Listen if you have time. A real look at what Iraq is like for US soldiers and marines. Interesting for me was that the army seems proud of transitioning from the “abusive” model of policing to the “insanely condescending” technique. Also bizarre is the ideological insistence that in Iraq there are “bad guys” causing all the violence and “everyday Iraqis” are the victims. So we are training the Iraqis to defend themselves, giving them weapons to protect against the “bad guys” without stopping to consider the possibility that it is “everyday Iraqis” who are killing us and each other.

Today, Judge Lewis Kaplan derailed a major criminal prosecution against former partners of KPMG for an illegal tax shelter they promoted in the early part the century.  Kaplan is a Clinton appointee.   So at first blush it might seem bizarre that he would dismiss these charges against formerly wealthy defendants when the indigent get screwed everyday.  But it was the right call and Kaplan was correct to be indignant.

A common and persistent republican theme is lower taxes.  The mechanism may change (eliminating “double”-taxation on corporate dividends, instituted a “flat tax,” creating a consumption tax), but the message has always been the same: smaller government and lower taxes will make the world a better place.  Of course, government costs money.  And republicans are acutely aware of this fact.  So to pander to their base they find ways to reduce taxes without completely bankrupting the federal government.  For example, we have pretty low corporate tax rate, which makes corporations happy.  But our federal income rates are still reasonably high.  So although we lose some taxes on corporate gains, we make up a lot of it by taxing really rich people that own corporations.  But what happens when really rich people figure out how to avoid paying taxes?  Well, then you have two choices: 1) prosecute these people and fess up and admit that we need taxes and higher tax rates or 2) go ape-shit on these rich people and treat them as an aberration so you can continue the charade that lower taxes are better for everyone.  Obviously, the Bush administration chose the latter and aggressively and unconstitutionally pressured KPMG to cut off their partners’ legal fees to make it easier for the justice department to prosecute them.

Now, this isn’t a pure consequence of republican duplicity.  Our “tough on crime” culture plays a part and creates incentives to prosecute people outside the boundaries of the law.  But lying is part of it.  When you tell people one thing that you know is demonstrably false, you have to cut corners to prevent people from finding out you are full of shit.  Thankfully, Judge Kaplan called them on their lies.

But I totally forgot it. oh well.

A New French Revolution’s Creed: Let Them Ride Bikes
Finally, Parisians have gotten so sick of choking on exhaust fumes that they’ve decided to install 20,600 public bicycles at easy-to-use rental stations around the city. (Well, we can’t explain this progressive event only by environmentalist and socialist motivations. It helped that an advertizing company is funding the bikes and their maintenance in exchange for rights to use 1,628 billboards around the city.)

I’m glad to hear that Paris will be more biker-friendly, as I was pretty disgusted by the traffic when I was walking around there last month. It was especially a rough contrast for me because I live in a very bikecentric city: Minneapolis, which has the second highest percentage of biking commuters of any U.S. city (link).

According to this article on “Bogota’s Urban happiness movement,” “Recent studies on life satisfaction show that commuting makes people more unhappy than anything else in life. (It is, apparently, the opposite of sex.) Commuting also happens to rob us of time for family and friends.” Riding your bike is a much more enjoyable way to commute than being stuck in a metal cage in traffic.

Leftists in every city should try to organize against car-based transportation and in favor of bicycles - building more bike paths and providing free bikes for the public. A good way to get connected with other bikers is critical mass - check out critical-mass.info.

Only a tiny minority of the super-rich dare to speak out against the ideology of the free market, as in this NYT article: The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age. But even those super-rich espouse an anti-democratic, elistist view of politics in their views of how their money should be redistributed - through philanthropies that they control - rather than through taxes (or direct seizure of their property).

The new tycoons oppose raising taxes on their fortunes. Unlike Mr. Crandall, neither Mr. Weill nor Mr. Griffin nor most of the dozen others who were interviewed favor tax rates higher than they are today, although a few would go along with a return to the levels of the Clinton administration. The marginal tax on income then was 39.6 percent, and on capital gains, 20 percent. That was still far below the 70 percent and 39 percent in the late 1970s. Those top rates, in the Bush years, are now 35 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

Read the rest of this entry »

In case you believed the anti-abotion activists actually are worried about “baby killing” rather than trying a)controlling women and b)starting a theocracy, this story should shed any misconception.

Some crazy people from Operation Save America decided it was worth getting arrested to protest a Hindu prayer in the senate. These people terrify me.

I know people that know Senator Vitter personally. He is by all accounts a friendly and kind man. I have always had trouble reconciling personal stories of the man with his very distasteful public statements. It reminds me of the times I have spoken with republicans (not the christian right kind) who generally seem like thoughtful and reasonable people that I disagree with, but they aren’t evil. People are going to disagree, that is what makes a democracy work. What is sad is that people like Senator Vitter seem to feel obligated to spew hate in order to get elected. I suspect the senator could care less about the sexual habits of other Americans. Lord knows he would rather we not get involved in his.

What has happened in this country that politics has lost all connection to policy? It seems that both sides are reduced to arguing things they don’t believe and introducing bills that will never pass in order to get their pander on. Then they pass laws to give back to the wealthy donors that bought the TV ads that got them elected. In the end we get nothing. Its a bit like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, normal people get into office and realpolitik sucks out their souls. We have democrats blaming the Iraqi government for not cleaning up the mess we made because they think they can’t say the real problem. And we have Republicans like Vitter privately indulging their sexual tastes while condeming those of others, not because they care but because they think they have to.

Could you please tell me where, exactly, it says in the constitution that employees of the executive branch do not have to testify before congress, when subpoenaed?

My brief research into “Executive Privilege” reveals that the only precedent for this is US v Nixon, where the court compelled the Nixon white house to turn over the watergate tapes. The court agreed that there was some priviledge in the Article III powers of the white house: there was a “valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties.” They specifically said in their decision that:

To read the Article II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of ‘a workable government’ and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article II

This is the exact power the Bush white house is asserting–an “absolute privilege”. What I find terrifying however, is that if Bush continues to stonewall this might make it to the supreme court, and I would not be shocked if the Roberts court decided to hand absolute privilege to Bush. Some people are saying this is all a stalling tactic to “run out the clock” so that Bush & co are out of office before any fruit can come from these investigations. I actually think this is not the case. They are asserting this power because they believe that they have it. Cheney has not minced words when he describes the “unitary executive.” This crowd is authoritarian and they think that they have absolute power and discretion.

The Times Editorial board tells it like it is.

Read Amanda’s post. Can this site, with its high quality music snobbery skills, outdo her pronouncement that the death of Kurt Cobain was the moment that began the decline of American society over the 90s?