Marketwatch.com reports that corporate profits soar, while wages continue to fall.

U.S. corporate profits have increased 21.3% in the past year and now account for the largest share of national income in 40 years, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

...

Meanwhile, the share of national income going to wage and salary workers has fallen to 56.9%. Except for a brief period in 1997, that's the lowest share for labor income since 1966.

The Economic Policy Institute has a snapshot of the situation.

via ACSblog

The New York Times has an interesting article today about how the Medicare prescription drug program is turning out to be a bigger handout to insurance companies than originally thought. The boon for the insurance industry comes with programs like Medicare Advantage. - a comprehensive medical plan that is "operated by the private insurers but subsidized by Medicare."

The Medicare D drug benefit will bring profits to insurance companies, but the companies really see this as a gateway to get people into the more lucrative Medicare Advantage programs. How much more lucrative?

While the stand-alone Part D drug plans are expected to give insurers a small profit, the margins are likely to be thin — 1 percent to 3 percent before taxes, Humana estimates. That is partly because Humana is offering low premiums and co-payments to attract customers. And the federal subsidy for each customer in a stand-alone Medicare drug plan is only about $75 a month.

But for providing a full Medicare Advantage health policy to a patient, the government pays the insurer $900 to $2,000 a month beyond whatever premium, if any, the patient pays. With that revenue, come bigger profit margins — 3 percent to 5 percent, according to James H. Bloem, Humana's chief financial officer.

The Medicare Drug plan is, in essence, a huge public subsidy, not of health care, but of insurance companies - a handout of "more than $450 billion a year". And this isn't a subsidy of health care, it's a subsidy of insurance companies. We are, in effect, subsidizing a middle-man.

This is the market based approach that the Republicans have come up with - cut out the market, but subsidize the insurance companies instead of the health care providers. They call it a market based approach because it presents an opportunity for someone to get rich. But that's not market-based, that's just a dole.

As I've said before, if the market cannot provide health care, then we need to look to another way. The new Medicare plan does nothing to improve services to people, nor was it intended to. It was written by insurance company lobbyists to help funnel taxpayer dollars into their clients' pockets.

It's time that we stop playing games with Americans' health care, and start working on a real plan to make quality health care available to all citizens. Letting companies whose interest is that of their shareholders, and not the American people, write health care policy will only result in greater profits for the insurers at the expense of working Americans. It's time to get serious about health care. It's time for a new plan.

I'm a big fan of the Law & Order series on NBC. I like it so much that I have a hard time sitting through the marathons becuase I've seen almost all of the episodes. As with any program, though, there's the occasional story that's poorly written - an unavoidable reality, especially with a program as long running as Law & Order. But last night's episode was particularly bad, and I think it deserves comment.

Here's a synopsis:

A man's daughter is kidnapped, so he helps rob a bank to get the ransom. The robbery is botched and the man is arrested. The police go looking for the kidnapped girl and the kidnappers. A detective locates the kidnapper - a professional con man, but the girl is not with him. The detective shoves his gun in the kidnapper's face and threatens to kill him, then forces him into the bathroom where he violently dunks the kidnapper's head in the toilet, threatening to drown him if he doesn't give the location of the girl. The kidnapper talks, the girl is saved.

The rest of the episode, and really the meat of the story, is a conversation about the morality of torture. All of the attorneys are just torn about what to do about the fact that the detective tortured a confession out of the kidnapper. In the end, a convenient end-run is made around the problem and everyone goes home undecided about the merits of torture.

What a bunch of rubbish.

It was pretty clear that the writers wanted to take up a serious topic that has popped up in public discourse ever since evidence was revealed that the present administration has been complicit in torturing detainees at various facilities around the world. Unfortunately, the writers did not have a good grasp of the issue, and passed off shallow sophistry as serious reflection.

To begin with, the show presents an unrealistic situation. The kidnapper was a professional criminal. The detective tortured him while they were alone in a private residence, away from other detectives, in order to force him to talk. This is where things start to go wrong - the kidnapper would not have told the truth. Sure, he may have said something to stop the torture, but why would he tell the truth?

To be realistic, the kidnapper should have told the detective that the girl was stashed somewhere in the city, preferably where there would be a lot of other people. This would buy him time and get him out of the private situation in which he was being abused. It would also present an opportunity for him to contact an attorney and to preserve the one piece of leverage he had - the girl. After all, he had to know that the detective wouldn't really kill him - he's the only one that knows the location of the girl.

The incident was later discussed by the attorneys in the frame of the "ticking time bomb" scenario. This hypothetical has been shown to be unrealistic much more eloquently in other places already, but for those that are not familiar with it, allow me to explain.

The "ticking time bomb" scenario goes something like this:

Suppose the police find out that there's a nuclear bomb in New York set to go off in one hour. They have a terrorist in custody who knows where it is, but he won't talk. Should the police be allowed to torture the suspect to get the information needed to save millions of lives?

This scenario is meant to scare you into saying "yes"; after all, who would not torture the one to save the many? But in reality the hypothetical is fallacious. It presumes that the torture would not only be successful, but be successful quickly. That is simply not the way torture works. A more appropriate question would be:

Should the police be allowed to torture the suspect to get the information needed to save millions of lives even though it won't work?

The sad thing about the episode is that there was a lot in the story that could have added something meaningful. For example, the kidnapper was ultimately convicted because an attorney discovered that they would have found the girl even if the detective had not coerced the confession.

Even granting their false premise, the torture acts were completely unnecessary.

This was only mentioned in the course of getting around the legal problem of evidence gained from a coerced confession. Nobody pointed out that this completely undermined the justification for the detective's violent acts. Furthermore, there was no talk of consequences for the detective. Even if one wanted to argue that saving the girl was an affirmative defense to the charges of torture, that should still be determined through the procedure of a trial. Instead, the issue was left untouched and the detective was treated as a sort of macho "hero" - the only guy willing to do what was necessary to save the girl. Bologna.

The episode ends with two attorneys revisiting the flawed "ticking time bomb" scenario and expanding on it. What if it's not New York? What if it's a rural state and there are only a few thousand potential victims, not millions? What if they could get the information by torturing, not the suspect, but his family members? Their answer: I don't know.

And there's the real problem. The people at Law & Order wanted to leave the viewer thinking that questions of torture are much more difficult than they really are. The question of morality is headed off quickly by the fact that torture doesn't work. It's simply too unreliable a method for gathering information. All questions of whether or not torture can be morally justifiable are based on the false premise that torture can be used successfully.

In order to put together a provocative show that asks whether or not torture can ever be justified, the folks at Law & Order had to base their show on a false premise. They used a completely unrealistic hypothetical in which the torture not only worked, but worked fast. Take away the false premise, and the rest of the argument falls apart.

I felt that this deserved comment not only because the show did a poor job of explaining the issue, but because it did a poor job of explaining the issue in the midst of a deadly serious debate. In doing so, Law & Order actually did the public a disservice by potentially confusing the issue in the minds of unknowing viewers.

In the future, I hope the people at Law & Order will go back to what they do best - interesting crime drama. Leave the philosophical debate to someone else.

Health care is something that affects everyone, and if we don't do something to make affordable health care available to Americans, we face the real possibility of both public health and economic disasters. Our current way of dealing with health care is a mish-mash of stop-gap measures that are becoming less and less viable as time and technology advance. For example, the current program for providing health care to the poorest Americans is to have them wait until their situation is critical, and then send them to an emergency room. This is, quite possibly, the most expensive and lease efficient way of providing medical care to people. So, what do we do?

Princeton economist Paul Krugman and his wife, Robin Wells, have an article in the 23 March issue of The New York Review of Books titled The health care crisis and what to do about it in which they present a good introduction to this real problem facing Americans. I highly recommend taking the time to read it.

They begin by looking at the current patchwork of health care programs, and why they're quickly falling apart. Take, for example, what most Americans probably consider the "normal" way to get health care - employer provided health insurance. As Krugman and Wells explain, this idea worked right after WWII, but today it makes little economic sense.

Health care costs at current levels override the incentives that have historically supported employer-based health insurance. Now that health costs loom so large, companies that provide generous benefits are in effect paying some of their workers much more than the going wage—or, more to the point, more than competitors pay similar workers. Inevitably, this creates pressure to reduce or eliminate health benefits. And companies that can't cut benefits enough to stay competitive—such as GM—find their very existence at risk.

Rising health costs have also ended the ability of employer-based insurance plans to avoid the problem of adverse selection. Anecdotal evidence suggests that workers who know they have health problems actively seek out jobs with companies that still offer generous benefits. On the other side, employers are starting to make hiring decisions based on likely health costs. For example, an internal Wal-Mart memo, reported by The New York Times in October, suggested adding tasks requiring physical exertion to jobs that don't really require it as a way to screen out individuals with potential health risks.

The conservative solution is to create disincentives for consuming health care by placing more of the financial burden on everyday Americans - something President Bush has proposed with his "health care savings accounts". The thought is, if you have to pay for medical care yourself, you'll only go when you really need to. This, of course, assumes that everyone is both a doctor and always making rational, efficient decisions. Unfortunately, that's just not the case in the real world.

Yet another problem with consumer-directed care is that the evidence says that people don't, in fact, make wise decisions when paying for medical care out of pocket. A classic study by the Rand Corporation found that when people pay medical expenses themselves rather than relying on insurance, they do cut back on their consumption of health care—but that they cut back on valuable as well as questionable medical procedures, showing no ability to set sensible priorities.

What Krugman and Wells find is that the preponderance of the research shows that a public health program would be cheaper, more efficient, and higher quality than a system of private health insurance. Expect this to be a long time coming, though. Conservatives have been, for decades, publishing Chicken Little stories about how public health programs are evil. Only, there's no reason to really think that - even from a pro-business, capitalist perspective.

Capitalism recognizes that certain public goods cannot be provided by the market - national security, police, and fire departments for example. Why, then, are we so adverse to recognizing what's been obvious to the rest of the civilized world for a long time: public health is a public good that cannot be efficiently provided for by the market.

A large part of the reason is, of course, the excellent job that the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies have done in propagating misinformation. Krugman and Wells provide a good start in countering the industry propaganda, though, and explain that if we want to provide the best health care, most efficiently, and at the lowest cost - we need to put aside our ideological hang-ups and start looking at the facts. Public health care won't destroy our capitalist economy, and it might very well save it.

It looks like Congress is taking an accounting lesson from the Enron playbook. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that members of the House and Senate are contemplating some budgetary sleight of hand to mask problems in last year's tax cut reconciliation bill by generating short term revenue while causing increased long term deficits.

The proposal would induce taxpayers to move savings from traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs, which would generate additional revenues in the short run, but would reduce revenues and increase deficits after 2015. This maneuver is an effort to circumvent the Senate rule prohibiting budget reconciliation from increasing long-term deficits by including tax cuts or entitlement spending increases that are not offset in years beyond the budget window. It would undermine respect for, and the effectiveness of, budget procedures intended to promote long-term fiscal responsibility.

Not only is this bad economic policy, pushing the country further into debt, it appears to be in violation of a Senate rule prohibiting long term deficit increases.

That Senate rule prohibits use of reconciliation legislation to increase the deficit in any year outside of the period to which the reconciliation process applies, which is from fiscal year 2006 through fiscal year 2010 for the pending tax-cut reconciliation measure.

Of course, under Republican leadership, if you preside over a three month, $1.8 Trillion debt increase you get a promotion.

There is a breaking story regarding Justice Scalia's remarks in Switzerland on 8 March. During a speech, Scalia was asked, in effect, whether or not detainees have any rights under the U.S. Constitution - his answer, an emphatic no.

Michael Isikoff, then, asks the question in Newsweek, should Scalia recuse himself in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case to be heard by the Supreme Court this week? The question may be more complicated than some would like to think. As Isikoff says,

Scalia didn't refer directly to this week's case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, though issues at stake hinge in part on whether the detainees deserve legal protections that make the military tribunals unfair.

Marty Lederman has an excellent introduction to the controversy at SCOTUSblog, noting that Chief Justice Roberts has already recused, not because of stated opinions, but because he heard the case in the Court of Appeals.

I've been known to criticize Justice Scalia from time to time. I find him overly abrasive, often obnoxious, and, at times, I believe, inconsistent if it's convenient to his political views. But I think this situation has less to do with Scalia, personally, and more to do with a larger problem in the courts - politicization.

Ed Whelan at NRO writes that Scalia shouldn't recuse since he didn't say anything about the upcoming case specifically. He then admits that this might sound to many like a bit of a stretch, but explains:

One can quarrel whether this formalist line is sensible. But anyone who thinks it isn't would either end up concluding that Supreme Court justices for decades have been failing to recuse in lots of cases where they should or, far more plausibly, that Scalia should not have recused himself in Newdow.

My quarrel, though, is that this is a predictable situation to arise from a heavily politicized judiciary. Unlike Whelan, though, I don't think that we should just shrug it off as inevitable. Nor, I would hazard to guess, would he if the political shoe were on the other foot.

When we've turned the process of judicial selection into a situation in which the party in power will simply appoint judges who follow a political ideology, we end up with judges who are not impartial.

This is not unique to the right - FDR notoriously tried* to stack the Supreme Court in order to protect parts of the New Deal. Though, let's be realistic - conservatives have been in power for most of the last 30 years and, therefore, have been the main culprits in stacking the courts. But, the point is, this is not a purely partisan issue. And the fact that "everybody does it" doesn't make it right, it makes it a serious problem.

In order to have a healthy, functioning judicial branch, we need judges that we can trust to be impartial and open-minded, exactly what we would want were we to be before the court. Judges don't have to be devoid of political beliefs - no one is. But they need to be willing to check their politics at the door - not tools of a political agenda.

The conversation will probably play out over the next few days with one side calling for recusal and the other side demanding Scalia stay - both sides acting out of a desire to see a particular decision from the court. What we should be talking about, though, is how to best ensure that our court system is consistent and fair, and not the arm of a political movement - whatever that movement may be. We should be talking about what's best for us as Americans, and not as political activists. If we could do that, we might be able to avoid these situations in the future.

* Some argue that FDR did stack the court, as, over time, he appointed seven of nine justices. The plan here referred to was the failed one to add justices to the Supreme Court.

Bad news on the economic front. Yesterday, Jonathan Singer at MyDD wrote about the sharp rise in personal bankruptcies. Singer cites an AP article that says

Bankruptcy petitions filed in federal courts totaled 2,039,214 in 2005, up from 1,563,145 in 2004, according to data released Friday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

The problem is not one of wealth creation, says Singer, noting that Forbes reported a 14% rise in the number of American billionaires.

At the same time, states are reporting the weakest revenue growth in two years. Though the growth is down, it's there. But pay attention to how the revenue is coming in - there's an interesting disparity.

While corporate taxes continued their double-digit increases, growth in both sales and personal income taxes dipped to their lowest levels in more than two years, the March 16 report said.

Wealth is being created, sure, but it is also being consolidated in the hands of a select few. As I previously noted, this should come as no surprise. The corporatist economics of the GOP are centered on wealth creation and consolidation, as opposed to creating opportunities for ownership distributed throughout the general population.

Singer says that

"...it would greatly behoove Democratic candidates not to forget and forsake talking about economic equality in America, even if George W. Bush and the GOP believe that there is no economic problem in this country today.

I think he's right, but I think it's important that Democrats, liberals, progressives - whomever, don't just say "there's an economic problem" without proposing a sound alternative to GOP "trickle-down" economics. Just saying, "there's an economic problem" allows conservatives the opportunity to counter with their voodoo economics plans. What progressive should be saying is, "there's an economic problem in this country today, and it's Republican economics - we have a better plan."

A proper plan to tackle personal bankruptcy isn't what the Republicans want - tighter restrictions on who can file. Sure, personal responsibility is part it, but most Americans try to be responsible about their finances. Nobody says, "I'm going to take on a lot of debt and then make it worse by filing bankruptcy." And as much as Republicans like to talk about personal responsibility, they're silent when it comes to the real problem - corporate responsibility.

Republicans want to make it harder to file bankruptcy, but they also want to make it easier for you to go bankrupt. The regulations governing predatory lending are so lax as to make them nearly non-existent. The elephant in the room of the American economy is that banks and corporations are happy to give you credit with interest rates to dig a giant hole and penalties to bury you. It's a shell game corporations play so that you'll use the credit and they can pad their bottom line come end of quarter. This makes shareholders happy, which makes stock prices go up.

In the end, though, the result is that only the tiniest fraction of the population has economic opportunities, and the rest of us are just knocking each other over trying to get to the starting line.

Progressive economics begins with corporate responsibility, and it continues with smart investment in creating opportunities for ownership across the population. This is a plan that will win, not because it sounds good - but because it works.

In a previous post I mentioned that Bush, when signing the bill re-authorizing the Patriot Act, issued a so-called "signing statement" to the effect that he will ignore the oversight requirements. Today, The Boston Globe has more on the story.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

It struck me at the time that this was a blatant overreach by the President, and I did not see how it could stand up to Constitutional scrutiny. Apparently, I'm not the only one who thought so.

Yesterday, Leahy said Bush's assertion that he could ignore the new provisions of the Patriot Act -- provisions that were the subject of intense negotiations in Congress -- represented ''nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law."

''The president's signing statements are not the law, and Congress should not allow them to be the last word," Leahy said in a prepared statement. ''The president's constitutional duty is to faithfully execute the laws as written by the Congress, not cherry-pick the laws he decides he wants to follow. It is our duty to ensure, by means of congressional oversight, that he does so."

The White House, of course, responded by saying "that the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution." This is an important statement, and one that deserves some attention.

One of two things is going on with this "signing statement":

First, the White House is violating the separation of powers by legislating. As Senator Leahy notes, the President is responsible for executing the law as written by Congress. By issuing the "signing statement" to the effect that he will not follow certain parts of the law, he is in fact changing the law.

If the President does not want to or feels he cannot follow a law as passed by Congress, he has the ability to veto the law. He can also work with Congress to suggest legislation. He does not, however, have the right to change certain parts of the law and execute only what he finds convenient.

Second, if the White House issues a statement to the effect that the President will not follow certain parts of a law because he is not required to under the Constitution, then the White House is engaging in Constitutional interpretation - a power reserved for the Courts.

The White House has the right to retain counsel and the right to ask that counsel for their advice on how the President should act so as to be in accordance with the law as passed by Congress. But, the White House cannot set up an ad hoc judicial review office in which they interpret laws and judge inconvenient parts unconstitutional and, therefore, void. If the President is truly concerned with the constitutionality of a law, or part thereof, there is a separate branch of government to handle that situation.

NYU Law Professor David Golove told the Boston Globe that

the statement illustrates the administration's ''mind-bogglingly expansive conception" of executive power, and its low regard for legislative power.

I would argue that it also illustrates the administration's low regard for judicial power, separation of powers, or the Constitution as a whole.

This administration has far exceeded the bounds of acceptable conduct by a good faith executive. I am truly baffled that citizens concerned with good government, especially those that call themselves "conservatives", are not more concerned about these abuses of power. Silence, remember, is considered consent.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a new Republican proposal to give Bush a line-item veto. At the time, I had a few major concerns.

First, one man's pork is another man's Department of Education. Giving an executive the power to line-item veto is, as the Supreme Court has said, giving him the power to legislate. What, after all, should keep Bush from using the line-item veto to further erode spending on programs that benefit Americans to make room for more corporate welfare and Republican pork? This is no outrageous claim, but a logical follow-up to bills such as S.1932.

Second, even though this new Republican proposal requires Congress to approve the President's cuts, the idea is based on the good faith of Congress. What if there was a situation in which the executive and legislative branches were controlled by the same party, and the legislature gave up the task of oversight in order to advance the interests of the party? Or, what if the executive and legislative branches were controlled by different parties functioning in a highly partisan environment and either branch used the new rules for partisan rather than good government ends?

It seems that my concerns were not too far off. A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that the new line-item veto proposal does much more than its proponents have been saying.

The proposal would allow the President to sign appropriations acts and tax and entitlement legislation, and then strike specific provisions from them. He would be allowed to strike far more than “earmarks.” For example, the President could, if he chose, leave all earmarks in place while eliminating all funding for the 91 programs he proposed to eliminate in his February 2006 budget.

Under the proposal, when the President chose to strike amounts from appropriations acts, he could withhold the funds in question for 180 days. During that time, Congress would be required to vote on whether to pass legislation eliminating the funding as the President had requested, without any amendments being allowed. If Congress turned down the President’s request to eliminate the funds, the funds would eventually be released — but the President could continue to withhold them for months after Congress had voted to reject his request to eliminate the funding. Some of the funds could expire in the meantime if the fiscal year for which the funds had been appropriated ended before the close of the 180-day period.

The President also could use the new “line-item veto” procedure to strike provisions of new entitlement legislation and certain new “targeted tax benefits” contained in recently enacted tax bills. This authority would be far broader with respect to entitlement expansions than with respect to tax cuts. In fact, it appears Congressional tax-writers could draft new tax breaks in a way that made them exempt from the new procedure.

Supporters of the bill claim that this is just one more tool that the government can use to cut waste. But upon inspection, it's something quite different. This proposed legislation actually increases the power of the executive branch dramatically, especially as it relates to the power of the purse - a power specifically reserved for Congress.

Some Democrats, like Senator John Kerry (D-MA), have come out in favor of the new line-item veto bill, saying they supported it in 1996 as well. In fact, look for Republican consultants to argue that Democrats opposing this bill have changed their position. This is not true. The new proposal differs substantially from the 1996 proposal.

Unlike H.R. 4890, the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 granted the President the unilateral authority to cancel enacted appropriations. The Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that such authority was unconstitutional, since it allowed the President to change a law by himself, thus violating the constitutional rules for creating or amending laws. The new proposal is presumed to be constitutional because it does not grant the President the authority to change an appropriations act unilaterally; rather, he would request that Congress enact a change in the appropriations law.

There are two ways in which the new proposal could grant the President more power than under the 1996 act. First, that act gave the President five days from the enactment of appropriations, entitlement, or tax legislation to decide whether to cancel some of its provisions, while H.R. 4890 gives the President up to a year. In addition, under the 1996 act, if Congress overturned a presidential rescission by statute, the withheld funds would have to be released; under H.R. 4890, if Congress overturns a presidential veto by defeating the President’s proposal to cancel the funds, the President can continue to withhold the funds for the 180-day period — long enough, in some cases, to effectively cancel them.

Second, the 1996 act allowed the President to cancel entitlement increases but not to scale them back. As noted in this analysis, the authority to scale back entitlement increases may permit the President to rewrite entitlement benefits in unexpected ways.

Take a moment to read the report and carefully consider what the real impact of this bill will be. H.R. 4890 is not a tool for the President to cut wasteful spending, nor is it a measure for lowering the deficit. This is an attempt at a radical restructuring of power in our government, taking away the power of our Representatives, and giving it to an unchecked executive.

George Will has a column in today's Washington Post that criticizes the Florida Supreme Court for a recent decision calling a school voucher program unconstitutional. In his rush to defend all things voucher, regardless of the merits, Will leaves out information necessary to assessing the situation.

In typical form, Will begins with a touching anecdote about a poor little girl whose educational opportunities are being jerked around because of politics. True, the student deserves a quality education - but Will's implication is that she can either get a quality education through a voucher program, or not at all. This is a false dilemma meant to hide the fact that Will refuses to look seriously at improving the public school system.

The problem with Will's column is evident by the second paragraph.

The Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) serves just 733 children statewide, 62 of whom are at this school of 416 students. The OSP provides vouchers, redeemable at private as well as public schools, to students at schools the state says are failing. Archbishop Curley, which in 1960 -- just its seventh year -- became the first Florida secondary school to be racially integrated, has grades nine through 12 and sends more than 98 percent of its graduates to college.

Will tries to make the program sound like no big deal - "just" 733 students! But he doesn't tell us if the 733 children served by the program are all the children who would be otherwise receiving an inadequate education. Sure, the program might be good for those 733, but if the program benefits these few at the expense of the many - that program is unjust and unconstitutional.

This lies at the heart of the courts finding.

Specifically, and incredibly, the court held that the OSP violates the stipulation, which voters put into the constitution in 1998, that the state shall provide a "uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education."

Far from incredible, it seems clear. If the state is singling out 733 students and giving them vouchers to attend better schools while failing to address the inadequate opportunities for other students, the state fails to provide a "uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education" - a basic promise of civilized societies, as well as a constitutional requirement.

This is not a new problem with voucher advocacy. People like Will, those in favor of voucher programs on ideological grounds, have not been able to come up with a program that addresses the needs of all students. This is why emotional anecdotes are so popular with pro-voucher advocates - they hope that the tangible benefits to a small group will convince people to forget about the larger group that is left behind.

The truth is that what lies behind the school voucher debate is often not a desire to better educational opportunities for low-income children, but an ideological desire to dismantle the public education system. In 2003, Texas Representative Debbie Riddle (R - Houston) explained the underlying beliefs of the pro-voucher crowd.

"Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart. It's not a tender heart. It's ripping the heart out of this country."

If George Will and others were truly concerned about the educational opportunities available to students like Octavia Lopez, they would be working to bolster funding for public education, increase salaries so that we can recruit and retain the best teachers, and increase, rather than decrease*, financial aid programs so that students can go on to higher education.

George Will's concern for students is as disingenuous as his argument is sloppy. There is a growing crisis in the American educational system, and half-baked ideas about how to divert much needed funds away from public schools is not the answer. Of course, those making such proposals are fully aware of this.

* The so-called "Deficit Reduction Act of 2005", signed by President Bush, slashes federal student loan programs, severely threatening the ability of many to go to college.

In case you haven't heard, though everyone seems to be talking about it today, the Washington Post hired a new blogger - 24-year-old 2nd generation Bush appointee Ben Domenech to write their new blog, Red America.

When asked about the decision, the Washington Post told Greg Sargent at The American Prospect that

"Ben Domenech brings an original and authentically conservative voice to the site's Opinions area, where we're committed to presenting the most provocative, informed and ideologically diverse policy debate on the web.

This is something I've heard before - no, not that Domenech is informed or ideologically diverse (I don't honestly think they believe that) - they like the kid because he is provocative.

When I was in school I wrote op-eds for my university's newspaper. My columns were good, if I do say so myself, and I never got but one criticism from the editor - can't you be more provocative? The problem, you see, was that I was doing a lot of research and trying to make an informed and reasoned argument. That's all fine and good, but, as I was told - people want to read something that touches a nerve.

Since I've left school I've written professionally in a few places - all of which wanted rational and informed copy. None of the people for whom I wrote ever complained about what I gave them - quite the contrary.

I have had advice on getting more attention as an independent blogger, though. Namely, be outrageous. Be provocative - even if you know what you're saying is nonsense, that's how you get the hits. If that's what it takes to get the hits, then no thanks.

Ben Domenech is just another name in a long list of soon-to-be-forgottens - Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Bill O'Reilly, etc.* - one trick ponies whose only purpose is to titillate by being so self-righteously, ridiculously uninformed. People who do what David Brooks has called "clownishness."

Frank Luntz knows that good political communication makes you respond emotionally. The Washington Post is betting that this silly kid is going to draw a big crowd over - conservatives to yell "yeah! right on!" and liberals to scream about his egregious errors. It's the same reason people hire Tucker Carlson and and Sean Hannity. But that's not news, it's a circus sideshow.

Here's my complaint - actually, it's John Stewart's complaint - they're hurting America. Look, Ben Domenech is just some 24-year-old kid who doesn't have the experience, education, or insight to really know what he's talking about. I know, I remember being 24 - it was awesome. I still knew everything. The problem was, I grew up. Now I realize that there are serious, complicated issues that tired slogans and silly posturing won't solve.

We deserve better. We look to news organizations like The Washington Post and CNN for news - for facts and informed analysis, the tools we require to make informed decisions and be good, involved citizens. If we want to hear the smug, self-important political rants of 24-year-old kids, we'll go to a shot bar.

Entertainment is great, and so is making a profit. But each has its place and its limits. Frankly, if you sacrifice quality for profit, expect to soon have neither. Hopefully, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and all the other infotainment centers will figure this out and go back to doing good, solid journalism. Until then, don't expect us to take any of your reporting seriously, either.

[UPDATE] Okay, this is hilarious. Remember, the Washington Post is "committed to presenting the most provocative, informed and ideologically diverse policy debate on the web". Here's a quote from their new addition:

I would normally be tempted to respond to this very stupid column by a college student at UConn about how he believes everything changes the moment an American soldier dies. This aversion to any sort of bodybag in the context of war is something my brother Ellis and I have mocked before, at length: we like to call it the "Contra 3 Syndrome." In Contra, one of the most popular arcade games ever (unrelated to the South American resistance), you play a soldier blasting away at baddies (in the 3rd installment, for the SNES, it's alien baddies) with oversized weaponry in a side-scrolling firefight. It's an entertaining game, but extremely short--Contra 3 is only 6 levels long. Besides, you really need all three of your lives to deal with the last boss--so a lot of people who play the game will restart the minute they lose their first life. Ellis and I are more likely to make it to the end with only one life left, but hey, that's the point of the game, not erasing/restarting every time anyone dies. Modern War isn't exactly like Contra, and it's a good deal longer than any 6-level game. For many of my peers who've avoided history books, this is a surprising fact.

I mean, seriously, this is what it takes to write for the Washington Post now? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...oh, man, that's rich.

* I know this is a list of so-called conservatives, but, let's be honest, there just isn't really a comparable liberal at this time. Al Franken? He wishes he were so popular. Michael Moore? Eh, I would agree to that if he was on TV and in the papers all the time.

Just yesterday I was wondering why no one had filed a lawsuit in re S.1932, (also known by the laughably Orwellian nickname "Deficit Reduction Act of 2005"). Why was I contemplating a lawsuit? Because the bill the President signed was not the same in the House and Senate version - a basic constitutional requirement that one learns about in junior high civics.

Today, though, my question was answered.

Public Citizen has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. From their press release:

A law President Bush signed on Feb. 8 is invalid because he signed a version of the bill that was passed by the U.S. Senate but not the U.S. House of Representatives, Public Citizen told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit filed today. The law, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, decreases student loan and Medicare spending, extends welfare cuts and cuts federal funding of state child-support enforcement programs.

Say what you want about the Republican plan to slash funding for Medicare and student loans, but the fact of the matter is that the bill signed by the President is prima facie invalid.

Those so inclined can read the complaint in its entirety here.

This shouldn't be a controversial case. Even the conservative American Enterprise Institute has called this affair rotten. One wonders why the Republicans are so adamant about ignoring the rule of law. For a more in depth look at the questions involved, I recommend you take a moment to read Marty Lederman's original post from when the bill was signed. This should be an interesting case to follow.

"Intrepid Liberal Journal" wrote a post at MyDD about something I've been thinking a lot about lately: pro-business liberalism. I recommend taking a moment to read the post, as it's well written and offers some good ideas on how to dispel the myth that liberals are anti-business.

Bush's failed policies however offer the Democrats an opportunity to become the party of small business and become the majority party again. For one thing, there is an emerging consensus among small and medium sized businesses about the cost of health care. Businesses of all sizes are hemorrhaging money because the increasing number of uninsured Americans is hiking premiums. In that environment a single payer system is an appealing alternative because it will lift a heavy financial burden from employers. Personally, I don't believe single payer health care in America is politically viable but government assuming more of the financial burden certainly is. Real health care reform can be sold to the business community as an economic stimulus package designed to liberate entrepreneurs to invest their profits into growth and development instead of keeping up with the rising cost of premiums.

Another way the Democrats can appeal to the business community is by revisiting the bankruptcy reform law that passed last year. The new law is actually damaging to the modest risk-taking entrepreneur because it takes away a potential safety net in case their business fails. Typically, small businesses are largely financed out of the entrepreneur's pocket and if his business fails, declaring bankruptcy allows him to have a fresh start and take care of his family. Hence, DLC Democrats like Joe Biden, Harry Reid and Evan Bayh actually stifled job creation by supporting this legislation because it will make prospective entrepreneurs more risk adverse. Yet the new law allows large corporations such as Delta Airlines to declare bankruptcy and default on their pension obligations. That's wrong morally as well as economically. Democrats should vigorously campaign on a platform to revisit the legislation. This can be sold to the business community as a safety net for the small entrepreneurs who create jobs.

Conservatives have spent decades building up the notion that liberals are in favor of central planning. This isn't true, though. It's a smokescreen meant to hide the fact that conservatives are not pro-business so much as they are pro-wealth consolidation. Conservative economics does not spur economic growth across the population, nor does it offer opportunities or incentives for average citizens to go into business for themselves. Conservative economics is Wal-Mart economics - it's about consolidating wealth in the hands of very few at the expense of everyone else. That's why conservatives are so quick to defend Wal-Mart's slash-and-burn practices that devastate local economies, while ignoring ways to encourage more opportunities for ownership amongst regular citizens.

I've noted here before that anyone who takes the time to read Adam Smith, or even Frederick Hayek, will realize that capitalism has much more to do with liberal economics than conservative. Conservatives read economics and cherry-pick what is convenient to their argument, leaving aside things like Smith's call for progressive income taxation, or Hayek's call for governmental regulation of industry.

The way conservatives do this, of course, is by making false arguments about slippery slopes. Conservatives have been arguing for massive deregulation for decades, saying that it is unnecessary - that it will suffocate the economy. One the biggest proponents of this argument was former Enron CEO Ken Lay. Of course, we can now look back and see that his real purpose was to get rid of the regulations so that he could loot the energy market. Absent any rules or regulations, one company may be able to maximize profits at unheard of levels - but that isn't capitalism, it's simple highway-robbery.

In order for a free society to thrive, citizens must play by the rules. And playing by the rules does not mean seizing power so that you can effectively re-write the rules in your favor. Conservatives are not pro-business, they're pro-mega corporation. It's long past time for liberals to take up the pro-business cause and communicate to the American people that our goal is to develop a strong and robust economy where everyone has a real opportunity for ownership, not just the billionaires. The first step is to demand responsible policies and regulations that benefit everyone, not just the top 1%.

In the ongoing race for conservatives to distance themselves from the failed Presidency of George W. Bush, there have been a lot of former Bush cheerleaders saying that Bush's spending is out of control. Newspapers are reporting that "Big Government" style spending is alienating traditional Republicans and that Bush's spending has the GOP in a deep funk.

Some progressive organizations have picked up on this rift and repeated the message: Bush's spending is out of control.

While it is true that Senate Republicans voted to raise the national debt limit to $9 trillion despite the unanimous opposition of Senate Democrats, the way this story is being talked about often evades the real reasons that Republican fiscal policy is so disastrous.

Conservative commentators are talking about the current fiscal irresponsibility as "Big Government" and "out of control spending" as if the Republican leadership is funding a welfare state. The truth of the matter is, though, that the Bush is not breaking the bank to increase funding to programs that protect Americans - the impression conservatives try to give. The current Republican fiscal fiasco is a result of three things:

[1] Irresponsible giveaways for the super-rich

[2] Failure to plan ahead or respond intelligently in Iraq and New Orleans

[3] Republican addiction to pork barrel spending

Republicans are acting fiscally irresponsible, to be sure - and they're doing so at the expense of regular Americans. The budget Bush sent to Congress contained massive cuts in programs such as Medicare, foodstamps, education, and housing for senior citizens. Republicans aren't breaking the bank to give Americans opportunities, they're looting the treasury to pay for high priced vacations and multi-million dollar lifestyles.

Expect conservatives to continue to try to spin the Republican fiscal disaster as something other than what it really is - irresponsible people who can't be trusted to use our taxes for our benefit.

Conservatives want you to continue talking about Bush's "irresponsible spending" as if it was a continuation of criticisms that they've made about past liberal administrations. They want you to equate Bush's disastrous economic policy with someone other than themselves. But Republicans aren't acting like liberals - remember the economy under Clinton? Republicans are acting like drunk teenagers who stole their father's credit cards.

Conservatives are bankrupting the nation while trying to make it look like something it isn't. The cause of the current financial dangers has nothing to do with "big government" or "out of control spending" - it has to do with basic fiscal irresponsibility and ham handed looting by a Republican controlled White House and Congress.

While we're on the subject of Scalia, one of his favorite gripes has to do with U.S. Courts citing foreign laws and legal decisions. This is an issue that has been popular with the far-right in this country for a while, and has bubbled up again recently following a speech Justice Ginsburg gave in South Africa in February.

Far-right conspiracy theorists see the citing of foreign law as the U.S. "outsourcing American law". The fact of the matter, though, is that this is really a non-issue.

From Ginsburg's speech:

While the Civil War and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution reversed the Dred Scott judgment, U.S. jurists and political actors today divide sharply on the propriety of looking beyond our nation's borders, particularly on matters touching fundamental human rights. Some have expressed spirited opposition. Justice Scalia counsels: The Court "should cease putting forth foreigners' views as part of the reasoned basis of its decisions. To invoke alien law when it agrees with one's own thinking, and ignore it otherwise, is not reasoned decisionmaking, but sophistry."

Another trenchant critic, Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner, commented not long ago: "To cite foreign law as authority is to flirt with the discredited . . . idea of a universal natural law; or to suppose fantastically that the world's judges constitute a single, elite community of wisdom and conscience." Judge Posner's view rests, in part, on the concern that U.S. judges do not comprehend the social, historical, political, and institutional background from which foreign opinions emerge. Nor do we even understand the language in which laws and judgments, outside the common law realm, are written.

Judge Posner is right, of course, to this extent: Foreign opinions are not authoritative; they set no binding precedent for the U.S. judge. But they can add to the store of knowledge relevant to the solution of trying questions. Yes, we should approach foreign legal materials with sensitivity to our differences, deficiencies, and imperfect understanding, but imperfection, I believe, should not lead us to abandon the effort to learn what we can from the experience and good thinking foreign sources may convey.

Representative of the perspective I share with four of my current colleagues, Patricia M. Wald, once Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and former Judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, last year said with characteristic wisdom: "It's hard for me to see that the use of foreign decisional law is an up-or-down proposition. I see it rather as a pool of potential and useful information and thought that must be mined with caution and restraint."

...

To a large extent, I believe, the critics in Congress and in the media misperceive how and why U.S. courts refer to foreign and international court decisions. We refer to decisions rendered abroad, it bears repetition, not as controlling authorities, but for their indication, in Judge Wald's words, of "common denominators of basic fairness governing relationships between the governors and the governed."

...

The U.S. Constitution, Justice Scalia has remarked, contains no instruction resembling South Africa's Section 39 prescription. So U.S. courts, he thinks, have no warrant from our fundamental instrument of government to consider foreign law. I would demur to that observation. Judges in the United States are free to consult all manner of commentary - Restatements, Treatises, what law professors or even law students write copiously in law reviews, for example. If we can consult those writings, why not the analysis of a question similar to the one we confront contained in an opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the German Constitutional Court, or the European Court of Human Rights?

This hardly seems like a controversial position. Looking to all relevant sources when trying to analyze difficult cases strikes me as being wise. Why should U.S. courts limit the experience to which they can refer? Judges are not applying foreign law to American citizens, they're looking at how other people approached similar issues. Justice Ginsburg is, essentially, arguing that if we can see someone else touch a hot stove, we need not touch it ourselves to learn that it burns.

So, what is all the fuss about? Really, it has little to do with objections to citing foreign law per se, and more to do with a legal view that freezes Constitutional interpretation in the 18th century. Said Justice Ginsburg:

The notion that it is improper to look beyond the borders of the United States in grappling with hard questions, as my quotation from Chief Justice Taney suggested, is in line with the view of the U.S. Constitution as a document essentially frozen in time as of the date of its ratification. I am not a partisan of that view. U.S. jurists honor the Framers' intent "to create a more perfect Union," I believe, if they read the Constitution as belonging to a global 21st century, not as fixed forever by 18th-century understandings.

What seems to be most at issue here are standards of civilized conduct. The far-right looks positively, almost gleefully, on acts such as the execution of minors and the mentally retarded, torture, and secret prisons; they relish in restrictions on the private conduct of citizens - from laws dictating with whom one can have sex, to laws specifying what books one can read; they delight in unchecked executive power and arbitrary detention.

More and more the "freedom" espoused by members of the far-right is more closely aligned with radical Islamism, not the positive liberty enshrined in the writings of the Founding Fathers and other enlightenment figures. American judges are not "outsourcing American law" - this sort of rhetoric is simply meant to hoodwink and manipulate, they are following in the tradition of the Founding Fathers by looking to the greatest breadth of knowledge in trying to form a more perfect union.

The United States boasts the preeminent legal system in the world. Though imperfect, as are all legal systems, the American courts are a constant beam of light, assuring people in darker corners of the world that liberty is possible. Those that slander Justice Ginsburg and others who honestly and tirelessly work to ensure a place for justice serve only to dampen that light. And that is truly an injustice.

Justice Scalia is in the news again after delivering a speech in which he condemned "judge-moralists." According to the Associated Press report,

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia railed against the era of the "judge-moralist," saying judges are no better qualified than "Joe Sixpack" to decide moral questions such as abortion and gay marriage.

Now, being a "Joe Sixpack", I'm flattered by Scalia's thinking of me. And I agree with him on this completely. Sure, we can all sit around reading Kant and Rawls until we're blue in the face, but we, as individuals, will still probably disagree with one another about things like consequentialism vs. deontology and what have you.

Furthermore, I think that this should not really have much to do with the way questions such as abortion and gay marriage are decided in relation to the law.

One man's morality is another man's immorality. So, how do we fix this in relation to the law? I would argue that we don't. The morality of an issue should not come into play with regard to the law. Abortion laws should be established based not on one or another person's idea of morality, but on whether or not there is a societal interest that outweighs the the right to individual liberty (in this case the woman's liberty to obtain a medical procedure).

There can also be questions of conflicting individual interests, such as whose interests take priority - the woman or the child growing within her. In this case, though, the question begins with complicated and unanswered questions of science - when is the magic moment that life begins? From there we can get into difficult questions of how to prioritize conflicting claims, but in order to have that discussion, we have to establish when the fetus is vested in its rights (something thoughtfully answered in Roe v. Wade).

The AP goes on to say,

"Judicial hegemony" has replaced the public's right to decide important moral questions, he said.

I think Scalia's wrong about this. I've never met anyone who changed their decision about important moral questions based on what any judge or court wrote. Nor do I know anyone who considers judges or courts the last word on questions of morality. The public is still free to believe that drinking alcohol is immoral, and it is still free to believe that miscegenation is immoral. But that has nothing to do with whether or not the state should be able to dictate what one can or cannot drink, or with whom one can or cannot have sex - that is a question of law not morality. This is one of the important things that sets our nation apart from others like Afghanistan and Iran.

What irritates Scalia, I think, is not a question of whether or not any judge is making moral declarations from the bench. I think that, unlike most Americans, Scalia believes not that we are a free people, whose rights can be restricted only when it promotes an overwhelming societal interest, but that we are a people living under a state authority that has granted us a limited set of narrowly defined rights outside of which those in authority may make any restriction of our individual liberties based on their own personal morality (Scalia's in particular).

I'm not a legal scholar, so my understanding of all of this comes from what little I've read here and there. But I have, for some time, been under the impression that the American legal system was established when the people granted the state a limited set of narrowly defined powers, and reserved for themselves everything else.

Scalia is correct that judges should not moralize from the bench. He would be well reminded, though, that this maxim should apply even when you agree with the morality being promoted.

A couple of days ago, I was walking down the street when I saw the headline glaring from the front of the Washington Times box on the corner: Bush says Iran bombs used in Iraq

My immediate reaction was to laugh. Part of this had to do with the fact that this was the front of The Washington Times. Other newspapers declare that Batboy is driving a cab in New York, The Washington Times gets its fantastic stories from the White House. But the main reason that my eyes went into an involuntary roll was that, well, I felt like I'd heard this old story before.

Sure enough, it's more of the same. General Pace, Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff, said, there is no evidence that Iran's government has been smuggling arms or personnel into Iraq.

Now, General Pace also thinks that the situation in Iraq is going "very, very well", so I'm not sure that he's really the best source of information regarding anything military, but some people seem to think he still has credibility.

So, there you have it. The administration continues to say that Iran is arming insurgents, even though they don't have any evidence of it. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the occupation of Iraq is going well, even though it's apparent to everyone else that it's a massive failure. Now these guys can't even get their lies straight long enough to confuse everyone for a while. Forgive me if I have a hard time taking seriously anything they say.

The DCCC has a great new site dedicated to the Rubber Stamp Republicans that are in control of Congress.

During the Q&A at the end of Senator Menendez's speech today he said that one of the primary problems in Washington today is that Congress - in both houses - has completely abdicated its responsibility for oversight. These are the Rubber Stamp Republicans.

These are the folks who refuse to crack down on price gouging by energy companies, choosing instead to give away billions in taxpayer dollars to the very companies that are fleecing us.

They've given away billions to the pharmaceutical industry while doing nothing to combat the skyrocketing costs of health care.

Rubber Stamp Republicans love "Support Our Troops" bumperstickers, but when it comes time to really do something for our men and women in uniform, they vote against programs like giving more military personell access to TRICARE.

They've not only voted against healthcare for our troops, they've actually cut funding for veterans' health care by $14 billion.

This is the legacy of the Rubber Stamp Republicans. Just because they haven't been doing their job, though, doesn't mean they haven't been busy. How many Republicans have been indicted and convicted this year? These Republicans are so out of control that they actually voted to weaken ethics rules in the House.

Check out the website and the new report that they just put out on the real costs to us as citizens for this derelict Republican legislature. You might want to wait for a while if you've just eaten, though - it's enough to make you sick.

This morning, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) gave a great speech at the Center for American Progress on the subject of Ports, Politics, and Priorities: A Common Sense Plan to Strengthen Our Security. The Senator noted that, regardless of anyone's opinion of the merits of the Dubai Ports World deal, it presents an important opportunity to close a gaping hole in our national security.

American ports are the major door to our country for import goods. Though this is the case, Sen. Menendez said, most Americans don't really think about ports very often; unfortunately, neither does this administration. Menendez cited the administration's approach to security following the 2004 ABC report in which 15 pounds of depleted uranium were shipped into the U.S. two years in a row without being detected. Rather than act to close the hole in security, the Bush administration chose to threaten the reporters who exposed the problem. The security gap remains to this day.

That is going to change, though, if Sen. Menendez and a group of Democratic legislators have anything to say about it. Menendez explicitly stated that "the status quo is unacceptable" and declared that he will be offering an amendment that will close the security holes in our nations ports by moving to a policy of 100% cargo screening. Right now 95% or more of cargo coming into American ports goes unscreened.

Sen. Menendez also said that his plan will increase grants for port security, and ensure that that money goes directly to the securing of our ports. The Bush administration, he says, wants to do away with the port security grants, instead diverting the money into a general pool to be competed over by different departments. Sen. Menendez believes that our national security priorities should not be decided by the politics of pork-barrel favors, but argues instead that security grants should be distributed based on risk.

Sen. Menendez supports a common-sense approach to national security. Both the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax mailing showed that, in order to protect ourselves, we have to take a serious look at unconventional methods of delivery - airplanes, envelopes, and cargo containers. The Senator also noted how important preventative investment is. After all, he asked, who among us does not wish that we had made adequate investment in the levees in New Orleans, thus saving hundreds of lives and billions of dollars.

By leaving our ports unsecured, we place ourselves at risk for a devastating attack, the likes of which this country has never seen. By making intelligent investments in security now, we can stop the sort of attack that would result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, major infrastructure, and billions of dollars.

It just makes sense.

Here's a bit of free advice for Dubai Ports World and their enabler, George Bush. If the country has serious doubts about whether or not you can be trusted, lying doesn't help. The Associated Press is now reporting that DPW's decision to sell off interests in American ports to "an American entity" is nothing more than a thin smokescreen.

WASHINGTON - The Dubai-owned company that promised to surrender its U.S. port operations has no immediate plans to sell its U.S. subsidiary's interests at Miami's seaport, a senior executive wrote Monday in a private e-mail to business associates.

Even if DP World were to sell its Miami operations to quell the congressional furor over an Arab-owned company managing major U.S. ports, "that would probably take a while," wrote Robert Scavone, a vice president for DP World's U.S. subsidiary.

In about an hour, I'm going to hear Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) speak about ports and security at the Center for American Progress. I'll be interested to hear his thoughts, especially in light of this most recent development.

Writing today, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner dispels most of the Republican myths about the Dubai Ports World deal. Judge Posner is no Democratic partisan, and is often on the conservative side of issues. I thought it was particularly interesting, then, that he wrapped up his post with his paragraph:

I have expressed concern before in this blog and in other media about what seems a crisis of competence in U.S. government. For reasons probably rooted in the sheer complexity of modern society, to which our governmental structure may not be well adapted, we have experienced in recent years a series of policy fiascoes, many of which seem to reflect an inability to plan ahead. In the case of the DP World deal, this inability was expressed in the failure to foresee the public reaction to the deal.

This is similar to statements being made by conservative economist Bruce Bartlett and conservative columnist George Will.

The current breed of Republican leadership has shown time and time again that they are more interested in using government as a means of personal gain than for the proper administration of our nation. The fact of the matter is, the Republicans are not able to govern competently - they just can't get the job done.

This is just pathetic.

Republican leaders are currently attending a huge soiree down in Memphis. It's the site of the 2006 Southern Republican Leadership Conference. One of the highlights of the event is supposed to be a straw-poll for the 2008 Presidential nominee. McCain, Lott, Frist - they're all down there pressing the flesh and kissing babies, all without the distraction of those meddling Democrats. What could possibly go wrong?

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) told the Grind he believes the poll -- that will be conducted by The Hotline at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference -- is "a rigged deal" and should not serve as a barometer to determine who might be the best candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008.

"Frist is bussing people in," Lott said, referring to Senate Majority Bill Frist (R-Tennessee), whose political organization is working to ensure he wins this unscientific early test of election viability. "These are not real delegates. These are people being bussed in to produce the results. It is a rigged deal. It doesn't matter."

That's right - Republican leaders are fighting with one another over accusations of attempts to rig the unscientific, unbinding, prizeless straw-poll. Not that election fixing is anything new to the Republican leadership, mind you. If you will recall, Republicans in the House had to call do-over on the election for House Majority Leader last month. Why? When the votes came in, there were more votes than Congressmen.

Republicans can't even hold an honest election within their own party. Pathetic.

President Bush issued one of his infamous "signing statements" for HR 199 - the "USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005". In it, he seems to say that he will ignore reporting provisions specifically laid out by his own party.

Orin Kerr sums it up at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Some influential lawyers in the Administration believe that Congress has only limited ability to interfere with the executive branch, and such statements express the Administration's intent not to follow provisions that its lawyers believe interfere with executive power. In most cases, we don't know what the statements mean: the executive branch announces that it is taking a position based on its view of Article II, but never discloses exactly what that position is.

...

Congress has required DOJ to conduct audits and file reports, and we'll presumably learn the executive branch's view of the law when it refuses to comply in whole or in part with Congress's requirements.

One of the most troubling qualifications, I think, is this:

The executive branch shall construe the provisions...in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties. *

Think of what all that implies - impair foreign relations? the deliberative processes of the Executive? I think this is another invocation of the new anti-embarrassment legal principle. Of course, as Kerr rightly notes, we won't know until it happens. If there's one thing we're never going to get from this administration, it's a straight answer.

On a lighter note, I think it would be great if there was a Constitutional requirement that the President explain, in his own words, what his statements mean.

* Emphasis mine.

Republicans are good at one thing - talk.  If there were a Department of Talking Points, I would suggest a Democratic President appoint someone from the RNC.  But our nation doesn't run on talking points, and if we're going to have the standard of living we promise in America, we're going to need competent people working in our government.

Yesterday's New York Times reported that New York's Housing Authority is in a budgetary crisis.  Part of this is due to rising energy costs, but the problem is exacerbated by the fact that federal authorities are not funding housing programs at sufficient levels.

Meanwhile, the federal deficit has skyrocketed to a record $119 billion in February.  This despite the fact that  individual income tax receipts are up.

So, where is all the money going?  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued a report in February showing that if the Republican tax program is extended, $917 billion would go into the pockets of the richest 1% of Americans.


Republican economics make no sense.  The American dream is one of opportunity, but by failing to fund programs that help Americans get on their feet - programs like those that provide adequate housing for the working poor - Republicans fail to provide opportunities for hardworking Americans.

Instead, the Republican tax giveaway takes money out of programs like Head Start, No Child Left Behind, and student loans and gives that money to people like Jack Abramoff and Dick Cheney who use the money for things like a $20,000 car monitor or $80,000 shotguns.

If we're going to provide Americans with the kinds of opportunities that our grandparents and our parents had, we have to put an end to these Republican tax giveaways.  It's time for competent Democratic leadership that will get things done for America.

You have to hand it to them, Republicans certainly look after their own. Unfortunately, it's all too often at the expense of taxpayers dollars and competent government.

This week President Bush continues in his tradition of appointing unqualified friends to high-level positions with the appointment of Douglas L. Hoelscher as Executive Director of the Homeland Security Advisory Committees.

Hoelscher has no management experience, a review of his professional credentials shows. He came to government in 2001 as a low-level White House staffer, arranging presidential travel, according to news reports. He earned $30,000 a year, salary documents show.

To be fair, Hoelscher does have a little bit of experience in the Homeland Security field.

During Katrina, he helped deploy volunteers from the department to the Gulf Coast, she said. The congressional report on Katrina noted that some of those employees had trouble making it to the region because of departmental miscommunications.

Heckuva job, Dougie!

Hoelscher is not the first unqualified Republican to be appointed by President Bush. There was also Michael Brown (FEMA), Harriet Miers (SCOTUS), Eduards Aguirre, Jr. (USCIS), and Julie Myers (Customs).

Nor is Hoelscher the youngest Bush fan to get a high-level job. At 28, he's a relative geriatric. Last year Bush appointed one of Jenna's ex-boyfriends to a cush $70,000 a year position in the White House. Blake Gottesman is Bush's "personal aide". Gottesman is 25 and says he hopes to get a college degree when he's done working at the White House.

Last night, Bruce Bartlett was on The Daily Show. During the discussion he made clear that one of the things that was most concerning to him, as a staunch conservative, is that this Republican leadership - and the Bush administration in particular - is completely inept. Maybe we wouldn't be seeing such disasters if the government wasn't full of Bush's friends and their kids.

This is a strong point for Democrats in the upcoming elections. This administration has promoted friends and kids at the expense of the safety of the American people. What do you think a regular, hardworking guy thinks about Jenna's ex-boyfriend making $70,000 in the White House at 25? Or a 28-year-old with no experience taking up an Executive Director position at DHS?

Americans want experienced, competent, capable people in positions of responsibility. Over the last six years, the Republicans have shown that they either don't know any competent people, or they don't care to put them in charge. It's time to let the Democrats do the job right.

The crass Republican exploitation of religion for material gain continues apace.  Today's Chicago Tribune today reports that government handouts to religious groups are increasing at a phenomenal rate.

In his 2007 budget proposal, Bush is seeking $323 million for [The White House's Compassion Capital Fund], 36 percent more than the $236 million allocated this year, while the funding of many government agencies is cut.

In addition, five federal agencies--including the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services--increased their grants to faith-based groups to $1.334 billion in 2004, up 14 percent from the year before. Combined with grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Agriculture, the overall spending for faith-based initiatives in 2004 surpassed $2 billion.

When Bush on Thursday addresses a White House Conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, expected to draw 1,500 people, he will report that spending in 2005 set a new record as well.

The Republican courting of religious groups is nothing but a ploy to manipulate honest religious people so that Republicans can loot the Treasury.  Republicans continue to act with no compassion when it really matters while, at the same time, they hand their friends millions of taxpayer dollars that were meant to help protect Americans.

...the federal government has become a major source of money for Operation Blessing, [Pat] Robertson's international charity, under the Bush initiative. In two years, the group's annual revenue from government grants has ballooned from $108,000 to $14.4 million.

That Republicans are manipulating evangelicals and other religious people for personal gain is no secret.  Talk of it can be found even in conservative Christian magazines.

This week's executive order establishing an office to funnel taxpayer money out of the Department of Homeland Security and into the pockets of Republican supports is yet another example of how Republicans are selling out America for their personal benefit.

Democrats need to break the silence on this issue and put a stop to Republican programs that destroy our ability to protect protect ourselves in time of need.  It's time to put into office people whose interests are the same as ours, not those of Jack Abramoff and George W. Bush.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the District, held a hearing to talk about implementing a flat tax on city residents, which would be voluntary. D.C. residents could opt to remain under the current federal tax system.

But seeing who is backing it certainly does not put me at ease:

Brownback did not ask local officials to testify yesterday; he said he planned to hold another hearing. The witnesses included former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) and analysts from the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation.

Wow, with friends like that, who needs friends, right?

While everyone was waiting with baited breath for the election returns from yesterday's Texas primaries, President Bush was busy doing the people's business.  Namely, issuing an executive order establishing a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security.  To wit:

Sec. 2. Purpose of Center. The purpose of the Center shall be to coordinate agency efforts to eliminate regulatory, contracting, and other programmatic obstacles to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the provision of social and community services.

My first response to this was disbelief.  What does Bush's "faith based initiatives" have to do with Homeland Security?  There are serious problems in DHS that have come to light, most recently, following the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina.  But the solution, as far as I could tell, had nothing to do with faith, and everything to do with finding competent people who are more concerned with securing the homeland than the President's poll numbers.

Then it hit me.  This is a "faith based initiative" just like all the previous "faith based initiatives" - it's a boondoggle.  Bush's "faith based initiatives" program was, from the very beginning, a two-part program: (1) a strategic initiative to eliminate social services from the Federal government and (2) a means of ingraining Republican support into the structure of government.

As Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) has shown, there is a lot of money to be made in the security business.  And there has long been hard evidence that so-called "faith based initiatives" is little more than a political patronage program.  For the Republicans, they're two great tastes that taste great together.

George Bush and the Republican leadership are no more interested in homeland security than they are in protecting the Constitution.

If you're concerned about homeland security, I hope you have a lot of faith.  With the Republicans at the helm, it's the only thing standing between us and catastrophic disaster.

Duncan Hunter is convicted felon Randy "Duke" Cunningham's best friend forever, according to today's issue of The Hill. And it should come as no surprise, really - those two have been working together for years.

Since 1994, Wilkes and ADCS gave $40,700 in campaign contributions to Rep. Duncan Hunter, a San Diego Republican who now chairs the House Armed Services Committee. Hunter has acknowledged that he joined with Cunningham in 1999 to contact Pentagon officials who reversed a decision and gave ADCS one of its first big contracts, for nearly $10 million. Hunter's spokesman, Joe Kasper, said the congressman was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

Did you catch that? The Pentagon "reversed a decision" to give ADCS the big money contract. Not only did the military not ask for the ADCS projects, they actively turned it down. So how did these projects end up in the federal budget? Cunningham and his good friend Duncan Hunter put in a little overtime.

After the Pentagon declined to give ADCS a contract, it awarded the company a $9.8 million deal in mid-1999 after "inquiries from two members of Congress," a Defense investigation found. Hunter and Cunningham have said they asked Pentagon officials about the program.

Cunningham and Hunter worked so closely together they even got the same awards.

Wilkes' ties to Hunter and Cunningham go beyond campaign contributions. In 2003, the businessman's foundation hosted a "Salute to Heroes" gala to give Hunter an award, just as it did for Cunningham a year earlier. The Wilkes Foundation gave $1,000 in 2003 to a charity run by two of Hunter's staffers, records show.

Not bad, though that $1,000 given to the charity run by two of Hunter's staffers is a drop in the bucket compared to the $37,700 Hunter himself received.

So the next time Duncan Hunter shows up on a Sunday morning talk show, I'd like to see someone ask him about this, rather than let him try to steal credit for Democratic attempts to secure American ports.

It must be an election year. Bill Frist has scheduled a vote on another flag burning amendment.

Frist:

"The American flag is a proud and sacred reminder of the principles of freedom and opportunity that form the foundation of our Republic. Our flag reminds us that there is more that unites us as Americans than divides us, and a constitutional amendment will give one of our Nation's proudest and most treasured symbols the protection it deserves. It honors the sacrifice of countless brave men and women who died defending our flag and the ideals it represents. I look forward to bringing the Flag Protection Amendment to the floor at the end of June so we can debate legislation that respects one of the principal symbols of our nation, and appropriately honors the sacrifice and commitment of all those who've acted to protect it."

I wish someone would propose and amendment that would ban flag-related amendments.

I came across this today and thought it made a pretty interesting point about how out of touch Republican leaders are from mainstream America.

$35,000 -- basic-needs budget for a U.S. family of four (two adults, two children), as calculated in An Atlas of Poverty in America

$19,157 -- poverty line for a family of four (two adults, two children) in the U.S. in 2004, as established by the U.S. Census Bureau

$19,000 -- amount spent by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's wife Columba during a five-day shopping spree in Paris in 1999

12.7 -- percentage of U.S. citizens living below the poverty line in 2004 (37 million people)

I wonder how many pairs of shoes the Bush women have?

Today's New York Times has an article about the latest Republican budget proposal. The bill contains the usual odiousness of Republican budgets:

Senior aides say the conservatives' plan would wring about $350 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs and save $300 billion partly through a major reorganization of the Education, Commerce and Energy Departments.

But something else later in the article struck me.

Though members of Congress are typically reluctant to cede too much power over spending to the executive branch, several lawmakers gave initial expressions of support, including House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.

"It's no secret that President Bush and I don't agree on much," Mr. Kerry said, "but I fully support giving him the line-item veto."

The Supreme Court rightly overturned the law that granted Bill Clinton line-item veto power - it unconstitutionally gives legislative power to the executive branch at the expense of Congress. So, why is Kerry now supporting giving Bush this same power?

Republicans believe they've found a sneaky way around Constitutional objections:

Under the new proposal, the president would be able to identify objectionable projects and then send them back to Capitol Hill for an up-or-down vote without requiring a veto of the entire bill.

But the fact that the Republican dominated Congress has acted as nothing but a rubber stamp for the Bush administration does little to effectively deal with the fact that this is a blatant transfer of legislative power to an already overreaching executive.

But this sort of dereliction of duty has become predictable for the Republican leadership. Why, though, is John Kerry in favor of this? The Bush administration has shown nothing but contempt for the separation of powers, checks and balances, and transparency that made our country great. If any administration has shown a predilection for abuse of power, it's this one.

Democrats need to be presenting a united voice in opposition to the Republican budget that gives away the nation at the expense of regular Americans, not conceding more power to the Bush administration.