Which State Will Be First to Start Impeachment?

Will Your State Be the First to Send Impeachment Charges to Congress?

Three state legislatures, Illinois, California, and Vermont, have now introduced resolutions to send petitions to the U.S. House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush (and, in the case of California, Cheney too). Minnesota, Missouri, and Oklahoma all have legislatures still active in May. Delaware, Louisana, R.I., South Carolina, and Puerto Rico are all up and running through June. New Hampshire is in session through July.

Every state has legislators brave enough to take the lead if we urge them to do so and provide them with the information they need.

Here's a kit to get you started:
http://www.impeachpac.org/resolutions

Here's a place to get organized with others in your area:
http://www.pdamerica.org/impeach-wg.php

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Call Your Senators This Week!

The Senate is expected to vote on $67 billion more for war this week, and to vote on amendments to that supplemental spending bill. Senator Bill Frist may seek to block some amendments from coming to a vote.

Call both of your senators and tell them you do not want one more dime spent on this war, that you do not want debate closed off by blocking amendments, and that you support the following amendments:

Senator Joseph Biden's amendment to prevent this money being spent on the construction of permanent bases.

Senator Robert Byrd's amendment stating that any request for funds for an ongoing military operation overseas, including operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, should be included in the annual budget of the President rather than using emergency supplemental appropriations bills that receive less scrutiny.

Senator Russ Feingold's amendment requiring the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq by December 31, 2006.

Call the Capitol switchboard tollfree at 888-818-6641 or at 202-224-3121.

On Thursday Iraqi and American women protested in Senator Frist's office.
See photos.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/images/frist/index.htm

_________________

AUDIO: Howard Zinn on Impeachment

Listen to PSA by Howard Zinn
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/zinn.mp3

Send this to every radio station in the country!

_________________

Petition to Be Delivered to White House on May 18 at 2 p.m.

http://www.dontattackiran.org

Thank you for what you've done! We've collected almost 35,000 signatures. We need a lot more and we've now set a deadline: May 18.

At 2 p.m. on May 18, we will deliver the petition, all the signatures, and all the comments to the White House. Join us there!

We will do this in cooperation with this Spiritual Activism Conference:
http://www.tikkun.org/community/spiritual_activism_conference/

_________________

Buy the Best Compliment-Generating Shirt Ever Created

Get One for Mother's Day!
Get One for everyone you know!
Get one for each day of the week!
http://www.wavelengthclothing.com/impeach_bush.html

_________________

Listen to Neil Young's "Let's Impeach the President"

Listen here:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/9726

Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door
He’s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war
Let’s impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones
What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government’s protection
Or was someone just not home that day?
Let’s impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected
Thank god he’s racking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There’s lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean
Thank God

____________________

FORWARD THIS EMAIL

#####

If you received this from a friend, you can subscribe at:
http://afterdowningstreet.org

Workers complain they're cheated

Home News Tribune Online 04/28/06

By JOHN MAJESKI
STAFF WRITER
jmajeski@thnt.com

SOUTH RIVER — There have been times when Rigabel DaSilva has received much less than the minimum wage for public construction work. But complaining about it to a former employer made not a bit of difference.

"When I talked to the boss he said if we were unsatisfied we could leave," the 43-year-old Brazilian immigrant said through a translator. "If we complained, they said they would call immigration.."

More than 100 people crammed into American Legion Post 214 to discuss the exploitation that immigrant construction workers in the South River area face on a daily basis.

"It essentially is, "You will take what I give you and like it,' " said Louis Sancio, director for the Monroe-based Alliance for Competitive Contracting. "What happens to these cheated workers is a sin."

Sancio said he has seen many examples of unscrupulous contractors who pay immigrant workers less than the state prevailing wage, gypping not only workers but taxpayers, too.

"They're charging the public the full rate . . . but only giving the worker their lesser amount," he said.

The New Jersey Laborers' Union, a member of Change to Win participating in the Make Work Pay! campaign, helped organize the community forum. Along with both documented and undocumented workers, the event featured local clergy and officials, plus panelists from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Yesterday's forum comes at a time when Congress is wrangling with competing immigration bills. On Monday, organizers from largely the Latino community will hold a "Day Without an Immigrant" in which such workers stay home, hoping to convince legislators that undocumented workers should not be treated as criminals.

El Salvador native Jose Villanueva, who attended last night's forum, is participating in "Day Without an Immigrant."

"I've already spoken with my boss and explained to him Monday is important to us," said the New Brunswick resident, who ships orders for a window-manufacturing company. "I have my papers, but it's important for me because I have to fight for my people."

Likewise, DaSilva will join Monday's efforts.

"It's the right thing to do," he said through the translator.

Ken Hoffner, assistant director of New Jersey Laborers' Health and Safety Fund, discussed the safety conditions immigrant workers can be subjected to. He showed slides of precarious scaffolding and unsafe trenches.

"I've seen no hard hats, no safety glasses," he said. "These guys labor on in silence because they want to work. They're hardworking and want to send money home. They take these risks, but they shouldn't have to."

Rob Lewandowski, spokesman for NJ Laborers Union, said last night's purpose was opening people's eyes.

"We want to share these stories with public officials — we really need help from those who enforce the law," he said. "And, to bring awareness in the general community."

John Majeski:

(732) 565-7260;

jmajeski@thnt.com

The Huffington Post's Weekly Digest -- 4.28.06

April 29, 2006

Arianna Huffington

George Bush: Foreign Policy from God, Energy Policy from Big Oil

READ MORE: Dick Cheney, 2006, Earnings, Good Morning America, Andy Card, Scott McClellan, Saddam Hussein, Investigations, George W. Bush

Apr. 25 -- The president may turn to God when it comes to shaping his foreign policy, but his energy policy is strictly courtesy of the Men Upstairs at Big Oil.

Which is why it is beyond comical to watch Moe, Curly, and Larry -- sorry, I mean Bush, Hastert, and Frist -- getting all blue in the face about skyrocketing gas prices, and calling on the Energy and Justice Departments to look into possible market manipulation by oil companies.

It's the least believable call for an investigation since O.J. set out to find the real killers.

For those of you experiencing a sudden wave of déjà vu, yes, the GOP demand for a federal probe of potential oil industry price-gouging was a carbon copy of the demands Chuck Schumer made last week. Hey, maybe they just unconsciously "internalized" Schumer's words.

If it wasn't so despicable it would be laughable.

There was Frist on Good Morning America today, putting aside his video diagnostic skills to become one of the "Car Talk" guys. Among Frist's helpful money saving tips for drivers forced to consider taking out a second mortgage in order to fill up their tanks: get a tuneup, drive slower, and carpool. Thanks, Dr. Goodwrench!

But Frist was just the gassy second banana. The clear headliner was Bush, who had them rolling in the aisles at a meeting of the Renewable Fuels Association, with zingers like his claim that "large cash flows" mean that "these energy companies don't need unnecessary tax breaks". A sentiment that didn't stop the president from signing a GOP energy bill stuffed with some $14.5 billion in tax breaks, tax subsidies, and tax deductions for his cash-rich energy industry chums. I guess those tax breaks were "necessary."

Bush also scored big with his impression of a guy who cares about conservation, highlighting the need to "promote greater fuel efficiency": "And the easiest way to promote fuel efficiency," said the president, "is to encourage drivers to purchase highly efficient hybrid or clean diesel vehicles." As the proud owner of a pair of hybrids, I say "hear, hear." As a sentient human being I say, "Isn't this the same guy whose administration hasn't increased fuel efficiency standards for passengers cars even a single m.p.g. in six years?" Maybe now that former GM-lobbyist (and fuel efficiency opponent) Andy Card has left the White House, Bush has finally allowed his inner-Prius owner to run free. Or maybe the lure of touting vehicles that can run on alternative energy sources to an alternative energy trade association was just too hard to resist.

How gullible do they think we are? Memo to the White House: it's not working. Bush's approval rating just dropped to 32% -- a number at which both water and political clout freeze.

All this huffing and puffing about manipulated markets and record gas prices scream of a blatant attempt to inoculate Republicans from consumer rage over the massive earnings oil companies are scheduled to announce this week. Industry analysts predict that ExxonMobil will report first-quarter earnings of only $9.1 billion on Thursday -- down from the record $10.7 billion posted in the fourth quarter of 2005. With profits like that, Lee Raymond's $400 retirement package is starting to look a little stingy. Except to those paying through the nose at the pump.

The most honest comment on the gas price crisis came from Scott McClellan (freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, eh, Scottie?) who said: "This is not something we got into overnight." Exactly. These levels of oil company profits took years of careful lobbying and planning to orchestrate.

Our oil-man president may want us to think that he's shocked, shocked by the "large cash flows" of the oil companies, and the sticker shock drivers are experiencing at the pump, but even before Team Bush was dreaming of toppling Saddam, it was laying the groundwork for the gargantuan windfall the oil industry is seeing -- starting with Dick Cheney's secret Energy Task Force.

It's not a coincidence that the oil and gas industries donated over $25 million to Congressional campaigns in 2004 (with 80% of that money going into Republican coffers), and another $7.2 million so far in the 2006 cycle (with 84% going to the GOP). They also doled out over $4.5 million to Bush's 2000 and 2004 presidential runs.

And what did they get for their largess? According to Public Citizen, the top five oil companies have pocketed over a quarter of trillion (that's with a "T") in profits since Bush took office. Talk about a return on investment. That's a gusher!

So for American consumers, payback is a bitch. And three bucks a gallon at the gas pump. The Bush administration has turned the White House into a full service filling station for Big Oil. And we're the ones being forced to pick up the tab.

So don't let the empty rhetoric and the phony outrage pouring out of the White House and the Republican Congress fool you: America isn't facing a shortage of fuel; it's facing a shortage of leadership.

OTHER HUFF POST BLOGGERS: Juliet Eilperin, Eric Boehlert, Michael Smerconish, Raymond J. Learsy, Shayana Kadidal, Dr. Peter Rost, Jesse Kornbluth, All Bloggers

More Blog Posts from Arianna Huffington

• Ken Lay on Trial: Why are the Media Forgetting the Bush/Cheney Connection?

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/ken-lay-on-trial-why-are_b_19873.html

• Iraq: A Handy Rebuttal to the "We Have to Finish the Job" Conventional Wisdom

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/iraq-a-handy-rebuttal-to_b_19706.html

AMERICAN NOTES

MORE THAN HALF OF PSYCHIATRISTS WHO WORKED ON DIAGNOSTIC MANUAL HAD
FINANCIAL TIES TO DRUG INDUSTRY

BENEDICT CAREY, NY TIMES More than half the psychiatrists who took part
in developing a widely used diagnostic manual for mental disorders had
financial ties to drug companies before or after the manual was
published, public health researchers reported yesterday. The researchers
found that 95 - or 56 percent - of 170 experts who worked on the 1994
edition of the manual, called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or
DSM, had at least one monetary relationship with a drug maker in the
years from 1989 to 2004. The most frequent tie involved money for
research, according to the study, an analysis of financial records and
conflict-of-interest statements.

The percentage was higher - 100 percent in some cases - for experts who
worked on sections of the manual devoted to severe mental illnesses,
like schizophrenia, the study found. But the authors, from Tufts
University and the University of Massachusetts, were not able to
establish how many of the psychiatrists were receiving money from drug
companies while the manual was being compiled.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/health/20psych.html?ei=5090&en=
2b53dcbfd364d8f1&ex=1303185600&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=
rss&adxnnlx=1145538558-fu4ClLx0qQJe9Kuo8XLSvg


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STUDY FINDS OIL COMPANY PROFITS NOT CRUDE PRICES DRIVING INCREASED FUEL
COSTS

CONSUMER WATCHDOG - The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights
released a new study today of rising gasoline prices in California that
found corporate markups and profiteering are responsible for spring
price spikes, not rising crude costs or the national switchover to
higher-cost ethanol, as the oil industry claims.

Independent petroleum consultant Tim Hamilton analyzed gasoline price
increases from January to April to find that:

Increases in the "spot" market price of crude oil -- which is the
highest price a major oil company would pay for crude oil -- accounted
for only 12 cents per gallon. California's percentage sales tax
increased fuel prices by another four cents per gallon. More than 40
cents of the 60-cent increase in gasoline prices over 3 1/2 months is
attributable to increased refinery and marketing profit margins for the
oil companies; Neither the MTBE phaseout nor the substitution of ethanol
is a serious part of the increase. . .

The profit increase of 42 cents, on top of record profits last year,
means California gasoline will cost consumers approximately $546 million
more in April 2006 than in April of last year. . . Oil companies are
opportunistically using the rising world price for crude oil as an
excuse to excessively raise gasoline prices and pump up their profits,
even though the spot market price for crude has gone up far more slowly
than gasoline prices," said FTCR President Jamie Court. "In addition,
the spot price is higher than most oil companies pay, since they either
harvest their own crude or pay more stable and often much lower contract
prices.

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/pr/?postId=6133

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HIGH HOUSING PRICES CAUSING NEW MIGRATION PATTERN

STEPHEN OHLEMACHER ASSOCIATED PRESS - Americans are leaving the nation's
big cities in search of cheaper homes and open spaces farther out.
Nearly every large metropolitan area had more people move out than move
in from 2000 to 2004, with a few exceptions in the South and Southwest,
according to a report being released Thursday by the Census Bureau.
Northeasterners are moving South and West. West Coast residents are
moving inland. Midwesterners are chasing better job markets. And just
about everywhere, people are escaping to the outer suburbs, also known
as exurbs. "It's a case of middle class flight, a flight for housing
affordability," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings
Institution, a Washington think tank. "But it's not just white middle
class flight, it's Hispanics and blacks, too."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Fleeing_Big_Cities.html

SAM ROBERTS, NY TIMES - Maine, Rhode Island, Maryland and Wyoming,
which lost population to other states in the 1990's, have gained
residents from elsewhere in the country since 2000.

In five other states - Indiana, Minnesota, Utah, Mississippi and
Oklahoma - the pattern was reversed: more people moved out than in from
other states. . .

In California, on average, 221,000 more people moved out every year than
moved in from other states in the 1990's. From 2000 to 2004, the annual
average net loss declined to 99,000 as more Californians moved inland
from cities on the coast instead of moving to other states. San
Bernardino has gained more migrants annually since 2000 than any other
metropolitan area.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/us/20census.html?ex=
1303185600&en=834a349be3a0b03e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


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WORLD
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CHAVEZ TURNING OFF THE TAPS TO U.S.

V HEADLINES - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is taking decisive steps
to turn off the oil taps to the United States of America.Venezuela's
state owned oil company PDVSA has inked a key deal with India, taking
the first key step away from the U.S. as its major oil buyer. At the
same time, PDVSA has announced that it will no longer reveal oil
statistics to the SEC after paying off its debts.

The India deal and the refusal to disclose information are not just
strategic, but also send a message to the US about Venezuela's future
plans with regard to supplying the US with oil. . .

According to Stratfor.com: "While the new deal with India is relatively
small, given that Venezuela produces more than 2 million barrels of oil
in a single day, it nevertheless represents a step down a sustainable
path toward diversifying Caracas' oil markets."

http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=54315

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HEALTH & SCIENCE
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EXPERTS WHO JUST OUGHT TO SHUT UP FOR A FEW DAYS

MED PAGE - Although some dark chocolate may have antioxidant properties
and perhaps also benefits for cardiovascular disease, commercial
chocolate -- all those Easter bunnies and Easter eggs -- contains too
much sugar and fat to make it a healthy treat. So says Roger Corder,
Ph.D., of the William Harvey Research Institute in London. When it comes
to obesity and heart disease, he maintains, "Let's face it: Chocolate
Easter eggs are risk factors."
"Fat is one of the risk factors and sugar is another," Dr. Corder said
in an interview, and commercial chocolate -- especially the milky
variety much loved at Easter -- is high in both.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/PreventiveCare/tb1/3100

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THE MEDIACRACY
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ENTROPY BEAT: IT ONLY TAKES AN EGO TO LOWER A WHOLE VILLAGE VOICE

SINCE THE NEW TIMES has taken over the Village Voice, 17 staffers have
left, having either resigned or been fired. According to the NY
Observer, "Much of the front of the book is being overhauled. Mr.
Ridgeway's column has been killed, and so has Mr. Schanberg's Press
Clips column and Toni Schlesinger's Shelter column, which provided
quirky interactions with apartment and loft dwellers. The film-review
budget has been cut by two-thirds, according to a source, and some film
reviews are now being contributed by freelance writers from other New
Times papers. According to Voice staffers, New Times has also dismissed
The Voice's three-person fact-checking department and laid off two of
the five copy editors. Last month, Mr. Lacey killed interim editor Ward
Harkavy's blog, the Bush Beat. The end-page essay has been
discontinued."

New executive editor Michael Lacey - in the manner of many narcissistic
climbers of his generation - seems to be using arrogance as a substitute
for talent. Not only does this prove painful for those in the vicinity,
it's not a particularly good way of doing business for not only does it
annoy the writers, it annoys those who like to read them. There are
better ways of increasing circulation than chasing away what you've got.


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PULITZERS MEAN NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY

ALEXANDER COCKBURN, COUNTERPUNCH - The central project of the Pulitzer
Prizes for work done in 2005 has been to remind the world that,
appearances to the contrary, the nation is well served by its premier
east coast newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

I should rephrase that. The central project of the Pulitzer Prize
committee is always to perform that function, only this year the need
was more pressing than usual. 2005 was a bad year for the New York
Times, dominated by steady disclosure of its important role in
manufacturing and then disseminating lies designed to plunge the nation
into war in Iraq. . .

One would have thought that the New York Times would have simply
withdrawn its name from contention in the 2006 Pulitzers, but shame was
short-lived and the assigned function of the Pulitzer Prize Committee
was to winch the paper's name out of the mud.

The Committee's composition made this task easier. On the
eighteen-member board sits Thomas Friedman of the New York Times,
Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia J-school and contributor to the
New York Times magazine, and Paul Tash, boss of the St Petersburg Times,
which is owned by the New York Times.

http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn04192006.html

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OTHER NEWS
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NEW ENGLANDERS SWITCH FROM CAR TO TRAIN GIVEN HIGH OIL PRICES

BOSTON GLOBE - With gas prices surging upward again, ticket sales are
hot for the Portland-to-Boston Downeaster passenger train. Winter is
usually a slow season for the Downeaster, but this year has been an
exception, with ridership for the quarter up 35 percent over last year's
figure. Many of the trains are now sold out days in advance. To
accommodate all of the riders, the Northern New England Passenger Rail
Authority has added a car to one of its trains during school vacation
week. The rail authority says it is now talking to Amtrak about getting
an extra car for the tourism season ahead. . .

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2006/04/20/
tickets_hot_for_portland_boston_passenger_train/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Maine+news

Campaign Finance Reform, NASCAR-Style

By Stephen Pizzo
News for Real

Thursday 27 April 2006

If we could slap corporate logos on politicians, like NASCAR drivers do with their cars, we could get to the bottom of where they really stand on the issues.

Maybe you forgot about campaign finance and lobbying reform. The folks on The Hill certainly hope you have. Listening to the occasional talk out of Congress about how they are going to finally reform how they finance their campaigns reminds me of a bunch of inebriated barflies pledging to kick the juice - someday. Not today, because well you know. But someday.

Forget about it. It's never going to happen.

So I have a solution. Politicians should be treated like NASCAR drivers. I call my idea the NASCONG reform. It's simple and cheap as hell, and could be implemented today.

Here's how it works. NASCAR drivers make no bones about who pays their way. They plaster the names and logos of their top contributors all over themselves and their cars. So, when fans hear a driver talk about how great Goodyear tires are, and there's the Goodyear logo emblazoned on his jacket, they can judge for themselves just how objective or subjective his respect for those tires might actually be.

So, I ask, why should we treat our national politicians any different? After all, they too have sponsors, and the things those sponsors want are a hell of a lot more serious than tires, batteries and 10W-5W0 oil.

So here's my idea. When quoting or covering a member of Congress, print, broadcast and internet media should not only tell us what state and party the pol represents but also his/her top five contributors.

Think about it. What's the first thing you look for when you see a politician quoted in an article or on the news? You look to see if his/her name is followed by a "D" or and "R." Why? Because that little piece of information speaks volumes about where that pol is "coming from." The next thing I look for is the part of the country they come from, for the same reason. Two pieces of critical information that no paper or TV station would dream of omitting. If so, why then don't they also include the names of the top contributors who paid their way into office in the first place? Is that information less important to voters than his/her party or state? No. In fact it is probably more important than either.

This one simple act would virtually overnight change how everyone involved in the democratic process reacts, behaves and votes.

Voters could listen to a member's stated position (or lack thereof) on a given issue, glance down at the caption below the photo or screen graphic below him/her, then balance their views with the contributors to whom he/she is most beholding. Informed voters are always smarter voters.

Contributors: Companies and trade associations like good publicity, but they hate bad publicity or controversy. By giving so much to a candidate, they run the risk of being included in the dreaded Top Five, thereby having their company brand virtually tattooed on that politician's forehead for the next two or six years. What if the guy pulls a Randy Cunningham/Alan Mollohan on them? Buying political clout is one thing, but being tied to a crooked pol is not what companies have in mind. Therefore, under my plan, companies would throttle back on their giving in an effort NOT to become one of the top five contributors to anyone's campaign. Since they wouldn't know until too late what other companies contributed, they would contribute much less than they would have otherwise in the hope of avoiding that kind of risky exposure. Fear is a change factor here.

Politicians: The good news is that, contrary to popular opinion, most politicians are not entirely shameless. They rationalize what they have to do for the money, telling themselves that they really can take the big bucks and still vote against the interests of top contributors. But that rational frays badly when voters know who paid for his/her trip to Congress. If pols knew that that information was going to appear right under their puss every time they made it on the news, they could no longer be quite so sanguine about pimping for a big contributor. Shame is the motivator in this case. If a pol REALLY believes in a bill that would also benefit one of his/her top contributors, they will have to come to voters with facts … verifiable facts … that support his position. Good politicians are good educators and good leaders. This idea would force them to become both.

This is an idea whose time has come. And it's easy. The hard work has already been done for the media. All they have to do before putting a member of Congress' puss in their publication or on the screen is go to www.opensecrets.org and copy down the top five contributors to that member's last campaign.

That's all there is too it. Campaign finance reform, just that easy.

Republicans won't be able to complain about it because their (phony) position has always been that limits on contributions are unconsitutional, and that the best way to reform the system is "full disclosure." Of course this would be a whole lot more "full disclosure" than they had in mind.

Democrats decided in the 1980s that if they couldn't beat Republican corporate whores, they might as well join them. But Dems still like to talk the talk about how corporate money corrupts the system. So they too would have a tough time objecting to this "Who's your daddy?" openness.

If they did object - and some will - the media's response would be simple to defend:

"Well senator, if the information is wrong, we'll correct it immediately.

"No, it's not wrong, it's just, well … unnecessary. I mean, what are you trying to imply putting those company names next to mine, anyway?

"Senator, we're not trying to imply anything. We are just doing what we've always done by noting your party affiliation and state - orient the reader. You got a problem with that?"

Bam! There is no (sane/nonsleazy) rebuttal to that logic. And any member who bellyaches too loudly about it would open himself or herself to even closer scrutiny. And believe me, there are not many on The Hill who would want to invite that kind of scrutiny. Because just behind the top five contributors are the top 10, top 20, top 50 and so on.

But never mind whether they like it or not. The real beauty of my NASCONG idea is that we don't need a single vote or presidental signature to implement this reform. All we have to do is - just start doing it.

So, beginning today any time I mention a member of Congress, I will include not only the state they represent and the party to which they belong, but the top five contributors to their last campaign.

Imagine if we could get CNN, MSNBC, FOX CBS, ABC and the rest of the media to do the same.

Of course we may have a problem getting many of the MSM on board with this idea: Six huge corporations now control the major U.S. media: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (FOX, HarperCollins, New York Post, Weekly Standard, TV Guide, DirecTV and 35 TV stations), General Electric (NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, Universal Pictures and 28 TV stations), Time Warner (AOL, CNN, Warner Bros., Time and its 130-plus magazines), Disney (ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, 10 TV and 72 radio stations), Viacom (CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Simon & Schuster and 183 U.S. radio stations), and Bertelsmann (Random House and its more than 120 imprints worldwide, and Gruner + Jahr and its more than 110 magazines in 10 countries).

--------

Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, which was nominated for a Pulitzer.

VIDEO | Dennis Banks: Sacred Run

I know several people who have participated in this run. It really is quite an amazing event. If you have been unaware of it please take the time to educate yourself. Thanks............PEACE.................Scott


VIDEO | Dennis Banks: Sacred Run
A Film by Rebecca MacNeice
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, organized the first
Sacred Run across the country 28 years ago. The run is a staggered event that
covers the country by foot between February 11th and April 22nd, ending in
Washington, DC, on Earth Day. Along the way, the core group of runners is joined
intermittently by other walkers and runners. This year's closing ceremony was
held at the Lincoln Memorial. Banks has always been accompanied by Buddhist
monks from the Nipponzan Myohoji sect.

The Crony Fairy

By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Friday 28 April 2006

The U.S. government is being stalked by an invisible bandit, the Crony Fairy, who visits key agencies by dead of night, snatches away qualified people and replaces them with unqualified political appointees. There's no way to catch or stop the Crony Fairy, so our only hope is to change the agencies' names. That way she might get confused, and leave our government able to function.

That, at least, is how I interpret the report on responses to Hurricane Katrina that was just released by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The report points out that the Federal Emergency Management Agency "had been operating at a more than 15 percent staff-vacancy rate for over a year before Katrina struck" - that means many of the people who knew what they were doing had left. And it adds that "FEMA's senior political appointees ... had little or no prior relevant emergency-management experience."

But the report says nothing about what caused the qualified people to leave and who appointed unqualified people to take their place. There's no hint that, say, President Bush might have had any role. So those political appointees must have been installed by the Crony Fairy.

Rather than trying to fix FEMA, the report calls for replacing it with a new organization, the National Preparedness and Response Agency. As far as I can tell, the new agency would have exactly the same responsibilities as FEMA. But "senior N.P.R.A. officials would be selected from the ranks of professionals with experience in crisis management." I guess it's impossible to select qualified people to run FEMA; if you try, the Crony Fairy will spirit them away and replace them with Michael Brown. But she might not know her way to N.P.R.A.

O.K., enough sarcasm. Let's talk about the history of FEMA.

In the early 1990's, FEMA's reputation was as bad as it is today. It was a dumping ground for political cronies, headed by a man whose only apparent qualification for the job was that he was a close friend of the first President Bush's chief of staff. FEMA's response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 perfectly foreshadowed Katrina: the agency took three days to arrive on the scene, and when it did, it proved utterly incompetent.

Many people thought that FEMA was a lost cause. But Bill Clinton proved them wrong. He appointed qualified people to lead the agency and gave them leeway to hire other qualified people, and within a year FEMA's morale and performance had soared. For the rest of the Clinton years, FEMA was among the most highly regarded agencies in the federal government.

What happened to that reputation? The answer, of course, is that the second President Bush returned to his father's practices. Once again, FEMA became a dumping ground for cronies, and many of the good people who had come in during the Clinton years left. It took only a few years to transform one of the best agencies in the U.S. government into what Senator Susan Collins calls "a shambles and beyond repair."

In other words, the Crony Fairy is named George W. Bush.

So what's the point of creating a new agency to replace FEMA? The history of FEMA and other agencies during the Clinton years shows that a president who is serious about governing can rebuild effective government without renaming the boxes on the organizational chart.

On the other hand, the history of the Bush administration, from the botched reconstruction of Iraq to the botched start-up of the prescription drug program, shows that a president who isn't serious about governing, who prizes loyalty and personal connections over competence, can quickly reduce the government of the world's most powerful nation to third-world levels of ineffectiveness.

And bear in mind that Mr. Bush's pattern of cronyism didn't change after Katrina. For example, he appointed Julie Myers, the inexperienced niece of Gen. Richard Myers, to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement - an agency that, like FEMA, is supposed to protect us against terrorism as well as other threats. Even at the C.I.A., the administration seems more interested in purging Democrats than in improving the quality of intelligence.

So let's skip the name change for FEMA, O.K.? The United States will regain effective government if and when it gets a president who cares more about serving the nation than about rewarding his friends and scoring political points. That's at least a thousand days away. Meanwhile, don't count on FEMA, or on any other government agency, to do its job.

Chevron Earnings Soar 49 Percent to $4 Billion

By Michael Liedtke
The Associated Press

Friday 28 April 2006

San Ramon, Calif. - Chevron Corp.'s first-quarter profit soared 49 percent to $4 billion, joining the procession of U.S. oil companies to report colossal earnings as lawmakers consider ways to pacify motorists agitated about rising gas prices.

The San Ramon, Calif.-based company's net income, reported Friday, translated into $1.80 per share, two cents above the average estimate among analysts polled by Thomson Financial. It compared to a profit of $2.7 billion, or $1.28 per share, in the same January-March period last year.

Revenue totaled $54.6 billion, a 31 percent increase from $41.6 billion last year.

If not for continuing production problems caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last summer, Chevron said it would have made an additional $300 million - an amount that would have generated the highest quarterly profit in the company's 127-year history.

As it was, the performance marked the fourth consecutive quarter that Chevron has earned at least $3.6 billion as the company continued to capitalize on oil prices that have climbed above $70 per barrel since the first quarter ended.

The run-up recently has pushed gasoline prices above $3 per gallon, much to the frustration of consumers and politicians looking to win votes in an election year.

Chevron released its results after two of its biggest rivals, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp., already provoked public outrage with similarly large first-quarter profits. Combined, the three oil companies earned $15.7 billion during the three months of the year.



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Profits, Prices Spur Oil Outrage
By Steven Mufson and Shailagh Murray
The Washington Post

Friday 28 April 2006

Exxon Mobil posts first-quarter rise.

Exxon Mobil Corp. reported $8.4 billion in first-quarter profit yesterday, as members of Congress outraged over high gasoline prices hastened to propose measures that would boost taxes on oil firms, open new areas to drilling and provide rebates to taxpayers but would not necessarily alter prices at the pumps.

The earnings outstripped the oil giant's profit in the first quarter of last year. Given current oil market conditions, analysts said, that puts Exxon Mobil on track to break the $36 billion record profit it made last year.

Meanwhile, President Bush sought to show that he was responding to calls for action in the face of rising gasoline prices. While visiting a gasoline station in Biloxi, Miss., Bush renewed his call for Congress to give him the authority to "raise" mileage standards for all passenger cars. White House officials said later, however, that they didn't know when or how the president would use that authority.

Congress has the authority to approve changes in mileage standards for passenger cars, and the executive branch can set them for light trucks without approval from Congress. But neither Congress nor the administration has shown much interest in raising passenger car standards, which were set in the 1970s and haven't changed since 1985. In March, the Bush administration said it would raise average fuel economy standards by 1.9 miles a gallon for sport-utility vehicles, pickups and vans for models in 2008 through 2011, a long-awaited move that environmentalists said was too modest.

In Congress, anger over gasoline prices brought action in the Senate to a screeching halt yesterday, with Democrats interrupting debate over an emergency military spending bill to protest a key oil company subsidy. In a highly unusual move, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) waged a solo filibuster on the Senate floor in an attempt to force a vote on a provision that would halt support for what Wyden said were about $35 billion for oil and gas companies. "This is the big one, folks, in terms of energy subsidies," Wyden said during the five-hour standoff. "This is the one where there is no logical case ... when oil is $70 per barrel."

Various committees and individual lawmakers scrambled to offer relief to consumers, punish suppliers and promote favorite energy-related provisions, most of them offering little or no immediate relief at the gas station pumps.

Senate GOP leaders rolled out a fat package of energy measures, including a $100 rebate to most taxpayers, and reaffirmed authority for state and federal officials to fight price gouging. The proposal also would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska; Democrats called the controversial idea a deal-killer for the rest of the package.

Democrats unveiled their own ideas, including various windfall-profit rebates, a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax and alternative energy investments.

For all the criticism from Congress, Exxon Mobil's earnings fell slightly short of analysts' expectations, and company shares fell 68 cents to close at $62.42 a share.

In an attempt to simultaneously impress investors and calm politicians, Exxon Mobil spokesman Ken Cohen stressed that compared with the year-earlier quarter, the company had increased its worldwide oil and gas production by 5 percent, boosted capital spending by 41 percent and paid worldwide taxes that amounted to a 46 percent rate.

But analysts, while impressed by the production numbers, noted that much of the increase in capital spending came from sharply rising costs for oil services and that the high tax rates were a result of high crude oil prices. In many countries, sliding-scale tax rates rise as prices do; Norway taxes some portion of output at rates as high as 70 percent, and Libya's effective tax rates can go as high as 90 percent, analysts said.

Exxon also said it spent $5 billion buying back its own shares, more than the $4.1 billion spent on exploration and production. The company said it expected to spend $6 billion repurchasing its own shares in each of the remaining quarters this year.

Wall Street analysts discounted the likelihood of congressional action against oil companies. "As someone in the industry for more than 25 years, I've seen it before," said Fadel Gheit, an oil company analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. "Penalizing oil companies does not lower prices at the pump. If we have a windfall profits tax, it will just create another moneybag for the government. It will not increase oil production by one barrel. It will not lower gasoline prices by one cent or alter our dependence on OPEC countries."

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke also cautioned Congress on the various proposals being floated. In response to a question at a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee, Bernanke said, "Unfortunately, after many years of not really doing as much as we should on the energy front, this situation has arisen. And I don't see any way to make a marked impact on it in the very short run."

Bernanke said a windfall profits tax would reduce incentives for companies. "What we need to do," he said, "is think about whether there are actions we can take that over at least a number of years will put us on a more secure footing."

And he added, "I would like to let the market system work as much as possible to generate new supplies, both of oil but also of alternatives, and for the prices, painful as they may be, to help generate more conservation and alternative uses of energy on the demand side."

While many of the proposals in Congress are familiar, costly and unlikely to be enacted, bipartisan political pressure for action could result in tougher scrutiny and possible sanctions against the oil industry - until recently one of the closest allies of the Bush administration and the Republican-led Congress

The Senate Finance Committee, for instance, requested federal income tax returns for the past five years from the 15 largest oil and gas companies, based on sales, in what could amount to a congressional audit. "We're seeing record profits and significant executive compensation in the oil and gas industry," said Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). "I want to make sure the oil companies aren't taking a speed pass by the tax man."

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to allow the Justice Department to prosecute countries that belong to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for price fixing in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. "What you have today is an oligopoly, effectively, and I think it's a disaster for the American people," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of the panel.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said GOP leaders had assured him they were eager to push the legislation to the floor, pointing out the political pressure - including a series of Democratic news conferences held in recent days at Capitol area gas stations

Energy Challenge

Le Monde | Editorial

Tuesday 18 April 2006

In September 2007, the operations of an academic group in Limeil-Brévannes (Val-de-Marne) will produce as much energy as they consume. The initiative remains local, but it is a good illustration of the efforts of imagination that the new energy situation will more and more impose. Expensive gas, reviled nuclear power, the necessity of limiting greenhouse gases, all against a background of the exhaustion of some fossil fuels within a few decades: these are the elements that make up an equation that will have to be resolved one day or another.

From this perspective, "all-nuclear" electricity production is an inappropriate response. It is certainly unrealistic to envision "getting out" of this technology in the short or medium term as ecologists demand. Nuclear power plants allow France to reduce its dependence by producing 78% of the electricity it consumes, i.e., 17% of the energy the country uses. They also allow CO2 emissions to be limited.

However, anti-nuclear adherents still and always contest nuclear power plants, constantly bringing up the Chernobyl catastrophe, the twentieth anniversary of which is being marked right now. On top of that, the risk of terrorism is now added to the dangers of an accident. Finally, the question of storage of nuclear waste, never resolved, arouses bitter debates in France as in Germany. To develop nuclear energy without having found a solution [to the waste issue] amounts to transferring the problem to future generations - which is never satisfactory.

In tandem with pragmatic continuation of the use of civilian nuclear energy and with continuing research on waste storage, the spirit of responsibility demands that we immediately change over to a new register to let loose alternative solutions to both nuclear energy - about which there will never be any consensus - and to fossil fuels that will run out. The diversification of responses has become indispensable. Energy economies are the priority. Self-sufficient buildings and individual houses: solar, wind, bio-mass, wood ... Every avenue must be explored. That will be expensive, but it's also the only way to prepare the future. And an additional reason not to lose any time. The Villepin government has made a few steps in the right directions, particularly with respect to bio-fuel. But if awareness progresses, it remains fragile.

For a long time now, ecology should have been a priority for governmental authorities and not just for "greens." The real energy crisis is just around the corner. It should compel a revolution in mindsets. We must, for example, surmount the now-archaic opposition within governments between those responsible for industry and those responsible for the environment. The two concerns should go hand in hand.

Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.



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Role of UN Nuke Agency Called "Schizophrenic"
By Haider Rizvi
Inter Press Service

Wednesday 19 April 2006

United Nations - Concerned about the enormous risks that nuclear technology poses to the environment and the questionable role it has played in heightening political conflicts, some leading European politicians are suggesting that the time has come for the United Nations to stop promoting nuclear technology as an effective tool to meet the world's growing energy demands.

Key European leaders who once served their countries as environment ministers are urging U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to reform the mandate of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which they consider to be "outdated and conflicting".

"The task of nuclear arms proliferation seems to be growing rapidly," said Satu Hassi, a member of the European Parliament and former Finnish environment minister, in a statement. "To be able to function effectively, the IAEA should end its schizophrenic role."

Established in 1957, the Vienna-based U.N. agency is tasked with inspecting nuclear facilities worldwide to make sure they are not used for military purposes. But, paradoxically, its mandate allows it to promote "secure, safe and peaceful" nuclear power technology.

Hassi and others hold the view that the IAEA cannot effectively prevent nuclear arms proliferation when, at the same time, it also encourages nations to acquire nuclear power technology, which can also produce material for bombs.

"By deliberately ignoring the interlink between civil and military nukes, the IAEA contributes to the proliferation of fissile material," notes Dominique Voynet, a former French environment minister, who also wants her own country to reform its nuclear policy.

Recently, Hassi and Voynet sent a letter to Annan telling him that the current crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, which raises grave concerns within the international community, is "a timely reminder of the contradictory remit of the IAEA".

The IAEA is currently engaged in efforts to verify whether Iran is in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as a result of international pressure. The United States and some European nations accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, while Tehran claims that its nuclear programme is aimed solely at generating electricity.

The letter, which was also signed by eight other former European environment ministers, says the IAEA has proved "impotent" in preventing the conversion of other "peaceful" nuclear programmes into weapons manufacturing in countries such as India, Pakistan and North Korea.

Describing the nuclear technology as "dangerous and destabilising," the former environment ministers say they want the agency to abandon its "dual role" of both "nuclear salesman and referee of a commercial industry that creates the world's most expensive form of electricity with a radioactive legacy that lasts for hundreds of thousands of years".

Aside from concern over proliferation of weapons, the letter also draws the world body's attention to the health and environmental impacts of the radiation produced by the use of nuclear technology.

"Nuclear power is no longer necessary," they emphasise in the letter. "We have now numerous renewable technologies available to guarantee the right to safe, clean and cheap energy."

The demand for changes in the IAEA's mandate comes at a time when the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster is approaching. The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on Apr. 26, 1986 was the world's worst nuclear accident.

The IAEA estimates that 4,000 to 9,000 people are still expected to die from cancer caused by the Chernobyl accident. But independent scientists say the death toll is even higher.

A study released by the environmental group Greenpeace this week concludes that over 250,000 cancers and nearly 100,000 fatal cancers are likely to be caused by the accident that took place 20 years ago.

The study, entitled "Chernobyl Catastrophe Consequences on Human Health", is the outcome of research by more than 52 scientists from around the world. It shows that the Chernobyl radiation has not only caused cancer but a variety of other diseases, including leukemia and heart problems.

The environmental group has accused the IAEA of trying to "whitewash" the impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, considered to be the most devastating of its kind in human history.

"Denying the real implications is not only insulting to the thousands of victims, but it also leads to dangerous recommendations and the relocation of people in contaminated areas," said Ivan Blokov of Greenpeace in a statement.

About seven million people are still living in areas contaminated by the Chernobyl accident, according to Greenpeace, which fully endorses the former ministers' demand for changes in the IAEA mandate to put an end to the use of nuclear technology.

"The IAEA cannot remain as the world's nuclear watchdog if it cannot at least admit that nuclear power is responsible for the impact on those whose life it scarred forever," Blokov added.

Meanwhile, in addition to being critical of the IAEA's role, the European leaders who wrote the letter to Annan have also taken to task the countries involved in commercial trade deals involving nuclear technology.

"France must end its sales policy of nuclear materials and technologies to whomever is willing to pay," said Voynet, the former French environment minister. "This trade jeopardises world peace."

Other former environment ministers who endorsed the letter voicing concern over the IAEA stance on nuclear technology include those from Russia, Ukraine, Belaruse, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Britain.

Bush, a Crisis Almost Without Equal

By Greg Mitchell
Editor & Publisher

Wednesday 19 April 2006

Republicans and Democrats alike are starting to face the prospect of what it means to have George W. Bush as their commander in chief for another 33 months - in a time of war, terrorism, and nuclear intrigue. How can the press contribute to confronting the crisis? First: recognize it exists. Thomas Friedman started to do that today.

No matter which party they generally favor or political stripes they wear, newspapers and other media outlets need to confront the fact that America faces a crisis without equal in recent decades.

Our president, in a time of war, terrorism and nuclear intrigue, will likely remain in office for another 33 months, with crushingly low approval ratings that are still inching lower. Facing a similar problem, voters had a chance to quickly toss Jimmy Carter out of office, and did so. With a similar lengthy period left on his White House lease, Richard Nixon quit, facing impeachment. Neither outcome is at hand this time.

The alarm should be bi-partisan. Many Republicans fear their president's image as a bumbler will hurt their party for years. The rest may fret about the almost certain paralysis within the administration, or a reversal of certain favorite policies. A Gallup poll this week revealed that 44% of Republicans want some or all troops brought home from Iraq. Do they really believe that their president will do that any time soon, if ever?

Democrats, meanwhile, cross their fingers that Bush doesn't do something really stupid - i.e. prematurely nuke Iran - while they try to win control of at least one house in Congress by doing nothing yet somehow earning (they hope) the anti-Bush vote.

Meanwhile, a severely weakened president retains, and has shown he is willing to use, all of his commander-in-chief authority, and then some.

No wonder so many are starting to look for a way to shorten or short-circuit the extended crisis period. Republicans demand a true shake-out at the White House. This week at Vanity Fair online, Carl Bernstein is calling for a Watergate-style congressional probe of possible high crimes and misdemeanors. Even Neil Young is weighing in with a soon-to-be-released song that urges, "Let's impeach the president - for lying."

But rather than push impeachment for partisan reasons, the Democrats will actually put it off - for partisan reasons. An unpopular president helps their drive for votes in November, and everything else is secondary.

So let's assume, as Nixon might put it, that we do have George Bush to kick around for another almost-three-years. How worried should we be about the possible damage he might inflict - and what can the press do about it?

Consider Thomas Friedman's column in The New York Times today, and its implications.

Friedman, who still supports the Iraq war, opens by declaring that given a choice between a nuclear Iran and an attack on that country engineered by the White House, he would choose the former. That's how little he trusts the diplomatic and military chops of Bush, Rumsfeld, Condi and Co. He cites "the level of incompetence that the Bush team has displayed in Iraq, and its refusal to acknowledge any mistakes or remove those who made them."

But then he goes on: "I look at the Bush national security officials much the way I look at drunken drivers. I just want to take away their foreign policy driver's licenses for the next three years. Sorry, boys and girls, you have to stay home now - or take a taxi. ... You will not be driving alone. Not with my car."

The problem - the crisis - is that Bush and Co. likely WILL be driving the "car" for 33 more months.

Friedman knows this: "If ours were a parliamentary democracy, the entire Bush team would be out of office by now, and deservedly so. ... But ours is not a parliamentary system, and while some may feel as if this administration's over, it isn't. So what to do? We can't just take a foreign policy timeout."

Perfectly said. Again, the crisis, even if he didn't call it that: "We can't just take a foreign policy timeout."

Friedman, however, then backs away from the scary wider view. What to do? he asks. He suggests that Rumsfeld depart, of course, and then he gets into specifics of how diplomacy might work re: Iran. That leaves hanging the reality of Bush continuing to serve as Master and Commander of the Iraq war and all other foreign policy into 2009.

I don't have a solution myself now, although all pleas for serious probes, journalistic or official, of the many alleged White House misdeeds should be heeded. But my point here is simply to start the discussion, and urge that the media, first, recognize that the crisis-or, if you want say, impending crisis - exists, and begin to explore the ways to confront it.

--------

Greg Mitchell is editor of E&P and author of seven books on politics, media and history.

Rove's New Mission: Survival

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
The Washington Post

Friday 21 April 2006

Here's the real meaning of the White House shake-up and the redefinition of Karl Rove's role in the Bush presidency: The administration's one and only domestic priority in 2006 is hanging on to control of Congress.

That, in turn, means that all the spin about Rove's power being diminished is simply wrong. Yes, Rove is giving up some policy responsibilities to concentrate on politics, but guess what: The possibility of President Bush's winning enactment of any major new policy initiative this year is zero. Rove is simply moving to where all the action will, of necessity, be.

As one outside adviser to the administration said, the danger of a Democratic takeover of at least one house of Congress looms large and would carry huge penalties for Bush. The administration fears "investigations of everything" by congressional committees, this adviser said, and the "possibility of a forced withdrawal from Iraq" through legislative action.

"I don't think they see much chance of accomplishing anything this year," said this Republican strategist, who preferred not to be quoted by name. "The bulk of their agenda, let's say, has been put on hold."

Rove never stopped being political, even when he had formal responsibility for policy. What's intriguing about the shift in the direction of Rove's energies is that it marks a turn from the high politics of a partisan realignment driven by ideas and policies to the more mundane politics of eking out votes, seat by seat and state by state. Most of Rove's grander dreams have died as the president's poll numbers have come crashing down.

It's forgotten that the president's proposal to privatize part of Social Security was not primarily about creating solvency in the system, since the creation of private accounts would have aggravated deficits for a significant period. It was part of a larger effort to reorganize government and bring the New Deal era to a definitive close.

The president's "ownership society" was a political project designed to increase Americans' reliance on private markets for their retirements and, over the longer run, on their own resources for health coverage. The idea was that broadening the "investor class," a totemic phrase among tax-cutting conservatives, would change the economic basis of politics - and create more Republicans.

The collapse of the Social Security initiative was thus more than a policy failure. It was a decisive political defeat that left Bush and Rove with no fallback ideas around which to organize domestic policy. And just as the growing unpopularity of the war in Vietnam after 1966 forced Lyndon Johnson to abandon his Great Society programs - partly because of large GOP gains in Congress during that year's midterm elections - opposition to the Iraq war is undercutting Bush's effort to create a kind of Great Society-in-reverse.

The Democrats had such large congressional margins in 1966 that they could suffer major losses and still maintain at least nominal control of both houses. But Republican congressional margins are thin, particularly in the House, where a shift of 15 seats would make Democrat Nancy Pelosi the speaker.

And the possibility of a Democratic tide that might sweep in second- or third-tier challengers is no longer mere fantasy talk among liberals at cocktail parties. It is a genuine Republican fear. According to figures from state polls published this week by SurveyUSA, Bush has an approval rating above 50 percent in just four states - Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska. His disapproval rating is 60 percent or higher in such key battlegrounds as Virginia, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The Virginia numbers from a survey earlier this month - 37 percent approval for Bush, 60 percent disapproval - are particularly intriguing. Democrats are beginning to think that Sen. George Allen, who is up for reelection this year and considering a run at the presidency in 2008, may be vulnerable. Democrats already see Republican seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, Rhode Island and Arizona as reasonable targets. While a Democratic takeover of the Senate is still a long shot, it is no longer a preposterous idea.

Thus Rove's new electoral focus is an urgent administration priority. And given the unfavorable political terrain for the president, Rove's recipe this year, as in 2004, is likely to include a heavy dollop of attacks on the Democrats. Hold on for the new Swift Boaters, coming soon to your swing state. It's not the politics dreams are made of, but it often works.

Stand Up for Polar Bears!



Stand Up for Polar Bears!
© Care2.com

ExxonMobil is swimming in cash...while polar bears are drowning in the Arctic. Take action today.

Yesterday, ExxonMobil announced its first quarter earnings - $8.4 billion in profit for just the first three months of 2006! That's on top of the $35 billion ExxonMobil raked in for 2005. But where is this money going?

• ExxonMobil gave its former CEO a retirement package worth almost $400 million. Yet, it still refuses to pay punitive damages for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill that killed birds, fish, sea otters and other wildlife - some of which have yet to recover.
• ExxonMobil is the sole major oil company to remain in Arctic Power, the lobbying group whose only purpose is to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - one of the most important onshore denning habitats for America's remaining polar bears - to toxic oil drilling.
• ExxonMobil has spent millions on lobbyists and campaign contributions to relentlessly push its anti-wildlife agenda and fight efforts to curb global warming - the same warming that's melting sea ice and leaving walrus calves and polar bears to starve and drown.

An entire county in Texas has passed a resolution to boycott ExxonMobil. We can do the same.

It's time for ExxonMobil to put polar bears before profit, and to use its obscene wealth to explore renewable energy rather than continue its destructive pursuit of oil.

Take action: tell ExxonMobil's CEO to stop pushing for oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge; to withdraw its support of the pro-drilling Arctic Power lobbying firm; and to start investing in renewable energy for the future. Let ExxonMobil know that until they mend their anti-wildlife ways, you will be boycotting their gasoline!

Thanks for standing up for our wildlife and wildlands!

Rebecca Young,
Care2 and ThePetitionSite team


P.S. To learn more about what you can do to hold ExxonMobil accountable, please visit the Exxpose Exxon campaign's website: www.exxposeexxon.org. The Exxpose Exxon campaign is a collaborative effort of Defenders of Wildlife and several other large environmental and public interest advocacy organizations aimed at informing and educating Americans about ExxonMobil's efforts to prevent action on global warming, drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and encourage America's dependence on oil.


Thank you for signing up to receive Energy & Global Warming Alerts via ThePetitionSite or Care2 website! Your email address has not been bought from other sources. If you learned something interesting from this newsletter, please forward it to your friends, family and colleagues.

MUTINY ON THE HMS BOUNTY:

April 28, 1789

Three weeks into a journey from Tahiti to the West Indies, the HMS Bounty is
seized in a mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, the master's mate. Captain William
Bligh and 18 of his loyal supporters were set adrift in a small, open boat, and
the Bounty set course for Tubuai south of Tahiti.In December 1787, the Bounty
left England for Tahiti in the South Pacific, where it was to collect a cargo of
breadfruit saplings to transport to the West Indies. There, the breadfruit would
serve as food for slaves. After a 10-month journey, the Bounty arrived in Tahiti
in October 1788 and remained there for more than five months. On Tahiti, the
crew enjoyed an idyllic life, reveling in the comfortable climate, lush
surroundings, and the famous hospitality of the Tahitians. Fletcher Christian
fell in love with a Tahitian woman named Mauatua.On April 4, 1789, the Bounty
departed Tahiti with its store of breadfruit saplings. On April 28, near the
island of Tonga, Christian and 25 petty officers and seamen seized the ship.
Bligh, who eventually would fall prey to a total of three mutinies in his
career, was an oppressive commander and insulted those under him. By setting him
adrift in an overcrowded 23-foot-long boat in the middle of the Pacific,
Christian and his conspirators had apparently handed him a death sentence. By
remarkable seamanship, however, Bligh and his men reached Timor in the East
Indies on June 14, 1789, after a voyage of about 3,600 miles. Bligh returned to
England and soon sailed again to Tahiti, from where he successfully transported
breadfruit trees to the West Indies.Meanwhile, Christian and his men attempted
to establish themselves on the island of Tubuai. Unsuccessful in their
colonizing effort, the Bounty sailed north to Tahiti, and 16 crewmen decided to
stay there, despite the risk of capture by British authorities. Christian and
eight others, together with six Tahitian men, a dozen Tahitian women, and a
child, decided to search the South Pacific for a safe haven. In January 1790,
the Bounty settled on Pitcairn Island, an isolated and uninhabited volcanic
island more than 1,000 miles east of Tahiti. The mutineers who remained on
Tahiti were captured and taken back to England where three were hanged. A
British ship searched for Christian and the others but did not find them.In
1808, an American whaling vessel was drawn to Pitcairn by smoke from a cooking
fire. The Americans discovered a community of children and women led by John
Adams, the sole survivor of the original nine mutineers. According to Adams,
after settling on Pitcairn the colonists had stripped and burned the Bounty, and
internal strife and sickness had led to the death of Fletcher and all the men
but him. In 1825, a British ship arrived and formally granted Adams amnesty, and
he served as patriarch of the Pitcairn community until his death in 1829.In
1831, the Pitcairn islanders were resettled on Tahiti, but unsatisfied with life
there they soon returned to their native island. In 1838, the Pitcairn Islands,
which includes three nearby uninhabited islands, was incorporated into the
British Empire. By 1855, Pitcairn's population had grown to nearly 200, and the
two-square-mile island could not sustain its residents. In 1856, the islanders
were removed to Norfolk Island, a formal penal colony nearly 4,000 miles to the
west. However, less than two years later, 17 of the islanders returned to
Pitcairn, followed by more families in 1864. Today, around 40 people live on
Pitcairn Island, and all but a handful are descendants of the Bounty mutineers.
About a thousand residents of Norfolk Island (half its population) trace their
lineage from Fletcher Christian and the eight other Englishmen.

Commonweal Institute Newsletter vol. 4 no. 12

Vol. 4 No. 12 (April 2006)

Uncommon Denominator

The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
www.commonwealinstitute.org


"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."
— Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message to Congress

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CONTENTS

Talking Points: On the manual recount
Wit and Wisdom: Fox News-White House merger
Quoted! Tony Snow on fiscal responsibility
Check It Out: R.I.P. S.U.V.s
Featured Article: "Facing Down Iran"
Happenings: Progressive Roundtable developments
Endorsements: Ted Lempert
Get Involved: Spread the word; become a contributor



TALKING POINTS

With the 2006 elections just around the corner, there are persistent questions swirling around the reliability of electronic voting technologies, the disfranchisement of certain voter groups, and the ability of our country's electoral procedures to record the public will fairly and accurately. Evidence continues to accumulate that the three most recent elections were marred by irregularities that represent a disgraceful lapse in the world's oldest democracy. With the prospect of more problems, even fraud, this coming November, a key part of the debate centers on the manual recount and its potential to ensure the validity of election results. To restore credibility to the process, however, manual recounts need to be conducted according to well conceived and carefully regulated procedures.

A number of states provide for an audit or manual recount of a small sample of the ballots cast as a way to detect voting system errors. In California, although there is a requirement for a one percent manual recount, there are no rules on how this should be carried out. If not done carefully, however, the recount will not accomplish what it should. In particular, it might fail to detect election fraud committed by hackers inside or outside of the elections department.

The manual recount is intended to discover whether the equipment and procedures that are used to count the votes produce the same results as humans would produce by visually viewing the ballots to determine voter intent.

Optical scan voting machines are the type most commonly used, with nearly 70 million voters expected to use this equipment in 2006, according to Election Data Services. But there are several sources of potential error when using an optical scan voting machine:

1. Hardware error — The ballot scanning equipment does not properly recognize the marks made by the voter.

2. Software error — The software in the ballot scanning equipment does not keep accurate count of the votes.

3. Voter error — The voter has not followed instructions when marking the ballot, including using an inappropriate ballot marking pen or pencil. This is most likely to occur when voters fill out their ballots away from staffed polling places.

4. Zeroing error — The ballot scanning equipment has not been properly initialized to set the accumulated vote counts at zero before ballots are scanned.

5. Setup error — The ballot scanning equipment has not been initialized properly so that the votes are associated with the proper candidates and measures.

6. Fraud — A hacker has somehow modified the equipment so as to cause the vote totals to be reported in error. The hacker may be either inside or outside of the elections department or may be an employee of the equipment vendor.

Hardware and software errors are not intentional. They usually result from poor design decisions. They can cause frequent errors which are easy to detect or they might affect votes only in unusual circumstances. The latter may be quite hard to detect because the recount may miss the ballots containing the errors.

Voter errors are usually the result of poor voter training and/or not supplying system-compatible marking pens or pencils. Since voters may choose to use whatever marking device they have at hand, it will probably be necessary to manually scan all such ballots and hand transfer votes to other ballots if needed.

Zeroing errors should be completely eliminated by good design. Unfortunately, they are usually the result of hacking or purposeful design to enable fraud.

Setup errors are typically discovered through the Logic and Accuracy testing performed by the elections department staff. However, it is not clear whether the tests performed are adequate to detecting all possible setup errors. This is particularly the case with ballot scanners that must accept any ballot style used in a county. Such non-precinct-specific scanners are used for early voting, absentee, mailed and provisional ballots.

Purposeful fraud

Purposeful fraud is much harder to detect. In this case the manual recount must be used very judiciously, as the fraudsters may know much more about the intimate details of the election equipment and procedures than those searching for the fraud.

A clever hacker can use numerous tricks to try to prevent detection. For this reason, the election laws typically prohibit having the machines connected into any networks and require a close watch by elections staff over anything which gets attached to the machines, such as memory cards.

In order for the recount to detect fraud, it is necessary that the small sample of ballots used for the recount have a high likelihood of including the ballots for which the illegal hack has modified the vote. This means that the ballots selected for recount must not be known, or be predictable, before the close of the polls. Most importantly, it means that all ballots must have an equal chance of being chosen for the recount, because if it is unlikely that certain ballots will be chosen, those would be ideal ballots to falsify without fear of detection. Important requirements include:

1. The vote totals from all precincts must be made public before selecting the precincts to be recounted. This allows observers to see if the recounted vote totals match the machine totals.

2. Precincts chosen for the recount must be selected randomly, such that no one can know in advance which precincts will be chosen.

3. All precincts must be in the pool of potentially selected precincts. If any precincts are not in the pool, those are the ones that an insider will choose to hack into.

4. The ballots chosen must include not only the ballots cast at the polling place, but also the early, mail, absentee, and provisional ballots. The polling place ballots should be accounted for separately from the ballots counted in the elections department office.

Election officials have an interest in keeping the number of ballots recounted small, both to keep the cost low and the recount time short. So it is important that the recount not be biased toward small precincts. The more ballots that are recounted, the greater the chance of detecting any errors.

Finally, there must be election accountability. If the recount turns up differences between the machine count and the manual count, these differences must be fully accounted for. It is NOT enough to simply replace the machine count with the manual count for the precincts involved. If errors are found in one or more precincts, it must be assumed that there are errors in other precincts, too, and so additional randomly selected precincts must be manually recounted. If these show that there are even more errors, then ALL precincts must be manually recounted.

Laws and regulations regarding manual recounts should specify such procedures, the actions to be taken in case of discrepancies in counts, and the consequences should errors be found.

Reporting Errors The operation of our election systems must be as transparent as possible, and the public told when errors are found, even if the elections department manages to correct those errors. At present, Registrars of Voters usually tell the public that no errors occur, in order to enhance their reputations and to keep the public unaware of problems. This is unacceptable, as such lying ultimately further undermines public trust in our election system.

Proper manual recount procedures do not fire up the imagination. But they represent one of those technical, shredded-wheat issues that keep our democracy vital. They must not be overlooked as our society struggles to regain its reputation as a model of fair and honest governance.
— Dennis Paull


WIT AND WISDOM

FOX NEWS-WHITE HOUSE MERGER COMPLETED
Bill O'Reilly Named Secretary of Defense

One day after being named the new White House spokesman, former Fox News pundit Tony Snow announced that a deal merging Fox News and the Bush White House had been successfully completed.

"The merger between Fox News and the White House can be summed up in one word: synergy," Mr. Snow said. "The two entities have been working in lockstep for five years now and this merger is a formal acknowledgment of that fact."

While many Beltway observers had long assumed that a merger between the White House and Fox News was inevitable, not until reporters saw workmen hanging a "Fair and Balanced" sign from the White House portico this morning did they know a deal had finally been struck.

According to those familiar with the deal, the final sticking point in the negotiations was ironed out late last night when President George W. Bush agreed to report to Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch.

Moments after the merger was announced, Mr. Snow introduced the latest member of the Bush Cabinet, Secretary of Defense Bill O'Reilly.

In his first official act as Defense Secretary, Mr. O'Reilly called CNN "a gathering threat" and added the cable news network to the Axis of Evil.

Mr. O'Reilly's comments drew sharp criticism from Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del), who told reporters, "I don't see how CNN can be considered a threat when their biggest weapon is Larry King."

—from The Borowitz Report


QUOTED!

"A Republican president and a Republican Congress have lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to raid the public fisc." — Tony Snow, newly appointed White House spokesman, in an article written while he worked as a commentator at Fox News


CHECK IT OUT

Does the persistent presence of S.U.V.s gall you? Do you resent not being able to see traffic in front of them when you're caught behind them? Are you concerned by the fact that their bumpers are at about the same height as your head? Perhaps you have more philosophically or politically informed objections: they contribute to global warming; they enthrall us to the Middle East; they symbolize gluttony....? Would you like to accelerate their demise? If so, you might want to check out the following:

Earth on Empty. A guerrilla team that "tickets" S.U.V.s. Their faux "violation" notices, which resemble parking infractions, are intended to open people's eyes to the destructiveness of these oversized vehicles. Many of those ticketed react with anger, but some have responded positively -- and the idea in either case is to stigmatize S.U.V. ownership as a morally questionable behavior. You can order tickets through their website, or write to Earth on Empty, P.O. Box 400561, N. Cambridge, MA, 02140.

Friends of the Earth. They operate a website where one can buy anti-S.U.V. bumper-stickers (e.g., "Support OPEC. Buy an S.U.V."), or send a ready-made postcard to automakers which reads: "Next time I shop for a vehicle, I would like to buy a car with the lowest emissions, highest fuel efficiency, and cleanest production processes technologically possible. Please provide affordable clean green cars for consumers like me as soon as possible."

Our New York readers might be interested in Stay Free Magazine, which issues tickets to S.U.V.s in the Big Apple. The various possible infractions on their tickets include everything from "endangering other drivers" and "polluting twice as much as regular cars" to "compensating for lack of manhood" and "holing self up in two-ton metal fortress." Order online.

For the more serious-minded, a useful resource is the Green Book, a publication of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy that provides information about the energy consumption and exhaust output of a variety of vehicles. Even if you're not in the market for a new car, pass it on to people who are.


FEATURED ARTICLE

The following is an excerpt from Mark Steyn's "Facing Down Iran," which appears in the Spring 2006 issue of City Journal:

"If we'd understood Iran back in 1979, we'd understand better the challenges we face today. Come to that, we might not even be facing them. But, with hindsight, what strikes you about the birth of the Islamic Republic is the near total lack of interest by analysts in that adjective: Islamic. Iran was only the second Islamist state, after Saudi Arabia-and, in selecting as their own qualifying adjective the family name, the House of Saud at least indicated a conventional sense of priorities, as the legions of Saudi princes whoring and gambling in the fleshpots of the West have demonstrated exhaustively. Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue-though, as the Royal Family has belatedly discovered vis-à-vis the Islamists, they're somewhat overdrawn on that front. The difference in Iran is simple: with the mullahs, there are no London escort agencies on retainer to supply blondes only. When they say 'Islamic Republic,' they mean it. And refusing to take their words at face value has bedeviled Western strategists for three decades.

"Twenty-seven years ago, because Islam didn't fit into the old cold war template, analysts mostly discounted it. We looked at the map like that Broadway marquee: West and East, the old double act. As with most of the down-page turf, Iran's significance lay in which half of the act she'd sign on with. To the Left, the shah was a high-profile example of an unsavory U.S. client propped up on traditional he-may-be-a-sonofabitch-but-he's-our-sonofabitch grounds: in those heady days SAVAK, his secret police, were a household name among Western progressives, and insofar as they took the stern-faced man in the turban seriously, they assured themselves he was a kind of novelty front for the urbane Paris émigré socialists who accompanied him back to Tehran. To the realpolitik Right, the issue was Soviet containment: the shah may be our sonofabitch, but he'd outlived his usefulness, and a weak Iran could prove too tempting an invitation to Moscow to fulfill the oldest of czarist dreams-a warm-water port, not to mention control of the Straits of Hormuz. Very few of us considered the strategic implications of an Islamist victory on its own terms-the notion that Iran was checking the neither-of-the-above box and that that box would prove a far greater threat to the Freeish World than Communism.

Click here to read the whole article.


HAPPENINGS

Progressive Roundtable report — The final report detailing the accomplishments of the March, 2006, Progressive Roundtable is now available online at www.progressiveroundtable.org. The report reviews the background leading up to the Roundtable, explains the goals and methodology of the conference, and describes the various progressive infrastructure needs that participants identified as high priorities.

Progress toward fundable proposals — Based on the collaborative work undertaken at the 2006 Roundtable, the Commonweal Institute has received 17 "Letters of Interest" from different organizations interested in building progressive infrastructure. These preliminary proposals are all aimed toward addressing high-priority needs in the areas of communications, marketing, coordination, and strategy. The Commonweal Institute is now taking the lead in coordinating the fund-seeking process, working with organizations on developing full proposals and helping to match proposals with appropriate funders.

"Talking Politics" workshop — On March 25, Katherine Forrest headed a two-and-1/2-hour plenary session, "How to Talk Politics with People Who Are Different from You," at the California Democratic Council's 54th Annual Convention in Santa Clara, California.


ENDORSEMENTS

"Commonweal will play three critical roles in helping all of us and our organizations in making the world a better place. They will frame the debate, provide research for existing organizations and expand the base." — Ted Lempert, Executive Director, Children Now; former California State Assembly member


GET INVOLVED

If you agree with Ted Lempert (see above), there are a number of ways you can help the Commonweal Institute achieve its goals.

Right now, as you read, you can simply forward the Uncommon Denominator to friends and family who might be interested in learning about the Commonweal Institute. Getting the word out is crucial.

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© 2006 The Commonweal Institute

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