I've Moved!

Hear ye! Hear ye! The Pluribus Driver has moved! Phone the neighbors, wake the kids, and be sure to update your bookmark! My biting commentary and analysis can now be found HERE. Come on over and see what's new, won't you?

Thanks.

And Then There Were Two

Anchorage, Alaska mayor Mark Begich has pulled far enough ahead in the race for Senate that he is being declared the winner. By a narrow margin, he has defeated six-term senator (and seven-count convicted felon) Ted Stevens.

What Begich's victory means is that the Democrats now have 58 seats in the Senate, with two races still to be decided. I would give Al Franken a slightly better than 50% chance of winning the Minnesota seat after the recount. In Georgia, the run-off election between incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin will take place at the beginning of December. At this point, whichever party can persuade more people to turn out will most likely win that one.

Why is it so important for the Democrats to hit that magic number of 60 senators? Normally, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but thanks to the scorched-earth policy of the win-at-all-costs Republican party, it matters a great deal. In the curent session of Congress, which started in January of '07 and ends next month, the Republican minority has become little more than obstructionists, which may explain their crushing defeat on November 4th.

Here is an example:

(Image borrowed from OpenCongress.org. I hope they don't mind.)

A cloture vote is a procedural tactic that requires 60 votes in order to end, thus allowing a bill to move forward. The current obstructionist Republicans have used the cloture vote almost twice as many times as any previous Senate. This is the main reason that the Democrats so desperately want to have 60 senators. It's also why Harry Reed and company wussed out and allowed Lieberman to retain his cherished chairmanships, even after he endorsed McCain, spoke at the RNC convention, and expressed doubt as to whether Obama is ready to be president.

The fringe benefit of Begich's victory is that Stevens won't be expelled from the Senate by his colleagues, and Sarah Palin won't have an opportunity to take over his seat. Whether the Democrats hit the magic 60 or not, at least we have that to be thankful for.
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Bush Is Getting The Respect He Has Earned

A couple days ago, in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Scott Shapiro expressed his disgust in the treatment that President Bush has received by liberals and conservatives alike.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have.

I would have laughed at Shapiro's distortion of reality, had it not become fodder for right-wing bloggers. Crocodile tears aplenty are being shed for poor, poor President Bush. All he ever wanted to do was lead the people that he loves in a manner befitting his respect for America.

NOT!

A more appropriate title for Shapiro's piece would have been, "The Treatment of America by Bush Has Been a Disgrace."

I could provide a laundry list of Bush's disrespectful actions, but I think providing one example should suffice. As quoted by Think Progress, Bush said this in April of 2004 [Emphasis in original]:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

The thing about that is that Bush was lying. As he admitted in December of 2005, Bush signed the order for the NSA to spy on Americans without obtaining the required warrant from the FISA court. He went on to say that he had authorized that activity 30 times, and would continue to do so.

Bush apologists can argue that the illegal wiretapping program was necessary, but the fact remains that Bush lied. He said they were getting a court order for each wiretap when he knew damn well that they weren't.

There are many other examples of Bush's mistreatment of his office and his hatred of America, but I think one is enough to make my point. Bush lied to us. Not about getting his knob polished in the oval office, but about breaking the law. So don't come crying to me about how he is being so horribly maligned. If he hadn't cheated his way into office, thumbed his nose at the separation of powers, pissed on our Constitution, lied us into a war, etc., then maybe, maybe, a case could be made for his mistreatment. A president must earn the people's respect, though, and Mr. Bush has failed to do so.

From the Shapiro piece:

Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush.

Well, that's just an insult to honest, hard working sewage plants everywhere.

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Maybe Nancy Pelosi Shouldn't Resign As Speaker... Yet.

Over this past summer, Congress has enjoyed some of the lowest approval ratings ever. At one point, they sunk even lower than Dick Cheney's. (Now that's low!) The cries from the right were that this was clear and ample evidence of the citizens' dissatisfaction with the Democratic majority. Seeing as the Democrats held control of the Senate by the slimmest of margins (so slim, in fact, that they let Joe Lieberman caucus with them,) and the entire House was up for reelection as well, November 4th provided the perfect opportunity for the voters to send a clear message to Congress.

And they did.

There are still, as I write this, three Senate races that have yet to be called. Nonetheless, the Democrats have gained six seats, giving them a strong majority of 57 to only 40 for the Republicans. In the House, the Democrats increased their majority from 236 to 254 (with eight still up in the air.)

Apparently, the voters have decided that not only do they approve of the Democrats being in charge, but want them to have more power, so they can start pushing forward with a Democratic agenda. (Why else give them a larger majority? If the voters wanted more "compromise," they would have left the margins as they were.) Plus, a Democrat won the presidential election by a landslide, so there goes the veto threat.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi had the following reaction:

"I don't know what the final number will be," Pelosi said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference on Capitol Hill. "But it will be well over 250. It's a signal of the change that the American people want."

So she understands the significance of the increased majority that the voters have given her. She can finally dust off that Liberal Agenda that's been stuffed in her desk drawer for the past almost two years. Will she have the guts to lead, actually lead, with this vote of confidence from the American people?

It would be a break from recent Democratic behavior, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

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Election Reflection

At 8:25pm last night (Central time,) ABC News projected that Obama would win Ohio's electoral votes. It was at that moment that I knew he would be our next president. As George Stephanopoulos remarked, the McCain camp didn't have a road map to victory that didn't include Ohio. Since they had called Pennsylvania for Obama early in the night, I knew that McCain was sunk.

As the night wore on, I watched with the world as the electoral map shifted. Here is what it looked like after the 2004 election:



Wow, that's a mighty sea of red, isn't it?

Once Ohio flipped to blue, the cards started falling. All told, nine stated shifted. (I'm giving Obama North Carolina, even though it may not be "official" yet.) These are the states Obama won that were Bush states in '04:



The final map looks like this:



Notice how the blue wave has spread out from the northeast and from the west coast. Another pattern of interest is that in several of the red states that remained red, the margin of victory for McCain was considerably smaller than that of Bush in 2004. For example, in Montana, Bush won by a margin of 21%, but McCain scraped by with 3.5%. In North Dakota, Bush enjoyed a 27.8% victory; McCain managed just under 9%. Back in June, I predicted (incorrectly) that Texas would flip over to blue in this election. That was wishful thinking, I guess. I still think it will, though, as the demographic shifts and the population becomes more urban (which is an overall trend that does not bode well for the republican party.) Bush won Texas by 23% back in 2004; Obama closed that gap to just under 12%.

Back then, my electoral map looked like this:



I was wrong on a few states, but I was only off by 10 electoral votes, giving Obama 354, so that's pretty good, I think. (If I do say so myself.)

So ultimately, does this election represent a fundamental shift in the voting pattern of America, or is it simply a reaction to Bush fatigue? It's difficult to say, but I have a feeling it's more of the former than the latter. The talk has already started about what the GOP needs to do to start winning national elections again. My advice to conservatives would be to use this opportunity to realign the party with its conservative roots, abandoning the radical neocon influence that has permeated it in recent years.

But then, I'm a liberal, so what do I know?

Nancy Pelosi Should Resign As Speaker

In the current issue of Time magazine, in the 10 Questions section, Speaker Pelosi is asked this:

Why have you taken impeachment off the table as an option for President George W. Bush?

Which seems like a reasonable question, and is one I would have asked the speaker, if given the chance. The speaker's response was totally not what I expected.

I took it off the table a long time ago. You can't talk about impeachment unless you have the facts, and you can't have the facts unless you have cooperation from the Administration. I think the Republicans would like nothing better than for us to focus on impeachment and take our eye off the ball of a progressive economic agenda.

So Nancy Pelosi Admits that the main reason she isn't pursuing impeachment is that the Bush administration isn't cooperating.

This is what passes for leadership in the Democratic party.

Bush Pulls Switcheroo - On Himself

Last August, President Bush issued bold and decisive rhetoric about Iran. As reported in The Guardian:

Mr Bush said Iran's nuclear programme would cast the Middle East "under a shadow of nuclear holocaust" and said the regime was the "the world's leading supporter of terrorism".

He followed that up in May with a speech in Israel in which he labeled as an appeaser anyone who wished to find a diplomatic solution to the problem of terrorism, and compared these unnamed people to the Nazi appeasers of World War II.



From the New York Times:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said, in a speech otherwise devoted to spotlighting Israel’s friendship with the United States.

“We have an obligation,” he continued, “to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

This all fit in very nicely with Bush's saber rattling over Iran ever since his infamous "Axis of Evil" speech. Imagine, then, my shock when I read that Bush had reversed his position and that, as The Guardian reported:

The US is planning to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years, a remarkable turnaround in policy by president George Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his time in office.

My first thought, of course, was that George Bush must be reading my blog, since just last month I pointed out why I felt that his hard-line stance toward Iran was the wrong way to go.

The true reason for Bush's about-face is difficult to pin down. He may be trying to salvage some sort of positive legacy in the Middle East, since his "roadmap to peace" led absolutely nowhere, and his wars are at this point not at all likely to succeed in the long term. Or he may truly be interested in negotiation with Iran for its own sake, to improve the prospects for peace in the region.

Whatever the motivation behind Bush turning into one of the appeasers that he lambasted only a couple months ago, since the alternative is a march to war, this is one Bush flip-flop that I can live with.
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McCain's Health Care Plan Makes Me Sick

There is an interesting tidbit in this Associated Press article about McCain's health care plan. First, there was this:

McCain would provide refundable tax credits of $2,500 for individuals, and $5,000 for families, for all those who buy health insurance.

This, in itself, is not all that interesting, except that what McCain is offering is a huge give-away of our tax dollars to the insurance industry disguised as a health care plan. Coincidentally, Obama is offering pretty much the same thing. The problem with these plans is that insurance does not equal health care.

It is the job of the insurace industry to make money off of policy holders. They do not make money by paying out claims. Therefore, every insurance company has an army of people whose sole purpose is to deny paying for medical expenses. I am not faulting the insurance companies for this; they figured out how to make tons of money by not providing the services they promise, so bully for them. My issue is with the notion that having the government pay for peoples' insurance is the solution to the problem. It is not; it is merely feeding the beast.

But perhaps that is an issue for another time.

In the AP article, there is also this:

Employer contributions toward health insurance would be treated as income, meaning workers would have to pay income taxes on it.

Hmm... Couple that with this quote from the Houston Chronicle:

Companies that provide coverage to workers still would get tax breaks.

McCain's plan is to pay for health insurance credits by taxing workers for the amount that their employer contributes. According to the Chronicle, McCain's advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin states McCain's plan would raise "an estimated $3.6 trillion in revenues."

So to sum up McCain's philosophy, we need to keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy; we need to reduce or eliminate taxes on corporations; but it's OK to raise taxes on hard-working Americans to the tune of 3.6 trillion dollars.

So to every non-millionaire conservative, I ask this: how do you reconcile voting for a candidate who states flat-out that he's going to raise your taxes?
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One Debate We All Lose

Senator Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has announced that not only is he going to continue one of Bush’s most constitutionally questionable policies, the faith-based initiative, but he is actually going to expand the program. In fact, the New York Times reports that if Obama is elected, he “would consider elevating the director of his Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to a cabinet-level post.”

Is this the sort of “change” that we can expect from an Obama presidency? I am not naïve enough to expect a candidate to agree with me on every policy position, but this is one of the more offensive initiatives that Bush has brought us. Despite the arguments that church-based organizations are often able to provide services better and/or cheaper than their secular counterparts, the government should not be giving money to them. Bush’s faith-based initiative represents a crack in the wall separating church and state; as such it should be filled, not expanded. I feel that Obama is really letting me down on this one.

One silver lining of the Obama plan is that he has pledged to rescind Bush’s executive order that allows the church-based organizations receiving tax dollars to discriminate in their hiring and firing based upon a person’s religious beliefs. Predictably, some religious groups are out of their minds over this.

“If you can’t hire people within your faith community, then you’ve lost the distinctive that is the reason why faith-based programs exist in the first place,” said Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Well, damn. And here I thought the reason the faith-based programs existed was to help people in need. Shows what I know.

For his part, Straight-talk McCain chimed in on the matter as well.

A McCain campaign spokesman, Brian Rogers, said Mr. McCain “disagrees with Senator Obama that hiring at faith-based groups should be subject to government oversight.”

So McCain believes that not hiring someone because of their religious beliefs is okay. Do we really need laws protecting people from discriminatory hiring practices? If McCain is elected, maybe we can get rid of them and find out. You know, free market blah blah blah.

So who wins the great faith-based initiative debate? Nobody. The religious nuts come off as religious nuts; McCain comes off as clueless once more; and Obama shows himself to be a sellout. The real losers, though, are the American citizens. The separation of church and state is a cornerstone of our democracy, and it seems that no matter who we put in office, that separation will be a little narrower as a result.
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Straight-Talking McCain Tells It Like It Isn't

John McCain has a new ad (available on his web site) in which he blatantly tries to distance himself from George Bush. His people have finally wised up to the fact that McCain's allegiance to Bush is going to weigh on him like an albatross in the general election. So the new ad shows Maverick John standing on a mountain staring into the distance in what may be the most hammed-up moment of the campaign so far.

Back in reality, however, we have a couple of interesting headlines:

Bush urges offshore oil drilling

McCain calls for lifting ban on offshore drilling

McCain is so different from Bush that he has the same worthless "plan" for easing down gas prices.

In his speech to the oil industry yesterday, McCain said, among other things,

But the stakes are high for our citizens and for our economy. And with gasoline running at more than four bucks a gallon, many do not have the luxury of waiting on the far-off plans of futurists and politicians. We have proven oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. And I believe it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use.

What he said there is technically true, but it's misleading. While the US does have 21 billion barrels of proven reserves, according to the Department of Energy (check page 7 of this report,) there are 5.174 billion barrels of proven reserves that are not currently in production.

So if the US removed all impediments to drilling and the entire available reserves came online today, we would have the equivalent of a little under three years worth of OPEC imports available. This is McCain's big solution? He states that we can't afford to wait for "far-off plans of futurists and politicians," and yet, he offers little more than some far-off plans himself.

If McCain were truly serious about this problem five years ago, as his ad states, perhaps he should have done a little more to get the members of his party to join the cause instead of blocking every effort of the Democrats to promote conservation and improved fuel efficiency.

Maybe the real problem is that McCain just isn't a very effective leader.
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Why The US Needs Obama's Foreign Policy

A lot of hay has been made by conservatives over Obama's foreign policy plans. The sentiments of the right were summed up nicely by President Bush when he stated that anyone who would have a dialog with our "enemy" was the equivalent of Chamberlain, who thought that appeasing the Nazis would avert a war.

Bush's analogy was, of course, absurd. Last I checked (though admittedly, I don't get CIA briefing on these things) Iran was not amassing troops at their border, preparing to attack a neighbor. Not even Israel.

Marco Vicenzino has an interesting article in the Turkish Daily News. In part, he states:

The reality is that dealing with Iran is less contingent upon who occupies the White House and more dependent on who wins Iran's next presidential election in 2009, and even more so upon the ultimate discretion of Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. If moderate rhetoric prevails on both sides at the early stages of both new presidencies, some form of a new direct or indirect dialogue could possibly evolve in a very gradual manner by the middle of each respective president's term.

Something that doesn't get a lot of play in the US media is the fact that Iranians elect their president. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a dictator, no matter how much the Bush administration likes to paint him as such. The coming election in Iran is at least as important as this fall's US election to the process of peace or war in the Middle East.

In the US, we have two main choices: Barack Obama or John McCain. McCain wants to bomb Iran. He has stated as much and even sang a song about it. With McCain in the White House, the people of Iran will have real reason to fear the US. They will live every day wondering if American HellFire is going to rain down on them and destroy their homes, their lives, and their country. McCain will push for more sanctions and further isolation of Iran from the global community. If those measures have their desired effect, the people of Iran will suffer as their economy takes a serious hit.

Within that context, they will be confronted by a choice: should they elect a president who will try to bargain with the Great Satan, or should they stick with Ahmadinejad, who stands defiantly thumbing his nose at the superpower?

Fear is a strong motivator. Just look at Bush's approval ratings after 9/11. Just look at the Republican scare tactics used in 2002 and 2004. All of you conservatives, think back to the election of '04 where you were faced with the threat of "Islamofascists" and had to pick between Kerry, who wanted to find a way to reduce our military involvement in the Middle East, and Cowboy Bush, who is so tough he told the enemy to "bring 'em on." Whom did you choose?

If the Iranian people are presented with a US president who is willing to work with their leaders to meet the security interests of the region and the world, while bringing them into the global economic community so they can prosper and have better lives, would they choose to reelect the radical Ahmadinejad, or the more moderate candidate who wants to work with the US to make their lives better?

So we have to decide: do we want to put the warmongering John "Bush III" McCain in charge so he can continue saber-rattling, all but guaranteeing that Ahmadinejad will win reelection and the spiral toward war will continue? Or do we want to put Barack Obama in the White House, so he can start moving Iran, and the Middle East, toward a more moderate leadership, so they can join the rest of the global community and perhaps make the Middle East a place where the constant threat of war is little more than a fading memory?

We need Obama's foreign policy. It's as simple as that.

NOTE: For an opposite view of Obama's foreign policy, check out According To Nikki.

Heads He Wins, Tails We Lose.

The Senate Intelligence Committee finally released their report on the Bush administration's "intelligence failures" leading to the Iraq war. Why did it take so long? Because the Senate Republicans stonewalled every step of the way, as usual. The report doesn't shed a whole lot of new light on the matter; it simply verifies what most of us on the left have been saying for a long time.

From Senate Intelligence Committee chairman John D. Rockefeller's press release:

“Before taking the country to war, this Administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the Administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” Rockefeller said. “In making ethe case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.”

“It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa’ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa’ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush Administration led th nation into war under false pretenses.

“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

You can read the entire report here.

The New York Times, in an editorial on the 6th, states:

Over all, the report makes it clear that top officials, especially Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, knew they were not giving a full and honest account of their justifications for going to war.

And:

According to the Senate report, there was no evidence that Mr. Hussein intended to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, and the intelligence community never said there was.

The Times ends their editorial with this:

We cannot say with certainty whether Mr. Bush lied about Iraq. But when the president withholds vital information from the public — or leads them to believe things that he knows are not true — to justify the invasion of another country, that is bad enough.

The defense offered by Bush apologists has been that the intelligence was bad, therefore the Bush administration is not to blame. So let me ask this: which is worse, a president who would deliberately mislead us into a war, or a president who is so [dim, slow, oblivious, out of the loop] that he doesn't know to ask the questions that will determine how much of a threat we are facing?

Bonus question: Given all that we know about the Iraq intelligence failure/manipulation, how are we supposed to trust what they say about Iran? Or any country, for that matter?
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EDIT: For an opposing view of the report, check out According To Nikki's take.

The Blue Wave

Last Thursday, Bob Beckel over at Real Clear Politics had an article about how the election this fall will be a blowout in Obama's favor. He makes a strong argument, starting with the results of the 2004 election, which looked like this:



He gave McCain New Hampshire, which seems fair. Then he gave Obama Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Ohio. He took Montana, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida away from McCain since they are all too close to call. His map looks like this:



Which would result in a nice big win for Obama, no matter which way the four swing states fell.
I think that Beckel missed one important state, though. There is one state that has been a Republican stronghold recently, and in most scenarios is considered a gimme for the GOP. Let me put a picture of it here, so you all can start to get used to seeing it.



The latest poll I can find shows McCain leading Obama in Texas by only 5 percent, 48 to 43, with 9% undecided. I think that as McCain tries to play tough on illegal immigration and border fences in order to placate the GOP base, a lot of hispanics are going to shift over to the Democratic camp. Add to that the quarter-million blacks displaced from New Orleans who now call Texas home and the emergence of Bob Barr as a Libertarian alternative for Ron Paul's supporters, and I think that the Lone Star State will tip back to blue, as it was in almost every election through 1976. This is what my electoral map looks like:



Isn't that nice? I left Florida as undecided because it's too hard to say how that one's going to fall. I think it will be blue, but I'm not confident in that prediction. I also gave North Dakota to Obama because he's currently leading McCain in that state as well.

So, will McCain get wiped out this November or is it just wishful thinking? We'll find out in five months. Stay tuned.

NOTE: All of the maps here were created on my new favorite web site: 270toWin.com. Go check it out.
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America Leans To The Left

It is a fairly common claim from conservatives that America is a right-of-center country; that Democrats are simply out of touch with the average citizen. I've never seen a conservative back up this claim, but that hasn't stopped them from saying it, or kept fellow conservatives from believing it, I would guess. Tell a lie long enough and it eventually becomes the truth (for an example of this, see the term "liberal media.")

Fortunately, there is evidence to back up a claim of the direction that the country is leaning, and you may have already guessed from the title, it isn't to the right.

Rasmussen Reports tracks ten issues that are important to American voters and the party that people trust more to handle each of the issues. May 2008's poll has some interesting results.

The most important issue: The Economy. Whom do people trust more? The Democrats, 50% to 36%. That's a pretty significant spread.

Issue Two: Government Ethics and Corruption. Which party is more trusted? Dems, 45% to 26%. No real surprise there.

Issue Three: National Security and the War on Terror. This is the Republicans' bread and butter, right? Nope. The Democrats are more trusted, 49% to 42%.

And so it goes with the other issues as well. The Democrats are more trusted on:

Social Security: 49% to 36%.
Health Care: 54% to 33%.
Education: 50% to 35%.
Iraq (Iraq!) 50% to 39%.
Taxes (Taxes?) 45% to 40%.
Immigration: 45% to 35%.
Abortion 46% to 39%.

The Democrats are more trusted by at least 5% on every major issue. There are two important conclusions to draw from this.

First: The Republican smear machine will be running full force this fall, because they know they can't win on any of the issues. All they have left are personal attacks. I'm sure we can look forward to seeing more footage of Reverend Wright.

Second: America is a left-of-center country.

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Tell Me Again Why I Give A Damn.

This morning in London, the price of a barrel of oil hit an all-time high of just over $135. There has been a lot of talk in the past year about Peak Oil, which is the theory that the world's oil supply is limited and therefore we will reach a point where production declines, never to return. It seems more obvious to me now than ever before that we (all of us) should be doing what we can to preserve Earth's resources.

I drive a really small car that gets great mileage (A Scion xA, 30 city, 37 highway.) I don't drive much and have only filled the 11 gallon tank twice since Thanksgiving. (And still have almost 1/2 a tank.) I take the train to work, and walk to/from the train. I only run the air when it's really hot, and the heat when it's really cold. I use compact fluorescent light bulbs and turn off lights when I'm leaving a room. I shut off the water when I brush my teeth. I reuse containers, including plastic bags, and recycle everything I can. All of the toilet paper / tissues / paper towels I buy are made from recycled paper. I am vegetarian.

And yet, when I go outside, I see disturbing things. There's one over-compensating guy who drops his wife off at the train in their Hummer H2. The town I live in waters the grass bordering the municipal parking lots. Garbage cans on the train overflow with newspaper and plastic bottles. The expressway is jammed with people driving to work...

And I wonder, am I obligated to give a damn about this planet? Are any of us?

If car companies are allowed to produce ridiculously oversized and inefficient vehicles; car dealers are allowed to sell them; and consumers are allowed to buy and drive them, then why should I try to use less gas? Other than my own selfish gain (of spending less $ on gas,) what good does it do? Why should I reuse my paper grocery bags when other people dump millions of plastic bags a year into landfills and the ocean?

Who am I trying to help? I don't have kids, and probably won't (we can all be thankful for that, right?). So why should I care if the planet is rendered uninhabitable? What skin is it off my back if the population runs out of fresh water in 40 or 50 years? Why should I care if the price of oil keep going up and up until Americans have to pay $10 for a gallon of gas? Why should I take measures to reduce my footprint when so many people aren't doing shit? Why should I be sacrificing so some person I've never met can use that extra gas to fill the tank on their Mustang, or use that electricity to light their incandescent bulbs, or use that oil to make more plastic bags to choke our landfills?

So you tell me. Why should I not buy a Ford F-150? Why should I not leave the water running and the lights on? Why should I not throw out my recycle bins and get a bigger trash can? Why should I not burn through as much of the Earth's resources as I can in my short time on this planet? Seems like that what everyone else is doing.

(For some reason, I felt like ranting today.)
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More Crooked Talk From The Straight Talk Express

John McCain was in Chicago yesterday to deliver a speech on the economy and explain how he's not going to just continue Bush's policies. I'm sort of hurt that I wasn't invited. Sure, I'm not a member of the National Restaurant Association, but I figured a maverick like McCain would want someone like me to be there. Oh well.

(All of the quotes from his speech in this post are from the copy provided on NBC's web site.)

I propose to bring some very different ideas to the presidency.

McCain is the candidate of change. Ignore for the moment the fact that over the past couple of years he has abandoned many of the positions that made him a "maverick." Don't pay attention to his many flip-flops and contradictions. He's all about change. Change, change, change.

As president, I will keep the current low tax rates...

Different Idea #1: Maintain Bush tax cuts.

What's more, we're going to double the size of the child tax exemption, so that moms and dads can spend and save more for their own children.

Aww, doesn't that sound good? Funny that someone who is so concerned about moms and dads having more money for their children would oppose a law that promotes equal pay for women and makes it easier for them to sue their employer over wage discrimination. Of course, something like that would be a limit on corporate activities, which McCain opposes flat out, across the board. (Unlike every other neocon in Washington -- see how different his ideas are?)

He also proposes phasing out the Alternative Minimum Tax, which will help rich people; add a flat tax system, which will help rich people; give tax credits for people to buy private insurance, which will help the rich people who run insurance companies; and reduce the capital gains tax, which helps rich people. (And before any of you fans of supply-side voodoo economics tell me about how reducing the capital gains will increase the revenue from it, read this article, which explains things like how the revenues from capital gains taxes were higher under Clinton, even though the rates were higher.)

Different Idea #2: Reduce taxes to help rich people.

McCain then goes on to explain how he wants to expand benefits to American workers who lose their jobs to globalization.

It is not enough to keep offering employment programs designed for the problems of the 1950's. We have to help displaced workers at every turn on a tough road, so that they are not just spectators on the opportunities of others. And I have made that commitment with reforms to expand and improve federal aid to American workers in need. We need to help millions of workers who have lost a job that won't come back find a new one that won't go away. As American companies invest abroad, we need to invest in our own country and in our own workers.

Different Idea #3: Expand a program of government handouts. (Keep in mind that at the beginning of the speech he said it was the Democratic candidates who would "spend more of your money in Washington.")

If I am elected president, this country will honor its international agreements, including NAFTA, and we will expect the same of others. And in a time of uncertainty for American workers, we will not undo the gains of years in trade agreements now awaiting final approval.

Different Idea #4: McCain will push for the same free-market trade agreements that have been a centerpiece of Bush's foreign policy agenda.

Then McCain did something that would be surprising if I didn't already know what a flip-flopping hypocrite he is: he lambasted Congress for giving tax breaks to huge corporations. He said, "I have proposed a reduction in the corporate tax rate..."

Oh, wait, that's the part of the speech where he was for giving tax breaks to huge corporations. In the part of the speech where he was against it, he said,

...along with the [farm] subsidies comes the usual harvest of tax breaks, bailouts, and other forms of corporate welfare. To take just a few examples, the thoroughbred industry hit it big this year with 93 million in tax breaks for race horses. The timber industry made off with 260 million dollars in tax breaks. And then there's a company that describes itself as, "the largest and most geographically diverse land owner in the nation." That doesn't sound like a hardship case to me. But the Congress has just voted to give that same company 250 million dollars in public money.

Different Idea #5: Support giving tax breaks for corporations, but don't support giving tax breaks to corporations. Don't like where "straight talk" McCain stands on an issue? Wait five minutes.

McCain then wraps up his speech with a slew of abstract promises about free markets and helping farmers and blah blah blah.

So what are the "different" ideas that McCain promises to bring to Washington? I'm not sure; from the speech he gave yesterday it sounds like he's offering more of the same: Bushonomics, flip-flopping, and empty rhetoric. Conservatives have been spouting on about how voting for Obama would be choosing the unknown, but what is their candidate offering? Which McCain would show up to any given meeting? Pro tax cut or anti tax cut? Pro handouts or anti handouts?

And the one thing that McCain didn't mention, that I really wish he did, is how he plans on paying for the occupation of Iraq. He claims he wants to bring fiscal responsibility to Washington, but Bush has been paying for the occupation on borrowed money. Would McCain do the same, or would he use tax dollars? Where would those extra few hundred billion dollars per year come from? Where's the straight talk when you need it?

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They're Coming To Get You!

This being an election year, it is inevitable that the threat of terrorist strikes against the US will be shouted by all manner of right-wing politicians and pundits in an effort to keep the electorate scared to the point that the GOP will regain the majority, or at least stem the blue tide that has been ushering them out of office.

It is fairly common for conservatives to claim that we are "at war" with an insidious enemy that wants nothing less than to destroy the United States. Being the cynical person that I am, I am compelled to ask a very simple question to all of the conservatives who lose sleep to the fear that letting our guard down for even one second will allow the radical jihadists to turn our great nation into a theocracy guided by sharia law.

How, exactly, are radical Muslims going to destroy our country?

I ask this question because the claim seems like one of the most absurd that I've heard in recent years. I simply cannot comprehend how such a thing would happen. So please, conservatives, enlighten me.

Thank you.

When A Loss Is A Win And A Win Is A Loss

Last week, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton split the two contests, with Obama taking North Carolina and Clinton winning Indiana. On the surface, it seemed to be a draw and everyone sighed as the marathon primary season continued. A more thorough look at the results shows that last Tuesday was for all intents and purposes the end of the road for Hillary.

Obama won in North Carolina 56% to 42%, a decisive margin of victory. Clinton took Indiana, on the other hand, by 2%, 51 to 49. According to Joe Klein in the May 19 edition of Time:

Clinton's slim margin of victory in Indiana was provided, appropriately enough, by Republicans, who were 10% of the Democratic-primary electorate and whose votes she carried 54% to 46%...

If that's the case, Clinton's margin without the help of the Republicans would have been .34%, or about 4,000 votes. This after Obama took a beating in the press over his various "scandals," ranging from Reverend Wright to a flag pin absent from his lapel. And in a state that Clinton was expected to win, no less.

Indiana was not a victory for Clinton. Her last-ditch effort to sway the remaining super delegates has been to claim that she is more electable than Obama. She would have needed to win Indiana by a good 10 points or more in order for her claim to have any credibility. Winning the state by .34% or 2% just doesn't cut it.

So while Obama technically lost Indiana, I think he can claim it as a victory because not only did he split the Democrats in a state he was presumed to lose, but he even got 45% of the Republicans who crossed over and voted in the Democratic race. That means that Obama received enough Republican votes to finish ahead of Huckabee, Romney and Paul.

Obama has the lead in pledged delegates and in the popular vote, and has taken the lead in super delegates. At this point, the only questions that remain are, how much longer until Clinton bows out, and whom will Obama pick as his running mate.

What Indiana's Voter-ID Law Really Means

I was not the least bit surprised when I read about the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Indiana's voter ID law. The only real shock was that Justice Stevens sided with the court's conservative majority on a decision that I figured would have run 5-4 along the usual line.

Indiana's law requires everyone who votes in person in an election to present a government-issued ID at the polling place, to prove their identity before being allowed to vote.

The reaction to the Supreme Court's decision was fairly predictable. From the right, we heard that Indiana's law will help to curb the problem of in-person voter fraud. The defendants in the case failed to provide even one single documented instance of such fraud ever taking place in Indiana. In fact, the Bush Justice Department performed a five-year investigation into in-person voter fraud and found that there is, as the NY Times said, scant evidence of any. Nonetheless, the court decided that the state had a valid interest in preventing such a thing from happening, even though it may never happen anyway.

From the left, the cry was that this law is merely an effort by the Indiana Republicans to maintain (or recapture) their majority by suppressing the Democratic voter turnout. Since the GOP has reaped great rewards in recent presidential elections from the disenfranchisement of key Democratic constituencies, I'm inclined to agree with this assessment of the Indiana law.

In fact, looking at research performed at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee's Employment & Training Institute (Wisconsin is considering a similar voter ID law,) the numbers pretty much spell it out.

An estimated 23 percent of persons aged 65 and over do not have a Wisconsin drivers license or a photo ID.

[...]

Less than half (47 percent) of Milwaukee County African American adults and 43 percent of Hispanic adults have a valid drivers license. ... The situation for young adults ages 18-24 is even worse -- with only 26 percent of African Americans and 34 percent of Hispanics in Milwaukee County with a valid license.

The study "found 558,000 residents (in the age groups 18-24 years, and 35 and older) likely to face problems voting under Voter ID laws". That's over half a million voters, mostly in demographic groups that vote consistently Democratic: young people, the elderly, students and minorities. Would that be enough to swing an election? In 2004, John Kerry won Wisconsin by 10,000 votes, so I'd say yes. Of course, in order to know the true damage such a law does in Indiana, there would have to be a count of all the voters who were not able to obtain proper government-issued ID for the election. Hopefully someone will do that.

The point of Indiana's voter ID law, however, was not to force people to show a government ID in order to vote. The real driving force behind this law and the many others like it that are pending in other states, is to force people to get a new drivers license or ID card.

**Begin paranoid rant here **

What possible reason could the government have in people getting a new drivers license or ID? It all stems from H.R.1268: Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005. Specifically, Division B of that legislation: The REAL ID Act of 2005.

The REAL ID is being sold as a means of deterring identity theft, illegal immigration, terrorism and whatever other boogeyman the Republican party can think of. The truth is, though, that it will do no such thing. The people who pushed this bogus law on us knew that it would never pass the scrutiny of people who actually care about our liberty, so it was tacked on to an "emergency" appropriations bill.

One of the flawed arguments presented by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in their REAL ID Final Rule is that seven of the eighteen 9/11 hijackers used fake IDs while preparing for and carrying out their plans. The suggestion being, of course, that the REAL ID law would have prevented 9/11, which is preposterous. What DHS doesn't point out is that eleven of the hijackers had valid drivers licenses, and thus the REAL ID law would have done nothing to stop them. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that if seven of the hijackers hadn't been able to secure the documents needed to board the planes, they would have been replaced by seven other terrorists who could.

The REAL ID Act of 2005 specifies that a REAL ID will be required to board a commercial aircraft. DHS also specifies that people will need a REAL ID to enter federal buildings or nuclear plants. Think about the major terrorist attacks that have happened since 9/11. The coordinated bus/subway bombings in London, the train bombings in Madrid. The REAL ID would do nothing to prevent this sort of attack.

Unless the program was expanded to include trains and buses.

DHS has set the bar so low for this program that there is no way it was created to help stop terrorism. In the comments section of the Final Rule, DHS states:

DHS estimated that if the requirements of the proposed rule lowered by 0.061% per year the annual probability of a terrorist attack that caused both immediate and longer run impacts then the quantified benefits of the REAL ID regulation would be positive.

So if they reduce the probability of a terrorist attack by .061%, that is a success. Feel safer now? DHS also admits something rather odd:

DHS notes that individuals without a REAL ID-compliant document will still be able to enter Federal facilities and board commercial aircraft, and these rules cannot determine what alternative documents are acceptable for those purposes.

So DHS admits that the REAL ID system will not stop people without a REAL ID from boarding a commercial aircraft. What was the purpose of this law again?

The real purpose of the REAL ID is to get people used to the idea of a national ID card and to having their personal information stored on a government database.

Changes in technology in the future may enable the States to reduce the elements to a pointer that would electronically link to a database and provide only authorized parties access to information that today is stored in the MRZ

The MRZ being the Machine Readable Zone (barcode) on the back of the REAL ID. Currently, the MRZ is slated to contain little more than the information on the front of the card, but there is no law stopping them from expanding it. Once it's tied to a database, there is really no limit on what can be stored.

We've already been conditioned to accept long lines at the security gates and to remove our shoes to board commercial airlines. How much more of a hassle will it be to have our REAL ID card scanned as we board and then scanned as we leave? How about trains, buses, subways, taxi cabs? Once we're used to swiping our cards in pretty much any public mode of transport, it can be expanded to include the train stations and bus terminals, and then maybe sporting events, starting with the Super Bowl.

Eventually, every aspect of our daily lives will be monitored by our REAL ID. Where we go, how we get there, what we buy, when we buy it. Think I'm just being paranoid? Maybe you don't remember the Total Information Awareness project.

Anyway, getting back to Indiana's voter ID law. The people interested in gathering all of the data they can on every American (let's call them the Bush administration, though it goes beyond that) want to force the people who would normally not bother getting a REAL ID to sign up by taking away their ability to vote. The Indiana law, and others like it, will have one of two effects. The people who would normally live off of the government's ever expanding radar will be compelled to join the system, or millions of Democratic-leaning voters will stay home on election days, increasing the chances of a Republican majority. It's a win-win situation for them.

Oh, and Indiana just happens to be one of the first states to adopt the REAL ID requirements for their drivers licenses and state IDs. Coincidence?

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McCain And Torture, Part Two

This is the second post in what hopefully will not become a series on John McCain and the politics of torture. You can read the first post here, if you like.

SEC. 327. LIMITATION ON INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES.
(a) LIMITATION.—No individual in the custody or under the
effective control of an element of the intelligence community or
instrumentality thereof, regardless of nationality or physical location,
shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation
not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Human
Intelligence Collector Operations.

That's the section of HR-2082 that John McCain had an issue with. It's one clause in a military appropriations bill, but it was enough to cause McCain to vote against it. The bill passed, but was vetoed by The Decider. The vote to override the veto fell short--there are simply too many torture-loving Republicans in the House.

Of course, there could be any number of reasons that McCain voted against the bill. He is marketed as a fiscal conservative, after all. Maybe he wanted to reduce the budget for the military. Yeah, right. McCain was actually crystal clear on his reasons for voting against this bill. His statement on the floor of the Senate starts with this:

Mr. President, I oppose passage of the intelligence authorization conference report in its current form.

During conference proceedings, conferees voted by a narrow margin to include a provision that would apply the Army Field Manual to the interrogation activities of the Central Intelligence Agency.

And in fact, his entire statement is about how the Army field manual is insufficient for non-military intelligence agencies, specifically the CIA. The problem with the Army field manual is that it makes clear and plentiful references to the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners of war. For example, in section 5-73, the manual quotes Article 17:

No physical or mental torture or any other form of coercion may be inflicted on EPWs to secure from them information of any kind whatever. PWs who refuse to answer may not be threatened,insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

The field manual not only makes extensive reference to the Geneva Conventions, it also explains why we want to adhere to them. However, this flies directly in the face of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), which states:

GENEVA CONVENTIONS NOT ESTABLISHING SOURCE OF RIGHTS.
—No alien unlawful enemy combatant subject to trial by military commission under this chapter may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights.

§ 948c. Persons subject to military commissions
Any alien unlawful enemy combatant is subject to trial by military commission under this chapter.

The MCA also states that information obtained through the use of torture (or "in which the degree of coercion is disputed") may be admissible in a tribunal so long as a military judge determines:

(1) the totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable and possessing sufficient probative value;
(2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence; and
(3) the interrogation methods used to obtain the statement do not amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment prohibited by section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

Wow. That's a grey area big enough to drive a truck through. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which McCain holds up as an example of the laws that protect Illegal Enemy Combatants, states:

No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

The DTA subsequently gets its definition of "creul, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" from the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984. That document states:

the United States considers itself bound by the obligation under Article 16 to prevent "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," only insofar as the term "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" means the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Wouldn't it fall to the Supreme Court, then, to determine the legality of various interrogation methods, since they are the final arbiter of what is or isn't constitutional? I don't believe that the SC has declared waterboarding to be unconstitutional. In fact, according to the Washington Post:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin M. Scalia echoed the administration's view when he said in a BBC Radio interview yesterday that some physical interrogation techniques could be used on a suspect in the event of an imminent threat, such as a hidden bomb about to blow up. "It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that," Scalia said. "And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game: How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?"

So with the Bush administration, the Bush Justice Department, and at least one Supreme Court Justice lining up on the side of torture, the only way to protect anyone from the eager ghouls in the CIA is through the type of legislation that John McCain voted against--because he is in favor of torture.

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Iraqis Should Not Pay To Fix What We Broke

"Iraq's financial free ride may end."

That's the headline of an Associate Press article about the latest twist in the Iraq war debacle. The idea that is uniting Senate Democrats and Republicans, war supporters and war critics, is that since Iraq has money flowing in through their oil industry --with even more to come, thanks to record high oil prices-- they should be paying to fix their country. Sure, the US demolished it, but does that mean that we should pay to fix it?

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska doesn't think so.

"I think the American people are growing weary not only of the war, but they are looking at why Baghdad can't pay more of these costs. And the answer is they can."

Neither does Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

he wants to add a provision to a defense policy bill that would force the Iraqi government to spend its own surplus in oil revenues to rebuild the country before U.S. dollars are spent.

Also supporting this are Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana, along with Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. There may be others as well.

I get it. They know that Americans are getting tired of seeing the enormous piles of debt that the Iraq war is creating. They want to find a way to stem the red tide that future generations of Americans will have to deal with. Fine.

But this idea is ludicrous.

We destroyed their country. We shocked and awed them, we covered them with depleted uranium, we ruined their infrastructure, decimated their hospitals and schools, stood idly by with our thumbs up our asses while looters ran wild after the fall of Baghdad. We walled off sections of their cities and fenced in entire towns. We brought with us a plague of sectarian violence, civil war, and ethnic cleansing. 40% of the population still doesn't have access to clean water. 4 million Iraqis are still displaced from their homes.

And we don't want to pay to fix it?

This is a new level of selfishness, from a group that makes its living being selfish. Having tired of burdening Americans with debt while funneling money into the hands of contractors (aka Bush's base), the Senate is going to take Iraq's money and funnel it into the hands of contractors, who last I checked, were allowed by the US-drafted Iraqi constitution to send 100% of their revenues out of the country. It looks like the Senate Democrats have found a way to stop giving Bush blank checks for his war without having to actually stand up against it. Every time I think that the Senate Democrats can't get any more pathetic, spineless, worthless, or contemptuous, they manage to prove me wrong. Looks like they've done it again.

Hazaa! Let the true looting of Iraq begin!

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General Petraeus Confirms The Surge Has Failed

The greatest lie foisted by the Bush administration upon the American public since the start of the Iraq war is that the surge is a success. During his testimony before Congress this week, General Petraeus confirmed the failure that the compliant conservative media has refused to admit.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Crocker, the top U.S. diplomat, described progress as fragile and reversible. They asked for patience and a suspension of troop withdrawals that will leave 10,000 more American soldiers in Iraq through the end of the Bush presidency than before the surge of 30,000 was announced more than a year ago.

They will not be removing all of the additional troops by this summer, but will be leaving one third of them in country. Apparently the surge has not produced the stability that the administration wants us to think it has.

Perhaps the most appalling comment General Petraeus made was not specifically about the surge, but about the overall disaster that the war has been.

Warner of Virginia pressed Petraeus to answer whether the war has made the United States more secure.

"I've thought more than a bit about that, senator, since September," Petraeus replied, referring to the last time he testified before the congressional committees. The question is "perhaps best answered by folks with a broader view and ultimately will have to be answered by history."

The top commander of the war in Iraq can't tell us that it has made us more secure. Instead, he has decided to follow Bush down the path of dubious waffling and declare that only "history" will determine if the hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been well spent. Perhaps the follow-up question should have been, "Then what the hell are we doing there?"

Petraeus also said, as quoted in the Daily News:

We haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible.

Five years. Five long years since the toppling of Saddam's regime. How close are we to any sort of end to the occupation? We can't even see the light at the end of the tunnel. The surge has been declared a success by the conservative media and yet "we haven't turned any corners."

So what now? Staying the course has failed. Surging the troops has failed. It's time to come up with a concrete plan for withdrawal.

The Failure Of The Surge

[Editor's Note: Though this post is dated April 1, it was actually posted on April 5. Blogger is using the date that I saved the first draft. Sorry for any inconvenience that may cause.]

Over the past couple of months, the Bush administration and pundits in the conservative media have been beating us all over the head with the insistence that Bush's "surge" strategy has succeeded. John McCain has predictably taken the opportunity to point out that he supported the surge strategy, and therefore he's the best qualified to be president. Amid this fanfare, we should all take a moment to think about something that is going unmentioned, namely that the surge is not a success.

Bush's surge strategy has four elements:

1. Escalate troop levels in Baghdad.
2. Decrease sectarian violence.
3. Enable political reconciliation of warring factions.
4. Reduce troop deployments to pre-surge levels.

Point 1 has been accomplished. Point 2 has arguably been, as well, though I'm not sure that the causal link between 1 and 2 is as cut and dry as people in the conservative media and the Bush administration would have us think.

Point 3? Umm... No. Point 4? Also negative.

Therefore, at best, it is premature to declare the surge a success. The overall strategy will only be a success once all 4 elements have been a success. Calling the strategy victorious at this point is only going to set Bush up for another "mission accomplished" moment, once things fall to pieces again.

Speaking of that, the recent fighting between the Mahdi Army and the Iraqi security forces have shown us that not only has Bush's surge not succeeded, but it has, in fact, failed.

From the BBC:

The monthly figure of people killed in Iraq rose by 50% in March compared with the previous month, according to official government counts.

A total of 1,082 Iraqis, including 925 non-combatant civilians, were killed, up from 721 in February.

The Mahdi Army decided to ignore Muqtada al Sadr's cease-fire order and resist the assault of the Iraqi army to take control of Basra, resulting in a burst of violence from Sadr City in Baghdad to the southern tip of the country. The Iraqi army was unable to gain any ground against al Sadr's forces and had to resort to calling in US air strikes. After a long week, several members of Iraq's government traveled to Iran and met with al Sadr, a meeting mediated by the Iranians, and brokered a cease-fire.

From The Huffington Post:

The Iraqi government sent a three-member delegation that was headed by a prominent Shiite lawmaker close to al-Maliki, Ali Adeeb, and also included two of his Shiite colleagues, Hadi al-Amri and Qassem Sahlani, said the Iraqi official based in Tehran. The meetings in Qom also included representatives from Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, he said.

If you recall, the Revolutionary Guard is the group that Congress last fall declared to be a terrorist organization.

Once al Sadr asserted his authority and instructed his followers to stand down, the level of violence fell back to the atrocious level it had been previous to the week's events.

I don't wish to diminish the role of the US troops who have been surged into the country, but it seems like the reduction in violence has a lot more to do with al Sadr's cease fire and the Sunni insurgent cease-fire (aka the "Awakening") than with the troop surge. If al Sadr were to declare an end to his cease-fire, there would be an explosion of violence across the southern half of Iraq, which, incidentally, is what people are preparing for.

The real question about part 3 of the surge strategy is what will happen after this fall's provincial elections. As Robert Dreyfuss at The Nation puts it:

Sadr's movement is positioned to register a massive win at the polls in Basra and throughout southern Iraq in provincial elections scheduled for October, an electoral defeat that would portend the end of the Dawa-ISCI regime.

So even if the Bush administration is able to successfully enact step 4 of the surge strategy and bring troops back to pre-surge levels, his strategy has failed.

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McCain Proves He Really Really Really Doesn't Get It

On Tuesday, the 25th, John McCain gave a speech before the Orange County Hispanic Small Business Roundtable. (Read the text here. ) The main topic of the speech was to address the current financial crisis faced by the US., namely the aftermath of the subprime mortgage collapse.

McCain pointed the finger at a few of the parties responsible (curiously leaving out the Federal Reserve and George Bush, who both have some culpability.) He blames the homeowners who bought more house than they could afford, and the mortgage companies that loaned them the money. I agree with his assessment that those two groups are partially to blame.

He then goes on to say:

The other part of what happened was an explosion of complex financial instruments that weren't particularly well understood by even the most sophisticated banks, lenders and hedge funds. To make matters worse, these instruments -- which basically bundled together mortgages and sold them to others to spread risk throughout our capital markets -- were mostly off-balance sheets, and hidden from scrutiny. In other words, the housing bubble was made worse by a series of complex, inter-connected financial bets that were not transparent or fully understood.

While his explanation of the mortgage-backed securities scam is not complete, it will suffice. The important part is where he says these instruments "were mostly off-balance sheets, and hidden from scrutiny." And the part about "financial bets that were not transparent..." The problem is that the convoluted mechanisms that banks used to turn high-risk loans into triple-A rated securities was hidden from view and understood by very few people.

So far, I'm with him.

But then he said, "Let's start with some straight talk," so I knew the BS was to follow.

His plan to help homeowners is to do nothing to help homeowners. Any assistance that the government offers to people with mortgages must be limited to those who didn't act irresponsibly. So he wants to give aid only to those people who don't need it, because if someone signed on to a mortgage they didn't understand or couldn't afford, then they should lay in the bed they made (which will probably be in a refrigerator box under a viaduct.) "Central to those reforms," he says, "should be transparency and accountability." He wants people to be accountable. There's some straight talk.

So how would Saint McCain handle the banking industry, which has brought our economy to the very brink of collapse, requiring a several-hundred-billion dollar bailout by the Fed?

Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.

The financial institutions that a few minutes earlier he was lambasting for using unregulated, hidden tactics to spread massive risk throughout the economic foundation of America should be allowed to do whatever they want to make money.

So to sum up: after very nearly destroying the economy (and really, the jury is still out on that) these titans of greed should be trusted to do whatever they feel is appropriate to increase their bottom line. Remember when McCain said, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should"? Well, this is what he was talking about.

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McCain Takes Much Needed Break From Reality

Earlier today, John McCain spoke about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the NY Times, he said:

withdrawing American military forced [sic] in those countries could allow them “to sink back into chaos and extremism” that would “determine the fate of that critical part of the world, but our fate, as well.”

If US forces leave, he says, Iraq could sink back into chaos and extremism. I hate to be the one to break it to him, but if Iraq has risen out of chaos and extremism (which is itself a dubious claim) it is already well on its way to sinking back into the quagmire. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Residents and Mahdi Army militants alike appeared to be bracing for a coming battle, guarding against US and Iraqi forces advancing to stop the rockets allegedly fired from Sadr City that hit the Green Zone again Wednesday for the third day since Sunday.

Although it's in Basra, the oil-rich southern city, where the Mahdi Army and Iraqi forces were locked in a bitter fight for a second day, killing at least 55, many in Baghdad fear that clash will trigger a new battle in Mr. Sadr's Baghdad stronghold. Already there were reports by US-funded Al Hurra TV, citing hospital sources, that at least 20 people have been killed and 140 wounded in sporadic clashes in Sadr City since Tuesday.

Now, in a place where the US has done battle many times before, a sense of siege and helplessness has replaced some of the flickers of optimism that emerged over the past few months as a result of improved security made possible by the US surge and the Mahdi Army's seven-month cease-fire, which now looks to be shattered.

McCain went on to say:

We have incurred a moral responsibility in Iraq. It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible and premature withdrawal.

One of the most disturbing talking points of the right is that there is a possibility of ethnic cleansing taking place in Iraq if US troops pull out. How can we trust McCain to lead this country if he doesn't even know that Iraq has already fallen victim to ethnic cleansing? How far up his own ass has McCain stuck his head? Is he getting the same daily briefings that Bush gets? The ones that say, "Everything Is Good?"

You can Google Iraq ethnic cleansing and see for yourself, but in case you don't feel like doing that, here's a bit from Patrick Cockburn:

Civilian casualties have fallen from 65 Iraqis killed daily from November 2006 to August 2007 to 26 daily in February. But the fall in the death rate is partly because ethnic cleansing has already done its grim work and in much of Baghdad there are no mixed areas left.

Once everyone has been killed, it only stands to reason that the death rate will drop.

And of course McCain claims that Bush's "surge" is working.

“Political reconciliation is occurring across Iraq at the local and provincial grassroots level,” he said. “Sunni and Shi’a chased from their homes by terrorist and sectarian violence are returning."

Obviously there isn't any evidence of political reconciliation. As for the people chased from their homes, ReliefWeb puts it like this:

Hundreds of thousands of Baghdadis now live in walled-in, ethnically cleansed, heavily guarded enclaves that they are terrified to leave. Sunnis do not venture into Shia areas, and vice-versa. Sectarian hatreds have been contained, but not resolved.

2 millions of internally displaced and 2 millions of refugees ... are still struggling to survive in dire conditions. They cannot return to their place of origin, as their safety cannot be guaranteed.

I don't know what Iraq John McCain just visited, but it sounds a hell of a lot nicer than the one that we have here on Earth.

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McCain Appears Presidential

John McCain has been on tour this week, first through the Middle East, and then on to England. The point of his trip, of course, is to provide many photo-ops of him with various leaders to shore up his claims of having foreign policy experience. He wants, in short, to appear presidential. I'd say he has succeeded.

Unfortunately, the president he resembles is George W Bush.

We all had a chuckle on Tuesday when McCain asserted more than once that Iran is training Al Queda operatives and then sending them back to Iraq. His response was that everyone makes mistakes and we should move on. (The one difference with McCain being that Bush would never acknowledge making a mistake. History would have to judge that.)

In England, McCain met with their Prime Minister for more glad-handing. According to The Telegraph, in a piece that got all wet and sloppy with how awesome Saint McCain is and how he would never have screwed up Iraq as much as W, McCain said:

"The problem with Iraq ... is because it was mishandled after the initial success. That caused great sacrifice, frustration and sorrow."

While that statement may be true to a degree, in that the occupation was indeed mismanaged and has certainly caused a great deal of "sacrifice, frustration and sorrow," that is not the problem with Iraq.

The problem with Iraq is that we should never have invaded in the first place. The problem with Iraq is that the cause for war was fabricated. The problem with Iraq is that the invasion was illegal, immoral, unjust and unnecessary. Of course, I wouldn't expect McCain to do anything but stand behind the decision to go to war in Iraq. Why would he let facts get in the way of his ideology? In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, when asked about the NIE that stated Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program, he said:

I was critical of the NIE at the time. The director says now he wouldn't do that again, but I think the damage that was done by weakening the resolve of our European allies was serious.

This latest round of sanctions that was passed at the UN is remarkable in its weakness. I don't even know how you call them sanctions. So I believe the NIE was damaging, but I do have some optimism particularly where [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy is concerned. I'm glad the [German] chancellor is here in Israel.

Over time we may be able to gather more European support as the evidence becomes clear, as it will, that Iran is progressing on the path towards construction and acquisition of nuclear weapons.

The intelligence estimate states that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program. Since that's counter to McCain's ideology, he has decided to not believe it, replacing actual intelligence with made-up "facts" that will support his agenda.

So we got to see McCain acting presidential this week, showing us a little bit of what we can expect if Saint McCain prevails in the coming election.

I don't think our country, or the world, can survive four more years of Bush policies, Bush agenda and Bush wars, which is exactly what McCain promises.

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McCain's High Road Leads Over Cliff

Last Thursday night, Senator John McCain cast a vote in favor of a bill that would have halted the practice of earmarks for one year. According to CNN, the measure failed by a vote of 29 to 71. McCain took the opportunity to speak on the one issue that he has been consistent on over his career, and to harp on the Senate for not following the will of the people, who he claims are opposed to earmarks.

"There's only one place left in America that they don't get it," McCain told a town hall gathering outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, referring to Washington. "Pork-barrel spending is out of control and Americans want it stopped."

He said the result "is an interesting commentary on how the Congress and the Senate [are] disconnected from the American people."

The suggestion, of course, being that McCain is the true man of the people and that the two Democratic candidates are not, even though they both voted in support of the 1-year suspension of earmarks.

The problem with McCain's argument is that it opens him up to an evaluation of his other positions under the same microscope.

According to CNN:

A majority of Americans consider waterboarding a form of torture. ... Asked whether they think waterboarding is a form of torture, more than two-thirds of respondents, or 69 percent, said yes; 29 percent said no.

Asked whether they think the U.S. government should be allowed to use the procedure to try to get information from suspected terrorists, 58 percent said no; 40 percent said yes.

So on the issue of torture, McCain is obviously, as he puts it, "disconnected from the American people."

According to USA Today:

Which would be better for the United States?
Keep a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better: 35%
Set a timetable for removing troops and stick to it regardless of what is going on in Iraq: 60%

Obviously, McCain is out of touch with America when he says, on his campaign website:

A greater military commitment now is necessary if we are to achieve long-term success in Iraq. John McCain agrees with retired Army General Jack Keane that there are simply not enough American forces in Iraq. More troops are necessary...

So 60% of Americans want to set a timetable for withdrawal and McCain wants to send more troops. Who's disconnected?

One of McCain's strategies is to run as an outsider. People in Washington just don't get it, he says, conveniently ignoring the fact that he is one of the people in Washington. Americans are disappointed with Congress, which doesn't listen to them, and doesn't get anything worthwhile accomplished. Meanwhile, McCain--who is a member of Congress--has totally ignored his duties as a Senator. According to that first CNN story:

McCain returned to the Senate for the first time in a month to cast his ballot for an issue that is one of his central themes on the campaign trail.

McCain's only interest in his job as a Senator is making himself look better for the presidential election this fall. Maybe we should have a poll to find out how many Americans approve of that.

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The Conservative Media Whitewash Continues

Today, the House Democrats unveiled their own FISA bill, refusing to simply vote for the Senate version. Their bill excludes immunity for telecom companies that cooperated with President Bush's illegal domestic wiretapping program. As could be expected, the response from the right was melodramatic. According to CNN, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith, said:

Today's proposal is further evidence that House Democrats are not only out of touch with the needs of the American people, but also with Senate Democrats, the White House and our intelligence community," he said in a written statement. "Their careless disregard for the concerns of our intelligence community simply proves the point that Democrats are weak on national security.

I can't say for certain that Smith believes the House Democrats are "weak on national security" just because they refuse to give blanket retroactive immunity for a few huge corporations. I do know, however, that Smith is pretty much echoing the Bush administration's opinion on the matter.

My first reaction to Bush's insistence on providing immunity was that he wanted to protect the telecom companies because they give a lot of money to the Republican party. But then I started thinking. (Dangerous, I know.) If these companies are found liable in civil cases, that may be enough to implicate Bush, whose orders they were following. Whether there would ever be legal action against Bush as a result, I can't see that being a risk that he would take. We've already seen him manipulate the system to protect himself in the Valerie Plame case, where he commuted Libby's sentence in order to prevent the convicted man from having to testify further.

But that's not what I was talking about when I mentioned the conservative media's whitewash. According to the same CNN story, the Senate version of the FISA bill "would give telecommunications companies legal immunity for agreeing to participate in the program after the 9/11 terrorist attacks."

I've noticed that it has become an accepted fact in the conservative media that Bush's illegal domestic wiretapping program started after 9/11. There is evidence, though, that the program began well in advance of Bush's so-called War On Terror. In fact, according to Wired Blog, one of the pending lawsuits claims:

The NSA program was initially conceived at least one year prior to 2001 but had been called off; it was reinstated within 11 days of the entry into office of defendant George W. Bush.

An ATT Solutions logbook reviewed by counsel confirms the Pioneer-Groundbreaker project start date of February 1, 2001.

And:

According to court documents unveiled this week, former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio clearly wanted to argue in court that the NSA retaliated against his company after he turned down a NSA request on February 27, 2001 that he thought was illegal.

So it starts to become clear why the Bush administration is so adamant about providing retroactive immunity to the telecom companies. If these, and other, suits are allowed to go forward, the most damning allegation against Bush may be proven; that he was illegally spying on Americans long before 9/11.

Clinton's Message: It's All About Me

In yesterday's primaries, Hillary Clinton won Ohio and Texas (and Rhode Island). The two larger states were seen as must-wins for her campaign if she was to have any hope of winning the Democratic nomination. Her victories in those two states, and her reaction to them, reveal that her candidacy at this point represents a real defeat for the Democratic party.

According to ABC News:

In talking points circulated late last night, the Clinton campaign acknowledges that it can never overtake Obama with pledged delegates, and asserts that it intends to overtake him with the support of superdelegates.

Clinton's strategy has shifted from actually winning the nomination through the votes cast in primaries and caucuses to being selected by the party insiders and elected officials who make up the super delegates.

Disregarding for the moment whether or not the super delegates would even give the nomination to the candidate who received fewer votes from the masses, the fact is that Clinton wants them to do just that. She has apparently decided that her own ambition matters more than the will of the people. She is clearly putting herself above her party.

As soon as the Clinton camp realized that their candidate had no chance to surpass Obama's pledged delegate total, Hillary Clinton should have dropped out of the race. If she receives the nomination through the (imo) underhanded super delegate system, it could have devastating consequences. Who can predict how many of Obama's supporters will decide not to vote, or to vote for McCain? Does Clinton believe that she would get their support just because she would be the Democrat on the ballot and arguably the lesser of two evils?

At this point, Hillary Clinton's campaign is serving no one but her. She doesn't care about the voters. She doesn't care about the democratic process. All she cares about is getting her chance, even if it means alienating her party -- and almost certainly handing Bush III (aka McCain) the presidency -- once she gets it.

McCain: Talk, Shmalk, Let's Have Some Action!

John McCain is pinning his electoral hopes on people's perception that he will make a good commander in chief. He is a war veteran, of course, and for some reason that is supposed to automatically qualify him for the job. The major question is how he would prosecute the Iraq war.

This morning, McCain stated:

My friends, the war will be over soon. The war for all intents and purposes [will be over], although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years, but it'll be handled by the Iraqis not by us...

How does McCain envision the war ending? How will the US hand the problem over to the Iraqis? I would have imagined by getting the various parties to come together and work out their disagreements. Later in his town hall meeting, McCain said:

I think one of the most overrated aspects of diplomacy is talks

So... He plans on handling the war in Iraq by... not talking to the Iraqis? I'm beginning to see why he predicted that the US will be in Iraq for another hundred years.

With McCain running the show, we'll continue Bush's failed policy of shooting first and not asking questions later. If we had listened to McCain last summer, we'd be at war with Iran right now, over a non-existent nuclear program. Serving in the military doesn't automatically make someone a good leader. It's time Americans took the stars out of their eyes and looked at the man behind the uniform.