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The New York Post is nobody's idea of "the liberal media", so when they come out with something like this it tends to catch my attention:

New York Post Online Edition: business: " ON Friday the government will report the latest employment figures for the nation. And while I won't - because I can't - predict whether the numbers will continue to show a miserable job market, you can count on one thing: The data will be misleading.
Here are some reasons why, good or bad, the U.S. Labor Department's 8:30 a.m. announcement will be as credible as the fortune you get in those Chinese cookies.

• The government missed a whopping 440,000 jobs that were lost last year. Why should this year's figures be any more accurate?
• Last January the unemployment rate was 'adjusted' downward by 0.2 percent for changes in surveying methods. Right now the closely watched rate should actually be 6.6 percent, not 6.4 percent. If the rate does drop - as some on Wall Street are hoping/predicting - so what?
• The government recently started seasonally adjusting its employment figures each and every month. Washington may as well let the numbers be picked by a Lotto machine.
• Back in the 1990s, the government changed the questions it asked in its household unemployment survey; more recently, it lowered the number of people it canvassed in chronically underemployed inner cities.
  The result, not surprisingly: an unemployment rate that is lower than it was in the last recession more than 10 years ago.
• In a less widely watched section of its report, the government is reporting that the unemployment rate in June was 10.6 percent, when you include people who are too discouraged to look for jobs and/or not fully employed.
  The figure would be worse if the government hadn't booted millions of people from the discouraged worker category into a no-man's-land where they aren't counted at all.
• The two surveys the government conducts aren't even close in their picture of the job market.

The survey of households, from which the unemployment rate is calculated, reports that there are 138 million jobs in this country. The survey of employers counts 129 million.
Even when you adjust for things like one person having more than one job, the figures can't be reconciled to within a million jobs of each other.
That error could be due to the fact that people have a tendency to lie to surveyors, especially those poking around for the government. Or it could be the result of hundreds of thousands of phantom jobs that Washington counts because it thinks the employment situation can't possibly be as bad as it is. "

I'm now curious whether there's a source for the last couple of years' worth of unadjusted numbers, or even better, a set of numbers that were seasonally adjusted following the old scheme so they could be more readily compared with older data.

Yes, I know Israel is the sole democracy in the Middle East, they've been a staunch ally, yadayadayada. But does that really excuse this?

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israeli law limits Arab citizenship : "The Israeli parliament passed a law preventing Palestinians married to Israelis from gaining Israeli citizenship.
Human rights groups have condemned the law as racist but supporters say it is necessary for security reasons and to maintain the Jewish character of the state of Israel.
The law will prevent Palestinians from the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza from marrying Arab-Israelis, who make up about 20% of the population of Israel. "

Or this?

canada.com: Israel announced Thursday it would build new housing in a Gaza Strip settlement, angering Palestinians and raising questions about implementation of the "road map" plan, after Israel's prime minister returned from a White House summit and top officials from the two sides had inconclusive talks about the next peace moves.
...
In a statement, the Israeli Defence Ministry said the 22 units were in the settlement's original plan and their construction would not violate the road map because they reflect natural growth of the settlement.
However, the peace plan states: "Israel also freezes all settlement activity, consistent with the Mitchell report," an international study from May 2001. That report says Israel "should freeze all settlement activity, including the 'natural growth' of existing settlements."

Or this?

New Zealand Herald: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan chided Israel on Wednesday for proceeding with construction of what it calls a security fence in the West Bank despite US and Palestinian objections.
"On the question of the fence, I know it's the conventional wisdom that fences make good neighbours, but that is if you build a fence on your own land and you don't disrupt your neighbour's life," Annan told a news conference.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed after talks with US President George W Bush in Washington to keep building the barrier, which polls show is strongly supported by the Israeli public after 34 months of Middle East bloodshed.
"Good fences make good neighbours," Sharon said.
The barrier -- a concrete wall in some places and a metal fence topped with razor wire in others -- has stoked resentment among Palestinians who have called it a new "Berlin Wall".

A tired old joke, yes, but it was the first thing that came to mind after reading about Tom DeLay's speech to the Knesset:

Zionists find ally in DeLay / Evangelical Texan's speech at Knesset stirs conservatives, disturbs Palestinians: "'Standing up for good against evil is very hard work; it costs money and blood,' DeLay told a thronged hall in the Knesset building. 'But we're willing to pay.' "

DeLay's speech was, as you might expect, red meat to the lions, completely undercutting Bush's "road map". Call me old fashioned, but I didn't think Congressmen were supposed to be running around making their own foreign policy.

Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons: "10. If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians. Faced with legislative proposals in favour of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are to take account of the following ethical indications.

When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral."

Let me preface this by saying that (a) I am a Catholic, and (b) I find no plausible reason for denying homosexuals the civil rights and privileges extended to heterosexuals through the arrangement we call "marriage". Whether the legal terminology used to grant those rights is "gay marriage", "civil unions", or "purple kumquats" matters not at all to me.

This is beyond wrong. It is stupid. It is "reasoning" based on the notions that the Catholic Church's idea of "marriage" is the only interpretation, and that the state should be subservient to the church. It completely ignores the nature of a pluralistic society, particularly one in which Catholics may be a minority.

(On update, thanks to Atrios for jogging my memory on this.) Isn't it remarkable that the Church has never issued a similar document concerning the requirements on Catholics to oppose the death penalty?

BBC NEWS | UK | Skydiver in record Channel flight : "Felix Baumgartner leapt from a plane above Dover at 0509 BST, landing 22 miles (35 kilometres) away in Cap Blanc-Nez near Calais just 14 minutes later.
He wore only an aerodynamic jumpsuit with a 6-foot (1.8-metre) carbon fin strapped to his back, an oxygen tank from which to breathe, and a parachute to land. "

He jumped out of the plane at 33,000 feet, where the temperature was -40 degrees. He reached speeds of 220 mph early in the fall. Baumgartner spent three years training for the jump, including riding strapped to the top of a speeding Porsche.

Walter Pincus continues to do a fine job at the Post tracking down these stories:

Scientists Still Deny Iraqi Arms Programs (washingtonpost.com): "Despite vigorous efforts, the U.S. government has been unsuccessful so far in finding key senior Iraqi scientists to support its prewar claims that former president Saddam Hussein was pursuing an aggressive program to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, according to senior administration officials and members of Congress who have been briefed recently on the subject."

After describing the circumstances of questioning of a number of key Iraqis, the story continues:

...all of the scientists interviewed have denied that Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program or developed and hidden chemical or biological weapons since United Nations inspectors left in 1998. Several key Iraqi officials questioned the significance of evidence cited by the Bush administration to suggest that Hussein was stepping up efforts to develop new weapons of mass destruction programs.

But what about the centrifuge in the rose bed?

The White House, for instance, has cited the case of nuclear scientist Mahdi Obeidi, who recently dug up plans and components for a gas centrifuge that he said he buried in 1991 at the end of the Persian Gulf War. The White House has pointed to the discovery as a sign of Hussein's continuing nuclear ambitions, but Obeidi told his interrogators that Iraq's nuclear program was dormant in the years before war began in March.
The sources said Obeidi also disputed evidence cited by the administration -- namely Iraq's purchase of aluminum tubes that various officials said were for a new centrifuge program to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. Obeidi said the tubes were for rockets, as Iraq had said before the war.

Isn't it odd how the news about him and the aluminum tubes has been, well, not news?

Administration officials said they expect [David] Kay[, a CIA representative in Iraq to coordinate the WMD search] to tell the senators there have been no breakthroughs but that progress is being made in understanding Hussein's weapons programs and research that could be associated with them. The United States is still interviewing lower-level Iraqi security and intelligence officials associated with the programs, but the searching of alleged weapons sites has all but halted, officials said.
Bush indicated yesterday that he still expects evidence of weapons of mass destruction to surface in Iraq. He said Kay described a complex process that includes the need to "analyze the mounds of evidence, literally the miles of documents that we have uncovered."

That's odd. I distinctly recall Rumsfeld saying before the war that we knew just where the WMD were. And didn't Colin Powell claim a very high level of knowledge of such things at the UN?

As described by government officials and their families, the United States has used aggressive tactics to find and question key Iraqi scientists. Amir Saadi, Iraq's 65-year-old chief liaison with United Nations weapons inspectors since last year, has been held incommunicado since his voluntary surrender in Baghdad to U.S. military police more than three months ago, according to his wife, Helma. (Emphasis mine)

Incommunicado. Quite possibly in solitary confinement, as the one communication he sent home via the Red Cross said "Today the Red Cross visited me and I was happy just to talk to someone. I am in good health and being treated correctly . . . love and kisses, Amer."

After hiring a lawyer, Helma Saadi sent a written request to L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq. She did not receive an answer from Bremer to that letter or to one sent more recently. She did receive a response to a letter she sent asking whether her husband could be represented by a lawyer. On June 27, Col. Marc L. Warren of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, assigned to Bremer's office, said her husband's status "is being investigated" under the Geneva Conventions to see whether he is entitled to prisoner of war status or some other category.

This is likely to run into some interesting legal territory involving determining when the war is over (if he's a POW, he's supposed to be repatriated when the war is over). The Geneva Convention may also have something to say about taking someone away from his family and holding him incommunicado for months.

John Dean (not to be confused with Howard Dean) weighs in on the 28 pages of redacted material in the 9/11 report.

FindLaw's Writ - Dean: The 9/11 Report Raises More Serious Questions About The White House Statements On Intelligence : "Bluntly stated, either the Bush White House knew about the potential of terrorists flying airplanes into skyscrapers (notwithstanding their claims to the contrary), or the CIA failed to give the White House this essential information, which it possessed and provided to others.

Bush is withholding the document that answers this question. Accordingly, it seems more likely that the former possibility is the truth. That is, it seems very probable that those in the White House knew much more than they have admitted, and they are covering up their failure to take action. "

Pretty strong words, and Dean certainly knows what a White House coverup looks like.

One of the most important sets of documents that the Congressional Inquiry sought was a set of copies of the President's Daily Brief (PDB), which is prepared each night by the CIA. In the Appendix of the 9/11 Report we learn that on August 12, 2002, after getting nowhere with informal discussions, Congress formally requested that the Bush White House provide this information.

More specifically, the Joint Inquiry asked about the process by which the Daily Brief is prepared, and sought several specific Daily Brief items. In particular, it asked for information about the August 6, 2001 Daily Brief relating to Osama Bin Laden's terrorist threats against the United States, and other Daily Brief items regarding Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and pre-September 11 terrorism threats.

The Joint Inquiry explained the basis for its request: "the public has a compelling interest ... in understanding how well the Intelligence Community was performing its principal function of advising the President and NSC of threats to U.S. national security."
...
After pulling together the information in the 9/11 Report, it is understandable why Bush is stonewalling. It is not very difficult to deduce what the president knew, and when he knew it. And the portrait that results is devastating.
...
Note again that Rice stated, in explaining the August 6, 2001 Daily Brief, that it addressed Bin Laden's "methods of operation from a historical perspective dating back to 1997."

What exactly did it say? We cannot know. But the Inquiry's 9/11 Report lays out all such threats, over that time period, in thirty-six bullet point summaries. It is only necessary to cite a few of these to see the problem:

• In September 1998, the [Intelligence Community] obtained information that Bin Laden's next operation might involve flying an explosive-laden aircraft into a U.S. airport and detonating it. (Emphasis added.)
• In the fall of 1998, the [Intelligence Community] obtained information concerning a Bin Laden plot involving aircraft in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas.
• In March 2000, the [Intelligence Community] obtained information regarding the types of targets that operatives of Bin Laden's network might strike. The Statute of Liberty was specifically mentioned , as were skyscrapers, ports, airports, and nuclear power plans. (Emphasis added.)

In sum, the 9/11 Report of the Congressional Inquiry indicates that the intelligence community was very aware that Bin Laden might fly an airplane into an American skyscraper.

Isn't this more damning and at least as important as any questions about what was in the State of the Union address? Isn't anybody in the press ready to run with this? Walter Pincus, Dana Milbank, history is calling!

...
Is Rice claiming this information in the 9/11 Report was not given to the White House? Or could it be that the White House was given this information, and failed to recognize the problem and take action? Is the White House covering up what the President knew, and when he knew it?

The Joint Inquiry could not answer these questions because they were denied access to Bush's Daily Brief for August 6, 2001, and all other dates. Yet these are not questions that should be stonewalled.

Troublingly, it seems that President Bush trusts foreign heads of state with the information in this daily CIA briefing, but not the United States Congress. It has become part of his routine, when hosting foreign dignitaries at his Crawford, Texas ranch, to invite them to attend his CIA briefing.

This may be the most disturbing revelation in the whole piece. I had no idea that Bush routinely invited foreign dignitaries to the CIA briefings. Some really good stuff over at Hullabaloo today.

Yep, the leader of the free world steeled his courage and came out to face the press today. I guess they figured it was OK since he's going on vacation for a month, he'll have time to recuperate. Any new Bushwhoppers? Not really, but a few things worth noting:

• It's something, at least - The buck stopped, or at least slowed down, this morning, with Bush saying "I take personal responsibility for everything I say, of course..." but hedging his bets again with the watered-down formulation, "And I'm confident that our search will yield that which I strongly believe: that Saddam had a weapons program." I mean, really, how dare he? Doesn't he know those programs are dangerous?
• The quality of intelligence is not strained - When Wolfowitz talks about it, it's "murky" intelligence. When Bush talks about it, though, it's "good, solid, sound intelligence". Really makes you wish they'd pick a story and stick to it, doesn't it?
• We're all bozos on this bus - When asked to simplify his "view on homosexuality" in the context of gay marriage, after explaining that administration lawyers are drafting a law that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, his first words were, "I am mindful that we're all sinners," which isn't terribly enlightening as legal guidance. But he went on: "I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman. And I think we ought to codify that one way or the other." Sanctity and sinners are the language of religion, not the law. It troubles me that the President gave no reasons for his legal position beyond his religious beliefs.

There may have been a bit of unintentional truth-telling when he was asked how his campaign would spend $170 million in the primaries with no opposition, and replied in part, "It's kind of an interesting barometer, early barometer, about the support we're garnering." Yes, I'd say it is. Lots of money from a relatively small number of rich people.

I'm speechless.

Memo Warns Of New Plots To Hijack Jets (washingtonpost.com): "Terrorists operating in teams of five may be plotting suicide missions to hijack commercial airliners on the East Coast, Europe or Australia this summer, possibly using 'common items carried by travelers, such as cameras, modified as weapons,' according to an urgent memo sent last weekend to all U.S. airlines and airport security managers."
...later, same article...
The threat comes just as the federal government has started to trim the nation's new airport security agency, by cutting the number of security screeners and other resources. Just one day before the memo was distributed, an official with the undercover Federal Air Marshal Service canceled what are considered some of the most vulnerable flight missions because they required marshals to spend nights in hotels, as well as cut training for Washington-area agents next month. The official cited "monetary considerations," according to an e-mail obtained by The Washington Post.

Upon reflection, I realize that I didn't write nearly clearly enough about how disgusted I am at this behavior from our miliary in Iraq. So let me make it a bit more clear.

We left a note for the Iraqi lieutenant general we were trying to capture. It said, "If you want your family released, turn yourself in."

Geneva Convention, Article 75, section 2::

2. The following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever, whether committed by civilian or by military agents:

(a) Violence to the life, health, or physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular:
(i) Murder;
(ii) Torture of all kinds, whether physical or mental;
(iii) Corporal punishment ; and
(iv) Mutilation;
(b) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault;
(c) The taking of hostages;
(d) Collective punishments; and
(e) Threats to commit any of the foregoing acts.

Why isn't anyone being courtmartialed over this? Why aren't there articles on the front pages of major newspapers? Is this really the way we want our military to behave? We're a democracy. That means that we, the citizens, are responsible for the actions of our government!

Remember the Lackawanna Six? The six Yemenis from Buffalo who were accused of attending al Qaeda training camps? They pleaded guilty, accepting terms of between 6-1/2 and 9 years in prison.

No Choice but Guilty (washingtonpost.com): "But defense attorneys say the answer is straightforward: The federal government implicitly threatened to toss the defendants into a secret military prison without trial, where they could languish indefinitely without access to courts or lawyers. "

Ah, the wonders of allowing the President to declare people "enemy combatants" with no check on his power. Go look up lettres de cachet if this doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Salon.com News | Beautiful young shock troops for Bush: "It was the first night of the 55th biennial college Republican convention at the Capitol Hilton in Washington, and around 1,000 young people had gathered for three days to hear speakers like Rove, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, former U.S. Sen. Bob Barr and right-wing polemicist David Horowitz. "

Again and again throughout the weekend convention, speakers emphasized that the eager young people before them were the future of the party of Hoover, Nixon and Reagan.

Hoover, Nixon, and Reagan?!??! Are you kidding me? The Great Depression, Watergate, and Mr. Deficit Spending? Those are the guys they idolize?

Ann Coulter remains wildly popular -- Parker Stephenson, chairman of Ohio College Republicans, calls her "one of my favorite conservative thinkers." Any term more specific than, perhaps, "human", that includes both Ann Coulter and William F. Buckley is so stretched as to be meaningless.

Hilarity abounded, as when Tom DeLay took the stage and begain, "Good afternoon, or as John Kerry might say, bonjour." Ummm, Tom? Kerry's not the one with the French last name.

DeLay continued, asking people to "close your eyes and try to imagine Ted Kennedy landing that Navy jet" as an example of how "out of touch" the Democrats are. Kennedy, of course, served in the Army from 1951-53, and has landed exactly as many jets on carriers as George W. Bush. Zero.

But what of the actual College Republicans? Well, let's join four of them in the lobby bar shortly after Karl Rove's speech: Rosanne Ferruggia, a 19-year-old junior at George Washington University and the publisher of the GW Patriot, a conservative student newspaper; Chris Sibeni, chairman of hte Hofstra College Republicans; an unidentified 19-year-old Georgetown student; and Jeffrey Chen, a 22-year-old recent Johns Hopkins graduate.

"I'm a Republican because liberals make me sick," said Sibeni, spitting out the words. "I don't like whiny people and tree-huggers."
"You're a tree-hugger, but the tree you're hugging is the money tree," joked Chen, a jocular 22-year-old who plans to attend law school next year at either Boston University or Tulane.
After a cocktail, the foursome retired to Sibeni and Chen's disheveled room, where the hosts made the girls fuzzy navels with orange juice and peach schnapps. At which point all let loose their political ids.
Sibeni, who had spiky hair, glasses and a long face, is high-strung and given to rash pronouncements. He denounced assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. for "dividing the country" and trying to help African-Americans "advance over the white society," and defended American support of the brutal Augusto Pinochet regime in Chile. Chen, who went to high school with Sibeni in Great Neck, Long Island, is easy-going and quick to concede Republican mistakes, mocking his friend's more outré arguments.
While Sibeni declared that Bill Clinton had been more dangerous to America than Osama bin Laden, Chen defended the ex-president's economic program. "Without him," Chen argued, "we would not have had globalization. He took a Republican idea, used it as a Democratic idea, and used it to become the most popular president of all time."
Chen seemed so mild and centrist that at one point I called him a closet Democrat. Taken aback, he replied: "How am I a closet Democrat? I'm racist, I love guns and I hate welfare."
He wasn't kidding. "I'm racist against anybody who doesn't work for a living," said Chen, whose family comes from Taiwan. "We're in Washington D.C. You can guess who that is." He's no fan of religion, but says he's less bothered about paying tax dollars to faith-based programs than to "crack whores who have eight kids because it's easier than working."
"I wish there could be racial equality," said Sibeni, who, while in high school, refused to attend Martin Luther King Day celebrations. "The number one reason there's racial inequality is because of hip-hop."
"For young black men, it glorifies something they try to live up to, and they end up dead or in jail," says Ferruggia, sipping her drink.
Before the Supreme Court's decision upholding affirmative action last month, "I couldn't admit I'm a racist," Chen said. "They admitted they're racist, so now I can too."
All four of them believe they have lost opportunities to affirmative action. "I applied to NYU and I didn't get in," says Sibeni. "My SAT scores weren't the greatest ..."
"You were just another white guy from Long Island," says Ferruggia. "The only person you can really discriminate against anymore is white men."
Ferruggia, the daughter of a pharmaceutical salesman, was valedictorian of her Southwest Florida high school. "I had the highest SAT scores in between five and 10 years" at her school, she says, and feels affirmative action cheated her out of scholarships. "I watched minority after minority after minority accept these awards ... I'm tired of people whining that I'm taking away from them."
"A lot of poor white people in the trenches of Appalachia, they don't complain, they go out and work," said Ferruggia's blond friend, who sat quietly next to her for most of the evening. "Black people have been given a lot of chances ..."
"And they always screw it up," said Sibeni.
Despite his high school rebellion against Martin Luther King, Chen said Sibeni used to be a "docile, pacifist kid" who others picked on. Sometimes, Chen said, he even joined in.
Then something happened to Sibeni in 2000.
He was walking on campus one night and "two African-American males came up to me," he recalled. "They said, 'Yo, nigga, can I get a dollar?' Being the affable person I am, I took out my wallet. They grabbed the wallet, but I took it back. I saw one of them reaching in his pants. He had two circular bandsaw blades. I took off."
Sibeni had the remote-control keys to his Pathfinder, and he said he used them to set the car alarm off. Then he ran to a friend's room and started drinking.
Later that night, he continued, two Estonian exchange students were robbed and "almost beaten to death." Sibeni's attempted muggers confessed to the crime and were given two years in juvenile detention.
After that, Sibeni got into guns. He now owns an assault rifle, a shotgun and a hunting rifle that he always keeps loaded.
Looking at Sibeni sitting cross-legged on his bed, Chen said: "You used to get beat up. Now you're the one beating people up."
Sibeni has brief charitable impulses -- he considered donating his ticket to the Rove dinner to a homeless person, so he could enjoy a free steak. But the idea of being forced to contribute to a broader civic good makes him livid. Taxes, he insisted, should be abolished. Who, then, will build things like roads? "Coca Cola should be building roads just to get exposure," Sibeni said.
"Who's going to build a road in inner-city Baltimore?" asked Chen.
"It's not my problem," said Sibeni.

Is this guy a keeper, or what? Heavily armed, liked Pinochet, thinks Bill Clinton was more dangerous than bin Laden, black people always screw up their chances, and is convinced he didn't get into NYU because of minorities, even though his "SAT scores weren't the greatest." But building roads in the inner city isn't "my problem". What a guy.

Remember these people when you go to the voting booth. Please.

Always sound advice. And applying it to the Bush administration reveals that perhaps things are not going so well in Iraq.

Baker to Baghdad? - Bush finally admits that the occupation is going badly. By Fred Kaplan: "Two recent signs suggest not only that postwar Iraq is going badly but that top Bush officials, finally, know it's going badly."

First, the 3rd Infantry Division will no longer accomodate embedded reporters. With few execptions, they won't accomodate reporters at all. The 3ID, of course, is the source of quotes such as, "If Donald Rumsfeld were here, I'd ask him for his resignation," and "The Aces in my deck are Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, and Paul Wolfowitz."

Second, the now-apparently-scuttled plan to ask James Baker to step in and "help" run things in Iraq. Among other things, this plan raised the spectre of Bush going through top men in Iraq faster than George Steinbrenner used to go through Yankee managers.

Iraq Body Count | DATABASE | Latest Updates

Now that we've killed at least 2 Iraqi civilians for every American that died in the WTC attacks, would it be too much to ask that more people take an interest in it?

Dana Milbank continues to stay on target regarding the Bush farce:

Responsibility: A Capital Minuet (washingtonpost.com): "For President Bush and the press corps that covers him, the month of July has been one long cat-and-mouse game. Five times, questioners have invited the president to take responsibility for the Iraq-uranium allegation that found its way into his State of the Union address. Five times, Bush has deflected the question."
...after detailing the evasions...
"My job will be to usher in the responsibility era, a culture that will stand in stark contrast to the last few decades, which has clearly said to America: 'If it feels good, do it, and if you've got a problem blame somebody else,' " Bush often said on the campaign trail in 2000.

HoustonChronicle.com: " Eleven of 12 Democratic state senators abruptly left the state Capitol this afternoon and headed for Albuquerque after learning that Gov. Rick Perry was about to call a second special session on congressional redistricting. "

Neither the House nor the Senate had quorum when the special session began. 11 of the 12 Democratic Senators were missing and reportedly had left for Albuquerque, NM.

When I recently wrote about Tom DeLay joking about the Democrats being stuck in the '70s and saying that they wanted to "...fight like McGovern", I overlooked an important fact. George McGovern is a veteran of WWII. He flew 35 missions as the pilot of a B-24 bomber and earned a Distinguished Flying Cross. DeLay has said that he and Dan Quayle were "victims of an unusual phenomenon back in the days of the undeclared Southeast Asian war. So many minority youths had volunteered for the well-paying military positions to escape poverty and the ghetto that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like himself." There are not words to express the contempt that man deserves.

(With apologies to Michael Moore)

TheStar.com - U.S. links Iraq war to 9/11 terror strike: "Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has directly linked the war on Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, signalling another shift in Washington's defence of a conflict that continues to claim American lives.

Wolfowitz, in a series of interviews on U.S. television networks yesterday, appeared to ignore intelligence reports, which have discredited links between Iraq and Al Qaeda and the war on terrorism.

He sought to defend President George W. Bush's administration against charges that it had misled Americans on the threat posed by deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, saying the government cannot wait for 'murky' intelligence to crystallize because it may be too late.

'The battle to secure the peace in Iraq is now the central battle on the war on terrorism,' Wolfowitz said on Meet the Press. "

Memo to Mr. Wolfowitz: The Taliban is regrouping in Afghanistan.

The problem has never been "murky" intelligence. It's distorted intelligence, intelligence that's been ignored because it didn't support the predeermined conclusion.

It's time for a special prosecutor.

It takes a lot to make me feel ashamed of being an American, but this does it:

U.S. Adopts Aggressive Tactics on Iraqi Fighters (washingtonpost.com): "Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: 'If you want your family released, turn yourself in.' Such tactics are justified, he said, because, 'It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info.' They would have been released in due course, he added later. "

The general did turn himself in the next day, but is this really the way Americans should be conducting themselves? Not to mention the effect on the attitudes of Iraqis.

Yahoo! News - White House Criticized for Censoring Sept. 11 Report : " A leading Republican senator on Sunday called on the Bush administration to release most of the classified portions of a congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks, saying the sections were withheld only to avoid harming relations with other countries. "

The Senator in question is Richard Shelby, who's on the Intelligence Committee.

I've been wondering (and asking) what you have to do to get fired in the Bush administration. Well, Tom Raum of the AP may just have the answer:

Boston.com / Latest News / Washington / WASHINGTON TODAY: Bush loyalists stay on job despite Iraq intelligence flap : " In the rising controversy over how the Bush administration built its case for war in Iraq, one curious fact stands out. Some who gave President Bush unwelcome information that turned out to be accurate are gone. Those who did the opposite are still around. Former economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki voiced concerns about the expense, aftermath and forces that would be needed concerns now proving to be true. These men are no longer in the picture. By contrast, nobody so far has come under apparent pressure to resign in the events that led up to the president's mention in his State of the Union address in January of a British intelligence report that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa. That claim was based on forged documents and challenged by the CIA. "

Looks like those who told unwelcome truths are gone, while those who told welcome (or, perhaps, "politically correct" in its original sense) lies are still at their desks. Does this come under the heading of returning "honor" or "dignity" to the White House?

The fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar is reported to have approved a new deputy military commander for southern Afghanistan.

A Taliban official says the leader has ordered the commander to intensify guerrilla attacks on international and government forces.

The announcement follows stepped-up activity by suspected Taliban guerrillas in southern Afghanistan which saw nine soldiers of the 11,500-strong U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan wounded in several attacks last weekend."

It's not that Iraq doesn't deserve all the outrage and attention it's getting, but it is sad to see that Afghanistan is getting about as much attention as Evelyn Hernandez. Meanwhile, the Taliban seems to be regrouping and re-establishing itself, particularly in the areas of Afghanistan near Pakistan. Remember Pakistan? There's a fair bit of support for the Taliban there. And they do have nuclear weapons. Maybe we ought to be paying just a bit more attention to this situation.

US Flag Code, section 8(g): The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.

Tom DeLay, speaking to college Republicans:

"'While everyone else got the memo that big-government, blame-America-first liberalism died with disco, the Howard Dean Democrats still want to party like its 1979. Maybe we should thank the Democrats for shedding their moderate clothing to reveal their true swinging-seventies selves. Frankly America doesn't need a president in a hot-pink leisure suit,' DeLay said.

'Just look at their presidential candidates: it's like they're lost in a time warp. They want to tax like Mondale, spend like Carter, and fight like McGovern,' DeLay said."

Personally, I think Tom must have breathed a bit too much insecticide in his old job. But if he really wants to find the big spender, all he has to do is look down at the other end of the Mall. And while ol' Tom probably gets lots of yuks from the faithful with cracks about McGovern, the parents of the GIs who have died in Iraq probably wouldn't find it as funny.

You know, if there really were all those WMD Bush talked about in the State of the Union address and we haven't found them, shouldn't there be a bit more concern about it? Dave Johnson elaborates on that thought.

Very quietly, Frank Thomas hit his 400th major league home run Friday night, becoming the 36th player to do so.

Daniel Schorr, veteran of Watergate, remembers how to not believe everything he hears.

A school of thought is emerging that Saddam Hussein was not so much covering up his possession of banned weapons as his lack of them.

The Wall Street Journal reported that in 1990, weeks before the Gulf War, Iraqi scientists ran an unsuccessful test of a biological agent called ricin, made from castor beans, and then scrapped the program.

In The Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius speculates that Hussein's science adviser, Amir Saadi, and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz are being kept under wraps by the American authorities because they might testify that the dictator had long since destroyed his weapons of mass destruction.

This is a very good point, and one that's not getting nearly enough attention. Before the war, Bush said what was needed was not more time, but more cooperation. Well, we have the majority of the "deck of cards" now, including people like Saadi and Aziz, but nothing is forthcoming about any huge damaging revelations from them. Why?

Schorr concludes:

The president insists that piles of weapons will eventually be found. Blair says that piles of bodies are enough to justify the war.

As the days and weeks drag on with no sign of an arsenal of banned weapons, it looks as though the occupiers of Iraq are slowly moving their thesis to the idea of the right war for the wrong reason.

It remains to be seen whether that switch in the propaganda line will fly.

Sometimes, things are just too bizarre, as the following from Nina Totenberg's NPR report on the Pryor nomination hearings:

Senator JEFF SESSIONS (Republican, Alabama): The ranking member protests that he is not anti-Catholic and he's offended that anyone suggested that he is. Well, let me tell you, the doctrine that abortion is not justified for rape and incest is Catholic doctrine. It is a position of the pope and it's a position of the Catholic Church in unity. So are we saying that if you believe in that principle, you can't be a federal judge? Is that what we're saying? And are we not saying then good Catholics need not apply?

Sessions is a Methodist. The "ranking member" is Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

But what about this statement: "Catholic judges who believe capital punishment is wrong should resign." Is that anti-Catholic? It certainly would seem to be, since it is the official position of the Church that capital punishment is wrong. Who said it? Noted anti-Catholic Antonin Scalia.

Not surprisingly, Pat Buchanan agrees (warning: only click on this link if you have a strong stomach):

[T]he choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral," said Scalia, "is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted constitutional laws and sabotaging the death penalty."

Within hours of the story hitting the wires, Wolf Blitzer was on the phone. Could I come over to CNN and explain how the justice, a devout Catholic, could openly defy the teachings of his church?

Delighted. For Scalia had not contradicted or defied any Catholic doctrine. Rather, it is the Holy Father and the bishops who are outside the Catholic mainstream, and at odds with Scripture, tradition and natural law....

Other information about Sessions, courtesy of Sarah Wildman in The New Republic (all emphasis mine):

The year before his nomination to federal court, he had unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers--including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr.--on a tenuous case of voter fraud. The three had been working in the "Black Belt" counties of Alabama, which, after years of voting white, had begun to swing toward black candidates as voter registration drives brought in more black voters. Sessions's focus on these counties to the exclusion of others caused an uproar among civil rights leaders, especially after hours of interrogating black absentee voters produced only 14 allegedly tampered ballots out of more than 1.7 million cast in the state in the 1984 election. The activists, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted in four hours and became a cause célèbre. Civil rights groups charged that Sessions had been looking for voter fraud in the black community and overlooking the same violations among whites, at least partly to help reelect his friend Senator Denton.

On its own, the case might not have been enough to stain Sessions with the taint of racism, but there was more. Senate Democrats tracked down a career Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups "forced civil rights down the throats of people." In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as "un-American" when "they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions" in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to "pop off" on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes "loose with [his] tongue." He further admitted to calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation," a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings.

It got worse. Another damaging witness--a black former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama named Thomas Figures--testified that, during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers." Sessions claimed the comment was clearly said in jest. Figures didn't see it that way. Sessions, he said, had called him "boy" and, after overhearing him chastise a secretary, warned him to "be careful what you say to white folks." Figures echoed Hebert's claims, saying he too had heard Sessions call various civil rights organizations, including the National Council of Churches and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, "un-American." Sessions denied the accusations but again admitted to frequently joking in an off-color sort of way. In his defense, he said he was not a racist, pointing out that his children went to integrated schools and that he had shared a hotel room with a black attorney several times.

Well, with that kind of a record on race, he should be very comfortable sitting next to Chief Justice Rehnquist.

Here's a good sign. Let's see what the FBI does with it (if anything).

Sen. Charles Schumer urged the FBI on Thursday to investigate government leaks that he said may have unmasked a CIA covert operative amid the political fight over prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Schumer, D-N.Y., said administration officials may have broken federal law in unmasking an operative who had been gathering information on weapons of mass destruction.

The senator sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller asking him to order an immediate criminal investigation.

Xenarc has produced a 1-DIN form factor car PC. For those of you who don't speak DIN, that means it's basically the same size as a standard car stereo. Pentium MMX-266, 128M memory, 15G disk, CDROM, built in GPS. I'm not sure what I'd do with one if I had it, but that's way cool.

Paul Krugman, in the Times, fears that something has gone wrong with Greenspan:

As far as I can make out, Mr. Greenspan's optimism is entirely based on models predicting that tax cuts and low interest rates will get the economy moving. But that's what the models said last year, too: the report that accompanied his July 2002 testimony predicted an unemployment rate of 5.25 to 5.5 percent by late 2003 (the rate is now 6.4 percent). Maybe tax cuts mainly for the affluent aren't as effective as the models say.

As usual, the whole piece is worth a read.

President Bush spoke yesterday at Beaver Aerospace in Livonia, Michigan. Here's his good tax cut news:

Here at Beaver, you're going to save about $70,000 on taxes. And that means more money that goes into research to develop new products. And that's important. If I were a worker here, I'd want to be on the cutting edge of new products. I'd want the people who run this company being -- thinking about how best can I use my talent and my skills to build a new product to stay competitive. As Bill Phillips said, it gives us the money to do some research.

But he also said, it gives us some money to build new products. He's already hired 14 workers this year. He says to me, the tax relief will enable him to hire 10 more workers. That's 10 more people working. (Applause.) There are small businesses -- see, we're not talking about just this company here. There are companies all across the country like this company. And if you have 10 hired here and 10 hired there and 10 hired over there, and all of a sudden those 10 start adding up. And our fellow citizens are getting back to work. And that's what we're here to talk about, how to get Americans back to work.

Wow. Ten new workers with $70,000 of tax relief. That's, um, divide by 5, carry the 3...$3.50/hour! Ha! Let's see them do these jobs cheaper in China! Somehow, though, I doubt that the minimum wage in Michgan is quite that low. Not to mention whatever would be spent on research and development back in the first paragraph.

Not everyone in Michigan is drinking the Kool-Aid, though. This from the Detroit News:

President Bush will tell a group of Livonia aerospace and defense workers today that his tax cuts already are helping turn the economy around.
Michigan begs to disagree.
Nearly two-thirds of Michiganians polled by The Detroit News days before Bush's visit to Metro Detroit describe the economy negatively -- 23 percent say it is "very bad." Just under 40 percent say they are worse off financially than they were two years ago.
It's the issue in Michigan: Just under half of the state's voters say jobs and the economy are far and away the most important problem facing the state. The second biggest issue, education, finished far back, at 15 percent.

If you only read one political blog, you could do a whole lot worse than to have it be Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo. Thanks to him for these items.

Hadley: What we know is, again, a copy of the memo comes to the Situation Room, it's sent to Dr. Rice, it's sent -- and that's it. You know, I can't tell you she read it. I can't even tell you she received it. But in some sense, it doesn't matter. Memo sent, we're on notice.

Steve Hadley White House Q&A July 22nd, 2003

We did not know at the time--no one knew at the time, in our circles--maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the Agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery.

Condi Rice Meet the Press June 8th, 2003

That's the logical fallacy that occurs when you act as though there were only two choices in a situation where there is actually a spectrum of choices. Our grand and glorious Vice President has provided us with a shining example in today's NY Times:

Vice President Dick Cheney offered the White House's most forceful rebuttal to a growing tide of skepticism about justifications for the Iraq war today, arguing that it would have been "irresponsible in the extreme" to ignore the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons program.

Were there really no other choices other than doing what the Bush administration did or "ignore the threat"? Obviously not, if you think about it for a moment. But that's not how Mr. Energy Task Force wants you to think. And, as usual, "Mr. Cheney spoke for 15 minutes and took no questions." Has any administration ever so isolated themselves from the press?

Why should we trust a private company to produce electronic voting systems if they won't show everyone how they work?

"We found some stunning, stunning flaws," said Aviel D. Rubin, technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, who led a team that examined the software from Diebold Election Systems, which has about 33,000 voting machines operating in the United States.

That, from the NY Times, is part of a scathing report about security and computerized voting machines. If you're not a computer geek, a lot of the talk about software may be difficult to understand, but think of it this way: would you trust someone who brought out a new mechanical voting machine but wouldn't let anyone see the inside to make sure it worked correctly? In a computerized system, the software is the largest part of the "inside", with the added danger that it can generally fail (or, in the worst case, be manipulated) in more subtle ways than a mechanical system.

More disturbing, I think, is this from Diebold (same article):

A spokesman for Diebold, Joe Richardson, said the company could not comment in detail until it had seen the full report. He said that the software on the site was "about a year old" and that "if there were problems with it, the code could have been rectified or changed" since then. The company, he said, puts its software through rigorous testing.

Testing isn't the problem. Well, it's a problem. But it's not the big problem. If the software has design flaws (and that's what Rubin and his team found, primarily), then testing -- which typically is done to make sure the code works as designed -- isn't going to help at all. The question isn't whether the code works "correctly", but whether Diebold's notion of "correct" is appropriate and adequate to the required security to ensure that election results are accurate and can't be tampered with.

"We're constantly improving it so the technology we have 10 years from now will be better than what we have today," Mr. Richardson said. "We're always open to anything that can improve our systems."
...
The move to electronic voting — which intensified after the troubled Florida presidential balloting in 2000 — has been a source of controversy among security researchers. They argue that the companies should open their software to public review to be sure it operates properly.
Mr. Richardson of Diebold said the company's voting-machine source code, the basis of its computer program, had been certified by an independent testing group. Outsiders might want more access, he said, but "we don't feel it's necessary to turn it over to everyone who asks to see it, because it is proprietary."

Apparently Diebold is "open to anything" as long as it doesn't involve actually showing people how the code works. I cannot conceive of anything that is more directly pertinent to the rights of an American citizen than the ability to ensure that elections are conducted accurately and fairly. If Diebold doesn't want to show the citizens how their machine works, that's their right. It is their proprietary code. But I think it should be made law that any system, mechanical or computerized, used in casting or tallying votes should be completely open for inspection by interested citizens. Looks like Scott McClellan is picking up right where Ari Fleischer left off.

Q. The Robert Novak column last week identified the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson as a CIA operative who was working on WMD issues. Novak said that identification is based on information given to him by two administration sources. That column has now given rise to accusations that the administration deliberatively blew the cover of an undercover CIA operative, and in so doing, violated a federal law that prohibits revealing the identity of undercover CIA operatives. Can you respond to that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Thank you for bringing that up. That is not the way this President or this White House operates. And there is absolutely no information that has come to my attention or that I have seen that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. And, certainly, no one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step.

There were a number of followup questions, the answers to which featured a number of variations on the phrases "not the way this White House operates", "no one would have given authority", and "no information that suggests there is any truth". Now this is at least as bogus as Al Gore's "no controlling legal authority" remark, and it's about a significantly more serious subject.

TAPPED has some good analysis here, including something that I've been wondering about. Apparently "senior administration officials" is press shorthand for "the vice-president, the cabinet secretaries, those with cabinet-rank, the chief of staff, maybe the deputy chief of staff, and a couple of other really senior advisors." That's not a very big list. If there were two people on that list who exposed Plame to Bob Novak, who where they?

In short, doesn't it seem odd that the White House is so uninterested in finding out just who it was who exposed an undercover CIA agent?

The Arizona Star weighs in on l'affaire Palme (more) in an editorial, which begins....

In a White House that is notoriously protective of those things it considers official secrets, there has been not a word of reprimand for the officials involved in the growing scandal over former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV.

The report of the joint congressional inquiry into the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, to be published Thursday, reveals U.S. intelligence had no evidence that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, or that it had supported al-Qaida, United Press International has learned.

"The report shows there is no link between Iraq and al-Qaida," said a government official who has seen the report.

Former Democratic Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who was a member of the joint congressional committee that produced the report, confirmed the official's statement.

Yes, that's the same Max Cleland who was painted as being "soft" on national security by his Republican challenger in the last election despite being a triple amputee Vietnam veteran. Cleland also points out that "Had this report come out in January like it should have done, we would have known these things before the war in Iraq, which would not have suited the administration."

Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus continue to do an outstanding job in the Washginton Post. Go read the whole article. Among other things, it shows that Condi Rice's statement about "no one in our circles" knowing about the doubts on the uranium intelligence is, well, a lie. Quelle surprise!

The CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about a claim President Bush made three months later in the State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material in Africa, White House officials said yesterday.

Looking over the mea culpa from Steven Hadley turns up this gem:

"I should have recalled at the time of the State of the Union speech that there was controversy associated with the uranium issue," Hadley said in a meeting with reporters that ran nearly 90 minutes.

What's amazing here? Not so much that Hadley -- no low-level flunky he, but Condi Rice's deputy at the NSC -- could somehow forget a trivial little thing like controversy over an insignificant issue like Iraq trying to obtain nuclear weapons, no, though that's pretty remarkable. The amazing thing to me is that he is keeping his job. Which raises the question, what do you have to do to get fired in the Bush White House? So far, things not on the list:

• Forgetting about major intelligence warnings from the CIA.
• Not reading a 90-page National Intelligence Estimate on a country before you decide to invade it.
• Not insisting on having a false claim taken out of the State of the Union address. Or maybe "not insisting enough".
• Exposing an undercover CIA operative.

I'm sure there are others....

Any port in a storm, I suppose, but isn't claiming that the deaths of Saddam's sons is going to help the US economy a good example of how much the Bush administration has been reduced to grasping at straws?

THE death of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's two sons helps the US economy by removing some uncertainty, US Treasury Secretary John Snow said today.

Personally, I'm more curious what the effect of having lots of National Guard troops away from their jobs for an extended period is having on the economy. Many of them are earning less than they would be at their regular jobs; on the other hand, are they keeping the unemployment rate artifically low?

Hang on, hang on, the scapegoats are coming out of the woodwork. Now Steven Hadley, Condi Rice's deputy at the NSC, has taken the blame for the "16 words" in the State of the Union address. But I thought George Tenet had already taken the blame for that one?

Well, at least Condi has learned at the feet of the master. Take responsibility for the actions of a subordinate? Moi? Surely you jest. Responsibility is for "the little people".

b. The Bronze Star Medal is awarded to any person who, while serving in any capacity in or with the Army of the United States after 6 December 1941, distinguished himself or herself by heroic or meritorious achievement or service, not involving participation in aerial flight, in connection with military operations against an armed enemy; or while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party.

I'm sure everyone is glad to see that Pfc. Lynch has returned to her hometown and its 15% unemployment rate, but there's something about the event that's confusing me. She was awarded a Purple Heart, a Prisoner of War medal, and a Bronze Star. The quote above is the qualifications for a Bronze Star as per Chapter 3, Army Regulation 600-8-22 (Military Awards). What did she do, exactly, to earn that medal?

Thanks to Andrew Tobias for this item.

In a time when so many politicians flip-flop on the issues, it's nice to see that Bush's attitude toward the miliitary hasn't really changed since he found campaigning more important than serving in the Texas Air National Guard. Here's what those lucky enough to make it back from Iraq can look forward to:

• MASSIVE CUTS TO MILITARY FAMILY HOUSING: Bush’s 2004 budget proposes $1.5 billion in cuts to military family housing. Last year, the government spent $10.7 billion on these priorities, while this year the 2004 Bush budget and GOP bill proposes just under $9.2 billion. This cut affects military housing, barracks, child care centers, schools, hangars and office buildings. House Democrats offered an amendment to reduce the proposed tax cuts to millionaires by $5,000 (they would get $83,000 instead of $88,000) in order to restore $1 billion of these cuts. House Republicans voted it down. [Source]
• MASSIVE CUTS TO SCHOOLS FOR MILITARY KIDS: President Bush’s 2004 budget proposes to cut $200 million out of Impact Aid – the program that funds schools near military bases. Total funds for the military portion of the program would drop from about $635 million in the current year to about $435 million next year—a cut of more than 30 percent. [Source]
• REDUCING PAY TO SOLDIERS IN HARM'S WAY: According to the Army Times, “the administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones.”
• IGNORING TAX RELIEF FOR SOLDIERS: According to the Washington Post, “Bush's signature on the latest tax cut, which failed to extend a child tax credit to nearly 200,000 low-income military personnel.” [Source]
• RAISING PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES FOR VETERANS: The House GOP this week passed a White House proposal to charging some veterans enrollment fees of $250 a year and double the amount they now pay for prescription drugs. [Source]
• OPPOSING LEGISLATION TO MAKE SURE RESERVISTS HAVE HEALTH CARE: “Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sent a letter to House and Senate leaders stating the Bush Administration's opposition to the TRICARE legislation” sponsored by Senator Tom Daschle that would prevent thousands of National Guard reservists from potentially being cut off health insurance 30 days after they are deactivated. The legislation is strongly supported by the National Guard Association, Adjutants General Association, Enlisted Association of the National Guard [Source, Source]
• UNDERFUNDING VETERANS MEDICAL CARE: According to a letter sent to the President by the major veterans groups, Bush’s 2003 budget “falls $1.5 billion short” of adequately funding veterans care. [Independent Budget, 1/7/02]
• CUTTING VETERANS OFF MEDICAL CARE: According to the VA Center in Palo Alto, CA, “On January 17, 2003, Secretary Principi announced VA was suspending enrollment for new Priority Group 8 veterans…VA has been unable to provide all enrolled veterans with timely access to health care services because of the tremendous growth in the number of veterans seeking VA health care…It is estimated this decision will affect approximately 164,000 veterans nationally for the remainder of this fiscal year.” [Source]

Joseph Farah in WorldNetDaily wonders why no one seems interested in his obsession with Vince Foster. Gee, do you suppose it's because even Ken Starr didn't try to pin it on the Clintons?

If you're not familiar with it, schadenfreude means "A malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others." One could understand and perhaps forgive former employees of manufacturing and textile firms feeling a bit of this when looking at the current problems white collar (particularly technology) workers are having in the current non-recession. The NY Times reports on a conference call conducted among many senior IBM managers worldwide where moving technology jobs offshore was discussed.

During the call, I.B.M's top employee relations executives said that three million service jobs were expected to shift to foreign workers by 2015 and that I.B.M. should move some of its jobs now done in the United States, including software design jobs, to India and other countries.

And the prints on the murder weapon belong to Paul Wolfowitz. From a Reuters story:

"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq," said Wolfowitz, who is touring the country to meet U.S. troops and Iraqi officials.

Paul Krugman takes up the case of "who's patriotic?" and picks up on the case of Joseph Wilson's wife, which I'd earlier noted here:

And while we're on the subject of patriotism, let's talk about the affair of Joseph Wilson's wife. Mr. Wilson is the former ambassador who was sent to Niger by the C.I.A. to investigate reports of attempted Iraqi uranium purchases and who recently went public with his findings. Since then administration allies have sought to discredit him — it's unpleasant stuff. But here's the kicker: both the columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine say that administration officials told them that they believed that Mr. Wilson had been chosen through the influence of his wife, whom they identified as a C.I.A. operative.
Think about that: if their characterization of Mr. Wilson's wife is true (he refuses to confirm or deny it), Bush administration officials have exposed the identity of a covert operative. That happens to be a criminal act; it's also definitely unpatriotic.

Thanks to the Monkey Media Report for this latest example of prosecution run amok:

Last week, police in the northwestern mountains invoked the state's "Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction Act" to charge a suspected meth lab owner with chemical weapons terrorism:
Jerry Wilson, the district attorney for Watauga County, has charged Martin Dwayne Miller, 24, of Todd with two counts of manufacturing a nuclear or chemical weapon in connection with a methamphetamine arrest Friday...

Personally, I don't think Mr. Miller is the only one with a drug problem in this scenario....

If you listen to Ashcroft's minions, they'll tell you there's nothing to worry about. Reality is a bit different.

The report said that in the six-month period that ended on June 15, the inspector general's office had received 34 complaints of civil rights and civil liberties violations by department employees that it considered credible, including accusations that Muslim and Arab immigrants in federal detention centers had been beaten.

Check out this article from the Charleston Post and Courier:

"We're sick and tired of the Democratic party not giving us a message," he said, from the Dean headquarters in Manchester, N.H., where he is interning for the summer. "We need someone who can stand up on a moral ground."

One thing to watch out for is when you start getting multiple answers to a single question. Even the AP has noticed it now:

The White House defense of President Bush's now-disavowed claim that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa has evolved over the last two weeks: blame others, stonewall, bury questions in irrelevant information and, above all, hope it will go away. So far, none has worked.

Our friends in the UK seem to be stealing a march on us in the Big Brother race, thanks to RFID technology. RFID, if you haven't heard, is a scheme that basically puts a chip about the size of a piece of dust attached to an antenna into, well, just about anything. It can be read by a scanner at a distance of up to about 20 feet. Today.

Alan Robinson, manager at the Tesco store on Newmarket Street, Cambridge, seems excited about this store's current trials of RFID tags in Gillette Mach3 razorblades. Speaking to Smart Labels Analyst magazine in April this year, he said: "We are cooperating with this trial in every way we can - we would like to be a test bed for many more trials of this kind." He adds: "We haven't had a single customer ask what the tag is doing in their packet of razors!" Notoriously subject to theft (small, expensive and easily resold), these blades were tagged by Gillette, which earlier this year ordered 500m radio-frequency ID tags from the aptly named Alien Technology Corp. At the Tesco Cambridge store, reports the magazine, a camera trained on the Gillette blade shelf, and triggered by the tags, captures a photo of each customer who removes a Mach3 pack. Another photo is taken at the checkout and security staff compare the two images to ensure they always have a pair.

Now that doesn't sound so bad, does it? Less shoplifting = better prices for the rest of us, right? Well, the problem is that anybody with a scanner can read the devices. And the people producing them are pushing to have them included in virtually everything and pitching to retailers how useful it's going to be. Which means that the burglar standing outside the jewelry store is going to be able to tell from a distance whether you bought a cheap stone or splurged on the big diamond. And the government agent standing outside the bookstore can tell at a distance that you've picked up this month's Penthouse, or whether you bought Ann Coulter's new book or Hillary Clinton's. And unless you have a scanner yourself, you have no way of knowing what has the tags in it. The shoes you're wearing, for instance. Very handy for anyone who wanted to track you for whatever purpose.

The Post is anything-but-liberal, so it's very interesting to see what they'd have to say about Dr. Dean. It's a mix...

The best proof of how Howard Dean has spooked the other 2004 Democratic presidential candidates could be found yesterday in the shrill tone of Sen. John Kerry's slashing attack on President Bush, all but painting him as liar-in-chief.
"President Bush should tell the truth - and get out of the way and let us find the truth - about the intelligence gap," fumed Kerry, claiming Bush is stalling probes into 9/11 and fudging the facts on Iraq.
Speaking in The Bronx, Kerry sounded as if he was trying to sound just like Dean. In fact, it sounded as if Kerry was kicking himself - hard - for having ever voted for the Iraq war last fall and wishing he'd been a naysayer from the start, like Dean.
"You get the feeling they're hiring Jayson Blair to write their speeches," said Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, referring to the New York Times reporter who had to quit because of plagiarism.

Good line from Trippi, and the Post surely enjoyed the chance to take a poke that the Times. But it goes a bit downhill from there.

It was a dramatic show of how Dean is pulling the Democratic Party hard to the left - throwing red meat to liberal activists, infuriating Bush loyalists and polarizing the electorate.

I thought the "Dean is too far left" meme was dying out, but I guess it's still flopping around and gasping for air. Better news in the next graf, though:

It also shows that Kerry, an early Democratic front-runner, is now acting as if Dean has taken the lead. And that may well be right. A rival campaign (not Kerry's) says its polling now puts Dean first in Iowa, the first Democratic presidential test.

Sorry for no posts for the last couple of days. I've been househunting in Massachusetts and/or New Hampshire. A few observations:

• Massachusetts really needs to put up more road signs. It's the only place in the world where I've been on a road with two route numbers (2A and 13 in Fitchburg, to be exact) where I've come to a fork in the road with a sign for one of the roads but nothing for the other (which, of course, was the one I was trying to follow). New Hampshire has much better signage.
• New England roads are just weird. This business of roads changing names at town borders I can deal with, but it seems like in New Hampshire they frequently just change at random points because somebody thought it was a good idea. Also, if you've always lived in New England, here's some news: people in the rest of the country think the idea that you can come to an intersection and turn left or right to stay on the same road or go straight to get on a different road is just weird.
• In most of the country, a road having a state route designation usually means that it's a bit larger, better maintained, and more of a "through" route than roads that don't. Not in New England. Lots of the numbered routes date from the days when (for example) a trip from Concord to Burlington was a big trip in itself, not a part of a smaller trip. This explains why you may have to make 5-6 turns on a numbered state highway as you go through a town. If you're lucky, most of them will have signs.
• Real estate prices near Boston are insane. Not if you live near NYC or in the Bay Area, I guess, but if you live somewhere like upstate New York, they're nuts.
• I don't understand why real estate prices seem to drop by about 20% as you cross the state line from Massachusetts into New Hampshire. Yeah, NH doesn't have as many state services, but 20%?

Howard Dean is guesting at Lawrence Lessig's blog this week. Yesterday, he responded to a question about whether there would be a White House blog if he were elected: Finally, one of you asked if there would be a White House blog. Why not?

Most cool.

Go to the Nevada woods and hunt naked women with a paintball gun. oooookay.

Hunting for Bambi is the brainchild of Michael Burdick. Men pay anywhere from $5000 to $10,000 for the chance to come to the middle of the desert to shoot what they call "Bambis" with a paint ball gun. Burdick says men have come from as far away as Germany. The men get a video tape of their hunt to take home and show their friends.
Burdick says safety is a concern, but the women are not allowed to wear protective gear -- only tennis shoes.

Walter Pincus continues to kick ass and take names in this story:

But a review of speeches and reports, plus interviews with present and former administration officials and intelligence analysts, suggests that between Oct. 7, when President Bush made a speech laying out the case for military action against Hussein, and Jan. 28, when he gave his State of the Union address, almost all the other evidence had either been undercut or disproved by U.N. inspectors in Iraq.

Rebuilding old nuke sites, uranium from Africa, aluminum tubes, it's all there.

Item from AP article on Tenet's testimony to the joint Intelligence committees. Dick Durbin hits it on the nose:

But Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said the issue wasn't why Tenet failed to keep the information out of the speech but who was so determined to put it in and why.

I've started to hear talk of impeachment, both on the net and on talk radio. Even Bob Graham has uttered the "i" word. But I don't think it's the right thing, at least yet, for both practical and tactical reasons.

First, the tactical. If you impeach Bush, you get....President Cheney. OK, impeach him too. President Hastert? I just don't see much improvement here. Moreover, how are you going to get any political traction for impeachment with the Republicans controlling both houses of Congress? It'll be a minor miracle to get public hearings.

Second, the practical. As much as I believe Bush lied, it doesn't take as much evidence to convince me as to make me so certain I'd advocate impeachment. I don't think Clinton deserved to be impeached not because he didn't lie under oath, but because I don't think the offense was serious enough to warrant impeachment (and no, not all cases of perjury are equally serious).

So what to do? What I'd like to see is a special prosecutor. Not a Ken Starr, but a Leon Jaworski. I think the people in a democracy have a right to know if they've been lied to, and I flat out don't trust the Republican-controlled Congress to investigate a Republican President. Let's see what the special prosecutor finds then talk about whether impeachment is warranted.

Diplomat Joseph Wilson has certainly embarrassed the Bush administration with his revelations about the Niger "urain'tium" deal, and it looks like they may have gone in for a bit of payback courtesy of Bob Novak:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

Now the only thing really noteworthy about this is that Plame was apparently an undercover Agency operative. When asked about it, Wilson would neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.

Now I don't know whether Wilson's wife works for the CIA or not. But she is known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm. So if she isn't a CIA operative, someone in the administration has probably ruined her career and possibly put her life in jeopardy. If she is a CIA operative, well, Wilson said (without acknowledging that she is an operative), "Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames." It would also be a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which carries potential penalties of a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison.

Sen. Orrin Hatch is pushing a constitutional amendment that could allow his pal, fund-raising helper and potential California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, to also run for U.S. president someday.
Hatch, R-Utah, introduced without fanfare last week an amendment to allow foreign-born people who have been naturalized U.S. citizens for at least 20 years to run for president. Currently, only native-born citizens may run for president.
Hatch spokeswoman Margarita Tapia said the legislation was not drafted with Schwarzenegger or anyone else specifically in mind when Hatch came up with the 20-year requirement. "It was a policy judgment not associated with any one individual," she said.

Wouldn't you just love to know what policy judgement could make this (a) a good idea, and (b) worthy of taking up time in Congress over at this point?

From a BBC report:

A series of attacks on US forces in Iraq on Wednesday has left one soldier dead and at least five others wounded.
A missile was also fired at an American transport plane as it landed at Baghdad airport in what a spokesperson said was possibly the first such attack during the conflict.
And in another incident, the pro-American mayor of the western Iraqi town of Haditha and one of his sons are reported to have been shot and killed.
The new spate of attacks comes as correspondents say US forces in Iraq are becoming increasingly nervous and desperate to return home.
A US spokeswoman, Sergeant Amy Abbott, said a surface-to-air missile was launched at a C-130 transport at 0845 (0445 GMT) on Wednesday but missed its target.
"I have not heard of any incident of this type," she added.
The car of Haditha's mayor, Mohammed Nayil al-Jurayfi, was ambushed as it drove through the town, about 240 kilometres (150 miles) north-west of Baghdad, Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera reports.
The BBC's Peter Greste says Iraqis working with Americans are becoming increasingly frightened about the risk to their own lives.
He says translators are worried about reprisals from the militias.

It looks like now we not only need to worry about defending our troops, but also anybody brave enough to work with them. And if SAM attacks on US planes become common, it's going to be increasingly difficult to get people and supplies in and out. Oh well, at least we got Saddam. What? We didn't? Oh, come on. Next you're going to try to tell me we haven't found any WMD, either.

In the new Harper's that just came today, there's a partial list of some videotape titles in the US Secret Service library. It notes, "The public may borrow any of the tapes from the agency by filing a Freedom of Information Act request." I'm not sure what to go for first....
Assassinations and Attempts Worldwide
Chemical Accident Incident Operation
Egg Throwing -- Kennedy Detail
Ghandi, Rajiv, Assassination of
Incidents with Various Protectees
IRA Booby Traps
JFK Shooting
Kennedy Assassination in Dallas
Liberian Government Overthrows
Mondale Mishap
President Bush Japan Incident
Reagan Incident, Las Vegas
The Stalking of Ronald Reagan
Tapes of Wrath -- Gag Reel
Various Assassination Attempts

Yeah, the comparison's been made a lot. Governors of small states, started as outsiders, picked up a buzz, yadayadayada. But I just finished watching The War Room, the documentary about the 1992 Clinton campaign. (Netflix is your friend.) And I was really struck by three things:

1. Even though he disappointed me in a number of ways, man, I miss Bill Clinton.
2. If the Al Gore I saw campaigning in that movie had been around in 2000, things would be very different now.
3. The Dean campaign is an awful lot like that Clinton campaign in a number of ways:
   • Lack of hierarchy.
   • Pugnaciousness.
   • Campaign manager ready to take the fight to the other guy (Trippi, Carville)
   • Willing to do things in new ways instead of sticking to the way you're "supposed" to do them.
   • Attracting new voters (a record number of young people voted in 1992).
   • Getting lots of volunteers who are really committed to the candidate and just out-working the other guys.

Will it have the same happy ending? Ah, it's way too early to say that. But I think that anybody who's a Democrat should try to watch this movie and remember what won the White House in '92 before saying that Dean "isn't electable".

The latest estimates from the Bush administration are for a $455B deficit this year. That means that we've gone from a surplus to the largest deficit in history in just over two years of GOP rule. Very impressive, guys.

But hey, you say, that's not fair! What's important is not the raw size of the deficit, but the size of the deficit in relation to the GDP. Well, OK. I can buy that. But only if you'll observe that the $455B figure includes roughly $150B of surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund, so the real budget deficit is more like $600B, which is also the largest deficit in history.

Somebody explain to me again why the Republicans are supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility?

Oh, by the way: Vermont, after five terms of Howard Dean as governor, has a $10M surplus this year. Vermonters give a lot of the credit to Dean.

Dana Milbank sums up a lot of stuff pretty nicely in the Washington Post today:

Bush said the CIA's doubts about the charge -- that Iraq sought to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore in Africa -- were "subsequent" to the Jan. 28 State of the Union speech in which Bush made the allegation. Defending the broader decision to go to war with Iraq, the president said the decision was made after he gave Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

Well, there's a new Bushwhopper: Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in? When was that?

Bush's position was at odds with those of his own aides, who acknowledged over the weekend that the CIA raised doubts that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger more than four months before Bush's speech.

Sounds like they're having a bit of trouble keeping their story straight. Did the CIA raise doubts before or after the speech?

In the face of persistent questioning about the use of intelligence before the Iraq war, administration officials have responded with evolving and sometimes contradictory statements.

There's one for the catalog: "evolving and sometimes contradictory statements". Which, no doubt, "did not rise to the Presidential level". It's amazing how many ways there are to say "lie".

More generally, the contradictions keep piling up as the administration seems to have more and more difficulty keeping their story straight:

Bush's communications director, Dan Bartlett, said last week that Bush was not angry to learn the charge was based on flawed information. Bush himself has voiced no regret or irritation in public.
But at his briefing yesterday, Fleischer described a displeased Bush. "I assure you, the president is not pleased," he said. "The president, of course, would not be pleased if he said something in the State of the Union that may or may not have been true and should not have risen to his level."
Also, Bartlett, discussing the State of the Union address, said last week that "there was no debate or questions with regard to that line when it was signed off on." But on Friday, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said there was "discussion on that specific sentence, so that it reflected better what the CIA thought." Rice said "some specifics about amount and place were taken out." Tenet said Friday that CIA officials objected, and "the language was changed."
Fleischer said yesterday Rice was not referring to the State of the Union reference but to Bush's October speech given in Cincinnati -- even though Rice was not asked about that speech. Fleischer said that while the line cut from the October speech was based on the Niger allegations, he said the State of the Union claim was based on "additional reporting from the CIA, separate and apart from Niger, naming other countries where they believed it was possible that Saddam was seeking uranium."
But Fleischer's words yesterday contradicted his assertion a week earlier that the State of the Union charge was "based and predicated on the yellowcake from Niger." Rice was asked a month ago about Bush's State of the Union uranium claim on ABC's "This Week" and replied: "The intelligence community did not know at the time or at levels that got to us that there was serious questions about this report." But senior administration officials acknowledged over the weekend that Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used in the October speech, four months before the State of the Union address.