al Qaeda to Iraq was tenuous, exaggerated, and often at odds with the conclusions of key intelligence agencies. The Bush alumni, as well as other intelligence veterans and some members of Congress, say they see parallels between how the administration painted the Qaeda connection to Iraq and the way that the White House often portrayed intelligence about weapons of mass destruction as being definitive or rock solid. (emphasis added)

Really.

It would be funny if it were not so serious.

Today's Chicago Sun-Times editorials provide a wealth of good thinking.

The first notes that a California-style recall statute is no way to run a state. (No kidding. Although I would not mind a recall so much if it required cause rather than millions of dollars from a rich politician to qualify for the ballot.)

The second takes rightful aim at Attorney General John Ashcroft and another of his attempts to grab power by ordering his attorneys to report on judges who impose lenient sentences. As the Sun-Times editorial explains:

Power is balanced over three branches of our government specifically to thwart the designs of men like John Ashcroft, and someone in the Bush administration needs to rein him in before his grasping overreaching embarrasses the White House.

Former Reagan Administration trade negotator Clyde Prestowitz makes several important points:

There is nothing neo about imperialism. It is just as un-American today as it was in 1776. And there is nothing conservative about the giant military-industrial establishment, budget deficits or failing local and state governments. Far from conservatism, this is radicalism of the right, and it is unsustainable because it is at odds with fundamental — and truly conservative — American values.

Kevin Phillips analyzes three major potential weaknesses facing President Bush that Democrats need to explain to the American people.

Phillips cites Bush's ties to Middle Eastern royal families, economic policies, and pandering to the religious right as areas the Democrats could effectively mine for centrist and independent support. As Phillips explains, this should prove easy for any Democrat who wants to hold high political office:

The Bush tax cuts of 2001-03, flagrant in their tilt toward investors and the top 1% of income earners, echo, albeit far more dangerously and at far greater cost, the elder Bush's insistence on cutting capital gains taxes for investors. Four generations of Bushes have been heavily in the securities, banking and investment business. They think that investment, however redundant or gimmicky, is the be-all and end-all of economics.

The result of this favoritism, in 1991-92 and again today, is a jobless recovery. Investors get some gains, but ordinary folk lose their jobs. Any member of the party of Andrew Jackson, FDR and Harry S. Truman who can't explain that over the next 15 months has no business being in politics. And this isn't lefty stuff; it's capital-C "Centrism" that would cut like a scythe from Long Island to La Mirada.

The New York Times' Philip Shenon writes about a recent Congressional Research Service report concerning domestic security:

A new Congressional report has found that the government's much ridiculed color-coded terrorist alert system is so vague in detailing threats that the public "may begin to question the authenticity" of the threats and take no action when the alert level is raised.

The fact that this laughable color guide has not been replaced is just one of the many Bush Administration Homeland Security failures. Perhaps it is time for the Legislative Branch of our government to take notice of the situation.

The Washington Post's Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus analyze the prewar debate about Iraq's supposed nuclear program. Their conclusion should bother you. They write:

The new information indicates a pattern in which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their subordinates -- in public and behind the scenes -- made allegations depicting Iraq's nuclear weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in its threat than the data they had would support. On occasion administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views. The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied:

Some of my conservative friends, many of whom felt that lies about a private sexual act required impeachment, do not understand how people like me can complain about embellishments used to justify a preemptive war.

I know supporting a president from one's party is standard operating procedure. Such support, moreover, often rightly requires that one be willing to give a great benefit of the doubt to the Commander-in-Chief.

The only justification for going into Iraq when and how we did -- before we were prepared to handle the war's aftermath and while we were in the process of alienating most of our major allies -- is that Saddam posed an imminent threat to this nation. The White House understood those facts.

That is why the Bush Administration made the nuclear argument. It is also why it is important to understand whether they lied to us so they could fight their ideological war.

Up to 158 people have filed the necessary paperwork and paid the necessary fees to run as a candidate in California's October 7 gubernatorial recall election.

That's a lot of candidates. While I believe that Sacramento Bee political columnist Daniel Weintraub is trying far too hard to portray this recall effort -- one that was financed primarily by a wealthy Republican Congressman -- as a "populist revolt", he correctly notes that after a few days only a manageable number of candidates are likely to receive much attention.

But, while some people might want to focus only on the seven major candidates running for question two (Democratic Lt. Govenor Cruz Bustamante; Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. Tom McClintock, Bill Simon Jr., and Peter V. Ueberroth; Green Peter Camejo; and Independent Arianna Huffington), my focus remains on question one.

While the California Constitution does not include any language that a recall should be for cause, I believe that this particular tool should be left for crimes and corruption. This is a reform that I believe is needed. Immediately.

We often complain that our political leaders fail to make difficult political decisions. That all they do is follow the polls. Well, if we can recall an officeholder just because we do not like his or her policies or style, then we are going to be governed even more by the public opinion poll.

Until we can reform the recall provisions, however, I can vote no on question one -- on whether Governor Gray Davis (D) should be recalled. Californians had a chance to remove Davis from office in a regularly scheduled election just nine months ago. They didn't.

And they should not use this high-financed conservative recall election to do so now.

Lawrence Lessig has an interesting post on his blog focusing on how an MP3.com lawyer overreacted to news that a band was utilizing a Creative Commons copyright.

(I should note that I am not impressed that the lawyer in question apparently does not know how to read. That is the only explanation given one of the charges the anonymous lawyer makes in his or her reply...)

The General Accounting Office issued a report our Hospital's Bioterrorism Preparedness. (You can download a pdf of the report from this link.)

The results are not comforting. Quoting from the report's summary:

While most hospitals in urban areas across the country reported participating in basic planning and coordination activities for bioterrorism response, they did not have the medical equipment to handle the large increase in the number of patients that would be likely to result from a bioterrorist incident...

Hospitals also reported that they lacked the medical equipment necessary for a large influx of patients. For example, if a large number of patients were to arrive at a hospital with severe respiratory problems associated with anthrax or botulism, a comparable number of ventilators would be required to treat them. Yet half of hospitals reported having fewer than six ventilators per 100 staffed beds. (emphasis added)

But think about this...nearly two years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, our hospitals and our government have done precious little to ensure that our public health system can handle a bioterror attack.

I am sorry, I keep forgetting. Tax cuts targeting the rich -- that was a priority.

The deadline to qualify for California's horrific recall election passed a little more than an hour ago. We will soon find out just how many people qualified.

It could be as high as 80 or 90.

After a week of unexpected events, the only big news for the day appears to be Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi's (D) withdrawal from the race.

For which I am thankful.

With Garamendi out of the race, California Democrats can rally behind Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante for question two.

It will also now be much easier for those who think this effort is a pathetic misuse of a recall process to rally to win the first question and keep Governor Davis from losing his office.

(Ed note: Before some of my conservative friends go ballistic, I should note that, yes, the recall is legal. There is nothing in the state Constitution that says that there need be cause for a recall. But just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. We need to add fixing the recall statute to the long list of governmental reforms California needs to implement.)

Your Bush Administration at work, striving for "fiscal sanity":

National Debt as of July 31, 2003: $ 6,751,195,107,063.07
National Debt as of June 30, 2003: $ 6,670,121,155,027.26

Increase in July 2003: $ 81.074 billion
Increase since July 31, 2002: $ 591.454 billion
Increase since January 20, 2001: $ 1023.418 billion
(or $1.023 trillion)

Many supporters of the recall against California Governor Gray Davis (D) have gone to great efforts to portray it as a populist rebellion.

That is good spin. But, as you might remember, the recall campaign was going nowhere until a millionaire conservative Congressman decided he wanted to fund professional recall signature gatherers.

This "populist effort" was made possible only through the resources of a wealthy individual. As Paul West notes:

Progressivism helped propel America into the modern era by crusading to give women the right to vote, provide government regulation of business, and promote minimum wage and labor standards, direct election of senators and other social reforms. But their idea of using direct democracy to curb what Roosevelt famously called the "malefactors of great wealth" was turned upside down - by the power of great wealth.

A thriving industry has grown up around the ballot initiative and referendum process (allowed in about half the states; Maryland has referendum only). By paying professional signature-gatherers, sometimes imported from other states, at the rate of $1 a signature, it has become remarkably easy for wealthy interests and individuals to purchase a place on the ballot for their pet issues.

Douglas Pike makes many important points in his latest Philadelphia Inquirer column:

One of these years, Americans will feel betrayed by the politicians who raised spending, slashed taxes, and purred that everything would turn out fine. Too late, the public will focus on the trillions in IOU's choking the nation's commitments to retirees, kids and folks in between.

George W. Bush is no conservative. He's an extremist who acts as if the spending side of the budget is unrelated to the revenue side. The result: a crash from surpluses to relentless, reckless deficits.

At some point Americans are going to awake to see the fiscal disaster to come. When that day arrives, someone will remember that there were numerous government reports and think tank studies that warned of our failure to prepare for the baby boomers' retirement.

Future taxpayers will receive the bill for today's refusal to accept reality. I doubt they will celebrate the memory of those who refused to respond to the warnings.

Members of the U.S. House and Senate are growing increasingly worried that they will face a backlash about their efforts to add a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program.

The legislation "will be appreciated by those with low incomes or very high drug costs," said John Rother, policy director at AARP, the nation's largest advocacy group for senior citizens, which is withholding judgment on the legislation. "But many others will be disappointed that the benefits are as skimpy as they are . . . There's still a gap between what they want and what's in the bill."

But what's several hundred billion dollars more in national debt among friends?

Is there a need for a prescription drug benefit? Of course. But we need to figure out a way to pay for this benefit -- and the Social Security and Medicare benefits already promised -- once the baby boom generation begins to retire.

Do we want to cut other benefits? Impose a means (or affluence) test? Raise taxes? Raise the benefit eligibility age (often wrongly called the retirement age)?

The need for such a national conversation was obvious a decade ago. Now is the time to stop pandering and start discussing tough choices.

You remember Afghanistan, right? The country that served as the base of a terrorist movement that killed 3,000 people in our country a couple years ago?

A nation that, if it slipped back into Taliban control or anarchy, would prove to be an actual threat to our national security? The Washington Post's April Witt reports:

A year and a half after the United States and its allies drove the Taliban from power, acts of politically motivated violence have become frequent and fierce in the key southern province of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban and the source of countless shifts in Afghan politics and culture over the centuries.

Bands of 50 or more pro-Taliban fighters have begun appearing around Kandahar, both along the border with Pakistan and in the interior of the province. Just over the border in the Pakistani town of Chaman, high-ranking Taliban officials are meeting openly and handing out guns, money and motorbikes, according to a witness and Afghan police officials. Poor Afghans who don't share the Taliban's strict interpretation of Islam or its mission of jihad are nevertheless accepting Pakistani money to plant land mines and bombs in Afghanistan, they said.

In addition to Taliban fighters, other men with guns -- warlords -- dominate much of Kandahar, allowing the trade in illegal drugs to flourish. Civic activists who once hoped to provide an alternative to both radical fundamentalists and marauding militiamen feel silenced and afraid.